The Year of Our War (26 page)

I lay back, pressed on purple-shadowed eyelids and said “fuck” in every language I could think of. I used to find Tern’s selfishness attractive, and I used to believe that with immortality she would learn patience. I’m losing her again, I thought; if she complains about my conduct to the Emperor that will be the end of both of us.

I started to shiver, hearing the rain and the low moan of the wind cutting around the tower. At length I got up and pulled myself across the tilting floor to the dressing table, which was a mess of perfume bottles, makeup and paper flowers, feather scissors and pens and one slim ornate syringe. I clutched it. Safe now. I fixed myself and lost consciousness lying on a bearskin rug, in front of the fireplace. I went looking for Dunlin again.

I
felt much healthier in the Shift, which proved how sick I must be in the Fourlands. I’m sorry, Tern, I thought. When the Fourlands needs me, when Tern wants me, I’m lying, twitching, dying of overdose, alone in my room in the Castle. I knew I was treading the edge of death to take so much cat twice in close succession. Older Eszai would be feeling the Circle strain to keep me alive.

How much poison would break the Circle? How deeply damaged was too fucked to save? What would fail first? Respiratory depression, suffocation, heart failure, permanently Shifted; with maggot-girl trailing me.

With the Vermiform in mind, I began my search for His Majesty in places where I knew the floor was solid, where I would presumably be able to see her coming from a distance, rather than suddenly feeling worm-strands wrap around my legs and pull me down through the soil.

In the marketplace there seemed to be fewer Tine. After questioning people in bars and coffee shops I found that Dunlin was giving them good positions in his guard.

I raised a toast to Dunlin Rachiswater in the Bullock’s Bollocks bar, and everyone there responded. Either they were loyal, or they were too afraid to differ. I learned from them that he had taken up residence in Sliverkey Palace; that I would find him there if the flag was flying, and if not, on any battleground with all the inhabitants of Epsilon pitted against the Insects. The punters toasted him again. Shift creatures had never united before; usually they gruffly ignored each other, or were cheery but vague. Only the Equinnes seemed capable of battle, but they had discovered athletics instead. Now they were so fanatically patriotic and bloodthirsty they seemed to be becoming Awian.

I left the bar intending to walk to Sliverkey, but I had not gone farther than the market when I was sidetracked by a stall selling maps. Another amazing development—I had never seen maps in Epsilon before. The Shift changes so rapidly it’s difficult to plan. Enchanted, I realized that each was a hand-drawn copy of the chart I had given Dunlin four months ago in Keziah’s pub. And now they were available to everyone! I bent over for a closer look and got both buttocks pinched at once. I whirled round, drawing my sword fluidly—found myself face to face with Felicitia Aver-Falconet.

Felicitia froze with a squeak, both hands over his face. He lowered them tentatively. “Lose the bleached hair and white jeans, my chimerical boy. They make you look like a ghost.”

“Felicitia! Just the man I need!”

“Oh, my tardy lad! I’ve waited so long to hear you say that.”

“I mean, I need you to come to the Palace at Sliverkey…God, what happened to you?” His arm was bandaged elbow to shoulder, hanging in a sling of lined magnolia satin. The sling matched the rest of his tight suit, which left none of his small toned body to the imagination. He was leaning on a crutch, which pushed his other shoulder up to his ears, from which marcasite rings dangled. His skin shone like soap, and ingenuous eyes brimmed like ink blots. He swung on the crutch, blushing terribly. “I was—”

“Oi, what’re you doing talking to a tourist in the middle of the market?” At an angry shout I put a hand to my sword hilt again, but Felicitia slapped me.

“
Will
you stop doing that? It’s not diplomatic. Over here, love,” he added, raizing his voice, and a well muscled man with long red hair slipped to his side. The man was tall, tanned, and completely naked apart from a furry headband.

“This,” said Felicitia proudly, “is an Equinne gunner. My guess is he could even fight Tornado and win.”

