Mastodon did not find further words for a few moments more, pursing her lips as she considered him. Then she thought to ask, “Do you need attention?”
Realizing she was referring to acquired injury, Godren gave himself a rough inspection. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Nodding, Mastodon took up another silence, uncertain how to address her dangerously self-promoted employee. He had just asserted his dominance before her very eyes, and he suddenly wondered if going beyond expectation was unwise. Would revealing a new level of what he was capable of prove to come across in a threatening manner? Had she employed him with the particulars of her contract meant to bind him forever because she did not expect him to be able to compare with certain targets?
“But if you don’t mind…” Godren said, suddenly feeling the effects of being battered. Aside from feeling disoriented from trauma to the head, the barest aches and pains were resonating up from his abused body. He hunched, wincing slightly, unaccustomed to the grief of such effects.
Mastodon seemed to come back to herself, sheepish in realization. “Of course,” she granted sympathetically. “Dismissed.”
“Would you like me to remove them first?” Godren asked, indicating the unconscious bounty hunters that were still crumpled on her floor.
“Oh. Just…yes, get them out of here.”
Starting with Alice, Godren fought the black spots that contaminated his vision and hauled her up. Ossen appeared then, pausing in the doorway as if debating whether to ask what had happened or not. Seeing Godren’s state, he looked disinclined to give his rival the chance to gloat over any victory, but silently joining the task of excavating the bounty hunters seemed too willing to be generous without question for his taste. Finally, he settled on scowling and ignoring Godren as he moved in to help, doing a service to Mastodon and none other.
Godren ignored him in turn, and went to rest as soon as the task was complete. Ouch, he thought, gingerly favoring the dull throbs Damious had charmed out of him.
He was still marveling over his body hurting as he drifted into an exhausted sleep. It was painful, he thought in awe.
Blessedly painful.
*
Sore and strangely replete, Godren stood at the edge of the Ruins, imagining soon being free of this place.
“Evantralis,” he murmured.
She materialized beside him, matching the direction of his gaze as he stared into the distance of the city beyond.
“If the wind chooses to speak to you…can you, in turn, speak to it?” he asked, still absently watching the city lights flicker out as night soaked into the stone territory.
“You may, to some degree,” the slave woman replied, “but of course only if you know how. The degree depends on your connection, and your connection depends on the wind’s preference and your own understanding, or faith, that surrounds these things.”
Godren thought about that.
“Is there something you would like to say to the wind?” Evantralis asked.
Godren’s eyes, merely absent before, turned inwardly so. “There is.”
“I can call the wind and interpret for you,” the slave offered.
Godren looked at her then. “You are privileged by the wind as well?”
“Wind, Venomtreader, is what runs in my veins.”
“But the leeches–”
“They breathe my essence. They do not drink it. It serves the same purpose as far as the lady Mastodon’s control is concerned.”
Staring, Godren tried to fathom the strangeness of her existence. “Everyone else seems to believe in your blood. They say it’s sweet, a cause of magic, and the leeches prefer it.”
“People say all manner of things. They fear what they don’t understand, and so they strive to create explanations for themselves. Of course they assume I bleed. Just because they’ve never seen it doesn’t mean I don’t. After all, they never even see me.”
True enough, Godren thought. Still, out of curiosity, he searched what was visible of her. “But, my lady, how?” he wanted to know, baffled beyond intrigue by the qualities she claimed to bear. “How does one find themselves bloodless? Are you not human? Are you merely chosen and possessed?”
“Chosen and possessed,” Evantralis confirmed. “As anyone can be. Do not mistake the implications and think we are special. The potential is in everyone. Reaching that potential is a choice, with unanticipated reward. It is in how you choose to live, and the reasons you choose to do so. It is at the center of irony – granted to those who do not seek it, but come by it through righteous and humble means. It is justice for those who make all the right sacrifices. You cannot win it, nor even consciously earn it; you must simply deserve it, without expecting it.”
