Emissary- Beasts of Burden

by Silas Post

  “Nothing,” she said. “We share in all burdens and blessings here. Our economy runs on faith in each other, not the passing of metal from hand to hand. He will partake in the next festival, staffed freely by men and women who indulge their fill tonight.”

  We ate greedily, our bodies long deprived of nourishment. Rikki thanked another vendor and rushed back toward us with three generous goblets of a pale pink liquid.

  “Rhubarb,” Jarah said. “This is a sipping wine, one of my people’s most complex and longest—”

  A satisfied exhalation from Rikki drew our attention to her emptied cup. “I’ll get us some more,” she said.

  Jarah and I sipped lightly at our drinks and scanned the crowd that filled the central gathering arena. A density of cyclopean men and women danced there, trading partners as they spun in circles and traveled the length and width of the square, then back again. Their bodies were strong and lithe, cloaked in loose and flowing fabrics with festive colors and ornate designs decorating their necklines and down their sleeves.

  They were taller than Rikki and myself, and broader, though few rivaled Jarah’s height. It was only now that I truly appreciated how magnificent a woman she was, surrounded by women of her own race whose strength and beauty she dwarfed at every turn.

  Rikki returned empty-handed. “They have to open a new cask,” she said. “Let’s dance in the meantime.”

  “Jarah’s feet hang heavy with the task ahead,” I said. “Let us not apply too much pressure against her will.”

  “Thank you, Victor,” Jarah said. “We came here for people, and the people dance. The only way to get their attention is to follow in kind.”

  The dance arena was paved in palmwood slats, each held against the dirt below with wooden stakes at their ends. We took to the dance floor together, though Jarah’s eye was distracted the entire while. Finally, she peered forward and smiled. “Umma!” she yelled. “Umma, over here!”

  A woman approached with long, dark eyelashes. They were thick with mascara, and the bright pink eyeshadow she wore over her single eye gave the impression of a woman desperately clinging to her youth. The maroon lipstick that caked her lips didn’t help.

  “Jarah Lin,” the woman said. “By the gods, you look great.”

  “As do you,” Jarah said. She smiled warmly at the woman, clearly seeing through the makeup to the old friend beneath it. “I need to find my parents. I have news for their ears.”

  “Your father just retired, love,” Umma said. “Had you heard that? Is that why you’re back? Because he took your mother on a trip downslope to a fishing village to see some old buddies of theirs. Should’a been home by now, all be told, but short visits grow long with old friends.”

  Jarah and Umma spun while they talked, their arms looped together and their feet kicking up as if in synchrony. Rikki and I spun too, making it difficult to follow Jarah’s conversation closely, but I did my best. I paid little attention to forcing my feet to match Jarah’s dancing, but Rikki puzzled over it and tried her hardest to get the moves right.

  “Where is Councilor Vicah?” Jarah asked. “If I cannot deliver news to my parents, I have omens for him instead.”

  “Oh, he’s here somewhere,” Umma replied. “On the dance floor, most likely. Have a spin and find him fast, I’m on my way across it now. Bye, love!”

  Umma let go of Jarah’s arm and latched onto another dancer, then kissed him on the cheek. I traded Rikki’s arm for Jarah’s and leaned in close.

  “That didn’t sound like luck,” I said.

  “No,” Jarah replied, grabbing Rikki’s arm for a spin before coming back to mine. “Councilor Vicah is our village elder, he’s the one that will take news of Greenloft’s war and enact a plan in unison with the other villages. He’s dancing, I think.”

  “There must be hundreds of people here, with more crowding in by the minute,” I said.

  “Gray hair, a silver iris specked with red,” she said. “When we see him we’ll know him.”

  “Lead the way,” I said. Jarah, Rikki, and I continued our three-person dance in the lively throng of cyclopean partiers. Twice Rikki reached wide for a goblet of wine, but she always offered to share. The rhubarb liqueur was sweet and rich, loosening Rikki’s hips as she twisted and spun.

