Firstborn

by Michelle West

  “The gods were not born as you understand birth. Birth in your lives is a beginning. The gods do not remember their beginnings, although in some fashion they remember their youths.”

  “And you?” Haval asked, for Haval was with them. He did not seem startled or surprised by the sudden change in the landscape. Nor did Jarven. The woman with bloodred eyes was no longer present.

  “I remember my youth,” the fox replied, which was the only answer he tendered. “Imagine, then, what death meant, to those gods; an ending, to those who had no clear beginnings. And there was war, always, among the gods. It was war that divided them, war that informed them, war that hardened their shapes, defined their possibilities. Where there is war, there is a need for sides, after all.”

  “You did not war?”

  The fox chuckled at Haval’s question, although his eyes were not warm. “Of course. War defined us all—by either its presence or its absence. You interrupt too much,” the fox added.

  Haval bowed and fell silent once again.

  “Where there is war, there is death: an ending. And it happened, long, long ago, when the gods still walked the world, that gods died. And so: there was grief. It was not instant, of course—the gods could not easily conceive of absence, of continual absence. But death was absence, and in time, when that absence was not alleviated, one god approached the tangle.”

  “The tangle existed?”

  “The tangle existed. It has always existed. It will always exist. It was only in the presence of the tangle that the god could feel any hint at all of his lost companion. He attempted to speak with the tangle, and the tangle replied.”

  “It is sentient?”

  The fox chuckled. It was not kind. “Are madmen sentient?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Perhaps one could say it was sentient. The god asked for the return of his companion; the tangle did not reply. And it did reply. And that is the nature of the tangle. The god walked into the tangle.”

  “And did he return?”

  “We heard his cries of fear and pain and bewilderment; we heard his cries of delight and joy. We heard his voice for three days and three nights, and then we heard no more of him. Some said that he had found his companion. Some said that he could not hold onto his companion.

  “And yes, Haval, he did return.”

  Andrei had grown stiff and cold as the fox related his story; Hectore had grown more and more irritable. His humor was not improved when the fox turned toward Andrei, his eyes narrowed. He cleared his throat, and to Hectore’s lasting surprise, Jarven bent and picked him up.

  Hectore would not have been that fox for all the money in the world. He saw, in Jarven, the beginnings of a web. Jarven was not, and had never been, content to serve. He was entirely unlike Andrei. When he served—and he did—it was never his intention to remain in the subservient position.

  And that, Hectore reminded himself, was not his problem.

  “Will you tell the rest of the story, or shall I?” the fox asked Andrei. There was no friendliness in the question; there was the undercurrent of threat.

  Hectore said. “Neither. We are short on time, as I’m sure you are aware.”

  “Hectore,” Jarven said.

  “No. I do not understand what enmity exists between Andrei and the rest of the denizens of this forest; I know that none exists between Andrei and the forest’s ruler. I will not have him judged or condescended to in my presence.”

  “Hectore,” Andrei now said, forced to join his protest to Jarven’s, for which Hectore was likely to pay later.

  “You do not understand what he is,” the fox said.

  And Hectore of Araven had had enough. “I understand who he is far, far better than you, Eldest. The Terafin understands who he is far better than you. What she did not demand, you should not demand.”

  “It is not a demand,” the fox replied, voice cooling.

  “Hectore.” This time Jarven and Andrei spoke in concert.

  “He has come at risk to aid The Terafin, and if we whittle away the time, the aid might come too late.”

  There was a fixed, rigid stiffness in the silence that followed. The fox finally said, “Very well.”

  Jarven’s expression over the head of the golden fox was halfway between glare and resignation. “Know your limits, Patris.”

  “Know your boundaries,” Hectore replied.

  Andrei pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hectore, if it does not offend me, I ask you not to take offense on my behalf. Come.”

  Jarven set the fox down on the forest floor at some unspoken command. “I will accompany you.”

  • • •

  Andrei led in a tight-lipped silence; he did not approve of Jarven’s company. The forest did not change, not immediately, but something did because Jarven began to speak.

  “You are far too experienced not to understand the import of the fox in this forest.” His tone was clipped; he was annoyed.

  “Yes.”

  “He is not simply another cantankerous, powerful merchant.”

  “Yes.”

  “Some caution and, more to the point, some manners are called for when dealing with the ancient and the powerful. They have longer memories than Lucille.”

  “I did not find his manners up to scratch, and I am not Terafin. I am not of a mind to extend a courtesy that has not been extended in turn.”

  “Or first? Andrei is not a child to be coddled or protected.”

  “Nor is he an enemy or a nonperson.”

  Jarven chuckled. “He is namann, Hectore. He is the definition of—”

  “Enough.”

  “I have always found your lack of humor bracing, when it does come to the fore.” To Andrei, he said, “I have always admired the service you provide to House Araven. I have always been aware that you would never willingly provide such service to me. Whatever price Hectore pays, I cannot pay.”

  “No,” Andrei replied. “To Hectore I am servant, not pawn or tool.”

  “Were you created to walk the tangle?” The question was casual.

