Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  "Fair enough," said Dravus. "I welcome the help."

  Nemm gave him a quizzical look. "You're more pragmatic than I expected you to be."

  "I suppose I'll take that as a compliment," Dravus replied. "Now then, a sword?" He held out his hand to the side and willed a long blade into existence. The sword that resulted was familiar to him, a shadow replica of one that he had stolen off a noble's belt and fenced for a small fortune. He hadn't consciously been thinking of that sword, but it had come to him all the same.

  "Mildly impressive," said Nemm. "Our bards must be doing a better job than I thought."

  "The sky's the limit," said Dravus. "And perhaps not even that. I'm fairly certain I could make wings of shadow."

  Nemm smiled. "I have a scenario. You've attended a dinner party, followed by dancing, followed by parlor games, but now the hour is late. Your host asks if you would like to spend the night in a guest room. What should your response be?"

  "What?" asked Dravus. Nemm only gave him a slight, expectant tilt of the head. "I suppose it depends on how far away I am, and how late you mean when you say it's late."

  "Wrong. You decline," said Nemm firmly. "Your host will insist, and only then do you take pragmatism into consideration. If they do not insist, then it was only a nicety that was expected of them."

  "Is that really how nobles do it?" asked Dravus.

  "That's how it's done among the people you'll meet in Torland," said Nemm. "What is the proper form of address for the Flower Queen's husband?"

  "Your Majesty?" guessed Dravus.

  "Ealdwine of the House Marburg is a prince, not a king, and as such is styled with 'Your Royal Highness' on first address, and thereafter simply 'Sir'," replied Nemm. "If you referred to him as 'Your Majesty' you would be putting him on par with his wife, which at best would get titters of laughter at your expense, and at worst would be seen as a deliberate slight against the Queen."

  "Well," said Dravus. He was blushing slightly, despite himself. "I didn't know that."

  "You don't know anything," said Nemm. "There are a thousand things that you need to learn that are more important than learning how to fight, or how to properly use your domain. Etiquette is one of those things, and the names, stylings, and personal histories of the Flower Queen's court are another."

  * * *

  Time passed.

  Nemm was a surprisingly gentle instructor. She never tried to make him feel stupid, and didn't berate him for not knowing things. Her corrections were clear and to the point. It might even have been tolerable, if she were teaching a more interesting subject.

  "Never leave the table until a meal is over," said Nemm. She stood with her hands folded beneath her chest and her chin slightly lifted. The sailors worked around them, occasionally calling instruction to each other. Nemm ignored them completely. "However, if you absolutely must leave, where should you place your napkin to show that you intend to return?"

  Dravus frowned, and tried to figure it out from base principles. There only seemed to be two options, the chair or the table, but he had no idea which was correct. It was also possible that the answer was "atop the bread plate" or some other ridiculous bit of specificity that he would never be able to guess at.

  "I can't get some leeway as the naive newcomer?" asked Dravus.

  "Not forever," said Nemm. "Some of your social missteps will be excused, and perhaps they'll even find it funny, but if you want to be regarded as someone on the rise, you need to make an honest effort. I can dress you properly and never leave you on your own, but that's a short-term solution. Later on you might play the boor deliberately, but that would work better if you were truly foreign. There are more than enough men and women that play the fool though, and I don't think you're particularly well-suited to it; not enough to go into competition with the people who have made their livelihoods on being buffoons."

  "Fine," said Dravus. "I put the napkin on the seat of the chair then?"

  "Correct," said Nemm with a smile. "You'll get there eventually. It took me two years with the best tutors my husband could buy, I don't expect you to attain mastery in a week's time."

  At the mention of Nemm's one-time husband, a dozen questions seemed to work their way from Dravus's brain straight to his tongue. He managed to close his mouth tight enough to keep the words from escaping. Wenaru had been almost eager to share his past, to frame public stories in a light that flattered him, but Dravus didn't imagine that Nemm would want to do the same. For everything that was said about her, some of it had to be true, and he didn't want to make her air it out. He didn't want her to lie to him either, as he was halfway sure Wenaru had.

  "Well," said Nemm with a sniff of the air. She turned away from him. "I think we're done for the day. Time for real dinner instead of a fake one, at any rate. And after that, we throw Wealdwood and his companion into the sea."

  * * *

  Cerulean Bane had been wrapped in a tarp. At some point before they'd left Genthric, someone had been sent out to get armfuls of herbs, which had been placed in with the corpse. The result was a smell of oregano, basil, and thyme, which mingled with the smell of decaying flesh. Wealdwood had been dragged up onto deck, with his muscles restored enough for him to stand, but he looked away from the covered body. Lexari had stayed down in his cabin to rest, but everyone else was up on deck. The ship was nearly still in the water, and all seven sails had been furled. The sailors stood around talking quietly among themselves.

