The Company of Glass

by Tricia Sullivan

  Pallo said, ‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to sail to Jai Pendu? You could wait until it arrived and then set your heading from there. You could probably row there.’

  Pentar laughed. ‘Pharician inlander! In a small boat you’d be dashed to pieces. Look at those currents.’

  The tide was coming in, foaming and coughing at the bases of the Floating Lands. The water hurled itself hard against the stone, which was too sheer in most places to permit the landing of a boat even if the ocean had been calmer.

  ‘Is it true, then, that Pharician galleons were sent to distant star settings?’ Pallo asked.

  ‘Several ships were displaced,’ Xiriel said. ‘Pentar is correct about the currents: I would not like to spend any time in that water myself.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to. Look, isn’t that a bridge?’ Kassien pointed to the nearest of the Floating Lands, connected to the edge of the plateau by what appeared to be a flexible rope bridge.

  ‘The Pharicians must have made it,’ Xiriel said. ‘It is not an Everienstyle bridge; those are governed by the Knowledge, and they endure.’

  ‘Let’s go see,’ Istar said.

  They quickened their pace, shuffling through windswept sand towards the cliff. The breeze picked up, singing among the sculpted stones.

  ‘I feel dizzy,’ Pallo complained. ‘I didn’t realize it would be so high. Kassien, if you can’t sail among the Floating Lands, what are those boats doing out there?’

  Kassien flung himself on the ground; the others followed suit as though choreographed to do so. Istar caught a glimpse of the boats Pallo spoke of, and she emitted a soft curse. Half-obscured by the line of the cliffs, there were two Pharician schooners moored just offshore almost directly below them and a contingent of Pharician soldiers guarding the first bridge.

  Kassien swore. ‘Stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to get a closer look.’

  They waited while he crawled on his belly through the sea grass towards the edge of the cliff. He was gone for some time, and when he returned he didn’t look cheerful.

  ‘There are a number of smaller boats just beneath. That must be how the Pharicians got here. It looks like they’ve been able to navigate among the Floating Lands in light craft, but I doubt very much they have penetrated beyond this first island, as I can’t see any figures standing on any of the other islands.’

  ‘How are we to know their disposition towards us? Are we at war with Pharice or not?’ Xiriel said. ‘If only we had not lost the Carry Eye.’

  Dejected, they lay there undecided for a while. Then Istar said, ‘It doesn’t really matter, because even if Pharice hasn’t attacked Everien, we have no claim over this territory and they would probably turn us away if we walked up and asked them nicely to let us pass the bridge.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind knowing how long those boats have been there,’ Xiriel muttered, embarrassed to have been proved wrong in what he’d said to Pallo. ‘How does Pharice plan to cross to Jai Pendu? They have far less information than we do, and I’m not even sure how we’re going to get there.’

  ‘If only we’d had the White Road, we could have bypassed all this,’ Istar mourned.

  Xiriel consulted one of the charts he had drawn in Jai Pendu, sharing it with Kassien, who concluded, ‘The boats are our best chance. We are only five. If we could manage to steal even a dinghy, we could look for another route.’

  ‘I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to get a boat close enough.’ Xiriel looked fretfully back and forth between the Floating Lands and the diagram before him.

  ‘Kass is right,’ Istar said. ‘Let’s try. It’s either that or swim.’

  Pallo shivered. ‘I don’t suppose anyone would like me to act as envoy and negotiate with the Pharicians?’

  Istar started laughing and then suddenly grabbed Pallo by the shoulders. ‘That’s perfect,’ she said. ‘You can create a diversion while we steal the boat. You speak Pharician. Go talk to them … if you’re not afraid.’

  Pallo thrust out his chin. ‘Of course I’m not afraid. I’ll tell them I’m a wandering botanist in search of Everien sea moss, and I lost my way while observing some rare snails, and—’

  ‘Yeah, we get the idea. Come here, Pallo, and look at this.’ Kassien rapidly sketched a plan in the sand and told Pallo what to do.

