Thirty Six: Welcome Party

Jordan swiftly realised that he had never seen a real Unspoken party before. All the gatherings he had attended at Yddris's house had been overshadowed with tragedy and worry, things that he'd not lingered at for long. The Guildtown was a view of the Unspoken he had never seen, and he felt that if the average folk of Nictaven could see the scene in front of him, they wouldn't find Unspoken nearly as terrifying.

The vast trees that towered above them were painted with green light, so bright that one could almost see the canopy. The dwellings of the Unspoken went all the way to the top in places, precarious hide shelters that gave Jordan vertigo at just the thought of sleeping in one. Unspoken milled about, clustering the clearing with black figures. The area around the trestle tables was the most densely populated, but everywhere he looked there was a cloaked figure. Someone had unearthed a slightly off-tune lute and was strumming it with vigour. In lulls of the general noise, it was also possible to catch snatches of singing to go with it, but by the sound of the lute Jordan was quite glad he couldn't hear it.

He watched the proceedings in fuzzy bewilderment. Every Unspoken he'd talked to had pushed a drink into his hand, and out of politeness he'd felt compelled to drink it. He had started, quite early on and at the behest of a complaining stomach, to tip the remainder of his mugs into a bush when the gift-giver left, but he'd still managed to consume a sizeable amount. If he'd been trying to finish every mug he'd have already been on the floor.

He'd lost sight of everyone he knew in the throng. Koen had been dragged off the moment they reappeared in the clearing, and in this concentration of magic Yddris was only identifiable when they happened to be close. He had sneaked off at the first available opportunity to find a quiet bench, and hoped his cloak was brown enough to blend with the tree behind him.

It wasn't that he wasn't glad to be in a place where his magic didn't gain him a second glance – it was a breath of fresh air in that regard. And it wasn't that he wasn't grateful to be well out of the Devils' reach. He felt overwhelmed, certainly, and more than a bit nervous. He missed Grace with a passion – she'd always made social gatherings more bearable for him – and he felt more stranded in Nictaven than ever. The Guildtown had driven home how much his life had changed far more than the Reach had. He wondered if Grace had had a chance to have a look at the book he'd found her yet. He wasn't exactly sure how much German she knew, but he hoped it wasn't a total waste of effort.

Like it had at the funeral vigil, his future was staring him in the face. He wasn't certain whether he liked what he saw. Almost more alarming was that he also wasn't certain that he didn't.

"Not the sociable type?" Somehow Thirris had found him in the chaos. Yddris's tutor didn't sound remotely inebriated, which was a welcome change. Jordan shuffled up on the bench and the old Unspoken sat down with a sigh. "I fear that a lot of us forget just how overwhelming it can be if you manifested only recently."

"I haven't really stopped to think about it much," Jordan muttered. "Until now. I thought...if I took a minute to really think...I'd probably never be able to start again."

"You'd be surprised at what a man can get used to, with time."

Jordan didn't want to get used to it – that was the point. But he kept his mouth shut, because he liked Thirris and didn't want to offend him.

"You know," the old man said after a moment, "I brought Yddris here within his first couple of months. A little bit earlier than you, but I find that the whole first year is a rocky one for many anyway. And he rebelled against it much more fiercely than you have. He set my house on fire once, you know. Deliberately."

Jordan couldn't make it fit. Yddris had always spoken of the Gift as his salvation, not something he had come to resentfully. "Yddris did?"

"Oh yes. And I'm sure he'd be very annoyed that I'm telling you he wasn't always so dedicated. I had my suspicions when he showed so much interest in blade-work that I hadn't picked up some errant farm boy. There's a tree at the back of my garden where you can still see the damage he wrought when he was in one of his rages. That anger was always there, under the surface, even after he took the black. He channelled it into his work as Unspoken, and gave himself the formidable reputation he has."

"I mean, he has a bit of a temper," Jordan said doubtfully. He wasn't recognising much of the description. It sounded more like Arlen, a comparison that immediately made him feel like he'd somehow betrayed Yddris by thinking it.

