The Company of Glass

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘You were very young,’ she said. ‘But I knew you would be discreet. It was one of several points in your favour.’

  She turned and put her hands on his chest.

  ‘Ysse,’ he began, troubled. But before he could frame words, she had pressed her hands against him firmly.

  ‘No. It’s too late for that, I know it. You must go. I’m dying. Nothing is going to happen here tonight, except that I’m going to say to you once again, please go free. Jai Pendu will destroy you if you let it. Quickly or slowly, the Knowledge you have witnessed will ruin you unless you find something to fix you to the physical world. Go and live, Tarquin. Live as I have not done.’ She paused. ‘It’s what Chyko would do if he were in your place.’

  ‘Chyko was not like me,’ Tarquin railed. ‘He always laughed, and he didn’t believe anything, and he was never afraid. He should be the one here now, not I.’

  Ysse said nothing.

  ‘I must go now,’ he said, a note of formality creeping into his voice. ‘There are things I have to do before the morning.’

  ‘Go then, Tarquin the Free.’ She kissed him once, and her lips were dry. ‘Be free of the labyrinth. Escape Jai Pendu, and never return.’

  Her voice was steady, but her eyes begged him with a thousand questions. He hesitated. Never had he entertained the hope of unburdening himself to anyone; yet here was Ysse, willing and able to understand some of what he had endured at Jai Pendu. She would not shrink from the horror, he knew that much.

  Something held him back. He bowed his head and turned, stepping indoors where the rooms were now lamplit with the coming of night; this manifestation of the Knowledge made his lip curl, and he paused. She called after him from the terrace. ‘Quintar. Tell me. Please.’

  He only shook his head, and fled from her.

  The next day, as he was riding away, he caught the last glimpse of Ysse he was ever to have. She was in the training field at the foot of Jai Khalar, flying her falcons. A coterie of young soldiers surrounded her, birds on their wrists, listening intently to her advice. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the wind blew him her laugh, a scratchy, playful sound. She tossed the bird into the air and held her arm aloft for a long moment as her eyes followed its flight. Tarquin turned his horse and left with the impression of her stance stamped into his mind, the motion frozen forever half-finished.

  In the half-empty hill town of the Deer Clan, the singer had begun a jig and the blonde slithered against him, breathing beer fumes and running her hands down his chest. He jerked away, startled. The room was suddenly too close, too loud, too full of people he didn’t know and didn’t want to. He pushed his way through the crowd and went to sleep with his horse.

  Dario’s Story

  When Ketar shook Tarquin awake, it was almost midday. He had a headache and a terrible thirst.

  ‘There you are,’ Ketar grunted, and offered him a hand. ‘It’s a wonder you weren’t trampled in the night.’

  As he rose from the straw, Tarquin thought that Ketar did not look particularly hale himself. The others were saddling their horses in relative silence; he inferred that all had drunk too much, except possibly Lerien, who seemed bright-eyed and in good spirits. They moved out of the village to the cheers of small children, a spectacle the others seemed to enjoy.

  ‘I miss my sons,’ Taro said.

  ‘And I my grandchildren,’ added Stavel.

  ‘It has been months since I have been to my home,’ Jakse remarked. ‘If it were not for the Eyes, I doubt I would remember what my family look like.’

  Tarquin could think of nothing to add to this, as he had no relatives any more and had lost even the right to mourn his own mother. He held himself a little apart from the others, conscious of his difference.

  It was mid-afternoon before they reached the other side of the valley and began to climb. Up in Wasp Country, farmland gave way to forest, paved roads to rutted tracks. They had come some distance from any original Everien buildings, leaving behind the Fire Houses and the wind towers and the glass domes whose purpose no one knew. All of the villages in the hills had been built with Wasp hands, and compared with the towns near Jai Khalar, they had a rough and unfinished look about them. They were also fewer and farther between than the valley dwellings, and for hours at a time the riders met no one on the road. Hawks glided overhead, and Tarquin saw a vulture circling. The horses trotted up the steep switchback trail, their riders leaning forward to ease the weight in the stirrups. Diverted from its proper course, a stream crossed the way at one point, turning the path to mud and slowing their progress momentarily.

