The Ikessar Falcon

by Villoso, K. S.

  The Dageians, for example, considered the agan to be nothing more than an endless, natural resource. They create channels to tap into Sheyor’r, draining what they can from whatever little pocket they can find. Sheyor’r, from what Dai could explain, was not a seamless land like ours; rather, Sheyor’r itself was layered. It was as if our world was a boulder and Sheyor’r was about a hundred blankets of various weights and fabrics stitched together and wrapped around it. Some fabrics were thin, others were thick; some were riddled with holes, others impenetrable. Attempts to map Sheyor’r from our world had been met with abject failure. Even the flow of the agan was difficult to predict. What the Dageians called a “natural connection” was one that flowed by its own, requiring no mage or spell to draw it out.

  The destruction of Rysaran’s dragon created one of these natural connections. But instead of a small pocket of easily usable agan, the flow in the area was erratic and unstable. If fabrics were blankets, then the one here was woolen and full of ticks. Lahei told me that soon after the disaster, Dageis sent a contingent of mages to deal with it. Dageis was very concerned about the state of the agan fabric in those days, especially after reports came that the Dageian Empire’s overdependence on mages was creating holes that encouraged instability. The entire group was wiped out. When the reports stopped, a second group came looking for them and found creatures in place of the mages. They were still clad in the mages’ robes, and some even attempted to initiate conversation with the second group, pretending to be the missing mages themselves.

  The new mages, of course, knew exactly what they were dealing with—the idea that a soul from Sheyor’r could slip into someone’s body was well-known. But it was always accepted that only those with natural connections to the agan themselves were vulnerable. When they discovered that the soldiers and servants that accompanied that first group of mages were also possessed, they panicked. They realized that the fabric around the disaster was so unstable that it was allowing malicious souls to walk freely into our world and invade people’s bodies. They tried to create spells around the holes, but this proved ineffective—the spells were not strong enough to repair the fabric itself.

  So they created spell bubbles in an attempt to patch the holes from the inside. It worked for a time, and the instability became manageable. But years later, it was discovered that the mages’ spells created blockages, and that regions were created in Sheyor’r accessible only through that part of the realm and no other. The malicious things still stalked in these areas—what Lahei called corrupted souls—and when they find a leak, they make their way back into our realm. These “leaks” were usually due to connections to people themselves, with the creatures using the agan like a rope to pull themselves into living bodies.

  That this could now happen to people who were blind to the agan was one of Dai’s pressing concerns. Elsewhere, all you had to do was find children with natural connections to the agan and then attempt to teach them to control their abilities and block such attacks. But how do you teach a blind man to ward against something they cannot see?

  “Have you asked Dageis for help?” I found myself asking. We were around a campfire that same evening—one of the five that Dai’s men had erected as soon as we got off the road. It was the most well-lit campsite I had ever seen in my life.

  Dai stared at me for half a second before shaking his head. “They’ve fixed it, as far as they’re concerned. Do you think Dageis cares what a handful of small towns and villages experience? An official inquiry might’ve worked better, but you can understand why we’re not in a position to send out a request.” He drew his brows together.

  I smiled at him. “I understand what you’re implying, Master Dai, but do remember that this is an incident that happened years before I was born. Furthermore, it was not within Jin-Sayeng borders. I have no jurisdiction—”

  “It affects your people,” Dai said.

  “It’s not that simple. Do you know what the warlords would’ve done if I had made an effort to reach Dageis at all, let alone on anything agan-related? No…” I paused to look at his face through the flickering flames. “I think you do know. That’s why you never sent word, why you wanted me out here. I needed to see for myself, didn’t I?”

  “We have made requests to see you, Beloved Queen. Many times. We couldn’t, of course, say exactly why.”

  “You and others, on so many things. My council goes through them—I never read them directly.” Saying this made me feel self-conscious. To be queen under these circumstances was not something I’ve ever had to deal with. To not have my council on my side, to have so few loyal followers that I was at the mercy of strangers…

  Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of one of his men. “We’ve scouted the perimeter, Master Dai,” he said. “Nothing’s amiss.”

  I glanced at the burning torch in his hand. His sharp breathing and the colour of the skin on his face betrayed his fears. I also caught sight of an amulet around his neck. I didn’t recognize it, but it looked like a piece of wood carved to look like part of a tree. I remembered the god of the Kags in this area, Yohak, who was said to roam through the deepest parts of the Kag wilderness, where he battled beasts and spirits alike. While some people said that he took the form of an old, bearded man, others said he looked like a walking tree. Bits and pieces of the legends I had read about over the years seemed to come together in my mind.

  “They’re actually out there in the woods, aren’t they?” I asked.

  Dai glanced at Lahei before nodding. “Is that too much to believe, Beloved Queen?”

  “I’m bearing gifts from the last one I encountered.” I gave a grim nod towards my wounds. “More…wouldn’t be a stretch.”

  “Most of them seem to prefer living among us,” Lahei said.

  “You mean—as people?”

