Chapter 23

Chapter 23

One more joined their number.

Yaretzi was the last, approaching her on the evening when Tupoc and Lord Ishaan’s crews went scouting ahead. The Aztlan did not look any worse for the labors of the first trial, her tanned face without mark and her practical clothes – a sleeveless stripe blouse above a long patchwork skirt, all of it under a thick sailor’s coat – barely scuffed. The earrings dangling from her ears were of the same copper-gold as Tupoc’s, but they were set with blue stones. They drew attention to her sultry dark eyes.

“Turquoise?” Angharad asked, touching her ear as the other woman sat.

Yaretzi looked surprised, even pleased.

“Indeed,” she said. “I was part of the Turquoise Society before leaving Izcalli.”

Angharad cocked an eyebrow.

“I thought Izcalli societies were named after animals,” she said. “Jaguars, eagles and the like.”

“Warrior societies are,” Yaretzi corrected. “Izcalli cosmology separates the world into three spheres, one of which is war. As a diplomat I was part of the second sphere, culture, whose societies are named after precious stones.”

“And the third?” she curiously asked.

“Trade,” Yaretzi said. “In the sense of occupation, not the mercantile, though that is also covered. It is the third sphere and the least, though still above okse – the other, that which is not in the spheres.”

“I will hazard a guess that this is where foreigners are counted,” Angharad said.

“It is hardly our fault that they did not have the good sense to be born Izcalli,” she said, lips twitching.

“I can only apologize for the slight,” the noblewoman gravely replied.

“I will forgive you this once,” Yaretzi allowed. “It is a difference in philosophy, the way the societies are named. A warrior seeks to embody the strengths of their emblem, but that is a personal distinction. A cultural society is named after precious stone because we seek for our service to Izcalli to be just as precious.”

“That is admirable,” Angharad said. “One’s honor is often found in service to that of others.”

It was the fundamental tenet of honor in the Isles, whose root was the High Queen. She was keeper of the honor of all Malan, its beginning and end, and could not die so long as the people of the Isles remained honorable.

“Mostly it teaches us to think differently than warrior society thugs,” Yaretzi said. “There are only so many flower wars you can start before you’re drowning in enemies instead of war prizes. I think our... friend Master Xical never quite learned that lesson.”

Angharad eyed her speculatively.

“But you did?”

“I have spent much of my life learning to read people,” the Aztlan smiled. “Which is why I can tell you with a degree of certainty that Shalini is one of the loveliest people you will ever meet, and also that if she suspects someone might be slight trouble for her Ishaan she will fire a shot into the back of their head without batting an eye.”

Yaretzi’s smile never wavered, though it pulled tight around the yes.

“A strong crew, those two have assembled, but until they have decided whether they are siblings or lovers I would much rather be part of yours,” she said. “It will do wonders for my nerves, if nothing else.”

Angharad choked, both at the glimpse into the private affairs of the Someshwari and the suddenness of the request.

“You can fight?” she coughed out.

Yaretzi stared flatly at her.

“My dear,” she said, “I was an Izcalli diplomat.”

That was fair enough, and so their company added another. They spent the rest of the afternoon preparing supplies and drilling basic formations at Angharad’s insistence, for a crew that did not know their place would only trip each over each other in a storm. Or so Mother had always said. Come evening she was satisfied everyone had elementary understanding of each other’s skill and would know where to stand when violence inevitably came knocking.

Now all that was left was to venture out.

—

Come morning the divisions had become clearly visible.

Three delving crews sat together for breakfast, and then the handful of spares who did not intend to venture out that day – Tristan, Sarai, Francho and Vanesa. Some off-color jests were made by Remund about why Tristan and Sarai might want to stay behind with only dotards as witnesses, but they petered out in the face of her obvious disapproval. Save for that misstep, the mood was pleasant. Yaretzi got along well with the pair she had shared the Trial of Lines with, though she tread carefully around Zenzele, and while the air between Song and Isabel was yet frosty the Tianxi found much to speak about with Inyoni.

That friendly air was shattered by Sergeant Mandisa, who made a round at every table with a wooden crate full of what Angharad finally saw to be small iron lanterns. None larger than a fist, charming but quite identical. Some Tianxi workshop must make them in bulk. The sergeant showed them the small engraved circle inside where they must put at least a drop of their blood, about where a candle would be were this a real lantern. Angharad pricked her forearm with a knife and smudged a drop inside as instructed.

