Queen of Oblivion Read online

  “Mine?”

  “Indeed. Llysa’s men would never have captured us if you let me fight them.”

  “There were nine of them. Half of them had bows.”

  “You say that like arrows can’t be dodged.”

  “If they were shooting blame or responsibility at us, I have no doubt you could dodge.” She shrugged in the dark.

  “I think I could have taken four of them,” he said, “leaving only five for you.”

  “Well, obviously I could have handled five,” she said, “but I thought you’d never fought more than one person at a time.”

  “I’m good at improvising.”

  “Then improvise a way out of this,” she said.

  “One that doesn’t involve our deaths?”

  She laughed. “Preferably.”

  “Give me a minute. I’ll come up with something.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Lawdon dipped the rag into the pail and washed her own face, letting Mikal dream about his escape plan, which no doubt included outfighting a dozen men, leaping from ship to ship, slicing hawsers, and catching a fierce wind that filled only their sails, dodging arrows the entire way.

  She couldn’t help hoping that her brothers and sisters were on the same ship, or one nearby. The Summer Fleet was poised to lay siege to Ohndarien in an insane quest to reach the Great Ocean. Had they forgotten everything they stood for, everything Salice Mick had taught them?

  “How did it come this far?” she murmured. “Betrayed and bound by our own countrymen.

  He didn’t say anything for a time, and then: “How do lynch mobs form? How do gang rapes start? Why do big kids pick on little kids?” he said softly. “Sometimes people are…”

  “What?” she asked softly. “What are we?”

  “Stupid, sad, lost. We’ll do anything to feel part of something important.”

  “Is that why men do it? Is that why they go to war, to feel important?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’m so glad I don’t have a penis,” she said with a sigh.

  “I’m glad you don’t have one either; two of them in the same bed can be devilishly awkward.”

  “I’m sure I could manage if I needed to. I’m good at improvising.” She thought she felt his smile in the darkness, but it didn’t warm her as it might have yesterday. Her own helplessness made their prison suffocating, and she found her breath coming quicker and thought of Reignholtz.

  You cannot fight the wind any more than you can fight the sea. When she blows against you, you take what she gives, and you use it to your advantage.

  Lawdon sighed. She hated waiting. When she spoke, she tried to put a playful tone in her voice. “At least our jailer is pleasing to the eye.”

  “You think so?” he replied. “I prefer my redheads without the bristly beards and tobacco-stained teeth.”

  “Llysa,” Lawdon said. “Not her first mate.”

  “Oh, yes, the slinky Lady Munkholtz. Were you planning to seduce her to secure our freedom? Just say the word, I won’t get in your way.” He paused. “I’ll stand very close to your way, but not directly in your way.”

  “How noble of you.”

  “I live to serve, my lady.”

  She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. A few weeks ago Mikal would have fallen over himself to sing Llysa’s praises and prattle on for hours about her beauty, but he’d not yet said a word. It was an act, of course. Lawdon knew that Mikal noticed and appreciated other women, but he kept his thoughts to himself. It was a little gift to her, like his quiet smiles and brief touches, and she treasured them all.

  “So how is that plan coming?” she asked.

  “I’m already finished.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. We break our chains and rush through that hatch as soon as they open it.”

  Lawdon waited for the rest, but he stayed silent.

  “That’s a genius plan,” she said.

  “First rule of dueling. Never think more than one verse ahead,” he said. “It kills the poetry.”

  “I see. Well, there’s nothing worse than dead poetry.”

  “True. You wouldn’t believe the taste it leaves in your mouth on the way out.”

  “Or the scars it leaves in your ears on the way in.”

  Lawdon waited for another snappy reply, but for once Mikal didn’t have one.

  “So we wait?” she asked.

  “We could nibble on each other.”

  Lawdon was jolted awake by Mikal’s gentle touch on her shoulder. She’d fallen asleep against his chest.

  “They return, my lady,” he said.

