This is a short story ending with a cliffhanger which I’m thinking of using as a chapter and intro to some key components of a future novel, The Long Game, which I’ve mentioned a few times here. This is an early version which could change to fit future developments!
—
Indira’s voice rose and fell in a complex rhythm that enthralled every person in the oasis. When she sang, they were her clay: she could mold their emotions into whatever shape she pleased, pulling, quashing, reforming, building up, sculpting every curve and corner of feeling. Her song told a story, and those who listened were captivated by each twist and turn, helpless to resist Indira’s will.
She sang for the merchant princes’ celebratory feast, and her song did precisely what the princes had hired her to do: get the party started.
Indira wove the rhythm and her hips together to the warm upbeat rhythm of the big band bards behind her, smiling, flashing her expressive eyebrows and brilliant copper bangles and fingernails. She sang a traditional Cupran ballad of celebration – a song she’d only heard once before, but Indira was a professional. Later, the party guests would tell everyone, at great length, that Indira’s exciting, catchy, dance-inducing rendition was far better than the original.
That bit of magic was her own small addition. A girl had to eat, after all, and word of mouth among the elite was the best way to land more shows. Word of mouth encouraged by the enchanting arcane power of her voice, by a signature hypnotic melody she worked into the undercurrent of every song she performed.
Indira brought the song to its conclusion with a stunning high note that briefly quieted the crowd. She spread her arms and smiled wide, and the band played one last sting. The crowd erupted into cheers, more enthusiastic and heartfelt than anyone else could get out of a fancy crowd like this. But then, Indira wasn’t just anyone.
She gave a gracious, low bow to her hosts, the three merchant princes of Cupra, seated among the palms by the water with a curated selection of ambassadors. The princes each raised their glasses to Indira, and she blew them a kiss. Let them wonder which of the three it was for.
Bell reached up from the sand below the bandstand, offering to help Indira down. “That was wonderful,” she beamed. “You’ll definitely be on tomorrow’s news.”
Indira laughed and took Bell’s hand. “You know that’s not why I brought you with me,” she said. And it was true: if Indira meant to enchant Bell along with the others, to get her to promote Indira on the news, it would have been easy. Instead, she’d excepted Bell from her magic, along with the merchant princes: she, and they, would feel what Indira’s voice was doing to the others, without being directly influenced. With Bell’s help, Indira hopped down into the sand, felt it hug her bare feet and slide between her toes.
“My hands are tied,” said Bell, “The night’s only halfway through but I can’t imagine any of the other scheduled events upstaging you. Your show will be news, whether you like it or not.”
“But I do like it,” Indira whispered conspiratorial with bobbing eyebrows.
Bell snickered, then let out a surprised “oop” as she was gently pushed aside by Indira’s admirers, crowding in to congratulate her.
“I’ll find you soon,” Indira called to Bell, and she steeled herself for the crush of her fans.
Singing always took Indira back to her childhood. Singing had been the one true freedom remaining to grandmother after her body had been broken in war – a tale grandmother never told, but Indira could hear in the melancholy hidden beneath every song. But there was pure, simple joy there, too, and little Indira would sneak around grandmother’s to hear her sing when she thought no one could hear, hoping to catch a little of that joy. The joy Indira did her best to share with anyone who would listen.
Indira took after grandmother in another way: she was content to be on her own, felt less need than most to be social. So when the crowd crushed toward Indira, offering praise and love, she drew on another skill she’d spent years training: meditation and calm in the face of anxiety. In her calm centre, she thought of Bell.
Indira socialized, shook hands, accepted hugs, graciously laughed off some not-quite-inappropriate remarks, stepped on toes only a few times (luckily everyone was barefoot in the sand), and passed out small hand-written cards with her full name for future mail inquiries.
She’d been successful for years, but this was quite the break: diplomats, ambassadors, rich merchants and traders attended the princes’ annual feast, and Indira was assured she’d receive quite a few invitations and offers for lavish balls and high-profile events across Syfandr. That meant she had to be at least half as captivating in conversation as she’d been on stage. Small talk with strangers was never easy or natural for Indira, nor did she care for it. Tonight she managed quite well, she felt.
Near two hours passed before Indira managed to extricate herself from the never-ending stream of admirers. She didn’t mind the compliments, but the high-society etiquette was exhausting and Indira knew where her limits lay. She excused herself to find her friend and a drink.
Bell sat on her own on the fringe of the oasis, admiring the bound will-o-wisps darting through the palms, quite a large drink in her hand. Indira thought she moved quietly, but Bell looked up, somehow sensing her. “Managed to get away? You all right?”
