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her, and though there was no stormwall, the wind was already growing tempestuous. Wyndle grew in a circle around her. “Mistress? Mistress, oh, this is bad.” She stepped back, transfixed by the boiling mass of black and red. Lightning sprayed down across the slots, and thunder hit her with so much force, it felt as if she should have been flung backward. “Mistress!” “Inside,” Lift said, scrambling toward the door into the orphanage. It was so dark, she could barely make out the wall. But as she arrived, she immediately noticed something wrong. The door was open. Surely they’d closed it after she’d left? She slipped in. The room beyond was black, impenetrable, but feeling at the door told her that the bar had been cut right through. Probably from the outside, and with a weapon that sliced wood cleanly. A Shardblade. Trembling, Lift felt for the cut portion of the bar on the floor, then managed to fit it into place, holding the door closed. She turned in the room, listening. She could hear the whimpers of the children, choked sobs. “Mistress,” Wyndle whispered. “You can’t fight him.” I know. “There are Words that you must speak.” They won’t help. Tonight, the Words were the easy part. It was hard not to adopt the fear of the children around her. Lift found herself trembling, and stopped somewhere in the center of the room. She couldn’t creep along, stumbling over other kids, if she wanted to stop Darkness. Somewhere distant in the multistory orphanage, she heard thumping. Firm, booted feet on the wooden floors of the second story. Lift drew in her awesomeness, and started to glow. Light rose from her arms like steam from a hot griddle. It wasn’t terribly bright, but in that pure-black room it was enough to show her the children she had heard. They grew quiet, watching her with awe. “Darkness!” Lift shouted. “The one they call Nin, or Nale! Nakku, the Judge! I’m here.” The thumping above stopped. Lift crossed the room, stepping into the next one and looking up a stairwell. “It’s me!” she shouted up it. “The one you tried—and failed—to kill in Azir.” The door to the amphitheater rattled as wind shook it, like someone was outside trying to get in. The footfalls started again, and Darkness appeared at the top of the stairs, holding an amethyst sphere in one hand, a glittering Shardblade in the other. The violet light lit his face from below, outlining his chin and cheeks, but leaving his eyes dark. They seemed hollow, like the sockets of the creature Lift had met outside. “I am surprised to see you accept judgment,” Darkness said. “I had thought you would remain in presumed safety.” “Yeah,” Lift called. “You know, the day the Almighty was handin’ out brains to folks? I went out for flatbread that day.” “You come here during a highstorm,” Darkness said. “You are trapped in here with me, and I know of your crimes in this city.” “But I got back by the time the Almighty was
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givin’ out looks,” Lift called. “What kept you?” The insult appeared to have no effect, though it was one of her favorites. Darkness seemed to flow like smoke as he started down the stairs, footsteps growing softer, uniform rippling in an unseen wind. Storms, but he looked so official in that outfit with the long cuffs, the crisp jacket. Like the very incarnation of law. Lift scrambled to the right, away from the children, deeper into the orphanage’s ground floor. She smelled spices in this direction, and let her nose guide her into a dark kitchen. “Up the wall,” she ordered Wyndle, who grew along it beside the doorway. Lift snatched a tuber from the counter, then grabbed on to Wyndle and climbed. She quieted her awesomeness, becoming dark as she reached the place where wall met ceiling, clinging to Wyndle’s thin vines. Darkness entered below, looking right, then left. He didn’t look up, so when he stepped forward, Lift dropped behind him. Darkness immediately spun, whipping that Shardblade around with a single-handed grip. It sheared through the wall of the doorway and passed a finger’s width in front of Lift as she threw herself backward. She hit the floor and burst alight with awesomeness, Slicking her backside so she slid across the floor away from him, eventually colliding with the wall just below the steps. She untangled her limbs and started climbing the steps on all fours. “You’re an insult to the order you would claim,” Darkness said, striding after her. “Sure, probably,” Lift called. “Storms, I’m an insult to my own self most days.” “Of course you are,” Darkness said, reaching the bottom of the steps. “That sentence has no meaning.” She stuck her tongue out at him. A totally rational and reasonable way to fight a demigod. He didn’t seem to mind, but then, he wouldn’t. He had a lump of crusty earwax for a heart. So tragic. The second floor of the orphanage was filled with smaller rooms, to her left. To her right, another flight of steps led farther upward. Lift dashed left, choking down the uncooked longroot, looking for the Stump. Had Darkness gotten to her? Several rooms held bunks for the children. So the Stump didn’t make them sleep in that one big room; they’d probably gathered there because of the storm. “Mistress!” Wyndle said. “Do you have a plan!” “I can make Stormlight,” Lift said, puffing and drawing a little awesomeness as she checked the room across the hall. “Yes. Baffling, but true.” “He can’t. And spheres are rare, ’cuz nobody expected the storm that came in the middle of the Weeping. So…” “Ah … Maybe we wear him down!” “Can’t fight him,” Lift said. “Seems the best alternative. Might have to sneak down and get more food though.” Where was the Stump? No sign of her hiding in these rooms, but also no sign of her murdered corpse. Lift ducked back into the hallway. Darkness dominated the other end, near the steps. He walked slowly toward her, Shardblade held in a strange reverse
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grip, with the dangerous end pointing out behind him. Lift quieted her awesomeness and stopped glowing. She needed to run him out, and maybe make him think she was running low, so he wouldn’t conserve. “I am sorry I must do this,” Darkness said. “Once I would have welcomed you as a sister.” “No,” Lift said. “You’re not really sorry, are you? Can you even feel something like sorrow?” He stopped in the hallway, sphere still gripped before him for light. He actually seemed to be considering her question. Well, time to move then. She couldn’t afford to get cornered, and sometimes that meant charging at the guy with a starvin’ Shardblade. He set himself in a swordsman’s stance as she dashed toward him, then stepped forward to swing. Lift shoved herself to the side and Slicked herself, dodging his sword and sliding along the ground to his left. She got past him, but something about it felt too easy. Darkness watched her with careful, discerning eyes. He’d expected to miss her, she was sure of it. He spun and advanced on her again, stepping quickly to prevent her from getting down the steps to the ground floor. This positioned her near the steps going upward. Darkness seemed to want her to go that direction, so she resisted, backing up along the hallway. Unfortunately, there was only one room on this end, the one above the kitchen. She kicked open the door, looking in. The Stump’s bedroom, with a dresser and bedding on the floor. No sign of the Stump herself. Darkness continued to advance. “You are right. It seems I have finally released myself from the last vestiges of guilt I once felt at doing my duty. Honor has suffused me, changed me. It has been a long time coming.” “Great. So you’re like … some kind of emotionless spren now.” “Hey,” Wyndle said. “That’s insulting.” “No,” Darkness said, unable to hear Wyndle. “I’m merely a man, perfected.” He waved toward her with his sphere. “Men need light, child. Alone we are in darkness, our movements random, based on subjective, changeable minds. But light is pure, and does not change based on our daily whims. To feel guilt at following a code with precision is wasted emotion.” “And other emotion isn’t, in your opinion?” “There are many useful emotions.” “Which you totally feel, all the time.” “Of course I do.…” He trailed off, and again seemed to be considering what she’d said. He cocked his head. Lift jumped forward, Slicking herself again. He was guarding the way down, but she needed to slip past him anyway and head back below. Grab some food, keep him moving up and down until he ran out of power. She anticipated him swinging the sword, and as he did, she shoved herself to the side, her entire body Slick except the palm of her hand, for steering. Darkness dropped his sphere and moved with sudden, unexpected speed, bursting afire with Stormlight. He dropped his Shardblade, which puffed away, and seized a knife from his belt.
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As Lift passed, he slammed it down and caught her clothing. Storms! A normal wound, her awesomeness would have healed. If he’d tried to grab her, she’d have been too Slick, and would have wriggled away. But his knife bit into the wood and caught her by the tail of her overshirt, jerking her to a stop. Slicked as she was, she just kind of bounced and slid back toward him. He put his hand to the side, summoning his Blade again as Lift frantically scrambled to free herself. The knife had sunk in deeply, and he kept one hand on it. Storms, he was strong! Lift bit his arm, to no effect. She struggled to pull off the overshirt, Slicking herself but not it. His Shardblade appeared, and he raised it. Lift floundered, half blinded by her shirt, which she had halfway up over her head, obscuring most of her view. But she could feel that Blade descending on her— Something went smack, and Darkness grunted. Lift peeked out and saw the Stump standing on the steps upward, holding a large length of wood. Darkness shook his head, trying to clear it, and the Stump hit him again. “Leave my kids alone, you monster,” she growled at him. Water dripped from her. She’d taken her spheres up to the top of the building, to charge them. Of course that was where she’d been. She’d mentioned it earlier. She raised the length of wood above her head. Darkness sighed, then swiped with his Blade, cutting her weapon in half. He pulled his dagger from the ground, freeing Lift. Yes! Then he kicked her, sending her sliding down the hallway on her own Slickness, completely out of control. “No!” Lift said, withdrawing her Slickness and rolling to a stop. Her vision shook as she saw Darkness turn on the Stump and grab her by the throat, then pull her off the steps and throw her to the ground. The old lady cracked as she hit, and fell limp, motionless. He stabbed her then—not with his Blade, but with his knife. Why? Why not finish her? He turned toward Lift, shadowed by the sphere he’d dropped, more a monster in that moment than the Sleepless thing Lift had seen in the alleyway. “Still alive,” he said to Lift. “But bleeding and unconscious.” He kicked his sphere away. “She is too new to know how to feed on Stormlight in this state. You I’ll have to impale and wait until you are truly dead. This one though, she can just bleed out. It’s happening already.” I can heal her, Lift thought, desperate. He knew that. He was baiting her. She no longer had time to run him out of Stormlight. Pointing the Shardblade toward Lift, he was now truly just a silhouette. Darkness. True Darkness. “I don’t know what to do,” Lift said. “Say the Words,” Wyndle said from beside her. “I’ve said them, in my heart.” But what good would they do? Too few people listened to anything other than their own thoughts. But
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what good would listening do her here? All she could hear was the sound of the storm outside, lightning making the stones vibrate. Thunder. A new storm. I can’t defeat him. I’ve got to change him. Listen. Lift scrambled toward Darkness, summoning all of her remaining awesomeness. Darkness stepped forward, knife in one hand, Shardblade in the other. She got near to him, and again he guarded the steps downward. He obviously expected her either to go that way, or to stop at the Stump’s unconscious body and try to heal her. Lift did neither. She slid past them both, then turned and scrambled up the steps the Stump had come down a short time earlier. Darkness cursed, swinging for her, but missing. She reached the third floor, and he charged after her. “You’re leaving her to die,” he warned, giving chase as Lift found a smaller set of steps that led upward. Onto the roof, hopefully. Had to get him to follow … A trapdoor in the ceiling barred her way, but she flung it open. She emerged into Damnation itself. Terrible winds, broken by that awful red lightning. A horrific tempest of stinging rain. The “rooftop” was just the flat plain above the city, and Lift didn’t spot the Stump’s sphere cage. The rain was too blinding, the winds too terrible. She stepped from the trapdoor, but had to immediately huddle down, clinging to the rocks. Wyndle formed handholds for her, whimpering, holding her tightly. Darkness emerged into the storm, rising from the hole in the clifftop. He saw her, then stepped forward, hefting his Shardblade like an axe. He swung. Lift screamed. She let go of Wyndle’s vines and raised both hands above herself. Wyndle sighed a long, soft sigh, melting away, transforming into a silvery length of metal. She met Darkness’s descending Blade with her own weapon. Not a sword. Lift didn’t know crem about swords. Her weapon was just a silvery rod. It glowed in the darkness, and it blocked Darkness’s blow, though his attack left her arms quivering. Ow, Wyndle’s voice said in her head. Rain beat around them, and crimson lightning blasted down behind Darkness, leaving stark afterimages in Lift’s eyes. “You think you can fight me, child?” he growled, holding his Blade against her rod. “I who have lived immortal lives? I who have slain demigods and survived Desolations? I am the Herald of Justice.” “I will listen,” Lift shouted, “to those who have been ignored!” “What?” Darkness demanded. “I heard what you said, Darkness! You were trying to prevent the Desolation. Look behind you! Deny what you’re seeing!” Lightning broke the air and howls rose in the city. Across the farmlands, the ruby glare revealed a huddled clump of people. A sorry, sad group. The poor parshmen who had been evicted. The red lightning seemed to linger with them. Their eyes were glowing. “No,” Nale said. The storm appeared to withdraw, briefly, around his words. “An … isolated event. Parshmen who had … who had survived with their forms…” “You’ve failed,” Lift shouted.
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“It’s come.” Nale looked up at the thunderheads, rumbling with power, red light ceaselessly roiling within. In that moment it seemed, strangely, that something within him emerged. It was stupid of her to think that with everything happening—the rain, the winds, the red lightning—she could see a difference in his eyes. But she swore that she could. He seemed to focus, like a person waking up from a daze. His sword dropped from his fingers and puffed away into mist. Then he slumped to his knees. “Storms. Jezrien … Ishar … It is true. I’ve failed.” He bowed his head. And he started weeping. Puffing, feeling clammy and pained by the rain, Lift lowered her rod. “I failed weeks ago,” Nale said. “I knew it then. Oh, God. God the Almighty. It has returned!” “I’m sorry,” Lift said. He looked to her, face lit red by the continuous lightning, tears mixing with the rain. “You actually are,” he said, then felt at his face. “I wasn’t always like this. I am getting worse, aren’t I? It’s true.” “I don’t know,” Lift said. And then, by instinct, she did something she would never have thought possible. She hugged Darkness. He clung to her, this monster, this callous thing that had once been a Herald. He clung to her and wept in the storm. Then, with a crash of thunder, he pushed away from her. He stumbled on the slick rock, blown by the winds, then started to glow. He shot into the dark sky and vanished. Lift heaved herself to her feet, and rushed down to heal the Stump. 20 “SO you don’t hafta be a sword,” Lift said. She sat on the Stump’s dresser, ’cuz the woman didn’t have a proper desk for her to claim. “A sword is traditional,” Wyndle said. “But you don’t hafta be one.” “Obviously not,” he said, sounding offended. “I must be metal. There is … a connection between our power, when condensed, and metal. That said, I’ve heard stories of spren becoming bows. I don’t know how they’d make the string. Perhaps the Radiant carried their own string?” Lift nodded, but she was barely listening. Who cared about bows and swords and stuff? This opened all kinds of more interesting possibilities. “I do wonder what I’d look like as a sword,” Wyndle said. “You went around all day yesterday complainin’ about me hitting someone with you!” “I don’t want to be a sword that one swings, obviously. But there is something stately about a Shardblade, something to be displayed. I would make a fine one, I should think. Very regal.” A knock came at the door downstairs, and Lift perked up. Unfortunately, it didn’t sound like the scribe. She heard the Stump talking to someone who had a soft voice. The door closed shortly thereafter, and the Stump climbed the steps and entered Lift’s room, carrying a large plate of pancakes. Lift’s stomach growled, and she stood up on the dresser. “Now, those are your pancakes, right?” The Stump, looking as wizened as ever, stopped in
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place. “What does it matter?” “It matters a ton,” Lift said. “Those aren’t for the kids. You was gonna eat those yourself, right?” “A dozen pancakes.” “Yes.” “Sure,” the Stump said, rolling her eyes. “We’ll pretend I was going to eat them all myself.” She dropped them onto the dresser beside Lift, who started stuffing her face. The Stump folded her bony arms, glancing over her shoulder. “Who was at the door?” Lift asked. “A mother. Come to insist, ashamed, that she wanted her child back.” “No kidding?” Lift said around bites of pancake. “Mik’s mom actually came back for him?” “Obviously she knew her son had been faking his illness. It was part of a scam to…” The Stump trailed off. Huh, Lift thought. The mom couldn’t have known that Mik had been healed—it had only happened yesterday, and the city was a mess following the storm. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad here as it could have been. Storms blowing one way or the other, in Yeddaw it didn’t matter. She was starvin’ for information about the rest of the empire though. Seemed everything had gone wrong again, just in a new way this time. Still, it was nice to hear a little good news. Mik’s mom actually came back. Guess it does happen once in a while. “I’ve been healing the children,” the Stump said. She fingered her shiqua, which had been stabbed clean through by Darkness. Though she’d washed it, her blood had stained the cloth. “You’re sure about this?” “Yeah,” Lift said around a bite of pancakes. “You should have a weird little thing hanging around you. Not me. Something weirder. Like a vine?” “A spren,” the Stump said. “Not like a vine. Like light reflected on a wall from a mirror…” Lift glanced at Wyndle, who clung to the wall nearby. He nodded his vine face. “Sure, that’ll do. Congrats. You’re a starvin’ Knight Radiant, Stump. You’ve been feasting on spheres and healing kids. Probably makes up some for treatin’ them like old laundry, eh?” The Stump regarded Lift, who continued to munch on pancakes. “I would have thought,” the Stump said, “that Knights Radiant would be more majestic.” Lift scrunched up her face at the woman, then thrust her hand to the side and summoned Wyndle in the shape of a large, shimmering, silvery fork. A Shardfork, if you would. She stabbed him into the pancakes, and unfortunately he went all the way through them, through the plate, and poked holes in the Stump’s dresser. Still, she managed to pry up a pancake. Lift took a big bite out of it. “Majestic as Damnation’s own gonads,” she proclaimed, then wagged Wyndle at the Stump. “That’s saying it fancy-style, so my fork don’t complain that I’m bein’ crass.” The Stump seemed to have trouble coming up with a response to that, other than to stare at Lift with her jaw slack. She was rescued from looking dumb by someone pounding on the door below. One of the Stump’s assistants opened it, but the woman herself hastened down
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the steps as soon as she heard who it was. Lift dismissed Wyndle. Eating with your hands was way easier than eating with a fork, even a very nice fork. He formed back into a vine and curled up on the wall. A short time later, Ghenna—the fat scribe from the Grand Indifference—stepped in. Judging by the way the Stump practically scraped the ground bowing to the woman, Lift judged that maybe Ghenna was more important than she’d assumed. Bet she didn’t have a magic fork though. “Normally,” the scribe said, “I don’t frequent such … domiciles as this. People usually come to me.” “I can tell,” Lift said. “You obviously don’t walk about very much.” The scribe sniffed at that, laying a satchel down on the bed. “His Imperial Majesty has been somewhat cross with us for cutting off the communication before. But he is understanding, as he must be, considering recent events.” “How’s the empire doing?” Lift said, chewing on a pancake. “Surviving,” the scribe said. “But in chaos. Smaller villages were hit the worst, but although the storm was longer than a highstorm, its winds were not as bad. The worst was the lightning, which struck many who were unlucky enough to be out traveling.” She unpacked her tools: a spanreed board, paper, and pen. “His Imperial Majesty was very pleased that you contacted me, and he has already sent a message asking for the details of your health.” “Tell him I ain’t eaten nearly enough pancakes,” Lift said. “And I got this strange wart on my toe that keeps growin’ back when I cut it off—I think because I heal myself with my awesomeness, which is starvin’ inconvenient.” The scribe looked to her, then sighed and read the message that Gawx had sent her. The empire would survive, it said, but would take long to recover—particularly if the storm kept returning. And then there was the issue with the parshmen, which could prove an even greater danger. He didn’t want to share state secrets over spanreed. Mostly he wanted to know if she was all right. She kind of was. The scribe took to writing what Lift had told her, which would be enough to tell Gawx that she was well. “Also,” Lift added as the woman wrote, “I found another Radiant, only she’s real old, and kinda looks like an underfed crab without no shell.” She looked to the Stump, and shrugged in a half apology. Surely she knew. She had mirrors, right? “But she’s actually kind of nice, and takes care of kids, so we should recruit her or something. If we fight Voidbringers, she can stare at them in a real mean way. They’ll break down and tell her all about that time when they ate all the cookies and blamed it on Huisi, the girl what can’t talk right.” Huisi snored anyway. She deserved it. The scribe rolled her eyes, but wrote it. Lift nodded, finishing off the last pancake, a type with a real thick, almost mealy texture. “Okay,” she proclaimed, standing up.
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“That’s nine. What’s the last one? I’m ready.” “The last one?” the Stump asked. “Ten types of pancakes,” Lift said. “It’s why I came to this starvin’ city. I’ve had nine now. Where’s the last one?” “The tenth is dedicated to Tashi,” the scribe said absently as she wrote. “It is more a thought than a real entity. We bake nine, and leave the last in memory of Him.” “Wait,” Lift said. “So there’s only nine?” “Yes.” “You all lied to me?” “Not in so much—” “Damnation! Wyndle, where’d that Skybreaker go? He’s got to hear about this.” She pointed at the scribe, then at the Stump. “He let you go for that whole money-laundering thing on my insistence. But when he hears you been lying about pancakes, I might not be able to hold him back.” Both of them stared at her, as if they thought they were innocent. Lift shook her head, then hopped off the dresser. “Excuse me,” she said. “I gotta find the Radiant refreshment room. That’s a fancy way of saying—” “Down the stairs,” the Stump said. “On the left. Same place it was this morning.” Lift left them, skipping down the stairs. Then she winked at one of the orphans watching in the main room before slipping out the front door, Wyndle on the ground beside her. She took a deep breath of the wet air, still soggy from the Everstorm. Refuse, broken boards, fallen branches, and discarded cloths littered the ground, snarling up at the many steps that jutted into the street. But the city had survived, and people were already at work cleaning up. They’d lived their entire lives in the shadow of highstorms. They had adapted, and would continue to adapt. Lift smiled, and started off along the street. “We’re leaving, then?” Wyndle asked. “Yup.” “Just like that. No farewells.” “Nope.” “This is how it’s going to be, isn’t it? We’ll wander into a city, but before there’s time to put down roots, we’ll be off again?” “Sure,” Lift said. “Though this time, I thought we might wander back to Azimir and the palace.” Wyndle was so stunned he let her pass him by. Then he zipped up to join her, eager as an axehound puppy. “Really? Oh, mistress. Really?” “I figure,” she said, “that nobody knows what they’re doin’ in life, right? So Gawx and the dusty viziers, they need me.” She tapped her head. “I got it figured out.” “You’ve got what figured out?” “Nothing at all,” Lift said, with the utmost confidence. But I will listen to those who are ignored, she thought. Even people like Darkness, whom I’d rather never have heard. Maybe that will help. They wound through the city, then up the ramp, passing the guard captain, who was on duty there dealing with the even larger numbers of refugees coming to the city because they’d lost homes to the storm. She saw Lift, and nearly jumped out of her own boots in surprise. Lift smiled and dug a pancake out of her pocket. This woman had
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been visited by Darkness because of her. That sort of thing earned you a debt. So she tossed the woman the pancake—which was really more of a panball at this point—then used the Stormlight she’d gotten from the ones she’d eaten to start healing the wounds of the refugees. The guard captain watched in silence, holding her pancake, as Lift moved along the line breathing out Stormlight on everyone like she was tryin’ to prove her breath didn’t stink none. It was starvin’ hard work. But that was what pancakes was for, makin’ kids feel better. Once she was done, and out of Stormlight, she tiredly waved and strode onto the plain outside the city. “That was very benevolent of you,” Wyndle said. Lift shrugged. It didn’t seem like it had made much of a difference—just a few people, and all. But they were the type that were forgotten and ignored by most. “A better knight than me might stay,” Lift said. “Heal everyone.” “A big project. Perhaps too big.” “And too small, all the same,” Lift said, shoving her hands in her pockets, and walked for a time. She couldn’t rightly explain it, but she knew that something larger was coming. And she needed to get to Azir. Wyndle cleared his throat. Lift braced herself to hear him complain about something, like the silliness of walking all the way here from Azimir, only to walk right back two days later. “… I was a very regal fork, wouldn’t you say?” he asked instead. Lift glanced at him, then grinned and cocked her head. “Y’know, Wyndle. It’s strange, but … I’m starting to think you might not be a Voidbringer after all.” POSTSCRIPT Lift is one of my favorite characters from the Stormlight Archive, despite the fact that she has had very little screen time so far. I’m grooming her for a larger role in the future of the series, but this leaves me with some challenges. By the time Lift becomes a main Stormlight character, she’ll have already sworn several of the oaths—and it feels wrong not to show readers the context of her swearing those oaths. In working on Stormlight Three, I also noticed a small continuity issue. By the time we see him again in that book, the Herald Nale will have accepted that his work of many centuries (watching and making sure the Radiants don’t return) is no longer relevant. This is a major shift in who he is and in his goals as an individual—and it felt wrong to have him undergo this realization offscreen. Edgedancer, then, was an opportunity to fix both of these problems—and to give Lift her own showcase. Part of my love of writing Lift has to do with the way I get to slip character growth and meaningful moments into otherwise odd or silly-sounding phrases. Such as the fact that in the novelette from Words of Radiance she says she’s been ten for three years (as a joke) can be foreshadowing with a laugh, which then develops into the fact that she
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actually thinks her aging stopped at ten. (And has good reason to think that.) This isn’t the sort of thing you can do as a writer with most characters. I also used this story as an opportunity to show off the Tashikki people, who (not having any major viewpoint characters) were likely not going to get any major development in the main series. The original plan for this novella was for it to be 18,000 words. It ended up at around 40,000. Ah well. That just happens sometimes. (Particularly when you are me.) DAY THIRTY “THIS is new,” Gaotona said, inspecting the stained-glass window. That had been a particularly pleasing bit of inspiration on Shai’s part. Attempts to Forge the window to a better version of itself had repeatedly failed; each time, after five minutes or so, the window had reverted to its cracked, gap-sided self. Then Shai had found a bit of colored glass rammed into one side of the frame. The window, she realized, had once been a stained-glass piece, like many in the palace. It had been broken, and whatever had shattered the window had also bent the frame, producing those gaps that let in the frigid breeze. Rather than repairing it as it had been meant to be, someone had put ordinary glass into the window and left it to crack. A stamp from Shai in the bottom right corner had restored the window, rewriting its history so that a caring master craftsman had discovered the fallen window and remade it. That seal had taken immediately. Even after all this time, the window had seen itself as something beautiful. Or maybe she was just getting romantic again. “You said you would bring me a test subject today,” Shai said, blowing the dust off the end of a freshly carved soulstamp. She engraved a series of quick marks on the back—the side opposite the elaborately carved front. The setting mark finished every soulstamp, indicating no more carving was to come. Shai had always fancied it to look like the shape of MaiPon, her homeland. Those marks finished, she held the stamp over a flame. This was a property of soulstone; fire hardened it, so it could not be chipped. She didn’t need to take this step. The anchoring marks on the top were all it really needed, and she could carve a stamp out of anything, really, so long as the carving was precise. Soulstone was prized, however, because of this hardening process. Once the entire thing was blackened from the candle’s flame—first one end, then the other—she held it up and blew on it strongly. Flakes of char blew free with her breath, revealing the beautiful red and grey marbled stone beneath. “Yes,” Gaotona said. “A test subject. I brought one, as promised.” Gaotona crossed the small room toward the door, where Zu stood guard. Shai leaned back in her chair, which she’d Forged into something far more comfortable a couple of days back, and waited. She had made a bet with herself. Would the subject be one
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of the emperor’s guards? Or would it be some lowly palace functionary, perhaps the man who took notes for Ashravan? Which person would the arbiters force to endure Shai’s blasphemy in the name of a supposedly greater good? Gaotona sat down in the chair by the door. “Well?” Shai asked. He raised his hands to the sides. “You may begin.” Shai dropped her feet to the ground, sitting up straight. “You?” “Yes.” “You’re one of the arbiters! One of the most powerful people in the empire!” “Ah,” he said. “I had not noticed. I fit your specifications. I am male, was born in Ashravan’s own birthplace, and I knew him very well.” “But…” Shai trailed off. Gaotona leaned forward, clasping his hands. “We debated this for weeks. Other options were offered, but it was determined that we could not in good conscience order one of our people to undergo this blasphemy. The only conclusion was to offer up one of ourselves.” Shai shook herself free of shock. Frava would have had no trouble ordering someone else to do this, she thought. Nor would the others. You must have insisted upon this, Gaotona. They considered him a rival; they were probably happy to let him fall to Shai’s supposedly horrible, twisted acts. What she planned was perfectly harmless, but there was no way she’d convince a Grand of that. Still, she found herself wishing she could put Gaotona at ease as she pulled her chair up beside him and opened the small box of stamps she had crafted over the past three weeks. “These stamps will not take,” she said, holding up one of them. “That is a Forger’s term for a stamp that makes a change that is too unnatural to be stable. I doubt any of these will affect you for longer than a minute—and that’s assuming I did them correctly.” Gaotona hesitated, then nodded. “The human soul is different from that of an object,” Shai continued. “A person is constantly growing, changing, shifting. That makes a soulstamp used on a person wear out in a way that doesn’t happen with objects. Even in the best of cases, a soulstamp used on a person lasts only a day. My Essence Marks are an example. After about twenty-six hours, they fade away.” “So … the emperor?” “If I do my job well,” Shai said, “he will need to be stamped each morning, much as the Bloodsealer stamps my door. I will fashion into the seal, however, the capacity for him to remember, grow, and learn—he won’t revert back to the same state each morning, and will be able to build upon the foundation I give him. However, much as a human body wears down and needs sleep, a soulstamp on one of us must be reset. Fortunately, anyone can do the stamping—Ashravan himself should be able to—once the stamp itself is prepared correctly.” She gave Gaotona the stamp she held, letting him inspect it. “Each of the particular stamps I will use today,” she continued, “will change something small about your past
