by Monte Cook
“Your mother…” Vesi begins. Then stops and shakes her head. “I met Arch Enpelia once, when I was young. Quenn was just born, I think. She came here and I pulled on her sleeve. Our mother…” She glances at Quenn. Quenn just shakes his head. Aviend wonders how many times he’s heard this story. A lot, she guesses. “Our mother wanted to die when I did that. Your mom, she had these beautiful earrings though. These tiny black circles, and I wanted to know if I could have them.
“She knelt down and offered them to me. Even though I had no pierce holes. Even though I was just this child, pulling on her beautiful gown. My mother wouldn’t let me take them. I cried. My god, how I cried. But I’ll never forget her kindness.”
Aviend has never heard this story before, but she thinks that sounds like her mother. She wonders if it took place the time she remembers being here, or on another of her mother’s travels. She doesn’t say that in the entire time she’d known her mother, she’d only ever had or worn a single pair of earrings. A pair of tiny black circles. She’d had them in her ears when she died. Aviend had buried them with her.
“I’m glad,” Aviend says. “I miss her. Thank you for sharing that story.” A kindness, sharing stories of the dead, but one that makes her heart grow heavy with ache all the same.
Both Quenn and Vesi touch their hands to their elbows. “Coruscates among us,” they say. Nearly in unison.
For the first time Aviend wonders about the town. Its quietness. She’d assumed it was because of the weather. But she thinks that it was more likely Rillent, and that she was wrong in her original assessment that it was too small for him to notice. Small was easy. Easy to squash. Easy to kill. She wonders how many times they’ve had to say such prayers over those loved and lost.
“Sit, please,” Vesi says, pointing to the chairs. As Aviend does so, Vesi sets a piece of pottery, curved at the bottom, on top of the fireglobe. It’s a teapot of sorts, Aviend realizes.
“Did you make that too?”
Vesi nods. “I’m good with my hands,” she says. Neither humility nor pride. Merely a statement of fact. Aviend likes her already, just, she thinks, as she had liked Quenn. Family trait.
The water boils fast, and Vesi is pouring it into cups and handing them out with a speed and precision that claims ownership over the space. Perhaps over her brother too. Quenn had told her that he’d promised his sister he wouldn’t leave her. That had made Aviend assume she was young and needed protection. But now she wonders what the truth is. If Vesi is running this show – and she gets the impression that might be true – she’s going to have a harder time with this request. Quenn may want to help. But if she can’t turn Vesi, his desire won’t matter.
She takes the tea gratefully. It smells of crossel berries and fir trees. Which is nice, but it’s the heat that really sinks into her. She hadn’t realized how cold her hands still were until she wraps them around the mug.
Aviend had expected to talk to Quenn in private, but sees there seems to be little chance of that now. The curtains that Vesi came through are hardly doors, and to ask for privacy after Vesi’s kindness seems ruder than Aviend can bear.
She is going to have to say what she needs to say here, in front of both of them. She can see no way around it. It’s possible they should have sent Kyre after all.
Aviend sets down the tea. Puts her hands to her knees. Turns them palm up. It’s a gesture people used in the clave, what felt like eons ago now, to show respect for the numenera. A bit of humility. A request. An offer of your hands to help and not to hurt. She doesn’t know if Quenn and Vesi will recognize the gesture or even respect it, but it can’t hurt to try.
Quenn’s eyes flick to her fingers at the gesture. She can’t read his face.
After a moment, she picks the tea back up, takes a sip to buy her a moment to think. The tea smells stronger than it tastes. In the cup, it’s more water and scent than flavor. The spices must be hard to come by here. She is grateful for what they’ve shared with her. It seems wrong of her to ask for more. And yet, she must.
She never knows where to begin asking for things, so she just starts. She looks at Quenn and Vesi while she talks. Asking Quenn without giving tacit invitation to Vesi’s involvement is surely going to get her a no answer.
“I’m going to be honest with you both. I’m here because we need your help. And you shouldn’t do what I’m about to ask. It’s dangerous, and it’s not fair of us to ask. But we’re out of options. You know we are, or I wouldn’t be here.” The words tumble out so fast she hasn’t taken a breath, and her inhale at the end is loud in her ears.
