Tamsin Germaix spotted the man by the road first. Her uncle was busy talking about some grand ball he’d been to in the capital. Her eyes and hands had been busy all morning on a new piece of embroidery, much more difficult than the last one Uncle had her do. But every now and then (and she hid this from him) she had to stop because her hands began to shake. Now was such a time: she frowned at them, betraying as they were, and looked up to see the man.
The figure was sitting on a rock by the road, hunched over. It would take them a few minutes to pass him, since uncle was more interested in his story than in speed, and anyway every jolt of the cart sent spikes of pain up Tamsin’s sprained ankle. She had the splinted shin encased in pillows, and wore a blanket over her lap against the chill morning air; still, she was far from comfortable.
Certainly they had passed farmers and other lowborn persons walking by the road. This track was what passed for a main road in this forsaken part of backward Memnonis. Why, in the past day alone, they’d met three cows and a whole flock of sheep!
“…hold your knife properly, not the way you did at dinner last night,” her uncle was saying. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“There’ll be feasts like that again, once we’re back home. It’ll only be a few days now.” He scratched at the stubble on his chin uncertainly. “Things can’t have changed that much.”
She watched the seated figure over the rounded rump of one of their horses. He looked odd. Not like a farmer at all. First of all, he seemed to be dressed in red, a rare color for the lowborn. Secondly, she could see a fluff of gold around his collar, and at his waist.
“Uncle, there’s a strange man on the road ahead.”
“Huh?” He came instantly alert. “Only one? Is he waving to us? Ah, I see him.”
Uncle Suneil had told her about bandits, and how to identify them. This apparition certainly didn’t fit that mould.
As they drew closer Tamsin levered herself to her feet and looked down at the man. He seemed young, with black hair and dressed nattily. His clothes, though, were mud-spattered and torn, and he had a large leather knapsack over one shoulder. He held a knife in one hand and a piece of half-carved stick in the other. He was whittling.
He stood up suddenly as if in alarm, but he wasn’t look in their direction. He had dropped his knife, and now he picked it up again, and started walking away up the road. He seemed to be talking to himself.
“I still think he’s a bandit. Or crazy! He must have taken those clothes off of a victim.”
Her uncle shook his head. “A proper young lady knows fine tailoring. Look, you’ll see his clothes have been made to fit him nicely. Now sit down, before you fall off the wagon.”
She sat down. He certainly looked mysterious, but after all, they didn’t know who he was. She knew the mature thing to do would be pass him by; she knit her hands in her lap and waited for her uncle to prod the horses into a faster walk.
Uncle Suneil raised a hand. “Ho, traveller! Well met on the road to Iapysia!”
*
All he had done for two days was walk. Jordan was exhausted now and was beginning to think his journey to meet with Armiger might be impossible. Calandria had bundled food for several people into her saddle bags, but it weighed a lot. He rested when he needed, and carefully lit a fire before bedding down each night. Despite that, his feet hurt and his shoulders were strained from carrying the heavy bags. So, as midmorning burned away the cold of last night, he sat down on a stone by the side of the road to rest.
He would have given up walking, were it not that whenever he paused to rest, he saw visions of far-off places, and knew they were real. Knowing that fed his determination to keep going.
He needed an activity to keep the visions at bay. He had taken to whittling, and now he pulled out a stick he’d begun this morning, and began carving away at it, lips pursed.
Last night Jordan had sat rapt at his meagre fire as Armiger spoke to Queen Galas. “You wish to hear human speech issue from the inhuman, from the rocks and trees,” the general had said. “Could a stone speak, what would it say?” It was almost as though the general knew he was listening.
Armiger had not gone on to tell his story. It was late, and the queen had deferred the audience until some time today. Jordan was not disappointed; he had lain awake for hours, thinking about Armiger’s words. He had pushed aside his self-pity and exhaustion, and made himself come to a decision. It was time to take the step he had been avoiding.
