The Poison Song

by Jen Williams

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Vintage woke to the feeling of Helcate’s cold nose pressing into her neck. She groaned and batted him away, before catching the stream of feeling emanating from the small war-beast –

  Danger, danger!

  She rolled over and sat up. It was still early morning, the sky overhead a bright and brittle blue while the east was gradually waking into a symphony of white and yellow clouds. Agent Chenlo was fast asleep, curled up on herself like a child, her brow faintly creased as though she were having an argument in her dreams. At first Vintage could not make out what had so alarmed Helcate, and then she felt the vibrations coming up through the ground. Something was coming towards them, something big.

  ‘Shit.’

  She scrambled to her feet and looked back, away from the river. Three huge shapes were thundering towards them; Wild-touched bears, by the looks of them, each a good ten feet tall, and each wearing cobbled-together armour of moon-metal which winked greasily under the early sunlight. There were riders too, faces peering over the blunt heads of their steeds, and they brandished a variety of weapons. Vintage saw swords, spears, and even a few crossbows.

  ‘Well, shit.’ Vintage shuffled backwards and kicked Chenlo in the shin. ‘Wake up!’

  The woman groaned, and seemed to curl up tighter on herself. ‘Leave me alone. I feel unwell. It’s that gods-cursed potion you made me drink.’

  ‘Bloody get up now or your stomach’s biggest problem is going to be that it’s smeared all over the grass.’

  Chenlo got to her feet. Helcate was whining in the back of his throat, and Vintage hauled his harness over from its place by the fire. ‘I know you don’t like it, darling, but you might want to ready some of that acid of yours. Chenlo, help me with this.’

  They hefted the harness up over Helcate’s back and began pulling straps into place, but the bears were almost on them. Vintage stopped what she was doing and stood in front of Helcate, holding up her arms.

  ‘There’s no need for the show of force!’ she shouted. ‘What do you want?’

  The bears slowed down, and the largest came to the front. Up close the thing was gruesome: white fur stained yellow by running eyes and the drool that seeped from its jaws, and it was swollen and ill-proportioned with muscle. Black claws dug furrows into the red earth of the plains. There were, from what Vintage could see, three people on each bear. The man at the front of the largest was tall and wiry, with a scrawny chest and several missing teeth. He grinned at them and held up his spear, which he pointed directly at Vintage.

  ‘Whatever you’ve got,’ he said in thickly accented plains speech. To Vintage’s ear he sounded as though he were originally from somewhere to the south, not far from her own home of Catalen. ‘Is that a gods-damned war-beast?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what he is, you can’t have him,’ said Vintage, keeping her tone conversational. ‘In fact, it just so happens we’ve recently escaped prison, and don’t have anything much to trade with you. So perhaps you should just carry on your way, find someone else.’

  ‘Trade!’ This was from the woman sitting at the head of another bear. She was small, with one arm covered in tattoos. ‘We’re not about trade, dearie.’

  Vintage sighed. ‘No, I thought not. Hard times on the plains?’

  ‘Bad times,’ agreed the man, nodding. ‘You got to take what you can, when it’s war in the skies. No more moving from you, now. Move any more, and our pets will taste your guts. Give us what you got. Or maybe we just take the beast.’

  ‘He will fight you,’ said Vintage. ‘I will fight you.’

  Chenlo leaned into her shoulder. ‘I can blast them back,’ she said, her voice very soft.

  ‘The moon-metal . . .’

  ‘Give me the vials.’

  Vintage smiled. ‘Helcate, give them your welcome, please.’

  ‘Helcate,’ said Helcate.

  ‘What are you doing?’ shouted the woman. She urged her bear forward a little, and Vintage saw faces behind her, eyes wide. ‘We want no tricks.’

