by Watson Davis
A single cot lay against the wall to her right, with a chamber pot beneath it, and a simple table with a stool stood on her left, with empty pages of paper and a quill propped up next to a closed inkpot.
Sifa crept in, leaving the door open behind her, her gaze searching the room for something else, for someone else, for something she was missing.
“Already time for supper, then?” the old woman said in a smooth, throaty voice. She set her garment on the stool beside her rocking chair, and stood, grunting as she straightened up. The old woman’s eyes squinted behind her spectacles, the wrinkles between her brows and beside her lips deepening. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. She clutched her chest with her right hand, her left grabbing the back of the rocking chair to steady herself.
Sifa rushed to her side, helping her to stand, and the woman’s eyes never left Sifa’s face. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She raised her hand and touched Sifa’s face.
“Sifa?” she said. “My little baby?”
Out with the Wash
THE OLD WOMAN GLANCED back toward the window and mumbled, “No wonder it’s storming outside.”
“What?” Sifa staggered back, trying to catch her breath, her chest heaving, her eyes wide. She studied the woman’s face and found features that mirrored her own.
“Why are you here?” the old woman said, her voice rising in pitch. “You’re not safe. You have to get away. Dyuh Mon will take your soul.”
Despite the feeling in her heart, despite the tug, despite the upwelling of love and joy dispelling the aching pain she’d felt all her life, Sifa whispered, “Do I know you?”
“No, you couldn’t remember me,” the old woman said, shaking her head. Tears poured from the corners of her eyes and her lips trembled as her fingertips brushed Sifa’s cheeks, her horns, her ears. “That is the saddest thing I can imagine, but I know you, my baby, my child. I would know you anywhere, anytime.”
“You?” Sifa said, trying to understand, trying to comprehend the changes to her world. “You’re my mother? I thought you were my father. What about Ka-bes? I feel her in my heart just as I feel you.”
“I couldn’t protect you,” the old woman said, ushering Sifa back toward the door. “I was too old even then. Ka-bes was young and strong, and the gods guided her to my door at my time of need. I had to use her. I had to give you to her for you to have a chance.”
“I hate to break this up,” Shiyk’yath said, leaning against the wall for support, his voice strained. “But we have to get the hell out of here.”
“We can talk and understand later,” Sifa said, taking the old woman’s hand in her own, placing her other hand on the woman’s elbow, trying to guide her out the door. “Someone will be here soon.”
“No,” the old woman said, taking her hand back from Sifa, placing it on Sifa’s back and pushing her toward the door with surprising strength. “You have to leave. You should never have come here. The Empress and Her priesthood cannot catch you, they cannot have you. You have to run far away.”
Shiyk’yath said, “Morrin. Morrin would be safe.”
“I’m not leaving here without you,” Sifa said, twisting and dragging the woman forward.
The old woman pulled out of Sifa’s grip. Her head bowed, a smile on her lips, she said, “Look at me. I’m collared. I can’t leave here. I’m too old, too broken, too useless. You have already answered all my prayers and made me happier than you can possibly imagine.” The old woman’s brow furrowed and she placed her hand on Sifa’s chest. “Where is the stone?”
“The stone?” Sifa blinked. “You mean my necklace?”
“Where is it?”
“They took it.”
“They?” Che-su asked. “Not Dyuh Mon. Not Gartan.”
“Yeah, it was Dyuh Mon,” Sifa said, shrugging. “I’m sorry.”
“We should just leave them,” Wu Cheen said from the room beyond.
Alizadeh stormed into the room, anger on his brutish face, Wu Cheen behind him. Alizadeh shook his head, and spread his hands, his eyes wide and wild. “Are you coming or are you staying?”
Sifa touched Che-su’s bent back, and said, “She refuses to leave, and I will not leave her alone here.”
Alizadeh wrapped his arm around Che-su’s waist and threw her over his shoulder. “Let’s go, then.”
Sifa inserted herself under one of Shiyk’yath’s arms and the two of them hobbled out of the room, hurrying to catch up with Alizadeh, stumbling down the stairs, past one floor, then another, until Alizadeh stopped at an opening.