Indira plopped down in the sand beside Bell and dug in her toes.”Yes. It still feels like work, but it’s not as bad as it used to be.” She nudged Bell with her elbow. “Thank you again, for teaching me to handle all that.”
“Whatever,” said Bell, and she barely avoided spilling her drink as she tried a nonchalant wave.
“All those tips on socializing and you still can’t take a compliment?” Indira teased. She poked Bell in the side.
“Stoppit!” Bell shrieked and giggled. “My job isn’t taking compliments, it’s making people feel at ease enough to spill their juicy secrets.”
“And reporting on party singers at high society events, apparently.”
“That’s not why I’m really here. It’s good cover, though.”
Indira mulled that over for a few moments and watched the colourful reflections of the will-o-wisps on water rippled by swimmers. Of course it made sense for SWNN to assign Bell to cover the party – it was one of Cupra’s biggest events, where all the newsworthy people gathered and laid the groundwork for new negotiations and deals. But she also knew Bell well enough to suspect that maybe there was something else going on.
“Is this about your post office theory?” Indira asked.
Bell raised an eyebrow and looked around. They sat on the far edge of the water where the palms were thicker, where the light of the main party area didn’t entirely reach, where Indira could see the thick spill of stars across the clear, crisp air of the badlands. No one was nearby. Evidently, Bell decided that there was little risk of being overheard.
“I think there’s more to the Syfandr Post Office than the princes let on,” Bell whispered.
Indira nudged Bell again. “I know, you’ve told me.”
Bell leaned closer. “Everyone thinks the merchant princes started SPO to coordinate their international trade business.” She looked around again, lowered her voice further. “I think the trade is just cover for the real scheme. SPO.”
“You think the three wealthiest men on the continent built their inernational trade empire to cover up their mail company?” Indira asked. She couldn’t help laughing.
“Shh.” Bell touched a finger to Indira’s lips and frowned. She placed her drink into the sand, absently, and it spilled. “Yes, I do think that.”
Indira searched Bell’s face, eyes, posture for – oh, gods, she really was serious. Indira scooted closer, shoulder to shoulder with Bell, took a hand in hers. “Okay. Why?”
Bell shook her head, tucked a curl behind her ear. “I don’t know. Not yet.”
Indira lay back in the sand, stared at the stars through gently waving palm fronds, still holding Bell’s hand. She owed Bell. She’d always owe Bell. She credited her success more to Bell’s advice and meditation than to her own singing. Not that she didn’t think she was good – she was great – but singing alone wasn’t enough if Indira couldn’t navigate the social side of booking these high-end shows.
Maybe there was a way she could begin to pay Bell back.
“I have an idea.” Indira sat up, then stood, brushed sand out of her silks and shook it from her copper jewelry. “It’s expected that I thank my gracious hosts for the opportunity they’ve provided me. Why don’t I go give them their private song, and then make polite conversation about the post office? I’ve always been a little curious about how it works, anyway. I mean, you drop a letter in a post box, and it follows the addressee around to whichever post box is nearest? What kind of magic -“
“I don’t know,” interrupted Bell. She wiggled her toes so sand ran through them toward the water. “If they find out I’m on to them…”
“They’ll what? They don’t assassinate competitors or spies, I’d have heard about that on the news.”
“No, they don’t kill them…”
Indira squeezed Bell’s shoulder. “I’ll be careful. Everyone knows I’ve been handing out cards. I’m only curious about my own business, that’s all.”
Bell didn’t reply, but she did nod slowly as she lay back in the sand to look at the stars, as Indira had before.
Making her way back to the party required Indira to dodge around a few drunken swimmers. She wasn’t sure what the culture was like here, as it was her first time in the rocky near-desert of Cupra, but she found it rather indecent for some of the humans to have removed their jewelry to swim. Strangely, it didn’t bother her with the pair of steel-scaled dragonborn, perhaps because their scales were already metallic, glinting in the light of the wisps and the reflection on the water.
She took a few calming breaths and began her weave through the party, growing more raucous as the night went on and two dozen types of wine and ale flowed freely from casks. No one sang, but the band had stepped up their pace, and sand flew in the frenzy of dance. Calmer folk in richer attire milled about small tables, exchanging promises written and spoken.
