by L. W. Jacobs
He sounded like Karhail, back in the rebellion. “And let me guess, I’m the key to your strategy.”
“You, Tai, you would be the key to anyone’s strategy. I don’t doubt it’s why Sablo wanted you too. Likely why he came back here, after your little trick with the army.”
Nauro was clearly educated, but talking to the man was like wandering in a maze. “Strategy to do what?”
He raised his eyebrows. “To kill Semeca, of course.”
38
Tai’s head cocked forward despite himself. That was not what he was expecting. “Semeca? The councilor from Gendrys?”
“That is one way to describe her, yes. Sablo’s team may have had its eye on someone else, but it was likely Semeca, too. She has raised her head a bit too high with these Broken, and as the book says, the highest heads must be ready for axes.”
Tai frowned. “What do you have against Semeca?”
“Oh nothing, really. I admire her, when it comes down to it. But she has something I want.”
Semeca. Control of the Broken. The pieces were starting to fit together. “Was she the one behind those bridges moving?”
Nauro gave an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I don’t have all the facts on your parley at Gendrys, relying as I must on rumors. But from what I’ve heard, yes, I don’t doubt it.”
“How? She wasn’t using Broken.”
“Oh no. The Broken are just a useful expedient to her, because she cannot risk revealing her own power. Just as you were a useful expedient, masking the fact that she was moving the bridges. Well, you and the Councilate’s understandable superstition about your resonance.”
“So you’re saying she has some other power she doesn’t want the Councilate to know about, so she made it look like I was lifting the bridges?”
“Yes. And the Broken are the same—though she relies on the unstable release of uai that happens when a revenant is dislodged, still this is a way to use her power without tipping the vulgar off to her power.”
“The vulgar.”
He smiled apologetically. “Excuse me. I spend too much time around other seekers, and in the company of my own thoughts. Regular people, I meant to say.”
“So, what is this power? Does she just have an incredible resonance?”
“She has more than that. She has a world full of incredible resonances.” He paused, seeing Tai’s confusion. “Consider House Coldferth. Their inner family has what, twenty members? Twenty-five? And these twenty-five control perhaps five thousand employees, and by extension their families, and by further extension the slaves and workers they hold in indenture to serve in their mines and mills. Perhaps fifty thousand in total?”
“I guess.” This was again a question better suited for Ella. He wished she were here.
“And yet that’s just a fraction of what Semeca controls.”
Tai frowned. “House Fenril is one of the smaller houses.” This much he knew, at least.
“Forget about her House. Semeca made Fenril what it is, but she was around long before that. No, I mean her true power. Power over the fatewalkers.”
“The—what?” The man was making less and less sense.
“Fatewalkers. Blanks, you call them. Or, I’m not sure what they were in Achuri traditions. Maybe just lucky. They are people who can use uai to bend events to their will, in the same way you use it to fly.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“They are rarest of the six abilities. Most of them assume their resonance is without power, the effect is so slight. And that’s why Semeca must keep her head down, must pose as a cousin in a minor House.”
“Okay, so there is a sixth ability, aside from brawlers, wafters, and the rest. But what does that have to do with Semeca needing to keep her head down?”
“Because it is the rarest of the resonances, the one with the fewest members. Fewer people means less uai being fed to her, making her the most vulnerable of the nine to attack. And thus the best target for a team like ours.”
“Nine what? What is she?”
“She’s an archrevenant,” Nauro said casually. “One of the nine creatures who long ago seized control of a resonance, and the revenants that feed on that resonance.”
“She—controls the voices?”
“Those of the fatebringers, anyway. Mindseyes, mosstongues, wafters like yourself, you are controlled by other archrevenants. Much more powerful ones, because your abilities are more common, meaning there are many more revanants out there feeding on them, and a whole lot more uai coming in. Archrevenants like that, they likely don’t need to hide. We believe, for example, the longtime king of the Yersh people was an archrevenant, likely of wafters or mosstongues. Another may be hiding among the Brineriders, part of the reason they defend their archipelago so vigorously. Semeca is weakest of these—but still more than enough to handle any of us.”