  ‘There is a village just above us,’ Stavel said from the rear of the party. ‘Is it not time for lunch?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about food,’ Taro groaned.

  Kivi the Seer was riding in front. When he crossed the water and reached the next bend in the road, he halted, turned in the saddle, and said, ‘Do not let the horses drink from the stream. It’s fouled above.’

  Tarquin had seen the blood go out of Kivi’s face and guessed what was the matter. It was all too familiar. He pressed his horse ahead, calling over his shoulder for Lerien to stay behind. Kivi’s mount was fighting with him and rolling its eyes, refusing to go forward. Tarquin passed Kivi and went around the bend.

  The stream was full of bodies. It had been lined with white stones to form a sluice that ran down the steep slope; now the water spilled over the banks and snaked between the roots of trees, sweeping green beards of moss in its currents. Water swept over an old man’s wide-eyed face, his outflung arm, the blur of his features and the ragged wound in his neck; the skirts of women; the blond curls of a child – Tarquin looked away. Swallowing, he drew his sword and guided his horse up the hill.

  There were flies everywhere. Crows went up like smoke as he rode past the mill wheel and between the houses. Nothing human moved. The bodies in the streets had been cut down as they fled; one house had been torched but the fire had not spread, though it still smouldered. Tarquin’s horse danced agitatedly in place. He wheeled the animal around and rode back.

  ‘The Sekk have been here,’ he shouted to Lerien. ‘We should fan out through the forest and do a sweep. They have taken the village just this morning from the look of it.’

  Lerien gave signals and the riders dispersed, weapons at the ready. Tarquin found himself left with Kivi, who appeared uncertain about what to do.

  ‘Dismount,’ Tarquin said curtly, doing so himself. ‘You can recognize a Slave by his speechlessness and his aggression. If you see a Sekk, you must neither look at it nor listen to its voice. Be careful!’

  Kivi took out his fighting sticks and moved away from Tarquin. Tarquin drew his sword and glided stealthily from tree to tree in a zigzag search pattern up and down the slope. He had learned to sharpen all his senses like an animal, and he slipped into this mode now, thinking of nothing – only reacting.

  He found more bodies, all of them female or infant, indicating a typical Sekk Slaving raid. Somewhere on this mountain were the men of the village, caught under the Sekk spell. Even if they could be found, they would be out of their senses, possessed of an unreasoning violence. If a Sekk were killed and its spell broken, the Slaves might be freed but what freedom was there in knowing your own hands had murdered your family?

  After an hour, he circled back towards the starting point, taking in one last loop of high ground on the way. Here he encountered Kivi, who looked pale and shaken.

  ‘I have found no Sekk or Slaves. They must already be far away.’

  ‘We’ll see what the others have found,’ Tarquin said. ‘Come on.’

  They took a shortcut through a section of old forest where the undergrowth was thin; it was the only area in the radius Tarquin had set out that he hadn’t yet searched, mostly because there was so little ground cover to hide anyone. But as they passed among the trees, a rain of stones greeted them. The branches overhead shook. Tarquin got a glimpse of a face and a hand; then he had to
duck as another rock fell towards him with disturbing accuracy. He dived for cover and signalled Kivi not to shoot. The Seer, crouching behind a boulder, gave him a puzzled glance, for Tarquin had actually begun to smile. He addressed the trees above. ‘We aren’t here to hurt you,’ he called. ‘We ride with the king from Jai Khalar, and we can help you. Do you understand?’

  Silence. Tarquin relaxed: he could wait. But Kivi, having caught on to what was happening, chose this moment to step out from cover. He showed his empty hands. ‘People of the village,’ he announced. ‘I am going to walk towards you. I am unarmed. Don’t be afraid. The Sekk are gone from here. You can see I’m not Sekk.’

  An arrow flew from behind a nearby tree and grazed his leg. Kivi threw himself on the ground as more stones came down.

  ‘You’ll never get us,’ cried a shrill voice from the trees. ‘Go back where you came from!’

  Kivi and Tarquin looked at each other.

