The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  ‘It was adequate.’

  Bern turned back to the griffin, triumphant. ‘See? Adequate! Will you stop fidgeting now?’

  ‘We found a Winnowry agent on the foothills, would you believe it?’ Noon’s cheeks were flushed with the cold, and her eyes were bright. Her black hair was in disarray, half covering the old bat-wing tattoo on her forehead, although Tor had to admit he could not remember an occasion when her hair had been tidy. She was wearing soft, comfortable travelling leathers, with a heavy hood around her neck that she had clearly made no use of. Self-consciously he raised a hand to the scarred side of his face, then forced himself to pluck tidily at his own collar instead. After a moment, he realised what she had said.

  ‘One of those lunatics, here? Are they still trying to take you back to that prison?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Noon snorted. ‘Did Kirune smack you about the head again? There was only one of them, and she didn’t try anything.’ Behind her, Vostok was greeting Sharrik, their heads together in conference. Bern was scribbling something in a tiny, much-folded notebook he’d retrieved from his belt. ‘And if she had, Vostok and I would have blown her out of the sky.’ She paused, seeming to see him properly for the first time. Her voice softened. ‘Are you all right?’

  For a moment, he did want to talk to her properly, take her aside, somewhere warm where they could be alone. He remembered how close they had become before, when he had dream-walked into her sleeping thoughts; when she had held him inside the Behemoth wreckage. And later, in the cave . . . Ebora, with its problems and snows and, above all, its war-beasts, seemed to have leached that closeness away from them. Instead, he smiled and said lightly, ‘You think everything falls apart when you two leave the palace? I am fine.’

  ‘Hmm. Well. According to this agent, the worm people have been quiet. A few attacks, but nothing like a full-scale invasion. Vostok says that they must be weak, still repairing their old hulks.’

  Tor frowned, and folded his arms again. It was bitter in the courtyard, despite the thickly padded robe he had rescued from his family’s suite. It was a deep maroon, with a curling pattern of sea monsters embroidered at the cuffs in pale green silk. Thinking of the old family suite made him think of Hestillion – all her things had still been there, of course, her clothes and her hair brushes, the endless pairs of delicate silk slippers. He had moved them all to their parents’ old chamber, not looking too closely at any of it.

  ‘Where’s Aldasair?’ Noon was attempting to flatten her hair and having very little luck.

  ‘In the Hatchery.’

  ‘Still watching?’

  ‘Still watching.’

  Now it was Noon’s turn to frown. ‘There has been no change there, then?’

  Tor shrugged. ‘Will you come and see? I know Aldasair will be glad to see you.’

  They left the courtyard, walking through the empty corridors of the palace, Tor following a route he barely had to think about. He had run away more than fifty years ago – looking to escape the horror of the crimson flux, Ebora’s decline, and too many memories to count – and in the end he hadn’t managed to forget any of it, despite his very best efforts. On their way they passed another of the interior gardens and saw a group of plains people and Finneral folk, working busily on a series of tanning racks. Tor raised a hand to them, while Noon kept facing straight ahead. She only spoke once they were out of sight.

  ‘They’re still here, then?’

  ‘Noon.’ Ahead of them the corridor was in shadows, but just in front he could see a set of muddy boot prints – more evidence that Ebora wasn’t as dead as it had once been. ‘We need them here. You know that.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  In truth, the humans who’d stayed behind after the Jure’lia returned had been vital to their survival. The food situation in Ebora had been precarious for some time, and only the fact that there had been so few Eborans still alive had saved them from a slow wasting away. They had existed for decades on the stores packed away by previous generations, and on the passing business of traders willing to sell meats, wines, and any fresh food they had. However, now they had war-beasts to feed, and no infrastructure in place to do so. Bern had spoken to the humans who had elected to stay, and just before the heaviest snows came down, the plains and Finneral peoples had banded together and travelled back through the foothills of the Tarah-hut Mountains, returning with a herd of the small goat-like animals called the fleeten, and after an expedition to the west, a number of great shaggy-coated bovine beasts Tor had never seen before. Bern had told him they were called sods-hair cows by his people, and they were good for milk, meat and a very tough leather. It was, Tor reflected, a development his sister would not have been pleased about. Once, their people had almost seemed to exist in a different world, one of near endless life and beauty. Now, the very people they had slaughtered were ensuring their survival.

