Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone - Chapter 90: The Late Wake

“You’re late,” said the Lady. She sat on a bleached trunk of driftwood, one leg crossed over the other. “I’d almost announced your death again.”

Aaron stood before her, panting, the hood of the stag cloak thrown over his back.

“Do you know,” he said, “I think we’ve quite the dragon problem?”

“Not here, we don’t,” she said, standing up. “Come, let me introduce you.”

They were a few miles south of Salt’s Mane, on a beach of sand bracketed by forest and waves. Not far off, a group of harbor seals lay on a rock outcropping near the water, a few fuzzy white babies laying next to—or trying to clamber over—their mothers. Closer at hand were the highest ranked of the Late Wake, a few dozen in total. Some were sitting, chatting; others were wading in the surf, digging clams between the breaking waves; still others were dragging driftwood across the beach for a fire, seeming to take the height of their growing pile as a challenge. Over there, a group was bundling together the thinner branches into the least artistic stickman Aaron had ever seen, with a fair bit of heckling for the main crafter’s skills.

A bonfire and a stickman: a pyre and its effigy. Which explained the festive mood to the air; who didn’t like a good mock burning?

Most of the Late Wake’s members had left their boots behind, to dig toes into sand or simply to not ruin good leather in the waves. None of them had taken off their cloaks. Not here, we don’t, the Lady had said, and looking at the scales and feathers and fur around him, Aaron had little trouble believing that this gathering might be more trouble than it was worth, to a dragon. The Lady was wearing the white griffin she’d favored since spring had begun.

His own deer skin felt a bit drab, by comparison. Maybe he should give up on being inconspicuous, and go for a cloak that made him harder to kill.

“Interesting you invited a journeyman,” said a man with the golden fur and darker feathers of a continental griffin draped about his shoulders.

“I trust him for this,” said the Lady.

“Thanks,” said Aaron, in exactly the tone such an endorsement deserved.

“Interesting,” the man repeated. And then grinned, like a fellow who thought himself clever. “Getting any bad feelings?”

So very clever. The man smirked even harder at Aaron’s baleful glare.

The Lady made the rounds with him. There were a considerable number of names to suddenly know. And then he was being put to work, helping to drag the trunk the Lady had been sitting on out of the grassy edge of the dunes and down to the ever-growing pyre. The Lady declined to assist—“What is the point of an apprentice, if not delegation?”—and picked wispy flowers from the forest’s edge, instead.

With a final heave, they got the trunk to the pyre’s top. Which was really not where such a large thing should go, but Aaron didn’t think this was an exercise in efficient fire building. Particularly not when there was a smaller cookfire already going, grilling clams and the occasional crab.

“Think we can drag that one down there?” asked a woman with the blue-scaled cloak of a dragon hatchling.

“That,” answered a man in similarly scaled greens, as he cracked his back, “is an entire tree. Don’t you think we’re overdoing it?”

“No such thing,” replied the woman in the blue cloak. Aaron looked to her. Then to the pyre behind her, already taller than she was. She caught the expression, and pointed at him. “No sass from you, journeyman.”

“None at all,” Aaron sassed agreeably.

“This pyre’s for humanity,” she said. “Don’t they deserve it?”

“ ‘They’?”

Near them, another woman was winding a final cord of freshly braided grass around the stickman’s brow, keeping its head from falling apart into so many twigs.

“That,” the woman in the blue cloak said, switching her pointing finger to the effigy, “is Humanity.”

“Or Two Fires,” said the woman doing the winding. “Depending on who you ask.”

“…Why?” asked Aaron.

“It’s a joke,” said the winder.

“What’s the joke?” Aaron asked.

“No idea,” said the woman in the blue cloak. “Our last leader never explained, and neither has our Lady.”

“To be fair,” said the winder, tying off her knot. “I don’t think Aeris ever explained it to either of them. Which is what comes from having a cat in charge.”

Aeris of the Red Trident; Queen Aednat’s ginger-furred spymaster. That must have been before the last queen died, and her son had the puss drowned. King Rillian had started his execution orders rather near to home. Which was all a fair bit before Aaron was born.