I ignored the friendly hand, bulging with health, which was offered me. “I’m not a tourist,” I said.

“Leigh, this is Comet Jant Shira. Less pigment than spaghetti at the moment but don’t underestimate him. He can outrun racehorses, he’s a Deathless—”

“Looks already dead,” the muscled man observed with cheerful carelessness.

“Jant, this is Lieutenant Leigh Delamere from Osseous, who’s come to help us fight Insects.”

“At yer service, Immortal.”

Questions buzzed in my mind. I couldn’t believe that Felicitia—camp as a row of tents—would want to fight at all. Perhaps it was testimony to Dunlin’s charisma. I couldn’t believe that the Horse People would join Dunlin either. If their Shift land of Osseous had been in the Fourlands, rivalry between Awians and Equinnes would far surpass the Insect War.

“Pleased to meet you. The Castle Circle is at your service and that of Osseous.” Which was safe to say because no Eszai apart from me would ever visit Osseous. “I would be glad to offer assistance against the Insects in any world.”

“He’s the Castle Messenger,” Felicitia said.

Delamere grinned with a chummy politeness that left me quite cold. “I must ask,” I said. “Why are Equinnes always naked?”

Delamere looked aghast, ran big hands over his groin and thighs. “I’m not naked.”

“Excuse me,” I said, “but I can see your—”

“This is one-hundred-percent impossum fur. Invisible marsupials. It took tons of them to make this suit.” He offered me a brawny arm. I stretched out a hand, aware of Felicitia giggling, and stopped a centimeter from Delamere’s skin, my hand sinking into warm invisible fur.

“That’s amazing,” I breathed.

“Cheers. They’re bastards to hunt, though. Have to walk around until you fall over them.”

Felicitia tottered on his carved crutch, wincing in agony. He asked if we could start toward Sliverkey straight away, as his broken leg was too much to bear in the heat and market crowds. “Those Insects are tough,” he said.

Delamere took him under one arm, where he fitted perfectly. He clicked his fingers at a passing quandry, which slewed to a halt beside us. “Can you take us to the mansion at Sliverkey?”

“Well, I dunno, darling,” said the leading whorse, licking lipstick smooth around its muzzle. “Is the price right?”

“I have money,” I said, making Felicitia giggle again.

“God save us, a rich Rhydanne; nothing’s changed at all, has it? Has it, my affluent lad?”

Delamere shoved Felicitia up into the open carriage where he sat swaying in girlish laughter. The lieutenant said a few short words to the leading whorse, in a different language; the beast pawed the ground and tossed her head. “If you please, love,” she whinnied. “If you promise to give Dunlin our regards, this ride is free.”

“All your rides are free,” nagged the whorse shackled behind it.

“Oh, listen to the girl, she’s such a bitch!”

“Mare!”

The quandry set off at a brisk canter, scattering shoppers and Jeopards, and a couple of stalls. We turned right at the City Hall and, as town thinned, increased in speed until we were racing at a gallop along country lanes, all the signs pointing to Dunlin’s Palace.

E
very time the colorful coach zigged or zagged or jarred Felicitia was thrown against me on the amber leather seat, and I was pushed uncomfortably up against Delamere’s fur. First we passed the Aureate, vast twin gilded domes of the Breasts on the skyline. Then we rushed through open country, over a vivid green plain where manila antelopes took fright and jumped away from the coach, white tails showing. Groups of giraffiti stretched their long necks to watch us, their bodies and lengthy legs a crisscross of brown lettering on yellow hair. Herds grazed in the calm middle-distance. The quandry dodged away from snorting terribulls, which attacked to protect their herds, lowering their heads and gouging with gigantic horns.

After an hour the plain gave way to a bright blue lake, covered with lily pads, where fiery flocks of pink flameingos stalked on their matchstick legs. The air was crystal clear and sweet as melt-water; Delamere’s hair streamed back like crimson silk.

