Assail

CHAPTER IV

A STORM CAUGHT them while still west of the southern Bael coast. Master Ghelath saw them through, bellowing commands, solid on the deck though chilled blue from the spray. The towering cliff-high waves would have overpowered Havvin at the tiller arm had not Bars and Amatt taken hold to follow the canny old pilot’s orders.

Storms were one of the main reasons Shimmer hated these deep ocean crossings. It seemed to her that no frail construct such as a ship should dare challenge the might of such vast depths and lengths of open water. The pitching and yawing below decks made her sick; that and the clattering of loose equipment and the ominous groaning of the mere finger-widths of timber that separated her from the cold dark depths. The noise and stink of vomit drove her to seek the fresh air above decks – even when ‘fresh’ meant gale-force winds and driving sleet.

She found Lean and Sept taking their turn at the tiller arm, following Havvin’s commands yelled above the crashing of waves. K’azz was also above decks, an arm round the mainmast, staring forward into the roiling cloud cover. She climbed the stern to the pilot’s side, noting the length of line that secured him to the tiller arm. The old man, his long white hair a plastered layer upon his knobbly skull, sent her another of his intimate winks.

She planted her legs wide, lowered her head against the blowing spray, and offered him an uncertain frown.

The old man laughed his amusement. ‘Know you why Master Ghelath named her Mael’s Greetings?’ he called.

‘No,’ she shouted back.

‘Because Mael, having sent his greetings, need not send them again!’ and he cackled anew.

Sailors, she thought. The oddest sense of humour.

The pilot sliced an arm forward, yelling, ‘That one! Straight on!’ Lean heaved her considerable bulk against the arm while Sept pulled. ‘Further!’ Havvin urged. ‘Hard o’ port!’

‘I don’t remember volunteering for this,’ Lean gasped as she strained.

‘Beats marching,’ Sept grinned.

Lean, her jaws set, shook her head. ‘Never the right weather, is it? Always too hot or too cold. Too wet or too dry.’

Shimmer saluted them and headed back below. If they could still joke, then things were in hand. She descended the steep ladder to find Bars and Blues awaiting her at the bottom. Water poured down over her shoulders in one last chilling wash. ‘I’m beginning to hate these journeys,’ she told Bars.

‘I’m with you, Shimmer. Only way to get anywhere, though.’

They braced themselves on nearby timbers in the darkness of the low deck. Water sloshed about their boots. ‘And you, Bars,’ she asked. ‘Where were you in Assail lands?’

The man grimaced at the memory. ‘Exile Keep. On the shores of the Dread Sea. Turned out to be two inbred families of mages battling each other for control of the coast.’ He paused and ran a thumb along a scar on his chin. Blues’ eyes glittered in the dark as he waited and watched, just as Shimmer did. ‘Somehow they got it into their crazy paranoid heads that we were plotting to take the keep, or some damned fool thing like that. Both the families turned on us. Every last one of them. Anyway …’ Bars cleared his throat. ‘Cal an’ the rest withdrew. Pulled ’em all off so me and my Blade could escape in a local’s fishing skiff. That was the last I saw of them. Headed north along the Anguish Coast.’ He lowered his head to study the knuckles of one hand.

‘That was Cal’s plan, wasn’t it?’ Blues said gently. Bars nodded. ‘So stop beating yourself up about it. The plan worked. Now we’re back because of it.’

Bars curled the hand into a tight fist, lowered it. ‘Right.’

Ah, Bars, Shimmer thought. Always feeling everything so keenly. Like a raw exposed nerve. The man’s emotions were like a storm; it would be attractive if it were not so exhausting.

‘Where’s K’azz?’ Blues asked.

‘Up top. Watching the storm.’ Shimmer shook her head, mystified. ‘It’s like he’s not afraid one whit. Just curious. As if he wants to experience it.’

Blues snorted. ‘Well I’m damned afraid, if he’s not. Don’t like being out of sight of shore. Too far to swim.’

Of course, Shimmer reflected, being a mage of D’riss Blues wouldn’t like being out of sight of land. ‘We’re none of us happy sailors,’ she said.

The two chuckled their appreciation. ‘That’s for damned certain,’ Blues agreed, and he peered up nervously through the open hatch to the black churning mass of clouds above.

