Thirty Four: Thirris

The day didn't get any less surreal as it wore on. They had herb tea in a small parlour at the back of Thirris's home, which thankfully was lit when they entered. The back door opened onto a small veranda and then a patch of woodland that the Unspoken appeared to have commandeered as a garden, judging by the profusion of strange scents. Ren had already crept to the door and stuck her nose out to sniff curiously, and came back in a fit of sneezing.

Jordan sipped at his tea and looked around at the walls, which were adorned with paintings and skeletons, or frames that contained small creatures pinned to boards. It was much neater than the front room. Jordan suspected that the back of the house was where Thirris lived, and the front was just somewhere to store everything. He tore his eyes away from a specimen that resembled a moth, pale mint green and easily the size of a human hand. A pin speared it neatly through the thorax, and the cream-coloured eyespots on its wings seemed to stare dolefully at him. Thirris sat down beside him with a heavy sigh, and Yddris's amusement at Jordan's awkwardness was tangible from across the room.

"So what kind of demon set you off, then?" Thirris said, quite amiably, as if this was a normal thing to ask someone on their first meeting. Of all the Unspoken Jordan had met, no one had ever asked about his manifestation so bluntly.

"Bone Wight," Jordan replied. He shuddered at the memory. He had a bad track record with Bone Wights, almost as bad as it was with Listeners. "Though I think a Listener might have triggered something before then."

"You have a strange accent," Thirris commented, as if to himself. He turned to Yddris. "I'm assuming Harkenn approved of you taking him on?"

"He's already lined the boy up for my job."

"Ah," Thirris said. A thread of concern entered his voice. "He will have the chance to roam about first? Get by on his own for a while?"

"I'm not dead yet, old man," Yddris grumbled, pulling out a pipe. Jordan resisted reaching for a cigarette. "I'll step down when he's ready, not before."

"Good, good." Thirris nodded vaguely, and then flitted to the next point of conversation like a moth himself. "And how is Nika? I saw him before he left for the Reach, of course, but I understand much has happened over this last season."

"He's managing," Yddris replied, and disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. "As well as any of us are, I suppose. He's been helping teach Thorne." As if the words were being dragged from him, he added, "He's been an invaluable help this season, actually. What with everything going on, I haven't had as much time with the boy as I should have."

Pinpointing what went unsaid with uncanny accuracy, Thirris said, "The thing about Harkenn is that he expects things to be done with little knowledge of how long they take."

Jordan agreed, but kept silent as he always did when he was the topic of conversation. He had gathered that Thirris didn't know where he was from, and wasn't even certain if Cara did. Too many times during his time in Nictaven he had given it away without realising that what he'd said or done would be considered strange, so the best policy was not to say anything in the first place.

An animal called in the woodland beyond the doors, and a breeze set another bunch of handmade chimes to jangling. Steam swirled around his face as he lifted his cup, carrying bitter notes and sugar sweetness in one breath. All around them, despite turning down the volume on his sensitivity to magic, he felt Nictaven thrumming with life. Ren spotted a beetle as it whirred into the room and then out again, and this time Jordan let her go, watching her stalk through Thirris's garden with her bushy tail twitching and feeling a deep sense of peace creeping over him.

"Magnificent creature, that," Thirris said. He also watched Ren scampering around.

"She was a gift," Jordan said absently, the encroaching calm making him forget his awkwardness for a moment. "From a Varthian bookseller. He had a litter born in the shop."

The shadowrunner trotted back into the room and presented him with a large, wriggling slug. She squinted her eyes against its thrashing, and then snapped it down in one gulp.

"Someone compliments you, and you choose that moment to do something gross," Jordan muttered, as she hopped back into his lap and then up onto his shoulder. She only squeaked in response. Thirris chuckled and held a hand out for her to sniff.

"So," he said, scratching behind her ears when she gave an approving chirrup, "What are your plans for this visit, Yddris? Do you have anyone in mind?"

Jordan frowned, trying to decipher what the old man meant by that. Yddris blew out a long column of smoke and settled deeper in his chair. "I hadn't got as far as who I thought he could visit. He needs some intensive training. He ain't going to get it anywhere where Harkenn can get his hands on either of us."

Or Arlen, Jordan thought, and felt tension poke spiky fingers into his muscles again.

