by Jen Williams
‘Drink it,’ his cousin urged, but Tor looked away across the flats to the sea. It was full daylight now, and off to the south-east it was possible to see the faint brown haze of the Reidn delta, impossibly busy with ships and the faint glint of its myriad waterways. The two Behemoths were gone, silently easing their way back across the sky when the sun had fully risen. Directly to the east there was smoke, and the tiny orange embers of fire. He found himself watching it, willing the fire to turn green.
‘I told you,’ he said, carefully controlling his voice. ‘She was there. She was looking down at me, and then . . . she wasn’t.’ With his free hand he brushed the edge of his cloak where it was singed.
Bern cleared his throat. ‘It was a mighty explosion. Do fell-witches – Has that ever happened before? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Has what happened before?’ There was a dangerous tone to Vostok’s voice. It had taken them some time to coax her away from the settlement; the dragon had been convinced that Noon must be there somewhere, that she must have fallen from her harness and was lost on the ground, even as the ground itself was slowly turned into a shining mass of hardened green resin.
‘An explosion.’ Bern flexed his hand, grimacing. ‘An accident, I don’t know. Did she lose control of it?’
‘The witch was always controlled. Always thoughtful.’ Kirune had been pacing around them, his big grey paws nearly silent in the thick grass. ‘She would not allow it.’
‘I agree,’ said Jessen. Aldasair reached up and stroked her snout fondly. ‘Noon was a skilled warrior.’
‘You didn’t know her as long as I did,’ said Tor. He took a sip of the drink and frowned as it burned its way down his throat. Rum of some sort. The worst sort. ‘There was a time when she was a mess, didn’t have a clue what she was doing with the winnowfire. It was Vostok who gave her that discipline. She was a menace before that.’
‘Why are you all speaking of her as if she is dead?’ Vostok glared down at them all imperiously, her violet eyes burning.
‘I saw it, Vostok. I wish I hadn’t, but I saw it. Nothing could survive an explosion like that, not sitting as she did at its heart.’
‘I did,’ snapped Vostok.
Tor laughed weakly. He felt untethered somehow, as though he were floating up above them all. The rum was helping with the sensation, so he downed the rest of it.
‘Then where is she, dragon? Tell me that. Because you know, in your heart, she’d never leave you. Would never leave the battle before we’d won.’ Curls of grey smoke leaked out from between Vostok’s bared teeth, and Tor wondered if she would roast him alive. It seemed as reasonable an end as any at this point. ‘So where the fuck is she, Vostok?’
The dragon bridled, flames glowing in the back of her throat, but Aldasair began speaking, his soft voice like water on embers.
‘I’ve never heard of a fell-witch blowing herself up. By all accounts, they are actually protected from the flame, at least a little – how else could they form it and sculpt it between their hands as they do?’
‘You sound like Vintage,’ said Tor.
‘There was no – forgive me – smell of burning flesh. No debris that I could see. And Tor, we would have felt it if she had died. Remember the pain we felt with Eri.’
‘It was like being stabbed,’ said Bern, with feeling. ‘Or having something ripped out of you.’ He flexed his hand again.
‘Before it happened, she was confused,’ said Vostok. She lowered her head to the grass, as though the answers were there somewhere. ‘She said that something was wrong.’
A small chilly silence settled over the group. Tor’s arms were aching again, a deep, sharp ache that throbbed outwards from his wrists.
‘Let’s face it, none of us know much about fell-witches, or the Winnowry. Anything could have happened, and we’d be none the wiser.’ Tor ran a hand over his face, feeling abruptly exhausted. ‘Is there any more of that rum?’
‘We should ask the fell-witches at the palace,’ said Aldasair, his face brightening. ‘There are Winnowry agents among them. If anyone will know if this has happened before, it will be them.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting we leave?’ snapped Vostok. ‘She’s out there somewhere, possibly confused and disorientated. We have to find her.’
‘Can you feel her, Vostok?’ Bern looked pained by the question, but he faced the dragon nonetheless. ‘Do you sense her nearby? Could she have been taken by the worm people?’
