by Kevin Hearne
“So? There’s a greater chance of seeing plenty of other girls whenever we’re in port. Huge cities every time, Jorry, instead of villages and homesteads in the country. Math. Odds.” I snapped my fingers in his face. “Think about them.”
He squinted at me and sneered, ready to scoff by reflex, and then froze as math happened in his head. “Oh.”
I rolled my eyes. His attachment to Mella du Bandre had all the depth of a lily pad. “Your happiness is chained to your groin, little brother. Set it free.”
“My happiness or my groin?”
“Never mind. Shut up and stay miserable.”
I viewed the return to Möllerud as a proper thing. It would not be a helpless, hopeless grind across the tracks, tears coursing down our cheeks as blackwings fatted themselves on a silent city. There would be mourning, true, but there would also be a cleansing and a slow, patient redirection to order in the wake of chaos. A steady building after quick destruction.
Mother told me that this is the pattern of life, and I have seen nothing to contradict it yet: it slowly gets better but suddenly gets worse. And so we must always work, always build, shoring up our walls against the storms that will inevitably descend.
I have been thinking about that night when Motah stole a map of the continent from us. Was that the first gust of this later storm? We haven’t seen these “Bone Giants” in person, but that’s what hearsay is calling them. People we spoke with in Setyrön said they got to the tops of the walls and even got into the city before they were all killed. The tidal mariner dumped most of them into the ocean before they could land, and the same thing happened in Pelemyn. But they were tall and pale and thin like that woman, and their violence was abrupt like hers. And like the man who killed most of the du Hallards. At least Tarrön was safe with an aunt and uncle in the city.
When I tried to talk about it with Father, he shushed me. “Speak no more of that with anyone.”
I know his fear was that we’d be blamed somehow. The air was thick with it: Why hadn’t the mariners seen this coming, or the quartermasters, or the pelenaut? But there had been nothing for us to see except for a single, starving, nearly naked lost woman. And then, of course, there had been the stories of Tarrön and Mella, which the constable had improbably dismissed as some kind of mutant Fornish pirates. She may have never even told anyone about it.
On the way down to Setyrön in an impressive if motley caravan of soldiers, merchants, and other citizens, we came across an older Kaurian man and one of Reinei’s most blessed, a real tempest. I confess to staring impolitely: I do believe I was, for the first time, smitten.
The tempest—introduced as Ponder Tann—had shorn his hair practically down to his skull, and his face was likewise clean-shaven and so very pleasant to look at. He looked like a man who truly believed in the peace of Reinei. Over light brown pants and boots he wore a multitude of thin, gauzy swaths of bright orange and yellow fabric looped and tied around him. They were squares or rectangles knotted at the corners, nothing like a tunic or a shirt about him, just layers of sheer fabric. He must get cold, I thought, and then remembered that he would never be too cold or too hot unless he wished it. He had nothing to fear from the air.
His companion looked slovenly by comparison; if you didn’t see the Kaurian mistral’s osprey on his shoulder, you would assume that he was some kind of servant to the noble-looking tempest. The truth was the opposite: the tempest was there to protect and serve this old man.
He was largely bald but had let the gray curly hair around the temples and the back of his head grow out. He’d pulled it back into a queue behind him. His eyebrows had gone gray, too, and he had the beginnings of a curly, woolly beard sprouting on the dark crag of his jaw. His clothing was much more common and was confined to muted colors. I saw no house embroidered on his tunic apart from the osprey. He worked his way up the road, asking everyone he passed if they might have seen a Bone Giant before the invasion.
“No,” Father said, and I said, “Yes, we did,” at the same time. That earned me a dour glance from Father, and he asserted once more that we hadn’t.
The old man’s eyes shifted between me and Father. “May I introduce myself? I’m Gondel Vedd, a language scholar from the university at Linlauen.” That explained why he spoke Brynt so well. He had a bit of a charming accent but had no difficulty with the words. “The reason I ask is that one of these Bone Giants landed near Linlauen and we still have him there now. I’m able to speak some of their language, so I’ve been sent up here to see if I can piece together what happened and perhaps help our countries avoid further violence.”
