Vergence

by John March

  The Aremetuet buildings were clumped along the central lower side of the second claw. A large cluster of living quarters, dining halls, training rooms and communal spaces occupied the bulk of the frontage. A smaller group of buildings, towards the far end of the claw, held quarters for senior members and administrative facilities, and connecting the two sets of buildings was a wide elevated roofed gallery bridging the pool outflow.

  The outflow ran in a narrow channel under the gallery, where Fla waited, the main street on the other side of the gallery, and the buildings opposite, where it joined the river flowing past the third claw. When young he'd explored the dark culvert which now ran under his feet, finding a narrow space in the dark to hide from the persecution of fellow students, and later to practise illicit casting.

  Now the nearness, the memory of hiding and trembling in the dark, unsettled him. The memory rubbed on him like a hard edge on bone, a bitter bile he swallowed back every day.

  He looked through the window again — the voices were closer than before, the splashing and laughter louder, and a dark shadow like a bundled man sat on the rocks, watching. The shadow he recognised. His own creature, set to guard Ebryn Alire, and where Ebryn went as often as not he found Sashael.

  Fla leaned forward, peering at the heads in the pool. And there she was, laughing and splashing water at her friend Elouphe as he dived under her, perfect white teeth, and long golden hair shining in the light. He saw Sashael and felt transported, gripped the window ledge tightly, forgetting the pain of his body and memories of his youth, as if he existed only because she was there.

  The tall dark warrior — Fla couldn't think of him as a caster — called to them, and they turned and swam to the far end of the pool. Sashael stepped from the water naked, and something like a shock went through his body. He wanted to turn away, do something to preserve her from a gaze as profane as his, but he stared transfixed, unable to drag his eyes away. He could more easily have torn them out with his fingers.

  Brack turned the corner into the room and swaggered up to Fla, followed closely by Lord Muro.

  “You got the list, right?” Brack said to Muro as they approached. “There's enough there to keep your brother busy for a while. Get some of the turd-suck off the streets and we're all happy, right?”

  “As long as my little inconvenience goes away,” Muro said.

  “Ah, there you are, Fla. I was just talking about you,” Brack said.

  They stopped next the open window and Muro looked down at him, one eyebrow raised. “Is this the one you're planning to send? What's he going to do, threaten to bite my man's ankles?”

  Brack laughed and slapped Muro on the shoulder. “He looks like trikawi piss, but I don't waste time with bloody fools. Fired up, he'll scare the rear right off your man.”

  Fla scowled and stepped away from the window. “If I choose—”

  “What's been keeping you out here?” Brack asked. “Aha, I see—”

  “But which one's he watching, eh?” Muro said, observing Fla from the corner of his eye.

  Brack grinned. “Not all of us are as unpleasant to the eye as Fla.”

  “Indeed,” Muro said, one hand playing with the end of his moustache as he stared out the window.

  “I've been told she's very friendly, likes dancing, it's said.”

  Fla looked from one to the other. He felt as if something had curled up, and died inside his chest. He weighed the bag of coins in his hand, wanting to throw them in Brack's face, but the work being offered would take at most a part day, and for the same sum Orim would have demanded a score or more full days.

  He looked out the window to where Sash wrung water from her hair. The payment would free him from other demands for a good while.

  Fla and Romain

  FLA LEANT HEAVILY on his staff as he made his way from the Aremetuet building. Brack had left him feeling emptied out, with a prickling sensation across his skin and a creeping nausea, as if something had uncurled inside his stomach and was trying to force its way up past his gullet. The bag of money in his pocket seemed to weigh him down, felt like something contaminated, corrupting him as he'd accepted it from Brack's hand.

  He stumbled blindly along the road, unable to free himself of the vision of Sashael emerging from the water, with Muro and Brack watching her — defiling her with their eyes. Brack's words twisted and burnt like a bitter bile in his throat he could neither swallow or vomit up.

