Antiphon poi-3

by Ken Scholes

  She shifted in the saddle, sore from the ride and aching still from the blast. Isaak had shielded them from the worst, saving their lives, but she still bore the bruises and cuts. She expected a scar now on her thigh where a long sliver of pine had laid open the flesh.

  Memory of that day brought a shiver to her deeper than the wet and cold.

  A flash of brown to her left brought her head around, and she saw Aedric fishing a bird from his catch net. He whistled and raised his hand for them to stop.

  She reined in, a hand once more creeping to Jakob’s stomach to feel the warmth of him.

  Just beyond Aedric, she saw Winters sitting tall in the saddle, though the girl’s eyes were downcast. She’d been quiet of late, and her work with the knives had taken on a determined edge that felt something like banked anger to Jin’s practiced eye.

  When Aedric spoke, she met his eyes and returned the anger she saw there with cool aloofness. “The Marsher escort approaches ahead,” he said, then corrected himself. “Machtvolk. Their queen rides with them.”

  She inclined her head, keeping her face masked. “Good.”

  She glanced to her right, where Lynnae rode. The girl had insisted that she accompany them. It had been months since she’d served as Jakob’s nursemaid, but the bond between her and Jin and the child was palpable, and the River Woman had sent her with a full field kit of powders and scripts. Now, the woman rode swaddled in a rain cloak twice her size, her face buried in the cowl and her long curly hair spilling out from under it.

  Behind them, the rest of the company stopped. Aedric would not move them forward, Jin knew. Instead, he would make their hosts come to them-a subtle message.

  They did not wait long.

  The procession was larger than Jin had imagined it would be-a long train of horses and footmen-and she blinked in surprise.

  The Marshers had never been a uniform tribe. They’d ever been a mysterious, mad and mismatched people, known for their rotting fur clothing and their salvaged or stolen weapons, tools and accessories. They employed no industry and lived lives of subsistence in their hovels, shoved far north against the Dragon’s Spine Mountains apart from the nations of the Named Lands. They were known for brutal tribalism, and feared widely through the border towns of the northern forests, where skirmishing had bolstered a reputation they no doubt deserved. But there was more to them, she’d learned through her friendship with Winters. The young queen, now deposed and scrubbed clean of her people’s mysticism, had shown her a quieter side to this people with their Book of Dreaming Kings and their longing for a new home to rise through the agency of the Homeseeker they believed would bring them there.

  The procession that now approached bore no resemblance to the army she’d seen two years ago upon the plains of Windwir. Crimson banners caught the wind, and the riders and footmen alike wore dark uniforms, accented also in crimson and stark against the careful grays and browns and blacks of their face paint.

  Who is supplying them? Certainly not the Delta city-states or their neighbors, Pylos and Turam. As they drew closer, she noted that while the uniforms were alike, they were ill fitting and the men who wore them did not appear entirely at ease.

  The woman who led them pulled Jin’s attention away.

  “Hail, Great Mother,” Ria said from the back of her stallion. She wore a long black rain cloak, and it hung open to reveal a silver breastplate. In her left hand, she raised the Firstfall axe. “Hail, Jakob, Child of Promise.” Then she smiled and turned to Winters. “Hail, little sister.”

  The words were bitter in Jin Li Tam’s mouth, but she said them anyway. “Hail, Winteria the Elder, queen of the Machtvolk Territories. On behalf of Rudolfo, lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses and general of the Wandering Army, I bear you grace and greetings in gratitude for your hospitality.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Winters flinch at the words, and it pained her to see it. In that same glance, she also saw Aedric’s tightly drawn mouth and the white knuckles of his hands upon his reins.

  “Dark times bring you to us,” Ria said in a quiet voice as she walked forward. “But you will be pleased to know that our investigation is bearing fruit. I know it is a tremendous act of trust that you would even consider my invitation, and I assure you that every care has been taken for your comfort and protection during your visit among my people.”

