Maewys
Maewys doesn’t trust how wide-open the meeting spot is. Upon returning to Midtown, a tall, willowy young woman with short-cropped hair greeted her like an old friend she’s known all her life. She embraced the Elemnist and whispered in her ear a street address and a time before letting her go and waving goodbye. Maewys expected some shadowy corner or seedy establishment, like a pawnshop or narrow bar. A cafe occupied the border of Midtown and the Upper City, on the edge of a plaza, in full view. She tenses up as a Garrison patrol crosses the square, the lieutenant in charge looking at the cafe in question and stroking their chin in thought. But they pass and Maewys lets out an uneasy breath, relaxing.
“You need to calm down,” Ephel says. “There is nothing more suspicious than someone trying not to act suspicious.”
Maewys grits her teeth and huffs. “Then how should I act?”
“Like you belong,” Ephel says. Maewys seethes at the useless advice. She already bought a beverage. She doesn’t know the name of it—her native language can’t pronounce it and she’s never encountered such a thing before—and had to point it out on the menu sign when a server arrived. It’s bitter and black and served far too hot for the Elemnists liking. She’s sitting out in the open without a care in the world or, rather, pretending that all the cares in her world aren’t crushing her beneath their immense gravity. She’s even wearing a headscarf to conceal her vibrant, red hair, wrapped up tight so only her face is showing. What else does she have to do to seem like she “belongs?” Maewys takes a sip of her drink now that it’s cooled, letting it trickle out of her mouth and back into her cup. It tastes even worse when it’s cold.
Just as she was contemplating leaving, another willowy young woman joins her at her table. There’s a kind smile on her face, although her eyes don’t share it, and she carries a writing slate slung from her shoulder. Much like the person who had greeted Maewys when she was crossing into Midtown, this woman wears her dark hair short, stopping just at her earlobes. Without breaking eye-contact with Maewys, the stranger writes on her slate with a graphite stylus and holds out in front of her, resting the edge on the table.
“Hello!” it reads, and nothing else. Maewys looks at the text and flicks her eyes back to the stranger.
“Umm, hi?” Maewys says. “Why are you using that?” She points at the writing slate. The young woman drops her jaw enough to show off a gnarled stump of scar tissue where her tongue should be. “Lord Almighty, what kind of monster does this?” The stranger casts a casual glance at the Garrison patrol. Maewys’s skin crawls and such an insinuation.
The stranger takes her writing slate back and wipes off her greeting with a damp-looking cloth, replacing it with more text, “My name is Savyne sett Gavolin.” She wipes the slate clean before writing again. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Maewys,” the Elemnist replies. “Until I understand what’s happening, that’s all I can offer.” Savyne nods her head in understanding. She spends a considerable amount of time thinking before scribbling her next string of text across her writing slate.
“I am a Shadowarch of Clan Kentara.” Savyne brings a finger to her mouth in a shushing gesture. “My real name is Sevlin oth Kentara. I am taking the risk of trusting you with this information.” She flips her slate around. “Who are you?” Maewys relaxes. From what she’s seen, a Shadowarch who’s escaped the ghetto would go to extreme lengths to conceal their identity. Without an Elemnist adept in blood and bone, faking the missing tongue is impossible. This is not information given out of the goodness of Savyne’s—Sevlin’s?—heart.
“I am Maewys of the Ordo Elemnata,” the Elemnist says, not willing to divulge all of her secrets. Savyne raises an inquisitive brow. Maewys suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “The ‘Elemental Order’, as you outsiders would say.” She stirs her cold drink with a tin spoon, displacing nervous and frustrated energy. “My mission here is twofold: discover the whereabouts of the Ordo Labrythyne—the Librarian Order—and establish contact with them, and to update the Order about the status of Nuaranth’s Bright Casters and Shadowarchs.” Savyne perks up at this and leans close, committing Maewys’s next words to memory. “Based on what little I’ve witnessed, I have requested an immediate Ordo Invenitat—an Intervention Order.” Savyne really perks up at this, leaning halfway across the table. “But the Masters want more concrete proof. I can’t find it here in Midtown. I need access to the ghetto or Upper City.” Bureaucracy is the tool by which the cowardly justify inaction.
Savyne sits back, a hint of mania slipping into her wide grin, and scribbles across her writing slate. “Then you and I are friends.” Savyne wiggles her eyebrows. “Follow me.”
