He was interrupted again by her, “But seriously! Fuck him.”
“What did it say?”
She turned to look him in the eye, her own gaze coming from under a heavy frown. Without looking she snaked her hand out and gathered the bones up in her fist, before dropping them back into the bag and secreting it under her cloak. “Said it’s all part of the plan. Whatever you do, you’re doing Reckoner’s business and that business is still in business, all that kind of thing.”
“But he’s definitely dead.”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. Unless you count living on through events he laid in motion.”
They both sat for a moment in a little fug of relief, perhaps a twinge of guilt and a greater sense of anxiety.
After a second or two Deffo said. “You found something, didn’t you?”
“There was this mission he had, one he wouldn’t share with me other than in name. He was determined to locate The Book of All Things. I think it was code for something. I could never get out of him why he was so determined to have it. I tried pressing him but he started to get suspicious of me and that’s when he put me on ‘research duties’ scouring all his stolen junk for relics. Hoo hoo! Happy days!” She chuckled, a covetous sparkle in her eyes which soon vanished as she returned to her story. “Obviously he didn’t trust me. Before I went however, I got the impression he wanted to destroy the Book, it was that kind of interest he had. He wanted it gone. It was shortly after that he sent one of his elite legions north. I thought he was making a play for Tzarkand, but later they joined the main force pushing east into the Middle Kingdoms.” Tricky paused, an extensive, dramatic pause in which she took out a long stemmed pipe with a curling flourish to its shape and a small bowl delicately carved with flowers. It lit itself, apparently. As a fine curlicue of smoke began to wind up from the bowl, violet on the glum air of the day, a scent of herbs and sweet long afternoons of summer twined into Deffo’s nose. There was an unmistakable calm and harmony surrounding them.
He sneezed. “Where’d you get that?”
“I borrowed it from Dr Catt,” she said. She didn’t puff on the pipe, just held it as if she was in the midst of smoking and continued to talk about the two things. “Number one, the Kinslayer cut a deal with the Tzarkomen, I’m sure of it. And, number two, my informants say that five of them were seen on the road moving south towards Hathel Vale a day ago.”
As she spoke the violet smoke shifted, sculpted by unseen fingers into a chiaroscuro illustration of the scene before their eyes. Five male figures in the unmistakable feather and bone-garb of the Tzarkomen elite were jogging a two-wheeled stretcher along a road fanged with tall trees, a moon overhead glowing down to pick out the large container they were hauling and the grim markings that covered its surface. For a moment that image held, then swirled and rearranged itself into the face of a single man. He was painted with the black and white Gorecrow Clan marks, as though a wing shadow crossed his face, but none of the design nor the sharp splinters of bone that poked through his bloody cheeks could hide the fact that he was scared witless, his gaze fixated with a grim determination on something ahead.
The smoke furled away, ordinary again, and beneath the floral notes a sickly twist of putrefying flesh wafted about, and a strange metallic odour. That smell—it was gone almost before it existed but in the split second that it was present it evoked an unmistakable moment in both their lives. The first moment. It was the smell of the gods’ forge, their cradle.
“You burned all the bits of him. All. You’re sure,” Deffo said. It was so difficult to feel secure even with the Reckoner bodily removed from the world. At such a moment, how easy it would have been to be fooled, all one’s hopes and fears so close to reality.
“All the bits I could find. Except these.” She patted the hidden pouch of bones.
“I think that bears further investigation,” Tricky said, pointing at where the smoke image had been.
“Tzarkomen necromasters, scared?” He found it hard to imagine. As long as he wasn’t doing the investigating, though, that was the main thing. “I trust you’ll be able to discover what’s going on.”
Tricky shrugged. The pipe had ceased smoking. She put it away. “A good excuse to revisit Fury and get into his tomes. I need something to bring him in return, though. Some trinket to pay with. I’m not exactly his favourite. And by that I mean we are at daggers drawn.” A restless and preoccupied look took over her face. She tapped her finger on her chin.
“Look for the book,” Deffo said. “Where there are lots of dead there might be treasure.”
“I hate grave robbing.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s the pits.”
“Like your jokes.”
“At least I do jokes instead of being one.”
“Uncalled for.”
“Very called for. Anyway, there is some merit in your suggestion. Let’s meet again soon.” She jumped down from the boulder and rubbed her bottom vigorously with both hands through the heavy drape of her cloak. “Numb as a politician’s sympathies.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
When she looked up to snipe back he had already gone. She turned towards the road and then sighted off to the West. From a pocket of the cloak she took out a ball of wool of various colours and deftly unwound the end of one black, green and blue speckled line. As soon as she had done so the entire ball lost all the other colours. It jumped out of her hand and rolled about in the grass at her feet like a bit of popping corn on a hot plate, unravelling. Within a few moments it had all come free. The two ends of the yarn found one another and reached out with individual strands, respinning themselves into a single endless line which coiled, reared up and whipped around her, moving faster than the eye could see until she was covered in a loose-knit net. With a whispering sound like feathers brushing across the bone of an old skull the net drew suddenly tight and squeezed her into another shape entirely.