  Despite all the help from the plains folk, Noon had not been happy to see them stay. Originally from the plains herself, she had her own unhappy history with her people, and it seemed she wasn’t especially popular with them, either. The old woman who had recognised her as the young girl who had killed so many of her people had left, at least, returning across the mountains despite the winter weather.

  They reached the tall doors of the Hatchery. There were a pair of guards at the door, both Finneral women, and they nodded them through. The long room beyond was bathed in chilly light from the windows on both sides, and a series of silk nests – now supplemented with furs and hides – held their cold, grey charges. Aldasair stood by one such nest, his hands held soberly behind his back, while next to him sat the huge black wolf, her long muzzle pointed demurely at the floor, her back straight, so that she almost seemed to mirror his posture. She looked up as they entered, her amber eyes turning towards them, but Aldasair only moved when she nudged him. He turned to them, startled.

  ‘Cousin?’

  ‘How’s it going, Al?’

  Aldasair gestured to the silvery pod in front of them. It was small, no bigger than a large man crouching down, and its surface was smooth and unblemished.

  ‘It’s growing warm to the touch, this one. Jessen thinks it won’t be much longer.’

  Tor glanced back to the giant wolf. Of all the war-beasts they had birthed, Jessen was the least communicative, speaking rarely and then usually only to Aldasair, but she lowered her head and spoke, her voice soft.

  ‘I can feel the presence in there, growing stronger. He prepares his strength.’

  ‘And . . . will he be . . . like you?’

  Jessen turned away, not answering. Aldasair was looking at the pod again, an expression of anguish on his fine-featured face.

  ‘It’s so small,’ he said. ‘In comparison, I mean.’

  ‘Vostok didn’t think that one would live,’ said Noon. She was watching Jessen closely, as though reluctant to contradict her words. ‘But who knows?’ She cleared her throat. An uncomfortable silence grew between them then, and Tor knew they were all thinking of the inert grey pods in the other nests; thinking of them, and deliberately not looking at them. Of the fourteen silvery pods they had left – one had been stolen by his sister, of course – only four had hatched successfully so far. It was a terrible number – even if every one of the fourteen had produced a healthy, fully-grown war-beast they would still have struggled to stand against the worm people. With four . . .

  ‘Have you seen Kirune?’ He tried to keep his tone light, but he couldn’t quite avoid seeing the look that passed between Noon and Aldasair. It was, to his surprise, Jessen who answered him.

  ‘Kirune has gone out to the Nest,’ she said. As she spoke, her bushy black tail made one decisive sweep across the floor. ‘To see what he can find, he says.’

  ‘Again?’ Tor bit down on the anger in his voice, and plastered a tight smile on his face instead. ‘I suppose we should go and get him. Noon, would you mind giving me a lift?’

  9

 
‘I do not like this.’

  Noon could feel Vostok’s discomfort radiating up through her scales; it was in the set of her shoulders, the tight movements of her wings. Behind Noon, Tor leaned forward, and she felt the brush of his warm breath against her cheek despite the frigid air.

  ‘I’m sorry, Vostok, I truly am. Perhaps you could have a word with Kirune, convince him not to go off on his own like this. Then I wouldn’t have to impose on you.’

  ‘It is not just that, as you well know, son of Ebora.’ Below them, the western outskirts of the city were still and unmoving, with no signs of wildlife or people. ‘I do not like to go to the Nest. I cannot see the good in it. Besides which,’ she added, a hint of acid in her tone, ‘as his companion, having a word is your job. I am no diplomat.’

  Feeling Tor stiffen in his seat behind her, Noon spoke into the brief chilly silence. ‘Kirune is trying to find a way to remember, Vostok. I don’t think we can blame him for that. And if he’s going to find that anywhere . . .’

