The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  45

  Tor walked slowly, rubbing his shoulder. The roots had done their job, closing up the wounds so closely that there were no marks at all, but he still felt deeply uneasy, as though he could still feel the wriggling tendrils within his flesh. Eeskar had taken him from that room to another, filled with even more of the red mirrors, each with a strange alien face caught in it. Tor noticed that many of them stared at him blankly, as though he were of no more interest than a passing cloud, while others openly scowled or looked away.

  ‘You are not Jure’lia,’ he said. ‘But you are not from Sarn, either.’

  Eeskar nodded. ‘You are perceptive. That is good. It’s a trait we encourage.’

  ‘But you speak Eboran. All of you do. How can you speak Eboran when my people do not know you?’

  The man sniffed. ‘You think you hear Eboran, yes. But in truth, our voices speak directly to you, without need for language.’

  At the end of the room, the floor fell away into a low, sweeping chamber. In the centre of it there was what appeared to be an enormous glass box, completely empty. The edges of it were etched with shapes and patterns that Tor felt like he could almost understand, and on the walls were hundreds and hundreds of the red mirrors. Eeskar walked over to the glass box, which was twice his height, and pressed his fingers to it – he had, Tor noticed, only three on each hand, and an elongated thumb. This last detail almost seemed too much, and he found himself looking around for a window or a door, some route to make his escape.

  ‘Look, could you tell me whatever it is you feel the need to tell me, and then we can both get back to our lives? My war-beast will be worried, and he’s no fun at all when he’s anxious.’

  ‘War-beast!’ The cry came from one of the mirrors, but when Tor turned to look, he couldn’t make out which one had spoken. ‘What a name. Such a thing to call them! Truly this seedling was a mistake.’

  Eeskar continued as though he couldn’t hear the voice. He turned to Tor, slowly blinking his bulbous eyes. ‘Are you certain you want to know, child? The truth of this is often something that the lesser peoples struggle to accept.’

  ‘Lesser people?’ Tor stood up straight, taking his hand away from his aching shoulder. ‘Whatever it is, just show me.’

  ‘Very well. This is what you stand within, Tormalin the Oathless.’ The glass box filled with darkness, as though it were spooling out from Eeskar’s hand. And then, gradually, the darkness became pierced with points of light, and Tor realised he was looking at the night sky. Within it, cradled by the night, was a shape a little like one of the sea creatures they cooked and ate in Mushenska: there was a fat, rounded head, garlanded by multiple tentacles, which were all braided and twisted together to form a point at one end. The thing was a pale greenish-white, like the delicate necks of snow flowers in the spring, and here and there green fires were burning in deep alcoves. As he watched, it moved through the night sky, many of the tapered ends of the tentacles moving slightly. He saw one curl up and brush at another, as though it were grooming itself. Tor squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but the vision was still there.

  ‘What is this? What are you showing me?’

  ‘Do you understand that although this image I am showing you is small, the object itself is very large?’ Eeskar sounded concerned. ‘It is a problem with explaining this, sometimes, with the lesser peoples.’ When Tor glared at him, he carried on. ‘Very well. We call this the . . . the closest words would be Seed Carrier. Our own home . . . well, the less said about that, the better. We left, and we came to many places. This place, which you call Sarn, was one of them.’

  The images within the big glass box changed, and for a few moments Tor stared at it rapt, unable to look away. He had a glance of a beautiful jewel, perfectly round, blue and green and white, and then the Seed Carrier eclipsed it. A series of things followed that he did not understand; the green fires of the Carrier burned brighter, too bright – he thought of Noon then, accidentally causing an explosion on Esiah Godwort’s estate – and then a sense of great movement, of shaking. The blue and green jewel loomed closer, and the fires turned orange and yellow and red, for a time obliterating everything else, and then he saw the carrier flying rapidly over oceans of steely green.

  ‘This is Sarn? You are showing me Sarn?’

  ‘You see how worthless this is,’ said one of the faces from the mirrors. ‘It barely understands.’

  ‘It is Sarn,’ said Eeskar, quietly. ‘Watch.’

