James Clemens - Shadowfall

Tylar was the first out. The smoky confines of the lower decks brightened to the fresh breezes of the open sea. The air smelled almost sweet.

But Tylar’s attention focused on the chaos atop the deck. The crew ran ropes and climbed rigging. Orders were shouted along with brittle curses. The frenzied activity bordered on panic.

A few steps away, Captain Grayl stood at his post by the great wheel, flanked by his two steersmen. All three men clutched their wheels, leaning their full weight to turn them farther.

“Another four degrees, damn you!” Grayl bellowed.

The Grim Wash listed to the port side. Clearly the crew fought to turn the ship, attempting to angle her sharply against the prevailing wind. But with the central mast and mainsail gone, it was a futile struggle.

Tylar crossed to the captain’s side. “What’s wrong?”

The captain’s face had purpled with the strain. “Tangleweed dead ahead! Have to avoid it, or we’ll be bogged down and trapped!”

Tylar shaded his eyes-and saw the danger immediately. Filling the ocean beyond the ship lay a mat of thick green vegetation. A smattering of stalky white flowers bobbed in the wind and current. He now understood the source of the sweetness to the air. Tangleweed was the curse of the Meerashe sailor. Such patches floated with the currents and tides. They were unpredictable and could snare careless ships, snagging them up and holding them for days until they could be chopped free… if they could be chopped free. Many ships met their end within the embrace of tangleweed.

Rogger spoke beside Tylar, his voice dry in his throat. “That’s no ordinary scrap of weed.”

Tylar glanced to the thief.

“That’s Tangle Reef.”

The captain heard Rogger and spat on the deck. “Turn this damn ship, you bastards! Now!”

“Are you sure?” Tylar asked.

Rogger bared his arm with the branded sigils. He pointed to one of the scars.

“Fyla,” Delia said, naming the symbol for the god of this watery realm.

Rogger lowered his arm. “I’ve already been here.”

Tylar shook his head at their cursed misfortune. At sea, they had hoped to avoid all the god-realms of the Nine Lands, to never touch soil. Now they had stumbled upon the one realm that had no land.

Fyla was a solitary and reclusive god. Even her own handmaidens and handmen were born here-which, considering the unusual nature of her realm, was not surprising. She and her citizens lived beneath the sea in a city formed from tangleweed. They were hunters, fishermen, and sea farmers. Their realm, like the weed in which they made their home, roamed throughout the seas of Myrillia.

Rogger said, “While I consider bad luck my constant companion in life, I must say that running into Tangle Reef right now is beyond pure chance.”

Delia nodded. “The gods are on the move. They know of Meeryn’s death and have joined the pursuit. Tangle Reef must’ve been sent to hunt you down.”

Tylar sensed his doom, a stony weight sinking deep into his chest.

Rogger continued. “We now know who sent the jelly shark after us.”

Tylar stared over to the carpet of undulating weed. The ship, tilted in a frozen turn, continued its plowing course toward the tangling trap, driven by relentless winds and current. The miiodon had been used to cripple them, herd them into the waiting tendrils of the tangleweed. Such was not beyond Fyla. The ocean was her domain, the creatures at her command.

Rogger sighed. “And if she uses a jelly shark like a sheeper’s mutt, there’s no telling what else might be waiting for us.”

Dart scrubbed the stone floor with a horsehair- bristled brush. Her knuckles were raw, both from the rough surfaces and the stinging lye soap. Her simple shift of rough-spun wool clung to her damply. Sweat rolled from the tip of her nose.

Laurelle fared no better, in the same shapeless dress, hair in a drab bonnet. Using both hands, she scrubbed her brush across the stone floor of the Graced Cache. Though little more than a drudgery maid, she seemed content in her new role.

They were handmaidens-in-waiting.

This was their duty. To perform chores, lowly though they may seem, that not even the highest nobles of Chrismferry would be allowed to observe. Like now, scrubbing the floor of the Graced Cache, a vault that contained and preserved all of Chrism’s repostilaries.

“In this manner,” their matron had extolled, “you’ll know your place here. While you were raised high by the touch of an Oracle, chosen from many, here in the Lord’s castillion you are mere servants. You must never forget your place.”

And so, on their knees, they learned this first lesson.

Pupp was their only company here, sniffing about the floor, his molten body aglow in the dim chamber. He kept near Dart’s side, perhaps wary of the power and wealth in this room. While Chrismferry was a rich city, grown fatted over the four millennia since its founding, its true wealth lay here.

Here was the heart of the city.

Dart sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat from her nose with the back of her hand. She stared across the vast vault.

The Graced Cache was located deep underground, where the quarried stones of Chrism’s castillion became natural limed stone. Its ceiling hung unusually low. Even Dart had to keep her head bowed from the roof.

“The better to know your place,” Matron Shashyl had instructed. “To honor what is stored here with bended back.”

Still, despite the low ceiling, the Cache did not feel confining. Its space covered an area larger than the central courtyard of her old school. Most kept their voices whispered because of the chamber’s unnerving habit to echo and amplify. It was as if there were a ghost haunting the room, mocking their words.

The Cache reminded Dart of a wine cellar. While there was a certain dankness to the air, a pleasant sweetness lay beneath it, like the spirits distilled from aged wine casks-though no barrels had ever been rolled into this vault.

All around, rows of ebony weirwood shelves marched to the four walls of the subterranean chamber. Resting upon the shelves, small crystal repostilaries glittered in the torchlight, like a thousand stars in the night. The Cache was divided into eight areas, each representing one of the eight blessed humours of the god they served, a god neither Dart nor Laurelle had yet set eyes upon.

“What are you thinking about?” Laurelle asked, shifting closer to her. The ghost in the room echoed the word thinking, bouncing it back and forth.

Dart noted Laurelle’s eyes flitting about, attempting to follow her fleeing word. She kept her own voice a breathless whisper. “I was wondering when we’d be granted an audience with His Graced, Lord Chrism.”

Laurelle sighed, a flicker of a smile. “I hope soon. But I expect it won’t happen until those who we are to replace have faded completely.”

Dart nodded. They were indeed handmaidens — in-waiting. The two handservants, representing blood and tears, those whom they had been chosen to replace, were ailing but not yet gone, and continued in their duties, as was their honor.

In the meantime, Dart and Laurelle were placed under the daily tutelage of Matron Shashyl, the matron superior of the handservants. While not a Hand herself, she had served the castillion for over five decades and it was said only Chrism himself ever questioned her or went against her wishes. She personally instructed Dart and Laurelle in the finer points of their specific duties and oversaw the practices of the proper rituals. Some lessons had already been taught to them back at the school, but much had not.

“I wish Margarite could see all this,” Laurelle said.