Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  A small noise indicated that the girl had finished her business in the outroom, and remained standing by the door. Loriane couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Had she asked to carry his child, did he pay her, or—she cast Tandor a glance—had he played some sort of trick on her? How had he done it?

  Loriane, jealousy is an ugly emotion.

  “Come on, shut the door, come here and sit down. Let me have a look at you.”

  The girl sat down on Loriane’s old couch and folded her hands in her lap. No, wait, one of her sleeves hung empty; she had only one hand. The other ended in a stump just above the wrist. Oh. That explained a lot. Tandor had said something about other Imperfects during his last visit. It was so long ago, she struggled to remember what it was.

  Loriane kneeled on the carpet and pushed her hands under the girl’s dress. The skin on her belly tensed into a hard ball. The girl took in a sharp breath.

  “Does that hurt?”

  “A bit.”

  Loriane prodded the skin, feeling bumps of the child’s elbows and feet. “How long do you have to go?”

  The girl shrugged.

  “Do you know when you slept with a man?” She tried to see how Tandor responded to this question, but he had gone to the other side of the stove and studied the contents of her pantry, where she couldn’t see his face.

  “Many times,” the girl whispered. “My father didn’t like it, so we climbed into the hay loft. My father was furious when my belly started growing.” Her face crumpled. “I wasn’t the only one either, just the first one. Tandor says the Knights took the others to the City of Glass. Do you know where they are?”

  Others? A chill went over Loriane’s back.

  Just what had Tandor been doing?

  “The Knights discovered the sanctuary I set up for Imperfect children in Bordertown,” Tandor said, still speaking at the wall.

  Loriane could tell from the tenseness in his posture that this was important to him. So he had found himself a bunch of teenage lovers and was breeding an army of Imperfects?

  He continued, “That’s why I took her with me. The Knights didn’t take her because of her condition, but they will be back.”

  “So you brought her to the one place in the land that’s crawling with Knights. Some days you make so much sense to me, Tandor.”

  She pulled down the girl’s dress, a coarsely-knitted thing which barely fit over her stomach. Tears trickled down the girl’s freckled cheeks.

  Loriane hated herself for being so jealous, for admitting how much she had longed for him to come back. It had all been a waste of time.

  She rose. “Come.” And charged across the room.

  When he was a small boy, Isandor, with his peg leg, had fallen down the ladder to his sleeping shelf a few times, so her brother had built him proper stairs. The girl followed Loriane up these steps to where Isandor’s bed stood, untouched and musty. It was dark up here, and the air thick with rancid smoke from the lanterns. The light that reached from downstairs was feeble and orange.

  “Take off your clothes and get in the bed.”

  Loriane snipped another lantern into life as the girl obeyed. First she took off her cloak, her jacket and her dress. In the pale light, she looked like a misshapen troll. Too skinny.

  The girl hesitated. “Bottoms, too?”

  She wore a coarsely woven pair of shorts, tied with a ribbon under her belly. Her bellybutton stood out like a weak spot on a waterskin.

  “I’ll give you some clean bottoms.”

  Myra undid the ribbon and let the garment fall to the floor, not looking at Loriane. She wore a piece of cloth between her legs, covered with blood-streaked slime.

  By the skylights. “How long have you been bleeding?”

  “Started yesterday.” Her voice trembled. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t tell Tandor . . . Does it mean . . . the child is harmed?”

  Loriane picked up the cloth. The discharge was slimy, and brownish. “You’ve been having pains?”

  She shook her head. “Is that bad?” New tears threatened in her eyes.

  “I don’t think so. It just your body getting ready for the birth. It means that you will be having a child very, very soon.”

  “It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “If you panic and fight it. You should let the pains come over you and it will hurt a lot less.” But as skinny as you are, it will be a very hard job.

  The girl nodded but her face was pale. Oh, she was so young, and obviously no one had taught her anything about becoming or being a mother.

  Shivering, Myra slipped between the covers of Isandor’s bed. Loriane draped the blankets and Isandor’s bear skin spreads over her. Poor girl.

  “I’ll be back to bring you some soup. Eat it all. You will soon need your strength.”

  The girl nodded, but was already drifting off to sleep. Loriane guessed soup—and sleep for herself—would have to wait.

  Before going downstairs, she pulled the string to open an air vent at the limpet’s very top. For Myra’s health, air laced with smoke and smells would never do. Too many people died from stale air inside their limpets.

  Tandor paced around the stove.

  The orange light made his golden tattoos glitter. His hair was smooth and glossy, tied back in a loose ponytail from his face bronzed by the Chevakian sun. He was so handsome, so mysterious it made her heart ache.

  Tandor looked up to where she had stopped on the stairs, white-knuckled hands gripping the railing. There was a look of concern on his face, a look that said you-shouldn’t-be-doing-this-in-your-state. Loriane raised her chin, daring him to say it, but he didn’t.

  “I’m angry with you,” she said instead, still shivering. “You let that poor girl suffer. She’s scared and in pain. She needs a mother to show her what to do and I have no time—”

  “No, Loriane. I’m angry with you.”

  “Angry with me?” she whispered. “You are angry with me?”