Savyne stands up, her chair creaking against the pavement, and makes for the cafe proper. Pushing whatever reservations she has aside, Maewys follows the strange woman, passing through the doors and entering darkness.
She did not enter the insides of that little border coffee shop. Instead, Maewys passed into a vast expanse of ink-blackness. Were it not for the doorway behind her, distance would be impossible to judge. She glanced back, half expecting to see the world as normal, but faces a sun-blasted parody of the outdoors. All light is exaggerated to the extreme, like the surrounding darkness, thin lines of shadow outlining each building and their minor details. Each mortar line, every wisp of steam, anything that casts a shadow. Maewys discovered this place in books while growing up in the Holy City. It’s known as the Dark Place by those who are misinformed. Masterclass Shadowarchs, like the former Commander of the Upper City Watch, know it better as Thurion of the Abyss.
It’s a technique all Shadowarchs possess, and one that only Shadowarchs can control. Soon, the suffocating dark encroaches on Maewys, her body being subsumed by the inky depths. Choking and breathless, she slices open her palm and flails her wound around, splattering blood in every direction. If she can make an Elemnatic connection with Savyne…
The forbidding presence lifts, and Maewys drops to her knees. She coughs and sputters while trying to fill her lungs with air, her chest burning and seizing. Heavy footsteps walk over to the entrance, and the Elemnist glances back over her shoulder. Everything is as it should be. The stained glass windows mitigate the harsh sunlight, sprinkling the cozy insides of the cafe with myriad colors. A broad-shouldered figure closes the door, hair dark and cut short, as is the apparent fashion.
“I’m sorry about that,” the figure says, a woman, voice low and throaty. “I had to be sure that you weren’t a Bright Caster.” She makes a gesture and, with practiced promptness, more young women haul Maewys off the ground and plop her into a braided seat. A girl, still young, brings over a cup and saucer, placing more of the liquid the Elemnist despises. Although the addition of hot honey might improve it, but now doesn’t seem like an appropriate time for culinary experimentation.
These girls and women, Shadowarchs judging by their build and complexion—not to mention the association with Savyne—take much greater care of shuttering the windows and setting up a seat for their leader than when they handled Maewys. The woman in question, with broad shoulders and dark hair tressed up in short braids, flips the “open” sign to “closed” and faces the Elemnist.
Sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes characterize her worn and weathered face, frown lines like crags in a red-rock cliff. Her complexion reminds Maewys of dessicated clay, much like the leftovers the young Elemnists of the sanctuaries neglect to store in its proper place; dark but paling, dehydrated and languishing. The corners of her mouth twitch to smile, but the muscles beneath the skin have forgotten what one looks like. Instead, the frown deepens, a grimace levied toward some unseen target above and behind Maewys’s head.
The woman steps forward, her Shadowarchs parting and huddling in the dark corners of the cafe, and she takes a seat opposite the Elemnist. “My name is Kuna oth Lunurian.” Kuna weaves her fingers together, resting her elbows on the table. “I am the matriarch of Clan Lunurian, and the leader of this little rebellion.” Her mouth twitches again. Another failed smile. “I warn you, I can kill you anytime.”
If that’s a threat, it’s not an effective one. Maewys has already bridged a connection using the fine dirt and dust on the floor, linking the two of them by their feet. Still, she feels a wriggling beneath her clothes, as if an insect has wormed its way underneath and is now crawling across her skin. Perhaps Elemnistry and Shadowarchy are more similar than they are different.
Taking a deep breath, Maewys breaks her connection with Kuna and places her hands palm side down on the table.
“I am not your enemy,” she says, “in fact, I am one of the few Elemnists who is trying to help you. My master sent me here on a twofold mission: first, reestablish communications with the Ordo—with the Librarian Order. Second, determine what level of aid Nuaranth’s Shadowarchs require.”
Kuna chuckles and Maewys can feel the sticky, prickly feeling under her clothes recede. “So, what ‘level of aid’ do we require, Elemnist?”
“I’m of the mind that Nuaranth needs a full military intervention,” Maewys says with blunt certainty, eyes unblinking. A genuine smile spreads across Kuna’s lips, an unnerving sight. Maewys is aware of the surrounding chattering growing in volume. The Shadowarch rebels seem to multiply in the dark, the true extent of their numbers secreted inside their abyssal sanctuary. “It’s not my decision to make, but I intend to inundate the masters and elders of the greater Ordo with every shred of evidence I can. I will force them to take action, Lady Kuna.”
