The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  Vintage dropped a meaty lump back into her stew with a plop.

  ‘Anyway, O’Keefe had this warehouse out on the docks. She’d bought both the places next to it too, and kept them empty, and anyone who particularly offended her, she’d take them to this warehouse. The Hole, we called it, because no one who went in there ever came out again. Sure, if she had someone’s legs broken, you’d see them hobbling around afterwards, begging for small coins, or the ones she’d blinded would gather behind the fish stalls. You always know where you are, with that smell, and sometimes the mongers would pass you scraps. But if you got taken to the Hole, you were never seen again.’

  ‘I knew Mushenska had its criminal element,’ said Vintage. ‘But this seems somewhat . . . extreme.’

  Tyranny shrugged. ‘It’s a big city, the biggest on Sarn, I’ve heard some say. You can hide a bloody lot in a place like that. And who cares about some blinded pickpockets? Anyway, my particular friend, Aaron, he came a cropper with O’Keefe. When out stealing one day, he’d found these drawings, you see. Drawings of nude people. Happy nude people. I’m sure you get what I mean?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, we were still young enough to find this funny – more than funny, really, we were in fits over it, and Aaron had even found a bit of charcoal somewhere and had started adding to the pictures. We happened to be laughing over these drawings when O’Keefe made a surprise visit to the gang-house. She found us, in a corner, wheezing and clutching at each other in mirth. You know how, sometimes, when a situation is very serious indeed, it can be even harder not to laugh? Well, I very nearly pissed myself that day, with the effort of keeping the giggles in. O’Keefe was not amused. She declared Aaron for the Hole, and he was dragged away. Done and dusted.’

  ‘She didn’t punish you?’

  ‘I don’t think she even saw me. Aaron was holding the papers, and he had the charcoal. I’ve never seen a rage like it. The poor little bugger.’

  Tyranny stopped. She seemed to have lost her taste for the story, and instead poured herself another glass of wine. Okaar had finished his stew and was sitting very still, his face expressionless.

  ‘So.’ Tyranny cleared her throat. ‘I got it into my head that I had to save Aaron from the Hole, and I’d always been good at sneaking. I got some soot and grease and covered up my face and head,’ she briefly touched her free hand to her blond hair, ‘because this caught the light too much. I went quickly, using all the short cuts I knew, running so fast I don’t think I even breathed once, and I came up to that row of warehouses with the Hole in the middle, and I slipped past the Salts guarding it, easy as that. In through a window, into the dark. That place – I can still smell it.’

  When Tyranny didn’t continue, Vintage cleared her throat. ‘What did it smell of?’ But the young woman just shook her head.

  ‘There was nothing there, just three floors of darkness and dust, and that smell, until eventually I heard voices coming from the cellar, and light coming from cracks in the door. I heard Aaron shriek, just once, and I think it was the bravest thing I ever did in my life, opening that door. I was just a slip of a thing then, it was easy enough to get around a door and close it again, but none of them were looking at me anyway.’ She had another sip of wine. ‘The basement had a stone floor, and in the middle of it was a deep pit. The Hole really was a hole, you see. From the top of the old stairs, I could already see that they had thrown Aaron into it. I wasn’t armed, save for my little sticking knife, and there were three of them. I wonder what I thought I was going to do. I do wonder that sometimes.’ Tyranny smiled faintly, as if she wished she really could ask. ‘Anyway, Reanne O’Keefe touched one of her guards on the hand, and he staggered. And then she stepped up to the pit, and she sent green flames shooting from her hands – endless waves of them, over and over, curling over Aaron and turning him crispy and black. He screamed for a bit, but not that long really. I reckon his throat was all burnt up pretty quick, and when he was dead, she kept burning him, on and on until there was nothing, nothing but ash and a few sticks of bone that didn’t even look like bones anymore. And that was why anyone who went into the Hole vanished.’

  Vintage nodded slowly, watching the young woman closely. ‘She was a fell-witch.’

