Who am I?
* * *
Jaroan ate his bacon butties in silence, moving the fortify pieces with the tip of his new knife, so that it looked as though he were doing it with mere force of will. The handle was small, easily palmed; he could extend his fingers, make it seem to the observer as if simply pointing was enough to direct his side of the engagement.
He was practising the movement-patterns for the Sow Matriarch. In contrast to her counterpart, the Boar Patriarch, she was an expensive, complex piece. When she consumed an enemy piece, she could take another move providing she could consume another foe. On each successive move within the same turn, the permissible directions and distances of her travel would alternate – as well as the types of terrain she could cover without halting. However, when executed perfectly upon an unassuming opponent whose pieces were laid-out within acceptable parameters, the Sow Matriarch could win games in a single go, hopping all the way from her spawn-spot beside your Hold and into your rival’s without stopping.
She was no good against Kas’s Geomancer, of course, but who ever picked Geomancer?
There had to be thousands of possibilities for winning in a single turn. If you could play the Matriarch, and chose the exact right moment to spawn her, and she wasn’t killed before your next go? A few Extra Move cards in your hand and the game would be yours.
If you could do it while just pointing your fingers at the pieces, moving them like a wizard… Jaroan mused. If you could do that – that would be awesome… The Matriarch’s basically an arch-diviner… Like, with enough forethought she’s basically –
“Jar!” Jaid cried from the doorway. “You coming outside? Everyone’s come down!”
Grumbling a bit, more for show than out of any actual lack of interest, he hopped up and donned his new coat before heading down to join her and the others in the lane. His Yearsend marbles with weird shapes inside them met with some interest. Nabim had a felt hat that was far too big for him. Brendy’s Yearsend gifts had almost all consisted in hard-to-obtain fruit, which had gone down a treat according to the rainbow stains down her smock. Tick was unusually quiet – probably he’d gone without this year, owing to the sheer amount of siblings he had crammed into that apartment with him. They sometimes took turns, Jaroan seemed to remember. One year a birthday present, the next a Yearsend one… it kind of made sense.
The whole time he was outside, he tested it – no one noticed the knife-handle tucked beneath his belt. So long as he didn’t let anyone press into his side, the dagger was truly concealed in plain sight. Only he could see its blunt-edged blade, gleaming away on his hip.
A few of Ticken’s older friends showed up, and two of them started wrestling in the muck, laughing and screaming like animals. After a few minutes of watching, Tick turned towards Nabim, who was playing with Jaroan’s (and Jaid’s) ball-on-a-stick.
In a single swift motion, Tick snatched it away from him.
“Hey, I was still playing with that!” the little brown boy cried.
“Give it him back, Tick!” Jaid said, stepping towards the taller kid, whose big mop of brown hair only served to make him taller.
“Why? Can’t I have a go?” Tick started to kick the ball from foot to foot, walking off towards the other side of the lane, but the mud stopped him from getting his leg up quickly-enough to catch the descending ball half the time.
His older friends halted their wrestling-game to watch the spectacle.
“You didn’t ask.” Jaid waded over to plant herself in his path. “Give it back.”
She held out her hand, and he spun about, pivoting on his heel and marching off in another direction.
Tick’s friends laughed at Jaid as she put her hands on her hips and made a ‘hmph’ of displeasure.
Normally Jaroan would’ve felt himself shrinking inside, wanting to look away, but for the first time he felt powerful.
Kas is watching over us, he thought. Kas is watching. I can’t – I couldn’t use the knife.
But its presence – it was like archmagery. A tool at his disposal.
He didn’t need to use it to know it was there. And those who raised their hands against him, against his sister, would be destroyed all the same.
He stepped forwards, splashing over to Ticken with the longest strides he could manage.
Jaroan was a year younger than the brown-haired boy, but he was almost as tall, despite the big mop.
“Give it her back.” He even managed to keep his voice under control, low and level.
“Or what, Jaroan? You get – your brother on me?”
The boy’s sneer was insufferable. He almost deserved the blade just for that much.
What would Kas say? What would…
“Or your friends get to watch you get your face shoved in the drop.” He rolled his shoulders, wondering what it would be like to punch someone in the face, properly – what it would be like to receive such a punch.
“Oh really.” Ticken straightened up, thrust out his chin.
Jar suddenly found himself not caring much – he just wanted the ever-increasing sense of anticipation to break like a wave on a rock – he just wanted something to happen –
“Do you think I’d be keeping my voice down if I wanted him to hear me? Hahahahaha!”
Jaroan spoke so quietly, when he barked laughter the taller boy almost fell over in fright. He swept out his arm to catch his neighbour, but he snatched back the stick at the same time with his free hand.
“Thank you,” Jar said politely, turning away.
Ticken, perhaps wisely, didn’t seem to want to press the matter. Jaroan returned triumphantly to his side of the lane – he went to pass the ball-on-a-stick to Nabim, but the boy no longer wanted it.
He curled his lip in derision, and glanced up to check for the champion’s appraising gaze – but Kas was busy with his glyphstone.
Jaroan didn’t even feel the need to sigh. Not anymore.
When their brother came down a few minutes later, he exchanged pleasantries with Ticken, proving he didn’t watch a damn thing.
“I’ve got to go,” Kas said, “and Orstrum’s headed down to the shrine. I’m going to get Xantaire to keep an eye out.”
Jaroan folded his arms across his chest, pinning the ball-topped stick awkwardly against his body. “We’ll be fine, Kas.”
“No, Jaroan – I’ll get her to watch, thank you. Xastur will be going down for a nap anyway, given the way he’s yawning.” He seemed to look upon Jaroan and Jaid with pity. Pity. “You need to be careful, you know. Behave yourselves, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Jaroan barely forced down his anger.
Was it anger? When did anger become hate? Where did it come from?
“It must be serious, if you’re going on Yearsend,” Jaid said worriedly.
“It’s not bad, I promise.”
Which means it is bad. You lie again, brother. You don’t even realise how much you’re hurting our sister, do you?
“And, look, if I die, you know where I stash the money, right?”
Kas actually grinned.
Jaid just hissed their brother’s name, but Jaroan couldn’t. Couldn’t just let it out with a word and a breath. It was too much for that.
