Blade of Dream, page 37
The thing shaped like a woman reached out a hand, wrapped fingers under Elaine’s jaw. What am I going to do with you? But Garreth put all his attention into that one red thread, and he found that it let him move forward. Just a little. A lessening of the invisible storm that pushed him back or a strength to defy it, he couldn’t tell which. He didn’t care.
He gathered himself. His muscles ached. His eyes swam with blood and tears. A deep, terrible nausea was rising in him. He ignored it all.
Elaine cried out in pain, and there was a darkness around her head that didn’t come from the pale woman. Garreth felt a brightness in his own mind, glowing in him like a tiny candle. A distant star. The brightness screamed Now.
“Watch your head!” Garreth shouted as he lunged. The beast turned, lifting a warding arm, but too high. He pushed the blade into the soft place under its ribs, driving the sword deep and deeper until it caught against something.
The thing shaped like a woman released Elaine, who stepped back, unsteady as a drunk. It grabbed Garreth’s sword hand with both of its own, and the touch was like being bitten. Its wide, dark eyes locked on him and he imagined he saw outrage in its barely human expression. It squeezed until something in his hand cracked and grated. Garreth threw himself to the side, twisting with all the power he had left as he fell. His hand bloomed with pain, and the sword turned, widening the wound. As he landed, the brightness in him guttered and went out. The air of the palace settled on him like a boot on his neck.
Dimly, he was aware of Elaine’s foot not far from him. The little leather boot she was wearing had a tear just at the back, and the roughness there had left an angry spot on her ankle. He reached out with his broken hand, his fingers resting for a moment against her skin, the soft hair at her calf, the warmth of her body. And barely audible under the cacophony, the hush of his fingertips caressing her. That single fraction of an inch of his skin against hers, and the memories of a wilder, freer, more beautiful moment.
It was enough.
Garreth closed his eyes, and his mind fell into darkness.
The thread of Kithamar had ridden enough bodies down to death that it recognized the feeling. The bluecloak shouldn’t have been able to reach it, but somehow, he had. Bad luck or some little oversight, and now the life it could have lived as Andomaka Chaalat was measured in minutes. Such a waste of good skin. Such a waste of time and years and effort.
Blood dropped out of its side like a fountain, drowning its books in red so deep it was black. Inking over centuries of its words and thoughts and insights with the lifeblood of this one insignificant woman. The pain was deep and rich and powerful. And behind the pain, the fear. And behind the fear, the hunger. The need. The unending, driving want for more life.
Elaine a Sal, the twice-false heir to the throne, came back to her senses enough to look down at the man grabbing her foot. She didn’t say his name, but the shock and fear were enough. Her lover in the city guard. Her Garreth. She should have died in his arms before and saved them all the trouble. The waste of it. The depth of all that it would have to rebuild because of this giddy, idiot girl and her cuckoo’s egg of a father. It was so pathetic it almost laughed, but laughing hurt worse.
It reached out with its will. Not as strong as it had been, but enough. It didn’t need much more. Elaine a Sal shifted back to look at its eyes. Was there terror in her? It thought there was. It tasted like blood.
Blood.
And here it was. No blade, no blood, no water. Neither name nor deathmark. None of the tools it had built. Nothing but the will and the hunger that had created it from the first. And this was the ground. Before there had been walls, before they had laid down the stone and mortar that cut it off from the wind and the sky, this was the place. Like an old man recalling the taste of a peach eaten before he’d learned to walk, it knew that night, those stars. The Inlisc surrender. The Hansch triumph.
The moon had been at a quarter full, and growing. Afternoon rain had cooled the grasses that still grew on the hilltop back then. The enemies had come together under the flag of peace that was also the flag of surrender, and founded the city that the city would become. It could almost see their faces, could almost hear their voices speaking in accents that time and generations had erased.
Kithamar had been born on this ground, and would be reborn here too. The guards lying prostrate and dying before it would witness its rebirth and not know what they had seen. Elaine a Sal with her pretty eyes and defiant mouth would carry this new city within her like a tapeworm.