  ‘No tricks,’ agreed Vintage, as Helcate began hiccupping to one side of her. ‘Certainly not tricks. I feel it would be disrespectful to describe the abilities of a war-beast as a trick, wouldn’t you? They are blessed abilities, surely, blessed by the tree-father himself.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ shouted the man, just as Helcate spat forward his stream of acid. Immediately the men and women on the first bear ducked, bringing up shields of moon-metal to cover themselves, and the acid splattered over the bear’s armour, mostly missing the creature’s patchy fur and raw skin. As Helcate leapt awkwardly up into the air for a better angle on the next shot, she reached into her jacket and passed the vials to Chenlo.

  ‘What are you doing?’ came the muffled shout from behind the shields.

  ‘This is your last chance,’ shouted Vintage. ‘If you leave now, we won’t hurt you.’ Next to her, Chenlo was choking down the contents of one of the vials.

  ‘Piss off! What sort of broken war-beast spits stuff? We’ll skin him for his bloody fur!’

  An arrow thumped into the ground at Vintage’s feet.

  ‘Well, I tried. Chenlo?’

  The fell-witch held out her hand, and, oddly touched, Vintage took it. At once she felt a weakness travel through her body, like swooning on a hot day, and then Chenlo was in front of her, arms held up. The vast wave of fire that flew from her was a nightmarish thing, tinged with shadows, and it crashed into the Wild-touched bears with a roar. There were screams, and two of the bears fell back, pieces of molten moon-metal flying from them. The last was still standing, although it hung its head low between its legs. Blood oozed from its eyes, while two of the people who had been on its back picked themselves up off the ground and began to run back the way they had come. Parts of the grass were on fire, while Helcate hovered above.

  ‘Sarn’s bloody bones,’ muttered Vintage. ‘I told them. I told them to go.’

  ‘And they refused,’ said Chenlo quietly. The last bear raised its head and its jaws flopped open, revealing mismatched yellow teeth, but Chenlo threw a barrage of super-hot fireballs, blasting it back at least twenty feet until it fell, smoking, into the grass. The bears, and the people – save for the two who were even now limping rapidly into the distance – were dead. ‘Those were the bandits we were warned of.’

  ‘At least they won’t be robbing anyone else.’ Vintage glanced at Chenlo, who was sweating slightly. ‘It makes you ill, this stuff?’

  She looked down at her hands. ‘Yes. Like I am slightly poisoned. A headache, sickness. But it passes gradually.’

  ‘Like a hangover,’ said Vintage. Chenlo looked at her.

  ‘You would have fought for him, your war-beast. Even with no weapons.’ She smiled, just a little. ‘You are brave, Lady Vintage.’

  To her own surprise, Vintage felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Well, thank you, Agent Chenlo. Although I do miss my crossbow somewhat. Do you think any of their weapons survived?’

  They picked their way forward carefully, stepping over chunks of bear meat and the corpses of the bandits. Some bits and pieces had survived; a spear had been flung far from the wreckage, and even one of the crossbows looked like it might fire again. Vintage paused by a pool of molten moon-metal. It looked black under the sun, and flickered with rainbows like a raven’s wing.

  ‘This strange fire Okaar gave you. It destroys the moon-metal.’

  Chenlo looked over at her. ‘It destroys everything.’

  ‘No, I know, but –’ Vintage grinned. She reached inside her jacket and pulled out the bar towel Okaar had given her. The words on it were stained with both beer and wine, but it was still possible to read them: Welcome to The Shining Coin. ‘Let’s grab what we can from these idiots, and get some fresh water from the river. We’re going back to Jarlsbad.’

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘Relax, cousin.’ Tormalin looked up from where he was securing Kirune’s
harness to give Aldasair a quick smile. ‘This is simply a little exploratory mission. To see if I’m right about the Jure’lia and their hiding place. All looking, no touching, and then we’ll report back. I give you my word.’

  Aldasair had to admit that his cousin looked better than he had done in days. He had bathed recently, put on fresh clothes, and there was a brightness about his eyes that had been completely missing since they had lost the fell-witch, Noon. Once, Aldasair knew he would have found it difficult to imagine forming such an attachment to a human, with their frail bodies and short lives, but a lot had changed since Ebora had come back to life. Which was the other issue.

