by John March
Aliya appeared pleased to see him, an expression Orim found himself surprised at every time, however often he visited. She followed him upstairs in silence.
When they were together they spoke little, and he seldom called her by name. She couldn't speak in the language he wanted to hear from her lips, the tongue of his people — a small clan in a different world, and if he could not hear the words he preferred, he would rather hear none at all.
Aliya ran water into a huge old tub, built like the bottom half of a keg, and he summoned the essence of earth-fire stone into the water until it was so hot even he could barely tolerate it. He sat in the water, allowing his muscles to relax as he watched the steam curling up to the ceiling through half open eyes, and when he was ready she poured water over his head from an earthenware jug to wash the sand from his hair and beard.
Her fingers lingered over the thin pink lines which marked the fresh scars on his cheek and shoulder, as if cataloguing the changes, building a map in her mind of his journeys through each fresh wound.
When his hair was free of dirt, she fetched the pair of fine scissors he'd bought for her, and neatened his beard and hair, combing out the tangles, pulling the knots through gently to avoid tugging at the roots.
When he'd finished bathing she brought him bread with cheese and wine, and they sat together to eat. Afterwards he lay on the bed, and slept.
He dreamt of long dead Elik, his dearest childhood friend, closer to him than his own brothers. And Elik cried out to him for help, an impossible sound passing through the gaping wound in his throat, but between them stood an army of the dead, and each of the dead wore the face of a man he'd killed.
The dead stood before him, blank-eyed, and immovable. Even as he fought to pass them, pulling them aside with his bare hands, he knew he'd found his way into the underworld.
Elik held up a hand, palm outwards, as if to show him, and the palm was bright red, like the deep winter sun drowning in the sea. A single drop fell from Elik's hand, and turned to orange flame — the colour of Fein's hair.
Orim woke to find Aliya curled against his back, feeling the rise and fall of her chest, her breath soft against the back of his neck, and for a moment he thought of Fein. She'd lain next to him the same way on the day she'd walked into the icy arms of the sea, leaving behind a second ragged shade to haunt his nights.
He watched the shortening shadows in the grey half-light of early morning, remembering.
Half a lifetime past, an archer killed his friend on a raiding expedition against the Ussians. Not ten paces from Orim, a wickedly barbed arrow had taken Elik through the side of his throat. A moment's mistake by Elik, his shield dipping as he turned to grin at his kinsman. He'd died in Orim's arms, gasping for air as bubbling blood invaded his lungs, while the fight to take the Ussian palisade raged around them.
Fein waited for them when they returned, a solitary figure on the deserted shore, as the longboats swept in through the homeward waves, waited for Elik with her hair streaming out like a bright flame on the frozen gale, rushing down the flanks of the near mountains.
Both friends he'd failed to save.
He turned his hand, watching the new light fall on his scarred skin. How many numberless dead by this hand? A hand better shaped for taking life than shielding it.
Orim's thoughts drifted back to his dream. Had Elik returned from the land of the dead to further burden his soul, or to warn him?
He eased over on the bed and wrapped Aliya into his arms, still sleeping, setting aside plans, and memories. A while to wait until the city woke, before he must report to Vittore, and resume searching for Spetimane. Free to find a moment of stillness, like the quiet space in the heart of a storm.
Fla eased himself onto the bench opposite Orim. The red-haired man had been hard to find, almost as if he'd deliberately hidden himself away. Orim looked irritable, his eyes flicking to the doors and windows before returning to Fla.
“Come here alone, have you?” Orim asked.
“Who would I bring?”
An odd place to find a man like Orim, Fla thought. There were too many people in such a confined space, customers and young women, laughing and drinking, and playing games. A few glanced at them, sitting in the corner, but most were too absorbed, or drunk, to pay any attention to what was happening in other parts of the room. He'd hardly needed to describe Orim to the locals. It seemed nearly everyone living or working around the eel-market knew where to find him, by the colour of his hair, if not by name.
Fla found the place unsettling, the room too hot for his heavy robes. The men here were loud, moving drunkenly, without care, and most of the women were scantily dressed. He could sense Orim's impatience, but his eyes were drawn unwillingly to the low-cut tops the women wore, the flashes of thigh revealed through side slits in their skirts when they moved.
He watched as one of the woman brush the inside of her thigh against her partner's leg. Feeling for the weight of money dragging down the bag on the man's belt, Fla realised. Visions of Sashael floated in his minds eye, the image like a large stone settling on his chest.
“For what are you here?” Orim asked. “Are you not guarding the boy?”
“He has protection.”
“When you are not with him?”
“The same way you protect Vittore, I imagine.” Fla said.
“Protect Vittore? That is for the cheg. They are his shield, I am his weapon. The boy is protected how?”
“I summoned a Kuzion shadow stalker to guard him.”
“A true summoning?”
Fla shrugged his good shoulder. “What else? It cannot be seen unless it wishes. The most subtle sensing is needed to reveal it. It does not need to rest or eat and it will follow him anywhere, even through the between, until its obligation is discharged.”
“Unpredictable are the summoned ephemerals. Rely on them alone you should not,” Orim said.