  My eyes scanned the faces in the crowd, but none had the distinctive silver eye of Jarah’s village elder.

  As we traveled the length of the festive central square, a bright blue light cropped up in the corner of my eyes, always toward the mountain’s slope just above the palm-thatched roofs of the houses and shops. I wondered whether the wine was playing tricks with me, or perhaps the gleam from Redelia’s pendant was too bright in my peripheral sight.

  Jarah’s mood became more frantic as we failed to find her people’s leader. Rikki, however, was shorter than me and had no line of visibility toward the faces of Jarah’s people. She pulled me toward her now and then for a kiss that tasted like wine and a quick grope at my backside — or my frontside, increasingly often.

  Finally, Jarah pulled us away from the dance floor. “I cannot find him,” she said. The music had grown louder though, making conversation a labor.

  “Does the mountain have a source of light, like Redelia’s pendant?” I asked. “We could shine onto the crowd to get the councilor’s attention.”

  “No,” Jarah said. “Why do you ask?”

  “We saw a blue gleam amidst the summer squall,” I said. “And again when we dodged Araine’s wrath. I thought I saw the same glow there, but it is fleeting.” I pointed toward a ledge along the mountain slope.

  “If we climb,” Jarah said, “we could scan the face of every man at once, rather than dance amidst a shifting throng in the hope of a random encounter. There is no light but the torches that line the dancing square, but added height could be an advantage.”

  We wound through the back alleys of the village, passing sleepy houses and darkened shops, all empty after the festivities had drawn everyone to the village center. A sheer cliff rose ten feet high along the mountain’s edge, but above that was a flat rock shelf that provided better vantage.

  Rikki approached the wall without being asked. Her balance was poor, but she paid it no mind, pressing the edge of one hoof against the vertical rock and settling on a hairline ledge I hadn’t seen a moment before.

  Her hands worked quickly, seeking gentle slopes or tiny pockmarks in the rock’s surface while her feet found impossible perches. My jaw dropped in wonder as she neared the top of the wall, but then she froze.

  “This is amazing,” I said. “You’re almost there!”

  “What have I done?” she asked, wavering slightly. “Get me down from here.”

  “Rikki, you’ve almost climbed up,” I said. “See if you can find Councilor Vicah.”

  “No,” she said. “I made a mistake. Up always means down. I’ll be trapped.”

  “It’s just another arm’s length,” Jarah said.

  “Please don’t make me do this!” Rikki yelled.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Come down slow. We’ll support you.”

  She pointed her hoof and bent her legs, scraping the rock face in search of a step she could shift her weight onto. Her hands trembled while her fingers bent into strained positions, supporting too much of her weight.

  I reached up, prepared to brace her hoof with my hand while Jarah stood ready to take Rikki’s arms.

  Then, she slipped. Her body fell all at once, losing her grip with both hands and scrambling her legs in the air. I positioned myself beneath her and caught her around the waist, causing my body to flatten along the ground and provide cushioning as she crashed on top of me.

  “I don’t understand,” Jarah said. “You have such natural talent for climbing.”

  “I suppose I do, but I’ve never needed it,” Rikki said, getting to her feet and then helping me do the same. “I missed that time as a child when exploration is the driving impulse. I know pain now. I have need for lim
bs unbroken. My mind swirls with the terror of falling and then I freeze. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it. I’m afraid. And I’m a disappointment.”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “Had I known how a climb would affect you I would have urged you down and not up.”

  “I will go,” Jarah said.

  “No,” I said. “It is clear that this height poses a danger. I won’t put either of you through this.”

  “But I want to,” Jarah said. “This is my village. We seek out my elder.”

  “This is our task,” I said, “but I will accept the danger myself when I can.”

  “Victor—” she pleaded. I would hear no more protest. I nearly lost Jarah to a guillotine’s blade once; I would not lose her to a mountain fall.

  “Provide a boost and I can climb from there,” I said. “Truly.”

