Black Spice (Book 3) Read online

  “Is there another way, one that might not be watched?”

  “Sure, if you don’t mind climbing a little. You think he is there?”

  “If the Silasese are as few as you say. He’s shown that his army can move quickly. Even with a weakened force he could defeat them and take many prisoners to fill his ranks. It’s what I would do.”

  Aiyan decided they would head for the Silasese town on Whale Home Bay. Witaan led them around Mantua’s outlying settlements following narrow footpaths. They crossed the road east of the town and kept to the game trails, pushing farther south, wading a stream that came up to their armpits.

  They were still in the forest as twilight began to close in. “We’ll cross the highlands tomorrow, and late in the day we will enter the cassia woods of the Silasese,” Mahai said.

  They broke into the open the next morning, traversing a grassy lowland. By midday they were working their way up a dry wash. Above them, the ridge looked impassable. Kyric looked back. He could see all the streams that ran west from the highlands, and in the center of the forest a wisp of smoke coming from Mantua. To the north, a wide valley opened into Bantuan territory.

  Thick shrubs clustered at the head of the wash. They pushed through and stood at a tall cave opening.

  “No worries,” said Mahai. “It only goes a hundred paces before it opens on the other side.”

  It wasn’t so much a cave as a natural tunnel. The wind blew hard at the eastern entrance. Below lay a wooded glen, and past a low line of hills a patch of blue merged with the summer haze.

  “Whale Home,” Mahai said. “The great bay of the Silasese.”

  They walked down the slope, more gentle on this side, and into the valley. The taller trees stood thick with rust-colored blossoms, and the smaller, bushy ones were bright with yellow flowers. Then the wind gusted and a scent like cinnamon struck them. They all smiled at each other.

  “At least they won’t smell us coming,” Kyric said.

  “No more talking,” Aiyan said quietly, “it’s possible that they could be patrolling this far out. Everyone go carefully.”

  They went single file, stepping lightly, right up to the line of hills, not seeing or hearing anyone. Mahai led them to a spring-fed pond.

  “It’s a little unusual that no one is here,” he said. “This is one of their main cassia groves.”

  “Find a concealed spot to spend the night,” Aiyan told Kyric, waving for Mahai to come with him and starting up the hill.

  Caleem told them that the water was alright to drink, and while they filled their skins he picked fresh greens from the water’s edge.

  Nakoa nodded with approval. “I saw some ripe dra berries. We can have spiced liat salad tonight.”

  Kyric helped him pick the berries. After a time, Aiyan and Mahai returned. “Something is going on,” Aiyan said. “There’s too many fires outside the town.”

  Mahai nodded. “Like an army had made camp there.”

  “But we really couldn’t see anything,” Aiyan said. “We’re still several miles away.”

  Nakoa and Caleem started making the liat salad. Witaan seemed happy to let them. Mahai tried to join in but they shooed him away.

  “Do you have enough red pepper?” he asked them. “I have plenty.”

  “Yes, my prince,” answered Nakoa. “Just leave us to it.”

  Apparently this was a traditional dish that everyone made a little differently, the greens, the peppers, and a paste made from the berries being the foundation. They then added nuts and dried fruit to taste along with different spices, placing it all in sack and shaking it.

  “Wait till you get a bite of this,” Mahai said to Kyric. “It will make you breathe fire.”

  “But I don’t want to breathe fire.”

  Lerica smiled knowingly. “Of course you do, dear.”

  Twilight had encircled them by the time it was ready. Lerica had brought a couple of small wooden plates from the ship. Aiyan ate out of his helmet, and Caleem had a ceramic bowl. Nakoa and Mahai used palm leaves and fingers, and licked the last of the spiced berry sauce off them when they finished. Kyric looked at Lerica. After Terrula, he didn’t think he could eat off a palm leaf again.

  Aiyan scooted close to Kyric and said to him in Avic, “He’s there. I can feel him. Tomorrow will be a day of knowing the place and knowing the moment. Our weird senses must be very sharp.”

  Kyric stared into the deepening dusk, letting himself go empty. There was something he had suspected, and now he was more sure of it.

