by Jen Williams
Estenn cast a look over her shoulder. Below her Two-Birds was coming alive for the night, lamps easing into life like errant fireflies. Down there was another path, another life. If she stepped between the trees now there would be yet another path, and it would be as different to the other as sandpaper was to silk; she could feel that keenly. She thought of the teachings of Benoit, with all his talk of paths and openness. He had spoken of study, of quiet contemplation, of restraint and the betterment of man. Next to the wild forest, thrumming with its own alien power, Benoit and his ideas seemed small and foolish: a child’s idea of truth.
‘I am done with the ways of men,’ she murmured.
Estenn stepped into the cursed forest just as the last light was draining from the sky, the wild, alien scent of Euriale closing around her, as green as the Eye she fell through. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf raised its head and howled.
39
The yawning sensation in her stomach stopped, and Wydrin found herself kneeling in rich, black soil. For a moment she thought they hadn’t gone anywhere at all – that perhaps the Eye of Euriale had spat them back out and they had landed in the jungle somewhere – but when she looked up she saw strange twisted trees, unlike anything she’d seen on the island, and the light was different. She staggered to her feet.
‘Where are we?’
The others were picking themselves up, and Wydrin turned in time to see Estenn glaring back at her, black hair framing a face that had gone paper white.
‘Wait!’
Before Wydrin could move, light twisted around the Emissary and she vanished, slipping off amongst the trees. Next to her, Frith was struggling to get up. At the sight of his face, she brushed thoughts of pursuing Estenn aside.
‘You look half dead!’
Frith took a slow breath. Like Estenn, his face was ashen.
‘I’ve had more pleasant journeys. Did you – did you also see your past?’
Wydrin took his arm and pulled him to his feet. The tall, pale trees were thick on all sides. ‘I saw bits and pieces, yeah. As we went back through history, I suppose we went through our own, too.’
‘There was a great deal I would rather have forgotten,’ said Frith. He squeezed her arm, and then stepped away, letting her know he could stand by himself.
Sebastian and Oster came to them, Sebastian’s sword already in his fist. ‘She went through the trees behind you,’ he said. ‘We shouldn’t give her too much of a head start.’
They started off, moving as quickly as they could, although the close proximity of the trees made that difficult. They had slim, spindly trunks, and the bark was flaky, the crumbling edges faintly purple. Far above their heads, branches reached up to a cloudless blue sky. It was, Wydrin realised, aridly hot, with none of the humidity of Euriale. She forced herself to look around as much as possible, watching for the odd fracturing of light that Estenn used to conceal herself. She couldn’t have gone far.
‘I do not think we are in a forest,’ said Frith.
‘What?’
He nodded at their surroundings as they ran. ‘The trees, they are too regularly spaced, and there are no other plants growing in this soil. Just the trees. I believe we are in a garden of some sort.’
‘A garden? Are you telling me we came a thousand years into the past to land in someone’s herbaceous border?’
‘Well, hardly herbaceous—’
‘Hoy, you there!’
A figure in loose-fitting white clothes lurched out from behind a tree trunk. He was a deeply tanned man in his fifties, with a shock of grey hair that stuck up as though he frequently ran sweaty fingers through it. He wore a silver torq around his neck, with a yellow crystal hanging from it; there was a mage word carved there, although Wydrin could not have said what it was. His hairy feet were confined in brown leather sandals.
‘Greetings,’ began Sebastian. ‘I wonder if—’
‘How’d you even sodding well get in here, that’s what I’d like to know.’ The man marched up to them, brushing soil from his hands. He wore a belt with several clear bottles attached, sloshing with liquid. ‘This is supposed to be the bloody sacred groves, and instead it’s like bloody market day, trespassing idiots on sale. I’m just sitting there, tending the trees, when something comes charging out of nowhere and treads on my bloody feet. Couldn’t even see what it was! Now I’ve got you lot, a bunch of Unbound, if I’m not mistaken, stomping around—’
‘I will not be spoken to like this,’ protested Oster.
