by Matt Wallace
One of the others falls to the floor in front of the retainer. Frail and old, he claws at his own stomach in agony. He’s hardly the first to shit himself to death over the past week on this little jaunt, but that hasn’t made Taru any more indifferent.
As they lean forward to render aid, a deafening boom overhead drowns out the man’s screams. Taru flings themself against the wall of the hold as the deck above collapses under the weight of the ship’s mast, the massive, broken beam crashing through the ceiling of the hold and piercing all the way through the bottom of the ship.
Water rushes inside, flooding the hold in column-size jets.
The panic breaks loose whatever tenuous restraints were previously keeping it in check. Taru can no longer even see the man they were going to help, and now they watch as others jump right into the middle of the sudden tide pool, never to reemerge.
Standing atop the seat their tired rear was occupying only a moment ago, Taru looks across the rising water to the severed length of the mast protruding from the hole in the deck above.
Girding themself, Taru leans into the curved wall of the hull and bends their knees before leaping over the flooded hull and onto the body of the mast. It is as drenched as everything else, but Taru’s hands manage to grab hold of the rigging still wrapped around the mast. The retainer encircles the thick beam with their legs and begins shimmying up its length.
It takes long moments, countless splinters perforating their flesh, and several slips back down the mast before Taru emerges above deck. The panic reigns here, too. Wranglers and Skrain all scramble in futile attempts to both escape the nearly capsizing ship and to somehow save it.
Taru rolls from the broken mast onto the deck just as the entire vessel slumps forward, tilting awkwardly in the water, which rushes up to swallow the bow.
The rain is like frozen bits of glass, the wind feels as though it will rip the flesh from their bones, and the thunder seems to be inside their head. Somehow Taru manages to find their feet atop the slick, uneven surface of the ship’s deck. Squinting through the darkness, they stumble forward, peering around in hopes of finding a rowboat still tethered to the galleon.
A hard surface collides with the side of Taru’s face, clipping their jaw and knocking them momentarily senseless. They are dropped to the broken, slanted deck. Taru finds themself sliding down the sudden incline several feet before grasping the slots in the deck, halting their momentum.
Taru turns their bloody cheek toward the cutting sheets of rain slicing the deck.
For the first and only time, Erazo looms tall above the retainer, clutching the handle of his wooden bludgeon in one hand and grinding its rounded end against the soaked palm of his other hand.
He grins malevolently.
“I guess dying in battle has been taken off the table!” the sadistic wrangler shouts down at them over the gales.
He raises the bludgeon and brings it down toward Taru’s skull, only for the retainer to reach up and snatch his wrist in mid-flight, blocking the blow.
“Not yet!” Taru shouts back.
They ram their opposite fist up into the wrangler’s groin, lifting Erazo half a foot from the deck. His plump body seizes around Taru’s arm, his shriek rising above the sound of the thunder and lightning crashing around the vessel.
Taru unclenches their fist and grips the wrangler’s trousers, tightly clutching the wet material. Their other hand reaches for the scruff of his neck, grasping him like an errant puppy.
Standing with a prolonged and primal scream, the retainer hoists the man’s entire body above their head, holding him suspended there as Taru carefully balances their feet on the wet, uneven deck.
Erazo squeaks some words of protest, or perhaps pleading, but the retainer cannot hear them above the cries of the storm.
Bending their knees and elbows, Taru pitches forward and slams the wrangler’s body down upon a piece of the ship’s felled yardarm, breaking his back and silencing him forever.
Gasping for breath after the brief scuffle and massive feat of strength, Taru doubles over, clutching their knees and spitting rainwater at what’s left of the deck below.
Half the Skrain vessel is submerged now, and the bubbling maelstrom of water surrounding the ship is quickly consuming the rest. Taru forces themself to stand, and begins making their way to the stern, scouring the portion of the ship still above water for something to use as a makeshift raft.
