Karesh Ni: Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

The door opened, and Satre appeared. He blocked the entrance completely. The Last Man Standing looked more like a vault door than a human. The page, who had been rocking against the wall while staring at the ceiling, snapped upright. The Baron-Consort regarded us with flared nostrils and a grimace.

He scowled at me. “Astrologamage Elegy.”

Was there a response to that? I waited.

“Never get married,” he said and strode away.

Was there a response to that either? Should I say something? I didn’t want the Baroness to think I was going after her man, but her man was angrily walking away, each booted step coming down heavily on the wooden floor. He rattled. I glanced inside the Baroness’s office.

Alyssa wore a smile so warm and friendly she was downright frightening.

“Come in, please,” she said. “And shut the door.”

Ah, biscuits.

#

Baroness Alyssa said, “I would like you to go to the Silver City and rescue my sister, Kyria. In return, I will pay you two hundred and fifty marks, Celephian, almost four times the strike value that elves paid you to go to Bloodharvest.”

I wished I had listened at the door. I’m a spy. It would be expected. But should I have door-listened because I’m a spy or not for the same reason? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t listened, but I wished I had.

I wanted to know if Alyssa-and-Satre’s ostensible argument was real or not. If they were running a blind, Satre leaving meant he had argued the side they didn’t want me to take. Which would be fitting, since I didn’t feel like Satre could hold a deception too well, but maybe that was part of their plan. Alyssa could. I could barely read her at all.

Was I being more clever than wise again? How far should I push the idea an argument that boiled over in front of me had to be fake?

“Why?” I asked the baroness.

“She’s my sister.”

“Didn’t she try to kill you?” Satre had been emphatic on this point.

Alyssa sighed. “Things were muddled. The Disagreement about inheriting the throne nearly split Kageran apart, but we’re done now. I rule. I won’t call myself a savant of history, but I do know rulers who start their reign by settling old scores rarely rule long. Once people believe crossing me is an irreconcilable offense, when they do, they’ll take it to death. I won’t be here long if I make every enemy an enemy for life.

“For the last few years, things have been tense. While we haven’t returned to knife-fighting in the halls, Van has a small army, and if I disband it, we will return to fighting in the halls. But I don’t think they’re on the cusp of attacking. I think they’re being paranoid.

“If settling scores isn’t wise, letting people have standing armies isn’t wise either. I need to do something to show that they’re not in danger, and Kyria is one such a person.

“Neither of the older twins like Kyria, but she is our sister. What’s more, she raised arms against me, as Satre mentioned, which is worse than what they did. The twins undertook a sort of soft coup, while Kyria started throwing meteors.

“Kyria has a gift of rubbing people the wrong way.” Alyssa rolled her eyes at Satre’s empty chair. “And the older twins are a little too sensitive to work with her. But, if she returns, they’ll have no excuse to think I’m going to move against them, and perhaps we can do some measure of healing for the city.”

“That sounds like a long wager on personal biases,” I said.

“All politics are somewhat personal. Family politics are entirely personal.”

She would know, I thought. But I wasn’t going to argue with her either way.

I asked, “How do you know she’s still alive?”

“I saw her from a lightning bolt.”

We smiled at each other. We waited. And I realized something: If they were willing to go through this elaborate scheme, good and bad sides having a fake argument, to get me to agree to this deal, they had to be invested. They had to want me to go. Which meant I had some leverage.

And if they had just had an argument in front of me, she might be willing to share something to get me on her side.

“Please go on, your Highness,” I said.

Baroness Alyssa’s smile lost none of her warmth, but I was struck by the notion she was judging me. Maybe she held that practiced smile too long. Maybe she watched me too carefully through warm eyes. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I didn’t think so.

She said, “For a long time, I thought she was dead. The climax of the Disagreement involved a certain amount of conflict and people being set on fire. She disappeared for years.”

Alyssa rose, went to the sideboard, and sorted quickly through small crystal decanters. One she sniffed, considered, and declined. She found another one with a pale red liquid in it and poured several fingers worth of rosé into her glass. She mixed it one-to-one.

“Another?” she asked, pausing in the act of stoppering the bottle. “Satre prefers strong over smooth. This is a little finer.”

I actually did want another, but I was hesitant. “Perhaps in a bit, thank you.”

She nodded, replaced the bottle, and sat down. She must have wanted a pause for thought.

“Years ago I finally made contact with Amon Tim, Whitefire’s new Hierophant, and gave him assurances I didn’t want him burned at the stake. When we met, I thanked him for a calming resolution to previous hostilities. The way he replied seemed…off. He said Whitefire’s participation in the Disagreement had been Kyria’s doing, but ‘we won’t need to worry about her again.’

“So I started worrying about Kyria again.

“I heard Amon Tim talking in private, and Kyria had promised the Eparchs that when she took this throne, she’d end the Maurite Prohibition. They were-” Alyssa stared at nothing and stroked invisible space, like she was learning the shape of something. “-they are hunted. In Ashirak Whitefire initiates are considered witches, and my father accepted that when he knelt to the emperor. I do not enforce the Prohibition, but it is enforced.”

Alyssa sighed. “Kyria promised to end the hatred. If she took the throne, she’d renounce loyalty to Ashirak. She and the four Eparchs had risen together, and they stood with her.

“However when I took the throne, and her sisters in Whitefire had lost patience. Amon Tim lead a new faction, tired of doing the dying, and they replaced Kyria and the Eparchs. Politics in the Silver City have been turbulent. Are you familiar with it?”

“The Silver City?”

“Karash Ni. It hangs from the Moon’s reflection. Mal Set hung it there after the Ashirai Emperors exiled Whitefire.”

I blinked a few times.

“No, but that’s incredible. How do you…” I trailed off, thinking about it.

“Get there? You wait until the wind is calm and row out to the middle of the Hyades. When the moon rises on a clear, still night, a stairway appears in the lake surface, descending into the reflection. You could do it tonight, if the wind were calm.”

She smiled. “And I have some skill over weather.” She opened her hand as if presenting something.

“You’re a sorceress?” I asked. She’d said something about seeing Kyria through a lightning bolt.

She nodded. “I work weather.”

“And you saw Kyria through a lightning bolt?”

She inhaled, held it, and said, “Yes. She’s on the dark side of the Moon where weather does not go. I can send no storm, wind, or rain up there. However Kyria is a sorceress herself. Two weeks ago she spoke the word of Thunder’s Lovesong, and I happened to be paying attention. I know she’s up there.”

“What is Thunder’s Lovesong?”

“A crude and simple form of power. I am a poet. Kyria writes bad words on bathroom wall.” Alyssa seemed somewhat less fond of her sister when she wasn’t arguing about her.

However, I’d noticed something else. “Two weeks before I arrive. That is the darndest timing.”

Alyssa nodded but said nothing.

I thought of Elvenhome. Two weeks ago Esmerelda cut my deal with Hyrmai Trui. She’d asked him because I’d suggested him, and Trui had been suggested to me by the stranger in yellow. Kyria is a sorceress, but she used a crude power at just the right time to be spotted.

Forget, for a moment, sorcerer’s prison on the dark side of the Moon. I mean, don’t forget that because it sounds horrible. But think about something worse. Alyssa had seen her sister through a lightning bolt within a day of the yellow stranger setting this whole thing in motion.

This was clearly, absolutely, and utterly a bad idea.

“My dear Highness, I must respectfully decline. I am going to someplace warm where I will sit on a beach and drink something with a little umbrella.” I stood up to bow.

Alyssa put her own hands together over her nose like she was praying. She looked over steepled fingers.

“What if I told you where Prince Aehr’s wolves are?”

I stumbled through two breaths like I’d forgotten how to breathe, finishing with, “What?”

“Prince Aehr’s wolves.” She enunciated every word. “I can tell you where they are, and when you return, successful and rich, I can tell you where they will be to within a thunderstorm.”

Um…

I skipped my turn to speak, because she’d shoved a stick through the bicycle wheels of my head.

Baroness Alyssa had hard, gray eyes that looked like stormclouds themselves. She spoke with excessive clarity. “Won’t Aehr be grateful? He risked goblins looking for them. He would love someone to find his wolves. Just love them,” she said, staring at me.

