by Kate Elliott
A war council is held after the sun goes down. We enter the old temple complex in silent procession, officials wearing the masks of their offices and the rest of us masked only with hope and apprehension. After the upheavals of recent months Mother can’t be comfortable with her daughters out of her sight, but we walk behind her like ordinary attendants, shown no preference. The honored poet escorts her; he’s earned that right.
Soldiers stand in disciplined ranks. Only a few wear uniforms but they are an army, make no mistake. When General Inarsis appears they tap fists to chests and shout “Efea will rise!” When Mother in her butterfly mask steps forward, they drop to one knee.
Statues of gods and rulers overlook this forecourt, but now their heads are concealed by cloth. Only Hayiyin, Mistress of the Sea, still shows her face, her granite shoulders newly wreathed in necklaces of fresh flowers.
In the garden where the High Priest of Seon once took his ease, a bent and aged dame wearing a wasp mask calls the council to order. Inarsis and Mother sit side by side on fancy chairs molded for highborn Saroese. Ro recites a poem in which he describes seeing his reflection in the face of the Mother of All. He’s beautiful when he declaims, a vessel for the truth. Like me, he’s most alive when he’s in motion. There’s no stillness in him, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I get to feeling exhausted when around him.
Administrators report on the readiness of recruits, the availability and manufacture of weapons, and an inventory of supplies. Scouts and hunters give accounts of regions in the north still not under the complete control of the new government, followed by a long and contentious discussion over whether to send soldiers in to defeat the garrisons or to seal off these towns until they can be mopped up later. Different factions argue vociferously about what strategy to take in the south. I’m dismayed by how much disagreement there is, although Inarsis takes it in stride.
Efean refugees from Saryenia describe how the East Saroese army has set up a siege that rings the city on the landward side while their fleet blockades the harbor.
“Has there been starvation?” It is the first time Mother has spoken.
“The royal palace took control of the Grain Market. Strict rationing has been implemented throughout the city. People say the king eats only two meals of porridge every day.”
I press a hand to my heart because it suddenly hurts. Of course that is what Kal would do.
“How did you get out?” Inarsis asks.
“General Esladas approached the dames in the Warrens. He wanted to get information to his allies and thought Efeans would have an easier time slipping through the lines. We thought the risk worth it, especially when the dames told us privately that we could serve the cause of Efea by delivering his messages to you, Honored Protector, instead of to his allies. Here they are.”
“So the Saroese inside the city still do not know of our uprising, that we control most of the north,” Inarsis muses. He accepts a pouch of waxed oilcloth. Inside are sheets of papyrus. “This is a detailed map of the disposition of East Saroese and Saro-Urok forces and fleets around the city. And this…” He frowns at a small note tucked inside the map. “Some kind of cipher.”
“Let me see.” Mother reads it, brow wrinkling, then glances at me.
“What is it?” I ask nervously.
“A personal request from King Kalliarkos to Lord Thynos, asking him to send word on whether you have been found. It’s written in the cipher your father taught me.”
“So his uncle Gargaron cannot read it, should he get hold of it,” I mutter. “May I see it?”
Smoothing it out over my leg, I stare at the skilled lines of Kal’s precise and elegant writing. Then I see what upset Mother: a second message appended below the king’s, in which Father personally requests news of members of his family, that he may know they are alive. I should burn it. I should. But when a horn blares an alert and an officer appears to announce the arrival of a messenger from the south, I roll it up and slip it beneath the scarf covering my hair.
A travel-worn individual strides into view with a pair of saddlebags slapping her back.
“Mis!” I leap to my feet, shaken by the sight of a person I feared might be dead.
She nods at me, even flashes me the kiss-off gesture, but she doesn’t reply because she is a soldier on duty. When she reaches the front she drops to one knee.
“I bring word from General Thynos. The Garon Palace militia and their West Saroese allies have left their beachhead on the Reed Shore and are marching toward Saryenia. General Thynos says we must move immediately to take advantage of the forthcoming clash between the two Saroese armies.”
Her words send the assembly into a buzz as Inarsis calls for a fast strike force to depart in the morning with the main army to follow a day behind.
I volunteer to escort Mis to her billet. “So you’re a soldier now,” I say as we walk hand in hand like we’ve never been apart.
“I said I was going to fight for Efea. What happened to you? I heard a song as I was riding into Ibua about how a tomb spider led Efeans out of the underground prison in which they’d been buried.”
“Ro,” I mutter, but also I’m a little flattered.
“What it really sounds like is that something terrible happened that you barely survived, and I’d believe it. You look awful.”
“Thank you!”
She punches me on the shoulder, and we embrace and cry a little.
“What about Dusty?” I ask as we go on.
She sighs. “The most boring story of all. He just wants to be friends because he’s infatuated with someone else. Tell me what happened to you.”
Speaking lightens me because she doesn’t judge or fuss or give advice. She just listens. Yet when our path twists into the narrow, dark passages of the part of the temple dedicated to Lord Judge Inkos, I shudder.
“What’s wrong?”
“It reminds me of the mines. And of Eternity Temple.”
