The Sorcerer's Plague bots-1

by DAVID B. COE

  When Sylpa died, Lici left the house they had shared and built for herself a small but in a lonely corner of the village, near what villagers called the South Rill. She still spoke with no one, but she began to teach herself to weave baskets. The Mettai of the northern highlands had long been known for their basketwork, and Kirayde had a master basket- maker who could have offered her an apprenticeship. But as with everything else, Lici did this alone. And she did it brilliantly. Within only a few years, her craft rivaled that of the village's master. Soon, peddlers were coming from all over the Southlands to buy Lici's baskets.

  Some in the village began to say that the woman was growing rich off her craft, that she hoarded gold and silver pieces the way a mouse hoards grain for the Snows. It may well have been true, at least for a time. Nevertheless, Lici remained in her tiny hut, wearing old clothes that had once been Sylpa's, and eating the roots and greens she grew in her small garden plot. Then abruptly, just a few years ago, she began to turn the peddlers away. Suddenly it seemed that she had no interest in trading any of her baskets. The peddlers offered more gold. They offered jewels and silverwork, from the Iejony Peninsula, and blankets from the cloth crafters of Qosantia. They stood outside her door and pleaded with her for just one simple trade. Lici refused them all.

  To this day, no one in the village knew why.

  Besh thought it a fitting end to her years of prosperity, and he was surprised that others didn't recognize it as such. The old woman had spent her entire life in shadow, marked by the gods for some dark fate. Perhaps she meant well. Perhaps she chose solitude and behaved as she did because she never had the chance to learn any other way. Truth be told, Besh didn't care.

  He didn't want to have anything to do with her, and he certainly didn't want Mihas going near her.

  "It's not that I don't like Lici," he told the boy at last, watching the swallows dance overhead. "I just think you'd be better off staying away from her."

  "But why?"

  "It's hard to explain. She's… odd."

  "Is it because her parents died?"

  Besh looked at the boy, wondering how much he had heard about Lici's past.

  Mihas leaned closer to him, as if fearing that others might hear what he said next. "Nissa's father says that wherever she walks, four ravens circle above her."

  Four ravens. The Mettai death omen. That was as apt as anything Besh might have thought to say about her.

  "Nissa's father may be right."

  "Then why is she still alive?"

  "There are many deaths, Mihas. Some are slower than others." The boy frowned. "I don't understand."

  "That's all right. Just do as I say and stay away from Old Lici." "Yes, Grandfather."

  Besh stood slowly, stretching his back and legs. "We should go home," he said.

  Mihas scrambled to his feet. "Are the roots ready yet?"

  "Not quite. Next turn, perhaps."

  The boy nodded and handed Besh the knife.

  They started walking back toward the house Besh shared with his daughter's family. They hadn't gone far, however, when Mihas suddenly halted.

  "Oh, no!" the boy said, and ran back toward the garden.

  "What's the matter?" Besh called after him.

  Mihas stopped beside the goldroot, bent down, and lifted something carefully out of the dirt. Then he started back toward Besh.

  "What did you forget?"

  "My clover," the boy said, holding it up proudly for Besh to see. One might have thought that Mihas himself had changed its color. "I want to show Mama."

  Besh knew what the boy's mother would say about the flower, but he kept his silence and they walked back home.

  The house stood in a grove of cedar on a small hill just east of the marketplace. It was larger than most houses in Kirayde, though to an outsider, someone from one of the Qirsi settlements along the wash, it would have seemed modest at best. A thin ribbon of pale grey smoke rose from the chimney, and two small children chased each other among the trees, giggling and shrieking breathlessly as they ran.

  As Besh and Mihas drew near, Elica emerged from the house bearing an empty bucket, her long hair stirring in the breeze.

  "It's about time," she said, glancing at Mihas and then fixing Besh with a hard glare. "What were you doing all this time?"

  "Taking care of the goldroot. Can't an old man tend his garden without being questioned so by his daughter?"