  ‘She was. And that was her secret. That’s why she wasn’t close to anyone, and that’s why she hated anyone that was. She had to hide it all the time, in case the Winnowry came for her.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I ran from that gods-cursed place and went straight to the Winnowry offices. I told them who Reanne O’Keefe was, and where they could find her, and extracted promises that I would be protected. Several Winnowry agents came for O’Keefe in the end, and that whole row of warehouses was burned down in the process. The pit in the stone floor was still there – is still there, if you go and look. I used to throw any rude pictures I found into it, to keep Aaron’s poor old ghost entertained.’

  ‘And what became of O’Keefe?’

  Tyranny shrugged. ‘Who cares? Probably rotting in a cell in that big, ugly, fucking building, or doing the Winnowry’s dirty work. Eventually I told the Salts what I had done, and what O’Keefe had been doing, and how I intended to run them from now on. That’s when they started calling me Tyranny. It was a little bit of a joke, you see. No matter what sort of a cold bitch I was, I was nothing to the tyranny of O’Keefe and her Hole.’

  Vintage poured herself another glass of wine. A companionable silence grew in the small caravan, while outside the sounds of other people cooking and talking drifted through the still night. Somewhere, Nanthema was sulking, no doubt, or perhaps she had snuck off to carry on her own adventures in a place very far from Ebora. At this thought, Vintage felt a thin dagger of sadness pierce her heart. The world was so full of sorrows and pains, why did they have to add to it? She resolved to be more understanding of Nan’s concerns.

  ‘And what of the Salts? Are they still your gang?’

  ‘Oh, I left them behind a while ago, although I daresay there’s a chair there for me at the dinner table, should I ever need it. It’s a hard job, running the streets of Mushenska, and it makes you a hard woman. Selling things to the rich – goods or unusual experiences – is a much less unsavoury job.’

  ‘And now you are gifting your wares. For the war effort, no less. Your story is one of slow redemption, Tyranny Munk.’

  The young woman lifted her glass to that, but the smile on her face did not quite melt the ice in her eyes. ‘You could say that. We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose.’ She lifted a finger and pushed some strands of blond hair across her forehead. ‘Perhaps your war-beasts, when I meet them, can provide me with some sort of peace.’

  For the first time, Vintage caught a change in Okaar’s expression that did not look calculated – he covered it up swiftly enough, his dark-brown eyes becoming impassive once more, but it had been there, Vintage was sure. Something Tyranny had said here had not been agreed between them previously, and Vintage suspected that much of what they said was carefully rehearsed and planned. She filed that thought away for future consideration.

  ‘I shall drink to that,’ she said, and raised her glass.

  30

  When the giant stone fell, it cracked with a sound like an avalanche. Beneath Aldasair, Jessen flinched, and he twined his fingers through her fur as much to reassure himself as her. Next to him, riding easily on Sharrik’s harness, Bern muttered under his breath.

  ‘Stones be damned, that’s hardly good.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Bern nodded to where the huge stone had landed. The thing had toppled off the row of logs they had been using to transport it away from the Broken Field, and although it hadn’t fallen on any of the Finneral men and women there – who had been very sensibly keeping far back – it had shattered into three large pieces. ‘It’s bad luck for the sacred stones to shatter like that, and three is an unlucky number too. They’ll all be shaking their heads over this around th
e campfires tonight, that’s for sure. Another bad omen in a place riddled with them.’

  ‘It’s going well, though.’ And that was true. Over the last few days they had, very gradually, been moving the giant rocks and the great flat pieces of stone away from the field, exposing the broken Behemoth beneath. It was an extremely tense process; with each piece moved, they waited for the Jure’lia creature beneath to surge into life, or for the black fluid that shifted underneath it to take some terrible form. Aldasair was sure that they were all waiting for a swarm of burrowers to begin leaking through the gaps to eat them from the inside out, but even so the Finneral men and women worked steadily, bringing their horses and their equipment to get the job done. Aldasair thought they were very brave. And every time a stone was lifted, he and Bern were there, with the war-beasts, ready to take down anything that looked too lively. So far, there had been nothing; every time they got close, the black fluid would rapidly drain away from them, leaving the dented and strangely soft-looking pieces of the Jure’lia ship, oily and unsettling to look at. They had found no bodies. Aldasair wasn’t certain if this was good or bad news.

