Fairmist

by Todd Fahnestock

  “Did you read the passage I gave you about the Whisper Prince?” Malik asked.

  “I did,” Kuruk said.

  “A human with the powers of a Faia.”

  Kuruk put a hand to his head. The beating inside his skull increased suddenly, drums pounding full force. The whole of Thiara shrieked at him, all of them scratching to get out. Smoke curled up from Kuruk’s eyelids.

  Malik had seen these attacks before, and he waited with his breath held. If Kuruk lost the battle, their plan was over. Kuruk gritted his teeth, shoving the screeching back until it was contained. Fire leaked out of his fingertips, burning five neat holes into the cover of Emperor Cozelt’s history. He snatched his hand away and Malik drew the flames into his own hand, snuffing the fire.

  “I’m sorry, brother,” Malik said.

  Kuruk slumped, leaning on the table. “The Faia hold the door, Malik. But we are stronger. We will bring our brothers home.” He drew a shuddering breath.

  Kuruk pushed himself upright and moved to the archway. They walked together down the long corridor. Their human lives had been so brief compared to their century of torture. He wanted that life back, wanted the home that had been ripped from him.

  He had read the books. He had watched the humans. Tried to remember. He built his future life in his head. And when the moment came, he and Malik and all of their brothers would be human again.

  Now there was a Whisper Prince somewhere in the empire, called by prophecy. A human who might challenge them. Like the damned Jorun Magnus.

  Their brother Bahktish had fallen to Magnus and his Faia-cursed sword, and it had been Kuruk’s fault. Kuruk had told his brothers that they were impervious to human weapons, and they should have been. Then Magnus had slain Bahktish.

  “Patience and silence are our allies now,” Kuruk said, as much to bolster himself as to give Malik heart. “It will be over soon.”

  Malik said nothing. Kuruk could feel his brother’s frustration, the fury mounting, and he shared it. Seven years was too long to wait. But they had to maintain their control. Their master, still trapped in fiery Velakka, would have them succumb to their fury, revel in its power, and burn Thiara down. But Kuruk knew if he did, his humanity would vanish forever. Kuruk wanted his humanity. He wanted it back.

  “Turoh is ready,” Kuruk said, calming his brother, calming himself. “Not a failure after all. It will just take time. We are so close now. We will not falter.”

  They neared the cave’s opening, which humans saw as a pit to their greatest fears. Only those who brought the Blessed knew where the slinks resided. But every now and then, an adventurer discovered them. Then they would receive a visitor, someone who would come to take revenge for the Slink War, or for the Debt. Malik called them crusaders.

  Tonight’s crusader was female. Unlike Velakkans, humans were divided into two different types. One kind gave his mucous to the other, who kept it in her body and grew offspring. Later, the offspring had to be pushed out in another expulsion of fluid. Kuruk quelled his abhorrence at the thought, forced himself to remember that this was how he and his brothers had come into the world. He told himself it was not repulsive. Born in water. Human water. Squalling. Mother cooing. Love.

  When Kuruk had asked his master about love, Lord Velak had laughed. It had been scornful, meant to burn the notion from Kuruk’s mind, and Kuruk had laughed with him. But Kuruk remembered love. He remembered his mother’s embrace, her soft lips on his forehead. Her squeezing arms, warm around his body. Her fingers tickling him until he was breathless with giggles. Love meant safety; it was the only memory Kuruk had of such a thing.

  He didn’t let his master’s laugh strip love away from him. He wanted that back most of all.

  Kuruk watched the woman crusader move across the loose rock that led down to the hole of the cavern. To him, she seemed slow and ponderous. Since he had begun watching her, her fourth and twelfth step had turned a rock, caused noise that carried easily to his ears.

  To a human, though, she would seem graceful. Deadly. A Ringblade.

  Thin metal squares had been fit to her forearms and forelegs, and her body was sheathed in soft black cloth because her own hide was vulnerable to the sharp edges of the world. The slightest puncture would cause her to spew her red water.

