Driftwood Read online

  Praise for Driftwood

  [Starred] “A diverse cast of characters from disparate worlds, each facing their own rapidly approaching mortality, come together to memorialize a missing man—rumored to be immortal—in this new fantasy title from veteran author Brennan . . . Readers will close the cover aching to read more about Last and his world. An exciting delve into a conglomerate land filled with magic and mystery.”

  —Kirkus, starred review

  [Starred] “Brennan skillfully builds a multiplicity of worlds, painting each unique and fully developed culture with bold, minimalist strokes and, though readers don’t get to spend much time with any single character, rendering each member of the sprawling cast with impressive nuance and subtlety. Exploring found family, adaptation, and hope in the face of apocalypse, Brennan imbues this high-concept fantasy with a strong emotional core. Fantasy fans will be thrilled.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Driftwoodis a richly imagined and shifting place. I keep thinking about it weeks after shutting the book. This is what people mean by ‘haunting.’”

  —Mary Robinette Kowal, author of The Calculating Stars

  “Haunting, timeless, and timely. Brennan invented Driftwood, but it feels like she discovered it.”

  —Max Gladstone author of The Empress of Forever

  “Bittersweet and haunting, Brennan’s story celebrates the death-defying power of love and everlasting memory.”

  —Karen Lord, author of Redemption in Indigo

  Praise for Marie Brennan

  “Told in the style of a Victorian memoir, courageous, intelligent and determined Isabella’s account is colorful, vigorous and absorbing. A sort of Victorian why-what-whodunit embellished by Brennan’s singular upgrade of a fantasy bromide and revitalizingly different viewpoint.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on The Memoirs of Lady Trent series

  Praise for A Natural History of Dragons

  [Starred]“Saturated with the joy and urgency of discovery and scientific curiosity.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  Praise for The Tropic of Serpents

  “Smart and nuanced . . . Overwhelmingly fun and a perfectly delightful [summer] read.”

  —io9

  [Starred]“Uncompromisingly honest and forthright [and] narrated in Brennan’s usual crisp, vivid style.”

  —Kirkus, starred review

  Praise for Voyage of the Basilisk

  “Revelations crash like waves in a satisfying conclusion.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Turning Darkness Into Light

  “Turning Darkness Into Light delivers a plot of poli- tics. Groups straining to be heard, to have their place in the world recognized. We witness not only the potential importance of the text Audrey is translating, but what real world consequences it has . . . This is a story of betrayal, loneliness, and our quest to be seen. It is a story that places emphasis on the importance of history, of telling our story, and our fight for rec- ognition.”

  —Utopia State of Mind

  “She has managed to expand upon the world of Memoirs of Lady Trent and more, and it’s safe to say fans of the series who wanted more about the mysterious Draconean civilization will be very happy with this novel . . . Marie Brennan has written another winner, building upon the brilliance of her Lady Trent series.”

  —BiblioSanctum

  Also by the Author

  Doppelganger

  Warrior Witch

  Dancing the Warrior

  The Doppelganger Omnibus

  Onyx Court

  Midnight Never Come In Ashes Lie

  A Star Shall Fall

  With Fate Conspire Deeds of Men

  In London’s Shadow: An Onyx Court Omnibus

  Wilders

  Lies and Prophecy

  Chains and Memory

  The Memoirs of Lady Trent

  A Natural History of Dragons

  The Tropic of Serpents

  Voyage of the Basilisk

  In the Labyrinth of Drakes

  Within the Sanctuary of Wings

  Turning Darkness into Light

  Varekai

  Cold-Forged Flame

  Lightning in the Blood

  Collections

  Monstrous Beauty

  Maps to Nowhere

  Ars Historica

  Never After: Thirteen Twists on Familiar Tales

  Serials

  Born to the Blade, with Michael R. Underwood, Malka Older, and Cassandra Khaw

  Non-Fiction

  Writing Fight Scenes

  Dice Tales: Essays on Roleplaying Games and Storytelling New Worlds, Year One: A Writer’s Guide to the Art of Worldbuilding

  New Worlds, Year Two

  New Worlds, Year Three

  DRIFTWOOD

  Marie Brennan

  Driftwood

  Copyright © 2020 by Marie Brennan

  This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the author and the publisher.

  Interior and cover design by Elizabeth Story

  Author photo by Perry Reichanadter

  Tachyon Publications LLC

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  415.285.5615

  www.tachyonpublications.com

  [email protected]

  Series Editor: Jacob Weisman

  Project Editor: Jaymee Goh

  Print ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-346-0

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-61696-347-7

  First Edition: 2020

  Some of the individual chapters of Driftwood have been previously published as the following: “Driftwood” © 2009 by Marie Brennan. First appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, April 2009. | “A Heretic by Degrees” © 2008 by Marie Brennan. First appeared in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, December 2008. | “Into the Wind” © 2017 by Marie Brennan. First ap- peared in Children of a Different Sky, edited by Alma Alexander (Kos Books). | “The Ascent of Unreason” © 2012 by Marie Brennan. First appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, September 2012. | “Remembering Light” © 2010 by Marie Brennan. First appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, June 2010. | “Smiling at the End of the World” © by Marie Brennan. First appeared on Swan Tower: Home of Author Marie Brennan. | “The God of Driftwood” © 2020 Marie Brennan. Original to this book.