  Jin Li Tam whistled her own horse forward, and she leaned close to Ria. “Swear it to me,” she said, her eyes meeting the deep brown eyes of the Machtvolk queen. She saw Winters in the woman’s face-there was no denying their kinship. Jin’s eyes narrowed. “Swear to me on your gospel and on the mark upon your heart that we will be safe and that we will be free to leave your domain at the time of our choosing.”

  Ria smiled, and it was wide, inviting even. She reached beneath her robe and withdrew a slender volume, raising it into the air even as her hand went to her breast. “I swear it, Great Mother. I know circumstance indicates enmity between us. I know the wounds we’ve inflicted upon your family and upon your world are deep, but know this: They were the breaking of bones not properly set in an earlier wounding that now may be undone by the grace of the Crimson Empress.” Her eyes moved to Winters and she repeated herself. “I swear it.”

  Jin Li Tam watched the girl’s face redden under her older sister’s gaze. Then, once more she looked to Aedric. The first captain looked resolved but angry. “Very well,” she said. “I am satisfied.”

  And yet, I truly won’t be until my son and I leave this dark, mad land you are making.

  Ria nodded. “We will feast tonight in my new home.” She looked again to Winters. “I think you will be impressed with our progress, little sister.”

  Winters said nothing as Ria turned her horse. Aedric whistled them forward, and they found themselves suddenly at the head of the procession, with the Machtvolk queen riding now between Jin and Winters as Lynnae and Aedric dropped back. The Machtvolk riders and footmen formed a wall to either side of the Gypsy Scouts, and together they moved at a moderate speed.

  They rode in silence now, cutting north and passing between two watchtowers that loomed over a newly cut dirt road now mostly gone to mud. Ahead, Jin Li Tam saw low hills shrouded in mist that brushed the tops of the pine trees, and she thought she heard something from the forest there.

  As they drew nearer, she became more sure of it and glanced to the woman beside her.

  Ria’s face bore quiet delight.

  It was the sound of singing on the wind.

  The song grew as they approached, and suddenly, the rain let up. Scattered rays of sunlight perforated the cloud cover, though the air was still cold enough for Jin to see her breath.

  She heard Jakob’s muffled laughter and adjusted her cloak so that his tiny face could peer out. They’d learned early that he loved music, and one of her favorite new pastimes as a mother was pretending to sleep while Rudolfo sang quietly to their son.

  Now, all around her, voices sang, and she felt the hairs rising on her skin as the lyrics became clear. And as they entered the forest and climbed into the low hills, she saw the people crowding the sides of the road, their evergreen branches raised high in trembling hands as they sang of a healed home through their Child of Promise, a Great Mother of daunting beauty and a Crimson Empress of infinite mercy who prepared even now for her bridegroom.

  The song rose high into the winter sky, and Jin Li Tam realized suddenly that other voices joined in around them as the Machtvolk escort and even their queen lifted up their own voices.

  Close against her breast, Jakob laughed in delight, and she realized suddenly that tears coursed her cheeks. But even as Jin Li Tam wept, she did not know if her tears were from the beauty or the terror of the overwhelming hymn that encompassed them.

  Winters

  Winters arose early and slipped out into cold northern air beneath a predawn sky flung wide with stars.

  Of course, she’d not really slept. The events of yesterday had rushed at her all through t
he night. Even during dinner-a lavish feast of salmon, elk and wild mushrooms-the song echoed through her, punctuated by memories of Jakob’s delight by it all and Jin Li Tam’s unexpected tears.

  She rarely sheds tears. Winters wished she were like that, too. But she wasn’t. And what she’d seen and heard since her return to these changing lands had added more sorrow, more remorse to her shoulders.

  On the surface, all looked well, but beneath it lay something darker. The watchtowers were up, but they watched both outward and inward. And the children, enrolled now in schools, were volunteering to take the mark as they learned a more balanced history of their peoplethrough history, poetry, drama. and the gospels. They were also training the children now in the blood magicks and scouting.