The dragon did not answer. Instead she hissed at them all and turned her back on them, before battering them with the wind from her wings. She headed back east, towards the coast, and was soon a glinting white shape against the searing blue sky. Through the connection he shared with Kirune and the others, Tor felt a deep sense of unease rising up, as though they stood in brackish flood waters. The group is falling apart.
‘She was not on board those Behemoths, I’m sure of it. We would have felt her, so nearby. If this was not just a terrible accident . . . Listen, if anyone can find her, it’s Vostok,’ said Aldasair, a forced note of cheer in his voice. ‘But we should not leave Ygseril undefended if we can help it.’
Tor stood up, stumbling slightly as the world weaved and ducked around him.
‘Agreed,’ he said, ignoring how they all looked at him. ‘Let’s get back to the palace.’
When they arrived back, Tor left them all in the courtyard and headed directly for Vintage’s apartments. There was a guard on the door, one of Bern’s people, who he waved away, before lighting a couple of lamps in the living room – it was dark, and the place seemed especially gloomy without her there. It was filled with the usual Vintage chaos, books and papers everywhere, pots of ink and sticks of charcoal scattered on most flat surfaces, and on one large desk there was Micanal the Clearsighted’s journal. Next to it there was a pile of papers, which Tor glanced at. They listed, in exhausting detail, everything they had managed to glean from the amber record so far. Tor stood with a sheet of paper pinched between his thumb and forefinger for some time without reading it, and then dropped it on the floor.
He went through to the adjoining room, where a huge wooden trunk sat at the foot of Vintage’s unmade bed. It was a heavy thing, lined and sealed with iron, but Tor lifted the lid with no discernible effort. Inside were wood shavings and a large number of carefully packed bottles of wine. Some were from Vintage’s own vine forest, a few from elsewhere. Tor stood staring at them until he realised that he did not care which ones he drank. He picked three at random, plucked a dusty glass from the sideboard and got to work.
At the third glass he paused, wondering if he should retire to his own rooms before he no longer felt much like walking, but the thought of leaving Vintage’s suite was a cold one. She wasn’t here, but the sense of her was, like a warm and slightly annoying ghost. The ink and the papers, even the smell of wood shavings; all of it took him back to their earliest days together, when she was just an aggravating eccentric traveller, and he was just her bodyguard. He remembered the first time he had seen her; a warm face dazzled into darkness by the sun as she stood over him. He had been drunk and half asleep outside a tavern, and of course she had demanded to know what he was doing. He was, ultimately, one more Eboran artefact for her to pore over.
‘Another dusty relic,’ he said to the room at large. ‘Should have bloody left me there, Vintage. Look at all the fucking trouble we’ve caused.’
Noon might still have escaped the Winnowry, but she wouldn’t have been found by them, wandering in the Shroom Flats like a dispossessed urchin. She wouldn’t have followed them to Esiah Godwort’s compound, wouldn’t have absorbed the life-energy of a parasite spirit, which would turn out to be the soul of a dragon called Vostok. Without Noon, he would not have gone back inside the Behemoth wreck and retrieved the golden growth fluid, would not have taken it back to Ebora, would not have accidently released the Jure’lia queen from the roots of Ygseril . . .
‘I’ve no doubt, Vintage, you wo
uld have got into plenty of trouble without me, but this –’ he gestured around, as if taking in all of the palace and all of Ebora, perhaps all of Sarn – ‘this level of fuck-up is an Eboran speciality.’
He thought, then, of how Vintage’s face would change when they told her that Noon was lost, so he filled his glass up to the top and drank it off in one go. When that was done, he opened the next bottle. This wine was so dark it looked black, and it smelled of blackberries and winter. He shivered in the warm room.
‘It’s all falling apart,’ he said. Absently, he rolled up his sleeve and peered at his arm in the gloom. The red mark there was a little deeper, and it had a new line branching off from it. Still very small, still barely noticeable, but there. ‘Vintage, if, by some miracle, you can hear me, you’re better off not coming back. Stay in Jarlsbad, or run. And keep running.’