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or your innate personality. As you are not Ashravan, the changes will not take. However, you two are similar enough in history that the seals should last for a short time, if I’ve done them well.” “You mean this is a … pattern for the emperor’s soul?” Gaotona asked, looking over the stamp. “No. Just a Forgery of a small part of it. I’m not even sure if the final product will work. So far as I know, no one has ever tried something exactly like this before. But there are accounts of people Forging someone else’s soul for … nefarious purposes. I’m drawing on that knowledge to accomplish this. From what I know, if these seals last for at least a minute on you, they should last far longer on the emperor, as they are attuned to his specific past.” “A small piece of his soul,” Gaotona said, handing back the seal. “So these tests … you will not use these seals in the final product?” “No, but I’ll take the patterns that work and incorporate them into a greater fabrication. Think of these seals as single characters in a large scroll; once I am done, I’ll be able to put them together and tell a story. The story of a man’s history and personality. Unfortunately, even if the Forgery takes, there will be small differences. I suggest that you begin spreading rumors that the emperor was wounded. Not terribly, mind you, but imply a good knock to the head. That will explain discrepancies.” “There are already rumors of his death,” Gaotona said, “spread by the Glory Faction.” “Well, indicate he was wounded instead.” “But—” Shai raised the stamp. “Even if I accomplish the impossible—which, mind you, I’ve done only on rare occasions—the Forgery will not have all of the emperor’s memories. It can only contain things I have been able to read about or guess. Ashravan will have had many private conversations that the Forgery will not be able to recall. I can imbue him with a keen ability to fake—I have a particular understanding of that sort of thing—but fakery can only take a person so far. Eventually, someone will realize that he has large holes in his memory. Spread the rumors, Gaotona. You’re going to need them.” He nodded, then pulled back his sleeve to expose his arm for her to stamp. She raised the stamp, and Gaotona sighed, then squeezed his eyes shut and nodded again. She pressed it against his skin. As always, when the stamp touched the skin, it felt as if she were pressing it against something rigid—as if his arm had become stone. The stamp sank in slightly. That made for a disconcerting sensation when working on a person. She rotated the stamp, then pulled it back, leaving a red seal on Gaotona’s arm. She took out her pocket watch, observing the ticking hand. The seal gave off faint wisps of red smoke; that happened only when living things were stamped. The soul fought against the rewriting. The seal didn’t puff away immediately,
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though. Shai released a held breath. That was a good sign. She wondered … if she were to try something like this on the emperor, would his soul fight against the invasion? Or instead, would it accept the stamp, wishing to have righted what had gone wrong? Much as that window had wanted to be restored to its former beauty. She didn’t know. Gaotona opened his eyes. “Did it … work?” “It took, for now,” Shai said. “I don’t feel any different.” “That is the point. If the emperor could feel the stamp’s effects, he would realize that something was wrong. Now, answer me without thought; speak by instinct only. What is your favorite color?” “Green,” he said immediately. “Why?” “Because…” He trailed off, cocking his head. “Because it is.” “And your brother?” “I hardly remember him,” Gaotona said with a shrug. “He died when I was very young.” “It is good he did,” Shai said. “He would have made a terrible emperor, if he had been chosen in—” Gaotona stood up. “Don’t you dare speak ill of him! I will have you…” He stiffened, glancing at Zu, who had reached for his sword in alarm. “I … Brother…?” The seal faded away. “A minute and five seconds,” Shai said. “That one looks good.” Gaotona raised a hand to his head. “I can remember having a brother. But … I don’t have one, and never have. I can remember idolizing him; I can remember pain when he died. Such pain…” “That will fade,” Shai said. “The impressions will wash away like the remnants of a bad dream. In an hour, you’ll barely be able to recall what it was that upset you.” She scribbled some notes. “I think you reacted too strongly to me insulting your brother’s memory. Ashravan worshipped his brother, but kept his feelings buried deep out of guilt that perhaps his brother would have made a better emperor than he.” “What? Are you sure?” “About this?” Shai said. “Yes. I’ll have to revise that stamp a little bit, but I think it is mostly right.” Gaotona sat back down, regarding her with ancient eyes that seemed to be trying to pierce her, to dig deep inside. “You know a great deal about people.” “It’s one of the early steps of our training,” Shai said. “Before we’re even allowed to touch soulstone.” “Such potential…” Gaotona whispered. Shai forced down an immediate burst of annoyance. How dare he look at her like that, as if she were wasting her life? She loved Forgery. The thrill, a life spent getting ahead by her wits. That was what she was. Wasn’t it? She thought of one specific Essence Mark, locked away with the others. It was one Mark she had never used, yet was at the same time the most precious of the five. “Let’s try another,” Shai said, ignoring those eyes of Gaotona’s. She couldn’t afford to grow offended. Aunt Sol had always said that pride would be Shai’s greatest danger in life. “Very well,” Gaotona said, “but I am confused at
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one thing. From what little you’ve told me of this process, I cannot fathom why these seals even begin to work on me. Don’t you need to know a thing’s history exactly to make a seal work on it?” “To make them stick, yes,” Shai said. “As I’ve said, it’s about plausibility.” “But this is completely implausible! I don’t have a brother.” “Ah. Well, let me see if I can explain,” she said, settling back. “I am rewriting your soul to match that of the emperor—just as I rewrote the history of that window to include new stained glass. In both cases, it works because of familiarity. The window frame knows what a stained-glass window should look like. It once had stained glass in it. Even though the new window is not the same as the one it once held, the seal works because the general concept of a stained-glass window has been fulfilled. “You spent a great deal of time around the emperor. Your soul is familiar with his, much as the window frame is familiar with the stained glass. This is why I have to try out the seals on someone like you, and not on myself. When I stamp you, it’s like … it’s like I’m presenting to your soul a piece of something it should know. It only works if the piece is very small, but so long as it is—and so long as the soul considers the piece a familiar part of Ashravan, as I’ve indicated—the stamp will take for a brief time before being rejected.” Gaotona regarded her with bemusement. “Sounds like superstitious nonsense to you, I assume?” Shai said. “It is … rather mystical,” Gaotona said, spreading his hands before him. “A window frame knowing the ‘concept’ of a stained-glass window? A soul understanding the concept of another soul?” “These things exist beyond us,” Shai said, preparing another seal. “We think about windows, we know about windows; what is and isn’t a window takes on … meaning, in the Spiritual Realm. Takes on life, after a fashion. Believe the explanation or do not; I guess it doesn’t matter. The fact is that I can try these seals on you, and if they stick for at least a minute, it’s a very good indication that I’ve hit on something. “Ideally, I’d try this on the emperor himself, but in his state, he would not be able to answer my questions. I need to not only get these to take, but I need to make them work together—and that will require your explanations of what you are feeling so I can nudge the design in the right directions. Now, your arm again, please?” “Very well.” Gaotona composed himself, and Shai pressed another seal against his arm. She locked it with a half turn, but as soon as she pulled the stamp away, the seal vanished in a puff of red. “Blast,” Shai said. “What happened?” Gaotona said, reaching fingers to his arm. He smeared mundane ink; the seal had vanished so quickly, the ink hadn’t even been
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incorporated into its workings. “What have you done to me this time?” “Nothing, it appears,” Shai said, inspecting the head of the stamp for flaws. She found none. “I had that one wrong. Very wrong.” “What was it?” “The reason Ashravan agreed to become emperor,” Shai said. “Nights afire. I was certain I had this one.” She shook her head, setting the stamp aside. Ashravan, it appeared, had not stepped up to offer himself as emperor because of a deep-seated desire to prove himself to his family and to escape the distant—but long—shadow of his brother. “I can tell you why he did it, Forger,” Gaotona said. She eyed him. This man encouraged Ashravan to step toward the imperial throne, she thought. Ashravan eventually hated him for it. I think. “All right,” she said. “Why?” “He wanted to change things,” Gaotona said. “In the empire.” “He doesn’t speak of this in his journal.” “Ashravan was a humble man.” Shai raised an eyebrow. That didn’t match the reports she’d been given. “Oh, he had a temper,” Gaotona said. “And if you got him arguing, he would sink his teeth in and hold fast to his point. But the man … the man he was … Deep down, that was a humble man. You will have to understand this about him.” “I see,” she said. You did it to him too, didn’t you? Shai thought. That look of disappointment, that implication we should be better people than we are. Shai wasn’t the only one who felt that Gaotona regarded her as if he were a displeased grandfather. That made her want to dismiss the man as irrelevant. Except … he had offered himself to her tests. He thought what she did was horrible, so he insisted on taking the punishment himself, instead of sending another. You’re genuine, aren’t you, old man? Shai thought as Gaotona sat back, eyes distant as he considered the emperor. She found herself unsettled. In her business, there were many who laughed at honest men, calling them easy pickings. That was a fallacy. Being honest did not make one naive. A dishonest fool and an honest fool were equally easy to scam; you just went about it in different ways. However, a man who was honest and clever was always, always more difficult to scam than someone who was both dishonest and clever. Sincerity. It was so difficult, by definition, to fake. “What are you thinking behind those eyes of yours?” Gaotona asked, leaning forward. “I was thinking that you must have treated the emperor as you did me, annoying him with constant nagging about what he should accomplish.” Gaotona snorted. “I probably did just that. It does not mean my points are, or were, incorrect. He could have … well, he could have become more than he did. Just as you could become a marvelous artist.” “I am one.” “A real one.” “I am one.” Gaotona shook his head. “Frava’s painting … there is something we are missing about it, isn’t there? She had the forgery inspected, and the
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assessors found a few tiny mistakes. I couldn’t see them without help—but they are there. Upon reflection, they seem odd to me. The strokes are impeccable, masterly even. The style is a perfect match. If you could manage that, why would you have made such errors as putting the moon too low? It’s a subtle mistake, but it occurs to me that you would never have made such an error—not unintentionally, at least.” Shai turned to get another seal. “The painting they think is the original,” Gaotona said, “the one hanging in Frava’s office right now … It’s a fake too, isn’t it?” “Yes,” Shai admitted with a sigh. “I swapped the paintings a few days before trying for the scepter; I was investigating palace security. I sneaked into the gallery, entered Frava’s offices, and made the change as a test.” “So the one they assume is fake, it must be the original,” Gaotona said, smiling. “You painted those mistakes over the original to make it seem like it was a replica!” “Actually, no,” Shai said. “Though I have used that trick in the past. They’re both fakes. One is simply the obvious fake, planted to be discovered in case something went wrong.” “So the original is still hidden somewhere…” Gaotona said, sounding curious. “You sneaked into the palace to investigate security, then you replaced the original painting with a copy. You left a second, slightly worse copy in your room as a false trail. If you were found out while sneaking in—or if you were for some reason sold out by an ally—we would search your room and find the poor copy, and assume that you hadn’t yet accomplished your swap. The officers would take the good copy and believe it to be authentic. That way, no one would keep looking for the original.” “More or less.” “That’s very clever,” Gaotona said. “Why, if you were captured sneaking into the palace trying to steal the scepter, you could confess that you were trying to steal only the painting. A search of your room would turn up the fake, and you’d be charged with attempted theft from an individual, in this case Frava, which is a much lesser crime than trying to steal an imperial relic. You would get ten years of labor instead of a death sentence.” “Unfortunately,” Shai said, “I was betrayed at the wrong moment. The Fool arranged for me to be caught after I’d left the gallery with the scepter.” “But what of the original painting? Where did you hide it?” He hesitated. “It’s still in the palace, isn’t it?” “After a fashion.” Gaotona looked at her, still smiling. “I burned it,” Shai said. The smile vanished immediately. “You lie.” “Not this time, old man,” Shai said. “The painting wasn’t worth the risk to get it out of the gallery. I only pulled that swap to test security. I got the fake in easily; people aren’t searched going in, only coming out. The scepter was my true goal. Stealing the painting was secondary. After I replaced it, I
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tossed the original into one of the main gallery hearths.” “That’s horrible,” Gaotona said. “It was an original ShuXen, his greatest masterpiece! He’s gone blind, and can no longer paint. Do you realize the cost…” He sputtered. “I don’t understand. Why, why would you do something like that?” “It doesn’t matter. No one will know what I’ve done. They will keep looking at the fake and be satisfied, so there’s no harm done.” “That painting was a priceless work of art!” Gaotona glared at her. “Your swap of it was about pride and nothing else. You didn’t care about selling the original. You just wanted your copy hanging in the gallery instead. You destroyed something wonderful so that you could elevate yourself!” She shrugged. There was more to the story, but the fact was, she had burned the painting. She had her reasons. “We are done for the day,” Gaotona said, red-faced. He waved a hand at her, dismissive as he stood up. “I had begun to think … Bah!” He stalked out the door. DAY FORTY-TWO EACH person was a puzzle. That was how Tao, her first trainer in Forgery, had explained it. A Forger wasn’t a simple scam artist or trickster. A Forger was an artist who painted with human perception. Any grime-covered urchin on the street could scam someone. A Forger sought loftier heights. Common scammers worked by pulling a cloth over someone’s eyes, then fleeing before realization hit. A Forger had to create something so perfect, so beautiful, so real that its witnesses never questioned. A person was like a dense forest thicket, overgrown with a twisting mess of vines, weeds, shrubs, saplings, and flowers. No person was one single emotion; no person had only one desire. They had many, and usually those desires conflicted with one another like two rosebushes fighting for the same patch of ground. Respect the people you lie to, Tao had taught her. Steal from them long enough, and you will begin to understand them. Shai crafted a book as she worked, a true history of Emperor Ashravan’s life. It would become a truer history than those his scribes had written to glorify him, a truer history even than the one written by his own hand. Shai slowly pieced together the puzzle, crawling into the thicket that had been Ashravan’s mind. He had been idealistic, as Gaotona said. She saw it now in the cautious worry of his early writings and in the way he had treated his servants. The empire was not a terrible thing. Neither was it a wonderful thing. The empire simply was. The people suffered its rule because they were comfortable with its little tyrannies. Corruption was inevitable. You lived with it. It was either that or accept the chaos of the unknown. Grands were treated with extreme favoritism. Entering government service, the most lucrative and prestigious of occupations, was often more about bribes and connections than it was about skill or aptitude. In addition, some of those who best served the empire—merchants and laborers—were systematically robbed by a
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hundred hands in their pockets. Everyone knew these things. Ashravan had wanted to change them. At first. And then … Well, there hadn’t been a specific and then. Poets would point to a single flaw in Ashravan’s nature that had led him to failure, but a person was no more one flaw than they were one passion. If Shai based her Forgery on any single attribute, she would create a mockery, not a man. But … was that the best she could hope for? Perhaps she should try for authenticity in one specific setting, making an emperor who could act properly in court, but could not fool those closest to him. Perhaps that would work well enough, like the stage props from a playhouse. Those served their purpose while the play was going, but failed serious inspection. That was an achievable goal. Perhaps she should go to the arbiters, explain what was possible, and give them a lesser emperor—a puppet they could use at official functions, then whisk away with explanations that he was growing sickly. She could do that. She found that she didn’t want to. That wasn’t the challenge. That was the street thief’s version of a scam, intended for short-term gain. The Forger’s way was to create something enduring. Deep down, she was thrilled by the challenge. She found that she wanted to make Ashravan live. She wanted to try, at least. Shai lay back on her bed, which by now she had Forged to something more comfortable, with posts and a deep comforter. She kept the curtains drawn. Her guards for the evening played a round of cards at her table. Why do you care about making Ashravan live? Shai thought to herself. The arbiters will kill you before you can even see if this works. Escape should be your only goal. And yet … the emperor himself. She had chosen to steal the Moon Scepter because it was the most famous piece in the empire. She had wanted one of her works to be on display in the grand Imperial Gallery. This task she now worked on, however … this was something far greater. What Forger had accomplished such a feat? A Forgery, sitting on the Rose Throne itself? No, she told herself, more forceful this time. Don’t be lured. Pride, Shai. Don’t let the pride drive you. She opened her book to the back pages, where she’d hidden her escape plans in a cipher, disguised to look like a dictionary of terms and people. That Bloodsealer had come in running the other day, as if frightened that he’d be late to reset his seal. His clothing had smelled of strong drink. He was enjoying the palace’s hospitality. If she could make him come early one morning, then ensure that he got extra drunk that night … The mountains of the Strikers bordered Dzhamar, where the swamps of the Bloodsealers were located. Their hatred of one another ran deep, perhaps deeper than their loyalty to the empire. Several of the Strikers in particular seemed revolted when the
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Bloodsealer came. Shai had begun befriending those guards. Jokes in passing. Mentions of a coincidental similarity in her background and theirs. The Strikers weren’t supposed to talk to Shai, but weeks had passed without Shai doing anything more than poring through books and chatting with old arbiters. The guards were bored, and boredom made people easy to manipulate. Shai had access to plenty of soulstone, and she would use it. However, often more elementary methods were of greater use. People always expected a Forger to use seals for everything. Grands told stories of dark witchcraft, of Forgers placing seals on a person’s feet while they slept, changing their personalities. Invading them, raping their minds. The truth was that a soulstamp was often a Forger’s last resort. It was too easy to detect. Not that I wouldn’t give my right hand for my Essence Marks right now … Almost, she was tempted to try carving a new Mark to use in getting away. They’d be expecting that, however, and she would have real trouble performing the hundreds of tests she’d need to do to make one work. Testing on her own arm would be reported by the guards, and testing on Gaotona would never work. And using an Essence Mark she hadn’t tested … well, that could go very, very poorly. No, her plans for escape would use soulstamps, but their heart would involve more traditional methods of subterfuge. CONTENTS Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Acknowledgments Preface THE SELISH SYSTEM The Emperor’s Soul The Hope of Elantris THE SCADRIAN SYSTEM The Eleventh Metal Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes Twenty-Eight Through Thirty Mistborn: Secret History THE TALDAIN SYSTEM White Sand THE THRENODITE SYSTEM Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell THE DROMINAD SYSTEM Sixth of the Dusk THE ROSHARAN SYSTEM Edgedancer By Brandon Sanderson About the Author Copyright This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these novellas and short stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. ARCANUM UNBOUNDED: THE COSMERE COLLECTION Copyright © 2016 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC Brandon Sanderson® and Mistborn® are registered trademarks of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC All rights reserved. Excerpt from White Sand volume 1 used by permission of Dynamite Entertainment. © 2016 Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC Illustrations by Ben McSweeney and Isaac Stewart A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 www.tor-forge.com Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request. ISBN 978-0-7653-9116-2 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-7653-9117-9 (e-book) e-ISBN 9780765391179 Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com. First Edition: November 2016 The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal
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use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. For Nathan Hatfield Who helped the Cosmere come to be. * Indeed, this was the outcome of Jak’s brave—perhaps foolhardy—plan. See episode twenty-six. At this point, Jak had been “king” of the koloss for three episodes, and had survived the latest of challenges to his authority, getting closer to the secrets they held regarding the Survivor’s Treasure. * See “Allomancer Jak and the Mask of Ages,” episode fourteen. There, however, Jak writes that it was a bust of the Lord Mistborn. One wonders if Jak ever stops to read his accounts after their publication. Fortunately for me, he does not seem to. * One might wonder why Jak felt he needed to escape, as he had not discovered if he was imprisoned, and had not yet tried walking out through the front of the cavern. If you have this concern, might I remind you of the last eighteen times Jak awoke with a headache at the beginning of an episode? Each time, he had been captured in some fashion. * Jak is completely, blissfully unaware of modern scholarship regarding the koloss, which indicates that they rarely (if ever) use actual human skin for their trophies. Indeed, accounts of them eating humans are greatly exaggerated. * I was actually asleep. It had been a very long day. I’m sure I’d have worried about him if it had crossed my mind to do so. The bed the koloss provided, however, was surprisingly comfortable. * See episode twenty-five for our discovery of their vow not to harm the Terris, and their explanation for the respect they have paid me during our adventures. It is a matter which I have regarded with some interest. * Didn’t he just mention the whiskey he often drinks at the waystop? Perhaps the dens of thieves do not count as a place where a clear mind is required. * Yes, according to the way he wrote that sentence, he turned invisible for one line. No, he won’t let me change it. * Uh … * Technically, this is probably true. * Well, it was too late for that after volume one.… * I will admit to a healthy skepticism about Jak’s wall-licking episode. My research indicates that one is highly unlikely to find pure tin exposed in this way inside of a natural cave formation. Even cassiterite, a tin ore of some relevance, would be unlikely in this area—and that might be too Allomantically impure to produce an effect. But Jak is being truthful about having lost his pouch of tin. I found it on the ground of the camp following his second capture, full and unopened. * See episode seven of this
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narrative for Lyndip’s most recent appearance. I will repeat what I said there: I did not see, nor have I ever seen, this supposed talking bird and cannot confirm her existence. * Never mind that the Faceless Immortals are a mythological feature of the Path, not Survivorism. This theological mixup has never bothered Jak. * I suspect Jak was hallucinating through this entire section, a result of the trauma to his head. Upon doing this edit, I wished several times to be similarly afflicted. * I once mentioned to Jak that my people, the Terris, were at one time considered savages—at least according to the records given us by Harmony. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, “It is all right. I am proud to count a savage as my friend.” He was so sincere, I dared not explain just how insulting he was being. * I find this strains plausibility, even for a Jak story. More likely, the koloss lowered him from above. * This marks the conclusion of this episode and the beginning of the next—and no, I don’t know how he wrote the last paragraph after sealing the letter in his trousers. Regardless, I doubt you think this is Jak’s demise, considering this collected volume contains three episodes of which this is only the first. However, many of the weekly broadsheet readers of his letters did indeed worry that this was the end of Jak. Just as they worried at the end of the other three hundred episodes. It often strikes me that I wish I could find these people and discover to whom they sold the contents of their skulls, and for how much. I personally much prefer the audience of the bound volumes, such as this one. Their keen regard for my personal annotations proves them to be of a superior taste and intellect. * See “Allomancer Jak and the Waters of Dread” for several equally implausible instances of Jak swimming strong currents and whitewater rapids. I am left to wonder why these extreme events never happen in my presence. * I am not sure what happened to the rain that was so instrumental in his escape last episode. He doesn’t mention it again. * An unnecessary “from” is the least of Jak’s problems, so I left it. I did manage to snip sixteen superfluous commas from this page. Jak is also under the impression that koloss looks better with an exclamation point in the center, and I have yet to ascertain the reason. For my own sanity, I have removed these, though I worry it has come too late. * Yup. * As fanciful as Jak’s description of this place sounds, I have seen it myself, and must second his description. The patterns do look like footprints, and the pool appears to have the shape of a spearhead. The koloss do not speak of it to anyone. Incredible as it seems, he actually found the location of the Survivor’s Treasure. I take this as proof that Harmony watches over all of us, for only
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deity could have such a cruel sense of humor as to repeatedly allow a man like Jak to bumble into such remarkable success. * For this revelation, see episode twenty-five of this narrative. * Or, in other words, “I couldn’t escape immediately, but I wanted to be ready to run screaming like a child as soon as I had the opportunity. So I stood up.” * Well, no. But I’ll accept it. Please note that what Jak is saying here is, unfortunately, true. I have seen the process with my own eyes, as have other scholars, and it is widely accepted that this description of the practice is true. I did try to explain this to Jak on several occasions. * Not sure if this is possible. It would be much like dividing by a null set. * This, of course, did not stop the newspaper editors from including a detailed sketch of this scene in their original printing of the episode. * The original printing of this story ended the penultimate episode right here, which—I am told—nearly caused riots and prompted a special broadsheet the next day, containing the conclusion of the story. Fortunately, we had sent in all three of these episodes together, in a single pouch. It is a constant source of amazement to me that people are so interested in Jak’s raw accounts, rather than waiting for my more sensible, annotated edition. This lack of taste upon the part of the general public is one of the very reasons I left Elendel to travel the Roughs in the first place. It was either that or shoot myself, and my oaths of a steward’s pacifism forbid me from shedding blood. * Studies have proven that koloss-blooded individuals are, on average, no less intelligent than ordinary humans—though obviously this is not true for full koloss who have accepted the transformation. Or for most adventurers. * I showed this scene to Elizandra, and her response was laughter. Take that as you wish. I would make note, however, that when I have spoken to her of this, she has not seemed nearly so ashamed of her heritage, though she did hide it from us all at first. * More laughter here. If you know Zandra, you’d probably realize that any statement that lacks three curses—and a comment about Jak’s questionable parentage—cannot truly be attributed to her. But she does seem to be fond of him. For some reason. * For those confused—which includes Jak—this really is the way that one becomes a full koloss. Their children are born with skin that ranges from blue to mottled grey, but not the deep blue of true koloss. These children are generally human, though they have some generous endowments of physical capability. Each child is offered the choice to make the final transformation when they reach their twelfth year. Those who do not accept the transformation must leave and join human society. By my estimation, many do leave—but just as many ordinary humans, dissatisfied with their lives in the cities, make their way to the
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koloss tribes and join them, accepting the transformation. From there, no distinguishing is made between those who were originally humans or koloss-blooded. * Not enough respect to refrain from calling them savages, of course. * I believe that this is the only accurate quote from Elizandra in the entire story. She confided in me she threatened to shoot him in the … ahem … masculine identity if he didn’t include it in the official narrative. * And by that he means precisely 18.3 fathoms. I went back and measured. * Yes, I am aware that he has quoted this poem six different times through the course of this narrative, and has said it a little differently each time. No, he will not allow me to change them and make them consistent. * Those readers with a knowledge of buoyancy and pressure should probably stop here, as opposed to working out the mathematics of what a single lungful of air could manage under these circumstances. * If a bag of air was all that was needed to raise the treasure, one wonders why the grandest of all windbags himself needed the aforementioned sheep’s bladder. * Sigh. * Yes, they forgot about me. * And so, we come to the end of another annotated volume. I’m certain that discerning readers of elegance and respectability will appreciate my long-suffering efforts in keeping Jak alive, if only because I suspect these edited accounts provide them with an individual blend of amusement on long winter evenings. I bid you farewell, then. Jak promises further adventure and mystery, but I make a more humble promise. I’m going to try to get him to use proper punctuation in his letters for once in his life. I believe my task to be the more difficult of the two, by far. Handerwym of Inner Terris The 17th of Hammondar, 341 Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Author Copyright Page Thank you for buying this Tom Doherty Associates ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. Thank you for buying this Tom Doherty Associates ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. THESELISHSYSTEM PART FOUR JOURNEY PART FIVE IRE PART SIX HERO THETALDAINSYSTEM WHITESAND This excerpt of the 2016 graphic novel is followed by the beginning of the 1999 draft that formed the basis of the graphic adaptation. THETHRENODITESYSTEM SHADOWSFORSILENCEIN THEFORESTS OF HELL “THE one you have to watch for is the White Fox,” Daggon said, sipping his beer. “They say he shook hands with the Evil itself, that he visited the Fallen World and came back with strange powers. He can kindle fire on even the deepest of nights, and no shade will dare come for his soul. Yes, the White Fox. Meanest bastard in these
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parts for sure. Pray he doesn’t set his eyes on you, friend. If he does, you’re dead.” Daggon’s drinking companion had a neck like a slender wine bottle and a head like a potato stuck sideways on the top. He squeaked as he spoke, a Lastport accent, voice echoing in the eaves of the waystop’s common room. “Why … why would he set his eyes on me?” “That depends, friend,” Daggon said, looking about as a few overdressed merchants sauntered in. They wore black coats, ruffled lace poking out the front, and the tall-topped, wide-brimmed hats of fortfolk. They wouldn’t last two weeks out here in the Forests. “It depends?” Daggon’s dining companion prompted. “It depends on what?” “On a lot of things, friend. The White Fox is a bounty hunter, you know. What crimes have you committed? What have you done?” “Nothing.” That squeak was like a rusty wheel. “Nothing? Men don’t come out into the Forests to do ‘nothing,’ friend.” His companion glanced from side to side. He’d given his name as Earnest. But then, Daggon had given his name as Amity. Names didn’t mean a whole lot in the Forests. Or maybe they meant everything. The right ones, that was. Earnest leaned back, scrunching down that fishing-pole neck of his as if trying to disappear into his beer. He’d bite. People liked hearing about the White Fox, and Daggon considered himself an expert. At least, he was an expert at telling stories to get ratty men like Earnest to pay for his drinks. I’ll give him some time to stew, Daggon thought, smiling to himself. Let him worry. Earnest would ply him for more information in a bit. While he waited, Daggon leaned back, surveying the room. The merchants were making a nuisance of themselves, calling for food, saying they meant to be on their way in an hour. That proved them to be fools. Traveling at night in the Forests? Good homesteader stock would do it. Men like these, though … they’d probably take less than an hour to violate one of the Simple Rules and bring the shades upon them. Daggon put the idiots out of his mind. That fellow in the corner, though … dressed all in brown, still wearing his hat despite being indoors. That fellow looked truly dangerous. I wonder if it’s him, Daggon thought. So far as he knew, nobody had ever seen the White Fox and lived. Ten years, over a hundred bounties turned in. Surely someone knew his name. The authorities in the forts paid him the bounties, after all. The waystop’s owner, Madam Silence, passed by the table and deposited Daggon’s meal with an unceremonious thump. Scowling, she topped off his beer, spilling a sudsy dribble onto his hand, before limping off. She was a stout woman. Tough. Everyone in the Forests was tough. The ones that survived, at least. He’d learned that a scowl from Silence was just her way of saying hello. She’d given him an extra helping of venison; she often did that. He liked to think