The next day the storm passed to the north and Mael’s Greetings, sails tattered and seams leaking, limped under oar to the south-east. Havvin was aiming for an island he had sketched into his personal rudder from descriptions and stories he’d heard over the years in sailors’ taverns in Delanss, Strike, and the Isle of Malaz.

Ghelath and K’azz ordered head-counts and were relieved to find that no one had been lost during the four days and nights of the storm. All the Avowed and ship’s crew not rowing were then pressed into labouring at the pumps and buckets in a continuous struggle to keep Mael from delivering his final greetings to his namesake. Shimmer was too busy to return to questioning K’azz regarding their destination. Indeed, she welcomed the distraction of exhausting physical work and threw herself to the task; she found ocean crossings, when not terrifying, damnably boring.

Three days later the call went out from the crow’s nest: land to the south-east. At first no one else could see it as what had been glimpsed were the merest tops of what proved to be tall mountains that seemed to rise straight out of the sea.

Havvin nodded as if expecting this and explained that such were the accounts he’d heard: an island of mountains nearly free of any land a person could stand upon. It was therefore often referred to as the Pillars. He skirted the island’s coast, circling to the north-east. Soon a narrow ribbon of beach, or strand, came into view and he threw over the tiller. Approaching, they saw numerous plumes of smoke, and presently spotted the long dark shapes of four oceangoing vessels anchored close to the shore. Their cut was unfamiliar to Shimmer. They appeared to be broad-beamed merchant ships adapted into war-vessels, with archers’ platforms added fore and aft.

‘Do you know those ships?’ she asked Ghelath, who shook his nearly bald head.

‘K’azz?’ she asked her commander, who was standing with Ghelath. He also shook a negative.

Bars came climbing the short stairs to the quarterdeck and joined them; he looked unaccountably grim. ‘I know them,’ he said. ‘And I wish I didn’t. They’re Letherii.’

Shimmer was impressed. Lether? She’d heard much of them but had never met any. ‘Accomplished merchants and businessmen and women, I hear.’

Bars gave her a strange look, then muttered beneath his breath: ‘That’s one thing you can say about them.’

‘Four vessels armed for war …’ Ghelath pointed out.

‘We have no choice,’ K’azz said flatly. ‘Put in and we’ll go ashore to see about repairs.’ Another might have taken offence at K’azz’s now belatedly stepping in to give commands, but all Shimmer could think was: about damned time.

Ghelath shook his head, dubious, but signalled Havvin.

The pilot took them to the stretch of the narrow shore farthest away from the Letherii vessels and ordered the anchor dropped. An informal landing party of Ghelath, K’azz, Shimmer and Gwynn drew together. Others could have joined, but with K’azz and Shimmer departing Blues elected to remain, and no other Avowed expressed an interest in negotiating with the Letherii. At the last moment, however, Bars slid down the rope ladder to join them in the launch. He looked ill-tempered already, and Shimmer wondered just what the man was expecting. They would merely be foraging for supplies and water, or, if necessary, purchasing them from the Letherii.

They drew the launch up the strand and headed towards a stand of tents. The narrow strip of flat land proved to be something of an armed camp. Troops were in the process of erecting a palisade of timbers that had possibly been salvaged from a fifth, wrecked, ship. The palisade, Shimmer noted, faced inland, where precipitous cliffs of a chalky white stone rose like walls themselves.

A party came down to greet them; one far larger than theirs, she noted.

‘Welcome.’ The party’s spokesman hailed them. He was bearded and wore banded iron armour that was polished to a bright gleam. Closer now, Shimmer saw that his armour was engraved with intaglio swirls and that the trimmings of his mantle and collar were of silk and white fur. ‘I am Luthal Canar, of the Canar trading house, of Lether.’

‘Greetings,’ Ghelath answered. ‘Ghelath Keer, Master of Mael’s Greetings.’

‘K’azz, of the Crimson Guard.’

Luthal nodded cheerily to them, while his party of some forty soldiers spread out around them. All were armed with crossbows. ‘Yes. Welcome to my island.’

‘Your island?’ Bars spoke up sharply, and he sent Shimmer a significant glance.

The man opened his hands in a sort of shrug of apology. ‘Well. The private property of the trading house of which I am the appointed representative.’

‘I see,’ K’azz murmured.

Luthal’s answering smile was wide, but hard, rather like the blade of a knife. ‘So I am sorry to say you are trespassing on a private commercial establishment. Luckily, we of Lether are not barbarians. We have not attacked you. We are enlightened. Our laws contain provisions for the peaceable restitution of crimes against property.’

