Part 5 – Here Be Dragons
Whose word did he fondly follow
That he dared this perilous voyage,
These raging seas?
—Anonymous, from The Man’yōshū
The Elegant had been sailing for days, but it felt like centuries. Loth had lost count of exactly how long it had been. All he knew was that he wanted to be off this ship and on dry land.
Sabran had argued with great spirit for the so-called Eastern Proposal. During that time, the Virtues Council had not slept. Their chief worry was how the Inysh people might respond to an alliance with heretics and wyrms, which went against everything they knew.
After hours of debate on how it could be justified from a religious perspective, several consultations with the College of Sanctarians, and fierce arguments for and against, Sabran had moved the vote in her favor. The embassy had been on its way within a day.
The plan, desperate as it was, began to take shape. To raise their chances of victory on the Abyss, they would have to divide the Draconic Army. Sabran had invoked the holy call to arms and written to the sovereigns of both Virtudom and the South, asking them to assist Inys in besieging and reclaiming Cárscaro on the second day of spring. An attack on the sole Draconic stronghold might compel Fýredel and his underlings to remain in Yscalin to defend it.
It would be dangerous. Many would die. It was possible that they would all die—but there was no other choice. Either they must smite the Nameless One the hour he rose, or wait for him to annihilate the world. Loth would far sooner die with a sword in his hand.
His mother had been distraught to see him leave again, but at least he had been able to say goodbye this time. She and Margret had sent him off at Perchling, as had Sabran, who had given him her coronation ring to show to the Unceasing Emperor. It hung from a chain around his neck.
Her determination was something to behold. It was clear that she feared this alliance, but Sabran would do anything for her subjects. And he sensed this was her way to honor Ead.
Ead. Every time he woke, he thought she was there, on the road with him.
A knock on the door. Loth opened his eyes.
“Yes?”
The cabin girl entered and bowed.
“Lord Arteloth,” she said, “we’re in sight of the other ship. Are you ready to leave?”
“We’ve reached the Bonehouse Trench?”
“Yes, m’lord.”
He reached for his boots. The next ship would take him to the Empire of the Twelve Lakes.
“Of course,” he said. “A moment. I’ll join you on the deck.”
The woman bowed again and retreated. Loth reached for his cloak and satchel.
His bodyguards were waiting outside his cabin. Instead of their full armor, the Knights of the Body that Sabran had lent him wore only mail under their surcoats, which were blazoned with the royal badge of Inys. They shadowed Loth as he made his way up to the deck.
The sky was salted with stars. Loth tried not to look too hard at the water as he strode to the prow of the Elegant, where the captain stood with her muscular arms folded.
The Abyss was home to many things that other seas were not. He had heard tell of syrens with needles for teeth, of fish that glowed like candles, of baleens that could swallow a ship whole. In the distance, Loth could make out the hulking shape of a man-of-war, winking with lights. When they were close enough to see its ensign and pennant, he raised his eyebrows.
“The Rose Eternal.”
“The very same,” the captain said. She was an Inysh woman of ruddy complexion and towering stature. “Captain Harlowe knows the Eastern waters. He’ll see you right from here.”
“Harlowe,” one of the Knights of the Body said. “Is he not a pirate?”
“Privateer.”
The knight snorted.
The Elegant drew up alongside the Rose Eternal. No ship could drop anchor in the Abyss, so the crews began tying the vessels together. They drifted in the endless black.
“Fuck me, if it isn’t Arteloth Beck.” Estina Melaugo slapped her hands onto the side and grinned at him. “Didn’t think we’d see you again, my lord.”
“Good evening to you, Mistress Melaugo,” Loth called, pleased to see a face he knew. “I wish we were meeting somewhere more hospitable.”
Melaugo clicked her tongue. “Man walks into Yscalin, but he’s scared of the Abyss. Dry your eyes and get your noble backside up here, lordling.” She dropped a rope ladder and tipped the brim of her hat. “Thank you, Captain Lanthorn. Harlowe sends his regards.”
“Send mine in return,” the captain of the Elegant said, “and good luck to you out there, Estina. Watch yourself.”
“Always do.”
As his entourage gathered, Loth climbed the ladder. He envied Captain Lanthorn sailing back to blue waters. At the top, Melaugo helped him over and clapped him on the back.
“We all wagered you were dead,” she told him. “How in Halgalant did you escape Cárscaro?”
“The Donmata Marosa,” Loth replied. “I could not have left without her.”
