by Watson Davis
The ink shifted, aligning into words that said, “This is not ink. This is my blood and my magic.”
Sifa grimaced and wiped her hand on her pants.
“Your voice is but a whisper, and I cannot see your face,” the ink said. “Are you wearing bespelled jewelry? Remove it so I can commune with you, answer your questions, solve all your problems.”
Sifa looked at her hand clasped around her necklace, the stone shining so bright her hand glowed. “I don’t know.”
“Speak louder, please,” the words said. “Ask me a question, and I will tell you truth.”
Sifa settled herself onto the carpet, cross-legged on the floor with the book open in her lap, her eyelids growing heavy. The book pressed against her skin with a drowsy warmth, though the magic tickled her thighs. She leaned toward the book and asked, “Can you tell me a story?”
“A story?” The ink swirled and once more words formed. “Once upon a time in a happy kingdom on the coast, there lived a noble king named Byi-ying the Fair who wanted to rule an empire with justice and honor.”
Sifa brightened, her back straightening, her interest piqued. “I’ve heard of Byi-ying.”
“Ah, good. He was a good soul, too trusting. In the jungles of the north an empire grew strong and greedy, the empire of—”
“Ohkrulon!” Sifa said, giggling. “Is this the story of the desert? I’ve never heard it this way before.”
“Yes, the Ohkrulon, with skin the color of blood and hearts as dark as the night sky between the stars, ruled over an empire powered by magic, and only Byi-ying and his allies stood between the Ohkrulon and domination of the entire world.”
Tick, tick, tick—the sound echoed through the room like seeds dropping on tile, or the claws of imperial scorpions scrabbling on a stone floor. Sifa’s head jerked up and she held her breath, looking around her for the source of that sound, her heart beating hard, her mouth dry. She sensed something coming through the chamber where she’d entered, something malevolent. Her hand went to the sheathe at her waist, only to find it empty.
The words on the book wrote, “Yut-hosa? You are in the monastery of Arenghel?”
Sifa dropped the book on the floor with a thud.
The tick-ticking sped up, and a new sound, a clacking noise, added to it. Sifa crept back toward the door, toward where she remembered dropping her dagger. She snuck around the corner and came face to face with a creature like none she’d ever seen.
The body of it was an upside-down human skull, with its teeth on top, the desiccated flesh pulled tight around the jaws, the teeth broken and cracked. From the eye sockets, two sinuous, snake-like stalks came out and on the ends were eyes, unblinking with ice-blue irises. The creature’s hair, twisted up and hardened with filth and dirt, acted as legs, carrying the creature over the stone floor, clicking and clacking.
Sifa screamed, turned, and ran.
The clacking of the creature’s appendages stopped when it reached the carpet, but the clattering of its teeth continued. Sifa glanced back. The creature chased after her, its eye-stalks swinging from side to side as it rushed after her, its teeth snapping together as it bit at her.
Sifa stopped, grabbed one of the bookcases with both hands, and yanked with all her strength, toppling it. The books smashed down on the horrid thing.
Sifa stood still, watching for movement for a tell-tale sign the creature lived, for a feeling that it was there. Seeing and sensing nothing, she leapt over the bookcase, over the tumbled books, the pages fluttering back and forth, words forming on them saying, “Wait! Come back. I haven’t finished your story!”
Sifa leapt over into the next row of books and sprinted to the door, stopping to scoop up her new knife.
From far away, Ka-bes called out, “Sifa! Where in the Nine Hells are you?”
“I’m here!” Sifa shouted, jogging toward the exit until she heard a tick-tick-ticking behind her, and then she sprinted.
A Big Girl Now
“IT’S AFTER ME!” SIFA shouted, racing out the last door, her arms pumping, her feet pounding on the stone floor, through the door into the plaza with the dragon’s skeleton and all the bones. “Help!”
“By Maegrith’s spiky beard!” Ka-bes shouted. “Where are you?”
