by Alex Bentley
His jaw clenches, and I do not know if it is rage or an attempt to stifle tears. Perhaps it is both.
“Nine years I was a slave,” he says. “It felt ten times that. The farmer who owned us, Gullen, treated us as less than cattle. Far less.”
“Those marks you said were battle scars…” I say.
“They were not battle scars. The lash. It was used often. More so on my father because the drink had weakened him and he was not as useful a tool. But the wounds inflicted on my father weakened him further, inviting the lash all the more.”
I remember the curious piece of knotted leather I found in his bag and how he had been angered when I handled it. A piece of knotted leather. As of the end of a lash. He must have kept it as a reminder of who he was, what he was.
He crouches next to the statue and chisels a chunk of stone from it.
“Gullen lost me in a game of spedig to a trader from one of the desert places in the south. But the trader said his people did not keep slaves, and he freed me. I asked if he would play on to free my father, but he told me that a father is a son’s responsibility. Gullen, eager to replace his lost coin, said he would sell my father to me, and he named a high price. He laughed when he set his price, saying my father was not worth more than a toenail. But he swore it, that price. He swore it in front of many people, and so he must honour it. I asked the trader who freed me if he would lend me enough coin to begin making my own, and he did. One day I will go to those Southlands, maybe even live there. The people seem so much finer than those of Abegan.”
He chips another stone from the statue, inspects it, and sets it aside.
“I grew my coin by playing spedig, and playing it well. For the most part. But every time I had nearly enough to free my father, I would lose, and I would lose heavily. I never fell much into debt, but I could never acquire enough to pay Gullen’s fee. Coin is a funny thing. It seems real when it is sitting in your hand, even more so when you have a purse full of it. But it can vanish so easily, so mysteriously, like early morning mist when the sun touches it.”
He chips another stone, but this one is too small to have a hole drilled in it and he tosses it away.
“My father will not live long. The punishments meted out by Gullen and the punishments he inflicted upon himself with drink will finish him soon.”
He looks at me. His eyes gleam with the threat of tears, but he doesn’t cry.
“I will not have him die a slave. I will not have the good man he was be thrown into a shallow hole in sour ground along with the bad man he became. I will free him and I will give him the warrior’s ending that he deserves. Because that good man who went to war is still within my father. And if I die, there is nobody who will give him that.”
I nod. It is all I can do. There are no words. Or I cannot think of them.
“Good luck,” says Ethra. “Good luck, Casmel Durn.”
I nod.
Casmel nods.
He goes back to his chiselling, and Ethra and I continue up the road.
And suddenly I think of the words.
I turn and say, loud enough that I hope he hears me, “They were battle scars, Cass. They were.”
Chapter 27
A Familiar Glyst
Eventually, perhaps a mile from the three coiling towers, the road branches off. Not just east, but west, northeast and northwest.
We head east. There is more ruin on display on the eastward road. Few of the buildings are standing, and those that are sag as if rotten at the very core. One structure, possibly a chandler during Utlath’s heyday—there is a carving of a candle above the door—looks as if a single kick would cause it to collapse in a wet heap. Another—a butcher’s shop given the hooks on display—has a bloated quality, like the ripe ball mushrooms Roisa and I would kick. If I were to poke the outer skin of that abandoned establishment with the point of my sword, it might burst. Or it might deflate in an instant, becoming a small, wrinkled thing.
The whole street smells of rot, and not the natural rot of, say, the forest floor or a dead tree. It is the rot of sickness. It is as the rot that took my mother.
“It’s funny how alike you and Cass are,” says Ethra.
“You are talking for talking’s sake now,” I say. “Because the silence frightens you.”
“That is, indeed, true,” says Ethra. “My bladder and bowels are competing for my attention, and my heart is like a straggis wasp caught in a copper pot. It is also true, however, that you and Cass are very alike.”
“Talk if you must,” I say, feigning disinterest.
“Well, you are both about the same age. He, a little older. But not much. You are both the same height. He is handsome and you are pretty.”
“There’s more to people than how they look, Ethra.”
“I had not finished. You have scars and he has scars. Yours from the Ritual of the Seven Cuts and the Seven Cups. He, from his time as a bondsman.”
“A slave,” I say.
“I was taught that ‘slave’ was an impolite word.”
“It is. But it is also an honest word. Some things should not be permitted to hide behind a fine cloak or a bouquet of herbs.”
“He lost his mother. You lost your mother. You are trying to save your father and he is trying to save his father.”
“I think it is too late for him to save his father. I think he just hopes to give him back his dignity for a time. A brief time.”
“And that is a good thing. Cass is a good person, for all his air of roguery. And you are alike in that manner, too. Cass is a good person, and you are a good person. And you, Alys, are a…” Her nose wrinkles. “Horrible!”
“I’m sorry…”
“That smell…”
It hits me a fraction of a second later. And it is horrible. It is as if the rank stink of the entire street has suddenly concentrated itself into our immediate vicinity. It is a smell so awful it should be visible. There should be a noxious cloud of acid greens and burning yellows curling about us. I stop in my tracks then turn on the spot, trying to locate the source of the appalling stench.
