The Silver Tide (Copper Cat)

by Jen Williams

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ristanov yelled the question at the Dawning Man, before turning on Kellan, who had emerged from below decks. In daylight, it was painfully obvious that the man was sick; the red moss-like growth on his forehead stood out in stark contrast to his papery white skin. ‘Stop this!’

  Kellan seemed to stare straight through her, and the Dawning Man turned and slammed the unfortunate man into the cliff face. There was a crunch of multiple bones being broken, and then it smeared the remains across the black rocks, before dropping what was left into the water. The glistening red trail was dry in moments under the punishing sun.

  The Banshee rounded on Kellan, her arms held out as if to shake him. ‘Why would you – what do you —’

  ‘I am not taking the crown off,’ said Kellan mildly. He looked almost bored, and completely unaware of the eyes of every crew member now watching him closely. ‘The power of the Dawning Man is too valuable to just cast away.’

  Ristanov looked wild for a moment, as if she might strike him, and then she thought better of it. Instead, she stalked back down the steps to her cabin, ignoring the stares of her crew, and after a moment, Kellan followed her.

  Devinia met Augusta’s eyes, and realised that the old woman had spotted exactly what she had too; when the Banshee had raised her arms, there had been flecks of the red growth on the underside of her wrists. Whatever it was that Kellan had, it was catching.

  37

  The Eye of Euriale was almost in sight.

  Estenn paused to wipe burning sweat from her forehead before it could sting at her eyes. The site itself had not been easy to find – she supposed that there were whole sections of Euriale that were simply much easier to traverse when you were a giant sentient spider – and now they were met with more obstacles. The Eye of Euriale resembled a small, artificial hill, one built of concentric blocks of pale green rock, each half as tall as her. This in itself would have been difficult enough to climb, but it was covered in thick swathes of spider web. The stuff was thick and silvery, so tough that they could not simply push it aside, but had to cut through it with their sharpest blades. They all had pieces of it stuck to them now, patches of gossamer silver that clung to skin and to leather like glue; she could feel plenty of it in her hair, but was resisting the temptation to yank it out.

  So close now. She took a slow breath before hauling herself up onto the next level of stone. Gen scrambled up next to her, a hatchet clutched in her fist.

  ‘Emissary, it is nearly time.’ The girl’s face was flushed, her eyes watering as if she might cry. ‘You will bring the old gods back for us, and Ede will be made anew.’

  Estenn smiled and briefly squeezed her arm. ‘And you will take your place in history, dear Gen. You have all worked so hard to get us here. The Twins will raise my followers up above all others.’

  It was the right thing to say. Gen beamed at her before attacking the webs with renewed enthusiasm.

  There was a cry from above them – one of her people, a lithe young man who had once been a ship’s boy, had reached the very top, and he stood silhouetted against the sky, his arms raised in triumph. Estenn felt a stab of annoyance. She should have reached the top first: she was the Emissary. It was her destiny to look into the Eye of Euriale and skewer its secrets. Plastering a serene smile on her face, she hauled herself up the next block, and then the next, slashing wildly with her sword. When at last she stood below the final ring of stones, two of her soldiers reached down to pull her up. This too annoyed her, but she relaxed into it, letting it become an act of ascendance. She would reach the Eye of Euriale by the sweat of her followers – it only made her more worthy.

  ‘My people.’ She turned with her arms spread wide, towards those who still climbed. They were all nearly at the summit now. ‘The age of the Twins is about to begin.’

  One or two of them cheered, and she smiled indulgently. Turning away, she walked to the very edge and looked over. She took an involuntary step backwards, and hoped that no one saw. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out.

  The Eye of Euriale surged beneath her like a whirlpool of eldritch light. It seemed to reach for her, as if it had been waiting all this time just to see her, to claim her as its own. There were flickers of lightning down there, silent and yet full of violence, and she could almost feel the new life waiting to burst forth. No matter. There would be no need for that, not when she had set history back on its rightful course.

  Reverentially, she slid the wooden staff from the straps holding it to her back, and held it securely in both hands. This would be her key.

