The Unfinished Land Read online

“Very well,” Kaiholo said.

  “She told you as well?”

  The tattooed man afforded Widsith a single nod.

  “In her intimacy?”

  “Later,” Kaiholo said. “She favored me even more than Kern.”

  “She favored Kern?”

  “So Kern telleth the tale,” Kaiholo said.

  “Well, I was gone a long time,” Widsith said, as if that explained anything.

  “Not to her reckoning,” Kaiholo said.

  The rising twists of cloud caught and bent the starlight beyond, and aurorae played with them both in strange and even beautiful ways. Beneath it all, and around the two men walking, the remains of the gardens tried to struggle back to their glory, shoving forth flowers without color, without real life, but perhaps hoping to return to a scented and brilliant past, reflecting, Kaiholo said, the creation in the krater.

  “What was it like to live in these cities?” Widsith asked. “Did the wind blow the waste’s dust and salt all the time? How could they breathe?”

  “Perhaps the gardens protected them,” Kaiholo said.

  “Art thou sure thou sawest a man?”

  “Yes,” Kaiholo said.

  “What sort of man would survive the Sister Queens’ armies? Could Troy still be alive?”

  “If Maggie says not, I doubt it,” Kaiholo said. “Perhaps this time, thou’lt report directly to a Crafter, Pilgrim.”

  * * *

  Reynard stuck to the curving path between walls of fading shrubs, riddling what seemed to be a maze—but one that was ever-changing. The sky over the path was shaded by arching brambles covered with small, wilting gray flowers. He looked up through the brambles at the stars and aurorae, screwing up his face as if about to scream—when a shadow took shape beside him and a hand again touched his arm.

  “You should protect yourself,” Valdis said.

  “I need to see what is in the krater. How can I be important if I am blind and ignorant?”

  “Often enough here, ignorance is life,” Valdis said.

  The brambles rose taller still, the maze leading off right and left along more shaded paths, sprouting more flowers—which smelled sickly sweet.

  “Why are these plants moving and changing?” Reynard asked.

  “Because they still have something to protect.”

  * * *

  “The giant and I speak of your time with the boy,” Kaiholo said. “We have many things to puzzle. How came it you found him in the wide waters, in time to save him?”

  “Luck and fate,” Widsith said.

  “And such an important lad,” Kaiholo said. “You delivered someone to Maeve and Maggie that allowed Zodiako to die proud and certain of a place in this island’s history. A great twist in any story, no?”

  Widsith did not like this pitch. “His importance hath never been clear to me.”

  “Thou liest,” Kaiholo said. “But look now to the krater. Will we find the man we seek, a dead monster—or a live monster?”

  They slowly took those few steps and stood on the rim. Under the glowing curtains they could clearly make out the lines and serpentine patterns they had seen in the previous krater.

  “Slugs leave trails across rocks,” Kaiholo murmured. “What do gods leave?”

  Widsith pointed to a dark and rumpled mound in the center of the krater, the cloud ascending from this like steam from a bowl.

  At the same moment, far above the cap of the clouds, a great blue and red banner grew with a crackling sizzle that made Widsith’s teeth hurt.

  “The boy should be here, rather than us,” Kaiholo said.

  “Quiet,” Widsith said. “Listen.”

  A voice whose words they could not understand came from behind the shape—a gruff and aged voice, hoarse and weak.

  “Not Troy, and certainly not a bone-wife,” Widsith murmured.

  “Where be you from?” the voice called out.

  “The southwest and Zodiako,” Widsith called back. “Who art thou?”

  “Once a fellow of some import,” the voice replied. “Shall I show myself, or are you a danger and heavily armed?”

  “Two swords,” Widsith said. “Both sheathed.”

  A figure appeared from behind the rumpled mass, perhaps a hundred yards away, and walked unsteadily toward them. “Have you any food? Drink? Strong drink?”

  Widsith held aloft his pouch, which contained some small pieces of stale bread. Kaiholo raised his water sack.

