The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  The wind wound into her hair and tugged. She twisted. Pain scraped along her arms and neck. Her mouth was clogged. The earth hung onto her, held her tight, pulled her breath from her. The wind scrubbed at her. She would be pulled asunder; she would fracture and fly away. She fought to struggle, inhaled dirt and ice, felt her lungs cramp. No trace now of the cool green stream. The rice plants were dust. She pushed against the riverbed, felt her skin start to tear. The wind tightened its grip, forced her head back. Something slipped along her neck, cold as the wind, strong as the ground. She could smell sour yeast and dry orange. The grip on her was the same hard strength that pursued her through all her sour dreams of her shining place. Her heart pounded, fluttered, faltered.

  She summoned what strength she could and twisted. Pain shot down her left side as an arm wrenched free. Her scalp burned. She raised her left hand, groped for the grip about her neck. No substance met her fingers, only a chill, tingling deadness. She twisted again, felt her right side begin to come free. She coughed, struggled for breath, fought open her eyes. A hand—a true hand—caught at her chin and forced her head upward. She resisted, pushing down with all her might. The grip tightened. She squirmed and bit down hard.

  “Ow!”

  The hand let go. Her head snapped back and her eyes flew open to hot darkness. It engulfed her, clutching her as hard as the soil. She inhaled heat and coughed, body trying to jackknife. A weight held her down, crushing her chest. But, said Aude to Aude, I’m dreaming; this can’t be real; it has to be my dream again… In a moment she would wake up, and the bonds would be cramp and the earth just the smell of dirt that blew in from the window, all jumbled in with her old nightmare. She was in the Woven House; she had fallen asleep over her scrolls, that was all. She forced herself to concentrate, to ignore the pain, the clutching, the darkness. It fought to encompass her, to possess her. She set her teeth, knotted muscles, resisting from her very depths.

  Cold air, colder than the steppe, colder than any memory she had. It sliced into her, flaying, stripping skin and flesh from bone. She gasped and struggled and screamed.

  And woke, to find herself alone at the desk in the Woven House.

  In the Silver City most young people married in a temple. It was the custom, although Aude could count fewer than ten acquaintances who attached any real belief to the ceremony. Perhaps there were more believers in the Brass City. Certainly that was what was said in salons and at soirées. Imagine, the working people are so superstitious; they still credit all that temple nonsense. History was trade pacts and border wars, not talking rocks and living waters, however much she might want it to be otherwise. There had been no ritual at all to her marriage to Jehan. The Public Notary had witnessed their statements and put a seal to their wedding lines in Jehan’s cramped cell. It had been necessary, however much in her heart she yearned for the incense and bells of a temple ceremony. This marriage was about haste and secrecy. The Notary asked no questions; her money had seen to that. She supposed that, if she thought about it at all, he would have assumed she was pregnant. Ladies from the Silver City did not marry guardsmen in any other circumstance.

  The truth had been simpler. The wedding had solved two problems at once. She did not want to enter the gilded cage that marriage to her aristocratic fiancé promised. She had seen enough of the Silver City and its hollow ways. She was not so very far from her majority. Chin out and head high, she had sworn her freedom to wed before the notary without flinching. She would marry Jehan and go publicly to his bed, and let her uncle rant and rave as he wished. No scion of the aristocracy, however money-hungry, would want the shame of marriage to a woman who had openly preferred a low-ranked officer. Her uncle could try to break her marriage, but he’d find it nigh on impossible to find a new husband for her at any rank he approved. Jehan’s family was poor, but at least they were gentry, or what passed for it in the border provinces. Her uncle would have to make the best of it. If he could find her. Aude intended to make that as difficult as possible.

  As to the second problem…A man who married into a Silver City family would be allowed to leave the army quietly, without inquiries into his conduct and with all charges dropped. Anything else entailed too great a risk to the reputations of his senior officers. Aude’s family might only be two generations noble, but they were still noble enough for her threats to be taken seriously. The practicality of marriage had made sense to Aude when she made the offer, and, it appeared, it had made sense to Jehan.