  ‘Children of Euriale!’ They were all there now, the select group she had chosen to accompany her to the Eye. Each of them wore the markings of the Twins, and they all looked appropriately awe-stricken. She grinned, unable to hide her joy. ‘We are here on the cusp of history! I go now, as your Emissary, to change the world for the better.’ She thrust the staff into the air. ‘Join your brothers and sisters at the shrine, and wait for the world to be renewed!’

  She stepped up to the very edge and closed her eyes. This was it. Whatever happened now, she would be free of this world.

  ‘Heads up, wolf lady!’

  Estenn’s eyes snapped open in time to see an enormous shape barrelling across the void towards her, multiple legs outstretched. She had a moment to recognise the ridiculous little mask that was clutched to the creature’s head, and then the Spinner landed on her, knocking her off the step and onto the block below.

  Estenn screamed with rage and scrambled for her sword.

  ‘What is the Spinner doing?’ cried Oster.

  ‘I think that’s called taking the initiative, kid,’ said Wydrin. Estenn herself was out of sight, but her soldiers were all around the steps, and every one of them was armed. Wydrin unsheathed both her weapons and passed Frostling to Frith, who took it with a nod. ‘Speaking of which, your little trick with the dragon thing would be really useful right now.’

  Oster looked confused for a moment, and then his human form dissolved into a cascade of lights. Not waiting to see what he would do next, Wydrin nodded to Sebastian. ‘Let’s get to the other side and make sure she’s down.’

  If Sebastian had been troubled lately, it made no difference to his skills as a warrior. With his borrowed sword he charged at the oncoming cultists, using his size and strength to take the bite from their attacks, before striking with solid, well-placed blows. Wydrin saw them fall from the corner of her eye as she whirled and stabbed, her stance slightly wider as she fought with her short sword. Frith came on behind them, finishing off anyone who still looked lively enough to attempt a second attack.

  At the far side they were met with a fresh wave of soldiers, and for a moment Wydrin lost sight of Sebastian as they surrounded him, moving to take down the most obvious threat. She ran to the step and looked down, only to see the Spinner with his legs curled protectively over his body. Estenn was perched on top of his fat body, the staff shoved back in its belt and a long curving sword held high in one hand. It was already thick with black blood, and the Spinner’s mask was spattered with it.

  ‘No!’

  Estenn brought the sword down, burying it in the taut fleshy mound that was the Spinner’s unprotected belly. He shrieked, a high inhuman sound that seemed to press against Wydrin’s eardrums, and all his limbs trembled.

  ‘You’ll pay for that, you bitch!’

  Wydrin braced herself to jump down, planning to land directly on Estenn and knock her clear, but the light around the woman twisted and bent oddly. Wydrin had a brief impression of her pulling the sword free, and then she was gone.

  ‘Shit.’ She turned to Frith, who had just caught up with her. ‘Did you see where she went?’

  The air to her right seemed to grow thicker somehow, and all at once a curved blade was sailing out of thin air towards her face. Instinctively, Wydrin brought up Glassheart to intercept it, wincing at the impact.

  ‘You will not take this from m
e!’ Estenn’s face was twisted with rage, her black eyes shining. Frith brought Frostling down in a silvery flash, paring open the flesh on the woman’s arm, and she leapt back with a cry. Immediately, Wydrin pushed forward, hoping to strike with Glassheart before she could get her guard up again, but the woman was unnaturally fast and caught the blow on her blade.

  ‘You have to stop!’ They traded more blows, faster and faster, the ringing of their blades like discordant music. Wydrin let her instincts take over, willing Frith to stay back. ‘You haven’t seen what these gods can do! You would destroy us all!’

  ‘I would remake the world!’ snarled Estenn. She lunged forward, getting under Wydrin’s defence briefly and searing through the leathers on her left arm. Wydrin punched out with the pommel of her sword, catching the woman on the chin hard enough for her to stagger backwards, but it wasn’t enough to take her down. ‘And all the unbelievers will burn!’

