The War in the Waste

by Felicity Savage

  When she had got some of her composure back she ventured up to the tractor. Even without climbing up, she could see where Crispin had jimmied the passenger-side lock. She scrambled on the step—awkwardly, her dress hampering her legs—and peered into the cab. The blankets in which she had slept were gone, and the dashboard fittings looked new, but there was no question that it was the same vehicle.

  “Hey, hey,” a voice said softly behind her. “What’re you looking at, lady?”

  Rae yelped and lost her balance. For a sickening moment she teetered. Then big, warm hands fastened around her waist, and she found herself lowered to the ground, feetfirst, like a kitten in the grip of a child.

  “Can’t remember seeing you last time I was here.”

  He was at least thirty, over six feet, with a pitted face and deep-set blue eyes. He smiled.

  “And I think I’d’ve remembered.”

  Rae was annoyed to find herself flushing. “I’m new.”

  “Baird Glassman.”

  “Rae. I’m happy to meet you.”

  “You aren’t acting it.”

  “I didn’t want to make a fuss.” She bit her lip, prettily, not taking her eyes off his face. “I—I’m sorry. I just wanted to see—”

  “Never seen a truck before, have you? Country girl? You’ve got that fresh skin.”

  “Only once. It’s a monster!”

  “Been making this run for a good few years. I remember when Sal and Mil were as wide-eyed as you. ‘Course they were a bit younger. Not that they look it now!” He clapped her on the shoulder in a fatherly way, which almost allayed her bad feelings about him. “It’s a hard life, this is, Rae, young lady. Sure you’re ready for it? Might be things they haven’t told you yet.” As they came around the seven-foot hood of the truck and joined the others, he added softly: “Might be things no one knows. Not to discourage you! Just tryin’ to make sure you hear both sides of the story. ‘Course I don’t know you or nothin. You might think I’m being presumptuous.”

  She wanted to ask: Where did you get this truck? After reliving the terror of that night, she found herself looking for Crispin. She couldn’t believe he was not somewhere close by. Her eyes skidded over the animated faces of the others as if they had been a bunch of white stones. Suddenly she wanted him so badly that she pulled the trader’s arm down and began, “Sir—Baird—I think I’ve seen—”

  But Millie cut her off. “Oh, Baird,” she chirped. “Ernie was showing me some of the traveling cells you brought! They’re so little and clever! But do you really think you can fit our daemons into them?”

  The youngest man covered a smile. Sally poked her twin, and Millie’s face and neck went cherry red. She tried to cover her unintentional innuendo by holding out her hands to Rae and gabbling, “Rae, sweetheart, we haven’t introduced you! Baird, have you—”

  “Yes,” Baird said. “We’ve met.” He gave Rae a half smile, with one eyelid drooped. She returned it, inwardly cringing.

  Liesl stirred herself smoothly to cover the silence. “It’s getting late.” She twined her arm through that of the tall trader. “I think we should make you unload at least one truck before dark, so we can begin packing the daemons first thing tomorrow, don’t you? Have you brought hand trucks, Baird? It makes everything so much easier... ”

  Baird Glassman seemed overcome by the flow of her conversation. He nodded again and again, like a clockwork toy, as she led him away. The others followed, as good as hypnotized, the way Rae had seen daemons follow at Liesl’s heels, like big ugly dogs. Liesl was not that pretty! But of course it wasn’t always the pretty ones who snared the men. Liesl had that certain something else which Rae herself had longed for countless times, whenever she saw a ring on another girl’s finger. As she stood looking after them, she found herself suddenly sandwiched between Sally and Millie. Sharp fingernails dug into her arm. The twins were wearing scent: the floral bouquet choked her nostrils. Millie’s face was still pink, no doubt with the memory of her gaffe, and for once she let Sally do the talking. “Now, while they’re all distracted,” Sally hissed. “You have to come to the menagerie!”

  Rae tried to fight. Her hair got in her face. They were both holding her. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Shut up.” Sally pinched Rae so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. “Liesl made Anthea give you as long as she could! And we begged her, too! It’s not our fault if you didn’t make any use of the time! Now they’re here, you can’t just sit around like a lump any longer. Anthea’s waiting.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Rae protested in a whisper, not wanting to make a scene, as they dragged her along behind Liesl and her coterie of men.

