Beloved Zann,

I went down to Kayar’s to see if there was anyone there who might know where Wande was. Or, really, to see if Kayar’s was still there. I had to duck into an alley to let a patrol go by, but they took no notice of me.

Kayar’s was still there, although the front wall had scorch marks all over it. I went in. People were in here, eating and drinking, but not in a relaxed or celebratory way. They were all frightened. A couple of families sat in the back corner, their children sleeping on their laps, bags at their feet.

Oror was behind the bar. I greeted him. He said nothing.

“I’m looking for Wande,” I told him. “Have you seen her in here recently?”

He still didn’t say anything.

“Oror? I really need–“

“I haven’t seen anybody,” he said.

So he wasn’t going to tell me anything. Probably had a good reason for it. I let it go, and looked around again. None of Quoon, Ostavon, or Fafafa was here either. But I was hungry. I still hadn’t had a full meal since waking up, although there had been several small ones.

“Sorry,” I said. “Could I just get a cheese-fry? I–“

“We’re out of food,” he said, as he collected a tray of food from the kitchen and brought it out to some other people. “Try somewheres else.”

I couldn’t tell what I had done wrong, but I felt guilty for it all the same. I gave the families at the back a couple of silver cups each and left Kayar’s.

Next I tried Ostavon’s roost. But I could see that the building had been burned out, probably some days ago. From there I went to Quoon’s. Quoon’s building was still there, but when I went up to his roost, the door was standing open and the place was empty.

I didn’t have the heart to try Fafafa’s roost.

But I wasn’t sure what to do next.

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

Srix wasn’t around.

I had told Candur that I would think about his problem, but I didn’t. I worried about Wande and Jhus. And I worried about them harder everytime I saw a new thing. The longcoach back to the city was an hour late, and when it arrived it had broken windows and was lurching on one wheel. Near the coach stop, there was a round burnt patch of grass with some miscellaneous dark objects in it.

All I knew about what was happening in Crideon was what Tharus had told me. And he obviously hadn’t seen it for himself. He’s a giant anteater.

On the way into town we passed a farmhouse I remembered seeing every other time I had made this trip. Except now it had been burned down. I saw a dog slinking behind the charred remnants.

A mile later, we passed a gibbet that definitely hadn’t been there before. There were two laurans hanging on it.

I had my reasons for being a Rosolla Guard, for working at the palace. They weren’t worth Wande’s life. And if it was as simple as trading one for the other, I would know what to do. Maybe she and Jhus would be home when I got there.

The longcoach was almost full. The other passengers were either soldiers, who looked young and confident and stupid, or people, who looked anxious. They had a lot to look anxious about. There were more burned-out houses and buildings. More dead people. We got stopped twice by patrols in the road. One patrol was a group of masked fellows with farmhooks and the other one was soldiers in an unfamiliar uniform. Lord Clear’s men, I guessed.

It was even worse when we got into the city. We could hear explosions in the distance, and the damage was everywhere. Almost everywhere. When we passed through a richer neighbourhood, that part still looked very nice. But everywhere else. The longcoach didn’t go all the way to Blackfloors Square, but let us out in a smaller square some blocks away. I guess Blackfloors Square was too dangerous.

I made my way to our roost. I had my baton with me, that Srix had been teaching me to use. I didn’t plan on cracking anybody’s head with it, but just the sight of it might make me a little safer.

When I got to our building, it seemed intact. That was one of my worries put to rest. But I climbed the stairs to our floor, and saw a note tacked on the door. It was a message to Wande that I was waking up. So she hadn’t even seen the message? Where was she?

I went in. They had gone.

I knew right away that they had gone. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. The air seemed warm and unbreathed in just that way. I checked the sleeping rooms, and some of their things, that they would use every day, weren’t there. So they had gone on their own.

There was a place in the kitchen where Wande would leave notes for me, a gap under the cold bin. It wasn’t an obvious place to hide something. I checked there. No note.

Where were they?

