The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

Chapter XII

Departure

In which Alia leaves Lyrcania

The sarcophagus was beautiful, in a dark and menacing sort of way. Carved from black onyx shot through with white striations, and red sardonyx shot through with violet, it was embellished with a plating of hepatizon, a red-violet brass. Formed in one piece from head to torso, the plate overlaying the lid presented a grotesque figure.

A death mask.

Sinister, unnaturally long skeletal fingers crossed over the creature’s chest. Talon-like fingernails clasped the upper arms of the figure.

The mask served as a type of warding, the kind available to those not able to effect divine curses of their own. Superstitious folklore claimed the mask’s sheer hideousness would frighten away evil spirits, including any water-borne ghosts that might attack the ship. The carnelians in the eye sockets represented a baleful glare.

And they took her in this.

Quintus’s journal proved enlightening on how the dryads were transported out of the city: Right in plain sight, in the sarcophagi made by Firat’s company. Crewmen loaded them onto the ship in the cargo holds, arousing no suspicion at all. Travelers used this particular style of sarcophagus for transporting the dead long distances; hence the warding figure. Sarcophagi intended for funerals or installment in tombs wouldn’t use the plate overlay, revealing instead the face carved in the likeness of the deceased.

Sheridan kept his head down. He wore the copy of Junius Fellrath’s signet—the original was never found, and Alia wondered if the flayer had swallowed it by mistake. Not that she would ask.

Per Alia’s strategy, the Obsidian Stinger had been permitted to unload its cargo. When Fellrath was alive Gavin always ensured the ship and its cargo were never subjected to inspection.

But that was then.

Utari Joshi and several other Watch officers commandeered the inspection of the ship, which startled its captain, Timon Aristarchus.

Enraged, he demanded to speak to Gavin, and when that didn’t work, he invoked the name of one of Brennus Fellrath’s friends in the Sun and Stars Society. He named several other people, thus falling into Alia’s trap. She would permit none of Junius Fellrath’s allies to escape her net, and Aristarchus unwittingly aided her on that score.

He became apoplectic when Joshi introduced herself as Truthseeress Joshi; a truthseer not in his pay was a dangerous thing for him. Joshi would uncover both his falsehoods and his contraband.

Contraband provided the pretext they needed to arrest him. Of course Aristarchus would not be held at bay for long; he kept an advocate on retainer who once served Junius Fellrath. Having encountered the man before, Alia expected him patter on about justice, or shamelessly offer up a bribe as needed to free Aristarchus.

The Watch would let him.

In the meantime, he was not present to question Sheridan when he boarded the ship with the sarcophagus. Because he bore Shahin’s copy of Junius Fellrath’s ring, a crew member ushered him into the secret compartment where they stored any sarcophagi bearing the dryads. Without question they installed Sheridan in one of the few cabins in the ship.

Alia; however, was obliged to wait with the general passengers before boarding.

“Mornin’. Brilliant dawn, isn’t it?”

A familiar drawl. Alia looked up in time to catch Tregarde winking at her. Like her, he sat at a table in the hostel where the ship’s prospective passengers awaited. He raised his cup to her.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re a hard woman to catch up to. I hear tell you’re leavin’ town. For a lady you pack pretty light.”

She glanced down at the trunk and satchel at her feet, and the tiffin pail stashed on a chair beside her. The porters were already coming to load up the trunk for her, which meant she would go aboard soon. But Tregarde’s comment prompted her to notice the small valise at his own feet, and a satchel and tiffin pail on an empty chair next to him.

“Keep your voice down,” she snapped.

For her voyage she wore a calculated disguise, an aqua gown of shimmering silk. The gown’s loose torso covered her from her neck to her waist. Below the waist the dress split into four panels, though the two rear panels were sewn together. In the front Alia opted to keep the two panels loose. Doing so revealed a smaller flap which hit her mid-thigh instead of down to her knees like the others.

Near her collar the dress opened a little to reveal the pale yellow halter top she wore beneath it. Stark white trousers in silk velvet preserved her modesty. Her slippers, trimmed tastefully in gold, matched her dress.

