23
My dearest Nanthema,
I’m hoping this letter reaches you safely and that, indeed, you yourself are safe. I am writing to you from the Goddestra Delta, where we arranged to meet, and I have been here now for the entire Fallen Moon festival. I have even made some discreet inquiries and listened very carefully to all the port gossip, but there has been no mention of an Eboran in these parts, and, as you can imagine, I’m sure it would have been remarked upon. I do hope you are safe.
I tell myself that I can’t imagine what could have kept you from our long-awaited meeting, except, of course, that I am imagining everything – bandits on the road, a sudden illness (no, I will not name it here), a landslide, bad weather, or perhaps you took a shortcut through the Wild. You’ve probably been delayed by something terribly prosaic, and, of course, I shall wait. I have rooms at the Salted Anchor Inn and I have enough money to keep me here until the next moon (I have already written to my father asking for further funds. I concocted some story about college accommodation being pricier than expected. He will never question it).
I have sent this letter to the last address I have for you at Jarlsbad. It’s likely that you’ll never receive it, and tomorrow morning I’ll spot you jumping up from the jetty, your face bright with adventure, but if not, then I hope these words find you well.
All my love, V.
Copy of a private letter from the records of Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon
‘The dream you had—’
The fell-witch turned and glanced at Tormalin, before pulling her hat down further over her ears. The sun was a pale disc just above the treeline, watery and cold, and there was a chill mist between the trees. They had been walking through the night, moving steadily away from the winnowline. When Tor looked back behind them, he could still see a dense cloud of black smoke above the distant treeline. It made him uneasy.
‘What about it?’
‘You said you’d had the same dream as Lucky Ainsel. What did you make of it?’
Vintage was some way ahead of them, crashing through the undergrowth. She was, of the three of them, the most familiar with travelling through the Wild and had demanded that she scout ahead, but in truth, the scholar was in a foul mood. Noon was hanging back, much of the colour vanished from her cheeks, and there were dark circles around her eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday.
‘I knew I was in danger. I knew I had to get out of that death-trap.’
‘But why? It was just a dream.’
Noon shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t. And you know it wasn’t, or you wouldn’t be asking me. I saw the Winnowry crumble to bits, and all of us inside suffocating, and it was real.’
‘You realise what you’re saying? That you believe the Jure’lia are coming back?’
She stopped and turned to face him. There was a smudge of soot on her cheek. ‘So?’
‘Don’t you see?’ He stood close, lowering his voice, although he could not have said why. ‘If they come back, then Sarn is – Sarn is fucked.’
She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘The Winnowry sent someone after me to kill me. I don’t give a single tiny shit about Sarn.’
That surprised a laugh out of him. ‘You should, witch. Your feet are planted on it, are they not?’
‘If they come back, then it’s your problem.’
He shook his head, exasperated. ‘Ygseril was the key to defeating them. He was the one who birthed the war-beasts. And he’s dead.’
‘I thought you didn’t care. That you’d left those problems behind you.’
‘Yes, well.’ He took a breath, and then let it out in a sigh. ‘I was rather hoping those problems wouldn’t come and bite me on the arse.’
‘Not until you’ve finished whoring your way around Sarn and drinking Vintage out of wine, at least?’
He looked down at her, ready to be affronted, but to his surprise she was smiling faintly – it looked as fragile as ice on a lake in late spring, but it was the first smile he’d seen her give in some time.
‘You look a little more human when you’re annoyed, Eboran.’
‘Oh, I’m glad my countenance is more pleasing to you when I’m vexed, that bodes well.’ A flock of birds passed overhead, and he looked up. There was more light in the sky than there had been, making it easier for them to find their way, and easier for them to be seen. ‘About what happened at the winnowline . . .’
The smile dropped from her face, and she turned back to the trees. After a moment she lifted her hand to her mouth and briefly gnawed at her thumb. The Wild pressed in all around them, quieter than any morning forest should be. ‘What about it?’
‘Are there likely to be more like her?’ Tormalin scanned the sky for black fluttering shapes, for fiery death on wings. ‘I’m not sure I’d like to see more than one.’
‘Agents usually work alone,’ said Noon. ‘They are pretty rare – the Winnowry doesn’t trust many fell-witches to control themselves – so they’re in demand all over the place. They won’t have many to send after me, and –’ she cleared her throat – ‘she was powerful.’
‘She bent the winnowfire into all sorts of shapes. Can you do that?’
‘No.’
‘When she made rings from the fire and spun them around her arms – I have never seen such a thing. Can you do that?’
