“Do you have any right to be happy when you know there’s so much pain in the world?” Indirk greeted her reflection with a glass of wine first thing in the morning. She’d fallen asleep in the bathtub, barely bothered to put on the wrinkled green jacket she’d been wearing the day before. The gray-furred alpin named Mardo had stopped her the evening before, said, Indirk, some of us around the office are worried, and she’d told him to mind his own business. None of this was new. None of it should have been, anyway.
Indirk sighed at herself, “Don’t be a such a hypocrite,” and thought about mountainsides covered in bones. She thought about her parents dead in the woods. She thought about an old man whose head she’d blown off. She thought about a Writhewife dead across her shoulders, and the anonymous tendril that had dragged the corpse away. She thought about a hundred other things she’d seen in her life: executed spies, bodies chained to sinking ships, voracious magic chewing through armor and skin. Indirk swirled the wine in her glass and leaned toward her reflection. “Do you have any right? Wind and Sunfire, coward. You’re not dead yet. You have a fucking obligation to pull yourself together.”
She felt a tug on her sleeve and looked down to see a svelte, white-furred creature grabbing with its narrow teeth. Avie’s little black eyes gleamed with hunger, pink ears just barely visible in its fur. Indirk scooped up the animal. “Hungry, love? That’s my fault. Listen, I’ve got plans with Amo tonight, but you’re invited, too. We’ll eat something special.”
When Indirk emerged onto the muddy street outside her building, she had her hair bundled in a big tuft behind her head, her green uniform eschewed in favor of a comfortable, thick gray dress she’d owned for a long time but never worn before, a warm red vest concealing her pistol on her side, and from one shoulder hung a canvas bag within which Avie squirmed happily. Closing the door of her building behind her, she glanced nervously to the left. There, dressed in rags, a dark-faced woman watched the door, yellow light agleam in her eyes. Flinching against a wave of nausea, Indirk hurried away. At first, she felt followed, but gradually she realized she was alone and calmed. It was probably her imagination that everywhere she went, these days, the Writhewives watched her.
A block away from the thoroughfare between the Angolhills and Slowrise, Indirk could already hear the music and uproar of celebration. She stopped at an outlying stall and bought a mask in the shape of a fish’s skull, its eyes large, its mouth long and lined with sharp teeth. The mask fit well over her head. Maybe Writhewives could see through masks, if they cared to, but as Indirk approached the crowds and began to blend into the masked horde of celebrants, she felt hidden. It felt better.
* * *
Phaeduin stood on a high wall looking down on the red-glowing square, quietly marveling at the raucous music that held the fire in the air without setting the buildings aflame. He could feel the magic in his fur, feel an arid wind burning against his eyes, smell cooked meat and burning spice on the air. When he’d been a young man, some people in Pharaul had still worshipped the spirits of Wind and Sunfire, but even they’d never had a festival of so much flame. This meant something different to Gray Watch, though, didn’t it? This was not religion, nor was it a celebration of heat. This was about hunt, harvest, and feast, a festival for an animal appetite that perhaps Phaeduin would once have understood, but not anymore.
He extracted one hand from his gauntlet to look at the back of it, where his fur was thin and age spots had begun to appear. This was a new kind of marvel. Phaeduin didn’t feel old, but he looked so old, so desperately old, like he’d aged a hundred years in the past few months. Had his father felt the same, when the time had come? To look so old, and yet to feel like he’d barely begun to live…
Someone snickered behind him and he quickly put his gauntlet back in place, sealing the evidence of his age inside the vault of his armor.
When Myrel pounced at him, Phaeduin did not bother pretending to be surprised. His adult child, shorter by a head and only half his weight, hit his armor and stumbled back with a laugh. There’d been a woody crack where they’d struck, Myrel’s head concealed beneath a pine-hewn imitation of a ram’s skull, its great horns curled tight against its cracked cheekbones. As Myrel caught their balance, Phaeduin huffed at them, “You shouldn’t be seen with me.”
“Oh, stop. I’m incognito right now.” Dressed in fishmonger’s rags and smelling of the bay, Myrel adjusted the big mask that concealed their head and crept to the edge of the wall, looking over the brick precipice at the parade beneath them. Myrel crouched with their hooves dangerously close to the edge of the wall, their long tail swinging thoughtlessly behind them. “Wow. Look at all that!”
“This city’s citizens don’t tease Watch officers on duty. You’re being conspicuous.”
“It’s not suspicious to just not be boring,” Myrel quipped. They’d been an impulsive child, prone to accidents and trouble, and they’d never outgrown that recklessness.
Phaeduin hoped they never would. Bending to a side and setting a hand on Myrel’s shoulder, Phaeduin pulled them slightly back from the edge of the wall. “Shouldn’t you be with Nymir right now?”
Myrel fell back on their haunches and hung their legs over the wall. “He’s being creepy, so I left him to it.”
“Creepy how? Everything’s creepy tonight. Even me.” Phaeduin tapped the metal mask he wore. Members of the Watch had been issued helms shaped like the skulls of lanky seabirds to wear on the night of the festival, the long metal beak gleaming in the firelight.
“He’s wearing a human skull and he put blood on it.” Myrel looked up. “He’s been going to that black building at the back of the Angolhills when the rest of us are sleeping. He doesn’t know I’ve noticed.”
