Calaster Goforth stared out from his stoop, depressed by the wintry morning. Snow had hidden yesterday's autumn and dusted the wooded outskirts of Oldden. The breeze was fickle, forming drifts.
Edgar Tormey appeared to his right, head bent over a book. "They say it's good luck," he mused, without so much as a glance. "Yearend snow. Let's hope there's truth to it."
"There isn't," Cal grunted. "We'll have unrest as always."
"Exaggerations are for simpletons."
"And bitter old doomsayers."
"You're not that old."
"I'm growing a hump."
"You're exaggerating again."
"Look at my back and tell me I'm not."
Ed looked over. He shrugged, unconcerned. "You're not."
"Get off my property. Your relentless pragmatism upsets my stomach."
He smiled. "We can't all be hump-backed old doomsayers."
"At least I don't smell as old as I look."
"Are you saying I do?"
"It drives off the women."
"We're timber west. There are no women."
"Because you've driven them off. Like that Arnethian beauty."
Edgar didn't laugh with him. He just returned to his book, looking sour. "I didn't drive her off," he grumbled. "I married her."
Cal feigned shock. "Did you?"
"I did. You were at the ceremony."
"Well, it clearly wasn't a memorable occasion."
Ed spared him a sidelong scowl. "She was your sister, Calaster."
"And thank heavens she didn't live long enough to suffer your old man smell."
Ed raised his eyes to the roadway, resisting banter. It seemed he'd heard something out there in the trees and the snow. Voice quiet, he said, "This isn't right."
"No," Cal agreed. "But it's necessary."
"They're all just children."
Cal patted his pockets down, feeling for his pipe. It wasn't in its usual place. "Eadric knows what he's doing, Ed," he said. "He's never led us astray."
"Yes, but he has no conscience. A man like that can't be trusted."
Voices floated between the trees. The kids, most like, and right on time. Cal didn't bother to look up from his pouch of tobacco. "No other choice," he muttered. "These are treacherous times. One wrong move and I'll be left with all the wit of a cabbage, same as that air thief, Toubin Ozwell."
Ed closed his book. He turned his collar against the wind. "They let you in to see him?"
"Five days ago. Eadric found me after Olba's service to ask what I made of it." Cal paused. "He was quiet," he said. "Real quiet. Like he wanted to be wrong."
Rapt, Ed pressed, "And?"
"And nothing," Cal grunted. "Ozwell's a cabbage, like I said. He couldn't even form a sentence. I greeted him from the door and he shit himself. Apparently it's a pattern."
A slender figure rounded the bend— Una, walking sideways as she described something to the man beside her. Cal identified him as Peter Thompson, son of the infamous Northern Wolf. He had his mother's flaxen hair, but his cobalt gaze must have come from his father. His long-limbed frame made the princess look small by comparison.
The same could be said for the third in their troupe, though Cal wouldn't have called him short. He was a dark thing, rawboned, and sharp in the eyes. His impish smile was catching.
Ethos, of course: unaged since their encounter fourteen years prior. Strange. He inserted a clever, inaudible comment that led to a collective spell of laughter.
Cal absently poked at the chamber of his pipe, blowing alight the embers that had nearly gone out in his negligence. Fragrant smoke warmed his face.
"Calaster Goforth, am I right?"
Cal gave a start and burned himself in the process. Ash peppered the ground.
He'd been inattentive. Ethos was standing at the foot of the stoop, hands in his pockets, snow in his hair. "Sorry," he said. "I thought I'd reintroduce myself."
"I remember who you are."
He smiled a little, crooked. "Do you?"
Those eyes were distracting in close proximity, so different in color than Cal remembered. He used the others as an excuse to look away. They were stopped nearby to rummage for something, a few stray items in the snow at their feet. "Eadric will be here at sundown," he said. "I've drawn water for a bath, if you'd like one. There's a kettle on to warm it."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me, Ethos."
"Alright. How far from the city are we?"
"A quarter day's walk. Less, if you cut through Iron Town."
Cal glanced back. Ethos hadn't come any closer, but there was a faint intensity in the way he was staring that made it almost seem like he had. After a moment, he slid the hands from his pockets and rolled back his tattered shirtsleeves. "I remember you from the Riverden trials," he said, arms turned black all the way to his elbows. "I admired the way you handled the workers of Willoughby. It made me think better of councilmen." He was still carefully watching Cal. Waiting for a reaction, maybe. "That's something along the lines of what he'd say, anyway. If Toubin Ozwell were here in the flesh."
