37
I have asked Nanthema what she thinks about the Eboran war-beasts many times, of course, but I only get a few small pieces of information from her on each occasion. I think it makes her sad, to think about them. To her, of course, they are not distant mythical creatures that were only ever seen in paintings or depicted in poems, but living, breathing figures that were of enormous importance to her people. Nanthema herself was a child at the time of the Eighth Rain, and during that time of war her mother had seen fit to hide her away in a country estate – consequently, she did not witness the death of Ygseril, or the defeat of the Jure’lia. Before the invaders came, however, she often saw the war-beasts on their visits to and from the central city of Ebora. She describes them as impossible shapes in the sky, a thunder of laughter passing overhead. Once, there was a great celebration in the central plaza, and several of their number were honoured by the emperor of the time. Nanthema was there with her mother and brothers, a shy child peeking between cloaks and robes to get a better view. (It is difficult, I will admit, to imagine Nanthema as a shy child.)
She grows saddest when she relays this memory to me, however. She claims it is impossible to describe their glory to me, and I get frustrating snippets: the clack of a griffin’s claws against the marble, scales like shining bone, an eye like an enormous opal, turning to watch the crowds with amusement. I have pressed her for more on the relationship between the beasts and the tree, but she will speak of this even less. The death of Ygseril, and the knowledge that there will be no more war-beasts, is a deep wound for the Eboran people. One that will not heal, it seems.
I have my suspicions. I believe that the war-beasts were essentially an extension of Ygseril, and therefore almost as sacred as the god itself. Usually, Nanthema will turn the tide of the conversation back to me, asking endless questions about things that she can’t possibly find interesting, but I am flattered enough to give her what answers I can; about growing up in the vine forest, about my impossible father, my long-suffering mother, about my own favourite wine – even as she pours us another glass. And who could possibly resist the curiosity of a beautiful woman?
Extract from the journals of Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon
‘What is this place? It’s remote enough.’
The moonlight had turned Bern’s golden hair silver, and, standing on the summit of the small hill, he looked to Aldasair like some sort of unlikely statue – of an ancient human hero, perhaps. The Bitter Twins added to the illusion.
‘I used to come here when I wanted to remember there were places other than Ebora.’ Aldasair placed the box of figurines on the grass, and then turned to face the mountains. They were an ominous presence in the dark, more like a terrible absence than a great ruction in the earth. ‘There, you see, is the Wall.’ At this distance, it was little more than a pale line, scratched across the shadows of the night. ‘When I saw the Wall, I could remember that there were people on the other side of it. Beyond the Tarah-hut Mountains, there were people living and talking and eating, and – not dying.’
‘We call them the Bloodless Mountains,’ said Bern. He sniffed. ‘I was never sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.’
‘Because of the Carrion Wars?’ Aldasair’s heart dipped a little in his chest, but he forced himself to face Bern and keep talking. He would converse like a normal person. He could do this. ‘A great many people died. A man I knew once, a relative of mine, jested that by the time we had dragged the humans as far as the mountains, they were certainly already bloodless. A poor joke.’
The expression on Bern’s face was unreadable, much of his face hidden in shadow. ‘Do you remember it?’
‘Fragments. I remember the way Ebora felt, more than anything. There was such a frenzy. People seemed brittle, living on the edge of a life that could be taken away at any time. And then it was.’
He knelt on the grass, feeling the chill of the ground immediately soak into his trousers. From within his pack he took a pair of short-handled trowels, and passed one to Bern, who knelt across from him to take it. Finding those had been a challenge in itself; nothing seemed to be kept where he remembered.
‘I attended a party at the height of it all.’ Aldasair kept his eyes on the ground, watching as the edge of his trowel bit into the grass and lifted away a lump of turf. ‘I was far too young to be there, really, but all the rules were looser, then. It was beautiful. All the lamps were lit, and there was music. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard music like it since. The lady whose party it was, she wore red jewels at her throat and her ears, and I remember that was the fashion. For crimson.’ Bern began shovelling dirt too, and the air filled with the good smell of wet earth. ‘There was a human man there. He was pale, and I could smell his sweat, but he was smiling, smiling all the time. The lady told us all that he was our willing guest, and that for a life at the Eboran palace he would gladly give what he could. We knew he wasn’t talking about money. As it grew later, the lady drank more and more, and, once, she caught hold of my sleeve and told me that I must serve her human. Fetch him food and drink, and attend him like a servant. I was, as I think I have said, very young, and I thought it a game. It was fun, to play at being a servant, so I brought him goblets of wine and platters of fruit, until it got very late and I was too tired for it all. I found a quiet room and slept there, very deeply. I didn’t hear the rest of the party, and woke to full sunlight streaming in the windows.’
