home

search

17. Against Better Judgment [Hassani]

  Libriam's marshes stretched endlessly on all sides of the small reed boat. A flock of white cranes exploded from the reedy grasses nearby. Hassani jumped, laughed, and smiled as her startled tension released. This long boat trip from Libriam's Thorn to the Annalis served Hassani perfectly: a slow time spent swatting bugs or in brief exchanges with the terse, swarthy man poling the craft.

  Space and time to plan her next steps. And spend as little time thinking about home as possible.

  They slipped around a few wallowing passenger barges heading to or from the Thorn. An occasional ConMach fast courier glided past on its single paddle wheel, the slight discoloration in its wake slowly shading back to vibrancy. Otherwise, most activity worth watching consisted of long-legged birds fishing, marsh snakes twisting through the reeds, and innumerable insects zipping about.

  If not for the humidity and growing expanse of welts on her skin from bug bites, she wouldn't have minded another day or two in transit, but the Annalis complex's wide sprawl grew too quickly on the horizon. When they bumped against the sagging docks, Hassani tipped her boatman with a small coin and clambered from the craft.

  She slung her small pack over her shoulder, tucked Deai's battered sword into her belt, and carefully picked her way along the boardwalks. Past experience told her that even with constant maintenance, the walkways rotted rapidly in the moisture and heat. Plunging through a weak spot into the murky water was an experience she bore no desire to repeat.

  Locals paid her little mind, busy tending their fishing nets or hauling papyrus bales and bushels of rice. Her formal Inviolate robes drew little attention. At this, the bureaucratic heart of the Dynasty, the Annalis saw dozens of messengers, Inviolates, scholars, merchants, Kin, and even the odd Dynast come through daily.

  Unlike the reed huts of the locals, the Annalis compound's architecture consisted mostly of deep red, rot-resistant baryan wood from Libriam's southern forests. The structure's pyramid-roofed central building loomed over the town clustered in its shadow, the complex's sprawl reaching towards the horizon in either direction.

  The massive Skeinry squatted in the sunset, its ugly gray-red bulk hulking between the Annalis and the marsh. Endlessly-streaming traffic flowed through it as waves of dispatches, reports, inventories, requests, requisitions, census documents, ciphers, and anything else that could be sent by wyre flooded in, spilled onto papyrus, parchment, paper, clay, or wax, and trundled to and fro by the cartload.

  A pair of bored, miserable-looking Keens sweated in their hulking armor beside the Annalis' towering main doors, patches of drained gray staining the walls behind them. A wave of her Inviolate Vial let her pass without question.

  As always, the contrast between the damp, boggy heat outside and the dry, cool air within shocked her. That and the black tile stretching in all directions within the massive entrance foyer.

  Doors big and small punched holes in all three walls excepting the one behind her with its massive, lone doorway. Every other exit led into the labyrinth of the Annalis. Though some lay at ground floor, more led away from the three stories of stairways, balconies, and landings lining the walls. The vast space bustled with scribes, pages, laborers, servants, slavants, slaves, the odd guard or legionnaire. And bureaucrats. Bureaucrats spanning every size and description. An abstruse system of haircuts and wigs marked their hierarchy with some association between longer, more elaborate hair and higher rank.

  Food carts served fish cuts or stew in well-worn wooden bowls, crunchy herb-roasted beetles and dragonflies, snake skewers, papyrus roots, rice balls, noodles, wine. Locals sat eating or stood talking about the carts while green-tarnished bronze statues in the dozens served as landmarks and gathering points, dwarfing everything else on their plinths of fine black marble imported from Shale.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  After her first trip, Hassani gave up on learning her way around the ever-expanding, constantly-remodeled and -repaired Annalis sprawl. Befriending someone who lived inside and enlisting him to serve as guide during her visits proved a far more efficient strategy. She'd memorized a path to Goboro's dormitories and relied on him for the rest.

  Given the early hour, his cell-like room's emptiness came as no surprise. She retraced her steps to the massive foyer. There, she ordered noodles and breaded fish from her favorite cart and retired to her favorite statue to eat. At the feet of some ancient Dynastic general wielding a broken spear atop a the heaped corpses of some forgotten last stand, Hassani ate, watched, and thought.

  Thought as much about work and as little about home as possible.

  She failed completely. Her mind returned over and over to that final sight: flashing lightning casting garish highlights on her husband's curled form, Avani huddled over him to protect him from Hassani's blood-spattered fists. Hassani's intense competitive streak pushed her to the top contenders in anything she put her mind to, but she'd never hoped to win at 'worst possible family life.'

  While she sat, men representing diverse ranks, professions, and degrees of confidence made approaches in various shades of subtlety but an equal degree of success. She longed for the affection, abandon, and sexual satisfactions that her marriage failed in every possible way to provide, but she knew from other Inviolates' bragging that many considered easy infidelity a perk of the position. How could a verse-bound mate ever hope to discover affairs sketched across the margins throughout the entire Book?