  She’d heard this over dinner when the song wasn’t pulling her back to their grand entrance into her former lands. And on that ride, she’d seen the evidence of other changes-there was more lumber being pulled from the forest; there were more houses and structures built and more uniformed men moving to and fro among her people.

  Winters heard a sound behind her now and looked over her shoulder. She saw one of her sister’s guards following at a distance and behind him, a Gypsy Scout that kept to the darker patches of night.

  She let her feet carry her, and somehow, despite the changed landscape, they found a familiar path and bore her to the caves she’d once called home, the caves that stored the Book of Dreaming Kings and held the Wicker Throne. The heavy oak doors were closed now, and when she saw the guard there, she paused. He stood in shadows cast by the watch lamp on its post and stepped forward when he saw her approaching.

  She stopped, unsure of what to do or say. Suddenly apprehensive, she glanced over her shoulder again. The men that followed her had stopped as well.

  “Is the way to the Book closed, then?” she finally asked.

  The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

  She studied him, finding him suddenly familiar. He was perhaps ten years older than she was, and though the face paint bent his features, she was certain that she knew him. “You are one of Seamus’s grandchildren.”

  The guard nodded but said nothing. He stepped farther into the light and waved to the guard that followed her. Positioning himself so that her body was between him and the others, his hands moved quickly and her eyes were drawn to them.

  Hail Winteria bat Mardic, true queen of the Marsh, he signed to her. I am your servant, Garyt ben Urlin.

  Winters blinked, his words overpowering her. She opened her mouth to speak, remembered herself, and willed her own hands to move into the house language of Y’Zir. Grace to you, Garyt.

  “These caves are closed by order of Queen Winteria the Elder,” he said aloud. And his hands flashed again. We may bear the mark on our bodies, but we do not all bear it in our souls.

  She felt the heat in her face before she felt the water in her eyes. She remembered these words-she’d said something similar to Seamus on the day of his sobbing confession. But these were not words of comfort spoken into shame. They were words of loyalty and commitment. She felt a tear break loose. “Thank you,” she said.

  Turn now, she willed herself. And she did. She turned and took another path her feet remembered. The landmarks had changed, but she still found her way. At last, she stood in a wide, bare patch of ground near the river. It was a place she’d come to when she needed to meditate upon the dreams she’d had until just a few months ago.

  She tried to remember those days spent in meditation but found the memory of them elusive. Instead, her mind was filled with the song and the children that took the mark and those doors now closed and guarded where her book of dreams lay hidden. She’d seen and heard so much the day before and had assumed it meant her people had wholeheartedly embraced this new way of life.

  But Garyt hadn’t, despite the mark he’d taken and the uniform he wore. And now she was certain there were others like him.

  Drawing her knives, Winters balanced them in her hands and shifted on her feet. Overhead, the stars wrapped themselves in rain clouds to leave her in darkness. The sound of the river’s slow current mingled with the soft and distant hoot of an owl.

  Winters drew in her breath and held it.

  All is not lost here, she realized.

  She brought the knives up, held parallel to her forearms, the edges facing out. She moved her legs apart and slowly released her breath, remembering the form that Jin Li Tam had taught her.

  Then, Winters began to dance and in that dancing, laid aside her tears.

  Chapter 11

  Vlad Li Tam

  Vlad Li Tam stood in the bow of his flagship and squinted against the fading light. He’d taken to sleeping during the day so that he could spend his nights here, watching.

  So far, their penetration into the deeper waters of the Ghosting Crests had been uneventful. And while his children had finally seen the anomaly that their father was so utterly fixated upon, they still did not fully comprehend the depth of his obsession.

  Not obsession, he told himself with a sigh as he scanned the waters off his bow. Love.

  But even as he thought it, he knew it was ridiculous. Yet he felt the mark of it on him as real as the scars that Ria had given him. His heart raced when he stood here, waiting for his ghost to appear. His hands were clammy. His mind was filled with the image of her graceful movement in the water, and when he tossed in his cot and tried to sleep, it was the song that emanated from her that kept him awake. No matter where he went upon his ship, inevitably the sunset found him here. Waiting.