  She did not speak to him of love. Not then, not in his small room before the official, nor yet the night after, as they lay together in the clean(ish) sheets of a dockside inn. But it was there between them, in the tightness of his hands on hers when she came with his captain to release him, in the catch in her voice as she spoke the words that bound her to him. She lay awake all that first night, alert for steps on the stairs, a knock on the door, anything that might tear her away from him before they had even had a chance. But in the gray light of first morning, as they dressed, she turned and laid one hand on his chest, over his heart. She said, “Jehan…”

  He placed his own hand over hers. “It’s all right.”

  They had passage booked on the first ship of the day. Her small bag—all she had been able to smuggle from the Silver City house with Ketty’s help—stood next to his strong saddlebags by the door. She asked, “What if we’re stopped? What if my uncle thinks he can hush this up?”

  Jehan lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss in the palm. “I promise I won’t let that happen. We’re together. We can do this.”

  No one waited to intercept them on the quayside, nor yet on the deck of the ship that took them east. Folded into Jehan’s arms, Aude watched the two cities fade into ghosts behind them. Her uncle could not know where she was headed. Not even Ketty knew that. It was her secret, hers and Jehan’s. Somewhere out there, beyond the estuary, out over the ocean, lay her answers: the origins of her family and her wealth. Somewhere, perhaps, lay her shining place. She told Jehan of that the first night shipboard in their narrow cabin.

  She had not thought to ask him about his beliefs. They had talked of the Brass City, of the Eschappés, of the conditions in the factories and workshops and docks, of the hardheaded merchants in their big houses and the careless aristocrats on their cliff. Faith, it seemed to her, had no space alongside such sour realities. The Brass City temples were dirty and poor, and those who attended them looked hopeless and worn. Nowhere, it seemed to her, had more need of the shining place than this, and yet there seemed to be no space for it amid all the misery. It seemed unlikely that his years in the Brass City had left Jehan with any faith in gods. The letter he had sent her child self had held no mockery.

  Now, however, he shook his head, said, “The gods aren’t the answer, Aude. Men have to help themselves.”

  “I just want to know.”

  He looked as if he would say something else, then thought better of it. Instead, he hugged her, and she let her head fall to his shoulder. He was here, he had agreed to her pilgrimage to find out where her family wealth had begun. She was not alone.

  It was enough. It had been enough through all the months of travel, by ship and horseback, all the way to this house of woven bamboo and walking, unnatural death.

  A dream, just a dream. Her throat was dry. Long tremors gripped her; her heart thudded in her ears. Aude gulped, tasted blood. Just a dream. Cold still held her, pinning her limbs. She tried to stretch, and pain shot down her spine. Cramp. That’s what you get for falling asleep at the desk. Her skin prickled with alarm. Something’s wrong… It was dark. Around her, the Woven House shook. The wind had risen, that was all. She could not quite believe it. Something felt wrong.

  The house groaned. Aude started upright, biting back a gasp of pain. So cold…Her layers and layers of garments clung to her like so many layers of ice. The wind thudded, pounded, bending the walls before it. Her fingers curled into her palms. Bamboo was strong, flexible; this house had been
built to withstand such battering. Its struts and beams creaked, the floor shuddered. On the desk, scrolls shifted, rippled. Two or three fell, breaking apart in clouds of reed fragment and dust. Her chair rattled, moaned, and cracked. She caught at the table, pulling it down after her as she toppled. Above her, the window shutters bowed inward, oscillated, and tore loose.

  Wind howled over her, snatching at her outer garments, ripping slats from the table, shattering scrolls, assaulting ears and limbs. She curled up against it and felt her thick felt coat tear. Bamboo fragments rained down, slapped her flanks, stung face and arms, tore clothes and hair. Icy air seared her lungs. She coughed, found her mouth filled with painful debris. Beneath her, the floor tipped, lifted, yawed. She struggled to her hands and knees, and the wind again kicked her flat. Jehan was out in this somewhere on the unprotected plain. The ponies…She had to move. The core of the house might be safer. At least it would place more barriers between her and this destruction. She crawled forward on her elbows, slowly, painfully. Shards of floor and wall snagged at her, scratching and tearing. She pulled against them, forcing herself on. The wind redoubled its efforts, banging and slamming and barging, deafening her, blinding her with debris. She dug her fingers into the floor as if that might save her and felt it give way. Claws of bamboo raked her as she tumbled. She landed hard and lay winded on the solid ground. Above her, the Woven House bucked and distorted. Flaps of woven panels tore free and cartwheeled out onto the steppe. Aude whimpered, wrapped her arms about her head as with a crash the old loom ripped through the floor and landed inches from her left side. Somewhere, horribly, a pony screamed. The world was coming apart around her, and she could find nowhere to hide.

