There is one final figure in the Jure’lia force worth elaborating on: the Jure’lia queen. This appears to be a single entity who thinks independently for the hive; who appears to make decisions and issue commands. There can be little doubt that she is the heart of the Jure’lia invasion. And yet, very little is known about her and she remains, quite literally, a shadowy figure. She appears to be humanoid at least, with a head, two arms and two legs, and may even wear armour of a sort. But many questions remain. Is it the same figure each time or a new queen? What does she want? Why is she the only humanoid? Is she, in fact, a drone they have picked up previously elsewhere?
Rolda de Grazon appears to have only ever seen the queen from a great distance, and hence made some very rough sketches of something that appears to be a tall woman, standing just beyond a line of maggots and mothers. His hand, it is worth noting, is not as accurate as it has been in previous drawings, and indeed, all the pictures he brought back of the Jure’lia leader seem soaked in dread. I find them difficult to look at myself – the shadowy figure seems to shake and melt in front of my eyes, as though she cannot be pinned to paper – and so I put it away quickly, in a separate folio to the rest. Staring at it doesn’t help, after all.
(I think of my brave and distant cousin often as I work my way through our precious archive. He returned from the Eighth Rain alive, something very few could say, and his diaries are full of praise for the brave Eboran warriors and their war-beasts who fought so valiantly against the invaders – I wonder privately if he had an affair of some sort during the war. There is a pair of silk gloves among his effects, with fine Eboran stitching. But he was a broken man, all the same. From his notes I know that he planned to write a book on the Eighth Rain on his return, but he appears to have made no progress on it in his later years, and eventually walked out into the vine forest one day and never came back. I imagine that he died out there somewhere, that his lonely bones rest under one of the giant trees. Poor old sod. His notes, and most importantly, his fine drawings, are the sturdy backbone of my own research.)
The final thing we know about the Jure’lia is, of course, that the Eborans were the only ones who could ever drive them off. The tall and graceful and lethal Eborans – with the curious magic of the strange beasts birthed to them by Ygseril, the tree-god. Time and again, the Jure’lia have come, and each time Ygseril has shed its extraordinary fruits, each silvery pod revealing an Eboran war-beast. They are, perhaps, an even greater mystery than the Jure’lia, and there is no doubt that Sarn would have been lost centuries ago without them.
Extract from the journals of Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon
‘What are we doing here? Vintage, would it not make more sense to return to your apartments? We’ve been travelling for days.’
Noon glanced at the Eboran, who was glaring around at the streets of Mushenska as if the city had done him a personal wrong. It was difficult to concentrate on his voice – there were so many, threatening to drown him out. She could barely think. Resisting the urge to place her hands over her ears, Noon took a slow breath. The city was overwhelming.
‘I want to show you something.’ Since the incident in the forest, Vintage had been full of energy, whisking them back to Mushenska with a fixed smile on her face and a steely glint in her eye. On some level, Noon felt it would be unwise to trust the scholar, but her options were limited. Once back on the road they had caught a postal carriage back, a heavily armoured vehicle pulled by sturdy horses, and in the crowded compartment Vintage had produced a small package and passed it to Noon. ‘Just a gift,’ she had said. ‘I picked it up for my niece when I travelled through Jarlsbad last and have repeatedly failed to post it to her, and, well, I believe the style is very fashionable in the big cities currently.’ Noon had opened the package to find a soft black felt hat, with a lilac silk band that slipped down over her forehead. She opened her mouth to point out that the very first thing a runaway fell-witch would do would be to cover up the tattoo on her forehead, and that it would hardly hide her from Winnowry patrols in that case – but to say so would be to admit what she was. She closed her mouth and nodded her thanks awkwardly. Vintage knew what she was, and she was trying to help. Why? And now they were in Mushenska, a city Noon had only ever seen briefly from its rooftops. She tugged at the silk band on her hat, wondering at the noise and life around her.
‘I think it would be instructional,’ Vintage continued. She was leading them deeper into the city on a bright, hot day. Men and women and children pressed in all around them, their heads and arms bare; so much skin, so many different colours – pale as cream and dotted with freckles, deep warm brown like polished wood, or a rich olive, like her own. The last time she had been around so many people, so close and so uncovered, was on the plains, with her mother and her people. It wasn’t a comforting thought.
‘What would be instructional, would be a good hot bath with a decent bottle of wine near to hand,’ said Tormalin.
‘We’re going to the Iron Market Memorial,’ Vintage carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Have you ever been, girl?’
‘Me? No. No, of course not.’
Vintage nodded. She was as serious as Noon had seen her so far. ‘I think it’s something everyone should see, if they can.’
They wound deeper into the city, until they came to a set of tall walls of featureless black stone that stretched out to either side. Already the city was quieter here, and Noon felt a coil of dread unfurl in her stomach. She had heard of the Iron Market Memorial, she was sure of it, but couldn’t say for certain what it was. She glanced at the hot blue sky above them, half fearing and half hoping to see Fulcor circling above them. The bat had been spotted twice, flying above them as they made their way back to Mushenska, and then it had disappeared again, apparently attending to bat business of its own; certainly it did not seem to feel that it had to obey her or the whistle. Even the bat knows I’m not really a Winnowry agent, thought Noon. She rolled her hands into fists. The urge to flee was still strong.
Vintage led them alongside the wall until they came to a simple, square archway. Here there was an inscription, in a language Noon could not read.
‘What does it say?’
‘The Sixth Rain. Let us not forget the lost, who can never leave this place.’ Tor’s voice was smooth and faintly amused, as though he found it funny that she couldn’t read the inscription.
‘How right they are,’ murmured Vintage. ‘Come on.’
Inside the walls, which Noon saw formed a simple square, was an odd, desolate oasis of calm. The grey cobbles of Mushenska ended, became brown dirt, which was then covered in a dark green substance, thick and hard like glass, shining under the hot sun. The slick substance covered the ground from wall to wall, and here and there it formed strange twisting shapes. These Noon found she had to look away from; there was something about the way they caught at your eyes that was unnerving. The place was empty of people.
‘What is it? What is this stuff?’
Vintage led them out onto the slick ground. Under Noon’s borrowed boots it felt slippery.