Sisters in Fantasy

by Edited by Susan Shwartz

  Hallah Myur left, pulling out the sections of the blowpipe as she went, chanting Aezel’s litany under her breath: I mean no harm, I am only a messenger. Around the litany she thought: It’s going to be one holy mess when they find her among the missing. !Maytre! And on my head. Weasel face’ll make sure of that.

  A guard stood at the entrance to the GuestHouse, but a puff of kumunda dust sent him folding gently to the floor.

  “I mean no harm, I am only a messenger.”

  Hallah Myur hauled him up, propped him against the wall, his iron-bound batoule laid across his thighs. With a little luck, he’d wake confused and keep quiet about his lapse; guards who slept on duty got nine stripes from the kou and swelled like blowfish from the nettle soup the lash was soaked in. She’d seen it often enough. Kihyayti’an was fond of applying kou discipline to anyone who annoyed him.

  She slipped inside, moved swiftly and silently through the maze of halls until she reached the suite where the Membrudas were staying. The lamps had burned low, some of them were out in this back-of-behind area of the GuestHouse, and there were no Toyaytay servants about. The guests out here were barely important enough to be invited; they certainly weren’t going to be cosseted at the Alayjiyah’s expense.

  Her mouth twitched into a smile as she knelt and inspected the lock. Membruda’s Sons must be sore as snag teeth at treatment like this. “I mean no harm, I am only a messenger.” She inserted a pick into the lock and began feeling for the wards.

  When she was in, she stood for a dozen breaths with her eyes closed to regain her nightsight, then went looking for her daughter and her daughter’s daughter.

  7

  The second delivery

  Briony lay curled up on a pallet in a cramped cubicle with three serving maids; she slept like a small neat kitten, her mouth opening and closing in tiny sucking movements, her hands kneading at the pallet.

  Hallah edged past the maids and knelt beside the child. “I mean no harm, I am only a messenger.” Once again she peeled a pebble—a gray one striped with black—from its khihy leaves, then slipped it into Briony’s mouth, easing it under her tongue. “Come,” she murmured. “Come away, come away, baby.” She shivered as she took Briony’s hand. It was small and hot and a little sticky. She pushed away the things it made her feel and eased the spelled child onto her feet, led her out the door.

  It will be as if they walk in their sleep, Aezel said; keep them calm, talk to them as you would a fractious horse, and they’ll follow wherever you lead. But be quick about it. These ca’o‘in aren’t like the Yin Ma’-yin’s ca’o. They could trip alarms if the cursemen are awake enough. So hurry.

  “Wait,” she murmured when she reached Membruda’s bedroom. “Wait until I call you, Briony.”

  “I mean no harm, I am only a messenger.” She peeled the leaves from the last pebble, pushed it into her daughter’s mouth, wrinkling her nose at the stink of black rum. “Come,” she whispered. “Come away, baby. Follow and be free.”

  She stepped back, watched Rowanna crawl clumsily from the bed. No clothes. !Maytre! It only needed that. “Stay, baby,” she said. “Stand there while I…”

  Ardamoar grunted, mumbled, and groped about for Rowanna, not awake yet, but close…

  Hallah ran on her toes around the bed, laid her sap neatly alongside his head, muttering, “I mean no harm, I am only a messenger.” He grunted again, went limp. Hastily she thrust her fingers under his jaw, relaxed as she felt the pulse beating strongly. “Wait. Be quiet. No need to fuss.” She darted around the bed again, heading for a chest by the door and almost tripped as her foot caught in a pool of cloth. She swept the thing up, shook it out. Bedrobe. Thick wool and dark. No wonder I didn’t notice it. !Maytre! it’s amateur time…

  Rowanna was more than three spans taller than she, but she got the robe over her daughter’s head, her arms in the sleeves, and tugged her down so she could tie the lacings at the neck, her fingers faltering as memories fought to surface. She forced them down and finished the job. “I mean no harm,” she murmured again, “I am only a messenger. Good. You’ll do for now. Come, baby, come, follow me, come, sweetee, Mama’s going to take you home…”

  There was tension in the air as she tolled the two through the hallways of the GuestHouse. The Curse was stirring, they were an irritant inside it. She hurried as much as she dared, murmured words flowing in a muted stream to draw the sleepers after her.