Father said, “I’m sorry, but we haven’t—” and then Mother chucked him on the shoulder and scowled. Father sighed and jerked his head back at me. “Talk to my daughter.”
I sketched out for him what had happened that night with the giant woman who was possibly named Motah, and he asked me particulars about the map.
“Which map did you give her? A regional map of Brynlön and Rael?”
“No, it was of all six nations. A very good map—Kaurian made, in fact.”
“You’re positive?”
“Yes. It’s the only map of the world we had, and there was a drawing of Mistral Kira and her osprey on it, I remember that.”
“She probably didn’t make it back, then. Or else the leaders weren’t sharing the big picture with the soldiers.”
“I’m sorry, what do you mean?”
“I spoke with one of them recently. There are a few in Möllerud, and I’ve already warned the mariners at the front of the column to beware. He has seen regional maps but not a map of all six nations.”
“Oh! So our map couldn’t have made it back to wherever they came from?”
“They call it Ecula. And it appears unlikely. Unless the Bone Giants are lying to their own people.” He plunged his hand into a flat leather bag slung across his body and produced a strangely bound book with the foreign words Zanata Sedam on the cover. “Did she by any chance have a copy of this book with her?”
“No, she had a dagger with her, and that’s it. I mean, she might have had a book in her boat, but we never got a close look at that.” Then I remembered that I had recorded the whole thing in my diary and asked him to follow me to the back of the wagon. I crawled in, fetched my diary, then invited him to sit on the tailgate with me. I turned to the entry and showed it to him.
“Fascinating,” he said as he read it, and then turned to me. “Would you mind terribly if I made a copy of this account? It’s quite helpful and precisely what I was hoping to hear about.”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said. “And I know of at least three other families who have seen one,” I added.
“Are they nearby? Might I speak with them?”
“Tarrön du Hallard is in Setyrön. But he might not want to talk about it anymore. The Bone Giant killed his family.”
Gondel pursed his lips together. “I see. They can turn violent of a sudden, I’ve noticed,” he said.
“Is the one you have in Kauria like that, too?”
Gondel nodded. “He’s calm until he sees his religious text. Then he tries to get to it no matter what. A fanatic.”
“Well, I did write down what the du Bandres said. It’s in my entry about the clave.” I leafed through the pages until I found it and showed him.
“Ah! My thanks. You are so kind to share this with me.”
He produced his own paper and ink and scribbled down my entries in Kaurian, translating as he went. I let him work in silence and tried my very best not to stare at the tempest as he walked behind and to one side of the cart, keeping Gondel Vedd in sight. In my imagination he was doing the same thing I was and trying not to look at me, stealing glances out of the corners of his eyes. It was fortunate that Jorry was walking up front with the horses and saw none of this; he would tease me mercilessly about it just as I had teased him about Mella du Bandre.
When the scholar finished, he closed my diary and returned
it to me with both hands like it was something sacred. “I hope you realize what you have here, Kallindra,” he said.
“Just a diary,” I said, taking it from his knobby, ink-stained fingers.
“It’s much more than that. It’s a record of a way of life that no longer exists. The end of an era. It’s history. Whatever Brynlön may be in the future, it will never again be the country you wrote about there.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of it like that.” The diary seemed heavier all of a sudden, and I frowned. “I suppose you’re right.”
There would be no clave in a cornfield for us again. No happy visits to farms and villages or the special treat of that honey-apple bacon. All our usual customers were gone. Their lives were over, and ours were forever changed.
Gondel Vedd had understood that before I did. How? What had happened to him? He looked at me with such empathy in his eyes that mine welled up and I gulped, trying to swallow a sob.
“Does your family follow Bryn or some other god?” he asked.
“Mostly Bryn, but we revere them all like many traveling people do. I’m sure you follow Reinei.”