His throat ached as he thought of her. She might be Flesh Queen of Yscalin, eyes full of ash.
“Marosa.” Melaugo arched a dark eyebrow. “Well, that’s not what I expected you to say. I must hear this story—but Captain Harlowe wants to see you first.” She whistled to the privateers as the knights pulled themselves and their heavy armor over the gunwale. “Get Lord Arteloth’s people up that ladder and into their cabins. Look lively, now!”
The crew obeyed without question. Some of them even inclined their heads to Loth as they helped the members of the Inysh embassy climb up to the Rose Eternal.
Melaugo led him across the deck. In the candlelit interior of his cabin, Gian Harlowe was poring over a map with Gautfred Plume—the quartermaster—and an ashen woman with silver hair.
“Ah. Lord Arteloth.” His tone was a trifle warmer than it had been at their last meeting. “Welcome back. Sit.” He motioned to a chair. “This is my new cartographer, Hafrid of Elding.”
The Northerner placed a hand on her chest in greeting. “Joy and health to you, Lord Arteloth.”
Loth sat. “And to you, mistress.”
Harlowe glanced up. He wore a jerkin with gold fastenings.
“Tell me,” he said, “how do you find the Abyss, my lord?”
“Not to my liking.”
“Hm. I’d call you a craven, but these waters unsettle the hardest seafarers—and in any case, none can call you craven when you walked so boldly to your doom.” His expression flickered. “I won’t ask how you escaped Cárscaro. Whatever a man does to survive is his affair. And I won’t ask what happened to your friend.”
Loth said nothing, but his stomach twisted. Harlowe beckoned him closer to the map.
“I thought I’d show you where we’re going, so you can tell your people, should they squall to you about the crossing.”
Harlowe leaned over the map, which showed the three known continents of the world and the constellations of islands that surrounded them. He tapped a thick-knuckled finger on the right side.
“We’re heading for the City of the Thousand Flowers. To get there, we’ll go through the southern waters of the Abyss so we can catch the westerlies, which will shave a week or two off our journey. We should be in the Sundance Sea within three to four weeks.” He rubbed his chin. “The voyage will be harder from there. We’ll need to avoid the Seiikinese navy, which sees the Rose as an enemy ship—and the wyrms that have been sighted in the East, led by Valeysa.”
Loth had seen enough of Fýredel to know that he did not want to meet one of his brethren.
“We’re aiming for a closed port on the southwestern coast of the Empire of the Twelve Lakes.” Harlowe indicated the place. “There were once several factories there, where the House of Lakseng conducted trade before the sea ban. That was before the Grief of Ages, of course. Arriving at that port should send a potent message to the Emperor.”
“That we wish to reopen a closed door,” Loth finished. “What do you know of the Unceasing Emperor?”
“Almost nothing. Lakseng lives in a walled palace, comes out for summer progress, and he’s marginally softer on trespassers than the salt lords of Seiiki.”
“Why?”
“Because Seiiki is an island nation. Once the Draconic plague got its teeth into it, it spread like wildfire. Almost destroyed their population. The Lacustrine had more room to flee from it.” Harlowe locked Loth in his unblinking gaze. “You just make sure the Unceasing Emperor is fit for the hand of Queen Sabran, my lord. She deserves a prince who’ll love her well.”
A muscle started in his cheek as he spoke. He lowered his head back to the map, jaw clenched, and beckoned his cartographer.
“I will do everything I can for Queen Sabran, Captain Harlowe,” Loth said quietly. “On my honor.”
Harlowe grunted.
“There’s a cabin ready for you. If something knocks against the ship, try not to piss yourself. It’ll be a baleen.” He nodded to the door. “Go on, Estina. Get some drink in the man.”
As Melaugo led him across the quarterdeck, Loth took a final look at the retreating Elegant. He tried not to dwell on the fact that the Rose Eternal was now alone in the middle of the Abyss.
His cabin was finer than the last. Loth suspected he had been elevated not out of a new respect among the crew for his noble blood, but because he had walked into Yscalin and lived to tell the tale.
And tell it he did. He shared his story with Melaugo, who sat on the window seat and listened. He told her of the imprisonment of the Donmata Marosa and the truth about the Flesh King of Yscalin, and described the tunnel where Kit had met his doom. Out of loyalty to Ead, he left out the parts about the Priory of the Orange Tree. Instead, he said that he had crossed the Spindles and fled back to Inys through Mentendon. When he was finished, Melaugo shook her head.