Chapter Thirteen
There has been a great deal of discussion about the woman Fell-Tyranny since she was brought into the Winnowry. She has, as I predicted, been secreted away into the smallest chambers in the underground section of the towers, and, as I also predicted, she has made life as hard as possible for everyone. She refuses to eat, smears her food over the walls, bellows obscenities at anyone passing, lunges for any sister or agent who comes close. Yet, as the activities of the Salts are gradually revealed to us, I can’t help noticing that when the subject of her future arises, a speculative look appears on certain faces.
They were producing illegal akaris, we know this. They were transporting it out of the city and across Sarn, undercutting the Winnowry on the price as they did so. Tyranny herself had multiple contacts, was owed untold favours. She was a power in the city, and now, some are saying, it is foolish to throw that power away. The woman has skills, ones that the Winnowry rarely comes across in its prisoners. The implication is clear: they intend to make her an agent, somehow. There is talk that Agent Maritza, who I always thought to be so pragmatic, will be her handler.
I have objected in the strongest possible terms. I was there when we took her in, I saw her burn a woman to cinders without the slightest thought, and I saw the unhinged expression on her face as she did so. There is no control in her, not even any desire for it – there is only rage. Such a person could never be an agent, not without devastating consequences, but I receive only flat looks and frowns when I point this out. I may be their most senior agent, but my opinion can safely be discarded when power and profit are being discussed.
Extract from the private records of Agent Chenlo
The taste of ash, black and sour. Beneath her fingers, something soft and pliable. Patches of heat, coming and going, flickering and then dying.
Noon sat up, coughing. There was black sand on her face and hands, all over her clothes, and directly in front of her were softly undulating dunes, broken up here and there with spiky white plants with tiny red buds on them. The sky overhead was grey and flat – and empty. It was empty.
‘Vostok? Tor?’
She tried to stand up but her legs wouldn’t hold her properly, so she stumbled, turning as she fell. There was a ruin behind her, some sort of old castle built of . . . built of . . .
Noon dropped her head and looked at the black sand some more. Her head was spinning, and the sense of being utterly alone was stark, as though she had fallen naked from her bed in the middle of the freezing night. Where was Vostok? Where was Tor? Where was the Behemoth they had been fighting? Where was the sea?
She shivered violently all over despite the warmth of the day, and a tiny flicker of winnowfire moved over the palm of her hand without her summoning it. As she blinked at that, another tongue of green flame marched up her forearm and disappeared.
‘What the fuck is going on?’
The only answer was a soft, breathy sigh, the sound of the wind moving over the dunes. Still shivering as though she were in the depths of a fever, Noon forced herself to stand and look at the ruin. Her first thought was that it was made of shadows, a thing of dying light and hidden depths, but as she took a few steps towards it, she saw that it was actually made of a kind of dark grey glass. Translucent and impossibly delicate, it sprawled away in front of her in a series of towers and battlements and peaks that seemed to make very little obvious sense, while the light of the day pooled and shone in odd places, turning structures smoky and insubstantial. As she walked towards it she noticed that there were patches on the sand that were also hard and glassy, as though someone had once tried to make a path of the same material but had given up.
‘Hello! Anyone in there?’
Noon raised her hand to shield her eyes – despite the greyness of the day, the place felt filled with light and heat – but winnowfire licked around her fingers and she hurriedly dropped her arm.
‘I remember the fight,’ she said aloud, still moving towards the ruin. ‘I remember looking down at Tor. He had noticed that Celaphon was missing, and he was happy about it, but I didn’t feel happy. I was worried. Because something felt wrong. And –’ She paused. Ahead of her was a sort of arched gateway, which led to the main building beyond. Now she was close to it, she could see the sand the glass erupted from; it was covered in thick black bubbles. She leaned down to touch it, and felt hard, slick glass under her fingers. She stepped away, frowning. ‘Vostok was angry with me because I wasn’t paying attention. And then – green light, a roaring sound, and this place. Fire and blood, did I just leave them there?’
