The Star Shard

by Frederic S. Durbin

  It wouldn't be easy.

  But she had an idea. She knew someone—well, sort of someone—who would give Gerta and Berta the time of day. Her tiredness retreated.

  Yes, a skulk-about was in order, after all.

  When the block was quiet, Cymbril hurried by the side corridors to a dim, unnamed branch off Tinley, where there was a row of three storage rooms. Their heavy iron-banded doors were kept locked, but crawling around between levels when she was seven or eight, Cymbril had found a way to come down inside the chambers from above. Each had a ceiling hatch and a ladder that seemed once to have connected with an upper story; but a new deck had been built over their tops, leaving only a cobwebby space just big enough to creep through on hands and knees.

  At first, Cymbril had been afraid of the rooms and avoided them for several years. A dusty mirror in the first chamber had unsettled her. Nor did she like certain disturbingly shaped pieces of furniture beneath moth-eaten cloth. The second room was packed floor to ceiling with trunks and boxes, all locked or bound with chains that Cymbril had never cared to try undoing. But the third held a jumble of more accessible objects: lenses on hinged arms, rolled-up maps, glass bottles in an array of colors and designs, books and tins, barrels of metal parts.

  Rombol had seen to it that Cymbril knew her letters early in life, for many of the songs she might sing were written down. But unlike most books, the ones crowding the shelves in the locked room and stacked to its ceiling in places didn't appeal to her. Most were in other languages, and some held nothing but numbers and shapes. The pages smelled musty—and some had worse odors, as if they'd been doused with chemicals or kept in a cupboard where food had rotted. Nearly all the tomes, on the first leaf inside the cover, had been embossed with a stylized letter R, which Cymbril assumed must stand for Rombol. When she had come to a leather-bound volume filled with drawings of terrible monsters, she snapped it shut and gave up on the books.

  A far better discovery had awaited on a small round table covered with a fringed cloth. Centered on the table sat a beautifully carved wooden box. Fancy letters across its top spelled what Cymbril assumed was a name: BYRNI.

  On the night of her peacemaking mission, she climbed down through the hatchway and descended the ladder into the third storage chamber. Moving by the light of her blue-green stone, she threaded her way among the stacks and crates, noting that nothing ever appeared to change in the room—never anything missing, never any new additions. She doubted anyone but herself had entered during her whole lifetime.

  Yes, Byrni was still present, the box and the rich purple tablecloth gray with dust. The first time Cymbril had opened the box, carefully snapping back its latches, she'd had quite a start—not so much because of what Byrni was, but because she hadn't expected him to speak. But she'd been much younger then. Now, she told herself, she would hardly blink at discovering such a thing.

  For Byrni—if indeed that was his name—was a talking skull. A human skull, and quite real, he nestled face-upward on a plush velvet cushion, and his jaw waggled up and down as he spoke. Cymbril supposed it was the gentleness of his voice and the steady monotony of what he said that had kept her from being afraid. The fact was, Byrni never stopped talking. Cymbril didn't converse with him, because Byrni did not listen—always, he talked. It was clearly an instance of magic. For reasons unknown, some magician long ago had cast a spell on the skull.

  Cymbril knew that Byrni kept talking when the box was closed—though it was perfectly soundproof—because she'd experimented by closing and reopening the lid, listening to the flow of the sentences, noticing their progress. Byrni talked of history and geography—lineages of kings, mountains in order from west to east, from lowest to highest. He listed birds and fish and herd animals, land by land. He discoursed on capitals and trade and fruit and shipbuilding, weather and stars, winds and sands. Apparently, he knew everything there was to know. His speech was nothing but facts—nothing so interesting as stories—so Cymbril never listened for long.

  Once she'd carefully lowered a wadded cloth into his mouth. He'd jabbered right on, though his words had been muffled until she pulled it out again. As far as she could tell, he didn't mind when she closed the box, but he always interrupted himself to greet her when she opened it.

