Etiquette of Exiles (Senyaza Series Book 4)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  He stumbled over a crack in the pavement, and Grendel said, “Watch out, you. Pay attention.” There was a brooding note to his voice, and Corbin looked at him.

  “Are you relapsing again?”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine for a while yet. But I can’t help thinking about what happened back at the wizard’s safehouse. It’s ridiculous. How could we be overwhelmed by one traitor nephilim and some tricks? I mean, me! I’ve tracked and killed the Blood Deepness across four of his rebirths. Alone. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “They lose their cunning when they’re reborn,” Corbin pointed out. “I’m thinking Absolven’s friends haven’t been reborn in a very long time.” He stared down at the crack he’d stumbled over. Most of the roads in the Far City were both unused and in perfect repair. This one looked like an old street back in LA. As he walked along the crack, it lengthened. “I’d really like to know their connection to this city, myself.”

  The crack suddenly split apart and Corbin tumbled down into a vast ravine.

  Or at least an image of Corbin did. He stared down at the ravine he apparently hovered over, both astonished and utterly unsurprised.

  ”Corbin—” said Grendel, starting forward, eyes bulging as he stared down at the ravine.

  “No!” said Corbin, and one of his ravens fluttered into Grendel’s face. Grendel stumbled backward, and the other two ravens landed on Ice’s back, over Corbin’s shoulders. Corbin edged his way off the illusionary ravine, until he was standing beside Grendel. Grendel stared at the ravens, then at Corbin, looking decidedly displeased.

  “I think we’re almost home,” said Corbin, trying for lightness. “You can see me, right?”

  “I can. But how do I know it’s actually you?”

  “Trust the ravens,” Corbin suggested.

  “But how do I know they’re actually—”

  “Grendel! Take it easy, man. You’re giving into them.”

  “This is why I prefer to work alone,” Grendel grumbled, shifting his burdens under his arms. “So, is this the crossover point?”

  Corbin backed away from the ravine. It’d be so convenient if it faded away. What good was it now, except for making him nervous? Then again, that was probably plenty.

  He closed his eyes and activated the crossover charm. The magic reached out tendrils into the space around him, probing for a soft spot in the curtain. While it was active, he could sense the previous openings of the curtain nearby. But it was like they’d been stitched closed… and a wall had been shoved onto the other side, making hard the spots that should be soft. Corbin wondered if this too was illusion. He didn’t want to reach into the dark space again. He wasn’t sure if he’d come back himself if he did so a second time, so quickly.

  The two ravens perched on his burden leapt into the air as something moved past them. Grendel made a frustrated sound as Corbin realized they were being attacked again. He felt the jarring thud as Mack was dropped on the ground, and for a moment the whole world spun around him. He let Ice slide from his shoulders, blinking rapidly as he tried to reassert himself against the seductive pull of the darkness. As he pulled himself back from the ledge, Grendel tripped him and he stumbled and fell to the ground.

  “Stay down and out of the way, kid.” Then Grendel was moving again, before Corbin had worked out what was attacking them this time. He looked around wildly, and at first he saw nothing but Grendel charging for a shadow. He clenched his fists in frustration. Had Grendel been tricked by another illusion?

  But the ravens had seen something, too. The ravens knew. He took a deep breath and listened to them.

  Absolven, who they’d battled and lost at the hiding spot for the Ragged Blade, had returned to finish them off. In the mind’s eye of the ravens, he saw the bestial shadow of the ancient nephilim pass overhead before the man who cast the shadow landed lightly behind Grendel. The Ragged Blade darted out, but Grendel, warned by the motion of the ravens, ducked and spun out a booted foot.

  Now Absolven lurked in the shadows of a building, just as the trio of shining figures had before. He even seemed wrapped in the same kind of darkness, and Corbin would have quite liked to know more about the magic spawning it. It was certainly a lot more effective than his own stealth charm. But there was no time, because Grendel had his scent and no shadows were going to help him escape Grendel’s wrath.

  The only problem was that he, and his allies, had already beaten Grendel once before. Grendel and Ice and Mack and Simon, leaving Corbin to pick up the pieces. But Grendel wasn’t thinking of that. Grendel wasn’t thinking. That was apparently Corbin’s job.

  It was the Ragged Blade that was the problem. It was what they’d come to protect, what they’d failed to protect: a human-crafted artifact of unique and disturbing power. If they could just get it away from him, Grendel would have a shot at driving him off or even defeating him, and they could reclaim the honor of their mission and perform a great service to all their people.

  Corbin stared until his eyes burned as Grendel and Absolven fought. But he couldn’t come up with a way to get the weapon out of Absolven’s hands and into Grendel’s. He pressed his palms against his eyes in frustration and remembered the feel of his eyes under the influence of the dark pool. If he let himself sink down again….

  But he’d drown. Who knew if whatever came out of the pool would care about the Ragged Blade or his friends or his people? And how would he take himself back again? It was too dangerous, here and now, in an environment he had no control over. He couldn’t give up that last bit of control over himself.

  He couldn’t. He wouldn’t be himself anymore.

