Chapter 51
LI
I GASP AS THE GROUND VANISHES BENEATH MY FEET; I fall, only for a second, but it’s enough for me to stumble and trip with a snarl of utterly confused panic. Thrum. I see red lanterns falling and stands coated with blood and I hear screams, and screams, and screams.
I open my eyes. It’s dark, and so as I roll in brief, defensive panic, it is the air that I notice first. Shockingly fresh and crisp. No city smell, just the faint earthy odours of the dew-damp ground.
Then my vision adjusts.
The candles lighting the room are gone. The room is gone.
We are on a grassy slope painted with faint, cloud-diffused starlight.
My eyes dart in bewildered assessment, trying to make sense of what just happened.
Diago’s angry, confounded growl is rolling across the empty hills and fading toward a glimmering bay.
Ostius, who apparently expected the abrupt drop and landed on his feet, is assessing our surrounds.
I lie there propped up on my metal elbow, panting a gradually slowing panicked rhythm, shards of triangular metal quivering in place. The shock almost too much, even for that trained and fortified part of my mind that maintains the connection. “What in all the rotting gods-damned hells was that?”
Ostius doesn’t even glance in my direction. Just taps his heart three times with three fingers. “I think you know.”
I think I do. Impossible to parse, but I think I do. There is a township, much farther down the hill. Fires and torches and distant motion within a rough wooden palisade wall. Space enough for a few hundred people, perhaps. A dock with the shadows of two small ships bobbing gently.
But the shape of the dim harbour beyond it is too familiar. The way the ground slopes, too.
“This is Caten,” I whisper dazedly.
“This is most definitely not Caten.” Ostius turns to me, apparently satisfied that there is no one else around. “Come. These crossings cause disturbances, and while tonight the druids should be busy with their own festival rites, you can never be sure.”
“Druids?”
“Sanctimonious little men. You wouldn’t like them. They don’t appreciate me dropping in like this.” Ostius delves into his bag and tosses me something. A white cloak. “You are one, tonight, by the way. Don’t speak. Just keep that arm hidden and stand there in your mask.”
I catch the cloak with my good hand, flicking it open. It’s richly made. An intricate green symbol stitched onto the back. “Where did you get this?”
“Another druid very kindly let me borrow it.” He examines me critically. “It would be more convincing if you had a staff.”
I hesitate, then focus. Take the last of the metal from my chest, a few pieces from my arm, and then form the triangles into a twisted, interconnected pole.
Ostius examines me and then gives a slow, delighted clap. “An Draoi na Ceárta. Oh, they are going to talk about this.” He swivels and almost dances down the hill toward the township.
I grimace, then sling the cloak around my shoulders and follow.
“So this is … one of the other worlds.” It seems obvious that’s what he’s saying, but I need to hear it. The stars are so bright, here. The air so clean. Is it my imagination? Even on Suus, I don’t remember the world feeling so vast and empty and pure. “Obiteum or Luceum?”
“The second one,” says Ostius, a little dryly, though I don’t know why. His gaze is focused on the walls down the hill.
“So there’s another version of me here.”
“I doubt he’s here. But yes. Somewhere.” He chuckles. “If we happen to come across him, I promise I’ll allow time to stop and chat.”
I say nothing to that. Reflective as we pick our way through the darkness.
It feels strange. Feels like I should know where he is, be able to sense him, somehow.
But there’s nothing like that. Just the crisp chill of the night, and the faint sounds of celebration impinging as we draw closer to the palisade.
From our vantage coming down the hill I can see people in the streets, drinking and smiling and chattering to one another in the torchlight. A series of masks atop poles line their celebration, not far from the entrance. “So they have something like the Festival of Pletuna here too?”
“Not exactly.”
We step into the light and there’s a shout atop the wall as we’re spotted by the guards. The gates are closed and the perimeter well defended. This is not Caten, but it’s no simple village, either.
“Atal!” The challenge is issued in our direction. I have no idea what it means.
Ostius is unconcerned. “Tá an draoi haearn ag teacht. Lig dúinn isteach.” He gestures to me and I take the cue, stepping forward confidently into the light. Diago pads to stand by my side.
A few quick shouts. The gate opens.
Ostius looks at me. “An alupi,” he murmurs, smiling and shaking his head delightedly. “As if the gods were real, my boy.”
We walk inside.
Crackling torches line the main street, which is little more than a dirt track that would undoubtedly turn to churning mud during the wet season.
Simple thatched huts with simple fences.
The smell of smoke and earth and wood, the occasional animal’s pen.
I hear strange music from farther in. Laughter and shouting.