Struggling to divine all the dependant factors, Godren shook his head. “But I don’t deserve anything. I was dealt an injustice, but I’ve turned to immoral means to sustain myself, therefore sustaining an immoral existence, while I search for a way to right the wrong that has been done to me. Is that not the most selfish thing in the world? Engaging in wrong that hurts others, even if indirectly, to serve my own interests?”
“You have to fight for justice, Godren, even if it happens to be a case surrounding your own interests. That is the only way to tip the balance of good and evil in this world. The law falls short, Venomtreader – because it is not followed. Disallowing a criminal to cheat that way does not stop them from doing so.”
“So we must lower ourselves to their level and become them in order to oppose them?” Godren asked, appalled.
“No. You do not become them if your actions are ultimately in the interests of good, if you are willing to accept the consequences of the questionable treachery of your actions and sacrifice yourself in that way, and if you put faith in greater forces than one-dimensional human laws.” For the first time, Evantrilis truly smiled. “Your nobility is in the right place, Venomtreader, but you must remember you have a very shallow perception of all that is in play around you. You don’t know the half of it, and understand only half of what you know.”
Becoming tranquil again at the truth in her words, Godren suppressed his frustration and tried to apply patience to the areas he was ignorant. What did he expect, that Evantralis would give him all the answers?
“But enough,” Evantralis announced gently. “There is no sense in arguing these things when you are already on the right track and set to discover them for yourself. You summoned me for a different reason anyway. Would you like to try to call the wind?”
“How?” Godren asked, taken aback by the offer.
Evantralis smiled again. “It cannot be explained. There is no way to teach it. You must only try.”
Turning over a few ridiculous ideas in his head – including barking out the wind’s name and calling it like a dog – Godren settled on merely closing his eyes and willing it to him. He breathed deeply, as if pulling the air to him, drawing on a ripple of movement and hoping it might inspire a butterfly effect. A ripple would turn into a breeze, a breeze into a gust, and a gust into a responding ocean of wind from near and far.
On his third breath, as his determination strengthened at his lack of success so far, the faintest breeze tickled past the Ruins. Godren’s initial excitement turned to dismay as he realized it could be chance, that nature did surround him, and then he had lost focus entirely.
He opened his eyes.
“Do not be discouraged,” Evantralis said. “You cannot expect to succeed when you haven’t even the barest idea of what you are trying to do. Have no fear – you will call the wind. But today, I will put a name to it for you.” Concentrating, Evantralis closed her own eyes.
At least I got that part right, Godren thought.
At first, the only response to the slave’s unknown procedure was a breeze much like the one Godren had perhaps charmed out of the air. But then it twisted, strengthened, and another current leaked out of an alley behind him. After that the alleys all seemed to start breat
hing on him, issuing kin breezes until currents intertwined from every angle, becoming one strong force that revolved around the proximity. It buffeted Godren, playing with his hair, his clothes, and almost seeming to whisper just beyond what he could perceive.
Evantralis opened her eyes. “What would you like to say to it?”
In awe of the power that had just been called to surround him, Godren struggled to remember why he had prompted this meeting.
Was ‘meeting’ the right term?
Right, he thought, centering himself. “Perhaps it is not ethical, but I would ask that if the wind truly wants me, that it would give me a sign. Others, who are intertwined in my fate, have received their own signs which have convinced them. And though they have intrigued and inspired me, I would ask to be convinced as well.”
Godren wondered how Evantralis would respond to his wishes, whether she would find them unreasonable, demanding, or altogether silly and pointless to ask, but she showed no reaction. She merely closed her eyes again and began whispering in her native language, capturing the essence of the wind in the sounds she used to form words. Soon, her murmured voice blended with the current that swept the area, infiltrating it with real whispers as the words were snatched from her mouth. They careened around him, like a force of restless ghosts, feeling him, tasting him, speaking against him. Then Evantralis discontinued speech and the whispers died away, and the completion of communication prompted the wind to respond by changing its course. Fed by the alleys, it drew on more currents and grew, spiraling up from the ground and tightening around Godren as if to dance with him, before rising higher and redirecting itself toward the city. Ravens spilled out of the alleys on the driving veins of wind, shrieking in their gravelly voices as they rode toward an involuntary destination. Godren could not distinguish whether they expressed objection or excitement.
