Assassins silk stretched taut,
sought and fought into a rout,
the lout, a bout about the vows and soot,
your foot, my foot, five foot who?
My hand, your hand, six foot underland,
Wrist to wrist, silk tied taut,
sealing love, bringing love,
eliciting joy or fiery Damnation,
the pathetic and prophetic,
to Heaven can a man rise when a man never dies?
–Tomes of the Touched
Sîkômu Rekrôm, East-Wall Quarry, stood less than half a horizon from what the Kingdomers named Rôemhîik, the wall and fortress so many Silone had taken to calling Castle Choerkin. For his part, Ivin stuck to the Kingdomer name as close as he could pronounce the nuances of the foreign tongue. In his years on Herald’s Watch, Ivin never had the opportunity to witness the construction of anything more than a brick warehouse. Hells, he never once bothered to consider how someone chiseled all those gigantic stones from mountains, let alone how those people transported them, let alone how puny men lifted them into place, let alone how to interconnect them for strength. It was no wonder folks imagined giants building these massive structures.
Ivin stood beside Morik of Shuntiskâ overlooking the quarry where several hundred Kingdomers and Silone worked together. They hammered and chiseled grooves into amber-hued travertine, all to sizes specific to Lordbuilder Hîekôn’s specifications. Once grooved into a rectangle, square, or other shape, hammers and chisels and crowbars went to work to separate the block from its base, and men slid it out and onto logs. They left two protrusions on each long edge, using these later to lift the blocks into place along the wall by a crane fifty-feet tall. Once separated from the mountain, the undeniable genius of the Kingdomers came into play; they fitted the ends of the blocks into wooden forms, and when they finished, the blocks of stone that could crush a man into a jelly became axles between oaken wheels waiting for oxen to pull them to the wall. The largest he’d seen was twenty-seven feet long, thick as his forearm, and deep as he was tall.
“How’s that future wife of yours getting along?”
Ivin’s eyes dropped to his toes and he snorted before raising his gaze to stare at the Kingdomer’s nose. “She’d be better with word from Solineus.”
“Once past Barkûsh there aren’t no pigeons. But that isn’t what I was talking about.”
“Which is why I answered the way I did.” They shared a laugh. “Ah, hells. She spends more time with the pigeons than me, and I spend more time staring at rocks.”
“Stones are the bones of the world! But they aren’t pretty as that little gal.”
Ivin sighed. “Two weeks until a wedding neither of us is keen on.”
“Here’s a story I never told no one, repeat it to the wrong ears and I’ll box yours. Solineus climbed the Twelfth Foundation—”
“I’ve heard that tale.” He grinned and twined his hands behind his back.
“You Silone are an impatient sort. I climbed that same mountain, though I stopped well short of the summit. I was in love! I had to get back to this lady or my heart was bound to shittin’ burst. When I got back to Shuntiskâ, I found she’d been promised to a man of Molikîn. I thundered, I wept, I cursed the gods and my mother for arranging the girl’s marriage. Turned out the Ironwing had different plans for me, and I was wed to a young lady from the Vale of Herindet, a place I’d never even heard of. Istilu and I, we hated each other. She didn’t want to move to Shuntiskâ, I didn’t want to so much as see her face. Twenty years on, the only thing that separates her and me are you godsdamned Silone.” He grinned and slapped Ivin on the back.
Ivin chuckled. “How many years did that take?” The man paused, the twitch to his lip and his looking to the ground suggesting he thought to lie. “Don’t pillow the truth with fibs.”
“Five agonizing years. Two before we tolerated one another. I think you’re ahead of us in this regard.”
“So maybe I only have three years of misery to look forward to?”
“You’re a brighter bastard than I ever was, I reckon. And she’s sweeter than my lady in those days. We both bore tempers and broke many fine antiques between the two of us. You two don’t seem the sort. Well, you don’t anyhow.”
“I should be grateful I got the gentler sister, I suppose.”
A guffaw. “Come! We should get back to the wall, make sure pigeon-girl hasn’t flown the coop to escape you.”
They hopped down the mountain’s chiseled tiers before dropping to a smooth trail that led them to the grass-covered Rôemhîen and its footpaths. For a long time, the trails here traveled three directions, east, west, and north, from the wall to the eastern and western quarries, but a trail traveling south stood beaten clear. Silone headed for the dense forests to the south for food and wood, and two villages already sprouted at the far end of the Roemhien.