  “Exactly!” Millie hissed. “You just sat around accepting our hospitality, while we were on our feet night and day, getting ready for them! You haven’t been in the menagerie once since Anthea showed you around!”

  “But I was tired,” Rae said, trying to keep her voice level. “All I could do was sleep. I mean it. I couldn’t help it. There’s something in the air—”

  “Of course there is. You’re in the Wraithwaste!”

  “That’s what we meant when we told you you’d have to be strong!”

  Branches whipped Rae’s cheeks. She could not free her hands, only turn her face to one side or the other, and on each side there was a twin.

  “We tried to warn you!” Sally said righteously.

  “We told you you need strength to survive!”

  “The air is thick with daemons. You’re breathing them right now. You can’t help it.”

  “But you thought you were too good to listen to us.”

  “You didn’t pay any attention.”

  “Now you’ll be sorry!” Millie said viciously.

  But there was a catch in her voice, and the scent of sweat filtered through her heavy perfume. Rae looked from her to Sally. These young girls, with the premature lines around their eyes and mouths and their skeletal, purple-veined hands, were no less upset by what was happening to Rae than she was. But that didn’t mean they were going to let her go. “Come on,” Sally said, and jerked her arm so that she stumbled.

  But when they left her alone with Anthea in the bright stillness of the menagerie, what had seemed almost like a kidnapping took on quite a different aspect. Anthea bubbled with laughter when Rae spilled out the story of how the twins had accosted her.

  “Those two! Their social skills are so poor! They are completely unaware of how frightening they can be. It’s a pity they can’t be exposed to strangers more often—they came to us so young... Now of course for you things will be different. You are already experienced.” Anthea chuckled. “No, all this is—is a little test which we give our new girls. I wanted to get it over with earlier, before the men arrived, but I just couldn’t find time. It’s too bad of me, I know.”

  What about yesterday? Rae thought. What about this morning, while you waited, and I dozed with my head on the table? You were watching me like you were trying to decide to have me on toast or on a sweet cake. I bet the twins were telling the truth, and Liesl pressured you to hold off as long as possible. To give me a little longer—for what? What have I done?

  “Have you been in here much during the past few days?” Anthea asked offhandedly, stroking the furry leaves of a giant geranium. “I haven’t been paying as much attention to you as I should. Forgive me.”

  Something snapped in Rae. “You keep asking me to forgive you. All of you. You and Liesl and Hannah. I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, my dear,” Anthea said, her voice sad. “My dear.” Then her mouth hardened into a smile again. “Now, here’s what I want you to do. The traders are all daemon handlers, but they can’t do anything with our poor darlings until they’re collared. We don’t collar them before the traders arrive because they start to deteriorate as soon as they feel the touch of silver. And they go all helpless. It’s awful to see. We’d have to feed them ourselves, by hand, instead of letting them just get along
on their own in the menagerie. It’s been tried, and it’s just not practical... So we have a very busy few weeks ahead of us. We work in pairs—one of us collars a daemon and one of them cells it. We can only do about two or three dozen a day; it’s very tiring work.”

  “There are six of them,” Rae said, her heart sinking. “Does even Mother come down to help?”

  “Yes, she does. Of course.”

  “Then why—”

  “There is always the possibility... Let me be honest.” Anthea’s face was serious. “Mother is old.” It was true. Though Mother was only in her forties, she had the body of a nonagenarian. “And she has always worked with Baird Glassman, who is not a man to compromise the speed he deems necessary to make a profit. Therefore, you may have to step in for her. So I need to know that you can do what’s needed. That’s all.” She smiled. “There’s really nothing to be nervous about.”

  Rae took a deep breath. She could not see any way out. “What do I have to do?”

