Spirit of Nature 3 (EDITED!) - "The sky was black - for she pulled her wrath over the sun." - Vaan of Friede to Saul of Qurt.
Amal had made the journey to Friede from Heth before, when she was six or so, before Friede became the hive of idols that it now was. By caravan or by cart - or, one memorable time, by foot, when they had actually found themselves attacked by bandits - the route was fairly mundane. They travelled past vast patches of empty land, where wheat or barley or other such crops had once stood. On the other side were rolling forests and occasionally views of other small villages. It used to be a dangerous route, with attacks from bandits and wild animals being common, but those were less so now. Apparently, even the bandits avoided the idolaters like a plague.
All the same, the caravaneers were carrying their crude weapons, though they did not fear at all. The goddess Skitter was with them.
"So, besides the whole thing with the idolaters, what's Friede like?" Skitter asked. She was lounging on the caravan seats, a small pile of dates and a bowl of honey beside her. Next to the bowl was another pile of date-seeds, and a water-skin. She must really like those… Amal shook her head, clearing her thoughts.
"It's a great trade city, and acts as a market between all the villages in these parts, and the capital; every village goes there to trade, or used to before the idolaters took power," Amal said. "They still do, but… It's becoming difficult, because every year they close themselves off more and more. I've heard rumours of new trade routes with the other villages, but I've never gone." She sighed, sitting back and leaning her head against the jolting wall of the caravan.
"Their soil is fertile enough that they don't need trade to survive. There's even a saying about it - 'when a seed falls in Friede, a great tree grows'. It used to be said that a spirit had blessed them, but… not any more." She shrugged gently, feeling the weight of the spider-silk robe on her shoulders; the goddess Skitter had begun making it for her both as a way to pass the time and as a sign of her service. It was still a work in progress, which was why she was sitting so carefully, she didn't want to alarm the spiders in their work, or worse kill them. "They used to have many artisans, but many of them refused to remain and subvert their skills to the making of idols, and left for Qurt." She said that last with pride in the devotion of the artisans.
"Qurt," repeated goddess Skitter, nibbling on yet another honey-dripping date. "You've mentioned that city quite a few times, too. What is Qurt like?"
Amal tapped her mouth, thinking. She'd never been to Qurt, and everything she knew about it came from books or the things she heard from the traders. "That's… hard to explain," she muttered. "It's a very… feminine city? They say the waters of Qurt were blessed by Mamitu, and the women there bear nine girls for every boy."
"Hmm…" goddess Skitter said. "Interesting." The conversation died down for a bit, as she readjusted her posture on the seat to be slightly more comfortable. "Now tell me about…"
Taylor wasn't sure when it had happened, but at some point the rough grinding mud-and-stone under the caravan wheels had given way to hard-packed dirt, and then to an actual stone road. They rumbled into Friede near late evening, passing under the giant laurel crest on the arch of the gates just in time, before the gates closed behind them.
Getting out of the caravan, she was struck by the contrast between Friede and Heth, or even Sidon; the main streets were cobblestone, and lamplights had begun to show up near the inns and stations where travellers were expected to turn in their horses and carriage for the night.
The news of the Goddess Skitter's arrival had not been sent ahead, or more likely, had been completely ignored as unlike Heth, there was no crowd gathered, no feast or bedding prepared for the most undoubtedly weary goddess and her companions. Amal bristled at the scandalous blasphemy of it, but Taylor restrained her from barging into the first decent-looking inn they saw and demand the best room they had for free, for did they not know the honour that was being offered them - well, Taylor hadn't quite managed to restrain her the first time, but she'd managed to drag Amal out of the inn and get the irate girl to quiet down.
They had then pooled the money they had, mostly received from offerings, and eventually found a simpler room in one of the inns; there was a table and two beds close to another. It took Taylor a great amount of arguing until Amal actually accepted taking the offerings she received for that. Amal insisted on sleeping on the floor in her finished spider-silk robe, even though there was another bed available for her, and Taylor didn't push, though she did change her clothes and sponge the dirt from her skin before going to bed.
Friede was big, almost deceptively so from street level. It had huge walls around the whole city that stretched out in angles that made it hard to gauge from the main road (and it seemed forests had been planted outside for the express purpose of hiding parts of the walls); while it didn't reach even half the size of Brockton Bay it was large enough for thousands of people to live in.
The streets, Taylor could see in the light of day, were patterned cobblestone, and had probably had patterns when they were new and constant use had not overlaid them with a semi-permanent, shifting cloud of fine dust. The buildings and houses had fared somewhat better, and their slate-grey or ivory white stone bricks stood regally against the sky, the square outlines interrupted by staircases, balconies, or other small architectural decorations. She hadn't seen buildings taller than a couple of stories in awhile, she realised.
