Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists)

  Rebel Elements

  First Seal of the Duelists

  Jasmine Giacomo

  Dedication

  For Sensei David

  Acknowledgements

  To my editing team at Red Adept, I offer the thanks of a grateful empire. They, along with my beta readers, supporters, and impatiently waiting fantasy fans, are the spices in my seerwine.

  Pronunciation Guide

  Bantayan, Dunfarroghan and Shawnash

  All Bantayan terms are pronounced with the basic Latin sounds, with one addition. The “ng” phoneme is always pronounced like the end of the word “sing”, never with a distinct “g” sound. Thus, Balanganam is pronounced as if it rhymes with “a song o’ Tom.”

  Terms in Dunfarroghan and Shawnash are pronounced with the basic Latin sounds.

  Waarden and Raqtaaq

  The Waarden tongue is the official language of the Second Waarden Empire, and all citizens are required to learn it. Though most Waarden would cringe at the idea of their superiority being diluted, their language has been softened from its rough beginnings by the empire’s long inclusion of other cultures and tongues.

  The double A, so common in Waarden and present in its very name, bears a long ahh sound, used in “par,” while single A’s have the short, broad sound found in the word “cat.” The letter J sounds like a Y, as in “yell.” Words ending in “-e” have an extra syllable for that letter, formed of the sound “eh.” Katje’s name is pronounced CAT-yeh, and Lotte is LOT-eh.

  Much to the chagrin of the proud yet defeated Raqtaaq, their language makes as frequent use of the double-A as does the language of their Waarden conquerors. It performs the same sound as well, the long ahh, so that Raqtaaq is pronounced “rack-TOCK.” Their tongue also employs the “ng” blend mentioned in the Bantayan section above. Qivinga is pronounced “ki-VING-ah,” and rhymes with the British or Southern (American) pronunciation of “singer”.

  Akrestan

  Akrestan terms are pronounced like the Greek terms that inspired them, with vowel pairs always being pronounced as two separate sounds.

  Prologue

  The pale-skinned stranger set a crested lantern on the stump next to Savitu and waited to speak until his blond-braided men had gathered and set down their boxes. A ring of slender shadows hugged the tiny clearing.

  Savitu eyed the lantern’s crest.

  “No.” The visitor used the Karkhedonian dialect, though his height and brown curls marked him as Waarden. “The Hegemon didn’t send me. A distant cousin of his once saved my life. You know him as Isos. My name is Marco.”

  Savitu glanced at his cousins, who stood by the tree line. Mitlik wore an appraising look, wary of anyone of Waarden ethnicity, and with good reason. Qisuk’s expression was superior, as if by possessing broader shoulders and a more muscular chest, he automatically dispelled any threat the curly-haired stranger might present.

  “I heard you weren’t happy with your current situation,” Marco continued. “I’m not either. Perhaps we can come to an understanding?”

  Savitu eyed the dozen blond men behind Marco. Would they attack? Could Savitu’s hidden loyalists get him to safety if they did? “Does Isos know you’ve brought me gifts?” Marco stepped back in surprise, eyes raking Savitu’s person. “Isos didn’t inform you that I was a eunuch, then,” Savitu said, hating the sound of his high voice just as much as he had for the last fifteen years.

  Marco’s eyes rested on Savitu’s Raqtaaq features—dusty copper skin and long black hair. “You’re a Second.”

  “They let it hurt for Seconds.” Savitu’s hand indicated his cousins as well.

  Marco winced. “The Waarden Emperor did that to you.” Hatred coiled behind his words.

  “You know what we want,” Savitu said. “What is it you want?”

  The Waarden’s dark eyes shifted to Mitlik and Qisuk. The lantern’s soft light made Marco’s face appear too young for a beard, but the flickering glow couldn’t hide the aging around his eyes. Savitu had seen similar signs of unwanted experiences in his own grooming mirror.