  “About Isandor. I saw him this afternoon. He’s wearing a Knight’s uniform. What’s this, Loriane? How could you allow that?”

  “Allow it?” She gave a hollow laugh while trying to keep her voice down so Myra wouldn’t overhear. “You try and raise an adolescent boy alone and tell me how you can or cannot allow him to do anything. It was either the butcher’s or the Eagle Knights. It was his idea to sign up. I’m happy for him. The uniform looks good on him.”

  Next thing she knew, Tandor had crossed the room and was looming over her. His mouth trembled.

  “Looks good on him? By the skylights, looks good on him? Have you forgotten?” Spit flew into her face. “Have you forgotten who made me what I am, who killed my family and made me an outcast in my own country? Have you forgotten who is killing all people of my clan?”

  He had to take a panting breath.

  “No, I have not forgotten, but that’s your life, not his.”

  “It’s his life as much as it’s mine. I saved him. I asked you to keep him safe, and where is he? With the Knighthood by the skylights. He’s Imperfect, and the Knights will kill him. I don’t understand why they haven’t done so already.”

  “Times have changed, Tandor.”

  “They haven’t. What do you know about it? How could you let him join?”

  “Well, I never received instructions that he couldn’t. And I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted anyway. He’s a pretty wilful young man.” And much stronger than me, besides. Frankly, Isandor was starting to scare her, with the wild look in his eyes. Those times, she wondered who his parents were, and wondered why Tandor had brought him, red and screaming, to her door with the end of the umbilical cord still attached.

  “Just leave it, Tandor. It’s his life. What is it to you anyway? I’ve looked after the boy and you’ve never shown any interest in him. And now you have your little family . . .”

  Tandor’s mouth fell
open. Then he threw his head back and laughed, not a pleasant laugh. Loriane motioned for him to be quiet, gesturing upstairs to the sleeping shelf.

  He snorted. “So that is what you think? You think the damage the Knights did to me can be restored like that? Yes, Loriane, this is about family, but much wider than your narrow understanding of it.”

  “I don’t care about my narrow understanding of family! You intrude into my life, impose yourself on me, let me think you feel something for me, and then you think you can get away with this and I won’t mind?” She turned away before she would burst into tears and left the living room for the outroom, slamming the door behind her.

  She stood there, panting in the dark. Forget about him, forget him.

  She lit the wick and let its end sink into the oil reservoir of the light that hung next to the door. It was cold here in the washroom, and her breath steamed in the air. Tears were streaming down her face. She had been such a fool.

  “Loriane.”

  She gasped. “Will you stop sneaking up on me like that? In my own outroom?”

  “You’re not using it.” He glanced pointedly at the seat with the hole against the outer wall of the limpet’s double layer. Natural sculptures of glistening icicles dripped down the inner cladding.

  “I have used it.” Loriane raised her chin and stalked past him back into the warmth of the central room.

  Tandor spoke in a low voice. “Is that really what you think? That I have hidden all these young girls for my own fun and they’re carrying my children?”

  Loriane looked away. The accusation sounded silly when he spoke it aloud. She knew what the Knights had done to him, and if he’d been able to restore himself with icefire, he would have done so.

  Tandor pulled out a stool from under the bench and sat down.

  For a while no one said anything. The yelling and laughing of partygoers drifted in from outside.

  Then Tandor said, “The father of Myra’s child is a young man called Beido. He’s fifteen, like her, and one of my oldest charges. When the Knights came to Bordertown, he was taken with the others to the palace dungeons. Myra is very upset about it.”

  Loriane saw nothing except the flapping light.

  Oh, she had been such a fool. Such an incredible stupid, jealous fool. She turned away from him, straining to hold back tears. They came anyway.

  His arms closed around her.

  “Sorry, Tandor, I’m so sorry. I’m just a big emotional fool.”

  She leaned against his chest, listening to the heavenly sound of his heart beating. He stroked her hair. Everything was all right now. Things would be as they were before.

  “Loriane, did you think I had abandoned you?”

  “I shouldn’t have, but I did. You were away so long.”

  “I know, but I’m here now. I’m not leaving you anymore.”

  She turned and faced him, meeting his royal blue eyes.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I know.”

  His lips tasted salty with her tears.

  Chapter 8

  AT THIS TIME of the year, the land of the south knew no night. Day bled into dusk and slightly deeper dusk and then, slowly, the sun rose again.

  Sick of watching Loriane sleep, Tandor had gone outside at the first hint of sunlight.

  The drunken festival crowds had gone home, surrendering the streets to the humdrum of business: melteries replenishing their stocks of ice and distillates, cooks from the Outer City’s eating houses haggling over the last vats of saltmeat, because certainly, it would be the worst of shame to ask one’s customers to eat only tubers and beans, with the only sniff of meat that of the lard used to cook the pancakes.

  No. Must not think of food. His stomach had felt queasy for two days in a row.

  He yearned for freshly baked bread, and fruity muffins. Chevakian things. The food of his youth. He had become soft, corrupted.