  When the group left Pallo, Kassien was whistling. He led them along the cliff top until they were around a headland, concealed in the bay beside the place where the bridge hung from land to island. The boats were also out of sight from here, and they were able to make a smooth descent using ropes; by now all but Pentar had been tested in the Everien Range, and Pentar himself made a fair effort, being of Seahawk blood and inured from birth to the high places. They had to wait for the tide to recede, exposing the underparts of the nearest Floating Land with its shining dark skin of weed and glittering parasites. Their way into the next bay was also opened, and they slithered across the rocks of the headland, concealing themselves along a sheltered ledge below the bridge. There would not be total darkness so close to the solstice, but the sun was very low in the clouded sky, and the cliffs blotted out much of its westerly light anyway. They waited.

  ‘How will we know when to make our move?’ Pentar asked, his eyes bright with curiosity. Istar, too, wanted to know what Kassien had said to Pallo, but the two had fallen out of the habit of talking to each other directly. She no longer felt at ease with him.

  ‘They’re going to come right to us,’ Kassien said. ‘Provided Pallo doesn’t make a mess of it.’

  For a long time nothing seemed to happen. Istar reckoned Pallo must have made contact with the guards by now, and he had had ample time to get down the cliff, for that matter, even without their help; for there was an ancient flight of stairs cut into the stone just to the side of the bridge. It led to a small landing, and as the tide rolled back in a number of Pharicians gathered there and built a fire. They could be seen milling around and eating.

  ‘It would be easy to attack them now,’ Pentar said. ‘Pallo may have got himself captured.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Kassien. There was a pause and he turned to Pentar with a half-smile. ‘Beating Istar has done you a world of good, Pentar. You’ve come right out of your shell, haven’t you?’

  Pentar demurred, but Istar took this as an oblique taunt directed at her and presented Kassien with a haughty profile. Just then a small boat slipped away from the landing. A dark figure rowed it towards their ledge, fighting the rough water. In the stern was a towheaded figure. Kassien began to chuckle.

  ‘No need to kill anyone,’ he said. ‘We’ll just find out whether this one can swim.’

  Pallo’s exaggeratedly treble chatter reached them above the sound of the tide. Istar spoke Pharician only haltingly and with a thick accent, but she could understand most of what Pallo was saying.

  ‘Just a little closer, please. This ledge is perfect. I’ll show you some lovely luminescent slime mould if you’d like to step out of your boat. In my province we use it as a cure for overindulgence, although some say sloe-weed is better.’

  The tide had covered over their route from the next harbour, and now the boat passed by their ledge where earlier they had climbed on the weedy stones. Pallo reached out and caught hold of the rock, beginning to pull himself up towards the ledge. The Pharician stood, holding the boat against the cliff so that Pallo could exit. Kassien simply dropped on him, flattening him against the bottom of the boat. They wrestled a bit, and if Kassien was not particularly stylish about it, at least he had the element of surprise; he dispatched his opponent by tossing him into the water. The Pharician struggled just to keep his head above water, for he was wearing a good deal of metal and the waves were strong.

  ‘Quick!’ Kassien said. ‘And be quiet about it.’

  They dropped into the boat one by one, leaving the astonished guard to cling to the edge of the cliff and get his breath back before he could scream the alarm.

  ‘I didn’t have the heart t
o kill him,’ Kassien said. ‘They’ll never see us properly in this light, anyway. Go on, Pentar: row!’

  It was not quite as easy as that, for the tide was still on its way in and Pentar and Xiriel were pulling against it, but there was no reaction from the Pharicians either above or on the sea ledge, and they pulled alongside the first island.

  ‘We have to get behind this island,’ Xiriel said, heaving the oar through taller swells. ‘Look at the map, Pallo.’

  Just as they were almost out of sight around the side of the first island, a cry went up from the guards at the bridge. A minute later the Pharician had launched a couple of boats from the banks, which they rowed ponderously through the surf. Pentar and Xiriel redoubled their efforts. Istar untangled the climbing gear and Pallo struggled to read the chart Xiriel had given him to hold. He kept turning it around, and then it got wet, and then it caught on Pentar’s oar. Finally Kassien grabbed the chart from Pallo and dumped an enormous coil of rope around his neck.

  ‘Hold that,’ he said, and Pallo staggered under its weight, then ultimately sat down in the bilgewater.

