I didn’t like big towns. Especially sea ports. They always smelled like something vile wrapped up in something viler; the foul stink of folk living in close proximity mixed with fish guts and the dejection of pack animals. The summer heat of the afternoon only compounded the noxious mixture.
I wandered around the market for a while. I didn’t have much money to spend, and there were rules on how I was allowed to spend it. But it was amusing nonetheless to see all the things I wasn’t allowed. The bright clothing, the mountains of strange foods and spices, the odd creatures kept in wicker cages. And the best thing about being so tall with the Empress’ tattoo on the back of my head was that no one ever tried to hock their goods at me. It was like I was a ghost, unseen and unknown, floating spectral through the marketplace.
I passed by a bustling square. There were wooden platforms erected to display slaves. They were all work slaves, mostly bought in groups of five. Household slaves were seldom sold by the lot. The slave market was made up of folk of all description, both buying and selling, being bought and sold; every limb, every soul was needed for the Empress’ great war against the Witches. It was a titanic struggle, one that had been grinding on for generations.
I continued walking.
The sun was beginning to set. The summer evening was warm and dry; the sky burned a scalding orange, brilliant and bronze upon the sea beyond. The cobbled walls of Argru’un cast long shadows onto the marketplace, and the high clay-brick buildings did the same upon the maze of alleyways below. I watched as the vendors lit their paper lanterns in the gloaming dusk.
It was strange to be alone. It was strange to be apart from any of the girls. I felt at once liberated and uneasy, especially with so many unfamiliar, queer folk around; they jostled at my elbows, cried out in foreign tongues from their carpets and shelters, dressed in all manner of exotic garb. Port cities always had that curious flavour, that aspect of the ‘other,’ where despite sitting firmly in the Empire of Un, I couldn’t feel further from home.
I felt it was time to turn back. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and I still needed to make my way back to the temple. The longest leg of the journey would begin the next day, and I needed to be well-rested. In the distance I could see the looming tower atop the temple, and using that as my guide, I turned down a shallow-sided alley.
Here the paper lanterns were scarce. The firelight of oil lamps flickers upon the narrow walls around me. The confines of the alley were such that few pack animals could reasonably squeeze through. The foot traffic here was also far lighter than the wider boulevard I had just left behind, the market cries few and far in between.
The alley twisted and turned at odd angles. Shadows danced upon the clay bricks. The temple tower disappeared from time to time as I passed under precariously-leaning tenements and sagging awnings of patched wool.
Just as I was walking down a set of low steps near an intersection of crazily-angled alleyways a voice called out from the darkness.
“Dear girl-child, do you know where you’re going?” came a reedy voice.
I turned my head to look in the direction of the call, but I did not stop walking. There was nothing but shadow there; only the bruising sky gave off any effusion of sombre light from above.
Just as I turned to look I bumped into something, setting me off-balance. I caught myself before falling down the last few steps and immediately put a hand to the hilt of my shotel.
I stopped dead in the middle of the intersection and scanned the walls. No one was around. I was alone.
I straightened back up and resolved to continue on. As I took a step forward a glowing light appeared from behind me, casting deep shadows upon the ground and illuminating the alley ahead.
I looked back to the source, hand to my shotel once more. I hated surprises.
There, standing in the street, was an elderly hobgoblin covered in a loose shawl. She leaned heavily on a thin walking stick, waiting beneath a glowing paper lantern.
“Do you know where you’re going?” She asked again in a scratchy voice.
I took my hand away from my shotel. It was just a harmless old crone.
“To the Disciple’s temple,” I replied firmly, hoping to ward off her questions.
The old hobgoblin cackled at my answer.
“Tonight, yes. But tomorrow? The day after? You don’t know, un-child,” she said, wagging a finger at me. “But Turvarik knows.”
“Turvarik?”
“Turvarik,” she repeated, pointing to herself.
