“Move it, would you? I nearly had your bloody toes off.”
Gwin edged aside to let the stocky man with the handcart pass, pressing herself against the soft grey stone of the archway and squinting at the impossible dazzle of the market framed within it.
The sun was setting on Artisan Square. It flared across sacks of sweet-smelling thyme, sage, and basil, briefly coaxing the dull yellows and greens to a blaze of colour. The twin moons were already rising in the sky as she forced herself to move forward, plunging into the melee of the market amid an onslaught of smells and the noisy crush of people looking for the last of the day’s bargains.
A boot hawker was packing away his wares for the day, stacking calfskin sandals next to hard-worn boots in crude wooden crates. Gwin looked away too late to avoid his eager gaze and he smiled broadly, scenting the merest hint of a sale.
“Only one previous owner,” he said, thrusting a pair of leather slippers under her nose. “See the double stitching? I’ll give you a good price.”
Gwin shook her head politely.
She had spent untold nights sleeping alone beneath the wild spread of foreign trees. She had picked her way over endless terrain with only the moons to guide her. She had skirted bands of camping travellers, their laughter loud and rough against her ears, the rush of heat from their campfires pricking at her skin. She had been hungry, tired, and desperately alone, but this was the first time her courage had threatened to completely desert her. She wanted to slink away. She could double back the way she had come. She could keep moving until the city’s walls were far behind her with all the colour and noise of Armoria locked fast within them. But she was not a coward. Gwin touched the large pendant hanging at her throat and hurried on.
Many eyes fell upon her as she walked—some furtive, some openly staring. Gwin pulled up the hood of her cloak and kept her eyes on the fish gut-strewn cobbles, only occasionally risking a glance at the sky. The violet moon was steadily growing larger and brighter against the stars. As dusk settled across booksellers and meat merchants, violet Aikana—the feminine moon—was gliding into position before silver misted Mamai.
Many believed this switching of the twin moons signalled great change. Some predicted terrible floods and catastrophic earth tremors. Gwin could see the people in the market paid little heed to these old legends. They had fish to sell and beer to drink and the Changing of the Moons was nothing but an excuse to raise an extra glass or two to the Purple Mother. As she passed a stall festooned with intricately patterned silk scarves—shimmering like a delicate rainbow between the pie seller and the glass merchant trading on either side—Gwin overheard two women loudly discussing Sally Long’s cat. Apparently, the animal had birthed a litter of twelve kittens that morning, all born mewling and with glassy silver eyes wide open. Rather than worrying about ancient tales of celestial doom, the gossipers were more concerned that Sally would be unable to find homes for the wretched creatures.
“I suppose she’ll have to drown ‘em,” one of them said. “After all, you can’t be too careful with these things. What if they're cursed?”
Gwin almost stopped to turn on the women and demand to know where Sally Long could be found. Thankfully, the other woman spoke before she could act.
“You know Sally would never do that. I bet she’s got half a mind to keep them herself, though Thetia knows how she would feed them all. I heard she was telling people they were a blessing. I think she’s half-witch, that one.”
Gwin quickened her pace as the shadows deepened and night descended on the buildings packed tightly around her.
At the entrance to Midnight Square, she was greeted by a gaunt young man, sitting on an upturned wooden crate in the middle of the street. He was dressed in the traditional grey and purple colours of the bards, humming to himself as he picked at his teeth with dirty nails.
“Artist or audience?” he inquired, not at all perturbed to be caught extracting his lunch from his teeth. His coat was tattered and shabby and his hair was unwashed. Fortune was not kind to the bards of Armoria.
“Artist,” Gwin said.
The man sighed and picked up the roll of paper discarded at his feet. “You really should have been here by now. The others are already setting up. Name?”
“Gwin.”
He hunched over to lean the paper on his knees, adding her name to the list with a stubby piece of charcoal.
“Instrument?”
Gwin pulled her cloak aside to reveal a small pan flute hidden amongst its many folds. She presented it with an air of reverence.
“I will be playing the pan flute.”