“Is the purge of Nuaranth’s Elemnists not enough?” Kuna asks, voice hard. “The Garrison murdered nearly every one of them, save a few of my associates.”
Maewys blinks, her heart tightening in her chest. She keeps her face a stony mask, yet her fingers curl down against the table. She lets out a breath. “Despite common beliefs, pacifist Elemnists won’t simply give up. That you know of some tells me they are hiding. I intend to find them and use their testimony to sway the elders.”
A heavy silence falls between them. Kuna’s expression twists into a furrow of brows, debating herself while Maewys looks on with expectant eyes. Her face falls into familiar neutrality.
“Tell me,” Kuna says, her expression unknowable. She takes Maewys’s hand in her own, splaying their fingers wide. “Are you afraid to dirty your stainless hands?”
“Stainless?” Maewys shifts her hand, slipping her fingers between Kuna’s. “Kuna, I am a soldier, an Elemnist of the Ordo Melikinara. I am no stranger to death and murder.”
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Kuna flashes a mirthless smile, showing teeth before her face falls back to dread certainty. She clenches her own fingers around Maewys’s hands, their fingers interlinked with a wordless oath.
“You certainly are a cut above the rest,” Kuna says. She releases Maewys’s hand and stands up, chair scraping sharp against the floor. She scans the room, searching, eyes coming to a rest of Savyne. “I think you should introduce her to your husband, Sevlin.” She turns back to Maewys. “Goret sett Gavolin is a merchant with ties to Nuaranth’s art districts. He can get you into the Upper City, where the Councilors make their conclaves. You should find all the information you require from within their crystal walls.”
Maewys stands up and bows. “May iron barbs rust in your soil,” she says in her native Stygrian tongue, the Holy Speech of Durduna. This earns her another mouth twitch from the older woman.
Kuna makes a waving gesture with her hand, her retinue of rebels sinking into the liquid dark, save for the employees of the coffeehouse and Savyne. The three of them exit out into the open daylight, after Kuna dons a wide-brimmed stray hat.
“I have other business in the Lower City to attend to, Sevlin, so I leave our new friend in your care,” Kuna states. She looks to the Elemnist. “I will try to contact you again after you reach the Upper City. Our limited allies and operatives above will prepare the way for you. They will also try to keep the Garrison from asking too many questions about you. Except for that, you’re alone.”
Truly, Maewys is glad to be in touch with anyone. She must unravel Nuaranth’s sprawling tangle of strings, but, for now, she has a thread to pull on.
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Whereas Midtown and the Lower City mesh together in a gradient, the quality and upkeep of their component structures increasing with the city’s elevation, the border between the Upper City and Midtown is as concrete as its construction. Security checkpoints, gatehouses like fortresses staffed by the Nuaranth Garrison cordon each of the helical highways linking the two off. The Old Town neighborhood, acting as a slice of the life one finds up the shallow cliff face, is free to cross. The Art District, however, is deep in the new Upper City, where buildings of glass and steel mesh with Nuaranthian brick townhouses and highrises.
Maewys fiddles with her jacket buttons as Goret whistles next to her. He is a shorter fellow, a little thick in the waist, a trimmed mustache covering his upper lip. His salt and pepper hair is a little frazzled, fleshy face a little red, sweat beading across his forehead. He mans his horse-drawn cart as they inch closer to the security checkpoint, his payload of clay kept concealed beneath a soaked burlap tarp. She knows she shouldn’t feel nervous, Ephel would say as much if they dared to speak, but she can’t abrade the anxiety in her chest as the looming stone edifices grow taller as the cart draws closer.
Savyne had introduced Maewys to the man as her friend Raisha, a refugee from Lemlat looking to escape the war. As a favor, she had promised to find the so-called Raisha a job and pressured her husband into letting Maewys tag along onto one of his ventures into the Upper City.
“Where the money is better,” Savyne had said with her writing slate. No one brought up what to do with her should she fail, so Maewys thinks Goret knows more than he lets on.
Maewys’s heart seizes in her chest as a Garrison officer, flanked on either side by black armored Praetors, strolls up to Goret’s side. The merchant, with practiced ease, withdraws a folded slip of paper from his breast pocket and hands it over. It’s his merchant license and shipping manifest, although the officer orders the Praetors to search the contents of the cart.
“Who’s this?” They stare intently at Maewys. Maewys drops a hand to the wood, forming an Elemnatic connection with it.
