The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  Noon raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s pretty rich, coming from you.’ She sighed loudly. ‘Fire and blood, I don’t want to be here, Tor, but . . .’ She ran her still-wet hand through her hair, making it stick up in odd spikes and whorls. ‘I don’t want to go back empty-handed.’

  ‘What? You want to make Vintage proud?’ Tor smiled.

  ‘What if I do?’ Noon shook her head brusquely, dismissing his comment with annoyance, and Tor felt a pang of regret; he had hit closer to home than he’d intended with that barb. ‘There are mysteries here, Tor, and I think we could discover some important things, if we could just figure them out.’

  ‘Or, we could just get Micanal and Arnia to come back with us.’ Seeing nothing but flat hostility in the set of her mouth, he carried on before she could comment. ‘Micanal’s memories could be enough. His knowledge could bring the war-beasts back together. If nothing else, I think it’s got to be a better plan than endlessly trudging through all this shit for artefacts that probably don’t exist.’

  Noon narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you talked to them about this?’

  ‘Well, no. Although Arnia has, well, she has indicated that she would like us to stay. Here on the island.’

  ‘Us?’ Noon laughed, a narrow and bitter sound. ‘You mean you.’ She paused, as though she were going to say something more, but shook her head instead. ‘You don’t know anything about that woman.’

  ‘I know that she is Eboran, just as we were back before everything came falling down around our ears.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  It was infuriating. She had been nothing but difficult since they had found this island. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, when your history with your people is such a brief thing. How could you know what it’s like to watch your people die?’

  Noon straightened up, looking away up the river. He could not tell what she was looking at, and the sun was too bright on her face for him to make out what her expression was.

  ‘Fine. Sure. What would I know about that? Maybe you’re right, maybe this island isn’t doing us any good at all.’ She turned around, and all the blush had dropped from her cheeks. ‘But do me a favour, Tor. Talk to Micanal again, and see what you can find out. Perhaps he’ll be more open with you alone. Appeal to his vanity, or whatever. He and Arnia are lying to us. I think it would be useful to go back to Ebora with some bits of truth, at least.’

  ‘Will you be happy to leave, then?’

  Noon shrugged. ‘It’s probably up to Vostok and Kirune, isn’t it?’

  He left her there, still stubbornly rooting around in the mud, and went to look for Micanal, but the old Eboran was not in his home, or in any of the houses that Tor could see, and he wasn’t wandering the trees flanking their empty little settlement. Tor found himself kicking at clods of mud and frowning at the birds. Where could Micanal be? Why was he suddenly so absent when Tor had made up his mind to attempt to extract some answers? There was no reason to go far, and indeed, with his creased face and white hair, he did not look like he should be out exploring the island.

  ‘You are thinking like a human,’ he muttered angrily to a bush. ‘He might look ancient, but he is still Eboran.’

  As he wandered further from the houses, he gradually became aware of the stillness of the forest. Everything seemed to hang in a hot, green haze, and the bird calls sounded like the slow, descending notes of exotic instruments. Strange blossoms, purple and white and yellow, hung heavy from the branches of trees, their petals fleshy and somehow unsettling. Eventually, he realised he had walked to where they had first met Micanal the Clearsighted. The tunnel entrance loomed out of the greenery like a fat square of black velvet, impossibly dark within. He could see no lit torches this time, and could hear nothing at all from the hole – if anything, it seemed too quiet, as though it ate up any noise that got too close – but, he reasoned, this was as good a place to search for Micanal as any. There was a small oil lamp wedged into the dirt by the entrance, obviously left there for the old man’s use, so he bent and lit it, waiting for the dirty orange glow to seep into life before he moved into the tunnel. As an Eboran he could see reasonably well in the dark, but there was no need to trip and break his neck for the sake of showing off to no one.

  The tunnel was much as he remembered it. Dark dirt floor, smelling pungently of the earth, and half-seen wooden structures holding up the walls and ceiling. After a short time, he found the strange central chamber, and here he paused. The warmth of the oil lamp was a hot circle against his hand.

