Dust and Light

by Carol Berg

  She halted just out of arm’s reach. Paralyzed, chilled to the marrow, I could not drag my eyes from her. Alas, though very like beneath the strange markings, only in wishing was she Morgan. But if ever myth had borne a shred of truth, she was Danae.

  “The beacon holds! Thou’rt crossed at last.” Clear, fluid words, like a brook below its sheath of ice. She tilted her head, a sidelong smile blossoming on her elegant features. “I did not expect thee unclothed. Dost thou pretend to be one of the long-lived?”

  “Beauteous lady.” Wonder loosed my tongue, but it was the ragged hoarseness of a stranger that grated on my ear. I hadn’t heard my voice in so long. “What is this place? Who are you?”

  A crackling in the undergrowth behind brought dark shapes to the edge of the trees. A red fox trotted from the shadowed wood to her side.

  “I could ask thee the same,” she said. “Long have we seen this day rising, as thy makings twist and strain the boundaries of the world. Tyr Archon bade us sentinels watch, that we might prevent damage from thy clumsy trampling. Divided are we about what to do with thee. Lead astray . . . or grant sanctuary?”

  She ignored the fox that, catlike, rubbed its fur on her bare ankles. “For my part—”

  “Remeni! Lucian de Remeni! What are you playing at?”

  The world shook, rattling my teeth as the harsh call enveloped me in blackness.

  “Praying, are you? Beginning to feel the burden of your crimes?” Iron fingers gripped my shoulder. “Or have you possibly been trying to escape?”

  Grief welled from my breast in a monstrous wave, curling my back until my forehead touched dusty iron. It required every scrap of will inside me to keep from crying out the loss of so marvelous a dream. The glory of the night, of the Dané. The lightning power of her voice that had charged my flesh with heat and light akin to magic. No moment of my prisoning had been so cruel as this waking.

  “For a moment I thought you’d slipped your cage, plebeiu. Virit said you weren’t in here when he brought your ale. More fool, I, to send the birdwit alone.”

  Heart dull as lead, I moved to stand as was required. But Nelek’s firm hand kept me on my aching knees. “No matter this time. We’ve brought a gift for you.”

  Quick as a bird snatches a ripe cherry, hard leather cupped half my face, and before I could claim my wits, my mouth opened in protest and the evil strap compressed my tongue.

  The magic . . . Gods save me, they had detected my magic. Why did I not just die in my dreams?

  From there all proceeded as before, save they left my shackled feet bare. It seemed more hurry than intentional shaming, though Nelek did not spare insults as he led me through the open door.

  I was near gibbering. My disjointed eyes could not decide what they looked on—visions of the past, dreams of the impossible, the glaring torchlight and iron of present horror, or the mask’s unrelenting blindness. Heart and loins ached with the memory of the dream, while magical depletion left my knees like porridge and my hands shaking so violently that Nelek threatened to drag me. Anyone hunting evidence of lunacy would not have far to look.

  The climb up the iron stair was harder going than before. My shackles weighed like the doom of the world. Once onto the back stair, we didn’t go all the way down and back up again. Rather we climbed straight to the top of the Tower. It was full night. Not a glimmer of light came through the arrow loops to aid Virit’s torch. Holy Mother, let them just throw me off. . . .

  When we arrived at the Curators’ Chamber, I was near collapse, concentrating so hard on standing, breathing, and not choking on the vile mouth strap that I could not have said who was present. Some of the six seats were filled, some not. Someone breathed on my blind side. I could not say if it was one or ten, male, female, goose, or gander.

  “We require that you maintain his close confinement when he is not working, until a Registry investigator judges his mind repaired. A locked room or restrained as you see him here. In the presence of anyone other than you, he must be masked. He is not permitted to speak with anyone—”

  “—save those I direct, and only in my presence.” This from a man standing at my shoulder. A new jailer? Dull and sick, I could care naught about that.

  “Save those you direct, and only in your presence. Of course.” The speaker sounded like a most annoyed Gramphier, but he looked odd. The lamplight was weak. My exposed eye blinked and squinted. The curators—four of them present—wore masks. My dull wits could not sort out what that meant.