“This is my new employee,” Goret says. “One of the wife’s friends from out of the city. She needs a little help to get her bearings. You know how it is.”
“I suppose.” The officer turns his attention to the Praetors, who return empty-handed. “You may pass.” Goret retrieves his papers and prods his horse along.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Maewys says, although she doesn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.
“Speak for yourself,” Goret huffs. “I was terrified. Am terrified. It’s terrifying up here.” He holds out a trembling hand. “I’ve heard tales of the Garrison’s treatment of Upper City shipments. And, personally, they’ve seized a shipment of marble because it ‘wasn’t white enough.’ I wouldn’t as a surprise if one of their sculptor relatives or spouses made a bust of Gwydorion sett Talivar with it.” Gwydorian, the Military Councilor and son of the High Councilor. Houser Talivar would be a mine of information, should Maewys get inside their walls.
Maewys thinks on that as they climb the spiral highway up into the glittering and fulgent Upper City, windows aglow with light crystals as bright as the white sun.
The Upper City is confounding to Maewys. How can such tall buildings support themselves? Isn’t the steel skeleton beneath all that glass struggling to remain upright, especially with the wind? And the ones hanging over the edge of the cliff, dripping down above Midtown: absolute sorcery. She can find no Elemnatic explanation for these gravity defying structures.
Goret navigates the free floating roadways linking the crystalline teeth together, moving down a side street behind the opaque walls of an art studio. Maewys can see through the glass into the open space of the ground floor where a twenty-foot statue stands, cut from soft marble and painted with vibrant colors. Few patrons are inside, important people if their Praetor security detail is anything to go by, clothed in dyed silks and gold threading. Goret helps Maewys off the cart and offers a handshake.
“I suppose this is where we part ways,” he says as they shake hands. “I imagine you’ll be busy up here. Though, I suppose, you’ll visit Sevlin from time to time.”
“If I can spare the time,” Maewys says. The man has a strange look on his face and, too late, Maewys realized they acknowledged Savyne by her real name.
“Stay out of trouble, yeah?” Goret doesn’t wait for a response and goes to unload his clay.
Maewys walks out to the main road, taking in her surroundings. A glass skinned Espreth drifts toward her, the core of molten gold swirling as it fixates on her backpack. With a start, the Elemnist realizes it must be trying to synchronize with Ephel. She backs away from the orb, but it insists on following her.
“Dragnel, get back here! You’ll get ‘commoner’ on you,” the Espreth’s owner says. Dragnel relents, golden core solidifying as it floats back to the side of its owner, an Upper City noblesse by the looks of her dress and her coiffed hair, festooned with rubies and gold thread. She’s in the company of other patricians, beautiful young women glittering with silver and gold and lustrous gemstones. Their silk dresses seem sewn on, skirts flared out and ruffled, varying in length between just below and just above the knees.
A veritable army of Praetors attends the dozen young women, three times their number—at least if not more—while a coterie of slaves, complete with armbands, carry their bags.
“That’s why I avoid those things,” another noblesse comments. By comparison, her dress is plain, her blonde ringlets unbothered by precious metals, an elegant silver chain around her neck. Maewys gets the impression that anything more would only detract from her natural allure rather than enhance it, unlike her fellows who use their wealth to enhance their looks. “They’re inquisitive by nature, the Espreths, and constantly get into places they don’t belong. Not to mention that Espreths communicate with one another. I don’t want a floating eye watching me as I bathe.” She fans herself with a lavender paper fan, haughty and superior.
“Lord Almighty, Lin, you only have to tell it not to. Problem solved,” the first noblesse says. She takes Dragnel in her arms, like an infant or a cat. “Dragnel is a wonderful listener, isn’t that right?”
“Of course, Mistress,” Dragnel says. Its voice is eerily similar to Ephel’s.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Lin says. She collapses her fan and leads the group away from the art studio. “At least I know no one has seen me naked.” No one seems to notice as they walk down the street, Praetors making a ring around them, and it gets left behind.
“Ephel, do you think it would be a good idea to return that fan?”
Ephel shifts in her bag, pushing open the flap to get a peek at the world. “Absolutely not.”
“You say that,” Maewys starts, approaching the fallen object and picking it up, “but when will I get another chance to speak to Nuaranthian nobility?”
“This can only end poorly,” Ephel remarks, dropping back down into the sanctity of Maewys’s back pack.