‘Here we go,’ Bars grumbled to Shimmer beneath his breath.

Ghelath had been blinking rather confusedly for a few minutes and now he gazed about, his face reddening. ‘Establishment?’ he burst out. ‘What by Mael’s breath do you mean, an establishment? This is an island!’

Luthal nodded his pleasant agreement. His men, now ordered in double ranks, raised their crossbows. The front rank sank to one knee. ‘I agree that on the surface this piece of property might resemble an island. But it is in fact a mine.’

‘A mine,’ Ghelath mimicked mockingly. ‘A bloody mine?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And what by Hood’s dead grasping hand could you possibly mine here?’

‘Shit.’

Ghelath blinked anew, startled. Shimmer frowned at Bars. K’azz, for his part, was eyeing the distant cliffs as if studying them for climbing.

‘What was that?’ Ghelath asked, obviously completely lost.

Luthal had not lost his convivial fa?ade, which Shimmer now recognized as the Lether way of conducting business. It was the bland merchant’s mask that covered chicanery, deceit, chiselling, theft, slavery and murder. The man gestured to the ground. ‘Bird shit, to be exact,’ he explained. ‘You are standing on it. This entire shore is made up of layer upon layer of bird shit. And it is really quite valuable.’

Ghelath waved that aside. ‘Well, we have no interest in your damned shit. We just want to purchase supplies for repairs.’

It seemed to Shimmer that Luthal’s smile became even more smooth. ‘Purchase, you say? That is not necessary. Because, you see, the penalty for trespassing is confiscation of your vessel.’

‘Confisca— What?’ Ghelath grunted, appalled. He lunged for the man but K’azz caught him by the back of his shirt. The forty crossbowmen tensed, adjusting their aim.

K’azz slowly raised his open hands. ‘I understand. We broke your laws – and this your price.’

‘We didn’t know you’d claimed the entire damned island,’ Bars ground out.

‘Ignorance is no defence before the law,’ Luthal observed. ‘Surely you are not such a complete barbarian that you are unaware of this concept?’

To the Letherii, K’azz may have appeared unmoved. But Shimmer read his anger in his fixed expression and the deep lines bracketing his mouth. ‘We are not unaware,’ he answered. ‘Seeing then that we require a ship … may we purchase one of yours?’

It was Luthal’s turn to appear confused. The man lowered his chin to study K’azz from beneath his brows. ‘I believe in truth you do not understand. The confiscation of your ship includes all cargo, chattels and equipment on board. Considering this, I do not see what you could possibly possess as collateral to guarantee such a purchase.’

‘None the less, I wish to enter into a contract with you for the purchase of one of these vessels.’

‘And do you accept the price for default upon such a debt?’

‘I do.’

Shimmer grasped his shoulder, hissing, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I know what I am doing, Shimmer,’ he answered firmly.

Luthal crossed an arm over his chest and propped his other elbow upon it to tap a finger to his chin. ‘I set that price at one hundred peaks.’

‘One hundred!’ Ghelath burst out. ‘That’s absurd! That must be half the coin in all of Lether!’

‘One tenth, I estimate,’ Luthal answered, his gaze fixed upon K’azz, one eyebrow arched.

‘I accept your price.’

‘Very well.’ Luthal held out his hands as if such a mass of coin could fit within them. ‘Produce it.’

K’azz dug in a pouch at his side then dropped a single coin into the merchant’s hand. Luthal examined it, nonplussed. ‘A Quon quarter-moon? What jest is this?’

‘A tip above the asking price. I believe you set the price at the sum this entire beach would fetch at current rates on the market in Lether. I assure you that I could take this beach from you should I wish. However, I have restrained myself, thereby giving it back to you. Price paid by anyone’s measure.’

Luthal lost his smile; he glanced to his crossbowmen then returned his narrowed gaze to K’azz. ‘I do not accept your assurances. I consider you forfeit of the amount and you and your crew indebted to me.’ He raised a hand to his archers.

‘What of a trial of payment?’ K’azz asked sharply.

The merchant paused, then lowered his hand. He studied K’azz. ‘A trial?’

‘Is that not in keeping with the laws of Lether?’

‘Well, yes …’

‘And the debt is considered discharged should I succeed?’

Luthal chuckled, but his eyes remained flat and hard. ‘If you should succeed … yes.’

