Fire & Bone — Chapter III

Fishbrook was already awake when they left the Scarlet Wizard. The city smelled of wet boards, cooking fat, river mud, and cattle. Especially cattle. The scent came from the northern streets in warm, heavy waves that made Apple wrinkle his nose and consider climbing onto Halen’s shoulder simply to put more distance between himself and the ground.

He did not. The fresh cuts on his forearm, cheek, and thigh pulled when he climbed, but none gave him an excuse, and Sebastian had become intolerable about excuses. Morning traffic flowed toward the feedlots. Drovers in stained coats walked beside merchants with clean boots and worried faces. Laborers carried coils of rope, hooked poles, buckets, and sacks of feed. Somewhere ahead, beyond the tiled roofs and leaning signs, hundreds of cattle shifted behind warded fences.

Apple could hear them. Lowing. Hooves against packed earth. The occasional hard crack of horn against rail. And beneath it all, bells. Not the alarm bells. Not yet. Small handbells from a stall opening for business, a brass chime above a doorway, someone testing a harness farther down the street. Each sound made Apple’s ears twitch. The music was supposed to begin at nine. The party stopped where the road divided. One branch turned toward the Green Glass Society. The other led deeper into the stockyard district. “We speak to the naturalists,” Wyn said. Sebastian adjusted the cuff of his coat as if they were entering a court instead of a stockyard, which Apple considered a dishonest use of clothing. “We tell the naturalists what is about to happen,” Sebastian said. “Then they help us stop it.” Wyn looked at him. “That is not the same as speaking to them.” “It is speaking with direction.” “It is ordering.” Sebastian smiled. “You understand me perfectly.” Halen looked north. People still noticed him. Some stared at the glowing seams in his stone- veined skin and then looked away too quickly. Others whispered without bothering to lower their voices. Fishbrook remembered Emberkin. It remembered Glarus. It had not decided whether Halen was a warning or the thing being warned about.

He stood straight, but the sealed wound in his side still burned brighter than the surrounding seams. One broad hand settled near it whenever he thought no one was looking.

“Apple and I will find Pipren,” Halen said. “And then?” Apple asked. “We convince him.” “Again?” “More gently than Sebastian suggested.” Wyn’s mouth moved at one corner. Sebastian pointed toward the Green Glass Society. “Nine.” “Yes,” Wyn said. “That remains how time works.” They separated. Apple watched Wyn and Sebastian disappear into the morning crowd, then followed Halen toward the Roaming Harlot. Above them, a bell rang once. Apple looked up. Only a shop opening. He did not like how relieved that made him feel.

– • • The Green Glass Society smelled of clipped herbs, clean glass, animal bedding, and the faint mineral sharpness left behind by active magic.

Wyn preferred it to the stockyards. The preference lasted until Sebastian began talking. Zabba met them inside. The naturalist had two other members of the Society with him and a third standing beside a worktable covered in notes, stoppered jars, and the items Wyn had brought for examination.

“The creatures should be catalogued before anyone decides to kill them,” he said. “The creatures are not our immediate problem,” Sebastian said. Mavren’s eyes moved from Berrit to him. “They were when you entered.” “There are hundreds of cattle in three yards about to be driven mad by music.” Isca said, “That is a sentence requiring evidence.” “We have evidence.” “Then begin with it.” Sebastian began with Hesta Brin, the debt Varin had purchased, and the additional cattle brought into Fishbrook under local markings. He explained the musicians, the bells, and Three Gates Home. He did not make the account gentler for people who might disagree with him.

Wyn supplied what Sebastian omitted. Pipren had been hired to play in the morning. His bells had been wrapped so they made no sound when struck the night before. The cattle had been placed across multiple yards. Hesta had delayed returning until the afternoon.