Unlike the wooden shacks she had seen up to now, the walls of the city made you feel as if behind a tower shield or inside a bunker. Taylor wondered what they were made to defend against; they hadn't seen any wild animals or bandits, and yet Friede had walls, guards, and what seemed to be a standing army; her bugs, spread out around the city, told her that some distance off, a group of people were going through a routine with polearms.
In Sidon and Heth, her mask and suit of spider-silk had attracted stares and worship. In Friede, they seemed to make her invisible: people actually seemed to ignore her on purpose as they moved forward. A few of the guards, identifiable by the laurel crest of the city that they wore on their breastplates, shot her suspicious looks but left her alone; they were probably confident that they could handle one trouble maker.
"We need a more permanent place to stay," Taylor commented after some hours of walking around the city and scouting it out with her bugs. "Could you go and find us one? A cheap one would be best," Taylor asked Amal, though from the way Amal took it, you would have thought it was a holy command - and, in a certain sense, it probably was. The girl nodded at once and left, though Taylor put a few more bugs on her just in case.
While Amal was gone, Taylor began sweeping through the people around her for finer detail. It was easy; people here washed less than they had back in Brockton Bay, and flies, mosquitoes, lice, and ants were absolutely everywhere - in addition to the good old staple of cockroaches and spiders. She blinked. Unlike the villages, where people were lightly clothed if at all and seldom armed, the people here tended to wear heavier clothing and often carried daggers at their side. While not particularly threatening to her, it was a concern.
A bigger concern, though, was her need for a carriage - but how would she pay? She'd avoided having to pay for anything so far because of her status as goddess (and to think, she reflected, that she hadn't wanted that title in the first place), but right now it would have been convenient to be able to simply commandeer a carriage to Qurt or the capital. She did wish Lisa was here; she was sure that her friend could have arranged that without any difficulty at all.
She found some more heavily-clothed citizens - guards, she realised, her flies crawling over their badges before being shooed off - watching other citizens praying. But other than the religious overtones throughout Friede and the ubiquity of weapons, Friede seemed much more peaceful than the thick walls suggested.
Suddenly, one of the bugs on Amal was crushed, and the others registered a sudden fall and a jolt at the end of it, far in the periphery of Taylor's sense, and she was jarred into action. People did stop and stare, then, as the girl in the strange costume ran through streets and crowds, and small streams of insects directed themselves towards her target.
The bugs arrived there first, swarms of mosquitoes and bees and cockroaches pouring through the air. Taylor knew everything in the building minutes before she actually burst into the room to find Amal on the ground, curled up and cradling one arm close to her chest. There was a knife beside her, and a roiling mass of biting, stinging insects that would have been causing him to scream if the man hadn't been afraid to open his mouth.
Taylor knelt beside Amal, and the bugs began to lift off of the man, revealing a dark-skinned body already beginning to swell. The man's eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he was trembling in his robes where he lay, unable to pull himself together enough to move.
"Get them off!" he shouted, finally trusting himself to speak, terror in his voice. "Get them off! Please!"
Taylor turned her head to glare at him, and he quailed under the force of it, falling mostly silent apart from his whimpering as the insects continued crawling over him, though they had stopped biting and stinging as soon as she saw that Amal was in no further danger. "You assaulted. My. Companion," Taylor said, deadly slow and punctuating every word for emphasis before the words came rushing out. "With a knife! If she wasn't wearing that robe, you could have KILLED her!"
Turning away from the man, Taylor bent down to help Amal into a kneeling position. The bugs told her that he was remaining perfectly still, and that nobody was coming to help them, so she took Amal's arm and gently lifted up the robe, exposing the bloodied arm to look at the wound.
"It's not deep," Taylor said with some relief. "We can take care of this easily - but it will hurt for some time."
Amal nodded dumbly, still crying from the pain. A few of the citizens mumbled something about a leader, and left.
The building was dark, swathed in a swirling storm of insects both in the air and on the ground. It had been more than a week since Taylor had needed to call on them so violently, and she was struck yet again by the strength of her powers there, where there seemed to be so little need for them. A crowd of people had gathered around the outside of the building, at safe distances, and nobody dared to stand in her way or meet her gaze as she appeared. Amal came in her wake, stumbling and weeping from the wound in her arm, though it had stopped bleeding.
