by Sam Bowring
On she went, towards the northern gate.
The streets were quiet, especially for morning, which was usually a time of bustle. People seemed to be moving slowly, and others were but faces in windows, staring out into the street. With everything so muted, she decided to play a little as she walked. She plucked out a merry tune, firing off notes at people who looked like they needed perking up. There were no smiles in return, however, hardly even bare acknowledgement.
Perhaps something bad had happened which had not yet reached her ears?
She paused at a tavern where two old women sat on the porch, cradling mugs and puffing away deeply on their pipes.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I wonder if you’ve heard any tidings today?’
One of the women coughed bitterly, though whether because of the smoke or in response to Tarzi’s question, it was hard to tell.
‘What do we care for tidings?’ said the other. ‘We’ve heard none that weren’t ill for days and days. Don’t wish any damn tidings upon us, miss.’
‘And we don’t care for your music either, rain and sorrow!’
Tarzi, disturbed by their sour stares, moved on.
Perhaps the mood was not unusual, for miseries were starting to build up. The silkjaw attack, the death of Braston, the Unwoven stirring, talk of war in the east … a growing sense of the world going wrong and not even the pleasure of apples to eat. Yet here she was, thinking she could do something about it! Trying to believe a song or two would help somehow. For a moment she saw herself as if from above, drifting along ever more slowly, the sad little notes that floated from her flaring briefly in a growing greyness – pathetic sparks that did not live long or penetrate far. Music did not last and left nothing behind. The best she could hope was that others would take up her songs once she was dead, but even then, what comfort was that? Just because someone might speak her name in a few years’ time, did not mean they would actually know her, or that she lived on. A name was nothing but a breath of air given shape.
She slumped against a street-side tree. Her fingers still plucked away absently, producing a discordant, clumsy tune. Here in the shade it was colder, and she shivered, which created a twang she hadn’t intended, a fitting end to a broken song. Part of her wanted to move back into the light, but somehow she could not summon the will.
Why hadn’t Rostigan told her what he planned to discuss with Yalenna? Did he not trust her or value her opinion? Why did he always hold everything so close, when she should be what he held the closest? Instead he had a way of making her feel like a burden sometimes.
He loves me, she told herself, but it was a hollow assertion. She tried hard to please him, but now she saw her efforts for what they were – lame attempts at confidence and intimacy that he must see right through, that probably only made things worse. She was nothing to him but a silly plaything, a pet who needed looking after, tolerated rather than needed.
Off the main street down an alley she noticed someone whispering to himself. A beggar, he looked like, in an oversized coat, staring into a drain. His face was stained with tears and he clutched a bottle tightly to his chest. Shakily he tried to swig from it, only to discover it was empty. His face scrunched in misery as he sank to his knees, juddering the bottle from his grip to smash against the cobbles. The sound was piercing in the stillness. Tarzi watched with a kind of numb horror as he began to crawl through the shards. She wanted to cry out, to warn him he was cutting himself.
‘Watch out … fellow …’ she managed to croak, with no strength behind the words to carry them.
The man continued on, whimpering as his palms grew red, as glass ground into his knees. Tarzi kept thinking he would stop, yet he did not. He got down on his belly before the open mouth of the drain, then reached inside and pulled himself in.
Finally, Tarzi staggered into action.
‘No,’ she called, ‘don’t go in there …’
He was struggling now, inside the drain up to his waist, trying to wiggle further. Tarzi ran to him, grabbed him by the ankles, and he kicked at her, trying to shake her off.
‘You fool!’ she shouted. ‘I’m trying to help you.’
‘Leave me be!’ came his angry, muffled reply.
A force much stronger than she seized him and yanked him through the opening with a cracking of hipbones. In the darkness beyond, something sleek and black moved past, and for a moment banded cords of flesh were visible. Whatever it was slipped onwards, dragging the body away through the drain. As it left, Tarzi felt some of the greyness lift, to be replaced with a sharper fear.
‘Oh my,’ she said, rubbing her arms, which began to feel warm again.
She backed away onto the main street.
‘Hello, Miss Tarzi!’ came a voice, and she turned to see the soldiers who she had passed earlier. ‘That was a cracking tale you told last night.’
She forced a smile and nodded.
She remembered the ill feelings she had just experienced as if she had been in some kind of fog, for they were not like her at all. She was not prone to melancholy and self-pity … and more than that, she loved being a minstrel! It was the only thing she had ever wanted to be. And Rostigan was hers, and she was his.
As bleakness departed she knew what she had seen.
A Worm of Regret moved under Althala.
Jandryn returned to Yalenna’s quarters much sooner than she had anticipated. She had barely washed and clothed herself when there came a frantic knocking at the door, and there he was all in a fluster.
‘You must come, my lady, come and see for yourself!’ He took off without waiting to see if she followed, which was quite unlike him, so she went after him hastily.
‘There was a noble birth this morning,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘Lady Tanelle has been well overdue and … well … the child is not right, my lady!’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘You must see!’
‘At least tell me where we’re going.’
‘To the chambers of Lord and Lady Tanelle.’