  She shook her head and sat up. It felt like she had been asleep for hours. The hold door creaked open and slammed against the deck. Moonlight streamed into the hold as Llysa’s slender figure crept down the steps. Her movements were slow and stiff, and she was panting like someone who’d just been violently seasick.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Mikal whispered.

  Lawdon fought a sudden surge of panic as Llysa stumbled off the last step and lurched toward them.

  “No,” Lawdon whispered, backing away as far as her chains would let her. Without saying a word, Llysa grabbed the chains connecting them to the floor of the hold and snapped them as if they were string.

  Lawdon gasped as she and Mikal were yanked to their feet and dragged toward the steps.

  Mikal leapt forward and wrapped his chain around Llysa’s throat, putting his knee on her back and pulling with all his might. Lawdon was sure Llysa’s neck was about to snap, but she simply kept walking forward, dragging the two of them up the stairs.

  Lawdon punched her in the kidney and nearly screamed. Her body was like stone! Llysa ignored the blow and dragged the two of them up the last few steps onto the deck.

  Mikal was on his feet first and turned to face their captor. “Fessa!” he cried, backing away from her, and then Lawdon saw. Inky tears streaked down Llysa’s cheeks. Her face was utterly blank, and her eyes glittered pure black in the moonlight. The woman she had known was gone. Utterly gone.

  Lawdon glanced around desperately. The rest of Llysa’s crew stood inert on the deck of the ship. All of them had the same black tears.

  “What’s happened to them?” Mikal said, his eyes wide.

  Lawdon felt her knees grow weak, and she grabbed Mikal’s shirt to keep from falling.

  “It’s the infection,” she whispered. “The one that ran through Ohndarien.”

  When they had dropped Shara off in the Petal Islands, the Ohndarien refugees had told wild stories of an infection of black emmeria that had run through their city. They had called the victims weeping ones, but she had hardly believed them at the time.

  “But we’re not in Ohndarien,” Mikal said.

  Llysa, or what remained of her, kept walking forward, dragging them to the rail, where her ship was lashed to one three times its size. The far deck was packed with Summermen standing like statues. Each of them had the same streaks down their faces, shining black in the moonlight.

  “What is that leaking from their eyes?” Mikal murmured.

  “The infection must have spread,” she murmured, looking at the other ships around them. There were a hundred ships in the Summer Fleet. Were they all like this?

  Beyond the fluttering banners of the Summer Fleet rose the cliffs of Ohndarien. Shara was in that city. She was supposed to have stopped this.

  Llysa led them up the plank to the larger ship and through a crowd of her countrymen all staring blankly ahead. They panted like their hearts were about to burst, as if each pained breath would be their last. It made Lawdon want to kill them all, put them out of their misery and then run, run away and never stop.

  Gritting her teeth, Lawdon dodged through the throng of weeping ones, trying to hold her breath and avoid touching any of them.

  “What do we do?” Mikal whispered to her.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know.”

  Llysa
dragged them toward the back of the ship. The windows of the aft stateroom were curtained, but she could see light coming from within. Llysa opened the door and ushered Lawdon inside. Mikal tried to follow, but Llysa barred his path with her arm, shoved Lawdon inside, and shut the door.

  She stumbled into an enormous stateroom. It was opulent to a fault, dripping with gold and silks. A cut-crystal chandelier filled with candles lit the room bright as day. Six weeping ones stood at attention along the walls. A dark-haired man leaned over an oak desk covered with scattered charts and navigation equipment. He looked up the moment she entered.

  Vinghelt.

  He stared at her for a moment, his eyes narrowing, and Lawdon was surprised to see that his eyes were blue. He wasn’t infected.

  “Lady Reignholtz, we meet again,” he said graciously. “Please come in.” He walked around the desk and reached for her hand. She pulled back, not letting him touch her. He held his hand out for a moment, then let it slip to his side.

  “What happened?” Lawdon asked through stiff lips. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Wrong with them?” Vinghelt laughed and waved his hand about in a sweeping gesture. “These are the chosen of the goddess. They have all received her blessing.”

  “Blessing?!” Lawdon cried. “They’re barely human!”