  As miserable as Hassani found home life, her integrity and Denault's apparent faithfulness armored her. Every hopeful found only firm, polite rejection in Hassani's presence.

  Judging by the uptick in activity and the twilight pouring through the expensive glass skylights, returning to Goboro's apartment might bear fruit but she figured she'd be more likely to catch him coming here for dinner.

  Lost in thought, Hassani failed to notice the young man seated on an over-sized bronze helmet sculpture nearby until his humming broke through her reverie. Sighing and collecting her things, she prepared to shutdown this latest doomed suitor. She waited for the inevitable approach, but the man merely sat beside her sipping from his clay bottle, spearing fish chunks with a skewer, and humming a tune she couldn't quite place. Not wanting to encourage him, she looked him over surreptitiously.

  Long, brown hair falling over tanned skin. Not uniformed and unctuous like a bureaucrat. Not dark enough to be Kin. Clothing simple, loose, and matching the local style but with scattered scarlet and mustard hints accenting field-worker drab greens and browns. Dressed local but not local. Insulated against the cool air by several layers. From a verse with a cooler climate? Possessing good taste in clothing or perhaps owned by someone with such taste. Delicate bone-structure cast a vaguely-effeminate profile yet muscles filling out his long cotton tunic evidenced hard work at something.

  Against her better judgment, she found herself intrigued.

  Except he didn't say anything or even notice her. Though he nodded to a few passers-by who made eye contact and waved to someone in the distance once, he merely enjoyed his simple fare while humming a baritone melody barely audible over the rapidly-swelling din.

  Just when Hassani decided she'd misjudged his intentions, he stood and turned. Perfectly-straight, white teeth flashed. His brown eyes met hers just long enough to tell her the smile was for her alone.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  By the time she'd recovered enough to say something, he was gone, vanished into the noise and commotion.

  Confusion, annoyance, disappointment, and nervousness clashed with excitement and the unbidden desire to see him again. See him to crush his intentions and make clear her unavailability, of course. Forcing herself mentally back to business, she climbed higher on the sculpture to scan for Goboro.

  He spotted her first and hallooed. Hassani returned his excited wave, realizing only as she climbed down that she'd looked past him twice in her survey of the crowd. However much she liked the portly scribe, she barely felt his enthusiastic hug or heard his joyous welcome patter. Her eyes wandered the dinner rush, ears seeking the tantalizing hint of a hummed melody.

  In vain.

  Next chapter: Fallon "to the rescue"

  Characters and terms

  Characters (alphabetical)

  Aida: MC.

  Aj: a long-slumbering, powerful being which annihilated Inro's Sunset Legions

  Avani: Hassani's daughter, an albino

  "Braid"; a thug who accosted Aida in Jadeye

  Deai: Hassani's swordmaster, renowned for killing a Paragon

  Denault: Hassani's husband. Shipwright, Kin.

  Ghillie: a 3rd Feral who wears a primitive Ghillie suit. Carries cross between kunai and acupuncture needles

  Fallon: Aida's Seneschal

  Hassani: Inviolate agent of the Black Court

  Inro: Dynast formerly ruling Sunset

  Jaxe: Dynast, owner of Stacks. "Young", wealthy. Also has "the Pale" (an Albino)

  Parathas: Aida's skinscribe. Also a mountaineer.

  Rega: Inro's sister

  The Fallen

  Feral: a bone-masked woman of violence (Feral) in Aida's service. Knife wielder. Killed by Ghillie in Jadeye.

  "Toothy": leader of a group of thugs who accosted Aida in Heaven's Tread. Killed by Feral in Jadeye

  Valeer: a mentally challenged, unkempt individual able to manipulate Thorns. Died in Jadeye to "Braid".

  White Spiral: an older Feral in Aida's service. Archer. Died protecting Aida in Jadeye

  Terms (alphabetical)

  All, The: ?

  Anchorites: individuals capable of creating anchor points affixed to nothing.

  Annalis compound: sprawling complex in Libriam, heart of The Book's bureaucracy

  Ascen, The/The Ascendant: divinities "watching over every verse"?

  Assessor: census-taker

  Aze: swordmaker?

  Black Court: a realm of pure darkness. Also, those who rule there. Where Partaking happens.

  Blood, The: imbibed at Partaking, transforms one into a Dynast if they survive

  Book of Verses, The: collection of verses ruled by the Dynasty

  Broadcliff, Tallmarket: cities in Stacks

  Century Thread: additional threads appearing elsewhere on the body every century a Dynast lives

  Chant, The: some sort of law in the Dynasty?

  Chant of Innoculation: chant supposed to protect against disease

  Crowmen: buy corpses to return them to life and service as rotters

  Cupola Thorn: the main Thorn in the city Jadeye in Heaven's Tread, a stone dome built over it

  Currence: something valuable inside old coins?

