The Darkest Bloom

by P. M. Freestone

  “The wrong stink.”

  I’m about to explain when he lifts a hand so sharply the tendons go taut in his wrist, silencing me. He points to his ear and then out into the shrubland.

  Lil gets the hint that something is amiss, her ears twitching. I slide from her back, landing on my toes to muffle the drop.

  “What?” I mouth.

  “Rangers,” he returns silently, then motions for me to follow. We creep through the heather, leading Lil in single file, keeping both our heads low. Ash turns one way, then another, down different animal trails, moving as quickly as possible while keeping as quiet as possible.

  A high whistle rings out. It’s answered by a distant shout.

  It takes all my restraint not to jump back up on Lil and ride headlong in the opposite direction. But even if I could outrun the Rangers, it’d only take one sinkhole in this never-ending bog to lame Lil.

  I lose track of how long we go on like that, but my stomach soon begins to rumble in protest at not stopping for lunch. My head pounds from the afternoon sun. We take narrower and narrower trails until we’re pushing through the branches. Spiked leaves tug at my sleeves, claw at my calves and wrists until the skin is criss-crossed with red scratches. At least Lil’s hide repels the worst of it.

  Dusk falls. My whole body stings and itches but Ash still won’t let us ease up. We keep moving through the evening, the insects drowning out our whispered voices.

  “They’ve built a campfire,” I sputter as a whiff of distant smoke reaches me.

  “Don’t think it ignorance. Rangers don’t make mistakes. They want us to know where they are. Or they want us to think we know.”

  “How did they find us?”

  It isn’t Ash who responds: “The camp elders, I’m ashamed to say.”

  Ash’s swords are in his hands before the owner of the voice has materialized from the heather.

  She’s without her staff, and she’s wearing a pack almost the size of her, but I can make out enough of her pale hair and features in the moonslight. I motion for Ash to lower the blades. “Mish!”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Ash rumbles.

  “Please don’t worry, it wasn’t an arduous effort. I know this land. To me, your trail was obvious.”

  Ash sheathes his swords, muttering something between a curse and a prayer about being tracked by a thirteen-turn-old girl.

  I size Mish up. “Why?”

  She gives the closest impression of a shrug that her pack will allow. “After you left, I overheard the elders. I was vexed when I found they’d given you a heartbreak potion in place of what you needed. Dallor would be mortified, too, if she were still alive.”

  “The lovers of love stories sold us out,” I huff. “So much for romance.”

  Ash rubs his hand over his scalp. “You would say that.”

  Mish rummages in the billowy sleeve of her dress. “It was I who invited you to camp, after you’d come to my aid, no less. I knew I needed to set things right. Here. True Dallor’s Sacrifice.”

  I take the vial. “You came all this way for us? Mish, you’re a hero.”

  “Well… In the same meeting the elders agreed to revoke my herding privileges. Nobody is going to make me scrub pots at camp for another turn. I decided it was time to seek my fortune.”

  “Your fortune? Go home,” Ash tells her. “It’s dangerous out here. Too dangerous for a young—” He grunts in surprise, looking down at his arm. In his bicep, just below his prayer band, a dart protrudes from his skin.

  “Don’t worry, that one isn’t dipped in deadly venom.”

  I snort. Seems Mish can handle herself.

  “You should go. I’ll lead them in a merry dance, but once they realize I don’t have a horse, the gambit will be up. Farewell!”

  And with that, she disappears back into the heather.

  Ash sets a punishing pace.

  He says we don’t have a choice – Mish may have bought us time but there’s no way to cover our trail while we’re still in the Basin, with our passage through the heather marking our route plain as day. Every ounce of my energy is spent on keeping going, so that I barely notice the sun rise and set, rise and set.

  I’m about ready to drop when the river comes into sight late one night, a mile-wide ribbon of black silk dotted with silver stars. I was born too late to remember the river in Aphorai, so even through the exhaustion, I’m awed to see so much water flowing freely.