I was quiet for a very long time before sitting back down.

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 5

Previous

Chapter 5

I woke up on the bier. It was a low, squat block of stone, uncut and unpolished, white marble shot through with veins of silver and speckled with quartz. This was where Koru told me to come for a reading of my dreams, where Zeni performed her day-job. Night-job, I guess. I sat up and my leg was cured. Zeni sat on a chair nearby, playing cat’s cradle with herself, and looking unutterably bored.

My schemes and flattery aside, she was quite pretty. Her skin had the same reddish tint as the river silt, carried down from the Tsme. She had big eyes and small, long-fingered hands. Her hair and clothing floated in the water as if they were weightless, and underneath her clothing, her form curved in most interesting ways. That was the thing about gossamer. It revealed shapes and no details, form but no specifics, and hints. She looked amazing.

She looked up while I was looking at her and put her game away.

She really was quite pretty, but now, instead of looking passionate, enraptured, or amorous, she looked curious and a little cynical.

“I fixed your leg,” she said, waving her finger at me.

“Thank you.”

“With less pretty language, why are you here? Be honest.”

“Mostly for the leg,” I said.

“Fair.”

“Also, I want your help to escape the valley.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get involved in the affairs of the Hakan.”

“I hate your sister.”

Zeni perked right up. “What now?”

“She’s a plague, and I want to work her downfall.”

Zeni’s eyes narrowed. “Which one?”

“Astras.” I paused. “Aelof’s fine. She’s quite nice, honestly, but she complains a lot.”

“She does do a lot of work,” Zeni said quickly.

“Maybe so, but I don’t want to hear about it! Anyway, I wish her the best. I’m talking about Astras. I want to work her downfall.”

“I don’t know if I should get involved–” said Zeni, and I hurried on.

“I think she’s cheating on Koru.”

That stopped her like I’d staked her through the heart. “With who?”

“Dr Simmons.”

She looked away, and the gears of her mind clicked audibly.

I went on. “He’s the really annoying one with the too-big head on the too-thin neck and laughs like a harpy.”

Zeni looked down, and her eyes fixed on me. She leaned forward in her seat, pulling barely-there fabric tight. “Why him?”

“A few reasons. One, he’s an idiot, she seems to like him, and I can’t imagine anyone putting up with him unless he was giving her a little something extra. Two, I don’t think Koru would suspect. Simmons gives a slightly-gay vibe. Three, I’ve never seen Koru give a lot of attention to Astras. She has to show up, look hot, and he treats her as being decorative. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was watering other fields as a way to get revenge.”

Zeni squinted. “Why do you want revenge?”

“She tried to have me killed.”

“Did you try to sleep with her, and she turn you down?”

“Who?” I yelled. My voice cracked. I didn’t mean to, but that meant there was no way I could have faked it. “The evil plague?”

“Yeah. You just said she’s hot.”

I stared at her for several seconds, then said, “No.”

“I’m just saying,” she just said.

“No.”

This turn of conversation had moved away from me. I was still kinda trying to seduce her.

“Baby, let’s not talk about other women.”

“Yeah, yeah. Enough with that, buddy. What do you want?”

“I’d like you to smuggle me out of valley without anyone knowing.”

Zeni waggled her head side-to-side a few times. She looked up at the Moon again and frowned.

“And I’d like to talk with you a little bit,” I added.

Her head stopped wiggling, and Zeni looked at me. It was a flat gaze. Her eyes didn’t open all the way, but she arched her eyebrows. Her lips made a thin line. But I got the feeling through her mask she wasn’t quite as cold as she implied.

“Come here. Talk with me a little bit,” I added. There was plenty of room on the bier.

She stood up with marvelous posture, and that made her hips and curves draw the floating gossamer tight. I enjoyed looking at her. She shifted her weight to her right leg, as if to take a step, but the movement made her curves curvier. Her left foot went up on the toe.

“Night Witch, Daughter of Alph, Oracle, come to me!” yelled the voice of the idiot above, the true blister under my sandal strap, Mithrak. “Give me your wisdom.”

“I won’t give you a bleeding thing,” muttered Zeni, slipping out of her position to stand flat-footed with fists on hips.

I slipped up from the bier, took her about the waist, and kissed her. She looked surprised, and she didn’t kiss me back. But she didn’t move away either.

After a long, pleasant moment, I leaned away without letting go. “Help me. I must escape.”

“Okay.”

“Mithrak’s going to ask you where I am. Don’t tell him.”

“I’ll lie to him.

I expected more fight there, honestly. “You can do that? As an oracle?”

“Do what? Lie to a customer? Oh, sweetie.”

“Dang.”

I’d always sort of suspected, but I’d just assumed it was impossible.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

Hyperion, I thought, but I didn’t say. “Just out of the valley, and far enough away I can’t be tracked easily.”

“Follow this stairway down, but when you come to the Moon, turn around. Before you, you will see many pools. One will bear the reflection of Angel’s Crest. Walk through it, and you will be there.”

“Can I come see you again?”

“If you want.”

And I did.

But I didn’t want to die. Fighting Mithrak would get me killed. If he fired even one round from that .43, Hoarfast would hear. And then…

I looked at Zeni.

“It would be great if they thought I was dead.”

She shrugged a mysterious shrug, but underneath she was smirking.

I ran down the stairway toward the Moon at the bottom of the lake.

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 4

Previous

Chapter 4

I didn’t want to die.

I did some fast but simple thinking in the seconds while falling.

I didn’t want to die.

I had nothing else. I didn’t know what I wanted to live for now that everything had ended. I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t know where I mattered or to whom.

I didn’t want to die.

But that was enough.

I fell from the high tower toward the river below and thought of rivers.

The River Alph had three daughters: Astras, Aelof, and Azenath. Astras you’ve met. Aelof never really left home. A high aqueduct met the Hundred Ribbons falls as the Alph came over the ringwall, and siphoned a small stream away. This stream, Aelof, ran across the arch that connected the Hakan to the wall, and once within the Hakan, drove wheels and turned vanes to power the city. When I’d first come to Shang Du on an errand, she and I had been introduced while I was waiting for Koru. Within thirty seconds, she was lamenting how much harder she worked than anyone else and how no one else helped. She did and nor did anyone else help, but we’d just met and I didn’t really want to hear about it. After doing all the work in this place, her words, the river vented through a hundred-headed rat sculpture on the south side of the pillar.

Azenath or Zeni, left her father shortly after Hundred Ribbons. An oxbow of the river branched off and filled a narrow, deep fault between black basalt and pale granite. The fault’s shape resembled a funnel. A stairway carved into the fault spiraled down until being lost in deep shadows. One could walk down the spiral until exiting to the other place and there read the meaning of dreams. Koru had bragged about it when giving me the tour.

I’d met Zeni last night. The river carried a great deal of brown silt, but by moonlight, the pool had cleared. I could see the stairway descending across white and black stone until it met the reflection of the moon and there vanished. She’d worn gossamer and spider silk, waited at a platform round as the moon itself, sitting on a round bench around a round pit, everything pocked with black shadows against white marble. There was no marble in the earth around Shang Du. We’d talked for a long time, but my dreams had been full of glory and thunder. She’d had little to say.

I was going to hit the Aelof’s outflow.

In my second year of Northshore, after I’d dropped out of my Sorcery major but before I’d started Unarmed Combat, a rumor had circulated that if you spoke Obesis at exactly the right moment, you could fall from any height and live. Right as you hit the ground, provided you were falling feet first, you could ghost-step onto the ground and walk away. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had done it. A freshman tried.

He died.

The faculty brought everyone together and explained you can’t actually do that. Hitting the ground happens really, really fast, hence the problem, so speaking Obesis at exactly the right time is basically impossible. Furthermore, that isn’t really what Obesis does. Obesis lets you stand on things, not survive getting hit by them at terminal velocity. I felt badly for the kid. We hadn’t been friends, but I’d known him. He rode a skateboard. His name was something Unnish, Franz or Frens.

I hit the Aelof’s outflow, and it was more like a thick mist than a waterfall. It rumbled but didn’t roar. I spoke Obesis as my foot found a trickle of falling water.

