by Jen Williams
Despite everything, she smiled to herself, and immediately felt a curious push from Celaphon.
What pleases you so?
Nothing. Go back to sleep.
This, then, it stood to reason, was where the worm people went at the end of each Rain. This was their long-sought-for hiding place. Hestillion left the edge of the valley of the eggs and headed back to the Behemoths, looking above to the distant crack through which they had entered. Although she had explored around the crevasse, she had gained no real information about their location. Where in Sarn was this? Where had the old enemy been hiding over all the long years? She should like to know, if only for her own amusement.
She made her way towards the corpse moon, trying to ignore the busy creatures clinging to the Behemoths all around, when a sudden burst of frantic activity to her right made her pause. The softly curving wall of the Behemoth above her flexed and twisted until an opening appeared, and something awkward began to crawl forth. It appeared to be a creature halfway between a giant burrower and a spider-mother; a long-bodied beetle with a flexible segmented body and long legs bristling with hooks and barbs. Its head was little more than a huge pair of black pincers, and it twisted this section around to look at her – she caught an unsettling glimpse of a cluster of tiny red eyes, like dots – and then it promptly fell on her.
Hestillion hit the ground heavily, all the air knocked from her in an instant. The thing was twice her size and wriggling frantically, the bristling texture of its legs catching her hair and yanking it from its braid. Belatedly, Hestillion realised the thing was poorly formed, and broken somehow. Its legs were making grasping, uncontrolled movements, and a distressed, mewling sound came from somewhere at the centre of it.
‘Get off me!’
Her command had no effect. The thing whirred and twisted, digging its claws deeper into her while the gritty floor of the cavern dug into her back through the leather of her jerkin.
‘Roots and stones, get off me!’ A tiny shred of panic growing in her chest, Hestillion briefly considered calling out for Celaphon, but the dragon, as strong and as mighty as he was, was not known for his precision. Summoning him here, into this tight space between the Behemoths, would likely only do more damage. Or he would simply step on her by accident. Grimacing, she lifted her head and strained her neck, looking at her surroundings. Communicating with the creature writhing on her would clearly do no good – the thing was suffering from the broken connection that afflicted all the Jure’lia and couldn’t obey her. She needed to try another way.
In the shadows beneath the Behemoth, something tall and pale moved. One of the queen’s other experiments.
‘You! Come here!’
The figure did not even turn to look at her. Muttering in disgust, Hestillion closed her eyes and reached within the busy darkness of her mind, seeking out the web of connections the crystal wedged in her chest had given her. It was like running her hands along the edge of a lethal blade – so sharp and so intimate that the pain would only be apparent later – but there it was. She grasped at the figure at the edge of her awareness, feeling the slippery clay of its mind and ignoring it, simply commanding it to come.
Hestillion opened her eyes. The insectoid beast was still on top of her, leaking greenish fluid from between its mandibles, but the pale figure in the distance was coming closer, its blank face oddly intent. Hestillion recognised it as one of the man-like things the queen had made not long after she had come on board the corpse moon; a thing with graceless bat-like wings and skin the colour of porridge. A thing made to be summoned.
When it arrived, she glared up at it for a moment.
‘Well? Get this thing off me.’
More and more now, the things she voiced openly echoed down through the Jure’lia web, and immediately the grey man bent down and snatched up the writhing bug. There was an awful moment when the creature’s bristling legs caught in Hestillion’s hair, threatening to yank it out at the root, but she tore it free and suddenly she was back on her feet. A shiver of revulsion moved through her body.
‘This place. These things.’
She stopped, realising that the grey man was still standing with the oversized bug in his arms, waiting for her next command.
‘Take it away,’ she told him.
He turned, his broad body glistening in the dim light, and Hestillion watched him go, her face creased in thought.
Later, when she was back within the corpse moon, she made her way to the central chamber that Hestillion now thought of as the queen’s ‘crafting room’. It was here, in the steaming white pools, that she and Celaphon had been permanently joined to the Jure’lia, and it was here that the queen had made her strange grey flying men. Several of them lined the walls, as silent and as still as sentries.