  ‘Hoy, boys. How about some lunch?’ Rainya was approaching them, riding her enormous bear. Her golden hair was tied into a tail at the back of her head, and she was carrying a sack, which she threw to Aldasair. To his own surprise, he caught it.

  ‘What’s next, Ma?’

  ‘You see that long flat rock in the middle there? Reckon you and Sharrik could manage by yourselves? Our poor animals are knackered.’

  ‘We are very strong!’ declared Sharrik, puffing out the thick blue and grey fur on his chest. ‘We can move it easily. We do not even need lunch.’

  ‘Well I need lunch,’ said Bern. Aldasair opened the bag, and threw the bigger man a bread roll from it. Inside Bern’s big fist the thing looked tiny, so Aldasair threw him another one, before tearing into one himself.

  ‘The Stone Talker sends her thanks,’ said Lady Rainya quietly. ‘She’s been watching all this, from a distance, as ye ken, and she says that although the ghosts are restless, it seems that peace may be possible here after all.’

  ‘Hmph,’ said Bern, around a mouthful of roll. ‘Let’s not plan any parties yet.’

  As though he had summoned it, a man in the centre of the field began to shout and wave. Aldasair jumped down from Jessen and passed the bag of rolls back to Bern’s mother. Bern joined him, and together they moved rapidly to where the man was standing. He was a short man with a shock of carroty hair, and as they got closer Aldasair realised he had been crying; his face was wet and his eyes were red and swollen.

  ‘I can hear her,’ he said as they each climbed down from their war-beasts. ‘I can hear Terralah under there. She says she can’t shout, because the weight is on her chest. She’s under the stone.’

  ‘A woman is under there?’ The stone was long and thin, the very same one Rainya had pointed out to them moments ago. To either side of the stone it was possible to see the oily silver-green pieces of moon-metal where the Behemoth was gradually being revealed, but they were ripped at the edges, ragged.

  ‘She can’t be,’ said Bern, not unkindly. ‘I’m sorry, Rold, I really am. How long have you been out here, man? Take yourself off, have a drink. It’s too hot, and you know you burn easily.’

  For a moment Aldasair thought that perhaps this small man, Rold, would strike Bern, but instead he dissolved into more tears.

  ‘I can hear her, Bern, so, it’s her very own voice. Come here and listen. Listen. Please. If you don’t hear it, I will go and have a drink, and a sit-down, as you say.’

  Stepping cautiously over the moon-metal, Aldasair approached the edge of the flat stone. Behind them the men and women were still working to move the shards of the sacred rock, but their calls and shouts fell oddly flat here; the Broken Fields did seem to absorb the voices of the humans. Bern sighed, squeezing Rold’s shoulder gently.

  A dry voice, like a thing made of old leaves, dry and wracked with pain, faintly called, ‘Help me. Please. You have to . . . I need to get out, please. Please.’

  ‘By the stones,’ moaned Rold. ‘You hear her now? Please, Bern, please.’

  Bern had turned the colour of porridge, but he carefully moved Rold to one side and approached the stone himself.

  ‘Terralah? Terralah sweetheart, is that you now?’

  There was a low hissing noise, like air escaping from something. Gingerly, Aldasair got to his knees and peered under the edge of the rock. There was a dark space below there, thick with shadows. Anything could be under there, waiting. Anything at all.

  ‘I can see something . . .’ Aldasair pressed his face to the gap, trying not to breathe in the strange sickly scent of the Jure’lia. ‘I can just about . . .’

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw it. The white curve of a shoulder, a dimmer space amongst the shadows, and a portion of white forehead, eyes lost beneath it. He saw the woman move, just slightly; she must be pinned with terrible force. He scrambled to his feet.

  ‘She’s under there. We have to move the stone now, Bern.’