  Grendel grunted, soft and horrifying. Corbin yanked his hands away from his eyes to see the big man fall to his knees, his blood staining the whole of the Ragged Blade crimson. He turned his head toward Corbin, staring at him, then curled himself into a ball around his injury before finally going limp.

  Absolven stood over him, ready to finish him off, but his clear blue gaze was on Corbin. Corbin shouted and flung out his distraction charm even as one of the ravens plummeted down to scratch at Absolven’s face. He fended the bird off with a swipe of his weapon, shearing feathers off the raven’s tail as it fluttered out of the way. The distraction charm fluttered and snapped in a long line between Corbin and Absolven, and Absolven sliced at it experimentally before nodding and stepping forward toward Corbin. Grendel lay forgotten on the ground.

  “You’re just a boy,” said Absolven. “I’d let you go, if I could. But he tells me you will be as dangerous as all the others, that you are a traitor twice over.”

  “He’s lying,” snapped Corbin. “I’ve hardly had time to betray anybody. Unlike you.” Sweat ran into his eyes. But if he was going to die, he was going to die as himself, and fighting. He tensed his muscles, ready to move.

  Simon groaned where he’d been dropped, and Corbin flinched. Suddenly it wasn’t about redeeming the honor of their mission or dying in the attempt. It was about survival. He couldn’t die fighting, or they all would. He couldn’t die and he couldn’t run. But with a flash of clarity, very different from the vivid vision of the dark pool, he knew what to do.

  The raven with the injured tail feathers fluttered precariously to a rooftop, while the other two circled above, crying. One dived, a feint that still drew Absolven’s attention. Corbin took a deep breath and threw himself into the minds of all three birds. The rushing of air over and under the birds’ wings rustled, and little whistles emerged from their open beaks. Then, all at once, the sounds came together as whispers.

  “Absolven,” the air whispered. “Where are you? I need the Blade, Absolven. Bring it to me.”

  Corbin made the distraction ribbon vanish and pulled his own poor stealth over him at the same moment. Absolven blinked and looked up into the air. “Teacher? I haven’t ended them yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. I need the Blade, Absolven. I need it now. Come to me.”

  “At once!” Absolven sheathed the Blade
and looked around, his gaze passing right over Corbin with only a hint of confusion. He glanced up at the ravens circling, then around at the fallen bodies of the rest of the kaiju-hunters. Then, with a shrug, he turned and let the mist swallow him.

  Corbin lay on the pavement, clinging to it as he let himself breathe again. One threat down. Now he just had to figure out how to get out of here.

  A quiet laugh came from somewhere nearby. He rolled over and saw the three shining figures standing above him. “Did you hear?” said one.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said another.

  “Convincing,” said the third.

  “Very,” said the first.

  “He’s right, too. Oh, this will be fun.” None of the three looked down at him, and Corbin tried and failed to make out their faces beyond the misty glow.

  “Shall we go?”

  “Yes, let’s. We have more work to do, after all.”

  “We’ll let the ravens carry off the bodies. Hungry little beasts.”

  “Perhaps if we lower the barrier, they’ll even bring their friends.”

  “Faster that way.”

  “Oh yes.”

  They laughed again, and one of them snapped his fingers. The wall behind the curtain between worlds vanished, and one after another the three figures faded away.

  Corbin didn’t wait. He invoked the opening charm as he rolled to his feet. A neat hole opened in the world, and Corbin started dragging his friends through, certain that at some point he was going to be interrupted and attacked. His ravens flew through after him, one of them landing on the emergency switch that would summon medical assistance directly from Senyaza.

  Once all four of the injured men had been transported, Corbin turned to look at the passage to the Backworld. From this side, it looked like a shimmer of frosted glass. For a long, tense moment Corbin waited, unwilling to believe they’d escaped.

  Then one of the voices said, “Silly child. We’ll be seeing you later,” and a slender hand reached through the shimmer, and pulled it closed.

  Wicked Stepself

  You are born in lightning and fury and shame, but you are calm at your first awakening. You open your eyes in the place that was prepared and your first thought is, “How beautiful,” and then, more surprisingly, “It won’t last.”

  You rise from the slab where you were stored and pace the confines of your box. It is a cube, unadorned except for the gold veining the creamy marble walls in fractured patterns. Only you know what beautiful shape you saw within the lines.

  You remember to touch the stone walls here and there to open a door, drawing the knowledge from a river below your thoughts, but you do not remember your name. It is well. Your name will come to you in time.

  Beyond the door is a boulder. It is an illusion, but you do not know this, because it is as new as you are. You cannot stay in the chamber you awoke in, though. Already you display a personality: restless, assertive. You push into the illusion and pass through, and thus learn an important lesson: dreams cannot stop you.

  You stand upon the road in the shadow world and decide what to do next. There is a road, and it leads somewhere else and that is enough for now. You follow the golden stone road as it passes through strange territory: vast sunlit fields of waving azure grass and white wildflowers, with spotted pink mushrooms rising taller than yourself above the grass. You know that the land is strange even though you do not know your own name. That namelessness is strange too, but you do not question. It has not yet occurred to you to question. Your head is full of knowledge, after all. What is there that you do not know?

