A Turn of Light

by Julie E. Czerneda

  No time for supper, or need. On each of her trips home for hot water, she’d grabbed something from the kitchen, making Peggs laugh.

  The boot, where the majority of luggage would travel, needed only a wipe but the coach box, where Uncle Horst would sit to drive Aunt Sybb’s team, proved to have dried mud in every crevice.

  Not for long. Jenn sat on top of the box, straddling the driver’s padded seat with her skirt up to her knees, and whistled between her teeth as she dug her brush into the final join between wood and leather. She tossed her head, trying to keep soap-streaked hair out of her eyes as she worked.

  “Now there’s a portrait waiting to be painted.”

  Jenn straightened so abruptly she tumbled over backward, legs well over her head. She settled her skirt where it belonged before she peered over the roof edge.

  Tir was so obviously looking elsewhere at the moment, Jenn’s face flamed crimson. “If you’re looking for my father—” the sun was almost at the Bone Hills, she realized in surprise, “—he’s at supper.” Peggs insisted he come home for at least one proper meal before the harvest.

  “And sent me to bid you join us,” with a bow that showed his bald pate.

  “My thanks, but I’ve eaten,” Jenn told him, which was true. It was also true that her middle was beginning to ache with a hunger having nothing to do with real and proper food. She resumed scrubbing, hoping he’d leave.

  “Suit yourself,” the former guard commented, in a tone suggesting she was only mildly demented to turn down a seat at the Nalynn table. He paused, running his fingertips over the side of the coach. “What’s this? The crest’s been removed. The Lady Mahavar is of a noble house,” he added sternly, as if she wouldn’t know her own aunt. “There should be a crest.”

  “I think Aunt Sybb hoped without the crest, the guards at the city gate might let her pass. But they still stop and search her belongings every time.” It was her aunt’s business and Jenn tried not to sound angry, but it wasn’t easy.

  Tir didn’t bother. A fearsome scowl creased his forehead and he paused to spit meaningfully. “Heart’s Blood! What ball-less dungholes did the Mahavars hire for the lady’s escort? I’d like to see those city curs try any o’that nonsense with me there!”

  “I’d like to see that too,” Jenn assured him, and smiled.

  His scowl eased away. Tir gave the coach a light rap with his knuckles, and looked up at her. “You need help keeping those rascals in line tomorrow,” he offered gruffly, “you let me know, Jenn Nalynn.”

  Her smile softened. “I will. You’d best get to supper, before Poppa eats all the bread.”

  Tir widened his eyes in mock horror. “Then I’ll be off.” With a perfunctory bow, he headed off to the Nalynn house.

  Jenn finished cleaning, then climbed down. A moth fluttered to a landing on the coach window, its open wings like scraps of white satin. She saw neither satchel nor letter in its claws and sighed, just a little. “My thanks for your service, friend moth,” she told it, in case it understood.

  Almost sunset. She didn’t need to turn and look to know; she felt it inside, stronger than ever. Pressing her lips together, she endured the first cramp, then took a step, determined to put the brush in the bucket.

  Instead, she staggered as the ground wasn’t where it should be. She reached for the coach to catch herself.

  And couldn’t touch it.

  The brush dropped because her fingers weren’t there, where were her fingers? And she wanted to scream, but couldn’t draw a breath, she couldn’t, because she didn’t have fingers, she didn’t have toes, did she even have a mouth—

  The sudden fire in her gut was so real, Jenn Nalynn gasped with relief. Somehow, she crawled on elbow and knee into the darkness beneath the coach, enduring in silence, thinking, as much as she could think at all, only of time. How long did it take the sun to go behind the Bone Hills? How many tortured breaths? How many more cramps?

  At last, the sun set and she came to herself again. Jenn rubbed her hands in the cool rough dirt, overjoyed to feel fingers again; stubbed her toes on the coach wheel and almost cried with joy.

  A dream, she told herself. A waking dream. That was all. Until she looked out to see the brush, lying where it had fallen. “What’s happening to me?” she whimpered.

  A cold little foot touched hers.