  He wiped away the dark fluid leaking from his bad eye, and stepped from the pavement to pass a group of men loitering near a gap between buildings. As he moved past, one of the men reached out and pushed him.

  Fla staggered into the centre of the road and twisted to avoid falling, all his weight bearing down through his bad ankle and knee. He felt as if wedged spikes had been driven through heel, ankle, and knee all at once. The agony engulfed him, driving the air from his body, and for a long twelve heartbeats his world was emptied of everything but pain. When his sight returned he found himself clutching at his staff for support, gasping for air, with dark points swimming in front of his eyes.

  All the faces before him were laughing.

  “Dance dwarf,” a voice called.

  The man who'd pushed him had a sneer on his face. “We don't want the likes of you here, you runt. Why don't you go back where you came from with the six-legged freaks—”

  Fla could see the group were mostly new apprentice casters, burly fellows with short cropped hair, all wearing new dark red Aremetuet cloaks — some of Brack's recent recruits. They all reminded him of the man who'd cornered him in the library. An older apprentice on the far side of the group was staring at him with evident fear.

  “Yeah, Genestuer runt, go spend time with your hairy friends.”

  “I'm not Genestuer,” Fla muttered, trying to control the pain.

  “What's that, what he say?”

  The one in front lent forward, pushing his face close to Fla's. “He says he's not Genestuer. So what are you then?”

  Humiliation turned to rage, and Fla unleashed at casting at the man as he replied. “Aremeuet once—”

  The scalding lash caught the big man across his half open mouth, instantly blistering his lips, and the skin of his cheeks. Fla fed his anger into the casting, the marks barely hinted at the agonising sensation. The lash inflicted no real lasting injury, but it would feel like his face and mouth had been doused with boiling oil, every tooth splintered, exposing the raw pulp beneath, penetrating through to the marrow of his jaw. The struck man reeled away, clutching at his mouth, unable to even scream, staggering and falling, clawing at the ground as the pain grew.

  Another man reached for Fla, grabbing at him like some common street brawler, twisting him away, and pulling him backwards. Fla gripped the man's wrist, sending another casting, a fire venom touch, through his finger tips.

  The apprentice pulled back, face drawing into a thin scream. Like the scalding lash, he'd invented the fire venom casting, modifying an original version Fla had found in the depths of the library to strip out the damaging elements, and amplifying the pain.

  Fla lurched round, pivoting on his staff, the rage inside re-doubling — feeding on itself. A few of the men behind Fla cursed, and he sensed them scrambling for hurried castings. He held back, knowing too well what their training would produce.

  As one of the apprentices mouthed the words to produce a ward, Fla intercepted it, turning it back, re-twisting the lines of power which bound it together, and wrapping it around the men before him. The reversed ward pulled in tighter over each man, pinning legs in place, binding arms, and forcing their mouths shut. They toppled, falling into each other, hitting the cobbles with dull smacks.

  Fla looked up to find the street deserted. Here and there, the tail end of robes flapped above running legs as their owners disappeared through doorways, and the odd pale face stared around the corners of window frames.

  He spat into the dirt at the apprentice's feet, then turned and limped a
way, leaving a heap of silently writhing bodies behind him. No sevyric iron manacles here to stop him.

  Inside, he felt empty, his anger dying like burnt out ash, his thoughts turning back to Sashael stepping from the pool, and the hungry look in Muro's eyes.

  Sash became quiet as she finished dressing, staring down at her own feet. When she looked up, she was biting her lower lip, and her eyes were unnaturally bright.

  “I'd better be going, I have rehearsals for the play.”

  She turned, and walked away quickly without waiting for a reply. Ebryn watched her go as he waited for Elouphe to clamber out of the water, and shake himself dry.

  “Where Sash gone?” Elouphe asked.

  “She said she had work to do,” Ebryn said. “Addae, why was she so upset?”

  “I do not know, my friend. I have four wives, and yet I do not understand the hearts of women,” Addae said.

  “Four wives? At the same time?”

  “Yes,” Addae said. “I know it is not many. My brother has a great number.”