“Why?” Mavren asked. Sebastian looked at Wyn. “Because he paid her,” Wyn said. Mavren looked back at Sebastian. “To prevent her from bringing in the last cattle,” Sebastian said. “And from being here when we question her,” Isca said. “She had already answered our questions.” “People sometimes remember more when a city is about to be trampled.” Sebastian drew breath. Wyn spoke before he could use it. “We have less than half an hour.” That settled the room more effectively than Sebastian had. Berrit set down the tongs. “What do you believe the music will do?” “I do not know,” Wyn said. “Enchantment?” “Perhaps. Compulsion. A keyed response. The bells may be a focus, or the song may carry a pattern.” “Can you counter it?” Mavren asked. Wyn looked at the instruments, jars, and careful notes surrounding him. He disliked giving uncertain answers in rooms built for certainty. “Not without seeing what it is.” Sebastian said, “Then we find a musician and make him play.” Isca stared at him. “Beside cattle.” “A small number.” “How reassuring.” “You asked for evidence.” “I did not ask to become it.” Mavren unfolded her arms. “Isca, go with them.” Isca’s expression did not change, but the silence did. “Observe only,” Mavren continued. “If there is a conditioned response, I want to know the trigger and whether it persists after the music stops. Do not let him turn a test into a disaster.” She meant Sebastian. Everyone knew she meant Sebastian. Sebastian smiled as if she had paid him a compliment. Wyn glanced at the clock fixed above the inner door. Eight-thirty. Thirty minutes before the music began. Less, if any of the musicians were early. Berrit removed his apron and reached for his coat. “I will check the Northern Yard,” he said. Mavren nodded. “I will take Drover’s Yard.” “We need witnesses,” Sebastian said. Isca collected a leather field case. “You have spent the last ten minutes ensuring that no one here wants to agree with you.” Wyn opened the door for her. “He considers that a form of leadership.” “It has worked before,” Sebastian said. “So has fire,” Wyn replied. “That does not make it polite.” They hurried toward the yards.

– • • Pipren ate breakfast as if no one had threatened to break his fingers the night before. Apple watched him through the front window of the Roaming Harlot. The musician sat alone with bread, eggs, and a cup he refilled twice. His multicolored cloak hung over the chair behind him. The hammered dulcimer rested in its case against the wall.

“Or empty cases.” “Then he carries emptiness with great care.” At eight-forty, Pipren wiped his mouth, gathered his instruments, and came outside. He saw Halen. His feet slowed. Then he saw Apple. They slowed more. “Morning,” Pipren said. “It is,” Apple replied. Pipren shifted the dulcimer case higher under one arm. “I have a performance.” “That is why we are here,” Halen said. “I was paid.” “People may die.” “People say that about every crowd near cattle.” “Do they usually hire bad musicians to improve the odds?” Apple asked. Pipren looked at him. Apple looked back. The musician resumed walking. Halen matched him. Apple moved on the other side, studying the scroll cases. “Do you know what the song will do?” Halen asked. “Direct the herd. That was the claim.” “You believed it?” “I believed the first half of the payment.” “And the second?” Apple asked. Pipren’s jaw tightened. There it was. Not loyalty. Not courage. Arithmetic. They were nearing the turn for Drover’s Yard. The crowd had thickened. Pipren looked ahead, then at Halen, then down at the instruments occupying both hands. One scroll case slipped from beneath his arm. It struck the street and rolled against Apple’s foot. Pipren did not look down. Another case fell. “Damn,” he said loudly. “Someone stole my music.” Apple stared at him. Pipren stared straight ahead with the fixed expression of a man attempting to be innocent before the crime had occurred. Apple collected both cases. Shadow folded around him. He did not know exactly how he did it. A little subtle magic, perhaps, and a great deal of knowing where not to be seen. He only knew that when he needed speed and darkness offered him a path, his body understood before his thoughts did.

The street vanished. He stepped out again in the narrow darkness between two buildings, the music under one arm and the smell of old rainwater in his nose. From the road, Halen’s voice carried through the crowd. “May the Shaper’s Blessing be upon you.” Pipren said something Apple could not hear. Halen joined him a moment later. “Did he believe that?” Apple asked. “No.” “Good.” Apple opened the first case. Music covered the parchment in ordinary black notation. Three Gates Home. He opened the second. The same song. “He could still play from memory,” Apple said. “Will he?” Apple listened. Beyond the alley, Pipren was walking away from Drover’s Yard. “No.” Nothing happened at Drover’s Yard.