The dark shadow of the insects travelled with her as she walked to the city centre looking up to the large idol that stood there. It was made of many different kinds of wood, skillfully carved and put together like a jigsaw puzzle - or a Tinker's devices, thought Taylor - in three dimensions. It looked like a female figure, though the curves of the body's shape gave way to branch-like protrusions, and her head bore leafy vines instead of hair. Amal stood behind her, grasping Taylor's arm slightly. She could see a small symbol etched at the base of the idol, almost hidden amidst the offerings, rolled-up prayer scripts, and sacred inscriptions to Kayumanis of Friede. It looked like a stylised, upside-down u, and below it was written: 'Cold-ruin rules'. When she pointed at it and asked Amal, the girl just shook her head.
"No idea," she said. "Perhaps it is another idol of theirs."
Taylor only nodded, turning away - and almost bumping into a thin woman, nervously twisting a rag in her hands. The woman immediately backed off a distance, glancing around as if afraid she would be seen or heard.
"If - if it would please you, nature spirit," she quickly gabbled, her eyes downcast; when Taylor stepped towards her, her voice lowered to a mumble in which Taylor could barely make out the phrases "mercy on Friede", "my house", and "small hospitality".
"We would be glad to accept," said Amal's voice from behind Taylor, and the girl came forwards to stand straight beside her goddess - though one of her arms was still applying pressure to the wound on her arm.
The woman's face relaxed, and she immediately mumbled something and hastily walked off into a street, indicating that they should follow; when they did, they found themselves led to a small dingy house.
"My name is Mahu," she said, her voice still tight and nervous despite their being alone. She had seated Taylor and Amal at the table, in two rickety chairs, and had none left for herself. Not that she needed any; she was digging through cabinets all the time she was speaking. "One of the remaining believers of Friede, after Imir turned all of the others aside." She came up with some clean rags and a jar of dark, sticky ointment. "Please, priestess, hold your arm still and I will do what little I can…"
"Imir," said Taylor, as Amal made little gasps of pain; Mahu had deftly reopened the wound and was packing the ointment thickly about it.
Two hours later, Taylor and Amal were still sitting at the table, while the woman had overturned a bucket after emptying it out, and was sitting on that. They had been eating hard bread and meat scraps, and some fruit - the reserves of the woman's meagre resources. It had mostly been Mahu talking, so far, with only occasional short interjections or answers from Taylor.
Suddenly a bell clanged, so loudly that it echoed around the room, and Mahu's face paled, breaking off mid-sentence and throwing herself from the bucket to the floor, almost clutching Taylor's ankles. "The bell! Save us, goddess!"
Taylor reached out through her bugs. The streets were practically empty of people, with the remaining ones running into any houses or shops nearby them; some distance away, at the source of the sound, a man was frantically pulling at a bell in a high tower.
"We're under attack," moaned Mahu, but it was hard to tell whether her tone was fearful or grateful. "Soldiers, by the sound of it. King Amram must have sent his army to liberate Friede from the worship of the false gods!"
Taylor only nodded quickly, trying to get a grasp of the situation with her bugs. The soldiers hadn't yet penetrated Friede's gates, but her range was not so great that she could tell what was going on outside the city.
"Now?" Amal murmured, her tones expectant. "They left this city for nearly a decade, rotting in the hands of these heathens. I say it's about time!"
"They'll probably lay a siege or use their catapults and archers," pointed out Taylor.
Both Amal and Mahu dropped their faces into their hands, and Amal could be heard mumbling "Why?"
"Because I have bad luck," Taylor said, making Amal grin slightly. "How is your arm?"
Amal touched her arm gingerly, near the wound, and winced a little. "It hurts, still. Less, thanks to Mahu's assistance, and not as bad as it could have been, thanks be to the goddess' protection."
There was a crashing noise, a ragged scream, and then the sound of something large, heavy, and wooden falling onto something… much less so. The bell-ringing faltered and stopped, and a cry went up from the streets.
"Kayumanis! They have struck Kayumanis!" a woman wailed. "Call for the soldiers!"
"A false god," Amal said with her mouth twisted in a smile, trying to look outside for the fallen idol. "Unable even to defend itself against the onslaught of true belief."
At the table, Mahu clasped her hands in vindicated prayer.
"Okay," Taylor nodded, coming immediately to a decision. She got up and out of the door, her bugs gathering around her in a buzzing cloud of wings and chitin that hid and distorted any sight of her. Her bugs told her that Amal and Mahu were coming out as well, behind her; Mahu was lagging behind, and Amal was shouting to her.
The streets were empty apart from the three of them, but up ahead she could see the gates opening to allow the military guard of Friede out. Behind them was a man dressed in expensive-looking clothes and standing regally - probably the ruler, then.
