by Jo Clayton
“No bird.” He scowled at Dinafar. “Girl, you wait outside a minute.”
Dinafar crossed quickly to Serroi, took hold of her sleeve.
Serroi patted her hand. “Well both go. Call us when you’re ready.” She took Dinafar’s arm and hurried her out of the room. In the hallway, the girl started to protest but Serroi silenced her with a headshake. “Wait,” she murmured. “He has a right to his secrets.” She looked off down the hall, remembering that she’d left the cap behind, hoping no one would come and find them.
“Come,” Coperic stood in the doorway, his face unreadable.
As she stepped back into the room with Dinafar behind her, she heard the rain dripping steadily outside. Inside, the gloom had deepened but there was enough light left for her to see the black hole in the wall. She slipped out of her backpack and held it dangling by the straps. Behind her she could hear Dinafar doing the same. She reached out her free hand and the girl took it.
“Through here.” Coperic stood back and waited until they crawled into the dusty hole. After a foot of stone the hole widened suddenly. Serroi had just time to curl her body and roll, then catch Dinafar as she fell through.
Coperic came through and clicked the panel shut. He brushed past them. There was a sliding clash in the darkness, a shower of sparks and a quick lift of flame. Using the tinder, he lit a lamp then pinched the first flame out.
They were in a small comfortable room carved out of the wall’s stone, a room almost painfully neat. There was a padded armchair, a bed neatly made up, a rack of scrolls against one wall, a table with a straight-backed chair pushed under. Opposite the entrance there was another door, a narrow hole closed by heavy planks. Coperic sat on the bed and waved at the stuffed chair. Serroi dropped her pack and sat, Dinafar sinking onto the floor beside her knee. “No bird?”
“Right.” He was more relaxed now, a tired cleverness in his face, shrewdness bright in his eyes, eyes that abruptly narrowed to creases as he yawned, then yawned again, belatedly masking the gape behind a narrow hand. “Sorry, meie, I’ve been on my feet since I don’t know when, About the bird. I tried sending one out a couple of days ago. With Norim and Sons flooding into the city and all the fuss you and your shield-mate kicked up, I got nervous, thought the Biserica ought to know.” He scratched at the crease running from his long nose to the corner of his mouth. “Lots of traxim around, damn stinkin’ demons aping bird-shape, ought to… I sent out a bird without a message capsule to see what would happen. It got maybe a quarter of a mile. Then the traxim swarmed it, carried it off midtown somewhere, couldn’t track it all the way down, too many demons skitterin’ around. I thought about sending a courier. Changed my mind. With everyone pouring into Oras, anyone heading out would have a lot of unfriendly eyes on him.” He managed a smile. “Maiden’s blood, meie, what the hell did you do?”
“Saw something we shouldn’t.” She leaned back in the chair, one hand over her eyes. “Coperic, did you hear what happened to Tayyan… what is it, Dina?”
Dinafar rose on her knees, wrapped warm hands about Serroi’s. “I wish…” she began. She raised Serroi’s hand and held it against her cheek. “What those guards said was true, meie. You remember I was talking to those boys?”
“Yes.”
“Well, after we’d talked a bit, I asked them why all the fuss at the gate. They… they said that two meie… had… had tried to… kill the Domnor. Guards chased them. One got away. The other… the other put a knife in her throat before they could stop her.”
Serroi pulled her hand free, stood, looked blindly around, went to the far wall by the crude exit, folded her arms against the wall and leaned her forehead on them. She shuddered with anguish but she had no tears, no tears for her shieldmate or herself. All the time she’d known-known! But still she’d hoped, irrationally hoped, that she could retrieve her foul betrayal, make all right again. But Tayyan was dead. There was no changing that. No way to say to her I’m sorry. No way to say to her I’ll do anything, anything, anything to make this up to you. A hand touched her shoulder. A quivering voice said, “Meie?”
She swung around, angry, wanting to hurt, but Dinafar’s face was too open, too vulnerable. Serroi opened her, mouth to tell the girl to get away from her, to leave her alone, that she couldn’t take Tayyan’s place and was a fool to try. She opened her mouth, then looked past Dinafar at the worn, weary face of Coperic. The resentment washing out of her, leaving behind only a weariness to match his; she sighed, pressed her back against the wall, and let herself slide down until she was sitting on the floor. She looked up. “I’m all right, Dina. Don’t fuss.”