The guards greet us just inside, examining me and Diago with curious deference. One asks me a question I don’t understand but Ostius steps in, says something sharp. The guard nods and melts away into the shadows, resuming his duties.
As we walk on, I realise that the masks I saw were not masks at all.
I barely manage to not stumble to a stop, to conceal my horror. Glassy eyes and drooping mouths still open in what is not too hard to imagine was a final scream. “Those are heads,” I say in a sickened whisper.
“Very observant.”
“Did these people kill them?”
“Well it wasn’t suicide.”
Vek. “Is that what will happen to us, if they catch us?”
“You’re pretending to be a druid. That is the distant end of what they’ll do, my boy.”
He delivers it cheerfully and quietly, as if he’s remarking on the cold of the evening. I can’t tell if he’s joking. I don’t think he is. I don’t ask any more questions.
We walk the grisly parade, Diago’s hackles up and teeth bared as he eyes the still-dripping heads with as much uncertainty as I feel. The sight is dissonant with the unaffected laughter that comes from all around, the sound of cheering and feasting as children run around the pikes.
“This is barbaric.” I mutter the words.
“You prefer the civilized comforts of Caten, I take it?”
“No. I …” I trail off. “So Caten doesn’t exist here?”
“It’s another world. The concept of ceding your Will doesn’t exist here, either.”
I continue to follow him, dazed at the thought as we pass some fenced-in dogs. The animals bark vociferously as we draw near. As soon as they scent Diago, though, they fall silent. Slink to the back of their pen, eyes fixed on the alupi. Diago ignores them.
The people around us part as soon as they see my white cloak, and stop what they’re doing entirely when they see Diago padding along behind us.
Many stare or double-take at my iron mask, too—it’s clearly unusual—but it’s the alupi who primarily has their attention.
None move to stop us or to engage with me, for the most part resuming their conversations or drinking once we’re past.
We’re beyond the majority of the crowd, finally through the gauntlet of severed heads, when a shriek cuts through the night. Ignored by those around us but it’s not far away. A woman, clearly in distress.
“Leave it,” says Ostius immediately.
The shriek comes again, and this time doesn’t stop. “No.” I’m turning aside toward the source before Ostius can move to prevent me.
“You don’t know—” He tries to duck ahead of me, cut me off, but Diago bars his way. Ostius curses as I leave him in my wake.
He and Diago only catch up as I reach the doorway of the simple hut.
A lone torch lights the interior. A dirt floor.
Three large men stand in its centre over the woman whose cries I heard.
I don’t know their intent, but she is bound and the way they loom, they are not there to be friendly.
The woman glares at them with bared teeth.
Matted hair and a feral look about her. Welts across her arms.
“Tell them to stop.” I say it loud as Ostius comes to stand beside me, enough so that the men inside hear, though I’ve gathered they won’t be able to comprehend the words. I don’t take my eyes from them.
“You will be interfering in something you don’t understand.”
“I understand well enough. Tell them.” They have turned. Curious, confused rather than threatening looks as they take in my white cloak.
“No.”
I allow my mask to disintegrate. The warriors watch wide-eyed as I form three small daggers from the metal.
Then I direct them to hover at each man’s throat.
“Rotting gods. You’re like a puppy,” growls Ostius as the men back away, forced to by the jagged ends of the metal. He turns to the warriors. “Is mian leis an draoi sibh a fhágáil go ciúin di.”
A short, sharp exchange between Ostius and one of the men becomes increasingly indignant on the stranger’s end. Eventually, though, the three—scowling—seem to relent, backing away and exiting the hut. The woman on the ground spits after them.
“I thought your father brought you up a diplomat. This isn’t your world, and things are different here,” says Ostius irritably.
“Some things are universal.” I control one of the blades, carefully slicing through the woman’s bonds. She looks at me uncertainly as she staggers to her feet. “Go,” I add to her, making a gesture to indicate what I mean. “Get out of here while you can.”
She watches me cautiously for a long moment, then flees.
“Feel better?” Ostius sighs as I part the daggers and send the metal triangles back to cover my face. “No more stops, Vis. No more distractions. They won’t interfere with a druid’s orders, but they’re not going to keep quiet about this, either. We don’t have long.”
I ignore his evident frustration and follow him back to the main path, then along a few more dirt tracks until finally he comes to a stop. His gaze focused up ahead.
“Oh, dear,” he says, eyeing the group farther along as he steers me over toward the corner of a thatch-roofed hut. The three men who we just stopped are speaking animatedly with two more in white cloaks. “This is about right, but I did rather hope they would be busier. Ready?”
“Wait.” No Caten. No Hierarchy. I want to know more.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” says Ostius as he places one hand on my shoulder and the other on Diago’s.
His eyes turn black.