Decima
The woman Decima had died for was staring through her, watching the sun set in the east. That was just another of the indignities that dying had set upon her shoulders.
The outcrop of softly rounded and therefore ancient rock was dizzyingly high if you cast your gaze over the edge. It plummeted hundreds of feet to the trees below. If Decima had been alive, she knew the fall would have killed her instantly. As it was, she had no idea what would happen if she went over the edge. She was pretty sure she’d fall, of course. Down still seemed to be down, but would she die? Again? Unlikely, but then what? It was one of those questions that she was content to leave unanswered, like how close you could sail to the sunrise or what a general’s boots smelled like. She wasn’t incurious, just practical. Even in death, her training never left her. She knew better than to push her luck.
Besides, she wasn’t up here to take in the sights. Or, she was, but the view wasn’t the sight in question. She was here to see Rose. She tensed in her chair – recently repaired and given a nice coat of varnish and oil – glaring ahead with an expression of barely restrained anticipation. If she wasn’t careful, she’d jump the start and kick off a shouting match with the young man who stood beside her.
Leif had only arrived at the encampment a few days ago, but he and Rose had been butting heads the whole time. He was brash and pleasant looking for a man – a boy, really, but he was Ursean and they grew up fast there. He’d arrived by way of some sort of portal that Rose had watched enviously, which of course had made her prickly. And since prickly was her starting point, it only got sharper from there. Earlier, she’d been casually talking about how she used to bounce around the mountain trails to catch runaway chickens and Leif hadn’t believed her. Decima supposed she understood a little. Rose, sitting in her dark wheeled chair and without the use of her legs, did not strike the figure of a great chicken catcher. At least not until you spent some time around her and saw her getting about on the thing, but of course Leif hadn’t and rather than go to her mentor to have the story confirmed, Rose had challenged Leif to a race around the wide trail “Fair like. No using your shitty holes in the air to get about like a ponce.” Despite having not been there long enough to know the land, he’d agreed, which Decima considered an extremely bad move, but it’s not like she could tell him that. He only barely believed that she was there in the first place.
Rose, of course, hadn’t wanted anyone else to witness the race. Which was why Decima had made Rose’s sister Hester affix her silver dagger to the back of Rose’s chair. Hester hadn’t felt good about doing it in secret, but after a brief reminder that she’d bound her actual soul to the thing without asking, she’d agreed that this was a much smaller offence. She wasn’t sure how the magic of the knife worked but as long as she was close enough to it she could see and hear the living world around her. Almost like she hadn’t died. Almost. Now that it was hobnailed to the chair, Decima could keep an eye on Rose – provided she stayed close enough to the blade – and Rose need be none the wiser. It wasn’t that Decima didn’t trust Rose on the trail, but … well, it wouldn’t do to assume the best and learn later that Leif had put a knife in Rose because she bragged too loudly. Not that you could stop him.
No, she was physically helpless now.
Instead she watched as the sun dipped nearer and nearer the eastern mountain tops. It wasn’t really in the mountains, of course. She knew that it was only traveling across the sky. Beyond those mountains was her own country, where the sun would be passing soon. And eventually it would crash into the boiling sea as it did every day, making great clouds that would cross the sky. But at least, right now, it looked like it was touching the mountains. And that was enough. That was the signal.
Rose called, “Loser has a prick in their ass,” and shoved off with speed. She was fast, but she was also more weight to get going, while Leif was only the weight of a young man, and so the initial advantage went to him. Rose picked up speed fast, though, and Decima had to start running herself to keep up. Fortunately, Decima had two things going for her. The first was that she had been running basically her whole life. The army in Thessalin wouldn’t let you out of basic training unless you could run from the Arch de Fioro to the Corpia Field, where the Battle of Corpia Victrix had been fought and – obviously due to the name – won. Some recruits spent their whole time in training working up to that run. Decima had been able to make it when she was fourteen summers and by the time her training was complete she could run there and back before the sun was three fingers into the sky.