  Jenn twisted, looking down. A house toad looked back. No, not one, but several, crowded together under the coach, legs overlapping stomachs, eyes on her. They’d taken shelter from the sunset.

  So had she.

  “It’s all right,” she said, as much to herself as the toads, and dropped her forehead to the cool earth. “It’s over.”

  For today. What if tomorrow was worse?

  Sunbeams slanted across Bannan’s path, finding their way to the road past branch and through leaf. The Spine sank below the row of old trees to his left; ahead, where the road must bend, another of the Bone Hills rose into the sky, like a cloud caught against the earth.

  He hadn’t gone far before the air grew still and hushed. As it normally did, he reminded himself. The few birds left who sang by day were finished, and it was too early for the night’s singers. His footfalls seemed loud and intrusive; without thinking, he fell into the old familiar stalk. Plant the foot so and put weight thus, avoid a regular pace and keep hand to sword hilt.

  Finding no hilt, Bannan gave himself a little shake. This wasn’t the marches, he reminded himself. Still, no harm in a quiet walk.

  The Tinkers Road twisted left. He followed, to halt with a gasp.

  Scourge hadn’t lied.

  The Tinkers Road didn’t leave Marrowdell. It met the shadow of the Bone Hill and simply stopped.

  Old trees erupted from the road’s end, masking the lowest reach of pale stone beyond. Bannan walked to them, despite the shadow’s bitter chill, and touched their trunks to be sure they were real. Nothing but a bird or toad could fit between. To his deeper sight, the road passed beneath the roots and was gone.

  Which couldn’t be right. This was the way the tinkers came, the way they left. The villagers had been confident.

  The villagers didn’t venture near the Bone Hills. How would they know?

  The shadow deepened around him. The sun must be setting. This uncanny road was no place to be at night. He should go, now, and come back in the morning.

  Then, as the last light of the sun passed them, the leaves in the old trees became something else, some things else, small figures, quick moving and cautious, that looked down at him, tilting their sparkling heads.

  Grinning with delight, Bannan couldn’t help himself. “Hello.”

  They took flight, some into the air, the rest running from branch tip to twig to hide in the shadows near the trunk.

  “I’m sorry,” he began to say, but he hadn’t startled them.

  Before his eyes, a dark hoof appeared in the air before the line of trees, then a leg, then a nose. Another hoof. Another leg and nose.

  “RUN!”

  He didn’t need to be told twice. Bannan whirled and ran.

  Once past where the road twisted, he stopped. He didn’t doubt the warning, but he couldn’t leave, not without seeing more. He crept back, putting himself behind a tree trunk. Holding his breath, he eased his head sideways until one eye could see past the bark.

  Horses. Ancestors Witness, he’d run from horses. This was the dragon’s idea of a joke.

  Horses pulling wagons. Three wagons, filled with wooden barrels, a team of matched browns harnessed to each.

  Bannan breathed again. He’d run from the tinkers. They must have some way through the trees he hadn’t found. Abashed, the truthseer began to move into the open, lifting his hand in greeting. He hoped they hadn’t seen him bolt like a startled deer.

  There was no one to greet. The wagon seats were empty.

  Why would horses pull empty wagons?

  He flung himself behind the tree again, his blood cold. This was Marrowdell, he told himself.
What he saw wasn’t always the truth.

  He peered out again, to take another, deeper look.

  The road became silver and flowed. It no longer vanished beneath tree roots but soared up and into the sky, like a waterfall going the wrong way. The horses and wagons came from within that flow.

  Horses? Their dark hides were overlapped plates of armor, supple enough to move with their bodies. Instead of manes, glinting crests like sword blades rose along their necks, catching fire in the sun’s final rays. This had been Scourge, before his ruin.

  Kruar.

  The barrels became urns of brilliant blue crystal. The wagons remained wagons, though of unfamiliar design.

  Beside each walked figures of light and stone.

  Figures without faces, only masks.

  Bannan pressed his back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes, fighting for breath. What had Wyll said? Cursed. Powerful.

  Turn-born.

