Skeen's Return

by Clayton, Jo;

  After a few more minutes of silence punctuated by Tod’s tactful snores, Vassa Bassa cleared his throat, flicked a fingernail against his goblet’s bowl, making it ring loudly. “Tod!”

  Tod opened his eyes and sat up with a thousand apologies for his discourtesy.

  Vassa Bassa brushed them off, showing his irritation, and turned the conversation to the reason he was there. “Word is you’ve a shipment due soon.”

  “Not soon, Char. Tomorrow. The messenger bird came shortly before you did. Your timing, as usual, is impeccable, oh Char. Shipmaster Khorem will be tieing up a short while after the noon meal if all goes well.”

  “Sent he a list of what he’s got?”

  “In general terms, Char. Twelve fives of young Pallah studs, sturdy stock with years of work in them. And this is a coup indeed—Khorem got his hands on nine Skirrik dames old enough to be well-trained in their arts but young enough for heavy work. And three Skirrik pups guaranteed to be deft at sniffing out Min spies. Twelve twos of tender girls, a mix of Balayar and Pallah with three young Chalarosh bitches, defanged of course. Something else, what, what … ah! a handful of Aggitj extras. He took those on because they come from the orehills in the Backland and one is said to be an ore-sniffer, but I truly doubt that because no family would exile such an asset.”

  “Unless they happened to be a family of ore-sniffers and too many of their kind would lessen their worth.”

  “So wise, oh Char, then the report might be true. I will not guarantee it though, not without a trial of his skills. And it will be important to keep the presence of these Aggitj quiet. You know the Slukra, they squeal like rats and turn mean if they think you’re fooling with their cousins.”

  Vassa Bassa snorted, gulped at his wine. “When will you be showing them?”

  “I will have to polish them up a bit, settle the restive ones, work on them so they show well. No doubt I’ll have the first presentation next Pyaday.”

  “Arrange a private showing, Tod. Next Tirday, no later.” Vassa Bassa reached into his robe, fumbled about a bit, lifted out a heavy pouch. He loosened the thongs, emptied the coins inside onto the floor, a ringing, clanking shower of gold, a ringing rattling outrun as coins that fell on edge rolled away and toppled over. Before the noise was finished, Vassa Bassa was on his feet, pulling his cowl over head and horns. He didn’t wait for an answer but stalked out. A moment later the ceremonial door slammed and he was bellowing his guard onto their feet.

  The arrogance and ill will in that gesture didn’t begin to touch Tod. He lay smiling a little, his hands clasped over his stomach, until he heard the guard marching off, then he got to his feet and stumped heavily to the line of long windows. Drapes were tightly bunched at both ends, stiff, hieratic, fold packed against fold. He shook his wide sleeves back from his wrists, found the pull cords and began drawing the curtains over the windows. They flowed smoothly shut, heavy and dark, blocking the view from the garden. Whistling tweedle-weedle he came back, dropped to his knees and began collecting the coins. He weighed each, right hand left hand, tested each with a thumbnail filed to a point, ran a thumbpad around the rims. He looked supremely contented handling that gold, caressing it, stacking coin on coin into solid little piles. Vassa Bassa’s attempt to humiliate him hadn’t touched him because he had nothing but contempt for that uphill Funor; the heavy shining gold was all that mattered.

  When he had retrieved all the coins, judged them and sorted them, he got to his feet and walked quickly to the archway, passing less than a meter from Ti-cat’s whiskers. A moment later she heard bars slam into their sockets at the ceremonial door, then he was back again, carrying a small silver tray. He stopped short of the arch. Again she eased her head under the arras, wanting to know what he was doing. He moved to the ramp, looked up it, made a circuit of the Great Hall, snooping in the corners, then he walked briskly to the arch, pushed the arras aside and was back in the parlor. He transferred the gold to the tray and carried it to a woven tapestry hanging on the east wall. He pushed the cloth aside (its rings rattled loudly enough for Timka to hear the noise and twitch at it), took a key from round his neck and opened the steel door the tapestry had concealed.

