by Levi Jacobs
Tarnst screamed. Something about a bloodied lance?
“It was the only way,” Weiland said, slouched against the wall. “The wafters would have shot us down no matter which way we ran.”
“So he should have airlifted us out.”
“It was the only way,” Karhail barked. “Even if we lost a few, better that than all of us.”
“And now we lose another,” Eyna said, brushing peppered red hair from her face.
This brought to mind the bodies Tai had seen in the courtyard, Karhail taking the limb from an unarmed Coldferth woman. “How many did we kill in there?” he asked.
Beal snorted. “All of them.”
“I mean workers, not fighters.”
Karhail eyed him. “They were Coldferth men. They deserved to die.”
“They were workers, not fighters,” Tai said, watching Tarnst. Blood was running freely from one bicep now. “We agreed not to do that.”
“They were in the way.”
Tarnst roared, drool coming from his mouth.
“They were trying to escape.” Tai turned on the bulky Seinjail, rage rising in his belly. “How are they going to rally to us if we keep killing their friends?” Eyna and some of the others nodded at this.
“They were in the way,” Karhail growled. “There will be some innocents lost.” Beal joined Karhail’s glare.
“That’s Councilate logic. They kill whoever’s in the way—kids on the street, miners in the caves—or lock them up in a prison camp. My whole people are just things in the way of the Councilate’s business interests.
“That’s the world we’re trying to get rid of.”
“By being just like it? By killing regular people, and forcing our recruits to load like this? We’re better than that.” Eyna and Lumo nodded, others in the room looking torn.
“Don’t push me on this one, Tai,” Karhail growled. “You try to save everyone, you end up saving no one. Better Coldferth workers than us.”
“There has to be a better way.”
“Yeah well you find it, you let me know.”
A black mood descended on Tai. “I spoke to the High Arbiter today.”
“What?”
“He was with my contact, in Newgen.” Tai looked at Tarnst, a strange feeling of carelessness replacing his anger. “That’s why I was late. The army’s coming.”
“The army?” Others perked up at this.
“The Councilate army. They’re already on the Ein.”
“Rumors.” Beal said. “Exactly the kind of stuff the Councilate wants us to believe, so we stop attacking.”
“How do you know that?” Karhail demanded.
“My contact said she’d heard it from the Arbiter himself, and a House official.”
“And you trust her?” This was Beal.
“She’s the one who taught us yuraloading, tipped us off about the Coldferth bluffmanse.”
Karhail grimaced, working his jaw. “This isn’t the first we’ve heard of it. We need to step up our attacks.”
“Towards what?”
“Same goals, faster timeline. We need to push the Houses out, before the army gets here. Burn all the manses, sink all the ships, clean every one of these mines out. Make it too expensive for them to stay, too dangerous for any fighters to work for them.”
Eyna shifted, fingers busy tying knots in her hair. “It’s a good plan, but do we have the manpower for it?”
“It’s coming,” Karhail said. “The forest is already full to bursting, and today’s strike is going to double that. We gutted Coldferth today. Ayugen has been dying for some kind of resistance, some way to fight, and they’ll come to us now. By the time the army gets here, we’ll have a city to stand against them.” He was shouting at the end, trying to be heard over Tarnst.
Tai rolled his shoulders. “We have to do something about him.”
Karhail grimaced. “Beal. My sword.”
The fish-eyed wafter handed Karhail his sword. A moan came from Tarnst’s lover. Tai reached out. “Karhail, we—“
The brawler was too fast. He spun in a crackle of uai, striking out for Tarnst’s chest. The Yati man’s howls changed to gurgles, and he went limp in his bonds, blood soaking the ropes around his heart.
“Prophet’s peace,” someone whispered.
“He was going to die anyway,” Karhail said, turning. “This way is better.”
Tarnst began jerking, his heels drumming the rock. Karhail moved forward, methodically untying the ropes. The lover wailed, head in his hands.
“We have to stop this,” Tai said. “People should have a choice whether to load.”
