Pocket Full of Tinder

by Jill Archer

  Have I mentioned how much I hate bows and arrows?

  So I was already annoyed when I turned my attention to Nova.

  She lay on the ground pawing at the wire around her neck while Oleg stood calmly beside her, holding the catch pole as if it were a leash.

  I lost it.

  Before he had time to react, I’d walked over to Igor and grabbed the bow and arrow out of his hands. Ordinarily, since it had been made from his magic and not mine, it would have sizzled and faded immediately. Somehow, however, I managed to keep it fueled with my own pique. I notched the arrow, aimed at Oleg, and pulled back on the bow.

  “Let her go.”

  He didn’t, so I shot him in the thigh. I was no Mederi, of course, and my formal education had, obviously, been mostly “pen and sword” type stuff, as Tenacity had called it, but there’d been an anatomy lesson shoved in here and there. During the time it’d taken me to steal Igor’s weapon and aim it at Oleg, I’d mentally riffled through my options and decided a potential bleed-out would be best. That would give Oleg a one in ten chance of survival and allow me to avoid forfeiting. Harsh? Cruel? Sick and twisted?

  Look, I had a job to do. Beauties versus beasties wasn’t the story I wanted the town criers to tell. It was beauties beat the beasties.

  Oleg predictably cursed me – in an oafish vernacular, not Angelic prose. And then, perhaps irritated by my extreme sparring style this morning, Yannu finally joined the fray by barking out commands.

  “Yurik,” he called, “you’ve sparred with Malphia before. Make your fire hotter, brighter, bigger. Igor, if you’re going to shape a weapon, use it. No wonder the consig took it from you. You deserved to lose it. Now shape something else and subdue that useless, unnatural feline swine. And then start pressing in from the flanks!”

  I felt Yannu’s exasperation turn to enmity. He was taking the bunyips’ defeats personally. Good.

  As almost always in these situations, things happened quickly after that. Yurik tried to follow Yannu’s orders but his attempts at shaping and throwing magic became increasingly fitful. Malphia smothered his final, pathetic attempt at “hotter, brighter, better.” Igor, meanwhile, tried to implement his captain’s suggestion about subduing Virtus, but I’d had enough. I tossed Igor’s pitiful bow aside and shaped a blunderbuss. The relief I felt in knowing I still could was outweighed by my impatience. It was time to End This Thing.

  I pointed the gun at Igor.

  “Yannu’s right,” I said in a voice loud enough to be heard by all – no way was I losing the attention of the crowd now. “If you’re gonna shape a weapon, you should use it.” And then I fired.

  My shot only grazed Igor’s ear, but the effort was enough to fully and completely enrage Yannu, who grabbed Fara’s elbow and started dragging her back into the middle of the melee while shaping a fireball.

  Yannu wasn’t Captain of the Guard for nothing. If he threw his fireball at any one of my teammates, even Impenetrable wouldn’t stop it.

  But I wasn’t scared. Or even mad. I was pleased. This was exactly what I’d wanted to happen.

  “Now, Fara,” I called.

  Immediately, she cast a spell called Portcullis. Thankfully, it took only three words to cast. Yannu was powerful but obviously still blind when it came to seeing the virtue of Angels. He should have been holding her mouth shut as he dragged her. He wouldn’t make that same mistake again, but for now, victory was ours.

  A cage of fiery bars formed around Yannu and Fara.

  Portcullis was essentially a retrofitted Stonewall. Yannu was trapped, for as long as the spell held, with no way to escape or throw magic beyond its confines. Even better? Unlike Stonewall, Portcullis allowed everyone on the outside to see in. The entire mountainside was now watching, wide-eyed, as I approached the trapped Captain of the Guard.

  He jerked Fara closer and increased the wattage of his fireball.

  I aimed my blunderbuss.

  I wasn’t going to waste time asking Yannu to release Fara, because he wouldn’t and then where would we be? So, before Yannu could declare another draw, I shouted to Cliodna. “What should I do with him?”

