by Tammy Salyer
Tuzhazu meandered around the space, his gaze lingering for a moment on everything she had touched it seemed, measuring her actions and guessing her intentions. She’d rarely felt so exposed, as if she were a child who realized that she was nowhere near as clever at sneaking about and getting into things she knew she shouldn’t as she’d thought.
After a bit, he said, “How are you settling in to your new role?”
“You know as well as I that I’m as useful in this role as a tree. How could you or Akeeva—”
“The Everlight,” he corrected her.
“Yes. How could I be expected to know the fundamentals of your natural world?”
“I know you’re useless.”
His admission caught her by surprise. “Then what am I doing here?”
He returned to the entryway and pulled the door shut, then said, “Akeeva still believes in a cure. I’m not so…idealistic. But she runs the kingdom, for now, so appeasing her is what the people of Minoth do. As they should. And you, for reasons we shall soon learn, are a Minothian for now.”
“I’m a Vinnric.”
“Believe whatever suits you.”
A knock came at the door and Tuzhazu called, “Enter. Lay the sick on those planks.” He waved to a side of the room with several sleeping platforms.
Symvalline was dismayed to see the child, Tulla, being brought to her for care. She’d failed to help the girl before. What could she possibly do now?
Yet another sight that was even more disturbing followed. Two winged guards, whom she recognized, were laid side by side, their flesh a watery gray, their cheeks sunken. Like Tulla, the skin over their cheekbones bore an angry, crusty rash that looked painful to the touch. In just under three days, they’d declined from the robust, healthy men who’d been guarding her at the gatehouse to the mountains to husks of their former selves.
Her healthy guards quickly retreated at the flick of Tuzhazu’s hand and shut the door behind them.
Symvalline went immediately to the child’s side and began to feel her cheeks and test her pulse. It was as light as the brush of a dragørfly’s wing. She sensed through her healer insight that the girl’s life was ebbing to a close, and Symvalline could do nothing about it.
“Why haven’t you used your Fenestrii on her?” she asked Tuzhazu. “And all those who suffer from this disease? Try to heal them with the vitality the celestial stone contains.” Her voice remained composed, but inside she was frantic. How could they be so cruel as to put this child in her care, knowing she could do nothing for her?
When Tuzhazu didn’t answer, she looked to him. The hard lines of his face convinced her not to push too hard to get answers from him. Instead, she asked, “Where is her mother? She deserves these final moments with her child. They both do.”
“Pahzi broke our laws. She and her child pay the price.” His tone betrayed nothing, no feeling, no hint of care or conscience.
The child was unconscious, her limbs as limp as a dead flower. Symvalline gathered what shreds of professional sobriety she had and forced herself to examine the two other victims. They weren’t as far along in their sickness. Maybe there was a chance she could ease them in some way.
“I know these men,” she said as she leaned toward the first. “They were guarding me at the gate tower…”
“The Aktoktos Gate,” Tuzhazu said. “Built to keep watch over the starpath valley and the damnable Churss. We have too many visitors from outside Arc Rheunos,” he added, clearly galled by the stone forest. “Any Minothian who passes through it knows the risk. The Waste is out there. The Zhallahs hate and fear us, hate and fear their own maker, and they curse us with the Waste because of it. So the Minothians believe.”
“But these men were never near a Zhallah person. They were with the party who caught me, but the Zhallahs had already run into the forest.”
“Nevertheless, the Zhallahs cursed them.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Symvalline said, adjusting a blanket to serve as a pillow under one of the men. He groaned, his eyelids fluttering. She felt his skin. Hot, boiling hot. She moved to retrieve a decanter of water for him from beside a full basin. As she passed Tuzhazu, he reached for her arm, taking her wrist to stop her.
“I have something to show you.” He began to tug her back to the soldiers, but she yanked free and stood in place. He seemed unconcerned. Leaning over the taller of the guards, he said in a quiet voice, “Kaneas Viddzu,” and to the other, “Kaneas Toranzu. Do you hear me?”