So gorgeous an ensemble … and highly impractical for tromping about in the woods or crime scenes. As Watch-Huntress, Alia needed to be prepared to dirty her hands. Hence her cover as a woman of leisure. Such a woman would never involve herself in violent altercations that made her dangling gold earrings a safety risk. Such a woman would wear a modest circlet in her hair.

Stealing time here and there, Alia managed to read up on the mysterious Ta-Setians Shahin had mentioned. They visited Lyrcania just often enough, and were perceived to be uniformly rich due to centuries of accumulated wealth. Which meant Alia’s clothes suited her cover. Tourists from beyond the Gold Sea always marveled at silk as an expensive luxury.

More to the point, she would pass as a traveler when she boarded the ship. Even if Aristarchus warned his crew to watch out for Alia Ironwing, author of his misfortunes, they would take this version of herself for nothing more than what she appeared to be.

Unless Tregarde ruined it by breaking her cover.

She glared at him.

“Running away from an arranged marriage? Got a fellow waiting for you at the other end of your voyage?” He winked.

For a moment she didn’t respond; caught off guard by the amusing story Tregarde was spinning. Did he intend to be useful after all? She shook herself and said,

“I don’t care what my father is paying you, I’m not going back. I won’t live forever with someone I can’t stand.” A line she adapted from her favorite adventure romance.

“Relax, sweet thing. But so you know, I can retire on the money your papa is paying me to drag you back.”

Unlikely he was speaking in code, so Alia dismissed the notion that he meant Palamara had sent him. Palamara wouldn’t have trusted Tregarde to guard Alia’s back; he would have sent one of his own people instead. No, Tregarde was establishing a cover. Fine. No reason not to play along.

Alia huffed. “I’ll pay you better if you didn’t see me. Agreed?”

“Not a chance, sweetness. Consider me your shadow because I’ll be sticking close. ’Til the very end. You might say I have an obligation.”

Allowing her irritation to show, Alia picked up her own cup and raised it in a toast. “Drink in good health, my friend. Mind that I don’t toss you overboard.”

Tregarde laughed and held up his own cup. “Game on, sweetness.”

Alia glanced around. No one paid them undue attention, except for a young girl and her father. The girl appeared about sixteen, and from the way she shot daggers at Tregarde, Alia suspected the girl was enduring the same situation Tregarde had made up for Alia.

Having loaded her trunk onto a cart, the porters were now making their way out to the docks. Alia followed. True to his bounty hunter persona, Tregarde stayed close behind. They boarded the ship without incident, and the officials pleasantly surprised Alia by waiving the exit tax for her. The archons of Ebon Cove resented any leave-takings by native Lyrcanians, especially the women. However, the officials thought Alia a foreign tourist, and therefore exempt. Proof enough of the quality of her cover.

As her cover demanded, Alia also reserved a room for herself. Alone. Initially she intended to pass off Sheridan as a servant, which would be in keeping with the social status she was pretending to have. But Serafina said she would be hassled over having a servant, and invite scrutiny: the Lyrcanians did not keep slaves. After the Third Cataclysm, when the Gate to Pelasgos was destroyed, the Lyrcanians threw away many of the Pelasgian ways. They had to rely on each other, against the restive forces of Xia, and master and slave could not afford to be divided.

The Lyrcanians were fierce in their independence, and were determined to make it difficult for the Pelasgians to reassert control over them, should they return. To that end, the Lyrcanians made a law that any slave who made it onto Lyrcanian soil was automatically free. Anyone attempting to keep their slave could be imprisoned for it.

A ploy meant to discourage any Pelasgians, Anshani, and now Rasena Valentians, from visiting Lyrcania in the first place. The New Lyrcanians were made to swear an oath to leave those ways behind, and assimilate.

Then Palamara stepped in. “Listen, in my day, and even now, any big-to-do who needed servant-work done on a ship simply hired the servants of the ship’s officers. They see you wearing the dress you showed me, and they’ll throw themselves at you for the generous pay you offer them. Cooking, laundry—you want it, just pay them.”

