Chapter 28

In the early hours of the morning, Izel Coyac sat by the last smoldering embers of the campfire and poked them with a stick. He stirred the fading red, eyes on it yet unseeing, and if asked he would say there was no greater purpose to it. It was to keep the hand busy while his mind was away.

But the gods disagreed.

Among the pit of gray ash and black coal there lay lines of glowing red, and when watched from the corner of his eye they came together in shapes. Canoes, he thought. He picked out ten before he ceased counting, for the number did not truly matter. Not as much as the way they were all made of bones. His lips thinned at the haziness of what his ken implied.

“Doom or deliverance?” he asked the embers.

They had no answers for him. Perhaps the ambiguity, he thought, made this a truer touch of the god than most. The Bone Thief ever grasped good in one hand and evil in the other, that was his nature. Lost in thought as he was, Izel did not realize he had company until someone sat on the log to his left. He nearly jumped out of his skin, and did drop his stick. Tristan snorted, bending down to pick it up and return it. Izel took the slightly charred wood, clearing his throat.

“Good morning,” he said.

Tristan nodded, gray eyes lingering on the ash. The Mask’s face was fuller than when they had first met, when Izel remembered having noticed traces of hollowness in his cheeks that he’d recognized. You saw in serfs that weren’t fed enough, or worked too hard. It had faded over the months, but that fullness was now being eaten into by something different – rings around his eyes, which seemed to get deeper by the week. He didn’t act exhausted, but that was only more worrisome.

It had the look of a burning wick to it.

“Did you know,” Tristan suddenly said, “that even Krypteia records don’t go in detail about the ‘ken’ of Scholomance students?”

The thief rolled his shoulder.

“Only their existence, and a mark of one to five on how likely they are to drive the Umuthi in question mad,” he said.

“Not an unreasonable precaution,” Izel conceded. “I have heard of some kens that seem… difficult to live with.”

Like that senior in Mazu who heard aether currents as the wails of her dead children, or that infamous case on the Emerald Coast who saw densities as colors and couldn’t leave still zones without getting sick. Izel bit at the inside of his cheek, mustering up the courage.

“Is it allowed,” he finally said, “to ask what my numbers is?”

Tristan chuckled.

“Not really,” he said. “So keep it quiet. You’re a two, but besides it there is an asterisk.”

Izel eyed him sideways.

“And that means?”

“That you’re an anomaly,” he said. “Not a lot of details, like I said, but there’s a note that your ken is unusually broad in scope and can function as limited-scale predictive boon.”

Izel smiled mirthlessly.

“I imagine,” he said, “that there is some debate among higher ups as to whether the signs I see are omens or omens.”

“The traditional Sacromonte street-witch dilemma,” Tristan amusedly said. “Was I told my fortune, or am I stretching circumstance to match babble? Soothsaying is a decent racket, Izel. Maybe you should open a stall.”

“I’ll keep that in mind should I wash out of the Umuthi Society,” he replied, lips twitching. “Coyac fortunes, gods. My mother might actually put a price on my head if she hears of it.”

Her house was not particularly wealthy or powerful, but they were very proud in the way that bloodlines without anything to boast of beyond lineage tended to be. Tristan eyed him from the side.

“Not your father?”

Izel softly laughed.

“My father paid for his first suit of armor by selling soldiers ‘sacred Kantusuyu amulets’ that would protect a man from bullets and gangrene,” he drily replied. “He’d never so much as stepped foot in Kantusuyu and the prayers were painted by a Tianxi serf.”

Society warriors from the Seven Valleys hadn’t been able to tell the difference between an Aztlan from the Great Aniam Desert and one from Kingdom of Kantusuyu, or cared enough to try. He’d made the claim because the Kantusuyu were held in higher respect than most Aztlan for their fierceness and the supposed ability of their priests to call back the spirits of the violently dead. It meant ‘their’ amulets sold for more, enough that Father had eventually been able to afford the helmet and breastplate he needed to enroll as a tlanixucatl auxiliary.

“Well, your own soothsaying sounds like less of a trick than your old man’s,” Tristan noted.

Though Izel himself noted that the former street rat did not sound all that disapproving of someone playing tricks.

“Unless you think you’re just seeing things,” the Mask continued. “But it doesn’t sound it. Doom or deliverance, was it?”

So he had heard that. Izel had been wondering. He poked at the embers again, sending the fleet of canoes scattering into the dark.

“What do you know about Izcalli religion?” he finally asked.

“You got beat with the Orthodoxy stick same as the rest of the Second Empire,” Tristan replied. “But your people kept their old ways tacked on to Liergan’s and the emperors were content to let that sleeping dog lie.”

And why wouldn’t they, Izel thought, when Izcalli had been all too willing to cross the Straying Sea to die by the legion in Liergan’s name? Enough of his people had died conquering Malan for the Second Empire that a bridge across that dark sea could have been made of their bones.