“I’m sorry, truly. Lord Kitston had a good heart.” She drank from her hip flask. “And now you go to the East. I suppose you proved your bravery, but you’ll find it hard out there.”
“For what I have done,” Loth said, “I deserve hardship.” He wet his lips. “It’s my fault Kit is dead.”
“Don’t do that, now. He made a choice to go with you. He could have stayed in Yscalin, or aboard our ship, or he could have stayed at home.” She handed him the flask. He hesitated before accepting. “You’re trying to persuade the Easterners that they need as much help from the West as we need from them, but they’ve survived on their own for centuries now—and an alliance with Queen Sabran, a gift to any prince on our side of the world, might not tempt the Unceasing Emperor. She’s royalty to us, but a blasphemer to him. Her religion is built on a hatred of dragons, while his is built on an adoration of them.”
“Not the fiery breeds.” Loth sniffed the flask. “The Easterners don’t worship them.”
“No. They fear the Nameless One and his ilk as we do,” Melaugo conceded, “but Queen Sabran might still have to sacrifice some principles if she means to go through with this.”
Loth drank, and immediately choked the burning liquid out through his nose. Melaugo laughed.
“Try again,” she said. “Goes down easier the second time.”
He tried again. It still seemed to strip the lining off his cheeks, but it warmed him to his belly.
“Keep it. You’ll need it in the Abyss.” She got up. “Duty calls, but I’ll ask one of our Lacustrine seafarers if they can teach you about their customs, and at least a few words of their tongue. Let’s not present you to His Imperial Majesty as a complete idiot.”
A thick fog pressed on the Rose Eternal, keeping them in darkness even by day. The lanterns cast ghostly light on the waves. To avoid the cold, Loth kept to his cabin, where a Lacustrine gunner named Thim was charged with teaching him about the Empire of the Twelve Lakes.
Thim was eighteen and appeared to have infinite reserves of patience. He taught Loth about his native country, which was divided into twelve regions, each of which housed one of the Great Lakes. It was a vast domain that ended at the Lords of Fallen Night—mountains that closed the way to the rest of the continent, greatest amongst them the merciless Brhazat. Thim told Loth that many Easterners had tried to escape the Great Sorrow by crossing the Lords of Fallen Night, including the last Queen of Sepul, but none had returned. Long-frozen bodies still lay in the snow.
The Unceasing Emperor of the Twelve Lakes was the current head of the House of Lakseng and had been raised by his grandmother, the Grand Empress Dowager. Thim told Loth the proper way to bow, how to address him, and how to behave in his presence.
He learned that Dranghien Lakseng, though not quite a god, was close to it in the eyes of his people. His house claimed descent from the first human to find a dragon after it fell from the celestial plane. There were rumors among the commons (“which the House of Lakseng does not confirm or deny”) that some rulers of the dynasty had been dragons in human form. What was certain was that whenever a Lacustrine ruler was close to death, the Imperial Dragon would choose a successor from among their legitimate heirs.
It unnerved Loth that the court had an Imperial Dragon. How strange to be overseen by wyrms.
“That word is forbidden,” Thim said gravely when he used it once. “We call our dragons by their proper name, and the winged beasts from the West, fire-breathers.”
Loth took note. His life might depend on what he learned now.
When Thim was occupied elsewhere, Loth idled away the hours playing cards with the Knights of the Body and sometimes, in the rare hours she was at liberty, Melaugo. She beat them every time. When night fell, he tried to sleep—but once, he ventured alone to the deck, called from his berth by a haunting song.
The lanterns were extinguished, but the stars were almost bright enough to see by. Harlowe was smoking a pipe at the prow, where Loth joined him.
“Good evening, Captain—”
“Hush.” Harlowe was a statue. “Listen.”
The song drifted over the black waves. A chill slithered through Loth. “What is that?”
“Syrens.”
“Will they not lure us to our death?”
“Only in the stories.” Smoke plumed from his mouth. “Watch the sea. It’s the sea they call.”
At first, all Loth saw was the void. Then a flower of light bloomed in the water, illuminating its surface. Suddenly he could see fish, tens of thousands of them, each full of a rainbow glow.
He had heard tales of the sky lights of Hróth. Never had he thought to see them underwater.
“You see, my lord,” Harlowe murmured. The light feathered in his eyes. “You can find beauty anywhere.”