“Assuming this is all true, what does it have to do with me? Why are you here?”
“For one, you should be concerned because you want to defend the people you love and your little attempt at self-determination here, and she is obviously more than a match for you. But as to why I’m here, running about with this fox and dragging in dead bodies, that is a longer story.”
“I’m all ears.” The web Nauro was weaving was just plausible enough that he was willing to put Aelya off a while longer. On the off chance it might lead to him gaining some kind of edge on Semeca.
“You’re different, Tai. You know that. Your resonance is too strong, your backbone too large, your parents a mystery. It sounds like your man Sigwil was quite powerful when he overcame his revenant in that last fight. He killed two Broken! But you—you swept an entire army out of the city, swatted down Titans like they were gadflies, then drove the whole mess of them a hundred thousandpace downstream and filled the river with boulders to keep them out. That is no ordinary resonance.”
Tai shifted, leg throbbing. “Is this where you tell me I have some strange parentage?”
Nauro’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that what Semeca said? I know nothing of your parentage, Tai. I wish I did. You ought to have children, you know. A lot of children. Even if you don’t take me up on this, perhaps one of them… but nevermind. It’s in your best interests to take me up on this.”
He was getting tired of everyone’s talk that he was special. Special leader. Special resonance. Special parents. “Take you up on what?”
Nauro spread his hands. “On fighting her, of course.”
Good. Okay. “Great. Yes. Tell me what you know.”
That infuriating smile again. “I will, gladly. But as I said, I need something from you first.”
“Last time you asked me that, you then started referring to my life as a little game and talking about your strategies.”
“Yes. Excuse me for taking your goals lightly. I forget what it was like before I gained perspective. Let me speak clearly: we share a common enemy. You do not have a strategy to defeat her. I do. I am willing to take you on my team, and I freely admit that you will be key to overcoming her, but you will need to accept that you are only one of us, and that the rewards will need to be shared equally.”
“The only reward I need is the safety of my city.”
He pursed his lips. “You have a lot to study before we’re ready. That timeline may not be fast enough to preserve Ayugen in the face of Semeca’s wrath.”
“How long?”
“A lot of that depends on you. But,” he seemed to consider, idly scratching the fox’s ears. “A year. Maybe two.”
“A year?” Tai barked. Impossible. “They will be sending more Broken as soon as they’re made. Tell you what. Let me make you an offer. You said you had some power over the Broken. Why don’t you join my team, help us defeat Semeca, and then take whatever rewards it is you think you’ll get when it’s all done.”
The lanky man just stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Me! Join your team!” He slapped his knees. “I’m sorry—ye
s—just let me catch my breath—” He straightened, pulling himself together with difficulty. The man seemed genuinely amused, which was only more infuriating. “I’m afraid that won’t work, Tai.”
“Why not?”
“Because you need to know so much more, to practice so much more, before you’ll be able to defeat her, and even then it will only be with our help. Ayugen will be gone long before then. So, I ask you again: is this fight worth your life? Are you so caught in the revolutions of the wheel that you won’t try to strike deeper, live fuller, experience the deeper powers and mysteries of our world?”
There was something tempting in his offer. Not just to defeat Semeca. If what Nauro was saying was true, Semeca had been alive for hundreds of years, maybe longer. Something in him ached for that much time, that much space. Time to travel the world. Time to understand himself. Time to do more than fight and lose loved ones and constantly be on the edge of dying. That was what his whole life had been, since the day Marrem had turned him out on the streets. This fight was no different, and something deep in him longed for more, despaired of ever getting it. But.
“If I say yes, does it mean abandoning my friends here to die?”
Nauro met his gaze, unblinking. “Yes. There are prices to be paid.”