  Timka watched him swing the door open, then she was edging back along the wall, getting clear of the arras. Lifefire alone knew how long he’d spend in there fondling his treasure; it was time to get out. She’d had all the luck she could expect in a single night.

  “Sometimes I think it’s better to be lucky than smart. That was not smart, Ti.”

  “It worked.”

  “So it did.” Skeen looked grim, but couldn’t hold onto that sternness. She patted Timka in the middle of her glossy black curls. “It’s a good child, but if it does anything like that again, it’s going to get a spanking it won’t forget.”

  Timka shifted suddenly to cat-weasel and snarled, then was Pallah again, giggling at the speed with which Skeen pulled her hand away.

  Skeen sighed and shook her head. “Well, don’t make a habit of being that rash. As a corpse you’re no use at all.” She stretched out on the bed. “Djabo’s teeth, I wish Maggí would get here.”

  WHERE TWO PLOTLINES CROSS, LIFE CAN GET MESSY FOR YOUR HEROES AND VILLAINS BOTH.

  or

  HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE?

  Skeen woke. Head a fuzzball twice its usual size, two little men taking turns hammering at her temples. Stomach churning. Stink of old vomit and stale urine. Cold. Hard. Stone under her. How.… She flattened her hands beside her and pushed herself up, moving slowly, careful not to jar anything vital. How … where.… She shuddered as sudden terror flashed through her. If her mind was so far gone that she couldn’t remember how she got here or where here was, if she couldn’t remember what she was drinking and where, then … Djabo! Blackouts now. There was a time when she lost hours, days—once, a full week. She was shooting heavy pilpil then. That was after old Harmon died and there was no one she dared trust near her and the world seemed wide and cold and empty. It was far easier to drift in the warm arms of pilpil dreams. Her drift lasted until a shipment of pilpil was intercepted and the dealers she could reach went short. She came down hard and when she bounced, she got all too good a look at herself and the world she lived in. She looked and she said, this is it, no more. A long, long time ago that was, a warning of what could happen that she took seriously. She’d never lost herself again, not even in her Pit Stop binges. Well, reason enough for that, she was enjoying herself too much to waste those hours on unconsciousness. Something about this world that seduced her into excess. No, Skeen, not the world. You. Face it. You’re terrified you’ll find out Tibo and Picarefy really did get together and betray you because if that’s true there’s nothing anywhere you can trust. Not even yourself. Especially not yourself. And there’s no way you can find out short of half a year. Months of slogging dangerous travel ahead. Months while you feel like you’re trying to run in glue. Accept it, Skeen, it’s not strange you’re chewing your fingernails off to your elbows. All right, all right, I can live with that. But I don’t remember, I can’t remember drinking that much, I stopped drinking too much a sennight ago, why can’t I remember? How did I get here … here? Where is here?

  She looked around. A reddish gray light trickled into the cell through a long narrow tray slot about knee height, enough to give her the outlines of the place. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor. One door. Admirably understated. She grinned into the dark, that touch of humor like heat in her shivering body. A minimalist cell. She eased herself onto hands and knees (feeling a bit better but still very fragile), crawled to the door and peered out the tray slot, pressing her face close to the splintery planks. Frustratingly narrow field of vision, but off to one side she saw dark verticals close together and behind them a bumpy lump of blue-violet. She closed her eyes, digging back into foggy recalcitrant memory; the last time she could remember seeing Lipitero, the Ykx wore her blue-violet robe. She pressed closer to the slot, slid back along it to extend her view
and saw a familiar pair of knees and part of a massive throne chair. With a sigh that had no surprise in it, she turned away from the slot and eased herself down until she was sitting with her back against the door. Angelsin. Forty devils gnaw her gizzard. How did she find out? Ah, why ask, you know how such things seep out; the only place to bury a secret and expect to keep it is in the heart of a sun, and even then if more than one knows it, forget it. It’s going to surface, that’s inevitable as entropy. Why should you think you could bag a secret as big as a mythic Ykx? Well, she hadn’t really expected so much, she’d just hoped to keep the noise down until the Company got away. Maggí, ah Maggí, get your butt up the river, will you?