Her first dozen inquiries as to the whereabouts of the merchant princes returned vague results. Somewhere in the back. Maybe with the Chalybs consortium. Someone else was asking about them on behalf of Mercury. Perhaps they had too much to drink and took a nap. Just as her patience wore too thin to maintan her polite veneer, Indira got the answer she was looking for: the princes retired to their pavilion, tucked into a nook in the rocks.
She had enough time to center herself again, to focus, to come up with a plan. Indira searched out the largest goblet she could find and filled it with a golden wine. Something rare from the north of Ruber, apparently. Not that it mattered for her purposes.
Indira feigned a light drunken stumble toward the rocks at the rear of the oasis, a red ridge emerging from the sand, a more protected position for the princes’ pavilion than the tents set up for the party guests under the open sky. A full dozen guards flanked the path to the pavilion – more than Indira expected.
“Helloooo,” she called in a singsong voice. Indira wasn’t particularly good at acting drunk, given that she’d never experienced the feeling, but she slipped some magic into her playful notes. “I’m the entertainment, you may have seen me on stage earlier. I’ve come to offer my thanks to our gracious hosts.”
The guards eased their grips on spears and eased their posture. The wealthiest men on the continent surely paid excessive fees for protection from all sorts of spells, but Indira’s magic worked on anyone who could hear her voice. And guards, after all, had to be able to hear commands.
They were, however, too disciplined to abandon their posts with the light suggestion of relaxation Indira’s voice proposed. “Your performance was lovely, milady,” said the guard with the largest feather on his helm. “Unfortunately the princes have requested a few moments of privacy.”
Indira wove subtle tones, just musical enough to carry a lilting, placating warble in the undercurrent of her speech, mirroring the faint bell-like tone of the guards’ ring mail. “I am here on the princes’ personal invitation; I was told all the staff were made aware. I am quite sure the princes will be pleased to see me. Please, let me pass and express my gratitude.”
As she spoke, the guards’ heads began to bob, just slightly, in sync with the rhythm of Indira’s words, the long blue feathers on their helmets waving in time. “Yes,” said the one with the longest feather, “You may pass.”
“Thank you,” said Indira, “And I hope you have the chance to enjoy the party.” She trilled her final few syllables, weaving a spell-song for the guards to forget her visit.
She slipped through the guards and stepped down the small ravine, wincing at the occasional sharp stone on the soles of her bare feet. She turned a corner and the princes’ pavilion revealed itself to her: a large three-masted tent in stripes of deep sapphire and burnished copper, warm firelight pulsing from edges and corners.
Indira reached for the twin flaps at the opening and paused a moment. She heard the princes speaking in… She frowned, trying to place the language. Indira picked up bits and pieces of a great many tongues through learning traditional and modern songs to make her own, and the princes were speaking… old draconic. Intriguing. She supposed they used the mostly-dead language as a sort of code to disguise their talk of trade strategy.
She couldn’t help her curiosity. One of grandmother’s favourite songs was old draconic – a dragonslayer’s ballad from the time of the Great Betrayal when survivors banded together to hunt the monsters that burned empires to the ground. The ballad was long enough that, to understand well enough to modify, Indira had to learn quite a lot of vocabulary and grammar.
Enough to piece together what the princes were saying, it turned out.
“But they are not yet read to move. We should -“
“I am well aware, but we must prepare for when the time comes.”
“Agreed; we shall confirm details another day. In the meantime, I’ve received word that the Arbiter has been inquiring nearby once again.”
“Let her. She cannot penetrate the border.”
“Perhaps we should speak with her. As I have been arguing for the past year, the SPO monitoring board is observing trends that could unbalance the Game in a fashion we have not seen in two centuries.”
“Pah, let them unbalance it. Short-lived trends and petty individuals on the scale of mere centuries shall not determine the outcome of the Long Game. Only the players have that power.”
“Ah!” gasped Indira as a sharp stone pierced the skin of her big toe. She lifted her foot, copper-painted nails flashing in the starlight, and found a spot of blood on the sand. Another dripped beside it, the tiny splash disturbing fine red-white grains.
The voices in the pavilion fell silent. There was a moment of rustling, then one of the two heavy flaps was lifted upward. “Ah, the lady Indira,” said one of the merchant princes in the common tongue. “What an unexpected surprise.” With less vocal training, Indira would have missed the touch of stress in his throat.
The three slim, svelte copper-scaled dragonborn were so similar in physicality, manner, and dress that even other local dragonborn had difficulty distinguishing them. Luckily for Indira, the princes were in the habit of painting their facial ridges and frills with rich local hues in the style of draconic runes – each in a different colour. The prince greeting Indira wore deep emerald runes signifying growth and richness on his head-crests, revealing that this was Levethix.
