He opens his eyes.
Red sparks escaping skyward over his head to mingle with the cold white pinprick scatter of stars. He’s on hard-packed earth beside a roaring fire.
A boot comes down, right next to his head. Someone yelps in shock, he hears liquid spilled into the fire with a billowing hiss. Gets a confused impression of a figure towering over him, pinwheeling its arms to stay upright. His grip on the Ravensfriend tightens. The figure sits down with a hard bump, narrowly misses landing on Gil’s legs.
Fuck, man! Where’d he come from?
Uproarious laughter, a burst of it, but dying off fast into queries of concern. The man who went over on his arse waves it away. Bounces to his feet and winks at Gil in the firelight. His Naomic has an outlandish lilt and phrasing to it, but Ringil’s been here enough times now for it to seem comfortingly familiar.
Nice entrance, mate. You were nearly wearing my soup for a waistcoat there.
Ringil mumbles an apology, props himself up and looks around. Sees faces beyond the leaping flames, easy grins. Behind that, the cold white rise of ruins into the dark; slumped walls and truncated white pillars, holding the night air up.
A handsome, middle-aged woman comes forward, bends, and offers her hand to help him up. Dark hair bound back, shot through with a lightning bolt streak of white from one temple—he knows her vaguely, has seen her around camp a few times on previous visits. He lets go his sword and makes the grasp. Her hand is warm and calloused. She smiles at him.
Hjel’s apprentice, she says. Welcome back. You’re getting pretty good at this, you come in closer every visit. Try not to land in the fire next time.
More laughter. She pulls, strong and firm, lands him on his feet. He nods acknowledement, gathers up the Ravensfriend, scabbard, and harness from where it’s lying in the dust. Feels a little self-conscious clutching it—outside of the usual knives and bows for hunting, the odd ax for chopping wood, these people aren’t much for weapons.
Thanks, uh—
Daelfi. She sketches a casual reverence, hand to breast and brow, head briefly inclined. The motions have a dancer’s easy grace. Acting skipper, while Hjel’s away.
Daelfi, yeah. I’m Ringil.
Oh, I know. She grins crookedly, gestures around. You might not think it from all these cackling idiots, but you’re a bit of a favored guest these days. The way Hjel mopes about between visits, we’re all pretty glad when you finally show up and put a smile back on his face.
Yeah, someone calls out. Poke the fire, get it going. So to speak.
The laughter again. He’s forgotten how much he misses that sound, the rounded, open ring of ribald amusement with no sour edge, no hidden blade of hate or distancing mockery in it. He feels it tug a soft unwilling smirk onto his lips.
He’s not around, then? Hjel?
Headed out into the deep range this morning. To look for you, actually. For the first time, a frown chases the good humor off Daelfi’s face. We had a visit from your wraith guard yesterday, back at the beach camp. Flickering about on the edge of the fire like candles in a gale. Poor, cursed creatures. They were frantic about something. Hjel figures it has to be you, you’re in some kind of trouble, so he has us up stakes and move into the Margins. Told us to camp out here at the ruins and wait for him. So here we are, waiting. And—a sharp clap of those warm, calloused hands—pashatazam! You show up here instead. Magic, eh—what are you going to do?
Her grin is back, irrepressible. He does his best to match it—anything else would feel rude.
Can you get me to him, Daelfi?
Oh, you can do that yourself. You were well on your way, showing up here. But events don’t echo the same way in the Margins as they do in the real world. Him heading out probably doesn’t feel like it’s happened yet. Feels like he’s still here, I expect. She pauses. Do you want some soup before you go?
SHE KEEPS HIM COMPANY WHILE HE EATS.
