Ventus by Karl Schroeder (fantasy books to read .txt) đ
- Author: Karl Schroeder
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âDonât mind her,â he said to keep his mind off these things. âWhatâs your name?â
âA-August. Ostler.â By Ostler he might have meant his family name or profession; Jordan didnât pursue the issue.
âIâm Jordan Mason. This is Lady Calandria May.â
âJordan, stop it! Youâre wasting his strength.â Calandria thumped two logs onto the churned embers. Sparks flew up, and she poked the wood into position so it caught. Jordan had noticed before that she wasnât very good at tending fires, a strange lack in someone so otherwise talented. Luckily these logs needed no encouragement to catch.
âGet Axel,â she said. âIâll take over here.â She pulled her pack from under her bed, spilled its contents on the floor, and came up with two white metal tubes. Without glancing up, she added, âThen clean the blood off the steps, and yourself too.â
Jordan ran.
He was glad now that they had taken the tower room. The place was set apart from the main manor, so comings and goings like this would be much less noticeable than in the house. Still, Jordan slowed to a cautious walk when he reached the downstairs gallery, and paused every few steps to listen for the night watch.
Infrequent lamps dimly lit the halls of the manor. Jordanâs bare feet made no noise on the cold stone floor. He took servantâs ways; the idea of walking the main halls still bothered him, especially now when no one should be afoot. This also allowed him to pause at the cistern outside the kitchen. Low voices came from inside. He cautiously ladled water into a bucket, and washed himself. He took the bucket with him up the tall narrow stairs to the top floor. If anyone stopped him, he could come up with any number of plausible servantâs explanations for carting water about at two in the morning.
Even with this prop in hand his heart was pounding. As he reached the top of the stairs, he heard voices again. He plunked the bucket in a corner and quickly cast about for a place to hide. Finally he stood behind the door to the hall. Stupid, but what choice was there?
The voices became louder: a man and a woman in quiet conversation somewhere nearby. Very nearby. He held his breath, and waited for them to open the door.
Nothing happened. They must be standing just on the other side. Jordan waited for several minutes, but they did not move. But he had to get to Axel. Time to brazen it through. He took a deep breath, picked up his bucket, and opened the door quickly.
There was no one on the other side.
The voices continued. Jordan put the bucket down and placed his palms over his ears. The dialogue continued, within his own head.
âShit! Not now!â He staggered back, nearly tipping the bucket. All the excitement tonight had made him vulnerable, and Armiger had stepped into his mind again. Now that he knew what it was, the voices were obviously those of Armiger and Megan.
He stood for a minute in silent panic, waiting for the vision to wash over him completely. He would lose himself here, just when Calandria and Axel needed him. Maybe someone would find him wandering like an idiot, bloodstained. If August died, he would be taken for the murderer.
As he thought this, the top-floor landing did begin to fade. He thought he saw the inside of Meganâs house, lit by a single candle. She and Armiger sat close together, talking earnestly. The vision became sharper with each passing second.
Jordan reached out blindly, and felt the bannister at the head of the stairwell. He held it tightly in both hands to anchor himself. It was the panic he had to fight. There was no other way to stop the vision.
He put his awareness into the tip of his nose, and breathed slowly, in and out, counting his breaths as he did so. Over the next few minutes he used every trick Calandria had shown him to engender calmness, and gradually the voices faded. When he was confident he had them at bay, he let go of the bannister. He could see again.
Jordan wasted no more time, but grabbed up the bucket and went straight to Axelâs room. He debated whether to knock or walk in, knowing Axel might be with someone. He stooped to peer through the keyhole, just in case.
A candle burned on the table by the window. Axel sat there in a loose robe, his hands steepled. He was speaking in a low voice to someone out of sight. Jordan craned his neck to see who he was speaking to.
ââŠThe local humans donât seem to be in great awe of the Winds they deal with every day,â Axel was saying. âThey know the morphs and desals moderate animal populations. People treat morphs like they do bears or moose, with caution but not fear. But they mythologize the Winds they know the leastâyou can see it in their names for the geophysical Windsâlike âHeaven hooksâ and âDiadem swansâ. They canât connect the activities of these Greater Winds with their day to day lives.â
He still couldnât see who else was in there. Well, there was nothing to be done about it. Jordan knocked lightly on the door. Axel stopped speaking immediately. Jordan heard him approach, and then the door opened a crack.
âWhat the hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?â
âCome quickly,â Jordan said. âWe need your help.â
Axel opened his mouth, thought better of it, and went to dress. He left the door wide open, and Jordan was able to satisfy himself that indeed, there was no one else in the room.
*
He was not surprised to find August asleep and breathing easily when he and Axel arrived. Calandria had removed the manâs bloodstained jacket and shirt, and was examining a harsh gash under his sternum. Amazingly, the gash was not bleeding.