“Greetings, prince Levethix.” Indira put one foot forward, bent at the waist to bow low, spread her empty hands wide. “If I may, I have come to express my deep gratitude for your generous invitation and peerless hosting.”
“We are pleased to hear so. Do come in.” Prince Levethix held open the blue-and-copper tent flap and welcomed Indira with an outstretched arm, motioning toward the dug-out conversation pit at the center of the pavilion.
She ducked past him with a curtsy and an appreciative nod at his well-fitted white silk vest, six-wrapped copper sash belt, and creaseless harem pants. He wore no jewelry or ornaments – the quality of the clothing, polish of his scales, precision of pigment, and immaculately shaped claws were indication enough of his position.
The other two princes, Bilnox and Odexus, lounged in the pit, casual postures curiously calculated among the imported black sitting sand and plush cushions. Bilnox, in red dragon runes for strength and resolve, stoked the fire, while Odexus measured Indira with narrowed eyes, his blue runes indecipherable.
“My princes,” Indira greeted them, repeating her precise traditional bow. Odexus and Bilnox would have heard her at the entrance, but she repeated her customary statement. “I offer you my deep gratitude for your generous invitation and peerless hosting.” She straightened and smiled. “What a lovely oasis you’ve chosen for such a delicious and entertaining feast. I especially enjoyed your specification to leave all footwear at the gate.”
Bilnox chuckled, rough but a touch musical. “Odexus claims it puts us all on the same footing, both metaphorically and literally. I simply enjoy the feel of the sand.”
Prince Levethix fell gracefully into the sand and flashed pristine sharp teeth. “Sit with us.” She did, buried her toes in the fine black sand, warmed by the fire. Levethix raised a goblet. “Your performance was lovely and moving. Your voice boasts admirable power and control. Quite impressive, beyond the best-trained bards of Cupra.”
At risk of swooning, she leaned back, fingers sinking into the sand. “Such flattery! My gratefulness knows no -“
“We would offer you a boon,” Bilnox interrupted. He sat up, wrapped wiry arms around his knees. “As recognition and appreciation for your talent, you may ask us for any one thing you desire that is within our power to grant.”
Her gaze darted between the three princes. The tone of Bilnox’s voice – a measure of guilt? A dash of tension in Levethix’s eyes, a twitch of impatience in Odexus’s tail? Indira’s mouth went dry. Despite her practice at socializing, there was something here she could sense but not identify. A decision or conclusion had been reached, perhaps among the three princes.
To hide the gooseflesh in her skin, Indira crossed her arms and sat back. “Well, I…” She dared not inquire as to the thickening air in the pavilion. She avoided touching her lips, afraid to smudge the colour there. “I have always been curious about the Syfandr Post Office. How do letters manage to find me as I travel from place to place? If only I could move about so easily,” she joked with a high laugh she hoped did not come across as forced.
Odexus spoke for the first time. “I am afraid there is little to tell,” he said, deep and sultry. “It is simply magic performing as intended.”
“An older magic.” Bilnox jumped in. Indira found it strange for him to feel the kinder and more generous of the three, given his command of the trade consortium’s mercenary company. “The kind of magic wizards abhor for its lack of replicability, from before the academic-minded reduced magic to formulae on a page, mere words and gestures that can be performed rote by any fool with more time on his hands than imagination and wonder at the larger world.”
“Somewhat like your singing, I imagine,” Levethix chimed in, tone flat.
Bilnox flicked sand at Levethix. “His meaning is that your song is like the old magic, not a fool academic’s recitation.”
How old are the princes, Indira wondered, very nearly aloud. “Perhaps it is,” she said, keeping hesitation from her voice. “I am self-taught, not a member of a college or tower.”
“You continue to impress,” said Bilnox.
Something in the fire cracked and coals settled amid a heavy pause.
Levethix clapped his hands to his knees. “We appreciate your visit. Would you like a coffee to take with you?”
“The finest,” Bilnox insisted. “I shall prepare one for you. How do you take it?”
“Cane sugar, if you have it, please.”
“Of course, of course.”
Two pairs of eyes bored into Indira’s back. She stood at one side of the pavilion, hands held in front of her, waiting as Bilnox fiddled with a full-gold coffee set. He handed her a small cup of steaming hot coffee. As far as she could tell, the cup was pure gold. She shook her head and parted her lips to insist she couldn’t take it.