“Most of our greater gods became part of the Orthodoxy,” Izel told him. “Many of them still are, and see no dishonor in it. Death and defeat are writ in the bones of what it means to be Izcalli, since we consider ourselves the children of the Fifth Loss.”

“And that Fifth Loss is the destruction of your great kingdom in the Old World,” Tristan said. “The disaster that drove you down into Vesper.”

Izel smiled mirthlessly.

“Not just of our ancient home,” he said. “Of us all. When the Old World died, so did all the Izcalli.”

“And yet here you all are, kicking about,” Tristan said. “So what’s the catch?”

“The Bone Thief cheated our doom, or so goes the tale,” Izel said. “He stole our bones from the Grave-Given and made from them a fleet of ships to carry their souls below, giving most of them back after reaching the Seven Valleys.”

Where the story grew complicated, as by most tales there hadn’t been a Seven Valleys until the Night King made it out of the Cipactli’s corpse.

“Most?” Tristan amusedly asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“With the bones he kept back he made the first plow, jar and flute,” Izel said. “Teaching the first of the reborn Izcalli to raise crops, ferment beer and make music. For this were yet revere him as the god of crops, art and craftsmanship, but above all these he is the god of wisdom.”

Tristan stared at him, almost frowning. A moment passed.

“Is that why Izcalli stick skulls on everything?” he finally asked.

Izel blinked. Everyone added- it was only natural that- huh. Admittedly he had seen fewer of those since leaving home. He’d assumed it was a Watch tendency, since they dyed everything black they could get away with.

“It is considered good luck to add a skull or some sort of bone when crafting something with one’s hands,” Izel conceded. “It invites the Bone Thief to take an interest, and perhaps aid in the endeavor.”

“You have just unmade a deep-seated assumption in me,” Tristan informed him, “for which I thank you.”

Izel did not quite dare ask what it had been, though it felt same to assume it was less than flattering.

“Still, I expect you had a point when asking what I knew of your people’s religion.”

The tinker nodded.

“My ken,” Izel said, “doesn’t make me an oracle. All it does is let me feel where my gods intersect with the world. My mind, though, cannot… grasp that, not truly. Only recognize it. So it fills the gap how it can.”

“With omens,” Tristan slowly said. “Symbols.”

Shapes. That was the truest word for them, cursed as it was. I name you shape-giver, shape-finder, the god with the coyote’s head had laughed. You will find them everywhere your feet take you, Izel Coyac, Tlat– he grit his teeth and pushed down the anger. The fear.

“I tell you of the Bone Thief,” Izel made himself say evenly, “because it is him I found among the embers. A fleet of ships made of bone.”

“And it could be a warning of doom,” Tristan thoughtfully completed, “or deliverance. We because we don’t know if we’re behind the ships or ahead of them.”

We are the ships, Izel thought. Our bones all bundled together, sailing into the dark. And there is no guarantee we will find a shore waiting on the other side. That this was a dark of Tristan’s own choosing was proving to be of a little comfort.

“It is a risky game we are playing,” the Mask eventually acknowledged.

“It was a risky game,” Izel said. “Then you brought de Tovar and Yaotl into it. Now, now it is something else entirely.”

“They were already in it, like it or not,” Tristan replied. “The Second was sniffing at our heels and so was the princess. The only difference is now we know the role they’re going to play.”

For the Second Brigade, that was the role of allies. For the Nineteenth, though? Tristan was treating them like the same tlanixucatl Izel’s father had once served as. Front teeth, the first men to bite. The first to chip, too, if the enemy proved hard chewing. And Yaotl would know it, too. He had not been subtle in assigning them their roles. Only Yaotl would see it as an opportunity, a chance to crush him. Where could she score more kills than where the fighting was thickest?

Not that it would help her, no matter how well she swung her sawsword.

“She’ll contest the count, even if you get your way,” Izel warned him.

“That’s what the Marshal is for,” Tristan said.

Izel closed his eyes, sighed.

“I know what you’re doing, Tristan,” he said. “I am not blind.”

“Oh?” the Mask smiled. “And what would that be?”

“You had yourself publicly struck in camp, then you put up your flesh as a wager to put further weight on the scales. Whatever the outcome of the contest, most of Scholomance will consider the matter with the girl you shot settled. You’re cornering them.”

Because if the Nineteenth was seen as the aggressor twice in a row, they would go from pariahs to a disturbance of the peace. If the authorities of Scholomance did not step in then, they were in danger of losing legitimacy in the same way they would have had they done nothing when Tristan poisoned Ahuic. The thief hummed, expression unreadable, and did not answer.

“If you get everything your way,” Izel said, “she will be enraged. She won’t care that opinion runs against her. She will do anything she can to get even.”

“I know,” the Mask said. “I am, in fact, counting on it.”

His jaw tightened.

“Someone will get hurt,” Izel said.

“Yes,” Tristan agreed, then turn to meet his eyes. “So tell me, Izel, why it should be me?”

