Aloren

  The breath caught in my chest. “There’s too many of em,” I shouted. “Ye can’t fight em. There’s too many.” But the din swallowed my voice. Tears began to roll down Tom’s cheeks; and I stole his fiddle and whacked it against people’s backs, but no one noticed. Haberclad snapped a lantern from the ceiling and swung it from the chain like a flail; and Hal pulled me under a table, where it was near black. He yelled that I could do no more about it, that I had best get myself hidden somewhere. I pulled away and saw Wille and Padlimaird headed towards the door, pokers bristling in their arms. I knew immediately where they were going: the forge, to hammer the metal into weaponry. I made after them.

  Bequen had burnt trails through the streets. The lampposts along the quay were decapitated and folk had tossed the lanterns into warehouses, where fire sneaked about the wood and flowered. The sun sank and people ran amok, cramming their pockets with bread, and swinging chickens by their feet. Others were upturning carts, ripping up docks, and piling crates into the bones of a barricade. I narrowly avoided a few rolling kegs, and pushed through the crowds down a side street.

  Smoke curled out of the smithy, and sure as the sun had gone, I could hear Wille and Padlimaird pounding and singing.

  “These useless things ain’t for flattening iron, are they?” Wille threw a hammer handle into a corner.

  “We’ve got enough to last the night.” Padlimaird reached for the tool rack.

  “Where’s Nefer?” They turned to look at me and Wille tongued his cheek.

  “You were a sight back there. Looked like you had a row with Fillegal or Paddy.”

  “Where’s Nefer?”

  “What d’you want with him?”

  “He’d bring you to your senses. Ye’ve a daughter to look after, and Sal.”

  “Don’t stick your nose in,” said Padlimaird. Wille had an ugly look on his face.

  “What d’ye suppose she’ll look like in ten years, my little Daira?”

  “Chains?” said Padlimaird.

  “Shackles?”

  “A collar?”

  Frustrated, I turned and ran into Nefer, who was holding an empty coal scuttle.

  “Not sure they need yer craftsmanship.” He slowly eyed the three of us. “The White-Ships’re gettin ready to tackle the armories.”

  The boys whooped and ran past Nefer, and he shoveled hot coal into the pail. “Don’t know about you followin em, Al. Ye’re a bit smaller, after all. Good for stealth, but I don’t know about fightin––” He walked toward the door with his smoking scuttle.

  “Where’re you going?” I said.

  “To help them along.”

  “You can’t.” I moved in front of the doorway.

  “Can’t I?” Nefer picked me up and set me behind him. “Who’re you, then? One o’ them lost Lauriad princes?” And chuckling, he stepped out the door.

  I watched him leave and my eyes fell on the shoe-bench. I stared at the silver dragonfly that had alighted there, wrenched at my hair for several minutes, and then slipped the broach into my pocket for safekeeping. And ignoring Nefer’s advice, I took up a big slag shovel and walked out the door toward the east armory.

  ***

  The sky was thick with the smell of fire. I chose the darkest streets and came to a halt east of the barracks, at the edge of the old canal, and gaped across at the smoke. It was billowing from one of the northwestern towers of the palace.

  Soldiers fled from the barracks by the dozens, across the bridge, and I had a keen idea about what Nefer had done with his scuttle of coal.

  Movement below drew my eye––a few people weaving through the debris at the bottom of the canal.

  They reached the side and I recognized a voice. Someone scrambled for handholds. Catching sight of Padlimaird’s white face, I walked over and gave him a hand. He pulled himself up, and grabbed his poker from a man I didn’t know.

  “We’ll have better weapons than these soon enough,” the man said, hauling himself after. “I’ll go get more folk should the garrison come back overly quick. We’ll have at the both of them tonight.” He ran down an alley toward the quay. Nefer jumped over the edge of the canal like a great black cat, and dangled his leg down for the last of them, a boy too short for Wille.

  “Go an’ hide yerself, girl.” Nefer’s forearms were grey with coal dust. “There’s wickeder men than I out tonight. You go with her, Paddy.”

  “But it was my idea,” said Padlimaird in a furious whisper.

