Multiple reports are trickling in: checkpoints are being established throughout the countryside around Mel. Even if the constables claim that the Rebellion has been put down, security remains tight as ever.
Don’t trust your papers, people. These checkpoints don’t care what parchment has to say.
So, here goes. All the ones we know about.
First, at Culvert’s Creek and…
Spring 54 (Morning)
Valkyrie had not precisely intended to turn the former Mishkan office into a clandestine shelter, but what sane person would dare the streets right now? She might, faerie fire at the ready, but then – what sane person would agree to become an angel’s Spear?
So, when she bumped into two brothers fleeing an angry mob of black-banded lunatics, she had locked eyes with them and offered, “…I know a place.”
Then, later, when she met a girl with blood running down her scalp and a torn dress…
“I know a place.”
Every trip, she found another stray.
This morning, she woke blearily on her bed of old clothes to the sound of men arguing downstairs.
“I don’t know what you saw last night, but this country has gone mad!”
“We run now, and we are abandoning everything our father stood for!”
“What our father stood for? You mean the shop that worked him to his damned death?!”
Valkyrie groaned. Wishing for a shower, she stepped carefully over the girls sleeping on the floor – their beds no better than her own – and tromped down the stairs to see what the boys were all fussing about.
She had left six men to sleep last night, and she found them neatly divided into two clumps of three with the morning. Their respective leaders, those first brothers, glowered at each other over the secretarial desk.
“Any updates from Walter?” Valkyrie asked, yawning.
Neither spared her a glance as they argued on.
“You heard the radio! Every road out will be closed by tomorrow. Its morning, the streets are empty, and the brass are focused on Sevenborough mop-up. This is our last chance before the doors close!”
“The doors close? More like hit you in the arse on the way out!”
Valkyrie growled. “Hey! Whose place do you think this is?!”
All this accomplished was to focus their ire on her.
“Look, kid, I appreciate the place to crash, but this is none of your business,” the older brother snapped.
“It was sure as hells my business last night!” she snapped right back.
“Nobody asked you to stick your neck out, kid.”
Call me ‘kid’ again and I’ll pull your nightmares out your ears and let them dance on your forehead!
“I never asked for–” she began.
“Fact is, nobody does nothing for free, and that’s just how it is.”
“I’m not charging any fees!” she snapped.
The brother rolled his eyes. “Everybody’s got their angle. What’s yours? Feeling sorry for the left-overs? Or you just squatting in the old House ruins like all the rest?”
She drew herself up. “I am the Stormmother’s Spear!”
“Sure you are, kid.”
“I helped you because you needed help, not because–”
“Yeah, sure, same way the noble Ladies help the homeless, right? So you can feel all warm and fuzzy before you run back home to your parents?”
The younger brother butted back in. “Todd, let her be! She’s just a kid. If you’re dead set on suicide then don’t let me stand in your way!”
“Listen here, you little coward…”
They traded the kinds of insults not easily mended, and Valkyrie watched in stunned silence.
So I can feel all warm and fuzzy about myself?
Is that why I’m doing this?
So Alisandra would smile at her? Spend more time talking with her?
The thought stung deep; what if he was right?
Could she truly say that she acted out of beneficence? Could anyone? Was there ever any charity that managed to escape the shadow of self-aggrandizement?
“Enough!” snarled the older brother. “I am no coward! To the hells with the lot of you!”
Half the men stomped out the door.
The younger brother looked to his fellows, shrugged, and picked up his own meager possessions. “Thanks for the help, kid, but this country’s headed a bad way. You should head home while you still can.”
“You don’t have to go!” she blurted out. “We can be stronger together!”
“This is men’s work,” he replied firmly.
The other men followed him out.
Alone in the downstairs office, Valkyrie savagely kicked an empty trash can.
Men’s work? Men’s work?! You’re just ashamed you had to ask a girl for help!
A perfect retort two minutes too late.
Besides, who would believe that the blonde slip of a girl was the Spear? Her cheeks burned with the memory of even blurting that out like a little girl holding up a trophy!
She flung herself into the secretary’s chair, drew up her knees, and sulked into a doze. As she slipped deeper into the trance, the feel of a thin cushion under her butt blended with the feel of hard granite of a steep cliff; her half-lidded eyes beheld the morning glare across the window and the glimmer of snow on her private peaks.