They entered a corridor down which Yalenna could hear the muffled wailing of a child. Outside the door from which it came stood a very anxious looking guard.
‘Has anyone else been in?’ demanded Jandryn.
‘Some threaders have arrived, sir.’
Jandryn nodded. When he opened the door the wailing spilled out, accompanied by a woman’s sobbing. Jandryn ushered Yalenna through, and they moved along a short hallway, past a living area, into a bedroom. Under a stained quilt lay a young woman whose face was drained of colour, save for the red rims of her watery eyes. She clutched the bedclothes to her chest and rocked back and forth as a midwife fussed over her, trying to make her lie down, whispering that she needed rest. She would not take her eyes from the cot at the foot of the bed, over which hovered several threaders. A young lord stood at an open window, through which a breeze had not totally cleared the room of the scent of labour. As Yalenna entered his disconsolate expression took on a plaintively hopeful note.
‘Look, my love!’ he said, going to his wife’s side. ‘The Priestess has come! She’ll set all to rights, you’ll see.’
Yalenna was not so sure, but she did not say anything yet. Already she thought she could guess what she might find here. Back when Regret had first started tearing threads from the Spell, strange births had occurred all over Aorn. After his demise the births had grown less frequent, but had not ceased completely until most of the Wardens had died. With the corruption now spreading anew, there wasn’t much reason to think the same thing wouldn’t happen again.
She moved towards the cot with expectation and dread, the threaders parting for her.
The child who bawled was a chubby little boy with the smears of birth still upon him. Where his right arm should have been there grew instead a sleek, black appendage, something between a tentacle and a frond, with slim tendrils in place of fingers that wavered and bent as fingers never could. Yalenna gave a quiet sigh as she reached
to hoist him up and cradle him against her. At the sight of him, his father shuddered and his mother looked away.
‘Now, now,’ Yalenna admonished. ‘He does not wail because of physical discomfort.’ She jiggled him and cooed, which quieted him somewhat. ‘He, like all newborns, just wants his mother.’
Lady Tanelle peeked at the boy through her fingers. ‘I cannot be his mother,’ she whispered.
‘But you are. His appearance is not your fault, nor his. He is a victim of the ailing Spell, and apart from his arm, he is perfectly normal.’
‘Perfectly normal,’ repeated Lord Tanelle dully.
To his credit he approached Yalenna and forced himself to look upon his son. He reached out gingerly to the touch the baby, but flinched when some of the tendrils curled around his finger. Yalenna could only imagine his disappointment – a new father looking forward to showing off his newborn in court, instead finding such freakishness, and no doubt imagining the life ahead.
‘Can you … do anything?’
Yalenna let her view slide into the realm of threads. Mostly, the boy’s pattern was healthy and normal, bright colourful bands circulating his body, but in the affected arm, they turned dark and twisted, tightening around each other in defence of her probing. She did not think she could pluck them apart, much less weave them back together into any kind of normality.
‘I’m afraid not,’ she said.
‘Could we …’ The lord swallowed. ‘Could we cut it off?’
Yalenna gave him an even stare. ‘You could. But, here,’ she lifted the boy towards him and he froze in horror, ‘hold your son.’
Reluctantly, Lord Tanelle took his boy. Upon touching him, some hitherto paralysed paternal instinct finally seemed to glimmer. He cupped his child’s head, brought him closer to his chest, and the boy gave a happy gurgle.
‘You see?’ said Yalenna. ‘He’s just a baby. There’s no evil in him. Now, should you wish it, healers could remove the arm, but it will cause the child pain, and rob him of an appendage that, for all its difference, he can still use in life. Therefore I counsel you not to act rashly, but think on this – in the coming days there will be others born like him, some in much worse a shape if I know anything. He will not be alone in the world.’
Lord Tanelle looked to his wife, and she let her head fall to her hands.
‘We must take it off,’ she said. ‘How will he ever find a woman willing to suffer such a touch?’
‘Think on it a day or two before you make any decision,’ said Yalenna, then lowered her voice for the father alone. ‘Make sure she holds him soon. It may change things for her.’
He nodded wanly.
She touched his shoulder in comfort and released a blessing fashioned for him.
May you be proud of all your children.
And to the Lady Tanelle …
May you not care what others think.
And to their child …
May you be happy.
After that she found she did not want to be in the room anymore. She was painfully aware that her powers had contributed to this trouble, yet now she used them to assuage part of the damage. The trade-off was not even, and the whole situation made her feel worse than useless.
‘Threaders, out,’ she said. ‘You may return tomorrow, if the parents wish it.’
Uncertainly they obeyed. Jandryn waited for her as she paused to look once more upon the lord and lady, uncertain what to else say to ease their pain. Carefully Lord Tanelle stepped around the bed, bringing the child closer to his teary mother, as the midwife continued to stroke her hair.
‘Come, my love,’ he said, offering the child.
Yalenna left their chambers, and outside in the corridor was somewhat relieved to find Rostigan waiting, if only because he understood.
‘The births have started again,’ she told him.
He grimaced. ‘It’s getting worse then.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have an idea to combat one of the problems we face.’
He held out a hand, evidently asking her to step away from other ears. She glanced at Jandryn apologetically.