A carrion crow hop-jump-fluttered up onto the boulder and then with a leap took to the air, heavily flapping for a few yards until it got up some momentum before it climbed into the grey skies, circling once before turning to the distant Tzarkona Gate.
CHAPTER TEN
KULA WOKE UP and found herself lying within the dark box wrapped in a soft cloak, alone. A grey daylight was taking over from the fire glow so that she could see sky between the broken spars of wood overhead but that wasn’t what grabbed her attention. There was something huge, powerful and very alive close by. A keen sense of self-preservation made her sit bolt upright, clutching the cloak to her. The source of the sensation was immediately apparent. The woman from the box was standing nearby, her back half turned so that Kula could just see her face in profile. The fire shone merrily off the jewels on her dress. She was staring at the burning Draeyads.
As Kula watched she stretched out her right hand and moved it slowly to the invisible barrier that marked the flames’ edge. Instantly every mote of flame inside the burning wood leapt along invisible conduits directly to the tips of her fingers. Within seconds the conduits had changed in girth from threads to ropes and then a moment later from ropes to hawsers of roiling fire.
The woman opened her mouth and Kula wondered if she was going to scream and burn but all she did was take one, enormous inward breath. As it concluded, the last spiralling whirls of white, red, orange and yellow zipped along the line of contact to her hand and were gone. The air shivered, like an animal’s flank when a fly takes off, and then in place of the burning hell there was only the hillside in the morning wind. The breeze lifted the parched leaves of the trees that were no longer on fire—nor had ever been burned, as the soulfire was a spirit affliction and not of the physical world. They were only weak and exhausted with drought. The grass was crisped to hay, the flowers dead, the stalks straw. Between them the shades of the Draeyads had faded to the near-nothing of ghosts now that they were no longer illumined from within. They held out their limbs and looked; they moved and stretched and danced fo
r joy in the cool wash of the wind that promised, if not rain, heavier clouds. Without bodies they could hold no memory of their suffering and so it was already passed. They were as they had been before the Kinslayer—wild energies arising from the intensity of growth and the richness of the forest, personified by aeons of passing creatures whose minds cast shapes among the fertile swirl of power and who remembered for them.
Seeing their happiness the young woman in the gown exhaled a long, satisfied sigh. She smiled the smile of a job well done and straightened her spine a notch. Then she turned and saw Kula and the smile became radiant, all delight, because it was looking at something beloved.
Kula hurtled into the waiting arms and the woman lifted her up and spun her around and around until her legs flew out and her broken sandal came off. She had never heard a voice, nor would, but she heard this person inside her as clearly as her own senses and knew her name, the name she had gone by when she grew up a Tzarkomen: Lysandra—a sound name. It didn’t have a signed form but Kula made one and they spoke briefly with their gestures, repeating until they understood the sign that meant each other’s name. Then Lysandra taught her to say her sound-name too. And she learned to say “Kula”. Lysandra had many memories of talking words though almost nothing else. She was glad to share her memories of talking words with Kula, though Kula preferred to sign. All this happened within the few moments of their embrace, as naturally as breathing.
At last Kula was set down to regain her balance. Lysandra took her hand and gestured at the hill to show what she had done. Kula nodded fit to make her head fall off. She had woken up Lysandra and Lysandra had made something good out of something awful and it was the best, the very best day.
Lysandra smiled again in pure contentment and Kula saw that her teeth were even, small and very sharp, like a cat’s. The irises of her eyes were brown at the edges but gold at the centers, and slitted, also like a cat. She had powerful features, bold and full in the way that Tzarkomen favoured in their notions of beauty. The daylight revealed her clothing to be a vast finery, trains of fabric dragging around in the ash and needles of the floor when they should have graced an occasion that was so fine Kula could not imagine where and what it could be. Just touching some of the panels of the dress gave the feeling that one was touching water, it was so soft. It rang with power and song that she could feel.
Kula gripped Lysandra’s hand, to see if any of the fire was somehow left there, but all she could feel was that it had quite gone, somewhere so far she could not reach it. It was not fire any more but its energy was there and Lysandra was bolstered by it, brighter, stronger. She wished her mother were there again and Lysandra looked down on her and squeezed her hand gently because she was that now. She had been nothing, but now she was that.
Kula’s stomach growled. The pangs of hunger and thirst returned suddenly. Lysandra straightened and sniffed the breeze like a scouting hound. After a moment she chose a direction and set off without a backward glance at the box or the cavorting Draeyads, her little girl’s hand in hers. Together they disappeared into the grey and green vaultings of the forest, although for a long time glints and gleams of fierce gems and gold embroidery could be glimpsed by anyone looking in the right direction.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE OLD MAN slowed down to an infuriating pace as they neared the hills of Hathel Vale. Bukham could see the first standing stones at the roadside miles before they reached them with the sun starting to set. He supposed that the girl could have got this far if she’d kept going but why she would do that he couldn’t imagine. He’d never been this far from his family and how she would manage it when he was finding it so hard he didn’t know. He kept asking himself why she would have bothered; wouldn’t she have stopped or looked for something, someone, else to help her? But Murti said nothing, just put his staff out, then his foot, kept on walking. It’s not as if he needed the answers telling him, Bukham maintained inwardly, because he could see them for himself, it’s just that if Murti said them he’d feel confident that he was right and that they were on the right path whereas now he just felt upset with everything, that it was all out of joint. He didn’t want to admit how badly he longed to abandon the search and go home. His uncle would be happy to see him back and the girl was obviously able to fend for herself if she’d got this far. What they were doing was quite unnecessary.
