30
The hot water stung on Noon’s cuts, but it was a good pain. Alongside the heat of the water it was soothing, pushing away all her other thoughts and concerns.
She had dragged out a large tin bath and heated the water up in the kitchen. Sure that the house was empty save for her and a comatose Eboran, she had stripped off in front of the great oven, dropping her dirty smoke-stinking clothes onto the flagstone floor. Now the steam from the bath soaked her hair, and taking a nub of waxy soap she’d found by the sink, she methodically began to wash, taking comfort in the routine of it. Back at the Winnowry they had been allowed a cold bucket of water once every two days and a rough piece of cloth to rub themselves down. You learned quickly how to make the most of that, so this tin bath of hot water and the time to use it seemed an almost impossible luxury.
‘I’m not at the Winnowry any more,’ she told the swirling suds. ‘And I won’t go back. Not alive, anyway.’
Vintage was the reason she’d got so far from the Winnowry in the first place, and now Vintage – kind, eccentric Vintage – was almost certainly dead in the compound somewhere. She thought again of the shape she’d glimpsed against the fires, a blackened twisted thing, and bit at her thumb. Perhaps Godwort would find her body. Perhaps not. Perhaps even now Godwort was sitting in the strange chamber at the heart of the Behemoth, kneeling in front of his son’s corpse, his mind finally broken.
Noon hunched over in the bath. Her hands under the water, she sought inside herself for the teeming parasite spirit energy. It was still there, like a banked fire, waiting to be poked into life. Cautiously, so cautiously, she summoned the winnowfire to her right hand, and saw a small green glow flicker into uncertain life under the water. The fire from this energy was strong.
‘I could boil myself alive,’ she said. Her voice was flat, her only audience the abandoned cutlery and the dusty shelves with their bags of oats and jars of spices. ‘It wouldn’t be quick, but who deserves a quick death less than me?’
Opening her hand, the swirling green flame grew a little brighter, and she felt a blush of extra heat against her legs. It would not take much to let the energy out – it would be easier than keeping it in, in fact.
Fool.
One word, spoken aloud in her head. Noon jerked with shock, the winnowfire winking out of existence.
‘What are you?’
There was no answer, but she could sense that presence inside her again. Something alien, and old, so old. She could feel its disdain for her, its contempt for such a small and weak creature.
‘Fuck you,’ she said aloud, feeling vaguely stupid. ‘You don’t know. You don’t know what I’ve been through.’
There was muttering now, in a language she didn’t understand. Noon squeezed her eyes shut. It had to be the parasite spirit, there was little else it could be, but Vintage hadn’t said anything about their being able to talk. Noon had thought of them as mindless animals of a sort, made of energy and light.
Standing up, Noon squeezed the last of the water out of her hair and stepped out of the bath, grabbing a linen sheet to dry herself with, but, as she did so, the ghostly presence elbowed its way to the front of her mind. The gloomy kitchens vanished, and she saw a battlefield. It was raining, the churned earth a slick of mud, and there were men and women all around her, dead or dying. A woman just in front of her was lying on her back, the elaborate armour she wore split open at the midriff. There were scurrying beetle-like creatures all around her, and the woman was trying to push them away, her movements becoming weaker. Noon felt a stab of alarm; the things she had seen in her nightmare, the insects that had been inside Fell-Marian, they were here too. Then the woman – she was Eboran, Noon realised belatedly, her beautiful eyes the colour of blood – looked up at her. She smiled crookedly, and shook her head. The black beetles surged then, slipping into the woman’s open mouth, crawling eagerly inside her ears. Her body twitched with the violence of them.
Life is suffering. It was the voice again. Life is war, and sacrifice. Life is victory.
The muddy battlefield vanished, and Noon found herself lying naked on the cold flagstones, shivering all over. She felt chilled to the bone, but the presence had retreated. Grabbing the linen and wrapping it around herself, she staggered out of the kitchens.
‘Yeah, well, fuck you,’ she said to no one in particular.
Upstairs, she crept into Tyron Godwort’s room and stood shivering, looking around at his abandoned belongings. Now that she knew what had happened to him, it seemed a sinister, lonely place, but she needed new clothes, and the boy had looked close to her height and size. She went to the wardrobe and began pulling out items of clothing and laying them on the bed – it seemed like Tyron had more outfits than anyone could ever possibly need, but then, Noon reminded herself, at the Winnowry she had only ever had the one. Perhaps this was a normal wardrobe, and everyone had more clothes than they could wear in a year.