“Then no. My answer is a thousand times no.”
“Don’t turn this down hastily, Tai. You have seen what Semeca can do. I am offering you the chance to replace her. To wield that power in whatever way you choose. It would be easy to defeat the Councilate then, or at least keep them at bay. With that kind of power, you could make your world however you saw fit.”
“Could I bring my friends back from the dead?”
Nauro chewed his lip. “In a manner of speaking. But no. Not as you know them now.”
“Then no. A thousand times no.”
Nauro sighed, drawing a knife from his waistband. “I feared you would say as much. You are a good man, Tai, and I am not.”
Tai frowned, not feeling in any real danger. Nauro was nearly two paces away, plenty of space to defend himself.
“I do this only because I have to,” the lanky man said, still scratching Illyen’s ears with the other hand. “I am your only solution to this problem, Tai. Remember that. I will find you.”
Tai opened his mouth to speak, then sucked in air as Nauro slashed the fox’s throat, eyes suddenly hard with concentration.
Blood sprayed the soil. The fox screamed, sound mangled through its cut windpipe. And a second scream sounded as something hit Tai, hard, knocking him to the ground. Hot blood spattered him, still pumping from the fox’s body. Nauro was speaking, but all Tai could hear was the scream. It felt like it was consuming his whole body, his whole mind, the pain of landing on his broken leg drowned out in the pain of that scream.
It went on forever.
When it stopped, Tai lay on the blood-soaked ground, gasping, Nauro gone, body of the fox staring at him with glassy eyes. And in the silence that had been scream inside his head, Tai heard a tentative voice.
T—Tai?
He sat upright, eyes widening. “Fisher?”
39
Not alone, no, we could never do it alone. We’d go down together, journeyers and guides. That was the way to insight.
—Ellumia Aygla, Interviews with Achuri Elders, unpublished
Mecking Tai and his mecking lighthairs. Aelya strode a packed dirt road with five militiamen at her back, still stewing over yesterday’s meeting. Couldn’t he see she did it for the city’s safety? That that’s all she’d been doing? That some system of justice was better than letting traitors attack at will?
He’ll understand, Curly said inside, voice still reedy like when he’d first joined their gang. You had to kill those people. Tai’s just girl-crazy.
“Girl-crazy indeed,” she muttered, drawing a look from the one Seinjial among her guards. He was a proper darkhair, but they didn’t understand spirit guides like the Achuri did. She might start kicking Seinjial out of the city too, if Weiland wasn’t one of them. Karhail had been too, for that matter.
Why do boys get girl-crazy? Curly asked. He was always asking questions like this.
Aelya shrugged. “It just happens. You would have gotten girl-crazy too, if you’d lived another year or two.”
Not uh, Curly said, indignant. Look, it’s Siggie!
Aelya glanced ahead on the road. They were close to Marrem’s bluffhouse, the last place she and Tai had lived before the lighthairs stole their kids, and she had always liked the view from here. Down the terraced bluff, the tangled mess of shingled roofs and awning-hung backalleys that was Riverbottom led out to the wide Genga and the barley fields beyond, burnt now. You could see enemies coming from a long way off, and closer in the carved wood entrances to the underground bluffhouses made great places to sit and sip dreamleaf in the summer heat.
Sigwil leaned in one of these open doorways, talking with a pretty Achuri girl. She was working at her hair as they talked, nervous hands belying the smile she had on her face. Is she boy-crazy too? Curly asked.
Aelya smiled. “Sounds like Sigwil’s trying to make her that way.” She could hear his mangled attempts at Achuri from here. “Hey, big brother!” she called in a louder voice, using Achuri. “Stop bothering that girl!”
The fyelocked militiaman looked up, startled, then scowled and said a few words to the girl, who went back inside the house.
He turned the scowl on her. “Can’t a man woo in peace in this city?”
She smirked. “Not with Achuri like that. Who taught you our language, a Yatiman?”
