My journey back to the ship has been as a nightmare to me. Fallen with the dead of the island are now the dead of my friends, their faces holding the same awful emptiness, even their weapons undrawn. What manner of enemy can cause such utter destruction? Why have I, and only I, been spared the fate of the crew?
So thus do I wait for this death to stalk me at last. I write what I have seen, and it shall be hidden in the hope that it will return to the mainland to be seen by other eyes than mine. All my horror and my grief do I pour into this text, and when it is gone, I feel that this death of nothing will come for me.
The fears of this island are founded in reality. Do not, I beg of you, ever return here. I pronounce this island as Ramm-Outhe – Accurséd of the Gods. We have lost the Ilfe. The World will die because she cannot remember.
Jayr put the book down and rubbed bone-deep cold from her arms and shoulders. Her scars crawled with tension.
“Ress...?”
“I said work!”
“Listen to this.” She read him the tale, watching him, saw his eyes widen and his shoulders shiver as hers had done. His jaw lax, he took off the glasses and his expression washed with perplexity, then rising disbelief. As she finished, he mouthed the word “Ramm-Outhe”, then said, “There’s a tale that the Bard visited Rammouthe on some sort of mission, and came back scragged. Everyone that went with him died. There’s a daemon, a beastie, meant to be incarcerated there?”
“And it cooked him, I take it?”
“He didn’t find a beastie, he got munched by the wildlife. The tale of the daemon goes back further than that though, I’m trying to remember how it goes...”
“What? You lose your memory too?”
That made him blink, almost as if he sought to attach significance to what she’d said – as if the loss of the world’s memory could somehow also affect their own. He unclipped his glasses, pointed them at her.
“Have you ever been to Fhaveon? It’s an odd city – it’s built backwards, like a fortress facing the water, facing Rammouthe Island across the Bava Strait. The tale goes that Fhaveon was built on the site of an older city, a city razed to dust and ashes by the very daemon that Roderick went seeking. When the daemon was defeated, and Saluvarith built Fhaveon, the God Samiel sent a creature of light and warfare to be a guardian, and to ensure that the daemon would never return.”
“Come off it,” Jayr said. “That’s exactly the garbage they tell in the market –”
“Put the book down.” The voice was cold, female. Both Ress and Jayr started. Jayr was on her feet, her stance instinctive and her breathing tense – but the woman stood a way back, cloaked in the library’s shadows.
“Dear Gods.” Ress scrabbled upright, almost dropping his pince-nez.
The woman was tall, gaunt, pale, she wore the gloom like a gown. Caressed by darkness, one long slim leg was visible, one white shoulder, one side of a sharp-boned face.
“My Lord.” As flustered as she’d ever seen him, Jayr watched Ress touch both hands to his sternum and bow, spreading his arms wide. It was an obscure and formal gesture the Banned rarely used. As he shot her a look, she awkwardly did the same, feeling oversized and clumsy. The book in her hand felt like it was made of stone.
“Ress of the Banned. Jayr the Infamous. What brings you to my library?”
“Knowledge, my Lord.” Ress was almost stuttering. “I –”
“The centaurs.” She gave a brief nod. “I understand why the Banned would be curious – half man, half horse, is that not your prerogative?”
Jayr said, “How do you – ?”
“Know?” The woman gave a soft, chill laugh. “This is Amos, and I am her Lord. Little happens in the Greater Varchinde that the grass does not bring to the walls of my city.”
“You’re Nivrotar?” The question was out before Jayr could stop it. “Ah... my Lord?”
“You take me for a custodian?” Nivrotar, Lord of Amos, probably the single most feared of the Grassland’s CityWardens, unwrapped herself from the shadow. “There have not been custodians in the library for many returns.”
As tall as Jayr, as lean as a knife blade, face angular and beautiful and cold, she carried herself as if the library was her courtroom. White skin and black hair, a black gown that left one long leg free, that bared her shoulders and whispered on her skin as she moved. The shadows seemed to follow her, a cloak of darkness she bore with long ease.
She wasn’t Grasslander. Her colouring was Kartian, Tundran? Her features and poise Archipelagan? She was every realm of the world and more.
She was alone.
“Give me the book.” Her outstretched hand was not a request. About her wrist there was a black tattoo, a design that curled like creeper up the inside of her arm.
“My Lord, we didn’t mean to intrude.” Ress tucked his pince-nez safely in a pouch. “The door wasn’t guarded – wasn’t locked...”
“Wasn’t standing,” Jayr muttered, innocently eyeing the roof.
“Knowledge is forgotten treasure.” The Lord of Amos opened the book Jayr had been reading, carefully turned the pages. “Only I walk here still – when the strife of my city wearies me.” She shut the book with a slam – and it burst into a cloud of dust and crumbling leather. Gone. “You know this, Ress of the Banned – the time of the scholar is passing, just as it did for you.” She tilted her hand, let the dead book tumble to the floor. “And you, Jayr the Infamous.” For a moment, she met Jayr’s dark eyes and her smile was almost feminine. “This is an odd place for a Kartian slave.”
“I’m not – !” Ress laid a hand on her arm and she made an effort to curb her temper. “I’m Banned now.”
“Of course you are.” She blew dust from her outstretched palm. “The Banned is the last refuge of the exile, and has assumed its place with pride and power.” Jayr shot Ress a baffled look, but Nivrotar waved a long, white hand. “One day,” she said, “you must tell me the tale of how you fled the... ah... entertainments of the Kartian PriestLords, and joined Syke’s heretical ranks. One day, but not today.” She smiled at both of them, but the expression was sharp, curious, careful. “Today, we speak of alchemy – and of the daemon you so carelessly mention.”
Ress said, “The Bard –”
“Ah, the Bard.” For a moment, Nivrotar frowned – a fragment of recollection, a figment crossing her face. Then she shivered and gathered the shadows about her. “The Bard has been here many times, seeking answers and direction, seeking the very daemon you cannot name.” Her smile was touched – a flicker of sensuality. “I am the Lord of Amos, I have walked here with him and the words have been our sanctuary. There are words we have read and regretted, words we have read and rejected. And there are some words we have dared not read at all. Are you so wise, Ress of the Banned? Are you wiser than we?”
“My Lord...” Ress gathered his breath. “You’re answering my questions with questions.” He was narrow eyed, wary and guarded. “The creatures that we fought, can you tell me what they were?”
“Perhaps I have forgotten.” She smiled. “Perhaps I, too, have lost my memory, and what lore I once knew. Knowledge is power, Ress of the Banned – and a wise foe will take that power from you. Yet hear this.”
She paused, ensuring that she had his full attention.
“You speak of the fall of Tusien and the fate of her lore. And you speak of the founding of Fhaveon the fortress, the might that guards the Varchinde against our foe. That foe, Ress of the Banned, was the daemon Kas Vahl Zaxaar. It was he who destroyed Tusien and her learning, he who made war upon the Grasslands and destroyed the great city of Swathe.”
There was something odd, almost ironic about her tone, as though there was some private jest that she could not share.