  An island loomed on the ocean, a bleak place of rocks and black sand, and the Seed Carrier struck it at terrifying speed. Again, Tor only had a sense of great movement, and of fires burning out of control, green flames tracing up into the sky like lightning. When some of the smoke had cleared, Tor saw that the Carrier was partially buried in the island’s earth, black sand and soil blasted into a rough crater around it, and the tentacles were delving down through it, seeking to partially bury itself. The fires, meanwhile, had detached fully from the body of the Carrier, and sped off across the livid sky. Something about the bright lines of green fire made the hairs on the back of Tor’s neck stand up.

  ‘What happened there?’ he asked. ‘To that fire? What was it? Did it power your carrier?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Eeskar, too quickly, before making an odd swallowing motion; the muscles on his neck stood out in thick rings, and then he continued. ‘Listen, child. Our work is, in many ways, a great experiment,’ said Eeskar. His face and body were so strange it was difficult for Tor to tell, but he thought that from the way he grasped at his sleeves and his eyes grew wet, that this was a source of great passion. ‘We do not know what we will find on these worlds—’

  ‘Worlds?’

  ‘We do not know what will already exist here. We do not know if the gifts we bring will make any difference at all. Our work must always, ultimately, be a melding.’ He paused, the muscles around his mouth twitching. ‘It is a risk, but, I think, an exciting one.’

  There were some murmurs of dissent from the faces on the walls. Tor looked closely at the images within the box, watching as the Seed Carrier sank deeper and deeper into the black earth – pieces of it remained above, smooth chunks of greenish-white root poking through like bones in the dirt. His mouth was very dry, and his heart was beating too fast.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’

  Except that he thought he did, and that was even worse.

  ‘A seed. Several are released, but . . .’ Eeskar tipped his long head to one side. ‘Often they do not take. Water swallows them, or there is no water at all. With nothing to nurture them, our vital seeds can die. But here, we had one success.’ He smiled then, and there was nothing alien about it – he was a man pleased with his job. ‘Look.’

  An object, not like a seed at all to Tor’s eyes, but something like a network of lights, flew out from the heart of the Seed Carrier. As it left, a shining set of lights appeared behind it, sheltering the Carrier from prying eyes. The image changed. There was a landscape, lush and green and criss-crossed with silver rivers, all about the size of ribbons from his vantage point. Something about the shape of the land . . . And then the rivers all began to dry up, turning from silver to brown, and something was growing in the midst of the green land. A great tree, quickly overtaking the trees around it, pushing them out of the way and sucking their vitality from them so that they shrivelled and gave up the land to it. The great tree shot up and up, branches spreading like a blooming flower, and Tor saw new leaves uncurling, as bright as coins.

  ‘No,’ he said. There was a tightness in his throat, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. ‘Are you . . . are you telling me you gave us Ygseril?’

  ‘That is what you call it, yes, I remember the other saying it. Well, actually, Ygseril gave us you. At the time we came here and tasted this world, you as a people did not exist. Other humanoids, yes, thinking animals that walked and talked and were growing cleverer and more adept all th
e time.’ Eeskar gestured to the image of the tree. ‘It is, as I say, always an experiment. We never know truly what will happen. Our seeds growing in different soils, absorbing the flesh and the spirit of that world, until each tree is unique.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘Your ancestors came and they drank what you call the sap, and it changed them. It made them into you.’ Eeskar smiled, his cheeks with their bright splotches of crimson creasing. ‘I like to think that perhaps they simply worshipped it, recognising it for the glory of something otherworldly, until someone was brave enough to taste the sap. And then gradually, over time . . .’ Eeskar turned and beamed at Tor. ‘Eventually, your people. You look a little like us, I think.’

  ‘It is a failure,’ barked one of the voices from the mirrors. ‘Weak, an echo of us, a shadow.’