A reflexive strike was loosed, fist dutifully smacking Kastyr in the arm.
The champion barely even seemed to notice, shaking his head and muttering something about being back soon, returning to the stairs, oblivious, as Jaroan stared down at his hand and seethed.
There was just too much aggression, pent-up inside me, Jar told himself. I just needed a target. I feel better, after hitting him.
It was true – he did feel better. The aggression had left him – but what it left behind was a cold emptiness. Like damp stones where the river receded.
He knew the river would return.
* * *
“Okay! My sister first!”
Jaid stared at him through her tears. “Wha… buh… Jar! Why…”
“Your sister?” one of the shorter thugs said. “You cowardly little git.”
“You reeking idiot,” Jaroan retorted instantly, an ugly scowl stamped on his face.
“Confident behind that… spell thing, aren’t you, little git. Wait till you’re out –“
“Shut – your – face before I cut it off.” The ugly old leader in his mouldy old get-up cut off his underling, then glowered down at her twin. “I get it. ‘E doessen, but I do. You send her cos I know you won’t let her go with me alone. I like it.”
Is that it? she wondered, looking imploringly at her brother. Is that why?
But Jaroan wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“… I won’t mistreat you.” The old man hardened his voice, lowered it: “Now throw her ‘ere before I change my mind.”
Throw… her…?
Jaroan turned to her, and she’d never seen that expression on his face before – the disgust and pride mingled in his far-off, unseeing eyes – the horrid, resolute grimace making his features those of an adult for the first time in his life – and her mind snapped.
“No! No, Jar! No, don’t! Don’t! No, please!”
The one thing he’d always been better at, unfailingly. He was just a bit stronger than her. Especially when he was motivated.
She didn’t even want to consider the notion that he was right with this plan of his. No. The rancid, drop-stained hand that was eagerly slapped across her mouth told her he was wrong. The leader was wrong, thinking there was some nobility in her brother’s actions. Only the one little man had seen the truth – that, or he alone was stupid enough to say it out loud it in front of his commander. And that little man was a killer.
Not for the first time, she wondered if Jaroan could possibly be evil – and Jaid the good twin of the pair, like something out of one of the books. They could be destined to do this confounding dance forever, both loving and hating each other, never seeing eye to eye except but for in the briefest moments…
When Xantaire was knocked out – then Jaid really started to struggle.
What have you done, Jar!
Her elbows were already trapped against her sides by a single heavy arm pressing horizontally across her midriff – but as soon as she tried, she found that she was able to slide down and kicked out –
She barely even connected once with the bearded man in front of her. He stooped, gathered up her feet, and together the two villains simply carried her.
Drop on you, Jar! she thought as she was humiliated, dragged like fear-drunk livestock along the walkway. You’ve only got yourself to blame for this! You! Mother-Chaos is in your heart!
Mother-Chaos is in your heart, and soon you’ll forget how to love…
The despair at how he’d treated her was the core of her fury as they took her, carried her up the lane towards the Gold Griffin. But the panic, the tears, the anguish: those were all for the way the shutters closed as she was choked, pinned, manhandled on her way to the slaughterhouse.
Drop on you all.
It was a curse, not an observation. She included her brother.
He might’ve understood her once. He might’ve been nice, kind, once. But he wasn’t himself, wasn’t even like Kas.
He was dark.
* * *
Are we definitely twins? Are we even related? How can you be such an idiot, Jaid? What in Twelve Hells are you even doing? Can’t you see I’m trying to save you? Save us all?
It didn’t matter how much he willed it – she couldn’t read his mind. Xantaire was going to die if Jaid didn’t go with the Bertie Boys, and that would be it. At least this way, there was a chance. But they wouldn’t be able to discuss things; he wouldn’t be able to calm her down. She was going to insist on struggling the whole way.
Not something he had the luxury of doing. Not if he wanted to keep his knife secret. They hadn’t patted him down when they took his coat, and no one had cause to press against his hip, not with him being so compliant, going along at their instructions.
When they entered the Bertie Boy headquarters, he almost balked. Almost. But to turn aside now, to start screaming like Jaid – that would’ve been worse than sending the two of them to a place like this in the first place.
Sticktown was a dirty place, sure, but those who dwelt there kept as clean as they could manage. Homes were homes, after all. But this was no one’s home; not really. The building belonged to the rats, not men. Mud and excrement, decades old, smeared up walls and doors. The scents were sweat and vomit.
In the end he closed his eyes, focussed on keeping the butties down. He half-opened them again when they came to downwards-leading stairs.
Or I could be sick. Be sick…
The nausea consumed him as he swayed down each step, legs trembling.
What would they do? What would it matter?
He imagined what he’d eaten – he couldn’t help himself – and the taste of it filled his nose, tomato, tomato and grease –
The moment they reached the bottom stair, he leaned over and retched.
A couple of the closest thugs withdrew, complaining, but at least one was laughing and clapped him heartily on the back.
Jaid started screaming louder, tearing at the ones who grappled her, but Jaroan froze.
He felt the invisible knife’s mooring loosen with each solid blow on his back, the handle threatening to slip from his belt near the front of his right hip.
For the first time, he realised how poorly things might go for him if the dagger should fall. It was invisible – it wasn’t weightless. It would still make a sound.
He wiped his lips with the back of a hand and smiled grimly before slowly straightening up.
The knife didn’t fall.
Like things could really be going any worse.
The room the twins eventually ended up in was low-enough that some members of their escort walking ahead had to stoop on entry, hair brushing against dark planks of wood that drank in the candlelight. Rough-textured colourless stone made up the walls and floor. In the centre with its ring of rocks, rope and pulley, was a well.
It even stilled Jaid, and when Jaroan glanced at her and caught her gaze, they shared the thought.
It wasn’t just that children were always getting pushed into wells in stories.
It was that this was how their parents died. Not the same well, of course, but that hardly mattered.
And he was bringing them… putting them here…
Deliberate?
“Keep an eye on ‘em,” Jar caught the leader saying to one of his men as the twins slowly stepped into the room. “If it rings, do ‘em. Quick. You hearin’ me?”
“Am ‘earin’ yer, boss. Like as yer says. Quick as Blackrush.”
“You, with me.” Then, louder: “Don’t be tryin’ to escape, little fella.”