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that she had a fondness for him. Maybe someday … Don’t be a fool, he thought to himself as he dug into the heavily gravied food and took a few gulps of his beer. Better to marry a stone than Silence Montane. A stone showed more affection. Likely she gave him the extra slice because she recognized the value of a repeat customer. Fewer and fewer people came this way lately. Too many shades. And then there was Chesterton. Nasty business, that. “So … he’s a bounty hunter, this Fox?” The man who called himself Earnest seemed to be sweating. Daggon smiled. Hooked right good, this one was. “He’s not just a bounty hunter. He’s the bounty hunter. Though the White Fox doesn’t go for the small-timers—and no offense, friend, but you seem pretty small-time.” His friend grew more nervous. What had he done? “But,” the man stammered, “he wouldn’t come for me—er, pretending I’d done something, of course—anyway, he wouldn’t come in here, would he? I mean, Madam Silence’s waystop, it’s protected. Everyone knows that. Shade of her dead husband lurks here. I had a cousin who saw it, I did.” “The White Fox doesn’t fear shades,” Daggon said, leaning in. “Now, mind you, I don’t think he’d risk coming in here—but not because of some shade. Everyone knows this is neutral ground. You’ve got to have some safe places, even in the Forests. But…” Daggon smiled at Silence as she passed him by, on the way to the kitchens again. This time she didn’t scowl at him. He was getting through to her for certain. “But?” Earnest squeaked. “Well…” Daggon said. “I could tell you a few things about how the White Fox takes men, but you see, my beer is nearly empty. A shame. I think you’d be very interested in how the White Fox caught Makepeace Hapshire. Great story, that.” Earnest squeaked for Silence to bring another beer, though she bustled into the kitchen and didn’t hear. Daggon frowned, but Earnest put a coin on the side of the table, indicating he’d like a refill when Silence or her daughter returned. That would do. Daggon smiled to himself and launched into the story. * * * Silence Montane closed the door to the common room, then turned and pressed her back against it. She tried to still her racing heart by breathing in and out. Had she made any obvious signs? Did they know she’d recognized them? William Ann passed by, wiping her hands on a cloth. “Mother?” the young woman asked, pausing. “Mother, are you—” “Fetch the book. Quickly, child!” William Ann’s face went pale, then she hurried into the back pantry. Silence clutched her apron to still her nerves, then joined William Ann as the girl came out of the pantry with a thick, leather satchel. White flour dusted its cover and spine from the hiding place. Silence took the satchel and opened it on the high kitchen counter, revealing a collection of loose-leaf papers. Most had faces drawn on them. As Silence rifled through the
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pages, William Ann moved to the peephole for spying into the common room. For a few moments, the only sound to accompany Silence’s thumping heart was that of hastily turned pages. “It’s the man with the long neck, isn’t it?” William Ann asked. “I remember his face from one of the bounties.” “That’s just Lamentation Winebare, a petty horse thief. He’s barely worth two measures of silver.” “Who, then? The man in the back, with the hat?” Silence shook her head, finding a sequence of pages at the bottom of her pile. She inspected the drawings. God Beyond, she thought. I can’t decide if I want it to be them or not. At least her hands had stopped shaking. William Ann scurried back and craned her neck over Silence’s shoulder. At fourteen, the girl was already taller than her mother. A fine thing to suffer, a child taller than you. Though William Ann grumbled about being awkward and lanky, her slender build foreshadowed a beauty to come. She took after her father. “Oh, God Beyond,” William Ann said, raising a hand to her mouth. “You mean—” “Chesterton Divide,” Silence said. The shape of the chin, the look in the eyes … they were the same. “He walked right into our hands, with four of his men.” The bounty on those five would be enough to pay her supply needs for a year. Maybe two. Her eyes flickered to the words below the pictures, printed in harsh, bold letters. Extremely dangerous. Wanted for murder, rape, extortion. And, of course, there was the big one at the end: And assassination. Silence had always wondered if Chesterton and his men had intended to kill the governor of the most powerful fort city on this continent, or if it had been an accident. A simple robbery gone wrong. Either way, Chesterton understood what he’d done. Before the incident, he had been a common—if accomplished—highway bandit. Now he was something greater, something far more dangerous. Chesterton knew that if he were captured, there would be no mercy, no quarter. Lastport had painted Chesterton as an anarchist, a menace, and a psychopath. Chesterton had no reason to hold back. So he didn’t. Oh, God Beyond, Silence thought, looking at the continuing list of his crimes on the next page. Beside her, William Ann whispered the words to herself. “He’s out there?” she asked. “But where?” “The merchants,” Silence said. “What?” William Ann rushed back to the peephole. The wood there—indeed, all around the kitchen—had been scrubbed so hard that it had been bleached white. Sebruki had been cleaning again. “I can’t see it,” William Ann said. “Look closer.” Silence hadn’t seen it at first either, even though she spent each night with the book, memorizing its faces. A few moments later William Ann gasped, raising her hand to her mouth. “That seems so foolish of him. Why is he going about perfectly visible like this? Even in disguise.” “Everyone will remember just another band of fool merchants from the fort who thought they could brave the Forests. It’s
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a clever ruse. When they vanish from the paths in a few days, it will be assumed—if anyone cares to wonder—that the shades got them. Besides, this way Chesterton can travel quickly and in the open, visiting waystops and listening for information.” Was this how Chesterton discovered good targets to hit? Had they come through her waystop before? The thought made her stomach turn. She had fed criminals many times; some were regulars. Every man was probably a criminal out in the Forests, if only for ignoring taxes imposed by the fortfolk. Chesterton and his men were different. She didn’t need the list of crimes to know what they were capable of doing. “Where’s Sebruki?” Silence said. William Ann shook herself, as if coming out of a stupor. “She’s feeding the pigs. Shadows! You don’t think they’d recognize her, do you?” “No,” Silence said. “I’m worried she’ll recognize them.” Sebruki might only be eight, but she could be shockingly—disturbingly—observant. Silence closed the book of bounties. She rested her fingers on the satchel’s leather. “We’re going to kill them, aren’t we?” William Ann asked. “Yes.” “How much are they worth?” “Sometimes, child, it’s not about what a man is worth.” Silence heard the faint lie in her voice. Times were increasingly tight, with the price of silver from both Bastion Hill and Lastport on the rise. Sometimes it wasn’t about what a man was worth. But this wasn’t one of those times. “I’ll get the poison.” William Ann left the peephole and crossed the room. “Something light, child,” Silence cautioned. “These are dangerous men. They’ll notice if things are out of the ordinary.” “I’m not a fool, Mother,” William Ann said dryly. “I’ll use fenweed. They won’t taste it in the beer.” “Half dose. I don’t want them collapsing at the table.” William Ann nodded, entering the old storage room, where she closed the door and began prying up floorboards to get to the poisons. Fenweed would leave the men cloudy-headed and dizzy, but wouldn’t kill them. Silence didn’t dare risk something more deadly. If suspicion ever came back to her waystop, her career—and likely her life—would end. She needed to remain, in the minds of travelers, the crotchety but fair innkeeper who didn’t ask too many questions. Her waystop was a place of perceived safety, even for the roughest of criminals. She bedded down each night with a heart full of fear that someone would realize a suspicious number of the White Fox’s bounties stayed at Silence’s waystop in the days preceding their demise. She went into the pantry to put away the bounty book. Here, too, the walls had been scrubbed clean, the shelves freshly sanded and dusted. That child. Who had heard of a child who would rather clean than play? Of course, given what Sebruki had been through … Silence could not help reaching onto the top shelf and feeling the crossbow she kept there. Silver boltheads. She kept it for shades, and hadn’t yet turned it against a man. Drawing blood was too dangerous in the Forests. It
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still comforted her to know that in case of a true emergency, she had the weapon at hand. Bounty book stowed, she went to check on Sebruki. The child was indeed caring for the pigs. Silence liked to keep a healthy stock, though of course not for eating. Pigs were said to ward away shades. She used any tool she could to make the waystop seem more safe. Sebruki knelt inside the pig shack. The short girl had dark skin and long, black hair. Nobody would have taken her for Silence’s daughter, even if they hadn’t heard of Sebruki’s unfortunate history. The child hummed to herself, scrubbing at the wall of the enclosure. “Child?” Silence asked. Sebruki turned to her and smiled. What a difference one year could make. Once, Silence would have sworn that this child would never smile again. Sebruki had spent her first three months at the waystop staring at walls. No matter where Silence had put her, the child had moved to the nearest wall, sat down, and stared at it all day. Never speaking a word. Eyes dead as those of a shade … “Aunt Silence?” Sebruki asked. “Are you well?” “I’m fine, child. Just plagued by memories. You’re … cleaning the pig shack now?” “The walls need a good scrubbing,” Sebruki said. “The pigs do so like it to be clean. Well, Jarom and Ezekiel prefer it that way. The others don’t seem to care.” “You don’t need to clean so hard, child.” “I like doing it,” Sebruki said. “It feels good. It’s something I can do. To help.” Well, it was better to clean the walls than stare blankly at them all day. Today, Silence was happy for anything that kept the child busy. Anything, so long as she didn’t enter the common room. “I think the pigs will like it,” Silence said. “Why don’t you keep at it in here for a while?” Sebruki eyed her. “What’s wrong?” Shadows. She was so observant. “There are some men with rough tongues in the common room,” Silence said. “I won’t have you picking up their cussing.” “I’m not a child, Aunt Silence.” “Yes you are,” Silence said firmly. “And you’ll obey. Don’t think I won’t take a switch to your backside.” Sebruki rolled her eyes, but went back to work and began humming to herself. Silence let a little of her grandmother’s ways out when she spoke with Sebruki. The child responded well to sternness. She seemed to crave it, perhaps as a symbol that someone was in control. Silence wished she actually were in control. But she was a Forescout—the surname taken by her grandparents and the others who had left Homeland first and explored this continent. Yes, she was a Forescout, and she’d be damned before she’d let anyone know how absolutely powerless she felt much of the time. Silence crossed the backyard of the large inn, noting William Ann inside the kitchen mixing a paste to dissolve in the beer. Silence passed her by and looked in on the stable. Unsurprisingly, Chesterton had
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said they’d be leaving after their meal. While a lot of folk sought the relative safety of a waystop at night, Chesterton and his men would be accustomed to sleeping in the Forests. Even with the shades about, they would feel more comfortable in a camp of their own devising than they would in a waystop bed. Inside the stable, Dob—the old stable hand—had just finished brushing down the horses. He wouldn’t have watered them. Silence had a standing order to not do that until last. “This is well done, Dob,” Silence said. “Why don’t you take your break now?” He nodded to her with a mumbled, “Thank’ya, mam.” He’d find the front porch and his pipe, as always. Dob hadn’t two wits to rub together, and he hadn’t a clue about what she really did at the waystop, but he’d been with her since before William’s death. He was as loyal a man as she’d ever found. Silence shut the door after him, then fetched some pouches from the locked cabinet at the rear of the stable. She checked each one in the dim light, then set them on the grooming table and heaved the first saddle onto its owner’s back. She was near finished with the saddling when the door eased open. She froze, immediately thinking of the pouches on the table. Why hadn’t she stuffed them in her apron? Sloppy! “Silence Forescout,” a smooth voice said from the doorway. Silence stifled a groan and turned to confront her visitor. “Theopolis,” she said. “It’s not polite to sneak about on a woman’s property. I should have you thrown out for trespassing.” “Now, now. That would be rather like … the horse kicking at the man who feeds him, hmmm?” Theopolis leaned his gangly frame against the doorway, folding his arms. He wore simple clothing, no markings of his station. A fort tax collector often didn’t want random passers to know of his profession. Clean-shaven, his face always had that same patronizing smile on it. His clothing was too clean, too new to be that of one who lived out in the Forests. Not that he was a dandy, nor was he a fool. Theopolis was dangerous, just a different kind of dangerous from most. “Why are you here, Theopolis?” she said, hefting the last saddle onto the back of a snorting roan gelding. “Why do I always come to you, Silence? It’s not because of your cheerful countenance, hmmm?” “I’m paid up on taxes.” “That’s because you’re mostly exempt from taxes,” Theopolis said. “But you haven’t paid me for last month’s shipment of silver.” “Things have been a little dry lately. It’s coming.” “And the bolts for your crossbow?” Theopolis asked. “One wonders if you’re trying to forget about the price of those silver boltheads, hmmm? And the shipment of replacement sections for your protection rings?” His whining accent made her wince as she buckled the saddle on. Theopolis. Shadows, what a day! “Oh my,” Theopolis said, walking over to the grooming table. He picked up one of the pouches.
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“What are these, now? That looks like wetleek sap. I’ve heard that it glows at night if you shine the right kind of light upon it. Is this one of the White Fox’s mysterious secrets?” She snatched the pouch away. “Don’t say that name,” she hissed. He grinned. “You have a bounty! Delightful. I have always wondered how you tracked them. Poke a pinhole in that, attach it to the underside of the saddle, then follow the dripping trail it leaves? Hmmm? You could probably track them a long way, kill them far from here. Keep suspicion off the little waystop?” Yes, Theopolis was dangerous, but she needed someone to turn in her bounties for her. Theopolis was a rat, and like all rats he knew the best holes, troughs, and crannies. He had connections in Lastport, and had managed to get her the money in the name of the White Fox without revealing her. “I’ve been tempted to turn you in lately, you know,” Theopolis said. “Many a group keeps a betting pool on the identity of the infamous Fox. I could be a rich man with this knowledge, hmmm?” “You’re already a rich man,” she snapped. “And though you’re many things, you are not an idiot. This has worked just fine for a decade. Don’t tell me you’d trade wealth for a little notoriety?” He smiled, but did not contradict her. He kept half of what she earned from each bounty. It was a fine arrangement for Theopolis. No danger to him, which was how she knew he liked it. He was a civil servant, not a bounty hunter. The only time she’d seen him kill, the man he’d murdered couldn’t fight back. “You know me too well, Silence,” Theopolis said with a laugh. “Too well indeed. My, my. A bounty! I wonder who it is. I’ll have to go look in the common room.” “You’ll do nothing of the sort. Shadows! You think the face of a tax collector won’t spook them? Don’t you go walking in and spoiling things.” “Peace, Silence,” he said, still grinning. “I obey your rules. I am careful not to show myself around here often, and I don’t bring suspicion to you. I couldn’t stay today anyway; I merely came to give you an offer. Only now you probably won’t need it! Ah, such a pity. After all the trouble I went to in your name, hmmm?” She felt cold. “What help could you possibly give me?” He took a sheet of paper from his satchel, then carefully unfolded it with too-long fingers. He moved to hold it up, but she snatched it from him. “What is this?” “A way to relieve you of your debt, Silence! A way to prevent you from ever having to worry again.” The paper was a writ of seizure, an authorization for Silence’s creditors—Theopolis—to claim her property as payment. The forts claimed jurisdiction over the roadways and the land to either side of them. They did send soldiers out to patrol them. Occasionally. “I take it back, Theopolis,”
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she spat. “You most certainly are a fool. You’d give up everything we have for a greedy land snatch?” “Of course not, Silence. This wouldn’t be giving up anything at all! Why, I do so feel bad seeing you constantly in my debt. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if I took over the finances of the waystop? You would remain working here, and hunting bounties, as you always have. Only, you would no longer have to worry about your debts, hmmm?” She crumpled the paper in her hand. “You’d turn me and mine into slaves, Theopolis.” “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Those in Lastport have begun to worry that such an important waypoint as this is owned by an unknown element. You are drawing attention, Silence. I should think that is the last thing you want.” Silence crumpled the paper further in her hand, fist tight. Horses shuffled in their stalls. Theopolis grinned. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps it won’t be needed. Perhaps this bounty of yours is a big one, hmmm? Any clues to give me, so I don’t sit wondering all day?” “Get out,” she whispered. “Dear Silence,” he said. “Forescout blood, stubborn to the last breath. They say your grandparents were the first of the first. The first people to come scout this continent, the first to homestead the Forests … the first to stake a claim on hell itself.” “Don’t call the Forests that. This is my home.” “But it is how men saw this land, before the Evil. Doesn’t that make you curious? Hell, land of the damned, where the shadows of the dead made their home. I keep wondering: Is there really a shade of your departed husband guarding this place, or is it just another story you tell people? To make them feel safe, hmmm? You spend a fortune in silver. That offers the real protection, and I never have been able to find a record of your marriage. Of course, if there wasn’t one, that would make dear William Ann a—” “Go.” He grinned, but tipped his hat to her and stepped out. She heard him climb into the saddle, then ride off. Night would soon fall; it was probably too much to hope that the shades would take Theopolis. She’d long suspected that he had a hiding hole somewhere near, probably a cavern he kept lined with silver. She breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. Theopolis was frustrating, but he didn’t know everything. She forced her attention back to the horses and got out a bucket of water. She dumped the contents of the pouches into it, then gave a hearty dose to the horses, who each drank thirstily. Pouches that dripped sap in the way Theopolis indicated would be too easy to spot. What would happen when her bounties removed their saddles at night and found the pouches? They’d know someone was coming for them. No, she needed something less obvious. “How am I going to manage this?” she whispered as a horse drank from her bucket. “Shadows. They’re reaching for
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me on all sides.” Kill Theopolis. That was probably what Grandmother would have done. She considered it. No, she thought. I won’t become that. I won’t become her. Theopolis was a thug and a scoundrel, but he had not broken any laws, nor had he done anyone direct harm that she knew. There had to be rules, even out here. There had to be lines. Perhaps in that respect, she wasn’t so different from the fortfolk. She’d find another way. Theopolis only had a writ of debt; he had been required to show it to her. That meant she had a day or two to come up with his money. All neat and orderly. In the fort cities, they claimed to have civilization. Those rules gave her a chance. She left the stable. A glance through the window into the common room showed her William Ann delivering drinks to the “merchants” of Chesterton’s gang. Silence stopped to watch. Behind her, the Forests shivered in the wind. Silence listened, then turned to face them. You could tell fortfolk by the way they refused to face the Forests. They averted their eyes, never looking into the depths. Those solemn trees covered almost every inch of this continent, those leaves shading the ground. Still. Silent. Animals lived out there, but fort surveyors declared that there were no predators. The shades had gotten those long ago, drawn by the shedding of blood. Staring into the Forests seemed to make them … retreat. The darkness of their depths withdrew, the stillness gave way to the sound of rodents picking through fallen leaves. A Forescout knew to look the Forests straight on. A Forescout knew that the surveyors were wrong. There was a predator out there. The Forest itself was one. Silence turned and walked to the door into the kitchen. Keeping the waystop had to be her first goal, so she was committed to collecting Chesterton’s bounty now. If she couldn’t pay Theopolis, she had little faith that everything would stay the same. He’d have a hand around her throat, as she couldn’t leave the waystop. She had no fort citizenship, and times were too tight for the local homesteaders to take her in. No, she’d have to stay and work the waystop for Theopolis, and he would squeeze her dry, taking larger and larger percentages of the bounties. She pushed open the door to the kitchen. It— Sebruki sat at the kitchen table holding the crossbow in her lap. “God Beyond!” Silence gasped, pulling the door closed as she stepped inside. “Child, what are you—” Sebruki looked up at her. Those haunted eyes were back, eyes void of life and emotion. Eyes like a shade’s. “We have visitors, Aunt Silence,” Sebruki said in a cold, monotone voice. The crossbow’s winding crank sat next to her. She had managed to load the thing and cock it, all on her own. “I coated the bolt’s tip with blackblood. I did that right, didn’t I? That way, the poison will kill him for sure.” “Child…” Silence stepped forward. Sebruki
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turned the crossbow in her lap, holding it at an angle to support it, one small hand on the trigger. The point turned toward Silence. Sebruki stared ahead, eyes blank. “This won’t work, Sebruki,” Silence said, stern. “Even if you were able to lift that thing into the common room, you wouldn’t hit him—and even if you did, his men would kill us all in retribution!” “I wouldn’t mind,” Sebruki said softly. “So long as I got to kill him. So long as I pulled the trigger.” “You care nothing for us?” Silence snapped. “I take you in, give you a home, and this is your payment? You steal a weapon? You threaten me?” Sebruki blinked. “What is wrong with you?” Silence said. “You’d shed blood in this place of sanctuary? Bring the shades down upon us, beating at our protections? If they got through, they’d kill everyone under my roof! People I’ve promised safety. How dare you!” Sebruki shook, as if coming awake. Her mask broke and she dropped the crossbow. Silence heard a snap, and the catch released. She felt the bolt pass within an inch of her cheek, then break the window behind. Shadows! Had the bolt grazed Silence? Had Sebruki drawn blood? Silence reached up with a shaking hand, but blessedly felt no blood. The bolt hadn’t hit her. A moment later Sebruki was in her arms, sobbing. Silence knelt down, holding the child close. “Hush, dear one. It’s all right. It’s all right.” “I heard it all,” Sebruki whispered. “Mother never cried out. She knew I was there. She was strong, Aunt Silence. That was why I could be strong, even when the blood came down. Soaking my hair. I heard it. I heard it all.” Silence closed her eyes, holding Sebruki tight. She herself had been the only one willing to investigate the smoking homestead. Sebruki’s father had stayed at the waystop on occasion. A good man. As good a man as was left after the Evil took Homeland, that was. In the smoldering remains of the homestead, Silence had found the corpses of a dozen people. Each family member had been slaughtered by Chesterton and his men, right down to the children. The only one left had been Sebruki, the youngest, who had been shoved into the crawl space under the floorboards in the bedroom. She’d lain there, soaked in her mother’s blood, soundless even as Silence found her. She’d only discovered the girl because Chesterton had been careful, lining the room with silver dust to protect against shades as he prepared to kill. Silence had tried to recover some of the dust that had trickled between the floorboards, and had run across eyes staring up at her through the slits. Chesterton had burned thirteen different homesteads over the last year. Over fifty people murdered. Sebruki was the only one who had escaped him. The girl trembled as she heaved with sobs. “Why … Why?” “There is no reason. I’m sorry.” What else could she do? Offer some foolish platitude or comfort about the God
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Beyond? These were the Forests. You didn’t survive on platitudes. Silence did hold the girl until her crying began to subside. William Ann entered, then stilled beside the kitchen table, holding a tray of empty mugs. Her eyes flickered toward the fallen crossbow, then at the broken window. “You’ll kill him?” Sebruki whispered. “You’ll bring him to justice?” “Justice died in Homeland,” Silence said. “But yes, I’ll kill him. I promise it to you, child.” Stepping timidly, William Ann picked up the crossbow, then turned it, displaying its now broken bow. Silence breathed out. She should never have left the thing where Sebruki could get to it. “Care for the patrons, William Ann,” Silence said. “I’ll take Sebruki upstairs.” William Ann nodded, glancing at the broken window again. “No blood was shed,” Silence said. “We will be fine. Though if you get a moment, see if you can find the bolt. The head is silver.” This was hardly a time when they could afford to waste money. William Ann stowed the crossbow in the pantry as Silence carefully set Sebruki on a kitchen stool. The girl clung to her, refusing to let go, so Silence relented and held her for a time longer. William Ann took a few deep breaths, as if to calm herself, then pushed back out into the common room to distribute drinks. Eventually, Sebruki let go long enough for Silence to mix a draught. She carried the girl up the stairs to the loft above the common room, where the three of them made their beds. Dob slept in the stable and the guests in the nicer rooms on the second floor. “You’re going to make me sleep,” Sebruki said, regarding the cup with reddened eyes. “The world will seem a brighter place in the morning,” Silence said. And I can’t risk you sneaking out after me tonight. The girl reluctantly took the draught, then drank it down. “I’m sorry. About the crossbow.” “We will find a way for you to work off the cost of fixing it.” That seemed to comfort Sebruki. She was a homesteader, Forests born. “You used to sing to me at night,” Sebruki said softly, closing her eyes, lying back. “When you first brought me here. After … After…” She swallowed. “I wasn’t certain you noticed.” Silence hadn’t been certain Sebruki noticed anything, during those times. “I did.” Silence sat down on the stool beside Sebruki’s cot. She didn’t feel like singing, so she began humming. It was the lullaby she’d sung to William Ann during the hard times right after her birth. Before long, the words came out, unbidden: “Hush now, my dear one … be not afraid. Night comes upon us, but sunlight will break. Sleep now, my dear one … let your tears fade. Darkness surrounds us, but someday we’ll wake.…” She held Sebruki’s hand until the child fell asleep. The window by the bed overlooked the courtyard, so Silence could see as Dob brought out Chesterton’s horses. The five men in their fancy merchant clothing stomped down off the
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porch and climbed into their saddles. They rode in a file out onto the roadway; then the Forests enveloped them. * * * One hour after nightfall, Silence packed her rucksack by the light of the hearth. Her grandmother had kindled that hearth’s flame, and it had been burning ever since. She’d nearly lost her life lighting the fire, but she hadn’t been willing to pay any of the fire merchants for a start. Silence shook her head. Grandmother always had bucked convention. But then, was Silence any better? Don’t kindle flame, don’t shed the blood of another, don’t run at night. These things draw shades. The Simple Rules, by which every homesteader lived. She’d broken all three on more than one occasion. It was a wonder she hadn’t been withered away into a shade by now. The fire’s warmth seemed a distant thing as she prepared to kill. Silence glanced at the old shrine, really just a closet, that she kept locked. The flames reminded her of her grandmother. At times, she thought of the fire as her grandmother. Defiant of both the shades and the forts, right until the end. She’d purged the waystop of other reminders of Grandmother, all save the shrine to the God Beyond. That was set behind a locked door beside the pantry, and next to the door had once hung her grandmother’s silver dagger, symbol of the old religion. That dagger was etched with the symbols of divinity as a warding. Silence now carried it in a sheath at her side, not for its wardings, but because it was silver. One could never have too much silver in the Forests. She packed the sack carefully, first putting in her medicine kit and then a good-sized pouch of silver dust to heal withering. She followed that with ten empty sacks of thick burlap, tarred on the inside to prevent their contents from leaking. Finally, she added an oil lamp. She wouldn’t want to use it, as she didn’t trust fire. Fire could draw shades. However, she’d found it useful to have on prior outings, so she brought it. She’d only light it if she ran across someone who already had a fire started. Once done, she hesitated, then went to the old storage room. She removed the floorboards and took out the small, dry-packed keg that lay beside the poisons. Gunpowder. “Mother?” William Ann asked, causing her to jump. She hadn’t heard the girl enter the kitchen. Silence nearly dropped the keg in her startlement, and that nearly stopped her heart. She cursed herself for a fool, tucking the keg under her arm. It couldn’t explode without fire. She knew that much. “Mother!” William Ann said, looking at the keg. “I probably won’t need it.” “But—” “I know. Hush.” She walked over and placed the keg into her sack. Attached to the side of the keg, with cloth stuffed between the metal arms, was her grandmother’s firestarter. Igniting gunpowder counted as kindling flames, at least in the eyes of the shades. It drew them almost as
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quickly as blood did, day or night. The early refugees from Homeland had discovered that in short order. In some ways, blood was easier to avoid. A simple nosebleed or issue of blood wouldn’t draw the shades; they wouldn’t even notice. It had to be the blood of another, shed by your hands—and they would go for the one who shed the blood first. Of course, after that person was dead, they often didn’t care who they killed next. Once enraged, shades were dangerous to all nearby. Only after Silence had the gunpowder packed did she notice that William Ann was dressed for traveling in trousers and boots. She carried a sack like Silence’s. “What do you think you’re about, William Ann?” Silence asked. “You intend to kill five men who had only half a dose of fenweed by yourself, Mother?” “I’ve done similar before. I’ve learned to work on my own.” “Only because you didn’t have anyone else to help.” William Ann slung her sack onto her shoulder. “That’s no longer the case.” “You’re too young. Go back to bed; watch the waystop until I return.” William Ann showed no signs of budging. “Child, I told you—” “Mother,” William Ann said, taking her arm firmly, “you aren’t a youth anymore! You think I don’t see your limp getting worse? You can’t do everything by yourself! You’re going to have to start letting me help you sometime, dammit!” Silence regarded her daughter. Where had that fierceness come from? It was hard to remember that William Ann, too, was Forescout stock. Grandmother would have been disgusted by her, and that made Silence proud. William Ann had actually had a childhood. She wasn’t weak, she was just … normal. A woman could be strong without having the emotions of a brick. “Don’t you cuss at your mother,” Silence finally told the girl. William Ann raised an eyebrow. “You may come,” Silence said, prying her arm out of her daughter’s grip. “But you will do as you are told.” William Ann let out a deep breath, then nodded eagerly. “I’ll warn Dob we’re going.” She walked out, adopting the natural slow step of a homesteader as she entered the darkness. Even though she was within the protection of the waystop’s silver rings, she knew to follow the Simple Rules. Ignoring them when you were safe led to lapses when you weren’t. Silence got out two bowls, then mixed two different types of glowpaste. When finished, she poured them into separate jars, which she packed into her sack. She stepped outside into the night. The air was crisp, chill. The Forests had gone silent. The shades were out, of course. A few of them moved across the grassy ground, visible by their own soft glow. Ethereal, translucent, the ones nearby right now were old shades; they barely had human forms any longer. The heads rippled, faces shifting like smoke rings. They trailed waves of whiteness about an arm’s length behind them. Silence had always imagined that as the tattered remains of their clothing. No woman, not