  Sharrik was there immediately, thrusting his huge curving beak under the edge to get a purchase, while he and Bern took the sides. Aldasair saw the man Rold staring at him, and knew what he was thinking as clearly as though it were written on his face: Aldasair was skinny, weak-looking. How could he help lift such an obstacle?

  ‘I am strong,’ he said across the stone. ‘I am stronger than you, than any human.’ He nodded in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, but Rold only looked confused.

  ‘Carefully!’ he cried when the stone began to shift. ‘You could crush her still.’

  In the end, they flipped the long flat stone rather than lifted it, and underneath it a young woman lay on her belly, her long yellow hair pressed to her back. Even to Aldasair, who knew little of such things, she did not look well; the lower portions of her legs had been crushed so that the flesh was black and purple, and torn. Shards of bone were poking through the skin, and her feet were mere shreds of flesh. Likewise, the skin on her arms was strangely livid. Rold reached down for her, his hands shaking.

  ‘Terralah? Terralah, you’re free. You’re free my love.’

  The young woman turned her head, and it was all wrong – a slippery, boneless movement – and when her hair fell away from her face, they saw that her eyes were empty holes, the edges shining with a tarry black substance. Even so, she grinned at them.

  ‘Freerer than you know,’ she said in her voice of dried leaves.

  Rold fell back with a cry, but Bern was already there, one of his axes held high over his shoulder, and he brought it down without hesitation, severing the woman’s head from her neck. It rolled a short distance away, thankfully falling so that the hair was covering its face, and in the violence of it the body itself moved, revealing something smooth and glass-like underneath.

  ‘That’s why they were taking people?’ Bern sounded sick, and he was glaring at the edge of his axe as though he’d never be able to make it clean again. ‘As what, a joke? A way to upset us?’

  ‘What is this?’ Using his foot, Aldasair cleared some of the rubble away. The object underneath the woman was still partially buried, but it looked like a huge green crystal, and strange lights moved in its depths. ‘Did not Vintage say something about crystals within the Jure’lia ships?’

  ‘I want a place on the harness to store weapons.’

  Hestillion lifted her chin, expecting this request to meet some mockery, but the queen said nothing, her mask-like face unmoving.

  ‘When you mentioned that our war-beasts were always paired with an Eboran companion that was correct, but of course they were also warriors. They fought alongside their war-beasts and, yes, died alongside them. If you insist on testing Celaphon with your hideous creations, then I insist I be permitted to help him. I am no warrior, and I did not study the martial arts as Tormalin did,’ she paused to swallow the knot of pain produced by the thoug
ht of her brother, ‘but if I must learn as Celaphon learns, then so be it. And you know I am of no threat to you, even armed, since you control every inch of this place – are you even listening to me?’

  The queen’s stillness had become unnerving. It was as though she had become a statue between eye blinks.

  ‘Do you hear what I say?’

  The queen roused herself, her long neck bending towards Hestillion. ‘A signal. Another part of us has awoken.’ She turned, and the portion of wall directly behind them become transparent. Beyond it, Hestillion could see the forests of whatever land they happened to be over now; she had lost track again.

  ‘Somewhere far to the north, another part of us is waiting.’

  ‘You sound much warmer when you speak of these other parts.’ Hestillion watched the queen’s face closely for a reaction. The lines around the corners of her eyes grew momentarily tighter.

  ‘The temperature of our voice is not subject to change.’

  Hestillion surprised herself by laughing. Her chest felt light, too light, but it had been such a long time since she’d experienced anything as simple as laughter.

  ‘That is not what I mean, and I think you know that.’

  The queen straightened her shoulders.

  ‘We have spoken of it before. The connection we feel, that you feel to your brother. No matter how distant he is, you feel it. You long to reaffirm that connection.’

  ‘Don’t apply your logic to me,’ said Hestillion sharply. ‘There is little I would like to reaffirm with my brother.’

  ‘Even so, Lady Hestillion Eskt, born in the year of the green bird, I think that you understand what we feel.’ The queen stalked over to the greasy transparent panel, and touched it with the pointed ends of her fingers. ‘We’ll go to this place immediately, and collect that which has been missing.’