Vergence

by John March

  “Hold fast,” he said to his gnarlwoods.

  A weight of sevyric iron as great as that of the spike, perhaps twice as much, resisted him as he tried to fold it away. A vast quantity, but this time he found the task easier, as if with practice he'd found the path of least resistance, like using a lever to shift a boulder.

  The pressure built gradually, with control, until he felt the individual pieces begin to give, to slide away, and then he threw everything he could into the task.

  And somewhere below him, the heaped piles of iron tipped, and vanished.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Ebryn found a circular space, twenty paces across. Three of the four entrances were filled with collapsed masonry and fallen earth.

  Following his creatures, he moved carefully along the fourth path, stepping over the mangled bodies of a handful of guards, creating a dim golden light along the walls to see better.

  Ebryn dismissed his gnarlwood ephemerals where the passageway emptied out into a room, retaining nothing more than a minimal ghostly shield as he walked through a wide crypt, between rows of sarcophagi.

  On all sides, in the deep shadows, he could hear things scuttling and clambering behind the rows of stone caskets. The hair on his back felt like it was standing on end, acutely aware he was surrounded by a small host of monstrosities, like the one he'd faced in the library, yet at the same time he felt strangely calm.

  As he entered the second crypt chamber the air seemed to thicken, dragging at him as he moved, like icy cobwebs.

  A solitary hooded figure sat on a large stone throne at the far end of the second room. On one side, four soldiers slumped, each held upright in the grip of a huge grey skinned creature — larger versions of the ones which had ambushed Brack's men.

  The small man lifted his head, and watched as he approached. Ebryn stepped past a severed arm and a body lying half in shadows with the top of it's head missing, shorn away along with the helmet it had worn. Some of the soldiers had made it this far, but none had survived, it seemed, apart from the four prisoners.

  As Fla moved, the four men groaned in unison, their mouths opening and shutting together. Like the guards on the steps he doubted there was much left of the original men in the shells of their bodies.

  Ebryn could see only the right hand side of Fla's face. A single eye, as bright and dark as a winged battlefield scavenger, watched him, searching his face.

  “They kindly volunteered to help me by sharing my pain,” Fla said, following Ebryn's eyes. “It took four of them, in the end, but I haven't felt this free for as long as I can remember. Our vitality is shared now — cut me, and they all bleed. Something I borrowed from a librarian friend.”

  “I'm not here to admire your work,” Ebryn said.

  “They sent you to kill me?” Fla said, his voice flat, and toneless.

  “No, I came here for myself, not to kill,” Ebryn said.

  Fla laughed, a rasping mirthless sound. “What? Capture me then?”

  “They sent me to get rid of the sevyric iron. The ones who want to harm you are following.”

  “Why then, the iron is gone?”

  “While you were loosing your creatures on this city, I was in Senesella. I had a chance to consider what I saw when Sash was hurt.”

  “Sashael?” Fla asked, his voice coming out as little more than a croaking sound.

  “Sash is safe,” Ebryn said. “I took her home, where they could heal her.”

  Fla dropped his head and turned away in his seat, body heaving in great, silent convulsions, and with each movement the four soldiers groaned.

  When Fla looked up again a dark line marked where a tear ran down his cheek. “Why did you come?

  “I need to know something,” Ebryn said. “You were following us before we were attacked near the spike.”

  “Yes—”

  “You tried to help us—”

  “For Sashael,” Fla said, scowling. “To protect Sashael. Only Sashael, not you.”

  “Using a casting?”

  Fla grunted. “What else?”

  “You used a casting before I folded the spike away,” Ebryn said.

  Silence settled over the room. Fla stared at him.

  “We're the same. I felt it,” Ebryn said. “I can get rid of sevyric iron, but it doesn't affect you at all, does it? You knew what I could do, why didn't you talk to me?”

  Fla spat dark stained spittle onto the floor near his feet. “Why should I talk to you? As I boy, I knew not to show this, I hid what I could do. Look what they did to you, look what happened to Sashael because of you, because you wouldn't hide what you are. You saved her — yes, but they nearly killed her because of you.”

