The Company of Glass

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘Go back,’ said Tarquin to all of them. As they stood there together, Istar saw many things in their faces, which she would ponder for years to come. Their faces were not like any men she had ever seen. Their eyes were as old and as innocent as animals’ eyes. One or two continued to pick off stray Pharicians with their arrows as if for sport.

  ‘Move!’ Tarquin suddenly roared, apoplectic. Chyko mounted and motioned to the others. The Company began to stir, fierce and hard as diamonds, their skins mingling dark and pale, throbbing with what seemed a collective heartbeat. Chyko at their head whirled his right arm in a signal and they all spurred their horses after him, towards the causeway back to Jai Pendu.

  ‘No,’ Istar murmured. ‘Don’t let them go.’ She didn’t care whom they killed or what they did. She knew Tarquin could control them if he wanted to, but instead he had sent them away. And now he was going after them on the murderous horse, still holding the Glass. They pounded over the causeway. Istar began running after the Company, but she kept colliding with dazed Clansmen. The wounded with their endless crying distracted her. Then she almost fell across Lerien, who was huddled on the ground, gushing blood. He had ripped the arrow out of his own eye and now sat, jamming his fist into the socket and gnashing his teeth. Istar paused, wondering what, if anything, she could do.

  ‘Xiriel!’ she screamed, looking around in distress. She couldn’t see him or Pallo. She knelt by Lerien’s side.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re friend or foe,’ Lerien gasped. ‘Just don’t let them all die.’

  ‘It’s over,’ Istar said, and turned her head longingly after the retreating riders. The scene was a complicated, accidental dance of men and horses as the commanders tried to stop the fighting and round up their bemused and exhausted men. The Company was passing over the causeway and into Jai Pendu.

  With the last of her strength, Istar picked herself up and ran out on to the causeway. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone following her, but she paid attention only to the vision of Jai Pendu. The tide was coming in. The sun was going down. Her father had recognized her – or would have recognized her if only Tarquin had not been in the way. Bloody damned Tarquin. Istar ran out as far as she could, but the waves were rising fast. She halted. The Company were ranged at the top of the causeway, looking back towards land.

  ‘Chyko …’ Istar bit her fist.

  The light was low. Tarquin’s white horse was standing on the far side of the causeway, facing Jai Pendu. A lone figure stood opposing the horse, white-robed, diminutive beside the stallion. It held out a hand to Tarquin and he dismounted.

  Oh, no, Istar thought. Whatever she felt about him, she did not want to see Tarquin caught by the Sekk again. Yet she was sure he intended to follow his Company out of the world.

  ‘Tarquin, don’t!’ she screamed – but she knew he couldn’t hear her over the roar of the surf.

  The waves drew back. Istar saw Tarquin throw the Glass on the causeway. Then, raising his sword in both hands over his head like an executioner, he brought it down. The Glass shattered and the pieces fell in the sea. The Sekk could do nothing. It was Night’s turn to stand motionless, impotent.

  ‘You are as Free as I am now,’ Tarquin cried up to his men. But already the Company were being swept away with the floating city. The sun was going down and the moon was coming up, and through the transparency of Jai Pendu, two lights at once shone on the spiral path around the red crystal flower. The riders began to ascend and disappear, one by one and in twos and threes, into the damaged facets of the crystal where it intersected the path.

  A huge wave was approaching. The causeway was swept underwater; Tarquin and the Sekk vanished in white and grey water. Istar was swept back towards the last island and found her feet, standing up to her waist now in the ebb between waves. She strained her eyes after the Company. She saw the white horse leap off the edge of Jai Pendu and into the waves, but the Company were gone within Jai Pendu as it withdrew from the world.

  The next wave knocked her down. Her mouth filled with water and the tide began to pull her away from the submerged causeway. Her head came up, but too late she realized she didn’t have the strength to swim weighed down against the tide. She had been running on pure will for some time; now there was nothing left that she could do, except survive – and for that, she had not an ounce of motivation left in her entire body.

  She heard her name among the shouts from the landward side of the causeway, but her eyes were blurred with saltwater and she couldn’t easily see over the waves, anyway.