They had a reasonable-sized hole. Aldasair sat back on his haunches, looking away down the hill to the palace. The gardens were full of campfires. ‘I remembered that I was supposed to be the human’s serving man, and I wondered if I was supposed to serve him breakfast, so I got up and went back to the ballroom.’ Aldasair lowered his head, looking only at the dirt. ‘I couldn’t find him. I found – other things. Later, I saw the lady who had thrown the party, and she was sitting in a corridor with her head in her hands, crying and crying. Her arms were bloody to the elbow.’
Bern the Younger had gone very still.
‘Do you see what we are?’ Aldasair asked softly. ‘Do you see it, yet?’
For a long time, Bern didn’t say anything. Somewhere, perhaps beyond the Wall, a wolf howled, and another wolf-voice joined it.
‘Show me a people who don’t have a bloody history.’
Aldasair sat for a moment in silence, his fingers clutching the edge of the box. Eventually, he reached inside and took out the first of the figures. Once, it had been something like a fox, with a great bushy tail. He held it up so that the light of the moon coloured its pitted surface, and then he placed it gently in the deepest part of the hole.
‘Ebora thanks you for your service, mighty one. Return to the roots.’
By the time they had buried all the war-beast figures, the sky to the east was a watery pink, and the air was stiff with cold. Walking back together through the empty city, Aldasair felt an odd loosening in his chest – a tension he had been unaware of had lessened somehow, and although the empty buildings with their broken windows and overgrown gardens still looked ghostly, he found he could look on them without dread. Next to him, Bern seemed unconcerned by the chill of the dawn, even as his breath turned to puffs of white vapour.
When they reached the palace grounds, the humans camped on the lawns were rousing themselves; building cooking fires, fetching water, having their first conversations of the day. Aldasair looked at them with new eyes. To them, all of Sarn was in terrible danger, and the chances that Ebora could save them were so slim as to be impossible, but still they climbed out of their beds, cared for their children, cared for one another.
‘Bern, I must thank you.’
They stopped on the edge of the main circle of tents. From somewhere nearby, a child was complaining loudly at being turfed out of warm blankets.
‘It’s a small thing,’ said Bern. He seemed embarrassed somehow, and Aldasair thought again that he would never understand humans. ‘By the stones, there are plenty of us who should have given thanks to your war-beasts long ago. There would be no Sarn at all, without them.’
‘That’s not the point, though, and you know it.’
Bern turned to him, his eyebrows raised in surprise, but at that moment there came a whiskering sound across the frigid grass. Aldasair jumped as though he’d been pinched and turned to see a pale figure bearing down on them. It took him a few seconds to see that it was Hestillion; she wore a padded robe, silvery white in the dawn light, but no cloak, and her yellow hair was loose over her shoulders. No, not just loose – tangled. Aldasair blinked. He had never seen Hestillion in such a state of disarray, not even when she was tending to the victims of the crimson flux. Striding towards them, it was possible to see that she wore soft silk slippers, shoes never meant to be worn outside the palace. She looked, if not angry, then only a heartbeat away from it.
‘Aldasair, come inside with me. I need you to come to the Hall of Roots.’ She didn’t look at Bern the Younger. The tall man may as well have been invisible.
‘I am a little busy at the moment, Hest.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You asked me to take care of the diplomacy, and that’s what I’m doing.’
Hestillion’s blood-red eyes flickered briefly to Bern, seeing him for the first time and dismissing him just as quickly. ‘You can play with the humans later.’
‘My lady Hestillion, we’ve not had time for much more than a few words, but I am glad to meet you.’ Bern cleared his throat. ‘I’d be glad to lend my arm, should you need anything.’
Hestillion shook her head quickly and turned back to Aldasair. ‘By the roots, I do not have time for this.’ Hestillion reached out and grabbed his sleeve, and he noticed that it was sewn all over interlocking tree branches, grey on cream. It made him think of the card he’d drawn for Hestillion in the room of dust and dead spiders, and for some reason he felt deeply uneasy. Without knowing why, he glanced up at the silvered shape of the corpse moon, hanging above them like a bloated egg sac.
‘Bern, I am sorry,’ he said, forcing his voice into the smooth tones he imagined fearless leaders used. ‘This apparently requires my immediate attention. I must attend my cousin. We’ll talk more later.’
Bern tugged at his beard, obviously concerned, but inclined his head. ‘Soon, I hope.’
With no more than that, Hestillion was dragging him back across the gardens, her bare hand an icy cuff on his arm. He hissed questions at her, but she just shook her head, and eventually he simply let her lead him back to the Hall of Roots. Inside, there were lamps burning just around the thick trunk of Ygseril. As they approached the twisted landscape of the god’s roots, Aldasair saw that there were some items spread out by the trunk – a thick embroidered blanket, a bowl full of something half congealed, a bottle of wine, mostly untouched. It looked as though Hestillion had made camp here. When he followed her up onto the roots, he noticed that the hem of her robe was stained, and again he felt that shiver of unease.