The impact wrenched my foot. My knees felt like breaking. My foot plowed through the stream, throwing dovetails, and I stepped onto them, shouting Obesis again with more power. My other foot went sideways beneath me, and the knee did break. The mist fell thick, and the spray made rainbows. I inhaled to try again, hoping to land on the mist itself when I hit the water.

The water of Alph, even in a deep pool with the surface agitated by the Aelof’s outflow, hit like nothing else. I’ve never eaten canvas on the mats like that. It was getting hit with everything, all at once, and there was nothing to slap or break-fall.

And then I was underwater in the dark, and I couldn’t breathe, but at least I had been inhaling to yell so I had good air in my lungs. My head was foggy. I couldn’t figure out why I was floating but felt like I was going down. The world was dark, and the black rocky bottom of the pool looked the same as shadows.

The brain-machinery started clicking again, and the first thought in line for processing was ‘Pain and death, that hurt!’

The second was ‘Swim sideways, then up.’

That was more useful.

I broke the surface, breathed, and groaned. “Oh, wow. Oh, wow.” Oh, that hurt. But the pool seemed still outside the falls, deep in the Alph’s canyon. The black rock of the valley floor reached together overhead. I couldn’t see the silvered domes of Koru’s palace. Spirals of bubbles turned lazily on the water surface like the river spiraled about the valley floor, and they spun me in gentle circles. I tended distinctly toward one side.

The canyon was more of a series of connected pits than a single long trench, and at the end of it, the Alph vanished under the Hakan, a drop from which no one or no thing returned. This one place in the valley held none of Koru’s children. Rats can’t make it out once they are taken by Astras, the final plunge at Alph’s end, and I think I’ve mentioned that rats are strong swimmers. I wasn’t. I paddled to the side, found a bit of ledge, and slithered out.

I felt terrible. Oh, biscuits.

But I lived.

#

Several long, circuitous miles of crawling on hands and one knee brought me to Zeni’s oxbow. Her father had not appeared in flesh or foam. That had worried me, for the rats that did not see me avoided this place because they feared his drowning grip. Alph served Koru in exchange for being fed. Yet the river did not take form nor reach out to drag me down. I thought of so many reasons he should or shouldn’t be gone that I realized I was thinking in circles. I crawled in circles too as Alph spiraled in, and when I crawled up-stream, I spiraled out until I came to Zeni’s branch. The trip consisted of unpleasantness that cannot be described. Yet we had feasted on honeydew and ambrosia to watch the killing, and now, I endured.

The Sun set, the Moon rose, and I crawled to her pool and down. The winding stairway lead around and around, and I could breathe the water as if it was air. Soon I met her as she climbed to greet her visitor, and she greeted me like an old friend.

“Stop bleeding on my stairs!”

“We’re underwater!”

“So?” she demanded.

“Let the water wash it off.” I waved a hand.

“Who do you think the water is?” asked Azenath in a tone that didn’t imply she wanted a response.

When I need help with the ladies, a little sex appeal always gets me through. If that doesn’t work, I try flattery. If that didn’t work, I’d need a desparate plan C.

“Oh lady Azenath, fairest and most beautiful of your sisters-” I paused to think of something to say next.

“Yes,” she replied.

I hesitated.

She waited.

Boils and blisters on plan C. “Since I met you, I have thought of no one else.”

“Good.”

“You have stolen my heart. I yearn for you. My eyes see nothing but your face, and the blood in my veins beats to your name.”

“I do that to people.”

She smiled, facing upward at a slight angle, nodded, and waited.

“My love, I need your help.”

Azenath snorted. She made bubbles. “Oh, there it is. Why would you bring that in? You were doing so well.”

“It’s my leg.”

“I don’t care about your leg. Talk more about me.”

“You’re probably right. It’s for the best you don’t cure my leg, for if I could run, I would chase you, catch you, carry you down to the bier in the pool’s dark nethers, and have my way with you.”

Azenath stopped scowling at the distant sky. She looked down. “What now?”

“I dare not say it again.”

“Oh, you should.”

“It’s my leg.”

She licked her lips and stretched her eyebrows. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Technically speaking, it’s broken.”

“I can see that. You’ve got bones sticking out.”

“You did ask.”

“Don’t get fresh.”

“I’m trying to get fresh. That’s why I’m here!” I insisted. “If you cure my leg, I’m going to get even more fresh, and that’s something too impure to be conceived.”

Azenath cocked her head sideways but did not immediately reply. Nor did she cure my leg. She was a river-goddess in her place of power, so I wasn’t asking for the Moon here.

“Besides, it would be wicked. Your father wouldn’t approve.”

She shook her head. “He’s not here. Koru sent him off for something.”

Interesting. It explained why I’d survived, but I’d been involved in every step of planning the attempt, and Alph didn’t have any part that I knew of. Koru couldn’t have sent Alph out already. There was no time. That meant Koru had sent Alph out before. I couldn’t guess why.

I could guess I was about to lose consciousness.

“Zeni, may I tell you how beautiful you are?”

“Please do.”

“Your face is like–” and I dropped like a bag of soup.

Blissful, perfectly-timed unconsciousness. That’s the secret to women. Say enough to get them interested, then pass out.

Next

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 3

Previous

Chapter 3

Koru’s palace, Shang Du, stood on a tower of white granite, the Hakan. Behind it the folded Mountains of Tsme rose in jagged peaks, divided by deep, round valleys where the worms of Meru had crawled. The Hakan rose at the center of a bowl valley. At one time the spire had been joined to the greater peak Mt Nonac by a high wall of the same white granite, but the river Alph had cut a path through the junction. Now the crest of the rock formed a white bridge between Shang Du and the mountain, ornamented with lanterns and a wide path. The Alph entered the valley via a waterfall, the Hundred Ribbons, and circled the valley lazily until it passed underground. Koru’s palace up top was opulent and magnificent, horribly furnished, and carried a viewing deck that overlooked the valley and stood above the Tsme Peaks.

I stared at the other seven. Most of them stared at me. I wanted to think, but my mind struggled to comprehend Astras’s suggestion. No one quite moved. No one wanted this.

Maybe Astras did.

She kept talking.

“With the assassins gone, they will tell no secrets,” she said. “Nor will their remains be recognized. But they carried replicas of All Things Ending, and Kog had those replicas made. If Kog was gone, there would be nothing that connected any of us to him, and if we could all keep our secrets like the dead, we’d live.”

And if none of them said anything, they began to move.

“Take your hand out of your shirt,” I told Mithrak.

He’d reached under his jacket where I’m sure he carried a gun.

“I’m just scratching,” he said.

“Stop.”

Hoarfast shifted his feet. Somehow, he seemed closer.

I faced seven of them. Seraphine wouldn’t fight nor Astras, Koru would have others fight for him, and Dr Simmons looked irrelevant. That left Mithrak, Cole, Agammae, and the terrible Hoarfast.

I wanted to fight Mithrak, but not him and Cole at the same time. Not if they had help. I never wanted to fight Hoarfast.

Who was this Astras who suddenly had so much to say? What was she even doing? She was a trophy wife. She needed to shut up, look sexy, and be kept. Now she seemed content to wait, but some noise kept building. Maybe the waterfall of Alph was getting louder.

Mithrak scratched himself again. His hand moved toward his armpit.

“Stop that,” I told him.

“I’m just scratching.”

“I told you to-”

Mithrak’s hand shot under his shirt, and I hard initiated on the lot of them.

He grabbed his gun, my fist met his face, and I followed through his head. His whole face wrapped around my fist with jaws and jowls moved in opposite directions, until I finished the strike and launched him a dozen feet away.

Agammae went on me. She threw her chair, I blocked, but the chair was a big thing. It filled a lot of space. She came in behind and kicked out my legs. I dropped.

Cole jumped at me and missed. Hoarfast went wide around behind the rest of the group. I had two seconds before he got here. Agammae spun around and jammed her leg between mine. I tried to leap from my back, but she got herself tangled up with me.

Hoarfast passed the spare chairs and drinks table, four steps away.