  Anthea pointed to the center of the menagerie. Bushy geraniums grew in a mound around the base of one of the tall, whippy, bare trees which were the most puissant demogorgons. They were fifty feet tall, Liesl had said, in human form. Anthea circled a geranium stern with her fingers. “This one. I’m making it as easy as possible for you! Put your arms around it. Speak to it. Do whatever you have to. It will change into its human form. Then, when you have it close and trusting, slip this around its neck.” She reached into her dress pocket and tossed Rae a silver band, no bigger than a child’s bracelet, hinged in the middle. “There’s a hook-and-pin closure. If it was a larger daemon it would be a spring strip, and we’d solder it closed, but this will do for a Nemanes. Maybe you’d better practice.”

  Rae snapped the band shut a few times. “Isn’t it too small?”

  “I caught this daemon. I chose this collar for it the same day. Look inside.”

  Scratched on the inside of the band, in beautiful copperplate script, Rae read Nemanes. She knelt in the earth by the geranium and tentatively stroked its stem. Not-scent wafted into her nostrils. She looked over her shoulder at Anthea. “You’re not going to watch?”

  “How else will I know whether you have succeeded?”

  Rae turned back to the plant and opened her eyes as wide as she could, trying not to cry. “Nemanes,” she whispered shakily. She wanted to absorb herself in the daemon’s greenness to the exclusion of the rest of the world. She rubbed her cheek against the furry, prickly leaves. “Oh, Nemanes. Be my friend. I’m yours. Trust me, Nemanes, I won’t hurt you!”

  “No good!” Anthea said. “No good at all!”

  Rae visualized the daemon as a little green child who would grin and stretch and hop onto her lap and not mind at all having a collar fastened around his neck.

  “I thought she had the gift for sweet talk! I’m never wrong!” Anthea murmured to herself. Rae’s concentration almost shattered, but she forced herself not to give up.

  And after a moment or two the leaves went away from between her fingers, as if they had turned to vapor. She could not open her eyes. The scent made her so dizzy that her head came off her neck and floated. Something hovered still before and above her. It was fantastically powerful, and she knew that if she looked up she would die, for its power lay not in any killing blow, though it was certainly capable of striking her if it wished, but in the sheer intensity of its presence. It was pungently masculine. It was ancient. All of its considerable energy was concentrated without movement or speech into waiting.

  Waiting for her to speak words she had forgotten.

  Waiting.

  With a flash of fear so strong she could taste it, she identified the sensation: it was her tenth birthday again and she was being presented to the Prince. She had seen him every day of her life, of course, leading the evening prayers, but never this close up. Never in his own apartments. All the best furnishings of the Carathraw mansion had long ago been collected into the master bedroom. When Rae walked in, flanked by two of the Consorts (one of them Saonna), her spine dripping with fear, the unexpected riot of riches nearly shocked her into breaking her respectful shuffle. She kept her head down, though she longed to look around. The musty perfume of the place made her heart beat as quickly as it had that time she and Daphne and Colm stole buns from the baker in Greenberith.

  The walls seemed to tower forever into the darkness; there was no ceiling. Only a few streaks of day penetrated between the heavy, unswagged curtains. The twilight gave the clutter of furniture a gloomy majesty akin to that of a glade of huge trees come on unexpectedly just before dawn. It was as if the furniture had been walking clumsily across the floor, and had only just frozen the moment Rae entered: as if the worm-eaten hearts of the sofas and beds and tables were still racing deep inside. Their draperies created a dusty spiderweb that obstructed all but one way into the room.

  The Prince reposed high up, on a throne of stacked beds draped with fabrics that Rae wanted to run her fingers over and wrap around her shoulders and hide beneath.

  She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t do anything except stumble to her knees.

  The Prince shone like a sun below the horizon. Behind her, her mother wavered, as insignificant as the setting moon. Rae knew just as certainly as if she had turned around that Saonna was biting her lip with worry. Rae had been supposed to say the words the minute she knelt.

  What were the words?

  What were they?

  Trembling all over, she shrieked faintly, “Oh, Prince, I salute you with my soul, and I wait in ecstatic silence until the moment when you shall enfold me in the wing of your royal spirit and lift me above the nameless destruction that shall attend the death of the Queen to the place that is not a place, the safety that is not safety, the existence that is not existence, that is transcendence!” Her child-sized lungs were empty, and she gasped aloud. But she had done it, she had remembered, she had not disgraced Saonna!

  “In the name of the Queen, girl,” a furious female voice said. “Get out of the way!”

