by Graeme Hurry
“Perhaps,” Haya said. “Although not today, I think. Your brother is untidy and I doubt that he will be prepared to receive guests.” A hint of distaste in her voice suggested, despite what had happened last night, that all was not well between her and Sekiu. “Would you like to see where we heal people instead?”
Meka was about to decline the invitation, making the excuse that her Young Folk companions expected her to meet them this morning. But hadn’t Haya said that Sekiu was the one responsible for their ability to heal so many people? A visit to the place of healing might help her understand what was happening with him, even if she was unlikely to learn anything about Djereb’s daughter.
“I would be honored to see it,” Meka said.
* * *
The House of Healing was one large courtyard inside, open to the sky overhead. People of all ages, Old Folk and Young, lay on thick reed mats under movable sun shelters. Men and women moved from bed to bed, tending to the needs of the occupants or staring at them in the intense way Meka’s mother or Sekiu would stare at an object when performing magic on it. Those carrying water or food to the invalids or washing them were Young Folk in skirts that reached their knees; the magicians were mostly Old Folk in long skirts and lengths of cloth draped around their shoulders.
One Old Folk man was dressed in the same sack-like linen garment Meka had seen only on Haya and Sekiu. Was this new garment the mark of an archmage, so people knew to show them proper respect? Magicians and archmages looked no different from each other or from anyone else, and no one without magical ability could distinguish between them. But they had not worn any special clothing when Meka last visited.
The Old Folk man rose and crossed the courtyard to meet them at the entrance. Meka recognized him from her last visit, but he frowned as if he could not quite identify her. Or as if he wondered what Haya could have to do with such an unimpressive person.
“Kialu,” Haya said. “You must remember Sekiu’s sister Meka.”
Recognition flashed on Kialu’s face, but no warmth. He doesn’t like Sekiu, Meka realized, as Kialu gave her a slight nod. He was a young man, probably no more than a hundred years older than Meka.
“Meka would like to see the results of her brother’s work,” Haya said.
Kialu responded with another curt nod. “Come.”
They followed him across the hard earth floor to the Young Folk man he had left behind when he rose to greet them. An ordinary magician, a grey-haired Old Folk woman, knelt at the injured man’s side, concentrating. The man appeared to be asleep.
“His leg is broken,” Kialu said, facing the magician across the man’s body as he knelt on a pad of woven reeds.
Meka didn’t need magic to see that the leg was broken. It was bent at an unnatural angle with bone protruding through the skin in an ugly mess, beyond what she would have thought even an archmage could fix. And yet, Kialu put both hands on the leg, and as the injured man’s chest rose and fell, without any indication that he was in pain, the layer of dried blood around the wound lifted in a small cloud and fell away. The bone moved down into the tissue, Kialu exerting the gentlest pressure with his hands. Fresh blood started to well around the wound, although not enough to be dangerous.
“Your brother taught us to do this,” Haya said. “Reconnecting bits of shattered bone. There are few purely physical injuries that we cannot mend, thanks to him.”
“How did he learn to do it?” Sekiu had not known how to mend such an injury before coming to the City.
Haya didn’t answer at first. They watched Kialu and the magician, even though there was no longer anything happening that Meka could see.
At last Haya said, almost too quietly for Meka to hear, “He practiced.”
* * *
Meka waited a long time for Djereb and the others, pacing back and forth along the edge of the Canal. When they finally arrived and she had settled back into the boat, the first thing Djereb said was, “Where have you been? This is the third time we’ve come looking for you.”
“Did you find Mernet?” Enedju demanded. Hori merely whistled a tune to himself, paddling the boat carefully through the crowd of boats and rafts. Old Folk men and boys were hauling nets of silvery fish, some still squirming, up the sides of the levees.
“I’ve been trying to find her.” Better not to suggest that she might be at Sekiu’s house until Meka was sure.
“I assume you at least found your brother,” Djereb said.
