by Danie Ware
The Kartian metalworker called Vice knew his usefulness was over – and the price he would pay.
He was an artisan, born to craft, raised in almost darkness and tuned to heights of hearing and tactile sensitivity no Grasslander could emulate. In Maugrim’s voice, he’d heard clearly the nuances of hope, exhilaration, domination and death; in the warm, shifting air of the passageways, his scarred Kartian skin responded to the faintest breath of draught, to the raised awareness of what lay deeper.
Maugrim had cauterised the stone, he’d burned away the light-lichens, the stray grass roots, the loose soil and the errant, blindly curious creatures. The rock was warmed by his elemental alignment, but he’d still not yet touched the site’s true nexus.
The stone had awoken, Vice had heard its pulse thrum in his skin, in the bones behind his ears. It lay quiescent now – but its potential left him breathless.
Further in. Somewhere.
Maugrim’s chamber of wealth and death didn’t interest him – it was a dead end in more ways than one. He took a little of the white-metal – not enough to be missed – and he slipped silently away.
This site had no fears for one raised under the dark might of the Kartiah Mountains.
Following the soft touch of air, his fingers tracing the stones in the walls, he began to understand that Maugrim had only cleansed a part of the passageways – that so much more lay untouched. Slowly, the stones about him grew cooler and the roots of the grass began to penetrate the rock, touching his face with creeping pale fingers. Fallen soil caught his feet; the air smelled chill and dry. In places, the walls were graven with sigils his fingers traced with curious incomprehension.
It grew moist and cold, the cold of soil and stone.
He closed towards the centre – the heart of the site that lay directly beneath the broken sarsens of the Monument itself.
Here, the passageways were crumbling, tumbles of rocks littered the floor, dirt fell with a hiss as he passed, dusting his intricate white hair. There was emptiness here, loss and ancient abandonment – now awakened and seeking understanding. No mortal foot had passed this way in perhaps thousands of returns.
The rockfalls grew deeper and older until they barred his way utterly – he couldn’t reach the centre.
Whatever they defended, he needed to find.
He was Kartian, he could navigate with a breath and a touch. In the darkness of the passageways he tried again to reach the site’s heart – and again – but each time, rockfalls or tumbled ceilings barred his way. Growths of dried lichen teased his fingertips and the roots of the grass hung almost to the floor, curtains of pale entrapment.
Then the air behind him moved.
And the rock came savagely to life.
10: FEREN
THE WANDERER, ROVIARATH
The crash of wood made Roderick jump.
The tavern’s doors had been kicked open, slammed back against the benches. Between them stood a silhouette, small and strong, haloed by the moons’ glitter. The rocklight glinted on four pale eyes.
In its arms dangled a corpse.
“Gods!” Heart in his throat, he was moving before he realised it, skid-vaulting the bar and hitting the floor running. The last gaggle of drinkers fumbled for peace-bonded weapons.
The thing in doorway staggered, cried, “Ress!” and the four-eyed shape stumbled forwards into the light.
Triqueta.
She was wide-eyed and shaking, sweat and desperation slid clean trails through the dust on her skin. The stones in her cheekbones gleamed – and in her arms hung the body of a boy.
“Help him!”
The few remaining members of the Banned were moving, shouting.
“Triq!” Stool going over, one of the vets was shoving his way to the fore, around him, his mates were drunkenly swearing. Voices clamoured. “What the rhez?” “Who’s that?” “Watch it, you sonofamare, that was my beer!”
Triqueta was folding under the weight.
“Ress! He’s out cold – pretty badly chewed up.”
The tide of questions rose again.
“Over here!” Roderick made a grab for the nearest rocklight, shadows leaped like figments through the room as he lifted it over a table. “Put him there, in the light. I’ll get you water.”
With a grunt, Triqueta hefted the boy onto the tabletop.
And stood back.
It was deep night, and the tavern’s staff had long since retired. In The Wanderer’s taproom, the Banned’s final die-hards had gathered close to raise old songs and leather tankards, but the soldiers had finally reeled away and the rest of the room was empty. Cursing rolled from a nearby figure, snoring on a bench.