  Hectore struggled to contain his momentary rage, to isolate it. It would help neither Andrei nor House Araven. “Jarven.”

  “Yes?”

  “He is family to me.” It was, in its fashion, a threat.

  But Jarven nodded slowly, remembering perhaps earlier conversations, earlier observations.

  “I was not created to walk the tangle.” Andrei surprised Hectore by replying. “I was created in part to end war.”

  • • •

  Silence.

  The forest was often seen at night; only in the presence of the ancient was the cast of the evening sky guaranteed to change. This night, glimpsed through branches, held the face of one bright moon. There was no other.

  The tangle had implied to Hectore a mass of ever-changing surfaces. It had implied chaos, a lack of physical sense. But he knew, by Jarven’s expression, by Andrei’s tension, that they had walked into the tangle. Were it not for the single moon and its almost harsh light, Hectore would have assumed that they were taking a leisurely—if inexplicable—stroll through the Terafin grounds.

  “Remarkable,” Jarven said, almost to himself.

  Hectore grimaced. “If you would refrain from treating me as if I was less observant than the lowliest of your clerks, I would appreciate it.”

  Jarven laughed. Andrei, predictably, did not; amusement or mirth existed as constant between the two, and at the moment, Jarven had taken the lion’s share. “It is not condescension. It is an invitation to conversation. You have, in the past, not been averse to conversation.”

  Hectore stopped, inhaled deeply, and exhaled as much of his irritation as he could. The fox’s treatment of Andrei had annoyed him. And why? In most cases, the patriciate failed to even see Andrei, because Andrei was a servant. Invisibility was the natural order. He was not given respect because he was not considered—ever—an equal.

  Jarven, however, had always granted A
ndrei the compliment of considering him an equal, as much as Jarven considered any man an equal.

  “Apologies,” Hectore said. “I am, perhaps, still fatigued by lack of sleep.”

  “Oh?”

  “I woke poorly. I woke,” he added, “dreaming of the tangle, although that was not the name it bore in nightmare.”

  “What name did it bear in nightmare?”

  “Hell.”

  “And what, Hectore of Araven, is hell?” Jarven asked the question as if it were one of the anchor points of a contract negotiation, rather than one of the fiddly details that clerks went to war over.

  “A strange question.”

  “Not at all. Hell is, in theory, the torture, the despair, of mankind. But what causes me to hate or despair would be, in the end, very different from what invokes the same response in you. Oh, there’s physical pain,” he added, almost dismissively. “And in that sense, we are all equal. But the architecture of hell—at least as artists render it or poets recite—is individual, in the end. It requires some knowledge.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I am bored.”

  Hectore’s laughter was a bark of sound in a silent night. “You have been in the odd position you hold for perhaps a handful of days, and you are bored? Jarven, you will never fail to surprise me.”

  “One would hope not. You wish to know why I am bored?”

  “Oddly enough, I do.”

  “The acuity of my normal senses is heightened. They are expanded. I can see things that occur within the bounds of the city in a way that I have never seen them. I can see, for instance, the paths that lead from Terafin to the Common or to Avantari. The latter, I take care in approaching.

  “I can see traces of the demonic on some of those paths. I am faster than I was at my peak; I do not tire easily, if at all. But I am restless, Hectore. The elders do not feel that I have learned enough to be allowed free run of my own city.”

  “And you do not agree with this assessment.”

  “I consider the assessment irrelevant. I am meant to be the Terafin version of Astari.”

  “But without the element of absolute trust?” Andrei asked.

  Jarven raised one brow, as was his wont. “I have been told that my abilities, such as they are, are tied in some fashion to the forest in which the ancients have their roots. I will retain some, but not all, of the advantages I currently enjoy when I step beyond the boundaries of the lands that enclose them.”

  “Perhaps you should consider their advice.”

  “Why? They have not considered mine. I consider most of their advice irrelevant. I am not a simple dagger or sword, to be lifted and wielded at their leisure or need, and if I am to be effective, I must know my own limitations. I must test them.”

  “Against what?”

  “That would be the question. You will note that Haval did not demur when I professed some interest in joining you.”

  “And you now accept the opinion of a tailor?”

  “I accept all opinions. I do not accept them as instructions or commands, however. And you will note that the tailor is called Councillor by the ancients. They are willing to accept his advice.”

  Ah. “But not yours?”

  Jarven was silent.

  “One day, you will have to tell me what your history with that tailor is. I can’t imagine it’s good; he seems to feel about you the same way Andrei does.”

  “Yes. Both men lack any sense of humor whatsoever.” Jarven stopped walking.

  So did Andrei.

  Hectore looked ahead. He saw forest, much the same in composition as the forest through which they’d been walking. Turning, he looked back. The forest there had not changed, either.

  “We have entered the tangle?” he asked, voice soft.

  “Yes.” Their voices overlapped.

  “I am sorry to be so ignorant—or perhaps so blind—but how can you tell? With the exception of the single moon, there is no difference to my eye.”

  Andrei frowned, as did Jarven; the expressions were very different. “You see only one moon?” the latter asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you see no other changes? The forest floor? The nature of the trees?”

