JET 8.0: SPILT MILK
“Silence is not the absence of sound. You have it backwards. Sound relies upon silence for its being. Is the plaster the absence of paint? Or is paint an attempt to cover something we find less palatable? We fear the meaning of silence. The gods fear it. Even birds fear it. Every word is nothing more than an attempt to suppress it. Stop and listen. Beneath the wind. Beneath the soil. It is there. It is always there, waiting for you.”
– from ‘The Book of Kultemeren’, 12:189-195
5th Yunara, 999 NE
Xantaire Tarent had always known it would come to this. She had so few allies left – her safe places felt like traps, her options limited one by one until she was faced with a single route forwards, a last-resort way out of her predicament.
She picked up her Rose Lord and moved him eight spaces, towards the Northern Hold, Jaid’s fortress.
“Aha,” Jaroan exclaimed, his voice a little lower, less excited than usual. “She fell for it.”
He sidestepped with his Ogre and took out the Rose Lord in a move she should’ve seen coming a mile off.
“Wyrda’s maw!” she swore, then pressed her fingers to her lips in contrition; the twins smiled wanly and Grandpa gave her an arch look.
“You can shut up, old man… You’re not doing any better, you know!”
“Perhaps not,” Orstrum chuckled, “but I know how to lose gracefully.”
He moved his Moon Guard, an innocuous little sidestep designed to set up a later move. Then Jaid’s Unicorn charged from out of nowhere –
“And sploosh the Moon Guard…”
Orstrum, despite his earlier words, gave an involuntary wince.
Jaid tipped Granpa’s figurine over, and Xantaire shuddered; the twins acted as though this fortify set were as durable (and cheap) as the wooden, home-carved one they’d been using for years.
It was basically the only thing the Magisterium hadn’t taken… except the things she’d had Xastur hide. Those were probably gone forever, too.
“Sploosh,” Jaroan said, looking down at the unicorn model.
Xantaire saw the glumness in the boy’s expression, emotions whirling in his eyes, emotions usually kept so well-hidden – and she felt tears start in the corners of her own eyes.
Sploosh. That was something Kas used to say.
She hurriedly took her next move, selecting her last Mushroom Man. She wouldn’t be able to make Jaroan feel better by deliberately leaving a piece out in the open – the twins were too smart: they wouldn’t fall for it, and they’d know she was pandering to them. Instead she invaded Jaroan’s territory ferociously, playing a teleportation card and hopping over his defences.
Making him focus on winning the game – that was what would distract him the most.
His Fireblade came careening across the field of play to consume the Mushroom Man anyway, and Xan actually froze in shock.
“Been waiting for you to play that since you picked it up,” he said, wearing a tight, savage grimace.
“But… we draw the cards blindly,” she protested in a weak voice.
He sighed and shook his head, the look on his face one of pity almost to the point of scorn; his sister’s expression was less scornful, more amused; and they both turned those aloof eyes on Orstrum.
“I’m just going to check on Xas,” she said, unwrapping the blanket around her knees and getting up from the table, moving to her room.
She needed an excuse to grab the cake, after all.
A quick peek into the bedroom told her that her son was safe and sound, chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm. The scar on his cheek was almost invisible, a pale line only her eyes could pick out.
At least one thing’s still right with the world.
The rest of it had gone right to hell.
It’d all started with that damnable Vardae, Everseer, whatever she wanted to call herself. By all accounts she’d once been a hero, a champion amongst champions – then she’d been killed, apparently, and unmasked in death, with those who’d known her confirming her as the victim. For years she’d been gone, but apparently behind the scenes she was the orchestrator of all these terrible events – the rumour went that she was probably behind half the murdering that’d happened since the day she went missing.
But what had the dark seeress expected? A mass exodus? For people to actually give up their lives and livelihoods, their homes and possessions, strike out into the unknown and scrabble over resources in the winter landscapes? Maybe, when summer came around… if Everseer made another plea to the public like the last one… provided a bit of evidence, something to make it more believable… maybe, just maybe, people would start leaving. But from what she’d heard, it was only the cowards who’d ran – the richer the likelier, apparently. She wasn’t surprised.
What was Vardae going to do? Actually kill everyone? Everyone in Mund? Because of some story about dragons? She was insane, through and through. There was just no way they’d let that happen. Someone would stop her first – that was simply the way of things. The town-criers had reassured the crowds of Sticktown that Everseer had spoke nothing but half-baked theories like any street-corner madman, and that they’d ensure everyone’s safety – Xan had heard it in person from Emrelet, who was also intending to stay despite the warnings.
Emrelet, who’d confirmed Kas’s fate in a quiet voice, her face drawn, eyes alight with anger.
