Summernight

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “Don’t forget your family,” his mother had murmured. “Don’t forget your ancestors.”

  And, of course, he hadn’t. Not when night after night of prayers and tears brought no relief to the dull ache in his belly. Not in the long days when the smoke of the Alchemists stung his eyes and the acids of their concoctions burned his skin and he wondered again and again why a household of a Landholder might need to sell a son to the Guilds ... and why they had chosen him of all his seven brothers.

  And he did not forget today, as he watched the cantonelle dancers go past on sleek drifting gondolas. He did not forget when a gondola lacquered in shiny black with a black canopy and walls of flowing black silk over the passenger portion – the gondola of the Lord Mythos, the city’s ruler – queued up in the line.

  Before the black gondola, a chain of colored gondolas and the majestic dragon – woven and sewn by the people of the Long Wind landhold, in the white and orange colors of their flags, wound along the canal supported by the colorful gondolas. Beneath the dragon were the legs of those who made the dragon dance, but they couldn’t distract from the beauty of the rippling creature.

  He did not forget when the smell of home rolled off that dragon, blotting out the smell of roses, and springing up in his mind a longing so deep that it almost washed away the fear that thrummed through him closer than his own heartbeat.

  It was the last gondola that he had been looking for – the last black lacquered gondola with the emblem of the Lord Mythos on the flowing silk curtains. He almost forgot Dathan’s predicament as he watched it creep toward his perch.

  Guards surrounded the curtains, practically standing on the gunwales of the gondola in their attempt to encircle the occupant of the dark boat – their gazes shot into the crowd like they were the very fists of the Gods.

  It was that gondola that made his blood turn to ice but still left it howling in his ears until he could hear nothing else. He studied it like the face of a lost love as it passed, holding his breath, waiting.

  He wasn’t going to see. It was going to pass without confirming his fears.

  Not a single curtain on the gondola twitched. Not a guard moved a sword or halberd in acknowledgment. Had he been wrong? Had he been anxious about nothing? Perhaps ...

  But as the carriage passed, someone parted the curtains at the back of the gondola and between the legs of the guards he caught a glimpse of huge dark eyes looking out at him surrounded by thick lashes.

  Amaryllis.

  He’d recognize those eyes anywhere. They gleamed with the same fear they’d held the morning he’d been packed away.

  “You’ll be back soon, won’t you?” she’d said in a shaking voice. His only sister – his best friend. It hurt him worse to see her pain than to feel the pain himself.

  “I don’t think so,” he’d said, playing nervously with the woven grass ring she’d given him. It wouldn’t last long, but it was all anyone had given him beyond cool looks and frosty ‘goodbyes.’ It still hung from a thread on his bedpost.

  “But I can’t bear to live here without you,” she’d pled, tears streaking her face.

  “I need to go, Amaryllis,” he’d said. “If I don’t, they’ll pick someone else to sell. Maybe even you. Besides, I don’t think they’ll just let me say no.” It had taken all his effort not to let his voice shake here. “And I don’t think I can stop them.”

  “Sell? But we’re the Landholds here!”

  “And you and I are just two of nine siblings. How many Landholds does a place need, Amaryllis?”

  “One,” her small voice shook.

  “One to inherit, one for a spare, one for the church, one for the lair,” he’d quoted the children’s rhyme. But it stopped at four because no house needed more than four children. The rest were only worth what you could trade for them and in his case, his father’s debts had been forgiven. Ten years of debts with a single son. Any Landhold would have called it a fair trade.

  And now here she was, her eyes brimming when they finally met his from that tiny gap in the curtains at the back of the gondola. Widening. Pleading.

  His little sister.

  The Lady Sacrifice.

  In her eyes, he saw his world ending.

  It felt as if someone was gripping his heart in their fist and squeezing. He could barely breathe, barely think, but one thought registered: how great a price must his father have received for the life of his sister?

  2: Advice of a Friend

  Tamerlan

  DATHAN FELL FROM HIS perch at the same moment that Tamerlan’s heart seized in his chest.