In the distance I saw a gray line, like a low cliff, threatening as a bank of fog, which I recognized as we ricocheted toward it in the heat-haze—an Insect Wall. It loomed, silent; seemed to leach color from the vibrant plains.

“Did Insects come from here to attack Epsilon?” I asked.

Felicitia said, “Yes. Do you remember we used to call them Paperlands?”

“Back home we still do.”

“That Insect city is empty now,” Felicitia said. “Dunlin and I cleaned them all out. Didn’t we, Leigh?”

“Yeh.”

“That was how I got my arm broken. I was right in the middle of the fight! Just like Hacilith! Well, maybe not. We drove all the Insects back behind that Wall and there were so many they were stacked up on top of one another, running around.”

“So there are no Insects left in Epsilon at all?”

“There’s a few pockets of Insects left. There’s quite a few behind the Wall at Osseous. Dunlin wants to attack next week and destroy them all, my sweet tatterdemalion. We’re positive of success.”

“There are too many Insects to hold in the Fourlands now.”

“You Eszai are always saying that. You don’t fool me, my pretty propagandist.”

“It’s true. Rachiswater’s overrun, Lowespass is ten meters under paper, Wrought manor’s infested. Insects have been seen in Micawater.”

“Even! You need Dunlin back. See, here’s where we camped; the Equinnes had such good fun.”

“Yeh.” Delamere smirked. “Bit slow, though. Prime your muskets and bide your time, the Captain of the Guard said.”

“I could tell the Insects didn’t like being all squashed up together because they built a bridge to escape. It’s there—do you see?”

I did see. Half a bridge reared into the brilliant sky and stopped abruptly at the zenith of its arch. The bridge was identical to the one in Lowespass.

“They built tunnels too,” Felicitia chattered. “Then they ran down the tunnels or up the bridge and disappeared. Can you believe? Dunlin was hopping mad because he said they were escaping.”

“That half,” I said slowly, “is the same bridge as our half.”

Felicitia didn’t understand. “There are lots of bridges.”

“You don’t know where they go to?”

“Well, no, my outré one. Do they have to go anywhere? Dunlin climbed it, you know. He is
so brave
. He threw things off the end but they didn’t vanish like the Insects did. They just fell down. Didn’t they, Leigh?”

“Yeh.”

I started to feel strange. Invisible hands were pulling me back to my body in the Castle. Typical. Damn it, damn it, damn it. I fought hard, towing the line, pulling against the pull, a supple hook in my guts. My longest Shift yet was wearing off rapidly. I grabbed Felicitia, who simpered. “The Palace,” I shouted. “It’s important! I’ll come back as soon as I can!”

“We’ll be there,” Felicitia assured me.

“Tell Dunlin not to ride against the Insects again! Not until I talk to him! I—ah…”

“But why?” Felicitia’s hand went straight through me, to the amber leather. The bright plain was dimming, a fast dusk to a monochrome gray.

I looked imploringly at the now ghostly Equinne. He said, “You know where those bridges go to, don’t you?”

“Yeh.” And I was gone.

I
’m surprised I’m still alive. Awake and alive! The rush that knocked me out had faded, but the high remained, and it felt wonderful. I grinned, unstuck myself from the carpet, and bounced over to the washstand where I drank a whole pitcher of water. From the burned-down candles I supposed that I had been unconscious for four or five hours. I rubbed at the bruise in the crook of my arm. “Don’t do it again, Jant,” I told myself. “You’ll get hooked.”

Rain still whipped against the shutters, storm clouds were moving in herds across the sky. The land outside was dark and soaking. I took off my shirt because I’d vomited all over it, rolled it up in the rug and dumped them both in the bedroom.

I was descending the steps when I heard a hurried knock at the door. I was still utterly wired on cat and didn’t stop to think who could be visiting in the middle of the night, during a hurricane. I bounded across the room and flung the door wide.

The figure dripping there gazed at me in horror. “Messenger?”

