Skender didn't need to say anything. There was no hiding the truth of him. It shone through every clumsy attempt to be…what? A Stone Mage? A hero? Himself?
Somehow, he managed to fall asleep.
His dreams were full of Rattails—stalking him, mocking him, leering at him—but there was nothing he could do to make himself wake up. He was trapped.
Then, when Sal had woken him up by calling from the Panic city, Chu had been beside him. Not touching, but there, facing him, dressed in her old clothes and with a frown line between her eyebrows. Her eyelids were red.
Galeus. He had given her his heart-name at some point during the missing night in Laure. She in turn had given him hers. And he had completely forgotten the transaction. No wonder she was angry with him. This was much more important than sex.
But even as he saw her side of it, he wondered if she wasn't being unfair. He had made the gift, even if he couldn't remember it. Didn't that count for something? She still knew his heart-name. He couldn't—and wouldn't—take that back.
If only he could remember hers, then perhaps everything would be all right.
Mute daylight, filtering through the clouds and the translucent paper screens that substituted for windows in that section of the city, painted patterns across the people sharing the room with him. The syncopated rhythms of their breathing marked time as implacably as the ticking of a roomful of clocks. He didn't know even roughly what hour it was, or when they were expected to begin preparations for the hunt. He could only assume that someone would come for them when the foresters were ready.
Screw that, he thought, getting up as quietly as he could and cleaning his teeth.
When he stuck his head out the common room door, he found two guards keeping watch.
“Am I confined to quarters?” he asked them. “No? Well, I need to see the Guardian about the hunt. It's important.”
One of them took him through the accommodations of the Guardian and her staff. The citadel possessed a lean, elegant simplicity, even as it rambled up and down through the forest canopy, linked by ramp and platform from tree to tree. He couldn't estimate the number of rooms in the building, since, like the city itself, its structure was determinedly organic. If the people who lived in it wanted a new wing, they would have to plant a tree and wait two hundred years for it to grow tall enough. So what space they had they used well.
He came at last to a smaller version of the Guardian's citadel, a rectangular space defined by woven bamboo screens and open to the sky above. Instead of the dawnlit clouds, however, Skender saw only leaves. From elsewhere in the citadel came a harsh, constant ringing of metal hammering against metal. It contrasted sharply with the liquid nighttime susurrus of the forest and he tried not to think about what the blacksmiths responsible were making.
The Guardian sat on a low, backless chair, dressed in a grey gown that stopped short of her bare feet. She looked as though she had been woken from sleep by her daughter, and Heuve, who stood opposite her stiffly at attention. A circular pendant, too large to be a bracelet but too small to be a crown, hung on a silver chain from her neck.
“Where is he?” she asked, continuing the conversation Skender had interrupted.
“Changing into a fresh uniform,” said Lidia Delfine. “He insisted.”
“He would.” The Guardian turned her tired gaze to Skender. “Yes? You said you wanted to see me?”
“I—uh.” His resolve faltered momentarily now that he was in front of her. “I've received a message from the others.”
“So have we.”
“You know, then?” He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
“The hunt will go ahead. They won't intimidate us so easily.”
Intimidate? he wondered as another man entered the room. That wasn't the reaction he had expected.
“Guardian.” The new arrival knelt before the seated woman and inclined his head in deep respect. “Forgive me for being the bearer of such tidings.”
“You don't need my forgiveness, dear friend, and you should know better than to ask for it.” The Guardian leaned forward and reached out a hand as though to touch him. It hung in the air for a moment, then returned, trembling, to her lap. “That you are alive is cause for celebration in my heart.”
“I'm honoured.”
“You're welcome, you old fool. Now stand up and look at me.”
The man raised his head and stood, and Skender was astonished to recognise him as Seneschal Schuet.
“But you're—” he stammered. “I thought—”
Schuet turned and frowned slightly. “Skender, isn't it? Sal and Shilly's friend?”
“Yes, but—how did you get here?”