So it was that when they turned their heads to the sound of riders from the south, it wasn’t a surprise; Kurin of Kîlît and a handful of Silone men. The group spurred their horses from a walk the flicker they spotted Ivin and Morik. The woman slipped from her saddle and into a graceful kneel. “My apologies for all that has happened and that which will come. Mountain Lord, we found trouble in the south.”
“Rise, Kurin. What kind of trouble?”
Ivin’s thoughts spun to the Ôgrihîn or some other monster. “Where’s Rinold?”
The woman didn’t even glance at him. “Men.”
Morik huffed. “The Histê don’t travel so far east.”
“Not Histê, best as I can tell. I’ve never seen these people before.”
Ivin kept his calm. “Rinold? The other men with you?”
“These people attacked as we fled a snake so damned big it might swallow a griffon. We ran. It was a blur. It followed Rinold and me, and he led it into a river with me up a tree. The beast didn’t get him, but a hunting party did. They were half-naked and armed with bows. I rounded up most of the Silone and tracked them to a camp... Every soul who wasn’t with me sat tethered to poles or caged. We lacked the numbers for a fight, and the next morning they attacked again, took three more of us in nets, and later in the day, two more. They tracked us, led us into a trap. Who you see here, we got lucky to make it through. Soon as we got past them, we moved north straight until we got here.”
“Tethered? Caged?” Morik grunted. “Sure sounds like Histê, cursed slavers.”
Kurin shook her head. “The language was wrong… they painted their bodies instead of tattoos. Smaller builds in general, more Rinold’s size than the Histê. And their eyes… bright yellow.”
“Yellow?” Morik snorted, spat, and ground it into the stone with his toe. “I don’t know what the hells to make of it.”
Ivin said, “I don’t give two shits who they are or why they took our people. I’ll spread word through the clans, we’ll have men ready to ride for the forest by tomorrow morning. Will you lead them?”
Kurin glanced to Morik. “I will. We found a Green Mountain, a ruin, where the beast first attacked. We’ll begin the search there.”
“These ruins, defensible? And how many of these enemies?”
“Most walls are down or covered by forest, but with work… maybe. Difficult to pin a number on these bastards, way they glided through the woods. I’d guess half a hundred, give or take a handful. If they’re slavers, there’ll be a bigger camp.”
Morik said, “I can spare twenty guards from the quarries, and the Ironwing will want word on this… we’ve loggers in them woods often enough.”
“I appreciate the help, but this fight isn’t yours.”
“No, Choerkin, we don’t know who’s fight this is. And tell me you wouldn’t do the same?”
The story of Solineus’ trek up the mountain and subsequent journeys were familiar, but he forgot or underestimated how these two men bonded. It was more than a favor owed. Ivin chuckled and shook his head. “A brother of a brother is a brother.”
“You say it as if it’s funny.”
Ivin shook his head. “After all I’ve seen, I find it amazing someone means it. I welcome you and your people to travel by my side.”
Morik coughed. “I reckon I don’t know your customs so well, but I expect the groom should attend his own wedding?”
Ivin’s head rolled back and he stared at the sky, wondering if he might put off the ceremony for a while… a few years, maybe. “No, I wouldn’t expect the Lady Ravinrin to go easy on that plan.”
“Nor the Ironwing… nor my wife… Sufficient to say I won’t be seeing the jungle’s depths. But my people will assist yours.”
Ivin turned toward the wall and walked. “I’d send an army if I could, as it is, I doubt the clans will spare a hundred men.”
***
Kinesee’s fifteenth birthday had been a celebration she would never have imagined for three reasons. First, there’d been at least three hundred party-goers. Second, Tedeu allowed her to drink wine for the first time and she hated it; the stuff was a sinister plot against her palate and expectations, but after three glasses she ignored her tongue, thankful for the drink helping to numb the third: The party doubled as a celebration of her pending nuptials.
Marriage!
She wanted to hurl curses, but she saved her sharpened tongue for those times she was alone. Maro and the other guards relaxed month by month as there hadn’t been so much as a whisper of assassins, but time alone was still rare and precious, even here on the wall spanning the Roemhien Pass. The breezes this afternoon passed from warm to chill depending on the moment, making it a pleasant day to wrap herself in a fox-skin robe as she walked with Maro shadowing her.