"Is Yerrit here?" Yddris asked suddenly. "The boy has a good hand."

"Aye, he is. He always is. Can't remember the last time he left that dark-damned cave." Thirris got up with a groan and refilled their cups from the pan over the stove. He returned with a plate full of dark golden cakes studded with fruit. Jordan helped himself straight away, already eager to scrub the days of dried meat and stale bread from his memory. The ache in his legs was starting to set in, and he was certain that after a night of real rest the impact on his body from relentless travel would hit like a battering ram. "And Nadiya is here too. I'm sure Nika would be very disappointed if he didn't at least try out some time in the infirmary."

"Aye," Yddris replied, and it struck Jordan how similarly the two men spoke at times. He wondered if he'd be sounding like Yddris after a year or two, and then decided he didn't want to think about it. "Don't worry, boy, there's no injury that happens here that's worse than anything you've seen already."

"It's mostly brewing herbs and setting bones," Thirris added. "Old men need a lot of herbs sometimes, ay?"

"I will vomit on your floor," Yddris said in a flat voice, "if you take this any further."

"Says a man with the luxury of not needing them yet." Jordan thought Thirris winked at him. "Come, boy, I'll show you where you're sleeping." He got up again, and Jordan grabbed another of the sweet cakes before hurrying after him. The back of the house consisted of a single corridor with a few rooms branching off of it, one of which they'd been sitting in. Thirris took him across the hall to a small bedroom. It was smaller than Jordan's room at Yddris's house, but more comfortably furnished and with a more generously covered bed. A shelf in one corner housed several books, a couple of which Jordan recognised as battered copies of his own study volumes. There was an empty rack below it, a long piece of wood with some holes crudely hacked into it.

"Your tutor housed his knife collection in there," Thirris said. "The interest started very early on."

"This was Yddris's room?"

"Well," Thirris looked around, poked at a faded specimen in a frame on the wall, "this was the room I gave to each of my apprentices as they came along, to stay in while we were visiting. Yes, your tutor stayed here frequently while he was training. When he comes to visit, his apprentices also all stay in here."

Jordan swallowed at the plural. He knew there had been one other apprentice, aside from himself and Nika, who had died very close to his graduation. When he looked closer, he could see the evidence of differing occupants – the knife rack was Yddris's, and he presumed that the small collection of medical diagrams on the wall had been Nika's. He wondered how long ago the worn-out boots in the corner had been used.

"They all like to leave something of theirs in here," Thirris said. "There's some wall space for you if you want to use it. I find it quite heartening, when things seem a little empty."

Jordan decided then that he liked Thirris. He dug in his pocket and pulled out his current journal and a few pencil stubs, and carefully laid them out on the desk.

"Do you remember Laurel?" he said abruptly. "She asked me to say hello for her." It had been one of the last things she'd said to him before he left the city; the incident with Marick that followed had almost made him forget it.

"Ah, yes," Thirris said, clasping his hands. "Yes, I've known her since she was little. How is she?"

"Good." Jordan put his knapsack at the end of the bed. Ren clambered off him to test out the mattress, and seemed to find it to her liking. She curled up on it and chirruped, then closed her eyes to sleep off the enormous slug she'd eaten. "We're good friends, actually."

"One way of putting it," Yddris said wryly from the doorway. "I can hear a commotion out there. We should probably pitch in."

"What's happening?" Jordan asked. If he strained his ears, he could hear it too; faint voices from the direction of the town centre – if that was what it could be called – some raised in excitement or instruction.

"There's going to be a celebration tonight, of course," Thirris said in a tone of voice that suggested he couldn't believe Jordan hadn't known this already. "And it's quite last minute, since we were given to believe Hap and Koen would be arriving a couple of weeks after you. It's for both of you."

"Me?"

"Well, yes. We have an upcoming graduation and our first new apprentice in far too long. Of course we're celebrating."

Jordan fidgeted, very uncomfortable with that idea, but it didn't save him from finding himself among a crowd of excited Unspoken an hour later. The walls of the great central building blazed with lanterns, and the fire-pit in the middle of the clearing was now crackling merrily. Trestle tables had been set out, laden with simple but welcome fare – fresh bread, tureens of stew, a few casks of ale – and smaller fires nearby housed spits with roasting animals on them. The clearing smelled of hot food and felt like standing under an overcharged pylon, and Jordan couldn't recall ever sticking to Yddris's side so desperately. After the secrecy of the Devils and the avoidance or wary respect of average civilians due to his magic, suddenly finding himself in a crowd who didn't think anything of it was a shock. Even the weeks where Yddris's house had been packed with other Unspoken hadn't been like this; he had had very little to do with the gatherings there, and the atmosphere had been very rarely pleasant.

