Heaven's Needle

by Liane Merciel

  It was easy to imagine baleful ghosts watching them from the tower, their mutterings mixed with the wind’s howl. The story of Ang’duradh’s doom was known even by the White Seas. Asharre had never listened closely—why did it matter how an army of summerlanders died centuries ago?—but now, riding beneath Duradh Mal’s gaze, she wished that she had. Baozites were formidable soldiers, as fierce as wildbloods and far better disciplined. Even Ingvall’s children paid grudging respect to the reavers’ strength. Whatever could crush one of their strongholds, and do it so completely that not one soldier remained alive to tell the tale, was a power to be feared.

  In six hundred years, it might have vanished. Then again, it might not. She spat to take the tang of fear from her tongue and turned from the tower back to the road.

  “We’ll get closer to it before we get farther from it,” Colison said, not unsympathetic. “Spearbridge is as close as we’ll come to the ruins. I won’t lie. It takes some folk funny, that bridge, especially the first time. The old magic they used to build it … well, you’ll see for yourself when we get there. It looks ruined worse than the rest, old Spear-bridge, but it’ll hold up under your feet. No problem with that. Problem’s with the memories on it.”

  “Memories?” Heradion looked over, the reins looped around one wrist.

  “Aye.” Colison paced alongside their wagon, rolling a splinter between his teeth. “Memories. You’ll notice we’ve been going through this ravine for a while. Widens up a bit ahead, but we’ll be staying on a narrow path right up to Spearbridge. That’s no accident. Road’s made to meander more than it needs to, and to keep anyone on it nice and bunched together. Way back when, I’m guessing, the Baozites liked to have plenty of time to see who was coming, and to get rid of ’em easy if they weren’t invited.

  “Spearbridge, near as I can tell, was built with the same idea. But what this path does with rocks, it does with magic. Well, magic and a nasty long fall on each side.

  “The bridge is made from things the Baozites took off dead folk. Weapons, shields, banner poles. All the things they lost. When you go across, you see their last memories—what happened right before they died. Mostly you see ’em getting killed by Baozites, and mostly it isn’t pretty. You”—he tilted the splinter in his mouth so that it pointed at Asharre—“would probably see some wildbloods who raided a little too far south back before your grandfather’s grandfather’s day. Your friend might see some old Knights of the Sun whose crusade went sour on ’em. Me, I see a little of everybody, seeing as how my folks were wanderers before me. There’s a few who don’t see anything, or get to feeling happy as they go across. I got my theories about those. Seems to me they’re the ones who aren’t far from Baozites themselves. You see a man who doesn’t wince on Spearbridge, you know he’s not to be trusted.

  “Anyway, the bridge won’t cause you no harm. The oxen don’t even notice. I’ve never lost a wagon on Spearbridge, though the memories always slow down the crossing something terrible. That was the point, back when there were soldiers in Spearbridge Tower to shoot down anyone they didn’t care to see coming, but the tower’s empty now and you don’t have to fear no arrows. Just the memories, that’s all.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” Heradion said. A breeze ruffled his red-gold hair and left a dusting of snow crystals that melted as they rode. He ducked his head as the meltwater trickled down his neck, adjusting his scarf too late to keep it away. “Why didn’t we take a barge to Carden Vale, again?”

  “Bassinos said it was too early in the season,” Asharre replied. “The ice on the river has not melted. He said traveling overland was safer.”

  “I’d rather deal with ice than dead men’s memories.”

  “There’s worse than ice on the river.” Colison turned the splinter around in his mouth and began chewing on the other end. “People been vanishing off those barges. Whole crews. Someone else’ll come along the river and find the barge drifting, or run up on the banks. Poles unbroken, dray horses unhurt, cargo seals untouched, but not a soul to be seen. No signs of fighting. Just … gone.”

  “Oh, now you’re just trying to frighten us,” Heradion complained. “Bassinos said it was peaceful all winter. Even the bandits are quiet.”

