Starlight's Children

by Darian Smith

  Nycol held up a hand and blew across the palm. A sparkling powder flew into Draeson's face. “Good night, lover.”

  Draeson's world went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The shelter of woven flax, held overhead by a circle of rune-carved wooden poles, took the edge off the hot afternoon sun, but the heat and the intensity of effort required for the ritual still left Ula and her tools—a sharpened spike of bone and a stone hammer—slick with sweat. They were on the outskirts of a small settlement of dome-shaped mud-brick houses, working to introduce a young Djin to the ways of the shaman. Ula sat back on her heels and surveyed her handiwork. Blood and ink obscured the pattern on the young man's purple skin. She spat into her hand and rubbed it over the cuts she'd made. The apprentice winced, sucking in a sharp breath, but remained silent. The pattern of cuts was clear, but incomplete.

  Lule peered over her shoulder. The older woman held an earthenware bowl filled with a mix of ashes, chewed and fermented berries, and the harvested ink sac contents of several cuttlefish. “Good work. Precise.”

  Ula nodded. “Almost done.” She placed the bone spike against the apprentice’s skin and tapped it with the hammer. Blood welled up but she'd seen what she needed to see. A few more strikes and the symbols were complete. “There.” She wiped away the blood with a brisk swipe of her hand. The cuts formed a runic pattern that swirled from the middle of the back, up over the shoulder and down to the top of the bicep.

  Lule drizzled the ink mixture over the wounds and both women briskly rubbed it in. Ula felt the young man tense beneath her touch but continued. There was no way to make the tattooing process painless. The best thing to do was to force as much of the ink into the wounds as quickly as they could—going easy on him now would only run the risk of having to retouch the tattoos later to ensure they were effective.

  “Go,” she said at last. “Rest. Eat. Don't bathe. Let it scab over with the ink inside. We will inspect it in three days’ time. Your lessons in the ways of the shamans will begin when you are healed.”

  He stood gingerly and nodded in gratitude. “Thank you, prioress.” He winced as he bent to pick up his tunic, then left.

  “It's good to have you back at full duties, Ula,” Lule said as the two women packed up the tattooing equipment. She tipped what was left of the ink mixture onto the grass, a dark patch in the brightness of the day. “That was nasty business with Shool. I'm glad it's over.”

  “As am I,” Ula said. She rinsed off the bone spike and hammer with water from a jug made of hollowed out bamboo. “I've not seen him since the Gatuul Naah. Do you know where he went?”

  “He went back to his island.” Lule shrugged. “Some people find it difficult to admit when they are wrong. Even priors.”

  “I suppose.” Ula remembered the words of the earth spirits' avatar, speaking from her reflection: not all gifts can be fully ungiven. Even in the heat of the afternoon sun, she felt a chill. Shool may not have been entirely wrong, no matter how unjust his behavior had been. And yet, if whatever residual power remained in herself, Sir Brannon, and Ambassador Ylani would truly only appear when faced with a kaluki, surely there was no harm in it? The priory had been more interested in the fact she'd passed the test than in the details of how or why. That the earth spirits had seen fit to release her from the cave had been enough to confirm she was in the right. She hoped it was true.

  Together they rolled up the leather mat the apprentice had been lying on and made their way into the village. A group of Djin sat in a circle singing and entertaining the village children while others prepared vegetables and fish for the evening meal. A Risen, under the supervision of a shaman, smashed a fallen log apart with his bare hands, breaking it into suitable pieces of firewood. Two other Risen carried armfuls of the wood chunks, piled higher and heavier than any living person could manage, to each of the clay dome dwellings. They left a load at every door, unable to go inside due to the spirit bricks laid into the structure of the buildings when they were built, but every home would have firewood to see them through the night if they wished.

  Ula's home was on the edge of town, far away from the noise and bustle of the cooking group and the children. The leather door covering was tied to one side, leaving the opening clear. She said goodbye to Lule and made her way inside.

  Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the lack of light but her ears picked up the sound of movement immediately. There was someone in her home. She set the mat down on the floor but kept a tight grip on the bone spike and hammer and she crept forward, moving through the small dwelling with practiced ease. The space was one large room separated into different areas with screens of woven flax. Light came in through an angled hole in the ceiling that also served as a chimney if she wanted an indoor fire for warmth, and through the doorway. There were no windows in most Djin homes, they weakened the mud-brick structure.

  Behind one of the screens, a woman stood over the jug of drinking water. She held an empty glass vial in her hand.

  “Are you lost?” Ula said. “What are you doing here?”

  The woman turned slowly. She wore a loose-fitting tunic and trousers in a light sand colored fabric, pulled in at the waist by a belt holding several sheathed knives. Her hair was blond and her skin was not the dusky purple of a Djin. She set the vial down. “Ah,” she said. “This is awkward.”

  Ula's eyes widened. “You're not Djin. How did you get onto this island? Foreigners aren't allowed here.”

  “Yeah, well, I'm a naughty girl.” She drew one of the daggers from her belt. “I was looking forward to seeing if standard poisons would kill a Djin but, since you've caught me, I guess we'll just go with throat-cutting. I'm told your tattoos mean you can't be reanimated for questioning. Let's find out.”

  Ula backed away, her hands raised in front of her, the tattooing tools in her fists like a shield. “If you hurt me, you'll never get away. People will know what you did.”

  “I managed to get this far,” the woman said. “I'll take my chances.” She flicked her wrist and the dagger flew toward Ula.

  Ula dodged but the blade caught her arm, slicing a long stripe in her skin.

  The blond drew another dagger from her belt and lunged forward.

  Ula threw the bone spike and the hammer at the woman, grabbed the edge of a woven screen and heaved it into the space between them. The woman collided with the screen and it tipped over. Ula turned and ran.

  The burst of fear in her chest somehow turned the familiar layout of Ula's home into a labyrinth. She tripped and bashed her shin against a clay urn and it shattered into tooth-like shards. She swept her arm across the floor, scattering the pieces behind her in the hope that they would stick into her attacker's feet, then scrambled up and kept running.

  “Bitch,” came the voice behind her as the would-be assassin pushed through the obstacles.

  “Help!” yelled Ula. “We're under attack!”

  She reached the edge of the light streaming in from the doorway when a hand gripped her hair and pulled her back. Ula shrieked and kicked, elbows and knees flailing—anything she could think of to loosen the woman's grip. She lost her balance and the two of them fell, the hard packed earth like a hammer blow across her body. Her breath left her and she gasped for air, stunned.

  The blond woman straddled her, pressing into Ula's upper arms with her knees. “You're a wild one,” she said. “I didn't think you'd give me this much trouble.” She pushed Ula's head into the ground with one hand on her forehead and raised the dagger in the other.

  Ula called for help—not with her voice this time, as that had gone with her breath, but with her power. Her connection to the earth spirits screamed out like a powerful windstorm. It raised the hairs on her arms and burned along her bones. It was nothing she'd ever done before, but she knew the call would be heard.

  Then that scream of power burst from another throat. One of the Risen that had been working in the village stepped through the doorway. His face contorted wit
h agony as he defied the power of the spirit bricks in the walls and his body moved with awkward jerks, but he took another step. Then another.

  “What in the Hooded . . . ?” The blond assassin stared at the Risen, uncertain if he was truly a threat. The Risen pulled her off Ula and flung her across the room. She struck the wall with a thud.

  The Risen followed her, still screaming, and slammed his fist into the blond woman's throat, crushing the vertebrae with a sound like nutshells cracking beneath a hammer. The woman's eyes rolled back and she slumped to the ground.

  The Risen turned back to Ula, took two trembling steps forward, and collapsed. She felt a rush of power like wind over her skin as the kaluki left the body, its hold finally broken by the power of the spirit bricks. Ula reached out and pushed it back into its own realm. The screaming stopped.

