by Jen Williams
‘We are not likely to be welcomed at all.’
Agent Chenlo appeared, a pack already slung over her shoulders. It seemed she travelled even more lightly than Vintage. Noon crossed her arms over her chest.
‘I’d be happier about this if we knew what sort of war-beast you’ll be facing,’ she said. ‘All we really have to go on is what you’ve told us.’
‘You mean you have to trust my word?’ Chenlo’s mouth twitched at the corner, as if she wanted to smile but had thought better of it. ‘Your reluctance is understandable, Lady Noon. If you wish, we could wait until more gossip filters over the Bloodless Mountains.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘We don’t have time,’ said Vintage. She had finally finished adjusting the harness, and joined Noon by Helcate’s head, rubbing the war-beast’s long neck. ‘We need to nip this in the bud before it becomes something we have no hope of resolving quietly. The Jure’lia could be back at any time, and we’ll need to be focussed on that if we’ve any hope of surviving them. Besides,’ she sighed, ‘what of the bond between our war-beasts? It grows daily, yet this new creature isn’t a part of it. We have to consider that eventually it may be impossible for them to become – for them to join with us successfully. And that will be a great tragedy. I feel that strongly.’
‘Like that giant brute that has joined with the Jure’lia,’ said Noon. She and Vostok had fought Celaphon in the skies, and had felt nothing but flat hatred and a strange, alien desperation from him. ‘Listen, I wanted to talk to you before you went, Vin. Privately.’
Chenlo nodded, and turned away across the palace gardens. After a moment, she lifted a silver whistle to her lips and a great black bat appeared in the skies, wings whirring.
‘What is it, my darling?’
‘Oh, lots of things. Too many bloody things.’ Noon reached up and pushed her fingers through her hair. It was getting too long. ‘Don’t trust that one, for a start. She’s one of the Winnowry’s dogs.’
‘There isn’t a Winnowry anymore, my dear,’ said Vintage mildly. ‘You made sure of that.’
‘You know what I mean. Watch your back, all the time. Be careful. Find out what you can but don’t do anything rash.’
‘Darling, I was doing rash things when you were still drooling in your mother’s lap.’ Seeing the look on Noon’s face, Vintage smiled. ‘I take your point. Believe me, after my experience with Tyranny Munk, I am not rushing to trust anyone.’ The smile faded, and Noon got the impression she was thinking of Nanthema again. Tyranny Munk wasn’t the only one who had betrayed a trust.
‘All right. Good. We just need information, first of all. Information from someone we can trust.’ She reached over and squeezed Vintage’s arm briefly. ‘The bond between the war-beasts, between all of us, is getting stronger, but we don’t really know how it will last over such distances. And, well . . .’
‘And I am new to it, and Helcate is . . . well, Helcate is himself.’
‘Helcate,’ agreed Helcate.
‘I just can’t help feeling like all this is a mistake,’ said Noon. Unexpectedly, she felt on the verge of crying. ‘Last time, when Tor and I left on some fool’s mission, all we found was a lot of terrible stuff, and then when we came back . . .’
Vintage put her hand on Noon’s shoulder. ‘What you brought back, darling, was the truth. Which is rarely comfortable and never painless, but often, ultimately, worth knowing. And there is the amber record. There are still useful things to be gleaned from that, whatever Tor may think. I’ve asked Aldasair to do his best to keep cataloguing it while I’m away.’
‘Do you think Tor is all right?’ The question was out before she knew she meant to ask it. ‘Does he seem himself to you?’
‘Vain, difficult, self-absorbed? He seems perfectly normal to me.’ Vintage smiled, a little sadly. ‘He’s not all right, Noon, but who is at the moment? And he’s just found out that much of his own history is a lie, or, at least, is severely warped. I imagine it will take a while for him to adjust to that.’
At that moment, Noon became aware of a pair of young women approaching them across the lush grass. One of them had an arm covered in rippled, melted skin – a bad burn scar – while the other looked very frail, as though a strong breeze would blow her away. Both had the mark of the Winnowry on their foreheads.