The gates opened fully, and the city guard… faltered, was the only way to say it. There were massive battering rams being pulled into position, and behind them were siege-engines, already loaded - in fact, they fired just as the gates opened, and the whoosh of the projectiles ended in loud, dull, distant thumps and screaming voices. A man was seated on some kind of mobile platform, surveying it, and in between all of those were horses and riders, bristling with armor and weaponry. There was a shouted signal, and the weapons fell into practiced positions. A moment later, there was a similar response on the Friede side.
"Okay," repeated Taylor to herself more emphatically, angry. No matter where, people couldn't stop fighting, it seemed. She came to a halt in the street, and then every insect in her range began coming to her. The bugs gathered like a tidal wave, swarms of them building a blanket that spiralled into the sky, buzzing loudly to draw the attention of everyone around them as they spread out like a blanket.
And just like that, the day was turned into night. It was theatrical, but it worked; the two commanders turned to her, making signals, and the armed forces stopped moving.
"I am Amal!" her friend shouted, hurrying forward; the spidersilk robe hung around her shoulders, carefully arranged to hide the new stitches where Taylor had repaired the stab wound. "Behold the goddess Skitter, who has come as the first of the spirits of nature returning to men! Bow down before her and abandon your idols, o Imir, that she may be merciful upon you and overlook the sins you have committed in her eyes!" Her voice was high, nearly hysterical, but carried well in the utter stillness.
Taylor would have helped without that, and would have said so, except that the city's armed forces were already turning around - their backs to the army outside - and, judging by the fingers suddenly pointing in her direction, engaging in fierce theological debate. She sighed. Why even bother trying to convince them otherwise?
Or maybe she was the abnormal one in a world of normal people, she thought, as the forces of Friede parted to let the soldiers from outside enter, peacefully and headed by the crowned man who had dismounted from his platform.
"Halt!" the crowned young man shouted, raising his arm in a regal, commanding gesture. The two-hundred men behind him stopped, trying to keep their fear off their faces, which only the ones with helmets managed to pull off.
The crest on their armor was different than the one from Friede - a single sword pointed upwards, small red dots visible on it, though the crest was on different parts of the armor for each soldier. The knights had iron armor, rather than the thick leather of Friede's guards, all looking a bit differently. Red capes flowed down their backs and hung over their left shoulders, with the same crest worked into the center of the fabric.
The bugs carpeting the sky suddenly fell, like rain, rushing through the ranks of men and apparently dissipating entirely into the city, though Taylor knew better. She had bugs on every single one of the armed forces and their horses, machinery, or tools, and more on the gates or in the sewers. The ones that she didn't choose to hide, she formed into bug clones that stood amongst the men. Even at a distance, she could see the effect she was having on them and their horses.
Good. Taylor may not have liked the idolaters for their attempt to murder Amal, but unnecessary bloodshed wouldn't do any good here. It was obvious that the men behind her were inexperienced by the way they held their daggers.
The crowned man walked towards them, his palms open and fingers spread. A gesture that said 'Look how I'm not grabbing the big sword strapped to my back'. Taylor waited for him, a small contingent of bugs covering her. He may have looked relaxed, but it was a confidence like Armsmaster's - and like the Tinker, he had more equipment on him than could be seen at first glance. Unlike the Tinker, Taylor had already found all his equipment and positioned bugs on them; if he tried to pull any surprises on her, he would receive a stinging lesson.
His eyes were green - a strange shade of the color she had probably never seen outside of pictures from gorgeous models in her world, while his hair was black, shoulder-length, unkempt and dirty. He had a serious look, but despite his unwashed appearance, had no visible scars on his flesh or scratches on his armour. As he approached, she could see a crest stamped into his crown, identical to the one on his armour and on the backs of the robes; the capital's crest, perhaps?.
"Who are you, sorceror?!" he demanded loudly as he approached. "I, Prince Aaron, have brought the Royal Army of Elamia in the name of King Amram, rightful ruler of this city. What is your place here?"
"I'm Skitter, not a sorcerer," Taylor said, annoyed by his tone. It reminded her too much of people in power, demanding respect simply for putting their ass in a fancy chair. Besides which - they really had kings here. Who still had kings? Pretty much all the royalty she could remember in her world were figureheads more than actual rulers.
"A city of idolaters," Aaron spoke, his lips curling in something between a sneer and a snarl. "With their own pet sorcerer, now. It is a pity that your false god did not teach you to speak with your betters, when they gave you your bag of tricks."
Amal pushed her way forwards, incandescent with anger. Her injured arm stretched out, pointed accusingly at Prince Aaron. "How dare you!" Amal said, before Taylor could stop her. "How dare you, Prince Aaron, to talk to a spirit of nature like that? Is that the upbringing of a prince in the palaces of Elamia?"