Despite his private miseries and loneliness, Jordan had not forgotten for a moment that Armiger’s was not the only voice he could hear. On the evening when the Heaven hooks descended, Jordan had learned he could hear the voices of the Winds too. Until this morning he had deliberately tuned them out, because he’d been afraid that at any moment the Heaven hooks would rear out of the empty sky and grab him up.
He had bundled Calandria May’s golden gauze into a kind of poncho, then awkwardly buttoned his jacket over that. The gold stuff stuck out behind him like a bird’s tail, and up around his neck like a dandy’s ruff. But he was pretty sure it was still doing its duty. The Winds did not know where he was.
As the Heaven hooks descended on the Boros estate, Jordan had learned that he could hear the little voices of inanimate and animate things. Each object within his sight had a voice, he now knew. Each thing proclaimed its identity, over and over, the way a bird calls its name all day for no reason but the joy in its own voice. Now that he knew they were there, Jordan could attune himself to the sound of that endless murmur. Last night and this morning, he had worked at tuning into and out of that listening stance as he walked.
If he closed his eyes, he could see a ghostly landscape, mostly made up of words hovering over indistinct objects. He could make little sense of that, so he left that avenue alone.
It seemed that he could focus his inner hearing on individual objects, if he concentrated hard enough.
He held up the knife he had been whittling with, and concentrated on it. After a few minutes he began to hear its voice. “Steel,” it said. “A steel blade. Carbon steel, a knife.”
At the Boros estate, Jordan had spoken to a little soul like this, and it had answered. I am stone, a doorway arch had said to him. This ability to speak to things didn’t surprise him as much as it might have, considering everything that had happened. According to the priest Allegri, some people had visions of the Winds, and the Winds didn’t punish them for this. Allegri had told Jordan that he might be one of those with such a talent. He had been wrong at the time; what Jordan had been experiencing then was visions of Armiger—and those, the Winds surely disliked.
But this? This communion with a simple object seemed to have nothing to do with Armiger. Maybe it had been enabled by whatever Calandria May had done to Jordan’s head. But was it forbidden by the Winds?
Well, he had Calandria’s protective gauze. Jordan was confident he could hear the approach of the greater Winds in time to don it and escape.
It came down, then, to a matter of courage.
“What are you?” he asked the knife.
“I am knife,” said the knife.
Even though he was expecting it, Jordan was so startled he dropped the thing.
He picked it up, and began nervously walking. “Knife, what are you made of?”
The voice in his head was clear, neutral, neither male nor female: “I am a combination of iron and carbon. The carbon is a hardening agent.”
He nodded, wondering what else to ask it. The obvious question was, “How is that you can speak?”
“I am broadcasting a combined fractal signal on visible frequencies of radiation.”
The answer had made no sense. “Why can’t other people hear you?”
“They are not equipped to receive.”
That was kind of a restatement of the question, he thought. How will I get anywhere if I don’t know what to ask?
He thought for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Who made you?”
“Ho, traveller! Well met on the road to Iapysia!”
For just a split second he thought the knife had said that. Then Jordan looked behind him. A large covered wagon drawn by two horses was coming up the road. Two people sat at the front. The driver was waving to him.
Suddenly very selfconscious, he slipped the knife into his belt. He knew the gold gauze was sticking out at his collar and waist, but there was no time to do anything about that.
“Uh, hello.” The man’s accent had been foreign. He was middle aged, almost elderly, with a fringe of white hair around his sunburnt skull. He was dressed in new-looking townsman’s clothes.
The other passenger was a woman. She looked to be about Jordan’s age. She was dressed in frills and wore a sun hat, but her face under it was tanned, the one whisp of stray hair sunbleached. She held a embroidery ring in strong, calloused hands. She was scowling at Jordan.
“Where are you bound, son?” asked the man.
Jordan gestured. “South. Iapysia.”
“Ah. So are we. Returning home?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“But you accent is Memnonian,” said the old man.
