Forgotten Stairs

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “I don’t know. They seemed very much in love when I married them, and she was carrying his child.”

  “I would not give it another thought. He’s been to the icy pits of hell and back enough times to weather this. He seemed more embarrassed than anything—all of the men did. We all should have seen it. Beautiful young women do not risk life and limb crossing the whole of the North to be with broken-down veterans. It was too good to be true. And besides, he has Haton and two companies of greencoats to look out for him. They’ll see him through this rough patch.”

  Avin shrugged, but we did not get a chance to talk about it anymore. The west bridge was just ahead. It was busier than the last time I’d seen it. Several hundred men worked to clear a wide patch along the west bank, and on the Urnedi side of the bridge, a long line of men and wagons crowded the plaza between the barge mooring and the grain warehouses.

  “Enhedu is paying Barok its rents,” Avin told me. “Looks like they are just about finished.”

  It took me a moment to recognize that the men in the plaza were buying seed, not paying it out. Enhedu had had a good winter.

  Before we reached the dock, a greencoat rode downstream and stopped the pony team. The guardsman said to us, “The Prince wants you to remain downriver for a time.”

  “Suits me,” I said. “Take my written report, instead. We’ll head back down to the north bridge. I have some business there. Have Barok send for us when he is ready.”

  The rest of the men were not as pleased. They wanted to be ashore and to see their families. I was just about to tell him and the rest to take a seat when an unwelcome feeling crept along my skin.

  “I need a bath,” I said and itched at my arms and hips. “It’s that Bermish wool, I think.”

  “Do you feel it, too?” Ryat asked me. He looked like he was going to be sick. The tingle grew colder.

  “Hessier,” I said, and every man in earshot spun toward us. Weapons came free, and eyes searched the thick trees along the banks of the river.

  “Where?” the lieutenant demanded while Avin worked to detect the same.

  “That way,” I pointed. “Somewhere near Urnedi. Avin, do you feel it?”

  “Much too far away for me,” he replied. “Does anyone hear singing?”

  The half-dozen greencoats Ryat had taught closed their eyes in concentration, but the sensation I was feeling was much different than the whisper of words on the wind.

  The feeling grew—a distant fold in the smooth fabric of the forest. “No singing,” I said, “but there is something. It’s very like the feel of a Hessier.”

  The lieutenant had heard enough. The guardsman was ordered to get the pony team moving, and we were hurried toward the mooring. We thumped hard against the stone, gangways flew out, and men and horses poured ashore.

  I could feel the wafting cloud of darkness as we galloped toward the town, and we could hear the call and cries before we got our first look.

  25

  Madam Dia Yentif

  Aden

  I tried not to get any angrier as Barok continued to speak like the Yentif ass he was born to be.

  “The more likely outcome is the arrival of an army raised by their owners. The theft of a slave is a high crime. You know that. And the envoys will be watching.”

  The corset bit me as I made the mistake of bending over. I growled under my breath. I wanted to tear the rotting thing off.

  Small breaths, Dia. Everything is going to be fine. The baby will be fine.

  I sipped some air and tried to focus on what Barok was saying. He had stopped talking, though, and looked like he had already moved on. I was not about to let him send a thousand people to their deaths.

  “Barok, there must be something …” I started to say, but his expression had flattened into a glassy stare. “Are you okay?”

  He mumbled a reply and began to tremble.

  Kyoden? Why now?

  Barok’s expression hardened, and a savage focus took him. “No man will be a slave before my eyes,” the dead king said with Barok’s voice as he worked to take control of the rest of Barok’s body. All I could think of was the fast approaching disaster of an encounter between Kyoden and the envoys. He would order the slaves freed and would dare them to disagree. He would kill them all. I was left suddenly to argue Barok’s horrible position for him.

  I clutched his arm before he could get away from me. “Kyoden, wait. You cannot free them.”

  He set his eyes upon me with such anger that I would have shrank away if not for the unrelenting corset.