  ‘If it is just looking and not touching, then why must Bern travel with you?’

  ‘Bern will help me find them. His link to them could be invaluable. Could even work as an early warning system.’

  Bern, hearing his name, came over from where he had been filling their packs with supplies. He still looked too tired for Aldasair’s liking, and there were shadows on his cheeks where his face was growing gaunt.

  ‘Aldasair, try not to worry,’ he said. ‘We will be careful. And Sharrik has been driving everyone spare lately – it’ll be good for him to stretch his wings. That’s an animal that was born to fight, and it chafes at him, this waiting and planning.’

  Aldasair nodded, trying to take comfort from his lover’s words. Without Noon, Vostok, Helcate and Vintage, they had been limited in what they could do. Bern was able to give them a vague idea of what Hestillion was up to, but they were in no shape to take her on. They had to think, defend and plan; none of which were satisfying to their beloved griffin. The news about Noon had, somewhat inevitably, filtered through to the human camps, and wherever he went in the palace he saw worried faces. People had taken to watching the skies again. Valous the Stone Talker had arrived from Finneral, and she had been spending her time with the fell-witches, trying to bring them through the loss of their liberator, coaching them towards forming some sort of fighting unit, but even with the wisdom of one of Finneral’s greatest leaders, he feared they had lost Noon at exactly the wrong moment. With everything against them, any action they took that could get them more information was valuable, he understood that. He also understood that two of the dearest people in the world to him were flying out into untold dangers. Along the link he shared with her he felt Jessen’s discomfort. She had refused to come and see them off, and was hiding in the courtyard somewhere.

  ‘Fine. I will keep watch over Ebora and Ygseril. But you must promise me you will be careful, and safe.’ He heard the plaintiveness in his own voice and inwardly grimaced at it. ‘Not just for my sake. Ebora needs all four of you if we’ve to have any chance of surviving this Rain.’

  Tor nodded distractedly, adjusting the sword belt that held his new weapon, but Bern came and took hold of Aldasair’s arms, before kissing him firmly.

  ‘I promise, my love.’

  When finally they left, Aldasair stood in the gardens with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Kirune and Sharrik spirit them away. He felt Jessen’s presence behind him before he saw her, and held out his hand. She pressed her nose to it.

  ‘They will be fine,’ he told her, but he knew that she could feel his own uncertainty as well as he could feel hers.

  There were tiny colourful lizards in the desert. Noon did not know how she hadn’t seen them before, but they moved in quick little bursts across the black sands, and sometimes skittered silently across the walls of the glass castle. She sat by the battlements and watched them, the heat beating down on the top of her head; a yellow lizard with black feet, a lizard as blue as the sky. Tiny and perfect.

  She had recently come to the end of a period of crying, simple exhaustion leaving her empty and marooned on the shore of her grief. Her head ached and her mouth was dry, even though she sipped periodically from the great glass jug of water She Who Laughs had left her. I’ve wrung myself out, she thought. Cried until there’s nothing left. Except that the image of her mother’s face would not leave her, nor the memory of her sorrow when she realised what her daughter had done. All she’d ever asked of Noon was that she not reveal her fire to anyone, and she had let her down. All those people, all of them good, innocent people, had died because of her own selfishness and stupidity. There was no coming back from that, no redemption and no forgiveness.

  The little blue lizard vanished over the wall, and Noon heard footsteps at her back.

  ‘Have you finished with this performance yet?’

  She Who Laughs came across the glass towards her. She still wore the body of the blonde woman; she was tough, whoever she was.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘I thought you were cleverer than the rest of them, Noon. Your affinity for the power I have given you should be proof of that alone, yet here you sit, crying over people who have been dead for more than a decade.’

  ‘People I have killed, you mean. It hardly matters how long ago it was when you add that bit.’

  There was a period of silence. Wind whipped up across the castle, blowing flute-like through its strange structures. When She Who Laughs spoke again, there was a clear note of disgust in her voice.