‘Oh shit,’ said Noon in a low voice. ‘They’ve caught me.’
Vintage lowered her voice to match. ‘Darling, you will have to talk to them at some point.’
‘Lady Noon?’ The woman with the scars stepped forward, her broad face serious. ‘I’m Fell-Andrea, this is my friend Fell-Stasia. I’m sorry, we haven’t been here long, but we wanted to say thank you. For what you did. For getting us out of there.’
The other girl nodded silently.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Noon stiffly.
‘My darling, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you get those scars?’ Vintage asked.
Andrea blinked and looked down, as though surprised to see the scars herself. ‘Oh! I was in the agent training programme at one point, but I, uh, didn’t settle. I couldn’t follow orders, you see. So one of the agents burned me, as punishment.’
Vintage looked ill, while Noon nodded towards Chenlo, who was adjusting the harness on her bat. ‘An agent like her, you mean?’
‘Oh no, not like her.’ The pale girl was speaking, her voice soft and uncertain. ‘Chenlo was the good one. You were lucky if you were in her squad. She did what she could to keep us from beatings. Burnings.’ She shivered under the bright summer sun.
‘What a saint,’ said Noon.
‘I couldn’t stand with the agents, because they were the Winnowry, and they imprisoned me when I was eight years old,’ Andrea’s voice was terse now, a little unsteady, and Noon felt a shiver of discomfort move down her back. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. Somewhere, distantly, she felt Vostok turn her attention towards her. ‘But I would stand with you, Lady Noon.’
‘Me too,’ said Stasia, her voice barely more than a whisper.
‘Just tell us when and where. We’ll follow you.’
Noon swallowed and looked away. ‘There’s no need for that,’ she said. ‘I’m not leading anyone anywhere.’
The two women looked at each other, clearly embarrassed, and Noon felt a fresh stab of guilt and horror. She made herself look at them both.
‘Look, you’re free. That’s the point. You don’t have to follow anyone, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Go and do . . . whatever it is you wanted to do with your lives in the first place.’ As soon as she said it, she thought of eight-year-old Fell-Andrea, before she was imprisoned by the Winnowry. Andrea had been a child, with no idea of her place in the world yet. What was she supposed to reclaim, exactly?
Even so, the two women nodded and said their goodbyes. When they were some distance away, Vintage elbowed Noon in the ribs.
‘What did you have to go and say that for?’
‘Fire and blood, what was I supposed to say? It’s madness. I’m not a leader. I shouldn’t be in charge of anything. And I’m definitely not a replacement for the Winnowry.’
‘Yet here you were just now, advising me on my mission, appraising me of our wider situation.’ Vintage laughed at Noon’s outraged expression. ‘You might not like it, Noon, but when you’re on the battlefield, when we fight, you move into that position naturally. Now, it might be Vostok’s influence, but I think it’s a role that’s not completely beyond you.’
‘Vintage, most of the time I think you’re the wisest person I know. And then sometimes I think you’re full of shit.’
Later, when all the packs were attached and everyone was ready, Noon watched Vintage and Agent Chenlo leave with a tight feeling in her chest. Very quickly, Helcate was a little smudge against the blue sky, and Noon found herself watching it closely, desperate to keep it in her sights until the very last moment. She had, hidden deep
inside her so that the others couldn’t feel it, the terrible suspicion that she wouldn’t see Vintage again.
Chapter Nine
‘What are you doing?’
Hestillion looked up from her work to see the Jure’lia queen standing in the doorway. Her mask-like face looked leathery and stained, but her body was in flux once more, tendrils of greenish-black fluid reaching out to support her against the walls. Keeping her own face mask-like, Hestillion murmured to her newest creation to return to her place by the wall. On the creature’s bare chest the image of a green bird shimmered, unfinished.
‘I am making myself some company,’ said Hestillion, wiping her hands on her trousers. The figure – who Hestillion already thought of as Green Bird – had joined the First at the wall, and they watched her continually. They did not look at the queen.