  Xiriel’s chart showed an area where the cliff overhung the water around the seaward side of the first island. There were handholds within reach of the tall swells, and, farther up, an entrance in the wall. They manoeuvred the boat into what felt like a rather tight space, and Kassien set about placing hooks in the stone and fitting ropes. Several times the waves bounced them off the walls, and the boat began to leak.

  ‘Better hurry,’ said Pallo nervously.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Kassien instructed, and gave Pallo a leg up to the first rope. ‘Climb up to that hole in the cliff and fix the rope. And be quick about it.’

  All long limbs and hair, Pallo jumped on to the end of the line Kassien had fixed to the stone as the first of the Pharician boats rolled around a bend in the cliffs and into the channel between the islands. The leader stood in the stern holding a torch, and six soldiers rowed. They were well-armed, and as they drew closer their faces looked vicious in the yellow light.

  Xiriel spun his axes and glanced up. ‘Oh, no,’ he groaned. Istar followed his gaze. The bridge between the first and second islands was broken. The first man dropped his oar and picked up a spear. Pallo reached the ledge. They ducked behind the gunwales for cover; Istar looked over her shoulder and saw Pallo frantically tying a knot, or trying to.

  ‘Go on, Istar,’ Xiriel hissed. ‘Get up the cliff, quick.’

  ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay and fight.’

  Xiriel swung himself out of the boat, which bobbed and crashed against the stone. Arrows thudded into the hull. One bounced off Kassien’s shield. Xiriel, in mid-air, flung first one axe, and then the other. One struck a Pharician on the arm and made him roar with pain; the other went into the sea.

  ‘Istar, go!’ Kassien stood up behind his shield and held the rope for her.

  ‘After you,’ she said. Her sword was out and she was eager for battle. Kassien looked about to argue; then he simply grabbed the rope and started up. The Pharician boat reached theirs and the soldier with the damaged hand barrelled aboard brandishing a curved sword. Istar sliced him neatly in the hand that wasn’t hurt, and then shoved him overboard with her foot. But she didn’t reckon on the imbalance this would cause in the boat, and to her dismay she went over herself. Meanwhile Kassien, hanging on the rope, was pulled away from the boat and had no choice now but to keep climbing.

  Pentar was battling with two more Pharicians who were attempting to board, and a third was throwing spear after spear at Pallo and Xiriel, above. Pallo threw rocks back. One of them bounced off Pentar’s helmet. Pallo covered his mouth in dismay.

  Istar dragged herself back into the boat, feeling humiliated and foolish, just as one of the Pharicians got past Pentar, losing his sword in the process. Undaunted, he dived at her legs and knocked her down in the bottom of the boat. She could not get her sword free and quickly found herself entangled in the Pharician’s arms while his body weight pinned her. Istar was protected in part by her armour, but this did not stop the Pharician from attempting to lock one arm and strangle her at the same time, perhaps not as neatly as a Snake would have done it, but effective under the circumstances. She could hear Pentar screaming as he cut at any Pharician who came near the boat, and the rest of her companions shouted encouragement and advice, but she could not manoeuvre in the tight space. The Pharician seemed to be feeling no pain: she bit, gouged eyes, and loosened teeth, but he relentlessly crushed her into the bilges. She could barely breathe and the Pharician was too well-armoured to feel any of the short-range body blows she directed with her legs.

  She was a finger’s breadth from panic when the man was abruptly pulled off her and dumped into the water by Pentar, who then wheeled and engaged the remaining enemy with his sword, giving Istar time to get on to the cliff. Her muscles were not responding well: even three minutes of hard wrestling had been enough to sap her strength, and she had to carry herself and her wet armour and her pack up a retrograde cliff, where the rope had been fixed by someone much taller than she, with longer reach. She managed it, but only barely, with Pentar crowding behind her. Kassien managed to draw up one of the ropes but had to cut the other, as one of the officers had caught hold of it and was preparing to mount the cliff. Istar watched with satisfaction as its coils landed on his head.

  They ducked inside, winded but triumphant.

