by Jeff Seymour
“Dilanthia Lonecliff,” Allenbee said. She rose crisply and bowed, slightly, at the waist. “How was your meeting with the Magister?”
Dil swallowed. “It was…fine.”
Allenbee laughed—a short, sharp bark. “Fine. I’m sure it was.” The smile made another appearance. “You are a fascinating child, Dilanthia, if you’ll pardon me saying so. A Wilderleng who conceals her power. Who yields to the whims of those who have none of their own.”
Dil frowned. “I make my own decisions.”
“I don’t doubt that you do,” Allenbee said. “But I would not make the same ones in your position.” She peered at Dil, then nodded, as if she’d made a final choice about something. “I have an offer for you,” she said, “if you’re interested. Shall we discuss it?”
A cool feeling ran down Dil’s neck and settled somewhere in her stomach. She felt strange, having to answer that question without asking Cole for his advice, and that feeling rankled her. She didn’t need his advice. Could conduct her own business. Always had, before she’d met him. “Of course,” she said.
Slick as a serpent, Allenbee slid back into her chair. Dil took a seat across from her, and Allenbee laid the parchment on a low table between them.
“There are strange things afoot in Eldan, Dilanthia. Ordinarily, I would enjoy solving the puzzle myself, but given all that’s happening in the world, I have more pressing problems to attend to.”
Dil frowned. Upon the parchment a letter had been written in crabbed, spindly handwriting, as if it had been dashed out rapidly. It had been sealed with black wax stamped with an arrow.
“There are others in my school who would jump at the chance to solve these mysteries and earn my trust and appreciation. But none of them has the knowledge of or closeness to Eldan’s higher powers that you do.”
Dil looked up and frowned. “You mean Quay.”
“I mean Quay. Go ahead and read it.” Allenbee nudged the parchment forward with her foot, and Dil picked it up.
News from Densel. Drunk, crying sailor in tavern said he’d nabbed Poe. Not unusual, except he was dragged out by friends immediately after, screaming that the dragon was coming. Similar events at other taverns on same night. Rumors swirling that Poe may be dead, dragon coming.
“Poe is a shorthand, meaning Prince of Eldan.”
Dil’s heart froze. “Quay was headed to Densel,” she whispered.
“I know,” Allenbee said. “Read the rest.”
Soulweaver judged in closed tribunal shortly after rumors of Poe arose. No name, but heard from one who was there that she was runner and heretic. Matches descriptions of Poe’s companion. Could be link.
Ryse, Dil thought. Oh, no.
Lots of jostling among the Seven. Elpioni pressing for Sunfish to be made heir. Beginning to think Blackgrab may be excuse to knock off Koe. Will sniff deeper, write again.
- Blackarrow
Allenbee leaned forward and placed a hand on the parchment, almost protectively. “Blackarrow is my best agent in Eldan City,” she said. “Sunfish is our shorthand for Arayi Elpioni. Koe means ‘King of Eldan,’ and Blackgrab is the invasion of Menatar.” One edge of her mouth quirked up, as if to say, Can you follow that? “There are other shorthands you will be made aware of if you take me up on my offer.”
Dil’s chest felt like it had been pressed beneath the heels of a giant. “What is your offer?”
“Find out what’s happening in Eldan for me. Discover what has become of Prince Quay and why the Seven and the Twelve are fixated on destroying the necromancers when they should be worried about the dragon. Don’t tell anyone, including Mr. Jin, what you learn. In return, you get to know what’s happening in your homeland.”
A sour taste crept into the back of Dil’s throat. “Why don’t you want me to tell Cole?”
Allenbee, who had crossed one leg flat over her knee, set both feet on the floor and smiled coldly. “Because, my dear, I want an independent agent. And I think you will be sharper without his influence.”
“Quay’s his best friend,” Dil said. Her eyes flitted to the door to the antechamber, and her mind went beyond, to the bed where Cole was probably napping.