‘Your war-beast is not enough?’
But the queen had crept fully into the chamber, her head cocked in curiosity towards the things Hestillion had made. Oily fingers, each as long as Hestillion’s hands, reached out to touch them, then apparently thought better of it. When Hestillion didn’t answer, the queen oozed across the floor towards her.
‘You have made things to obey you,’ she said. There was no hint of judgement in her voice. It was simply a cold stating of fact. ‘It is a unique pleasure. One that is not changing, or consuming. One that is . . . power. One more thing we must understand.’
‘I think you already understand it,’ said Hestillion, and then, ‘You have left the crystal behind?’
They stood within another of the Behemoths; ultimately Hestillion had felt exposed inside the corpse moon. Too close to the teeming mind of the queen, and to Celaphon’s own childish curiosity. At the mention of the crystal, the queen seemed to fold into herself.
‘We have yet to understand the power of the memory. Sometimes I think I am close, and then . . .’ the queen’s wet eyes narrowed, ‘and then it is gone. But we can feel you here, your fingers inside our flesh, working and changing.’ She moved over to the wall until she stood in front of the First. Again, her long hand reached out and this time she touched the creature’s cheek, smoothing a finger along the line of his jaw. ‘You have made this one look a certain way. It is something that we have managed to glean from the new crystal memory – that you value the individual differences. That one face is not like another, and that is important to you.’
‘To me?’
The queen waved a hand dismissively. ‘All of you. The wider pestilence. You glory in the infinite differences between you all, all of which are considered valuable. That is not us. We are the whole, the many as one. We feel the human man still, the one who carries our crystal in his flesh, but curiously, the longer he is in contact with our mind, the more he is broken down, destroyed. It has become difficult to feel him in our web because of this. If we want to understand him now, to understand this human desire for difference, we would need him physically here, with us . . .’ The queen trailed off, then seemed to change the subject. ‘You are making use of the flesh of us. It is discomforting.’
‘Yes, but I have good reason. I have an idea.’ Hestillion pulled the roll of parchment from her jerkin and took it over to where the queen could see it. The map depicted much of eastern Sarn, and as far as she could tell, it had been reasonably up to date when it had been stolen from a destroyed settlement. ‘You are hurt. You are healing, for want of a better word, but I am not. I can still act. Do you understand?’
The queen said nothing. At the wall, the creature called the First lifted and dropped his shoulders; almost a pretence of breathing.
‘Now I am connected to the Jure’lia, let me use that. With this circle I am creating, I can control your ships. I can be your commander.’
The queen still did not speak. Hestillion hissed through her teeth in frustration.
‘For thousands of years you have been trying to take Sarn, and failing. The same way each time. Any Eboran military mind would suggest that this is the very definition of madness. It does not work. Yet you are still doing it. Do you see?’
‘You seek to advise us now, Hestillion Eskt, born in the year of the green bird?’
‘Why not?’ Hestillion threw her arms up in the air, aware that she was revealing too much of her own complicated feelings, but powerless to stop. ‘I have left Ebora and pledged myself to you. We have raised a war-beast and changed him into something Sarn has never seen. I have . . . I have spilled Eboran blood, and turned away from my brother.’ She thought of the days she had spent in Ebora, whispering to the voice within Ygseril’s roots, convinced it was their great tree-father; and she remembered the flood of panic and guilt when she realised who that voice really belonged to. She had betrayed Ebora, and there was no walking away from it. ‘I can suffer all that, I can suffer it and come through stronger, a weapon forged for your hand, but I cannot abide inefficiency.’
While the queen took this in, Hestillion brandished the map. ‘Your attacks have always been random, haven’t they? You emerge from your hiding place and go where the wind takes you, eating and destroying at random until the Eboran forces arrive and push you back. There is never any pattern, and never any tactical thinking.’
‘There has never been any need.’
