The Steel Remains

CHAPTER 28

A few hundred yards beyond the Aldrain bridge, as if in some kind of savage architectural riposte, a massive black iron platform jutted out of the swamp at the angle of a sinking ship. It was easily over a hundred feet from side to side, multileveled, six flanges that Ringil could make out as they approached, tipping his head back to count. The top was crowned with spikes and webbed wire assemblies that looked somewhat like fishermen’s nets hung out to dry. The whole thing stabbed upward at the murky sky like a blade buried in a wound and then snapped off. In the hanging silence that surrounded it, there was a presence, a heavy tension like the feel in the air before a storm.

“See,” said Seethlaw grimly, “what your allies did to this place.”

It wasn’t hard to make the connection—the design of the platform could only have one origin.

“You’re talking about the Kiriath?”

“The Black Folk, yes. Look around you, Ringil Eskiath. This was once the site of the greatest Aldrain city on the continent. They called it Enheed-idrishinir, dwelling place of the joyful winds. You’ve seen the bridge. Imagine streets and towers made the same way, stretching to the horizon. Sculpted rivers whose waters flow in and out of the real world as easily as a Trelayne canal emerges from a tunnel or passes under a toll station. Trees, and built structures like trees, to echo and worship their form, reaching up to catch the breeze and sing. I was a child the last time I saw Enheed-idrishinir, before the Black Folk came.”

He pointed at the platform again.

“It fell from the sky. They say it screamed as it came. You see the six levels? There are twenty-seven more belowground, buried past the swamp and into the bedrock beneath. At the spear-point was a device that tore reality apart. Fifty thousand died or were swept away, out in the wash of the greater march. We still sometimes find their remains today. Some still live, after a fashion.”

“Nothing ever changes, huh,” said Ringil quietly, and thought of Grashgal’s visions of a museum for swords. Children mystified by an edged-steel past that was locked away safe behind glass.

It always had sounded like an unlikely piece of wish fulfillment.

“No, things will change.” Seethlaw turned and fixed him with the dark, empty stare. His voice rose a little in the quiet of the swamp, took on faint echoes of a passion Ringil had only previously seen in him when they were fucking. “The Aldrain are coming back, Ringil. This world is ours. We dominated it for millennia before what you understand as human history had even begun. We were driven out, but it remains our ancestral home, our birth canal. Ours by right of blood and blade and origin. We will take it back.”

“How you going to do that then?” Somehow, this new aspect of Seethlaw left Ringil obscurely disappointed. “There don’t seem to be that many of you.”

“No, not yet. The Aldrain are wanderers by nature, individual by inclination, always happiest at the edge of our known domains and pressing farther outward to see what else lies beyond. But buried at the heart of each of us is an ache for this world, for a unity, a certain place to carry in the heart and to return to at journey’s end. When the gates are opened again here, my people will come from every corner and aspect of the marches. They will flock here like crows at evening.”

“Is that supposed to cheer me up?”

The blank-eyed gaze bent on him again. “Have I used you so ill then?”

“Oh no. I’ve seen slaves treated far worse.”

Seethlaw’s face turned aside as if he’d slapped it. He stared past Ringil at the sunken platform. His voice turned toneless.

“I could have killed you, Ringil Eskiath. I could have taken my pleasure, wiped myself on you like a rag, and thrown you away. Left you to wither from the soul outward in the gray places, or finished our duel as it began, with steel. You came into my domain, you brought your blade and your threats and your pride that no beauty or sorcery could stem your killing prowess. You stirred up my affairs in Etterkal, killed and mutilated useful servants of mine, forced me to intervene when it was hardly convenient. I ask you again. Have I used you ill?”

Since there was only one fair answer to that, Ringil ignored it.

“Just tell me something,” he asked instead. “I see your end of this, you get your sacred ancestral . . . lizardshit . . . blood right . . . whatever . . . promised fucking land back. I see that, it isn’t what you’d call a fresh concept. But what’s in it for the cabal? Looks to me like you’ve got the whole Chancellery dancing to your tune one way or the other. What the fuck did you promise them?”

The dwenda gave him a thin smile. “What do you think? You see where we are, you know what Ennishmin represents to the League.”

The knowledge must already have been there inside him in some shape or form. He felt no real surprise, only an icy sliding sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“You told them you’d take it back for them?”

“Yes, more or less.”

“You’re going to invade imperial territory? Break the accords?”

Seethlaw shrugged. “I signed no accord. Nor did my people. It’s a service I’m rendering my hosts in Trelayne.”

“But . . .” Now the trickle of ice in his guts was swelling, was filling him up. “The Empire isn’t going to sit still for that, Seethlaw. Not the way things are right now. They’ll go to war. It’ll mean another fucking war. You must know that.”

