The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Blinking, Zacharias raised his hands to block the light of a lamp, squinting as he studied the other man. “Are you a mathematicus?” he asked, groping at his chest for the scrap of paper he had held close all these long months.

It was gone.

Panic brought tears.

“Is it this you seek?” Marcus displayed the parchment that bore the diagrams and numbers that betrayed the hand of a mathematicus, a sorcerer who studied the workings of the heavens. “Where did you come by it?”

“In a valley in the Alfar Mountains. After I escaped from the Quman, I traveled for a time with the Aoi woman who calls herself Prince Sanglant’s mother, but she abandoned me after the conflagration.” His physical hurts bothered him far less than the sight of that precious scrap in the hands of another man. He wanted to grab it greedily to himself, but something about the other man’s shadowed expression made him prudent, even hopeful. If he could only say the right thing, he might save himself. “I found that parchment in a little cabin up on the slope of the valley. I knew then that I sought the one who had written these things. You see, when I wandered with Kansi-a-lari, she took me to a place she called the Palace of Coils. There I saw—”

He faltered because Marcus leaned forward, mouth slightly parted. “The Palace of Coils? What manner of place was it?”

“It lay out in the sea, on the coast of Salia. We had to walk there at low tide. Yet some manner of ancient magic lay over that island. We ascended by means of a path. I thought only a single night passed as we climbed, but instead many months did. The year lay coiled around the palace, and it was the year we were ascending, not the island. I cannot explain it—”

“You do well enough. Did you see the Aoi woman work her sorcery?”

“I did. I saw her defeat Bulkezu. I saw her breathe visions into fire. I saw her save her son with enchanted arrows. Oh, God.” A coughing fit took him and he spat up bile.

“Get him wine,” said Marcus. “I will hear what he has to say. Why did you not tell me that he traveled with Prince Sanglant’s mother? He can’t know what he saw, but careful examination may reveal much to an educated ear.”

o;I have taken nothing from you! I have never betrayed you.”

Her gaze had an uncanny glamour, and for once he was chastened by her anger. “What do you take me for? A lion? Or a fool?”

3

“YOU sorry fool.”

Out of nowhere, cold water drenched Zacharias’ head and shoulders. Sucking and gasping, he inhaled salt water, nasty and stinging. He gagged but had nothing in his stomach and finally fell back, clutching his belly and moaning.

The dead didn’t suffer like this. Footsteps padded over the planks.

“God Above, but it stinks down here,” said the cultured voice of Brother Marcus. “So. He’s still alive.”

“Were you hoping he would die?”

That voice certainly did belong to Wolfhere, but Zacharias could not recall where he was or why Wolfhere would be talking about him while the floor rocked so nauseatingly up and down.

“It would make my life easier, would it not? We’ll throw him overboard once we’re far enough away from land that there’s no hope he can swim to shore.”

“If he can swim.”

“I’ll take no chances.”

“Will you throw him over yourself or have your servant do the deed?”

“I will do what I must. You know the cause we serve.” The words were spoken so coolly that Zacharias shuddered into full consciousness, his mind awake and his nausea dulled by fear. Bulkezu had at least killed for the joy of being cruel. This man would take no pleasure out of killing, but neither would he shrink from it, if he thought it necessary.

“Monster,” Zacharias croaked, spitting out the dregs of sea-water and bile. He struggled up to sit. His chest hurt. The back of his head throbbed so badly that he might as well have had a cap of iron tightening inexorably around his skull.

“Brother Zacharias.” A hand settled firmly on his shoulder. “Do not move, I pray you. You’ve taken a bad blow to the head.”

“I can swim. I escaped Bulkezu by swimming. It’ll do you no good to throw me overboard.”

“Who is Bulkezu?” asked Marcus.

“A Quman prince,” answered Wolfhere. “Perhaps you have forgotten—or never knew—the devastation the Quman army wrought upon Wendar. King Henry never returned from Aosta to drive them out. It was left to Prince Sanglant to do so.”

“Are you the bastard’s champion? I’m surprised at you, Brother Lupus. What matters it to us what transpires on Earth? A worse cataclysm will come regardless to all of humankind, unless we do our part.”