Jar turned back, caught the boss’s eye as the old man stood in the doorway.
“Hibbern ‘ere can hurt you in ways you don’t ever forget.” The Bertie Boy he indicated was a massive man, hunched beneath the ceiling with teeth bared like a smiling gorilla. His hands were as big as plates. “Ways that ain’t gonna kill you, understand?”
Jaroan didn’t respond; he just looked at his sister and held out his hand to her.
Her red eyes glowed in the candlelight – her gaze moved from his face to his extended hand, and back again. Then, finally, she took hold of his fingertips with her own.
A gesture. Nothing more.
She hates me, he realised, and swallowed.
When he looked back to meet the leader’s gaze with all the defiance he could muster, the door was already swinging shut. Hibbern and one of his pals, a reedy man with prematurely-grey hair, were leaning against the wall on either side.
Jaid let go of his fingers, crossed to the far corner and hunkered down, weeping quietly and shaking.
Hibbern was grinning; he pointed at Jaid and muttered something to his colleague that set them both chuckling.
Jaroan let the arm Jaid had let go fall to his waist. Then, after a moment, he brought his hand across to the handle of the knife, placed it there.
Would he get a chance to use it? There were only two of them watching over him and his sister now. He could remember most of the path through the building… Hostages would be useless – he was hostage: he couldn’t put his knife to Hibbern’s throat or the reedy fellow’s, and march out of here… The Bertie Boys would rather see one of their own number die, than betray their boss’s orders, he was sure…
He went and sat in the opposite corner from Jaid, closing his own eyes, trying to conceptualise his possible futures like a seer.
The boss himself would order the death of a hostage. Hibbern – the other guy – they’d be as good as dead if he managed to get one of them under his control. Jar, and Jaid – they were the ones who were worth something. The only ones the boss cared about.
Because of Feychilde.
I could threaten Jaid. Or myself.
Instinct rejected the notion before the imagination could get hold of it.
Or I could kill them.
Instinct did nothing to stop this line of thought, and the imagination ran with it.
It’s excusable. It is. It has to be. Kas will understand. They’ll all understand. I have to protect her. I have to protect both of us.
But I can’t bring one of them over here and kill him. The other might just run off, and they probably have their own knives…
The boy hadn’t noticed them earlier, so he opened his eyes, stared at his jailers. They were wearing ordinary clothing, bulky coats over their vests.
“Wut yer got goin’ on there, boy?” Hibbern grunted, meeting his glare. “Don’tcha be lookin’ at me like that. You ain’t no little lord.”
Jar closed his eyes again, and the big man sniggered in satisfaction.
Bulge under Hibbern’s right arm, the same under the reedy man’s left. That means Hibbern’s left-handed, Jaroan realised. Take them longer to get their weapons out than me…
Could I take them both at once?
If he could get himself over to them, without them drawing their knives – or, even better, if he could get them over here…
I’d have to be fast, he thought, trying to put down the trembling that seized his wrists, knuckles. He clasped his hands together between his knees, struggling to control his breathing.
It wasn’t nervousness, or not just that. Not just fear.
Anticipation. The same thing that happened with Tick in the lane.
I’m going to do it.
Illodin, guide my hand. Illodin. Not any of the others.
“You want a fist in yer face?”
Throats. Eyes. It’s blunt, but they won’t be expecting me to have this weapon.
To have this… in me.
He looked back at Jaid before Hibbern felt the need to mouth off again, noticing that his sister’s shaking had become shivering. The room was actually warmer than the streets, to be fair to their captors, but the thrill of the danger had departed now, leaving her a quivering mess. Reality had started to sink in.
“Can’t we have our coats back?” Jaroan managed to keep his voice level. “My sister’s going to die from the cold, and your boss is going to be angry with you.”
“The both took the coath,” lisped the reedy man. “Ith his choith.”
“She far from dyin’, boy,” Hibbern growled. “Fer now, least.”
The gorilla-man cracked his knuckles, and the sound echoed about the small room, amplified by the well into a snap of thunder.
Jar moved closer to Jaid, but she shot him a look like a wounded animal at the approach of the huntsman: ‘Go away. Just go away.’
I won’t, he thought grimly, and sat down beside her, back to the stone, moving carefully so as to not dislodge the dagger. He looked down at his clenched fists on his knees.
I won’t – I won’t go away.
This is how I do it. This is how I kill them.
Some time passed. How long, exactly, he had no notion. He fell into the temptations of the imagining mind, pulled under by the current of emotion.
This is how I kill them.
“She’s really cold.” His voice sounded dead, even to his own ears.
“Tha’s it.”
The low roar from the thug didn’t bring him the satisfaction he’d expected.
Jaroan found himself filling with self-pity, shock at the man’s sudden aggression. He half-pushed himself to his feet, holding out his hands in a gesture of futile warding –
Hibbern batted the hands aside, reached out and took him by the hair.
Lifted him by the hair, onto the tips of his toes.
It was all Jaroan could do to hold onto the man’s left arm that was trying to rip off his scalp, simultaneously trying to rise with the thug’s tugging and to pull the wrist back down towards the ground. All thoughts of the knife fled from his mind, every parcel of consciousness given over now to razors of pain that left him yelping, bug-eyed.
“No! No, stop it, leave him alone!”
Jaid was clinging to his leg, making his job harder if anything.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Are yer gonna keep aksin’ fer yer coat? Or I gotta take a chunk o’ yer hair off?”
“Please, no, I’ll stop, I’ll stop!”
The pathetic voice came out of his own mouth, and the huge man flung him back against the wall –
Thud.
It didn’t come from Jaroan’s collision with the stone, which hurt enough that for a moment he raised his fingers to the back of his head, checking there was no blood –
No. The sound came from somewhere upstairs.
Thud. Thud.
Not uniform sounds. One here, one there – louder, quieter…
Crackkkkkkk.
Furniture breaking. The splash of many objects against wooden walls, hurled with inhuman force.
Jaroan looked up through watery vision. The noises didn’t even appear to be coming from the floor immediately over their heads – somewhere higher up. Those sounds had to be loud.
He had expected the thugs to show some regret, some apprehension over the side they’d chosen in this one-sided war. But he was to be disappointed.