  A black-braided head came up a few yards away. A figure began pulling towards her. His face came out of the water, and she recognized Pentar. She was coughing and gasping and angry – for she now realized that he had been shadowing her since she had crossed the causeway carrying the Company of Glass. But when his arm fastened across her shoulders and he began dragging her towards shore, she dug her fingers into it and hung on for all she was worth. Pallo helped drag them both out of the water as the waves mounted higher. Pentar half carried her into the tunnel that led back under the Floating Lands, while others ran alongside encouraging them. Istar hung on to Pentar without really understanding what was going on. When they got to a safe point, he stopped to catch his breath. In the confusion that followed the final breaking of the spell, Clansmen and Pharicians alike were dashing to and fro.

  Pentar was exultant. ‘Was I glad to see you in that mob! I couldn’t stand it if I had lost you after we made it so far.’

  She pushed herself away from him, staggering against the wall of the passage. The realization had taken some time to hit.

  ‘You’re not dead!’ The words came out a whisper.

  Pentar gave a huge smile. ‘We hid in the equipment and fell in with the army. There were other Clan soldiers, and the Pharicians were not much better than Slaves for their wit, anyway, so no one really noticed. Then later, of course, we had to cut our way out—’

  But she wasn’t listening.

  ‘Kassien!’ Her voice cracked on the shriek, just as the familiar figure elbowed his way down the crowded passage, minus his bearskin cloak. He smiled at her and waved, and she pushed towards him, no longer tired.

  ‘I-I-I saw your cloak,’ she stammered. ‘You were chopped to pieces.’

  ‘A Pharician ripped the cloak off me in the stampede. I chopped him to bits, Star – get your facts straight.’ He grinned. ‘Didn’t really want to wear the cloak after that – would you?’

  She threw her arms around him, tears streaming down her face.

  Pentar’s face fell.

  ‘It’s a cruel world,’ Pallo remarked, slapping the Seahawk on the back.

  Exiles

  Xiriel was feeling just fine when the sun came up. He had been traipsing back and forth across the Floating Lands freely, for all the bridges had been extended by Night. It gave Xiriel enormous satisfaction to move easily over terrain that had tied his brain in such knots only the day before. But he was perplexed by the idea that the Sekk had brought a whole army through these islands, when he with all his Knowledge had barely brought four others with him. Whatever it was that Night had known, Xiriel was determined to find out for himself. There was much to learn here; he wished he were at liberty to explore it all.

  Jai Pendu had gone in the night, leaving great chaos in its wake. The battle between Pharice and the Clans had been quieted, and each side attended to its wounded while trying to leave the other alone. The leaders of the Pharician army were being briefed by Lerien’s men, who had so far managed to maintain an uneasy truce with their neighbours. Pharician horsemen were sent off to Jundun with messages while the majority of the army remained scattered across the Floating Lands.

  Lerien had been given a powerful Pharician drug, and he was virtually unconscious. Stavel and Taro were acting for him, but they stepped back half a pace when Xiriel approached them to offer his services. Everyone reacted differently to Xiriel now that he was a Snake, even strangers like these
two. He was not able to perceive the aura of danger that still clung to him in the wake of the fight with the constrictor; he couldn’t even remember the details of that fight, except that he was pretty sure he had lost and had been devoured. As a result, he approached the very fact of being alive with a kind of disbelief, which only added to the unconscious mystique of his new persona.

  He showed Taro the flawed, half-formed Eye that he had found in the Sekk cave and explained how it had been useful in revealing certain things that were hidden in the Floating Lands.

  ‘If we have no other Eye, this might be our best chance at getting a message to Mhani,’ he said. It seemed to him that this was the most urgent of their tasks, for Lerien had had no contact with Jai Khalar for many weeks.

  The half-formed Eye did work, but when they found Jai Khalar through it, Mhani was not there, and the Seer who was minding the Eye Tower looked nervous and uncomfortable at the summons. He stammered and the link wavered several times before a new correspondent addressed them. A dark, feral face gazed back at them, rendered slightly convex by the globe. It reacted like a wild creature, jerking back in sudden fright. Soren murmured something. Tentatively the man crept back into the radius of the Eye. He scrutinized them, and when he recognized Stavel, fear changed to comprehension, and then to satisfaction.

