Five Magic Spindles: A Collection of Sleeping Beauty Stories

by Rachel Kovaciny

  Chapter 8

  HOURS LATER THEY MADE camp among the trees by the Lessin River, Auren now grateful for Tanza’s overzealous preparations. The heavy packs contained two insta-tents to keep out the rain, radiant heaters to keep out the chill, and blankets to hide them from thoughts of the disaster.

  Early the next morning, when Tanza crawled crusty-eyed from her tent, she found Auren sitting under a tree next to a sack spilling over with fish. Too weary for conscious thought, Tanza croaked, “What? How?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Auren said. No surprise there. He’d slept fewer than four hours a night since leaving the tomb. “Thought I’d take advantage of the river—and that astonishingly good fishing set you tucked into my pack.”

  Auren swept up a shining glitterbelly in one hand, flipped open a knife with the other, and sawed off a fillet in one clean cut.

  “You’re good at that,” Tanza said as he stripped the sparkling blue scales from the flesh.

  He flipped the fish and cut off the other fillet. “A lot of practice.”

  “How?” Tanza asked, astonished.

  Auren tossed the fillets onto a clean towel and the remains into a pile at the edge of the campsite. “Whenever the death threats became too serious, my parents would send me upriver—up this river, actually—to camp at the headwaters. I’d spend a few weeks away from any living soul, except a few guards and servants, and go back to the palace when the danger passed. I did a lot of fishing.”

  “Didn’t the servants clean them?”

  Auren grinned. “The fish were disgusting. Why would I let the servants have all the fun?”

  For a few moments Tanza watched the dance of his hands and the flash of the scales, but then realized all those fillets needed cooking. She piled firewood, pulled a sparkstick from her pack, snapped the little cylinder’s red paper coating, and threw it on the pile. Soon bright flames crackled.

  Auren didn’t notice. He’d finished with the fish and now stared upriver.

  “Looking for something?” Tanza asked as she unfolded two palm-sized packets into low fabric seats.

  “A fishing boat,” he replied. “They’d usually haul to Roshen this time of day. Captains were known to give rides.”

  Tanza snorted. “In your time, maybe. Now you’d need three forms of ID and a letter of reference before they’d let you within shouting distance.”

  “Some kindness must remain.”

  Tanza shrugged and sat on one of the chairs. “People are smarter now.”

  Auren brought the fish over and sat in the chair on the opposite side of the fire. “I prefer being the fool, especially if it gets us a ride.”

  Tanza let him hold onto the hope but made plans for several days of walking.

  Using Tanza’s cooking pan, oil, and a few basic seasonings from his kit, Auren turned the fillets into a golden-brown breakfast of flaky flavor and soaring aromas. As Tanza savored the first bite, she said, “You’re not what I expected in a prince.”

  “I’m not a prince anymore,” Auren replied between bites. “The crown didn’t wait for me.”

  “I think you’d have made a good king,” Tanza said and meant it. The decadence and corruption of the nobility was historical fact, but Prince Auren had proven himself to be everything good in the royal regime: caring, humble, brave, noble. King Auren could have reformed Arateph’s ruling class without civil war.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Auren said. “Though it does me little good now.” He set aside his fish half eaten and watched the river race toward Roshen. “When I woke, I thought there might be a place for me in government; I still care about Arateph, and you claimed the Coalition wasn’t hostile to the Houses. Now I realize . . .” He shook his head. “The changes are too great. I know nothing about this world, certainly not enough to be of any use.”

  Tanza claimed another slice of fish. “You could always be a fisherman.”

  He laughed and took another bite.

  When the fish was nearly gone, Tanza thanked Auren for the meal.

  “You supplied everything,” he said. “Your fishing gear. Your cooking gear. Your knives. Without you, I’d have been helpless.” He finished his fish and pointed toward her. “Which reminds me: I’ve found a virtue name for you.”

  Tanza went stiff. The easy emotion of the morning vanished. Once again he was the virtue prince and she the tomb robber. Not even his gratitude for her help could hide her flaws or erase what she was.

