Of course, I interpreted our oath of secrecy to extend to our little circle of friends.
After we sent Threestep to the ashes, I revealed the details of our discussion to Reiwyn, Uller, and Blackfoot over a private dinner of rice and boiled eggs. Several nights a week we’d gather our food from the eating hall into fat, green leaves and carry them with filled waterskins to the edge of the lagoon.
“He had to know I’d tell them. Just as he had to know you’d accompany me to meet with him this morning.” I opened my hands as though that sealed the discussion. “Arn voiced no objection to your presence, so I can only deduce that he’d have reacted similarly if I’d brought any one of them.”
I’d always been a bit loose with oaths, but Antioc wasn’t fair with my interpretation. His brow furrowed. “I don’t think that makes sense.”
“It’s a small matter,” I said before tossing a bitter red berry into my mouth. “I’ve already told them. The only option for containment now is for you to kill them,” I said, flippantly, between chews.
“Please don’t kill us,” pleaded Blackfoot with a small voice.
Reiwyn laughed and rubbed his hand. “Lew is just being silly. Antioc isn’t going to kill any of us.”
Antioc stared at me through narrowed eyelids and muttered, “I may yet.”
At that, I laughed. I looked at the others. “Allay Antioc’s suspicions by assuring him this will go no further than us.” All eyes turned to Reiwyn.
“What?” Self-awareness left her wide-eyed and stupefied. “Who would I tell? Why would I tell?”
“Your boyfriend,” offered Blackfoot. We all let out little sighs of relief that he’d said it. He was the least likely of us to earn a throat cutting for audacity.
“Why would I tell him what goes on between us? Do you trust me so little?”
“Not that you would intentionally betray us,” said Uller, barely managing to contain a hint of seething jealousy in his voice. “Just that something might slip. During pillow talk . . .”
Reiwyn’s face turned red. Not the red of a blushing little virgin, but the red of a woman angered by dispersions upon her character. Her next words came through bar-locked teeth like wet wind. “There has been no pillow talk.”
“Only for want of a pillow on this island.” I realize I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said anything. But there come times when an opportunity for jest presents that leaves one with no choice but to seize it. Wit, you see, comes with a high cost. “I thought surely his rank and title as chief of security in this place would afford him the luxury of a pillow.” I laughed. I was the only one.
“What about you, Uller?” She ignored me and focused on him. “How do we know you won’t tell your hedge wizard master?”
Uller forced a nervous laugh. “I barely understand a word he says, and suspect it is likewise for him, even if I did deign to reveal our secrets. And he is no hedge wizard.”
Oh, here we go.
“He was a court-witch to a powerful Psogan Lord in Wesden. I have learned a great many things from him. When I can tell what he’s saying.”
“If he’s so powerful, what’s he doing here?” I asked. “Couldn’t he have just blown up his enemies or turned them into wartrats or some such?”
Uller’s face scrunched up. “It doesn’t work that way, and even if it did, a spellcaster has a code of honor about such things.”
“What’d he do?” asked Blackfoot. The urchin’s affection for the pasty mage had grown. The pasty mage’s for him had not.
“I’m not entirely sure. I think he killed a rival Psogan, or was accused of it. Not directly, through a spell or a brewing of poison. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and like I said, he barely speaks Mormentish well enough for me to understand.”
“I’ve heard tales that Wesdentish witches can hear what echoes in the mind’s ear of those they look upon,” said Reiwyn. She wasn’t letting this go. “They have invisible ears to hear that which has already been heard, and invisible eyes to see that which has already been seen.”
“Old sailor superstitions,” spat Uller. “I’m sure he’s got some spell wrapped up in those old crusty scrolls of his that lets him read minds, but he’s never worked one on me.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Blackfoot. “If he has indisible ears and eyes—”
“InVISible . . .” Uller stopped before his voice pitched too high. He pinched the bridge of his nose and look to the sand at his feet. “He doesn’t have invisible eyes or ears. Even if he does, it’s a moot point now because Lew has already told us. The bell cannot be unrung. It’s not as though I can forget what I’ve been told.”