“The Lady must have been young when she joined,” Aaron said, “if she met Aeris.”

The blue-cloaked woman grinned, and turned to shout. “Oy, Addie, how old were you when you joined?”

“Funny,” replied the Lady, who was not at all far enough away to warrant shouting. She sat cross-legged on the sand, weaving the stems of her flowers into a crown. “You don’t look like Liam. And I seem to recall him being the only one who has— who had permission to call me that.”

“My sincerest apologies. So how old were you, Adejuanja?”

…Adejuanja. Which was not Adelaide, in the same way Jessica wasn’t Jeshinkra, and Johnathan wasn’t Jahnalistrin.

“A few years less than I am now,” the Lady replied, the sea breeze tugging at her enclave-blonde hair.

They could not, as it turned out, heft an entire tree on top of the pyre already built. They could, however, drag its barkless and sun-bleached bones over to make an excellent place to sit. The blue-cloaked woman snagged a seat on one of the sturdier remaining branches, a good few feet above them all. Aaron sat with the Lady in the sand, its respectable trunk an excellent backrest, and offered her the pastries he’d swiped for her. She smiled but didn’t take one; her hands were still occupied with her weaving. This did not stop others around them from helping themselves.

A man with a gray-furred cloak whose species Aaron didn’t recognize grabbed one. The trunk bounced a bit as he sat.

“So you’re the bad feelings kid,” he said. “I can’t work with any militia without getting asked whether I’ve a bad feeling. Told them yes once as a joke, and a ballistae string broke that day, almost took a man’s eye out. Now they have me walk the town every morning like I’m some sort of bloodhound for the broken. Which is, I must conclude, entirely your fault.”

“Interesting conclusion,” Aaron said, taking one of the pastries for himself. “It’s enough to give a fellow a bad feeling.”

In the silence that followed, he took a bite. Chewed. When the man broke out laughing—along with a few other folks who’d been close enough to hear—Aaron let his lips slant into a smile.

He’d expected a bit more business and a bit less socializing at this meeting. But this wasn’t bad.

Drinks started passing, and the first of the clams. Some of the seals drifted closer, by sand or by surf, and the cook tossed a few their way. One of the pups did its very best to sneak up to the pastries, as if its white pelt and all that belly flopping in any way subtle.

“Are pastries safe for them?” Aaron whispered, and got a handwave from the Lady that was more or less affirmative, so he pointedly looked anywhere but at the sweets set on the trunk behind them as the pup bit down on one. Greed apparently overcoming any remaining caution, she tossed back the hood of her white cloak to steal another in each hand. The selkie pup bolted—no more graceful over the sand on two feet than she’d been on her belly—and tucked herself against her mother’s round side to enjoy her catch. A cunning hunter, that one.

The Lady had finished her flower crown. She had one final flower, left over from her efforts; she tucked it behind her ear, just below her tarnished cat sidhe pin. Then she reached back towards the place the pastries had been and patted the empty handkerchief that had been their plate. The pup kept smugly tearing into her prey.

The Late Wake had gathered in a loose circle, now. These were their most experienced members, their leaders; those that could be spared from the field, in any case. Aaron was by far the youngest. They didn’t work to include him in their conversations. Didn’t work to exclude him, either. He was fine, leaning back against the tree’s trunk and listening in as the sky passed through pinks and oranges like a dragon testing its scales. He didn’t have any of the clams. Or the liquor. Just removed a loaf of bread from his pocket pantry, and left an end of it on the trunk next to him as he had his own dinner. Another pup was soon along to steal it, and seemed just as happy with its loot as the girl was with hers.

Humanity was gaining accessories. A cloak, a singular boot, a belt buckle sans belt. The effigy passed along the circle like an old friend come to mingle, spending as much time with arms draped over its shoulders as it did propped against various backrests. Someone had tucked clamshells into its face for eyes, but they weren’t staying on very well. Another had taken great care in tying a wine glass to its hand—the only wineglass in attendance, as they were just passing along bottles—and filling it, near to the brim. Everyone else took up the chore of keeping the glass from tipping as their twiggy friend made its rounds.