  The Great River Junction is a town unto itself, lit up with torches and braziers. Ash and I thread our way through the outskirts and towards the river. At first the streets are lined with quiet houses and shuttered stores, but as we near the docks they become rowdier, with taverns and dice houses and dreamsmoke dens. Beyond, the bobbing lights of barges beckon.

  Down in the last streets before the river, we pause in the shadow of one of the traders’ warehouses, their floors raised head-high on stone pillars. Guess it floods this close to the banks.

  “Over there,” Ash points to a dock flying the imperial phoenix, the thread-of-gold shining in the torchlight. “Those barges are bound for Ekasya.”

  I grimace. They’re also the most heavily guarded.

  Ash lets out a low curse.

  “The boat guards?”

  “No. Rangers.”

  He juts his chin. “Over there, see? Fellow leaning against those sacks of grain? And the woman over there? She’s only posing – tax collectors don’t bear arms; they get someone else to do the dirty work.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek as he picks out several more. If he’s right, they’ve surrounded the entire dock area on this side of the river, blocking our way back into town. There’s nowhere to run, and I have no idea which boat is going where. We could chance the water itself, but I’ve never swum anywhere as far, and nowhere with such a swift-moving current.

  “Someone’s coming. Quick.” He pulls up the hood of his travelling cloak.

  I reach up and tug my hair from its braid, letting it fall forward around my face.

  Ash nods approval. “This way.”

  Next to Ash’s silent grace, I feel clumsy trying to lead Lil and move quietly as we steal from warehouse to warehouse.

  Then I trip.

  I desperately cradle my satchel as I fall, but the clink of glass still rings out in the night. Pain burns where my hip and shoulder graze the ground, but I’m more intent on checking nothing’s broken. Especially the living bone from Azered’s caves. Breath held, I search through the compartments.

  There it is. A soft blue glow.

  I bow my head in relief.

  It’s only when I hear Ash’s snarl that I realize I didn’t trip. Someone tripped me. And now he and Ash face off.

  “I thought I could smell something rank,” the Ranger drawls as they slowly circle each other.

  “Let us pass,” Ash grates, the daggers he keeps at his wrists in each hand. Too close quarters for swords.

  “Orders are orders. You can come easy-like, or I can bring the sixth hell down on you. What’s it to be?”

  Ash doesn’t speak, only keeps his eyes trained on the Ranger. Then he’s moving, and the two men become a blur in the dark.

  There’s a grunt.

  A muffled thud.

  A slow, sickening wet crunch.

  Ash lowers the man to the ground. He wipes his blades off on the Ranger’s coat, casual as a baker towelling the flour from his hands. Daggers sheathed, he turns to me.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I shake my head, wide-eyed and numb. Father was a soldier, but I’ve never seen a man killed before.

  “Good.” Crouching, Ash takes the Ranger’s purse then rolls his body under the warehouse. “That won’t keep him hidden long – they’ll have a rotation report pattern. We’ve got to move.”

  We hurry along the river bank. I walk stiffly on tense legs, trying not to think about what an arrow between the shoulder blades would feel like. Or a dagger blade under the ribs. Beside me, Lil’s ea
rs constantly swivel. I’m not the only one feeling threatened.

  “Try to relax.” Ash places a hand on my lower back, large and surprisingly comforting considering what he just did with it.

  As we head away from the imperial dock, the vessels gradually decline in size and upkeep. The torches change to tallow candles, their smoke making my eyes water and the smell of rancid fat stinging my nose.

  We pass a group of men gathered around what looks like a game of Five Cups in the dirt. Others have a girl about my age, blindfolded and sitting on one of their knees. They’re waving a dreamsmoke pipe under her nose and she inhales deeply. Skin traders. If they’re anything like the worst of that sort in Aphorai, they’re keeping the girl so doped up she doesn’t know what day it is.

  Ash pulls me into his side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. On reflex, I move to shrug his hand away, but then I notice the men’s stares. They’re so measuring, I can almost feel hands crawling all over me. I shudder.