  ‘Ah, my subjects!’ Tash gloated. ‘Greetings from Jai Khalar. You have been annexed. Welcome to the Pharician Empire.’

  It was all that the de facto leaders could do to move their men off the Floating Lands and on to the sea plateau, where they established a base of operations separate from the barely tolerant Pharicians nearby. Except for the ongoing recovery of the dead, the Floating Lands were abandoned.

  Istar was sitting on the ruins of one of the emptier islands, picking dried blood out from beneath her nails and humming Chyko’s battle song when Kassien brought her the news from the mainland. He had lost weight and his cheekbones stood out sharply, but his eyes on her were soft.

  She could scarcely breathe. ‘What about Mhani?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lerien demanded to speak to her, but the Pharicians say they don’t know who she is, and Soren just looks scared. It could mean she escaped. It could mean anything.’

  ‘It could mean they killed her.’ Istar focused her eyes on the heel of her own boot where it rested on the crumbling stone. She could hear seagulls, and the smell of woodsmoke reached her, mixed with salt air. When she glanced up, Pentar caught her eye. He was standing twenty yards away, which was the distance Istar had thrown his gear and told him to stay away from her, the first night after Jai Pendu had gone. Even so, she was sure he’d overheard. Any impulse to cry that she might have had was quashed by the sight of the pity on his face, and replaced with angry determination.

  Kassien was trying to reassure her.

  ‘This warlord Tash – I don’t think he’s a liar. He’s not the type to deny having killed somebody. I think if he wanted Mhani dead, he would have cut off her head and displayed it. Remember, your mother would be valuable to him. He doesn’t understand the Water of Glass, and she does. No, I think she escaped. Maybe Hanji’s got her stowed away in a wine cellar somewhere.’

  ‘And they’re both getting really drunk right now,’ Istar added, laughing and sniffling at the same time. She wiped her eyes. ‘I hope so, Kass.’

  ‘Come on, Istar. Get off your hindbones and come with me to talk to Lerien. What are you doing out here on the Floating Lands, anyway? Don’t you know they’re dangerous and impassable?’

  ‘I had heard that, yeah …’

  The bad news spread quickly through the Clan camp. The Clans reacted as they had done since time immemorial: they began to argue and accuse each other. Kassien and Istar broke up a few scuffles on their way to Lerien’s fire. Istar was surprised at the respect tendered her. As an Honorary, she was used to being regarded as a nuisance. When she remarked on this to Kassien, he laughed.

  ‘We’re heroes, did you know?’

  ‘It’s Pallo who Froze the Sekk so we could get the Glass,’ Istar said, rising. ‘Where’s he got to?’

  ‘Still asleep,’ Kassien answered. ‘He wakes only at the smell of food.’

  ‘Some things never change.’ She raised her voice, calling over her shoulder. ‘Come on, Pentar. Hurry up.’

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ Kassien told Lerien’s men. ‘These Pharicians don’t know of Tash’s actions, and they probably don’t even know that Hezene has declared war on us. We must win them over to our side quickly, or we will find ourselves racing against them to reach Jai Khalar.’

  ‘How can we go back to Jai Khalar?’ Taro asked, incredulous. ‘Tash holds it.’

  Kassien’s denial was loud and clear, and it brought several within earshot to their feet. ‘Tash doesn’t scare us! We have saved our people from an enemy that would shrink Tash’s balls to walnuts if he knew it. Let him enjoy possessing Jai Khalar – see how he feels after a few weeks of losing his men and his own bed. Anyway, he cannot hold the whole valley without support from Hezene, who will have every reason to reassert his friendship with us once he realizes it is our efforts that have kept his Ristale guard from being swallowed by the Sekk.’

  Stavel laughed. ‘How refreshing is the idealism of youth. Kassien, you do not understand politics if you think Hezene will thank you for any of this. If we want to take Everien back, we are going to have to do it ourselves.’

  ‘Then we will,’ Istar stated, animated by conviction. ‘We have to.’

  ‘This is no time to back down,’ Pentar added quietly from behind her.

