The Reaping Season

by Sarah Stirling

  “I can’t feel it anymore.”

  She raised her head, her vision of the man sliced up by iron bars. “Feel what?”

  “The rifts. The way the world felt.” He stared at his outstretched hands as if he had never seen them before. “Niks. She’s gone.”

  Shuffling forwards, she squinted to get a better look at him. He still wore his military coat, splattered with mud and dirt, ripped and torn and fraying at the seams. Several buttons were missing, threads lefts dangling. She had wondered, when she had returned to the temple and found him gone, what had become of the young soldier with such staggering power. How fitting, that they should meet again like this. Reduced to chains and bars as if they were criminals just by being.

  “How can she be gone? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. That woman, she… she severed the connection. I can’t…” He began to cough, a horrible dry sound that rattled through his entire frame. “I think I’m dying.”

  “How could she sever the connection between a contracted bond? That doesn’t make any sense.” The way her stomach swooped in fear surprised her. She had always thought the chance to break the bond would free her but something in her recoiled at the thought. To be without that connection to the rift would be akin to blinding herself; cutting her off from a whole other world. Guilt didn’t make the feeling go away. She had come to understand herself as both the human and the spirit both, unsure what reverting back would even look like.

  “How should I know?” said the man, head hanging.

  “It shouldn’t be possible. I mean, there’s accounts of it being done hundreds of years ago but there’s no way to verify the truth of it and I find it hard to believe that someone could just break a bond that goes into our very being when –”

  “Well, they did. I don’t know how but they did. What I do know –” he was interrupted by another cough “– is that my body can’t cope without the bond. I’m not who I was before and now...”

  She shook her head. “It can’t be gone completely. There must be a way to reach your partner again.” She bit her lip. If it was true, then he most certainly would die. To bond with a riftspawn was to change oneself entirely, to become a creature of both worlds at once. His body had been changed irrevocably. There was no way he could survive now without the bond. “Let me try something.”

  Closing her eyes, Rook felt for the strongest connection of them all – the chain that connected her to The Rook – and tugged just enough for a surge of power to vibrate down the line into her. With her enhanced senses she cast out, feeling for spiritual energy all around her. Flickers of life tingled against her consciousness – small riftspawn nearby – and the crashing, rolling waves of the rift. Concentrating on the man before her, she focused down on him, searching for some sign of spiritual energy, somewhere.

  Nothing. He could have almost fooled her for an ordinary person, untouched by the rift except for the strange, cold absence around him, like a raincloud hanging over his head, bloated with the promise of rain. Digging deeper revealed nothing further and that void of energy spooked The Rook, causing her to snap back into herself with a start. She tilted her head, raking her eyes over his hunched form and the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

  “I don’t feel anything. Or rather, it’s like I can feel the hole where she has been ripped from you.” Spirits did not have genders per se, but his assigning of one had caught on. “Who did this to you?”

  “She was one of the guardians of a rift east of here.”

  Rook sat up. The man flinched as she pressed her face to the bars. “You saw wardens? Riftkeepers? Where are they?”

  “In this city. They were the ones who took me here.”

  “No, no, they wouldn’t take you here. No, they must have been coming here to consult the Order… which means it has not been a long time since they disappeared. There is hope, then. They are not all gone. Perhaps if I get out I can catch these rift wardens and see if they know anything. But if they came here then clearly they don’t…” Her hands clawed at the bars, desperate to get out and find them. Find out what they knew. “I wonder how long they have guarded the rift. To stop you they must have been very powerful.”

  “Yes, thank you for that reminder.”

  She paused for breath, shooting him a sheepish smile. “Forgive me, but this is big news for me. I thought I would never find another Riftkeeper north of Rökkum. How many were there?”

  “Two. A man and a woman.”

  “Do you know where they were going?”

  “I was unconscious.”

  “Ah. But did they mention the Riftkeepers at all? Anything?”

  The man rubbed at his eyes. They were sunken, circles heavy beneath them. He looked like he might keel over at any second, slumped to the side as if the strength it took to hold himself upright was too much. A cough rumbled from his throat, building and building until he was folded over, gasping for breath. Each bark echoed through the stone and made her wince.

  “There must be something we can do,” she said softly. “I had so many books but they were taken from me when I was thrown in here.”

  “Books,” he scoffed, wiping blood from his lips. “You can not put life into the hands of books.”

  “Books are the key to knowledge. They hold truths from centuries past. How, as a civilisation, do we ever grow without passing knowledge on?”

  “Books lie. You would trust a nameless author you do not know? I could write anything down and you would simply believe it, would you?”

  Rook shook her head. The world had been opened up to her when old Grey had taught her how to read. In the mysterious squiggles and lines of texts she had discovered worlds beyond anything her imagination could conjure, accounts both real and fantastical to tease a restless young mind trapped within her mountain village home. It was not always about what was real or what was not; truth could be found even in the boldest of lies. For truth was a sentiment, a revelation of human nature exposed by a select choice of words. Historians liked to dispute over what had really happened, but for Rook there were lessons to be learned regardless, and in her mind that was enough.