  “Worse things to be than frightened. Foolish, for one.” Colison spat the splinter under the wagon wheels. “You ask me, the bandits are quiet only because they were the first to vanish, before whatever’s out there started taking barge crews. But you’re right, Bassinos doesn’t know about it. Who’d want to carry him a story like that? ‘I hear people are disappearing off the barges, reckon there’s ghosts making off with ’em. Maybe it’s the mad wind.’ Carry him that tale, he’s liable to think old Colison spent too long on the mountain and froze all his brains. Then it’s no more caravans for me, and my Lalinda runs off with a spice merchant, and I’m left in an empty house eating watery porridge and wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.” He chuckled. “No, Bassinos doesn’t know. You need proof for a man like that. I don’t have any. I’m only telling you this because you’ve already paid me. Once we’re in Carden Vale, that’s it for us. Onetime job lets a man speak more freely.”

  “If you like stories so much, let me tell you one,” Heradion said, and went off on a meandering tale about a pair of children lost in the woods. Asharre stopped listening. She’d heard this one before. The only point to the story was how much time the teller could waste reciting it; she didn’t think it ever came to a real ending. Heradion used it as revenge when someone else told an overly long-winded tale around the campfire. Last time he started, Evenna had thrown an apple core at him for that too.

  She was beginning to wish she had an apple core of her own to hurl when Evenna came trotting toward their wagon with something cupped in her hands. Green leaves poked up from her fingers, and gravelly soil dribbled between them. Another plant.

  The young Illuminer had been collecting odd herbs and bits of foliage since they’d left Cailan. Some of them she pressed in a book between sheets of papered glass, some she dug up and planted in buckets of sand, and others she simply sketched in a second book, discarding the plants after she had faithfully recorded their roots, flowers, and stems. Although spring had barely touched the mountains, Evenna had already amassed an impressive collection of specimens and drawings. Her own wagon had no more room to spare for her plants, so she had started putting them in Asharre’s.

  “What’s this one?” Asharre asked, glad for a distraction from the pointless story. Colison looked over curiously. Seeing his audience lost, Heradion came to a disgruntled, merciful silence.

  “A snowdrop. Where’s my spare bucket?”

  “You’re out of spare buckets,” Heradion informed her. “You’ve been out of spare buckets. Last time you had to borrow a mug from me. My sister made me that mug. When am I getting it back?”

  “What? Oh, the one with the crooked sun on it that came out green? You said you were glad to get rid of it. Anyway, I need a bucket. Or another mug, if you have one.”

  “I don’t. What’s so special about this flower? Even I know it’s a snowdrop.”

  “Look at the leaves. The roots.” Evenna spread her fingers carefully, brushing dirt from the snowdrop’s bulb.

  It took a moment for Asharre to see what she meant. The leaves closest to the bell-shaped blossom looked like broad blades of grass, same as the snowdrops of Asharre’s childhood. Those near the base, however, were wider and striped with thick reddish veins. They resembled flattened hands, their palms stretched open to the sky. The bulb was deformed too: instead of being a smooth, papery-skinned ball, it was knobbed and ridged so that it looked like a fist plunged into the earth. Its skin was blue-black and wet with rot, peeling off the bulb like the sloughed skin of a leper. The scent of decay clung to it.

  “Oh, it’s a diseased snowdrop,” Heradion said.

  “It’s not diseased.” Evenna closed her hands around the bulb. Asharre was strangely relieved to have it out of sight. “It’s begga
r’s hand. And at the same time, it’s not. It’s a snowdrop that turns into beggar’s hand. One plant changing into another. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Where did you find that?” Colison had blanched beneath his windburnt ruddiness.

  “Up ahead. The rock walls come down a little. There are a few things growing in the cracks where the stones have fallen.” Evenna looked at him, suddenly doubtful. “Should I not keep this?”

  “No. No, it doesn’t matter. Safer in your hands than where it was, I don’t doubt. Where you found it—was it a clearing? Were there rusting spears about the edge?”

  Evenna shook her head. “The path didn’t widen much. It’s just that the walls fell a bit. I wouldn’t call it a clearing. Would you like me to show you? It’s not far.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Colison cupped his hands around his mouth, calling to the wagons ahead. “Jassel! We’ve found beggar’s hand! Spread the word!”

  He let his hands fall and gave the three of them a curt nod, all efficiency once more. “Ladies. Sir. If you’ll excuse me, I’d best be getting back to work. A caution: that water I had you bring? Drink that. Don’t touch anything you see flowing hereabouts, and don’t melt the snow. Don’t let your animals crop whatever’s growing. Keep them to the hay you carry, unless you feel like pulling these wagons yourselves.”

