The Steel Remains

They left the helmed and armored dwenda with a brief exchange that sounded formulaic to Ringil, for all he could not understand a word of what was said. Then Seethlawled them up the spiraling stairs and out onto the span. Ringil, close behind him, took a handful of cautious steps out onto the weave of hairline strands under his feet and then froze. He couldn’t help it—it was like walking on the air itself. For long moments, he felt sick with terror of falling. The wind made fluting sounds across the strands around him; the dark water below rippled invitingly. A rift opened in the clouds overhead, and where the stronger light touched the bridge, structure dissolved into the beaded gleam of a dew-soaked cobweb.

He saw the looks he was getting from Risgillen. Swallowed, fixed his gaze firmly ahead, and started walking again. It didn’t help that the bridge gave a little underfoot with each step, not unlike the spongy ground they’d been treading on their way through the swamp. And as it gave, the strands seemed to chime very faintly at the upper edge of Ringil’s hearing. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, and he was glad when they were over to the other side and coming down the spiral stairs.

At the bottom, they were met by two more armored dwenda. One of them pulled off his helmet and fixed Ringil with a hungry eye until Seethlaw snapped something at him. The conversation went back and forth a few times, and then the dwenda shrugged and put his helmet back on. He didn’t look at Ringil again.

“I’m really not popular around here, huh?”

“It isn’t that,” said Seethlaw absently. “They’re just worried, looking for something to take it out on.”

“Worried about what? Those guys in the canoes?”

The dwenda looked at him speculatively. “No, not them. There’s some talk about the Black Folk still being around here. One of our scouts went into a local camp wearing enough of a glamour to get served and sit unnoticed in the alehouse. He heard men talking about a black-skinned warrior in one of the villages to the west.”

“Yeah—come on. That’s just going to be some southern mercenary, maybe out of the deserts. Skins get pretty dark once you’re south of Demlarashan. Easy mistake to make.”

“Perhaps.”

“No perhaps about it. The Kiriath are gone, Seethlaw. I saw them off myself. Stood and watched at An-Monal until the last fireship went under. Wherever they went, they’re not coming back.”

“Yes, this is what I have learned in Trelayne. But I’ve also learned that the tongues of men are not much leashed by concern for accuracy or truth. It seems lies come very easily to your race. They lie to those they lead, to their mates and fellows no matter how close-drawn, even to themselves if it will make the world around them more bearable. It is hard to know what to believe in this place.”

Something about the weariness in his tone stung Ringil into defensive anger.

“Funny, that’s always what I heard about your people. That the dwenda were masters of deceit and trickery.”

“Indeed?” Ashgrin, laconic and grave at his shoulder. Ringil had heard his voice so few times it was a genuine shock now. “And from which four-thousand-year-old expert in Aldrain lore did you hear this?”

Risgillen cleared her throat loudly.

“Are we going to get on, brother? It seems to me that we have more to concern ourselves with than the prattling of—”

Seethlaw swung to face her. His voice came out dangerously low.

“Do you want to lead, Risgillen?”

She didn’t reply. The other dwenda watched with interest.

“I asked you a question, sister. Do you want charge of this expedition? Will you abandon the pleasures and comforts of our realm and become earthbound as I have? Will you immerse yourself in the brawling filth of human society to achieve our ends?”

Still no response.

“I’ll have an answer, sister, if you please. Or I’ll take your silence as the no it has always been. Is it no? Then shut the fuck up!”

Risgillen started to speak, her own tongue, but Seethlaw slashed the blade of a hand across the flow. He turned slowly about, blank eyes switching from face to face among his fellow Aldrain.

“I hear you complain,” he spat, still in Naomic, perhaps, Ringil guessed, to snub them, to shame them before the human. “All of you, time and again, bemoaning what you must endure here, the journeys and sojourns of a few weeks’ duration that you must make among humans, tied to time and circumstance. I have spent three fucking years tied to time so that we could build a path in Trelayne. I have tasted this world on my tongue for so long I can scarcely remember what it was like not to be tainted by its limits. I have swallowed it down, day after day, sickening from the brute animal stupidity of its ways, all so that I might learn its parameters and its possibilities, all so we may in the end take back what is ours. I have done all of this willingly, and would do it again. And I ask for nothing in return but your allegiance and your trust. Is that so very much to give?”