  Ula lay still for a long moment. Her heart raced and her arms, when she eventually pushed herself upright, were weak. The blond woman had come to kill her. Had been sent specifically to do so. But by whom?

  A shadow filled the doorway. Lule stood there, her eyes wide and horrified. She pointed at the corpse that had been a Risen. “How did you do that?”

  Ula pressed her hand against the gash in her arm to stop the bleeding. “I . . . I don't know. I called and it came.”

  Lule stared at her as if she were a wild animal liable to attack. “A Risen broke free of the shaman who bound it to this world and entered a building protected by spirit bricks because you called it?”

  “She was trying to kill me.” Ula nodded in the direction of the blond assassin. “I had to.”

  “But it's not possible.”

  Ula swallowed. “I know.”

  Lule leaned against the doorframe, almost as if she didn't trust her knees to hold her. “Ula, when the others find out about this . . . even completing the Gatuul Naah won't reassure them. This is bad. You shouldn't be able to do this.”

  “I . . . I'm not sure I did.” She ran her hand over her dreadlocks and lifted the beads up to where she could see them. They were simply beads, colorful, but not glowing. There was no sign of the avatar power in her.

  “No one will believe that,” Lule said. “Shool will see to it.”

  “Shool!” The name jolted her shocked mind into full wakefulness. “Whoever sent this assassin knew our ways. Shool couldn't get the priory to agree to take action against me or the others involved in the kaluki break through. What if this is him taking steps on his own?”

  Lule frowned. “He is passionate.”

  “And if he came after me, he could be going after Sir Brannon and Ambassador Ylani as well.” Ula took a deep breath. “I need to go back to Kalanon.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The Kalan physician training college served as the main hospital in Alapra, as well as its morgue. It was a sprawling rabbit warren of a building that had taken Brannon months to learn his way around when he'd begun his training. Most people never saw more than the minor injury treatment areas, but physicians who completed their training had access to much more.

  Brannon made his way to Master Jordell's secret office in the acute consultation ward. The senior physician kept this space as a second work area for when he had particularly confidential cases or simply wanted time alone to concentrate on study. The ward was a small collection of rooms, most empty, for the more difficult or complex cases. Patients only remained here until a senior physician diagnosed them and decided a course of treatment. It was here Brannon had sent Brother Taran to ask for Master Jordell's help.

  Brannon touched the paper in his pocket. The message had been waiting for him when he'd returned to his apartment. “Keeping our friend for observation. Visit when you can. J.”

  The door to Jordell's office was ajar but Brannon knocked anyway. The old man looked up. “Come in. Shut the door.”

  “Where's Taran?” Brannon looked at the seat in front of Master Jordell's desk but remained standing.

  The older man stood and came around to stand next to him. “I sent him home. He's not ill as such and he didn't want to stay here.”

  “How's he doing?”

  Jordell gripped Brannon's shoulder. “I've given him something I think will slow the process but there's nothing that will take the place of the stardust elixir. He has maybe a few days but he will become less and less lucid over that time. After that . . .”

  Brannon folded his arms and stared at the wall. This was not a wound or illness he could understand. Taran might be a little strange, but he was an intelligent, skilled young man and a true asset to Kalanon. To think the brilliant mind in that young body could be destroyed, made Brannon's chest ache. “When you say he will be less lucid . . . ?

  “He's going mad, Brannon. You'll have to double-check everything he says for delusion.”

  “Blood and Tears.” Brannon gripped himself even tighter, as if the barrier of his folded arms would protect from the words. “Is there anyone else? Any other physician who might know more?”

  “Taran himself knows more about how medicines affect the human body than most physicians.”

  “Poisons,” Brannon said.

  Jordell raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “He knows more about how poisons affect the body. Not medicines.”

  “Yes, I suppose you're right. But I've consulted others on this. We're doing our best.”