  Smack!

  Dathan landed on someone’s shoulder and someone else’s back.

  “Hey!”

  “Dragon-spitting fool!”

  An angry fist knocked against his head and a kick to the groin left him hunched over and retching as he leaned against the wet rock wall trying to catch his breath.

  Tamerlan hurried down, swallowing the nausea ripping through him at the thought of his sister heading up the canal in that gondola.

  He grabbed Dathan by the arms, helping him stand and pulling him into one of the rare lamp alcoves along the canal wall. Curses filled the air and a heavy voice rang in his ears.

  “Jingen City Watch. Make way! What’s the problem here?” Jingen City Watch Officers weren’t hard to spot. Their uniforms were haphazard leathers over white shirts with worn oilcloth cloaks, but they all wore a sewn-on embroidered badge and the same irritated expressions on their faces as if your very existence had offended the Law.

  “No problem, Officer,” Tamerlan said nervously. If they got in trouble with the Watch, Dathan would see worse than docked rations. “My friend just took a fall.”

  “Any trouble will be stopped with force by order of the Lord Mythos,” the Watch Officer said imperiously stroking the sheath of his long knife. “Keep to your business, citizen.”

  “Yes, officer.” Tamerlan ducked his head, hiding Dathan’s slighter frame behind his height and broader shoulders. His friend was still stunned, leaning against the wall of the alcove.

  The footsteps tromped by as the Watch left and Tamerlan drew a relieved breath. He took a moment to compose himself. His head was still swimming with anger and confusion.

  Not now, Tamerlan. Later. When there was time to think.

  “Hey!” He called to Dathan, shaking his shoulder gently “Dathan, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” the word hissed between his teeth.

  “You need to shake out of it, Dathan,” Tamerlan said, his voice cracking under the stress. They’d sold her. They’d sold her like a pig for market. He’d never forgive them. “People are watching. They’ll report us to Master Kurond. Head up! Walk.”

  Dathan shook his head to clear it, sucking in a breath as Tamerlan gently led him through the crowd. He pushed away thoughts of his sister, focusing on the smell of dank walls and sun on algae. He was still here on the crowded canal way with the shuffling crowd. He needed to remember that. Needed to remember that he couldn’t help his sister from here.

  Gondolas filled the canal again, their gondoliers calling out prices to the watchers as if they were here to pay for a ride rather than simply to gawk. A shoal of gondolas was pushed aside by a larger barge laden with flowers and fruit and country folk peering out of the covered boat with wide eyes and round faces.

  “That’s better,” Tamerlan said encouragingly, dragging Dathan along with the mass of people climbing the stairs to the streets above. The fun was over. “Here, follow me.”

  He pulled Dathan behind him, up the stairs and then into an alley between two swoop-roofed buildings and a butcher’s line of hanging chickens. Wash lines crisscrossed over the crowded spaces and an old woman frowned at them from the steps where she stood hanging more steaming wash on the line. A cur growled as they passed, his curling fur greasy and dark. Hopefully that dog hadn’t found the puppy he’d stashed in the other alley. This alley smelled of stale beer and urine – the smell of a
place neglected – but the dog and woman told another story. He and Dathan couldn’t stay here long. These places always looked empty until someone smelled coins or vulnerability and then suddenly, they were very popular places to be.

  “Are you out on a job?” he asked Dathan, looking over his shoulder to be sure they weren’t overheard.

  “Yes,” Dathan gasped, still hunched over his injuries.

  “There was nothing for the guild on the message tree, so I’m finished mine for this morning. Why don’t you give me your job and you can go back to The Copper Tincture and recover?”

  Visiting the message tree was usually his favorite chore. A chance to hear what was happening in the Landholds – maybe even at home. A chance to watch the barges coming in from upriver and the ship boats coming the other way from the sea, hulls laden with trade goods and wonders from afar. The whole of the world traded with the five cities of the Dragonblood Plains.