"Him, a spirit?" Aaron spat, and it was clearly a sneer now. Taylor grit her teeth. Another guy who thought she was a man. Was it the bugs? Maybe it was the bugs. He cast a pitying look on Amal. "The spirits are gone, child, never to return. Faith will not bring them back, and blind faith will not help your family bring the food to their table."
"Look at this!" shouted Amal, her hand waving out like a backhand. "She darkened the sky as a sign to you, and raised up her men amongst yours. She has stopped your hand from the blood of the men of Friede, for she is benevolent and kind. For they, too, raised their hand against her, and against me, her priestess." She glared at Prince Aaron, and for a moment Taylor could see it in her posture, her hair streaming from her uncovered head and the righteous fury in her eyes, the prophet rebuking the wayward prince. "Bow down before her and pay her obeisance, Prince Aaron of Elamia, and she may yet overlook your gross disrespect."
Aaron looked angry at her words, and even though he seemed ready to send his men into battle, Taylor heard their whispers.
They believed Amal, and weren't ready to fight her. She knew it, and so did Prince Aaron. His posture relaxed, only marginally, and Amal's followed.
Prince Aaron capitulated first. "Praise the goddess," he said in a dry tone, making her a bow that she couldn't be sure wasn't ironic. "Harbinger of hope and mistress of the skies and earth."
Taylor still wasn't happy at being called a spirit, or goddess or whatever, but it had served its purpose so far, and it came with significant side benefits. She approached the Prince, giving him a simple nod of acknowledgment and gestured to the armed forces behind him. "You are here to take the city from the idolaters, aren't you?"
Prince Aaron nodded belatedly, as if having expected her to talk for a lot longer. "The goddess has grasped the situation with clarity," he began, and Taylor cut him off before he could launch into another of those maybe-ironic speeches.
"Very well," said Taylor, and turned slightly so that she wasn't standing between the Prince and the citizens of Friede - who had started creeping out of their houses to see the show. "Citizens of Friede!" she shouted, her voice amplified by the buzzing swarms that she now called out of the places she had hidden them in earlier. "See this day my benevolence and mercy, and turn back from your idols! Raise up a proof of your faith, and you shall live!"
There was a shocked murmur, which built up into a cry, and people rushed at the giant statue of Kayumanis with chisels and saws, led by Mahu. The shouting was soon punctuated by the sounds of tools striking wood.
Hopefully that should be enough, Taylor thought.
"As for you," Taylor turned to Prince Aaron, her tone angry. Prince Aaron simply shifted his weight, subtly enough that she might have missed it if not for the bugs on his body. He'd been trained, she could tell; the knife hidden at his thigh was inches from his fingers, and his weight was resting on the balls of his feet. "Cut down on the violence and killing. None of that, not on your own people."
Amal was standing by, listening raptly to her words. Taylor sighed, realising everything she was going to say would end up being repeated to everybody she met for awhile. Way to keep off the pressure. .
"I don't want people hurt just because they're... different," Taylor said, reminded of home. It seemed that everywhere you went, people like Kaiser or Hookwolf - or, for that matter, Lung or Bakuda - existed, in various forms. All you could do was to fight them off or to give in to them - which she had just done, because she saw it as inevitable; this was simply the way to it that didn't end in thousands of people dead. "Peace is preferable."
"And thus she has spoken," Amal said. "Blood shall taint the earth no more, and every faith shall be accepted. Do you disagree, prince Aaron?"
"I hear the words of the goddess, and humbly obey," the prince said, too polite to grind his teeth, not polite enough to completely hide the working of his jaw. "What else may I offer the goddess, that she may be appeased from her wrath upon me and mine? I have no sons to offer."
Doesn't surprise me, Taylor thought to herself. "I have no need for… slaves. Or husbands. But… the capital," Taylor said, making everyone turn to her. After a while she realized how she said it, and shook her head. "I wish to visit the capital, maybe some of my comrades have been or will be there."
Aaron nodded, and turned back to his knights, ordering them to put their weapons away and stand down. Slowly the bugs lifted away in streams and trickles, much the way Grue's smoke would wisp away, and spread themselves out into the air or the ground. Soon the sunlight was breaking through, revealing the blue of the sky again, though now and then a fast-moving shadow would remind any lookers that the bugs were not gone, merely at a distance.
"First of all," Taylor said, dismissing Aaron and turning to Amal. "Let us get something to eat, I'm famished." When she turned her back on him, it was a show of confidence, obvious to all: she didn't fear anything he might do to her with her back turned. Besides, they were surrounded; the leader of Friede, Imir, had gathered the city-guard around them in a loose circle, though their weapons too had been sheathed.