The second thing she had going for her was, of course, that she was dead. Whatever she was now, mind or ghost or soul, she wasn’t going to get sore muscles. She didn’t have muscles, despite the fact that she certainly looked like she had muscles. In fact, given the lack of clothing in the afterlife, she was regularly reminded that she still had muscles. It had felt strange at first for Hester to see her nude, but it wasn’t as if she had much choice. After her initial surprise, she barely seemed to notice, only looking at Decima’s face as if it were perfectly normal. Rose had been put out when Hester could see her and Rose herself could not. She’d said, “Huh. Lucky you.”
Which was not the point now, she reminded herself, as she sprinted a bit to keep up. Rose had gone down a slope to the first trailhead where one could turn left or right. Both racers went left, with Leif hitting the split three seconds before Rose. He was sure footed, but Rose was quite sure herself, grabbing one wheel hard and letting the other coast. She kicked up a spray of dirt and was off again, with new speed thanks to the downhill bit. The downhill slope didn’t help Decima as much as it helped Rose. She knew that it had a bit to do with the weight of Rose plus the chair, but it wasn’t just that. She didn’t move the same anymore. Someone else might not have noticed it, but she had spent years as a soldier and almost as many as what amounted to a freelance bounty hunter. She knew her body and this was a close replica, but it wasn’t the same. It was more like it moved the way she thought her body moved. For someone else, that might have been an upgrade, but Decima had long ago learned that waiting for her mind to catch up to her body got her hurt. Today it was just an irritation. Keeping up with these braggarts took more focus than it normally would have.
The braggarts, for their part, were moving out into a field decorated on both sides with tall grass and buttery yellow flowers. The burning heat of summer had apparently come a few weeks ago, though Decima could no longer feel it, but she could still enjoy the flowers. When they’d first arrived, still a little wounded and worn and definitely the living ones were smelling bad, the flowers had been tiny buds drinking up the rains of late spring, but here they were thriving in the glaring sun of the mountains. It was clear that Rose was familiar with this trail, but in her time away from this place, the grass had grown towards the path she’d worn for herself and the wheels no longer fit as nicely as they could have. With every move forward, the grasses swished at her side. Decima grinned, imagining the green and yellow stains she’d have to scrub out from the thing that night. She’d consider it well worth it and she’d probably be right. Even Decima found Leif to be irritating.
The first day he’d arrived he’d opened up by flirting with Hester, who looked a bit older than she was but still wasn’t more than thirteen summers. In the style of thirteen year olds she’d blushed and giggled and reminded Rose that she was almost fourteen because she’d been born at the start of Aestasong, but that had not melted the glare on her sister’s face. It also hadn’t stopped Leif from flirting. In fact, Rose’s threats – of course there were threats – hadn’t stopped that either. Decima wasn’t sure it should. He probably wasn’t more than three years older than Hester and where Decima was from, that would have been a perfectly normal match. In fact, from what she’d gathered, it would be normal here as well, but she didn’t think it was about the age difference for Rose. And she was right that his attitude was souring to the mood. He was too cocksure by half, but as the yellow flower path gave way to trees and the path became wide dirt, he saw that the straightaway might not be to his advantage. He cut the right corner a little fast. Decima thought he cut over some bits off the path, which was probably not according to the rules, but Rose couldn’t see it from her angle and it’s not like Decima could call it out. She did call out, “Bad form!” to make herself feel better.
Up ahead, along the stretch of tree lined forest and stick carpeted trail a dead tree had fallen across the path. That Leif whooped when he saw this wasn’t really to his credit, and of course he leapt it casually. That he almost fell down craning his neck to look back at Rose probably was to his credit. Decima wanted to see it, too, though for quite different reasons. She should have seen it coming, of course, but Rose could still surprise her. She barely slowed down as she approached the fallen trunk: a pine of some sort by the look of it. Quite thick and old, but the part across the trail was bare of branches. She slid into the side of it and grabbed it with both arms. Somehow she rolled her body and the whole damned chair over the thing in one motion. The wheels went up and over and landed with a thud on the other side. That was probably bad for the wood. With a belated panic, Decima checked the dagger on the back. It had risen up a few inches, but still clung to the small nails Hester had used to attach it. Rose took off again as if she hadn’t just done something that Decima would have previously considered supernatural. She did that a lot.