  “King, we are too few to stand against Zoviya alone. They love their slaves too much to let them go. This would make war with all of them. Stand down. Hold!”

  He did not and stepped away from me. I grabbed him by the collar and swung him around. Gern and the greencoats that surrounded us were too focused upon the crowd to notice the change.

  “Kyoden,” I said. “You stubborn old wraith, you will hear me. This is not for you to decide. Let go of my husband.”

  “I cannot abide the bondage of other men. It is the worst of what men do. You cannot allow this!”

  I slapped him as he worked to shed my grip and a second time with such force that my whole arm wrung with pain. Still Barok was nowhere to be seen. Outside the gates, the ordered riders of the envoys had arrived. Slaves blocked their path.

  “Kyoden, I vow I will free them. It will not be today, but I vow that Enhedu will be a refuge. On the blood of your heir, I vow it.”

  I set his hand onto my stomach, and the violence bled out of him. He wept.

  I understood then. Edonia’s sons and daughters had been enslaved by Zoviya. The Kaaryon’s slaves were his people—our people.

  “I’ll bring Edonia’s children home, Kyoden. Please, trust me in this.”

  He closed his eyes, nodded once, and let go.

  Barok stumbled and fell. Horace rushed to catch him. He was out cold.

  “Kyoden took him,” I explained. “Get him up to the keep and revive him.” A tight knot of greencoats collected around him, and they moved away.

  Back at the gate, the desperate slaves began to push their way through the wall of green. One of the guardsmen called rally, and men responded from all directions. In the center of the group of slaves, a keen-eyed man pleaded with grand words for his freedom, but his voice was drowned by the cries of hundreds around him. Greencoat spears leveled at them, and the archers upon the wall above drew their bows.

  “Stand down,” I yelled, but my voice was lost in the din.

  The report of a bow shocked me.

  The crowd hushed, and everyone looked around to see if anyone was struck. It seemed the shot had missed until one of the slaves fell. The shaft had slammed down through his body, and only its fletching poked up out of the soft ground.

  “Hold,” I screamed as the bedlam of voices began again to rise. “These people are under my protection.”

  My flesh chilled with an unnatural dread, and I searched the crowd.

  “Hessier,” someone said. But the feeling wasn’t the same. It stole my warmth but did not oppress. I lost track of my thoughts.

  You would be happier if you were alone right now, Dia.

  I turned to make my way out of the crowd and find somewhere quiet. A nice nap. That was what I needed.

  A rumbling of hooves and the sight of horses charging toward us woke me. Geart led them, and the wafting darkness disappeared as a gust of warm air blasted the crowd.

  I caught myself smiling with all my teeth as though halfway to laughter.

  He kept coming. My smiled faded. He meant to ride down the slaves.

  I ran to block their path before remembering the corset. I got in front of them, but I didn’t have the breath to yell for them to stop or even raise my arms.

  Geart’s eyes were dark and wild. The air distorted around him as though he was hot enough to catch fire. He did not pull up.

  “Geart, stop!” Pemini bellowed and took hold of
me as though she meant to hurl me out of the way.

  But it was the ponies themselves that balked, refusing to run us down. The charge ended in a confused mess of men and horses.

  Everyone came to a halt. Urnedi balked. Barok was supposed to be there.

  I sucked desperate breaths and said, “Gern, get all of the slaves inside the palisade and out of the way of the envoys. Geart, clear out of here. Men from the Ministry are just beyond. And would someone please remove that poor man.”

  Gern got to work, but Geart did not seem to care. Avin swore, snatched the lead of Geart’s horse, and got them moving back north as fast as they had come. Greencoats love orders, and they moved swiftly. The crowd of slaves was only too happy to get through the gates and out of the envoys’ way. The body was dragged clear. Once the slaves were inside and corralled again by a wall of greencoats, I said to Gern, “Bind every man without credentials.”

