Canticle

her legs gave out, and she dropped to the snow-crusted balcony floor. She felt her body contort and her eyes blinking as the words swept over her and out of her in a torrent of glossolalia. She bucked and twisted against it every time; she didn’t know why.

Heaven must be resisted at all costs. Finally, she gave herself to ecstasy and utterance. The words tumbled and expanded as she felt her eyes widening. But this ecstasy was suddenly hot, suddenly intrusive, and Winters felt the prying ache of it. She took the logos out of heaven’s tongue and spoke it. A wind of blood that cleanses. A cold iron blade that prunes that which is found wanting on the vine.

The fit passed and she sat up slowly. The noise was louder and closer now, spreading from the forest through the town, over the gates of the manor, and she recognized it. The lurching in her stomach was now a knot that ached.

The Seventh Forest Manor was at Third Alarm.

Vlad Li Tam

Vlad Li Tam stood barefoot on the night-cooled sand and watched the sun wash the sky purple with morning. The last of the stars tucked themselves away, and the birds, already announcing the day, matched their growing volume to the growing light. The air was heavy and wet and warm, and a breeze from the water moved over his naked skin. He could smell the salt of the sea mingled with last night’s sweat. Behind him, the girl in his hammock yawned and stirred. He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled. She smiled back and inclined her head. He returned her nod and watched her scramble to her feet and flee the beach.

No doubt to tell her father what transpired here. He chuckled.

He stretched, feeling his joints pop and his tendons crack. He’d surprised himself last night. At seventy-two he rarely pursued fleshly liaisons, but kin-clave in the Scattered Isles operated at a baser level. For the last seven months, he’d witnessed the island rites and rituals firsthand, participating himself when necessary and sending one of his sons or daughters when it was not. Each island was similar to the others in practice, and most fell within the more primitive social forms of the rites that had kept the Settlers alive in the New World. Far from the Named Lands, the disconnected islands and their scattering of villages followed a method Vlad Li Tam was most familiar with-the expanding bonds of family-to establish a network of trust and trade.

He had arrived yesterday morning, anchoring his massive iron steam-driven vessel within eyesight of the village lookout. They’d sent up the blue smoke of inquiry, and Vlad had launched a bird to them with the green thread of peace tied to its foot. Six of his sons had rowed him ashore by longboat and waited politely aloof while he bartered kin-clave with the chieftain. In the end, they had settled on the chieftain’s younger brother’s oldest daughter-young, pretty, and more coy than shy. Vlad Li Tam smiled at the memory of her flashing white teeth offset by her dusky skin and her wide, dark eyes. His sons had withdrawn so that he could consummate the strategic alliance, and Vlad Li Tam had waited on the beach, appropriately distant from the village to show that he was clearly an outsider.

She had come to him when the moon rose up over the silver sea and cast lines of blue and green across the waters. She’d been eager, and certainly, he realized, this was not the first time she’d happily given herself for the good of their remote collection of villages. She’d coaxed his seed from him twice that night, and they both took and gave pleasure on one another’s behalf, their quiet noises offset by the surf and the sounds of monkeys and birds in the jungle.

It had been a fine night, and now, once she reported that the rites of kin-clave had been satisfied, that the old man had indeed risen to the occasion, they would spend the day feasting as Vlad Li Tam and all of his sons and daughters now at sea with him in their iron armada celebrated with their new allies and trade partners.

You are too old for this. And yet twice in one night. Shaking his head, he walked to the surf and urinated into the ocean. He stood there for a time, scanning the horizon.

This far out, there were no other islands visible to the naked eye, but he could trace them out on the map of his memory. This was their tenth in the last three months. Each had required slightly different tribute, but most had focused on allowing the potential of offspring to unite the two tribes. It made a crude but practical kind of sense. The farther southwest they sailed, the less populated the islands became. Those islanders and villages they found lived quiet lives of abundance and knew little to nothing of what happened beyond their own island.