The man wrote the information down and finally glanced up, a smile lighting his face when he saw what she was holding. The pan flute was bland and modest, unadorned by the ornately painted images favoured by the bards of Midnight Square.
“That’s a pan flute? It looks like something dragged out of the Thet.”
She held the instrument to her chest. “It is not the look of the instrument that matters, but the sound it can create.”
“Well, good luck getting a sound out of that.”
Gwin counted out the entrance fee from her coin purse and pressed it into the man’s charcoal-stained palm. Leaving him to his papers, she moved out into the square. She wasn’t upset by his comments. This was the foremost centre of music and performance in the known world and her pan flute indeed resembled something that might have been dumped out on a fishing boat. It would have been strange to pass unnoticed into this place without someone wondering at her choice of instrument.
The square was full of people talking excitedly or milling about in small groups, impatient for the annual Midnight Bard competition to begin. The musician who won the title of Midnight Bard would be paid to be the Quarter’s Bard in Residence for an entire year—a highly coveted prize amongst those who barely scraped a living from street shows and tavern gigs that paid in part with watered-down beer.
Gwin headed towards the stage at the back of the square. It was draped with grey and purple cloth to mark the importance of the occasion, lit by torches whose light became velvety beneath Aikana’s violet glow. She scanned the faces of the gathering audience, burning with a secret thrill of pleasure to see several changelings among them. Although she had searched for them during her long journey, these were the first changelings she had ever seen. They appeared alien beside their Armorian counterparts, their eyes fierce, their hair streaked with vivid colours. One of them turned to glance at Gwin. The younger woman’s face was partially hidden by a hood and when their eyes met, Gwin caught a glimpse of a large birthmark covering one side of her face.
The throng’s attention was drawn to the stage when a young, smiling man jumped up onto it. His slim frame was swathed in a long, grey tunic and a large wreath of purple feathers bounced around his neck. The crowd surged closer and Gwin was swept along with them, buffeted on all sides by jostling people until she was standing directly in front of the stage before the smiling man. He waved his hands for silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man began, “welcome to this most auspicious of occasions. The Midnight Bard is upon us, and on so holy a night. The Changing of the Moons has begun. The druids are locked up in their tower, on their knees and praying.” An unkind laugh rippled through the audience. “The good folk of Armoria are locked up in their houses, waiting for the Change to pass. But where are you, friends? You are here with the bards, the moon-blessed, the drunkards, and the lunatics. I salute you. Your lack of virtue or absence of fear has led you here tonight. We shall make merry and welcome our new Mistress Moon in the only manner that is fitting, with beer and song!”
At this, the crowd let out a great roar of approval. Many people were whistling or clapping, their hands held high above their heads. They soon quieted down when they realised this was not the end of the man’s speech. He began to list the acts they would be watching, pairing each reeled-off name with a barbed comment. After a few minutes, the audience began to shuffle their feet and whisper amongst themselves.
“Goddess, he does drone on,” Gwin heard one onlooker say. She smiled to herself.
“May we all be as excited for the music to begin as this vision appears to be,” she heard the man announce. Her attention drawn back to the stage, Gwin was moderately horrified to find he was addressing her. He finally appeared to be finished with his lengthy introduction, but he kept staring, only breaking eye contact when he dropped into a long, swooning bow.
Gwin backed away into the crowd. She didn’t want to attract any more of the man’s attention, but he was already springing from the stage and striding towards her. There was a determined expression on his face that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.
When he reached her, Gwin found herself boxed in between a tall, slab-faced man wearing an incredible expanse of ankle-length wool coat, and an elderly woman drawing on a long wooden pipe. The pipe smoke escaped the corners of the woman’s mouth in two sinuous curls, drifting across Gwin’s face in soft blue clouds and making her eyes water.
“I am Barlo, of the Barlo Players,” the man announced. “Renowned in this quarter for being as witty as I am pretty. It would be my honour to escort you this evening.”
Gwin’s first instinct was to drop to her knees, crawl through the tall man’s legs and run away. But she had to stay, she had to get up on that stage.