“Keep it, please,” Bilnox insisted as he placed a gentle hand on her back and guided her toward the tent flaps. “Consider it another small token of our gratitude.” He pulled a flap aside and motioned for her to go. “Our thanks, once more, for a beautiful performance.”
He let the flap fall behind her, and she stood under the magnificent display of the desert’s midnight sky, hoping not to scald her fingers on the golden cup.
How strange, Indira thought to herself as the tent settled behind her. She’d have to ask Bell about the princes’ odd behaviour. Under the condition that she not report it to SWNN, of course.
From behind her, a hiss of old draconic that sent a climate-inappropriate chill through her toes:
“This reflects poorly on us. The security lapse. An outsider within audible distance of a conversation about the Long Game, regardless of deficiency in the language.”
“Yes. We shall have to take steps to ensure that the Arbiter does not judge us. Execute the guards in the morning.”
Toes now numb in the still-warm sand, Indira slunk down the canyon, breath and pulse erratic as it occurred to her that she could not warn the guards without revealing to the princes that she’d understood their private conversation. The numbness spread to her fingers when she realized that it would not matter that she knew not what the Long Game was, nor had ever before heard the term. Mysterious as it may be, this Game could be her death.
—
Cupra’s border was long behind Indira when the first mercenary set upon her.
She’d hastened away from the princes’ feast without even a goodbye to Bell. Indira regretted the sudden departure, but not so much that she would risk her friend’s life through contact. In fact, Indira was certain she would have been killed that same night at the feast, had she not been there with Bell, who would either report to SWNN or whose own disappearance would be investigated by SWNN.
Several rivers flowed out of the Argents to the east, terminating in lakes dammed up for their fresh water by Cupra and Adamant. Indira followed these rivers, skirting between them at those points where they nearly touched, but did not.
Childhood training in safety for nobles was ethereal in Indira’s memory, slipping through her grasp at nearly every turn. All she could manage was: one, move quickly without appearing to move quickly; two, watch for tails without appearing to watch for tails; three, remain close to crowds and witnesses.
Along riverside roads through dry, not-quite-desert lands, Indira could generally manage, at best, two of the three. At the moment, she was alone on the riverside, between two larger caravans. While she was with them she hummed a faint but persistent melody, almost a droning, that helped her fade into the background like crickets or grasshoppers. The caravan she’d passed moved at too slow a pace to keep up with her paranoia; the group ahead drove too hard for her on foot. She kept to the open, the river at her side where no one could leap out at her.
She was short of breath no matter how often she rested – though she could not rest, at risk of her guilt catching up to her. She did her best to set aside the thought of the guards, people she had manipulated into their certain deaths. They would not even remember the cause of their own deaths! She’d obfuscated her visit from their memories so that they could not testify as to her presence, and in the process, her arrogance, her lack of caution would be their end. How could she be so thoughtless and impulsive? Of course the richest men in Syfandr would be cautious, overprotective, even –
Something sharp tore through the flesh of Indira’s upper arm. Shrieking more from panic than from pain, Indira spotted the crossbow bolt, fallen to the ground from lost momentum, wet with her blood and rolling toward the riverbank leaving a thick red trail on packed earth.
On pure instinct, clutching at her wound, Indira dove into the river. The current was modest but in her disorientation she was swept over, tumbling. A rock smashed into the back of her head, or perhaps her head onto a rock, and breath rushed from her lips, uncontrolled.
Something pulled at her waistband, hauled her from the water. Indira was hurled to the riverbank and rolled in the mud. She coughed water from her lungs, wiped hair and mud from her eyes and tried to squint at the shadow looming over her. For a brief moment, she saw the glint of metal flashing in the sun, and a cry of “NO!” tore from her throat, pitch oddly perfect.
A shriek of rending metal: the sword burst into fragments and dust, showering Indira with micro-blades, shredding her palms and forearms with a thousand cuts. The shadow stumbled back, disoriented.
Her voice. Indira’s voice shattered the sword.
It was enough for her to focus, to force the jolting of her lungs into rhythm, her gasps of pain into key. She climbed the scales in a meditative holding pattern, stalling for time, locking the shadow in place, desperate to get a grip on herself and find something to say, to ask.
As she blinked, the shadow resolved itself into a man pushing the idea of middle age as far as it could go, wearing travel-worn leathers and the badge of the Knights of Shame. A Knight. Indira knew them; the man would be desperate to regain the honour he’d forsworn. Desperate enough to accept an assassin’s contract.