No, it had to be nonsense, or close enough. This was Mund. Xantaire felt safe. If she thought for one moment that joining a refugee train out of the Sticktown Gate into the frozen unknown would improve Xastur’s chances at living, she’d have headed out in a heartbeat. But it just wasn’t credible. Kas had never mentioned any of it… Was that because it was Heresy? No – there was no way. If he’d known, he would’ve said something… wouldn’t he?
The things Everseer said, about him and Nighteye, though… These were things Em wouldn’t confirm, things Kas never went into even when he’d explained how the arch-druid gave his life for them.
Did he hide all this from us all along?
And it hadn’t really mattered whether it was nonsense. All the reassurances in the world hadn’t stopped people kicking up a storm. There’d been rioting, the first two nights – just an excuse for brawling with the watch and conducting a little heavy-handed burglary, really. Though when the watch started clocking off early and joining in with the rioters, things got really out of hand and the magisters were called in.
That put an end to the disruption in about an hour, at least around Helbert’s Bend.
She’d never experienced such discontent amongst the people, though. Many of them were still recovering from wounds inflicted by careless mages, whose only instructions had seemingly been to ‘keep the peace’, at any costs. At least they hadn’t killed anyone – yet. If the general mood of frustration didn’t start to disappear, she worried that it would only be a matter of time before the Magisterium started slaughtering dissidents, and then it really might’ve been worth getting out of the city…
Jaid and Jaroan were discussing their next move silently, just their eyes flickering, conveying more in a glance than she’d manage with ten words. She had a bit of time. She stepped inside the bedroom as though wanting to perform a more thorough check on her son, then closed the door behind her and leaned her head back on it, shutting her eyes.
Why, Kas? Why did you let yourself get caught?
Emrelet hadn’t gone into any details. The magister’s hands were tied on the subject, according to her at least, but there’d been something shifty about the way the arch-wizard kept on looking aside at certain moments. Whenever Xan had questioned her on the finer points of the post-Incursion madness, this strange look had come over her face that Xan had never seen before.
She knows something, she’d thought at the time. Something she won’t share. Then the sense of suspicion had been washed away with the realisation of just how much this must’ve been hurting her.
The love of her life… or at least her first real love…just gone forever into the darkness, just like that.
Yet when she’d offered a shoulder to cry on the archmage had rejected her, turning away and flying off into the night.
Didn’t she know… I needed someone too?
She’d wept with Orstrum, the morning after Kas had been taken away, once the twins had finally fallen into a fitful sleep. She’d let down her barriers in front of Grandpa, at least. But he was too old, too jaded to feel the way she did. He’d gotten over Kas’s loss within a few hours of mourning, in the passage of a few long sighs… that was it.
It wasn’t the same for her, or Em. Nor for Xas. Nor for the twins.
So soon, after Morsus…
Now, standing in the light of a solitary candle with the crown of her head pressed against the wooden door, Xan let those two tears slide down her cheeks. At least in here she could mask her grief. Once she stepped back out into the main room, she’d have to be herself again. Strong. Unbending. Dependable. A rock for the others to cling to.
She picked up the small cake on the bedside table, and lit the two nice candles she’d kept aside especially for this occasion.
Why couldn’t you be here for this? Kas? They’re ten, you know. They’re ten, and you’re…
She gritted her teeth.
I’ve got to stop doing this. You’re gone, Kas! Gone for good.
She drew another deep breath, blinked away the tears, and stooped down over her son. “Xassy? It’s time. You want to see the twins blow out their candles, right?”
Her sleepy-headed son trailing after her, his little arms thrown wide in a stretch, she opened the door even as she locked down her thoughts. Smiling fixedly, she lifted her voice along with the candle-crowned cake:
“Happy birthday dear ones, happy birthday dear ones… “
Orstrum joined in, and Xastur caught up on the last line, sitting in Grandpa’s lap.
She saw the twins trying to smile too, saw their sad eyes, and her body took control, whimpering, halting.
In her mind she relived the moment – lowering the glyphstone, seeing the golden squirrels he’d left to guard them vanish in seething green bubbles…
As the song she was leading died away the cake slid out of her hand and was dashed all over the floor; she watched it happen, incapable of doing anything to stop it.
Then she was on her knees beside the sugary mess and it hit her, really hit her. She couldn’t see through her tears.
She wanted Morsus to hold her. She wanted Kas, stupid, insolent Kas, to come popping through the wall like a ghost, just a head protruding from a random surface. It wasn’t ever going to happen. Not unless he died down there. Em had explained this ‘Magicrux Zyger’ in a single sentence:
“Zere is no magic in zat place, no returning – he is zere until he dies.”
But the twins came to her without saying a word, wrapping their arms around her, stepping right over the cake.
The cake didn’t matter. She mattered.
Why are they hugging me? she questioned, clinging to them as they clung to her, listening to Jaid’s loud sobs, feeling Jaroan’s constant shaking. She was angry, angry at herself, at Kas, at Mund and all these stupid magic-users. But angry at herself most of all. Herself, the one part of the recipe she had the power to control. Why is it I’m getting comforted by them?