  Yannu’s eyes narrowed and he squeezed Fara’s arm even harder. It was dawning on him that, even if this fight was a draw, he’d just lost. You know what they say – a picture’s worth a thousand words. Well, the image of Cliodna’s consigliere holding a gun on the “jailed” Yannu was worth a thousand votes… at least.

  “I’ve always been a magnanimous patron, Nouiomo, you know that,” Cliodna answered. Her voice was a perfectly pitched trumpet call that every one of the hundred on the hill could hear. “Toward my waterbirds, my artisans, my miners – really, all of the residents of the gorge.” She swept her arms out in a beneficent gesture. “Release my good friend, Yannu, so we can all get back to work. He has retainers to train and you and I have some magisterial matters to attend to, do we not?”

  25

  PRELUDE TO A CRASH

  Cliodna left soon after the melee ended, as did the Hyrke crowd. Hopefully, they’d be crowing about Yannu’s defeat until well past noon. Malphia, perhaps correctly sensing that her presence was no longer welcome now that her magic wasn’t needed, had slinked off with the rest of the retainers, who were heading out on various patrol assignments. That left Fara, Virtus, Nova, and me awkwardly standing on the amphitheater’s stage.

  It was awkward because I didn’t know how to relate to my old team anymore. Nova’s presence, not just on my melee team but in my life, was becoming more and more confusing.

  Why had I adopted her in the first place?

  She was more albatross than barghest. Not only had she been zero help in this morning’s melee, she’d been a hindrance. Fara had been forced to expend valuable potentia to keep up her glamour; meanwhile the optic the barghest had created by allowing herself to be leashed was damaging to our campaign. What’s more, if I got rid of her, I could return to Megiddo for my last two semesters without even worrying about Miss Bister’s stupid, piece of crap table.

  “We need to make some team changes,” I told Fara, as she dropped Nova’s glamour and started casting healing spells. “Nova’s a liability. I need you to find a new home for her.”

  I felt a ping deep inside of me. A warning. It was that feeling I’d had before – the one I could only describe as unfittingness or wrongness. It told me I wouldn’t have acted this way before. Inwardly, I grew angry. Resentful. Fara finished casting her spell and looked up at me. Her face was full of shock – and judgment.

  “And while you’re at it,” I snapped, “make sure your glamour is always smiling. I want everyone on my team to look supportive.”

  But instead of smiling, she dropped her glamour and faced me wearing baggy, ill-fitting pants and a faded top. Her scarred face looked concerned. I scowled at her and my sense of wrongness ratcheted up a notch.

  Was she trying to drive me mad? Why couldn’t she just do as I asked?

  “Noon, please talk to me,” she said. “Forget about everything around us – this assignment, people’s expectations, your future… and tell me what you’re feeling. I know you’re still hurting over Ari. How could you not be? One night’s wandering and suddenly you claim you’re okay? It’s not right. You’re not right. I can tell.”

  I gritted my teeth. Maybe the solution wasn’t trying to act like I had before. Maybe it was getting rid of the people in my life who wanted me to.

  But I wasn’t quite ready to throw the wine out with the cork, as they say.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. “And you did well today, by the way. Your glamours held up beautifully.” I gave her the smile I wished she’d given me. “Si fortuna et angeli tui tecum sunt, nemo tibi obstare potest,” I reminded her. If luck and your Angels are with you, no one can be against you.

  “Indeed,” she murmured, looking contemplative.

  A week after I’d first met Acheron, he requested to see me again. My first impulse was to refuse. We’d already met and teste
d each other’s mettle. If anything, my position on the dam had only become more entrenched. Cliodna needed the dam finished more than Ari had. Maintaining the underground conduit would offer her miners diversified employment and the project itself would strengthen the town’s ties with New Babylon, the main market for her artisans’ upscale armor, jewelry, and furniture.