But then he thought of the messy little girl, alone, and, if Murti was right, alone without family in the world, wandering in terror because he had driven her off with his stupid failures to act and stand up to his uncle. He couldn’t think of going back without her. But now, with the light going, he started to think that really they should find a place to stop for the night. As he was about to open his mouth to suggest this Murti spoke.
“Nearly there.”
“Nearly where?”
“Where we’re going.”
Bukham’s feet were too tired and sore to pursue the point. If it was soon then at least it would soon be over. He felt a renewed surge of shame at wanting to give up and made an effort to copy Murti’s easy-going stride. They came around the hillside in the wake of many fresh footprints and a horse’s tread and then paused. He saw Murti surveying the rolling woodlands with a contemplative air as though he had all the time in the world to enjoy the view. It was pleasant but nothing special. The avenue of stones marched away through the brush and was soon lost in the tall trees that marched upwards over the next rise. Then he realised.
“Wait. This is Hathel Vale. But where’s the fire?”
“Yes, quite,” Murti said. “I think we should go find out.”
“But…” Bukham began, realising as he said it that there was no point. Murti was already off the road and knee high in thistles and grass, striding as if he was off on a spring jaunt.
Bukham hurried after him, suddenly anxious at leaving the road, taking another detour, another delay.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT HAD BEEN a few hours on the road, the shapes of the hills slowly giving way to greater, more impressive rises and falls and Celest all the way dreading the appearance of Hathel Vale on the skyline. Red as war, billowing with endless fire, it was a banner of hatred that the Kinslayer had left to remind them all that he had power beyond anyone’s ability to stop. Once had it, anyway, before her blade that cut everything had cut off his hand and then in the melee he had proved less than entirely durable. She was still surprised by that.
“Hey,” Nedlam said, shifting Lady Wall from one massive shoulder to the other. “There’s men and horses up ahead.”
Below the brow of the hill in the shadow of the afternoon sun there were indeed three horses. They stood where the road forked, the path to Taib Post some way behind them. Two were mounted, one was horsed but would never ride again. His legs flopped against the beast’s side, arms the other way, arse in the air, covered in some kind of blanket. The clothing and the horses marked them out as Ilkand Templars. Celest battened down the last of her hopes for the day. It was clear even from this distance that the riders were arguing.
As they got closer the loud voices carried clear. She consciously slowed down to a crawling pace, Heno at her side and Nedlam at his side all with their ears straining whilst Ralas craned his neck at the back.
“We can’t just dump him at the roadside. They’ll wonder where we were.” This one was grim, practical, resigned.
“But we can’t take him back like this, that bloody Termagent’ll call justice on the Post and everyone who was at it. The whole point of it was to stop. We had to stop it. We have to.” His companion was desperate, on the border of panic. They were so involved with their problem that they hadn’t yet noticed Celest’s party approaching through the thin veil of the brush between the ways.
“Let’s take him back to the farm and leave him there.”
“I can’t go back there.”
“You’re coming. I’m not going alone. Someone might see us. We have to make sure it looks like he died there. There�
��s nothing left anyway. Nobody to revenge on, eh? Makes sense.”
“Fuck it. Yeah. All right. But… hey, shh, someone’s coming.” They turned their mounts and sheltered the dead man from the group approaching. They were rigid with tension and only their eyes moved, scanning faces and scowling, hands on their sword hilts. At this range the Temple Ilkand sigils on their cloaks were clearly visible. They surveyed Celestaine and her Fiddlehead livery with quick precision, lingering on her face and the scrappy tendrils of her long hair where it had escaped being tied back and then gone curly in the damp. If they recognised her by description they didn’t show it.
Celestaine held up her arm in a friendly hail but didn’t speak. She was watching for their reaction to the Yorughan, but they were already so mired in their plot that they didn’t respond with any extra signs of aggression. Feeling their riders’ upset the horses twisted and stamped, longing to be moving away. Celestaine kept course to pass them, but she knew she must speak—it would have been peculiar not to in the circumstances. One met travellers, one made some effort to discover at least the conditions of the way or another kind of politeness.
“Are you for Ilkand?” It seemed like an innocuous opener, an obvious one.
The one that seemed to have taken the lead nodded, his helm hiding most of his face but not enough of it to conceal the fact that he wasn’t keen on chatting.
“How are the roads that way?” she asked.
The man gave an equivocal shrug. “Stay south, and if you’ve a mind to cross the water you’d be better off taking a ferry from the leemost side. There’s some loose monster about.”
Against her will Celestaine paused, Heno tense on the far side of the horse, Nedlam easy, her hand flexing on the haft of the hammer although it remained at her shoulder.
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