She looked over at Grandpa, struggling to pick him out with her blurred vision; he was embracing Xastur tightly, and tears were twinkling in his own eyes – his not too-old, not too-jaded eyes.
He hadn’t gotten over it. He didn’t let go.
“How do you do it, old man?” she blurted.
“I don’t,” his voice returned, cracking. “I don’t!”
She saw him digging in his wane-pocket, something he wouldn’t have normally done around the children, and she looked away in shame.
After a few minutes, Jaid said in a hesitant voice:
“C-can we – can we still eat it?”
Xantaire laughed, a little desperate, despairing laugh.
“I did sweep up this afternoon, didn’t I?”
She freed an arm and stuck her finger in the gooey mess, then sucked it clean. The twins copied her, then they scooped some into a bowl, passing it up to Grandpa and Xassy.
But Xantaire, Jaid and Jaroan stayed sitting on the floor, eating off it until they’d picked it clean.
That was just the Sticktown way. No use crying over spilt milk, or dropped cake.
No use crying at all.
* * *
10th Yunara, 999 NE
Knock, knock.
Orstrum took one look at her knackered face and the old man knew it was his turn without being told. He creaked to his feet and hobbled over to the door.
“Who is it?” he queried in his slightly-dulled voice.
“Emrelet Reyd,” the strong, cold voice replied.
Xan shuddered to hear its tone.
All this… it’s changed her.
Even still, Xan struggled into an upright position, putting her back against the arm of the seat and swinging her legs around. It was in her interests (and the interests of her extended family) for her to stay on good terms with these friends in high places she’d stumbled-upon.
Grandpa had such difficulty with the third lock that Xan let loose an explosive sigh and bounded up to her feet.
“Shove over,” she muttered, batting away his gnarled old hand and grabbing at the latch herself.
Orstrum mumbled something to himself and sighed as he sat back down on his mattress.
When she finally got the damned thing open, Xan saw that Em had her back turned and hood cast off over her shoulders, revealing her long, braided ponytail. She was leaning on the rail overlooking Mud Lane as she waited. Snow was drifting down around her, almost invisible in the evening darkness.
The wizard turned, the white, fur-lined magister’s robe swishing.
“Xantaire,” she said.
“Em?” She made it a question. “You want to come in? Looks chilly out there – we’ve had the fire going, and I’ve got extra blankets if you –“
“I do not need ze blankets,” the archmage said, but stepped inside anyway.
When she’d closed the door behind the wizard, Xan turned and saw that she’d headed straight for the fortify set.
“Zey left you zese?” she asked curiously, taking one of the glass figurines – the Swamp Hag, it looked like – and inspecting it. “I thought zey vould have taken everything.”
“Almost,” Xan said. “They did their best, believe me.” She’d promised herself she wouldn’t mention the nice young magister who’d just winked at her when she’d questioned him leaving it in the cupboard. She didn’t want to get him in trouble. There were even a few of the kids’ toys that got conveniently ‘missed’. Birthday presents and Yearsend gifts. Things the Magisterium wouldn’t give a damn about.
Xan reclaimed her seat, groaning a little.
“You’re okay?” Em asked, setting down the miniature and turning to look at her now.
It was a strange question, Xan thought, coming under such circumstances. It was only a week-and-a-half ago that Kas was taken in to Zyger.
No, was the truthful answer. Give me some money. Go on, Em. Give me the plat you get in five minutes’ work, save me months of effort…
“Yeah,” her well-habituated tongue supplied the typical lie. “Just shattered. I started work again on the eighth – need to keep that cash coming in. Xassy’s a bit older now, and Grandpa can normally manage fine with him…”
Orstrum was nodding along, distracted by his wane-haze –
“… but, well, things’ve been better.”
Em was nodding too, looking around the room as though she were in her own drugged state.
“Of course…” the magister said. “Of course…”
She came to sit down on the opposite bench, and suddenly she was looking directly at Xan again.
It was uncomfortable.
“Is there… do you want to see the twins? The kids are playing.” Xan gestured at Kas’s – at the twins’ – bedroom. “Or – do you want a game yourself? I’m still learning, and I’m sure you’d kick my ass –“
“It’s okay.”
The wizard looked away again, peering down at the table.
“Then… a drink? We’ve only got water…”
Xan let her voice drift away and die. Emrelet wasn’t even listening.
“Em?”
The archmage drew a sharp breath, then met her eyes.
“Em, what is it?”
“I… I vould appreciate, if you vould not call me zat. It – it is vot he called me.”
“I… I get it. I’ll… I’ll tell Jaid…”
“Thank you.”
A silence descended, painful, itching.
Does she want to talk about Kas?
After a minute she got up, moved around the table, and sat herself down next to the foreign girl.
