‘But what can we do?’ Hestillion lifted her hands once and dropped them, looking around the table as if the answer might be there amongst the jams and dried sausages. ‘Our Ygseril, the giver of the Rains, sleeps and has not grown leaves in centuries, let alone the silver fruits. My people, Mother Fast, are dying. What can you do about that?’
‘Whatever we can.’ The young man called Frost stepped forward, one hand on the back of Mother Fast’s chair. ‘This is a problem we must open up to the world. Sarn has tried to forget Ebora, with its bloodlust and greed, but we don’t have that option any more. As a people, you’ve always been closed off.’ His eyes flashed, although whether with anger or passion Hestillion couldn’t have said. ‘But we will reopen trade routes. Bring people here again. We can start at the Broken Rock markets – we have riders already on their way – and work from there. Somewhere, there may be an answer to what has happened to your Ygseril, a cure even for your people, but you will not find it closed behind these walls.’
‘A slower convoy is on its way here now.’ Yellowheart’s voice was deep and kind. ‘Bringing supplies, medicines. It is a start.’
‘Oh.’ Hestillion stood up, her hands floating up to her face again, and she let a single tear fall down her cheek. ‘Oh. Such kindness. I hardly know – Aldasair, did you hear? Help is coming. Help is coming for Ebora.’
Aldasair looked around the room as if he’d only just noticed the strangers there. His brow creased slightly.
‘By the roots.’
Later, much later, when their guests were comfortably asleep and Hestillion could sense their dreaming minds like points of faint light, she went again to the Hall of Roots. It was dark, but the ghostly shapes of sculptures and furniture were so familiar she nearly danced around them, while sharp starlight fell on her through the glass ceiling.
She climbed out onto the roots without hesitating, feeling rather than seeing her way, until she sat once again underneath the enormous trunk. Mother Fast expected the convoy to arrive in the next few days – she had come on ahead with her closest people, to see that all was clear – and from there they could hope to start expecting other representatives. Frost and his riders had already started putting out the word to the other plains tribes, and from there word was expected to reach Mushenska, Reidn, even distant Jarlsbad. Trade would come again to Ebora, and perhaps, with it, the true cure for the crimson flux.
Laying her head against the cold bark, Hestillion closed her eyes and stepped easily into the netherdark. Ignoring the warm human minds, clustered close to each other in the south wing, she cast her mind down, down towards the roots again, searching for the light she was sure she had seen, just before Aldasair had interrupted her.
She went deep, perilously deep, far from any mind shaped like her own, feeling the press of cold roots against her dreaming self, squeezing down into the gaps. She imagined herself a drop of water, slipping down into the dark where her god might take her up and use her.
Ygseril? Ygseril, are you there?
There was a dull bloom of light – barely even light at all, more like the flash of colour that might blast someone’s eyes if they were struck on the head. Hestillion shot towards it, letting herself be drawn.
Ygseril!
Now the light was constant, still dim like the light before dawn, but there was more to it than that. A mind hovered there, something so large and so alien Hestillion felt herself instinctively trying to retreat, but she held herself still, a hunted creature in open ground.
I knew it! I knew you lived!
It was fading already, sinking back away from her like water draining into sand, but she called after it, knowing that, next time, it would be easier to find.
They’ve fallen for it, Ygseril, exactly as I knew they would! Ebora will not die. Not while I live. They are like children, and they eat from my hands. I will see us live again, Ygseril!
18
Before Milandra Parcs, the organisation that was to become the Winnowry was a religious retreat of sorts – one with very strict rules, of course, and a great deal of time was spent studying the teachings (or ravings, depending on how you look at it) of Tomas. What Parcs did was to turn it into a prison, and perhaps more significantly, a business. And she was remarkably successful at that.
It helps, I think, to know some of the background of Parcs. She was born on the outskirts of Jarlsbad, scratching a living with her family in the terrefa fields. Terrefa, if you’re not familiar with it, is a plant that can be smoked, producing a great sense of well-being and, from what I’ve smelled, a terrific stink. Terrefa is unusual – rather than harvesting the leaves of the plant and then drying them, they are left to die on the plant and then are carefully collected just before they start to drop. Jarlsbad is a region prone to forest fires and terrefa fields are carefully monitored leading up to the harvest period. Unbeknownst to Milandra, her sister – around seven years old at the time – was a fell-witch. One night, there was an argument between the smallest sister and her mother, and she ran out into some terrefa fields, letting forth a small barrage of winnowfire. The crop caught like tinder and was fiercely burning in seconds, flames sweeping across the entire field. Unfortunately, Milandra’s father had been out in the fields, taking a walk in the evening air as he had a habit of doing, and he suffered severe burns to most of his body, and, after a few agonising weeks, died. With no father and no terrefa crop, the family was destroyed. Destitute, they moved into the city to beg on the streets. Milandra’s official story was that her little sister ran away and was never seen again. I often wonder about that, myself.