There is nothing, however. Taru is alone on the rapidly descending end of a sinking ship in the middle of an angry sea.
Lightning flashes close enough for Taru to feel the hairs on their arms rise through the dampness of their skin. A brief yet invigorating charge jolts through their body. It is then they decide not to die here, sucked up by the gurgling mouth of the whirlpool directly below them.
Drawing in the most expansive lungful of air they can manage, Taru leaps over the side of the doomed craft, plunging headlong into the chaotic waters.
THE CHALLENGE
DYEAWAN LIES AMONG THE SCALE model buildings of the Capitol, her thin body filling the main thoroughfare that stretches in front of the Spectrum. Her small hands, the inside of each palm crisscrossed with thin white scars from years of dragging the rest of her along the alleys of the Bottoms, are folded atop the woolen gray tunic material covering her abdomen.
Riko is lying in the intersecting street, her heels propped up on a miniature sky carriage tower, her right hand cradling the back of her head.
The two girls’ heads are practically touching. They both stare wistfully at the domed ceiling of the map room. The stone is painted to appear as the clouded sky, complete with a sun rendered in gold dust that catches the light from the windows of the room and actually shines.
“I missed this,” Riko says quietly. “Lying here, looking up at that gold sun. I used to do it a lot before you made me all fancy and important.”
“I didn’t ‘make’ you anything,” Dyeawan gently insists. “I just asked for your help.”
“I don’t feel all that helpful so far.”
“We are just beginning,” Dyeawan replies.
Riko neither agrees nor disagrees with her.
“Do you mind me doing it with you?” Dyeawan asks a moment later.
“What?”
“This.”
Riko shakes her head, smiling. “It’s better with company.”
It warms Dyeawan to hear that. Riko allows her head to tilt to one side, leaning her temple against that of her friend.
Dyeawan reaches up and idly rubs the ends of Riko’s short hair between her fingertips. She’s dyed just the straight-cut tips blue to match her gray planner’s tunic, and Dyeawan studies the icy shade with fascination.
“So what is it you really want to do with the planners?” Riko asks her in earnest. “And how can I help? Besides backing you to the other planners, yeah?”
Dyeawan thinks carefully about her answer, letting the silken strands of hair slip from her fingers.
“I want us to do what Crache has always promised to do for its people. All of its people. And we are going to begin with the Capitol, with the Bottoms. Everyone there should have the same kind of comfort and safety the rest of the city enjoys.”
“I never really thought about the people there much before you came to the Cadre,” Riko admits. “It’s easy not to think about them here, removed from everyone and everything. They teach us to think of all the cities as problems to be solved, instead of places where people, real people, live and… die.”
“I understand,” Dyeawan assures her friend, and she means it. “I don’t blame you for anything.”
Riko barely seems to hear her. The brilliant young girl is lost in her own thoughts.
“I feel like it has to start with purpose, yeah?” she says.
“What’s that? What starts with purpose?”
“The people in the Bottoms having what you said, what everyone else in the Capitol has. The Gens live comfortably because they
all serve a purpose. People in the Bottoms aren’t given the opportunity to have the same.”
“How do we give them the opportunity to serve their purpose?”
Riko is obviously thinking intensely about the problem now.
Before she can offer up her solution, Mister Quan glides into the map room, halting before the table and dutifully waiting.
Dyeawan leans her chin forward to peer at him, thankful his stature rises above the skyline of the miniature city.
“Is it time, Mister Quan?”
He bows his head in the affirmative.
Riko sighs. “These planner meetings aren’t nearly as fun as I thought they’d be. I imagined we’d talk more about inventing and less about administering ourselves.”
“You cannot design a bureaucracy without becoming one, it seems.”
Riko grins as she sits up in the model street. “You know, I kind of miss the way you used to talk,” she says.
Dyeawan looks at her curiously. “Ignorant?”
“You were never ignorant,” Riko says.
“Then what is it you miss?”
