It was a puzzle, but what Sarqi needed was something to do with his hands. He always thought best when his body was busy, but what was there for a Djin to do when he was stuck in a mouldering prison cell? Sarqi turned slowly, surveying his shelter. Perhaps they wouldn’t mind if he made some minor improvements. So Ambassador Sarqi set himself to lifting and moving rocks for a while, distracting his body with labor, and giving his mind time to wander over the words of that strange conversation.
Qhirmaghen had definitely been trying to tell him something. But what?
* * *
The next meeting of the fledgeling rebellion was as if by chance. Just two respected Gnome elders, each touring the fragrant Harvest Yard alone, seemingly at his leisure.
“Greetings, Reader Urlech,” Qhirmaghen said across the row of tables that stood between them. It had been some time since the Harvest had risen as high up the banks as where they now strolled, and the tables here were long dry from disuse.
“And you, Fallen Contender. I trust the burdens of your new office do not tax too greatly?”
“They do not, my friend. My responsibilities weigh my feet to the soil, as well they should. Neither taxing nor boring. Would you care to sample one of the fruits of my work?” Qhirmaghen asked, still playing the gracious benefactor, for the benefit of those few who wandered nearby. “The Horde has recently acquired a plentiful supply of deadwood from the slopes of the Anvil. Might I offer the Revered Ishig’s servant a taste?”
Urlech ambled over to Qhirmaghen’s side and made a show of selecting one of the rectangular sticks of gray wood from the small handful Qhirmaghen held out, and then he settled it into the corner of his mouth, enjoying the slow, heady release of vim that trickled from the deadwood as it moistened against his tongue.
“Highest quality,” he said. And even though he too had spoken for the benefit of those nearby who might have marked their discussion, in truth it really was excellent deadwood. Urlech sat down on the gore-stained gravel and leaned his back against the base of the table, leaving room for Qhirmaghen to do likewise. Which he did.
Quietly, as though merely humming to himself, the Fallen Contender began the meeting.
“I have planted a crop,” he said. The sounds of others moving around the Harvest Yard nearby and the buzzing of the food cloud above them masked his words from prying ears. “The Djin. I could not speak plainly, but I believe he took my meaning.”
“Will he join cause with us?”
Qhirmaghen shrugged. “I do not know. But surely he must see how easily our new King gathers the Wasketchin. They are like maggots in a kitchen heap. No resistance. No violence. He just scoops them up, and they offer nothing but simple, dead-eyed compliance in return.” Both Gnomes shuddered.
“So you believe the Djin will not want to see this power turned upon his own people.”
Qhirmaghen paused for a moment, considering. “No,” he said, slowly. “I do not think he considers that eventuality yet. Though surely it will be plain to him when his thoughts do finally turn that way. But no, for now, I think he speaks out of loyalty to his Wasketchin friends. House Kijamon is a friend to the Wasketchin Court. His is still the concern of a dutiful neighbor. But he will see the danger. I will go to him again in time. Perhaps there is a way he could get a message to his kin.”
Urlech risked a glance at the Fallen Contender. “You think it possible? I had not heard this power of the unliving vim.”
“It is only a possibility,” Qhirmaghen replied. “We know little of the other magics. It would be unwise to consider any feat undoable.” Qhirmaghen took the splint from his mouth and looked at it, considering its origin. It had been taken from the borders between Djin and Wasketchin lands. Owned by the Djin, harvested by a Wasketchin shaver. Even this tiny stick was a symbol of the easy friendship between the two sky-dweller races—a friendship that had not yet been dragged into Angiron’s war. But it soon would be.
“What of the bones?” he asked, as he rolled the square stick between his fingers, feeling the bump, bump, bump against his fingertips as it turned.
“There is no change to the temper of the ancestors,” Urlech replied. “They are of one voice. No good can come of this war he wages, and what ill we do will only be meted back upon us one thousand times over. It is all they will speak of.”