“Overe!” I shot my legs skyward again as I slip-broke from Agammae’s grip. My body moved like a wave, and I ended on my feet. Cole tried to tackle me. I retreated, Agammae sprawled out to snatch my feet, I retreated again, and Hoarfast arrived.

His parentage showed. Lines of gray followed his veins. His knuckles had turned to steel.

He feinted, threw two shots, and somehow, he’d gotten between me and the door. His assault was beyond the rest of them combined. I countered low, he blocked, and we exchanged strikes that didn’t connect. Mithrak got up, leaning like the deck was pitching and he’d lost his sea legs. Cole kept trying to grab me. Agammae’s hands appeared with knives. I slipped around Hoarfast’s jab as his off-hand tagged me, and my side went cold.

I dove off the balcony as flashing knives flew overhead.

Shang Du’s balcony overlooked the deep forest. At the bottom of the granite pillar, Alph passed into a dark cavern. Fog and froth filled the pit, and sometimes Koru’s children fell in. None of them ever emerged, and rats are strong swimmers.

Next

Karesh Ni: Ch2

Following the events of Bloodharvest.

Prior chapters

Chapter 2

After leaving Bloodharvest, fighting Laptra, and allowing her strange storm to disintegrate over the tree-ocean, the Arsae, Phillius captained the Dream in Emerald south in a mad, full-speed run. We survived intact, though I’m not sure if that was his plan. But if goblins chased us, they weren’t going to catch Phillius.

We arrived at the Grand Fountain Harbor, an immense tree-port of the Solange on the border of the vast forest, sailing in on treetops in a ship of clockwork with the shape of a dragon. I’m not quite used to being this showy, but it worked. Everyone saw us arrive. Prince Aehr’s unexpected homecoming, the return of all of his people, and the manner of our arrival drove the people mad. Elves gasped and yelled. Elves! They stood on benches and shouted, cheered, and runners left for the royal palaces to announce to the kingdoms that Aehr had come home.

Prince Aehr was about my height, which I liked, gentle, fiercely loyal to his people, and wise. He wasn’t very practical. He’d gone chasing after wolves and got himself captured by goblins, but I trusted he wouldn’t be doing that again. That being said, we hadn’t found the wolves. He talked about them, his wolves, a startling amount, and he would talk about them with me. He was also a prince, and whomever he married would be a princess.

Her Majesty cried. She hugged her son like, well, like her son had been captured and taken to Bloodharvest, the goblin death-prison from whence no one returned. I was very polite and respectful, told the Queen I had fulfilled my contract, and noted I’d rescued all forty two of Aehr’s attendants as well. They weren’t in the contract, but I don’t think that was disregard on the queen’s part; I don’t think anyone had expected them to be alive. I hadn’t. But they were, they were here, and we speeched at each other before elvish throngs.

The only one who didn’t look happy was Her Majesty’s Surrogate, who’s creepy-sounding title actually just meant he paid her bills. Royalty wasn’t supposed to handle money. He looked positively ill to see me victorious. I thanked him graciously, commended him on a job well done (because he was going to pay me), and hired a mariachi band to sing The Praises of Elegy outside his window. Culturally, elves refuse to acknowledge rudeness, so when I left he was still pretending the band didn’t exist.

And I got paid! Sort of.

The deal I had worked might have been more clever than wise, because instead of taking money, I received options for ten cargoes of winter wheat. The elves didn’t really understand, but they did write the options. They had tried hard to figure out my scheme, so the price was non-negotiable, the delivery date was fixed, and even the method of payment was established. But I had been to Celephias where the real villains of finance lived. The contract was a resellable bearer document.

The elvish wheat market is one of deepest closed markets in the world. Every deal is based on the last, which means there are no new sellers. Unless you’ve done a deal before, you can’t do a first. Outsiders can’t get in.

Unless you have a guaranteed option to sell ten cargoes. Someone with that wouldn’t just have an in, they’d be a wheat major. Ten cargoes is a lot of wheat. I didn’t have ten ships, wheat to put on them, or about forty marks to buy the wheat if someone else had the ships.

Around the time the elves noticed Othrak, a goblin I’d rescued because Aehr owed him (see? Loyalty! Aehr was loyal. He needed someone loyal. I’m loyal), I went to the windcallers. Celephians have mastered the arts of banking and shouting to each other across great distances. They use the high winds, the ones that ring the world, to communicate across continents, and they use them mostly for financial shenanigans. The question isn’t, ‘are the Celephians up to mischief?’ It’s ‘what mischief are the Celephians up to now, and how much is it going to cost me?’ Fascinating people. I like to visit but don’t ever want to live there.

A broker met me at woven cane doors and brought me to a bright, interior room. It looked like a silo, with an open ceiling showing the high tower rising toward the sky, and two more doors forming something like an airlock. The doors had panels of fabric woven through the rattan, making them basically soundproof. We would conduct our business in privacy at a glass desk in mahogany chairs.

“What about above? Isn’t listening to voices on the wind what you do?” I asked.

“The winds are bound in a gyre above, and they trap sound. If you screamed for hours, no one would hear you.”

I snapped my head down and looked at the broker, really looked at him. Something like glass shattered in my head. My impression, a bland-looking southerner with a calculated tan and fine suit, vanished. Instead I saw a tall figure in a yellow robe and a hood that hung open at the neck and low over his forehead, spreading like the hood of a cobra. A mask of thick knitting covered his face. Some stray threads as thick as a finger hung loose and jiggled when he talked, the stray tentacles of a hunting jellyfish.

“Hello, Elegy.” The stranger in yellow smiled. His mask pulled up on the edges, but his hood concealed his eyes.

Oh, no.

I’d actually been to Bloodharvest three times total, once accidentally, but once before I went for the elves. I’d been paid more money than I knew how to spend for the second trip, but I had figured it out. Oh, how I had figured it out. That’s what lead to going back. Now I was going to be smart. I wasn’t going to earn and waste everything in a useless cycle. I was going to invest!

That time, this yellow stranger had hired me. I’d rescued a something named Luthas, a faceless creature of the deep who managed to smile too much. I’d cut Luthas free from a wall where he’d been manacled with irons, old and rusty even in the dry, deep air, and he’d vanished into the dark. Aehr shouldn’t have been in Bloodharvest, and the elf prince had deserved a rescue. Luthas I probably should have left where he was.

“Hello,” I said and smiled like my teeth hurt. I didn’t know his name.

“But don’t worry, Elegy. We’re friends, and you have nothing to fear.” He kept stretching his face like he was smiling. “I’m here to help. Your options are non-divisible, and ten cargoes is a lot of wheat. You need to sell them all to one buyer. There’s a merchant, Hyrma Trui, in Citi Kageran who would love to buy them all, and he would offer you a delightful price.”

I said, “Oh. Great.”

I barely even heard myself say it, thinking about whether I should draw a knife on him.

“I agree.” The stranger winked and left.

My fingers and toes hurt like they’d been exposed to terrible cold. I gasped and massaged my hands. A woman in subdued blue clothes looked in.

She asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, have you been helped?”

Had I?

I didn’t answer the question. “I need assistance, please.”

“Oh, excellent. Esmerelda Blaine, pleased to meet you.”

“Astrologamage Elegy.” We shook hands.

She looked curiously at me. “Can I get you something to warm you up?”

“Yes, please.”

“Let’s sit.”

We did. She gave me spiced rum, and it took the edge off.

I said, “I have wheat options to sell. It’s a single contract for ten cargoes. Strike price, date, all that is fixed.” I showed her the paper. “Can you find a buyer?”

“Maybe. May I see it?”

I gave her the paper.

After reading, Esmerelda said, “I can move your trade, but it will be tricky. It’s winter wheat, and winter is coming soon. In the north it’s already here. Most merchants who can move this much grain will already have buyers for some, if not all, of their harvest, and the ones who can pay top dollar certainly will.”

“But possible,” I said.

“Certainly. I’d like to manage your expectations, though. I can reasonably get you a mark per contract, maybe a mark and a half. Fifteen total marks would be on the high-side, and it will take several weeks of searching. They’re valuable to the right buyer, but there aren’t a lot of buyers.” She shrugged. Esmerelda had wispy white hair and dangly earrings. “My commission is the greater of one mark or five percent, and that includes surety. Would you like me to go ahead?”

