by Tom Lloyd
Sitain said nothing. She was still marvelling at the huge rocky outcrop that had been carved over the generations into a place fit for humans. Stained yellowish stone comprised every wall and most roofs in addition to the dirt-smeared ground underfoot. Windows and doors were brightly painted wood for the main, except for the occasional wealthy house where the seaward windows were bulges of mage-blown glass.
It was all human-proportioned at least, albeit otherworldly. The daylight kept it from reminding her too much of Shadows Deep, but still she felt a little jumpy at every corner. Sitain wasn’t looking forward to getting to dusk much, in case the nightmares returned in force, but the sight of children playing and adults going about their daily lives restored some reality.
The road snaked left and right through a cleft in the rock then opened into a fork overlooking a small market. Teshen led them up again, deep stone steps taking them through an archway flanked by shrines to Ulfer and Insar that streamed incense from two dozen sticks. The wind began to tug at their hair as they headed along a high-sided stone bridge above a training ground where youths in green sashes sparred. On the other side of the bridge Teshen beckoned them all together and pointed out towards the lagoon, talking loudly over the wind.
‘Look.’
Sitain narrowed her eyes, peering in vain across the water to where Teshen was pointing. For a moment she saw nothing, though Lastani beside her gasped. They had a fine view of the spice islands at the heart of the lagoon – great clumps of green heaped around the forbidding peaks that rose from their centre. Only then did she see it – no individual creature but a cloud of what almost looked like smoke rising. Movement poured from the top of each peak – shadowing the sky behind.
Not peaks, chimneys, Sitain said to herself, trying to smother a gasp. She couldn’t see inside them as they were taller than any structure in the city, but it was clear now the top was no flat plateau.
‘Shattered gods, you weren’t joking about that being a hellmouth! Tysarn?’
‘Young ones, aye. Tens o’ thousands of ’em, meat eaters all. They mostly feed at night on the insects of the islands and the eastern forest, but the smell o’ blood will bring ’em racing. In the dark they run less risk of getting eaten by their kin.’
In the distance she heard a faint addition to the cries of seabirds and long, low bellows of the large tysarn. It rose like an onrushing tide, thousands of high voices merging into an undulating pulse of sound. It reminded her of the calls of jackdaws when flocks of them would circle the fields back home.
‘Are they dangerous?’ Sitain asked. ‘In those numbers?’
Teshen shook his head. ‘Nah, don’t worry. Storytellers might claim different, but we love the young ones round here. Without them this place would be a misery, overrun with every sort of biting pest you can imagine.’ He shifted the direction of his arm, now pointing down the long curve of the encircling city districts.
‘That’s where we’re going. The Shard’s Rest is there, though mage guildhouses are spread throughout the city. See the round roof? That’s the Rest. The block below it is the Shard’s private residence – one o’ the few places no Masts crew will wander. Hidden behind the next island is the greater channel, where ships come in. Just one bridge across it and real high up, but a rope or two you can use to swing if you’re feeling adventurous. Far side of the channel is Nquet Dam district, with the biggest temples and open ground. Vi No Le is round behind the spice islands – don’t go there until you’ve stopped getting lost in Casteril is my advice.’
‘Masts?’
‘Aha, that’s a sight for another day. If you hear a big ship’s bell ring out, keep your eyes open. You’re not in any danger, but it means there’s a game starting. You’ll see folk in sashes jumping roofs or climbing walls as they chase each other. Some of the fights are legend now.’
‘Vi … Vinolay? Does it go all the way to the cliffs?’
‘Nah, that part there is Cliffbase, an island just in front of the cliff front. There’s a channel separating it from the cliff that the large tysarn make use of when they’re spawning. See the darker patch in the cliff face? That’s a tunnel, once a Duegar canal they say, but only the tysarn use it. No person gets more’n a hundred yards inside before they’re et. Less of a district is Cliffbase, more a slum. There, folk do get picked off by the bigger tysarn from time to time.’
