“Don’t listen to it. Don’t pay it any attention.” Sparrow’s voice was calm, with the drone of a ritual. “Stag, light the way and let us continue our on our path away from the Grief.”
Stag pulled out a glow crystal, cupped it, focusing the light forward. The trees seemed to form a hallway in front of them, trunks curving as if they had simply swayed away from the party’s path.
“Do you both remember our first week as privateers?” Sparrow asked as he took the first step.
Ishe had to smile as the memory of her first week on her mother’s ship flooded back. Mother had assigned her to the rigging as an apprentice. The lowest position on the ship. Any sailor could give her an order so long as it didn’t contradict someone with a higher rank. Yet it had been the single most liberating week in her life. There had been no fiddly dresses or haphazard makeup, but even more, if she had been assigned a task, she didn’t have to pretend to like it. Nobody expected a smile when you were scrubbing out tar barrels. After nearly four years stuffed into a finishing school, Fox Fire’s air could not have smelled more pure.
“I do,” Gull said, her voice rising to be heard over the din of the Gief’s babble. “I remember watching the city disappear and thinking, What the hell did I sign up for?”
Way. Out. We. Have. Each word burst from the Grief’s stream in a different voice.
“Ignore it. Keep walking.” Sparrow tugged on both Gull and Ishe to keep them moving.
Ishe wrested her thoughts away from the gruesome ways out a monster could offer. “I remember Yaki that first week.”
“Oh, and she made a racket,” Gull offered. “You could hear her through the walls. Surprised the captain let her carry on like that.”
“She gave Mother a black eye,” Ishe said. “I don’t know what happened. I’m not sure if Yaki even remembers it. But Mother stumbled out of her cabin, looking like she’d been kicked in the head by a horse.”
Catter laughed from behind. “She hit Madria?”
“Well, she didn’t fall and smack her eyeball on the desk,” Ishe said; she shook her head to clear it. The babbling had drawn closer, as if she sat on the bank. Mother burst into her mind’s eye, as clear as if Madria stood before Ishe in the bright of day. She scowled down at her daughter, arms crossed, eyes hidden in the hood of her uniform. “Mother,” Ishe gasped.
“She was lost in those first days.” Sparrow’s voice cut through Madria; the vision scattered back to the darkness. “Wandered the ship like a ghost.” Ishe wasn’t sure if his hand held hers or was encased in the black flesh of her hand. She didn’t dare look.
“Yeah, she had this stained white dress with a parasol and drifted around the deck, watching us work. Well, more like staring through us.” Gull’s voice had a strange burbling quality to it. Ishe glanced her way but could see nothing more than the woman’s outline in the murky darkness.
Friends. The brilliant blue of Yaz’noth’s breath beam flooded out of the dark, filling Ishe’s vision. The dying screams of men and woman echoed up from Ishe’s memories. The Grief snatched them up, repeated them, and hurled them back in their many voices. Names that had been forgotten in the horror of the actual moment bubbled up to go along with sound, faces in shock as they were scythed in twain. My fault, it was all my fault. Hot tears burned down her cheeks.
Gull cried out, “Stop it! It wasn’t my fault!”
The sheer loudness of it broke Ishe from her own visions. She seized hold of the murky vision of Stag’s profile outlined by his glow crystal, hiding in the dark of reality from the blinding brightness of the deaths playing through her mind.
Sparrow jerked hard on Gull’s arm, nearly pulling her to the ground. “It’s not your fault, Gull! Ignore it! Keep walking.”
Gull seemed to steady on Sparrow, voice. “But I ran, I could have, could have…”
Sparrow bent toward her, speaking directly into Gull’s ear. “Nothing you could have done at that point would have mattered. You survived. It is all you could do.”
It was your plan. Ishe couldn’t be sure if the thought had been the Grief’s or hers, but the truth of it bit into her like a fanged maw. I will do better. Next time. Next time, no one dies. She promised herself and used that promise like a shield against the waves of accusations the Grief crashed on top of her mind. She squeezed Sparrow’s hand to remind herself where the real world was.
“Continue the story, Ishe,” Sparrow said as he returned Ishe’s grip with firmness.