She looked at me with a polite smile with a whole lot of little stuff in it. She was eager for the job, with high-eyebrows and a slight forward lean. She was closed to negotiations, with hands folded, palms toward herself. She did well, with careful makeup and diamonds. She wore them subtly. Her dangly earrings had silver teardrops that caught my attention, but studs on the ear-posts had big rocks. Her wedding ring, white gold and more white diamonds, was almost hidden under her lace cuffs. She wore one simple necklace, the only obvious piece that wasn’t somewhat hidden, but it was just a chain of small silver links.

Nothing, nothing on her was yellow, not even gold.

My mouth spoke of its own volition. “Please do. Would you check Citi Kageran? There’s a merchant there, Trui, who might be interested.”

“My pleasure. I’ll walk you to the clerk, and he can start surety while I run your order to the callers. We should be able to call your order before you leave.”

We got up and walked out the double doors. The main hall was moderately busy with rich people in riches and rich people in deceptively poor clothing, and possibly a few poor people in both too. I didn’t know where I fit in.

The rum had been a little strong. I looked at Esmerelda. “How is the water?”

“Solange Sweetwater,” she said as she walked me to the clerks. “Tastes like Elvenhome.”

#

Esmerelda talked Hyrma Trui of Kageran into offering me double the strike price.

I don’t know if Aehr’s family had one hundred twenty six marks. If they did, they would bleed for it. But they could move wheat while Trui was in the market. No one got bankrupted, my prince’s ransom was perfectly reasonable, and if Aehr’s family needed some help, I could do that again too.

My scheme hadn’t hurt anyone. I’d kept it secret to protect myself, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no reason to feel bad about this at all, and the sweetwater tasted like Elvenhome.

But the contract was a bearer document, so I had to take it to Kageran for delivery. I left Aehr explaining to his people that yes, Othrak, a goblin, was going to live with them. He explained that Othrak was now a hero to the Star-Drinking People. He told them of rescues in the dark, the Well of Memory, and Laptra’s bizarre, psychotically-personal evil. He even sang my praises for the fight on the thunderhead. He’d promised to do so, but I’d expected him to dodge. Instead he stood before the kings and queens of elvenhome, come together to rejoice in his return, and sang of me and him in a voice like nightingales. For an infinite moment, I was the most important person on Pallas. I started getting feelings outside my heart; tingles in my fingers and face, and I had to leave before I did something stupid.

Arguably, a human interested in an elf at all was stupid, being interested an elvish prince was definitely stupid, and me, a non-mythically beautiful woman more adept at sneaking around goblins and occasionally stabbing one than court niceties, chasing an elvish prince was no doubt more foolish than any of the above.

I’m the sort of girl who breaks into goblin prisons and swears too much. I am that fool.

Want to know an expectedly weird thing about elves? They don’t swear. They don’t curse. They don’t invoke their gods in vain. I swear like a fucking sailor, and they ignore it. They’re not offended, but swearing isn’t elvish so to them, it doesn’t happen. Just talking to elves made me realize how human I am, how not they are, and how absurd I was being, thinking too long of Prince Aehr of Elvenhome.

But that didn’t matter, because I wasn’t really thinking of Aehr, because if I did, I’d have to stop swearing.

I left in a hurry because those options had a hard settlement date and soon. Phillius scared me, but he sailed quickly. I sailed for Kageran on the Dream in Emerald.

#
On the western edge of the Arsae, the black of the Hyades falls over cliffs. No human has seen the bottom of the Three Sisters waterfall and lived. There the ghosthearts of the Arsae grow thick and tall, taller than the cliffs that bound the deep Karas, and tall as mountains beyond the lake itself. They form a green rise like a wooden wave, eternally breaking against the cliff. The foam is their leaves, branches, the little sticks that fall from higher bows, and the tiny monoleaf thyf that grows in the highest canopies. The whole copse sways with the wind as a wave slowed down in the moment of breaking.

A gallows overlooks the edge. It’s on a long, flat platform that juts past the rock with carved channels so the waterfall roars underneath. The gallows tree faces the breaking wave of the Arsae: a straight trunk with one crossbar branch. The end of the crossbar hangs over falling water. No one occupied it when Phillius sailed the Dream in Emerald to the edge and tied off to the hanging post. It worked fine as a pier.

Kageran resides further up the lakeshore, maybe a mile and a half walk. The water didn’t seem to move until it passed over the cliffs, and then it roared. It was winter now, but in the summer the lake surface is green with waterfern and lilies.

Phillius walked to the edge of the hanging platform, looked down the black chasm, and nodded at whatever he thought. I stepped off the boat and walked gingerly across the gallows platform. It was bitterly cold, far colder than the air over the Arsae. Tiny icebergs, little frozen bits of lake scum, and snow-covered logs floated by under the platform and fell. The old wood creaked underfoot, and I was carrying a heavy duffel. Once on stone, I looked back at Phillius.

He looked at the empty gallows arm, the falls, and the bare rock nearby. The arm had seen use, and there were no gravesites. Then he nodded to me.

We parted silently. I would have felt odd saying goodbye knowing he wouldn’t reply.

An hour later I climbed into Citi Kageran.

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 2

Previous Chapter

Chapter 2

I stood on Koru’s balcony. Eight of us, the King of Rats, his daughter Seraphine, wife Astras, facilitator Hoarfast, wife’s counselor Dr Simmons, worthless-imbecile-chasing-Seraphine Mithrak, worthless-imbecile’s-friend Cole, security consultant Agammae, and emissary Kog, me, had just watched our attempt on the life of Mallens, King of the Gods and Lord of Creation, fail. Jermaine, Koru’s son, must now be dead. No one spoke yet. The roar of the river Alph as it fell off Mt Monac and plunged underground provided pleasant background noise.

All of Meru would have been so much better if Mallens had died. I’d long since left prayer behind, given up my wishes, and taken action to make things better. I’d done everything for them. I had found out who could be bribed and bribed them. I’d figured out how Death’s scepter could be stolen and stolen it. I had found heretical blacksmiths who would make replicas of All Things Ending and had titan-killing weapons made. I had done everything to make things better.

I had even volunteered to go with Jermaine. I offered. I had been the first to step up when he’d asked among our group. Sickness and death on anyone who said I sat out because I was a coward. Even when Jermaine refused, I hadn’t gotten angry, and I’d put aside my resentments for the greater good. While the angels prepared their killing party, I’d been in the streets, learning where Mallens would go, how he went there, who came with, and how we could use it. I had done everything for them!

And we had failed, and the world would fall to darkness.

If I had been there, we would have made it.

Something made a scrape and clatter.

Koru kicked his couch back. Seraphine looked startled to see herself casually pushed aside. “Everyone stay still. We need to decide what we’re going to do before anyone goes anywhere or says anything.”

Koru possessed age and power out of proportion with his standing as a lesser god. King of Rats was such a minor title, other pantheons might not claim it. Yet a lesser god had this mansion of Shang Du. In this house they did not even put out plates for manna but feasted on honeydew. Normally a hundred servants filled the polished halls, but he’d sent them away for First Light. We had miles of corridors and rooms to ourselves.

His eyes were dull red, his nose was long and too big, and his mustache looked like whiskers. I think he greased it. All of his proportions were wrong. His arms were as long as his legs, being tall and thin drew attention to the slouch of his spine, and normally, like now, he wore furs to cover up his strange form. I don’t know how he and Seraphine were related.

“What do you want to discuss?” asked Hoarfast. “Our mutual endeavor has come to a definite end.”

“It has,” agreed Koru, “but we are now bound by a mutual secret. No one leaves this house. No one talks to anyone outside this house. We need to decide exactly what we are going to do.”

“I still don’t see what we have to talk about,” said Hoarfast. “We share a secret. We keep it.”

“The concern is someone running to Mallens and telling all, hoping for a reward,” said Mithrak. “Or at least mercy.”

“Mallens isn’t the sort to grant rewards or mercy,” said Agammae.

“Which is an excellent point,” Koru said to her. “Someone might panic and forget that.”