‘Hestillion, you should leave it alone,’ he said, glancing up at the branches as he spoke. The glass roof was full of lilac light as night shaded into day. ‘I thought you wanted people to come here, so that we would get help. We have so many people here now, Hest, and they all have opinions and demands and they all want something else to eat or they don’t want sleeping quarters near someone else, because their great-grandfathers were once on opposing sides of a battle, and they all want to know what’s happening in here—’
‘Be quiet. Do you remember dream-walking, Aldasair? Do you remember how to do it?’
‘That’s what you brought me here for?’
She took his hand suddenly, glaring at him, and squeezed it until he gasped with pain.
‘You are so much brighter than you were, Aldasair. So much more aware. It’s being around people that did that. Your mind was softening, being torn into shreds of rotting silk, but I brought people here and now you are getting better.’ She squeezed his hand again. ‘I did that for you. Now do this for me.’
He blinked and sat down next to her, looking carefully at his own feet. He remembered very well how he had once sat for hours, days even, without speaking. How the sun and the shadows chased each other through the window, and none of it mattered, and down the corridor somewhere there was the distant sound of someone coughing themselves to death. He did not want to go back to that silent place.
‘I want to show you something,’ Hestillion was saying. ‘I wasn’t going to yet, but I think perhaps, if there’s more than one of us, he might respond better. That perhaps that is the key.’ She took hold of his chin and made him look at her. ‘Go into the netherdark, find me there, and follow me. Can you do that?’
Aldasair nodded solemnly, and closed his eyes. He had never been especially good at dream-walking, and hadn’t cultivated an interest in it – dream-walking wasn’t like painting, after all. The visions you conjured while dreaming were gone when you woke, never to be recovered. But he was certainly capable of the basics. Relaxing his body, he sent himself down, down into the netherdark, and quickly found Hestillion there. In that place she was more light than person; the sort of light that glitters on broken things.
Good, she said. Now follow me down. We will have to go a long way, but you mustn’t doubt me.
She dived, slipping down away from him, and he followed after. Very soon he was aware of being in a place where the darkness pressed in around him, and although he couldn’t see anything, the netherdark felt dense, thick with pressure. It was uncomfortable, but Hestillion kept slipping down, and so he followed, wondering what she could possibly want to show him.
Once or twice, the light that was Hestillion stopped, turning and flitting, and Aldasair began to suspect that something was wrong. She put on a sudden burst of speed then, and he had to struggle to keep up with her, and then she stopped, rounding on him with a sudden flare of anger.
‘Where is he?’ she demanded. ‘Why can I not find him again?’ And then, before he could reply, ‘It is your fault! You are not worthy!’
Aldasair opened his mouth to reply. He did not like to speak in the netherdark.
‘But Hest—’
‘No!’ To his horror, Hestillion abruptly seemed on the verge of tears. She pushed at him with a force that wasn’t quite physical, and suddenly they were both sitting on the roots again, the bottle of wine lying on its side next to them. ‘Get out!’
‘Hestillion—’
‘I said get out! The Hall of Roots is not for you. If I have lost him because . . . Leave!’
Aldasair scrambled to his feet, more afraid of the naked sorrow on his cousin’s face than her angry words. He stumbled across the roots, moving awkwardly on faintly numb legs, until the wine bottle sailed past him and smashed on the marble floor. He moved faster after that.
You would bring another to speak to me?
Hestillion’s heart thundered in her chest, bringing her back to an awareness she had almost lost. She had been drifting in the netherdark for hours, convinced she had ruined everything, but the soft diffuse light of Ygseril’s dreaming mind had returned. She let herself be warmed by it, almost ashamed at her childish joy.
‘Aldasair is my cousin, Ygseril. He hasn’t been well, but he has a kind soul. He would want only to help you. I thought – surely you wish to speak to your children once more?’
The light faded a touch. Hestillion held herself as still as she could, holding down the panic that threatened to flood her chest. But the presence of Ygseril stayed with her.
No. Only you. My special, strange child. There are things that I can trust only you with. We feel that strongly.
‘I – Lord, I am honoured.’ There were so many questions, but Hestillion forced them all from her mind. They had clearly done something to lose Ygseril’s trust. It was now her responsibility to win it back. ‘Whatever you wish of me.’
The light did fade then, but Hestillion felt a warmth from it that she hadn’t felt before, and she knew that in some form, Ygseril had expressed his approval. Fighting back up through the netherdark, she awoke stiff and cold, crouched on the roots.
‘My responsibility,’ she said, stroking the twisted bark. ‘My responsibility, alone.’