Chapter Thirteen

UNLUCKY FOR SOME

Voldo Do Berria was either a fascinatingly detailed liar, or he was true to his word and had walked half the known world and back again. For the moment, I chose to believe in the latter. He was certainly a font of knowledge, fact or fiction. For that I could forgive the melody of his voice and the way he spun his tales with gilded words. He was a bard, after all, no matter how high he held himself. It’s true what they say: knowledge is indeed power. What they don’t tell you is the start of that quote: the right knowledge is power. And so, my good reader, I let him speak and I took in every word, and endured all his… bardishness.

Getting what you want isn’t always a pleasure.

‘Canarva might be the forge of the north, or so the barons and factory masters like to bluster, but Bashkar’s long been the jewel to rival Tempest. At least, if you walk the upper streets,’ added Voldo, wagging his finger. Intriguingly, I noticed he lacked half a thumb on one hand. It wasn’t uncommon for the masters of Canarva to take a finger or even a hand for stealing. I made a show of stretching and made sure my foot was over the secret stash.

Voldo scratched at his wooden leg as if it was skin and bone. ‘It’s the astonishing wealth of its markets that’s made many a Bashkar soul richer than you can possibly imagine. It’s the spider at the centre of the web of half the trade from the west. Its ports never sleep. And thanks to the Great Watcher’s taxes, it’s made the Venerance just as affluent. Bashkar’s temple spires tickle the heavens. Cruisers and balloons and private skiffs fill the cerulean skies. Silver bells toll from the and prayers are sung every rosy dawn. The streets are lined with silk awnings and white trees. Carriages wear coats of gold. Spices and perfumes fill the air. Oh! You haven’t eaten until you try Bashkar’s stews. Do you like scalespice, little madam?’

‘I’m more fond of it than you know, and Bashkar’s a paradise. I get it,’ I replied. It was precisely what I wanted to hear, but my empty stomach growled at the bard.

Voldo plucked a discordant note on his lyre. ‘Ah! But tread below the streets and you will find another kind of city entirely. They named it the Guttervale, and it lies low, built into the black cliffs and city sewers, squished by the brighter buildings above. And like the noisy, filthy engine rooms of an airship, the Vale powers Bashkar night and day. You can find anything in the Guttervale, it’s said, and yet you can get lost in moments. Nobody knows the entire Vale, and there are tunnels lost to light and full of the forgotten. If anybody attempts to ever sell you a map beneath the streets of Bashkar, or say they know every stretch and bend, trust them very sparingly. For things that get forgotten grow restless and evil with time. There are even such dark places that were never built by Venerance or Holy Realm hands. Do you know any songs of the Augurs?’

‘Tell me you aren’t going to sing one. I told you, I prefer tales over ballads.’

Voldo looked mildly crestfallen but kept his cheery smile all the same. His cheeks must have been bloody exhausted. ‘Ha! Then not if you wish, little madam.’

‘I’ve seen similar places in Canarva. The man who showed me called the Augurs the Forlon.’

‘Then he is an educated man! Only the oldest songs remember them as the Forlon. A proud and powerful people, before their downfall.’

‘Was,’ I corrected him. ‘Was an educated man.’

‘Then Great Watcher rest him,’ Voldo said. He looked at me as if he privately suspected that I’d killed the educated man. I suppose I had, in a way, but I refused to dwell on that. I could hear Riveno’s quiet gruff voice in my mind. Refuse to Dwellin on that, more like.

I shook myself as if a shiver ran through me. ‘Are you the religious kind?’ I asked the bard.

‘It’s hard not to believe in a god when there is one in the sky for all to see, or so said the great Devoter Napier. And even if I didn’t believe, heretics don’t survive long in the Holy Realms, and I wouldn’t speak such things to a stranger on the road, now would I? Tis much better to fall in line. To keep your neck out of the noose and your feet out of the fire.’ Voldo looked around as if the trees lining the road hid prosecutors, ready to spring out and arrest us for our heresy.

As you can imagine by now, I disagreed wholeheartedly.