When it came their way, the Lady placed her flower crown on its head, straightened one of its eyes, and took a sip straight from its wineglass, to the near unanimous booing of her underlings.

“Get your own drink,” the blue-cloaked woman said.

“Has Humanity not a kind and generous nature?” the Lady replied.

The effigy was quickly confiscated from her.

“Speaking of kind and generous natures,” said another woman, leaning forward in their wide circle to see Aaron better, then shifting her gaze to the Lady. “You with an apprentice? Really?”

This was met with general exclamations of agreement, and a few congratulations to Aaron himself for not being dead. He got the sense this was less an issue of dying from danger, and more in the manner of a house plant with no house fey to remember its watering when its owner forgot.

The blue-cloaked woman had descended from her branch perch. She’d gotten her hands on Humanity, as well, and propped it up with one arm about her own shoulders and the other over Aaron’s. The one with the wine glass, as if his poor coat hadn’t been in enough peril lately. He steadied the drink.

“I thank you all for your support,” said the Lady, plucking a flask from someone’s hand.

“I don’t suppose you’re thinking of taking another,” the blue-cloaked woman said.

The Lady drank again, one brow raised.

“If you don’t want her…” the woman said.

“She’s not meant to be in the Late Wake,” the Lady said, which was when Aaron realized they were talking about Rose.

“She wouldn’t be the first fey-marked we’ve had,” the blue-cloaked woman pressed. “And it’s not like it will matter, off the island.”

“She’s not meant to be in the Late Wake,” the Lady repeated, “because she’s been poking about the castle library. The first and second editions, you understand. I’m fairly certain she’s the reason the wards held against the four-tails last fall.”

The woman sucked in a breath. “Right. Well. We should leave her to that, then. Who’s idea was it to put her in with us?”

“Hers,” said the Lady.

The woman laughed. “Well. There’s another one that’s yours, with or without blood shared.”

Over at the cook fire, one of the adult seals had flopped its way over, and was proudly trying to push a rather large, rather tentacled thing off on the person minding the flames.

“What do you expect me to do with that?” the man in question said. “Look, you’ve got it all sandy.”

The seal wilted.

“Don’t you give me those pup eyes,” the man said, gesturing at said eyes with the stick he’d been using to flip oysters. “Go on, go wash it.”

The man in the golden-furred griffin cloak sat down on the trunk behind them, inserting his legs between Aaron and the Lady and jostling Humanity in the process. Aaron kept the effigy’s wine glass clear of the man’s knees.

“Lana apprenticed you, right?” he asked, looking at Aaron. “What was it like under her?”

“Much like you’d expect, I’d imagine,” said Aaron, with a sort of retroactive chill. Lana, who he’d only ever heard of in passing; Lana, who’d taught Markus prior to his coming under the Lady’s wing, and who he was rather glad was not present. The last time he’d had a reunion with someone who’d known him well had been that time he’d gotten his sister’s knife.

The man’s lips tugged into a slow sort of smile. “So you’re good at swimming, then?”

“We are not—” the Lady began.

“I wasn’t going to suggest—”

“—throwing anyone—”

“—and that’s rather rude of you to assume—”

“—in the ocean this year,” the Lady finished.

“And in anycase, we caught it last year, didn’t we? The selkie wouldn’t be pupping on this beach if another big one had moved in.”

“…Are we talking about whales?” Aaron asked.

The man raised an eyebrow at him. “You ever seen a whale attack a human?”

“There’s a lot of things I haven’t seen attack a person,” Aaron said.

“They lay eggs,” the Lady was saying, to no one in particular. “So many eggs.”

She took a drink, then passed her flask on, without much looking to see who took it.

“That’s why she’s the leader, you know,” said the woman in the blue cloak. “Someone has to be the Responsible.”

“Someone has to be designated as no fun,” the golden-cloaked man groused. He turned back to Aaron, getting to where he’d meant this conversation to go. “…Is she all right? Your teacher. We were friends, as journeymen.”

