by J. C. Staudt
Lizneth thought again of Nathak, the kind merchant who had befriended her on the Claybridge. He’d traded her a cloak in exchange for a few mulligraws and a favor that she would probably never return. The cloak’s soft dark fabric had reminded her of the rime caves. As she neared the Marauders’ stronghold, she decided that she would rather be reminded of them than be inside them.
She wondered if Mama and Papa had followed her haick to the Claybridge and met Nathak. She hoped he hadn’t pointed them in the direction of the Omnekh; old and feeble as they were, the nethertowns were far too dangerous a place for them. It would be better if they met Blitznag first and he turned them away, she decided. Thinking of Blitznag put her in a sour mood, but she wanted to laugh at the same time. How naive I was. And even after everything that’s happened, how naive I must still be.
The rounded pathway that led to the Marauders’ stronghold was like walking along the spine of a huge snake, the rimed rock smooth and slick and treacherous. Sluices of thick saltwater ran along either side, like a matched pair of miniature rivers. Lizneth was halfway down the path before she realized she was still wearing her dagger. She knew the Marauders would wonder how a poor mulligraw parikua had come into possession of such a weapon. She had no cloak to cover it with, and there was nowhere to hide it down here. If she left it on the ground, it might slip over the edge and into one of the sluices to be washed away in the tide. It may give me courage to keep it with me, she told herself. Then again, it might just make me more nervous. The last thing she wanted was for them to perceive her as a threat. Whatever effect the dagger ended up having, she didn’t have much choice but to keep it with her.
At the end of the snaking ridge, the land widened into a broad, flat head, where the stronghold stood like a blue wart, a mass of dead tissue shedding its layers. It was a heap of saltrock slapped together with ironwood framing; not much to look at anymore. Ankhaz had commissioned it when he was a fledgling warlord, and its architects had left much to be desired in the way of structural integrity. In those days, there had been little chance of anything attacking the stronghold aside from the ebb and flow of seawater, but the Marauders had been neglecting the structure for years. Countless floods had eaten away at its foundations, leaving the saltrock so badly eroded that there were holes between the stones. The ironwood framing was now in a state of perpetual wet rot, slick with algae and fungal growth.
Lizneth was terrified to approach. The guards looked like black splotches against the deep blue sheen of the stronghold’s outer walls, their ragged cloaks wrapping their haick in a damp odor. She kept her feet moving despite her every inclination to the contrary. When they had scented her, she knew it by the clamor of voices that went up.
“Se bleschk,” shouted one of the guards, holding up a hand as he and two others came out to meet her. All three wore black shrouds over their snouts, leaving their eyes to gleam wetly at her through holes in the cloth. Beneath their cloaks, she could see the mosaic of thick hides and rusted plates they wore as armor, an obstacle Neacal and his bare-chested warriors would have to overcome.
Lizneth stopped where she was, obeying the guard’s command. “Ehi ghi shoghe Sniverlik,” she told them.
“Sniverlik?” The guard scrunched one half of his face and turned a rumpled eye toward her questioningly. “Qag?”
Because I want to speak with him. “Ehi ke eth,” she said, as bravely as her shaky voice would allow.
“Ghageh?” he wanted to know.
“Calaihn.” Lizneth drew out the word, slow and calm, flaunting its significance.
The guard’s face slackened until she could see the cloudy cataract in his eye, a drop of milk in a black pool. He grunted at her, then scooped the air with his hand. “Se chevehr.”
She followed, scenting the damp air in hopes of picking up traces of Deequol’s haick, or that of her other brood-brothers and sisters. Marauders turned to ogle her as she passed. I haven’t bathed since I left Gris-Mirahz, she realized. I’m filthy, and these brutes are staring as if I look tastier than a fresh-caught glowfish. She stared back at them, wondering if she would even recognize Deequol if she saw him. It had been such a long time, she wasn’t sure.