‘Go then, my lady,’ he said stiffly.
‘I will speak to you later,’ she said, and went with Rostigan.
‘My lord,’ said a fellow called Commander Balen, ‘we are nearing Harten.’
‘Ah.’
It was the first town they would come to that owed no fealty to Tallahow, thus marking the edge of Forger’s territory. In the distance he could see its smoking chimneys and people fleeing in various directions, some on horses, others with their possessions on their backs.
‘Look at them,’ said Forger. ‘At this rate there won’t be anyone left! What’s the point of conquering nobody? They should not run, but bow down as we pass.’
‘What do you want done, lord?’
‘Send riders after them. When they catch groups, kill one in every two. For the lone travellers, cut off a foot.’
If Balen balked at the odd savagery of the order, he did not show it.
‘I hate it when people run away,’ muttered Forger.
He was momentarily distracted though, as a couple of rocks rose from the grass before his feet and floated away, up into the air.
UNDER ALTHALA
Tarzi had never tried to enter Althala Castle on her own before and, as expected, guards stopped her at the front entrance demanding to know her business. Luckily, when she told them she was looking for Rostigan, one of them recognised her.
‘He came here earlier today, Miss Tarzi, looking for Lady Yalenna. Would you like me to take you to him?’
‘That would be very nice, thank you.’
The guard led her through the castle, asking questions of others along the way. No one could give a definite answer about Rostigan or Yalenna’s whereabouts, until they found Jandryn in the armoury. Swords and polished metal hung from lines of racks, which Jandryn moved between with a scribe on his heels.
‘These can be sent to the camp,’ he was saying as they entered, and the scribe made a note.
‘Captain,’ announced Tarzi’s escort, ‘Miss Tarzi is trying to find Skullrender.’
Jandryn turned, and something flickered across his face. He dismissed the guard and nodded to the scribe to carry on without him. Once he and Tarzi were alone, he lowered his voice.
‘I must apologise, good minstrel, but it seems your warrior and the Priestess have left the castle.’
Despite half-expecting to hear such a thing, Tarzi was irritated.
‘Where did they go?’
‘I do not know. They retired to a meeting room to discuss a plan to which I was not privy, and did not emerge. I checked inside a short time ago and found the room empty. I can therefore only assume …’
‘They have threadwalked somewhere.’
‘Indeed.’
Tarzi shook her head. She did not like it – if something happened to Yalenna, how would Rostigan get back? He could end up stranded halfway across the world and no one would even know. Why was he so damnably close-lipped?
‘There’s something I must tell you, Captain,’ she said.
‘Oh? That will make a change.’
‘I was walking in the city this morning – I don’t know if you’ve been on the streets today?’
‘Not today.’
‘I noticed an odd mood out there, a pervasive kind of sadness. It got hold of me too, but once I was free of it, I remembered where I felt it last.’
‘Where?’
‘When Rostigan and I came across a village that had been beset by a Worm of Regret.’
Jandryn paled. ‘I … but, well, I don’t think we can say that a glum mood is really proof …’
‘Let me continue. The worms, as you probably know, feed on hope and happiness, which is why folk in their presence become so maudlin. Then, once a person has been sucked dry, they offer themselves up to be finished off, seemingly of their own volition. Well, today I saw that happen.’
‘You did? Where?’
‘It was a beggar, which is how it starts – those with the least hope to begin with make for the easiest prey. I saw this man crawl into a drain where a worm was waiting for him.’
‘A drain? Then … ah, but of course.’
‘What is it?’
‘All the drains flow into a cavern beneath the city, through which the Glymph runs underground.’
‘That would be perfect for a worm then. Or worms.’
‘Though you saw only one?’
‘Yes, but a city this size could easily support more.’
Jandryn rubbed his chin. ‘This is dim news indeed. There have been recent reports of worms appearing all throughout Aorn, but, well … somehow I thought a place like this would be safe. How naive of me.’
‘No,’ said Tarzi, ‘it should be safe. It just isn’t.’
Jandryn nodded. ‘The river emerges to the city’s south, out of a cave – it would be easy enough for a monster to slither in there.’ He reached a decision. ‘I shall take a troop and see what we can find.’
Tarzi felt a kernel of fear for him. ‘Shouldn’t you wait for Rostigan?’
Jandryn almost scowled, but quickly smoothed his expression. ‘Why?’
‘He has fought worms before.’
‘Well then,’ said Jandryn, with a reckless kind of glint to his eye, ‘it is time for someone else to have a turn.’
Tarzi wasn’t sure why Rostigan’s name had fired him up so much, and he noticed her uncertainty.
‘As Captain of the Althalan Guard,’ he said, ‘the city relies on me for protection. I should not require help from anyone else to do my duty. No offence to your fellow, but we have done without him before, and will do without him again.’
‘Of course,’ said Tarzi carefully. ‘Just be warned that a worm will herald its coming with prevailing misery.’
Jandryn glanced about – up the other end of the armoury a couple of soldiers were trying on armour.
‘Trant! Garran!’ he called. ‘Assemble our finest in the square – fifty, I should say.’