It had also been a very poor representation of what a whole crowd of Unspoken felt like.

At first, Jordan was thrown; there were lots of Unspoken here, even though all he'd heard all season was how few of them there were. As he shook hands and dealt out polite conversation, however, he quickly came to realise that the vast majority of Unspoken here were very old, or else disabled by past injuries. He met men and women with lost or twisted or paralysed limbs, blind or voiceless or palsied from strokes and head wounds. He met others who were bent and frail with age, their auras sometimes like guttering candles and other times like a raging fever, sick and strange-feeling. Yet they were all welcoming, and seemed genuinely pleased that he was there, and despite the prickling fear he felt at each wound he saw or was explained to him, he felt himself thawing out.

"How come everyone's aura feels different?" he asked Yddris, after a lengthy conversation about his thoughts on Shadow's Reach with Rook, who appeared not to have tired of coming over to greet them yet. It was the first lull he'd had since entering the clearing.

Yddris glanced at him. "Different how?"

"You know, like...the feeling's different for everyone. Yours is really sharp, and Nika's is cold. Hap's is pretty steady, and Koen alternates from a quiet buzzing to hitting you over the head with it, and nothing in between."

"Huh." Yddris paused a moment. "You hadn't mentioned this before."

"I thought that was just astral signature."

"You have an incredibly sensitive feel for it, boy. The way Koen describes them as smells, you describe them as physical sensations."

"Oh. How do you feel it then?"

"Patterns," Yddris said, "and familiarity. What do you mean, Nika's is cold?"

Before Jordan could answer, Koen bounded up to them. It was as if he hadn't spent the last two weeks walking all day every day. Jordan couldn't have done anything more energetic than a slow trudge if he'd tried, and looked at the other apprentice with no small amount of envy.

"What do you think so far?" Koen said. Again cutting Jordan off before he could speak, he added, "Henrik is here, Yddris."

"Is he?" It was the first time Yddris had sounded genuinely pleased since they'd set out. "Where?"

"Over by the beer, of course. Don't worry, I'll mind Thorne." Jordan scowled at Koen as his tutor ducked off, weaving through the bustle in the direction of the trestle tables. The other apprentice just threw his arm around Jordan's shoulders. "Yddris and Henrik go back a long way. Their tutors were friends. Hap said they used to drink the entire Guild under the table at gatherings."

"Somehow I'm not shocked," Jordan replied, allowing himself to be led away. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He felt oddly cast adrift; even Yddris was sociable here and had his own – albeit small – circles, a stark contrast to how he behaved in the Reach. Jordan wasn't quite sure how to react to it, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel like a bit of an outsider. He'd always imagined Yddris as solitary, a man who mostly tolerated others rather than welcomed them. That fit more with the image Jordan had of an ex-Devil, though he supposed he should have found it heartening that that didn't mean he had to be a social pariah for the rest of his life.

"You looked about as comfortable as a man who's fallen in a drift of shit," Koen muttered, as he marched them towards the doors of the main building. "So I'll show you round and you can have a breather."

"Thank you," Jordan said. He winced when he realised how heartfelt he'd sounded. Koen chuckled.

"It can be quite overwhelming the first time. And I was getting quite tired of being congratulated myself." He paused. "Not that I'm not grateful for it. But Kiel's teeth, I haven't even seen Cara for it yet."

The main building was exactly as it had looked from the outside; a long building of sectioned-off rooms. The doors all lined up, creating a continuous corridor through each. The room they had stepped into was barely furnished, more of an entranceway than anything practical, though the walls were adorned with official-looking pieces of parchment. Jordan drew closer to one, which had faded with age, and the royal seal on it – purple wax imprinted with a ram skull – was unmistakable.

"Recognition of exceptional service," Koen said. "Some are for Unspoken who served under the current Harkenn's grandfather, though most of them are from the Annexe War."

"The one against the angels?"

"Yeah. It's the only time in history Guild membership was lower than it is now."

