JET 8.0: SPILT MILK
“Silence is not the absence of sound. You have it backwards. Sound relies upon silence for its being. Is the plaster the absence of paint? Or is paint an attempt to cover something we find less palatable? We fear the meaning of silence. The gods fear it. Even birds fear it. Every word is nothing more than an attempt to suppress it. Stop and listen. Beneath the wind. Beneath the soil. It is there. It is always there, waiting for you.”
– from ‘The Book of Kultemeren’, 12:189-195
5th Yunara, 999 NE
Xantaire Tarent had always known it would come to this. She had so few allies left – her safe places felt like traps, her options limited one by one until she was faced with a single route forwards, a last-resort way out of her predicament.
She picked up her Rose Lord and moved him eight spaces, towards the Northern Hold, Jaid’s fortress.
“Aha,” Jaroan exclaimed, his voice a little lower, less excited than usual. “She fell for it.”
He sidestepped with his Ogre and took out the Rose Lord in a move she should’ve seen coming a mile off.
“Wyrda’s maw!” she swore, then pressed her fingers to her lips in contrition; the twins smiled wanly and Grandpa gave her an arch look.
“You can shut up, old man… You’re not doing any better, you know!”
“Perhaps not,” Orstrum chuckled, “but I know how to lose gracefully.”
He moved his Moon Guard, an innocuous little sidestep designed to set up a later move. Then Jaid’s Unicorn charged from out of nowhere –
“And sploosh the Moon Guard…”
Orstrum, despite his earlier words, gave an involuntary wince.
Jaid tipped Granpa’s figurine over, and Xantaire shuddered; the twins acted as though this fortify set were as durable (and cheap) as the wooden, home-carved one they’d been using for years.
It was basically the only thing the Magisterium hadn’t taken… except the things she’d had Xastur hide. Those were probably gone forever, too.
“Sploosh,” Jaroan said, looking down at the unicorn model.
Xantaire saw the glumness in the boy’s expression, emotions whirling in his eyes, emotions usually kept so well-hidden – and she felt tears start in the corners of her own eyes.
Sploosh. That was something Kas used to say.
She hurriedly took her next move, selecting her last Mushroom Man. She wouldn’t be able to make Jaroan feel better by deliberately leaving a piece out in the open – the twins were too smart: they wouldn’t fall for it, and they’d know she was pandering to them. Instead she invaded Jaroan’s territory ferociously, playing a teleportation card and hopping over his defences.
Making him focus on winning the game – that was what would distract him the most.
His Fireblade came careening across the field of play to consume the Mushroom Man anyway, and Xan actually froze in shock.
“Been waiting for you to play that since you picked it up,” he said, wearing a tight, savage grimace.
“But… we draw the cards blindly,” she protested in a weak voice.
He sighed and shook his head, the look on his face one of pity almost to the point of scorn; his sister’s expression was less scornful, more amused; and they both turned those aloof eyes on Orstrum.
“I’m just going to check on Xas,” she said, unwrapping the blanket around her knees and getting up from the table, moving to her room.
She needed an excuse to grab the cake, after all.
A quick peek into the bedroom told her that her son was safe and sound, chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm. The scar on his cheek was almost invisible, a pale line only her eyes could pick out.
At least one thing’s still right with the world.
The rest of it had gone right to hell.
It’d all started with that damnable Vardae, Everseer, whatever she wanted to call herself. By all accounts she’d once been a hero, a champion amongst champions – then she’d been killed, apparently, and unmasked in death, with those who’d known her confirming her as the victim. For years she’d been gone, but apparently behind the scenes she was the orchestrator of all these terrible events – the rumour went that she was probably behind half the murdering that’d happened since the day she went missing.
But what had the dark seeress expected? A mass exodus? For people to actually give up their lives and livelihoods, their homes and possessions, strike out into the unknown and scrabble over resources in the winter landscapes? Maybe, when summer came around… if Everseer made another plea to the public like the last one… provided a bit of evidence, something to make it more believable… maybe, just maybe, people would start leaving. But from what she’d heard, it was only the cowards who’d ran – the richer the likelier, apparently. She wasn’t surprised.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
What was Vardae going to do? Actually kill everyone? Everyone in Mund? Because of some story about dragons? She was insane, through and through. There was just no way they’d let that happen. Someone would stop her first – that was simply the way of things. The town-criers had reassured the crowds of Sticktown that Everseer had spoke nothing but half-baked theories like any street-corner madman, and that they’d ensure everyone’s safety – Xan had heard it in person from Emrelet, who was also intending to stay despite the warnings.
Emrelet, who’d confirmed Kas’s fate in a quiet voice, her face drawn, eyes alight with anger.
No, it had to be nonsense, or close enough. This was Mund. Xantaire felt safe. If she thought for one moment that joining a refugee train out of the Sticktown Gate into the frozen unknown would improve Xastur’s chances at living, she’d have headed out in a heartbeat. But it just wasn’t credible. Kas had never mentioned any of it… Was that because it was Heresy? No – there was no way. If he’d known, he would’ve said something… wouldn’t he?
The things Everseer said, about him and Nighteye, though… These were things Em wouldn’t confirm, things Kas never went into even when he’d explained how the arch-druid gave his life for them.
Did he hide all this from us all along?