She’s just a girl, she reminded herself, not much older than Kas is… was…
But when she put her arm out to embrace the magister, Emrelet just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
Xan slowly lowered her arm, staring at the wizard.
“Have you had any visitors, Xantaire?”
The archmage was staring back, deep into her own eyes, silver-blue irises gleaming like the morning sky seen through clear glass.
She drew in a sudden breath. “You – you don’t mean – he escaped?”
Emrelet’s eyes narrowed in scorn. “No!” she barked. “I mean – anyone? Anyone of interest?”
It was Xantaire’s turn to narrow her eyes. “Well, Garet’s been round a couple of times – he’s actually a really nice fella, you know? Peltos is going to give us a break on our rent, for a week or two – but that wasn’t what you meant, was it?”
Emrelet slowly shook her head.
“Well, then I can’t help you.”
The wizard got to her feet immediately. “I am seconded to Special Investigations now, you know zis? Vould you mind very much if my supervisor vere to take a look around?”
“Take a look…?” Xan was fully intending on glaring, but then she looked away, seeing something – something –
The shutters had only been open a crack, but suddenly they were looming wide into the room, and another person was in here, standing beside the mattress, right over Grandpa.
An older man, in his fifties or sixties. He wore a fine blue magister’s robe, trimmed in gold. His thick moustache seemed to pre-empt the movements of his head, quivering this way and that way as his keen eyes flitted around the apartment.
“You would have said yes in the end,” the man said, not even glancing in her direction.
Grandpa sat forwards, alarm on his face as he turned to appraise the newcomer – thankfully he remembered to keep his mouth shut, locking away the wane-breath and slurred voice.
She copied him, studying the well-dressed stranger, her concern growing. What’s with the facial acrobatics? she thought. Am I going to get in trouble for the fortify set?
Seriously, who do they think’s going to ‘visit’ me that’s of interest?
“I know you,” she blurted, realising. “You’re Zaki-“
What was it? Zakimol?
“Quite.” He folded his arms across his chest, long sleeves flapping, and finally turned that old crystal gaze on her. “Ms. Tarent. I am Tervos Zakimel, Deputy-Head of the Special Investigative Branch of the Magisterium. You have not been approached by the renegade, Killstop?”
Her mouth went dry.
“Killstop… no. So that’s what you’re calling her, is it? She’s a – a renegade?”
“She is telling ze truth, Zakimel.”
“I can see that much, thank you, Ms. Reyd.” He turned smartly on his heel, appraising the exposed fortify set for a moment, then turned back. “Your glyphstone has touched Ms. Reyd’s. We would be… extremely appreciative… of any information you could provide with regard to Killstop’s whereabouts and intentions.”
Xan folded her own arms. “Would we, now? Well by the sound of things Killstop might appreciate being left the hell alone.”
Orstrum’s creased eyes widened, and he shrank down in his chair.
She knew what he was expecting: more archmage violence, right here in their home. She didn’t think it would go that far, though.
Her guess paid off. Zakimel just smiled.
“Oh, doubtless she would appreciate it. But not as much, Ms. Tarent. Not as much.“
The implications were clear. The coffers of the Magisterium far outstripped the funds available to a traitor, a lone wolf.
She lowered her eyes, and in the second it took her to look up in surprise he’d closed the shutters then moved to the door, unlocked it, and swung it open to reveal the snowy darkness.
“An exquisite collector’s piece,” he murmured, his back turned to her. “I hope you enjoy it, young lady. You will improve, with practice. You really needn’t have buried the other thing, though.”
He disappeared, leaving a bluish blur on the air in his wake.
It took Xan a moment to realise he’d just been talking about the fortify set and the robe.
She looked over at Emrelet but the wizard had her back turned too, stalking after Zakimel without a word, a backwards glance.
She remembered that day they’d met – by the bank in Blackbranch Square, walking home together, preparing the food… Xastur making her a picture of her fortify game with Kas…
“Is that it?” Xan asked to the swishing platinum ponytail, not bothering to mask her anger.
“Goodbye, Xantaire,” the accented voice drifted back to her.
“You’ve changed, you know.”
“So people keep telling me.”
“Maybe you should listen!”
She was already flying, the reply almost a sigh, the wind bearing her answer:
“Maybe zey should shut zeir fragile little faces.”
Xan kicked the door shut after her, slammed the bolts, wrung the key in the lock… She pressed her forehead against the oak door, closed her eyes –
And heard the bedroom door on the far wall open.
“Who was that?” Jaid asked – then, before Xan could so much as begin to open her eyes or turn her head – “Ooh! You’re back! I was just telling Jar the other day, how, I don’t care what they say about you, you’re still my favourite champion… After Kas, obviously… Though I don’t necessarily think Lovebright really being a dragon in disguise makes her any less cool… So, are you going incognito?”
Xan sighed.
You just had to go and complicate things, didn’t you, girl?