  Because she draws me.

  More importantly, he suspected that she was aware of her pull upon him and used it now to move him and what remained of his family southeast, farther into the Ghosting Crests than any Named Lander had sailed.

  The stars throbbed to life above him as the sky blurred from purple to deep charcoal, and as he watched, the moon lifted itself into the sky-a sliver now but enough to light the water. As the day slipped past, the noise of the crew dissipated and the night noise of wave and clanking engine took over.

  Here she comes, he told himself, and he felt it on his skin, in the tiny hairs within his ears, as her song started up beneath the water. A patch of ocean shimmered and undulated ahead, and he clung to the railing, leaning forward.

  He watched as she moved through the water, tendrils of light trailing behind like hair. There was a grace about her that he’d never seen before, and once more, he felt his heart aching and felt that compulsion to join her.

  I have become a foolish old man. And even as he thought it, he watched as she abruptly changed course and struck south. He raised his hand to the pilothouse behind him and pointed in the direction she raced, waiting for the ship to turn along with their guide. Slowly, he felt the list as the ship bore hard to starboard.

  After an hour, she was back and changing course yet again, this time heading due east.

  He motioned to the pilothouse again and heard the engines groaning as they increased power and turned the ship. He gripped the railing and let the wind catch hair he’d been too distracted to cut and a beard he’d been too unfocused to trim. Ahead, as the ocean around and ahead grew darker, he watched his ghost in the water.

  The d’jin slowed enough for them to keep up, adjusting course here and there as needed, and Vlad Li Tam stood watch and counted the hours as they raced over a placid sea.

  The sky was lightening when they finally slowed, and he watched as the blue-green lights swung in a wide circle ahead of them. Squinting ahead, he saw something vaguely outlined in the water, and he called it out for the watchman and pilot.

  As they slowed and approached, the d’jin rolled and broke the surface, illuminating the small drifting object with the glowing tendrils of light.

  It was a lifeboat.

  Behind him, the ship went to third alarm and he heard his family scrambling. Before the flagship’s longboat slapped the waves, the d’jin had darted off to the southeast again, an
d Vlad knew that she would not be back until the next nightfall.

  Sighing, he left the bow and moved to the port side where he could watch. He saw Baryk, bare chested and wearing silk sleeping pants, and approached.

  “Your ghost has found us something,” the warpriest said.

  Vlad Li Tam studied the water below, watching as his men, illuminated in the light of their lantern, threw their hooks and drew the drifting boat to their own. “Yes,” he answered, though his voice sounded more distant than he’d wanted it to. “She has.”

  He heard excited voices carrying up and across the water, but he wasn’t able to pick out any of the words. He saw them scrambling into the boat and heard their gasps at what they found there.

  Two men manned the oars of the lifeboat and steered it toward the flagship. The longboat followed after, and when they reached the lift, Vlad leaned over the railing. “What have you found?”

  His fifty-first son looked up. “The boat bears the markings of the Kinshark.” Lying in the bottom of it, Vlad saw a vague shape that took form as the longboat approached with its lantern, and found himself gasping with surprise as well.

  What have you brought us, my love? He blinked at the shape, uncertain of his eyes.

  There, stretched out cruciform, lay a broken metal man in Androfrancine robes.

  Rudolfo

  A light snow fell in the northern reaches of the Ninefold Forest, and Rudolfo shrugged the flakes from where they gathered in his cloak. The morning air was still and heavy with the smell of wood smoke and pine. It was cold, too, carrying his breath away in clouds as he walked his woods in the quietest hour between night and dawn.

  Behind him, the camp stirred to life as Lysias’s sergeants moved among the recruits with their pine switches, slapping buttocks and thighs as they went about motivating the men to a more eager wakefulness. Already, the Gypsy Scouts were up and loaded-as was Rudolfo-and this morning they would ride ahead of the battalion so that Rudolfo could see their discovery for himself.