Wu Cheen hunkered down on the first step after the door, motioning with his hand for them to go into the room on that floor.
Alizadeh set Che-su down and crept back to the door. Sifa followed him. The orc spread his hands and Wu Cheen pointed down the stairwell, and held two fingers up.
Muffled voices spoke. Someone laughed.
Wu Cheen slithered down the stairwell headfirst. Sifa followed him, but Alizadeh grabbed her arm and tossed her back into the room, a square room with bookcases and armoires.
Sifa whispered, “Hey.”
From below, a woman’s voice said, “Did you hear that?”
Alizadeh glared at Sifa, his nostrils flaring and his lips pulling away from his tusks in a fearsome snarl. Sifa backed away, shrugging and mouthing, “I’m sorry.”
A man’s voice asked, “Hear what?”
Che-su wrapped her arm around Sifa’s shoulders and yanked her back.
Wu Cheen scrabbled back up, darted into the room, and whispered to Alizadeh, “They are coming. Take cover.”
Alizadeh waved his arms, ordering everyone back away from the stairwell, and into the shadows.
“Sounds like rats,” the man downstairs said, his voice overly loud and enunciated. “Really big rats.”
Sifa turned to Che-su and stared at her glittering collar, at the ethereal tendrils attached to it, reaching through it into Che-su’s body and into her soul. Sifa moved her hand, blinking her eyes, peering deep into her mother’s being, tracing those nasty appendages. Sifa gagged, and averted her eyes to steady herself, her nerves.
“Sifa?” Che-su whispered.
Sifa placed her fingertips on the collar, her gaze boring into it, searching out its secrets—the nodes, the flows, the delicate threads. Steeling herself, she pressed her fingers onto the black glassy surface, pushing her soul into it, snapping a thread here, shutting nodes down here and there, shunting flows in different directions, using the knowledge she’d gained since Ofo.
The collar popped, the black glass transforming into a mass of ethereal black worms, worms that squealed as they floated up and down in no seeming relation to the winds or currents of this world, their squeals and shrieks fading as they disappeared.
“Yes, it does sound like rats,” the woman said.
Alizadeh put his back against the wall next to the doorway to the stairs, raising the sword he’d taken from a guard over his head and staring at the door. Wu Cheen climbed up onto one of the armoires, somehow wedging himself up against the ceiling. Shiyk’yath crouched on the other side of Che-su.
Magic swirled around Che-su, her lips moving but no sound coming out, only puffs of magic her hand captured and wove into her spell.
A bright light flashed in the room, all the magelights switching on at once, taking Sifa by surprise. Alizadeh snarled like a wounded beast, and Shiyk’yath yelped. Sifa blinked her eyes, and her sight came back.
“Yes!” A priest leapt up out of the stairwell. “Very large rats indeed!”
Sifa braced herself, tensing her muscles and preparing herself to charge.
A priestess jumped out, landing by the priest’s side, laughing, magic swirling around her. “These fools—”
A dagger flew from the top of the armoire where Wu Cheen had hidden, slamming into the priest’s throat.
Che-su threw her arms out toward the two clerics, shouting an ancient word of magic, a word that seemed familiar to Sifa, as though she sh
ould know its meaning. Filaments, long and white, lashed out from Che-su’s outstretched fingertips, flying out toward the priest and priestess, wrapping themselves around their mouths first, and then around their heads.
The priest toppled to the ground.
The priestess clawed at her face, seeking to rip the strands away, trying to tear them off, but the filaments plastered her hands against her face and held them there. She screamed but the web over her mouth muffled her shrieks for help. The web tightened around her, wrapping around her like a cocoon. She fell to the floor beside the motionless priest who was also in a cocoon, but his had a red spot growing over his throat.
Alizadeh blinked, and stared at the two wrapped up on the floor. He looked at Che-su. “You’re a priestess? Can you get us out of here?”
Che-su touched her neck, staring at Sifa. “How did you do that?”
Sifa shrugged.
The old woman grabbed Sifa by the shoulders and shook her. “How did you remove my collar?”
Sifa shrugged once more. “I just pinched something that wanted pinching.”