The guards took her through the outer gate and its courtyard, up a set of worn saltrock steps, through an inner door, and down the hall to Sniverlik’s throne room. When they entered the great hall, there was a long ironwood table in the middle, covered in maps and pawns. There were no chairs save Ankhaz’s saltrock throne, where Sniverlik was perched in his banded copper armor, clutching the Zithstone Scepter that marked him as brood-father. The Zithstone was as clear as glass, yet it seemed to pull all the light in the room toward itself, absorbing the color from the walls and resonating with a dull bluish glow. The guards grunted at Lizneth to surrender her weapon, which she did.
Sniverlik looked even larger than the last time Lizneth had seen him. There were no advisors or bodyguards around him, as though he presumed to need no protection or counsel. His shoulders were broader than the throne’s half-melted back rest, and his hard, distended gut pouted from his belly like a tumor. His fur was dark, but his muscled arms were thatched with coarse gray streaks. He wore a copper champron on his head to match his armor. Both were green and corroded from salt exposure. His whiskers were fractured and irregular over the scars that crisscrossed his snout, and the longteeth below were as notched as old dagger blades.
Sniverlik gave two great sniffs that echoed down the hall like the sound of a stiff brush. When he looked at her, his eyes shone deep and ferocious. “Qag se ghi?” he asked gruffly.
Lizneth trembled at the sound of his voice. A flood of panic washed over, and she forgot everything. Why did I come here? What was this all about? She couldn’t seem to remember. She cleared her throat, feeling an overwhelming urge to say something. When the walls echoed with the sound, she cowered like a startled nestling.
A sneering smile cropped up around Sniverlik’s lips. “Se eth.”
He wants me to speak. What should I say? Then it all began to come back to her. “May I speak with the Aion-speech?” she asked. It would be easier to impart Neacal’s words without having to translate them to Ikzhethii.
“Se eth,” Sniverlik said again. He tapped the butt of the scepter twice on the armrest. Click-click. Echo.
This is it. Do it. Lizneth thought of Neacal’s promise, wondering how long it would take him to come down and rescue her. She imagined Neacal and his calaihn bursting into the throne room and slaying Sniverlik where he sat, saving her from having to say another word. Take courage, she reminded herself. But courage had come easier when she was far away from here, surrounded by hundreds of calai warriors. Now that she stood trembling before the warlord who held dominion over her village, she couldn’t remember what courage felt like.
She took a deep, slow breath, steeling herself. “Neacal Griogan,” she said, too loud. She adjusted her volume and tried to steady her voice, striving to recall everything Neacal had told her to say. “The hu-mans are here to treat with you. They say they won’t stand for your raids on their northern settlements anymore. Neacal Griogan and his calaihn offer amnesty to the great Sniverlik. They ask for a negotiation at the time and place of your choosing. What is your answer?” That was the gist of it, she thought.
Neacal’s words had been more authoritative, but Lizneth was proud of herself for spitting it out, however gawky her delivery. This mention of negotiation was a ruse, she knew. Neacal had told her to offer Sniverlik the chance to negotiate, but his master-king had sent him to slay Sniverlik at any cost. Neither peace talks nor Sniverlik’s full surrender would alter the nomad’s ultimate goal.
Sniverlik shifted on his throne, his armor scraping white flakes off the saltrock. He stared at Lizneth so intently that she thought his gaze might knock her over. The champron slid back on his skull when he wrinkled his brow, his eyes glinting blue in the Zithstone’s vacuous light. “How does a parikua come to play messenger for a calai keguzpikh? Ar
e you a friend to the calaihn?”
If she had been trembling before, Lizneth’s body shuddered in outright fear now. She felt a wet trickle in the crotch of her chinos. She crossed her legs, but that only made her more wobbly on her feet. “I’m a friend to you,” she said quickly. “The calaihn made me come here with their message, but I also came to warn you. They’re at your doorstep. They know your defenses are weak. But there is a way to defeat them.”
“Not only a calai-friend, but a master of war, eh? You have been playing at swords with your garden spade, have you? Go on. Tell me how to defeat these calaihn.” When he waved the Zithstone Scepter, the light in the room pitched and spun.
Lizneth’s vision twisted like a seashell’s spiral, but she shook it off. “Don’t negotiate with them, like they expect you to. Sneak out in the night and attack them where they lie, when the air is cool and dark. That’s the best advantage you can take.”