  Dai gave a quick snort. “And why not? If you have lived for so long inside a box, would you not want a whiff of fresh air? A taste of clean water? Being alive is…a rare and precious thing.” He made a motion towards the fire. “Many of these things came back unaware of why they do it. They only know what they want, and they want it with an all-consuming madness. If you have never known entrapment in your life, I can’t imagine you could understand.”

  “I do know,” I said in a low voice.

  Dai looked at me curiously. “Then perhaps you can see what drives these creatures. They try to get along with their host for as long as they can, experiencing everything their host experiences—the joy of food, warmth, comfort, even the pleasures of lust. On the surface, it doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world, to share these things with another bereft of them.”

  I listened to the soft patter of his voice before nodding. “What I saw, however…”

  “That is where the corrupt nature of these things come into play,” Dai continued. “For some reason, these souls want more. They are not content with living out someone’s life. And so their hunger exceeds the limitations of the body and they attempt to sate the lust through flesh. They take over the host, distorting them into these creatures whenever they could get away with it. They especially love to eat children—something about the purer nature of their experiences.”

  “When discovered, some of them just take over the host, like the one you just saw,” Lahei added. “As you can imagine, this leaves little choice but to kill the creature, including the host. In a last ditch attempt to save themselves and the body that had been so pliable to their demands, they flee into the woods.”

  I itched to stare into the darkness of the forest beyond us, but I stopped myself. “If this has been going on for the better part of thirty years, then these woods must be crawling with them.”

  They both nodded. “It’s nothing these parts don’t know how to deal with, you understand,” Dai said. “Deeper into the Kag, the wilderness has been known to be the home of similar creatures. But those things keep to the woods. The problem with ours is that they’re right here, attacking wh
en we least expect it. It is, from our understanding, only plaguing these regions so far, but imagine what will happen if it begins to spread throughout Jin-Sayeng.”

  “Will they attack during the night? How do you deal with them?”

  Dai got up and beckoned to me. I followed him to the edge of the camp, right where the light crossed into the shadows. They had fenced the camp in with thin rope, about knee-high, threaded through bells. “That’s it?” I asked. “You’re protecting us with tripping hazards?”

  “The simple things work best,” Dai said. “It drops to the ground, and then hopefully whoever’s on watch calls an alarm and it flees back into the woods or is killed.”

  Agos, beside me, looked like he wanted to laugh. “It won’t just walk over it?”

  “Sure, if it puts its mind to it. But I dare you to try in the dark without knowing exactly where the rope is. We also have several guards keeping watch.”

  I rubbed my wrist. “The thing back in the stables was very strong.”

  “Indeed. But they can be killed—you’ve seen it. You have to let their strength become their disadvantage. They lack finesse, and they’re afraid of light.” Dai swept his torch towards me before bringing his sword down with his other hand, stopping a hand’s-length from my neck.

  Agos’ own blade was out. “You—” he snarled.

  “I was only showing the queen one of the many stances you take when you’re facing these creatures,” Dai said, stepping back. “I’m the last thing you should worry about here.” He nodded towards me. “You didn’t flinch.”

  “I…I wasn’t paying attention,” I admitted.

  “You were. It didn’t bother you because the movement was too slow.” He crossed his arms. “I was told you were a pampered brat.”

  The words amused me more than they threatened me. “Are you saying your extensive spy network was wrong?”

  “Information is different from firsthand knowledge. You’re taking this all in remarkably well, better than I imagined. I know you’re Oren-yaro. They train you well there. Wolves? Dogs, more like it.” He glanced at Agos, who bristled.

  “Watch your tongue.”

  “Why take offense? The queen doesn’t. And well will that serve you, if you remember to think beyond what your clan expects you to.”

  “You must’ve brought all of these up to my father before,” I commented. “He lost my brothers to Rysaran’s dragon. Surely he would’ve believed you.”