  She fought down her shame. Virtue names were a meaningless tradition. Nothing he said could affect her life.

  With a cynical laugh, she said, “Really? What would that be?”

  Auren’s gaze held centuries of tradition, his face royal solemnity. “I name you Irimitha.”

  Tanza’s breath caught and her heart raced. Irimitha stood among the strongest of the virtue names. Pure of heart was the basic translation, but the undertones gave it more profound meaning. This was purity that blazed like fire and stood strong as stone, purity that required action and bravery to fight against evil and promote all possible virtues.

  This name had come from Prince Auren, the virtue prince of legend. Great dignitaries had dreamed of such honor. Tanza—liar, thief, and tomb robber—deserved none of it.

  She could have cried. Instead, she laughed, the same laugh she’d used when she first found his body come to life in a tomb. “You’re crazy. Give me something a little believable. Did you forget how we met? Who I work for? I’m not pure of heart and haven’t been since Keffer first found me a tomb to rob.”

  “Not yet, perhaps,” Auren said, his voice gentle, “but virtue names aren’t about the virtues you already have. They’re about what you can be. The name isn’t too heavy for you. You’ve helped me in so many ways since leaving the tomb. Last night you nearly died for an old woman you barely knew. The woman who did all that can give honor to the name Irimitha if she chooses to.”

  Tanza snapped, “I don’t choose, Auren. When we part ways in Roshen, I’m going right back to Lorantz to get new orders from Keffer. I’ll make my living the way I always have, the only way I know how. Irimitha will make me starve.”

  Auren leaned toward her. “How do you know unless you try? There are other options, Tanza.”

  She inched her chair back. “I believed that once, a long time ago. I even tested for university, too dumb to realize that no human would give a penniless tephan a scholarship.”

  Auren’s head tilted. “Why would humans have any say?”

  “They run the universities!” Tanza’s voice rose as long-suppressed anger overwhelmed her. “They run everything. They’re supposed to guide us to the standards of life in the rest of the Coalition, but everyone knows they’ll never give up control. We’re inferior: two-percent smaller brain capacity, our technology decades behind. Tephans don’t get into university unless they have money or connections, and I don’t. Now, any other possible future is closed off because of the path I chose. I’m already a criminal. Virtue’s not going to change that.”

  Auren studied her face. “I think,” he finally said, his voice heavy, “that virtue’s the only thing that can change it. Virtue is not a burden; it’s a tool. Maybe it would help show the humans that tephans are worth something.”

  He rose and looked out over the river. A fishing boat floated into sight, and Auren smiled. “There’s our ride, if it has a foolish captain.”

  He raced toward the shoreline and hailed the boat. To Tanza’s surprise it stopped, and after a few shouted negotiations, Auren hurried back from the river, grinning. “They’ll take us to Roshen,” Auren said. “The captain had a good haul, and he’s in a generous mood.”

  As they packed up the camp and made their way to the boat, Tanza was glad Auren had proven her wrong about the ride. Could he be right about the virtue name too? She wanted to believe it; Irimitha had such a nice sound. But she was no fisherman—too modern and too smart.

  Virtue was far too dangerous to consider.

  Chapte
r 9

  AUREN LINGERED NEAR A plaque outside a gray brick house, reading about the first deaths of the Ambush of Alogath. Tephans called this place the Killing Square, and Tanza had known its history since childhood, but she’d never realized the scope of the tragedy until she watched Auren mourn. To him these were not plaques with names and photos of strangers decades dead—he’d known most of those who died here, had talked and laughed with them and called them by nicknames. It wasn’t right to gawk at his grief, to make him a living history exhibit in this museum of the dead.

  Tanza approached him from behind and whispered in his ear, “I’ll meet you at sunset.”

  He nodded vaguely. She doubted he’d even remembered she was there.

  She was shocked to see the sun shining as she left the square. That place always had its own cloud of sorrow, and Auren’s grief had made it seem as dim as downpours. But the rest of Alogath was as lively as ever, filled with people rushing about their business, gazing at datapads or fiddling with the earpieces and handheld screens of their portable comms systems. No one noticed Tanza as she slipped into a fourth-story apartment in a nearly empty, rundown building and came out with a green paper box.