– • • The bard at the Western Yard gave his name as Derrin Salk. He had a bell tree. Six brass bells hung from a curved frame, each a different size, polished brightly enough to catch the morning light. The man standing beside them wore a green sash and the eager expression of someone who had been paid to be noticed.

Wyn felt no magic from the bells.

Sebastian looked at the bard. “Play for them.” The man blinked. “Now?” Sebastian placed coins into his palm. The bard looked at the money, then at the cattle. “Now,” he agreed. Isca rose. “If they move, you stop.” “They are cows.” “If they move together, you stop.” Sebastian stepped between her and the pen. “I can see around you,” she said. “That is not why I am here.” The bard lifted his beater. The first notes were simple. A drover’s tune. Repetitive, steady, built to carry across a yard without demanding attention. Wyn opened his senses and followed the sound as it moved through the air.

No spell unfolded. No compulsion touched his mind. No hidden pattern tightened around the cattle. The bard completed the first turn and began again. One cow stamped. Then another. Not irritation. Not flies. Their hooves fell with the beat. Wyn watched the muscles shift beneath their hides. Heads lowered. Weight moved forward. The bard began the third repetition. Still no magic. “Stop,” Isca said. Sebastian held up one hand. “The line.” Isca turned on him. “We have the response.” “We need the trigger.” Wyn disliked that Sebastian was correct. The bard looked between them. “Which line?” “The first,” Sebastian said. The man struck the bells and spoke with the rhythm of the tune. “First gate for the road behind.” All six cattle moved. Not a rush. Not yet. They stepped forward together, shoulder against shoulder, pressing toward the fence and the people beyond it. Sebastian drew Isca back. “Stop!” Wyn said. The beater fell silent. The cattle continued for three more steps. The fence bowed. One animal shook its head as if waking. Another stamped twice without rhythm. Then the group broke apart. Isca stared through the rails. “Conditioning,” she said. Wyn nodded. “The music carries no active spell.” “They were trained to the song.” The bard lowered the beater. His face had lost its eagerness. “I did not know.” “Do not play it again,” Isca said. “I will not.” From farther inside the Western Yard came another set of bells. Then shouting. Wyn turned. Across the pens, cattle had begun to stamp.

– • • Apple reached the Western Yard with Halen as the music stopped. The air tasted of dust and animal heat. Cattle pressed against one side of a pen, all facing the same direction. Drovers shouted and struck the rails with hooked poles, adding noise to animals already full of it.

Wyn stood near the fence with Sebastian and a woman Apple assumed was Isca Fen. The bard beside them had gone pale.

“Magic?” Halen asked. Wyn shook his head. “Training.” “They taught cows a song?” Apple asked. “They taught them what to do when it ends.” The cattle settled slowly after the bells stopped, but their ears remained forward and their Apple saw it before anyone moved. Three yards. They had reached two. Isca turned back toward the Green Glass Society to report what they had learned. The others headed north. The first alarm bell rang while they were still four streets from the Northern Yard. It struck hard and fast from somewhere ahead and to the east. People stopped. A second bell answered farther north. Then whistles. Then screaming. Thirty cattle burst from a side pen into the market road. The first animals did not run. They shoved. Horns swung. Bodies pressed forward with enough weight to turn a crowd into debris. A fruit cart tipped beneath one shoulder and exploded across the street in apples, broken boards, and a wheel that spun away by itself.

People scattered. The bells kept ringing. The cattle turned away from the sound and drove deeper into the market. “Up,” Halen said. Apple was already climbing. He caught a drainpipe, sprang to a window ledge, used the carved face above a doorway as a handhold, and reached the roof before the first cart wheel stopped spinning. From above, Fishbrook came apart in pieces. Four groups of cattle moved through the nearby streets, perhaps twenty-five in each. One pushed toward the market stalls. Another had become trapped against a warehouse wall and churned in place. A third wandered in a broad, dangerous circle while people struck at it with poles. The fourth moved straight down a narrow street packed with people who had nowhere to go.