  She crouched and crept forward, moving herself in a bad mimicry of a spider. Her breasts, the round mounds of fat on the front of her chest, hung against her clothing. The purpose of them was to create and pass fluid to children after they were born. Kuruk had read about them. He didn’t remember his mother’s breasts. Only the warmth of her arms.

  “Humans are not to come here,” he said to the crusader. His voice echoed off the rock walls. “Unless you wish to be the next Blessed.” An empty threat. Kuruk had recently taken a Blessed; he was at his weakest. It took him almost a full month to recover.

  The female’s head shot up. Her steel-clad hand rose at the same time, bearing the sharpened ring that gave this group of fighters their name. She peered through the darkness, trying to see him.

  He waited, searching. A breeze blew past Kuruk, and he smelled her fear.

  “Show yourself!” she called.

  He held his arms out to his sides, and she tracked the motion, focusing on him, seeing the nightmare form he had chosen: An eight-foot-tall creature with wide shoulders, long, thin arms that reached almost to the ground. Great jaws in a small head. Red, burning skin and cloven animal hooves. He looked like his master’s minions, like the innumerable slinks that had torn through Thiara seven years ago.

  With a grunt, the female flung her ring.

  He held up his forearm and whispered to it. The sharpened steel clanged off, rebounding. The woman leapt to her right, caught it with her gauntleted hand.

  “I’ve come for my sister,” she said.

  He watched the woman, doomed to fail here, completely overmatched. He imagined that his mother had fought this hard for him, died this bravely before the rough hands grabbed Kuruk from his bed. He wanted to save this Ringblade. He wanted to tell her he knew her pain. They were kindred. But for her to regain her sister meant he must lose his brothers.

  “Salandra was brave,” Kuruk said. He could give her that, at least. “She paid the Debt with honor.”

  Then he reached into the Ringblade with whispers she could not hear and began working on her mind. His forehead heated, and he felt the dangerous screeching again. He wished he had time for mercy. And perhaps wishing was enough. Perhaps the wish alone guarded his speck of remaining humanity.

  “Give her back and I will leave,” she said. In her fearful heart, she knew that her weapons could not hurt his slinks. Yet here she was, willing to sacrifice herself to free her sister.

  “What is your name, Ringblade?” he asked.

  “I am Ree. There has been a mistake with the Blessed. Selicia sent me to retrieve Salandra.”

  “No, she didn’t,” he said softly, and his estimation of her diminished. He hated liars. The men who had snatched him and his brothers were liars.

  The Ringblade shifted, her grip tightening on her weapon.

  “Give me my sister,” Ringblade Ree said through clenched teeth. She flung her ring. This time, she followed it, leaping over rocks and sliding on the shale to reach him. Kuruk blocked her flying steel and moved to brace her.

  She swung at him with a curved blade she pulled from a sheath across her back. He whispered again, making his arm hard enough to turn metal. He backed up a few steps, deflecting her strikes, giving her a cut to her shoulder with his claws, then one on her leg just to the side of the armor plate.

  Kuruk took a breath, steeling himself, then moved at a speed that was difficult for him to achieve and almost impossible for her to see. He grabbed her arm, jerked it into his teeth and bit down several times quickly, severing it as fire raged from his throat. Her blood boiled in his mouth, and her burning flesh filled his nostrils.

  Kuruk’s brother Bahktish had loved the taste of blood. O
f all his brothers, Bahktish had been the most like a Velakkan. It was this bloodlust that had distracted Bahktish when Magnus set upon him. Kuruk had found his brother over a half-chewed corpse in the palace, his head severed at the neck.

  Kuruk hated the taste of blood. Humans did not eat each other; it felt foul. He could barely hold it in his mouth.

  The female screamed, falling backward, dropping her sword as she grappled with her smoking stump. Her arm burned with the fire his teeth had left behind, the flesh curling and turning black. She drew a shuddering breath, biting down on her next scream, which leaked out in a whimper.

  Kuruk spat her own blood upon her and advanced. Her feet scraped frantically as she tried to draw back. He went to work on her now, heightening her fear, bringing it to a pointy desperation before he crushed her mind.

  He dropped her severed arm, grabbed her and flung her backward. She flew silently and hit the rocks, slid to a stop.

