A Fray of Furies, page 16
part #2 of The Waking Worlds Series
“Come on,” it huffed between breaths, “come on!”
Fledgling flames bloomed, crackling merrily.
“Here,” the krin bid. “You feed the fire while I block the draft.”
“Hn–n–n–” she agreed.
She had no thought for anything but resuscitating the flames. She held her ground even as the life-giving heat began to bake her knees. So consumed was she, the krin taking its seat startled her.
“Sorry,” it ducked its head.
She saw it had uprooted a sizable bush and dragged it down the burrow’s throat. That was good. It would cut the wind but allow some smoke to pass. Dying roots poked accusing fingers at her.
Slowly, warmth returned, though the air was astringent.
The krin fidgeted under her gaze. She’d never seen it looking so thin. Its eyes sat in deeply bruised hollows and blue veins trekked under its thinly scraped hide.
“Need sleep,” she opined.
Need food, she thought.
It nodded, “You get some rest. I’m going to hang these furs and buckskins up to dry.”
The heat lulled her. The shivers had wrung her dry. Despite herself, she found her head heeling towards the ground.
“Do you have name?” she muttered.
A krin with a name! Hah!
Hearing it still, she opened her eyes. Consternation had claimed it. It stood frozen, furs forgotten in its grip.
“I…” it wondered, voice unsure, “I must have…”
Unaccountable relieved, she settled more comfortably.
“Take you to the Old Masters,” she promised.
“They fix…”
Chapter 6 – Tenement of Terror
Kneeling in prayer throughout the night, his knees were a distant agony, his back a dull throb.
“‘…poured, as ashes, across the face of the world…’”
He persevered, his throat parched beyond protest. The prayer was in an old Temple dialect, that distilled ideas to something more song than sense. Its rhythms anchored him to the trance, on the cusp between wakefulness and sleep.
“‘…weary of flesh but strong of faith, triumphant…’”
Their mortal flesh was failing. Helia’s mercy, he was so tired! If dawn did not come soon, he would fall.
“‘Unity through faith,’” they chorused.
He waited for the senior inquisitor to lead them into the first verse again... Yet, the distinctive vibrato did not rise. Panic gripped him. A moment later, so did a strong hand.
“Bestir yourself, Brother Nolan.”
“Sir?” he blinked raggedly in the gray light.
Relief threatened to stay his sleeping legs, “Sir!”
“Get me a headcount,” his senior instructed, hauling him up.
He looked about at their kneeling congregation.
“Orfez is gone,” someone volunteered.
“So is Ramui.”
He started. Brother Ramui had been kneeling next to him... And knelt there still, chin on his chest and snoring gently. Sleep had wrestled Orfez to the ground and caked his nostrils with dirt.
For a blasphemous moment, he envied them.
“That makes a total of six lost, sir,” he mustered himself, “not counting our scout or driver.”
Moving to stoke up the fire, the senior inquisitor sighed, “Put them with the others.”
“I’m afraid there’s no more room, sir.”
They’d gutted and crudely refitted the carriage to fit eight sleepers, stacked like cordwood. Any more and some would suffocate beneath the crush.
“Strap them to the roof,” the senior inquisitor instructed. “It’s not like they’ll complain.”
That was true. They’d not wake for pokes or prods – as Brother Barlson’s scalded skin and punctured thigh attested.
They set about their tasks.
The trance and strong tea could only do so much: exhaustion made them slow and clumsy. Eventually, all were mounted, some swaying in their saddles.
“Gird yourselves,” the senior inquisitor commanded, face stark and uncompromising. “We will ride through the night and reach Hedrick by dawn.” He swept their ranks for dissent. “If you feel yourself overcome, dismount and walk. Above all, stay awake. I’ll lose no more men to this sleep-sorcery.” He locked eyes with each of them in turn. “Though we are but six strong, we are on Helia’s own errand: ‘Seek me out, thou who art diligent,’” he quoted. “‘Ye who lieth abed, thine call shall go unanswered.’”