  Ebryn looked at Addae to see if he was joking. “More than four? In Fyrenar people are allowed to marry only once — one at a time anyway.”

  Addae grunted. “In my lands many men die. There are many dangers and the T'chkt are fierce enemies. If a man married once, many women would have no husband. Our numbers would decline, our people soon gone like sand blown in the wind.”

  “I see,” Ebryn said, trying to imagine what it must be like to be married many times. It sounded complicated.

  “I must return,” Addae said. “I will tell Cormer you are to go with us on the night of the festival.”

  “Eby, you go books now?”

  “Yes, Ben-gan seems to have suggested half the library for me to read. That reminds me, Addae, we must make sure we have time for me to teach you folding before we go.”

  “That would be good, my friend,” Addae said.

  “This is the way,” Elouphe said, setting off along the edge of the small lake, following a narrow track.

  “Why are we going this way?” Ebryn asked.

  “I go far Claw, Eby,” Elouphe said. “Work, work, work.”

  The trail led them to a narrow gap between two buildings, joining the second of the claws roads at a point half-way along its length, a little way down from the healing orders quarters.

  A group of red-cloaked Aremetuet were gathered on the opposite side of the street, talking loudly, some shouting to be heard over the noise. A couple of yards from the main group, one of the men sat on the paving, knees drawn up with his feet resting in the gutter, clutching a blood-stained rag to his head. Two men stood with him, one with a split lip, and the other with a bruised face.

  Elouphe padded out from the gap, and into the road. Halfway across he saw the crowd of men and stopped. Sullen, angry faces turned towards them, and from the midst of the group stepped Romain Marus.

  “What are you doing here?” Romain asked, looking at Elouphe. “Not get enough the first time?”

  A couple of the nearest red-cloaks moved across the road to confront them, one tall, the other squat with a shaved head.

  “We told you to keep your pet at home,” the tall one said.

  The squat one reached out and shoved Elouphe in the face with the flat of his hand. “No animal-people on our street. Go back to where you belong, swamp scum.”

  As he put out his hand to shove Elouphe again, Addae's fist collided with his jaw, and sent him to the ground.

  The nearest red-cloaks surged forward with arms outstretched, snarling and cursing. Addae met them in the middle of the street, moving with the ease of a dancer.

  For a few moments he disappeared into a welter of flailing arms, then a space opened around him, and half a dozen were left sprawling on the cobblestones as the rest retreated. Ebryn tried to pull Elouphe back, away from the fight, but he seemed rooted in place, crouching low on four limbs, eyes staring wildly about.

  “Use castings, you dolts,” Romain called out.

  Ebryn spoke the words of a warding, but broke off with them half-formed. Two of the men on the ground were already rolling to their feet, incantations on their lips, too close for a ward.

  Bright sparks flashed through the space where Addae had stood a heartbeat before, blasting chips from the stone wall behind them, and he felt a surge as forces for a dozen other castings gathered.

  Almost reflexively, Ebryn threw up a shield, stepping forward to protect Elouphe, and trying to think of a way to halt the fight. Half a dozen castings careened of his protection, or flared and died in front of his face.

  Romain stared at Ebryn with an expression of surprise on his face, swiftly replaced by anger. “You've got a shield, we have swords.”

  Almost as if the same thought had occurred to all the men at once, the red-cloaks closed in, drawing knives and short-swords.

  The nearest four darted forward with their weapons held low, Addae moving smoothly to intercept the nearest pair, but the other two ran at Ebryn and Elouphe.

  Ebryn shifted away from Elouphe, trying to create room to dodge, head swimming with castings as the first man raised his sword.

  Something powerful crashed through the man as he leaned forward into a downward cut, a form built like the front half of a cheg, a smoky liquid shape moving impossibly fast. The words for a stasis casting died on Ebryn's lips, half formed, the energies flaring away from him in a brilliant stinging corona.