"He's much more even now," Thirris agreed. "I thought he'd live the rest of his days with that anger. And then he took on Nika."

"Oh. I can see that." Jordan snorted to himself. "Has Nika been in charge the whole time?"

"I fear he has," Thirris said, also chuckling. "Yes, I do believe he's been leading Yddris around by the nose ever since."

They sat in companionable silence for a while. Jordan tried and failed to imagine his tutor as a younger man coming here for the first time. Behind them, among the trees, an animal raised its voice to join in with the wobbly lutenist. His knives were an unwelcome weight against his hip, a link between his present and Yddris's past. He almost wished that it had turned to anger in him, rather than a hollow helplessness.

He reached into his belt pouch, the urge to smoke stronger than ever, and began to roll one before pausing. "You don't mind, do you?"

"I didn't teach your tutor for years and not get used to blackweed smoke, boy. But come back to the fire, I think the bouts are starting."

"Bouts?" Jordan repeated blankly, a green flame hovering on the end of his thumb to light the cigarette. Thirris was already walking away.

A space had cleared near the fire, and the Unspoken had arranged themselves in a loose circle around it. It took Jordan a minute to realise that the man standing inside the circle was Yddris. Jordan pocketed the cigarette again with a twinge of regret as he pushed into the circle beside Thirris. The magic buzzed through his whole body, as if the ring of Unspoken were passing a current around.

"Have you ever seen Yddris spar, boy?" Thirris asked. "Without holding back?"

He and Yddris had done plenty of sparring in the hours they'd had to train in combat, but he very much doubted that his tutor had been going full throttle with it. A moment later, his suspicions were confirmed.

The Unspoken who had joined Yddris in the circle was bigger and broader, but his movements were surprisingly fluid for his size. All the same, when the two thick wooden poles they were using as weapons met for the first time, it quickly became apparent that size wasn't helping. Jordan knew Yddris was fast – he had seen him fight demons, and he'd got a hint of it in training – but nothing had prepared him for the neat economical movements delivered at a speed that boggled the mind. He wielded the pole like an extension of his own body, meeting his opponent's 'blade' no matter how unlikely it looked that he'd bring it to bear in time. It was over very quickly, with Yddris's pole touching gently at his opponent's chest and Jordan completely mystified as to when and how it had got there.

"He's certainly still got it," Thirris said, pleased. "You should have seen it when he was younger."

Jordan's tutor swung the pole around and let it rest on the ground between his feet, watching as one opponent traded places with another. A presence tinged with familiarity appeared at Jordan's shoulder, and he realised with a jolt that in his distraction Astra had come up beside him to watch. He hadn't seen her since they'd arrived.

"Well met," he said, awkwardly. It had almost made everything more confusing, now that she seemed prepared to talk to him. At least when she hadn't been, he'd not spent the entire time wondering what he should or shouldn't have said.

"Well met," she replied. He breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't gone ignored.

When he looked around, Yddris was lowering his pole from the side of the next opponent's neck. Thirris chuckled and clapped along with the rest of them.

"I'm going to see Yerrit in the next few days," Astra said, making him start. She didn't look at him as she spoke. Her aura was completely unreadable. "He's a master painter. You should come with me."

Jordan began to wonder if he'd accidentally found himself in another alternate universe. It was one thing for her to start talking to him, entirely another that she had asked him to do something with her – not that it had sounded like a question so much as an instruction. He found himself nodding all the same. "Of course. Yeah. I'd like that."

She nodded as if she had expected as much. When he next looked around, she had drifted away again.

The bouts were growing slowly more vicious as more skilled opponents met false blades with Yddris. Nevertheless, they all ended up with his sparring stick in their face, tapping chest or neck in a first touch. Jordan had lost count of how many Yddris had fought, and only watched in wide-eyed bewilderment at a level of skill he'd only seen glimpses of. Unwilling admiration kindled in his chest. A man who could fight like that never needed to worry about upstart ex-acolytes with weird obsessions.

