The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

“Did it work? Is he . . . did they . . .” She stepped back, suddenly aware that she was crowding him in her impatience, and schooled her body to a more composed pose.

  “My apologies, Vineart.”

  Jerzy exhaled, too tired to care if she gave him the respect due his position or not. She was worried, he understood that.

  “Get Kaï,” he said, rubbing one forearm across his eyes, wishing they felt less gritty. “I only want to talk about this once.” He left her, heading for the bathing room.

  Once it had seemed an odd, unnerving place, the idea of submerging his entire body in steaming water foreign to a slave who washed only when needed, in a cold-water stream. Now, as he shucked his clothing, wincing as he saw the blood streaking the sleeves of his shirt, Jerzy could only bless the servants who had thought to prepare the bath, buckets of water already drawn and waiting, a clean towel and clothing folded on the wooden bench beside the tub. A hand on the surface of the water and a small pull of quiet-magic was enough to heat the water, and Jerzy almost smiled, remembering the first time he had tried that, and set the water itself on fire.

  Master Malech had merely, calmly, told him to put it out, and gone on with the lesson.

  As Jerzy sank into the tub, letting the water cleanse the sweat away and ease his knotted muscles, he reached out to touch the cool awareness of the Guardian.

  All is well, the dragon assured him. In that connection there was more than a sense of quiet on the land—all was well within, too. Ao was sleeping, healing. He had done what he needed to.

  And there, hidden by the bath, supported by his Guardian, Jerzy let go of the worry and fear and sorrow he had been holding, being strong for Ao; his own saltier tears mixing with the bathwater, his body shuddering as he cried.

  THE SUN HAD finally set, but the air was still heavy and warm. The vine-mage sat on his haunches, staring at the stone wall of his workroom, and let his gaze rest on the bloodstains splattered there. Some were old, the colors faded to a muddy brown, while others remained a thick, sticky wine-red, the remnants of a slave chosen that morning. In a child’s tale, the stains against the cold stones would have told him something, spoken to him of what he needed . . . but the wall was silent.

  “I feel you. I know you are there. Where are you?”

  Rage simmered in his words, but the blood did not speak. Dried blood, dead blood, was of no use to him. If he still had his poppet, he could have pulled answers from it . . . but the clay figure had decayed rapidly with the death of its human anchor, the Irfanese merchant, and been dumped in the gully with the rest of the debris. The merchant’s failure meant the vine-mage would have to find another connection to the old world, and that would take time. Each poppet had to be constructed of blood and flesh, and then the lure cast out, to tie a willing fish to the line. The merchant had been the last of his viable poppets: another cost to cast at the heels of this upstart who would challenge and wreck his plans.

  “Where are you,” he asked again, but with less venom in his voice, knowing that nothing listened.

  A week since he had asked that whoreson Ximen for more men—and been given none, forcing him to rely on his own supplies. It had not been enough, the single poppet he created too weak to lure anything. There were a few slaves in his yard who had enough of the sense about them that their blood might be enough, but the vine-mage was not yet so desperate to use them. He might yet need them alive, and one, some day, might be his successor.

  “I can feel you, moving below, disturbing the roots of all that I have done. Twice, thrice I have struck at you, and yet you do not fall. Why do you not fall?” He had taken the feel of the upstart from the remains of the Irfan lordling, but it was not enough to forge a connection. Had the fool survived, he could have told more, but the body was too badly managed, unable to withstand the force of the magic used to pull him from the scene of his failure. The vine-mage could move flesh and blood across great distances, but nothing had lived through the process. Not yet.

  Thus, this Vineart had remained elusive, slipping away the moment he was touched as though slicked by oil, or hidden by mist, his own identity as cloaked as the vine-mage’s own. The thought made the vine-mage’s seamed face wrinkle more deeply. The taste of the upstart was strong, with the deep tones of older vines and the tang of younger fruit, but of no discernible legacy, no direct root he could follow, no fragment he could snatch and keep. That frustrated the vine-mage, and what frustrated him made him even more determined to destroy it.

