‘How can it be spreading, Vin? Do we need to check on the borders more often?’
Vintage pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know. This is the problem. We simply do not know enough about it.’ She took a breath, preparing to rouse an old argument. ‘I will go in the spring. I’ve waited too long already, but it’s not too late. Ezion, dear, we need to do some research, need to get out into the world and find out what we can. There are Behemoth sites I could be learning from, out there beyond our own forests. We need to know more about the Wild, and the parasite spirits. Enough reading, enough peering at old books. I need to go.’
Ezion snorted with laughter. It didn’t suit him. ‘Not this again. It is ridiculous. You are a forty-year-old woman, Vincenza, the head of this family, and I will not have you traipsing off across Sarn to gods only know where.’
‘A forty-year-old woman who has spent her entire life running this place, growing these vines, and making this wine.’ She gestured viciously at the glass goblets, all full of a pale golden wine – it was made from the grape called Farrah’s Folly. She could tell from the colour. ‘And I have had enough. All of this,’ she lifted her arms wide, ‘is your responsibility now, Ezion. And I am not.’
She plucked her hat up off the table, and, for the look of the thing, stuck it back on her head before stalking out of the room, slamming the door so hard that she heard the cutlery rattle.
Outside in the corridor, she leaned briefly against the wall, surprised at how wildly her heart was beating. It was the anger, she told herself. After a moment, Bernhart’s head appeared from around the corner.
‘Are you all right, m’lady?’
She paused. A slow tingling feeling was working its way up from her toes; some sense of a huge change coming, like the heaviness in the air when a storm was building. There would be no stopping her now.
‘I am absolutely fine, Bernhart darling.’ She grinned at him and was pleased to see the boy smiling back. ‘Fetch my travel bags from storage, boy. I’m bloody well going now.’
3
Now
The drug akaris is produced by heating a certain combination of substances to extreme temperatures before being cooled, raked and sieved. Only winnowfire is capable of producing the temperatures required, and, indeed, seems to affect the substances in other, less obvious, ways. Akaris is produced in one place only: the Winnowry, on the island of Corineth, just off the coast of Mushenska. Other places have attempted to manufacture the drug, with their own, illegal fell-witches, but these operations have all, without fail, come to a somewhat abrupt and rather unpleasant end. The Winnowry, they say, are ruthless in protecting their own interests.
As for the drug itself: used in its pure state, it simply gives the user a deep and dreamless sleep (more valuable than you might think), but cut with various stimulants, of which Sarn has a vast variety, it brings on a waking-dream state. By all reports, the dreams experienced under the influence of adulterated akaris are vivid, wild and often unnerving.
Extract from the journals of Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon
Noon awoke to the sound of an argument echoing up from below. She slid out of her narrow bed, snatching a glance out the tiny smeared window – overcast again, a blanket of grey from top to bottom – and walked over to the bars of her cell. There was little to see. The vast emptiness that was the heart of the Winnowry hung just below, and on the far side, there was the northern wall of cells, all identical to hers; carved from dead black rock, the floors and the ceilings a grid of solid iron. It was always gloomy inside the Winnowry; the tiny windows were all thickly sealed with lead and wax, and the oil lamps wired to the walkways gave only a smoky, yellow light.
Noon leaned against the bars and listened. It was normally so quiet in the Winnowry, filled with the hush of a hundred women living in fear: of themselves, and each other.
‘Lower your voice, Fell-Anya,’ came the flat, oddly metallic voice of one of the sisters, edged with tension.
‘I will not!’ Anya was one of the older fell-witches, but her voice was cracked from more than age this morning. The woman had been here for nearly twenty years, twice as long as Noon. Noon could barely imagine what that was like, but she was afraid she would find out.
‘What can you do? What can you do to me? I’d be better off dead – we all would.’ The woman’s voice echoed up and around the vast space, echoing like something trapped. Anya was from Reidn, a vast city state far to the east that Noon had never seen, and she spoke their oddly soothing, lilting language. Because fell-witches could be born anywhere, to anyone, the Winnowry was full of women from all over Sarn, and over the last decade Noon had come to know something of all their languages. It was, she sourly noted, the only positive thing the place had given her.
‘No one is going to kill you, Fell-Anya.’ The sister who spoke to her used the plains-speak that was common to most of Sarn. She was forming her words slowly, calmly, perhaps hoping to convey the sense that everything was fine, that nothing could possibly be out of control here – and her use of plains-speak suggested she wanted everyone to know it.
‘Oh no, I’m too useful! Kill me and you’ve one less slave to make your drug for you.’ There was a crash and a rattle of iron. Fell-Anya was throwing herself against the bars. Noon glanced directly down, through the iron grid, and saw Fell-Marian’s pale face looking up at her from the cell below. The bat-wing tattoo on her forehead looked stark, like something separate from her. Noon touched her own forehead unconsciously, knowing she carried the same mark branded onto her skin.
‘What is she doing?’ whispered Marian. Noon just shook her head.
‘You will calm yourself, Fell-Anya. Calm yourself now, or I will take action.’ From the other side of the Winnowry came a muttering of dismay. The whole place was awake now, and every fell-witch was listening to see what would happen.
Noon pushed herself against the bars. ‘Oi! Leave her be!’ Her voice, more used to whispers and low words, cracked as she shouted. ‘Just leave her alone!’
‘Calm myself? Calm myself!’ Fell-Anya was shrieking, the rhythmic slamming of her body against the bars terribly loud in the vast space. Noon pressed her lips together, feeling her own heart beat faster. Such uncontrolled anger was not permitted in the Winnowry. It was one of the worst things they could do. And then, unbelievably, there was a blossom of greenish-blue light, impossibly bright in the gloom of their prison. Noon staggered back from the bars even as she heard Marian gasp below her.