“No one taught me,” he said defensively. “I’ve just been trying to pick it up.”
“Well, good luck with that. Shouldn’t you be on guard duty anyway?”
Sigwil glanced at the men behind her, all of them with the black armbands of her core members. “Feynrick let me off for the day.”
“Feynrick?” She didn’t mind the old Yatiman—he had a great sense of humor—but he hadn’t walked out with her when Tai was being an ass at the last meeting. “Feynrick wasn’t here when we were attacked. I don’t think he understands what we’re up against. We could use you in the Blackspines, Sigwil. Probably impress your girl too.”
Sigwil shifted feet. “Ah—no offense Aelya, but Feynrick’s still head of the militia, till I hear different.”
“This isn’t about who’s head of whatever, Sigs. It’s about making sure the lighthairs don’t hit our granaries again, or try something worse.”
The babyfaced man just looked more uncomfortable. “It’s a good goal, but—I think we all need to sit down first. Figure out what we’re doing.”
He was on Tai’s side then. Fine. Aelya snorted and waved at her fighters. “Come on, men. Let’s keep this city safe. Sigwil’s too busy chasing tail.”
She led them on the down the bluff, fuming worse than before. Mecking Tai and his mecking meetings. What good are meetings when houses are burning? If he wanted a meeting he needed to come and talk to her, to her face. None of this backwards in-front-of-an-audience elkscat like he’d been doing. If he thought she did a bad job of fighting the lighthairs while he was gone—and just the idea made her fist clench—then he needed to say it directly. To apologize for being such an ass and running off when they obviously needed him here.
Damned if she was going to apologize first. Or at all.
One of the Blackspines cleared his throat and she focused attention back on their surroundings. They were lower down now, and one person stuck out from the crowd of people around a tea vendor’s pot—a lighthair.
Aelya’s stomach tightened even more when she saw who it was: the Worldsmouth biawelo. Ella.
The skinny woman turned around and seemed to start, then set her face and walked toward them. Good. She’d been meaning to have a talk with this woman for some time now. “Ella.”
“Aelya,” the woman breathed, slurring her vowels like all the true lighthairs did. “Have you seen Tai?”
/> Aelya snorted. “Not since the meeting. He’s avoiding me, I think. Doesn’t want to admit he was wrong.”
Ella looked troubled at this, but said, “Well, he was supposed to meet me at noon at my apartments, but I haven’t seen him.”
She smirked. “Avoiding you too, huh? He does this sometimes. Gets all moody.” Or maybe he’d realized Aelya was right about lighthairs, and didn’t know what to do about his girlfriend.
“I’m worried it could be more than that.” Ella glanced at the Blackspines, fancy braids jiggling on her head. “Can we talk privately?”
“Nothing you can say they can’t hear,” Aelya said, enjoying the look of consternation on the woman’s face. She was willing to admit Ella probably wasn’t part of the attack, but there were still too many secrets in this city. Better if everyone just knew everything.
“Fine. I’m worried because after the meeting he said he was going to look for Nauro—the man with the fox.”
“So?”
“So,” she sighed, “we have reasons to believe Nauro is dangerous.” She explained about the secret ninespears group, and how Sablo had stopped their resonances during his escape. “I’m worried he might do the same to Tai, or worse.”
Aelya clenched her jaw. “And you let him go by himself?”
“You don’t let Tai do anything. He just does it, and you either help him or he does it alone.”
“Yeah. I kind of noticed that. In the years I spent with him on the streets?” Prophets, this woman was infuriating. “And you didn’t go with him, with your fancy timeslipping and all?”
“I had the school to check on. I notice you didn’t go with him either.”
“I didn’t know he was going.”
“No,” the lighthaired woman said, stepping closer, “because you got pissy and walked out on the meeting.”
It was everything she could do not to slap the woman. With the iron hand. “You wouldn’t understand.”