The veteran Ress, tall and lean, his short beard shot with grey, studied the boy’s dirt-streaked face.
Triq’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “He was conscious when I found him, just. His ankle’s busted – he’s a mess. Think you can fix him?”
“Think I can try.”
The remaining Banned had lowered voices and vessels.
As Roderick returned with water, Ress was cutting deftly through the boy’s shirt and breeches and leaning in close, examining cloth bindings in the tavern’s pooled rocklight.
Triqueta fidgeted, swiped a tankard from one of her cohorts and took a long swig.
Ress glanced at her, puzzled. “You treated him?”
“Fat chance!” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
“Oi, Triq!” A voice from the table. “Bit young for you?”
“Not funny.” She threatened them with the tankard, turned back to Ress. “Found him out towards the Monument. He’d made a crutch out of a javelin, Gods know how he got this far.”
“The Monument?” The Bard glanced at the doorway, an odd, formless shock prickling along his nerves. “That’s crazed.”
Triq had another mouthful of ale.
The rocklight showed the boy’s slim, pale chest was crusted in blood. His shirt, breeches and bindings were stuck to him. With calm, steady hands, Ress was soaking the fabric away from his skin.
“Tough kid,” he murmured.
“He spooked my mare,” Triqueta said. “Had a rhez of time getting him back here.”
The Banned round the table were muttering superstition and ribald defiance. A hand grabbed Triq’s wrist and, amidst laughter, the ale tankard went back to its owner.
“One thing at a time.” Under Ress’s gentle fingers, the blood-clotted fabric peeled away from the boy’s wound like a scab. The apothecary wheeshed through his teeth. “Whoever treated him knew what they were doing. Only reason he’s got this far. He’s been spitted. Ready for roasting. Straight through, front to back.”
No healer, the Bard could only stay out of the light and watch. The mention of the Monument had thrown him, and he found that he was trying to remember something, a figment that had long since faded into darkness and the Count of Time.
But Ress was studying the boy, neatly slicing off breeches and boots.
“The ankle – wouldn’t’ve been serious. If he’s walked on it –” he paused as if trying to encompass this information “– it’s splinters. Only made it because he kept his boots on. It’ll heal, but he’ll be crippled.” He rubbed one hand though his beard. “His hip – chips off the bone. It’s gone through at an angle – sitting on the horse has scrambled it badly. If it’s punctured his kidney... Gods, I don’t even know what could have made a hole like this.” He shrugged exasperation. “Anyone? Suggestions? Serious ones?”
Triq said, “Where do I know him from?”
“So many, you’ve forgotten?” One of her Banned cohorts made a foul gesture and she punched his ear without missing a breath. There were guffaws, like the releasing of tension. Understanding their need for humour, Roderick covered a brief grin.
But he moved the rocklight to study the boy.
The kid’s face was sunburned, freckled, streaked with tears, there was an old scar in his eyebrow. He had crazed, orange hair and
several days’ growth of fluff on his chin. And yes, he was faintly familiar.
It teased him as though a breeze had chilled his skin. Silently, the Bard cursed the irony of his moniker – like the very world herself, his memory was flawed.
Then his eyes were pulled to the terrible hole in the boy’s hip.
And he found his hand over his mouth, his stomach knotting.
The wound was huge, as though a javelin had been driven through the boy’s flesh, but harder than any mortal hand could wield it. Around it, the skin was white, torn, crusted with old blood and fabric threads. Its edges were a vicious red and deep bruising had spread down the front of his hipbone. He could see the end of a piece of swollen, blood-black wood, splintered as though it’d been poorly snapped. “Spitted”, Ress had said. It was too fat for an arrow, too narrow for a spear – and it had gone through the boy’s body like he was thinly stretched hide.
The boy’s courage and resilience bereft him of words.
Where had he come from?
The air rippled again, his almost-recollection made him shudder with imagined cold.
But the boy was stirring.
Ress moved to his side, voice and hands gentle. Triq came close, too, standing beside Roderick. She smelled of sun and spice and fresh sweat.
