by K. Eason
“Aneki,” Snow said. She turned back to Teslin. “Aneki,” she said again. “She survived, then.”
She’s waiting for you, half-blood.
That wasn’t exactly an answer. Snow wasn’t sure it mattered, anyway. Instead, “Where?”
No mistaking that gesture. Arm raised, hand pointing down toward Market Bridge.
Aneki says—come home. Come back to Still Waters.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A noidghe did not fear the ghosts. Veiko knew the songs to keep them back. Soft beat and counterbeat like the clash of fists on a locked door, a power that tingled over his skin. The ghosts could not recall their names. Could not recall who they had been, or what they had done, what had happened here or who had done it. But they knew pain and fear. They knew anger. It smoked off them like mist off the lake in winter. A little warmer than frozen air, yes, but only just, clinging to skin and hair as they mobbed him, reaching with translucent hands.
Veiko was glad of his helpers. Helgi stood beside him, holding the ghosts at bay, while Taru guarded his back.
“You will get no answers from these spirits,” she said. “Bind them or banish them, you can do that. But these are too damaged for useful conversation.”
“You might have said that sooner.”
“You learn best when you make your own errors, and I am pleased to leave you those lessons.” Her song shifted. Faster now. Sharper. “But there are some lessons I would spare both of us. So listen: the sun is leaving us and your partner is being a fool. Both of those things, you should attend.”
The world came flooding back. Bleached grey, an afternoon’s brightness strangled by an incoming storm. Pressure in his ears, on his skin, precursor to lightning. The aggressive, oppressive silence that meant everything that could take shelter already had. Not that there was anything alive in this courtyard, except himself and Logi and Snow, who was where he’d left her, in front of one of the poles.
But she had someone with her now. Dead, yes, and familiar. Teslin had been no friend of theirs, for all they shared an enemy. She had helped put Snow in chains once, and if they had parted allies, there was no promise that Teslin remembered that. The dead had very selective memories.
Veiko said a word he had learned near the Illhari docks. Pushed through the ghosts, trailing Helgi and Taru. He began a new song as he walked: an axe blade, lifted and waiting to fall. He stopped just before the last note, trapped it between his teeth and held it, vibrating, in his throat.
He had learned, during his time with Snow, that one did not grab Illhari women even to drag them away from their own foolishness. One did not take them by the arm and shake them and demand, Did you not understand what I said about not speaking to ghosts?
“Snowdenaelikk.” Her whole name, each syllable chiseled out, flung like a handful of stones at the back of her head.
Snow whipped around, reflex dropping her hand to her blade hilt. But that was guilt, clear as water, in her sudden wince and grimace.
“I know. But I heard my name.”
And she answered the calling, Taru murmured. This partner of yours does not have even your wits.
“Many dead know your name and may call it. That does not compel a response.”
A basic lesson, said Taru. She was damn near solid, even here. Only a little smudge on her edges. But clear-eyed, clear-boned. Clear-voiced, like cutting steel: Remember it, half-blood. Wisdom is a better friend than luck.
Snow’s eyes flashed wonder and anger and surprise. But she didn’t back down, no, not Snowdenaelikk.
“Not like I’m talking to strangers, yeah? I know this one.”
I am certain you do. Taru did not spare a look for Snow. Nocked her bow and held it loosely and kept all her attention on Teslin. But I am less certain it is who you think. This one wears two skins.
Snow could not see Teslin’s mocking salute behind her shoulder. Veiko pretended he did not, either. Sometimes, the best way to deal with the dead was much the same as dealing with the living.
“It might be what it claims,” he told her. “But it could also be some other spirit who bears you malice, wearing Teslin’s shape because it knows you might trust that, bearing a message you might believe.”
Snow grimaced. “So, if it’s not Teslin, then who? Or what?”
“A fair question.” Veiko eyed the ghost. Hollow eyes. Hollow mouth. Features gone soft as dough. Not Teslin now, clearly not.
I know you, the ghost who was not Teslin said. Its mouth twisted. I know you, Veiko Nyrikki. I hoped you might return.
Oh, ancestors. Heat pressed against his ribs from the inside. Leaked up through his throat. “You may regret that wish, Ehkla.”