  The White Road

  Tarquin never saw the garden because a dark figure was coming at him with a long sword. He leaped backward, fell, and rolled, getting his sword out on the way. The air was freezing and aswirl with windblown ice pellets; snow blanketed the uneven ground, broken in places by metal structures like skeletons arching across the clouded sky. At his back was a roar of heat, and as he turned over he glimpsed a river of white fire spilling across the snow, which was evaporating into thick steam where it touched the lava.

  The swordsman pursued him.

  He no sooner got on his feet than he had slipped again, for he was standing on a slab of melting ice. The ground shook in a slow rhythm. His chest had seized up in the extreme cold and he could scarcely breathe; but the lithe figure that scuttled after him seemed to have no such troubles. His opponent’s skin was bare and lightly coated with sweat.

  Chyko was coping with the cold in just the same way he coped with every adversary.

  Tarquin threw his sword on the ground and opened his arms in delight. Chyko kept coming, a familiar intensity hardening his ash-reddened eyes. Just as Tarquin realized it was too late now to defend himself if Chyko did not recognize him, the Wasp skidded to a halt, lowering his sword by degrees. Then he reached out, grabbed the edge of Tarquin’s cloak, and dragged him to the ground, rolling him over several times in the snow, cursing all the while.

  ‘Enough!’ Tarquin yelled, sitting up. ‘You are a crazy bastard.’

  Then he realized his cloak had caught on fire in the lava, which was even now oozing towards them. Chyko checked to be certain he had put out the flames, then jerked Tarquin to his feet and wordlessly led him uphill and along the top of a rough gully. There were rusted remains of buildings of some kind, but Tarquin was overcome by the noise and wind and the rushes of hot and cold; he could not take in all the details of his environment, and anyway, the visibility was terrible.

  There was a rush of water down the gully. Where the snow and ice met extreme heat, steam shot up into the air and obscured the sky. From beyond the broken teeth of destroyed buildings Tarquin could hear a terrible screaming – a hybrid sound that possessed the harshness of metal scraping metal and the expressiveness of a wild animal. There was a constant thumping that grew slowly nearer, but its source was invisible behind the fog.

  They squatted in the lee of a snowbank, as high as they could away from the liquid fire, shifting their feet as their boot soles overheated. Chyko’s dark skin was dusted with white ash; even his eyelashes were whitened.

  ‘I wish you were really here,�
�� he said. ‘If you were really here, I think I would kiss you.’

  ‘I am really here. Do not kiss me!’

  Chyko laughed and grabbed his head, pulling Tarquin’s forehead to his own. ‘My friend, I don’t care if you are real or phantom. It is good to see you.’

  True to his word, he pressed his lips against Tarquin’s brow.

  ‘Do you remember the thing that caught you?’ Tarquin asked. ‘Can you speak with it?’

  ‘It?’

  ‘Night, the creature that holds you here.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Do you remember Jai Pendu?’

  Chyko reached into a pouch around his neck and took out a small pipe. He stretched out one long arm and held it against the hot ooze to light it. ‘Inside the Water, I could see eyes. Many, many eyes. If you go through the eyes, it’s a place where …’ He hesitated, licking his lips. ‘You can’t touch anything there; you can’t feel anything. It is all at a distance. I would rather die.’ He puffed meditatively, then offered the pipe to Tarquin.

  ‘I thought you were dead. What have you been doing all these years? Where have you been?’

  Chyko’s eyes were a vacant black. ‘Here. Fighting.’

  As Tarquin passed back the pipe, the metallic screaming grew suddenly louder, and the earth shook. Overhead a section of ice dislodged itself and they leaped up in the interval it took to come crashing down. They were running alongside the fire river through eddying twists of smoke and steam, Chyko firing arrows behind him without breaking stride.

  ‘Quintar!’

  Suddenly he couldn’t see Chyko. The mist closed in on all sides. The snowy ground was cracking and heaving.

  ‘Quintar, stay with me!’

  He turned towards Chyko’s voice and there was an explosion, louder than the most violent workings of the Fire Houses. He fell. The ground shook for several seconds. As the disturbance subsided, Tarquin could hear nothing at first, though his heartbeat swelled his ears and throat. He began to crawl. The snow yielded to white stone, but he could only see a few feet in front of him, for the fog was thicker than ever, and laden with the smell of ash.