by Jen Williams
‘I should have been there! Where you summon glory, so should I. We are warriors together, little green bird.’
‘I know, my sweet, and you will be there next time.’ She smiled, thinking of how Celaphon had once admired the human man Bern, as his soul was ‘that of a weapon’. Perhaps now he would give her the deference she was due. Now I am master of the battlefield. ‘I just had to prove myself to our queen. But now she can see what I can do . . .’
‘We see what you do, Hestillion Eskt.’ A shadow split the dusty light in two, and the Jure’lia queen appeared from behind them. ‘We saw with many eyes how you threw down the humans, how you consumed them. Even your brother and his cohorts were frightened away. Impressive.’
Hestillion stood and faced the queen, lifting her chin slightly. The creature that was the heart of the Jure’lia looked a little more solid than she had done, her long rangy limbs grown greenish and spongy, and her long hands laid curled at her sides like dead spiders.
‘I can proceed, then? With my plan?’ Hestillion cleared her throat; she felt oddly like a child reporting to her tutor. ‘Settlement by settlement, city by city. Until Ebora remains, alone and friendless. It is the only way.’ She took a breath. ‘I am confident that eventually I will be able to command even more Behemoths at once.’ Behind her, Celaphon snorted again, louder this time. ‘And of course Celaphon will be our central force, driving all before him.’
For a long time the queen didn’t say anything at all. Her yellowish pond-scum eyes moved from Celaphon to Hestillion and back again. When finally she spoke, Hestillion found herself blinking in consternation at the question.
‘And what of your brother?’
‘What?’
‘He will try to stop you, again and again. You will have to kill him. What do you think about this?’
‘I . . .’ Hestillion felt her throat grow tight. All at once she was too angry to speak. ‘I told you, I have broken all bonds with Ebora, that I—’
‘And you.’ The queen twitched her head towards Celaphon. ‘Your brothers and sisters, the griffin and wolf and dragon, who grew in the tree with you. What of your bond with them?’
Celaphon looked to Hestillion for guidance, then down at his own feet. He said nothing.
‘Bonds. You things are made of them, strengthened by them. It is almost –’ The queen lifted her long hands and looked at them. ‘It is almost like our connections, almost, but so difficult to see, and much less reliable.’
‘It’s the crystal still, isn’t it?’ Hestillion felt her own hands curling into fists. There was a sick roiling in her stomach. ‘Still you focus on that, to the detriment of everything else.’
‘Yet we almost understand it,’ said the queen softly, picking up on none of the anger in Hestillion’s voice – or perhaps, thought Hestillion, she chooses to ignore it. ‘The force that enabled the man Bern to supplant our own memory. So invisible, yet so powerful. Lord Celaphon,’ she turned her attention back to the dragon, who was still sitting with his head lowered, ‘you once called the connection we all share “a poison song”. Will that be enough for you? Can it be?’
Hestillion felt Celaphon’s dismay, as sharp as a dagger under her own ribs – she knew he still felt something for the other war-beasts. Underneath the cacophony of the Jure’lia it was there still, a faint itch, a distant sorrow, like phantom pain from a severed limb.
‘I am mighty,’ said Celaphon, in a very small voice. ‘I will fight in battles again and show you that I don’t need any of them.’
‘We feel your uncertainty, Lord Celaphon.’ The queen’s tone was sympathetic, which only made Hestillion angrier. ‘That which is not Jure’lia seems riddled with uncertainty, and I fear the crystal memory has infected me with such.’ She turned to look at Hestillion, her face unreadable. ‘I am certain nothing else could have touched me in such a way. Us, in such a way.’
‘Enough of this nonsense.’ Hestillion threw her hands up, dismissing them both. ‘I don’t have time for it. My brother and his friends might have fled at our last battle, but they will be working relentlessly to get stronger, faster, more lethal. And I must make us stronger to match.’ She turned away and summoned an opening in the hide of the Behemoth. ‘I will be in the room of creation. There at least I can be sure of having company that will listen to me.’