  But today, with Summernight almost upon them, there had been no messages from without. Orders for Nightbursts had been placed and filled weeks ago and that was the only thing that the Alchemists provided for the celebration – other than oil for the colored flames of the canal lanterns.

  “Fine. I have to pick up a package for Master Kurond at the Queen Mer Library,” Dathan said with a moan.

  Tamerlan looked him over, shrugging uncomfortably. “Can you get home? You’re not too hurt?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Dathan said. One of his hands fumbled at a belt pouch.

  “Only, you don’t look too healthy. Listen, those guards weren’t joking. The Jingen City Watch will be on the lookout for anything strange. Summernight is too important to be ruined by vagabonds. Why did you climb that sign pole? You know our Guild Masters wouldn’t approve! You could be sold again, Dathan – to someone worse than the Alchemists.”

  That was always the worry. Alchemy was stinky work and dangerous, but there were worse jobs. Especially in a city like Jingen.

  “You’re too dirty for the Library,” Dathan protested, but he handed the small scrip he’d pulled from his belt pouch to Tamerlan. It would have Master Kurond’s orders on it.

  Tamerlan looked down at the dark leather of his trousers – scuffed now and dirty from helping Dathan up – and the length of his brown leather apron. It ended just above his knees, the pockets at the waist bulging with tools and devices just like Dathan’s. He didn’t think he’d lost any - he had the pocket-flaps buttoned – but the apron was dirty and smudged and his crisp white shirt was no longer crisp or white.

  “I’ll be okay. I have a friend in the Library District who will vouch for me. Are you sure you can walk?”

  Dathan nodded shakily before clapping Tamerlan on the shoulder.

  “Master Kurond said to have them back to the Guild House as quickly as possible. Thank you.”

  Dathan was already stumbling out of the alley as Tamerlan unfolded the note.

  Tamerlan shook himself. It was hard not to let his mind wander to Amaryllis. She’d always loved rabbits. She would carry them around in the summers and she’d sell their little ones to the local merchants. Tamerlan had never had the heart to tell her that they were bought for food, not for pets. To Amaryllis, rabbits were just long-eared furry people.

  Perhaps, if he attended to his work, he could talk to one of the Masters about finding a way to see the Lady Sacrifice. Perhaps they would show mercy.

  He looked down at the note.

  Dathan,

  Go to the University District to the Queen Mer Library and retrieve for us the textbooks “Materials of the Sodden Islands” and “Smoke of the Feral Cults” for use in this week’s experiments. Ask for Nabella. Do not tarry.

  Master Kurond

  The University District was not far, though it felt farther today with the press of the celebratory crowds around him. Tamerlan strode out of the alley with purpose, squeezing between the people gathered there. A man with clothing that screamed of the countryside haggled over a bolt of cloth at one of the market stalls, his entire family pressed up around the stall to the irritation of the shopkeeper.

  Tamerlan pressed past them, nearly bumping into the servant of a Landhold from one of the eastern districts, half his head shaved, and the other half cut in choppy waves.

  “My pardon.”

  “Watch yourself, Alchemist,” the servant scowled. He wasn’t much older than Tamerlan and wearing his festival best.

  There was a time when any Landhold’s servant would bow and scrape to him but Tamerlan lost that place when he was bought by the guild. He should have paid the coin for a gondola and saved himself from the press of bodies and indignity of insults, but coins were hard to find and difficult to part with.

  The press of people in the Spice District bartering at the tops of their lungs or calling to each other as street performers danced between them holding out hats for coin, soon thinned to the stoic, calm crowds of the University District.

  Tamerlan breathed a sigh of relief. Here, things were more orderly – kept so by the University Guard, dressed in impeccable white and silver. Tamerlan loved the order of the Library District. Imagine being able to spend your days in logical thought instead of mindless grunt-work? Imagine plumbing the depths of philosophy, the wonders of science, the beauty of literature and music.

