The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

  His voice made it a promise; they would not be forgotten. They would not be abandoned. Whatever happened in the years to come, they would be part of it.

  He could practically see the ripple pass through the lines as they stood a little taller, their spears and bows held so that the metal tips caught the morning sunlight and reflected it back off the walls rather than blinding anyone within—a gesture they must have perfected over the years and handed down to each new man on the wall.

  These men were the best the Grounding had. He hated knowing that he lied to them.

  * * *

  “I NEED TWENTY.”

  “No.”

  “I am not here to Negotiate, Ximen.”

  The man’s voice was like a snake, curling and uncurling, hiding under leaves until it could strike. The very sound of it made Ximen ill. The Praepositus took a deep breath, the way Bo always reminded him to, and let it out, slowly, carefully, listening to the sound it made, a soft puff of wind in the otherwise still room. “And I am not here to give you my men for your workings. Is that not why you have slaves? Use them.” He did not know what the vine-mage needed the men for. . . .

  No, that was a lie, and while he might mislead his men to achieve a further goal, Ximen would not lie to himself. He knew. He never spoke of the pits where bodies lay, unnamed and unmentioned. He never spoke of the sacrifices—the unacknowledged deaths—that fed both the vine-mage’s magic and Ximen’s own ambitions. But Ximen knew. He knew of the outbuilding where slaves went in, but did not come out. He knew that there were things that his vine-mage did that could not be condoned, and yet he condoned them by his silence.

  “Pfaugh. Slaves are good for much. For most of my workings, they are what I require. But in this instance, I need not magic but strength, not sensitivity but courage. And I require the best. Give me twenty.”

  The vine-mage was serious. He sat there, a goblet in his hands, and asked for the lives of twenty men as though requesting a sheet of paper.

  And it would be their lives; Ximen had no doubt of that. Twenty, plus the season’s Harvest . . . no. Slaves were the vine-mage’s to dispose of as he would, but these were his men. He would sooner give his own arm to a wild dog. The Harvest sacrifices were tradition, those chosen publicly honored, a means of tying the community together in shared loss and honor. This . . . this would be mere slaughter.

  The vine-mage had no such qualms. “You owe me, Praepositus. For the plans you needed for your ships, for the safety I give your men, the ability to power your dreams . . . you owe me.”

  He remembered the look of the men on the Wall: proud, eager, willing to do anything he asked of them, because he carried that title. The smell that rose off the vine-mage had faded, here within the stone enclosure of the Wall-House, but it still lingered in Ximen’s nostrils, making him wary and not inclined to give the other man anything more.

  “You promise, and you reassure, and you demand . . . but you have shown me nothing, yet,” he said instead. “We are nearly at the day of announcement, years in the planning, and all I have is your assurance that the Old World is ripe for the taking, that their lords are in disarray and distracted, that their mages are weakened to the point of being no threat. And, yet. I have no proof.”

  Ximen knew full well that there was no way to gain proof of the sort he desired; it was too far a distance to fly messenger-birds, and the few fireposts they had built carried news up and down the coastline, not across it. The Grounding had never been able to build ships that could cross back over the great waters, not safely. They had neither the skills nor the materials, their few ships slighter things that needed to hug the shoreline, not speed into the deeps.

  That was why he had needed the vine-mage, originally, to conjure the sketches and plans, steal the knowledge of how to build the ships they needed. And now he asked his people to go beyond all that they knew, making ships that would carry them out of sight of the life-giving shore, to travel the waves that had brought them here seven generations before, without any idea what might await them in those far distant lands. All was ready, waiting only his announcement, the unveiling of his Great Plan, to tell them what they had been working for.

  Ximen had thought, in the beginning, to return in triumph; surely there had been some there who mourned the loss of their men, who remembered the ships that did not return, and would welcome them, the long-lost sons and their new lands, claimed for the family’s name. When, at what moment, had that dream turned to bitter mint in his mouth?