‘Very well. I accept payment by trial.’

Luthal waved his guards forward and they took hold of K’azz. Shimmer felt just as confused as Ghelath. ‘K’azz, what is this?’ she demanded.

He glanced down at her. ‘Do not interfere.’ Then his face softened and he added: ‘Promise?’

She grated her teeth as she watched the guards yank him away. ‘If I must,’ she murmured savagely. Infuriating! She had thought that after Jacuruku all his secrecy would be done with. But it seemed that after all nothing had been resolved. What had he gained from Ardata in any case? A name. A location. Nothing more. Assail. A place he was then seemingly completely unwilling to travel to. And now that he was so close – despite his every effort! – he would rather indulge this pompous Letherii merchant.

Someone was laughing and she spun to see the scarecrow figure of Cowl approaching along the beach. He was clapping silently and chuckling his eerie unnerving laugh. It was all Shimmer could do to restrain herself from slapping the man. She looked to Bars, who was frowning as he watched K’azz being marched off. ‘You know what’s going on,’ she accused him.

Grimacing, he lowered his gaze and nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well?’

He glanced up. His lips were pressed tight but he eased them, sucking in a breath. ‘Seen one of these trials while I was in Lether.’

‘Yes?’

He cleared his throat and dragged a hand across his chin and his growing russet and grey beard; he appeared to be searching for the best away to present what he’d seen. ‘They load the debtor up with chains and weights and drop him into one of their canals. If he’r she can walk the canal, then they’ve discharged their debt.’

Shimmer felt her brows rising in growing disbelief and horror. ‘And has anyone ever managed this feat?’

‘Ah – only one, as I heard tell.’

‘This is absurd.’ Shimmer dismissed him to chase after K’azz.

‘You swore to obey,’ Cowl called in warning.

Shimmer felt again the grating jagged blade the man’s voice drew down her spine. She slowly turned to face him. ‘You would have him killed?’

Something strange crossed the man’s features, almost a secretive knowing amusement, and he chuckled anew. ‘I would have his orders followed,’ he said, still laughing.

She looked to the knot of Lether soldiers escorting K’azz, and Luthal following after, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Well,’ she murmured. ‘There’re no canals here.’

Bars cleared his throat. Having her attention, he motioned to the waters of the lagoon beyond where the Lether ships rested at anchor.

‘Oh, dammit, no …’

Indeed, the soldiers were taking K’azz to the launches drawn up on the beach. ‘What do we do?’ she asked.

The big man hunched his rounded shoulders, considering. ‘Well,’ he ventured at length, ‘I believe you can request to witness the trial.’

It turned out that Letherii law allowed two individuals, relations or acquaintances of the accused, to witness their trial. Shimmer and Blues attended. Avowed brought Blues to the island and rowed them across to the flagship of Luthal’s merchant flotilla. To Shimmer’s eyes the proceedings in no way resembled a trial as she knew it. K’azz stood bound while stone weights were hung upon him by way of stout rope. No questions were posed. No charges were read. No opportunity was given for a response from the accused. She supposed that being away from civilized lands, Luthal had dispensed with such finer points of the law.

All the while she held K’azz’s gaze. She knew her expression conveyed her questions, doubts and fears. He answered with calm forbearance. He even raised a bound hand, as far as he could, to further reassure her.

Meanwhile, Blues at her side was seething. ‘What is this Togg-forsaken nonsense?’ he muttered. ‘We should step in …’

‘He doesn’t want any bloodshed.’ And she noted the many Letherii soldiers about the deck, all with crossbows cocked and readied.

‘No bloodshed in drowning, that’s certain,’ he growled.

‘Those are his orders.’

‘Seems he really does want you in command, Shimmer.’

She glanced to him, the grey-blue hue of his face even darker in his anger, and had opened her mouth to dismiss such a thing when Luthal spoke.

The guards turned K’azz to face the ship’s side, out over the water of the lagoon, towards the shore. ‘The indebted has chosen a trial,’ Luthal began. ‘In order to win free of his obligation he merely has to carry his burden underwater to the shore. It is his free choice. No one forced the accused to take on these debts and burdens. The lenders and creditors are the innocent aggrieved parties in this exchange.’