  "Not when there are more pressing chores to be done." She held out the bucket to Mihas. "Fetch some water from the rill, Mihas. Quickly. Supper's going to be late as it is."

  The boy stopped just in front of her, but instead of taking the bucket, he held up the clover, beaming at her.

  "What's this?" she asked, taking the flower and examining it. "Grandfather did it!" Mihas told her. "It was a clover and I asked him whether our magic is real and he did that!"

  Elica fixed Besh with a dark look, but then smiled at her son. "It's lovely. Such a bright color. Now, please, Mihas. The water."

  "All right, Mama."

  He grabbed the bucket and ran off, still clutching the clover in his free hand.

  "You should know better, Father!" Elica said, sounding cross, as if she were speaking to one of her children. "No good can come of teaching the boy empty magic. And anyway, he's too young to be learning blood craft."

  Sometimes Besh thought that Elica might be just a bit too much like her mother.

  "I taught him nothing," he said. "I showed him a bit of magic. And it wasn't empty. That Qirsi peddler who came through here earlier in the waxing had him wondering if Mettai magic could do anything at all. I wanted him to see that it could."

  "So show him something useful. You could have brought him back here and started my fire. You could have healed one of the children's cuts or scrapes. Elined knows they have enough between them to keep you bleeding for half a turn. But no. You choose to color a flower."

  Sirj, Elica's husband, stepped around from the back of the house, his shirt soaked with sweat, a load of unsplit logs in his arms. He wasn't a big man-he was only slightly taller than Elica-nor was he particularly broad. But he was lean and strong, like a wildcat in the warmer turns.

  "What are you going on about, Elica? I could hear you all the way back at the woodpile."

  "It's nothing," she said.

  Sirj didn't say anything. He put down the wood and regarded them both, waiting. His house, his question. He was entitled to an answer and both of them knew it.

  "I colored a flower for Mihas," Besh finally told him. "I wanted to show him some magic. He was asking if Mettai powers were real."

  Sirj eyed the old man briefly, his expression revealing little. It might have been that he knew Besh didn't like him, or maybe he was no more fond of Besh than the old man was of him. Whatever the reason, theirs had never been an easy relationship. But after a moment, Sirj merely shrugged and continued past Besh and Elica into the house. "No harm in that," he murmured.

  Besh and Elica exchanged a look before following him inside.

  Their supper consisted of smoked fish, boiled greens, and bread. Annze and Cam, the young ones, spent much of the meal teasing one another across the table and, after being chastised for that, feeding their fish to one of the dogs that ran wild through the village and in and out of nearly everyone's home. Except Lici's, of course. Even the dogs knew better than to bother her.

  After they had finished and Mihas and the little ones had been put to bed, Besh lit his pipe and went out to smoke it in the cool evening air. He walked to the stump Sirj used for chopping wood, sat down, and gazed up into a darkening sky. Panya was already climbing into the night, her milky glow obscuring all but the brightest stars. No doubt red Bias was up as well, following her across the soft indigo, but Besh couldn't see the second moon for the trees.

  After a short while, Elica came out, walked to where he sat, and rested a hand easily on his shoulder.

  "It's a clear night," she said.

  "For now. Th
e fog will come up before long. It always does this time of year."

  She nodded. Then, "I'm sorry about before, Father. I shouldn't have said what I did. Sirj is right. There's no harm in showing Mihas some magic now and then." She kissed the top of his head. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm too much like Mother."

  Besh smiled. "There are worse things."

  "I suppose."

  Elica started to walk away.

  "He asked me about Lici."

  She stopped, turned. "What did you tell him?"

  "Same thing I always do: Stay away from her. But he won't be satisfied with that for much longer."

  "She won't be alive much longer," Elica muttered. Immediately she covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes wide as she stared down at Besh.

  "Forgive me, Father. I shouldn't have said that. It was cruel. And I didn't mean that because she was old-"

  Besh began to laugh.