  With an anguished shout of determination, she pushed herself upright with her good arm, holding her severed stump close to her chest as though she might cradle the hand that wasn’t there. She was still trying to fight, and she fumbled desperately with her belt, drawing a thin dagger. She looked at Kuruk through squinty, agony-filled eyes.

  Her gaze moved past him, saw the hundreds of slinks emerge from the darkness behind him, their eyes glowing, their claws clicking on the rocks, their teeth bared in excited smiles.

  Kuruk breathed fire at her, and the female backed up the slope, filled with horror.

  “Take her,” Kuruk said.

  The horde of slinks leapt up the slope, howling. The female turned away, stumbling and running as fast as she could. She crested the ridge and disappeared, the slinks hard on her heels.

  Kuruk held on until she was out of sight, then fell to his knees. He clenched his hair with his fists, breathing fire. The screams in his head were like claws, slashing his mind. They wanted out. Every moment, they longed to escape, but he couldn’t let them go. Not until his brothers were safe.

  He didn’t know how long he lay there, fighting the pain, fighting the overwhelming wave that wanted to drown him.

  But eventually, he realized that Malik was with him, holding his head and whispering softly.

  “You are strong. You are invincible. You can hold them all.”

  “I can’t...” Kuruk whimpered. “I can’t.”

  “You are Kuruk. You can do anything.”

  “Malik...”

  Malik opened his mouth and flames coursed over Kuruk, engulfing him. There was only heat and red fire, like in Velakka where they had been transformed and turned invincible. Made inhuman.

  After a time, Kuruk was filled with the strength of it, and he was able to beat back the scratching, the howling, the relentless pounding.

  “Yes,” Malik said. “You can do it.”

  Kuruk took a shuddering breath, but he didn’t sit up. He didn’t know if he had the strength. At long last, he could think. He could breathe. He could speak.

  “Every moment,” he gasped. “It is almost too much. I don’t know...”

  “You will find a way. We follow you, Kuruk.”

  But am I strong enough to lead you?

  “Tell me about the Whisper Prince,” Kuruk said quietly, closing his eyes again and resting in his brother’s arms. “Tell me of our new threat.”

  Chapter 4

  Grei

  Grei quietly closed the door to his house, shutting out the wet. It had been more than two weeks since Ringblade Ree, and he hadn’t wasted a moment of it. His head hurt, as it always did when he thought too much on the Debt of the Blessed. The singsong voices had descended into whispers again.

  He was tired, and the warmth was welcome. He hung his cloak on the pegs over the water tray by the door and let it drip. The rest of the house was quiet. Then, a mug clacked on the table in the common room. Grei let out a long, quiet breath. His night was not over. He could feel the anger from here like heat, and Grei moved inside with slow deliberation.

  His father sat at the table with the mug in hand. His frown was a damning slash over his chin. Tendons stood out in his wrist where he clenched the handle.

  “Good of you to come home,” he said tightly.

  So he had heard at last. Grei had spent every waking hour since Ringblade Ree searching for information. He had been to the caves at the base of the Highward, had paced the ground in the Wet Woods where the emperor had bargained with the slinks. Grei had spoken with families who had lost loved ones to the Debt of the Blessed. He had tracked down those who had lived through the slaughter in Thiara seven years ago. Yet with all that, only two people had chosen to talk with him. He had learned precious little about the slinks he didn’t already know, and nothing about the Debt. His frustration was turning to desperation, and he feared the whispers would abandon him again. He was running out of next steps.

  He stood silently in front of his father.

  “Lady Suffayne,” Father said. “She said you were talking to Luran.”

  “I’ve been talking to a lot of people.” Luran was the son of a palace cook, and one of the few people Grei’s age who would talk to him. Luran’s father had been in Thiara when the slinks came.

  “Lady Suffayne withdrew her order,” Father continued. The mug was now shaking; pewter rattled against wood.

  “Because I was talking with Luran.”

  “About the Slink War, Grei.” Father stood up. “About the Debt!”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s treason. We are not going down this road again.”