  The mix of soils; could there be more than one old-worlder? Could they be banding together, looking to stand against him? No. Not impossible, but unlikely, improbable. They hewed to the laws that limited them, willfully castrated themselves in the name of a long-dead godling, and refused to lift their eyes from the mud they trod.

  More, he had ensured that their historical distrust had been driven even deeper; they would look upon each other with suspicion, expend their strengths in defense against shadows, until, too late, the true danger showed. Too late, then, for those left to resist.

  And then they could call on their blighted Sin Washer until the last drop of blood drained from them, for all the good it would do.

  The vine-mage forced himself to breathe calmly, letting his heart slow to a more controlled rate. Anger would not suit his needs. He was the closest thing to a god these lands had, the only god they needed. One Vineart, however crafty he might be, however skilled, was no match for a lifetime spent preparing for this. No, he should not worry overmuch, and he should not waste his anger. There would be time yet to pluck this irritant and crush him, as he had done all others.

  For now, he had other things to bind up his time. Today was the Day of Grounding, when the Praepositus would be making his grand announcement, the final stage of their long-laid plans, and he would be needed for more ceremonial purposes. The vine-mage bared his teeth at the thought, somewhere between a smile and a snarl. Let the younger man make sport today with his speechifying, lording over the people with their games and their ritual burnings. Let the Praepositus pretend, a while longer, that the future would be his to determine. The motherless pup would learn soon enough, when his part in the Return was done, and he was no longer needed.

  But the vine-mage needed him, now, to coax the people into working, to lead them with the call of glory and respect, the hopes of some future where they would be feted and followed. He could not transport himself to the old lands, any more than he could bring his victims to him, yet alive. He needed that fleet. And if that meant he must dance a tune and say a blessing . . .

  The vine-mage laughed, a crackling, creaking sound that hurt his throat. They were fools, all of them. The old world would soon be bereft of their toothless Vinearts, distrustful of their Washers, and trembling in fear. Then they would be reminded of what it meant to be a mage—reminded of where the power in this world, old and new, truly rested. Then . . .

  Oh, then.

  The vine-mage smiled, a skeletal thing that stretched the skin across the bones of his face so tightly his skin looked almost white, his teeth crooked, stained shards. Holding the pleasure to him like a coal in winter, he wiped his hands clean with a wine-soaked rag and stood, allowing his attendant slave to drape him with the robes of occasion, and strode out into the evening light to join his companion.

  He would not enjoy this foolishness, but he could endure it, for what was to come.

  XIMEN WATCHED THE vine-mage walk toward him, even as the evening breeze brought the man’s scent to him well in advance. He managed not to make a face, but it took effort: once again there was an unpleasant odor wafting from the man, a stale, musty smell like overheated metal and rotted fruit, and the hint of decaying flesh. The smell of a carrion-eater, of a dog that wallowed in its own kill. It seemed as though the closer they came to the end, the more the smell grew. Not even days spent wrapped in the thick salty air of the shoreline, watching his ships take form, could numb his nostrils to that stench, nor could he pretend he did not
know where it came from.

  His own guilt, perhaps. After their confrontation on the Wall, he had not been able to shake the unease sliding under his skin, keeping him company even down into his dreams, making him send his lovely, patient Bohaide from his bed unsated, his own desire dead.

  “Ximen. An excellent evening for the unveiling of all your plans.”

  “Indeed.” Ximen’s skin prickled a little. There was something about the man tonight, something beyond the usual unease he felt around the vine-mage. Or perhaps it was merely Ximen’s own nerves. It was hardly the first Grounding remembrance he had overseen, but it would be the most significant. As the vine-mage said, tonight would be the unveiling of his plans, years in the making. No, generations in the making.

  Ximen was confident in what he had done, in the logic and the future that impelled him. What he did not know, could not know, was how his people would react when he unveiled the breadth of his plans, not merely to explore but to retake. They would follow him, but would they do so willingly, sharing his vision, or . . .