  The dropbox wasn’t far from the apartment, so Tanza walked. She pointedly didn’t think about the prince she’d left behind or about what he’d think of the errand she was on. He might call her Irimitha, but Tanza had bills to pay. Besides, the last package had held plants. Tanza doubted this one contained anything more dangerous.

  As she walked, the streets became narrower, the houses battered and broken. Dark crevices gaped in the sidewalk, and broken bits of concrete stuck up like giant claws. She peered down an alley and saw the dropbox: a panel of rusted metal on the wall of an abandoned restaurant. Tanza only needed to stick the box behind it.

  A chunk of broken concrete dug into her wounded ankle, and she collapsed. The green box skittered from her arms and split as it smashed into a wall.

  The box buzzed, and Tanza’s insides went sour.

  She tore through the box and layers of padding and uncovered a broken spindle. The carved wooden handle lay in one corner, its trigger button pressed against the side of the box. The glimmering tip of the metal skewer, severed from the handle, pointed at Tanza’s heart.

  Auren’s spindle.

  Impossible! He’d buried it in a garbage heap. But Tanza had forgotten that animals like Keffer forage in the trash.

  Stumbling on her injured leg, she raced back to the apartment, eyes and hair wild. Once inside, she slammed her door, secured all ten locks, and closed the blinds. Then she turned on the wall comms and entered Keffer’s code. She even turned on the visual link. She wanted Keffer to look her in the eye.

  Keffer filled the screen, perched on his cracked office chair like a throne. His smile made him look the fool. “Tanza!” he cheered. “You made it to Alogath! Did you make the delivery?”

  Tanza could barely speak through her tightened jaw. “I started to. Then I saw what was inside.” She held half of the spindle in each hand. “A spindle, Keffer. You know what I think about spindles.”

  “It’s broken,” he said.

  “But fixable, or else you couldn’t have sold it.”

  “The buyer was enthusiastic. I downplayed the damage.”

  “The buyer is Cornerstone, isn’t it? You hate Cornerstone.”

  He shrugged. “They’re friendlier to humans who have spindles. Money’s money.”

  “There isn’t enough money in the universe to make me sell this.”

  Keffer tilted his head. “Let me get this straight: You want to throw away a money magnet because you’re scared of Cornerstone?”

  “No, it’s because I know what a spindle does, and I know what Cornerstone does, and I refuse to have anything to do with either.”

  Keffer leaned back in his office chair, arms crossed. “She’s all high-and-mighty, is she, now that she’s traveled with the virtue prince? Remember how you make your living. You’ve sold things to people twice as bad as Cornerstone without batting an eye.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re done, Keffer. Finished. I’ll destroy this spindle, and you’ll never see me again.”

  He leaned forward until his nose brushed the comm screen. “Tanza, calm down. Think about this.”

  Tanza’s nails dug into the spindle handle. “I can’t stand to look at you. I’m done.”

  “That’s it?” Keffer’s laugh burrowed under Tanza’s skin. “You think you can just leave? You’re a thief, Tanza. You rob tombs, and you need me to help you do it.”

  “Not anymore,” Tanza snarled, and cut power to the comms. She paced the room and screamed out her frustrations, then destroyed her kitchen knives by hacking the spindle handle to splinters. When she finished, the ruined kitchen matched the ruin of her life.

  What had she done? She disagreed with Keffer’s tactics, but she’d done that before. She could have refused the job and stayed in Keffer’s good graces. Instead, she’d blazed and burned away her world. She had nothing left.

  But she knew a man in the Killing Square whose world had ended too. Maybe . . . maybe they could navigate this new world together.

  She cleaned the kitchen then walked the streets of Alogath by the light of the setting sun. She found Auren atop the steps of the museum, looking like the ghosts with whom he’d spent the afternoon.

  “All right?” Tanza asked.

  His gaze was far away. “Alive,” he said, “and making my peace.”