  She supposed Byrni was a broken talking skull. Maybe once he'd been an invaluable resource, lying quietly on his cushion and only spouting exactly the information requested. Perhaps one day the magician had accidentally dropped him or asked a question to which there was no answer, and Byrni had begun his everlasting speech. Then he'd been relegated to this storage room. It puzzled Cymbril that Rombol left these storerooms alone. There must be priceless treasures here—Byrni, for one. Byrni was wearisome but unquestionably valuable.

  Just to check that the talking skull was safe, she undid the latches and raised the lid.

  "Ah!" said Byrni pleasantly. "So good to see you! As I was saying: Jehachel had four sons, and, for the purpose at hand, I will speak of the third, a fair-haired boy called Mihal, commonly known for his part in—"

  Unceremoniously, Cymbril closed the box, wrapped it in a fold of her cloak, and tucked it under her arm, taking care not to jostle Byrni. She'd borrowed him once before, when she'd smuggled him into the Pushpull Chamber and lent him to the Urrmsh for two days, thinking that his unending stream of facts might be useful to them in their song making. It had not gone over too well. Byrni's voice did not carry far in the dripping, creaking chamber, so the Urrmsh had been obliged to row in silence, without the entertainment of their songs. And those within earshot of Byrni had kept dozing off, which never happened when the Armfolk were left to their own devices. Though they'd kept him hidden from Wiltwain by sliding the box under a bench, the Overseer had been suspicious at the two-day lack of Strongarm singing. In the end, Burrub—marginally less polite to Cymbril than Urrt ever was—begged her to throw Byrni overboard, or at least to take him back where she'd found him.

  Cymbril wasn't so naive as to think Byrni would be an actual friend to Gerta and Berta. But he was interesting in small doses.

  It was no small feat getting unnoticed to the door of the quarters where the sisters lived with their mother. Hallways in the merchants' blocks flickered with lantern light even in the quiet watches, and men-at-arms made frequent patrols. Although the large sums of gold were in the Rake's vaults, the merchants kept their day-to-day market strongboxes in their dwellings. Still, Cymbril knew the back ways and crawlspaces as well as many of the Rake's cats did, and in a short while she emerged from a stairwell, counted doors, checked a brass nameplate, and set Byrni's box down softly before the sisters' front portal.

  If the twins or their mother saw Cymbril herself, there would probably be unpleasantness. Therefore, Cymbril had neatly lettered a note on a square of parchment, which she laid atop the box. It said:

  For Gerta and Berta Curdlebree. I'm very sorry about the scream, the dye, and burning your feet. Here's someone I borrowed from the storeroom for you, for a while. I'll have to take him back in a few days, but he'll be glad if you give him some attention. Don't be alarmed. Please accept my apologies.

  —Cymbril

  She gnawed her lip, studying the box, and pushed it a little closer to the dwelling.

  With a prickling sensation in the back of her neck, she was suddenly certain that someone was watching her. She straightened, her heart pounding, and peered right and left. No one was about. The dancing flames in the lamps were all that moved. But still, she felt eyes upon her, and it made her scalp tingle. Who was watching? And from where?

  Then she saw, near the floor of a shadowy alcove, a pair of luminous round eyes in a dark silhouette. Cymbril let out a slow breath, feeling relief and annoyance. The eyes stared at her without blinking. They belonged to a frog she had often seen—a hideous, bloated frog that hopped all over the Rake, living off the beetles and many-legged worms it caught with a splat of its sticky tongue. The frog was obscenely large, the size of a small footstoo
l, bigger than any frog Cymbril had seen. She didn't like it when the vile creature watched her. But watching was what it nearly always did, from beneath stairways, from the puddles under the canal deck. Go away, she told the frog silently. Find someone else to stare at.

  She turned back to the box. Having straightened the note on top, she rapped sharply on the door five times and walked quickly back to the concealment of the stairwell.

  Peeping around the corner, she watched, her heart racing.

  In a moment the door clicked and opened a crack. Then it swung wider, and Gerta's head emerged, blinking in the lantern light as she looked up and down the corridor. Even in the dimness, the blue blotches were still plainly visible. Since she wore no bonnet now, the disarray of her hair gleamed yellow and blue, like a hayfield partly in the shade of clouds.

  Above Gerta's head, Berta's protruded. Her hair was tied up in many tiny strips of cloth.