‘Where were you trodden on? Back the way you came?’ Wydrin made to push past the man with grey hair, but he threw back his sleeves to reveal forearms bound with strips of silk. Next to her Frith give a low cry.
‘Oh no you bloody don’t!’ The man raised his hands and twin ribbons of white light curled from his palms. Wydrin went to draw her dagger, only to feel both hands grow painfully cold. Before she could do anything else, her hands snapped together and a ring of glittering blue ice crackled into life, encircling her wrists in cuffs as hard as steel.
‘You’re a mage,’ said Frith. He too had his wrists bound, as did Sebastian and Oster. The latter was looking at the ice cuffs with growing anger.
‘Oh, I see we have been infiltrated by geniuses,’ said the man, rolling his eyes. ‘Come on, you’re coming with me.’
He held his hand up, as if he would do them further mischief. Wydrin caught Sebastian’s eye, and saw him give a tiny shake of his head. They needed to know what the situation was here, and if they had even appeared where they expected to be. Getting into a fight now would likely end badly.
‘Oster, trust me,’ said Sebastian in a low voice. ‘It is safer to be pliant for now.’
The mage led them through the trees until, abruptly, the neat forest ended, and they were stepping over a low red brick wall. To Wydrin’s surprise, they were in the middle of a courtyard; tall arched passageways met them on every side, while windows high in the walls caught the midday sun and reflected it back in brilliant white squares. There were more men and women out here, all wearing loose white clothing of various cuts and materials. Some of them had their sleeves rolled up, or wore robes with no sleeves, and all of them had silk tied up to their elbows, all inscribed with mage words. The men and women glanced over at them curiously; some carried books, while others looked as though they had recently travelled a great distance, their leather boots dusty, the cuffs of their trousers stained. Of Estenn, there was no sign.
‘I’ll take you to the common room,’ said the man, who was studiously ignoring the curious looks of his peers. ‘You can wait in there, and the Commander can deal with you. I don’t have bloody time for this. Do they think those trees will grow themselves? I can hardly be expected to perform my duties if I also have to be escorting trespassers all over the bloody place.’
Sebastian tried again. ‘Forgive us, we did not know we were trespassing. It’s very important that we—’
‘Didn’t know?’ hooted the man. ‘What? Did you just trip over the walls of the Arkanium and land right in the middle of the sacred grove?’
He led them under an arch, where the shade briefly gave them welcome relief from the relentless sun, before urging them up a set of steps. A pair of men wearing crimson vests and the dour expressions of guards fell in behind them; they were unarmed, but their biceps were thick with strips of painted silk. At the top of the steps they emerged out into the open air again, to find themselves walking along battlements looking out over a city of red clay and smoke. Sebastian caught his breath.
‘It’s Krete! We’re actually here. The Eye brought us here.’
Wydrin looked out over the city, a tight feeling in her chest. There was no Sea-Glass Road of course, and where the Citadel should crouch above the city there was instead a confusion of red stone and wooden scaffolding; it loomed off to their right like an ant’s nest, riddled with workers building a monument that would stand for a thousand years. Until we brought the whole thing down, thought Wydrin, fee
ling faint. Until we left it in ruins.
The rest of the city was eerily familiar. Buildings of yellow and red brick crammed in close together, with more constructed of wood and grey stone than Wydrin remembered. There was also slightly more space, with wide thoroughfares lined with carts and market stalls. Someone had actually put some thought into the layout of the city, at one time. It was something that had never occurred to her in the seething mess that was the Krete she knew.
‘Fuck me sideways,’ she murmured.
The mage and the guards led them down a short flight of steps and through a set of tall wooden doors. The room inside was large and spacious, and full of bright daylight from the wide glass windows that looked out across the city. Otherwise it was sparsely decorated, with three long tables that had obviously seen a lot of use, while mismatched chairs were scattered around the room. There were threadbare tapestries on the walls.