“What a load of…” she muttered.
From her peaks echoed:
What if I really am just that selfish?
It feels so nice when she smiles at me…
“Troubled notes return you to this garden,” Rie stated behind her.
“Aren’t you supposed to recite Song-drivel for me? Tell me the Chorus has a plan for me and I should rejoice in my durance?”
The garden fell silent at her spiteful words.
“…Yes, I suppose that is my role,” the guardian agreed.
“Why are you such a good girl? Hmph, no, that’s a stupid question. Of course you’re a good girl. You’re everything I’m not.”
Rie raised a hand, conjuring a vision of this ‘good girl’: smiling, sweet, silent. Clad in a white dress, pretty as a portrait and just as still.
“That’s the one,” Valkyrie agreed. She raised her own hand and conjured the mirror image: still smiling, but her eyes flickering with mischief and treachery. “And here’s me. Thief and harlot.”
Their faerie fire swirled, the two images teasing at each other.
For a moment, Rie plucked at the belly of her white dress…
Then, driven by the silence in the garden, she strode forward and sat down next to Valkyrie. Her flaming sword caught on the stone, so she laid it across her lap. One foot loose over the precipice, she avoided the other’s gaze.
Valkyrie straightened in surprise, meeting her guardian at eye level for the first time. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I should ignore fools. That’s what Mom says.”
“Yet his words injured us.” Rie pointed to the far reaches of the valley below. At the base of a waterfall, a gash of trees sported angry red leaves.
Because what if he’s right?
The guardian closed her eyes, straining for what only she could hear…and furrowed her brow in frustration.
“Rie?” Valkyrie whispered. “Are you okay?”
A door slammed in the waking world, and Valkyrie nearly toppled out of her chair.
Still, Rie answered from within. I…cannot claim to know the truth of Truth or the limits of kindness. Yet what divine Sight begets such wisdom that one might spy secrets of our garden hidden from all view? To know our Truth?
“People lie to themselves all the time,” Valkyrie pointed out, stretching out onto her tiptoes.
It would be blessed indeed to behold divine Truth…
Missing the pain beneath the words, Valkyrie nodded. “You’re right. Todd there can suck an egg! Who is he to know our motivations in a day?!” Drawing a knee to her shoulder, the girl sighed in relief. She had just needed that confirmation.
“I’m glad you’re here with me, Rie.”
Her guardian answered, I…I am glad you are here too.
***
She Who Listens, deaf and alone, her flaming sword reduced to the smolders of uncertainty.
I’m glad you’re here with me, Rie
Rie tilted her head and marveled at the strength of a Song sung with only one voice.
“I…I am glad you are here too,” the guardian admitted.
Thinking of an infinite classroom and the essay explaining why it was justice to smother one voice for the sake of a Chorus…
Who were these voices that claimed thus? August and ancient souls, lingering to share their wisdom?
Or just old men enforcing their own vision of the Song?
They had seen magi give rise to terrible calamity; she could not deny the risk. Rie keenly felt this silence born of daring to mingle her Light with Valkyrie…
“But death cannot be the only end…right?”
Was the Song the mandate of all that a soul would choose – or the recording of all the soul had chosen from the view of Time’s final tick?
Sighing, Rie leaned back on the precipice. As her knees sank, her flaming sword slipped down her legs and off the cliff.
“A flaming sword shall not see us to the future we desire,” she mused, letting it fall.
If the Song cursed her…what matter? She Who Listens was now deaf to their pleas.
Severed.
Set free?
Such tentative steps she dared, and she knew not to where.
As she faced this future, something rather strange floated into view.
A single, white feather – just like the one that Valkyrie had toyed with before.
But now for her.
Curious, she reached for it.
***
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Valkyrie spent the rest of the day shepherding her refugees. Though the official radio stations proclaimed the Sevensborough Rebellion quashed, the streets remained eerily still. Her faerie fire was a match for constable patrols and stalking black-armband fanatics, and she saw everyone delivered home…or, for those whose home was now cinders, to a cousin or aunt.
As she worked, she wondered if this is how the Spear was supposed to spend her time. With Ali occupied in the Bones, it fell to her to act on her own recognizance.