So this elderly she-goblin was a street fortune-teller. A pang of curiosity resonated through me. I touched the Void Stone through my shirt cloth, hanging from its leather thong upon my chest. Then I looked around, ensuring that we were totally alone. What could it hurt, hearing my fortune? It meant nothing, anyway. No folk could see the future. Everyone knew that.
“Alright. How much?” I asked.
“For you?” she said, frowning theatrically and cocking her head to the side as if doing a calculation. “Nothing. For you, nothing.”
I shrugged. What was the harm? We were out here alone. There weren’t any specific rules against this. And if it didn’t cost anything I could definitely afford it.
Turvarik hobbled over to a slummy tent of faded, patchwork cloth and lifted up the wilted awning. She beckoned me to enter with a silent gesture. Stooping low, much lower than her, I entered.
Inside it was warm. Curious smells, strange but not unpleasant, assaulted my senses. My eyes watered from a thin pall of incense smoke that hung in the tepid air. More lanterns dimly illuminated the draped hovel.
Turvarik sat down before me. I too sat down, cross-legged, upon a worn-out cushion. A low, wide table was between us. Unusual instruments were scattered upon its painted surface; there were images of spheres, of nebulous clouds, of circles both smooth and jagged.
Now that we were in the light I could better study the old hobgoblin’s face. Her skin was leathery, her nose slanted down sharply. Dark grey hair hung about her shoulders, wrapped in twine. Her eyes were milky with age and I wondered if she was blind. With crooked fingers she lit a cone of incense in a glazed bowl and blew the smoke toward me. It coiled out with a dark tendril, kinking upward in erratic twists and turns. I watched it sway in the lantern light.
Suddenly she raised her hands to my face. Before I could react her fingertips were feeling their way across my cheeks and across my forehead with surprising gentleness. I watched her nod, watched her inscrutable features from across the low table. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded and lowered her hands into her lap.
“Ah, girl-child. Far from home, hm?” she intoned.
“Perhaps,” I replied, eager not to reveal anything.
While I was curious to hear what she had to say, I was also hoping to reassure myself that fortune-telling did not work. No one could see the future. And even if some magickal illusion were powerful enough to convince me, my Void Stone would make such a spell stutter and fail.
“No sense in lying to old Turvarik, dear. I am blind, not mad,” she chortled.
The confirmation of her blindness made me uneasy. Had she not called out to me in the dark alley? How did she know I was there? How did she know I was female, by the sound of my steps alone?
The elderly hobgoblin reached beneath the table and withdrew a shallow clay bowl. From a small leather pouch she sprinkled a fine, red powder into it. Then she filled the bowl right to the brim with water from a nearby jug. She poured with impressive accuracy; not a drop spilled despite her blindness.
The incense was beginning to make me lightheaded. The scent was unfamiliar but becoming more pleasant with every breath; sweet and cloying. Turvarik swished the water in the bowl until the powder was mixed, turning it a runny red. She placed it back down on the table.
“Taste, with a finger. Like this,” she said, then dipped her finger into the bowl.
I hesitated. But what was the harm? It was just sil
ly fortune-telling. It meant nothing. I put my finger into the bowl and withdrew.
“Now, your hand,” said Turvarik, opening her palm to me.
I placed my other hand into hers. Then she slapped it away.
“Wrong hand, silly ur-girl. Other one,” she chided.
I suppressed a giggle and gave her my other hand, the one I had dipped in the clay bowl. She closed her hands around mine. Then she began to hum.
Her humming went on for a long time. The pitch warbled and wavered. I felt incredibly tired. My eyelids felt heavy. The whole experience was irresistibly soothing; the droning hum, the fragrant incense, the soft lamplight.
She stopped humming abruptly and let go of my hands. I opened my eyes, not even realizing I had closed them. Turvarik frowned. Then she smiled, then she looked confused. She exhaled sharply. Then her wizened, wrinkled face broke into a sightless smile.
“Turvarik has no advice for Daisy. Daisy will know what to do, when it is time to do it.”