“Um, uh. We have houses in both countries,” he said, mindful of the Boros example. He was itching to listen in to the voices again; he had to know if his dialogue with the knife had alerted the Winds. At the Boros manor, the whole landscape had come alert, almost overwhelming his senses. That wasn’t happening now. But he couldn’t be sure without checking.
“My name’s Milo Suneil,” said the man. “And this is—”
“Excuse me,” gritted the young woman. She stood abruptly and climbed into the covered back of the wagon.
“…My niece, Tamsin,” finished Suneil. “Who is not herself today. And you are?”
“Jordan Mason.” He affected the half-bow that the highborn Boros had used on one another. It was harder to perform while walking, though.
“Pleased to meet you.” There was a momentary silence. The cart was moving at just the pace Jordan was walking, so he remained abreast of Suneil. From the back of the wagon came the sound of things being tossed about.
“Calm weather, for autumn,” said Suneil. Jordan agreed that it was. “Clouds moving in, though. Not good—clouds could hide things in the sky, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“News travels slowly, I see!” Suneil laughed. “You’re dressed like a highborn lad, surely you’ve heard the news about the destruction of the Boros household!”
“Ah, that. Yes. I did hear about it,” he said uncomfortably.
“I’m itching to find out what really happened,” said Suneil. “We’ve had ten versions of the story from ten different people. When I saw you walking by the road, coming from the direction of the estate, I thought, could it be? A refugee from our little disaster?”
Jordan, unsure of himself in this situation, merely shrugged.
Suneil was silent for a while, staring ahead. “The fact is,” he said at last, “that my curiosity has gotten the best of me. If we were to run into someone who actually knew what had happened at the estate—or Winds forbid, someone who was actually there!—then I might be inclined to give that person a ride with us, provided they told their story.”
“I see,” said Jordan neutrally.
“My niece has sprained her leg,” added Suneil. “And I’m not as young as I used to be. We’ll need someone to gather firewood, the next day or so.”
Jordan was very surprised. People didn’t trust strangers on the open road. Then again, one never travelled alone, either.
Do I look that harmless? he wondered.
“It’s all right,” said Suneil reasonably. “I’m not a Heaven hook, nor am I in league with them. I just deduced that you were at the Boros place, because you’re walking from that direction, and you’re dressed well, except for the mud stains and wild hair. Actually, you look like you fled somewhere in a hurry. We’ve passed a couple of people who looked like that—only none would talk to us.”
Jordan eyed the cart greedily. He was very tired. A few days ride in return for some carefully edited storytelling couldn’t hurt anything. In fact, it might be the only way he’d get to Iapysia.
“All right,” he said. “I’m your man.”
*
Tamsin cowered back into the wagon. Uncle must be insane! He was picking up strange men on the highway—they were sure to be robbed and raped by this crazy person who talked to himself and had gold cloth stuffed in his shirt.
She felt the wagon dip deeply as the man stepped up onto the front seat. Then it commenced rolling forward. She sat down on a bale of cloth, disconsolately picking at her embroidery. Finally she threw it on the floor.
Some days were fine. Today had started out that way. Some days, she could wake up in the morning, and clouds would be just clouds, water just water. She could actually smell breakfast as she cooked it, and feel hungry. Some days she could listen to Uncle’s plans, and tease into life a small spark of enthusiasm that he seemed to know she had. She could look forward to being an ingenue at Rhiene or one of the other great cities of Iapysia. So there were days when she practised her curtsies, her embroidery, and recited the epic poems Uncle had coached her in.
And then there were days… Her hands trembled again as she reached down to massage her leg. She couldn’t remember why she had been running—all she remembered was the overwhelming bleakness of the landscape. Bare trees, yellow grass. Cold air. Her own thoughts and feelings were inaccessible to her. One thing was sure, she was certainly not looking where she was going that morning. No wonder she’d sprained her leg.
Sometimes the tiniest little annoyance would set her off in a fit of temper that made her Uncle’s eyes widen in disbelief. Once it was because she had dropped a stitch! He did nothing to calm her down, but let her play it out. Afterward, she was always listless and ashamed.