Farther north, beyond the roofs, the Northern Yard had opened. Hundreds of cattle moved there. Maybe more. Dust rose above them like smoke. Apple looked down. Wyn stood in the road with both hands lifted. Light gathered between them—not flame, not lightning, but color. A shimmering curtain spread across the street in blue, green, and silver. The nearest cattle saw it. Their heads rose. The herd slowed. Then stopped. They stared into the shifting light while drovers rushed in with ropes. One man looped a horn. Another fastened a yoke. A third shouted for Wyn to release the spell before the animals broke their own necks fighting restraint.

Wyn lowered his hands slowly. The shimmer thinned rather than vanished. The cattle blinked and began moving again, but the ropes, yokes, and familiar pressure of handlers steadied them.

Apple turned toward the bells. Every time one rang, the cattle nearest it recoiled. Not toward the sound. Away. “The bells!” Apple shouted. “They are driving them away from the bells!” Halen heard. He pushed through the crowd toward a man hauling on an alarm rope. The bell rang once more above them. A herd turned sharply and crushed a row of stalls. Halen caught the rope in one hand. The ringer pulled. Nothing moved. “Stop,” Halen said. “The cattle are loose!” “The bell is making it worse.” “That is what alarms are for!” Halen wrapped the rope once around his forearm and tore it free from the man’s grip. The sealed wound in his side flared orange. He did not release the rope. The bell fell silent. The herd below Apple stopped turning. “Quiet!” Apple shouted from the roof. “Make everything quiet!” No one listened. Fishbrook had never been designed for quiet. Not with a thousand cattle loose, people “Thief!” Apple held the bell above his head. “Yes.” He vanished before the man decided what to do with the answer. Below, Sebastian climbed onto a broken cart and shouted down another alarm crew with the full authority of House Valcour, whether Fishbrook recognized it or not. Wyn reached a whistle station and argued with its keeper. Halen moved through the street like a piece of a fortress taught to walk, taking ropes from hands, stopping bells, making people hear him.

Some shouted at him. “Emberkin!” “Glarus!” “He brought them here!” Others pointed toward the cattle calming behind him. “Listen to him!” “Stop the bells!” “The Emberkin knows!” Halen did not answer either accusation or praise. He kept moving. Four blocks from the Northern Yard, a building burned. Cattle had struck another hard enough to collapse its front wall. People crawled from beneath splintered beams. Blood streaked the street. The smell of smoke mixed with manure, sweat, dust, and the copper scent Apple remembered from battlefields.

He reached the roofline above the yard. The sight stopped him. More than a thousand cattle had been penned below. Now they filled the lanes between buildings in a moving wall of hide, horns, and muscle. They were not running cleanly. There was no direction to the stampede. They pressed, turned, stopped, and surged again whenever a bell or whistle drove them from another side.

Apple heard Halen below. “What do we do?” For one heartbeat, no one answered. Then Apple saw three alarm stations still ringing. “Those!” he shouted. He ran for the nearest patch of shadow, and instinct took over. The world became cold darkness and then noise again. He landed on a narrow platform beside a bell keeper, struck the beater from the man’s hand, and kicked it over the rail. The keeper grabbed for him. Apple went under the arm, climbed the man’s back, and pulled the bell cord loose from its hook.

Across the street, Halen reached another station. Sebastian reached the third. The bells stopped. One by one, the whistles followed. The effect was not immediate. A thousand frightened animals did not become gentle because the world asked nicely. But without fresh noise turning them, the herds stopped changing direction. Drovers found the edges. Ropes went around horns. Gates opened where cattle could be guided and closed where they could not.

The wall of beef became groups. The groups became herds. The herds became animals again. Then the wounded began to call out.

– • • Apple found the gored man beside the remains of a spice stall. The horn had opened his side. He was conscious, which seemed worse. Both hands pressed against the wound, but blood came through his fingers in bright pulses. Apple dropped beside him. “Do not move.” The man stared at him. “Wasn’t planning—” His breath broke. Apple pulled a healing potion from his pack, tore the stopper free with his teeth, and poured it into the wound. The magic took slowly. Too slowly. Apple pressed both hands against the man’s side. Warmth spread under his palms. Torn flesh drew together. The bleeding weakened, then stopped. The man gasped. “Still do not move,” Apple said. “You said that.” “You did not obey the first time.”