“I haven’t seen her,” said Aaron, with truthfulness unmatched.

“No word, either?” the man pressed.

“Not to me,” Aaron said, and the Lady also shook her head.

“Well,” the man said, and it felt like the sort of well that would be followed by an oath, but he just repeated: “Well.”

He’d a trinket in his hands; a little scrap of cloth. He fidgeted with it a moment, then leaned down to pin it to Humanity’s breast. Then he looked to Aaron, and the Lady, as if expecting one of them to do the same.

“We knew she’d be out of touch,” the Lady said. “Just getting home can take her this long.”

“She keeps trying to go farther,” said the blue-cloaked woman.

“Keeps succeeding,” said the Lady. “It’s a race, you know. First to the continent.”

“First to the continent,” the golden-cloaked man agreed, like a funeral rite.

The sky was the deep red of torchlight on a blood spill. The pyre was complete, and had been for a while. A few more of the adult seals lay about the cook fire, barking now and again to heckle the man into turning skewers of newly-washed tentacles. In the Late Wake’s circle, a certain hush was falling.

“Well,” the golden-cloaked man said again.

“Indeed.” The Lady stood, and offered her hand back to him; helped him stand, though he didn’t need it. She leaned down to pluck Humanity’s arm off of Aaron’s shoulders, mindful of the wine glass. Then she carried the dummy to the pyre. The man got it up for her, because she was too short. Aaron had never thought of her as short before. But then, he’d never compared her to the height of a funeral pyre before, either.

One of the seals barked at the skewers again, and was hushed by the nips and fin-slaps of its neighbors.

The Lady accepted a lit branch from the cook. She walked around the pyre, lighting it evenly. Wind and wood soon did the rest.

The woman in the blue cloak said a name. Not one Aaron recognized. Others around the circle did, too; everyone who’d added something to Humanity’s funeral regalia.

The Lady didn’t say anything. Just watched, as the effigy’s regal crown of flowers wilted and burned, the single blossom in her own hair shaded red and gold by the light of the flames.

“May their souls not wander,” Aaron said, and the golden-cloaked man clapped him on the shoulder as he sat back down. The Lady rejoined them, after a moment more.

More liquor passed, though not all were partaking; there were plenty about the fire who were staying alert, keeping watch around them. Aaron got the impression that the selkie were, too. And were being paid for their trouble—or perhaps just for their companionship—in grilled tentacles and other morsels. There was talking, and laughter, and the companionship of friends not seen in a year or more.

Aaron stayed with the Lady’s group, as others drifted their way. Generally, these were those who’d only been drinking lightly, if at all. Aaron would have expected them to be the older members of the spy corp, but some didn’t look many years past him, even though they spoke with a certain weight of experience.

“This isn’t just a dragon doppel rallying them,” one such said, her feet buried in the sand, her back to the fire as their smaller group formed its own little circle. “No offense to His Majesty, but King Orin hasn’t the personality to draw people to him like this or he’d not be exiled in the enclaves right now; any doppel of his should be just as lacking. We didn’t even see this level of cohesion in the last war. Dragons don’t do this.”

And another: “We’ve spotted too many older dragons making the crossing. Those who’ve doppeled already should have no interest in returning. No self-interest, anyway.”

“You think they’ve a kirin,” the Lady said.

“I think it’s past due for some young buck to try his horns against the continent’s rule,” said the woman with her feet in the sand, and there were solemn faces all around. “I think Rian wouldn’t have fallen to some… some hatchling.”

She’d been the one to put the cloak around Humanity’s shoulders. A fairly worn cloak; someone’s favorite, made of wool, not magic. It wasn’t a thing a Late Wake member would have worn while scouting. Only on cold nights camping; and perhaps they’d have left it with a friend while they were off.

“If it’s a kirin, we’ll need those who can’t be easily swayed,” the Lady said. She glanced briefly at Aaron, then away. “You all know your teams. Get me recommendations; we’ll send a party by week’s end.”

“And what of the king?” asked the golden-cloaked man. “Are we declaring him a dragon, or not?”