  ‘You are an idiot!’

  There was a chorus of screams from the other side of the Eye. Wydrin glanced up to see Oster in his dragon form, his jaws wide and gleaming. Sebastian was next to him, broadsword flashing in the afternoon light.

  ‘No,’ said Estenn. ‘I am the Emissary.’

  In one fluid movement she sheathed her sword and drew the staff from its belt, while her other hand slipped a throwing knife from her jerkin and flicked it towards Wydrin, almost casually. Wydrin twisted to one side so that it did little more than nick her shoulder, and then Estenn was leaping over the edge of the pit, Frith’s staff held triumphantly in one hand.

  Wydrin ran to the edge, feeling Frith close behind her. There was Estenn, already a tiny figure plummeting into the heart of the Eye, and then she was consumed in green light. A great white hole opened up there, a shifting caul of diamond light, and beyond it Wydrin could see red sand, and the daylight of another age.

  ‘Quickly!’ she said to Frith. ‘We have to follow her through before that hole closes!’

  He met her eyes steadily. ‘How will we get back?’

  ‘If we don’t go now, there won’t be anything to come back to.’

  She expected him to disagree, or at least to question her. Instead he took her hand.

  Wydrin looked up to the other side of the pit. Sebastian was there, one hand raised. Most of Estenn’s soldiers were dead or dying. He moved to the edge, Oster close behind him. They had had the same idea.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Wydrin faintly, ‘I suppose we’re all idiots together.’

  She squeezed Frith’s hand in her own, and they jumped into the churning Eye of Euriale.

  PART THREE

  A Parting of the Ways

  38

  As she passed through the Eye, Estenn dreamed.

  She knelt, gathering her heavy robes in one hand, and set the taper to the candle. The light blossomed in the cramped bunk room, illuminating the carved wooden figure on their makeshift altar. It was her turn to make the acquiescence, so she settled herself as comfortably as she could on the wooden boards and prepared to contemplate the face of Benoit, the Walker of the Path, Blessed in Name and Spirit. The carved figure was a good one, given to them by the Sacred Mother herself, and judging from the paintings and sculptures that adorned every corner of the Golden House of Worshipfulness, it really did look like him. There was Benoit’s clear brow, the faint, forgiving smile, the twist of beard that curled from the bottom of his chin. Sacred Mother claimed she had seen him once, amongst a crowd of his followers, when she was just a girl. Estenn took the clay ampoule from within her sleeve and poured a small measure of the oil into the bowl in front of the figure. The scent of heartsblossom and Mother’s Lament filled the bunk, growing stronger as the heat from the candle warmed the oil.

  Quiet moments. Estenn would think of them often, over the long, long years of her life.

  She had been murmuring the first canticle, preparing her mind to walk the First Path, when the door of the bunk had crashed open. The candle and the oil had been scattered, and Estenn had looked up to see a man she didn’t recognise, a man with skin as white as a fish’s belly, a lattice of purplish scars on his midriff.

  ‘We’ve got another one here,’ he’d said over his shoulder to someone she couldn’t see. ‘Is this ship full of little girls?’

  Estenn had stood up then, holding herself straight, as all students of the Golden House were taught to do.

  ‘We are making our first pilgrimage.’ Some part of her knew that her words were pointless. What had happened had already happened; her life as she knew it was essentially over. She knew that by the man’s scars, and by the dirty knife at his belt. Even so, these were words that needed to be said. ‘We are people of peace, envoys from the Golden House and advocates of Benoit, the Walker of the Path.’

  The man barked laughter at her, his pinkish eyes creased with mirth.

  ‘Don’t much matter what you was, girl. If you don’t want your guts around your ankles, you’ll do as you’re bloody well told.’

  Years passed in a green haze inside the Eye. Estenn saw that time wasn’t a line to be followed, but a tumult to be lost in. Everything she thought of as herself was spooling away into the torrent – so easy to be obliterated, in this swirling of years – so she focussed all of her will, drawing the pieces back together again. She would not come so far only to be destroyed by a mindless force.