  “You thought to light the palace afire?” I asked.

  “Max’s bedchamber.”

  “Gave you special permission, did he?”

  “Yes.” Max threw back his hood and rubbed his nose, and before Nefer could spin more warnings Max grabbed Padlimaird by the shoulder, and they ran toward the armory. Nefer growled, waved me against a building, and walked after the boys, whistling like a happy thrush.

  “That one’ll get his neck split for treason,” sang Floy from the eves.

  “Which one?” My heart skipped and I walked after them.

  ***

  The soldiers’ fountain murmured in the courtyard. Two sentries slouched unconscious against the wall, almost indistinguishable from each other. The lights had been blacked. I rubbed my sore eyes: it was a hive of silent activity, people handing off bows, pikes, swords and staves.

  Nefer and the boys got lost in the crowd and I hung behind for a bit. I heard a voice calling through the arcade: “They’re here! Overtaking the bridge.”

  “Those not in line,” said someone else, “move up. We’ll hold them off till Drebald comes with men from the quay––”

  The voice was cut off with a gruesome noise. I saw a big man––Nefer––hurdle through the arches, followed by a swarm of other folk. I fought to look, and Max stood abandoned in the center, hood shrugged from his head.

  Finally he threw his hood up and ran after the others, and likewise abandoning my senses I walked through the arches, slag shovel swinging.

  The bridge writhed; everything was a muddle. A cudgel swung down. The breeze ruffled my hair, and seeing the uniform, I kicked the man in the knees and slammed his face with the flat of my shovel.

  Head buzzing, I whacked my way past a silver-black cuirass and one more of the grey garrison, and then the shovel slipped from my sweaty hands.

  Wood smashed against my mouth. I tasted blood, and the soldier swung back his club; and Sal appeared behind him, looking wild with her hair unwrapped and her arms bare. She clapped him on the side of the head with a skillet.

  He fell over me, and Sal leaned forward. She got hold of my ear to make certain it was me. “Nefer’s sent me with a message and a safety procedure.”

  “Where’s Wille?” I wiped my bloody mouth.

  “The other armory, or maybe the quay by now, but don’t you fret. Drebald’ll bring him back with the others, and we’ll have this sorted by the time you’ve woken.”

  “Woken?”

  The last thing I saw was the back of the skillet.

  Though it was a sleep of Nefer’s craftsmanship the corners corroded some.

  After someone knocked down some of the arcade to block the barracks bridge, I was thrust beneath the collapsed roof, where the sound echoed: Many boots walking, unnoticed, over the old Llenad Bridge. The snap and rip of a knife under the dark lamps into the neck of a man named Drebald. Soldiers moving through the arches, a hard voice in the courtyard, the whine of the bows. Nefer’s laugh; Max’s small protest when his hood slipped from his head. Bequen singing.

  ***

  My clothes were wet when light came, and my hair caught on a rafter. I ripped my head loose and slipped on my belly under the fallen eve. Fog curled over the pavement. There was a notched cutlass on the ground. I looked up and saw a man hanging from a lamppost. The fog cleared some, driven into the corners by a few needles of rain, and I knew him by his skin: dark as harbor water.

  Bequen was there, too, spread out on another lamppost. And Sal, eyes wild, arms out an
d ready to fly. I couldn’t see Padlimaird. Somewhere Floy was chipping.

  The streets loomed and thickened, blurred by water, water creeping through the paving stones and swilling round my ankles, filling my ears with slapping and dripping and wailing. The ground felt as though it were crumbling under my feet, and I fled.

  The lower streets flowed with water, just as they had three summers back when Andrei opened the sluice. I ran south along the rushing canal to the old Llenad Bridge, where the rotten planks were certain to fall away beneath my feet. I had failed. I had failed everyone; everyone was dead, and I wanted nothing more than to join them.

  Trid was already on the bridge, sitting where I’d last seen him.

  He stood up. “You’re not dead?” He walked off the bridge and stopped a few steps from me. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Max is. His brother didn’t know who he was. Had his hood up, the idiot.”