He shuddered at the thought, and wondered what Silas had asked Arlen in payment. The thought of his Devil tutor sobered him; what skills did Arlen have that Jordan hadn't bothered to find out about? How many were skills he never wanted to see, let alone learn? And provided he learned any of those things, let alone all, would he recognise himself by the time Marick made good on his promises? Would he even be himself anymore?

Feeling sick, he edged out of the ring around the bouts and kept going until he was alone, hidden partly from view by a dense clump of saplings. There, he threw up all the beer he'd had and all the food he'd eaten that evening. All he wanted, suddenly, was a comfortable bed and some sleep. Ren was waiting for him back at Thirris's house, on that thickly blanketed bed in a warm room. He could find his way back on his own, surely. The festivities were suddenly all too much.

Ignoring the niggling thought that someone might miss him and take offence that he'd left his own party, he trudged into the woods in the direction he remembered Yddris taking him. The trail instantly draped him in silence, save for the distant sound of voices and the rustling of leaves. Movement among the trees made him jump, and he turned on the trail to find a demon tucked into the crook of two branches several metres away, watching him. Its bulbous eyes reflected the light of nearby lamps back at him, luminescent and cat-like. He had seen one of this sort before, during the siege of Harkenn's castle. He stiffened, preparing to run, but the demon only regarded him for a moment longer before slinking off into the darkness of the deep forest. He sighed, and then cursed himself for a fool as rational thought returned to him. Of course it wasn't going to come any closer, he was in the Guildtown. They probably had rune nets up to the eyeballs plastered around the place.

All the same, he picked up his pace. He was starting to need the privy already as it was.

Thirris had left a light burning on the porch when he left, and it was only due to this that Jordan didn't bypass the house entirely. He let himself into the gloom and lit a small fire in his palm so he didn't trip over anything. A delighted little chirrup in the darkness followed, and then a small lithe shape darted through the halo of his firelight.

"Hello, trouble," he mumbled, leaning down to pick her up and place her on his shoulder. "I got something for you." He dug out the wrapped-cloth package that contained a small sampling of the foods that had been out on the trestle tables. Her claws dug into his shoulder, accompanied by excitable snuffling. "Come on."

He laid the parcel on his bed in his room and Ren fell on it with relish. He smiled, and sat down at the desk. He stood up again an instant later as Nadiya's herbs came into abrupt and brutal effect.

He returned from the outhouse feeling robbed of his life-force, but he still gave himself a moment to look around Thirris's garden. The tree he had spoken of was immediately apparent. The bark was dark with age and damp and callused with healing, but the gashes in the trunk were still visible. They had eaten almost to the heart of the tree, vicious slashes that must have been reinforced many times. He pulled off a glove and ran his fingers over the ravaged surface.

The next minute he was dashing back to the outhouse.

When he staggered out a second time, Yddris was sitting on a stump near the back wall of the house, pipe rolling smoke into the cold air.

"Thirris told me you slunk off during the bouts," he said. He didn't sound angry, to Jordan's relief. "I followed the smell."

Jordan's face blazed. "You didn't have to comment."

"No, I suppose I didn't," his tutor replied, ponderously. Jordan rolled his eyes before he could stop himself. "What's Nadiya stuffing you with purging herbs for?"

"The tattoo got infected," Jordan muttered. The world was spinning. After two weeks of hard travel and rations, then unloading everything he had spare in the space of one evening, his energy levels were tanking at a rate of knots.

He wasn't sure when Yddris had come over to him, but a blink later his tutor was frogmarching him back into the house. His legs wobbled alarmingly beneath him. His brain felt as though it was full of helium.

Just as they reached the door a howling wind whistled right overhead. Leaf litter rustled and crackled as heavy rain filtered through the treetops to the forest floor, first a trickle, then a deluge, until the trees were making their own thunder. Yddris heaved him inside and shut the door, and a cascade of heavy rain hit the wood like bullets.

