by Jo Sparkes
“Tryst,” Marra whispered to Kirth. “Kratchett said he was here.”
At the bottom of the steps, the woman stumbled again. Marra shored her up.
“Who is this Tryst?” Tinge asked, and Marra suddenly worried how much to say. She’d already been too free with her speech.
“A friend. Though how he could be here….”
Kirth swayed again. Thankfully Tinge grasped her other arm, for Marra sagged beneath her full weight. “My friend, are you ill?”
The elder collapsed.
Tinge lowered her, gently settling her in the soft moss. “Kirth?”
Her face glistened in the moonlight. Marra touched it - to find her skin clammy, warm. Too warm.
“Did she grab the door handle?”
Marra stared at the Terrin.
“Marra! Did she grab….”
Unable to find her voice, Marra nodded.
Tinge lifted the elder easily, cradling her as a mother might a child. And strode on.
By the Great Goose, what was happening to Kirth?
Realizing she was being left behind, Marra sprang up to follow.
“The Terrin are a dichotomy,” Tryst told Jason softly. “There’s a chance they would refuse to obey the Tower, yes. But if they do battle us….”
The Defense Master was staring at something behind him. “I believe,” he whispered, “That we have found our Rain.”
Leaning back, Tryst shifted to follow Jason’s eyes.
In the moonlight he saw the two figures traveling away from the Tower. The one in the lead was undoubtedly Terrin, carrying something in its arms.
A tiny figure trailed behind, and though it wore trousers, it was feminine. Long hair fell down her back, yet not so long as a Skullan female. Nor did she move with that Agben swagger. Perhaps the Terrin had altered that.
Yet she did move straight ahead, not from a lack of fear, but from her intent to hide it. Those set shoulders and steady gaze were all too familiar.
Tryst was on his feet before Jason could stop him.
When he reached her his hand shot out, grabbing her arm. He felt her start, sensed her terror.
“Marra, it’s me.”
Her face tilted up to him. Her eyes squeezed shut, slowly opened. And then she sagged so that if he hadn’t held her, she’d have fallen.
“Marra?”
“He said you were here.” Her voice trembled. “I didn’t see how….” Her free hand lifted, not to push away as he half expected, but to clutch his other arm. Her eyes glistened in the moonlight - tears?
Tryst breathed in relief - she was glad to see him. However she got here, she wasn’t hiding it. She wasn’t betraying anyone.
Beyond her, the Terrin turned, and he realized it was Kirth that it carried. The creature eyed him balefully.
“You, skin,” it rasped out. “Be you the one called Tryst?”
For an instant - just a blink of the sun - Marra wanted to throw her arms around Tryst, cling to him as a person fallen into the sea at Mid Isle would cling to a rescuing rope.
She hadn’t believed Kratchett. She hadn’t seen how it could be possible.
When Tinge turned round, Kirth unconscious and pale in her grasp, Marra took a deep breath and took hold of herself.
“Kirth’s ill,” she told him. “We need to tend her.”
Tryst turned, pointing the way. “We’re over here.”
The Prince led them past several camps, skirting Terrin clusters before veering towards a group near the goss forest. She felt Tinge halt behind her.
“I cannot…” the Terrin rasped.
“Marra!”
Drail stood up, looking as astonished as she felt. Beside him sat Manten, Olver, Old Merle…and Jason.
She spun to face the reluctant Terrin. “They’re friends,” she told her. “We’re safe. These are my friends.”
Tinge’s fangs grew short in a grimace. For the blink of the sun the Agben elder remained still.
Before Marra could urge her further, Tinge squared her massive shoulders and marched after Tryst.
Thus following her, Marra witnessed the wave of astonishment that rippled through the Terrin in the camp.
A large Terrin near the fire leapt to his feet, eyes riveted on Tinge. “Woman?!” he cried. “You approach us here?!”
Tinge plucked out her Agben necklace, the dove with the sparkling blue eyes, and held it out for all to see.