Cal needed a moment to process it. Once he had, he felt for the door. "Come inside."
Ethos followed without demur. He shut out the cold and the voices behind him, assessing the quiet space within. "You have a nice home," he remarked. "No clutter."
The kettle whistled faintly from the next room over, largely muted by the wall. Cal scoffed when Ethos winced at the sound. "So it's true," he muttered. "I wish you wouldn't give him so many reasons to gloat. It's annoying."
Ethos frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Your ears. You hear frequencies well beyond the rest of us." Cal tapped out the ash from his pipe and left it to cool in its tabletop tray. Ethos was glaring a little, so he asked, "What?"
"If you know, then could you please make it stop?"
Cal wasn't like other councilmen. He didn't antagonize people on purpose. So he nodded just once and saw to the kitchen, left with the image of Ethos standing awkwardly in his living area. The iron pothook squealed away from the sunken hearth, flooding steam.
Cal returned, feeling warmed by the fire and colder because of it. "There's something you need to see," he said, to Ethos. "Leave your belongings and follow me into the cellar."
As if at a bad joke, Ethos grinned. "How suspicious."
Cal sighed. "I have no interest in hurting you."
Another brief appraisal ensued, after which Ethos put his hand out between them. Eyes calculating, he said, "You won't have a problem shaking on it, then."
Sly little sprat. Calaster could see what Eadric had meant. Ethos was testing him with the not-so-innocent gesture, watching his face, waiting to see if his thoughts would betray him.
The dead, black limb was cold to the touch. It took all of Cal's willpower not to recoil. "You're reckless," he said. "Threatening a potential ally under his own roof is probably the worst introduction in the history of introductions. You're as bad as Eadric."
"I thought a councilman would be used to this sort of thing."
"We are," he replied. "Consider yourself lucky that I'm not like the others." Cal stepped back and resisted the urge to wipe his hand on his pants. "Follow me."
But Ethos didn't move. "How did he die?"
The question was too sudden. Cal asked, "Who?"
"Ed." Ethos took a closer look at him; again, his understated intensity stirred— shadows, beneath calm waters. "You were all alone, but I heard you talking to him. It smells like death and you've drawn me a bath. I figure you're either insane or divine. Which is it?"
Outside, Una was laughing. Cal removed his glasses. "You're not quite what I was expecting," he said, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know how I feel about that."
"Divine, if I had to guess. Something dark."
"Jade. I'm part jade."
"I'm sorry for your loss, part jade."
Cal nodded and returned the glasses to his nose. He went to unlatch the cellar door. "We're not all the unfeeling monsters you think we are," he said. "Try to remember that in the days ahead."
"Okay." Ethos was gazing out the window when Cal turned back. There were deep circles under his eyes, betraying his exhaustion. He glanced like he'd sensed Cal looking. "A forewarning would be nice," he said. "From the smell I can only assume someone suffered and died down there."
"You're half right."
They descended the stairs, weighing on planks that groaned underfoot. Cal found the lantern in the darkness. The wick took.
Mice scattered in all directions. Cal had been using the cellar for storage since the day he'd dug it with Alexei Spellman, but its latest stock was a far different sort from the grains and ale it typically bellied. Ethos flinched when the light fanned out.
"Eadric wanted to be here for this," Cal grumbled. "But honestly, I'm sick of the mess, and you were the one who brought it up, so…"
Toubin Ozwell, his flesh like wax. He'd been buckled to a medical gurney and hidden there in between drums of wine, hooded eyes blind and gathering crust, lips as dry and split as old bread. He was clearly in a terrible state, but Cal didn't know how to care for a catatonic patient. Two days in the cellar hadn't done either of them any favors.
Ethos buried his nose in his elbow. "The stench is unbearable."
"Agreed," Cal said. "I'll have to burn all of this food."
"It's no wonder you're so afraid to touch me."
Unusual to say outright. "Is there anything you can do?"
"I don't know." Ethos approached, shoulders drawn in clear discomfort. He took the stool by the bed and sat there, staring, for what seemed a great while. "It's unsettling," he said, eventually. "Like one of those out-of-body experiences."