  But if he did not know when, he knew full well why.

  Everything, every plan, every dream he had based the future on was built on the assurances of the old man who now sat across from him and demanded the lives of free men, his men, as though they were naught but game pieces, of no value save the use he put them to.

  For the first time in too many years, Ximen looked into the vine-mage’s rheumy eyes and let himself see what lived within. They stared at each other, unblinking, and a part of Ximen wondered, uneasily, how much of that madness had infected him.

  Chapter 4

  Jerzy had seen the way Kaïnam looked at him, cautiously, studying him in the aftermath of his collapse in the village, and he understood the concern, but there was no need. The healing spell itself had been surprisingly simple, and once he recovered from the shock of what he had felt, his only driving desire was to put his feet down on familiar soil.

  The thought crept in that mayhaps Kaï was right to worry, that he could not be certain the malaise had been entirely driven out, but he felt well enough to go on, and that was the important thing now: getting back to the House, and the yard.

  Once they parted ways with the solitaire, he tried to lose himself in the familiar landscape. The road passed along gently rolling, plowed fields of wheat and barley, ringed by wooded groves whose trunks were thick around with age, their leaves turning with autumn colors. The villages became more scarce as the ground became less fertile, low fences running across the landscape at irregular angles, the occasional red-patched cow or shaggy-coated sheep stopping to watch them as they rode past. It all looked as it should, and yet the closer they came to home, the more uneasy Jerzy felt. The malaise in the village had not been able to touch him, driven out by the residue of magics within him, the tangle of legacies flooding his blood, but he could feel it now, everywhere around him. The village had been a pool, but the malaise seeped everywhere, slowly enough to raise no alarms, nothing more than a grumble of discontent at ill luck and bad weather.

  How long had it been here? Had he been blind, before?

  Jerzy shifted on the wooden bench of the wagon, first stretching his legs and then twisting, trying to work out a crick that didn’t exist, causing the patient horse in the traces to stop and wait for new instructions.

  “Enough,” Mahault said finally. She swung off her horse, even as Jerzy pulled up the reins to the cart horse in surprise, making the beast stop once again. “You, take my horse and work out whatever’s itching you. I will drive the wagon.”

  Rather than ride, however, Jerzy tied the horse to the wagon’s rail and walked alongside, stretching his muscles and letting his feet make contact with the soil.

  It wasn’t the same as when he’d walked barefoot in the field, but even through the soles of his boots he could feel the earth respond, the sense of something alive, if not aware. Under the malaise, the land still knew him, responded to him.

  That awareness brought home something else as well. So intent on returning to The Berengia, of ensuring that Ao would have access to the proper spellwines to heal and that he would be able to regain his own strength among the vines of his proper legacy, Jerzy had not let himself think overmuch about the passing of the seasons. Now, he could think of nothing save that.

  He had left in the growing season. He had missed Harvest. The grapes would have been picked; Detta had promised him that, and as House-keeper she could make it so. But without a Vineart . . . the fruit would have been crushed and ab
andoned, the vats of mustus waiting in vain for a Vineart’s touch. The things he had not allowed himself to think of, had not time or energy to think about, on their journey, settled against his neck now, as heavy as the wagon trundling along next to him.

  As they walked, the wheels of the wagon and the clomp of the horses’ hooves a steady accompaniment, a nightbird sang somewhere, and when he looked up, narrow blue and pink clouds gathered in the sky, giving a foretaste of night.

  The days were becoming shorter, cooler. Soon it would be Fallowtime, when the earth lay still and Vinearts turned their attention to other matters, clearing away the debris of the growing and harvest seasons and mending their equipment, buying new slaves and sorting inventory in the cellars, incanting the slower-maturing spellwines, and deciding what to sell and what to keep.

  Jerzy suspected there would be little of that routine for him; his time would of necessity be turned toward arts more martial than magic, of clearing the damage done rather than preparing it for new growth, and the thought was actual pain.