  “That is all?” the man asked as he drew near.

  “That is all,” Widsith said.

  “I know you!” the man said to the Pilgrim. “I have worked on your journeys. You are Manuel, no? Yet not so old!”

  “Restored, but once Manuel,” Widsith said. “Now I am called ​—”

  “Widsith! Of course you would revive upon each return—that was the tale the Crafters launched generations ago. You are one who bringeth word of our labors!”

  “Whose labors?” Kaiholo asked.

  “Mine own, and many who once lived here! And the Crafters, of course. And be this the Sea Traveler Kaiholo, favored by those just beneath the sky? Where is the boy?” The old man halted four paces off. He wore shreds of what might have once been a grand gown, still belted by a golden cord and a great jeweled buckle. Across his shoulders rested two shining silver epaulets connected by more golden cord. His face was thin and bony, his cheeks wrinkled and sunken, and his neck seemed barely able to hold up his great bald head. His fingers, playing about the buckle but also rising to the epaulets, as if indicating his rank, were thin as bone themselves. “Know you the King of Troy? Our island’s magician of that name?”

  “We knew him,” Widsith said.

  “One of his sweven was here,” the thin, decorated man said. “It warned us the boy would be coming, and would need protection until his next stop.”

  “Have you control here?” Widsith asked.

  “I carried out orders delivered to the quarries, that is all, and perhaps chose thy faces or gave thee other features in times past. Features, not histories. I know my mandate, and my limits.”

  “What is that in the krater?” Kaiholo asked, pointing at the dark mass.

  “Oh, it is dead, alas,” the man said. “Died many a month ago, but before it died, covered itself, as the Old Ones do, to shield its visage from those who must carry it to the plain of jars—but also not to offend Hel. It was once a great and noble Crafter. Fear of it has kept the eastern armies away from this krater, but not for long, I think.”

  “I am looking at it,” Kaiholo said, squinting sideways. “Will I go mad?”

  “Not whilst it is cloaked,” the old man said. “Nor will you ever comprehend its power. Look upon your tales, your histories, and give thanks to this one—and of course to Queen Hel.”

  “Where are the armies now?” Widsith asked.

  “Likely not far,” the old man said. “Did you send the drakes to harry them?”

  “No,” Widsith said. “Our drakes have yet to join us.”

  “Well, they should come soon. The armies of the Sister Queens, what is left of them, may their stories curl and burn, are trying to camp a few miles away.”

  From the other side of the krater cut the twang of a crossbow, and a sharp hum all too familiar to Widsith. The old man was shoved forward and blew the breath from his lungs. He dropped to his knees, and then collapsed, a bolt buried deep in his back.

  A double handful of men in rusted armor ran from behind the cloaked shape in the krater, bolder by far than any from this land, Widsith thought. They were followed by two mounted on horses also in armor. Together, they warily ascended the curve of the krater toward Kaiholo and Widsith, and one removed his helmet and cowl to show his face.

  “I know thee!” the grizzle-bearded man growled at Widsith. Five of the soldiers surrounded them, and the other five moved around the dead krater garden behind them, silent as cats, vanished into the dry foliage, and then returned with Reynard and Valdis. It appeared the
y thought they had taken only one prisoner, for Valdis was little more than a wisp, sticking close to the boy.

  “This one was on the other side, spying,” the eldest soldier said in Spanish, delivering Reynard to his master.

  “I know thee as well,” the bearded man said to Reynard. “But do not remember thy name. Dost thou remember Cardoza, boy? And thou, old sailor! Art thou amazed I still live?”

  “I had so hoped,” Widsith said. “I served long with thee, and know thy mettle.”

  “Thy face I would know through the ages! Where are the others?” Cardoza asked. “Where are those who command drakes?”

  Two more caballeros rode up, lances raised, and addressed Cardoza in Spanish. Widsith translated. “They say they returned to the town of the old church and looked for others, but found no one. The town is empty.”