Something shifted in its belly, deep and low. The wave of pain that followed brought its mind back to the moment and the awareness that its moments were slipping away. It stepped forward, its books rustling under its feet like autumn leaves. Elaine a Sal steeled herself for a fight that wasn’t coming, and the thread of Kithamar put a bloody hand on the girl’s shoulder.
The hardest thing was letting go. What it had become was too large to fit the work that lay before it now. The power, the reach, the depth, all that it had acquired held it back now. Steadying itself on the girl, it let go. The city walls like skin of its body, it released. The streets and quarters of the Temple, of Seepwater, of Longhill, it released. The permanent fires of the Smoke and the constant bright, chattering dogfights of Newmarket and Riverport. It felt the Silt, which had never entirely belonged to it. But what there was, it released. Kithamar’s soul washed in and up, leaving not a city but stones and wood and shit and food. All the pieces that had made it, without the animating spirit. The corpse of a great city. The thread contracted.
Stonemarket that still had streets that followed paths shepherds had made when it had been a grazing field fell away. Green Hill where the first poverty-drunk beggars had put their tents outside the walls of the ancient Hansch fort. Oldgate with its maze of war tunnels and echoes of old violence. The thread of Kithamar let it all fall away until it was only aware of the palace that had been its first city, its walls against the raiders, its protection in the wilds. Andomaka’s body lit with pain, and there was more than blood spilling from its wound now. A loop of intestine, carried by the flood. The foul stink of shit complicating the smell of salt and iron.
The thread of Kithamar made itself small as a gnat. Small as a spore. Thin and slight and floating, insubstantial and unkillable as an idea, a story, a wisp of song that intruded in the mind and wouldn’t let go.
As the body failed, it released that too, and pressed itself across the ocean of air between the mutilated corpse of Andomaka Chaalat and the bright, fresh new body that called itself Elaine a Sal. There was barely anything left of it. An impulse to land in the soft, warm young mind, an anticipation of the pale roots that it would press into that conscious flesh. The endless, patient, vegetive ambition of the seed.
It entered Elaine like a sickness. Like a plague too early even for the fever to present. It spread into her—
And something pushed it out. It had an impression of a thin-faced older woman who looked like Elaine a Sal might when she grew older. Or of a dark-haired Inlisc with a bad eye. Or of a maiden whose name it had known once and forgotten, rich with life and the promise of life.
The thread of Kithamar, bare in the empty world, glowed with something that wasn’t light and faded to something that wasn’t grey. It was so small, so diminished, that it took every bit of complexity and energy that remained just to think What are you?
Not yours, came the answer. What I am is not yours.
But the thread of Kithamar had already been severed.
Elaine a Sal lay on stone. It was cool against her back. There was no cushion under her head, though someone had thrown a blanket over her. If she turned her head to the side, she could hear the grit grinding in her hair. Her clothes were stiff with blood. All of it felt more comfortable than any bed she could remember.
The great black wooden beams that supported the ceiling seemed as far above her as the moon. She smelled vinegar and honey and blood and smoke. The hall was filled with voices and footsteps, the creak of wooden litters that carried the wounded, and the splash of water in bowls that people were using to wash wounds. It should have been loud, but that other, deeper, angrier noise was gone, and it made the pandemonium feel quiet. She would have slept if she hadn’t been so tired.
“Oh,” a woman’s voice said, and she felt like she should know it. She opened eyes she didn’t remember closing, and the historian was there. Mikah Ell. It was strange to see her.
The older woman looked around as if trying to find someone that might help her with this surprising moment, then gave up and sank to her knees beside Elaine. Her smile seemed genuine, if a little uncertain.
“I didn’t know you’d come back,” she said. “All of this. All these people. Were they… did you get hurt fighting the fire?”