  ‘Children’ Kivi mouthed. But Tarquin was sure the archer was no child: the bow shot had been too powerful, if not particularly accurate. The archer would have to be taken out first. He darted uphill and positioned himself behind another tree, which rustled when he touched it: someone was up there. He made a second dash and heard an arrow whiz past his shoulder, but he was level with the hidden archer now. He nodded at Kivi, who stood up again, clutching his bleeding thigh.

  ‘Please,’ Kivi begged convincingly in the direction of the archer. ‘Don’t shoot me.’

  Tarquin sprang out from behind his tree and leaped on the archer from behind; they both landed hard in last year’s leaves. He quickly asserted control, twisting the bow from sweating fingers and grabbing the long braid to restrain the head. From above there were screams and imprecations. He sat on the back of his prisoner, who was still facedown and spitting dirt.

  ‘Call them off. They’re going to fall and get hurt, and there’s no need for it. We’re not your enemies.’

  The archer was breathing hard but ceased to struggle. Kivi had been forced to retreat behind a gnarled oak as a seemingly endless supply of missiles was hurled on him from above.

  ‘I’m going to let you up,’ Tarquin said. ‘I won’t hurt you. Just tell the kids to come down quietly. All right?’

  Taking silence for assent, he removed his weight and released the braid. The archer turned over. He realized she was a woman right around the time her knee drove into his groin and delivered him into wide-eyed agony. She sprang up, a flash of triumph outshining the fear on her face. Tarquin flung himself at her legs and, gasping with pain, brought her down again. He used his weight to get supremacy. Now her body was filled with the kind of concentrated terror that hears no reassurance – and he had none to give, being unable to speak after that blow. She scratched him and spat in his face and bit his hands while he tried to find a way to subdue her without causing injury.

  He found his voice and shouted for Kivi. With his peripheral vision he could see children dropping out of the trees and coming towards him with stones in their hands.

  ‘Let her go,’ Kivi yelled, running towards him. ‘You’re only making it worse. Let her go!’

  Tarquin saw the wisdom in this and released her, drawing back out of the range of her feet. Two stones missed him, and he saw Kivi wrest a third out of the hand of a boy of nine and fling it aside. But the woman didn’t move. She lay propped on her elbows in the leaves, staring fixedly at him and breathing hard. Her jaw trembled and her eyes filled with tears. Kivi stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Dario?’ queried one of the children. ‘Mother, are you hurt?’

  The woman inhaled on a high note and let out a sob.

  Tarquin flushed and looked away. ‘Do something, Kivi.’

  In a soothing voice Kivi said, ‘Dario. Is that your name? I’m Kivi. You shot me in the leg, remember?’ He hopped on one foot and grimaced. As Dario looked up at Kivi, a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude magically replaced the fear on her tear-streaked face. He held out a hand to help her up and she took it, collapsing against his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his neck in relief. The children began to sidle over to be introduced; apparently they were all hers, and they were laughing now as Kivi expressed exaggerated awe at their skill in the trees. Tarquin, preoccupied with the continued throbbing in his right testicle, got slowly to his feet. He slapped the Seer on the shoulder as he shuffled past. ‘Good, Kivi,’ he croaked.

  Only two other villagers were found alive. Lerien decided that Stavel and Taro would bring them to the nearest settlement; some horses had been found wandering loose, and these were saddled to carry the refugees.

  While Taro amused her children, Dario was pouring her heart out to Kivi. ‘Kenzo, my mate, joined Ajiko’s army a year ago when they passed through this village demanding all men of fighting age. But Kenzo and two others returned with a Wolf Clan soldier they’d befriended. They had a H’ah’vah egg they found in the tunnels in Wolf Country, so they slipped away with it. They were going to trade it to the Scholars of the Deer Clan.’

  Kivi raised an eyebrow. ‘The Seers would pay much for that! We can distil medicines of tremendous potency from the albumen of a H’ah’vah egg.’

  ‘Then riders came through asking for news of the troops that had been sent to Wolf Country, and by this time six more of our Clan had returned to us. They did not like army life! We hid our men and told the riders that all had gone to war.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’ Lerien asked crisply.