“It’s easy enough. When you’re around him, just don’t think,” offered Blackfoot. That brought a grin back to Reiwyn’s face, though not to Uller’s. It seemed obvious I should say something to calm everyone down, being the leader and all.
“Everyone relax. I trust all of you with my life, much less with some piddly secret which will probably be common knowledge among the colony within the week.” I took a drink of water from a skin and let that sink in before hitting the next part. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not going to do it.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“What do you mean you’re not going to do it?” That was Antioc. As usual, he had no trouble challenging me, despite the structure of our arrangement.
“We’re not going to be here long enough to complete a wall. We’ve a limited window of time here. If we don’t act soon, winter will come and we’ll have to wait for the thaw. I’ve no intention of staying in this Daevas forsaken place that long.”
“How thoughtless and cold,” snipped Reiwyn. “This is your home now.”
“This is not my home, river woman.” I laughed at that, then grew stern at the end. “Nor will it ever become such. I’m a transient here. We all are, or have you forgotten?”
“I’ve not forgotten.” Her demeanor hardened. “But Xanas Muir has sat unmolested for centuries. Another winter will make little difference.”
“If it even takes that long,” added Antioc. “You built Threestep’s tower in less than a day. Arn has given you a month, and we have three before the winter comes.”
“Threestep’s tower was a paltry thing. It stood for three days before we sent it and him to ashes. The Sand King no doubt wishes these fortifications made of stronger stuff.”
“And it is beyond your ability to provide them in such time?”
I pointed at Antioc to let him know I got what he was doing there. “It is not beyond my ability. With motivated builders, I could have the wall up in half that time. It’d be a fine thing, as well. Magnificent, an awe-inspiring marvel of engineering acumen.”
Reiwyn and Uller rolled their eyes. They thought I couldn’t tell, but I could.
“That’s the point, though. As soon as his majesty sees it, he’ll set me about other tasks, like fabricating some manner of septic system with hollow reeds and windmills.” I gave Antioc a long look. “By the time all that is finished, the path will freeze over, and we will have to wait out the winter.”
I could tell that wasn’t deterring them. Maybe this would . . .
“He will expect you to fight,” I said, tilting my head and trying my best to look sympathetic. “Have you not told me you’d had your fill of war?”
“This would not be war. Wars are begun by kings and fought by those they own. This would be self-defense. I have no qualms fighting for that.”
“Me neither,” added Reiwyn. Blackfoot nodded in agreement. Only Uller remained silent. Could it be he would become my only ally in this?
“Fair enough,” I answered. “That still leaves the matter of timing.”
“Centuries it has sat, waiting for those who would first breech its walls,” protested Reiwyn. “Centuries more it will wait, if we leave it undisturbed. Another few months mean little, in the grandness of time. If helping these people means delaying our adventure for a season, it seems immo
ral not to do so.”
“I disagree.” Uller spoke up. “The graybeard told us there were other seekers of the ruins, treasure hunters and the like. His research was shared with the University—”
“Where it was rebuked by the scholars,” interrupted Reiwyn. “And he was derided as an old fool for proposing the notion of an advanced civilization existing this far outside the continents.”
“No one believed him,” reiterated Antioc.
“What if someone did?” Uller asked. “Who’s to say the next group of exiles won’t bring with them a whole new batch of treasure hunters, unimpeded by our communitarian scruples?”
“Exactly.” I nodded to Uller.
Reiwyn looked at him. “The odds of that are too ridiculous to consider.”
“One might also ponder if the ruins have already been breached,” added Antioc.
Reiwyn looked at me. “Or if the whole thing were a myth to begin with.”
I snapped my head to Antioc. “Don’t help her.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re taking her side. You know full well this isn’t about time, or the desire to help out the community.” He gave me a look, not quite angry but screwed up in the eyes like he didn’t want me to say what was coming next. I found I couldn’t look at him anymore; he was unsympathetic to my reasoning. Uller understood, though. Unlikely as it seemed, he was my only ally here, so it was to him I turned. “He knows what I’m talking about. Don’t you, wizard?”