  Ancestors Kind and Merciful, he had to calm himself. He had to get out of here without being seen or heard.

  The hoofbeats came closer. Closer. What was he thinking? Scourge could smell a mouse under rotten potato peels. These kruar would catch his scent any minute. If he didn’t want to be their mouse, he had to go now, calm or not.

  He sidestepped roots to the next tree, then the next. Things scurried away. Something hissed. Only when he was sure he wouldn’t be seen did Bannan jump out to run in earnest.

  On the Tinkers Road.

  Don’t reveal what you are, the dragon had warned.

  He should have warned him—warned them all—what the tinkers were.

  The turn had come. The efflet trembled and huddled together. The ylings cowered on their branches.

  Wyll had no doubt why.

  He snarled to himself, unhappy to be trapped as a man on the same side of the edge as the turn-born. When first one, then a second little cousin appeared in his doorway, he snarled at them, too. ~ What? ~

  ~ Elder brother, ~ they cried together, ~ the truthseer’s at the crossing! ~

  Wyll launched himself forward. He slipped on crystal and felt it break, heard the toads scramble out of his way, but couldn’t slow. Not now. The fool. Curious, bright, interested in what he shouldn’t be, always. Fool!

  He lurched straight across the meadow, right through the kaliia, snarling and growling as he went. The efflet made no protest. Why would they? The grain could no longer be protected and they readied themselves to flee.

  Wise efflet. He couldn’t protect them.

  Hurried, his body creaked and strained and tried to fail. The turn slid over and passed him as he pushed his way between neyet. Ylings trilled warnings. Nyphrit slipped into their holes. His useless foot snagged in a root and he pulled it free with a jerk that snapped bone.

  The road at last. Wyll flung a breeze outward, “RUN!”

  He hoped it found only Bannan’s ears.

  One breath. Two. He bided his time, furious at the truthseer, furious at himself, at this body. Bark cracked beneath his fingers . . .

  A man came running. Wyll leapt, his good arm snagging Bannan’s to jerk him to a halt. The man staggered or he did; they kept each other standing. “I saw them!” the truthseer gasped.

  “Did they see you?” Wyll shook him. “Did they?”

  “No. No, they didn’t.” Bannan swallowed, steadied, though his eyes were huge in his face and sweat beaded his forehead. “I saw them, Wyll,” he said again. “Skin over stone. Skin over light. They wear masks for faces!”

  “Go.” Wyll shoved him toward the farm. “When you see them again, do not look so closely. See the tinkers.”

  “See tinkers.” The truthseer gasped for breath then nodded. “Not turn-born.”

  No laggard in wit. “Just so.” The dragon bared teeth. “Hurry now. They go first to your barn, to clothe themselves and wait for sunrise. They know better than pass the Wound by night. Go.”

  “But—”

  “Get in your house, stay there, and ignore them. They’ll find you when they’re ready. Go!”

  Bannan took an obedient step, only to pause and glance back. Though his face was pale, that inquisitive eyebrow rose. “Think they’ll want supper?”

  His broken foot howled, the turn-born—that potent nuisance—were heartbeats away, and Wyll found himself amused. “I suppose they might. They’ll act as men and women, so long as they believe you see them as such.”

  “I will.” Another perilous hesitation. “Thank—”

  “Go!” Wyll turned his back on the truthseer. “Don’t give them all my biscuits.”

  If he was smiling as the man hurried away, only the ylings could see.

  He lost his smile as he waited. He’d been sent to guard the girl; she was safe for now, if through no act of his. His old enemy had returned to Marrowdell; they’d made common purpose, sure to confound those who knew both.

  Unlikely the turn-born would notice, for tonight they crossed for their own peculiar concerns.

  Five days from now, the light of the girl’s sun would meet the light of the Verge in exquisite, fleeting harmony. The Balance. The next day’s turn would come earlier here, then the next, as this world began its slide to longer, darker nights and winter. Something in that harmony and its change was felt, keenly, by turn-born. They offered no explanation, not that he’d dared ask, but long ago Wyll had come to believe the turn-born didn’t choose to cross into Marrowdell for the Balance; they were drawn. Drawn, and compelled to remain until its turn, when they’d cross back to the Verge.