  It was another time, on an island she would come to call home. Two owners later and she stood in the docks of Two-Birds, the last in a line of dirty, diseased slaves. Someone new would be buying them, but Estenn had long since lost interest in the bartering of her own flesh. She stared down at her feet instead, glad only that they were no longer in the hell that was the hold of the ship. The floor here did not shift beneath her bare feet, and there was sunlight on her head. She focussed on these things, drawing her will into a tight, narrow thing. Benoit had taught openness, an awareness of all things; life had taught her to hold herself close and deep inside, where no one else could reach. Benoit could go hang.

  ‘Let me have a look at you, kid.’

  A firm hand pressed her shoulder briefly, and the touch was so unlike that of her captors that she looked up. A young woman stood in front of her, short with a curvy waist, her hair a mess of dark curls. She had a port-wine birthmark on her cheek.

  ‘Have you been sick lately?’

  Estenn shook her head. This was a medic then, someone employed by the new or the old owners to check the merchandise over. The woman was frowning, her eyes travelling over Estenn’s emaciated form, the bruises on her arms and neck. As Estenn watched, the woman glanced back up the line to where business was being done. She saw the woman come to some sort of decision.

  ‘Here, I need to look in your eyes.’ The woman led her a few steps away, supposedly to find better light, and made her tip her head up to the sky. ‘Look up for me, kid.’

  Estenn did as she was bid, and felt the woman’s thumbs brush the bony mounds of her cheeks. As she did so the woman spoke in a low voice that only Estenn could hear.

  ‘You’ve no shackles on. This idiot has had so much horn-root this morning he barely knows how many limbs he has, let alone how many slaves. There’s an alleyway directly behind you. Follow it to the end and you’ll come to a side street. Head north and you’ll find a tavern called The Iron Bullock. If you go to the kitchens and tell them Grint sent you, they’ll give you a bowl of soup. You get all that?’

  Estenn rolled her eyes back down to look at the medic, and gave the tiniest nod.

  ‘I’ll be back there later tonight. I can help you get off this bastard island.’

  ‘Why?’ murmured Estenn. It was the only word she spoke to the woman.

  ‘Does it matter to you?’ The woman looked uncomfortable now, and she took her hands away from her face, glancing back up the row of slaves again. ‘Go now. Don’t run. Walk like you have every right in the world.’

  I do, Estenn would have told her, but instead she did as she was bid, walking calmly ou
t of the daylight and into the shadow of the alley. As swiftly as that, her days as a slave were over.

  It was growing closer, she could feel it. A world that brimmed with magic, the Ede of a thousand years ago – still god-touched and sacred. In the confusion of the Eye, Estenn tried to move towards it, knowing that her tiny movements meant nothing at all but unable to resist doing so. The Twins were calling her home, finally.

  She ate the soup, but did not wait for the medic. Instead, Estenn wandered back out onto the streets of Two-Birds just as the sun was setting, painting the cobbles and the windows with lurid orange light. She knew that she must look a sight – the tunic and leggings she wore were of decent quality, but she had spent weeks in the fetid hold of a slave ship, and the stink was like a second skin. Luckily, Two-Birds was hardly the most respectable of towns, and no one challenged her.

  She moved up and down the streets, letting her feet take her where they would. The soup and the ale had filled her belly and she felt oddly at peace, despite the uncertainty. It was more than the food – it was the simple ability to walk where she wanted to, knowing that the decision was her own. Perhaps they would catch up with her and that would be the end of this brief freedom, but somehow she didn’t believe so. There was the start of something new here; just as the scarred man bursting into her bunk had changed her life, so would the actions of the woman with the port-wine birthmark. She wouldn’t be going back to the slave ship.

  Something else was calling.

  Eventually she came to the edge of the small town, and stood before the towering trees that marked the start of the wild part of the island. She stared at them as the shadows grew long. There had been a great deal of talk about this place in the holds of the slaver. The port of Two-Birds was a pirate town, but the island of Euriale itself was dangerous. Everyone knew it.