  “Aye, honorable Lord Domé. You’ve made your conditions clear three times over and writ them down for my perusal. I’ll see he behaves, you can be sure. He’s ever been a stiff-necked prick. And he is clearly a risk. But I’ve paid well, and I’ll have no more interference with my rights. Caedmon’s Writ is clear.”

  The words whipped me alert.

  Speak no name . . . breathe no prayer . . . see no hope. I clamped a hold on mind and soul, squeezing them still until I could be sure.

  “So if you’ll hand over his clothes and boots and remove these shackles—your jailers must be the truest lunatics in Palinur—I’ll take my peevish, prideful mule of a servant and go.”

  I leaned my head back, and if I could have managed it, I would have crowed in joy and vengeance and gratitude eternal. Bastien.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Can’t you go any faster, pureblood? The sooner we’re away from that den of sorcerous snakes and back with nice friendly corpses, the better I’ll like it. These damnable princes and their bickering— Shite! Out of sight!”

  Shouts and running feet burst into the deserted pocardon. I dove behind a fishmonger’s cart, as the coroner drew his battered sword for the third time in our race through the snow-drenched midnight. As I gasped for breath, he kicked the tail of my cloak over our lantern, dropped the hefty rucksack that held my shackles into my lap, and took up a wary stance between the cart and a shuttered stall.

  Bless all gods, Bastien had convinced the curators that leaving me shackled on this night was a death sentence. I had thought it a useful exaggeration, but clearly not. The festering wounds of war, winter, and famine spewed violence into every corner of the royal city.

  Gangs of men and women tore apart market stalls and abandoned carts—anything that would burn. Before we’d even left the Council District, Bastien had driven a band of rapacious beggars back into an alley, hamstringing two of them. Not a quarter hour later, he’d yanked me to his side by the mouth strap, threatening to unleash me—his mad sorcerer—on two drunken soldiers who had blocked each end of a short lane with us in between. I didn’t know whether it was my grotesque mask, Bastien’s more than competent sword display, or his inspired maledictions that frightened them more. But they gave up quickly and let us pass. Still exhilarated by freedom and open air, I had roared in my best bestial fashion. They left the stink of fresh piss in their wake.

  My chest heaved. The mountain of fish entrails half melted into the muck just beside me did naught for the turmoil in my gut.

  Heavy boots—two pair—stumbled past, their owners panting as hard as I was. Shouts and savage whoops heralded their pursuers. “Make it level! Make it smooth! Purify the servants of privilege!”

  Harrowers.

  I hissed at Bastien, frantic to warn him. Don’t let them see you, Coroner. Don’t tell them who you are. Harrowers believed any who served crown or temple were abominations to their wrathful Gehoum.

  The coroner raised his sword.

  I twisted round and swung my bound hands at Bastien’s knees. He fell backward, landing silently on my legs, sword jolted from his hand. As he flailed to get up, I looped my arms around his and shook my head vigorously. He glared and shoved me away.

  “Set hand to the Harrow! Take them; rend them! Strip flesh from them as serve worldly masters and pretender gods!”

  Bastien stiffened as cascades of voices from all sides shrilled and hooted their approval. Silently he hefted his sword again and drew his dagger, but he remaine
d crouched beside me as the mob surged past, his broad back a rampart between me and the stampeding madmen. For the thousandth time in an hour, I blessed his stubborn spine. How many ordinaries in this world had balls enough to challenge the Pureblood Registry?

  Two men bellowed and screeched. Savage howling erupted into wolfish triumph as the men’s agonized shrieks became less and less human.

  “Shite, shite, shite.” The coroner’s quiet litany reflected my own helpless horror.

  I pressed my locked and useless fingers to my head. Someday, if Serena Fortuna was kind, I would strike a blow again these lunatics and the woman who led them.

  As blood-drunk songs of victory faded, Bastien dragged me up. “Come along. Your damnable curators refused to transfer you in the daylight. Mayhap they wanted us to die out here.”

  We sped through the dark city as fast as I could stumble. I could spare no glance for anything but the spot of lantern light before my feet, though my fevered imaginings had Danae marked in both silver and blue, luring unfriendly pursuers into midnight byways. If I could only breathe . . .