“Precisely,” Allenbee said. “He’s not exactly in a position to think logically about the situation. Now do we have a deal?”
Dil looked back at the Violet Lady. Allenbee had steel in her eyes, and that infuriating smile was back on her face. The little slip of paper in Dil’s hands fluttered, as if to tempt her with more news about what was happening to her friends.
Really, she felt like she had little choice at all.
And it stung like a hive of angry hornets.
***
As the sun slid toward the horizon that evening, Dil sat astride a dappled gray mare outside the Cityhall, trying to free herself from feeling guilty about taking Allenbee up on her offer. She was back in reasonable clothes and free to explore the city and enjoy Cole’s company. She wanted to just be happy about that.
Cole sat on a sleek brown gelding next to her, looking slightly off-balance and not quite as happy as he wanted to be either. Tyaeva rode a black pony sidesaddle on one side of her, while Willem rode a white mare next to Cole. At a nod from Tyaeva, Willem nudged his horse into motion, and the four of them picked their way down the wide stone ramp that led into the uppermost level of Nutharion City.
As often as she could spare her eyes, Dil looked at Cole. She was still deciding whether or not to tell him about Allenbee’s offer. There were plenty of reasons not to. She might get found out. Cole might be driven to distraction, wondering what was going on and knowing he could only find out through her. And she wanted to have something that was her own again.
Maybe that last was selfish.
Definitely it was selfish—Quay was his best friend.
But still.
Cole was still in his fancy white clothes and plastered hair. Even though he was trying to smile and joke, there was a tightness behind everything he did, like he was concerned about something and trying not to show it.
Truths and lies, she thought.
Every day they wrapped themselves in more falsehoods, and she worried they wouldn’t be able to peel them off after it was all over.
For all that, it was still funto be out. The stone canyon they progressed into was dotted with soaring archways and spires and small carved icons. Bright awnings hung from cream-hued walls. Statues and squares and fountains broke the streets into a web of interconnected hubs.
It took a little time, but eventually she forgot to be afraid. The wind kissed her hair. Her body loosened up and relaxed, pleased at the exertion of riding after a month of walking around in dresses and strange shoes. The sunset smeared the sky in shades of sherbet color.
Even in a world full of lengthening shadows, there was a bit of light.
The top level of Nutharion City was populated by throngs of well-dressed Nutharians, each wearing a nearly monochromatic outfit that designated membership in one of the twelve schools. Willem and Tyaeva wore multicolored sashes that pronounced them servants of the Cityhall. The white, blessedly practical riding clothes Dil had exchanged her dress for denoted her as a foreigner.
They were stared at politely by the people they passed, offered slight nods by adults and given bows and curtsies by children. Rotund shopkeepers with waxed moustaches or long braids approached them reverently to offer sweets or exotic fruits or bits of pastry.
Dil couldn’t help smiling, but as they rode, she watched Cole’s worry grow more and more apparent.
After twenty minutes or so, they reached a trough of water in a large square, and their horses stopped to drink. Walled-in manor houses surrounded them, many with the green, fruitful tops of trees poking up behind their perimeters. An open-air eatery bustled with activity in one corner of the square. The trough the horses drank from lay below a limestone fountain of a naked man bowing. Water flowed over the back of his neck and down his forehead.
Cole was lookin
g at the shadowy ramp in one corner of the square that led to the level below.
Dil leaned toward him.
When she was close, he leaned in himself and took hold of her arm. “Do you remember,” he whispered, his breath warm on her ear, “what it looked like on the Shadowlevel?”
She did. The darkness. The filth. The poor and the ill and the crippled. And then she understood why Cole looked distracted, and the beauty of Nutharian society lost its sheen for her.
Deep suffering propped up the veneer her horse’s feet clicked upon, and Dil began to feel restless and distracted atop it. She clucked at the horse until the animal raised her head from the trough and eased closer to Cole’s. On either side of them, Tyaeva and Willem looked straight ahead, as though they weren’t even there.