Wu Cheen leapt down from the armoire, landing quietly, and he bounded up behind Sifa. “She removed your collar? You could make a lot of money removing people’s collars. I know a lady—”
Che-su glared over Sifa’s shoulder at Wu Cheen. “And announce herself to the entire Empire? Are you a fool?”
“I’ve been called a lot worse.” Wu Cheen backed up with his arms crossed over his chest.
Alizadeh chuckled. “I have no doubt.”
“That was an amazing spell, wrapping them up like that,” Sifa said. “I wish I could do something like that.”
Alizadeh grunted and said, “Like I said, can you get us out of here?”
Che-su smiled. “Yes, but it won’t be without some risks. I’ve been working in the laundry, which is a few floors up from here. We can go up there, take some priests’ robes and walk right out.”
Alizadeh nodded. “Could work, as long as no one looked too closely at me.”
“You could be our slave boy.” Wu Cheen chuckled. “Slap a collar around your neck and no one would look at your ugly ass.”
Alizadeh snarled.
“Up the stairs, follow me,” Che-su said, hobbling to the stairwell.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Shiyk’yath said, staring out into nothingness.
“Let me help you,” Sifa said, sliding under Shiyk’yath’s arm.
Alizadeh handed his sword hilt first to Che-su, and then picked her up. She wrapped her thin arms around his neck. Wu Cheen went first up the stairs, and Alizadeh followed him.
Sifa and Shiyk’yath crept along behind him.
Che-su directed Alizadeh up seven levels, to a door, down a deserted hall to a final door, and whispered, “This is the laundry. This time of night, it should be empty.”
“Oh?” Shiyk’yath said, panting for breath. He turned the handle and inched the door open, revealing a large, darkened room with row after row of tunics and robes hanging from hooks, with bags of clothes and towels in bags, and empty bags beside them. Large pots of water boiled over magical flames, the shadows dancing across the clothes, and a stink of lye and alcohol hung in the air, burning Sifa’s eyes.
A man stuck his head out from behind a row of tunics, saying, “Yal’ek? Is it time already? Uh. You’re not Yal’ek. Che-su?”
SIFA STARED AT THE priest, holding her breath. He threw his hands up and shouted a word of power.
Wu Cheen pitched his dagger underhanded at the priest. The dagger flipped through the air, but water exploded out of a large drum, pushing brown tunics off their hooks into the dagger’s path.
“Put me down so I can cast!” Che-su yelled.
The priest repeated the words in a rhythm, power building behind them, his hands glowing as they weaved an intricate pattern in the air.
“Stop him!” Sifa lunged forward, yanking at the sword in her belt.
Shiyk’yath pushed Sifa out of his way and she fell to the ground, dropping her sword.
Alizadeh took his sword from Che-su and then pitched her aside. The old woman landed on top of Sifa. Wu Cheen stopped in the doorway. Skiyk’yath and Alizadeh collided with him in the doorway, and jammed themselves in it.
“He’s casting water magic!” Che-su yelled. She grunted, arms flailing, trying to lift herself off Sifa.
“Be careful,” Sifa said to her, helping Che-su to one knee.
Wu Cheen whirled back around and threw himself up against the wall beside the door, placing the wall between him and the priest. Shiyk’yath and Alizadeh stumbled into the laundry room, Alizadeh bellowing.
The priest stamped his foot, yelling the final word of his chant.
A torrent of white water gushed from his outstretched hands, inundating Shiyk’yath and Alizadeh and casting them back out into the hallway, driven out by a wall of soapy water, the soap bubbling and smelling of rose petals.
The water rushed into the hall, eddying around the door. The wave knocked Che-su from her knees, then to her side, pushing her down the hallway. Sifa scrabbled after her. She grabbed Che-su’s thrashing hands and lifted her sputtering head out of the water, and then got her back to her feet.
With Che-su safe, Sifa spun and sprinted back to the door, dodging around Shiyk’yath who was splashing around in the water trying to right himself. Alizadeh charged through the door. Sifa trailed behind him without a weapon.
“Who are you?” the priest yelled, his voice harsh and angry.