Indira felt recovered enough to sing a proper spell. “Who sent you?” she asked, rising in pitch, inquisition in the notes of her voice as well as the grammar.
“The merchant princes of Cupra,” said the man. His voice was softer than Indira expected, controlled despite her spell. Perhaps he was a singer himself.
She couldn’t let that get to her. She lowered her tone an octave to force the man to do the same, to avoid the slightest hint of music from him. “Why have the princes sent you to kill me?” she sang.
“You heard something you shouldn’t have,” said the mercenary, his voice now a low growl. Better: Indira could avoid thinking about… “You heard something you shouldn’t have, and you must die, at any cost.”
At any cost. Indira’s fingers and toes went numb the same way they had that night at the oasis. “Have others been sent for me?” she sang.
The Knight nodded. “Open contract. Ten thousand gold pieces. Every assassin and mercenary in the region is coming for you. The Brass Company is coming for you.”
Indira gasped, then choked on her own tongue. Ten thousand gold was enough to buy into the noble class in any country on the continent, to secure a large self-sustaining estate and servants. Far worse, the Brass Company coming after her? The Brass Company always fulifilled its contracts. Always.
She held back tears of despair. Her song was still makeshift, a temporary hold, her grip waning as control of her breath threatened to slip away. Indira closed her eyes, forced herself into one of Bell’s breathing exercises. Her friend saving her again.
She wove her song deeper, her melody more complex and layered, yet more memorable. “Come with me,” she sang, a low and sultry seduction in her throat. “Come with me. Be my champion. Protect me, o Knight of Shame, from all those assassins and mercenaries who would fall upon me for profit. Come with me o Knight, and save me from the ravenous princes.”
Nausea threatened her voice like heaving ocean swells, and yet she controlled it. Controlled him. Threaded her song into his mind until he matched her rhythm, hammered the waves of her music into him until he would follow her like the tide followed the moon.
She’d never done this before, never sang a song that would last, take over a mind. Tears formed in her eyes. This wasn’t what her voice was for. What music was for. She meant to entertain, to cast her song-spells over an audience to see their wonder, their passion. She never enjoyed the control, she told herself, pushing away the memory of being on stage at the princes’ feast, the thrill of how she could make others feel according to her plans and whims. No, the control was secondary, well behind the joy of performance and praise. It pained her to take control of this Knight of Shame, Indira insisted to herself, regardless of her dire need, the great danger she faced from many blades.
Still, take control she did. She stuck her song in the man’s head, wove it into his core so that he’d always be humming it under his breath, always remember the worm in his ear. Indira, the worm.
She curled in on herself and cried in the mud as the Knight of Shame stood over her, no longer a shadow, but her shadow.
—
Traveling as a pair, Indira and her Knight slowed. Tagging along with a caravan was a risk; the unsavoury hired guards eyed her, a lone traveler with a bodyguard no one would miss. Still, staying close to the caravan kept assassins at bay – at least until the mercenaries banded together to overwhelm the caravan guards, shouting at each other about shares of the bounty. Her Knight’s blunt backup blade felled the first attacker, and the dead’s weaponry became the Knight’s. Indira conducted the Knight and the caravan defenders in her defense, her orchestra of violence.
Too much death. Half the caravan was either slaughtered in battle or trampled by panicking beasts of burden. Dry cracked mud on Indira’s feet was replaced by blood, then fresh blood-mud.
She stood over her Knight, the coating on her bare feet drying into a foul coating, still pristine-smooth in her frozen stance. Her Knight lay on the road with both legs smashed into gristle and pulp below the knee, victims of an enraged trihorn and the wagon it dragged behind.
Indira cried again, for she could not bear to put the Knight out of his numb, horrified state of shock. He deserved to die, she knew – he’d tried to kill her. Still, she couldn’t, could neither murder a helpless man nor show him mercy. All she could manage was to sing him a lullaby, send him to sleep and hope he would pass without pain.
Her heart and her song hardened as she marched toward the Argent mountains, hoping to escape to Chalybs and lose herself in the world’s biggest city. With her voice she convinced, cajoled, and coerced travelers to give up their boots, their provisions, their water, their warm clothes.
She was always at work, ever vigilant, humming a quiet song to dull the senses, to lull the reflexes, to distract and confuse the persistent mercenaries and bounty hunters incessantly accosting her. With every assassin her song drove to murder or suicide, her demeanour and her song hardened further, until she feared she would crack – or at least that her voice would crack, would fail.