  “You still have family, despite your fate. I have no one,” Marco said. “What I want is what you want, except that I want it for everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  Marco gestured, and his men pried the tops off the boxes they had brought. Savitu’s breath caught at the sight of so many sharp, glittering points. His cousins approached to view the gifts.

  “That’s not iron.” Mitlik frowned.

  “It’s better than iron,” Marco said. “It guarantees success, if we use it right.”

  Savitu blinked, absorbing the idea. “This will not be a swift victory.”

  Marco finally smiled. “I have nothing but time.”

  Skycaller

  The paddy water swirled around Bayan’s tanned brown shins as he stepped to the next row of rice seedlings. He nudged a few green stems with his double-pronged wooden baton to see whether they had rooted well. They had.

  He paused for a cool drink from the water skin he carried on his belt. Gnats buzzed, and frogs chirruped at the edge of the water. The day was already sticky, and the warm season not yet arrived.

  He liked it over in the corner of the block of paddies. No one watched him or looked at him from the corner of their eyes, as if waiting for a sudden reprimand. Why did everyone assume he was exactly like his father?

  Probably because his father was still their employer, no matter which position Bayan currently held. At fifteen, he’d worked in the fields for five years, learning the skills he would need to become the field supervisor for all the crops on his father’s farm.

  He looked forward to the responsibility. His father was a wealthy and highly respected man in Pangusay, but Bayan wanted to succeed on his own terms. Being seen as his father’s son wasn’t his goal in life, after all. Bayan had big plans for himself which didn’t all involve farming.

  Bayan twiddled his pronged stick, grinning as he thought of Imee. She was beautiful, and her laugh was pure music. He always tried to think of something funny to say, so that when he and his father traveled into Pangusay proper, to meet with Imee and her father at the trading market, he could hear her laughter again. She warmed all the right parts of him whenever she was close. She seemed to know it, too.

  Suddenly, Bayan's mind slipped from his pleasant reminiscing. What had drawn his attention? Had someone called his name from across the paddy? He turned and saw the other workers bent to their tasks.

  Then, in the murky water, he saw the ripple of an approaching swamp viper, barely noticeable as it arrowed toward him. Bayan searched for the viper’s prey, and saw a small cloud of jujufish fry nibbling imperceptibly at the skin of his ankles. The snake, nearly as long as Bayan was tall, disappeared among the seedlings. Bayan’s adrenaline rose. He knew the venomous beast could strike him by accident as it hunted its piscine meal.

  The surface of the paddy stilled, hiding the serpent’s approach. Bayan backed toward the low bank, and the jujufish followed.

  He gritted his teeth and grimaced, peering into the water. “Where are you?” he whispered, holding his pronged stick over the water like a spear.

  The snake struck in a murky blur. Bayan drove his wooden weapon downward and jammed it into the mud at the bottom of the paddy. He leapt toward the bank in long splashing strides, expecting a bite on the calf at every step.

  Dripping with muddy water, Bayan crouched at the edge of the paddy with the dry forest at his back. He stared at the water, but saw no sign of the snake. He’d have to go back in for his baton; he didn’t want to carve another one.

  Then his eyes fixed on the prong jutting from the paddy and
the tiny green shoot which sprouted from its handle. A new kind of fear shot down his spine. With a nervous gulp, Bayan slipped back into the paddy. He pulled the baton from the mud and turned again for the bank, keeping his actions casual. Only as he stepped from the paddy did he notice the weight dragging at his arm. The swamp viper’s skull was skewered by one of the prongs on his baton.

  Bayan strode away from the civilization of the farm and slipped into the trees, dragging the snake’s corpse with him. His breath went ragged as he struggled to contain his emotions. They were the source of his problem, after all. Every time he became highly emotional, something like this happened. Once, he had set the corner of a shed on fire and barely had time to urinate the small flame to death before one of the farm workers rounded the corner. Another time, he had made the surface of an entire paddy turn hard and cold to the touch. Luckily for him, no one else had been around, and the hard water had returned to normal before anyone discovered the change, the rice none the worse for wear.