“Right, my sister. My sister who is alive,” Ishe said as the parade of death continued in her mind’s eye. “Anyway! You asked her to do anything and she’d just stare at you down that little nose of hers. So, I smacked her in the rump with a wet mop. You’d think I’d—”
A loud whimper interrupted the story, Gull’s. A whisper of a chant drift through the air. “Not my fault. Notmyfault, notmyfault, notmyfault.”
“It’s lying, Gull,” Sparrow urged. “Ishe! Tell us what happened next. Show us!”
Ishe swallowed and licked her lips, trying to pull away from the scene in her head. Forcing down the image of Yaki in that stained white dress, a wet darkness spreading across her chest from where the mop had impacted. “You’d think I’d poked a badger with a pointy stick. She came after me with that parasol as if it were a belaying pin. ’Course after watching her drift around and not lift a finger, I wasn’t feeling too charitable. She tried her level best to claw out my eyes. Still can see the scars if you squint.” Ishe pushed that image of Yaki, red-faced, eyes full of murderous rage in the mental stream.
Gull straightened up. “Y-y-yes, Nine hells, I saw that, heard her scream. She almost beat you, and you twice her size.”
“Mother ground it into me that if I was gonna hit my sister, I couldn’t leave scars. I could have clocked her at any time, but I was trying to pin her. It was like trying to wrestle a wildcat. I just about had her when Mother showed up.”
“You’re so tough,” Gull huffed with effort. A flash of her teeth in the dimness.
The blazing images of dying sailor stopped, shifted, and Ishe suddenly saw herself. Walking through mines, led by Miss Cog. The escape itself, Yaki kneeling at the power crystal as Ishe held off the young dragons with a crossbow.
“Gull! You have to focus on something else.” Sparrow’s voice climbed an octave but retained a sense of authority. “Focus on the story. Ishe and Yaki knocked over the water barrels and the water ran right to the captain’s door and under it.”
“It’s not my fault! It’s not my fault they died!” Gull’s voice burbled as if she spoke under an inch of water.
A beam of illumination, Stag’s glow crystal, struck Gull from the side, revealing the entire side of her face to be a writhing mass of wet black. Her wide eyes stared hate right into Ishe’s. She pulled her arm back, black fingers stretching into wicked talons tipped with the white of her bones. “It is your fault they DIED!”
Sparrow let go of Ishe and stepped in front of her, blocking Gull’s way. “Listen to me, Gull! You have to push back. You cannot let the Grief in!”
Gull hesitated as the babble of the Grief swelled. Let us in! Kill her! Make her pay! Avenge them all! Her fault!
Mother’s voice boomed into Ishe’s head: Do not admit weakness. Do not show any doubt. Words spoken before Ishe had embarked on her first boarding action. Her fists came up into a boxer’s stance.
“Out of my way!” Gull shrieked at Sparrow, black spilling from the corners of her mouth and spreading across her face. “She murdered them! Must punish! Justice!”
The broad head of Hawk’s spear flashed through the light as it crashed into Gull’s rib cage. A snap of bone. The hate in her eyes changed to surprise as the life left them. Hawk pulled the weapon back, and Gull’s body crumpled to the forest floor.
“Hawk!” Sparrow cried out in rebuke.
“Another moment, and she would have called the entire swarm down on us.” Hawk said.
You had it! Don’t need her. She’s left so
many behind! The chorus of the Grief babbled, shifting the weight of its attention onto Sparrow. He stilled, body shifting as if the small pack on his back had filled with stones as he looked down at Gull’s corpse and the blackness that spread from it. Her infected arm exposed white bone as the black forgot its shape.
Ishe began to ask, “Was there—”
“No.” Hawk cut off the question as she stepped close to Sparrow. “Don’t touch the corpse.”
Sparrow reached out a hand toward her as he bore the Grief’s mental assault. Ishe thought at first that he meant to ward his wife off, but instead, she extended her own palm toward him. Their hands met, his barely spanning the width of her palm. They drew a deep breath together, a tenderness flowing between them. Sparrow stood taller as their hands fell away to their sides. “The Grief feeds on resentment, on blame. Remain humble. Focus on what is and what can be. Forget what was or could have been.” Sparrow spoke with strain as he extended his hand back toward Ishe’s own, which shone wetly in the light.
