The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  “The goats’ flesh must be tainted by maddenflur,” Parrish said.

  “The wolfets can sometimes keep it down,” Sapira said. “In another month they’ll be hunting greystag calves, but this late in the winter, they get desperate.”

  The trail was snowy in places. Twice the pulvers had to dig out drifts that had blocked the trail. The rivers churned with mobile, glassine slush, melt from higher altitudes.

  The sun was breaking over the peaks when Gale saw her first greystag.

  It was the biggest deer she had ever seen: the crown of its head rose almost as high as hers, and her mount was a tall one. In the morning light, the greystag’s flanks shimmered like molten silver. Winter fluff was coming out of its shoulders in tufts.

  The stag had wedged one curved horn between the branches of a tree. It wasn’t ready to come away yet, apparently, and the animal was trapped.

  “Help him,” Sapira ordered. The newly initiated pulver and his mentor stepped forward. Valette, the elder, put her arms up on the beast’s chest, reaching up in a loose hug, her face against its neck, murmuring and clucking. It strained against her grip, then calmed. The new pulver, Bendi, laid his hands on the base of the horns, exploring.

  “Ointment,” advised Valette. Bendi fumbled out some reddish wax, inadvertently crushing its container with his magically strengthened hand. He smeared his fingertips and rubbed the animal’s forehead, around the shedding horns. Flowery perfume crowded out the scent of their horses.

  For ten minutes they worked at loosening the horns, easing them loose like a tooth from a child’s gum. The buck stepped out of Valette’s embrace. It locked eyes with Sapira, tossing its newly lightened head.

  “Well?” Sapira asked.

  “It’s long enough, Blossom, but he chipped it trying to take it off.”

  The buck, forehead smeared red, took a wary step onto the trail. Then it startled, changing direction with liquid grace and vanishing into the woods with a leap.

  “What a monster!” A dapper redheaded man rode around the curve. “Impressive, impressive beast! How’s the horns?”

  “Imperfect, I’m afraid,” Bendi said, holding one out, root-first.

  “And you are?” Sapira asked.

  “Een Semmanor, o’Sylvanna,” he said, bowing low. “At your service. Why, Kir…no, don’t tell me, it’s a Verdanii name…is it Sturma? Sturma Feliachild?”

  “Gale,” she affirmed.

  “Delightful to find you here!”

  They resumed the trail. Een had contrived to miss the pass into the keep, dodging the hours-long reception Agate would have planned for him. He’d pushed hard to catch Sapira’s party. His horse looked tired, but he showed no guilt over that.

  “You know him?” Parrish asked. They had dropped to the rear: Een was up front, chattering at Sapira, gesturing with the found horn. Playing babbling idiot to Gale’s dotty aunt.

  “We’re tentacles of opposed fighting squid,” Gale said. “Interchangeable, Parrish, but for our allegiance.”

  “He seems to remember you.”

  “I kicked his front teeth in, two years ago.”

  “He could be a danger to you.”

  “Stop looking for my assassin, cub—you’ll wear out your eyes. Worry about this: Een’s sure to notice that the Blossom’s been inscribed.”

  “She doesn’t seem concerned.”

  “No. Old contracts and their oddities…maybe they get to keep a horn now and then.”

  “Why didn’t Agate simply show you the contract?”

  “I’m here unofficially.”

  “You were sent.”

  “I got a note inviting me to visit Sapira; we met years ago.”

  “But you’re a member of the Fleet Watch, aren’t you? Just by showing up…”

  “I’m a lowly courier, Parrish, with a brief to deliver messages to a very remote place called Erstwhile. If I choose to meddle in political affairs now and then, it makes me a busybody, that’s all.”

  “But Agate asked us to—“

  “No. Agate mentioned the contract to Sapira’s eccentric friend, over a board game. She didn’t ask for anything. If it comes to court one day, she and I can truthfully swear to that.”

  “Legal mummery.”

  “Ah, you disapprove. Told you, I’m no better than Een.”

  He said, delicately, “I prefer to believe otherwise.”

  Misplaced idealism—there’s another flaw. “To answer your question, Agate would’ve arranged for me to stumble on the contract today, if we hadn’t had to rush off.”