‘No. You’ve seen what I can do already. I blow things up. Destroy things.’ Her voice wavered, and Tormalin peered down at her curiously, but Vintage was stamping her way back towards them. If there were any worm-touched monsters around, Tormalin thought, they would be better off keeping out of Vintage’s way.
‘There’s a settlement ahead. I should be able to buy us a roof to hide under for a few hours with what I’ve got left in my pockets.’
‘A settlement, in the Wild?’ Tor looked at the twisted trees ahead of them, trying to imagine living out here. ‘Are they mad?’
‘Vintage—’ Noon started, but the scholar raised a hand, an expression of sheer weariness on her face.
‘I am much too tired to talk about it, my dear, and there’s very little to say as it is. If anything, it’s my own fault. I’m no fool – I should have taken the threat of the Winnowry more seriously.’
‘We lost all of your things,’ said Noon, her voice flat. ‘All of your papers and books, burned. And two people died.’
Vintage sighed heavily, leaning forward with her hands on her hips. ‘It doesn’t surprise me, if I’m honest, that the Winnowry would be so heavy-handed. Noon, those deaths are the fault of the unhinged woman they sent after you. Come along, I’m hoping we can get a stiff drink out of these people. They’ve already spotted us.’
Vintage led them down a slope, and once beyond the line of trees, they stood in front of an enormous thicket of monstrous thorns. It rose above them like a small hill, looking utterly impenetrable. It was a place full of ominous shadows and lethal spikes, but as they drew closer, Tor saw that at the very base of the thicket there was a way through the twisting foliage, and at the entrance stood a small, wizened old man. He was as pale as milk, and had tufts of silky blond hair behind a pair of protruding ears. The old man’s eyes were lost in wrinkles, but he nodded to Vintage, and the two of them had a rapid conversation in a plains dialect Tor was not familiar with. He looked at Noon, and saw her eyebrows raised.
‘Vintage has travelled a lot, even before she paid for my sword arm,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Also, she tells me she has a trustworthy face, although I’m quite sure I don’t know what one of those looks like.’
‘Why would you?’
He gave her a sharp look, but Vintage was beckoning. They followed her and the ancient man down the shadowy path – Tormalin had to crouch to avoid catching his head on the low-hanging briars – to find a curious little village sheltered within the enormous thicket of thorns. Above them was a circle of sky, pale blue now as the day got into its stride, while all around them rose a wild brown wall of monstrous thorn bushes; it was, Tor thought, rather like sitting at the bottom of a barrel. The space immediately in front of them contained a well and what appeared to be a small market place, while he could see men and women climbing in the thorn wall, looking like especially industrious ants amongst the twisted burs. Now that he looked closer, he could see rope ladders strung here and there like an elaborate web, and scraps of cloth hanging from thorns where people were drying their washing. They had burrows, he realised, tiny buried homes in the depths of the giant thorns. It was so different from the sweeping marble halls of Ebora that he wanted to laugh.
‘What a miserable place,’ he said, cheerily enough. ‘Vintage, I do hope you have rented their very best rooms.’
‘Be quiet, Tormalin, my darling, or I will waste one of my precious quarrels ventilating your beautiful throat. Here we are.’
The old man had led them to a hole in the thicket level with the ground. Inside was what appeared to be a communal resting place; the ground was covered in a pungent mixture of old leaves and grey feathers, and there were blankets everywhere, most of them occupied. Tor could see pale faces and bare feet here and there, could hear the soft sounds of snoring. He straightened up and looked at Vintage.
‘Not on your life am I sleeping in there. On the floor. In rags.’
‘Let me past, then.’ Noon pushed past him, heading into the gloom of the den. She poked around until she found a free blanket and then dropped to the floor. In a moment she had her head tucked under her arm and her hat pulled down over her face. She seemed utterly unconcerned by all the warm bodies around her.
‘Vintage, really. What is this place?’
‘It’s someone’s home, like any other, so keep a civil tongue in your head. These are the Keshin people. There are little pockets of them all through these forests. They live and hunt out here, and occasionally trade. Their main source of meat and fur are a particular type of nocturnal hare. They keep this room for the hunters who have been out all night and want to grab a nap.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Look, Tormalin, my darling, we need a rest, do we not? And we need it under cover.’ She glanced up at the circle of sky, now the colour of a spring bird’s egg. ‘I don’t want another visit from that fiery bitch.’
‘Vintage,’ said Tor, glancing at Noon’s indistinct form, and lowering his voice, ‘by all the roots, why didn’t you just hand her in? We all make mistakes, and, as usual, yours has come from a place of kindness, but this waif is not worth getting us killed for.’