“Aw, yer big bruv showed up to frow a tantrum, az ‘e?” Hibbern merely patted Jar solidly on the head, driving the boy down to a crouched position again. “If I ‘ear the bell ringin’, well… We’ll give yer proper burials, like.” He grinned down at the twins. “Baha, wut am I on? You’s to get pigged, I reckon. Not mush left after tha’.”
“I dunno, Hib,” the skinny guy said from the doorway – and Hibbern’s face suddenly lost about fifty percent of its confidence. “Thith thtuff about the bell…”
The gorilla turned to face his mate, his brother-in-murder, exchanging some crude barbs and gesturing furiously.
Jar couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to stab the big guy in the back, in the throat – the other would’ve surely given up, fled, if he made the big one bleed –
But Jaroan had given up and been borne away, broken by pain into a thousand bits, like crumbled twigs, cast from a bridge into a river.
Hope of rescue alone carried him on: Feychilde! Feychilde’s come!
And, leading on from that, self-revulsion dragged him under: What would he think of you now? What would he say?
There was no doubt in his mind at all that this was over. He would have to hide this half of himself. Hide it, and forget it.
Now he found himself shivering.
When he sat down next to Jaid, his eyes closed and struggling to control his breathing, she squeezed her hand under his arm and linked him, placing her head on his shoulder.
He smiled, but the peril was gone. What might have passed between them in union cast little more than a shadow over their minds, and only for one moment, one thought:
Feychilde’s here.
“Fink it frough, man,” Hibbern was berating his colleague. “If he ain’t got a way ter freaten ‘em, how’s ‘e gonna hold it over the champ-yun? Eh? Yer fink about tha’?”
“I’ve thought about it,” the one with a brain replied, “and it getth uth dead.”
“’E ain’t gonna use it, yer dolt!”
“And if he ain’t, Feychilde’th going to know that, ithn’t he?”
The gorilla grunted, and Jar only just opened his eyes in time to see the thug’s left arm reach up to the front of his chest – presumably reaching for his blade –
The boy went too cold to shiver, and as Hibbern slowly retrieved a long dirk from an inner breast-pocket, lowering it into view, Jaroan once more felt the stillness settle fully over him.
I’m safe, but the skinny guy? The one who doesn’t actually want to kill us?
The boy’s fingers twitched for his belt, and for a moment he considered less-than-lethal options. He could strike Hibbern in the leg, hamstring him – or aim for the spine, disable him but leave him in a state where Feychilde’s sylph could heal him –
But those options were less certain, too. The gorilla’s clothes would probably turn aside the blunt blade. And once Jaroan took his chance, he’d never get it again. If he left Hibbern in a condition to attack back, Jaroan knew he’d be killed outright.
Can I actually kill him – just to defend his friend?
Hibbern took a step towards his pal…
Can I actually sit here while he murders him?
The mingled emotions – Feychilde is here! But what will Kas think? – it wasn’t enough to dissuade him.
Act now! Before he gets closer!
He put down his hand, shifted his weight to help him launch himself up to his feet –
And just as he did so, there was a flicker, a single half-blink of time in which the door went from fully closed to fully opened, colour suddenly flooding across the candlelit space –
Then Hibbern and the reedy guy were lying comatose in separate corners on either side of the doorway, and Killstop was there, regarding the twins through the disapproving mask’s eye-slits.
“Stupid inkatra,” she muttered, even as she reached out a hand for each of them. “Come on, let’s –“
It wasn’t like he could’ve stopped her if he’d wanted to – her fingers closed around his wrist and the world lurched. He was vaguely conscious of his legs flailing as he was carried.
“– get you… ah… safe,” the arch-diviner finished, depositing them on the bench in the main room of his home and breathing deeply.
He took that as permission – he shrank back into the corner of the seat, panting – Jaid did the same in the other corner, as far from him as she could get.
The seeress looked between them, then her eyes behind the mask seemed to fall towards Jaroan’s belt.
Towards the dagger.
But she can’t… oh…
“She doesn’t have a clue… what you were going to do. I do.” Killstop’s voice was quiet, as she got her breath back, unusually-solemn. Almost grim. “I can either tell him, or not. One of… one of two ways. You get to choose. I know, before you say it – he bought you the knife, right? It’s his fault, right?”
He stared at her in mingled terror and fascination as she shook her head.
“He didn’t give it to you because he wanted you to use it. Yes, he’s stupid. But that’s beside the point, now. Which way’s it gonna be, Jar?”
He looked at Jaid, and only now realised that she was completely silent, locked in place, left out of the conversation. She seemed to be inhaling forcefully, but it was an unending breath.
He returned his attention to the arch-diviner in whose hands his fate had been placed, like a fortify Minion, ready to be spawned.
“Don’t tell him! Please!”
She regarded him wistfully for a moment, just long enough for him to realise she knew what his answer would be.
Then why make me say it?
“Okay. Okay, we’ll play it that way. But… okay. You’re not a machine, Jaroan. You weren’t made to work one way forever until you break. We all have emotions; we all struggle. You have to rise above it, sure, but that means digging your way out of the muck, not floating like a wizard. We all want to kill, don’t we, when we’re angry? We all want violence. You can’t just run from those feelings. If you keep running, one day you’ll find yourself in a corner. There’ll be no way out and you won’t be strong enough to fight. Do you get me? How does it put it… If you flee what you fear when you look in the mirror, then you will find it with you wherever you go. If you face what you fear, you will never see it again. You will have become it. Watch your reflection run.”
He had absolutely no idea what she was trying to tell him to do.
Face my fear?
She spent a second or two carefully assessing his confounded face with her all-seeing eyes, and then the champion ran. Time reasserted its flow.
Jaid reasserted her anger.
She woke Xastur up, but that was okay. Jaroan cried, and he wasn’t ashamed. He said he was sorry, and she somehow correctly interpreted his blubbers – she forgave him. He knew it because she held him again, gently placing her arms about him like he never wanted her to.
Like he always needed her to.
He found himself again, on the seabed of the abyss beneath this ocean of dismay. He found himself, and thought he’d never touch the knife again. Like its handle would be poison to him. Like the shame would never end.
He would be strong. He would face his darkest self. A hero from one of the stories.
Until the champion ran away for good.