‘And who rules Bashkar?’ I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

‘One of the six reverents, as it happens! Reverent Lectra is her name, and Bashkar is blessed because of it. Not least because it has become the home of an academy. An academy where most of the Realms’ chosen ones come to endure their training. Where they earn their swordsaint godgears or taste the Great Watcher’s blight-magic for the first time and become alchemages.’

‘You’re telling me there’s a school for chosen ones? A magic school?’ I said with a growing smile.

‘A magic school,’ Voldo mused, picking at his strings as if struck by inspiration. ‘I like that turn of phrase. I would steal it, if it wasn’t for far too many bards already singing their praises of the academy.’

I didn’t like it at all. The academy sounded like the kind of place that I would go to be hated immensely. And yet why was I so jealous that Aberan was allowed to go?

‘If you want to see the Venerance’s chosen ones,’ Voldo was saying. ‘Bashkar is the place to journey. I have witnessed a great many swordsaints and alchemages drawing crowds upon the street. Far more than the magicians and jugglers. Oh, to be prophesied and have such glittering adoration! Can you imagine?’

I could not.

‘And yet there are those who whisper Bashkar has other rulers, especially beneath the flagstones. The barons throw about their weight often, and Bashkar isn’t without its strife. Where there are shells to be made, there are always those who will do anything it takes to make them. A Shakuru captain told me that once, you know. Crime has become a business all of its own, and there are lords of the underworld, just the same as honest business. Alas! So it has been for decades.’ Voldo played some sad and descending notes. ‘Blightpowder infests the Guttervale and half the city proper. Black markets shift about the tunnels. Dark priests preach twisted scriptures. Gangs of Blighted use powder to cast magic in the street as alchemages do. The Venerance fights crime tooth and painted nail, but like a vigorous wildfire cannot be stamped out completely. The poets say there will always be those with black hearts, no matter how much light there is in this world. Just look at what happened in Canarva.’

‘What did happen?’ I asked, wishing to hear my story from a bard’s mouth.

‘A fire unlike any the city has seen. It’s still unknown exactly what caused it, but the surviving witnesses say it was far from an accident.’ Voldo left it there, still staring between the trees. The needled kind had given way to more of a leafy kind of tree. A swarm of small rodents ran through the branches like a flock of drakes, causing just as much of a racket. Tasparil smacked his jaws hungrily at them.

I tried to out-wait the bard, but he was a stubborn one.

‘Fine. Go on, I can tell you want to sing your song.’ I played twice as reluctant as I truly was. If the ballad hadn’t been about me, I would have stayed silent until Shrewn. You can’t blame me. There are few occasions in life where a song is written about you, and so I had to hear it.

Voldo was already sitting straighter, his lyre propped in his lap. The music was hesitant.

‘For greed or vengeance, we shall know not, a fire was set without a thought. It spread and spread, burning timber and stone, yet into the night the murderer went lone. Grand house after house it did strike, burning baron, master, and servant alike. Two days til its fires were quenched, a hundred souls they found amongst rubble drenched. The damage done, Canarva broken at its core, three barons killed… something something.’ Voldo shrugged. I saw his fingers shaking as he patted his pockets absent-mindedly for a scrap of parchment. ‘That’s all I have so far. But alas, the Venerance doesn’t like the words murder or kill. Hmm. Dealing death. Criminal? Too weak. Can you un-alive somebody? That might work.’

Voldo drummed on his lyre with one hand and scribbled with charcoal with the other.

I wouldn’t have admitted it, but I enjoyed the song. Then again, let’s be honest: I was horrendously biased. ‘I wonder if they’ll ever find the culprit.’

‘It would finish off the song rather nicely, wouldn’t it?’ Voldo muttered in concentration. ‘People like an ending.’

With a smile on my lips, I watched the passing of a double wagon. Its load was empty blight barrels, piled high and lashed tight. Four kumi pulled the weight. Two fire-haired and identical twins held their reins, and they sneered at us as if we were smeared in lizard shit. I grinned like a buffoon just to irritate them. Voldo caught my mischief and immediately stood up, shoved down the waistband of his green britches, and showed the passing wagon his pale arse. Whatever garbled, inbred mess of a dialect they yelled at us made no sense, and I shook the reins to move Chum onwards. Sometimes the best fun is the stupid kind.