The both paused as a loud peal of thunder split the air over the Guildtown. Koen let out a hiss through his teeth. "Might be taking a risk with a celebration tonight. That sounded close."

They wandered the long sectioned hall in the welcome quiet; each section housed something different. They passed through an office, a room dedicated entirely to maps, and a library. Two consecutive halls housed the infirmary, though few beds were occupied. There was an exit door at the far end, which opened as they approached. The Unspoken who entered seemed unsurprised to find them there, laying out an armful of bandages and dried herb bunches on a table. She – Jordan surmised this was Nadiya – turned to them after arranging her load neatly and held out a small pot.

"This is good for muscle aches," she said. Her voice was calm, like deep water. Her aura lapped against him like a drifting wave. "You'll feel that journey tomorrow."

"Thanks," Jordan said, already feeling it and dreading it getting worse.

"You've got an infection," she said, as he pocketed the pot. He looked up suddenly.

"I have? I didn't notice anything." He hesitated. "How do you know?"

"She can tell from your aura," Koen said. "Nadiya was born to healing, I tell you."

Nadiya said nothing, but Jordan thought she was pleased by the compliment. "It's nothing serious. I can treat it for you in a moment. Come."

She gestured him to a bed. Koen waved cheerily as the curtain swept him from view. Jordan, suddenly realising he was cornered with an Unspoken he didn't know, to treat an infection he hadn't noticed, sat down very hesitantly. He didn't know where he could have picked one up from; but then he did, and his hesitation turned to panic.

"Can you fetch me some gauze from the storehouse, Koen?" Nadiya called, "I forgot to bring it through."

"Yes, ma'am." Koen hurried off, and when his footsteps were no longer audible, Nadiya sighed.

"It's vitally important you don't leave the same dressing on a tattoo for two weeks of sweaty travelling," she said sternly. Jordan could have vomited right there, and it was with great effort of will that he didn't piss himself to boot. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "I am sworn to privacy, boy. Nothing leaves this room unless you wish it to. You forget I've known your tutor for many years, though it saddens me that you seem to mirror him so closely."

"I didn't want it," Jordan said hoarsely, once he remembered how to speak. Nadiya looked at him for a long moment.

Then she sighed. "When you have done what is required of you, I can remove it if you wish. It's not a pleasant procedure, but it can be done. I did it for your tutor, years ago."

"Really?" To his chagrin he felt his eyes well up. Having that tie to the Devils for the rest of his life was a thought that frequently drove him to smoke – an irony if ever there was one, since they were the reason he'd ever smoked at all. His fingers itched for a cigarette.

"Aye. Just come and see me when that time comes."

Jordan had no chance to ask more questions, since Koen returned then with a handful of fresh dressings.

Nadiya worked with brisk efficiency. She was a firmer hand than Nika, but she moved with a speed Jordan had never seen. The tattoo between his shoulder blades was not badly infected yet, but there was surface inflammation that he had been blaming on the straps of his knapsack. Nadiya wiped it down with alcohol that burned Jordan's nose, and forced him to chew on some terribly bitter herbs that she warned him with an even voice would turn his piss bright green and give him the shits. She then re-dressed the tattoo and sent him off with another salve to put on it, and he emerged from the curtained cubicle unable to look Koen in the eye.

"Let's hope they don't kick in during this evening," his friend said, clearly stifling a laugh. "But just in case, I wouldn't go too hard on the beer. It's hard to find a quiet spot during a gathering."

"Shut up," Jordan muttered. His stomach had already given an objecting burble as the herbs went down.

"If you need a distraction, give me a shout."

"I'm not going to explode behind a tree," Jordan muttered, unable to help grinning himself. There was a pit in his stomach as he did so; he'd almost forgotten about the tattoo, and now he had to visit the infirmary and look Nadiya in the eye and know that she knew about it. He pushed the thought away. He was determined, after that, to enjoy his stay free of the Devils or their shadow over him.

"You might not have a choice," Koen said ominously, and nudged him. Jordan nudged back. By the time they reached the clearing it had devolved into a pushing contest that had them both plastered with dead leaves and with a few more aches than they'd started with – though he suspected Koen had given him a few free passes.

"Here they are!" someone shouted, and Jordan caught a faint frisson of his tutor's amusement from somewhere nearby before he was pulled into chaos.