  “No, they are more than human,” Vinghelt corrected. Quick as a snake, he drew his dagger and dragged the edge along Llysa’s cheek. The blade pushed her skin tight against the bone but left no scratch. “The goddess has made us invincible.”

  For a moment Lawdon was so stunned that she couldn’t find anything to say. Vinghelt waited with that smug smile.

  “You don’t actually believe that, do you?” she finally spat. “You don’t actually believe the goddess had anything to do with this?”

  “Who else?” Vinghelt said, looking genuinely surprised. “Fessa set us upon this path. She choose me to lead us to victory against Ohndarien and then the Silver Islanders.”

  “Silver Islanders? What are you talking about?”

  “We have allied with Ohohhom and the Lady Arefaine against a common foe.”

  “What common foe?”

  “The Silver Islanders fear the goddess’s growing influence in their waters. They have been supporting the Physendrian rebels against us. They were behind the burning of the Floating Palace.”

  “You were behind the burning of the Floating Palace!” Lawdon exploded.

  He laughed again. “Where do you come up with these wild theories? The world is full of people seething with greed and jealousy of our Eternal Summer. The Silver Islanders started this war. They have attacked our very way of life. We are simply defending ourselves.”

  She gaped at him. “I can’t tell whether you’re the dumbest man in history, or the most wretched coward I’ve ever seen.”

  Vinghelt paused, his lips pulled back into a quick snarl. “I truly feel sorry for you,” he finally said. “You have been poisoned from childhood with fear and lies. You can’t see the face of the goddess when she is right in front of you.”

  “All I see in front of me…” Lawdon started, but her voice trailed off when she suddenly saw a shimmering green figure appear behind Vinghelt’s left shoulder. She stared at the shimmering shape, suddenly feeling searing black worms slithering in her stomach. Slowly the figure solidified, and Lawdon started in amazement at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She was completely naked, and blue-green hair cascaded down her body, flowing and shimmering like a waterfall.

  Lawdon felt an overwhelming urge to kneel, but stopped herself and stared harder at the creature. Within the majestic beauty she saw another figure, a tall, skinny woman in her late fifties who looked like she hadn’t eaten in a week. Her body was frail, her cheeks sunken, her gray hair unkempt and brittle, but her gaze glittered with a malevolence that made Lawdon’s flesh crawl. Next to her stood a man dressed like an Ohndarien Lightning Sword. His eyes also dripped black, and he held an ebony stone tightly under one arm.

  “I tire of this game, Lord Vinghelt,” the skinny woman to his left said. “It is time this one received her blessing.”

  Lawdon started backing toward the door.

  “As you say.” Vinghelt nodded sagely, staring adoringly at the crone who made herself look like a goddess.

  Lawdon ran for the door. She flung it open and crashed into someone just outside. Hands like steel clamped on her arms. She fought back, but Llysa’s first mate slammed her against the wall. Beyond him, another weeping one held Mikal’s arms pinned against his sides.

  “Lawdon!” Mikal shouted, but the weeping one clamped a hand over his mouth before he could say any more.

  The skinny woman emerged from the stateroom, the Lightning Sword with the black stone right behind her. The image of the naked goddess she wore about herself like a cloak wavered as she walked. Her grin spread as she slipped past Lawdon.

  “Him first, don’t you think?” she asked Lawdon with a cold chuckle.

  “No! Stay away from him!” Lawdon yanked against her captor, but she might as well have tried to break steel bars.

  Mikal’s feet scrabbled on the deck as he tried to shove himself backward. The witch reached out and touched him on the chest. He screamed, the sound muffled by the hand over his mouth, and his body convulsed as if she were pulling his heart out through his ribs.

  “Mikal!” Lawdon shrieked, struggling against the red-bearded brute who was squeezing her so tight she couldn’t draw another breath.

  The skinny woman dug her fingernails into Mikal’s skin, and he arched his back until his feet were lifted from the deck. The tendons and veins stood out on his neck as he flung his body back and forth against his captor’s unbreakable grip. The hideous woman smiled at his pain, seeming to relish it.