“Why a lantern?” she asked Sergeant Mandisa.

“Same reason the Twenty Crowns used them,” Lady Inyoni idly cut in.

Angharad stared at her blankly, to the other woman’s confusion.

“Have you never read ‘The Empty Sea’?” she slowly asked.

Ah, the noblewoman thought. That would explain it. It was the third of the Great Works and from what she recalled only marginally more interesting that ‘The Vainglory’ and its incomprehensible mythologies or the endless litany of deaths and disasters that was ‘The Dead Shore’. Angharad had stopped trying to read it after Father admitted that though it purported to recount how the nations of her ancestors had sailed away from the dying Old World and journeyed to Vesper it was a largely philosophical book about the nature of mankind and its reflections on the eponymous Empty Sea.

Lots of finding islands where the lesson was that men were the real monsters all along, she’d heard.

“I began the Works with ‘The Ships of Morn’,” she admitted.

And ended them with the following work, The Madness of King Issay, she refrained from adding. That she had only read two of the nine Great Works was occasionally a slight embarrassment.

“Can’t blame her, I never read as anything half as depressing as The Dead Shore,” Sergeant Mandisa shared. “I’ve written up casualty lists that were more cheerful.”

“But you did read it, that’s the point,” Inyoni grumbled. “It is our common heritage, there’s a reason it’s mandatory.”

The grizzled older woman squinted at her.

“The Twenty Crowns, Lady Tredegar, our very own ancestors,” she said with an accusatory pointed finger, “found that our perceptions influence the aether. We associate lanterns with sight, with finding things, and so-”

“Gods will be able to use them to get at you,” Sergeant Mandisa completed. “You know, for the eating.”

Both of her gave her odd looks at the choice of word.

“I was raised Orthodox, they’re not spirits to me,” the sergeant informed them.

“It is your prerogative to be wrong,” Inyoni conceded.

“Hey now.”

“It is not her fault, she was never taught any better,” Angharad ‘excused’.

“And I was going to give you hints about the maze,” Mandisa said.

Inyoni raised an eyebrow.

“Were you really?”

A moment passed.

“No,” Mandisa confessed. “Gods, it’s like getting stared down by my own grandfather. Any moment now you’ll be asking why I haven’t found a husband yet.”

“And why is that, young lady?” Inyoni asked.

Sergeant Mandisa shivered, called the whole affair eerie and fled to another table. Angharad lost the war to keep her grin from showing, though she would admit she had not put up much of a fight. As breakfast slowly came to an end and it became clear that once more Beatris would not be joining them, Angharad’s lips thinned. Isabel had last evening admitted that she had not seen her maid in over a day, not even for meals, and that the Watch had refused to answer her questions. Since she no longer slept in the old stables like the rest of them and her personal affairs appeared to have been removed, it was suspected that she slept in the barracks with the blackcloaks.

Angharad sought and found Isabel’s eye. As they were all at the same table, a common company, it was not breaking the oath she had given Remund and must still heed.

“She may have retired from the trials,” Angharad said.

“And not even asked me for leave?” Isabel said, openly dubious. “The barracks are also where that charming old woman was operated, so there must be a physician’s office within. I expect she is simply sicker than anticipated.”

How much of that was genuine belief and how much was saving face at possibly having been abandoned by her handmaid Angharad could not tell, and now was not the time to plumb the depths of the question.

“Regardless, she is not to be counted among our company,” she said.

To that Isabel could only agree. They would be eight, then, and not nine.

After everyone finished breaking the last of their fast, when her crew went to get their packs, Angharad found herself approached by a pair she had so far had little to do with: Lord Ishaan Nair and Shalini Goel. Save their occasional cordial conversations on the Bluebell they had hardly spent a minute together, so this was unlikely to be a social call. Movement drew her eye and she found Song, ready and armed, already on her way. Isabel was behind her, talking to Remund with a faint air of irritation on her face. Pleased with the prompt reinforcements Angharad turned to meet the Someshwari pair with a polite smile just as Song came to stand at her side, mirroring Shalini.

“Lady Angharad,” Ishaan greeted her.