  With that, Colison trudged off to check the last of the wagons, leaving them bewildered.

  “What was that about?” Heradion asked.

  Evenna shrugged. She’d found a teakettle somewhere and was busily filling it with sand, half of which fell through her fingers as she trotted to keep up with the wagon. The snowdrop bounced on a square of sand-flecked burlap beside her. “Folklore’s filled with warnings against beggar’s hand. It’s no more dangerous than ergot or devil’s trumpet, really. Poisonous, but not magical. It looks unsightly and has an unfortunate name, so the superstitious think it marks the touch of Maol.”

  “His fear was more than superstition,” Asharre said. “What does this plant do?”

  “It causes delirium if ingested. Fevers. Some who have eaten it claimed to see demons cavorting in the air, or say they’ve heard imps cackling and ordering them to do mischief. The visions usually fade after a few hours. The patient stays weak for another day or two, and that’s the end of it. A few people have died from eating entire bulbs, but the taste is foul enough to make that uncommon. You can’t stomach that much of it accidentally.” Evenna dug a hole in the sand and planted the snowdrop inside. She folded the burlap over it to protect the bulb against frost. “There we are. I’d better go see how Falcien is faring. It’s my turn to take a hand at the reins.”

  “I don’t suppose it’ll be your turn soon,” Heradion hinted to Asharre.

  “As soon as you want to end up in the river.” Asharre watched Evenna climb back onto the wagon ahead of them. “I’ve never seen anyone so excited about a poisonous plant.”

  “You collect swords. No healthier having one of those in your stomach.”

  Asharre snorted, and the wagon rolled on.

  That night they made camp in the clearing Colison had mentioned. It might have begun as a natural broadening of the mountain path, but the Baozites had smoothed and widened it to serve their needs.

  A stone parapet ran along its outer rim. Tall iron spears jutted from its merlons. Most were broken, but a few stood intact, thrusting up at the air with barbed tips untouched by rust. Whatever protected the spearheads from time did not extend to their hafts; those that were not broken had been corroded to pockmarked red needles. Age-browned skulls hung from several of the spears, their mouths filled with windblown dirt and the red drool of rust.

  The clearing inside the wall was more hospitable. There was enough dirt for grass and a few small trees to take root, though the trees were leafless and the grass was brown under a lacy shawl of frost. A shallow cave in the mountainside offered shelter from the wind. At one end of the cave, a rivulet of steaming water trickled from a cut in the mountain, feeding a small pool. Whiskers of ice silvered the stone on either side of the rivulet, but the water flowed free and the pool was clear.

  Asharre stuck a finger in the water. It was uncomfortably hot, near boiling where it spilled from the rock. It did not smell of sulfur, as the hot springs near Smoke River did.

  Colison, like the rest of his men, had been cutting away the dry grass before letting their oxen out of harness. When he saw her by the pool, he put down his short-handled sickle and hurried over. “Don’t drink that!”

  Asharre wiped her hand dry on her thigh. “Why? It doesn’t smell fouled. This place was made for a camp.”

  “It was,” Colison agreed. “I’ve been using this clearing as long as I’ve been coming to Carden Vale, but this past winter … I started hearing stories. Things changed. Men told me they’d heard the mad wind whistling around Spearbridge. Sober men, men I’d trust with my life. They said it wasn’t the wind that carried madness, though, but the water. Plants too. Ones like your girl found, that’d turned to beggar’s hand. I had it marked for nonsense … but I brought the ferrets to be sure.”

  “To be sure of what?”

  He grimaced. “I don’t know. That I’m a fool, maybe. Everything I’ve heard says the water’s poisoned where plants turn to beggar’s hand, so I suppose we’ll give it a try and find out. Laugh at me if I’m wrong.”

  Asharre gave him a long look, but she gathered the others. Anything that smelled of magic was best seen by the Blessed. Colison met them by the cistern with a ferret cage in his hand. He set the animal down and fished a clay bowl out of his pocket. “I ought to apologize,” he said as he dipped the bowl into the steaming pool. “I told you to bring water and hay, but I didn’t tell you why. It wasn’t just for fear of late snows. I’d heard troubling things about the water up here. Might make me look like a fool, but I thought … better to be safe. Just in case.”

