by Jo Clayton
The Child: 6
Serroi gloomed in a nest of blankets. The cell was littered with dirty clothes and fragments of rotting food. The hands brought her two meals a day and once a week they hauled her to the tap in the center of the court, stripped off her filthy clothes and scrubbed her down. Cool and impersonal, they kept her reasonably healthy and preserved her for the Noris who seemed unready to discard her. For the rest, she was free to do as much or as little as she chose.
A papery rustle broke the heavy silence. She watched a large roach using its front legs to pull its long flat body from one of the many cracks webbing the side wall of the cell. As soon as it was free from the crack, it shook itself, rattled its wing cases, then sat a moment preening its feelers, ignoring her with splendid self-absorption. Its absurd airs surprised Serroi into a fit of giggles.
The roach scuttled back into the crack. When she sat very still, making no further sounds, it poked its head out, looked warily around, then came out of its refuge in a series of quick, angular movements and rested flat against the stone, feelers twitching, bright black eyes swiveling about with a clownish imitation of intelligence. A small fizzing escaped her in spite of her efforts to suppress her laughter. The creature arched its thready neck and seemed to stare at her with indignation. She settled back into her blankets, her laughter trickling into a comfortable series of chuckles.
The roach lifted briefly into the air on whirring, straining wings, circled clumsily, then landed beside a fragment of food on the floor. It twitched its wings back under the cases, waddled briskly about the inch-high crumb, finally walked its front legs onto the bread and perched that way, feelers twitching, head turning and turning until it was satisfied that no other creature lay in wait to snatch its food. Assured of this, it crouched beside the crumb and began eating. Serroi stretched out on her stomach, head propped on her hands, watching it nibble at the bread.
When the insect finished its meal and flew up onto one of the bedposts where it sat like a conqueror general surveying his new kingdom, Serroi eased out of bed and pulled on her clothes, careful to make no sudden moves that might startle her new companion. For the first time in days she felt impatient with herself and her surroundings.,
Some months before the hands had brought her, unasked, some cleaning materials, a broom, a scrub brush, an old bucket, a jar of greasy soap-they were shoved in a corner, untouched. She snapped off the jar’s lid and dumped a fat dollop of soap into the bottom of the bucket, wrinkling her nose at its acrid smell. She glanced at the roach, giggled and went out leaving the door open behind her.
All that morning she scrubbed at her dirty clothing, sloshing each piece in the soapy water, then slapping it hard on the stone pavement as she’d seen her mother beat clothing clean in northern streams. She even stripped off the things she wore and washed them. Then she rinsed everything at the tap and hung the clothing on the cages to dry.
When she went inside, the roach was crawling about on the wall. It whirred to the bedpost, its tiny head moving back and forth as she moved, watching her with bulging eyes as she scrubbed the cell clean. It watched as she finished with the floor and walls. Watched as she made up the bed with the clean sheets and blankets piled forgotten on a shelf. Watched as she struggled with her hair, washing it awkwardly, knocking over the bucket several times before she finished, leaving the room awash with soapy water. Sat magisterially on the bedpost as she used the brush to scrape the water out the door.
While she waited for her clothing to dry, it moved about on the wall, scuttling in and out of cracks like a small silly roach-Nor moving within the fluid rock of its residence. Much of the time, though, it sat on the bedpost, triangular head cocked alertly, feelers twitching with fussy importance.
As the days passed, she began talking to the roach, telling it stories, some she remembered from the long winter nights in the vinat-hide tents on the tundra, others she’d read in the Noris’s scrolls. The slow movement of its head created the illusion of intelligent listening, allowing her a shadow sense that she was doing something more than talking to herself. Sometimes the hard memories crowded in on her and she went back to huddling on the bed. On these days the roach would come out of a crack and sit watching her with a look of ancient dark wisdom; she knew it was illusion like the rest, but as the moments passed she felt a deep calm flowing over her.
