Thornfall
Chris Howard
Copyright © 2025 by Chris Howard.
All rights reserved.
Lykeion Books
ISBN: 979-8-9926801-0-2 (ebook)
Thornfall is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
BY CHRIS HOWARD
Dryad
Seaborn
Sea Throne
Saltwater Witch
Nanowhere
Salvage
Autonomous
Teller
TARRYA ILLIMOR of Carrier House Leneiros unfolded her own wanted poster one-handed and examined it quickly. She had ripped it down from a gatepost on Harbor Street and hurried on without a glance back. The bounty notice was printed on quality paper with a detailed and accurate woodblock ink stamp of her face and profile. They even got her nose right—and her lower lip, which was a little too big for her mouth. Since she was a child, the word “stubborn” always seemed to be included when describing it.
Twenty-four years, I still can’t escape the word “stubborn”.
Tarrya felt the weight of tears coming and shifted her focus away from a flood of memories of the only world she’d ever known.
Do they always use the finest printing for wanted posters?
The paper rattled as she held it in one shaking hand. With her other, she cupped three bright red apples against her stomach—apples she’d bought from an old woman in Nava Market on the outskirts of Arkoness because it had felt like the right thing to do.
Don’t mind me. I’m just a nobody, not wanted for anything, picking up a little something to eat on the flatboat ride upriver to Thornfall.
Tarrya imagined it helped her fit in with the other overland travelers, but she didn’t have any experience roaming the landward side of the great city-state.
She was the daughter of an Arkoness Carrier House. She knew ships and sails, soundings and charts, running rigging, and the mechanics of navigation with trade winds and the motion of the stars. She’d sailed on ships across the Blue since she was a child. This flatboat was a river vessel, broad-decked and slow, towed upriver by ox teams plodding along the rutted road on the north bank. She didn’t like the unnatural motion, the not-quite-rhythmic tugging and dropping fore to aft.
Accustomed to open seas and ships nearly as wide as this boat was long, the flatboat barely qualified as a vehicle for water travel.
Tarrya braced her feet apart for balance and leaned against the portside rail, keeping her head down. The city and its busy wharves faded into the mist and marsh flats behind her. This was her first time inland, beyond the hinterlands of Arkoness, the largest and most prosperous city-state in all the Tannaquell Lows. It was “Grand Arkoness”, a vast port city with a harbor full of warships, fishing vessels, and merchant ships, some of them owned or insured by her family’s financial operations.
She felt a stab of anxiety about her family. She wasn’t sure where she stood with them. There hadn’t been time to speak to her father after the command went out for her arrest. Pushing a few necessities, some silver, and a History of the Tannaquell Lows with Maps and Folklore into her seabag, she had dressed appropriately, grabbed her cloak, and fled her port residence without a goodbye. Her Aunt Sophia knew of course—because she always knew. Sophia had been the one who tipped her off with instructions to leave the city immediately. And to stay away until the false accusations could be straightened out.
Tarrya had climbed out a back window and jumped a wall to the alley along the Tideway while a squad of High Court enforcers were banging on the front door. An hour later, hurrying through the dark Arkoness streets to the river docks, she’d joined the early morning crowd on the Thornfall-bound flatboat.
Tarrya unfolded the heavy piece of paper again. With a surreptitious glance at the dozens of other travelers near her to see if any of them were looking back suspiciously, she dropped her gaze to more closely peruse her own bounty notice.
Along with the accurate portrait and her full family name, it promised a purse of a thousand silver to anyone who brought her to the High Court alive. The notice contained a section on surrendering to the arrest warrant, along with a not-so-subtle threat of torture—upon capture—if she chose not to appear of her own will. It was even signed by Lord Ambrose Seeledger, with his full name and position: Minister of Records for the Guild of Law and Master of Harbors for the Port City of Arkoness.
Tarrya Scalherry Urseiwa Illimor of Carrier House Leneiros folded the paper nimbly into quarters and pushed it under her belt behind the three apples. It was the only wanted poster she’d ever seen up close or read in detail, and although it looked official, she thought it was strange it didn’t mention a crime of any kind.
Just the threat and the reward.
She felt tears welling again and concentrated on summoning her impassive-form, the projection she usually created when she needed strength. Her impassive was useful when negotiating tricky trade deals, playing games, or when the need arose to confront ship captains, her father, or the constabulary. She mentally pushed against the weeping-induced swelling around her eyes, and suddenly it was there, like a full-body mask, a shield in her own shape, as fully present as the sudden cold absence of the urge to cry.
Tarrya opened her eyes, not realizing she’d closed them. And there—surprisingly—on her left, like seeing her own ghost in a mirror, was a second impassive, watching her warily. She had only conjured two impassives once before. An officer of the Arkoness Wharf Watch questioned her about “loitering” in the imported cargo warehouse prior to inspection and release—where she wasn’t strictly allowed to be. But she was responsible for the shipment, and she wasn’t going to allow some shady inspector to walk off with any of it. Tarrya hadn’t lied through her own teeth. She had lied through the teeth of her conjured impersonator, her summoned impassive—the unemotional, supremely confident copy of herself that slipped into the same space and folded around her. This was the Tarrya the outside world usually saw and interacted with. The watch officer had listened carefully to her explanation and justification—delivered with the precision of a High Court judge—tapped the brim of his hat with his truncheon and bid her good day. That’s when she’d noticed a second, ghostly version of herself, standing a little way away, silently laughing and gesturing rudely at the officer’s back.
Now, here she was, leaning on the rail of a crowded flatboat, heading away from the sea, half a day away from the only home she’d ever known, wearing an impassive like a mask. And there was another version of herself—a third version of herself—looking this way and that, watchful and glowering at the other travelers.
Tarrya felt a shiver of power run up her spine. She straightened, blinking away the strain of concentrating on her two impassive forms, and met the cold gray-green eye of an old man leaning against the boat’s rail on the starboard side. A traveler himself, or maybe an ancient sailor down on his luck? Long gray hair in a queue and yellowed teeth in a crooked grin, he leaned heavily on a walking stick, a dirty blue oilskin coat thrown over his shoulders. One of his eyes was milky with an old scar that ran up the cheek and through the brow.
He winked at her with his good one and appeared to be able to see her impassives, including the accompanying ghostly version. The city was only half a day away and someone had already caught her. She fought the slither of fear, failed to seize control, and the pair of confident Tarryas drifted away with the breeze.
Only one Tarrya was left, staring back at the old man—the frightened Tarrya who fought the rush of tears, whose home and life had been ripped away. The Tarrya who might be imprisoned or worse if they captured her.
The old sailor’s one-eyed stare dropped to the apples. Then he looked up at her directly with a slight questioning tilt of his head.
Tarrya let out a long breath. Not truly relieved, but the urge to jump the rail and make a swim for it drifted away with the stoic copies of herself.
He was asking for an apple.
She lifted her hand higher, fingers spread wide, hooked to hold all three, and nodded back, hoping he would only take one.
He planted his walking stick a ways out and heaved himself off the rail. The flatboat had stopped to take on passengers at several points along the river, but he seemed to glide without trouble through the space crowded with chattering sellers balancing stacks of boxes and bread baskets, young soldiers grinning nervously, huddling families, mothers clutching their children close, farmers and attendants with goats and pigs on leashes.
She didn’t see how it happened, but the old man was suddenly right in front of her, one hand about to reach out, hesitant, fingers half uncurled, the back ridged with veins and mottled age spots.
Tarrya whispered, “Please do.”
His hand opened. He didn’t have fingernails. He had animal claws the color of bone and sharp as knives.
But he was gentle as a fawn with a theatrical twirl of the fingers on one open hand while he carefully selected a single apple with the other. As he lifted it away, one claw curled between the other two apples and sliced into her skin, cutting a deep line across her palm. Blood immediately oozed and dribbled between her fingers, splattering her shoes. Tarrya stared down at her open hand for a moment, waiting for a stab of pain that didn’t come.
Shadowy movement on the flatboat’s deck caught her eye, a flash of an animal shape moving across the weathered wood. It was only there for a moment and then she lost it, a wild-looking shadow dancing in the slanted afternoon sun, something with pointed ears and snout. Maybe a fox? Tarrya had seen just about every sea creature imaginable with her own eyes, but she’d only seen drawings of foxes in books.
When she looked up, the old sailor—or whatever he was—had vanished, no sign of him or the apple, and across from her, against the opposite railing was a bright-aproned dairy mother, assisted by two young men, corralling goats.
A chill ran through Tarrya, and a jumble of questions lined up behind her teeth. She kept her mouth shut, knowing if she asked about the man who’d been leaning there a moment before, the woman with the goats would say something like, “We’ve been standing in this spot half the day, since Apprehaltz. Find your own bit of railing.”
Tarrya quickly checked the crowd around her, not expecting to find the strange man with the claws. She had heard the inlands, the “Lows”, were wild—wild in the sense that prey and predator animals freely roamed the fields, swamps, and shadowy forests occasionally harassing travelers—but also wild in the old-world sense, teaming with well-spirits and rootworld beings that had roamed Tannaquell for a hundred lifetimes.
Had she just met one of them?
The two remaining apples felt slick in her fingers, but the blood was drying. She shifted them to one hand and, with her now-free fingers, wiped the blood on her cloak. Then, scrutinizing her palm, she saw the old man’s claw had left a mark, not a laceration or scar. A thick band of heavy gold ran from one side to the other. Instead of a wound she had a glistening metallic cord running through her skin, embedded and organic, as if it had always been there. Tarrya made a fist, curling her fingers around it but didn’t feel anything rigidly metallic or unnatural.
She also didn’t feel the stiff crinkle of folded paper under her belt and knew the wanted poster with her face and a promised thousand-silver reward was gone along with the apple.
THE BOUNTY NOTICE portrait showed her with long, wavy hair past her shoulders, so Tarrya cleaned and ate one of the remaining apples, stuffed the other in her seabag, and braided her hair while the flatboat was maneuvering to the dock. She pulled the two resulting lengths around her head like a bundle of dark rope, finally anchoring the ends in place with the gold and mother-of-pearl clasp given to her by her Aunt Sophia.
She waited for most of the boat’s passengers to cross and exit onto the dock before following at the pace of someone who wasn’t being pursued by the constabulary of Arkoness.
She stepped between grain sacks and crates stacked on the Thornfall docks, thinking, Find a place to hide, a room somewhere—it doesn’t have to be elegant. I’ve slept on the decks of ships across the Blue. I just need a little time to figure out how I can send a discreet note to Aunt Sophia.
Tarrya paused in the middle of the street, a wide thoroughfare called “the Mirasailor”. It all looked familiar, analogous to port cities she’d visited as part of her maritime experiences. She took in the lakeside warehouses, lumberyards, ropemakers, public houses, and shops decorated with marker buoys, selling bait, traps, netting, and other lake and riverine gear.
The sights and smells made her feel welcomed, just another visitor, strolling along without a bounty on her head.
Just keep moving and watch for anyone following me.
Tarrya heard the crows before one landed on her shoulder, a murder of them by all the noise they were making. She also heard the shouting of a fisherman over the chorus of cawing and turned to see a man in a heavy apron waving a wide straw hat in an effort to disperse the sleek black shapes.
A large crow landed heavily, brushed up against Tarrya’s ear, made a jaunty croaking noise, and attacked her, ripping away a beakful of hair. Then, quicker than she could swing a fist, it dug in its talons and launched itself in the air, pumping its wings to catch up with its fellows.
She managed to pluck and hold on to one large black tailfeather, thrusting it decoratively into her hair.
Tarrya turned to watch the birds fly away along the Thornfall docks. Belatedly, she thought That was strange and spent a minute adjusting her braids. She also made sure the crow had not made off with Aunt Sophia’s clasp.
The sudden intrusion of omen birds was unusual enough to raise goosebumps up her arms. That one of the crows had taken some of her hair, added to her vigilance. She’d heard sailors’ tales where possessing another’s hair, skin, or blood might be used against them, but she had never seen it accomplish anything. Although such sympathetic magic was outside her experience, she had her own powers. Other than conjuring impassives, she had the ability to see the shadow shapes of the souls of nearby people—given a decent slanting light. And she could do many other useful things her Aunt Sophia had taught her.
She’d also read about the wider magical world, and was especially interested in the rootstones—massive dark crystalline spheres buried in the rock and soil across the Lows and the rest of the world as far as she knew. They were beacons and accumulations of power that some mages drew from to create their works, start fires, move the flow of rivers, and accomplish other things that were, frankly, unbelievable.
The rootstones had drawn her attention when she was first coming into her abilities because she didn’t need them, didn’t rely on any stored “beacon of power”. And Aunt Sophia’s dismissive attitude toward them fired her interest even more. Why was she different? What could those mages who needed some proximity to a rootstone to execute their powers do that she couldn’t do?
And then there were the rootworlders themselves, ancient creatures with enormous power who roamed the lands and seas on their own private journeys, with their own inscrutable motives—shared with none—ignoring, for the most part, the people of the world of Shudaireness. Had they created the rootstones? Were they somehow involved?
This inland expanse she now traveled seemed so much wider than the Zainarren Blue, the widest of seas she’d traversed. It was a nineteen-day voyage out of Arkoness—with the wind—to reach Veshorrin. But—thaumaturgically speaking—there seemed to be more to a mile of the Tannaquell Lows than a day on the sea, at least on the surface.
The sea has depth, she thought. How deep are the Lows?
She turned away from the docks to look along the Mirasailor, and the wide and strange new world in which she’d found herself nearly ran her down in the middle of the interestingly named street. Two young men with a barrow of grain sacks stacked so high they couldn’t see their direct path clearly, came close to driving right over her. They were headed for the docks in a hurry, apparently late for a vessel that was about to depart.
Tarrya lurched aside, the sharp front edge of the barrow clipping her in the shin, tearing a neat line in her hose and leaving a splash of mud across the hem of her skirt. One of the men shouted something apologetically and drove on without slowing.
Thinking it wiser—or just good sense—to keep to one side of the Mirasailor, Tarrya slid left into the slow flow of people heading into the town of Thornfall. The sun was low, and she pulled her cloak closer, trying to remain in the shadows of the passing shops, smithies, and warehouses. There may have been inns and taverns with private rooms available nearby, but she understood enough about dockside establishments to know their quality—and, often, safety—dipped the nearer you were to the water.
She’d need to find a safe inn with basic conveniences, thinking, I don’t know how often House Leneiros post riders make it out to Thornfall—they’re mostly coastal. But there must be courier services here, at least through the better inns.
Watching the people ahead of her for any signs of latent bounty-hunting behavior, she spotted a couple of recognizable passengers from the flatboat another forty paces along and followed them. Half a mile farther, the wide thoroughfare of the Mirasailor split into two streets, one a narrow way that looked commercial. The other was High Street—so named on the elaborately carved sign—which had a gentle grade and more expensive properties.
The sun was close to setting and finding a place to hide that also provided decent food, a little privacy, and a comfortable bed sounded like the right next step. She cut between two mule-pulled carts rolling toward her, both heading to the port with cargo to load onto one of the outbound vessels. She made her way up High Street, her fingers running over the slightly raised ridge of gold in her palm.
Tarrya wondered if it was like a metallic scab that would do its job protecting the wound and then flake off after everything underneath healed. Seems a little complicated. And expensive.
Just ahead there were two large, brightly lit buildings, one clearly a place where she could find a room and a meal. It offered two stories with a balcony, rows of windows, and a porte-cochere. There were even liveried attendants and a waiting carriage out front.
Gilt letters on the sign read Gondron Inn.
Without a pause, Tarrya headed for the double doors, thrown wide to the evening, and stepped into the crowded front room off the main dining and drinking space, which was almost as large as the flatboat she’d taken from Arkoness.
This is perfect, she said to herself. A lot of people, a lot of motion. I’ll blend in and go unnoticed while I find a way to contact Aunt Sophia.
A smartly dressed woman in a gold-buttoned vest and chevron-patterned leggings passed her, looked her up and down, and held out one open hand, gesturing Tarrya to follow. “Good evening, ma’am. I’m Mayrel. Dining alone tonight? Where would you like to sit? Bar or table?”
They made their way through the vast dining hall. Tarrya caught up to her. “I also need a room, just myself for now. And a table if you please.”
“Of course.” Mayrel nodded, cut away from the row of tall chairs along the bar, and made her way to a slightly quieter area of the room. Gesturing to a small table for two against the south wall, she pulled out a chair. Tarrya was already removing her cloak and folding it as she moved to the other chair, away from the window onto an unlit garden. “Sorry, I prefer the garden view.” And not have my back exposed to a window.
The chair went back into place, and the woman swept off with, “Elen will be by with a list of the evening’s meals and other offerings. I’ll return in a bit with room information and a key.”
Mayrel was gone, winding back through the tables toward the front entrance.
Tarrya felt as if she had to catch her breath. This was some high-society Arkoness-level hospitality way out in the Lows. She hadn’t expected it, but then again, she hadn’t left her residence dressed like a criminal. Without the covering of her cloak, her social position and her affiliation with Arkoness elite were on display. She looked down at the line of thirteen polished buttons making a perfectly spaced boundary, dividing the front of a high-collared vest of blue brocade with the sea and full sails woven into it and embellished with tiny pearls. Light cream with delicate tracings of swirling ocean currents, the sleeves of her silk blouse billowed fashionably. Her skirt was also made of the brocade. Even her hose and shoes were of the highest quality. Without the cloak, she stood out more than a fugitive should, but there were clear benefits.
She noticed a dozen men and women from several different tables and along the bar watching her. Most immediately looked away.
And a few disadvantages.
It would be odd if she pulled on her cloak again, so she didn’t.
A young woman, evidently Elen, appeared suddenly, flying to the table with the same energy that drove Mayrel. She was a little older than Tarrya, dressed in a pressed and starched apron. She set down a wine bottle and one hand-blown stemmed glass of the faintest blue.
Tarrya looked up. “Is this for me? I didn’t order anything.”
“They did.” Elen leaned down, pointing with her hand held low to keep things semi-confidential. She indicated two people at a table across the room, both smiling and nodding back. A woman with long dark hair, dressed mostly in brown and black, gave Tarrya a multi-fingered sequential undulating gesture that seemed friendly enough. The man across from her, fairer with long reddish-brown hair and beard complexly braided, lifted his glass to Tarrya with a combination head tilt and nod that Tarrya took to mean “Well met in Thornfall”—or something like that.
She picked up her own empty glass and raised it in acknowledgment.
Elen, still leaning close, whispered conspiratorially, “The woman’s name is Sindreen. She wanted me to ask if you’d like to share the bottle. They have an extra place at their table. And the gentleman with her, I believe his name is Rehmonoth, asked if you’re recently from Arkoness, and if so, do you have any interesting news or gossip? He specifically asked if the stage production of Wright of the Tides was still running at the Vadithess Theater.”
Elen clearly saw Tarrya’s nervousness and added, “You needn’t join them if you don’t wish, but they’re regulars, in here two or three times a week. Mayrel knows them better than I do, and she considers them harmless. Mostly.”
The calculations clicking through Tarrya’s thoughts were probably loud enough for Elen to hear. Most of it amounted to weighing trust and the general appearance of Sindreen and Rehmonoth. In the end, five or six long and silent seconds later, the winning piece that moved the scale was: A criminal would probably be on her own, behaving suspiciously, not chatting gaily with others about the Arkoness theater scene.
Tarrya stood up and, still holding the glass, draped her cloak over one arm. “I think I will. Elen, can you bring the wine, please, and lead the way?”
GREETINGS AND NAMES traded, Sindreen gave Tarrya a long look, moving a lock of dark hair back from her face to uncover both eyes at once. “You’re new. Haven’t seen you in the Gondron before today. In town from Arkoness?”
Tarrya took the seat with her back to the wall. “Just off the flatboat.”
Rehmonoth—“call me Rehm”—filled her glass. “Oh, do I miss Grand Arkoness. Anything interesting playing on the West Castien Way these days?”
The odeons and big theaters, including the Vadithess, were on West Castien, a wide avenue strung with always-burning oil lamps, towering and elaborate facades, and terraced seating for thousands carved out of the hillsides above the city.
“I haven’t been to the theater in a while—saw The Night Wanderers last year. Amazing sets and performance. But I’m more of an ocean and salt-spray type, with a residence overlooking a harbor full of ships. I’ve sailed over the Zainarren Blue many times, the first time when I was three years old.”
“Ah,” said Rehm and drew out the sound to emphasize his grasp of the important distinction. Arkoness was like two cities. “And what has brought you—a daughter of the sea—so far inland?” He took a sip.
Tarrya frowned. The phrase “daughter of the sea” sounded quaint, even charming. No one among the seaside population of Arkoness used that phrase—daughter or son of the sea, only those who lived inland and who’d probably never seen the tides.
She made a vague gesture to indicate… What, the beautifully painted ceiling, the starry skies above? Without straying too far from the truth, she said, “One of my relatives has suggested that I spend a little time in the Tannaquell Lows. She said it would be healthy for me.”
Sindreen looked suddenly serious. “Healthy? Not sure about that. Potentially more interesting? No doubt.”
“Good enough. I might be in Thornfall for a while.” Tarrya tried to sound enthusiastic. “I’ve visited and explored a dozen cities on the other side of the Blue but have never journeyed far from my own city on this continent. There’s so much outside of Arkoness to explore.”
Rehm nodded absently as he nonchalantly surveyed the other diners. “I don’t know if you want to hear this, but we seem to have attracted the interest of another party.” Rehm furtively glanced over Sindreen’s shoulder, across the dining hall, whispering, “There’s also a hooded fellow by the bar who appears to be watching you and waiting.”
“Are any of the others looking this way?” Tarrya kept her head down, to one side, eyes focused on Sindreen. She gestured, a little awkwardly, in what she thought was a casual flick of her fingers.
