A Plague of Giants Page 6

  By long-standing tradition we greensleeves withdrew our shoots as soon as the Seekers disappeared beneath the surface and ascended to the lowest branch above, there to wait out the time until we reunited with our clansmen or carried sorrowful news back home.

  It was a tense and fearful time made longer by uncertainty. They were all down there long enough to suffocate. Except that the blessed would be brought into symbiosis with the Canopy and sustained during the process. So our clansmen might already be dead after a few spare minutes or else going through the racking pain of mutation. We would not know until they rose from the earth or did not. It was the lot of birds to chirp and chase one another, the lot of others to smile and eat and sleep and fight and lie with one another, but it was ours to worry and hope.

  An hour passed, and the Red Horses were blessed with a new grassglider, a grinning young woman who waved at us as soon as she emerged. The Yellow Bats got a new culturist blessed with the ability to husband teas, an economic boon for sure. The Blue Moths sprouted a new thornhand. And the blessed were slowly returned, one by one, until seven greensleeves had departed with their newly blessed and nine of us remained on the branch. It would not be unheard of for nine of sixteen to be taken by the roots. It would be almost common. But there might yet be a new greensleeve to arise from the earth, or a thornhand. We had not passed the time of no return: the Gray Squirrel record keeper would tell us when we could extinguish our hope. So I continued to wait … and hope. And so did Pak Sey ben Kor.

  We nine stared at the earth, willing it to bubble and shoot forth hands and then the heads and bodies of our clansmen, returned to the air to serve the Canopy for the span of a lifetime. But nothing happened. The soil remained still, and the sun continued to sink toward the horizon. My throat began to close, and I fought back tears that wanted to spill for Pen.

  Not yet. She could still emerge.

  My eyes began to dart back and forth between the ground and the Gray Squirrel recorder who kept the time. She was looking at a sun-stone to determine when the longest recorded time of blessing had passed, and I wondered how accurate it could possibly be, denials already building in my mind. The First Tree couldn’t have taken Pen. If the Gray Squirrel had one of those new clockworks from Rael that ticked away the moments as its gears turned, that might be more accurate than squinting at a half-seen shadow underneath a silverbark’s canopy. She raised a finger and took breath to speak, and I thought, No, not Pen. Not Pen.

  “The time has passed, greensleeves,” she said, looking up at us. “Your clans have honored the First Tree.”

  Not Pen.

  “Wait! Look!” Pak Sey ben Kor shouted, pointing at the earth.

  It was moving. And I was in time to see pale fingers erupt from the soil and clutch at the air. Then a second hand, both arms—and they were arms covered in silverbark. “It’s a new greensleeve!”

  I gasped and stared, unblinking. The Gray Squirrel had spoken too soon. Or else this was the new record for longest blessing. Who did those arms belong to?

  Blond hair like mine and a face racked by pain emerged—it was Pen in all the first agonies of the blessing! I cried out in relief, and my fists shot up to the sky. I nearly fell off the branch in my excitement. “Pen! You’re blessed!”

  I dropped down from the branch and ran to her, steadying her before she could fall. Most new greensleeves couldn’t walk for the pain in their legs—I certainly couldn’t. The Gray Squirrel came over with a modesty blanket that wouldn’t cover up her bark, and together we helped her to a recovery lift. She wept and asked me why it hurt so much.

  “The symbiosis isn’t complete yet. You’ll be in pain for another couple of weeks while your body adapts to the silverbark. But getting you to full sun is important now. We have just a couple of hours before nightfall.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it hurt so much?”

  “Would it have stopped you from wanting to be a greensleeve?”

  “No.”

  “Then there was no point. I know it might not feel like it right now, but you have been truly blessed, Pen. When the symbiosis is complete, you’ll feel that blessing every day. I know I do.”