Growing tired of repeating her stories, she began making up new ones about the heroic adventures of a girl like herself and a giant roach. A girl she’d like to be, not the small trapped animal she was. They had magnificent adventures in a world spun out of dreams and the images she’d seen in the magic mirror.
As the long but no longer lonely winter crept toward its end, she felt a great change in herself. She began going outside, climbing over the cages, raiding them for their bits of wood and stone. Somewhere in the long days of dreaming, her wounds had skinned over. She no longer shied away from the empty cages. Her spirit had awakened, reborn, as the flowers and grass were reborn on the tundra after each killing winter. She piled her bits and pieces on the cage roof, but the best construction she managed left her hands a body length below the top of the courtyard wall. After her last try, she sat on the roof, dangling her feet over the edge, kicking them back and forth, wondering what to do next, ignoring the gathering and dripping of the fog that smothered her in grayness.
A darkness bloomed in the fog, rising like a black finger toward the sky. She watched idly, wondering what was happening. Towering above the north wall, the dark smoke swirled and billowed, softly solidifying into the form of the giant Nor with a black robe, pale face and hands. The misty figure lifted a hand and flung lightning at the tower. Serroi gasped. Hastily she slid over the edge of the roof and swung down the cage bars to the ground. When she looked up again, she saw a second smoke-Nor to the south. This figure hurled another bolt at the tower. It struck high on the side and split in half, traveling in a ring of light around the stone. Frightened, Serroi dived into the cell, slamming the heavy door on the attack.
All winter the walls of her cell had radiated a gentle warmth, keeping her alive and comfortable. As the days passed and the attack continued, the keep walls began to glow with heat, the fog condensing on them turning to steam in a constant sizzle-hiss and her hole in the wall became unbearable. Huddling in a sweaty heap on her bed, she looked around. The roach had disappeared somewhere, maybe the streams of moisture rolling down the walls had driven it off.
I can’t stay here, she thought. She mopped at her forehead, scraped straggling sodden hair off her face. I can’t stay here.
Unhappy and afraid, she tossed the bucket out into the court, stood a moment watching it roll toward the tap. Fog still. The sun’s up out there somewhere. She winced as the shadow figures stirred outside the walls, watched them glide about, meeting and parting, looming over the tower like thunderheads. Inside again, she rooted out all the blankets and sheets she could find, dumped them on the bed, and started searching for the roach. She searched for it a long time before she finally bundled blankets and sheets together and took them across the court to the large cage where the sicamar had prowled so restlessly last spring. Inside the cage there were tree forms and broad shelves molded from a fibrous stone that would insulate her from the burning and make living possible in that oven.
She spread one blanket out on the ledge where the sicamar used to sleep, tossed the rest of the things in a corner of the cage, hesitated in the open gate, flicking glances at the prowling figures, wondering as she did so why her Noris did nothing, walked quickly to the tap across paving stones that seared through the soles of her boots. She filled the bucket and ran back with it, clamping her jaws together to stand the sudden sharp pain in each step.
The day passed.
During the long night the walls glowed red-hot and the air in the court was near unbreathable. She was hungry. There was no food. The hands hadn’t come all day, didn’t come all night.
Throwing blankets and sheets
ahead of her like stepping stones she crossed to the tap sometime after midnight-without the moons and the stars it was hard for her to tell. She danced up and down as the heat struck up through the blankets while she waited for the trickle of near boiling water to fill the bucket. To the north and the south she could still see the great figures of the Norim as solid columns of black. Tomorrow is going to be bad, she thought, and frowned at the tower, wondering once again why the Noris did nothing. He’s not afraid. He can’t be afraid. She glowered at the northern giant. He’ll come out when he’s ready.
Dawn. She kept shifting about as the padding heated beyond bearing. Twice she went for water. The day went on and on, interminably on and on.
