by Pearl North
“But wait,” said Gyneth. “That could be anything, and any length of time. That’s not fair! You can’t ask her to agree to something so vague.”
“No one is asking her or you,” said the chair. “And if I recall, you were told not to speak unless asked a direct question.”
“I don’t care!” said Gyneth. “This whole thing is insane. All we did was drive on your road a few miles. We didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Tollkeeper, take him to the compensation facility. His sentence is fifty pounds of iron.”
“No! Wait!” cried Haly. “I’ll do it. I’ll work for the clockmaker general. Just don’t take Gyneth.”
The chair gave her a wistful smile. “Oh, you misunderstood. The arrangement with the clockmaker general is for you alone. Your companion must still pay us his portion.”
The tollkeeper reached for Gyneth. Gyneth pulled back. Haly stepped between them. “You can’t do this! If you take him, you have to take me, too. I won’t work for the clockmaker if Gyneth is imprisoned.”
“Not imprisoned,” said the chair. “Working in a compensation facility.”
“Don’t argue semantics with me,” said Haly. She glared at the two Singers on the board. “When I was a prisoner in the Corvariate Citadel, I worked on the horn. I know what ‘compensation facility’ means.” She turned to the chair. “You can explain to your clockmaker why you can’t deliver the Redeemer after she walked right into your hands.”
The chair shook her head. “You underestimate the import of your last phrase.” She nodded to the tollkeeper.
He shoved Haly to the ground and grabbed Gyneth by the wrist. In the blink of an eye he had Gyneth’s arm twisted behind him and a pistol aimed at his head.
“You still can’t make her work for the clockmaker. Don’t do it, Haly. Something’s wrong here.”
“Stay down,” the tollkeeper told her.
Haly sat where she was. “I’m not getting up, and Gyneth’s not fighting you. You can put the gun away. And I’ll work for the clockmaker, on one condition. You release Gyneth as soon as I’ve satisfied the clockmaker.” It was a bad bargain. Gyneth would still go to the compensation facility, and there was no telling when the clockmaker would be done with her.
“Do you still think you’re in a position to make demands?”
“Yes,” she said. “If Gyneth is dead he can’t work to pay his fine, and I won’t do anything for you and you might as well shoot me, too, so that’s two fines you’ll be short. And a clockmaker who will be angry about not getting her pet Redeemer. But if you accept my bargain, you’ll have Gyneth’s labor, for a time, and my service to the clockmaker. Isn’t that better?”
“All right,” said the chair, too soon. Of course she agreed. Haly had no way of enforcing her demands. Unless …
“And if you think you can just agree, and then when the time comes, ignore our bargain, I will invoke the power of the Song and curse you and all of Thesia.”
The board straightened. “You said you had not explored your powers,” said one of the members.
“I wasn’t going to tell you all my secrets. Besides, if I’m working with the clockmaker, who knows what else I will learn?”
They glanced at one another. The man in the top hat leaned and whispered in the chair’s ear. Haly heard “told you we shouldn’t…” They had been a long time deliberating. Were they afraid of this clockmaker, whoever she was?
“Very well,” said the chair. “You will serve the clockmaker for a period of two weeks and no longer. When that time has passed, you and your companion will both be free to leave.”
9
Lost and Found
Needing to start somewhere, Selene decided to go with the assumption that Clauda had headed first for Thesia. She rode in that direction for days and tried not to think of the chances of finding one small Ayorite in the whole vast plain.
And then one morning she saw a copse of trees in the distance. She was not far from the Tumbles now and it appeared that some of the trees had been knocked over, perhaps by a storm. She rode closer to investigate.
A gleam of metal made Selene’s heart freeze. She leaped from her mount and ran into the woods, where she found the cause of the fallen trees. Seven Tales.
Half of the wing’s right side was buried in the ground. The nose had uprooted several trees that now lay across it, pinning it to the ground. Selene gave one of them a shove. It didn’t budge. The wing itself appeared undamaged, but what of the person inside it during such a collision? Trembling, she crawled through the space between the trees and the left side of the wing, feeling for the hatch. She found it, and it opened for her.