“Oh.” The Redfall Cult had small chapels stashed away in cities like this, even in Pharaul and Vont. “Well, leave that alone. It’s not your business.”
“I am leaving it alone. I just said so.”
“Go down to the festival and try to have a good time. See if you can find Amo or Indirk. They’re supposed to be down there someplace.”
“They won’t want to be interrupted,” Myrel said sullenly. “They’re on a date.”
“And who are you jealous of?”
“Huh?” Myrel’s head popped up suddenly, sounding offended. “What?”
“Tonight’s not about that.” Phaeduin looked out over the festival. Hundreds of people crowded together, all wearing the fake skulls of different animals, jostling one another for cooked meat, spiced roots, and all kinds of mead and liquor. Watch officers in gleaming bird skulls broke up fights and escorted children off the streets. They ignored vulgar behavior that on other nights they wouldn’t have tolerated, letting the citizenry run and shout drunkenly. From all over the city, people had brought bundles of kindling to throw at the feet of a building-sized effigy of wood and grass.
Off to a side of the square, removed from the general clash of merrymaking, a small gathering of Writhewives sat on a high foundation and watched with smiles on their faces. Upon their heads they wore special skulls made of black wood, resembling no known creature but with a seemingly arbitrary number of eye sockets and toothy mouths, as though they’d been hand-crafted by creatures that did not fully understand what a skull was meant to be. None of the Writhewives took part. They just watched.
“Hey.” Myrel nudged their father. “What are you talking about? Not about what?”
“Hm? Oh.” Phaeduin shook his head. “Amo’s worried about Indirk.”
“Worried? She seems fine.”
“No, she doesn’t. Anyway, Amo would know. They’ve talked to me about it. Amo and Indirk go back a long time, as far back as any two people can. The two of them have been hurt by this world plenty of times, the same hurts more often than not. They keep each other alive when it gets bad. So Amo says.” Phaeduin pointed to the effigy. “Think I need to go down there and watch the Throw. Some of those drunk fools will get someone killed if they aren’t careful.”
“They’re just having fun with the Sickle-Man.” Beneath the effigy, the sickles and scythes from the season’s harvest had been gathered. Young people with more might than brains were competing by slinging large scythes at the effigy, trying to hit the thing’s heart or head. The Throw was a dangerous tradition that everyone seemed to love. So, of course, Myrel said, “You should try the Throw yourself. You’ve got the arms for it.”
“Unfortunately,” Phaeduin said, “I’m too smart to play that game in the first place. Come on. I’m going down there, so you might as well head down to the party, too.”
* * *
The music was dirge-like but celebratory, low as thunder and shaking through stone and bone. Indirk watched in confusion as people danced to it, feeling the cultural gulf between her and these partiers with their ash-covered clothes, with the jars full of clattering sand they rhythmically shook with the music, with their strange, slow dance moves. The way they turned and swayed and pulled on each other. Like they were burning in slow motion.
The thought made Indirk sick, her mind suddenly full of images she’d been trying to forget, of bodies that burned but did not burn away, of mouths open and wailing breathless but not pausing to breathe. The clattering jars echoed in her mind, like the rattle in the cells. The fire in the sky was too familiar, the hot wind like a memory on her skin. Indirk spun away, leaning her skull-masked forehead against a brick wall and wheezing against a rush of nausea. She shook and felt weak and hated herself.
In her bag at her side, Avie squirmed and made a little chittering sound. Indirk put her hand in the bag and felt the smooth, furry body curl up against her palm. She whispered, “Alright, love. I know. I promised you something special.”
Indirk straightened and turned.
The huge face of a serpent leaned down toward her.
Indirk struck out with a shriek that knocked the wooden serpent skull off its wearer’s head. Falling against the wall, Indirk stood paralyzed with a held breath and her hand white-knuckled on the side of her vest, gripping the pistol she wore concealed beneath. She stared at the serpent skull on the ground, just pine wood in a sleek shape with huge, ugly teeth. Then black-gloved hands picked it up, black boots paced over, a black-garbed figure stood in front of her.
“You really nailed me there,” said Amo, as they lifted the skull to put it back on their head.
Indirk spat, “Fuck you!” and lurched up to grab the skull, tearing it out of Amo’s hands and throwing it off into the crowd. Somewhere in the mess, it hit someone’s chest, and after a confused moment they just shrugged and kept it.
“Hey!” Amo looked off into the crowd, trying to track where the mask had gone. “That was mine. I really liked that. It was so creepy!”
“I’ll get you a different one,” Indirk growled, petting Avie with one hand and straightening her dress with the other.
“But I liked that one.”
“No snakes. Anything but snakes.” Taking a deep, steadying breath, she remembered her own mask and took it off. “How’d you recognize me?”
“Huh? Oh.” Amo chuckled, shrugged. “Masks never fool me. I’m the best at what I do, after all. Are you okay? That was a hell of a punch.” Amo rolled their shoulders and neck. There was a red mark on their cheek where the struck mask had pressed into their face. “I guess I had it coming, sneaking up on you like that, but-“
“Yeah, you did,” Indirk snapped, glaring past Amo at the dancers and their clattering jars, noticing a few more snake masks that she hadn’t spotted before. It gave her a shiver, but she swallowed it down and took Amo by the sleeve. “Come on. Let’s get you another mask, and then we need some liquor, and then we’ve got a dance to go to.”