“In the desert,” she said softly, “life’s precious – to be celebrated. Saving that life’s more precious still.”
The apothecary flicked a glance at her, raised a curious eyebrow. But she’d turned away and the boy was awake, moving, trying to talk.
At the table, there were ragged cheers. Leather tankards thumped together as they raised a toast to Ress’s skill.
His shaking hands wrapped around the neck of a waterskin, the boy was speaking.
“I made it – I really did it!” His breathing was ragged. “I feel like I’m dreaming, I just walked and I walked and it wasn’t really me and I never thought –”
“Easy.” Ress said softly. “You’ve got a lot to tell... it can wait for a minute. You’re hurt, lost a lot of blood –”
“I did good though, didn’t I? I did it right?”
“You did...?” Triq almost pounced on him, but Ress understood.
“You... treated yourself...?”
“This is The Wanderer.” His expression softened, staring in amazement at the taproom round him. His gaze came to rest on the Bard. “Amethea... she said... she’d eat her saddle and ride home bareback... She...” His jaw shook as he fought back a surge of tears.
“Shhhh.” Roderick laid a hand carefully on his shoulder. “We’ll take care of you now.”
“Wait.” The boy caught his arm. “I have to tell you. You’re the Bard. Maybe you need to know this more than anybody.”
And then he told his story.
* * *
Like the cold, spiked spine of some vast and sleeping creature, the Kartiah Mountains curved a silent guard at the westernmost limit of the Grasslands. By tradition, they were the home of darkness, the element made manifest; sun and moons both sank to their daily deaths upon the bared stone peaks. Down their flanks, the last of the light was spilled like blood and there forests swelled and grew. In their bellies, metal lay quiescent, awaiting the tactile skill of the Kartian craftmasters.
From here came the first scattered springs of the Great Cemothen River, the plainlands’ central waterway that gathered its tributaries at Roviarath and then carved long leagues of meanders to the estuary and the dark sprawl of Amos.
Winding more or less beside it was the faint, ramshackle glimmer of the trade-road – and there on its outskirts, surrounded by the moonlit ripple of the shimmering grass, was the tiny, bright square of The Wanderer, a flicker of hope in the midst of the emptiness.
This was the Varchinde – the air was vast and wild and chill, and unseen creatures sang in anticipation of the birth of the sun. A soft, grey breeze shook the grasses, and stirred the dust.
Sheltered from the pre-dawn chill by shoulder-high stone walls, they’d gathered in the tavern’s rear courtyard: Roderick, Triqueta and Ress. The boy, Feren, was resting on a narrow, two-wheeled wagon. The Banned’s apothecary had done everything he could.
Everything would probably not be enough.
Bathed by the square of pale light from the kitchen window, Ress’s lined face held failure. He rubbed a hand absently through his beard.
Roderick was watching eastwards, the dark of the sky was lightening to a deep, rich blue that made the slightly ragged, creeper-crawling wall top as black as nightmare.
They didn’t have long.
In the Bard’s Tundran blood, his odd fear still prickled, a shimmer of alarm. And now it had form.
Monsters.
Like the nartuk, but bigger, far bigger, than he had ever imagined.
Beside him, Triqueta held the headstall of her little palomino mare. She was edgy, watching the pre-dawn with an echo of his nervousness. Picking up on her mistress’s mood, perhaps, the little horse threw her head up and down and stamped a splayed forehoof, the sound a heavy, dull thudding that seemed loud in the softening twilight.
Triq stroked her neck.
With them was the one remaining member of the die-hard, dawn patrol Banned. Jayr the Infamous was not one for the noisy crowds of a taproom – she was something of a loner, very young, ludicrously powerful, oddly awkward in company. She was also one of the finest open-handed fighters the Varchinde had ever seen. Her scalplock and meticulously, brutally carved scars were Kartian, her dark eyes those of a Grasslander and she had a powerful, Archipelagan physique. Both sets of knuckles were permanently scabbed over and her nails were bitten to the quick. Her big, bay gelding stood with his head down, snuffling at the cobblestones for errant greenery.