A sheet had wrapped itself around Wu Cheen’s throat and had hoisted him into the air. He clawed at the sheet with his fingertips, gagging for breath. The sheet swayed back and forth in the air like a cobra, like a living creature, moving in unison with the movements of the priest’s hands and arms.
The priest’s head turned, his eyes widening in sudden fear. He thrust his hands toward Alizadeh and Sifa. The sheet whipped toward them, hurling Wu Cheen toward Alizadeh.
Alizadeh ducked, but Wu Cheen slammed into him. The two of them tumbled down, splashing in the water and rolling toward Sifa, who leapt over them.
The priest raised his hands toward her, a smile of smug contempt on his lips. Water swirled around his hands, more water rising from the floor and flying through the air from the bubbling pots, the matrix of his magic reaching out to it and focusing it before him. He said, “Surrender, Summoned-spawn. You have no way out, and no way to defeat me.”
Sifa clenched her fists, pawing at the floor with her feet as though sweeping the water away. She lowered her head and rushed toward him.
He spoke a word. The water around his hands surged toward her like a geyser from the hot springs in the Ohkrulon. She ignored it, plowing through the jet of water. It tore at her hair, her skin, like countless tiny daggers, each one an explosion of pain, but she did not, would not, stop.
The priest lurched aside, trying to leap out of her way at the last moment. She struck his side with her horns, but only a glancing blow. She could not stop her charge and smashed into the wall, blowing a hole beside the window, blasting the rocks out of their mortar. She grabbed the tattered remains of the wall, clutching at it to keep herself from plummeting to the street below.
“Sifa!” Shiyk’yath limped to Sifa’s side and yanked her back inside.
The priest lay groaning behind her. Sifa held one hand to her aching head, blinking her eyes, trying to keep the world from spinning so fast.
Alizadeh loomed over Sifa, but not looking at her. Instead he held the point of the sword to the priest’s throat, and said, “Now. You’re going to help us get out of here.”
“Like hell, demon-spawn,” the priest sneered. He flicked his hand, even as Alizadeh leaned his weight on to the sword, driving the point through the man’s spine.
An alarm sounded, the siren ringing throughout the tower.
SIFA PRESSED HER HANDS against her ears, the clamor of the wailing siren making the ache in her head even worse. A fierce wind ripped in thr
ough the hole she’d knocked in the wall. The city stretched out beneath her, the narrow streets like a maze, buildings huddling together with lights in their windows. Fat drops of rain, surprisingly cold, slapped against her arms and legs. She backed away.
“Shit,” Alizadeh snarled, slashing with the sword, severing the deceased priest’s head the rest of the way from his body.
“You should have done that a bit sooner,” Wu Cheen said, hopping over to the dagger he’d thrown at the priest, rubbing his throat. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
Che-su hobbled through the door. Sifa rushed to her side and helped her into the room.
Wu Cheen darted past them to the door, poking his head through and said, “They’ll be coming soon. We gotta go.” He didn’t wait for a response and sprinted out.
“Wu Cheen!” Alizadeh bellowed, stomping toward the door, splashing through the puddles on the ground. “Come back here, you fucking idiot!”
“Honored mother, what are we going to do?” Sifa asked her.
Che-su pointed to the hole in the wall. “Everyone’s going through that hole. Hurry!” She pointed at Alizadeh. “Drag a kettle of clothes and set it against the door.”
“Right.” Alizadeh slammed the door shut and grabbed a large iron kettle of clothes and wedged it up against the door.
Che-su cast a spell and webs flew from her hand around the edge of the door, sealing it to the jamb. “This should give us a few minutes.”
Shiyk’yath’s eyes widened, and he looked down through the hole to the street below. “That’s a long way to fall and there’s no way I can climb down that in the shape I’m in.” He looked up at Che-su. “How are you going to get down there?”
Che-su hobbled to the hole in the wall and peered down at the wet pavement. “Everyone grab a tunic or robes.”
Alizadeh and Shiyk’yath darted to the hooks, each snatching an arm full of clothes.
“What are you planning?” Sifa asked, staring into Che-su’s eyes, placing her hand on the old woman’s twisted bony shoulder, squeezing it. “Ka-bes said it’s easier to descend slowly than to fly. Are you going to lower us?”