  As the leading man hit the ground, his sword cartwheeling through the air, the creature was onto the second, sweeping his weapon aside, and stabbing him through the centre of his body with long hooked claws.

  Everyone in the street froze for a heartbeat, and then the red-cloaks scattered. Some scrambling for the alleyway behind them, most running desperately down the street, ducking into any open door they passed, leaving three of their fellows lying in the street.

  The creature shifted, seeming to fold and flow inwards, as if parts of its body were reordering themselves. It faced them for a moment, dark vortex eyes locked with Ebryn's, and evaporated.

  “What was that? Was that a summoning?” Ebryn asked.

  “I do not know, my friend. It did not serve the Aremetuet well,” Addae said.

  “I can see now why there's a rule against true summoning,” Ebryn said, looking at Elouphe, his heart still racing in his chest. “Are you hurt?”

  Elouphe stood rooted in place, body rigid, staring at the nearest fallen man.

  Ebryn nudged him. “Elouphe are you hurt?”

  “No, Eby, not hurt.”

  “What about him?” Ebryn said, nodding at the worst hurt fighter.

  “They are nothing to us. Leave him here,” Addae said.

  Ebryn looked up the street. The Aremetuet were gone, fleeing along with everyone else. The injured man in front of them lay in a slowly expanding pool of red, his breathing coming in short gasps.

  “I don't know … if we leave him here he might die. He looks badly hurt.”

  “This is not our concern,” Addae said. “These men are your enemies. It is unwise to help those who seek to kill you, my friend. Such is the path to a brief life.”

  “We're near the healers here. I think we should take him. It's not the right thing to do, to walk away.”

  “Such men are like the ngi-roro,” Addae said, cupping his hands to a shape the size of a small loaf of bread. “The ngi-roro are small, yet they are numberless. Kill one and there is another in its place. This one will not be mourned. His own friends have no care for his fate.”

  “I'm sorry,” Ebryn said. “It may sound stupid to you, and you may be right, but I can't just leave him to die. Stay here, if you want to.”

  Addae made a clicking noise with his tongue. “No, my friend, I will take him with you. I hope you will not later regret that you did this.”

  Fla pushed open the door to the moneylenders premises as darkness started to settle in. The interior was small, dimly lit, and smelt damp.

  An o
ld man with a pointed face and thinning grey hair sat on a high stool at a table, counting through a small pile of coins with his tongue poking between his lips. A narrow staircase ran from the rear right hand corner up along the side of the room, and behind the man Fla could see a low doorway with a fabric hanging in place of a door.

  “Were about closing. Come back in the morning,” the old man said, peering at him.

  “This won't take long, I'm here to settle a debt,” Fla said.

  “Payments, eh? Best come in then. Plunk it down where I can count it.”

  Fla moved cautiously into the centre of the room, watchful for dangers. He'd seen the mark of Kylnes on the front of the building, protection enough against most, but he expected the lender to have some other security on hand -— guards, traps, animals, or something as simple as a crossbow.

  “I'm here to negotiate the terms,” Fla said.

  The old man scowled. “Come in here, Maude, see who this is for me, got one wants to talk instead of paying his due.”

  There was a heavy sigh from the back room, followed by clunking, and dragging movements. After a few moments the curtain pulled back, and a girl shuffled into the room leaning on a crutch. Fla could see the left hand side of her body was twisted, her arm useless at her side, dragging her leg forward with each step. Her face was lop-sided, with the left eyelid drooped, and the side of her face slack.

  “I don't know him grandpa. He looks like one of them robes,” she said.

  “I don't do no lending to priests or casters — too much trouble,” the old man said. “You find the man as lent you, it wasn't me.”

  Fla stared back at the girl, feeling Brack's money weighing on him, heavier with each heartbeat. Her ailments were not the result of some injury or malady. Like him, she'd been born, or grown into her misfortune. And he could see she struggled with it every day, overlooked or taunted, finding the easy things difficult, doing the work she could to survive.

  “Be off with you then, if you've no business here,” the old man said.