  Why?

  He hadn’t wondered before his penance. Like any terst, the turn-born stayed to the boring flat terrain loathed by dragons. The terst themselves were boring, being similar to the girl’s kind and content to toil each day. They coaxed crystal to build their dwellings, and preferred those stiflingly close to one another. They bribed efflet to grow their kaliia and traded with ylings for cloth. When permitted by their queen, little cousins would take hire, being dexterous and reliable workers, though they knew to count their earnings. The terst, like their turn-born, weren’t completely to be trusted.

  Why terst had left the untouched part of their world to settle the newly created Verge was beyond a dragon to guess. Their magic was trivial: the healing of broken limbs and wounds, which any dragon could do for itself and faster; the fermenting of grain, there being a drink they liked which no dragon could stomach, given its smell; and the wishing away of dreams, for the terst, like the girl’s kind, sometimes found being between two worlds haunted their sleep. Like the small ones, they couldn’t cross between.

  But, sometimes, they gave birth to those who could.

  Never on purpose, not once they’d learned the consequences of a child born within a turn. The terst moved their settlements farther from known crossings, to no avail, and did their earnest best to keep mothers from labor at that dread moment, or hid them in the dark.

  Distance or darkness made no difference. Any newborn whose first breath came when the light of two worlds touched was bound to both.

  Like the girl, terst turn-born were harmless while young; it was only when full grown that their power revealed itself, affecting the Verge and putting those nearby at risk. To the turn-born already grown and trained, busy negotiating their next collective expectation with exquisite care and interminable argument, such individuals meant potential chaos. A single turn-born, with differing expectation at the crucial moment, would stop theirs.

  A solitary turn-born, unchecked by any other expectation, could devastate the Verge.

  So turn-born lived together. Terst parents who suspected the worst would bring their infants to the nearest enclave, in hopes they were wrong. The turn-born could recognize some quality in each other; perhaps, like dragons and kruar, they sensed what didn’t fully belong to either world. Regardless of how they knew, they took any new turn-born into their care, leaving the parents to mourn.

  Wyll knew these particular turn-born, as well as any could. They came fr
om the enclave nearest the crossings to Marrowdell, where he’d done his first penance. Few in number; they were always few. Determined. That, too.

  And drawn to the other world, now.

  Why?

  He didn’t know. Wyll stifled a frustrated snarl. How could he? They didn’t discuss it among themselves. Like any sane dragon, he’d avoided them entirely until the sei dictated his penance and put him in the turn-borns’ charge.

  He’d managed to avoid them on this side of the edge, until today. The girl and her father grew preoccupied with the harvest, allowing him to sneak away to the Verge rather than share the too-close quarters of Marrowdell with turn-born. It would have to be this harvest when that sensible arrangement changed, with a Great Turn on the day of Balance.

  Troubled, Wyll leaned against the neyet, caught in memory. At the last Great Turn, there’d been no village, no mill, nor villagers in Marrowdell. There’d been nothing to harvest, nor a river, nor crags riven and torn. The valley had been wild forest and stone. A place where kruar might cross to hunt rabbits and feisty young dragons might follow, to hunt kruar.

  And be hunted. Wyll almost smiled, remembering. Were the odds not deliciously even?

  The stealthy visits of a few turn-born had mattered no more than the growing towers of men, until the wise among the latter deciphered the time and the place, and the utter fools among them dared act. At the Great Turn, they’d cast their wishing and the trapped ones erupted in answer. Their vast arms had ripped free from the Verge and through the ground of this world, tearing at the barrier that kept both whole and apart until both were one.

  In that moment of blending, confusion reigned.

  Dragon and kruar, knowing full well where they belonged, took advantage. The small ones grew lost, straying into Marrowdell, while men spilled into the Verge and went mad. Towers crumbled, land heaved and split, and what might have happened next? Would the worlds separate once more or continue to blur together, until neither remained the same?