  He would not allow that thought to continue. He would convince them to support him joyfully, enthusiastically. He would not be able to take ship, take the cream of their people, leaving the rest behind, if he did not believe they understood, and shared the dream.

  “The carriage awaits,” he said now, only, indicating the cart, draped with black, red, and gold cloth. Traditional colors, the colors the original ships had sailed. The colors of the Grounding were reversed: white to signify the betrayal, the loss and the fear they had come from, blue for the water, and silver for the pearlescent, deceitfully beautiful beach they had been dashed down upon.

  His choice of the old colors would be remarked upon, he knew. He was ready. Once he explained, they would understand.

  The cart was barely large enough for the two of them, standing behind the high-walled front. Drawn by two thick-muscled dogs, their black coats brushed and gleaming in the dusk, the servants would run alongside, keeping pace and announcing their arrival to those who waited on the shores below.

  Waited for him to set fire to the remains of their history, following tradition, and to set them afire with the dream of a better future.

  “It might have been more apt,” the vine-mage said, as he studied the cart thoughtfully, “to have children pull it. Harnessed to our whim, drawing us to our destiny . . .”

  The unease prickled more fiercely, even as the idea struck Ximen speechless. Children were the future, the only one the Grounding ever had. To speak of them in such a way, as though they were no more than dogs . . .

  The vine-mage laughed, a low noise that had no humor in it, and his breath carried more of that charnel smell.

  Behind him, his guards shifted, uneasy although—too far away to have overheard, or indeed understood what the vine-mage meant—they could not have said why. Ximen had noted before that they did not look into the vine-mage’s eyes—they would not dare.

  The common folk were protected from close contact with the vinemage, unless and until they were chosen for the Harvest. The slaves, though, they knew; you could see it in the way they walked—no, crept around the man, not afraid but resigned, aware of the reality the way they were aware the sun rose and set, the rains fell, and the vines grew.

  They knew that the vine-mage was insane.

  If—no, when they escaped this bitter, hard land, Ximen swore to himself. When they were free of this accursed land, that demanded everything and gave so little, he would kill the vine-mage.

  No, he would kill every mage left alive, when they were done; slaughter them like wall-beasts, and for the same reason. Magic was poison, rotting everything it touched. He would not let future generations live with that madness among them.

  But for now, for now, until the ships sighted their destination, until the distant seas were traversed and the end in sight, he needed the madman.

  But only until then.

  PART II

  Rebel

  Chapter 6

  IAJA

  Winter

  The first touch of winter was firmly on the Lands Vin, with snow coating the mountains, while in the lower regions, although the weather had been neither exceptionally cold nor overly wet, the winter crops were not growing as well as they should. The flocks had all been brought to winter shelter or bound up in paddocks, safe from hungry predators running on four legs and two alike.

  Set at the crown of a low hill along the curve of the Iajan coast, a stone-walled House looked out over the waters to the West and a prosperous city to the south, and a solid defense of mountains to the east. It was a House of secure foundations, and obvious wealth. A Lord’s Hall, designed to protect and awe. As night slid over the region, the lights visible in the windows slowly flickered and were put out as the residents gave way to sleep, and even the guard on the walls dozed in the early morning chill.

  Despite the hour, light shone brightly in a stone-walled room deep inside the structure, in a room where no windows showed to the rest of the world.

  In that room, the lord of that House stood, his empty hands cupped in front of him in a seemingly unconscious echo of the Washer’s blessing, and looked down at the man in the chair in front of him with a sorrowful expression on his face.

  “Eulálio. You were not truthful with me.”

  The man in the chair, older than the first speaker but still young enough to sit straight-backed and defiant, met that sorrowful gaze without flinching. His face was tanned from years in the sun and his hands were gnarled from a lifetime of work, but his body had begun to soften around gut and thigh, his years as a slave decades behind him. “I gave you everything you asked for.”