“Here!” Sifa leapt over a magical breastplate and dodged between columns, the ticking and clacking growing louder, a clatter as the thing hit the breastplate or one of the other pieces of plate behind her. Sifa feared looking back and discovering how close the thing was, feared she’d feel its teeth puncturing her flesh at every step, certain that foul creature’s bite would be venomous and deadly. “I’m right here!”
A gust of wind sprang from nothing and swirled around Sifa like a tornado, spinning her around and lifting her up with her arms and legs flailing. The creature leapt toward her, its foul teeth clicking, the nub of a throat projecting up from the top of it with hints of a shattered vertebra visible. Sifa screamed and shrank away from the thing. The winds shoved it back, twirling it around, and then lifted it into the air and flung it away.
The air released Sifa and she yelped as she crashed on her rear end in a pile of rubble.
Ka-bes said, “What in Dispatro’s name was that?”
Sifa spun around and flung herself to her feet. “Ka-bes!”
Ka-bes sparkled, her magic flowing around her, her hands moving back and forth, pulling and pushing the magic, directing its power, keeping it within her control. “Are there any more of those things?”
“No,” Sifa said, a gnawing fear in her guts. “Well, I don’t know; I only saw the one—I think—unless this was the second, and I killed the first one when I dropped the bookcase on it.”
“Bookcase?”
“Yes,” Sifa said, nodding, her eyes wide, her fear fading from her and her excitement returning. “We are going to be rich. The temple is filled with gold and with books that talk to you. It’s amazing. Come inside. I have to show you.”
“We are leaving,” Ka-bes said, her face stern as she glowered at Sifa. “We are leaving now.”
The sky, which had been black with night when Sifa had entered the temple, had lightened to a deep blue, the stars racing from the light, the high, thin wisps of the clouds gold and orange toward the horizon where the chariot of the sun had begun its journey across the sky. Sifa blinked. “How long was I in there?”
“Far too long.” Ka-bes pushed her magic down, compressing it, and said, “I’ve been screaming my fool head off trying to find you and your silly ass for hours. How could you run off like that? We have people chasing us. How could you be so gods-be-damned stupid?”
Sifa shrugged and smiled, hoping to charm Ka-bes out of her fury. “But the gold—”
“You could have died, and I never would have known what happened to you. I should have left you to whatever the hell that damned thing was. I should have let it bite you.”
“But we could be rich,” Sifa said, getting louder, holding up her arm, showing Ka-bes the bangle. “Look.”
Ka-bes grabbed Sifa’s arm and ripped the bangle off, scratching Sifa’s hand. She grunted as she hurled the bangle into the deserted buildings. “Did I raise an idiot? This place is damned. Everything in it is damned.” She whirled and stomped toward the gate.
“Ka-bes,” Sifa said, her heart breaking. She followed in Ka-bes’s wake, tripping over the roots of the trees, the bones of men and orc breaking beneath her feet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“You never, ever think,” Ka-bes said, turning to glare at Sifa, and then continuing to the entry. “What am I supposed to do with you? You never listen. You never do what I tell you to do.”
“I was just curious,” Sifa said, her head bowed, her hands clasped over her stomach. “I’ll do better. I’ll do whatever you say and I won’t question a thing. I promise.”
“I should take you back to where I got you and hand you over to her, tell her to find another baby-sitter for you,” Ka-bes grumbled. “I cannot do this anymo
re.”
“Where did you get me?” Sifa whispered, her hand rising and touching the jewel at her neck. “From whom did you get me?”
“We have to get out of here,” Ka-bes said, approaching the wall, staring up at its height. “We have to get as far away from here as we can. The empire will be here soon.” She turned and looked at Sifa, asking, “How did you even get in here? I had to use my winds to fly myself over the wall.”
“Wow.” Sifa’s eyes widened. “I knew you could do that. I would love to fly. That would be so much fun.”
“I’m out of practice,” Ka-bes said, shaking her head and licking her lips. “I’m not sure I have the control yet to carry us both over the wall.” She pointed at stairs up to the battlements. “We can go up there and I’ll float us down, but wait. How did you get in here?”
“Oh, that was easy,” Sifa skipped to the wall, tapped the pattern, and squeezed the node. The stone slid back. “I opened the door.”
