by K S Nikakis
Poss wasn’t safe by a long stretch, but the arsehole wasn’t a fool. She just hoped he had a good plan in place. She should go back to the shaft. If one the traders got away from the arsehole’s men, she’d have to slow him. Light exploded in the trees and shouts rang out. Shit! Shit! Shit! A rift had just spat somebody out!
Viv’s wings thrashed as she launched into the air, dropped into the shaft, and landed with a jarring thud. The sound of fighting echoed through the stone and the sound of running feet. Viv whirled. Which way? Which way? Then a shadow flashed along the wall in front and Viv gave chase. The man unsheathed his knife as he ran, and his final few strides took him to a cavern, and a huddled shape. Viv leapt onto his back but he barely faltered, just wrenched her off, and threw her against the wall.
Her wings bedded in an instant and as his knife hand swung back, she leapt again, onto Poss this time. Poss’s scream was muffled by the gag, and Viv locked her close to form a shield. And then the knife plunged into her back. It knocked the air from her lungs and white-hot pain exploded as he wrenched it free, and plunged it in again.
‘Poss,’ she choked. Poss’s screams told her the little girl lived, and she clung to that as she waited for the final strike. It never came. There was a thud, then a crushing weight as the trader collapsed on top of her, and then he was gone. Viv managed to turn her head. It was the arsehole, his face contorted with the blackest hatred she’d ever, his knife bloody as he twisted in the trader’s back. She rolled clear, clawed her way upright, and staggered back down the tunnel.
Coolness told her she’d reached the outside, and grunts told her fights still raged, but she fixed her eyes on the trees. She coughed and wiped the wetness from her chin as she staggered on. She was drowning in her own blood but all she wanted was the rift that promised the chance to end her days anywhere but here.
She was unaware of falling, only that the leaf-litter smelled of pine, and that it pressed against her cheek. She liked the smell. There might be owls in the trees too. Owls would be good, or rifts. Make-up ya effing mind, Vivi. Ya don’t have much time. Night’s coming. Owls, Rim. I’ll have owls to sing me to sleep.
Ataghan slashed Fariye’s bonds and wrenched open her jacket. She was drenched in blood and he examined her urgently. ‘Are you hurt? Did he stab you?’ Her screams had given way to sobs but she managed to shake her head.
‘Viv,’ she sobbed. ‘Viv.’
He swept her up and ran back along the tunnel, knife in hand. The elddra had lost so much blood he slipped in it as he reached the open. Five traders dead, soon to be six as Baraghan finished off the last, though Enda only knew where he’d sprang from.
‘The elddra?’ he asked Drasen urgently.
‘She went into the sidari,’ panted Drasen.
‘Take Fariye,’ he said, and thrust her into Drasen’s arms. ‘And set guards.’
‘Da!’ shrieked Fariye, but Ataghan sprinted off. The blood marked an easy trail but he didn’t have to go far. She lay with her battered face turned towards him, blood seeping from her mouth, and her stillness telling him she was already dead. Then there was a flash and Ataghan dropped into a crouch.
He’d only glimpsed the Angellus at the entertainments, but it was the same one. His chest heaved like bellows and his massive black wings scythed the air so powerfully, Ataghan’s hair was swept forward. The Angellus scooped her up and his face suffused with such tenderness that Ataghan’s heart missed, then he noticed Ataghan.
‘Let me take her,’ the Angellus said hurriedly.
‘Will she come back?’
‘If she chooses; if she survives.’ The Angellus leapt into nothingness and Ataghan was left staring at the air.
‘Magnificent, isn’t he?’ said Baraghan behind him. ‘The angel Thrisdane, from the fold of Ezam, home to male-aspected angels of the Host, including Violet Iris Vacia’s father who, I’m led to believe, is far less charming than she.’
‘Can he save her?’ asked Ataghan, sheathing his knives.
‘Not if he takes her to Ezam. They have little in the way of healing. I’m hoping he’ll take her to one of the other uncountable folds in the Rynth where they do have healing.’
Ataghan turned back towards the ridge. Brithergen collected wood for a pyre but Drasen still held Fariye, and hatred for the traders surged anew. There’d be many more pyres to come.