  Cymbril held her breath.

  Gerta reached down and picked up the note. Oddly, she turned the parchment over and looked at its back, frowning. Cymbril watched closely, but the girl's only reaction seemed puzzlement.

  "Someone left a box," Gerta said.

  Not someone, Cymbril shouted in her mind. Me! Read the note!

  "Is anyone there?" Berta called.

  Shhh, Cymbril thought. You'll wake the whole block.

  Stooping, Gerta lifted the box, half crushing the note against it, and carried it inside. Berta took a last look right and left, then shut the door.

  Good, Cymbril thought. That's that. Now I hope we're straightened out, and bygones are bygones. Letting out a long breath, she dried her palms on her skirt and turned to go.

  Then came a bloodcurdling shriek.

  Cymbril whirled around.

  A second voice was added to the first, screaming.

  Cymbril's knees went weak, and she clutched the wall.

  On a slightly lower, hoarser pitch, rose a third voice—the girls' mother.

  Then the door flew open, and Gerta burst into the corridor in her nightgown. As she sprinted in the direction away from Cymbril, her cry broke up into words: "It talks, it talks, it talks, it talks!"

  An instant later Berta followed her sister, hands flailing around her head as if she were tearing her way through spider webs. "Ahh! It's HORRIBLE!"

  About the time more doors began swinging open and other wide-eyed heads poked into the corridor, the twins' mother lurched from the doorway, ran two steps in one direction, three in another, and then collapsed in a swoon.

  Cymbril sank against the wall, covering her face, and slid down until she was sitting on her heels, telling herself, "Don't be alarmed," I wrote. I wrote, "Don't be alarmed."

  Men and women raced up and down the hallway. A bristle-bearded man with a longsword dashed in through the open door of the twins' quarters, likely suspecting thieves.

  He reemerged, screaming.

  Chapter 5

  Cymbril's Discovery

  Cymbril knew it would be a very long night. There was no way to avoid whatever wrath and punishment were coming. She'd signed her name to the evidence of her crime. Not waiting around for the guards to catch her—and not caring to be dragged from her bunk—she doubled back by the canal, flitted like a forlorn ghost across the Mermaid Bridge, and stole up Grandway, straight into the garrison square.

  Rombol had a high-backed chair there, its arms and feet carved into dragon claws, perched in a bed of moonthistles that could grow without light. When disputes needed settling or a criminal had to be judged, the Rake's Master occupied the chair, before the three doors of the main barracks. On a platform in one corner of the square were the stocks, a frame of heavy timbers with holes cut for a prisoner's neck, wrists, and ankles—a single set, since it was rare for any of the Rake folk to do anything deserving of the stocks. In this rolling city, everyone was registered and accounted for. No strangers drifted through. The merchants shared a common purpose like the crew of a ship, their community locked within a hull of impenetrable timbers, isolated by surroundings that constantly changed. Crime and disruptions were rare—a fact that made catastrophes like this present one all the worse.

  Cymbril gazed pensively at the stocks, thinking that she'd never been in them but that this would probably be the night. The platform's steps squeaked beneath her slippers. She touched the iron padlock, the rough boards. A cricket was fiddling in the thistles. Cymbril closed her eyes and tried to calm the nervous tremors in her stomach. Something pressed against her ankle, and she looked down to see Miwa the cat, purring and circling as if to comfort her. Stooping, she scooped up Miwa and cradled her in both arms, leaning against the stocks. "I think I've really done it this time," she whispered into the cat's ear. Miwa squinted and tilted her head back for a neck rub. Absently, Cymbril wondered how old Miwa was. She seemed nimble and spry, but she'd been around for as long as Cymbril could remember. At times Cymbril could swear she'd known Miwa even before coming aboard the Rake—but that, of course, was unlikely.

  Feet hammered up Grandway. A lone guard raced across the square, clutching the sheathed sword at his hip to keep it from tripping him. Dashing past Cymbril, he was nearly to the first barracks' door when he realized whom he'd just seen and skidded to a stop. Whirling, he stared up at Cymbril and pointed with an unsteady hand.