“That depends entirely on him,” said the Lady.

“What does it depend on?” asked Aaron. Because the only one who’d thought him ready for this gathering was the Lady, so no one would expect him to already know what her inner circle seemed to take for granted.

“Whether he’s like his father, or his grandfather,” the blue-cloaked woman replied.

Like the Steadfast king, or the Executioner. An interesting metric for skin stealers to judge a person by. But then, the Lady’s cloak room seemed full of old pelts. When was the last time they made one fresh?

“And,” the Lady added, “whether he’s set on dying, if a doppel he is.”

“Who do we have working on him?” asked the golden-cloaked man.

“No one, officially,” the Lady said. She didn’t look at Aaron, with all the weight of her earlier gaze.

“Interesting,” the man said. “Is there anything you should be telling us, Adejuanja?”

The Lady’s lips quirked. “Not at this stage.”

Aaron gave her his own look. She returned a smile.

Around them, the party had largely broken up into groups. A few had been joined by women with spotted gray cloaks—some with children sleeping in their laps, some with sleepy pups gathered in their arms—who seemed just as pleased to sample the passing bottles as they had been to try the food. When their eyes caught the pyre’s light, they shone. It was full night now, and the effect would have been eerie were Aaron not so used to it.

If he weren’t so used to it, perhaps he would have caught on a bit sooner: it wasn’t only the selkies whose eyes caught the light, in a way no human’s should. No strict-kept human.

But then, the regular militia would hardly count the Late Wake as strictly kept.

There was a woman over there, in a cloak that matched the night; her eyes shone, and her nails about the neck of that wine bottle were perhaps a bit too pointed. A man over there, whose hair was speckled through with true gray, not the black-and-white peppering of age. Right in front of Aaron, the golden-cloaked man laughed at something—Aaron had lost the thread of the conversation—and his teeth were, perhaps, a bit too sharp.

There was, just possibly, a reason they were having this gathering outside of any town. And a reason some of the Late Wake’s scouts only returned to Last o’ the Isles once a year, if that.

It rather explained why he was feeling so comfortable here, with all these people he’d never met. And left a few other matters rather unexplained.

“It’s very interesting how much our Lady trusts you, Journeyman Markus,” said the man with the golden cloak, through his particularly sharp smile. “At any of our meetings. But particularly this one.”

Aaron did not answer. Did not have to, as the Lady took that moment to bring a rather ordinary handkerchief out of her pocket, with a bit of jerky inside.

“That is tiny,” said the woman with her feet buried in the sand. And a fair bit of her shins too, by this point. “Is that really enough for all of us? It won’t be spreading things too thin?”

“I’ll cut it,” volunteered the blue-cloaked woman.

“You’ll butcher it. Give it here, I’m better with a knife,” said another, and a bit of a verbal tussle ensued. The golden-cloaked man ended up with the little jerky strip, still on its handkerchief, laid carefully over the broadest and flattest part of their fallen tree’s trunk.

“How many of us are there?” he asked, clearly counting as he glanced between their immediate group.

“Don’t forget to count yourself,” said the blue-cloaked woman.

He hesitated. And rather clearly changed the place he’d been intending to cut at. “Shut up,” he said to her. Then, to the Lady: “How long will these last?”

“Long enough for any questions the investigation should raise. A year, at least; a few, if we’re lucky. He was lying to himself right up until I really did kill him, so it should be potent enough.”

Which was the point Aaron realized what they were cutting. And also what had become of the fox’s tongue.

The blue-cloaked woman was looking at the Lady, her expression solemn. “We’re sorry, you know. It didn’t have to be you.”

The Lady’s lips twitched, with something a distant cousin to amusement. “We’re committed, now.”

That we sounded a lot like I.

Old cloaks not replaced. Eyes that shone, hair the wrong color; nails and teeth too sharp.

It would matter to this Late Wake, whether or not they had a king who won’t let himself be killed for being a doppel.

“Why did you do it?” Aaron asked. And if she took the question as a follow up, took it as Why was it you instead of Why kill the fox at all, then either would be an answer worth knowing.