  "You think it's funny?"

  The old man nodded. "Yes, in a way. Mihas asked me today if I was the oldest person in Kirayde. That's how we ended up speaking of Lici." He took Elica's hand. "It's all right, child. You're right: She won't be with us much longer. And-Bian forgive me for saying so-perhaps that's for the best." He gave his daughter a sly look. "I, on the other hand, intend to stay around for a good many years. So don't go selling off my pipe- weed any time soon."

  She kissed him again. "Good night, Father. Don't stay out too long. It's getting cold."

  Besh gave her hand a squeeze, then watched her walk away. After some time his pipe burned out, but still the old man sat, enjoying the air, and the darkness, and the sounds of the night. A few crickets, the last of the season, chirped nearby, and off in the distance a wolf howled. In recent nights Besh had heard an owl calling from the hills north of the village, but not tonight.

  Eventually he began to see thin strands of mist drifting among the dark trunks of the firs and cedars, and he stood. The cold night breezes were one thing, but as Besh had grown older he'd found that the nighttime fogs chilled him, bone and blood. He retreated into the house and made his way to bed.

  None of the rest would remember.

  Why should they? Most hadn't even been alive at the time; those who were had been too young to understand.

  But she knew. Oh, yes, Lici knew.

  She could still see it all. She could see houses that had long since been broken by storms and snows and howling winds. She could see copses and clearings that had since given way to homes and garden plots. She could close her eyes and summon an image of Kirayde just as it had appeared that first day. She could walk the lanes past house and plot and tell any who cared to listen when each had been built or first tilled. She could go to any person in the village and give the year, turn, and day of his or her birth.

  Lici remembered all of it.

  They thought her crazed. She never married or had children, she didn't speak to them, she refused to prattle on about nothing or smile greetings that she didn't mean. And so they called her mad, they called her a witch. The children mocked her and their parents scolded them in turn. But then those same mothers and fathers ignored her, as if she were nothing more than a spider spinning webs in her tiny corner of the village. Did they really think that was better? Would they have chosen silence over taunts had silence been all they knew?

  How long would it take them to realize that she was gone? Who would be the first to notice? Would they think that she had wandered off by accident? Would they think that she had drowned herself in the rill or gotten lost in the night mists? Or would they know that she left them by choice? Might there be one among them who would even guess her purpose? Would any of them know why she had chosen this night? Probably not. But it amused her to imagine the possibilities.

  Sixteen fours. Sixty-four years. To the very day. That was long enough for anyone to stay in one place, to live among the same people, to turn over in one's head the same thought again and again, to direct every moment of every day toward a single purpose. Sixteen fours. Some said there was power in the very number. Indeed. Lici had power in abundance. And she would need all of it.

  She had learned her craft well. Not basketmaking, though she also had much skill at that, but rather the blood craft, the magic of her people. The white-hairs thought that Qirsi magic reigned supreme in the Southlands, and perhaps they were right. But the magic of the Mettai was no trifle. And in the hands of a master, even one as old as she, it could be a mighty weapon.

  At last her waiting had come to an end. She had planned and waited, she had suffered indignities both glaring and subtle, she had trained herself in both her crafts, pushing herself harder than any master would push even his most prized apprentice. All in preparation for this night, which was both an ending and a beginning. Kirayde would be lost to her forever, and despite all that she had endured here, the thought saddened her. This had been Sylpa's home and so had been as much a home to Lici as she could have expected after Sentaya. Now, though, she would begin a new journey, a new life, if one as old as she could ask for such a thing. She had hungered for this countless long years.

  From her but by the rill she could see the mist gathering about the village, shifting and elusive, glowing like a horde of wraiths in the white and red radiance of the two moons. It was nearly time. She had her baskets packed and ready in her old cart. She could see the nag from her doorway, gleaming white in the moonglow, shaking her head impatiently, ready to be on her way. The creature would be a good companion in these last days.

