Part III
A Veteran

Nebalnathil gingerly knocked on the heavy wooden door. It had taken her most of the morning to find her way here. The city was large, and the old woman she had gone to see was not the best at giving directions. The house itself blended into the surroundings. Tall, slender, stone built. An enormous tree was growing up alongside it, gnarled and bent with age. Not unlike the woman who came to the door.

"Hello? Who tis? Visitors I'll not be havin'! Actually, not here at all am. At the market am. Go away!"

"E'Sel Petharana? Mrs. Peth? Me it is, the girl from the museum. An interview you agreed to."

The woman peered cautiously through the curtains, her eyes a burst of pink and green and yellow. The curtains closed, and a series of loud clicking noises emanated from behind the heavy wooden door. It creaked open, and a scaly head popped out from behind it.

"Come in. Quickly. Afore me they see."

The atrium was a long, wood-paneled room, full of cloak-hangs and little cushioned benches. The smell of burnt toast mingled with incense as Nebalnathil disrobed. Peth went to work on a series of locks on the door, climbing from floor to ceiling.

"Bloody pests, the lot. All thinkin' I've some secret treasure. All tryin' my will to squirm into. 'Oh hello E'Sel. How are you doing E'Sel? Can I carry your bags for you E'Sel?' Vultures, the lot of them." E'Sel Petharana was incredibly active for her age. Her scales were a soft blue-green, but she was covered head to toe in red squamae speckles, the larger plates clinging to her elbows, shoulders, and knees. She wore a long, raggedy robe that looked as though she had slept in it. Nebalna moved to the hearth.

"Is my seating licit?" She asked, motioning to an overstuffed chair facing the fireplace. Peth nodded and joined her guest, flopping into a wide lounger which seemed to swallow her into its soft folds. She sighed, happily.

"E'Sel Peth, is it well for me to start? Record our conversation I needs must." Peth opened an eye and lazily waved her on with one of her lower arms. Nebalna fumbled in her pack for a few moments before producing a dataslab and setting it on her lap, her tail curling around her legs.

"Now E'Sel, originally born on Caelum you were, is that correct?" Peth giggled.

"No it pedicatens isn't, voidborn am." She stretched. "My 'rents ne'er I knew, but I know it was on a ship I hatched. Crew took me to the Iktym when next they landed. Hap't t'be the homeworld. Irotih, actually. The old capital."

"So raised by the Iktym you were? You didn't go willingly?"

"Aye. The first memory of mine, harvest day tis. Think it… 30 years PGW twas? I can't remember. It's all… jumbled up now. Most everything before the war is."

"Could you tell me about it?"

"What, the festival or the war?"

"Let's start with the festival." Peth smiled.

"Not much I can remember now. But I do recall… Aye… A page twas. Little thing. No taller than a labbo. Our knight to the fairgrounds had taken us. People had lit the place with candles in gourds. Cold twas. The first snows started to sprinkle. Ground all muddy and sticky. Fresh sweet bread. Air rich and thick. A great big tub, filled with hot cider, twas. A pretty young girl was swimming in it, naked. Another page tried to join her. Knight twasn't pleased." An enormous grin stretched across her face. "Dared her to do it, I had."

"Would you say your memories of your childhood pleasant were?" Peth paused for a while. Her upper hands tapped her lips as she thought, her lower ones wrapped across her belly.

"I s'pose. It's hard to say. Long and hard twas, aye, but nought 'ceptin good things did I learn. The Iktym teaches harder work and sharper minds than any o' your guilds do."

"Do you remember when the war began?"

"Course! Any who were there recall. Two-and-forty years twas I, nine of those a knight. The nine had been three weeks a 'hidden, all closed up in their great grey spire, all awhisperin' and awhickerin' on the year-old war tween Paper-Folk-Akto and Broke-a-State-Humans. Heard the news of colonies made glass we had, and angry, afeared folk were. Seems the old masters had gone a step too far for people's tastes. We all knew the verdict. We were just awaitin' for the cowls to catch up to the kids." She straightened herself, staring into the unlit fireplace.

"The criers were where we heard it first. They shriekin' like some mother made childless, twere. 'Shattered we are!' They cried, 'And burnin'!' The old shout for blood. The cry they tell children 'bout in storybooks, to afear em fore bed. None such words have moved my bones as them sweet-simple cry. 'Shattered we are, and burnin'!'"

"In the war, did ever you see combat?"

"Aye, that I did. I watched my squires go down weepin' to Beast-Flesh-Kala. I saw cities to glass be turned. But we gave them a taste of glass too." She pointed to the mantelpiece. "There. Take her down. Let me feel her." Nebalna stood and retrieved the long, heavy blade. Wrapped in leather, it looked archaic, like some iron weapon from ages past. Peth unwrapped it slowly, revealing the green, translucent blade.

"They let me keep her, after the gate closed. A reminder. Out there is where I'm supposed to be. My… My pages…" Tears were welling in her eyes. "They were stationed in the next system. To deliver the body I was meant… In her last few days to watch her, with her family. Both her families. And then I'd return." Peth winced and held the sword's pommel to her forehead, her tail twitched violently. "But to see mine own again, I ne'er had the chance!" She wrapped her lower arms tightly around herself, as if holding in some creature trying to burst out.

"Ever have you killed, girl?" She did not wait for an answer. "I have. Long ago my vengeance I had, before even I knew what it would be for. Boarding a ship. Twenty retainers lost in the first wave. Kala in the halls, stood. Akto, behind their Slave-Bound-Kala, fleeing to hide. Screaming. War-hymns, in my ears still ring. As my squires fell, I slipped behind. I ne'er was seen.

"Akto are not soft. Hard they are. Brittle, like thin candy. When cut, rustle do they, like dry leaves. Leaves that scream. I settled my hands that day. Afore the end, the captain begged. He knew my face, from when he first took my squires from me. For mercy he begged, with all the gold of the verse rattling in his mouth." Peth hissed. "But vengeance hasn't a room for mercy to lodge."