  The High Tent

  * * *

  THE JOURNEY TO the camp of the Sister Queens, set up within the woods and pastures bordering the chafing waste, took less than an hour. Reynard saw that no cultivation had been done here for many a year, nor were the woods harvested. Did the krater city’s inhabitants need to eat or build?

  Daylight was bright and the sky still clear, and the smoke from the camp’s fires rose and spread gray and brown, hazing the sky ahead. The Sister Queens still fielded thousands of soldiers, and likely there were servants from the cities near as well—captives, informants, slaves.

  As the Spanish and Cardoza prodded their captives along and through the camp, men and a few women emerged from the tents, all carrying swords, many wearing resin-soaked cloth plates, sheets of raw iron, armlets of bronze: a style of armor other than that worn by Cardoza’s men.

  And beyond their tents and fires rose line after line of great machines, machines designed to fling rocks and fire and to erect fighting towers—to lay siege and destroy.

  None appeared to have been used.

  Widsith walked beside Reynard and said, “Look at their faces! This land doth not play by their rules or their tools.” His eyes seemed to seek Valdis, but could not find her. “Thy shadow plays with other shadows. What is her plan?”

  “I wish she would flee and save the others,” Reynard said. “The old servant at the krater ​—” he began, but Widsith held up his hand and looked down as if in prayer.

  “The one who laid out my life, thou mean’st? Who worked with the Crafters to spin a long and varied history, to judge our souls, and to make the worlds I would be interested in seeing?”

  “The one who died,” Reynard said.

  Cardoza was riding far ahead, stopping to consult with other soldiers, some dressed in colorful robes, others carrying longswords and bows, along with crossbows of Spanish design. All were weary, hoping to gather their strength as they rested.

  But strength to fight what, or whom?

  “If he was my story master,” Widsith said, “and I have no reason to doubt his word, then my history is soon at an end. One doth not with impunity meet one’s own smith, not on this island.”

  A great gray and white tent rose into the dusk, lit from inside like a paper lantern filled with fireflies. Outside the tent, cots had been made and arranged to care for hundreds of wounded, and another stretch of ground took as many dead tied into their shrouds. Many soldiers and guards formed rings around the tent, a few fires scattered among the lines, and servants in rags, of all ages, sharing out food and water.

  “Did the blunters get away with Nikolias and Calafi?” Reynard whispered to Widsith.

  “I doubt they moved far,” Widsith said. “They have yet to receive their drakes. This battle is far from over.”

  “These have already felt the wrath of drakes,” Kaiholo said. “They do not look ready to face more.”

  As Widsith and Kaiholo and Reynard passed the dead, they felt the chill breeze of Valdis cross their path, to tell them, and only them, she was still near. Reynard wondered how she would justify spending her time here—if she ever needed to justify anything. Her presence somehow reassured him, however, but he could not say why he felt such, other of course than her being a weapon, which she could certainly be, if Calybo relieved her of other duties.

  Kaiholo made several signs to the servants, but got back no response, other than veiled glances. “Those who attended the Crafter have been sent to the east, methinks,” he said.

  An older man, almost as old as Widsith had once been, came up to meet them beyond the cooling ground. He looked at Reynard and scowled as if seeing a ghost. In heavily accented English, he said, “I once had fewer years than thee!” and pulled up his sleeves to show some of his many scars.

  “Was that a cabin boy from the galleon?” Reynard asked Widsith.

  “Yes. Not many still here, still alive. I saw fewer than twenty Spanish soldiers.”

  Another group of soldiers, in the armor of the Sister Queens, and several women in ochre gowns, emerged from the tent and surrounded the captives, examining them with feverish, or perhaps drunken, interest.

  The eastern soldier and four of his fellows ushered Kaiholo, Reynard, and Widsith away from the fire and into the large tent through a half-hidden, draped entrance. Inside, many layers of striped gray and white fabric separated the airy rooms, these thin and current-ruffled walls rising into the heights, where lanterns swung slowly from long chains, casting a fitful, shimmering light without shadows.