She puts an arm around me and hurries me along to the servants’ compound at the far end of the complex from where we entered. At the stables she checks in with a captain in charge of the courier riders and, upon being released from duty for the night, guides me to a courtyard surrounded by storehouses and workshops. Wagons with broken axles are being fixed, and armor, weapons, and harnesses repaired.
“Hey! Dusty!” She waves at a man standing in the open door of a storehouse. He’s wearing a patch over his mutilated eye.
“Glad you’re back.” He gives Mis a brotherly hug that makes her roll her eyes at me over his shoulder. The greeting he gives me is more muted and less welcoming, as if he isn’t sure he can trust me.
“You look better than when I last saw you,” I mutter, and when he taps his ear I repeat it in a louder voice.
“You look worse,” he answers with a pained gaze.
“I like how everyone points that out.”
Mis chuckles. “Because we love you. Over here, Jes. I want to show you something.”
I don’t see them at first because it’s night. Instead odd flashes of what I think is lamplight draw my attention to hulking forms lined up in a row along a shadowed wall.
It is a full squadron of twelve spiders. Wisps of spark-light chase through the curves of brass bodies.
“Good Goat,” I murmur.
“You see why I brought you here.”
“They’re not set in proper resting configuration.” I walk down the row, touching each one to feel the buzz of its spark. “The forelegs are supposed to be raised, so the scout can mount easily into the carapace. And they’ve not been oiled and polished. Father used to talk about how much time the scouts spent making sure spider joints didn’t get clogged with sand. Who is in charge of this squad?”
“It isn’t as if we have any sergeants or captains from the Royal Army to train us.”
The last spider in line rests in shadow, but when I place my hand on its dented carapace I recognize it at once: years ago my father patrolled in this spider.
&nbs
p; “Mis, where were these spiders captured? And how? They were stationed at Crags Fort.” I’m stricken by a memory of Sergeant Oras as he tried to apologize for an insult to my mother that he later regretted. “These are the spiders from my father’s old unit. The sergeant in charge there remembered me.”
She grips my elbow, watching me carefully. “I’m glad to see you, never think otherwise, Jes, but I have to ask. Are you here only because you escaped the mine and are stuck with us for now?”
“Do you mean do I wish I was back with the Royal Army? With my father?” I don’t add, With Kal?
“I didn’t want to say it so bluntly. But yes, do you?”
I don’t take my gaze from hers. “No, I don’t. I was intending to leave Saryenia with my mother when Lord Gargaron kidnapped me.”
She releases me with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry but I had to ask. I don’t know what happened to these particular spider scouts, but if you think we’ve taken control of the north by politely asking Saroese garrisons to trot off home, then you don’t understand how a rebellion works. Can you truly fight for Efea, Jes? Do you understand what that means?”
Is Oras dead? The thought raises a pang in my heart. But what happened to the scouts who once controlled these spiders is beyond any effort of mine to sway the outcome.
“I do understand, Mis. We did what we had to at the mines. Anyway, a captured spider squad offers an astonishing opportunity.”
“To use in battle?”
“That, yes. But there was a crow priest assigned to Crags Fort. Do you know if the scouts’ gear has been kept with the spiders?”
“I’m not the one to ask—”
“Here’s Dagger!” Dusty says enthusiastically.
A small, muscular woman jogs up to us. She nods at Dusty in the way older siblings nod at pesky young ones they’ve been assigned to mind. “Good to see you back, Mis,” she says with more warmth. “Did you bring me a recruit?”
“I know you!” I say. “I ran against you at the Royal Fives Court.”
“So you did! You’re Spider, aren’t you?” She gestures a kiss-off as a sign of respect.
I flash the gesture back with a grin. “You joined the rebellion?”
“Yes, and for my pains I’ve been assigned as temporary sergeant of these spiders even though I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You’re an excellent sergeant,” says Dusty, gazing at her with the same longing look he used to cast at Amaya. Mis elbows me before I can make a sardonic remark about his taste for unobtainable women.
“Is there any chance you have some insight into the spiders?” Dagger asks, ignoring him. “Wasn’t your father a spider scout once?”
“He was, and I do, but first I need to know if there is any gear that came with the spiders.”
“Yes. It’s all been cataloged and stored. I’ll show you. You can’t believe what a strict accounting system the Honored Custodian has instituted.”
“I can believe it.”
In the storeroom behind where the spider unit sleeps there are shelves built into the wall with odds and ends stacked beside a papyrus scroll. I push items aside as Dagger talks behind me.
“We’ve been allowed to use the blankets and cooking utensils and knives and weapons but some of what they carried is just… odd.”
There it is, shoved into the back: a worn leather pouch incised with crow feathers and decorated with dangling strings of glass beads, polished stones, and slender bones that I abruptly realize are finger bones.
“We’d have thrown it in the trash,” Dagger says hastily, “but the clerks said we have to keep everything together until there’s time to sort it out.”
I pick it up, and whatever I expect, it feels like ordinary leather, no bolt of lightning or sizzle of arcane power. I don’t quite have enough courage to look inside an object not meant for me.
“This belonged to a crow priest. I need to take it to the Archivists.”
Our family garden is dark when I return, only a single lamp burning, everyone asleep except Mother, who hurries over the moment I enter.