Until they both left.
Forever.
* * *
Feychilde had been out all day. Jaroan was up to the part of the story with the necromancer’s pyramid, and was not to be disturbed. Xantaire had taken Xastur somewhere in Oldtown, and Orstrum had fallen asleep on his granddaughter’s bed, snoring peacefully.
Left to her own devices, Jaid wandered the apartment with unshed tears in her eyes, tracing the spines of the books on the shelves with her fingertips. When she got bored, she found some dust that needed dusting and some washing to wash. She braided her hair, and dutifully popped the end of the braid in her teeth as she went about the remaining chores she could find for herself.
She had no words for it, but she knew the emotion on an instinctive level: she was adrift. There’d been a time when family had been enough for her to know her place, what she was made for. To exist in this cocoon of familiarity. To satisfy her pleasures with flights of fancy, escape the meagre morsels of food and the cold, creaky mud of Sticktown on the wings of words. She’d always known that one day she’d have to grow up, but she thought it would always be in the next decade, next year, always a tomorrow away. And even if it came, even if reality rushed down to meet her imagination early, it surely couldn’t arrive before her fifteenth birthday, could it?
Yet it had happened, before she was even ten. Somewhere between all the dizzying events of the last few months, reality had crept in – not a destructive wave to crush her dreams in one fell swoop, but a nauseating trickle of venom seeping through cracks in the walls of her mind. She couldn’t explain it. There were no words in her vernacular for what she was feeling; she knew the word vernacular, yet the proper expressions still eluded her, too few accumulated experiences to draw on.
She was alone, before herself, exposed to herself in a way that she’d never known before, and the consciousness of her own existence was terrifying.
There were no flights of fancy. The stories in the books were just reflections on a puddle’s ripples, distorted before they even came into being. Even the Infernal Incursions – they’d always been at worst a semi-present danger. Now she’d seen it up close. She ate and walked and slept and dreamt within the shadows of a champion and his friends.
Her curious mind eventually seized upon the correct phrase.
Purposelessness.
It wasn’t quite enough. It was as though a second skin had been settled over her, unresponsive. Something hard. Brittle. But unbreakable. Halting all her movements, just a little. Slowing her, imperceptibly to all but her.
This is crystallised purposelessness.
That was it.
It wasn’t just a matter of what she needed to do with her life. Of course, there was that aspect – what can I do, what can I do that matters, without his powers? – but it was more than that. Feychilde – the change in Kas – it had drilled down into her identity and punctured the defenceless sack. She was leaking.
I’m leaking myself.
It’s not what I’m going to do. It’s who I am.
Who am I?
Eventually, something in her elected to take control of the body of flesh and blood and bone, dragging it down to the street.
There was no one to stop her. Who cared if it was dangerous? Feychilde would save her. He always saved them, no matter what was wrong.
She felt the eyes on her as soon as she shut the door behind her, but she drew a breath and composed herself before making her way across to the stairs, down into the mud.
Everyone knew. It was only a matter of time before someone said something to her about Feychilde. About Kas.
“Hey, Jaid!”
It was Iltri. Jaid increased her pace.
“Jaid? Jaid! Where’s your coat?”
Santamir Finnerfell’s voice. Instinct had forced her to turn her head just enough that she caught his upraised hand and expectant expression out of the corner of her eye – she forced her head back, staring straight in front of her as she started to skip –
Sweet Mother of the Mercies, where am I even going?
She had no answer – she only knew that she was going away.
Got to get out of here. Got to get away from me.
She knew that thirty, fifty, a hundred people were chasing after her. She could hear their splashing footfalls, their cries. She wouldn’t take the time to look back.
She was running now.
Why am I running? Running isn’t purpose. Running…
She only recognised what was really going through her head when she saw the fences, the bare tree-limbs of the shrine’s gardens.
She wanted to stop dead, root herself to the spot, but while she had the power to halt her running, Jaid nonetheless seemed incapable of coming to an actual stop. Her legs continued to eat up the distance, bringing her closer and closer at a steady walking pace. Despite her reduced speed, the hordes of inquisitive neighbours never caught up to her, and she caught herself before she cast about in surprise.
I imagined it. It’s a dream.
Just a dream.
So it was that she proceeded alone into the graveyard of Yune.
There were other people here, but they didn’t recognise her. She was safe. Some of the mourners she passed by smiled at her, speaking platitudes and wishing her the season’s greetings. She merely fixed a grin on her face, leered back at them.
Drop on them. They don’t know me. They don’t know what I’ve been through.
They reacted inappropriately to her offensive grimace, most of them sidestepping confusion and going straight for pity.
Jaid looked away, needing to avoid them. She didn’t know how her twin did this, lived like this.
She quickly veered off the well-trodden paths, entering the trees where she could flit towards her destination without further interactions. She bowed her head and looked down at her feet, watching the things on the ends of her legs as they went stomping through the scattered twigs, the long, frozen grasses, heedless of the noise, the destruction.
Not my destination. Their destination.
Everyone had been moaning about it, but the cold only touched her when she was kneeling there beside the grave. A frigid wind lapped the grass, her hair, her dress, sneaking in through the arms and neck and hem of the garment, sending shivers racing up her spine. The sky started to spit.
She sighed, and gave in, sinking down onto her backside. Who cared if she got wet, colder? It didn’t matter anyway.
She never liked talking to the dead, and liked it even less now she’d long-since said all she had to say. But this was different. She looked inside, and was left empty. She needed something from outside and there was no one else to give it to her.
I need you.
“Hello again,” she whispered.
“Hello, honey,” Mum said.
She dreamed the response. She could remember their voices, of course. Maybe she was wrong. But there was nothing stopping her from making her memory her new reality.
“Is it all just a dream?”
“What, honey? Is what a dream?”
“This. Everything. Everything that’s happened.”
“Now why would you go and say something like that?”
“Because you’re dead, but you’re still not gone, are you? Not really. I’ve seen it, Mum. I’ve seen what they can do. You’re never gone. I’ll never be gone. Even if I wanted to be…”
Mum didn’t answer.
What is the answer?