Temper, Taru warned him as Helgi snarled. Hold yours.
Too late. Veiko sang the last note of his song. Sang it loud, and hard, and furious. Heard the hiss of fast-moving metal, the thump as the song struck the ghost and knocked it back. It lay there, unmoving, as the song’s echoes shivered on the storm-still air.
The dead thing should have unraveled. Should have vanished altogether. Should not lie there bleeding, as if it were flesh. Veiko dropped his hand to his axe.
Fool, Taru hissed, and raised her bow.
And yes, she was right to call him that. But he took a step toward the ghost anyway, and made certain that step carried him a little in front of Snowdenaelikk, so that he stood between her and it.
Then he heard the laughter, dark and thick as the not-truly-blood bubbling out of the wound he had made. The ghost sat up. It touched the hole in its chest and held up its fingers. Fine cracks formed across its surface. Darkness leaked through those cracks, as if night itself were inside, and all the shadows ever cast. Then it shattered, and the darkness burst outward, an expanding stretch of skin that split and shredded and fell in a heap to the flagstones. Ehkla peeled herself from the remnants, looking as she had the first time Veiko met her. Flower-faced beauty, unmarked by any wound. Violet slicked on her skin as she stood. She held a wurm’s tooth in one hand, the wurm’s tooth that had killed Helgi and crippled him.
Veiko hated himself for the hammering fear in his chest now, and for the memory of the sound he had made when the wurm’s tooth had hit bone in his thigh and loosed poison into his veins. The song he wanted to sing shriveled in his throat. He raised his axe instead.
Ehkla smiled. Said something, syllables that warped and shrieked through Veiko’s awareness. Then his knee buckled, old wound turned new again. He flailed one-handed. Felt the axe slide through his fingers.
And then a dagger-sharp shoulder caught his ribs, hard enough that he gasped. A familiar arm came around him, and a strength that had held him up before. Familiar smell, familiar warmth.
Snow had breath and temper enough for both of them. “Laughing God,” under her breath, “Tsabrak, you motherless toadshit, your right hand is calling.”
The spirit world pressed tight around them, and the very air squeezed Veiko like a fist. Then came another laugh, fire and sparks and air. Another slice of darkness appeared and hung a handspan off the pavement, like a doorway to nothing at all. The God pushed that nothing aside like a curtain and stepped through it. Fire licked in eyeless sockets. He smiled at Snowdenaelikk. Tsabrak’s smile, cruel and crooked.
Not the most flattering calling, he said. But in essence, correct. The God whipped sideways. Pointed at Ehkla. Put that down, yeah?
The wurm’s tooth flew out of Ehkla’s hand. Stopped midair, spun, and shattered. Fragments drifted like snow. The dead woman stared at them. The pain in Veiko’s leg burned away like fog in sunlight. Left an ache chasing along muscle and nerve, and a slight weakness.
Better.
The God had Ehkla by the throat before Veiko marked his motion. They might have been of a height in life, Tsabrak and Ehkla, but here the God seemed taller. Ask what true size mattered, or strength; ask if there was such a thing as down and firm earth. But to Veiko’s eyes, it looked like the God lifted Ehkla off her feet and held her dangling,
clawing at his hand.
Usurper, Ehkla spat. God-killer.
Lightning across the God’s face, anger and annoyance and pity. He reached his other hand toward her chest. Smiled at the hole that Veiko’s song-axe had made. He dipped his fingers in the wound and licked them clean. Laughed. Does Tal’Shik know how much of her you kept for yourself?
Wait. The ghost caught at his hand. Clutched it. Turned lovely frightened eyes on him. Wait. We can bargain, you and I. I have something you want.
Laughing God. Taru’s voice rang out. Do not listen. Take nothing from her.
Ehkla’s shape warped, shimmered with a sudden, deeper blackness laced with violet and nightmares. Veiko had seen that color before, the first time he encountered Tal’Shik, when she traded her woman-shape for the wurm. He began to chant a song of shields and defense: the man who puts himself between the raiders and his homestead. Helgi, between him and Ehkla. Himself, between his partner and
gods
spirits she could not outwit, not here where the worlds bled into each other.
Shadows spilled out of Ehkla that could be wings. That could be a tail, snaking along the stones.