She selected warm, woollen leggings and a long-sleeved silk shirt of pale green. She also picked up a maroon velvet jacket that was a little tight across the chest but had bright silver buttons she rather liked; this she stuffed into a bag with some other items, and went back downstairs. Tor was where she had left him, his long form stretched out in the dishevelled bed. His face was turned away from her, but she knew well what it looked like by now – the terrible raw landscape of it haunted her. She had managed, gradually, to cut away the shirt on the left-hand side of his body, so that the ruin of his arm was exposed to the light from the window. She had made small progress with his healing, but it was progress, nonetheless.
‘Hey, bloodsucker, how do you feel today? You look a little, uh, peaky.’
She rolled up her sleeves, taking a brief pleasure in the sensation of silk against skin, and knelt on the bed next to him. Picking up one of the knives she now kept on the bedside table next to a bowl of water and soap, she sliced part of her arm open. She knew she was being less than careful now, but she also knew there was no stepping back from it.
Leaning over him, she pressed her wrist to his mouth and he moaned. His good arm came up around her, encircling her waist and pulling her forward so abruptly that she almost fell over him. Grimacing slightly, Noon held herself up with her other arm as he fed. There was strength in the arm that held her, and that gave her some hope.
‘Easy, easy.’ She tried to pull her arm away, to extract herself from him, but his grip on her intensified and a wave of light-headedness caused her to blink rapidly. It was too easy, she reflected, to let him take what he wanted – there was a closeness to it that reminded her of the purging at the Winnowry, and the broad shoulders of Novice Lusk as he knelt before her. When you were denied all human contact, this moment of intimacy was powerful. For a few moments she allowed herself to enjoy that sense of closeness, the warmth of his mouth against her skin and the strength of his arm across her back, and then she remembered that she had yet to eat anything and to let this go on for too long would be dangerous for them both.
With more determination than before Noon pulled herself away from Tor’s grip, noticing as she did so that the sheet that bunched around his waist was in more of a disarray than it had been. She stared at that a moment before she realised what it meant, and then she stumbled away from the bed, her cheeks suddenly hot.
‘Oh. Fire and – oh.’ Belatedly, she remembered that Tor usually received his blood donations from willing lovers. It made sense that he would associate the taste of blood with sex. She swallowed hard and left the room.
When she came back, she had eaten bread and cheese from the kitchens, fed their ponies with the oats left in the stables, and had downed a glass of wine. She felt unutterably tired, and Tor had turned over to one side, so that if he still had an erection, she couldn’t see it.
‘You know, I admire your dedication,’ she said as she lay down on the bed next to him. The warmth of his body was a balm, her eyelids as heavy as rocks. ‘Most people wouldn’t be in the mood, but you –’ she yawned cavernously – ‘I guess what they say about Eborans . . .’
She slept.
In the dream she was by the Ember River. She had taken her boots off and she was sitting with her feet in the chill water, watching the moonlight glitter across it. Here and there she could just make out the red stones that gave the river its name, and the dark clouds of the underwater plants that grew here. It was a mild night, but her feet were very cold indeed. Even so, she did not want to get up.
She remembered this place. The plains were dissected by two great rivers, the Trick, which was different depending on where you came to it, and the Ember River, which was wide and slow moving. Her people came here often, to wash and to collect water and to meet with the other people who came here. Rivers meant people, and they meant animals too, that was what her mother said. Water brought life.
Noon smiled, wondering dimly where her mother was, even as she looked at the shape of her legs as they dangled into the water. They were long and even shapely, the legs of an adult woman, and something about that and the memory of speaking to her mother didn’t add up. Some piece of terrible knowledge seemed to loom over her at that, so she shook her head, backing away from it. Instead, she realised that there was someone else at the riverside.
‘Greetings, witch,’ said Tor. He was strolling along the bank, his hands behind his back. ‘This is quite a picturesque spot. Somewhere you visited once, I assume?’
Noon scrambled to her feet. Tor’s face and neck were unblemished, totally free from burns, and his skin seemed to glow under the moonlight. He wore an elaborate padded silk jacket she had not seen before. It was embroidered with silver leaves and his black hair was loose over his shoulders. He smiled at her expression.
‘This old thing? It’s a little extravagant, I will admit, but, occasionally, I do miss these comforts from home, and why shouldn’t I wear them in dreams?’