  "You." He tried to sound stern, but all he sounded was out of breath. "You're to see the Master at once."

  Cymbril nodded, letting Miwa gently down. "Where?"

  The guard opened his mouth and frowned, blinking. Clearly, he hadn't planned on finding her so easily and had come to rouse the garrison and begin scouring the Rake for her, deck by deck. He aimed his finger at her again, but still nothing came from his lips.

  Cymbril knew the Master was extremely private about his own quarters, where he would normally be at this hour. None of his orders or reprimands were ever delivered there—which was why she'd come to his dragon chair. "Perhaps you should go and look for him," she suggested. "I'll wait."

  The guard had the good sense to pound on the door and summon two men-at-arms, whom he charged to watch Cymbril.

  The soldiers looked sleepy, but since they'd appeared quickly in full battle dress, with shields and pole arms, she supposed they were on duty, making occasional patrols. One scratched his head and then sat on the wooden stairs, donning and buckling his helmet. The other spit on a scuffed patch of his breastplate and buffed it with his sleeve. Fixing a watery eye on Cymbril, he leaned on his halberd. "So, what cha done this time, little miss?"

  Rombol stormed into the square, his hair in a matted disarray, his cloak billowing around him. The guards snapped to attention. Saying nothing, Rombol headed for the nearest door into the barracks and, with the twirl of a hooked finger, commanded Cymbril to come along. He carried a bundle under one arm, in which she guessed was Byrni.

  The Master threw open the door and snatched a burning torch from a wall sconce inside. Having entered a room on the right, he set the torch in a bracket. When Cymbril had scampered in after him, he shoved the door closed with a crash.

  He hulked against the door, his head nearly touching the ceiling. At each breath through his pitted red nose, he rumbled. Cymbril felt she was in a cave with a bear that she'd just kicked awake.

  The small room held only a table and a chair. Cymbril put the chair in front of her and clung to its back, hoping her knees wouldn't give way. She tried to keep her face blank as Rombol dropped the bundle onto the tabletop. Her heart seemed to have risen into her throat, but she was determined to justify herself. She'd had the best of intentions.

  "You," Rombol said finally, in a quiet, dark voice. "It's always you. When I'm yanked awake from the sweetest dreams, when hard-working folk run and scream in the night—it's always you they're running from." He clutched the top of her head with a broad palm and stared into her eyes. "Are you Cymbril or some fairy in disguise?"

  Cymbril bit her lip, determined not to wither.

  The Master
released her head. "And if you are Cymbril, did some witch or devil send you to haunt this Rake?"

  "I was trying to make things right," she began earnestly. "I thought—"

  Rombol held up a hand for silence. "I've read your missive. Oh, how happy I am I taught you to write! It triples your capacity for mischief."

  Cymbril kept her gaze averted.

  He pointed at the bundle. "Where did you get that?" he demanded.

  She tried not to let her surprise show. Rombol didn't know where Byrni had come from? How could he not—he who knew every latch and girandole, who accounted for every button and doorstop in his lists?

  "From the storeroom," she said. "The one by Tinley that no one ever goes into."

  "Except you, apparently." A look she could not identify passed over Rombol's face. "What storeroom?"

  She spread her arms, not knowing how else to describe it. "The one with the magician's things and those old, scary books of yours, stamped with an R."

  "Show me." Rombol snatched up the bundle, his eyes wide. "Take me there."

  They made one stop at his quarters. Cymbril waited in the hall as the Master went in and emerged with his great ring of keys. Then they hurried through the avenues, Cymbril free for once to take the most direct, public ways. Now and then they saw a patrolling guard who saluted Rombol, and at the mouth of Hyacinth, they met old Spargulus the lamp warden, with his taper and his flask of oil.

  All the way, Cymbril thought of the undisturbed dust on the storeroom's floor—a room where such odd things were kept—and of Rombol's strange reaction.

  They took Longwander to Tinley and passed beneath the dark, abandoned chandelier of angels, a cobwebby monstrosity that dangled forever in a ceiling well formed by the arrangement of half-levels above. Cymbril began counting hallways that led away to the left. When she reached the proper one and turned into it, Rombol stood still and gaped.