“Goodbye, Gull.” Catter sniffled behind. “May your soul find rest.”
Instinctively, Ishe mumbled her mother’s blessing for a dead crew member before they were cast down from Fox Fire. “And Coyote guard your bones where they lie.”
COYOTE! The Grief’s anguished chorus of rage and hate hit her with such force that Ishe and Sparrow’s knees slammed into the dirt, only her free hand managing to prevent her face from following suite.
MUST DIE!
“Get up. On your feet,” Hawk ordered. “What happened?”
Sparrow obeyed first, the thin man pulling Ishe up with him. “Ishe got its attention,” Sparrow rasped. “Leave it to her to piss off something bigger than she is.” He gave a cough of a laugh.
He did this! He made us! In their shared minds’ eye, Ishe saw a bright pale disk. Not the perfect sphere from the tapestries of the temple, this moon had discolorations on it. Pale circular scars marred its perfection, and in of them multicolored lights bloomed. The surrounding stars were shifting, swirling. Dread filled Ishe’s stomach and made her teeth ache.
As the stars arrayed themselves into teeth, arms entered the vision. Pale as snow, two crystals were embedded in each forearm, side by side, green, yellow, red and purple, the flesh around them red and angry, the crystals themselves bearing fine cracks. In those cracks, blackness seeped into the surrounding skin.
Still they glowed, and Ishe saw it was not just those hands but thousands of hands reaching for the moon, drawing on every bit of power embedded in their flesh and hurling it skyward as teeth seized hold of the moon and began to squeeze. As cracks began to shoot through the moon, one by one, the crystals popped like dropped glassware. In their place, black ichor bubbled in the wounds.
The moon burst like a pimple filled with sand. Your fault! the chorus cried out as pale dust spread across the sky.
COYOTE’S FAULT! The voices ricocheted around her the inside of her skull. How dare! How dare you call to HIM!
“How do we get it to shut up?” Ishe asked through gritted teeth.
Sparrow opened his mouth to respond but a coughing fit came out instead.
“We get away from the river,” Hawk said, and herded them onward.
Hawk brought them to a halt in a clearing, where the star-filled sky shone down on them. Stag doused the glow crystal. “That is the Grief’s nest. That’s what happens if you don’t clean out the rivers every year.” Sparrow pointed and everyone but Hawk gasped. There, stretching for the sky, a tentacle of blackness rose over the tops of the trees. Taller than anything other than the mountains, it dwarfed even Yaz’noth’s great size. It coiled and undulated. Ishe now understood why Madria had always crossed over rivers at a high altitude while night ruled. Although entirely black, it radiated a hate so strong that it shimmered red in the mind’s eye. We seeeee you. We corpses will feast upon you, it sang.
No one needed to stare at the sight for long before they moved on. Ishe concentrated on the sound of her own footsteps instead of the voices ranting in her head. As the first rays of sun lit the sky, the Grief’s chorus slipped from her mind. Sparrow called for a rest and let go of her hand for the first time in hours. Holding the hand to the morning light, she saw the blackness retreating toward her fingers.
“It will only be whispers tomorrow.” Sparrow nodded at the fingers.
Ishe found herself staring into Drosa’s smirk. “Sorry for your friend, but both passed Black Trial. Should mark this with drink and dance.”
“I think I’d prefer a beer and a nap and skip the dancing,” Ishe replied. Without the voices in her head, her body felt almost light, and she found herself returning the smile. Drosa’s comment generated questions, but she filed them away for later.
Stag gripped Drosa’s shoulder and murmured something in her ear. She threw him off with a shrug and rounded on him, and they launched into another argument.
“An hour’s rest, no more,” Hawk declared. “We will do rites for Gull when we reach the Maw.”
Chapter Thirteen
The sun priests hold us to be among the dead, and while many of us do live with a foot or more within the grave, I assure you we do live.
The Wretch, Enshadowed poet
“You don’t have to come,” Yaki told Guro as the pair waited for the descending night in Grandmother Willow’s courtyard. He’d checked his sword three times in the space of ten minutes.
