The Ale Boy's Feast

by Jeffrey Overstreet

  Those two questions, spoken in that particular tone, struck Krawg like a slap in the face. He staggered, and sparks rained down from the torch.

  “There’s no man alive who deserves her,” Obrey sulked. “Nobody lets her be herself. Nobody sees her.”

  Krawg remembered Milora’s confession about Cal-raven. “Surely there’s somebody.”

  Obrey scowled forcefully and turned away. “If there was, I wouldn’t tell.”

  Krawg looked off into the darkness. “You’re a special kinda friend, that she’d feel safe to say such stuff to you. Have you watched her make things?”

  “She only makes stuff in certain … conditions.”

  “Like?”

  “Quiet. No interruptions. Nobody payin’ attention. Play, she says. It’s hard to do.”

  “Is that why she wanders off?”

  Obrey folded her arms. “You’re just tryin’ to spoil things, aren’t you? I’m going back to my tent.” She stomped away.

  “I found her last time.” Gripping the torch, he moved out into the dark.

  At first all he heard was the occasional unsettling creak, like a door hinge, among the branches overhead. But then an unnatural clatter, like teeth shaken in a bowl, attracted his attention. He raised the torch and stalked through the tangled brush, cringing as his passage sent nocturnal crawlers—rabbit-sized crickets and hundred-legged serpents—scuttling and slithering through the ground cover. What he found made him forget his purpose.

  Hanging from a low branch, a mobile of seven crisscrossing twigs, carefully balanced, spun slowly. Krawg’s knuckle-nut half shells hovered from strings at the end of all fourteen spokes. They fluttered on leafy wings. The shells were hung with the cavities down, and inside their concave shape hung tiny pebbles. Each winged half shell clattered like a bell.

  Just below that, at the end of a blunt, eight-fingered branch, hung a scrap of twisted, textured bark. Yellow flower petals were pressed into the bark’s swirling grooves to create bright spirals and lines. At intervals along the winding yellow line, the wood was embedded with gemstones as if to mark treasure along a trail.

  Krawg had no idea what it meant. But it all seemed to hum with meaning.

  He reached out to take the bark from the branch. The eight fingers of the branch tightened their grip on it. Krawg scowled. He took the piece by the edge again.

  The wooden fingers opened, releasing the bark. Then they lunged forward and caught Krawg’s forearm in a piercing grip.

  He yelped and threw himself backward. The branch, holding him fast, broke from the trunk like an arm tearing free at the shoulder. But its clutch of sharp twigs tightened.

  Krawg clawed at the wooden hand, trying to tear it free. Its sharp fingertips pierced his skin. He roared and rolled toward the smoldering torch, then waved the torn end of the attacking arm into its flame. The claws came out of his wrist, and he scrambled free, clasping his hand over the bloodied punctures.

  Back at the camp, there was a commotion. Someone had heard him. Hagah began to bark.

  Krawg took the torch and scanned the ground for his attacker. He did not have to find it—it came running for him, its fingers sturdy as insect legs, dragging its broken-branch body along.

  He thrust with the torch as if the flame were a dagger. The aggressor reared up, twig-legs flailing, as fire engulfed its spindly wooden spine. It tumbled onto its back, and from its kicking legs came a high-pitched whine like the sizzle of a roast as something within burned into clouds black as oil smoke. Then the twigs curled inward like a dead spider’s legs. The creature crumbled into ash, leaving a stench in the air.

  Krawg looked up at the vast ceiling of interlaced branches above him. And now it seemed that all of them were restless, like fighters cracking their knuckles before a riot. He began to tiptoe back toward the camp. A few steps later he gave up any concern about quiet, hurrying in leaping strides.

  9

  CESYLLE’S REGRET

  esylle had never ascended more difficult stairs than those that led him up Queen Thesera’s tower on this, the twentieth day since he became a wanted man.

  Sought by soldiers throughout House Bel Amica’s alleys, markets, and evacuated farms, and hunted by east-riding patrols in the Cragavar forest, he took every step with a growing sense that it might be his last. The air weighed heavy as water.

