The Steel Remains

And now he couldn’t cloak it any longer, the leaking sense of loss, more fucking loss, soaking through into the same old general, swirling sense of betrayal, years upon pissed-away years of it, made bitter and particular on his tongue now, as if Grace-of-Heaven had come wormwood into his mouth in those final clenched, pulsing seconds. Pleasure into loss, lust into regret, and there, suddenly, the same sick spiral of fucked-up guilt they sold down at the temples and all through the po-faced schooling and lineage values and Gingren’s lectures and the new-recruit rituals of bullying and sterile manhood at the academy and every fucking thing ever lied and pontificated about by men in robes or uniform and—

He climbed off the bed as if there were scorpions in the sheets. Last shreds of afterglow smoking away. He stared down at Milacar, and the other man’s scent on him was suddenly just something he wanted to wash off.

“I’m going home,” he said drably.

He cast about for his clothes on the floor.

“They’ve got a dwenda, Gil.”

Gathering up breeches, shirt, crumpled hose. “Sure they have.”

Milacar watched him for a moment, and then, abruptly, he was off the bed and on him like a Yhelteth war cat. Grappling hands, body weight heaving for a tumble, pressed in, wrestler close. Raging echo of the flesh-to-flesh dance they’d already had on the bed. Grace-of-Heaven’s acrid scent and grunting street fighter’s strength.

Another time, it might have lasted. But the anger was still hard in Ringil’s head, the frustration itching through his muscles, siren whisper of reflexes blackened and edged in the war years. He broke Milacar’s hold with a savagery he’d forgotten he owned, threw a Yhelteth empty-hand technique that put the other man on the floor in tangled limbs. He landed on him with all his weight. Milacar’s breath whooshed out, his furious grunting collapsed. Ringil fetched up with one thumb hooked into Grace-of-Heaven’s mouth and the other poised an inch off his left eyeball.

“Don’t you pull that rough-trade shit on me,” he hissed. “I’m not one of your fucking machete boys, I’ll kill you.”

Milacar choked and floundered. “Fuck you, I’m trying to help. Listen to me, they’ve got a dwenda in Etterkal.”

Locked gazes. The seconds stretched.

“A dwenda?”

Milacar’s eyes said yes, said he at least believed it was true.

“A fucking Aldrain, you’re telling me?” Ringil let Grace-of-Heaven free of the thumb hook. “An honest-to-Hoiran member of the Vanishing Folk, right here in Trelayne?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m telling you.”

Ringil got off him. “You’re full of shit.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, it’s either that or you’ve been smoking too much of your own supply.”

“I know what I’ve seen, Gil.”

“They’re called the Vanishing Folk for a reason, Grace. They’re gone. Even the Kiriath don’t remember them outside of legends.”

“Yes.” Milacar picked himself up. “And before the war, no one believed in dragons, either.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Well, then you explain it to me.” Grace-of-Heaven stomped across the bedchamber to where a row of gorgeous Empire-styled kimonos hung from a rack.

“Explain what? That some albino scam artist with a lot of eye makeup has got you all making wards and running for cover like a bunch of Majak herdsmen when the thunder rolls?”

“No.” Milacar shouldered himself brusquely into plum-colored silk, tugged and knotted the sash at his waist. “Explain to me how the Marsh Brotherhood sent three of their best spies into Etterkal, men with a lifetime of experience and faces no one but their lodge master could match with their trade, and all that came back out, a week later, were their heads.”

Ringil gestured. “So this albino motherfuck’s got better sources than you, and he’s handy with a blade.”

“You misunderstand me, Gil.” Grace-of-Heaven smeared on the uncertain smile again. “I didn’t say these men were dead. I said all that came back were their heads. Each one still living, grafted at the neck to a seven-inch tree stump.”

Ringil stared at him.

“Yeah, that’s right. Explain that to me.”

“You saw this?”

A taut nod. “At a lodge meeting. They brought one of the heads in. Put the roots in a bowl of water and about two minutes after that the fucking thing opens its eyes and recognizes the lodge master. You could see by the expression on its face. It’s opening its mouth, trying to talk, but there’s no throat, no vocal cords, so all you can hear is this clicking sound and the lips moving, the tongue coming out, and then it starts fucking weeping, tears rolling down its face.” Milacar swallowed visibly. “About five minutes of that, they take the thing out of the water and it stops. The tears stop first, like they’re drying up, and then the whole head just stops moving, slows down to nothing like an old man dying in bed. Only it wasn’t fucking dead. Soon as you put it back in the water . . .” He made a helpless motion with his hand. “Back again, same thing.”