by S. M. Beiko
The king nodded. “You have a message for me.”
The Owl soldier straightened, back iron-straight. “It is as it was when the Pilgrim arrived.” The quiet voice was grave. “A gate has opened. An unnatural one. I saw it open, bright and crimson, and then it shut just as quickly. I saw a girl pass through it, but I could not chase.”
The Owl King rose, body weary from disuse. How long had he been lost in the past this time? “Does the General know?”
The soldier did not answer right away. Then, “She will know soon enough. The girl seeks the General most ardently. The archivist is taking her there. She believes the General will help her.”
“A girl,” the Owl King repeated. This was a story he’d known, doomed, it seemed, to be repeated. “I would see this visitor is not harmed. But if she goes near the Heartwood —”
The Owl soldier bent its head, mask of feather around black eyes twitching and interrupted. “There is something else.”
The Owl King looked up sharply, great wings rising from the marble floor marked with broken, meaningless symbols.
“The visitor. The girl. She carries a stone with her. A new sister of the old stones. I do not know what it means; but before the gate closed, I heard it sing.”
The king squeezed his talons until they bit into the flesh he had always taken for granted. He felt himself smile. “The story is trying to end itself, I see.”
The soldier was quiet. When it turned, the Owl King noted that its wings were short, like the wings of a glider. It took off from the platform to join the other sentinels, watching, waiting, for the world below to change.
Alone on the broken throne, along the top of the universe, the Owl King smiled. “My love,” he said. “Let us see if you allow yourself to be saved this time.”
* * *
The closer they got to their destination, the quieter Baskar became, wringing their hands, jumping at every sound.
“You’re sure this is the way to Roan . . . ?”
The Rabbit only nodded. “What if she is still angry with me?” they said, their steps stammering as much as their voice. “What if she burns up my body and I become a Bloodbeast like so many others?”
So, Saskia realized, Bloodbeasts were corrupted shades. Is that why there were monsters in her world, the Denizen dead, unable to go to their rest, turning into something else?
“What exactly did you do to deserve exile?” she asked.
The Rabbit looked over at her quizzically, as though just remembering she was there at all.
“I am the keeper of the story,” Baskar said slowly. “But I found a part of the story that the General did not like. She did not want to have it recorded, let alone heard. I often can’t help myself, especially when it comes to expanding our world’s knowledge. I thought I was . . . helping.” They gestured towards the weird, twisted landscape, and Saskia wondered what kinds of stories this place could really tell — especially if it’d been left like this for a hundred years by their reckoning.
They moved downhill into fog that thickened, smoke choking her, intermittent heat steaming off rock. This place couldn’t be the Bloodlands, but it was, at the same time. There were Hope Trees, there were monsters. But the grass gave way to sand and canyon walls. Here and there, caught between boulders, there was vegetation, the sounds of howling. It was an alien planet. The underside of everything she knew.
Maybe rescuing this strange Rabbit hadn’t been the best idea. The smoke started to clear the farther she went, yet the fires still burned. She figured, at least, she might be going to the right place.
Ahead, at twin gates made of twisting flames snaking over a stone archway, stood two figures wearing masks similar to Baskar’s. Except these, carved from burnt wood, had much shorter ears, fanned whiskers. The eyes were completely covered. They were armed with flaming spears, branches that never seemed to burn away.
“Oh my,” Baskar said, backing away. “I don’t believe I can do this.”
Saskia shook her head. “We’re going to have to. I didn’t come all this way for nothing.” She didn’t know what she was expecting. But approaching a flaming palace was not up there in her realm of possibilities.
She swallowed and approached the guards, not waiting for Baskar. “I’m here to see Roan Harken.”
The guards looked to one another, then to Baskar, whose head was bowed in supplication. “You brought back the exile?” one grunted. “We’d only just sent them away, you know.”
Saskia grimaced. “Okay, well, sorry for the excessive paperwork, but I —”
The flaming spears rose. “Are you beast or shade?”