“An advantage, yes. Unless you run back and tell them that’s what I will do.”
“If I don’t bring them your answer soon, they’ll come down here looking for me. I don’t think you want that.”
Sniverlik was indifferent. “Let them come. They rot in the light-star’s heat, a hundred horizons away from home, while I wait comfortably in mine.”
Take courage, Lizneth told herself again. Stand up to him. He’ll never take your advice unless you convince him it’s the only way he’ll win. “This stronghold is one flood away from collapsing. It’s never been attacked. They’ll crush you if you sit here and wait for them. The whole reason they’ve come is that your nighttime raids have been so successful. Don’t change the thing you do best. Make them the victims of your biggest raid yet, and you’ll have them fleeing for the City of Sand by morning.”
Sniverlik shifted in his seat again, scraping more white flakes off the throne. He tapped the armrest as he thought, then rose and paced the length of the table, patting his open palm with the scepter. “I don’t take council from parikuahn,” he finally said. “Go back to your home. Tend your fields. You are not to return to the calaihn. They lie. They did not come here to defend their vilckehn from me, you foolish cuzhe. They came here to make slaves of us all. It is I who protects you from them.”
That isn’t true. It can’t be true, Lizneth thought. Neacal was kind to me. I may not have made it home if it weren’t for him. Neacal couldn’t have come all this way with all those calaihn just to take more slaves. Why hadn’t he captured her, if that was his aim? Because I need you, he had said. Had that meant something different than she thought it did? “You’re a liar,” she said. “Neacal is here to stop your raids on the calaihn villages.”
Sniverlik laughed, loud and gravelly. “What vilck would I raid? There isn’t a calai village for days in every direction. No, my dear leparikua. It is the calaihn who have told you false. Now you must go home. My Marauders have worked up a hunger, so your harvest had better be a large one. And if I scent you with the calaihn after tonight, I will take your family’s tails out by the roots and pluck their longteeth like mulligraws from a vine.” He gestured to the guards.
They took Lizneth roughly by the arms and began to remove her from the hall. She ripped free of them and stepped back, swallowed the lump in her throat, and tried to find her voice again. “I know the way. I don’t need these yinbelahn escorting me.”
Sniverlik laughed again and spun the scepter in his hand. The room came unscrewed. Rays of light slackened like loose strings. Lizneth’s eyes went soft until Sniverlik was a fuzzy brown umbra and the walls had dulled to bluish stains around him. Her head began to throb. Each pulse hit the back of her eyes and sent a new splash of color or scent or taste through her, as if the Zithstone were playing a game with her senses.
Next she knew, she was standing outside the stronghold with the scent of her brother’s haick fading from her nostrils. Deequol. She heard his voice, echoing like a recent memory. Had she seen him? Had he been trying to talk to her as they dragged her out? She couldn’t remember a thing that had happened since she left Sniverlik’s throne room. The guards were walking away, and one of them was carrying her belt and dagger.
I need to get back inside, she thought, running after them. The ground was sloshing back and forth like water in a bucket, and she had to stop and wait until the feeling subsided. The Marauders gave her a backward glance and laughed.
“Give that back,” she said. She went after them again, grabbing the belt and half-expecting to fight a tug-of-war over it.
The guard hadn’t been expecting her, however. Before she knew it, the belt had slipped from his grasp and she was running away over the snake’s spine, her feet slipping on the rime and threatening to send her sliding down into one of the cold sluices on either side.
The guards followed her only a short distance before they turned back. Sniverlik will have more than a belt for them if they abandon their posts, Lizneth knew. She ran until she had escaped the rime caves and come to the outer tunnel. The right-hand passage would take her back to Tanley. The shallow rise to the left would lead her to the surface, where Neacal and his calaihn were waiting for her.
Lizneth’s head was still a confused jumble. She thought of her parents and her siblings, then of Sniverlik and Neacal. Which of them was telling her the truth?
She could trust Sniverlik. Or rather, she could obey him. That was nothing new; she’d done it all her life. By going home as he’d commanded, Lizneth would spare her family his punishment. And if Sniverlik told it true, she might also be sparing her entire village a lifetime of slavery to the calaihn.