  Fla's words felt like a blow to his stomach. Sash's mother had told him much the same thing just an hour past.

  “You're right. I was stupid when I came here. I didn't know what sevyric iron was then, but I should have realised its significance when I did the admission test. I'd have kept your secret though, we're the same.”

  “You think we're the same?” Fla said. “You understand nothing. You're not like me.”

  Fla pushed his hood back, letting it fall away to reveal his full face. The other half of his head looked a grotesque mess, resembling something assembled from bloated remains of a decaying corpse. His bad eye sat lopsided, and his crooked teeth were permanently exposed by misshapen thin lips. Bruise-coloured swellings stretched from the visible part of his neck to the top of his head. In places, open sores on his skin oozed a rancid grey coloured liquid.

  “This is what it's like to be different. Do we look the same to you?”

  “It's not how we look, it's what we are, why we're different from everybody else,” Ebryn said.

  Fla glanced towards the corner where a figure, like a man with shining iron skin, crouched on the ground like a toad preparing to leap. It radiated pure power, reminding him of the archon he'd met on Arborea. Not an archon, he realised, a demi-archon, or prince of some ephemeral realm, hunched down in the shadows like a servant.

  “There's more, isn't there? You know why we're like this,” Ebryn said, catching the look between Fla and his creature. “It's not by chance we can both do these things.”

  Fla's face twisted. “Isn't it obvious? We weren’t born as other men, we were bred for this, to be weapons in a war.”

  “Whose war — who did this?” Ebryn asked, although he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “Who's in the library, wearing shackles of sevyric iron?”

  Ebryn felt as if his insides had fallen away. “You mean Ben-gan?”

  “No, not Ben-gan. Do you think I'd look like this, if he'd had a hand in making me. The stuff is his creation, why would he oppose it? If he didn't want them to have it, he wouldn't have made it. Besides, his skill is not so easily limited by sevyric iron, as others like to think. It was Sevoi, Hoi, and the others,” Fla said, spitting on the floor. “They bred ephemerals into us — and not ordinary ones — we're from archons. Too strong for pure volene, and all the other things we do, which they cannot. It did this to me, what has it done to you?”

  “And our parents? Where are they?” Ebryn asked, holding his breath for the answer, feeling again like he had in that moment, before he'd gone over the waterfall and smashed so many bones.

  “They killed my mother,” Fla said. “ … hunted us. That's the first thing I remember. Always running, hiding, running. Until she died. Yours too, except they hid you better.”

  “No, they stopped trying when they had me,” Ebryn said with certainty, the pieces of his life falling into place. “They didn't think they needed you, or any of the others they created. I remember Sarl saying something about that, about them sending tutors somewhere as far away as Conant. It's why they taught me folding, to get rid of the iron.”

  “The ones they had no use for, they killed.” Fla said, with a hollow laugh. “We're the two left, and in their plan it should have been only you. The dead can't tell secrets.”

>   Fla's creatures shifted restlessly in the shadows. Noise of fighting came echoing along the outer passage. It sounded like Brack had gained the bottom of the circular stairs.

  “Brack and his men are nearly here,” Ebryn said.

  “Then they'll soon be dead, too,” Fla said flatly.

  “And after that, what? You know Sash loves this city, and the people in it. If you kill Brack and his men, they'll send others, and some will be Sash's friends. Will you kill them too? She's already lost some of her best friends today. Do you want to cause her more pain when she returns? They might even send her down here.”

  He spoke harshly, knowing he only had the time it took Brack and his men to work their way along the outer corridor to prevent a slaughter, calculating that invoking Sash would have much the same effect on Fla as it had on him.

  Fla glared at Ebryn, the little remaining colour in his face draining away. “It's not my fault they died. I did what I could.”

  “I know. She won't blame you for the ones who are gone — if you don't kill any more.”

