House of open wounds, p.52
House of Open Wounds, page 52
“I mean I don’t raid or go on boats and I never learned to fish. So I don’t think so… Magister, why do you have him? I mean I appreciate you’re telling me you’re going to get me in the shit, but aren’t you already neck deep because of that?”
“Banders, I am not about to shop you to Correct Speech. At least partly for that reason. We are in this together, now. We two, and a secret between us.”
She didn’t want to be in anything together with Thurrel, let alone with Thurrel and the Stick-Man. Except… he wasn’t threatening her. He wasn’t pulling rank. Some of the weird that he’d been reeking of was actually the fact that he was treating her with… respect. Like an equal, almost. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I am a scholar, Banders. I’ve scrabbled for twenty years to find every surviving shred of lore about the people we once were. And Maserley, of all people, delivers me this. All that remains of the god of our ancestors. I have now spent more than I wanted to, to avoid turning him and your friend Jack’s whole sacred doll collection into charged tablethi,” Thurrel said. “A decade of careful magic husbandry and crooked book-keeping gone to dust.”
“Why?”
“Because how could I destroy the Fisher King?” he asked plaintively. “I’m an Archivist, Banders. Not just a Decanter. And I know full well what the party line is on gods, most especially this one, but he’s ours. He’s our past. He was actually there. But when I spoke to him, he told me he wanted you.”
“I don’t want him. He’s all yours.”
“You are sacred to him, Banders,” Thurrel said. “In the old days you’d have an axe in your hand and a ship under you, and you’d burn the villages of the mainland coast and steal the gold from their temples. You’d have seawater in your blood and command the sharks and the kraken.”
“I… do not want to do any of those things,” Banders said. “I’m in the shit, aren’t I? The moment anybody finds out about this, they’re going to kill me. You’re not the only person to own a hat like this, are you? I mean, can they tell, if they look at me? How do I un-god myself?”
“There are… ways.” Thurrel licked his lips.
“Wait,” she said. “You want this, don’t you?”
His gaze was level. Possibly mad, but level. “I do.”
“I can’t just give him to you?”
“You can’t.”
“You have to fight me for him or something?” Banders laughed at the idea.
Thurrel didn’t laugh.
“Actually fight? What, axes or something? Can I just sort of—”
“The mantle was given in blood. In blood it must be taken. A challenge, formal, ritual. A duel. Wait, look,” because she’d bolted to her feet in case he brought a couple of dirty great axes out from under the table. “Banders, I’m… not a fighter. And it has to be an open fight, no cheating, no surrendering. Ideally up to our knees in seawater though I don’t see that happening. I’m still… Banders, wait.”
She’d got to the mouth of his hut, jittery as a cat on coals. “Magister, this is… crazy.”
“Take the others, at least. As a show of good faith.”
“The other whats?”
And he was pointing at the ground by the table, and through the lenses she saw some sort of gross scorpion thing and a monkey got up in a bedsheet. Compared to the Fisher King they were definitely the consolation prize.
“Jack’s gods,” Thurrel said. “Look. I am at the limit of my knowledge, here. I would take this mantle from you if I could, but I have no particular wish to hack you to death and still less for you to do it to me. As, I will freely admit, seems the more likely outcome. Take these things, and go to where they’re holding Maric Jack. He, at least, knows gods.”
*
After she’d explained all that to Jack – sotto voce so the provosts didn’t hear – the Maric sat back and rubbed at his chin.
“Why peace offering, though?” he asked.
“Thurrel said,” she explained, “that this Fisher King and your God weren’t exactly pals. You know, war and raiding versus peace and healing.”
“Shows how much Thurrel knows about God,” Jack said. “They’ve been sharing a box for months.” He cocked his head, listening, and Banders shivered. And sure, she’d known Jack was of the priest persuasion, but that was when it was just a stupid foreign thing. Now it was a part of her world which made it ten times creepier. “Says they’ve got more in common than anything else now. Now they’re both forgotten.”