  She had enough food to keep her going until she could trade for more. And though she tried to think of items she would need that she might be leaving behind, she knew there was nothing.

  She had but one purpose now. That was all that remained. She could almost smell the Silverwater and the trees that surrounded the place. The gods knew she remembered the way, even after all this time.

  Some things could never be forgotten. Or forgiven.

  Chapter 2

  RUNNELWICK, NEAR SILVERWATER WASH,

  DREAMING MOON WAXING, YEAR 12 I I

  Sunlight sparkled on the windblown waters of the wash, shifting and dancing like stars in Morna's sky, so bright that Giraan had to shield his eyes from the glare as he checked his traps at the water's edge. The first two of his eight traps were empty. One of them had been robbed of its bait. He doubted that he'd find much in the others either. This trade was still new to him, and he knew better than to expect success to come quickly.

  The gods rewarded labor. They found virtue in the struggle to perfect new skills. Giraan had spent sixteen years making his living as a wheelwright, and he had mastered the saw and the rasp, the plane and the hammer. In return, the gods had given him a strong back and a steady hand. They had given him a beautiful wife and four fine children. And they had granted him long life, so that he might see his sons and his daughter take the first steps into their adult lives. They had seen to it that he and Aiva wanted for nothing.

  If anything, they had made life too comfortable, too easy. It almost seemed to Giraan that they were telling him to try his hand at something new. So after four fours as a wheelwright he passed the business on to Oren, his eldest, and he started teaching himself to trap. He bought one trap from a peddler who had passed through Runnelwick just after the thaw. The rest he built himself, copying that first one as closely as he could. It took him two or three tries to get it right, but in time he had his eight traps.

  Qirsi in other villages would have thought him a fool, of course, struggling with his tools when he possessed shaping magic. But such was the way of the Y'Qatt. His people understood that the V'Tol, the Life Power-what others called magic-was a gift from Qirsar, one that was not to be squandered out of indolence. He'd heard the names by which others called the Y'Qatt: ascetics, fanatics, lunatics. Even the name Y'Qatt had once been meant as an epithet, for it was believed that the Y'Qatt, an ancient Qirsi clan, who had refused to fight in the early Blood Wars, had been driven by cowardice. But it wasn't that
they were craven; they had been opposed to war itself, seeing it as evil, a misuse of Qirsi power. And so those who, like Giraan, refused to wield their power for any purpose embraced the name, seeing in the principled stand of these ancients an echo of their own piety.

  Giraan had argued with the Qirsi peddlers who occasionally stopped in the village to sell their wares. He'd been called all the usual names. And always he silenced them with the same question: If Qirsar had intended for us to expend our V'Tol on acts of magic, why would he shorten our lives every time we use it?

  No one had ever been able to answer to his satisfaction, because, quite simply, there was no good response they could offer. Throughout the Southlands, magic was killing the people of his race. It was a slow death, imperceptible to some, but real nevertheless. In recent years, as the number of Eandi in the land increased and the number of Qirsi dwindled, others had begun to realize this as well. Already the Eandi lived longer than did the men and women of his race. What sense was there in adding to this disparity by using magic frivolously, by relying on V'Tol to do what might also be accomplished with some physical effort, with sweat and muscle and skill? More and more Qirsi were asking themselves this same question; the Y'Qatt movement was growing.

  The next two traps Giraan checked were empty as well, and he walked on to where he'd set the third pair. As he drew near, he saw that the nearer of the two had something in it. A beaver. The gods had been generous. Beaver skins fetched a fair bit of gold from most merchants- at least, the peddlers he'd seen trying to sell them had been asking quite a lot. He'd made a deal with Sedi, the old tanner. Sedi would skin and treat any animals Giraan managed to trap, and in return Giraan would make any repairs that Sedi's wagons might ever need, free of charge. Sedi had agreed to the exchange with a chuckle and a shake of his bald head, no doubt thinking that he had won the old wheelwright's services at no cost to himself. He was going to be disappointed.