  “None.”

  “Can you see the path?”

  “There is no path,” Hectore replied. “When the sun rises—as I assume it will—I might be able to discern footpaths, but at the moment, no. This is not what you see.”

  Jarven nodded. “Can you touch the trees?”

  Andrei said, “No.”

  “It is a reasonable question,” Hectore told his servant. “I have carried some protections with me, and we are joined at the waist.” Andrei had refused to remove the rope. “It is clear to me that Jarven’s vision has been altered in a way that mine has not. Jarven merely wishes to know if my vision is accurate.”

  “Jarven can touch the tree himself.”

  “I am not at all certain that Jarven sees the trees,” Hectore replied, the frown shifting texture. “And it has become clear to me that you do not.” He then reached out and placed his hand against the bark of the nearest tree.

  The bark was solid, rough, and remarkably treelike. Hectore had once climbed trees like this in his distant youth—although the trees he had climbed were younger, their lower branches closer to ground, the girth of their trunks narrower.

  “I can, as you perceive, touch the trees. You do not see them?”

  Jarven was frowning. Hectore understood why. “No.”

  “Do you see anything?”

  “I see that you are touching empty air in a fashion that implies solid object. You do not have the sense of mischief that would be required for this to be a joke. Andrei?”

  Andrei said, “There is a tree. Hectore is touching it.”

  “You perceive the tree?”

  “Yes. Yes, and no.”

  “Well, this is unfortunate,” Jarven then said. “I will have to have a word with the elders upon my return.”

  “How so?”

  “I wish to retain my actual vision; I do not mind if that vision is sharpened or refined—but if I cannot see as men see, if I cannot see as I once saw, it is far less advantageous. And I would like to know how you see the tree.”

  Hectore said, “Jarven, let it be.”

  But Andrei said, “Because it is there, ATerafin.”

  “And you do not see the boundary? You do not see the words pressed against the floor like a guiding path or a warning?”

  “I see them, as well.”

  “And the skies?”

  “They are amber. Amber and amethyst. The skies will not retain a single color; they will shift. Nor will it be night or day in any recognizable order. There are pockets within the tangle that are almost natural—to your kind—and they might last decades, centuries, or days.”

  “Is that the whole of the danger the tangle presents?”

  “No. But if you are here, if Hectore is here, there are some geographies which are unsafe.”

  “And they are not unsafe for you.”

  “No. Some are infinitely more painful than others, but no. There is no place in the tangle that I cannot walk; there is no path that I cannot follow before it is consumed. And the paths are consumed, remade, consumed, remade.”

  “I would like to know the rest of the elder’s story,” Jarven said.

  “Then, perhaps, when you return—if you return—you may ask him. Legends are not history, and history is not event.”

  “Did a god search for his lover in the tangle?”

  “No doubt dozens of gods searched for their lovers in the tangle,” Andrei replied, but distantly. “Come.”

  • • •

  They walked for hours. Hectore’s sense of the passage of time had always been sun-dependent, and there was, at the moment, no sun. But the trees, while they thinned here and there, did not magically fall away. By the end of the third hour, Hectore turned to his servant.

  “You looked peaked,
” he said, as if examining a child. “And I assume that you are somehow choosing a path that is not entirely convenient for you.”

  “I am forced—by your presence—to choose a path that you can walk and survive, yes.”

  “And it is draining to do so.” The moment the words left his mouth, he understood that he had made the wrong assumptions. It was draining for Andrei to be here, yes. But not because of the chosen path.

  Because of the form and shape he now wore. “I remember what shape you were in when we first met.” His smile was genuine, but it was three parts pain. “I accepted your service then. If you fear my reaction, do not fear it. If you fear Jarven’s, again, do not. He understands that you are kin to me. What I accept, he will accept.

  “It is not easy to retain that shape in this place.”

  Andrei, tight-lipped, nodded.

  “And that is why you wished to leave me behind. Which is disappointing, and I am struggling not to take insult.”

  “I wished to leave you behind because you cannot traverse ocean. You cannot traverse desert for any length of time—not as you are, and not unprepared. You cannot fly above lava, cannot walk airless, lightless surfaces. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my appearance.”

  Hectore let it go, which was difficult. Had Jarven not been present, they would still be arguing.

  “While you are present—and to a lesser extent, while Jarven is—there are only so many paths we can walk; the others are death. But The Terafin is mortal, and her companions are mostly mortal. The Terafin could, in theory, go where I can go; she has the Winter Queen’s mount. But the others cannot. She does not know the tangle as I know it—because it cannot ever truly be known—but she will choose paths that can be walked by those who follow her.

  “Understand that when I say I can follow her path, I do not speak of the actual steps she has taken or will take. I cannot. No two paths into the heart of the tangle are ever the same, even if they reach the same destination. There is no map of the tangle because such maps are meaningless. They are biography, not geography.”

  “But you said the path would be unmade. Surely that implies something solid.”

  Andrei grimaced. “I did say that. In some fashion, it is accurate. I am not following in her footsteps. I am following the echoes of her choice.