"What was going through your head when this happened?"
"Eadric was trying to get me angry."
"Yes, you'll find that's a common practice with him. What else?"
A wrinkle of thought formed in his brow, black hand rising, restless, kneading. The tired look had returned to his eyes, but wheels were moving behind them now. He said something indecipherable.
A telltale roll of nausea moved alive beneath Cal's tongue. The lantern in his hand was suddenly dangling from its dutiful rung, and Ethos, who'd toppled the stool in some sort of haste, had reversed a short distance and drawn a small knife. He was glaring daggers in Cal's direction, breathing fast.
Cal himself had, unbeknownst, arrived at the opposite bedside. He took in the guarded appearance of his houseguest. "Oh, sorry," he said, and he meant it. "Eadric, presumably. He comes and goes."
Ethos didn't calm. His eyes were jumping quickly about, as if some random part of Cal might come alive and bite him. "Comes and goes," he echoed. "And you're okay with that?"
"Everyone gets used to it eventually." Cal heard movement upstairs. Dust fell. The other two had come in from the cold while he'd been under. "How much time has passed?"
"Not long," Ethos replied. "A few minutes, maybe."
"What did he say?"
Ethos didn't answer. He felt behind him and returned the blade to its sheath, working blind. Their eyes met in the course of it. Above, Una laughed again. More dust fell. The stairs leading up to the second floor creaked. Cal carefully tried to be still until Ethos seemed satisfied with him, which the boy made known by approaching the cot. He had a dark moment there.
Cal almost spoke, but it was then that Ethos took a deep breath. He did a little forward movement with his shoulders, limbering up, maybe, or shaking off nerves, and then he clasped his hands together tightly, like a child catching a moth midflight. His shoulders sank with another exhale, this one longer than the first. His eyes closed and all fell silent.
Slowly, grotesquely, the black-as-tar pigment seeped up from his elbows and gathered to where his hands were joined. It swirled around his knuckles just twice, and with one last long release of breath, all traces of the darkness vanished.
His hands parted, and Ethos visibly relaxed. A single black bead gleamed in one palm, circled by soot, which smudged where he touched it. The smell in the air had dried and gone acrid.
Cal swallowed. "Remarkable," he whispered. "Is that it?"
Ethos held it up to the light. "It's something."
"What are you going to do with it?"
He crushed it between his thumb and index finger. No warning. No explanation. He crushed it as easily as one would a bug, effectively freeing its stormy contents. A cloudburst of dust gathered and roiled; it made for the ceiling, stopped, and then poured at great speed up Ozwell's nose.
Cal couldn't remember standing. Had he leapt to his feet?
Ethos began to loosen the gurney buckles. There was a tremor to his hands, but exhaustion wasn't the cause. "He needs a bath more than we do," he murmured. "Help me sit him up."
Cal complied, conscious of the past and its impact on the present. Eadric was never without a plan, and it was always objective, always equitable, but for once he seemed to have a personal investment in whatever those plans entailed. Reminded, Cal went about his second task.
"Peter Thompson," he mused, as if to himself. "Fate, if there is such a thing."
Ethos worked the next buckle and said, "I've never used that word to describe him."
"It's funny, is all. Him being here. I'm sure you get why." Ethos just glanced up at him, annoyed confusion in his eyes. With purpose, Cal asked, "He hasn't told you?"
Ethos stared for few slow seconds, but a wry smile replaced his confusion, complete with a guilty, averted gaze. "Distrust," he said. "A sad, angry thing."
"You don't seem hurt."
"No. I'd be a hypocrite if I was." Ethos calmly returned to what he was doing. "Secrets are secrets for a reason," he murmured. "We don't often keep them because we want to. I'm sure you felt the same when Eadric told you to bait me with information."
"You're horribly well-informed."
"Just perceptive. Watch out."
Ozwell lurched, tearing amain at the soiled sheets. Ethos quickly tried to soothe him, but the words only made the man thrash more fiercely. An arm came free, a leg soon after. He rolled off the gurney in a wild blur of movement, taking Ethos with him.