I sat up straight in surprise, almost knocking my head against a low-hanging bauble.
“Daisy? My name isn’t Daisy. It’s Shi’iran-daz-ithrav,” I replied, confused.
But that wasn’t quite true either. Everyone just called me Daz.
“Oh, forgive old Turvarik. You are right. Daisy does not come for a while yet…” she chortled, nodding her head as she drummed her fingers upon the table.
A surge of curiosity welled up within me, but I fought it back down. I had the ominous sensation that I had misjudged this old crone. I shifted in place to stand up.
“Yes, you may leave. There is nothing for Turvarik to tell you…” she mumbled.
Despite myself, I remained seated. I waited for her to speak. I was enraptured and I don’t know why.
Turvarik stared into my face with calloused, unseeing eyes. Her features became sombre. The lamplight flickered upon her creased brow.
“But be careful when you return to the sand – the scarred mountain will deliver you from evil many times, should you allow it, on your journey to a happy place of two growing trees… the empty waste will struggle against the mire but the risen sun shall succeed, some day when the seeds of seeds grow tall, if the wills of great folk do not sour…” she said, voice trailing off to a whisper.
We sat in perfect stillness for a long while. The smoke crimped upward from the smouldering incense cone, dissipating in the air above. I was so confused. Her words made no sense; I understood none of it. The ‘scarred mountain,’ a place of ‘two growing trees,’ the ‘waste’ and the ‘mire…’ It made no sense.
Yet deep down the old hobgoblin’s words tugged at me. There was something undeniably valuable in what she said, if only I could decipher it.
I got up to my knees and began crawling out of the dim-lit hovel, pushing past the sagging cloth. Turvarik cackled as I crawled away.
“You will know, as the days come!” she rasped gleefully. “Now go, go! Make your mother proud!”
I threw open the awning and breathed in the cool night air. Turvarik’s laughter pealed out into the alley as I ran toward the dark shape of the temple tower, hovering above the labyrinth below.
And as I ran I turned my head for one last look at Turvarik’s blanketed hovel.
But the alleyway was empty.
And I knew, as my feet pounded along the sandstone streets, that I wouldn’t get any sleep at all this night.
18
Ortham
The summer night was warm. I sat on my cloak. It was too humid to wear; even stripped down to my thin wool shirt, sweat beaded on my chest. A sweet, floral aroma hung heavy in the damp air and I found myself frequently breathing in deeply just to smell it. Soft, colourful lights from unknown sources bobbed and danced in the ferns that surrounded the clearing. It was the same clearing where Dawn and I had been hosted all those months before, the first time we had entered Glenn Mereillon. We all now sat around the low stone table, its cracks growing thick with lichen and moss.
Lyrèlie had already dismissed the fae. But still they lurked at the edge of the trees, always listening, quietly chittering. I was beginning to see that the greater fae were not actually wise in the common sense; they were simply expert gossipers, with a set of ears in every corner of every land. I was just glad that the Yvrette, who ruled Glenn Mereillon in a loose grip, were less mischievous than the fae enclaves about whom so many wild stories were told.
I stifled a yawn with the back of my hand. I was unusually tired, especially considering the fact that Herace and I had done little else that day but loiter in the grass, watching the lake shimmer beneath the sun and the thin clouds pass overhead. I wrinkled my nose and the skin hurt. I must have got a sunburn.
It has been comical, watching Herace succumb to the calming fae magick. I had never seen him so at ease. Even now, sitting at the table, he seemed only half-awake – and happier for it. I could feel it too – its slow, gentle creep into my head, to muffle my thoughts and make me happily idle. Once again I was glad that Glenn Mereillon was under control of benign fae; I could only imagine the horror of being lost in a malevolent enclave, haunted by disturbing nightmares and traumatic visions.
I looked across to Dawn. She seemed uneasy tonight. Even in the half-lit clearing, beneath floating chromatic lights, her face was pale. She was hunched forward in her seat, shoulders slouched, hands pressed between her thighs. There was a faraway look in her eyes and I wondered what had gone on with Majira and Lyrèlie that afternoon. I did not have to wonder for long.