A rat.
Except it is the size of a horse.
Its bones thread in and out of its hairless flesh. Its head is disproportionately long and its mouth—opening now, wider and wider—has not the incisors of a rodent but rows upon rows of what must be hundreds of yellow thorn-like teeth that look like they could shred the meat from the bone in seconds. Its eyes are blood-red and bulging. It has arms that seem almost of human design, but they end in long, razor-sharp, curving talons, like that of the Great Eagle.
It rears up on its hind legs and lets out a deep, rumbling hiss, as if it has a belly full of snakes. It swipes at me with one of its talons. I leap back and draw my sword. Its tail, coiled away out of sight until this moment, lashes out and strikes Ethra in the side. She is lifted into the air and lands some yards away with a grunt.
Its other talon comes at me, and I meet it with my blade. The rat pulls back its claw, letting out a hiss of rage and pain. I cannot see that I did much more that score it though, and I am lucky to still have my sword in my hand; the jolt was considerable. I glance over at Ethra. She isn’t moving.
This is not a creature I can defeat. But I cannot leave Ethra where she lies.
“Ethra! You need to get up. We need to run!”
The thing’s tail is lashing at me, then. Again, I meet it with my sword. And this time, my sword is jolted from my hand and doesn’t so much as mark the creature’s leathery appendage.
I follow my sword as it skitters across the road and manage to pick it up, turn and block one then another swipe from respective talons. Each parry sends jarring pain through my hand, wrist and elbow. I wish I had the muscle of the statue at the gates. I don’t think I can keep hold of my sword much longer, so I swap to my left hand. The creature’s head darts at me, mouth snapping. I jab its face but strike one of those outer bones, and it is like jabbing at plate armour. The tail sweeps again, aimin
g for my feet, to trip me, and I jump, as if I am a little girl in Gafol, skipping rope. Its face darts at me again and I jab it once more, this time striking flesh. Either I have struck an already-infected wound or the creature’s blood is a poisonous-looking yellow.
I begin to feel dizzy and realise I am holding my breath. If its teeth, tail and talons do not undo me, its odour will. In the name of Beolas, God of Wild Flowers and Herbs, it stinks!
The tail comes at me again. I do not attempt to parry it. I attempt, instead, to shuffle back, out of its reach, and am only just successful. I feel the wind from the tip of its tail as it passes an inch from my face.
And then I feel the press of stone against my spine and realise I have backed into a wall and have nowhere to run.
I chance a look over my shoulder and see the cracked and damp-bloated wall of a building. To my left, a closed door with a carving above it so deformed it might be a spray of flowers or a display of offal. It could be the door to the premises of a flower-seller or a haruspex. I lurch for the door. Just in time. The rat’s tail smashes into the wall where I was standing with a resounding crack that would have been my bones had I delayed by even a second. I shoulder-barge the door—hoping, praying that my bucket of luck is not dry yet—and it flies in. Momentum carries me forwards and I collide with a table piled with pots and jars. I lose my sword amid the wreckage I have just created. In the gloom, I can’t locate it.
And don’t have time. The rat thrusts its head through the doorway, snapping inches from my face, and I thank Gewith for the dregs he has left me because the beast is too wide to fit bodily through the doorway. It strains to reach me but cannot. But already the wall around the door is beginning to crack and bulge. It won’t hold for more than a few seconds. I pull out my dagger, and when the rat snaps at me again, I dodge and bring myself alongside the thing’s head, and thrust my blade into its eye. There is a wet pop and the creature shrieks, pulling back and wrenching itself free of the doorway, my knife still in its leaking socket.
I watch it flee.
Only it doesn’t flee. An ordinary animal suffering such an injury would flee, would go back to its den and lick its wounds. But this isn’t an ordinary animal. It is doubtless Glystborne. Or if not Glystborne, altered by the Glyst. Instead of fleeing, it bounds toward easier prey.
Ethra.
I unshoulder my bow, reach for an arrow, but even as I do so, I know it is too late. I will never nock and loose the thing before the beast reaches Ethra, and even if I did, it will take five, ten arrows to bring the rat down. I think of those teeth, like thorns, hundreds and hundreds of them, designed for shredding.
“Ethra!”
She does not stir.
And then she is concealed from view by the rat’s bulk.
“Ethra!”
The rat rears up.
And somehow I do manage to loose an arrow. It strikes the back of the creature’s neck. But it doesn’t even seem to notice the injury, doesn’t so much as swat at it as you would a biting midge. I reach for another arrow. The rat raises one talon, poised to plunge down into Ethra’s inert, defenceless form.
“Ethra!”
And then the rat is shrieking again, shrieking as it did when I plunged the blade into its eye.
It is shrieking because, suddenly and for no visible reason, the rat is on fire.
From a space between two crumbling buildings, a man emerges. His hands are gloved in flame. He makes a gesture in the air, as if he is drawing some elaborate character or glyph. I glimpse the hanging afterglow of his burning fingers.
