“Xis?” Now the polemarch regained his good humor. “Who said anything about Xis? Your journey will not be so easy. The Golden One is bound north on our fastest ship, following the coast.”

“North?” Daikonas Vo, Qinnitan saw, was not feigning surprise: he was genuinely astonished. “But where is he going?”

“To a small, backwater country few have ever heard about, let alone cared to visit,” the polemarch said, signaling for one of the servants to bring him something to drink. “It is so small he is only taking a few hundred soldiers, although they are all fine, fierce troops—your Hounds among them. And we are sending three more ships full of soldiers after him, too, as well as one of the Royal Crocodiles on a barge—one of the big cannon.”

“Taking them where?” said Vo, confused. “What country? Why?”

“Why? Who knows?” Johar took his goblet and downed a long swallow. “The autarch wills it and so it happens. As to where, it is some insignificant place called Southmarch. Now take your runaway whore and let me get back to the business of destroying a real city.”

41

Kinswoman to Death

The gods have reigned in justice and strength ever after, defending the heavens and the earth from all who would harm them. The fathers of mankind have prospered under the gods’ fair leadership. Those who follow the teachings of the three brothers and their oracles and do them proper fealty find a welcome place in Heaven after their own deaths.

—from The Beginnings of Things
The Book of the Trigon

A GULLBOAT JUST IN FROM JAEL, which had received its news from other ships newly arrived from Devonis, had brought word to Southmarch that the Autarch of Xis had sent a huge war fleet to Hierosol. The gullboat had left southern waters before collecting any further news, but no one in Southmarch Castle doubted that holy, ancient Hierosol was even now surrounded and besieged.

The doings of those aboveground only seldom stirred the inhabitants of Funderling Town, but they had already heard a great deal of bad news this year—the king imprisoned, the older prince murdered, the royal twins gone and perhaps dead. Many of the small folk wondered whether the final days had truly come, whether the Lord of the Hot Wet Stone had lost his patience with mortals entirely and would soon lay waste to all they had built. There was little work, anyway, nor much to eat or enjoy, so the most pious Funderlings spent their days praying and insisting that the rest of their people join them.

Today, two of the Metamorphic Brothers were standing just inside the gates of Funderling Town, scolding all who passed for trafficking with the sinful upgrounders. Chert turned his head away from them, ashamed but also angry. As if I had any choice.

“We see you, Brother Blue Quartz!�� one of them called as he hurried past. “And the Earth Elders see you too! You of all men must immediately foreswear and repent your wicked deed and evil companions.”