A War in Crimson Embers
Page 17
“This I can handle, it’s what comes after that gives me pause,” said Keun-ju. “I cannot decide if it’s better or worse than just walking into a Gate. I am thinking worse.”
“Yeah, no, that’s what I mean,” said Sullen. “Bad enough to kill an animal you ain’t gonna eat and wear, it’s what happens next I don’t like, either.”
“Binding the devils, or having them send us to Jex Toth?” asked Purna.
“Both,” said Sullen and Keun-ju in unison, squeezing each other’s hands.
“Eh, that’s the fun part,” said Purna, and in the course of their adventures together Sullen had gotten to know the tapai well enough to believe this wasn’t just bluster. She really was that crazy. “What I don’t like is Digs’s crummy attitude, and I guarantee it’s only going to get crummier. Our last fucking night together and he’s being such a child.”
“Do you think if I offered him my rat it would change his mind?” asked Keun-ju as they tromped back across town toward the alley behind the mercantile where they had provisioned that morning, the lightning bugs the only streetlamps in this lonely village.
“It’s not just the sacrifice he’s objecting to, it’s binding them at all,” said the girl. “But if he hadn’t been keeping a bound devil all the time I’d known him I’d be dead already, so I really don’t appreciate this sudden moral high ground he’s found. It’s probably ’cause he had a devil before anyone else so now it’s passé. Meanwhile, the day I ditch my tired old style he snatches it out of the rubbish and dusts it off—you know what he did when I told him most other Ugrakari don’t eat meat except, uh, on holidays? Became a vegetarian!”
“You know, Purna, I used to look down on those people as well, but ever since I tried Raniputri cuisine I’ve found all sorts of—” Keun-ju began, but Purna cut him off.
“You’ve made it abundantly clear how much you love chutney and achaar! And I don’t look down on—ugh, so not the point!” Purna pointed at the cobalt cape Ji-hyeon had given Sullen, still wagging her big black tongue at a full gallop. “Can I borrow that for a minute? The point, Keun-ju, is Digs can do whatever he wants, but … but cutting out on us because he doesn’t think binding devils is cool anymore is sauce so weak you could use it to cut water!”
“I don’t think the pasha would refuse to take part in the ritual and join us in our quest unless he felt he had to,” said Sullen, holding the rat sack in his teeth and trying to untie the knot in the cape with his off hand.
“I agree,” said Keun-ju, letting go of Sullen’s hand and reaching up to take the satchel from his mouth with a smile that said while he appreciated the gesture his other arm wasn’t going to fall off the moment Sullen stopped holding it … but as soon as Sullen got the knot loose and swung the cape over to Purna he passed back the rat and took Sullen’s hand, and firmer than before. He might be doing a better job than Sullen of hiding his nervousness, but even more than the summoning of devils the prospect of using them to travel through the First Dark obviously terrified the brave poet.
“Well, sometimes you have to make hard choices,” said Purna, tossing the cape over one shoulder. Why she needed another layer in this heat when she was already sweating under her horned wolf cloak Sullen couldn’t guess. “Does he think any of us want to do this? Does he think I wouldn’t rather be taking a raunchy road trip to Diadem with Nemi and him and the monk? Fucking rescuing Maroto. Fucking saving the world and shit.”
“Ahhhh,” said Keun-ju, raising his eyebrow and the top of his veil as he gave Sullen a knowing look. “You are disappointed that Diggelby’s path diverges from our own, at least for a time, but are you also perhaps a little sore to not have any more music lessons in your immediate future?”
“Definitely a little sore, but the good kind, like you want,” said Purna, smacking her lips a couple of times and popping the rawhide drawstrings of her cloak. “And far as music lessons go, boys, I tell you what—I think I’m a savant. As a rule I don’t practice the singing sword and tell, but if I did—”
“But you don’t, you don’t,” said Keun-ju, looking a little flustered that his good-natured attempt to embarrass his friend had almost resulted in the sharing of more details than he wanted. Fortunately for his modesty they were passing through the town square with the ominous wooden ikon and gallows tree, and Purna became distracted by the nearby notice board pasted with wanted posters.