‘Don’t steal anything,’ snapped the mage. He made a sharp gesture with his hands and the ice cuffs melted and fell to pieces. With that he disappeared through an interior door, while the guards took up position on either side of the room.
‘It’s not like there’s anything worth stealing anyway,’ said Wydrin. There were a few moments of silence, and then everyone started talking at once.
‘This is an outrage! I will change my form and smash these windows, and then we can be gone—’
‘Did you see the way he wielded the Edenier? Such casual precision! If I could just—’
‘These people mean us no harm. If we can find a way to leave quietly, without doing any damage—’
‘Hold on, hold on!’ Wydrin held up her hands, and then lowered her voice, conscious of the men on the doors. ‘We have to think about where we are. And when. The man who brought us here was a mage – as well as a gardener, apparently – and the men and women in that courtyard also looked to be mages. We appear to have landed right in whatever passes as the seat of power for the mages of this time.’ She looked at Frith. ‘I’m assuming, princeling, that you’ve done a fair amount of reading about the mages since we were, uh, last here. Where do you suppose this is?’
Frith frowned at her. ‘Much of the history of the mages has been lost.’ He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘But the memories shared with me by Joah Demonsworn have given me access to details that no one else could possibly know. I would guess that this Arkanium is a place I glimpsed in his recollections where he once came to learn. There were a great many powerful mages in residence, and he was pleased to have the opportunity to study here.’
‘There is no building like this in modern Krete,’ said Sebastian, a note of caution to his voice. ‘Nor even a hint of one.’
‘And no mages either,’ said Wydrin. She looked at the tapestries; they were too faded to make out much. ‘These people are fighting a war against the gods, and we can see their plans taking shape.’ She nodded towards the windows, where it was still possible to see the beginnings of the Citadel. ‘We’re here to stop a woman who wants to destroy their plans. I’m telling you, these people are our natural allies. What’s our alternative? Run around Krete and hope we just bump into the woman who can make herself invisible at will? Fight our way out of a building filled with men and women who can use magic as well as I use a blade?’ She tugged a hand through her tangled hair, still full of the alien stink of Euriale. Her arm was sore from their tussle with the flying monsters, and the makeshift bandage had stuck to her skin. ‘We need to try at least. Let’s just hope this Commander person is reasonable.’
Xinian the Battleborn put the pieces of parchment back down on the desk, and rubbed her neck, trying to loosen the stiff muscles there. What she wanted, more than anything, was a long, hot bath and a full night’s sleep. Just to wash away the desert grit would be a start, but Archmage Reis wanted her report on the night’s action, as well as her thoughts on the Citadel’s progress. She sighed, glaring down at the carefully sketched plans. It all meant very little to her – layering Edeian spells with Edenier was Selsye’s speciality, not hers – but Reis cared little about that. He would want to know if they could protect the Citadel while it was constructed, if Xinian’s troops could keep the enemy busy until it was finished. Xinian frowned, thinking of the men and women they had already lost. How many more would they lose, to keep the gods from Krete while they worked? And all for a plan that had such a whiff of desperation about it that half the men and women who served under her would not meet her eye.
She turned away from the desk, suddenly tired of looking at the plans. She would do what she could to make it work, and the rest …
‘The rest is up to the gods,’ she murmured, smiling bitterly. She reached for the bottle on her desk. Xinian’s rooms had seen better days – she spent very little time at the Arkanium now, and their resources were as low as they’d ever been – but the Mistress of House knew to keep a bottle of Pathanian wine chilled, should she arrive home unexpectedly from the skirmishes. Xinian poured herself a glass and gulped it down in three quick swallows. There was no time for the leisurely bath, but the wine cooled her throat and cleared away some of the Kretian dust.
‘Commander?’ A voice came from outside, followed by a hesitant knock.
‘What is it?’