  "A man can't attack someone and not expect them to fight back," said Nemm. "It's better not to have to kill a man, if it can be helped, but sometimes it can't." She had put her armor back on, and eyed Wealdwood carefully the whole time she was speaking. Dravus had thought she was going to start into a eulogy of some kind, but those two sentences were the extent of what she had to say on the matter.

  "He tried to be a good man," said Wealdwood. His voice was strained. His arms were bound behind him with thick rope, and his feet were embedded in a giant chunk of glass that Nemm had shaped around them. His muscles had been reconnected, but sapped of their strength; Wenaru had withered the muscles down, then bled the illustrato, explaining to anyone who would listen that there was a relation between the ratio of blood volume to muscle volume. Wealdwood's arm had a thick bandage around it, which showed a dot of red. "But being a good man is hard. I didn't know him well. I was the talker, between the two of us. I wish I'd let him fill the silence more."

  Nemm nodded. "Dravus, grab the feet."

  They picked up the tarp. It was surprisingly light until Dravus remembered how much stronger he was now. Even with the armor still on the body, Nemm could probably have lifted it all by herself. The mixed smell of herbs and death filled Dravus's nostrils. Together he and Nemm moved the tarp over to the side of the ship, swung it back once, then tossed it over the edge. It splashed into the dark blue water and immediately began to sink. The smell lingered.

  "Now you," Nemm said to Wealdwood. Four long pieces of wood had been brought up onto the deck, and Nemm gestured to them. "We're letting you go, against my better judgment. Thank Lexari for that. There's land just visible to the north. Your strength isn't going to be returned to you; you can find someone to do that for you, or build it back up naturally, but it's not our problem." She pointed to the four planks. "I'm going to take off your fetters, and you're going to make yourself a raft. The wood is a gift, from us to you. If you make any sudden movements, I will kill you. If you say anything unwise, I will kill you. If you use your domain to do anything other than making a raft for yourself, I will kill you. You have a narrow path to life here, try not to wander from it."

  Wealdwood licked his lips and nodded. When Nemm pulled the glass from his feet, he went over to the provided wood and began to shape it. The sailors lost interest quickly enough, but Nemm stared at Wealdwood with unwavering intensity. Dravus had asked whether Wealdwood would be able to sink the ship while standing on its deck, and Nemm had replied that his power wouldn't extend so far, and b
esides that he'd be dooming himself. Watching her now, Dravus wasn't sure how confident she was in that assessment.

  "Did you kill me, Mottram?" asked Wealdwood as he pushed the planks together. He ran his finger along the seam, altering the wood so that it was a single solid piece. The process gave off a faint sound of creaking. "Did you introduce some flaw in me? Simple enough to do, for someone like you."

  "You are venturing into unwise territory," said Nemm.

  Wealdwood's hands were shaking as he repeated the process on another of the planks. "Not knowing is the worst part," he said slowly. "I've expected my death from the moment I was captured, but I don't know whether this is a charade or not, a performance put on for your crew or a genuine act of clemency."

  Nemm and Wenaru were both silent. A light breeze blew across the deck of the ship, carrying away murmured conversation among the sailors, and not much of that.

  "I'll say whatever it is you want for me to say," said Wealdwood. "I can be a tool for you, an instrument of your will, if only you let me live." He was working quickly, and finished merging the fourth piece. He turned to look at Wenaru. His eyes were brimming with tears. "Please, Gael, if you've done it, you can still undo it, you can still let me live, I'll tell them, all of them, the whole world about how you let me go, how you're not the man that you were, how you've truly changed your ways - or, or how you never were that man to begin with. Please, please don't let me die."

  Wenaru's lips twitched slightly. His eyes showed little emotion. "You tried to kill me," he said, "What good would it do, to have me tell you that I haven't acted in retribution? You don't trust my word now, and wouldn't have reason to trust it just because I'd told you what you wanted to hear. If this is a charade for someone's benefit, I would touch you on the shoulder and tell you that I'd undone whatever it is you think that I've done."

  Wealdwood finished the pitifully small boat in silence, shaping the flat rectangle of wood into a crude half-shell. His hands were unsteady, and his breathing was uneven, but he didn't ever quite cry. After the boat was finished, Nemm made him sit in it, then began pushing it towards where there was a gap in the railing. Her eyes never left Wealdwood. The Zenith wasn't too high up off the water, and it would be a short drop.

  "Dravus," said Wealdwood, his voice thick with urgency, "If you never see me again, never hear word that I made it to safety, you'll know what was done to me."

  Nemm shoved his boat hard, and it splashed down into the water. Wealdwood looked up at them, then began the work of fashioning oars for himself. His arms looked pitifully small, and if he weren't an illustrato, Dravus would have put low odds on the man making it to shore.

  "Sailors, go check the bilge and make a survey of the hold," said Nemm as she pointed to two of them. "Let's make sure this bastard didn't try something foolish, just in case. Everyone else, let's get moving again. The sooner we're in Torland, the better."

  The sails came down again and billowed up with wind, and the ship began to leave Wealdwood in his small boat behind. Dravus watched from the keel of the ship until the boat was only a speck. Nemm stood beside him.

