A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  I missed Tarrech too, and always would. But holding on to him would be a poor foundation on which to build my future. At the same time, questions weren’t a great foundation either, but they were all I had other than a nascent hope for something beyond wishful thinking. Was it possible for a pair of lonely ascetics to have a slice of happiness in the middle of a war? Would I be able to let my guard down enough to speak freely to him as he had to me? Or: Was he playing me? What if he was my best shot at a blissful relationship and I ruined it because of my dithering? What if, like Tarrech and Aevyn, I could have it all for just a single season? Would it be worth the pain that followed when it was over?

  I have kept my heart safely cocooned for so long because I don’t know what the world will be like if I tear free of it. My kenning protects my body from most danger, so I run into it unafraid. But I have no protection for my heart except to keep it to myself. There I am vulnerable, so there I am most guarded.

  I am going to run down this new road because I promised myself I would. But I cannot do so without an excess of caution, and I hope Curragh will recognize that and be patient and turn out to be all I ever want to have.

  When I showed up to the refugee kitchen in the morning, Chef du Rödal set me on sardine duty again, though there was some variety in the catch that day. The bulk of the daily offering would be shrimp pasta. But still no shipments of vegetables. At least none that had reached her.

  “Heard there was a scuffle at the docks last night. Fornish ship came in with a load of produce, and some fish heads swarmed it once a few pallets were unloaded. You’ll notice nothing got here. But somebody’s going to be serving produce in town today or selling it at the market. Whoever has it either was in on the heist of that cargo or paid whoever did it.”

  “A vegetable heist? Clams and tentacles.”

  Fintan wanted to meet at the Roasted Sunchuck again, and it was crowded as before, but there was very little on the menu—and no vegetables.

  They had the same sardines as everyone else, but they weren’t packed raw in oil and salt; rather, they were grilled by Hollit and served with garlic aioli and toasted baguettes with some onion jam she had lying around. They had some pasta dishes and a limited number of sunchucks, but that was it. There was, however, plenty of beer and liquor available, because those ships kept coming in.

  Hollit and Orden admitted to us that they wouldn’t be able to stay open much longer without resupply, and they’d heard several restaurants had closed already. Our favorite chowder house was closed until further notice, as was the Kaurian restaurant. The Fornish place was closing at end of business, Hollit said, and the Roasted Sunchuck would in a couple of days if something didn’t come in.

  The meal was as delicious as everything was in their place, but we ate with a certain measure of anxiety on the side, like when floodwaters are ankle height and rising but you’re not quite panicked yet because the water hasn’t reached your nipples.

  When we got to the wall later, an assortment of drummers was waiting for Fintan. They’d been practicing a song from Joabei—the only one he’d been able to learn from Koesha. She and several other crew members had played the parts by slapping sticks against trunks or buckets or crates.

  “I have something fun for you today,” he said as the musicians set up. “A song from Joabei. Should get your blood pumping. The entire point of Joabeian music is to get you dancing and out of breath. They want you having fun and also appreciating the great privilege of breathing right now, and I think we can all get behind those ideas. When Koesha and a few of her crew performed this, the rest of the crew danced and sang at the appropriate times. I can’t teach you the dance, so just do what you want there, but the song is only four lines, and you’re supposed to stop dancing and shout it in unison, one line at a time. There’s a bar of music between each line, during which you flail around a bit, and then an extended time of dancing to the music before shouting the same four lines again. I think you’ll get the hang of it. So get on your feet, dance as you like, and shout along when you pick it up.”

  The drummers began with some pounding, grooving rhythms that were unlike any I had heard before, and everyone was instantly delighted. I did my upper-body shimmy routine, since my knee wouldn’t allow actual dancing, got the words half right the second time through, and shouted them perfectly the third and fourth times.

  The secret of the wind is passing you by!

  The mystery of breath hides in every sigh!

  The miracle of life flowing in the sky!

  Listen to the song of Shoawei!

  When that was finished, we did need a break, but people were smiling and laughing. Joabeian music was great.

  “Three tales for you today,” Fintan said after we’d rested. “Koesha Gansu first, then Hanima Bhandury, and finally Viceroy Bhamet Senesh.” His first seeming revealed the ship captain from Joabei, looking pensive.

  The giant woman Olet does not appear to be a fire demon. Not in the sense that we think of them, anyway. She has the horrifying powers of one but not the heart. She has a heart for peace and a mind and body willing to build it with others. She has welcomed us to this place, and I think she intends to give us a voice in its government once we learn the language of Abhi, the young man who saved us from the kraken.

  That is why I have assigned most of the crew to team up with Nentians to help them with their work building the city and to learn their words, though Haesha and Leisuen are paired with the two giants who can use fire. Olet may seem benign, but the Cantos of Shoawei warn of complacency around fire. It must be diligently watched and guarded. The demon Keishun built slowly in darkness until he exploded with his horde, and Shoawei nearly perished in his ambush. We cannot afford to be taken by surprise.

