Mother of Slag

by Timandra Whitecastle

  The Lover

  Chapter 15

  The Nessan Sea was sometimes called the Circle Sea, since its turquoise waters were collected in a wide bowl of the earth. One rim of the bowl rose high, formed by the jagged, tall cliffs of the north and west, stretching far down to that spit of land commonly called the Suthron Pass. To the southwest, the land holding in the holy waters gradually softened its peaks until it meandered in wide shallows around the delta of Arrun, to rise once more beyond the merchant cities on the Isles of Babuk, and then ever farther up, up, up in the direction of the rising sun. If one could have looked upon it from far above, the Nessan Sea would seem like a deep blue-green iris, and pinpointed in its very middle, the narrow pupil, was the Holy Isle that gave the sea its name. Nessa.

  Forever and ever ago, it had been the mystical home of the water goddesses, Sweet and Brine, Indis and Neeze. Though in the ages before, they had separated and Indis had retreated from her twin to the north where the wights had built her temple and Neeze had ruled supreme from her island fastness, which no one entered unless drawn by the goddess herself, or so the sailors said.

  Nessa was often shrouded in mist, an ever roiling fog that gathered its skirts around the foot of the island, and washed upon the waves around it, while the symmetrical cone of the Needle, Nessa’s often snowcapped, lonely mountain reared its head far above the swirling gray, a steady marker, gleaming white and pure, for those who crossed the blue sea.

  On clear days, Diaz could see its tip from his sickbed when he looked out of the tiny porthole window of the room Bashan had rented on the Wards, and it drew his gaze.

  The Wards were a manmade monstrosity. On a shelf of rock about sixty miles east of the Isle, a ship had once been grounded in a storm, so the story went. The crew of the Heavenly Warden had mostly survived and had abandoned the ship for passage on the next boat that sailed by. Now though, centuries later, the Wards were no longer one stranded ship but several, growing together like a coral reef, sprawling along the narrow shelf atop the clear sea. Squares of canvas stretched here and there like pieces of sun-bleached flesh across the wooden bridges that held the structures together like veins and sinews. Parts of ships had been repurposed to build ramshackle huts as well as wood-carved mansions. People dwelled in the bellies and cargo holds of purposefully grounded ships, each adding to the formation of a second, artificial island in the vast circle sea, a brown fleck amid the blue. It had taken Bashan and Diaz several days’ voyage to get here from the capital of the empire, on a crowded ship, with little to no comfort. Thankfully, Diaz had been unconscious most of the time.

  When they arrived on the docks, the whole place stank of rot and decay, the very air was ripe with death, and the Wards had become a haven for that kind of denizen, especially, who would not shrink back from that rot.

  When Diaz had been young, on his first pilgrimage to the temples and shrines of the world, the Wards had been old already, the wooden rafters that held the structures upright ancient and hard as rock. He had been able to book a passage on a boat, captained by a priestess, to travel across the Gjalp Road to the Holy Isle itself, though the fare had been outrageously high even then.

  The proximity of the Wards to the Holy Isle helped spread the legendary prowess of its priestly healers. The bloodwitches of Nessa, secluded on their island abode, allowed the sick and dying to enter their realm, and often these people would regain their health, so that ever more sick and dying flocked to the Wards in search of a cure.

  That had been then, and now it seemed there was no passage to the Isle anymore. The bloodwitches were gone, the fishermen and sailors who plied their trade along the manmade shores said. For years now, the temple had been deserted, they told Bashan and Diaz. The priestesses of Neeze were gone, vanished from the face of the earth, though perhaps they now dwelt in these very waters as mermaid protectors.

  When he was carried on a cot up the creaking stairs of the shanty town, Diaz had gazed upon lines of washing crisscrossing the blue of the sky, as well as the drying husks of gjalp, whose desiccated bodies were ground down for powders and ingredients for medicines to sell to the hopeful sick who came here.