Perhaps sensing his awkwardness in Hjel’s absence, she leads him away from the main gathering. Seats him on a tumbled column close to where the soup cauldron hangs over a smaller, neatly banked cooking fire. She serves him a generous, steaming bowl and a torn chunk of bread. Takes a smaller chunk of the bread for herself and perches beside him on the column, nibbling daintily. It knocks years off her apparent age, makes her seem almost girlish. She watches him devour the soup—he’s ravenous, it only dawns on him as he takes the first well-seasoned mouthful; back in the real world, he’s not exactly been keeping up with regular meals. She refills his bowl when he’s done, keeps him supplied with bread.
I have a question, if you don’t mind, she says. The girlishness is gone, evaporated like the steam from his bowl. Is there much talk of heroes and destinies in the lands where you’re from?
He wipes the bottom of his second bowl with the bread. Nothing but. Everybody loves that shit. Everybody wants to believe in heroes.
And you?
He shoots her a sideways glance as he chews. Swallows.
Will it offend you if I say no?
I am not easily offended, it’s not our way. What others believe is not my concern, unless they attempt to force it on me.
You wouldn’t like it much where I’m from.
This much, I had already divined. Daelfi opens one beckoning hand at him. But you have not answered my question.
He finishes the last of his bread, sets his empty bowl down at his feet. Sighs. I have seen too many soothsayer’s heads on spikes to believe they see much further into the future than the rest of us. The marsh dweller women at Strov market scrape a living from prophecy—I suspect that’s about all it’s good for. Why do you ask?
Daelfi studies her hands, turning them as if they might do something unexpected at any moment. He supposes that to be Hjel’s second in camp, she must have some talent with the ikinri ‘ska herself.
They say that Hjel nearly died at birth, she says quietly. That he was stillborn in fact. I am more or less of an age with him, so I’m too young to remember if there’s truth in this. But they say a living god came into camp and gave him back his life for a great purpose.
A god, or a good doctor?
She smiles gently. They say it was a god. They say it was Akoyavash, with his storm-coat and slouch hat and a salt wind at his back.
Ringil tries to ignore the quickening twinge along his nerves. Hjel has never shared this with him. A great purpose, eh?
Yes, it’s a commonplace, I know. A line from every second campfire tale. But why should that be, I wonder?
He manufactures a casual shrug. We look back and see a path we have taken through life. It’s tempting to imagine that the path was always there, laid out with purpose and waiting only for us to walk it. And I suppose it’s comforting to think that those who lead us are walking such an allocated path, laid out by the gods for the greater good.
Daelfi shakes her head. We are not much for such fancies here. And most of us take the Ahn-foi to be self-interested powers. Occasional allies at best, rarely safe to trust. But a story like that, one that dogs you from the cradle onward. Well, it can be hard to shake. You live in its shadow, I think. There are other reasons why Hjel helps you, I know. But I do wonder.
Don’t think I’m pretty enough to swing it alone, eh?
A broad grin. No, if I were Hjel, I’d fuck your brains out as soon as look at you. In fact, if you were otherwise inclined, I might try it myself. The grin fades out. But I’m not sure I would be teaching you the ikinri ‘ska. We’re not meant to pass it on lightly.
You think he’s making a mistake?
Honestly, I don’t know. I hope not. She stares away, back toward the bonfire and the main gathering. But something is troubling him these days. I’ve known him all my life, I see it when the others mostly don’t.
And you think it’s me?
I think it began not long after you came. Not at first—at first, he was happy, happier than I’d seen him in years, certainly happier than he’d been since Loqui left. They’re righ
t about that much, you really lit him up. But later … Daelfi shakes herself out of her brooding. I’m sorry, I should not have started this. It’s not my business, it’s not our way. I have no right to burden you with any of this uninvited.
Bit late now.
Yes. She looks steadily at him. Her face is a restless mask of shadow and ruddy light from the dance of the cook fire’s flames. Are you angry with me?
You’re worried about him, Gil says with an attempt at good grace. It’s understandable.
I am worried about him, she agrees. But I would not be honest if I let you believe it is only that. You worry me, Ringil. We are guardians of the ikinri ‘ska, it’s said, and I worry we have not understood what opening it to you might mean.
