Chapter 3: Circling the Swamp

Eilo got up out of the freezing water before it soaked through his coat. Since the armored woman did not appear to be an immediate threat, despite her promise, he took his time retrieving his glaive, then spent a moment checking it for damage before asking, “What is this place?”

“Gentlemen introduce themselves,” Skaithness said.

“Eilo of Nysse. Banisher.” He swept his hat off his head and bowed.

“Banisher to you too,” Skaithness said with a curtsy. “Something is happening in the swamps here. I was supposed to fix it, and so I was told to come here, but everything here is broken and out of joint, as you can see.”

She might be some kind of spirit-knight, Eilo mused, trying not to stare. Instead of a visor, her helmet showed a beautiful woman’s face in polished steel. It had a mysterious smile and eyes of blue glass, like the windows of higher-class inns.

“Where are you from?” Eilo tried.

“Underground,” Skaithness said, wandering around the oval room as if she might have missed an inscription. “Which means: not from here, since the underground here is underwater. Have you heard of a place nearby called the Temple of the Mollusk? Or does it not exist yet? I am a queen, but my nation does not exist yet, so it’s…it’s all very difficult.”

Taking a chance, Eilo said, “A spirit told me that a usurper rules the swamp here.”

“That sounds likely,” Skaithness said. “The Temple of the Mollusk is going to do that to this whole world, if I can’t destroy it first.”

Not sure what “it” meant in that sentence, Eilo tried to formulate a question, until Skaithness said, “Is there a town around here?”

“We’re in the Bantish Towns.” He considered for a moment, then said, “But you should probably come to Baristoc, the capital. I have someone who would like to meet you, and who might be able to help you. What is it you’re trying to do, um, Your Highness?”

“I hope this village is nicer than the last one,” Skaithness said, walking swiftly in the direction from which Eilo had entered the structure. She moved with synthetic grace. “I am here to oppose the Temple of the Mollusk. I was sent to find something that can…do you know what a throne is? You don’t have to call me by my title yet, by the way.”

“I know what a throne is, yes.”

“We both need a sort of throne,” Skaithness said, hopping nimbly up the crooked rocks. She did not move like a person wearing forty pounds of bronze; either the armor or the person within was enchanted. Eilo followed her back outside as she talked. “That is, a principle that permits rulership. Unfortunately, there are two of us—two ways of approaching this situation, and only one ‘throne,’ as it were. And it is not here, so perhaps the Temple of the Mollusk already has it. Or perhaps, like this structure itself, it did not form properly. Speaking of tools, that’s a clever device, Eilo. I’ve been using a stick to feel out puddles.”

The banisher started prodding his way back through the swamp with his glaive, while the armored woman followed behind. He asked the woman to wait as he retrieved the fox-wolf head, which was still mostly intact, though the blue flame had gone out. He wrapped it in a mesh bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“Werewolf,” the banisher said by means of explanation, quickly leading Skaithness away from the corpses.

“You hunt werewolves?” the armored woman asked.

“Sometimes.”

The banisher brought Skaithness back through the swamp, glancing back frequently to make sure she didn’t just drop into a hidden pool of muck and sink. But she followed his footsteps exactly, always with a strange and sinuous motion. The armor she wore was made up of many more pieces than the archaic full plate the banisher had seen during parades. It looked more like a cast-bronze statue into which a woman had been poured.

While they walked, the banisher tried to extract more information from Skaithness, but the things she said made little sense. She had grown up underground in some kind of vault, where a voice told her that she would one day be queen of a yet-undiscovered (or yet unfounded?) land. One day, she had been given her armor, and later, the voice had stopped, leaving her only with directions to this swamp and instructions to acquire “the entrance to the copper island.” Skaithness kept saying that the thing she had to acquire was like a throne, in that it was a source of law, but her descriptions implied that it could be carried. Some kind of law tablet?