  ‘We have little choice but to back down,’ said Urutar, one of the commanders who had been Enslaved. ‘That doesn’t mean we have to give up. We know our own land well. The Pharicians do not. We should return to the hills as quickly as possible and fight them from the heights, just as the Sekk have always fought us.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Stavel. ‘Why should we spend ourselves trying to recapture Jai Khalar? Let them wear themselves out trying to hold it. We can go back to old-style campaigning.’

  ‘And what of Lerien?’ Ketar asked. ‘He is gravely ill.’

  ‘He is still the king,’ Taro said.

  ‘We shall see,’ murmured Kassien. ‘If you will not stand against Tash, then we should leave this place at once. The Pharicians have lost many men to the Company of Glass. They will be looking for someone to take it out on.’

  ‘Where will we go?’

  Istar said, ‘We will return to our land – but as Urutar said, we must do so in secret. There will be a way to win back Everien, but until that way is found, we will be exiles in our own country.’

  Kassien grunted his approval. For once he agreed with her.

  Two Months Later

  Summer was almost over, and there was a noise of singing in the house of the youngest blacksmith of the Deer Clan at A-bo-Khalar. Two voices tried unsuccessfully to blend: one young and sweet, the other quavering, sometimes dropping the beat or going flat, uncertain. The blacksmith’s wife paused in her scrubbing and called, ‘Enzi, I had better not find out you were pestering your auntie when you are supposed to be washing carrots.’

  A brown head popped around the corner of the kitchen door, flashed a mischievous smile, and retreated, leaving a trail of giggles.

  ‘I think she is better today,’ the child’s voice rang, echoing down the hall. ‘She keeps asking to go to the Fire Houses.’

  ‘Yes, and I keep asking to go to the Harvest Ball, but does it happen?’ muttered the blacksmith’s wife, and wiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. ‘Come in here, Enzi! You will wear her out with your endless questions. Children are so exhausting. I don’t know why I have you.’

  ‘Auntie Mhani says that children are the ultimate aggravation. I think when I am grown I shall keep goats.’ Enzi wandered into the kitchen, trailing a finger along the white wall and leaving a grey stain behind. ‘I’m going to help you now.’

  ‘Are you? Good.’
>
  Enzi picked up a generous handful of carrots and dunked them in water.

  ‘Auntie Mhani says that having daughters is better than having sons,’ she confided, ‘because you can talk to the daughters and they listen to you, and they don’t ride off like the sons do and maybe get killed like their fathers – or worse.’

  ‘Auntie Mhani says many things. You must not take her too seriously.’

  ‘What did she mean by “worse”? What could be worse than getting killed? Does she mean the Slaving?’

  ‘Perhaps. Or she might be talking about Jai Pendu. But she is not in her right mind, Enzi. Don’t let her talk to you of terrors. You will have nightmares.’

  ‘But I feel sorry for her,’ Enzi said. ‘She has no man, and her own children belong to a different Clan, and one of them never returned from the battle of Jai Pendu. I think she is lonely, Mother. That’s why I keep her company – not to pester her.’

  The blacksmith’s wife smiled at her youngest child, who had turned large, sensitive eyes on her. ‘Of course you mean well, Enzi. Just don’t wear her out. She is ill, remember.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But she is a great lady, and maybe one day she will get better.’

  ‘It is possible.’ She didn’t add, but I doubt it.

  The child picked up the tune again, humming as she rinsed carrots and pulled off the tops. Only a few minutes had passed when there was a rattle of hooves on the paving stones outside. Enzi’s head suddenly came up. ‘A horse!’ she cried, and dropped the carrots in the sink. ‘Got to go! Sorry, Mother.’

  ‘Get back here, Enzi! It might be a Pharician.’

  But Enzi was too quick for her, darting out of the kitchen and into the passageway that led to the street. Standing in the kitchen doorway, she drew breath to call her daughter back when Bazi, her son, came down the alley and calmly said, ‘It’s not a Pharician, Mother. Or a murderer! Enzi is all right.’

  ‘Any excuse to avoid the kitchen,’ grumbled Enzi’s mother, flapping her apron to cover her fear. The Pharicians had not yet made any drastic changes since they had taken over at Jai Khalar, but when you lived in the village that owned the Fire Houses, you had to expect that there would be trouble sooner or later.