“Lady!” All Terrin around the campfire rose and fell to their knees, as Skullan would before King Bactor. Every single one.
“We approach on the Agben path,” Tinge declared, in a voice ringing with all the authority of a Queen. “We seek your assistance.”
“You have that and all that you wish,” the large Terrin said, and stood. His hand flew out before him, as if he caught a biteme as it wandered by. Yanking the fist to his chest, it slapped against his fur as he bowed his head once more. “I am Qwall, Leader. By Yute’s own luck, your path has led you to the strongest male.”
The Agben Terrin inclined her head, turning back to Marra. And though the firelight made it difficult to be certain, she thought Tinge rolled her eyes.
At last Marra had Kirth settled on a sleep-sling spread on the ground. Tinge had commanded their own fire, and Qwall’s Terrin swiftly built it.
The elder Skullan’s skin seemed paler, her breath rasping in her throat. Kirth was worsening before her eyes.
Behind her Tryst and Drail stood, and a tall blond female who appeared rather quickly when Drail had hugged Marra in welcome.
“What is wrong with Kirth?” Marra asked Tinge.
“There are rumors of…distrust…within Zaria. The Tower door cannot be opened from without, as you saw. And from within…an odd tale describes a poison applied to the handle at nightfall. To catch the unwary.”
“What sort of poison?” Marra felt Kirth’s cheek and forehead. Her body temperature was climbing.
“I do not know,” Tinge frowned, also touching Kirth’s skin. “Until tonight I thought it just a foolish story.”
Carefully Marra grasped the sick woman’s wrist, turning her hand upright. Leaning over, she sniffed the palm. “Kwitt,” she told the Terrin. “Some of this smells like the sleeping potion Rain used. But - there’s other ingredients. Other odors.”
She hoped to see recognition in Tinge’s eyes. Instead the Terrin gaped, mouth open, fangs glistening with moisture.
“Kirth said you could smell things far better than most skins. But I never believed….”
“She’s fading,” Marra broke in. “Tinge, what do we do?”
“Child, I do not know.”
Tinge rocked back on her heels, staring down at the elder skin. For the first time in many years, horror prickled her spine.
Kirth was not just an old friend - she was Agben. There existed a sacred bond, a trust that Terrin Agben would honor and protect the skins of the sisterhood sent to them. This exchange of ideas, sharing of knowledge, had pledged the two races to the Agben way for more than five centuries.
And here, now, she was breaking that trust. It must not be.
For the first time, she saw value in the skin’s methods. Terrin learned exactly what they wished, never bothering to play with that which didn’t appeal. Yet if she’d learned as a skin, she would have studied healing first.
She might have had the tools to save Kirth.
Wildly her mind spun, seeking a path out of this maze.
“Marra, lend me your herbs.”
The little skin with the big eyes stared at her, before reaching for her belt. “You know the cure?” her soft voice pleaded.
Tinge shook her head. “I’m making more Obedience Paste. Someone in that tower must know a counter to it.”
After a moment, the skin girl nodded. But Tinge knew she held little hope in her heart.
“Marra, do what you can,” she added softly. “If this smell reminds you of something you once cured, perhaps it will help again.”
Marra
’s gaze held that wide-eyed fright of a skin, like a tiny mikmouse drowning in an unexpected pool. Tinge waited for the bleating fears of the novice, of the hairless. And was surprised by the child’s self-possession.
“I’ll do all I can,” Marra whispered.
All that night Marra worked.
The potion that saved King Bactor seemed to slow Kirth’s fading health, though no more. She tried a stronger variant, using two Trevor seeds, without visible affect.
And realized further attempts must wait. Kirth herself had warned against plying the King with too much too fast.
How she wished she could ask the elder’s advice now.
For three long days she worked, neither sleeping nor eating more than might be snatched at the sick woman’s side. Kirth, who had always appeared larger than life, seemed to shrink before her eyes.