It was dark inside, dark and silent except for the harsh rasping of Selene’s breath. She fumbled in her satchel for her jar of palm-glow and opened it. In the pale green light, she saw the cabin of the wing upside down, the statue, still rooted in place, hanging from above. But no body. She searched all the corners. No one. There was still hope.
She looked at the statue again. Could Clauda still be in there? What if she died while still in there? Selene fought to breathe despite the tightness in her chest. From here, she couldn’t reach the statue. She’d have to climb up. She’d need rope.
She went back outside to her saddlebag, but on the way something caught her eye. There, in the soft soil near one of the uprooted trees—a footprint.
Selene whooped for joy. She fell to the ground and she kissed that footprint—a small footprint. And then she spotted another. Now she was able to follow Clauda’s footsteps, even out into the dust of the desert, though that was more difficult. She walked, leading her horse Goliath, her head bent to make out the slight impression of a toe here, the streak of a heel there.
Clauda’s path across the desert meandered. She sometimes went in circles and Selene would find herself back in the same spot she’d been in hours before. That was a bad sign. Selene quickened her pace.
* * *
Clauda walked under the blazing sun. There was no shelter in this section of the plain, no water, no trees, nothing but a few scrub bushes and a lot of rocks. Her thirst was an agony. Her only hope for finding water and surviving this ordeal was to keep walking.
The wing had crashed nose down in a stand of trees. Half of it was buried, and felled trees lay across the rest of it. Clauda, already exhausted and without any tools, decided her best bet was to start walking east, in the direction of the Libyrinth.
Now, she wasn’t sure it had been the best decision. The wooded area she’d crashed in was small and isolated, giving way to desert less than a day into her trek. She’d miscalculated how far away the Libyrinth was … and how hot the sun would be in the desert … and how very little time it took to start suffering from dehydration.
The sun was ahead of her. Yes. That meant she was walking east. Unless it was afternoon already. If it was afternoon then she’d gotten turned around and was walking west. Had the sun been overhead yet? She remembered it, but that could have been from yesterday.
It was hard to concentrate. Her mind flitted from the Nod of Nods to the tunnel of words to that day in Ilysies when she’d walked into Selene’s chambers and found her packing. Why, in the name of the Boy Who Outran the Wind, hadn’t she told her how she really felt?
Selene thought the only important thing about herself was her knowledge and her mind. That just wasn’t true. Selene was a child of the goat, just like Clauda. Selene was brave and true and there was a sense of humor lurking in there somewhere, she knew it. Someday she’d find it, if she survived.
Why hadn’t she come across a settlement yet? Why was she in the most barren part of the plain? She should have stayed in the woods with the wing. She was going to die out here and never drink from the fountain of Selene’s laughter.
The horizon wavered with heat mirages. She strained her vision, hoping that the shining, undulating air would resolve into a complex of sandstone domes, but it didn’t. Instead there was just the stick—the black stick poki
ng up like one of the trees of the woods. Only this one wavered. One tree was not a forest. But it was the wrong kind of tree to stand alone in this area. The few trees here were hard-bitten, small and spreading, not tall and straight. It was no tree, or tower. Clauda walked on, mesmerized by the sight of the black, narrow form.
It had four legs. No, six. Two higher than the four that reached the ground, dangling uselessly in midair. What the hell was this thing? Was she hallucinating? Had she hallucinated all of it?
The sound of a hoof striking a stone jolted Clauda into sudden realization. A rider! It was a rider dressed in black and mounted on a black horse. Clauda’s parched lips curved into a smile, making the chapped skin crack, but she didn’t care. “Hey!” she shouted, her voice little more than a wheezing croak. “Selene! I’m over here!” She forced herself into a trot and waved her arms.