“This is our edge,” Karhail snapped, unwinding the bloody rope. “This is how we’re winning the war.”
Silence. “Maybe there is a better way,” Lumo said. “Some way to make it easier. Or to predict who will be taken by their demons.”
“Good,” Karhail jerked the last of the bloody ropes off. “Work on that, Lumo. Until then, we continue. Sigwil, help me with the body.”
Voices sounded in the passage. Pendra appeared a moment later, leading Theron. A cry went up. “Theron!”
Karhail stood from his work, clapped the other Seinjial on the shoulders. “Well fought man. And you escaped alright?”
Theron nodded, taking in the scene. “Aye. It was touch and go for a while, but I made it. Gods. What happens here?”
“Tarnst,” Tai said. “We yuraloaded him, and he died.” He didn’t have the words to honeycoat it.
“Prophet take him up,” Theron said, crossing wrists in the Seinjial fashion.
“Is Ilrick with you?” Weiland asked.
Theron shook his head. “He went down under some fighters. We couldn’t get to him.”
The lightness Theron had brought left. Karhail cracked his knuckles. “He was a clever man. Is a clever man. He’ll show up. Till then, Sigwil and I will take care of Tarnst. Weiland, take the gate. The rest of you, get some sleep. We strike again tomorrow.”
The caves were a somber bustle, people bandaging minor wounds, arranging bedrolls, and taking draughts of dreamleaf. Their numbers were large enough now that they spilled over into adjacent chambers, mixing with the recruits that had stayed down here, a separate cell making their own attacks. Tai found a pallet in the chamber he’d shared with Aelya, but knew he would find no rest there, not this agitated. He turned for the stairs.
“Tai.” Lumo lay atop a pile of furs, pipe drifting scented smoke. “Where are you going now? It is sleeping time.”
“Out,” Tai said. “I need some fresh air.”
The Minchu gazed after him, saying nothing.
It was full dark when he got out, nodding to the guard as he passed. The star was down, no more than a blue glow on the western horizon, and the moon hung mottled in the eastern sky, green continents and blue oceans. Tai took a farmer’s path by its wan light, headed away from town. He felt stirred up, confused, a night river rushing over rocks.
Ilrick was gone. Part of Tai wanted to agree with Beal, that yes the plan had been stupid, yes they were going to lose people, yes they should have come up with something else.
But it was the only way, Tai. That’s just what war is.
Tai shook his head. Was it the only way? Or was it the Councilate’s way? Ella’s words came back to him—but what else could they do? Sit by and let the Councilate lock them all up? Erase them, as she put it?
His confusion was answer enough. Karhail’s way wasn’t right, Ella’s way didn’t exist.
Tai kicked at a dried beet, discard of last year’s harvest. They were so focused on winning they didn’t have time to do it better. But they had to—there had to be another way.
Getting out. That’s the better way.
“What?” Hake hadn’t talked much since the prison escape, but he’d never said anything like this.
This rebellion is not for you—you’ve known that from the start. Concern radiated from him, instead of the usual guilt. Karhail won’t change his
ways, but you can. You can save our kids from what’s coming. Leave before it does.
“And abandon my friends? Like I left you on the field?”
That was different.
Tai waited for more, for a reason, for some sarcastic jibe, but nothing came. He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”
What do you mean? I’m that best friend you left on the field to die.
“No,” Tai said, shaking his head. “No, the friend I left back there would never tell me to abandon friends in danger. Or to abandon his own sister. But you did that before I even met the rebels, remember? How did I not see it then?”
See what? Tai I’m just looking out for you.
“Elkmeck. You’re a demon.” Tears sprung to his eyes somehow, realizing. “Lumo said there were two levels to the power, two demons to get through, but I didn’t want to believe it. I thought you were my friend. But you’re not, are you? You’re just—“ he waved his hands, anger and sadness mixing in his chest, “some thing, a guide or ancestor or demon or whatever. But you’re not guiding me. Not like Hake would.”