The question seemed to demand an answer, so Elaine elbowed herself up high enough to look. Men in the blue cloaks of the city guard, some bleeding from the ears and eyes, were laid out side by side across the floor of the hall. The captain. The one they called Kannish. There, under a blanket with his chest rising and falling and his shut eyes bruise-blue with exhaustion, Garreth.
“Yes,” Elaine said. “That’s what happened. The fire.”
“That’s very brave,” the historian said, and then seemed to run out of words. Her hands fluttered a little at her waist and she looked around again. “I’ll find someone to take you to your rooms, shall I?”
“No,” Elaine said. “I’m fine here.”
Mikah Ell shook her head as if Elaine had given the wrong answer to her tutor. “It’s not a problem. I can just—”
Elaine made the effort to sit. Her body hurt from skin to sinew. Dried blood cracked and tugged as she moved. She noticed without any real surprise that the marks on her wrists were gone. “I have work to do here. Thank you, though.”
“Of course. Yes, of course.” Mikah Ell regained her feet, made a bow, and almost turned away. Then, “Welcome back, though. You were missed.”
When she was gone, Elaine waited, gathered her strength, and stood. It was easier to walk than she’d expected, and her mind seemed to be putting itself back in order. Even just the few steps to Garreth’s side left her more wakeful. More herself. His eyes opened as she lowered herself beside him. He looked around them, confused.
“Someone bandaged your hand,” she said.
“Someone tore it up.” He reached out his left, uninjured hand. “This one’s all right. Where is everyone?”
Elaine wove her fingers with his. “Here, I think. The wind’s died down,” she said, and her voice cracked on the words. She wept without knowing what she was weeping for, except that she was too full, and everything that was in her—fear and relief and confusion and triumph and sorrow—had to find its way out, and this was the one her body had chosen. She bowed her head, her eyes closing, and he rose up.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, his living breath warm against her ear.
I’m being silly. We won. I’m home. There’s no reason for this. I shouldn’t be doing this.
“Let it free. It’s all right. You’re safe here.”
And that was all it took. Something wide opened in her chest, and she sobbed, taking fistfuls of his cloak and pulling him in against her like she was a child again, and he was the nurse set to comfort her. The tears stung at first, but there were so many that they washed themselves away. When she looked up, the others in the room were carefully not seeing her. She and Garreth were alone in the middle of the crowd, and she discovered that she wasn’t ashamed. She was too tired for shame.
At its worst, the grief or exhaustion or other nameless raw emotion transported her, letting her forget herself in the ocean-wide swell of it. And then, slowly, by degrees, the storm passed. She leaned on Garreth, her breath shuddering. He smoothed her hair with his good hand and cooed softly, like he was gentling an animal. Elaine felt hollow in the best possible way. The emptiness didn’t hurt.
When she sat back, Garreth’s eyes were red and wet as her own. She hadn’t even noticed him crying with her.
“It’s been a strange day, yeah?” he said.
“Might need some time to recover before we do this again.” His chuckle was rich, warm, low in his throat. She wanted to kiss him, but she had to gather some energy first.
The voice that came from behind her was as familiar as her own name, and it took a moment to recognize anyway. “Please excuse me. I need to speak with you, Elaine.”
Halev Karsen stood almost at her back. His skin was waxy and grey. He swayed a little as he stood.
“It’s fine,” Garreth said, but not to Halev. To her. “I’ll be all right. I’m here if you have need of me.”
Elaine let him go. Halev put out a hand to help her up, but she didn’t reach back. It seemed more likely that she’d topple him. Her hip ached when she stood, but not so badly she couldn’t ignore it. Halev turned and started off to the north, leaving the room of injured behind and stepping into the narrow darkness of the old corridors. Toward her father’s rooms.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Not here.”
“Is something wrong with my father?”
Halev was quiet long enough she thought he wasn’t going to answer. And then, “We need to have an unpleasant conversation.”