Saskia raised her hands and took a step back. “Neither. I’m human, like Roan. Please, I just need to talk to her.”
The spears lowered slightly, the guards looking between the two intruders, then they huddled together, whispering. When they moved, their joints clattered like teeth. They were encased with hard-glazed mud and clad in stitched leather armour and furry moss. Saskia’s head throbbed. The air in this place was hot. Beyond the gate, and the guards, was a flame like a pyre, guttering into the shadowy dusk light.
“Hello?” she tried again. “Listen, I just —”
Baskar came forward then, stepping in front of her.
“If I may be so bold as to suggest looking closely at the stone she bears,” they urged. The guards edged forward, leaning over her, and Saskia got the distinct impression she was being sniffed.
The guards drew back, exchanged a look, and one jerked their head. Rough thorn-tipped hands grabbed her, but at least they’d put away the fiery spears. The flames of the gate parted, and the guards steered her through it, down a rocky path that led down into a cavern, towards the burning light. Saskia heard Baskar squawk behind her, and she was glad that she wouldn’t really have to do this alone after all.
Phae had been an excellent lore teacher, even though she was the first to admit it wasn’t her strong suit. Saskia knew that Phae’s need to relay all the stories and information about Ancient and its many realms — and the people who came from them — sprang from a devotion to Barton, to preserving him, too, in some small way.
Saskia had been expecting a land of wandering ghosts and spirits, but the guards hauling her deeper into the burning canyon were corporeal. Maybe they were the dead, but they seemed driven with purpose. Could the dead evolve?
And the Bloodlands being so near to what was likely the Den, the realm of the fox warrior god Deon, was also as upsetting as it was curious. These places were supposed to be metaphysical. But this place was real. Which made the threats bad, of course — but also the dawning realization that the longer Saskia was down here, the faster time was running out.
When they finally brought Saskia to the base of the great climbing flame, the only other word she could muster to describe her situation was screwed.
Standing before the flame on a stone dais as if the pyre wasn’t hot enough to melt the flesh off a living body was a broad figure. Baskar’s “mistress.” Her mask and armour looked like those of the warriors surrounding her. Some were extremely still, barely tilting their heads to watch Saskia pass, others paced, yipping like the Foxes they were dressed as.
The figure on the dais leaned into a great sword that, in the guttering flame light, was purple as a bruise and translucent as crystal. Saskia had seen that blade before. Had trusted the person wielding it.
But the figure wore a full mask like the others, so Saskia couldn’t be sure this wasn’t some ruse. Not yet. This must be the General of Ash and Flame, the one Baskar had mentioned. She certainly looked the part.
“The intruder, Mother,” said one of the guards, shunting Saskia forward and melting back into the throng. “She has brought the exile back with her.”
Mother? Saskia didn’t move nor say a word. The great masked head tilted, then swung to Baskar, who crumpled beside Saskia, shivering pitifu
lly despite the intense heat of the fire.
“Why have you come back?” came the General’s voice, sharp and demanding. “Is my word so abhorrent to you that you would disobey it outright?”
Chattering erupted around the fire, and Saskia couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the fire itself speaking.
Baskar cowered. “The v-visitor wanted to see you, my l-lady. I brought her here t-to you, as a sign . . . a sign of my p-penitence.”
Saskia swung to the Rabbit as it threw her under the bus. “You what?”
Baskar flinched but stepped closer to the dais, hands clasped above their head. “She asked for you by the old name! She has come for your help. I will leave again, if it is your will, but I swear, Mistress, that I will never tell another story that you cannot bear to hear.”
The garnet blade came up in a wide, executioner’s arc, and Saskia stiffened, expecting Baskar’s nutshell-head to slam into her, but the blade tip hung at Baskar’s shoulder, unmoving.
“Go to your place,” the General said quietly. “And I will consider mercy.”
Baskar nodded frantically, took one last apologetic look at Saskia, and scampered off in a bundle of clinking sticks.
