by NS Dolkart
They really were the best of friends. Goodweather was just the right age where they could pretend they were sisters, even though Criton’s daughter was brown-skinned and Dragon Touched, and Delika was neither. They were barely six years apart – not quite that, even. Delika was not yet eighteen, after all, and Goodweather was already twelve.
The thing Delika adored most about Goodweather was the way the younger girl looked up to her. Goodweather was enthusiastic about being with her, unlike the other wives’ children who saw her as a caretaker. She made Delika feel clever and wise, not like some foolish child who didn’t deserve Criton’s attention. With Goodweather, Delika could be the elder who was admired, without having to aspire to any dubious higher maturity.
Goodweather was very much her mother’s daughter – at least, that was what Criton always said. She was quick to judge people, for good or ill, and she had a tremendous amount of confidence in herself. Delika did too, so they got along splendidly – dangerously, even. They had a tendency to encourage each other a bit too much and had nearly drowned once, when Delika had tried to wade across the river with Goodweather on her shoulders. A few visits back, Delika had taught her how to make a reed flute and how to play one – though to tell the truth, neither of them was very good at it. Goodweather, in return, had tried to teach her some magic to alter her body, but either Delika was incapable of magic or else Goodweather’s instructions had simply been too garbled and childlike to follow.
Hopefully this visit would go well. Hopefully Goodweather would forgive Delika for marrying her father.
Delika finished sewing a torn bedsheet and picked up another item from the pile: one of Papira’s lighter dresses. Sewing was one of her least favorite chores, but it did beat working in the hot sun.
A sudden thunderclap made her prick her thumb on the needle and drop her work. It was soon followed by a second, near and loud enough that instead of sucking on her bleeding thumb, Delika brought both hands up to cover her ears. How could there be thunder when the sun was shining so bright?
She turned to look out the window just as the wind slammed the shutters closed. She rose and went to push on them, but at that moment the wind changed direction and tore them away from her, nearly causing her to fall out. Delika reeled and grabbed hold of the sill to steady herself. Then she looked up, shrieked, and backed away from the window.
4
Vella
Vella hated these visits almost as much as she loved them. She loved her parents and her brother, and it was nice to be treated as an exalted guest nowadays, especially after the first visits had been so fraught. That had mostly been Grandma’s fault: despite loving her granddaughter, Grandma Hessina had felt that her position required her to punish Vella as an aberrant adulteress. Several times she had openly considered having her granddaughter lashed or beaten, but Vella’s parents had always been able to talk her down. Now Grandma – may her memory be a blessing – was gone, and since the high priesthood had passed to Father there had been no more talk of punishment.
Father’s permissiveness had had a wondrous effect on the people of Salemica. The last time Vella had visited her parents, a man had stopped her at the market and thanked her for what she had done. She had stood there, blinking, as he told her of how her influence on her father had allowed him and others to live as themselves, without fear of a religious mob. Kilion’s blessing was seen as a mark of God Most High’s will, and so, simply by marrying Bandu and retaining her father’s love and protection, Vella had set a hidden people free.
But it was no longer the threat of violence that led Vella to hate these visits. No, she hated them because they inevitably brought her face-to-face with Criton.
Vella despised Criton. His spirit had hung over her relationship with Bandu since the very beginning, when she had feared that Bandu might return to him. That danger was long gone, but Criton was slowly stealing Bandu away anyhow: she was giving her life to him, year after year.
Eleven years ago, Criton had been killed before he could finish arranging a peace treaty between the Dragon Touched and Ardis. To save Vella’s people, to make the world a safer place for Goodweather, Bandu had journeyed all the way to the underworld, to the sea of the dead, to retrieve him. The price was that for every year Criton gained, Bandu lost one of her own.
Bandu and Vella had both been teenagers when they first met. Now the first of Bandu’s hairs were turning gray. How long before they all went? How long before her strong, beautiful body began to grow weak?
At first, the differences had been subtle. Bandu was not as scrawny as she had once been, but then, neither was Vella. But with each passing year it became more pronounced. Anyone could see now that the two of them weren’t the same age anymore, though Goodweather was still too young to think anything of it. That would change too, sooner or later.
Vella hated Criton for taking these years from Bandu. She hated the way he asked after her longingly, as if he hadn’t already taken too much of her precious time for himself. He was a selfish man, and the worst part was that he didn’t realize it.
She knew these visits were good for her daughter, though. Goodweather loved her father, and she was close friends with Delika, the girl he had raised to worship him. For all Vella’s distaste and for all her resentment, she couldn’t begrudge her daughter’s happiness. Let Goodweather grow out of these people on her own, if she ever would.
Goodweather was growing giddy as they neared Salemica, bounding toward the city like a puppy. She was so cute; always had been. She reminded Vella of all the things she loved most about Bandu: her confidence, her unapologetic vigor. She was so full of life, it was a wonder she didn’t burst.