  “When you killed the captain, it broke the spell he had on me. But I’m still tainted with his blood. It doesn’t wash away. And the black blood knows itself. I fear that he can feel me, that he’s close to finding me.”

  “Soth Garo?”

  Kyric answered in a whisper. “No. Cauldin.”

  Darkness had come, and they sat in the light of a quarter moon. Witaan had already fallen asleep, and the others were getting ready to bed down.

  “I’m so tired I can barely move,” Lerica said with a yawn.

  “Same here,” said Aiyan, curling up with his sword.

  Lerica flopped down on the soft spot she had picked out, and Kyric followed. He tried to say goodnight to her, but his tongue was suddenly numb. He couldn’t lift his head. As he slid into blackness, he realized what it was.

  He had been drugged.

  CHAPTER 5: Black Spice

  Something hard, digging into his back, drove him to wake. He lay against a rocky outcropping on the lower slopes of a volcano. Bone-white rocks against a jet-black sky — no stars at all shone through. He stood and looked around.

  It was a nightmare landscape. Below him, a river of molten rock flowed into a lake of fire. Above him, lava ran from the summit in dozens of rivulets. In the distance more volcanoes jutted up from the ocean of rock, throwing ash and flaming stones into the sky.

  Someone was out there, looking for him.

  Yes, far behind, silhouetted against a glowing pool, a man moved toward him,. The man carried a very long bow, and Kyric carried no weapons at all, not even a knife.

  The volcano above shuddered, a spill of lava lapping over the rim and becoming a molten river that rushed right at him. He needed a crevasse to open in front of the lava, one wide enough to divert it, but that wasn’t something he could find. Maybe he could get above it.

  He turned and examined the outcropping he had lain against. It was a tall crystal, and now he could see by some kind of inner light, handholds and footholds cut in the side. He climbed to the top and the river of lava was split, flowing around the crystal to rejoin on the other side. Kyric was safe, but he was trapped.

  The dark figure moved more quickly now, eager to get to his prey. Kyric saw the light coming from his eye. It was him.

  So I was right, Master Cauldin is hunting me in the land of dreams.

  Then he realized with a shock: Cauldin has the power of a dreamer. He had dreamed the lava to overflow.

  Kyric had to get away. Now. What would Rolirra do? She would call on some kind of flying creature to whisk them away. But what kind of creature would fly in this sulfur-choked hell, and how would he call one?

  She had always made a sound. But there was nothing here but a few loose rocks . . . and the crystal he stood upon.

  He smashed one of the stones against the outcropping, and at once it began to hum in a high but gentle pitch. Something rose from the valley below, floating on the air. It looked a little like a runaway sail on a windy day, folded back on itself like a canvas balloon, trailing thick ropes from a clump where the corners of the skin came together.

  It came closer, a writhing, buoyant bag of hide dotted with large human eyes and a few strands of thorn-like hair. Kyric leapt, grabbing hold of one of the ropey tentacles.

  Even with his weight, the creature continued to rise toward the summit of the volcano. Kyric floated over the steaming red rivulets, and then the creature passed the rim, and he hung in the glow of a lake o
f molten rock.

  An arrow flashed by, going all the way through the creature and leaving a wide rent in its flesh. No blood came from the wound, only a misty gas. Another arrow struck, piercing one of the eyes. A long low whine came from where the eye had been along with more of the air inside. They began to descend.

  From out of the black sky, a dozen of the gasbag creatures surrounded them, pushing in close and holding up the wounded one. Kyric took the ropes of one of those, and all together they floated past the volcano. A hot current of air swept them over the lava plain and beyond. Kyric spotted a huge opening in the ground below, and the gas bag creatures descended towards it, going through, swallowed by the darkness of an immense cavern.

  After setting him on the floor of the cavern, the things floated away. He wandered in the dark, looking for a way out, afraid that Cauldin wasn’t far behind him. Then the ground shook, and he stumbled, falling into the blackness.

  He didn’t want to open his eyes, but Lerica was shaking him. She pinched him on the arm, hard.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m awake.” He sat up and the world rocked to one side.

  Caleem lay face down on the ground in a pool of moonlight. Aiyan crouched over him, pinning him with a one-handed arm bar and holding the prince’s spear in his other hand.