They tussled in the dirt for a few clumsy seconds. Ethos was trying more to defend himself against the bewildering onslaught than risk fighting back and causing further injury. Sure enough, he tore free when he saw an opening and scrambled up the stairs, tripping on the bottommost step. Ozwell limped after him like a seaman returned to shore. Something crashed.
Cal sighed and followed at his own pace: the calm behind the hurricane.
Outside in the snow, Peter was struggling to keep Ozwell down, his blond hair wildly mussed from the scuffle. He wrestled with a floundering arm, stringing curses betwixt clenched teeth.
The second-floor window opened. Cal turned to see Una poking her head out, shaded by the top-hinged shutter. She didn't look all that concerned, considering. "Keep it down," she barked. "If you're going to fight, do it elsewhere."
"Harsh." The last had been Ethos, and it took Cal a few seconds to find him. He was teasing her, perched on the limb of a sycamore. "But that's what I love about you, Una," he said. "No heart."
They were nearly level with one another, eyes locked over the fight below. Una leered. "Join me, won't you," she taunted. "Let's find out what else you love."
"But Peter says yours are lopsided."
Her boot was thrown and spryly evaded. It landed harmlessly in the clearing.
Peter finally managed to trap his opponent in a shoulder lock. Breathless and decidedly unamused, he glared up at the two of them and demanded, "Can someone please explain what's going on?"
"Beats me," Una replied, tying off the batten shutter. "I've been upstairs. He looks like the soldier from Farwell, doesn't he?"
Ozwell's feet slid through the snow. Softly, he began to sob.
The turn had a negative impact on Peter. He stiffened. "This guy smells like shit."
Ethos dropped from his perch. He landed quietly, skilled in the practice, and crouched in front of the grieving soldier. Patiently, he asked, "Can you speak?"
Ozwell's head rolled. "You ran."
"Yeah, I ran. You were chasing me." Ethos traded a glance with Peter. "Let him go."
Cal couldn't see much of Peter's expression, but the disapproval in his voice conveyed plenty. "It could be a trick," he pointed out. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Let him go, please."
So he did. Ozwell instantly curled forward, forehead touching the snow. It might have been the cold that made him rock back and forth, but Cal was sure that he was like Ethos, afflicted by adrenaline, stricken by a tremor. It looked like he was praying.
Ethos touched his shoulder. "Hey, now. You're alright."
"His hand slipped," Ozwell moaned. "It wasn't ingenious. His hand slipped."
Gibberish, Cal presumed, but the gruesome shadow that passed through Ethos suggested a deeper meaning. "In time you'll feel like yourself again," he promised. "Do you remember your name?"
"He called me unexpected. He said I shouldn't exist." When Ozwell's answer was met by silence, he looked up at Ethos in desperation. "Am I wrong?" he asked. "Am I wrong?"
Ethos was a statue, at best. His eyes were low, hooded and elsewhere. The question replayed itself several times over. "Your name is Toubin Ozwell," he eventually cut in, stopping the cycle. "You have a brother who calls you Oubi. The two of you grew up on the streets of Oldden's Six Pass, and you joined the Battalions together in the spring of '41. You were fifteen. The day he made commander was the same day Helen left you, but you still smiled at the ceremony because he needed you to." Ethos kindly illustrated his point. "Can you tell me his name?"
Ozwell blinked. His voice was a mere whisper. "Michael."
"Very good." Ethos helped him up, taking on some of the weight. "You're not alone, Oubi. You're just a little disoriented. Do you trust me?" Ozwell openly stared in response. Ethos glanced up at Una and called, "Bring down a blanket, please."
She ducked back inside. "On it."
"Thank you." Ethos carefully guided Ozwell to the stoop. He looked mildly annoyed when he met Cal's waiting eyes. "This man needs a bath," he said, curtly. "Peter and I will haul a fresh load, spare you the trouble." He brushed past. "Excuse me."
Una met him at the entrance, a blanket tucked under her arm. "Easy does it," she said, holding the door until they'd entered. "What on earth is that stench?"
Cal was unmoving long after they'd gone.
A cosmic joke, perhaps, brought Peter to stand in the same exact place where Cal had first been addressed by Ethos. The only difference was the height; there was no looking down on Peter, not even from atop the stoop. He seemed surprised when Cal blocked the way. He went so far as to peer over his shoulder to see if someone was lurking behind him.
Cal sighed. "What are you doing, Peter?"