“Why won’t Nemi come with us?” Sullen called after her as she abruptly double-timed it out of the square. “Even my ma’s willing to do it, after I told her it’s the only way to reach my uncle and she could either come with or get left behind, and she’s got crazy-strong Chainite superstitions about trafficking with devils and such. So does your witch know something we don’t about Hoartrap and his schemes?”
“I bet she knows plenty about the Touch, but I haven’t gotten it out of her yet. One of the only things, if you want to—”
“We don’t!”
“But really now, did she give any reason for not doing it?” Sullen pressed, basically every song he’d ever heard about witches and devils and the First Dark telling him he ought to find an excuse to back out of this plan, even though it seemed like the only way forward. “And you said she’s going to Diadem instead?”
“She’s not taking part because she doesn’t bind devils, ever, under any circumstances,” said Purna, pulling off the cape Sullen had lent her as if just now realizing that even in the winter twilight Black Moth was hot as balls. They rounded the corner of the dingy mercantile, it and the surprisingly rowdy tavern across the way the only half-timbered buildings on the main street with all their windows lit. “Not all witches, Sullen, not all witches.”
“Her eggs aren’t devil eggs?” asked Keun-ju.
“They … I …” For some reason the mention of the witch’s mysterious eggs made Purna space out with a faint smile on her lips, pausing at the mouth of the alley. Then she shook it off, shaking out Sullen’s cape in the process. “She’s not like Hoartrap, okay? She hates his style of sorcery so much she faked her own death to get free of him, way back when. So while I can’t say how she does her thing, not being a witch myself, I can confirm it’s different. It doesn’t involve summoning devils, and it definitely doesn’t involve eating them. And so she’s going to drive her vardo to Diadem, since that’s where the closest Gate is, and use that to travel to Othean, where General Ji-hyeon is, and where we ought to be by the time she gets there.”
“If the monsters of Jex Toth weren’t already attacking the Isles, I’d say we’d all be better off doing that,” said Sullen. “But we’re already late to the ruckus as it is.”
“I don’t know,” said Keun-ju. “I don’t care how flippantly everyone is treating the practice these days, walking into a Gate … well. This way may not be better, but it can’t be worse.”
“Tell that to your rat,” said Purna, taking a deep breath and heading into the blind alley. “All right, the sooner we’re back with our sacrifices the sooner we can get stinko at that shitty tavern.”
“You want a hand?” asked Sullen.
“Nah, this is on me,” she called back. “If I’m going through with this the least I owe the mutt is being the one to carry him.”
“She’s going to get drunk before we summon devils?” Keun-ju didn’t sound like he approved.
“You got the sand to do it straight?” asked Sullen. “I don’t think I do. Not much to recommend about Hoartrap, but his saam is strong and he’s generous with it. And everyone knows burning a little before consorting with the powers of the First Dark shows the proper amount of respect.”
“Everyone knows that, do they?” said Keun-ju, and wiggling out of Sullen’s grip again he took his rat back. “The least I can do is carry it. That cape Purna borrowed is the one Ji-hyeon gave you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Seeing Purna come back out of the shadows between the buildings with a big lump wrapped in the blue wool, he sighed. “Yeah, that was it all right.”
“What the hells are ya people doin’?!” The voice came from the upper window of the house behind the mercantile, on the far side of the alley. The room beyond was so dark there was no silhouette in the frame, just a black rectangle in the dirty grey wall. “I seen ya, creepin’ all over town, pokin’ yer nose every which way. Stealin’ what don’t belong to ya, s’if you owned the whole place and anythin’ ya found was yers for the takin’!”
“We’re not thieves!” Sullen protested, but perhaps too loudly in the quiet street, given Purna’s hissing at him to shut up.
“Words all over, yer rustlin’ cats! Our cats! And what ya go there, eh, s’at my devildamned dog?”
“This your dog, mister?” Purna called up.