“I have checked. I followed him to the library a few days past, and my Kuzion was with him then.”
“Set a second—”
Mid sentence, Orim's tensed and leant forward, resting both hands face-down on the table, as if to push himself up.
Fla cast about, trying to find the reason for the sudden change, peering at the newcomers in the room from under the edge of his hood, the words of a warding on his lips. He'd never seen Orim look so uncomfortable in all the years he'd known him.
Had he been followed here? He recalled a few men arriving after him. One had gone upstairs with a woman. The other two sat with mugs of ale, laughing at their own jokes. Fla's eyes settled on a red-haired woman near the serving counter. Young, and pretty, she must have just entered the room, as he hadn't noticed her when he arrived. She wore simple clothes, like one of the serving maids, but stood apart. Not one of the women who worked the rooms upstairs, that much he could see, and all the men avoided her.
Even when she served them they were carefully polite. He noticed her in the crowded room, amongst all the other women, because her eyes were on Orim. She looked at him with an expression no woman had ever used for Fla.
In a moment of realisation he understood why he'd found Orim here, and he knew he'd stumbled into something he wasn't supposed to see. When he looked back, Orim's forehead had furrowed, his eyes now like chips of ice. Fla cursed inwardly. He'd be lucky to get anything from the man now.
“What do you want?” Orim asked.
“I need more money. The guilders you gave me are spent, and if I am to continue guarding Ebryn I must be provided for.”
Orim's voice turned hard, almost threatening. “Payment enough you have been given. A bond you gave me when you took this task.”
Fla scowled. “It was a small sum and it's all gone. I can't devote all my time to protecting one person for a single payment.”
“Enough. Paid you were, so guard him you will, and you will have nothing more from me for it.” Orim stood up and leant over Fla, speaking into his ear so only he could hear. “When I w
ish to speak with you, I will seek you out. Unfortunate for you it will be, should I set my eyes on you here again, or another of your company finds his way here.”
Wayfarers
EBRYN ARRIVED FOR HIS first lesson with the pathfinders, relieved to discover a small group waiting to begin. He found Addae there already, discussing something with a man barely half his size.
Dressed in the practical leather clothing of a woodsman, the shorter man had a tanned complexion, close-cropped dark hair, and wore the middle-brown cloak of the Hemetuen order.
They were holding the lesson in a small garden, located on top of a natural rocky outcrop overlooking most of the surrounding rooftops. A selection of small trees and shrubs, planted along the borders, created a sense of an enclosed space, but without the oppressive feel of the underground training rooms. Surrounded by green for the first time in many days, Ebryn felt as if a part of him could breathe freely in a way it hadn't since he'd ridden alone through the forests around Conant.
As Ebryn reached Addae, they were joined by a woman who could have been a twin to the shorter man.
“Ebryn, my friend,” Addae said. “Here is Master Cormer.”
“Just Cormer,” the man said, holding out his hand. “It's the nature of our discipline to be informal. We are so often alone, or with just two or three of our fellows, and far away from any home, that we find such things matter little — and this is Brydeline.”
Ebryn took his hand carefully, trying to match the unfamiliar up-down movement and grip.
“I'm from Fyrenar too. The southernmost lands,” Brydeline said, smiling up at Ebryn.
“I was just saying to Addae here, we will be keeping the lesson simple today … but it looks like everybody is here now, so we can start, and I won't need to repeat myself more than I need to,” Cormer said.
When the small group had gathered, Cormer and Brydeline introduced themselves again.
“We have a few things we need to point out before we start,” Brydeline said. “If you have attended lessons with any of the other orders, you should continue, and I would encourage you to do so, if you have not already—”
“Especially basic casting theory. There are skills there you need to be effective at for what we do,” Cormer said.
“Yes — which leads to the second thing I was going to say, which is that the reason we start our lessons later than any other discipline is to give you, our students, the chance to improve and round, your core skills first,” Brydeline said.
Cormer nodded. “It's very important to have those skills before we tackle more difficult challenges later.”
Were it not for differences in voices, Ebryn might have had a hard time distinguishing one speaker from the other. When one finished talking, the other continued, almost as if what they said had been rehearsed, as the actors might for one of Teblin's plays.
“You may have noticed we are few in number here,” Brydeline said. “The Hemetuen order is the smallest, smaller even than the Genestuer. Unlike many other forms of casting, where the skills can be taught and polished in one, with even a small share of natural talent, the ability to walk from world to world is one you are either born with, or not. For those who can, there are differences in what can be achieved, but those without this ability can never learn it. Are there any questions before we begin?”
“Good,” Cormer said. “So we start our lessons with a guided journey, where we all travel together to Guele. You must understand — no journey between the worlds can ever be completely without risks. Unlike other crafts, where you may practice in safety, what we do, you can learn only by making real journeys.”
Brydeline gestured for the group to follow. “I will lead the way, and Cormer will follow to ensure there are no stragglers. Come — keep close, and ensure your attention is on me.”