“Yes.” Another blank-eyed shrug. “What of it? The League and the Empire will go to war over their relative hypocrisies, with my hand on the Trelayne side of the scales to render the struggle evenly matched. They’ll fight for years, I imagine. They’ll spend their strength and drag each other down, and when it’s done, when they’re finally sick of the slaughter, when they’re tired and broken, my people will walk through the ruins and take up their rightful place once again in this world.” Seethlaw’s voice turned oddly soft and urgent. “You shouldn’t object, Gil. It’ll be a far better world for it. No more hysterical hatreds and petty factional bloodshed. No more hypocrisy to cover for the abuse of power, no more lies.”

“No, that’s right. Just domination by the Aldrain. I think I’ve got some sense of what that’ll be like.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say.” A quick trace of anger in the dwenda’s voice, as quickly wiped away. “There is no reason human and dwenda can’t coexist as we did once before. Our chronicles are full of warriors from your race, taken in out of pity or love and rising to great stature among us. I myself—”

He stopped. Made a small gesture.

“No matter. I’m not some market trader at Strov, hawking his wares, nor a member of the Chancellery making his empty speeches for funds and a handsgrab more power over his fellow humans. If your own wits and experience will not convince you, then I will not drag you to an understanding you do not want to own.” He turned abruptly away. “Come, we are here on other business.”

They picked a careful path through the swampy ground, around the massive iron flank of the platform, to where something like a partially roofed corral had been built against the lowest visible flange. There was a fence of some material similar to the wires of the Aldrain bridge, though nowhere near as subtly worked. Woven more thickly, the same webbing went to form three long, low structures like stables, which were backed up to the ironwork of the platform. The ground the corral occupied was firm and looked dry, was perhaps reinforced with the same Aldrain building materials as the rest, but outside the fence swamp water pooled and sat in stagnant, grayish expanses. The path through was twisted and deceptive and ended at a chained gate.

Around the corral, and set back about a yard from the fence, a number of small, blunt objects protruded from the water. Ringil made them for rotted tree stumps until they were almost at the gate, and one of the nearer protrusions made a wet, sucking sound. He looked down at it more carefully.

And recoiled.

Fuck!

The object was a human head, fixed neatly at the neck to the tree stump he’d believed it to be. A young woman’s head, long hair trailing down into the soupy gray water in clotted rat’s tails. As he stared at it, the neck corded and twisted about, and out of a pale face the woman’s eyes found his. Mud-streaked, her mouth twisted and formed a silent word.

. . . please . . .

Grace-of-Heaven’s story slammed back through him:

I didn’t say these men were dead. I said all that came back were their heads. Each one still living, grafted at the neck to a seven-inch tree stump.

Swamp-water tears started from the woman’s eyes, ran dirty down her face.

Ringil’s eyes darted out across the swamp, and the other protrusions that studded the surface. It was an arc of the same horror, living human heads staring inward at the corral.

He’d seen dragonfire and the charred bodies of children on spits over roasting pits. He’d thought himself hardened to pretty much anything by now.

He was not.

“What the fuck is this, Seethlaw?”

The dwenda was occupied with the chain on the fence, hands laid on and murmuring softly to it. He looked up distractedly.

“What?” He saw the direction of Ringil’s stare. “Oh, those are the escapees. Got to hand it to you, you humans are a stubborn lot. We told them where they were, told them there wasn’t any easy way out of the swamp, told them it was dangerous to try. We told them if they stayed put they’d be fed and well treated. They still kept trying. So those are a kind of object lesson. We don’t have so many escape attempts now. In fact, mostly they stay inside, and certainly well away from the fence.”

Ringil’s eyes went to the stable construction in the shadow of the Kiriath iron. He pressed his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth.

“These are the marsh blood slaves? You’re keeping them here.”

“Yes.” Seethlaw lifted the suddenly unfastened chain aside and pushed the gate open. He seemed to notice Ringil’s expression for the first time. “So what? What’s the matter?”

“You.” It was as if he suddenly could not draw breath properly. “Did this, to them, just to warn the others?”

“Yes. An object lesson, as I said.”

“How long do they go on living like that?”

“Well,” Seethlaw frowned. “Indefinitely, given water supply to the roots. Why?”

“You motherfuckers.” Involuntarily, Ringil found he was shaking his head. “Ahhh, you fucking piece of shit. You cunt. No reason human and dwenda cannot coexist? What do you call that, then? What kind of fucking coexistence is that?”

Seethlaw stopped and fixed him with a stare.

“Is it any worse,” he asked softly, “than the cages at the eastern gate in Trelayne, where your transgressors hang in agony for days at a time as an example to the masses? There is no pain involved in this process, you know.”

Ringil forced down memory of the searing agony he had never suffered. “No pain involved? Would you choose it for yourself, you fucker?”

“No. Clearly not.” The dwenda seemed genuinely perplexed by the question. “But their path is not mine, nor would I have walked it the way they have. This really is a minor matter, Ringil. You’re making far too much of it.”