“Hooded fellow hasn’t moved. The other two are getting up from their table and heading toward us. Oh dear. One looks rather . . . intense.” Rehm gave Sindreen a meaningful look that lasted a couple of seconds, and both stood without another word.
Tarrya was on her feet with them, flexing fingers, readying something discreetly dangerous.
The two men approaching were unambiguously dangerous. A fair, thick-set soldierly man with long, center-parted blond hair had one hand on the sheathed short-sword at his belt. He’d swept that side of his cloak wide to make sure everyone knew he was carrying something that could cut you. The other had a wiry build, a little taller, with fashionably trimmed dark hair and beard. He seemed to wear a perpetual snarling expression, his top lip twisted up as if offended by everything he could see. He’d been the first to rise from his chair, hefting a strangely ornate ax that hadn’t been made and kept sharp for trees.
Tarrya took in the long handle with a gentle curve and a finely polished, single-bladed ax-head—an ax with some reach. She was familiar with the hardware. A corsair’s ax—but one a rather showy pirate might put to use.
The two moved warily around tables and chairs, drawing near, the soldier with the blond hair opening and closing his fists as if warming up for trouble.
Elen, fresh from the kitchen and looking a little harried, swung between the two parties on the brink of war, platters of some delicious-smelling roasted pork arrayed along one arm. Her other arm waved around energetically, free hand jabbing an accusing finger at all of them. She was shaking her head before she said, “Uh-uh. No. Take whatever this is out to the street. Come back in when you cool off.” Then she was gone, across the room, gently setting down dishes on patrons’ tables.
Snarling-lip tipped his ax at Tarrya. “We’ve a thousand-silver bounty on that one.”
A jolt of panic ran through her, and she reached for the energy to summon an impassive. Not yet. She curled her shaking hands into fists but felt a little better when the ax-wielder started moving sideways, toward the front door, following Elen’s demand.
Rehmonoth leaned toward Tarrya, an eyebrow raised and mouth pulled down in a Now I’m really intrigued expression. But it passed quickly as his attention shifted to the two who were cautiously heading for the Gondron’s entrance, glancing back to see if the impending altercation was moving with them.
Rehm touched his cloak, but left it draped over his chair. “That’s a tidy sum, Tarrya. What did you do?”
Acting on instinct about the pair, Tarrya decided candor was her best option. “I honestly don’t know why they’re after me. I have family in Arkoness investigating.” She noted an identical doubting reaction from both Sindreen and Rehm. “It might be that I saw or heard something I wasn’t supposed to. Or maybe I've broken some obscure trade law or jeopardized the import inspection for some rich merchant’s cargo. That’s landed me in minor trouble before. Now, someone wants me… I don’t know what they’re planning to do or what they’re accusing me of. But I’m sure it won’t be good for my health.”
The “saw or heard something I wasn’t supposed to” clearly piqued Sindreen’s interest. She nodded, preparing to follow the two bounty hunters out of the inn. “Ah, and that’s why it might be ‘healthier’ for you to be out here in the Lows? Let’s chat after we take care of these two inquisitive gentlemen.”
Rehm drew on what looked like fencing gloves then motioned Tarrya forward. “Shouldn’t take long. Planning to join the fun?”
Tarrya swung her bag over one shoulder and followed them out into the dusky street. The streetlamps were being lit. Who were these two? Why were they suddenly—and eagerly—willing to help her?
Mayrel gave them all a stern look as they made their way through the front room and outside, beyond two carriages with harnessed horses. Rehm slowed his stride to walk alongside Tarrya. “Don’t worry. Mayrel and the staff of the Gondron are used to this sort of misbehavior from Sindreen and me. We’ll be back at our table enjoying our wine in a few minutes.”
The soldierly looking fellow and Snarling-lip stopped in the middle of High Street, throwing back cloaks aggressively and drawing weapons. Even his voice had a little snarl to it. “We can do this with blood or benevolence. Your choice.”
To Tarrya’s ear, he sounded very coastal Morhessin and educated.
So, a learned pirate.
Sindreen watched them with an unconcerned competence that was frightening to see. She made a swirling gesture with one hand. “Or you can take a hundred silver without consequence and walk away?”
Tarrya stopped between Rehm and Sindreen, flexing her arms and extending her fingers, feeling the thrum of power run through her, all the way to the tips of her toes.
Snarly-lip slid his ax into the crook of one elbow and unfolded a heavy piece of paper—one of Tarrya’s wanted posters. He stood motionless for a moment, staring at the image—her face and profile done in ink. Then he carefully folded it away and looked over at his soldierly accomplice. “If it’s just you three, we’d rather have the thousand.”
He stepped cautiously forward, bringing the ax up two-handed. The soldier rushed in with his sword raised, ready to swing, growling something that sounded like, “See your blood in the street and you’ll sing a different tune.”
Damn, this is happening! One of Aunt Sophia’s defensive moves flowed through her.
Tarrya started to twirl the air and stopped, pulling her response back. High Street lit up around her. She stepped clear of a fan of ghostly arcane threads that curved around buildings, lightning-fast, following a line of walls and terraces, branching from alleys to slam into the center of Sindreen’s back—but instead of hitting her with force and knocking her off her feet, the spectral fibers of energy flowed into her body, apparently feeding an inner reserve of power that she used on the soldier.
They’re drawing from the rootstones.
An almost lackadaisical gesture from Sindreen knocked the bounty hunter off his feet. His sword hand hit the street hard and shook the blade from his grasp. The weapon went ringing across the stones.
Tarrya had never seen power used like this. She followed the path of another strand of mist-like energy that slipped through the curtains of an open second-story window across the street and shot out the front door to latch onto Rehmonoth. He made a dancer’s half twist, one hand gracefully slicing the air to shear the head off the ax. Snarly-lip stopped mid-swing, thrown off his game, the lion’s share of the killing weight suddenly gone from his weapon.
The bounty hunters recovered quickly, which surprised Tarrya. They backed away a few paces, collecting their weapons and wits. The soldier snapped up his sword. They glanced at each other, maybe for reassurance, both making decisive nods as if to say the fight wasn’t over. Snarly regripped his ax handle and slapped the palm of his other hand with it.
Tarrya held out a hand to stop them. They cannot see the magic flowing from the rootstones. She realized with a small shock. They don’t even know what they’re fighting.
She stepped through the soft glow of energy surrounding Sindreen and Rehmonoth, narrowed her focus down to the bounty hunters, and twirled her fingers swiftly sunwise—a clock dial’s direction. The air around the two bounty hunters grew still, momentarily hard as diamond, and then both were lifted off their feet and flipped, one over the other, ten paces down High Street. They skidded face-first through mud and horseshit. A twirling bar of wood—the ax handle—caught the glow from the streetlamps in a delicate arc and ended up thumping into an open rain barrel outside a dark-windowed shop with a faded sign of broken letters: APOTH CARY - SPICEs”.
Tarrya released her hold, then sensing something behind her, spun and stopped dead, watching a terrifyingly beautiful woman in a dark cloak gliding toward them. Sindreen and Rehm felt Tarrya’s rapid shift and followed her gaze, wheeling to deal with a potential new threat.
The arcane threads leading to Tarrya’s two allies grew fragile and broke apart, ghostly lines fading into the setting sunlight.
The woman was pale, in a hooded cloak that shimmered metallic blue against black. She walked calmly into their midst, half her face in shadow but somehow still alluring and commanding at the same time. She lowered the hood of shimmering material, and the radiance of a goddess rolled off her. She lifted one gloved hand and choked off what remained of the network of energy that coiled around the buildings lining the street.
Ignoring Sindreen and Rehmonoth gasping at their sudden loss of power, she turned her full attention to Tarrya.
She displayed a cruel smile and made a complicated gesture with both gloved hands, fingers hooking into claws.
Tarrya staggered back. Something hit her and then grabbed her with inhuman strength. She felt her spine buckle and rotate, bones and tendons twisting apart, breaking with a moment of intense burning pain, and then she felt nothing. Her eyes were already wide, and the world seemed brighter, almost blinding, like turning to face the sun. But she couldn’t close them. Her breathing stopped abruptly as if she’d forgotten how—or her lungs had been crushed flat by collapsing ribs and splintering bone. There was blood in her mouth, oozing between her teeth, bitter and metallic. A jarring blow to the back of her head dazed her. The lines of stone and wood, the structural faces of the Gondron Inn and other buildings along the street shifted strangely, as if they were being stretched into the sky. Tarrya realized she was on her back, lying in the mud on rough paving stones. The light was dying. But she didn’t think her eyes were closing.
Then she felt the flutter of crow feathers, black wings spreading.
So, this is death.
Tarrya blinked, squeezed her eyes closed firmly, and then opened them. She was lying in the street. Her vision was blurred. Her breathing started with a jolt so violent it kicked her onto her side, coughing and choking on the saliva and blood that had pooled in her mouth and was now running out of it. It dribbled down her chin to fill the sharp lines between the paving stones.
The witch stood over Tarrya, her voice gentle, almost motherly. “There, child, get yourself together and go back to the inn.” A world of shadow and silence blossomed behind her and closed around them, sealing the two of them in, blocking out the rest of the street and all of Thornfall. “Await my lovely Ezrick Hollow Birth.”
“What did you do?” Tarrya’s voice was raw, pain running through her jaw. Her teeth hurt. Had this witch just killed her and then brought her back to life?
“That is what I just did. But I am not unkind.” She crouched and plucked the crow’s feather out of Tarrya’s hair. “I can see you do not need the rootstones, and that interests me. Very much. You interest me, but you also stirred my wrath when I saw you doing that twirling motion with your hand—all wrong, of course. I had to show you how it’s supposed to be done.” She sighed, studying Tarrya’s pearl-studded blue vest with the sailing ships and swirling clouds. “Then I realized you’re already spoken for. You’re that Arkoness daughter of the sea Ezrick’s always whining about. He’s waited too long for you, and I won’t interfere at this point. We’ll see if—later—I must.”
Tarrya was assembling a few of her thoughts—and more intentions and memories were sparking, connecting, and coming alive with every passing moment. A few of the last ones showed up with a cup of sarcasm. She poured it all in and it gave her voice a sharp, cynical edge. “And what do you mean by that?”
The witch didn’t seem to notice. She stood and waved airily. “I don’t play with my own food. I certainly will not play with the food of one of my pets.”
Tarrya looked around for anyone else joining their little street brawl. “Pets?”
The beautiful woman pursed her lips as if mildly embarrassed. “I own several. My favorite is Ezrick of Hellexallim, who is called Hollow Birth. You may have heard of him? I set him free long ago, but he always comes running back to show me when he’s caught something—or someone.”
Eww, that’s foul.
Tarrya pushed aside her disgust because she knew that name, an echo from years ago, Ezrick Hollow Birth, the man with the wolf-shaped shadow on the floor of her father’s study. She’d been eleven, sneaking down to the kitchens late at night for a snack, when oil light, tall shadows, and a low and urgent discussion at the hall’s end tempted her to listen in. She didn’t like the voice that spoke threateningly to her father—chilling words, Where did she come from? Who is training her? The truth, you simple man, or I will end your life. And she didn’t like the shape of his soul, bristly and elongated, a distorted wolf shadow hunched over her father’s lean seabird shadow like a fresh kill. The creature in the ashen hood had turned then, suddenly, and looked right at her. Tarrya had covered her scream with one hand and ran.
That had been Ezrick Hollow Birth, half a lifetime ago.
The witch gestured encouragingly for her to rise. “Are you feeling better, child?”
Tarrya sat up but didn’t think she had the strength to stand. Child? I’ve sailed the world’s oceans for most of my life. I’ve spent more months at sea than you’ve spent years in this world. Probably. It was hard to tell with this woman. She didn’t look real—more like some brilliant sculptor’s work than living flesh and bone.
“I hope I put you back together the right way around.” The beautiful witch sighed at Tarrya’s faraway look, maybe a little disappointed at her lack of response. She watched her for another minute, and then dissipated their private shadow world with a languid motion, raised the hood to cover half her face, and strolled down High Street of Thornfall toward the center of town. Three crows followed her, lazily circling in the air above. The witch walked along the street as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She had broken Tarrya’s spine with a snap of power, dropped her dead on the pavement, and brought her back to life a moment later—apparently in one piece.
Sindreen approached and scrunched down next to Tarrya, placing a hand on her shoulder to keep her from falling over. Her voice came out in a shocked whisper as she brushed the dirt from Tarrya’s cloak and bag. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
Rehm took her arm and helped her to her feet. “And get a little wine inside you.”
As they approached the Gondron, Sindreen made a derisive snort and glanced over one shoulder, down the street. But she kept her voice low. “Your bounty hunters ran like the frightened children they are when she appeared. I never expected to see her—or any of them in my life. Is she the one who’s hunting you? Why didn’t she kill you?”
“Or leave you dead,” put in Rehm.
Tarrya stumbled, blinked firmly, and ducked away from the painfully blazing lamps along the front of the inn. “Who? That witch? I think she did kill me. But then she changed her mind.”
Sindreen exchanged a glance with Rehmonoth and was already shaking her head before the words came out. “That was no witch. That was Zarraneth Wine of Crows.”
THEY SETTLED DOWN at their table as if nothing had occurred. There was an indistinct hum of notice when they entered. The other patrons were mildly curious but quickly returned to their drinks and meals. Rehm poured three glasses of wine, and no one spoke until each had a substantial sip or two. Elen came by a minute later and left with a quick nod—Sindreen had ordered something for all of them.
When Tarrya finally felt capable of conversation, her voice was hoarse, and the words didn’t want to come out in any meaningful order. She thought it safest to try a single syllable. “Who?”
Rehm’s whisper had a desperate edge as if this wasn’t something to be talked about in a public dining room. He leaned in and spoke softly. “One of the Four, the one who rules the Four as far as we know. They’re called Blood, Breathless, Bent, and Sorrowful.”
Names or descriptions? Some frightening alliteration until sorrowful muddles it up, Tarrya thought.
Sindreen, as if hearing Tarrya’s thoughts, lowered her voice and said, “They have names, one is Zarraneth Wine of Crows—you just met.”
“There’s Illafar Breathless,” Rehm said under his breath. “You can make some fair guesses on what he’s famous for. I don’t recall Bent’s name… something that starts with an L? Maybe Lythienne? Something like that. No telling what she can do.” He paused, shook his head. “Who’s the fourth?”
“Something Sorrowful,” whispered Sindreen. “A recluse somewhere, maybe not even in Tannaquell. They’re just called ‘the Four’ with no more explanation. Other than they’re old, powerful root sorcerers. Rumor says they are the manipulators behind some of the larger city-state governments and courts. They’re hundreds of years old. They influence trade, they move important people around like they’re pieces on a gameboard, and generally do the kinds of things that change the course of history. Probably rumor, but it’s said they like to eliminate any covenant sorcery competition they deem too strong.”
“Like us,” added Rehm gravely, “and you.”
Tarrya gulped her wine too quickly and coughed. “I’ve figured it out. ‘Wine of Crows’ means ‘blood’.” Metaphors were still a little slippery in her mind, but she made that connection. “Then the other three are breathless, bent, and sorrowful. I’ve never heard of them.”
“Strange that you haven’t,” said Sindreen. “Someone should have warned you. I mean, who really knows how much of it is made up. Some of it must be rumor and old tales, but they’re well known out here. At least among those with talent.” She made an open-handed, helpless gesture, almost gasping the words, “But you don’t see any of them walking around like we just did.”
Rehm added, “Your mentors or instructors didn’t mention them at all?”
Tarrya shook her head, felt the scowl forming on her face, and wondered why her aunt hadn’t brought them up. “Never.”
Sindreen finished the wine in her glass, and her scary smile returned. “That was thrilling though, wasn’t it? I mean, the two ruffians looking to betray you for a little silver were annoying and even a little entertaining, but to see one of the Four strolling down High Street. That just doesn’t happen, a year’s worth of storytelling right there.”
Tarrya didn’t want to admit she had been terrified, in pain, without a heartbeat or the ability to draw a breath, dead for a few moments. “Why are you helping me?”
Sindreen shrugged but kept her hint of a smile. “You looked like someone who needed a little help—and would be amusing to be with.” She shrugged again, took a sip of wine. “No more complicated than that. We both saw you walk in with Mayrel. I said Arkoness? Rehm says definitely. I say is she by herself? Rehm says let’s invite her over. I wave Elen down for a bottle and a glass. Then those rude fellows interrupted. That’s pretty much how we got here.”
Rehm sighed and made an expansive gesture that meant just look around. “You’re from Grand Arkoness and this is wearisome little Thornfall.” He sank back into his chair, but his fingers danced on the table in front of him. “We saw you first. And trust me, you’ll have a better time with us than them.”
“Don’t worry.” Sindreen clearly saw Tarrya’s concerned expression, but sounded completely calm saying, “Those two were never a threat. We have our covenant abilities.” She brightened then, throwing a scheming smile at Tarrya. “And you have yours. We saw your fancy moves out there on the street. Never seen that twirling thing before.”
Nodding along, Rehm leaned down and pulled something from one of his boots. He unfolded a grubby and repeatedly creased version of Tarrya’s wanted poster. “I snatched this away from the bounty hunters. Without it, should make it a little more difficult to look for you?” He flattened it on the table between them, tilting his head to one side to read the details. “Ah, so you’re the eldest daughter of Carrier House Leneiros. I’ve heard the name, powerful in the shipping business.”
“The only daughter. Only child. I represent the House overseas.” Not wanting to say too much, she clamped her mouth shut, and in the sudden silence at the table, started cutting the roasted carrots on her plate.
The three sat and ate for several more minutes, Rehm looking down at his own plate as if he hadn’t realized Elen had brought out their meals. He picked up his fork.
Sindreen, still chewing, waved her knife and shook her head. “I’ve not heard the name Leneiros.” She reached for her wine glass with a quick glance down at the bounty notice and then right back up at Tarrya. “But that’s a good likeness.” Her tone became serious and she leaned closer. “Too good. Whoever’s after you spent real money on this. I was wondering how those dolts playing with sharp toys managed to pick you out of the population of Thornfall.”
Rehm said, “Perhaps they thought anyone coming up from Arkoness would eventually make their way to the Gondron?”
“Fair point.” Sindreen leaned back, sipping wine.
Tarrya gestured to her face on the notice. “This whole affair is strange. They put up the posters—at least along the streets to the seaport—before they sent the High Court enforcers to my residence. Maybe a few days before.”
“Before?” Sindreen put down her glass. “So, they expected you to run?”
Rehm gave the Gondron’s dining room another sweeping look. “Who’s ‘they’?”
Tarrya’s thoughts picked through the tangled seascape of her life. I have a father who controls a mercantile empire—that I will one day take over. I’m a sorcerer, and many of those I sail with are friendly out of fear or friendly out of gain—thinking they can get something from me. But with power enough to manipulate the Arkoness courts? I don’t think so. Those I’m closest with are not genuinely friendly—nothing like serious friendship. They’re pragmatic. I get that. They work for my father, and most simply treat me as a useful asset to have aboard.
But who’s the obvious one?
Aloud, she said, “Lord Seeledger, I assume? He’s Master of Harbors and directly connected with the courts and the Guild of Law. I don’t know why he’d be after me, but at least his name’s on the bounty.” Then her thoughts continued to run. Is there a connection with Ezrick Hollow Birth and Zarran—whatever her name is? Or is that just a coincidence? Tarrya let out a breath, shaking her head, pressing one finger firmly on the bounty notice. “It doesn’t mention any sort of crime, and it’s unfortunate they captured my face so clearly. Is that normal for bounty notices?”
“No,” both said together, confidently, as if they could back that up with solid experience.
Tarrya lifted her hand, fingers spread over the poster, and absorbed the ink from the page, leaving a blank, dirty, much-folded piece of parchment on the table. It was an old trick, one of the first things Aunt Sophia had taught her. She pulled back her hand when her tablemates gasped.
She lowered her voice, not sure about customs when it came to certain subjects. “You draw power from the rootstones?”
Rehm and Sindreen looked at each other in one sharp, shocked motion. Tarrya couldn’t tell for sure, but there seemed to be a hint of delight on their faces, a fiery delight that went beyond a story-worthy altercation outside the inn, or even meeting some fabled underworld figure.
Sindreen brought her voice even lower, barely a whisper. “Have you not been trained?”
“I have. When I’m in Arkoness. I’m away a lot—at sea.” Tarrya thought of the study sessions with her aunt, more than a dozen years of them. Not formal or steady, like a university, but it still felt as if she was always learning something new. And she was good at it. “What is it about Zarraneth the bloody one? She came upon us in the street and broke your connections to the stones. She wiggled a hand—or did something—and they frayed and vanished like spun thread unraveling in a sea-wind.”
Both her tablemates gasped, and at the same time, said, “You can see the ties to the rootstones?”
Tarrya’s gaze shifted back and forth between them. “You cannot? A little fainter than I would have guessed. I thought they would be easier to see.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know that much about it.”
Rehm made an open-handed gesture that probably meant “the way of the world.”
Sindreen said, “No, we cannot see them.” Her voice was sharp. “I can feel the bond, the flow of energy—and its loss, but nothing with my eyes.”
“Same,” said Rehm.
Then her two new friends leaned back in their chairs at the same time. Both let out long breaths as if exhausted. Or as if they’d suddenly found themselves on the edge of a terrifying conclusion, one that had to be approached with caution.
Rehm pushed his plate away, took another sip of wine and then half-filled his glass from the bottle. He refilled the other two glasses on the table.
“So, you’re one of them.” Sindreen said it simply, no pointing fingers, nothing accusatory, but the intent of both of these had been mixed into the tone of her voice.