Luthal coughed into his fist and nodded to the guards. Seeing his expression of untroubled solemnity, it occurred to Shimmer that the man actually believed the nonsense he was spouting. As if watching one’s children starve, or struggling to salvage a lifetime of work, wouldn’t force anyone to do anything. No, there was no coercion at all in the battle to keep a roof over one’s head and survive in this world. Such a belief – and the circumstances that allowed it – must be a convenient and soothing balm indeed.

‘Let the trial begin,’ Luthal announced, and the guards pushed K’azz over the side.

Shimmer and Blues lurched forward, but K’azz shot them a glare over his shoulder as he slipped from sight and shouted, ‘No!’

The pair halted, exchanging looks of disbelief and horror. It was as if both had fully expected that somehow K’azz would escape, reverse the proceedings, or otherwise win through as he always had in the past.

Flanked by his guards, Luthal approached them. His expression was sad, but behind it Shimmer read satisfaction and an untouchable smugness that almost tipped her into a blind fury. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, obviously not sorry at all. ‘However, justice had to be done. The dept is now abrogated and discharged. You and your crew are free to land on the beach – though fees must be levied for such occupation, of course.’

Shimmer stared at the man, stunned by his false assurances of sympathy, his lofty, breathtaking arrogance. Free to land on the beach! Oh yes, quite free. Or equally free to stay on their slowly sinking vessel and drown. Obviously, they were free to choose! No possible coercion here at all.

She longed to stab the man through his uncomprehending skull, but then they’d be forced to kill the rest of them as well – which was clearly what K’azz had wished to avoid. She’d even moved her hand to the worn grip of the dirk at her belt when shouts of disbelief and alarm sounded from the ship’s side.

Luthal’s sailors and soldiers crowded the rail. Shimmer was hardly paying them any attention. She’d already decided to return to Mael’s Greetings and from there launch an attack upon one of the Lether vessels, sinking all the rest as well if it should prove necessary.

Which was what they should have done in the first place! She glanced to Blues and the man edged his head up and down in the slightest of nods. So it was decided, without any words, as only two who had campaigned side by side for years could decide.

As for K’azz and this absurd manner of throwing away his life … what could he have been thinking? Had he hoped for a different sort of trial? That Luthal was bluffing? She had no idea – she only felt tired by it all. Now she wished he hadn’t come with them after all. If the man had wanted to kill himself, he should have simply gone ahead and thrown himself into Lake Jorrick.

Luthal suddenly pushed himself back from the side and hurried to her. Anger darkened his features and he jabbed a finger out over the waters. ‘What trickery is this?’ he demanded.

She blinked at him, her brow crimping. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Do not play coy – you outlanders with your magery and magics. This is simply unacceptable.’

She and Blues brushed past the man. The crossbowmen tracked them with the iron tips of their quarrels as they crossed to the side. Rather reluctantly, she glanced down; she had not wanted her last vision of the man to be of him drowned under fathoms of water.

The lagoon, or stretch of shallowing water, was a clear pale turquoise over the rising slope of the beach, probably because of the sand floor. Shimmer imagined that slope to be quite steep beneath the vessel as it dropped off precipitously into deep midnight blue. Far below there appeared to be a dark figure struggling, moving side to side with a kind of exaggerated gait. For lack of anything else it resembled some sort of monster of the deep making its ungainly way to the land. Yet she wasn’t absolutely certain: the motion of the waves partially obscured it, as did the sunlight glinting and glimmering from the surface.

‘I dismiss this trial as a corrupted test,’ Luthal announced.

Shimmer continued to watch the dark wavering figure as it made its slow laborious way up the white sand slope. To one side lay the half-buried rotting hull of a wreck. Peering down, she noted a number of other such skeletal remains littering the deep lagoon bottom. ‘You mentioned no such provision in the trial,’ she answered, rather distractedly. She fought to keep a smile from pulling at her lips: why hadn’t he told her? Obviously he’d worked out some sort of solution with Gwynn, or Petal, or perhaps all the company mages combined.

‘It is understood,’ Luthal huffed. ‘Everyone knows this.’

‘Sadly, we outlanders are ignorant of such niceties. Everyone knows this.’

Luthal peered over the side and his eyes fairly goggled at the progress the figure below was making. ‘You cannot mean to hold to such an absurd demonstration!’

‘I agree that your practices are absurd. But you insisted.’ The merchant adventurer appeared ready to order his crossbowmen to fire upon her. ‘Perhaps we should take the boat to shore,’ she suggested. ‘To see how the trial ends.’ Luthal snarled under his breath, but he snapped an order to the sailors and they set to lowering rope ladders to waiting launches.