“I don’t know. You sounded so much more… innocent, yeah?”
Dyeawan falls silent, contemplating that word.
Riko frowns. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right. I’m not innocent anymore. I can’t afford to be.”
“I talk too much.”
Dyeawan stares hard at her. “Don’t ever stop making yourself heard, Riko.”
That seems to make her friend feel better, even emboldened.
Riko leaps to her feet, quickly and gingerly darting among the building models and sculpted city features without trampling so much as a streetlight or noodle stand. She hops down from the living map gracefully beside Mister Quan.
Dyeawan sits up. Her tender is waiting at the edge of the lake-size table. She presses the flat of her palms against the table and begins scooting her body along the flawless copy of the city street.
Riko waits, silently and patiently. She has learned not to ask Dyeawan if she wants help, trusting her friend to ask for it as needed.
Mister Quan, likewise, defers to Dyeawan in all matters. He bows respectfully as she reaches the end of the street, and the table.
Dyeawan carefully lifts her legs over the edge of the map table and folds them before lowering herself down onto the platform of her tender.
“Would you like a ride?” she asks Riko with a grin.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Riko hops up onto the platform behind Dyeawan, gently resting her hands on her friend’s shoulders.
Dyeawan runs her hands over the paddles that look like the armrests of a chair. This is no chair, however. The paddles are connected to the tracks of wheels beneath the tender’s platform, controlling the tracks through a system of cords and chains and smaller steel wheels edged with teeth. When Dyeawan presses down against the paddles, they dip forward and roll back in a circle, turning the wheels and moving the tender forward effortlessly.
She guides the tender out of the map room, Riko giggling behind her. Dyeawan revels quietly in the girl’s unbridled joy, drawing comfort and strength from it. Surrounded by so much danger, so many lies and machinations, and weighted down by such sudden responsibility, Riko’s friendship is fast becoming Dyeawan’s sole source of relief.
The tender practically sails through the corridors of the Planning Cadre as if its wheels were on rails. The corridors wind endlessly, gradually inclining like one great, spiraling ramp that ensnares each level of the magnificent, secluded structure. Everything in the Cadre is a concentric circle, it seems, all of them leading to one central point.
That point for Dyeawan and Riko is the meeting room of the planners, the architects and custodians of Crache.
The others are already assembled around their new table as they enter the space. Their silence is as heavy and oppressive as the uniform stares they immediately direct at Dyeawan.
Dyeawan pulls the brake installed in her tender by Tahei the builder, bringing its tracks to a halt.
“This is sooner than I expected,” she observes with steely calm.
Riko climbs from the back of the tender, staring from face to face with confusion and increasing alarm. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“I know Edger taught you quite a lot,” Nia addresses Dyeawan, ignoring both Riko and her question. “One of those lessons should have been that being smart isn’t enough.”
“No, it’s not,” Dyeawan says. “You need opportunity.”
“You’ve had yours,” Trowel interjects. “I’m sorry to say we remain unconvinced.”
Dyeawan cocks her head. “All of you?”
She studies the faces of the younger planners, the ones who seemed so hopeful as Dyeawan addressed them all in her first session as their new leader. Those same faces now look defeated and resolute. She knows in that moment she underestimated Nia’s sway over the planners as a whole. Dyeawan expected more resistance, and thus more time to maneuver and galvanize her position and enact her plans.
Before he died, Edger said he wanted Dyeawan to succeed him. She took for granted that he’d taught her everything she needed to know to do that. Dyeawan had no illusions there was much knowledge Edger had taken to the grave with him, but she assumed those were largely matters of protocol and procedure and state secrets, all of which she could glean from her new position.
Nia is clearly a thing he did not have time to tell her about nor prepare her to face. Edger no doubt had a plan to transition Dyeawan over time.
She cut that time short when she killed him.
“So what happens now?” Dyeawan asks, genuinely curious. “Do I return to carrying messages and sweeping floors?”
