Silent Hall

by NS Dolkart

  Four-foot stood for a moment wagging his tail at her, and then loped off. He was much faster than Two-foot, but she knew he was just going to get a drink from the brook. She followed him, and drank this time in his manner. It was much more practical for her to kneel and raise the water to her mouth with her hands, but she liked to honor him sometimes by lapping it directly from the stream as he did. Her ragged covering got even muddier and tore a little further, but that was no trouble. Her kind buried their dead in stone gardens still covered with their skins and furs, so it was really no trouble to find more coverings if she needed them. As long as she and Four-foot reburied the bodies, her kind never seemed to notice.

  They must be scared of the dark, she thought, because when she and Four-foot stole out of the forest at night, her kind never seemed willing to venture past the openings of their wooden hills. They would stand there with the light behind them, staring out into the dark and calling, “Who’s there?” while she and Four-foot snuck right by on the way to the stone gardens, or to stealing a lamb from behind the spiky tree-things. Two-foot was afraid of the dark too, a little, but not like the others were. As long as she didn’t fall out of the tree she slept in – which did happen sometimes – she would be all right.

  When the sun went down today, though, Two-foot did feel a little fearful. Most nights, the warm wind whispered comforting things to her until she fell asleep. Tonight it whispered urgently to her in a language she did not recognize. She lay silent for some time, propped between the branches of a tukka tree, listening to Four-foot’s reassuring breaths below. When she did finally drift to sleep, she dreamt that the wind was trying to warn her about something. She saw her forest as a mere clump of trees within a small garden surrounded by water. A leaf like the one from her childhood bobbed up and down as the waters rose higher and higher. At last the malevolent tide covered the whole land in water, and her lungs filled with its sloshing heaviness. All were drowned, and only the bobbing leaf remained.

  When she awoke with a gasp, the wind was still whispering about death. Two-foot climbed down from her perch, still gasping for breath. Four-foot was awake by the time her feet touched the ground, and she held his comforting head against her chest. Did he hear the ban-doo ban-doo there, or was there only the terrible sloshing of her lungs?

  “We have to go,” she sobbed, holding him tight. Four-foot whined a little.

  When the sun rose some time later, they were already on the edge of the forest. We have to find that leaf, Two-foot kept thinking, before the waters cover everything. But when they reached the treeline, Four-foot stopped. It was not safe to walk through the gardens of Two-foot’s kind during the day. If they saw Four-foot, they would chase him away with sticks, or worse.

  “I’m frightened too,” she told him, “but we have to go. Maybe they’ll listen to me if I say you’re my friend.”

  She did not really think they would, but she wanted to reassure him. The words ‘wicked child’ came back to her, gloating and nasty. Who had said them to her? A part of her feared that whoever had said those words would be out there, waiting for her among her kind to punish her for crimes unknown. But only her kind had those big leaves, so if she wanted to get onto one, she had to risk it. How could she bring Four-foot with her, though? Her kind did not get on with his, and they would hurt him if they saw him. She would have to hide him somehow.

  A sudden noise made her throw herself down in the tall grasses next to her friend. A big wooden thing with a man on top was rolling along the road ahead, pulled by a donkey. Neither the man nor the donkey noticed them, the man because he was preoccupied and inattentive, and the donkey because he was blinkered. Two-foot crawled forward until she was almost at the road, and the man, donkey, and contraption had passed by. At night, she knew, in the rainy season, her kind would drape coverings over their horses and donkeys to keep them warm. A covering like that would be big enough to conceal Four-foot, if he would hold still for it.

  A few minutes later, she had spotted the dwelling she wanted. It was one of the larger wooden hills, the ones with bigger entrances that never produced any clouds. The animals slept there. When nobody seemed to be looking, she sprinted across the road and slipped in through the doors. It was coming back to her, in bits and pieces. She had once had one of these wooden dens, she thought. Why had she left?

  It was musty in this den, where her kind kept animals imprisoned behind shoulder-high wooden walls. She heard hogs snorting about, but did not see them. The big square animal covers were folded neatly to one side of the door, on one of those wooden platforms that her kind put things on. She thought she had eaten from one once, or was the problem that she had not eaten?

  Most of these covers were too heavy – it was so hard to lift one that she could not imagine also carrying Four-foot hidden underneath. Two-foot sorted through the covers, dropping them haphazardly on the ground until she found one that was lighter. With that one tucked under her arm, she walked out the door only to find a big man standing there in front of her.

  “Hey!” the man said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She considered running, but that would have meant dropping the cover, and then she would have had to go through with this whole thing again somewhere else. That didn’t seem worth the effort.

  “I need…” she began, haltingly.

  The man caught her arm and pulled it, painfully. The cover fell to the ground.

  “You need to have your fingers off as a thief, that’s what you need.”

  Two-foot did not bother reasoning with him. Her speech was out of practice anyway. Instead, she whistled. The man shook her, thinking that she was only being insolent. He realized too late that Four-foot was bearing down on him from behind, and he had only just let go of Two-foot and turned around when Four-foot knocked him to the ground, his jaws savaging the man’s arm and shoulder. Two-foot had never heard one of her kind scream like that before. It frightened her, because it might attract others, with sticks. So she told Four-foot to leave off and stood surveying the damage to this screaming man’s body.

