Pale Kings (2 Lost Gods) by Micah Yongo

Author:Micah Yongo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

EIGHTEEN

OMEN

“But that makes no sense.”

“I don’t dispute that,” Neythan said. “But it was the chamberlain I saw.”

He and Arianna sat on a bench opposite Caleb in the small room.

Caleb stared flat-eyed at him and grunted, rubbing his wrists. They’d removed the bindings only an hour ago, shortly after Neythan and Arianna had arrived back in Jaffra to visit with the elders following their release from the Sayensí’s shrine. Not that any of that mattered to Caleb. Since being ushered into this room to sit with him whilst the elders conferred regarding Neythan and Arianna’s findings, Caleb had been alternating between levelling Neythan with a cold, grumpy stare and gazing off to one of the featureless corners.

“Look,” Neythan said. “I’m sorry about leaving you here to wait.”

“Against my advice, I might add,” Arianna put in.

Neythan glanced sidelong at her beside him on the bench.

“What? It was.”

He sighed and returned his attention to Caleb. “Thing was, I thought it better to take Nyomi so she could guide us. She knows these lands better than any of us can.”

Another monosyllabic grunt, then, “And where is she now?”

“We don’t know.”

“Don’t know? What, she get bored of your company? Decide to make use of her superior knowledge of these lands and take herself off for a stroll?”

“We were separated, in the shrine,” Neythan explained. “Whole place was like some kind of maze or trap. When we came out, she couldn’t be found.”

“So, what’s the plan now? Wait here for her? See if she’ll return to visit Filani?”

“You’re sure Filani’s alive?” Arianna said.

Caleb shrugged, scratching at the old wrinkled scar tissue that covered his face. His brief captivity had aged him somehow, made the burns on his cheeks and neck seem more pronounced. “She was the last time I asked about her. She breathes, and little more than that, so they tell me. She has not woken since they stoned her in the street.”

A pause. The chatter from the street outside filled in the gap. They were in an enclosure of wood, rectilinear walls of thick pine beams lined one atop the other and welded fast with some kind of daub. The warm air wafted out through an opening above where the cabin tunnelled up into some sort of spout, leaving a bright patch of sunlight in the middle of the room’s dirt floor. A cookhouse of some kind perhaps.

“So… what’s the plan?” Caleb asked again.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh?” Caleb’s eyebrows hopped up – exaggerated, sardonic – his gaze switching between them. “No plan this time? No blind quest to this place or that, to discover some obscure and futile truth?”

“Caleb.”

He looked at Arianna. “What? You don’t tire of it? Well, let him leave you imprisoned and alone in a foreign land, bound hand and foot, see if it dampens your enthusiasm somewhat.”

“He didn’t choose this, Caleb.”

“And neither did I, Arianna. Neither did I. Shall I tell you what I did choose? I chose to make a bargain with him. To find you. And in return he was to find the people who murdered my family.

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