  He opened the ferret’s cage. The animal watched them with black, beady eyes. Moving slowly, so as not to frighten it, Colison put the dish inside and latched the door.

  The ferret lapped at the water, tentatively at first, but it soon forgot its fear. Its small pink tongue flicked out faster and faster. Soon all the water was gone, and the ferret was licking the dry bowl. It combed its whiskers for every last drop, then licked at its paws for more.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Evenna whispered.

  The ferret went from licking its paws to nipping them. Its sharp little teeth soon pierced the skin. Upon tasting blood, the animal flew into a frenzy. It thrashed and snapped in its cage, biting at its flanks and tearing at its belly. Loops of intestine caught around a kicking foot; its teeth scraped against bare ribs. A hind claw caught an artery in its neck and tore through. Blood sprayed the cage in rhythmic spurts, but the bleeding did not slow its rage; as the life ran from its neck, fury seemed to fill the animal’s body instead. It shrieked, a high-pitched sound that held no pain—only hunger and what Asharre could almost swear was hate.

  Within moments the animal was dead. It had ripped itself into a wet, twisted rag. Ashen faced, Asharre wiped some of its blood from her boot.

  Colison covered the cage with a frayed piece of burlap. The corners touching the cage floor turned a slow, ugly red.

  “Suppose it’s true, then,” the merchant-captain said. “There’s madness in the water.”

  “Where did you hear this?” Heradion asked.

  “There was a caravan last autumn that got caught in Yelanne’s Pass for a few days. Not uncommon if you set out late in the year, and not too dangerous if you’re ready for it and full winter hasn’t set in. You might lose a few animals, but your caravan ought to get through. Horas Short-Ear captained that crew. I knew him; he wasn’t one for stupid mistakes. He had them drinking snowmelt while they waited for the weather to turn. The buckets were sitting on the fire pits, frozen full of ice plugs, when the next crew found them.

  “My cousin Torvud brought his caravan
through the pass a week later. The storm had cleared by then. He found Short-Ear’s people dead. All of them. There were some in the wagon beds who’d strangled themselves with knotted shirts, others who’d run into the snow to embrace the cold. The animals were no better. Oxen locked their horns into each other’s ribs, dogs went wild on their masters … it was a bloody mess, Torvud said. So bloody, most of those who heard about it didn’t believe it. Sounded like a wild tale of the mad wind. I didn’t believe it, until now, and it was my own cousin who told me.”

  “You called a warning when I found the snowdrop,” Evenna said. “Why?”

  “Tainted plants mean tainted water,” Colison replied. “Might be one causes the other, might not, but I was told you’ll find them side by side. Seems that’s true. That grass in the clearing? Looks fine from afar, but all its roots are little fisty bulbs, same as the flower you dug up on the road. It’s beggar’s hand. Let an ox graze on that, you might as well cut its throat with your own hands.”

  “Why would any animal eat so much?” Evenna asked, puzzled. “Beggar’s hand tastes terrible.”

  “Does it?” Colison pushed up his hat to scratch his head. “That’s not what I’ve heard. Torvud said animals that get a taste of it go as mad as that ferret did for water. They’ll eat till there’s none left, and fight each other bloody for the last bite.”

  “Sweet as wine, sweet as sin, sweet as death,” Falcien recited. Asharre raised an eyebrow at him.

  “The Book of All Sins,” he explained. “Ryanthe Austerlan wrote it two hundred years ago. It was his life’s work: an exploration of the world’s dark faiths and the known magics of each. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading, and much of what Blessed Austerlan wrote is cryptic or coded to keep the knowledge from being misused, but I spent a year studying it at the Dome.

  “Blessed Austerlan tells of how Maolites succumb to the Mad God’s touch. Most fall into sin gradually. The first taste of his power is ‘sweet as wine,’ intoxicating and liberating to those who’ve never had any power of their own. It causes a similar sickness after it passes, and it can be as addicting as wine to a vulnerable soul. The second is a reward for those who have become accustomed to doing evil in his name. ‘Sweet as sin to a malicious heart.’ The third comes when they’ve served their purpose and their mortal shells are completely broken. Then it is as ‘sweet as death’ … though what follows is unending horror for those who have given their souls to Maol.”