“Then again, we have nothing to talk about.” Hoarfast squeezed his knuckles. He didn’t crack them; he only pressed each fist within the other huge, calloused hand.

Hoarfast was the biggest of all of us and, quite frighteningly, the quickest. He was an old man in a career full of treachery: the arrangement and facilitation of killings. But he dreamed little dreams: money, fine houses, expensive clothes, and fast cars. He didn’t desire Seraphine, the most beautiful of women, but rather wanted women to come and go through his life, themselves impressed by his money, houses, and things.

I don’t know how Koru came to know him. They certainly didn’t move in the same circles. Mallens’s third sister Androche was made of iron and had born one hundred children of alloys. One, Kobold, was a fine steel with a pattern like snowflakes on his skin, and he had sired a line of Celestials in the climes of Theony, a northern range of mountains where the ice lies deep and hard enough to be smelted as metal. Hoarfast carried Kobold’s blood. He had a coarse black beard like iron filings stuck to a lodestone, gray eyes, and dark hair. He wore gray suits, bespoke shoes, and steel pins in his collar to clasp his tie. I’ve never seen him carry a gun, but I’d never seen him use his fists either. I’d made sure he’d never mean me harm.

“I am concerned someone might not keep their secrets well enough,” said Koru.

Hoarfast looked up at him through his coarse eyebrows. “Then either you take our mere promises or start killing people, King of Rats.”

King of Rats met the lesser Celestial’s eyes. Even as a lesser god, Koru stood high above Hoarfast’s station, but Hoarfast killed gods for a living.

“Let’s not go there,” said Astras, breaking her own silence. “Once that starts, it does not end. Besides, I have a better idea.”

When no one reacted, she pressed.

“Look at me. I can help you both.”

After a longer pause Hoarfast said, “Lady of the House,” like she wanted to pull his teeth. He turned and nodded.

Koru let Hoarfast look away first before turning to Astras as well.

She had sat back down but didn’t recline. The chairs would have made it uncomfortable anyway. “No one knows we had anything to do with it. All of the agents died. They are martyrs for a better world, and we will get them their better world. We have time. But we won’t if we turn on each other.”

Everyone considered this. I scowled.

“You mean to try again?” asked Hoarfast, raising one coarse eyebrow.

“Of course,” said Koru. Hoarfast may have been answering Astras, but the King of Rats answered. “Mallens killed my son.”

“Of course,” said Astras. She smiled. “Remember, no one outside Shang Du knows any of us had anything to do with it.”

She looked magnificent. On credentials alone, I understood why Koru chose her. The Sylph of the River Alph had given up her domain to marry Koru and now wore a deep-cut dress with high slits on either side. She’d crossed her legs, trapping the narrow front-panel of fabric between her thighs and exposing her long, naked leg to the seat of the couch. She wasn’t wearing underwear.

“Except for one,” said Astras, pointing at me. “Him.”

I had done everything for them.

Next

Karesh Ni: Ch1

Chapter 1

Alyssa and Satre argued about whether to give me a job, and I didn’t know who I wanted to win. The job sounded terrible. Even if Alyssa won, I should decline. The problem was she knew this. When I’d mentioned I didn’t need their money, she counter-offered with, “What if we gave you a lot?”

And looking for a diplomatic way to say no, I asked, “How much is a lot?”

One of those things that weirds me out but I can’t explain to anyone is that Pallas has offices. When I go talk to a sorcerer or a wizard, we often meet in their office, and it’s an office. Alyssa’s office had a desk breaking the space in half, and a little sitting area by the door with five comfy but mismatched chairs. On that side she had bookshelves of mostly modern law and a wine sideboard. On her side of the desk, she had maps and files. In each corner of the wooden room and before the full-wall window behind her desk, she grew catnip and owenge, an orange pitcher plant that smelled faintly of lavender. There were two small fireplaces, one for each side. Baroness Alyssa, ruler of Citi Kageran, had an office. It wasn’t even an office of doom; it was an office-office, where you get advice about your taxes or to update your will. The last was good because I was going to need one if I broke into a sorcerer’s prison.

After Trui had left, Alyssa asked me to explain why I had sold a bunch of wheat options when I was obviously not a wheat merchant. I said that’s why I’d sold them. I didn’t want them. She asked me to explain, so I laid bare the entire ordeal of Bloodharvest. The Baroness listened to with polite interest while Satre, her husband, made us a round of drinks. I asked for quarter wine. Well-water in Kageran occasionally gives you dysentery, so drinking straight water wasn’t an option. Three drams water to one wine is about as non-alcoholic as I care to go.

Alyssa moved around to our side of her desk and took a slightly-lumpy oak chair, knees together, shins at a slight angle while she faced me, holding a stemless wine-glass in both hand like a teacup. When I finished, she asked, “Could you rescue someone from a prison that isn’t run by goblins?”

And I, like an idiot, said, “That would be even better!”

Which was true, but I should have said something like, ‘No, I’m done breaking people out of prison.’

Satre had taken an armless chair beside her and sat at an angle. He leaned against the chair-back with his left shoulder. His right hand bore the huge signet ring of Kageran he’d used to officiate the transaction, and he hadn’t used wax. Satre had held his hand over a fire, then smashed his fist into the document to burn the Crest of Ozymandias into the paper. Now the same hand swirled the water and wine because their wine wasn’t very good, and sediment kept collecting in the glass-bottom.

He looked from me to Alyssa and cocked an eyebrow.

Alyssa said, “Like the sorcerers of Whitefire.”

My brain caught up with my mouth, and I put up a hand. “Um, I don’t know.”

Satre squinted. “Who’s there? Other than a bunch of sorcerers?”

“Kyria,” said Alyssa.

“Good!” he exclaimed, loudly and unexpectedly enough to startle me into squeaking.

“But Elegy could get her out,” Alyssa told him.

“Or she could not and let Kyria rot.”

Why were they bringing me into this? “I don’t know Kyria,” I said.

Alyssa ignored me. “But we could help her. Elegy rescued Prince Aehr from Bloodharvest. We need to check, of course, but we can ask the elves. No offense.” She smiled at me.

“They said they’d provide references,” I replied quickly, but as soon as the words escaped, I tried to slow down. “But how does that lead to Whitefire?”

“Because you just said you can rescue someone from a different prison.”

I….dammit.

“Who’s Kyria?” I asked.

“My sister,” said Alyssa.

Looking for support, I glanced at Satre.

“Alyssa, this is a terrible idea,” he said correctly.

I nodded.

He continued. “If Whitefire turned on her, leave her to them. She tried to kill you.”

That’s a pretty strong argument. Points for Satre. He spoke wisdom.

“No!” said Alyssa. She waved a hand at me. “I am not going to let my sister die in captivity, while Elegy here makes a profession of getting people out!”

I mean, I had done it twice. I don’t know about making a profession of it.

“Who cares?” yelled Satre. “Elegy just got paid! Elegy, did you just get paid by Hyrma Trui?” He looked at me, following Alyssa’s wave.

“I did,” I said.

He turned back to Alyssa but waved at me. “See? She’s happy. She doesn’t need more money.”

Well…

“Elegy, are you interested in taking another contract?” asked Alyssa. Both of them looked back at me: Satre shaking his head and Alyssa nodding.

I stammered. “I’d like to take a little time off right now, you know, just to spend a little money–”

“What if we gave you a lot?” interrupted Alyssa.

I froze, and when I unfroze, I made my mistake. “How much is a lot?”

A lot was two hundred and fifty Celephian marks. I’d gone through Bloodharvest for sixty three in options, nine over seven as elves do numbers. I’d resold them for twice that. A Celephian mark is a gold coin about the size of my palm, stamped with Kuranes the current on one side and the White Ship on the other. Each coin weighs about half a pound. Alyssa was offering me a me in Celephian gold.

Satre said, “We are not going to give her that,” and they started fighting.

I’m Elegy. I’m a normal-sized woman surrounded by tall people. Some of y’all think you’re cool when you reach high shelves and see over horses. You walk like you’re being chased, trying to get away from me because I have little legs. You should! I’m fierce down here.

