The Broken Isles

Suddenly Artemisia was dropping to her hands and knees. Beside her chair she bowed deeply, her arms out straight, palms to the floor. He could not have imagined a more bizarre transformation of her character.

‘Well,’ Fulcrom said, frowning at Artemisia, ‘being a fan of evidence, I suppose all this might confirm Frater Mercury’s status as a god of sorts.’

Brynd moved across to examine Frater Mercury, and Artemisia made no signs of moving from her position. ‘Frater Mercury,’ Brynd began, ‘welcome to the Boreal Archipelago. I must first thank you for saving many lives.’

There was no sign on the individual’s face, faces, that his words had been registered. Brynd tried not to stare too much at the two perfect halves of his face. Alongside him, Artemisia finally clambered to her feet and stepped cautiously forwards. She began speaking to Frater Mercury in their native language. The noises were guttural and unnerving.

Brynd cleared his throat and addressed Artemisia. ‘Perhaps we should get him back to the outskirts of Villiren. While we’re there, we can bring your elders together with Rika, and we can discuss the immediate future.’

Artemisia paused but ignored him.

Fulcrom moved beside Brynd. ‘I suspect they’ve a few issues,’ he whispered.

Brynd took him to one side, out of Artemisia’s earshot. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, I have a hunch, but it’s no more than that. Who’s the blue person?’

‘A warrior from another world,’ Brynd replied matter-of-factly. ‘One of the ones on our side.’

‘Right.’ Fulcrom seemed bemused and shook his head.

‘Out with it, investigator,’ Brynd pressed. ‘What’s your hunch about the newcomer?’

‘Frater Mercury — if he’s a god to this woman here — which I’m certain he is in a manner of speaking, indeed to all of us — then, in their world, I believe he was something of an imprisoned god. Part of the reason he broke out is to see what’s left of the world he abandoned before it was too late and his creations smashed it all up.’

‘So you think she’s persuading him back perhaps?’

‘He can probably hear what we’re saying, by the way,’ Fulcrom whispered. ‘He’s choosing to ignore all of us. He is, in many ways, like a child who wants simple freedom, out of curiosity more than anything else. I can’t understand much about him — considering he is meant to be connected to us — but I suspect he’s suffering inside. He feels the pressure of it all. Coming here was a release from those burdens.’

‘And yet,’ Brynd ventured, ‘you asking him for help in our world has already put more pressure upon him.’

‘It’s certainly possible.’

‘What state is his mind in?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘I think stable, but I don’t know him well enough, nor do I know what “normal” is for him. What I do know is that he’s almost an omnipotent individual — his involvement could mean you manage to get the future you plan for. If not, it could mean a future that none of us is a part of.’

Brynd breathed deeply, weighing the investigator’s words in his mind. ‘I’ll let Artemisia finish with him, then I may try to get a few words with him — that is, if Artemisia will let me.’

The blue-skinned woman’s voice was pleading, her words tumbling out of her mouth in a torrent he couldn’t understand. Eventually her sentences faded and Frater Mercury remained impassive to what she said. Artemisia sat back down at the table, and for the first time since he had met her she seemed quite disturbed.

‘Is everything all right?’ Brynd enquired.

She looked up at him. ‘We need to get back to the encampment as soon as possible. I will see to it that the dragons are brought here before nightfall.’

‘Are you taking Frater Mercury with you?’ Brynd asked.

‘Of course!’ she said with irritation. She rose up from her chair petulantly. ‘Unless you wish to return to Villiren via foot, Commander Lathraea, I would urge you to set straight your affairs here as soon as possible. Make what arrangements you will.’ With that, she marched back over to Frater Mercury, muttered something in their own tongue, before they both left the building.

Brynd watched through the windows as they made their way along the edge of the wall and out of sight.

‘They may be from a different world,’ Fulcrom said, ‘but they’re certainly as temperamental as people from ours.’

Brynd laughed, and found the thought vaguely comforting.

FOURTEEN

Jeza was keen to explore the nature of the Mourning Wasp before she resuscitated it. She had paid to gain access to what was left of the city’s private underground libraries. Knowledge was power, of course, and in Villiren you didn’t get something like that without paying for it.

Information was barricaded within tiny rooms situated mostly in the Ancient Quarter, an area that had remained unaffected by the war, and they had been kept in good condition by either aged cultists or old scholars weighed down by nostalgia. She examined shelf after shelf for information on the Mourning Wasp, thick tomes coming apart at the bindings, all kinds of exotic books written in various languages, though she could only understand a couple of them. Some were in remarkably good condition — facsimile copies or translations made by scholars, and with useful annotations.

Jeza had disregarded unreliable authors, researched others, but slowly began to piece together the origins of the Mourning Wasp.

There were mentions of an enormous Pale Emperor Wasp, Vespa imperator khloros, by a scholar called Vendor Hast, which was the earliest mention of the creature. Hast’s scribblings seemed a little inconsistent, so she did not set great store by his theories.

The most encouraging text was written by an Ysla-based academic called Venghaus, who had written on what he claimed was an encounter with something called the Mourning Wasp. He was more specific in his observations: saying that the creature’s overactive saliva gland secreted a substance that corroded its flesh, thus leaving it with a mostly skull-like appearance. He had suggested the use of ‘heavy clubs and cudgels’ for dealing with the pest — the numbers of people on his expedition had been halved upon contact with the species. Venghaus was the only writer to have made a sketch of the creature, hovering in the air. It looked both macabre and mesmerizing. Of the ability for people to sit on top of the wasps, as depicted in the cave paintings, Venghaus did not mention anything.

Despite the effects of the war, Villiren was still a busy city. The streets had begun to settle back into their old ways: bawdy bars kicked out those who were a couple of drinks the wrong side of the night, only for them to then go and piss their expenditure up against the wall around the back. People in long waxed coats began offering her dubious substances from the shadows, illicit fluids or bark scrapings, which could either heighten your experience of the evening or do absolutely nothing, depending on the dealer you found. There were working girls here, too, though far fewer than before. They stood almost between the moonlight and the shadows, trying to catch the attention of passers-by. Behind them, their pimps loitered, knives tucked into their sleeves, waiting. Land trilobites had returned as well, their strange, shiny shells catching the light from windows as they scuttled into the alleys. Though these waist-high creatures had once found work carrying tools for the stevedores, ever since the presence of the Okun no one really trusted anything with an exoskeleton. Now trilobites could be found drinking from puddles or scouring mounds of rubbish for existence.

The dark economy flourished.

Any hopes Jeza had that the war might have purged such goings-on from the streets of Villiren had vanished. Nothing would stop these discreet forces. Yet despite the dangers, in spite of the rancid smells and questionable people, Jeza did enjoy these evenings. The bitter coastal breeze brought her to her senses after a long day spent cooped up in the factory. It made her feel alive. And there was a definite buzz around the group ever since their first genuine commission from the commander. A downpayment had come through and they were now in