Eka was at the sweep, and directed the prau away from the ship. "Everyone ready?" he asked. "No mercy. Not to anyone." He shipped the sweep and pulled out his kris. "They all die."

"What about him?" one of them asked, jerking his head at Ardhi and flipping his own kris from hand to hand.

"He and I have an agreement. I don't break my word. When we are done here, we sail after the other vessel and deliver Ardhi back to them, the scum that he is."

And you've made that sound so honourable.

The reality had been different. Eka had wanted him dead with a passion, and would have happily killed him once his part in the deception was over. Just before they left the shore for the Spice Winds, Ardhi, his kris in his hand, had drawn him aside.

Quietly, he'd explained that he needed to catch up with Golden Petrel.

Eka shrugged, indifferent. "Swim after it, then," he'd sneered.

"No. You will take me. Even if you have to sail all the way to the Spicerie. All the way to Kotabanta, if necessary."

"Your mind is way out of your skull! I'm not doing anything for you." He jabbed a forefinger into Ardhi's chest. "This is your chance for redemption, Ardhi the Moray." He nodded towards the lagoon and the approaching ship. "Give us the time to blow it into splinters, and you can seek a place in death for your tortured soul. That is all I'll offer. If one of those pale men doesn't do it for me, I'll kill you myself when we're done."

"Look down at what I have in my hand, Eka."

For a moment Eka continued to hold his gaze, then he lowered it to look at what Ardhi held: the kris. "Made with Raja Wiramulia's bone and blood and his regalia. Now repeat those words as if you mean themand watch what happens."

Eka snorted. "I'll kill you myself when we're done with this Lowmian ship. Tonight."

The kris glowed, lit by the gold flecks within. It writhed across Ardhi's hand and the tip hooked itself into the front of the sleeveless jacket Eka wore. From there it squirmed its way upwards like a snake on the bark of a tree. At the neck of the jacket, the blade slid up until the point was jabbing into Eka's throat under his chin.

Eka, white-faced, laid his hand on the hilt, anchoring it against his chest in a tight hold.

"You see?" Ardhi asked softly. "I don't think it wants me dead. Not yet. Why don't you let justice take its course? The kris will kill me when the time is right. In the meantime, I will serve its will."

Eka remained motionless, scarcely breathing. Then he snatched his hand away from the kris handle as if it burned him. Ardhi caught the dagger as it fell. "We will catch up with Golden Petrel," he said, "when we are finished here."

When we are finished...

Such simple words. The reality made him sick.

Flames had a hold on Spice Winds. The ship was doomed, and those on board knew it. When the fire reached the magazine, not much would be left. The longboat was launched; the pinnace was just dropped over the bulwarks. Sailors were grabbing anything that floated and jumping into the water, all pretence of fighting the flames abandoned.

They splashed and kicked and rowed away from Spice Winds, desperate to save themselves. In the dusk light, they saw the waiting craft and headed that way. They thought they were going to be rescued. They thought there were Lowmian factors ready to aid them... until the clubs descended, smashing their skulls even as they reached out for a helping hand to those in a prau. Knives slipped between their ribs when they grabbed the side of the canoes.

The screams began.

He knew them all. Every single man. He knew the men who had despised him for his difference and ridiculed him. He knew those who had been kind and those who had been indifferent. And before the night ended every one of them would be dead. Pretending he heard nothing, he sat still, staring at the sky as the brightest stars were unveiled. When someone called him by name, begging for his help, he did not move. When Eka and his friends laid into the men in the water around them, when they pulled sailors out of the pinnace and the longboat and murdered them, he did nothing, not even when he was sprayed with blood and bone as Eka's men raised their bloodied clubs above their heads. Around the prau, gore swirled. Fish made the water boil with their frenzied feeding.

At his side in its sheath, the kris was still and dark, as if it too wanted no part in this ghastly massacre.

Every single death layered itself into his conscience, another piece of leaden guilt to weigh him down. Not one of these sailors would have been here to die this night if he had not first brought Spice Dragon to the isles of Chenderawasi.

They sailed all night, taking it in turns to sleep and steer. Even as he napped, Ardhi kept the kris in his hand, relying on the power of its sakti to keep him safe, but he need not have bothered. Eka and his friends were subdued, cautious in their dealings with him.

In the morning, they briefly called in at a beach, pulling the prau up on the sand, splashing the interior with water, then tipping it out to wash the blood away. They swam to cleanse themselves, their elation at their victory muted. One of them shinned up a coconut tree to collect some of the young fruit, so they could drink the cool milky water and scoop out the soft white flesh with their fingers.

And then they sailed on.

42.

Changes

Sorrel stared at him, furious. "Lord Juster told me he was sending men to look for him. Why didn't you tell me they didn't find him?"

Saker, unable to sleep, had come up on deck just before dawn. He'd been tossing and turning, worrying about what they would find when they finally reached Ardronese shores again, and how they could fight Prime Valerian Fox. He'd thought they'd have Ardhi's dagger to help them; he'd thought Ardhi would be able to explain something about how to use the wisps of the tail feathers to help them, but they'd never had that conversation.

