The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  ‘She said it’s where Mirror Town was first created – something from nothing.’

  ‘Ah yes, yes, so we’ve always believed. A marvellous work, each sculpture not a whole rune but a fragment of it and each mage holding only a piece of the whole in her mind. See here – come, boy, lean inside! Now note the markings all around, and the way that mirrors are arranged so that the reflection seems to form a complete shape, the form of the rune each mage was meant to contemplate.

  ‘We couldn’t do it now – we don’t remember how. And even then, it was perhaps the greatest work of magic ever attempted, certainly the most complex. Not quite so powerful perhaps as the working that destroyed the great city of the Yronim, but …’

  She turned her rheumy gaze suddenly on Olufemi, her finger upraised and shaking between them. ‘She knows. I told her – many years ago. The runes can express big ideas, or little, but the more complicated the idea, the more complex the rune and the harder it is for any person to hold inside their head. A simple thing, a charm for sharpening a knife, that might occupy only two dimensions. Do you understand what a dimension is, young man? Length and breadth, those are two. More subtle ideas require a third: depth. The difference between a circle and a sphere, do you see?’

  ‘I think I do,’ Krish said, fascinated. Olufemi’s explanations had never been so clear.

  ‘This is all very interesting.’ Olufemi’s tone made it obvious she thought the exact opposite. ‘But you did teach it to me, forty years ago when I first grew interested in the runes. I’ve learned much more since then and I was hoping you would tell me something new.’

  Yemisi tssked and turned back to Krish. ‘So impatient. The thing you must understand, both of you, is that the dimensions don’t stop at three. There is a fourth: the distance from one moment to the next; the gap between what a thing was and what it has become. Runes may occupy this dimension too. So my studies over the last few years – my studies while you have been gallivanting about in the uncivilised lands, Femi – so my researches have told me.’

  ‘You truly think so?’ Olufemi asked.

  ‘I’m sure of it. And so this place, this Garden of Creation, is not just that. But don’t take my word for it. See what I found when I searched the oldest archives in the library, the writings of Baderinwa herself, who founded our great city a millennium ago.’

  She’d left a parchment lying on top of the sculpture, a narrow roll almost as tall as she was. She fumbled to unwind it until Olufemi snatched it from her, laying it out on the marble flagstones between the sculptures. It was a map. After a moment Krish realised that it was a map of Mirror Town itself, though the city whose streets he’d walked was far larger than the one shown on the parchment.

  ‘See here,’ Yemisi said, kneeling gingerly on one end of the map. ‘This is where we are. You see every sculpture is marked. But do you see what’s written beside this place?’

  ‘“When all hope is lost”,’ Olufemi read, frowning. ‘This is an old map, perhaps as old as Mirror Town itself. Our people fled here as exiles. It’s no surprise they named things less cheerfully then.’

  ‘Ah, but have you seen the name of the map?’ Yemisi asked. ‘Oh no, wait. I’m kneeling on it.’ She shuffled awkwardly aside, until the words at the very bottom of the page were revealed. ‘There! “The defences of Mirror Town”. Now do you see?’

  Olufemi’s frown deepened. ‘I’m not sure that I do.’

  ‘This, this Garden of Creation, of making – it was a rune in four dimensions, and the fourth could be reversed. If Mirror Town were ever to be attacked and defeated, our ancestors could use these runes to unmake what they had made, and deny the victor their spoils.’

  Krish looked back over the scattered sculptures, trying to imagine that they held such enormous power within them. ‘But that’s no use to us. We don’t want to destroy Mirror Town.’

  Yemisi glanced sharply up at him. ‘Don’t you, young man? You didn’t seem too bothered by the prospect when you shattered our defences against the worm men.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Olufemi said. ‘Even if you’re correct, this was a weapon of last resort. We can’t plan our battle on the premise that it will end in our defeat.’

  ‘Use your eyes, girl. This garden was the last defence, but our ancestors left us others, to save us from that final resort.’ Yemisi moved her finger to another point on the map, and then another, scores of them. ‘This city is not as undefended as you think.’