“He brought the message from the Panic,” said Lidia Delfine. “They dropped him on the outskirts of Milang under cover of darkness. With his hands tied, he couldn't climb. It took him three hours to attract attention.”
Schuet shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “There's no denying it was a calculated insult,” he said, “but let's not dwell on the details. My pride is the least thing at stake here.”
“What is at stake?” asked Skender, becoming thoroughly confused.
“War,” said the Guardian. “Seneschal Schuet returned to us with a warning from Kingsman Oriel of the Panic Heptarchy. I know how events transpired in the Pass two nights ago. I know that the Seneschal and my daughter were not the aggressors. Oriel, however, sees it differently. He views the arrival of more humans as a hostile act: the calling of reinforcements. He uses the conflict to press for open hostilities.”
“Should our peoples cross paths again,” said Schuet, his voice solemn, “more blood will be spilled.”
Skender just stared at him, thinking: Two hunting parties, both seeking the same thing. If they meet, it'll start a war. This isn't going to end well.
“I think,” he said, “with respect, that we should wake the others and have a bit of a talk.”
“Prayer is all that separates the hunter from the hunted.
When a rabbit feels the jaws of the wolf close around
its throat, what other option is there but to pray?
The ability to bring death, not life, is what inspires worship.”
THE BOOK OF TOWERS, EXEGESIS 8:15
Apowerful stink of blood and offal made Shilly gag as she climbed aboard the balloon's sleek gondola. Seeing her reaction, Griel explained with one word: “Bait.”
The gondola was narrow, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze past the single row of seats down the left-hand side. She took a seat at random and leaned over the edge to see what made the smell. Below, hanging from a sturdy rope, was the skinned carcass of a large, four-legged beast. Probably a pig or a boar; Shilly couldn't tell, and she didn't particularly want to know.
She was sure that, even if it failed to attract the Swarm, it wouldn't go unnoticed by the forest's insect population.
Sal took the seat behind her, looking as though he had finished his conversation with Skender at last. His attention was back on the world again, no longer fixed an unknown distance deeper into the forest.
“What did he say?” she asked him.
“They're hunting too,” he said. “They've dealt with one of them already, apparently. He says they're hard to kill, but flame hurts them. I think he's speaking from experience.”
“We should be grateful, then, that he's still speaking at all.” Shilly remembered with terrible clarity the body that had been left on the boneship, rent and drained by the creatures she was now trying to find.
The gondola rocked beneath her as the rest of the party climbed aboard: hollow-faced Highson Sparre, looking as though he needed an extra night's sleep; Warden Rosevear with a bagful of medical supplies topped up by Vehofnehu; Tom, who took the rearmost seat by the balloon's chimerical engine without uttering a word; dour Griel, in full leather armour and lugging a heavy bag that Shilly assumed was full of weapons; and Mawson last of all, looking even less animated than usual. W
ith each person, the tapering lozenge keeping them airborne dipped a little lower. Shilly was relieved that the gondola would still have empty seats.
Then the Panic soldier that Griel had called Erged jogged up trailing an upset-looking forester: the young woman, Mikia, with a bandage tied tightly around her wounded head.
“Sir, forgive me.” Erged executed a breathless bow. Her hair was shaved very close to her rounded scalp but still glowed visibly red in the morning light. “I was not the first to visit the cells this morning. Oriel has taken the other one away.”
“The other one has a name,” said Mikia, pushing forward. “If Seneschal Schuet has been harmed—”
“That's out of our hands for now,” said Griel. “Get aboard, both of you. Time is even shorter than I thought.”
“And you have one seat empty, by the look of it,” came a voice from the dock. “Perfect.”
Shilly looked up to see the Panic woman Jao hurrying towards the gondola, dressed in green cotton overalls and toting a bow and quiver.
“Jao, no—” Griel raised both hands to ward her away.
“I'm not hearing it,” she said. “And you're not going off without me again.”