âI had to use nano on him, or heâd have died,â she said without preamble. âJordan, go wash the stairs.â
He did so despite fierce curiosity. When he returned, August had been bundled under several blankets. The fire was roaring nicely. Calandria and Axel seemed to be arguing hotly about something. They stopped when Jordan entered, and both glared at him.
âBad move to save him,â Axel said. Calandria said nothing.
âWhat was I supposed to do, let him die?â
âWhat were you doing out there in the first place?â Axel shot back.
âWhat does that have to do with it? I was there. He was in trouble.â Jordan stuck out his chin. âWhat was I supposed to do?â
âThe question is,â Calandria said drily, âwhat are we supposed to do, now that we have him? I let the nano work just long enough to suture the wound. I think I got it all out, but he may wake up in the morning without a wound at all. Thatâs going to be hard to explain. Our discretion in this place seems to be evaporating. Once again you are the cause of the problem, Jordan.â
âItâs hard to think ahead when somebodyâs dying in front of you,â Jordan said quietly.
Axel and Calandria glanced at each other. âAll right,â said Axel, âweâre going to have to handle this carefully. He canât be moved right now, obviously. But he must be moved tomorrow night. You,â he pointed at Jordan, âwill be his nursemaid tomorrow. Then you will help me sneak him out and into town tomorrow night. Understand?â Jordan nodded. âWeâre lucky heâs feeling personally humiliated. The fact that he wasnât supposed to be fighting will work in our favor; he wonât come back here for a whileâif, as you say Cal, heâs not totally healed by morning.â
âHow could he be?â Jordan asked.
âScience,â Axel said blandly. âNot the kind weâre teaching you, though.â
âNano, right?â
Calandria swore in that other language again, and Axel laughed. âYeah, nano. Shit, Cal, it was your idea to snatch Jordan in the first place. Live with it.â She glowered at him for a second, then composed herself: the anger seemed to drain away totally, and she was once again her usual poised, calm self. This sudden calm was in its way more unsettling than the anger.
âHow are we going to explain Augustâs miraculous recovery to him?â she asked.
âHe wasnât exactly in a position to judge how bad it was,â Axel said. âAll he knew was he had a hole in him. If it turns out to be less of a hole than he thought, well, heâll just thank the Winds, I suppose. Weâll bandage him thoroughly, and if thereâs no hole there at all tomorrow, Iâll put one inâcosmetic, of course, donât look at me like that.â
Calandria shook her head. Axel smiled. âYouâre good at planning,â he said. âIâm good at improvising. Thatâs why we get along.â
âWhen we get along,â she said with a sphinx-like smile.
Jordan sat down on his bed, suddenly very tired. In the back of his head, he heard Armiger and Megan still talking. It didnât matter. At that moment, he had to wonder which was the more realâthe quiet, ordinary dialogue taking place in his head, a thousand kilometers awayâor the mad conversation Calandria May and Axel Chan were holding, barely a meter away from him.
âJordan!â He looked up. âDid you clean the blood off the steps?â Calandria asked.
He shook his head, and rose to do so. Heâd left the bucket outside, ready for this.
âIâll help,â said Axel unexpectedly. After they got outside and shut the door, he said, âAre you all right?â
âYeah.â
âYou did the right thing,â said Axel as they both knelt to dip rags in the bucket.
âShe doesnât seem to think so.â
âOh, she does. She just gets angry when something happens she canât control.â
Jordan sighed, and began swabbing at Augustâs blood. âWhy?â was all he could think of to ask.
âCal has her own problems,â said Axel quietly. âSheâs never been a happy person. Why should she be? She never had a real childhood.â
âWhat do you mean?â
âCal was inducted into a military organization at a young age, after her mother was sent to prison. Over the years, they made her into a tool, an assassin who could serve the causes they were paid to support. She can change her face, her height, her voice⊠I donât know what she canât do. She can read a book and memorize every word the first time, or learn a language in days. Sheâs probably the best fighter on this planet. She has amazing powers, but sheâs never really had her own life. She ran away from her masters, the ones who made her, and for years she used her talents to support herself. Then she got tangled up in the war against 3340.
âPeople had tried to destroy 3340 from without,â Axel continued. âCal found the way that workedâshe killed him from within.â
âYou told me.â
Axel shook his head. âI gave you the sanitized version. You know 3340 was in the habit of âpromotingâ humansâturning them into demigods pretty much at random by making them immortal, replacing their biological cells with nano, that sort of thing. Heâd subverted the whole human civilization on Hsing to this perverse lottery. Once you became a demigod, though, he took control of your mind using some sort of sophisticated virus program. One of his âconscious thoughtsâ, I guess. The place really was hell, there was no morality there, everyone just scrambled to try to become immortal, and didnât care what they had to do to get it.
â3340 looked unbeatable. But we kept hearing
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