  Something snatched at her arm. She shrieked, tried to roll away. It snatched again, closing about her wrist, iron-strong and bitter cold. She pulled back and it tightened, hurting her. Another snatch, and something—a hand? a root?—grabbed one of her ankles. She thrashed, trying to free herself. Her breath whooshed out of her as another bond wrapped about her middle, pulling her downward, grinding her into the earth. Her lungs burned, laboring through dirt and debris. Her captor tugged at her anew, slamming her face into the ground. The chain of her locket caught on something and broke. She wanted Jehan. She wanted to wake up and find this—all this, steppe and house and wind—no more than a fever dream. Another yank. She began to scream, and her mouth filled with soil. Not possible. The wind, the whatever-it-was was pulling her into the steppe, into that frost-bound, solid, impassable terrain. All around her, grit and dirt and ice crystals tumbled, scratching her face and forearms. She could see nothing, hear nothing, feel only the relentless grip, down and down and down…Her eyes stung with useless tears. She squeezed them shut. A dream. Only let this be a dream. Jehan should be here with her. He had promised.

  She landed with a hard bang, head ringing, breathless. Weight crushed her, chest and abdomen limp and immovable. There was a sour taste in her mouth, lemongrass and rust and her own blood. The weight on her shifted, bore down on her forearms. The darkness thinned slowly into sepia as she blinked grit from her eyes. She coughed, spitting dirt. Her body stung and hummed with pain, counting off to her its list of bruises and abuse. Her skin felt raw. The surface beneath her was rough and soft all at once. A dream and yet… She blinked, and her sight cleared. Above her a smooth pale ceiling curved upward. She could hear no wind: All was still and warm. The air tasted of spice cake and fresh bread and oranges. The shining place… It had to be a dream still. She lifted her head.

  Black eyes met hers, anonymous above a bronze-colored scarf. Something—someone—knelt over her, knees pinning her arms. Behind—above—three more figures stood. All were veiled and robed in mustard and bronze and green. All watched her.

  The figure holding her shifted and bent its head closer. There was another waft, this time of lemongrass and something else. The figure reached out a hand as pale as a cavefish and laid it against her cheek. She flinched at the chill in the touch. In a voice like winter, the figure said, “You’re ours, now, human thing. Welcome to WorldBelow.”

  It was no dream at all. She had found her shining place after all, and it had betrayed her.

  10

  The Voice of Water

  THE WIND BLUSTERED AND STUMBLED, kicked up dust, swirled, coughed and weakened. Fumbling, limping, it turned east, gentling back into its familiar paths across the plain. Dirt shivered, sieved out, casting new patterns over the dead grass. Here and there, larger fragments studded the landscape: shrouds of felt torn from the side of an old yurt, long ripped splinters of bamboo or wood, root balls. Watching from the highest window of the Stone House, Yelena pressed her nose to the glass, whiskers fanned wide. Behind her, Julana crouched on the floor, ears forward. “Cadre were hunting,” she said. “Riding the wind, chasing prey. Not rabbits.”

  “Not rabbits,” Yelena echoed. “Human thing. Cadre wanted it.” She sniffed. “Caught it.”

  “Cadre are gone now?”

  “I think so.” Yelena stared out through the glass. “Yes. Gone.”

  Up here, silence lay thick and full. The room, high under the eaves, was bare of furnishings. The twins seldom troubled to come so high; they rarely moved from the main room and their book. But “Up,” Yelena had said. “If we go up, we can see farther.”