‘Thought you were a bard, not a jester,’ I remarked to Voldo. A portion of my smile stayed.

Voldo chuckled as he stretched his wooden leg onto the front panel of the wagon. Once again, I noticed the shake of his fingers. As did Voldo, and he nibbled at callouses on his fingertips instead. A shrill squeak drew my eyes upwards, where a peculiar bird the size of my fist hovered around the tree-blossoms like a wasp around meat. It was a bright scarlet colour, and when we came near, it disappeared into the leaves at the speed of a bullet.

‘I’ve been both, at one time or another, little madam, and many things in between,’ answered Voldo. ‘There was once a pirate-prince of an island in Esferir. His ships ransacked the cog I was travelling on, and the other passengers and I were all treated to a brief existence as his prisoners. Had a thing for theatre, did that madman, and we were forced to be his actors. Otherwise… well. Let’s just say you still played your part even after he killed you. He would string you up like a puppet instead. Me? Well, he wanted my character to lose a limb. And so did I. I can tell you this: I’ve had a strong dislike of the theatre ever since!’

‘And your thumb?’ I asked once he had finished chuckling.

‘A stern reminder to never get on the bad side of a merchant from Serpentine,’ said Voldo. ‘But what is your name, little madam? What brings you south? You don’t yet look old enough to be a merchant.’

‘Nice try. My name is my own, just like my business, I told him. ‘We made a deal for your information, not mine.’

‘I’ll guess then.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

Voldo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Something proudly Ashlander, I’ll bet, from the dark colour of your hair and those purple eyes. Tarynne. Catarain. Harad? Dwever? No? Then from the cut of your clothes, I’d wager they’re not originally yours, and by the way you hold those reins like they’ll fly off into the sky at any moment, I’d say you were either very new to this or it’s not your job at all. You changed your mind once I said airship, which means you aren’t taking this wagon all the way to Bashkar if you can help it. As for why, I would say…’

My hand tensed around my cleaver.

‘Love.’

‘What?’ I spluttered.

‘I bet it’s love. There’s somebody that misses you or needs you.’

‘Ha! Not everything is a fairytale romance, bard. You couldn’t be further from the truth.’

‘Not all love stories are romantic, I’ll have you know. Stories of family, for instance. I prefer a good adventure, personally. Monsters and masters of sword and magic. Or the rise and fall of a struggle for a good cause. Tragedies have their moments, too, but they have to be picked carefully and for the right crowd. I wonder what your tale is, little madam who shall not be named.’

‘So far? Just beginning.’

‘If not love then a rags-to-riches tale, perhaps? Redemption?’

I violently swerved from this line of talk. ‘What do you know of godgears, Voldo?’

‘Forgive a storyteller his curiosity!’ Voldo sighed dramatically. ‘Why would you want to know about godgears?’

Because a mere shard of one had brought me to this irritating juncture, and I wanted to know why in the nether it held so much power. I of course said none of this and just waited. This time, I won.

‘Well,’ he began, insisting on another brief ditty of his strings. ‘There are plenty of ballads that feature them, but few about them besides their discovery. The most famous of course being The First Prophecy by that ancient hack Chacu, who said the First Chosen forged the first godgear. It is a Venerance fiction. The actual first prophecy told of a chosen one finding the first godgear vambrace, and our illustrious leader, the First Chosen Akeron, did just that. Other ballads tell more of a truthful tale: that the gears are Augur-made, gifts of the gone gods, and barely understood by Venerance clerics; that many have been found since, not all are made the same, and that the gears pick their swordsaint as much as they are chosen.’

I had not known that. ‘How could a lump of metal choose?’

‘Augur magic, they say, but that is all, sadly, that I know,’ said Voldo, watching my brow furrow. ‘It’s true! I heard from a drunken cleric in a Tempest tavern.’