Dinafar dropped to sit on her heels beside her, silent and unhappy.
Serroi swallowed. She was tired, so tired it was hard to think. She lifted a shaking hand, stared at it a moment, let it drop back into her lap. “Coperic, I’d better tell you what really happened. Get this to the Biserica however you can, soon as you can.” Once again she went through the story, her voice dull and even, hiding nothing, excusing nothing. The race, their sneaking out, coming back more than a little drunk. The secret meeting. What she and Tayyan had seen and heard. What happened after, the flight, the boat, the village and what she learned there, the eventful return to Oras. Coperic listened intently, the fingers of one hand tapping restlessly at his knee. When she finally fell silent, he leaned forward, his thin body a taut curve.
“You got loose, meie, why come back here? You should have gone fast as you could to the Biserica.”
“What I said,” Dinafar burst out.
Serroi dropped her head back until the coolness of the stone came through the matting of her hair. “Listen, both of you. Right now I’m hanging on by my fingernails. Don’t try stopping me from doing what I have to do.” She closed her eyes. “Have to do!” she repeated fiercely, then sighed again. “Dina, I know you mean well, but please don’t. I’m fond of you, but you’re… I… I’m sorry, but you’re interfering in something that’s none of your business. I lived twenty seven years before we met; there’s no part of me you own, child, and a great deal you’ll never understand. I’m sorry.” She opened her eyes, stared blindly at the flickering lamp. “Sorry. People hurt you if you get close enough to them, you hurt them. Sometimes it’s more than you can bear, but you do bear it, you bear it because you have to.” She sat up,. paused. “I’m rambling. Coperic, in the morning I’m going to the Temple. The Daughter can get me in to see the Domnor without fuss if she chooses to do so. If nothing goes wrong, I’ll be back by noon. If I’m not… does she know about you, the Daughter?”
“No.” He scanned her face, shook his head slightly.
“Why?”
She dipped her fingers into her money sack, eased the tajicho out and held it in the curve of her palm. She stared at it a moment, seeing glimmers from the lamp dancing in the clear crystal; abruptly, she ran her thumb over the hard, bright surface, then tucked the egg-shaped crystal into her boot, squeezing it into a small pocket near the top. “I’m protected well enough from, demon eyes and Norim spells. If I’m not back by noon, forget me. What now?”
He frowned. “Hard to say. I’ve been up here long enough; don’t want Haqtar getting snoopy, got to go back down, grumble about having to look after a pair of brats, swear I’ll send you packing come the Scatter.” He stood. “I’d better get the two of you settled. There’re several rooms up here. Not very clean, I’m afraid. Not as bad as that.” He flipped a hand toward the hole in the wall. “I’ll get some sheets, clean ones. Hungry?”
“Too tired to be hungry. Dina?”
“Yes.” The girl stirred. “I’m half starved.”
“That’s settled, then. I’ll bring you something to eat.” He took a step toward the wall, stopped. “Morescad has slapped a curfew on the city despite the Gather crowd. This place closes in an hour. Come.” He gave his hand to Serroi and pulled her onto her feet. “You’ll be all right?”
She nodded. “I’m just tired.”
He looked
at her a moment. “Right,” he said dryly. Taking the lamp, he preceded them out of the hidden room; when Serroi crawled from the hole, he handed her the boy’s cap she’d dropped in the middle of the floor. “Better keep this around.” Without waiting for an answer, he strode away, the floorboards creaking under his sandals.
Outside, he stopped at a hall closet to fish out fresh sheets. After handing them a pair each, he went on down the shivering hall to a door close by the head of the stairs. Like everything else here, the door creaked when he pushed it open. He lit the lamp inside from the one he carried, then opened the window a crack. “You'll be safe enough in here, girl. The door’s stronger than it looks. Soon as we’re out, you drop the bar. Hear? I'll be up in a little with your food.”
Dinafar nodded, turned slowly, looking unhappily at the small, bare room. “Meie, can’t I stay with you?”
Blinking wearily, Serroi murmured, “You'll be fine here, Dina.” Followed by Coperic, she left the room, hearing the bar clunk home with unnecessary vigor behind them.
“Touch of temper there.” Coperic brushed past her and shoved open the door directly across the hall.