Both men opened their eyes and tilted their heads toward his voice. “Yes, Archon.”
“You know what’s happened to you?”
Their nods were miserable, painful looking.
“And you know you will die?”
Again, the stricken nods. The man called Viddzu sucked back a whimper.
“I have a choice to offer you. You will meet eternity soon, that is certain. Either it will be as nothing but food for the slimes and grubs that crawl under the mountains. Or it can be as one of Minoth’s most glorious protectors in the ranks of the Deathless, forever a vigilant servant of our Everlight and forever honored by all Minothians.”
The other guard, Toranzu, stared at Tuzhazu wide-eyed, a spark of new and fervid life in his gaze. “I would serve Minoth to the end, my liege.”
“Good.” Tuzhazu nodded. “And you, Viddzu?”
Viddzu’s stare had drifted to the ceiling, and he did not look back at Tuzhazu.
“Make your choice,” the Archon ordered.
Viddzu’s voice was barely a whisper. “I will serve in the Deathless Guard until, Everlight willing, I am called to peace.”
Tuzhazu gave a curt nod, then looked over to Symvalline, ensuring her attention was on them. He reached into his ever-present pouch and pulled out a new flask. It differed from the one she’d seen him use previously to pour something into the guards’ goblets at the Aktoktos Gate tower, the glass tinted dark blue instead of black like the last one.
“Open your mouths,” Tuzhazu ordered.
Carefully, he let a single drop fall from the flask onto the tongue of each man. She could see that the liquid, blue in color, was what gave the bottle its color. Toranzu grimaced sourl, but swallowed and lay still. Before Viddzu accepted his dose, he reached out and grasped Tuzhazu’s wrist.
“Tell my son…tell Inder I love him,” he begged in a voice that cracked.
With barely a nod, Tuzhazu pulled his wrist free and administered the drop. He shot Symvalline a look that bordered on glee—at least as much glee as one as hostile as he’d shown himself to be could muster.
What happened next disturbed her more than anything she’d seen in her long life. A low moan started in the back of one of their throats, she couldn’t tell which, a sound like a wind through a distant underground tunnel. The noise was so haunting that she feared she would hear it in her nightmares. Another sound joined, a grunt of pain, followed by Viddzu crying out. She started to pace toward them, wondering what Tuzhazu had given them to cause such pain, but stopped abruptly. Before her, the men began to thrash. But worse, they began to…change. The sallowness of their flesh grew more so as their skin, and the bones beneath, seemed to…to stretch.
Their cries rose in pitch, becoming screams, as their bodies grew into abnormal proportions. The howls even disturbed the nearly unconscious child, whose eyes fluttered as she whimpered. The guards became gaunt as their height increased, every ounce of flesh and fat on them being shaped into something new, something ghastly.
In moments, it was over. They stilled and grew silent, as if dead.
Symvalline found she couldn’t make her feet move closer. “You’re creating these, these…abominations.”
“They are not abominations, Vinnric. These are more gifts from Balavad. The Verity of Battgjald knows that our fragile peace is fleeting. Perhaps just between the Minothians and Zhallahs.” He looked into her face, his expression hinting at inquiry. “Perhaps between others in the Cosmos. Balavad gave us an adv
antage, soldiers who feel no fear, who are obedient to the end, and who can’t be killed easily, except perhaps by a Verity’s chosen. But there are only so many of our kind, those who’ve been chosen, aren’t there?”
Our kind. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cringe at the association. “It was my understanding the Arc Rheunosians were opposed to spilling blood.”
“Bah. It’s a law that has served its purpose. Even you said it, you aren’t from this realm. What will we do when others come, others who are not as well-meaning as you say you are? Are we required to give up everything and be overtaken, or is it better to give up just one thing, just one law?”
Symvalline understood the logic and could think of no reason to disagree. Her own world wasn’t without violence and war, but planning for an attack from another realm? The possibility had previously been too remote to even consider. Yet Balavad had come to Vinnr with a skyborne army, the Raveners, who invaded mercilessly. And he’d come here, too.
