by Kage Baker
“But at last a demoness spoke to Cursed Gard, telling him he had drunk too much. And so he got up and roared out that all were to leave. They filled their arms with our goods and marched away, but before he left, Cursed Gard drew forth a black knife and drove it into the doorpost of our storehouse.
“ ‘Give this to your boys in green, when next you see them,’ he said. ‘Tell them any one of them who dares is welcome to bury it in my heart, if he can.’ And so he left.”
The Saint herself came to the village, though by the time she got there grass had grown again in the place where the demons had celebrated, and two of the village girls were near to term with children begotten on that night. She took down the black knife and felt power crackling in it; inspected the ruin of the storeroom, the smashed jars. Most of the houses had been abandoned.
“Where are the people who lived there?” she asked.
“They are afraid to stay here now,” said the trevani, Paltyll. “They have gone back to live in the woods, as we did in the old days.”
“I think they are wise. If we have no villages, Cursed Gard will not know where to find us. If we have no stored wealth, he will have nothing to take from us. We lived happily enough for many years without houses or riches. Let us live so again, until his anger fades.”
“The Mowers will not like it, Mother.”
“They must endure it,” said the Saint sharply. “Their pride and wrath started this. Let them remember what the Beloved said: ‘The snare you make for another will catch your own feet.’ “
“Well, but the Beloved,” said the trevani with a shrug, “he was imperfect. And the Mowers say among themselves that his teachings were for slaves, and we are no slaves now.”
“What else do they say?” The Saint looked full into her eyes, and she winced.
“They boast that if they had lived in the old time, we had never been slaves.”
“No,” said the Saint. “If they had lived in the old time, they would have been Cursed Gard.”
The Saint stayed in that place to midwife the two girls, when their time came. The births were easy, but when the children were laid in their arms, the mothers shuddered and pushed them away: for the little girl had silver eyes, and the little boy had skin blue-black as a damson plum. The Saint took them away with her, when she left, and gave them into the care of her disciples, on her own island.
The Saint opened her eyes. She lay still awhile, listening for what had awakened her. Not the cries of the children; she could hear little Bero snuffling contentedly as he nursed, and a tiny snore was drifting from Bisha’s cot. Her disciples were asleep, all but the drowsy nurse. She reached out with her mind and perceived the knot of agitation moving through the gloom. Someone was running along a trail, heart pounding, ducking to avoid branches as they came.
She sighed and rose, wondering if Cursed Gard had attacked another village. There had been five now, and the last one had been set afire. No one had been hurt, but the fire had burned for two days and laid waste a great swath of the northern woods. Three more half-breed babies were expected. She had given stern orders that they were under her protection, and written again to exhort her people to leave the villages and seek safety in the deep woods. Some few had done as she asked, but not enough.
By the time the messenger had scrambled into one of the coracles and dipped his paddle in the water, she was dressed and waiting at the landing.
With some surprise she recognized Feldash, whom she had sent to minister to the Children of the Sun. He was still trying to catch his breath as he stepped from the boat and knelt before her for her blessing. She raised him and looked into his eyes.
“What’s the matter?”
“Sickness, in Karkateen,” he said. “Not the fever. They’ve poisoned themselves—vomiting and sweating, and a dozen people have died. Something has been spilled into the lake from which they drink. I went down to the shore and saw blackness in the water, and the reeds dying, and dead waterbirds. There is a man living on the edge of the lake who makes ink, and there was an accident—one of his vats cracked, and the ink ran down through the drains into the water.”
“Ink isn’t poisonous,” said the Saint, wondering if she had enough purgatives for a town.
“Not ours, but theirs is made to smear on their printing blocks. They put cerelath gum in it.”
“And only a dozen have died? Their gods must be protecting them.” The Saint turned to run for her stillroom.
Feldash ran beside her. “It will take more than I can carry. Can you spare five people?”
“I will come myself and bring a dozen others,” she said. “We’ll need to treat the immediate symptoms—and I’ll have to bring water-lily bulbs, to purify the lake—and purges—”
“We’ll need to make a steam house for them, they have no idea how to bathe properly.”
“Haven’t you been teaching them?”
“It’s hard to make them understand, Mother. They don’t believe in dirt they cannot see.”
“And yet they believe in gods,” said the Saint in exasperation.
Two hours after sunrise they set out, a dozen figures robed in white, making their way along the forest trail. Feldash led them, followed by the Saint, and the others bore between them great jars of water-lily bulbs nested in wet fern, or carried on their shoulders bundles of herbs and roots.
At midday they had gone less than a third of the distance, for the trail was overgrown and winding. “Is there a quicker way?” the Saint asked Feldash.
He looked over his shoulder at her. “We cross a red road not far ahead. It curves a little out of our way, but we can make better time if we take it.”
“Then we’ll take the red road.”
They went much more swiftly now, as the sun crossed the open sky above them, though some of the disciples were fearful at being so far from cover. The sun had begun to dip down toward the west, the shadows were lengthening, when Feldash halted and stared ahead. He put up his hand to signal that the others should stop. “What is it?” asked the Saint.