  The trail curved and widened, rising between a gap in the crags. They could see all the way to the ocean. Gale took out a spyglass and looked at the harbor, scanning for Nightjar’s sail. The sight brought a smile to her face.

  “I wonder if he hit the markets for that new wheel he’s been after.” Sloot had been on a push to upgrade and repair the ship; he was finding fault with every rope, spar, and pump.

  “He wants Fleet grade for the wheel,” Parrish said.

  She nodded—good choice—and missed his next words. “Pardon?”

  “He wants everything squared away before he retires.”

  “Who says he’s retiring?”

  Had her voice sharpened? The boy’s face had taken on that unreadable—that suddenly infuriating—emptiness.

  “Has he said something to you, Parrish?”

  “Kir Felia—“

  “Don’t you go madaming me. What did Sloot say?”

  “I’m…” He swallowed. “You’ll have to discuss it with him.”

  “Will I?” She snapped the spyglass shut, urging her horse up the steep slope at a near canter. Een, of course, didn’t fail to notice.

  Stop it, Gale. You’re acting like those lovesick girls.

  Who does Parrish think he is? Does he expect to replace someone who’s been with me for thirty years?

  She knew what Sloot would say: Thirty’s a lifetime, Gale.

  She dismissed common sense, steeping in quiet rage.

  The stream led up into the highland plains, stretches of hill and grassland dotted with greystag herds, bucks with pregnant does and a few yearlings, groups of five, groups of thirty. Bachelor herds, in tens and twelves, kept to the fringes.

  Each hilltop was host to a peculiar work of statuary, artificial trees carved from the red stone of the mountain, dense, squarish stumps with hooked branches, thickly clad in moss. Gale opened her mouth to ask, but as she watched, a stag wedged its horn into one, working its head back and forth.

  “Ah, this is your king’s innovation!” Een cried. “Clever, Sapira.”

  “The bucks seek out trees when their horns begin to itch,” the Blossom said. “The shedding posts keep them from getting trapped, and the moss protects the horns.”

  The pulvers fanned out, collecting horns that had dropped below the posts. Perfect horns—they found seven—were wrapped in thick, quilted blankets. There were thirty or more with flaws; those went into a single basket.

  This was what Gale loved—the world’s endless feast of experience: the breathtaking ingenuity of the carved shedding trees, the greystag, thick as shoals of fish on the vast emerald expanse, the small darting packs of wolfets, red-furred against the green.

  Today she felt only a gleam of interest. Sloot had sometimes mentioned going home, settling with one of his other women. Gale assumed he would wait, would see her to her prophesied violent end. That he’d take care of matters—of her.

  “Camp’s carved into this ridge.” The herds flowed around them, untroubled, as the party dismounted and unsaddled, allowing the horses to finally graze. As the trail guides filed off to fetch water, the pulvers unpacked a set of pikes, and then they climbed carved stone steps to yet another raised cave entrance.

  “Checking the shelter for wolfets or fugitives,” Sapira explained. “People take refuge here sometimes, in the fall.”

  “What sort of bandits do you get here?” asked Een.

  “Po
achers. There’s illegal trade in maddenflur sap. And one-time crimes: someone kills their business partner, someone commits assault. We had a fellow two years ago who swindled three royal hunters.”

  “Escaped slaves?” Een asked silkily.

  Sapira favored him with a haughty glance. “Redcap is scrupulous in meeting all treaty obligations.”

  “Naturally.” He stretched, turned, and offered Parrish an elaborate Sylvanner bow. “I don’t think we’ve met, Kir.”

  “Garland Parrish, of the sailing vessel Nightjar.”

  Een showed his teeth. “Parrish. Mmm. Wasn’t there a Corporal Parrish who disgraced himself so badly he got drummed out of the Fleet? Cousin of yours, perhaps?”

  There was no visible change in Parrish, not even a tremor, and yet the air was suddenly charged with tension. “Not a cousin, Kir.”

  “You’re the fellow himself? Oh, how rude of me!”

  “I was, as you say, discharged from Service recently.”

  Which was unheard of, Gale thought.

  “But there was no disgrace,” Parrish went on. “The record, Kir, proves me out.”