  “Your riftspawn companion, why did it – she – why did she want the rifts opened? What did either of you possibly hope to achieve with it?”

  “We sought to change this world. It is a cruel place, full of suffering and inequality. Why should we live in a world of such fragility? Where human life can be snuffed out by so little? If you or I bend, we break. But it is not so in the other realm. Between them I believe we can shape the ideal world. One that can be moulded by even the least powerful of men. A world where we all can be equal.”

  She tilted her head as his softly spoken words washed over her, finger dragging through the dirt on the floor. Absent-mindedly, she traced the symbols from the tablet, still etched behind her eyelids whenever she closed them. “I appreciate the sentiment but I do not think it as simple as that. In our fragility, do we not strive for greatness? Without the ticking of the clock, would we ever feel the need to improve ourselves? Instead I think man would be more inclined to stagnate, if one never need worry about the end in clear view.”

  “You say greatness like you or I are not capable of such incredible things. Were capable of incredible things.” He sniffed, grimacing as blood trickled from his nose. “I could have been a god of this world.”

  “Would that please you? To have that kind of power.” She did not quite recognise the flatness in her tone.

  “No, I do not think you heard me right. I believe we should each be able to wield our own destiny. To shape our lives as we will them. As things stand we are ruled by men we do not know. Told that we must live by their rules. I do not accept that. All men should have the ability to decide their fate, should they not?”

  “Of course, but at what cost? Do you have any idea what you will do? About the lives that will be collateral to your plan?”

  “What if it is a necessary price to pay? Lives are already coll
ateral everyday to the games these powerful men like to play. Perhaps someone else should get to decide.”

  She sighed, smacking her forehead against the bars that separated them and relishing in the cool metal against her skin. There would be no convincing him, it seemed. In all honestly she did not know how she could convince him of something she was not entirely convinced of herself. A world that could be shaped by anyone… The idea of it made her heart tremble with possibility. In an ideal world it would be something to behold. Perhaps even the ideal world described by the likes of the great philosophers of centuries past. But in reality, when both good and bad had the power to change everything at will, she could not see it being a sustainable solution, as much as it pained her to admit it.

  “I think perhaps in time you will see. You already do, you just don’t want to think of yourself as ruthless enough to see it through.”

  “Oh?” she said wryly, “You know me that well, do you?”

  “Forgive me, Wei. I forget my manners.”

  She arched a brow at his sudden change in demeanour. He was an odd creature if ever she had seen one, at one minute bold and voracious, at others timid and cowering. She could not fathom him out and that made him interesting. A puzzle to be dissembled and examined until she understood the mechanism enough to put back together. Perhaps she was so keen to understand him because he reminded her so much of herself, as lost and aimless as she had been, easy prey for the talons of The Rook to sink into and bury deep. He did not recognise it yet but he would, in time. If he lived to see it.

  Silence reigned once more in the dingy cells below the ground, broken only by the sporadic coughs of her companion. As night fully descended, a creeping cold filled the air, making her shiver in the confines of her chains. It was a restless night of curling into a ball to try and keep as warm as possible, muscles cramping and flaring with spasms. She did not know what lay ahead, she could only hope that the others pulled through. Kilai had earned her faith, she would find a way to help her, and Rook could put up with anything if she knew there was a door at the end of the corridor. That there was always a way out.

  With a bitter night ahead, she squeezed her eyes shut so that stars burst before her eyelids. It was better than a night of seeing nothing but the men she had struck down in Korrikbai, of the boy she had once been friends with, felled by her blade. Of feeling like perhaps this really was her penance. But a lonely night was always an invitation for the darkest of her thoughts, on which she could not let herself dwell. Long past trained to sleep anywhere, she soon drifted off into a dreamless sleep, huddled upon the stone floor.

  It was hardly restful but it was rest and for the night that was enough.

  *

  It took two attempts before Janus found the particular venue he sought. There were many taverns across the city that saw the patronage of the soldiers, but most had their familiar haunts. Humans tended to be creatures of habit, he found, finding comfort in regular patterns the way he found comfort in a loaded revolver and the rolling of a cigarette between his fingers. This bar was one of the quieter establishments a fair walk from the centre of the city, moving towards one of the more industrial parts of town. Here the streets constricted, wedged together in a hodgepodge of different styles that gave the place a patchwork feel.

  Noisy sailors stumbled from pubs and taverns, shouting sea shanties into the night air and clinking together tankards of strong-smelling ale. Music spilled from the open doors, trilling fiddles and the soft whistle of a finger flute, a traditional wooden instrument native to the island. Squares of orange light carved up the sombre teal of an overcast night, spotted with pools of cyan from the street lights fitted into the corners of buildings. Janus liked this city as much as he liked anywhere; he could slip into the cracks easily enough as to not be noticed. Here it did not matter what you looked like, or how thick your accent was, or what secrets you were hiding, as long as you were willing to spend a yurel or two on gin and a good time.