  “What am I supposed to do, surrender?” Fla asked. “I'd be dead before the words passed my lips.”

  “Go somewhere else,” Ebryn said. “You're powerful enough to make your way anywhere. Choose to leave.”

  Fla hunched forward in his seat. A black drop from his bad eye fell smoking onto the stone floor. When he looked up his cheeks were wet with dark stains.

  “I'll go,” Fla said. “For Sashael.”

  “And I'll tell her it's what you chose to do, to spare lives,” Ebryn said.

  Fla nodded, and heaved himself up from the stone seat. The four guardsmen cried out together as he moved.

  “I'll miss them,” Fla said. “See you again, brother.”

  With a word and a gesture, a fissure appeared in the air between them. A rip directly in the world skin. A black cloud, as thick as dark smoke, billowed from Fla as he stepped into the gap, and disappeared. The fissure collapsed behind him, drawing inwards, and vanishing in the time it took Ebryn to draw breath.

  With a sound like a dry wind blowing on leaves, all the shadow creatures evaporated, the last gossamer hints fading from view as Brack and his men entered the far end of the room.

  Released from the grip of their demonic captors, the four guards fell forward, as a black tarry substance streamed from their mouths and noses. They lay on the floor, gasping like stranded fish.

  “Where is he?” Brack asked, approaching cautiously.

  “He fled to the between when I destroyed the sevyric iron, after he heard you approaching,” Ebryn said.

  “Ha, I hope the runt stays there. I told you he wouldn't stand and face us once he lost his protection. The old summoners were all the same — cowards.”

  From the look of relief on the faces of the brighter looking Aremetuet, they clearly hadn't shared their leader's confidence.

  “Check to see if he's hidden anything,” Brack said, heading for a disorderly bundle of books and parchments in the corner. “See if he had any allies.”

  Ebryn stood thinking, barely aware as the men ransacked the room. He hardly noticed Brack pull a piece of paper from a pile near where Fla had sat, and wave it triumphantly.

  The quantity of sevyric iron he'd folded away burdened him. It could easily be the greater part of the thousands retrieved from the furthest parts the city, as Fla had said.

  He faced a clear choice, and an easy one. While the raw form of sevyric iron existed in the city, other than in the spikes, he and therefore his friends would be in constant danger. To keep them safe, he would need to destroy every last piece.

  Return

  THE SYMOR DEPOSITED PALONA at the edge of the terrace where the ship waited for her. Loose flakes of paint from the vehicle stuck to the front of her dress, and her hair had come loose during the nauseating journey from the embassy.

  Palona bent over, holding onto the wheel arch, retching against an empty stomach, while the driver dropped her few bags onto the ground behind her. She wanted to feel anger at his insolence, a natural outrage, but inside she found only emptiness.

  He climbed wordlessly back into his cab, waiting just long enough for her to let go before goading his trikawi into a fast trot. One of the replacement guard officers had arranged her departure with perfunctory politeness, paying the driver in advance to bring her here.

  A fresh set of guards had arrived with the new ambassador, and a letter from her cousin, ordering her back to Ulpitor. The new men were veteran career soldiers, led by efficient officers with politely indifferent faces.

  She looked up at the looming vessel, a massive bulky thing, floating unnaturally in the air, trembling at the idea of having to travel inside one. It looked as if it might fall at any moment and smash into splinters. It seemed like another calamity waiting to happen.

  After long hours, when she'd been sure he was dying, Orim had taken a ragged breath, and crawled back to his feet. The journey back, brief but terrifying, returned her to a scene of carnage.

  For days afterwards she wished he'd left her to die in that terrible place, with the burning sky, and the rattling stones.

  The embassy had been devastated in the attack, with nearly the entire staff massacred alongside her uncle. The few survivors had fled, and refused to return. Nobody would explain what had happened. As near as she could discover, the same thing had occurred in many other places across the city.

  Two full weeks had passed since. A nightmare existence, fending for herself, relying on the charity of her friends until the new ambassador arrived, and now this.