  “Smell farther.”

  “Above the dust.”

  “Through the wind.”

  “We can see.”

  Now Yelena watched, and her fur quivered. Julana said, “Something comes. I hear it. I scent it.”

  “Dust clouds,” said Yelena. “Old rice and dust.”

  “Pony scent.” Julana’s nose twitched. “Hot and frightened.”

  “Pony scent,” agreed Yelena, “and man scent, too.”

  “Frightened.”

  “Alone and frightened.”

  “We smell him. We hear him.” Julana said.

  Yelena jumped down to join her, brown body against brown body. Under their dark pelts, beneath muscle and bone, their hearts quickened, matched beats. Their feet were silent on the wood floor; their toes mapped movement in the gray layer of dust. Whisker tips touched, mingled, noses tingled. Together, they began to sway, lithe, serpentine, bodies lifting, twisting, coiling as they wound in the threads, taste by taste, scent on scent. Pony, hot from running, rank with alarm, and, in counterpoint, the thin bitter tang of man. They learned him in their nostrils, on the wind, riffled through his fear and confusion, gulped down his thirst, shivered through his exhaustion, and, with each twitch and turn of their own flesh, threw out lures. Their intent whispered through the walls of the Stone House, downward and outward. Under the house, through the dark and the stone, memory awoke and drew water outward, upward, old bronze-colored water, pulled not from the earth but from the past. Up and up it rose, trickling in the grooves between flagstones, running along the skirting boards, pooling and rolling down into a trough sunk into the floor against the back wall of the scullery. The twins wove, eyes closed, pulling the voice of the water into their own silent calling, winding and binding it close, twining it out into the cold and the dark of the plain, paws close to the wood, the stone, the soil. Theirs this gate, this place, theirs this memory of water, theirs this soil to guard. The grasses bent before them, braided a channel for their summoning, routing it along the dry irrigation channels.

  The wind fell silent.

  Out under the hard sky, amid the shards of the Woven House, Jehan stumbled and fell silent, head hanging, throat raw. The pony nudged him; he staggered and dropped to his knees. Dead. Aude was dead, and he was alone in this wasteland. He had promised to keep her safe. He had indulged her across the long miles of their journey. He had left her alone for less than half a day, and she was gone. The pony dropped its nose into his face, pushing at him. He leaned into it, inhaled sweat and animal heat. They were all the life there was, he and this beast. Perhaps they were each other’s best chance of survival. Although with the little water that they had left
…He could not think of that now; he dared not. He pushed the nose away and hauled himself upright. Shelter, that was the next thing. Tomorrow they must begin to trace their way home.

  The pony nudged him again, this time more forcefully. He patted her, and she shoved him anew. They were downwind of the bloody rags of their companions. That would be upsetting to her, doubtless. They should move. He took a few steps; the pony followed him and once more shoved. Off balance, he rocked against her, and she began to steer him, drawing him west. Stumbling and limping, pushing and leaning, they fumbled down the slope from the Woven House back toward the dry watercourse. Step by step, the pony led him across the steppe, over the iron earth, to the bounds of the Stone House.

  In the attic, the twins stopped moving. Black eyes snapped open, whiskers quivered and snapped back. Three bounds took them to the threshold; flank to flank they looped and raced down the stairs, slithering on corners, bouncing from the edges of the banister. Their paws chattered and tapped across the stone kitchen floor, then skittered to a halt before the door.

  “Man,” said Yelena, restless with excitement. “Man here.”

  “Man and pony.”

  “We taste them. We smell them.”

  “We brought them. Ours, now.”

  “Ours.” In the dim light, their eyes were bright as flame. “Ours to command.”

  “Man,” Julana said. “Man to read our book. Marcellan’s book.”

  “Man,” said Yelena, “to take us home.”

  11

  Jehan and the Twins

  JEHAN’S HEAD HURT. No—all of him hurt. He was cramped and aching and chilled to his core; no part of him did not twinge and moan as he stirred. The surface beneath him offered no comfort to joints or bones. His throat felt rasped dry and sour. He swallowed painfully, tasted dirt and wool, inhaled.