  The particular tavern he found success in lay on the corner of a shipyard and a factory that made weaponry for the empire, the sign hanging lopsided and creaking in the light wind that was picking up from the ocean. Painted in rough characters, it could be read as either The Red Shipwreck or Sailor Overboard, beneath a hastily painted skull and crossbones. One of the windows had been taped up to cover the smashed glass. A common occurrence when brawls became too rowdy and alcohol loosened the tongue a little too much.

  Pushing inside, the heat hit him like a physical force after the cool air of outside. Noise rumbled up from the press of people around circular wooden tables, sitting on barrels where the chairs had run out, or lounging over the bar, surrounded by piles of empty glasses. The room stank of ale and sweat, lingering beneath the musty smell of smoke that blanketed the room in a hazy cloud. Barely an eye batted at the lone figure all in black as he entered, eyes scanning the room quickly. In one corner sat a man, tucked into the alcove by the window. Although not in uniform, his straight-backed posture revealed him for who he was. Janus stalked over.

  It took the man a few moments before he noticed the shadow cast upon his scowling face and when he looked up his scowl only deepened, brows furrowed together and eyes screwing into lines. “Hang you, Lakazar, can’t you see when a man wants to be alone?”

  Janus slid into the seat opposite him, the chair rocking on uneven legs. “Need your help.”

  The man shook his head. “Nuh uh. Screw you. You don’t get to show up like this and just ask for my help you inbred imbecile. Take your pasty undead ghoul face out of mine and leave me to my drink.”

  Janus snorted and leant back, fetching out his dwindling bag of tobacco and lighting up. In the flickering light of his match Ivor’s red beard glowed. His face was bruised and banged up, arm bound to his chest. A ring around one eye was swollen purple and black, blood crusted around his lip.

  “What happened?”

  “What happened? A man was just having a nice quiet drink when trouble walked in and started asking him for favours.” He took a long drink from his tankard and swiped at his mouth. “I already told you where they are so please, please, leave me alone. I’m not above begging you if I have to.”

  “Wish I could, friend. But I’m a bit desperate.”

  “Great. Good. I don’t care.” He snapped his fingers as one of the serving boys walked by and thunked his empty tankard onto his tray. “Another, please. Of your strongest ale.”

  “Make that two,” said Janus, handing him two yurel from his pocket.

  “I know you think you can ply me with drink and then I’ll do whatever you want but that’s not going to work.”

  “Okay,” he said, blowing out a stream of smoke.

  Ivor narrowed his eyes again, moving to lean back and then gritting his teeth as his good hand flew up to hold his injured arm. Rolling his neck, he pinched the bridge of his nose and hissed. When the boy returned with their drinks he took one look at the man, quickly placed down their drinks and then fled, leaving them with nothing but the cacophony of laughter and off-key singing around them. The ale was terrible but Ivor drank like a man dying of thirst, face flushing red as his head began to sway. Resting it on his hand, he burped and then fixed his glare on Janus, who was enjoying the momentary rest this waiting game afforded him. It would likely last for a while.

  “Oh, just spit it out, will you? What in the name of damnation do you want from me?”

  Voice raspy from the pleasant burn of smoke in his lungs, he said, “Mayor wants the two your men imprisoned set free.”

  Ivor stared flatly at him.

  “Money in it for you.”

  Ivor took a gulp of his drink and then swiped at his mouth.

  “Name your price.”

  “I don’t have one. The answer is, and always will be, no. No. I’m not doing it. They already hate me as it is. If they catch me trying to help you break criminals out of prison it’ll be my head that’s first on the chopping block. Would you really see that
happen to me, Janus? Are you that heartless?”

  “Just get me in the building. Not asking for much.”

  “Not asking for much?” Ivor’s voice rose high enough to draw attention from the next table over. “You spit in my face and piss in my drink with that gormless face of yours and then you say you’re not asking for much? How do you do that with such a straight face, huh? What’s your secret?”

  Janus sighed and turned to draw the attention of the serving boy, quietly asking for some gin instead. With enough drink in him he’d loosen up enough to talk, he just had to wait him out. The night was drawing to a close and Sandson had told him to be quick, but things generally took as long as they took. Rushing into the fray never won a general any battles, so he saw no point in getting sloppy due to pressure from the clock. In time Ivor would agree to help. He just had to coax it out of him.

  When the serving boy deposited more glasses onto the table, Ivor deepened his glare. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  He downed the first glass and then snatched the next one, hoarding it in his arms like an animal with its prey. “I hate you so much. Just so we’re clear.”

  “Glad that’s been established.”

  “What have they been charged with, exactly?”

  Janus scratched his head. He didn’t know what the official arrest would be for, although he knew they got into a fight with soldiers at the Order of the Riftkeepers. Where, he believed, Ivor had been injured. Not that he was going to mention that.

  “Tresspassing, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “There were a few charges.”

  Ivor threw his hands up. “Do you ever know how to not get into trouble? I really thought you were gone, you know. What a relief it was. I should have known you’d crawl back like the woodlouse you are. You just have to make a nuisance of yourself.”