  Palona took a steadying breath, and picked up her belongings. They were heavy and hurt her arms to lift, but she could see no porters, and would rather suffer the indignity of carrying her own luggage than the humiliation of begging a stranger for help.

  She held her head up as she walked towards the ramp, forcing away tears, and suppressing any outward show of the dread she felt. However quickly the people of this city may have forgotten her, she still had a status to maintain as the daughter of an Ulpitorian nobleman.

  Ebryn stood in the shadow of the newly arrived trade ship, waiting for Sash. Another one of Chochin design, with the same elongated eye emblem painted along the side, a small crowd milling confusedly around the bottom of the ramp as a short crewman struggled to make himself heard above the din.

  He'd wanted to fetch her from Senesella himself, but Brydeline cautioned him against trying. Without something of that place to guide him there, the path would be too treacherous, she'd told him, so he'd been reduced to sending a letter with a courier heading in that direction. The hardest thing he'd ever had to write. Elouphe was gone, and he'd found the curled-up body of Leth lying on the floor of Sash's room.

  He stayed away from the disembarkation point, remaining partially concealed under the belly of the vessel to avoid the getting in the way, and have a better chance spotting Sash.

  The last time he'd been here, the day he arrived, he'd found the press of people overwhelming. Now the busy flow felt familiar, almost comforting.

  Before the first passenger appeared, crates were already being winched to the ground in large rope cradles, where workers quickly heaved them into neatly stacked rows.

  Flights of leatherwings swooped low over the upper deck of the ship, greeting the new arrival with their high chattering, squabbling loudly over scraps.

  When the passengers finally disembarked they moved steadily to the ground. From the fearful looks and obvious relief on some faces, he could tell news of the battle had spread far beyond the boundaries of Vergence. A dozen mangled versions of the truth were already doing the rounds in the city, each story more elaborate than the last, so he could only imagine what people must be hearing in other places.

  Like the brief ripple of a stone dropped into a fast stream, the impact of the onslaught on the city had washed away almost at once, as daily life resumed. Fewer units of city watch patrolled the streets, and most of the cheg guard se
emed to be gone, yet aside from the odd bit of damage to buildings no sign of the fighting remained.

  He saw Sash the moment she appeared at the top of the ship, unbound hair flying loose on a gust of wind — longer than he remembered. Her eyes searched the crowd around the base of the ramp as she descended.

  Ebryn realised he'd been holding his breath, waiting for her to appear. She moved easily, without any lingering sign of injury. His greatest fear, that the poison might leave her crippled, evaporated as he watched her.

  The crowd parted easily when they saw his dark grey cloak, pinned with a new adepts badge, and he met Sash as she stepped off the ramp.

  Her face brightened when she saw him, breaking into the familiar dazzling smile, like sunshine pushing away clouds.

  “No luggage this time?” he asked, returning the smile.

  “No, just me,” Sash said. “Everything I want is already here.”

  Fyrenar

  RALUF SCOOPED A STRAY piece of wood from the ground and tossed it onto the growing pile of split logs. He rested his axe on the stump he used for cutting, and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. Looking down the road, he could still see the distant figure, now a little closer, making its way at a painfully slow pace towards him.

  The Bailtree inn stood behind him, positioned at the place where the three roads met, a gloomily resigned building. A thin trail of damp wood smoke struggled from the chimney and rolled across the roof, feeding the thick haze hanging in the evening air.

  Raluf scratched the back of his head. The approaching man used the least travelled of the roads — little more than a muddy track leading down from the edge of the Bosik moors, and disappearing into the furbeg infested wilds. An extended family of peat cutters lived in a hamlet where the track ended. A place too small to have a name. And beyond that not a single soul to the end of the world.

  Limping in short painful steps up the long slope, the man looked nothing like any person he knew from that isolated community. Perhaps a prospector down on his luck, Raluf thought, suffering misfortune enough to be tempted by the abandoned quarries.