  But ascend he did, with a bundle of maps—diagrams of the city’s tunnel systems—rolled under his arm and the hood of a black wall-patcher’s cloak pulled up to darken his face. His mind was set. He would visit the chambers he had shared with Emeriene and their sons. Risky, yes. Probably a death walk. But if he could warn them about the next stage of the Seers’ plot, perhaps they would escape Bel Amica with their lives.

  He passed a cacophonous corridor, a spring of noise fed by gossip that flowed from the sisterlies’ chambers. As Thesera’s attendants readied carts of supplies for her imminent tour of the new island colonies, he did not hear Emeriene shouting instructions—only anxious chatter about the recent tensions. With criminals on the loose, assassinations foiled, and a conspiracy narrowly averted, Bel Amica was in shock.

  Someone had drawn curtains aside from the window at the corridor’s end, affording him a glimpse of the morning fog that muffled the chants of protesters far below. Some Bel Amicans were outraged that Queen Thesera had pronounced the Seers’ potions illegal. Their refrain—“Restore Bel Amica!”—was a demand that the queen make them comfortable, not a cry for real healing. They wanted to go back to a way of life that had pleased them, ignoring any damage such comforts had caused. So they eagerly embraced any lies about the queen’s character. It was easier to slander and complain than to inconvenience themselves with the truth.

  Many of these chanters had been forced into the city from their farms. Deathweed struck Bel Amican pastures and barns and disrupted trade routes every day. Herds of chumps and grazers vanished overnight. Traveling merchants failed to arrive for appointed trade.

  So much dissension, Cesylle thought. We’ll fall quickly when the Seers unleash their final curse.

  In the neighboring spire, the Heir’s Tower, a man and a woman sang a delicate harmony. Cesylle recognized Partayn’s melodic tones. House Bel Amica had rejoiced to learn of the heir’s return from slavery. He’d been freed by the beastman that his widowed sister, Cyndere, had befriended and reformed. He’d reclaimed his prominent place.

  Thinking Partayn was dead, the Seers had positioned Captain Ryllion to be Cyndere’s suitor and Bel Amica’s future king. With Partayn’s return, Cyndere was no longer heir to the throne. So the Seers had prepared a more violent endeavor, conspiring to unleash beastmen during a royal ceremony. Behind the scenes Ryllion would slay Queen Thesera, Partayn, and Cyndere. But then he would appear before the crowd and slaughter the rampaging beastmen in full view, thus presenting himself as House Bel Amica’s savior. By merit of the people’s gratitude, the throne would be his.

  But this plan too had failed. Cyndere and Partayn, with the help of Abascar meddlers, had uncovered the conspiracy even as the knives were sharpened. The Seers had fled into their Keep, sealing it with sorcery, while soldiers sought Ryllion and Cesylle, whose lies and treachery were condemned.

  The song Cesylle heard from the Heir’s Tower was a love song—a sail-maker’s lament. The sail-maker sounded distraught, for if he stitched a perfect sail, the ship would carry his true love far away to work for months on an island. But if he did not sew a binding line, storms would overcome his lover’s ship. She might perish in the Mystery Sea.

  The woman’s voice answered. She sang of how every stitch in her lover’s sails reminded her of his love. She declared her faith that these sails would carry her ship safely to the island and back. And then she sang that every wave breaking against the prow reminded her of her lover’s sighs.

  How long has it been, he wondered, since I heard Emeriene’s voice?

  Then horns and lutes! Stringed instruments strummed in steady percussion, simula
ting the incoming tide—a new, compelling sound.

  What house has a king who sings in his tower when he should be attending to matters of state? Clods! When Partayn becomes king, he’ll make a queen of some swooning admirer. A head full of barnacles, the fool.

  Cesylle arrived at the doorstep of a suite, and he paused. The door was unguarded, which surprised him. What is more, it seemed unfamiliar. He glanced up the stairway. Can I have forgotten? Has it been that long since my departure for Mawrnash?

  He and Emeriene had painted their door together, according to tradition, the morning after their wedding. Emeriene had chosen bright yellow. This door was a fierce shade of red.

  A message, is it?

  He wiped his sweating neck with his sleeve. Boot scuffs marred a dusting of sharpenweed scraps, where guards had pipe-smoked long hours while they waited for him to appear and justify their vigilance. Had Emeriene dismissed them?

  They must assume that Ryllion and I are off at sea. Or hiding in the Cragavar. Or dead.