“Yes. I subscribe to peace. But it’s difficult to see Reinei’s work in Brynlön right now. I hope the wind will blow gently and bring you peace again soon. I will pray for you and your family if you don’t mind.”
“That would be very kind. Thank you.”
He bowed his head to me. “It was my very great pleasure to meet you, and I hope we will meet again in this life. Please be well and happy until then, and be wary. There were a few Bone Giants still in the city when we left it.”
The old scholar slid carefully off the tailgate and winced at some pain—knees would be my guess. But then he raised his hand in farewell, and so did the tempest. I waved back, carried along by the wagon, and watched them diminish as they turned to continue on their way to Setyrön. I hoped I’d see them again, but every revolution of the wagon’s wheels told me that the future was too uncertain to harbor such thoughts. My only certainties at this point are that my parents love me and my brother is unspeakably horny.
The bard waved to the crowd after returning to his own form. “That’s all for today! Tomorrow we hear more from your very own tidal mariner, Tallynd du Böll, as well as others!”
Immediately after the bard’s performance on the wall, one of the Wraith’s men approached me and handed me a set of keys. “Those will get you into your house. We’ve installed several security measures, and someone will tell you about them tomorrow. For now, enjoy your new home.”
“My new home? What do you mean?”
The longshoreman didn’t reply; he simply trickled away into the crowd like spring runoff. I made my way home as quickly as possible, curious beyond measure, as the sun edged toward one horizon and the moon peeked over the other. People in the streets were smiling, amused by Kallindra du Paskre and her assessment of her brother.
My house didn’t look any different from the outside except for the front door. There were three different locks on it now instead of one, though still just the single knob. I considered the ring of keys in my hand, wondering which one belonged to each lock. I was going to look silly while I tried them out.
“Dervan?” a woman’s voice called behind my back, uncertain and tremulous. I turned and beheld a familiar figure in orange.
“Elynea!” I threw my hand up in surprise and dropped the keys. “You’re alive!”
She began to smile and then frowned. “You thought I was dead?”
“No, I simply didn’t know; I’ve been looking for you.”
“You have?”
“Well, yes. Excuse me.” I bent down to pick up my keys. “Garst came looking for you a couple of nights ago, and that made me worry.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I was afraid of that. That’s why I didn’t come back.”
“Are you all right? How is Tamöd?”
“He has a black eye, but we’re okay otherwise. I mean—” She bit her lip, and her eyes welled a bit. “I’m feeling angry and stupid and don’t know how I’ll ever forgive myself for putting Tamöd in that situation, but physically, nothing permanent. We’re fine.”
“I’m so relieved. But please don’t blame yourself. All the blame rests with Garst. And if it makes you feel any better, he received his comeuppance from a Priest of the Gale.”
Elynea palmed the tears away from her eyes and said, “A Priest of the Gale? One of those Kaurian warrior monks?”
I grinned at her. “You should have seen it. He was so peaceful there at the end, so polite and cooperative with his face mashed into the floor.”
“Ah!” She clapped her hands twice and returned my smile. “So justice still exists. That does make me feel better.”
“Good. Are you safe now? Is there anything I can do for you?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Well, when we left you said that we’d always be welcome back …”
“That was true. And it’s still true.”
“I was hoping we could stay with you again while I look for another job.”
“Oh, of course! Of course! Please do! Where are the kids now?”
She hooked a thumb behind her. “We’ve been hiding at Dame du Marröd’s for the past few days. Do you still need furniture and … things?”
“Well, perhaps not. Some men were working on the house today, and I’m not sure what to expect when I open the door.”
“I saw them. They were moving a lot of stuff in there.”
“Oh. Shall we take a look, then?”
I asked her to hold my manuscript while I fumbled with the keys. “These are all new,” I explained. “I need to figure them out.” I began with the top lock and didn’t get it to turn until the last key. The main lock with the knob underneath it likewise didn’t turn until the second try, maximizing my embarrassment. At least I knew by process of elimination which key would turn the bottom lock. “Great. I’ll take that back,” I said, reaching for the manuscript. “Go on in.”