The exodus took place swiftly and left Godren breathless, the proximity going almost unnaturally still. The only sign of what had been put in motion was the distant storm of birds swarming across the city sky. Was that the wind’s idea of a sign? Godren wondered. Or had the birds been sent to do something?
Godren couldn’t say. But as a gentle rain of cherry blossoms began drifting down from the ravaged sky, his doubts of the wind’s significance began to dissipate regardless of if the birds were to return with a further sign. He turned about beneath the silent shower of misplaced blossoms, which were a long way from home now, he thought, in addition to being out of season. He was unaware of Evantralis quietly withdrawing from the scene, and forgot about her as she faded from his side.
Spring has befallen the Ruins, he mused. Perhaps the dark season of my life has used itself up.
*
“There are cherry blossoms in my alleys,” Mastodon said. “Why are there cherry blossoms in my alleys?”
Unfortunately, even Mastodon who never came out from behind her desk couldn’t miss the flowery oddity that infected her lifeless domain. The alleys were absolutely covered in petals, carpeted with a thick layer of blossoms. Their scent was wild in the air, evident even beneath the ground in Mastodon’s study. Aside from that additional evidence of the flowers’ presence, the cats were tracking them in.
Bastin, Ossen, Seth and Godren all stood before Mastodon’s desk, answering to her demands. Though Godren knew more than any of the others, he could no more explain it than they could, and so he shifted position and shuffled his feet along with them, avoiding her gaze.
“If this is some ridiculous idea of a joke–” Mastodon began, but cut off with an odd look on her face. An unsteady breath rattled in her lungs, causing the men to all glance uncertainly at one another, and then, abruptly enough that they all flinched, Mastodon broke the suspense and sneezed.
Blinking away the effects, the woman composed herself again, looking slightly disoriented for having been overcome by the spell. “If – if this is some ridiculous idea of a joke,” she continued, “I’ll have you know I completely missed the punch line and am aghast at the flowery obsession of the men I thought I employed. I hired you for your grit; you are supposed to spill blood in my alleys, not decorate them with the ravishing allure of springtime fantasy. What do you want this operation to look like? A wedding? I do have a reputation to uphold, you know, and it has nothing to do with springtime or weddings.” She sneezed again, abruptly. “How embarrassing,” she said to herself, starting to sound as if her nasal passages were clogging up. It was unclear whether or not she was referring to the flowery injury to her dark pride or the undignified inconvenience of being attacked by spells of sneezing.
At a loss, her subjects just looked on.
“Fine,” Mastodon gave in, looking increasingly allergic. “If you all insist on keeping quiet about your responsibility in this, then you will all clean it up. Get those dratted flowers out of my alleys.”
Dismissed, the men dispersed to follow their orders, still just as bemused by the nature of their assignment but relieved to escape punishment over the unexplainable turn of events. As the rest of them applied themselves to ridding the corridors of the blossoms, though, Godren found himself smiling and shuffling through them. It reminded him of childhood autumns in Wingbridge, when he and Seth would wade through the layers of fallen leaves. Only now, the layers weren’t of dead leaves but of fresh, rich blossoms, as if signifying a new age, a new way of things. He breathed in the intoxicating scent, thinking it was about time the alleys stopped smelling like darkness and decay and got freshened up. It was a nice side effect that it had Mastodon in fits of sneezing, too. He chuckled, thinking it was a good way to cheat against his contract and cause her grief. Not that he had planned it, but it gave him a sense of pleasure imagining.
And then, when a swarm of ravens rushed by overhead, Godren lost any notion of cleaning up entirely and followed them to their destination – the Underworld’s entrance, where they were vying for diving space and disappearing in clusters down into the fire pit.
