by L. W. Jacobs
Tai spun, striking resonance. He’d forgotten the street, forgotten to keep an eye out. Stupid.
Feynrick raised his hands quickly, “Easy, milkweed! Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“You—didn’t interrupt,” Tai said. “I was just—” He shrugged.
“Don’t worry about it. Yer lady might have her theories about the genitors, but I never minded having Gleesfen around. No shame in getting a different opinion.”
Except when that opinion made you question everything you’d been doing. “Right. Did you—learn anything, in the tower?”
The Yatiman snorted, and only then did Tai notice he was a little unsteady on his feet. “I learned the Rotwens still brew their dreamleaf pissing strong. If Marrem could see me now.”
Tai took his shoulder, grateful for the distraction, and steered him back into the street. “She’d snap at you, for sure. I never really said thank you, for leaving her to come with us. I got to take Ella along.”
“She would never’a come,” Feynrick slurred, stumbling just slightly as they retraced their steps. “Too good. Too kind a woman. Not her kind of fight. Too good for me, really.”
Oh, no. Tai knew this kind of talk, the talk men deep in their cups would get into. He’d never seen Feynrick get purple, but he didn’t want to. Especially not with Ydilwen pushing him to do the same. Credelen was somewhere in this city. They needed to learn what they could and get out before he found them.
“Anything about the trouble in the Yershire? Or something else about the stones?”
“Oh, aye,” the thick man said, still sounding melancholy. “Uprising, they’re calling it. Regular rebellion, right in the belly o’the empire.”
Shouldn’t that be where they liked the Councilate best? Tai had never heard of uprisings outside Ayugen and Yatiland, the newest protectorates. “That definitely sounds odd. Any idea where exactly it is on the plains?”
“Califf,” Feynrick said, “or near enough. South plains. Supposed to be a big thing. Whitecoats are keeping everyone back.”
South plains. Nauro had said the Yersh waystone was centered in the old capital, the one built before the city of glass on the coast, that itself was built many centuries before the Councilate. “Califf,” Tai said. “Is that the old capital?”
“Nah,” Feynrick slurred, eyes following a buxom woman on the far side of the street. “That’s Aran, nother twenty or thirty thousandpace upriver.”
Tai almost stopped in his tracks. Twenty or thirty thousandpace? That was nothing. Could it be a coincidence that this uprising was happening a day’s walk from one of the possible waystones?
Tai took Feynrick’s arm and steered him toward the docks. “Come on. We need a boat for the Yershire.”
32
Captain Merewil Ralhens looked no different than Ella had left him, three months and a lifetime ago. He stood stiff-backed aboard The Swallowtail Mistress as his wealthy passengers disembarked via the teakwood ramp. She smiled despite herself, remembering all the times she had been one of them, then called “Master Ralhens!”
His eyes passed over her at first, swaddled as she was in furs, then picked her out when she pulled her hood back to show her hair. A smile broke out on his face, and he strode closer. “Ellumia Aygla! Is that you?”
“The very same,” she said, genuinely glad to see him, and glad too that he didn’t still seem angry about the false calculism license she’d used aboard his ship, and the debacle of her exit. “Didn’t expect I’d see you here.”
“What are the odds! Of all the ports and ships, and all the days. Only make it up here every once in a blue moon, these days.”
It did seem a strange coincidence. But then, stranger things had happened to her in the last few weeks. “Perhaps the Prophet willed it. It’s good to see you, sir.”
“And you, Ellumia. Working a different ship these days?” he asked, climbing down the portside wale and leaping onshore as casually as any deckhand.
“Ah, no,” she said, thinking fast about what might have brought her here. He obviously hadn’t heard about her role in the troubles at Ayugen. “I—took passage back here, actually, once I’d earned out my debt, and have been working under a calculor since. Saving to get my real licensure.”
“Good! That’s good. I was sorry to see you go, everything else aside,” Ralhens said, shaking his head. “Never liked Odril. And this is?”