  ‘So.’ There was no sign of the old man. Instead, he found himself facing the wall of green roots, their tapering ends reaching for him, or diving down into the black earth. ‘What is this bloody place, exactly?’

  Standing here alone, without the distraction of Arnia or her brother – or Noon, for that matter – he could see that the roots were an unusually bright green, the colour of the pond algae that had grown on the southern palace lakes, perhaps, and they held a strange inner glow of their own. He closed his eyes, and was surprised to see a very faint after-image hanging there.

  ‘What would Vintage do?’ he murmured, thinking of Noon’s words, and, smiling, he stepped forward to take a closer look. ‘I don’t know, probably fall down a hole, get blown up, something useful like that.’

  Up close, the roots were very smooth, smoother than from any tree he had seen – Ygseril’s roots, of course, were wrinkled and horned and ancient. He slid his free hand over the nearest, and grimaced slightly at the touch. There was nothing definably terrible about it; the surface was simply smooth, polished almost. But even so, he felt a twinge of dismay, as though he’d just realised some heart-rending truth. Micanal, he remembered, had looked similarly horrified when they had found him down here, and at the time Tor had assumed he had simply been taken unawares. But perhaps it had been due to the strangeness of these green roots.

  Stepping back, intending to leave and find some sunny sky to stand under, his boot collided with a wooden crate. It had been covered with a dark cloth, which was why he had not spotted it sooner. His skin still crawling from touching the roots, he reached down and whipped away the material. Underneath was a small pile of furry things, which at first he did not understand, until he kicked the box again and one of the objects rolled stiffly over. It was a large rodent of some sort, obviously dead, and underneath it was a thinly furred black hare, as well as other dead animals. There was other equipment in the crate, delicate-looking instruments of glass, and thick rubber straps. Someone, presumably Micanal or his sister, had carefully packed the items amongst the dead animals, to stop them clinking against each other.

  ‘Well, that is charming.’

  Tor glanced back to the wall of green roots. Did he imagine it, or were there more little furry bodies back there, staring sightlessly at him with beady eyes gone dull with dust? He had destroyed parasite spirits, carved up Wild-touched monstrosities and faced down the Jure’lia queen, but something about this worried him on a deeper level. There was a mystery here they weren’t even close to understanding, but he sensed that the answers would be bad news.

  He left the chamber and the tunnel, extinguishing the oil lamp and putting it down again without really thinking about his actions. His mind was full of the slick touch of the roots, a touch that upset him for reasons he couldn’t understand, so that when he turned around and saw Arnia standing waiting for him, it took all of his self-control not to yelp with surprise.

  ‘Tormalin,’ she said warmly. ‘I went and peeked at the river, but it was just your human woman there, so I came looking for you.’

  ‘She is not my woman,’ he said, in a terser tone than he had intended. He walked rapidly towards her, trying to wipe his hand on the side of his trousers. He felt like the roots had left a film of something behind, making his hand feel too hot. ‘Actually, it seems we are all missing each other today. I was looking for your brother, but I can find no sign of him.’

  Arnia shrugged. She
was carrying a bottle of the sour wine in her arms. ‘He has days when he will wander in the forest, tired of my company. I must admit I am surprised he leaves us just now, with such fine visitors.’ She smiled. ‘Will you join me? I know a beautiful spot just nearby. It’s beyond the sight of the houses.’

  Tor still felt disgruntled from the touch of the roots, but it had been a long morning trawling the river, and his throat was dry. He summoned what he could of his courtly manners.

  ‘I’d be delighted. Lead the way.’

  The spot Arnia led them to was a little pocket in the forest, clear of trees yet tightly surrounded by them. The grass was long and lush, and above them the sky was a hot blue circle. Arnia had apparently been here before, and recently; the grass in one patch was trodden down, and there was a thick blanket cast over it, held down with a pair of thick glass goblets. Looking at the little scene, Tor felt a rush of unreality. He recognised the pattern woven into the blanket, a blanket Arnia must have brought with her when they came to the island; it had been fashionable back when he was very young, and his mother had owned thick curtains with it on. On some level, he recognised that Arnia was attempting to manipulate him with this set-up, but she could not have known that it would remind him how old she truly was, and how the Ebora she had left behind had been a very different place. Mysteries on top of mysteries, just as Noon had suggested.