  He slipped the flexible wire from his sleeve and shoved it around the door’s edge. Its hooked tip caught the latch bar. He pulled the wire up, heard the bar release. He’d done this before, planting mawrn crystals in chambers throughout the house for the Seers’ surveillance.

  Clods, I’m a fool. They’ll be waiting for me inside.

  As if it suddenly recognized him, the door opened. Curtained chamber doors wavered in surprise. After a moment he stepped inside and closed the door quietly. The song in the Heir’s Tower continued while Cesylle took silent steps through the curtains and into the sitting chamber. The couches were clean, pillows neatly arranged, blankets folded. If Emeriene had replaced him, there was no hint of it. The mawrn crystals and the colorful liquor bottles in which he had concealed them were gone, of course—part of Queen Thesera’s mandatory housecleaning to rid Bel Amica of the Seers’ spy-stones.

  Clever girl, Emeriene. You knew they were watching. I’m glad. I don’t want to be watched anymore.

  Even so, Cesylle could not relax. He had lived with the Seers too long. They had planned to fill the Expanse with mawrn, that they might watch the world. He had managed the mawrn mine’s schedules and money, keeping careful records of how much mawrn was taken from the crater, believing he would earn privileges and power. Now he knew the value of a Seer’s promise. He’d seen them disregard and abandon Ryllion, their most passionate servant, in an instant.

  From the roll of maps, Cesylle withdrew the parchment on which he had scribbled what would probably be his last words to Emeriene and their sons: Get out of Bel Amica. The Seers will release a new curse. Worse than beastmen and Deathweed. Sail away swiftly. I’m sorry.

  He folded it and placed it on the table, then shoved the maps behind the couches. Sitting down, he breathed deeply to quell the shaking.

  The smooth stone floor was busy with chalk drawings. He recognized his sons’ frenzied imaginations. But he saw no sketches of himself nor of the Seers he’d taught them to admire. Instead, he saw images of Cyndere with a flaming arrow set to her bow.

  They hate me. And why not? I placed them in the care of liars and destroyers. He kicked a slippered toe at the image of a beastman, drawn in such familiar detail that it could only have come from Cyndere’s hand. Who else would draw a Cent Regus monster as if it bore some dignity? Maybe she can save my boys.

  And there—his sons had drawn their mother. Emeriene, her leg wrapped in a cast, held a bright red arrowcaster. She looked heroic.

  He admired the likeness a long time. The large eyes beneath thin eyebrows. The tiny red mouth. Her stature, small as a girl, but seductive and strong. Her feisty smile. He had provoked Emeriene just to distract her from her tasks and to become the subject of her beautiful gaze.

  It has been so long since I looked at her—really looked at her.

  Ryllion had looked at Emeriene too. But Cesylle had fixed a card game and won the chance to woo her first. With the help of Seers’ potions, he had dissolved Emeriene’s resistance and replaced it with a passion that seemed to come from something outside herself. Tears had run down her face when they kissed, born of bewilderment rather than the joy he would have preferred. In less than two years’ time, she’d given him two boys. But any love she’d had for him was gone.

  “I meant to earn enough to make things better tomorrow,” he said. “I lost sight of today.”

  In the remaining mirror—a tall glass oval in an ornate wooden frame—he saw a figure haggard and worn. How ugly he would seem to her now. His eyes were yellow as yolks in black eggs. His bruises made a bandit’s mask, the marks of managing Mawrnash through a thousand nights, kept awake by the Seers’ fierce elixirs.

  In a feeble rehearsal he whispered, “Forgive me.”

  “You’re joking.”

  She appeared in the mirror, standing just behind him, arrowcaster raised—an illustration come to life.

  He laughed softly and leaned forward to grasp the mirror’s wooden frame. “I thought you might be waiting.”

  The arrow went straight through his right wrist, pinning him to the frame. As he cried out, his knees buckled, and he hung from the spike, seething and shouting and trying to stand.

  “Where’s Ryllion?” roared Emeriene.

  Blood burned down Cesylle’s arm. “Clods! I’ve come to save you!”

  “We’re already saved! Where’s Ryllion?” She advanced, notching another arrow to the caster’s string. He felt the arrow’s tip against his temple, and he closed his eyes.