“Lord Ishaan,” she replied. “Good morning to you.”

“And you,” he easily said.

He looked better now, not at all wan or feverous as he had the days before. The unpleasantness brought on by his contract must have passed.

“Shalini.”

“Song.”

Their tones were strangely amused, given the banality of the situation. Were this another situation Angharad would have engaged the others in small talk, as her station demanded, but they had more pressing duties to attend to.

“May I be of assistance to you, Lord Ishaan?” she asked.

“It occurred to me that while we will part ways later,” the chubby-cheeked man said, “we could journey to the shrines together.”

The tone was casual, the implied offer was not. Angharad decided to set it out plainly.

“Mutual defense against Tupoc’s group on the way seems agreeable,” she said. “And it would be diplomatic to keep some distance in order to... avoid arguments.”

Zenzele Duma was a lord of Malan, he would no more break a truce than he would shoot a child out of the black, but temper were best left untested if possible.

“Brisk business,” Shalini commented.

“We left our tea and silks at home,” Song replied.

They both ignored their seconds.

“Against Tupoc’s group or other third parties that are not the Watch,” Lord Ishaan counteroffered. “And I would extend the same terms to a common return, should we leave the maze around the same time.”

Angharad could see the attraction in a common return, as they would be the most weak then – tired, wounded, possibly carrying corpses. The first part she hesitated about, for it was unpleasantly open-ended. Third parties could mean a great many things, even if their cooperation was limited to mutual defence.

“Third parties that were not intentionally provoked,” Angharad finally specified.

There was not much space up there, so after Angharad and Zenzele joined Song there they had to shout down to talk with the others. Song was convinced the tunnel was not a god’s lair, insisting there was no shrine mark, and she was convincing enough the others agreed. It helped that no one wanted to go back through the waterway if they could help it.

The tunnel turned sharply to the left through what felt like solid stone, eventually reaching open air and revealing a large domed temple in the distance, atop series of airy stairs. To get there, however, they must make their way along a thin ledge that faced an elegant red mosaic on one side and a precipitous drop on the other. Looking down, Angharad saw only mist and the sound of distant water. It did not look like a fall one would survive.

“It does not seem impossible, if we take our time,” Remund Cerdan said. “There is space between the stone and the mosaic to hold on.”

Taking a second look, Angharad saw he was right. More than enough to hold on to the top of the mosaic. The infanzon did not offer to make handholds with his contract and she did not ask – there was not yet a true need to reveal the details of his power, not with an alternative at hand.

“It would be a waste to turn around now,” Lord Zenzele agreed. “We are almost a third of the way through, I believe. Even if we cover only half as many grounds this afternoon, at this pace by tomorrow we would have a path to the end of the maze.”

There was some excitement at that idea. If they had a path, well, the need for ten ‘victors’ could be seen to more leisurely. They could choose the tests undertaken, aim for those giving the best chances of survival. With most in agreement, they got to crossing. Only Song seemed less enthusiastic, and Angharad held back to speak with her.

“Nothing practical,” the Tianxi told her before she could even ask. “It’s the mosaic that trips me. It clearly was part of a shrine at some point, but it no longer is.”

“The Watch mentioned some of the shrine spirits die,” Angharad reminded her.

“That is a dangerous thing, Angharad,” Song murmured. “When a god returns formless to the aether, they leave behind an impression of themselves. It is rarely a kind thing.”

The Pereduri was tempted to dismiss this as Republican superstition but Song had earned better than such talk.

“I will keep an eye out,” she promised.

For once she chose to stay in the middle of the company instead of taking the lead, before Zenzele and behind Yaretzi. Rising on the tip of her toes, she took a look at the space above the mosaic but it was empty save for old dust. She still kept a firm hand on her contract, pulling at a glimpse before she began moving across. Nothing. Again when Inyoni had crossed all the way, Isabel right behind her, but still nothing. Once more, she told herself when halfway through, and-

(Teeth and claws and a blood-curling scream, between Yaretzi’s hands, and she slipped)

-she was already moving by the time the spirit popped out, catching Yaretzi by the collar of her coat and forcefully pressing her against the mosaic as she trembled.

“STEADY,” Angharad shouted over the screaming thing. “Remember it cannot directly hurt us.”

It was not even touching Yaretzi’s hands, she saw, its claws carefully avoiding any contact.