  She held out her arm to Krish and after a moment he realised what she wanted and helped her to her feet, her slight weight barely a pressure against his hand. When she was upright, she snapped her fingers. A group of slaves rushed forward and lifted her into a litter they carried on their shoulders. It shamed Krish to realise he hadn’t noticed them; that they’d become as invisible to him as they were to their old masters.

  The litter-bearers led them along the statue-lined avenue and then left into a side street past a courtyard fringed with dusty trees and into the less wealthy areas of Mirror Town.

  ‘Do you think she knows what she’s talking about?’ Krish whispered to Olufemi.

  ‘She knows a great deal about the runes,’ Olufemi said. ‘Though not as much as I. And her family are direct descendants of Baderinwa. If anyone would have access to this information, it would be her.’

  At the next cross-street the litter stopped and a burly, red-haired slave knelt beside it so that Yemisi could tread on his back to dismount. Krish clenched his fists, but said nothing.

  The old mage went to stand beside a fountain from which a thin stream of water was flung up and then fell down into a shallow basin. The whole thing was pale pink, like the flesh of a salmon, and seemed to be made of the same substance as the sculptures in the Garden of Creation. Yemisi unrolled her map and snapped her fingers peremptorily to summon Olufemi and Krish.

  ‘There it is!’ she said, pointing between the fountain and the map. ‘Another of the defences, and exactly where the map says it should be.’

  Krish could see an illustration of the structure before him, very neatly drawn. But the drawing showed something far larger: a spiral of bowl-shaped objects curling away from the fountain. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’ he asked.

  ‘Gone, alas,’ Yemisi said. ‘Some fools before us forgot its purpose and demolished what should have been preserved.’

  Olufemi squinted at the map. ‘Water, water and breath, that’s what the rune scribed here means. I think this was intended to drown enemies as they walked, filling their lungs with fluid.’

  ‘And now it’s nothing but a fountain.’ Yemisi shook her head and tutted. ‘Our people never cared enough for their own history, I’ve always said so.’

  ‘If the defences are all like this, they’re no use to us,’ Olufemi said. ‘We’ve lost the skill to rebuild them.’

  But Yemisi’s wrinkled face didn’t look discouraged. ‘Well, we shall see.’

  The little procession went on, through the dusty streets and into the fields and orchards beyond. The trees were heavy with fruits, pink and red and green, and one violently striped in orange and blue. Krish had lost all track of the seasons in this ceaselessly hot place but it seemed autumn had arrived.

  The next sculpture was in the middle of a stand of cherry trees. Krish had learned to love the intensely sweet taste of them and he picked some now, reddening his lips with the juice as he watched Olufemi and Yemisi slowly circling the structure, comparing it to what was shown on the map. It seemed to be intact: no one great structure but a hundred little ones, like gourds stuck upright in the ground. Each was pierced with a dozen holes on its upper surface, and there was an indecipherable squiggle, different on each one. Looking again at the map, he guessed that together they might add up to the rune shown there.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Will it work?’

  ‘It seems to be whole,’ Olufemi said, the caution in her voice undercut by the excitement in her expression. ‘The rune itself is useless, of course – i
t draws on the power of the sun.’

  ‘You changed that other rune,’ Krish said. ‘The one that made the plants grow. Can you do that for these?’

  Yemisi sniffed and turned away, as if the whole thing had ceased to be of interest to her now that she’d proven her point. ‘You had better hope so, young man. Otherwise you’ve condemned us all.’

  For days as he lay in his sickbed, Dae Hyo had told the mages attending him to send Krish away whenever the boy came by. But it seemed he couldn’t put off the meeting any longer. There was a commotion outside his door, and then it was thrust open and Krish strode in.

  The boy looked concerned, but his face was a liar; it looked innocent too. ‘What do you want?’ Dae Hyo asked.

  ‘I want to see if you’re all right.’ That was a lie too. Dae Hyo knew it before Krish added, ‘And to see if you’re well enough to walk around. I need your help.’