  Jarah sighed but folded her hands together as a step to start my climb. She lifted me up from there until my fingers found a ledge toward the cliff’s top edge. It took a few moments for my feet to find traction, but the rest of the climb was none too difficult, thanks to my generous head start.

  Even at this slight elevation, the view was spectacular. The night sky was filled with stars, and the last blue on the horizon sank into the dark ocean beyond. Cyclopean men and women twirled in the village square, young and old alike, their loose garments sending waves of colorful fabric behind them as they danced and drank.

  “What do you see?” Jarah asked.

  I stood on my toes and craned my neck. I could see only half the crowd, with the angled roofs of buildings blocking the other half from view. “Not enough,” I replied. “And still no Councilor Vicah.”

  As my eyes scanned the village, a bright blue light flared in my vision again. I looked up the mountain slope and my eyes focused on it, a cylinder of turquoise that gradually settled into the shape of a man.

  Oh, you rhubarb wine, I thought to myself. You inconspicuous liquid devil, beguiling my sight with phantom aberrations.

  “Victor,” Jarah said. “What is that?”

  “Is it real then?” I asked. “Do you witness what I do?” My face aimed at the man-shaped apparition but my words directed behind me, to the girls that waited at the cliff’s base.

  “A glow,” Jarah said. “A man.”

  This ghost smiled amiably and waved me toward him as he floated higher up the mountain’s slope. He was unbothered by the lack of steps, and I hesitated to move at all.

  “He wants me to follow him,” I said.

  “Come back,” Rikki said. “I can’t join you up there, and I won’t lose you to a ghost.”

  “I need to climb higher,” I said. “This won’t be long, I promise.”

  I heard Rikki whimper below, and while I wouldn’t take my eyes off the glowing man of translucent form that rose before me, I did hope Jarah would console Rikki and keep her calm as I finished my task.

  “Just like Redelia’s tower,” I told myself, feeling the rock wall ahead and climbing slowly. Each inch I lifted myself higher was another inch the ghostly man rose ahead of me, leaving ample space between to leave me without a sense of threat.

  A false impression of peace, perhaps, but I climbed anyway. My goal was to steal a fuller glimpse of the village from above, but now I worried too much to take my eyes off my spectral guide.

  The higher I climbed the greater my hesitation became, until at last he vanished. The blue light he had shone over me snuffed out, leaving Redelia’s pendant on my chest to aim its prismatic glow at the mountain alone. I turned my head and tucked my chin against my chest, trying to catch sight of the faces below. Now they were an indistinct blur, bobbing and weaving among themselves but too distant to make out their features.

  “What do you see now?” Jarah asked.

  I squinted, taking in the full scope of the village from end to end. Beyond this small town the mountain sloped sharply down, so I could not see the rocky base that supported it from beneath. I could, however, see the outcroppings of the island’s edge. It was dark, but a few large shapes cut smooth edges away from the ocean background.

  “Boats,” I said. “Perhaps the fishing village below?”

  “No,” Jarah said, “that village is on the island’s other side. There is no true port besides their simple piers.”

  I dared to lean only a few inches away from the rock, my arms already burning with the effort of keeping myself steady in my half-climb pose. “They are surely boats,” I said. “Large ones, and stationary along the island’s rim. With flags… Good gods, they bear Greenloft’s insignia.”

  “How?” Jarah asked. “The summer squall carried us quick, but Greenloft would never sail into a storm that size.”

  Adrenaline washed away my muscles’ fatigue and I climbed higher still, stealing glances left and right, cursing the darkening sky. It took all of my discernment, but I assured myself that a second bevy of boats lay further off the coast, small in the distance but large and sailing fast.

  “You’re right,” I said, piecing together the limited information at hand. “Wick held his boats at Telapa until the squall subsided, but his fleet of purloined cargo ships comes toward us now, just hours behind.

  “The boats I spy moored along the coast preceded our arrival and the storm we suffered through. There is a port city north of Telapa. It must not have escaped royal appropriation of its commercial fleet either. I am left to wonder how long they have anchored here, and why.”