The remainder of the Banned had ridden – just about – for their campsite, mounts finding their way when riders could not. Syke, sharp-eyed and gleefully sleazy, would want to know what had happened. Jayr, unspeaking, had stayed.
Her hefty, cross-armed stance said just in case.
Ress’s skill was considerable, but Feren’s body was tainted with harm – he had an infection that was eating him from the inside out. The boy had fought so hard and come so far; his only hope of succour lay in reaching the city’s hospice.
“The Count of Time creeps upon us,” Roderick said, eyeing the sky. “Perhaps more than you know. Good fortune ride with you, Ress of the Banned.” He had so much more he wanted to articulate: he wanted to wrest his feeling of unease into visibility, to show them the tremble of anticipation in his heart.
But now, of all times, his eloquence had failed him.
“We’re slow – days from city limits.” Ress was sat in the front of the wagon, the rein in his lap. The heavy, slope-shouldered chearl stood quiet in the traces. “And we’re as vulnerable as –”
“Ress,” the Bard said softly, his certainty apparently absolute, “you’ll make it.”
You have to. You have to tell –
“Do my best.” The apothecary took a breath, made an effort to smile. “Failure’s a part of success – don’t get to my age without learning that.”
Roderick clapped his arm, moved to the great wooden doors that held the open grass at bay. “You have both heart and courage. Not to mention an escort that kicks arse. When you reach Roviarath, take Feren’s tale to CityWarden Larred Jade and tell him everything – everything – that the boy has told us. The city needs to know – and they must surely seek the missing Xenotian girl, the teacher.” His tone had a thrum of urgency, it curled like creeper in his throat. For a moment, he left the doors alone, turning as if to conjure the image of Feren’s monster from the cold stone of the moonlit yard. “You’ll have to make him comprehend...” He stumbled, unable to wrest this odd and shapeless terror from his mouth.
“You believe this?” Ress sounded surprised. “Half man, half horse – alchemical experimentation? It’s loco.” Feren muttered, and Ress twisted to look back at him. “He was dehydrated, in pain, his m
ind conjured figments. He probably saw a Deep Patrol.”
“A Deep Patrol?” Roderick turned again to the wagon, door unopened. The fact that Ress had no time for Feren’s creatures had taken him completely aback. “Whatever his monsters may be, their existence is –”
“You’re jesting. Alchemy like that –”
“Hasn’t existed since the high days of Tusien – I know at least that much lore.” The Bard chuckled as if strangling the tension in his throat. “Such creations –”
“Are impossible. I’m an apothecary, I know the limits of flesh.”
“And hasn’t this boy just surpassed those limits?”
The question brought Ress up short. With a tight sigh, he managed, “Hardly the same thing.”
Triq looked up, the dying moonlight caught a glitter in the stones in her cheeks. “Larred Jade’s a practical man – we can’t go in there with half-brewed tales of saga-borne beasties.”
Ress snorted. “He’d throw away the key.”
Jayr frowned and tore at her fingernails with teeth. Agitated, the little palomino tapped her forehoof. Triq patted her shoulder. For a moment, tension spun the dust at their feet into scuttling whirlwinds.
“We should go,” Triq said finally, “before we land at the arse end of the Gods-Alone-Know-Where.”
“Sorry.” Ress shrugged at the Bard, picked up the rein. “This is real, it isn’t one of your stories.”
The words were a dismissal, a request to throw open the gateway and let them go – but Roderick didn’t move. There was urgency in him now – the monsters were real, they had to be, he had to make them understand.
“Everything’s a story to someone,” he said and before Ress could answer, he turned away from the doors completely and gestured at the wagon, at the restlessly sleeping boy. “And this one must have an audience. Whatever these things may be, their threat is most certainly real – alchemy, the creation of creatures like this – it’s no myth. Just because you can’t see it, Ress of the Banned, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
Over the wall, the light was slowly paling, tiny wildflowers shook in the breeze. Almost trembling now, the Bard continued, “The Powerflux gives the world her seasons, her weather, her light and her darkness – you’re Banned, you live with these things in your blood. That this power has other manifestations is surely only sense?”