Peter turned back and asked, "Have we met?"
"Do you have any idea what will happen if you die this close to Oldden?"
His confusion faded until it was gone. "I've thought about it."
"Then you're just as undependable as your mother."
Peter bristled. "It's not my fault," he snapped. "He was supposed to get discouraged, realize how stupid the whole thing was and turn back around while the getting was good. How was I supposed to know he'd attract the attention of Karna's oldest degenerate hellborn?"
"He's not hellborn. He's complicated." The front door had fallen ajar. Cal shut it, mindful of the ears within. "But you understand, don't you?"
"Understand?"
"Why Ethos matters."
Peter was easier to read than his swarthy counterpart. His eyes were struggling for all the world to figure out how much Cal knew. Shiftily, he replied, "Let's say I don't."
"You're a smart man, Peter. Let's not pretend like you haven't noticed the discrepancies." At the edge of the stoop, Cal chose to be blunt. Deceitful, but blunt. "Ethos isn't human," he said, and this, of course, was true. It was obvious. "He never was. And that's perfectly fine. There are plenty of subhuman species out there. Howlings in the north. Swampers in the south. Dustfolk in the riftlands. Jades in the fjords. They're all over the place. If the tono still existed, I'd list them off, too." Cal saw the flicker of surprise he'd been waiting for. "Except they do still exist, Peter, and Ethos alone knows how to find them. He's no more human than the fiends of Mount Savage."
Cal had been warned of Peter's anger, but he wasn't prepared for the rage. The fury. It was a quiet sort, a sort that trembled and got people killed. "You don't know him," he thundered. "You don't. He's a better human than most."
"That entirely depends on your definition of humanity," Cal baited. "Most define it down to the blood, down to what keeps people mortal and decent."
"Decent," Peter spat, like the word tasted foul. "You could set him on fire and he'd just think he deserved it somehow. He'd hate me if he were a lesser fool."
"That's not decency, Peter. That's guilt."
"Only the decent feel guilt."
"And the guilty." Cal silenced him before he could argue. "We're straying from the topic," he said, irritated. "Allow me to be forward with you."
Peter glared. Anger tended to dampen reason.
"Ethos isn't just tono," Cal told him. "He's not just atokai, either. There's something gumming up the works. Something else. Something new. We're all a bit baffled by it, to be perfectly honest." He glanced at the windows. "You have a responsibility, Peter," he said. "You can't be loyal to something that can potentially become Karna's greatest threat. Not now, not tomorrow, and especially not when people are looking to you for guidance."
The rage simmered; it wasn't gone, but at least it had calmed. Peter's eyes fell. After a moment, he sighed and brushed the snow from his coat. "You midlanders are something else," he said. "Thinking you can control everyone. Calling it diplomacy. Common men have simpler interests."
Cal grunted. "Common men, you say."
"Aye, says I," he replied. "Butchers and bakers. Millers. Farmers. We don't play well with worldly designs and plots and suchlike. Our worldliest worlds are those we live in, the lands we work, the people we love. The common man will do what's best for his home and his family. Not his country."
"Perhaps. But you're not a common man, Peter. And Ethos isn't your family."
"It's up to me what I am." Peter pointed at the house. "And that freakish little whelk in there is brother enough, so don't go thinking for even a second that I'll somehow take your side over his. I don't even know you."
"What about Una?"
Peter had looked like he'd sooner push his way through than continue the exchange. Nevertheless, the question stilled him. "What about her?"
Cal gave a shrug. "Are they really lopsided?"
Peter went red. His eyes slid away. "It was a joke," he grumbled. "That's why she wasn't upset about it. It's what he does."
"Then you're not intimate with her."
"I don't see how that's any of your business."
"I've known her father for fifty years, Peter. I taught her arithmetic." Cal gave him a look. "It'd be one thing if you were highborn," he said. "But a common man? Don't make me laugh."
Peter wouldn't be stopped this time. He shouldered by and pushed in the door. He paused long enough to glance back and say, "Nice first impression."
And so it was. Damage done. Shut out and put out, Cal gazed at the forest. But then he chuckled a bit and patted his pockets down, feeling for the pipe he'd forgotten inside. "I really ought to hand it to Aria," he said, to Edgar. "She raised one hell of an upstart."