“You can keep the box anyways,” Banders said generously. “Listen, I want shot of this. It was a dare. I was thirteen. Thurrel wants in. He’s read books. He knows stuff. He’ll probably start a cult or something. Or maybe he just wants to be extra-good at fishing. I don’t really care. Jack, I never wanted to be special.”
“Ah well,” he said. “I hear that. Banders, they are going to kill me. They are going to kill every last one of us. You understand that, right?”
She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Sorry.”
“What I’m trying to say is, leave it with me. If I can work something out I’ll try to get it to you. Do me good to have something to put my mind to.” He shrugged, and then retreated, cradling the box.
Leaving Cosserby, and somehow she hadn’t quite joined the dots of him being there. “Wait,” she said. “Are they going to… to you too?”
“It looks that way, yes,” Cosserby said.
“But why?”
“On account of my having been a bit, you know, shot. Before. Only Lidlet…” He wrinkled his nose at the filthy religiosity of it, “… fixed me. And I can’t… I took Jack’s bargain. To live.” Sounding desperately apologetic that he wasn’t a corpse three battlefields ago.
Banders stared at him. “You stupid son of a bitch,” she said, punched him hard in the arm, hugged him fiercely and then ran away.
Disconnective Tissue
When the High Fane fell, almost thirty years before, it had burned, and Tallifer – gone by then – had never known if that was a final act of devotion by the priests or desecration by the conquerors. She had been just one more priestess, no great matriarch of the faith. There had been other temples, though each had been rubble and ashes before she reached it. At the time it had been a tragedy, but she hadn’t understood that it had really been the end. Of her career, of her faith, of her life as she’d known it. Everything else – the years of roving resistance alongside Lochiver, the capture, the hospital, had all been epilogue.
Landwards and Forthright Battalions were on the move. The Loruthi had fallen back to their side of Magnelei, and now it was the Pals’ turn to try and winkle them out. All around Tallifer were the many pieces of half a war, being carried around like eggs by ants. Out there across the churned country was the other half, already assembled and awaiting the interlocking teeth of the Palleseen side before the whole meat grinder could start turning again.
If she’d had a glass she could have just made out Magnelei on the western horizon. The citizens of Bracinta’s capital had been treated to a fine old show so far. If she’d been amongst them she’d have a bag packed and some distant relatives picked out to stay with, though. Thus far Loruthi and Palleseen forces had proved relatively even matched, and had wanted to maintain the mobility of a field army. Sooner or later one or other side would get enough of a bloody nose that the walls of Magnelei would look inviting as a defensive position. Which would go very badly for everyone, she suspected. The city wouldn’t survive a siege, the occupying army would force the locals to decide whose side they were on. The army left outside would have no happy options left as to how to prosecute the war.
Just one more thing she didn’t want to see, but then the world was full of those right now.
She’d been to see Jack. Not to speak with him, because that wasn’t a practical proposition right now. He was marching too, of course. No hospital wagon for Jack, Lidlet or Cosserby, or their fellows. Instead they were in the heart of the army, tramping on foot in a long column like regular infantry. Except roped together, neck to neck, little enough play between them that it was sore throats for a dozen every time one person stumbled. More than that, they had Jack at the head of the column, and someone had dolled up his uniform with fake officer’s insignia, making him an ersatz Sage-Prisoner. Around his neck was a sign, and it read ‘Incorrect Speech’ in clear Pel letters. Which was a single word in that language because ‘Incorrect’ – contrary to perfection – was the first prefix they’d dreamed up when constructing the script.
The provosts had made sure that Jack’s column marched slightly faster than the rest of the battalion, so that they passed forwards through the army. So that everyone had a chance to jeer and throw the odd stone and see just what subversion bought you in today’s market. Anyone who knew that Jack was a healer, and his crime was not letting Pal soldiers die, probably jeered and threw all the more because the Correct Speech crowd were flexing their muscles these days and nobody wanted to be found suspect.
And where does that leave us, exactly? Jack’s old departmental friends, already bowed under their own burdens of suspicion. Just one more reason that life was about to get very interesting.
