by L. W. Jacobs
“Tai,” she whispered, hand returning to his forehead, brushing away a stray length of hair. “My Tai, are you alright?”
There was no response.
Avery knelt next to her. “I’ll see what I can do for him.”
“You… can do something?”
“Belief,” he said, voice distant. “Belief and uai is all I need. And there are a lot of revenants offering uai on this hillside. Healing is easier because brawlers who’ve overcome their second resonance have the ability to heal themselves, so it’s easy to believe in me having that ability, and only a little stretch to be able to give it to him.”
Gods. There seemed little limit to what shamans could do—or was Avery just a very powerful one? Or knowledgeable one? How had he gotten so in his brief years? As uai roared and Tai sucked in a deep breath, arching his back, she couldn’t help feeling she’d wasted her years studying ethnography. Would that she had joined the ninespears instead.
Then all feelings were eclipsed in relief as Tai opened his eyes, and his hand reached out to grip hers. “Guess I didn’t quite get them all, did I?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I did.”
Marea cleared her throat. “And me.”
“Thought I was the one actually killed ‘em,” Feynrick said, stumping his axe head-first into the ground.
“It all would have been a lot harder if they’d been at full strength,” Avery said. “You have me to thank for that one.”
Tai looked between them, a smile playing on his lips, until his gaze landed on Eyadin.
“I—honestly have no idea what’s going on,” the messenger said. “You are all—witch doctors?”
“That is not a name we prefer,” Avery said, “and no. I am the only full shaman here.”
“But you already knew that,” Tai said, pushing up to a sitting position with a grunt. “You knew the woman was a shaman before she attacked. Which means you have some explaining to do.”
“What?” Ella said, turning to the slender messenger with the rest of the group.
“He said she was a witch doctor,” Marea said. “While she was still leading us out here.”
Ella turned on him, a slow burn starting in her stomach. “Oh, that does need some explaining. Why wouldn’t you warn us straight away?”
A bead of sweat appeared on Eyadin’s forehead. “I—there have been many,” he said. “On the road. And I did say something. I pulled Tai back to warn him. She just heard and attacked.”
“But you can spot shamans?” Ella asked. “How is that even possible?” She glanced at Avery, but the youth’s eyes were trained on Eyadin just as hard as everyone else’s.
Eyadin hitched at his pack. “I—haven’t been entirely honest with you. I am not working for my House as I originally said. Though I am a messenger.”
“Who are you working for?” Ella asked, glad they were finally getting honest.
Eyadin face paled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Someone high up. They never—they don’t appear to me in person, or if they do it’s with a mask. I’m not even supposed to tell you that! It’s just the one message. That’s all I’m supposed to deliver, and then it’s done. I never meant to get involved in all this—” He gestured his hands, apparently not able to come up with a word for what had just happened.
“Well, you are involved in it,” Tai said, voice even, “and whether you get to stay involved in it will depend a lot on how you answer our questions. How can you see shamans?”
Was Tai threatening the man? What about all his talk of not making revenants? Or maybe it was a bluff.
Eyadin paled further, if that was possible. “She—it told me I would need something. On the road. Told me to hold out my hand, and… and when it was done I could just see this halo around some people. Around her. Like their hair is glowing.”
“Why did she give that to you?” Tai asked, picking up on the pronoun gender.
“She said they would be a special danger to me. That I should report every one that I saw to the commander at Aran, once I got there. Make sure they were among those—”
“Among those killed,” Tai said, when Eyadin broke off. “We know about your message.”
His face went white as a sheet. “How—”
“Mindsight,” Avery said. “You people from Worldsmouth are always forgetting about mindsight. Which makes me wonder how competent your master is, if they failed to even think of that.”
Ella frowned. “But wouldn’t it have to be—” she hesitated, but Eyadin had already heard much, and apparently understood little, “an archrevenant? Who else would have the power to command armies, and an interest in protecting the stone?”