Izel breathed out.

“I’m not asking you to-”

“No,” Tristan quietly interrupted. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re asking me to continue pulling punches against someone who already wants my head. It won’t get worse, Izel. There is no way for her to escalate that doesn’t involve her ending up in front of a firing squad. What will happen is she will get reckless. Sloppy.”

He leaned in.

“And you want to avoid that, because it means your old friend will end up dead or disappeared,” he said. “And I sympathize, I do. But I’m not putting my neck on the line so you can feel better about the trouble that you brought to our door in the first place. You want me to play nice with Yaotl Acatl?”

Those gray eyes went cold.

“Make her play nice, then,” he said. “Or better yet, take care of the problem yourself. Because she’s not an old friend of mine, just some slaver princess who picked a fight.”

Only Izel had no solution to this, none save swinging his arm and making a truth – fighting for the victory. Harming her, driving her out. And the worst part was that she’d accept that result, he knew. Heed it and respect it, because it would all have followed the shape of the Dialectic of Night and even in losing Yaotl would be upholding the worth of the noose around her neck.

It wasn’t winning, driving her out of Scholomance. It was kicking the crate beneath her feet as she stood on the gallows.

“I have no lever to move her,” Izel bit back. “You know that.”

“I know you could have her banned from the Workshop,” Tristan flatly replied. “And that an Ossuary ban would likely ensue. It would send a very clear signal from almost half the covenants on the isle that her behavior is not acceptable.”

“That is still cornering her,” he insisted. “Attacking her. That is the opposite of what needs to be done. What she needs is a way to save face so she’s not forced to take drastic measures to maintain her pride.”

“Listen to yourself,” Tristan harshly replied. “Just fucking listen to yourself, Izel, still coddling her like she’s a child. She needs to have her pride saved? She threatened to run you out of this island so she could physically force you back in Izcalli.”

“Not out of cruelty,” he said. “She is trying-”

“I don’t care about her intentions, Izel,” he said. “And neither should you, because they don’t change what she’s doing. There is being kind and there is being a beaten dog. No one forced her to come to Allazei, or to make the enemies she did, or to be so volcanically unstable that she can only answer defeat with fucking murder.”

Rich, coming from a man with an empty bottle of snail venom, but he bit his tongue.

“She’s not evil, Tristan,” Izel flatly said. “She follows the rules she was taught the world works by. Honor and blood and strife. Selfish, yes, but her life’s object has been to lead an errant lodge of the Jaguar Society, to pledge her blade to worthy causes.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“She wants to do good, she just doesn’t understand that the Calendar Court broke the meaning of that word.”

In a way, Izel fitting so poorly the shapes expected of him had helped. Yaotl, though, she had excelled once she found a path. And when you were a child, good what was what crowds clapped at and evil what they denounced. And they had clapped for Yaotl a great deal, once she began winning duels.

“It’s beaten into us, back home,” he said. “That the world is made up of victory and defeat, truth and lies, and we can only make something true by dying it red. It takes time to unlearn that, and she’s been out of Izcalli for mere months.”

He caught Tristan’s eye.

“You have your own lessons to temper, Tristan,” he said. “I wager they were taught to you by your home as well. I only ask the same chances be given to her that you would want given to you. That have been given to you, by others.”

“You gave me something of a pass over Ahuic,” Tristan acknowledged.

Then the Mask leaned in.

“Only not really. Because you did put me through your little test, didn’t you?”

Izel swallowed. Looked for a way to deny it and found his hands empty.

“Where’s her test, Izel?” Tristan softly asked. “The line in the sand she has to respect before she’s known to be a rabid dog. Because where I’m sitting, it’s looking like I’m the only one who has to worry about his footing.”

He breathed in. That was… No, that was true. He had not treated them the same. Because her understood Yaotl, the poison in her, while in Tristan he had seen the ghost of Tozi. All smiles and comradery, until things no longer went her way. There was wrong in Yaotl and there was in Tristan, but there was wrong in him as well. More than he had cared to acknowledge.

“You’re right,” he said, and Tristan’s face went blank. “That is unfair.”

And he looked for the deliverance, for the perfect solution that was the missing cog in the machine – the one that made it all work without need for the hammer, for the scraps – but there was never one. You had to make it yourself.

But before that, there were scales to even.

“Offer her a way out, at the end of today,” Izel asked. “A chance to settle it in honor that does not harm you.”

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Tristan’s brow rose. He said nothing.

“And if she refuses again,” Izel said, “if she will not tolerate anything but victory in all things, I will do what I should have from the start.”

“And what does that mean, exactly?” Tristan asked.

That I’ll do the only thing I still can for her to be alive at the end of this, Izel thought.

“I will take care of it myself,” Izel said. “I’ll run her out of Scholomance.”

His face was searched, for a long moment, then Tristan slowly nodded.

“I’ll hold you to your word,” he said.