“Devildamned right he is! You put ’im right back where ya—”
“Dog’s dead,” said Purna, and there was serious trouble in her tone. “From neglect, I’d say. Maybe abuse. So I’m gonna go out in the woods and bury this poor thing, and if I hear another fucking word from you on the matter I’m going to come straight back here and burn your fucking house down. With you in it.”
It was quiet for a moment, and then came the sound of the shutters being slammed.
“If I knew for sure it was his and he wasn’t just being a pain in the ass I’d torch that dump, I fucking swear it,” said Purna, steering them back toward the ruined church where the rest of their friends awaited them. The sick dog in her arms gave a faint whine, its tail limply wagging as she carried it, and with hearts a lot heavier than a rat in a sack, Sullen and Keun-ju followed.
Black Moth might be an ugly, dying town in the middle of a boggy, dangerous forest, populated mostly by rough-looking hunters, rougher-looking trappers, and roughest-looking charcoal burners, but one thing in this place’s defense was they evidently preferred their own ways to those of the Burnished Chain. That big ikon who shared the central square with the notice board and gibbet certainly didn’t resemble the Fallen Mother or any boring saint—the fellow had eight faces on his giant head, and in each of his five outstretched hands folk had heaped bloody pelts that buzzed with flies, and the swamp flowers and gourds set at his three feet were all fresh. The Chainite temple, by contrast, was outside of town altogether, on a small hill overrun with brambles and crumbling headstones. There were no doors on the small wooden church and the tiled roof had partially collapsed, and as they came up the slope in the gloaming the light spilling from the entrance and two big holes in the eaves reminded Sullen of the glowing skull Queen Beautiful carried to light her way through the Witch Wood. That noble ancestor had faced bad things in a deep dark forest and come out ahead, too, so perhaps tonight’s song would also have a happy ending.
As they stepped over the mossy lintel and saw what was in store for them, however, Sullen’s buoyant mood sank but fast. At the back of the one-room church a circular symbol had been laid out in red sand, a white taper set on a monstrous avian skull in its center, and standing just inside the outermost ring of the pentagram were the animals they had previously rounded up. Unhappy as they’d been at being caught and brought into the church, now they were all so still they looked stuffed, staring transfixed at the green flame rising from the candle. There was the black cat Sullen had first brought back, and the tabby he had found for Hoartrap, and the badger his mother had scared up. She had initially returned with a scrawny opossum, but Hoartrap said he didn’t work with the animals anymore. When called out for being superstitious, he’d shrugged and said that went with his job description.
“The three hunters return,” said Hoartrap without looking up from his pack, rooting around in its cavernous interior. “Best is off again, but as soon as Sullen’s sainted mother returns we can take this puss-and-pony show on the road. Well, and as soon as I find my—aha!”
“Where did everybody go?” asked Keun-ju, but as he addressed Hoartrap he was staring at the strange sight at the back of the church. “I did not see the witch’s wolf and cart.”
“They haven’t left yet, have they?” Purna sounded a little frantic, face flushed from carrying the dog she still held in her arms. “Where do I put this? I need to catch them before they go!”
“They’re long gone by now,” said Hoartrap, smiling to himself as he removed a small bronze pyramid from his pack. Looking up at the distraught Purna, he said, “To the pub. They assumed they’d run into you on the walk. I am to understand, then, that you haven’t even begun your protracted boo-hooing over the temporary sundering of your fellowship?”
“My ma’s with ’em?” asked Sullen, the image of Diggelby and his mom sitting across the table from one another adding up to a bad scene or a good story in one hell of a hurry, and either way he wanted to be on hand.
“She is, and set that dog anywhere, and—get away from there!” Hoartrap went from an affable tone to a bellow, and following the sorcerer’s angry movements Sullen saw that Keun-ju had walked right up to the sandy edge of the symbol. He swayed in place a moment, and then Hoartrap snatched the sack out of his hand and poked him in the chest. “Did I tell you to stare at the candle? No? Then don’t stare at the candle!”
“I … what?” Keun-ju sounded sleepy, taking an awkward step back from the irate Touch and rubbing his eyes. “You did not tell us not to.”
“I didn’t tell you not to,” Hoartrap parroted. “Listen up, kiddies, for the rest of the night you just assume that I don’t want you to do anything unless I expressly tell you to.”