Qhirmaghen shrugged. “Perhaps it is no surprise that the bones of our ancestors urge us to follow the paths of old. And what of you, Urlech? What are the urgings of the Reader himself?”
The chaplain of Ishig’s Book made a show of splaying his feet out before him, pressing his heels down into the gravel-flecked mud. It was such a pleasant afternoon. He glanced up quickly toward the gray-brown haze of the crop overhead, but there were no wisps low enough to reach without standing, and he was too relaxed in the trickle of vim to want to stand. So he just sat there and wiggled his toes while he considered. Could this one be trusted yet? Urlech was not the trusting sort, even at the most casual of times, but these were not casual days. These were days of war and power, and he had a powerful secret. One that would not remain secret, nor powerful, for long.
“It seems the Ascendant has taken a wife,” he said. If the Contender was surprised by this change of topic, he gave no hint.
“The signs indeed have been seen upon him,” Qhirmaghen agreed. “But he refuses to reveal his brood-wife until all auspices have aligned, or some foolishness. It is a most troublesome point at Court—to know that there is a queen among us, but to not know at which shrine to lay the honors. He will not say, and none among us has seen these signs of queenly stature on any other—the elongated ears of blue. So we are vexed. And some few of us are troubled deeply by his secrecy in the matter. Most troubled, indeed.”
“I have,” Urlech said. The words were almost gone before they were spoken. All but a silent breath upon a buzzing wind.
Qhirmaghen turned and looked at his vim-lit companion. “You have what? You have been troubled?”
“No,” Urlech said, with a quick shake of his head. “I have seen the signs. I know who the queen is.”
Qhirmaghen did not respond right away. From the corner of his eye, Urlech could see that the news had startled the Fallen Contender, who merely stared forward with his face carefully vacant.
“Indeed?” Qhirmaghen said, after a short eternity had passed. “I would hear what you know.”
“And you shall,” Urlech said. Then he sighed. “But you will not believe me when I tell you.”
* * *
“Water must be kept to the outside,” Sarqi said. “Like so.” He set a long flat stone over top of several vertical slabs arranged on edge in front of him, forming a crude box. Then he picked up the gourd beside him and poured water from it, letting it splash all over his model. A handful of Gnome women pressed in around him, twittering and chattering amongst themselves as they watched the stream of water spatter across the simple roof.
“But the sand inside remains dry,” one of the women said, poking at the ground inside the model to confirm the fact for herself. “Won’t your offal desiccate?”
Sarqi pressed his tongue against his teeth and clenched his jaw. Surely they were baiting him. Had he not just explained that very point less than a minute earlier? But whether it was willful ignorance or just the ordinary kind, Sarqi was determined to make progress. Since King Angiron had ignored him for days, the Djin Ambassador had resolved to put his waiting time to effective use, vowing to improve the quality of Gnome-Djin relations, somehow. And what better way to start than by teaching the basics of Djin culture to these dirt-born, filth-mongering…
A strained sigh escaped him before he could quite catch it, but then he drew in a slow, clean breath to replace it, trying his best not to think ill of his guests. They were not dirt-born. Not filth-mongering. They were simply different, he reminded himself. And he had every bit as much to learn as they did. But sometimes… Well. Best not to dwell on that.
Today’s lesson was on the function of
walls and roofing in proper Djin architecture. There were many ways in which relations between his people and the Gnomes could be improved. Even something as simple as improving the quality of their guest shelters would be welcome progress. And since the building of homes and living quarters was considered woman’s work among the Gnomes, Sarqi had invited a group of them to come chat about architecture. They were something of a builder’s group and gossip club, as near as he could make out. The “desiccating offal” woman was their leader.
“Yes, Oick. Offal would desiccate in a dry home, but recall that Djin do not keep such…” Sarqi paused to suppress a shudder. “… treasures, in our living quarters. We are not able to appreciate it in quite the way a Hordesman might.”
“Well there’s your problem, Mr. Djin,” Oick replied, bouncing lightly on her haunches and nodding at her friends as though she had gotten the better of the teacher. “It would be a lot less trouble to just leave the stones on the ground and learn how to decorate properly.” Around her, other heads were bobbing in complete agreement.
