by JA Andrews
Sora leaned against the bookshelf and sized Will up. “I don’t know…”
Will thought for just a moment about the wayfarer’s wagon, trundling east toward the Scales, slipping farther away, the cord between them growing thread-thin.
But he was still surrounded by a room of Roven in the middle of a city of more Roven.
He’d just have to hope that Borto was slow and his yellow wagon was memorable enough that it would be easy to track.
With a nod, he let the idea of Borto go. “What sort of story would you like to hear tonight?”
“Something we haven’t heard before. I’m sick of Roven tales with clans massacring each other. Tell me something from a foreign land. Something brave and dangerous and clever.”
“The tales from Gulfind are generally clever, if you like tales that revolve around gold. I also have some from Coastal Baylon. Those people are a bit strange and their gods are so…mystifying they end up with curious stories.”
“Do you know anything from Queensland?”
The room stilled and Will felt eyes on him. He turned back to the Torch, trying to keep his face nonchalant.
“A few.”
“What are they like?” Killien’s face stayed friendly, but his eyes were sharp.
“Queensland stories have a certain feel to them. A sort of brightness.”
The Torch’s eyes narrowed so slightly Will thought he might have imagined it. He did not imagine how much Sora’s narrowed.
“Or maybe naivety,” Will added. “They really love their heroes.”
The Torch looked at Will calculatingly. “I’d like to hear some tales from our enemies. I’d imagine in Queensland the Roven always play the villain.”
Out of the hundreds of tales Will knew, he couldn’t think of a single story that didn’t portray the Roven as the enemy. “The stories I know well”—Or the stories he’d decided he officially knew while he was on the Sweep—“don’t mention the Roven at all. But others there are no more flattering to you than your stories are to them.”
Killien grinned. “Everyone from Queensland is a villain.”
Will forced a smile at that. “As for stories I know best, one is about a young man who is captured by a dragon, and the other is about one of their Keepers.”
“Which one?” Killien’s voice was sharp and something tightened in Will’s gut.
“Chesavia,” Will answered. He should have picked something less Queenslandish. Some general adventure story instead of something about magic and Keepers.
“Didn’t she die fighting some sort of demon?”
“A water demon.” Will’s estimation of the Torch rose again. “I’m impressed. I haven’t met anyone on the Sweep who knows tales from Queensland.”
“I don’t know many, but I do know who the Keepers are.” Killien’s smile held nothing pleasant. He nodded toward the baskets. “I have several books that mention them.”
He studied Will. “Tonight, tell us a story from Queensland. It will be fascinating to learn what my enemy thinks is entertaining.”
Will nodded. It would be.
Chapter Eight
“Sora,” Killien said, “show Will to his room.”
Sora’s gaze never faltered from Will’s face. “The storyman has managed to travel all the way from—where was it? Gulfind? I think he can find his way upstairs.” Without a glance at the Torch, she strode out the door.
Will watched it close before letting his gaze flick back to Killien, expecting anger at Sora’s defiance. Instead, Killien looked at the door with a rueful expression.
“I think Sora likes you, storyman.” The huge man who’d been sitting with Killien rose.
Laughter rippled through the room and Will glanced around. These people weren’t like any Roven he’d ever met. His fear had almost completely dissolved, replaced by a reluctant curiosity. “I’d hate to see how she treats someone she didn’t like.”
“Don’t mind Sora,” Killien said. “She doesn’t like anyone. But the woman can stalk a white fox in a snowstorm, so we tolerate her attitude.”
“I’m Hal.” The huge man stepped closer, rising to a full head taller than Will. Everything from his vest to his linen pants to the thick beads in his beard spoke of wealth, but his expression was good-humored. “Do you know any stories about dwarves?”
A spattering of groans greeted his question.
Hal extended his hand and Will grasped it, his fingers barely reaching around the huge man’s wrist. “Because you’re part dwarf?”