  Bayan knew what was happening to him, and he hated it. He was turning into a Skycaller. If Imee ever learned of his condition, she’d drop him from her life like a hot coal.

  Months ago, when he’d realized what triggered his magical outbursts, he’d tried to suppress his emotions. The magical events began a year ago, and according to the legends of the Skycallers, Bayan only had nine more to withstand before the magic abandoned him entirely, finding him an unworthy vessel. He didn’t care about being unworthy. He cared about marrying Imee and taking over his father’s prosperous farm. He cared about living his life the way he chose. No stupid magic was going to steal his dreams.

  Bayan arrived at his destination: a crumbling, natural rock wall, deep in the forest, formed from the same volcanic runrock that shaped the spined mountains to the north. At the wall’s base grew a massive vine, thicker than his leg. It spread up the wall, tendrils clinging to rocky outcrops, wedged into crevices. Across the face of the wall grew ten enormous, deep red pitcher plants, nearly as deep as his arm could reach, should he be foolish enough to do so. One of the pitchers was sewn shut with catgut, and a hollow vine pierced its rounded bottom and curled down to a barrel in a protective box on the ground.

  He let out a slow breath. “Hello, Gamay. I need your help with something.” He shook the snake’s corpse to the ground, put his knee against the baton’s shaft and, with effort, snapped it in half. “I know this isn’t what you like to eat, but I’ll give you the snake too, to make up for it.”

  He scaled the wall and slipped the pieces of the broken prong and the snake’s body into one of the higher pitchers, avoiding the clear, thick, sticky liquid that oozed over his gifts. He knew it wouldn’t harm him if he cleaned it off soon, but the ooze left a distinct, spicy scent, and he didn’t want anyone smelling Gamay on his hands and coming out to poke around in her pitchers.

  Back on the ground, he glanced one last time at the enormous pitcher plant and headed into the trees to hunt for a nice hardwood from which to carve a new baton. Maybe he could get Dakila to spar with him later and work off some of the tension clogging his mind. Dakila’s aunt had married the Waarden schoolteacher, and Dakila had been a quick study when it came to Waarden unarmed defense techniques. He’d been Bayan’s defense instructor at school, and Bayan had been his best student. Now that Bayan was training for a vocation, the two enjoyed beating the guts out of each other regularly.