She turned the knob and pushed open the door, stepping inside. Her gasp of surprise was only a beat ahead of mine.
“They did a lot more in here than I thought,” I said.
The living area was fully furnished with a new sofa, chairs, and conversation table, as well as bookcases full of books that I did not own. I needed only a brief glance to confirm that it was all far above a university professor’s pay. That meant I was in deep debt to the Wraith or the pelenaut or somebody before I even got into the bedrooms.
“Oh, gods, I am in so much trouble,” I muttered. When the men with tool belts had bidden me farewell that morning, I had expected a few spare extras but nothing like this. I wasn’t looking at simple security and convenience; I was looking at luxury. And one way or another, the Wraith would make me pay for it.
“What are you talking about?” Elynea said. “This is fantastic! Look at this fabric!” She was petting the sofa like it was a precious baby rabbit, and I had to resist the temptation to join her. It did look fantastic, but I knew that I hadn’t earned it yet, and I feared what it would cost me.
I couldn’t worry about it in front of her, though, so I nodded and pasted a smile onto my face. “It’s very nice,” I managed.
The kitchen hid new dishes and silver in the cabinets. The bedrooms had entirely new beds and frames in them, along with hardwood wardrobes that looked like they might be imported from Forn. The one in my room almost certainly was, hand-carved with intricate flourishes and probably worth more than my annual salary at the university. The second room—which would belong to Elynea and her kids—had two spacious beds in it. It had to be an upgrade from Garst’s quarters or cramped shared space in Dame du Marröd’s house.
“This is wonderful!” she said, and turned to me; her expression lit up. “Your new job working at the palace must be treating you very well!”
“Yes, very well,” I said, ashamed that I couldn’t explain that I hadn’t paid for any of this. The perplexing t
hing was that I couldn’t see any of the security supposedly installed beyond the locks. That, I supposed, meant it must be excellent security.
“May I go get the kids?”
“Absolutely! They live here with you now.”
Elynea’s face twisted for a moment, and then she lunged at me, clutching me tightly in a hug made awkward by the fact that I was still cradling the manuscript at my side. She had her head turned sideways against my chest, and I couldn’t see her expression.
“Uh,” I said, so dull that I wondered how anyone could believe I was a professor. “I’m glad you’re back.”
She didn’t respond for a few moments, and I searched for something else to say. She saved me by murmuring, “I never should have left. You’ve been so kind.”
“Nonsense. You’ve been excellent guests. It’s easy to be kind.”
She squeezed a bit tighter and then let me go. “Thank you. I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll be here.”
She dashed out, and I returned to my bedroom and opened the wardrobe. My tunics were already hanging inside, and some of the shelves were occupied with folded clothes. I planted my manuscript on top of some pants and closed the doors, shaking my head. Something about the windows drew my attention: they were thicker around the edges. Drawing closer, I saw that they were new. The glass was quite thick indeed, and the frames locked on all four sides. To break in, someone would have to wield a tremendous amount of force to shatter the glass and undo the locks. Between the windows and the bolts on the front door I didn’t think anyone would be stealing my furniture again.
Unless Elynea left the door open while I was gone. Or even conspired with thieves to have me robbed while I was away. I still didn’t know what happened that first time.
But how odd, I thought, that the second bedroom contained two beds instead of one, just in time for her return. Almost as if the Wraith planned on me having more than a single guest. Was I, a nominal spy in the Wraith’s organization and therefore the pelenaut’s, being spied on in turn?
I recognized the onset of pervasive paranoia. Sarena used to have it bad, questioning whether every single person in her life might be an adversary. It hadn’t served her well, so I focused on what mattered to me: Tamöd and Pyrella would be safe here, and Elynea, too. They had lost so much, and their future was so uncertain. Let them at least have a secure place to sleep at night, since that was in my power to grant them.