  The music below us cut off abruptly. A woman screamed, followed by others. A regiment of dark shapes marched into the square from the city’s other end.

  “We’re too late to find Councilor Vicah,” I said. “We’re already under attack.”

  14

  I climbed halfway down, then jumped from the cliff and rolled to a stop. Rikki latched onto me immediately.

  “Let’s not start this again,” I said, stroking her horns with the back of my hand. “We have an invasion to curtail.”

  “We were always too late,” Jarah said. “I thought Greenloft hadn’t sent its warships from the capital.”

  “These are cargo ships, like the others,” I said. “Imagine all the soldiers they could fit inside the hulls. That’s all they need against an undefended island: a corps of guards with sharp swords. They kept their cannons and catapults behind, ready for a separate siege.”

  “We saw what they did to Jarah’s brother,” Rikki said. “They will kill every last cyclops before they calm their swords.”

  “They will not,” I said, pinching my amulet and centering its gem on my chest. “With Redelia as our witness, we will stop this war. That is why we came, so she could capture the light of an island’s relief at a crisis thwarted. This is the moment we sought, to empower our goddess and revive her resplendent soul. Fate stands on our side!”

  We rushed back through the village, passing the houses and shops that lay idle and dark on our first pass. Now, the streets were crowded with cyclopean villagers, rushing from the central square and seeking haven in their homes or down dark alleys.

  “Come!” I yelled to the fleeing people that pushed past us. “Let us stand against Greenloft’s assault and turn away their vile aggression!”

  Yet, Jarah was the only cyclops willing to confront this war head-on. We ran further into the heart of the settlement as her people fled and cowered.

  A royal foot soldier paused in the middle of the path ahead, a sword in one hand and a series of black shackles hanging from his belt.

  “Aho,” I yelled, balling my fists and wishing I still had a polearm — or any weapon, really — to meet against his blade.

  “Aho,” he said back, appraising the threat we three might pose while his fellow soldiers yelled and fought with Jarah’s people in the square behind him. “We’re here for the one-eyed freaks, not our own kind. You can even keep your pet if you turn back.”

  “You shouldn’t have said that,” I replied.

  The second the word “pet” escaped that man’s mouth, Rikk
i bolted forward on all fours, her hooves stamping against the dirt road and her tail whipping to each side behind her. Massive horns, diamond-hard, preceded her as she lowered her head toward the man’s legs.

  He pulled a pair of cuffs loose from his belt, two dense bands of black metal connected by an equally black chain. The sword he clasped in his other hand faltered as he focused on the shackles.

  Rikki’s horns cracked into the man’s knee and split the bone open audibly, a violent crack that sounded in unison with his agonized scream.

  As he fell, bloodied and limp, Rikki turned back and stomped at the ground, prepared to trample over him on her way back toward us. The man, however, tossed those manacles in her direction.

  As if possessed by some magnetized spirit, the shackles rose from the ground and stretched wide on their chain. Rikki rushed toward us, but the shackles followed after her, homing toward her ankles as she ran.

  “Watch out!” I yelled, rushing forward to meet her. The guard crawled toward us, yelling the whole while for his comrades to assist him, though none came to his side. They were oblivious to their outlying brother as they hunted Jarah’s people from the convenience of the crowded square.

  Rikki tripped and skidded into the dirt on her return to our side as those black manacles tightened around her ankles. I reached for the chain between them, but my skin burned at their touch. The metal that curled around Rikki’s ankle was too short to wrap around her dense hooves, and once its failure was evident the device snapped open again and fell to the dirt, motionless.

  Jarah pulled Rikki up while I stepped closer to the fallen soldier.

  “What is this contraption that animates of its own accord?” I asked. The man bled from his splintered leg but did not answer.

  “What is your design on the people of this island?” I bent down and yelled my question into his face. The sole of my boot pressed on the two sets of shackles that still hung from his belt, holding them at bay without risking direct contact with my exposed skin. His face was blanched from loss of blood, but he grabbed at my foot and tried to push me away.