Ardhi had never returned to the ship. Now they were on their own, with no idea of what would confront them when they returned to Ardrone.

Confound you, you bilge-rat of a lascar! Why were you so intent on revenge against Lustgrader that you remained behind?

And now here was Sorrel, up early, with Piper wide awake in her arms, railing at him.

He tried to explain. "If I had told you, there was nothing you could have done. You looked tired last night. I thought you'd be better off for a good night's sleep."

Her glare was not encouraging. "Why didn't Lord Juster wait for him?" she asked.

"Sorrel, we couldn't wait. Not with Spice Winds sailing into port. There would have been a fire fight in the lagoon. It's not our land, and we have no right to bring our arguments into their parlour. Ardhi obviously didn't want to come with us. We have to let him go, if that's what he wants."

"We don't know that was what he wanted! That Tuan Sri man might have taken him prisoner. He might be dead!"

"He chose to go back. He never told me why, but if he was in danger, he must have known it, and for some reason thought it worth the risk. Maybe I shouldn't have made the decision to let you go to bed without knowing, but even so, we certainly didn't have the right to make decisions for Ardhi."

She stamped a foot at him, an action so uncharacteristic he could only stare.

"You don't understand!" she snapped. "There is no way Ardhi doesn't want to sail on this ship."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I know him. He has nothing to stay for! He's a proud man, and a deeply traumatised one. To stay would mean being ostracised for the rest of his life. He could never marry. His own family don't want to see him. The woman he once loved married someone else. His own grandfather won't see him."

She took a deep breath and laid a hand on his arm. "With us, he has a reason to live. For a start, he adores Piper. But there's two far more potent reasons. Prime Fox is a sorcerer, and he has a huge financial investment in the Ardronese spice fleet to the Va-forsaken Hemisphere. And the heir to Lowmeer is probably growing up to be a sorcerer. Ardhi has a reason to live: to protect Chenderawasi by dealing with the dangers to its existence brewing far from its shores. He may never see his home again if he comes with us, but he'd not turn down the chance to help keep the islands safe. Never!"

"But he's not here. And that was his choice. Sorrel, last night, just as the sun set, we saw a flash of light in the lagoon. Then we heard an explosion."

"You think the Lowmians were firing on the town?"

"No. I don't think they would have had time to realise the factors were all dead. We think someone blew up the ship. It had to be Ardhi, along with some folk from the town. They probably had explosives from the factors' stores and Ardhi has the knowledge to use them. Perhaps that was his way of earning back his place among his people. An execution of justice that would restore his reputation."

She thought about that, then shook her head. "His actions resulted in the death of their Raja. I know it's hard for us to understand, given that the Raja is not human, but Raja Wiramulia was both their wisdom and the... the being who granted them their witcheries, their sakti, through his regalia. Imagine if it was our unseen guardian, and we only had one of them. How would we feel if someone came from outside and killed that guardian?"

He considered that, and his imagination told him she was right.

"It's worse than you know," he said grimly. "Ardhi told me the young Raja is not old enough to grant witcheries. His plumes do not have the strength yet, and true, vibrant sakti has to come from mature moulted plumes of the rightful Raja."

"I see. So the death of Raja Wiramulia was particularly tragic because he didn't have an adult male heir."

He nodded. "People here can never look on Ardhi the same way again. He was heir to a Datu who ruled a huge chunk of these islands. Now he's the most despised man in Chenderawasi."

She gave a grunt of exasperation, shoved Piper into his arms and walked away. For a moment, he watched her go, then followed her. Piper chattered to him in her own language of coos and aahs, bopping him on the nose with her fist and grinning when he pulled a face. "Da-da-da," she said, and his heart melted.

Sorrel had gone straight to Forrest at the helm, demanding that he show her where they were on the chart Ardhi had drawn for him.

"Here," Forrest said, and pointed at the map now attached to the binnacle table. "See that peak marked there? That's that one." He turned to view the coastline they were following at a distance and indicated a conical pimple rising above the backbone of the range.

"And what route did we follow through the islands on our way into Bandar Ruanakula?" Sorrel asked.

He leaned over and traced a line on the map. "This way. But Ardhi knew every rock and reef and the cap'n doesn't want to risk that route without him. We'll go this way." He ran his finger around the outside of the island group. "It's much longer, but it will be safer."

"Then we have to wait here," she said, "for Ardhi."

Saker looked at where she'd placed her finger on the chart. She was indicating where the two routes intersected. Ardhi had scribbled names onto the map in Pashali script, naming many of the features, and Saker read the words next to her finger: Pantai Emas, Pulau Dena. "Golden beach, Dena Island," he translated. He looked at her in hope. "You think he'll follow us?"

"If he's alive and free, he is already following us," she said with certainty.

"It's possible that if they wanted his help, they forced him to stay behind. And then, once the Lowmian ship was sunk..."

"He'll come after us, I know he will." She looked at Forrest. "Who'd get there first?" she asked him.