  Driftwood

  IN THE DAYS before their world shattered, crumbled, and finally fetched up against that cluster of old realities known as Driftwood, they were called the Valraisangenek.

  One of their scholars once spent a week lecturing me on that name alone, before I was allowed to learn anything else. Valraisangenek: echoing their once-proud world of Valrassuith, “The Perfect Circle”—itself based on the ancient root word of velar, “totality”—and their race’s legendary founder Saneig, “Chosen of San,” chosen of the Supreme Goddess, from whom they were all descended (genkoi). A name full of meaning, for those who know how to read it. But most people think the name of the Valraisangenek is too long and difficult to be worth remembering, especially when there are so few of them left. These days, everyone just calls them the Greens.

  After all, that name has the advantage of being so obvious anybody could remember it—or at least attach it to the appropriate target on sight. Somebody walks in with hair like sea foam, eyes like emeralds, and skin like moss? You’re looking at a Green. Slap on whatever the word is for “green” in your language, and you’re set to go. Or “blue/green,” if your people don’t distinguish those two colors, or “red/green” if your
race is color-blind, although in that latter case you might run a risk of confusing a Green with a Kakt. But the red-skinned Kakts are numerous enough, and well-known enough, not to mention horned enough, that if you’re not smart enough to tell them apart from the Greens, you won’t last long in Driftwood anyway.

  The Kakts’ world is so newly Drifted that on three sides it still borders on nothing but Mist. The calendarists I know figure within a year it’ll share a boundary with Egnuren—a Kakt year, that is; nearly two Egnuren years—but I don’t recommend telling the Kakts that. Most of them still deny the Driftwood thing. They’re new; they’re proud. They don’t want to admit that their world is gone, and they’re all that’s left of it.

  The Greens know better. Hard to deny the death of your world when it’s shrunk down to a small ghetto whose name hardly anybody bothers to remember. There are theories on how to slow the decay, of course, and back in the day the Greens tried them all. Stay home and pretend Driftwood isn’t there. Speak only your own language. Breed only with your own kind. And pray, pray, pray to your gods, as if Driftwood is some kind of test they’re putting you through, or a bad dream you can wake up from.

  None of it helps. I should know.

  But no one listens when I tell them.

  Alsanit found him in a Drifter bar. Had her mission been any less urgent, she would not have gone; she was pure Valraisangenek—a “one-blood,” in Driftwood parlance—and among the Drifters with their mixed ancestry she stuck out like an emerald in sand. But the Circle had wasted too much time already in doubt; once the decision was made, she left within the day. The whispers and stares of foreigners were nothing, the contempt and even the risk of being mugged, when weighed against her people’s need.

  The bar was called Spit in the Crush’s Eye, and it lay nearly across the Shreds from what was left of Valrassuith. Greenhole, to its neighbors, and even most of the Valrai called it that, these days. That was why Alsanit was braving the stares of the Drifters. Two days ago, she had called her home Greenhole.

  If something didn’t change, they were doomed.

  She went from Greenhole to Wash to Heppa to Hotside, and then after that she was into Shreds she didn’t know. She got snowed on in the place after Hotside, and two Shreds after that got chased by things that looked like dogs but weren’t, but the directions she’d gotten were good, and after about four hours of walking she found herself on the border between Chopper and Tatu, at Spit in the Crush’s Eye.

  The bar suited its name, being defiantly cobbled together from fragments of a dozen worlds, patched with reed bundles, sheets of scrap metal, even what looked like half the trunk of a tree. Alsanit received the expected stares and mutters when she walked through the door, but this was far from Valrassuith, far from where her people were known; they were reacting to her as a one-blood, a non-Drifter, not as a Green. She wasn’t the only one-blood in the bar, though, for at the far wall, she saw the man she sought.

  He was tall enough to draw the eye even when sitting; that was how Alsanit first spotted him. Drifters, crossbreeds that they were, tended to average out the range of heights found among Driftwood’s races. And even in the murky light of the bar, his skin shimmered a silvery blue, undulled by any foreign pigmentation, against which his black hair made a sharp contrast. But the sight of a fellow oneblood did not reassure Alsanit. There was a certain uniformity to the unpredictability of Drifters. Onebloods had their own ways, and she did not know what this man’s ways were.

  Walking over to him took much of her courage.

  “Are you Last?” she asked, in one of the more widely used pidgin dialects of her side of the Shreds.

  “I am,” he said easily, in the same dialect. “You?”

  “Alsanit.”

  His teeth glinted pure silver when he smiled. “I’m honored, then.”

  Alsanit blinked. “Honored?”

  “Your name. ‘Sworn to San’? No, ‘Faithful to.’ You’re one of the Valrai. High-ranking. Only your important women have San’s name in their own.”