  And I must worry that I’m making another mistake. Is my decision to trust in Olet really the best for my crew, or am I once again barreling forward without fully considering the consequences? Sixty women are dead because I wanted to go forward instead of back.

  But going back at this point is impossible. The only way home is to keep going.

  We decide to learn Nentian once Fintan draws us a rough map of the huge continent we are on and it becomes clear that Ghurana Nent is closest to Joabei; its cities would become our primary ports for trade, even if we make only one trip a year. Perhaps we will do more if krakens can finally be controlled. That we are still breathing and have hope to see Joabei again is a miracle.

  “But we won’t get home,” I tell my crew, “unless we survive this winter and get along with these people who saved our lives. They won’t help us build a boat unless we first help them build this place and show them that we are a culture worth knowing.”

  Baejan asks what no doubt is on many minds: “If you want us to get along for the winter, how far are we allowed to take that?”

  There are some giggles at that, and I smile.

  “Each of you can make your own decision, of course,” I reply. “There is no doubt that you have earned it. But keep in mind that these people may not have the same attitudes toward sex and reproduction that we do. It is practically guaranteed that they don’t. So it may be wiser for us to wait a little while, learn some basic language, then have one volunteer try and see how everyone else reacts to the news. Can we agree on that?”

  “I volunteer!” Baejan immediately says, and we all share a laugh at her eagerness.

  “Okay. If their reaction is positive or at least permissive, then we can all proceed, or not, as we wish. For the short term, we should help them work and learn their language as quickly as possible. But I would like to give two orders in that regard.”

  The few titters and whispered conversations about possible relationships with Nentians die down immediately.

  “I have already told them that our people are of the Second Kenning. But I have not told them that I am blessed, an
d I do not want to reveal that until it’s absolutely necessary. At some point you may be asked if any of us are blessed or what the source of our kenning is, and if that happens, you should either say you don’t understand the question or don’t know the answer. Is that first order clear?”

  Leisuen asks, “Zephyr, is it okay to say none of us is blessed?”

  “I’d rather you did not. You can plausibly say you didn’t understand the question, but if you say something that directly contradicts what may later be revealed, that could cause a problem. My hope is that I don’t have cause to use my kenning again until we have built a ship and I’m filling the sails to get us home.”

  Some of the women clap at that prospect.

  “Second order: Do not discuss the makeup of our crew or our laws. Change the subject or play dumb. Don’t explain. We will wait for diplomats to handle such things much later. Our goal is to get out of here as soon as possible with as little conflict as possible.”

  No one has a question about that, and then I suggest we share what we learn each night over the evening fire.

  “Fintan told me today that there is a country in the southern hemisphere called Kauria that also has the Second Kenning. They worship a god named Reinei, who preaches peace. Those who seek a kenning throw themselves into a whirlwind off the coast of an island. They call the whirlwhind ‘the Tempest of Reinei.’ So, in addition to getting home someday, I’d like to visit Kauria and see what another culture has made of the Second Kenning.”

  Leisuen shares that the Hathrim also came from the south and call their blessed “lavaborn.” They leapt into a particular lake of lava to gain their kenning. The scary-looking bald giant with no hair or lips is a priestess of the flame named Mirana La Mastik, and she wears the fireproof hide of a lava dragon.

  There is a country called Forn, where short pale people live in the trees. Another called Brynlön, where they have mastered the Fourth Kenning, thanks to a god of the sea they call Bryn. There is so much to learn.

  One of the Nentians is supervising the construction of docks down by the river as well as a fishing boat, which has a couple of the Hathrim excited. They are willing to help but are not very skilled woodworkers; I get the idea from Fintan that they most often work in steel and glass and think of wood as fuel rather than construction material.

  I attach myself to the dock detail and the bard attaches himself to me; he’s decided apparently that I have much to teach him, and I think he might be picking up our tongue faster than we are picking up Nentian, thanks to his perfect memory.

  The tools they’ve brought with them are different from what I’m used to, but they get the job done. The nails are thinner than ours and have broader heads. The saws are of remarkable quality, and I ask Fintan clumsily about where the mining is done.

  He says much of it is done in his country, which is ringed by mountains rich in ores and stones.

  It is good to have the distractions of physical labor and language acquisition almost constantly. Otherwise, I would blow apart in a shearing whirl of guilt and self-doubt. I distract myself from our loss and my decisions only for small slivers of time, and then my thoughts circle back to it.

  I am not the only one who’s conscious of the fact that we should all be dead right now, like every other crew who sailed east and west from Joabei, looking for the northern passage. Had I turned back when Leisuen urged me to, we’d all have made it home. But we wouldn’t have found these cultures here, this information about the continent that will prove profitable beyond measure in the future, that will make us famous—or infamous—in the history of Joabei.

  Perhaps history will look back and say the deaths of sixty women were worth it to gain such bounty for the rest of the country. It’s easy to look at numbers on paper and make such a calculation. But that is not what I feel. I’d rather be sailing home with all of them now, still ignorant of Nentians and Hathrim and all the rest.