“Marea Fetterken,” Ella said, holding her tongue on Odril. “A fellow student here in Yatiport.” She glanced at Marea, who was chewing on a strand of hair, resonance still humming. Poor girl.
“Well, what brings you to the docks? Surely not looking for a familiar face.”
Ella smiled. “Oh, no, I just like to take my air in the mornings. And I find a few conversations with passengers is generally more informative than all the broadsheets you can buy in the city. News comes so slowly up the Ein.”
Ralhens nodded, rubbing his beard. “You get out of Ayugen before the troubles then?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to summon the proper amount of fright and relief. If he only knew. “I’m guessing you don’t sail that far south anymore?”
“Last port of call, right here. Used to run to Gendrys now and then, but no passengers for it on this voyage, nor do I expect many more, what with the legion pulling out. Damn shame about all that.”
She nodded, hoping to forestall more of the crush-the-Achuri talk she’d heard all morning. “I liked Ayugen, the few chances I got to see it. Any word from up north, beyond the usual?”
Ralhens rubbed his beard, working the glass beads there. “Some trouble in the home country. Whitecoats have got the area locked down, passage up the Oxheart stopped past Califf. Bad business, that.”
Home country would be the Yershire, for Ralhens. She cocked her head. “What sort of trouble?” There was never news or trouble from the Yershire, just grain and meat and an endless supply of peasants flooding into Worldsmouth, seeking a more interesting life. Ralhens had likely been one of them, once.
“Rebellion,” the captain said darkly. “You know we never—well, some of the Yersh never took kindly to Worldsmouth rule. Based in Aran, y’see. Boats down from Califf say you can’t hardly see the commonfolk for whitecoats.”
Aran was the ancient capital of the Yersh Kingdom. A likely place for a rebellion, if there was going to be one.
And the location of a waystone. Ella’s stomach lurched.
She schooled her face to casual interest. “Sorry to hear it. I don’t suppose you’re headed back that direction?”
“Nah, up the Zein after this. Started running to the falls, trying to expand business what with the south route cut off.” He narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you say you were working here now?”
Ralhens had never fully trusted her, and with good reason. She gave him a breezy smile. “I just like to run home now and then, and it would have been fun to sail with you, for old time’s sake. Well,” she glanced around, noticing Avery a few paces away, “I have taken enough of your time. Take care, captain, and thank you again for your hospitality those two years.”
Ralhens puffed up. “Oh aye. My pleasure, young miss. Anytime. You come and see me, once you’ve got your papers in order. It’d be a pleasure to have you back.”
Strange to think of going back to that life. Would she even be able to, anymore? Would she even want to?
“Thank you captain, I’ll do that.”
“Did you really live on a boat for two years?” Marea asked in low tones as they walked away.
“Yes. You thought I was lying?”
“No, I just—scats, Ella, that’s amazing!”
Ella shrugged. “It probably sounds more glamorous than it was.”
Avery separated from the crowd and walked over to them, looping a casual arm around Marea’s waist. The girl lit up. “Learn anything good?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ella said, “at least I think so. There is a stone in the Yershire, isn’t there?”
&nbs
p; He smiled. “Yes. And some very suspicious trouble based right around where it’s supposed to be.”
Ella smiled back. “Then I think we need to book a ship.”
They went through a few before they found one headed up the Oxheart, a cargo barge with enough spare quarters abovedecks that the captain was willing to take them on. “I’ll need six hundred marks, though, and ye’d best be paying up front,” Captain Selwin said, a bone-skinny Yershman with a nervous air.
Ella paid him, and still he looked suspiciously at the money. “Not one’a them rebels, are you? Got a contract to bring supplies to the legion there. I don’t need any trouble.”
Not that kind of rebel, anyway, Ella thought. “I’m a broadsheeteur, actually. I’ve been in Yatiport covering the fallout from the Councilate defeat at Ayugen, but things have quieted enough I thought I would see what’s happening in the shire.”
“Broadsheeteur,” the man snorted. “Well. Six hours to departure. Your friends better make it by then, cuz this boat waits for no man. Intend to make it to Dalhaven tonight.”