  He nearly walked into a pair of guards before he noticed them as his mind drifted to what-ifs. They frowned at him when he stumbled to a halt, scanning him carefully before moving on. He’d been stopped by that pair before. They must recognize him as Master Kurond’s apprentice. Perhaps, he could use that to gain their trust. Perhaps, he could sneak into their barracks one night and steal one of those uniforms and use it to creep into the Sunset Tower at the center of the city – the place where everyone knew the Lady Sacrifice would be kept until the last night of Summernight when her blood would sate Jingen – the ancient dragon who slept beneath their city.

  Tamerlan shivered. Such superstitions had always felt far away. What did they have to do with him? Now, they were too close for comfort. Like a straight-edged razor poised at his neck – one flinch and it might seal his fate – or the fate of Amaryllis.

  He was crazy to think of theft and trespass. That was as crazy as dreaming that he and Dathan hadn’t been bought and sold. Crazy as thinking he might have time to study and invent instead of grinding away his days in service. Crazy, because it would never work.

  He still remembered the man they hung in a cage beside one of the canals of the University District as a warning to anyone who dared steal from them again. He hadn’t even been dead when they put him there. Or at least, not at first.

  But what other option had they left him? If he didn’t at least try, could he live with himself for year upon year knowing he’d been useless, harmless, when what his sister needed was a defender? He wrung his hands as he tried to decide what he should do.

  “Did you see the Lady Sacrifice in the procession?” a breathless voice asked him. It was Sian – one of the library apprentices hurrying forward to walk with him as he reached the lower steps of the Queen Mer Library. Her filmy Librarian robes clung to her sandaled feet as she walked, her apprentice belt clinking as the glass beads bumped one another.

  “Yes,” he admitted, smiling at Sian.

  “I wanted to see her, too,” she went on, tucking her stray hairs behind her ears. She had a smudge of ink on her nose as she usually did.

  Tamerlan usually liked seeing Sian. Her friendliness could warm a stone. Today, with her full lips smiling at him and her round face flushed with excitement – today she looked far too much like Amaryllis. Vulnerable. Precious. Had her parents sold her into apprenticeship?

  “They say that if you meet her eye as she goes by,” the bright girl said, “you will have good luck all year.”

  Tamerlan felt his face growing hot.

  All year.

  Which meant that next year they would drag some other poor fool’s sister up to that tower and make her wait five d
ays until they slaughtered her like livestock. He felt his fists clenching, but he couldn’t stop them any more than he could stop the angry roar in his ears.

  “I have a costume for Summernight. Can you guess who I’ll be going as?” Sian asked. She had to skip to keep up to his long stride as he mounted the marble steps of the library two at a time. After a moment, she answered her own question. “Queen Mer! Doesn’t that fit, since I work in the Library here? They say she founded it herself. She picked this spot – right near the dragon’s ear!” They both glanced at the frill-like rock formation behind the library. It stood higher than even the domed blue roof of the library, blocking the streaming light of the morning sun. “It’s going to be so fun! We all – the apprentices – get every evening off this week. I will dance so hard my feet hurt and eat until my belly grows to twice its size!”

  He paused for a moment to smile down at her. She shouldn’t have to suffer through Summernight just because he was broken-hearted. She was innocent. A gadfly enjoying her single moment.

  “I hope you enjoy yourself, Sian.”

  “Won’t you join me?” she asked, attempting to look coy. As if he could see her as anything other than a little sister.

  “I’m afraid I’ll be busy for all of Summernight.”

  Now, why had he said that? He was given the evenings off for the festival, too. But he was going to be spending them in a way that Sian shouldn’t be near. He was going to find a way to break into that golden tower and rescue his sister.

  The thought that had been brewing in his heart since he first glimpsed her through the crowd solidified as he stood on the library steps looking out across the city to the single golden spire in the Government District.

  “They say that no one has ever been inside and lived to tell the tale,” Sian said, following his gaze. Which was ridiculous. Because what was the point of a tower that no one ever entered? Or that no one ever left. Surely there were guards – or at least servants – who came in and out without a problem.