Another morning, another hooded traveler on the road – another murderer-for-hire, seeking profit from her death? Indira was up late, the stress of her travel, alertness, and incessant song wearying her to the bone. With what remained of her strained and fraying voice, she teased the slim, lanky man’s arms up from his sides, to pull his cloak aside and reveal his weapons. There were none.
“What an impressive trick,” said the man, admiration in his voice. Moving slowly, ignoring her voice now, he flipped back his hood to reveal a thick beard, kind eyes, and a friendly smile. “That’s a rare kind of magic. May I ask how it works? If that’s all right with you.”
Indira frowned, threw herself into her song. “Lay down as the reeds under a great snake’s passage,” she sang.
He did not. Something flickered, not him, but around him. And in fact he continued to approach, and with each step, concern grew in his expression. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Would you like help?”
“How do I know – ” She coughed, her throat dry and sore. “How can I trust you? How do I know you’re not just another hired killer?”
Another flicker, a sense that there was something bigger behind his narrow frame. The man frowned deep, at her situation, not at the shimmer around him. “Is someone trying to kill you?” he asked, and he halted his advance – though not at Indira’s urging.
“Yes,” she said, and she couldn’t hold back one heavy sob.
“I’m just a traveler. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He sat down in the road, palms at his sides and legs tucked so it would be impossible to stand quickly. “I’m just heading east, to…” He paused. “I’m on a research expedition.” Repeating himself, quiet and gentle: “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Somehow, impossibly, Indira believed him. She crumpled into the long grass beside the road, nicking herself on a thorn, right through the thick bandages around her forearms and hands. She buried her face in the sleeves of the tunic she’d stolen and cried in silence, ashamed to be grateful for the opportunity to rest her voice a little longer while the traveler would draw attention to himself and away from her.
Awkward was the best word for the traveler. Indira only fully let herself go for a few moments, then, still crying but alert again, she watched him. The flicker resolved, a bending of light around the traveler, some sort of spell disrupted by Indira’s song, meant to hide the true strength of the broad, powerful frame made to look scrawny by magic. Yet she felt somehow that the disguise was not malicious, not meant for deception but for his own protection.
Wiping her eyes, snorting wet and thick, Indira tried to think strategically. Could this traveler be her new protector? She couldn’t control him the way she’d done with the Knight of Shame. She wanted to ask for his help, but instead her voice cracked and what came out was: “I’m just a singer, why is this happening to me?”
The traveler sat there on the road, leaned toward her, but didn’t move. “What’s happening to you?” he asked, gently.
Indira hadn’t spoken to anyone since it began, and she couldn’t help herself. It all spilled out of her between sobs and unsteady breaths. “I sang for the p-princes of Cupra, they invited me to their f-feast. It was lovely, the oasis was so – everything was – the guests, they wanted me to – I was going to be famous, they… I went to thank the princes and m-maybe get them to tell me about their post office… I overheard something, something about the Long Game, and they killed the guards, all they did was let me in and they killed them, and now there are mercenaries and bounty hunters and assassins and I’m just a singer but I killed them and I can’t deal with this I can’t do this I can’t -“
She didn’t know when it happened but he was holding her hand. His grip was strong, warm, kind. “Why don’t you stand up, get out of the mud and the thorns,” he suggested, with an upward pressure on her hand that suggested but didn’t force a lift.
Indira allowed it, stood, let him lead her out of the long grass and back to the side of the road. She was a mess. What remained of her warm-weather silks were torn and stained. She wore roughshod boots, cloak, and pack, all oversized and mismatched. She’d found no suitable material to replace the bandages on her arms and hands; they smelled of the beginnings of blood-rot, warm and rank. Unwilling to risk the vulnerability, she hadn’t properly bathed since her departure from the oasis, had barely allowed herself a dip in the river.
Yet this man, this random traveler, did his best to act as though he did not notice. Indira’s training screamed for her to fight, to run, to hide; a strong man alone with a vulnerable, exhausted woman was far too great a risk, whether he knew her status or not, especially when he was aware of and unaffected by her spell-songs. Still, he’d been the first traveler to show her kindness coupled with respect of her space and vulnerability. She badly wanted to trust him, to ignore the part of her that was terrified.
“Let’s keep walking,” said the traveler. “Maybe find a safe place to rest. An inn, if there is one.”
An inn. Indira could lull the innkeeper into giving her a room, to forget her. She could be safe for a brief time, recover enough to move on without this traveler at her side, without the risk of this stranger she tried to remind herself not to trust, with little success.