Tarrya reached for her glass but left her hand flat on the table halfway there. “One of what? I don’t draw anything from the rootstones. I don’t think I need to. But I’m fascinated by it, the physicality of it. I’ve never really talked to anyone who does this—that I know of. If I have, then they didn’t show it to me.” She took a sip of wine and coughed a little as it went down wrong. “Can we talk about it? Is it permitted? I would consider it a blessing to be able to learn about the rootstones and how you draw from them. I would love to see one!”
Rehm said, “Covenant magic. That’s what we use, with everything sourced from those stones.” Then less excitedly, he said, “Do you know who does not draw any power from them?”
“I don’t know, the rootworlders themselves?”
“That’s true—as far as anyone knows. Not like you can stop and ask them. Rehm’s talking about the Four.” Sindreen gestured past Tarrya, toward the Gondron’s front door. “Zarraneth Wine of Crows doesn’t draw anything from the rootstones. You’re like her, a root sorcerer.”
Tarrya had heard that term from her aunt, nodded, took another sip from her glass. She’d just met these two, and things were going well enough—even with this unexpected new tension over her abilities. She didn’t need to bring up Aunt Sophia, who was pretty secretive about her powers. She didn’t feel like it was the right time to mention the very little she knew about Ezrick Hollow Birth, and she certainly wasn’t going to say anything about her ability to see his wolf-shaped soul.
But she also didn’t want to lose whatever was already forming between the three of them.
Tarrya set her glass down. “I can show you what I know, some of it anyway. I’ve used my abilities for years, mostly at sea, to direct currents and the wind, hold cargo in place, shift the tides, or push aside a storm front. Once to speak with a whale. But will you show me how the rootstones function, how you draw and cast from them?”
She saw the immediate shift from where is this going wariness on their faces to you can talk to whales?
“I was asking for directions.”
There was a brief silence and then Sindreen made an impatient motion with one hand. “Go on.”
“It was after a storm at night, thick clouds had rolled in around us, no stars to track. Not becalmed but sailing in an uncertain direction. The pilot and navigator were having trouble agreeing on our bearings—enthusiastically disagreeing. I scaled down the side of the Vanyalrey—name of the ship—to dip my toes in the waves. I reached out and three whales slid alongside, an old, scarred and barnacle-encrusted baleen whale followed by a mother and her calf.”
Sindreen whispered, “You reached out…”
Rehm had his chin in his cupped hands, mouth slightly open, completely absorbed. “What do their voices sound like?”
“Oh, I didn’t talk to them—like we’re talking here. Whales have voices, of course, but I don’t understand their language. I made a vision of the far Letheernill coast, the shape of the land and surrounding sea—details I had from maps and soundings, and I invited them inside my thoughts to see the shape of it. The old whale understood. I saw it in her eye. She came up headfirst, just bobbed there for a time, looking right at me—like some wise old crone, and then led the other two away from us, about five hands off to starboard. I told the navigator to follow.”
Sindreen, already leaning forward, moved her chair closer. “And they guided you fairly?”
“Heading was dead on. We emerged from the storm’s edge close to midnight, a sky of bright stars that we used to verify our course, full sails with the wind, and we overtook the three. I made them a gift and bade the ship’s captain slow so I could release it into the sea.” She added, “I don’t know if you’ve ever been on one of the big sailing ships, but slowing down, dropping cloth, when you have the wind’s a significant thing. Dozens of sailors involved.”
“What was the gift?”
“A shield of storm clouds of their own—just for whales. It moved with them underwater, and it would hide their passing from enemies, whalers above and predators of the deep.”
“And the rest of the journey?”
“Trouble-free and blue all the way to Port Letheernill. That captain, his name’s Imizail, I sailed with him five times after that. He always used to ask my father for me to sail when the weather looked beyond some degree of unpredictable.”
Rehm swiveled his face in his hands and looked over at Sindreen. Tarrya could see more questions stacking up in their widening eyes and lifting brows.
Sindreen gave her a curious look. “Your father? How old were you?”
“That first time, I think I was thirteen years? Just a kid but I knew my way around. That’s one of our House ships, the Vanyalrey. We have others. Imizail asked me to sail with him again just last year on a Veshorrin run.”
Tarrya reached for her glass, about to pick it up, but stopped when she saw the sudden and intense shift of attention from both of them.
Sindreen reached out and tapped a finger on Tarrya’s flattened hand. “What’s that metal braiding in the palm of your hand? I saw that earlier. Is that part of being a root sorcerer?”
“No, it’s… uh, just…” Tarrya flipped her hand over, palm up, fingers opening to show the gleaming gold band across the center. “It’s something I just picked up.”
Sindreen made a sour face. “It’s not jewelry, is it? A piece of gold woven into the skin of your hand?”
Tarrya didn’t get to answer.
Rehm tried for a closer look, then suddenly snapped up and leaned away, straightening in his chair. He shook his head, mildly disappointed.
Sindreen and Tarrya followed his gaze. The hooded stranger at the end of the bar was on his feet, heading their way.
Rehm said, “Oh no. Another one.”
Sindreen sighed. “Two in one night? Mayrel’s going to be furious.”
REHM PUSHED HIS CHAIR back and started to rise, but the approaching man pulled his hood down and held up one open hand. He carried a folded and waxed letter in the other. No apparent weapons, nothing openly hostile, he stopped at their table, and with some ceremony—using both hands, made sure he placed the folded brown packet directly into Tarrya’s hands.
“A message for you from someone who cares about you.” He gave Rehmonoth and Sindreen each a cool look. “I was then to tell you not to open and read this until the end of the evening when you are alone.”
He stood back as if waiting for some acknowledgment. Tarrya glanced down at the large red letter S inked on the envelope’s back. Aunt Sophia. She rubbed the texture between her thumb and forefinger. It could have been the same paper used to print her wanted posters.
She looked up at him.
The man was tall and lean, made of wiry muscle and quiet menace, with dark hair braided in the Ansellashor warrior style. He looked rough enough to have just stepped out of battle, but as if he’d left his sword and helmet behind. Even without armor or obvious weapons he looked deadlier than both the bounty hunters combined. An old scar ran along one cheek, stopped at the jawline, and then continued in raised knots of healed skin down that side of his neck. It didn’t look like the scar from a blade.
Feeling the tension slowly ease from her body, Tarrya met his eyes. “What’s your name?”
He tilted his head down. Tarrya thought he was bowing to her, but he was just pulling forward a wide-brimmed hat that had been hanging by a strap down his back. He fitted it on his head, adjusted its brim level with his brows, and said in a low voice, “I am Mourodith. Good evening.” And then he strode out of the Gondron without looking back.
“Odd fellow,” said Rehm, watching him leave.
“A marsh warden,” said Sindreen. When Rehm and Tarrya gave her questioning looks, she added, “The silly hat of course. But did you see the belt and broach? They were both stamped with three swamp cypresses in fess with roots entwined.”
“Ah, so he’s one of those.” Noticing Tarrya’s lost expression, Rehm went on, “They protect Thornfall—and this whole region—from some of the nastier stuff out there in the wilds, keeping it all at bay. You know, dead things that roam about and bother farmers, fishers, and ferries, things like carnage wraiths, still-wights, sift-jackals, rogue river witches, and swarms of blood sinches.”
She didn’t know. “What’s a still-wight? What do you mean, ‘dead things’?”
Rehm shrugged. “I’ve heard stories. Sort of a hybrid plant and dead human creature. The spirits of ancient warriors who died in battle beneath our feet come back to haunt us. Not sure if they’re the same, but I think carnage wraiths are a bit more ethereal.” He shrugged.
Sindreen added her own cryptic comment. “The Lows weren’t always low.”
“But who are marsh wardens?”
Rehm let out a breath as if he didn’t know where to begin. “Mysterious group. They seem to do the right thing—I mean, keeping the waters, roads, and forests safe— but no one knows where they live or come from. Or why they’re doing it. Or how many there are.” He gestured toward the Gondron’s entrance. “Where did that fellow just go, striding off as if he had a clear destination?”
“Goes deeper than that,” said Sindreen in a low voice. She made a mildly embarrassed face as if she was about to pass on unsubstantiated rumors that were a bit fantastic, even for her. “I’ve seen them wandering the Upper Lows, deep in the woods. Stories say they have close ties with the naiads, the river witches. Possibly with hedge mages and forest dwellers. But they also don’t have a problem walking the streets of Thornfall, blending in with the citizenry. They roam where they’re most needed. They’re not on any city-state or town payroll. They don’t answer to any governor, watch, or ombuds office.”
Silence fell for one long minute.
Rehm glanced through the front windows overlooking High Street. The sun had set hours before and the lamplighters were out refilling oil wells. Tarrya could hear their high-pitched whistling, short and long chirps with some musical progressions between, calling coded messages to each other. Rehm knocked on the table. “Well, I’m off. I’m keeping a certain Mordissair playwright waiting.” He stood and bowed to Tarrya. “It was lovely to share a street fight with you. May we share many more!”
As soon as Tarrya said goodbye and Rehm exited, Sindreen, looking down at the sealed letter on the table, said, “You should probably read that. I’ll be going too. A pleasure. We must do this again soon and continue the discussion. You said you’re interested in the rootstones. I’m just as interested in why you don’t need them. Let’s share our knowledge. If you’re willing?”
She stood, and after donning a cloak as black as a moonless night, put one hand gently on Tarrya’s shoulder, gave it a quick squeeze, and departed.
Tarrya pulled the envelope closer and within seconds Elen was there, placing a lit candle on the table, along with a heavy key of polished metal.
She said, “Three silver to reserve the room. Upstairs, first door on the left is yours. Discuss other details or needs with Mayrel tonight or tomorrow.”
Tarrya thumbed open a small pocket in her vest and placed three silver coins next to the key. “Thank you.”
Elen nodded and took the silver. “Let me know if you need anything else. Otherwise, rest well.” And she was gone.
Tarrya opened the envelope. She leaned over the note from her Aunt Sophia, absently picking up the scattered pieces of broken red wax and dropping them in the candle-dish.
Dear Tarrya,
I hope your departure from Arkoness was smooth.
I continue to hear outlandish stories about the High Court’s interest in you. Some nonsense about treason. There is no substance to their inquiries. Lord Seeledger’s interest is peculiar. He gathered a dozen bounty hunters and set them on your trail.
Seeledger has also enlisted the Vacarro Nine to seek you. Be careful. They will not be.
I trust you are well enough to ride, sail, hunt, and fight if necessary? Good. We both know you have the foul mouth of a sailor, but please attempt to be civil. You do not want to frighten off potential allies in Thornfall.
Do not stay at the Gondron Inn, but keep a room there paid in advance. That is where anyone who knows the area will seek you first. Discuss anything you need with Frennick, including discreet messaging with me, contacts for various services, and coin.
At the town end of Thornfall’s High Street with the Post Road crossing behind you, there is a narrow lane you will find if you turn away from the direction of Arkoness. Widdershins walk until you see three flowers of the bell vine winding up a signpost with no sign. Cross the canal, turn down that cobbled way, and follow it to the end. The dark door before you will accept this key and no other. Give my regards to Frennick.
S.
Who the fuck is Frennick? The way it was written—the dark red ink, the curly script—there was no doubt it was from her aunt. Tarrya whispered, “What key?” to herself. Flipping the letter over, there were more words in the same handwriting.
It is already in your pocket.
Tarrya smiled. She always put keys in her left waist pocket and sure enough, her fingers slipped in and ran along the serrations of a small metal key. She said a quiet thank you to her Aunt Sophia, folded the letter away, got up, and walked into the Gondron’s reception area. She climbed the stairs to the inn’s next floor. Pulling out the key Elen had given her, she opened the first door on the left and walked into a single spacious room dimly lit by two candles on a table with a polished silver mirror, a basin, water, and other amenities. The bed looked inviting, with a down-filled coverlet. Tarrya walked across the room and swung the shutters to a wide window closed. She lifted the coverlet and spread it over part of the bed, rearranging it as if someone had slept there. Then she left the room, locked the door with the key, and hurried down the stairs and back to the reception area.
Noting she was headed toward the front doors, two coachmen standing just inside looked up inquisitively.
Tarrya shook her head. “I’ll walk, thank you.”
She faced the tall, open doors, coaches and horse teams under the portico, and the well-lit High Street beyond.
Stepping into the night air, Tarrya looked back the way she’d come—the direction of the docks—and went the other way, continuing down High Street, deeper into Thornfall, looking for a sign that marked the Post Road. She pulled her cloak closer.
The night was clear, and she glanced up at the stars as she walked, finding the pole star and the Archer just before crossing a wide rutted dirt and gravel road marked with postal delivery symbols. Arkoness was a long way to the east, and twenty paces on she turned and walked backward, facing north, following Aunt Sophia’s instructions. That led her to the opening of a narrow lane of level, evenly fitted stones.
If Thornfall is roughly circular, then I can follow this against the direction of the sun—anti-clockwise.
A shouting voice behind her was cut off sharply with a grunt and then a thump like a rolling wave hitting the hull of a ship. Tarrya jumped sideways, trying to hide deeper in the shadows. She pulled her cloak’s hood up, covering part of her face.
She saw them, just in from the crossroads, the silhouettes of two people fighting. Well, one was fighting. The other was staggering away in an unsteady dance, arms flung wide as he landed in an uncontrolled heap in Post Road mud.
Tarrya backed away and the silhouette of the man standing over his defeated foe became clear as he turned to face her. It was the wide-brimmed hat worn by the marsh warden Mourodith. He gave her a low wave and spun to boot-stomp the downed form.
Tarrya waved back to the night, her movement hidden in the shadows. She kept to the darker side of the lane, walking quickly away. It made a slow curve around one side of Thornfall, following a longboat canal. Footbridges crossed the water every few hundred steps, some painted with stripes or decorated with garlands.
She slowed at a white-painted signpost without a sign, coiled with vines and three bell-shaped flowers in bloom. She crossed over the canal, dark water moving languidly below, and felt cobbles underfoot. The neat and narrow way ran between taller structures, the walls of two grand estates. Starlight and a wan chunk of the moon gave her just enough light to stay on the cobbles. A large, square, solid-looking door came into view at the end.
She felt for the small key with the fingers of one hand, running her other hand up the face of the door to find the lock. She found the edge of something raised with her thumb and ran her fingers over a diamond-shaped bracket of cold metal with two concentric rings and a slot for a key.
Tarrya glanced over her shoulder, down the alley to the brighter lane at the far end—no sounds of pursuit, no one in sight. She paused a moment to take a deep, calming breath, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
The door handle flew out of her grasp, and she stumbled deeper into the room. With a gust of wind at her back, the door slammed shut behind her. It made mechanical clicking and ratcheting noises that sounded very secure. Tarrya was standing in total darkness, afraid to move. There was a damp smell and the sound of a trickle of water on her left. A fountain perhaps. No other sound except her own rapid breathing.
Her voice came out in a weak sputter, “Hel—hello?”
A man’s clear voice rang from the darkness. “What is the ship called that has a single fore and aft rigged mast with a mainsail, headsails, and sometimes a topsail?”
Tarrya stared ahead but couldn’t make anything out. It was a test, to see if she was who he was expecting.
“Is that a sloop?”
“Close enough.”
Oil lamps around the space burst into life. Tarrya lifted a hand over her eyes, stunned by the sudden light.
“Welcome, I’m Frennick.”
He was a slender young man with knots and curls of light brown hair all shoved to one side as if he’d been wearing a hat or scarf but had torn it off just before greeting her. He was dressed like an artist, or maybe a scholar, in long brown robes with intricately embroidered bands of deep red—Aunt Sophia’s red. In this light, it looked exactly like the ink color she used.
“Pardon my appearance. I was expecting you, of course, but you caught me as I was finishing up another experiment.” He gestured to a stone fountain with moss-covered carvings of mermaids, one with a pitcher through which a stream of clear water poured into a wide pool.
Who has a fountain like that inside their house? Or maybe this isn’t a house?
Tarrya looked beyond the fountain, into the depths of the room, and realized Frennick wasn’t talking about the fancy source of running water. There were three giant copper pressure tanks with clawed feet anchored to the stone floor, an array of heavy glass cylinders filled with different colored liquids. Pipes of various diameters ran along the walls and ceiling. Between Frennick and what looked like some sort of alchemical laboratory, stood two tall tables with open books, glass and ceramic bowls, and the largest mortar and pestle she’d ever seen.
But there’s no smell of sulfur, acids, oils, or burning. She wasn’t sure if that was unusual, but that’s what she expected.
There was just a hint of a pleasant, herbal, lived-in scent to the place, almost as if no one lived here continuously, but it was well tended. Tarrya shifted her focus back to Frennick. “Why was ‘sloop’ close enough? That’s what you described.”
“Oh that, I have no idea if sloop is the correct answer. Lady Sophia gave that description to me as a spoken key. I simply considered your ability to answer and how you answered. That was enough for me.”
“Fine. Where am I? What is this place?”
Frennick bowed, sweeping the space with a grand gesture, keeping it just this side of introducing an empress. “Welcome to the Yonside Manor, my lady Tarrya of Carrier House Leneiros.”
“Tarrya’s fine. Nice to meet you, Frennick. I mean what is the purpose of this… place?”
“Of course, yes, this is a house…” He waved her toward the center of the main room, which was spacious, about a quarter the size of the Gondron’s dining room. “It is your house as long as you wish to stay here. There’s a full kitchen. I’ve been told I am quite the baker. If there’s anything you need, let me know. There are two bed chambers at the back. I will show you around.”
“And what do you do here?”
“I’m the manor’s caretaker, and I will assist you in any manner you choose. If there’s anything you need, supplies, messages sent, money—have a word with me and I will make it so. The Lady Sophia put me at your disposal.” He bowed again.
So, this is what Aunt Sophia meant by “Do not stay at the Gondron Inn”. Tarrya moved closer to the tables with the books and bowls, examining the copper tanks and pipes. “What else do you do?”
“I’m a chemist and scholar of alchemy. I make things, experiment with various substances. I don’t know if you would be interested but I can explain alchemical bases and combined elements in detail.”
Tarrya gave the liquid swirling in three large cylinders another look. She was interested, but not immediately. “I’m curious. But for now, I’ve walked, ridden, and fought my way through a very long day.” She ran her fingertips over the embedded gold in the palm of her hand. “I’d just like to find a place to sleep. Anywhere’s fine. I’ve slept in hammocks and on planks of wood on a dozen ships, on long voyages across the Blue. The bed doesn’t even need to be that comfortable.”
“Right this way.”
Tarrya woke with a jolt of fear. She guessed it was the middle of the night. The candle had burned down to a thumb-knuckle and was sputtering. She tilted her head to the side and pushed the covers away, trying to catch any detail in the low-voiced conversation coming through the closed door. She couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded as if Frennick was doing all the talking.
Maybe he has a cat or a dog?
That’s what it sounded like, the lilting tone one might use when speaking with a beloved pet. She used the chamber pot and basin, then returned to bed, and did not wake again until morning.
It was like waking up in a bakery. Her room smelled of warm bread. She stretched and sat up, yawning. That’s when it struck her that there were no windows. She hadn’t seen the other bed chamber, but the main room didn’t have any and she was pretty sure she’d find the same throughout. Interesting. If this was Aunt Sophia’s place, then there was no telling what sort of architectural cues the builders had worked from—maybe she’d designed it to be a fortress?
Tarrya also noticed her room had been tidied while she slept. A fresh candle in the dish, brush, comb, and other personal items next to the basin; garments from her travel bag laid out attentively on a clothes stand; and her cloak—neatly pressed and cleaned of mud—hanging on a peg beside the door. Her polished boots, also mud free, stood beneath it.
And I was impressed with the service at the Gondron Inn.
Tarrya dressed, then tugged the large history book with maps from her seabag. The Leneiros family library was massive, but much of it was dedicated to shipbuilding plans, timber specifications, cargo handling, manifest books, and navigation. There were cabinets stuffed with maps and charts, but those mostly focused on coastal regions and large ocean-covered areas of the world of Shudaireness. Tarrya had grabbed one large volume, History of the Tannaquell Lows with Maps and Folklore. If the subtitle was to be believed, it was everything she’d need to understand the region: from Lefairren Farwater to the heavily forested Upper Lows along the western range of hills, and as far north as Ansellashor.
She folded her cloak, draped it over one shoulder, hefted the book into her arms, and left the bed chamber.
Within minutes of entering the main room, Frennick had her seated at a table near the kitchen. There were slices of fresh bread, a dish of butter, two different cuts of cheese, and a cup of hot tea. He busied himself around the room for a bit and then took the seat at the table across from her while she ate and flipped through the maps of the lands, marshes, rivers, and swamps around Thornfall.
“Frennick, what’s the day? And do you have a quill pen and ink I can use?”
He looked up and said, “It’s the twenty-eighth day of Lerfaylen. Of course I do.”
Tarrya scanned her aunt’s note again, picking out letters based on positions, and running a finger over the lines. She whispered, “Yesterday, five and twenty-seven” and flattened it out on the table because decoding the embedded message was a calculation process based on the day she was expected to receive it. She scrawled a sequence of letters as she worked through the note. Reaching the end of her aunt’s letter, she read, FALSE BLAME SEELEDGER CORRUPTED.
And he’s sent a bunch of bounty hunters to track me down? He’s even hired some military company called the Vacarro Nine? But who’s pulling his puppet strings? One of the other Carrier Houses? Zarraneth or her pet, Ezrick? Has someone I know betrayed me? To what end?
Tarrya was thinking about what she could possibly know that warranted military companies and corruption at the highest level, and then looked up with another thought. “Frennick, can you tell me how to send a message to my Aunt Sophia?”
“Certainly. Or I can send one for you if you like.”
Tarrya nodded. After a moment she asked, “Do you know if there’s a method for looking like someone else— a disguise—so that I won’t be so noticeable in the streets?” She was thinking of her detailed likeness on the bounty notice. “I made a cloud to hide some whales once—it followed them and hid them from predators, but I’m looking for something subtle, a technique to change the way others see me—allow me to go unnoticed. That cloud would draw attention.”