  ‘What are the green roots in the underground tunnel? Where do they come from?’

  The questions were out before he knew he was going to ask them. Arnia looked briefly bemused, then brushed past him to reach the blanket.

  ‘That’s not quite the response I had hoped for, but very well. Come and sit.’

  Tor did as he was bid. The blanket was warm from the hot sun, and when Arnia pressed the goblet full of wine into his hand he was glad of it. She sat next to him, her legs curled under her.

  ‘We know very little about Origin, you must realise. The island did not hold the answers Micanal hoped for, or the future we all wanted. But it was warm, and secluded, and there was no death here. Only the death we brought with us. Do you understand?’

  Tor sipped at his wine. ‘I think I do. You mean that it wasn’t Ebora.’

  Arnia swirled the liquid in her glass, staring off into the trees. ‘Ebora was a graveyard. Everywhere you looked, you knew that there was death, just out of sight. People dying in their rooms, or being buried anywhere there was dirt enough to cover them. Many lost their minds too – not just because of the flux, but because of the horror of it, and the creeping misery of growing old too soon.’ Her lips turned down at the corners, a deep line growing between her brows. ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.’

  ‘You do not.’ He thought of Aldasair, his clothes growing dusty as he gave up changing them, as he gave up moving at all. He hoped that his cousin, so recently brought back from the brink of that misery, was doing well.

  ‘My brother saw much of the Carrion Wars. I doubt that is generally known these days – people have always preferred his paintings of happier times, his sculptures of our war-beasts – but he travelled among the armies, and saw the aftermath of it. He told me of the piles of human bones that were stacked, high as hills, at the ends of battles. He told me that all of Sarn was a graveyard, and we were all just ghosts. And he was right.’ As she spoke, she shifted on the blanket, bringing herself closer to him. ‘This place is not a graveyard, Tormalin the Oathless, which is why you should stay here, with us.’

  He looked at her. Under the sun her skin was a brown so warm it seemed almost to glow, and her eyes were bright drops of human arterial blood. A curl of her black hair lay against her cheek, glossy as ink.

  ‘I ran away once,’ he said softly. ‘I ran halfway across Sarn to get away from that graveyard.’

  She smiled slowly. ‘You see? You have always been wise.’

  ‘That’s not what my sister would say. Or Vintage. Or Noon.’ It felt strange speaking their names here, as though he were invoking some last spell of protection, but it had no effect on Arnia, who only smiled more widely.

  ‘Then maybe they don’t know you like I do.’

  He knew it was coming, but somehow he still felt a soft bloom of shock when she leaned forward and kissed him. She did it firmly and with no hesitation; it was not stealing a kiss, but claiming something she thought of as hers. A hundred thoughts collided in his head at once – how long since he’d kissed an Eboran? Where would this go? And underneath all that, Noon. Arnia tasted of the sour wine, and sunshine, and something else. A taste like pennies that was familiar but somehow wrong. Her tongue slid into his mouth and now he did jump back – that taste had grown abruptly stronger, turning the taste of her to ashes.

  ‘Please relax, Tormalin. Can you understand how lonely I am, I wonder? How long I have been here, alone, with only my fingers for company?’

  Absurdly, he felt his cheeks grow hot. Despite everything, his body was responding to her, and the grass under them was very soft.

  ‘The House of the Long Night was an old, favourite discipline of mine. I would be glad to refresh myself of the techniques.’ She kissed him again, and this time he let her do what she would, putting the taste of her from his mind and concentrating instead on the hot press of her hands on his chest, pushing him down onto the blanket.

  ‘I feel that perhaps you are avoiding my questions.’