Normally I keep my hair short, but it had grown out over the last half a year. Now it wasn’t long enough to pull back but long enough to get into my face. I was considering putting it up in pigtails, but then I look like I’m twelve. I wear a reversible cloak of gray and green, loose clothing, and everything I have is stitched in curves. I don’t have a clear outline to break up. I hide small knives in boots and belts, and one, the Blade of Luthas, up a sleeve. That knife frightens me, and I’m a hair shy of throwing it into the sea and forgetting it exists.

I could do that in Celephias. It’s an island. They make money. I could throw the Blade of Luthas into the ocean and drink something in a coconut mug. I listened to the married couple fight, thinking about drinks in coconut mugs on beaches with warm sand. Winter was cold in Kageran, and even with the fireplaces warming my face, drafts scurried around my feet with the chill of outside. I could also go back to the Solange, elvenhome, with elegant lords and ladies. I had royal friends there.

Hell, I could hide in a ditch and pile rocks on my head. It would be better than sorcerer prison.

I spaced back in. The married couple were still fighting.

Satre said, “And isn’t she dead?” Which I guess is a question, but he didn’t say it like he wanted an answer.

But he got one.

“No, she’s not!” said Alyssa. “For years now people have been accusing me of killing her (which I didn’t!), but the only defense I’ve had is ‘she probably died when she set her own tower on fire.’ Van’s raising an army because he says I’m still settling old scores, and I didn’t settle scores in the first place. Besides, I just found out she’s alive. If Elegy rescues Kyria, the twins have nothing to say.” Alyssa threw an invisible something at Satre, a silent chew-on-that gesture.

“Until they all team up to try to kill you. Again.” Satre didn’t seem to be chewing-on-that.

Alyssa made a face. “Team up? Gods no. They hate each other.”

Satre scowled. “Didn’t you just say they were defending her?”

“Yeah. Her memory! No one likes Kyria in person. Didn’t you ever meet her?”

Satre sort-of grumbled. “Yeah.”

“Do you hate her?”

Satre scowled to the left, right, and center. “Only because she tried to kill you.”

“That’s very sweet,” Alyssa said. “But you just don’t want to agree with me, do you?”

Satre took a hard, tense breath and held his hands up, open but shaking. “Alyssa, she tried to kill you!”

“We were at war. A lot of people tried to kill me.”

“That doesn’t make it better!”

Satre thew a fake smile at me; his face looked like cracked wood. “Could you excuse us, please?”

Alyssa looked from him to me too. “Thank you.”

“Okay,” I said, and we all stayed perfectly still.

Oh right, they were royalty. ‘Excuse them’ meant I had to leave.

I stood up and moved to the hallway, shutting the door behind me. A page standing outside smiled at me. He would see me if I tried to listen at the door. I smiled back, stepped a polite distance away, and tried to decide if the royals were running a blind or if this was a real argument.

Let me bring you to now.

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 1

Prologue: Shang Du
Chapter 1

The assassination went poorly.

I, Kog, had gathered with my seven comrades on the viewing deck of Shang Du. We’d arranged the couches to face east, and Seraphine sat at the center. Technically, she sat at her daddy Koru’s side, but no one had come to this party to look at the King of Rats. She had pulled her long, beautiful legs onto the seat beside her, cocking her hips so she leaned toward her father. He hunched forward, elbows on knees, the only one of us watching the killing with hard eyes.

There was a drink with him. He didn’t touch it. Everyone else was putting champagne away.

Mithrak sat as close to her as he could, one couch over. He sprawled, open legged, with his shirt unbuttoned down to his sternum. His face needed my fist.

On Koru’s other side sat Astras, Koru’s wife and not Seraphine’s mother. I’ve wondered about Astras as long as I’ve known her. Did Koru simply have a list of appropriate credentials for a trophy wife and marry the first woman who passed the checklist? Or was there anything more to her than appeared? She had the credentials.

Those three couches held the center of the group I’d been allowed to attend. On Mithrak’s right, Cole lounged in a deep seated, high-armed chair. His hands and forearms rested up above his shoulders, almost level with his eyes. By him sat Agammae; she shaved her head, wore a suit, and carried knives. Her chair was the same deep-seated thing that looked like it was swallowing Mithrak, so she perched on the edge of her seat and looked like she didn’t belong here.

On a cushioned bench on Astras’s other side sat Dr Simmons with a huge head on a tiny neck. He drank too much, talked too loudly, and laughed in a tense, shrill way even when things were going well. It was always hard to wrap my head around how that guy could be that smart.

With him sat Hoarfast. Hoarfast looked like a killer. He had the black suit, black shirt, black tie, and a bull’s head on bull’s neck. Hoarfast’s main job this morning was serve the doctor questions. About five words in, Simmons would decide what Hoarfast meant to ask, answer it at length and volume, and laugh at his own jokes while the big man sipped champagne and waited.

Koru loathed Simmons. Astras claimed to enjoy his presence. No one else paid him much mind save Mithrak, who occasionally took questions himself so he could throw out self-flattering compliments.

I tried to ignore them all. Simmons’s voice made my jaw clench; Mithrak’s made my knuckles itch. I sat next to Agammae on a divan. There was a chair open, but those things were horrible. The cushions sat in deep trenches, and the front of the chair formed a hard bar under woven wicker. Agammae must feel like she was sitting on an iron rod. This position put me slightly closer to Seraphine, and when Mithrak spoke to her, as he usually did, he faced away from me so I didn’t hear him as much. I was ignoring Koru’s daughter entirely.

I’d only come here because it let me see her, but since I didn’t want to act like an idiotic puppy, I’d been polite but otherwise avoided her. She knew. I think she found me funny.

What I wanted to do was sit behind everyone, maybe toward the center, but Koru didn’t want anyone behind him so we spread out in this absurd line. Simmons’s tittering and giggling sounded shrill, Hoarfast’s low, deep voice sounded like bodies being dragged through gravel, and Mithrak talked in the other direction. Agammae and I had nothing in common, nothing, and even if we did, Koru hated sidebar conversations around him. It made him think he was missing something.

I drank my champagne. Koru’s other children ran across the ground, squeaking, and climbed over my feet. I hate rats.

The eastern sky began to warm. At first the high trees of Koru’s estate blocked much of the sky. The palace stood on a huge granite spire, but the mountains to the east rose higher. Redwoods and sequoias rose above us. We saw hints of dawn through their branches. Morning over the ocean reached above the trees and started washing out the stars. The horizon turned red and blue. Three tall shadows stood like pillars of night, but these had heads and shoulders.

“Three of them,” said Hoarfast. Whatever stupid joke Simmons was laughing at died. Koru might have been the only one focused on the horizon, but all of us were watching.

“Who?” asked Astras.

“So he brought friends with him,” said Mithrak. He sounded angry. “It won’t matter.”

“But who did he bring?” asked Astras, and suddenly everyone had something to say.

“Probably Lumina and Tollos,” said Agammae, leaning forward on her unpleasant seat. It had to be digging into her behind.

“No, no, no!” Simmons laughed, high and loudly. “He’d bring his brothers, not his sisters. If he brought his sisters, why wouldn’t he have brought them all?”

Mithrak nodded. “It would be his sisters if there were four of them.”

Agammae ground her teeth. She leaned forward even further and stabbed her finger out. “That’s Tollos because she puts her hair back in a braid.”

I couldn’t tell.

Mithrak argued loudly with Agammae, saying she couldn’t make out if one of the shadows wore her hair back. He turned his head toward her to shout, and now I got the brunt of his unpleasant presence. Agammae insisted. She kept pointing at the silhouette of the one on the right, the shorter of the three, and waving at it like she wanted to punch the air with just one finger. Simmons laughed like a screaming rabbit.

The three shadows stood above the peaks, and only titans stood taller than the mountains. Before them the sky’s faint gray on black began to dilute into oranges, yellows, and hints of blue. The Sun himself hadn’t broken the horizon yet, but his cloak appeared before him.

“Just be patient,” said Astras. “We’ll see soon enough. We’ll be able to tell if they’re wearing dresses before we can see their hair.”

Mithrak and Agammae stopped arguing. They looked at her.

“What if the brothers are wearing capes?” asked Cole. “How will we tell?”