‘You. Come here.’
There was no hesitation. One of the grey men came forward, and when she told it to get into the white crafting pool, it did so immediately, lying with its face to the ceiling. And why should you be afraid, thought Hestillion, as the steaming waters shrouded its body. This is where you were born, after all.
Hestillion pulled on a pair of leather gloves that reached to her elbows, and then sank her hands into the fluid. She waited, just in case the flesh should fall off her fingers, but the gloves seemed to be doing their job, so she reached for the creature’s body. As she had hoped, it had become malleable, and when she pressed her fingers into its flesh it gave way like sticky dough. She could shape this thing. Shape it into anything she wanted.
Why? Hestillion recognised her own voice in her head, a slim remnant from the time before she had thrown herself in with the Jure’lia. It was very small. Why do you need to change its shape at all? Who are you trying to recreate here?
Hestillion ignored it.
Instead, she leaned forward and, mostly feeling her way, began to pull and stretch the pliable flesh into new, more pleasing shapes. Her hands caressed its blocky head, smoothing it into something narrower, more appealing. The queen did not understand the importance of faces, or the reassurance of ears, and neck muscles, the crisp shape of a jaw. She thought of the ceramic art works she had made when she was a child, and an absent smile touched her lips.
‘I have missed creating things,’ she said, her voice loud in the enormous chamber. ‘And you will be someone very special. Someone at my back, always. Like a brother should be.’
Chapter Six
‘What, if anything, can be done about Tyranny Munk?’
Agent Chenlo stood for a few seconds longer as silence grew within the war-beasts’ courtyard, and then she sat on the chair they had brought out for her. Vintage pursed her lips and looked around at their extraordinary gathering. Even with this fresh pile of horse-dung dumped in their laps, it was hard not to appreciate the sight of all the war-beasts together under the bright sun, with their warriors beside them, standing still and serious. Noon and Vostok, Tor and Kirune, Bern and Sharrik, Aldasair and Jessen. Helcate, and yes, even herself. The only figure that stood apart was Agent Chenlo herself, and although Vintage resented her presence – this courtyard was private to the war-beasts and their companions, after all – she had to admit that the woman had a presence of her own. She sat now waiting for their response, her hands, bare of gloves, folded neatly in her lap. Her black hair with its bolt of white had been pulled back into a loose braid, and she held her head up. This was a woman who was used to keeping her movements in check.
Aware that the silence had gone on too long, Vintage cleared her throat.
‘It’s quite a story you bring us, Agent Chenlo. Please do forgive us if it takes a while to get it all straight in our heads.’
The woman lowered her head in a movement that was more of a bow than a nod.
‘It’s a story, all right, but I don’t see what it has to do with us.’ Noon stood the furthest from the woman, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes averted, as if the bat-wing tattoo on Agent Chenlo’s forehead were something obscene she
couldn’t bear to look at. ‘This is the Winnowry’s fuck-up.’
‘I would agree,’ murmured Bern. His posture mirrored Noon’s, his burly arms crossed, his wounded hand hidden from view. ‘We’ve enough on our plate to be getting on with, without getting involved in the leftover power struggles of the Winnowry.’ He paused, tipping his head slightly to one side. ‘And the Finneral people have long cast out any loyalty we might have had to your castle of fanatics.’
Again, Agent Chenlo bowed her head in acceptance. ‘Your Stone Talker,’ she said. ‘That was an unfortunate episode.’
‘Your entire history is an unfortunate episode,’ added Vintage, and watched as a flicker of discomfort moved across the woman’s features. ‘The entire place should have been smashed to pieces years ago.’
‘I feel I must remind you, I am not the Winnowry.’ She had lifted her head and her gaze was direct and defiant. She had, Vintage noticed, light grey eyes, like summer clouds. ‘No more than the Lady Noon is.’
Noon made an indignant noise at that, but Aldasair had stepped forward. Behind him, Jessen stood tall and still, her black ears cupped forward to better hear them all.
‘It is more complicated than Winnowry business. We cannot simply let it be handled by someone else, and we cannot let things continue as they are. There is a war-beast involved . . .’