  Grei glowered. “You’re not.”

  He paused. “Do you want me to send you to the delegate’s men?” he asked in a low voice.

  And there it was. So quickly. I’ll give you back to the torturers. Grei felt the numbness they had created and fostered during those days in that black room. Days that seemed like weeks. He would never allow himself to go numb again.

  “You do what you haveto—”

  “I won’t have it!” his father yelled, slamming the mug onto the table with a loud bang. No one else in the house stirred. Grei could picture his brother Julin huddled in his bed, covers to his nose. His step-mother Fern probably stood at her window, twisting her fingers together, silently agreeing with Grei, too afraid to stand with him. That hurt more than his father’s shouting. “This is not a game,” his father growled. “This is our life.”

  “This is no life,” Grei said.

  “The emperor—”

  “This is the way we make it.”

  “You pig-headed boy! You want to kill yourself? Fine! Don’t take this family with you!”

  “Don’t ruin your business, you mean?” Grei shouted.

  Father stood up, livid. His whole body shook.

  “I should have let you die,” he said in a lethal voice.

  Grei stalked back to the door and snatched his cloak.

  “I should have saved your mother instead!” his father said, following.

  Grei flung the door open and slammed it behind him. The floating water droplets touched his face and his chest and dripped down the front of him. He leaned his head back against the door, hearing his father breathing hard on the other side.

  He clenched his fists. The gutters trickled, forever draining onto the stone streets, and there was the distant slither and hush of Fairmist’s citizens going about their night activities. The Harvesthome Festival wasn’t far off, and some were getting ready to stuff themselves with pastries, drown themselves in ale.

  Forcing his tense arms upward, Grei pulled his long hair back into a ponytail, tied it, and adjusted his cloak to shield him from the floating droplets.

  He crossed half the city in seething silence, over the deep and powerful Fairmist River. He approached the Temple of the Faia, a circle of seven marble pillars carved centuries ago by the finest artisans of an early empire, back when Baezin was emperor and goddesses walked among humans. Its stout crudeness, compared with the empire’s m
odern structures, made it seem indestructible. The Fairmist River could escape its banks and sweep through the city, taking all the other houses with it, but the temple would still stand.

  Seven short beds of roses surrounded the temple, making a wide red circle with paths in between. A giant urn stood in its center, waist high and two feet in diameter. The water within rose like a stalagmite, pointing at the curved ceiling. Several inches beyond that unnatural peak, a sphere of water as big as Grei’s fist hovered as though it had just pulled free.

  Every day at Highsun, different pilgrims came to the temple to give thanks to the Faia. When it had been built, Emperor Baezin decreed that there would be no central worship of the Faia, that each citizen should give their respects in their own way, but sects had sprung up, all claiming that their method of worship was what the Faia demanded. The most powerful of the sects in Fairmist were the Servants of the River Lady. Grei’s father and step-mother belonged to that group, and they came to this temple at Highsun on the seventh day, Faiaday, and laid their offerings in homage. There were other sects, of course. The Supplicants of the Sun Goddess. The Dirt Bathers. The Wanderers. The Moon Crows, who worshipped on Seconday at Deepdark. The rare but chilling Teeth Gnashers, named for the sound their grinding teeth made as they proceeded to the temple.

  The floating sphere of water in the center of the temple glowed blue, giving a ghostly radiance to the marble pillars and floor. It was called Baezin’s Voice, and the legend said it translated speech so that the Faia and humans could understand one another.

  Grei entered the temple, passing beneath the dome. He knelt among the strewn and wilting flowers of those who had come during the day. There was a multitude of offerings: prized keepsakes, precious stones, coins, jewelry. Some people even offered dead animals: a rabbit killed on the hunt, a rack of antlers with blood on the stumps. Dead animals. For the Faia.

  He ignored them and stared at the blue sphere.

  “Have you truly left us, then?” he asked. Rage and frustration jammed together inside him like logs.

  The Faia could build hovering houses. They could make water float like dandelion fluff, could make stone burn. They could have stopped the slinks, but they hadn’t. They could stop the Debt of the Blessed, but they didn’t.