  The dragon growled low in her throat, but in the strange current of feeling that moved between them Noon could feel her sorrow, as much as she tried to hide it.

  ‘There is nothing there but grief.’

  They flew on. The buildings became less and less opulent, then simply fewer in number, until they were flying over stretches of nothing very much. Out here, the snows were deeper, although Noon caught sight of bright patches of moisture here and there – spring was making its presence felt, however slight, and the snow wouldn’t be here much longer. A grey shape in the distance began to resolve itself into a low range of mountains – a smaller reflection of the looming Bloodless Mountains to the south-west. They flew on and on, over lands wild and untamed, punctuated here and there with the smaller towns and settlements of Ebora. They passed over them so swiftly that Noon barely had a moment to take them in, but the sight of them reminded her how little she, or any human, truly knew of Ebora. When she had thought of the place at all, she had thought of their dead tree-god, the fabled city and the palace, and the strange, unknowable people who had lived there. It had never occurred to her that of course not all Eborans would live in the city, that there would be men and women whose lives likely resembled those of any normal human.

  Vostok flew on, and soon it became apparent that they were heading towards one peak in particular: a solid mound of rock with a rounded bluff. From this vantage point it was a patchwork of grey, white, and a deep, dark green, and then as it grew closer, it was possible to see that something was clinging to its sheer sides. Bands of blue and cream began to resolve into several floors of a huge, complex building, circling the mountain like some sort of unlikely geometric fungus. As well as the rings of low buildings crouched on its craggy face, Noon could see a wide tower directly in front of them, built from shining blue rock. From this distance, it looked extraordinary: the largest single building Noon had ever seen, bigger even than the Winnowry, bigger than Ygseril’s palace. It was difficult to see where it began and where it ended, given the snowy slopes disguising its edges.

  However, as they flew closer, the cruel light of the wintery sun revealed the truth: it was a ruin. The cream and blue marble was cracked, even shattered in places, and nature had crept spindly fingers into each rupture and sprouted there, so that plants and vines had spread over the walls like an infection. The tower, with its blunt top and wide-silled windows, where once war-beasts had come and gone like pigeons in a coop, was dark and fractured, soot at each window like a howling toothless mouth. This was the ruin that was the Nest.

  ‘You can almost see what it was,’ said Noon, not quite able to stop herself. ‘I can imagine them all, here. Fire and blood, I can almost see it.’

  ‘The last taste of my memories,’ said Vostok. ‘Do not concern yourself with it.’

  Abruptly the dragon dropped down through the air, swooping over the foothills that led to the magnificent ruin, and then up, gliding in the frigid air. Below them in the crusted snow Noon could see fresh tracks – the wide pad of a giant cat – and then they were there, in the midst of the enormous war-beast castle. Ahead of them was a tall outer wall, partially covered in snow and a creeping vine of greenish-blue. Noon turned and looked behind them; there was a narrow track carved into the side of the mountain, although it had been partially hidden with landslides and the virulent advances of nature. In the wall ahead there was a series of small archways, meant for the Eborans who had braved the treacherous path, and next to that, a larger entrance for the war-beasts: a wide, reinforced gate gilded with gold that was burnished and dark now. They flew over the wall, and the interior was a web of circular courtyards and raised platforms. A place for war-beasts to rest and to spend time together, to feed and to sleep away from the chaos of central Ebora. When they had lived.

  Tor leaned out again and pointed. ‘Here. There he is.’

  Kirune was a dark-grey shape moving across one of the circular raised gardens inside the complex, his wings folded tightly to his back. The thick grass around him was frosted white, although Noon could see green patches where the heat from his body had thawed the cold away. Without a word, Vostok brought herself in to land gently, alighting on the grass a few feet away from Kirune. The big cat looked up, startled.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Vostok snorted as Tor and Noon detached themselves from her harness and climbed down.

  ‘You should have heard me coming, war-beast. Are your senses so dull?’

  To Noon’s surprise, Kirune didn’t hiss. Instead, he turned back to the grass.