“... AND THAT WAS THE LAST anyone heard of Pribinya, the Wicked Witch of Ohkrulon.” Ka-bes finished her story, her feet resting on the rocks around the fire, her hands folded over her stomach, her empty plate and goblet sitting beside her on the ground.
Stars filled the night-time sky and a warm wind blew from the south. Kehseho lay curled up by the fire, his head on the ground, snoring as he slept.
Sifa tossed a piece of wood on the fire. “You tell that story even better without reading from the book!”
Ka-bes laughed. “How many times have I told you that story?”
“I love it every time,” Sifa said, lying with her back against Kehseho and peering up at the stars. “But I wonder...”
The moment of silence stretched out for a handful of heartbeats before Ka-bes said, “Yes? What do you wonder?”
“What was your life like before... me?”
“Well, I told fewer stories and answered fewer questions,” Ka-bes said.
“No, really,” Sifa said, sitting up and leaning toward Ka-bes, studying her face, the face Sifa knew better than anyone’s, including her own. “You never talk about your life before: the priesthood, being enslaved? I always thought you lived in the desert and then I came along.”
“Life doesn’t work that way,” Ka-bes said. “There’s usually some courting involved, some flowers and kisses and sweet words. At least, in normal circumstances and as long as you’re not a noble, in which case you have less say in the matter.”
“This is what I mean,” Sifa said. “I asked you a question and you gave me no answer. How did I come to be with you? What was your life like before me? Were you a priestess?”
“That’s a lot of questions.”
“And your collar?” Sifa asked. “Are you really a slave?”
“No.” Ka-bes brushed her collar with her fingertips and looked away from Sifa. “Yes. Not really. It’s not exactly a slave collar. I was never gathered up and prosecuted for crimes, or charged with heresy, or sold into slavery. Think of it as a command to keep you safe, a physical manifestation of the geas placed upon me.”
“Do you love me?”
“What?”
“You have taken care of me as long as I can remember, but you didn’t choose to take care of me, did you? You had to have a spell placed on you to make you do it. Do you love me?”
“That is a hell of a question to ask me after everything I’ve done for you,” Ka-bes said, pushing herself up, rising to her feet and brushing the sand from her pants.
“Would you go back to your old life, if you were free of me?” Sifa asked.
“I will never be free of you,” Ka-bes said. “The gods bound us together, you and me.”
“Where did you live before you had me?” Sifa asked. “Basaliyasta? Sissola? Nayengim?”
“Fine,” Ka-bes said, raising her hands and bowing her head in surrender. “My mother and father are fishermen in Tuth-yoo. I studied in Basaliyasta, but I made an unwise decision and could not be a priestess. My brother is a priest.”
“You have a family,” Sifa whispered, shaking her head, her throat tightening, her heart pounding. “Of course you do. Do they know you’re with me? Do they know you’re even alive? Do I have a family?”
Ka-bes knelt beside Sifa, taking the girl’s face in her hands. “We have each other, and that will have to do.”
Frazzle bleated.
Ka-bes chuckled. “And we have whichever goat that was.”
“Frazzle,” Sifa said.
Ka-bes nodded. “And we have Frazzle. The analects teach us that wanting and needing cause pain. Don’t worry about the past. Don’t worry about the future. We need to be here and now.”
“But—”
Ka-bes put her finger across Sifa’s lips, quieting her. “I’m tired. I don’t need more questions tonight. We’ll talk about whatever you want to talk about tomorrow, but I’m going to bed. Are you capable of standing first watch tonight?”
Sifa nodded. “Yes.”
“Wake me up in a few hands.” Ka-bes stretched and yawned and went to their yurt. “Be sure to do your cleansing!”
“I will.” Sifa sat cross-legged beside Kehseho, staring up at the stars, her forearms resting on her knees, meditating on that ache gnawing at her heart, that pain beckoning her to the west and to the north. She watched the stars and moons moving across the heavens for over a hand.
With her stomach fluttering, she eased herself up and crept into the yurt to her cot and removed a pack she’d been preparing over the past few days. She crept to Ka-bes’s side and kissed her forehead, her vision blurring from the tears welling up in her eyes, sniffling as her nose stopped up. She backed out of the yurt.
