by J. M. Frey
“Oh,” I breathe, and I am not even remotely ashamed to admit how sexy I found her line of reasoning. I feel the hairs on my arms and neck stand upright, my pupils blow wide, my mouth suddenly flood with saliva, and my britches grow uncomfortably tight. By the Writer, do I love my wife. “See, bao bei?” I ask, sweeping forward to give her a scorching kiss. “You are the clever one!”
“And that was Station Five,” Pip whispers into my mouth.
Failure
He is not here.
He is not here.
There are no more totems to destroy, no stars left to snuff. And still her son, her Varnet, is not here. A red sunrise lingers on the horizon, as if it fears that she will dowse its light now that all his sisters have fallen under her hand.
Sisters, Solinde thinks grimly. She stands on the Desk that Never Rots and thrusts her clawed fingers upward, ripping a hole in the sky.
She calls upon the others, commands them to come forth, thrusts such a torrent of power into the sky that the rain falling into the Rookery froths and floods up to her ankles.
“Sisters!” she wails. “What have I missed?”
Laughter leaks downward from the tear: a multitude of clangoring, spiteful voices in a pantheon of crystalline, atonal sound.
“Tell me!”
“There are no totems. The realms are gone.”
“All but the one where Varnet is held! Must I travel to the land of death to retrieve him?”
Jangling laughter flashes across the sky like lightning. “No.”
“I will have my vengeance.”
“You said that before, sister. Yet all you have accomplished is blackening a sky.”
Solinde screams, a long, brutal, shrieking howl of fury and agony. The birds of the Rookery who had taken shelter from the storm burst out into the air to escape her cry, a squid-ink wave of drenched feathers and white, rolling eyes.
“There must be some reason,” Solinde pants, curling in on herself, her voice hoarse and crackling, barely above a whisper. “Some reason the totems did not work.”
“Give up, sister,” the others chant, and jeer. “Fail, fail!”
“I will not!” Solinde hurtles back. Lightning rattles the desk beneath her feet as it crashes into the mountainside, sending sparks along the surface of the pool her rage has made of the Rookery. The ivy clinging to the cliffside rips away in the wind, its leaves and sticks swirling in the vortex spinning around Solinde, the witch in its eye, the spirit that is its mind.
Its mind.
Knowledge, Solinde realizes. The totems are gone. They have not worked! But there is one still who will know. One who understands the world as no others have before. One who will know where he is!
Solinde closes her fists and clamps up the gash in the sky, gagging the laughter and the cruel jibes, the hissing and snarls of those who were once her bosom family.
Forsyth Turn’s bitch, Solinde decides grimly. “The Reader!”
Fifteen
Wyndam is asleep upstairs, having finally accepted Bevel’s offer of one of Mother Mouth’s poppy milk potions. Thoma volunteers to take Alis into his room for her afternoon nap, so there is someone nearby for her if she wakes and begins to cry. This leaves the four of us adventurers to make plans.
“So, now what?” Pip asks, her whole body slumped with weariness and misery.
“We have two choices,” I say, making a point of meeting each of the gazes of those crowded around the table. “We could return to Turn Hall to research this Deal-Maker. Wyndam has given me to understand that he had the Deal-Maker’s tableau memorized, that she is oft called down by the sea-faring kingdoms. And we know one of the required items is a broken compass. But the binding she has upon him is preventing him from being able to communicate with me as to how I may call her down again; he cannot even trace her sigil out for me. I know it is not within the Shadow’s Mask, or I would suggest Bevel don it, and we call her down now. But there, in my study, it will be written down. And we can make plans for once she is summoned.”
“We’ll have to review all of the Shadow Hand’s notes on Deal-Makers in the Turn Hall library,” Bevel groans, and I cannot help but grin at his put-upon moaning. For all that my brother’s trothed is an excellent spy, I noted in our review of his missives that he is a reluctant and inconsistent administrator.
“But at least we can call her down, Deal for information and Wyn’s voice,” Kintyre says, shifting in the booth. With all of us pressed together for privacy, he is bunched in against the window. He extends one of his massive arms along the back of the seat for comfort, hemming Bevel in, who doesn’t seem to mind.