Debating the matter into the afternoon, Valkyrie finally decided to risk a visit to the Conclave Square. Pulling a shawl over her bright hair, she steeled herself and approached the gyre at the center of the madness.
It was even worse than last time.
Chants, shouts, and songs; towering bonfires and a stinking crowd; men handing out armbands with mutters about faith and salvation. The crowd circled in three layers, each more crushing than the last. Ad-hoc prayer groups clogged the outer boundary; the middle ring swirled in a slow orbit around the Conclave; and the closest adherents of Fire prayed against the evil Azure stains besmirching the Conclave’s east wing.
Given her size, Valkyrie faltered against the second ring and instead retreated to a café balcony. She had eaten at this café dozens of times, but now it was decked out in black and red ribbons and sported a No Heretics Served Here sign.
Crowded even on the balcony, she watched the endless currents and wondered, Do the faithful feel like they finally belong in that crowd? Is this what grand purpose looks like?
It is comforting to exist as part of something greater, Rie admitted.
Valkyrie soon spotted the black-robed Penitent at the very center. “Now who is that?”
The man currently sharing her crammed table answered, “That there’s Maxwell, the one that pulled the whole curtain off the treachery. Proper man, right to the heart of the matter! Not like some effete House Lord sniffing dandelions with the Stormmother’s taint growing right under his nose!”
“At this point, I don’t think anyone is asking the House Lords anymore,” Valkyrie said.
“Damn straight! They sold us out!”
She blinked. “To…to who?”
The man began to rant on foreign interests and heretical agents. The exact identity of the buyers remained quite unclear but omnipresent and dangerously powerful.
Waste of breath. I could try the faerie fire? …but who knows what dragons this collective delusion would fuel?
If a collection of constables could summon their delusionary witch, a throng of ten thousand might summon a true nightmare.
Valkyrie hurriedly retreated to the Mishkan office to dream of Azure dancers parading through Mel’s empty streets.
***
Spring 55
When the girl awoke, flakes of black ash floated across the window.
Ash fall. Rising, she peeked out the windows across the dreary slate of Mel, its buildings reduced to distant giants. “This far east on a still day?”
The elders said that Mel had cracked and the ash mounts bled the day the Keeper died.
If the mounts cracked for the Keeper, what do they have in store for this crisis?
The Mishkan office was empty except for her. Staring out the window, she chewed stale bread.
What is the Spear to do?
Ali had asked her to help topple the Inquisition. Well, Angela Cecille is dead.
To challenge the regime with a fistful of gold and the truth. Well, I could keep the journalists fed, but nobody’s reading the papers now…
“Wish I knew how Mom is doing…” she sighed. She’s fine. No way in the icy hells Ali would let her go down with the Rebellion.
The radio claimed total victory, but she knew better than to listen to constable numbers. Still…people died, right?
Valkyrie understood the geo-political problems of the Tempest appearing to spirit everyone away. She knew Ali would choose what was best for everyone. She just…
Just felt like a sham of a Spear.
Shaking her head, the girl decided to check up on the Azure dancers. She could be ninety percent confident they had spirited east with Mom, but best to bump that to one hundred percent!
Ash still fell as she stepped out, the clouds overhead a fluffy grey, and she tugged a straw hat over her cold ears. Circling outward into the boroughs, she checked the dancer’s homes and instead found locked doors. Asking neighbors, she heard from one that a few had gone east; from another that it was for the best if the dancers returned to their own country; and from yet another a simple, “Good riddance!”
That last mother slammed the door in Valkyrie’s face, leaving her alone in the alley.
Staring at that door, the girl thought, The boroughs always did want to be more like Mel. Guess they’re finally acting the part.
No more ‘filth’ polluting their streets. Now they could be awful all on their own.
Valkyrie hated rounds as a child – forced to tag along behind her mother to apartment after apartment with arms full of food or clothes. Now, those same rounds were the only reason she knew all the places to check. The reason she could make sense of the empty windows on otherwise unremarkable streets.
Streets she had known since she could walk and now marred by closed doors and empty windows.
Grimacing, Valkyrie dared Main Street as she neared Fourthborough. Maybe she could catch a meal…
But when she arrived, Katherine’s aunt’s dinner was empty. Two windows had been broken, and a red notice on the window warned that the constabulary had repossessed the property for delinquency on taxes.