Her comment was overheard by the leader and the city-guard, and one of them stepped forwards eagerly, interrupting Imir in the midst of formulating a speech. "Please, come to my home!" he invited in an almost begging tone. "My wife bakes the best bread in all of Elamia, I vouch it, and the fruits in our gardens are the ripest everywhere! It would be the least we could do for your guidance and protection!"
"A celebration!" intoned Imir of Friede, his face solemn. Taylor couldn't help thinking he looked more like a god than she did; his hair, moustache, and beard were pristine white and unbound beneath the helmet, and stirred in the wind. "Let all Friede know -"
"Don't worry about it," Taylor told him, her smile hidden beneath the mask. "It could be the worst and I would still appreciate it," She turned to Imir. "Thank you, but you don't have to celebrate. I helped because I wanted to. Don't worry about the prince, I have an eye on him."
The man nodded, and the foot soldier took off at a run into the city, doubtless to call his wife to preparations. Taylor turned to her only real friend in this world, and saw Amal beaming with joy, pride, and not a little satisfaction.
"Truly I have seen the benevolence of Skitter revealed," Amal said, her cheeks flushing red. "For you took me in as your high priestess, saved my life by your robe, and have now protected all Friede against the strikes of the Prince, tho' they be gross idolaters and worshippers of false gods. Praise Skitter!" And she made to drop to her knees right there.
"Stand up," Taylor said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, but smiling, relieved. "You're still injured."
The remaining men whispered amongst each other, before a barked command from Imir made them turn and follow him away; as they passed by her, she could almost swear their lips were moving in silent, half-remembered prayers. At the same time, Prince Aaron made her a short, stiff bow before turning and returning to his troops, massing them outside the city-gates.
Amal smiled at her - a wide and genuine smile that made Taylor feel happier and more at ease.
"Besides, you'd have followed me even if I told you not to," Taylor continued. Just like that, Amal's face turned into the most unhealthy shade of red Taylor had ever seen seen on a human face.
"I-I-It's not like that!" Amal exclaimed, flustered, waving her hands in front of her. "I-if you had told me to stay…" She spun around, facing away from Taylor and standing still for a moment, and then burst out: "It's not like that at all!" and dashed into the depths of the city, apparently heading directly for Mahu.
"Amal, stop!" Taylor shouted. "If you run like that you'll hurt your arm more!"
A wailing "I don't caaaaaaare!" was the only answer she got from the girl. Taylor gave a helpless shrug.
They were sitting at the table, on carved wooden chairs with rush seats, speaking with the city guardsman who had invited them in. He had introduced himself as Vaan, and then had paraded his wife and his children before them - Taylor had given up trying to remember their names, but Amal had enthusiastically greeted the children - and then had taken them on a short tour of his neighbourhood, down to the fruit trees, while his wife put the finishing touches to her dinner preparations.
He was a relative newcomer to Friede, he had told her, having only moved in five years back. The idolaters had not spread their influence so far or become so aggressive, then - they had sent out missionaries, but had persuaded with logic rather than converted by force. He had found that refreshing.
His house was… clean. The walls were cut of the same stone as the city walls, and most of the furniture was wooden. It also was much bigger than Hannibal's had been, consisting of multiple rooms that seemed too many even for a family as big as theirs. A portrait of Vaan and his entire family was hung up in the living room. From the way Amal had admired it when she saw it, it was clearly expensive. Come to think of it, Taylor realised, she had seen very few pictures of anybody since arriving.
"You seem to know a lot about Friede," said Vaan to Amal, his tone complimentary. "Have you travelled much? I'm sure I would have recognised you if you came with the regular traders."
"I had a friend who left home for Friede," Amal said. She had only one hand on the table, and was eating rather clumsily; her running had, as Taylor warned, re-opened the stab wound in her other arm. Taylor had found Mahu putting fresh bandages on the arm, but Amal would not be able to use it for some time. She focused on the food in her hand as she was speaking, and spoke slowly as if choosing her words carefully. "She was badly sick, once, when the missionaries came. They claimed to heal her body, but took her mind and soul… she got healthy, but then she went with them."
"Friede is large, and there are many people here from many place," Vaan admitted, smiling at his wife as she put some food on the table. "Thank you, my heart - as I said, though, there are many people here, and it is quite possible to go your whole life and not meet everybody. But if you want, I can put the word out for your friend to be found..."
Amal looked up, her jaw grim-set. "I don't want to meet her - she betrayed us. Betrayed me." Her tone was angry.
Taylor put a sympathetic hand on Amal's shoulder. "She was your friend, wasn't she?"
"Yes," Amal said, traces of unwillingness in her tone.