Chapter Sixteen
As of this morning I have requested to be removed as one of Fell-Tyranny’s mentors.
It’s not a decision I take lightly, as it’s very clear she needs a great deal of guidance and instruction (and even kindness) but I fear we are just completely incompatible. She is sly for the sake of it, often creating tension and conflict between her sister witches just to watch the fallout; she bristles constantly at being told what to do, even when the commands are simple, common-sense things; she is looking continually for ways to break the system, pushing at the places where it is weak – she is, in short, much too used to being the leader of her own gang, and entirely resistant to being part of a team. This morning was the last straw. The girls had a small number of rabbits, bred specially for the purpose, and were teaching themselves to take a series of tiny sips of life energy from them – it’s an exercise in self-control and restraint, and I should have known Fell-Tyranny was unsuited to it. Again and again she drained the animals until they were cold and stiff, and then shrugged when I asked her why she couldn’t control her impulse. To her, control is something for other people to worry about, and this is all wrong: control is the very foundation of a Winnowry agent’s life. Having hidden herself on the streets of Mushenska for so long, she is considerably older than the other girls in training, and I wonder if this is a factor too; she is offended by what she sees as ‘child’s work’.
I have also noticed that she has yet to be given the bat-wing tattoo, and each time I ask about this, the sisters and fathers deflect my queries. My fear is that they have plans for Fell-Tyranny, yet they don’t truly understand her nature. It will end badly.
Extract from the private records of Agent Chenlo
The amber tablets had been laid out on the desk in a long line. To one side there was a pile of parchment, already covered in scratchy writing, while to the other was a pile of parchment waiting to be used, as well as several colourful pots of ink. Tor stood admiring the precision of it all for a while. So scholarly, so organised. Just like everything hadn’t gone to shit. Some of the used parchment bore Vintage’s handwriting, with its cheerful slant and elaborate loops, while some of it had been used by Aldasair; his cousin’s handwriting was more functional, with more words crammed onto each sheet, but still beautiful in its own way.
It was another bright day outside, and a slice of sunshine had fallen across the desk, turning the tablets to glowing slabs of honey. Smiling faintly, Tor picked one up and turned it over and over in his hands, ignoring the persistent burning ache in his arms and chest. He had been drinking since sun-up, but he had a terrible suspicion that the drink wasn’t working anymore. The pain couldn’t be ignored.
‘Time to try something else.’
He sat in the padded chair by the desk and closed his eyes, seeking out the netherdark with the relief of sinking into a hot bath. The amber tablet he had selected burned like a beacon, impossible to miss, and he stepped gladly into its warmth. There was a moment of pressure, resistance, and then he emerged, blinking, into the midst of a pitched battle. He stood on the steep incline of a grassy hill, some unknown landscape sweeping away in front, while all around him the teeming hordes of the Jure’lia scuttled and teemed. He saw at least three enormous maggots, glistening under the sun, and hanging in the sky above, a Behemoth; fat and whole, it looked like an overfed grub. Drones were everywhere, and Tor saw that Micanal had used some artistic licence there; they barely looked human at all, their skins grey and discoloured, their heads all free of hair. Perhaps Micanal had sought to reduce some of the horror in this, his paean to the glory of war-beasts and Ebora.
‘Or maybe he ju
st didn’t get out much,’ Tor murmured. He felt good. Despite the crawling horrors on the grasses below him, it was clear that this was not reality, and that was deeply reassuring; there was no smell of mud and blood, no imminent danger. And his veins were warm with wine. The pain and the sorrow, which had been hanging over him like a mouldering shroud, had been boiled away in this new chaos of sound and sight. He looked around. He was standing, he realised, in a long line of war-beasts and their warriors.
‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Look at you all.’
They were all bigger, and more glorious than they had been in life, he was sure of that, but somehow that only added to his feeling of awe; in the end, Micanal had seen them more clearly than anyone. Micanal had known them in his heart. This was why, after all, they called him ‘the Clearsighted’.