Shimmer found it uncannily odd to find herself floating over her commander’s head while he struggled below to heave his load of stones up the submerged slope. Who was aiding him? she wondered. Could it be Petal on Mael’s Greetings? Or Gwynn? Yet neither of these had ever confessed to any knowledge of Ruse magics. It certainly was not Blues here beside her, frowning down at the water, apparently as completely perplexed as she. However, it occurred to her that the Warren of High Denul, the healing and manipulation of the flesh, could also serve to sustain K’azz. And every Crimson Guard mage, out of necessity, possessed some familiarity with the healing magics of Denul. Perhaps Petal was even now completely engrossed in maintaining K’azz’s breath. This must have been what K’azz had in mind from the beginning; why the man had pressed so hard for a trial. He’d worked it out with the company mages but had not included her. She had to admit to feeling a touch put out.

Didn’t he trust her?

The boat ground ashore and Luthal and his escort of six guards clambered out. She and Blues followed; the guard kept a steady bead on them with their crossbows as if they would throw themselves upon Luthal. She ignored them. Together they all awaited K’azz’s arrival. Other than they, the beach was deserted. When she and Blues had headed out, Ghelath and the rest of the Avowed had returned to the Greetings, there to await the outcome of the trial – and to avoid any further fees the Letherii might invent to level upon them.

Out of curiosity, Shimmer peered about at the so-called ‘establishment’. What immediately came to mind was an impression of general shabbiness. That, and the temporary, transient character of everything. No buildings of any sort had been erected. Canvas tents, pole-framed, stood here and there. Fire pits were in evidence everywhere. The Letherii soldiers – private hired guards, she corrected herself – lounged about in the shade of the tents, all but those manning the palisade that ran across the inland edge of the beach. The entire band appeared scruffy, ill-fed, and lacking in any discipline.

They would prove no challenge should Shimmer choose to act.

K’azz, however, held his company to a higher standard. No mere brigands were they to simply take what lay within their power to take. And Shimmer found that she agreed, though it galled her to have to endure the smug self-righteousness of Luthal.

The palisade troubled her. Clearly they were not alone on the island. Who were the locals? Hostile in any case, she assumed. And the palisade itself was not built simply of logs. It was an uneven mishmash of adzed timbers and sections of what appeared to be decking and hulls of ships. The entire construction was made up of bits and pieces of salvage from many wrecks.

She studied the rising pillar-like slopes above and noted that while grasses and low brush covered the rock, anything larger was entirely absent. Not one tree grew here – or they’d all been harvested for cooking or building. Had K’azz seen this earlier when he’d been studying the island?

A grunt of outrage from Luthal drew her attention to the lagoon. A dot had emerged from the waves: K’azz broaching the surface. Hunched forward, the man doggedly carried on, step after laborious step. And the shifting sands couldn’t be helping.

His shoulders emerged, each looped by the numerous ropes supporting his load of stones.

‘Impossible …’ Luthal murmured at Shimmer’s side. His voice, she noted, held a touch of awe. He turned to her, now scowling. ‘This is your foreign Warren-magic.’ He swept a hand down in dismissal. ‘This is illegal. You are forfeit.’

‘Forfeit?’ Blues snarled. ‘You set a trial. We pass it. Now you back out?’

The crossbowmen, Shimmer saw from the corners of her eyes, were spreading out in a semicircle facing them. K’azz was now only knee-deep in the surf. With each step the stone weights hung upon him clattered and knocked as he heaved himself up the steep grade of the beach. Shimmer tried to catch his eye but his head was lowered in his struggle to stay erect.

‘Mistrial!’ Luthal shouted. ‘I call mistrial! Outside influence!’

Shimmer had had enough. ‘Oh, shut the Abyss up.’ She ran down into the waves to help K’azz. Together, she and Blues half dragged their commander the rest of the way until he sank to his knees. The stones rattled and Shimmer noted the deep gouges the ropes had pressed into his shoulders. Blues had already begun cutting.

‘This proves nothing,’ Luthal continued, his voice rising.

K’azz heaved himself to his feet. Shimmer was amazed to see that he was not even out of breath. He pushed back his sodden hair and studied Luthal. Shimmer knew him well enough to read the fury in his narrowed impassive gaze.

‘You will not honour even your own laws?’ he ground out. His voice was level but Shimmer heard the disappointment, and disgust.

