Chapter 23

Zaidna

The Empire of Judath

The Eastern Coast

Davim rammed his shoulder into the barnacled bow of the boat for the final time and watched as the tide finally carried it off. Now the villagers wouldn’t ask questions. He sloshed angrily up the shore to where Zalas stood. “Thanks for the help, you dumb bastard!” Davim flung his arms wide, salt water flying from his sopping sleeves.

Zalas blinked slowly up at the evening sky. “You’re welcome.”

Davim’s fists clenched, his blood beginning to bubble. Zalas had been like this ever since Davim had discovered him dribbling all over himself on the deck of the boat several days before. Despite all efforts to keep him confined to his bunk, he would always manage to make his way back out to the open deck, where he spent days staring up at the Mother Star without speaking a word. Davim resisted the temptation to simply roll him overboard and let him drown, and actually poured water down Zalas’s ungrateful throat once a day just to keep him from drying up like an old fig. Zalas had slowly regained his faculties, but he was an even bigger pain in the ass now that he was speaking again, despite limiting himself to a handful of words at a time. Davim should have just let him die.

He hoisted up one of the remaining rucksacks, the last of their thinning supplies, and lobbed it to Zalas. “Make yourself useful, at least!”

Zalas caught it automatically. A hint of a glower flashed across his face, but he only shook his head and resumed his vigil over the sea.

Davim narrowed his eyes and then pointed up to the left, where a high ridge was dotted with the stucco facades of houses. “Let’s head up to the village. We need more supplies if we’re going to reach Marin.” He picked up Anoth’s abandoned rucksack and began digging through it for money, knowing the immortal had had at least enough Naltite currency to purchase their old narus, which had then been traded for their boat in Judath’s port city of Tarun on their initial journey. Unfortunately, the rucksack was now empty aside from a handful of rags and some folded maps of Chalei and Judath. Damn it! How were they supposed to make it to Marin if they didn’t have the money for supplies or narus? What was Anoth thinking, leaving them for some Naltite bitch? Davim dropped the rucksack and kicked it furiously, scattering its contents to the sand.

“Don’t leave a trail,” Zalas growled. “Go pick it up.”

“Why don’t you do something for a change, Emperor?”

Zalas’s lips thinned. “Patience, imperial whore.”

“Patience!” Davim snarled. He ground one of the maps into the sand with his heel. “I’ve been patient, hiking through the jungles—being set upon by some silver bitch in my sleep! I didn’t ask to come here, and I am sure as hell not going to spend another season in this filthy world. We get those witnesses, then we go home. Let’s go!” With that, he turned and stormed up the beach, his eyes locked resolutely upon the ridge. “We’ll trade away those studs you’ve got in your ears if we have to. If we’re lucky they’ll be enough for one naru.”

Stolen novel; please report.

When Zalas made no reply, Davim whirled around, only to find that Zalas had relocated to squat at the base of a large sandstone outcrop, where the seafowl perched atop it squawked at him. He was drawing something in the sand.

Davim let loose a rabid snarl and tore back down the beach. “What are you doing?” he demanded when he saw the broad circle Zalas had traced. “Get up!” He kicked at the circle, peppering Zalas’s chest with bits of his ruined drawing.

Davim saw only a flash of movement before he was blinded by a burst of light and heat and thrown to his back. He choked, clawing wildly at the sand as he sucked ragged mouthfuls of air back into his scorched lungs. When his vision returned, he saw Zalas staring down at him with chilly eyes. He had never seen anyone work a pattern that fast before.

“I’m trying to think,” Zalas muttered calmly. “Stop getting in my way.” He dropped back down to the sand to carefully repair his circle.

“We have to get supplies,” Davim pouted as he stood up, trying to hastily soothe his wounded pride. “How long are you going to just sit there drawing that—that—” He bent forward a little. It was a pattern diagram. But what was it for? Such diagrams were for studies in basic ormé; Zalas would have memorized these long ago, and certainly would not be adding the extra shapes in the center of the circle as he was currently doing. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you doubling up the geometry?”

Zalas lifted his fingers from the sand, his glare shining black.

“Damn.” Davim stepped away almost involuntarily. “What’s with you?”

“Nothing,” Zalas murmured as he looked down to resume his drawing. “Not even the hadirs know this configuration. I will have the upper hand.”

“What?” Perhaps Davim had been a bit optimistic about Zalas’s mental condition.

“Things will finally be as they should. All we need now is for ormé to return fully to our blood and—”

“You’re crazy,” Davim snapped. “I don’t know what has gotten into you, but—” He spotted the silken pouch that Anoth once possessed, now hanging from Zalas’s belt like an overstuffed coin purse. He let out one long breath. “. . . It’s that damned Orb!”

Zalas sneered, his fingers curling until they trembled in what appeared to be a feral rage. “You will not speak of the Orb in that manner. We will all serve Verahi and none else. He is incorruptible and incomprehensible!”

Davim shook his head, taking another step back. Zalas was not being himself. He sounded like a fanatic—like one of the priests—or worse yet, like Anoth. “To hell with this. To hell with you, your pattern, and your rock!” As he turned to leave, Zalas dove forward and caught his ankle, twisting it hard enough that his leg went numb up to the knee. He cried out and thudded to the sand, his chin chafed raw.

“We will retrieve the witnesses and return Verahi to his former glory,” Zalas growled. “You will play your part!”

“Right,” Davim seethed. “Whatever you say.” He shifted focus and waited for Zalas to turn back to his nonsensical pattern diagram. As soon as Zalas’s guard was down, Davim grabbed a fistful of sand, already working a pattern in his mind, and spun around. As he flung the sand at Zalas’s face, the grains became molten and fused into shards of glass.

But Zalas raised his hand without even looking up. The glass broke apart, dissolving into harmless, billowing primal matter, save for one shard, which he casually flicked back at Davim.

Davim howled as the glass pierced his shoulder, forcing him out of the first degree of focus. He wrenched the glass out of his flesh, lacerating his fingers in the process, and his whole arm was wet with blood. “You son of a bitch!” he screamed as he grabbed his wounded shoulder and failed to rise on his twisted ankle. Where the hell had Zalas learned how to unravel patterns like that?

“I told you to be patient,” Zalas mumbled nonchalantly as he scuffed out the blood dotting his diagram. “Now you have no choice but to stay here with me until nightfall. We’ll head up to the village when it’s dark. We’ll steal whatever supplies we need and kill whoever gets in our way.”