Which proved to be true; the porters name-dropped several of the ship’s servants for her to approach. But as Palamara predicted her dress alone attracted offers of service.

With that matter out of the way, Alia and Sheridan concluded the prudent course was to not associate with each other. If one of them were caught out, the other could stay in reserve to intervene later. So she made no attempt to seek out her apprentice, trusting that their plan would hold.

Tregarde made for an unexpected complication. Why was he following her? More to the point, how did he find her? Perhaps Shahin was wrong about the lack of interest enemy scryers would have in her. A thought which resulted in her pacing in her quarters. Anything might happen, in the middle of the sea. Rather than an entire legion of Watchmen, her sole reserve was Sheridan.

And perhaps Tregarde?

Potential contingency plans swirled in her mind, but in the end she gave up in defeat. Instead she attempted to meditate, in fits and starts.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at her door.

According to her pocket astrolabe it was almost noon, which meant she had whiled away the hours to no useful end. With a sigh of disgust she went for the door.

Tregarde.

“What are you doing here?” Alia demanded.

Tregarde brushed past her. He stopped, turned about the room, and whistled. “Ah, the joys and privileges of a heavy purse. I envy you.”

Alia hurriedly shut the door, and locked it behind herself. “Do I have to ask you a third time? What are you doing here?”

Tregarde held up his hands, his three-tiered tiffin box dangling from his left hand. “Relax. I’m not here to sow caltrops in your way. But the fact is, you’re not the only one who wants to get to the bottom of this Brotherhood business. I am a huntsman, or did you forget?”

Images of Aric flashed before her eyes. Had she become as territorial as any other Watch officer on a case?

“True enough. How did you find me here?”

“Persistence. Do you sleep at all? I lost a lot of sleep tracking you.”

Alia folded her arms. Tregarde sighed. Without waiting for an invitation he sat himself upon an upholstered bench in an alcove next to the foot of her bunk.

“After what happened with those soul cutters, my team and I talked. We’ve been keeping our ears to the ground, getting some sense of what’s been going on. Infernals, here? Our lorekeepers say that’s unprecedented. Yet, it happened. And you knew what to do about it. I talked to Falconer Tahm. You’re the one with all the answers. And as a huntsman, I have to see this through. So my team and I agreed to split up, and I’m with you.” Tregarde reached into his duster and pulled out a square of paper which he handed over to her.

Familiar handwriting greeted her.

Huntress Ironwing,

I introduce you to Huntsman Isul Tregarde, a sorcerer of the sparrowhawk faction. He has aided us on several missions before, and has proved himself capable. I request that you allow him into your service. This mission is too vital to be carried out in isolation, and I can think of no one better to aid you.

—Falconer Tahm, Priest of the Exalted Eagle

Alia looked up at him. “What did you help him with?”

“You heard about that business with the so-called haunted mines in the Jade Mountains? Not a ghost. Not even close. The dragon egg poachers in Port Lành? Caught ’em. I’m a huntsman for hire. Most times I work for local temples. You see the Falconer called me a sparrowhawk? Means I stealth around my prey, so to speak. They like to send me on dangerous cases where discretion matters more than overwhelming force. Occasionally private citizens hire me, too.

“I was drawn to Ebon Cove when I heard about the Brotherhood. The things they do… This is as much my fight as yours. None of my gifts are meant for me alone; I serve the Huntress, too. Like you said, when I face Her, I want to be able to answer the question about what I did when I found out about this brotherhood.”

“And your friends? What will they do?”

“Falconer Tahm has them investigating some matters he said your investigation uncovered. But if need be, we can ask whatever temples we find for any rearguard aid. I’ve worked a lot of places, and I’m known to a lot of the high priests. I can introduce you, so to speak. Falconer asked me to give you this, too.”

“This” proved to be a letter of introduction, for Alia to use.

“Would I really need this? Wouldn’t they do that test you did, or something like it?”