  That is the gift of hindsight, of course. If I had chosen to sail home, I’d be stewing over the decision and wishing I had pressed on to find Maesi.

  It’s impossible to tell which weight would have sat heavier on my shoulders, but I am pretty sure that these certain deaths have a greater weight than simply not knowing about Maesi. I know what it was like to not know about Maesi’s fate. This is worse.

  We will have a ceremony for our lost crew members soon; I feel a storm coming. We will howl with the wind and wish their spirits calm. I don’t think mine will ever be at rest.

  * * *

  —

  “Meanwhile, in Khul Bashab…” Fintan said, before taking on the seeming of Hanima.

  I have made some actual money with my kenning! The Red Pheasant Clan paid me on a short-term contract to bring bees and other pollinators to their grounds, but especially to the new tea treehouse, to help the plant life do its thing and thrive. They did it secretly, though, because we are still on the viceroy’s Grand High Shitte Liste and about to make things worse. But I have decent clothes of my own now and I don’t have to borrow from other folks’ wardrobes to look presentable. It’s the best.

  Since I didn’t really need my share of Tamhan’s funding, I gave it to Adithi, and now she has decent clothes too. We still don’t have a legit place to live, since we’re wanted figures and sleeping in empty houses, but at least we aren’t dressed in rags and half-starving anymore. It feels amazing. It feels like anything is possible. Like overthrowing a government.

  After talking for long hours with Jes Dan Kuf and privately lamenting the departure of the dreamy greensleeve—he had to go grow more treehouses—we came up with a plan. It was like throwing a rock into a nughobe grove and then waiting for all the creatures hiding in there to come after you in the plains, where you could see them and deal with them. We were going to post another broadside, which would go much further than the first one, saying that the beast callers were real.

  The Sixth Kenning is HERE!

  We can live in harmony with animals!

  Now is the time for a

  NEW NENTIAN GOVERNMENT!

  A Clave Republic guaranteeing

  basic dignity & prosperity for ALL

  Freedom from WALLS

  Freedom from CORRUPT OFFICIALS

  Freedom from LABOR EXPLOITATION

  The Beast Callers Clave invites

  Viceroy Senesh to peaceful talks

  on neutral ground

  to forge a new path into a new era

  We wrangled over the wording a lot. I said we should include THROW BEES AT THE VICEROY’S FACE, because I thought that sentiment was one the entire city would support, but Tamhan talked me out of it during one of our secret meetings in the Fornish teahouse.

  “Broadsides can only accomplish so much,” he told me. “The first one announced the existence of the Sixth Kenning. This one aims to get people thinking of alternatives to our current system and plant the phrase ‘clave republic’ in their minds. And we can’t be antagonists yet. We want people to listen to our ideas. If we begin with threats, then our ideas don’t matter, you see? What matters is only defeating the threat.”

  “Okay, but just between us: You do want to throw bees at his face, right?”

  “So much, yes. We can’t say that, though.”

  “But we’re calling for a new government,” Adithi argued. “We’re committing treason from the beginning. They’re going to say we’re traitors no matter how nicely we ask to discuss things.”

  “Yes. We are traitors,” Tamhan admitted. “When they use the word, we’re going to pour a lot of sugar on that and call ourselves ‘patriots’ instead. To begin with, though, we have to position ourselves as the reasonable ones. Let the viceroy overreact—because he most certainly will. Then we have the moral high ground. We get the populace on our side. Only then do we become the ant
agonists.”

  “Fine. How do we get the populace on our side if we have to hide?”

  “The viceroy and the rich are going to do that for us. You saw what they did after the first broadside, when their power wasn’t directly threatened. They will not react calmly to this.”

  We fully expect a swarm of hostility in response to our sedition. But I have literal swarms of my own, and this time I have a plan to mesh with Tamhan’s.

  I don’t know how he’s getting these broadsides printed and posted in secret when he’s under near-constant surveillance, but he must have a really good network of friends.

  I have a growing network too. Using reports from the hives and Khamen Chorous to distribute berths each night, we have been able to get lots of people into shelter, squatting in empty buildings and houses. I haven’t been able to get everyone to safety yet, but I hope to soon.

  On the morning the broadsides are posted, we are ready. It takes a few hours for them to be discovered and torn down, because Tamhan put them in different places this time. Some are exceedingly obvious, and that’s to get the viceroy and the rich folks stirred up. But most of them are in low-rent areas and alleys where only the workers walk—avenues and niches where the city watch would rarely tread but plenty of other eyes would see.

  But the viceroy—on his own behalf, but also on behalf of his rich cronies—moves just like Tamhan predicted. Soon after breakfast, the watch explodes into the city, tearing down broadsides and demanding to know of anyone nearby who posted them. I see this through the eyes of my honeybees, plus various hornets and wasps, as I sit on a rooftop in the Embassy District near the Red Pheasant Teahouse. And every time some muscle-y dude tears down a broadside, I reward them with a hornet sting to the face. If they back off, that’s all they get. But if they start shouting at people, start anything aggressive at all, the hornets hit them again.