  She pulled her legs up. Left me my boots. She prodded at the right boot. No surprise. Knife gone. She pulled the boot off and felt around inside. Smiled. Picks and spare blade were still there. Made of a non-refractive resin, they flexed with the leather but were as tough as fine steel, the knife had a blade with an edge that could cut a thought in two; it was thin, a delicate stiletto with a leather hilt; it could turn a steel blade in a fight and slice a throat with ease but it was whippy and treacherous and hard to control, not your general utility weapon. Belt was gone, with her tool kit and darter. Angelsin, you take good care of those till I come for them. The wire saw was nestled in the waistband of her trousers, they hadn’t found that either. Well, it could stay there, no bars or chains to cut, at least not now. So. No blackout, Djabo be blessed, just Angelsin drugging us all. All? That’s not right. Chulji was out with his farmers and Pegwai was eating with his cousin … eh! If it was last night she did us. She rubbed at her ringless hand; the chron was gone. Fuckin’ thieves. How long have I been here? How long? How how how long? Body didn’t know. Time snipped out, ragged ends spliced. She wiped her hand along the stone beside the door. Damp. Underground. Could be the middle of the day up in the streets. Or the middle of tomorrow night. Any tomorrow. No, no. She flattened her hand over her stomach. Not that long. Likely a few hours, no more. She passed her tongue along her lips. Wonder if they’d bring me some water if I yelled loud enough?

  Lipitero sat in the cage and gloomed at the distant wall where the cells were.

  Angelsin hadn’t bothered drugging her, just sent in a swarm of children with a large net. When she was tangled so thoroughly she had nearly strangled herself, the children called a pair of Funor shorthorns; these hauled her to the cavern and dumped her in the cage. At a word from Angelsin, they slashed most of the net clear and went out.

  Angelsin stood outside the cage, leaning on a cane. She watched Lipitero tear away the fragments of net. “Take off the robe,” she said.

  Lipitero snarled, then started jerking the neck ties loose. There was no point in refusing; Angelsin would just call the hardboys back and have her stripped. She pulled the robe over her head and dropped it to the floor of the cage.

  Leaning heavily on the cane Angelsin walked around the cage making murmurous sounds as she inspected Lipitero. When she was around in front again, she was smiling. “Put on the robe,” she said, then labored to the throne chair that lost size and impact the moment she sat in it. She clicked her tongue. Hopflea took the cane, tucked it behind the chair, then scuttled around to crouch by her feet. She gazed at Lipitero a long time, saying nothing.

  Feeling like a side of meat, not knowing what to do, how to react, Lipitero looked away—then stiffened. The cavern was a huge knobbly thing, filled with shadows; most of the torches were set up close about the cage and the chair and very little of the light reached as far as the walls, but she could see dark shapes carrying in other shapes. She counted these new prisoners. One, two, four, six. Skeen, Timka, the Aggitj. Chulji was spending the night out with his farmers, Pegwai must be with his cousin. The Boy? She looked around. Not here. She glanced at Angelsin; the huge Funor woman was watching the parade with a brooding satisfaction. Lipitero closed her hands into fists, a tightness in her throat, a deep ache between her shoulders. She sold him—that wombless mistake sold the Boy to the Kalakal. Or killed him. She watched the limp forms carried into the cells, one to each cell, the doors slammed shut, the bars dropped into the clamps. She pulled her hands inside the robe and slid her fingers along her harness. Cutter. Lift field. Shunt. Stun beam. One by one she counted them off, the operations worked into the metal decorations that seemed only ornament. Tiny weapons, tiny aids, powerful but limited, Lifefire, so limited. She had to make a plan somehow. Had to free Skeen even if she couldn’t free herself or the others. Nothing must stop Skeen finding Rallen and bringing Rallen Ykx to shore up Sydo Gather. To open the Gate, to free the Ever-Hunger if she needed the defense, Skeen didn’t need her, only her harness. She squeezed her hand about one strap; the node there was modified so Non-Ykx hands could trigger it if need be, she’d insisted on that. She closed her eyes and visualized the flight of Ykx moving through the nights over Suur Yarik, shadows against the moon, heading for the Fellarax Gather caves near the Gate, caves abandoned millennia before when the Waves started coming and the turmoil in the Mountains made life too uncomfortable there. The Remmyo had arranged the flight because he couldn’t in conscience agree to release the Hunger unless there were Ykx in position to corral it again before it devastated Mountains and Plain. Another reason for preserving Skeen, ten members of the shrinking Gather put in jeopardy, if Sydo lost them for nothing.… Something, I have to do something. It was painful to realize how little she knew about the otherWavers and the Pass-Throughs. Until the desert Chalarosh had swarmed into Coraish Gather she’d lived a contented but circumscribed life, knowing nothing of the great outside, wanting to know nothing of the folk that lived there.