  Yawning and scratching her head, a maid stepped into the hall just as Hallah came ghosting along. The girl gaped, started to yell, collapsed in a heap on the floor as Hallah used the sap again.

  Witnesses everywhere! !Maytre’s Nails! even when I was a greenling, I never laid a trail like this.

  “As soon as you’re out,” Aezel had said, “go straight east through the Gardens until you reach the river. We’ll be waiting for you there.”

  “Come, babies, come, steady now, step and step, one foot swings, the other follows, come babies come…” Hallah Myur had no magic in her, only dry precision and an obsession with detail, but it didn’t take magic to smell the Curse or feel it seeking them. A long time ago, just after she’d started Guild training, she’d been trapped underground with a huge cave spider, white as death and blind. She’d never forgot the way it turned and turned on those hideous white legs, searching for her.

  They moved through the heavy, oscillating shadow beneath the trees, shadow broken by the tall lamps set at intervals throughout the Garden. “Come along, babies,” Hallah murmured. “Quiet and quick, come along, babies, come ah come…”

  The pressure from the Curse grew stronger; the air was thick with the stink of threat. The bubble was close to popping. Any minute, something could happen…

  Hallah Myur rounded a large thorny bush, whipped up the blowpipe, and puffed the black dust at the curseman before he got his bones lifted; in almost the same move, she flung a waxy breakstone at his middle. It caught him in the diaphragm, knocked the wind out of him, forced him to breathe in the dust.

  The Curse twanged.

  Hallah swore and dropped to her knees as a sudden gust of wind blew the cloud of dust back at her. She switched ends and scrabbled for Rowanna, but she was too late. Her daughter got a whiff of dust and folded gracefully to the grass. Briony was off to one side and farther away; the backblow missed her.

  The twanging increased enormously, the soundless sound hammered at Hallah. Briony trembled, blinked blind, blank eyes. She started away, hands groping before her.

  The drums in the drum tower began sounding. Men were shouting; there was the clank of metal on metal.

  “!Maytre!” Hallah ran after the girl, brought her back to Rowanna’s limp body. “Stay there.” She caught hold of Rowanna’s wrists, hauled her up until she was sitting. Grunting and straining, she got her daughter over her shoulder and staggered to her feet. She bent her knees, straightened, bouncing her daughter on her shoulders, shifting the weight to a marginally better balance. “Come along, baby,” she sang, and reached for the child’s hand. “Come, baby, come with Mama and Gramma, come baby, come… gods, daughter, you weigh a ton, come, baby, come, easier to carry you last time we were together, come, baby, come, I wish, I don’t know what I wish, come, baby, come, quiet and quick, sweet and saucy, come, baby, come…”

  The smell of the garden changed to the wild forest odors she remembered from the tavern bedroom. Grey-white forms flitted through the trees; elongated and eerie, they circled around her. She kept moving and tried to ignore them.

  The drums grew muted, all sounds were muted, the trees turned translucent and insubstantial; she might have been moving through a dream.

  Her knees hurt, her back hurt, she was straining for breath, sweat dripped into her eyes, and the dream went on and on; she didn’t know how long, time was elsewhere.

  Aezel stepped through the ring of shades. He lifted Rowanna from Hallah’s shoulder, cradled her in his arms, her red hair like a fall of fire. He smiled. “It’s only a few steps more
.”

  8

  Fly on a long leash

  The river flowed around the sandy spit, silent and powerful, black ink in the clouded moonlight. A single oak leaned out over the water, roots exposed, the earth washed away on the riverside. Rowanna lay on the sand; Briony stood beside her.

  The moonwraiths wavered in the shadow of other trees, nervous pillars of mist, their features smudges of gray on curdled white.

  Aezel and Thonsane stood together, hand in hand, spoke together. “Hallah Myur, you must be behind us. What comes is not for you.”

  Weary in body and mind, Hallah walked into the shadow of the oak. She lowered herself onto one of the roots, sat with her hands on her thighs, waiting for the thing to be finished.

