by K. Eason
The God thinks you’re planning something stupid. Are you? Because I don’t want you to die.
She stopped, mouth hanging open. Tasted the cave-dust and swallowed. “The God wants me to go back to Illharek. Says it’ll fall if I’m not there.”
“And you believe him.”
“No. Maybe. He also says Kellehn’s full of toadshit, like that’s any news.” The God’s words, in her mouth: “Kellehn knew what was up in the garrison. He wanted us to die there.”
“That would not help him kill this avatar.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe the avatar was just an excuse to get us to Cardik. Or maybe he thinks we will kill her, and that’s what he wants because the next avatar is one of the Rhostiddir or whatever. Maybe he’s got a sister with ambition, yeah?”
“That is thinking like an Illhari.”
“That’s what I am, yeah?”
“That is not what he is. This could be a simple matter of bloodfeud, his tribe against the tribes in Tal’Shik’s alliance, and we are the weapons.”
“He was part of the Taliri alliance. Ehkla led his whole toadfucked tribe. I think he’s been playing us, Illharek and Dekklis and you and me. “
“He has no love for Ehkla.”
“So he says. People lie. Tal’Shik wants you. Ehkla knew that. Bet me Kellehn knows it, too. Maybe you’re part of his bargain.”
Veiko’s gaze slid away. He studied the empty air an armslength to the left of Snow’s head. The silence stretched. Then, “What, then? We return to Illharek and wait for the dragon?” His jaw tightened. “You do as the God asks?”
She heard the barb. Sidestepped it. “First, we deal with Kellehn. Can’t leave him behind us. Not alive. And not dead, either.”
* * *
The sun burst off the stones, white contrast to the tunnel’s dimness. Heat shivered, breathless and sullen. Veiko stopped, appalled. The headache boiled behind his eyes, filling every crevasse in his skull.
Snowdenaelikk squared her shoulders and marched out into it. Her shadow huddled around her feet, miserable, as if trying to hide under her boots. Logi trailed behind her.
Veiko hesitated on the safe side of shade. Sudden heat, sudden glare, this airless heat—that meant a storm coming. He stepped into it and turned and looked up at the peaks. Clouds piled high and dark over the ridgeline, teetering overhead. Wind gusted down the slope, cold enough to raise bumps on a man’s skin. And worse than cold: the smell the wind brought with it. Not the clean smell of lightning and water, no. A thicker smell that clung to his throat and his tongue. Dust and rot and iron.
Like the ghost roads. Like the avatar. Like witchery.
He weighed the wisdom of telling Snowdenaelikk, who either had not smelled the wrongness or chose to ignore it, as she did with most things that came out of the ghost roads. He could understand how the Illhari conjured without care for what they disturbed or destroyed. It wasn’t neglect. It was deliberate, focused effort not to notice. In that, Snow was as exactly and completely Illhari as she professed.
As soon shout the moon out of the sky as convince her otherwise. Her father’s lineage did not matter, in the intricacies of Illhari legality and custom. The marks Kaj had left on her—hair, eyes, the Jaihnu bones and build—were an inconvenience to her profession, an excuse for her heresy. That was all half-blood meant to her, because that was all she determined to see.
Veiko squinted the sun glare to bearable and strode out after her. He had traveled snowfields brighter than this without difficulty. He had grown soft, staying so long in the Below, blind and dim-sighted as a Dvergir.
Or—and he did not like to think of it—he had grown accustomed to Briel, and her absence ached. Nuisance, he named her, when her sendings interfered with what his own eyes saw. But there was comfort, too, in feeling her presence. And, if he had to admit it, if he must be so honest with himself, in feeling Snow, too. It was echoes, mostly, nothing as clear as Briel, but Snow was—had been—there.
Fool.
It was the headache, upsetting him. It was the avatar’s proximity, and having spent the night among angry dead. He was not angry at Snowdenaelikk.
Tell yourself that.
It was just—the Laughing God made him uneasy, coming to her so often. Having conversations. The Old God had visited Snow, yes, but it seemed to Veiko that
Tsabrak
this new God was far more frequent about his visits, and more secretive. Of course, she was godsworn now, and easier for the God to reach. And she and Tsabrak had been close. Lovers, yes, but more than that. They shared much history.