“I’m going to the tavern, have a few for the road with Digs and Nemi,” said Purna, depositing the old hound on the floor. It was still wrapped in Sullen’s cloak but he didn’t have the heart to ask for it back now.
“Yes, yes, because what did I just say?” asked Hoartrap. “I can’t remember, was it do exactly what I tell you, as this is a very sensitive operation, or was it go get shit-hammered with my worthless apprentice and your cowardly friend?”
“We are joining the pasha for a final round,” said Keun-ju, following Purna out. “That is not up for debate.”
“Oh, well then, excuuuuse me!” said Hoartrap, reaching into the sack and then making a lewd face. “Your little assistant is giving me a love bite. Who wants to take a wager on which of us gets sick from the exchange?”
“We won’t be long,” said Sullen, pausing in the doorway. “Can I bring you anything from town?”
“You can,” said Hoartrap, pulling the squirming rat out of the bag and inspecting it in the candlelight as it dug its teeth into his enormous hand. “Find me some new heroes. Failing that … a sandwich.”
“Safe,” said Sullen, heading out and down the hill after Purna and Keun-ju, the distant buildings of Black Moth almost as dark as the surrounding forest. Come to think it, though, that was always how’d it been back home, too—you didn’t waste good blubber on lighting up your nights, and the peat smoldering in the firepit didn’t cast enough light to leak outside. His ma was right, he’d become an Outlander himself, accustomed to their ways, from mundane things like keeping lamps lit half the night to more exotic practices, like picking up take-away for a devil-eating witch.
Looking down at the spear in his hand, he said, “Sorry, Fa, know you wouldn’t appreciate my associating with him.”
The spear didn’t speak back, much as he wished it would … silly a thought as that was, it seemed like something that’d happen in the sagas, if an old warrior got turned into a weapon. Even before Hoartrap had explained what the spear was made of, that Ji-hyeon had commissioned it when she found out there would be some o
f the sainted steel left after making her sword, Sullen had just known the old man was in the blade. How was that for silly?
Except there wasn’t a damn thing silly about what was going to happen next. His mother had finally seemed to be thawing a little, only to go full hardarsed again after their long trek back into Black Moth, and now, this very night, Sullen was going to raise a devil and bind it to his will. Fa would be so disappointed. And more surprising than Diggelby’s refusal to take part in the rite was Ma’s casual agreement to the plan … but then he supposed if she saw it as a feat of courage that her soft son was Horned Wolf enough to accept then she couldn’t very well back down. That was what being a born-again Chainite got you in this day and age, pride so unwavering you could be peer-pressured into taking part in unmistakably evil rituals.
What would she do when she saw her brother, he wondered? Not so much of an if, anymore, now that Hoartrap had recovered the magic post from whatever swampy shore it had washed up on. Sullen had finally come around to his uncle, at least in theory, to giving him the benefit of the doubt until he could be heard out. But while Ma had given her word to wait until the armies of Jex Toth were defeated to sort things with Maroto and Sullen, what if after all that they still couldn’t squash the beef and she demanded blood?
Then you kill the mad wolf. It was a forceful thought, frighteningly so, but his wounds throbbed as soon as he doubted it, and his heart throbbed worse when he looked ahead to Keun-ju’s lopsided silhouette as he and Purna stepped down from the church path and onto the road. Kill the wolf.
That was putting the cart before the giant monster, though—first they had devils to summon, a trip through the First Dark clear over to the Sunken Kingdom, a rescue mission if Maroto was captured, as Hoartrap feared, and then a reunion with Ji-hyeon at Othean, all before the war against Jex Toth could begin in earnest. No sense worrying about troubles yet to arrive when he had plenty sitting around his fire already. A Flintland lad like him, taking a shortcut through the First Dark … the First Dark, where the Faceless Mistress dwelled, if Sullen had to guess her address when she wasn’t manifesting in Emeritus to terrify poor mortals. Hard as it was to shake the feeling that she was always watching him here, under the plain night sky, what might happen when he dared traverse her realm?