He nodded without looking up from the lagoon. Blackfoot stared at him, confused. Reiwyn’s expression grew toxic.
“You just don’t want to abandon your cyclopean boyfriend.” I tossed down my empty waterskin. “We should have known this would happen.”
Reiwyn’s back stiffened. “Should have known what would happen?”
“You’re not blind. I know this place wants for mirrors but there are still enough for you to see it.” She stared at me expectantly. “You’re beautiful. Breathtaking, Reiwyn. Everyone sees it. Everyone sees you. What’s more, you’re a woman, and women want for nothing but a man to take care of them. The more beautiful they happen to be, the easier a time they have of it. Well, you’ve found one, and now you’re interested in little else, including great treasure, adventure . . .” I cast my eyes about the others, who had fallen silent as tombs. “Or friendship.”
“Is that what you think I am?” she simmered, like a pot nearing boil. “You think I came to this place to find a husband?”
“Nothing so overt.” I understood why this was such a shock for her. She couldn’t have anticipated I’d see it. She thought I was like the others: blind, naïve. Maybe I was about some things, but not about this. Not about her. “But it remains a constant need, to find a man to take care of you. It’s how you were taught.”
“You know me so well, Lew?”
“I know women. I had three sisters, and they constantly tittered on about which man at court would seek their hand. My mother taught them, little noblewomen-in-training, how to stay pretty and fresh, all in anticipation of the day the proper suitor came sniffing about with flowers in one hand, the other open for a dowry.”
“I’m not one of your sisters. I’m no noblewoman, and there is certainly no dowry to be had for my hand.”
I tried to ignore her fiery gaze by turning my attention to my food. Even without seeing her eyes, I felt them on me. Looking deep into me for a weakness, a crack in my resolve. She would not find one. I’d watched her cavort about with that one-eyed muscle-thug Ferun in silence long enough. I scooped a wooden spoonful of rice into my mouth and chewed it; slow, deliberate chewing meant to project an image of inner serenity. In truth, I was as afraid of her now as I was the day we met, where our introduction came at the edge of a blade. I wouldn’t let that show, even if she did still bear the dagger in question.
“Perhaps no dowry,” I said after swallowing. “And you may not be a noblewoman, but you are a woman, and unless the Daevas planted you here in a holy beam of light like the Adoni, you have or had a mother, from whom all your lessons of femininity would flow. Whether you will to admit it or not, she made you who you are, as much as our fathers made us who we are.” I gestured to the others with a wide sweep of my empty spoon. They seemed to want nothing to do with this. “It’s not your fault. You can’t help being a woman any more than Blackfoot can help being a thief, Antioc a warrior, Uller a pretentious blowhard—”
“Hey!”
“Or me . . .” I made a circle in the air with my spoon. “A genius.”
Reiwyn stood fast, casting her leaf and half her food from her lap onto the sand. One of the eggs rolled into the lagoon and floated away. “Jetsam!” she roared, loud enough to make everyone jump a little.
“I still don’t know what that means.”
“You don’t know anything, Lew Standwell!” Her skin flushed as her eyes widened. “You most certainly don’t know me.” With that, she turned and stormed away, her black hair dancing in the breeze before the pink evening sky. We watched her, seemingly unable to speak until she’d climbed the hill and reached the gate, well out of her range of hearing. Then everyone looked at me.
Rightfully so that Antioc would be the first to breech the silence; he was the warrior, after all, bravely charging in where others feared to tread.
“Genius, eh?”
“I’m only saying what we’ve all been thinking.” I scraped my spoon along my leaf for remnants of rice.
Blackfoot jumped to his feet. “Maybe you should have Uller’s witch check your indisible ears, because I wasn’t thinking any of that at all!” He didn’t wait for a reply before tracing Reiwyn’s path up the beach. For someone so little, he ran markedly fast.