“Mm?” I blinked. “You’re wet.”

“Yes. It’s raining.”

“Yes. Well, I suppose you’d better come in then.” The tall man pushed past me and it was only then I realized who it was. “Harrier?”

“Comet, this is terrible. I—”

“What the shining fuck are you doing here? What are you wearing?” The custodian of Micawater unbuttoned his saturated coat, wrung the rain from his ponytail. He carried a mighty bow, which I took from him and propped against the wall. He looked too upset to be bearing arms. I sat him down in a chair by the fire.

“Comet,” he said palely, “I rode from Awia. I lived there all my life. I’m never going back. This is terrible.” He seemed ready to collapse.

I had not seen this aspect of Harrier for twenty years. Gone were the elegant suits and polished boots; the woodsman was dressed as he was the first time I saw him, I observed as I poured a heavy measure of whiskey. His green coat and hood lay in a pool on the floor. Under his belt, peacock-feathered arrows were still bright and keen. He had a bracer on his arm and a sword and buckler at his side. On the other side hung a well mounted dagger. A horn with a green strap at his back and a silver medallion on his chest completed the ensemble. Harrier looked like this when he shot against Lightning in a Micawater tournament twenty years ago. Lightning won effortlessly but Harrier’s skillful archery and impeccable conduct impressed him so much he offered the loyal young man the next stewardship of his estate.

Long time pining—through novels, librettos, and benefactions, with visionary masquerades and testing tournaments, Lightning created a golden age of the time of his youth which modern Awians desperately want to defend. Harrier and his family had subscribed to the fantasy and sunk without trace.

“I can never go back,” Harrier repeated in dismay.

“Shut up.” I gave him the whiskey; he slugged it down and then spluttered it all over the long-suffering carpet. He grimaced like someone weaned on expensive wine. “I have to see Lightning. The Castle’s like a tomb.”

He buried his head in his hands, and his shoulders shook. No, it couldn’t wait till morning. Yes, it was urgent. No, he couldn’t tell me. Yes, he could only tell Lightning. Yes, he was terrified. I took a deep breath. “We’re all Eszai! I can help! Now stop sniveling and tell me what’s going on!”

“I rode without rest. I left my horse in Great Court, half dead. Night before last during the storms, at the Palace, there was a fight. I’m so sorry. Fifty men forced the Lake Gate and rode into the gardens. A child could force those gates. There were no lights. Torrential rain, clouds were down to the ground. We couldn’t see in the gardens at all. My family hid. The guards are useless—it was mayhem. Call them guards? Decoration, more like! We were expecting Insects, not men to attack Micawater! Men rode right into the entrance hall. I was on the balcony. I shot at them. I shot at
people
. I can’t believe it. I took ten of them down with the arrows that were on the walls, but I only had ten arrows. Lightning will be devastated. Maybe I should kill myself.”

Harrier appeared quite willing to do so; I tried to reassure him.

“I couldn’t stop them! The men broke everything. The first floor is in pieces. Ceramics, glass. It will break his heart. They ran up the stairs. They knew the way. They took…They took Cyan from her bedroom and they took her away. I’m sorry. She wasn’t crying; she was white with shock.”

“You’ve lost Ata’s kid?”

“Yes. I’m so sorry. We tried to give chase but the storm was too fierce. The entrance hall flooded, because the doors were smashed. At daybreak I sent out search parties but there was no sign. The roads are all churned up. And Insects! Insects all over the place! They ate everything in the gardens, including the gardeners. I had to deal with the townspeople, I told them to leave for Rachiswater.”

“Do you know who’s taken the girl?”

“Yes. He had the Castle’s crest on a shield on his back. I had chance of a shot, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t want to hit Cyan. Lightning could have done it. But I couldn’t shoot an Eszai.”

“Mist?”

“Yes.”

“He’s more stupid than I thought!”