“Help him,” Apple repeated. The merchant knelt. Nearby, Sebastian used a potion on another injured man. Wyn crouched beside a young woman whose clothing carried the colors of House Brindlemark. A member of her household stood over them repeating that the house would remember.

Halen moved from one injured person to another until temple acolytes arrived. Their magic came in careful measures, saved for wounds that would otherwise kill. Fires were smothered. Beams were lifted. Bodies were covered.

Seventeen people died. Berrit Sol was one of them. Apple saw the red shirt first. It lay near the edge of a tent, too bright against the mud. Berrit’s apron was gone. One arm had been pulled across his chest, perhaps by whoever had dragged him clear. The rest of him had the wrong looseness of someone no healing potion would help.

A drover sat nearby with bruises across his face and shoulder. “He pulled me out,” the man said when Wyn questioned him. “Someone told me to stop him.

Said he was interfering. He was shouting to stop the bells.” The drover looked at Berrit. “I grabbed him. Then the fence went. He got me free.” Apple looked up toward the rooftops. “Malrick was here.” Wyn followed his gaze. “Maybe.” “Someone made the bells ring.” “Someone did. That does not make it Malrick.” Apple searched the roofs anyway. Nothing moved there except smoke. Halen bent and lifted Berrit’s body. The herbwarden looked smaller in his arms. No one spoke as they carried him back to the Green Glass Society.

– • • Isca reached the Society before them. Mavren was inside when Halen entered carrying Berrit. She took one step forward, stopped, and put a hand over her mouth. Isca did not move at all. Then both women moved at once. They cleared the central table. Halen laid Berrit down. Mavren found clean cloth while Isca removed the red shirt where it had torn and folded Berrit’s hands over his chest. “He stopped the bells,” Halen said. Mavren nodded without looking up. “Of course he did.” The words carried anger, grief, and no surprise. They wrapped him. When it was done, Mavren washed her hands in a glass basin. The water turned pink. “Pipren came here,” she said. “He said an Emberkin persuaded him not to play at Drover’s Yard.” Apple looked at Halen. “Persuaded,” he said. “He also wants his music returned.” “Less persuaded.” Mavren dried her hands. “He left the name of his inn.” Apple patted the scroll case beneath his cloak. “I know where it is.” Mavren’s eyes hardened. Grief had not left them. It had simply found work. “Tollis Mar,” she said. “His name was in your ledger?” Wyn nodded. “He oversees the yard arrangements. If musicians were placed beside particular pens, he either approved it or failed to notice it.” “We will bring him,” Halen said. “This time you will have authority.” Mavren wrote quickly. She sanded the page, folded it, and pressed the seal of the Green Glass Society into wax. “A Writ of Summoning. You may bring him here and detain him for questioning.” She placed ten gold beside the writ. Sebastian took both. Isca looked at him. “Try not to offend everyone before he answers.” “I make no promises.” They found Tollis near the western stage because someone else was already shouting his name. He stood in the middle of an argument with three drovers, insisting that the placement of “Of course,” he said. He walked with them for half a block. He admitted knowing Hesta. He began explaining the Northern Yard. Then he lowered one shoulder and tried to drive past Wyn. Sebastian caught him by the coat and turned him hard enough that his back struck a wall. “That,” Sebastian said, “was impolite.” Tollis stopped trying to leave.

– • • Wyn questioned him at the Green Glass Society. Fear was a crude instrument. It made people speak, but not always clearly. Wyn let just enough magic enter his voice to narrow Tollis’s world to the chair, the questions, and the certainty that silence would be worse.

“What did Varin promise you?” Tollis swallowed. “Passage.” “Where?” “Away. With her.” “On what ship?” “The Sable Heron.” “When?” “Before noon.” Wyn glanced at the clock. Eleven-thirty. “Where is she waiting?” “Eel and the Anchor. Near the docks.” Sebastian leaned against the wall with his arms folded. Halen stood behind Tollis. Apple sat on a shelf beside a row of specimen jars and watched the man’s pulse jump in his throat. “Why Fishbrook?” Wyn asked. “Her patron wanted it hurt.” “Who is the patron?” “I don’t know.” The magic tightened. Tollis’s breath caught. “I don’t know,” he said again. “She said the town needed to be damaged. The cattle, the houses, the yards. Trade would stop. Merchants would lose everything.” “Her name.” “Varin. M. Varin.” “What does the M stand for?” “I never asked.” Tollis had placed cattle with matching marks into neighboring pens. He had positioned musicians beside those pens. He had done it because Varin told him where each group needed to stand and promised him a place on the ship when it was finished.