‘A war-beast that is our kin!’ Vostok surged forward, her violet eyes blazing. Vintage watched with interest as the Winnowry agent stiffened in her chair. The courtyard was the largest in the palace, but it could still feel very small when it contained an angry dragon. ‘It is an outrage that they were ever taken from us. What Noon and I did was the barest vengeance, a tiny taste of my anger!’ Vostok huffed, and wisps of grey smoke curled from between her teeth. ‘All creatures of the Winnowry should be smoking husks, in my opinion.’
‘Outside of our understandable anger,’ Aldasair continued, ‘there is the question of how this makes Ebora look to our potential allies. A war-beast stands at the side of a despot, enforcing her will. The leaders of Jarlsbad will not stand for such treatment, I am sure.’
‘That’s what worries me.’ Tor had been standing back under the awning, half hiding in the shadows there. When he stepped into the light, Vintage was struck by the lines of his face – did he look gaunter than he had? But then his usual half-smile appeared, and he was once again his shining, handsome self. ‘Do we really have time to get into a conflict with Jarlsbad? If we go there, poking our nose in, it’s only going to look like we’re stirring things up.’ He shrugged. ‘We should let them deal with it. Keep our heads down.’
‘But our sister!’ Sharrik shook out his great head, the feathers on his neck and chest puffing up to make him look even more enormous. ‘They must be with us. It is our way.’
‘That there is a war-beast out there that we have not seen nor smelled, who has not stood with us . . . a rogue war-beast . . .’ Vostok’s claws flexed against the flagstones. ‘Have we all forgotten the monstrous creature that flies with our enemy? That worm-touched dragon has cost us dearly. We cannot allow another rogue war-beast to grow into being out of our sight. The bright weapon and I will travel to Jarlsbad together, and we shall destroy this Tyranny as we destroyed the Winnowry, and bring our sister home.’
‘My darling, it may not be as easy as that. If what Agent Chenlo tells us is true, our rogue war-beast has already bonded with Tyranny Munk. Getting them to come back to Ebora, especially if you have just roasted her companion alive . . . well, we might lose all of you.’
Vostok snorted. ‘Whatever this rogue is, it is surely a runt, while I am the most formidable of all of us.’
Sharrik made some rumbling noises at this, and Noon placed her hand on Vostok’s neck. The dragon grew quiet at her touch.
‘What do you think we should do, Vintage?’ Noon looked as serious as Vintage had ever seen her. ‘You met Tyranny Munk, you spoke to her. What do you think?’
Vintage sighed. Thinking about Tyranny’s subterfuge still brought on a sharp pang of guilt, of disappointment in herself, and a little throb of pain in her newly healed ankle. Bitterly she remembered the moment Nanthema had betrayed them; the expression of mild discomfort on her face when she was found out. Ultimately, Vintage’s devotion had meant very little to the Eboran woman, and Tyranny had got exactly what she’d wanted.
‘I think, my darling, that I let you all down enormously, and if I had been thinking more clearly, we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.’
‘Helcate,’ said Helcate. Vintage reached up and scratched him behind the ears.
‘But my dear friend here is right. My self-pity doesn’t help us either. My impression of Tyranny was of an intelligent, if cruel, woman. Her past as a gang leader in Mushenska suggests that she is bold and ruthless, capable of anything. Being under the boot of the Winnowry can’t have been easy for a woman who is used to wielding power, so now she has seen her chance, and grabbed it. Getting her to let go of it . . . will not be easy.’
‘You think it’s a possibility though?’ said Tor.
Vintage shrugged. ‘Ruthless, but not utterly heartless. She was clearly very fond of her pet assassin, Okaar, and his little sister, Jhef. They had a bond, I’m sure of it. Perhaps that suggests there are some softer places under that iron-hard shell.’
‘Diplomacy,’ snorted Vostok. ‘This is what you speak of.’