“Spears,” said Feldash distractedly. “Oh, no, no, there are spears—there’s an army marching this way. We must hide!”
“Step off the road,” said the Saint. “Set your burdens down in the ditch and step into the meadow. Don’t be afraid.”
They obeyed her, trembling. Plain now they heard the tramping of marching boots, and a rough song. They stood in the meadow in the semblance of a grove of blossoming trees and saw the column of demons come along the road.
The demons bristled with weapons, immense and dreadful in their black and silver armor. Though the armor all alike bore the image of a white stag, none but two of the demons were alike at all. Some were furred, some were scaled, some bore tusks, and some had talons. Some were demonesses, lithe and beautiful as a quick death. They sang as they came along, and the earth shook with their deep voices:
If I ever get out of here
I will drink their blood
It will be my wine …
They strode on without even noticing the grove of blossoming trees hard by the road, though the Saint watched them keenly. And then—
Beside them, walking from the back to the front of the column, was a great black-a-vised man, with a calm and mild gaze under black brows. He alone turned his head to regard the grove of trees. His gaze intensified. He stopped, stepped across the ditch in one stride, and walked in among the slender trees where petals were falling.
The strong and confident script breaks off abruptly. You see that, a few lines below, the account is continued in a different hand.
And Cursed Gard reached in among the flowering branches, and when he stepped back, he drew forth by the wrist a woman, the fairest lady that had ever been seen.
With a shout of laughter he threw his cloak about her. They vanished together, in a white flash and a clap of thunder.
You turn the leaf and see you have come to the end of the bundle. You shuffle back through the leaves, thinking
you must have missed one, but no pages are out of sequence.
You rise and take the bundle to the brother librarian, asking for the second volume. He shakes his head sadly. He tells you there is no more.
The Book
In a wineshop in Mount Flame City, just around the corner from Copperplate & Sons’ Press, a lady sits alone at a table, waiting. She is a Child of the Sun and also a beauty, in a hard professional sort of way. On the ground beside her chair is a large woven bag, sagging as though it contains something heavy.
She taps her foot as she waits. Presently a man enters the shop. He looks intelligent, in a hard professional sort of way, and perhaps a little impatient. She waves to him. He sees her, glances out the window at the water clock in the city square, and comes to her table with reluctance.
“Let’s make this quick,” he says. “I have about fifteen minutes before I’m supposed to be at a meeting.”
“Then I’ll be brief.” The woman reaches down, hauls the bag up into her lap, and dumps a manuscript out on the table. It is bound with twine.
The man stares at it, unimpressed. “And this would be?”
“A tell-all unauthorized biography.”
“Really.” The man is still unimpressed. “A biography of whom?”
“The Master of the Mountain.”
The man’s eyebrows jump straight up his forehead in disbelief. “And you’re qualified to write his biography because …?”
“I was his mistress. One of his mistresses, anyway. He visited me once a month at least for four years, before he took up with that greenie woman. Trust me, I’ve seen a side of him the caravan masters don’t see. And I learned a lot about him, when I could get him to talk about himself. You may think you’ve published scandals before, but you’ve never read anything like this.”
Against his inclination, the man pulls the manuscript across the table and opens it at random. He reads in silence for a moment. He turns the page and reads more. “Gods below,” he mutters. “Did this really happen?”
“Most of it,” she says with aplomb. “Where it’s faked, it’s a plausible fake. I thought of calling it I Was the Dark Lord’s Passion Slave.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” says the man, unable to lift his eyes from the page. “Yes. Indeed.” The minutes tick by. He looks up at last and makes an attempt to pull himself together. “So, er, you’re taking revenge on him for abandoning you?”
She shrugs. “He did leave me with a town house. But one has to buy groceries, hasn’t one?”
“Well,” says the man, gathering the pages together with slightly trembling hands and retying the twine. “I’ll have to show it to my other editors, of course. Can’t promise anything. Think I can talk them into a reasonable advance.”
“Do let me know what you decide, won’t you?” she says with a charming smile. “Mr. Pulley over at Pulley and Joist was interested in seeing it as well.”
As rooms went, it was luxuriously furnished. A carpet was on the floor; the bed was covered in pillows, in furs and silks. A little table of beaten brass was in one corner, bearing a wine carafe and goblets. In another corner was a table with compartments, and above it a mirror of silvered glass.
None of this made up for the bars on the windows, for the air being thin and cold, for the fine layer of grit on every surface, for the silk sheets being musky with more than stale perfume.
Once she had regained consciousness, the Saint had searched the room three times, before finding the hidden compartment in the table. It contained nothing useful: the tawdry finery of a dancing girl and two half-empty jars of cosmetics, in garish and cheap colors. The discovery added an element of injured pride to the commotion in the Saint’s heart.