But a man wondered, in his suddenly unoccupied head, if Kellehn’s suspicions about Snow were not unfounded. If a man should worry about her loyalties now that she was godsworn. If there might not be conflicts of loyalty hidden behind her midnight eyes.
Oh, Nyrikki’s son. Be honest. Is it her loyalty you doubt or her affection?
A dozen-dozen times Taru had raised that argument with him. A dozen-dozen times he had defended Snowdenaelikk. And now he was thinking like an Illhari, imagining shadows in a cloudless noon, deceit from someone who had
a history of it
never once lied to him.
Veiko grimaced as sweat worked down his ribs. Prickling heat did not make men wiser or more level-headed. Even if they returned to Illharek at once, at the God’s bidding, he needed to walk the ghost roads, hunt a wurm, learn its secrets. They would need those weapons when they met Tal’Shik’s avatar. He should make that journey from here, where the ghost roads were closer, where Snow could guard his body while he hunted. Not in Illharek, where no spirits went at all, where Snow would have no time for him, being busy with the God’s business.
Blame the heat, blame the headache, blame Briel’s absence, and still: a chill crept under his skin, prickling up along his scalp. The whole city felt wrong. Tilted. Too tight. As if the buildings were leaning close, breath held, listening. Veiko shifted into a trot, every footfall rattling every bone from heel to skull. Ancestors, but Snow could move quickly when it suited her. Halfway to the paved Warren by now, already past the Finger, but he had the steepness of the streets for his ally, and even longer legs.
She turned as he drew even. Raised both brows. “You all right?”
“We should not seek Kellehn. Not yet.”
A single cold drop struck his cheek. A second, his nose. Then five, then a dozen, striking the hardpack of the Warren, raising dust. A burst of cold wind rolled off the mountain, struck his back and pushed him forward. Lifted his braids and slid clammy fingers along his scalp. The sky flashed and bleached the world grey.
“Fuck,” Snow said. At least, that was the shape her mouth made. The storm outshouted her. Thunder first, then rain: a wall of water, loud as a river in spring melt. Roar and hiss and needles where it struck skin. Hail, or soon to be.
He leaned in, put his mouth close to her ear. The storm picked that moment to rest, one of those utter silences, when rain and wind and the whole world stops. His voice echoed into that silence.
“Angry dead will be coming.”
The bricks drank his words. The stones did.
Then the wind lifted, gently this time. Slithered along the streets, whispering to itself. Fog collected in the places where the shadows had been, thick and pale and rising. Shapes gathered in it. Hear them, oh dear ancestors. The angry dead wore their bodies, walked on the earth like any living soul. Did not need breath, no, but they whispered
skraeling
outlander
Dvergir
witch
in a tapestry of tongues.
Snow pointed down toward Market Bridge, with its neat rows and streets on the far side. That way was Still Waters, and her wards.
The tunnels were closer. An easy run back uphill.
Except there was worse, so much worse, up there. A noidghe knew it. Felt it. The dragon was on her way back: this was Tal’Shik’s storm.
The rain began again, hissing out o
f the sinking clouds. Lighting flared and flickered, bluish now, a witchfire gone mad.
No. Not entirely blue. Darker. Like a bruise. And there: the wurm moved against the storm’s swollen belly, a violet so deep, it hurt the eyes and brain.
It was as if all the air had turned to mud. Months, whole seasons passing, as he turned his head. Years and lifetimes as he drew air into his lungs. Snowdenaelikk was similarly suspended, her eyes reflecting his fear back at him.
Familiar feeling, oh yes. Ehkla had done it to him first, their first and only meeting, when she offered his blood to Tal’Shik. He had been a hunter then, and helpless against godmagic. He was noidghe now, armed with Taru’s teachings. Veiko formed the words in his head. Shaped the melody. Willed the song into being, through the breath congealed in his chest.
His lungs spasmed. Metallic tang in his mouth, as if he swallowed blood. His heartbeat drummed against his ears. Then the song thrummed out of his throat, spread and fluttered and flapped like a cloak in strong wind. The godmagic felt like a gale around him. But the song turned its edges away. Left a pocket of breath and wits and a body that would obey him.