  “Who cares?” I was scarcely aware of talking. “Everyone’s dead.”

  “What?” He seemed to come to himself.

  I scratched blood from my shoulder. “Move.”

  He stepped in front of me. “Aloren, you’re not right in the head––”

  “Get out of the way. Go on, move.” I tried to push past him, but he stood like a wall. I knocked him aside and ran for the canal’s edge.

  But before I could reach it, something sliced through my brain, burned down my spine and neck so that I felt half-gone.

  I collapsed, head between my knees, feeling as miserable as when I’d first pulled the Marione. I wanted so badly to die. Trid raised me up; he was warm under my face, and I shook with sobs and dirtied his shirtfront. He dragged me from the edge, scraping my feet on the pavement.

  “You are without a doubt the craziest piece of work I’ve ever––” He looked past me and pried me loose. His hands were hot and sticky.

  Five of the garrison stood behind us, and Herist.

  “My lord Natridom has proven hard to find this past week,” Herist said. “And the gutter rat. She was playing in the streets last night.” His voice was dangerously gentle. “She gave Kalka quite a bruise. Is she fraternizing with a fellow insurgent? A member of Caveira’s espionage outfit? Surely the Elden didn’t organize this all by themselves. As I recall, my lord Natridom, your father, before his untimely death, fostered you out to a foreign court because his brother had become very interested in Lorila’s line of succession, and your safety was in some jeopardy. Do you suppose Caveira has forgotten about his nephew? Would a hostage of your name fail to slip past his thick skull? Gershom, assist me––!”

  This because I had run up and bitten his arm.

  Gershom grabbed me from behind, and Herist took my arm and slashed it four times with his knife. The pitchfork figure that stood for treason.

  I snarled, scraping at skin where I could find it; and Herist, spent in patience, grabbed hold of my ankle, pulled me from Gershom’s grip, and swung me out over the canal.

  The man was a godsend, eager to do what I couldn’t. The wind caught my hair and slapped it across my face.

  “Pointless savagery has resulted in your death a full day ahead of schedule, you stupid girl.” He sounded bored. “Think your last thoughts quickly.” My whole body pounded, screamed for him to end it. I was certain my thigh would tear from my hip.

  Trid, upside-down, said, ”Put her down. Andrei won’t like it.”

  Herist loosened his grip on my ankle. “Andrei’s opinion has no place here. Valiant though he is, he hasn’t the experience to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.”

  “Where’ve you put him?” said Trid, and rain streamed down my nostrils, making the pain in my head nigh unbearable. “I haven’t seen him.”

  “He would’ve done something desperate.”

  “And so would you. Don’t drop her.” His voice became suddenly conciliatory. “Put her down. There’s something you should know.”

  I knew right away what it was. “Just let it be.” The blood thumped in my head. “Trid––”

  “You want to die?” he said. “I don’t give a whit for what you want.” He said to Herist, “Her father was Daonac Lauriad. I’m sure there’re people can vouch for it, and she’ll come in useful. The Girelden would do anything for their last Lauriad.”

  Trid waited until Herist had set me on my feet. Keeping his eyes down, he turned and walked up the canal, shirttails dripping.

  Herist scarcely noticed. “The waif with the thing in her fist.” He stared at me, twisting a button on his jacket. The movement of his fingers near drove me mad. “The thing lost in the harbor. Gershom, search her.” He pushed me amid his soldiers. “And not a word of this to anyone.”

  I squeezed myself tight as they shoved hands under my tunic. A man found Father’s ring when he pushed it against my breast, and in their excitement they never found the broach and letter alongside my knee. Someone yanked the ring from its patch of cloth, and they tied my wrists and ankles. Then they threw me over a shoulder and traveled a minute, or an hour.

  Twenty-Seven

  It looked as though I’d been dumped into a ship’s hold. But I felt stone at my back, and looking up, saw it was an oubliette. The grate in the ceiling dropped a shaft of light across my legs. Herist must have thought me precious. There was new straw at my back and a wooden bowl of water.