Salemica had come into view a mile back, rising out of the plains. It was a striking city, its wall of dark Ardisian stone standing in such contrast to the wheat fields surrounding it. The dry months were a good time to visit, when there was less fieldwork to be done and Vella could leave Bandu to tend the garden without help from her or Goodweather. Bandu had been a forager in her youth, not one to cultivate her own vegetables, but Vella had taught her and over the years it had more than paid off. Bandu had a knack for making plants grow. She would talk to them whenever she was in the garden, and whether this was a form of magic or only a way to pass the time, it worked wonders. Bandu could bring the puniest seedling back from the brink of death and make it yield the finest fruit.
The dry season wasn’t without work, of course. There were plenty of people out in the fields and orchards even now, herding their animals or gathering the figs and apricots of summer, but come harvest time Vella and Goodweather would journey back through fields swarming with workers. There would be tents here then, so that the men and women of Salemica could save themselves the time that it took to go from their houses to the fields. Nearly the entire city emptied out at harvest time.
But not Vella’s family. Her father was high priest now, and was not permitted by the old laws to own land. Instead, the townsfolk brought all their sacrifices to him, from which his family was allotted a portion. Vella’s parents ate well.
Goodweather was bounding ahead again. “Slow down,” Vella called to her.
She turned around, their beautiful girl, her face radiant. Goodweather had inherited her simple, joyful smile from her father, along with her nose and forehead and, of course, her scales. Those golden scales and her dark brown skin complemented each other perfectly, so much better than Vella’s did. She kept her hair short like her mother’s, but it was still long enough that Vella could braid it tightly to her head in narrow plaits. Bandu’s friend Phaedra had taught Vella that style some years ago, before her voyage east. Perhaps it was a mother’s bias, but Goodweather was a joy to behold.
Goodweather caught her mother’s expression and sighed. “What?” she said.
Vella never got the chance to answer. Before she could even open her mouth, there was a deafening crack from above and the whole sky began to shake.
Winds assaulted Vella f
rom every direction at once; passing clouds cracked and burst open; even the sun jiggled dizzyingly. Rain and hail fell from blue skies in confused patches, as if slipping through cracks in a ceiling. A vulture, king of birds, was torn to pieces overhead, showering Vella and her daughter in blood and feathers. Vella fell to her knees, too stunned even to pray. It didn’t matter that the ground was perfectly still – it was impossible to keep her balance with the heavens shuddering above her. She covered her ears with her hands, trying to blot out that terrible sound of the sky apparently grinding against something. The earth felt firm and stable beneath her, but that only made the jerky movements of the sun and clouds more nauseating. More birds kept falling out of the sky, some broken and some intact, all buffeted this way and that throughout their descents.
Vella squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for it all to end, drawing strength from the earth’s stability. The vertigo eventually receded, though the ringing in her ears remained. When the wind died down, and its direction became steady once more, Vella opened her eyes. She looked first to Goodweather and was relieved to see the girl sitting up already, looking sick and frightened, but uninjured.
“Thank God,” Vella muttered to herself, and found that she could not hear her own words. Oh God Above, would she be permanently deaf? That impossibly long thunder, the grinding, must have damaged her sense of hearing. Would it ever recover?
All she could do was hope.
She gave Goodweather a hug, thankful that her daughter was apparently no worse than shaken. The birds that had survived their falls were now recovering and taking flight, but other effects of the bizarre quake remained: the few clouds had somehow shattered into pieces, their jagged edges only now beginning to soften and fray. How could a cloud break? What was this thing that had happened?
Father would know. He must know. God Most High was too merciful to keep His high priest in the dark about something like this.
“Let’s hurry,” Vella said, and was relieved to hear herself this time, muffled though her words sounded.
They raced through the fields toward the gray walls of Salemica, Goodweather keeping pace with her mother – she was growing into quite the runner, that girl. They were joined in their hurry by every farmer in sight, all headed for the same place: the temple of God Most High.
Through the gates and into the heart of the city they went, passing wooden houses and plots of vegetables, the former beginning to encroach on the latter. Salemica was a young city, and every time they visited they found it bigger than before. There was a thriving market that had arisen in response to the influx of gold tribute from the south, and a community of artisans had built itself around the needs of the temple. And yet even last year, before this terrible and frightening omen, there had been a rising tension here. The fifteen-year treaty with Ardis was entering its twelfth year – soon the shipments of stone and gold would end, and Salemica would have to stand on its own feet or else go to war again in the hopes of a more lasting victory. To his credit, Criton would not entertain that second option. To their detriment, the rest of his people already had.
There was an unmistakable buildup of arms in the city. Spears were common as walking sticks, and there was a beautifully painted shield outside the cooper’s door showing off his handiwork. Just seeing it there put Vella on edge.
By the time they reached the temple of God Most High, the crowd was almost too thick for them to push through. The whole city was crying out for answers. Vella held tightly onto Goodweather, claw to claw, and pulled her toward the house of their God, which was also Vella’s father’s house.
The temple of God Most High was made not of wood or stone, but of enormous bricks dried from the clay pits west of the city with straw from the first harvest after the city’s founding. Vella’s grandma Hessina had insisted that only worshippers of God Most High could be involved in building His temple, so stone from Ardis was forbidden. Therefore, where the rest of the city was gray stone and brown wood, the temple of God Most High was red.