Serroi stepped inside and looked around. This room was a twin to the other. “She’ll make a good meie, if that's the path she chooses.”
“A lot of passion in her.”
Serroi chuckled softly. “We don’t vow chastity, you know that well enough, my friend. Only childlessness.”
He touched her cheek lightly, then moved past her and lit the lamp sitting in the middle of a dusty table. He looked down at the chair, frowned, crossed to the bed and pulled off the old tattered sheets. He flicked the ends over the chair and table, then came back to her to stand looking down into her face. He dropped the sheets, kicked them to one side as he lifted a hand and brushed its back very gently along the side of her face. “Now that the girl’s not here, how are you really, little meie?”
“Hanging on.” She dropped cap and rucksack to the floor, smiled tentatively then leaned forward, her head resting in the hollow beneath his collarbone. “I’ve got a job to do,” She murmured. “That helps.”
His fingers played in the small tight curls at the base of her skull. “What about tonight?”
She pushed back, looked up at him. A smallish man, he didn’t tower over her; without the wariness he seemed a gentle, affectionate man entirely different from the cynical manipulator of the bar. She tried to smile. “You offer?”
“Comfort for both of us. A shared solitude. More, if you’re willing.”
“Comfort, ahhh…” Her knees sagged and she began to cry, hard painful sobs that wracked her body. Sobs she couldn’t stop. Tears finally for the lost shieldmate.
Muttering under his breath, he steered her to the chair and got her seated. Then he slapped new sheets onto the bed, tucked the ragged quilt back in. Finished, he marched back to Serroi. “Stand up.”
Hiccupping and gasping, she stood swaying in front of him. He stripped off her vest and tunic, folded them over the back of the chair. The weaponbelt landed in a broken circle on the table; he pushed her to the bed and sat her down, pulled off her boots, untied the lacings of her trousers, then eased them off and tossed them aside. He sat beside her on the bed, bending over her, smoothing a hand along her shoulders, working on the tight hard muscles there for several moments until she began to relax. He touched her nipple lightly, smiled as he heard her breathing quicken. “More than comfort?” he murmured.
“More, oh yes,” she whispered huskily, pressing her hand over the hand cupping her breast.
He swung his legs up onto the bed, then jerked upright. “Shit,” he muttered. “Forgot, little meie. Not yet, not yet.” He swung back off the bed and tugged her onto her feet, taking her stumbling and unwilling to the door. “Bar it after me, then get back into bed. I’ve got to close up downstairs and get food for the girl. Bar the door. You hear?”
She yawned, then suddenly twisted around and pressed herself against him, locking her hands behind his neck. “I need you,” she whispered. She pulled his head down and kissed him with a kind of desperation.
“Maiden’s tits,” he breathed, then pulled her hands loose. “Bar the door, meie.”
Twisting restlessly about on the bed; she heard sounds in the hall, then a knocking. She sat up, then realized that the knocking was on the door across the hall. Coperic bringing food to Dinafar. She got out of bed and padded to the door, leaned against it, waiting. When a knock sounded by her ear, she deepened her voice. “Who is it?”
“Uncle.” Coperic’s voice.
As he stepped inside, she went back to the bed and sat on its edge, wiping the soles of her feet with the end of the quilt.
He pulled the door shut and barred it. “Far as I know, Haqtar’s the only Plaz spy downstairs; the rest are thieves, a pimp or two, one smuggler…” He dropped into the rickety chair and unlaced his sandals.
“A friend of yours?” She inspected her feet, then slipped into bed.
“Now, little one, is that a friendly thing to say?” He pulled off his tunic and draped it over hers. “Haqtar’s a fool, no danger to you or anyone. Still it's best to be careful.” He finished undressing and moved to stand by the bed, frowning thoughtfully down at her. “You should get as much sleep as you can.”
“Cold feet?” She grinned, up at him, reached up a hand to him. “Don’t think I could bear nightmares tonight.”
He lifted the covers and slipped in beside her. His body was slight but strong, warm and intensely alive. She snuggled against him, letting that warmth flow through her. The healing contact with other flesh began easing the wounds in her spirit. His hands curved around her shoulders. “Been a long time,” he murmured.
“Mmmmh?”
“Never mind.” He began stroking her brow, caressing the softly quivering eyespot.
“Don’t.” She tried to pull away.
“Hush. Be still.”