“I think they took her to Peregrine. I went there yesterday morning. The manor is like a war camp. There’s a thousand fyrd there. They have the Grass Island badge, but they look very shabby. They told me to piss off,” he added, in a hurt tone.

Where did Mist get a thousand soldiers? Oh. No. I know. It was my turn to founder; I sat down. I had thought that I’d tied up every loose end. Now I wished the world to swallow me whole. The Emperor and the Archer would be furious with me. I swore miserably in Scree while Harrier watched me shrewdly. “You don’t know anything about this, do you?”

“Of course I do. I’m an Eszai. I know everything,” I said. The immortal line. Appear to lose control and Challengers pop out of the woodwork like Vermiforms. I couldn’t tell Harrier that I had relocated Ata’s fyrd to Awndyn manor, to send them out of the way.

It could never be known that I delivered a letter from Shearwater Mist to Awndyn manor. And Awndyn was not far from Peregrine. That letter must have recalled them—Mist used Ata’s men to abduct her child. “I’m going to knock their heads together,” I muttered.

“I think we’d better let Lightning do that,” Harrier said. “Comet, I don’t understand. Why would the Sailor want to steal his child back? Does he want ransom for her? Is Ata so fond of her?” Just because Ata has had many children over the centuries doesn’t mean she isn’t fiercely protective of each one. “Perhaps he’s going to use her to force Ata to drop her Challenge for his place in the Circle. Don’t look at me like that. Everybody at the coast knows now.”

“If that’s his aim,” I said, “he’ll lose his place anyway because extortion is certainly against the law.”

Harrier seemed to have mostly dried out now, and was warmed by the unfamiliar drink. He was patting his chestnut hair flat and examining my eccentric apartment with complete distaste.

“We’ll go tell the Archer,” I said. “He will not be in a good temper—he’s feeling guilty. He had to answer to the Emperor for lending Micawater fyrd to Ata. He hasn’t broken the rules, but they’re bent completely out of shape.”

“The lady deserves to be supported. She’s suffered so much!”

I was of the opinion that the lady should be bound and gagged and dumped in the deep blue sea.

I
led Harrier down my muraled spiral staircase, along one of the wide corridors that connects the Castle’s thick outer walls to the Palace inside. He scuttled along behind me, one hand on his sword hilt, blunt head down as if he was still moving against the storm. There was a sheen to his pale skin that was not rainwater. He looked like a dying man, more gray than pale; flashes of lightning from the glassless windows lit his face in angles, light gray left, dark gray right—the timeless gray of the Castle stone. “Calm down!” I shouted over the sound of the storm.

“Slower!” he gasped.

“Don’t die on me, Harrier,” I said nervously. I have never found it easy to judge how much pain Zascai can take. He stumbled at a left-hand turn, sharp change of direction, into the corridors of the Palace itself.

“Not yet, Comet,” he muttered.

It is a long run from my tower across the Castle to Lightning’s rooms. We paused in an unlit doorway, the engraved portal open wide onto a little cobbled courtyard six centimeters deep in pocked water. Sheets of water were running off the roof and falling in a transparent wall in front of us. I pushed Harrier through it, ducked after him, and sprinted across the sudden lake to a gateway at the other side. Harrier gasped as freezing water doused down his back. His shirt clung between the bumps of wings.

N
ow we were leaving wet footprints on a dove-gray carpet. Blue glass lamps had been depleted hours ago and the narrow hallway was slick with the warm smell of oil smoke. A midnight-blue embroidered hanging ran along the wall, thin white hounds chasing like a pack of crescent moons after a brimstone-yellow stag with a crown around its neck. I ripped the hanging back on its brass rail and there was a double door behind it.

“Are you going to knock or shall I?” I asked. Harrier tried to hide behind me. I sighed and hammered on the blue doors. Nothing. I knocked again, again nothing.

“Let’s go.” Harrier shivered. He could barely speak. From experience I knew this would take a while.