“No way!” I watched that woman do her taxes! She paid them like her life depended on it!
Like obeying the rules was protection against all this.
And for what?
She hurried past the Fourthborough church on Main – the only building busy with people – and to Katherine’s house six blocks north.
The fence was closed and locked, the yard empty, the old building cloaked and guarded.
“Katherine?” Valkyrie called, ash swirling around her ankles. “You there?!”
A light snapped on, the door unlocked, and Lyla burst across the lawn. The diva rushed straight to the fence…
“Lyla?! Why are you–”
Lyla yanked Valkyrie through the gate and dragged her straight into the house. There waited Katherine, Katherine’s aunt, Katherine’s parents, Lyla’s parents, Lyla’s sister, Lyla’s brother, and two dogs.
“Oh, thank God you’re okay!” the aspiring actress wailed as the door slammed. She flung herself onto Valkyrie, fighting back tears. “With all the madness…”
“I-I’m fine, Lyla! Really!”
“They killed Uncle Hubert!” the girl wailed.
“What?!”
Her father spoke. “Dragged him from his home and beat him in the street.”
Then dragged the broken man back inside and set the place ablaze
“H-he wasn’t Azure,” Valkyrie protested.
“No,” the man agreed.
But neither was the pawn man a popular fellow
And if some said they might have seen him aiding the heretics…
“And Katherine’s family diner…”
Lips pressed tight, Katherine glanced away.
We have left rules behind, Valkyrie realized, and entered the realm of madness.
Unemployed and as like as not to be homeless by season’s end, they’d all starve come winter.
As if they’d make it to winter.
“Do you have some place safe?” Valkyrie asked.
They collectively squirmed.
Would another Spear be marching into the Conclave right now? Would that Spear be the very terror of the Tempest? Press the advance in a grand war for which Cecille’s death was only the opening salvo?
Just what the hells is the Spear, really?
I’m the damned Spear, and I still don’t know!
What then do we know? Rie offered.
That these people will suffer even more if we stay here, and that – with my help – they might be spared.
She drew in a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do!”
Her words as bright as faerie fire. As a demon would advise, Never let them see you sweat!
“I know a smuggler. She has a ship to skip you over–”
“Leave?” breathed Lyla’s mother, horrified, and the other adults nodded along.
But Katherine and Lyla looked at their friend – took in the grave weight now draped across their flighty playmate – and leaped to their feet.
“You can stay here if you want, but I’m going!” Lyla declared.
“Same!” Katherine added.
“And before you ask, I’ve got the money to pay for it all,” Valkyrie interjected.
Her friends glanced at her in surprise.
“Didn’t even steal it this time!” she whispered in her defense.
“Right! Its decided!” Lyla proclaimed, sweeping her skirts.
The adults debated the matter, of course, but finally came to a reluctant agreement: for once, their children were right.
“We’re headed for the Sackcloth Mermaid,” Valkyrie explained. “Stick close to me and try to keep quiet.”
“There are all those dreadful hoodlums in the street though…” Lyla’s mother worried.
“I’ll put the fear of their god into them,” she assured.
The little group somberly gathered what they could carry – several times one of the adults laid hand on this dresser or that window, saying goodbye – and then they struck into the borough alleys. At each junction, Valkyrie crouched and listened for danger in the swirling ash. Ready with her faerie fire, she…
“You look really cool,” Lyla whispered behind her.
“W-what?”
“You look cool. Possessed. There’s just…there’s something in your eyes now.”
Flushing, Valkyrie peeked around a corner. “Now really isn’t the time, Lyla!”
“I’m just saying.”
Valkyrie heard footsteps! She pressed Lyla back into the shadows and raised her faerie fire to cloak the group as a pile of garbage. “It only fools’ vision, so stay back!” she warned.
Everyone pressed into the corner, though Katherine first ran a finger through the shimmering barrier. It rippled like water for her, and Valkyrie heard…
There she goes again
Always leaving us behind
Revealing the wistful jealousy that lay underneath all of Katherine’s barbed teasing.
“Katherine…” I…I didn’t mean to make you feel like…
The other girl ducked back. “Sorry.”