“Yes,” Meka said. “I found him.” She offered no further explanation, and Djereb looked at her curiously but did not ask for one.
As they entered the Great River, Enedju and Hori angled the craft to the left to pick up the river’s slow downstream tug. The shepherds were taking her to the Young Folk encampment, Meka realized, and although she had expected them to, she could not repress a surge of fear. Haya had warned her that the area was dangerous for Old Folk who lacked magic to protect them. But surely Djereb and his kinsmen would not allow anyone to harm her; Djereb’s son was a guest in the house of Meka’s mother until they all returned.
Meka frowned, troubled to catch herself relying on Djereb’s fear for his son to make her feel safe instead of trusting travel companions not to betray her. She blamed the City’s bad influence. It was unnatural to live among so many people, and it was making her heart sick the way the water in the Canal would surely sicken her stomach were she to drink it. Maybe that was what had happened to Sekiu. She couldn’t imagine him coming home with her, though, not after being called Great Father and having everyone who wasn’t an archmage rush to do his bidding.
Tomorrow, she would insist that Haya take her to Sekiu’s house, and if the woman refused, she would find it on her own and stand outside calling for her brother until he let her in. The sooner they found Djereb’s daughter, the sooner they could leave this terrible place.
They dragged the boat ashore downriver of the City’s mud-brick and stone, where dozens of tents covered the dry flood plain. Curious Young Folk faces watched Meka and her companions, many with hostility, but no one approached them.
As night fell and the air cooled, Hori lit a small fire and the four of them wrapped gazelle or sheep skins around their shoulders for warmth. Around them, other fires danced and sparked, all the way to the massive, dark bulk of the City houses. Hori told them how far he had walked to collect sticks for firewood and that he had seen two fights break out among other gatherers.
“See how they hold us here,” Djereb muttered. Not for the first time, Meka wondered how old he was. The scattered white strands among the black hairs covering his head and the lower part of his face suggested to Meka that he was between three hundred and four hundred years old, but his people didn’t live that long. Meka had never figured out how quickly they aged after reaching adulthood.
“No one’s forcing any of these Young Folk to stay,” she pointed out. She saw no fence, no Old Folk walking among the tents like a parent preventing the straying of unruly children.
“What does it mean, to force someone?” Djereb asked. “How do you think these people feed themselves?”
Meka had not considered that question. Most Young Folk ate the sheep and goats they herded or their curdled milk. Here, no tent had more than one or two animals tethered outside.
“There are too many here to live off the fish and river plants,” she admitted.
“The Old Folk give out grain and lentils,” Djereb said. “In return, they take what they want. Livestock, leatherwork. Children. When they have work they want done, they round up all the men and herd them like animals to harvest their fields or clean the canals.”
“Some men give their children to Old Folk,” Hori said. “They work in the City but can come back some days to visit. Children taken without their father’s consent don’t come back.”
“Mernet will,” Djereb promised, staring into the flames.
Meka remembered what Haya had said about the Young Folk who lived here. They envy our prosper
ity. “Why did they come? Did they not know what to expect?”
“I knew what to expect,” Djereb said. “I still came.”
“You didn’t stay.”
Djereb only shook his head. Meka couldn’t tell if his disgust was for her, or the situation.
“If we’d given all our sheep to pay for the healing,” Hori said, “what choice would we have had but to stay?” He gestured to the field of tents surrounding them. “To become as dependent as these. Or what if our clan had become destitute for some other reason? Drought, or raiders. You, imagine that your village was destroyed and all your food stores lost. Imagine that you had a choice between starving, and being fed by those who you knew would treat your family as herd animals. What would you choose?”
“The Young Folk I saw in the City weren’t treated badly,” Meka insisted. “They didn’t seem unhappy.” She tried not to think about the way the sand-haired girl had flinched away from Sekiu’s gaze.
“Would you trade places with one of them?” Djereb asked.