  Rae felt herself toppling over. She could not make her hands obey her to break her fall. Her face pressed into the earth. She sneezed, shuddered, and sat up. Her knees and shoulders ached. Her mouth tasted like sleep.

  Anthea straightened up from between the geraniums, wincing like an old woman and rubbing her back with her free hand. She looked haggard. Under one arm she held a squawling little leprechaun which was almost exactly as Rae had imagined it, except that it wasn’t green. It was bright pink—the same color as the flowers on the geraniums. A silver collar encircled its candy-floss-colored neck.

  Rae got slowly to her feet. “How long was I... ”

  Anthea’s expression made her look down in shame. It was the same look she had seen on Saonna’s face when the Third Consort caught Rae and Colm kissing down by the wading pool. It made Rae feel hateful, ungrateful, ugly inside her skin. That was the year Rae was ten: later that year Saonna would die, and in spring Rae would run away from the Seventeenth Mansion.

  “You were under for about four hours.” With tired sarcasm: “You didn’t expect me to wait any longer than that, did you?”

  Rae looked wildly about. The menagerie breathed and swayed. Overhead the daemon glares hummed. On a low branch of Exarces balanced a food-stained plate with a fork, knife, and water glass.

  Four hours!

  “You—you—”

  “You weren’t asleep,” Anthea said over the meowling of the daemon. “You were in communion with Nemanes.” She stepped out of the geranium mound, straightened her wool wrap, refastened the pin on her shoulder, and did something to the collar around Nemanes’s neck. At once the daemon quieted. Its legs and head dangled. Except for its bright, blinking eyes, it looked catatonic. “It’s such a small daemon I really don’t know how you managed to get lost so deeply. But people drown in six inches of water. It happens.”

  “Anthea,” Rae begged. Everything was happening too fast. What had happened? Four hours— �
��What did I do wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing!” Anthea’s voice was as sharp as pieces of a broken mirror. “Come on, everybody’s outside! You’ve kept us in here long enough!”

  She brushed past, wreathed in scent. Rae hurried after her. A newly risen wind slammed the door behind her. Anthea was making for a bonfire that had been lit behind the house, about a hundred feet into the dead forest. Rae had wondered before about the blackened clearing in the pines back there: it must have been created for this purpose. The scent of woodsmoke gusted on the wind, evoking her childhood as everything else did tonight. Camping out in the tangled grounds of the mansion with the other kids (nobody ever told the Children of the Dynasty not to do things which other children were only able to dream about), burning her fingers on potatoes roasted in a fire which only the Queen, surely, had prevented from burning down everything within a hundred miles, lying on her back on the bare ground after everyone had quieted down, Daphne cool and softly asleep on her shoulder, looking up into the star-filled night.

  Could she really only have been six? It felt like yesterday.

  Oh, Daphne! Where are you now?

  Carried on the woodsmoke was another, darker scent, incense perhaps that the traders had brought.

  Rae saw Anthea reach the clearing. She laughed back at the voices that greeted her, sounding young and wildly excitable. There was a shout from the watchers, and a terrified human scream, and then the fire burned bright and white as a giant fireball, its fingertips straining above the tops of the trees. With a shock of disbelief Rae understood that Anthea had thrown Nemanes into it. The trickster woman stood with her hands empty, looking into the fireball, a dark girlish silhouette against the glare. Then she spun around, laughing, her hair flying out in a slow corona.

  Rae was clutching a tree so tightly that it hurt. Baird Glassman said behind her, in a pleasant, slightly slurred voice, “Have a sip of this, young Rae. I recommend the brew.” A mug came over her shoulder and slid along her cheek, ice-cold, beaded with water. Without looking around, she took it and drank deeply. But she couldn’t just run away. It was out of the question. The very thought of venturing into the wind-tumbled forest unnerved her. Baird’s arm lay on her neck, and he kept making small motions that meant he would like to take her somewhere private. But though she was afraid of being on her own, she was more afraid of what he might do if he got her alone. Safety lay in the leaping light of the fire, just as when she went out with her admirers in Valestock, safety had lain in public places where there was no danger of hands slipping underneath clothes.