Leif shouted an ugly sounding word in Harshe, which she would have bet on being a curse, and picked up his speed. Decima, a veteran of many foot races, saw that for the mistake it was. He was going to wear himself out in a sprint before he was halfway through the distance, which Decima had approximated to be about three leagues. And this wasn’t the worst of it. She knew that up ahead it got rocky. Rose was still behind him, but she was going steady and she knew this terrain.
A series of stones rising ahead made natural stairs. If they’d had the sort of height that indoor stairs did, it would have been a problem, but they were shallow and so Rose engaged in a series of short leaning maneuvers to get the front wheels up, lean forward and push to bring the rear up. If she’d missed even one it would have brought her to a full stop, but she didn’t lose momentum. She moved like someone who had done this many times before. She probably had. Leif was, of course, not having real trouble getting up the stone steps, but every step was work for him and he’d already pushed himself hard sprinting earlier. Had Rose egged him on intentionally to make him sprint? Did she think that far ahead? Probably not, Decima decided. She was probably just being Rose. It was all part of what Emrys called her “natural charm”. At least he said it affectionately, though from what Decima had heard about their early friendship, he’d earned the right to be less affectionate many times over.
By the time they ascended the rock climb they were neck-and neck. Rose was looking triumphant. Decima ran a little bit ahead to see why and that was when she realized that there was a jump on this thing. Because of course there was. The good news was that it was a jump down. It was a pair of rocks leaning out from the land to create either half of the trail. Decima honestly wasn’t sure it was safe. The side they were approaching leaned out far enough that the addition of extra weight looked like it would collapse the broken arch, but the other side looked even more precarious. A ghastly and ancient oak tree grew alongside one of the stones. Were they going to have to climb that somehow? The drop between was … calling it far would have been a disservice to the word. It was at least a stadium length. It ended in water. Maybe not lethal, but she would hate to have to live on the difference. In either case, Leif didn’t know that. As Rose approached it she picked up speed. Leif, having never seen it before, hesitated. He looked like it was too much for him to take in. His eyes grew wide as Rose launched herself into the air.
For a moment she flew. It was magical. Her hair danced behind her, the wheels spun freely. Her right hand lashed out and grabbed a branch. Had she done that many times before? Surely not. It heaved her in line with the other stone and it was a short drop to it after, putting her right on the trail. But Decima did hear the branch crack a bit. If she’d done this before either it was when the branch was healthier or she’d been going slower. Leif had hesitated but not very long. He’d rightly assumed that Rose wasn’t going to leap to her death and probably assumed he’d figure it out when he got there. He didn’t. He stopped for a few seconds and eventually settled on a running leap from one stone to another, not trusting the branches. He landed hard on the other side and came up with bloody knees, speaking that same curse again.
Ahead was an open stretch of a wide stone path, which gave Leif some time to push ahead. This was the highest portion of the trail. One their second day here, Rose had brought Hester up this way to talk. Decima had been there, but since Rose couldn’t see her, it had been easy for her to forget. They’d sat on the edge of the path up ahead, dangling their feet over and looking down over the drop. Hester had been afraid to even sit that close and she’d held tightly to Rose’s hand the whole time. Decima wasn’t sure what they’d talked about. She hadn’t felt right about overhearing when they had clearly forgotten that she was there, but whatever it was had resulted in some tears and laughter and hugging and it had been so lovely that it made Decima’s heart ache. Her heart wasn’t aching now, though. It was sinking. She knew how long that drop was and Rose was heading into it with some incredible speed. That was when she noticed two things. The first was that Rose was leaning a bit to the left. The landing had clearly done some damage to her chair. The second was that the landing had also knocked free some of the nails holding the dagger in. It was flopping around back there quite precariously. She felt a yell rising in her despite how useless it would be. She slowed, not sure what to do, and Leif plodded past her, breathing hard.
Rose went into the curve ahead of him. Leif was right beside Decima, though he couldn’t see her. She could hear his ragged breath. He was done. But nobody told Rose. Or perhaps she didn’t care. Maybe it had never been about him. Either way, she took the curve hard and fast. Too fast. Too close to the cliff. The right wheel came up as she balanced over the edge. Decima knew she was about to go over the edge and she could do nothing to stop it. She called out, of course, but that was about as useless as anything else she could do. She was going to watch her friend die. The very thing she had died to prevent and it was right in front of her eyes.