With that, the senior inquisitor wheeled his horse and he spurred his own to follow.
The morning marched painfully on and soon overtook them.
They reached the outer fields of Hedrick after noon. The earth lay fallow, not a farmhand in sight. Shaking his head, he clambered from his horse and found himself walking beside the senior inquisitor.
“You are from Drywell, Brother Nolan.”
“I am, sir,” he started.
The senior inquisitor nodded grimly, “Destroyed by a witch’s curse, our records say.”
Ah, he thought. Not officially, of course. Officially, the groundwater had soured. Trust a senior inquisitor to know better.
“The widow Chole, sir,” he agreed.
“You knew her.”
It was not a question.
“We all did, sir,” he defended. “My brother and I used to sneak rhubarb pie from her windowsill. Helia knows how long she’d have stayed hidden if not for that.”
That earned a glance, “You were the one to scry her out, Brother Nolan?”
“That’s right, sir.”
Though he’d been but a child, he still remembered the feel of his brother’s shoulders beneath him. The smell of the rhubarb pie. The sight of his own reaching hand. And, beyond his fingers…
“She had her back to me,” he vividly recalled, “bloody knife in hand. Chicken gizzards all over the table. Candles everywhere. And an eldritch tome, crawling with scribbles and star-sign.”
Though his legs had been by far the shorter, he remembered he’d outrun his brother, all the way home.
“It is well known,” the senior inquisitor commented, “that witches foretell the future from the innards of animals.”
He’d been too scared to talk, at first. But his mother had wrung it from him. She’d been a smart woman and quick with a switch.
“So said our local priest,” he confirmed.
“You burned her?”
He shook his head, “It was the dry season, the fields filled with tinder. We threw her down the old well, where she could do no harm.”
Sometimes, he could still hear her pitiful screams, echoing from the dry shaft. The children, himself among them, had bounced stones down its sides.
“A mistake,” his commander surmised.
He nodded, “Not long after, people started getting deadly sick.”
Two oxen lay by the roadside, their remains still yoked to a plough – its shear stuck fast between two rocks. The beasts had chewed everything within reach of their chain down to stubs. He found himself staring into their empty sockets.
He’d lost his mother, his brother – his village – to that illness. If not for their old, wine-sodden priest, he’d not have survived.
“You are a boon to our order, Brother Nolan,” the senior inquisitor said suddenly. “I am glad to have you with us.”
“Thank you, sir,” he ducked his head.
He felt those empty sockets’ stare the rest of the day.
* * *
“I don’t like this,” he murmured, eyeing the gate guards.
“You keep saying that.”
“And you keep ignoring me.”
“Hundreds of people enter the city every day, Master Jiminy. In broad daylight, with no problem. Besides, it’s almost our turn.”
He eyed the approaching gate, “I still say we should do this properly. Go over the city walls in the dead of night.”
“With two horses and a merchant’s wagon?”
“I like a challenge,” he allowed. “I don’t bemoan the loss of the mules but we should have kept our disguises.”
“As Heli priests? To the Renali capital?” Neever shook his head. “Might as well arrive at the head of an army.”
“I thought the Renali were at peace with your empire now?”
“At peace, yes,” the monk qualified, “at ease, no. The ink on that treaty is freshly dry. Whereas, generations of spilled blood will be wet a while yet. Perhaps generations more.”
“State your business,” a pot-helmed gate guard demanded.
“My mistress is the alchemist, Lorana,” Neever indicated their new conveyance. (Yoriana was inside, ready to play the put-upon scholar.) “She comes to Keystone to establish an apothecary.”
“She’ll have a tough time of it,” the guard opined, jotting an entry in a ledger. “The Merchants’ Council doesn’t let just anyone set up shop. What’s your cargo?”
“Exotic herbs and salves, tinctures and potions,” Neever supplied, acquiring a bit of street-crier sing-song. “Alembics, aludels and athanors, crucibels, calcinators and retorts–”
“Mortars and pestles and such?” the guard interrupted.