Quenn’s face doesn’t change. He and Vesi share a glance, so quick she wouldn’t have seen it if she wasn’t a veteran of those kinds of glances with Kyre.
She feels her hopes sinking. They have a backup plan for if Quenn says no, but she doesn’t like it. She’s going to do everything possible not to go there. She racks her brain for the right words and can find nothing other than another earnest plea rising to her lips.
“Of course,” Vesi says, as Quenn nods.
Aviend nearly drops her tea. Some sloshes on to her fingers, causing her to yelp a little. Nothing is what she expected.
“You don’t even know what it is yet,” Aviend says. Her voice is a weird whisper. She wants to clear her throat, dislodge whatever’s in there.
“Your face,” Quenn says. He and Vesi share another look, but Aviend can’t follow this one at all. She’s an only child, and she feels that suddenly and sharply.
Quenn’s laugh isn’t a laugh so much as a bark, followed by a choking, gasping cough.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just so clear that you expected a no.”
“Well… I…” She is utterly at a loss for words.
“I’ll help,” Quenn says. “Of course I’ll help. I guess I always knew this day was coming. Even if I wasn’t fully aware of it, I’ve been preparing for it. I didn’t know what it would be, or how it would look, but I knew that I’d be returning to Rillent eventually. Either he’d come for me, or I’d have to go to him.”
Somehow, Quenn’s easy acceptance of it makes Aviend feel worse. She’d prepared for a fight, for rejection. She doesn’t know how to respond to this… agreement, other than to lower her head toward the warmth of her tea and murmur a quiet, “Thank you.”
“Give us a few minutes to pack,” Quenn says.
Us? It takes a moment to sink in. Is Quenn saying that they’ll both help? This wasn’t in the plan. She feels like Quenn, even more so than Rillent – if in a totally different way – just keeps sending their plans up in flames. “Are you…?”
“Yes,” Vesi says. “Unless you think I’m letting my baby brother go off on another adventure while he leaves me here to fend for babies – they’re not human babies, at least – and live in wet socks.”
Aviend sees how much she’d misjudged this situation. Quenn hadn’t promised to return to his sister to protect her. He’d returned because he’d left her behind. When she’d wanted to come. Demanded to come. Aviend can begin to imagine how that conversation had gone.
She drops the lower half of her face behind her hand in a soft cough to hide her grin.
“You’re welcome to join us, Vesi,” she says after she has regained control. “And we certainly wouldn’t be sad if you helped us build something like your fireglobe and pot. Ghosts know we could use some creature comforts where we are.”
In fact, she’s surprised at how comfortable she feels here. In a hollowed-out cave room, with almost no furniture. It’s the way that things are arranged, she thinks. It gives the space a sense of invitation. Something she hasn’t thought about in so long. Not since she’d helped her mother entertain guests in that other life.
“The fireglobe is portable,” Vesi says. “We’ll bring it with us.”
A portable hearth, she thinks. There is something deeply reassuring, and deeply sad, about the idea.
“Ollie will have to come with us too,” Vesi says. “He’s
not old enough to be on his own. I’ve already gotten Gradel…” She casts a glance at Aviend. “Our neighbor – to pull the rest of our flock in with his own.”
Aviend thinks how Vesi should have been a leader. Perhaps she would have been, if not for Rillent. Leader of this town, or another.
She can no longer keep her surprise quiet. “You really were expecting me?”
“Yes,” Quenn says, at the same time that Vesi says, “We were hoping for you. How could we not? Rillent isn’t going to stop. Not without being forced to.”
Now Aviend is really starting to like this woman. She’s like Quenn, and yet wholly not. In fact, Quenn is shaking his head a bit, even as he kneels to fiddle with the fireglobe. There are smiles in the edges of his dimples, though. They love each other through and through, she thinks. Even after he left her here.