  ‘Last month, my lord.’ She said it steadily, with no apology for her family’s insubordination to his policy. The Wasp Clan was notorious for its reliance on prevarication and deception in its dealings. ‘Kenzo went off with the egg to A-vi-Sirinn, leaving us well-guarded by the other warriors. Or so we thought.’ She gulped back tears. ‘Excuse me. Yesterday a lone man came down from the hills, bleeding, weak. He could not speak and he seemed very ill. We hoped for news of our kinsmen who are still with the army there, so we cared for him.’

  ‘What Clan was he?’ queried Stavel. ‘You are not far from the borders of my country.’

  ‘He had no Clan paint, and he wore Ajiko’s uniform.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Tarquin snapped, alarmed. ‘Is he alive? Did he escape?’

  ‘I suppose he must have escaped.’ Dario’s eyes were bleak. It was a warm day, but she pulled Kivi’s cloak closer about her shoulders. She said, ‘No one suspected him! It’s true it was no hardship to look on him; he was handsome and he had a kind of glamorous air about him. But he was dressed as a soldier, and he was wounded! We never guessed he could be under a Sekk spell.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘The men had all been given swords while in the army. When they … when it began … the rest of us had no defence. If Kenzo had been here—’

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ Kivi said. ‘There is hope he has made it to Avi-Sirinn. And your children have survived.’

  She nodded, looking at the ground. ‘I know. I am lucky. My parents. My sisters, my aunt … all gone.’

  Taro came towards them, leading the horses. ‘We should ride now,’ he said. ‘Unless there are things you wish to collect …’ He turned to Dario. She shook her head and stood, trying to smile at her children. ‘Which of you wants to share a horse with me?’ she asked brightly. Kivi looked stricken.

  ‘We will wait for you in the fields above,’ Lerien said to Taro. ‘Be wary of riding at night; pay attention to how the horses behave. We will camp close to the road. You should be able to reach us by dawn.’

  When they had left, the rest of the group continued on heavy-hearted. No one asked who would bury the dead. The king didn’t make them ride far; as he’d told Stavel and Taro, he pitched camp on a cleared hillside fenced from the road by a low stone wall.

  ‘What have you seen in the Carry Eye today?’ Tarquin heard Lerien ask Kivi in a low voice. The others were busy gathering wood and tending the horses, and apparently Lerien did not realize he was in earshot.

  ‘Mhani has shut herse
lf away from our Sight again,’ Kivi said. ‘She is too deep in her work to notice my projection to her. I have tried half a dozen different ways to reach her, but none of them works.’

  Lerien frowned and kicked the dirt like a boy. ‘We will have to go to the monitor tower above A-vel-Jasse. Even if that Eye is broken, we can see Ristale from there as well as Wolf Country, so we can determine what Tarquin witnessed. Then we’ll continue on to whatever positions in Wolf Country our new information indicates.’ He sighed. ‘What can Mhani be doing that absorbs her so? This has never happened, just as the Eyes have never gone wrong before. It feels like some kind of curse.’

  Yes, Tarquin thought. That is what the Knowledge always amounts to. But he did not say it aloud, and he asked no questions when Lerien announced his plan over their evening meal, which they took with the sun still hovering in the sky. They lit fires against the highland cold and ate the fresh food they’d been given at A-vi-Sirinn. Ketar brought out a flute and began to play a sad air.

  Stavel said, ‘Before the Sekk came, Everien was a land of peace and plenty. There were no empires in those days, and no armies. The Seahawk histories say Everien was not a warlike culture.’

  Ketar took the flute away from his lips. ‘Everyone has wars,’ he said in a tone that suggested he was ready to fight one over the point.

  ‘Not in ancient times,’ Lerien corrected. ‘The men of Everien competed, Ketar, to be sure; but they did not fight over land and women like the Clans. They settled their disputes in other ways. They were a race of astonishing ingenuity.’

  Ketar shrugged and resumed playing the lamentation.

  Miro added, ‘In my Clan it’s said that the Everiens first came from a country beneath the sea, and that they returned there when driven away by the Sekk.’