“Lords,” Yaretzi gasped, shivering as she clutched the stone. “Oh, Lords.”

Angharad’s eye stayed on the spirit, whose screeching began to lower in pitch. It looked like a hound eaten up by wriggling worms, half rotten, but the worms did not move and neither did its eyes. After a few seconds the screeching cut out entirely and the creature went still as a stone. That is not a living spirit, Angharad thought. It was not as... aware, or complete. After another few heartbeats it began to crumble from the inside, collapsing into clumps of dust. The stink of them was atrocious, like a rotten corpse. The noblewoman cast glimpses ahead a few more times as they crossed, but there was no second ambush. They made it across without deaths.

The other side was a broad walkway leading up into the airy stairs they had seen earlier. At the end of the steps stood a large domed temple, whose crumbling stone gates were cracked open. Though they were surrounded on all sides by walls so high as to feel as cliffs, there was a sense of open air to the walkway – helped along by the golden light falling from above – that she found enjoyable. She was not alone in that opinion. When Angharad suggested they stop for a meal, as it should be nearing noon, the notion was popular. After that excitement during the crossing all could use the time to settle their nerves.

The fare obtained from the Watch was simple but filling, but there was little conversation. The looming silhouette of the temple was too stark a reminder of what they must soon do.

When they set out Angharad felt sharper for the rest, taking the lead as her crew began climbing the stairs. This particular temple, she saw, was not so ruined as others they had crossed. At the top of the stairs the entrance boasted a floor of elegant turquoise patterns – she shared an amused glance with Yaretzi at the coincidence – and though the gates were broken the antechamber beyond them was a splendid thing. The walls were tiles of moonstone and serpentine, touched with streaks of gold and iron as if someone had painted with the liquid metals.

Age and use had worn a slight groove in the floor that led out into a massive chamber, at the threshold of which Angharad cautiously slowed. Isabel, right behind her, softly gasped at the sights. Not without reason.

The temple was as a single segmented chamber under the great dome they had seen from outside. A polished black marble floor – so polished it seemed a mirror – reflected the exquisite insides of the dome above, a riot of ticking golden gears as an enormous clock. The machinery there connected to the lower chamber on golden threads and pulleys, a hundred mechanisms of gold and iron moving in a strangely harmonious disharmony. Several of the machines on the ground were so large they effectively segmented the room, casting moving shadows on the marble as golden lanterns whirled above. Not a single part of it made a sound.

Angharad slowly stepped onto the marble floor, others following behind.

“Well,” Lady Inyoni said, “at least there’s no need to ask where the spirit is.”

She followed the other woman’s gaze and found that, in her study of the room, she had somehow missed the silhouette sitting cross-legged at the center of it all. It looked like a man, at first glance, but only that for though the contour of the silhouette was perfect, the inside was a madness of copper – gears and wheels and twitching pistons.

“Welcome,” the spirit said, voice like ringing brass.

It seemed much friendlier than the last, so Angharad returned the manners in kind.

“We thank you for your welcome, honored elder,” she said.

The spirit twitched, though there was nothing animal about. It twitched like a clock losing a gear, a carriage tumbling off the road.

“Manners,” the spirit said, surprised. “It has been long.”

There were no eyes inside that silhouette, but somehow she felt the weight of its attention anyway. She came no closer, for politeness did not mean harmlessness, and the others stayed close but behind the invisible line her presence had drawn.

“You seek to cross my temple, yes,” the spirit said. “This can be done, but there must be a test.”

“I would hear the terms of it, honored elder,” Angharad said.

The clockwork spirit twitched again, but this time there was a grinding metal sound and it spit out something. A small golden gear tumbled against the floor, rolling until came at a halt.

“Everything,” the spirit said, “must be measured. Must be earned. Two or more, hold my gear for the agreed amount of time.”

Angharad frowned. That sounded much, much too simple. It twitched.

“And live to the end,” the spirit added. “Victory so long as one survives.”

It was with a fresh eye that Angharad considered the machinery all around them. She now grasped that every part might be used to try and kill her. The Pereduri politely asked for clarification, learning from the spirit that the more of them agreed to take the trial the shorter the time that must be survived would be. Time where the gear was not being held by a living participant would not count towards the total. For all its friendliness, she thought, it was looking to feed.

