They met at sunset on the plaza of arches.
Mav had spent the afternoon at the bottom of his sea, and he had checked his land fighters one by one. Six’s two broken legs had healed days ago. Moss’s torn leg had healed, with a long pale scar on it. Fern and Reed were ready. He had also told Sela where he was going. She had answered with a picture of him coming home in one piece, and it had looked like an order.
Now he stood in front of Tamsin with his harpoon in his hand, and he named his price.
"I don’t want your silk," he said. "I want your allegiance."
Tamsin went pale.
Allegiance was what a vassal gave to a liege, and the Genesis took care of it without any judge. The liege could see the vassal’s World in his Status. He could enter it whenever he wanted, without coordinates. The Subjects of that World obeyed him first, and their own master second. And each time the vassal’s Heartstone gained Essence, a part of it went to the liege. The liege chose how large that part was, up to one half.
It was almost the same thing as a servant contract, with one difference. A contract was written by a noble house, and it had 40 pages of rules. Allegiance only had the rules of the Genesis, so everything else depended on the liege.
"That’s what the raider wants from me," Tamsin whispered. "It’s exactly what I’m trying not to give."
"I know. But think about it the way you think about your numbers." Mav kept his voice calm. "If I chase him away tonight, he’ll come back next week, or his master will send someone else. You can’t change your coordinates, so it will never stop. But an Awakened can only have one liege. If you’re already my vassal, you can’t swear to anyone else. Then your Heartstone is worth nothing to them, unless they beat me first."
Tamsin thought about that. He saw her understand it.
"They want vassals," she said slowly. "So if I’m taken, they have no reason to come."
"Yes. That’s the idea."
"And what would you take from me?"
"I would take one tenth of your Essence. The nobles take half." He paused. "I’ll never give you an order on your own World, unless your life depends on it. And if I ever become a bad liege, you can tell Ronald, and he’ll break my nose."
Tamsin almost laughed, but it came out as a sob.
She looked at her slate for a long time. Mav knew that she was thinking it through, and he let her. He didn’t want a vassal who said yes without thinking.
He was also asking himself why he was doing this. One tenth of a weak World was almost nothing. The honest answer was that he wanted to protect her, and he didn’t know how to do that for free.
"One tenth," Tamsin said at last. "And you’ll really fight for me, every time."
"Yes, every time."
She closed her eyes. Nothing seemed to happen. But a moment later, letters appeared in front of Mav.
[Tamsin Bell offers you her allegiance.]
[Do you accept?]
’Yes, I accept.’
[Tamsin Bell is now your vassal.]
[Tribute: choose a share between 0% and 50%.]
’I choose 10%.’
He opened his Status, and there were two lines in it that had never been there before.
[Vassals: 1]
[Tamsin Bell. World: Night Forest. Rank: E.]
He had expected to feel clever, and he did. But mostly, it scared him a little. Until now, he had been responsible for creatures at the bottom of a sea. Now he was responsible for a person, who had five brothers and sisters behind her.
"It’s done," Tamsin said. She was looking at her own Status with wide eyes. "It says that my liege is Maverick Silkborn." She swallowed. "It’s strange. I thought that I would feel like a prisoner, but I feel safer."
She hesitated, and then she went on, more quietly.
"You’re my liege now, so you should know my talent. It’s called Loom. My moths make three times more silk than normal moths do. That’s why the raider takes it every night, and it’s probably why his master wants me."
Mav hadn’t expected that. A talent was the most private thing that an Awakened had, and she had just told him hers without being asked.
"Thank you for telling me," he said. "I won’t repeat it to anyone. But don’t feel safe yet, because we still have a raider to catch."
-----
He walked into the nearest arch and thought of her World, and the arch opened for him at once.
The first thing he noticed was the dark.
There was no sun in Tamsin’s sky. There was no moon either, only a few weak stars behind a roof of black leaves. The trees were enormous. Their trunks were as wide as houses, and their roots rose out of the ground like walls. The air was warm and wet, and it smelled of earth and flowers.
The light came from the moths.
There were 13 of them, and they were resting on the trunks around a small clearing. Each moth was as large as a door. Their bodies were soft and white, and their wings shone with a pale blue light, like lamps behind glass. Small furry creatures with huge ears were watching from the branches above them. They were her builders, and they were too frightened to come down.
He had expected the moths to be ugly, but they were beautiful.
One of the moths turned toward him. Then another one did, and then all 13. He felt something that he had never felt before. Thirteen small, soft points had appeared at the edge of his mind. They weren’t his, but they were listening to him.
He raised his hand, and all of the moths lifted their wings together. Tamsin raised hers, and only then did they lower them.
"They obey you first," she said. She sounded a little hurt, and a little amazed.
"I won’t use it unless I have to," Mav said. "They’re yours."
The oldest tree of all stood in the middle of the clearing. There was a hole between its roots, and a warm light was beating slowly inside it. It was her Heartstone. The ground in front of it was torn up, and it was dark with blood. Two large shapes lay there under a cover of leaves.
They were Ronald’s boars. Tamsin had covered them herself.
Mav looked at them for a moment, and his anger came back, cold and steady.
Then he studied the clearing, the way he had once studied the hunting ground of the eel. There was only one easy way in, which was a wide path between two walls of roots. The raider’s beasts had used it every night, and their tracks were everywhere.
’They come down that path because it’s the fastest way to the Heartstone. So that’s where I’ll put my water.’
He reached for his World and pushed.
The dome of water rose silently in the dark, right across the path. It filled the space between the two walls of roots and closed the way completely. Inside it, Seven stretched out her long body, and Two waited behind her with 10 other needlefish. The five spined fish lay along the bottom of the dome, where anything that fell in would land on their spines.
Then his four land fighters stepped out. Six went to stand in front of the Heartstone. Moss, Fern and Reed did what stalkers did best. They climbed onto the roots on both sides of the path and pressed their flat bodies against the bark. Their spots changed color, until Mav himself couldn’t see them anymore.
There was one more thing to prepare. Tamsin had told him that the laughter of the gray beasts made other beasts afraid. So he reached for the points of Six and the three stalkers, one after another.
’You’re going to hear a sound that will frighten you. It’s only a sound, and it can’t hurt you. I’ll be with you the whole time.’
He felt them listen, and he felt them trust him.
"Tamsin," he said. "When I tell you, I want every moth to flash at the same time. Don’t do it before."
She nodded. She was shaking, but she had her slate ready, as if she were going to take notes.
They waited for three hours.
Then the points of the moths all trembled at once, and Mav heard it. The sound came from far away, between the trees, and it sounded like people laughing.
Something large was moving in the forest, and it wasn’t alone.