  ‘We did worship it!’ Tor curled his hands into fists. It was not the dismissive tone of the mirror-voice that riled him, but the kindly expression on Eeskar’s face – like someone watching a dog try and fail to do a trick. ‘We called him Root-Father and Branch-Mother, he was the centre of our lives, of our world. We thought ourselves superior, special, when actually – are you telling me you are our gods?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Eeskar’s four hands fluttered up to his face and away, clearly dismayed by the very idea. ‘You are just one of many, an experiment.’ His big eyes blinked slowly, and he peered closely at Tor. ‘An echo is right, or a shadow. There is too much of this world in you – ultimately its taint could not be overwritten. It is regretful that you should know this, child. But you did come here. You did ask the questions, and demand the answers.’

  ‘Don’t call me child!’

  Tor made a grab for Eeskar’s robes, intending to pull his head down to his level and attempt to twist it off, but instead his hands passed straight through the figure, and the image of Eeskar shattered and reformed, a few steps away.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said.

  ‘It is a savage animal,’ snapped one of the voices in the mirrors. Tor could not tell if it was the same one as before. ‘We should not let such things in here.’

  ‘What are you? Why can’t I touch you? And why are all your friends in the bloody walls?’

  ‘More questions, Tormalin the Oathless, and I doubt you will like the answers.’ The muscles in Eeskar’s throat shuddered again. ‘Perhaps I should leave you alone for a time, to contemplate what you have learned.’

  ‘What? No, it’s not enough, you have to finish what you—’

  It was too late. The mirrors sank seamlessly into the walls, while Eeskar himself flickered and vanished. The huge glass box folded in on itself so smoothly and silently Tor began to wonder if it had ever really been there in the first place. Very quickly he was alone in the room, the walls softly radiating their filtered-sunshine light. His leg no longer pained him, but even so, he sat down on the floor. After a moment, he put his head in his hands.

  46

  The strange green architecture was only growing more elaborate the further in they explored. The ruins burst through the black dirt like the bones of some enormous creature, and just ahead of them now was something much larger. It looked like a great oval-shaped mass, lying slightly at an angle against the earth. All the other pieces seemed to converge here, and it was easily as large as the Behemoth wreck had been within Esiah Godwort’s enclosure.

  ‘It’s not the worm people,’ said Noon.

  ‘You have already said that, more than once,’ said Vostok. ‘And I agree. This does not carry the stench of the ancient enemy on it, although it still makes me uneasy.’

  ‘If I keep saying it, it’s because the last thing I want to see are any of the Jure’lia’s ugly bastard beasts appearing from nowhere.’

  ‘There are marks,’ said Kirune. The cat had been mostly quiet during their search, the hackles across his shoulders raised. ‘It is not smooth, like the rest of it.’

  ‘Your eyes are better than mine, Kirune,’ said Noon. ‘Let’s go and have a look.’ Not for the first time, she wished that Vintage were with them.

  The huge ovoid shape was, to Noon’s eye, a paler green than the rest of the structure, almost a pale yellowish white in places. As they climbed up onto the surface, she felt her leather boots slipping and was forced to climb in an awkward half crouch to keep from going flat on her face. Kirune and Vostok both grumbled with displeasure as they stepped onto it, but Noon did not ask them why; she had given up trying to understand the disgust they felt at this place. Just ahead, she could see one of the marks Kirune had spoken of, so she made her way towards it with the sun beating down on the back of her head.

  ‘Here. What do you reckon this is?’

  It was a hole in the smooth surface, as though someone had taken a spoon and scooped out a deep alcove there. Within it were other, smaller holes, with holes within those, leading back into darkness; none of these last holes were big enough to fit her fist in. The surface here was shiny and thick, as though it was covered in slightly warped glass, and as she ran her fingers over it, she felt a shiver work its way down her spine. She could not see it, but there were faces in the glass, and she felt like she knew them.

  ‘Given that we do not know what this entire structure is, I hardly know what I can be expected to think of a hole in it.’ Vostok lashed her tail to one side irritably. ‘It is one more question we do not have the answer to.’

  ‘But I almost . . .’ Noon pressed her hand flat to the surface, reaching for any sense of a life force. There was nothing, but still the idea that she knew this thing, on some level, would not leave her. ‘It must be reminding me of something else, that’s all.’