The kid diviner was sitting in Xan’s seat, head hanging, shoulders hunched. The multi-coloured robe had been traded in for one that was plain grey but she still wore the same old mask. The expression on the fake face had never seemed more apt, from her body language.
Yet appearances were deceptive. Killstop might’ve looked broken, defeated, but, when she turned her head to face the ten-year-old, the seeress’s voice rang out through the frowning lips with as much levity as always:
“After Kas? You’ve got to be kidding me, right? You’ve seen how fast I can go? He’s like a snail next to me! You’re just biased because you don’t like diviners, that’s your brother’s thing, isn’t it? Don’t you pull that face at me! Oh, hi Jaroan! Though, yeah, Jaid, I totally get the whole dragon thing. Way cool. Shame I didn’t get to fight her. That would’ve been quite the tale to tell!”
Orstrum, who’d started chuckling, reached out to grab his cup. “My girl!” he blurted. “You’re going to be quite the… quite the storyteller in your own time, I am certain of it.”
Killstop shrugged. “And ‘incognito’? That’s an awesome word.” Her head pivoted, looking the other way, right at Xan. “You taught her that?”
Jaid crowed in delight, entering the room with her brother and Xastur on her heels.
Xan shrugged back, moving to sit down opposite her. “It’s, erm, I suppose you’d say it’s a tradition of ours. We’ve got all these books to pick from…” She waved at the shelves as she sprawled out, relaxing her aching back again. “I haven’t got through half of them yet, in three whole years… Belonged to the Mortenns – you know… Big… big readers.”
She felt ill, all of a sudden, considering this situation she’d been plunged into.
There was no way she was going to betray this poor, hunted girl to the authorities. No way. It’d be night in the Twelve Heavens first.
Please, don’t talk about anything important. Please. They’ll just take it from my head anyway.
“Nothing like a good book.” Killstop inclined her head gravely. “What is it the priests of Locus say? ‘The tale is the mortal’s gateway to the infinite, the path to the eternal. Inside one evening the mind might span the course of ten thousand years, or contend with the fate of the universe. Upon the diaphanous wings of such flights of fancy alone might man attain wisdom beyond his years, and return from the dark place without the scars his forebears earned in the tale’s telling. When he goes then into the true darkness he will be prepared beyond his father, and insofar as he speaks and is not silent likewise shall his son outstrip him. And so at last it is that we find Progress, that tenderest, most-elusive of all ideals, forever embedded in the very fictions the men of seriousness seek in public to revile. Heed them none, and in so doing surpass them all.’”
What was she trying to say? If there was a hidden meaning to the seeress’s cryptic choice of quote, it was beyond her. She had trouble just telling what it was about, and even that was mostly because Killstop had opened by summarising the passage in layman’s terms.
But Xantaire noted the way the twins seemed to comprehend what the archmage was getting at, staring up in renewed awe at their parents’ collection of cheap books, at each other – and in that moment she hated them a little bit for their advanced minds.
“They’re after you, you know,” she said. “That’s why they were just here – they wanted you.”
“Don’t worry – Zakimel won’t be back.”
“And if you run into him out there –“
“I run faster than him, don’t worry. I fight better than him, too. Don’t fret, please. I get enough of that off my mother.”
“You – you have a mum? And she’s safe, in Sticktown?”
Killstop shook her head. “Not anymore. She’s a long way from Mund, living a life of wealth and luxury and, above all, boredom. No darkmages staying at the beach-hotel in southern Myri where I left her, believe me. And yes, that was a lie.” Then, without missing a beat, she plunged her hand into one of the robe’s pockets. “Speaking of wealth – here. I broke it for you. Thought platinum would be too obvious. Take it, damn it!”
The pouch had to contain at least fifty coins, and a quick peek told her they were an almost equal mixture of gold and silver.
“K-Killstop – I can’t – can’t thank you –“
“And I can’t apologise, either. It was at least partially my fault Kas ended up where he is…” She looked over at Jaid and Jaroan. “You know that, right? Kas didn’t want to tell anyone, and I confirmed he was right not to. Maybe I was wrong… I don’t know anymore. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done, and I’m sorry.”
“I know, Killstop,” Jaid said, coming forward and taking the ex-champion’s hand briefly.
So he did know…
Killstop seemed to return the gentle grip, then looked over at Jaroan – but the awed look the boy had been wearing when she’d quoted the priest of Locus had slipped by now, replaced with something sullen, his cold eyes flashing. He just nodded, his arms crossed.
Killstop seemed to slump down a bit. “I said I’d keep you safe.” She directed her words at Jaroan. “I promised him, you understand? I intend to keep my promise.”
“When’s he coming back?” Jaroan’s lower lip was trembling. “That’s all I need to know. When’s he coming back, Killstop?”
The seeress slowly shook her head, spreading her hands despondently.
“Then what dropping use is divination anyway!” he screamed, whirling on his heel and fleeing into his room, thrusting the door shut behind him with all his strength.