She didn’t like the calaihn. She never had. They were weird-looking and cruel and they scented wrong and they made sweat. But what if Neacal was the honest one? Just because there were no calai villages nearby didn’t mean Sniverlik hadn’t been sending his Marauders to raid their settlements elsewhere.
Lizneth felt a tingling rush of excitement at the idea of allying with the calaihn—the hu-mans. If they did manage to slay Sniverlik, the warlord’s death would be the greatest thing that had ever happened to Tanley. With the Marauders leaderless, Deequol and her other siblings might even be able to come home. The thought of it brought tears to her eyes. When she wiped the tears away, her dirt-stained fur was crimson. These aren’t tears of joy, she realized. I’m stressed. I can’t decide what’s to be done. I’m crying red.
Lizneth leaned forward to keep the tears from running down her snout. When they came naturally, they were nowhere near as painful or plentiful as the tears produced by the Oculus Cordial. She stood and let the droplets splash to the ground, surprised she had any porphyrin left in her body after so many of Mama Jak’s cordials.
It would be wrong to make this decision lightly, she knew. If she chose the wrong side, the consequences of that decision would nag at her until her dying day. The wiser part of her wanted to turn toward Tanley, where the haick was familiar, and where she could finally see the nestlings again. She could be there waiting when her parents came home. If she did that—if she listened to the timid, comfort-seeking part of herself—there was the significant possibility that things would stay the same forever. How many times in her life would she be in a position to influence the outcome of a war? Even if it turned out she was wrong to trust Neacal, wouldn’t it be worth it for the chance to see Sniverlik overthrown?
Yes, it would be easy to go home and let things stay the same. But she couldn’t. Not while she had a chance to make them better.
Lizneth turned and scurried down the passage, once more toward the blind-world’s light.
Epilogue
“You done yet?” Lokes was getting impatient, and so were the horses.
Weaver looked up from where she was kneeling and gave him a withering look. “I really gotta tell you again? Ciphering takes time, you want to do it proper.”
“Alright, alright. Don’t mess your britches,” Lokes said. “I just think they might be coming, is all.”
Coff him, Lokes could be
a bonehead sometimes, but Weaver loved him. Matter of fact, that was most of why she loved him. He was a real asshole when he wanted to be. Thing was, he could back up every bit of mouthing off he ever did. She thought it was cute the way he was always looking out for her, too, all watchful and protective. And heck if he didn’t look good in that getup of his, tall and handsome and bearded and dark-eyed under that gambler.
Weaver brushed the sand off her hands and stood. “I can feel every tremor for five horizons. I’d know it if you took a dump on the other side of that dune. You think I don’t know they’re coming?”
Sure enough, here they came. It was a big train; holding it up for long was going to be a tough job. But that’s the job we took, and so that’s the job we’ll do, Weaver told herself.
Lokes shielded his eyes and looked out across the lowlands. “I don’t recall that southern gentleman mentioning what this was all about. Do you?”
“Ain’t our job to care,” Weaver said. She shook out her hair and let the sand spray into the wind.
“Well I don’t care ‘bout no coffin’ Vantanible train,” Lokes said, dismissive. “Just curious why he does.”
“He got a bone to pick with somebody, that’s sure enough. Long as he gives us the hardware to do it with, I ain’t puttin’ up a fuss. By the way, baby, you keep frowning like that and curious’ll stop looking good on you. How ‘bout you put a smile on for Mama?” She gave him a silly grin.
Lokes raised his upper lip to oblige her, more snarl than smile.
“Let’s go somewhere we can watch the show,” Weaver said, mounting Meldi, her new filly. The horse was barely tamed, but she had gumption, and Weaver liked that.
She and Lokes fled to their pre-selected overwatch and waited. The caravan trundled past, flanked by its ever-vigilant shepherds. When the flatbeds came to the patch of ground Weaver had ciphered, she laid her palms flat and let herself flow—gritting, the Calsaires called it. She connected with the sand, felt the weight and the texture, let it sift through her body.