Fool, Taru said coldly, and loosed the arrow from her bow.
Ehkla shed her woman-shape. Ask if she had been Tal’Shik all along, or only a part of her; ask if the wurm-shape was Ehkla’s own now. And push all that wondering aside, because there was a wurm rising from the courtyard stones. Her growing serpent’s neck split the God’s grip. Her wings flared, curled. Snapped forward, with a burst of wind and sound that crashed across the worlds.
Veiko’s song-shield held. The gust broke around him. Ruffled Helgi’s fur, lifted his braids, that was all.
Taru’s arrow flew straight. Buried itself in the wurm’s throat and came through the other side, just as the wurm’s claw punched into the Laughing God’s shoulder. The wurm reeled back, wings churning, and the God tore free of her.
The wurm spoke with Ehkla’s voice. You make an enemy, old woman.
And then she leapt up, wings tearing space and sky. Black gashes in the storm, in the silver spirit sky, dripping oblivion into both worlds. Another wingbeat, and she hung over them.
Taru nocked another arrow. The head and shaft glowed white, ice in sunlight. She drew the feathers to her cheek. Her song wrapped around the arrow, rippling feathers and talons. A diving hawk. A gliding owl. A hunter’s song that strikes from air and silence. Veiko moved with her, set himself between the wurm and the God. The wurm’s malice beat against him, and his leg shot fire, hip to toes. But it held, and he did. Somehow.
The wurm’s mouth opened. Violet swirled between black steel teeth. Fire, maybe, some godmagic curse to burn and blister. And Veiko knew then that his song was not strong enough. That she would burn through him. Burn through Taru. Leave them ashes, all of them. More bones for Cardik.
Then he heard the howling. Helgi, he thought first, but the dog had his teeth bared, his snarl rolling counterpoint to Veiko’s song. This was rage, blind and total, stripped of any wits. The ghosts poured into the courtyard, flooded among the stakes and rotting corpses. Some of them held half-remembered weapons; others clawed bare-fisted at the sky. Their need tore around him, through him, copper and smoke, knives and winter wind. Like a net cast skyward.
The Ehkla-wurm twisted. Her wings buckled. Bent and snapped. Her shriek could crack the whole world, but she was not louder than the angry dead. She clawed and thrashed and ripped a hole in the sky, blackest oblivion. Dragged herself through it.
Silence. Ehkla was gone. The dead were. The sky turned solid again. Ghost roads silver overlaid on the flat twilight of a summer storm. The songs stopped too. Veiko’s, as if someone had choked him. Taru’s more gracefully, notes winding into a knot. Even Helgi went quiet. Veiko’s other senses crept into the gap. Rotting bodies, the metallic reek of lightning.
Sudden absence at his side, sudden chill, as Snow let go of him. She went to the fallen God. Laid her hand over his where he pressed it over his wound. The blood ran between their fingers. She leaned her head close and Veiko saw her mouth move.
A man should not strain to hear what she said, no. A man should find somewhere else to look, somewhere else to listen. Fix all his attention on his ancestor, who walked tall and straight, bow loose in her hands. She passed the God and Snow as if she did not notice them, and stopped in front of Veiko. Blocked his view, so that he must focus on her face or risk rudeness.
Well. She raised both brows. Nicely sung, noidghe.
A man could take pride in that praise, if he were not so unsettled. “Was that Ehkla? Or Tal’Shik?”
A piece of Tal’Shik, certainly, but not the whole. The piece that had been Ehkla’s while she lived. Taru was shaken, for the first time in Veiko’s memory. I think the greater part of her is elsewhere. How can that be?
“The avatar,” he said. “Much of her is bound up in a dragon’s flesh. That was what Ehkla wanted to be.”
Taru turned weary, bleak eyes on him. And now she knows you are here.
“It is not the first time. It has done her no great good, knowing where I am. At least this God is not afraid of her.”
A grimace. This God is a fool, then. She is still stronger. She cast a pitying glance over her shoulder. Turned, so that Veiko could see the God leaning on Snow and staring at his own blood in his hands. She would have destroyed him, just now.
“But for your help.” Almost an accusation. Almost. More force than he’d intended, and something raw beneath it.