  Yes, that’s just what I need. Some pain to distract me from my disintegrating life.

  ~~~

  By the time Bayan returned to the paddy, all four of his workers had skived off. Shoulders slumped, he went to fetch them back. He knew where they’d be on such a hot day.

  “Bayan, where have you been all afternoon?” asked a creaky voice. Bayan halted at the corner of a storage house and found himself before old Sanakit, a veteran farmhand. Bayan pushed down his nervousness. Suppressing his emotions again, so soon, was difficult.

  “Why? Did I miss something?” Bayan tried to sound both innocent and curious.

  Sanakit stepped closer, and for once, the older man wasn’t smiling; untanned lines striped the skin near his eyes where he usually had laugh wrinkles. “That imperial surveyor is back.”

  “The one who mapped the roads around Pangusay last month?”

  “Yes. But he’s not mapping roads now.”

  “What’s he mapping?”

  Sanakit grinned, revealing straight but yellowed teeth. “Nothing. He’s looking for a place to build a bridge across the Mambajao.”

  “What? No one can build a bridge across the Mambajao. That’s why we have the Sand Guides.”

  “That is what we have told him, but the fat man with the pretty hair says he knows it can be done. Something about imperial magic.”

  At the mention of magic, Bayan’s stomach flipped and dropped. He shut his eyes and willed himself to be calm.

  “Are you well?” Sanakit asked.

  “Yes, fine.” Bayan released a slow breath. “So, the workers who abandoned my paddy have all gone down there to gawk instead of lounging at the swimming hole. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Sanakit grinned. “They would not have abandoned the paddy if you had been there. You sneak off to see Imee again?” Bayan lowered his eyes. That had been his excuse the last time his magic had gotten away from him, and now he was stuck with it. “Ha-ha!” the old man crowed. “Best your father marries you to that girl soon!”

  “I need to fetch back my workers. If you’ll excuse me.” He brushed past the man and took the broad dirt road toward the river. Sanakit cackled behind him.

  Bayan made his way down the road to the river’s bank. With his feet planted on the rich, dark mud bordering the Bank Road beside the green expanse of the Mambajao, he looked upstream and downstream for his missing workers. To the south, toward the ocean, the high banks of the river lowered until they were nearly nonexistent. The fields down that way had no need of artificial flooding, since the river spilled over everything in its path. To the north, the land rose and became rocky and dry. Pangusay proper was perched on a hill above the river delta, as were the farmers’ permanent houses, kalabao pens, and anything else they wished to save from washing away.

  Upstream, Bayan saw a gathering of people. Most wore the traditional undyed cloth of farm workers, but he spotted a few splashes of bright color: the strangely feminine imperial surveyor and his entourage. Bayan turned reluctant feet in their direction. He knew his father and the other Sand Guides would be angry at the prospect of a bridge across the Mambajao River. Only the Sand Guides had the focus and dedication to learn the complex stick-patterns that marked areas of safety among the quicksand of the river delta. The nearest river crossing to the north was two days away. Any trade or travel headed east from Pangusay needed the Sand Guides, therefore, to safely cross at low tide.

  The imperial surveyor’s bridge would end the need for the Sand Guides and their tolls. Bayan knew his father would not miss the income. He only guided travelers a few times a month, but most other guides risked their lives twice a day for the money they earned and relied upon to feed their families. And all of them took great pride in their ability to guide safely.

  The rest of the farmers and townsfolk, however, might take a different view. A bridge would allow them to carry their own goods to the next town’s market whenever they wanted, at no charge.

  Bayan braced himself at the sound of raised voices. I’m just here to gather my workers, that’s all. I need to get out of here quickly.

  The Bank Road was completely blocked by the surveyor’s fancy purple carriage, an imposing silverwood-trimmed structure twice as high as any farm wagon, with a team of four blue-gray horses and a sturdy roof laden with traveling boxes. Bayan shook his head, unable to fathom riding in such a monstrosity.

  The surveyor himself was surrounded by his entourage, a set of seven nearly identical men with curly brown hair atop pale faces lit by dark eyes. One young man, slighter than the rest, ha
d darker skin and wore a simple cream tunic and pants. Bayan had seen the group in town before—a group of industrious assistants who took measurements and paced distances. Now, however, the seven Waarden men appeared distinctly more martial as they guarded the plump, bewigged surveyor with their hands on their sword hilts. They stood impassive as several angry villagers clustered in front of them.

  Bayan spotted his four missing workers lurking near the back of the crowd. He approached them, touching the nearest on the shoulder. “Tammay,” he said, attempting to copy his father’s confident tone, “you need to get back—”

  “Bayan!” called his father.

  Stomach roiling with uncertainty, Bayan turned toward the authoritative voice. “Yes, Father?”

  “Come here. I want your opinion.”

  Startled, Bayan momentarily forgot his fears. My father wants my opinion, in front of all these people? In front of an imperial surveyor? He stepped away from Tammay and threaded his way through the small crowd.

  Datu stood in the center of the crowd with several other Sand Guides, while Isagani Magittang stood with a few local merchants. Bayan swallowed and joined his father.

  “This is my son, Bayan,” Datu told the surveyor. “He is a farmer, but he does not guide. As one who would live his life with your bridge spanning the Mambajao, let us ask him what he thinks.”

  Bayan felt the weight of many eyes upon him. He studied the surveyor. The man was short for an imperial, not much taller than Bayan himself, with light skin and impossibly pink cheeks that were plump without becoming jowly. Akrestoi, maybe? Hard to tell. His hair was a glorious bouffant of golden curls, and his clothing fluttered and winked with bright, lacy trim and bits of brass.