Teshen waved them forward, across a shorter bridge and past a run of ten tiny homes before they descended to a lower level. The street there was wider, but still they had to wait for a pair of the huge shambling sloths to pass. The beasts were twelve feet from broad muzzle to stubby tail. Trailing fronds of hair brushed the ground and claws the length of a man’s hand clacked against the stone as they walked.
They negotiated the stairs and twisting alleys of the stone city with a languid grace, despite the wooden frames on their backs. The boy leading them couldn’t have been more than ten years old, his dark hair as long and matted as his charges, but they responded to every twitch of the ragged flag he carried.
‘They can swim too,’ Teshen commented, nodding towards the beasts.
‘Now you’re just taking the piss,’ Sitain muttered, prompting a bark of laughter from the local man.
‘I swear it, you’ll see some for yourself. Most roam the plains in the wild, but some feed in the sea itself. The water-bound tysarn hunt them sometimes. It’s quite a fight if you’re lucky enough to see one. The tysarn are big and nasty, but sloths are damn strong and those claws … mostly they’re for digging up roots but piss one off and they’ll punch through armour.’
Once the way was clear Teshen led them down a long stretch that skirted the upper reaches of a market. It was a confusing section of the city that led to a rope bridge from the island they were on to another, fifty feet in the air and swaying alarmingly in the breeze. On the sea-side of the islands Sitain spotted four or five prominent rocks that the waves were breaking upon, some sort of great netted pens strung between them in the water. Her questions elicited no answer from Teshen. Either he didn’t hear or was keen to press on before darkness came.
Sitain hesitated before following, despite her alarming position. A flitter of movement caught her eye out on the water. For a moment she thought it was some sort of falcon skimming the waves and racing around the rocks that anchored those pens, but it was too fast and elusive even for that. She caught Lastani’s eye who smiled and nodded. That made Sitain’s breath catch. She looked again – knife-sharp blurs of movement that circled and jinked like swifts hunting, barely visible in the fading evening light. Without form even, just an outline of movement delighting in the surging air.
Wind elementals! Sitain thought with excitement. She didn’t know if they had any other name, but surely here where mages would have drawn such things for centuries, they would have one. Every kind of elemental might be drawn to such a place. Those are the sights I want to see, not lizards or ancient ruins.
Even up here, the sun was only just visible above the headland. When she turned back to follow Teshen the western horizon was a smear of orange and yellow that hurt her eyes.
I hope we return a different route, she thought desperately, thinking of how this swaying bridge with open slats underfoot would be after dark.
Fortunately Teshen descended soon after. A broad street of detached houses led to a wide stone bridge and beyond that, a large dual-temple complex unlike any Sitain had ever seen before.
From the way Atieno stopped dead, she guessed he was just as surprised. A central courtyard opened out towards the open sea, embracing the wind into the space between two weathered, copper-clad domes. Great seashells had been set on pillars in the courtyard, each one emitting a different moan as the wind ran through them.
One dome was dedicated to Ulfer, god of the seasons, but to their surprise the mirror of it was a temple to Banesh, lord of change. Further north, such a thing would be unthinkable even outside of Order-controlled states. Banesh was more often de
scribed as the great enemy or betrayer of the gods in the Riven Kingdom and even where the stance softened he was not worshipped in the same way. Here they seemed to have no such qualms.
The sea-facing side of this island was a high ridge with two levels of streets on its inner side. It sheltered a spine of raised streets down the centre of the district, but aside from that it was all largely at ground level. Abutting that was the Shard’s Rest, a massive circular assembly hall with a modest palazzo branching off one side and a high perimeter wall around the rear half. Its meniscus roof sported two dozen gargoyles around its edge, each one holding a flag of three colours.
‘I’ve just realised. There are no proper uniforms here, not soldiers or watchmen anyway,’ Sitain commented as they entered the square in front of the Shard’s Rest. ‘Who—’
The mages all stopped dead, realising there were pale figures all around them. Statues surrounded them, but not on plinths – each was sitting on one of several dozen stone benches around the outer edge of the square. Some stared forward, others seemed in mid-conversation with each other. One or two had a living person sitting beside them, seemingly entirely at ease with their stone companion.