  ‘I have been exploring,’ he growled. ‘If I look at this place enough, it will come back to me. Something has to be familiar. I have been down under these floating things, and there is a door that leads into the mountain.’ He paused, flexing his shoulders. ‘But the entrance is covered over with ice.’

  Noon looked at Vostok in surprise. They had visited once before, not long after Vostok had been birthed from her own silver pod, but once she had seen the devastation there, the dragon had not wanted to explore further that day. ‘Something underneath the Nest?’

  ‘There were halls. Tunnels. It was a place to be warm in the winter.’

  ‘We should go and look,’ said Tor. He walked over to Kirune and briefly placed his hand on his fur, but the big cat shrugged him off. ‘There might be something in there that could help them remember.’

  For once, it was Vostok who hissed through her teeth. ‘Does no one listen to me? Without their root-memories, Kirune, Sharrik and Jessen have no connection to our joint past. They were severed from Ygseril, and all that past knowledge is lost forever. This is not some human thing, where you forget where you have put something and later recall where it is.’

  Kirune had crouched lower and lower at the dragon’s words, his tail swishing threateningly back and forth.

  ‘Who are you to say what we are capable of?’ He bared his fangs, huge and curved and faintly yellow. ‘You just want to be the leader! That’s why you won’t let us try.’

  ‘Vostok, what harm could it do?’ said Noon quietly. ‘Let him see his past.’

  ‘What harm?’ Vostok turned her violet eyes on Noon. ‘What harm, to make me look at the graveyard of my kin?’ Noon opened her mouth to respond, not sure what she could possibly say to that, but Vostok was already turning away. ‘Let’s go, then. If the old doors are covered in ice, then you will need Noon and me to open them for you, ungrateful cub.’

  They made their way down carefully and slowly. Noon and Tor had to climb back onto Vostok’s back, as the distance between each of the platforms was larger than any human could jump without serious injury. As they moved, Kirune nimbly jumping along behind, Noon found herself gazing around at the strange interior of the Nest. To her, it was a little like being at the bottom of a pond filled with lily pads. All around them were platforms and gardens supported on graceful curving struts that rose from the ground like the stems of unlikely flowers. Some of the platforms held towering p
avilions, now mostly broken or leaning precariously. She saw one that had once held an elaborate fountain shaped like a series of waterfalls, but one of its walls had collapsed and she could see a bright-green splash of algae coating its sculpted rocks.

  ‘This place is extraordinary,’ Noon kept her voice low, pitched for Tor, who sat closely behind her. ‘Did you ever come here? Before, I mean?’

  ‘Once or twice.’ She could hear the frown in his voice. ‘As a special treat, on particular days. Mostly this was a place for the war-beasts alone, and only their bonded warriors would visit regularly. As you can probably tell, it’s not exactly easy to get to unless you can fly.’ He sighed, and his tone softened. ‘It was their sanctuary. It always seemed magical to me, because of them. And then afterwards . . . afterwards, this was a sad place to come. A monument to an enormous loss we could barely comprehend.’

  They jumped down from the final platform and landed on a lush lawn, or what had been a lawn once. Now it was a bare scrubland, dusted here and there with tall grasses, partly hidden under the remains of the snow. There were other things here, discarded weapons barely recognisable through the layer of rust, and Noon recognised the bones of a horse, ancient and yellow-brown. Ahead of them, the wall of the mountain rose. It was covered in a thick green moss, bright and oddly beautiful. Noon wondered how much life-energy was contained in the virulent covering, and her fingers itched.

  ‘Eventually, when so many of us were sick and dying, we stopped coming up here at all. We saw lights sometimes, and figured that humans had made it this far, looking for what they could loot,’ said Tor. He shifted in the harness slightly, his hand resting on Noon’s hip, and then he snatched it away as though he’d touched something hot. ‘They weren’t brave enough to come to the palace, couldn’t face their monsters.’ He snorted. ‘But the Nest was isolated, and they knew very well that its inhabitants were all dead.’