“I'm not saying I don't want you to come. I just need you here, where you can do the most good.”
“Precious little that is.” Jao tipped her head to one side, making her beads rattle. “Why do you think I want to come with you? The bough has finally broken. Those who can are jumping off—and those who can't are being thrown. Leave me behind and I might not be here when you get back. Not if Oriel has his way.”
A great weariness swept over Griel's face as he nodded and waved her aboard. She brushed a hand across his goatee and lips as she went, taking the seat two back from the front of the gondola.
“What happened to Schuet?” Shilly asked, expecting Mikia to answer.
It was Jao who explained that the Seneschal had been sent back to Milang to offer his Guardian an ultimatum: stop attacking the Panic or there would be trouble. The trouble was, though, that the wraiths were neither human nor of human origin. Oriel was giving the humans a test they couldn't possibly pass.
Shilly wondered what, exactly, that might mean. It certainly wouldn't make conditions in the forest any easier—especially for a group of nonaligned humans caught in the crossfire.
Fail in this instance and all will fall, Vehofnehu had said, and Tom hadn't disagreed with him. She couldn't afford to gainsay both of them. If hunting the wraiths would help them solve the mystery of the flood, then she would take that risk.
Griel barked an order to the sole remaining Panic on the dock, who untied the last stay. Griel sat in the foremost seat and gripped the balloon's controls. With a whir, they edged away from the deck.
“This Oriel,” called Highson from the rear. “What does he want, exactly?”
“Nothing to do with humans,” grunted Griel, wrenching the balloon down and to port. Shilly clutched the back of the seat in front of her, surprised by the sudden acceleration. The balloon's sleekness was clearly for more than aesthetic reasons.
“Why not?” bellowed Highson, not easily put off.
Jao fielded the question as Griel flew the balloon away from the floating city and into impenetrable fog. Her voice, more musical than Griel's but still rough-edged compared to a human's, carried clearly through the misty air.
“In the days following the Cataclysm,” she said, twisting in her seat and hollering loud enough to be heard, “our ancestors had nothing to do with humans. The forests were empty; we lived here alone, under the rule of the King. Then humans came down from the top of the mountains, and the peace of the forest was forever shattered. The line of the King was broken. Some of our people—Oriel included, and now the Heptarchs that rule in the King's place—wish to restore by any means available the peace we lost. War is, unfortunately, their preferred option.”
“Sounds to me like this Oriel wants to be King,” said Mikia.
“Or the next best thing. He has the Heptarchs tightly between his teeth. They won't stand up to him. We've lost too many people in recent weeks, and who else is there to blame but the humans?”
“You do believe us,” said Highson, “when we say that we have nothing to do with any of this. Don't you?”
“Of course.” Jao's smile was fleeting. “But the Quorum has acknowledged you and that means you're involved—for good or ill, whether you want to be or not. The Heptarchs would never ignore such a ruling, although who knows how far Oriel might go in such times?”
“At least the Seneschal got to go home,” said Mikia sourly.
“If we track down the Swarm and stop the attacks on the kingsfolk,” said Highson, “we might be able to prevent Oriel from getting his way.”
Shilly didn't dare assume it would be so simple. The Panic political system was complicated and ambiguous. The Quorum existed to “advise” the Heptarchs who made the actual rulings, but what happened if Heptarchs and Quorum disagreed? Who made the final call? It couldn't rest on the back of one person, no matter how qualified Oriel thought he might be. Not even the Alcaide had supreme power over the Strand; he ultimately answered to a Conclave of high-ranking Sky Wardens and could be deposed if he ever went astray.
She said none of this, not wanting to sound critical of a system she didn't entirely understand. Panic and human were different in many subtle ways; maybe the murmuring of rebellion she heard in Griel and Jao was part of the system's natural checks and balances. Maybe it would somehow work out all right in the long run.
“I bet Vehofnehu saw this coming,” she said. “I bet that's another reason why he sent us on this hunt.”