The monk recovered with bad grace, “Those as well.”
“You’re bringing a wagon into the city,” the guard began, working down a list. “That’s ten coppers. You’re loaded with trade goods, that’s another ten coppers. None of it’s fresh produce, so no rebate, add twenty coppers. It’s more’n a day-visit, so you’ll be getting none of it back. And,” he glanced pointedly at Neever, “twenty more coppers for a hawker’s license.”
For a moment the monk looked like he might argue. It was all a sham, of course. The modernists had lavishly funded this mission.
“Certainly,” the monk acquiesced, reaching for an absent purse.
“I could swear…” the man frowned, finding nothing but lint.
“If you can’t pay–” the gate guard began.
“Here,” he smiled from the wagon’s seat. “Keep the change.”
Unaccountably sour, the guard palmed the silver crown.
“Do I get a receipt?”
A scrap of embossed leather was handed up instead, “Anyone asks for your permit, show them that. Welcome to Keystone.”
The city wall was thick. Sound bounced around the gate tunnel.
“I’d like my purse back now, if you please, Master Jiminy,” the monk allowed, once the guardhouse was well in their wake.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“None of that,” the man said severely. “Your antics almost got us booted from the line. You need to be more mindful.”
“You need to be more mindful,” he tossed out, along with the monk’s purse. “Poverty may be good for the soul but it’s bad for everything else. Or do you want to end up destitute?”
“We have allies here, a conduit to the Temple’s coffers. We’ll be fine.” The man frowned, weighing his purse. “This feels light.”
“Finder’s fee,” he explained.
“On a purse you stole?”
“On a purse I found laughably easy to steal. Now you know. Surely that’s a service worth a couple of coins?”
“What could you possibly want with more money?”
It was true. After Seven Deep, he was rich. At least, on paper.
He affected bafflement, “I don’t understand the question.”
“Master Jiminy,” the monk sighed, “you’ll be the death of me.”
“You give yourself too much credit: you’re not that annoying.”
A wry smile re-established Neever’s good humor.
“Let’s get something to eat,” the monk suggested.
They found room and board at a coach inn. A temporary base while ‘Alchemist Lorana’ negotiated with the Merchants’ Council.
“Speaking of alchemy,” he said as the three of them were finishing up their afternoon meal, “I feel a migraine coming on.”
Yoriana was idly shredding a heel of bread between her fingers.
“You’re not due for another dose for days yet,” she stated.
“You don’t think I can tell the symptoms? My stomach is bubbling like a tanner’s vat,” he declared, gesturing at his half-eaten plate. “I’m sweating, even though I’m cold. And then there’s this…” he held out his hand. “This tremble could mean the difference between life and death.”
“What tremble?”
“What trem–?” he echoed, disbelieving.
Dusting her hands, she felt his forehead, then peered at the pink of his eyelid. “Fine,” she pronounced, “I’ll brew you up a phial.”
He nodded grudging thanks.
“Tomorrow,” she equivocated.
“I need it tonight!” he argued.
“Can’t,” she informed him. “We’re meeting our contact.”
He scowled. He hated feeling like this, all jittery and discombobulated. More so, now he knew it was death, breathing down his neck. Once his migraine peaked, he’d be useless.
“Then I won’t be at my best for the meeting,” he warned.
“Not to worry,” she told him. “You’re not coming.”
That caught him by surprise. He looked a question at Neever.
“Suddenly you don’t trust me?”
“Um,” the monk cleared his throat nervously, not meeting his eye. “You know what high esteem I hold you in, Master Jiminy–”
“He stole your purse not a bell ago,” Yoriana reminded them.
“–as does Father,” Neever continued.
They were careful never to name Cyrus, even in front of Yoriana. She knew the healer was a high-placed modernist, she just didn’t know how high. The fact he did, really put her back up.