  Noon stood up, and shuffled a little further over the rounded structure. There were more of the alcoves, she saw, dotted all over. Some were much bigger, and some contained odd graceful shapes made from the smooth green material – struts with ladder-like interiors, things that looked like plants, and several that seemed to depict the phases of the moon.

  ‘Kirune, are you quite certain Tormalin was taken within this thing?’ Vostok sounded exasperated, but Noon could feel the clear current of fear beneath her haughty tone. ‘We are no closer to finding a door.’

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Kirune. ‘You should listen, snake. I—’ The big cat stopped and lowered his head, then, shaking out his fur all over, said, ‘I can feel him! Tormalin is close, inside, but he is afraid, and . . . disturbed. Pain, he feels pain.’

  ‘All right.’ Noon stood up straight, as best she could. ‘Maybe we’ve done this Vintage’s way for long enough. Time to burn the fucker down. Vostok? Do you want to see if we can blast our way inside?’

  ‘And if Tormalin is just on the other side?’

  ‘He is not so close,’ said Kirune, immediately. ‘Deeper, within. But be careful, snake.’

  Vostok rumbled in the back of her throat, and then, turning away from them, roared a stream of violet fire out across the green expanse. After a moment, she refined her aim, focussing the stream on a certain point. Noon took a few steps back; the flames licked and curled across the surface, radiating back at them, but did not seem to be doing any real damage to the structure. The dragon kept it up for a number of minutes, until eventually she snapped her jaws shut and shook her head.

  ‘It does nothing,’ she said bitterly.

  Noon blinked, trying to rid her eyes of the wavering after-images of fire. The green surface looked a little darker, as though it had bruised slightly, but there were no cracks, no blisters and no holes.

  ‘Blood and fire. All right, let me try. Kirune, may I?’ The war-beast glowered at her briefly, before turning his head to bare his neck to her. Impressed with this gesture of trust, Noon sank her hands into his fur gently, and steadily took a sample of his life energy – slowly, so as not to alarm him. Then, obeying some instinct she didn’t want to think too closely about, she walked over to one of the biggest alcoves. This one contained the series of circles that could be moons. Holding her han
ds cupped towards the hole, she summoned a stream of emerald fire and directed it into the hole.

  Immediately, Noon sensed a change. The smooth surface under her feet began to vibrate slightly, and within the alcove, her fire was running along invisible channels, tracing shapes like leaf veins. Soon, the small traceries of brightly glowing green were escaping the hole and racing across the surface, but they did not move like fire anymore – they seemed almost to pulse, like a heartbeat. The faces that Noon had sensed when she had touched the surface were now visible; they were not human, but even so, she knew them. Like people caught in the blast of some bright light, she saw the shadows and the shapes that made them, and she saw that they were laughing.

  ‘Noon!’ Vostok’s voice was urgent. ‘You have opened a door!’

  The fire leaping from her hands died, and Noon looked up to see a new shape in the surface of the structure. A piece of it had swung open, and there was a dark space beneath it. She could see immediately that it would be too small for Vostok to go through. She turned to the dragon, only to see her ruffle her feathered wings impatiently.

  ‘Go! Quickly, before it closes, and retrieve the son of Ebora.’

  ‘Watch for us. And watch for monsters.’

  With that, she and Kirune ran for the hole.

  47

  The wall beyond the barrier spasmed open, and Aldasair scrambled to his feet. They had been waiting an indeterminable amount of time – he could not tell if it were night or day in this cell – for the queen to return and continue her work. So far she had not, but each movement and each scuttling creature turned his stomach over anew. The figure that stepped through the opening was that of his cousin, and he took a breath, trying to calm his heartbeat.

  ‘Aldasair,’ she said, in way of a greeting. She looked thin and drawn, as though she had lost weight since he had last seen her, and there was something strangely compelling about it, as though she were becoming a thing made entirely of sharp angles; a blade perhaps, or a broken mirror. The muscles on her arms stood out like rigid cords, and she wore a simple fur-trimmed tunic and leather leggings. The blue crystal glistened darkly in the centre of her chest.