To his right stood a magnificent dragon, her scales a dizzying rainbow shading from red to blue, and her eyes were pools of liquid gold. On her long, noble head she wore a helmet specially shaped for her, and everything in her bearing spoke of strength, power and intelligence. There was an Eboran on her back, and of him Tor could not see much; he wore a full set of enamelled armour, and he carried a long spear under one arm. They shared an expression, though, one of expectation and patience.
Tor looked at them and smiled. To see them like this really was a gift. He wondered, if he could spend long enough here, whether his actual memories of Ebora – of the empty palace and broken roads, of the people dying slowly in their own beds, of the gradual falling away of everything he’d ever known – could be replaced with this instead. It was an attractive thought.
Movement. The army of war-beasts behind him surged forward, galloping down the hill to meet the ancient enemy, and Tor watched them pass, a ghost in their midst. They met the Jure’lia on the fields below, and here again Tor recognised Micanal’s hand, because this battle was like a dance, or a performance. The drones fell back like a tide, and each beast and warrior moved in beautiful unison, almost as if they weren’t killing at all.
‘Maybe this was what it was really like.’ Tor rubbed at his arm, then forced himself to stop. ‘When our war-beasts had their own memories, when there were more than five of them. When we knew who and what we were. Before we’d fucking poisoned ourselves.’
Abruptly, he wanted a drink.
Below, the battle was drawing to a close – this was evidence of more artistic licence from Micanal, as such battles had often lasted for days. Those Jure’lia that weren’t crushed into the ground were scuttling back to their Behemoths. Slowly, the giant ships began to move across the bruised sky, heading south and passing over Tor’s head. This then, was their famous retreat, at the end of every Rain, vanishing again for a generation only to come back repaired and renewed. Tor watched them go, admiring the slow trickle of daylight moving across the ships’ oily skins. When he looked back, the battlefields had vanished and he stood instead inside a cavernous hall of shining marble. Huge windows lined either side, letting in a bright, cold light, and elaborately embroidered carpets lay on the flagstones all around, leading in softly curving lines to the figures of various war-beasts. They stood as still as statues, yet their eyes glittered and their flanks moved softly with their breathing. Tor wandered over to the nearest one, and read the plaque that sat at its feet: Crowblossom, war-beast of the Fourth Rain, bonded with the warrior Lady Gweneer. Died of great age four decades after the end of the Rain . . .
There was more, meticulous details of all of Crowblossom’s achievements, including a note at the end that mentioned his celebrated poetry. Tor smiled faintly, wondering if any of Crowblossom’s poetry had survived. This war-beast had come from a period of Eboran history where poetry had been considered its highest art form. The beast was a griffin as large as Sharrik, with silky black feathers and bright yellow eyes. His heavy paws were tipped with lethal copper-coloured talons.
‘Such a beast,’ murmured Tor. ‘For all Micanal’s faults and mistakes, I am glad he did this. I am glad he gave me the chance to look on you, Crowblossom, in all your glory. What a brighter and better world it was, so long ago.’
Despite the glory, Tor felt despair seep into his heart. There would be no hall of champions for him and Kirune, he was certain of that. Even if he managed to die somewhere other than a fetid sick bed, his final battle would see the victory of the Jure’lia, and his legacy would be one of disgrace and horror. He turned away and wandered down the carpet, letting it lead him from one lost hero to another as the light through the windows remained unchanging.
In the end they were flown into Tygrish with an escort of fell-witches, the magnificent war-beast leading at the front. Below them, the land bridges were thronged with people, and as they passed over the city walls, Vintage saw almost all the faces looking up at them, their mouths wide open in neat little ‘o’s of wonder. Some of them were waving, she noticed. Cheering. Two war-beasts in their skies, she thought, smiling grimly. A day of note for Tygrish.