  ‘Humans are all so weak. I have given you all so much, yet you are a world of keening, mewling infants who hide from power rather than grasp it. If you only—’

  Noon picked up the glass jug and flung it, over arm, at the figure behind her. She Who Laughs twitched away and it sailed past her to shatter into pieces on the floor. The yellow lizard, which had been peeking back over the battlements, skittered away. Without saying anything more, She Who Laughs left.

  Later, when the skies gave up their sunset colours and settled into darkness for the night, Noon stood up, intending to make her way back inside. She had fallen into a kind of trance for a while, reliving, again and again, the moment she had torn her mother’s life energy from her body, and had quite forgotten the pieces of broken glass all over the floor.

  ‘Oh bastard!’

  She hopped away again, holding one foot out in front of her. A long shard of glass had slipped through the leather of her boot and stabbed her in the soft pad of flesh just below her big toe. The pain, bright and sharp, drove everything else from her mind for a moment.

  Moving away from the broken pieces, she sat back down and removed the glass and her boot. The wound was bleeding merrily, although it did not look too deep. Noon grimaced, and looked at her hand, now covered in her own blood.

  The smell of it, sharp and mineral, made her think of the night in the cave with Tor, when she had offered up her blood and he had taken it. She had given him something then, something vital; not just her blood and her body, but the knowledge that he was someone she desired, even needed. She had saved him, in an odd way she was only just beginning to understand, and he had given of himself in return. The memory of that night, and the night they had shared together on Origin, eased something in her chest. The sharp-edged grief that was lodged in her heart seemed, just for a moment, to soften. Yes, she had made a terrible, unforgivable mistake, but once she had also been vital to someone else’s life, had been what they needed when everything else was lost.

  ‘It’s worth something,’ she said to the night. ‘It has to be.’

  She thought of their faces – Tor’s handsome, scarred face, his luminous skin; Vintage and her wise eyes, her easy smile. If nothing else, they needed her.

  ‘And I love them,’ she said, still looking at the blood on her hands. ‘If anyone should judge me, it should be them.’

  The wound was no longer bleeding so freely. Somewhat gingerly, she put her boot back on, and, taking care to walk around the broken glass, headed back inside the castle, limping slightly. She Who Laughs was back in her bone-strewn courtyard, the fires of her halo painting green light up the translucent walls.

  ‘Have you come here to throw more things at me?’

  Noon shrugged. ‘I’m ready to talk about it.’

  She Who Laug
hs raised her eyebrows. ‘You are?’

  ‘The power, how it felt.’ Noon rubbed her hands up and down her arms. It felt like the night chill of the desert was in her bones. ‘It was . . . extraordinary.’

  ‘My child, that’s all I wanted.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Noon walked towards the older woman, her face downcast, ‘it’s been hard for me, to go through all that again, but I’m willing to tell you what I can.’

  ‘You are stronger than I thought.’ She Who Laughs nodded. ‘I should not have underestimated you, Noon. Tell me, when you moved through the living connections, what did that feel like?’

  ‘It felt like . . .’ Noon shook her head, wonderingly, and laid her hand on She Who Laughs’ arm as if to steady herself. ‘It felt like go fuck yourself.’

  In one movement she ripped all the remaining life energy from the blond-haired woman, holding back nothing. She Who Laughs dropped to the sandy floor, her skin abruptly grey and cold – the green fire that had been dancing in her eyes and around her head flickered out.

  ‘That’s how it fucking felt.’ Noon raised her hands and released a great cone of green flame into the night, burning off everything that had been held briefly inside her. A few moments later, light began to gather in the courtyard again. A new body was forming, snatched somewhere from her remaining cultists. Noon waited, watching as the green halo of flame swarmed back into life, and as soon as she could see a solid arm, she grabbed it. Again she ripped away everything the woman had, siphoning it into herself as fast as she could, and again the body fell onto the black sand, lifeless.