  Of course he did. Why else would he come to Dae Hyo when he was lying bruised and in pain after Krish’s pet mage had worked her magic for him? Dae Hyo knew what had happened now. There were many other members of the Etze family being treated in other rooms around him. And many more taken to their graves.

  ‘We need to train the slaves,’ Krish said when Dae Hyo didn’t reply. ‘Olufemi thinks she can put up some defences but we need soldiers too, and the mages are useless.’

  ‘So you mean to send the slaves to die for you,’ Dae Hyo said.

  ‘Not to die – not if they’re properly trained.’

  ‘They can’t be trained, boy. You showed me that.’

  Krish hesitated a moment, clearly taken aback by his tone. Then he sat on the end of Dae Hyo’s bed, twisting so that he could face him. There were shadows under his eyes and his face was as drawn as it had been when they’d first met, when Dae Hyo had thought he might cough himself to death at any moment.

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you about my plans sooner,’ Krish said. ‘They told me you needed to rest. But with the slaves, there’s … a way. Olufemi’s found a way to free them from the bliss. A rune.’

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ Dae Hyo allowed. ‘But if they’re free, why would they fight? I tell you what, if someone kept me in chains for twenty years, I wouldn’t pick up an axe for them the moment they were struck off.’

  Krish’s eyes seemed caught by the shards of shattered mirror still littering the far corner of the room. They reflected back the sunshine and the plain white walls in a dazzling muddle. ‘No, that’s what I said. Listen, I know this isn’t perfect. We’ll work something better out when we’ve got time. But for now Olufemi thinks she can put a rune on their skin that will make them not need bliss. A way to stop them being so … the way they are. So uncaring.’ Krish hesitated a long moment and then added very quietly, ‘But it will let them feel happy as long as they serve me.’

  ‘You mean to make them your slaves even without the bliss.’

  ‘It’s not like that!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No! This is their home too. What do you think would happen to them if we lost?’

  ‘They’d be set free. Belbog’s balls, boy, the Ashane keep no slaves. They’re your people – you ought to know that!’

  ‘I thought the Dae were my people?’

  And there it was. Dae Hyo was glad it had been said. Dancing around was all well and good at the spring festival, but it never got you far in a conversation. ‘You killed the Dae,’ he said. ‘How can you be one of us?’

  ‘I … I understand you’re upset.’

  ‘Upset?!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it – you know that. I didn’t know I was doing it.’

  Dae Hyo’s body was so battered it hurt to move, but he pulled himself up in the bed and his knees into his chest. He didn’t want any part of him to be touching Krish. ‘And you think that makes it better? That the murder of my brothers and sisters wasn’t even something you meant? Everything I loved gone because you couldn’t control your temper.’

  ‘My temper?’ And there it was, flaring. ‘My da was beating me! Wasn’t I meant to fight back? You were the one taught me that’s what a man should do.’

  ‘That’s before I knew what you were!’

  ‘And what am I? I let you take a knife to my cock, Dae Hyo! I did everything for you. I let you kill the Brotherband when they could have served me.’

  ‘Rapists and child killers. I should have known then.’

  ‘I’m not like them!’

  Dae Hyo laughed, though it hurt to do it. ‘Tell someone who hasn’t been with you all these months. I saw what you did to the Rah. I can see what you’re doing here. And you’re not sorry for any of it. All you care about is what helps you. Well, I’m done helping you, brother.’

  They were both on their feet, though Dae Hyo didn’t remember rising. Dae Hyo had his hand against Krish’s chest and he used it to push him away. But he was too weak, and instead of sending the boy staggering back it was himself he unbalanced so that he fell back on to his arse on the bed. With that all the anger drained out of him, leaving him nothing but cold. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Just go, and don’t come back.’

  It seemed the boy might argue even with that, but Krish turned on his heel and stalked from the room without another word.

  As soon as he was gone, Dae Hyo rang the bell they’d left by his bedside. The bush-haired man who’d been nursing him came striding in soon after. Tending the sick was the one thing these mages seemed to treat with any urgency.