Dil laid a hand on Cole’s leather-clad thigh. He was still looking at the ramp.
“Pyell and the Heads of School seem pretty smart,” he said. “Like they have a plan for everything.” There was bitterness in his words. In his eyes. “Do they know? Is the Shadowlevel part of their plan for their people?”
Dil didn’t know.
“And if it is, do we really want to let them make plans for us?”
The sun sank beneath the horizon to the east. The clouds lit on fire. In the fantastic, richly decorated buildings of creamy stone around them, lights kindled one by one.
A cold feeling came down on Dil’s shoulders as she contemplated the forces at work in the city around her, and whether she could trust anyone, or anything, she encountered in Nutharion.
A man in a red robe walked between the lamps at the restaurant in the corner and lit them with soulwoven fire. Willem and Tyaeva stared straight ahead, but their horses were scratching at the stones below, as if anxious that their riders not miss the dinner that was served at twenty past sunset every night in the Cityhall.
The cold feeling grew, and in the midst of it, Dil reached for the only source of warmth she could find.
“Cole,” she whispered. “Allenbee made me an offer today. I think I’m going to take her up on it.”
Telling him felt more right than anything she’d done all day.
Cole raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t tell you what it is. You just have to trust me.”
Cole frowned, rubbed her knuckles with his thumb.
Dil’s heart hammered. There was more wrapped up in this than she’d realized until she spoke. She wanted him to trust her. Needed him to trust her. Like she had in the north, when Zahayr and the Quiet Ones had found them.
Cole nodded. “All right,” he said.
The shadow lifted from Dil’s heart. She smiled, gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Be careful?” he said.
“Of course.” She ran a hand down his cheek, then straightened in her saddle again.
The horses whickered and snorted. Dil turned back toward the Cityhall.
Cole sighed. “I guess we have to stay here if everyone will be coming, don’t we?”
Dil wished he was wrong. She wished they could leave it all behind and slip into the woods to let the world solve its own problems.
“I think so,” she said.
Cole sighed more deeply. “I miss Quay,” he mumbled.
I’ll find him, Dil thought. Him and Ryse both. And once I know what’s happening, I’ll tell you and we can decide what to do. Together. Like it should be.
Cole’s eyes got a little wet, and he wiped the tears away before anyone but her could see them. “I miss Lit too. If anyone comes, I hope it’s him.”
Dil remembered the argument aboard the Skellup. The fury on Litnig’s face, the strength with which he’d knocked Cole into her.
And part of her worried that by the time they saw him next, he might be so changed they’d barely recognize him.
TWENTY-THREE
Forty-seven days before the destruction of Nutharion City
Standing upon the gray disc in the deepness of the dream, Litnig stared into the darkness in his soul. His body rested in a hollow he’d dug and lined with blankets. He was well rested, well fed, well hydrated. Maia stood guard over him.
He was safe, and it was time to master himself.
The human dark walker stood before him, free of its chains. Last of the three. Over the prior two weeks, Litnig had wrestled with and beaten the Sh’ma and the Aleani. It had been like strangling a part of himself.
And even in victory, he feared the final confrontation. The human walker had been the first on the disc to terrify him. It was the part of his darkness he felt closest to.
So it was the part of his darkness he was most afraid to challenge.
The statue made the faintest beginnings of movement toward him, and Litnig seized the initiative. He lurched forward and grabbed it by its face. He meant to slam it against the disc as it had slammed him in Soulth’il. The tactic had worked well against the Aleani.
Anger filled him, and the world slowed. He couldn’t force the statue’s head back. It felt like he was trying to push a watermelon through taffy or thick mud. His arm stretched, as though something was attempting to wrench it off at the shoulder. The dark walker’s emotions wormed through him. Its voice, his voice, but deeper and darker, filled his mind.
Have you not given, Litnig Jin?
Have you not worked?
Have you not sweated and bled? Have you not faced death?