Tinge’s obedience paste failed. Not that the acolyte who opened the door at her rap didn’t bleat out all he knew - but he knew nothing that would help. Someone, the Agben Terrin felt certain, did know the counter. But that someone was too high up for access.
On the third day Tinge stood beside her, insisting she eat a grain ball. “Child, you need your own health to help another. Yute favors success when all is done - not half.” Tryst had been feeding her the things for three days, ignoring her protests. In truth, she was weary of them.
The Terrin laid the furry side of her paw to Kirth’s white cheek. “Your brew wants to work,” she told Marra. “This poison is just too stubborn.”
“You can tell that by touching her?”
Tinge nodded. “The energy stirs within her - but can’t quite overset the evil threads.”
It was the phrasing that hatched the idea. “Tinge,” she asked slowly. “Do you have any of that Obedience Paste leftover?”
“Twill take but a blink of the sun to make.”
“What do you think will happen if we rub it on Kirth?”
The Agben Terrin sat back on her heels. “I do not know.”
“Is it possible this poison is Agben? Third discipline, I mean.”
Tinge stared at her for long, long blinks of the sun before speaking. “There are deadly poisons that require no Agben influence, girl. But it is possible - quite possible - that Zaria would wish to control this poison. Stave off the affects, so they might discover what the victim’s purpose was in leaving.”
The Terrin’s fangs grew short, then long, in a way Marra found fascinating.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I would guess it possible.”
Marra nodded. “The aroma of the Kwitt, and other things, points that way. If that is so, would adding the Obedience Paste to this mix counter whatever ingredient forces her body to fail?”
Again Tinge stared. Marra could only hope it wasn’t because she thought her crazy.
“Not a paste,” Tinge finally spoke. “I’ll brew the proper Reeder potion.”
And that was what she did.
Marra tried applying that to the elder’s skin, both under the nose and on the palm. The effect, if effect it had, was slight.
At last she did as Tinge urged, and placed it on Kirth’s tongue. First by itself, and finally, mixed with the healing potion.
Kirth opened her eyes the next morning. “What…Marra? Child, what happened to me?”
A surge of emotion welled up in her throat. She couldn’t speak.
So Tinge told her.
Pinter sighed.
He was disappointed not to find Bowag in the counsel room or in his suite. Disappointed, but not surprised. More and more often, the High Priest of Zaria, Master of the Tower, strolled the parapet.
Pinter climbed the remaining stairs to the twelfth level and passed the sealed doors of the Scroll room. He slipped into the alcove just beyond, set such that no one without prior knowledge would notice it.
The stairs here spiraled, and were even narrower than those of the dungeon. They always made him feel clumsy. His fingers grasped the edge of the carved niche that served as a hand railing. So shallow was the niche that he sometimes wondered if Zaria had been built by the skins.
That was blasphemy, of course. Few skins had ever seen this tower, and only four from the inside.
Reaching the thirteenth level, a level most priests were unaware existed, Pinter shoved against the thick portal and stepped out into the sunshine.
The parapet circled the column, offering views in all directions. A tiny roof offered shelter to those standing on it, the covering not quite reaching the edge by the railing. Supposedly acolytes once stood guard here, watching those who passed or approached, allowing Zaria to prepare for whatever came its way. Pinter himself had once served here.
Bowag had changed that, due, so he claimed, to a profound vision from a counsel of the stones. But if that were so, Yute’s reasons stayed well hidden.
Pinter suspected many of Bowag’s visions arose more from selfish whim than divine guidance. But suspicions were one thing; voicing them was something else entirely.
In truth, serving Bowag had come to remind him of the story of the Terrin catching a darop by the tail. The moral being that half a plan - how to sneak up and grab the thing - was useless without the other half - how to escape with all one’s fur.
He’d followed Bowag without question for so long. The closer he got to the High Priest, the more he doubted the Terrin’s motives.
