The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  “It’s interesting,” Liyan said. “I wanted to know if I could do it. Mar…That is, I’ve heard it said that the human creatures of WorldAbove have such devices. It should be possible to replicate them, to improve them. And besides…” And he stopped and stared at the hem of the Grass King’s robe.

  “Besides?” The Grass King said.

  Liyan looked up. “Those humans—they use clocks for other things, too. To measure the stars and the moons, to chart their movements. I want to know how that works. What it’s for.”

  “Water for power,” the Grass King said, “and for the study of the bodies of the air.” He considered Liyan, “Built with the substances of my realm by the skills of my Firehand. The project has merit.”

  Liyan said nothing aloud, but the tilt of his chin showed his confidence. The Grass King continued, “I shall come and inspect it.”

  “It’s not ready.” Liyan said. And then, “I wanted…That is, when it’s finished.”

  The Grass King nodded. “When it’s ready, then.” Liyan bowed. “Continue, Mo-Liyan. You may go.”

  “Sire.” This bow was the deepest, yet it was soon ended as Liyan whirled to head back to his work.

  As the screen closed behind him, the Grass King turned to Shirai. “Liyan has heard something of the doings of the creatures of WorldAbove. How is that, Mo-Shirai?” Yelena sat forward. Here it was at last, the danger.

  “I believe,” Shirai said, “that he has been talking with the human, Marcellan.” Yelena trembled.

  “Ah.” The Grass King folded his hands in front of him. “That explains the oddness that the stones speak of. It’s like him, of course. Liyan does have to know.”

  “Yes, Sire.” Shirai hesitated. “You did not forbid such discussions.”

  “Indeed. But I need to consider.” The Grass King rose. Shirai followed him. From the room beyond, servants scurried in, to clear the table, to hold aside the curtains, to assist in any way that might be required. Pattering feet hastened past Yelena’s hiding place; her shelter of leaves shook and shivered in the breeze of their passing. She hesitated, coiled, sprang for the deep shadows that clustered under the writing desk in one corner of the Cedar-Wood Breakfast Room. In its center, the Grass King halted and clapped his hands. Servants, Shirai, all came to a stop. The Grass King said, “I go to meditate in the Sandalwood Room. Do not disturb me. In the meantime, see that the human does not leave his assigned courtyard.”

  A flurry of bows, and the room emptied of all save the Grass King and Yelena. No cover between her and any exit. She pulled back into the darkness. The Grass King held out a hand. He said, “Will you come with me, littlest? You must be lonely without your twin.”

  Yelena shuddered. He had seen her. He had seen, he knew she was here and alone. Did he know, also, what she and Yelena had been doing these last weeks and days? He was warmth and comfort, familiarity and security and treats. He was the heavy hand of the earthquake and the roar of falling mountains. His touch could unmake her in a moment. He had ordered Marcellan confined.

  She gathered herself and ran, fast as she could, for the servants’ passage and its loose wainscoting.

  27

  Water-Ward

  JEHAN CAME TO A HALT on the riverbank, heels skidding a little on the loose gravel. A twin—he could not tell which—reared up on her hind legs and hissed at him. Her fur stood up. She was ready to bite. At her side, her sister crouched, flanks heaving. The air was sticky. Despite everything, despite the numbness that still haunted his flesh, he was sweating. His hair clung to his neck. Clairet nickered again, low and edgy. Behind him, the crystal trees shivered and muttered, scratchy notes striking off their leaves, setting his teeth on edge. The white woman thing lay beneath the surface of the water, eyes wide and staring, hands outstretched. All around her, the water swirled and tumbled. Her fingers were claws, biting into the currents. Her hair…Against all nature, it hung straight down, as if it would root itself into the riverbed. There was no sound save the susurrations of the leaves, no rush or slop of water. It pushed her, pinned her to its bed. Grains of dark sand washed over her, hid her pale limbs, beginning already to bury her. She did not struggle.

  She did not appear to be breathing. For an instant, he was trapped where he was. She was dangerous. Touching her hurt. She had battened onto him, stolen his warmth. And he was here to find Aude. Nothing in this place was safe. The woman thing was a diversion. Or, worse than that, a trap.