The footsteps grew louder, signaling enough men for serious trouble, and the group stilled in terror. The parents gripped their children, Valkyrie kept a hand on her faerie fire, and they held their breath as the crowd approached.
Now bells rang out, and the crowd launched into Catechism verse.
Then the bells rang again, and the crowd fell eerily silent.
Song may lead, Rie considered, and song may lead astray.
Pilgrims clad in black rags appeared in the grey ash, led by choir boys wielding staves with golden bells. The pilgrims marched in private prayer, awaiting the next bell.
Valkyrie remembered the black-robed Penitents beneath the Conclave at season’s start and realized the word for this horror.
Infection.
The bells rang.
How great our Lord!
How warm our Hearth!
Blessed are those that tend the Flame!
Let us build – let us build – let us build this our new world!
Her demon memory knew Aure’s name, but Mirielle had never met the angel of Fire. Could he have desired this ash-choked world?
Lost in their haze, the pilgrims marched north.
“Everyone okay?” Valkyrie asked at last.
Katherine’s mother shook her head. “A frightful fever has gripped this town.”
“You’re telling me. Let’s skedaddle before some Foundation decides we need a life lesson!”
Lyla snickered at the tone, even if the words made no sense, and the adults dared to smile.
I guess I should stop thinking of them as ‘the adults’. I am sixteen now, after all.
We do not feel quite adult, agreed Rie.
Ushering the group forward, Valkyrie resumed her guard. Corner to corner, peeking and listening, the familiar brisk walk to Main rendered a torturous crawl.
There was more trouble at Main – a gaggle of young men in black armbands marching at a clip for the outer boroughs – and they waited once more as that storm passed.
From there, they encountered not a single soul until the Sackcloth Mermaid came into view at the edge of the first fields beyond the city. The bar was a dive, eaves slumping inwards and windows blocked by blackout curtains.
Undeterred, Valkyrie shoved straight through the door and into the dining room. “Hey! Looking for a friend!”
Derelict, Abigail lounged on a far bench, nursing a drink. At the sight of Valkyrie, the smuggler broke into the grin of approaching opportunity. “Good timing. My last appointment fell through.”
A handful of patrons stared at them, but Valkyrie shrugged off their glares and waved her refugees inside. “Find a seat and order something warm,” she counseled them. Then she hurried to meet Abigail on the far bench.
“Beer?” the smuggler offered.
“Sure, it’s been that kind of day.”
Tasted like someone left soggy bread at the bottom of a well!
As Valkyrie gagged, Abigail said, “I did not expect to see you so soon. You have finished your other duties?”
Pushing away the beer, Valkyrie shook her head. “Actually, I’d like to hire you. If your own work is done.”
Abigail grimaced. “It fell through.”
Bastard threw in his lot with the Fire
Figured he’d buy redemption with my blood
Right shame, that. He’d seen my knife work enough to know better
What can you do?
Her echoes are quite crisp, Rie observed.
Like Oliver, she privately agreed.
Aloud, Valkyrie asked, “Were you able to disburse those funds?”
“For the ones I could find.”
The Spear nodded. “Sounds like fortune is down for all of us.”
“Then we shall make our own fortune.” Abigail downed Valkyrie’s discarded beer. “What is this job? Connected to your comrades with the dogs?”
Though the bartender was massive and hairy as a bull, he set down a saucer of water for the dogs as he took food orders from Katherine’s family.
There are still good people here, Valkyrie reminded herself. “How much to ferry the lot of them to safety?”
Abigail sucked her lip, counting their measure. “My rate is one half-gold per head.”
“Excellent. How soon can you leave?”
The smuggler laughed. “You’ve too generous! At least haggle a little!”
“What’s the point of a noble’s stinking money if it can’t even buy this?” Valkyrie countered.
“You’ll be dry of every penny by Summer at this rate.”
“I don’t know there’s going to be a Ruhum by Summer.”
“Witch words. Maybe even wisdom.” Abigail waved the bartender over and whispered in his ear for a few moments. Valkyrie politely leaned away while they conversed. Finally, the smuggler leaned close to the girl. “Any of them you don’t like?”
The girl paled.
“I can accommodate your revenge. Perhaps threaten to kick one off the boat…”
“Katherine and Lyla are my best friends,” she stated.
Abigail only smirked. “They must be for what you pay. Expensive friends. Do you want an itemized bill?”