Her accent was strange, but her understanding of the local language seemed entirely fluent. She reminded Eilo a bit of aristocratic girls trained in the conservatories of the minor cities, away from the capital: she was evidently well read in the classics, familiar with literature and court protocol, and—the banisher had to admit—rather charming and funny, though her relentless good cheer as they slogged through mud occasionally seemed like mockery. Unable to make headway on the subject of the Mollusk Temple, which Skaithness seemed to know almost nothing about except that it was her enemy, the banisher continued probing her background. Despite her excellent education, which included an impressive grasp of theoretical and applied mathematics, economics, and practical agriculture, no mention of any recent literature or play made an impression on her. Eilo worked carefully and managed to narrow down where Skaithness’s education ended: about 250 years ago, before the reorganization of the Duchies’ schools and the rise of literature in the vulgar tongue. Skaithness knew the early epics of Dalussae so well that she could recite the rhymes about the Cape of Lost Stars, but knew nothing of her later poetry, or her subsequent invention: the mode of narration that you are reading right now.

So, Eilo reasoned, either Skaithness was very old, or her teachers were. Either way, this whole situation had an air of bewitchment and bad tidings about it, the sort of eerie and knotty situation where his clanmate Fylent Maer excelled.

“When we get to the village,” the banisher told Skaithness as they returned to dry land, “I will collect my payment from Lord Gloce. Then you and I can head east to Baristoc—that’s the capital city—and speak with a scholar of Nysse who may be able to tell you more about the Mollusk Temple and this throne you’re looking for.”

“That’s wonderful!” Skaithness said as they reached the outskirts of the village, where the road led back toward the public house. “I knew things would work out!”

Eilo rounded the corner of an outlying house and immediately hurried back around the corner. He grabbed Skaithness’s shoulder but she just kept walking, as implacable as an armored juggernaut.

“Stop! Get back!” Eilo hissed, pulling on her shoulder. Skaithness finally stopped, then retreated to hide alongside the banisher in the long shadow cast by the house’s thatched roof.

“What is it?” Skaithness asked.

“Lower your voice.” The banisher poked his head back around the corner and confirmed his initial count. Nine hexguards he could see, armed with crossbows and ivory-tipped spears. He could hear the baying of dogs and a shouted argument. “Those are hexguards,” he told the armored woman. “Hunters.”

“Like—?”

“Not like me,” the banisher said. Deciding to risk the full and complicated explanation, he said, “Many of the things people call ‘monsters’ out in the wild places were created long ago by ancient people—gods, wizards, stranger folk—to serve them. There are guardians, scholars, companions, artisans, and many of them keep up their work even with their masters long dead. But those creatures are sensitive to moods and thoughts, as that’s how their creators commanded them. The hexguards are afraid of everything in the wild places, and they bring that fear with them. It drives the spirits mad, turning them into the very demons the hexguards fear. The fear feeds on itself, and people die.”

“The hexguards should stop doing that,” Skaithness observed.

The banisher chuckled. “I’ve tried telling them. But look, they’re dangerous, and they might think you’re a demon of rage or something. We’ll go around to Lord Gloce’s donjon, see if I can’t get paid, and saddle my—”

Then the banisher heard Lord Gloce shouting. He was in a terrible rage. When Eilo peeked around the corner again, he saw the old man following a prison wagon pulled by a donkey and flanked by more hexguards, as well as some High Guards. Inside the wagon were Lord Gloce’s dogs. The gentleman followed, and he had found his sword, though he had lost his hat. He waved his old saber back and forth behind the wagon.

So: thirteen hexguards. Also, at least four High Guards from the capital: elite soldiers whom he had seen, but never spoken to, during the sword-who-was-a-knight job. What were they doing this deep in the woods?

“Which ones are the hexguards?” Skaithness asked.

“Get back and…” The banisher sighed. “The hexguards are the ones with scale armor, and the tall steel hats. And weapons for hunting spirits. The High Guards are in purple, with the cuirasses and swords.”

The captain of the hexguards was arguing with Lord Gloce. When the old man raised his saber again, the captain knocked him off his feet with the butt end of his ivory-tipped spear—a quick, professional motion—and a High Guard grabbed the saber.

“—can’t do that!” was all Eilo heard of the old gentleman’s protests.

“They are infected, sir,” the captain said. “We are curing you.” He turned to his soldiers. “Do it.”

The hexguards stepped forward with their crossbows, aimed them between the bars of the rolling cage, and shot the dogs. There was a horrible whimpering and howling. Other hexguards, those few armed with regular swords, threw open the gate and killed any survivors.