Hal grinned widely. He was dressed much like Killien, runes lining the edges of a wide leather vest, several silver rings spread out across his fingers.
“I know a few dwarf tales,” Will said.
“Hal is obsessed with dwarves,” Killien said. “No one understands why.”
“I do,” Will said. “They’re strong, they’re vicious warriors, they’re funny, and did you know they can”—he paused trying to think of the word— “sense rocks? When I was in Duncave, a dwarf gave me a tour of an unused tunnel system and he followed a thin vein of quartz along three different tunnels without ever shining his light on the wall. They say that when there’s a different sort of rock, they can taste the difference in the air.”
Hal’s mouth hung open. “You’ve been to Duncave?”
“Had an audience with the High Dwarf.” Which sounded more formal than whatever had happened. “But it turns out King Horgoth isn’t fond of foreigners. He offered me an armed escort on my way out.”
“Thank the black queen,” Hal breathed, “a real storyman!”
“But he doesn’t have to tell the entire story right now,” Killien broke in, looking around the room. “Because you all have work to do. It’s light enough to get these baskets packed.”
Unlike Sora, all of the other Roven obeyed Killien without hesitation.
“I want to hear about Duncave,” Hal said.
“After the herds are sorted,” Killien said, irritated.
Hal paused on his way to the door. “I’m glad you’re here, storyman.”
“As am I,” Killien said. “I didn’t expect someone as…well-traveled as you.”
Will shrugged. “You don’t learn new stories by sitting at home.”
“You do if a storyman comes to visit. Come, I’ll show you your room.” Killien led Will out of the back of the room.
“You’re not exactly what I was expecting in a Torch, either.” Will followed Killien to the dark wood stairs. The amount of wood in the house was astonishing. Will slid his hand up the smooth banister as they walked. It was refreshingly solid and unclaylike.
“What did you expect?” Killien asked without turning.
A bloodthirsty villain didn’t seem like the best answer.
“I’ve visited three other clans,” Will said. “Admittedly I never met their Torches in person, but the Odo Torch had a decidedly unwelcoming way about him, the Sunn Torch only came out to lead slaves to the dragon’s cave, rarely gracing anyone with his attention. And the Boan Torch…” Will paused.
“Was a pompous lump of dead weight?” Killien offered over his shoulder.
Will laughed. “I only saw him from a distance during a parade, but…that is a good description. The Boan with their huge army, and the Sunn Clan with their dragon and their stonesteeps—don’t they see the benefit of working together?”
“They see nothing but their own grab for power.” Killien turned into a short hallway with two doors on each side—actual wooden doors. “Those two are responsible for spilling more Roven blood than any war.” Killien stepped into the last room on the left.
It was more Roven than the downstairs level of the house. Killien walked into the clay room and over to a window where orange drapes sighed in the breeze.
Someone outside shouted out commands and there was a bustle of activity. Killien parted the curtains, his shoulders sagging. “We’ll be poor hosts today. At this point I see little hope that we’ll be ready to leave tomorrow.�
� He rubbed his hands over his face and gave a tired sigh. “You don’t by chance know some foreign magic spell that would pack an entire city, do you?”
Will gave a small laugh that had a tinge of panic. “I’m not really good at magic spells.”
Killien turned away from the window and shook his head. “Neither am I.” He walked to the door. “Breakfast will be served out back shortly. There are things I need to take care of before then.”
Will pressed his fist to his chest and gave the Torch a bow as the man left.
When he straightened, he stared at the empty doorway.
That had been…unexpected. Who knew a Roven Torch could be so…unRoven.
Will put his bag into a corner and dropped down onto the bed. Instead of crunching with dried grass, the mattress cushioned him like…like a mattress. Will lay back with a sigh and closed his eyes. This had to be full of wool. He grabbed the pillow. Feathers. After the restless night, his body sank down into the softness.