When the column of subversives reached the vanguard of the army, they were slowed to three-quarters pace, enforced by the truncheons of the provosts, and the army then got to march past them. Cue the jeers and clods of mud all over again. And repeat, for the whole day’s march. A piece of theatre designed to dissuade any watcher from wanting a career in subversion.
Tallifer hadn’t jeered or thrown anything. She reckoned the ship of suspicion had already sailed in her case. She hadn’t met anyone’s gaze, either. No sense in giving people hope.
There had been other familiar faces, on her venture up and down the line. In an officer’s carriage she’d seen some of the young ambitious ones. Not her own immediate superior, whom she’d expect to find there, but Maserley, with his demon chit keeping Prassel’s seat warm. Seeming very pleased with himself, and certainly he’d jeered when they’d passed the prisoner’s line. Jeered and made fun with his Fellows, as they’d rolled down the toiling column. Next to him the Decanter, Thurrel, had his nose in a book and barely looked up. He looked like someone swotting for an exam. Beside them was the aloof-looking young man who commanded Alv’s new students, Callow. Tallifer had heard all about him from the Divinati woman. He was the most junior Fellow in the coach, but he acted like he had a Sage’s insignia in his pocket. When he didn’t laugh at Maserley’s jokes it wasn’t because he thought they were bad, it was because he thought the demonist was yesterday’s man already. Tomorrow belonged to whatever the hell they would call Callow’s new discipline. Whatever you got when you took sympathetic healing and turned it into murder.
Behind them had been a rather grander carriage for some of Higher Orders. An empty seat still ceremonially held for the late Sage-Monitor Runkel. The fate of Forthright was now in the hands of Professor-Invigilator Scaffesty.
Professor-Invigilator Scaffesty had capable hands. They were also covered with blood and worse things. He was the man with the necromancy department, after all. He was the man who’d assigned Callow and company to Alv. Uncle had been old school. Old Eyeball was an innovator. Which, in war, could be a terrible thing.
Later, Tallifer spotted Prassel. The Fellow-Inquirer had been a rare sight in the hospital department recently, turning up only to give the occasional order. She was riding with the necromancers from Landwards Battalion now, in her newly decorated uniform. Next to the old man in the fancy bathrobe who seemed to be in charge. Beside them, racks and racks of copper vessels clinked and rattled. Some of the people sitting in the wagon seemed to be corpses, sitting up and taking part in the conversation. And Tallifer had met Prassel’s gaze as their wagon rattled past. The woman hadn’t seemed happy, but she’d chosen where she was sitting.
Exit strategy, Tallifer decided. It felt as though the experimental field hospital was finally reaching the end of its long test period. A decade and a half, since it had first been formed, which was three years before she and Lochiver had been co-opted into it. The Butcher was the sole denizen who’d been there from the start. Prassel was a latecomer, not quite five years in charge. And it was looking like she’d soon be pronouncing last rites and then bury the business at midnight.
Not worth asking what would happen to them, if the department was dissolved. Nobody in Higher Orders would be giving out prizes and medals for all the lives they’d saved. Oh, the regular surgeons would have somewhere found for them. She didn’t know about the Butcher. He was Pal, after all. Which arm of the scales was weighted heaviest, nationality or notoriety? But nobody would have a use for a couple of aged priests of deadbeat gods, who’d once been fierce fighters against the Palleseen Sway.
Oh so fierce. She didn’t feel fierce. A good eight or nine years on the wrong side of fierce, in all honesty. Fierce didn’t have a bad back and a painful hip.
At last she met the hospital’s own wagon, towards the back end of the column. Lochiver reached down to haul her up, which nearly dislocated both of their shoulders until the Butcher helped out. She sat down there, huddled in the bags of her uniform, feeling the screw of tension slowly turn within her. Turn only one way, twisting her insides into a tight spiral until she wanted to throw up.
Lochiver squeezed her hand and she nodded at him. Across from her, massive knee to knee, the Butcher met her gaze. They had an understanding. They could smell the change on the wind, even over Lochiver’s sour reek, and they knew how things were going to go.