I am Hake, Tai, the voice said, sounding so much like Hake. Too much like Hake Desperate. Your friend.
“No. No you’re not.” The words felt final, somehow. The one certain thing in an uncertain world.
Tai waited, looking around. It felt like something should happen, like Hake should go away, or transform. Isn’t that what Ella said happened to her? What all the yuraloaders said?
Nothing changed.
Tai? The voice tried, tentative. Not even trying to sound like Hake now. Hake, his friend, who’d been dead six years.
“Get scattered,” Tai growled, grief overcoming his anger and confusion. Grief and loneliness. Hake was gone. There was no one guiding him. This was all on him now. Like it had been all his life.
28
Hard to imagine even! What our fair city must have been before the gift of yura. What is a minstrel band without a mosstongue to sweeten the tune? A match of strength without brawlers to lift the stones? A stars reading without a mindseye to divine your thoughts? Or a drunken tear without a wafting fistfight at night’s end? No friends, Worldsmouth will never be the same.
--Artimus Kellandrials, Collected Broadsheets, Yielmoon 98
Ella reported for work the next day as usual, though the upper floors of the Tower were a mess. Sablo’s chambers were the worst, a steady stream of House bureaucrats and regular citizens with pleas or complaints seeking him. The air smelled of ash, and the hillside was a smoking ruin out Sablo’s wide amber window, charred wood walls showing between the relatively untouched buildings of Newgen itself.
Sablo had left her the previous night, a soldier escorting her back to the Tower while the Arbiter stayed to deal with the aftermath. Ella had watched from her window as more bluffmanses went up, water first refilling the artificial lake of Newgen proper before spilling onto the burning bluffs. Refugees had streamed into the Tower, some seeking shelter or medical attention, others just feeling unsafe, wanting protection.
The attack was all the talk today—how many had died, why Coldferth was targeted, whether it had been economically motivated, and the apparent supernatural resonances of the fighters. One woman claimed to have seen men descending from the sky, others brawlers who tore through stone like cake. Ella couldn’t help grinning at this, at her discovery fueling the rebellion, even as her stomach turned at talk of the innocent dead and the total body count.
This is war, sis. It’s what you wanted, right?
She sighed, putting down her pen. It would have been impossible to concentrate in the crowded office even if she didn’t have so much to think over. It’s not what I wanted, she thought back. But maybe…
Maybe what you wanted is impossible?
She sighed. Maybe it was—maybe the notion that ideas not people were the enemy, that they could overthrow the Councilate without hurting anyone, was just naive. Maybe the thought that she could come up with something better, if the revolution worked, was just pride.
“Having trouble working in here?”
Sablo’s voice startled her, and she looked up to find him at her desk, eyes sallow from lack of sleep. “I’m—afraid I am. The noise.”
“Come on,” he said, jerking his head toward a far door. “I can at least do something about that.”
Ella gathered her things. “Thank you.”
He led her to a smaller chamber with a red-tinted wall looking over Newgen and the forests to the west. She was surprised to see a bed there, and a clothes wardrobe. These must be his bedchambers—not normally appropriate for a man to show an unchaperoned woman.
Noticing her gaze, he said “I hope you’ll forgive the informality—I thought this would be a quieter place to work.”
“No, thank you,” she said, spotting a desk in the corner. “This will do wonderfully. I expect you’ll be occupied most of the day.”
“At least,” he sighed, then sank into a chair. “I may be getting too old for this.”
“Senior statesmen are like Yersh wines,” she quoted. “Assuming quality, their vintage only matures with age.”
Sablo gave something like a laugh, and she realized he might not have recognized the quote. “That’s LeTwi.”
“Ah.” Sablo smiled. “now there is some scholarship we can discuss.”
“You’ve read him?”
“Read him?” Sablo gestured to a far wall, with a glassed-in cabinet of books. “Half of those are LeTwi, including his lesser-known lectures at the theatres.”
“Prophets,” she breathed, noticing the cabinet for the first time. It had to contain fifty books or more. “Can I…take a look?”