It was Meka’s turn to stare into the fire without answering.
* * *
In the morning, when Meka approached Haya’s house, the entrance-stone hung in the air as if the archmage had been expecting her. She stepped under it into the courtyard. When none of the Young Folk women set aside their tasks to greet her, she made her own way up to the rooftop. The sand-haired girl looked up from the dough she was kneading in a long wooden trough, meeting Meka’s eyes but saying nothing.
“I am pleased to see you safely returned to us,” Haya said. She was lounging on her bed of rugs and skins, eating dried dates with delicate fingers. “I was concerned that the Young Folk in the tent city might harm you.”
“I’ve never found Young Folk any more dangerous than Old Folk,” Meka said, even though she had felt reluctant earlier to walk to the City through the thicket of Young Folk tents. Djereb hadn’t wanted to take her around by boat, arguing that their repeated trips into and out of the City yesterday had been making watchers suspicious.
“I suspect you’ve never had five hundred of them living next to your village for thirty years.” With a wave of her hand, Haya invited her to sit. “Will you have some dates or roasted chickpeas?”
“I’ve already eaten, thank you. My companions and I had plenty of food left this morning from what you sent back with me.” She moved closer but did not join Haya on the bed. “I was hoping to visit Sekiu at his own house this morning.”
Meka had prepared herself for another excuse about Sekiu not being ready for guests. To her surprise, Haya said, “Of course. I will take you there at once.” The older woman sounded almost eager, in sharp contrast to how she had reacted to an almost identical request made a day earlier.
The apparent change of heart made Meka uneasy as she followed Haya out of the house and into the paths of the City. So did the way the archmage stopped abruptly as soon as they were outside, her head tilted up as if she were sniffing the air, her expression blank. It was a posture Meka recognized from her mother and Sekiu, when they were using magic to ‘see’ something others couldn’t. What was Haya looking for?
When Haya stopped again, they stood in front of a huge stone house without windows or doors. No houses stood next to it, nor gardens, nor trees. The surrounding dry brown grass looked as wild as the grasslands between the rivers.
“This is it?” Meka asked, hardly believing it. When Sekiu was a boy, their house had been surrounded by flowering plants he had dug up and replanted, using magic to help them recover from the shock of being moved. In the old House of Archmages, he had built a water garden.
A large stone in the wall slid out towards them, then moved to the right. It settled to the ground with a puff of dust. “You will not like what you see,” Haya warned.
Inside, Meka blinked against the dimness as her eyes adjusted. Two small oil lamps burned in wall niches on either side of the long, narrow room she and Haya had entered, but there was no other illumination apart from the daylight at their backs.
The far end of the room was smooth, mud-plastered wall, but doorways with rounded tops pierced the long walls on either side, all the way down, each doorway leading into darkness. A naked Young Folk boy stepped out of one of the farther doorways, then ducked back inside when he saw them.
It took Meka a moment to acknowledge what she had seen. From the waist up, the boy was an ordinary Young Folk child of perhaps eight or nine. His legs and broad feet, though, bore a thick coat of silver fur everywhere except his bare pink bottom, including the long tail hanging to below his knees.
Meka looked to Haya for some explanation, but the older woman’s attention was on a nearer doorway. “He’s in here,” Haya said.
Entrance to the room beyond the doorway was blocked by a black curtain of a woven cloth heavier and rougher to the fingers than linen. Within, three small oil lamps cast spheres of light and long, dark shadows. The air reeked of sweat and infected wounds.
Sekiu, his back to them, stood over a Young Folk man lying face-up on a massive stone slab. Only the man’s feet and lower legs were visible from where Meka stood, but she could see that his ankles had been tied to hooked pegs carved into the side of the stone.
“A moment,” Sekiu said, as if they had caught him at a delicate moment during the weaving of a new length of cloth.
Meka tried to step further into the room, but Haya caught her elbow. Although she didn’t seem to be using magic, the strength of her grasp surprised Meka.