And finally ended. The sun went down. The moons bloomed for the first time in days, a long scatter of opaline discs and arcs over tower and court walls glowing a sullen red. Serroi drooped on her pile of charring blankets and tried to sleep. She wasn’t hungry anymore; hunger pains had gone away, leaving behind dizziness and an extraordinary clarity of mind. She looked out through the bars at the northern giant standing still and formidable. This is a challenge, a test of his power. She moved a little, nearly toppled off the unsteady pile of blankets and sheets, sucked in her breath in a gasp of pain as one arm hit against the stone. Cuddling her arm in her lap she peered out at the shadow-giant. He’s afraid. They’re both afraid. My Noris is letting them stand out there and stew. He’s sitting in that horrible room with his beast-demons waiting until they begin to crack.
After a while it seemed to her that the air was cooler. The stone behind her was decidedly cooler. Eventually she worried the blankets and sheets out over the ledge and stretched out to sleep.
At dawn she sat up, her head aching, her mouth dry, her lips cracking. She took the bucket and trudged across the cooling flags to the tap. When she pressed down on the hook the water gushed out more strongly than before-and drops splashed on her legs, cool drops. Laughing with delight, she put her hand in the flood; she splashed water over her face, shivered with pleasure in the easing of her own heat. She laughed again and lifted the bucket over her head, danced about as the cool clear water splashed down over her. She filled the bucket a last time and started back to the cage.
A booming laughter echoed across the sky. She set the bucket by her feet and gaped as the shadow giants glided around the tower, circling until they stood together in the east, glaring at something behind her. She swung around.
A third giant rose behind the tower. Her Noris.
Lightning crackled, sliced like crooked spears at him. He lifted a vast translucent hand and deflected the bolt casually into the sea as a greenish mist swirled up out of the tower, coiling round him until he was half-hidden in a pale shimmer the color of scum on a summer pond. He didn’t bother moving when the shadow giant flung a second bolt at him. It struck the green and vanished-without a crackle or hiss or any sign of travail, it simply vanished.
Serroi watched fascinated, her soaked hair straggling into her eyes, her eye-spot throbbing painfully at the power that hummed in the air.
Lightning crackled and flew and was as damaging as a gentle spring rain. Things howled about her Noris, demons and firedrakes, gouts of water, other things she couldn’t name, could scarcely admit to herself she saw. The Noris watched all this with a vast amusement and contempt. Nothing touched him. The attacks spattered against the green smoke and screamed into nonexistence.
The two images went transparent a moment, then they merged into one, thick and solid and dangerous, a terrible figure roaring out a triumphant howl that bounded across the sky and faded in multiple echoes. The giant raised its arms high. Between its hands a black cloud formed-a cloud that rippled and coiled, rose high, drew back, rose again.
Ser Noris moved back one step then another as the cloud flew at him. Watching with distress, forgetting her hatred in the excitement of the conflict, remembering only that she loved him, that he was father and mother and teacher, she pounded on her thighs, screamed her rage at the giant. Then she stared open-mouthed as a great translucent beast leaped into the sky to stand beside her Noris, snarling its challenge at the blackness-the chini-demon, glowing with a green far stronger than the aura surrounding the Noris. He bent, touched the demon’s head, pointed at the billowing darkness.
The beast went leaping for the cloud, tearing it into harmless shreds, leaping through it again and again, worrying it, pawing at it, whirling round and round until the cloud was reduced to small fragments that melted into nothing. Growling, the hairs on its insubstantial spine standing up like tarnished copper wire, it stalked around the Nor-meld, caught the lightning flung at it in cruel yellow teeth, breaking it into sparkles of light that dropped in a glittering rain over the isle to melt into stone like bits of mist.
The meld hastily separated into its two components. They would have run but could not. Wherever they turned, the beast was there. They struggled, shrieking with pain, shooting out gouts of blackness like blood as the beast’s teeth tore into their smoke bodies. Their struggles grew weaker and weaker, they were only trying to escape, but escape was not permitted. The image of her Noris grew stronger and blacker as the attackers faded, as if he was drinking in their strength. When they melted into nothing, he smiled. The beast-demon lifted its head and howled, then trotted back to its master. The Noris tugged at the demon’s ears, scratched at the distorted skull, then both figures melted and the display was over.