Her foot struck a stone and she stumbled, her face scraping on rock. She struggled to stand but her limbs were weak from exhaustion and dehydration. “I’m here, Selene, I’m here!” If she could see Selene riding then surely Selene had seen her? But Selene was dressed in black, on a black horse, and Clauda was the color of the plain. She tried again to force her arms and legs to support her and once again found herself gasping on the ground and breathing in dust. She coughed.
A shadow fell upon her. It was like cool water washing over her. She blinked in the absence of sun. She heard the jingle of the horse’s tack and the crunch of its hooves on the rocky ground. In the sudden relief and cool of the shadow, her sense of smell returned and with it the musk of the horse and the aroma of something else … wool and ink. She rolled over and looked up into Selene’s frowning face. “It really is you.”
* * *
Paradoxically, as time wore on Clauda’s trail got easier to follow because she dragged her feet, and sometimes there were handprints as well. Selene mounted up again, hurrying as fast as she dared without losing the trail altogether.
At first she thought the tan lump in the distance was just another of the many rocks that had made her heart race in the past two days. But Clauda’s trail led straight toward this one, and as Selene neared, she caught a glimpse of coppery hair. She urged Goliath into a trot.
Selene never took her eyes from Clauda. The young Ayorite lay on her side, one arm flung over her face to protect it from the sun. At first she didn’t move, and Selene had to fight for breath again.
But then Clauda pushed herself up. She waved her arms and ran toward Selene, stumbled and fell, and was unable to get to her feet again.
Selene dismounted, grabbed the waterskin, and knelt beside her. Clauda’s skin was dry and peeling from sunburn. Her lips were cracked. With what must have been the very last of her strength, Clauda clutched at Selene’s robes and said, “It really is you.”
Relief that Clauda was alive and able to speak poured through Selene. She gathered Clauda into her arms and put her waterskin to her lips. Clauda’s eyes closed, but she drank.
When Clauda had her fill she collapsed back into Selene’s arms and seemed to fall into a stupor. Selene resisted the urge to clutch Clauda to her chest and rock her. And then she realized that holding such impulses at bay had very nearly resulted in Clauda dying without ever knowing the truth of how Selene felt about her. To hell with that.
She pulled Clauda close, and held her tight.
* * *
Clauda leaned back against Selene and closed her eyes, lulled by the steady cadences of Goliath’s gait and Selene’s heartbeat. This reminded her of that day, months ago in Ilysies, when they had ridden away from the palace in order to speak in private.
Clauda smiled and relished the solidity of Selene, the warmth and strength of her arms around her. She cracked one eye open and peered up at her. Selene looked back at her and a grin broke across her face like the sun rising. Clauda turned sideways in the saddle. Selene leaned down, and pressed her lips to Clauda’s. The kiss was tentative at first, just a light brush, but the moment Clauda kissed back Selene pulled her tight and plundered her mouth, leaving them both breathless.
“Thank goddess you’re alive,” Selene said. “I’ll never let you go off without knowing how I feel about you again.”
Clauda rubbed her cheek against Selene’s. “Which is…?”
Selene pulled back, stared at Clauda, opened her mouth and closed it again, and then finally, blushing, said, “It’s easier to just show you.”
* * *
Clauda and Selene lay together by the campfire. Clauda rolled over, resting her head against Selene’s stomach and gazing up at the stars. “Things aren’t as they seem,” she said.
“What?” Selene pushed herself up on her elbows and stared at Clauda, brows drawn together.
Clauda realized her poor choice of words. “No, not with us,” she said, taking Selene’s hand and kissing it. “Never between us. I mean … Well, how long have I been gone, anyway?”
They hadn’t discussed Clauda’s disappearance, its cause or duration. First, Selene had been preoccupied with getting enough water and food into Clauda. After that Clauda had slept for a day or more and when she awoke she was determined to make up for all the time she’d wasted not kissing Selene and telling her how wonderful she was. It had been a nice couple of days.
“About five weeks,” Selene answered her.
“Well don’t you wonder why I’m not dead?”
Selene stared at her, nostrils flaring. “I’ve been trying not to.”
“It’s because,” Clauda paused and pointed up at the sky. “Because beyond all of that, beyond outer space and the stars and the galaxies, there’s more.”