  “Moral high ground, mmm? I’ve heard the view’s good from up there. Must’ve been a tremendous hardship to lose your place.” Een rubbed his hands together. “Weren’t you something of a rising star?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Now you’re sailing privately?”

  “I’m Nightjar’s first mate.”

  “Gale’s…mate?”

  It was an obvious insinuation. Gale was Verdanii, and of an age when her kinswomen often took young lovers. But Een’s barb snagged the wrong target: it was Sapira who reeled, as if she’d been slapped.

  Parrish, to her surprise, bent toward Een with a half-smile. His tone, when he spoke, was hushed, almost intimate, though his eyes were flinty. “Are you asking if I’ve had the honor of being Kir Feliachild’s lover?”

  Gale surprised herself by chuckling. This keeps up, I’ll have a duel on my hands.

  But Een knew when to retreat. “None of my business, of course. Sorry, Kir Parrish.”

  Nicely played, young man, Gale thought. She tipped him a bit of a salute before going in pursuit of the princess.

  Sapira had not gone far. She was beside the stream, with the biggest stag Gale had seen yet. It was old, its throat and flanks marked with the white lines of many healed slashes. A dent in its skull gave it a mean, faintly cross-eyed appearance and its lip had been bitten into a permanent scowl. It had already shed its horns.

  “Pal of yours?” Gale asked.

  Sapira nodded. “I didn’t think he’d live through winter.”

  The buck regarded Gale without fear. Even bareheaded, it could crush anyone it happened to charge. Gale wondered what it might see in her. She was a plain weathered woman, a well-used tool of the Fleet…but that meant nothing to this kind of king. She dropped her gaze…and found she’d clenched her fists. She held too tightly to things; she always had.

  “Just a matter of time,” Sapira said. “One of the young bucks, maybe the one we saved on the trail…”

  “He may have another season in him,” Gale said. “The young have strength, but we elders are canny.”

  “Everyone’s day passes.”

  “It does.” Gale fought a rush of heat through her chest, a front of threatened tears.

  “I can’t bear to think of him falling to wolfets. It’s weak, I know…”

  Gale unlocked her hands, shaking her fingers loose. “Nobody should witness the slaughter of something they love.”

  Sapira reached out, and the buck came closer still. “I’ve trespassed on your goodwill, Gale. Garland—I mean Parrish—he refused my advances. Teale’s too. Now…I realize we shouldn’t have made any.”

  “Rot. Nothing you’ve done has marred our friendship, Sapira.” Parrish hadn’t denied they were lovers; why should she? If she left the situation muddy, the boy might get to sleep tonight.

  “Thank you.” By now the stag was close; it huffed steamy air onto Sapira’s fingers.

  “I’m surprised he lets you so near.”

  “My inscription came from one of his horns.”

  Gale glanced around. There was no sign, anywhere, of Een. “Is that something we can discuss openly?”

  “Why not?”

  “Sapira. The horn…it wasn’t owed to Sylvanna?”

  “No, it was scratched. The inscription’s of a poorer grade. It’s why…well, you’ve seen my imperfections.”

  “Imperfections?”

  She looked shamefaced, suddenly, like the girl she was. “My lapses of composure.”

  “Composure comes with practice.”

  “So says Aunt Agate.”

  Gale smiled. “You’re telling me lower-grade inscriptions are permitted in the contract?”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, Blossom. You need to hire a more devious class of lawyer.”

  Just before nightfall, the new pulver ran mad.

  They were on the ridge, roasting trout over the fire and watching the first stars glimmer into view, when they heard the trammel of fleeing deer.

  Bendi was on a young buck, riding bareback, yanking at its horn. His shouts were incomprehensible—Redcap dialect, not Fleetspeak.

  The buck fought and leapt, but the grip of the pulver’s legs had crushed its rib cage: it was already staggering. Blood ran down its forehead from the horn, blinding it.

  “Guard the camp,” Valette ordered. The others obediently encircled the civilians as, reaching for her pike, the pulver ran down the steps.

  There was a crack as the buck’s horn snapped off in the crazed man’s hand. The animal wailed, collapsing forward onto its knees. Bellowing, the pulver swung the horn about, fighting whatever delusion had gripped him.