Kane was cursing and plastering himself against the wall to avoid the unexpected flurry of ravens, looking a little bit spooked. If Godren didn’t know any better, he would have said he saw the other man draw a holy sign on his chest to ward against bad omens.
Smiling cordially at him, Godren barely waited for the swarm to subside before following the birds into the pit, a casual bounce to his step. He was in a decidedly good mood as he traipsed into Mastodon’s study and found her sneezing and shooing a mob of unruly birds off her desk. The cats were scattering, spilling out the door around his entrance.
A myriad of excessive smoke was billowing about the room as multiple flailing wings churned it into turmoil. Godren took stock of the ridiculous amount of incense burning about the room, wondering just how fierce Mastodon’s cherry blossom allergies were.
“Chaos have mercy,” Mastodon was saying, at her wits’ end at the continuing intrusiveness of events. “Get off, featherbrain. Get your molting hide and dung-crusted feet off my work. For goodness’ sake, even the birds smell like cherry blossoms,” she directed a remark at Godren to acknowledge his entry.
“I believe everything does,” Godren commented back, avoiding any mention of his insight and the connection the ravens had to the very uncanny wind that brought in the blossoms in the first place.
Emitting a sound of exasperation, Mastodon gave up trying to clear the ravens from her desk and swiped her papers out from beneath their squabbling feet. Putting them aside, she seized a raven firmly so its wings were immobile and drew it up for a closer look. With one hand she pulled a smoking stick of incense over and placed it so that its essence wafted up and pooled around the bird. Shooing some wispy tendrils at the creature’s eyes, Mastodon leaned closer to peer into the bird’s midnight pupils.
“Alright, what do you have for me?” she inquired absently.
Godren waited on the results, growing anxious as the woman settled into interpreting the reflections stored in the raven’s eyes. She took her time, and only after testing two more
birds did she break her concentration.
“Well why don’t you share that with the class, then, if you think it’s so important,” she suggested, shooing pillars of smoke together into one mass over her desk and then drawing a wispy pattern in it with her finger. Lastly, she grabbed a bird and launched it through the makeshift cloud, and in the obscure window that resulted, a vision took form.
It was a bird’s eye view of the Crowing Woods, a feathery rush of treetops and then the relief of a clearing. A crudely-dressed figure could be seen moving about in the open area amongst symbols drawn in the dirt. The symbols seemed to mark some sort of course, and a wolf appeared to be completing training drills as the man gave directions to maneuver through it.
Everything seemed to be running smoothly until the wolf evidently did not finish the routine correctly and was reprimanded and refused its reward. It skittered away from punishment with its tail between its legs, but its head lowered into a predatory lurk and its eyes glinted in a dangerously provoked fashion that its master either dismissed or missed altogether. When he turned his back to reset something in the course, the wolf saw an opportunity and let instinct take over. Perhaps it was the unfair temptation of fresh meat that its master withheld in his hand, or perhaps it had merely been provoked past its raw taming. In any case, it squared its path, advanced without pause, and launched itself at its foolhardy caregiver.
Oblivious, the man went down under the unanticipated assault, naïve to the folly of his own operation. One moment he had control, but had taken it for granted, and the next he suffered the consequences of underestimation.
As the vision played out in favor of the wolf, Godren fought with empathy for the man, remembering what it felt like to be in that frightful position. He deserved no less for his lack of respect toward the unpredictable creatures he had gambled with, but it was impossible to be indifferent to such a fate.
“So the wolf turns on its master,” Mastodon observed as the smoke thinned and the vision dissipated. “It seems to me that was a foolish enough mistake to make on Wolf’s part. What kind of an idiot takes for granted a wild animal’s willingness to civilize itself for reward? Instinct is first and foremost its eternal master, and without respect for that you have nothing over an animal. It seems Wolf did not have the modesty to acknowledge that he was manipulating, not controlling, his pets.”
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