The room had a dozen of the stone slabs, evenly spaced. Most were occupied. All those lying on the slabs were Young Folk, and all were either bound at wrists and ankles, or missing limbs.
A girl raised her head to see who had entered, then lowered it. A child whimpered quietly. Many of the Young Folk appeared to be asleep or unconscious, though. Or dead.
“What are you doing, Sekiu?” Meka heard echoes from years gone by in her voice. Why did you pull the legs off that cricket, Sekiu? What are you doing to that poor frog? Why did your dog chase our cousin up that tree? She would be so angry every time, but only until he repented with that wide, childish smile, with kisses and tears, with gifts, with promises of future good behavior.
When he turned, it was with that same smile, and again, her resolve to be angry started to waver.
“Sister! I can’t greet you properly. My hands are bloody.”
Meka forced herself to look at the children bound to slabs of stone instead of at Sekiu’s smiling face. “This is wrong. You need to let these people go.”
“Not here.” Haya’s voice was so quiet that Meka had to strain her ears to hear it. “We can speak elsewhere.”
Sekiu washed his hands in the basin of water on one of the few unoccupied stone slabs, then flicked off the water in a quick gesture, probably using magic to make it dissipate into the air. Back in the long, narrow room, squinting against the light coming in from the entrance Haya had left open, Meka caught his wrist.
“You’re hurting those people.”
Sekiu’s brow furrowed. “They’re Young Folk. They would all be dead in less than a hundred years no matter what I did or didn’t do to them.”
Haya said, “Sekiu’s work is unpleasant, but without it we would be unable to heal the injuries you saw yesterday in the House of Healing. Or the broken neck bones of your Young Folk friend’s son. Healing techniques must be practiced before they can be applied.”
Meka stared at the woman, unable to speak. It was the first time Haya had admitted to any knowledge of Djereb and his son.
With his free hand, Sekiu pried Meka’s fingers from his wrist. “It isn’t possible for you to understand what we’re doing here, sister. You lack the ability.”
The words stung, as they were no doubt meant to, as similar words had stung so many times before. And Meka realized that she didn’t want Sekiu to come home with her, didn’t want to save him from the City’s malign influence. He had always behaved selfishly, always acted without concern
for others. Now, after decades without anyone to restrain or deny him, the generosity and love of beauty that had made him likeable despite his flaws looked pitiable and withered next to them.
“Why don’t you show Meka something more cheerful?” Haya suggested, before Meka could answer him. “Your living quarters, perhaps those who serve you?”
Sekiu’s sudden laugh was one of sheer delight, as if he had forgotten all about their argument. “Of course! Meka, you won’t believe what I’ve been able to do until you see them for yourself.”
Haya’s expression revealed nothing as they followed Sekiu to one of the doorways near the end of the long room. Meka went along reluctantly, having lost any remaining desire for her brother’s company. She had promised to try to find Djereb’s daughter, though, and now that she was finally inside Sekiu’s house, she couldn’t leave without looking for the child.
The room beyond the doorway was tiny and bare, a second doorway in the adjoining wall hung with another of the heavy black curtains. Sekiu gave an extravagant wave with one hand to let Meka know he was using magic, and the curtain lifted and rolled itself to one side. “After you, sister.”
Haya caught Meka’s elbow; irritated, Meka pulled away and stepped through the doorway just as Haya said, “Since when do you let a non-magician test the safety of a room for you?”
Something in her tone prickled a sense of awareness that might otherwise have slept. A flicker to the left; Meka dropped to the floor just as the sling stone whistled over her head.
A large, bright room with most of the roof open to the sky, a pool of water surrounded by flowering plants in jars, beds of pillows and furs. All were a blur around the all-too-familiar figures of Djereb, Hori, and Enedju.
“Stop!” Djereb exclaimed, catching Enedju’s sling arm before he could fire again. “It’s Meka.”