  He had quickly closed his eyes at the sight of a young boy, son or apprentice to one of the quacks and charlatans behind the market stands, spooning out the pupil-less black eyes of the fresh, limp mermaid between his legs to sell to sick tourists. A scent of grilled fish overlaid the smell of rank fish for a moment as they passed by that stall.

  One of the snake oil salesmen had seen them disembark, though, and before Bashan had palmed him some silver to guide them to a room, the man had made the former prince an offer.

  “Fifty for each,” he had greeted Bashan, grabbing onto the side of the cot.

  “What?” Bashan frowned at the carriers who had stopped. “Keep moving.”

  “Where to, Lord?” the one at the front asked, while the salesman leaned over Diaz, who turned his face from the man’s breath.

  “Your eyes,” the salesman said. “How extraordinary to see the eyes of a mermaid on a man! I’ll give you fifty silver shekels for each.”

  “Fuck off,” Bashan snarled, before ordering the carriers to get them to a room.

  But the man did no such thing. He raised his oiled eyebrows high, and they balanced precariously like little hairy caterpillars on his forehead.

  “My friend, that price is a fantastic deal. I promise you, you won’t get a higher one from anybody else on the market. Mermaids’ eyes go for ten silvers each and can be milked for their jelly to clear up the sight of any man who drinks their tonic. Heals you of cataracts, that glorious tonic does. I can sell you some for a small price, if you like. But I’d much prefer to take this burden off of your hands. I’ve never seen such a specimen before, half man half mermaid. Who knows if these eyes have the same properties for healing? I’d like to find—”

  Bashan grabbed the man by the collar with one hand.

  “Look down,” he ordered the man in a low voice.

  The man did and blanched. He stilled as he saw where Bashan was pointing his dagger.

  “Now, listen,” Bashan whispered. “This man is my friend, and not for sale. If you touch him, if you so much as think of perhaps telling your little merchant friends here about him or any of his possible properties, I will gut you. Understand?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Are you thinking of telling your friends about this little conversation?”

  A bead of sweat rolled past the man’s caterpillar eyebrows. He licked his lips and frowned.

  “What conversation, Lord? I heard nothing but you asking for directions.”

  “Good man.” Bashan withdrew the dagger from between the man’s thighs and gave him five silvers. The man’s eyes grew large. “I want a room. A clean room. For the two of us. I want you to lead the way. And I want a surgeon to come within the hour. A good one. Someone who knows his stuff and is discreet. You know someone like that in this shithole?”

  The man seemed to consider this as much as he nervously considered Bashan’s dagger punctuating his sentences.

  “I think I do, Lord. But it might be difficult to get him in under an hour. With the destruction of Arrun, we’ve had an influx of wounded and sick here on the Wards. All the doctors and nurses here are under heavy strain.”

  “We’ve just arrived from Arrun.”

  “Then you know perfectly well how it is, Lo—”

  “I do know,” Bashan cut him short. “I know that if I offer more money than the other wretched folk, I shall get what I want. Isn’t that so, good sir?”

  “Indeed, Lord. Follow me.”

  Bashan ordered the cot carriers to follow the lean man and took up the space next to Diaz’s shoulder. People made way before his aloof expression. Because he walked with an air of entitlement, people bowed before it and accepted it as a given.

  “Perhaps it is best if you closed your eyes, Telen,” he whispered. “I’ve seen enough men with tattoos here that yo
u shouldn’t stand out much. But your wight eyes might draw trouble.”

  Diaz obliged willingly, the sight of the dried gjalp hanging out in the sun enough to make his stomach turn.

  But they did get a room, and some peace.

  And from his bed, Diaz could see the tip of the Needle—that ancient marker. The only marker he’d need, though, was the one that led back to himself. Nothing felt right.

  He was lost.

  Chapter 16

  Diaz slipped in and out of fitful sleep; his dreams, when he had them, were dark and confused. Violent.

  He lay in a bed, the creak of wood around him, watching the light filter through cracks in the ceiling. It shifted, he thought, taking another long drag from the clay smoke pipe, the ceiling shifted in waves, the light silver, with the color and coldness of mother-of-pearl.