But the difference was night and day. Balavad had attacked Ivoryss. Yet he’d apparently given the Minothians an army of their own, or at least a means to raise one. Why the difference? What were Balavad’s ends?
She had to get back to Vinnr. Everything was at stake.
Tuzhazu had approached the guards and was looking them over. He returned his flask of—was there a better word for it?—poison, and brought out the Fenestros he’d used to strip her of her klinkí stones in the meadow. Its color was as black as a cave, but the lamps in the room glanced off tiny runes etched into its surface. The Fenestrii of Vaka Aster were a swirl of blue and yellow, making this one’s darkness even starker.
In defiance of gravity, he spun the fist-sized globe around his hand and spoke to the guards. “Rise, Deathless Guards. Your new duties await.”
The two men’s eyes opened. No longer typical, they had become a solid flat gray. Were they sightless? They stood, and Tuzhazu smiled genuinely for the first time she’d seen.
“Your first task will be to guard this foreigner,” he told them, and they moved to either side of Symvalline, not exactly listlessly, but almost as if they did not know the bodies they inhabited. She noted the disappearance of the red blotches that had begun to cover their cheeks. The transformation had cured their disease but infected them with something much worse.
Tuzhazu looked over the still child and spoke aloud, more to himself than to Symvalline. “Their ascension in the ranks will be lauded, but it’s a pity an example had to be made of this one. Akeeva would have treated her well.”
An example had to be made… And Symvalline suddenly understood a fact she’d have preferred never having discovered. Tuzhazu was causing the Waste. He infected any he could claim had been exposed to the disease with whatever was in that other flask he carried and blamed their deaths on the Zhallahs to keep the two sides divided and the Zhallahs feared by the Minothians.
She didn’t want to believe it. Why do something so horrible, so corrupt? Yet he stood before her all but demonstrating his power and then admitting to it. He didn’t know what she’d seen back at the tower at the Aktoktos Gate. She could be in worse danger if he did. Was Akeeva part of this monstrous ploy? Was this Balavad’s doing?
She was trapped in an intrigue she wanted nothing to do with. But clearly innocents were being hurt, killed even. And Tuzhazu seemed to have a greater plan in mind. A plan that had something to do with the Zhallahs, people now keeping her own child safe. Like it or not, she couldn’t ignore his treachery. She was too vulnerable to accuse him, though, so she’d have to wait and watch for a way out of this scorpion’s den.
“You’re not going to provide me with any assistants, are you?” she said numbly.
He turned to her, his expression betraying what he thought of her: she was a nuisance, and one he’d prefer to be rid of sooner than later. “It would hardly be worth the effort. You do what you think you can, healer.” He did sneer the word this time. “And when the time comes, your true uses will be discovered.”
Chapter Ten
“So,” Salukis said, “walk or”—he spread his wings impressively and waggled the tips—“fly?”
Distracted with worry, Isemay responded, “Walk. I don’t want to miss my memory keeper if it fell on the trail somewhere.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.”
His disappointment was hard to miss. Just as they turned toward the trail to go, Mura stepped out. “Isemay? Are you all right?”
She couldn’t very well lie to Mura, not after all the help she’d given her, so she said simply, “I’ve lost the pendant my father gave me. Salukis said he’ll help me look for it.”
Mura appraised her for a moment, then said, “I understand. But the village is preparing a celebration for you tonight. If you’re not back in time…” She let the statement hang.
She was stuck. These people, especially Mura and her mother, and even Salukis, had been more than kind to her, even if they weren’t going to help her with the one thing she needed help with most. Still, to rebuff their kindness…well, she hadn’t been raised like that. Her mum would be disappointed in her, as would her da. But she couldn’t see any way around the issue. That memory keeper was her lifeline right now. She had to find it.
“I’m sorry, Mura. I can’t lose it.”