Vesi scoops up Ollie and unceremoniously hands him off to Aviend. Aviend feels her arms rising to take up the creature’s weight even as her brain is saying, “What? No.” But then he’s in her arms. No longer wet, even. Just heavy and slippery with sleep.
“Just for a moment,” Vesi says, almost apologetically. “Last time we tied up the fireglobe, he tried to jump into it and nearly charred all his wool off. He’s adorable, but I’m not sure he’s the brightest spark in the sparkbox.”
Aviend looks at him. His long legs are splayed every which way. One foot twitches in half-sleep, like he’s dreaming of running. His nose is a hairless pink that makes her think of baby birds. He opens one eye. The pupil is four-sided, nearly square, and endlessly black. All around that, is a pale blue, nearly grey. The eye closes. The weight grows heavier.
Aviend turns her attention back to the fireglobe. Quenn and Vesi have each taken a side. There are little handles there that she didn’t see before. Quenn nods. He and Vesi pull on the handles at the same time. The globe, impossibly, crumples in on itself, all along the cuts. Growing smaller and smaller until it’s a crumb of metal no larger than her fist. The handles fold up and together, making it easy to pick it up with one hand.
After all of the devices, with their tiny wires and impossible parts, the simplicity of this, the ability to see how it works, makes her happy in a way she can’t explain. “That’s ingenious,” she says.
Vesi’s face changes. At first Aviend thinks she’s insulted her. But no, that’s pride she sees in her cheeks. “Rillent’s doesn’t do that,” she says. “That’s my own special addition. Plus…” She taps the tiny sphere, but just quickly before pulling back. Aviend gets the impression that the center might still be quite warm. “It captures the fire ember inside here. So as soon as you open it up and give it air, it lights back up. Even in the rain.”
Aviend wants to show her delight again, but she knows that kind of response quickly gets overwhelming for others. Instead she says, “Our team will certainly be glad to have it. And you.”
Vesi nods, then disappears behind the curtain. She’s back a moment later with two full packs. Quenn takes one from her, mock whispering, “My sister likes to be prepared.” Then, “What’s the plan anyway?”
She wishes she could lie to him. “We’re going to the kubric,” she says and then because she needs to be as clear with him as she can, “To Rillent. We need you to show us how you got out so we can get in.” There’s more, but she lets it go for now.
His face is nearly impassive, but there, in the folds of his eyelids and angle of his mouth, that half-hidden fire. “Are you going to take him down?”
“We’re going to try.”
“I’m going in with you, then,” he says. “Into the kubric.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Quenn drops his poncho back over his head and holds out his arms for Ollie. Aviend has gotten used to having him there, his warm weight like an anchor against her chest. When Quenn takes him back, she feels momentarily unsettled, like her balance is off.
“We’re ready, then,” Quenn says.
And that’s how Aviend finds herself returning to the base with not just one, but three, well… living creatures… in tow. She doesn’t realize until they’re nearly back to the base that she’d completely forgotten to tell Quenn about the temple.
The skiff jumped and rocked every time Kyre asked it to do anything beyond go forward or stop. Sideways was horrible. Forget trying to go up and down. He basically had to point it in the general vicinity of where he wanted it to go, push the lever, and pray.
Except he didn’t believe in praying, so he mostly just swore and shook his head. The one advantage really was the speed. He was at the edge of the Stere before he’d even really figured out how to drive the skisting thing.
It didn’t help that it was built for two, and he was only one, and that made him about as effective as a butterfly in a windstorm. He was sure that Thorme had requested something smaller. It got him there, alive, so all else was forgiven.
Next, he needed to find Thorme’s contact, get the psychic lure, and hightail it back to the base without killing himself.
“Look for the orange smoke,” Thorme had said. As if that explained everything. Or even anything.
It turned out that it did. As soon as he left the edge of the woods – stepping out left him blinking, surprised by the flatness of the land stretching out before him – he saw the lazy, off-circle rings of smoke drifting up from a camp. The color was more red than orange, but there was nothing else dotting the lowslung landscape as far as his eyes could see.