  And yet he could not just leave her to drown. If it were Aude, he would help her. Aude was lost. If she still lived—and he had to hope that—surely someone would help her if she were drowning. The twins had brought him this far. He could only do what he felt was right.

  He started forward. Something slammed into his shins. He staggered, feet slipping, and something else rammed him from the other side. He fell forward, hands flung out, felt the gravel sting in the cuts left by the leaf shards. The shock left him breathless. As he struggled to get his hands under him, a weight landed on the small of his back, pushing him down into the grit. He gasped, spat dirt. In his ear, a voice said, “Don’t.”

  More dirt worked its way into his mouth and eyes as he struggled to turn his head. Sharp points dug through the fabric of his jerkin. His eyes stung. The rough sand abraded his cheek and forearms. The weight held him down. Sore and breathless, he succeeded at last in turning his head a little. A twin crouched beside him, naked and feral. He hadn’t seen her change. Her beady eyes glittered. Her lips were drawn back from her pointed teeth. “No.”

  He could not speak. He could scarcely breathe. He struggled harder, and the weight on his back—the other twin, surely—dug in more. The twin by his ear hissed at him. He had no time for this. Beyond him, under the water, the woman thing was drowning. He twisted hard, jackknifed his knees upward. Bright pain scraped down his back as the twin riding him clung on. Another effort brought his elbows under him. The weight on his back shifted, sting of claws scrabbling and fading, as the one there began to lose her grip. He rolled, and she dropped. The twin beside him grabbed at his throat, dirty blunt nails seeking purchase. He jerked his head back, brought an elbow up to jab into her side. She pulled back and spat at him.

  Her sister bit him. He yelped and rolled again, came to his knees. Both twins were between him and the water, ready to attack. He said, “What is this?” No response. “She’ll drown.”

  “Can’t drown,” the human twin said. “Bad thing. Smells wrong.”

  He did not know what was good or bad here. He knew nothing at all of this place, only that he must pass through it and find Aude. He knew that he could not leave a woman to suffer, not here, not in the Brass City. Down here there was no one to command him, but he still had his duty to himself. And he was wasting time.

  He stood. Where the remaining channel of water had run lay a flat expanse of shining mud. No water, no movement, no white woman thing. Her sheet and his jacket lay where she had discarded them on the bank. He swallowed. Too late. He was always too late, now and for Aude at the Woven House. The twins turned slowly to see what held his gaze. The human twin said, “Good.”

  He said, “No.” And then, “You let her drown.”

  “Not drowned. Can’t drown. Dead thing.”

  He did not understand. His shoulders sagged, and he dropped to his knees. None of this made sense. It was never going to make sense. He looked again at the mud. Perhaps if he dug…He had nothing to use, apart from his hands. He did not even know exactly where she lay, even supposing he had any time at all in which to save her.

  The twin said, “Thing came from the wood. Nothing good comes from the Dead Wood.”

  He asked, “But why?” It could not be right. Surely the land didn’t consume those things that moved upon it? He remembered the desiccated thing from the Woven House and shivered.

  “Wood did not want her. Water did not want her. Wrong thing. Not thing.” The human twin rocked back and forward on the balls of her feet. “Not a…” She frowned,
looked down at her sister. “A shouldn’t thing. Shouldn’t be here. Smelled wrong, looked wrong, not proper.”

  He did not know what was proper here. He could see no difference between the woman thing and the flying creatures that had pursued the stone boat. He knew that once again they were short of water. He sat back on his heels and said, “And now?”

  She shrugged. “We go on.”

  That did not feel right. But the woman thing was gone. The human twin prodded at his fallen jacket with a toe. “Need to take this. It doesn’t belong here.”

  He didn’t want to touch it, not after the thing had worn it. He set his teeth and picked it up with a gloved hand. Something fell out of the pocket, bounced, and rolled to lie a few feet away. The ferret twin dashed after it, sniffed, pulled back as if stung. Her sister said, “What? What is that?” Her voice was sharp, anxious.

  It was the piece of stone he had picked up in the Stone House. Jehan said, “Nothing. Just a pebble.”

  “No!” The human twin glared. “Comes from WorldAbove. Binding thing. Outside thing. It shouldn’t be here.” She bared her teeth at him. “Why is it here?”