She was a princess with a castle now, even if it wasn’t like what she’d imagined a couple of years ago, but compared to the harrowing alternatives she shouldn’t be complaining. The Western Tower, the Pigeon’s Nest she called it, was complete. It was more a castle unto itself than a tower, or perhaps a keep (the proper names of such thing eluded her), which housed a stable, garrison, the pigeon-master, and herself. Once married, Ivin would live there as well, but until then he stayed at the Central Tower where the main gates stood.
The wall proper might as well be finished, thirty feet of solid stone both thick and high, and the approach from the north was a steep rise an army would hate to march. A horizon wide, it would take men to defend this perch, but the Kingdomers assured her that so long as the wall had ample men in defense, no army would defeat their master construction. She didn’t doubt them and understood that a siege would be fruitless; with a forest full of food at their backs and fresh wells and springs for water, an army could hold this fortress until growing old with age. But there were still two main towers to finish and talk of a walled city had already begun.
She didn’t know what her father had done to earn such respect from the Kingdomers, but they were feverish in their insistence to help. Oh, Solineus’ letter had spoken of a “coin” on a mountain, but she’d never grasped why such a thing was so valuable.
The Central Tower grew before her as she approached, and so too did the number of guards she passed, which meant Maro and his men drew closer to her side. She slowed to drop in by the big man’s side. “We should bring horses atop the wall; it’d be a fun gallop.”
The man’s mustache drooped. “Can’t say I’ve ever entertained that notion any more than the idea of being bucked over a cliff.”
“You’re such a gloomy fellow, the wall is wide enough for two wagons. A well-mannered horse would be no trouble at all.”
“You know why no assassin has come for you since that night? Because they figured out you’ll do something stupid to kill yourself without their help.”
She laughed. “You might be right.” Kinesee turned and leaned against the parapets facing south. A pair of oxen pulled a slab of stone down the hill, two men riding beside the wheels, leaning on handbrakes to make certain the chiseled piece of mountain didn’t get away. Even with these smaller stones, the system never failed to impress.
Her eyes rose as riders poured over the rise to the south and galloped around the oxen. They rode with a speed which spoke of a purpose, and it didn’t take more than a few flickers to realize one of them was her betrothed and another Morik.
“I didn’t know the Kingdomer was here for a visit.”
“I’ve little doubt the man has more to do than visit you and your pigeons every time he leaves Shuntiskâ.”
“Did somebody punch you awake before sunup? You’re a grump today.”
“I’m warm as the sun, m’lady.”
Kinesee glanced at the cloud-covered glow in the sky. “Mmhmm. I see.”
The horses approached fast; she leaned and stretched, waving to Ivin. In her mind she wasn’t some girl in a day dress, she was a princess draped in a silver-laced gown like she’d worn on her birthday, the one which had made Ivin’s eyes go wide like enraptured men were meant to. But this time he wasn’t even looking. She stretched to her tiptoes and waved with her broadest smile, and the thick-headed man rode straight into the gates without so much as a glance up.
She raced to the northern parapets in time to see the horses streak past and then down the rise. “Ivin!” She waved and jumped, then stomped her foot and scowled the flicker she realized her prince was a thick-headed warlord and she just a girl in a plain dress. “Men are so blind.”
“Don’t blame the boy, if he’d seen you—“
“A man should know his lady is waving.”
Maro laughed but cut the guffaw short as she turned her stare on him. Her other guards looked everywhere but at her. “Now who was punched awake this morn? I’d be more curious what had them riding so fast.”
Kinesee snorted. “That’s because you’re a lunkheaded man as well. Maybe even lunkier than that Choerkin.” She turned to the gate towers and stared; her walking mood had turned sour, but there was no way to avoid a walk one way or another, seeing as she was in even less of a stand-around mood. She spun west. “We should check on the pigeons, see if Solineus has sent word.”
Maro puffed his mustache with a breath. “We spoke to the pigeon-master not much over a candle past.”
“And we’ll talk to her again!” She tromped along the wall as if she were some legendary dragon trying to tear down a mountain and tuned out the inevitable “Yes m’lady”. A hundred stomps later she admitted she was being a peevish brat, but only to herself. She lightened her steps to save her ankles from the pounding and took deep breaths before releasing her lips from a pouting frown.
After a half candle to walk off her irritation, they reached the Pigeon’s Nest. Guards nodded and opened the single oak door and she strode into the shadows of the tower’s hull. She headed straight rather than left and down.
“You’ve decided not to visit the pigeon-master?”