  “Wake Mahai next,” he said to Lerica.

  “You have it wrong,” Caleem said, panic creeping into his voice. “I heard something out there and I only wanted to get you up.”

  “You were reaching for my sword,” Aiyan said flatly.

  “No. I was reaching to nudge you awake.”

  “I was already awake. And I didn’t hear anything.”

  Lerica knelt next to Mahai, apparently deciding that pinching was the only way.

  “Ow! What?” he said, jerking upright with a start. He blinked into the night. “Black spice.”

  Lerica looked at him. “Huh?”

  “It feels like we’ve eaten black spice. Purple gavdi is a spice with a delicate flavor. It has a mild jollifying effect. But if you mash it together with the petals of the flower and cook it, it becomes a drug. We call it black spice because it can do harm or good depending how it is used. Fortunately, a pinch of salt will clear our heads.”

  “I have some salt in my pack,” Lerica said.

  “Not land salt,” Mahai said. “We need sea spice — salt from the ocean floor. I always carry some.”

  “Do it quickly,” Aiyan said. “Lerica, are you alright?”

  “Yes. It’s fading fast. I don’t need any of that salt.”

  “Good. I want you to go once around the camp, then get up a tree and keep watch. Go now.” She disappeared into the darkness, and he nodded to Kyric. “We need more light. See if you can make a torch.”

  Once he had Mahai’s salt in him, Kyric felt himself again. Aiyan didn’t take any of it. Lerica signaled ‘all clear,’ so they lit the torch and brought Caleem to his feet, Witaan and Nakoa holding him up against a tree.

  “It wasn’t me,” pleaded Caleem. “It must have been Nakoa. Don’t you see? They’ve been fooling you. He and Mahai were both captured by Soth Garo and now they serve him. It’s them, not — ”

  Aiyan jabbed him with two fingers, just below his breastbone, and suddenly he couldn’t speak. “If you don’t stop shouting, I will break your jaw,” Aiyan said with frightening softness.

  Mahai removed Caleem’s belt and opened his spice pouches. “Here it is. A small bag of black spice inside his cardamom pouch.”

  “Remove those vambraces,” Aiyan said, taking the belt from Mahai. “I want to bind his hands.”

  Kyric unbuckled the first vambrace. Thick, half-healed welts encircled his wrist. It was the same beneath the other one.

  Kyric ran his fingers across them. “Rope burns.”

  Aiyan stepped close to Caleem. “So they tied you up and beat you for a few days. And when you couldn’t stand it any longer Soth Garo offered you his blood with the promise that the torture would stop. You didn’t know what it would do to you, so you took it willingly.”

  Caleem shook his head desperately. “No, no. The marks are from an accident with a fishing net.” He took on a look of fierce determination. “I am a prince of the Tialucca, and I demand that you release me. My father will hear of this. He will make you suffer for this.”

  Aiyan turned to Kyric.

  Kyric held the torch close to Caleem’s face. “Did you slip us the black spice?”

  “Mahai planted that bag in my spice pouch.”

  Kyric froze.

  He couldn’t tell. The remnants of the black spice clouded his inner eye. For the first time since he was a child, he couldn’t tell if someone was lying to him. It made him feel blind.

  “I know how he did it,” Nakoa said. “He filled his bowl first, then tasted it and said that it needed more pepper. He tossed what I thought was red pepper into the sack and shook it, but he let me be the one to taste it the second time. It was so hot that I didn’t notice the black spice.”

  “I saw that too,” Aiyan said.

  Mahai cocked his head. “You didn’t need salt. You never ate the tainted meal.”

  “No.”

  “You did,” Caleem said. “I saw you.”

  Aiyan smiled grimly. “When I went to use the bushes, I filled my pockets with fresh liat leaf. When it got dark I swapped helmets with Kyric and ate the plain greens out of his.”

  “It was only pepper,” Caleem said. “I tell you that these Onakai are the ones. You don’t know them like I do. Their totem is the shark, and that is how they behave.”

  Kyric turned to Mahai. “Do you serve Soth Garo? Did you taste of the black blood?”

  “I did not,” answered Mahai.