  “I found it, in your house.”

  “And brought it? Stupid. Stupid human.”

  He bent and picked it up. “It’s just a bit of rock.”

  “Rock from the Stone House. Shaped not to be here. Shaped to seal.” She exchanged glances with her sister. “Your fault. Called the wardens. Called the bad thing. Stupid human.”

  “I’m sorry,” He did not know what else to say. He had no notion of the rules that governed this place.

  “Hide it,” the twin said. “Wrap it, keep it hidden. Don’t touch it.” She turned her back to him. “And move. Must be fast, now.”

  The mud smelled bad. In that, at least, the twins had been right. Picking his way along the riverbank, Jehan wrapped his scarf around his face and tried to breathe shallowly. He had swathed the stone chip in a piece of cloth torn from his shirt and tucked it deep into a saddlebag. The mica forest gave way, slowly, to dry uneven scrub, studded with rocky outcrops and treacherous, half-hidden loose stones. The twins were twitchy, anxious, starting at his every slip and chivvying him on. The air was still and stale and warm, dusty and dry as the steppe. At his side, Clairet plodded, ears flat.

  A creature of dry bone and flesh that lived—or moved, at least. A boat of stone. A woman-shaped thing that clutched and clung and was eaten by a river that then turned into mud. They were fragments from a fever or the pages of some religious text. They were his life. He shook his head and kept on walking. The twins scurried ahead of him, both once again ferret shaped. From time to time, one of them stopped and peered at the river, ears flat. Then they hastened forward. He did not know what they expected, only that they feared it and their fear was contagious.

  His mouth was sour. Once again, he did not like to rinse it for fear of wasting what water they had left. He looked at the remains of the river. Mud squatted in the center of its bed, opaque and slick. There would be a way, somehow, of extracting water back from it. He was not sure he knew how. He was not sure, given its origins, that what he would extract would be water.

  The scrub rustled as they passed. Clairet snuffed at it, turned her muzzle aside. The low bushes were neither crystal nor living matter, odd spiny outcrops in gray and khaki and rust. Their roots meandered from rock to rock like conduits. The earth is growing… Jehan shook his head, and his scarf slipped. He inhaled a lungful of foul air and coughed. Stagnation and decay and corruption, the tastes of factory waste, of nightsoil, and the rotten effluent of the shambles. His eyes teared over. Catching a toe against the edge of a rock, he stumbled, staggered a few paces down the riverbank.

  The mud gurgled, low and thick. Jehan started, blinked. A few feet in front of him, the viscous mass stirred, quivering and roiling. He put his hand to his hip, where his sword should be, and realized that he had left it strapped to the saddlebags with the carbine and the larger canteen. Behind him, Clairet stamped. He took a step backward. The mud turned, rolled, heaved itself upward and struck at him.

  He leaped back and found the bank grown suddenly treacherous. Sand slithered under his feet, tugging him downward. He snapped, “Sword,” and remembered that Aude was not there to help him. Clairet whinnied, thin and high. The bank was shaking. Slabs of rock shuddered. Here and there, slices of them snapped and began to slide downward. Jehan teetered, right on the edge of the mudflow. He scrambled for purchase and found none. His heels were beginning to sink. Beneath him the ground was soft, sucking. A sword would be no use to him anyway. He’d do better with a shovel. He looked around, searching for anything that might help. A few feet away, the stump of a root protruded where part of the bank had crumbled. He bent his knees, braced against the shudder of the earth, and jumped.

  He slammed into the bank, knocking himself breathless for a moment or two. His hands scrabbled for the stump, knotting around it. The ground heaved under him, grumbling and creaking. Somewhere, a ferret scolded. Clairet whinnied again, louder. Hanging on to the root, he began to pull himself up.

  A slap, an oozy slosh, and someone cried out, an animal shriek of fear and pain. The mud stench thickened. A roil of dirty mist puffed up around him, making him gag. He strained, managed to get an arm up over the lip. Kicking and scrambling, he clambered over the edge.