“More?” Curiosity sharpened Selene’s voice.
“Yeah. Hilloa and Gyneth were right about there being higher dimensions and multiple universes. And that the sticks in the bag can be made of anything. Selene, I saw … Wait. Let me start from the beginning.”
Selene was silent as Clauda told her all about her strange adventure. Clauda told her everything, the universe of stories, the math universe, the Nod of Nods, all of it. When she finished at last she turned, bracing herself for Selene’s disbelief.
Clauda was certain Selene would dismiss it all as a hallucination brought on by a bump on the head. In fact, she herself had begun to wonder if maybe that was all it was, and part of her wanted to take refuge in that idea.
But Selene just stared at her with her dark brows drawn together. At last she said, “This vortex you encountered in the Tumbles. Was it near the vault?”
That was not what Clauda had expected her to ask. “Yes. Not just near. Right above it.”
Selene stood and paced. Clauda could tell from the tension in her movements that she was upset. “What?”
“Don’t you see?” said Selene. “I blew up that Egg. I think it tore a hole in the fabric of our universe, and that’s how you wound up out there.”
Clauda stared at her. “You mean you believe me?”
Selene sat down again and took her hand. “Why would you make all that up?”
Clauda shrugged. “Maybe I crashed and hallucinated it all.”
Selene smiled. “Would you rather believe that? In a way, I would. What you’re saying means I tore a hole in the world.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You did it to rescue us.”
“And I could think of nothing else to do? Surely there must have been something else.”
“I don’t think so, to be honest. I was there, remember? Besides, maybe the explosion didn’t tear a hole in the world. Maybe I hallucinated my whole trip beyond.”
Selene gave her that wistful smile again. She reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Clauda’s forehead. “You were gone for five weeks, with no food or water, and you’re still alive.”
There was that. “Oh.” Clauda paused. “But I don’t want you blaming yourself for this, Selene. Besides, the … the Nod of Nods mended the tear. And you’re back from the Corvariate Citadel and you wouldn’t be out here looking for me if the famin
e were still going on, so everything’s okay now. We can go home and we don’t have to worry about all of this worlds-within-worlds stuff. This world is enough for us, isn’t it?” Clauda stopped because Selene had turned away from her and was hiding her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. “Selene?”
Clauda took her by the shoulders and pulled her into her arms. She was shocked to find Selene’s face wet as she rested it in the crook of her neck, and then a sob escaped Selene’s lips.
Selene didn’t cry. Why was Selene crying? Seven Tales, something was very, very wrong. Clauda held Selene tight, running a hand up and down her back and murmuring soothing words in her ear.
When Selene quieted, Clauda asked her, certain she didn’t want the answer, “What’s happened?”
* * *
When Clauda told her where the vortex was located, Selene confronted the full extent of her recklessness. She should have known there would be dire repercussions to burning an Egg. But at the time, she’d have torn a hole in the world with her bare hands if she could, to get Clauda and Haly out of that vault. At least the rift was mended, for now.
Something told her that getting the pen away from her mother and rescuing Po would be much more difficult. Clauda’s optimism only intensified Selene’s fear and guilt. Clauda assumed that they were on the threshold of a long and carefree life together. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it was up to Selene to tell her so.
It was too much. Selene opened her mouth to speak but the sound that came out of her was a hoarse croak. She bent her head as she felt the first scalding tears stream down her face. All she wanted to do was hide from Clauda’s kind, questioning eyes, but most of all, from herself.
Clauda wrapped her freckled arms around her and held her tight to her chest and started to rock her. For a few moments, Selene’s emotions got the better of her and she permitted herself to be comforted. It felt good. Clauda was so warm. Even dehydrated and half starved, there was such vitality in her. It always made Selene wonder if maybe the world was a more generous place than she gave it credit for, if Clauda could be so liberally supplied with energy. Since Clauda herself seemed to take it for granted, Selene also wondered at such times if it was her own suspicious nature that barred her from the secret wellspring.