‘Oh yes. That sounds like a very reliable source.’

‘He said some godgears don’t work for some swordsaints. Some are more powerful depending on the owner. Take the Ballad of Bloody Hill for example, when the trickster Parsani tried to steal the godgear of a gleaming silver swordsaint named Ratrick. The godgear withheld its power from Parsani, and he was gutted atop Bloody Hill. The Venerance don’t like to hear that one anymore, though.’

‘Why?’

‘They don’t like to admit their swordsaints can be beaten. No matter how long ago it was.’

I kept that firmly in mind. ‘And tell me this: what did Parsani do that was so terrible?’

‘You’ve hardly heard any of the good ballads have you, traveller without a name? Parsani was a heretic who preached death to the Great Watcher and, among other things, convinced an entire town to commit suicide in sacrifice to the gone gods. All in revenge for the death of his prosecutor brother. A hundred or so years ago, there was a war raging between the Venerance and the island lords, and Parsani pounced when the Venerance’s back was turned. He almost reached Tempest before he was killed in battle.’

‘Doesn’t sound like such a bad guy to me,’ I commented with a shrug. ‘Fighting for his brother.'

‘You seem to have glossed over the heresy part.’ Voldo levelled a perplexed stare at me. ‘What makes a villain, little madam?’

‘You tell me. You’re the bard.’

I’d expected him to think hard and bluster, but Voldo had his words ready.

‘A cause that differs from the lawful standards of the world. A skill, mental or physical. A power or a weapon, perhaps. A nemesis or hero to oppose. A lair. Lackeys. I could name a dozen more.’

I waited until I had committed those to memory. ‘Doesn’t sound so different from the heroes of your ballads, if you ask me my honest opinion.’

Voldo whistled. ‘Immortality. Cruelty. Violence without care. Evil. Parsani boiled barons and Venerance clerics in oil while he had their children torn limb from limb in front of their eyes. Is that different enough for you?’

I stayed quiet, watching the forest pass by. Sunlight was breaking through the treetops like dusty spears. The amber and scarlet of fields could be glimpsed through their stoic trunks. Gone gods, listen to me wax poetic. I had already spent too much time with the bard. I hoped Shrewn was close.

‘Did Parsani have followers? Lackeys, as you called them?’ I asked Voldo.

‘That he did. Hundreds.’

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. ‘Then I wonder if they would have called him a villain or a hero.’

‘I mean…’ Voldo said, scratching at his neck again. He was beginning to leave a red mark. ‘If I were to court the devil, as it were, Parsani at least had one point. He blamed the Venerance’s evils on its thirst for blightpowder. There are some – not me – that say he foresaw what a curse it would be on the Realms. But say it with me: heretic.’

We saw Parsani’s foresight as we at last emerged from the forest and into sprawling farmlands that stretched to the mountains and beyond. Beléga, they called this land. The cloudless evening sky was punctuated with the dark shapes of balloons and cruisers. Villages and farmhouses dotted the landscape below. Lizards and strange, furry beasts of burden trod the gold and emerald fields, pulling ploughs and carts. Other roads came to join with ours. And amongst all the peace and quiet, the Blight seeped.

It wasn’t hard to spot. The road to Shrewn was peppered with beggars. Almost every one of them had the mark of Blight, from the fledgeling shadowy veins around the lips all the way to bark-like skin consuming half the body and black eyes. The sorry individuals called for shells and powder as we passed. Some shook, some rocked back and forth, and others picked their scabs bloody.

‘Many see them as pests, but it’s easier than you think to become like them. Such is the subject of the ballad of the Baron Kiana, and her tumble from grace to the gutters,’ lectured Voldo. ‘Shrewn’s become so crowded with Blighted the poor souls are forced to come out here to beg shells from passing merchants or work the farms that Beléga is known for. Not so they can eat, mind you, or put a roof over their heads, but to scratch an itch that cannot be sated.’

I watched Voldo, seeing the same tremble in his hands. I saw his teeth pull at his lips as he watched the huddled figures on the roadsides.

‘Why Shrewn?’ I asked.