  The words fell like a weight on them all. The slaves began to protest but were soundly penned by palisade and soldiers. The few with credentials waved them desperately and Selt drew them from the crowd. The greencoats divided the rest into pieces and tied their hands. They began to weep. My heart turned to ash to see it. The keen-eyed man I had noticed earlier looked wretched. He watched Geart go with something close to terror. All his hope, fire, and arguments had been extinguished.

  “Gern,” I said. “That man there. Bring him to me.”

  “Madam?”

  “Now. Quickly. The envoys will be within the gates in moments.”

  He went and pulled the man free of the crowd. The slave’s eyes remained fixed upon our departing druid. The color of my dress caught his attention, and when his eyes met my face, he gasped.

  “I am Dia Yentif. What is your name, sir?”

  “Madam, your beauty is without equal.”

  “That is not your name.”

  “Aden, Madam Yentif,” he said with a deep bow from the waist. “Here to serve you as you please.”

  “The way you came is closed,” I said. “Will the rest follow you?”

  He stood up straight and lifted his chin. He was a small brown-eyed man, and the fire I had seen earlier sparked back to life. He confirmed my opinion of his person when he said, “No. Not all of them will follow me.”

  “Fair enough. You are welcome here, but the way you came is closed. After you have been taken back over the mountain, you will be given a thousand pieces of silver and left unguarded. Lead those who will follow you into the barren hills of Trace. Stay alive. Stay hidden. I will send for you when the way is clear.”

  The captain and the slave looked at each other with disbelief.

  “Now, rot you both. A thousand lives are in your hands. Get moving.”

  Neither made the mistake of smiling or bowing stupidly. Gern seized Aden, who put on a show of tears as he was put back with the rest.

  The horses of the envoys drew my eye away from the pair. They passed through the gate, and I was instantly coveting the Akal-Tak of the chancellery man in the lead. It was an elegant bay stallion, six or seven years old, and had made itself the master of the rest. I did not get to admire him long. Its rider continued forward alone as though he was also master of all that he surveyed and not pleased at all by his dominion.

  A closer look revealed that his irritations were likely more superficial: stains on his tailored clothes from the voyage, bug bites on his neck and hands, and broken fingernails. Bessradi had thousands like him. I was tired of him already.

  “Where is the prince?” he asked. “He must answer for why these churls infest his road and why my men have been denied entry.”

  I stepped onto the spot Barok had occupied. Urnedi lined up behind me.

  Yentif. Be a Yentif, rot you, Dia. Make this man before you weep.

  “You speak out of turn, sir, regardless of your title or station. The only men-at-arms free to enter Urnedi are the Hemari, and the escaped slaves are well in hand, as you can see.”

  “They should have been—”

  “You will get off your horse now, and you will present yourself and your credentials accordingly, or I will have you put with the rest.”

  The slow turn of his head toward me was something men practiced in front of a mirror. He aimed his chin at me and blinked coldly. He got off his horse. “My name is Errati Saristrava, Madam Yentif. I am alsman to your husband. Please, could you show me to him?”

  “Leger has been replaced? Whatever for?” I asked.

  “I will not discuss chancellery business with you,” he said with the same smile.

  Barok will have your head on a pole by sundown.

  “At once. He is inside the keep,” I replied with a bright smile and forced a breath as deep as it would go. The heave of my breasts drew his eyes. “Or you could stay here and continue to covet a Yentif wife, if you think that is the best course.”

  Errati’s practice had not covered public shaming by a woman who outranked him. He gaped like I’d just sprouted a snake’s head, and his mouth opened stupidly but produced no words.

  “She snatched your tongue right out of your head, Errati,” another of the envoys said with a great laugh. He was a wild-haired older man who seemed equally immune to Errati’s stare. “You heard Madam Yentif, gentlemen. To the keep with us.”

  The speaker wore the gray and silver finery of a priest of the Ministry, but his bearing was that of a gambler with a pocketful of coins. His smile never dimmed, and his uncombed hair, eyebrows, and mustache were the kind that you could hide things in.