‘Uh, what’re they?’
‘Former Shards,’ Teshen said. ‘Some old tradition or other. The mages live apart from the rest of us, most of the time. As for the uniforms, this is a pirate city – standing armies ain’t so popular.’
‘So Mastrunners wear the colours of their district but aren’t soldiers?’
‘Nah. Might be they keep the peace on some streets, but mostly they’re the powerbase and honour of a kabat. To call yourself kabat you need to run a crew and take part in the honour games. The senior kabats take those seriously so their underlings treat it as a matter o’ life and death. Masts is about capturing the banners o’ the other crews, though. It’s a game played out on the streets, so no mage-guns allowed. Mastrunners often die, but it’s rare civilians do.’
‘They’ve still got crossbows,’ Lastani pointed out. ‘Those can kill just as well.’
‘Mostly they use blunt arrowheads that mages can charge,’ Teshen said. ‘Not just crossbows either, staves too. Sometimes a useful edge in a fight – spark-charges, light-bursts or sleepers packing just enough night magic to put a man out. All very easy in a city of mages and glassblowers, but cartridges are damn expensive and no one wants the city torn up just for a game.’
‘No guns at all here?’ Sitain asked.
He gave a snort. ‘There are guns – the kabats have guards for their compounds and palaces, but it’s a last resort when you’ve got dozens of armed Mastrunners whose lives are cheaper than a gunbattle.’
It was a wealthy area they’d walked into. A mage was charging the sea-glass heart of a street lamp, one of a dozen they’d passed that emitted a soft glow across the stone street. The windows of restaurants and coffee houses cast their own light on to the square, while the mage-carved equivalent of large townhouses occupied the south face. Four Mastsrunners in green sashes had patrolled the street they’d come here by, but the guards of the Shard’s Rest were mages in black robes, she could sense the magic coming off them. They wore thin strips of three colours down one side of their robe, leaving Sitain to wonder if that was a designation of ability or guild allegiance.
The guards were alert but not hostile as the group approached and Teshen stepped forward. He spoke a volley of words in the local dialect and Sitain could catch none of it, nor the guard’s growled response. The man was a burly white thug with a full sandy beard, while his younger comrade was a black-skinned youth with green eyes and quite startling eyebrows.
‘Your powers,’ Teshen translated. ‘You need to prove them before you get in.’
Immediately a swirl of cold wisps appeared around Lastani’s hands and the man grunted, nodding. Sitain followed suit, sluggish grey trails following her fingers as she embraced her power and waved her hand left and right, while Atieno merely sniffed.
‘Tell him I’m tempest.’
When Teshen did so, the man’s eyes widened a fraction and he gave another grunt before he offered a small bow and lifted the latch of the door.
‘Here’s where we part company,’ Teshen said as the door was opened and the guards gestured inside. ‘I’ll be waiting out here for you. No non-mages in the building unless we’re specifically invited.’
‘But we don’t speak the language!’ Lastani protested.
‘They’ll speak Parthish, lots of ’em anyway. You’ll do fine.’
Lastani frowned but said nothing more as Atieno stepped inside. He peered around at the entrance hall within as Sitain followed and the young academic had little choice but to follow. Once inside, the door was smartly closed behind them, but by then Sitain was caught up in the opulence of the hall.
Tall mirrors hung on every available wall, casting a dizzying array of reflections into the far distance. The doors and ceiling bore intricate spiderweb scrollwork in gold leaf and overlapping woven rugs covered the floor, while a polished mahogany table stood at the centre bearing some sort of ornate glasswork. The grand double doors ahead were flanked by polished black statues of Insar and Catrac, also picked out in gold.
‘The Court of the Shard, I assume,’ Lastani murmured, looking forward. ‘A seat for every mage in the city, so my teacher, Mistress Ishienne, used to say.’
Before Sitain could reply, a tall white man in a formal coat stepped out of one doorway and spoke to them in the local language. White-haired and moustached, he blinked at the blank looks he received and took in their appearance before smoothly continuing in richly accented Parthish.