“It’s not a dream.” Dad’s severe voice shook her – she looked up at the gravestone in surprise, but there was only the brief message assigned by the ministers, half-obscured by the untouchable creeping moss:
LOCUS KNEW THEM – IN CELESTIAL INK SHALL THEIR SPIRITS FLOW FROM THE SCHOLAR’S PEN, AND BE AT REST UPON THE PAGE – UNTIL NIGHTFALL
“Dad?”
“It’s not a dream,” the priest repeated – now she located the sound she twisted about on the icy ground, facing into the drizzle on the wind. He was standing there, not fifteen feet from her, but in her reverie she must’ve missed the sounds of his approach below the breeze. His robe was brown, his frame short and thin. The man’s ruddy hair was greying at the temples, and contemplative eyes sparkled from deep-set sockets in his narrow face.
“But… but if you go on forever, isn’t it –“
“It’s not a dream. You can’t escape that way, even if you stumble across keys from time to time… No, it’s all that matters. Life shapes your soul. You need more than a dried-up heart, Jaid Mortenn. You need a clean spirit, a meaning, to pass through the gate.”
“How… How do you know who I am?”
“Who are you?” He asked the question directly, sharply, without any mysticism in his tone, which only served to further bewilder her.
“You – like you just said –“
“I know your name, but I don’t know who you are, child. Am I alone in that, or can I keep you company?”
She gaped at him.
You seem to know everything about me…
“Identity. The meaning of life.” He smiled thinly. “Only you can answer this, and you can answer it only for yourself. If it were otherwise, your soul would be shared, would it not? You would not be yourself. No, even one who knows you from this very place cannot roll that stone. Your epitaph shall be your own.” She saw the eyes lower briefly to the grave, then return once more to her face, and it was in a softer voice that the priest continued. “But do not be dismayed. The young do not know who they are; the gods war within the soul, disguised, and only time can tell whether light shall prevail, or the darkness be invited in.”
His turn of phrase – she knew him then.
He buried our parents.
He… He understood…
“You shall find yourself. Allow yourself time. Chraunator gives before he takes.”
“My brother, he… he has darkness within him. I think it might win.”
The priest nodded gravely. “Yet the heart of the champion, even the demonologist, is uplifted to the light. The fire of archmagery is not fully understood, but this much we of the clergy hold true: it is holy. It is not to be hindered by men’s hands.”
I… I meant Jaroan…
So this minister had already heard of Feychilde’s true identity, then – he’d put two and two together quickly, when he’d recalled Jaid’s name.
“Why did you come over to me?” she challenged him suddenly.
‘I heard the sister of Sticktown’s greatest champion was sitting in the grass, and…’
“There were reports,” he spoke sombrely, “of a girl striding through the wood, disconsolate and alone. I knew not who you were, Kultemeren as my witness, until I approached.”
“But when you saw me. When you realised who I was, it was exciting.”
The thin lips on the narrow face formed a crooked smile, and the older man shrugged lightly. “I am but human.”
“You hoped we’d start talking about my brother. Kastyr.”
“Child, I do not think –“
“I live in his shadow!” she cried. “I can’t, I can’t move, I can’t breathe – it’s too much! I didn’t even… I didn’t even mean Kas!”
There was a pause as he probably recalled the fact she had a male twin.
“Ah,” was all he could say.
“Yeah,” she spat, returning her gaze to her parents’ moss-covered gravestone. “And what about darkmages? Maybe being an archmage looks all holy, from outside, but on the inside? On the inside, it’s just like anything else. It’s…”
Decay.
She waved a hand, indicating everything, the mess of a world that surrounded her and this one sanctified, familiar place.
“Darkmages are aberrations,” the minister of Mortiforn said. “And even if every archmage so invested chose the darkness, this would remain true. It takes but one drop of filth to contaminate the vial of pure water. Yet we do not say all water is thus contaminated. We cannot excuse our inaction if the integrity of the city’s water-supply were threatened. We will not be overcome by the possibility of failure before we begin, and we will not call the holy unholy even if by our inaction we seek to permit its condemnation. Are the gods condemned as one, because so many of them are shadow-makers?”
She was still staring at the stone, letting his words wash over her.
Break upon her like raindrops on the cold grave, running off into the ground.
People will never be clean.
Her eyes narrowed as she suddenly understood exactly what had happened here.
If I kick their grave, will it happen to me?
It wasn’t something she could’ve brought herself to do, even if the fate of Materium depended on it. She didn’t have in her whatever it was in Kas that produced that action, the savage attack on their memories represented by the single fateful flick of a leg.
The sense of betrayal he carried around with him until that day had evaporated afterwards, though. His resentment of them… That was what it’d always been. What had driven him to this very spot, made him bring them so often, until that day.
Was that what he was feeling, all this time?
Was that what left him when the power filled him?
That’s what I need, she realised. But it’s not them I resent. It’s…
It’s him. It’s me. It’s all of us.
One word, one raindrop stuck.
“Filth. One drop of drop…”
“Child…” He almost said it reprovingly, like ‘drop’ was a proper swear-word.
“So you’re saying – if they had a single drop of drop in them – they won’t go to Celestium – they’ll be –“ she waved her hand at the grave furiously “– they’ll be somewhere else, somewhere dark, and Jaroan, he…”
I’ll go with him into the darkness. He’s changed, and he’s changed me –
“The Lord Suffering’s scalpel shall remove the detritus from their souls,” the priest said in a soothing voice. “They shall pass together beneath the arch, if they have not already done so. Rest assured.”
“But I bet you say that to everyone! Lies.”
“Truth… Lies… I am not sworn to Kultemeren.” He sighed. “Saying such words is all my purpose, child.” She heard the tremor in his voice, and looked up at him in surprise: he was gazing about the graveyard. “Is this not the place for hope?” he finished.
He wasn’t looking at her, suddenly-watery eyes scanning the trees – but the way she seemed to shake his faith restored her own.
He was right.
Hope!
“Truth or lies, it doesn’t matter,” she breathed.
He broke out of his reverie, stared at her strangely.
“You speak as one who has endured great suffering, Jaid Mortenn.” She saw as a faint smile twisted his lips, not happy or sad but somehow both simultaneously. “Far be it from me to steer your course, yet I might be your lighthouse, if this darkness seems overwhelming. Have you considered a future in the ministry? We would accept neophytes from their tenth year.”