There had to be a way to use her abilities, something she hadn’t yet tried—or even heard of—in the years of studying and practicing. But devising an effective disguise might take time, especially if it turned out to be a new direction of study.
“Oh! I might have something for you.” Frennick jumped from his seat and dashed across the room to open and look through a large, lidded box on one of his worktables. He rummaged around. Glass clinked and he straightened up, holding what he was seeking. “It doesn’t have a name yet, but I believe it will provide what you’re describing.”
“How do you use it?”
“Well, you will have to drink it and give it sufficient time to take effect.” He brandished a stoppered glass vial of dark liquid in one hand while flipping pages of a large book on the table with the other. “I’ve documented everything I know about it here. You will carry along a faint burnt floral smell, which is not entirely unpleasing. Anyone who stands close to you will detect that. They will also be able to see straight through to the real you—if they are very close. But those who pass you in the street—even if they are watching specifically for you and know what you look like—will not see you as they expect to see you. You should be able to pass among them—at a safe distance—without drawing their attention.”
Tarrya studied him for a moment, her voice emerging just above a whisper. “That’s exactly what I need.” Frennick appeared to know his way around chemicals and the machinery of mixing and concocting substances. “Are you like an alchemical thaumaturge?”
Frennick regarded her seriously for a moment, one side of his mouth tightening. “I believe that’s an accurate way to put a small set of my skills. I have made tinctures and potions of various kinds for the Lady for many years. And I have experimented chemically for many more.”
He didn’t look old enough to be doing anything for many years, but he was clearly loyal—even devoted—to her aunt, and that carried enough weight to tip the scales. “Is there anything special I have to do to drink it?”
He uncapped the vial and tipped it into a small glass of water from the fountain.
She held it up to one of the oil lamps: watery reddish-brown like a weak wine. She raised the tiny glass in a toast, tipped it back, and swallowed.
It tasted nothing like wine. It was more like rancid meat burned over a smoky driftwood fire with a honey sweetness blended in—honey that was a little off.
Tarrya tried to get more saliva moving around her mouth. The stuff tasted awful. She chased it down with more tea. “Ooh. That wasn’t pleasant. How long will the effect last?”
Frennick looked back at her, nodding his head as if judging the merit of the question. He retreated to his notebook and started taking notes enthusiastically. Without looking up, he said, “That’s a good one. You’ll have to tell me. I’m not actually certain. No one’s ever tried it before.”
TARRYA KNEW Frennick’s weird concoction was effective when she passed a cloaked man with a wide-brimmed hat leaning in the shade of a public house, empty of business at this time of the morning. The marsh warden, Mourodith, was observing the people and carts moving along High Street. His eyes moved right over her, kept going, and then snapped back, dropping to take in the faint patterns of ocean waves sewn into her cloak.
Without making obvious eye contact, Tarrya flexed her fingers open in his direction, trying for the same subtle wave he made last night after thwarting a would-be pursuer.
He nodded subtly, not looking directly at her.
Interesting. If they get close enough, they’ll be able to identify me without trouble. It’s only my face that changes, only my face that’s difficult to recognize clearly. The bounty notice doesn’t mention clothing, but what I’m wearing can still be associated with me. At least two bounty hunters have already seen me. And the brocade’s sea motif is just another helpful clue for anyone looking for the daughter of a Carrier House. I’m going to need a tailor and a dressmaker.
It was a test stroll for Tarrya, just to get comfortable with the effects. She turned around before reaching the Gondron, and made her way back to… What’s it called, Yonside Manor?
She followed the same route but didn’t slow at the post with the vines and flowers, just kept walking. When it seemed clear no one was following her, she doubled back, crossed over the canal, threaded her way down the narrow alley, and unlocked the door.
Tarrya expected Frennick to be standing in the middle of the room, ready to greet her, but the place was empty. The lamps were lit, and he had clearly cleaned and stored away the food and morning meal tableware. The teapot was drying on wooden pegs that studded a vertical stretch of stone between the massive fireplace and the bread oven.
Her history book of maps and lore was closed and placed neatly in the center of the table. She walked to the fountain with the ancient carved mermaids, breathed in the cold fresh damp smell, then moved along Frennick’s alchemy tables, glancing down at an open notebook with his neatly written notes.
Tarrya spun at a metallic scraping noise behind her, and there was Frennick, holding open a heavy trap door in the floor with one hand and climbing a steep set of stairs or ladder from the darkness below. She felt a cold draft and smelled the faint scent of something sour like spoiled milk.
Frennick turned and showed her a smile. “Back so soon? Just down in the cellars, inventorying some of our stores.” He climbed out and shut the trapdoor. He locked it, then maneuvered a piece into place that hid the lock. It all disappeared seamlessly into the flooring. He didn’t offer to show her what was down there.
Tarrya watched him for a moment and then nodded as the experimental stroll came back to her. “It worked! No one who normally would have matched my face to the bounty notice would have given me another glance. My clothes can give me away though.” She gestured down her oceany vest and skirt. “This stands out a bit this far from the sea.”
Frennick brightened. “Ah, we need a dressmaker and, perhaps, a tailor as well? I will find respectable shops. In the meantime, I have laid out less conspicuous garments for you on your bed. Far simpler than those you would normally wear, I’m sure, except perhaps at sea, but I only have a little wool, silk, and two bolts of linen, a gray-brown and dark green.”
Tarrya glanced toward the open door to her chamber, then back at Frennick. “You made them? When?”
“Early this morning, before sunrise.” He indicated her present garb. “I based the sizing on your vest, skirt, and cloak. Please try them and I will make any adjustments you deem necessary.”
By late afternoon, after an appointment with a tailor and several sessions with a dressmaker from Bonfrillon Street, Tarrya had the start of a new wardrobe. Three separate ready-made outfits the clothiers’ sewists had efficiently altered for her that she could wear right now. Six more ensembles to be delivered over the following week as soon as they were completed. Beyond the next week, there were additional pieces and specialty garments on order, made of more exotic fabrics due in from some of the major Tannaquell seaports.
For the evening’s stroll down High Street to the Gondron, veiled in Frennick’s alchemical disguise, Tarrya chose the dark blue leggings with a diamond pattern in a slightly darker blue—subtly elegant and martial at the same time. She loved the look. She wore trousers or breeches with stockings when at sea, just easier to move around and get things done—and keep warm when a northern gale blew up. She’d noticed Mayrel wearing chevron-patterned leggings last night, the Gondron Inn’s manager striding around as if she owned the place. If she doesn’t, she should. Bidding Frennick goodbye at the front door, she pulled on a long cloak the color of wet sand—the cloak he had made for her—and strode anonymously through the streets of Thornfall.
Tarrya didn’t see any sign of Mourodith the marsh warden, although without the hat, he’d blend in with many of the more rural citizens of the town.
Halfway to the Gondron, she passed a pair of professional-looking soldiers, swords at their hips, talking quietly and leaning over a shared document they were studying. They could have been part of the armed protection for one of the trade caravans coming up from Mordissair or even in town from Arkoness. Both of them looked up, right at Tarrya as she passed them. One gave her a measured look and that was all she needed. She knew their profession—bounty chasers, and she knew what they were studying, a skillfully rendered wood-block print of her face.
Tarrya didn’t have time to summon her impassive. Keep moving. Keep the surprise off your face. She looked straight ahead, concentrating on her destination, but at the edge of her vision, she managed to catch the pair returning to their pursuit. A few strides behind her, on her left, she heard one of them say, “Not her.”
She smiled to herself. You’re a genius, Frennick.
Tarrya walked under the covered entrance to the inn, right past a carriage with horses stamping their hooves, and through the entryway into the dining room, moving as if she belonged there. She knew exactly where she was headed.
Sindreen and Rehmonoth were both seated at the same table they had taken the night before. Tarrya noticed Rehm’s puzzled look, along with a quick tap to get Sindreen’s attention—a stranger approaches. They both tensed, hands lifting from the table, hovering just above it as if they were readying for something aggressive. Without asking and offering nothing more than a sharp nod and a smile, Tarrya pulled out the third chair and sat down. Then just as quickly, both of her new acquaintances leaned forward to stare at her.
Sindreen moved a dark lock of hair behind one ear, tilting her head back, sniffing the air. “Flowers on fire,” she said in a whisper. “Is that incense?”
Rehm was nodding and smiling. “That’s magnificent. How did you do that?”
“Not really me. I had help.”
Sindreen leaned closer to Tarrya, blinking firmly as if trying to clear her eyes, and then settled on an intimate study of her face. “And what—anyone can see through it if you let them get close enough?”
“Something like that. The burning flowers scent goes along with it. If you can smell that then you can probably see me too.”
Sindreen, in her deadpan tone, said, “You, my dear, are a world of surprises.”
Rehm added, “I had a good feeling you were resourceful. A stranger in Thornfall, but you’re already doing some interesting things. You may be able to help us with a little Thornfall contretemps we were just discussing.”
After a quick confirming glance at Rehm, Sindreen gave Tarrya a searching look. “What do you know about rootworlders or their creations, offspring, whatever they are?”
Tarrya did not say she thought she’d met one on the flatboat ride up from Arkoness. She bent her fingers in to hide the embedded gold. Instead, she nodded and said, “Mostly what I’ve read or picked up from traveler’s tales. I may have seen one from the deep sea when I was younger, three days out of Arkoness, nothing but blue in every direction. A couple sailors dismissed it as a whale until I pointed out that whatever it was, was swimming with whales, alongside them, moving just under the waves, more akin to entangling plants and luminescent creatures of the deep sea. It had something like seaweed arms and was moving swiftly under the water, faster than the whales.”
Sindreen gave her a calculating stare.
“That’s what it looked like.” Tarrya shrugged. “Some believed me.”
Rehm sat back in his chair, his expression slackening into what Tarrya recognized as Rehm’s poet posture—every ship’s crew had a storyteller. She’d seen the look a hundred times. Rehm was about to weave a tale. Sindreen rolled her eyes—as if to assure Tarrya she wasn’t going to allow him to go on very long.
“Yes, that’s similar to many stories—rootworlders glimpsed for a moment from afar, a towering figure striding through a dark glade, ascending a sheer cliff, or standing as still as a mountain at the edge of the sea, counting the tides and staring into infinity.”
He went on for a quarter of an hour about various kinds of rootworld beings, some that were monstrous to look at but gentle as lambs, others that turned into monsters when you trespassed into unmarked territory they happened to claim. Others that just seemed to roam the countryside, looking for trouble or unintentionally causing some.
Sindreen tilted her head sympathetically toward Tarrya with an enough-of-that expression. “Anyway, many villages and towns throughout the Lows have a patron or matron that minds their growth and prosperity—or sets them on the right path with resources if they’re a new settlement. Sometimes they protect the place from harm.”
Tarrya nodded. She knew this from children’s stories. Even Arkoness had an ancient matron that sometimes appeared in official state seals. But it sounded as if the people of the Lows received clear and direct benefits from their matrons.
Rehm cut in. “And sometimes that harm is ancient and some of it is rotting.” He gestured in a sweep around them, which Tarrya, glancing around, assumed to mean all of Thornfall.
Sindreen’s demeanor ramped up to the intensity of a lighthouse lamp. “There are also those more modern sorts who—and don’t take this the wrong way—are usually from the coastal states like Arkoness, Morhessin, Liro Port. They do not like the idea of something ancient living under the town, warming the smithy, curating forestfuls of trees for timber, or roaming around its streets in the early morning hours to see that misdeeds are thwarted. They’re afraid. And fearful people quickly become angry people. Or it’s a simple task to make people afraid and from there, it’s only a couple more steps to rage, mob disorder, and burning the place to the ground.”
Rehm tapped a finger on the table, pointing discreetly at Tarrya. “But you’re not like that?”
Tarrya made a confused shrug. “I don’t… why would I be? I’ve never heard of rootworlders bothering anyone. Don’t they just ignore us? Unless they’re present and protecting a town from ‘ancient dangers’ and tending to the growth of forests for timber?” She shrugged again and said firmly, “That sounds ideal to me, like someplace I’d want to live.”
“Precisely.” Rehm sounded far away, as if he was imagining a rootworlder wandering the dark forests of the Upper Lows. “Ideal.”
“What’s going on?” Tarrya looked over at Sindreen because Rehm didn’t look like he was going to give a helpful answer. “Why are you asking me this?”
“We merely wish to know where you might stand if we need some talented help… dealing with a little potential chaos.”
After their immediate help with the bounty hunters the night before, Tarrya was having trouble responding with anything other than complete agreement—even when potential mob violence and rootworlder involvement sounded a bit more than three talented people could take on. “Of course, yes, count on me.”
Rehm was back with them, smiling now. “Enough of that. Not as important at this moment.” He swept one hand dramatically across the empty table as if it contained the dirty dishes and cutlery from someone else’s prior meal.
Sindreen lowered her voice but couldn’t throttle the excitement. “We didn’t order wine because we were hoping you would make an appearance. We want to show you something.”
Rehm was already pulling out some coins as he motioned Elen to their table. “As for the wine, however we’ll take a bottle to go with us.”
A MILE ABOVE the town of Thornfall, along treacherous footpaths and rocky stretches of open ground, Tarrya turned to take it all in, following the network of streetlamps along High Street and other prominent thoroughfares Sindreen pointed out, the Mirasailor, Baker Square, Kollydark Market. The pure black expanse of the lake beyond—“the Mira”—wrapped around one side of the town, a soft lightless void with pinpoints of incoming flatboat lights and a scattering of night fishing crews. And surrounding it all, moonlit ribbons of water crisscrossed the marshes and lowlands into the mists at the edge of what she could see.
Sindreen, who had also been taking in the view, touched her lightly on the shoulder and pointed ahead. “It’s just through here.”
Rehm had already moved along a ridge of weathered granite up the slope and had stopped before it—it was roughly circular and half-buried in the ground. Standing straight, he could just see over the top of it.
The rootstone was unlike anything Tarrya had ever seen—not polished smooth to a brilliance that reflected the constellations of stars in the night sky, or the pale piece of the moon. The light of the moon and stars danced off thousands of angles and curving lines, an indistinct pattern of facets cut so finely and artistically that it couldn’t have been a work of nature. Thinking of the ancient weather and wave-worn cliffs along the Morhessin coast, Tarrya breathed the words, “Even with infinite time, no natural force could create something like this.”
Given substance and carved by rootworld beings older than memory, the stone glowed faintly and pulsed with ancient energy. Threads of lightning rolled along its surface, sparks of vivid blues and reds. Fine tendrils of covenant magic rippled into the sky like ghostly veins, or in chaotic bursts that ran low along the ground, weaving through the tall grass and vanishing into the shadows of the surrounding hills, empowering a covenant mage about to shape the world.
Tarrya leaned closer but at an angle to catch faint tracings of light running along non-parallel lines. She followed organic patterns of impossibly linked circles, triangles, and polygons of increasing complexity etched into the irregular surface. She had expected a perfect, flawless sphere but somehow the irregularities were integral to the entire shape of the stone and established something that felt like a new and unexpected interpretation of perfection.
She felt the power of a long-lost version of the rootworld emanating from it.
In an instant that she knew would take a lifetime to explore, it changed her, expanded her measure of the world, or what was possible in this world—and the possibilities she was capable of.
She caught Rehm’s eye but had trouble speaking. She hoped he could read her expression. Thank you for bringing me here.
“This is…” Tarrya heard her own voice, but it sounded far away and not entirely her own. “This is magic I have never dreamed of—or only dreamed of but have never encountered.” Moonlight reflected from every internal crystal fracture and deep flow of energy that raced into the surrounding night to fuel the work of a covenant mage somewhere. She opened one hand flat to place it on the rootstone.
Sindreen and Rehm followed her, each placing a hand on it. Rehm’s voice came out in a melancholy whisper. “It’s like coming home after a long and harrowing journey. Feel that?”
Sindreen just said, “Yes.”
Tarrya did not feel that. She closed her eyes. The ground shifted under her feet. Slender pillars of darkness towered over her with the smell of the ancient pine forest that once grew here—before the rootstone—sharp resin like a knife and damp earth that weighed more than autumn, more than a century of accumulated autumns. The floor mapped out the past with the colorless seasonal remnants of an ancient wood, cycles of growth and death scattering at her feet. And high above her, the canopy of green needles and cones blocked out the sky.
A voice as heavy as the damp earth pulsed through Tarrya, words with a juddering undertone that quickly found and matched the beating of her heart. I feel you in my memories of the pines that once stood tall on this bluff. What are you seeking, root sorcerer? What brings you this far inland, daughter of the sea?
The gulf of silence that followed nearly stopped her breathing.
Tarrya choked on the sound of a word, then caught her breath and concentrated on taking a few more before answering, “How do you know who I am?”
Your thoughts and memories are open to me. You are in my memories. Why would I not be in yours?
“Oh, uh… that makes… I was curious about the stone—the rootstone. I have abilities that do not require them.”
I see. You are curious, root sorcerer?
Tarrya couldn’t hide her thoughts from whatever this being was—a rootworlder? “I am. Everything I’ve learned about my powers, their history, their use, their limitations, has come from my Aunt Sophia. And neither of us needs to gather or channel energy from the rootstones.”
You do not. And that is the name of your teacher? You call her Sophia?
“Yes,” said Tarrya, dragging out the syllable and lifting the end into a question. “I have called her by no other name.”
And you are curious.
It wasn’t a question, but Tarrya felt as if she needed to answer it anyway. “Yes, I’m curious.”
And do you wish to continue?
“For as long as I can.” She tugged on the thread of impatience weaving through her words. This was a childish level of communication, except that it felt heavier and more meaningful than any words she had ever uttered or heard. That frightened her.
“Is there anything you can tell me?”
There are many things.
Tarrya felt as if she were stumbling along blindly, looking for boundaries to the conversation, an outline to define what she wanted. “Then, um . . . tell me two things.”
Very well. You have touched this rootstone, and it has changed you, root sorcerer. You have made an interesting decision and an important connection. And now that we know you wish to continue, your life will be both more difficult and less complicated.
The pulse like thunder was back, timed with her heartbeat and stopping her breath. There was a new charge of energy running through her body. The pine forest swept away with the forceful winds of a storm at sea. Tarrya was standing on the deck of a ship, rain hitting hard, and she grabbed the railing to keep her feet. She swayed with dizzying motion, a sudden shift to another place. Sunlight blinded her, and she looked down to find the next sure step across seaweed-covered rocks on a distant shore. Is that Veshorrin? She remembered walking on those rocks, waiting for cargo loading to complete on the Sontillivee, one of the House’s larger ships.
This rootworld being was sifting through her memories, a thousand moments of frustration and pain, brief bursts of joy, a flurry of faraway decks and docksides, the faces of sailors and sellers, intense negotiations over shipping costs, the strain of conducting a weighty exchange in a language not her own. The motion stopped and the rootworlder of the forest studied her old memory of the monstrous Ezrick Hollow Birth threatening her father and looking right at her as she eavesdropped.
Tarrya couldn’t take much more of this.
“And the second thing?” She barely got the words out, gasping them.
I heard you speak about the stone’s creation. The words you spoke were ‘No natural force could create something like this’ That is an interesting observation for a root sorcerer—a deeper understanding of the stones than I would have expected. You, however, have skill and purpose. Perhaps you did not press firmly enough? Or it must be with both hands? For the next one you touch with intent, life will end, and it will begin for you.
It was getting hard to breathe. “What the fuck does that—?”
“Push the dagger directly through her heart,” said a man’s cold voice.
Tarrya stirred awake and didn’t like the sound of the voices of her killers. There were at least four going by their quiet movement and angry whispers—and she didn’t recognize any of them. What happened to Rehm and Sindreen?
She lifted her eyelids a hair and allowed a flash of bright, flickering light in. There were more than enough candles or oil lamps to illuminate the room for a reading party or a group of embroiderers working with the most detailed fancywork.
The voices were close, around her bed—yes, she lay on a bed—but she couldn’t see anyone through the slight gap between her lashes, just the strange room and the candles flickering madly. Too much.
She could hear sounds from the street—High Street in front of the Gondron Inn. That’s where I am, in my room at the inn. Why don’t I remember…
Had Rehm and Sindreen taken her there? Memories were tumbling into place. Something had happened at the rootstone. She’d spoken to that rootworlder, and it had told her two things. She didn’t remember anything after that.
But why are the candles moving?
Going by the street sounds, the window must have been open, but no breeze stirred the air.
She didn’t dare open her eyes wider. Instead, she let out a little snoring noise and rolled to one side—pay no attention to me, I’m still asleep, just getting more comfortable.
The flickering shifted with her movement, uniformly, a rippling in the air between her and the candlelight.
That’s odd.
There was also a strange rotting smell in the air, not from the burning wax. It was something else—someone’s bad breath? It wasn’t like the burning floral scent of Frennick’s disguise potion, but that made new connections fall into place. They’ve done something to make the light pass through them? Is that it? So they can’t be seen? One way to find out.
Hoping the candles or oil lamps were casting their light at the right angle, Tarrya leaned over as far as she dared to catch a quick glimpse of the shadows on the floor.
She rolled onto her back, startled, shutting her eyes tight.
The room was full of wolves, the shadowy spirit forms of her killers—all bristling angrily, mouths sagging open with sharp teeth bared. She’d seen a larger, more frightening wolf form on the floor past the end of the bed, and she knew who had come to kill her.
Her breathing quickened, and she couldn’t control it. It had to be obvious she was waking up. She peered out from slightly open eyelids to see a sudden looming shadow blocking the candlelight.
Tarrya could only see one man but heard the movement of at least three more. For some reason, she thought Ezrick Hollow Birth moved without sound but that could have been remnants of childhood fear and imagination.