He gave a weary nod. “Be my guest. I need a moment to, ah, improve my vintage anyway.”
The cabinet was a treasury of LeTwi—classics like Yersh Scripture and Its Discontents and Meditations on Nothingness, along with collections of theatre lectures she’d never seen, and related books by other authors like Stamayns and Pelenstel. Others were unlabeled, either on spine or cover. Curious, Ella flipped one of these open.
—may be that demons can respond to calls of the uninitiated. Fragments from Teynslen, in his last address to the Society before overthrowing Arnsgel, indicate he had found a new source of power—
Cocking her head, she flipped back to the first page. A single symbol was printed there—no, hand-drawn—a circle pierced by nine spears. Nine spears—where had she seen that before?
“Don’t read that one!” Sablo barked, starting up and striding across the room.
Ella started, closing it convulsively. “I’m sorry, I—“
He grabbed it from her, then reshelved it and locked the case. “Excuse me,” he said after a moment. “I—had forgotten some of these were personal.”
All his warmth was gone. “Oh. Sorry. I’ll—look at the rest another time.”
“Yes. I think that would be best.”
Ella stood. “Maybe I should work in the main room.”
“No, no,” he said, warm tone returning too fast. “You really are welcome to work in here. I’m just—I guess I’m not used to guests.”
She walked back to the desk. What had that been—his journal? It didn’t read like a journal. “Don’t worry about it. All I have time for are legal tracts these days anyway.”
Sablo nodded and made pleasant conversation about her studies and the upcoming arbitration for a few minutes, then returned to his office. Her mind continued churning on the book—what was it about? What had rattled him so much? It had seemed like some sort of theological treatise, but not from any of the religions she was aware of. The highland monasteries maybe? Was Sablo considering abdication?
Curiosity got the better of her, and a few fingers after he’d left she crept back to the bookcase. Without breaking the glass front, the best she could do was look. There was a line of eight slender volumes, unlabeled, next to the one she’d pulled out.
Why were they unlabeled? And why had that symbol in
the front seemed so familiar?
Ella left by the front door that evening, Sablo still engaged with clients despite the late hour. She bade him good evening and made her way onto the upper floors of the Tower, mind still working over the strange book.
The walkway was abuzz with people, ladies in fine dresses and men in House livery crowding the doors of the Councilate offices. Ella caught snatches as she worked her way through them, avoiding the railing and the dizzying drop beyond.
“—unusable. Place is full of sunk ships—“
“—heard they’ll use brawlers, try to pull them out—“
“—said he went straight into the air.”
This last could only be one person—Tai. If he hadn’t been the face of the rebellion before he was now, people claiming he battled scores of wafters single-handed and lifted rooftops with his resonance. Exaggerations aside, he must be more powerful because of his transformation, like she slipped deeper after hers. She would have to include that in her notes on overcoming.
A woman turned to her, face red and fleshy. “I say we should round them all up and good riddance to them!”
She appeared to be talking to Ella. Ella tried to move away, but the crowd was thick.
“Wouldn’t you say? We should have done it long ago—just clean ‘em out and bring our own people in here. It would’ve saved us a lot of money.”
The woman had a demanding, roosterish way to her. Ella felt compelled to respond. “The Achuri, you mean? What’s happened?”
“You don’t know?” The woman blew out a breath, flustered. Ella could see why no one else was talking to her. “The docks! As though our manse wasn’t enough—“ Ella noted the Coldferth emblem worked into the woman’s sleeve— “they struck again today, sunk both our ships at the docks.”
“Ours too,” a man cut in, bushy moustache muting his words. “Alsthen and Galya and Ergstad as well. In broad daylight!”
“Yes, well,” the woman fanned herself, “Coldferth has clearly borne the brunt of the attacks, and I feel—“
Ella took the man’s entrance as an opportunity to escape, pushing between a distraught pair of platinum-haired girls, likely refugees from the bluffmanses. She felt a pang in her chest—hopefully not orphans.