“Stop them!” Skaithness cried, but it was already too late: all the fox-touched dogs were dead.

And two hexguards had heard Skaithness. They signaled the captain and received the order to grab her.

“Great,” the banisher muttered. “Let me handle the talking. You’ve done nothing wrong and I’m a licensed banisher.”

“Who are you?” one of the hexguards shouted. They both had crossbows, and even an ivory-tipped quarrel could kill him. An iron quarrel might even punch through Skaithness’s armor.

“I’m Eilo of Nysse,” the banisher said. “This woman is a free citizen, and is under no obligation to stop for you. You have no authority to operate here.”

“A monster dwells in the swamps here,” one of the hexguards said. “We are here to—”

Eilo unslung the net bag from his shoulder and tossed the fox-dog skull at the man’s feet.

“It’s done. Go home.”

That took the wind out of their sails, but as Eilo argued with the nearest hexguards, there was more arguing at the prison wagon. The two hexguards near Eilo glanced back toward the wagon, then hurried back to where Lord Gloce was now arguing, red-faced and furious, with a High Guard.

Skaithness walked up to the guards with the fearlessness of someone covered head to toe in enchanted armor. Eilo grabbed the monster head again and followed her, wondering if he could dramatically throw it down again.

“—report this to the highest authorities in Bant and Baristoc!”

“But I’m afraid that’s me,” a man standing between the High Guards said with a little laugh. “It is within my authority to enjoy the hospitality of my fellow peers of the realm, even one who has fallen as far as you have, Lord Gloce.”

A short, broad-shouldered man in a powder blue jacket and a luxurious wig topped with a small silk hat stood between the two High Guards. He was in early middle age, once in powerful physical condition but now gone a bit to seed, with excellent skin and bad teeth. It took the banisher some time before he recognized Duke Uleino of Baristoc. He looked different head-on; Eilo had only seen him in profile, on coins.

The banisher took a step back. He shared the common man’s opinion of the Emmer Dukes, which is that they were erratic, violent brutes tolerated only because their eventual downfall would immediately trigger a catastrophic civil war. And Duke Uleino was not even an important figure, as Baristoc’s charter permitted him almost no influence within the city itself, and only a little more outside it. But his mere presence set the banisher on edge. Maybe no one really understood the order of the world, but a duke traipsing around some minor village between a swamp and a forest was a bad omen. The banisher looked from the duke to the armored woman and felt as if a wind were rising that would sweep away everything he knew.

“And what’s this?” Duke Uleino said, turning his attention to Eilo for the first time.

“This is a banisher,” the banisher said. “Your grace. I regret to inform you that I have a formal compact with the lord of this demesne, and that the hexguards have no legal authority to operate here until I have formally concluded my business. And received my payment.”

“Oh, aha, not at all, young man,” the duke said with a little laugh. He sniffed, withdrew a scented handkerchief from his sleeve, sniffed it, winced, and cast it into the muddy grass. “You have been hoodwinked by this gentleman, I’m afraid. Snookered. Bamboozled. I suspect he sent you into the swamp to die, as he was in league with a fox spirit. It was in one of the dogs, you see.”

“I know,” the banisher said. “I killed both of the creatures that were trying to restore it. The hexguards just killed a bunch of dogs.”

“Your grace,” the captain of the hexguards said, “we waste our time with this pagan. We ought to finish our business with the Mollusk Temple and see the two of you safely home.”

“You know about the Mollusk Temple?” Skaithness asked.

The High Guards tensed when the armored woman stepped forward, and the hexguards stepped nervously back, but the duke laughed.

“A woman in armor! How splendid, even if she talks out of turn. Banisher, is she yours? Is her wondrous armor for sale?”

Lord Gloce, the banisher noticed, had lost his sword but still wore a knife at his belt, and no one was watching him. But he was watching Duke Uleino with hard, angry eyes. Realizing the potential for calamity, Eilo said, “It’s ill-becoming an Emmer Duke for us to stand here talking in an armed circle like rival bandits, your grace. Why don’t we retire to the donjon of Lord Gloce, and there we can discuss the strange events that have taken place here over the past few days.”

When Eilo mentioned Lord Gloce, the High Guards glanced his way, and the old man was forced to retreat, his hand held carefully away from his knife.