Pip shifts closer to me in response to the cuddling going on in the other banquette. “And the other option?”
“We go back to where this whole mess began,” I say, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, mirroring my brother’s actions. “The Rookery. We go back to the Desk that Never Rots. And then we find a way to talk to Elgar.”
“And how would we do that?” Pip asks. “If he hasn’t found a way to contact us by now, I don’t think he can. And I sure as hell have been racking my brains since day one.”
“Then back to Turnshire it is,” I decide for all of us. “We venture toward the known solution instead of venturing out on the potentially pointless quest.”
“Hey,” Kintyre says, offhandedly. “Some of my best adventures and biggest problem-solving moments happened while on pointless side-quests.”
“True,” Pip says, snapping and aiming finger-guns at him. “But this isn’t your story. This adventure is Forsyth’s, and his luck doesn’t work the way yours does.”
“M-mine?” I ask, startled by Pip’s insistence.
“Well, you’ve been the driving force so far, haven’t you?” she asks, looking up at me. “You were the one who started compiling information about the missing books, Wyndam called you down into this realm, you sent us to Pointe’s, you encouraged us to travel to the Library. You’ve been the impetus of the narrative action, bao bei. Thus, this is your adventure.” She turns back to my brother. “And that is why we will not be going on any side-quests.”
“But I—”
“No,” I say firmly. “Kintyre, it is decided.”
“Oh, is it?” He bristles. “And when were you appointed our leader? You do so like telling me what to do, Bossy Forssy—”
Bevel pinches the arm laid across the back of the bench hard, twisting the flesh of Kintyre’s inner elbow until it turns pink.
“Yow!” Kintyre yelps, and quickly draws his arm back.
“Hush, you,” Bevel says with a glare.
“Yes, brother, do use your brains, for once—youch!” I huff as Pip delivers me a pinch of my own.
“Enough, you two,” Pip says.
“She’s right,” Bevel adds.
“And since when are you and Bevel on the same team?” I ask, startled by the low simmering of jealous resentment that bubbles up when I catch the way they are smirking at one another.
“We’re married to Turns,” Pip says. “We were automatically a team as soon as we both said ‘I do.’”
Kintyre and I both grumble and rub our abused skin, but don’t gainsay it.
“The point is,” Pip says, bringing us back around on topic, “we’re in agreement that we need to figure out who this Deal-Maker is and summon her. So, we’re headed back to Turnshire?”
“Yes,” Bevel agrees, and prods Kintyre in the ribs with his elbow until my brother reluctantly grumbles his assent.
“Then what about this?” Pip asks, pulling the phial of blood from her bra and holding it low so anyone else in the taproom will not see it.
Kintyre shifts uncomfortably, eyes lingering a fraction of a second too long on the gap in her shirt where her breasts are framed, and then clears his throat and turns his eyes to the phial. I suppose some habits are hard to break.
When no one answers, Pip prompts us: “What should we do with it?”
“Leverage,” I say. �
�Save it to use with this Deal-Maker when we summon her.”
“How does that even work?” Pip asks, but it’s in that self-reflective murmur I have come to learn indicates a question is more for herself, a way to prompt her own thought process into following this new path of consideration. It is not a genuine question for me, and I know that.
Bevel and Kintyre, however, are not familiar with it.
“How does what work?” Kintyre asks.
Pip blinks and jerks her head up to face him, startled buy his interruption. “Huh? Oh! Um, I mean, how does the blood work to compel a Deal-Maker. I mean, how does just having it give us any control or leverage? It’s . . . uh . . . well, that’s frankly just lazy world-building.”
I cannot stifle my giggle at the look of indignant affront on Pip’s face, and I do not try to. Bevel and Kintyre shift in their seats, uncomfortable at having to even be cognizant of the shifting tectonic plates of existential meaning beneath their perceived reality.
“I suppose we will find out once we summon her,” I say, pushing the conversation forward and giving Kintyre and Bevel a chance to ponder something else.