Mura gave her a decisive nod, her cheeks and chin filling with a soft, calm lavender that reminded Isemay of her favorite flower in Vinnr, the dalla. “I’ll tell the council where you’ve gone and why if you’re not back in time. Which”—she glanced toward the darkening sky—“I’m guessing you won’t be.”
“Thank you, Mura, thank you so much. I owe you everything.”
Mura glanced over her shoulder, then looked at Salukis meaningfully. “Better go before my mother comes out.”
“Follow me,” Salukis said quickly and motioned to Isemay as he turned up the path.
Before she followed, Isemay reached a hand out and placed it on Mura’s arm. “Thank you again. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Mura’s lavender hue warmed to a deeper purple, flushing even her lips as she smiled softly. “It is our way, Isemay. But even if it weren’t, your mum helped us and saved Neeka when she didn’t have to. It is a privilege to be able to help you now. I’m sure Deespora will think of a way to aid your mother.” Her brows drew together in a small frown as she said this, sending waves of gray rippling from the crease. Then she took one of Isemay’s hands and squeezed it. “Besides, it isn’t every day you get to talk to a woman from an entirely new world. I’ll look forward to when you get back. Good luck finding your pendant.”
When she let her hand go, Isemay loped after Salukis. The forest quickly dimmed, and they hadn’t gone more than a few steps beyond sight of Mura’s home when Isemay asked, “Do you have a torch or something we can use to help us see by?”
“A torch?”
“Yes, or an illuminate orb?”
He seemed puzzled by her request, then nodded as if it suddenly made sense. “Oh, we don’t need those. We have the Churss. Watch.” He breathed words, or perhaps simply hummed, so quietly she couldn’t quite understand which. Around them on every side, a dim glow began at the bases of the Churss towers, sparkling slowly one by one from the shining flecks of another kind of rock that spread throughout the greater stones until each individual light combined and suffused the area. The effect stole her breath.
“How do they do that?” she half whispered.
He smiled at her wonder. “Starlight. The Churss absorbs it and shines it wherever we need it. Works with sunlight too. Ready?”
They took a path that skirted the village, Salukis reasoning that if someone inside the village found her pendant, they would know it was foreign given the unique representation of dragørfly, something Arc Rheunos had never seen, and give it to Deespora. She noted he didn’t suggest they go and ask the Archon if anyone had found it, but she supposed he’d say so if he thought it likely. And perhaps he preferred the adve
nture to staying in Maerria. Isemay would have. Soon, they’d wound back to the main path, close enough to the village that Isemay wasn’t concerned they’d missed too much ground.
The Churss lights followed them. Isemay glanced back once and saw how they dimmed behind them once the lights were no longer in range of the duo. Juz and Tekl came along as well, their paws soundless in the still night. The sounds of the village faded away, leaving only the occasional unfamiliar tweets and hoots of what she assumed were birds and buzzes and hums of what she hoped were small insects. She felt almost protected by the mellow Churss light in this strange place, as if it kept any fears of the dark and unknown from finding her.
As they walked, she scanned the ground ceaselessly, internally berating herself for being foolish enough to lose such an important and precious gift. What if Da tried to speak to her while it was lost? What would she do if she didn’t find it? The memory keeper could be the only chance she had to get her mum back from the Minothians, and she’d lost it as if she were a stupid, inattentive toddler.
“You’re pretty quiet, Isemay. But then, you must have a lot on your mind.”
Salukis had been very helpful, keeping her on the right path and looking as hard for the pendant as she was. Though her temper was short and her worries long, she didn’t want to be rude. “I do. But if you’d prefer to pass the time by talking, I don’t mind. I’m grateful for your help.”
“And I’m grateful for your mother’s,” he assured her. “And once we get Onni and Cylli back, Mura and I will never make that mistake again.” He closed his mouth abruptly and looked back to see if she was listening.
Intent on keeping her focus on the forest floor, she didn’t realize she’d failed to respond until he spoke again.
“So, what’s it like?”