“Are you certain it’s her?” The visible one flipped a dagger end over end and caught the grip in one fist. He was peering down at her, even making a face at the “flowers on fire” smell.
“This is her room,” said one of the invisible killers, but he didn’t sound certain. It seemed more of a point of encouragement to the one who actually had to get bloody.
“How powerful is she?” Voice wavering, the dagger wielder bent closer to study Tarrya’s face.
A calmer new voice—not Ezrick—said, “Far more powerful than she realizes.”
Calling her impassive form came smoothly and Tarrya felt it fold around her like a shield, cold and uncaring, ready to do her bidding.
“Do it now! She wakes,” hissed a man who sounded like the same Ezrick Hollow Birth with the wolf shadow on the floor of her father’s study so many years ago.
The one with the dagger still hesitated. “I fear the noose.”
Ezrick’s voice grew more desperate and angrier. “Metal through her heart will not kill her. But it must go directly through her heart. Hurry, put your weight into it!”
The killer—who wasn’t going to kill her?—leaned in close. She smelled his death-rot breath. I wonder if he has the loose teeth and skin bleeding disease? The gums and even his tongue are decaying in his mouth. She’d heard about the illness from physicians and old sailors, but had only seen it twice before. No crewmate on any ship that sailed under the House Leneiros flag suffered from it, but she knew the signs.
It’s eminently treatable. And she wondered why he hadn’t seen a physician?
Wandering thoughts of illness and cures vanished as Tarrya felt the shift in readiness throughout the room. She knew it was time.
She opened her eyes to a blaze of light and shadow and a slim-bladed dagger moving in a blur. One-handed, she reached up and grabbed the killer’s forearm, just up from the wrist. Her grip felt like a steel clamp, fingers squeezing until the twin bones within it began to bend and crack. At the same time, she felt a warm trickle of blood between her breasts, then a spreading warmth as it pooled in the hollow at the base of her throat. Bastard, you stabbed me!
Not very deep, just enough to bleed.
That was probably the last thought—and regret—in the would-be killer’s head. He didn’t make a sound. His mouth was gaping, his tongue jammed several times into the rotten gums behind his top front teeth. His eyes couldn’t open any wider.
The dagger slipped from his fingers, flipped sideways, slid across the coverlet, and thumped to the floor.
Tarrya watched him wither in her grip, her impassive maintaining its cold and inhuman control—and eating any sympathy she might have felt. He’s trying to say “help”.
She observed unemotionally that his mouth and lips moved, and the tip of his tongue tried to reach for the last syllable of his final word.
Her focus shifted to what her own body was doing. The sudden prodigious strength in one arm and the grip of one hand wasn’t her own. She was simply directing the power soaring through her. It was easy, something she’d done a hundred times on the Blue, holding tons of cargo fast to the deck in a storm—now being used against a foul man who’d tried to push a dagger through her heart.
Then she squeezed out every drop of moisture in the man’s body, releasing it into the night air. The room was suddenly humid, damp as a crypt after heavy rains, and the killer above Tarrya was a weightless husk, his skin loose and shriveled around his bones. His face was a skull, the eyes deflated in their sockets. Tarrya reached up for more leverage and threw the body at the others, knocking at least two of them to the floor. She hoped one was Ezrick.
The rootworlder in the hills above Thornfall had told her two things. Right now, she only remembered the second one.
For the next one you touch with skill and intent, life will end, and it will begin for you.
That was intentional and Tarrya felt very alive.
“Get out.” It didn’t sound like her voice. It was her impassive speaking with the quiet command of a goddess.
And they did, invisibly scrambling for the open window. Going by the cursing and thumping sounds, a couple of them were shoved aside by Ezrick who didn’t want to be the last one out of the room. She heard them scuttling across the roof tiles, then heavy scraping sounds as they skidded noisily down pipes and trestles to the alley on the inn’s north side.
Tarrya let her impassive go, staggered out of bed, kept one hand on the wall for balance, and found the chamber pot a little too far away.
She brought up her cupped hands quickly and threw up in them, continuing to gag and retch until she felt as hollow as the dead and desiccated remains of the killer on the floor of her room.
I’ve just killed a man. Should I also fear the noose?
Vomit running through her fingers, dripping across the rug, she poured as much as she could into the pot, wiping her hands on a towel. Then used the basin water to wash up. She soaked another towel with fresh water from the pitcher and wiped her face. The tears started, and in seconds she was bent over the dressing table, gripping it securely, sobbing strenuously, her body shaking and jerking like windward sails.
Tarrya held on and waited, let the fear pass through her, and watched it die away. “You’re luffing. You’re all noisy and fluttering. Trim those sails, girl. We’re heading into the wind.”
SINDREEN LET OUT a long and obviously relieved breath when she saw Tarrya enter the dining room, with tangled hair, looking worried and a little frightened.
Rehm was visibly thrilled to see her. He stood, pulled out a chair, and said, “I carried you down from the hills, my dear.”
“I carried the wine.” Sindreen tapped her empty glass against the unopened bottle.
“You really had us worried.” Rehm gestured toward the inn’s second floor—and her room. “We lit half a dozen candles and another two oil lamps to drive away the darkness.”
“In case we needed to call in a physician. Did you get any rest?”
Rehm sighed happily—before Tarrya could answer. “So glad you’re alive and… mostly well.”
“Sit. Let’s open the bottle. You look…” Tarrya wasn’t sure, but she got the sense that Sindreen did a little last-second revising and softened “dreadful” to “disheveled.”
Rehm took in her clothes, the darker stains where she’d used the basin water to clean something off her vest and trousers. “Are you feeling better?”
“Not really.” Tarrya sat down, glancing around for Elen or anyone from the kitchens. “I have a problem.” She related the assassination attempt from the moment she woke to the four invisible killers fighting each other to get through the window first. She left out the part where she threw up and spent some time sobbing in her room.
They immediately understood, nodding as they listened to the story. Rehm was thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “So, you need help getting rid of the body or something?”
Sindreen held up a hand to stall Rehm. “But they’re gone now? Then sit for a while. Approach this calmly. They’re probably not going to try again, certainly not with the two of us here. Let’s have a glass of this red before we deal with the dead.” She opened the bottle and arranged the glasses.
Tarrya glanced around the dining room again. “I think I need food too.”
Rehm raised a hand and two staff were there immediately, Elen and a young man who could have been Elen’s brother. He slipped them each a silver. “Change of plans, dears. I know it’s late, but we will be dining in tonight.” He glanced at Tarrya’s less-than-glowing features. “Something hearty this evening if you please. Surprise us!”
When they hurried away, he asked the first practical question, leaning in and lowering his voice. “I didn’t want to interrupt before. Did you say you couldn’t see them?”
Tarrya thought about it. “They shimmered in the air, but the candlelight . . . shone right through them.” She never spoke of the special shadowy forms only she could see to anyone except her aunt—like the shadows of wolves cast across the floor of her room. That was something different. The ability to become almost invisible seemed more akin to Frennick’s disguise potion than some ability Ezrick and his accomplices possessed. “I could see them moving in front of the flames, if that makes sense. It wasn’t perfect but it hid them better than my little disguise.”
Sindreen was twisting a strand of her hair with one finger, staring thoughtfully down at the tabletop. “I’ve heard of something like that. Never tried it.”
Rehm paused to see if Sindreen was going to add anything else, and then swept in with the second practical question: “How much blood are we talking about? The physical body probably isn’t a complication. It’s the mess they leave behind that causes most of the problem—in my experience.”
Tarrya rubbed her eyes and took another sip of wine. “That’s what’s strange. I don’t think we need to worry about blood or any other… fluids. He doesn’t have any left, or it’s just powder now. The entire body is dried out.”
Sindreen was looking at her closely. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know. It just happened—naturally, mostly the same method I use on shifting cargo in heavy rainstorms, sort of fixing things in place and keeping the goods dry. But I felt stronger, more powerful? I grabbed his arm and the next moment—” She made a sour face. “—the room felt moist, or dewy, like a cold spring morning. But didn’t smell like one.”
Now that he had the measure of the situation, Rehm knocked lightly on the tabletop and leaned back in his chair. He shared a let us change the subject look with Sindreen and Tarrya. “Let’s postpone that talk until after we eat, please? I want to hear about the rootstone. What happened up there?”
Tarrya straightened in her chair, caught herself chewing her bottom lip, and stopped. “Did you hear the conversation?”
Sindreen looked over at Rehm. “With who? I didn’t. You didn’t say anything after you placed your hand on the stone. You went into a trance, then you were breathing hard and shaking like a sapling in a storm—that’s after you said how wonderful the stone was. You started with that. You seemed to be really enjoying the experience at first.”
Rehm was nodding along. “I think we were all there together up to that point. Then you became quiet, closed your eyes, and it was like you were no longer there.”
“I… uh, wasn’t.” A little more wine. “I was inside the memories of a rootworld being. I touched the stone, and I was in the middle of an ancient pine forest. That’s what it told me. That the bluff used to be covered in towering pines.”
“It?”
“I didn’t see anyone, but it spoke to me.” She tilted her head side-to-side. “Felt a little more motherly than fatherly, but I couldn’t tell. The voice told me where I was—inside its memory of the old woods. Then we had a strange discussion. It was like speaking with a child, but like a child that’s a thousand years old. I said I was curious about the stone—and that’s why I was there, and it asked if I wanted to continue.”
Rehm held his glass motionless, halfway to his mouth. “Continue where?”
“I don’t know. Being more curious? I just said I wanted to continue. And then it told me I would end someone’s life, and at that point, mine would begin.”
“Wait,” said Sindreen. “It knew about the attack—that these invisible killers were going to strike here at the Gondron?”
Tarrya shook her head. “It didn’t sound like it. Sounded a bit riddly and fiddly, but not on purpose. Like it understood exactly what it needed to tell me, but didn’t know how to say it so that I would understand?”
Out of the deep blue, Rehm asked, “And you’re certain it was a rootworlder?”
“I have no doubt. I had trouble breathing just being in its presence—maybe because it doesn’t breathe? It was as if we were parallel—aligned? Combined in some way? My heartbeat took on the same rhythm of the cycle of the forest around us. It changed my breathing, and how my thoughts and memories are arranged… I don’t know, it changed how they’re flowing through me? I’ve never felt anything like it. Sorry, I’m not explaining it well.”
Rehm said, “Hmmm” with a downward pull of his mouth, folding his arms like a judge hearing truthful evidence—and liking what he heard. “No, that sounds like the whole ‘ineffable quality of rootworlders’ thing.”
Circling back to the practical, Sindreen asked, “And you don’t think you understood what it said?”
“I understood the words. Perfectly. It’s their meaning and substance I’m not sure about.” Tarrya wished her Aunt Sophia were here to help her puzzle through this. “I don’t even know where to start with measuring how much I took in. I’m just making guesses and then second guesses. Now, I’m wondering if—by speaking plainly—it thought I would infer everything I was supposed to from its words. And that scares me because I don’t think I did.”
They chewed on Tarrya’s interaction with an ancient rootworlder while savoring warm bread and bowls of smoked pork stew with lentils. Another bottle of wine loosened them up enough to take on the task of smuggling a dead body out of the inn.
When Rehm surveyed the scene in Tarrya’s room, he said dryly, “Maybe one more bottle of wine?”
At a stern look from Sindreen, he crossed the space, made his way gingerly past the body, and stuck his head out the open window, mostly looking at the town from the above-ground height. He contributed a few ideas. “Moon’s still up—a bit, long shadows and not as bright as it was earlier when we had our little outing.” He looked down at the bloodless skeletal corpse. “If we wrap up this fellow in something, we can probably just heave him out the window to a waiting party below, who can cart him away.”
Sindreen reached down, picked up something, and then slid the killer’s dropped dagger through her belt.
Tarrya picked up her cloak, the very new cloak Frennick had measured, cut, and sewn for her earlier in the morning. Sighing, she balled it up and tossed it to Rehm. “Do us the honor? Sindreen and I will wait for the package to arrive downstairs.”
“Can you get a cart?” He tilted his chin to Tarrya, but he was looking at Sindreen. “I’ve already carried someone through Thornfall streets tonight without trouble. Don’t want to push my luck.”
“I’ll talk to Mayrel or whoever’s on staff tonight. We may have to fetch someone out of bed for it.”
“That’ll work. Whistle up for me when you’re ready below.”
They met downstairs with Abbarit, the oldest of the Gondron staff, and arranged to have a small cart hitched up. When Abbarit’s eyebrows crept up a notch, Tarrya nudged Sindreen with an elbow and said in a confidential whisper, “Our man, Rehm’s had enough wine tonight.”
“A little too much,” said Sindreen. “We don’t want him stumbling home in the dark and winding up at the wrong residence.”
Abbarit understood and got everything ready for them personally. “Find me when you return and no one will know the cart ever left the yard.” Sindreen passed him some coins and he nodded. Even better, it seemed as if the Gondron’s reputation for discretion guided him back to the office where he didn’t have to witness anything inappropriate.
Sindreen and Tarrya led a mule named Ash pulling a two-wheeled cart around the rear of the Gondron Inn and into the dim light of the alley. Tarrya looked up and gave the open window a low whistle. There was no sign of Rehm so her pursed-lipped signal must have been too soft. Sindreen followed with a more generous two-fingered blast.
Rehm’s head and shoulders appeared. It was hard to tell in the low light, but Tarrya thought he was grinning. He’s enjoying this. He waved a hand, may have given them a thumbs-up, and then disappeared.
“I think we’d better stand back,” said Sindreen and tugged Ash with them, farther up the alley. They heard scraping noises of something heavy skimming over the windowsill and the killer’s dried remains—wrapped in Tarrya’s new cloak—was airborne.
It was like throwing an old dusty rug from a great height. It hit the hard-packed alley dirt with a whump and split Frennick’s finely sewn seams in several places, releasing a cloud of dehydrated assassin. The gentle breeze swept it down the alley, away from them. Ash the mule looked up curiously and seemed to follow the cloud until it reached the cross street. By that time it was settling to the ground, a beam of moonlight catching the last ghostly swirls of it.
Rehm came around from the front of the Gondron a few minutes later. He gathered up the bundle from the street—it was looking less like a body and more like a bag of bones, teeth, and powdery dirt.
Sindreen drove with Tarrya on the seat with her.
Rehm sat in the back with the rest. “The lake midden, you think? To the port, my good mule driver!’
Tarrya gave him a stern look over her shoulder, whispering, “Quiet.” Perhaps Rehm had gone a bit too hard with the wine.
Ash the mule was more patient than speedy, and they plodded steadily down High Street, sidling expertly onto the Mirasailor toward Thornfall’s lake port. They were within smelling distance of the lines of fish drying sheds when a shadowy figure approached them from a side street.
“Hold there! Watch.”
“Shit,” said Sindreen under her breath.
A burly uniformed Thornfall constable strode out of the shadows of a narrow lane, a heavy truncheon in one fist. His other hand was covered in something that glinted dully. What remained of the moon was standing above the eastern horizon and gave the street a sallow glow. As he drew closer, Tarrya realized it was a large bell. His hand was inside, holding it by the clapper.
“Hello there,” said Rehm in a jovial manner meant for anyone but constables. It just got him a suspicious look in return.
“What’s your purpose out so late?” He didn’t wait for an answer but immediately swung an arm—with the hand holding the truncheon—over the cart’s side and prodded the lumpy bag next to Rehm.
A large bone, a femur Tarrya guessed, poked out of one of the holes the second-story fall had torn in her cloak. It stood erect for a few seconds, reflected enough of the fading moonlight to present itself, and then fell in a dramatic sweep into the backboard with a thump. That kicked off a scatter of smaller bones, probably from one of the killer’s hands, rattling across the cart’s old boards like thrown dice.
The entire world of Shudaireness went silent for several seconds—that’s what it felt like, a world-heavy silence, nearly spoiled by the caw of a distant crow. Then Sindreen sighed loudly. “Fine, you found us.”
This caught the watch constable off guard. He coughed loudly, probably to hide his surprise. He raised the truncheon to point at Sindreen. “Explain.”
She assumed a weary and wounded mien. Just above a whisper, she said, “It’s my grandmother.” This resulted in an unfavorable reaction from the constable, so she shifted direction. “Not this.” She pointed at the bag of bones. “My grandmother’s the problem. This is my old grandfather, dead at the last leaves turning two years ago. Gran insisted he be buried at the edge of the garden. And well, that’s not working for growing anything, working against it, if you know what I mean.”
Tarrya and Rehm were silent, watching the master weave a tale out of whole cloth. “Now, my grandfather was fishing the Mira when he was a babe and spent his whole life on the lake. All he ever wanted in the end was to give everything back to the motherly water.”
“He was a Fenree on his mother’s side. Aivasar Oloreck,” said Rehm, fabricating more mendacities. “Youngest son of Abe and Rorrinaf. About as close to the water, the Fenrees were, without living under it.”
Tarrya, following the unfolding drama, guessed the name Fenree meant something in Thornfall. The watchman’s truncheon swung to her. “And you’ve been quiet. What’s your part in this?”
Tarrya relaxed her shoulders and decided on overworked and mildly annoyed. “Just a friend. You know, I thought we were going for dessert and sweet wine at the Gondron—that’s what I was told.” She gave Sindreen a grimace that turned into a smirk. “Of course, I was reluctant to take part in this affair, but I’m loyal. I know how to use a shovel, so I’m here.”
The truncheon lowered. He prodded the bag of bones again and then returned to Sindreen. “So, you mean to see your old grandad’s bones safely to sleep in the deep Mira?”
She nodded gravely. “Yes, sir.” She lowered her voice. “And we’ll keep this from my grandmother. We put the garden back as it was, so she won’t notice. She’ll keep what she thinks she has, and grandfather gets his final sleep in Mother Mira.”
The constable nodded, approving, then gave Rehm a sharp look with a don’t just sit there gesture. “Get grandad’s bones together and get that sack mended.”
Rehm jumped to it.
His attention shifted to Sindreen and then back to Tarrya. He nodded sagely. “Reluctant loyalty’s what real friendship’s all about. Keep that in your heart. You’re doing a fine thing.”
No one said anything. It felt like the right time to bow heads solemnly. And keep your mouth shut.
The constable turned, swinging the silenced bell in one hand, truncheon in the other. “Carry on.”
They had just let out a few quiet breaths of relief and Ash the mule had taken two steps forward when the watch constable called after them. “Hey there! When you say a few farewell words to your grandad, tell him Constable Errel Orrilee wishes him endless clear mornings and fish that bite!”
THE LATE MORNING sun was at the perfect angle for viewing shadowcasts—Aunt Sophia’s word for her unique ability. Tarrya leaned on the rail of the second-story balcony of the Gondron with a cup of tea, and discreetly watched the people of Thornfall pass along High Street below, some moving north, in the direction of the port on the Mira, and others traveling into town, on foot or in carriages and carts.
The day was clear with a bright spring sun, casting dark and distinct shadows of their physical forms, but it was also ideal for Tarrya to observe the other kinds of shadows, the ones only she could see, the less distinct shapes that represented the spiritual nature or emotional state of the living creature it was associated with.
Connected wasn’t correct, she thought. Because some people had spirits like swimming fish or birds—spirits that sang soundlessly, that separated into groups and flew about, or rode the winds majestically, diving to catch an ocean gust to keep their wings full. She’d actually seen that with a young sailor on a voyage to Veshorrin—with her interpretation, of course.
When the slant of light was right, Tarrya watched the ground for discernable shapes and shadowy movement attached to living things—all of them, including weeds, trees, and honeybees, but those were uncomplicated. Even the cleverer of the animals, like hunting dogs, had a range of different shadowcasts, from simple and sleepy to alert with pointed ears standing up (sometimes even when the dog had floppy ears). She’d seen them with dolphins playing or speeding through ocean currents. On the rare occasion, she glimpsed a sleek weave of darkness in shallow waters, moving over sandbanks ahead of the pod. Tarrya’s observational impression of dolphins was that they always wanted to go faster.
The shadowcasts of the people passing in the street below had very little in common with any other kind of life—or even with each other. People were far more convoluted than anything she had seen in other living things. From Tarrya’s experience, the shadows of people represented foundational motives or purpose, their core hate or joy, and a whole mosaic of more complex feelings contained within or welling out of the soul of that living thing.
She had seen their shapes and shadows take interesting forms like a giant boulder poised and balanced on the edge of a cliff; a fist-sized bolt of energy, blue and purple with destructive power; and once, the drifting gossamer form of a dead human soldier with elaborately decorated armor. But it was also common for people to have some form of animal—sea birds, bears, hounds, or a boisterous giant boar that represented those motives or emotions. Most of the animal forms weren’t realistic but appeared as fragments of the real, or as compositions of abstract shapes—smears of dark gray, claw scratches, rotating blocks, or diamonds—that blended into something that looked like a bear or hound.
She had never experienced a case where someone’s shadowcast did not reveal something expected, charming, bewilderingly interesting, haunting, or terrifying. It was always one of those.
And that’s why Tarrya held up one hand firmly, palm out, to the stranger who had joined her on the balcony. “Not another step closer.”
He had come through the open doorway at the far end—very quietly.
She put down her cup and saucer of tea on the wide rail and turned to face the newcomer, who was looking right at her, a blink of recognition and a momentary pursing of his lips. Nodding to herself, Tarrya thought, Well, it appears the alchemical disguise lasts about a day and a night, Frennick.
The newcomer looked like an accountant or auditor for an Arkoness shipping house. She’d seen enough of them aboard ships or around the harbor. Dressed conservatively in dark brown trousers and tunic with little gold buttons that ran up the sleeves, he bowed agreeably and carefully drew a small card from a pocket in his short riding cape. Leaning forward with an embarrassed grimace—apparently not wanting to go against the lady’s wishes—he slipped it under the teacup in the saucer and gave it a little flick with one finger.