“I couldn’t rest until you came back. Maraya and I were talking—”
“Is she still awake?”
Maraya is lying on her side on a mat as Polodos kneels behind her. He’s rubbing her back as they whisper to each other. Such bold displays of affection are quite un-Saroese, but no one takes note of them among Efeans. When I hand her the leather pouch her eyes widen.
“Is this what I think it is?” she gasps.
“Yes.”
“Where did you get this, Jessamy?” Mother asks. “In a time of disorder people can’t be allowed to just take what they want, especially not my children. That will lead to precisely the same unfair hoarding and stealing that Saroese law allowed.”
“I’m not hiding that I took it. Polodos can record where it’s gone.”
Maraya breaks in. “Mother, we all know the priests have used magic to help kings and queens hold on to their power. But they can’t keep their knowledge hidden from me. I will discover how they transfer sparks from one body to another. I will find out how a blinded child can learn to see through the eyes of crows, which must have something to do with binding the shadow or the self of a crow to a person.”
“Perhaps you could do it with any animal,” I mutter. “I mean, transfer something of their power to a person.”
She flashes an approving smile at me, then turns back to Mother. “So you see, the contents of this bag will be invaluable to my investigation, and possibly more important to Efea’s freedom than any of us can predict.”
Of course Maraya always gets her way.
“Very well. Polodos, make sure the transfer is noted.”
“And another thing,” I add. “Maraya has started looking through administrative accounts from the Inkos temple Archives and the records from the mines that relate to Lord Ottonor’s management of Maldine. We don’t think Ottonor died in debt as Lord Gargaron claimed.”
“Yes, I already have a significant list of Clan Tonor’s wealth and holdings,” says Maraya.
“I’m proud of you girls. What happened to Lord Ottonor was a crime, even if no one believed me at the time.” Mother takes my arm. “Now, Jessamy, sit down. I am going to properly wash out that terrible gash.”
It doesn’t hurt as much as I fear as she probes the scar. I remember how gently and thoroughly she would clean out Father’s wounds when they festered. It’s strange to think that by healing him she made him ready to go out and risk his life again and again. That every time he went to war he helped our Saroese masters keep their grip upon our lives.
“I’m going to train the spider scouts. They don’t have anyone who knows how to properly maintain and use them, and I know the basics.”
Perhaps it is my still-inflamed gash that makes her frown. “I won’t bother to try to dissuade you because it never worked before. You’ll need Inarsis’s permission first. But why that task, Jessamy?”
“Do you think this is about Father?”
“It will always be partly about him, for you. Do you understand that?”
“I’m not going back, I promise you. Amaya and Maraya have their skills, and I have mine. To win, we’re going to need all the weapons we can get.”
23
I sleep heavily and long. When I finally yawn my way into the garden at midmorning I find it empty except for Denya. She’s sitting in the shade, embroidering masks and looking as peaceful as I’ve seen her.
“Jessamy! You surprised me.”
“Where is everyone?”
“They went to the petition garden. I should go along, I know. My mother always said it is best to accept things the way they are, but I feel so uncomfortable and out of place.”
“Do you wish you were back living in your father’s household, or married to a Saroese captain?”
Her gaze drops to the fabric she’s holding. In neat, delicate stitches a circle of lotus blooms frames a scene of struggling warrior
s, and when I look more closely I realize they are all women.
“No, I don’t,” she says softly. “I’m glad I’m here, even if it seems strange. It’s a better life than the one I had. But is it wrong of me to wish Amaya and I could just have a little market stall and sell the crafts we make and live a quiet life?”
“I don’t think it’s wrong.”
A thought occurs to her, and she covers a smile with a hand as if she’s amused and doesn’t want me to guess. “The poet was here looking for you. He said to meet him at the lion gate at midday if you want to find out what happened to the oracle.”
“The oracle! That’s what he said?”
She blushes as if I’ve criticized her, for even a slightly raised voice causes her to cringe. A rush of affection from an undiscovered territory of my heart floods me. I kiss her on the cheek as I would a sister.
“Thank you, Denya. I’m glad you’ve found a home with us.”
By the lion gate that leads into the High Priest’s compound within the temple complex, three young men wait beside an empty sedan chair.
“Are you waiting for Ro-emnu?” I ask.
“We’re helping him out today.” They introduce themselves. “You’re Spider, aren’t you? He talks about you a lot.”
A woman’s flirtatious laughter catches my attention. Ro stands at the gate teasing the guard on duty, a young woman with a height and build similar to mine although she is a lot freer with her smiles and in the way she caresses his arm. She sees me and gives him a long, lingering kiss on the mouth.
“He doesn’t talk about her as much as he does about you,” offers one of the young men helpfully.
If I retort that I don’t care how much he talks about her, it will sound as if I do, so I say, “Are we going soon?”
Instead of answering they hammer me with questions. “How did you plan and lead the mine revolt?” “Was the Inkos temple really built on top of a temple dedicated to the Mother of All?” “Are you so good at the Fives because you are the guardian of all that which is buried and thus have been granted the Mother’s favor?” “What do you think of Ro’s song about you?”