I will not explode, she told herself. Even if Uncle is trying to get us killed.
They were talking up there—chatting like old friends. Of course, he did that with strangers all the time, but it was normally when they stopped at roadside markets or near towns. Uncle was an insatiable vessel for news, and these last two days he had been stopping everyone for information about the horrible incident at the Boros estate. It just wasn’t like him to pick people up off the road to talk.
Tamsin gritted her teeth and glared at the canvas flap. It was true an extra set of hands would be good right now. Rationally, she understood it. It didn’t stop her seething.
She sat in the dimness for a while, arms crossed, trying not to think. Thinking was bad. It led to things worse than anger.
This will all end soon, she told herself. When we get to Rhiene everything will be different. Meanwhile, she would have to make adjustments, and test her patience. So, after a little while, she adjusted her hair, planted a smile on her face, and opened the front flap of the cart’s canopy.
“Hello,” she said brightly to the startled young man who was in her seat. She held out her hand. “My name’s Tamsin. What’s yours?”
*
Calandria May slung the bag of potatoes over her shoulder, and made her way out of the market. The place was still buzzing with talk of the Boros catastrophe; the consensus was that the Winds had finally gotten around to punishing the family for unspecified past excesses. Attendance at church here in the town of Geldon was decidedly up.
There was some confused discussion of Yuri’s assassination. It was laid at the feet of Brendan Sheia, and two spies from Ravenon were named as accomplices. That explained why Calandria was currently disguised as a boy. She had cropped her hair and changed her voice and mannerisms. Right now she used the bag of potatoes to add swing to her shoulders as she walked, since otherwise her lower center of balance was harder to disguise.
People were also talking about Jordan Mason. No one knew his name, but some people had witnessed a confrontation between Turcaret and a young man. The controller had accused the youth of bringing the Heaven hooks down on the household.
Her shoulders itched as she walked—a familiar feeling that she was being watched, or followed. It had nothing to do with any townspeople who might glance at her on the way by. This was an older, and more fundamental, fear.
If she closed her eyes, Calandria could invoke her inscape senses: infrared sight and the galvanic radar that told of the presence of mecha or Winds. She couldn’t help herself—every few minutes, she paused, closed her eyes, and looked around using these senses.
Ever since the night that the Heaven hooks came down, Calandria had refused to let herself be lulled back into thinking that Ventus was a natural place. She was trapped in the gears of a giant, globe-spanning machine—a nanotech terraforming system that barely tolerated her kind. This appeared to be ordinary dirt she walked on, but it had been manufactured; it took more than the thousand years that Ventus had been habitable for soil like this to form naturally. The air seemed fresh and clean, but that too was moderated by unseen forces.
Those unseen forces were a threat. They might yet kill her. So she remained vigilant.
Calandria turned into a narrow alley and went through a roughhewn door that had a latch but no lock. Up a flight of stairs, through another door, and she was home.
This was the safe room where they had intended to hide August Ostler. The room was about four by six meters. It had one window which let out on the street—not an advantage, because mostly it just let in the smell of the open sewer that ran down the center of the lane. The place was built of plaster and lath. Calandria could hear the landlady snoring in the room next door. But it was out of the elements, and warm at night. That was all that mattered.
Currently everything she had was in this room, or on her person. Their horses had been killed in the destruction of the Boros stables, and she never had recovered her pack with its supplies of offworld technology. That had complicated matters, over the past couple of days.
Axel Chan grunted something and shifted in his sleep. His face was still flushed from the fever that had gripped him since Turcaret’s attack. His diagnostic nano were supposed to be able to handle routine infections. They didn’t seem to be working. Without the proper equipment, Calandria couldn’t determine why, though she suspected the local mecha were suppressing the offworld technology.
Would the same mecha contact the Winds and warn them of the presence of aliens here? Each night as she lay down, Calandria found herself imagining the harsh armatures of the Heaven hooks reaching down to pluck this small room apart.