Then he stepped back and held up both hands, open and non-threatening. “I mean no disrespect, my lady. I just noticed you up here, and uh…” He gestured to her attire, which looked like it could be from anywhere. “...thought you might be a fellow citizen from Arkoness?”
Tarrya glanced down at the man’s shadow, shifting and wavering over the polished wood flooring of the balcony. Not the shadow cast by the sun—that was ordinary. The edges of this one were soft and confusing, with rapid back-and-forth movement within a tight boundary around the man’s very expensive riding boots. The shadow of his soul struggled and heaved against the bounds, like the silhouette of a chained monster. The only pieces of the shadowcast that were clear were its hands, making grasping and clawing motions. Both were red, not bloody, but as if he was holding them up to the light of the sun—to show how clean they were. And the sun’s light coming through the skin showed her how bloody they had been before he cleaned them.
The man took a step toward her, turning on a friendly smile.
She was instantly wary of anything that looked like friendship—but wasn’t.
Tarrya took a step back, glancing down and over the rail, to see Rehm and Sindreen approaching the inn—Rehm was looking up at her with a genuinely friendly smile.
That moment’s look away had been a mistake. Tarrya’s gaze returned to the stranger, who was moving closer. She floundered back, catching herself on one of the balcony’s posts. She brought a hand up in a defensive claw.
And that made her think of Zarraneth Wine of Crows killing her in the street and then telling her she was doing her “little twirling motion” all wrong. Tarrya called up that same gesture, something she’d done a hundred times to hold cargo steady on a rocking deck and once to throw a couple of foes down the street. Except now she didn’t want to do it all wrong.
She closed down her point of focus from a large area—the air surrounding something bulky or heavy like shifting cargo or two bounty hunters, to the air inside the approaching man’s lungs. This felt completely new—and frightening. She could feel the spacing between the vertebrae of his spine and the steady thump of his heart.
“I mean you no harm.”
But of course, he did. He took one more step and Tarrya dismantled everything inside him with a twist of her hand.
The “fellow citizen of Arkoness” froze, stared at her in shock, mouth agape, one hand reaching out, maybe toward her teacup as if encouraging her to drink it, and then he fell backward, hit the railing, and sagged against one of the posts to the floor.
The man was dead, and his shadowcast with the red hands swelled around him, free from its bonds. It moved away from the body, under a table with a pair of chairs. Tarrya watched it pulse across the planks of the floor, drifting without purpose around the man who had shaped and controlled it.
Tarrya started breathing again—hadn’t realized she had stopped, and found she was alone on the balcony with a dead body and its orphaned red-handed shadow.
Rehm, stepping through the open doorway at the far end, looked down at the slumped form, starting to go a little gray and bloodless, and then back up to Tarrya with an exasperated look—and matching tone. “Seriously?”
Moving with almost cat-like ease, Sindreen moved around him and bent to one side to get a better look at the dead face, nodded as if she recognized him, and then stepped over the body to Tarrya’s teacup. “Is that his card?”
“He slipped it under the cup, almost the first thing he did, then told me he was a fellow citizen up from Arkoness.” Tarrya felt a sense of shame, but it was coursing in some other place in her mind, like music being played in a distant room with the doors closed.
“Tarrya.” Sindreen said her name slowly and clearly, as if to get her attention. “Did you drink the tea after he put the card under the cup?”
Tarrya shook her head, distracted—and terrified—at how easy killing him had been. Two people are dead.
Sindreen crouched down to be eye-level with the balcony’s rail and the saucer. She slid one finger over the card’s edge and held it up, displaying a faint line of white powder. She turned to Rehm. “Get Lyedem—what’s his family name?”
Rehm said, “Ulstrom? Something like that.”
“Get Mr. Ulstrom seated in that chair with his head leaning against the wall. Leave his mouth open. Close his eyes.”
Rehm didn’t hesitate, hoisting Lyedem off the floor and into the chair, arranging his cape. He closed the man’s eyes, posing his hands, one in his lap, the other resting on the table. When he backed away, Sindreen carefully lifted Tarrya’s cup and saucer off the balcony rail and set it down in front of Lyedem.
I have killed two people in two days. She looked down at her hands. What have I become?
Feeling a little unsteady, Tarrya reached out and gripped the rail. “You know him?”
Rehm nodded. “Oh yes. He comes around once a year or so. Claiming he keeps the books for a wool merchant in Arkoness. He doesn’t. He may have used a fancier term for it, but he’s a bounty hunter. Just has—had different methods.”
Sindreen didn’t appear to be paying attention but clearly was because she said, “He has a reputation for capturing outlaws alive. The rumor was he used poisons and drugs—and warm conversation to get close to his prey.” Sindreen clapped her hands together, probably to kick loose any grains of the powder from the card she might have picked up while handling the saucer. She bent over Lyedem, placed one of his dead fingers on the card’s face, and then raised it to rub the fine powder across his protruding gray tongue.
And I did that without summoning my cold, unfeeling impassive. That was me, alone.
Sindreen straightened and waved Tarrya and Rehm toward the open doorway. She followed them back into the Gondron and downstairs, saying, “Well, there’s that rumor confirmed. Looks like the poor fool got a bit careless with his own poisons.”
Rehm led the way to the ground floor and out through the front room. He was a hundred paces down High Street, not slowing, when he half-turned to say, “Hurry along now. Let’s find another establishment for the day. A little too much excitement around the Gondron—even for me.”
Sindreen caught up with Rehm while Tarrya hung back a few paces to see what she could discover about the shadowcasts of her two new friends. The sun really was perfect at this hour, a little past halfway to noon.
Tarrya wasn’t surprised to see Sindreen’s shadow as an indistinct cat-like creature that prowled around her stepping feet, sometimes darting at other shadows, playfully independent. The three of them reached the crowded outdoor tables of the Fenrorra Bakery—a good ways down High Street—and managed to find one with three unoccupied seats. Rehm went in for a pot of tea, Sindreen’s spirit shadow lounged at her feet and ignored the world around while grooming and dozing off. But Tarrya also saw it mad-eyeing someone else’s shadow and extending its claws menacingly.
Rehm—Rehmonoth’s spirit shadow was completely different, with a form and behavior she’d never seen before. While walking from the Gondron, Tarrya was almost convinced he didn’t have a shadowcast, or perhaps he was one of those rare personalities—according to her aunt—whose inner temperament perfectly matched his physical form? Then she saw it, a tiny, winged shape circling the space he took up in the world. But that didn’t feel right, and she gasped aloud when she finally saw it. As they neared the bakery, it became clear that Rehm’s spiritual shadow had been soaring above in the clouds, giant wings outstretched at some cold, high altitude. What she had thought she’d seen on the street had been the tiny shadow of a distant bird. It turned out to be absolutely massive, as large as Rehm himself, with a wingspan as wide as he was tall and a crest of feathers that gave the bird a murderously rakish profile.
The giant bird cocked its head to one side and winked at her, but that could have been a trick of shifting shadows and light. She rubbed her eyes and sighed.
“You two are perfect,” said Tarrya softly. She had needed to know and was also afraid to find out. But now that she understood the shapes of their souls, the wave of relief that came rolling in overwhelmed her.
Rehm exchanged a look with Sindreen and made his eyebrows jump. “Why do you say that?”
Tarrya was on the edge of tears. “I flee Arkoness, with a bunch of people hunting me—with no cause they can define and none that I know. I travel far inland, arrive without any friends in Thornfall. And I just happen to run into you two.”
“The Gondron Inn is the place to wait if you’re looking for news out of Arkoness. Or fleeing fugitives. Sindreen and I probably spend way too much time there.”
Tarrya took a deep breath that somehow wasn’t deep enough. “But how did I meet you two? How did this happen?”
“What do you mean? We met you, not the other way around.” Rehm winked at her.
Sindreen gave her a smirky twist of her lips but only tightened and lifted one side of her mouth. She said playfully, “It was our bottle of wine that lured you to our table.”
Tarrya blinked back tears, and took a handkerchief from Rehm, blotting her eyes.
Sindreen got serious for a moment and lowered her voice to a whisper. She covered one of Tarrya’s hands with her own. “And we are as glad to have met you, Tarrya of Carrier House Leneiros. Don’t worry.”
Rehm frowned at the sudden serious tone and said, “Honestly, the last three days have been more exciting than the last three years. So, my hat goes off to you for attracting a noticeable amount of chaos into town.”
As if on cue, a shadow fell over the table. The marsh warden, Mourodith, all cloaked up but without the wide-brimmed hat, looked directly and forcefully at Tarrya. Perhaps trying to see through a possible disguise? He silently handed her a very small, complexly folded, piece of paper and then turned and slipped back into High Street pedestrian and cart traffic.
Tarrya unwrapped the note carefully, trying not to tear it.
Dearest Tar, I do hope you have not discovered this through misfortune but be aware that your abilities will be less contained, more volatile, out there in the Tannaquell Lows, probably more than you have ever experienced within Arkoness City or on the Blue.
We must find a way to continue your training.
Remain indoors as much as possible, where you will be safe. Do not do anything that might draw the wrong attention. I know Frennick is not encouraging your tendency to attract misadventure, but please heed any advice he gives you.
S.
P.S. Your father and I have spoken at length on these preposterous claims against you. He wishes for nothing more than your safe return to the city (when the House can guarantee your safety) and justice for those who have attempted to harm you and the Carrier House Leneiros name.
Tarrya noticed that Aunt Sophia had chosen the more congenial “attract misadventure”, crossing out another word that was almost certainly attracting “woe”. She looked up. “It’s from my aunt, telling me to be careful. And not do anything dangerous.” And she wants me to “continue”.
“Sound advice,” said Rehm, agreeably.
Sindreen tilted her head to one side and leaned forward. “She knows where you are?”
“She always seems to know.” Tarrya waved the note in the direction Mourodith had gone. “I think she’s the one who has a marsh warden following me around the town, keeping an eye on me.”
That brought the two of them up straight. At the same time, both said, “Who is your aunt?”
Tarrya didn’t want to lie to them, but there were also family obligations and confidences she kept and had promised to keep. One was that she would never tell anyone about the ability to see the spiritual manifestations, the shadowcasts, of others—that one, in particular, had been a direct command from her aunt. Do that and die had been Aunt Sophia’s exact words. “She has taught me almost everything I know that isn’t related to the sea and sailing.” Tarrya made a twirling gesture with one hand. “I’ve learned everything I can do from her.”
Including twisting the spine and crushing the life out of someone.
THE FENRORRA BAKERY had two faces, a High-Street-facing shop with a counter, table seating, rows of benches that extended into the street, and the main functional face around the corner on Baker’s Lane, with a long frontage where aproned men and women maneuvered rows of shaped proving dough with long-handled peels, sliding them into the glowing depths of a dozen giant brick ovens, and using the same tools to retrieve fully baked loaves from those same depths, laying them out for cooling.
From the perspective of the High Street side of Fenrorra Bakery with the benches and tables, there was no way to see around the corner, no way to understand the energy and effort going into making the whole thing work.
And that was part of the problem, according to Rehm.
The crowds filling the benches were gone by midday and Tarrya, Sindreen, and Rehmonoth had moved closer to the shopfront, under the sunshades. A good thing too, because half an hour later, trouble arrived with eight well-to-do gentlemen riding up in a carriage. They stepped down into the street and stamped their highly polished walk-about boots on the paving stones.
One of the men, who appeared to be leading the little party, pointed at Tarrya, Sindreen, and Rehm with a long, polished walking stick. “You there, fetch me the—”
Rehm stood up and flexed his fingers. “Don’t you dare ‘you there’ me you overdressed smear of goat shit.”
Sindreen got to her feet smoothly and put a calming hand on Rehm’s arm. “Let me take care of this.” She addressed the smart little gathering: “You can march yourself to the bakery counter in your own pretty shoes without bothering this fine establishment’s patrons. The alternative is to come over here and I’ll take your shiny walking stick, ram it most of the way up your anus, and use the rest as a handle to walk you on your hands back to where you came from.” Sindreen shrugged as if she was good with either one. “Choice is yours.”
Apparently, these men had almost no experience with someone questioning them—and, going by their stunned silence, threats of violence were definitely new. High Street was quiet for a few moments. Then a chorus of offended throat clearing and even a “harrumph” from one of the fellow’s associates arose.
“We shall see about that,” he said and gathered his party together for a quiet conversation.
Tarrya wasn’t sure if he was referring to having to order baked goods themselves or Sindreen’s threat concerning the walking stick. Or it might have been a general response to any kind of rudeness or assertiveness. It turned out to be a way to delay any stick-ramming activities and buy a little more time to extend their plans to include Rehm, Sindreen, and Tarrya.
The huddle broke up, pretending to ignore the bakery’s only customers, and turned toward the sound of a large cart approaching. This one carried a dozen considerably rougher-looking fellows. They jumped down to the street and they weren’t carrying walking sticks.
That’s when the bakers strode around the corner from Baker’s Lane, wielding long-handled bread peels like halberds. The biggest and burliest of the breadmakers shook the loose flour from his apron and planted the end of his peel on the paving stones like a general with a flag. He pointed one charcoal-smudged finger at the finely dressed group.
“Velathill, Divarris, the rest of you, clear out. Take your unblighted nonsense with you.”
Rehm had been about to sit down, intending to nibble on crusty bread, sip some tea, and watch the show, but at the word “unblighted” he was on his feet, Sindreen right with him.
Tarrya stood up and eyed the threatening group from the cart. “What’s going on? What’s ‘unblighted’?”
Sindreen leaned sideways but kept her eyes on their potential foes. “Remember our discussion about those who do not care for the idea of something ancient living under their town? These . . . gentlemen . . . share that sentiment. They don’t like the idea of a rootworld being—maybe not one itself, but something created by them, like a half-god, living deep in the ground under Thornfall. It has grown with and protected the town since the beginning—hundreds of years or more. There are legends and mysteries, deep connections with the bakers and blacksmiths. These idiots—the ‘unblighted’—have been building a following for a while, gaining political power in Thornfall, and experimenting with ways to make it leave or worse, kill it. They spend an enormous amount of money and time spreading fear, calling the rootworlder a ‘blight’ on the town—all that nonsense.”
“And people are starting to agree with them?”
“Some, yes. Too many. Thornfall’s a complicated town. We shall speak more later but for now . . . spread out.” Sindreen moved a couple of paces to one side.
“It’s like this bakery, Tarrya,” Rehm added as he, too, repositioned himself. “It smells wonderful no matter where you stand, but one side has lost its perspective. They’ve lost their understanding of what has kept everything running for centuries.”
Busy watching some sort of engagement unfold, Tarrya hadn’t been listening to Rehm, but she caught enough of his metaphor to understand he was using the bakery’s two faces to symbolize Thornfall’s political delineations and impending upheaval.
Sindreen added dryly, “In case you’re wondering, Tarrya, we were sitting with the lost-their-perspective side—metaphorically.”
She glanced over at the shopfront for the bakery. Maybe she’d been paying less attention than she thought.
Rehm folded his cloak and tossed it on a bench. “Let’s make it clear whose side we’re on, shall we?”
High Street lit up with gauzy flows of energy from the nearest rootstone, and it wasn’t just feeding Rehm and Sindreen. A faint bluish beam seemed to follow one of Thornfall’s many canals down from the foothills, a hazy glow over distant rooftops, dropping to ground level in the denser parts of the town and following easy paths around structures. It charged up a narrow lane called Elmshaw, hung a left on High Street, streamed between the two carts, and snapped—without any physical force—to one of the fancier gentlemen dealing with the armed bakers.
And I’m the only one here who can see this? Tarrya moved between Sindreen and Rehm. “Older fellow over there with the light blue cloak? Covenant magic. He’s using power from a rootstone.”
“Ah, so that’s Divarris.” Rehm almost laughed, a mirthless chuckle weaving through his observation. “I’ve heard of him, heard he had some abilities.”
Sindreen quietly added, “But he doesn’t know that we know.” She smiled wickedly at Tarrya. “We have a root sorcerer friend who can see things we can’t.”
Most of the enforcers with clubs, guided by the leader of the unblighted—Tarrya assumed that was “Velathill”—immediately engaged the small army of breadmakers. A violent roar was followed by the repeated crack of splintering wood and cries of pain. Then Velathill directed three of the club-wielders to deal with them. He was pointing at Rehm when he said it.
One of the louts approached with a spiked truncheon, two of his fellows right behind him, similarly armed. He sneered. “You want to pick up a fork or a cheese knife at least?”
Rehm didn’t look away, just pulled his fencing gloves from his belt and casually slipped them on. “Bless your chivalrous heart. That’s very considerate of you. But I won’t be needing anything else.”
A loud bang and a momentary break in the thunder of peels-and-clubs combat demanded Tarrya’s attention. The bakers were stumbling and dropping their weapons. Divarris was in some kind of mage stance, controlling the men and women on the battlefield, playing with their balance.
The rough-looking crew rushed in, swinging their clubs, kicking the bakers when they were down, bright red blood puddling in the street and splattering their aprons.
Tarrya climbed over two benches and carefully walked along a third, to drop down into the street between the main group of unblighted and the three ready to attack Sindreen and Rehm. No time to think. This was critical ship repair in the middle of a storm, heavy cargo breaking chains and rampaging around the lower decks, looking for a way out through the hull. A second without action is another dice roll to sink the ship.
Without a plan or determined thought, Tarrya reached out and closed one fist around the gauzy blue stream of power leading to Divarris.
It was like trying to grasp a beam of sunlight. She could see it clearly, but there was nothing there. Her fingers met her palm, squeezed tight, and the flow of energy fractured into an uncoordinated dance of flickering blue that quickly drifted away to nothingness.
Tarrya blew out a breath as if clearing sawdust from a fresh woodcut. The finest dust lifted and borne away on the faintest breath of the sea.
She turned to face the mage. He stumbled backward, lost his footing, and fell down. Shaken, he scrambled back to his feet, brushing off his cloak. Then he looked around and stopped when he spotted Tarrya, standing by herself, looking right back at him.
Divarris shook his head, then other parts of him started shaking. He had both hands up, open, placating. Tarrya pointed at him. “No.”
A high-pitched shriek burst from him before he could stop it. Shiny boots already kicking, he wheeled in a panic and ran face-first into the back of the carriage. Tarrya waited for any other reaction. Divarris stood stiffly, nose and forehead pressed into the planks, then fell backward like an ax-felled tree.
Like those towering pines that once stood tall on the bluff overlooking Thornfall.
Tarrya climbed back across the benches and tables, glancing over her shoulder to see that the bloody bakery army was back on its feet, peels in hand, and they were beating, stretching, and folding the living shit out of several unblighted enforcers. Just before returning to her friends, Tarrya saw one of the fancy men, backing away from the fray. He stepped on a dropped and rolling truncheon and landed hard with his boots in the air.
That’s when she noticed Sindreen cutting trophy queues off two downed foes, while Rehm was making one of the heavies hit himself with his own club, and laughing, “You want a cheese knife? How about a fork?”
Clearly, Velathill waited too long to get the measure of the two warring factions—a dangerous mistake but had the gumption to change tactics when he realized the group of armed and angry bakers weren’t the most dangerous threat. He ordered the remainder of his enforcement squad toward Rehm and company.
There was confusion among the unblighted over who was in command.
Velathill shouted at several of his finely dressed but hesitating associates and waved them away, indicating the direction of the new battlefront. Returning to the bakery skirmish, his expression of disgust shifted into open-mouthed confusion as he spun in place, looking for someone who wasn’t there.
Sindreen laughed suddenly. “He can’t find Divarris.”
“He’s over there, flat on his back.” Tarrya made a few simple gestures with one hand, and began using the bakery’s benches like mallets. One swung around with so much force that it caught three of the approaching enforcers and one of the dandies in its path, lifted them off their feet, and slammed them into the smaller carriage. The two horses drawing it decided they didn’t want any part of the human horseplay and bolted down High Street, dragging one of the men behind.
She expected to see Divarris out cold on the paving stones where the carriage had stopped—and was now running loose through the streets of Thornfall, but he’d vanished. Apparently he’d recovered his senses and dashed off.
The unblighted belligerency collapsed soon after, Velathill cursing the bakers for their intransigence. His words broke on the cold and silent line of men and women in aprons, and he ended the show with hysterical shouting about their doom and, “getting what they deserve for relying on that rootworld blight beneath Thornfall!”
What was left of the high and mighty and their enforcement gang, limped or were carried to the remaining cart, and fled.
Later, over wine in a small public house hidden in a maze of streets in an unfamiliar part of Thornfall, Tarrya leaned toward her two battle companions. She felt the smile forming and didn’t hold back. “I just want to make it clear that that had nothing to do with me.”
Rehm laughed, genuine and bordering on jolly. “You are special, you know that?” He took a sip and tapped his glass against hers. “Sure, the day began with some unwholesome business—definitely yours but easily remedied.” He tipped his glass toward Sindreen. “But it ended pleasantly enough. So much of the credit goes to your dazzling performance, Tarrya, and because of you we won’t have to pay for anything at the Fenrorra Bakery from here out.” He spent a few seconds contemplating how pleasant that sounded. “I mean, their tea is crap, the cheese assortment so-so, but who cares? I’d die defending that crusty sourdough and pay double if I had to. But gratis for the rest of my life? I can’t call that anything but a productive and rewarding afternoon.”
“What you’re describing,” said Frennick as he washed the teapot in the mermaid fountain, “sounds possible but complicated. You say you could see through them, but it wasn’t perfectly clear? The air was wavy, as if looking through a thin sheet of flowing water?”
Tarrya sat at the table set for breakfast the next morning. “That’s what I saw. I would say, if you knew what you were looking for, and there was enough available light—sunlight, a lot of candles—then I wouldn’t call it ‘invisibility’. But if it was dark and you weren’t expecting it, then it probably is.”