Pip cuddles back down against me, and it feels nice to have a small moment of respite, to simply enjoy being at peace and close to her. Kintyre and Bevel settle similarly, Bevel’s eyes drifting shut as he leans against Kintyre’s chest. I am pleased to see how open they are with their affection, knowing how many years Bevel had longed for Kintyre to admit to loving him.
“Hmph,” Pip says, reaching up to scratch my chin. In the week we have been adventuring, I have not had the time to shave, and a respectable amount of prickle has been cultivated. “I will admit, bao bei, that I do miss my electric razor very much. I prefer a barber’s shave, but even the electric would do now.”
“Dunno,” Kintyre says. “I think it kinda suits you.”
“Oh,” I say, startled by his forthright praise. “Well. Thank you.”
“Shame it’s so ginger, though,” he adds with a smirk, ruining the moment.
✍
I seek out Pip’s much-desired barber’s shave in the morning, while Bevel and Kintyre are busy restocking our little wagon, and saying their goodbyes around town. Wyndam, still lethargic with pain and a poor night’s sleep, is keeping Pip and Alis company in the taproom, clutching the largest tankard of tea I have ever seen.
When I return, feeling more myself but slightly mourning the loss of the fetching scruff, Pip is laying out the new plan for our nephew.
“Of course, if this fails, we could summon the other one. Neris,” she tells him. “It would probably take another few weeks to collect up all the items we need to summon her again. But, failing that, we’d have to go all the way back to Turn Hall to find the Shadow Hand’s catalog of the others. So, any way you slice it, you’ll be voiceless for a month or more, yet. But don’t worry, kiddo. We’re not giving up on you.”
Wyndam grunts his understanding. Then he removes the shell-necklace strung on the knotted hemp rope that he wears about his neck and hands it to her. The scale is about the size of his palm, and is a dappled, shiny blue-green that would camouflage the mer-drake it came from in deep and shallow water alike.
Pip squints at it. “Is this part of—”
Wyndam reaches out and puts his finger on her lips, wincing as his pinky finger trembles.
“Ah, okay,” Pip says. “No asking.” She puts the necklace on.
Shortly thereafter, Capplederry is hitched to the wagon, our supplies are loaded, and I am pressing an extra purse of coins into the Goodwoman’s hands.
“Master Turn,” she says slowly. “It is far too much.”
“I know,” I say, “but please, take it. It cannot replace Lanaea, and I dare not suggest I am attempting to pay for her lost life, but you must take care of yourself in this time of mourning, and your brother when he arrives from Sherwilde. Our living is well off, and you deserve to be able to take a full mourning period with no concerns about finances.”
“Gwillfifeshire wouldn’t let the Pern sink,” she says, after a soft, shaking sigh, “but I thank you all the same, Master Turn.”
“Good people deserve good things,” I say. “Pern means so much to so many. I am happy to thank you as I can.”
The Goodwoman does not cry, but her eyes do grow wet. She pockets the purse, and then grabs her son by his suspenders to keep Thoma from crawling under the blankets in our cart.
“But, Ma!” he protests. “I want to go on an adventure!”
“But, son!” she says back, trying valiantly to tease in the midst of her sorrow. “Not a chance. There is no way you are going off with Kintyre Turn. Not now. Not ever.”
“Ma,” he protests again, but does as he’s told and stands beside her skirts.
Kintyre and Bevel offer their farewells, and mount Karl and Dauntless, respectively. I am to drive.
I settle Pip and Alis in the back, and then look around for Wyndam. I expected him to be asleep in the cart already, as worn out as he still is by yesterday’s interrogation, but he is nowhere to be seen.
“He’s gone to the ghost,” Thoma says softly when he sees me looking.
Ah.
For a moment, I consider sending Kintyre to fetch his son, but realize that whatever leave-taking Wyndam is engaged in with Lanaea might be better left unseen by him. I would like to hope that Kintyre is compassionate enough not to tease his son for his lingering heartbreak, but I would wager no money on it.