Borto must be gone by now, trundling east. At least wayfarer wagons were slow. He’d be four days on the Sea Road before any other large roads branched off. If Will pushed hard tomorrow, he could catch up.
Frustration at being here bubbled at the surface, but underneath, there was a layer of guilt. He had a chance to find Ilsa, and that chance was dwindling. He should have…his mind spun through ways he could have escaped this morning, but none of them would have worked. He probably would have had trouble fighting past Sora, never mind armed guards at the gate. Whatever chance he’d had to leave had disappeared during the night.
The fact that Killien’s house was fascinating fed the guilt. How could a stack of books have distracted him from his sister?
Had it? Had he given up a chance to leave just to read some books? Will scrubbed his hands across his face. No. Will had never had a choice. Killien had brought him for entertainment. From the moment Sora had appeared this morning, Will’s fate had been sealed.
Will heaved himself up off the bed and walked over to the window. He splashed some water over his face from a small red bowl. The sun had risen and the wide avenue was filling with people. The smell of roasting saltfish filled the street mixing with the ever-present smells of the grass and the ocean. To his left, over the low clay buildings of Porreen, the Southern Sea spread out like a blue carpet speckled with fishing boats.
He pushed aside the guilt. The delay was inevitable and moping about it would make it harder to redeem the day into something valuable. Will picked up the yellow book and sank back into the bed.
In all of Queensland, the Keepers had only found a handful of Flibbet’s books, outside the ones in the Keeper’s library. The curious little peddler, who used to show up every few years, brought the Keepers new books. He had first appeared one hundred fifty years ago at the top of the tall cliffs above the Keeper’s Stronghold. Before that, the Keepers didn’t know anyone had ever looked down on their valley from the inhospitable desert above. And yet he had appeared, over and over again, disappearing for two years or five years, then dropping bundles of books filled with strange stories, foreign tales, lost histories down from high above. At least he had until about fifty years ago.
Despite the exotic nature of his books, for some reason Will had never imagined that Flibbet went anywhere outside of Queensland. Yet here was a book the Keepers had been looking for. The Shield would be ecstatic to learn what it said. The leader of the Keepers had a fascination with Flibbet that went beyond normal curiosity.
Will opened the cover slowly. The faint smell of paper and old ink wafted past. He flipped to the first page with a mixture of excitement and hesitation. It had been a long time since he’d committed an entire book to memory. When he’d first arrived at the Stronghold and read all the works Keeper Gerone had assigned him, he’d been faster than he was now. Gerone hadn’t expected him to memorize them, but how could he not? He’d read them, and once a book was read, if it was well-written, the words laid out a path in his mind. He could recall them whenever he wanted. The only hard part was remembering the beginning. Once it started, you just had to travel down the path.
Here, at last, was a job he was good at. Probably better than any other Keeper. Alaric wouldn’t be able to memorize Flibbet in a morning.
His eyes felt gritty from the long night, but he focused on the beginning and picked up the thread of the swirly blue writing. Flibbet began this book with theories on where the people of the Sweep, Queensland, and the southern countries had come from, positing that they were descended from a common ancestor who had once lived far west over the endless desert.
True to form, Flibbet’s words wandered off on tangents and nonsensical tales, peppered by complex diagrams, unexplained symbols, and things that looked like pointless doodles. But somehow the thread ran true through the entire book. There was a special sort of …joy in reading Flibbet. A sort of whimsy and lightness, all anchored to truths that felt as deeply rooted as the mountains.
The original thread of the story thickened into roots, then the thick trunk of a tree, then split off into branches both individual yet similar. The small scattered warlords of Coastal Baylon, the strong central throne of Queensland, the disparate, isolated clans of the Roven. All branches, all related, all somehow the same at their core.
The book was short and the world was still muffled in the quiet of early morning by the time Will finished.
He let the book close, his mind drifting around the ideas, toying with concepts of brotherhood and ancestry and the interrelatedness of everything. The different accents of their shared language feeling suddenly closer than they ever had before.