Images too. Ryse and Leramis, together, laughing. Touching. Kissing. Like they did in his nightmares.
Have you not sacrificed?
He breathed. His arm shook. His hand felt hot, as though all the energy of his mind was concentrated within it.
Your father never loved you.
A boot pressed against his throat. He remembered crying. Wanting to scream but being unable to breathe. His mother shrieking and flailing and his brother hammering his father’s legs with his tiny fists. He smelled leather and felt hard wood against the back of his skull.
Your mother was killed before your eyes.
He saw her die for the thousandth time. The white sword. The red, weeping smile.
Your brother abandoned you.
Cole dove into the ocean, the rope around his waist. Litnig’s cheek, red and stinging, ached. “Don’t you fucking touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me!”
You have nothing left. No friends. No family. No reason to love the world and every reason to hate it.
“No,” he said.
He spoke the word aloud. Words had power, especially in the dream. And no could be the most powerful word of all. It echoed over the stream of ideas flowing through his mind.
The ideas grew stronger.
Every reason to hate this world, that gives so much to so few for so little. That lets others lord over you not for virtue of talent or intelligence or effort but because they were born to the right family at the right time.
“No,” he said again. The images—of his mother’s bones, of his brother dead at the bottom of the sea, of Ryse and Leramis in the throes of passion, blanched. The motion of them slowed, then fragmented, then ceased. The voice and the images disappeared.
Litnig was alone in the depths of his mind, surrounded by a dark stillness more tranquil than the quietest snow-filled winter’s day.
In the stillness, he remembered the beauty of sunset over Eldan City.
A hundred colors washed over the three hills. The scent of baking bread wafted from his open kitchen window. The thatch smelled wet and fresh, and his brother and Ryse lay beside him, and the world was open and sweet and full of endless possibility.
The memories sped up. The taste of tart apple jam. The sweet bite of the wind on his face in the winter. His mother’s arms around him, and her smile, and a song she used to sing that had a dozen notes but only three small words. His brother’s voice as he comforted him on the cold North Sea.
Somewhere in the depths of Litnig’s mind, the stream of thoughts from the walker lost its tenacity.
&nbs
p; Litnig had roast beef and onions and potatoes served with a mother’s smile and a kiss on the forehead. He felt the coziness of his bed on an autumn night. He knew the love of a brother. True friendship. A thousand hopes and dreams and the breathless euphoria of one or two of them made reality.
The statue’s face crunched beneath his hand.
The rest of it crumbled to dust.
Then it was gone, sand settling over the surface of the disc, thin grains trickling along the carvings on its base toward the pillars. Nothing else moved. Litnig’s skin glowed faintly, lit from within by the last vestiges of a light he didn’t understand.
Where before there’d been chains on the human walker’s pillar, he saw shining black stone.
He trailed his fingers over it, found it smooth. Warm. The dark walker’s energy pulsed inside, an angry embryo that flashed with the beats of his heart.
But he felt no fear.
They were gone. All of them. Locked behind their black stone, frozen with their hate in check.
The dream was by no means a safe place. The darkness still swirled all around him. But the light walkers held it back. He was free, maybe for the first time in his life. He laughed, and the disc hummed and vibrated with the sound. He could be his own man or Duennin or whatever it was that he was.
He smiled and knelt, and as he pressed his forehead to the disc, tears of joy swam in his eyes.
When he woke, Maia was crouching above him, her spear leaning against her shoulder, her feet bare and dark on the dirty, rocky edge of his sleeping hollow. He caught a trace of concern on her face before the emotion faded. She offered him a hand.
“You are free then, Litnig Eshati?”
He grabbed her hand and pulled. She pulled back, and he shot to his feet.
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.” He embraced her. She stiffened a little, but he squeezed and laughed, and then she softened and her wiry arms squeezed him back. When he loosened his grip, she shook him off, mussed his hair, and smiled. She looked smaller, more an equal than he’d ever thought possible.