“I wasn’t aware an escort was required,” she said, fingers tightening around the pan flute in her hands.
“Something wished for is very rarely something required.” He motioned at the crowd. “Look around. There are easily a hundred people watching us right now, yearning to be in your current position.”
Gwin severely doubted that was true.
Vanth watched Barlo attempting to flirt with the timid stranger in the hooded cloak and silently seethed. Barlo had a less than respectable reputation but to do this in front of her, when he knew she would be there, was unacceptable. Vanth’s was a name spoken of with reverence in the Druid’s Quarter, with awe in the Bard’s Quarter, and in hushed tones of anger or outright fear in the darker alleys of the Pinchpaw’s Quarter. She was a warrior, an assassin, and a rising star amongst the Salt Swords of Amoria. She demanded more bloody respect than this.
She stepped from the shadows of the wall bordering the square and strode through the milling crowd towards them.
“Good evening, Barlo.”
Barlo appeared nonchalant as he smiled at her in greeting but Vanth was pleased to note a slight tremor pass across his lower lip.
“My dear Vanth, I was just wondering where you were hiding.”
“I’m sure you were.” Vanth studied the woman beneath the hood for the first time, surprised to see how obviously uncomfortable she was. “Is Barlo making such a poor impression?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly as she lifted her face to Vanth’s. “He was just telling me there are a hundred people in the crowd who are yearning for him to escort them.”
Vanth stifled a laugh. “I’m glad to see you didn’t believe him.”
Now it was Barlo’s turn to look uncomfortable. He attempted to change the subject. “I see you have an instrument,” he said, glancing at Gwin’s tightly clasped pan flute. “I assume you will be playing tonight? I’m a terrible host, I’ve not yet asked your name.”
“Gwin,” Gwin replied.
“Just Gwin?”
“For now.”
The gaunt young man with the dirty nails who had been taking down the players’ names climbed onto the stage to a fresh round of applause. He waited for quiet before unrolling his tatty parchment.
“The first bard to perform this evening is Malcus Nead,” he announced.
Barlo winced as the man bowed awkwardly and scrambled down from the stage.
“Gabe has all the showmanship of a turnip. I told the organisers I should present the entire show, but they insisted I need only open it.”
“That’s because they knew you’d talk too much,” Vanth said.
Forcing a smile, Barlo turned back to Gwin. “Gwin, you’re from Jonick, aren’t you? That’s a long journey to undertake alone. At least, I assume you’re alone. I don’t see anybody with you.” He made a show of glancing at the people standing behind them to prove his theory. “I met a man from Jonick once. His hair was a brighter shade of blue. Your hair is the colour of a delicate bird’s egg.” He raised his hand as if to stroke it and Gwin flinched away.
“For Thet’s sake, leave her alone,” Vanth said.
On the stage, Malcus Nead perched on a stool and began to strum an expensive-looking lyre fashioned from dark wood. His deft fingers moved easily across the strings and his eyes closed in concentration as he teased out the first notes of a melancholy sailor’s song, traditionally played on a more modest lute for seamen who were far from home and missing their loved ones.
“A sea shanty,” Barlo whispered to Vanth. “How original.”
“It’s hardly a shanty.” Vanth thought the music was beautiful, if a little too sad.
The trio watched the rest of Malcus’s performance in silence, clapping politely with the rest of the crowd once he’d finished. Vanth glanced at Barlo but he was staring straight ahead, refusing to meet her gaze. Perhaps she had been too harsh with him. She put a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it away.
Gabe reappeared on the stage, his roll of parchment held before him like a baton. “Our second bard is Gwin,” he said, half-shouting to be heard above the din. “No last name given.”
Vanth watched a look of fright pass across Gwin’s face. “There’s no need to worry,” she said. “It’s the Midnight Bard, the audience will be kind.”
“I didn’t expect to be called on so soon."
Vanth wondered if the woman would falter and forfeit her place. She had seen would-be bards do it before. Once faced with the sight of an empty stage and an expectant audience, ducking out to sample the beer at the Bard’s Rest was often a more palatable option. But Gwin didn’t falter. She inhaled a sharp breath and walked purposefully towards the stage, taking Gabe’s hand so he could hoist her up.