"You can never be sure of anything when you rely on a wind!"

"Oh, yes, you can," she said, "when you have the right dagger."

Forrest blinked, looking at her as if she'd taken leave of her senses. "You'll have to talk to the captain about it."

"We will," she said.

Saker pulled her away to the stern, where he sat down on a hatch cover and dug a hand into his pocket. He'd collected a pile of coloured pebbles and shells, and he spilled them out on to the deck for Piper to play with. She gave a gurgle of delight and slid down from his lap on to the decking.

"Can you ask the birds to find him?" Sorrel asked. "You did tell me you sent a message to the Pontifect by bird!"

"I've no way of knowing if those messages ever arrived," he said. "I sent six different birds all with the same message. All I could do was to imprint a scene on their minds, and couple it with an intense desire to be there. The picture I tried to recreate was of one of the Pontifect's guards standing in front of her palace looking at the Ard River and the setting sun. That way a bird might have been able to orient itself by the sun until they found the right place. But it was such long odds, Sorrel. There's even a possibility that they'd mistake the sunset for a sunrise and head off in completely the wrong directionand that's if they responded in the first place. Worse, they were all seabirds, and Vavala is on a river, not the sea. I lost contact with each bird about a day after they left me."

Piper offered him a shell and, after duly admiring it, he handed it back. She held it out to Sorrel instead. "That's lovely, darling," she said absently.

"I could try to send a bird to Ardhi," he said, "but what would I tell it to look for? Look around! There are prau out fishing all along the coast, probably more still within the shelter of the other islands. How can I tell a bird which one I'm interested in?"

She heaved a sigh. "Oh. I'll speak to Lord Juster. Perhaps he'll be prepared to wait for Ardhi. Keep an eye on Piper, will you?"

He let her go, ruefully aware that she had more chance of influencing Juster than he did.

Sorrel found the captain in his cabin with Grig Cranald. He'd never made a secret of his affection for his third mate, so she was unsurprised to find them sitting at ease in the luxury of the cabin, sipping brandy from ornate goblets. They both rose to their feet.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," she began.

"Not at all," Juster said. "Is this a social visit or business?"

"Regrettably, business, my lord."

"Then would you mind leaving us, Grig, please?"

The third mate nodded amiably and left them alone. Juster bade her sit and offered her a drink, which she declined. When she opened her mouth to apologise for disturbing him again, Juster silenced her with an upheld hand. "I never let my private affairs interfere with the running of my ship and everyone knows that, especially Grig." He sat down opposite her, picked up his brandy and asked, "What is the problem, Mistress Sorrel?"

"I regret I always seem to have problems when I come to you," she said. "And I appreciate what you've already done for me-"

He smiled at her. "But?"

"It's about Ardhi."

He listened while she explained, but when she ended by asking him if he would give the order to wait for Ardhi if necessary, his immediate reply was a shake of the head. "I'm glad to be rid of the lascar," he said. "Not that he wasn't a fine addition to the crew, but I mislike his magic, his plumes and his dagger. I don't want anything to do with this Chenderawasi sorcery and I'm delighted he's gone. What belongs in the Va-forsaken Hemisphere is best left there, mistress."

"We spoke to the Rani of Chenderawasi. She is the, ah, regent I suppose we'd call it, for her young son, the present Raja. She told us that Piper, and therefore probably the Prince-regal, is infected with sorcery. The only hope we may have for both the Regala's children is Ardhi's-"

He cut her off. "No. I can't believe that. If our hemisphere has a problem with sorcery, then we should look to our own witcheries. Or to Va." He stood, indicating it was time for her to leave.

She didn't move.

He frowned, saying, "Listen. Saker is a friend, and I was glad to help him back in Ardrone. But my ship and its crew comes first. After them, my liege lord. And all I've had since Ardhi came on board is trouble. And he has no right to come between you and Saker-"

She gaped at him. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I'm not blind. I've seen the way they look at you, both of them. Saker's a fine man and he deserves a fine woman. The lascar has no right to-"

She jumped to her feet, outraged. "No, you have no rights to say such a thing! Saker and I are no more than friends, and Ardhi has no interest in me. And I have no interest in either of them! How can I think of love when we are in such danger! All I care about is Piper and fighting the thing that hashas contaminated her. Lord Juster, there are such huge troubles facing us all, and I can't understand why you think suchsuch flibbertigibbet things can possibly be important to anyone at all right now."

They stood staring at each other, and she wondered for a moment which of them was the more surprised at her outburst. "I think," she said finally, "Saker might explain what's at stake better than I can. Excuse me."

She headed for the door, but he was there first, opening it and bowing her out.

Lord Juster never forgot his manners.

Outside in the companionway, she paused. Her heart was pounding, betraying her. For a moment she leant against the wall and allowed her desireand, yes, loveto wash through her. Bottled up emotion she had refused to acknowledge was momentarily set free to scour her equilibrium, leaving her shaken. This, she thought, this is why I must not love; it weakens me when I must be strong.