The more he doubted the Terrin’s sanity.
Yet having walked this path deep into a tangled jungle, he now saw no other trail out.
Bowag stood at the railing, surveying the Gathering field.
“We ordain and they come,” he waved at the Terrin below. “See, Pinter? They obey without hesitation.”
“The Agbens have escaped the dungeons,” Pinter told him, wincing at the satisfaction in his own voice.
The High Priest remained by the rail, eyes wandering the scene below. For a blink of the sun, Pinter doubted he’d fully understood.
Then, “How?”
“One of the acolytes appears to have freed them. He died opening the Tower door at night.”
“Death should not come for hours.”
“It seems we have too few here to properly walk the guard routes. He was not discovered until it was too late to question him.” Pinter had known that for some time, though the fault lay in recruitment, not guard duty. Over the last decade the number of eager new acolytes had dwindled - likely due to some of Bowag’s own innovations.
But that, too, was not something he could safely mention.
“Could our Agben skin have done this?”
“A natural thought,” Pinter inclined his head. “But I do not think so. Rain is far more interested in her own power than any other consideration. And I do not think she likes the other Agben. She certainly does not like the other skins.”
“We shall address the Gathering. Set them to seeking the fugitives.”
Pinter shook his head, quickly stopping himself before Bowag could take offense. “Agben females are highly revered, Wisdom. I’m not sure they will give her to us against her will. Remember,” he added quickly, before the other could voice his usual objections, “we have kept ourselves isolated for some time, while Agben is perceived to have always served. Most will lack the…wisdom…to blindly obey.”
Bowag was silent for some time. Alarmed, Pinter could do nothing but wait.
“Gather the inner circle,” the High Priest finally told him. Pinter bowed and left as fast as he could without losing all his dignity.
When he saw the skin woman marching up the stairs, Pinter almost ducked into a room. The last thing he needed was more of her whining. He didn’t, because running from a female - let alone a skin - was beneath him.
“The dungeon cells are empty,” Rain hissed. “Did you move the prisoners without telling me?”
“They managed an escape,” he said, watching her face carefully. “Bowag wonders if you helped your Agben friends.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she sp
at, eyes flashing even in the dim light. “They must be found! They cannot be allowed to go free.”
She was as short-sighted as Bowag, he thought, though perhaps with more reason. After all, Rain had never seen the interaction between male and female Terrin.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he hissed.
7.
THE SUN HAD BARELY BREACHED the horizon when Tryst accepted a fragrant tea from Jason. They sat by the remnants of last night’s campfire, surveying the furry mounds of sleeping Terrin. So many had come that Tryst couldn’t tell where the one village’s snoring citizens ceased and another’s began.
He’d always assumed the Terrin population was few. His grandsire had declared them both rare and shy; and old tales told on the Great Continent hinted they might be dying out. Now he wondered if such tales grew from mere rumor or a deliberate misdirection.
Movement caught his eye. Squinting against the glint of dawn, he spied a small figure slipping quietly around the camp, to stop by Kirth’s sleep-sling. Marra, looking so odd in the breeches. To think she’d traveled across the desert continent in her skirts.
She stood with arms folded beneath her breast, gazing down at her patient.
“Marra,” he called softly. Too softly, he thought, yet she looked up. And made her way towards him.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked when he noticed the purple smudges under her eyes. Before she could answer Jason rose, offering her his steaming cup.
“I’ll get another.” The defense master bowed and left.
She hesitated.
“Sit and drink,” Tryst smiled.
Cradling the cup, she gracefully lowered beside him.
“Marra, how did you get here?”
“Me?” she gasped, staring at him. She then sipped her tea, as if gathering her words. “When Drail did not want me to travel, Kirth took me. Agben is on both continents. We meet with our sister here…annually, I think.”
“And when the Terrin was revealed, fled the city, they didn’t think to inform the Crown?”