A spattering of rough Roven voices called to each other outside his window, and Will pushed aside the drapes to watch a half-dozen people organizing baskets of books into a wide, wooden wagon.
Two children squealed and raced in circles, keeping just out of reach of an older man who kept grabbing for their baskets, while a young woman laughed and herded them forward. It was the right kind of laughter, effortless and free, and he had the sudden urge to join them. He leaned against the windowsill, setting his hands on the cool cob that was familiar, if not comfortable. A little girl ran close to the house and glanced up. Her laughter stuttered and she pointed up at him.
“Dirty fett,” the man muttered, loud enough to reach the window. He pulled her away and the game ended.
Will dropped down on the bed.
Flibbet’s words were just words.
If Queensland and the Sweep had ever shared a common ancestor, they’d grown too distant by now for it to matter.
Chapter Nine
Smells of fish and bread wafted through the window.
He took Flibbet, went back down to the main room, and set Neighbors Should be Friends back on the shelf. A clatter of activity came from the back of the house.
He walked down a short hall and out into a wide, walled yard scattered with Roven sitting on colorful rugs, eating in a hurried sort of way. A long ledge ran along the back of the house surrounded by people piling plates with prairie hen eggs, red fish wrapped in salted barley flatbread, or butter-yellow avak fruit. Will filled a plate. At the end of the table was a covered clay jar. He opened the lid and smelled saso, Roven coffee. This wasn’t the watered-down saso he’d been drinking at out-of-the-way inns. This was rich, full coffee that smelled of roasted nuts and caramel so thick he could almost feel it. He poured himself a cup and breathed in the warm steam.
Will glanced around for a rug on the fringes where he could sit out of the way.
“Come sit, storyman,” the enormous Hal called, waving Will over to a large blue blanket. “It’s like this every year.” Hal looked annoyed as a woman pushed past Will. “Chaotic and rushed. We go to the rifts every year, but no one ever seems ready.”
Killien’s voice barked something from inside the house.
Hal shook his head. “Every year.”
The Torch strode out of the house and toward a blanket with two men and a w
oman sitting on it nearby. They each straightened and gave the Torch their attention.
“We leave as soon as the horses are prepared, Torch,” one man said.
“Take a distress raven with you.”
The man’s eyes snapped up to the Torch’s face. The rest of the group exchanged glances. Even Hal glanced up in surprise.
“We have three messenger ravens already,” the woman said.
“Take a distress raven also. And as soon as you reach the rifts, send back a report.” The Torch looked around the group, his eyes guarded. “Watch each other.”
The back door opened and a burst of vitalle rushed into the yard so strong that Will clenched a piece of fish in his hand. Heart pounding, he began to gather vitalle, drawing it out of the grass beneath him, his mind racing to think of a protective spell. He hadn’t felt that much power since…since he’d been in the Keeper’s Stronghold. Not a single stonesteep he’d met on the Sweep had been remotely this powerful.
Lukas, the young man who’d bought the book from Borto, limped out of the house, his thin arms wrapped around a large lumpy leather bag. The rings on his hands glittered in the morning light.
Killien crossed over to him. “Is that the first set?”
The Torch reached into the bag, pulling out a palm-sized yellow crystal swirling with energy. Nodding approvingly, he dropped it back into the bag with a clink, and Will caught a glimpse of more yellow gems.
Will blinked and let the energy he’d gathered drain out of him. All that vitalle was from the gems, not the man. These weren’t the usual worthless magical talisman found on the Sweep. Whatever those stones held, it was powerful.
“Forty here, and a hundred more promised by tonight.” Lukas smirked at the Torch. “He tried to convince me eighty would be enough.”
Killien let out a derisive snort. “Lazy dog. A hundred and forty is already less than half of what he claimed he could make.”
The yellow light of the stones lit Lukas’s face like he stood over a fire. “After this we shouldn’t need him.”