The three were already talking by the time I clued in that our meeting had begun. Majira, Lyrèlie, and Dawn were talking away, speaking of dreams and sorcery and things that would normally hold my rapt attention. I shook my head clear and strained to follow along.
“Sorry, the who?” Herace suddenly blurted out, leaning heavily on his elbows. “You’re gonna have to back it up… I wasn’t paying attention.”
Majira scowled.
“Back up to where? The dream delving, or the Witch?” she asked.
“Uh, everything,” Herace replied.
Majira closed her eyes and took a deep breath and I was just glad it was Herace and not me who had asked for them to start over. Then she began again.
“The three of us dream delved. We travelled to another plane of being, the place where Dawn’s dreams originate. When we did, we discovered the source of her nightmares; a gateway to the Void, from whence nothing comes and nothing goes. It was located in a place I had seen before while travelling the dreamscape; a place that exists in mirror image in the waking world, a place far away to the east.”
“How far east?” I asked. “Beyond the Bulwarks?”
“Yes. Beyond the Bulwarks. In the highland steppes of the Empire of Un,” Majira replied somberly. “But this is not all we discovered. This gateway to the Nothing is huge; and any with a large soul or abundant reservoir is drawn in by the sheer gravity of the planar wound.”
I was becoming increasingly convinced that Majira was insane. Either insane, or so wise in hidden knowledge that her words sounded like the ravings of a madwoman. Yet there she sat, gracefully poised in utter calmness, her green eyes lidded heavily, speaking those strange words with matter-of-fact clarity as if she was simply discussing last season’s weather.
“So can we fix it?” Herace slurred, resting his head in his hand.
Majira ignored him. Lyrèlie stifled a giggle.
“The danger of this gateway to the Nothing is minor, should we treat those afflicted by its dark impulses. There have been openings to the Nothing, to the Void, many times before, a natural occurence. And there are always those who dream of it across the whole face of the land. Only those who lack a strong mind and a firm will are ever in danger of going mad at the visions it produces, and luckily for us, Princess Dawn lacks neither,” she said, smiling at Dawn reassuringly, who looked up and smiled weakly back. “The danger in this case, however, is what other walkers
in the dreamscape it has attracted to its baleful vibrations, like fish to a wriggling worm…”
“Disciples. And Witches,” Lyrèlie chimed in. “Some who want to destroy everything, and some who want to control everything.”
“Indeed,” Majira said, nodding. “The Priesthood of the Empire of Un, and the Disciples of the Void, draw on the Nothing as a source of power. How, I do not know; it is a secret they guard jealously, and a secret I have no desire to learn. It seems they were watching this opening, even going so far as to enshroud it in mist, for when we arrived, they were already there. I believe they have been using this gateway in particular to identify, locate, and capture those who are drawn to it.”
“But why?” asked Dawn in a thin voice.
“To harvest souls for their malign magicks. They use enslaved folk for their souls, channeling magick through them to offset the cost of spells too powerful to contain in any one soul alone. It is a dark and wicked art, one that is shunned by all civilized folk west of the Bulwarks. They are also practitioners of blood magick, common across every land and equally depraved, whereby the living body is consumed in an effort to fuel strange sorceries. Regardless, the Disciples of the Void send hunting parties to capture those whose souls are large and powerful, whose reservoir is voluminous. And of course, all those who are drawn to the gateways to the Nothing are, by their very nature, those whose souls match this description.”
My stomach felt ill at Majira’s words. I had already seen beyond the Bulwarks; I had fought desperately at the siege of Tiv’ithm against uyrguks and unmen, slave-soldiers and war-priests; I knew of their cunning, their cruelty, their strangeness. And now this same awful empire was after Dawn. Could it be any worse?
“But it’s worse than that,” Majira began again.
Day of the Hunt (The Faun Quartet Book 2) Page 15