By the time Captain Senit had gathered them all to the stables, the sun had fallen behind the walls of the palace. The sky overhead was still blue, though it was darkening to indigo in the east. The first stars would press past the smoke haze and the high, reddening clouds before long. It would be full dark before they reached the foot of Oldgate.
Maur lay in the cart, as still as death. The bruises around his eyes were almost black, and his nose was thick and wide and misshapen. His eyes were closed. Kannish and Old Boar sat beside him, and Garreth stood at the cart’s side, leaning against it to look in.
“He was a good man,” Kannish said.
“Died following his oath,” Old Boar agreed, nodding.
“Fuck you both,” Maur groaned.
“The way he charged that woman,” Old Boar said, looking at the sky in mock piety. “We all knew she was wielding deep magics. But brave little Maur, he thought, maybe if I run at her real fast. That should work.”
“It might have,” Maur said. “I wanted to see.”
At the front of the cart, Marsen clambered up to the driver’s box, though he didn’t take the reins. “There’s a great spiritual power in running real fast. The priests all say so. The way to reach God, they say, is you rush him.”
“How is what I did any different than Garreth?”
“His worked,” Kannish said, laughing.
Maur didn’t open his eyes, but lifted his hands, fingers spread in supplication to the gods of putting up with bullshit. The courtyard was in shadow, the heat of the day radiating back up from the stones. The red-cloaked palace guards had returned, burns on their hands and arms, soot darkening their cloaks. There was laughter and exuberance. Someone had brought two thick-bodied barrels of beer, and the palace servants were handing out cups of it to everyone. It was the joy and laughter of danger that had just gone by. Every man and woman there had faced catastrophe in the hours since sunrise. They’d survived, and they were all drunk on that fact as much as on the beer.
Garreth looked back at the darkening stone buildings, squat and thick, and hoped to see her particular face again, but Elaine had been called away hours ago. However much he wanted to see her, talk with her, hold her, this was the palace, and she was the prince’s daughter while he was city guard at most. There were other obligations that demanded her attention not by anything she’d chosen. It was just the way the world was ordered.
Still, he watched and he hoped.
Across the courtyard, Captain Senit was standing with Samal Kint of the palace guard. They were both smiling, but very differently. Kint was canted forward, pressing for something. Senit leaned back, enjoying the act of withholding it, whatever it was. Garreth’s own smile faded.
“Give me a minute, boys,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He stepped away, navigating a path across the courtyard with his thumbs hooked in his belt. A young man in a servant’s robe offered him a tin cup of beer. He drank half of it in a swallow and wished it were stronger. Kint glanced at him as he came close, but Captain Senit didn’t look over.
“Once we figured it, we got her out of the fish and brought her back home.”
“An air fish,” Kint said.
“Yeah,” Captain Senit said with palpably false innocence. “Use ’em in Bronze Coast all the time. They’ve got a bladder in ’em that pulls the good air right out of the water, and you steer ’em from the inside just like you were driving a mule. God knows how long the poor girl had been going up and down the port trying to catch someone’s attention.”
“And nothing to do with Andomaka Chaalat,” Kint said.
“Just happy timing. I’d have waited on you, but I sensed you were busy with shoveling mud onto embers and all that. What the fuck do you want, Left?”
“Needed a word, sir.”
Captain Senit rolled his head over to stare at him, then shrugged. “Fine. Excuse me, Samal, but the children are calling, yeah?”
Kint raised a cup of beer in salute and turned away, shaking his head. Captain Senit started walking briskly toward the path that led down to Oldgate. Garreth had to trot to catch up.
“Air fish, sir?”
“It’s the third story I told him. With any luck, when the real thing gets back, he’ll think it’s just another something I made up. Which, when you look at it, an air fish ain’t that much less likely. What’s on your mind?”
Garreth swallowed, and they passed through the iron gate and through the short tunnel to the top of the switchback road that led down to the Khahon, far below. “I want you to know how much the guard means to me. You took me in when I needed a place and didn’t have one. I know the city now in ways I never would have.”