  In the chaos of the markets no one paid attention to a noble roaming the stalls. Tandor pretended interest in the wares offered for sale, but he listened for anything that might be of use. From merchants, he learned that there were no games on today that Knights were likely to enter. It looked like they were right, because the eagle pens remained empty.

  Yet, he had to find a way to talk to Isandor, because without Isandor, he would need one extra Imperfect for his plan to get into the palace. There was no way he could get his hands on the other girl.

  He lingered at a stall where two men were warming their hands in front of a grill sizzling with battered pieces of saltmeat while discussing swimming races which would be held today. One man said that girls would win because they suffered less in the freezing water, to which the other man argued—

  “Excuse me, do either of you know what’s on tomorrow?” Tandor asked.

  Both men turned to him, eyebrows raised.

  “You’re not from here?”

  Tandor cringed. His accent always gave him away. I’m a blasted Chevakian. “I’ve been away.”

  “Good time to return,” one man said.

  “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day,” the other man added. “There’s the long distance race for the Apprentice Knights, and the choosing of the Queen’s Champion.”

  So— Isandor was likely to be back here tomorrow. He must find some way to talk to the boy and offer him something he could not refuse. But he had to be careful. He was not as young and strong as he used to be. As soon as he asked Ruko to help, Isandor would be suspicious. He was a trained Knight, and knew how to defend himself. On top of that, Isandor would be able to see Ruko very well, and with his interest in old books, Isandor might even know what Ruko was. Few books said good things about servitors, and fewer still fully understood the concept. That was one thing he would have to change, once he had his victory.

  Meanwhile, securing Isandor’s cooperation was going to be hard enough. Damn Loriane for allowing the boy to join the Knights. No, Tandor hadn’t forbidden it, because the thought that Isandor would want to join the Knights had never even entered his mind. Why would a Thilleian do such a thing? Did he have so little regard for his heritage?

  By the skylights, all his children were in prison, weakened, like Myra, or corrupted, like Isandor, and even Ruko.

  What a mess.

  Tandor arrived at the second-hand bric-a-brac stall that was run by a man who was an ordained member of the Brotherhood of the Light. Last time he visited the stall, probably a few years ago, the man had sold him some interesting material from the old royal family, which had probably come out of the palace. He still remembered showing his mother the purchases. She had gone all misty-eyed over a small bronze statue. I can still see it standing in his study. That statue now stood on her desk in Tiverius.

  “Can I help the dear sir?” a man asked.

  Tandor started and looked up into the bearded face. The stall owner had gone grey in those years, but this was indeed the Brother.

  “I bought something interesting from you a while ago,” Tandor said. “A bronze statue that belonged to the royal family.”

  The man obviously hadn’t recognised him before, but he so did now. His lips formed the letter O, but his eyes showed an emotion not quite so indifferent. Surprise? Fear? It was hard to tell.

  “Do you have anything new for me to look at?” Tandor kept his voice low.

  “No, no. I don’t have anything like that. It’s illegal. The Knights took all I had. I should have handed it in before—”

  “What sort of things?”

  “All sorts. The usual knick-knackery, plates, cups, some napkins with the royal crest. All gone.”

  “Books?” Those were the most precious. Those books should not fall into the hands of Pirosians.

  “Yes, there were books, but they’re all gone.”

  “You have nothing left?”

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing. It’s a disgrace. I’m an honest businessman. What harm can a few cups and s
ome forks do anyway? I mean—without the old royal family’s stuff, what would we have to sell? Nothing good’s been made since the Knights came to power. Nothing that people want to buy.”

  “Shhh.” Tandor waved his hand. “I agree with you, but saying it aloud is dangerous.”

  “Not here at the markets it isn’t. In most of the Outer City, it isn’t. Many people are fed up. We’ll no longer live in poverty while the Knights and nobles get everything. We’ll no longer have any children taken away from their mothers’ arms.”

  Tandor was surprised by the anger in the man’s voice. He didn’t know the resistance against the Knights had grown so much and was delighted with this turn of events. Maybe he didn’t need to go as far as snatching Isandor away from the Eagle Knights’ eyrie. There might be other Imperfects in hiding.

  He clasped his live hand in his claw behind his back, feigning a relaxed pose.

  “So,” he said and licked his lips. “If I were to tell you that someone who’s sympathetic to your cause might be looking for a person with a certain . . . imperfection, is there a chance I’d find such a person in the Outer City?”

  A shrewd expression crossed the merchant’s face. “There might be.”

  “Could you tell me?”

  The merchant glanced aside.

  “The Knights have been rather keen to investigate us. I was searched recently, and things were taken. We fear . . . a raid, maybe. We might be . . . interested if someone were to offer this person shelter . . . If there is a certain . . . remuneration.”

  “An Imperfect?”

  Another glance aside. “There’s a boy. He’s eleven years old. I’ve been expecting the Knights to get word of him soon. Rumour goes that you saved . . . others.”

  “This boy of yours, he’s in the Outer City?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your compound?”

  The merchant gave a single nod.

  Tandor considered his next response. At eleven, the boy was too young to be of much use, but it might be all he could get. He attempted some provisional calculations, but he couldn’t concentrate under the merchant’s hawkish gaze.