‘You seem singularly lacking in curiosity about the elddra who’s again saved your daughter,’ said Baraghan.
‘It wouldn’t have been necessary had you not raised the alarm.’
‘I doubt even you believe that. Three against five, plus whoever guarded your daughter in the tunnels? Not good odds when it takes but an instant to cut a child’s throat, which I’ve no doubt they intended, had Violet Iris Vacia not intervened. So they turned their knives on her instead,’ he added grimly.
‘How do you know, what you know, Baraghan?’
‘I wondered when you’d ask that. When I organised Thrisdane’s release from the entertainments, I requested a small favour from Violet Iris Vacia in return, namely, to show me a door, or what is more properly known as a rift, to the Angellus. She did, although she warned me against using it. She told me there were thousands of different places, and the Angellus could be anywhere.’
‘If her father’s an angel in a place called Ezam, why is she here?’
‘Her father is indeed an angel, but he seeded her in another world or fold. Her mother appears to have been like a Valen but from Moonsun Fold, where Violet Iris Vacia grew up. At some point recently, her father brought his shekinah—that’s what they call a female daimon—to Ezam and appointed Thrisdane to guide her through the rifts, like the one I just used and you saw Thrisdane use, to her mother’s fold.’
‘That doesn’t explain why she’s here, unless her mother’s here too.’
‘Her mother might be here. She’d be the type our friends the Astraali favour, but Violet Iris Vacia still searches. In answer to your original question, she’s here as a result of an accident. Thrisdane hasn’t enjoyed very good fortune in his job as guide. They got separated and she ended up here. I didn’t stay in Ezam long enough to have extended discussions on the matter.’
‘If you found the Angellus, I’m surprised you came back.’
‘If being the key word,’ said Baraghan, with a smile. ‘If the Host were once the Angellus, I can see why they came here. Their life in Ezam is limited compared to ours.’
‘And yet they left again.’
‘Yes. They didn’t like the mess they’d made.’ Baraghan’s easy smile faded. ‘The Host aren’t keen on daimon either, especially female ones. There’s no home for Violet Iris Vacia there, which is why, Ataghan, if she returns, I’ll lein-tryst with her.’
Ataghan’s eyebrows rose. ‘We both know you’re particularly unsuited to that arrangement, Baraghan.’
‘She’ll be the little bit of Angellus-life I can never reclaim,’ said Baraghan lightly. ‘And we’re a good fit. Her enhanced life-span means she’ll still be young when your lein will be an old man, and that leaves only two worthy contenders. Given the bruising to her face wasn’t inflicted by the traders, that leaves me.’
Ataghan grunted and Baraghan’s hand fastened on his arm. ‘I’m serious, Ataghan. If she comes back, she’s mine.’
Chapter 7
Ataghan charged Drasen with Fariye’s care, despite her shrill pleadings to stay with him, and sent them back to Esh-accom with Brithergen, on a single horse. When they neared the wall, they’d put Fariye between them, and cover her with Brithergen’s cape. Drasen would loll forward and that, along with his absent mount, suggest a riding accident. There’d still be enough suspicion from the traders’ spies to come looking. They’d smell the smoke and be cautious, but approach the pyres to howl and curse, and swear revenge, and grieving men were easy to kill.
It unfolded as Ataghan predicted. The spies used the more direct route, leaving their horses to creep forward on foot but eventually all four w
ere gathered at the deserted camp. Baraghan’s knife took one in the back but before he could throw a second, Ataghan’s knives had taken the other three. Ataghan wrenched off their amès before he and Baraghan heaved their bodies on top of their comrades, then rode back the way the spies had come.
Ataghan stopped now and then to whistle, testing different harmonic combinations, until one by one the spies’ horses appeared. He cupped their muzzles and reassured them before, with a single knife slash, he severed the tendons in their front legs. They’d be lame for zadics, if they ever recovered, and the loss to their owners great.
‘I sometimes wonder whether Soaich had a share in your fathering,’ said Baraghan, as they rode on.
‘Do you have children, Baraghan?’
‘Not that I’ve acknowledged, but Fariye’s safe, Ataghan. The blood-letting can end.’