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

Ambe’s dim chambers underneath the temple were covered with twisted roots, but not as damp as they should have been. On a shelf near where I was lying, a small statue of a frog wearing a jaunty cap breathed out warm dry air, while the rum bottle it was holding slowly filled with water.

I said to Candur, “Why would we have to do what Lord Clear says? He can give us all the orders he wants. We’ll just ignore him.”

He shook his head. “The oath we swore as Rosolla Guards is magically binding. If he commands us we may be compelled to obey.”

I thought about it. “What have you and Ambe already tried?”

He counted them off on his fingers. “Deafness; doesn’t work for written orders. Plus we really do need to be able to hear things. Not understanding the language; couldn’t do without that either. Changing the name of the Guard to something else. We thought about just leaving. Nobody liked that one. Magical shields. Charms. Things like that.”

That covered the obvious things. I pulled the slabs of moss off my body and sat up. I rubbed my face and head. “Does the oath force us to obey you, while you obey Lord Clear, or does it force all of us to obey Lord Clear?”

“The second one.”

I nodded slowly. I had imagined Candur giving up his spot as Captain of the Guard to me, because I had never taken the oath. But if they all had to obey Clear anyway, it wouldn’t make any difference. “All right,” I said. “I’ll give it some thought. But I have to find Wande and her daughter. They need to know that I’m well and I need to know that they are. Where’s Srix?”

“Probably in the main guardroom. Go and change your clothes,” he said, nodding at the nightshirt I was wearing, “you’ll see him there. The uniform you were wearing in that pit was unsalvageable, and your sword had somehow been transformed into some kind of baton.”

“Ay. That happens to me a lot.” I stood up and felt… not strong, but strong enough. “Do you want to go to sleep in this bed? Nobody will look for you here, and it might be a good idea if you were hard to find.”

Candur yawned. “I’ve heard worse ideas. Good luck finding your woman.”

Love,

Ybel

Most beloved Zann,

Tharus told me about Lord Clear’s plan to sit in the ruins of Cas Crid and crown himself king. I didn’t really understand the details. I think Ambe had explained it to him and he left out some important parts. But the idea was that if he, Clear, did it right, he would be the real king in some magical way, and then he’d have power over the people of Crideon.

I asked about Wande. Tharus said that she had actually come all the way out here looking for me. This was before he found me. They sent a message to her when I had been found, but the messenger couldn’t find her. That was strange, and worrying.

I had had other visitors while I was unconscious: Candur, Ellewen, Chath, Srix. Ambe told them that I’d need about a swing to recover enough to do any guarding or anything. I didn’t know how much of the swing I’d slept through.

Ambe returned. She gave me a punch on the arm and a small bowl of broth and then went back to work. I think she didn’t want to burden me with troubles. I told her I could handle more than a dish of soup and she asked me if I could handle cleaning up my puke.

Candur also returned. Ambe didn’t want to let him in, but he shouted her down and sat down on the edge of my bed.

“Sir,” I said. “Pardon me for not standing to attention.”

“Don’t do that,” he said. “We’ve got larger problems.”

“Lord Clear? Tharus has been telling me about what he’s done.”

“He hasn’t told you the worst part. I only just found out.”

“What’s the worst part?” I asked.

“Our oaths as Rosolla Guards may bind us to Lord Clear. We may have to go to Cas Crid and work for him. Unless you can scheme some way out of it.”

Love,

Ybel

Most beloved Zann,

Lord Clear hadn’t given up. He couldn’t use the Beast of Crideon to hunt down any rebels, but he had other ideas in mind.

The first thing he did was to release a flock of prosecution grouse. These were some medium-sized pink birds who would fly around the city until they found someone who was guilty of something. The bird would fly around their head, and squawk, and follow them home, until one of Lord Clear’s squads of greenfolk soldiers came along and took the person away.

Well, of course, there are two big problems with this plan. First, Crideon is a relatively law-respecting city, but even so, there are thousands of people around who are guilty of something. The birds didn’t get ten feet out of their traveling cotes before they were harassing some poor street vendor or truant kid. And second, there are plenty of people here who know what a grouse tastes like when you season and roast it properly, and were eager to demonstrate their knowledge.