  Alsanit wondered if her jaw was on the floor. Valrai. Not “Greens.” And he knew them, knew their ways. They were in a bar clear across the Shreds from Valrassuith, and he knew what her name meant. Even the people of the neighboring Shreds didn’t bother with that.

  Last’s smile widened into a grin. “Come on—you came looking for me; didn’t you know what to expect? I’m a guide. It’s my job to know things like that.”

  With effort, Alsanit regained her composure. “Yes. But I thought I came from outside your usual territory.”

  “You do. But it happens I used to have a lover who was Valrai. I still remember some things.”

  Alsanit wondered who the lover had been. If the stories were true, then odds were good the woman or man was long dead. She decided not to ask, though whether it was because she feared she wouldn’t know the person, or because she feared she would, she could not have said.

  Last leaned back in his chair and interlaced his long fingers. The nails gleamed dark—natural color, or some kind of lacquer? Meaning could be hidden in the smallest of details; for all she knew, among his people, dark nails were the mark of an assassin, or a slave, or nothing whatsoever. All she could do was try to ride the waves of interaction as they rose and fell.

  She thought of the stories her people’s priests still told—about waves, about the sea—and swallowed tears. The sea was ages gone.

  “Let’s get to business,” Last said. “What is it you need? Interpreter? Somebody to tell you the ways of another Shred? Business contacts?”

  “Answers,” Alsanit said, raising her chin and meeting his deep black eyes. “An answer. To the only question worth asking in this place.”

  He did not move, but the life drained out of his face, leaving his expression mask-like. Finally he clicked his tongue sharply, a Shreds mannerism that meant absolute negation. “Wrong person, Green.”

  The name hurt, but she didn’t let it show. She clicked back at him, adopting his own slang. “You answered to the name. You fit the description. I know who you are—what you are—and I need that answer.”

  Last stood, abruptly, his thighs hitting the table and scraping it sharply across the floor. Conversation in the bar stuttered to a halt as heads turned to look.

  “Wrong person,” he repeated, his voice carrying to the far corners of the room. “I have no answers. Sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

  His long legs carried him quickly out of the bar. Alsanit leapt to her feet, intending to pursue, but found her way blocked by a pair of Drifters almost as wide as they were tall, who either didn’t understand any of the pidgins she spoke or were pretending not to. They advanced on her until she found herself backed up to a door on the other side of the room, and then they stood there until she gave up and left. Outside, in the streets of Chopper, she tried to find Last—but he had vanished.

  Life is different in the Shreds. Out on the very edges of Driftwood, places like Kakt, a determined person can live her whole life pretending her home is still its own world. A little farther in, when things have gotten smaller and you’re not by the Mist anymore, you start thinking of your world as a country; you learn about your neighbors, trade with them, set up embassies in their territory. But in the Shreds, there’s no ignoring the weirdnesses of Driftwood, the way it’s summer on one street and winter on another, day here and night there, obedient to your laws of reality in your own ghetto, but operating by a totally different set of rules three houses down.

  Don’t ask how it works. It’s Driftwood. Patchwork of world fragments, illogic made concrete. It just is, and you learn to live with it.

  And if you learn to live with it well enough, you can even make some money at it. Pack as many languages into your head as you can, figure out the rules at work in some given set of ghettos, and set up shop as a tour guide. Or something like that. I hate giving tours to Edgers, when they come into the Shreds for kicks. Not because I’m bitter—I got over hating Edgers
for their big, solid realities long ago—but because they’re oblivious. They don’t get how the Shreds work, and they don’t want to.

  I’m here for the Shredders, for people whose business takes them out of familiar territory, and who want—or need—to learn the ropes where they’re going. Vigilantes, crosser-merchants, scholars who have abandoned the decay of their own worlds in favor of trying to figure out how it all works. They pay me in the coin of their own realms, if there’s any left, or in gems, valuable items, even food. How is it that ivnyils only come from the Rooters’ reality, but practically everybody has emeralds? How come most food—but not all—is edible for all races? Why are some things so similar, when others are wildly different? Those are the kinds of questions my scholarly clients want to answer. Me, I don’t bother. It’s enough that Driftwood exists, and I exist within it—still, even after all these years.

  Every so often, though, somebody decides I must have the answers. It’s hard to be truly famous in Driftwood; at the Edge, people don’t talk much about stuff outside their own reality, and in the Shreds, stories get stopped by language barriers every few blocks. To really become famous, you have to be around for a long time, and then you run into the problem that, oops, you and your reality have been pushed right to the Crush, and you’ve faded out of existence entirely, along with everybody who knew you.

  Pretty much the only way to be famous throughout Driftwood is to still be here, long after the Crush should have gotten you.

  Most people figure it’s just a story. Sure, I’ve been around so long even your granny thinks I’m old, but with the way time varies between realities, and the differences in lifespans—the Gnevg live for barely ten of their own short years, the Ost for hundreds—really, there’s got to be a way to explain it. And if you’re not sure what reality I come from, well, somebody has to know, right?