Vintage smiled at the dragon’s disgust. ‘What I think, Noon, is that perhaps the very first step we need to take is to talk to her. Explain the situation. Appeal to her better nature. Suggest, very gently, that now is not the time to be a thunderous pain in everyone’s rear end. And also suggest, very gently, that defying the war-beasts of Ebora would have an unfortunate outcome.’ She turned to Agent Chenlo. ‘You must have known the woman to some degree. What do you think?’
Chenlo looked surprised to be asked. ‘I knew her a little. We did not like each other. She had no interest in the other women imprisoned by the Winnowry, only in what she could hoard for herself. If, perhaps, you could convince her that giving up the war-beast is in her own best interest . . . I suppose it may be possible.’
‘So what are you thinking?’ Tor pushed a loose strand of hair behind his ear. ‘Are you going to send her a very sternly worded letter?’
‘Darling, I don’t think even my writing skills are up to that. No. I will go there, with Helcate, and with Agent Chenlo here. Familiar faces.’ She grinned sourly, thinking of Tyranny Munk’s face when she realised Vintage was very much still alive and very much still a pain in her arse. And would Nanthema still be with her? She thought it was entirely possible. ‘Familiar faces are what’s needed here.’
As the group dispersed, heading off to their various tasks, Vintage heard a polite cough from behind her and turned to face Agent Chenlo. The woman was an inch or so taller than her, and there was a wiry aspect to her frame that suggested a life of constant travel, along hard roads and across stormy skies.
‘Yes?’
‘Lady de Grazon, you appear to have volunteered me for something. For a task.’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘That was not discussed with me.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And to which I have not agreed.’
‘Ah.’ Vintage turned and looked down the corridor to see Noon just disappearing out of sight. The young woman did not like to be in the company of other fell-witches for very long, that much was clear, and Vintage could hardly blame her. ‘You don’t want to help? I thought you came here to help, Agent Chenlo?’
The taller woman paused, also looking down the corridor, as if she too wished to see where Noon had gone. In the moment’s silence, Vintage found herself drawn to the eagle tattoo around Agent Chenlo’s neck. It was the most extraordinary work, a symphony of brown, black and blue lines. Much finer in line and detail than the tattoos of their Yuron-Kai allies. Vintage was filled with the urge to ask about it, and opened her mouth to do so, but Chenl
o was speaking again.
‘All I have wanted to do is see that the witches – that the women who have been freed from the Winnowry – have a chance of survival. That is my purpose here.’
‘Good. Great. And you’ve brought them all here, haven’t you? Shepherded them to the gates of Ebora, and now they have shelter, and food, and no one is locking them up in cells. We have taken these women in, Agent Chenlo. They are safe.’
‘And now . . . I owe you?’
Vintage grinned. ‘No one wants to see these women cast back out, my dear. And it seems to me that what is happening in Jarlsbad is a Winnowry problem.’
‘Lady de Grazon, I do not believe for a moment that you would force the fell-witches back out of Ebora. The Lady Noon is dear to you.’
Vintage surprised herself by laughing. ‘You’ve got me there, I suppose. Come on, let’s get out into the sunshine and you can tell me everything you know about our good friend Tyranny Munk.’
Outside in the palace gardens the weather had turned, bringing clouds and a freshening breeze that promised showers, but Vintage and Chenlo walked out anyway. When it did start to rain, fat drops of summer rain that thumped into the grass in an unruly manner, Agent Chenlo smiled and lifted her face to it. Catching Vintage’s look, she shook her head slightly.
‘When you have spent so many of your earliest years in a cell, you never quite get over the miracle that is weather. The movement, the taste of it . . .’ She trailed off, and cleared her throat. ‘You wanted to know about Tyranny Munk.’
‘Yes. Quick, let’s get under this tree. You might be all for the rain but I’ve forgotten my hat.’
They stood, watching as everyone caught out in the brief shower moved towards other trees, or headed back inside the palace. People were laughing, amused by this sudden change in the weather. They think the Jure’lia are gone, Vintage reminded herself. It’s easy for them to think that when there’s no corpse moon in the sky.
‘Tyranny was turned in by a member of her own gang, the Salts,’ said Chenlo. ‘I assume you already know that?’