“The last time you wandered off on your own, you nearly got caught by a troupe of priests. And now you want to wait in the open across the street of the big box you grew up in?” He shook his head.
“Grandmother Willow hides us. This garden is safer than any of the boardinghouses.” Not to mention it’s one of the few places where I don’t have to wear that reeking charm during the day. Yaki put down her current weapon, an ironwood towel, and let a paving stone fall back onto its newly leveled spot. She hoped that Lady Night wouldn’t be expecting finery. Soil had marked knee spots on her dress. Now free from the grip of constant pain, Yaki found herself in possession of both time and eager fingers. Since arriving, she had filled several bags with weeds.
“It’s a tree,” Guro grumped, and then went silent as three figures appeared in the torii that marked the entrance to the garden. Yaki frowned. Gama had brought his two friends, Raiju and Chimon. Gama, like Guro, had insisted on coming since he’d be getting the goods from the foundry to the docks. He’d even tried to suggest that meeting Lady Night should be his responsibility alone. She’d entertained that idea for a split second, but what sort of captain would she be if she let her crew handle a meeting that could wreck a ship before they even had one?
Gama came in and bowed theatrically in front of her, wearing more a subdued outfit than last night. The gorgeous jacket combined nicely with the shine on his glasses. Raiju and Chimon shuffled along behind him. Chimon studied the greenery as if it might bite, while Raiju studied Yaki as if she might rip morsels from his flesh if he looked away. She arched an eyebrow at Gama and waited for an explanation.
“It’s… Uh,” Gama began.
“We’re not going to let you steal poor Gama away in the night and feed him to the birds,” Raiju said with braggadocio.
“Uh, what Raiju means,” Chimon began, his voice taking on the nasal pitch of professional bureaucrat, “we are concerned as to the rapid pace of change that your presence in Gama’s life has catalyzed and fear for his health and safety.”
Gama blushed so hard, Yaki feared his face might burst. “They jumped me as I was eating,” he said, suddenly finding his toes fascinating.
A titter snuck out of Yaki’s mouth, breaking her stern expression. Her smile drew grins from Chimon and Raiju.
“We knew you couldn’t stay away from Mama Chi’s meatballs. You’d get the shakes.” Raiju punched Gama in the shoulder.
“He ain’t been in class for a week,” Chimon said to Yaki, voice falling back into a folksy tone. “Gunna get himself expelled over you.”
&
nbsp; “I told you, I’m done with all that,” Gama said, his eyes pleading with Yaki to somehow fix this.
“They’re your friends, Gama.” Yaki shrugged, deciding to play it cool. “You make sure they’re not running to the Watch.” Quite predictably, Guro had started moving toward the garden’s only exit.
“Raiju and Chimon wouldn’t do that,” Gama said, but his friends’ eyes watched them warily.
Yaki rolled her eyes. “Boys, all you need to know is that I’m in trouble and we’re about to do something very brave”—that brought a smile to his face—“and stupid. I am very thankful to Gama for his friendship in helping me out. After we do the said thing, we’ll have to leave the Golden Hills.”
“Leave!?” Chimon squeaked. “You can’t leave!” He swung himself around in front of Gama and jabbed him the chest. “What about our plans?! We need you for the script house.”
“Yeah,” Raiju added. “We don’t know the folk in the tribal district! We’d get chased out of it without you to make introductions!”
Gama’s jaw set and the light flashed in his lenses. “And I told you that won’t work now. What part of exiled from my tribe don’t you understand? I’m dead to them.”
“You’re not looking very dead to me!” Chimon shouted back.
“No thanks to you!” Gama spat.
His friend reeled. “It was an accident! I didn’t mean—”
“To kill me?” Gama and Chimon were practically chest to chest as Raiju tried to pry the pair of them apart.
“Yes! Oi! You’re not dead!” Chimon stood on tiptoes. “Stop acting like everything is ruined!”
“It is ruined; don’t you see, Chimon? The whole scheme wasn’t going to work, anyway. And now that I had a hand in the death of Passing Night, I have to leave. The tribe will enroll somebody else now,” Gama said.
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