“I… Learning about Nethernum – I’m sure it’s interesting –“
His smile broadened. “Oh, in the first years you would spend most of your time preparing corpses for the worms or winds, as their souls desire.” He saw her blench and carried on regardless, the softness of his voice enthralling her despite the disgust his words caused in her. “You are used to rough passage. We offer your vessel not quiet waters, but still: the silent expanse, where the emptiness within might be mirrored without. It is slow going at the oars, traversing the void – but rewarding when one comes at last to journey’s end.” He winked. “So I hope.”
His jest helped her realise what he meant:
‘Rewarding when one comes at last to journey’s end.’
Rewarding when you die.
She opened her mouth to reply, but the Mourning Bells spoke instead, pealing down from Hightown on a blast of wind that flattened the grass.
Gong! Gong! Gong!
There was no need to speak
He ran back to Mud Lane with her hand in his, wordless the whole way except to discuss the best route for her to return home. He almost lost her once, when the teeming crowds of panicked people split in half at an alleyway – but he kept his grip on her hand. When at last she reached her building he didn’t even stop her to bid her farewell, but went wading off towards Cutterwells at a more leisurely pace.
She watched the brown-robed man until he vanished around the bend, envious of the way he, unencumbered by a young dependent, walked casually while the Incursion descended on the city. The way he stopped to help others, even if only to move out of their way. He was in no rush.
It was power.
Rewarding, when you die.
And the next time she saw Brother Porsico, she was ready.
* * *
“The funniest thing happened to me the other day,” Xantaire said in a dreamy voice, sitting back with her eyes closed, mug of wine in her lap.
“Go on,” Jaid said automatically, moving her fortify piece backwards and forwards, unable to settle on a move.
Jaroan merely arched a single eyebrow at Xan, something he’d been practising. No one could see in the dim candlelight, he supposed, but he felt compelled to arch the eyebrow all the same.
“Well, there were these two people in Hontor’s – wait, I’m telling it all wrong. What happened is, I hear some guy say: ‘Hey! Who’re you hiding from?’ So I turn and look, of course, and sure enough someone’s crouching in the corner, in kind of a strange position, you know?”
Next Jaroan perfectly executed an eye-roll. Or, at least, he hoped it was perfect. It’d felt like a good one.
“She’s crouching, you know, like she was sitting down, except there’s no seat? Well, it was too good of an opportunity. I went up and said, ‘Finally – there you are!’ They laughed, then he said: ‘Now it’s your turn, Xantaire’…”
Jaid’s indecision was starting to get on his nerves. All the time Xan was talking, there was this incessant little scrape-tap-tap-scrape-tap-tap going on in the background. It was worse than the Bells.
“… like, ‘How do you know my name?’ Only, it’s only gods-damned Lerg Manatown and his sister!”
“Oooooh,” her grandfather cooed.
“I know! Been ten years since I seen them… Supposed to be meeting them for a drink sometime, but with the whole Kas situation –“
“Will you stop that?” Jar finally snapped, slamming his hand down on the board, sending half the pieces jumping in place. Three of Jaroan’s Minions fell over, but he didn’t care: at least his sister had frozen, the Swamp Hag in her hands no longer scraping or tapping the wood.
“I can’t stop! I can’t think!” Jaid muttered, lowering the Hag and moving her hand back. “Something’s wrong.”
He felt a cold smile slip across his face as he gazed upwards, as if to stare through the ceiling into the sky, where, perhaps, extra-dimensional entities warred with archmages above the earth.
Without even looking, he swept his arm across the board and knocked most of the pieces out of position. Some fell to the floor, plinking lightly as they rolled under the table.
“What’re you doing that for?” she snapped, grabbing his hand and stopping him, even though it was pointless now – the game was ruined.
“Well, why not?” He stood up, the smile still on his face. “Feychilde’ll be fighting demons for real. Never know – they might even come here again.”
“You quit because you were going to lose!”
He snorted. “Whatever.”
Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.
“No, seriously!”
Jaid tried her best pitiful gaze. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes, still staring up and smiling – but he could feel her regard. The air in the room was burning with tension.
“You want them to come here again,” she murmured.
Now he whipped his head about to stare at her.
Maybe I do, his mind whispered. At least it’d be something.
“Disgusting,” his mouth sneered.
“Jaid!” Xan barked at her from across the room, glaring at his sister, half-angry, half-horrified.
“What?” His sister said it like she was about to start crying. “Why are you blaming me? It’s him! It’s his fault!”
“Demonnnnnnnn,” Xastur said, wide eyes on his mother as he stood by her hip. “Deeeeeeeee-mon! Demons have claws!”
“I’ve had enough of this!” Xantaire snapped, ignoring him, her eyes brimming as she stared at Jaid and Jaroan. “You both need to sort your acts out. Five save us! Isn’t it enough already? Why do you have to make it worse?”
“Xantaire…” Orstrum tried to interject.
“No! No, old man, you stop too! I have to think about my son!”
She swept Xassy into her arms, stalked to her room, and slammed her door shut behind them.
“Well, that was dramatic,” Jaroan drawled.
“What’s happened to you, boy?” Orstrum growled. Jaroan hadn’t seen him like this in a long time, and it gave him pause. “Yes, bad things have happened to you. Yes, the world is a mess. Why do you think we have stories? Five save us indeed! What would Wyre do, or Litenwelt, or Brenwe? Do you think they’d be angry all the time?”
“They were archmages!” he retorted. “The greatest of them all.”
“Well what about me? Do you think you’re the only one who feels powerless?”
“You’re angry? Sorry, I couldn’t tell through all the drugs.”
“Well, my boy…” Orstrum passed a hand across his face. “Well maybe I’m ashamed – and maybe I’m not. Looks to me like one who refuses to be decent shouldn’t demand perfection from others. If my worst sin is trying to lighten my mood, so be it. At least I’m not trying to make every minute a living nightmare for those around me.”
That made the smile on his face slip. Jar slowly sank back into his seat.
“Yes, there’s something wrong,” Orstrum finished, gentleness entering his voice again. “Wait – that isn’t what I was going to…” He shuddered, choking: “Going to say…”
Orstrum’s brain must’ve fired off the command to utter those last three words, his tongue going through the motions even as the ragged figure began to materialise in their midst.