Until Windwir was destroyed, the Androfrancines had paid generous fees to keep ocean traffic at a minimum. From time to time, they’d even called upon House Li Tam to use their iron armada to enforce their control. And because they’d given the Tam shipbuilders the specifications for those iron vessels, Vlad Li Tam had been most willing to render assistance. Before they’d turned to banking over five centuries ago, the Tams had been the Named Lands’ biggest shipbuilding concern, so working from Rufello’s re-created design sheets had not been much challenge. Powering the vessels had been harder-but the Androfrancines and their Arch-Engineer Charles had seen to that under a veil of secrecy that Tam honored as part of his secret kin-clave with the Order. The engine housings were massive Rufello lockboxes, the ciphers of which were lost when Windwir’s great library fell to Xhum Y’Zir’s spell. It wasn’t hard to extrapolate, though, that the same sunstones that powered the mechoservitors also powered the steam engines for Vlad Li Tam’s fleet of ships.

Vlad Li Tam heard footsteps behind him and turned slowly, mindful that he still wore no clothing. The chieftain and several others approached, including the girl. She still smiled.

“Hello, my friend,” the chieftain called out in a loud voice. He also smiled.

Vlad Li Tam returned the smile. “Hello, Dayfather Ulno Shalon.” He used the title now to indicate his kin- clave. They were speaking an older form of Lower Landlish that had been pidgined together with a handful of Named Land dialects all built from the languages of the Old World. The people of the Divided Isle and the other islands close enough for the Named Lands to place them on a map spoke an easily intelligible dialect. But the farther out they’d gone, the less effective the common tongues became. There were scattered words here and there, but not with any rhyme or reason.

Finally, he’d put the children on the problem, turning them loose with island children, positioning his older sons and daughters nearby to capture the vocabularies. They’d learned enough at the first two islands in this particular archipelago to carry on conversations with the others. And with each stop, once kin-clave was established, he turned the children loose again.

The chieftain was a short, plump man in a ratty cap that Vlad Li Tam recognized as an officer’s hat from the Entrolusian river patrol. He wore little else besides that and a length of faded cloth twisted around his middle. Bits of bone and feather decorated the cap, and his grin continued as he approached Vlad Li Tam with open arms.

“I trust my”-here he used a term that Vlad Li Tam was not familiar with-“performed her duties for the tribe in a satisfactory manner?”

Vlad Li Tam nodded, winking to the girl as she smiled out at him from behind her uncle. “Yes, Dayfather. She was more than satisfactory.”

“I will hope for a strong son,” the chieftain said, “that his hands may join us in our work.”

Vlad Li Tam touched his head and then his chest. “And I will hope for a beautiful daughter,” Vlad Li Tam replied, according to their custom, “that she might bring lightness to the heart of your people.”

Satisfied, the chieftain nodded. “Your tribe is now kin-clave with mine. Today, we will celebrate this joining, and from this day forward you will have haven among us.”

Vlad Li Tam smiled. It had been a small price to pay to gain this people’s trust and earn the right to walk freely among them. Of course, there was the matter of the girl. Though it wasn’t required, it was certainly customary for him to keep trying until the seed took hold, and judging from last night’s experience, she would be an eager partner in that work. And he didn’t mind the effort. They did not need to know that no child could possibly come from this union. His sixth daughter, Rae Li Tam, had taken care of that, giving him the powders he would need to dull his soldiers’ swords before they marched through the gate.

The two men embraced, and the Dayfather left with his entourage. Vlad Li Tam watched him go, then walked to the hammock in its thatched lean-to to dress himself. Offshore, he saw the first of his iron ships come around the cliff side of the island, steam belching into a clear sky. Drawing a mirror from his pocket, he flashed a message to it in the House code of the Tams. They would drop anchor in the island’s single natural harbor and begin offloading their contribution of kin-clave for the tribal feast. Wines and spirits like this people had never tasted. Cheeses and breads. And steel tools and a few choice bolts of brightly colored silk. The Tam armada would stop here, their blacksmith would set up his anvil and furnace to do minor repairs both to the ships and to the assorted metal goods