“The test my friends and I gave you is vinegar. This letter here is honey. I only go in for vinegar when too much is at stake and can’t afford error. In Ebon Cove you have status as part of the Watch, and it opens doors and gets you resources. Outside of Lyrcanian jurisdiction, being a Watch-Huntress counts as much as wishes and dreams. You’re gonna want to lean hard on the huntress part of your title. Acting under the aegis of the Huntress—or Her priests—gets coffers opened up for you, too. Although, the Falconer only gave me enough ‘resources’ to board this ship. I don’t get a fancy room like you do.”

“I’m using the Watch’s resources, not the temple’s,” Alia replied, to forestall any potential complaint about favoritism. Although, she had paid for the room out of her own funds. Money was still an odd concept to her; dryads bartered with each other. After a fashion money made sense; it offered an unrivaled convenience. But all the same, most of her income went into a bank. She rarely spent it on herself, preferring to donate it to worthy causes she came across.

The last cause involved a case in the Copper Banks. Her investigation into the murder of a young man resulted in her arranging passage on a ship for his family to escape Lyrcania to rebuild their lives in Gandhar. Otherwise, her apartment was her greatest personal splurge: she had to sleep somewhere, and there was no reason not to be comfortable.

“I guess there are perks for being tied down like that,” Tregarde said. “What’s the next move?”

He unlatched his tiffin boxes. Unlike hers, his pails were battered copper and engraved with rhombus motifs. The top tier box proved to contain pickled carrots and daikon radish. He offered it to her.

Well. It had been hours since she broke her fast with dried persimmons and almonds and cream. She sighed and reached for her own tiffin pail. Like Tregarde’s, her pail held three tiers of boxes, though hers were red lacquer and used a phoenix motif. Palamara’s wife had sent it along for her trip.

Alia accepted a portion of Tregarde’s carrots, and shared a dish of saffron rice and tart dried barberries. The sweetness of the pickled vegetables served to cut the tartness of the barberries.

“What do you know about my mission?” she asked as they ate.

They talked.

Though aware of Fellrath, Tregarde put more effort into penetrating the underworld networks. He, like Shahin, made the connection between Fellrath and the shadow priests. The trail of the shadow priests led him to discover the soul-cutting ritual. And it turned out he knew the Lords of Chaos as thoroughly as Alia knew the Brotherhood, which made Alia grateful the high priest sent him to her after all.

When they finished eating Alia shared Lila Palamara’s tiny sweet cakes made with rice, rose water, and cardamom. They washed it down with Tregarde’s tisane of lemongrass.

“For now Sheridan is keeping to himself,” Alia said, between sips of the hot lemongrass water. “He’s posing as a courier. If Aristarchus questions him, Sheridan has a story to tell that should pass casual inspection, enough to avoid a truth-seer’s attention.”

“What if Ari’s people open the sarcophagus?” Tregarde had devoured the first confection, now he nibbled the second, savoring it.

“Then that’s a complication.”

“I’ll say. I’ll watch his back as best I can; sound the alarm if they’re on to him. What name are you going by now?”

Alia had given this a lot of thought. By now everyone knew she was raised by dryads, who tended to have nature-themed names. Therefore she veered off from the tradition and called herself Saka, the name of a Ta-Setian woman mentioned as accompanying Deukalion in his conquest of Lyrcania.

“Very well, Saka,” Tregarde said, rising to leave. “Good hunting to you.”

Aristarchus, captain of the Obsidian Stinger, did indeed have a capable advocate who managed to get the charges against him dropped. He pulled anchor by noon the very day Alia boarded, and the ship was on its way post-haste. As expected Aristarchus paid a visit to Sheridan, but he only asked perfunctory questions of him. Mainly he wanted to know if Sheridan heard inside information on the fates of Junius and Gavin, but Sheridan only mentioned the flayers, which shook up Aristarchus.

“We’re supposedly safe. But I’d rather not remain in Lyrcania, if it’s all the same to you,” Sheridan had said.

Aristarchus must have agreed. He made good time speeding away from the port of Ebon Cove, and soon enough it became clear he was leaving Lyrcania altogether.