  “Nor did I,” Nakoa said firmly.

  Kyric felt sick. He really couldn’t tell. Aiyan was looking to him, waiting for an answer.

  “Let me try another tack,” Kyric said to him in Avic. “Sit him down so we can be comfortable.”

  Aiyan bound Caleem’s hands in front of him with the belt. They lowered him to the ground and let him rest against the tree. Kyric went down on one knee and leaned close to him.

  “You love him,” he said gently. “I understand that more than you know, for I have tasted the black blood myself. And you have no doubt that he loves you as a dear brother. He loves you more than your father ever could.”

  Kyric let his voice drop to a whisper. He was taking a chance with his next words, but he said them anyway. “He loves you, even knowing the cowardice you hide in your heart.”

  Caleem looked away from him, and he pressed on.

  “I know you want to please him and do what is best for him. But you made a mistake tonight. You have revealed yourself and allowed yourself to be captured. And he will not love you for this. He will say that you should have killed us all. Just as you have displeased your father all your life, just as you couldn’t earn his love no matter how hard you tried, so it will be with your new brother. He will not be able to love you now, and he will not want you near him.”

  Caleem had lowered his head as Kyric continued to speak, his eyes closed tight, and now he bent forward, shaking with silent sobs.

  “I think we have the truth at last,” Kyric said, wiping away a tear of his own. He handed the torch to Mahai and walked away into the darkness. Aiyan followed him.

  “Kyric, where did you learn . . . how did you know to . . . to say such things?”

  Kyric threw his head back. He was over it already. “I just substituted the word ‘father’ for ‘mother.’”

  They bound Caleem’s ankles with another belt. He didn’t resist. The moon had only moved a little since they passed out. They had the whole night ahead of them.

  “We’ll need to set a watch,” Aiyan said. “More to guard the prince than anything, for he is sure to attempt escape.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Kyric said. He looked around until he found Aiyan’s helmet with the drug-laced salad. He set it
down in front of Caleem.

  “Eat.”

  Caleem looked up. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Eat it,” Kyric said, “or I’ll bash you in the head so hard you won’t wake up for days.”

  Caleem ate.

  They kept a watch anyway, and, as usual, Aiyan had them up before the sun. He wasn’t sure what to do about Caleem. They couldn’t leave him here.

  “We need a safe place to stash him until I can take care of Soth Garo.”

  Witaan had the solution. “I know of a hunting lodge in the woodlands near Tialucca land. There will be men there who can help. Send Nakoa with me and we will take him there.”

  Aiyan was doubtful. “You don’t realize how desperate they get. He would do anything to get away. He would break his own leg to slow you down.”

  Nakoa smiled. “We’ll keep feeding him the black spice until we get there. He’ll be no trouble.”

  Aiyan agreed in the end, having nothing better, so they marched off, Witaan and Nakoa each with a hand on Caleem’s belt to hold him up. He stumbled along miserably, his head hanging down.

  Before the rest of them started east, Aiyan scrubbed out the nut helmets. Kyric was suddenly unconcerned for the heat. He strapped his helmet on and tightened the laces of his body armor. Then something in his gut tore loose, the cramp nearly bending him over. It was all that red pepper he had eaten. It subsided quickly and he joined the others.

  They headed toward the Silasese town, climbing to a low saddle between two tall hills. They crested the ridge and held their hands up against the rising sun. The morning haze lay thick on the land and they couldn’t see anything. Then the sea breeze brought them the sound of drums. Many drums.

  “I had forgotten,” Lerica said. “Tonight is Winter’s Eve. Merry Solstice, everyone.”

  “That means it’s Midsummer Day here below the line,” Aiyan said.

  Kyric turned to Mahai. “Is that what the drumming is for? Do your people celebrate summer solstice? I don’t suppose you tear up straw men at midnight.”

  “All the nations of Mokkala stay up dancing the night before,” Mahai said. “Being tired and worn out is supposed to help you break through to the spirit world. At dawn my people hunt shark for a feast after dark, once it has been cooked in the sacred way. During the day there are weddings and the big spirit singing at sundown. A lot of couples wait for this day to get married. It’s supposed to be lucky.”