  By the time we reached the brick arch that would take us downslope into the hirudo, my shivers were so violent and my nose and throat so clogged, I had to stop. I sagged against the broken bricks and grunted a plea that halted Bastien as he headed down the narrow lane. He sighed and came back, holding his lantern high to expose my misery.

  “Damn and blast, you look like you’ve just spent a century in Magrog’s realm.”

  I nodded assent and leaned my head back against the broken bricks, swallowing repeatedly, telling myself I would not die of shivering and a gatzé’s idea of a pureblood mask.

  Resting wasn’t going to help all that much, either. A summer-weight cloak, thin shirt, slops, and bare legs were wholly inadequate for a snowy night. Nelek had put my boots on me in the Tower, and a mantle of claret-hued silk, but Bastien hadn’t been willing to wait for the jailer to locate my misplaced pelisse or even to dress me better, with all the accompanying removal and replacement of my restraints. I had not disputed his choice. I couldn’t get away from the Tower soon enough.

  “Let me unclip that damnable mouth strap,” mumbled Bastien. “Maybe if you could get a whole breath, you could hurry your feet a bit.”

  I shook my head with all the vigor I could muster. Someone could be watching.

  “The rules, eh? Even out here where none can see but rats and beggars. Never thought they had you all so cowed.”

  I gathered myself together and pointed my bound hands down the slope. I’d no way to tell him that right discipline was not a matter of being cowed, especially when your ill behavior endangers the very ones who’ve helped you. It was one thing for me to chance punishment for myself by working magic in my cell, entirely another for me to let Bastien wager his own safety just to make me more comfortable. Interfering with pureblood discipline was against the law. Violation could see him dead. My legs weren’t going to move faster anyway.

  We trudged on, the coroner holding his lantern in one hand, my arm in the other, guiding my stumbling steps when the path grew steep.

  “These curators must think they’re the lords of divine Idrium incarnate,” grumbled Bastien, assisting me around a swale of ice and gravel. “Took me a month just to get through the first door. When I accused them of stealing my property, I thought the pompous ass biters were going to squash me like a cockroach. But I know the law. That woman that didn’t negotiate your price also didn’t bother to write up terms for a man like me that might differ from those writ for a noble.” He elbowed my ribs. “I can whip you if I want! More important: My contract for your service stands as long as you’re breathing, no matter what else you’ve done or what the Registry might want with you.”

  The cold fuddled my thinking. None of this made sense.

  “They likely wouldn’t have acknowledged my rights even yet,” he continued, “save that we had a lucky charm, you and me. Recall that dead boy I said was the image of the Wroling magistrate?”

  As we plowed through a wallow of ankle-deep ice and mud, I recalled a young soldier with a cloven jaw. My portrait had shown him with a whole face and the crest of Wroling’s lord on his surcoat.

  I grunted.

  “Not long after I had a Registry secretary tell me to go drown myself, Magistrate Maslin showed up himself to claim his boy, grateful, and said to name a price. We’ve had dealings, Maslin and me, and not always good ones, but he knows the law, and if there’s a palace, temple, house, or shop in this kingdom, he likely knows a way into it. So I asked if he knew anyone could get me inside the Tower to press a contract dispute with the Registry. He mentioned a fellow, name of Collium, the chancellor of Navronne’s first secretary. Happens this Collium is the very person charged with enforcing Caedmon’s Writ, and he’s not overfond of purebloods. Well, here we are. . . .”

  Bastien halted and passed the hem of his cloak over the lantern three times quickly and then once more. From the murk below came an answering pattern. Curious.

  With a satisfied grunt, he took my quivering arm again. “Samele’s tits, pureblood, are you entirely frozen?”

  My bundled hands waved him onward. Both blood and brain felt like slush, but his talk, and every step away from the Tower, warmed me.

  He shrugged, dimmed the lantern just enough to guide us one or two steps at a time, and led me onward. Downward. But he didn’t take up his story. Fresh snow muffled our steps and laid a pall of quiet over the hirudo. Not even a dog barked.