He leaned the skiff against a tree trunk and did his mental equipment check. He was light this time, prepared for moving, fighting only if necessary. Rope, shortblades, med kit. He’d brought shins in case Thorme’s contact had any cyphers other than the psychic lure. Surely if he was a trader, he’d have at least a few he’d be willing to part with.
Walking across the open landscape made Kyre feel twitchy. His skin touched nothing but air. His eyes searched for some hillock or tree or relic rising from the visage in front of him, and found none that he thought were real. The ground was hard-packed, orange-rust in color. Every step kicked up a small puff of dust that quickly colored his boots and the bottoms of his pants. It reminded him of trencher dust, not in color, but in granularity, the way it clung to itself in clumps.
The camp was a little nothing, one that was likely designed to be makeshift but ended up longterm. He could tell by the way the tent and firepit and even the man sitting there had sunk into the soil like stones. Everything was sun-faded to a wash of yellow and pale. Except the smoke rings, umber circles up into the sky.
The trader hadn’t looked at him, but Kyre was pretty sure he knew that he was coming. Probably heard the skiff or him swearing as he got off it. Maybe even his footfalls.
He crossed, closer, until he was in that weird space of how close do you get to a thing before you lift your hand and call out?
He decided it was now. “Iadace,” he called across the space.
Another smoke ring, fat and low. It was impossible to tell if they were coming from the fire, a pipe, the man himself, or some other, weirder origin.
For every step, another smoke. All sizes. All manner of round. Soon, he could discern the difference between orange and umber and crimson and one that had a slightly pinkish undertone. He began to feel like the rings were hypnotizing, drawing him in without letting him get closer. So many footsteps were falling. They were his, but he couldn’t feel his legs moving. Just the weight of his feet, the hard pack of earth.
Just like that, Kyre was there, standing in front of the camp, the man, the smoke rings.
The man snapped his wrinkled fingers and the circles disappeared. Kyre took a breath, sudden, like he’d been forgetting. It tasted of dust and metal.
“Iadace,” the man said. He had a big mouth in a small head, a surreally large grin. “Now that’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time.”
The man was short and folded in on himself. Even his skin looked folded, crimped and ironed out and crimped again. His clothe
s, too, wrinkled, the fabrics rippling in and out. He sat on some kind of pale animal pelt sewn into what appeared to be a stool. It shifted as the man moved.
He looked up, and his eyes were large too, even as they moved half-closed in the glare of the slanted sun. “You must be Thorme’s boy?”
It felt odd to be called a boy, and especially to be called Thorme’s boy, but even as he was about to protest, Kyre saw that the man in front of him was old. Not just old. Ancient. Older than anyone he’d ever known. His face was a mass of wrinkles, half of them buried behind other wrinkles, so you couldn’t even tell how many there were at first. What was once dark in his giant eyes had greyed out to the same color as his tent. Sandstone and milk. Not blind, Kyre thought, but heading that way.
“Yeeees,” he said. He couldn’t bring himself to actually say that he was Thorme’s boy – he almost had it until he thought of her face, listening in – so he just said “Yes,” again.
The man rocked forward on the stool, using one long hand to push himself up. The stool unfolded itself, gave a couple of shakes so that a snout and a tail popped out, and then ran at a breakneck speed on short, fat legs toward Kyre’s feet.
He tried to sidestep, threw himself off balance, nearly stepped on the creature as it went through his legs, and finally just allowed his body to go in the direction it was already going and sat down with a plop in the dirt.
Now the man was standing and Kyre was sitting. And they were still almost eye-to-eye. Mostly because Kyre had dropped onto a dimple in the earth and the man wasn’t very tall.
“Don’t mind Prem,” the man said. “He’s just trying to get home.”
“I’m here for the lure,” Kyre said, with as little confusion and as much dignity as he could find. His tailbone hurt. If this wasn’t such a serious situation, he’d be starting to think that Thorme had sent him on a silly laakchase.
The man had been reaching out his hand, possibly to help Kyre up. At Kyre’s words, he withdrew his hand, folded it back in toward his chest and stuck it in a… pocket? Small bag? It was hard to tell.