"I had a friend too, once," Taylor said. "She was my best friend - we had no secrets between each other. Even when my mother died, she was there for me…"
Amal's eyes widened, whipping her head towards Taylor and staring. Taylor shook her head, and the question died on Amal's tongue. Elsewhere around the table, conversation died as everybody began to turn to Taylor to listen.
"But one day, she stopped talking to me," Taylor continued, her tone as dry as she could make it. "She found someone else, another friend - and just like that she started to… make my life harder - trying to show her new friend how strong she was." Dead silence, as the listeners struggled to understand the actions of the spirits.
Taylor paused to look for the right words to continue, and Amal jumped in. "How did you punish them, o goddess? Such an insult to the friendship and to yourself could not have been allowed!"
"I didn't," Taylor said, and Amal's mouth fell open with shock. "I endured - telling myself I would be better than them. And even though she used every secret against me, and even though I was hurt, I'm here and she isn't." At least, as far as Taylor knew.
"But you don't want to see her either," Amal muttered, looking away again. "How can you even speak of this - this -" Amal appeared to be trying to find a sufficiently strong expletive, and failed - " this thing so easily?"
"I might not want to see her," said Taylor, picking up a few platters, piled high with bread, fruit, meat, and sauces. "But that doesn't mean I don't miss our friendship. I made some new friends, who were there for me when I needed them. Don't think leaving you and your village is the worst that she could have done." Standing and turning to Vaan and his wife, she nodded. "Thank you for the food."
Vaan and his wife smiled before the latter stood, gathering up even more platters and a skin of water, and opened the door to the private room that Taylor had requested for eating in. Before the door closed, she heard knocking on it. She opened it to see Amal, her face strangely downcast.
"My goddess," Amal said. "We are… we are friends, aren't we?"
"Yes," Taylor agreed, wondering why Amal was asking.
"Then why won't you show me your face?" the girl asked. Taylor stopped, rigid at the unexpected question and confused.
Yes, why hadn't she? Nobody here knew who she was, thought her powers were some godly work…
Had she been Skitter for so long that she forgot what it was to be Taylor Hebert? It was as if the mask was glued onto her face - and she would never be able to take it off anywhere but in private.
"This mask," Taylor said, standing stock-still at the door, preventing it from opening wider but not closing it either, "The mask is something to protect me - my identity. Where I come from, showing your face could mean your doom."
"But… the realms of the spirits only held spirits, didn't they?"
"No, yes… I…" Taylor shook her head, looking at the door. She wouldn't believe whatever she tried to explain if she tried to say the truth. "There are evil people too, and after something that happened long ago, everyone started to wear masks, so those that hated you couldn't find your family by knowing your face."
Amal was silent for a moment.
"Do you think I hate you, o goddess?"
"Of course you don't," Taylor sighed, clenching her fist and stepping back from the door. "Come in."
Slowly the door opened, Amal pushing herself through with as small a gap as possible, and shutting the door again the moment she was through. Taylor put her hands to her mask, undoing it and slipping it over her head. A moment as she replaced the mask's tinted lenses with her glasses, and she let the mask fall from her hand.
The mask hit the floor with a thud, but Taylor didn't look at Amal. The girl looked like Madison, but was a lot kinder, a lot friendlier. If she had had a friend like that on the other side, she wondered, how would things have gone? Not better, she thought, not when someone like Sophia appeared -
Her thoughts were cut off when Amal came up to her and hugged her, burying her face in Taylor's shoulder. "Thank you, goddess Skitter," she whispered.
She patted the top of Amal's head and sighed, hoping she wouldn't regret that. This was Amal, after all. Hopefully Tattletale and the others found a way here soon - this world was making it hard for her to miss home.
"What are friends for?" Taylor asked rhetorically. "Don't worry about it, just bring your food in and we will eat together."
Amal gave her a watery smile when she let go and rushed out the door to bring her plate with her, almost slamming the door in her haste.
She just couldn't help it - Amal and her, they were not so different at all, betrayed by their best friends, only their fathers remaining on their side and believing…
Another twinge plucked at her mind, as Taylor wondered what her Dad was doing. Lisa had probably told him something comforting and untrue by now, or he was just running through all of Brockton Bay shouting her name.
One day she would have to leave - or abandon all hope of ever leaving. Right now, Taylor wasn't sure which was worse.
Prince Aaron had come prepared for an ugly siege. Though his campaign had turned out much more peaceful, he and his men had still remained encamped outside Friede, living on their supplies for the most part and Friede's produce for the remainder. Most of the men were in the city, helping reconstruction efforts, but the entire group of them were ready to drop everything and move out whenever Skitter gave the word.