Frennick idly strolled by his alchemical worktables, glancing at the titles of books. “Let me give that some thought.” He leafed through his notes, stopped on one, and scratched away at the page while Tarrya re-read the return message from her aunt:
I suspect Ezrick Hollow Birth has had spies in Arkoness for some time, which means he can make assumptions about your abilities. I cried out aloud when I read that Zarraneth is in Thornfall as well. I wonder what she thought of you? That she is there means she is assisting her apprentice, Ezrick, and that sleepy Thornfall may be more dangerous for you than Arkoness. Remain close to the manor and do not get involved in any of that anti-rootworlder business. What in the six seas has gotten into that town?
Remain alert. Ezrick wants your power, he wants control over you. He sees someone who’s vulnerable, who hasn’t been trained properly. Of course you have been trained, but in a way he cannot see and does not understand.
I will send out messages to friends and arrange for a safer place to live outside of town, or a new place within Thornfall where you can remain hidden. Don’t do anything rash.
S.
A minute later, Frennick dropped off a freshly concocted cup of his Compound Agent for Masquerade and Obfuscation, which was the official name he had settled on for his “disguise potion” as Tarrya called it.
She drank it, made a face because it was impossible not to, and then chased it with the dregs of the tea in her cup.
She deciphered the hidden message in Aunt Sophia’s last two notes. One said AVOID Z ALL COST, and the latest said, KILL EZRICK IF CAN.
A few of her tailoring and garment-making orders arrived earlier than expected. One courier told Frennick all the shops were closing mid-day because there was rioting at the town center and protests at the docks. Another courier, delivering some of the more delicate items—including an elaborately embroidered underskirt and lingerie—said members of the town council had been imprisoned and the hall and nearby town offices were burning.
“Please be careful, Tarrya.” Frennick was standing in the open front door after the second courier left, staring at the sky in the direction of the town center. “If trouble runs into you, make your way here. The manor is one of the safest places in Thornfall.”
Freshly disguised, Tarrya ventured into the late afternoon streets, meeting up with Rehm at their new favorite place, the Fenrorra Bakery, which steadfastly refused to let their ovens cool. Sindreen was reconnoitering the lawlessness downtown and was supposed to join them before sundown. The large Thornfall manor of Sindreen’s family, Timber House Eukhellen—powerful in the heavily forested Upper Lows—wasn’t far from the worst of the rioting. She was going to make sure the chaos didn’t get too close.
The cool spring afternoon was pleasant, with only one spot of trouble—a couple of pro-unblighted agitators tried to throw rocks at the bakery. Rehm discouraged them.
The day headed toward dusk without any bounty-related difficulties—probably thanks to Tarrya not matching her wanted poster as she sat with Rehm through the afternoon. But fresh news and grim details about the rioting that had spread to the docks and the Thornfall government offices burning to the ground more than made up for any lack of Tarrya-oriented surprises.
Sindreen arrived just before sundown with bad news. She was breathing hard, dressed in soot and dirt-streaked black. “They’re headed this way, thousands of them, maybe more. Different groups have joined together to rage through Thornfall, looting, burning, beating, and sometimes killing people as they go. I saw two council assistants—not even important people, trying to save contracts, deeds, anything that could burn from the crowd—I saw them dragged into the street and gutted. The mob cheered and tracked their blood a mile down Market.”
Rehm stood with her in the middle of High Street, looking up and back. Tarrya pointed south. “Have they reached the Post Road?”
Sindreen looked back the way she’d come. “Not yet, but they’ll be there soon.”
Rehm was shaking his head, looking up at the brightly painted Fenrorra Bakery sign. “The bakers here will make a stand and probably lose. I don’t even think the Gondron’s safe from this.”
Tarrya started down High Street. “Follow me. My aunt’s place—where I’m staying—is just down that canal lane after Post. It’s definitely safer than here or the Gondron.”
Rehm kept pace with her. “What kind of place? Is it walled?”
“Armed guards?” Sindreen strode alongside and Tarrya looped her arm through hers.
“No, but it has one narrow entrance, and it’s like a fortress. You’ll see. The caretaker, Frennick, will help with defenses.”
They met the mob carrying staves and billhooks, silhouetted against the glow of burning buildings, just beyond the opening to the lane, and from there it was a quarter mile around the curve following the canal to Yonside Manor.
Sindreen pulled her to the side. “Come on. Mobs can move with speed when the prey is in sight.”
Tarrya stopped and pulled her back. “Wait!”
Rehm saw them too. Standing against the murderous mass of anger, truncheon swinging desperately, was Constable Errel Orrilee. A younger man—also in a Town Watch tabard—was with him, shouting something that alternated between keeping back and keeping the peace. Orrilee had lost his bell somewhere, and there was a shiny slick of blood down one side of his face. He and his fellow constable were about to be trampled into High Street paving stones.
Tarrya let go of Sindreen and pulled on her impassive. It was almost effortless, unfolding around her like unseen armor, and then she became a cold and unforgiving version of herself. She stormed forward, stepped between the two constables, knocking aside the swinging truncheon, and punched a cart-sized depression into the approaching crowd. A hundred rioters flipped into the air and landed on the hundred behind them.
Buying a moment’s pause in the mayhem, she grabbed Orrilee by the shoulder. “Come with us. Remember the other night?” Rehm and Sindreen were beside her, spinning the younger constable around. Tarrya was shouting over the din. “We have a safe place. Let’s go! Follow me!”
The mob surged forward as the five of them cut sideways off High Street and ran down the canal lane. She clapped the older man on the shoulder. “Constable Orrilee, right? How’s your eye, that side of your face?”
“Ears are ringing, but been through worse,” he said. His face was swelling, and fresh blood was dribbling under his chin and down the front of his tabard, probably from a wound in his scalp.
Rehm gusted out, “How much farther?”
“Don’t slow down. Not far.”
The younger constable staggered and Sindreen grabbed him under one arm, pulling him forward with her momentum. He let himself be half-carried by her, but there was a burst of high-pitched panic in his voice as he looked ahead. “I think they’re coming from the other end. We’re trapped!”
“Down here!” Tarrya caught the signless post with both hands, stopping abruptly. “Follow me, cross the canal and down the alley, now! Come with me, constables. Rehm and Sindreen, right behind, but do what you have to do to hold them back while I unlock the door!”
The angriest of the vanguard of the mob reached the end of the bridge over the canal and didn’t slow. The roar of a thousand murderous voices was deafening. The confining width of the alley itself whittled down the numbers that could pass safely. A handful were tossed against the sides of the narrow way and dragged bloodily along the whitewashed walls. A dozen stumbled in the rush and were driven into the cobbles, crushed and broken.
With the raging mob at their backs, Frennick suddenly opened the door, ushering the five inside, then slammed and bolted it. The door itself seemed to be doing something mechanical to reinforce itself, with additional latches clicking and metal grinding.
The noise of violence died.
“It will take them a little time to get through that. You, sir!” Frennick swung out a chair from the kitchen table and motioned Constable Orrilee to sit. “Let’s see what we can do about that head injury.”
Tarrya drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, and released her impassive. The unfeeling I-can-take-on-a-rampaging-mob Tarrya wasn’t going to be an advantage inside the manor. It drifted away and her shoulders sagged under the weight it had been supporting. “I hope that doesn’t prove to be a mistake.”
Sindreen gave her a sharp look, but Tarrya just shook her head. She wasn’t going to explain. Maybe something a little soothing and warm? She grabbed the kettle off its peg on the wall, filled it from the mermaid fountain, and placed it on the squat black stove to boil.
Rehm, who’d been staring around the room—he showed special interest in the pressure tanks, valves, pipes, and array of alchemical apparatus—quickly got the lay of the kitchen, found the teapot and cups, and several tins of tea. “Lovely,” he said, reading the side of one of the tins. “Grown and picked in the foothills of the Wandor Reaches.” He lifted off the lid and breathed in the spicy, earthy aroma. “This’ll do.”
Sindreen moved close to Tarrya and whispered, “No windows? What is this place?”
Tarrya looked up from arranging teacups on the table. She caught Frennick’s eye and just a fraction of a headshake. He was still busy “gluing together the seams of the wound” with a new compound he was developing. Constable Orrilee had used a towel soaked in hot water that Rehm handed over to wipe most of the blood from his face and short beard. He looked ready to be pampered, enthralled by Frennick’s step-by-step explanation of wound cleaning, and even laughed a short burst when Frennick told him his “hairline was safe from scarring but probably not safe from time.”
Tarrya leaned close to Sindreen. “This is where I’ve been staying. It’s like a country get-away house of my aunt’s.”
The younger constable was still shaking. Having come face-to-face with his own death and then a fevered retreat, he stood trembling in the middle of the room, arms folded as if trying to hold himself together. “Wha—what happens when they break down the door?”
Frennick turned and looked at the front door for a moment. “Oh, they might, with some persistence, break it down and enter this room, but I assure you they will quickly wish they had just called it a night and gone home.”
A loud and very solid boom shook the door.
The young constable staggered back and nearly fell over.
Frennick frowned. “Well, they have clearly found something they can use as a battering ram, probably timber from the mill on Strayliff. My guess, someone with a little more organizational skill must have arrived because that’s fast work for a bloodthirsty mob.”
Rehm rumbled, “Probably Velathill or one of his fancy-dressing fear-spreaders.”
Orrilee shot Rehm a glance and nodded in agreement. “I do not like that Velathill, or his hangers-on.”
There was another solid punch to the door and mortar dust rained down from the stonework around the frame.
“We’ll just let that heal, constable.” Frennick clapped him on the shoulder. “Why don’t we move the tea party to that second room, right there.” He pointed to the open doorway next to the room Tarrya had taken for her bedroom. “While I prepare for a few uninvited guests.”
He guided the young constable toward the back of the main room and gestured to the open door. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Frennick.”
“Sallihn, Junior Constable Sallihn Ulomeer.” His voice shivered with fear, but as if hearing his own voice—and not liking the sound of it—he cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Or just Sall.”
“Perfect. A pleasure to meet you, Sall. No need for concern at this point.”
The others followed, Rehm with the full teapot and Tarrya with the cups.
Frennick waited for them a moment, then unlocked and lifted the trapdoor to the cellar, pulling it up and over to let it slam back to the floor.
Tarrya watched him. What in the six seas is he keeping down there?
He squatted in front of the opening, slapped his thighs playfully with his hands, and called down into the darkness, “Keiaxina, come on Keia! Are you hungry, girl? I have a treat for you! Here’s the situation: there are loud and angry people at the door, and I want you to make them stop. You can pursue them into the street if you like, but they are not allowed to enter the house. Understand?”
Tarrya, Rehm, Sindreen, and the two constables watched in wonder from the open door of the second bedroom—a good solid wood door, two hands thick. The tea had been forgotten, set down on a table somewhere. Rehm and Sindreen looked at Tarrya who shook her head and whispered, “No idea who he’s talking to.”
The oil lamps in the main room went out. Something emerged from the darkness below and moved in front of the glow of a lone candle on the kitchen table. Tarrya made out a silhouette of pointed, angled ears, and a jagged line of bristling fur brushing against the main room’s ceiling. Something massive. Frennick wheeled and gave them all a stern look and a jab of one finger. “Lock that door!”
They did, very quickly, sliding the bolt home. Rehm placed a hand on the heavy timber, put his weight against it, noticed the additional bolt lock at foot level, and kicked it closed as well.
They waited without speaking for a moment.
There was a heavy crash. “That’s the front door coming down,” said Sindreen.
Frennick shouted something, his words muffled against the deafening background roar. He was right outside their door, but his shouting voice was lost in the tumult.
Orrilee put a hand on Sall’s shoulder. “Teeth are chattering, son.” The clicking stopped. “No one’s gonna get you while I’m still standing. Or while any of us are still standing.” He glanced from Tarrya to Rehm to Sindreen. “Right?”
“Right!”
Then there was screaming and the sound of metal twisting, a roll of thunder that could have been an animal’s roar, followed by the crunchy drumbeat of a wooden beam hitting the walls—that soon lost its rhythm in a deeper rumbling that seemed to come from the center of the world.
The floor stones shuddered under their feet.
FRENNICK LOOKED UP from the broom and dustpan, the early morning light and cold spring air coming through the gaping hole in the front wall behind him. Sindreen emerged from Tarrya’s room, smiled, and waved at Frennick, then went to the open door of the other room and leaned in. Tarrya followed her out and glanced over. “What’s happening? Where are the boys?”
“I believe the rioting has calmed down.” Frennick leaned on the broom. “I heard the bells of the fire brigades not long ago, which can only mean it’s somewhat safe to be on the streets of Thornfall again.”
“And Rehm and the Watch?”
“The constables departed around dawn, in a somber mood, but both wished me to pass on their heartfelt ‘thank yous’ and indicated some sort of amorphously defined, unofficial indebtedness of the Watch in general but also, personally, of Orrilee and his trainee constable—as if that was something that would ever need to be called in. And Rehmonoth left not long ago to—his words—‘make sure his favorite bakery had made it through the night’ but he looked… how shall I put this… forlorn as he left.”
Tarrya nodded. “I was wondering if there was a chance we distracted the crowd away from the Fenrorra, but I doubt it. That Velathill asshole really hates the bakers.”
“You gonna ask him?” Sindreen looked meaningfully at Tarrya, then back to Frennick.
“So, Frennick.” Tarrya gestured toward the closed and locked trapdoor in the floor. “Not just our stores down there in the cellar are there? What kind of monster are you hiding?”
Sindreen’s voice took on a portentous tone. “And how far down do the cellars go?” She smiled after she said it, and then her smile turned sinister. “How do we know you didn’t feed Rehm and the coppers to the beast?”
He was looking at Tarrya, but he tilted his head toward Sindreen. “I like her.”
“So, you’re not going to tell us?”
Frennick straightened and folded his arms with the broom handle in the crook of one elbow. “I can’t tell you, I’m afraid. You were never meant to witness that. But you know, emergency measures.” He shrugged. “I had no other option.”
He bent and swept up the last of the stone and mortar chips, heaving them out the opening into the cool spring morning where the broken timbers and twisted metal frame of the front door lay. Tarrya looked past him, over his shoulder, and down the alley to the canal bridge at the far end. She wasn’t going to ask where the bodies had gone. “They’ll need to whitewash those walls.”
“Oh, certainly.” He just nodded and closed his mouth as if he didn’t want to say any more.
Then he made tea for them and sliced yesterday’s bread. He arranged cups and saucers, a board for the bread and the butter dish. Frennick brushed away crumbs and casually repositioned the History of the Tannaquell Lows with Maps and Folklore so it could be opened and read from their side of the table. “I was leafing through this wonderful work yesterday, and page one hundred and thirteen has some creatures that may interest you two. But do not ask me about anything. My knowledge of rootworlder creations and their offspring found throughout this land is woefully thin.”
Tarrya almost tipped her teacup reaching for the book. On page one hundred and thirteen, in the section on Rootworlder Offspring, Creations, & Cherished Beasts, they found three creatures with detailed descriptions, behavior, and accompanying illustrations, the lykailour, wellosoth, and the beedle-leek. The last looked like a fuzzy, short-beaked hummingbird with bright green and fuchsia plumage. It befriended farmers and deterred insect pests up to larger animals like wild boars and Fade Ravens (see page 121). The book wasn’t clear on how it managed that.
The wellosoth was a most unusual looking creature, with a mottled gray carapace that was segmented like a lobster’s tail and a head shaped like a spear point. It burrowed through rock and soil and made its home at the bottom of wells. It kept the water pure.
“My, isn’t that nice?” Sindreen smiled.
The lykailour description included skilled pen and ink drawings of two different animals, one that looked like a more-or-less friendly wildcat with sharp slanted ears, a long tail, and a thick coat with rows of black stripes that looked like knife blades. The other was a monster twenty times the feline’s size, resembling a massive, very muscular mix of wolf and cat, with the same pointed ears of the smaller wildcat and a bristly ridge down its back. Its coat was solid coal-dust black to “blend in with the dark of night itself” according to the behavior notes. Its eyes were much larger than any cat’s and, in the drawing, seemed to glow menacingly.
Tarrya whispered the words, “And it can change from one form to the other at will.”
Sindreen leaned closer. “That’s pretty handy when you feel like cuddling under the blankets through the afternoon but need to route a cavalry brigade by dinnertime.”
Frennick was humming to himself, busy with his alchemy notes, occasionally turning one of the large pressure valves. He wandered over after they had finished their discovery and set down a small glass beside Tarrya.
“Take this today to keep the disguise going. I don’t know when I’ll be able to brew more.”
The two of them finished their tea, said farewell to Frennick, and went in search of Rehmonoth. They passed a dozen Thornfall citizens on the way, but most looked lost and stunned, whispering softly to themselves, wide-eyed, staring around at rows of broken windows or the dark smoke still rising over parts of the town. Some just shuffled ritualistically along the canal lane or High Street as if any purpose that once motivated them had been drained into the charred soil of Thornfall. Only the routine remained.
They found Rehm sitting cross-legged in the middle of the street, staring up at what remained of the Fenrorra Bakery. Burned and broken timbers jutted from the smoldering ruins of the shopfront and the blackened domes of the bread ovens along Baker’s Lane.
Tarrya and Sindreen sat down next to him on the paving stones of High Street.
“Rumor has it,” he said grimly. “A monster with huge teeth and bristling fur appeared out of nowhere and attacked the rioters, drove them away from our bakery, and ate more than a few of them too, but the fire had already done most of the damage by then.”
“A lykailour,” said Tarrya.
“A what?”
“The monster is called a lykailour.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of those.” Rehm looked intrigued. “Shapeshifters. Really rare. Couple thousand years ago they were the loveable pets of rootworlders.” He shrugged. “Or so they say.”
Rehm waited a minute before continuing, “You know what else they’re saying? Velathill was successful, even if the unblighted rioters ran into trouble with monsters. The asshole told them he’d purchased a rare weapon of some kind to use against the rootworlder—and that there was a direct path to our ancient protector within the walls of the bakery itself, a channel he could exploit to deliver it.” He shrugged despondently. “I don’t know what he used, poison or some kind of physical weapon? I tried for more details, but the crowd didn’t know more. All they knew was that it wasn’t very large and it worked. And apparently, we are now ‘unblighted’, free from the ‘rootworlder tyranny’.”
“Damn,” was all that Sindreen said.
“How long before we’re overrun with… what did you call them, carnage wights?” Tarrya asked.
He sounded like a man who had lost all hope when he replied, “Carnage wraiths, yes. Who knows? Never happened before.”
Tarrya didn’t know what to say that could pull Rehm back from the edge of despair—other than to say how she felt, “Can we do anything about it? Can we convince another rootworlder to move here?”
Her words worked better than she’d expected. Both Sindreen and Rehm looked at her, and Sindreen said, unconvincingly, “You’re a root sorcerer. You talk to rootworlders.”
Tarrya nodded, staring at the fitted stones of the street. I don’t even know where to begin with something like this. She ran the fingertips of her right hand over the ridge of gold braiding that stretched across her palm, and the three of them sat quietly and let High Street traffic flow around them.
They got Rehm to his feet an hour later—still a few hours before sunset, and they wandered down to the Gondron Inn to see how it had fared. Rehm was explaining that the inn could just rebuild everything around their wonderful wine cellar. He added “assuming the wine survived” just as they noticed the crowd in the street in front of the inn, along with several carriages and at least a dozen horses with attendants watering and rubbing them down.
The Gondron Inn appeared to have come out of the riots unscathed, oil lamps blazing in the afternoon like signals of endurance. The portico and front room were packed with people in various states of post-riot disarray. One frightened family, with three children, stood by the stairway, streaked in soot and looked as if they had narrowly escaped their burning home. Mayrel bowed and handed over room keys. Abbarit guided them up the stairs with assurances of providing items they’d left behind.
Several tables in the dining room had been pulled together for what looked like a military company, a dozen fierce-looking soldiers, dressed similarly in tabards emblazoned with the symbols of Arkoness. There were another dozen of them scattered around various tables and along the bar, not as finely dressed but with blue and gold armbands, and even a few who wore the crest with the blue sails and gold towers of the Master of Harbors for the Port City of Arkoness.
“Oh no!” Tarrya ducked behind Rehm, whispering, “Do you know anything about some group called the Vacarro Nine?”
“Is that them?” Sindreen pushed forward to get a better view. “A lot more than nine of them.”
Rehm folded his arms to give Tarrya a little more cover. Out of the side of his mouth, he said, “They sent all these soldiers after you? Oh, my lovely woman, I really want to know what you’ve done.” He brought a handkerchief to his face to cough politely but was actually using it to cover his mouth to say, “Back up slowly Tarrya. I will remain in front of you. We now have their full attention. Let Sindreen take some of that.” He took a step back and felt Tarrya’s hand on his waist, giving him a sense of her position. “Two are headed our way.”
Mayrel appeared beside them with an energetic spring in her step. “Table tonight’s going to be difficult, Rehm and…” Mild annoyance, but no recognition in her expression when she glanced down at Tarrya, who returned a smile and a quick wave, half-crouched behind Rehm. The disguise potion was doing its alchemical dissimulation well.
Rehm waved the handkerchief airily. “Not tonight, Mayrel. Right now, we’d simply like to depart without a commotion.”
As soon as Mayrel said, “I see,” Sindreen decided to cause a commotion.
She was blocking the path of one of the approaching Arkoness soldiers and jamming a finger into his chest, punching little depressions in his tabard. “Now you listen. I’ve been coming to the Gondron Inn for years—”
“Silence!” The soldier grabbed Sindreen’s wrist—the one attached to the hand with the finger stabbing him in the chest.
A single weave of energy twisted in through the Gondron front doors, curved around Tarrya and Rehm, snapping to a point between Sindreen’s shoulder blades.