“Excuse me!” Maewys shouts, hastening toward the group of young women. “Miss, you dropped your—” She’s dropped by a blow to the stomach, a Praetor wordlessly attacking her. As the Elemnist falls to her knees, another Praetor walks up and kicks her in the ribs, dropping her further to the ground. The Elemnist curls up into a ball, shielding her bag, and glass-skinned payload, with the rest of her body as sharp kicks connect at every angle. She glimpses a slender hand picking up the dropped fan before disappearing, a tall figure walking into her narrow window of vision. They’re dressed as the other slaves, wearing the black and white armband of a Shadowarch, handsome in both figure and feature. They walk up to Lin and bow, proffering the retrieved object.
“Your fan, Lady Talivar,” she says. Ah, so they’re a woman. Lin takes it, not noticing the beating Maewys is receiving.
“Thank you, Tessn.” Lin tucks the fan into her purse properly this time. “Can an Espreth do that?”
Looking up, Maewys receives a kick to the head, losing consciousness.
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Kuna stands on a shallow rooftop, three stories off the ground. It doesn’t make for the best vantage point, but the Garrison doesn’t stake patrols on low roofs, so it’s somewhat secure. Sure, a passing patrol may spot her, but policing every person who wants to stand on a roof would stretch the Garrison thin. And even if they do come to investigate her, they’ll turn tail and walk away once they see it’s Kuna. Achieving that point required significant effort. Garrison Commander Harros plans to undermine this by purging the patrols in the ghetto.
Kuna flattens her lips. This wouldn’t be the first time she and Commander Harros butted heads, but his method reeks of House Talivar. It doesn’t matter much to her, though. Any uppity Garrison officer changes tune after spending enough time in the barrel. If not, they are no longer a problem in the deep cesspit.
Kuna keeps her eyes trained on a particular the new patrol officer, a broad man who leaves his long uniform jacket unbuttoned. A loud man. A man unafraid of what the dark is hiding, secure in the bright flood lights illuminating every street and alley, secure in the rooftop search lights drawing patterns on the streets from overhead. He keeps his eyes glowing with Inner Light, like lanterns in his skull, and his left arm blade extended, dragging the tip across the walls, cutting deep lines in the brick and masonry. He points his right pointer finger at windows, loosing a white-hot beam of crystal light. The hardlight travels like a cannonball through the air, shattering glass and exploding into razor sharp shards. Sometimes silence falls when he fires through a window. Sometimes low weeping or blood curdling wails follow each explosion.
This will not stand.
Regni approaches from behind, recognizable to Kuna by her gait, and kneels down at a respectful distance.
“Clan Mother,” she says in greeting, voice low.
“You may speak,” Kuna says. She watches as the Garrison officer directs the Praetors under his control down a deadend alley, leaning against the corner and lighting a cigar.
“Our friends on the outside have confirmed that the Elemnist has entered the Upper City,” Regni says. She can’t contain the excitement in her voice.
“And what of the Garrison attacker?” Kuna asks. She can feel Regni frowning. “Do we know who they are? Have we established contact?” The Garrison officer snuffs out his cigar as the Praetors return empty-handed.
“Nothing in that regard,” Regni replies. “If you grant me more time, I can surely discover their identity.”
“How much longer do you need?” Kuna asks. When Regni doesn’t respond, she continues. “Whoever it is, they cover their tracks well. We’ll keep an eye out for them, but our priority is the Elemnist.”
“Yes, Clan Mother.”
The Garrison officer turns and looks up at Kuna standing on the rooftop. He points at her and launches a thick billet of hardlight in her direction. The attack sails past her head and collides with the structure behind her, blowing open a hole that peers into no less than four individual living spaces. Debris from the blast comes sailing back in the opposite direction, missing Kuna’s head within a finger's breadth.
“Clan Mother!” Regni bolts to Kuna’s side, face red and breathing heavy. Her dark hair is but a prickly film on her scalp, the stubble regrowth of her harvested hair. “He nearly hit you!”
“And you would have let him,” Kuna dismisses. Regni demurs, looking ashamed. “Do we know his name?” She stares into the officer’s eyes, unafraid of his lantern-like glower.
“We do not,” Regni admits, “but it won’t take long to find out.”
“Make sure that it doesn’t,” Kuna says. “Keep an ear out for any potential friends outside. All matters related to the Elemnist are mine to handle.”
“Of course, Clan Mother.” Regni leaves, slipping beneath the dark cover of a weather worn blanket. It falls into a heap on the rooftop, the Shadowarch vanishing.