Xan looked at Orstrum, but he wasn’t going to be any help – he was blinking slowly, entering the dazed state that would precede wane’s deep slumber. When she turned her head back she saw that Jaid was heading towards the bedroom – but Killstop’s cry stopped her in her tracks.
“What use is it? I’ll tell you one thing for certain, young Master Mortenn. One thing I know. I learned it the hard way, more times than a human is supposed to have to.
“One day, you’ll get past it. One day!”
The last, muttered quietly, to herself:
“And me too…”
* * *
23rd Taura, 999 NE
It was after midnight, and Jaroan was still out. Again.
She put on her thickest winter coat and, warning Jaid that she’d better stay in bed if she knew what was good for her, Xan headed out into the night.
The worst of the snows had stopped two weeks ago, only to be replaced by showers of icy rain that anyone would’ve traded for snow in a heartbeat. The four winds were at war, and they’d chosen Mund for their battle-ground: one minute the cold droplets were sheeting down at her back, battering her hood, then they whipped about, streaming at her face instead, tearing the covering off her hair and forcing her to reach up, pull it back down again.
She kept her head bowed as she moved out into the drop-streams of Mud Lane, watching her footing even more carefully than she watched the shadows in her surroundings. A bad fall, in conditions like these… you could drown in the sludge, and they wouldn’t even find your body for days, until the rains subsided and the drop receded – or at least until your corpse was washed out down near the Spannerwalk, where there were literal beaches of materials that’d been carried down the lane under the surface.
Despite such dangers, it wasn’t the weather she was worried about when it came to Jaroan. Something far more perilous was happening to the boy.
She checked his usual haunts, the alleyways and balconies where the gang of idiots he’d signed-up with most-often hung around. Nothing. It wasn’t until she ventured off the lane that she started to despair.
What had happened to Jaroan to make him start acting up this way? Was it all because of Kas being taken from them, or was there some other underlying cause, something she could actually do something about? Even Jaid was going out on her own sometimes now. Always in the day, always within reason, but it’d started to irk Xan until the day she followed the blonde girl up the alley – and saw her descending the skull steps into Helbert Bend’s shrine to Mortiforn.
She must be seeing the priests, grieving her brother, Xan realised.
She never followed Jaid again, and didn’t intrude on the girl’s privacy by revealing what she knew. Better to let the ministers do their thing.
The not-knowing. That was the worst bit. The inaction. With Jaid, at least she knew what was going on, but Jaroan? She had little doubt that by the time Xassy got to the age of ten she’d know precisely what to say and do to exert her authority, whip her son into line. But now, parenting a rebellious pre-teenager who’d lost almost everyone important in his life… It was an uphill battle and every day that passed, she thought he’d finally make good on his promise.
“I don’t even want to be here anymore,” he’d said to her three nights back. “What is there here, for me? For us? Kas wanted to keep the apartment because of Mum and Dad but now it’s him, it’s Kas I… I-I want to leave.”
Jaroan had looked over at his sister when he’d said that, but Jaid had just stubbornly shook her head. The young girl might’ve been feeling the same way, but the conflict within her was still ongoing. For now, at least, she wanted to stay.
“There’s no guarantee it’s any safer outside Mund,” Xan had replied in her most-measured voice. “Come on, I need you to keep chipping in. Without your earnings –”
“But I don’t want to leave Mund.” His eyes shone fiercely. “I just want to leave here.”
“Leave the apartment?” She couldn’t quite keep the surprise from her voice. “But that would mean all of us going – unless you mean you want to leave us, or –”
“Exactly,” he’d said in a matter-of-fact tone, then slammed the bedroom door in her face.
By the time she’d tore her way into the room, the hurt caused by his words tempered for a moment by her fury at the sheer cheek of him, he was already more than halfway out of the window.
“You get back here this… instant,” she started saying to his left leg, and concluded to a completely empty room.
“Jar!” Jaid cried, running past her and plunging out of the window after him.
But he’d even run from her – he was starting to develop the long legs of his brother, his father, and he’d apparently outpaced his sister within two minutes.
To fall into a black mood – that was pretty normal for the boy. But to abandon his twin – she’d never seen its like before. She had to stop herself reeling in shock because her reaction to Jaid’s report had set the girl weeping.
The streets were far from empty tonight. She avoided several groups of drunks, one group of watchmen, and punched an old groper square in the chin when he came leering out of the mouth of an alleyway. All in all, it was a fairly ordinary trip through Helbert’s Bend. She kept her eyes peeled for one of the Bertie Boys – she could get them to let Garet know what was happening, see if he could put some of his guys on it…
Ultimately, despite her fretting it didn’t take her long to find Jaroan. Within twenty minutes of trawling the streets she picked out his voice – he was sitting on a first-floor rail a few houses down Giblet Crescent, a good fifteen feet over the roadway; his back was to the road and he was talking loudly to his new friends. The way she approached the balcony where they were gathered, staying beneath the walkway, she ensured none of them spotted her.