Marea raised an eyebrow once the man had limped off, shouting to a crewman. “Broadsheeteur? How many stories are you going to make up today?”
“As many as I need to,” Ella said. “I’m a writer, remember?” The girl’s blank resonance whined in Ella’s bones—she must still be feeling unsafe, which was no wonder with the chaos of the port and her uncertainty with Avery and their plans to sail into a rebellion.
A voice called out from the docks and Avery stiffened. A man was striding toward them through the crowd, waving an arm “Harides!”
Ella glanced at him. “Someone you know?”
“No, I—just a second.” He strode down the gangplank to meet the man, making small shushing motions with his free arm.
“Harides?” Ella asked, looking at Marea. “Is that his family name?”
“I—don’t even know, actually,” Marea said. “Could be.”
Avery leaned in, talking to the man in low tones. It was an older Yatiman, dressed well. Odd that he should recognize Avery, but then the youth had apparently spent some time in Yatiport.
“Trouble?” Ella asked, when Avery had returned.
“Just an old employer,” Avery said, then turned to Marea. “Do you still have your resonance on?”
She started. “Yeah, you can feel that?”
“Yes. Maybe you—”
Shouts sounded from the docks, and a splintering crash. As one the three of them looked over the side of the ship. Tai wafted there above the crowd, a toppled line of barrels bounding into the crowd below him.
“What the stains is he—"
Three barrels picked themselves up from the mess and hurtled toward him. Ella’s stomach clenched. Tai dodged and the barrels arced out into the crowd.
Wafters, then, or shamans, or archrevenants. It didn’t matter. Ella struck resonance. They were attacking Tai, which meant they needed to die.
33
Tai and Feynrick took the long way back to the docks, the grizzled Yatiman muttering to himself about shamans and pulling Tai through muddy alleys and barrel-clogged side streets. Tai hated the delay, but as much as they needed to get out of the city before Credelen noticed them, they needed even more not to have the shaman see them as he strode the streets doing whatever it was he was doing. At least the man had been walking away from the docks when last Tai saw him.
“The Yershire,” Feynrick said. “Never thought I’d want to go there.”
“Why’s that?” Tai asked, turning sideways between a pair of three-wheeled vendor’s carts blocking the end of a narrow sidestreet.
“Piss on the Yati, is all they do. Even when I ran my own company, the Yersh thought they knew better than me, just because they lived closer to Worldsmouth. Is the thigh better than the paw because it’s closer to what stinks?”
Tai had no answer for that. They came out onto the docks a few minutes later, following a long narrow walk between two bark-sided warehouses, emerging into the sudden noise and stink of the docks. It was like Ayugen times ten, or times one hundred: shouts of merchants and grunts of porters, stink of spilled fish and sour wine, crush of passengers and handcarts with mangy dogs threading their way underfoot. They were supposed to find Ella in all this?
“Head for the ships,” Feynrick said, pulling him along a long stack of weathered barrels. “Anything northbound. We’ll book something first then get our crew.”
Tai rounded the end of the stack only to run face-first into a pinch-faced lighthair. He rebounded off the man, then looked closer.
The apology died on his lips.
“Credelen,” Tai managed. “Long time.”
“Tai Kulga,” the narrow man hissed. “Godslayer.”
Feynrick had turned, eyes widening. Good. Keep Credelen talking. “I prefer Savior of Ayugen, actually, but sure, you can call me Godslayer.”
“I don’t care what they call you,” Credelen said, thrusting a hand behind himself without looking. Feynrick blasted backwards, knocking down people as he went. “You killed my friend. My seeker. And you know something about the stones. Surrender and I’ll spare your companions.”
Why didn’t the man attack? Tai remembered at the last second to unfocus his eyes. Revenants wriggled from the stones around them.
Cursing, Tai struck resonance and shot up. Thralling. The man was trying to disable him, not kill him, which meant he wanted to thrall him. Too bad for him Tai could see ghosts.