  "That's trouble," said Nemm. "Lexari thought that the man had learned his lesson by being at our mercy, but I'm doubtful. Wealdwood took a first step down the path to villainy - maybe it was his second or third, I don't know - but it's been my experience that people don't often turn around, not until they've reached the lowest low. I've already set too much in motion for Wealdwood. Genthric will know what he's done within the next week or two, depending on how our bards think the wind is blowing. It's going to be harder for Wealdwood to come back to the light after that, even if we've effectively given him a pardon. So what will he do but turn to villainy?" She sighed and closed her eyes. The wind pushed her hair back, and for the first time since Dravus had met her, she looked content. "It's a problem for the future."

  Dravus looked around, to make sure that Wenaru had gone down into the cabin. "Can Gael do that? Kill a man from a distance?"

  Nemm didn't open her eyes, and a strand of loose hair danced in the wind. "He described the body as a temple, when he was one of his more poetic moods," said Nemm. "Easy enough to knock down, if you have a siege weapon, and that's all that most illustrati of flesh have. Wenaru is like an exceptionally skilled architect of temples. Is it within his capabilities to introduce a subtle change, so the temple blows down in the next strong wind, or collapses in on itself in the next heavy rain?" She kept her eyes closed and pursed her lips. "He keeps secrets. We all do. But yes, I think that if he wanted to, he could do something like that."

  "Has he, in the past?" asked Dravus. The information was third-hand, or perhaps even more tenuous than that. The ultimate source was Wealdwood's benefactor, and it was an open question where the benefactor had heard it, or if he had simply made the whole thing up.

  "If he has, I didn't give the order," said Nemm. She had drawn back her armor slightly, now that Wealdwood was gone. The danger was now well and truly past, and her muscles were relaxed. The piece of glass around her upper arm was clear enough for Dravus to see the muscles of her bicep.

  It was only when he looked at it that it occurred to him that Wenaru might have enhanced her too. The thought of Wenaru's hand on her, touching every muscle in her body at once, shifting them around and trying to bring about the most aesthetic shape, caused a cold feeling in Dravus's gut. It shouldn't have, he knew that, but it made her less beautiful in his eyes. What was to say that her skin hadn't been made smooth and soft by another illustrati? That her hair hadn't been made thick and full? The Bone Warden could fix teeth. Nemm's were straight, and the more he looked between her slightly parted lips, the more her teeth looked preternaturally white. Flesh, skin, hair, bone - she wasn't perfect, and there was nothing overt, but his guess felt right it all the same. He shouldn't have expected anything less. Nemm was the sort of person who would take any advantage she could grab hold of. Yet she still had a scar on her face.

  "How did you get that scar?" asked Dravus. It was white and vertical, and didn't disfigure her in the slightest. It was suspicious, in that regard.

  "Not the time for stories," said Nemm. "You have books to read, and lessons to learn."

  * * *

  The next day, Dravus and Nemm fought.

  "There is a difference between animal instinct and learned knowledge," said Lexari. He sat on a chair, fully braced in light, with Wenaru beside him. Dravus and Nemm were circling each other slowly. He had a sword of shadow, and she had crafted a sword of glass. "If you go into combat, you must have both. You must know on an intellectual level what your opponent might do, and weigh your options with a keen mind, and at the same time have an understanding deep in your bones, in order to react without thought."

  "There's too much distance between your feet," said Nemm. Dravus tried to correct it.

  "It's instructive to think of battle as a drama," said Lexari. "At a certain point, we all know our lines, but what distinguishes a man is the character of his performance. Patience, attention, rage, confidence, all these things contribute to a person's expression of martial skill, and to be truly great, you must know how to respond to these subtleties, and control the subtleties of your own."

  "That's not going to help him if he can't master the basics," said Nemm. "There's still too much distance between your feet. When you step over to circle I could dash in and get you off-balance, and from there it wouldn't be long before you died."

  "Alright," said Dravus. He tried to shift his positioning. There were too many things to think about at once, and Lexari's bits of martial philosophy weren't helping matters. Nemm had gotten him into a proper fighting stance with his sword held in front of him, but when he moved he needed to focus on keeping his spine straight, his arms bent at the correct angle, his feet the proper distance from each other, his torso presenting a profile, and his shoulders square. As soon as his attention was focused on one of those things, one of the others seemed to slip. Worse, he was being taught onl
y one of three basic stances, and those other two would have to be mastered as well.

  "There are three planes of reference," said Lexari. "From head to shoulders, from shoulders to waist, and from waist to feet. Each is defended in a different manner."

  Nemm darted towards Dravus with what he now recognized as exaggerated slowness, and he brought his sword forward to block her. After a brief contact, she backed away and fell back into a stance that was far superior to his in every way. For the time being, she was pretending at not being an illustrati; techniques for dealing with other illustrati varied widely according to Nemm, depending on the standing of the opponent and their domain.