‘A dream.’ Noon swayed on her feet. ‘That’s what this is. Shit.’
The river and the night sky wavered, becoming something false – like the sheets on which Mother Fast would paint scenery for her puppet shows.
‘No, please, don’t go.’ Tor laid a hand on her arm. ‘It would be good to have someone to talk to. Stay here for a little longer.’
He gestured and the river became a real place again, filling out at the edges and becoming a solid thing. Seeing her look of surprise, he grinned. ‘My sister Hestillion was always better at shaping dreams, but I am not completely terrible at it. Don’t think about the fact that this is a dream, just listen to my voice. Tell me about this place. About this memory.’
‘How can you do that?’ she demanded. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Eborans can dream-walk,’ he said mildly. ‘Remember?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ She felt lost. His face, so close to hers, was calm and unconcerned. The last time she had seen it, that had not been the case. She took a breath. ‘This is the Ember River. I came fishing here sometimes when I was small. In the deeper places there were pike, although I never caught one of those, I wasn’t strong enough to pull them in.’ She stopped. ‘Is this really you I’m talking to, or a dream version of you I’ve made up?’
Tor laughed. ‘That’s a good question, witch. It’s really me, for what it’s worth, but then if I were a dream version, I would still say that, wouldn’t I?’
Abruptly, Noon wanted to push him in the river. ‘Leave me alone. This stuff is private.’
Tor made a point of looking around. ‘This boring river is private? Very well, let me show you something, then. I’m not even sure if I can still do this . . .’
He took hold of her arm, and the balmy night and cold river swirled away, carried by something deeper than water, and they were standing in a grove of trees on a hot summer’s day. Noon could feel the sun on the top of her head like a blessing, and she could even smell the blossom on the trees. Something about that was familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Next to her, Tor was laughing.
‘By the roots, I did it! You see this, witch? These are the sacred groves of Ebora as they were over two hundred years ago. No living human has ever seen such a sight, and here you are. Are you suitably honoured?’
‘This is a memory of yours?’
‘It is. A memory from before the worst times, before the crimson flux had truly decimated us. This orchard was grown in honour of Ygseril, and the trees were tended as honoured associates of the tree-god.’ He paused, and Noon noticed that his clothes had changed again. He now wore a simple tunic of deep russet and ochre leggings. There was a bronze brooch at his throat. Somehow, the outfit made him look younger. ‘When I left Ebora, of course, all of these trees had long since died. Of heartbreak, Hest was fond of saying, but they were just left unattended for too long. Delicate things like this require care.’ He reached up and touched his fingers to the pale pink blossom clustered in the branches, causing a brief flurry of petals like snow. ‘You should have seen Ebora in its glory, Noon. It was quite extraordinary.’
‘Hest is your sister?’
Tor nodded. ‘Lady Hestillion, born in the year of the green bird, mistress of dream-walking and ever my biggest critic.’
She didn’t know what to say to that. She crossed her arms over her chest.
‘This place is beautiful,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s full of life here. I can feel it, even though it’s not real.’
He looked back at her intently then, as if seeing her properly for the first time. It was unnerving, and she had to look away.
‘Can you do this with any of your memories?’ she said, hoping to distract him from his sudden examination of her.
‘I have not tried, for a very long time.’ His voice was soft. ‘Tell me, witch, why is it I can feel you so clearly in this dream? You are closer to me than you were before. I can almost—’ He stopped.
You drank my blood, Noon thought but did not say. A hot wind suddenly blew through the grove of trees, scattering blossom in a fairy blizzard. It smelled, Noon realised with horror, of burned flesh.
‘What is that?’ said Tor, looking across the neat avenue of trees. There was, Noon saw, a strange cloud hanging over the horizon, a silvery grey shape that she couldn’t quite make out. ‘Can you smell that? Perhaps something burned in the kitchens.’
‘It’s a dream, remember?’ Noon stepped away, reaching up to pull her hat down over the tattoo on her forehead before remembering that she had lost it in the compound. ‘I can’t stay here with you, looking at your old Eboran crap. I have other things to do.’
She turned away, meaning to run back to the river somehow, when she lost her footing and fell, her stomach lurching uncomfortably. Noon woke, gasping, in the bed next to Tormalin. Thankfully, the tall Eboran was still asleep. Moving as carefully as possible, so as not to wake him, Noon turned over on her side and lay staring at the door, thinking of the river and the blossom, and the terrible smell of death that had come for them.