  “Like I said,” Dai murmured. And he left it at that.

  ~~~

  I didn’t get much sleep that night. I did a good enough job of pretending that all of this newfound knowledge didn’t make my skin crawl, but it made it difficult to close my eyes and not imagine a horde of creatures sneaking into camp and slaying everyone in sight. The image alone did strange things to my belly. So I stayed up next to the fire, feeding it periodically to stop it from dying.

  Khine joined me sometime before dawn. Without a word, he took my left arm and carefully flexed it. His eyes never left me—I think he was watching my face for a reaction. I flinched when he lifted my arm. He slowly placed it back down. “Just a pulled muscle,” he murmured. “Didn’t think you’d broken anything, but I didn’t want to take chances. Do you hurt anywhere else? You were limping earlier.”

  “Just sore,” I told him. “A couple of cuts, but nothing that won’t heal.”

  “I don’t really have anything for those,” Khine said. He looked apologetic.

  “If we can find some guava leaves, I can chew them up and spit on them. Old Jinsein remedy.”

  He shook his head grimly. I burst out laughing. “You have to start talking again,” I said. “You shut yourself in your cabin for days. I know it was a big ship, but I shouldn’t have asked Lahei to give you your own room—I didn’t realize you’d gone and taken an Ikessar vow of silence.”

  “I needed time alone. I’ve been arguing with Cho.”

  “That out of the ordinary?”

  “No,” he admitted, and a shadow of a smile crossed his face—the first I had seen in weeks. He took a deep breath. “How does it feel like, being so close to home?”

  “Confusing,” I said. “I don’t quite believe it, to be honest. As if I’ll wake up any moment and I’ll find myself back in Yuebek’s dungeon. You do what you can to keep yourself sane, and back there, I must’ve made this journey a hundred times over in my mind. Even my dreams made it for me.” I paused for a moment, taking in the faint outline of the mountains in the distance. “We’re still very far, you know. Weeks away. To get to Oren-yaro, you have to follow the southern coastal cities until you hit the River Agos—”

  Khine jerked his head back. “He was named after a river?”

  “Let’s not hold it against his mother. You take the road north, and you follow it all the way to where the terraced hills meet the river. And that’s home.” I breathed in the cool, night air. “It’s so far away, but the sky’s right, at least. The stars don’t look so strange anymore.”

  “I didn’t know that’s how it seemed to you. You took everything in stride back in the empire.”

  I had to laugh at that. “Was that what it looked like? It just seemed like everything went downhill since the first day. If I had known…” I trailed off and turned my eyes back to the fire, where I nudged the unburnt side of a log with my foot. The flames crackled around it.

  Khine made a soft sound in the back of his throat. “You do understand who you are, don’t you? What you mean to people?”

  I glanced back to meet his eyes. “I suppose. My father never let me forget my responsibilities, not for a moment.”

  “There’s that,” he said with a small nod. “But there is also what people think you are and how the world bends itself around it. You turn your head and people follow your gaze. Who is she looking at? Why is she looking at them? And if you explain it, they will tear the words apart looking for a hidden meaning, and if you don’t, they will dig into the silence for something that may not be there.”

  “It’s silly.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t. But that is the tune the whole world dances to. Some are born with the power to turn the tide even before they realize what they are doing. Others…aren’t. Some of us have to fight to make a difference from the moment we are born. We try to crest along calm waters because we are helpless against the tide, and even then, a single wave might be enough to sweep us away.”

  I took his words in with a soft sigh. “Khine...if I could’ve stopped your mother’s death, I would’ve.” I started to touch his face.

  He wrapped his hand around my wrist to pull my fingers away. “I know that, Tali. It was the memory of my own helplessness that grates at me.”

  “I don’t see what you could’ve done differently.”

  “Only because you saw the aftermath, the results of my own actions—or lack thereof. None of these would’ve transpired if I had been able to bring my mother to Anzhao as I originally planned.”

  “If she had not done what she did, you would be dead by Yuebek’s hand. And I’d be his prisoner again, or worse.”

  He pressed his lips together. “It’s hard to consider it from that angle. Do not all lives have the same weight? It is one of the first things Tashi Reng Hzi taught me.”

  “Rai would be dead if not for you. You say you have no influence, but I see the complete opposite. If things had gone the way you felt they should’ve, you would be a doctor somewhere in Anzhao and my husband and I might both be dead. We can’t say how things would’ve played out, Khine.” I dropped my voice. “Things are worse than I feared.”

  “Dai spoke to you alone, back in the city. What did he say?”

  “He wants to extract Thanh from Oka Shto. But that’s not the important thing.” I made a sour face. “Dai wants his younger daughter betrothed to Prince Thanh.”

  Khine gave an amused snort. “Ambitious.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “And utterly insane. What makes him think t
he rest of Jin-Sayeng will agree to it?”

  I gave a small laugh. “I told him as much. He thinks he has it under control, that I still have the power to make such an announcement despite everything. I cannot even trust the Oren-yaro. How many of the army are my men, and not my father’s?” I swallowed. “He wants me to make this announcement and declare my husband as a traitor, in turn. That anyone who supports him is a traitor and I should likewise declare Rayyel’s accusations void in the face of his own infidelities.”

  Khine’s face grew pale. “He’s courting war. How does he plan to protect Thanh from the onslaught in the meantime?”

  “Right now, Thanh stands as the only proof over my...my actions. His premature death will only cause more chaos, so I don’t think they will kill him—not yet. Dai believes he can keep him safe.”

  “How do you do this?” he breathed. “Put up a brave face while you speak of your own child’s fate?”

  “A brave face is all it is,” I murmured. “Inside, I feel like…like I’m falling and nothing will catch me. Like I’m already broken, but I can’t even say a word about how much it hurts. I want it to stop, but it won’t. It hasn’t for months.”

  “Most would’ve given up by now.”

  “I am Yeshin’s only daughter,” I said. “I have never been allowed to be like most.” I turned away from his gaze. “Dai is my only hope right now of ever seeing my son alive, but what he wants…it is almost too much. Of course it will result in war. My warlords will question why I would choose the support of peasants instead of calling my own army. Or indeed—why haven’t I called them yet? I could’ve tried to send word the moment I arrived. How am I supposed to explain to them that my father was likely a traitor, too? It doesn’t matter who I side with, Khine—it will all end in bloodshed.”