  The Gray Squirrel whistled and shook a rope vine to signal to the attendants up top that it was time to do their jobs. The lift began to rise, and the Gray Squirrel stepped off, leaving me alone on the lift with Pen. I spared a quick glance back at the branch where we had waited; it was empty now. Pak Sey ben Kor and the rest of them had departed, disappointed, no doubt, with hearts crushed by grief. I was sorry for them and their Seekers but also wondered if this might not be the first hint of the Black Jaguar Clan’s autumn. Their summer of rule had been long and prosperous, but perhaps they had become complacent and the First Tree wished to make a point. Or perhaps there was no significance to it at all. They were a large clan and no doubt had many Seekers throughout the year. One or two or three taken by the roots would be expected. But if they lost Seekers consistently, then—well, I suppose it didn’t matter that much. The White Gossamers had no consistent presence at the First Tree and none at all on the east coast at Keft. I didn’t want to be that presence, and I doubted Pen did either. I wanted to serve the Canopy in the field more than the sway, and I thought my cousin was of like mind. Or would be once the pain subsided.

  “Will you … stay with me?” she managed to say through clenched teeth.

  “Just tonight, then I must get back to my duties. You are supposed to make your own way home anyway, trusting root and stem to guide you. But we have much to talk about in the meantime, and that will be a pleasant distraction from the pain. You’re going to love how the sun feels, trust me. Ah, here we are.” We arrived at the high-branched station of the Gray Squirrels operating the lift, and they nodded at us as they continued to operate the pulleys and lift us higher, above the First Tree’s topmost leaves. The full afternoon sun hit Pen’s silverbark on her arms and legs, and she gasped.

  “Oh! Oh, that’s better. I mean it still hurts, but not as much. I can at least think now.”

  “Then think about this: you’re one of the White Gossamer Clan’s three greensleeves now, Pen Yas ben Min.”

  Her wince of pain wilted, and a smile blossomed in its place. She even managed a chuckle. “Thank you, cousin.”

  “Thought you might enjoy that account of a Seeking,” Fintan said, dispelling the seeming with a shattered green stone that sent up a corresponding plume of green smoke. “We will hear more of Nel and Pen in days to come. But now I will take you back to the night of Thaw 17, 3041. Some of what I will say comes directly from the journal of Hearthfire Gorin Mogen, some of it from eyewitnesses, and some of it, I admit, is the privilege of a poet.” A few titters greeted this last. Dipping his hand into his belt pouch, he withdrew a seeming stone and imprinted it. “Though kennings are not hereditary and the giants insist you do not need to be blessed to become a Hearthfire, some blessed member of the Mogen family has ruled Harthrad for the last hundred and thirty years, and it is from that island that the finest smiths in the world can be found. Say hello to a leader of the Hathrim.”

  Despite his warning, no one was prepared for Fintan’s transformation into a pale-skinned, broad-boned giant. He disappeared in black gases, and his new bulk rose out of it, a colossus twelve feet tall with a square, black-bearded face punctuated by ice-blue eyes and a snarl. He was wrapped in the fur of some massive white-pelted animal, and when he roared, people screamed. I might have been one of them. He laughed at us, enjoying the fear and no doubt relishing the power of his kenning. When next he spoke, it was in a gravelly rumble entirely unlike his normal pleasant tones.

  The only reason I didn’t kill the lad who woke me was that he did it from the door and closed it on the dagger I whipped from under my pillow and threw at his face. I am prone to violence beyond reason when I am woken from a sound sleep. The rest of the time I like to think I have a reason for my violence.

  “Hearthfire, you have urgent matters of state to attend to,�
�� he shouted through the door. My dagger still quivered in the wood. Real Fornish wood, not glass or steel. The damn door to my bedchamber was worth more than much of my Hearthroom.

  “The matters of state can urgently hump a sand badger until the morning,” I growled, and my hearth stirred beside me, sensuously stretching and curving in ways that soothed my sharp edges. I did not want to leave her.

  “We would not wake you if it were not dire.”

  Since Sefir hadn’t yet been fully roused, there was no reason to continue the argument and risk waking her, too. I slid out of the sheets, cursed silently, and allowed the moonglow streaming through the skylight to guide me to a chest on which was folded my favorite ice howler fur. Draping it about me, I opened the door and glowered at the lad who’d been sent to fetch me. I didn’t know his name, but he knew enough about the expression on my face to skitter out of throttling distance.

  “Your advisers wait in the Crucible, Hearthfire.”

