Scatterburr
DESCRIPTION: Common, hardy weed with papery purple clusters of flowers, highly toxic to grazing animals such as oku and lutra; inhalation of smoke or contact with ash from burning scatterburr plants also toxic to humans.
SYMPTOMS: Chest pain, breathing difficulties, emotional distress.
PROOFING CUES: Smoke is heavy and smells sweet.
32
Jovan
Like a ghostly monster rising from the deep out of a children’s story, something broke through the mist above the lake, its graceful motion accompanied by the wail that still resonated in my chest.
When its head first broke through, people around me screamed. A pulse ran through the crowd as we all instinctively drew back. Black and gray and dripping with water and slime that poured off it like long tendrils of fluid hair, it was immense, it was beautiful, it was …
“Os-Woorin,” a woman cried, and as the great echoey noise quieted, the crowd on the west shore picked up that cry. The thing rose further, shoulders visible now, then its outstretched hands, somehow even more unnerving in silence. All around me, men and women dropped to their knees, some weeping. The Silastians crowded in our tight little circle remained standing, but just as frightened. Everyone seemed to have forgotten their weapons. Across the lake, it looked like every remaining person in the city had come down to the shore. I spared a glance over my shoulder and saw Aven’s army and the fleeing rebels still moving in from the streets, but now crowding to see the lake rather than fighting. I even spotted the Warrior-Guilder herself, scarlet cape and ornate armor agleam, on top of a canal wall to observe. Others had clambered up on walls and buildings to get a view.
I turned back in time to see Os-Woorin—the statue, I had to remind myself, because the play of the mist and the wind moving the slimy fingers trailing from the stone gave the impression of the great thing breathing, moving, living—slide gracefully to a stop.
Then the creature spoke, and the screams and sobs in the crowd died away into a silence of terror too complete for sound.
“Stop,” it said, and the booming voice carried a palpable chill. “This battle must stop.”
It was at that point that I caught a glimpse of one of the mercenary leaders of the rebel army. A tall, orange-haired man built like a warehouse, his face carried no awe, and where many had dropped their weapons, he kept his up and craned about as though searching for a trick or a trap. I swallowed and tightened my grip on my own sword. “Hey,” I murmured, squeezing the Order Guard’s shoulder. His head spun about as if on a spring, and his eyes were wide with fear and confusion. “Listen. You have to get everyone, all the Silastians, to put down their weapons.”
“But…” He looked back at the figure in the lake, shaking his head, and his voice came out high and squeaky. “What is that thing?”
“Just get everyone’s weapons down,” I said. “You have to. Now.”
He stared at me, looked back at the lake, then back at me. Then he dropped his eyes and nodded. I patted his shoulder and worked my way through the gawking crowd toward the mercenary.
“This war ends now,” Os-Woorin declared. By the fortunes, whatever amplification device that thing had, even our modern theaters could not compete. “No more death.”
As I moved through the crowd, I heard the murmured prayers and quiet cries of people in every direction. But the tears and clutching hands, the bowed heads and frightened eyes, came not just from Darfri rebels. More and more people of city and country alike were dropping their weapons and falling to their knees. But the mercenary had obviously been paid well enough to ensure this war didn’t end so simply. As I approached the orange-haired man tried to incite the people around him. “Get up, fools,” he hissed. “This is some city trick. Get up and get your weapons.” He kicked at a few nearby kneeling figures, but they seemed to barely notice.
I crept up behind him and clubbed him with the butt of my sword.
He fell in silence, half landing on two women beside him, but they remained transfixed by the figure in the lake and simply shook him off like an insect. I took his sword and moved on through the crowd, hunting my next target.
The pause stretched out longer and longer, and inside I wondered, What is he going to say next? Perhaps Tain himself didn’t know. Speeches had never been his strength. But somehow, instead of making the crowd suspicious, the long silence intensified the atmosphere. Even the motionlessness of the great figure worked in Tain’s favor, because the anticipation for the lake spirit’s next words grew, even winding tight inside me in flagrant disregard for rationality. I hadn’t truly believed this thing could be real, had not fathomed how it could have worked all those years ago. Now I understood.
I had just incapacitated the second mercenary when Os-Woorin spoke again.
“I speak to you with the voice of the great spirit of the lake, Os-Woorin,” it said, and this time the east shore rang with cries of fear and confusion. Visible waves of reaction spread through the crowd there, the irreligious Silastians, after weeks of increasing rumors and inexplicable events, now faced with what appeared to be a giant supernatural being. I glanced up at the crimson-and-indigo-colored soldiers penning us in from the lower city, and saw much the same response there. This is going to work, I told myself. Fortunes stay with us now, I think this is going to work.
And then my heart almost stopped when the voice rang out again. “But I am not Os-Woorin.”
Oh, shit. And it was going so well.
The murmuring started around me, confusion and distrust amidst the awe. I stared at the statue with everyone else, no longer knowing what Tain planned to do, hoping that at least he did.
“I am Tain Caslavtash Iliri,” it said. “I am the Chancellor of this country, and I speak to everyone here as a plea for peace, a plea for forgiveness, and an acknowledgment of blame.”
Anger, now, bled through the faces around me. Some rebels stood back up. Then people cried out anew as the back of the statue opened, a door in the thinning mist, and a figure stepped out to perch on an unseen platform. Tain, unarmored, bare-headed, carrying a speaking trumpet. Dwarfed by the giant statue, he looked almost pitiful. Frustration burst through me, hot and furious. He’d had everyone, on both sides, laying down their weapons. Why would he jeopardize that now, waste the last, desperate opportunity the submerged statue had granted us?
“The Credol Families, the Council, and the Guilds of this city have committed terrible injustices,” Tain cried out, speaking through the trumpet. His voice was his own, now, not the eerie echoey voice of Os-Woorin, and though it carried well enough across the water, it lacked the power that had silenced the crowds. He’s going to lose them.
“I know why our own people laid siege to this city, I know what drove you to it. It’s not enough to say that I’m sorry, but I’m saying it anyway. Not all of us are Darfri. Not everyone believes in the old religion. But you don’t have to be Darfri to see that we have at best ignored and at worst encouraged abuses of the land that we all stand on. Our land. That we have ignored or encouraged the disrespect and the denial from the majority of the Sjon people of the very privileges that were supposed to distinguish our society.”
I licked my lips, unable to swallow through the dryness of my mouth. Muttering grew louder around me as more and more people stood, Silastians and countryfolk alike. Any moment, someone would swing a weapon again, and the mob would take over. And yet, I understood, and I loved him for it. To use the Darfri beliefs against them once again, even for the purpose of peace, would have been a further indignity, a stain on his offer of respect and equality. What peace could be built on such a further betrayal? Hadrea would approve. I was surprised to realize that I approved, too. Even if it cost us everything.