  As we passed through the dark, cramped lane, I sensed watchers on either side, but none hindered us. A pulsing glow and the weedy scent of pipe smoke hinted at more of them lurking beyond the piggery. Once past, we climbed.

  Bastien paused at the top of the steep ascent to uncover his lantern again. I gulped air and swallowed spittle. “The Harrower who steps into Demetreo’s demesne had best bring himself a surgeon alongside,” he said. “He’ll end up with enough holes in his back to need a year’s sewing. We’ve seen a few who’ve tried it of late. But our restraint in the matter of the dead child has won us safe passage. Can you go on now?”

  The shivering was uncontrollable. The world spun slowly like thick porridge in a pot. But the gates of Necropolis Caton rose gray and solid from the murk. Who would have thought they could be so welcome a sight?

  Again I waved my hands forward—and almost toppled onto a grave.

  Bastien steadied me. “So, this First Secretary Collium knew your grandsire, as it happens. Said Vincente de Remeni was King Eodward’s Royal Historian and one fine man out of a shiteload.”

  He glanced at me. Impossible to tell him it was none of his business—even if I’d a tongue to use. He grinned through his tangled beard as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  I dipped my head.

  “Secretary Collium was most disturbed to hear that the Registry had breached a Remeni’s valid contract with a servant of the Crown, albeit a lowly servant he’d never heard of. He wrote up a document and sent it to the Registry, declaring that the First Curator must meet with me and work out the terms, else they’d stand in violation of the Writ. Guess that curdled their bones, what with a new king like to be named soon. And so they let me present my case. Ho, Bek!”

  My foot chose that mystifying moment to get tangled in the mud. I pitched forward. From my blind side, hands reached out for my flapping clothes.

  “You must have a gatzé in your pocket, Coroner,” said Bek, the hollow-eyed surgeon, as he hauled me to my feet. “Never in this world did I believe they’d let you have him back.”

  “Touch and go,” said Bastien. “He came nearer hanging—or whatever purebloods do to their own—than he will enjoy thinking about when his brain’s not froze. Though I’m not so sure hanging wouldn’t be a preference. They gave me lessons in how to bind his hands properly.”

  The two of them mostly dragged me across the mounded graves. A roaring in my ears muted their talk, and I was doing well to breathe. But as
the city bells struck first hour of the morning watch, the gates of Necropolis Caton swung open and welcomed me home.

  * * *

  “Are you sure it’s him?” The booming voice interrupted the general confusion. “Best get that devil thing off his face and see if you’ve hauled back a ringer.”

  Bastien and the surgeon hefted me onto the blood-stained slab where Bek cut corpses, which in fact didn’t bother me in the least on this night. Bone saws wouldn’t cut ice.

  “Can’t take it off around you lot,” said Bastien. “Only when I’m alone with him. Registry gave me strict rules or they’ll take him back. And you can be sure they’ll be sending inquisitors. For now, he needs food and ale. Lucian, can you hear us? You need food and drink to repair your magic, yes?”

  I’d no way to give answer. All I could do was shake.

  “Warmth first,” said Bek. “Blankets, more clothes. Something hot to drink. A tisane, broth, milk . . . Boiled water if naught else. What were you thinking, dragging him across the city half-naked?”

  “Pssht. He’ll thaw. We were lucky to make it here without spilling our guts to the Gehoum, and he’d have liked that far less. Do what you need, bonecracker. But I know he needs food, drink, and sleep to replenish his magic, and I need him working as soon as may be. Come another thaw, we’ll lose the four.”

  The meaning of their bickering was unintelligible; the sound of it, somehow soothing. My lonely eyelid closed.

  “No, no, no, not until you drink, sorcerer. Coroner, get this hellish thing out of his mouth so we can feed him.”

  Darkness swallowed me. Dreams beckoned. I had been dreaming of Danae. My grandmother had been wrong. They didn’t steal children with two bents and carry them off to the sea. They stole moments of our lives, infected our souls with wonder and beauty, and then abandoned us to this dismal world. I groaned with longing. It came out the braying of an animal.

  Fingers fumbled at my mouth. “Heed me, Lucian de Remeni! It is my duty to remind you that you may not speak.”