“You know I’m good for it!”
“Nothing in this world is free.”
“That’s why I’m paying you!” she snapped.
The smuggler burst out laughing. “Quite the pout you have when you put your mind to it, lass! They will never see your daggers coming!”
Reminds me of me when I was young
“Have you seen the sky today?” Valkyrie muttered.
“Aye, and a nasty wind.” Abigail stood and announced, “Valkyrie has paid for your transit from Ruhum. Would you prefer Moros or one of the Azure ports? Choose quickly. The fates hunger today. Take your food to go. We leave as soon as your witch pays.”
Taking that oh-so-subtle hint, Valkyrie rose and returned to the group.
“You paid for us?” Katherine’s mother asked, astonished.
Only now did Valkyrie realize she had led the adults here without a word of payment. Hells, they probably marched this entire way thinking they’d have to sign an indentured contract!
And they had.
“I’m so sorry! Yes, of course I paid! Okay, technically, Alisandra Mishkan footed the bill. Tell her thanks when you see her!”
“House Mishkan,” Katherine’s father mused. “The fallen House Mishkan?”
“Does it matter if the gold’s still good?”
Lyla snickered. “Valkyrie…when did you get so wise?!”
“Be nice!”
But her friend launched forward into a hug. Her free hand snaked out and yanked Katherine in, and the three pressed together.
“Valkyrie…thank you,” Lyla whispered.
Katherine nodded. “You’re a savior.” Her lip twitched, holding back a smirk. “…for once.”
Wrapped in their familiar scent, the young mage blushed. “It’s been a…that is…You know what? I’ll tell you all about it when we’re all safe, okay?”
“It’s a promise,” her friends agreed.
Valkyrie wiggled out of the hug and clapped her hands. Can’t let this keep up. Abigail will see me cry! “Anyways! Now I just need to find the baseball blockhead…”
Her friends sobered.
“Val, he got shipped off to the navy weeks ago.”
“Yeah, got caught stealing from some disgraced noble or something.”
Valkyrie swore.
“Language, young lady!” Both mothers chided.
Seriously?! Running both hands through her hair, Valkyrie groaned. “At least I know he’s not in the mix of all this. Maybe I can fit in a visit to the naval registry later…”
Multiple eyebrows rose.
Abigail cleared her throat. “The tide waits for none, lass.”
The work of the Spear never ended!
***
Once confident in the treatment of her friends, Valkyrie returned to the dangerous streets. Ears perked, she tracked ash as the fall worsened. Alone with her thoughts, she wondered on how life changed.
A Season ago, she had only worried about graduation. Conner couldn’t shut up about Spring practice, and Katherine’s aunt expected to expand her restaurant to a second location next year.
All those plans.
Our own as well, Rie agreed. How straight the path seemed.
Another crowd appeared, and Valkyrie found a corner to cast her faerie fire.
Here came a large one: a shepherd and his flock.
The black-robed Penitent deacon, Maxwell, marched giddy at the head of his column.
He stopped not far from her hiding spot, spun, and extemporized. “Now is the time, my fellows! Now is our time! Finally is the perfidy revealed! Finally our enemies are laid bare – if we have only the strength!”
How little he says, Rie said, and at such length.
As the crowd shifted, straining to hear the rambling speech of the Penitent, she caught sight of a familiar figure. Mrs. Hewes, wrapped in grey like a nun, basked in the righteousness of a hateful crowd like a lizard in the sun.
Oh, the things I could do to her in a crowd like this…
Faerie fire and a clever touch; an invisible vengeance for every mis-graded assignment and every rotten fruit!
She rolled her fingers, savoring the thought.
Rie waited to learn what would emerge from She Who Sings.
“And our retribution shall be swift!” Maxwell shouted, arms to the heavens. “Our faith a fortress! All shall know the glory of our vision!”
Shall know and shall tremble!
Valkyrie shuddered.
Purity and faith and vengeance and retribution and the glory of crushing people like Katherine or Lyla or Oliver or…
A sour taste filled her mouth, and she dropped her hand.
Is that mercy? wondered Rie.
I just don’t feel like it, Valkyrie shrugged. Waste of faerie fire.
Oblivious and spared, Father Maxwell and his crowd marched on.