Kinesee sighed. “Not right away. I’m going to rest my feet a little.” Her boots were new and comfortable, but they’d rubbed a couple of spots sore in the early part of her walk.
She ascended a flight of stairs with her train of guards marching behind and she threw the door open, but it should’ve been locked.
“Hello, Kinesee.”
The woman’s voice sent her toes off the floor in start, and her heart thudded as Maro’s sword whispered from its sheath. She turned to stare at inhuman eyes. “Lelishen! Gods bedarned, don’t do that.” Maro’s sword remained leveled at the woman until Kinesee pushed his hand down.
Lelishen sat in Kinesee’s favorite chair by a stained-glass window that depicted vines of red roses. “I am sorry about my entrance.”
Kinesee moved to a stool beside her bed as Maro sheathed his blade and motioned the other guards to remain outside the door.
“Do tell, what brings you to my palace?”
Lelishen straightened in her seat, her face calm as if still in deep thought. “Have you had word from Solineus?”
“It’s been months, but the Ironwing let us know he’d passed through Barkûsh. Where he went from there and why, nobody knows.”
Lelishen sighed and couldn’t conceal her angst, even with that pretty, placid face. “May we speak alone?”
Kinesee nodded. “Maro, please leave us be, and close the door.”
The big man glared and puffed his mustache. “Yes, m’lady.”
Lelishen waited until the door closed behind him. “Your pearl, can you call him?”
Maybe it shouldn’t have shocked her that the Trelelunin knew, but somehow it did. “My... I can tell that he is alive.”
“He mentioned hearing your voice.”
She blushed, a tad annoyed at what she knew. “Yes, but only when he was close... and when my need was desperate. Alu heard him too, once.”
The woman stood and glided to loom over her, but Kinesee didn’t feel threatened. She felt sadness and concern. “Rub the pearl for me, tell him I need him.”
Kinesee pulled the pearl from beneath the hem of her dress as she stared into the woman’s beautiful eyes with their flecks of silver. It’d been over a year since Lelishen had been here last, and looking back, she figured she should’ve seen the worry in the woman’s gaze back then when she asked after Solineus. She rubbed the pearl between her hands, soothed by its familiar warmth, and she felt a connection to the man’s soul grow. She closed her eyes. Lelishen is here, she needs you.
Lelishen’s stare didn’t waver. “Anything?”
Kinesee shook her head. “No. I mean, I feel him, so I guess he feels me, but... I have no idea.”
“Rub the pearl again.”
The pearl grew warm and Lelishen clutched her hands, long fingers enveloping her grip on the pearl. Her touch was warm, so hot she wondered if the woman maybe had a fever. Then she heard Lelishen’s voice in her head: I need you. Come to me.
Lelishen’s eyes blinked open and the two stared at each other, the pearl’s warmth fading. There was no response from Solineus.
“I didn’t hear him, but I heard you.”
“I heard nothing as well.” The woman’s chin sank to her chest, and if a tear had fallen, it wouldn’t have surprised Kinesee.
“What’s wrong, maybe I can help?”
Lelishen released her hands. “No, but you can rub the pearl every day, try to let him know. If you speak to him, tell him to find me between the snow and the sun.”
“Between... What do you mean?”
“He’ll figure it out.” She turned to leave.
Kinesee stomped her foot. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Lelishen stopped, her arms dropping to her sides. “Can you keep a secret? One a life depends on.”
“Of course.”
Lelishen stepped close, and the whisper in her ear brought a chill to her spine. “Solineus and I have... an impossible son. No Trelelunin and human… If the wrong ears hear this, he will die. Not a soul but you and Solineus may know this.”
Kinesee’s head rocked back, the chill gone. “I have a little brother?” Lelishen’s smile fought through a fear fraught face. “What’s his name?”
“Veldehar. It means ‘untold blessing’ in the tongue of the Helelindin.” She turned, opened the door, and disappeared down the hall.
Maro’s head stuck through the gap in a flicker. “What did the woodkin want?”
Kinesee stifled her grin. “Leaving a message for Solineus is all.”
“If you say so, m’lady.”
“Nothing for you to worry about, womanly things. I need to sit and think. Leave me be for a while.”
The door closed, shutting off a grumble from the man, and Kinesee flopped in her chair. I never considered having a little brother, even if he isn’t blood. With all the death and misery she’d faced over a lifetime, let alone these past couple of years, the notion left an unexpected warmth in her breast. Except, who would want to kill a baby?