Tai dodged the first that rose, wishing he was able to fight back, but he had other means. Plenty of other means. With a snap of air he knocked the chock out from the line of barrels, sending the whole line of them rolling and bounding toward Credelen
With barely a glance Credelen swept an arm at the oncoming tide, and barrels leapt from the ground toward Tai.
Tai dodged again, having to watch both the barrels and air, then grimaced as shouts and screams sounded behind, a space opening rapidly around them as the docks cleared. Tai focused his higher resonance and slammed a fist down at Credelen, meant to crush the man as he had seen Nauro do at the waystone.
And kill him, Ydilwen said. Again without cause.
Tai gritted his teeth, looping around revenants and airborne barrels. “If this isn’t cause, what is?”
Credelen sidestepped the air attack, then again struck Feynrick with an invisible hand as the Yatiman tried a second attack. Tai struck as the shaman was distracted, sweeping down for a kick to the head that should stun if not end the man.
He slammed to a halt as if into a wall, insides lurching at the sudden stop.
“What,” Credelen said, turning calmly to him, ignoring the screams crowd and shouts of sailors pulling up anchor around them, “do you hope to accomplish with this? I have Ollen’s power, and the power of all the men your friend killed two nights ago. You cannot resist.”
Tai pushed hard the opposite direction, then up, then down, trying to dislodge himself any way he could, but he was stuck fast. And as Credelen spoke the revenants reformed, swirling in a dead mist around him. The shaman considered them, then chose a particular one.
“I’m trying to save my people,” Tai said. “End this insane war I started.”
Credelen smiled. “Oh, you didn’t start it. But you could be my key to winning it.”
He raised a hand and the revenant slammed into Tai.
34
Time slowed and Ella sped up. Barrels bounding through the crowd slowed to a crawl, the cries of alarm shifted to a rumble, and the stench in her nostrils faded to just a smell.
She leapt the ship’s rail, landing awkwardly on the pier, and started to run. Shaman, wafter, archrevenant, she didn’t care. A slip that struck without warning was as good as a heart attack, she’d heard someone say—maybe Karhail. She’d killed him in slip, a former Titan, and his entire pack of Broken, sent to destroy Ayugen. This would be nothing.
Except for the staining crowds. People were running away from the scene, p
ushing against each other, and the crowds had been thick to begin with—all the merry chaos of a dockyard that she normally loved. Now they were all just in her way, and about as moveable as stone in the slowed momentum of slip.
So she climbed. First just on an upended barrel to get her bearings, but then onto the shoulders of a shorter woman nearby, and from there on the backs and shoulders and heads of the people in the crowd. They would likely barely feel it in regular time—she had run across water not a month ago, again seeking to save Tai’s life, so each individual footstep had to be light.
This was why she had to come—because he was always getting in over her head. Even if her resonance killed her in the process, she’d rather die fast with him than live long alone.
She leapfrogged closer, watching the drama play out ahead, hating how long it was taking. She’d had to climb up and down a few times where the crowd thinned, and the docks were long, but she was close now. Tai appeared to be paused in air, Credelen saying something to him.
No matter. She didn’t need to hear the words. She’d seen the man attack her lover. That was a death warrant. Ella drew her knife, dropping from the shoulders of the last panicked porter and sprinted across the empty space.
She unfocused her eyes as she did, remembering Credelen might have some shamanic defense in place. And saw a revenant streaming into Tai, half-buried in his chest. Prophets. He would lose his resonance, ten paces up. She’d have to catch him after she killed Credelen.
The things she did for love.
Then Credelen turned to her, head moving at regular speed despite the slip, and flicked his fingers.
The air gelled around her, going from the warm honey of slip to something much, much colder. And thicker. Ahead of her Credelen froze, and the basso rumble of the crowd dropped to something so slow it felt like individual waves, like the tremors of a giant beast’s steps.
She was trapped. Ella tried to push forward, but the air was thick as clay. She leaned into it, leveraging her weight, and made it a half-step further.