  ‘Do you mind, truly?’ Her hair, a tumble of black curls, brushed against his face. ‘I don’t think you do.’

  Tor had the sense that they weren’t alone a handful of seconds before he heard the whisper of soft footfalls against the grass. He leaned away from Arnia, trying to see over her shoulder – he fully expected to see Noon, her face flushed with outrage, her fists coated in green fire perhaps – and he hoped to get out a few words of explanation before she turned them both to ash. Instead, he was startled to see Kirune padding towards them; for his size, the great cat moved almost silently.

  ‘You must come with me,’ he said.

  A flicker of annoyance passed over Arnia’s face, sharp and ugly and then gone in an instant. She pulled herself up from Tor but did not remove her hands from his chest. Tor cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m a little busy, Kirune. I don’t have time for your nonsense right now.’

  Kirune looked at them both in that particularly dismissive way of cats, his yellow eyes still, and then Tor felt a rush of powerful emotion in his chest. It was his link to Kirune, but he had never felt it so strongly. It was a command, edged with cold anger, and he felt his legs flexing before he’d made any sort of decision to get up. Arnia made a startled noise, straightening her skirts as she was ejected from Tor’s lap.

  ‘I am sorry, my lady.’ Tor found that he couldn’t take his eyes from Kirune. No war-beast magic, just the simple wonder that their connection finally seemed forged, and that there was some strength behind it. ‘It seems I have business elsewhere.’

  He left her there in the glade, not quite daring to look back – her outrage and disappointment was like a cold knife at his back – and followed Kirune into the forest. They were heading away from the houses, towards the crevasse. Once they were a decent distance from Arnia’s secret hiding place, he hesitantly laid a hand on Kirune’s meaty shoulder, slowing him.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what this is about, then?’

  To his surprise, Kirune did not shake him off. Instead, the big cat looked up, eyes narrowing as he focussed on the canopy.

  ‘Need more space,’ he said. ‘Then we can fly.’

  ‘Fly? Should we not go back for your harness, in that case?’ The war-beasts had shed their harnesses soon after arriving.

  ‘No. You can hold on. I will not drop you.’

  Tor fell silent. The idea of flying above the trees with nothing securing him was not something he relished, but this new openness from Kirune felt like a development he should encourage, and given how volatile the cat was, he knew that contradicting him could destroy th
is fragile alliance.

  And the cat did not drop him. When eventually they found a space large enough for Kirune to comfortably leave the ground, Tor clung to the beast’s back tightly, hands gripping thick wads of dense grey fur. But the war-beast was careful, considerate almost. The island fell away below them, green and simmering under the bright sunshine. They headed inland, passing quickly over the crevasse, which flashed briefly below them as a fat silver ribbon. Tor thought of Noon, still toiling down there in the mud, then pushed the image from his mind.

  ‘Do you feel like telling me now? I am certain no one else can hear up here.’

  Kirune did not answer immediately. Several seabirds that had been flying in a sort of formation scattered before them, a few of them evacuating their bowels as they did so. No bird wants to see a flying cat, thought Tor.

  ‘I went looking,’ rumbled Kirune eventually. ‘Around. I wanted memories, but there is nothing. So I went looking. This island smells strange. I do not like it.’

  ‘Well, it’s warmer than home at least.’

  ‘I claimed the trees and the rivers, even though they smelled wrong. I went into caves, and found nothing bigger than myself. I ate many things. I hunted.’

  ‘You have been busy.’ Tor felt a pang of guilt. He and Noon had been so focussed on the amber tablets, he realised, that he had thought very little about what Kirune must be getting up to.

  ‘I found things that are troubling,’ said Kirune, and then in the same tone, as if the two things were related, ‘you were going to mate with that woman.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘She also smells wrong, but in a different way.’

  Tor grimaced. ‘I shall have to remember to come to you for advice about my love life in the future, Kirune. I had no idea you had such opinions.’

  ‘I do not care who you rut with.’ Kirune sounded dismissive again. ‘But the Noon witch, I respect her. It is not respectful, what you do.’