Halen tied him to the chair. “Can the ship be stopped?” Wyn asked Mavren. She was already reaching for a money bag. Isca took it. They ran for the docks. The berth of the Sable Heron was empty. The ship had departed early. A dock clerk remembered a woman arriving after it sailed. She had made a scene, demanded another vessel, and asked to see the schedules. The captain had cast off ahead of his appointed time, likely when the stampede made remaining in port seem more dangerous than offending the harbormaster. No other ship would leave until the following morning.

Varin had missed her escape. She was still in Fishbrook.

– • • The Eel and the Anchor had gone quiet. No one there had been caught in the northern stampede, but everyone had heard about it.

Patrons sat close together over untouched drinks. The bartender wiped the same place on the counter while Wyn described M. Varin.

“Clerk,” the man said. “Quiet. Careful. Asked more than she answered.” “Where did she go?” “Blue Eel Annex.” The Annex stood two streets away. The proprietor knew Varin as Margaret Friesbie and said she had checked out. Apple asked about a rear exit. The proprietor pointed toward the kitchen.

The fruit pie smelled excellent. Apple leaned closer. “No,” Wyn called from the front room. Apple showed his teeth at the wall. Then he saw the cloth. A strip of dark fabric had caught on a nail below the rear window. He touched it. Freshly torn. Rain-damp perfume lingered beneath the smells of fish and fruit. “Here,” he called. Wyn crossed the street to watch the front. Sebastian and Isca went upstairs. The door to Margaret Friesbie’s room was locked. Sebastian opened it with his shoulder. Inside, the room looked less searched than abandoned halfway through an argument. Travel clothes lay across the bed. A finer blouse had been left on the floor. Scribe’s sleeves, ink-stained cuffs, string, sealing wax, and copied papers covered the small desk.

The window stood open. Isca found the journal beneath a loose page. The writing was narrow and exact. Expenses. Yard counts. Payments. Routes. Names. Wyn read over her shoulder. North chosen for proof. Primary chosen for scale. Drover’s chosen for spread. Beneath it: This is not a sale problem. This is a movement problem. The payment notes named Pipren and Derrin Salk. Pipren was described as uncertain. Derrin was steady, professional, and expected to play if paid and praised. Another page listed aliases. M. Valen. Brin Sen. Call Morren. Nessa Vale. Myra Block. The last had been struck through once, then underlined. Near the bottom of the following page, one phrase had been written darker than the others. Instruction changed: observe, do not interfere, report survival rate. Then, beneath it: Survival rate. That was the word used. The final page contained contingency routes. If south stair fails: Rag Lantern. Isca tore out the page and handed the journal to Wyn. “A few blocks north.” Apple caught the perfume again from the cloth outside. They followed both. The Rag Lantern was a narrow boarding house with a faded red lamp over the door. Inside, a large woman stood behind a desk strong enough to survive her leaning on it. “Johana?” Isca asked. The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Who wants her?” “Green Glass Society.” Isca opened the page of names. “Nessa Vale.” No response. “Myra Block.” Apple moved toward the stairs. He was measuring the banister, the landing, and the distance to the upper window when footsteps sounded above. A woman descended. She was human, perhaps near thirty, dressed for travel in a dark fitted coat, weathered cloak, gloves, and boots that had seen more roads than the rest of her clothing admitted. A leather satchel crossed her body. She held a black folio and a packet of papers against her chest.

Her hair was red-blonde, more copper than gold in the dim light, pinned up for practicality and coming loose in deliberate-looking strands. Her eyes moved over the room once.

Sebastian. Wyn. Isca. Apple near the stairs. The rear hall. The front door. Halen visible through the window outside. One assessment. Complete. She reached the bottom step. “Thank you, Johana,” she said. Her voice was calm, exact, and entirely unsurprised.

It was Myra Block.