Sharp look from Taru, and then a softening in the taut line of her mouth. It serves no one if Tal’Shik devours the Laughing God. Not even you, not even a little bit, no matter what you may imagine.
He skipped his gaze away. Let it fall on Helgi and Logi where they sat side by side, neither aware of the other. Told himself it was that sight, his two dogs together, that made his throat ache. Not Snowdenaelikk and the God, heads together. Then Snow stood, and the Laughing God stood with her. His wound had vanished.
Taru followed his gaze. Made a noise in her throat. The God is quick to recover. A useful talent.
“The God is too easily hurt.”
Cool gaze, flat and knowing. Not only his failing, that. Yours, too.
Blood thumped thunder in his ears. “You are my teacher,” he said softly, “but there are some lessons from you I do not need.”
She made a noise in her throat. You are a young man. There are few lessons you do not need. But if you can bear advice, find shelter elsewhere. The dead here are restless, and you are not singer enough to hold them back when the storm breaks.
Taru turned her back on him then, before he could answer, and strode away. Her edges blurred with each step. She was mist by the fifth step, gone by the sixth.
Helgi laid his ears back and whined.
“Go,” Veiko told him. “I will find you soon.”
The sun had not set yet, could not have, but it was already twilight. A man could blame the storm for that. But a noidghe knew it was the gods’ doing. Tal’Shik’s, first, with the bloodletting that had happened here. The God’s after that, for picking a foolish fight. It would be easy to follow Helgi. A couple of steps, that was all, and he would be in the ghost roads.
Snow stopped beside him. Her arms were folded tight across her ribs. Made her seem more slim, more fragile. A false seeming, he knew that. But then he thought of how very near she had come to Tal’Shik’s vengeance. A man’s limbs might shake after battle. That was normal. So, he told himself, was the urge to take his partner’s shoulders in his hands and rattle teeth in her head.
Snow winced. “Fuck and damn, Veiko. I’m sorry.”
Nothing he could say to that that was not flat lie or fool nicety, and he was too angry for either.
“I know,” the best he could manage. And before she could offer more anything else: “How is the God?”
“Surprised. He’s all right.” She barked out a laugh. “And he’s angry. I told him he was an idiot, grab
bing for Tal’Shik. That she’s bigger than he is, stronger, and he’ll end up supper if he’s not more careful. And he said he’d choke her if she tried to swallow him.” She waited through the sky’s rumbling, then added, “So, was that Tal’Shik or Ehkla? Or some combination? Because damn sure it wasn’t Teslin.”
“It might have been her shape, if Teslin was devoured.”
Wide eyes, white-ringed. “Didn’t think of that.”
“There are many things you do not think of.” He wished that unsaid in the next breath. He did not need a fight with her. Not here. Not now. Snow was not in the habit of backing down even when she was at fault. Especially then.
Then storm began, too late and finally. Flash enough to leave white lines across a man’s vision, thunderclap that shook his guts. Cold, pricking rain. Misery to hold a man to this world. Misery, and his partner. Angry, yes, he could see that, but no hint of it leaked into her voice.
“The songs you sang back there. That’s what you’ve been learning all summer. What your ancestor’s been teaching you.”
“Yes.”
“What you wanted to teach me.”
“Yes.”
“Damn useful. And don’t say yes again.” She called witchfire out of nothing. Cupped it in her palm. It burned steadily, cheerfully impervious to rain or wind. Cast a wedge of blue along the pavement. The archway to the street gaped like a mouth, a finger-span past the witchfire’s border. “Come on. You want to list all the ways I’m an idiot, fine, but let’s go somewhere else. Going to drown, we stay out here. Or freeze.”
Or slip into the ghost roads entirely. They felt like a very wet curtain caught in strong wind. Cold touches on his face, his hands, that stuck and clung and tore themselves loose again. The pavement squished underfoot like the soft ground at the edge of a river. Might be a forest on the edge of the witchfire, or a spreading expanse of ice. Might be voices in the wind. Might be the beating of great wings.
He thought of what Taru had said. Tried a song anyway, a handful of notes and syllables. It was like throwing salt into a blizzard. He got a faceful of cold and sting as the ghost roads cast his song back at him. The ghosts surged to the edge of witchfire.