“You are in a foul mood tonight,” Barlo said once they were alone.
“My mood was only fouled by your bastard flirtations. I don’t care about the Midnight Bard, you know that. I came here to see you. How do you think it feels to find your attention caught by someone else?”
“You’re a very jealous woman, Vanth.”
“I’m not jealous. I don’t care what sordid behaviour you indulge in when I’m not around to see it, but you knew I was coming tonight.”
“A thousand apologies.” Barlo sighed, turning to her. “Of course, I knew you were coming. I was only telling my fellow Players this morning—”
Barlo’s voice faded away as Gwin began to play. The first breathy note from the pan flute hit Vanth like a club in the stomach and she stared wide-eyed at the woman on the stage. She still looked nervous, her hands clasped tightly around the small instrument, but each note stirred something inside Vanth. The tune started simply enough, lilting and playful. It shouldn’t have affected her the way it did and yet Vanth felt compelled to listen intently. The music built, becoming faster, keeping time with the foot Gwin was beating against the wooden boards of the stage. Then just as it soared, the song became soft once more. Again and again, the music dipped and rose until Vanth felt dizzy with it, until the torches in the square and the shapes of the people pressed on either side of her began to dim and blur.
With a start, Vanth realised it was not her vision that was failing. The shadows dancing along the edges of the square were gathering, drawing towards the stage, ensnared by the dancing melodies of Gwin’s pan flute. Soon, darkness was swimming in a rippling pool at Gwin’s feet. The music peaked again and her hood fell back, revealing a luminous fall of icy blue hair that shone like stars in the night, so bright it stung the back of Vanth’s eyes.
“What’s happening?” she asked Barlo.
“What’s happening, indeed? This competition decreases in quality year on year. Gwin seems a sweet girl but surely that quiet little ditty has no place on the stage of the Bard’s Quarter?”
Vanth looked at Barlo, amazed to see his face wrinkled in distaste. He did not see what she saw. Either she was finally losing her mind, or there was some magickal mischief at play.
As she continued to watch, Gwin locked eyes with her and Vanth had to stop herself from crying out. Gwin’s eyes were frosted globes, blue and glassy with a light that matched her hair. The music began to reach a crescendo and Gwin rocked with it, her foot still beating out an insistent tattoo on the stage. The shadows boiling beneath her began to rise, swirling and coalescing until they formed the shape of a tremendous black bird. The bird shook out its vast, inky wings and flew high above the stage, rising as the music built until Gwin finally blew her last trembling note. The shadow bird turned and wheeled in the air before plummeting to swoop over the heads of the audience, so low Vanth instinctively ducked. She turned to follow its flight, watching as it reared before the light of the torches and finally shattered into a thousand smoky pieces that scuttled like vaporous beetles back to their respective dark corners.
She turned back to the stage, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her throat. Gwin was still staring at her.
“It’s all a set-up,” Barlo said, his speech starting to slur. “Of course, Malcus won. His uncle sits on the Midnight Bard committee. Caiden Cain is friendly with his family.” He turned to Gwin. “Cain is our kindly benefactor; the fool with too much gold who stumps up the coin for this farce of a competition.”
“You wouldn’t have been allowed to win, anyway,” Vanth said. “You’re also involved with the committee. Wouldn’t it have been a conflict of interest? You told me they were just letting you perform as a courtesy.”
“You think letting Malcus-sodding-Nead win wasn’t a conflict of interest?”
They had secured one of the Bard’s Rest’s outside tables, laid out especially for the occasion. The tavern was a hunchbacked sprawl of a building that glowered like a cathedral over Midnight Square, but the mess of candles placed on every available surface and the constant crush of overly loud, fairly drunk people gave it a homely, shabby quality that Vanth appreciated.
Barlo drained his drink and thumped the empty cup down on the table. “I need a piss.”