  Their braided voices riding on the rising/falling drone of the moonwraiths’ hum, Aezel/Thonsane intoned, “You who walk the Dark Ways, I and I are the Opener of Doors, I and I call to you, O Sulkahayn, O Pathspinner. Open the GhostWay. I and I call to you. Show the DarkPath to this mother and child.”

  A knot of darkness deeper and blacker than the night expanded into a tall oval, and a path black on black shone without light.

  Hallah shivered as Rowanna rose to her feet and with Briony turned to face the Door.

  “The Way is open,” Aezel/Thonsane sang. “Go into it.”

  Rowanna and Briony stepped into the dark and glided away.

  Hallah watched, thumb rubbing nervously across her fingers; it seemed to her they took only a single step, then they were out the far side, standing on a mountain slope in early morning sunlight, looking down into a valley filled with springtime. A small neat village was tucked into a bend of a blue, bouncing river winding through the valley. Smoke rose from the chimneys, and children were bringing in cows for the morning milking.

  A tall woman stepped from behind a tree, held out her hand to Rowanna, spoke. Hallah couldn’t hear the words, but she could see Briony smiling.

  The Dark Way closed.

  The wraiths faded into the trees.

  Thonsane left without speaking.

  Aezel came to squat beside her. “Is it well-done, Hallah Myur?”

  “I suppose. They’ll be cared for?”

  “Yes. Did you want to go with them?”

  “No. What I am, I’m not ashamed of it, but…” She shook her head. “What now?”

  “There’s a ship waiting out there”—he nodded at the river—“it’s sending a boat for you. It’ll take you to a city called Gorjo Xil. Wait there till we call you to service.”

  She thought briefly about asking him why he and his had worked to bring war on this land—because it would be war when the Vramheir of the Pearl Isles found his bride had run out on him—but she was too tired to care. “The Guild will be hunting me.”

  “There’s gold waiting on ship; use it to dig yourself a hole.”

  Wearily she shook her head. “No hole would be deep enough. It’ll take them awhile to sort things out, so I should be safe for a month or two. After that, I’ll have to keep moving.”

  “We’ll work that out.” He touched her arm, stood. “The boat’s here. It’s time to go. Farewell, silver Hallah. We’ll play again.”

  “I’d like that, gold Aezel.” She gathered herself, stood without touching the hand he held out, and walked down the sand to the boat with its dark oarsmen. Before she waded over to it, she turned, saluted him. “Farewell and take care,” she called. “I will win one of those games. One day.”

  Wayfinder

  Janny Wurts

  In heroic and high fantasy, the questing hero has a counterpart—the questing heroine, who seeks not only help for her people, but a value for herself. Tough, unselfish Sabin, apprentice to a hard life, is an excellent example of the breed. But, as you might expect, having set up that pattern, author Janny Wurts transcends it, liberating Sabin to find her own way.

  Ciondo had blown out the lanterns for the night when Sabin remembered her mistake. Lately arrived to help out on the sloop for the summer, she had forgotten to bring in her jacket. It lay where it had been left, draped over the upturned keel of the dory; wet by now in the fog, and growing redolent of the mildew that would speckle its patched, sun-faded shoulders if someone did not crawl out of warm blankets and fetch it up from the beach.

  The wind had risen. Gusts slammed and whined across the eaves, and moaned through the windbreak of pines that lined the cliffs. Winter had revisited since sundown; the drafts through the chinks held the scent of northern snow. The floorboards, too, were cold under Sabin’s bare feet. She looked out through the crack in the shutter, dressing quickly as she did so. The sky had given her a moon, but a thin, ragged cloud cover sent shadows chasing in ink and silver across the sea. The path to the harborside was steep, even dangerous, all rocks and twined roots that could trip the unwary even in brightest sunlight.

  Stupid, she had been, and ever a fool for letting her mind stray in daydreams. She longed to curse in irritation as her uncle did when his hands slipped on a net, but she dreaded to raise a disturbance. The household was sleeping. Even her aunt who wept in her pillow each night for the son just lost to the sea; Sabin’s cousin, who was four years older than her undersized fourteen, and whose boots she could never grow to fill.