  Current: some form of energy that powers "artifices"?

  Dynast: individual given rule of a verse if they survive Partaking. Ageless and hard to kill. Regenerative. Sustained by "the Blood"; no food or water necessary.

  Dynasty: the Dynasts who rule the Book

  Ebon: founder of the Dynasty and Black Court

  Echoseer shells: devices to allow one to "see" in the Black Court

  Feral: bone-masked bodyguards who require the essence of their master to survive. "Damned to Ferals" as a form of capital punishment. "the damned", "damned to a Feral"

  First Thread/Primus: a fresh Dynast/the first luminescent silver thread etched into their foreheads.

  Gates, The: ?

  Gonist: organ dealers and traders

  Heaven's Tread: a verse "inside a hollow rolling pin", host to Jadeye, the largest city in the Book

  Ink: home verse of the Skeinry and Keens

  Innoculist: doctors?

  Inviolate: agents of the black court who "serve the Black Court, protect the Dynasty, uphold the Chant, root out corruption."

  Inviolate Vial: carried by Inviolates as badge of office

  Iode: substance that ignites when crushed

  Iris: the giant portals leading between one cylinder of Heaven's Tread to the next

  Jade Eye, The: the "giant emerald" at the middle of Ocyl's Spire in Jadeye

  Jadeye: the largest city in the Book and major trade hub, in Heaven's Trade

  Jaxeday: holiday in Stacks with boat carvings, feasts, games of Fishhead, dances, and storytelling

  Jaxestack: a whitewashed stack on Stacks home to Jaxekin

  Keen: Ink warriors wearing impossibly-heavy iron armor whose power source drains color from the area about it.

  Kin: descendants of a Dynast

  Kiss, The: ?

  Letch: sect bred leech-like creature designed to stop bleeding on wounds

  Libriam: a swampy verse home to the Annalis, heart of The Book's bureaucracy

  Lineage: ?

  Linemen: workers on the Stacks trolleys who pull the cars along the lines

  Logos: ?

  Mancers: ?

  Menial: common folk

  Molt: person able to shed skins (see skins)

  Mon, The: ?

  Mourne, The: something dangerous that lurks in the Vale, "the why we do not tarry"

  Nameday: when children are named

  Ocyl's Spire: the tower home to the court of Ocyl, Dyanst of Heaven's Tread

  One-Eighth Shithole: Aida's verse. Unfortunately. A desolate place home to volcanoes and a giant dead turtle

  Pale, The: light-skinned people, conquered by Ebon during the founding of the Dynasty

  Paragon: warrior who can see the future

  Partaking: the ritual that creates Dynasts (or kills those who try). Performed by some unknown, large creature in the Black Court.

  'pillar: fuzzy Sect-bred giant caterpillar pet

  Reachers: massive, Sect-bred creatures that direct traffic and rescue unfortunates in the Sighted Path in Jadeye

  Rotters: sack-clothed, crudely-masked 'zombies' uses as pack-beasts and simple laborers. Created/sold by Crowmen.

  Sect, The: breeders of useful insectoid- and/or sauroid-like creatures

  Seneschal: chief servant of a Dynast, bear permanent strings allowing them to speak and understand any language

  Sighted Path: the zero-g road down the center of Heaven's Tread

  Skeinry: iron-plated communication centers where Skeiners translate vibrations sent by wyre from other verses

  Skin/Hollow: animate skin of a molt able to move, talk, and share snatches of its experience with its molt

  Skinscribe: individuals brailled with lore, walking libraries

  Slavant: an individual who "loses much" to be implanted with an ability

  Stacks: An ocean verse comprised of tall pillars jutting up from the seas. Trolleys run on long ropes between them "affixed by Anchorites to airy nothing"

  Striders: ?

  Strings: worn or implanted wire devices that translate speech

  Subterrane, The: ?

  Sunset: the verse where Aj was 'contained', formerly protected by Dynast Inro

  Sunset Legions: Inro's Legions, wiped out by Aj in Sunset

  Surgon: person able to remove organs

  Terminus:a verse?

  Thorn: huge, curling thorns which Valeers can use as gateways to the Vale, doorways between verses. Grow into verses over centuries

  Thrum: guide in the Black Court

  Unkillable Swordsman: a Paragon killed by Deia long ago

  Vale: "The Place Between". A realm of high-contrast black and white full of thorns and Thorns.

  Valeer: people capable of activating Thorns, barely functional of anything else

  Valeer's 'nail: crystals containing wafers that allow travel within the Vale to specific verses without a Valeer

  Verse: a pocket universe or world

  Verser Lord/Lady: agents of an individual Dynast who rule part of a verse at the whim of their Dynast

  Watter: energetic liquid similar to water

  Wicker Way: towers of stone, wood, and rope that connect opposite far sides of Jadeye

  World Spear: an immense stack on Stacks

  Wyres: lines run through the Vale between verses that allow communication between

Recommended Popular Novels