Jao shrugged. “Perhaps. He sees much from his perch.”
Shilly clung tight again as Griel brought the balloon out of its steep descent and took them on a steady eastern heading. A wall of trees loomed out of the mist to their left, seeming close enough to touch. Shilly kept her hands carefully where they were as the green wall swept by.
“You said that humans came down from the top of the mountains,” she said, to keep her mind off their wild trajectory. “You mean there are people even further up than here?”
“Yes,” said Tom, attracting the attention of everyone in the balloon, then looking as though he wished he hadn't. He had been very quiet since his nightmare about the Swarm, and Shilly felt bad about being snappy with him earlier. Between worrying about Sal and the Swarm and what was happening to Skender and the others, and trying to work out the Panic, she didn't have room in her head for his issues, whatever they were. She swore to make it up to him later.
Griel turned sharply to port, following the contours of a steep, heavily wooded cliff. Another cliff appeared out of the mist to Shilly's right. They had flown into a ravine barely five metres wide but many more deep. The balloon struggled against a strong headwind that rocked it from side to side. Griel kept a firm, long-fingered hand on the controls and let them gradually shed speed.
They came to a halt within a stone's throw of the end of the ravine, where the two walls came together in a narrow cleft, choked with vines and tumbling flowers.
“Great,” said Shilly. “A dead end. What happened? Did you take a wrong turn?”
Griel fiddled with the controls, but didn't retreat. “This is exactly where we need to be. We're a long way from the human settlements; there's only one way in; and the breeze will carry the scent of blood a great distance. The only question is: what do we do when the wraiths come calling?”
The balloon hung in space, swaying slightly, as Shilly considered the answer.
It was obvious, really. So Sal told himself as Griel dropped off the last of his passengers. The balloon responded more quickly the less weight it carried, and the fewer eggs they had in one basket the better. But he still felt exposed alongside Shilly and Griel as the Panic took the balloon back up to its midair station, where he planned for the three of them to wait for the wraiths to come.
Shilly took his hand, either
sensing his nervousness or seeking comfort for her own. Perhaps both.
They had it worse than the others. Mikia, Rosevear, and Jao crouched in a tree on the right side of the ravine, armed with bows and slingshots, opposite Highson and Erged on the other side. Tom and Mawson sat in a small cave in the cleft itself, well out of harm's way. Griel had offered the young seer a hook to defend himself with, should the worst occur, but Tom had initially waved it away.
“I won't need it,” he said, “and what good would it do against the Swarm?”
Griel insisted. “The wraiths aren't the only predators in the forest. There are wild cats, snakes, and worse. Best take it, just to be sure.”
Tom had shrugged and accepted the weapon. Mawson, impervious to all animal life, had expressed no opinion.
From the beginning, Griel had insisted on Sal being in the balloon with him. Griel hadn't seen Sal in action, but knew what a wild talent was and wanted one at his side. Sal was happy enough to go along with it, but agreed with Shilly that she should be with them too, not crouching in a cave with Tom and Mawson, sitting out the real work.
“We work best as a team,” she had told Griel. “My brains and his brawn. It's worth the extra weight. Believe me.”
With a grunt, Griel had let her stay. And Sal was glad. They had spent entirely too much time apart in recent weeks. If something were to go wrong, he wanted her nearby.
“No offence to Tom or Mawson,” she said as they settled back to wait, “but if you're so worried about deadwood, why did you bring them?”
“Because they're safer with us than back at the city,” Griel explained, his dark inset eyes scanning the fog for any sign of the wraiths. “Oriel will come down hard on foreigners and troublemakers. Even Vehofnehu won't be safe for a while, until the glast is dealt with. This seemed the safest of our options.”
The moaning of moai echoed down the ravine, an ululating, incessant call that made Sal's flesh crawl in response. Sometimes the sound faded into the background, filtered out by his mind when there were other things to think about. Other times, it sounded as though the Earth itself was humming, killing time before the next tumultuous upset.
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