  “A girl can work hard and master a boy’s chores,” Uncle Ciondo had summed up gruffly. “But you will never be strong enough to take the place of a man.”

  Yet the nets were heavy and the sloop was old, its scarred, patched planking in constant need of repairs. A girl’s hands were better than going without, or so her mother insisted. Grudgingly, Uncle Ciondo agreed that Aunt Kala would do better if an empty chair no longer faced her through mealtimes. Sabin was given blankets and a lumpy cot in the loft, and cast-off sailor’s clothing that smelled of cod and oakum, poor gifts, but precious for the fact they could ill be spared.

  Her lapse over the jacket could not go unremedied.

  She fumbled and found her damp boots in the dark. Too lazy to bother with trousers, she pulled on the man-size fisher’s smock that hung halfway to her knees. The loose cuffs had to be rolled to free her hands. She knotted the waist with rope to hold it from billowing in the wind, although in the deeps of the night, no one was abroad to care if she ran outside half-clothed.

  The board floor squeaked to her step, and the outer latch clanged down as she shut the weathered plank door. “Sabin,” she admonished as she hooked a heel on the door stoop and caught herself short of a stumble, “Don’t you go tripping and banging, or someone will mistake you for trouble and shoot you in the back for a troll.”

  Except that no one in her village kept so much as a bow. The fisherfolk had only rigging knives and cutlery for the kitchen, and those were risky things to be throwing at trolls in the dark. Given any metal at all, and a troll will someday do murder with it; or so her mother used to threaten to scare out her habit of mislaying things. Sabin sighed at her failure, since her jacket was not hanging as it should to dry on the hook by the hearth.

  Cloud cover smothered the moon. Past the garden gate, the trail to the sea plunged deep into shadow. She stubbed her toes on corners of slate, and cursed like a fishwife, since her uncle was not there to scold. The path switched back once, twice, in tortuous descent. Westward it was faced by sheer rock cliffs, moss-grown, and stuffed with old bird nests in the niches. The moon reemerged. The pines that clawed foothold in on the lower slope moaned in the lash of the winds, their trunks in stark silhouette against silver-lace sheets of spent breakers as they slid in fan curves back to sea. Sabin tossed tangled hair from her eyes. The night was wild around her. She could feel the great waves thud and boom over the barrier reefs even through the leather of her bootsoles.

  A night to bring boat wrecks, she knew, the sea in her blood enough now that her ear had attuned to its moods. She hurried as the slate path leveled out and gave way at last to sand, ground of the same black stone, and unpleasant with chill in the dark. The last fringe of trees passed behind, and she started
across the crescent beach. The moon went and came again. Out on the reefs, the high-flying spindrift carved up by the rocks tossed like the manes of white horses; great herds there seemed to be, galloping with arched necks, the surf roll became the thunder of churning hooves. Sabin forgot the folly of the daydreams that had forced her out of bed. As if someone’s voice had addressed her, she stopped very still and stared. For a second the horses seemed real. There, the red flare of nostrils in the moon-whitened planes of wedged faces, and now, a ringing neigh on the wind that tore past her ears.

  Impossible, she insisted, and yet—

  A cloud scudded over the moon. Her wonder vanished, and she chided herself. There was nothing. Only the tide-swept sand of the beach and herself, a scarecrow figure of a girl with mussed hair and no sense, gawping at a span of wild waters. The village idiot knew horses did not run in the sea. Sabin shivered and felt cold. The dory lay beached above the tide-line, a brisk walk distant up the beach. She turned that way, determined to fetch back her jacket without another lapse into silliness.

  But before she had gone half the distance, something else caught her eye in the surf. Not a horse, but a dark clot of rags that at first she mistook for flotsam. Then the crest of a wave rolled it over, and she saw a man. He was floundering to keep his face above water, and only a hairsbreadth from drowning.

  Fear and memory drove her. She spun and plunged into the sea. Cousin Juard had been lost to the waves, ripped from the decks of her uncle’s boat during the fury of a storm. As the racking, retching coughs of the man who struggled reached her, she wondered if Juard had died as miserably, his body bent into spasms as the cold salt water stung his lungs.