  “Understood. Begone.”

  He scampered away, and I stalked down the halls to the Crucible. Rumblings from Mount Thayil vibrated through the walls of glass and rock.

  My advisers were there as the boy had promised, but none would meet my eyes. My feet must have been in a sorry state, judging by the mournful gazes directed there. These men would plunge their hands into lava for me, charge a wall bristling with archers at my command, but they would not look me in the eye. I sighed and wondered if I would ever meet another again—apart from my hearth—who could match my stare for more than a heartbeat.

  “Well? What is it? Report.” They shuffled their feet and made throat-clearing noises, and one or two ventured a mumble but spectacularly failed to say anything intelligible. The news must be dire indeed for them to remain so taciturn—especially when they were in full armor and I was wearing nothing but a fur.

  “I have never punished anyone for speaking truth,” I said quietly. “Nor will I now.” I paused, and after none of them took the cue to speak, I continued in the same low tone. “I have never punished anyone for remaining silent, either. But if you don’t tell me why I’m not in bed with my hearth, I’ll let you all take a swim on the Rift side of the island; is that clear?”

  Their very beards trembled. It was Halsten who managed to speak first, an orange-haired, overmuscled houndmaster who braided his mustaches with silver thread. He was openly mocked for his vanity but secretly envied if I guessed correctly.

  “Hearthfire, it’s the volcano …”

  “Has it blown?” I snapped, my eyes narrowing.

  “No, no, not yet,” Roffe assured me. No one would ever confuse him with Halsten. Roffe’s beard was brown and curly and spread like a fan to cover his chest. “But the firelords assure us of an eruption today.”

  “A huge one,” Volund added, somehow managing to convey that this tiny fact was the most important ever uttered.

  “I see.” If I had leisure, I would make sure to ask the firelords monitoring Thayil why I got less than a day’s notice of the end of my realm. “Our crops?” We had planted only a week ago, but already some seedlings were sprouting.

  “Total loss,” Halsten said. And with less than a day to work at it, there would not be time to transplant anything.

  “The city?”

  “The same. We must abandon it if we wish to survive.”

  “Teldwen’s tits!” I cursed, and as if in reply, the ground quaked beneath us and the sky boomed with a thunderous explosion, shattering the skylights in the Crucible. The stone pedestals set throughout the Crucible shook, toppling the priceless glass sculptures to the floor and exploding the heirlooms of my line. My sire’s works, his sire’s, my own, and my son’s recent master work exploded into slivers and shards across the polished marble. “Apparently I am not to be given enough time to get dressed.”

  They didn’t hear me over the cacophony rolling through the sky. My father had warned me this day might come, and his father before him. And the firelords had warned my sires just as they had warned me: Mount Thayil would erupt again, violently, and when it did, there would be little hope of saving the city. So my grandsire had been the first Hearthfire to commission the building of transport ships, a fleet to be used for nothing except evacuating the entire population of Harthrad on short notice. The project had consumed plenty of treasure, and there were those who showered the family name of Mogen with ridicule because of it. Why do we have a functional port and a fleet of glass boats that generates no revenue whatsoever? Why are we paying men to build and maintain empty ships that are in some cases older than anyone alive? Why are we storing perfectly good food and water when we could sell it or consume it? I expected that the owners of those sneering voices would be eager to board the ships now, and a small part of me wanted to make them grovel first. But that was truly the small part of me; I knew that some of those giants would be my staunchest defenders once I saved their lives.

  “Give the evacuation order,” I shouted in an attempt to be heard. “Bring only tools, weapons, armor, coin, and family members. Leave everything else behind. People who refuse to leave everything else behind will be left behind.”

  “Yes, Hearthfire!” my men chorused, and then Roffe followed up. “Where are we going? Tharsif or Narvik?”

  For the first time I had cause to smile. “We’re not staying in Hathrir, brothers. You know very well none of the other Hearthfires will welcome us—especially Winthir Kanek. My very presence in Tharsif would be a challenge to him. And the other islands in this blasted archipelago cannot sustain us. So we’re going to Ghurana Nent, north of the Godsteeth, bordering Forn but south of Hashan Khek.”