  “Ryllion’s dead. We ran. He got ahead of me. I found him. He’d been tortured. Malefyk Xa had him out by the lake.”

  “The Seer?”

  “Malefyk beat Ryllion. To death’s edge. He would’ve killed the clodder. But I said I’d do it.”

  “You killed Ryllion?” One of her neat, thin eyebrows twitched.

  “Threw his body off a cliff. So I could live. Live to make amends.”

  She laughed in disbelief. She had good reason. He was a weakling, and Ryllion was strong as a fangbear.

  But it was almost true. The bloody scene had filled Cesylle with rage against the Seer and compassion for the Bel Amican champion. So, stepping between the two, he had asked to kill Ryllion. Malefyk Xa, perversely delighted, gave him a knife of mawrn crystal. But Cesylle had only pretended to run the blade through Ryllion’s heart. Ryllion, perceiving the ruse, had suffered the shallow stab, flailed fiercely, and gone limp.

  To the cold song of the Seer’s laughter, Cesylle had dragged Ryllion away—no cargo had ever seemed so heavy—and vowed to cast the soldier to the rocks of Deep Lake’s shore far below. “You must catch yourself,” he’d whispered to Ryllion just before he shoved the heavy soldier over the precipice.

  Had their deception succeeded? He had no proof. He’d seen Ryllion’s body unmoving and bent at an unnatural angle while Malefyk Xa had hurried to look down upon it.

  But that story would not help him now.

  Emeriene’s eyes narrowed. “If I ever see Ryllion again, I’m going to kill you both.” She spoke each word neatly, as if clipping her nails. “Even our sons use your likenesses for target practice now. And they’re not yet five years old.” Then a sneer twisted her face. “Oh, did no one tell you? I’ve given them back their proper names—Cesyr and Channy. No one will again call them by the names that the Seers gave them. They have better teachers now.”

  So you’re not going to kill me now. Cesylle felt darkness encroaching, and he wanted to pull it over himself like a blanket to escape the surging pain. “I would’ve run forever,” he wheezed. “But I came to save you from the trap.”

  “You haven’t heard?” She laughed sharply. “Thesera’s banished the Seers. Tabor Jan and Cyndere spoiled their trap.”

  “Not that trap.”

  “Then what?”

  “Malefyk Xa said that soon … they’ll turn them loose.”

  She drew back an inch. “Turn what loose? More beastmen?”

  “No. Something e
lse. Em, you have to let me go.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll let me into the Keep. I can learn their secret plan.”

  “Why did you climb up here then?”

  “To warn you,” he gasped. “Go with the queen. Sail away with the boys. Get out.”

  Emeriene’s lip quivered. “I can’t trust you. Ryllion served the Seers, and he murdered Deuneroi. Who knows what you’ll do?”

  “I’m a fool,” Cesylle wept. “A clodhead. I bet a bad gamble.”

  “No gamble as bad as your wager against Ryllion,” she spat. “Your wager for me.”

  Cesylle recoiled as if she’d shot him again. “He … told you?”

  “Know what’s worse? I had no trouble believing him. I was just another prize. Then you sold our sons to the Seers for your advantage.”

  “Let me go.”

  “So you can take refuge in that Keep? And escape judgment? You’ll be tried before Partayn and Cyndere. Nothing you can say will bring me back to you, Cesylle. Whatever bond we made, you broke it. I’ll find a future for Cesyr and Channy. A life where they will forget”—she gestured to the window—“this place.”

  He slumped against the mirror frame. She was just a blurring silhouette. “Where will you go?”

  “To find someone with a heart.” Emeriene was staring out the window as if the wisping clouds carried new hope. “To see if that heart will still have me.” Her steady grip on the caster gave way to a tremble.

  “This heart,” he sighed, “is failing. Before it stops, let me try to ruin the Seers.”

  Troubled waters slapped at the base of Bel Amica’s rock, splashing one of the stone stages that had served as a loading dock until the harbor’s evacuation.

  “How long do we stay?” muttered a guard to Captain Henryk. He dipped an arrow in a pitch pot, ready to ignite it in the fire barrel between them if Deathweed surfaced. “Bel Amica’s cut off. We can’t survive here. We should go to the islands.”