“A perfectly stupid idea,” the Emmer Duke said. “Can’t you see that we are dressed for a journey into the wilds?”

Eilo would not have chosen that exact shade of powder-blue for a journey into the wilds, but the Emmer Duke adjusted the lapels of his elegant jacket and said, “We are going to investigate this Mollusk Temple and see what we can see. It is, after all, my sacred duty. Those bureaucrat-thieves who have overrun my city, the so-called Trusted Seven, don’t understand that new dangers are arising in the wild places. Captain Aklurian here understands it, though. Don’t you, Captain?”

“As you say, your grace,” the captain of the hexguards said. He wore the standard hexguard armor of interlocked scales (that they looked like hexes was a coincidence) and the tall steel hat, the latter marked only with a tiny red badge to denote his rank. Leaving crossbows to his underlings, he carried a boar-spear of ivory, a steel dirk, and a knife made of what appeared to be a single huge tooth. Middle aged and with a short blond beard streaked with gray, he could take off his armor and look like a normal man, except for the burning zeal in his eyes. Those eyes were now fixed on Skaithness.

“You know where the Mollusk Temple is?” the banisher asked Duke Uleino.

“Don’t ask questions to which you already know the answer,” the Emmer Duke said. “It appears obsequious. Speaking of questions, who the hell is this girl? Is she a machine of some kind?”

“She is a foreign hunter,” the banisher said. “I am taking her to another member of my clan so that we can learn from one-another.” Which was not entirely a lie.

“Lady hunters,” the duke said. “More and more astonishing. Well, we need as many eyes as we can for this initial scouting business, and I am a man of the modern world. She is welcome. In fact, both of you will come along.”

“Thank you, Duke Uleino,” Skaithness said immediately.

“I will join your hunt as well, your grace,” Lord Gloce said. “After all, I must protect my own land.” And it seemed that not even the High Guards could see the murder-lust in the old man’s eyes.

“Of course, of course,” the duke said with a vague wave of his lilac-gloved hand. “Perhaps you have a falcon or some other useful pet.”

No one laughed at the duke’s joke. Lord Gloce retrieved his saber, and even the zealous and suspicious captain of the hexguards paid him little mind. As the duke started to bark orders to his High Guard—they would leave in a quarter-hour—Eilo cornered the captain.

“What is an Emmer Duke doing out here?” the banisher demanded.

“I have nothing to say to you, heathen,” Aklurian said. “I hope both of you sink into the swamp. You and that metal witch.”

“Dammit, this isn’t about the Egg of Eime or who gets paid for the monster head,” Eilo snapped. “A duke is wandering around the woods with only six High Guards. He is heading into the swamp to look at some kind of temple. And Lord Gloce wants to kill both him and you.”

“Who?”

“The lord of this village!”

“The old man? If some backwoods Bantish chieftain has a problem with the duke—”

“He has a legitimate, monetary grievance with the duke, who just ordered several hundred ducats worth of his hounds killed—illegally! Gloce also has a saber, and the legal authority of a New Clan gentleman,” the banisher said.

“Your kind are all but extinct,” Aklurian said, “because you obsess over invented legal terms instead of doing what you have to do and keeping the demons away from our people.”

“And you thrive,” the banisher snarled, “because every time you can’t fix a problem, you call someone a witch and convince the locals to execute them. Well, it won’t work this—”

The captain just walked away.

No banisher wanted to get entangled with mortal politics (or spirit politics, for that matter), and Eilo was not sure how much of a mess this situation could become. Duke Uleino was here to demonstrate his courage; after a brief investigation he could then flee back to the capital and boast of what he had seen to the magistrates who really ruled his city. Ideally, he would then return to Baristoc and call himself a hero for looking at an old temple; at worst, he would raise a military force to trample the Bantish Towns hunting monsters.

Actually, at worst, Lord Gloce would do something foolish and final.

The banisher looked for Lord Gloce, but he was up at the donjon, saddling horses—including Eilo’s own. Instead he found Skaithness talking amiably with the two youngest High Guards, who were drinking hot tea that had been set up on an outdoor table, along with a simple meal. The guards didn’t sit, instead stomping their feet to stay warm.

“We’re going to make it back before nightfall, right?” Eilo asked. He was starving, he realized: he helped himself to some bread, dipping it in a little stoneware bowl of melted cheese.