“There are many cells in Worldsmouth,” Avery said. “More likely one of them. A shaman high up in the system, calling in a favor.”
Marea gave him a strange look at that. What did the girl know?
“But Eyadin’s vision,” Tai said. “How is that even possible?”
“Belief and uai,” Avery repeated, though Tai hadn’t heard most of their conversation. “A powerful enough shaman could do this. Could imbue Eyadin with that kind of sight. Almost like a charm, or an extra power they feed from their own uai. I have heard of such things being done.”
“And now you’re going to report Avery,” Marea said, eyes hard. “Report all of us, maybe, when you get to Aran.”
“No!” Eyadin cried. “I would never—no. You saved my life. Multiple times! I swear I never wanted any of this. But whatever they say, I couldn’t betray friends. I will say nothing of you to the commander. Though you must—if you know of my message, why are you still intent on going to Aran?”
“Our reasons are our own,” Tai said, “as are yours, friend. If you say you will not betray us, then we have to believe it.” He turned a sharp gaze on Avery. “The revenants those shamans had thralled. You’re taking them?”
The youth nodded, eyes still distant. “I am.”
“We will need our share of them,” Tai said. “You keep a fourth of a half. That’s our deal.”
“I—can’t give them to you. Not until you learn to thrall on your own.”
“Then teach us,” Ella said, hungry for that uai and buoyed up by what she’d done. She’d attacked with a revenant back there! Even if it hadn’t really worked. “How hard can it be?”
“It is hard,” Avery said. “One of the last tests before becoming a full shaman. If we waited until you could thrall them, we might delay weeks. Months.”
Tai cracked his neck, obviously weighing the delay against letting Avery take all that power. “You can keep it for now,” he said after a moment. “When we get the spear those revenants will all flow back to the holder anyway.”
Ella nodded. It was the right decision—the only one, given the situation they were in—but still it didn’t sit well. Those shamans had been wildly powerful, and Avery had just absorbed all their uai?
“Now,” Tai said, shouldering his pack. “I don’t doubt these shamans have some sort of place they were hiding, and we could all use some food and a place to rest. I know I could, at least. We enter Aran in the morning.”
51
Take the holiest minister you can find, and send a cat ‘cross his path in the dark hours—he’ll still kick ‘em and curse ‘em. Old ways die hard.
—Eschatolist pilgrim in Fenschurch, Yiel 113
They found the shamans’s hideout a few hills deeper into the countryside, an overgrown farmhouse with smoke curling from the stone-and-mortar chimney.
Ella sucked in a breath when she pushed in after Tai. The inside was like a thieves den from some broadsheet epic: glass lamps lit the interior, highlighting colored silks on the walls and plush rugs laid over a worn plank floor. Coins and books lay in careless stacks around a large velvet sofa and three gleaming beds.
Feynrick whistled. “This how all you witch doctors live?”
“It’s shamans,” Avery said. “And no. I would guess most of this was purchased after they decided
to become apostates.”
“Apostates?” Tai asked.
“Shamans who hunt other shamans,” Avery said, disgust evident in his voice. “Seeking to thrall their thralls. It’s the fastest way to increase your uai. It’s also the only thing all cells agree on, and work together to enforce: all apostates must die.”
“Sleeping like kings tonight!” Feynrick called from the far side of the single-room house, sprawling on one of the plush beds.
“As long as you don’t mind sleeping with Eyadin,” Ella said. “Tai and I take up one, and I imagine Marea and Avery would like to share another on their last night before Aran.”
Marea blushed but nodded, giving her a look of gratitude.
“Nothing I’d like better,” Feynrick said, tipping Eyadin an exaggerated wink.
Eyadin looked as petrified as he had when they’d cornered him about lying, if not worse, and Ella couldn’t help laughing. The rest of them joined in, and for a moment they were not six people on an insane quest, having just survived one mortal battle and preparing to fight another. They were just six people having a laugh.