‘Because almost a quarter of all the Realms’ blightpowder goes through there, either by wagon or balloon or cruiser. Or so said a fellow bard last time I rode through here two months ago. A little falls off each wagon, he said, and it makes its way from hand to hand, bought and sold, like a river of mischief and misery. The first time is always the finest. You can get away with it for a time, for the powder doesn’t take hold of you for a while. If you’re smart and careful, you never get too close to that precipice. Once you get dragged into chasing that euphoria, it’s already too late. If the Blight doesn’t sink you, the hawkers that sell it will. It’s just the same as in Bashkar. That is why I am headed to Tempest.’

Everybody in the Realms knew the temptation of blightpowder. The Watcher-fearing rarely strayed, but for street wretches like me, the fall that Voldo prattled on about was far easier to suffer. ‘Couple of Canarva gutter rats told me it felt like riding the back of a giant drake,’ I said.

‘Like turning time through your fingers like wool, or so I’ve heard,’ answered Voldo, with a broad if not uneasy smile.

I tilted my head. ‘Did another fellow bard or drunken cleric tell you that?’

Voldo pulled his collar tall. ‘Perhaps.’

Shrewn appeared between two hills. Frozen halfway through clutching the town were three tall and curved pale claws, now festooned in wooden scaffolding and platforms. At least twenty balloons and larger buzzing craft sat perched on those docks. A lone spike of white marble sat at Shrewn’s centre. A Venerance temple, dominating all as always.

‘They’re ribs, the Venerance intellects say,’ said Voldo, his first words in half an hour. ‘Not teeth. Not claws. Ribs! What in the nether such a creature would have looked like is beyond even my imagination and lyricism.’

I nodded, paying him half my attention. I was too busy examining the buildings now protruding from the roadside. The Blighted did not recede but only grew in number, now crouched in doorways and alleys. The closer we got to the core of Shrewn, the more cottage and house turned into warehouse and refinery and bustling port buildings.

‘I have another question for you, Voldo, before we part ways,’ I asked. ‘How many shells does it take to get to Bashkar?’

‘Hundreds, usually,’ Voldo replied with a sucking of his teeth. ‘The taxes have never been higher.’

‘Then how in the nether do you plan to board a balloon to Tempest if you’ve got no shells?’

Voldo laughed. ‘You should hear me play, and then you will know the answer!’

‘I already did.’

‘No, you didn’t. That was a work in progress,’ Voldo corrected me. ‘I can earn what I need. I’m rather spectacular, if I don’t say so myself. I just need the right… conditions. And you? What are your talents, besides cart-driving and wise-mouthing?’

I cleared my throat. I couldn’t very well cook my way out of Shrewn. At least not quickly. I had assumed selling what I owned and perhaps a little pinch of thievery.

‘I’ll get by.’

I said no more while we waited for a jam of carriages and wagons to clear from a Venerance roadblock. It was easing slowly but with much yelling and foul cursing, and Voldo decided he had ridden far enough and made like he was ready to part ways.

‘Just how good are you?’ I asked, ever curious.

‘Better than you’ve ever heard, little madam,’ Voldo answered me, not a blink in his eye.

‘You sure it’s not in your imagination?’

‘Is a hundred and more shells made in a single hour the last time I was in Shrewn my imagination?’ countered Voldo. The man’s cheer stayed vanished. He looked me up and down more than once. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just consider me wrong,’ I said with a fake smile. I was nothing of the sort. ‘Farewell and all that nonsense.’

‘Before I go,’ he said, clicking his tongue as he looked around. ‘I suppose now’s a good a time as any.’

Voldo’s hand twitched inside the folds of his clothes. My instincts jolted me, and as Voldo drew out a skinny black dagger, my cleaver swept from his pocket. I held the blade below his ear. He held his dagger to the back of my knee. Tasparil screeched, jaws wide and flapping as the bard and froze there, our eyes locked. Not a single passerby gave us a moment of their attention, as if that kind of daylight robbery happened all the time in Shrewn.

‘What is this, a cleaver?’ Voldo asked, peeking at my blade.