The old man fell back in his chair, eyes bulging in fright. Jaroan reached for Jaid’s hand, instinctively sliding away from the apparition, but it was too late.
Jaid cried out for Xantaire and Feychilde, an echo of the Mourning Bells still pealing out across the city.
It was no good. Jaid’s screams would avail them nothing. Jaroan stared, transfixed in terror, as the fiend took form not six feet from him.
It was a thing swathed in – maybe made out of – cloth.
Jar vaguely recalled Kas mentioning one of the most dangerous adversaries he’d seen: a demon of rags like this, shooting coloured lights from its hands…
But the only visible part of this attacker was a trio of awful nails, like blades of rust extending from a sleeve. No rays of light.
Then it spoke, its Rivertown accent suddenly shocking him into understanding.
Heretic.
The voice was young, deep – confident.
“You gotta understand, this ain’t about you. But yer all dead already. I’m just doin’ the gods’ work wi’ yas.”
Lethargy stole over him. Jaroan felt his eyes filling with tears as he slumped over.
His hand, still reaching for Jaid’s, fell limp from his wrist like a dead fish.
“Yer just gotta die. It’s a price what wants payin’. I’m sorry.”
Darkness, as the darkmage’s spells enveloped him.
Smiling, as he descended into it.
Feychilde will come.
* * *
A while ago she would’ve prayed to Yune, prayed for Kas to come back and rescue them, but there was no way that wasn’t happening. She didn’t need to pray – their brother was already on his way. No, Mortiforn was on her mind, and there was the heretic’s turn of phrase ringing in her ears. The thought she spoke was to Lord Suffering, if there were indeed any ear intended to catch it.
If there’s a price to be paid, let someone else pay it. I’m tired of settling a champion’s debts.
She thought at first it was the argument that had awoken her, and it took her a moment to isolate the otherworldly scent of Avaelar’s breath in her consciousness.
“This is it.” Xantaire’s voice, resolute. “It’s too much. You’ve got to go.”
“What?” Her twin. “No! This is our house! You go!”
Jaid could see herself coming down on either side of that particular debate. Her heart agreed with Jar, but her mind… her mind saw the truth.
“Truth or lies, it doesn’t matter. Hope!”
“Xan – Xan, it’s not enough. Y-you’re in danger, wherever I go, if they know you were…”
She listened to his words with her eyes closed, and it wasn’t the champion she heard – it was her brother. Her protector. Her teacher. And his heart was breaking.
When she opened her eyes, Jaid saw the champion sitting there, but it was her brother inside. He was still in there, still the same unsure, uncertain Kas, trying to do his best with another terrifying situation.
She crossed to him, hugged him, and lied to him.
It was only then that he started to tell them what had actually happened – what her casual, off-hand prayer bought for her second-favourite arch-druid.
Kas didn’t bother staying long. Within ten minutes of Jaid waking from the heretic’s spell, he was gone again. They were apparently safe once more, but the patrol of huge, nice-smelling squirrels he’d left in the apartment seemed to suggest otherwise.
As distractingly-cute as the creatures were – Jaid kept following them with her eyes, kept listening to their chirps in case she could extract some meaning, accusation, from it – she found herself returning her attention, again and again, to the spot where Nighteye had fallen. Feychilde’s minions had done a good job of cleaning up, but she imagined the mess as it might’ve been. She’d never met the druid, but she’d always known exactly what he’d looked like. The town-criers gave repetitive descriptions of all new champions, and she could remember the morning she’d first heard of him. Kas had actually obtained a proper news-paper, which contained an artist’s impression of the event – she could still see it before her mind’s eye as though it had been yesterday. A scrawled sketch of a short man walking out of an inferno, robed in fire-singed green, with a long pole like a bannister-rail slung over one shoulder. Clinging to the bending wooden beam was easily ten times his body-weight in soot-coated children, almost two-dozen of them hanging on for dear life as he carried them from the blaze.
And now he is dead. Because of me. Because I didn’t want to pay the price.
She looked at the blackened line in the wall where the killing-blow had fallen. A thin, jagged slice through the wood. Through Nighteye’s neck.
Like a sword.
Stormsword?
Certainty flooded her. She closed her eyes.
And Princess went for a paint-job. That’s code for dead, isn’t it? Princess died in the Incursion… Or right here, before he woke us up, fighting the heretic… He just didn’t have the heart to tell me…
She felt so guilty for all her previous thoughts, her attitude towards him. Kas was just trying to keep them afloat while the world went down the whirlpool. Kas, and Feychilde – they were two different people inhabiting the same body. It wasn’t that Kas had changed, not really – not yet, anyway. It was more like he was possessed. Like he had to put up with this other persona, stealing his time, his life…
She went for a wash, lit new candles, and headed to bed. The Bells had stopped. Whatever fate Kas was imagining for himself, for the rest of them, it couldn’t have been worse than the Incursion.
Her dreams knew better.
In her dreams, she stands at the side of a ditch in a road. A tall scythe is planted in the mud at her feet, and the long blade gleams over her in the moonlight, swaying in the breeze. Feychilde stands in the ditch below her, looking up at her. She can’t make out his expression below the mask – it looks like he is frowning, but it’s hard to tell. The distance, perhaps, makes his face amorphous.
She glances up at the scythe. It watches. It waits.
“Must you?” she asks.
The responding voice is a child’s, more so than her own – yet it is the steel which speaks, metallic inflections ringing in her ears.
“You already know. He must… pay. You cannot… pay for him.”
“Does he have to pay this way?”
“So must we all.”
The scythe swings itself. The grips are in her hands, but it swings itself, she swears it.
The beheaded one in the ditch topples. The devious covering comes loose, and she sees the facelessness beneath the mask. It’s not that he has no expression. It’s that he has no face to begin with.
No face.
“Only now can you see.”
She woke up, the words of the god-child, the words of the weapon still slicing through her memory.
Only now can I see…
She twisted in the covers, looking over instantly at Kas’s bed.
Empty. Unmade, the quilts left half hanging-off, but not from last night’s use. It was exactly how it’d looked when she went to bed.
He didn’t come home.
She roused Jar, pointing.
And that was the end of things, the end of the world as she knew it.
* * *