  Guardian? he thought, almost barely daring to reach out for fear that he would still hear nothing, even this close, and was rewarded by the cool weight of stone slipping into him, taking some of the burden off his neck even as it pressed—comfortingly—against his heart and lungs.

  Almost home, he told it, and felt the stone dragon let out a distant growl that rumbled down his spine, like a cat’s purr grown immensely deep.

  The moment the growl reached the soles of his feet, it was as though his awareness of the ground expanded, went even deeper, until he could feel not only the soil itself but the roots that still lay several hours away, the vineyards of the House of Malech.

  His vines.

  That easily, that suddenly, he could hear them whispering to each other, soft murmurings, like the morning wind over waves. The whispers said nothing, communicated nothing, but merely affirmed: We are. They were. And in their being, he was.

  Jerzy called on the quiet-magic without conscious intent, the saliva filling his mouth until the sense of belonging became a physical taste, a ripe, full flavor of healvines, the spicier, darker fruit of firevines threaded like veins, the weathervine mingled within: a tart, pulpier flavor, carrying the salt of sea winds and a hint of yellow fruit, then a much lighter, brighter flavor, like a voice heard distant in the night. . . .

  And, at the back of it all, tangled deep against the bones of his throat, the unmistakable jolt of unblooded vines.

  The knowledge came to him, carried by the aroma of that blend. All there, carried within him. Part of him. Waiting—wanting—to be used.

  He could do this. He could—he was—enough. Not himself, but what he carried, what he crafted. He could cleanse the land, protect his people . . . be a threat to Ximen’s plans.

  Jerzy shuddered, swallowing the magic back down, refusing to let the euphoria overwhelm him, distrusting the feeling. Distracted, he almost missed the sensation of the ground beneath him surging, dirt and stone replaced by the yawning sensation of roots, thicker than he was, wider than the seas, stretching not from him to his yards but everywhere all at once, spanning the distance, deep into the heart of the earth-stone beneath their feet.

  It was, he realized with a shudder, the same sensation he had felt when he cleared the air back at the village, leaving him sweating and shaking, the same and yet more, underlying the taint, deeper and stronger, not drawn by his decantation but drawing him in, salivating with the need to consume him.

  It was thick, and dense, and powerful, and . . .

  And old. Deep and old, and he was drowning in it, feeling it fill him up from within. . . .

  “Jer!”

  The worried shout roused him from the dizziness, and he grabbed hold of the wagon’s side with one hand, reaching automatically for the flask at his belt with the other even as he swerved to see what Ao was yelling about. The field to their left was clear, just a softly sloping hill covered with sheep—who, even as he watched, scattered, the two children watching them scattering as well, the sound of low yips in the air indicating the presence of herd dogs, as well.

  Jerzy swung to the right, his side, but the road was clear there, too, as well as behind them. His eyesight seemed almost impossibly sharp, taking in the smallest of details, while his mind felt muddled, as though he had just woken from an unquiet sleep. Kaï had the road ahead covered, his blade out and ready, even as Jerzy heard Ao pull back the thick bowstring and notch a bolt to it. Where was Mahault?

  Then a sharp cry from above dragged his attention back to the sky. Three, four dark figures coming out of the cloud, circling low—no, high, but falling quickly, shaped like raptors but larger than birds should be, pinions ragged, talons and necks angled to strike.

  And with them, driving down out of the freshening sky, the taint of enemy magic, unmistakable even as Jerzy moved his hand away from the flask and grabbed in the wagon bed for his cudgel. His hand closed around the polished wooden heft just as the first of the too-large, misshapen birds reached them.

  Glossy black, almost glittering in the sunlight, built like some gods-forsaken cross between a tarn and the giant seabirds that had glided over the ship each dawn, their wings spanning nearly Kaïnam’s height across, their claws larger than Jerzy’s own hands and tipped not with a bird’s talons but metal-sharp blades, one of them raking across Jerzy’s face before he could raise the cudgel to defend himself.