“Manners,” the spirit approvingly repeated. “I will give reward, good terms. Only they who hold the gear will be in direct peril.”

Angharad blinked in surprise, thanking the spirit before going to confer with the others. Opinions varied.

“Best to go around, I say,” Remund Cerdan said. “It is a large temple and not so ruined, which I cannot trust.”

“If we do not go through here, we may well have to go back through the waterway to find another path,” Zenzele said. “I will not say the test is without risks, but which would be? We will have to take one sooner or later.”

“We can choose who goes in,” Cozme mused, stroking his beard. “It makes the business more manageable, I agree.”

“I would rather take another swim than try this,” Yaretzi frankly said. “Never trust a well-fed god.”

“It seems a test of skill,” Inyoni noted. “Dangerous, yes, but in some ways the fairest kind we may undertake.”

The split was slightly in favor of the attempt. Two against, three for. Isabel desisted from expressing an opinion since she would not be taking the test, saying it would be unseemly, and that left Song as well as Angharad herself. The two shared a look, Song grimacing but not advising against. Dangerous, then, but not impossible to her all too seeing silver eyes.

“Let us attempt it,” she said. “Volunteers only.”

That Angharad should participate was not in doubt and neither were Zenzele and Inyoni’s addition. Master Cozme received Remund’s hesitant permission, but Yaretzi was the true surprise. The Aztlan shrugged at her inquiring look.

“If it must be done, then I would tilt the odds in our favor as much as I can,” she said.

Angharad smiled back, charmed by the sentiment. She was rather pleased Yaretzi had joined their crew. Five of them would need to survive five minutes, beginning the moment one of them picked up the golden gear from the ground. The Pereduri cautiously made certain that the lanterns illuminating the temple would not be snuffed out, which the spirit agreed to speak in the terms. It was, for all its hunger, inclined to fair play. The wager was simple enough: there would be no lantern on the line and a victory would grant all present safe passage across the temple until all who took the trial were dead. Though five would participate, only the individual holding the gear when the test ended would be considered a ‘victor’.

“Let us make sure the minutes mentioned are the same we know,” Inyoni prudently suggested.

The spirit proved this, counting one with them and agreeing that all minutes would be the same length. With that last precaution out of the way, Angharad agreed to the terms.

“Good,” the spirit said, twitching. “Begin when you would.”

But instead of moving, she remained frozen. For a moment, when the spirit had twitched, she had thought she glimpsed something inside its neck. Teeth and red flesh, swallowing. Only she saw nothing of it now, only the clockwork spirit, and she ignored the beating of her heart. Staring too long at spirits was never for the best. She had volunteered to be the one to first take the gear, so she slowly approached it. Slowly enough she could risk more than a glimpse. Angharad thought of dark waters, of the coolness enveloping her, and sunk deep.

(Angharad Tredegar picked up the gear and the chamber came alive.

A forest of cylinders rose from the seamless floor, golden edges like blades turning so quick they were a blur, and a tapestry of golden thread twitched above. Scythes began to fall like pendulums, sharp wheels shot forward and though Angharad danced across the danger she was cornered. She passed the gear to Inyoni after a minute, but the spirit had been methodical: it was cornering them, leaving obstacles in the way. Inyoni passed to Zenzele to avoid a narrow death, who took three steps before he was crushed by a weight. Yaretzi lost her head trying to take the gear from his corpse and-)

She broke the foresight and let out a wet gasp, body shivering as if she had been drenched in ice. She could feel wetness against her eyes but knew it was not tears. Discreetly as she could, she wiped the beads of blood before they could trail down. A flex of her power told her she could still glimpse but that already she was nearing her limit for the day. It had been worth it, to learn that the spirit was not only using the machines but would be leaving them there: every attack on her was an obstacle afterwards, and it would be very easy to get cornered were she not careful.

“Ready?” she called out.

“Ready,” Inyoni shouted back.

She took the gear.

By the time her back straightened the clockwork spirit was gone and the whirling golden blades rising from the mirror-like floor. Breathing out, ignoring the shouts of surprise from her allies, Angharad kept an eye on the machinery around her. A twitch of thread told her the scythe would be coming down a heartbeat before it did, but instead of fleeing she stepped behind one of the risen cylinders. The golden scythe from the ceiling slammed into the whirling blades, the two traps scrapping each other with cacophonous noise. A glimpse told her it would be the wheels next.