“Fair, then.” I licked the bottom of my spoon and tossed away my empty leaf. “He’s a child. He doesn’t think about these things like us.” I dunked my spoon in the lagoon and swirled it around. Once it was clean, I shook it in the air to cast it dry. My lingering fellows were discernibly silent. “What? Am I wrong?” I looked to Antioc, then Uller.
The former shrugged. The latter took a second before coming out with a reply, “I have no sisters, noble or otherwise, but I am fairly certain you shouldn’t have said any of that to her.”
I stood and tucked my spoon into a pouch on my belt. Antioc and Uller cleaned their spoons in the lagoon as I slapped sand from my pants and legs. “But you do not dispute it?” I asked.
“That isn’t the point, Lew.” Uller rose and shook sand from his robe. He still had the same robe he’d worn when I met him, but it had faded and torn in places. He was lucky enough to find a seamstress in the colony to repair it, as he didn’t seem ready to abandon the memories it held for him just yet. It was equal parts pathetic and poignant. I wondered if there was anything I could have brought of my past worth hanging on to so hard.
“Enlighten me.” I scratched my head.
“There are just some things you shouldn’t say.” He didn’t look me in the eyes when he said it. “Some feelings are like nests of stingers inside us. They are best avoided.”
I laughed. “Your metaphor doesn’t make sense, Uller. You would ignore a nest of stingers in your path?”
“They can’t be ignored.” He looked at me for a moment. “But you don’t have to go poking at them, and you don’t bring friends around them and kick them over like a mule.” He looked down before stepping away from us. “It just gets you and those around you stung.”
Then he left us.
“But you admit that I’m right?” I shouted down the beach at him. He cast a gesture over his shoulder. I couldn’t make it out in the fading light, but I assumed it wasn’t friendly. “I’ll take that as a yes,” I hollered.
Antioc took in a deep breath of the fresh breeze curling in off the ocean below us. He stretched and flexed before grabbing up his stone-headed club and lashing it over his broad shoulders. He didn’t go anywhere without it, especially not outside the colony after what had happened with the gl
uttons. I knew at least he would not abandon me, no matter what I said. Still, I thought it best to say nothing.
It surprised me when he spoke, “She never knew her mother.” He said it modestly, not a hint of judgment or scorn. Just stating a simple fact and letting me absorb it. “She died just after Reiwyn was born.”
Absorb I did. The stinger’s nest unfurled and the black swarm washed over me like a flood. My skin prickled and turned red as I fought to maintain composure; like when you’re drunk trying to feign sober, and you’re just certain you’re doing so well at it. Everybody knows. Lucky for me, everybody meant just Antioc. Less humiliating, albeit, just barely.
“Well, I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not something she likes to talk about. For obvious reasons.”
“She told you,” I said. Antioc shrugged. “So she didn’t have a mother, doubtless there was some other female influence in her life. My original point stands, unless you have something better to rebut with than a deceased matriarch?”
Antioc shook his head and waited for me to pass.
“Well, good then.” I said, walking on. He followed close, saying nothing as the darkness around us grew and the pink evening sky turned to purple, then black. I caught a last glimpse of the mountains on the horizon, scraping the sky.
I sighed. Right or wrong, it didn’t matter. I needed Reiwyn.
We. We needed Reiwyn. She had the disc in her thigh. Whatever it was, we needed her. It. We needed it. I needed it.
I needed her.
10.
The five of us globbed together on the Songwillow rather naturally. There weren’t many people our age on board. A few of the Plainsfolk came close, but they were rather insular. The Volteri were the same way, even though it was just the two of them. No one really wanted to have anything to do with them, anyway. Most people were superstitious about the vulture-people. I wasn’t, I just found them a bit . . . off, with their bald heads and tattoos, and vulture-feather robes that smelled of graves. The girl never spoke, not even to the other Volteri. She was with him constantly, so anytime someone asked her a direct question she would just look at the other one and wave her hands around in some exotic language of gestures until he answered for her. He always seemed to know what she was saying, which didn’t exactly make them less creepy.
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