Lightning, unusually crumpled and haggard, opened the door and stuck his foot against it, leaning on the frame, his face just visible in the gap, said, “What have the Insects done now?”

“Not Insects.”

“Then could you go away, please?”

“This is important!”

“Comet, do you know what time it is?”

“Yes. It’s—”

“I don’t care what you’re high on or what you have to whine about. Leave it till morning when I have enough energy to kick you back to Scree for waking me up!”

Harrier surfaced in front of me, and smiled like a ghost at his master. Lightning’s demeanor changed completely. He ran a hand through tousled hair.

“What is it?” he said. “No. Wait, don’t tell me, come in.”

He dashed back into the room and started lighting candles in a candelabra on a low walnut table, fumbling with a tinderbox until I threw him a box of matches. Harrier walked into the room like a man into a new country, taking everything in. Polished floorboards reflected candlelight at the edges of the room, emerging from under a rug, iodine purple and potash gray. An albino bearskin stretched in front of the cold fireplace. Invisible rain battered the sash windows.

I closed the tall double doors, brass handles with copper-blue enameling, and waited there like a guard watching immortalized raindrops glitter near the stucco ceiling—the chandelier.

Harrier knelt at the edge of the carpet. I found myself looking at the top of his head. “You don’t need to do that,” I said, confused. He ignored me.

Lightning picked up a bow that was leaning against a bookshelf. He braced it against his bare foot and strung it expertly, then sank onto a gray velvet chaise longue with the bow across his knee. He thought: nobody can hurt me while I have this. An unlaced white shirt fell down over one shoulder; he had struggled into black trousers that were part of a dress suit. The first thing that had come to hand. “Comet. The harbinger of disaster,” he said. “What is it?”

I motioned for Harrier to give the news. He did so, with an apology every second word. When he finished there should have been silence, hopelessly routed by the storm outside. Waves of rain tore against the windows, gales howled past around the corner of the building. The Archer was staring into a private world a meter in front of his face. “I see,” he said, in a quiet voice. “I don’t believe you.”

“My lord.” The woodsman hung his head, overcome with shame.

“This…doesn’t happen to me. To the Palace. My home. What am I going to do?”

“Steady, Saker,” I said.

“What am I going to do? I’ll kill him. I’m going to kill him!” Muscles bulged in both arms as he clenched his fists. “We’re leaving, right now.” He took a gulping breath.

“Steady!”

“Nobody. Has.
Ever
touched Micawater. For fifteen
hundred
years. One
thousand
five
hundred
years…What am I going to do? What about Cyan? Is she hurt? Is she dead?” Lightning looked around wildly for something to break. Harrier had shrunk so deeply into himself that he was taking up no space at all.

He said nothing. He said, “I have to do something.” Then, “What will the Emperor do?”

“Saker, sit down and calm down. To San it’s just another manorship.” I said it again in sixth-century Awian and he stopped, perplexed, the big hand went over his eyes like a visor.

“Please don’t,” he said.

“That is no way to comport oneself,” I continued. “Would your father have acted thus? Would Peregrine?”

He struggled with his reverences. “Yes, they may well have,” he said.

“Is this what they taught you? Or do you betray Awia by behaving like a Plainslander? What would Teale Micawater say if she witnessed this?”

It seemed to work. Lightning placed the bow on his chair and pulled Harrier to his feet, taking his hand. Ashen-white, Harrier was totally bewildered at the fact we were suddenly speaking a dead language. “I am so sorry,” he kept repeating. “So sorry, my lord.”

“No. No, Harrier, you did well. Your name will be remembered and your family will be rewarded for this service. I wish you to remain as steward in the Palace, if you feel you possibly could.”

“It would be a great pleasure, Lord Governor, but I’m hardly worthy.”

“On the contrary; you are the most loyal servant I have ever had, and a very talented archer.”

I coughed. “Do I have to listen to this all night?”

The Archer turned to me. “How long will it take us to ride to the coast?”