It wasn’t like her to be afraid. But then, she was never afraid of merely physical threats. This was something else.
She put the potatoes down on the room’s one table. Axel coughed, and sat up.
“How are you feeling?” Calandria ladled some cold soup out and put it next to Axel. He drank it eagerly.
“As the good people of Memnonis like to say, I feel like a toad in a pisspot. Is this brackish swill best you could do?”
She sighed. “Axel, have you ever been truly ill in your life?”
“No.”
She nodded. “Why?” asked Axel after a moment.
“Because your nurses would surely have strangled you in your bed, the way you carry on.”
“Oh, ho,” he said. “Leave then. I’ll be fine on my own.” He coughed weakly. “I’ll manage somehow… I’ll feed on the rats and bugs, and be sure to die somewhere out of the way, where no one will trip over my shrivelling corpse.”
She laughed. “You do sound much better.”
“Well…” He raised his arms and examined them. “I no longer feel like I’ll leak all over if I just stand up. I should be able to ride in a day or two.”
She shook her head. “It’s going to take longer than that. We need you in top form when we go after Armiger.”
He nodded, and sank back on the straw bed. “Any word on Jordan?”
“No one knows what happened to him, and I have no way to track him now. We used the Desert Voice’s sensors to locate Armiger’s remotes the first time. With the Voice missing, we don’t have that option. Anyway, Jordan’s probably on his way home. No reason he shouldn’t be.”
Axel shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like it. I still feel responsible.”
“I know,” she said. “But our first responsibility is to find Armiger and destroy him. If we don’t do that, then Jordan won’t be safe, no matter where he is.”
Axel appeared to accept this logic. “I assume,” he said, “that we’re not going to take Armiger on ourselves at this point. Just track him down.”
She nodded, coming to sit next to him. With the loss of the Desert Voice, they no longer had the firepower to destroy Armiger themselves. They would need help. At the same time, having the firepower wasn’t enough: they had to find Armiger, run him to ground. Calandria wanted to be sure of where he was before they left Ventus for reinforcements.
Axel looked better, but was still pale. He’d lost weight. “As soon as we get a ping from a passing ship we’ll try to get offworld,” she promised. “Meanwhile, we can’t afford to lose track of him.”
“We may have already.” He closed his eyes, wincing as he tried to turn on his side. “We don’t know for sure that he’s going after the queen.”
“Yes. Well, it’s all we’ve got.” Axel didn’t reply, and after a moment she stood and went to the window. His breathing deepened with sleep behind her, as Calandria looked out and up at a blue sky full of rolling white clouds. She fought the urge to look behind that facade at the alien machinery that maintained it.
Losing the Desert Voice was a catastrophe. She loved her ship, but more than that, they would have needed its power in order to destroy Armiger. Somewhere out there, beyond the rooftops and the clear air, he was hatching his schemes. She should be able to see him, like a stain on the landscape, she thought. It was horrifying that he should be invisible to the people he was setting out to enslave.
Calandria hugged herself, remembering what it had been like on the one world of 3340’s she had visited. The people of Hsing had been traumatized to the point of madness; their only goal in life—more an obsession—was to win the attention and favor of 3340 by any means possible, so as to avoid destruction and win immortality as one of its demigod slaves. People would do anything, up to and including mass murder, to gain its attention. And once enslaved, they became embodiments of their most base instincts, in turn enslaving hundreds or thousands of innocents; or simply slaughtering them as unwanted potential competition.
And all the while, 3340 had eaten away at the skies and earth, rendering the planet progressively more toxic for the few unchanged humans who struggled to survive in the ruins.
Armiger might find the key he was looking for at any moment. Irrevocable change would come sweeping from over the horizon like a tsunami, and this time Calandria would not be able to stop it.
She sat down by the window, and forced her hands to stay still in her lap. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait—and watch the skies for a sign that the world was ending.