  He jumped down, handed his reins to a greencoat, and started up toward the keep. The rest hurried after him as if to prevent him from getting to the prince first. He then brought them all to a stuttered halt with a sudden turn and a grand gesture for me to precede them.

  I’d hoped not to move.

  I slowed my breathing, forced a soft smile, and marched slowly up.

  Barok had better be ready.

  26

  Geart Goib

  The grip of darkness grew as we charged through the town toward the noise and the gathering touch of the Shadow.

  The gatehouse at the far end of the east wall came into view. Greencoats were massed there fighting a large group of disorganized men. I reached out and pushed the darkness back.

  “Order, charge!” I cried and we closed the gap.

  My horse balked, turned, and reared. Suddenly Dia and Pemini were there yelling for us to stop.

  “Geart, clear out of here,” Dia shouted. “Men from the Ministry are just beyond.”

  I ignored her. Something had summoned the darkness. I searched the many faces for something … anything that could explain it.

  “Geart!” Avin hissed and snatched my horse’s lead. “Envoys from the capital. We must go. I cannot yet defend us from the Sten. We must be away.”

  He turned us before I could protest and brought into view a group of greencoats bearing away a slave.

  A dead slave.

  His miserable soul poured free, bathing everyone with the cold touch of the Shadow. Were there no Hessier here at all—just the misery of so many?

  But this did not make sense. The feeling had been different. I pulled us up and turned. The greencoats looked to be arresting the lot. “There had been a Hessier,” I said to Avin and Ryat. “I swear it. We should cut each of them—prove that they bleed red blood.”

  Avin said, “It was just the slaves. See there, the Shadow gathers upon them.”

  He was right. The slaves were already covered in a thin fog of darkness. It was enticing. I wanted to sing. I wanted to drink the darkness and sing.

  I shook my head. “Away from here,” I said, and they were glad to go. I stared at the sunshine upon the tops of the trees for a time and sang in my head the short list of nouns I had learned.

  yew man horse flesh intestine

  They were strong words, but alone they were meaningless. Verbs broiled.

  heal follow forgive warm rest

  We
reached the yew forest, but the relief I expected did not come. The taste of the Shadow upon the slaves lingered on my tongue, and a dozen songs warmed my throat.

  The great tree before me seemed suddenly an enemy. I began to think of ways to call forth the Shadow.

  An entire song invited itself into my mind before I knew to resist—giving me both noun and verb. ‘Draw the Shadow.’ The desire to scream the song and suck in great swirls of delicious darkness made my mouth water. The Shadow caressed me. The words rose high and hard through my chest and up into my throat.

  No. No. The Shadow is taking you, Geart. No!

  I could not resist it, and I sang.

  draw shadow

  The icy darkness flooded around me.

  A sharp pain bit the small of my back, and I went down. Ryat stood over me holding the dagger he’d pummel-struck me with. He looked ready to do it again. Greencoats tackled him aside.

  “No!” Ryat shouted. “Let me go. Leave this to me, or he will kill us all!”

  “The Shadow can see you,” I said and got ready to tell them all to go to sleep. “He needed me to sing so very many things.”

  I reached toward them.

  rest

  A knee struck my chest, and I lost my breath and the song. It was Avin, and he yelled, “Help me, rot you all. Let Ryat go and help me!”

  Greencoats piled me, pinning me to the earth. Several covered my mouth.

  But it was not really a song, was it. I didn’t need to actually sing. I felt a movement within myself, and the way to do it became clear. I wanted to tell them that it was going to be okay. The darkness would come, and they would be at peace. The words took shape in my mind.

  “Do your work, man,” Avin screamed to Ryat.

  Ryat leaned over me as I made the magic with my mind.

  draw shadow

  The darkness curled up around me. It ate the light and extinguished the feeble bravery of my master’s toys. Their souls trembled as the hooks caressed them.