The Lady leaned back against the trunk with a smile, as behind her the golden-cloaked man carefully chopped the four-tails’ tongue into equal bites for the Late Wake’s coming lies.

“A kirin once asked,” she said, like someone telling a kingdom tale, “ ‘Why can a fox lie, even to us?’ How do you think the fox replied?”

Aaron didn’t know.

“Because everyone needs someone to lie to them,” she said. And then she smiled. “We’re going to succeed here. Tonight is another step, and then we’ll take another and another. Off this island and away, until we’re not just huddled here waiting for the hunters to come. We’ll have a friendly king on the throne, one way or another; we’ll get the nobles aimed in the right direction, and all the rest of humanity, too. We will survive, we will thrive, and everything will be okay.”

“Very reassuring, Adejuanja,” said the golden-cloaked man. “Particularly with that introduction.”

“I do my best,” the Lady replied.

None of that answered Aaron’s real question. Why did the fox need to die?

So every major leader in the Late Wake could lie. Because they had doppels in their ranks, and weren’t so happy to skin them as John would have had him believe. But why would these uptowners need to doppel?

For the same reason as those in Twokins, Aaron expected. To protect family and friend and their own skins; to survive. To thrive, even where no one wanted them to.

“Why?” he repeated.

“I believe,” said the Lady, “I gave you homework along with your first cloak.”

“The population records,” he said, as a bit of tongue was placed in his hand, and somehow failed to be the most important thing to happen this evening. “We’ve been dying since the old castle was sealed.”

“Very good, Aaron. You found that connection quicker than most.”

“What happened?” he asked, as Humanity—or Two Fires, depending on who you asked—burned on the pyre.

“When they sealed that castle,” she said, “they decided ghosts weren’t human. And then they decided those who had a doppel shift weren’t either, no matter what they’d been born as, or what children they could have. Decided to kill them, to keep the rest of us pure. And they kept narrowing things from there. This year, a thousand rode with King Orin to fight at the front. A thousand, from our very capital, the largest city humanity claims. A thousand used to be a supply train. We broke our pact with the dragons in your lifetime, but someone before me decided to forget why it was forged in the first place; decided that letting humanity waste as Liam wasted—may his soul not wander—with us all turned in against ourselves, was a better thing than facing outward to fight while we’d still the strength. But a lingering death was never man’s choice.”

“I’ve heard that before,” he said.

She looked at him. “I should hope so, Markus. Given that you wrote it.”

Fèill Fadalach, the Late Wake. Those who guarded humanity in the hour of its death. It really was in the name.

The rest of their circle was eating their bits of tongue. Swallowing them with wine, or dry, or chewing with the look of a person trying the taste of a thing just because they’d the chance to.

His was still in his hand. As was hers. She reclaimed her handkerchief, shook it free of crumbs, and re-wrapped her little sliver of lies.

“What’s the point of saving yours?” Aaron asked.

“His Majesty might have need of it,” she said. “Should he prove a doppel, and one on our side.”

“Do you even know if he is?”

“That’s rather beside the point,” she said, and it rather was. She tilted her head. “Are you eating yours?

Aaron’s stomach rather disagreed with the prospect. This came from a thing that talked, and no mistake. A person. A person’s tongue, from their mouth, and she just… expected him to put it in his and chew. As everyone else had already done. And he was getting some looks, for his slowness.

“Don’t you need one?” he stalled.

“Aaron, I had my first fox’s tongue when I was younger than you are.” The Lady laughed. And when she had done with all her laughter, she leaned forward. “Now, are you going to eat?”

She watched as he did. The tongue was too tough to chew; his spit dried up when he tried to swallow it. The blue-cloaked woman passed him a bottle of red wine, and he had his first drink of the night as they all watched. It felt a test.

Given that he vomited not a quarter hour later, he guessed he’d failed. No one said anything of it.

Interesting, indeed.

Humanity’s fire was coals by the morning. Only the selkies saw them leave.

* * *

Aaron asked at the forest villages along the road, and up at the enclave. No one had heard of an Adejuanja.