  Reynard could no longer detect the presence of Valdis, and felt the lack acutely.

  “This way,” the first soldier said. All had the wear and tear of battle on their clothes and armor, especially on the resin-soaked plates, cracked and chipped. One soldier had the stump of a missing arm wrapped in a bloody bandage, and seemed paler and perhaps weaker than the others, but still vigilant.

  “We have no drakes,” the leader said as he walked beside them, the others on the outside. “But we still have our courage. We would face you with our bare hands when the Queens are finished.”

  The one-armed man held out his stump. “The courage of the east, not the sorcery of the west!” he said, his voice hoarse.

  Up a flight of wicker stairs, not unlike the stairways in the seed-cage city, and through more translucent drapes, they were led into the throne room of the Sister Queens.

  The thrones were empty.

  The Sister Queens

  * * *

  “WHERE ARE THY DRAKES, men of the western shores?” a soft voice asked. They turned to face two standing women, of medium height and comely, identical of feature, with long, flowing straw-colored hair, standing shoulder to shoulder. The figure on the left had extended her right arm forward and held a cane. The figure on the right seemed to keep her shoulder behind that arm, so close were they.

  Reynard glanced at Widsith, who nodded with startled fascination.

  Beneath their black gowns, the Sister Queens were joined at their hips—actually joined, it seemed, by a ribbon of flesh and perhaps bone. They were flanked by four other women, all in eastern armor, all stronger and taller than the Queens and fiercer of mien, and Reynard wondered if these were Anakim, like Kern.

  But what irresistibly drew his eyes were the Queens, who seemed completely at ease in their proximity, their rule—their identity.

  “We have faced those drakes often, and suffered—but where are they now?” asked the Queen on the right.

  “Have they passed their season and lie on some mountain, rotting?” asked the Queen on the left.

  “You killed their masters,” Kaiholo said to both, making Reynard flinch with his boldness. In England, he could not imagine addressing royalty so directly, and clearly this pair was of such a power—of such a royal heritage. Kaiholo finished, “Never wise when the season is still upon them. And for those who split and fly near the end of the cycle, it is still their season.”

  “How many more of these monsters are waiting to protect you?” asked the Queen on the left. Reynard could detect by her expression that her role sat more lightly upon this sister, and the other took t
hings with a heavier heart.

  “We have come to find those who need our stories,” Widsith said. “We are filled with sorrow to find them killed or enslaved. Where are the Travelers and servants being taken?”

  “We are happy to receive thy stories,” the Queen on the right said. “We can even convey the best to those whom we have taken, mostly, to live in comfort on the eastern shores, or to be returned to the lands we have rid of war and the monsters who once filled these kraters. But you will never finish your tasks, for those monsters are dead or dying.”

  “Of old age,” Widsith said. “They were mostly dead before you began your conquests!”

  The Queen on the left followed her sister’s words with “Out of curiosity, we have left two of the monsters alive. Their servants seem willing to help our scholars, if we do not kill them.”

  “Can you kill them?” Reynard asked.

  “We have sought warriors who can look upon their evil and not go mad. But we have not yet killed them.”

  “The shrouded one in the cathedral city seems safe enough,” the left Queen said.

  “But to be sure, we have not been allowed to look at that one, either,” the right Queen said with a prim expression. “For thousands of years, the Isles of the Blessed have suffered under the tyranny of the one who invited these monsters, and gifted them with the sole guidance of human destiny. To end the reign of Hel, we planned our journeys in the west and destroyed those villages that still send men across the oceans, that still support and report to the cities that surround the monsters. We have leveled all but two of the cities around the chafing waste. So Hel’s time is now ending.”

  “Are you certain?” Kaiholo asked. One of the tall women reached out to admonish him, but the Queens raised their hands and the guard withdrew, still angry.

  “I am not sure I believe any of this nonsense,” said the Queen on the left. “I do not believe Hel ever existed, or any great sky people. My sister and I lead practical lives, guided by study and irrefutable nature—not by sorcery.”