‘Nothing’s ever safe, Baraghan. Ten, I’ve found, but there’s double that number involved. I’ll hunt every last one of them down and it will be a long time before any trader sees murdering a child as a useful way to raise coin.’
It was past midday before Ataghan reached Esh-accom, and he kept his hood up and took the backstreets to his compound. Baraghan took no such precautions, but as no one had seen him leave, Ataghan hoped he added another layer of confusion. Fariye would remain out of sight and he and his men would continue their tactics of swapping horses and leaving by different gates to draw out the remainder of the traders.
There would be some who’d load their wagons and head back to their vals, but they wouldn’t make it, even if they exchanged their urruti for horses. Others would lay low in the hope the storm passed them by. Keeping the traders in a state of uncertainty gave Ataghan a malicious pleasure. Let them wonder when the fatal blow would fall, like Fariye had been forced to wonder.
The horses in the stable told him Sehereden and his other band members were back, but he went straight his room, where Fariye be taken. His band would shift to his compound, as would those who’d ridden with them, if they chose. Shutters would be bolted and guards set. No one would enter or leave without his permission.
Fariye lay in Sehereden’s arms on the bed, but flung herself into Ataghan’s as soon as he appeared, and sobbed afresh. He paced the room with her, soothing her as he had since she was barely from her mother. When she’d quietened, he cleaned her face with a cloth.
‘They killed her, didn’t they, da? They killed my lein.’
Sehereden stilled but Ataghan kept his attention of Fariye. ‘She was badly hurt, Fari. Thrisdane took her.’
Fariye blinked at him. ‘Thrisdane was there?’
‘She ran into the sidari and then he came.’
‘I knew she’d come for me, da, and I knew you’d come. But the bad men stabbed her ...’
Fariye sobbed again and as Ataghan held her close, his eyes met Sehereden’s. His lein said nothing, simply kissed Fariye on the head and left, but Ataghan didn’t join those in the hall until much later, when Fariye slept.
There was an air of muted celebration in the hall but also a determination to exact revenge that Ataghan harnessed. He briefly outlined what had happened at Stelin Ridge, which the men knew anyway from Drasen and Brithergen, and simply said the elddra had been injured, and another of her kind had arrived to aid her.
It begged the question as to why she was at the traders’ camp, but the men’s interest went little beyond pleasing him, and he outlined his plans on how to eliminate the remainder of those involved. The men finished their meal and left soon afterwards so that soon, only he and Sehereden remained.
‘So, the blood on Fari was Viv’s,’ said Sehereden heavily.
‘Yes, thanks to Baraghan, who alerted the traders to our presence.’
‘Why was he there?’
‘Like the elddra, Baraghan’s keen to find where the beloved Angellus went. My daughter’s lein showed him how to leave The Wheel as payment for Thrisdane’s liberation, but Baraghan didn’t like his new home and came back, just before our attack.’
‘And Thrisdane? Is he Angellus?’
‘Baraghan said they call themselves angels.’
‘Viv is Angellus or angel as well?’
‘If Baraghan’s to be believed, her father was an angel, but not her mother. Thrisdane’s job was to guide her to her mother but they became separated.’
‘Which was what she told me. And she told me and Fariye, she wasn’t from the Vales or Astraal, but I was blind to what it meant. She told the truth,’ he added softly. ‘There must be some link between her and Thrisdane for him to appear when she was injured. Did Baraghan learn anything new about her?’
Ataghan poured himself some urrut-sa. ‘It’s hard to tell. You know Baraghan’s inclination to boast.’
There was a long pause. ‘Do you think Viv will come back?’
‘No.’
‘She promised not to leave Fariye without a final farewell.’
‘She wasn’t breathing when Thrisdane appeared, lein. It’s hard for the dead to keep their pledges.’
* * *
Thris staggered from the rift and struggled to orientate himself. He was covered in dried blood, which proved he’d retrieved Viv, but she wasn’t with him now, and that meant he’d visited a fold prior to this one, even if he had no memory of it.
At least he remembered being in this fold before. It was Beastman Fold, where he’d been all but torn apart. He crouched instinctively, but thankfully, it remained quiet. It didn’t mean he was safe, but it gave him time to find a rift out. He dismissed thoughts of flying because the canopy blocked the resonance of rifts, and set off on foot. He sensed he’d been to this part of the fold before too. He’d found a pool but Ash had delivered a summons to aid Ky and he hadn’t stayed.