Great, thanks.
“Now. You.” The General’s gaze swung to Saskia, the blade coming down against the stone so quickly that sparks flew up, the length of it landing across the masked stranger’s broad shoulders. “What is that rock you’ve got on your head?”
Saskia had definitely pictured this conversation going differently. At best, she figured Roan had been imprisoned somewhere, and she’d be greeted with gratitude when Saskia came to rescue her. At worst, Roan was infected by a Bloodbeast and the Onyx could save her. That she was some kind of . . . revered warrior god-queen was really not compelling her to speak her mind.
Saskia took a sharp breath. “You only saw it the one time,” she said, “brought into your world to save it by a Deer you once knew — Phaedrapramit Das.”
So much for keeping things close to the chest. But she was in a hurry to get this over with, hoping that the Moth Queen’s promise that Death protected her would hold.
The General came closer. She was impassive, arms and shins covered with dark leather bracers incised with patterns. She dropped the blade and dragged it across the stone floor as she circled Saskia.
“The Deadlands spit out more fascinating creatures each day,” the General remarked, coming to a stop with the blade clapping into her open palm. The assembly chittered with something like laughter. “I’ve already turned one shade out for telling falsehoods. I suppose these things happen in pairs.”
If this was Roan Harken, it definitely didn’t sound like her. Saskia remembered her time with Roan clearly, despite how short it had been: she had been sharp-tongued and vibrant, with a sense of humour. That’s what Saskia had liked about her in the story she often told herself.
The sword rose and the tip rested on the Onyx in Saskia’s forehead. She felt the advancing pressure of the blade, but she didn’t move away.
“So this used to be the Horned Quartz. The Opal recognizes its sister.” Saskia glanced down to the General’s leather-clad chest. Something red and purple gleamed there. A flash of green. And she felt the Onyx hum in answer to it — a question.
“And me?” Saskia tried, desperately trying to see through that mask. “Do you remember me at all?”
The sword didn’t move for a good while, the observing Foxes, whatever or whoever they were, shifting and murmuring. Then the blade went down, sliding home into a sheath at the General’s side. She reached up and pulled the mask away.
Saskia took a step back.
“Someone came to me once, claiming to know me. He turned out to be the greatest of traitors. Are you sure you recognize me?” Roan Harken’s mouth twisted into a half sneer, and Saskia felt the virus of doubt spread in her gut.
A ragged scar went up the left side of Roan’s face, three slashes like claw marks, all the way across her eyebrow. The scar had sealed that eye shut, the remaining area now a puckered ruin. Her remaining eye, the good one, was amber. The spirit eye that Death had given her, and that Death could see through. Obviously Death hadn’t liked what she’d seen, which is why Saskia was here in the first place. Death hadn’t been wrong.
This eye watched Saskia closely, then Roan scoffed, turning. “Whoever you are,” she said, voice rough, “you’re a stranger. I only keep from gutting you because you returned my archivist, and I am sometimes sentimental. Why have you come?”
This was Roan. It had to be. Baskar had said it’d been a hundred years, but how? Nothing made sense, especially the picture Phae had shown Saskia, bright now in her memory, of a bunch of smiling kids who barely knew what they were doing. Roan should only be, what? Twenty-five? Phae’s age.
The tall warrior before her looked so much older, her wrecked face tight and corded with grief. Her dark auburn hair was cut short to her skull, spiked over her forehead with sweat. Roan Harken, the myth, the legend. Saskia desperately wanted to know what had happened even more than she wanted to tell Roan why she was here.
Then she asked the question she knew, the moment she uttered it, was the wrong one to ask. “Where’s Eli?”
A hiss from the gathering. “She knows of the Owl King,” whispered one of the fox-masked guards. “Perhaps he has sent her here.”
A laugh cut through that, and Roan pivoted towards the guard, arms folded. “The Owl King does not have my mercy. He would have killed her as soon as he saw her, had he been focused on anything other than trying to keep the Heartwood from us. Or wiping us out entirely.” But the idea seemed to be taking hold behind Roan’s amber eye, and she spoke to Saskia now. “Are you indeed a spy of some kind?”