‘How many times must Ebora crush you before you realise there is every need?’ Hestillion rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand; she was sweating again. ‘You need a strategy. And I can give it to you. I can even implement it, with the use of my circle.’ She held up the map so that the queen could see. ‘These places I have marked. These are places that have armies which will rise and fight against you. These are the places that will assist Ebora, both with soldiers and with supplies. They must be targeted, and wiped out first. Once they are removed, Ebora will be the weakest it has ever been.’ Her throat contracted, and she paused, swallowing hard. She felt as though she were standing on the edge of a steep drop, an unknowable darkness yawning away below her. Then she looked up and met the yellow eyes of the First. His form was comforting, familiar. She tapped the map again. ‘Do you see? Precision. Precision is what is needed.’
‘And you believe that you can command our ships as we do?’
‘I know I can. With my circle. While you have been studying your crystal, I have been practising. It is not easy, because the connection within us is so noisy, but I have made them listen closely to me, and I listen closely to them. We are forging our own links here, and what I speak of is possible. I promise you that.’
For a long time, the queen said nothing. She looked around the chamber instead, her gaze lingering on the discarded remains of various burrowers and spider-mothers, on the creatures standing by the wall; Eboran in shape, Jure’lia in aspect. Through the blue crystal in her chest, Hestillion felt a fresh wave of discordance move through their connection.
‘Prove it to us,’ the queen said eventually. ‘Finish crafting your circle. Take two ships beyond our nest, to a place that you have chosen, and make our maggots fat. Tear their worlds to pieces and cover the dust with our excretion. Make that small bit of the world ready for us, and prove the worth of this precision of yours. And leave your dragon here, with us.’
Hestillion lifted her head at this, but the queen just smiled.
‘How else do we know you will return to us?’
With that, she left, oozing back through the wall. The glowing fronds dimmed slightly, and again Hestillion felt the disruption move through the network that was the Jure’lia. Making her creatures had been a welcome distraction, but it was clear that deep within, the worm people were still struggling to heal themselves.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said aloud. ‘I can make it work.’
She put the wider Jure’lia connection from her mind, and the figures at the wall twitched and shivered as she reached out for them instead. The one she called the First – the one that looked a little like her brother, in the right light – turned his head towards her. His yellow eyes rolled wetly; she h
ad not managed eyelids.
‘We can make it work. I will not rot in this hole waiting for the queen to make a decision.’
The First nodded, a little creakily. Somewhere, the memory of a small Eboran boy, his guts scattered in the mud and snow, kept trying to surface, but with the noise of the Jure’lia in her head and the excitement of her new plan brewing, this was easy enough to ignore. Hestillion smiled.
Vintage leaned forward to sink her hands into Helcate’s curly fur, taking some comfort from his warmth. It might be high summer on the ground, but it was achingly cold this high up. Some distance to her left, the Winnowry agent was mostly hidden within the blur of her bat’s wings, as she had been all morning, while in front of them it seemed like the whole of Sarn was spread like a gorgeous, shimmering length of silk.
‘I doubt the plains have ever looked so beautiful,’ she murmured. She had crossed them many times in her travels, often in the company of the nomadic peoples who spent their lives traversing the enormous stretches of grass and trees, and had always found them beautiful, but this was something else. Soft waves of green and gold threaded here and there with the silver of a river or a lake, and in the very far distance, soft purple hills and hints of wood smoke. It had taken them almost a week to get clear of Ebora and the Bloodless Mountains thanks to a flurry of summer storms, but now the weather had eased back into a kind of lazy serenity and the way ahead seemed impossibly clear.
One of the threads of silver was growing fatter as she watched, and with a strange thrill she recognised it: the Trick, looking, from this vantage point, very much like it did on her many maps. Clustered on this side of it was a copse of tall, spindly trees, each branch bright with small leaves. Sprawled around them, growing closer all the time, were a number of strange horse-drawn vehicles; the top half of each featured a tent shaped rather like a three-cornered hat, while the undercarriage sported a set of four large wooden wheels. There were people with the vehicles, many of which were turning to point at them as they flew closer.