“… I didn’t even need to show him. I just told him you sent me, like you said, and he started shaking. Knew who I was – who my brother was… Opened up his purse and let me take everything he had.”
A North Lowtown voice responded to Jaroan.
“Ever’fin’? How can yer be sure, though, eh? This is what they does – they empties their wallets before-’and, an’ then yer oanly gettin’ what they wants you to.”
“It’s ninety percent of what he owed you –“
“Woss that? In’t ninety less than a hunderd? An’ yer never even showed ‘im the knife! Fought your bro was that big darkmage, wonnee? Where’s yer guts gone, big guy? Fought you wanted control!”
Xantaire had been standing in what she thought was perfect stillness, unseen by anyone in the vicinity, quiet and motionless.
Now she was truly paralysed, hearing words she had never thought to hear.
“I-I’m sorry, Ti. You want me to go back, I’ll go back. Sh-show him.”
“Necks time, Mortenn. Necks time. Oo else? You – woss yer name again?”
“Tick.”
“Ah, thassit. What yer got fer me, Tick?”
“I – I got… I got this.”
She heard the scraping sound: her mind painted an image of Ticken Sawdan drawing a knife.
The Lowtowner, Ti, chuckled dryly. “Didden even clean the blade.”
“Wanted to show it you this way.”
“See, Mortenn? See what yer up aggence? Yer doan wanna be drop, right? Yer wanna be the bess?” There was a pause. “I move the prodduck. Yer deliver an’ collect. Watcher think yer get paid fer? Coll–ect. Tha’ means blood as much as cash an’ katra. The boss, she’s gonna be ‘ere soon enough, and then they’s gonna be war in the streets. Yer know what firepower we got. Yer wanna be on the winnin’ side, yer know what yer gotta do.”
Xan had no idea what she was supposed to do. How could she handle something like this? Go to the watch? Tell the magisters with the glyphstone? This was bigger than her – bigger than Mud Lane, Helbert’s Bend…
“It’s Garet you need to prepare.”
The voice came in a whisper, cold and aloof, from directly behind her – right in her ear – Xan spun on her heel, swinging out her arms reflexively to grab at her assailant –
The black-swathed girl in a black, featureless mask easily evaded her attempt to initiate a grapple – she did so without even really moving, her feet still planted in the muck, only her upper body swaying effortlessly. The ebony bow slung across her back, the arrows in the quiver at her shoulder – they all stayed in place.
The failure confused Xan. The girl was well-within her reach. Her instincts told her she should be holding the archer in her hands, gripping at the girl’s upper-arms, but she was still there, almost heedless of Xan’s attack, seemingly gazing back at her through slits in the mask – though no such holes were visible, not in the shadows at least.
“Wh… what?” she muttered.
“Garet.” The same disdainful whispering sound. “You shouldn’t be here, girl.”
Being called a girl by the girl – that just added to her confusion. The stranger wore their hood up. She supposed they could be an old woman, for all she knew, but the frame bespoke a youngster.
“A-are you a darkmage?” she managed to ask in a low voice. “My… my brother is up there. Blond. Skinny. Ten years old. I –“
“Go home.” The mask tilted, seeming to leer. It covered so much of the mage’s head, only a dark tangle of hair was visible at the back, swishing softly. “I will return him to you if you go now.”
The voices of the kids on the balcony above had been continuing all the while, but she hadn’t had chance to focus on what they were saying.
Now she focussed. Even as she stood there in the shadows beneath them, the darkmage with a bow loitering right in front of her, she heard a new voice emanate from above.
It was the sound of a thousand beetles, a thousand chitinous carapaces rasping human words, an awful thing to have to hear:
“I told you I would eat your eyes, Ti. I might not stop there, though. You have such a delicious-looking face.”
“Go, now, and I will keep my word!” the black-clad magic-user snarled, pushing Xan aside and vanishing past her, a flurry of robes that disappeared in the darkness.
Xantaire had no idea what was happening. She’d been plunged into a nightmare. As the arch-diviner disappeared – there was nothing else the girl could be, could there? – she’d shoved Xan with greater strength than had been warranted, and instead of simply staggering she fell to the ground.
What had been ground.
In this moment the surface of the grimy ground was a sea of furred bodies, dozens of trains of rodents, thousands of them pouring towards the wall of the building and the posts of its balcony, streaming up and mounting the walkway in their legions – where Jaroan and Ticken Sawdan and any number of other kids were currently being placed under duress by this North Lowtowner, this ‘Ti’…
Xan could only hope that this dark archer, this strange seeress knew what she was doing – because as Xan landed and the waves of rats crashed over her, hundreds of tiny feet and tails trickling across her body, over her hair, she started to scream. She couldn’t help it.