Perhaps you worry too much. He can feel himself getting impatient with this woman, and he doesn’t want to be. She’s just fed him, she clearly cares about Hjel, her worries are selfless and well-intentioned. He tries to curb his tone. Perhaps you’re mistaken about your guardianship. Perhaps your ancestors stumbled on the ikinri ‘ska by mistake and just happened to get a good grip on it. Who’s to say it’s really yours to worry about in the first place? Who laid that duty down? Or worse—perhaps your mastery was handed down by evil forces, by creatures whose interests are actually inimical to the good of humankind. Ever wonder about that?
She grimaces. Frequently. And many similar things besides.
Then, as I said before—perhaps you worry too much.
She bows her head for a while, frowns into her flexed and interlaced hands. Please understand—like you, I don’t believe in paths already drawn. But I do see … patterns, all around us. Day and night, the turn of the sky and the seasons, the migrations of certain birds, the age stations of a life. Enough for a rudimentary sort of prophecy, in fact. And back before the Southern Scourge fell on us and razed our kingdoms, wise men and women among our ancestors went further than this. They detected certain useful mathematical truths about the universe and handed them down to us. These, too, are a form of pattern, I think. So I wonder if there might not be other patterns written into the world, patterns that remain invisible to us, but that a god might perceive and use for tools.
He laughs, not very kindly. I have met beings that call themselves gods, my lady. They don’t seem to have a much better grip on things than we do.
No, but they might see things coming that we do not. And—he sees that she’s running just ahead of the unraveling thread of her own thoughts, eyes alight with the speculation—what if their relationship with time is not as rigid as ours? In the Margins, I have seen time slow down, speed up, dance around itself like a drunk courtesan. Some say it’s broken. Damaged somehow, and not yet healed. Others say that it’s been rebuilt, but by poor craftsmen who have not properly understood its nature. What if the gods avail themselves of that for their own purposes? In a limited way, but enough to bluff us, to make it seem as if they attend to the working out of a great destiny, when in fact they merely conjure and improvise at a level we cannot encompass?
You think this is what Hjel believes?
Daelfi draws a breath as if to speak, then visibly reins herself in.
I have intruded enough as it is, she says quietly. I won’t attempt to guess Hjel’s thoughts for you. You must ask him yourself when you reach him. But this much I do know—time was out of joint when you first came to us.
Out of joint?
Yes, dislocated as if by some brutal force, some violent intrusion into things. You came to us a stranger, but one who already knew us. And then, many months later, you came again and did not know us when we already knew you. In a lifetime of living in and out of the Margins, none of us have ever seen a twisting as savage before, nor is there any record or tale of it among our people. None of us want to guess what it might portend. She gives him a sad, regretful smile. Or what you will do when the time of that portent arrives.
RELAX AND LET THE CURRENTS BRING YOU. AGAIN.
He opens his eyes.
Red sparks escaping skyward over his head to mingle with the cold white pinprick scatter of stars. He’s on a bedroll beside a softly crackling fire.
He props himself up and stares through the waver of flames to where Hjel the Dispossessed sits with mandolin in lap and broad-brimmed hat slanted forward over his eyes.
That was quick.
Gil grunts and heaves himself fully into a sitting position. He’s still full of soup. Not from my end it wasn’t.
He looks for the three figures that brought him last time, the wraith guard Daelfi talked about, but he and Hjel are alone.
Hjel sees the glance.
They faded as you did. Just a few moments gone. The dispossessed prince sets his mandolin aside and unfolds a little, reaches for a stick to poke the fire. They know well enough I don’t readily welcome their kind at my hearth.
Bit harsh.
Maybe so. Hjel jabbed at the fire, a little more vigorously than it appeared to need. But my path through the ikinri ‘ska is not yours, and I have no desire to make it so. I don’t do that black mage shit. I don’t like dealing with the enslaved dead.