"About time," Yddris muttered. He smelled of beer and smoke as he helped Jordan into his room and set him down on the bed. It reminded Jordan that he had a cigarette already rolled in his pocket, but when he got it out Yddris plucked it from his fingers.

"Hey!"

"Take it from an old hand," Yddris said, spiriting it away to somewhere Jordan couldn't see it, "that you do not want to smoke this stuff on a bad stomach."

Jordan glowered at him for a moment, then gave in with a groan and fell back on the bed. Ren took up position beside his face. She smelled like forest leaves and clean air. On the roof the rain pounded like drums. The storm sounded like it was trying to take the forest up by the roots. Cold air drifted through gaps in the walls but his magic surged up to meet it, warmth suffusing his limbs like submerging in warm water. Ren fidgeted and shivered, and gave a grateful little grunt when Jordan wrapped his arm around her.

"What's that demon called?" Jordan mumbled. Yddris had gone somewhere else in the house, but now his footsteps returned, and a steaming cup was placed on Jordan's bedside. "The one with that gnarly skin bag under its chin?"

"Forest Haunt," Yddris muttered. "I want you to drink all of that, boy, before Nika's spirit detaches itself just to come and deck me."

Jordan shuffled up on the pillows. It seemed to take too much effort. The cup contained herb tea, but it tasted as though Yddris had dumped a sack of sugar in it. He wrinkled his nose at the sweetness, but after a few moments he felt some clarity return to his thoughts.

"What's got you asking about Forest Haunts, boy?" Yddris said. "Won't have to deal much with them if you're working in the city."

"I saw one." Jordan vaguely gestured in the direction of the trail.

Yddris stiffened. "Where?"

"A few metres off the path to the house," Jordan replied. He had assumed the demon was at the limits of the Guildtown nets, but something in Yddris's tone suggested that he shouldn't have seen one at all. "It went away pretty quickly."

"Are you up to showing me where?"

"I guess." He got up off the bed. His legs were still weak, and it felt like his insides had been scraped out, but the world wasn't spinning anymore. He followed Yddris to the door, remembering that there was a storm outside. He scowled. "I thought you said demons liked forests."

"We have nets on our nets," Yddris said tersely. "And this concentration of magic should make them think twice about even going near those. If you saw one from that path, a net's failed. Probably a big one. And we can't have demons sneaking in during a storm."

"Okay." Jordan nodded. "But the town's full of Unspoken, right?"

"The town is full of old and infirm Unspoken," Yddris corrected him. "Many of them would be hard-pressed to defend themselves if they were taken by surprise. It would rely on a visiting able-bodied demon hunter noticing in time, because demons go for the weak first. When you get old, boy, the Gift takes its toll. Drawing on the current is more dangerous, your limits are lower. This town isn't just a place for Unspoken to meet. It's our guarantee of security when things don't work like they used to and we can't make money hunting anymore."

Jordan pondered that for a moment. It made sense. There was a strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happened, he could come back here and be accepted. He wondered if Grace would ever agree to come up with him if she were allowed.

The rain was heavy enough when they stepped out that they were both soaked in seconds. The canopy broke the worst of the fall, but the downside was that a tree might suddenly dump all its collected water at once. In the darkness and the noise, Jordan struggled to see which tree had had the demon in it, but somehow he found it. When he pointed it out Yddris immediately stalked into the brush and stamped around the offending plant, while Jordan stayed on the path and swept wet hair from his eyes. It was getting too long; it didn't help that the rain was blowing almost horizontally into his hood. He'd either have to cut it or tie it back, and he was glad that no matter how stupid he looked after doing so, no one would see it.

"I'm going back to fetch the warders," Yddris said, striding back. "The outer net for the whole neighbourhood is wiped out. If you see any demons and they don't leave, boy, you signal me the same way you always do, alright?"

"Got it." Jordan watched his tutor walk away, and then peered into the woods again. It might have been coincidence that the net had failed after the scene at Little Dunbauern, but as he turned and hurried back, driven on by sheets of cold rain, he couldn't shake the misgivings in the pit of his stomach.