The flames that engulf the rat increase in their intensity. The creature staggers back, away from Ethra, its shrieking becoming a bubbling. It is beginning to cook. Even from where I am, some yards away, the stench is beyond appalling, and I gag repeatedly. The man with burning hands is unperturbed and moves forward with graceful confidence, continuing to inscribe the air—warped now by the heat—with complex characters.
The rat turns to run, but the heat is shrinking its muscles, melting its ligaments. It falls on its side, burning tail lashing violently, almost—but not quite, thankfully—finding motionless Ethra. The rat judders, spasms, then curls in on itself and is still.
The man claps his hands, and the flames go out in an instant. All the flames: those on his hands and those that were engulfing the now-dead rat. He goes to Ethra and kneels down next to her. I grab my sword, sheath it, then nock an arrow and stride out through the doorway and into the street.
“Don’t touch her!” I say.
He has saved her, true, but I do not know him and have no reason to trust that his intentions are good.
“My arrow has your heart in its sights,” I say.
“I’m sure it does,” says the man, his attention still on Ethra. “But you have just seen what I’ve done to that Glystfell. You would burn quicker.”
As if to underscore his threat, there is a loud crack from the rat and its torso collapses in a flurry of embers.
“Glystfell?” I say.
“The rat. There is wild Glyst hereabouts. It changes things. Often not for the better. It can be like a scabwolf’s corpse in a well, wild Glyst. A kind of poison. Only it changes more than it kills. But it kills, too.”
He puts a hand to Ethra’s throat.
“I’m warning you,” I say, and close some of the distance between us. The heat from the burning rat is harsh against my face, but the smell is rapidly diminishing in strength and offensiveness. The man is about my father’s age. His hair is grey and long, tied in a ponytail. He is wearing a motley combination of colourful robes and trousers and mismatched boots. He has the build of a warrior, though he appears to have no weapons, and there are scars crisscrossing his face that have the irregular appearance of those received in combat.
“If I meant you harm, you’d both be ashes by now. I’ve been watching you since you descended the wall. You and the idiot scavenger, looking for his traitorstones. Your friend, here, is concussed. Nothing serious. Her heartbeat is steady. I have herbs that will rouse her back at the Library. We should get her there quickly, though. What’s your name?”
“It’s none of your business. What’s yours?”
“Madec. Madec Teeg.”
Chapter 28
Stories and Songs
It takes me a second to identify just why that name seems so familiar.
Madec Teeg.
Then it comes to me in El’s matter-of-fact tones:
I saw him on the edge of the Freewood. I was a little younger than you… He was making a fire… instead of using tinder and flint, he just… clicked his fingers… And suddenly his hand was gloved in flame. He held his fingers to the kindling until it was burning steadily.
Then I hear my father:
I’ll tell them we saw someone in the Freewood, a man. A man making fire with his bare hands. A man with the Glyst.
Then El once more:
His name was Madec Teeg. He’d had the Glyst for three years and had been chased from his village near the Leccan Forest. His story shamed me because we had not chased Glysters from our village. We had slain them. Five in my lifetime.
“I know you,” I say. “I know you, Madec Teeg.”
He looks at me with suspicion.
“How?” he says. “You seem too young to have heard of my exploits.”
“I don’t know of any exploits. Only that you fled your Leccan village when you were about my age and you were briefly looked after by Elsam Clainh, my aunt.”
His brow furrows. Then he stands, smiling.
“El?” he says. “El from Gafol?”
“Yes,” I say. “She spoke of you.”
“That was such a long time ago. But I have not forgotten her. I would be dead without her, I don’t doubt.”
“And yet you left without a word.”
“My Glyst began to go wild. I could feel it slipping from my control. I feared I would hurt her.”
I lower my bow but keep the arrow in place.
“And yet she was hurt. I saw it in her eyes.”
“I am sorry for that. I wanted to go back, but first I made my way here, to Utlath as was. I had heard of the Hollow, of how they would drain the power from a Glyster.”
“And you’ve been here ever since?”
“I did not arrive here for many years. En route, I was captured by a mercenary named Hytir. He was from the East Edge Islands. The people there did not believe the Cwalee would return, and so they put Glysters to work, treating them as less than people, keeping their numbers low and employing them as useful tools. This was before Bansowa became the ruler of the East Edge. Before the Uprising… and what followed. The Slaughter. I was pressed into service as a weapon. I fought in many battles, none of which I wanted any part of or, more often than not, could even understand the purpose of. After many years, during the Slaughter, I escaped. I came here to be disarmed, to be unforged. Instead, I found the Library. I have been here ever since. Reading.”
“Reading?”
“I will show you,” he says. “But first we need to get moving. There are many Glystfell around this part of the city. Bigger and worse than the one I have just burned. Now, I’m going to lift your friend. Please refrain from putting an arrow in me.”
“Very well,” I say, sliding the arrow back into my quiver and shouldering the bow.
He scoops Ethra up with ease, as if it is just Skin-Ethra he is lifting, and starts walking back the way we have come.
“The Library is this way, in the West Streets. It is a little safer there.”
I catch up with him, but struggle to keep pace. He has a long stride.