  She was not sure whether he would die. Another animal might last a few hours or a day like this, but her kind could be ingenious. With help, this one might even last a week, or longer if his arm didn’t swell and turn colors. The man stopped screaming and looked up at her, terror in his eyes. Four-foot sat at her side, cleaning the blood off his jaws and fur.

  “Keep it off,” the man whimpered. “Oh, please keep your wolf off. Don’t let it kill me! You want money? Here, take my money.” He made an impotent gesture toward a pouch at his side, and then started to sob.

  Two-foot took the pouch, which clinked a little. Then she picked up the cover again, and walked away with Four-foot at her heels. A woman with a baby rushed past her toward the man, screaming and crying. Two-foot could still hear their sobs when she got back to the road and stopped to see what was inside the pouch. There were all these round shiny things in there, of varied metallic colors. She was not sure what they were for, or why the man had offered them to her. But they were pretty, so she kept them in the pouch, which she tied around her wrist. Then she lifted the cover over the other arm, whistled to Four-foot, and went on her way. Somewhere at the end of this road she would find one of those big wooden leaves. And in that leaf, her salvation.

  5

  Phaedra

  Everyone said Phaedra danced through life. She was tall and lithe and surrounded by friends, and joyous and graceful and all the things that a girl from a good family ought to be. Absolutely glamorous, the whole city agreed. She was the most beautiful girl Karsanye had ever seen, and Gods, she could dance.

  Her father was a former merchant who had succeeded well enough to give up his wandering days and become a financier. He had married above his birth, to the daughter of a master weaver, and the two of them had hurried to ready a home for their inevitable brood. Their first and only product was Phaedra.

  No matter – the girl was flawless. Her fathe
r did what he was good at and adapted his plans. Phaedra would marry a nobleman one day, so long as she was well prepared. Her parents prepared her as best they could. They hired a nursemaid to feed her and watch her every move. She had to stay healthy and safe so that she could conquer the world.

  When she was older, they taught her their most cherished skills. She took naturally enough to dressmaking, but her father dreaded teaching her the skill that had sent him so far in life. He had taught himself to read, and it was the hardest thing he had ever done. He was sure that his active little girl would struggle to sit still for her lessons.

  He was wrong. Within weeks, her eyes were dancing across the page. His little library, which he had accumulated mostly as a show of wealth, became her favorite part of the house. Even after a long day of chores and playing with friends, she could always be found with one of his books in her hands, reading and rereading. Her father didn’t even know what half the books were about – he hadn’t really bought them for their contents. When her mother asked, Phaedra said that they were religious philosophies. Then her parents began to worry that she was too well-educated. No man wanted a wife who could outthink him.

  By then, it was out of their hands. When her father had to travel for business, Phaedra would ask him to bring home a book. She loved to talk about what she had read, but her parents couldn’t listen. Every erudite sentence was a reminder of their grave mistake. What if she frightened all her suitors away?

  When her ramblings turned to Atel, they didn’t even notice at first. Today she might speak of the Traveler God; surely tomorrow it would be the God of clay ovens or something. All their attention was turned toward finding a match for her before she developed an unhealthy reputation. But it caught their attention when she said she had to go on a pilgrimage.

  In truth, Phaedra’s recent fascination with Atel had a single cause: Atel’s followers were expected to travel on pilgrimages. She knew about her parents’ plans, and before she was married off to some respectable fellow, she wanted a chance to see the world she had read about. Her parents meant to refuse, but their daughter was well practiced in getting her way. She promised that upon her return, she would curb her intellectual spirit and marry whomever they chose for her, without scaring him off. To Phaedra, it seemed an easy enough promise to make. The obsessive fear of her scaring boys off seemed entirely ridiculous.

  If dances were anything to go by, it wasn’t even possible.

  * * *

  On a clear day, Atuna would have been visible from the docks of Karsanye. Today a mist rose from the water, concealing the far shore. Phaedra stood on the dock with her nursemaid, smiling and breathing in the sea air. Her parents had managed to stall and delay her journey right up to the eve of Karassa’s festival, but at long last she was on her way. There was only one boat leaving the island before the summer festival, and it was just a fishing boat. She didn’t care. It was perfect.

  There was a narrow bench on the port side and a bin of fishing gear to starboard; the boat’s center was taken up by a square-sailed mast and a low-rimmed vat, half full of fish. Kelina wrinkled her nose and suggested they wait to leave on a more appropriate vessel.

  “Atel’s followers do not fear rough travel,” Phaedra said.

  “And what do you know of travel, young mistress?” Kelina asked her. “You have never been off Tarphae, any more than I have. My old bones wouldn’t do well on a fishing boat.”

  Phaedra nodded, and her smile turned sly. “If you like, you can stay here this evening and follow me when the festival is over. I will wait for you in Atuna at a nice inn, until your old bones have the chance to catch up with me.”

  “Now don’t be cruel, miss. You know I would never let you out of my sight.”