So that didn’t work. Neither did the mirror puppets, the soup mice, the sauntering traps, or the fart magistrates. But as little success as he was having, Lord Clear was no fool. He had been studying the laws of Crideon, and he had found something that really seemed like a winner to him…

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

I don’t remember waking up. I do remember some muttering about ants, and some pain under my arms. And then, a while later, I was awake, and I had been awake for some time.

When I started thinking, I realized that I was in some chamber in Ambe’s lair. I was on a pallet on the floor and there was moss on my neck and chest. It was dark. Tharus was there, dangling from a fat rope that was swagged across the chamber.

“You’ve been down for a while,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Weak,” I said weakly and scratchily. “And scratchy.”

“Well, you’ve got a right to. You know how long you were down in that hole?”

“Couldn’t tell.”

“It was about three days. Much longer and thirst would have finished you. Did you try drinking your own piss? I know some fellows try that when they don’t have water.”

“No. Doesn’t work. Learned in army.”

“Anyway. We couldn’t find you, and I was the only one they could spare to really search. So Ambe gave me a little magic fan. Helped my nose search out older smells. I was all over the palace trying to find your trail. My advantage was I could ignore all the usual places you’d go, because we already knew you weren’t there. Finally I got a whiff of you down below Comet Halls, and then it was easy. You smelled pretty ripe.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome. The trouble was hauling you up out of there. I could climb up and down pretty good, but I couldn’t carry you while I did it. So I got some rope and tied it around your chest and pulled you up that way.”

“Thanks for saving me. This moss for?”

Tharus shrugged, which looked unnatural for his anteater shoulders. “I think it’s putting water back into your body. I don’t know why you can’t just drink it. Anyway, there’s water next to you if you want. Go slow, you don’t want to puke.”

I looked. There was a pitcher of water and a mug. I wanted to drain the whole thing, but I sipped obediently. It felt wonderful. I cleared my throat. “Is there food?”

“Probably. Ambe will be back soon. We’re all pretty busy around here. Even me.”

I nodded. “What’s happening? What has Lord Clear been doing?”

He shrugged again. “A little of everything. He hasn’t been back to the palace, which I appreciate. Right now I think he’s in the ruins of Cas Crid calling himself the King of Crideon.”

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

My vision of myself in Lady Lightcandle’s scullery was the last thing that happened before I became delirious.

After that, I only remember despair. I knew enough to know that there was nothing I could do to save myself, and that terrible things were happening elsewhere. For some reason I kept imagining Jhusdhe’s face. She was as disapproving as ever, but not afraid or alarmed about anything. I asked her for help but she ignored it.

And I heard the scritching of the rats getting louder.

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

This is the vision I had, lying on the floor of the oubliette, dying of thirst in the dark. Maybe I’ll tear this page out later; it could get me killed if anyone saw it. But I know I have to write it down for you now.

My mind was trying to find anything to fill the darkness, to make sense of the lack of everything around me. All was stone and pain and need and black. I was thinking of my childhood, of you, of Wande, but it was all gone as quickly as I could conceive of it.

And then it all went away, and I was back in the great house of Lady Lightcandle. I hadn’t known her name until now. I worked as a servant in her manor during the Great Nap. I knew I had, but I only remembered a few details, and never so clearly as this. The Lady herself was tall for a lauran, and beautiful, which they all are, and stately, which only some of them are. I worked in the kitchen, mostly scrubbing pots. I can’t imagine I liked it, but it was the Great Nap: none of us were paying enough attention to know whether we liked anything or not. I remember the kitchen was a sunny, clean place with flowers at the windows. It was a lauran house; even the scullery was nice.

But this particular day there were important visitors. I never found out who they were, but thinking back on it, it must have been one of the Valnelatar family. I can’t imagine the house going to such trouble for anyone else. The cooks were running all over the place preparing their fanciest dishes. The flow of pots through my scullery increased to the point where I could hardly keep up with it. And I overheard one of the lauran servants saying something about “permission to make the Sauce”.