The Letherii showed only defiance, arms crossed, his expression one of arrogant superiority. ‘You did not follow the spirit of the law,’ he objected.

Shimmer found the man’s blindness to his own hypocrisy breathtaking. Moreover, he was obviously incapable of even understanding the possibility of it.

K’azz appeared to have reached the same conclusion as he blew out his breath and wiped the remaining water from his face. ‘Very well. Since there is no way we can ever satisfy you … we shall go.

‘Go? You cannot go – there remains the matter of the debt!’

For the first time a hard edge crept into K’azz’s voice: ‘I fulfilled your trial yet I choose to forgo the hundred Peaks. Consider yourself lucky not to be the one indebted.’

Luthal’s mouth twisted as he tasted the sourness of his position. Curtly, he waved them off. ‘Go then. Renegers. Men and women of bad faith. I cannot do business with those who refuse to honour even the most basic laws of commerce.’

Blues drew breath to answer but K’azz wearily raised a hand for silence. Together they walked to the small skiff that Ghelath had left pulled up the shore.

‘They gonna shoot us from behind?’ Blues murmured to K’azz, without looking back.

‘I suspect not,’ K’azz answered. ‘That would precipitate a pocket war between our forces. Bad for business.’

‘You’ve shown some restraint yourself,’ Shimmer observed.

K’azz nodded his tired agreement. ‘I gave the man every chance, Shimmer,’ he said. ‘Witness that. Every chance.’

Back on board Mael’s Greetings, Shimmer immediately sought out Gwynn and Petal. She found them already together at the ship’s side. ‘How did you do it?’ she asked. They exchanged surprised, and rather alarmed, glances.

‘We thought …’ Petal began, ‘that is … we were just discussing how Blues could have managed …’

‘But he didn’t do it.’

‘As I said,’ Gwynn cut in, looking satisfied. ‘I detected no active Warren-manipulation at all.’

‘Yet there must have been something,’ Petal murmured. The possibility that there hadn’t been seemed to terrify him.

They looked past her, nodding their greeting, and she turned to see the man himself flanked by Blues and a second figure: the scarecrow-tattered High Mage Cowl, wearing his usual mocking smile.

Of course. Cowl.

The one mage she’d forgotten. And why? Because she so very much wanted to forget the bastard. Ghelath edged his way forward through the gathered Avowed as they congratulated K’azz. ‘We can’t sail,’ he complained. ‘The moment we leave the bay we’ll wallow and capsize!’

‘Yes, Master Ghelath. Unship the oars. Make for the nearest Letherii vessel. It’s time to collect a down payment on my debt. Bars – organize a boarding party. Minimum bloodshed. Just throw them overboard.’

Bars gave a savage grin and saluted. ‘’Bout goddamned time.’ K’azz caught Shimmer’s eye. ‘Every chance, Shimmer,’ he said, as if by way of apology.

‘I understand.’

‘I’m doing them a favour, actually,’ he added, and he motioned to the island. ‘You saw the palisade? The guards?’

She frowned, puzzled. ‘Yes.’

‘I could order their other ships sunk, yes? But I won’t. That would condemn them all to death. Seems the locals don’t want them here – and there’s no food or water on that narrow strand of shit.’

He gave her a small smile then and turned away, heading for his cabin. Cowl remained behind and she caught his eye, beckoning him aside. When they had a modicum of privacy, she asked, her voice low, ‘How did you do it?’

The man’s maddening, mocking grin deepened. ‘Do what?’

She bit down on her irritation. ‘Sustain him.’

The mage appeared to be enjoying the discussion so much he had to wrap his arms around himself. ‘I did no such thing, Shimmer.’

‘No?’ She did not bother to hide her confusion. ‘You didn’t? Then who …?’

‘No one did. That is, other than K’azz.’

‘K’azz? But he is no mage – is he?’

‘He is not.’

‘Then … how?’

The man just smiled all the more. And he slowly turned away, grinning and chuckling. Shimmer wanted to strangle him. But that had been tried before: Cowl had had his throat cut and been strangled by Dancer himself. Yet he’d lived. Somehow he’d lived. Was that the secret these two shared? If so, she felt a new sensation stealing over her. She realized she no longer simply feared for her commander. She faced the closed cabin door. Now, she knew a strange new sensation: now she felt a rising dread of her commander.

K’azz – what are you becoming?