Vintage lifted her chin, her face stony. ‘That waif saved our lives back in the Shroom Flats.’
‘That’s debatable.’
‘And can you truly imagine me just handing her back to the filth that is the Winnowry?’ Vintage sniffed. ‘Tor, my dear, do you know me at all?’
Tor snorted in disgust. ‘Well, at least if that fiery lunatic does find us, this place will go up like kindling, and it’ll all be over swiftly enough.’
Vintage turned away from him in disgust. ‘I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same, if you can fit your lanky arse in here.’
She found her own space, whispering apologies to the sleeping men and women she stepped over, before disappearing into the shadows. Tor stood for a moment, at a loss. A quick glance around the so-called Keshin village was enough to tell him there wouldn’t be anywhere to get a decent drink, so with little other choice, he crouched down and shuffled into the darkened chamber. It was warm inside, and filled with the unmistakeable odour of human bodies. Tor grimaced, looking around for an empty spot away from everyone else, but the only free section was next to Noon. He stepped over her – she was already asleep somehow, her breathing slow and deep – and settled himself between her and the twisted mat of twigs and branches that was the wall. From here, the entrance was a dull moon of yellow light, until someone pulled a gauze curtain over it. The whole place smelled strongly of rabbit.
‘Just marvellous,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Absolutely marvellous.’
Someone from somewhere in the dark shushed him, so he lay back and closed his eyes. To cheer himself up he pictured Serena and Ainsel. They would be back in Mushenska now, going about their daily lives with no idea that their beloved Tormalin was currently sleeping in squalor. Serena and her skin that smelled of summer fruit, Ainsel and the smooth column of her neck. He pictured evenings they had spent together, lazy afternoons, and on the tail of that, he thought about the taste of their blood. Sex and blood: the two were always mingled, like a smell that brought back how it felt to be a child, or a song that holds the last memory of someone dear. The taste of their blood, the strength that it brought, and the touch of a willing hand. He was never quite sure which he craved the most – except that wasn’t entirely true.
A small noise from beside him brought him back from his recollections. Noon had shifted in her sleep, her face turned up to the ceiling. In the dim light he could see that her eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth turned down at the corners, as though she were tasting something bitter. A cold hand walked down Tormalin’s spine: she was having a nightmare. He thought of their conversation in the woods – could she be having the same dream again, the same one as Ainsel? If she was, that had to mean something. He had to know for certain.
Sitting up, he moved closer to the sleeping witch. He felt an odd pang of guilt, half expecting Vintage to appear and chastise him, and then he closed his eyes and slipped into the netherdark. Dreaming minds were pressed in closely all around him, but Noon’s was impossible to miss – she was the closest, and now that he knew her, it was almost familiar. He pushed away a brief memory of her warm hand on his neck and slipped through into her sleeping mind.
She was dreaming of a bright, sunlit day. White clouds daubed the horizon, and in all directions, there was grass as high as his waist; a tired, dusty green. There were large tents behind him, shaped like cones and draped with various animal skins and woven blankets and painted silks. There were horses here, and men and women with the horses. They were plains people, and they were going about their lives peaceably enough. He saw young men and women; warriors with horsehair vests and deer-skin trousers, with short, curving swords at their waists. He saw riders leading their horses to hunt, and a man turning a great side of meat over a fire. There was an old woman sitting amongst a crowd of children, and she was dancing a pair of puppets for them, telling them some story about the stars and the storm winds. It was a peaceful picture, full of the detail and warmth that told him it was a true memory, something cherished even. And then he remembered the distress on the fell-witch’s face. He had not mistaken that.
Sensing a shape next to him, he looked down to see a child. She was around ten years old. Her black hair was tied back into a short, stubby tail and she carried a wooden sword in her hand. At once, all sense of peace and warmth vanished. Instead, Tor felt a wave of terror move through him, as sudden and as cold as a riptide. Threat was all around them, he realised, he just hadn’t seen it before. Surely the Jure’lia would now arrive, coming from a blameless sky to kill them all.
‘It’s all connected.’
The girl’s voice was soft, and she did not look at Tor when she spoke. Instead, she continued to stare keenly at the scene around her.
Tor waited, but there was nothing more. He stood for a while with the child, making himself a shadow on the grass so that she would not notice him, but nothing came; no corpse moon, no wave of hungry black beetles, and she did not speak again. There were just the people, caught in this moment of living their lives, and this strange, serious girl, standing just beyond their circle, watching them. And the sense of a terrible calamity looming never lessened.
Quietly, a whisper on the breeze, Tor left. Whatever it was the girl faced, she would face it alone.