She led them to one side of the small garden, then turned, and walked towards the opposite end. At once, Ebryn felt a shift, as if he had been lifted from the ground, or had it fall away beneath his feet, and the grass and trees were suffused with other colours in a strange rainbow effect, which surrounded them, and grew stronger, as they progressed.
“You should pay attention to the feeling as we move through the world skin,” Brydeline said. “This is the feeling you must create, to pass from world to world, and you will find many of you feel this in a different way. It is important to have some knowledge of your destination, or carry something of it with you.
“At this point, we have a foot on the edge of Vergence, and another on Guele, and yet we are in neither. What you see now is the shadow of Vergence. The images are connections back to the garden we travelled from. Now I will bring pieces of what I know about Guele to replace those of Vergence, and when a sufficient number are matched, we will find ourselves in the shadow of Guele.”
Ebryn listened and watched carefully as she shifted a single feature at a time, trying hard to get a sense for each change she made.
The plants around the edge of the garden seemed to fade away, while the grass surrounding them crept higher with each step, until it swayed about their knees, and the familiar city colours of honey, sand, and stone-grey leached away, replaced by dark green with tones of cool blue, and purple. For a moment, Ebryn imagined they were stepping from Vergence, directly back to the familiar forests of Goresyn.
Above them, the light drew together, gradually consolidating into a single point, a pale afternoon sun hanging in the sky.
“We are fortunate that we started in Vergence, as it is bound closely to a number of other worlds, and this makes them much easier for us to reach. Our progress will be much swifter because of this, and the experience of our guide,” Cormer said, his voice coming from behind them, and sounding oddly flat. “Also, a word of caution. As some of you who travelled to Vergence by world-ship may have discovered, when you're here in the between, from the moment you start your journey to the moment you arrive, your ability to perform casting will be lost.”
After a brief period of time, in which they spoke little, but followed behind, Brydeline stopped. “We're nearly there … any moment and we'll see the first signs that we're passing through the Guele world skin.”
Looking round, Ebryn could see many details of the plants had changed, and in the distance there were hints of hulking mountains and deep woodlands, as if seen through a thin haze. Nearly all traces of the greater part of Vergence had disappeared. Without any warning the shadowy impressions became solid and real, and Ebryn found himself walking through knee-length grass next to Addae.
A freshening breeze blew across them, bringing the finest hint of drizzle to their faces, and bunched-up dark grey clouds scudded across the sky, like a strange herd scattering ahead of a hunter. Ebryn inhaled air so crisp he could almost taste it, mingling with the sharp smell of grass in his mouth.
They stood on a broad mound, sloping down on all sides to an extensive flat plain, covered in the same long grass as far as the eye could see. In the distance there were mountains stretching across a third of the horizon, to the left a listless ocean, and behind them forests.
On all sides of the mound were hundreds of low walls, no more than knee high, all long since overgrown. Most ran in straight lines, and in places intersected to form enclosed spaces. They looked like last remnants of an old settlement which might once have stood on the higher ground.
Ebryn felt as if he'd fallen asleep, and stepped into a very real dream. It seemed impossible they'd walked barely a tenth part of a league, and yet found themselves standing in an entirely different world. The small party of students gathered round, grinning at each other, feeling almost drunk with the possibilities.
Ebryn joined in as they all laughed, the way children might at something wondrous and surprising. Cormer and Brydeline smiled back at them, as if they'd expected the reaction — had seen it many times before.
“Whatever others may tell you,” Cormer said, “no other accomplishment in our craft can match this. Enjoy the feeling, this is tr
ue freedom.”
Brydeline stepped to the front and faced the group. “You may wander about for a short while, before we return to Vergence. A small task I'll set you — try to find a small object, a souvenir that feels like Guele, something to remind you of the sense of being here when you are gone. It is wise to do this wherever you go, if you might one day need to return. A pebble, or even a weed will do, as long as it carries something of this place with it. Don't think too much, try following your gut.”
“You will need this keepsake for future lessons,” Comer said. “Guele is one of the easier worlds to get to from Vergence, so we will return here frequently when you are practising some of the more difficult aspects of this art. Spend some time looking, but not too long.”
Ebryn and Addae walked down the slope together, picking their way over the low tumbledown walls, with the wind blowing into their faces. To Ebryn, they felt like the first squalls of an oncoming storm, similar to the ones which frequently blew in from the sea in Fyrenar, except here he could see no banking clouds on the horizon.
“Is this not a fine place for running? Do you find the streets too close in Vergence City?” Addae asked.
Addae broke into a trot, then a sprint, angling along the side of the rise. Ebryn followed, struggling to keep up as Addae accelerated, barely managing to stay on the heels of the larger man for the first hundred yards.
“My friend, you must learn to run swiftly if you are to visit my homeland,” Addae called back over his shoulder. “If you do not, you will be eaten.”
I'd probably starve first, Ebryn thought. He slowed to a walk as Addae pulled ahead effortlessly, hurdling a low stone wall, and sprinting along the brow of the slope. Moving too fast for any man, Ebryn realised, as he sensed ripples from a casting fanning out across the hillside, bouncing around like echoes, as abrasive to his awareness as a storm of dry wind-blown sand.