“It’s less than a mile over solid terrain,” one of the High Guards said. “Solid enough we can bring horses.” He lowered his voice. “Look, the duke just wants to see this new temple that’s risen out of the swamp—”

“It rose right up a few months ago!” Skaithness said. “Isn’t that extraordinary, Eilo?”

“He’s just going to look and maybe take some measurements,” the High Guard said. “He gets these moods sometimes, like he’s a warrior-king of old. And honestly? It keeps the fucking bureaucrats—forgive my language—it keeps those pieces of shit lying fuckers—sorry again—it keeps them in their place, you know? They think they’re in charge, but the duke rules, he doesn’t just reign. And he’s got a son now who’s like the old Duke Haedrach.”

“Who?” Skaithness asked.

“A real warrior prince,” the other High Guard said. “From maybe a hundred years back. United the…he united something, I forget what. Little Ulcan is only ten, but he’s tough.”

“Not quite old enough to sit on the throne,” Eilo said.

Both guards’ mood darkened.

“What are you saying?” the first man said.

“The hexguards insulted Lord Gloce by killing his dogs like that,” the banisher said. “Tell the duke not to take him into the swamp.”

“We can’t tell the duke anything,” the other guard said. “But…we’ll keep an eye on the old gentleman. Tell us if there’s trouble.”

“I’ve already told you,” Eilo said. “I’m a banisher, and I don’t get involved in local politics. And frankly, your lord was wrong to kill those dogs, especially the way he did. It was insulting. You need to get Duke Uleino back to the city where he’s safe, because—”

“Don’t think I’d forget your payment!” Lord Gloce shouted as he tramped down the hill. The gentleman and his servant (finally awake, but looking rumpled and sleepy) led four horses between them: two for them, Eilo's black gelding, and a draft horse that was as close as a village like this one could find to a knight’s charger.

“Don’t want you sinking into the muck, girl,” Lord Gloce said, handing Skaithness the reins of the draft horse.

“Only for borrowing,” the banisher explained. Then he took the old man’s money and purposefully did not count it. He hoped that sign of trust would restore some of the gentleman’s sense of dignity.

“Everyone thinks I’ll sink,” Skaithness said. “May I have some tea?”

“It’s for everyone,” the youngest High Guard said. He glanced from Lord Gloce to the duke; the latter was on his white horse, armed with a lance and ready to head out.

Skein’s visor popped open, splitting vertically. Everyone jumped except for Gloce’s servant, who was drowsing half-asleep on the flank of his horse. Skaithness had a moon-pale face with dark blue eyes and a little round nose. A few curls of ash-blonde hair curled from her temples down to her chin; she pushed them out of the way with the surprisingly delicate gauntlets of her armored hands before helping herself to the tea. Then she carried her tea away, talking gently to the big draft horse.

“Mm,” one of the purple-clad guards said, watching the way her hips swayed. “How do you get her out of that suit?”

Both of the young men laughed. Then the duke shouted and they turned instantly and as one, hands going to the sabers at their hips. But the duke was only having trouble with his horse. The High Guards relaxed, then finished their drinks, offering a few more comments on Skaithness, as Duke Uleino shouted for everyone to mount up.

These guards were young, the banisher thought, but also deadly professionals, not the criminally incompetent town guards he was used to. Maybe they would be able to scout this mysterious Mollusk Temple without incident and return before the sun set. Still the banisher’s stomach churned, even as he drank more of the calming tea. Too much was happening that he did not understand. This temple, the dead or vanished hexguard who killed Medru’s lover (still unaccounted for), Skaithness, and then whatever mad whim had driven Duke Uleino to prove himself in a scouting expedition miles from his capital—they all felt like one force was driving them all.

A great change was coming in the laws that governed everything. A shift, something you could feel in the soles of your boots, like a cavalry regiment thundering past on the far side of a city wall. Everyone had failed to find the order in this age of the world—the banishers, the clergy of the Egg of Eime, all of them—and it seemed like that would merit punishment in the next.

So the banisher recounted later, and so I set down here. But this was before the world really began to change. Dismissing his worries, Eilo mounted his black horse and followed Duke Uleino out of Upper Bant.

*