I didn’t know what it was at the time. I still don’t know all that much about it. But I could tell he was saying something important, and even though it was the Great Nap, I was curious.

That evening, the two senior cooks, both lauran, shooed everyone else out of the kitchen. I could hear them murmuring to each other as they prepared this special brew. It seemed very delicate. I suppose, from where I was, I had the perfect place to eavesdrop from, but if I learned any details of how the Sauce was made, I’ve forgotten it. A servant called from outside the kitchen, “Is it ready? The mushrooms are being served!” The cooks couldn’t really go any faster, but I could tell that they were working urgently. I could smell the spices. Ginger, or an ingredient much like it, and then something earthy, and a third thing that I couldn’t actually smell but that my nose knew was present. I wanted some.

I know now that the Sauce is the highest form of lauran magic, that it’s the summary of the highest potential of their people, expressed in the form of food. It is only ever to be made in small amounts, and is only meant for the delectation of the royal family and their chosen intimates. The recipe is a secret only revealed to a few, and those few can be killed out of hand if they pass it on to others. It is certainly not for humans. I heard a story once of two humans who were speculating about the Sauce, and one said he’d like to try pouring some on his skillet cakes, and a lauran overheard them. Killed them both for daring to aspire so high.

Anyway, one of the cooks finally said, “There! Perfect!” and the other one fetched a tray. I leaned over my basin so I could peer through the doorway at them without looking like that’s what I was doing. The first cook balanced a small silver sauce dish in the center of an ornate tray, and put a long spoon in it. The second cook said, “I’ll clear the way!” and bustled out of the kitchen. The first cook followed, carefully, but caught her foot on the edge of the mat and stumbled a little. The long spoon clattered to the floor. “Piss from the stars!” she said, put the tray down delicately, and got a clean spoon. She flung the first spoon into a water-filled basin, with all the other saucepans they had used, retrieved the tray, and hurried out.

The kitchen was empty. I slipped in and picked up the basin of dirty pots that had been used for preparing the Sauce. It was my job! There was no trace of the Sauce itself in any of the pots or sauciers or cocottes. The cooks had been too thorough about rinsing them. But I could see the long spoon in one of those pots, leaning against the side.

It had a thick red drop halfway up the handle, above the waterline. A dark red drop.

I didn’t hesitate. I caught the drop up on a fingertip and put it in my mouth.

And the world opened all around me.

It tasted like everything. Everything good, bad, strange, and familiar. I don’t mean it wasn’t a good taste; it was wonderful. But all the bad tastes were in it too, and that was fine, because they weren’t bad anymore. It tasted like the hottest fires and the most soothing cool water, the sweetest delicacies and the richest broths. And the taste was only the start of it, the door that the Sauce opened into my mind.

Everything I looked at showed me hourglasses and spirals and rainbows, salty and smooth, fragrant and melodic. I could hear the colours and feel the flavours. I could see the stars that were blocked by clouds and the clouds that were blocked by stars. The gods themselves were skeletons of numbers, clad in sugar; the earth was a riot of crystal and lust; time itself a laughing waterfall of lambs and war and textures.

But the edges of my perceptions were ragged. All that was before me was disintegrating in my eyes and ears. I could see myself, the cluster of eyes and arms and knives and leaves that made me Ybel. And I could see the Sauce, and that I was trying to touch the Sauce and it was trying to touch me. And we were touching, in some places. But there were other parts of me that could never touch it. Parts of me that just weren’t right, or at least they didn’t fit right, or shone with the wrong light. And I knew I could never truly, fully, experience the Sauce unless I changed. Became a different person.

I came back to myself. I was, again, a half-asleep servant in Lady Lightcandle’s scullery. I looked for another trace of the Sauce among the pots and pans. Nothing.

I don’t remember anything about how I came to leave Lady Lightcandle’s service. I know that I did change myself, not long after that. (I’m still changing, I suppose.) I don’t know all the details about that time. And eventually I found myself in the Wallentorp army and the Great Nap ended.