  Yannu, however, was on to us. His expertise might be military matters, but he was no stranger to political tactics. As Cliodna’s followers and Zeffre’s crew started to make inroads with the undecided Hyrkes, word of his humiliation at my hands began to undermine his support with his heretofore declared followers. All of a sudden, the patronship was in play. The election was contested and it was all anyone talked about. The town’s former patrons, both long-time Potomus and short-lived Aristos, were all but forgotten. When you lived in an outpost, memories were short and worries were plentiful. Yannu, sensing an opening, moved into the vacuum created by Displodo’s death. He began to sound like the now-dead terrorist, and his calls to put a stop to the Memento Mori dam project became increasingly vociferous. Political expediency might have been Yannu’s only reason for now opposing the dam, but his turnabout meant I couldn’t say no to Acheron.

  I needed the river demon on our side – or at least not on Yannu’s.

  Prior to our meeting, I’d mulled over venue options. Both the rotunda and the dam were active construction sites. Cliodna’s sanctuary was full of birds. Fox in a henhouse didn’t even begin to describe what might happen if I held the meet there. Feathers would fly, alright. I’d been considering the pros and cons of meeting in one of the town’s guard towers when I thought of the old ruined castle. I hadn’t been there since my third day in the gorge when Ari had taken me on a walking tour of the surrounding area. So the morning before Cliodna was scheduled to move in to the rotunda, Fara cast me up in the bright white armor I now preferred and we set off.

  Thankfully, Fara had been more manageable lately. Her focus was back where it belonged – on compiling field notes, corresponding with New Babylon, casting glamours, and serving as interpreter.

  The weather was chilly, windy, and wet. Snow wasn’t imminent, but people in town had started bundling up. Our glamours, however, kept us warm and mud-free as we squished our way along the old hiking trail. We reached the ruins around late morning to find that the river demon and his band of stilio minions had beaten us there.

  I entered the ground floor of the castle and faced Acheron. His beady eyes stared back at me and his gargantuan snout was split with that annoying perma-grin. I stopped before I was within arm’s reach of him. I had no desire to see what this area had looked like before the castle had been built. Forest versus castle… river versus dam… Frankly, who gave a damn? I chuckled to myself, but the laughter died quickly as I felt Acheron’s signature. It roiled just below full boil.

  Acheron spoke in a series of rapid-fire clicks, squawks, and enraged barks. My signature auto-pooled with expectancy as he gestured wildly in the direction of the river. After a few minutes, he paused and softened his cadence momentarily, but then launched immediately back into what could only be a tirade. I didn’t need Fara to interpret. I was certain Acheron was griping about the dam and threatening to use his secret “domesday weapon” – the Domesday Descriptio, the archaic law book that contained proof of the river demon’s allodial title.

  I was just about to lecture Acheron on eminent domain, appropriation, and the right of kings when Fara started to frown. Hadn’t I warned her not to do that? Then, without interpreting anything, she shook her head and said, “But Ms. Onyx killed Displodo.”

  What…? Was Acheron suggesting that Displodo was still at large? That Kalchoek wasn’t Displodo? That didn’t make any sense. Kalchoek had been at the top of the Magna Fax with the cannon’s matchbook when I’d killed him. If he wasn’t Displodo, what was he doing there?

  Acheron snorted and snuffled and honked his responses while his minions grew more agitated.

  “But Kalchoek was Displodo,” Fara insisted.

  “What did he say?” I demanded to know.

  “Lord Acheron is… upset about Mount Occasus’ partial destruction. He never liked the Magna Fax and isn’t upset that it’s gone, but pieces of the plaza now litter his river. He wants them removed. He was sorry to hear about Lord Aristos’ death. But not Kalchoek’s. He said you’re to be commended for finally killing the ‘Slum King.’ Now that he’s dead, Acheron believes the Council will find a proper patron for Myriostos—”

  “Myriostos?” I asked, my tone sharp.

  Fara nodded. “According to Acheron, Kalchoek was the Patron Demon of Myriostos.”

  “But I didn’t think Myriostos had a patron… Why didn’t you tell us?” I snapped, glaring at Acheron.

  And then, just as he had during our last meeting, the magnus stilio lost it. Apparently, massive lizards have massive tempers. Fara tried to translate as fast as she could amongst all the roaring and stomping and pointing of clawed paws.