A mage she vaguely recognised peered around the door. His face was red from exertion or too much sun. He looked her up and down, his eyes growing wide. Belatedly she remembered how she must look: her leather gear was still thick with mud from the last battle, her cloak torn and burned at the edges. She had taken a small injury when a shard from a boulder had hurtled in her direction and slashed across her forearm; the arm that ended in a smooth stump was crusted with old blood. She felt a flicker of irritation, and waved at him brusquely.
‘Well? Spit it out, man.’
The man’s face turned blotchy, and he swallowed hard before continuing.
‘Commander Battleborn, we had some trespassers. Unbound trespassers. I mean, we still have them. We’ve taken them prisoner. I have, I mean. They’re in the common room, the one we use to meet traders and merchants and their ilk.’
Xinian poured herself another measure of the wine and drank it down. Her skin was prickling under her clothes.
‘Common folk trying to sneak in the gates again?’ She shook her head. ‘They believe it will be safer in here, if the gods come. It is idiotic, but it is hardly a matter for the martial commander of the mages. Inform the head of the guards, or, if you’re feeling especially malicious, the Mistress of House.’
The man squirmed. ‘Begging your pardon, Commander, but these aren’t any common folk. They look like sell-swords to me, and they just turned up in the middle of the sacred grove. No one but a mage should be able to get in there, and yet there they bloody were, standing there clear as daylight.’
Xinian paused with her hand on her glass. The sacred grove was one of Selsye’s projects. She wouldn’t want strangers blundering about amongst her trees.
‘Sell-swords, you say?’
‘Dirty tavern brawlers,’ said the man. ‘Although’, he drew himself up to his full height, ‘perhaps that’s just what they want you to think. Maybe they’re spies. Spies for the gods themselves.’
‘Very well.’ Xinian rubbed a hand over her smooth head, consciously recalling the Word that was tattooed there: Forbearance. ‘Take me to the prisoners.’
40
At night, when the ships were still and darkness filled the waterway, the decks rang with the sound of coughing and misery. The Banshee’s crew were sluggish, going about their duties with slow hands and thick heads, as though they’d all been at the rum the night before, while Kellan himself was rarely seen, preferring to stay below decks. Devinia and Augusta huddled together on the deck, next to an oil lamp. Carefully, they peeled back their sleeves to expose their skin to the light, and examined each other’s faces for signs of the red growth. It had become something of a routine. The man who stood guard over them had it on his shoulder – a creeping ten
dril of it peeked out from under his shirt – and he scratched at it continually, a faint expression of distress on his face that Devinia was quite sure he was unaware of.
‘Nothing,’ said Augusta, relief evident from every crease on her lined face. ‘Unless you’ve got it growing in crevices that aren’t so easy to check, I’d say we’re free of it.’
‘Let’s not think about that, shall we?’ Devinia murmured. ‘We must be among the lucky few. Every man and woman I look at is scratching at themselves, and even accounting for the lack of hygiene on a pirate ship, that’s unusual. How have we missed it?’
‘We didn’t touch the gold directly,’ said Augusta. ‘It comes from that, no doubt. Could be a disease, could be a curse.’ She rubbed her own arms briskly, although the night was balmy. ‘When I think about how close I came to snatching that crown off his stupid head …’
Devinia nodded, consumed with similar thoughts. She had been in the chamber with the tainted gold, had breathed in that stale air. Could the red moss be growing in her lungs even now, poisoning her from the inside out?
In the stillness and the dark, a pale blue light flared to the west of the ship. Instinctively, Devinia clambered to her feet. The guard grunted at her to get back down, but she ignored him, peering out across the water. At the base of the cliff was a small patch of rocky ground, and on it stood a slim man with an unruly beard and hair that came down past his bare shoulders. He held a ball of blue light in his hands, and in the harsh glow she could see that his skin was a motley collection of strange colours. Something about that tickled at the back of her mind, but then the man stepped forward, smiling.
‘Ahoy, ship!’ he called. ‘I bring you a cure for your ills! May I come aboard?’
A crewman stepped forward with an oil lamp. ‘Who are you?’ he barked. ‘How did you get there?’