Sarqi set his gourd down with a sigh. There had to be a way to explain—
But his thoughts were interrupted as another troop of Hordesmen and their captives crested the top of the Braggart’s Arch. These parades had been happening more and more frequently in the last few days, and they never failed to attract a crowd, although Sarqi found them depressing. He had no idea how Angiron was managing to do it, but every squad of Hordesmen that went out seemed to return a day or three later with a train of Wasketchin prisoners. Always there were just the three Hordesmen, but some squads had returned marching a line of as many as twenty captives, who all trudged along in utter sheepish tranquility. Sarqi had never seen so many fawn-eyed Vergefolk with so little to say.
The prisoners were always taken somewhere deeper down into the Throat, but to where, or for what purpose, he had not been able to discover. They just came across the bridge and then shambled past the Gnome ambassador, following their captors without complaint. Why did they not resist? Why did they not plea to their Djin friend for help as they passed by? They did not even make eye contact. Every time another group of them trooped by, Sarqi’s heart withered just a little further.
This current group was a large one too, and the builder women he had been trying to instruct all turned to watch as the latest prize of the Horde paraded by. There was much chattering and giggling among Sarqi’s students—if you could call them that—who seemed particularly smitten by the crook-backed Hordesman leading the procession. They called out to him as he passed and he puffed his chest out a little prouder for the attention, but he did not turn to engage his admirers.
Sarqi shook his head and turned away in frustration. Behind him, one of the Gnome women had scrambled up to the top of his embassy wall and was just now leaping into the air. He watched with further revulsion as she stretched up her hand and gathered a plentiful fist of lunch from the buzzing cloud these people so cheerfully called their “crop.” In the normal course, she would have stuffed her reapings into her mouth before she had even regained her feet. Apparently, the longer you tried to hold them, the more of them escaped, which explained the hasty grab-and-swallow he’d become accustomed to seeing a hundred times a day. But even frequent repetition never robbed the ritual of its power to sour Sarqi’s stomach.
This time however, the diner deviated the ritual. Instead of swallowing her catch, she pushed her way through the other ladies, past Sarqi, and rushed forward, toward the line of prisoners. A smallish Hordesman in the middle of the procession turned to look at her as she approached, and when she held out her squirming hand, he opened his mouth and she quickly delivered her buzzing payload, which he began to chew quite hastily. So hastily, in fact, that several unchewed morsels managed to escape through his nose, and he clutched at them eagerly as they darted about his head before drifting back up to rejoin the crop.
“That boy would never eat if I didn’t feed him constantly,” the woman said, pushing her way back past Sarqi to rejoin her group. But Sarqi wasn’t listening. His attention was fixed on the prisoners. One in particular. In the brief commotion caused by the Hordesman’s frantic grab at his escaping lunch, one of the tall prisoners had stumbled aside, allowing the Djin Ambassador to see the Wasketchin woman who shuffled along beside him. It was M’Ateliana, wife to Lord Malkior.
The Gnomes had just captured the Wasketchin Queen.
Sarqi’s first instinct was to cry out in protest. How dare they treat a queen so poorly? But in a feat of unrivaled self-control, the Djin Ambassador bit down hard on his tongue. The sudden lance of pain in his mouth was worth it though. He’d almost let slip his first official state secret. Clearly, Angiron did not yet know he had captured her. There’s no way she’d still be among the common captives if he did. And that could only mean that, so far, nobody else knew either.
Soon the parade disappeared around the bend in the path further down the slope, and the women began to mill about, anxious to return to their teacher-baiting. But now Sarqi had lost all interest and excused himself as politely as he could.
“I’m thorry, ladyth, but I have thuffered an injury and it now painth me to thpeak. Perhapth we could continue our dithcuthon tomorrow?” In his haste to keep himself from blurting it out, Sarqi really had bitten down too hard, and his tongue now throbbed in his mouth, feeling as though somehow, Zimu’s tongue had been swapped for his own, twice as large and half as well exercised.