  A figure emerges from the grass onto the road ahead and you slow. “How beautiful,” you think, and, “It must not be trusted.” Why? You cannot say. He is as tall as you, with wild hair a mixture of the azure of the grass and the pink of the mushrooms, and he is smiling as he holds a hand out to you. The smile distorts his face so that his beauty is warped and alien.

  “Hold,” says he. “I know you. I’ve been waiting for you.” He laughs, but you cannot see what is funny. You wait, in case he explains himself.

  He paces toward you, a cruel cast to his twisted smile. “Look at you. Exiled. Weak. Powerless. And yet you’re strolling along the road as if you haven’t a care in the world. You ought to be running.”

  “I don’t think so,” you say mildly. It is the first time you have spoken to another.

  Your enemy—it is clear to you now that this is your enemy—sneers. “You don’t think so? Has being abandoned by Heaven scrambled what little wit you had?”

  “I might run later,” you continue. You think, and what you want to say unfolds like a chrysanthemum. “But not because a creature like you thinks I should. Go back to your dozing dreams, mushroom faerie. The real world will hurt you too much.” You mean the words as kind advice to a lost creature, one you have recognized from the vast, impersonal stores of information underlying your mind, but he reels as if you struck him.

  Then he lunges forward, his hands curved like claws. You step out of the way and do what comes naturally: you pull the Ragged Blade from the space where it is hidden. It shouldn’t be possible; the Blade should be gone in the same flash of lightning that brought you to life. And yet you have it, the jagged edge glinting like a shark’s smile.

  Your enemy is surprised too, when he wheels around and sees the Ragged Blade. “Oh,” he says.

  “Oh,” you agree.

  “You have that, do you?”

  “Apparently.” You inspect the Blade. It feels like an extension of your arm, like your twin in metal and acid heart-magic. You can feel the twisted throb of the edge.

  “You’re not supposed to have that,” complains the mushroom faerie. “He said you’d have nothing now.”

  Curiosity tugs at you. You wonder: did you exist before you were born? “Who said that?”

  The mushroom faerie backs away. “I shan’t say. You’ll find out eventually, won’t you?” Then he jumps off the road and back into the meadow. You know, from the endless stores below your mind, that following him would be painful and unproductive, so you let him go.

  The Ragged Blade returns to its hiding place when you flick your hand, but leaves a mark: an unclean nick just below your thumb. You lick it clean and notice there are no other scars on your hand or anywhere else on your body. That too is curious, and there are no answers bubbling to the surface from the river of knowledge.

  You continue down the road and nobody appears to slow you, though the terrain changes from the mushroom meadows to a bluebell forest to a black-baked wasteland. But at the end of the road there is another boulder and this time you do not hesitate before walking through.

  On the other side, it is night. The road continues on, but it is black and much wider. It winds down a wooded mountain, and it turns out that it is not a road for walking. It takes a moment for the river of knowledge to change its course, but soon enough you recognize the trucks and passenger cars for what they are and stay out of their way until one pulls over and offers you a ride.

  You accept, although you cannot tell him where you are going. “Aw, that’s okay,” says the driver. “Sometimes I don’t know where I’m going either, without the GPS. I’ll take you down the mountain and you can get your phone charged up and sorted out. What’s your name?”

  It’s a simple question, and you do not know the answer.

  And then you do. “Cat,” you say. You know you’ve been called Cat before, and that is all you know about yourself. Cat. It’s your name.

  The truck driver is amiable, chatting without prying and just as pleased to see the back of you when you reach a shopping center. You wander through the plaza, through throngs of people who look at you and look away. Your clothes mark you as different, pale, loose flowing trousers and a similar tunic, but they do not seem to mind the difference.

  This is where you wanted to be, you are sure, but why? The question makes you uncomfortable and you discover that you dislike not having the answers. Th
ere is a store full of books; it invites you in and you spend time among the volumes. There is much in the river of knowledge below your mind, but here there is more.

  A woman touches your arm: small and dark-skinned with shining hair and red fire at her back. You realize she’s not a woman at all, but distant kin to the mushroom faerie and a trespasser in this mortal store. She smiles. “You’ve been in here for hours. Let me buy you some coffee and maybe that book you’ve been reading.”

  She is a trespasser but so are you, you realize. Trespassers together, you go to a coffee shop and when she gives you your coffee, she also gives you an envelope with paperwork and plastic in it. “You’ll need that eventually, but tell me how you’re doing. I don’t think anybody expected to see you so soon.”

  “I’m not who you think I am,” you tell her.

  She smiles. “Who do I think you are?”

  “Somebody with a past,” you say, and her smile broadens.

  “Call me Tia. There’s a document in there that you can write your name on—whatever name you choose—and that will make it official. Well, official enough.”

  Your fingertips dance over the envelope. “Why are you giving this to me?”

  “Because the world isn’t very friendly to people without pasts, and I’m a helper. There’s money, too. It won’t take care of you for long, but I’m sure other opportunities will come along eventually.”

  “You will want something in return,” you observe as you open the packet and look through the paperwork. “I have nothing to offer, though.” She cannot need the river of knowledge in your head, and the Ragged Blade is not yours to be offered.