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even a Forescout, looked upon shades without feeling a coldness inside of her. The shades were about during the day, of course; you just couldn’t see them. Kindle fire, draw blood, and they’d come for you even then. At night, though, they were different. Quicker to respond to infractions. At night they also responded to rapid motions, which they never did during the day. Silence took out one of the glowpaste jars, bathing the area around her in a pale green light. The light was dim, but was even and steady, unlike torchlight. Torches were unreliable, since you couldn’t relight them if they went out. William Ann waited at the front with the lantern poles. “We will need to move quietly,” Silence told her while affixing the jars to the poles. “You may speak, but do so in a whisper. I said you will obey me. You will, in all things, immediately. These men we’re after … they will kill you, or worse, without giving the deed a passing thought.” William Ann nodded. “You’re not scared enough,” Silence said, slipping a black covering around the jar with the brighter glowpaste. That plunged them into darkness, but the Starbelt was high in the sky today. Some of that light would filter down through the leaves, particularly if they stayed near the road. “I—” William Ann began. “You remember when Harold’s hound went mad last spring?” Silence asked. “Do you remember that look in the hound’s eyes? No recognition? Eyes that lusted for the kill? Well, that’s what these men are, William Ann. Rabid. They need to be put down, same as that hound. They won’t see you as a person. They’ll see you as meat. Do you understand?” William Ann nodded. Silence could see that she was still more excited than afraid, but there was no helping that. Silence handed William Ann the pole with the darker glowpaste. It had a faint blue light to it but didn’t illuminate much. Silence put the other pole to her right shoulder, sack over her left, then nodded toward the roadway. Nearby, a shade drifted toward the boundary of the waystop. When it touched the thin barrier of silver on the ground, the silver crackled like sparks and drove the thing backward with a sudden jerk. The shade floated the other way. Each touch like that cost Silence money. The touch of a shade ruined silver. That was what her patrons paid for: a waystop whose boundary had not been broken in over a hundred years, with a long-standing tradition that no unwanted shades were trapped within. Peace, of a sort. The best the Forests offered. William Ann stepped across the boundary, which was marked by the curve of the large silver hoops jutting from the ground. They were anchored below by concrete so you couldn’t just pull one up. Replacing an overlapping section from one of the rings—she had three concentric ones surrounding her waystop—required digging down and unchaining the section. It was a lot of work, which Silence knew intimately. A week didn’t pass
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that they didn’t rotate or replace one section or another. The shade nearby drifted away. It didn’t acknowledge them. Silence didn’t know if regular people were invisible to them unless the rules were broken, or if the people just weren’t worthy of attention until then. She and William Ann moved out onto the dark roadway, which was somewhat overgrown. No road in the Forests was well maintained. Perhaps if the forts ever made good on their promises, that would change. Still, there was travel. Homesteaders traveling to one fort or another to trade food. The grains grown out in Forest clearings were richer, tastier than what could be produced up in the mountains. Rabbits and turkeys caught in snares or raised in hutches could be sold for good silver. Not hogs. Only someone in one of the forts would be so crass as to eat a pig. Anyway, there was trade, and that kept the roadway worn, even if the trees around did have a tendency to reach down their boughs—like grasping arms—to try to cover up the pathway. Reclaim it. The Forests did not like that people had infested them. The two women walked carefully and deliberately. No quick motions. Walking so, it seemed an eternity before something appeared on the road in front of them. “There!” William Ann whispered. Silence released her tension in a breath. Something glowing blue marked the roadway in the light of the glowpaste. Theopolis’s guess at how she tracked her quarries had been a good one, but incomplete. Yes, the light of the paste also known as Abraham’s Fire did make drops of wetleek sap glow. By coincidence, wetleek sap also caused a horse’s bladder to loosen. Silence inspected the line of glowing sap and urine on the ground. She’d been worried that Chesterton and his men would set off into the Forests soon after leaving the waystop. That hadn’t been likely, but still she’d worried. Now she was sure she had the trail. If Chesterton cut into the Forests, he’d do it a few hours after leaving the waystop, to be more certain their cover was safe. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, then found herself offering a prayer of thanks by rote. She hesitated. Where had that come from? It had been a long time. She shook her head, rising and continuing down the road. By drugging all five horses, she got a steady sequence of markings to follow. The Forests felt … dark this night. The light of the Starbelt above didn’t seem to filter through the branches as well as it should. And there seemed to be more shades than normal, prowling between the trunks of trees, glowing just faintly. William Ann clung to her lantern pole. The child had been out in the night before, of course. No homesteader looked forward to doing so, but none shied away from it either. You couldn’t spend your life trapped inside, frozen by fear of the darkness. Live like that, and … well, you were no better off than
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the people in the forts. Life in the Forests was hard, often deadly. But it was also free. “Mother,” William Ann whispered as they walked. “Why don’t you believe in God anymore?” “Is this really the time, girl?” William Ann looked down as they passed another line of urine, glowing blue on the roadway. “You always say something like that.” “And I’m usually trying to avoid the question when you ask it,” Silence said. “But I’m also not usually walking the Forests at night.” “It just seems important to me now. You’re wrong about me not being afraid enough. I can hardly breathe, but I do know how much trouble the waystop is in. You’re always so angry after Master Theopolis visits. You don’t change our border silver as often as you used to. One out of two days, you don’t eat anything but bread.” “And you think this has to do with God … why?” William Ann kept looking down. Oh, shadows, Silence thought. She thinks we’re being punished. Fool girl. Foolish as her father. They passed the Old Bridge, walking its rickety wooden planks. When the light was better, you could still pick out timbers from the New Bridge down in the chasm below, representing the promises of the forts and their gifts, which always looked pretty but frayed before long. Sebruki’s father had been one of those who had come put the Old Bridge back up. “I believe in the God Beyond,” Silence said, after they reached the other side. “But—” “I don’t worship,” Silence said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe. The old books, they called this land the home of the damned. I doubt that worshipping does any good if you’re already damned. That’s all.” William Ann didn’t reply. They walked another good two hours. Silence considered taking a shortcut through the woods, but the risk of losing the trail and having to double back felt too dangerous. Besides. Those markings, glowing a soft blue-white in the unseen light of the glowpaste … those were something real. A lifeline of light in the shadows all around. Those lines represented safety for her and her children. With both of them counting the moments between urine markings, they didn’t miss the turnoff by much. A few minutes walking without seeing a mark, and they turned back without a word, searching the sides of the path. Silence had worried this would be the most difficult part of the hunt, but they easily found where the men had turned into the Forests. A glowing hoofprint formed the sign; one of the horses had stepped in another’s urine on the roadway, then tracked it into the Forests. Silence set down her pack and opened it to retrieve her garrote, then held a finger to her lips and motioned for William Ann to wait by the road. The girl nodded. Silence couldn’t make out much of her features in the darkness, but she did hear the girl’s breathing grow more rapid. Being a homesteader and accustomed to going out at night was
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one thing. Being alone in the Forests … Silence took the blue glowpaste jar and covered it with her handkerchief. Then she took off her shoes and stockings and crept out into the night. Each time she did this, she felt like a child again, going into the Forests with her grandfather. Toes in the dirt, testing for crackling leaves or twigs that would snap and give her away. She could almost hear his voice giving instructions, telling her how to judge the wind and use the sound of rustling leaves to mask her as she crossed noisy patches. He’d loved the Forests until the day they’d claimed him. Never call this land hell, he had said. Respect the land as you would a dangerous beast, but do not hate it. Shades slid through the trees nearby, almost invisible with nothing to illuminate them. She kept her distance, but even so, she occasionally turned to see one of the things drifting past her. Stumbling into a shade could kill you, but that kind of accident was uncommon. Unless enraged, shades moved away from people who got too close, as if blown by a soft breeze. So long as you were moving slowly—and you should be—you would be all right. She kept the handkerchief around the jar except when she wanted to check specifically for any markings. Glowpaste illuminated shades, and shades that glowed too brightly might give warning of her approach. A groan sounded nearby. Silence froze, heart practically bursting from her chest. Shades made no sound; that had been a man. Tense, silent, she searched until she caught sight of him, well hidden in the hollow of a tree. He moved, massaging his temples. The headaches from William Ann’s poison were upon him. Silence considered, then crept around the back of the tree. She crouched down, then waited a painful five minutes for him to move. He reached up again, rustling the leaves. Silence snapped forward and looped her garrote around his neck, then pulled tight. Strangling wasn’t the best way to kill a man in the Forests. It was so slow. The guard started to thrash, clawing at his throat. Shades nearby halted. Silence pulled tighter. The guard, weakened by the poison, tried to kick at her with his legs. She shuffled backward, still holding tightly, watching those shades. They looked around like animals sniffing the air. A few of them started to dim, their own faint natural luminescence fading, their forms bleeding from white to black. Not a good sign. Silence felt her heartbeat like thunder inside. Die, damn you! The man finally stopped jerking, motions growing more lethargic. After he trembled one final time and fell still, Silence waited there for a painful eternity, holding her breath. Finally the shades nearby faded back to white, then drifted off in their meandering directions. She unwound the garrote, breathing out in relief. After a moment to get her bearings, she left the corpse and crept back to William Ann. The girl did her proud; she’d hidden herself so well that
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Silence didn’t see her until she whispered, “Mother?” “Yes,” Silence said. “Thank the God Beyond,” William Ann said, crawling out of the hollow where she’d covered herself in leaves. She took Silence by the arm, trembling. “You found them?” “Killed the man on watch,” Silence said with a nod. “The other four should be sleeping. This is where I’ll need you.” “I’m ready.” “Follow.” They moved back along the path Silence had taken. They passed the heap of the lookout’s corpse, and William Ann inspected it, showing no pity. “It’s one of them,” she whispered. “I recognize him.” “Of course it’s one of them.” “I just wanted to be sure. Since we’re … you know.” Not far beyond the guard post, they found the camp. Four men in bedrolls slept amid the shades as only true Forestborn would ever try. They had set a small jar of glowpaste at the center of the camp, inside a pit so it wouldn’t glow too brightly and give them away, but it was enough light to show the horses tethered a few feet away on the other side of the camp. The green light also showed William Ann’s face, and Silence was shocked to see not fear but intense anger in the girl’s expression. She had taken quickly to being a protective older sister to Sebruki. She was ready to kill after all. Silence gestured toward the rightmost man, and William Ann nodded. This was the dangerous part. On only a half dose, any of these men could still wake to the noise of their partners dying. Silence took one of the burlap sacks from her pack and handed it to William Ann, then removed her hammer. It wasn’t some war weapon, like her grandfather had spoken of. Just a simple tool for pounding nails. Or other things. Silence stooped over the first man. Seeing his sleeping face sent a shiver through her. A primal piece of her waited, tense, for those eyes to snap open. She held up three fingers to William Ann, then lowered them one at a time. When the third finger went down, William Ann shoved the sack over the man’s head. As he jerked, Silence pounded him hard on the side of the temple with the hammer. The skull cracked and the head sank in a little. The man thrashed once, then grew limp. Silence looked up, tense, watching the other men as William Ann pulled the sack tight. The shades nearby paused, but this didn’t draw their attention as much as the strangling had. So long as the sack’s lining of tar kept the blood from leaking out, they should be safe. Silence hit the man’s head twice more, then checked for a pulse. There was none. They carefully did the next man in the row. It was brutal work, like slaughtering animals. It helped to think of these men as rabid, as she’d told William Ann earlier. It did not help to think of what the men had done to Sebruki. That would make her angry, and she
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couldn’t afford to be angry. She needed to be cold, quiet, and efficient. The second man took a few more knocks to the head to kill, but he woke more slowly than his friend. Fenweed made men groggy. It was an excellent drug for her purposes. She just needed them sleepy, a little disoriented. And— The next man sat up in his bedroll. “What…?” he asked in a slurred voice. Silence leaped for him, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him to the ground. Nearby shades spun about as if at a loud noise. Silence pulled her garrote out as the man heaved at her, trying to push her aside, and William Ann gasped in shock. Silence rolled around, wrapping the man’s neck. She pulled tight, straining while the man thrashed, agitating the shades. She almost had him dead when the last man leaped from his bedroll. In his dazed alarm, he chose to dash away. Shadows! That last one was Chesterton himself. If he drew the shades … Silence left the third man gasping and threw caution aside, racing after Chesterton. If the shades withered him to dust, she’d have nothing. No corpse to turn in meant no bounty. The shades around the campsite faded from view as Silence reached Chesterton, catching him at the perimeter of the camp by the horses. She desperately tackled him by the legs, throwing the groggy man to the ground. “You bitch,” he said in a slurred voice, kicking at her. “You’re the innkeeper. You poisoned me, you bitch!” In the forest, the shades had gone completely black. Green eyes burst alight as they opened their earthsight. The eyes trailed a misty light. Silence battered aside Chesterton’s hands as he struggled. “I’ll pay you,” he said, clawing at her. “I’ll pay you—” Silence slammed her hammer into his arm, causing him to scream. Then she brought it down on his face with a crunch. She ripped off her sweater as he groaned and thrashed, somehow wrapping it around his head and the hammer. “William Ann!” she screamed. “I need a bag. A bag, girl! Give me—” William Ann knelt beside her, pulling a sack over Chesterton’s head as the blood soaked through the sweater. Silence reached to the side with a frantic hand and grabbed a stone, then smashed it into the sack-covered head. The sweater muffled Chesterton’s screams, but also muffled the rock. She had to beat again and again. He finally fell still. William Ann held the sack against his neck to keep the blood from flowing out, her breath coming in quick gasps. “Oh, God Beyond. Oh, God…” Silence dared look up. Dozens of green eyes hung in the forest, glowing like little fires in the blackness. William Ann squeezed her eyes shut and whispered a prayer, tears leaking down her cheeks. Silence reached slowly to her side and took out her silver dagger. She remembered another night, another sea of glowing green eyes. Her grandmother’s last night. Run, girl! RUN! That night, running had been an option. They’d been close
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to safety. Even then, Grandmother hadn’t made it. She might have, but she hadn’t. That night horrified Silence. What Grandmother had done. What Silence had done … Well, tonight she had only one hope. Running would not save them. Safety was too far away. Slowly, blessedly, the eyes started to fade away. Silence sat back and let the silver knife slip out of her fingers to the ground. William Ann opened her eyes. “Oh, God Beyond!” she said as the shades faded back into view. “A miracle!” “Not a miracle,” Silence said. “Just luck. We killed him in time. Another second, and they’d have enraged.” William Ann wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh, shadows. Oh, shadows. I thought we were dead. Oh, shadows.” Suddenly, Silence remembered something. The third man. She hadn’t finished strangling him before Chesterton ran. She stumbled to her feet, turning. He lay there, immobile. “I finished him off,” William Ann said. “Had to strangle him with my hands. My hands…” Silence glanced back at her. “You did well, girl. You probably saved our lives. If you hadn’t been here, I’d never have killed Chesterton without enraging the shades.” The girl still stared out into the woods, watching the placid shades. “What would it take?” she asked. “For you to see a miracle instead of a coincidence?” “It would take a miracle, obviously,” Silence said, picking up her knife. “Instead of just a coincidence. Come on. Let’s put a second sack on these fellows.” William Ann joined her, lethargic as she helped put sacks on the heads of the bandits. Two sacks each, just in case. Blood was the most dangerous. Running drew shades, but slowly. Fire enraged them immediately, but it also blinded and confused them. Blood, though … blood shed in anger, exposed to the open air … a single drop could make the shades slaughter you, and then everything else within their sight. Silence checked each man for a heartbeat, just in case, and found none. They saddled the horses and heaved the corpses, including the lookout, into the saddles and tied them in place. They took the bedrolls and other equipment too. Hopefully the men would have some silver on them. Bounty laws let Silence keep what she found unless there was specific mention of something stolen. In this case, the forts just wanted Chesterton dead. Pretty much everyone did. Silence pulled a rope tight, then paused. “Mother!” William Ann said, noticing the same thing. Leaves rustling out in the Forests. They’d uncovered their jar of green glowpaste to join that of the bandits, so the small campsite was well illuminated as a gang of eight men and women on horseback rode in through the Forests. They were from the forts. The nice clothing, the way they kept looking into the Forests at the shades … Fortfolk for certain. Silence stepped forward, wishing she had her hammer to look at least a little threatening. That was still tied in the sack around Chesterton’s head. It would have blood on it, so she couldn’t get it
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out until that dried or she was in someplace very, very safe. “Now, look at this,” said the man at the front of the newcomers. “I couldn’t believe what Tobias told me when he came back from scouting, but it appears to be true. All five men in Chesterton’s gang, killed by a couple of Forest homesteaders?” “Who are you?” Silence asked. “Red Young,” the man said with a tip of the hat. “I’ve been tracking this lot for the last four months. I can’t thank you enough for taking care of them for me.” He waved to a few of his people, who dismounted. “Mother!” William Ann hissed. Silence studied Red’s eyes. He was armed with a cudgel, and one of the women behind him had one of those new crossbows with the blunt tips. They cranked fast and hit hard, but didn’t draw blood. “Step away from the horses, child,” Silence said. “But—” “Step away.” Silence dropped the rope of the horse she was leading. Three fort city people gathered up the ropes, one of the men leering at William Ann. “You’re a smart one,” Red said, leaning down and studying Silence. One of his women walked past, towing Chesterton’s horse with the man’s corpse slumped over the saddle. Silence stepped up, resting a hand on Chesterton’s saddle. The woman towing it paused, then looked at her boss. Silence slipped her knife from its sheath. “You’ll give us something,” Silence said to Red, knife hand hidden. “After what we did. One quarter, and I don’t say a word.” “Sure,” he said, tipping his hat to her. He had a fake kind of grin, like one in a painting. “One quarter it is.” Silence nodded. She slipped the knife against one of the thin ropes that held Chesterton in the saddle. That gave her a good cut on it as the woman pulled the horse away. Silence stepped back, resting her hand on William Ann’s shoulder while covertly moving the knife back into its sheath. Red tipped his hat to her again. In moments, the bounty hunters had retreated back through the trees toward the roadway. “One quarter?” William Ann hissed. “You think he’ll pay it?” “Hardly,” Silence said, picking up her pack. “We’re lucky he didn’t just kill us. Come on.” She moved out into the Forests. William Ann walked with her, both moving with the careful steps the Forests demanded. “It might be time for you to return to the waystop, William Ann.” “And what are you going to do?” “Get our bounty back.” She was a Forescout, dammit. No prim fort man was going to steal from her. “You mean to cut them off at the white span, I assume. But what will you do? We can’t fight so many, Mother.” “I’ll find a way.” That corpse meant freedom—life—for her daughters. She would not let it slip away like smoke between the fingers. They entered the darkness, passing shades that had, just a short time before, been almost ready to wither them. Now the shades drifted away, completely
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indifferent toward their flesh. Think, Silence. Something is very wrong here. How had those men found the camp? The light? Had they overheard her and William Ann talking? They’d claimed to have been chasing Chesterton for months. Shouldn’t she have caught wind of them before now? These men and women looked too crisp to have been out in the Forests for months trailing killers. It led to a conclusion she did not want to admit. One man had known she was hunting a bounty today and had seen how she was planning to track that bounty. One man had cause to see that bounty stolen from her. Theopolis, I hope I’m wrong, she thought. Because if you’re behind this … Silence and William Ann trudged through the guts of the Forest, a place where the gluttonous canopy above drank in all of the light, leaving the ground below barren. Shades patrolled these wooden halls like blind sentries. Red and his bounty hunters were of the forts. They would keep to the roadways, and that was her advantage. The Forests were no friend to a homesteader, no more than a familiar chasm was any less dangerous a drop. But Silence was a sailor on this abyss. She could ride its winds better than any fortdweller. Perhaps it was time to make a storm. What homesteaders called the “white span” was a section of roadway lined by mushroom fields. It took about an hour through the Forests to reach the span, and Silence was feeling the price of a night without sleep by the time she arrived. She ignored the fatigue, tromping through the field of mushrooms, holding her jar of green light and giving an ill cast to trees and furrows in the land. The roadway bent around through the Forests, then came back this way. If the men were heading toward Lastport or any of the other nearby forts, they would come this direction. “You continue on,” Silence said to William Ann. “It’s only another hour’s hike back to the waystop. Check on things there.” “I’m not leaving you, Mother.” “You promised to obey. Would you break your word?” “And you promised to let me help you. Would you break yours?” “I don’t need you for this,” Silence said. “And it will be dangerous.” “What are you going to do?” Silence stopped beside the roadway, then knelt, fishing in her pack. She came out with the small keg of gunpowder. William Ann went as white as the mushrooms. “Mother!” Silence untied her grandmother’s firestarter. She didn’t know for certain if it still worked. She’d never dared compress the two metal arms, which looked like tongs. Squeezing them together would grind the ends against one another, making sparks, and a spring at the joint would make them come back apart. Silence looked up at her daughter, then held the firestarter up beside her head. William Ann stepped back, then glanced to the sides, toward nearby shades. “Are things really that bad?” the girl whispered. “For us, I mean?” Silence nodded. “All right then.”
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Fool girl. Well, Silence wouldn’t send her away. The truth was, she probably would need help. She intended to get that corpse. Bodies were heavy, and there wasn’t any way she’d be able to cut off just the head. Not out in the Forests, with shades about. She dug into her pack, pulling out her medical supplies. They were tied between two small boards, intended to be used as splints. It was not difficult to tie the two boards to either side of the firestarter. With her hand trowel, she dug a small hole in the roadway’s soft earth, about the size of the powder keg. She then opened the plug to the keg and set it into the hole. She soaked her handkerchief in the lamp oil, stuck one end in the keg, then positioned the firestarter boards on the road with the end of the kerchief next to the spark-making heads. After covering the contraption with some leaves, she had a rudimentary trap. If someone stepped on the top board, that would press it down and grind out sparks to light the kerchief. Hopefully. She couldn’t afford to light the fire herself. The shades would come first for the one who made the fire. “What happens if they don’t step on it?” William Ann asked. “Then we move it to another place on the road and try again,” Silence said. “That could shed blood, you realize.” Silence didn’t reply. If the trap was triggered by a footfall, the shades wouldn’t see Silence as the one causing it. They’d come first for the one who triggered the trap. But if blood was drawn, they would enrage. Soon after, it wouldn’t matter who had caused it. All would be in danger. “We have hours of darkness left,” Silence said. “Cover your glowpaste.” William Ann nodded, hastily putting the cover on her jar. Silence inspected her trap again, then took William Ann by the shoulder and pulled her to the side of the roadway. The underbrush was thicker there, as the road tended to wind through breaks in the canopy. People sought out places in the Forests where they could see the sky. The bounty hunters came along eventually. Silent, illuminated by a jar of glowpaste each. Fortfolk didn’t talk at night. They passed the trap, which Silence had placed on the narrowest section of roadway. She held her breath, watching the horses pass, step after step missing the lump that marked the board. William Ann covered her ears, hunkering down. A hoof hit the trap. Nothing happened. Silence released an annoyed breath. What would she do if the firestarter was broken? Could she find another way to— The explosion struck her, the wave of force shaking her body. Shades vanished in a blink, green eyes snapping open. Horses reared and whinnied, men and women yelling. Silence shook off her stupefaction, grabbing William Ann by the shoulder and pulling her out of hiding. Her trap had worked better than she’d assumed; the burning rag had allowed the horse who had triggered the trap
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to take a few steps before the blast hit. No blood, just a lot of surprised horses and confused people. The little keg of gunpowder hadn’t done as much damage as she’d anticipated—the stories of what gunpowder could do were often as fanciful as stories of the Homeland—but the sound had been incredible. Silence’s ears rang as she fought through the confused fortfolk, finding what she’d hoped to see. Chesterton’s corpse lay on the ground, dumped from saddleback by a bucking horse and a frayed rope. She grabbed the corpse under the arms and William Ann took the legs. They moved sideways into the Forests. “Idiots!” Red bellowed from amid the confusion. “Stop her! It—” He cut off as shades swarmed the roadway, descending upon the men. Red had managed to keep his horse under control, but now he had to dance it back from the shades. Enraged, they had turned pure black, though the blast of light and fire had obviously left them dazed. They fluttered about, like moths at a flame. Green eyes. A small blessing. If those turned red … One bounty hunter, standing on the road and spinning about, was struck. His back arched, black-veined tendrils crisscrossing his skin. He dropped to his knees, screaming as the flesh of his face shrank around his skull. Silence turned away. William Ann watched the fallen man with a horrified expression. “Slowly, child,” Silence said in what she hoped was a comforting voice. She hardly felt comforting. “Carefully. We can move away from them. William Ann. Look at me.” The girl turned to look at her. “Hold my eyes. Move. That’s right. Remember, the shades will go to the source of the fire first. They are confused, stunned. They can’t smell fire like they do blood, and they’ll look from it to the nearest rapid motion. Slowly, easily. Let the scrambling fortfolk distract them.” The two of them eased into the Forests with excruciating deliberateness. In the face of so much chaos, so much danger, their pace felt like a crawl. Red organized a resistance. Fire-crazed shades could be fought, destroyed, with silver. More and more would come, but if the bounty hunters were clever and lucky, they’d be able to destroy those nearby and then move slowly away from the source of the fire. They could hide, survive. Maybe. Unless one of them accidentally drew blood. Silence and William Ann stepped through a field of mushrooms that glowed like the skulls of rats and broke silently beneath their feet. Luck was not completely with them, for as the shades shook off their disorientation from the explosion, a pair of them on the outskirts turned and struck out toward the fleeing women. William Ann gasped. Silence deliberately set down Chesterton’s shoulders, then took out her knife. “Keep going,” she whispered. “Pull him away. Slowly, girl. Slowly.” “I won’t leave you!” “I will catch up,” Silence said. “You aren’t ready for this.” She didn’t look to see if William Ann obeyed, for the shades—figures of jet black streaking across the white-knobbed ground—were
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upon her. Strength was meaningless against shades. They had no real substance. Only two things mattered: your speed and not letting yourself be frightened. Shades were dangerous, but so long as you had silver, you could fight. Many a man died because he ran, drawing even more shades, rather than standing his ground. Silence swung at the shades as they reached her. You want my daughter, hellbound? she thought with a snarl. You should have tried for the fortfolk instead. She swept her knife through the first shade, as Grandmother had taught. Never creep back and cower before shades. You’re Forescout blood. You claim the Forests. You are their creature as much as any other. As am I.… Her knife passed through the shade with a slight tugging feeling, creating a shower of bright white sparks that sprayed out of the shade. The shade pulled back, its black tendrils writhing about one another. Silence spun on the other. The pitch sky let her see only the thing’s eyes, a horrid green, as it reached for her. She lunged. Its spectral hands were upon her, the icy cold of its fingers gripping her arm below the elbow. She could feel it. Shade fingers had substance; they could grab you, hold you back. Only silver warded them away. Only with silver could you fight. She rammed her arm in farther. Sparks shot out its back, spraying like a bucket of washwater. Silence gasped at the horrid, icy pain. Her knife slipped from fingers she could no longer feel. She lurched forward, falling to her knees as the second shade fell backward, then began spinning about in a mad spiral. The first one flopped on the ground like a dying fish, trying to rise, its top half falling over. The cold of her arm was so bitter. She stared at the wounded arm, watching the flesh of her hand wither upon itself, pulling in toward the bone. She heard weeping. You stand there, Silence. Grandmother’s voice. Memories of the first time she’d killed a shade. You do as I say. No tears! Forescouts don’t cry. Forescouts DON’T CRY. She had learned to hate her that day. Ten years old, with her little knife, shivering and weeping in the night as her grandmother had enclosed her and a drifting shade in a ring of silver dust. Grandmother had run around the perimeter, enraging it with motion. While Silence was trapped in there. With death. The only way to learn is to do, Silence. And you’ll learn, one way or another! “Mother!” William Ann said. Silence blinked, coming out of the memory as her daughter dumped silver dust on the exposed arm. The withering stopped as William Ann, choking against her thick tears, dumped the entire pouch of emergency silver over the hand. The metal reversed the withering, and the skin turned pink again, the blackness melting away in sparks of white. Too much, Silence thought. William Ann had used all of the silver dust in her haste, far more than one wound needed. It was difficult
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to summon any anger, for feeling flooded back into her hand and the icy cold retreated. “Mother?” William Ann asked. “I left you, as you said. But he was so heavy, I didn’t get far. I came back for you. I’m sorry. I came back for you!” “Thank you,” Silence said, breathing in. “You did well.” She reached up and took her daughter by the shoulder, then used the once-withered hand to search in the grass for Grandmother’s knife. When she brought it up, the blade was blackened in several places, but still good. Back on the road, the fortfolk had made a circle and were holding off the shades with silver-tipped spears. The horses had all fled or been consumed. Silence fished on the ground, coming up with a small handful of silver dust. The rest had been expended in the healing. Too much. No use worrying about that now, she thought, stuffing the handful of dust in her pocket. “Come,” she said, hauling herself to her feet. “I’m sorry I never taught you to fight them.” “Yes you did,” William Ann said, wiping her tears. “You’ve told me all about it.” Told. Never shown. Shadows, Grandmother. I know I disappoint you, but I won’t do it to her. I can’t. But I am a good mother. I will protect them. The two left the mushrooms, taking up their grisly prize again and tromping through the Forests. They passed more darkened shades floating toward the fight. All of those sparks would draw them. The fortfolk were dead. Too much attention, too much struggle. They’d have a thousand shades upon them before the hour was out. Silence and William Ann moved slowly. Though the cold had mostly retreated from Silence’s hand, there was a lingering … something. A deep shiver. A limb touched by the shades wouldn’t feel right for months. That was far better than what could have happened. Without William Ann’s quick thinking, Silence could have become a cripple. Once the withering settled in—that took a little time, though it varied—it was irreversible. Something rustled in the woods. Silence froze, causing William Ann to stop and glance about. “Mother?” William Ann whispered. Silence frowned. The night was so black, and they’d been forced to leave their lights. Something’s out there, she thought, trying to pierce the darkness. What are you? God Beyond protect them if the fighting had drawn one of the Deepest Ones. The sound did not repeat. Reluctantly, Silence continued on. They walked for a good hour, and in the darkness Silence hadn’t realized they’d neared the roadway again until they stepped onto it. Silence heaved out a breath, setting down their burden and rolling her tired arms in their joints. Some light from the Starbelt filtered down upon them, illuminating something like a large jawbone to their left. The Old Bridge. They were almost home. The shades here weren’t even agitated; they moved with their lazy, almost butterfly, gaits. Her arms felt so sore. That body felt as if it were getting heavier every moment. People often