  A horse screamed, and he heard Mahault swear, then the twang of a bolt from Ao’s bow released into the air. Jerzy landed a hit with the cudgel, and the creature flapped its wings but did not retreat.

  “What are they?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” he heard Ao say, even as the trader braced himself more firmly in the wagon bed and rearmed. “Jer, if they’re magic, can they be killed?”

  “Anything can be killed,” Kaïnam said, but his blade, limited to his immediate reach, was useless in the dive-and-wheel attack, and his horse so terrified it almost unseated him.

  “Jer?” Another bolt released, this one hitting with a fleshy thunk, even as Jerzy swing the cudgel up and hit something hard and muscled. He couldn’t see where Mahault was, or how she was faring with her shorter blade, the birds wheeling around for another attack as though they shared a single thought or were directed like a pack of hunting dogs.

  “If they’re magic, it will take magic,” he said, panting. That was how it had worked with the serpents. “I can weaken them; then you can cut them down.” He hoped.

  “Under the wagon.” Mahault’s voice, ordering him, even as her smaller hand took the cudgel from his grasp, her body checking his, knocking him to the ground even as he was rolling underneath the relative safety of the wagon.

  A sudden memory: a wagon, shattered in two, the bodies of slaves lying broken as well, some dead, others dying . . .

  Jerzy refused the memory, staring up at the narrow length of iron that ran along the bottom or the wagon, connecting the planking and giving it strength. Sturdy. Strong enough to carry their belongings. Strong enough to keep him safe—but not for long. He needed to . . .

  He needed to bring the beasts down out of the sky, where they had the advantage, to where Mahl and Kaïnam could finish them off. Grounded, the beasts were no match.

  A flash of panic filled him, burning away the last of the groggy sensation, then the knowledge of what he needed to do, and how, came to him: healspell, turned inward, to draw vitality away, tearing at the life that animated them, hard and fast so that they fell from the sky. Anti-healing. Something not-done but . . . possible.

  Had the knowledge come from the Guardian? Jerzy had no time to reach for reassurance. He heard a grunt of pain, the smack of horseflesh against the wagon, rocking it on its wheels. Another thwang of the bowstring, and the scream, the terrible scream of an unnatural bird as it swooped to attack. Not being able to see was worse than seeing, unsure what was happening outside his temporary hiding place.

  Jerzy called the
quiet-magic even as his hand reached for the wineskin to augment it, and give him full strength. No time for subtlety or show: he uncorked the healwine and brought it to his mouth, spilling some over his lips in his haste. It stained the ground underneath him, the dry-packed dirt soaking it up. Instead of the usual smooth, warm fruit, he tasted harshness, as though the magic knew what he was about to do and was resisting being used in such a fashion.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, unsure if he was asking the wine, or the birds, or Sin Washer himself. “Into their bodies, rise. Inside their bodies, break. Go.”

  The spellwine backwashed on him, resisting, choking him until he spluttered, but he could feel the magic working, felt it hit the creatures, sliding under their feathers, pricking into their flesh the way Lil salted meats for dinner, drawing the vitality out of them, magic drawing magic to itself. His magic, matching the taint measure to measure, not trying to fight it directly but clinging to it so that it could not cling to the bird’s flesh any longer, dropping out, falling and dissipating . . .

  He could not see the battle, but he could feel it working.

  “Now!” he heard Mahault cry, her voice fierce and terrible, and then the singing of blades cutting air and the far more terrible sounds of them meeting flesh, meeting and diving, and the heavy thump of things falling, until there was silence, and the low coughing of someone throwing up over the side of the wagon.

  “Jer?”

  “Yeah.” He rolled out from under the wagon—on the side without the puddle of vomit—and came face to beak with one of the grotesque birds. In death it still looked terrifying.