from false counsel.” Snyde clenched his teeth but kept on. “Your people disrespect you, and you tolerate it. You attend to dreams and follow signs left by a dangerous man your father had the good sense to banish. And a disloyal witch enchants you with music unfit for a king—songs abouttrouble, doubt, even pity for beastmen. Where are the songs that exalted House Abascar and taught our children who to despise?”
“Lesyl sings the truth. That’s the foundation of New Abascar. And you speak of crooks? You swore allegiance to my father when he appointed you ambassador. By those vows you are bound to serve his successor. But you’ve mocked me. You’ve planned my assassination. And you complain of crooks? That you climbed to such favor proves how flawed my father’s house had become. What shall we do about you?”
Cal-raven reached out swiftly, clasped the line of tarnished medals on Snyde’s tunic as if they were a fistful of coins, and stripped them from his jacket.
Snyde cried out in shock. Then he lunged, seizing the knife.
Jes-hawk’s arrow found its mark, its feathered end protruding from the attacker’s ankle. Snyde stumbled backward. The knife fell. He tumbled down the slope and, clutching at his ankle, came to rest among the roots of a gnarled coil tree.
“Snyde ker Bayrast,” shouted Jes-hawk, “I denounce you as guilty of conspiracy to kill the king.” He notched another arrow to the caster. “No trial is necessary. We all witnessed that you took the king’s weapon and threatened his life.”
“My father’s law,” said Cal-raven quickly, “demands execution. But this isn’t House Abascar. I’ll leave your sentence to a higher authority, the master of this territory.”
Snyde’s reddening face resembled nothing more than an infant’s in a petulant outcry. “What authority?”
“May the Keeper show you patience that you might learn from your mistakes, as I hope to learn from mine. Go home. Of course, you don’t believe in the Keeper, do you?”
As Cal-raven turned his vawn about and rode on without another word, starlings crossed the sky, drawing night like a sheet behind them.
“You’re a disgrace!” came the ambassador’s roar behind them.
“Shall I silence him?” Jes-hawk raised his caster.
“No. We’ll see how far his divided mind will take him.”
9
W HITE D UST
S traying from the sight of the stag hunters, young Cal-raven, only eleven years old, prodded his horse off the trail.
A sharp chill had daggered him from the shadows of that dusty, overgrown rise to his right. It was summer. What was this sudden river of winter flowing over the hill? Moving through violet trees, he found a sort of stair—an old mudslide’s hard, rippled clay—to carry him up and over the ridge.
As he reached the top, his father joined him. Bracing for reprimand, he was surprised. “You are your father’s son,” King Cal-marcus boasted. “Such curiosity. But you must avoid this place, both for its history and its deathly air, even though it calls out to descendants of Tammos Raak.”
“Something’s wrong, Father.” Cal-raven shivered.
“It’s winter here.”
“It’s the dust. Ice that doesn’t melt.”
They stared across a vast white crater, a bowl full of wasteland.
“They call it the Mawrn. No one really knows what it is. It can’t be found anywhere else in the Expanse. Look there, at the way the crater’s edge stands jagged against the sky. My grandfather called it Two Giants. Trace that side and this, and you’ll see the outline of two people lying down.”
“Yes. Their foreheads meet.” Cal-raven pointed across the crater. “And where we’re standing, their toes touch. But why is this here? How’d it happen?”
“Did Scharr ben Fray never tell you the story of Tammos Raak’s escape?”
“Many times. Tammos Raak’s children rebelled in the house of Inius Throan. They all wanted his crown. He fled, and when they caught up to him, he climbed the
“Lesyl sings the truth. That’s the foundation of New Abascar. And you speak of crooks? You swore allegiance to my father when he appointed you ambassador. By those vows you are bound to serve his successor. But you’ve mocked me. You’ve planned my assassination. And you complain of crooks? That you climbed to such favor proves how flawed my father’s house had become. What shall we do about you?”
Cal-raven reached out swiftly, clasped the line of tarnished medals on Snyde’s tunic as if they were a fistful of coins, and stripped them from his jacket.
Snyde cried out in shock. Then he lunged, seizing the knife.
Jes-hawk’s arrow found its mark, its feathered end protruding from the attacker’s ankle. Snyde stumbled backward. The knife fell. He tumbled down the slope and, clutching at his ankle, came to rest among the roots of a gnarled coil tree.
“Snyde ker Bayrast,” shouted Jes-hawk, “I denounce you as guilty of conspiracy to kill the king.” He notched another arrow to the caster. “No trial is necessary. We all witnessed that you took the king’s weapon and threatened his life.”
“My father’s law,” said Cal-raven quickly, “demands execution. But this isn’t House Abascar. I’ll leave your sentence to a higher authority, the master of this territory.”
Snyde’s reddening face resembled nothing more than an infant’s in a petulant outcry. “What authority?”
“May the Keeper show you patience that you might learn from your mistakes, as I hope to learn from mine. Go home. Of course, you don’t believe in the Keeper, do you?”
As Cal-raven turned his vawn about and rode on without another word, starlings crossed the sky, drawing night like a sheet behind them.
“You’re a disgrace!” came the ambassador’s roar behind them.
“Shall I silence him?” Jes-hawk raised his caster.
“No. We’ll see how far his divided mind will take him.”
9
W HITE D UST
S traying from the sight of the stag hunters, young Cal-raven, only eleven years old, prodded his horse off the trail.
A sharp chill had daggered him from the shadows of that dusty, overgrown rise to his right. It was summer. What was this sudden river of winter flowing over the hill? Moving through violet trees, he found a sort of stair—an old mudslide’s hard, rippled clay—to carry him up and over the ridge.
As he reached the top, his father joined him. Bracing for reprimand, he was surprised. “You are your father’s son,” King Cal-marcus boasted. “Such curiosity. But you must avoid this place, both for its history and its deathly air, even though it calls out to descendants of Tammos Raak.”
“Something’s wrong, Father.” Cal-raven shivered.
“It’s winter here.”
“It’s the dust. Ice that doesn’t melt.”
They stared across a vast white crater, a bowl full of wasteland.
“They call it the Mawrn. No one really knows what it is. It can’t be found anywhere else in the Expanse. Look there, at the way the crater’s edge stands jagged against the sky. My grandfather called it Two Giants. Trace that side and this, and you’ll see the outline of two people lying down.”
“Yes. Their foreheads meet.” Cal-raven pointed across the crater. “And where we’re standing, their toes touch. But why is this here? How’d it happen?”
“Did Scharr ben Fray never tell you the story of Tammos Raak’s escape?”
“Many times. Tammos Raak’s children rebelled in the house of Inius Throan. They all wanted his crown. He fled, and when they caught up to him, he climbed the
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