My eyes darted to the prosecutors up ahead. ‘Don’t ask. It’s sharp enough. You move and I’ll cut your throat right here in this street.’

The bard wagged a finger at both of us. ‘I think not, little madam. One knick from this blade to this part of your leg…’

Voldo tapped me with his dagger.

‘…and there’s no stopping the bleeding. So you and this drake better keep quiet,’ Voldo advised. The twinkle in his eyes had returned. ‘I wanted to rob you on the road, but you played to the storyteller in me, didn’t you? You think you’re smart, but me? I’m sharper than a razor. I get the distinct feeling you don’t want any Venerance attention. You shouting thief right now would get you exactly that.’

‘Why is it impossible to meet anyone who doesn’t want to betray me?’ I said with a chuckle. I saw Voldo’s smile falter just a whisker.

‘Then take this as a lesson in trusting in the kindness of strangers on the road. You shouldn’t.’

‘Funny. I was going to say something similar to you once I’d pinched your full pockets and stolen your balloon ride out of here,’ I shot back.

‘Then it appears we have a mutual interest in relieving each other of their belongings.’

‘That it does. I must admit, you played a good bard. Shame.’

Voldo hummed. ‘Oh, but I am a bard, little madam. Best of the best, precisely as I promised you. But times are hard and needs must, as the poets say. I told you I was a man of many talents. Now you’re going to give me whatever it is you’re hiding in that stash. The one you’ve been keeping your foot on this entire time. Ah yes! Thought I didn’t notice? You can forget about trying to look innocent. I invented that look.’

‘Or,’ I said, pressing the cleaver harder against his neck. Voldo did the same with his dagger. Though my heart beat powerfully, my mind couldn’t help but focus on how much the damn blade tickled.

‘Or, we can help each other instead of both bleeding to death in the street,’ I suggested.

‘And why would I help a scrawny wretch like you, who is just as much a thief as I am?’

‘Because I’m the most stubborn person you’ve likely ever met in all your travels,’ I replied in a whisper. Like unfurling a carpet over a pit of spikes, I laid out my trap. ‘And because I can get you blightpowder.’

Voldo laughed harshly, but I felt the retreat of his dagger and saw his eyes shift to the prosecutors. The line of wagons was starting to move. ‘And what would I want with such a thing?’

‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘I might be young but don’t think me an idiot. I can see you thirsting. I can hear the way you talk about blightpowder. I’ve seen enough of the Blight in Canarva to recognise it. But what you also need to know about me, Voldo Do Berria, is that I couldn’t care less. I don’t give a shit about you other than the knowledge you’ve got in that twitchy head of yours and the lyre in your supposedly gifted hands. You can breathe all the powder you want. Unless, of course, I’m wrong, and you being the best bard in the Realms was just an elaborate lie.’

The mirthful sheen to Voldo’s eyes had faded. His teeth were more bared than smiling. ‘Fuck you. I am gifted.’

‘Then prove it. I’ll get you powder and you help me out of this arsehole of a town.’

Voldo scrutinised me. ‘What do you know of powder?’

I withdrew my blade ever so slightly. ‘I’ve met people as well, you know.’

All I had to do was wait. We had both won a battle of silence each and in the end, I won the war. Addiction was my weapon. Voldo sheathed his knife. I put mine away just the same.

‘Midnight,’ Voldo said. ‘We meet at the foot of that nearest rib. North side. You better—’

‘I’ll have the powder,’ I reassured him with a tut. ‘If I don’t, well… We can get the knives out again and see what happens.’

Voldo stared at me while he shuffled from the wagon. ‘Who are you?’

I just grinned. ‘Midnight.’

Voldo performed an overly theatrical and sarcastic bow. ‘You’re loathsomely irritating. You know that, little madam?’

I had endured him. It was time for him to endure me.

‘Getting what you want isn’t always a pleasure, Voldo,’ I said, as I ushered the wagon and kumi in an arc and went to find some stables far from the Venerance’s eyes. ‘Why don’t you steal that for your ballad?’