“He seems very high-spirited,” Gwin said once he stumbled away to relieve himself.
“He’s definitely full of spirits.”
The fire that had dazzled from Gwin’s hair and eyes was long gone, although the memory of it still made the Salt Sword feel uneasy. Vanth strongly disliked being made to feel uneasy.
“Now that we’re alone,” she said, “perhaps you can tell me what in Thetia’s name was happening on that stage when you played?”
“I know you saw me. I would dearly love to talk to you about it, but perhaps this is neither the time nor the place?” Gwin glanced at the people crowded around them from beneath her lashes.
“Sod them. They all know better than to listen in on my conversations. Tell me what happened on that stage.”
Gwin looked down at the drink she had been toying with for the last hour and shook her head. “Not here,” she insisted.
Vanth grunted in annoyance and kicked back from the table. “I could make you talk, you know. I could accuse you of practising magick without a license. Only the druids are permitted to do that within city boundaries; you’d be strung up before Lord Dewer himself.”
A dark shadow passed across Gwin’s face at the mention of Lord Dewer, a flickering behind her eyes that rose then settled like stirring embers. “I swear on Aikana, I will tell you everything. I will tell you why I travelled so far to come here. Just not now, not in such a public place.”
Vanth studied Gwin’s pinched expression, watched her fingers flexing agitatedly in the candlelight, and felt herself relenting.
“This business is far from concluded. If you don’t meet with me to explain yourself, I will come looking for you.”
“Please, believe me, my need to talk to you is just as great. Can you see me tomorrow? Everything will seem plainer in the light of day.”
Vanth doubted the light of day would make anything about Gwin’s performance plain, but she had to know what it was she had seen. “I know a suitable meeting place,” she said. “It’s a tavern called the Leafling’s Half. It’s usually quiet, we won’t be overheard.”
“Yes, that sounds acceptable." The tight, wan look began to drain from Gwin’s face.
“I’ll be there at midday.” Vanth forced a small smile. “Probably for the best we meet. It would be a pain in my arse keeping you incarcerated until Dewer’s return.”
“Lord Dewer is away from the city?” Gwin sounded surprised.
“That’s why there are so many changelings here tonight. They’re markedly more relaxed when our High Lord is not in residence.”
There certainly was an abundance of changelings in and around the tavern. A trio of sylvan sisters were standing together on a bench, reckless beneath the violet moon in low-slung skirts adorned with gold chains. Each had what looked like a sapphire glinting in their belly buttons. Beside them was a bearded hag, her heavily lined face distorted with faded tattoos. She clutched at passers-by with clawed hands, offering to read fortunes for a trinket.
“The changelings don’t seem afraid of you,” Gwin observed. “You’re a member of the city guard—”
“A Salt Sword,” Vanth corrected her.
“Yes, a Salt Sword. Shouldn’t that make them wary?”
“Why should they be wary? I have no qualms with anyone so long as they abide by Armoria’s laws. It’s only those what break ‘em—humankind, changeling, moon-blessed witch, I don’t care—that feel the heel of my boot in the small of their backs.”
Barlo reappeared. Several strands of hair had worked loose from his ponytail and were hanging over his face. He reeled through the crowd and sat down, smiling blearily at his companions.
“I have returned, beautiful ladies.”
When both Vanth and Gwin failed to respond, he let his eyes wander to the people pressed close to the flickering lights of the tavern. “It appears I have new fans.” He gestured over Vanth’s shoulder. “I do believe those women are admiring me.”
Vanth twisted around in her seat. A group of changelings were huddled beneath a torch, hard gazes trained on their table. When Vanth caught their attention they looked away, but her decade of Salt Sword training made suspicion tingle beneath her skin. Only one of the changelings continued to stare, her expression brazenly defiant. There was a large port wine birthmark stretching across one side of her face, curving into a graceful arch above her right eyebrow.
Vanth turned to Gwin. “They’re not staring at Barlo. They’re staring at you.”
“I am fully aware,” Gwin replied.
The Obsidian Druid, Book One of The Age of Aikana, is available to buy now.