Sifa took a deep breath, kissed her hand, and placed it on the veil covering the opening to the yurt. Then she strode away, between the pens and their yurt. One goat jumped to his feet, bleating and charging toward her, pulling at his line.
“Shh.” Sifa walked over to him and scratched Blackie’s neck, from his shoulder to the top of his head. “Be quiet or you’ll wake Ka-bes. Promise me you’ll watch out for her and take care of her while I’m gone.”
He bleated once more, a bleat that did not sound as though he had any intention of protecting Ka-bes, and as though he questioned Sifa’s doings. She patted him on the head and smiled at him. She gulped, fighting back tears, and then with her hand on the jewel around her neck, she turned to follow her heart, to follow the pain she felt to its source.
KA-BES SLID HER BLANKET to the side and rolled out of her cot, wrapping her sheet around herself and rising in one swift motion, securing the sheet like a toga around her body. She stretched, reaching up with her hands, rising onto the tips of her toes, yawning. She sniffed the air, searching for the scent of food, but smelled only the goats and the camel. She called out, “Sifa? You aren’t napping, are you? You’re late waking me.”
She pulled her clothes out of the chest at the foot of her cot, shaking the sand out of them. “I’m expecting something to eat when I get out there.”
She lowered herself onto the rug on the ground and seated herself on her shins, resting her hands on her knees, and closing her eyes. She breathed deep into her chest and belly, whispering the morning cleansing ritual even as her thoughts wandered to Sifa, thinking the little idiot had probably fallen asleep on watch.
The animals sounded calm enough, baying and grunting outside, but Ka-bes sensed something was wrong, something was missing. She hurried, completed the rite, and snatched a canteen from the foot of her bed.
“Sifa?” She eased through the fabric hanging over the door and once through into the chilly morning, let the veil fall shut behind her. She pulled the stopper from the end of the canteen and took a long swig, swishing the water back and forth in her mouth, enjoying the cool cleanliness of it.
“Are you hungry?” The embers of the cookfire were dying, and no food was cooking. “Sifa? I’m hungry. Why isn’t breakfast on?”
One goat bleated, Ka-bes couldn’t tell which one; she didn
’t have names for them like Sifa did. “We need to get packed. You can sleep on the road.”
What have I done? Her breath caught in her throat. Her stomach grumbled and cramped with fear. I have killed.
She tossed more wood onto the fire, forcing her thoughts to working out a path through the desert no one would follow, skirting the civilized towns where they’d be recognized, where Thyu’fest and what was left of his people would have gotten word out to find them. She wondered how the priests would react, how quickly they’d get someone on their trail. Her stomach fluttered.
Too much to do.
She stared back the way they had come, wondering if they were pursuing them, wondering how far away they were, racking her brain for a spell to hide them. “Sifa, I’ll get breakfast going. You start packing.”
She placed the teapot on a stone by the fire and stomped back to the yurt, anxious now for them to be on their way. “You haven’t gone to bed, have you? If you’ve fallen asleep at a time like this, you can’t even imagine the trouble you’re in.”
Ka-bes stormed into the yurt and knelt beside Sifa’s cot, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. “Honey-girl?”
The bed was empty.
Ka-bes stood, breakfast forgotten, and she darted back outside. That damned goat bleated at her once more, and she shushed it. “Sifa! You are in trouble.”
She rushed around the tent. “Sifa? Where are you?”
She jogged to the boulder and the goats’ lines, yelling, “Sifa!”
In the distance to the south, a light haze rose from the horizon, a gray smudge in the air above the village of Stryadat. To the east scrubby trees, scraggly bushes, and cacti dotted the flat red sand, with hills and cliffs rising up to the west and the black mountain far to the north.
No Sifa.
“Sifa?” Ka-bes touched her collar, expecting the pain to start. She stumbled to the fire, grabbed two thick branches and threw them on top, not watching what she was doing, her eyes still scanning the horizon, searching for something she’d missed.