Some kind of clockwork engine on the other side of the chamber twitched, shooting out a sharp iron wheel towards her – and then similar machines did the same from three other sides.

“Steady,” Angharad murmured.

The longer she stayed in the center, the harder it would be for the spirit to corner them. Like in her vision, the purpose of the wheels was to force her to leave cover and the moment she stepped away from the scrapped cylinder scythes began to fall one after another. Left, she caught as she stepped around a spinning wheel and a blade filled the space between two whirling cylinders. Right, she saw as a pulley tightened and a bar of solid iron swung through where she had just been standing, rising back up to the ceiling as the arc went all the way through.

A cylinder unlatched itself from its base and wildly went spinning, lethal golden blades scrapping at the floor, and as Angharad fled back towards space filled by a scythe she realized she had been caught. Above her a large mass of gold was being aligned, enough to crush twice over. Thankfully, the others were not far. She chose her successor.

“Zenzele,” she shouted, and threw the gear.

The Malani lord almost fumbled the catch but caught it against his coat. His aunt stayed close, ready to bail him out at moment’s notice, while Angharad breathed in relief and circled around. The test had gone on long enough all had noticed the danger of letting yourself be driven into a corner, so the grisly ends she had seen need not come about. Master Cozme had prudently moved around the scrapyard she had made in the center, positioning himself to have much ground to give when his turn came, so it was Yaretzi that Angharad came close to. She was counting under her breath.

“Over halfway there,” the Aztlan told her.

They stayed together for a while longer, as Zenzele struggled and passed the gear to his aunt – who promptly passed it back to the better-prepared Cozme Aflor. There the spirit struck relentlessly, smashing weights and pistons and scythes after the soldier with a fury Angharad never not seen even in the vision. It wanted a kill. Pieces of machinery went flying, another danger to keep an eye for. She had to pull back Yaretzi when a broken piece of wheel almost took her in the side, though the Aztlan fumbled on her feet and almost tripped her into a spinning cylinder.

“Careful,” Angharad chided, steadying them both.

“Sorry,” the diplomat murmured. “This is... out of my experiences.”

You and I both, she thought. Cozme saw his death writ ahead, so he passed the gear back to Inyoni. Yaretzi, perhaps shamed by the fresh mistake, darted close so the older woman could toss it. She broke into a run, scythes falling in her wake, and as they all felt the trial coming to a close they neared the corner where it would all end. The spirit lost all subtlety, dropping weights not to kill but to close off paths, and Yaretzi handed the gear to Zenzele. Angharad staked out good open grounds to finish the last of the time, then dipped close to the Malani.

Only he did not pass it, did not have the time to look for that: all four of the cylinders around him unlatched in quick succession, at the right moment in the spin to converge towards him. Angharad cursed, unsheathing and striking at the closest but finding herself too weak to even slow it. Yet Zenzele, impossibly, threw himself down between whirling blades and emerged with only his coat and back cut up as the cylinders violent collided. Already a weight was being aligned above, but his aunt stole the gear out of his extended hand and stepped away.

“TEN,” Yaretzi shouted.

They had it, Angharad saw. Inyoni had an open stretch ahead of her, leading straight into a corner but so long as she did not run too quickly – and the cylinders around her stopped. Angharad glimpsed ahead, ignoring the heat in her veins, but it was a second too late.

“Duck,” she shouted.

Inyoni tried. But every golden blade set in the cylinder came flying out, like a spray of shrapnel, and she could not avoid them all. Two in the leg, one in the torso, and still Angharad held out hope until the older woman stumbled back and fell – revealing the golden blade splitting her skull in half, dug deep between her eyebrows. The corpse toppled down less than a foot again from Zenzele, bloodied and weeping, whose hand clawed as his aunt. He ripped the gear out of her hand, and a heartbeat later machines went still.

The test had come to an end, Zenzele Duma its victor.

—

After, when the grief and the recriminations and the weeping had ebbed low, they gathered themselves and began the trek back to the Old Fort, carrying Inyoni’s mangled corpse.

Thus ended Angharad’s first effort against the Trial of RuinsThe source of this content nov(el)bi((n))