  Brannon sighed. “I know you are. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Get him the stardust.” The old man leaned back against this desk. “That's all that will help. But he says he's already sent a message to get more of the ingredient and he wrote down the process for combining it for us.”

  “You don't think he'll be able to mix it himself?”

  “In the time it takes it to get here, his mind will be too far gone to trust, I'm afraid. He could do himself even more damage if he gets it wrong.”

  Brannon paced the length of the small office. “What a Hooded mess.”

  “It is indeed.” Jordell hesitated before speaking again. “Did you know the ambassador is here? I suggested she wait and speak to you when we're done.”

  Brannon rolled his eyes. “Of course she is. She's turning up everywhere these days.”

  “Apparently she was concerned about Brother Taran.”

  “Yeah.” Brannon nodded. “She said as much the other day.” If only he'd known then what he knew now. It was hard to know if an earlier intervention would have made a difference for the priest.

  “I hear you've had a falling-out of sorts.” Master Jordell's voice was suspiciously neutral. The kind of neutral the old man always used when he had a point to make. “Do you really think she's in the wrong over this sword thing?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might. You are one of King Aldan's closest advisors after all.”

  Brannon sighed. “Yeah, maybe.” After Roydan's betrayal, it was hard to know if Aldan trusted anyone anymore. Brannon hardly did.

  “You seem grouchier than usual, Sir Bloodhawk. Can I assume the case isn't going well?”

  “Which case?” Brannon snorted. “There're so many now and I'm not close to solving any of them.”

  “What's holding you back?”

  “You mean other than an astounding lack of evidence and total confusion?”

  Jordell chuckled. “Yes, other than that.”

  “I don't know.” Brannon sighed. “I suppose I'm grieving.”

  “You did lose one of your closest friends. Even if he was a traitor, that's got to hurt.”

  “Lost,” Brannon said. “Yeah. We still don't know what happened to his body. And somehow that's the least of my priorities.”

  “And what is your top priority, then? Start with that.”

  The simplicity of the question struck Brannon like a blow. Somehow, with the thefts and chaos and the king's requests, he'd fallen into the trap of chasing every new event instead of choosing which investigative paths to follow. He'd spent a day searching for missing swords wh
en, in reality, there were much more vital things to be focused on. His priorities had always been the same, whether as a commander in the army or as a physician: to keep the people of Kalanon safe. When the tangle of puzzles was viewed through this lens, the answer was clear.

  “I need to find the frost wolf. Rescue the children and stop it killing more people.”

  Master Jordell clapped his hands. “There you have it. And that's something I can help you with. Follow me.”

  He led the way out of the office, past the rest of the ward, and down a long, curved ramp to the basement area that housed the morgue. A series of stone tables ran down the middle of the room like oblong beads on a necklace. Some were the dark gray of empty stone, but several were draped with large white sheets of fabric that carefully covered the corpses resting beneath.

  “These are the victims of your orphanage massacre,” Jordell said. “Killed by the frost wolf, correct?”

  “Yeah,” Brannon said. “It kills the adults and takes the children.”

  “And did you see this creature when you arrived?”

  “No. It'd already mesmerized the children into following it. I couldn't catch up.” Brannon took a deep breath and shook his head at the memory of the group vanishing in the street. “I still don't know how they got away.”

  “Mmm,” Master Jordell clasped his hands together. “So you have yet to actually see the creature, and the things you know about it are . . . what?”

  Brannon shrugged helplessly. “Just what we know from myth really. It was once a wolf but transformed itself when the Hooded One was killed. It's vicious and powerful, kills adults either by freezing their hearts or clawing them.” He gestured to the bodies on the tables. “And steals their children for an unknown reason.”

  “So it's a beast?” Jordell urged. “Definitely a beast with claws?”

  “Yes, it's a beast. We found the chrysalis the Hooded thing hatched from. All the stories stay it's a beast. Look at what it does to its victims!”