  I was obviously in the barracks or palace prison; I didn’t know which and I didn’t much care. But I must have cared some, because my eyes ticked with weeping, and Floy, who had followed me in, was heavy with my sadness. Her cheek warmed mine, and my head fit into the curve of her neck.

  Finding me awake, she blinked back into a bird.

  “We must get you out! This is terrible––If only Mordan were here. I’m too small to lift a keychain, and Reyna, what the hell were you thinking?”

  I shifted my feet––my ankles were shackled. The chain stretched to a bolt high in the wall. “Wasn’t thinking. Thinking don’t do anything. Let me be. You get out.”

  “Are you mad?” She tore into the skin on my wrist. “We know where they are, where the asters are.”

  “So go get them.”

  “You are mad.”

  “Is this country worth a damn, really?” I asked myself.

  Floy didn’t hear me. “Think of your country, Reyna.”

  “Why should I think of them? Never gave thought a chance, did they? Killing’s cleaner than talking, I guess. Smarter to keep your mouth shut. We’ve got only ourselves to look after––leastways, that’s the only person the smart ones are looking after.”

  Floy grew round with indignation. “If you want a big, bloody mess––”

  “Why’re you lecturing me about bloody messes?” I threw her off my arm. “I tried.” I tasted blood on my lip. “They didn’t listen. I hate them, every one! I’m not thinking about them no more, nor talking to them neither––it’s no use. I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

  “You’re going to stop talking?” she said. “For five seconds?”

  But I was pigheaded, and Gralde too, and just like my mother I sang my last words:

  “No ear does she have nor a mouth that can scream to fill suffering’s silent appeal.”

  ***

  When I woke next the light was blocked. Someone was bending quite close, golden eyes staring full at my face. Andrei. Springing up, I ripped at his cheek.

  He leapt away, and I leapt after, but the chain prevented it, yanking my legs beneath me. I fell on my stomach.

  “They shackled your ankles?” he said. “Were your wrists too small?”

  He bent and I spat on the front of his shirt. He’d come to torment me, I was certain.

  But he pinned my arms down, and proceeded to explain I’d better not wear myself out before climbing the ladder, because he couldn’t haul us up both at the same time.

  “Trid let me out,” he said. My breathing slowed. “He heard me thrashing around the solar. Didn’t come with, obviously. Some men stopped him, said Herist had business with
him, and I told them Herist was going to burn for this. But they aren’t listening to me, and he’s probably bought all of them, but even so, they daren’t touch me.”

  His breath was very hot. “And you. I told you to get out. I bet you tried especially hard to get locked up, just to spite me. But here? Gods, Aloren––you must have done something incredibly stupid to end up down here.”

  I bared my teeth, and he changed subjects. “I don’t know all of what happened last night, but judging by your welcome, I deserve death. Before you kill me, though,” he said, sounding more arrogant than ever, “I have to hide it.” He moved closer, and the chain slipped out from under his shirt and the dragonfly’s middle swung next to my mouth.

  “I may have made a mistake, but Herist made one, too. I have yet to give the thing up.” He sat upright, and I did too, watching him warily. “But I don’t know what to do. Nothing I do’ll be able to keep them in check. You were right––it’s too large a mess. You were completely right, and I hope you’re happy about it, because I’m sure as fuck not. I’m so stupid––” He took the thing in his hand. “A light in a silver cup. I won’t give it up, not like you want me to, not to the Ombenelva, nor to some other country, even, because it’ll end up in the South’s clutches some way or another, and it’s not supposed to end up there. Clearly it’s not supposed to, clearly––” He rolled it back and forth between his hands. Then he flung it away, and looked toward the grate in the ceiling, and yelled, “I wish it was clear!” I jumped.

  He scrubbed his face with his cloak. “Sorry. The firebird was a Simargh. A halo of light on the wall and a thought in my head, and I didn’t take her seriously.

  “She told me I should hide it so it was safe. I don’t know what from. And she said––I’ll tell you the rest––she said my guide was to be a person. She said”––he wrinkled up his forehead––“his feet were to have been cut from the earth’s trammels for long enough to lead me along some sort of path. And at the end I was to find my hiding place, my other world.