  When the slaughter was over, she crawled from beneath a pile of bodies—dead Chalarosh, dead Ykx, dead adults, dead children—her fur matted with blood, feces, urine, stomach contents let out through slashes. For hours, dazed, too shocked to grieve, she hunted through the dead for her children, for anyone at all left alive. She found her children huddled in a wall niche meant to hold a zocharin and a flower; her son’s head was smashed, his small body shattered, mingled with the butchered body of her daughter. She touched an arm; she thought it belonged to the boy but couldn’t be sure. Cold. The cold entered into her. She walked away, no longer looking at the dead, no longer caring if any besides herself still lived. She walked away and went out onto the lip. For a long time she stood staring out into the desert, then she sat and waited to die. She expected to fade as Ykx had faded before, separated from the Gather, staked out for torment in Chala clanspace. She sat all day waiting for the fade to start, but when the cold evening shadows crept over her the only emptiness she felt was hunger. She scrambled to her feet and screamed fury and frustration into the darkness, but there was no answer, not even an echo. She flung herself off the lip, meaning to let herself tangle in the downdrafts and crash on the stone below, but a freak blast of cold wind swept over the mountains, caught hold of her and automatically she extended her flightskins and rode that wind on and on, out over the desert, on and on. She was in a state of shock, the only thing she knew was she could not let herself fall here, could not give her life to the Chalarosh as if she were ripe fruit falling into their bloody hands. When the wind faltered, she exerted herself and spiraled up to catch the highwinds. On and on she went, hunger a beast gnawing at her belly, occupying the whole of her mind, or that part of it the thirst-fire left free.

  She soared all that day, strength draining from her, a slow leaching that blurred her eyes until she saw nothing but a blue haze surrounding her, that blanked her mind until hunger and thirst were a distant thing hovering about her but not part of her. The highwind blew her on and on; she left the desert behind, she left the rind of farmlands behind, she glided out over water. Aware, she might have loosed that wind and drowned, but she had left purpose somewhere in the desert and was a leaf on the wind, mindless as any leaf. Late in the afternoon on the second day the wind turned capricious, dropped her, caught her, dropped her yet lower, caught her ag
ain, then vanished altogether. She plummeted toward the water. Shocked out of her numbness, her body worked desperately to save her; she felt the powerful drive of a will to live she had not known was in her. But the long flight had weakened her; she was too feeble to do more than sketch at attempts to catch an updraft and rise again. The water caught her trailing feet and pulled her down.

  When she woke she was in a Balayar fishcanoe. The young men working it had bathed her face and trickled water into her, then the cordial all Balayar kept for times when the boat was far out and there was no wind. Drop by drop they got that rich sweet liquid into her and coaxed the lifefire within from ashes to a crackling blaze. She was alive and knew she was going to keep on living; the time was past when she could have killed herself.