Something twinkled above her line of sight and she looked up just in time to see a flicker of greenish light at one of the windows. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Was the Winnowry responsible for this? Balling her hands into fists, she strode towards the opening in the ruins – there was no door – and quickly found herself in a wide, echoing hall of sorts. More grey glass, darker the closer to the floor it was, and lots of doorways, leading off down shadowy hallways. There were stairs too, leading up to a series of precarious ledges, but the steps were slick and shiny and oddly ill-formed – almost as if they were the idea of steps rather than the real thing.
‘Is anyone here? If you’re from the Winnowry, I swear, you will undo what you did to me or I will find every last one of you and – and –’
Another flicker of green light, this time down at the end of one of the corridors. Noon set off at a run, frowning at how her boots squeaked across the glass, but the light had already gone by the time she got there. Instead, she found herself standing in an unsettling corridor of dark glass, the surface of it slick and cold under her fingers.
‘I’ve lost my fucking mind.’
Laughter echoed down the hall towards her, and she snapped her head around to see the source, but there was nothing save for a sheen of greenish light in the distance. The laughter faded; it didn’t sound cruel, or mocking, just genuinely amused. And female. Noon turned and followed the light, which disappeared around two corners before leading her to a set of wide, curving steps. Noon eyed them warily before following, going slowly and leaning against the wall for stability. The steps under her boots were slippery and uneven, threatening to send her sliding back down on her face. Her head down and her brow creased in concentration, the landing took her by surprise, and she looked up to find herself in a wide chamber with a low ceiling. There were windows along one side, or at least, holes in the glass, and the grey daylight from outside filtered its way inside to become a soft, uncertain glow. And she wasn’t alone.
There was a woman sitting on a chair in the centre of the chamber. She was tall and rangy, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She wore a dress made of layers of knitted material, a mixture of black and red and blue, and although Noon could see her hair – it was long and brown and untidy – it was half hidden under an aura of green flame that flickered from the top of her head. Her eyes were bright green lights, and seeing Noon’s expression, she smiled.
‘There you are.’ Her voice was warm and friendly, as though greeting an old friend.
‘Who – what are you?’
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The woman stood up, revealing the chair she sat on. There was nothing really remarkable about it – just a wooden chair, painted yellow, with a woven straw cushion – but it was so incongruous in the castle of glass that Noon could only stare at it. The woman stood to one side, as if presenting the chair for her consideration.
‘Do you like it? I like bringing things back here sometimes. Odds and ends. They don’t last, but I suppose that’s the point.’
‘I . . . it’s a very lovely chair.’ Noon pressed her fingers to her eyes, wondering if perhaps she had fallen from Vostok after all, and hit her head very hard. ‘Who are you? And what am I doing here?’
The woman turned away from the chair and walked towards Noon slowly. She was barefoot, and as she got closer, Noon realised the woman was ill. Her skin was sallow and thin, bruised black and purple under her eyes.
‘I think you know who I am, Fell-Noon. Don’t you? Deep in that head, don’t you know?’ The woman tipped her head to one side, and the flickering aura of flames around it rose a little higher. ‘You people usually know, when I come to you.’
Noon looked into the woman’s fiery green eyes and for a moment could say nothing at all. Because, on some level, she did know this woman. Not the face, but the energy of her. After all, didn’t she carry it with her every day?
‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘I feel like I’ve known you forever, but I’ve never seen your face before. How can that be?’ She shook her head. ‘You’re not surprised to see me here, and you know my name. Did you bring me to this place?’
‘Noon.’ The woman laid a hand on her shoulder. Noon could feel the heat of it, like a cooling iron, through her jacket. ‘I brought you here, yes. Shall we go outside? I should like to walk on the sand.’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’ Noon shook her hand off. ‘Tell me why you’ve done this, and send me back. I was in the middle of a fight! Tor and Vostok, they will think I’ve left them, they will think –’