Nia shakes her head resolutely. “You are Edger’s chosen. He had that right. As I have the right to challenge you for stewardship of this collective.”
“And how will that be decided? By a vote?”
“It is called the Trinity,” Trowel haughtily informs Dyeawan.
“A contest?” It is more conclusion than question.
Nia smiles, as if she’s pleased with Dyeawan’s quickness. “Yes. You and I will compete against one another in three tests.”
“What kind of tests?” Riko demands.
Nia remains as calm as her future opponent. “One of the body, one of the mind, and one of the will. The best two victories claim the contest.”
Dyeawan furrows her brow. She recalls the last time she took on one of the planners’ “tests” and very nearly drowned.
“What are these tests?” Dyeawan asks.
“Chance decides on the test for each, from a field of several options,” Nia answers simply. “It’s quite fair and balanced for both parties, I assure you.”
She’s telling the truth. That much is clear to Dyeawan. It is also clear Nia believes without a single doubt that she will triumph in this Trinity of theirs.
That confidence is what gives Dyeawan pause.
“You can, of course, choose not to accept my challenge and simply step aside. There will be no shame. You will be allowed to remain a planner, out of respect for Edger. Your friend will, of course, return to her former duties.”
Riko’s expression darkens. “I wish I still had my tool belt,” she whispers to Dyeawan. “I’d have so many things to throw at her right now.”
Dyeawan reaches out and takes Riko’s hand, gently and briefly squeezing it. She never takes her eyes off of Nia.
“I accept,” she says. “This is a foolish waste of our time, if you do not mind me saying so. But if you are all intent upon this course of action, then so be it.”
Nia ignores Dyeawan’s assertion, seeming to hear only her answer to the challenge.
“We will table all planning sessions until this matter is decided,” Trowel proclaims.
Dyeawan nods, tightly.
“A perfect time for it,” she says, dryly.
“What with the violent uprisi
ng and all,” Riko adds.
“Oh, it won’t take long,” Nia assures them both. “Particularly if there is no need to hold the third contest.”
Riko looks down at Dyeawan with a crooked grin. “It will be more efficient if you beat her in two, yeah?”
Hearing that, Nia smiles.
Dyeawan, on the other hand, doesn’t find humor in any of this. She stares back at Nia stonily, continuing to study the older woman, more specifically her confident demeanor. Dyeawan considers the way Nia has looked at and talked to and regarded her since Dyeawan became aware of the other planner. Nia hasn’t been dismissive, or even particularly condescending, but neither has she displayed any concern about butting heads with Dyeawan, as if Dyeawan is an obstacle rather than a threat.
That’s when she realizes Nia is confident because she thinks she has challenged Edger’s pet to compete against her, and not Edger’s murderer.
If she does not know what I am capable of, Dyeawan thinks, her expression betraying nothing, she does not know how to defeat me.
PART TWO SHARP EDGES
FALLEN KINGDOM
THERE IS A SMALL PIECE of someone’s scalp stuck to the head of the blacksmith’s hammer, and Evie can’t seem to put it out of her mind.
Kellan, for that is the man’s name, rests his scarred and sizeable fists against his hips as he addresses her war council. The handle of the hammer is stuck through the belt cinched around his char-marked apron.
The sight of the hammerhead’s stain is not such a gory one. It is little more than a few specks of crusted blood and a shriveled bit of skin.
What distracts Evie so is a single, distinctly red strand of hair seeded in that small, petrified shred of flesh. She finds herself wondering about the owner of that ginger thread, and what has become of them since the blow that removed it was struck. Are they some freckled-faced Skrain recruit, or a grizzled old Aegin with as many white hairs as red? Did they die in the street from that wound? Are they currently stuffed in a hole with the other survivors of the Tenth City revolt lamenting the chunk of their scalp that has been peeled back by the obviously powerful blacksmith?