She pressed her face against the hard flat muscles of his chest and let the tears come again, gentle healing tears this time, weeping silently until the touch of his hands and her body’s response made her forget why she wept.
The Child: 10
For three nights Serroi trudged across the desolation. The stony ground gave way to rolling sand which took an even greater toll on her failing strength. She ate the last of her food early in the morning of the third day, choking down the dried-out meat and rotting fruit. When she tried to sleep, her rest was broken by nightmares so that she woke almost as tired as when her eyes first closed.
Toward the end of the fourth night she stumbled along, her tongue swollen, her mouth leather-dry, her head unsteady on her neck. As the sun climbed clear of the horizon, she found herself at the top of a slope in the middle of emptiness with no shelter anywhere. Eyes blurring, head burning, she started down, fell, rolled to the bottom of the slope and lay there, dazed.
It seemed to her that she sat up and lay curled on the sand simultaneously as if she’d split into two parts. A vinat came tiptoeing over the sand, nosed at her-on-the-sand, then stood over her-who-knelt, large luminous eyes staring out over the dark-bright sands. The sands stirred, opened up. She was kneeling/lying in masses of blue and crimson flowers. Everything was bright and tranquil. A fire began burning in front of her. A crystal pot came from nowhere and settled on the flames and the liquid inside began boiling. A strange woman veiled in grey stepped out of the pot and moved to her-on-the-sand. With a long bright knife, almost a sword, she cut the crouching body into small sections and threw them into the crystal pot that grew larger in order to accommodate the bits of flesh and bone. They boiled and boiled. It seemed to her that days passed, years passed. The bones were boiled clean, churning round and round in the crystal pot until the fire entered into them, burned through into the marrow, glowed red-gold. Then the grey woman fished them out of the water, slipping her slim white hand into the bubbling, steaming liquid as if it were no more than spring water. She lay the bones back into the shape o
f a girl child. In the skull-holes she placed two pebbles. The skeleton glowed hot, like lines of fire; the blue flowers nodded their bright heads against the bones, the crimson flowers brushed their bright heads against the bones. Flesh grew back over the bones, the stones turned into eyes. The grey woman bent over the one-who-lay-on-the-sand, watching the bones grow flesh around themselves; the head beneath the veil turned. She-who-knelt quivered as that dark secret gaze passed over her. The grey woman held out a hand. Her fingers were, cool, and filled with life; they closed over the hand of her-who-knelt, lifted her, flew with her, the spirit-her.
Spirit-Serroi looked down, saw a hole in the earth. “What is that hole in the earth?” she said.
The grey woman said nothing, but took her down and down, spiraling into the hole. It grew larger and larger until they were skimming over a river that divided into two parts, one flowing south, the other north. The south-flowing river gleamed bright as gold; the north-flowing river ran dark and smoky. The grey woman pointed at the dark river and spirit-Serroi saw bones floating in the murk; the grey woman pointed at the bright river, then flew with spirit-Serroi over the shining water. She opened her hand and spirit-Serroi drifted gently downward, still calm, even tranquil, though she fell toward the earth. She slid into the water and it flowed into her; she felt the life-force energizing her; she turned over and over in the flood. Then the white hand dipped into the water and drew her up again.
Where the glowing river fell over a cliff into a second hole there were two trees, a bright tree and a dark tree, round fruits hanging on each, ripe round fruits bursting with juice. The grey woman took her down to the trees. This time she settled spirit-Serroi beside the dark tree. When she took her hand away, Serroi drifted toward the bright tree. She reached for a glowing fruit; but the grey woman slapped her hand away, took her back to the dark tree. The fruits were purple and fleshy, dripping crimson juice. Spirit-Serroi plucked one and ate it, then screamed as pain jagged through her, her spirit body stretched and twisted, near torn apart by the pain. The grey woman watched, silent and impassive. Though she said nothing, Serroi perceived the pain as a test. She fought to control it, to force it into a small dark knot and expel it from her while she fought also to maintain the integrity of her spirit body. At the end of a struggle more intense than any she’d known, more intense even than the struggle with her Noris, she cast out the pain. The grey woman took another fruit from the dark tree and extended it to Serroi. She drew back. The grey woman forced her to take it. Shivering with fear she bit into the crimson flesh. She felt nothing. Joy bubbled in her; she swallowed the rest of the fruit then laughed and danced around the tree.