  “Ah, yes.” The lord, dressed in somber but finely woven cloth of gray, nodded. His hands were smoother, but hardened as well from years with blade and rein. Neither man underestimated each other, at all. “But you did not tell me everything I needed. I call that bad Agreement, Vineart.”

  “I call it”—the Vineart’s ribs ached, although he was certain nothing was broken, merely bruised—“the exact terms of Agreement.”

  He had known that this would not end well. Two weeks back, he had been summoned to this lord’s home—summoned, like a slave—and he had come, because what other option did he have? He did not think the man would force him—but the fact that it had to be considered showed how times had changed, and not for the better.

  Once he presented himself, they had quickly come to Agreement: he to put his magics to use defending the lord’s holdings, the lord to offer protection for his person, and, as needed, his yards. It had seemed a fair move, a cautious and sensible move in light of recent events, the whispers and reports of attacks, of disappearances, of entire crops destroyed, and villages laid to waste by some unknown, unseen enemy. In light of things that moved in his dreams, lurked around the stone wall of his yard . . . These days, even a Master Vineart was not safe in his own House. Eulálio was not a master, and he did not wish to become one of the missing.

  Whatever stories he had heard of this lord, whatever had happened to the Vineart who made Agreement with him last—and nobody spoke of that, not at all within his hearing—his new master had for years carried a reputation as a hard but honest man. The Agreement had seemed the best option out of a bad situation.

  Whatever and whoever the Iajan lord had been, he had changed. The world had changed. Such a short span of time, to feel the ground beneath you slip away, everything you knew to be real suddenly false as mist. What the lord now wanted, what he demanded . . . no. Eulálio would not put his vines to such a use.

  His mouth was too dry to call up quiet-magic. He did not think the withholding of water was intentional, did not think Diogo that wise to the ways and workings of that last recourse of Vinearts, the quiet-magic. But intentional or not did not matter; with no spellwines to decant, no ability to call more than a trickle of magic to him, he was helpless in a way he had not been since the mustus marked him for its own.

&n
bsp; He knew what would follow.

  Diogo turned away, as though to consider the lamp hanging from its post, its natural light flickering and bending in a way no mage-light ever would. “I asked if you could do such a thing. And you said no.”

  One last chance, to recant, to confess, to do what his master demanded. “I cannot.”

  The lord’s hand snapped out once, cracking across Eulálio’s face, and he heard the crunch of his nose breaking even before the pain began. Heat sparkled through his skin, and when he shifted weight from one buttock to the other, his spine protested like an old vine bearing too much weight.

  The Vineart did not utter a sound, neither in pain nor protest. The law was on Eulálio’s side, the law and tradition that protected him from a lord’s raised hand, but he had broken tradition—shattered it—when he accepted Agreement, and the Vineart had no hope that the law would appear now like a silent god to save him.

  He had known that something happened to Vineart Ranji, something terrible, and he had come, anyway.

  There were no gods left, no law, nothing save fear and force. Eulálio had hoped to stave off the fear by aligning himself with a man of power, but he had not truly understood that the fear was everywhere. Not only in the towns and farms, but here, in the fine halls and Houses of power.

  It might even run deeper here, where there was so much more to lose.

  Eulálio cast his gaze down to the dark red mark on his wrist. He had been so proud of that mark, once. Had truly believed all the suffering and pain had disappeared forever, once he was chosen, once the magic whispered in his veins. He had trusted the world, and it had betrayed him.

  It was not the man’s words or even his actions that left Eulálio resigned to his fate. Where once he listened only to the whisper of his vines, he had learned, quickly, to put his ear to the wind and listen to men as well. Diogo was terrified: Eulálio could smell it on him now, even hidden by his fine musks and powders. Terrified not of a thing, no beast or man, but of rumor and whisper. Of the suggestion, a worm in his brain, that even those sworn to him would betray him. The man who had been, only a few months before, was gone, hollowed out by fear and uncertainty the way insects would eat at a tree. And so he wanted that of the Vineart: to bring men to him, to ensure their loyalty by taking away their will.