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didn’t realize how heavy a corpse was. Silence sat down. They’d rest for a time before continuing on. “William Ann, do you have any water left in your canteen?” William Ann whimpered. Silence started, then scrambled to her feet. Her daughter stood beside the bridge, and something dark stood behind her. A green glow suddenly illuminated the night as the figure took out a small vial of glowpaste. By that sickly light, Silence could see that the figure was Red. He held a dagger to William Ann’s neck. The fort man had not fared well in the fighting. One eye was now a milky white, half his face blackened, his lips pulled back from his teeth. A shade had gotten him across the face. He was lucky to be alive. “I figured you’d come back this way,” he said, the words slurred by his shriveled lips. Spittle dripped from his chin. “Silver. Give me your silver.” His knife … it was common steel. “Now!” he roared, pulling the knife closer to William Ann’s neck. If he so much as nicked her, the shades would be upon them in heartbeats. “I only have the knife,” Silence lied, taking it out and tossing it to the ground before him. “It’s too late for your face, Red. That withering has set in.” “I don’t care,” he hissed. “Now the body. Step away from it, woman. Away!” Silence stepped to the side. Could she get to him before he killed William Ann? He’d have to grab that knife. If she sprang just right … “You killed my crew,” Red growled. “They’re dead, all of them. God, if I hadn’t rolled into the hollow … I had to listen to it. Listen to them being slaughtered!” “You were the only smart one,” she said. “You couldn’t have saved them, Red.” “Bitch! You killed them.” “They killed themselves,” she whispered. “You come to my Forests, take what is mine? It was your crew or my children, Red.” “Well, if you want your child to live through this, you’ll stay very still. Girl, pick up that knife.” Whimpering, William Ann knelt. Red mimicked her, staying just behind her, watching Silence, holding the knife steady. William Ann picked up the knife in trembling hands. Red pulled the silver knife from William Ann, then held it in one hand, the common knife at her neck in the other. “Now, the girl is going to carry the corpse, and you’re going to wait right there. I don’t want you coming near.” “Of course,” Silence said, already planning. She couldn’t afford to strike right now. He was too careful. She would follow through the Forests, along the road, and wait for a moment of weakness. Then she’d strike. Red spat to the side. Then a padded crossbow bolt shot from the night and took him in the shoulder, jolting him. His blade slid across William Ann’s neck, and a dribble of blood ran down it. The girl’s eyes widened in horror, though it was little more than a nick. The danger to her
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throat wasn’t important. The blood was. Red tumbled back, gasping, hand to his shoulder. A few drops of blood glistened on his knife. The shades in the Forests around them went black. Glowing green eyes burst alight, then deepened to crimson. Red eyes in the night. Blood in the air. “Oh, hell!” Red screamed. “Oh, hell.” Red eyes swarmed around him. There was no hesitation here, no confusion. They went straight for the one who had drawn blood. Silence reached for William Ann as the shades descended. Red grabbed the girl and shoved her through a shade, trying to stop it. He spun and dashed the other direction. William Ann passed through the shade, her face withering, skin pulling in at the chin and around the eyes. She stumbled through the shade and into Silence’s arms. Silence felt an immediate, overwhelming panic. “No! Child, no. No. No…” William Ann worked her mouth, making a choking sound, her lips pulling back toward her teeth, her eyes open wide as her skin tightened and her eyelids shriveled. Silver. I need silver. I can save her. Silence snapped her head up, clutching William Ann. Red ran down the roadway, slashing the silver dagger all about, spraying light and sparks. Shades surrounded him. Hundreds, like ravens flocking to a roost. Not that way. The shades would finish with him soon and would look for flesh—any flesh. William Ann still had blood on her neck. They’d come for her next. Even without that, the girl was withering fast. The dagger wouldn’t be enough to save William Ann. Silence needed dust, silver dust, to force down her daughter’s throat. Silence fumbled in her pocket, coming out with the small bit of silver dust there. Too little. She knew that would be too little. Her grandmother’s training calmed her mind, and everything became immediately clear. The waystop was close. She had more silver there. “M … Mother…” Silence heaved William Ann into her arms. Too light, the flesh drying. Then she turned and ran with everything she had across the bridge. Her arms stung, weakened from having hauled the corpse so far. The corpse … she couldn’t lose it! No. She couldn’t think on that. The shades would have it, as warm enough flesh, soon after Red was gone. There would be no bounty. She had to focus on William Ann. Silence’s tears felt cold on her face as she ran, wind blowing her. Her daughter trembled and shook in her arms, spasming as she died. She’d become a shade if she died like this. “I won’t lose you!” Silence said into the night. “Please. I won’t lose you.…” Behind her, Red screamed a long, wailing screech of agony that cut off at the end as the shades feasted. Near her, other shades stopped, eyes deepening to red. Blood in the air. Eyes of crimson. “I hate you,” Silence whispered into the air as she ran. Each step was agony. She was growing old. “I hate you! What you did to me. What you did to us.” She didn’t
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know if she was speaking to Grandmother or the God Beyond. So often, they were the same in her mind. Had she ever realized that before? Branches lashed at her as she pushed forward. Was that light ahead? The waystop? Hundreds upon hundreds of red eyes opened in front of her. She stumbled to the ground, spent, William Ann like a heavy bundle of branches in her arms. The girl trembled, her eyes rolled back in her head. Silence held out the small bit of silver dust she’d recovered earlier. She longed to pour it on William Ann, save her a little pain, but she knew with clarity that was a waste. She looked down, crying, then took the dust and made a small circle around the two of them. What else could she do? William Ann shook with a seizure as she rasped, drawing in breaths and clawing at Silence’s arms. The shades came by the dozens, huddling around the two of them, smelling the blood. The flesh. Silence pulled her daughter close. She should have gone for the knife after all; it wouldn’t heal William Ann, but she could have at least fought with it. Without that, without anything, she failed. Grandmother had been right all along. “Hush now, my dear one…” Silence whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. “Be not afraid.” Shades came at her frail barrier, throwing up sparks, making Silence open her eyes. They backed away, then others came, beating against the silver, their red eyes illuminating writhing black forms. “Night comes upon us…” Silence whispered, choking at the words, “… but sunlight will break.” William Ann arched her back, then fell still. “Sleep now … my … my dear one … let your tears fade. Darkness surrounds us, but someday … we’ll wake.…” So tired. I shouldn’t have let her come. If she hadn’t, Chesterton would have gotten away from her, and she’d have probably fallen to the shades then. William Ann and Sebruki would have become slaves to Theopolis, or worse. No choices. No way out. “Why did you send us here?” she screamed, looking up past hundreds of glowing red eyes. “What is the point?” There was no answer. There was never an answer. Yes, that was light ahead; she could see it through the low tree branches in front of her. She was only a few yards from the waystop. She would die, like Grandmother had, mere paces from her home. She blinked, cradling William Ann as the tiny silver barrier failed. That … that branch just in front of her. It had such a very odd shape. Long, thin, no leaves. Not like a branch at all. Instead, like … Like a crossbow bolt. It had lodged into the tree after being fired from the waystop earlier in the day. She remembered facing down that bolt earlier, staring at its reflective end. Silver. * * * Silence Montane crashed through the back door of the waystop, hauling a desiccated body behind her. She stumbled into the kitchen, barely able to walk, and dropped
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the silver-tipped bolt from a withered hand. Her skin continued to pull tight, her body shriveling. She had not been able to avoid withering, not when fighting so many shades. The crossbow bolt had merely cleared a path, allowing her to push forward in a last, frantic charge. She could barely see. Tears streamed from her clouded eyes. Even with the tears, her eyes felt as dry as if she had been standing in the wind for an hour while holding them wide open. Her lids refused to blink, and she couldn’t move her lips. She had … powder. Didn’t she? Thought. Mind. What? She moved without thought. Jar on the windowsill. In case of broken circle. She unscrewed the lid with fingers like sticks. Seeing them horrified a distant part of her mind. Dying. I’m dying. She dunked the jar of silver powder in the water cistern and pulled it out, then stumbled to William Ann. She fell to her knees beside the girl, spilling much of the water. The rest she dumped on her daughter’s face with a shaking arm. Please. Please. Darkness. * * * “We were sent here to be strong,” Grandmother said, standing on the cliff edge overlooking the waters. Her whited hair curled in the wind, writhing like the wisps of a shade. She turned back to Silence, and her weathered face was covered in droplets of water from the crashing surf below. “The God Beyond sent us. It’s part of the plan.” “It’s so easy for you to say that, isn’t it?” Silence spat. “You can fit anything into that nebulous plan. Even the destruction of the world itself.” “I won’t hear blasphemy from you, child.” A voice like boots stepping in gravel. She walked toward Silence. “You can rail against the God Beyond, but it will change nothing. William was a fool and an idiot. You are better off. We are Forescouts. We survive. We will be the ones to defeat the Evil, someday.” She passed Silence by. Silence had never seen a smile from Grandmother, not since her husband’s death. Smiling was wasted energy. And love … love was for the people back in Homeland. The people who’d perished from the Evil. “I’m with child,” Silence said. Grandmother stopped. “William?” “Who else?” Grandmother continued on. “No condemnations?” Silence asked, turning, folding her arms. “It’s done,” Grandmother said. “We are Forescouts. If this is how we must continue, so be it. I’m more worried about the waystop, and meeting our payments to those damn forts.” I have an idea for that, Silence thought, considering the lists of bounties she’d begun collecting. Something even you wouldn’t dare. Something dangerous. Something unthinkable. Grandmother reached the woods and looked at Silence, scowled, then pulled on her hat and stepped into the trees. “I will not have you interfering with my child,” Silence called after her. “I will raise my own as I will!” Grandmother vanished into the shadows. Please. Please. “I will!” I won’t lose you. I won’t … * * * Silence gasped, coming awake and
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clawing at the floorboards, staring upward. Alive. She was alive! Dob the stableman knelt beside her, holding the jar of powdered silver. She coughed, lifting fingers—plump, the flesh restored—to her neck. It was hale, though ragged from the flakes of silver that had been forced down her throat. Her skin was dusted with black bits of ruined silver. “William Ann!” she said, turning. The child lay on the floor beside the door. William Ann’s left side, where she’d first touched the shade, was blackened. Her face wasn’t too bad, but her hand was a withered skeleton. They’d have to cut that off. Her leg looked bad too. Silence couldn’t tell how bad without tending the wounds. “Oh, child…” Silence knelt beside her. But the girl breathed in and out. That was enough, all things considered. “I tried,” Dob said. “But you’d already done what could be done.” “Thank you,” Silence said. She turned to the aged man, with his high forehead and dull eyes. “Did you get him?” Dob asked. “Who?” “The bounty.” “I … yes, I did. But I had to leave him.” “You’ll find another,” Dob said in his monotone, climbing to his feet. “The Fox always does.” “How long have you known?” “I’m an idiot, mam,” he said. “Not a fool.” He bowed his head to her, then walked away, slump-backed as always. Silence climbed to her feet, then groaned, picking up William Ann. She lifted her daughter to the rooms above and saw to her. The leg wasn’t as bad as Silence had feared. A few of the toes would be lost, but the foot itself was hale enough. The entire left side of William Ann’s body was blackened, as if burned. That would fade, with time, to grey. Everyone who saw her would know exactly what had happened. Many men would never touch her, fearing her taint. This might just doom her to a life alone. I know a little about such a life, Silence thought, dipping a cloth into the water bin and washing William Ann’s face. The youth would sleep through the day. She had come very close to death, to becoming a shade herself. The body did not recover quickly from that. Of course, Silence had been close to that too. She, however, had been there before. Another of Grandmother’s preparations. Oh, how she hated that woman. Silence owed who she was to how that training had toughened her. Could she be thankful for Grandmother and hateful, both at once? Silence finished washing William Ann, then dressed her in a soft nightgown and left her in her bunk. Sebruki still slept off the draught Silence had given her. So she went downstairs to the kitchen to think difficult thoughts. She’d lost the bounty. The shades would have had at that body; the skin would be dust, the skull blackened and ruined. She had no way to prove that she’d taken Chesterton. She settled against the kitchen table and laced her hands before her. She wanted to have at the whiskey instead, to dull the
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horror of the night. She thought for hours. Could she pay Theopolis off some way? Borrow from someone else? Who? Maybe find another bounty. But so few people came through the waystop these days. Theopolis had already given her warning, with his writ. He wouldn’t wait more than a day or two for payment before claiming the waystop as his own. Had she really gone through so much, still to lose? Sunlight fell on her face and a breeze from the broken window tickled her cheek, waking her from her slumber at the table. Silence blinked, stretching, limbs complaining. Then she sighed, moving to the kitchen counter. She’d left out all of the materials from the preparations last night, her clay bowls thick with glowpaste that still shone faintly. The silver-tipped crossbow bolt lay by the back door where she’d dropped it. She’d need to clean up and get breakfast ready for her few guests. Then, think of some way to … The back door opened and someone stepped in. … to deal with Theopolis. She exhaled softly, looking at him in his clean clothing and condescending smile. He tracked mud onto her floor as he entered. “Silence Montane. Nice morning, hmmm?” Shadows, she thought. I don’t have the mental strength to deal with him right now. He moved to close the window shutters. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Hmmm? Haven’t you warned me before that you loathe that people might see us together? That they might get a hint that you are turning in bounties to me? I’m just trying to protect you. Has something happened? You look awful, hmmm?” “I know what you did.” “You do? But, see, I do many things. About what do you speak?” Oh, how she’d like to cut that grin from his lips and cut out his throat, stomp out that annoying Lastport accent. She couldn’t. He was just so blasted good at acting. She had guesses, probably good ones. But no proof. Grandmother would have killed him right then. Was she so desperate to prove him wrong that she’d lose everything? “You were in the Forests,” Silence said. “When Red surprised me at the bridge, I assumed that the thing I’d heard—rustling in the darkness—had been him. It wasn’t. He implied he’d been waiting for us at the bridge. That thing in the darkness, it was you. You shot him with the crossbow to jostle him, make him draw blood. Why, Theopolis?” “Blood?” Theopolis said. “In the night? And you survived? You’re quite fortunate, I should say. Remarkable. What else happened?” She said nothing. “I have come for payment of debt,” Theopolis said. “You have no bounty to turn in then, hmmm? Perhaps we will need my document after all. So kind of me to bring another copy. This really will be wonderful for us both. Do you not agree?” “Your feet are glowing.” Theopolis hesitated, then looked down. There, the mud he’d tracked in shone very faintly blue in the light of the glowpaste remnants. “You followed me,” she said. “You were
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there last night.” He looked up at her with a slow, unconcerned expression. “And?” He took a step forward. Silence backed away, her heel hitting the wall behind her. She reached around, taking out the key and unlocking the door behind her. Theopolis grabbed her arm, yanking her away as she pulled open the door. “Going for one of your hidden weapons?” he asked with a sneer. “The crossbow you keep on the pantry shelf? Yes, I know of that. I’m disappointed, Silence. Can’t we be civil?” “I will never sign your document, Theopolis,” she said, then spat at his feet. “I would sooner die, I would sooner be put out of house and home. You can take the waystop by force, but I will not serve you. You can be damned, for all I care, you bastard. You—” He slapped her across the face. A quick but unemotional gesture. “Oh, do shut up.” She stumbled back. “Such dramatics, Silence. I can’t be the only one to wish you lived up to your name, hmmm?” She licked her lip, feeling the pain of his slap. She lifted her hand to her face. A single drop of blood colored her fingertip when she pulled it away. “You expect me to be frightened?” Theopolis asked. “I know we’re safe in here.” “Fort city fool,” she whispered, then flipped the drop of blood at him. It hit him on the cheek. “Always follow the Simple Rules. Even when you think you don’t have to. And I wasn’t opening the pantry, as you thought.” Theopolis frowned, then glanced over at the door she had opened. The door into the small old shrine. Her grandmother’s shrine to the God Beyond. The bottom of the door was rimmed in silver. Red eyes opened in the air behind Theopolis, a jet-black form coalescing in the shadowed room. Theopolis hesitated, then turned. He didn’t get to scream as the shade took his head in its hands and drew his life away. It was a newer shade, its form still strong despite the writhing blackness of its clothing. A tall woman, hard of features, with curling hair. Theopolis opened his mouth, then his face withered away, eyes sinking into his head. “You should have run, Theopolis,” Silence said. His head began to crumble. His body collapsed to the floor. “Hide from the green eyes, run from the red,” Silence said, retrieving the silver-tipped crossbow bolt from where it lay by the back door. “Your rules, Grandmother.” The shade turned to her. Silence shivered, looking into those dead, glassy eyes of a matriarch she loathed and loved. “I hate you,” Silence said. “Thank you for making me hate you.” She held the crossbow bolt before her, but the shade did not strike. Silence edged around, forcing the shade back. It floated away from her, back into the shrine lined with silver at the bottom of its three walls, where Silence had trapped it years ago. Her heart pounding, Silence closed the door, completing the barrier, and locked it again. No matter what
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happened, that shade left Silence alone. Almost, she thought it remembered. And almost, Silence felt guilty for trapping that soul inside the small closet for all these years. * * * Silence found Theopolis’s hidden cave after six hours of hunting. It was about where she’d expected it to be, in the hills not far from the Old Bridge. It included a silver barrier. She could harvest that. Good money there. Inside the small cavern, she found Chesterton’s corpse, which Theopolis had dragged to the cave while the shades killed Red and then hunted Silence. I’m so glad, for once, you were a greedy man, Theopolis. She would have to find someone else to start turning in bounties for her. That would be difficult, particularly on short notice. She dragged the corpse out and threw it over the back of Theopolis’s horse. A short hike took her back to the road, where she paused, then walked up and located Red’s fallen corpse, withered down to just bones and clothing. She fished out her grandmother’s dagger, scored and blackened from the fight. It fit back into the sheath at her side. She trudged, exhausted, back to the waystop and hid Chesterton’s corpse in the cold cellar out behind the stable, beside where she’d put Theopolis’s remains. She hiked back into the kitchen. Beside the shrine’s door where her grandmother’s dagger had once hung, she had placed the silver crossbow bolt that Sebruki had unknowingly sent her. What would the fort authorities say when she explained Theopolis’s death to them? Perhaps she could claim to have found him like that.… She paused, then smiled. * * * “Looks like you’re lucky, friend,” Daggon said, sipping at his beer. “The White Fox won’t be looking for you anytime soon.” The spindly man, who still insisted his name was Earnest, hunkered down a little farther in his seat. “How is it you’re still here?” Daggon asked. “I traveled all the way to Lastport. I hardly expected to find you here on my path back.” “I hired on at a homestead nearby,” said the slender-necked man. “Good work, mind you. Solid work.” “And you pay each night to stay here?” “I like it. It feels peaceful. The homesteads don’t have good silver protection. They just … let the shades move about. Even inside.” The man shuddered. Daggon shrugged, lifting his drink as Silence Montane limped by. Yes, she was a healthy-looking woman. He really should court her, one of these days. She scowled at his smile and dumped his plate in front of him. “I think I’m wearing her down,” Daggon said, mostly to himself, as she left. “You will have to work hard,” Earnest said. “Seven men have proposed to her during the last month.” “What!” “The reward!” the spindly man said. “The one for bringing in Chesterton. Lucky woman, Silence Montane, finding the White Fox’s lair like that.” Daggon dug into his meal. He didn’t much like how things had turned out. That dandy Theopolis had been the White Fox all along? Poor Silence. How
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had it been, stumbling upon his cave and finding him inside, all withered away? “They say that this Theopolis spent his last strength killing Chesterton,” Earnest said, “then dragging him into the hole. Theopolis withered before he could get to his silver powder. Very like the White Fox, always determined to get the bounty, no matter what. We won’t soon see a hunter like him again.” “I suppose not,” Daggon said, though he’d much rather that the man had kept his skin. Now who would Daggon tell his tales about? He didn’t fancy paying for his own beer. Nearby, a greasy-looking fellow rose from his meal and shuffled out of the front door, looking half drunk already, though it was only noon. Some people. Daggon shook his head. “To the White Fox,” he said, raising his drink. Earnest clinked his mug to Daggon’s. “The White Fox, meanest bastard the Forests have ever known.” “May his soul know peace,” Daggon said, “and may the God Beyond be thanked that he never decided we were worth his time.” “Amen,” Earnest said. “Of course,” Daggon said, “there is still Bloody Kent. Now he’s a right nasty fellow. You’d better hope he doesn’t get your number, friend. And don’t you give me that innocent look. These are the Forests. Everybody here has done something, now and then, that you don’t want others to know about.…” THEDROMINADSYSTEM SIXTHOF THEDUSK DEATH hunted beneath the waves. Dusk saw it approach, an enormous blackness within the deep blue, a shadowed form as wide as six narrowboats tied together. Dusk’s hands tensed on his paddle, his heartbeat racing as he immediately sought out Kokerlii. Fortunately, the colorful bird sat in his customary place on the prow of the boat, idly biting at one clawed foot raised to his beak. Kokerlii lowered his foot and puffed out his feathers, as if completely unmindful of the danger beneath. Dusk held his breath. He always did, when unfortunate enough to run across one of these things in the open ocean. He did not know what they looked like beneath those waves. He hoped to never find out. The shadow drew closer, almost to the boat now. A school of slimfish passing nearby jumped into the air in a silvery wave, spooked by the shadow’s approach. The terrified fish showered back to the water with a sound like rain. The shadow did not deviate. The slimfish were too small a meal to interest it. A boat’s occupants, however … It passed directly underneath. Sak chirped quietly from Dusk’s shoulder; the second bird seemed to have some sense of the danger. Creatures like the shadow did not hunt by smell or sight, but by sensing the minds of prey. Dusk glanced at Kokerlii again, his only protection against a danger that could swallow his ship whole. He had never clipped Kokerlii’s wings, but at times like this he understood why many sailors preferred Aviar that could not fly away. The boat rocked softly; the jumping slimfish stilled. Waves lapped against the sides of the vessel. Had
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the shadow stopped? Hesitated? Did it sense them? Kokerlii’s protective aura had always been enough before, but … The shadow slowly vanished. It had turned to swim downward, Dusk realized. In moments, he could make out nothing through the waters. He hesitated, then forced himself to get out his new mask. It was a modern device he had acquired only two supply trips back: a glass faceplate with leather at the sides. He placed it on the water’s surface and leaned down, looking into the depths. They became as clear to him as an undisturbed lagoon. Nothing. Just that endless deep. Fool man, he thought, tucking away the mask and getting out his paddle. Didn’t you just think to yourself that you never wanted to see one of those? Still, as he started paddling again, he knew that he’d spend the rest of this trip feeling as if the shadow were down there, following him. That was the nature of the waters. You never knew what lurked below. He continued on his journey, paddling his outrigger canoe and reading the lapping of the waves to judge his position. Those waves were as good as a compass for him—once, they would have been good enough for any of the Eelakin, his people. These days, just the trappers learned the old arts. Admittedly, though, even he carried one of the newest compasses, wrapped up in his pack with a set of the new sea charts—maps given as gifts by the Ones Above during their visit earlier in the year. They were said to be more accurate than even the latest surveys, so he’d purchased a set just in case. You could not stop times from changing, his mother said, no more than you could stop the surf from rolling. It was not long, after the accounting of tides, before he caught sight of the first island. Sori was a small island in the Pantheon, and the most commonly visited. Her name meant “child”; Dusk vividly remembered training on her shores with his uncle. It had been long since he’d burned an offering to Sori, despite how well she had treated him during his youth. Perhaps a small offering would not be out of line. Patji would not grow jealous. One could not be jealous of Sori, the least of the islands. Just as every trapper was welcome on Sori, every other island in the Pantheon was said to be affectionate of her. Be that as it may, Sori did not contain much valuable game. Dusk continued rowing, moving down one leg of the archipelago his people knew as the Pantheon. From a distance, this archipelago was not so different from the homeisles of the Eelakin, now a three-week trip behind him. From a distance. Up close, they were very, very different. Over the next five hours, Dusk rowed past Sori, then her three cousins. He had never set foot on any of those three. In fact, he had not landed on many of the forty-some islands in the Pantheon. At the end of his
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apprenticeship, a trapper chose one island and worked there all his life. He had chosen Patji—an event some ten years past now. Seemed like far less. Dusk saw no other shadows beneath the waves, but he kept watch. Not that he could do much to protect himself. Kokerlii did all of that work as he roosted happily at the prow of the ship, eyes half closed. Dusk had fed him seed; Kokerlii did like it so much more than dried fruit. Nobody knew why beasts like the shadows only lived here, in the waters near the Pantheon. Why not travel across the seas to the Eelakin Islands or the mainland, where food would be plentiful and Aviar like Kokerlii were far more rare? Once, these questions had not been asked. The seas were what they were. Now, however, men poked and prodded into everything. They asked, “Why?” They said, “We should explain it.” Dusk shook his head, dipping his paddle into the water. That sound—wood on water—had been his companion for most of his days. He understood it far better than he did the speech of men. Even if sometimes their questions got inside of him and refused to go free. After the cousins, most trappers would have turned north or south, moving along branches of the archipelago until reaching their chosen island. Dusk continued forward, into the heart of the islands, until a shape loomed before him. Patji, largest island of the Pantheon. It towered like a wedge rising from the sea. A place of inhospitable peaks, sharp cliffs, and deep jungle. Hello, old destroyer, he thought. Hello, Father. Dusk raised his paddle and placed it in the boat. He sat for a time, chewing on fish from last night’s catch, feeding scraps to Sak. The black-plumed bird ate them with an air of solemnity. Kokerlii continued to sit on the prow, chirping occasionally. He would be eager to land. Sak seemed never to grow eager about anything. Approaching Patji was not a simple task, even for one who trapped his shores. The boat continued its dance with the waves as Dusk considered which landing to make. Eventually, he put the fish away, then dipped his paddle back into the waters. Those waters remained deep and blue, despite the proximity to the island. Some members of the Pantheon had sheltered bays and gradual beaches. Patji had no patience for such foolishness. His beaches were rocky and had steep drop-offs. You were never safe on his shores. In fact, the beaches were the most dangerous part—upon them, not only could the horrors of the land get to you, but you were still within reach of the deep’s monsters. Dusk’s uncle had cautioned him about this time and time again. Only a fool slept on Patji’s shores. The tide was with him, and he avoided being caught in any of the swells that would crush him against those stern rock faces. Dusk approached a partially sheltered expanse of stone crags and outcroppings, Patji’s version of a beach. Kokerlii fluttered off, chirping and calling
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as he flew toward the trees. Dusk immediately glanced at the waters. No shadows. Still, he felt naked as he hopped out of the canoe and pulled it up onto the rocks, warm water washing against his legs. Sak remained in her place on Dusk’s shoulder. Nearby in the surf, Dusk saw a corpse bobbing in the water. Beginning your visions early, my friend? he thought, glancing at Sak. The Aviar usually waited until they’d fully landed before bestowing her blessing. The black-feathered bird just watched the waves. Dusk continued his work. The body he saw in the surf was his own. It told him to avoid that section of water. Perhaps there was a spiny anemone that would have pricked him, or perhaps a deceptive undercurrent lay in wait. Sak’s visions did not show such detail; they gave only warning. Dusk got the boat out of the water, then detached the floats, tying them more securely onto the main part of the canoe. Following that, he worked the vessel carefully up the shore, mindful not to scrape the hull on sharp rocks. He would need to hide the canoe in the jungle. If another trapper discovered it, Dusk would be stranded on the island for several extra weeks preparing his spare. That would— He stopped as his heel struck something soft as he backed up the shore. He glanced down, expecting a pile of seaweed. Instead he found a damp piece of cloth. A shirt? Dusk held it up, then noticed other, more subtle signs across the shore. Broken lengths of sanded wood. Bits of paper floating in an eddy. Those fools, he thought. He returned to moving his canoe. Rushing was never a good idea on a Pantheon island. He did step more quickly, however. As he reached the tree line, he caught sight of his corpse hanging from a tree nearby. Those were cutaway vines lurking in the fernlike treetop. Sak squawked softly on his shoulder as Dusk hefted a large stone from the beach, then tossed it at the tree. It thumped against the wood, and sure enough, the vines dropped like a net, full of stinging barbs. They would take a few hours to retract. Dusk pulled his canoe over and hid it in the underbrush near the tree. Hopefully, other trappers would be smart enough to stay away from the cutaway vines—and therefore wouldn’t stumble over his boat. Before placing the final camouflaging fronds, Dusk pulled out his pack. Though the centuries had changed a trapper’s duties very little, the modern world did offer its benefits. Instead of a simple wrap that left his legs and chest exposed, he put on thick trousers with pockets on the legs and a buttoning shirt to protect his skin against sharp branches and leaves. Instead of sandals, Dusk tied on sturdy boots. And instead of a tooth-lined club, he bore a machete of the finest steel. His pack contained luxuries like a steel-hooked rope, a lantern, and a firestarter that created sparks simply by pressing the two handles together.