  A voice drifted in and out of his consciousness, speaking words he couldn’t quite focus on, familiar in tone, though with a new undercurrent of bitterness. Bashan.

  His lost arm ached.

  Another deep inhale, and he thought, no, the wound was in his heart.

  The smoke burned in his lungs, but when he kept it inside, it felt like Suranna was still there, under his skin, her roaming hands setting him alight.

  He exhaled.

  The kif dulled the pain, but it could not take away the emptiness. She was gone. For the first time in forever, she was truly purged from him; he was truly free. But it didn’t make him feel whole.

  Whole.

  Like he could ever be that again. So he kept going back to her in memories.

  One more hit.

  One more drag.

  One more drink.

  A memory: the curtains of his room in Shinar billowed in the hot, dry wind, choking him as he sat naked, waiting for her to come. Waiting to hear the soft fall of her bare feet on the cool stones outside his magnificent chamber that did nothing to hide the fact that he was her prisoner. Always in anticipation, always filled with dread but also with a perverse sense of relief that she had relented to come to him once again, and so he sat waiting for the sound of her, the breath of her on his lips, the touch of her on his skin…

  Different room. Different prison.

  But here he was.

  Still waiting for her.

  How long now?

  His mind jolted with the thought and abruptly whisked him off to a cold night on the Plains, Nora’s face limned in firelight.

  “How long will you live?” she asked.

  Her head cocked.

  Her face a slight frown.

  Her arms resting on her knees.

  “How long will you live?”

  He exhaled the smoke.

  Too fucking long, it seemed. Longevity was a bitch.

  The door to the room slammed open, interrupting the darkness within, Bashan returning, his boot heels dragging heavy with wine. Everyone chooses their own drug, Diaz thought, and took another drag.

  A heavy weight on the side of the bed made Diaz open his eyes.

  Bashan’s form outlined by the pale moon, his internal sigh framed by his sagging shoulders.

  “I need you to get your shit together, Telen,” he said. He was drinking straight out of the wine bottle now, Diaz noticed. No more faffing about with decorum and lordliness and sipping out of glasses or cups. “You won’t get any better just lying around, smoking. You need to walk around. Get some fresh air. Talk to me, Diaz. We need to figure out where to go from here. I need you to get some perspective, you know. Are you listening?”

  “Perspective,” he repeated.

  “I know you hear me, but are you listening to me?” Bashan turned to Diaz and his face was half in shadow. “Look at you. Look at the state you’re in. It’s depressing.”

  As if he were in any better shape, lips on the bottle once again, the slump in his once royal stature. How long had they been holed up in this room?

  “What are we going to do, Telen?” The former prince shook his head at the moonlight peering in through the porthole window.

  What do you do when the world as you know it has ended and yet it still marches on and on around you? You tread water. You keep your head above the surface for as long as you can until you can make a decision in which direction to swim. Or you go under.

  Diaz had been here before. At rock bottom. When all the grief and mourning of the passing of one stage of your life comes crashing over you in a tidal wave, and you surface, finally, with nothing left but the scar tissue. Every needless thing washed from your life, only you remaining.

  The addict never stops craving. Desire was chronic, and there had come a point where he had chosen to remember who he was. Chosen to master the ill desire with mindfulness, discipline, and distance. So much distance.

  He had crawled away from the aftermath of loving Suranna until he was just out of reach of her influence, too scared to pull himself upright or drag himself onward to his childhood home, to the refuge of his parents. If he had done so, he might have been there when his mother died. But instead, he had stayed in the Temple of the Wind, had hidden from the world. Treading water. Waiting for some sense of direction to be had from the never-changing horizon.

  Bashan and his quest had pulled him out of the water, given him a course, a need, a purpose. And he had swum with all his might, throwing himself against the rising waves, he had faced the storm the twins had brought, and for a moment—just one moment—he had thought he had crested the highest wave and could see a patch of dry land in the calm below him. And then … and then the Blade had taken his arm. Taken Suranna. Taken Nora. Taken the warrior he was and left him crippled.