The ship was small enough that it would be conspicuous if Alia spoke to Sheridan. Prudent, she kept her distance, and didn’t even acknowledge Tregarde, given their ruse that she was his prey. His ruse as a daughter-catching bounty hunter meant he had good reason to be seen watching her every move, but only until they were on the open sea where escape was no longer possible.

The huntsman must have considered this, because one night he managed to lure Alia into a dark corner before she reached her cabin.

“Take this,” he whispered, dropping a small object into the pocket of the silk shirt she wore. Split at the waist, the cerulean garment matched her silk trousers. Alia had chosen it for the long sleeves, which allowed her to conceal a small thin blade. “Think of me and speak my name.”

Inside her room, Alia plucked the object from her pocket. To her surprise it turned out to be a pretty cloisonné leafbird, wrought in a brilliant yellow-green enamel, with a vivid blue for the wings.

As she had nothing to report, she spent her free time meditating and doing calisthenics while otherwise keeping to shallow pleasantries with her shipmates. However, she did have one awkward moment, when the curious girl from the hostel approached her, and asked for advice about how to elude one’s father. She had come all the way from Rasena Valentis, yet her father still managed to find her. Caught short, Alia racked her brain until she remembered a case file from the Watch, of an archon’s daughter who ran away to Xia.

“In a world with scryers, running is a difficult thing. Even I’ve learned that. Truly so long as your father has the means to hire a scryer, there is little point in running. Come to an accord with him: now he knows the lengths he will have to go to in order to have you marry whom he pleases. I doubt this is a pleasant revelation for him. If there’s someone else you wish to marry, convince your father of his worth. If not, then convince your father his choice for you is not worthy. That is all.”

Two weeks of endless vistas of water, water, and more water, before finally they sighted land. Meanwhile in her cabin Alia studied a periplus—a logbook of ports and trade in the Gold Sea. A boon Palamara gave her, from his youth in the Lyrcanian navy. While accounts of the people he encountered might be out of date, the locations and distances of the ports were fixed. For this reason she anticipated they would approach the Riftwater Archipelago days before the captain announced it.

An intriguing destination, and one dangerous to navigate to. Many overconfident captains had lost their crew, their ships, and their lives to the hazards of those islands. No wonder Junius used sorcery to transport the Obsidian Stinger there, but that raised the uncomfortable question of the mettle of the ship’s sailers. Should they prove up to the challenge, an important prize awaited them on the chief island of the archipelago: The last Gate separating the Gold Sea from the West Reaches.

Through the Riftwater Gate the empires of Anshan and Rasena Valentis became accessible, along with several smaller portals in various countries. Excitement and dismay warred inside Alia at this revelation. Now she understood why the dryads seemed to vanish without a trace.

Having spent all of her life in Lyrcania, she never imagined Fellrath’s operation moving beyond the Gold Sea nations closest to it. In fact, she originally cultivated a friendship with Serafina because Serafina was native to Xia, a dominant power in the Gold Sea. Unfortunately, Serafina’s investigations had come up empty, and the trail had always gone cold wherever Alia searched in the port cities within a month’s sail from Ebon Cove.

But the Riftwater Gate? Just how extensive was the Brotherhood’s reach? How far away was the ultimate destination of the abducted dryads?

“A nekromanteion,” she whispered.

Alia bolted upright in her bed. Moonlight poured through the little porthole that served as her sole source of natural light.

Shadow gates were rare. The man-made Gates built in the Seven Gates Era were only super-portals, able to transport people either great distances or to many different places. The Radiant Gate, however, could enter other worlds.

Including Erebossa, the netherworld.

Discovering the involvement of the queen abyssal obliged Alia to revise her working hypothesis of the Brotherhood’s motives: in tandem with the shadow priests, they sought the fall of the Ebon Grove. Without the dryads to guard the gate, abyssals would be free to enter the world.

Destroying or weakening the guardians of the Radiant Gate would be sufficient to allow the sorcerers to invite abyssals and arsh’atûm into the world. Of a certainty the feat would cease to be the domain of only the most skilled of sorcerers.

Although—by dryad law mortals were kept ignorant of the Radiant Gate. Yet Junius … perhaps his infernal queen told Junius about it? Or outright commanded him to conquer it?