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He looked very little like the trappers in the paintings back home. He didn’t mind. He’d rather stay alive. Dusk left the canoe, shouldering his pack, machete sheathed at his side. Sak moved to his other shoulder. Before leaving the beach, Dusk paused, looking at the image of his translucent corpse, still hanging from unseen vines by the tree. Could he really have ever been foolish enough to be caught by cutaway vines? Near as he could tell, Sak only showed him plausible deaths. He liked to think that most were fairly unlikely—a vision of what could have happened if he’d been careless, or if his uncle’s training hadn’t been so extensive. Once, Dusk had stayed away from any place where he saw his corpse. It wasn’t bravery that drove him to do the opposite now. He just … needed to confront the possibilities. He needed to be able to walk away from this beach knowing that he could still deal with cutaway vines. If he avoided danger, he would soon lose his skills. He could not rely on Sak too much. For Patji would try on every possible occasion to kill him. Dusk turned and trudged across the rocks along the coast. Doing so went against his instincts—he normally wanted to get inland as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he could not leave without investigating the origin of the debris he had seen earlier. He had a strong suspicion of where he would find their source. He gave a whistle, and Kokerlii trilled above, flapping out of a tree nearby and winging over the beach. The protection he offered would not be as strong as it would be if he were close, but the beasts that hunted minds on the island were not as large or as strong of psyche as the shadows of the ocean. Dusk and Sak would be invisible to them. About a half hour up the coast, Dusk found the remnants of a large camp. Broken boxes, fraying ropes lying half submerged in tidal pools, ripped canvas, shattered pieces of wood that might once have been walls. Kokerlii landed on a broken pole. There were no signs of his corpse nearby. That could mean that the area wasn’t immediately dangerous. It could also mean that whatever might kill him here would swallow the corpse whole. Dusk trod lightly on wet stones at the edge of the broken campsite. No. Larger than a campsite. Dusk ran his fingers over a broken chunk of wood, stenciled with the words Northern Interests Trading Company. A powerful mercantile force from his homeland. He had told them. He had told them. Do not come to Patji. Fools. And they had camped here on the beach itself! Was nobody in that company capable of listening? He stopped beside a group of gouges in the rocks, as wide as his upper arm, running some ten paces long. They led toward the ocean. Shadow, he thought. One of the deep beasts. His uncle had spoken of seeing one once. An enormous … something that had exploded
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up from the depths. It had killed a dozen krell that had been chewing on oceanside weeds before retreating into the waters with its feast. Dusk shivered, imagining this camp on the rocks, bustling with men unpacking boxes, preparing to build the fort they had described to him. But where was their ship? The great steam-powered vessel with an iron hull they claimed could rebuff the attacks of even the deepest of shadows? Did it now defend the ocean bottom, a home for slimfish and octopus? There were no survivors—nor even any corpses—that Dusk could see. The shadow must have consumed them. He pulled back to the slightly safer locale of the jungle’s edge, then scanned the foliage, looking for signs that people had passed this way. The attack was recent, within the last day or so. He absently gave Sak a seed from his pocket as he located a series of broken fronds leading into the jungle. So there were survivors. Maybe as many as a half dozen. They had each chosen to go in a different direction, in a hurry. Running from the attack. Running through the jungle was a good way to get dead. These company types thought themselves rugged and prepared. They were wrong. He’d spoken to a number of them, trying to persuade as many of their “trappers” as possible to abandon the voyage. It had done no good. He wanted to blame the visits of the Ones Above for causing this foolish striving for progress, but the truth was the companies had been talking of outposts on the Pantheon for years. Dusk sighed. Well, these survivors were likely dead now. He should leave them to their fates. Except … The thought of it, outsiders on Patji, it made him shiver with something that mixed disgust and anxiety. They were here. It was wrong. These islands were sacred, the trappers their priests. The plants rustled nearby. Dusk whipped his machete about, leveling it, reaching into his pocket for his sling. It was not a refugee who left the bushes, or even a predator. A group of small, mouselike creatures crawled out, sniffing the air. Sak squawked. She had never liked meekers. Food? the three meekers sent to Dusk. Food? It was the most rudimentary of thoughts, projected directly into his mind. Though he did not want the distraction, he did not pass up the opportunity to fish out some dried meat for the meekers. As they huddled around it, sending him gratitude, he saw their sharp teeth and the single pointed fang at the tips of their mouths. His uncle had told him that once, meekers had been dangerous to men. One bite was enough to kill. Over the centuries, the little creatures had grown accustomed to trappers. They had minds beyond those of dull animals. Almost he found them as intelligent as the Aviar. You remember? he sent them through thoughts. You remember your task? Others, they sent back gleefully. Bite others! Trappers ignored these little beasts; Dusk figured that maybe with some training, the meekers
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could provide an unexpected surprise for one of his rivals. He fished in his pocket, fingers brushing an old stiff piece of feather. Then, not wanting to pass up the opportunity, he got a few long, bright green and red feathers from his pack. They were mating plumes, which he’d taken from Kokerlii during the Aviar’s most recent molting. He moved into the jungle, meekers following with excitement. Once he neared their den, he stuck the mating plumes into some branches, as if they had fallen there naturally. A passing trapper might see the plumes and assume that Aviar had a nest nearby, fresh with eggs for the plunder. That would draw them. Bite others, Dusk instructed again. Bite others! they replied. He hesitated, thoughtful. Had they perhaps seen something from the company wreck? Point him in the right direction. Have you seen any others? Dusk sent them. Recently? In the jungle? Bite others! came the reply. They were intelligent … but not that intelligent. Dusk bade the animals farewell and turned toward the forest. After a moment’s deliberation, he found himself striking inland, crossing—then following—one of the refugee trails. He chose the one that looked as if it would pass uncomfortably close to one of his own safecamps, deep within the jungle. It was hotter here beneath the jungle’s canopy, despite the shade. Comfortably sweltering. Kokerlii joined him, winging up ahead to a branch where a few lesser Aviar sat chirping. Kokerlii towered over them, but sang at them with enthusiasm. An Aviar raised around humans never quite fit back in among their own kind. The same could be said of a man raised around Aviar. Dusk followed the trail left by the refugee, expecting to stumble over the man’s corpse at any moment. He did not, though his own dead body did occasionally appear along the path. He saw it lying half eaten in the mud or tucked away in a fallen log with only the foot showing. He could never grow too complacent, with Sak on his shoulder. It did not matter if Sak’s visions were truth or fiction; he needed the constant reminder of how Patji treated the unwary. He fell into the familiar, but not comfortable, lope of a Pantheon trapper. Alert, wary, careful not to brush leaves that could carry biting insects. Cutting with the machete only when necessary, lest he leave a trail another could follow. Listening, aware of his Aviar at all times, never outstripping Kokerlii or letting him drift too far ahead. The refugee did not fall to the common dangers of the island—he cut across game trails, rather than following them. The surest way to encounter predators was to fall in with their food. The refugee did not know how to mask his trail, but neither did he blunder into the nest of firesnap lizards, or brush the deathweed bark, or step into the patch of hungry mud. Was this another trapper, perhaps? A youthful one, not fully trained? That seemed something the company would try. Experienced trappers were beyond recruitment; none
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would be foolish enough to guide a group of clerks and merchants around the islands. But a youth, who had not yet chosen his island? A youth who, perhaps, resented being required to practice only on Sori until his mentor determined his apprenticeship complete? Dusk had felt that way ten years ago. So the company had hired itself a trapper at last. That would explain why they had grown so bold as to finally organize their expedition. But Patji himself? he thought, kneeling beside the bank of a small stream. It had no name, but it was familiar to him. Why would they come here? The answer was simple. They were merchants. The biggest, to them, would be the best. Why waste time on lesser islands? Why not come for the Father himself? Above, Kokerlii landed on a branch and began pecking at a fruit. The refugee had stopped by this river. Dusk had gained time on the youth. Judging by the depth the boy’s footprints had sunk in the mud, Dusk could imagine his weight and height. Sixteen? Maybe younger? Trappers apprenticed at ten, but Dusk could not imagine even the company trying to recruit one so ill trained. Two hours gone, Dusk thought, turning a broken stem and smelling the sap. The boy’s path continued on toward Dusk’s safecamp. How? Dusk had never spoken of it to anyone. Perhaps this youth was apprenticing under one of the other trappers who visited Patji. One of them could have found his safecamp and mentioned it. Dusk frowned, considering. In ten years on Patji, he had seen another trapper in person only a handful of times. On each occasion, they had both turned and gone a different direction without saying a word. It was the way of such things. They would try to kill one another, but they didn’t do it in person. Better to let Patji claim rivals than to directly stain one’s hands. At least, so his uncle had taught him. Sometimes, Dusk found himself frustrated by that. Patji would get them all eventually. Why help the Father out? Still, it was the way of things, so he went through the motions. Regardless, this refugee was making directly for Dusk’s safecamp. The youth might not know the proper way of things. Perhaps he had come seeking help, afraid to go to one of his master’s safecamps for fear of punishment. Or … No, best to avoid pondering it. Dusk already had a mind full of spurious conjectures. He would find what he would find. He had to focus on the jungle and its dangers. He started away from the stream, and as he did so, he saw his corpse appear suddenly before him. He hopped forward, then spun backward, hearing a faint hiss. The distinctive sound was made by air escaping from a small break in the ground, followed by a flood of tiny yellow insects, each as small as a pinhead. A new deathant pod? If he’d stood there a little longer, disturbing their hidden nest, they would have flooded
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up around his boot. One bite, and he’d be dead. He stared at that pool of scrambling insects longer than he should have. They pulled back into their nest, finding no prey. Sometimes a small bulge announced their location, but today he had seen nothing. Only Sak’s vision had saved him. Such was life on Patji. Even the most careful trapper could make a mistake—and even if they didn’t, death could still find them. Patji was a domineering, vengeful parent who sought the blood of all who landed on his shores. Sak chirped on his shoulder. Dusk rubbed her neck in thanks, though her chirp sounded apologetic. The warning had come almost too late. Without her, Patji would have claimed him this day. Dusk shoved down those itching questions he should not be thinking, and continued on his way. He finally approached his safecamp as evening settled upon the island. Two of his tripwires had been cut, disarming them. That was not surprising; those were meant to be obvious. Dusk crept past another deathant nest in the ground—this larger one had a permanent crack as an opening they could flood out of, but the rift had been stoppered with a smoldering twig. Beyond it, the nightwind fungi that Dusk had spent years cultivating here had been smothered in water to keep the spores from escaping. The next two tripwires—the ones not intended to be obvious—had also been cut. Nice work, kid, Dusk thought. He hadn’t just avoided the traps, but disarmed them, in case he needed to flee quickly back this direction. However, someone really needed to teach the boy how to move without being trackable. Of course, those tracks could be a trap unto themselves—an attempt to make Dusk himself careless. And so, he was extra careful as he edged forward. Yes, here the youth had left more footprints, broken stems, and other signs.… Something moved up above in the canopy. Dusk hesitated, squinting. A woman hung from the tree branches above, trapped in a net made of jellywire vines—they left someone numb, unable to move. So, one of his traps had finally worked. “Um, hello?” she said. A woman, Dusk thought, suddenly feeling stupid. The smaller footprint, lighter step … “I want to make it perfectly clear,” the woman said. “I have no intention of stealing your birds or infringing upon your territory.” Dusk stepped closer in the dimming light. He recognized this woman. She was one of the clerks who had been at his meetings with the company. “You cut my tripwires,” Dusk said. Words felt odd in his mouth, and they came out ragged, as if he’d swallowed handfuls of dust. The result of weeks without speaking. “Er, yes, I did. I assumed you could replace them.” She hesitated. “Sorry?” Dusk settled back. The woman rotated slowly in her net, and he noticed an Aviar clinging to the outside—like his own birds, it was about as tall as three fists atop one another, though this one had subdued white and green plumage. A streamer, which was a breed
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that did not live on Patji. He did not know much about them, other than that like Kokerlii, they protected the mind from predators. The setting sun cast shadows, the sky darkening. Soon, he would need to hunker down for the night, for darkness brought out the island’s most dangerous of predators. “I promise,” the woman said from within her bindings. What was her name? He believed it had been told to him, but he did not recall. Something untraditional. “I really don’t want to steal from you. You remember me, don’t you? We met back in the company halls?” He gave no reply. “Please,” she said. “I’d really rather not be hung by my ankles from a tree, slathered with blood to attract predators. If it’s all the same to you.” “You are not a trapper.” “Well, no,” she said. “You may have noticed my gender.” “There have been female trappers.” “One. One female trapper, Yaalani the Brave. I’ve heard her story a hundred times. You may find it curious to know that almost every society has its myth of the female role reversal. She goes to war dressed as a man, or leads her father’s armies into battle, or traps on an island. I’m convinced that such stories exist so that parents can tell their daughters, ‘You are not Yaalani.’” This woman spoke. A lot. People did that back on the Eelakin Islands. Her skin was dark, like his, and she had the sound of his people. The slight accent to her voice … he had heard it more and more when visiting the homeisles. It was the accent of one who was educated. “Can I get down?” she asked, voice bearing a faint tremor. “I cannot feel my hands. It is … unsettling.” “What is your name?” Dusk asked. “I have forgotten it.” This was too much speaking. It hurt his ears. This place was supposed to be soft. “Vathi.” That’s right. It was an improper name. Not a reference to her birth order and day of birth, but a name like the mainlanders used. That was not uncommon among his people now. He walked over and took the rope from the nearby tree, then lowered the net. The woman’s Aviar flapped down, screeching in annoyance, favoring one wing, obviously wounded. Vathi hit the ground, a bundle of dark curls and green linen skirts. She stumbled to her feet, but fell back down again. Her skin would be numb for some fifteen minutes from the touch of the vines. She sat there and wagged her hands, as if to shake out the numbness. “So … uh, no ankles and blood?” she asked, hopeful. “That is a story parents tell to children,” Dusk said. “It is not something we actually do.” “Oh.” “If you had been another trapper, I would have killed you directly, rather than leaving you to avenge yourself upon me.” He walked over to her Aviar, which opened its beak in a hissing posture, raising both wings as if to be bigger than it was. Sak chirped
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from his shoulder, but the bird didn’t seem to care. Yes, one wing was bloody. Vathi knew enough to care for the bird, however, which was pleasing. Some homeislers were completely ignorant of their Aviar’s needs, treating them like accessories rather than intelligent creatures. Vathi had pulled out the feathers near the wound, including a blood feather. She’d wrapped the wound with gauze. That wing didn’t look good, however. Might be a fracture involved. He’d want to wrap both wings, prevent the creature from flying. “Oh, Mirris,” Vathi said, finally finding her feet. “I tried to help her. We fell, you see, when the monster—” “Pick her up,” Dusk said, checking the sky. “Follow. Step where I step.” Vathi nodded, not complaining, though her numbness would not have passed yet. She collected a small pack from the vines and straightened her skirts. She wore a tight vest above them, and the pack had some kind of metal tube sticking out of it. A map case? She fetched her Aviar, who huddled happily on her shoulder. As Dusk led the way, she followed, and she did not attempt to attack him when his back was turned. Good. Darkness was coming upon them, but his safecamp was just ahead, and he knew by heart the steps to approach along this path. As they walked, Kokerlii fluttered down and landed on the woman’s other shoulder, then began chirping in an amiable way. Dusk stopped, turning. The woman’s own Aviar moved down her dress away from Kokerlii to cling near her bodice. The bird hissed softly, but Kokerlii—oblivious, as usual—continued to chirp happily. It was fortunate his breed was so mind-invisible, even deathants would consider him no more edible than a piece of bark. “Is this…” Vathi said, looking to Dusk. “Yours? But of course. The one on your shoulder is not Aviar.” Sak settled back, puffing up her feathers. No, her species was not Aviar. Dusk continued to lead the way. “I have never seen a trapper carry a bird who was not from the islands,” Vathi said from behind. It was not a question. Dusk, therefore, felt no need to reply. This safecamp—he had three total on the island—lay atop a short hill following a twisting trail. Here, a stout gurratree held aloft a single-room structure. Trees were one of the safer places to sleep on Patji. The treetops were the domain of the Aviar, and most of the large predators walked. Dusk lit his lantern, then held it aloft, letting the orange light bathe his home. “Up,” he said to the woman. She glanced over her shoulder into the darkening jungle. By the lanternlight, he saw that the whites of her eyes were red from lack of sleep, despite the unconcerned smile she gave him before climbing up the stakes he’d planted in the tree. Her numbness should have worn off by now. “How did you know?” he asked. Vathi hesitated, near to the trapdoor leading into his home. “Know what?” “Where my safecamp was. Who told you?” “I followed the sound of
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water,” she said, nodding toward the small spring that bubbled out of the mountainside here. “When I found traps, I knew I was coming the right way.” Dusk frowned. One could not hear this water, as the stream vanished only a few hundred yards away, resurfacing in an unexpected location. Following it here … that would be virtually impossible. So was she lying, or was she just lucky? “You wanted to find me,” he said. “I wanted to find someone,” she said, pushing open the trapdoor, voice growing muffled as she climbed up into the building. “I figured that a trapper would be my only chance for survival.” Above, she stepped up to one of the netted windows, Kokerlii still on her shoulder. “This is nice. Very roomy for a shack on a mountainside in the middle of a deadly jungle on an isolated island surrounded by monsters.” Dusk climbed up, holding the lantern in his teeth. The room at the top was perhaps four paces square, tall enough to stand in, but only barely. “Shake out those blankets,” he said, nodding toward the stack and setting down the lantern. “Then lift every cup and bowl on the shelf and check inside of them.” Her eyes widened. “What am I looking for?” “Deathants, scorpions, spiders, bloodscratches…” He shrugged, putting Sak on her perch by the window. “The room is built to be tight, but this is Patji. The Father likes surprises.” As she hesitantly set aside her pack and got to work, Dusk continued up another ladder to check the roof. There, a group of bird-size boxes, with nests inside and holes to allow the birds to come and go freely, lay arranged in a double row. The animals would not stray far, except on special occasions, now that they had been raised with him handling them. Kokerlii landed on top of one of the homes, trilling—but softly, now that night had fallen. More coos and chirps came from the other boxes. Dusk climbed out to check each bird for hurt wings or feet. These Aviar pairs were his life’s work; the chicks each one hatched became his primary stock-in-trade. Yes, he would trap on the island, trying to find nests and wild chicks—but that was never as efficient as raising nests. “Your name was Sixth, wasn’t it?” Vathi said from below, voice accompanied by the sound of a blanket being shaken. “It is.” “Large family,” Vathi noted. An ordinary family. Or, so it had once been. His father had been a twelfth and his mother an eleventh. “Sixth of what?” Vathi prompted below. “Of the Dusk.” “So you were born in the evening,” Vathi said. “I’ve always found the traditional names so … uh … descriptive.” What a meaningless comment, Dusk thought. Why do homeislers feel the need to speak when there is nothing to say? He moved on to the next nest, checking the two drowsy birds inside, then inspecting their droppings. They responded to his presence with happiness. An Aviar raised around humans—particularly one that had lent its talent
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to a person at an early age—would always see people as part of their flock. These birds were not his companions, like Sak and Kokerlii, but they were still special to him. “No insects in the blankets,” Vathi said, sticking her head up out of the trapdoor behind him, her own Aviar on her shoulder. “The cups?” “I’ll get to those in a moment. So these are your breeding pairs, are they?” Obviously they were, so he didn’t need to reply. She watched him check them. He felt her eyes on him. Finally, he spoke. “Why did your company ignore the advice we gave you? Coming here was a disaster.” “Yes.” He turned to her. “Yes,” she continued, “this whole expedition will likely be a disaster—a disaster that takes us a step closer to our goal.” He checked Sisisru next, working by the light of the now-rising moon. “Foolish.” Vathi folded her arms before her on the roof of the building, torso still disappearing into the lit square of the trapdoor below. “Do you think that our ancestors learned to wayfind on the oceans without experiencing a few disasters along the way? Or what of the first trappers? You have knowledge passed down for generations, knowledge learned through trial and error. If the first trappers had considered it too ‘foolish’ to explore, where would you be?” “They were single men, well-trained, not a ship full of clerks and dockworkers.” “The world is changing, Sixth of the Dusk,” she said softly. “The people of the mainland grow hungry for Aviar companions; things once restricted to the very wealthy are within the reach of ordinary people. We’ve learned so much, yet the Aviar are still an enigma. Why don’t chicks raised on the homeisles bestow talents? Why—” “Foolish arguments,” Dusk said, putting Sisisru back into her nest. “I do not wish to hear them again.” “And the Ones Above?” she asked. “What of their technology, the wonders they produce?” He hesitated, then he took out a pair of thick gloves and gestured toward her Aviar. Vathi looked at the white and green Aviar, then made a comforting clicking sound and took her in two hands. The bird suffered it with a few annoyed half bites at Vathi’s fingers. Dusk carefully took the bird in his gloved hands—for him, those bites would not be as timid—and undid Vathi’s bandage. Then he cleaned the wound—much to the bird’s protests—and carefully placed a new bandage. From there, he wrapped the bird’s wings around its body with another bandage, not too tight, lest the creature be unable to breathe. She didn’t like it, obviously. But flying would hurt that wing more, with the fracture. She’d eventually be able to bite off the bandage, but for now, she’d get a chance to heal. Once done, he placed her with his other Aviar, who made quiet, friendly chirps, calming the flustered bird. Vathi seemed content to let her bird remain there for the time, though she watched the entire process with interest. “You may sleep in my safecamp tonight,” Dusk
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said, turning back to her. “And then what?” she asked. “You turn me out into the jungle to die?” “You did well on your way here,” he said, grudgingly. She was not a trapper. A scholar should not have been able to do what she did. “You will probably survive.” “I got lucky. I’d never make it across the entire island.” Dusk paused. “Across the island?” “To the main company camp.” “There are more of you?” “I … Of course. You didn’t think…” “What happened?” Now who is the fool? he thought to himself. You should have asked this first. Talking. He had never been good with it. She shied away from him, eyes widening. Did he look dangerous? Perhaps he had barked that last question forcefully. No matter. She spoke, so he got what he needed. “We set up camp on the far beach,” she said. “We have two ironhulls armed with cannons watching the waters. Those can take on even a deepwalker, if they have to. Two hundred soldiers, half that number in scientists and merchants. We’re determined to find out, once and for all, why the Aviar must be born on one of the Pantheon Islands to be able to bestow talents. “One team came down this direction to scout sites to place another fortress. The company is determined to hold Patji against other interests. I thought the smaller expedition a bad idea, but had my own reasons for wanting to circle the island. So I went along. And then, the deepwalker…” She looked sick. Dusk had almost stopped listening. Two hundred soldiers? Crawling across Patji like ants on a fallen piece of fruit. Unbearable! He thought of the quiet jungle broken by the sounds of their racketous voices. The sound of humans yelling at each other, clanging on metal, stomping about. Like a city. A flurry of dark feathers announced Sak coming up from below and landing on the lip of the trapdoor beside Vathi. The black-plumed bird limped across the roof toward Dusk, stretching her wings, showing off the scars on her left. Flying even a dozen feet was a chore for her. Dusk reached down to scratch her neck. It was happening. An invasion. He had to find a way to stop it. Somehow … “I’m sorry, Dusk,” Vathi said. “The trappers are fascinating to me; I’ve read of your ways, and I respect them. But this was going to happen someday; it’s inevitable. The islands will be tamed. The Aviar are too valuable to leave in the hands of a couple hundred eccentric woodsmen.” “The chiefs…” “All twenty chiefs in council agreed to this plan,” Vathi said. “I was there. If the Eelakin do not secure these islands and the Aviar, someone else will.” Dusk stared out into the night. “Go and make certain there are no insects in the cups below.” “But—” “Go,” he said, “and make certain there are no insects in the cups below!” The woman sighed softly, but retreated into the room, leaving him with his Aviar. He continued to scratch
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Sak on the neck, seeking comfort in the familiar motion and in her presence. Dared he hope that the shadows would prove too deadly for the company and its iron-hulled ships? Vathi seemed confident. She did not tell me why she joined the scouting group. She had seen a shadow, witnessed it destroying her team, but had still managed the presence of mind to find his camp. She was a strong woman. He would need to remember that. She was also a company type, as removed from his experience as a person could get. Soldiers, craftsmen, even chiefs he could understand. But these soft-spoken scribes who had quietly conquered the world with a sword of commerce, they baffled him. “Father,” he whispered. “What do I do?” Patji gave no reply beyond the normal sounds of night. Creatures moving, hunting, rustling. At night, the Aviar slept, and that gave opportunity to the most dangerous of the island’s predators. In the distance a nightmaw called, its horrid screech echoing through the trees. Sak spread her wings, leaning down, head darting back and forth. The sound always made her tremble. It did the same to Dusk. He sighed and rose, placing Sak on his shoulder. He turned, and almost stumbled as he saw his corpse at his feet. He came alert immediately. What was it? Vines in the tree branches? A spider, dropping quietly from above? There wasn’t supposed to be anything in his safecamp that could kill him. Sak screeched as if in pain. Nearby, his other Aviar cried out as well, a cacophony of squawks, screeches, chirps. No, it wasn’t just them! All around … echoing in the distance, from both near and far, wild Aviar squawked. They rustled in their branches, a sound like a powerful wind blowing through the trees. Dusk spun about, holding his hands to his ears, eyes wide as corpses appeared around him. They piled high, one atop another, some bloated, some bloody, some skeletal. Haunting him. Dozens upon dozens. He dropped to his knees, yelling. That put him eye-to-eye with one of his corpses. Only this one … this one was not quite dead. Blood dripped from its lips as it tried to speak, mouthing words that Dusk did not understand. It vanished. They all did, every last one. He spun about, wild, but saw no bodies. The sounds of the Aviar quieted, and his flock settled back into their nests. Dusk breathed in and out deeply, heart racing. He felt tense, as if at any moment a shadow would explode from the blackness around his camp and consume him. He anticipated it, felt it coming. He wanted to run, run somewhere. What had that been? In all of his years with Sak, he had never seen anything like it. What could have upset all of the Aviar at once? Was it the nightmaw he had heard? Don’t be foolish, he thought. This was different, different from anything you’ve seen. Different from anything that has been seen on Patji. But what? What had changed … Sak had
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not settled down like the others. She stared northward, toward where Vathi had said the main camp of invaders was setting up. Dusk stood, then clambered down into the room below, Sak on his shoulder. “What are your people doing?” Vathi spun at his harsh tone. She had been looking out of the window, northward. “I don’t—” He took her by the front of her vest, pulling her toward him in a two-fisted grip, meeting her eyes from only a few inches away. “What are your people doing?” Her eyes widened, and he could feel her tremble in his grip, though she set her jaw and held his gaze. Scribes were not supposed to have grit like this. He had seen them scribbling away in their windowless rooms. Dusk tightened his grip on her vest, pulling the fabric so it dug into her skin, and found himself growling softly. “Release me,” she said, “and we will speak.” “Bah,” he said, letting go. She dropped a few inches, hitting the floor with a thump. He hadn’t realized he’d lifted her off the ground. She backed away, putting as much space between them as the room would allow. He stalked to the window, looking through the mesh screen at the night. His corpse dropped from the roof above, hitting the ground below. He jumped back, worried that it was happening again. It didn’t, not the same way as before. However, when he turned back into the room, his corpse lay in the corner, bloody lips parted, eyes staring sightlessly. The danger, whatever it was, had not passed. Vathi had sat down on the floor, holding her head, trembling. Had he frightened her that soundly? She did look tired, exhausted. She wrapped her arms around herself, and when she looked at him, there was a cast to her eyes that hadn’t been there before—as if she were regarding a wild animal let off its chain. That seemed fitting. “What do you know of the Ones Above?” she asked him. “They live in the stars,” Dusk said. “We at the company have been meeting with them. We don’t understand their ways. They look like us; at times they talk like us. But they have … rules, laws that they won’t explain. They refuse to sell us their marvels, but in like manner, they seem forbidden from taking things from us, even in trade. They promise it, someday when we are more advanced. It’s like they think we are children.” “Why should we care?” Dusk said. “If they leave us alone, we will be better for it.” “You haven’t seen the things they can do,” she said softly, getting a distant look in her eyes. “We have barely worked out how to create ships that can sail on their own, against the wind. But the Ones Above … they can sail the skies, sail the stars themselves. They know so much, and they won’t tell us any of it.” She shook her head, reaching into the pocket of her skirt. “They are after something, Dusk. What interest
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do we hold for them? From what I’ve heard them say, there are many other worlds like ours, with cultures that cannot sail the stars. We are not unique, yet the Ones Above come back here time and time again. They do want something. You can see it in their eyes.…” “What is that?” Dusk asked, nodding to the thing she took from her pocket. It rested in her palm like the shell of a clam, but had a mirrorlike face on the top. “It is a machine,” she said. “Like a clock, only it never needs to be wound, and it … shows things.” “What things?” “Well, it translates languages. Ours into that of the Ones Above. It also … shows the locations of Aviar.” “What?” “It’s like a map,” she said. “It points the way to Aviar.” “That’s how you found my camp,” Dusk said, stepping toward her. “Yes.” She rubbed her thumb across the machine’s surface. “We aren’t supposed to have this. It was the possession of an emissary sent to work with us. He choked while eating a few months back. They can die, it appears, even of mundane causes. That … changed how I view them. “His kind have asked after his machines, and we will have to return them soon. But this one tells us what they are after: the Aviar. The Ones Above are always fascinated with them. I think they want to find a way to trade for the birds, a way their laws will allow. They hint that we might not be safe, that not everyone Above follows their laws.” “But why did the Aviar react like they did, just now?” Dusk said, turning back to the window. “Why did…” Why did I see what I saw? What I’m still seeing, to an extent? His corpse was there, wherever he looked. Slumped by a tree outside, in the corner of the room, hanging out of the trapdoor in the roof. Sloppy. He should have closed that. Sak had pulled into his hair like she did when a predator was near. “There … is a second machine,” Vathi said. “Where?” he demanded. “On our ship.” The direction the Aviar had looked. “The second machine is much larger,” Vathi said. “This one in my hand has limited range. The larger one can create an enormous map, one of an entire island, then write out a paper with a copy of that map. That map will include a dot marking every Aviar.” “And?” “And we were going to engage the machine tonight,” she said. “It takes hours to prepare—like an oven, growing hot—before it’s ready. The schedule was to turn it on tonight just after sunset so we could use it in the morning.” “The others,” Dusk demanded, “they’d use it without you?” She grimaced. “Happily. Captain Eusto probably did a dance when I didn’t return from scouting. He’s been worried I would take control of this expedition. But the machine isn’t harmful; it merely locates Aviar.” “Did it do that before?” he demanded, waving toward
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the night. “When you last used it, did it draw the attention of all the Aviar? Discomfort them?” “Well, no,” she said. “But the moment of discomfort has passed, hasn’t it? I’m sure it’s nothing.” Nothing. Sak quivered on his shoulder. Dusk saw death all around him. The moment they had engaged that machine, the corpses had piled up. If they used it again, the results would be horrible. Dusk knew it. He could feel it. “We’re going to stop them,” he said. “What?” Vathi asked. “Tonight?” “Yes,” Dusk said, walking to a small hidden cabinet in the wall. He pulled it open and began to pick through the supplies inside. A second lantern. Extra oil. “That’s insane,” Vathi said. “Nobody travels the islands at night.” “I’ve done it once before. With my uncle.” His uncle had died on that trip. “You can’t be serious, Dusk. The nightmaws are out. I’ve heard them.” “Nightmaws track minds,” Dusk said, stuffing supplies into his pack. “They are almost completely deaf, and close to blind. If we move quickly and cut across the center of the island, we can be to your camp by morning. We can stop them from using the machine again.” “But why would we want to?” He shouldered the pack. “Because if we don’t, it will destroy the island.” She frowned at him, cocking her head. “You can’t know that. Why do you think you know that?” “Your Aviar will have to remain here, with that wound,” he said, ignoring the question. “She would not be able to fly away if something happened to us.” The same argument could be made for Sak, but he would not be without the bird. “I will return her to you after we have stopped the machine. Come.” He walked to the floor hatch and pulled it open. Vathi rose, but pressed back against the wall. “I’m staying here.” “The people of your company won’t believe me,” he said. “You will have to tell them to stop. You are coming.” Vathi licked her lips in what seemed to be a nervous habit. She glanced to the sides, looking for escape, then back at him. Right then, Dusk noticed his corpse hanging from the pegs in the tree beneath him. He jumped. “What was that?” she demanded. “Nothing.” “You keep glancing to the sides,” Vathi said. “What do you think you see, Dusk?” “We’re going. Now.” “You’ve been alone on the island for a long time,” she said, obviously trying to make her voice soothing. “You’re upset about our arrival. You aren’t thinking clearly. I understand.” Dusk drew in a deep breath. “Sak, show her.” The bird launched from his shoulder, flapping across the room, landing on Vathi. She turned to the bird, frowning. Then she gasped, falling to her knees. Vathi huddled back against the wall, eyes darting from side to side, mouth working but no words coming out. Dusk left her to it for a short time, then raised his arm. Sak returned to him on black wings, dropping a single dark feather to
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the floor. She settled in again on his shoulder. That much flying was difficult for her. “What was that?” Vathi demanded. “Come,” Dusk said, taking his pack and climbing down out of the room. Vathi scrambled to the open hatch. “No. Tell me. What was that?” “You saw your corpse.” “All about me. Everywhere I looked.” “Sak grants that talent.” “There is no such talent.” Dusk looked up at her, halfway down the pegs. “You have seen your death. That is what will happen if your friends use their machine. Death. All of us. The Aviar, everyone living here. I do not know why, but I know that it will come.” “You’ve discovered a new Aviar,” Vathi said. “How … When…?” “Hand me the lantern,” Dusk said. Looking numb, she obeyed, handing it down. He put it into his teeth and descended the pegs to the ground. Then he raised the lantern high, looking down the slope. The inky jungle at night. Like the depths of the ocean. He shivered, then whistled. Kokerlii fluttered down from above, landing on his other shoulder. He would hide their minds, and with that, they had a chance. It would still not be easy. The things of the jungle relied upon mind sense, but many could still hunt by scent or other senses. Vathi scrambled down the pegs behind him, her pack over her shoulder, the strange tube peeking out. “You have two Aviar,” she said. “You use them both at once?” “My uncle had three.” “How is that even possible?” “They like trappers.” So many questions. Could she not think about what the answers might be before asking? “We’re actually going to do this,” she said, whispering, as if to herself. “The jungle at night. I should stay. I should refuse…” “You’ve seen your death if you do.” “I’ve seen what you claim is my death. A new Aviar … It has been centuries.” Though her voice still sounded reluctant, she walked after him as he strode down the slope and passed his traps, entering the jungle again. His corpse sat at the base of a tree. That made him immediately look for what could kill him here, but Sak’s senses seemed to be off. The island’s impending death was so overpowering, it seemed to be smothering smaller dangers. He might not be able to rely upon her visions until the machine was destroyed. The thick jungle canopy swallowed them, hot, even at night; the ocean breezes didn’t reach this far inland. That left the air feeling stagnant, and it dripped with the scents of the jungle. Fungus, rotting leaves, the perfumes of flowers. The accompaniment to those scents was the sounds of an island coming alive. A constant crinkling in the underbrush, like the sound of maggots writhing in a pile of dry leaves. The lantern’s light did not seem to extend as far as it should. Vathi pulled up close behind him. “Why did you do this before?” she whispered. “The other time you went out at night?” More questions. But sounds, fortunately,
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were not too dangerous. “I was wounded,” Dusk whispered. “We had to get from one safecamp to the other to recover my uncle’s store of antivenom.” Because Dusk, hands trembling, had dropped the other flask. “You survived it? Well, obviously you did, I mean. I’m surprised, is all.” She seemed to be talking to fill the air. “They could be watching us,” she said, looking into the darkness. “Nightmaws.” “They are not.” “How can you know?” she asked, voice hushed. “Anything could be out there, in that darkness.” “If the nightmaws had seen us, we’d be dead. That is how I know.” He shook his head, sliding out his machete and cutting away a few branches before them. Any could hold deathants skittering across their leaves. In the dark, it would be difficult to spot them, and so brushing against foliage seemed a poor decision. We won’t be able to avoid it, he thought, leading the way down through a gully thick with mud. He had to step on stones to keep from sinking in. Vathi followed with remarkable dexterity. We have to go quickly. I can’t cut down every branch in our way. He hopped off a stone and onto the bank of the gully, and there passed his corpse sinking into the mud. Nearby, he spotted a second corpse, so translucent it was nearly invisible. He raised his lantern, hoping it wasn’t happening again. Others did not appear. Just these two. And the very faint image … yes, that was a sinkhole there. Sak chirped softly, and he fished in his pocket for a seed to give her. She had figured out how to send him help. The fainter images were immediate dangers—he would have to watch for those. “Thank you,” he whispered to her. “That bird of yours,” Vathi said, speaking softly in the gloom of night, “are there others?” They climbed out of the gully, continuing on, crossing a krell trail in the night. He stopped them just before they wandered into a patch of deathants. Vathi looked at the trail of tiny yellow insects, moving in a straight line. “Dusk?” she asked as they rounded the ants. “Are there others? Why haven’t you brought any chicks to market?” “I do not have any chicks.” “So you found only the one?” she asked. Questions, questions. Buzzing around him like flies. Don’t be foolish, he told himself, shoving down his annoyance. You would ask the same, if you saw someone with a new Aviar. He had tried to keep Sak a secret; for years, he hadn’t even brought her with him when he left the island. But with her hurt wing, he hadn’t wanted to abandon her. Deep down, he’d known he couldn’t keep his secret forever. “There are many like her,” he said. “But only she has a talent to bestow.” Vathi stopped in place as he continued to cut them a path. He turned back, looking at her alone on the new trail. He had given her the lantern to hold. “That’s a mainlander bird,” she said.