  “Stop it!” Lawdon shouted. “Stop it!” She screamed the words until Llysa’s first mate reached up and muffled her with his callused hand.

  The woman turned to Lawdon and smiled. “Would you like me to stop, dear?”

  Lawdon nodded fiercely, and the witch suddenly yanked her hand away from Mikal. He spasmed once and then slumped forward, limp as a dead eel.

  “Mikal!” Lawdon shrieked into her captor’s palm.

  The weeping one dropped Mikal, and he fell to the deck in a heap, staring blankly at the sky.

  “Stand up,” the skinny woman said. He rose to his feet and turned to face Lawdon. His breathing was ragged and quick, and his eyes were solid black. Obsidian tears welled in the corners, ready to spill over.

  “And now, my dear,” the woman said, turning to her. “Are you ready to join your little man here and those precious brothers and sisters of yours?” She laughed as she reached for Lawdon’s chest. “Are you ready to be blessed?”

  Lawdon tried to scream, but she couldn’t even do that.

  Chapter 14

  Hello!” Astor shouted so loudly his throat burned. “Is! Any! Body! There!” His voice echoed off the hundred foot walls, but there was no reply.

  He clenched his teeth and squeezed the railing around the ship’s tiny crow’s nest. They had been stuck outside the Sunset Gate for more than an hour, and it was nearly dark. Astor thought he saw the face of a sentry in the guardhouse when they first called for the gate to be opened. But the boy had run away. How could the gate be undefended? Even the Windmill Wall was empty. Several of the mills weren’t running. Something was terribly, terribly wrong with the city. But he couldn’t see inside to find out what.

  Astor had never been locked outside of Ohndarien’s walls before. He’d never realized how frustrating it could be. His eyes kept scanning the fortifications for any crack or crevice he might use to climb inside. But there was nothing. The walls were perfect, unscalable. He had heard the stories of how Brophy had entered the city through one of the windmills’ screws, but he wasn’t ready to try anything that crazy, not yet.

  “Anything?” Bendrick called from below.

  Astor shook his head at h
is second-in-command. “I can’t see a thing.”

  Their ship was small, her mast only thirty feet high. There could be a whole army atop Ohndarien’s walls, and they wouldn’t see them from here.

  Bendrick frowned and started climbing up to the crow’s nest. With a grunt he threw a leg over the railing and joined Astor on the tiny platform.

  “Hello!” Astor called again. Again there was no answer.

  “Enough yelling,” Bendrick said. “You’re starting to sound like a dying toad.”

  Astor sighed. “Where could they be?”

  Bendrick shook his head. “I didn’t expect a hero’s welcome after we sailed off without permission, but I did expect some sort of reception.”

  “Yeah, I spent the whole trip back here imagining my father ripping the sash from my shoulder and sending me out the Physendrian Gate. Now it would almost be worth it to see him and know he’s all right.”

  Astor couldn’t get Brophy’s warning out of his head. Had the city already been betrayed? Was the Summer Fleet within her walls?

  “Hello!” Astor yelled again, wincing as he did.

  There was no reply except the echo of his voice and the gentle lapping of the surf against the base of Ohndarien’s walls.

  “Shara, wait!”

  Shara paused, turning back to look along the top of the Water Wall. Someone was running after her. Galliana, she realized after checking the girl’s life force. Shara was tempted to keep on running, but she forced herself to wait for her niece.

  Shara had run all the way from Clifftown when she first heard the news. The breathless boy had come from the Sunset Gate. Between gasps he said a ship had arrived from the west carrying a small group of Lightning Swords. A man on board looked like the Sleeping Warden.

  Galliana caught up with her in a few moments. Her breathing was strong and steady as she slowed to a stop right next to Shara. The young woman’s proficiency with the Floani form was growing stronger every day.

  “I heard the news,” Galliana said. “Do you think it’s Brophy?”

  Shara shook her head. “No. It’s probably Astor returning from his quest for the Heartstone. The boy at the gate probably just confused the two of them.”