And now I need to taste the Sauce again. I went to Crideon because it was closest to the Valnelatars’ palace. And I accepted Candur’s offer of a place in the Rosolla Guard to get into the palace. I’m a patient man. I’m ready for the experience, now, and I just have to find a way to do it. It could take a very long time. But I can do it.

Or, at least, I could do it if I wasn’t dying in an oubliette less than half a mile from the Valnelatars’ High Kitchen.

Love,

Ybel

My dearest Zann,

I just spent a couple of hours trying to throw my boot up the hole of this oubliette. It didn’t work. I can’t see well enough to know whether I just can’t throw it that far, or if the passage has a kink to it that’s blocking my throw.

I’m hungry and thirsty. I’ve heard rats in the distance, but none right in my chamber. If I can lure them in here, that’s a potential food source if I can bring myself to kill one and eat it raw. There were times in my life when I was rough enough to do that, but I don’t know if I can now. I’ve been trying to suck some water out of the trickles in the rock walls, but it’s disgusting and it doesn’t work. I don’t think I got more than a few drops.

Sleep was difficult. No matter how I tried to arrange myself, I was still lying on or against bumpy rocks. At times I couldn’t tell whether I was waking or sleeping. They looked the same and felt the same.

What was Lord Clear doing while I was down here? I didn’t imagine that he’d just give up after I spoiled his first plan. He must have a thousand ideas for crushing the people of Crideon. Who would stop him?

When you’re in the dark for that long and you’re hurt and sleepy and thirsty and troubled, you start to see things. Your mind tells you you’re seeing things in the darkness that aren’t there. What I saw was Lord Clear stalking down Council Street, a terrible sword in each hand. All of the people on the street, running from him, were cut down for him to step over. Then Ran threw a rock at his head. It cut his cheek, and Lord Clear stabbed him in the heart. Jornay shouted and charged at him, and Clear opened his throat while looking in another direction. I couldn’t stop seeing it. It was everywhere I looked, even when I closed my eyes.

I felt like I had to do something. But I couldn’t get out. I needed help. Wasn’t anyone looking for me? They must be. I called out again, “Hoy!” but it came out as a quiet croak. I grabbed the coin around my neck and shouted with all the strength I could summon, “Hoy!”

But there was no answer.

And then I really started to see things.

Love,

Ybel

Most cherished Zann,

I was crouching in the dark, feeling very sorry for myself, and I started thinking about the border-bridge piece Ellewen had been fidgeting with.

Where had he gotten it?

He didn’t keep the border-bridge set at the Public Bureau. It was in his little room nearby. In a carved case on his table. He wouldn’t take just one piece with him out of the room. And he didn’t take the whole set out. So how did the piece come to be in his hand?

Also.

The specific piece was the rear curtainwall. It was a strictly defensive piece, and one of the less important ones. It was a piece that you don’t bother playing unless your position in the game is quite safe.

I thought about this for a long time.

I thought about how subtle Ellewen could be, and about how the two of us spoke when we would talk together.

In the end, I decided that it might be wishful thinking, but probably he had used a tiny amount of lauran glamour, enough to trick my eyes but not Lord Clear’s, to make me think I saw the gamepiece in his hands, and he drew my attention to it, and he was trying to tell me that I was safe. I cried again, for relief, but also from frustration, because obviously I wasn’t safe. Ellewen had been wrong.

I called up through the open pit. “Hoy! Is anyone there? Hoy!”

I tried again, a couple of minutes later.

And some hours later.

I was starting to get thirsty.

Earlier, I had thought that there was no light coming in from above. Now that my eyes were more used to the darkness, I could see that that wasn’t quite true. There was a little bit of light. I could see a round circle of grey above me. Very dim. I could see it, but I couldn’t see anything by its light. I didn’t cast any shadow in it.

My leg hurt.

The skeleton, or skeletons, on the floor… how long have they been here? The palace was only a few years old. But some of the walls and doors down on this level looked like they were centuries old. Did the greenfolk build the palace, or just bring one here that had already been built? There sure hadn’t been any dungeons in these hills for them to build the palace above.

I couldn’t count on anyone coming down to this part of the palace. I needed to make a plan.

Love,

Ybel