Saskia went cold, despite all the flames around her. “What do you mean? You and Eli — you’re friends.” Sort of, she self-corrected. But they’d come down here hand in hand, after all.
In the flickering firelight, Saskia saw Roan’s jaw tighten. “Why have you come?”
Saskia opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked around the room for support, but Baskar had already fled, leaving only these Foxes, burnt at the edges, prowling, curious but ready to strike should their leader — their mother — ask it.
“I came down here to get you!” Saskia yelled, arms stretched wide. She spat an incredulous laugh of her own, as the anguish and adrenaline of the last hour started pouring out. “All this time, you and Eli were down here, playing at — I don’t know what this even is! You were our last hope!”
The great flame crackled and Roan’s one eye narrowed.
“We are trying to save everyone,” she said. “Save them from the Owl King. The roving beasts. Our land is our legacy. We are keeping it alive.”
“What? This place?” Saskia’s heart was a hammer. “I meant our world! The one you came from! Don’t you even know why you came down here in the first place?”
A gauntleted fist snatched Saskia’s shirt up and lifted her from the ground, Roan’s canines evident as she scowled. “You’ve been speaking to the archivist, I see.” Her words were a snarl. “Listen well: I am not a victim to be saved. Not by you. Not by him. The Owl King started this war. I will finish it.”
Roan let go and Saskia crumpled to the ground beneath her. “There are no Uplands and there never were,” Roan went on. “That stone in your head. The fell words on your tongue. More lies. The Owl King’s lies, perhaps. Only the fire can save us from the wind. From the dark. And you — whoever you are, will not stand in my way.”
Hands gripped Saskia roughly, hauling her up. “No! Wait, please, Roan —”
Roan was sliding her fox mask back on. For the briefest moment, Saskia saw the Dragon Opal pulse at Roan’s breast before it was covered once again, and Roan unsheathed the garnet blade.
“If she is his creature, we will draw him out with her.” Roan turned to the gat
hering, raising the blade. “My children, it is time for a merry hunt!” The Foxes howled, savage and beating drums Saskia couldn’t see. Roan strode up the cavern path, and two soldiers grabbed Saksia to drag her back up and out of the canyon.
“Let me go!” she yelled, thrashing. “Please, Roan, you have to remember!”
Saskia felt something flicker in her forehead — the Onyx, struggling against the confines of the receiver she’d built to contain it. It was reaching.
Roan staggered, clutched her chest. The parade faltered as she whirled with the blade flickering in the firelight. “What is this?”
The Opal recognizes its sisters. Saskia remembered listening to Eli and Roan talk about the stones they both bore. The stones could connect to each other. Communicate, like siblings.
Saskia jerked, ripped free of the two stunned soldiers holding her back and dove, hand out, and when she touched the Dragon Opal a fire with a kickback shuddered up her arm, but she clung on.
Saskia saw and heard too much to understand it all. Voices crying out in warning. Flashes and snatches of Roan herself, of the people in her life. She saw black wings but couldn’t be certain who they were attached to — if they were attached at all. She saw a floating rock against stars that did not move. She saw a cave where two shadows danced in harmony. She saw feathers and fire and felt a deep, terrible longing intermingled with blood.
Suddenly Saskia was beaten away, and something hard came down on her head. Wincing and looking up, she saw, in the ashy strange light of many fires, the hilt of the garnet blade.
And something else in Roan’s remaining eye behind that mask — a flash of awareness.
“Saskia?”
Then Roan, and all of the assembled Fox soldiers, turned as one to a guttering shriek coming right for them from the sky. A shriek that split into many.
“The Owl King has brought his Eyes, my Hounds!” Roan cried, sword high and leading the tight charge of soldiers. She let out a howl, and the soldiers poured forth in formation. This obviously wasn’t the first time.