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She held up the light. “I knew it was when I first saw it, and I assumed it wasn’t an Aviar, because mainlander birds can’t bestow talents.” Dusk turned back and continued cutting. “You brought a mainlander chick to the Pantheon,” Vathi whispered behind. “And it gained a talent.” With a hack he brought down a branch, then continued on. Again, she had not asked a question, so he needed not answer. Vathi hurried to keep up, the glow of the lantern tossing his shadow before him as she stepped up behind. “Surely someone else has tried it before. Surely…” He did not know. “But why would they?” she continued, quietly, as if to herself. “The Aviar are special. Everyone knows the separate breeds and what they do. Why assume that a fish would learn to breathe air, if raised on land? Why assume a non-Aviar would become one if raised on Patji.…” They continued through the night. Dusk led them around many dangers, though he found that he needed to rely greatly upon Sak’s help. Do not follow that stream, which has your corpse bobbing in its waters. Do not touch that tree; the bark is poisonous with rot. Turn from that path. Your corpse shows a deathant bite. Sak did not speak to him, but each message was clear. When he stopped to let Vathi drink from her canteen, he held Sak and found her trembling. She did not peck at him as was usual when he enclosed her in his hands. They stood in a small clearing, pure dark all around them, the sky shrouded in clouds. He heard distant rainfall on the trees. Not uncommon, here. Nightmaws screeched, one then another. They only did that when they had made a kill or when they were seeking to frighten prey. Often, krell herds slept near Aviar roosts. Frighten away the birds, and you could sense the krell. Vathi had taken out her tube. Not a scroll case—and not something scholarly at all, considering the way she held it as she poured something into its end. Once done, she raised it like one would a weapon. Beneath her feet, Dusk’s body lay mangled. He did not ask after Vathi’s weapon, not even as she took some kind of short, slender spear and fitted it into the top end. No weapon could penetrate the thick skin of a nightmaw. You either avoided them or you died. Kokerlii fluttered down to his shoulder, chirping away. He seemed confused by the darkness. Why were they out like this, at night, when birds normally made no noise? “We must keep moving,” Dusk said, placing Sak on his other shoulder and taking out his machete. “You realize that your bird changes everything,” Vathi said quietly, joining him, shouldering her pack and carrying her tube in the other hand. “There will be a new kind of Aviar,” Dusk whispered, stepping over his corpse. “That’s the least of it. Dusk, we assumed that chicks raised away from these islands did not develop their abilities because they were
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not around others to train them. We assumed that their abilities were innate, like our ability to speak—it’s inborn, but we require help from others to develop it.” “That can still be true,” Dusk said. “Other species, such as Sak, can merely be trained to speak.” “And your bird? Was it trained by others?” “Perhaps.” He did not say what he really thought. It was a thing of trappers. He noted a corpse on the ground before them. It was not his. He held up a hand immediately, stilling Vathi as she continued on to ask another question. What was this? The meat had been picked off much of the skeleton, and the clothing lay strewn about, ripped open by animals that feasted. Small, funguslike plants had sprouted around the ground near it, tiny red tendrils reaching up to enclose parts of the skeleton. He looked up at the great tree, at the foot of which rested the corpse. The flowers were not in bloom. Dusk released his breath. “What is it?” Vathi whispered. “Deathants?” “No. Patji’s Finger.” She frowned. “Is that … some kind of curse?” “It is a name,” Dusk said, stepping forward carefully to inspect the corpse. Machete. Boots. Rugged gear. One of his colleagues had fallen. He thought he recognized the man from the clothing. An older trapper named First of the Sky. “The name of a person?” Vathi asked, peeking over his shoulder. “The name of a tree,” Dusk said, poking at the corpse’s clothing, careful of insects that might be lurking inside. “Raise the lamp.” “I’ve never heard of that tree,” she said skeptically. “They are only on Patji.” “I have read a lot about the flora on these islands.…” “Here you are a child. Light.” She sighed, raising it for him. He used a stick to prod at pockets on the ripped clothing. This man had been killed by a pack of tuskrun, larger predators—almost as large as a man—that prowled mostly by day. Their movement patterns were predictable unless one happened across one of Patji’s Fingers in bloom. There. He found a small book in the man’s pocket. Dusk raised it, then backed away. Vathi peered over his shoulder. Homeislers stood so close to each other. Did she need to stand right by his elbow? He checked the first pages, finding a list of dates. Yes, judging by the last date written down, this man was only a few days dead. The pages after that detailed the locations of Sky’s safecamps, along with explanations of the traps guarding each one. The last page contained the farewell. I am First of the Sky, taken by Patji at last. I have a brother on Suluko. Care for them, rival. Few words. Few words were good. Dusk carried a book like this himself, and he had said even less on his last page. “He wants you to care for his family?” Vathi asked. “Don’t be stupid,” Dusk said, tucking the book away. “His birds.” “That’s sweet,” Vathi said. “I had always heard that trappers were incredibly territorial.”
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“We are,” he said, noting how she said it. Again, her tone made it seem as if she considered trappers to be like animals. “But our birds might die without care—they are accustomed to humans. Better to give them to a rival than to let them die.” “Even if that rival is the one who killed you?” Vathi asked. “The traps you set, the ways you try to interfere with one another…” “It is our way.” “That is an awful excuse,” she said, looking up at the tree. She was right. The tree was massive, with drooping fronds. At the end of each one was a large closed blossom, as long as two hands put together. “You don’t seem worried,” she noted, “though the plant seems to have killed that man.” “These are only dangerous when they bloom.” “Spores?” she asked. “No.” He picked up the fallen machete, but left the rest of Sky’s things alone. Let Patji claim him. Father did so like to murder his children. Dusk continued onward, leading Vathi, ignoring his corpse draped across a log. “Dusk?” Vathi asked, raising the lantern and hurrying to him. “If not spores, then how does the tree kill?” “So many questions.” “My life is about questions,” she replied. “And about answers. If my people are going to work on this island…” He hacked at some plants with the machete. “It is going to happen,” she said, more softly. “I’m sorry, Dusk. You can’t stop the world from changing. Perhaps my expedition will be defeated, but others will come.” “Because of the Ones Above,” he snapped. “They may spur it,” Vathi said. “Truly, when we finally convince them we are developed enough to be traded with, we will sail the stars as they do. But change will happen even without them. The world is progressing. One man cannot slow it, no matter how determined he is.” He stopped in the path. You cannot stop the tides from changing, Dusk. No matter how determined you are. His mother’s words. Some of the last he remembered from her. Dusk continued on his way. Vathi followed. He would need her, though a treacherous piece of him whispered that she would be easy to end. With her would go her questions, and more importantly her answers. The ones he suspected she was very close to discovering. You cannot change it.… He could not. He hated that it was so. He wanted so badly to protect this island, as his kind had done for centuries. He worked this jungle, he loved its birds, was fond of its scents and sounds—despite all else. How he wished he could prove to Patji that he and the others were worthy of these shores. Perhaps. Perhaps then … Bah. Well, killing this woman would not provide any real protection for the island. Besides, had he sunk so low that he would murder a helpless scribe in cold blood? He would not even do that to another trapper, unless they approached his camp and did not retreat. “The blossoms can think,” he
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found himself saying as he turned them away from a mound that showed the tuskrun pack had been rooting here. “The Fingers of Patji. The trees themselves are not dangerous, even when blooming—but they attract predators, imitating the thoughts of a wounded animal that is full of pain and worry.” Vathi gasped. “A plant,” she said, “that broadcasts a mental signature? Are you certain?” “Yes.” “I need one of those blossoms.” The light shook as she turned to go back. Dusk spun and caught her by the arm. “We must keep moving.” “But—” “You will have another chance.” He took a deep breath. “Your people will soon infest this island like maggots on carrion. You will see other trees. Tonight, we must go. Dawn approaches.” He let go of her and turned back to his work. He had judged her wise, for a homeisler. Perhaps she would listen. She did. She followed behind. Patji’s Fingers. First of the Sky, the dead trapper, should not have died in that place. Truly, the trees were not that dangerous. They lived by opening many blossoms and attracting predators to come feast. The predators would then fight one another, and the tree would feed off the corpses. Sky must have stumbled across a tree as it was beginning to flower, and got caught in what came. His Aviar had not been enough to shield so many open blossoms. Who would have expected a death like that? After years on the island, surviving much more terrible dangers, to be caught by those simple flowers. It almost seemed a mockery, on Patji’s part, of the poor man. Dusk and Vathi’s path continued, and soon grew steeper. They’d need to go uphill for a while before crossing to the downward slope that would lead to the other side of the island. Their trail, fortunately, would avoid Patji’s main peak—the point of the wedge that jutted up the easternmost side of the island. His camp had been near the south, and Vathi’s would be to the northeast, letting them skirt around the base of the wedge before arriving on the other beach. They fell into a rhythm, and she was quiet for a time. Eventually, atop a particularly steep incline, he nodded for a break and squatted down to drink from his canteen. On Patji one did not simply sit, without care, upon a stump or log to rest. Consumed by worry, and not a little frustration, he didn’t notice what Vathi was doing until it was too late. She’d found something tucked into a branch—a long colorful feather. A mating plume. Dusk leaped to his feet. Vathi reached up toward the lower branches of the tree. A set of spikes on ropes dropped from a nearby tree as Vathi pulled the branch. They swung down as Dusk reached her, one arm thrown in the way. A spike hit, the long, thin nail ripping into his skin and jutting out the other side, bloodied, and stopping a hair from Vathi’s cheek. She screamed. Many predators on Patji were hard of
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hearing, but still that wasn’t wise. Dusk didn’t care. He yanked the spike from his skin, unconcerned with the bleeding for now, and checked the other spikes on the drop-rope trap. No poison. Blessedly, they had not been poisoned. “Your arm!” Vathi said. He grunted. It didn’t hurt. Yet. She began fishing in her pack for a bandage, and he accepted her ministrations without complaint or groan, even as the pain came upon him. “I’m so sorry!” Vathi sputtered. “I found a mating plume! That meant an Aviar nest, so I thought to look in the tree. Have we stumbled across another trapper’s safecamp?” She was babbling out words as she worked. Seemed appropriate. When he grew nervous, he grew even more quiet. She would do the opposite. She was good with a bandage, again surprising him. The wound had not hit any major arteries. He would be fine, though using his left hand would not be easy. This would be an annoyance. When she was done, looking sheepish and guilty, he reached down and picked up the mating plume she had dropped. “This,” he said with a harsh whisper, holding it up before her, “is the symbol of your ignorance. On the Pantheon Islands, nothing is easy, nothing is simple. That plume was placed by another trapper to catch someone who does not deserve to be here, someone who thought to find an easy prize. You cannot be that person. Never move without asking yourself, is this too easy?” She paled. Then she took the feather in her fingers. “Come.” He turned and walked on their way. That was the speech for an apprentice, he realized. Upon their first major mistake. A ritual among trappers. What had possessed him to give it to her? She followed behind, head bowed, appropriately shamed. She didn’t realize the honor he had just paid her, if unconsciously. They walked onward, an hour or more passing. By the time she spoke, for some reason, he almost welcomed the words breaking upon the sounds of the jungle. “I’m sorry.” “You need not be sorry,” he said. “Only careful.” “I understand.” She took a deep breath, following behind him on the path. “And I am sorry. Not just about your arm. About this island. About what is coming. I think it inevitable, but I do wish that it did not mean the end of such a grand tradition.” “I…” Words. He hated trying to find words. “It … was not dusk when I was born,” he finally said, then hacked down a swampvine and held his breath against the noxious fumes that it released toward him. They were only dangerous for a few moments. “Excuse me?” Vathi asked, keeping her distance from the swampvine. “You were born…” “My mother did not name me for the time of day. I was named because my mother saw the dusk of our people. The sun will soon set on us, she often told me.” He looked back to Vathi, letting her pass him and enter a small clearing. Oddly, she smiled
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at him. Why had he found those words to speak? He followed into the clearing, concerned at himself. He had not given those words to his uncle; only his parents knew the source of his name. He was not certain why he’d told this scribe from an evil company. But … it did feel good to have said them. A nightmaw broke through between two trees behind Vathi. The enormous beast would have been as tall as a tree if it had stood upright. Instead it leaned forward in a prowling posture, powerful legs behind bearing most of its weight, its two clawed forelegs ripping up the ground. It reached forward its long neck, beak open, razor-sharp and deadly. It looked like a bird—in the same way that a wolf looked like a lapdog. He threw his machete. An instinctive reaction, for he did not have time for thought. He did not have time for fear. That snapping beak—as tall as a door—would have the two of them dead in moments. His machete glanced off the beak and actually cut the creature on the side of the head. That drew its attention, making it hesitate for just a moment. Dusk leaped for Vathi. She stepped back from him, setting the butt of her tube against the ground. He needed to pull her away, to— The explosion deafened him. Smoke bloomed around Vathi, who stood—wide-eyed—having dropped the lantern, oil spilling. The sudden sound stunned Dusk, and he almost collided with her as the nightmaw lurched and fell, skidding, the ground thumping from the impact. Dusk found himself on the ground. He scrambled to his feet, backing away from the twitching nightmaw mere inches from him. Lit by flickering lanternlight, it was all leathery skin that was bumpy like that of a bird who had lost her feathers. It was dead. Vathi had killed it. She said something. Vathi had killed a nightmaw. “Dusk!” Her voice seemed distant. He raised a hand to his forehead, which had belatedly begun to prickle with sweat. His wounded arm throbbed, but he was otherwise tense. He felt as if he should be running. He had never wanted to be so close to one of these. Never. She’d actually killed it. He turned toward her, his eyes wide. Vathi was trembling, but she covered it well. “So, that worked,” she said. “We weren’t certain it would, even though we’d prepared these specifically for the nightmaws.” “It’s like a cannon,” Dusk said. “Like from one of the ships, only in your hands.” “Yes.” He turned back toward the beast. Actually, it wasn’t dead, not completely. It twitched, and let out a plaintive screech that shocked him, even with his hearing muffled. The weapon had fired that spear right into the beast’s chest. The nightmaw quaked and thrashed a weak leg. “We could kill them all,” Dusk said. He turned, then rushed over to Vathi, taking her with his right hand, the arm that wasn’t wounded. “With those weapons, we could kill them all. Every nightmaw. Maybe the shadows too!”
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“Well, yes, it has been discussed. However, they are important parts of the ecosystem on these islands. Removing the apex predators could have undesirable results.” “Undesirable results?” Dusk ran his left hand through his hair. “They’d be gone. All of them! I don’t care what other problems you think it would cause. They would all be dead.” Vathi snorted, picking up the lantern and stamping out the fires it had started. “I thought trappers were connected to nature.” “We are. That’s how I know we would all be better off without any of these things.” “You are disabusing me of many romantic notions about your kind, Dusk,” she said, circling the dying beast. Dusk whistled, holding up his arm. Kokerlii fluttered down from high branches; in the chaos and explosion, Dusk had not seen the bird fly away. Sak still clung to his shoulder with a death grip, her claws digging into his skin through the cloth. He hadn’t noticed. Kokerlii landed on his arm and gave an apologetic chirp. “It wasn’t your fault,” Dusk said soothingly. “They prowl the night. Even when they cannot sense our minds, they can smell us.” Their sense of smell was said to be incredible. This one had come up the trail behind them; it must have crossed their path and followed it. Dangerous. His uncle always claimed the nightmaws were growing smarter, that they knew they could not hunt men only by their minds. I should have taken us across more streams, Dusk thought, reaching up and rubbing Sak’s neck to soothe her. There just isn’t time.… His corpse lay wherever he looked. Draped across a rock, hanging from the vines of trees, slumped beneath the dying nightmaw’s claw … The beast trembled once more, then amazingly it lifted its gruesome head and let out a last screech. Not as loud as those that normally sounded in the night, but bone-chilling and horrid. Dusk stepped back despite himself, and Sak chirped nervously. Other nightmaw screeches rose in the night, distant. That sound … he had been trained to recognize that sound as the sound of death. “We’re going,” he said, stalking across the ground and pulling Vathi away from the dying beast, which had lowered its head and fallen silent. “Dusk?” She did not resist as he pulled her away. One of the other nightmaws sounded again in the night. Was it closer? Oh, Patji, please, Dusk thought. No. Not this. He pulled her faster, reaching for his machete at his side, but it was not there. He had thrown it. He took out the one he had gathered from his fallen rival, then dragged her out of the clearing, back into the jungle, moving quickly. He could no longer worry about brushing against deathants. A greater danger was coming. The calls of death came again. “Are those getting closer?” Vathi asked. Dusk did not answer. It was a question, but he did not know the answer. At least his hearing was recovering. He released her hand, moving more quickly, almost at a trot—faster than
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he ever wanted to go through the jungle, day or night. “Dusk!” Vathi hissed. “Will they come? To the call of the dying one? Is that something they do?” “How should I know? I have never known one of them to be killed before.” He saw the tube, again carried over her shoulder, lit by the light of the lantern she carried. That gave him pause, though his instincts screamed at him to keep moving and he felt a fool. “Your weapon,” he said. “You can use it again?” “Yes,” she said. “Once more.” “Once more?” A half dozen screeches sounded in the night. “Yes,” she replied. “I only brought three spears and enough powder for three shots. I tried firing one at the shadow. It didn’t do much.” He spoke no further, ignoring his wounded arm—the bandage was in need of changing—and towing her through the jungle. The calls came again and again. Agitated. How did one escape nightmaws? His Aviar clung to him, a bird on each shoulder. He had to leap over his corpse as they traversed a gulch and came up the other side. How do you escape them? he thought, remembering his uncle’s training. You don’t draw their attention in the first place! They were fast. Kokerlii would hide his mind, but if they picked up his trail at the dead one … Water. He stopped in the night, turning right, then left. Where would he find a stream? Patji was an island. Fresh water came from rainfall, mostly. The largest lake … the only one … was up the wedge. Toward the peak. Along the eastern side, the island rose to some heights with cliffs on all sides. Rainfall collected there, in Patji’s Eye. The river was his tears. It was a dangerous place to go with Vathi in tow. Their path had skirted the slope up the heights, heading across the island toward the northern beach. They were close.… Those screeches behind spurred him on. Patji would just have to forgive him for what came next. Dusk seized Vathi’s hand and towed her in a more eastern direction. She did not complain, though she did keep looking over her shoulder. The screeches grew closer. He ran. He ran as he had never expected to do on Patji, wild and reckless. Leaping over troughs, around fallen logs coated in moss. Through the dark underbrush, scaring away meekers and startling Aviar slumbering in the branches above. It was foolish. It was crazy. But did it matter? Somehow, he knew those other things would not claim him. The kings of Patji hunted him; lesser dangers would not dare steal from their betters. Vathi followed with difficulty. Those skirts were trouble, but she caught up to him each time Dusk had to occasionally stop and cut their way through underbrush. Urgent, frantic. He expected her to keep up, and she did. A piece of him—buried deep beneath the terror—was impressed. This woman would have made a fantastic trapper. Instead she would probably destroy all trappers. He froze as screeches
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sounded behind, so close. Vathi gasped, and Dusk turned back to his work. Not far to go. He hacked through a dense patch of undergrowth and ran on, sweat streaming down the sides of his face. Jostling light came from Vathi’s lantern behind; the scene before him was one of horrific shadows dancing on the jungle’s boughs, leaves, ferns, and rocks. This is your fault, Patji, he thought with an unexpected fury. The screeches seemed almost on top of him. Was that breaking brush he could hear behind? We are your priests, and yet you hate us! You hate all. Dusk broke from the jungle and out onto the banks of the river. Small by mainland standards, but it would do. He led Vathi right into it, splashing into the cold waters. He turned upstream. What else could he do? Downstream would lead closer to those sounds, the calls of death. Of the Dusk, he thought. Of the Dusk. The waters came only to their calves, bitter cold. The coldest water on the island, though he did not know why. They slipped and scrambled as they ran, best they could, upriver. They passed through some narrows, with lichen-covered rock walls on either side twice as tall as a man, then burst out into the basin. A place men did not go. A place he had visited only once. A cool emerald lake rested here, sequestered. Dusk towed Vathi to the side, out of the river, toward some brush. Perhaps she would not see. He huddled down with her, raising a finger to his lips, then turned down the light of the lantern she still held. Nightmaws could not see well, but perhaps the dim light would help. In more ways than one. They waited there, on the shore of the small lake, hoping that the water had washed away their scent—hoping the nightmaws would grow confused or distracted. For one thing about this place was that the basin had steep walls, and there was no way out other than the river. If the nightmaws came up it, Dusk and Vathi would be trapped. Screeches sounded. The creatures had reached the river. Dusk waited in near darkness, and so squeezed his eyes shut. He prayed to Patji, whom he loved, whom he hated. Vathi gasped softly. “What…?” So she had seen. Of course she had. She was a seeker, a learner. A questioner. Why must men ask so many questions? “Dusk! There are Aviar here, in these branches! Hundreds of them.” She spoke in a hushed, frightened tone. Even as they awaited death itself, she saw and could not help speaking. “Have you seen them? What is this place?” She hesitated. “So many juveniles. Barely able to fly…” “They come here,” he whispered. “Every bird from every island. In their youth, they must come here.” He opened his eyes, looking up. He had turned down the lantern, but it was still bright enough to see them roosting there. Some stirred at the light and the sound. They stirred more as the nightmaws screeched
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below. Sak chirped on his shoulder, terrified. Kokerlii, for once, had nothing to say. “Every bird from every island…” Vathi said, putting it together. “They all come here, to this place. Are you certain?” “Yes.” It was a thing that trappers knew. You could not capture a bird before it had visited Patji. Otherwise it would be able to bestow no talent. “They come here,” she said. “We knew they migrated between islands.… Why do they come here?” Was there any point in holding back now? She would figure it out. Still, he did not speak. Let her do so. “They gain their talents here, don’t they?” she asked. “How? Is it where they are trained? Is this how you made a bird who was not an Aviar into one? You brought a hatchling here, and then…” She frowned, raising her lantern. “I recognize those trees. They are the ones you called Patji’s Fingers.” A dozen of them grew here, the largest concentration on the island. And beneath them, their fruit littered the ground. Much of it eaten, some of it only halfway so, bites taken out by birds of all stripes. Vathi saw him looking, and frowned. “The fruit?” she asked. “Worms,” he whispered in reply. A light seemed to go on in her eyes. “It’s not the birds. It never has been … it’s a parasite. They carry a parasite that bestows talents! That’s why those raised away from the islands cannot gain the abilities, and why a mainland bird you brought here could.” “Yes.” “This changes everything, Dusk. Everything.” “Yes.” Of the Dusk. Born during that dusk, or bringer of it? What had he done? Downriver, the nightmaw screeches drew closer. They had decided to search upriver. They were clever, more clever than men off the islands thought them to be. Vathi gasped, turning toward the small river canyon. “Isn’t this dangerous?” she whispered. “The trees are blooming. The nightmaws will come! But no. So many Aviar. They can hide those blossoms, like they do a man’s mind?” “No,” he said. “All minds in this place are invisible, always, regardless of Aviar.” “But … how? Why? The worms?” Dusk didn’t know, and for now didn’t care. I am trying to protect you, Patji! Dusk looked toward Patji’s Fingers. I need to stop the men and their device. I know it! Why? Why do you hunt me? Perhaps it was because he knew so much. Too much. More than any man had known. For he had asked questions. Men. And their questions. “They’re coming up the river, aren’t they?” she asked. The answer seemed obvious. He did not reply. “No,” she said, standing. “I won’t die with this knowledge, Dusk. I won’t. There must be a way.” “There is,” he said, standing beside her. He took a deep breath. So I finally pay for it. He took Sak carefully in his hand, and placed her on Vathi’s shoulder. He pried Kokerlii free too. “What are you doing?” Vathi asked. “I will go as far as I can,” Dusk said, handing
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Kokerlii toward her. The bird bit with annoyance at his hands, although never strong enough to draw blood. “You will need to hold him. He will try to follow me.” “No, wait. We can hide in the lake, they—” “They will find us!” Dusk said. “It isn’t deep enough by far to hide us.” “But you can’t—” “They are nearly here, woman!” he said, forcing Kokerlii into her hands. “The men of the company will not listen to me if I tell them to turn off the device. You are smart, you can make them stop. You can reach them. With Kokerlii you can reach them. Be ready to go.” She looked at him, stunned, but she seemed to realize that there was no other way. She stood, holding Kokerlii in two hands as he pulled out the journal of First of the Sky, then his own book that listed where his Aviar were, and tucked them into her pack. Finally, he stepped back into the river. He could hear a rushing sound downstream. He would have to go quickly to reach the end of the canyon before they arrived. If he could draw them out into the jungle even a short ways to the south, Vathi could slip away. As he entered the stream, his visions of death finally vanished. No more corpses bobbing in the water, lying on the banks. Sak had realized what was happening. She gave a final chirp. He started to run. One of Patji’s Fingers, growing right next to the mouth of the canyon, was blooming. “Wait!” He should not have stopped as Vathi yelled at him. He should have continued on, for time was so slim. However, the sight of that flower—along with her yell—made him hesitate. The flower … It struck him as it must have struck Vathi. An idea. Vathi ran for her pack, letting go of Kokerlii, who immediately flew to his shoulder and started chirping at him in annoyed chastisement. Dusk didn’t listen. He yanked the flower off—it was as large as a man’s head, with a large bulging part at the center. It was invisible in this basin, like they all were. “A flower that can think,” Vathi said, breathing quickly, fishing in her pack. “A flower that can draw the attention of predators.” Dusk pulled out his rope as she brought out her weapon and prepared it. He lashed the flower to the end of the spear sticking out slightly from the tube. Nightmaw screeches echoed up the cavern. He could see their shadows, hear them splashing. He stumbled back from Vathi as she crouched down, set the weapon’s butt against the ground, and pulled a lever at the base. The explosion, once again, nearly deafened him. Aviar all around the rim of the basin screeched and called in fright, taking wing. A storm of feathers and flapping ensued, and through the middle of it, Vathi’s spear shot into the air, flower on the end. It arced out over the canyon into the night. Dusk grabbed her by the