And, if Junius decided destroying the grove and its protectors was taking too long, perhaps the Brotherhood and the shadow priests might have sought a less-protected gate. At the very least for the sake of delivering the dryads to the shadow queen.

Of course.

Now, what to do about Aristarchus?

This was the question she put to Tregarde, when she activated the mechanical leafbird as he had instructed. The bird astonished her by opening its tiny beak, and speaking with Tregarde’s droll voice.

“Junius is dead, Rav and Clawfoot are in my hands, the Sun and Stars Society likewise, and the shadow priests are dead,” she noted.

“All of the shadow priests?” Tregarde asked. Given his tone, she imagined him arching an eyebrow. All the same, the question brought her up short.

“By the Huntress! You’re right. Only the shadow priests who were in the temple the night I was abducted are dead. There could be more.”

Before she left town the blood codex revealed others in Ebon Cove and the nearest islands to beware of. People who might continue their efforts against the dryads. Between Serafina, the Fire Lords, Palamara, and Falconer Tahm, Alia was tempted to count those other men dead.

“Exactly,” Tregarde agreed. “You don’t have a full roster of members, I take it?”

As he spoke the little bird swiveled its head, as if surveying its surroundings, and Alia suddenly wondered if the sorcerer could see through its mechanical eyes. Good thing she slept with clothes on.

“My friends are after some of those others,” Tregarde continued. “As for Ari, he looks to be the sole link between Lyrcania and the endpoint, wherever that is. You’ve pulled a lot of claws, but not his. Not yet.”

“Leverage. I need leverage. I’ve been studying an old periplus, and I think I’ve found a fulcrum: The Lyrcania Mercantile Voyagers.”

The Riftwater was the axis on which her suppositions turned: captains with the skill to navigate the treacherous waters of those islands were rare enough that the Lyrcania Mercantile Voyagers paid them a kingly sum.

For better or for worse, in the Gold Sea any ship captain of above average skill operated under the aegis of the Voyagers. The trading company was the undisputed master of the Gold Sea trade routes, fending off attacks by pirates from Xia and other nations. They made trade safer, but their control of the sea meant no ship had leave to travel those routes without reckoning with the company.

The wooden ship in Junius Fellrath’s study pointed to a workaround: sorcery. Given how controlling Fellrath was, he might have insisted on Aristarchus only traveling via magical means, directly from Ebon Cove to the Riftwater. In that case, it wouldn’t matter if Aristarchus lacked the know-how to navigate the Riftwater.

Except … the trading papers and goods Utari Joshi uncovered proved the Obsidian Stinger engaged in legitimate business, importing and exporting merchandise from ports in and around the Gold Sea.

Which brought the Voyagers back into the picture, though whether they were witting participants Alia couldn’t guess. What she was more certain of was that finding a skilled captain who operated independently of that company, and successfully avoid the company’s destroyers and privateers of rival nations and was corrupt enough or gullible enough to enter the Brotherhood’s service, would be a rare find indeed.

No, more likely the Brotherhood suborned a captain employed with the Voyagers; because such a captain could move freely and would have the company’s much-needed protection as well.

The bird trilled. “A mighty promising fulcrum indeed. The Voyagers have Marinite priests. If you tell them about what the Brotherhood of the Jackal is doing, they’ll do a search-and-destroy for you. The Gold Sea is treacherous enough without courting the wrath of the Sea Lord. Those Marinites are His right hand, and ain’t no one fool enough to try and check or overrule them while at sea. I’d love to see what they’d do to Fellrath’s people, given what they’ve got coming and all.”

“Best of all, they’ll cut off any of Fellrath’s reserves who could start his plans anew. They’ll sever and cauterize the heads of that particular hydra,” Alia predicted.

But here and now Aristarchus was hers to deal with. What remained now was to determine if she needed him alive or not. If she miscalculated there was no retrieving that mistake.

Don’t be so sharp you cut yourself.

Her family had taught her to beware of unintended consequences. She would take that lesson to heart now.

All the same, she vowed: his days were numbered.