  Phaedra took her hand. “We are going on the Traveler God’s pilgrimage, Kelina. With all the power of His divinity, Atel still walks barefoot in all the pictures. Our pilgrimage would not be off to a very good start if we delayed our journey just because a fishing boat doesn’t suit our high tastes.”

  Kelina narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She knew Phaedra better than the girl’s own parents did. She knew why Atel had become her latest obsession.

  Before Kelina could say anything, Phaedra turned back to the boat’s owner. “We will come with you to Atuna, if you will accept my offer.”

  The fisherman smiled at her. He was an aging continental man from one of Atuna’s tributary villages. “The price of a day’s catch, just to take you to Atuna? Can I accept it twice?”

  Phaedra laughed excitedly as he helped her on board. The two younger men – the fisherman’s nephews, apparently – lifted Kelina and placed her safely beside her young charge. Then they got the women’s luggage, which they somehow managed to wedge between the bin of fishing gear and the mast.

  “Get moving, boys,” the owner said to them. “Let’s make haste for our pilgrims.”

  The lads had just carried in the last of their newly repaired nets when a young man came jogging along, stopping at their boat. He was an attractive boy, slender and tall, with a strong jawline. His skin was too light for Tarphae, but too dark for the continent. When he had the fisherman’s attention, he asked if there was room for him on board.

  The fisher struggled visibly with himself, not wishing to make Phaedra feel overcharged, but afraid to frighten away a paying passenger. In the end he told the boy that he could join them for half Phaedra’s price, so long as he was going to the same place. The boy agreed and paid without even asking where they were headed. Kelina, protective as always, stretched out as far as she could to prevent him from joining them on the bench, so he sat down on the box of tackle opposite them. Phaedra had to lean forward and yell over the fishermen’s calls in order to introduce herself.

  The young man’s name turned out to be Criton. She told him about the holy site she meant to visit, an ancient abbey called the Crossroads that was sacred to the Atellan friars. He listened politely, while Kelina fixed Phaedra with that wry look of hers.

  Criton knew nothing of the continental Gods, so she told him about Atel the Traveler and about His brother Atun, the Sun God, who sailed across the heavens in a ship of gold. She told him about the friars of Atel who never stayed in any one place for long, and had surely seen the whole world. The fishermen gave the two of them dirty looks for talking so loudly, but Phaedra was too excited to care. Here she was, about to see the world herself for the first time! She was glad to talk to someone her own age about it. Her parents hadn’t wanted her to tell her friends, for fear that it would start rumors of her being a fanatic for a foreign God. They’d just admonished her to come home as soon as she could.

  Phaedra was still chattering happily to Criton when a young man with a crossbow appeared on the dock. “Hey there,” he called out to them, “are you coming or going?”

  “We’re going,” one of the fisherman’s lads called back, “but there’s no room for you.”

  “Can’t you make room? I can pay good money.” The fisherman seemed interested at first, but soon the boy was joined on the dock by a ragged girl carrying a heavy bundle.

  “I might have room for one more,” the fisherman said, “but not two. Sorry.”

  “What?” the crossbow-wielder asked. “Oh no, we’re not together. I just want to get on myself.”

  The ragged girl passed him, walked right up to the boat, and without hesitation, tried to climb on.

  “Hey!” the boat’s captain said, getting belligerent. “This isn’t a passenger ship! Unless you want to sit at our feet among the catch, there’s no room.”

  The girl looked a little confused. “Sit,” she said, awkwardly pointing to the boat around her enormous bundle. The bundle was nearly as large as the girl, a big pile of who-knew-what wrapped up in a blanket. It was obviously heavy, but the girl’s thin arms must have had more muscle than met the eye. Whatever objects were inside, they occasionally shifted, making it hard for her to hold onto the bundle properly.

  “Well, I s
uppose you could,” the fisherman said, “if you had any money. But you don’t look like–”

  “Is this good?” the girl asked. She carefully put down her package and untied a pouch from her wrist.

  The fisherman looked inside the pouch and turned red. “Welcome aboard,” he said.

  The girl sat down with her bundle at Kelina’s feet, which Kelina moved back as far as she could. The girl looked filthy. Her hair was a gigantic tangled lump filled with sticks and mud and, Phaedra suspected, a sizable colony of lice. A whole civilization of them, as Father would say.

  “Hey!” said the nervous young fellow with the crossbow. “You can’t just let her on and leave me behind! I can pay at least as well as she can!”

  “What is going on today?” Phaedra heard the fisherman mumble under his breath. “I doubt you can, lad,” he said aloud, “but I’d love to see you try.”

  When the young man climbed aboard, he had no money left and no room to sit down. He wedged himself awkwardly between the bench and the little mast, trying not to step on the ragged girl or the reeking pile of fish among which she sat. With the fisherman standing at the tiller in the stern of the boat, his nephews would have to precariously share the prow in order to have room.

  “Hurry now,” the fisherman said, looking up at the sun.

  On a good day, Atuna was two hours away. They would be lucky if they could make it there before dark. No fisherman in his right mind would sail in the dark, but the financial gain of this particular voyage was enough to make the boat’s owner highly optimistic about his timing.

  “Unmoor us,” he said, “and get us out of here before some other lunatic tries to get on.”