Which is why she wasn’t sure if it was a kindness or a curse that the knife came loose.
Her focus had been entirely on Rose, but the thing flashed with the reflected light of the setting sun as it toppled. “No.” It wasn’t loud. More like a whispered prayer, but her prayer went unanswered, because it fell with a ting and bounced once, twice, and fell off the edge and into the void.
Decima had never been entirely clear on how far she could get from the dagger and still see the living, but she knew it got farther in an instant now. Before her Leif and Rose vanished into nothing, as if they had been a fanciful illusion that her dead mind had conjured. It was like waking from a dream that was both wonderful and terrible.
It was probably a testament to her training that Decima only hesitated for a moment before she ran for the encampment. There was no disconnect between her mind and body now because this was all she was focused on. That’s probably why, as she passed a copse of cypress trees that had no place here, she didn’t see what was watching her from within.
Lavender
In the history of the shakballo people there had been twenty six proper wars recorded since the founding of Volenth. Twelve of them had been fought over water. Seven were holy wars – five by dragon cultists against nearby enemies or rival cults and two by human kingdoms against the dragon churches. One was, as far as Lavender could tell, a complex misunderstanding regarding the use of certain sacred minerals and a particularly long summer that led to a vicious war along their southern borders. Four were against dragons, and of course they hadn’t won those wars so much as they’d survived until the dragons decided it was over. Two had been what her people called grudge wars: personal conflicts that grew in scope between two powerful figures until armies were involved. And by her estimation, if she lost another game of dice to the soft looking wizard, she might have to raise that number to three.
She sat in Sage’s hovel in the mountains. A fine mist of smoke hung in the air due to the squat fire with only most of a chimney for ventilation. This meant that all the windows were open. The warm blooded among them must have been quite uncomfortable, because they were almost all leaking sweat, save for Hester the strange human girl who never seemed too hot. Perhaps it was because human children were small? She was a curious one. Lavender had never met a human quite like her. She was mercurial like the children of her homeland, but at times she fell to great emotion that overwhelmed her. And it happened in strange ways that Lavender could not yet predict, such as when a storm passed by and soaked her clothes or helping to prepare meals. Sometimes these things would drive her into deep silence or out of the hut entirely. Once preparing breakfast had driven her to tears, which she had hidden on her way outside. Rose had followed, which Lavender supposed was dutiful, but she wasn’t sure to what end. Rose had never struck her as particularly good with emotions.
They weren’t all sleeping in the squat stone hovel, of course. This arrangement would not have worked were it not early summer, but the worst of the rains had stopped and the wizard boy had the ability to conjure a pleasant enough resting place if given enough time so it worked for as long as it needed to. Even the need was overblown, but Lavender had been fascinated by Rose’s tale of the slumbering god of death and pain and their brush with that death. That her talent persisted – in theory of course – after death was a truly fascinating thing. She and Sage had spent almost every evening since arguing about what it meant. He was wrong. Their arguments were not uncommon, of course. They were something like legendary. She was quite surprised that she had found herself spending almost two months in his mountain shambles and, more or less, enjoying herself. She certainly could not have previously predicted enjoying the old orc’s company for so long.