To calm herself, she sat and sorted through her emotions. Injured pride, why should she feel that? Fury, certainly, like a river in spring flood. Dismay, that she was in this place where she could help no one, and had no idea what had happened to her disciples or what her people would do now.
Fear? … No, she was not afraid. Grief?
… Some part of her was remembering the dancing green the night she had gone there, the way the stars had glittered and the white flowers had shone in the grass. There had been laughter in the night, as the young people discovered love. She had put the memory away from herself as selfish, but it had been there all along, buried deep. Love had shown her a different face.
And to think about that was to tremble with self-pity and unshed tears. She was not injured; she could effect her own release, if she could once look in the man’s eyes, and then she had only to walk from this place and go home. It would be months yet before the consequences must be dealt with.
She paced the room, making a circuit of it three times, collecting her strength. She began to sing.
She had been aware of peripheral sound far below, echoing footsteps, conversation, clinking tableware, the clash of armor. At her song, it stopped dead. The Saint held them helpless and the thought gave her strength, lent volume to her voice. She went up an octave and the room trembled, the bars in the windows vibrated and began to work loose, the door started and shook on its hinges.
She knew that if she held a certain note, she could blow off the roof, force the walls outward like flower petals opening. She might do anything then: summon the wild swans to bear her forth or the north wind to carry her like thistledown. She had never drawn on certain powers because they had seemed absurd and theatrical and useless in the business of daily life. Now, however, she could use them.
But she would look in his eyes first.
She heard his footstep. His hand was at the door. She let her song drop to a throb on the air, palpable but barely audible.
Gard opened the door and stood there swaying slightly, looking pale and sick. He breathed out fumes of wine; the smoke of weed was in his hair. He squinted in pain at the vibration of her held note. She ended her song, and when he opened his eyes in relief, she looked full into them.
She saw regret in his soul, but no self-deception. He hid behind no illusions.
He returned her gaze steadily. “Lady, I have done you an evil.”
“You have. Where are Feldash and the others?”
“Who?”
“My disciples! The others who were with me!”
“We left them there. We didn’t bother them. I suppose they ran away. In any case, Lady, I apologize.”
“Then you will let me go at once.”
“There is the matter of the child.”
“Indeed there is. How do you know about the child?”
“I am a mage, lady. To my eyes, he shines through your flesh like a star. He will not be welcome among your people.”
“Then I will send him to you.”
“Let me make compensation. Marry me, Lady. Be my wife, and the mother of my child.”
“I will be the mother of your child regardless.”
“And I will honor you as my true wife and never lie with any other woman,” Gard continued hopefully, for she had not screamed or wept or tried to kill him yet, and he had been standing before her a full thirty seconds.
“Even the one whose rags and paint were left here?” she said, and instantly felt self-contempt for stooping so low. He looked blank and puzzled at that, for a moment.
“… Oh. I’m sorry. That was …” He tried to remember the girl’s name.
“A crass and insensitive oversight?”
“Yes. And if you will be my true wife, I will never raid your people again.”
She was silent at that, astonished.
Encouraged, he added, “And I will give you all I have, and I’ll make you a garden on this mountain.”
“A garden?”
“Of surpassing loveliness. I’m not asking you to love me. I know what I am, and what I’ve done. Only marry me, lady.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because you were beautiful, and I had the opportunity. I was angry with your people. It seemed like the best possible
revenge. By the time I knew what you were, I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to.
“Marry me. Please. Marry me, and my revenge ends here, now. I will never hurt you again. I will never hurt your people again.”
As an afterthought he went down on his knees. He did it awkwardly, and even kneeling, he still filled the doorway, he was so big, and his broad shoulders pushed against the frame. He lifted his face and met her eyes again. What man had ever been able to do that?
He looked nothing like the monster of the old stories, the frightful image sketched in sand or charcoal to frighten children. His face was square, but his features were even and handsome, if a little rough. His mouth was fine, firm. His eyes were wide and dark and somber, under black brows curved like scythe blades.
Scythe blades, she said to herself. I’m making a poem of his face, like a girl in love. And he had not smirked about what he’d done, nor denied it, nor tried to make light of it. I’m making excuses for him. Why can’t I stop thinking about those big square hands?
She looked down at him in consternation, realizing that a selfless act could be a selfish one too.
“I will marry you,” she said.
He strode out across the parapet, grinning like a fool. Balnshik and Thrang watched him approach.
“She must have said yes,” said Balnshik.
“She did,” said Gard.
“You’re a lucky man,” said Balnshik. “In her place, I’d have been bowling your head across the floor by this time.”
“I know,” he said happily. “She doesn’t love me, but it’s all right. She’ll stay with me. She’s beautiful and good and I’d die for her. Maybe she’ll forgive me someday. Do we have any flowers?”
I will send one of the guard down the mountain to see what can be found below the death zone, sir, Thrang told him, as Balnshik shook her head. And I will have a chamber prepared with clean linens and proper furniture. That room is no fit place for your lady wife and the mother of your heir. You should have let me clean it first.