The fog was much thicker now. The angry dead, that much closer. And the wurm passed overheard in a thunderclap of wings. Darker than violet now, brighter than black, its edges shredding in a wind not from the living lands.
Tal’Shik was ripping the veil between worlds. Too soon, he was not ready, they were not—and too late.
Veiko gripped his axe. Squinted against the slashing rain. And saw, from the corner of his eye, Snow’s hands come up, as if she held a basket between them. Godmagic, Veiko thought, and no, do not—but the godmark on her palm stayed dark. Witchfire curled through her fingers. Smoked away, and left tracery of blue veins. The veins thickened into lines, into ropes, stretched between Snow’s two hands. And then larger, growing, into a net that she cast over them. It sank through the song, tearing the words as it went.
And at the same time, Snow said, “Veiko, stay close. —Logi!” to bring the dog to heel. She spread her arms wide to keep the net over them, around them. And she walked, brisk and straight as if she was on her way to market, toward the Warren.
Her arms shook, and the beads of water on her face were not rain. He knew her arm always ached. But—
“Wait,” he said again, and stopped, and turned. The angry dead were still watching. No—moving now, gathering mass and numbers. Creeping closer. He felt the rage coming off them, the hate and the mindless hunger. Whatever Snow’s power to fool an avatar’s eyes, she could not hide them from the angry dead. But like all spirits, they feared Illhari conjuring. Came to the edge of Snow’s net and no closer.
“Come on,” she said, and pulled at him. “Hurry, yeah? I can’t fool that fucking dragon forever.”
It was like joining a slow-moving avalanche. Each street they passed, each house, the numbers of angry dead grew. Alviri at first, fair-faced; but then they crossed into the Warren, and the dead began to wear Dvergiri faces. Victims of the riots, these: a man carrying his right arm in his left, like a club. A woman, chest split from throat to navel, her hands hooked into claws. And there, a legion soldier. Glint of armor, dull black blade naked in her fist, a gaping wound where her right eye had been. The whispers changed too. Toadbelly now, to keep company with skraeling and half-blood instead of witch. Louder, rising from whisper to murmur to clearly audible, inside and outside his head. And so many, so many, that they pressed against Snow’s conjuring. It sizzled where they touched it. Sparked and smoked and reeked.
Logi gave up his flat-eared silence. Growled now, all his fur wet and spiked, teeth white as the bones of the dead.
Snow abandoned her silence, too. Swore under her breath, steady and creative and desperate. “Do something,” she burst out. “Can’t you?”
“There are too many to fight.”
“I meant noidghe toadshit.” The net flared and pulsed like a frightened heart. “Fuck and damn. I’m losing control. They’re pushing.”
Veiko shifted closer. Hooked an arm around her hips, pulling her against him, taking responsibility for her balance. And then he moved them both forward, half-lifting her, half-shoving, as fast as he could manage. There was one place he knew in this city, one place he might have called home. There were angry dead there, too, but they were
friends
at least familiar. But he made sure he had his axe ready anyway as they skidded onto the Street of Silk Curtains. Half-afraid they would be met by another horde—but the street was empty, rain-blurred and storm-dim, as it had been night before.
No. Not quite. There were lights in Still Waters’ windows. Lanterns glowing naked, where once there would have been red silk, throwing panels of light into the street. Fridis leaned out a second-floor window.
“The alley!” she shouted. “Hurry!”
Aneki waited at the gate. Swung it aside to let them in and slammed it hard behind. The angry dead drew back. A few of them snarled.
“Go on.” Aneki waved her hands at them, as if the dead were beggars or stray dogs. She folded her arms. Watched while they shuffled back into the rain-dark afternoon.
“Feel sorry for them, yeah? Not much left.” Aneki tapped her skull. “If you know what I mean.”
“Fuck and damn.” Snow let the conjuring go, or it collapsed on its own: smoke and sparks, fingers of witchfire. Her ribs heaved against Veiko’s arm. He felt her heartbeat, the shake deep in her muscles. She would be unhappy, later, to have shown such weakness.