‘My apologies, I had thought you guild members, but I see you are new to our city.’
Lastani glanced for a moment at Atieno and nodded. ‘We are visitors, we seek an audience with the Shard.’
The twitch of the man’s whiskered cheek made Sitain expect him to burst out laughing in their faces, but instead he merely gave a bow.
‘I am afraid the Shard is most busy, she is unavailable.’
‘I understand,’ Sitain said, warming to her role. ‘We wish to petition her or a deputy of hers perhaps. My name is Lastani Ufre.’
‘I, ah, I’m afraid I do not know that name.’
‘If the Shard does not, I believe she soon will.’ Lastani took a step closer to the man, her voice lowering. ‘News of events in Jarrazir have reached the Mage Islands?’
‘Events? We, ah, have heard some fanciful rumours, it is true.’
‘I am here to provide the Shard with a first-hand account, information she will not hear through her sources there.’
‘And your petition?’
‘Access to her libraries and records, should she be satisfied with the account I provide. I am confident she will feel she profits from the exchange.’
The man cocked his head at her. ‘What do you seek?’
‘Answers – if I find them, I will share them with the Shard but I would not waste her time with conjecture and half-formed thoughts in advance.’
There was a long pause while he considered her words. ‘Very well, I shall inform the Shard of your offer. Where do you lodge?’
‘I …’ Lastani’s cheeks pinked. ‘I cannot pronounce the name. May we perhaps return here tomorrow instead to hear her decision?’
‘As you wish,’ the man said, adding somewhat gnomically, ‘privacy is something many mages in this city wish for. My name is Tegir, Fen Oe Tegir. I am one of the Shard’s stewards and advisers. Ask for me when you return.’
Lastani bowed. ‘Thank you, we shall return tomorrow.’
Sitain blinked. ‘What, that’s it?’ she whispered to Atieno.
He gave her shoulder a shove. ‘Aye, it is. Time to go.’
‘But—’
‘Move,’ Atieno said firmly. ‘We gave our message, but you don’t hurry the senior mage of the city.’
‘I could have stayed with the others and be well into my second drink by now.’
&nbs
p; ‘But you chose a higher calling,’ the older man said, smiling down at her. ‘The path of enlightenment and civilisation.’
‘I’m regretting it now.’
‘We both are.’ Atieno sighed. ‘Come on.’
Chapter 7
Of all things, it was the whip of wings that started memories cascading through Teshen’s mind. He’d steeled himself against the more obvious aspects of returning home; the deep croaks of the larger tysarn, the warm, familiar scent of the lagoon or the chatter of voices in his mother tongue. But a young tysarn hunting had blindsided him all the same. The distinctive zip of its wings as it chased a midge, like a razor being sharpened, had instantly dragged him back through the years.
He walked without seeing, leading the mages through Auferno’s shadow-wrapped streets as the past descended like dusk. He’d never seen the tysarn that night, only caught the blur of movement that he’d first thought was a dart. Somehow he’d frozen – not dived aside or even flinched. After years of training and a lifetime of brawling in these stone streets, he had simply done nothing.
It had been late in the evening by then. Both his knives were bloodied – it had been no game that day. What had played out on the streets of Vi No Le had been swift and savagely real. He had seen friends cut down, some butchered without mercy, while he in turn had killed plenty. And in that one long moment he had thought he was already dead.
It was only the lack of movement that had saved him. Looking back he could see that. He’d surprised her by not reacting, by not pulling the weapons he had left and attacking while she was vulnerable. They stood on the upper level of the Sath Eil, a corkscrewed warren of cramped housing and tunnels where it was near impossible to be pursued.
‘Why?’ Sanshir had asked after hauling herself over the ledge.
She’d been tired after it all, chin-length hair pinned back and soaked in sweat. He remembered the blood on her tunic, a flash of alarm for her despite everything. Then he realised it was arterial spray running across her shoulder, her kill not her injury, for all there were deep scores in one leather shoulder-patch.