She wanted to fling herself back up to her feet as quickly as she could but it was difficult. She was forced to grit her teeth against the horror of it all and push down on the slick, loathsome backs of the rats around her, with her bare hands, in order to haul herself up –
And then she fled, fled like never before, still crying out in wordless panic, casting off rodents that seemed only too eager to leave her behind – she supposed afterwards that she must’ve free of the blighted things after the first few seconds but it didn’t feel that way – not until she got home and got out of her clothes and washed her body and combed her hair, not till then did she feel like she’d gotten rid of them – but that still didn’t make her feel clean, feel happy. Their leathery little feet, their tails, their furry wetness, sliding all over her skin…
When the knock finally came at the door she was still drying her hair from the third rinse she’d put it through.
“Hello?” she called softly. She didn’t need to raise her voice – they’d done their best to plug the burn-line in the door and walls, but sounds and draughts still got through more easily than before.
She heard a faint but sharp hiss (“Speak!”) and then Jaroan’s voice.
“It’s m-me, Xan.”
She unbolted the door, swung it open.
“Jaroan Mortenn.”
He was standing there not two feet from her, but he refused to meet her eyes.
“Come in. Go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
A sullen expression pasted across his face – his unscarred, uneaten face, praise be to Yune – he slipped around her and quietly entered his bedroom.
She stayed in the doorway, looking out at the black-garbed diviner.
“You never answered my question. Are you a darkmage?”
“You seem unfazed at the prospect for one without the gift of magic.”
“I’ve known my fair share of mages. I’ve seen a few things. I’ve flown.”
“Have you now? Such freedom!” The seeress was sneering, by the sounds of things. “And a day in the life of a bird prepares you for the worst such as I might inflict? Oh no. No. This isn’t it at all. You are lying to me. You more than flew. Everyone knows who you knew, Xantaire Tarent. You walked as I walk, outside time.”
It chilled her, to hear her full name spoken aloud like that by a darkmage so clearly-powerful as her.
“No. It is because you believe you know me, is it not? I can see those words burn in your future. I can assure you, you do not know me.”
The arch-diviner stepped forwards suddenly and Xan recoiled, flinching back so abruptly she smacked her elbow on the door.
“Your little brother doesn’t know me either. I never met Killstop. But I am a champion, girl. You don’t have to tie yourself in knots. They call me Nightfell. Who knows? You might hear of me again.”
There was no blur, no streak of darkness upon darkness. She was simply gone.
“Well, thanks a bunch,” Xan said to the night, and shut the door once more.
She went to bed but she couldn’t sleep. She heard the murmur of Jaid and Jaroan’s voices in the late hours and she wanted to go in there, wanted to ‘speak’ with him… but she knew she couldn’t. She played it out in her head and the disgust she felt at what he was becoming – it was still too real, too strong for her to overcome. It always went the same way and once she started she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“You! You almost got me killed! Got yourself killed! Darkmages and archmages… thousands of rats! Do you even know what happened to me? I almost drowned in them thanks to you, you and your boneheaded selfishness, your anger – you think you’re the only one that hurts, the only one that can feel? Well you’re wrong! It hurt me too but now you’re going to go and ‘show’ someone the knife! The knife! How dare you! How dare you bring this into your own home, after what happened with your parents – with Wyre and the Bertie Boys! Into our home, my home, my son’s home! You know what, I do want you to leave! Go, get out of here and never come back, never make me worry about you again. I don’t even know you anymore.”
So she never went in, never saw them again. She fell asleep, eventually, and when she woke up it was late morning at least. She decided immediately that she was still numb enough from her dreamless slumber to confront him, so she sneaked out of bed and entered their room.
Its emptiness spoke to her before she even crossed the threshold, before she saw the way small items had been removed, everything picked clean. They even made the bed before they left.
“Mummy?” Xassy’s voice came from her room. “Mummy, where you? I had a dream. I had a dream!”
She picked up the piece of paper on the bed, unfolded it, scanned it with her eyes. Surprised at the length of the note, she took it back into her room with her, and got back under the covers with her son so that she could read it in bed.
To her astonishment, as the words sank in Xastur’s jabbering started to make more and more sense.
There was a moment of clarity, of release.
Then, weeping, she tore up the note, feeding each piece carefully into the burning heart of the candle-flame.
“What you doing, Mummy?”
“Xastur. I love you, Xastur.” She pulled him close to her and kissed the top of his head, drenching him in her tears. “I’m just… I’m saying goodbye.”
“The twins? They gone?”
“Yes, Xassy. For now, they’re gone.”
He held her back, and she drew in deep breaths, trying not to sob.
“Iss okay, Mummy. Guh-bye, for now.”
She couldn’t help it. She sobbed anyway, and couldn’t even say what she wanted to say.
“I know, Xastur. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay now.”
And this time, she’d even mean it.
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