And it hadn’t really mattered whether it was nonsense. All the reassurances in the world hadn’t stopped people kicking up a storm. There’d been rioting, the first two nights – just an excuse for brawling with the watch and conducting a little heavy-handed burglary, really. Though when the watch started clocking off early and joining in with the rioters, things got really out of hand and the magisters were called in.
That put an end to the disruption in about an hour, at least around Helbert’s Bend.
She’d never experienced such discontent amongst the people, though. Many of them were still recovering from wounds inflicted by careless mages, whose only instructions had seemingly been to ‘keep the peace’, at any costs. At least they hadn’t killed anyone – yet. If the general mood of frustration didn’t start to disappear, she worried that it would only be a matter of time before the Magisterium started slaughtering dissidents, and then it really might’ve been worth getting out of the city…
Jaid and Jaroan were discussing their next move silently, just their eyes flickering, conveying more in a glance than she’d manage with ten words. She had a bit of time. She stepped inside the bedroom as though wanting to perform a more thorough check on her son, then closed the door behind her and leaned her head back on it, shutting her eyes.
Why, Kas? Why did you let yourself get caught?
Emrelet hadn’t gone into any details. The magister’s hands were tied on the subject, according to her at least, but there’d been something shifty about the way the arch-wizard kept on looking aside at certain moments. Whenever Xan had questioned her on the finer points of the post-Incursion madness, this strange look had come over her face that Xan had never seen before.
She knows something, she’d thought at the time. Something she won’t share. Then the sense of suspicion had been washed away with the realisation of just how much this must’ve been hurting her.
The love of her life… or at least her first real love…just gone forever into the darkness, just like that.
Yet when she’d offered a shoulder to cry on the archmage had rejected her, turning away and flying off into the night.
Didn’t she know… I needed someone too?
She’d wept with Orstrum, the morning after Kas had been taken away, once the twins had finally fallen into a fitful sleep. She’d let down her barriers in front of Grandpa, at least. But he was too old, too jaded to feel the way she did. He’d gotten over Kas’s loss within a few hours of mourning, in the passage of a few long sighs… that was it.
It wasn’t the same for her, or Em. Nor for Xas. Nor for the twins.
So soon, after Morsus…
Now, standing in the light of a solitary candle with the crown of her head pressed against the wooden door, Xan let those two tears slide down her cheeks. At least in here she could mask her grief. Once she stepped back out into the main room, she’d have to be herself again. Strong. Unbending. Dependable. A rock for the others to cling to.
She picked up the small cake on the bedside table, and lit the two nice candles she’d kept aside especially for this occasion.
Why couldn’t you be here for this? Kas? They’re ten, you know. They’re ten, and you’re…
She gritted her teeth.
I’ve got to stop doing this. You’re gone, Kas! Gone for good.
She drew another deep breath, blinked away the tears, and stooped down over her son. “Xassy? It’s time. You want to see the twins blow out their candles, right?”
Her sleepy-headed son trailing after her, his little arms thrown wide in a stretch, she opened the door even as she locked down her thoughts. Smiling fixedly, she lifted her voice along with the candle-crowned cake:
“Happy birthday dear ones, happy birthday dear ones… “
Orstrum joined in, and Xastur caught up on the last line, sitting in Grandpa’s lap.
She saw the twins trying to smile too, saw their sad eyes, and her body took control, whimpering, halting.
In her mind she relived the moment – lowering the glyphstone, seeing the golden squirrels he’d left to guard them vanish in seething green bubbles…
As the song she was leading died away the cake slid out of her hand and was dashed all over the floor; she watched it happen, incapable of doing anything to stop it.
Then she was on her knees beside the sugary mess and it hit her, really hit her. She couldn’t see through her tears.
She wanted Morsus to hold her. She wanted Kas, stupid, insolent Kas, to come popping through the wall like a ghost, just a head protruding from a random surface. It wasn’t ever going to happen. Not unless he died down there. Em had explained this ‘Magicrux Zyger’ in a single sentence:
“Zere is no magic in zat place, no returning – he is zere until he dies.”
But the twins came to her without saying a word, wrapping their arms around her, stepping right over the cake.
The cake didn’t matter. She mattered.
Why are they hugging me? she questioned, clinging to them as they clung to her, listening to Jaid’s loud sobs, feeling Jaroan’s constant shaking. She was angry, angry at herself, at Kas, at Mund and all these stupid magic-users. But angry at herself most of all. Herself, the one part of the recipe she had the power to control. Why is it I’m getting comforted by them?
She looked over at Grandpa, struggling to pick him out with her blurred vision; he was embracing Xastur tightly, and tears were twinkling in his own eyes – his not too-old, not too-jaded eyes.
He hadn’t gotten over it. He didn’t let go.
“How do you do it, old man?” she blurted.
“I don’t,” his voice returned, cracking. “I don’t!”
She saw him digging in his wane-pocket, something he wouldn’t have normally done around the children, and she looked away in shame.
After a few minutes, Jaid said in a hesitant voice:
“C-can we – can we still eat it?”
Xantaire laughed, a little desperate, despairing laugh.
“I did sweep up this afternoon, didn’t I?”
She freed an arm and stuck her finger in the gooey mess, then sucked it clean. The twins copied her, then they scooped some into a bowl, passing it up to Grandpa and Xassy.
But Xantaire, Jaid and Jaroan stayed sitting on the floor, eating off it until they’d picked it clean.
That was just the Sticktown way. No use crying over spilt milk, or dropped cake.
No use crying at all.
* * *