The pale wizard, however, was another matter. It wasn’t that he was rude. He was incredibly polite. But he was also, at least in theory, educated. He’d studied with the human snobs at the Penmark Academies, specifically in the college of magical studies. She’d have respected him more if he’d studied in the college of political sciences or – better – history. But it wasn’t academic rivalry that made her so frustrated. It was how certain he was of his own rightness! Perhaps that was a trait of youth, though she didn’t recall having it in her own youth. It could have been a human trait. This seemed more correct, because she saw it most often in them, but that was probably some sort of bias. She didn’t spend much time with anyone who wasn’t human or one of her own people (wyrmwight was the word the human scholars used most often, though she knew that drakespawn or even “drakey” was a more common term). In either case, he made her furious. So furious that in the last week she had left the room in a rush three times and yelled twice! Back home this might have been enough to label her outcast, but here among the savages it was hardly noticed by anyone but Sage, who smirked at her outbursts.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to worry about the grudge war. She was victorious, rolling four gods and three suns on ten dice (as well as a jumble of useless things on the other faces) which, combined with the moons and stars she’d already rolled was more than enough to bring her a victory. Emrys seemed to almost enjoy her victory, as silly as that sounded. Was he mocking her? He said, “yeees, that waaz a fiiine pyurformunce,” as she collected her winnings. Or it sounded like that. His performance of the Florini tongue was slow and mushy to her ear. But it wouldn’t do to be smug or uncharitable in her victory, so she showed both throat and teeth and said, “I was very lucky, but thank you.” And then she gathered her walnuts, which is what they had been using for currency, for a few reasons. The first was that they had walnuts and didn’t have much in the way of coin. The second was that they were plentiful and easy to count. But the most basic reason was that it was something they could all eat. Admittedly, Sage could eat most things and she’d have to cook them properly until they were a dark brown and not the unappetizing white of the flesh in the shell, but it was still one of the relatively few universal foods, the other being animal products. This was perhaps the best reason to have brought along Leif. He was an excellent trapper and Sage kept fewer than ten chickens most of the time.
Sage was sitting in the corner watching them play. He didn’t play games with them. Or eat with them. Or do anything fun. Sage believed that fun was a moral failing. But his mind was like a little engineered device for solving puzzles and navigating mazes. Perhaps that was how he escaped the mindset of war and hate so common among his people. He thought deeply about the facts and they didn’t sum up for him. If she were fifty years older and warm blooded, she would love him, and they’d have had a miserable marriage. As she was, they were friends and enemies in equal measure, and that was marvelous. Now her best friend and enemy raised one crusty eyebrow at her. She understood the implication, or believed she did. He was wondering if she had peered into the future to secure her odds. Absurd. She had dignity and honor and also looking ahead wouldn’t change the odds on the dice rolls anyway. She lowered her nose, closing off her throat to him, as if offended.
Hester got up from the fire and wandered over to the table. She picked up a few of the dice and made off with them as well as a boiled egg and some of the underdone bread that Sage liked so much, probably because the rock-like texture kept his teeth clean. Lavender said, “That is three wins to me, which I believe means that I am the victor in this contest.” She watched Emrys expectantly. Did the human know that her slow blink was expectant? She wasn’t sure. But he behaved as if he did. He sighed weakly.
“Vereee Velll,” he mushed. He glanced to the eastern window, perhaps hoping that the game had gone on too long and the sun was fully set? It wasn’t. It was still a sliver over the next mountain; a flame in the sky. Next he spoke words in the language of spirits. Lavender was a scholar and she had studied in several languages. She knew a smattering of the words in this tongue, though she didn’t catch most of it.
<ana call a spirit ghurub alshams>
She supposed it was just him introducing his desire to summon a spirit of the sunset, which was new for her. She’d never have guessed that there was such a thing, though she supposed it made sense. Was a sunset spirit nothing but a solar spirit dying? Was it a new thing? If so, it must have been short lived. Or did it sleep until the next day? Her reverie evaporated when the light in the room went from the barely tinted white of the middle sunset to a bright orange, as if the setting sun itself were flooding into the room like water through a cracked vase. She supposed that the orange glow was the spirit? She couldn’t detect it as she was, but she was curious. She closed her eyes for a moment and focused on her eyes, her nose, her side membranes. She had to have clear focus to use this talent, because she had only recently developed it, but in that moment she was ready to reveal the world around her.
She knew it had worked before she even opened her eyes. She felt the warmth as a wash of heat and light on her sensitive skin. She heard the faint roar of the setting sun’s fire in the room as well. And the smallest hiss of water? She knew that the sun wasn’t really in the ocean yet. There was plenty of land for it to pass over still. What they were seeing now was a temporal illusion: the magical future-echo of the eventual snuffing of that great flaming ball in the waters of the distant east. The conversation was now clear to her as well, without the mush of Emry’s accent or the confounding variable of not speaking much of the language.