Serroi breathed normally again. Kneeling beside the bucket, she scooped up handfuls of water and splashed it over her face and shoulders, over and over again until her shaking stopped. She drank, sniffed, drank again, then sat back on her heels. The red glow was gone from the tower; she looked at the charred wood of the cell door, rose slowly to her feet and walked to the tower. Biting her lip she jerked on the latch-hook and pulled the door open.
All that was left of the roach was its shiny wing-case and a few leg fragments. She picked up the case and stood holding it in her cupped palm. With a quick violent motion of her arm, she flung it out the door.
The Woman: VII
Dinafar followed the meie along the gravel walk beside the shieldwall of sharpened logs, wincing as the small stones dug into her bare feet. They turned a corner and she saw double gates slightly ajar, a space between the two sides a man could just manage to squeeze through. “Why…” she began.
The meie flattened her hand on Dinafar’s shoulder and urged her through the gap. “So the caretakers can sleep in their own beds.” She pointed at a line of small houses backed up against the logs. They shared sidewalls and their common roof formed a platform about three quarters of a man-length below the top of the walls. Dinafar walked backward, staring wide-eyed at the courtyard with its patterned paving and neat little areas of kitchen greens outside each small house.
“Watch out for the well.” The meie caught her arm and steered her around a low circle of stone in the center of the court. “The Stenda take down the sweep when they leave. The men still here must lower a bucket on a rope when they need water.”
The house was built of logs as thick as those in the wall. The only windows on the facade were twenty feet over her head and stoutly shuttered. Beneath those windows hung a ten-foot shield carved and painted with the arms of the Stenda lordling who ruled this hold. Beneath this, deeply shadowed by the outthrust of the upper floors, was the main entrance, a place of ceremony and subtle boasting, three posts on each side, carved with the sigils of ancestry, male to the right, female to the left.
Dinafar climbed the three broad steps and stopped beside the meie who was examining that formidable door with weary interest. She glanced up, stared. The upper floors jutted out above her, an overhang about two feet wide with a marching row of plugged peepholes just visible in the thick wood flooring the overhang. She took another step and stood beside the meie frowning at the door. Three iron bars crossed in front of it, forming a black metal star whose ends disappeared into deep slots. A heavy chain was twisted
about the point where the three bars crossed, fastened into place by a padlock that looked strong enough to resist a war-ax. She lifted it, exclaimed at the weight, let it clank dully back into place. “You’d have to burn the place down to get in.”
“Think so?” Tired eyes twinkling, the meie bent and fished for a moment in the top of her boot. Twisting her head up, she went on. “You can’t see any way inside?”
Dinafar tugged at the chain, grimaced, stepped back and scanned the front of the house. “Maybe around back.”
The meie straightened. “First lesson. Enter a house through the door.”
“Meie!”
“Seriously, little one.” She opened her hand and showed Dinafar the thin steel probes crossing her palm. “The strongest point of a fortress can also be its weakest if you look at it in the right way.” She knelt before the lock. “And use your head properly. Doesn’t just apply to locks either.” She slipped a probe in and began waggling it gently about. “This looks hard. Isn’t. All you need is a key.” Humming softly, she slipped a second probe in beside the first and moved it delicately about. “Or a substitute for that key. Ah.” With a heavy clunk, the padlock dropped open. She slipped the probes back into their pockets inside her boot. With a hand from Dinafar, she got off her knees, worked the chain from the bars and collapsed them into their slots. “As you see. Nothing difficult about this.” She pulled the door open and went inside.
Shaking her head, Dinafar followed. The air inside had a stale smell as if the Stenda had been gone a year, not a few days, and with the door closed there was very little light entering to lessen the murky darkness. “Meie?”