You think I do? The Dark Court dumped them on me, what am I supposed to do?
The dispossessed prince shrugs. I really wouldn’t know. Use them, I suppose. Exploit them. Isn’t that what a black mage should do?
How the fuck should I know? Daelfi has warned him to expect a troubled dispossessed prince, but this is way beyond anything he expected. Introduce me to a black mage, I’ll ask him. How many do you know?
Just the one, and I’m looking at him now.
Oh, fuck off.
They sit in silence for a while. The fire hisses and snaps between them.
So what do you want? Hjel asks him eventually.
There’s an obvious answer to that, but by now Ringil is in no mood to give it to him. This isn’t working out anything like he’d planned, and it’s Hjel’s fucking fault. He looks with unfriendly eyes across the fire, then away. He lowers himself back to the bedroll and stares up at the stars.
What do you think I want? The words are ashy on his tongue. You think I’m here for the company? I need to go back to the cliffs.
We were there not long ago. You told me you’d drunk your fill, you were sick of it.
That was then. This is now.
You are learning as fast as anyone I ever saw. Faster. I am already letting you push to the limits.
It’s not enough.
It’s more than you can readily handle at the moment. It would take the lifetime of a god to absorb the totality of the ikinri ‘ska. No human can do more than scratch the surface, borrow in depth here and there maybe. Even if I—
Well, then you’re not teaching me the right fucking pieces, are you?
Ringil flings himself up into a sitting position again, glaring. The splintered snap of his rage, there in the firelight and gone, soaking away into the quiet gloom around them.
Hjel bows his head.
Perhaps I am not. Have I been a poor teacher, then? Perhaps you should write the lessons from now on.
Oh, don’t fucking sulk at me! Gil means to yell across the fire, but somehow it comes out tighter, almost pleading. Hoiran’s throbbing prick, Hjel—I’ve got my balls to the wall here! Don’t you get that? Something’s coming, and I’m not ready for it. I am not ready!
And you think any of us ever are? Now there’s a snap in Hjel’s voice as well. What, have you swallowed some idiot tale of warrior youths and wizards in training for their great task, their moment of destiny?
I don’t know, have you?
Hjel blinks. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
It means I had a word with Daelfi on my way here. And the way she paints it, you think there’s some great purpose afoot and we’re both snuggled up together in it.
Daelfi had no business—
Oh, shut up. Gil gestures in disgust. Didn’t fucking tell me you had a visit from Dakovash when you were born, did you? You don’t like my w
raith guard, my enslaved dead—take it up with your fucking patron, he’s the one who gifted them to me.
Akoyavash is not my patron—
No? Seems you’d be dead without him, though.
That is a tale.
Yeah, a tale you chose not to tell me. I wonder why.
Well, maybe because it was none of your fucking business, my lord black mage.
Oh, give it a rest. You know what? You think you made the wrong choice with me, fine. Go home. I’ll walk to the glyph cliffs myself, get what I need without you.
I’d like to see you try.
Gil lowers his voice to a gritted snarl. Then stick around. Because I am not going to waste any more time with your lizardshit petty sorceries. I need to be ready for the cabal and their dwenda pals, and I am not waiting around while you decide if I’ve maybe drunk too much of the ikinri ‘ska to merit further instruction, or if maybe I’m not a safe pair of hands. I need to be ready, and I will be fucking ready.
Is that right? The dispossessed prince is breathing hard. Ready? Hmm? You think any of us get that luxury?
I think you’d better—
Hjel tramples him down, voice trembling with rage. You think I was ready when my father died and leadership of the band fell on me? You think I was ready to go and face the Creature at the Crossroads then? I went because someone had to. I took what half-made rags of proper dress for the occasion I so far owned, and I put them on, because that’s what you do. Why do you think you’re any different? What’s so fucking special about you?
The Dark Defiles Page 27