No. She would not care. But he did, that she had come to it at all while he could do nothing to help her. A fine noidghe, yes, who cowered at his partner’s back while she conjured them away from an avatar and held back the angry dead.
And here he was, facing another dead woman, who smiled and talked and acted alive.
One beat, two, until he could lower his axe. Aneki watched with polite interest, as if he were performing some foreign greeting.
“Veiko. Honestly. We’re not dangerous.”
“You are angry dead.”
A smile, bright and winning and completely Aneki. “And you’re just angry. But at least you’re still alive. I’m glad you came back. Both of you. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Truth, Aneki? We didn’t plan on it.” Snow rubbed her fingers across her face. “But since we’re here, and assuming you don’t mean to kill us, can we go inside? There’s a godsworn flying snake out there, and I don’t think I can fool her twice.”
This time, Still Waters’ kitchen door hung open on a wedge of light. Smells crept out: woodsmoke, some kind of stew. Meat-smell and spices, that reminded a man how long it had been since breakfast, and how awful that breakfast had been. Fridis bent over the hearth, prodding the contents of a small pot that hung off the tripod. She glanced over her shoulder. Offered a smile that made Veiko understand why she’d been Istel’s favorite.
“Not much, yeah? Probably worse than you’re used to. But it’s hot.”
“Just as well you didn’t stay when the riots happened.” Aneki dredged up a smile. She lowered herself to the bench as if into a hot bath. “We’d’ve had to eat Logi. Maybe even Briel. At least we don’t need to eat now. But that took a long time.”
Snow sat across from her. Angled herself so that her back was to neither door nor open room. “Do I want to know what’s in the pot?”
“Probably not. But since you’ll ask: we have no shortage of rats.”
“Right.” Snow glanced at Veiko. Hitched a shoulder. “Rats taste like rabbits, yeah?”
Asking him, maybe, if he knew any reason why they should not eat what Fridis made for them, if the angry dead resorted to poison for their murder. He matched her shrug. The angry dead did not cook, in his experience. But still: he came and perched on the far end of the bench, where he could see Fridis working and what she put in the pot.
Aneki watched him, faint amusement ghosting around her lips. “You’re also lucky it’s Fridis cooking. I’m terrible at it. In
the beginning—when we were still alive and still needed to eat—we learned that pretty quickly.”
Snow put her hands flat on the table. “You wanted to talk last night.”
“I did.”
“Well. We’re here now. I’m listening.”
“So you are.” Aneki rubbed a scar on the tabletop. Studied her fingertip. “Let me tell you what happened. You left when it was all riot in the Warren, and all legion in the streets outside. Then the legion ran the other way, back toward the gates. You could hear the fighting from that way sometimes. That went on for a while. After that, we had Taliri in the streets, yeah? The soldiers were gone. Guessing the gates were too. But the people here, they didn’t welcome the Taliri. Even the rioters. Maybe especially them. Some of us—Tomi, Mikka—went out to fight. Guessing they died out there. And some of the newer folks just ran. Took their chances. I stayed here. Most of us did. When the Taliri came knocking—”
“Not much knocking,” Fridis said over her shoulder. “A lot of shouting and threats, though.”
“Knocking,” repeated Aneki, more loudly, “we let them in. They smashed things. Got rough. But they mostly left us alone.”
Fridis snorted. “Sure. The bruises healed fast. No broken bones. I guess that’s alone.”
Aneki waved her off. “If you opened your doors, they didn’t break them down. That’s courtesy from invaders. The rest?” Aneki shrugged. “No worse than I got when I wore a collar. No worse than you got, either,” she said to Fridis.
“Better than a sword in the gut.” Fridis went to the shelves, began taking bowls down. She caught Veiko watching. Smiled again, a little more shyly. “Peace, yeah? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“The angry dead always want revenge.”
“Angry dead.” Aneki chuckled. “Is that what we are? I guess so. Because I am angry. And I do want revenge.”
“So, what? Did the Taliri board up the doors? Lock you all in to starve?”
“Nothing that simple. It was quiet for a few days. We thought maybe they’d move on, yeah? But then they did something up on the Hill. It sounds like bard’s nonsense, to say we could hear the screams from here. But we could. I tried to go out and see what, but they had people in the streets, making us go back inside.”