  The mud had burst the bank seven or eight feet downstream. Long hawsers of it snaked outward around the trunks of the bushes, lapping at stems, reaching for sustenance. Clumps of it puddled, clogging and clotting. Gray bark sizzled under its touch. The ground twitched, trying to shake itself free. One long tentacle reached for Clairet, wrapped sticky fingers around her hock. Where the mud touched her, blood welled. Tongues of mud stretched upward, swelling with each droplet. Her front hoofs scrabbled as she strained to pull herself free. Flecks of soil puffed up and were absorbed by the mud. Even as he watched, its tendrils withdrew from the bushes, clotting into one heavy mass behind the pony. She began to slip backward toward it. Away to her right, the twins cringed behind a bush. Where the mud gathered, soil began to crumble. A second tongue snaked out, striking for the pony’s other hind leg. Her coat was wet with terror. With every second, she was dragged closer to the main mass.

  “No!” Jehan flung himself at the bonds that held Clairet, tugging and clawing. The mud seared him, rasped his palms with a thousand tiny thorns. He set his teeth against the pain. He had to free her. Blood trickled down his wrists, and the mud drank it. He clung on, heaved with all his strength, and the mud pulled him down, deep as his elbows. He hauled at it, twisting, digging his heels as hard as he could into the loose earth. He could not pull free. His nostrils were full of the smell of Clairet’s fear. His forearms burned as the mud ate its way through his sleeves. It slipped between his fingers, probing, lapping at his flesh, soft and moist and doughy. He shuddered from its touch. It clung to him, sucked as it climbed its way up his arms. Nothing worked. Nothing he did seemed to work here. He could hear Clairet’s breathing, harsh and panicked. He had to do something.

  His feet were slipping. Already he ached with the effort of holding on. There had to be something. He was trapped. He should have thought before he leaped in. Even if he had had his sword, there was no guarantee it would have done any good. Could something so soft be injured by a blade? The carbine had destroyed the desiccated thing in the Woven House, but this stuff was wet and yielding. Its smell was choking him. He coughed, trying to think. Mud was earth and water. He needed a broom or a shovel. He needed…what? Earth and water, earth and water…His head snapped up. He yelled, “The tinderbox! Get the tinderbox.” Behind their bush, the twins chittered in fear. He said, “Do it!” And then, as they still hesitated, “Now!”

  A twin—he had no idea which one—took a few steps forward, hesitated, and changed. Her brown skin was ashen, her eyes wide and terrified. She looked at him, shaking. He said, “In the saddlebag, on the left-hand side.” Still she hesitated. Clairet was mired now a
lmost to her haunches. The twin reached out a hand. Jehan said again, “Do it.”

  She scurried to the pony’s heaving side and untied the saddlebag. It seemed to take forever. Clairet whinnied, showing her teeth. The mud was almost to Jehan’s shoulders now. The twin dragged the tinderbox out and stood, staring at him. He said, “Now find something to burn.” She looked around her. He did not have time for this. He said, “Quickly.” From behind the bush, her sister chattered at her. She snatched at the nearest branch and twisted. It broke with a chalky snap. If it would not burn…He could not afford to think about that. His sleeves were long gone. He could feel the blood oozing from his skin. He dared not think about Clairet. His thick outer jacket was still strapped to the saddle. It was sure to burn. He said, “The jacket. Use the jacket.” The twin stopped her fumbling attempts to light the twig and grabbed the jacket. Fire leaped from the tinder to the garment. The quilting smoldered, crisped, and started to burn. Still, the twin stood, gazing at him. He said, “Use it.”

  She threw it at him. Instinctively, he ducked. The burning jacket landed on one edge of the clot of mud. He was half ready for it to go out or be swallowed. The mud slopped around it, touched its edges and recoiled. Jehan pulled backward, once, twice, harder than ever before. With a moist snap, his arms came free. He staggered, off balance, and collided with another low bush. He rolled to one side, catching his breath as dirt scraped in his abraded forearms. Coming to his feet, he snatched for the jacket. And swept it up over the mud that crept up and over Clairet. She whinnied, trying once again to bolt forward, eyes rolling. He could not take the time to calm her. The human twin stood, hands twisting, mouth open, useless. He snapped, “Grab her head.” She reached out, drew her hand back. Had he been closer, had he had time and reach, he would have slapped her. He growled at her between his teeth and swept the fire once again over the mud.