It was also huge. Long steps led up to a base half an acre in size, and in the center of this foundation stood a second building, the core rooms of the temple housed within it. But at the edge, right before the steps, stood the altar, and atop the altar, shoeless, stood Vella’s father.
A hush went through the crowd. Kilion’s voice had never been loud, though he spoke clearly and precisely, so the ears of the multitude had to strain to hear him.
“I have seen what you have seen,” Vella’s father said. “A time of judgment is upon us, possibly the last. God Most High is judging the heavens above and us below, and this omen is His warning. We must all fast tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day. Do not feed your animals, or work them in the fields, only pray with me that our God will be merciful as He always has before and choose to spare us. Tomorrow morning, each clan should bring an offering to be raised to God Most High.”
From there, he led the people in a set of familiar prayers to the might and glory of their God, urging Him to take their side against all enemies. Vella was pleased to see Goodweather joining in despite her visible disappointment. In the past, Criton had always feasted his eldest daughter’s arrival. Goodweather had been looking forward to this ritual, and now it would be ruined by a fast. Vella felt sorry for her.
She felt sorry, but she also knew what she had witnessed. Things might seem like they were back to normal, but to believe in that normality would be ridiculous. Vella had heard the grinding from above and seen the sky shake; she had watched clouds and birds get torn to jagged pieces – these things were decidedly not normal. There was something horribly, fundamentally wrong with the world right now, and she desperately hoped that God Most High would put it to rights.
When the prayers were finally over and the crowd began to disperse, Vella and Goodweather climbed the temple steps toward Vella’s father. He gazed down upon them, joyful at their arrival despite his obvious weariness.
“You are safe,” he said, when they were almost at the top. “You saw the quake on your way here?”
“Yes,” Goodweather said. “It was really scary. But couldn’t the fast wait until tomorrow? We’ve been walking and walking, and I’m hungry!”
Kilion gazed down at his only granddaughter with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Goodweather. You’re of age this year. We cannot exempt our own.”
“Criton usually feasts her,” Vella said.
“He does, yes. Well, your feast will have to be postponed, sweet one, but I’m sure it won’t be abandoned altogether. Your father loves and misses you too much to cancel a celebration of your presence. Would you come in for a bit while you wait for him?”
They accepted the invitation and followed him into the temple, where Mother was waiting with open arms and, behind her, Malkon sat polishing the formal silver breastplate and the various implements of sacrifice that Father would be using tomorrow.
“Uncle Malkon!” Goodweather cried, leaping into his arms almost before he could put down his work. Vella’s brother laughed delightedly and rose, carrying Goodweather with him.
“She grows bigger every year,” Mother said to Vella.
Vella sighed. “It’s true.”
Malkon was swinging his niece around now, while she shrieked with feigned terror. At last he put her down and said, “You’re getting heavy there, girl. What have your mothers been feeding you?”
“Food,” Goodweather said. “But I eat more here, except when there’s a fast.”
Malkon rolled his eyes. “You kids eat more when there’s a fast, just to make up for the rest of us. Come here, Vella.”
Vella gave her brother the hug and kiss he was expecting and fluffed his hair for good measure. “Goodweather’s twelve now, fuzzy head. She’ll be fasting with the rest of us.”
“Oh ho!” Malkon cried cheerfully. “Welcome to grown-up life, you big grown-up! And how about you Vella, how have you been? Everything all right with you and your hermit wife?”
“It’s all right,”
Vella answered, feeling only half truthful. She had never been able to bring herself to talk about Bandu’s aging curse – the curse that was Criton’s continued life. Bandu probably wouldn’t have minded – she had told her friend Phaedra about it, after all – but Vella had always felt nonetheless that it was not her story to tell. And, up until recently, one might not even have noticed how Bandu’s age was outpacing Vella’s. But with each passing year it became more obvious. Even happy, oblivious Goodweather would notice sooner or later, and Vella dreaded the day when her daughter would have to be told the truth.
It didn’t matter that Vella despised Criton. Goodweather adored her father, and she deserved to be able to love him without complication or guilt. Vella felt she owed her that much.
Malkon eyed his sister skeptically. “You don’t seem happy.”
“I am happy,” Vella answered. “We’re happy together. But how about you? Shouldn’t you be finding someone for yourself soon, you old man?”
Malkon smiled wryly. “An old man of twenty-four. No, I haven’t made any progress there. Maybe I should let them choose for me, since they have such strong opinions. He wouldn’t let me marry a plainswoman a couple months ago because of the priestly traditions.”
“Our traditions were the least of her problems,” Mother broke in. “Don’t go blaming the purity rules when the real trouble was that the girl was unpleasant.”
“She was very pleasant to me,” Malkon said, and their mother snorted so loudly that Vella couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, don’t you take their side,” he retorted.
“I’m not taking anybody’s side,” Vella said. “I don’t even know this person.”
“Do you think my father knows I’m here?” Goodweather asked.
“If he doesn’t,” Malkon answered, “he will soon. He’s probably just busy making sure all his wives and children are accounted for.”