“What is it then?” he demanded.
“Some secrets are not ours to tell,” the monk informed him. “Our contact here is absolutely invaluable and cannot be risked. The fewer people who know who he–”
“Or she,” Yoriana interjected.
“–or she is, the better. It is a precaution. Please understand.”
He felt like he should be offended. But he saw an easy solution.
“Fine,” he rose. “Keep your secrets and your elixir. I’m going to go get drunk.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the monk grimaced.
“How can you not?” he questioned, ignoring Yoriana’s scowl. “You’ll be paying...”
Sweating, she ghosted up the compound’s wall.
Though the night hid her, she moved with special care. It had been a while since she’d eschewed her arts on an errand. This mark was special, though. If she was right, arcane aids would only hamper her, not help her. So she put up with the burn and thrum of muscle, finding hand- and toeholds in the sheer stone.
She hauled herself over the parapet, passing mere paces behind a patrol. Soft slippers made no sound as she sprinted, launching herself off the opposite side and into space.
The building proper lunged at her from the dark. She took the body blow, fingertips finding the windowsill she’d known was there. Dangling, she fought for breath. Skill and athleticism could only soften a brick wall by so much. The rest was force of will.
If you cannot better other assassins without magic, you will never better them with it.
Sage advice.
She teased open the window, knowing the room beyond to be unoccupied and unlit. The adjacent hallway was a different matter. Lantern light painted her toes as she peered through the keyhole. A passing guard briefly occluded her view of the door opposite.
Seven-and-twenty… eight-and-twenty…
Thirty paces for the guard to round the corner, out of sight.
Without her shroud, the passage seemed bright and unwelcoming. Without her scarab, the locks delayed her a moment.
The inner rooms had no occupants yet, but had handy balconies overlooking the central courtyard. The stone guardrails offered easy footing and she traversed the building’s length, leap by leap. There was only one lit balcony.
Her mark waited within.
She aimed low, swinging unseen from the outcropping’s base. Shimmying around, she chinned-up for a peek into the suite.
He was on the far side of the seating area, his back to her, hands hidden by expansive robes. From her vantage, there were no telltale toes or ankles to announce any visitors. He was alone.
She flowed up and over the guardrail. The balcony doors had been left open to the airy night and she breezed right in. The luxurious carpet drank her footfalls. He owned no pets to give alarm. No reflective surfaces were turned to catch her image.
She’d prepared a special weapon. She raised it in grim satisfact–
“Good evening, Nin,” the priest greeted, turning to present her with a tray of steaming cups. “Tea?”
She froze, breathless.
The priest’s eyes found the unusual instrument she held.
“Or a biscuit, if you’re peckish?”
Groaning in disgust, she whipped the carrot away into a corner.
“How can you possibly know?” she gushed, collapsing into one of the plush chairs. A new suspicion surfaced: “Are you a prophet? Do you dream the future? I’ve heard some religions can do that.”
She’d thought him somehow especially sensitive to magic (hence her mundane approach). But fortunetelling would also explain his knack for knowing when she neared. Planning murder was her passion. The priest was proving a frustrating puzzle.
“Never in my wildest dreams,” he assured her, “have I foreseen any assaults by carrot.” He set the tray down on the low table between them, “Why a carrot, may I ask?”
“It is an aerodynamically sound weapon,” she invented, “perfect for practice. A broken carrot is proof of a killing blow.”
That was, by far, not the carrot’s most crucial consideration. But if she were going to give this foreign priest more insight into herself, she might as well give him her mask and her real name.
“And if discovered, what might I be charged with? Conspiracy to commit a stew?”
He took in her masked face, supple leathers and cloven slippers.
“Cooking can be dangerous,” she defended.
“So I’m given to understand,” he agreed, making his way over to the sideboard. “Many times, I’ve asked for plain rice crackers with my tea. Perhaps a spot of cod oil. Alas, these are scary unknowns. So we are stuck, you and I, with these butter biscuits.”