“Uh oh,” said Tarrya, straightening and taking a step back from Rehm.
The front room lit up with four coiling strands of energy linked to nearby rootstones. Three more popped into existence, two of them running under one of her arms. To Tarrya’s eyes, it looked like a fan of colorless, frozen lightning, jagged beams of power cutting sharply under a table to connect to seven of the tabarded soldiers.
Startled, Rehm said, “What is it?”
Looking over Rehm’s shoulder, she got a clearer view of the soldiers in the Arkoness tabards as they moved through the dining room, coming closer. “Covenant magic. Most of the soldiers have abilities.”
“Sindreen, dreadful!” said Rehm sharply and a little too loud.
A code word or just something to get her attention?
Sindreen immediately ducked to one side and looked into the dining room to see who was coming their way. The soldier she’d been badgering followed her gaze and straightened up because one of them was probably his commanding officer. Sindreen easily twisted out of his grip and backed into the inn’s front room, her hands wagging back and forth to loosen up, fingers flexing, preparing to direct some of the rootstone energy.
The soft threads of power snaked through the front room, spiraling through the crowd, two stopping with Rehm and Sindreen, the rest blazing beyond.
Tarrya reached out a hand, grabbed one, and broke it. Then two more. Her clenched hand opened, empty. Then several stunned soldiers drew steel. She summoned her impassive, let it flow icily around her, and when she opened her eyes, the world looked different. She saw their trained combat maneuvering in the dining room with cold clarity as if she knew what was going to happen in the next few seconds.
Tarrya shoved Rehm aside, stepped past Sindreen, and broke off another two threads coming from the rootstones. She reached up for the ribbon of energy running above everyone’s heads, and it went dark. She spun to follow another link to a rootstone.
There was one remaining covenant mage with a connection, and he hit them hard.
A blinding flash with the momentum of a rogue wave threw the crowd in the front room against the far wall. Tarrya, with Rehm and Sindreen just behind her, took the full impact. Her impassive, running cold, broke the seconds into stop-and-go jolts, and she locked eyes with the mage who’d dealt this.
Tarrya’s view of the dining room tilted away below her. She couldn’t feel the floor.
The air was full of music, discordant chiming, glass ringing sharply in her ears. Hundreds of ice crystals swirled around her, their edges sharp, cutting into her hand, another sliced her cheek. Drops of her blood spun away like stitches of red thread sewn into the air. She felt warm, startled to see a dozen whirling candles soaring with her, and then realized she had been thrown through the entryway’s chandelier.
That’s the ceiling right there. The vaulted ceiling in the Gondron Inn’s front room had to be three times her height. She wanted to reach out and touch it.
SOMEONE was trying to shake her awake, an insistent shoving, her whole body rolling back and forth. Her voice came out rough, shuddering through one word, “Eeen…nuff.”
The rocking continued.
“Stop. That!”
Tarrya opened her eyes—one eye. The other felt like it was glued shut. She made a guttural groaning noise that sounded like a walrus. She remembered those massive creatures whistling and barking on the beaches south of Ansellashor. One of the largest had occasionally lifted its head and called out, a deep growling rumble into the air—so loud it was deafening from the deck of a passing ship.
That’s what I sound like.
A quick dip into an old memory and one short string of curious thoughts unleashed a wave of agony inside her head. It spread through her like fire following a bead of oil. Her whole body was awash in pain. She groaned again and rolled to one side. That hurt even more.
She rubbed the eye that wouldn’t open, and cleared away the grit that turned out to be flakes of dried blood that had pooled around her eye from a cut on her cheek. She touched it gingerly and thought of Frennick and his wound-glue that wouldn’t leave a scar.
But the cut was the least of the points of pain—all over—that demanded her attention. A sudden stinging in her bones that made her legs or neck jerk, deep aching bruises, wounds that still felt wet with blood.
Her cold clear-thinking impassive was long gone.
Not the right time to recall it—not until I need it.
Slowly and carefully, she shifted her body upright into a sitting position. She bit down on another groan, and felt a shudder roll up from the base of her spine and tighten around her throat, trying to stop her breathing. Closing her eyes, she pulled in a shallow breath and let it out slowly.
Am I in a jail coach? She eased open her eyes again to confirm her whereabouts.
She was definitely in a rolling cart, alone. By the heavy, rumbling sound of hooves, there were at least ten or maybe twenty horses, two or four drawing the cart and the rest at a slow gait alongside, in front or behind, with mounted soldiers. She could hear some of them talking, more than one conversation, but their voices were low, muffled by the very solid-looking walls. With another stab of pain up her back and neck, Tarrya looked around, stopping on the door at the back of the space, reinforced with heavy crossbeams and iron bracing. There were barred windows in each sidewall, but they were shuttered from the outside.
Who are these Vacarro Nine soldiers? That blast . . . they hurt—badly—and possibly killed people in the Gondron’s front room. Just to capture me. Why? On whose command? Lord Seeledger? What do they think I did that it called for that kind of reaction?
She was alone in a jail cart, headed back to Arkoness.
Where are Rehmonoth and Sindreen now? Are they alive?
Tarrya looked down the front of her tunic, one of the new ones, torn in places with burn holes from the chandelier candles—she guessed. Her cloak, also new, seemed to be intact. One of her arms was caked in dirt and dried blood. She scraped and brushed it off with her nails and scooted sideways to lean her back against one wall, wincing at the thudding and vibration from cartwheels traveling over rough ground.
Something’s changed.
It felt as if they were rolling over lumps of marsh grass. She realized what that sharp crackling sound was—it had been a steady part of the background noise, but she hadn’t really paid attention to it. That’s splashing water, the horses stepping through marsh pools.
She felt a frustrated scowl forming on her face. There’s a stone road—or at least hard-packed earth—that follows the river, probably the whole way from Arkoness to the Mira. There’s even a swing bridge we passed somewhere in the middle—something she’d never seen before. She was thinking back on the slow trip up from the city and what she’d noticed rolling along from the flatboat’s deck. She was sure there were cross-river barges that moved horses, cargo, and people from one side to the other. But why aren’t we using the road?
The cart stopped abruptly and tossed Tarrya to the floor and up against the far wall, opposite the door. She quickly closed her eyes when she heard the locks sliding on one of the window shutters. The noise from outside was loud and she heard the background conversations more clearly now. She caught someone saying, “along the lake” and “ahead of us.”
The barred window remained open for a while, and she guessed one of the Vacarro Nine soldiers was peering in, watching her, waiting for her to move. She was counting heartbeats and felt them slow with the depth of her breathing.
“Should we kill her?” said a man’s voice, very Arkoness-educated in tone and pronunciation, probably the one at the open window. He’d turned away to ask someone.
A woman’s voice came back from a little distance, another dockside Arkoness accent, and she sounded as if she was in command. “Keep her locked in for now. She’s no use to us alive if we are not. If the tides are against us, then you make sure she’s dead. Understood?”
The window thudded shut and the locking bars fell in place.
Tarrya didn’t move for a few minutes, just listened to the muted sounds of shouting and the rumble of horses. The cart rocked side-to-side as if the driver had jumped down to assist with whoever—or whatever—was “along the lake” and “ahead of us.”
Even more baffling than why the Arkoness High Court had put out a bounty on her to begin with, and then sent a military company to capture her, was the question of who would attack a company of heavily armed soldiers, most of whom seemed to have a dangerous command of covenant magic? To rescue me?
And why is the Vacarro Nine making plans to kill me if they fail?
Tarrya’s anger ramped up with the questions.
Why is their failure even being considered?
She sat in the dim interior of her jail on wheels, wondering if it was possible to force open one of the windows. If I could just see what was happening beyond these walls...
There was a sudden and very noticeable change in the noise outside: horses galloping hard, desperate shouts, and something she’d never heard before. She now knew that horses could scream. The chill of hearing that high-pitched animal pain made her crawl up against the back wall of the jail coach and fold her arms around herself.
The sounds of combat slowly drifted away, then picked up again, but the vibrations in the coach’s floor felt as if the fight had moved a considerable distance—or they’re being pursued?
Two hollow booming noises sounded and shook the coach a second later.
Someone’s using their rootstone energy.
Another reason to blow open one of the barred windows. To see how they were using it.
Tarrya grabbed the bracing on the back wall for leverage and struggled to her feet. She felt a little more stability with the jail coach stopped, but a tremor ran through the boards, and she quickly dug her fingers into the bars of the nearest window.
The sound of war and hurled bolts of magical energy died out. She put her ear to the shutters and tried to follow the panicking voices, but they were too indistinct to make out. The cart shook again and rolled back, wheels ramming up against a wedge of . . . maybe marsh grass? The sudden stop nearly knocked her off her feet.
They cut the horses loose?
Tarrya spun at the sound of the locking bars on the door sliding free.
This is it. They’ve failed and now they’re going to kill me.
She closed her eyes, summoned her impassive, and felt the cold calming power fold around her. A second impassive moved along the left wall, startling her. The ghostly twin went to the back door, and put her ear to it, listening. Tarrya held her breath for a bit, trying to hear anything over the thumping of her heart.
Nothing.
The second impassive, who seemed more independent than any she’d ever conjured, turned to face her with a what’s next? shrugging gesture.
Tarrya shrugged right back, whispering, “I don’t know.”
Something brushed against one of the cart’s wheels, and another judder ran through the coach.
Tarrya looked at the barred windows, wondering if the daylight was fading. There was still enough seeping through the narrow space between the shutters to picture the jail coach’s reinforced interior, but it felt as if the light was dimming. The world was quieter now beyond the walls—no sound of the horses, no muted discussions or shouted commands.
What happened to the Vacarro Nine?
Her second impassive was getting impatient, pointing at the door and making a get-on-with-it gesture with her hand.
Tarrya took a step, kept one arm out in case she needed to keep her balance, and moved toward the back of the coach. “Ah, I understand,” she said to her eager impassive, which was telling her, through mime, that the door had been unbolted and could simply be unlatched and opened.
It wasn’t a choice, one or the other. Apparently, she had both freedom and whatever it was that drove off or slaughtered an entire company of veteran soldiers waiting for her.
“Why couldn’t I just have freedom and a horse to ride back to Thornfall?”
She’d only been on a horse once and wasn’t sure she could pick up riding one quickly—but it was better than walking.
Tarrya lifted the latch and pushed open the door. It swung wide to display a battlefield of carnage, broken soldiers and horses, unmoving, with blood reddening pools of marsh water.
A hulking ghostly pallid and eyeless creature made of woven bone and knotted gray tree roots appeared around one side of the coach and Tarrya’s second impassive jumped down defiantly, holding up both hands with fingers crooked, clawing at the air. The monster stopped and took a cautious step back. It raised a long, curved, and intricately carved club that could have been fashioned from a single bone—a bone from a very large animal, with wet Vacarro Nine blood running through iridescent tracings of letters Tarrya didn’t recognize.
Using the door frame for support, Tarrya climbed down from the back of the jail coach and the creature lowered its club and took several more steps away.
She took one cautious jump forward, swung her arms out for balance, and the creature moved back again. The second impassive circled her, swaggering like a champion, gesturing with side-sweeping motions of her arms.
And that’s when Tarrya noticed the others—hundreds of the ghostly creatures with fibrous limbs and fists holding ancient-looking spears, axes, and rusty curved swords. One of them stood with a tall, gnarled wooden pole topped with a ghostly streaming banner. None of them had eyes. The faces of the creatures angled back into the top of their skulls just above a wider-than-normal mouthful of rows of sharp and glittering teeth.
Their teeth looked diamond-bright, but the rest of their bodies were dull sinewy weaves the color of decaying bone and ash.
Daylight was fading, and Tarrya skipped to the next lump of marsh grass, wobbled a little, and then hopped to another. She almost tripped, making a last-second change in direction to avoid landing near a dead horse, one big eye staring up at her, dark bands of blood running through its beautiful mottled gray coloring.
Tarrya clenched her fists, pausing to close her eyes and get a stronger hold on her concentration. The sick feeling passed. When she opened her eyes, her second impassive smiled monstrously back at her.
Sunset wasn’t far off, and Tarrya didn’t want to stay in the dark in a field full of corpses. With every step forward, away from the jail coach, the pale monsters moved with her, keeping their distance. Tarrya counted their numbers, starting with those directly ahead and stopping directly to the right—one quadrant, north to east on the compass. “Four times seventy-two is two hundred and eighty-eight.” She captured her second impassive’s eye and said, “Let’s call it an even three hundred of these… are these the carnage wraiths Rehm was talking about?”
Her impassive merrily threw her hands in the air and danced in a wide ring around her.
THE MOON was a cold slice of light in the sky. Across the marshy fields to the north, right above the horizon, Tarrya could see a distant flatboat light—and hoped it was on the lake, heading toward Thornfall.
She had found the pole star right after sunset, watched the Archer ascending on one side, the Swan descending opposite, and kept to a rough westerly heading. The moon would set sometime in the middle of the night, which meant she’d have to stop soon after and wait out the rest of the morning darkness until dawn.
Planning ahead, she moved toward a fragile-looking birch grove, broke off a bundle of branches, and then picked up and dragged a section of a fallen tree as long as she was tall. Every movement revived her pains. The burden added to her agony and slowed her progress, but she could make a fire that might last the rest of the night.
If the carnage wraiths—that’s what she was calling them now—continued to keep their distance, then she might make it back to Thornfall alive.
That brought more questions to mind.
What do I do when I get to town? Will these monsters keep following me? A frightening thought surfaced. Those unblighted assholes drove off or killed the rootworld being that protected the town. Was the rootworlder keeping the carnage wraiths away all this time? And now what? Would these things wander the streets killing random Thornfallers?
Taking in the hundreds of wraiths maintaining their distance, silently keeping pace with her, she also had to admit they appeared to be on her side. They had, after all, rescued her. But that didn’t mean she had to trust them.
“Survive the night, that’s the highest priority item on the list.” It was amusing—in a non-entertaining manner—that with every passing day, “Avoid being caught by bounty hunters” continued to be pushed lower on her personal survival list. It started out on top a few days ago.
After moonset when she was staggering around in the dark, Tarrya stopped and found a small ridge of mud and grass that was slightly drier than the surrounding area. Breaking and stacking up her bundle of birch branches, pain in her arms and hands joined the throbbing in her legs and back. She hunkered down, imagined the fire she wanted, and pointed at the pile. She felt the warmth rising, then it drifted away. She hadn’t practiced making a fire in years and rarely needed to use this domain of the knowledge—wooden ships and fire being incompatible.
It took her twenty-four attempts before flames licked out and engulfed the branches, settling down after a while into a nice little source of heat and light.
I can feel Aunt Sophia’s disappointment from here.
Tarrya dragged up the large section of a tree and rolled it partially into the flames. She figured the anguish resulting from this activity was worth it if she could now spend the night feeding it little by little until she ran out of burnable wood.
She sat with her back to the fire, watching the whitish wraiths moving around a perimeter she guessed was about forty paces out. Every once in a while, one would try to step closer and it immediately jumped back, arms flailing as if burned.
It wasn’t the fire keeping the monsters away, and probably wasn’t her impassives. The second, independent one was still strutting in circles, zigzagging through the open ground, throwing the middle finger and making other rude gestures.
“Although I’m sure that helps.” She noticed the carnage wraiths became agitated and moved back a step—or sometimes stumbled on the marsh grass—when the impassive came near.
Is it me? What will happen when I fall asleep? If I dismiss my impassives, how difficult will it be to bring them back? I’ve never run one this long, and never more than a few minutes with two.
She had several theories about the carnage wraiths. She wasn’t, though, about to test any of them in the middle of the night with limited firelight and the odds stacked against her.
She got up, stretched, and moved a section of the dwindling piece of the tree into the fire. She looked up at the stars, guessed that she’d run out of firewood about the time the Archer was moving over the pole star, maybe a little farther.
Tarrya looked east, away from Thornfall, and toward the distant dawn. “Going to be dark for a while before it gets lighter, I’m afraid.”
Her second impassive came running up and seemed to have lost some of that charming arrogant edge.
Tarrya held up a hand in acknowledgment. “I sense that too.”
Something else was out there in the dark, moving toward her.
She watched the impassive miming something. Not certain that she understood, Tarrya said, “Yeah, I guess waiting for new enemies to show up is a little better than having them jump out and surprise us.”
It didn’t take long.
Dark shapes moved into the line of carnage wraiths on the west side, divided it, and pushed them farther back along the circle, leaving a dark and empty gap in the perimeter ring.
Tarrya took a step toward it, trying to see deeper into the space now cleared of the pale vine and bone monsters, while retaining the idea of making a run for it. “It hurts just to stand up. I can’t outrun the wraiths and whoever this is.”
It was Mourodith, hatless but accompanied by a full band of marsh wardens, who spread out around her diminishing campfire, keeping the carnage wraiths back with hand signals and whispered commands. He strode up as if he expected her to be there, alone in the middle of a marsh in the middle of the night. He stopped in front of her, and with two hands, held out another complexly folded note from her aunt. She took it and tucked it in the waist pocket of her vest.
“Thank… you.” The words came out a little rough. She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
“Are you injured, Tarrya?”
She sighed and the flood of relief spilled into her voice. “In more places than I can count, but I would walk out of here without a sound if you will lead me.”
He bowed. “That is why we’re here.”
Mourodith whistled a few chirps, two low, one high. There were return chirps from the darkness, and he said, “This way.”
Tarrya stepped out of the firelight and into the dark, right behind Mourodith. Several of the marsh wardens folded in behind them but spread out to maintain a good twenty-pace boundary between Tarrya and anything that might jump out from the night. Off on her right, not far away, her more daring impassive marched along with them, mildly curious about the group. There was no hint from Mourodith or the other marsh wardens that they could see her.
She concentrated on keeping her aching body vertical and moving.
About a mile on, Mourodith slowed and took her hand. Tarrya had been stumbling on the uneven ground. His steadying grip gave her better balance and coordination. She felt she could look around again. “What happened to the carnage wraiths? Are they still following us?”
“No.” He glanced back, just for a second. “Why do you call them that?”
“I heard that name but wasn’t sure.” Tarrya stammered over a reasonable answer. “I just needed something to call them.”
“They are the guardians of a once proud nation. A thousand years ago or more, this was a land of mountains, sea cliffs, and high plains, with splendid cities and bright banners riding the winds over formidable stone fortresses. All of that is buried now, deep under the ground. Beneath these Lows.”
Tarrya remembered Sindreen’s cryptic remark. “The Lows were not always low.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Precisely.”
Another mile and Tarrya was stumbling like a drunk again. Mourodith stopped and lifted her into his arms. And I can just let go of everything. The gentle rocking with every footstep was soothing and sleep soon pulled her under.
Just before her impassives drifted away, she thought she heard him say, “They are your guardians.”
Mourodith gently shook Tarrya awake in the entryway to the Gondron Inn, and walked her inside, holding her hand until she nodded with the return of her balance. She blinked and struggled to throw off the weight of weariness. She yawned while saying, “Thank you again.”
The room wasn’t as bright as she remembered, and there were candles in dishes lining the long table, which didn’t have that elegant Gondron Inn quality. “Oh yeah, the chandelier.” She looked up at three links of chain, one broken, hanging from the ceiling.
Mayrel swept through a moment later, one querying eyebrow up.
“Hello Mayrel. Can I get a strong cup of tea please?”
“Follow me.”
Tarrya turned and found that Mourodith and his team had vanished. She followed Mayrel into the dining room.
One of the young men from the kitchens glided over and set down a teapot, cup, saucer, and spoon.
Tarrya reached for the pot, lowering her voice. “Have you seen Rehm or Sindreen?”
Mayrel shook her head, a hint of confusion in her expression—probably trying to remember if Tarrya had been there or not. The disguise potion had been active during the entire Vacarro Nine incident. “Not tonight. Last night they ran into trouble with that company out of Arkoness, who had them arrested—that’s what I heard. Not like they haven’t been arrested before. But didn’t see them at all today.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you doing well?” She pointed to her own cheek, indicating the cut along Tarrya’s.
“Oh, yes, but those riots were terrible. I had a couple of close calls.”
Mayrel said a few sympathetic comments and was on her way.
Tarrya finished her tea quickly and headed out of the Gondron, down High Street.
She passed the gutted remains of the wonderful Fenrorra Bakery, smiled sadly, found the canal lane just past the Post Road crossing, and followed it around to the marker without a sign. The three bell-shaped flowers were still in bloom.
Tarrya stopped and looked across the canal. The bridge was gone, and it looked as if there had never been a bridge there. A neat—and noticeably unbroken—laurel hedge row grew along the lane. Across the canal, there was a continuous wall from one three-story estate to the next. Tarrya looked up and down the lane. She was sure she was in the right spot. The alley that had led to Yonside Manor was no longer there.
Continued in Thornfall
Chris Howard is just a creative human with a pen and a paint brush, author of Seaborn (Juno Books, 2008), Salvage (Masque/Prime Books, 2013), Nanowhere (Lykeion, 2005), and a shelf-full of other books. His short stories and essays have appeared in various zines and anthologies, including “Lost Dogs and Fireplace Archeology” in Fantasy Magazine and “How to Build Worlds Without Becoming the Minister for Tourism” in Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (Penguin/Random House, 2014). His story "The Mermaid Game" appeared in the Paula Guran edited anthology Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep (Prime, 2015), and “Hammers and Snails” was a Robert A. Heinlein Centennial Short Fiction Contest winner. Chris wrote and illustrated the comics Saltwater Witch and Salvage. His art has appeared on dozens of book covers, art cards, interior illustrations for publishers, authors, and Kickstarter projects. You can also find his art in Shimmer, BuzzyMag, various RPGs, and on the pages of books, blogs, and other interesting places. Find out more here: SaltwaterWitch.com
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