“…this woman is a great scholar among her people and -” wait! Did he really say that? He couldn’t know she was listening. Was he complimenting her intentionally, or was it just a fanciful – if accurate – statement to impress the spirit? “… she wishes to see the face of the god I saw beneath the mountain, in the dwarven catacombs. Do you know his face? I can describe it if you do not.”
“I know of this god, but not his face. It has been too many settings of the sun since that face saw the sky. It is not known to me, but I can borrow the talent of the clouds to pull it from your mind if you wish it of me.” Was it asking for permission to read his mind? Surely he would say no. It was just a game of dice! His mind was his own, of course.
“Gladly, yes, friend.” What?! Lavender opened her eyes to protest. But, of course, that was when she saw Hester standing behind Emrys watching. Watching with one clear eye and one hole fallen to shadow. Oh, the living eye was still there, of course, but she could also see the gaping hole beyond which nothing could exist. A terrible void that swallowed all light and thought and time. She froze. She panicked and banished the power. Did she? Did she banish it? Or did she simply lose it? Or maybe, worst of all, had it fallen into that empty eye, like Rose’s violet blast had?
She wasn’t aware of the rest of the conversation, though she later remembered Emrys speaking in the spirit tongue and the spirit speaking back – she no longer caught any of it because she couldn’t focus well enough. Hester noticed her face, but could the human judge what shock and fear looked like on the scales and snout of a shakballo? If not, she noticed something was off. Lavender refused to look at Sage until she had composed herself. Which she did, of course, because she was nothing if not dignified. She was kaldra caste, for crying out loud! At least, she did until she looked at the illusion that the spirit was generating. That’s what Emrys had called the spirit for, after all. Sun was the element of the eyes and images. And this spirit was calling forth the face of the sundered god from the dwarvish temple in brilliant orange and yellow and white: clearly not the colors that she would have seen in that place, but the shape was probably close.
It was truly terrible. The right half of the face was shaped more or less like a human, but it was made of some sort of threads that never got smooth. Despite being a human-like face, it couldn’t be said to be human. If she’d seen a whole one, even without the threads, she’d have assumed it was some sort of illusion or manifest spirit or some new intelligent race that she’d never met. But that was only the right half. The left was the half that gave it the name Sundered. It wasn’t simply that the flesh had been stripped from the bone. That would be too clean. It was that it was rotten, and the bone showed through in some places, but in others it was …. wet? Sticky? Difficult to say by way of a glowing illusion, but it was repugnant. Lavender had seen repugnant things before, but that wasn’t what made her stomach flex as if she’d eaten something foul. It was the terrible empty eye on the thing’s left side. The same eye she’d seen on Hester a moment before. She managed to mumble, “sjaduur ve,” before correcting herself and saying, “excuse me.”
She pushed out the front door and into the fresh air. After the bright orange of the interior it was startlingly blue outside. The air felt cool, despite it being the heart of summer. It was quiet, which was an improvement. Lavender would not let herself be seen to panic. What the flames was that girl? Was that wicked god inside her somehow? Worse, was she part of him? She knew what she’d seen. She’d seen a connection, but what sort and where did it originate? Had it marked her somehow?
Yes, that seemed most likely. She’d heard from Rose that the priest she’d killed had tried to sacrifice her sister to his slumbering god, so perhaps the ritual had created a connection that persisted. That made sense. Or at least she hoped it did. It was another few moments of pacing around in front of the shack back and forth from the door to the chicken pen where she could hear the birds making their tok tok sounds and back to the door where she could hear the murmur of their stretched speech, but not make out the words.
When the door opened, she turned because she expected to see Sage or even Emrys checking on her. Instead she saw the girl. Lavender’s eyes went wide and she stumbled back. Had she seen what she saw? Was she about to die? But the girl wasn’t looking at her at all. She was looking towards the trail away from the encampment and into the hills. She looked concerned, but Lavender didn’t see anything. “What? Decima, slow down, what…” Hester had the look of someone with a dawning realization that they’d prefer not to realize. What she said was, “Emrys! I need you! It’s Rose!”
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