  “He says he did,” she said quickly, jumping out of his way. Acheron’s minions also jumped back. “He says he told the Council and you… He says he thought you understood and that’s why you killed Kalchoek…”

  My brain was spinning. “So Kalchoek was the Patron Demon of Myriostos, who became this generation’s ‘Displodo’ in order to destroy the dam that would give his followers a better life? Something he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – give them himself?”

  Acheron stopped and stared at me. He barked out a single sound. Even before Fara translated, I guessed it meant, “Yes.”

  “And you think the Council should find a ‘proper patron’ for Myriostos now?” I asked, addressing Acheron directly.

  He made the same barking sound, accompanied by some effusive snuffling and an impatient gesture toward the river.

  “In which event,” I continued, “the Memento Mori dam would not have to be built because the new patron of Myriostos would somehow be able to provide the slum with safe electricity through some other means?”

  Acheron’s head bobbed up and down and his grin seemed to grow wider. His signature pulsed with hope and relief.

  I scoffed. “Lord Acheron,” I said, my tone laced with disdain and my signature laced with finality, “that is the most preposterous suggestion I’ve ever heard. It’s simplistic and naïve. While at the same time, oddly complicated. Why should the Council find another way to provide Myriostos with electricity? There isn’t one. The Memento Mori project is underway and no one is going to stop it. Do you hear me? Displodo didn’t and you won’t either.

  “And if you continue to try to do so, I’ll bring charges against you. The information you provided to the Council regarding Kalchoek’s rogare status was confusing at best and intentionally misleading at worst. Who’s to say you and Displodo weren’t co-conspirators? You both wanted the dam project stopped, if for different reasons. Let’s see… I could charge you with complicity, malfeasance, interference—”

  Acheron lost his temper again, but I stood my ground. He flailed around the ruined castle, looking not unlike a woman pulling out her hair, and then stomped over to one of his minions. He removed a large book from the minion’s messenger bag – the Domesday Descriptio – and thrust it toward me. I refused to take it.

  Acheron continued his tirade. When he finished, he stood a few feet away, holding the book out to me. I ignored him and turned to Fara.

  “He doesn’t understand your position,” she said. “He’s not a rogare. He’s only ever tried to be a good steward of what was entrusted to him. He says truth, the law, and Luck are on his side.”

  I shook my head. “Truth is a matter of opinion, the law is subject to interpretation, and Luck is on no one’s side but his own.”

  Later that night, Tenacity and I held a fete in the rotunda’s atrium for Cliodna. It was a less crowded, more somber affair than Frigore Luna had been. The softly draped shrouds, crystalline frost, and Rockthorn’s tabula ansata were all gone, but
the torches were back, along with hundreds of rush lights. The statues were on full display and, though I’d been walking amongst them for months now, the Watchman’s gaze, the Hunter’s aim, and the Warrior’s sword all seemed sharper.

  People’s minds and memories likely would be too. Per my instructions, Tenacity had asked the town’s Angel sommelier to serve Black Gilliflower. It wouldn’t work on the demons, but it would on everyone else. I warned Fara to stay away from it so that she could keep her glamour intact while I set about targeting unsuspecting Hyrkes. After a few sips of “Veracity,” every one of Yannu’s followers would tell me something interesting, which could be shared with the world, acted upon to their detriment… or forgotten, provided they promised to vote for Cliodna.

  Was I planning to blackmail Yannu’s followers? Of course not. Not if they were law-abiding Hyrkes with nothing to hide. But sinners didn’t deserve the protection of the law and, luckily, I’d aced Sin and Sanction. I’d received the top grade in that class, which meant I’d memorized thousands of arcane, esoteric sins no one had ever heard of. I was fairly confident that each and every one of Yannu’s supporters had violated a rule or two at some point in their lives. And tonight, with Black Gilliflower flowing through their veins and brains, they’d tell me which ones and when. I grinned to myself and tried to ignore the prickly feeling of wrongness that had hovered at the edges of my sanity since viewing Cliodna’s cursed portrait.

  How long had Cliodna lasted before she’d gone batty?

  How long before I couldn’t look myself in the mirror?

  How long before I started painting abstract portraits of myself in an effort to somehow recapture the essence of who I’d once been?

  How long before—