  Parrish was down there.

  “You can’t go down there, Kir,” Een cawed, drawing the guards’ attention as he seized Gale by the arm. She had moved instinctively.

  Parrish stepped up to the outside range of that pointed, swinging, horn. “It’s Bendi, isn’t it?”

  The pulver bared his teeth. “Ruined all, Bendi has ruined…oh dear ones, I have failed!”

  “Maddenflur,” Sapira whispered. “Has he taken…”

  “Maybe someone slipped it to him,” Gale said.

  Parrish’s voice carried across the plains. “On the island where I grew up, Bendi, we take in those slain by magic. Such murders are doubly tragic, because nothing lasts forever. It is a given that the scrip will be destroyed in time; that the spell will revert and the murdered person will live again. So the victims must be kept safe.”

  The pulver was staring at Parrish’s lips.

  “There was a young monk once, whose job was to bear corpses from the sea to the monastery of the sleeping dead. But he loved a woman whose farm lay on the route from the port. He’d stopped at her cottage, once, and a grass fire caught near his wagon. The coffin and the woman lying within were burned.”

  The pulver extended his hand, splaying his inhumanly strong fingers mere inches from the boy’s throat. Nobody moved. Even the deer seemed to hold their breath.

  “He thought he’d committed the unforgivable,” Parrish said. “The corpse was badly burned. When the woman was restored, she would die again, in agony.”

  “Unforgivable,” said Bendi. “Yesss…”

  “He was in despair; he considered taking his life.”

  “Ruined, ruined.”

  “Get him!” Een roared, startling everyone as he drowned out Parrish’s words.

  The senior pulver had been inching up behind her maddened acolyte. Now, warned, Bendi whipped around. Parrish sprang backward; the point of the horn just missed his throat.

  Fast as a cat, that boy. Gale hurled herself sideways in a faked stumble, tripping Een and then flopping onto his belly, more or less sitting on him.

  “Oof! Kir Feliachild!”

  She ignored him. His stunt could have killed Parrish.

  The pulver
s wrestled over the horn, shattering it to matchsticks. Valette caught a flailing blow from Bendi as she got between him and Parrish. “Get back,” she bellowed.

  Come on, get out of there. Let them fight it out.

  Parrish saw sense; he retreated to the ridge.

  “You almost talked him down,” Gale said, strangely proud.

  Een gave Gale a shove. “Get off, woman! I think you’ve broken my rib.”

  Ahh, the small victories. Gale climbed to her feet. “Sapira. Should someone go through Bendi’s supplies?”

  “Yes. Start with the ointments,” Sapira ordered one of the guides. “They contain the maddenflur extract; it’d mask the smell.”

  The guide vanished into the shelter, reluctantly—everyone was transfixed by the pulver fight. Then he cried out.

  “What now?” Gale bustled ahead of the crush to the cave entrance. The remains of the seven perfect horns were scattered across the stone floor, pieces of bone intermingled with shredded remains of the quilted satchels, clumps of feather and torn silk.

  “Poor Bendi must have begun his rampage here,” Een said to Sapira, who had gone shock-white at the sight. “My dear, it will be all right. Sylvanna will continue to extend credit, as a courtesy. Our alliance—“

  “May need renegotiating,” Gale said.

  Een’s head snapped ‘round. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve gathered the Islanders have the right to use lesser greystag horns to inscribe charmers,” Gale said.

  “So?”

  “Up until now—“

  “—as a courtesy, you might say—” Parrish put in.

  Gale smiled at him over the train guides’ heads. “Yes, a concession to your long alliance, Een, they’ve confined themselves to scripping the occasional Blossom. But there’s nothing to keep them from selling ‘em. Is there, Sapira?”

  The girl’s color was returning “Nothing at all.”

  “Inferior inscriptions,” Een chuffed: “So?”

  “Look at this girl, Een. Give her five years to build some skills and there won’t be any difference between her and a perfectly scripped legislator. How much you can charge for the spell if there’s something almost as good on offer?”

  In an opera, that would have been the end of Een; he’d have crawled off, been demoted by his superiors and vanished into obscurity. But there was nowhere to slink: he sat by the fire, holding his ribs and simmering.