“I’ll be able to tell a cape from a dress,” said Astras.

Dr Simmons burst into loud, high-pitched giggling. Everyone but Koru stared at him, and that only made him giggle louder. I wanted to strangle him.

“We planned for this,” said Koru softly.

Dr Simmons gagged. He might very well have shoved his fist in his mouth to make himself stop laughing.

Koru continued. “We planned out what to do if other titans came with Mallens. They just die too.”

Everyone nodded, even me, but Koru lied. We’d planned for one other titan with Mallens: his brother Otomo. At First Light last year and the First Light three years prior, Otomo had joined Mallens when the Lord of Creation had greeted the Sun.

But Otomo couldn’t see well at night. That’s why he delighted in the coming of the Sun after winter. We’d planned for one other titan and that he wouldn’t be able to see in the dark. Mallens had never brought his sisters.

Dawn bled into the sky. Pink and orange seeped into the eastern horizon, but before the sky had turned any single color, the stars went out in the east. Low over the mountains behind us, a few glittered, but the rest faded even before the light seemed bright enough to wash them out. Koru leaned even further forward in his chair to hunch on the little bar at the front of the cushion.

Mithrak picked up his champagne and called, “To us!” Everyone but the King of Rats drank. I did too, but it galled me.

After the hurrah of his toast, a weight descended, and we stared at a bland, washed out bit of sky where dawn had washed out the stars, but the constellation of the Mask had always been dim. A black spot appeared like an ink droplet in water. Four of us called it out at once. Its nexus swung east, moving fast and against the procession of daylight. But it was so little.

No one could see the little speck of darkness who didn’t already know it was coming, no matter how well they saw at night.

The earlier speed of the coming sunrise froze, and now every moment stretched out. The speck of darkness passed the Gull and the Tower. It rose to the zenith of the sky and began to fall, diving swiftly to the east.

We looked at tall Mallens’s head. He and the other two tall shadows looked east, where the coming of the dawn was so very, very far away.

Dr Simmons made some cheer, but no one followed him. His toast thudded like dead weight into silence.

Everything was going according to plan. The Sun’s painters created the first and most beautiful sunrise of the new year. There was no reason any titan should look back, no way they could have seen Jermaine’s Sunset Group on black horses of laurel, and no way they could have seen it as anything but a fleck of off-colored cloud if they did. I clenched my teeth. Koru stopped breathing in anything but hisses. Dr Simmons giggled a hysteric whispered noise, and Hoarfast grabbed his shoulder, squeezing enough to drag the fabric into tight folds. The black speck dove like a comet. Jermaine rode for Mallens.

The little titan on Mallens’s left turned to say something to the King. Her shadow wore a thick braid. I could see hints of her form, a bit of hip and breast. Mallens had brought his sisters. She paused, raised her arm, and pointed at the sky behind them.

Mallens turned as well, and Lumina did too on the far side. The Sun outlined the front of her long dress. The King of Titans turned the rest of the way, and his eyes lit up the sky.

The eyes of the King of Titans burned as two white crosses, suddenly brilliant, brighter than the coming dawn, brighter than any of the stars had been, and bolts of fire and light leaped up to the sky. The black speck swerved, Mallens’s lightning missed, and the spot of darkness, so small I could barely see it even knowing it was there, hesitated. I stopped breathing.

Everyone on the patio stopped breathing.

Jermaine went. The spot of darkness charged. The laurel horses rode on, and ink drops splattered the pale milk of the sky. I don’t know who started it, but everyone on the patio was cheering. The assassins of Sunset Group fell on Mallens, their hoof prints were black splashes, and they left a trail of streaking shadow.

Mallens swung one hand and knocked them from the sky.

Another black spot, vivid against the dawn, leaped from behind him. Sunrise Group charged Mallens’s back. Their blades moved, leaving streaks through Mallens like the butt of the hand drawn through handwriting before the ink has dried. The King of Titans burned. Plumes of smoke and fire rose from his back; splatters of blood splashed the heavens. The splotches of darkness overcame the coming dawn and turned the sky dark again. Mallens whirled on Sunrise, but Sunset had merely fallen. They’d not yet been destroyed, and now they spread out. Many black dots rode for Mallens.

Little Tollos, taller than mountains but the smallest of the titans, turned and fled. Lumina ran too. They left their king alone.

Mallens lurched sideways. We saw flickers of his eyes looking this way and that, now crosses, now three-bar hexes, always burning, as Sunrise and Sunset caught him between them.

The Sun crested the horizon and put forth all of his power. Mallens lurched to the east and stood silhouetted. He swatted Sunrise Group from the sky, and they fell as Sunset had. The King of Titans was bleeding.

Sunset tried to circle, but Mallens struck again. He smashed something. The remainder moved left and right. Mallens flailed, stomped his feet, slammed his fists into the ground. The earth buckled. Splashes of water or liquefied soil shot upwards.

The riders of Sunrise split up too. They looped and soared, black flecks around the King’s head. He struck at them as they cut him as wounds and blowthroughs erupted from his hands and fingers. Blood splattered his face; black on black even by daylight. I tried to count the assassins, and got less than half of them. They must have been moving too quickly for my mortal eyes.

Mallens caught something and struck it down. He caught another. Several of the riders tried to coordinate, but he caught one group and threw them down. The other group dove, either for cover or to flee, and Mallens leaped at them. His feet crushed the earth.

For a while he danced like a madman, all stomps and violence without music. And then suddenly he went still, leaning on his knees. His body shook.

We waited. My rear-end hurt. I looked down. I’d moved forward to hunch on the edge of the divan, and it was jutting into my legs.

I hated Koru’s furniture. I stood up.

Mallens was black as mountain stuff, black as the rock underneath the oceans, rough hewn and poorly constructed. In him the early craft of the Clockwork Gods showed their initial inexperience. His face had no curves, just blocks and planes. He wasn’t even a person yet.

And yet he lifted his arms, shook his fists, and screamed at the Sun itself. He scattered blood in all directions and turned the skies black and cloudy. He roared.

As only happened once every hundred years, Horochron closed his eyes before his son. The face of the old Lord of Creation appeared, even more rough-hewn than Mallens’s, ringed by a dancing white crown, and between his closed eyelids raged the sunlight. Now Horochron was just a head circling Pallas. He who had been king hid his face but for once a century when he closed his eyes.

I looked around. Koru stood with his arms crossed. Seraphine touched him on the side, but when he didn’t react she moved away, crossing her own arms and hunching her shoulders behind them. Astras had one arm pressed against her chest and scratched her elbow with the other. Mithrak had a butterfly knife in hand and did slow tricks without looking. Hoarfast squeezed Dr Simmons’s arm through the sleeves of his jacket. The good doctor was biting a knuckle. Agammae stood with wide legs, hands on hips with thumbs behind, and stared forward. The muscles in her jaw bulged. I just stood there and realized I’d become aware of my arms. I didn’t know what I’d been doing with them. The rats were fleeing the balcony.

Next

Batholith

Good word. Similar to a massif, but formed of individual plutons that accrete into a single mass.

Kageran is on a batholith from the Arsae colliding west into Treveriane. The subducted plate, the Arsae, released volatiles under the Treveriane that caused igneous intrusions not far from the boundary. Some time later, the subduction largely stopped and the two plates stuck together. Erosion has begun baring the deep granite, but there is still a thick layer of oceanic sediment from when the Arsae was underwater.

Fhysay/Kahserach Boundary

The north coast of the goblin lands is an oceanic seacrust/seacrust subduction zone where the Fhysay crust is subducted under the Arsae crust. The obducting Arsae crust is pushed up, forming the goblinmounts themselves. This is a young and highly active boundary. The mountains aren’t tall compared to the neighboring Doon, but are extremely steep. Strong upthrust lifts them constantly, but strong weathering from the northern winds and storms cuts them down at the same time. The result is a rocky, barren mountain range with deep erosion cut valleys. There are relatively few signs of glaciation at lower altitudes and northern extrema, but at higher and more southerly peaks, glaciation is extremely common. Mountains that border the Shaggheritach are often horns, separated by U-shaped valleys unlike the Vs further north.