  “Please permit me,” Ash murmurs into my hair. “Just for now.”

  He’s right. And if I’m honest, I feel far safer tucked against him. I fall into step.

  He steers us towards the second last boat. Its tented cabin is the shabbiest of all we’ve passed, but its hull shines in the moonslight. It’s in good repair.

  A man stands on the dock before the twin planks crossing to the barge. He’s lean, with a scar giving his lip a permanent sneer. Smoke curls from a pipe in his fingers but it’s clove and tobacco, not dreamsmoke. His hands are steady.

  “You the cap’n?” Ash’s voice is gruff and heavily accented, like the day back at the caves.

  The man nods.

  “Room for a pair?”

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  Ash jangles the Ranger’s zig purse. “And the horse comes, too.”

  The captain gives a barely perceptible nod.

  “How much extra for casting off now?” Ash tosses him the purse.

  The captain’s eyes drink in the silver glinting up at him. “That’ll do.”

  “And quietly?”

  “As a dockmouse.”

  The captain signals to his crew, all dressed in ragged clothing, but moving with an efficiency that speaks of experience. I won’t be asking any questions about what these men are transporting.

  We board the boat, and I risk a glance behind. No Rangers. Just the rough and tumble of the low end of the docks.

  One of the crew casts off the mooring rope.

  We’re away. I breathe out audibly. Ash’s eyes are intent as he watches upriver, arms crossed, each hand resting on the dagger sheathed at the other wrist. I try not to think about what those daggers recently did.

  When the Junction has vanished around a bend in the river, I smack my palm on the barge rail. Even if we can find what we need outside Ekasya, we’re going the wrong direction. Navigation isn’t my strength, but you don’t need to be top note in the perfume to realize that anything downriver takes us away from the capital and away from Lostras.

  Away from Nisai.

  I turn to Ash. He’s conferring quietly with the captain. Then he returns, spreading his tattered map on the deck before him. “Esarik was right. Even if we can find some amber in time, the only way we’ll know whether the cure will work is to test it. Yes?”

  “Once we have all the ingredients, the poison seems fairly simple – expose the target to smoke in sequence. But to make steam for the cure? At the very least I’ll need perfume-grade mortar and pestle, alcohol, possibly some acid, and a distillation apparatus.”

  “Then a barge bound for the east coast isn’t the worst thing in the world, even though I would never have gone there by choice.”

  The coast? I raise an eyebrow. “See those two glowing things in the sky? They’re called moons. In case you hadn’t noticed, one of them keeps passing closer to a certain lion made of stars. This isn’t the time to take the scenic route.”

  “Not another route, another destination. Somewhere we can find everything we need to determine whether returning to Ekasya is even an option.”

  “Oh?”

  “Lapis Lautus.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Ash

  Lapis Lautus.

  Nisai once told me the name means “grand jewel” in the language of the people from across the Normek Ocean – the vast waters that so few ever cross and live to return.

  Grand Jewel. Ironic, given Lapis Lautus is a city constructed from the garbage other civilizations left behind, figuratively and literally. Built out into the sea centuries ago by raiders-turned-traders who wanted to avoid imperial sanction, it’s said that for the right price, you can buy anything in Lautus.

  You can buy anyone.

  The river carries us swiftly, and the captain obliges us, disembarking before we enter the Trel Delta. We strike out cross-country and camp in thick riverland forest. After spending recent nights barely one step ahead of the Ranger patrol, and keeping vigilant on the barge, I do something rare and accept Rakel’s offer to take first watch. For a few merciful hours, I sleep like the dead.

  The next morning is thankfully uneventful, even pleasant, as we hike through the sun-dappled trees, birds trilling like they haven’t a care in the world. I sorely envy them.

  Before the sun has reached its zenith, Rakel halts, sniffing the air in that deerlike way that’s become so familiar.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Something I’ve never smelled before. Like old fish, but not. Mud? Soggy plants rotting in the sun? Like…”

  “Salt?”