“I’ll be back in a heartbeat,” I say, and slip away before anyone else can protest, sliding around the corner of the livery stables and jogging toward the town square.
Wyndam is right where I expect to find him, seated once more on the edge of the crumbling well. This time, Lanaea’s ghost sits beside him—or rather, hovers in the general area of the edge of the well. Next to the well, there is a fresh, new paving stone, the only red one in a sea of sandy-white, and it is from here that the edge of her skirt trails. She is cupping Wyndam’s face, or trying to, and there are ghostly, transparent tears sparkling around her cheeks like fairy lights.
I back into an alleyway where I have full view of the star-crossed lovers, but where I hope the shadow will hide me, and watch. I don’t want to interrupt if I don’t have to, and we aren’t on so strict a schedule that I cannot give the lad a few more minutes.
“Oh, hells,” Bevel whispers from beside me, and I jump, sucking in a gasp. I hadn’t heard him following. He was stealthy before he ever became Shadow Hand, though, and has more practice walking quietly than I. “He’s really torn up.”
“A lad never forgets his first love,” I say, keeping my voice low.
“His first? Do you think? He’s only seventeen.”
“And the Prince of Pirates.”
“That’s . . . that’s an advantage, I won’t lie.”
“Hmm,” I say, a non-response that Bevel takes as the indication that I have no desire to delve into our nephew’s sex life any further than we already have.
After another few moments, Wyndam rises, sweeps a very courtly bow indeed to Lanaea, and exits the square. Bevel darts away behind me, determined to get back to the cart before Wyndam. I linger just long enough to watch Mandikin rise up out of another faded, pale-pink stone beside Lanaea’s red one and wrap ghostly arms around the other spirit.
Dead though they may be, I am glad that they have the support of one another in this time.
✍
We stop for the night well out of the fields of Miliway. It meant that we had to ride for several hours after sundown, but nobody minded, as we were all still warily worried about Red Caps, or other marauders that might have been unhoused by the Deal-Maker’s circuit around the world. The forest we drive into is dense, and filled with faint sparkings of light that may be wild Wisps, the kind not bred for lanterns. They may also be the glint of predator eyes off the spark of our campfire, so no one goes to investigate.
Capplederry seems calm enough with our environs, at any rate, and
the musk of the great cat seems to go a long way toward securing our camp against any animals that may assume a party of sleeping humans are easy prey.
It is probably close to midnight by the time the feast Bevel has prepared is ready to eat: stone-baked flatbread, cheese, and those lovely leaf-baked rolls of fresh venison wrapped around dried nuts and fruit like a particularly Hainish bit of sushi. By the time we sit down to it, Alis is already asleep, and Wyndam must be roused from his own doze to eat.
We are just unwrapping our dinners when a flash of white in my periphery catches my attention. There is something by the cart, where we have left Alis hemmed in by pillows.
Kintyre and Bevel are on their feet in an instant, swords drawn, but I put up a hand to stay them. No use startling whatever it is. We each set down our dinners, and I creep around the side of the cart slowly. Then I let loose a gusting sigh and straighten.
“Shoo!” I tell the creature creeping closer to the cart. It is unperturbed, however, and just takes another step, head raised and eyes bright, innocently defiant.
“What is it?” Pip asks, and when I glance back, I see that she’s also stood and has her hand on her dagger. Wyndam is beside her, looking equally grave.
“Come see, bao bei,” I say, and the endearment does as I hoped it would and reassures her that nothing is immediately wrong.
When she comes around to the end of the cart, she stops abruptly and gasps, hands flying to cover her mouth, instantly enchanted.
“Is that . . . is that a . . . ?”
“A unicorn, yes,” I say with a grunt, and take another step forward. The beast does the same. “Oh no,” I say, shooing the unicorn away from Alis. “Absolutely not. None of that now.” The unicorn tosses its head, mane shimmering in the shaft of moonlight that dances through the foliage. It paws the ground for a moment, thoughtfully eyes up Pip, then snorts and dismisses her, focusing its attention on my daughter.