How will I face my mother? Indira thought. I’m a murderer. She must have said it aloud; the traveler looked down, soft concern in the small wrinkles of his eyes. “I had no choice,” she said aloud, to him, to herself, to her mother. Did she believe it? Or was she repeating her father, the day her uncles found out what he’d done to his own family?
The traveler straightened, filled his chest with a deep, sonorous breath. He held an arm out, stepped around Indira.
“Sir, please step aside. Our contract is for the singer Indira, not for you – though we shall not hesitate, should you interfere.”
A sharp bend in the road, curving round a looming cracked rock. Long grasses on either side, whispering in the breeze. A dragonborn, two more behind them all clad in chainmail and plate, spears and shields, the metal gleaming, plated brass.
The Brass Company.
Indira sang, a pure tone at the top of her register – or she tried. What came out was a dry, cracked squeak. She clutched at her overworked throat, hoarse from days of humming, sore from crying.
The traveler held out one hand, and with a stronger, steadier voice than Indira could muster, he said to the mercenaries: “I don’t want to fight. I understand you’re being paid to kill her, but maybe we can come to another arrangement.”
The Company leader shook their head, tapped a brass-plated helmet. “Can’t hear you. Ear plugs. You have ten seconds to step aside, or we’ll kill you too.” They tapped their spear twice, hard, on the packed-earth road. “Ten.”
They knew about her. They knew her spell-song, had taken precautions.
“Nine.”
She couldn’t – her song wouldn’t –
“Eight.”
The traveler looked around, behind, away from the Company leader. Why would –
“Seven.”
Gods, there were more of them. From out of the grass, all in matching brass chainmail and plate, three holding crossbows.
“Six.”
She couldn’t, there was no way, she couldn’t –
“Five.”
No. Indira would survive. She’d survived her father. She would survive this too. She’d be the one to break the Brass Company’s perfect record.
“Four.”
She whispered to the traveler: “Cast a spell to pull all nearby wax toward us.”
“Three.”
He looked down at her, eyes wide.
“Two.”
The traveler nodded.
“One.”
With a potent breath the traveler flexed, elbows out, fists in. Brass Company soldiers cried out as wax pelted their helmets from the inside, ripped from their ears, twin plinks from each helmet.
Indira sang.
A dirge, a song of death and mourning. The dirge she sang to her father the day Indira finally accepted he could never be what she needed from him. The first time she’d ever woven magic into her voice, wrested control of another person’s emotions with a spell rather than simple music.
The first time she’d killed, the time she’d wished would be the last, and had been until she’d heard the princes speak of the Long Game.
In her song she mourned the life she wished she had. Through her song Indira finally allowed herself to realize that she’d never wanted to be a famous singer, that the joy and belonging it brought her were both true and a makeshift replacement for the joy and belonging she’d wished from her family, from her father.
She wove her loss into her song, inflicted it upon the Brass Company.
An impact in her stomach, a hot wet thud sending her stumbling into the traveler, clutching at his cloak, all feeling in her legs suddenly vanished. And yet she sang. The pain she worked into her spell-song, and the Brass Company, so disciplined they had merely stumbled at her first onslaught, spasmed and cried out at her second wave.
The traveler’s fists flew, shockwaves hurling soldiers into grass flattened in waves by the power of a strange magic Indira did not know, a magic without words nor materials nor focusing implement. And still the Company’s armour dented and deformed, shields and spears shattered.
Indira locked her hands around the traveler’s cloak, holding upright with all her strength, her knees on the road though she could not feel them. Another impact, this one higher, and half her breath was gone, a choking wetness in her throat. Still she sang, mourning now for someone else, casualty of this roadside scuffle, surely not herself, but… Yes, for herself. She was dying, she felt the certainty, the numbness, darkness creeping in from the corner of her eye as though night snuck up behind her, ready to embrace her. She sent it to the Brass Company instead, heard their choking fear, the impact of their armour in the dirt. All save one, the dragonborn, a silhouette holding a spear and crossbow.
She could not hold on to the traveler’s cloak. Indira felt herself sliding down, crumpling over the legs she could not feel, two painful sharp points keeping her back from the road. “Why?” she asked as the pain of those two points dulled and faded. “I don’t understand.”
The traveler held her, his eyes and face still kind behind the splatter of blood and dust. “I’m sorry,” he might have said, though her ears rang with the most beautiful flat tone.
“Why did I need to -” she coughed, something thick and hot and wet spilling from her lips as the darkness overtook her. “What is the Long Game?”
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