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shoulder and pulled her back along the river, into the lake itself. They slipped into the shallow water, Kokerlii on his shoulder, Sak on hers. They left the lantern burning, giving a quiet light to the suddenly empty basin. The lake was not deep. Two or three feet. Even crouching, it didn’t cover them completely. The nightmaws stopped in the canyon. His lanternlight showed a couple of them in the shadows, large as huts, turning and watching the sky. They were smart, but like the meekers, not as smart as men. Patji, Dusk thought. Patji, please … The nightmaws turned back down the canyon, following the mental signature broadcast by the flowering plant. And, as Dusk watched, his corpse bobbing in the water nearby grew increasingly translucent. Then faded away entirely. Dusk counted to a hundred, then slipped from the waters. Vathi, sodden in her skirts, did not speak as she grabbed the lantern. They left the weapon, its shots expended. The calls from the nightmaws grew farther and farther away as Dusk led the way out of the canyon, then directly north, slightly downslope. He kept expecting the screeches to turn and follow. They did not. * * * The company fortress was a horridly impressive sight. A work of logs and cannons right at the edge of the water, guarded by an enormous iron-hulled ship. Smoke rose from it, the burning of morning cookfires. A short distance away, what must have been a dead shadow rotted in the sun, its mountainous carcass draped half in the water, half out. He didn’t see his own corpse anywhere, though on the final leg of their trip to the fortress he had seen it several times. Always in a place of immediate danger. Sak’s visions had returned to normal. Dusk turned back to the fortress, which he did not enter. He preferred to remain on the rocky, familiar shore—perhaps twenty feet from the entrance—his wounded arm aching as the company people rushed out through the gate to meet Vathi. Their scouts on the upper walls kept careful watch on Dusk. A trapper was not to be trusted. Even standing here, some twenty feet from the wide wooden gates into the fort, he could smell how wrong the place was. It was stuffed with the scents of men—sweaty bodies, the smell of oil, and other, newer scents that he recognized from his recent trips to the homeisles. Scents that made him feel like an outsider among his own people. The company men wore sturdy clothing, trousers like Dusk’s but far better tailored, shirts and rugged jackets. Jackets? In Patji’s heat? These people bowed to Vathi, showing her more deference than Dusk would have expected. They drew hands from shoulder to shoulder as they started speaking—a symbol of respect. Foolishness. Anyone could make a gesture like that; it didn’t mean anything. True respect included far more than a hand waved in the air. But they did treat her like more than a simple scribe. She was better placed in the company than he’d assumed. Not
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his problem anymore, regardless. Vathi looked at him, then back at her people. “We must hurry to the machine,” she said to them. “The one from Above. We must turn it off.” Good. She would do her part. Dusk turned to walk away. Should he give words at parting? He’d never felt the need before. But today, it felt … wrong not to say something. He started walking. Words. He had never been good with words. “Turn it off?” one of the men said from behind. “What do you mean, Lady Vathi?” “You don’t need to feign innocence, Winds,” Vathi said. “I know you turned it on in my absence.” “But we didn’t.” Dusk paused. What? The man sounded sincere. But then, Dusk was no expert on human emotions. From what he’d seen of people from the homeisles, they could fake emotion as easily as they faked a gesture of respect. “What did you do, then?” Vathi asked them. “We … opened it.” Oh no … “Why would you do that?” Vathi asked. Dusk turned to regard them, but he didn’t need to hear the answer. The answer was before him, in the vision of a dead island he’d misinterpreted. “We figured,” the man said, “that we should see if we could puzzle out how the machine worked. Vathi, the insides … they’re complex beyond what we could have imagined. But there are seeds there. Things we could—” “No!” Dusk said, rushing toward them. One of the sentries above planted an arrow at his feet. He lurched to a stop, looking wildly from Vathi up toward the walls. Couldn’t they see? The bulge in mud that announced a deathant den. The game trail. The distinctive curl of a cutaway vine. Wasn’t it obvious? “It will destroy us,” Dusk said. “Don’t seek … Don’t you see…?” For a moment, they all just stared at him. He had a chance. Words. He needed words. “That machine is deathants!” he said. “A den, a … Bah!” How could he explain? He couldn’t. In his anxiety, words fled him, like Aviar fluttering away into the night. The others finally started moving, pulling Vathi toward the safety of their treasonous fortress. “You said the corpses are gone,” Vathi said as she was ushered through the gates. “We’ve succeeded. I will see that the machine is not engaged on this trip! I promise you this, Dusk!” “But,” he cried back, “it was never meant to be engaged!” The enormous wooden gates of the fortress creaked closed, and he lost sight of her. Dusk cursed. Why hadn’t he been able to explain? Because he didn’t know how to talk. For once in his life, that seemed to matter. Furious, frustrated, he stalked away from that place and its awful smells. Halfway to the tree line, however, he stopped, then turned. Sak fluttered down, landing on his shoulder and cooing softly. Questions. Those questions wanted into his brain. Instead he yelled at the guards. He demanded they return Vathi to him. He even pled. Nothing happened. They wouldn’t speak to
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him. Finally, he started to feel foolish. He turned back toward the trees, and continued on his way. His assumptions were probably wrong. After all, the corpses were gone. Everything could go back to normal. … Normal. Could anything ever be normal with that fortress looming behind him? He shook his head, entering the canopy. The dense humidity of Patji’s jungle should have calmed him. Instead it annoyed him. As he started the trek toward another of his safecamps, he was so distracted that he could have been a youth, his first time on Sori. He almost stumbled straight onto a gaping deathant den; he didn’t even notice the vision Sak sent. This time, dumb luck saved him as he stubbed his toe on something, looked down, and only then spotted both corpse and crack crawling with motes of yellow. He growled, then sneered. “Still you try to kill me?” he shouted, looking up at the canopy. “Patji!” Silence. “The ones who protect you are the ones you try hardest to kill,” Dusk shouted. “Why!” The words were lost in the jungle. It consumed them. “You deserve this, Patji,” he said. “What is coming to you. You deserve to be destroyed!” He breathed out in gasps, sweating, satisfied at having finally said those things. Perhaps there was a purpose for words. Part of him, as traitorous as Vathi and her company, was glad that Patji would fall to their machines. Of course, then the company itself would fall. To the Ones Above. His entire people. The world itself. He bowed his head in the shadows of the canopy, sweat dripping down the sides of his face. Then he fell to his knees, heedless of the nest just three strides away. Sak nuzzled into his hair. Above, in the branches, Kokerlii chirped uncertainly. “It’s a trap, you see,” he whispered. “The Ones Above have rules. They can’t trade with us until we’re advanced enough. Just like a man can’t, in good conscience, bargain with a child until they are grown. And so, they have left their machines for us to discover, to prod at and poke. The dead man was a ruse. Vathi was meant to have those machines. “There will be explanations, left as if carelessly, for us to dig into and learn. And at some point in the near future, we will build something like one of their machines. We will have grown more quickly than we should have. We will be childlike still, ignorant, but the laws from Above will let these visitors trade with us. And then, they will take this land for themselves.” That was what he should have said. Protecting Patji was impossible. Protecting the Aviar was impossible. Protecting their entire world was impossible. Why hadn’t he explained it? Perhaps because it wouldn’t have done any good. As Vathi had said … progress would come. If you wanted to call it that. Dusk had arrived. Sak left his shoulder, winging away. Dusk looked after her, then cursed. She did not land nearby. Though flying was difficult for
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her, she fluttered on, disappearing from his sight. “Sak?” he asked, rising and stumbling after the Aviar. He fought back the way he had come, following Sak’s squawks. A few moments later, he lurched out of the jungle. Vathi stood on the rocks before her fortress. Dusk hesitated at the brim of the jungle. Vathi was alone, and even the sentries had retreated. Had they cast her out? No. He could see that the gate was cracked, and some people watched from inside. Sak had landed on Vathi’s shoulder down below. Dusk frowned, reaching his hand to the side and letting Kokerlii land on his arm. Then he strode forward, calmly making his way down the rocky shore, until he was standing just before Vathi. She’d changed into a new dress, though there were still snarls in her hair. She smelled of flowers. And her eyes were terrified. He’d traveled the darkness with her. Had faced nightmaws. Had seen her near to death, and she had not looked this worried. “What?” he asked, finding his voice hoarse. “We found instructions in the machine,” Vathi whispered. “A manual on its workings, left there as if accidentally by someone who worked on it before. The manual is in their language, but the smaller machine I have…” “It translates.” “The manual details how the machine was constructed,” Vathi says. “It’s so complex I can barely comprehend it, but it seems to explain concepts and ideas, not just give the workings of the machine.” “And are you not happy?” he asked. “You will have your flying machines soon, Vathi. Sooner than anyone could have imagined.” Wordless, she held something up. A single feather—a mating plume. She had kept it. “Never move without asking yourself, is this too easy?” she whispered. “You said it was a trap as I was pulled away. When we found the manual, I … Oh, Dusk. They are planning to do to us what … what we are doing to Patji, aren’t they?” Dusk nodded. “We’ll lose it all. We can’t fight them. They’ll find an excuse, they’ll seize the Aviar. It makes perfect sense. The Aviar use the worms. We use the Aviar. The Ones Above use us. It’s inevitable, isn’t it?” Yes, he thought. He opened his mouth to say it, and Sak chirped. He frowned and turned back toward the island. Jutting from the ocean, arrogant. Destructive. Patji. Father. And finally, at long last, Dusk understood. “No,” he whispered. “But—” He undid his pants pocket, then reached deeply into it, digging around. Finally, he pulled something out. The remnants of a feather, just the shaft now. A mating plume that his uncle had given him, so many years ago, when he’d first fallen into a trap on Sori. He held it up, remembering the speech he’d been given. Like every trapper. This is the symbol of your ignorance. Nothing is easy, nothing is simple. Vathi held hers. Old and new. “No, they will not have us,” Dusk said. “We will see through their traps, and we will not fall
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for their tricks. For we have been trained by the Father himself for this very day.” She stared at his feather, then up at him. “Do you really think that?” she asked. “They are cunning.” “They may be cunning,” he said. “But they have not lived on Patji. We will gather the other trappers. We will not let ourselves be taken in.” She nodded hesitantly, and some of the fear seemed to leave her. She turned and waved for those behind her to open the gates to the building. Again, the scents of mankind washed over him. Vathi looked back, then held out her hand to him. “You will help, then?” His corpse appeared at her feet, and Sak chirped warningly. Danger. Yes, the path ahead would include much danger. Dusk took Vathi’s hand and stepped into the fortress anyway. THEROSHARANSYSTEM EDGEDANCER This story takes place after and contains spoilers for Words of Radiance. THEEMPEROR’SSOUL THEHOPEOFELANTRIS This story takes place after and contains major spoilers for Elantris. “MY lord,” Ashe said, hovering in through the window. “Lady Sarene begs your forgiveness. She’s going to be a tad late for dinner.” “A tad?” Raoden asked, amused as he sat at the table. “Dinner was supposed to start an hour ago.” Ashe pulsed slightly. “I’m sorry, my lord. But … she made me promise to relay a message if you complained. ‘Tell him,’ she said, ‘that I’m pregnant and it’s his fault, so that means he has to do what I want.’” Raoden laughed. Ashe pulsed again, looking as embarrassed as a seon could, considering he was simply a ball of light. Raoden sighed, resting his arms on the table of his palace inside Elantris. The walls around him glowed with a very faint light, and no torches or lanterns were necessary. He’d always wondered about the lack of lantern brackets in Elantris. Galladon had once explained that there were plates made to glow when pressed—but they’d both forgotten just how much light had come from the stones themselves. He looked down at his empty plate. We once struggled so hard for just a little bit of food, he thought. Now it’s so commonplace that we can spend an hour dallying before we eat. Yet food was plentiful. Raoden himself could turn garbage into fine corn. Nobody in Arelon would ever go hungry again. Still, thinking about such things took his mind back to New Elantris, and the simple peace he’d forged inside the city. “Ashe,” Raoden said, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” “Of course, Your Majesty.” “Where were you during those last hours before Elantris was restored? I don’t remember anything of you for most of the night. In fact, the only time I remember seeing you is when you came to tell me that Sarene had been kidnapped and taken to Teod.” “That’s true, Your Majesty,” Ashe said. “So, where were you?” “It is a long story, Your Majesty,” the seon said, floating down beside Raoden’s chair. “It began when Lady Sarene sent me
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ahead to New Elantris, to warn Galladon and Karata that she was sending them a shipment of weapons. That was just before the monks attacked Kae, and I went to New Elantris, completely unaware of what was about to occur.…” * * * Matisse took care of the children. That was her job, in New Elantris. Everyone had to have a job; that was Spirit’s rule. She didn’t mind her job—actually, she rather enjoyed it. She’d been doing it for longer than Spirit had been around. Ever since Dashe had found her and taken her back to Karata’s palace, Matisse had been watching after the little ones. Spirit’s rules just made it official. Yes, she enjoyed the duty. Most of the time. “Do we really have to go to bed, Matisse?” Teor asked, giving her his best wide-eyed look. “Can’t we stay up, just this once?” Matisse folded her arms, raising a hairless eyebrow at the little boy. “You had to go to bed yesterday at this time,” she noted. “And the day before. And, actually, the day before that. I don’t see why you think today should be any different.” “Something’s going on,” said Tiil, stepping up beside his friend. “The adults are all drawing Aons.” Matisse glanced out the window. The children—the fifty or so of them beneath her care—stayed in an open-windowed building dubbed the Roost because of the intricate carvings of birds on most of its walls. The Roost was located near the center of the city-within-a-city—close to Spirit’s own home, the Korathi chapel where he held most of his important meetings. The adults wanted to keep a close watch on the children. Unfortunately, that meant that the children could also keep a close watch on the adults. Outside the window, flashes of light sparked from hundreds of fingers drawing Aons in the air. It was late—far later than the children should have been up—but it had been particularly difficult to get them to bed this night. Tiil is right, she thought. Something is going on. However, that was no reason to let him stay up—especially because the longer he stayed awake, the longer it would be before she’d be able to go out and investigate the commotion herself. “It’s nothing,” Matisse said, looking back at the children. Though some of them had begun to bed down in their brightly colored sheets, many had perked up and were watching Matisse deal with the two troublemakers. “Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” Teor said. “Well,” Matisse said, sighing. “They’re writing Aons. If you’re that interested, I suppose that we could make an exception and let you stay up … assuming you want to practice writing Aons. I’m sure we could fit in another school lesson tonight.” Teor and Tiil both paled. Drawing Aons was what one did in school—something that Spirit had forced them to begin attending again. Matisse smiled slyly to herself as the two boys backed away. “Oh, come now,” she said. “Go get your quills and paper. We could draw Aon Ashe a hundred or so
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times.” The boys got the hint and slipped back to their respective beds. On the other side of the room, several of the other workers were moving among the children, making certain that they were sleeping. Matisse did likewise. “Matisse,” a voice said. “I can’t sleep.” Matisse turned toward where a young girl was sitting up in her bedroll. “How do you know, Riika?” Matisse said, smiling slightly. “We just put you to bed—you haven’t tried to sleep yet.” “I know I won’t be able to,” the little girl said pertly. “Mai always tells me a story before I sleep. If he doesn’t, I can’t sleep.” Matisse sighed. Riika rarely slept well—especially on nights when she asked for her seon. It had, of course, gone mad when Riika had been taken by the Shaod. “Lie down, dear,” Matisse said soothingly. “See if sleep comes.” “It won’t,” Riika said, but she did lie down. Matisse made the rest of her rounds, then walked to the front of the room. She glanced over the huddled forms—many of whom were still shuffling and moving—and acknowledged that she felt their same apprehensiveness. Something was wrong with this night. Lord Spirit had disappeared, and while Galladon told them not to worry, Matisse found it a foreboding sign. “What are they doing out there?” Idotris whispered quietly from beside her. Matisse glanced outside, where many of the adults were standing around Galladon, drawing the Aons in the night. “Aons don’t work,” Idotris said. The teenage boy was, perhaps, two years older than Matisse—not that such things really mattered in Elantris, where everyone’s skin was the same blotchy grey, their hair limp or simply gone. The Shaod tended to make ages difficult to determine. “That’s no reason not to practice Aons,” Matisse said. “There’s a power to them. You can see it.” Indeed, there was a power behind the Aons. Matisse had always been able to feel it—raging behind the lines of light drawn in the air. Idotris snorted. “Useless,” he said, folding his arms. Matisse smiled. She wasn’t certain if Idotris was always so grumpy, or if he just tended to be that way when he worked at the Roost. He didn’t seem to like the fact that he, as a young teenager, had been relegated to childcare instead of being allowed to join Dashe’s soldiers. “Stay here,” she said, wandering out of the Roost toward the open courtyard where the adults were standing. Idotris just grunted in his usual way, sitting down to make certain none of the children snuck out of the sleeping room, nodding to a few other teenage boys who had finished seeing to their charges. Matisse wandered through the open streets of New Elantris. The night was crisp, but the cold didn’t bother Matisse. That was one of the advantages of being an Elantrian. She seemed to be one of the few who could see things that way. The others didn’t consider being an Elantrian as advantageous, no matter what Lord Spirit said. To Matisse, however, his words made sense. But perhaps that
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had to do with her situation. On the outside, she’d been a beggar—she’d spent her life being ignored and feeling useless. Yet inside of Elantris she was needed. Important. The children looked up to her, and she didn’t have to worry about begging or stealing food. True, things had been fairly bad before Dashe had found her in a sludge-filled alley. And there were the wounds. Matisse had one on her cheek—a cut she’d gotten soon after entering Elantris. It still burned with the same pain it had the moment she’d gotten it. Yet that was a small price to pay. At Karata’s palace, Matisse had found her first real taste of usefulness. That sense of belonging had only grown stronger when Matisse—along with the rest of Karata’s band—had moved to New Elantris. Of course, there was something else she’d gained by getting thrown into Elantris: a father. Dashe turned, smiling in the lanternlight as he saw her approach. He wasn’t her real father, of course. She’d been an orphan even before the Shaod had taken her. And, like Karata, Dashe was sort of a parent to all of the children they’d found and brought to the palace. Yet Dashe seemed to have a special affection for Matisse. The stern warrior smiled more when Matisse was around, and she was the one he called on when he needed something important done. One day, she’d simply started calling him Father. He’d never objected. He laid a hand on her shoulder as she joined him at the very edge of the courtyard. In front of them, a hundred or so people moved their arms in near unison. Their fingers left glowing lines in the air behind them—the trails of light that had once produced the magics of AonDor. Galladon stood at the front of the group, calling out instructions in his loose Duladen drawl. “Never thought I’d see the day when that Dula taught people Aons,” Dashe said quietly, his other hand resting on the pommel of his sword. He’s tense too, Matisse thought. She looked up. “Be nice, Father. Galladon is a good man.” “He’s a good man, perhaps,” Dashe said. “But he’s no scholar. He messes up the lines more often than not.” Matisse didn’t point out that Dashe himself was pretty terrible when it came to drawing Aons. She eyed Dashe, noting the frown on his lips. “You’re mad that Spirit hasn’t come back yet,” she said. Dashe nodded. “He should be here, with his people, not chasing that woman.” “There might be important things for him to learn outside,” Matisse said quietly. “Things to do with other nations and armies.” “The outside doesn’t concern us,” Dashe said. He could be a stubborn one at times. Well, most times, actually. At the front of the crowd, Galladon spoke. “Good,” he said. “That’s Aon Daa—the Aon for power. Kolo? Now, we have to practice adding the Chasm line. We won’t add it to Aon Daa. Don’t want to blow holes in our pretty sidewalks now, do we? We’ll practice it on Aon
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Rao instead—that one doesn’t seem to do anything important.” Matisse frowned. “What’s he talking about, Father?” Dashe shrugged. “Seems that Spirit believes the Aons might work now, for some reason. We’ve been drawing them wrong all along, or something like that. I can’t see how the scholars who designed them could have missed an entire line for every Aon, though.” Matisse doubted that scholars had ever “designed” the Aons. There was just something too … primal about them. They were things of nature. They hadn’t been designed—any more than the wind had been designed. Still, she said nothing. Dashe was a kind and determined man, but he didn’t have much of a mind for scholarship. That was fine with Matisse—it had been Dashe’s sword, in part, that had saved New Elantris from destruction at the hands of the wildmen. There was no finer warrior in all of New Elantris than her father. Yet she did watch with curiosity as Galladon talked about the new line. It was a strange one, drawn across the bottom of the Aon. And … this makes the Aons work? she thought. It seemed like such a simple fix. Could it be possible? The sound of a cleared throat came from behind them and they turned, Dashe nearly pulling his sword. A seon hung in the air there. Not one of the insane ones that floated madly about Elantris, but a sane one glowing with a full light. “Ashe!” Matisse said happily. “Lady Matisse.” Ashe bobbed in the air. “I’m no lady!” she said. “You know that.” “The title has always seemed appropriate to me, Lady Matisse,” he said. “Lord Dashe. Is Lady Karata nearby?” “She’s in the library,” Dashe said, taking his hand off the sword. Library? Matisse thought. What library? “Ah,” Ashe said in his deep voice. “Perhaps I can deliver my message to you, then, as Lord Galladon appears to be busy.” “If you wish,” Dashe said. “There is a new shipment coming, my lord,” Ashe said quietly. “Lady Sarene wished that you be made aware of it quickly, as it is of an … important nature.” “Food?” Matisse asked. “No, my lady,” Ashe said. “Weapons.” Dashe perked up. “Really?” “Yes, Lord Dashe,” the seon said. “Why would she send those?” Matisse asked, frowning. “My mistress is worried,” Ashe said quietly. “It seems that tensions are growing on the outside. She said … well, she wants New Elantris to be prepared, just in case.” “I’ll gather some men immediately,” Dashe said, “and go collect the weapons.” Ashe bobbed, indicating that he thought this to be a good idea. As her father walked off, Matisse eyed the seon, a thought occurring to her. Maybe … “Ashe, could I borrow you for a moment?” she asked. “Of course, Lady Matisse,” the seon said. “What do you need?” “Something simple, really,” Matisse said. “But it might just help.…” * * * Ashe finished his story, and Matisse smiled to herself, eyeing the sleeping form of the little girl Riika in her bedroll. The child seemed peaceful for the
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first time in weeks. Bringing Ashe into the Roost had initially provoked quite a reaction from the children who weren’t asleep. Yet as he’d begun to talk, Matisse’s instincts had proven correct. The seon’s deep, sonorous voice had quieted the children. Ashe had a rhythm about his speech that was wonderfully soothing. Hearing a story from a seon had not only coaxed little Riika to sleep, but the rest of the stragglers as well. Matisse stood, stretching her legs, then nodded toward the doors outside. Ashe hovered behind her, passing the sullen Idotris at the front doors again. He was tossing pebbles toward a slug that had somehow found its way into New Elantris. “I’m sorry to take so much of your time, Ashe,” Matisse said quietly when they were far enough away not to wake the children. “Nonsense, Lady Matisse,” Ashe said. “Lady Sarene can spare me for a bit. Besides, it is good to tell stories again. It has been some time since my mistress was a child.” “You were Passed to Lady Sarene when she was that young?” Matisse asked, curious. “At her birth, my lady,” Ashe said. Matisse smiled wistfully. “You shall have your own seon someday, I should think, Lady Matisse,” Ashe said. Matisse cocked her head. “What makes you say that?” “Well, there was a time when almost no Elantrian went without a seon. I’m beginning to think that Lord Spirit may just be able to fix this city—after all, he fixed AonDor. If he does, we shall find you a seon of your own. Perhaps one named Ati. That is your own Aon, is it not?” “Yes,” Matisse said. “It means hope.” “A fitting Aon for you, I believe,” Ashe said. “Now, if my duties here are finished, perhaps I should—” “Matisse!” a voice said. Matisse winced, glancing at the Roost, filled with its sleeping occupants. A light was bobbing in the night, coming down a side street—the source of the yelling. “Matisse?” the voice demanded again. “Hush, Mareshe!” Matisse hissed, crossing the street quietly to where the man stood. “The children are sleeping!” “Oh,” Mareshe said, pausing. The haughty Elantrian wore standard New Elantris clothing—bright trousers and shirt—but he had modified his with a couple of sashes that he believed made the costume more “artistic.” “Where’s that father of yours?” Mareshe asked. “Training the people with swords,” Matisse said quietly. “What?” Mareshe asked. “It’s the middle of the night!” Matisse shrugged. “You know Dashe. Once he gets an idea in his head…” “First Galladon wanders off,” Mareshe grumbled, “and now Dashe is waving swords in the night. If only Lord Spirit would come back…” “Galladon’s gone?” Matisse asked, perking up. Mareshe nodded. “He disappears like this sometimes. Karata too. They’ll never tell me where they’ve gone. Always so secretive! ‘You’re in charge, Mareshe,’ they say, then go off to have secret conferences without me. Honestly!” With that, the man wandered away, bearing his lantern with him. Off somewhere secret, Matisse thought. That library Dashe mentioned? She eyed Ashe, who was still hovering beside her.
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Perhaps if she coaxed him enough, he’d tell her— At that moment, the screaming began. The shouts were so sudden, so unexpected, that Matisse jumped. She spun about, trying to determine the location of the sounds. They seemed to be coming from the front of New Elantris. “Ashe!” she said. “I’m already going, Lady Matisse,” the seon said, zipping into the air, a glowing speck in the night. The yells continued. Distant, echoing. Matisse shivered, backing up unconsciously. She heard other things. The ring of metal against metal. She turned back toward the Roost. Taid, the adult who supervised the Roost, had walked out of the building in his nightgown. Even in the darkness, Matisse could see a look of concern on his face. “Wait here,” he said. “Don’t leave us!” Idotris said, looking around in fright. “I’ll be back.” Taid rushed away. Matisse shared a look with Idotris. The other teenagers who had been on duty watching the kids had already gone to their own homes for the night. Only Idotris and she remained. “I’m going to go with him,” Idotris said, stalking after Taid. “Oh no you don’t,” Matisse said, grabbing his arm and pulling him back. In the distance, the yelling continued. She glanced toward the Roost. “Go wake the kids.” “What?” Idotris said indignantly. “After all the work we did to get them to sleep?” “Do it,” Matisse snapped. “Get them up, and have them put their shoes on.” Idotris resisted for a moment, then grumbled something and stalked inside the room. A moment later, she could hear him doing as she asked, rousing the children. Matisse rushed over to a building across the street—one of the supply buildings. Inside, she found two lanterns with oil in them, and some flint and steel. She paused. What am I doing? Just being prepared, she told herself, shivering as the screaming continued. It seemed to be getting closer. She rushed back across the street. “My lady!” Ashe’s voice said. She glanced up to see that the seon was flying back down toward her. His Aon was so dim that she could barely see him. “My lady,” Ashe said urgently. “Soldiers have attacked New Elantris!” “What?” she asked, shocked. “They wear red and have the height and dark hair of Fjordells, my lady,” Ashe said. “There are hundreds of them. Some of your soldiers are fighting at the front of the city, but there are far too few of them. New Elantris is already overrun! My lady—the soldiers are coming this way, and they’re searching through the buildings!” Matisse stood, dumbfounded. No. No, it can’t happen. Not here. This place is peaceful. Perfect. I escaped the outside world. I found a place where I belonged. It can’t come after me. “My lady!” Ashe said, sounding terrified. “Those screams … the soldiers are attacking the people they find!” And they’re coming this way. Matisse stood, lanterns clutched in numb fingers. This was the end, then. After all, what could she do? Nearly a child herself, a beggar, a girl without family or
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