They spent two days more there, giving Amal's arm time to heal under the ministrations of the doctors and allowing Skitter to oversee the reconstruction efforts. It was a pleasant side-effect that this also allowed them to eat fully of the harvest of Friede, and to load up the small carriage that the people of Friede had given to Skitter, to travel to the capital in.
On the third day the carriage was loaded, and Taylor and Amal were standing by. They were ready to go, but the prince's men were busily cleaning up their encampment to remove all trace of their having been there.
There were footsteps, running towards them. "Stop," someone called from behind them, weakly. "Please, o goddess, if you have mercy, stop…"
The carriage driver shouted a command, and the horses were pulled up short, bringing the carriage to a juddering halt. Taylor and Amal both stepped out, looking at the girl who had fallen to her knees. She was dark-skinned, her dark hair bound up by a hairband, and her dress left her shoulders free; its hem was shortened, and she was wearing leggings rather than the ankle-length hem that was more customary here. She looked up, face flushed with exertion, and Taylor went cold: she was the spitting image of Sophia Hess, though - as had been the case with Amal's compared to Madison's - the expression on it was starkly foreign.
"My goddess," she said, her forehead down… in Amal's direction, not in Skitter's. "And her priestess… I'm… I'm so sorry - so sorry for abandoning you…"
"Who are y-" Taylor's question was cut off by Amal, stepping forward and glaring at the grovelling girl.
"Iman!" she hissed. "You…"
"I'm so sorry!" Iman shouted into the dusty ground, spots of it darkening where tears fell. "I'm so sorry, so sorry! Amal, I'm so sorry…"
Amal approached the girl, as if to kick her; perhaps preemptively, Iman reached out and grabbed the hem of Amal's robes. She looked up, tear-streaked. .
"I'm so sorry…" she said again. Taylor sighed - this couldn't be Sophia Hess, it was just too impossible…
"See," Taylor said, moving forward and bending down to help the girl to her feet, as Amal looked on confusedly. Iman was a sight - dust had gathered all down the front of her dress and leggings, and caked on her face where her tears had run. "That is the difference between your best friend and mine."
Amal nodded, looking away.
"Hello," Taylor said. "I'm Skitter - Amal told me a bit about you."
"I…"
"Don't say you are sorry," Taylor cut her off. "Just be happy you could talk to your friend again."
Not everyone has a chance to, Taylor thought bitterly.
"Thank you," Sophia… no, Iman said. "I will give my life for you, o spirit. Please forgive my sins…"
"There is nothing to forgive," Taylor sighed. Amal glanced at her again, but she just shrugged. "Maybe you should leave for your village again? I'm sure your parents must be worried…"
"My parents are gone, milady," Iman said, making Amal nod at Taylor's glance. "I… I have no place to go…"
"You can stay in Friede," Amal said, not as angry as she was before. Taylor smiled.
"I don't want to stay at a place with memories of my betrayal," Iman admitted. "I did something horrible to you, Amal… I'm so-"
"Stop apologizing!" Amal shouted. "It's enough! I get it, you're sorry! Just stop it!"
Iman looked like a kicked puppy, still crying and holding onto Amal's robes after Taylor helped her stand up.
"Let us take her with us," Taylor suggested, making Amal stare at her. "Just until the capital - I'm sure we can find a place for her to stay."
"Yes," Amal said, her tone dry and resigned. "That would be for the best."
Iman's smile equaled Amal's after she saw Taylor's face in Vaan's home. They stepped into the carriage again and it moved towards the prince's camp.
Taylor sighed.
She was sitting in a carriage. Beside her were her companions - Amal and Iman. Outside, surrounding them, were knights, in actual plate and chainmail, and riding horses with flags and banners; she knew also that there were siege engines and catapults being dragged along behind them, in the distance. It wasn't as if the armor was unusual, in itself; she had seen capes dressed in that style. Sometimes it was like capes had a contest without rules about who could have the most ridiculous outfit. It was… not that she had thought about making her costume with huge wings before settling on what she had eventually built. Of course not. They were most certainly not ideas for menacing bee wings. Anyway, a knight wasn't that unusual. But a few hundred of them at one spot? It was like something out of a novel, or a TV show. At least nobody had any lightsabers around here.
Looking out of the window, she saw a group of people, traveling on foot, carrying large bags and pulling young children along. Their clothes, too, were different from what she was used to - but, she realized, growing familiar to her: the hand-woven robes, almost all of them covering the entire body down to the ankles, though some left the arms bare to work with. Some of them looked finer, more ceremonial, but most of them were dust-coated, showing the signs of mending. They halted in their journey as the Prince and his retinue passed, falling into bows and remaining in those positions until the procession had mostly passed by.