The enormous white bat flew above them, and Vintage found that her eyes were drawn to it again and again. Her fur was blindingly white in the sunshine, making Vintage think of Noon’s old friend Fulcor, yet there the resemblance mostly ended. Windfall’s eyes glittered dark blue, like the night sky caught in glass, and the translucent folds of skin between her wings held a bluish tinge too. Everything of her spoke of ice and snow, of long, lethal winters, yet here she was under the relentless Jarlsbad sun. Every war-beast was a wonder, of course, but something about this one made Vintage uneasy. Her fragile link with Helcate suggested that he was also uncertain about this newest sibling, and the fact that she was bat-shaped felt especially ominous. What sort of forces were at play when a war-beast happened to take the same shape as the symbol of the Winnowry – an organisation her bonded partner was a member of? It’s just a coincidence, she told herself. You have seen paintings of war-beasts shaped like giant bats before. Even so, she couldn’t help feeling like everything had suddenly become more complicated.
The city itself was beautiful and busy, a thing of white walls and green-topped towers. There were several gates leading in from the land bridges that Vintage could see, and an elaborate system of viaducts sent water all across the city. Much of it was familiar to her from her travels through Jarlsbad, but this far east there were enough differences that she found herself itching to make notes; the roofs of the towers were different shapes; there were fewer church buildings that she could see, and a great many more flags, long pennants in all colours. As they approached the palace itself, a tall central building with towers like flutes, Vintage noticed that here the flags were all shades of green, and each carried an image of a bat, drawn in white. She frowned at that, and glanced over at Chenlo, but the other woman was sitting low over her own bat, her face drawn and tense. One of the tallest towers, she noticed, had wooden scaffolding clinging to the top like a precarious web; it looked as though a set of windows was in the middle of being expanded to a proper, war-beast-sized entranceway.
Presently, the bats escorting them began to lose height, and they all landed together in a paved courtyard behind the palace walls, dotted with small fruit trees. A handful of guards came out to meet them, dressed in the flowing robes typical of Jarlsbad, although Vintage noted each also wore a green sash with the white bat emblazoned on it. Agent Kreed climbed down from her bat and began ordering them about, while Windfall only alighted on the ground briefly before taking back off into the air. Vintage lifted her head and watched her go, noting that she flew to the towers and disappeared into the hole she had spotted earlier.
‘You. Hand over any weapons.’
Vintage looked down into the face of one of the other agents, an older woman with brown hair going grey at the temples.
‘We’re not here to fight you, darling.’
The woman raised an eyebrow. ‘And we’re not here to set you on fire. So how about you don’t give us any reason to?’
Vintage sighed heavily and unstrapped her crossbow from
her belt. She felt a real tremor of dismay when she handed it over – her companion over so many years, so many travels – but, she reminded herself, both Chenlo and Helcate were living weapons. After giving up Chenlo’s bat to the guards, Kreed led them within the palace itself, and they were soon marched down wide, echoing passages lined with gently curving archways. The floors were covered in delicate mosaics constructed of tiny pieces of orange, brown and black clay, and tall, elegant vases stood in every corner, yet Vintage also spotted signs that the palace had recently seen trouble. Black marks that looked very much like burns could be seen on the walls, and there were dents in the floor that indicated something heavy had landed there. This time she did catch Chenlo’s eye, and she caught the tiniest nod in response. The Tygrish royal family had fought desperately to retain their property, and lost.
Eventually, they were led, to Vintage’s surprise, into a wide interior garden. There were neat green lawns, and more fruit trees, and ornate benches scattered about. At the end of the central path, lined with a mosaic that glittered under the sun, was a raised dais and a throne. Sprawled on it, with one leg hooked over an arm, was a very familiar figure.
‘Hello, ladies.’ Tyranny gestured lazily to Chenlo. ‘Seize that woman immediately.’
‘Wait!’ Vintage came forward, her hands held up, but Kreed shoved her back. ‘There’s no need for any of that!’
Three guards approached them, and Vintage belatedly noticed that they all wore gloves up to their elbows. They grabbed Chenlo and forced her arms behind her back none too gently.
‘You will both kneel to Queen Tyranny,’ snapped Kreed.