  “We’re invading?” Volund’s voice was strangled with surprise and a note of hope.

  “No, Volund; armies invade, and they attack the native populace. We’re refugees, you see, so we’re settling. Settling in a land with bountiful natural resources we won’t have to import anymore. Close to a mountain that won’t explode on us and full of metals and close to our Fornish trading partners in Pont. Closer still to forests we can harvest ourselves. We will all build new hearths and prosper. And our excuse for all is the eruption of Mount Thayil. Thus we turn a disaster for our generation into a boon for our heirs. We plead innocence and beg for charity, and all the while we build defenses, and by the time the Nentians realize we don’t plan to ever leave, they’ll discover that they have a hare’s chance in a falcon heath of making us. This was my grandsire’s plan, passed on to my sire and passed on to me. Think on it,” I admonished, waggling a finger, “but say nothing. Have everyone get safely in the sea and then follow my ship, telling them only that I’m leading them to safe harbor. Is that clear?”

  “As glass, Hearthfire,” Volund said. He was smiling now, and so were Roffe and Halsten. They finally saw what my grandsire had seen—that this eruption, long expected, wasn’t the end for us but the beginning. Indeed, it was a much-needed spur to our withers, urging our people off this blasted rock to a land large and rich enough for the Hathrim.

  The air boomed again, and I had to shout to be heard. “We will speak more in private once we arrive. I must retrieve my armor and tell Sefir we’re leaving. Halsten, don’t forget the damn hounds and some livestock. We will need them eventually. See you at the docks.” My advisers turned to relay my orders to the city, moving in a strange sort of pantomime. Normally I would hear the creak and clank of their armor as they moved, but all was lost to the bone-shaking roar of Mount Thayil.

  Roffe never made it out. A black boulder of volcanic basalt plowed through the ceiling and obliterated him, and the impact vaulted Halsten and Volund a good distance away. Had my grandsire not built so well, the entire structure might have collapsed on us. As it was, we had no time to bid Roffe a proper farewell, not if we wished to survive ourselves. We needed to get out fast and hope that everyone with some kind of kenning made it to the boats.

  Harthrad has a goodly measure of firelords like myself and a number of lesser lavaborn but no furies like so
me of the southern cities. In Ghurana Nent there will be few opportunities for our young giants to visit the fires of Olenik, to burn away the child and be reborn immune to flame and heat. I have not spoken of it yet to anyone, but I think it is vital for our long-term survival that we find the Sixth Kenning, which some believe is a fable but which logic insists must be there. For without it—or at least reliable access to the First Kenning in Olenik—we will flicker and wane as a people until we are snuffed. Better that we find the Sixth Kenning and gain dominion over animals. Think what we could do then with our hounds! Discovering it would be a great gift to my people and a fine legacy.

  I gave the Crucible one last look as Halsten and Volund got to their feet. All the beautiful glass blown by the Mogen line was destroyed, and the stained windows cracked and slid out of their iron frames, shards tinkling in silence compared with the thunder in the sky above. The gold and glass throne would melt in a lava flow, the stone of my hearth would crack from the quaking earth, and all my material wealth would burn except for the large sack of gems I would take to finance the building of a new city. Raelech stonecutters weren’t cheap, but they worked fast and loved nothing so well as riches from the earth. Even with their help, my people faced a trial of flame ahead.

  As my world fell about me and I ran to my bedchamber, I laughed as I realized that I was looking forward to it.

  The giant’s fingers reached into a different pouch and pulled out a green pellet, and Gorin Mogen in his ice howler fur shrank and disappeared, replaced by Fintan the Raelech bard, looking very pleased with himself and enjoying the reaction of the crowd. He threw up his hands.

  “That was the origin of the western front of the war: an eruption and the execution of a plan crafted long ago. South of here, on the Brynt coast, one possible origin of the eastern front and all our woes occurred on the very next day—Thaw 18, 3041! My discovery of it was quite accidental, and had a certain seventeen-year-old merchant’s daughter not kept a diary, it would have been lost forever. Let us see what happened, shall we?” He plucked out another black sphere and held it high. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the delightful Kallindra du Paskre.”