“Speaking of which,” Avery said, still chuckling. “Marea, maybe you and I should see if we can hunt up something for supper.”
Feynrick guffawed as though Avery had said something much more lecherous. “I’ll perk up these coals, then,” the Yatiman said. “’Spect ye back real soon.”
The two left, and Ella gave Tai a speculative eye. “Maybe we should do some hunting of our own.” Last night had been wonderful, but they had more catching up to do.
Tai’s eyes slipped toward Eyadin. “Maybe just for a minute,” he said.
Feynrick laughed loudest at that, and even Ella couldn’t help blushing as she and Tai left out the creaking front door.
The sun was low in the western sky as they came out, bathing the rolling Yersh hills in a gentle violet glow. They walked for a minute in silence, Ella enjoying the peace after so much danger and death. She took a deep breath. “This wouldn’t be such a bad place to live.”
“Yeah,” Tai said.
“Hey.” Ella pulled him close. “You’re worried about Eyadin, I get that, but just be with me here for a second. It’s beautiful, Tai.”
He looked around, the old farmyard grown over in amberhock and tinnelsthorn, hillside sprinkled with the delicate blue blossoms of hardenswort flowers. Tai took a deep breath, and Ella breathed with him, smelling old wood and puceleaf smoke, but moreso the green breath of flowers living and dying.
“It is beautiful,” he said, then turned his eyes to her. “And so are you.”
Any doubts she might have had over whether he really did still find her attractive, with all these new wrinkles and sags, were cut short in the passion of what followed.
She sighed when it was done, star’s blue glow overtaking the sun’s amber in the skies above. “Do you want to talk about Eyadin?”
He lay on his back next to her, shamelessly naked though the air was growing chill. “Not much to say. Tonight I convince him to not send the people of Aran to their death.”
Ella ran her fingers down his chest. It was too scarred for his age, but she still loved it. “How?”
He shrugged. “With my usual wit and charm? And some mindsight. And some cold hard logic.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“It will work. It has to.”
Ella looped her arm around him. “You’re insane, and there’s a lot at stake, but I trust you. I wouldn’t if I hadn’t seen you pull off a lot of other insane things, but I have. So, whatever you need, I’ll help you with it.”
And if it fails, she added silently, I’ll help you with that too.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
They put their clothes on then, Ella glad to cover her new spots and loose skin, and made their way back to the farmhouse. Her joints hurt from laying in the cold so long, but she ignored them. She would learn to thrall revenants, if she had to stay awake weeks to master it. She would take her share from Avery. Nauro had lived one hundred thirty years on his stream. How much would she need to buy back the years she’d lost?
She just had to get it done without using so much resonance she died first. Which was a real possibility tomorrow. Ella worried at a nail with her teeth.
They came in to find Marea and Avery already in bed, curtains drawn around their four poster and low whispers coming from within. Feynrick was sprawled on the farther bed, snoring, and Eyadin sat up watching the fire. Wondering what he should do? Or hating the fact that he had to do it?
“Mind if we sit?” Tai asked, then sat at the man’s nod. Ella settled herself on a three-legged stool, far enough to not feel an immediate part of the conversation, but near enough to chime in if need be.
And she imagined there would be need.
“I don’t blame you for not telling us everything,” Tai said, after a few moments of silence. “I’m not exactly proud of having watched your thoughts, but I had to put the safety of my people first.”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Eyadin asked, not looking away from the flames. “You may think you’re an upstanding man, that you’ve always done the best you could, but when it comes to your people, you will do anything for them. Anything.”
His last word was bitter. This was a tormented man.
Tai nodded, and when he spoke his voice was gentle. “Like bring that message to the commander of Aran.”
“Like bring that message to Aran,” Eyadin repeated.
Ella watched Tai hesitate, looking for the best way forward. How did you convince a man to abandon his family for a city of strangers?
“She threatened their lives?” Tai asked.
