Page 1 of Fate of the Argosi

Dancing on a Spire

I’ve been pondering this awhile now, balanced precariously on my tiptoes atop this six-hundred-foot spire where every stray gust of wind seems eager to send me hurtling to the hungry cobblestones below, and I’ve come to a decision: I’ve decided that ‘glorious’ is the most beautiful word there is.

Now, maybe you disagree. Maybe you reckon there’s a word that tickles the tongue sweeter than ‘glorious’. Maybe you’re partial to ‘quintessence’ or ‘diaphanous’ or ‘loquacious’.

Hmm . . . Loquacious.Lo-qua-cious.

Okay, I’ll admit it, that’s a good one. Matter of fact, I’ve been accused – righteously, some would say – of being a miteloquaciousmyself. No shame in an eighteen-year-old girl wanting the world to hear what she has to say, is there? You ask me, it’s a bigger shame when a bodydon’tbare its soul now and then, even if there’s no one to talk to up here but a grumbling spire goat who keeps butting me in the leg, trying to topple me off his favourite perch.

Peculiar critters, spire goats. Barely two feet tall with three little horns and twenty miles’ worth of bad attitude. Real territorial too. Legend has it they got their name on account of their proclivity for climbing up spires, towers and cathedrals to be closer to the gods. More likely they come for the coppery-blue moss that only grows above the treeline. Chewing the moss is what gives them the malodorous abilities they rely on to fend off predators ten times their size.

Yep, that’s right: I was one headbutt away from meeting an undignified end courtesy of a goat no bigger than a house cat and mostly known for belching and farting its enemies to death. Oh, and when they get real angry? Spire goats make this bleating noise that can shatter your eardrums if you get too close.

I reached down a hand to tickle his silvery-white beard. ‘But I’ll bet you fancy me too much for that, don’t you, fella?’

The spire goat growled at me, real quiet like, but that low rumble rattled my bones. Hadn’t known they could do that. No wonder these little guys are so bossy. The thing is, here in Gitabria there aren’t many mountains high enough for the blue moss to grow, and the ones there are attract a particularly venomous snake whose favourite snack is dead spire goat. But luckily for them, snakes don’t take to cities, and Gitabrian contraptioneers are legendary for erecting towers so tall that anyone crazy enough to climb to the top could kiss the moon right on the cheek.

I might be exaggerating a little. I’m prone to a touch of the dramatic now and again. Perched up here though, atop the tallest spire in this whole magnificent city, overlooking copper-capped alabaster towers and crowded streets blazing with a thousand flickering oil lanterns, each one a star beckoning you towards some new adventure or intrigue? Well, it’s no exaggeration to say that the view was breathtaking.

Glorious, you might say.

The spire goat gave an enquiring snort.

‘I ain’t crying,’ I informed him, shooing him away when he tried to nibble on the heel of my boot. ‘Takes more than one tear before you can call it crying.’

One tear. No big deal. A single, solitary tear for all the places I yearned to explore, the wonders I longed to see, the fights – hard-won, I promise you – it had taken to get me to this moment, when I finally had the skills to travel anywhere on this continent without fear of persecution or peril.

One tear.

As that lonely drop of grief slid down my cheek, and the little spire goat butted my leg for the hundredth time, trying to oust me from his private feeding ground, I reached into one of the dozen pockets of my favourite black leather waistcoat and pulled out my least favourite deck of cards.

Argosi carry all kinds of decks. Theconcordances, for example, are made up of different suits for each of the cultures living on this continent. We paint them so we can comprehend how folks live and the patterns that govern their societies. Thediscordances, on the other hand, represent individuals and events that break those patterns. Anomalies that could alter the course of history. Theteysandeck teaches the Four Ways of Water, Wind, Thunder and Stone that guide an Argosi’s path, along with the seven talents we rely on to survive the journey. I even have a deck of razor-sharp steel cards that my pappy taught me to throw so fast and accurate I could pin a swallow’s tail to a tree branch – not that any Argosi worth the name would do such a thing.

Most decks, you hope to build up over time as you learn more about the world. The one I was holding in my hand though? Those cards you hope to shed quick as you can so they don’t weigh you down on your travels. They’re calleddisharmonies, but that’s just a fancy word for what they really are: debts.

The Way of Water says an Argosi should flow past other people’s lives like a gentle stream, never taking what others don’t want to give, never leaving behind more than a smile and a good story. No matter how hard you try though, once in a while you can’t help but violate the Way of Water. You end up taking something you didn’t mean to, or leaving calamity and misery in your wake. We Argosi don’t believe in regrets though. Regrets aren’t restitution, and an Argosi always pays her debts.

That compulsion had brought me to the top of this spire. I needed to gaze out over this gorgeous city and the gleaming shores beyond to all the places I’d dreamed of visiting but couldn’t. Not yet. Eighteen years old and already I was weighed down by more debts than my conscience could bear. The deck in my hand contained painted cards of people who’d done me a kindness only to suffer as a result: families who’d lost a loved one I’d failed to protect and never learned the truth of what had happened; folks who were hurting because of me and would go on hurting until I found a way to make things right.

My hands trembled as I shuffled my disharmonies deck. Chance probably isn’t the noblest way to decide which debt to pay first, but we Argosi are gamblers by nature. So I closed my eyes, fanned out the cards and let the breeze guide my fingertips. There are four suits in a deck of disharmonies: thorns, chains, tears and dust. Each represents a different imbalance that needs rectifying.

Nobody likes paying off debts – always feels like you’re gonna walk away poorer than when you started. That’s why, when I opened my eyes and saw the card I’d drawn, and the tribulations to which I was surely headed, I was utterly unprepared to find myself laughing so hard and smiling so bright I reckoned I’d outshone the stars above and below.

The spire goat gave an angry bleat – not the kind that knocks you off your feet thankfully. This was more of a ‘Hey, idiot, what’s so hilarious it warrants you giggling like a lunatic while stomping all over my favourite patch of moss?’

Now, impoliteness ain’t the way of the Argosi. So before I began my precarious descent from the spire, I knelt down to ruffle the goat’s fur and kiss him on his grumpy little head. I held out the card I’d painted a few years back of a reckless, sly-faced thief with straw-blonde hair and a smirk that was a magnet for trouble. ‘Ain’t it funny,’ I asked the spire goat, ‘how even when holding an awful hand, sometimes you draw a lucky card?’

Part 1

The Thief of Chains

A disharmony represents more than an unpaid obligation. When we abandon those we’ve wronged, they are not the only ones imprisoned by our mistakes; part of us remains shackled to them. Ignore this simple truth, teysan, and you not only steal from those to whom restitution is owed, but rob from yourself the joy of becoming whole. This is why the Argosi pay their debts not grudgingly but with gratitude.

1

The Moral Dilemmas of Prison Breaks

Six months and seven hundred miles I followed the trail on which that card had set me. From the heights of a majestic spire overlooking the most glamorous city on the continent to the subterranean depths of a prison so notoriously fatal to body and spirit it more than earned the name ‘Soul’s Grave’.

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