  He had barely survived. Again. And here he was again, treading the fucking water with another three hundred or four hundred years of this life to look forward to.

  “What are we going to do?” Bashan repeated softly.

  Maybe it was time to be still, take a last deep breath, and let yourself go down. Down into the deep.

  “I’m running out of money,” Bashan whispered. “I have enough for a few days, enough to pay for this shitty room and a bottle of wine, and after that? There’s no credit for an exiled prince with no fighting force behind him. I sold my signet ring to that quack yesterday. I wonder if you’ll even register when I start selling him pieces of you.”

  Diaz didn’t rise to the bitter words.

  “My father gave me that ring,” Bashan said, rubbing the naked flesh of his finger. “It was his ring before it was mine, his father’s before his, always passed on to the next heir to the throne of the empire. My birthright. And I sold it for what? Huh, Telen? For what?”

  He hurled the bottle at the far wall, and the smash startled a pair of seagulls perched on the roof. They screeched miserably, and their wings darkened the porthole window as they flew off to find some other, more peaceful, place for the night.

  “My swords,” Diaz said.

  “What about them?”

  “They’re each worth fifty gold sovereigns at least.”

  “So?” There was tension in Bashan’s back as he stared at the broken shards of the bottle, though he managed to keep it out of his words.

  “Sell them.”

  Bashan clasped both hands over his face and his shoulders jerked once or twice. He took a deep breath.

  “Those swords,” he started in a tone he’d nurtured whenever he had to talk to especially dumb peasants, “are a part of you, Telen. Asking me to sell them is like asking me to sell your eyes or—”

  “My arms?”

  The temperature dropped significantly. Then Bashan shook his head.

  “You half-wight bastard. You can damn well use those swords and hire yourself out as a mercenary.”

  “Use them how? I’ve only got one arm.” Diaz sat up.

  “They’re a part of your livelihood. Of our livelihood. You owe me.”

  “I owe you?” Diaz shouted over Bashan’s raised voice. “I never asked you to save me, Bashan.”

  “Oh, so you wan
ted to die?”

  “Yes!”

  “No! I won’t allow it.”

  “You won’t allow—My life is not yours to decide!”

  “Look at you. You think you’re the only one who has lost everything? You think you’ve lost more than I have? You’re all I have left!”

  They stared at each other, ignoring the heavy knocking on the floorboards from the inhabitants of the room below them. It stopped abruptly.

  Bashan recovered faster.

  “All I’m saying is, when you’ve fully healed, you and I could earn some coin by hiring ourselves out as warriors—”

  “Stop living in the past, Bashan,” Diaz spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not a warrior anymore. I’m a nothing. A nobody. I’m not fit to use those swords. I don’t deserve them anymore.”

  “Neeze fucking wept, have you smoked too much and gone insane, Telen? How are you not a warrior anymore?”

  “Are you blind? I have only one arm. That means I have lost my balance. It means I have no defense, leaving my chest and my side open and vulnerable to any attack, and you want me to go out there and be something I no longer am. So here’s me giving you an order for a change, my lord: sell the swords.”

  With that, Diaz rolled over onto his stump side, preferring the sting and dull throbbing of the flesh over more talk with Bashan.

  After a moment, Bashan crumpled onto the bed next to Diaz with an exhausted sigh. They lay awake, back to back for an hour or so, silent.

  “I’ll take one of your swords tomorrow and see what I can get for it.”

  Diaz said nothing.

  Bashan raised his head a little to look over Diaz’s shoulder and see if he was still awake, but he settled down again quickly.

  “One arm. One sword,” he said softly.

  Diaz squeezed his eyes shut tighter.

  You tread water for as long as you can, but in the end you slip into the depths without a sound.

  Chapter 17

  The door shut quietly.

  “It’s a thing of terror, a history is.”