  Tanza gripped the stone post at the base of the stairs. “I should have stayed with you.”

  “No,” Auren said. “I needed to face this alone.” He descended the stairs and took Tanza’s arm as they walked to the apartment. The memories had unlocked more of the prince in his personality.

  Tanza asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Someday,” he said.

  They entered the apartment, and Auren didn’t notice the new dents in the countertop. Tanza warmed up some fish they’d brought from the boat, and they ate it at her tiny kitchen table.

  Tanza pushed her fish around her plate. “I was thinking,” she said. “I won’t go back to Lorantz.”

  Auren put down his utensils. “You won’t?”

  “I’d rather stay with you. You’ll need someone to guide you for a while.”

  “Keffer approves?”

  “I don’t care what Keffer thinks.” She would have left it at that, but if she wanted to escape Keffer’s world, she couldn’t keep secrets. She sighed and said, “Keffer tried to make me sell the spindle.”

  She told every detail: Keffer bringing her the package the first day of the trip, her lies after the disaster with Berimac, her trip this afternoon and the ensuing argument. Auren stayed silent throughout the tale—whether still numb from the Killing Square or stunned by her sins, Tanza didn’t know. She knew only that the guilt was too heavy to hold inside.

  Her story told, she could have cried, but instead she set her jaw and said, “I know Keffer’s sitting in that chair, waiting for me to come crawling back. But I won’t. I’m tired of tombs. I want to live.”

  Auren reached across the table and grasped her hands. “You will,” he said. “I know it.”

  Tanza found strength for a smile. “I’ll try.”

  As they cleaned the kitchen, Auren asked, “Will Keffer punish you for the betrayal?”

  Tanza shook her head. “It’s not his style. He’ll rage about it, make sure everyone knows what an idiot I am for destroying a spindle, but he’s taken larger losses. After the next client, he’ll forget I ever existed.”

  When the kitchen was clean, Tanza and Auren collapsed into separate bedrooms, both too exhausted from the emotions of the day to even change clothes. Tanza’s mind went black the moment her head hit the pillow.

  A sound woke her in the middle of the night. A thunder of heavy steps sounded in the hall, and her front door rattled beneath a blow. Tanza bounded out of bed and hastened toward Auren’s room. H
e stood in his doorway, wide awake. A moment later the front door splintered, and eight black-clad tephans rushed into the apartment. Before Tanza and Auren could run, the intruders reached the hall and pulled them into the main room.

  The men around Auren muttered reassuring words in Common Tephan—friends, help, rescue—and called him by his title. The three intruders who held Tanza were less gentle. They twisted her arms and dragged her with far more force than her useless attempts at resistance required.

  The intruders brought them to the kitchen and stopped before a tall tephan woman with a sharp face and sharper eyes. Her red, gold, and white armbands told Tanza that the intruders were Cornerstone.

  The woman brought her face a hand’s-breadth from Tanza’s and snarled, “Not enough to desecrate the tombs of the dead. You must steal the living too.” She spat on Tanza’s cheek. “Virtue punishes those who stray. Especially the enemies of the virtue prince.”

  The woman stepped away and nodded to one of the men holding Tanza. “Give her what she deserves.”

  The man at Tanza’s right unsheathed a spindle and placed its point against her ribs.

  “No!” Auren screamed, trying to tear himself out of his captors’ grasp.

  The sharp-faced woman stared in surprise. “You want to spare this monster?”

  Auren stilled and took two deep breaths. “She woke me,” he said with the voice of the chronovid prince. “That’s worth something. Let her live.”

  After a silence, the knife-faced woman turned to Tanza’s captors. “Make sure she doesn’t follow us.”

  One of Tanza’s captors cracked something heavy against her skull, and the world went black.

  Chapter 10

  WHEN TANZA WOKE, FAINT light streamed through the window and her head had a lump as wide as her palm. She crawled to her bedroom and found the under-bed drawer that held this apartment’s stock of pain medication. She swallowed a nausea pill and then, after double-checking that the syringe held tephan pain medication, injected a dose of it into her arm.