Alv should have been old guard, too, but whatever had happened during the last battle had destroyed her. They hadn’t made her part of their counsels. She just sat hunched in one corner, between boxes and crates, head low and staring at nothing. Barely responding if you called her name. Tallifer had never seen her like it. Ten years of imperturbable grace just shattered like a mirror under a hammer. You have to heal, the Butcher told her. Or they’ll do you like they did Erinael. And she’d not even looked at him. Which was a shame because probably she’d have been useful, but Alv right now was good for nothing. Tallifer could only hope she’d jump the right way when the moment came, or jump at all.
Which left Masty and Banders. And she’d have expected Banders to be up and down the column, dealing and chatting and breaking minor military ordinances. Except here she was, looking like she had an incurable disease. Looking like she’d been punched in the gut and couldn’t get her breath back. Like her name was sitting on an arrest warrant in an Inquirer’s pocket. Someone had taken a razor and slit the throat of Banders’s bonhomie, sure enough, but she wasn’t talking about it. And beside her, Masty was always the quiet one, but since Magnelei he’d withdrawn into himself completely. Tallifer looked at them and saw the candles at the High Fane in her head. A trick of the place. For the high holy services, the priests had brought out a score or so of yellow candles, squat ones and tall ones, all different. Yet during the final closing words of the recital, each one of them would gutter and wink out within the same few minutes. Magic. Miracles. Divine providence.
Or carefully made candles. But why spoil the mystery?
She reached in her pocket. Mazdek, Chastiser of the Unclean, nibbled at her fingers. It was like being bitten by a cup of hot water. Beside her, Lochiver the Unclean clutched her other hand.
She let herself lean into him, hoping she’d dream of the times they’d had on the run. The mad days, when they’d had the strength. Perhaps some of it would linger once she woke.
Hell – Crossing the River
The one lesson not taught in the Palleseen phalansteries, not acknowledged by their Commission of Ends and Means. That all things end.
Still just within sight of Magnelei, the Loruthi have turned and dug in again. Taking advantage of earthworks and defences they probably hadn’t thought they’d be returning to. Taking up new troops force-marched from their holdings further south. Just taking a stand. Who knows? All anyone at the sharp end of the Palleseen battalions knows is that the enemy have stopped running and won’t just concede the capital. Which means that the appropriate parts of the camp have stopped and thrown up their tents and engines, while the regular troopers sort into their companies and squads and sally out as quickly as possible before the enemy artillery can get into its stride.
Prassel can spare a moment from torturing ghosts to look in on the department she’s still nominally in charge of. Short-handed, obviously. The camp staff have even set up Cosserby’s workshop and now it stands untenanted, the Sonori stilled and silent. They’d have been useful to push the fight to the enemy, but Forthright will just have to manage with whatever demons Maserley can call up. Infernal flesh can soak up baton-shot as well as metal.
She looks in on the Butcher. He has his cauldrons heating. His boy sets up his racks of unguents, salves and potions.
“Chief,” she addresses him, aware that he’s not happy with her but when is he ever? The words, “How’s the back?” come into her mouth but they taste like bile and she can’t say them.
“Magister,” Ollery acknowledges. Beyond him they have the tables set and the cutlery laid. Tallifer clicking down each size of scalpel as though she has any control over which order the courses will be served in. Alv is kneeling by a Fellow-Broker who tripped over a guy rope and sprained her ankle, and doesn’t want to have to do her important paperwork with a limp. Lochiver runs a cleaning rag through his pipe, although the rag is surely filthier than the innards of the instrument can be.
Beyond them, they have only Banders and Masty and the boy to fetch and carry, but all three are hardened veterans. Prassel watches the kid skitter back and forth with absolute absorption. She’s seen children play games like that and maybe that’s all this is to him. He’s seen more blood and agony and death by age eleven than most people in their whole lives. The edges must have worn off. He’ll grow up to be a hero or maniac, surely.