He wasn’t surprised when he heard running water and that it led him back to the pool. The pool seemed unchanged: its clear water revealing its pebbled bed, and crimson blossoms swirling on its surface as before. He needed to wash away Viv’s blood and swam to the pool’s centre and as he floated, wondered why the rift had brought him here.
Beastmen appeared to be a mix of castes and Thris had been in enough human caste folds to know that mixed parentage attracted suspicion. And yet no caste was wholly one thing or another, but composed of attributes that changed over time. He had been different before Viv’s arrival in Ezam, and though the changes wrought in him had all but cost his life, he was glad of them.
The understanding calmed him and he was unsurprised to sense a rift. It exited him into Ezam, as he knew it would, and he took to the air and headed to the Blue Helixai where he guessed Ash would be. Surprisingly, Ky was too. They embraced him, their relief obvious, but there was something in their faces he couldn’t read.
‘You returned to the fold where you were held captive? Where you barely escaped with your life?’ asked Ash.
Thris stared at him in mystification. ‘How did you know?’
‘By your wings,’ said Ky, and embraced him again. ‘You have white plumage, Thris. You have the marks of ascension.’
Chapter 8
There was brightness beyond Viv’s lids, the sound of birdsong, and the smell of a summer day. Grass pricked her back and she wondered if she were under the gums behind her childhood home and had dreamed a life, yet to come. Or maybe she was dead, and this was heaven. She’d read it was always springtime in the meadows beyond the light-filled tunnel, but there’d been no tunnel, just blood filling her lungs.
Viv opened her eyes. She was under a tree, but it wasn’t a gum, and for all its brightness, the sky was a dusty pink. Someone leaned over her and the light turned their red curls to a fiery halo.
‘Hello,’ a female voice said, low and husky.
‘Hello,’ croaked Viv.
‘It’s good you have woken. Now we can welcome you.’ Viv was mortified to realise she was naked and the voice softened. ‘You are safe here, exenda. Erath cannot heal what it cannot touch and you had need of great healing. I am Essera. Syatha
asked me to watch. You have slept a long time, as Erath decreed, and I wondered whether you would wake. Do you still suffer pain?’
Viv took a careful breath. Everything seemed normal, but the world swayed when she struggled to sit, and Essera pushed her back. ‘Stay in Erath’s embrace a little longer. Her work is not yet done.’
Viv had heard erath before but couldn’t remember where. Footsteps passed nearby and Essera’s head turned. ‘Firah,’ she called. ‘Tell Syatha the exenda has woken.’
‘My name’s Viv,’ said Viv.’
‘Viv,’ repeated Essera. ‘That is a strange name, although we get so few exenda here, perhaps it is not strange at all.’ The bright light kept Essera’s face in shadow but she gripped Viv’s hand reassuringly.
‘Where am I?’ asked Viv.
‘In Erath’s care.’
‘Erath?’
‘The name of our fold,’ said another voice, in tones as musical as a flute. ‘You may return to the erathi now, Essera.’
There was no mistaking the speaker’s authority and another shape took Essera’s place. ‘I am Syatha, a Sai of Erath. Would you like to sit?’
‘Yes.’
Syatha’s muscular hand eased her up, and Viv hugged her knees to hide her breasts. A female angel knelt in front of her, the red of her long curly hair streaked with silver, her face lined. Both leant her a majesty Kald lacked despite his smooth skin. She wore a robe of sheer material that left her as naked as Viv, but Viv would have been grateful for even its flimsy cover.
‘Erath does not harm,’ said Syatha. ‘There is no need to be uneasy.’
‘Do you have my clothes?’ asked Viv, having trouble looking at her. She’d got used to naked male angels but naked female ones were another matter.
‘All things need Erath’s touch but none more so than the injured. Erath is mighty but I feared even Her strength might not be enough to bring you back to us. Why did others seek to quench your spirit?’
A strange way to describe attempted murder, thought Viv. ‘I was trying to save someone I loved,’ she said.