“Worse,” Eyadin said, one hand working at the leather strap of the satchel he wore even now. “She gave them bluefoot.”
Ella sucked in a breath. Bluefoot fever was a disease that had ravaged the Yershire three centuries ago, leading to the downfall of Aran and the unification of the plains under Shatterbrook. It was slow and ugly and painful.
“I saw the marks on my daughter’s neck,” Eyadin went on, breath ragged. “She said she will cure them after I get back. I didn’t know, but watching Avery today—I guess it is possible.”
Tai pursed his lips. “We might be able to cure that disease too.”
“You don’t want me to deliver the message,” Eyadin said, no hint of a question in his voice.
“It isn’t a matter of what I want,” Tai said. “Some of us think it would be easier if you did deliver the message, to do what we need to in the middle of the killing. But there are thousands of people in Aran. Maybe hundreds of thousands, from what we saw on the road. Whatever the stakes are, it can’t be worth letting them all die.”
Eyadin kept staring at the fire, but his chin jutted forward. “It’s not my choice to make. I’m just a messenger.”
“A messenger with the power to save thousands of lives,” Tai said, seeking eye contact with the man.
Eyadin wouldn’t give it. “At the expense of my wife and daughter. Would you do it, if it meant losing Ella?”
An uneasiness grew in her belly—she didn’t want to hear the answer to that.
Tai ignored the question. “What would your wife think if she knew you knowingly delivered this message?” he asked. “What would your daughter think?”
“It doesn’t matter what they think,” Eyadin said, eyes glistening in the firelight. “As long as they live.”
“We can help you with that too,” Tai said, voice gentle again. “Find a way for your family and Aran to live.”
The thin man shook his head. “You don’t know her. Know what she’s capable of.”
“You might be surprised. You saw what we are capable of today.”
“And if you die in whatever you’re trying to do tomorrow?” Eyadin snapped, finally looking from the fire to Tai. “You’re going to be battling witch doctors in there. More powerful than the ones today, Avery said. And you barely beat these three.”<
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Ella watched Tai’s shoulders knot, then relax. He was trying so hard. How much easier to stick a knife in the man’s throat? “If we die, then you can deliver your message. Give us a day. Two days. I can’t tell you everything, but I can promise if we come out of Aran alive, we will be stronger than all the witch doctors in Worldsmouth. We will be able to defeat whoever sent you on this mission. To cure your wife and daughter.”
“And if you don’t come out?”
Tai spread his hands. “Then deliver the message as planned.”
“I’m supposed to bring it with all haste,” Eyadin said, looking back to the fire. “She could be watching.”
“If she was powerful enough to watch,” Tai said, “she would be powerful enough to bring it herself. To stop me from having this conversation with you. I know her position in the Houses and the way she made your family sick is scary, but trust me, there is a reason she is trying to kill all of Aran. Because she’s afraid of what’s in there.”
Descending Gods, he was going to do it. Tai was actually going to convince the man not to go.
“Give us two days,” Tai said as Eyadin worked at his satchel strap. “Sunset the day after tomorrow.”
Eyadin kept working at his bag, staring at the fire.
“I know you don’t want to do this. And if we fail, your family is still safe. But this is a chance to save them and Aran.”
“One day,” he snapped. “Until sunset tomorrow. Then I go.”
A weight went out of Tai’s shoulders, and Ella smiled from her chair on the far side. “Until sunset tomorrow then,” Tai said. “Thank you. Thank you for giving us this chance. We’ll make sure your family stays safe.”
“And save Aran,” Eyadin said, closing his eyes. The man obviously cared deeply about it, and hated the choices he’d been given.
“And save Aran,” Tai said.
They slept then, or soon enough, fire burnt down to coals as Ella snuggled against her man. She hated the danger they would be in tomorrow, hated the uncertainty of having to trust Eyadin, but she loved Tai all the more for caring about it, for doing what she would have dismissed as impossible.