But tongues were not important now, and as the disappointed building and gossip committee wandered away, Sarqi’s mind was already a’whirl. He found himself, quite unexpectedly, the sole possessor of information vital to this war. But what could he do with it? He was a prisoner here himself. Sarqi paced back and forth in front of the entrance to his flimsy shelter, heedless of the tiny model that he scattered into the dirt beneath his feet. And then he had it.
What he needed was an accomplice.
Chapter 5
Tayna fell out of a milky white sky and slammed into a large padded chair. She bounced on the first impact, and soared back up to hang in the air for a moment, before settling weakly back down onto the cracked leather upholstery. Jets of ejected dust filled the air, and tickled her eyes and nose, sparkling in the brilliant overhead light. A landscape of cloud and fog extended in every direction and she puzzled at this strange scenery, searching for something her eyes could grab hold of, make sense of. But a metallic ratcheting noise interrupted her search, and drew her attention upward, in time to see… an enormous television screen fall out of the sky in front of her.
It snapped into position with the deep, authoritative boom and thunk of heavy machinery locking into place. But it was too close and too high, and Tayna had to crane her neck upward to see it. On its face, an image flickered and shifted, before finally settling into the face of a stern older man. His harsh mouth and angry eyes glared down at Tayna, and when he spoke, his voice carried the terrible rumble of a storm god cloaked in fury.
“The prisoner is charged with treason, sedition, and breach of faith. How does she plead?”
The echos rumbled away into the surrounding cloud hills as Tayna opened her mouth to speak, but she didn’t get the chance.
“Just a minute! I’m coming,” called another voice. Tayna spun in her chair to look back. An old Gnome dashed out from a featureless bank of cloud, waving a pile of papers in one hand. Several others trailed away behind him, slipping from the thick stack he held clamped under his arm. “I haven’t had a chance to confer with my client,” the Gnome said.
“Silence! How does she plead?” the Judgy voice thundered. Tayna could actually hear the edges of the screen rattling from the intensity of the Judge’s fury—an intensity matched only by the hatred expressed in his glare.
Beside her, the Gnome flopped his stack of papers onto the armrest of her chair and turned to face the screen.
“Ot ilty,” he muttered, nowhere near loud enough for the Judge to hear him.
&nbs
p; Tayna leaned toward him. “I don’t think he can—”
“SILENCE!” roared the Judge. “How does she plead?”
“Ot ilty!” the Gnome repeated, hissing the words between his teeth and rolling his eyes in a great exaggerated motion, first looking sideways at Tayna and then dragging his gaze around toward the screen, as though he were trying to tell her something with his pupils.
Oh. “Not guilty,” she said, finally realizing what the Gnome meant. Then she repeated herself, to be sure the Judge had heard her properly. “Not guilty!”
For a moment, the face of the Judge hung there, motionless, his terrible eyes burning his fury down into her soul. Then, after an eternity of staring, the Judge spoke again.
“So be it. Call the evidence!”
Tayna felt the Gnome’s fingers bite into the damaged skin of her wrist. “Ow!” she said, turning quickly toward him, but the Gnome’s eyes were frantic.
“Ask him to sever the charges! Quickly, before any evidence is presented!” Tayna snapped her head back up to the Judge.
“Um, could you maybe sever the charges, please?” She glanced back at the Gnome to be sure she’d gotten it right, and he nodded tightly at her, then they both looked back at the screen.
The great red-gray eyes of the Judge considered her narrowly. Probably deciding whether to have her killed now or to wait until after the trial. Then his expression brightened and an icy smile crept across his lips without managing to touch any of the other muscles of his face.
“Motion to sever… granted,” boomed the voice.
Immediately, the little Gnome had more instructions. “Now request a full audit of all counts,” the Gnome instructed, still speaking out of the side of his mouth and under his breath. Tayna had no idea what was going on or where she was, but this didn’t seem like the right time to start questioning the little guy’s advice.
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