  She nods vehemently.

  “The sea. I think we’re near the sea.”

  Sure enough, the coast soon comes into view. Rakel lets out a low whistle beside me. “That there is something to behold.”

  “You could say that.”

  It’s not like the stories told in Ekasya – they speak of nothing but lawlessness and filth and squalor worse than the slums in the shade of the capital. Lautus rises from the end of a man-made promontory jutting over a mile out from the coast. There may have once been a natural island underneath, a beating heart to the sprawl, but it’s long buried beneath the layers and layers that came afterwards.

  To say it’s nothing more than a home to brigands and black markets, effluent and underworlds, would be to deny its beauty. It is a jewel. Out of reach of siege engines, its spires are elegant rather than squat, walls soar rather than hulk, and though they’re each made from a different stone or wood or metal it all somehow hangs together – a beautiful mess.

  Docks reminiscent of the spokes of the starwheel splay out from the city, ranging in richness and permanence. On one side of the causeway, stone marinas rise proudly above the water, crusted with turn-upon-turn of barnacles. On the other side, lashed-together wooden rafts make up the jetties with a floating market between them – sellers hawking their wares from skiffs they guide with a single long oar. The remainder are hidden from view by the city itself.

  “Who built it?” Rakel asks, her voice tinged with awe.

  “Smugglers. Pirates. Merchant princes from across the ocean. If it’s not on the Emperor’s lands, it doesn’t pay the Emperor’s taxes or abide by the Emperor’s laws.”

  “Serious? Someone went to all the effort of building a city out of the sea just so that they could do things their own way?”

  I shrug.

  She snorts with laughter. “I think I’m going to like this place.”

  We take one of the lanes leading through the farmlets lining the coast, which I expect supply much of Lautus’s fresh produce. I nod to Rakel’s horse. “It’s probably best we stable her. I’ve heard there are thieves in this city who can steal your undergarments while you’re fully dressed.”

  “Speaking from experience?”

  “As I’ve heard.”

  She chews thoughtfully on her lower lip, her eyes taking on that distant cast that I now recognize means her agile mind is formulating a plan. Then her gaze arrows ba
ck to me.

  “Everyone may speak Imperial, even here, but there’s only one truly universal language.”

  “Scentlore?”

  “Hardly.” She scoffs. “Zigs. Hand me your purse.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You want me to leave Lil with a stranger? Hand me your purse. I’m running low.”

  I take one look at her stroking her horse’s neck, feet planted and jaw set. I decide not to argue. A wise soldier does everything they can to avoid an unwinnable battle. Instead, I make a mental note to thank Esarik for replenishing my coin.

  Rakel steers us towards one of the smaller holdings, its fields and fences laid out in an orderly grid. We find the farmer, a broad woman with laughter lines and silver at her temples. Rakel presses several coins into her hand for feed, and I promise to make good on double that upon our return if the horse is in good condition.

  Rakel’s smile is a mix of gratitude and something else I can’t quite place. Then she turns her attention to her horse.

  “Be good.”

  The mare snorts derisively.

  “I mean it, Lil. No biting, no kicking, no crushing this nice woman against the stable wall.”

  The only reply is flat ears and a black nose in the air.

  “I’m glad we had this conversation.” Then she flings her arms around the horse’s neck. “I’ll miss you,” she whispers.

  We set out. As we near the coastline, I swap my pack from my back to my front.

  Rakel gives me a questioning look.

  “What? I’ve been to the seedier side of town before, you know.”

  “I’ve never doubted that.”

  All the same, she tightens her satchel strap.

  Guards station the entry to the causeway leading out across the water. I tense, half expecting them to recognize and apprehend us. Then I notice they’re wearing both the insignia of the merchant princes and a glaze of boredom. True enough, they only seem interested in the gate fee.

  “Twenty zigs,” the largest of the lot says. It’s a moment or two before I can process the demand. In the slums of Ekasya, people drop the last consonant when they speak, but the Lautian guard bites off entire syllables.