In that single instant, Ringil would willingly have given his soul to have the weight of the Ravensfriend on his back, the dragon-tooth dagger in his sleeve. Instead, he swallowed hard, swallowed down his hate and looked away from the muddied woman’s face, through the open gate of the corral.

“Why?” he managed, in a shaking voice. “Why have you brought them here? What purpose does it serve?”

Seethlaw studied him for a long moment.

“I’m not sure you will understand,” he said. “You are being very obtuse at the moment.”

Ringil bared his teeth. “Try me.”

“Very well. They are to be honored.”

“Oh, that sounds delightful. That’s better than the Revelation’s purifying inquisitorial love, that is.”

“As I said, I do not expect you to understand. The marsh dwellers on the Naom plain are the closest to kin that the Aldrain have in this world. Thousands of years ago, their clans were favored retainers to the dwenda, favored enough that we mingled our blood with theirs. Their descendants, in however attenuated a form, carry our bloodline.”

“That’s a fucking myth,” Ringil said disgustedly. “That’s the lie they sell down at Strov market so they can jack you twice as much to read your fortune. Don’t tell me you fell for that shit. What, three fucking years of politics in Trelayne, rubbing shoulders with the best liars and thieves in the League, and you still can’t see a simple street scam like that coming at you?”

Seethlaw smiled. “No. The myth, like most of its kind, is based on truth, or at least on an understanding of the truth. There are ways to confirm it. How strongly the dwenda heritage emerges among the marsh clans varies enormously. But when a female child is born unable to conceive in human congress, there the bloodline is strong. It’s harder to tell in males, but something similar applies.”

“So you’ve been creaming them off through Etterkal and bringing them here. Your cousins at a hundredth remove. Come on, what does that really mean, honored?”

He was aware of the same savage grin, still pinned to his face. He saw the way Seethlaw was looking at him, and in some tiny way it felt like loss. There was another test here, like seeing the bridge, and this time he was failing it.

“I think you know what it means,” the dwenda said quietly.

From Ringil’s throat came a single, jolting, almost soundless sneer. “You’re going to sacrifice them.”

“If you care to call it that.” Seethlaw shrugged. “Yes.”

“That’s great. You know, I’m just some scum-fuck human, I’ve barely seen three decades of life, and even I know there are no gods worthy of the name out there. So what is it you fucks believe in so desperately it needs a blood ritual?”

The dwenda looked pained. “Do you really require an answer to this tirade?”

“Hey, we’re fucking talking, aren’t we?”

Another shrug. “Well, then. It’s less a question of gods than of mechanisms, of the way things are bound up and acted upon. Of ritual, if you like. You may as well ask why humans bury their dead, when eating them would make more sense. There are powers, entities with sway in these matters, though the Aldrain do not consider themselves bound by them in any meaningful way. But there is also an etiquette, an observance of hallowed rules, and for this, blood has always been the channel. You might think of it as the signature on the treaties your people make with each other—though we at least honor our agreements once they are made. If there must be blood, we will offer it. The blood of birth, the blood of death, the blood of animals when a minor shift in fate is required, of one’s own people when something greater is desired. In our history, those chosen for this honor have always gone willingly to their end, as a warrior goes willingly to battle, knowing what their sacrifice is worth.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be the case with your distant cousins here.”

“No,” Seethlaw agreed. “It’s not ideal. But it will have to serve. In the end, the fact that we are willing to spill blood we know is our own, well, that will have to be sacrifice enough.”

“Oh, good. Glad you’ve got it all worked out.”

The dwenda sighed. “You know, Gil, I had thought you of all people might be able to understand. From what I know of you—”

“You know nothing of me.” Through clenched teeth. “Nothing. You’ve fucked me, that’s all. Well, that’s a crowded hole you’re in, darling. And us humans, we’re a lying, dissembling bunch, remember. Doesn’t pay to trust us between the sheets any more than anywhere else.”

“You’re wrong, Gil. I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Oh, lizardshit!”

“I’ve seen you in the marches, Gil. I see how you handled yourself there.” Seethlaw leaned across and seized him by the shoulders. “I see what the akyia saw, Gil. I see what you could become, if you’d only let yourself.”

Ringil raised his arms, sharp empty-hand technique, broke the dwenda’s hold, shook him off. He felt an odd calm settling over him.

“I’ve done all the becoming I’m going to in this life. I’ve seen enough to know where it all goes. Now you made me a fucking promise. Are you going to keep it? Or do you want to give me back my sword and we’ll finish this thing the way we started it?”

They stared at each other. Ringil felt himself falling into the dwenda’s empty eyes. He locked up the feeling, kept the stare.

“Well?”

“I keep my promises,” said Seethlaw.

“Good. Then let’s get on with it.”

Ringil turned brusquely and shouldered his way past, into the corral. Seethlaw stared after him for a long moment, face unreadable, and then he followed.