  ‘Are you not good?’ the nurse asked haltingly in Ashane.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Dae Hyo told him. ‘I’m in pain and the herbs you’re giving me aren’t working. I tell you what, I think some bliss would make me feel better. Can you fetch me some?’

  By the time Olufemi found the third defence, buried under a thin layer of sand in the dry stream bed, she knew this might work. But as she puzzled over the rune on Yemisi’s map and its echo on the device itself, she wasn’t entirely sure how it would work.

  Unlike the previous devices, this one wasn’t ceramic. It was almost organic, a stack of bulbs made out of a porous material resembling coral. Its roots seemed to travel deep underground and Olufemi suspected the device might underlie the whole field. But the rune itself …

  Hähes, the glyph of spirit mediated by Yaj, the glyph of stone, which was also the symbol of hardening. But what did it mean? What had it been intended to do? She thought that she could see a way to capture almost the same meaning by using only Yaj, twisted back on itself through Yagh, the glyph of gain. She sensed there would be power in that working, but she had no idea what it would achieve. And these weren’t lesser magics. They weren’t even as limited as the rune she’d formed to make the forest grow, whose working had destroyed her family’s ancient home. The cost of these magics would be greater. The moon always asked for more each time his power was used.

  She remembered the story of Taiwo Aleshinloye, who first worked the moon’s magic to fix the flaw in his eyesight. The rune performed its function, but afterwards he had a nightmare: a thin, white figure lurking in every doorway, which would consume his spirit if he ever met its eyes.

  When Taiwo next worked magic, to fix a broken leg, the nightmare returned to haunt his sleep on the first day of every month. Another moon spell used and he suffered the dream weekly, and then nightly. And when he carved a rune to cure his own lung fever, he began to see that white figure even in the waking world. His physical health restored, he lived to the age of ninety-seven – in an asylum for the insane.

  Olufemi knew that the price for these defensive magics would be higher than just nightmares. Such a price could only be paid once. There could be no experimentation, no testing of her theories. She must devise a rune to replace the one already scribed here, and the entire defence of Mirror Town would rest on her being right.

  She was so focused on the device, she didn’t see the figures until they were nearly on her, their long-legged, red-scaled mounts churning up the sand
beneath their feet. Fear weakened her. Was this the vanguard of King Nayan’s army, come while they were still entirely unprepared?

  But when they reined to a stop, she saw they weren’t Ashane at all. They were tribespeople. Ahn, she would have guessed from their mounts, but their faces were too pale and their expressions not quite right: too close-faced for the exuberant Ahn.

  ‘Greetings, mage,’ the lead rider said, a plain woman in her middle years.

  Olufemi nodded, cautious. It wasn’t out of the question that these were scouts in the employ of King Nayan. ‘What’s your business here?’

  The woman straightened, proud and defiant. ‘I was once called Seonu Hana, but my true name is Janiina of the Yronim. We are the Yronim, and we seek our god, the moon reborn.’

  Olufemi took them to Krish. She found him in the central atrium of the great library, limned in light by the setting sun with Adofo curled asleep on his lap. ‘Tell him,’ she said to Janiina.

  The other woman’s face was ecstatic as she sank to her knees in front of Krish. ‘God-lord, we were ordered by your enemies to find you here and send them news of it.’

  ‘They have birds,’ Olufemi told him. ‘Messenger owls. The Ashane army is waiting to hear from them before they march.’

  ‘We’ll tell them we didn’t find you, God-lord,’ Janiina said. ‘We’ll send them away.’

  ‘And where will they go then?’ Krish asked. For the first time Olufemi noticed how grim his expression was. His eyes looked bruised and there was a hard set to his normally soft mouth.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where they go,’ Olufemi said, ‘as long as it isn’t here.’

  ‘They’ll find me eventually. I can’t run for ever.’

  ‘We’ll protect you, God-lord,’ Janiinna said fervently.

  ‘You’ll fight for me?’ Krish asked.

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Good.’ He looked at Olufemi. ‘And the runes, the defences, they can be made ready?’

  ‘But we won’t need them if—’

  ‘Can they be made ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the slaves can be freed?’