Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists

by Edited by Adrian Collins

  They emerged from the forest at last, leaving the trees and the scent of flowers for the bare, scorched top of Bone Mountain. It was bathed in moonslight, ringed with jagged boulders and crowned with a circlet of bamboo platforms, freshly built and awaiting the dead. No scent of night jasmine lingered here; this was the place for sky burials, it stank of death and char and wyvern-musk.

  Awitsu dropped the sack, and the bird inside flopped around a bit, squawking softly. It was not dead yet; that was good. “What do we do now? Did you bring a knife?” Her father kept his knives in a locked box, after what happened last time.

  “I have this.” He held up a boy’s machete. “Awitsu, you do not need to do this. Listen to the stories…blood magic never ends well.”

  “Listen to the stories, yourself.” She scowled. “What will they do, beat me? Send me away? Sell me to the comfort houses? The life of a daeborn never ends well, Kanati. I have nothing to lose.”

  “Well, I do.”

  Awitsu looked at him, one with the night, fine and shining as the stars, and shook her head. “No more than I. In ten moons, it will be the Feast of Daeyyen again, and you will be gone forever. It is written.”

  His face went hard at that, but he handed her the machete without another word. It was written.

  Awitsu chose a low, flat stone. It was deeply scored, scarred by wind and time and the claws of battling wyverns, and Awitsu had slept upon it on more than one occasion. Wyverns and dead things were better company than her father was, when he was drunk. And he was drunk more often these days than he was sober.

  Not my real father, she reminded herself. My father is a pirate king; he sails upon the moons’ dark seas, and wears a crown of stars.

  She hauled the struggling cock out of the bag feet-first. He was a pretty bird, dark and shiny as a beetle’s shell, of the breed known as Silent Night because of the color, and because these cocks did not crow. They were witch-birds, bad luck to see, worse luck to touch. Her father had stolen this one from the herbwoman who lived in the deep woods, and Awitsu hoped his luck would be the worst of all. She flipped the cock onto his back on the rock—gently, there was no need to make the bird suffer—and held him down with one hand as she raised the machete high overhead with the other.

  “Awitsu, let it go.” Kanati’s voice was as soft and low as the wyvern’s song. She looked up at the sorrow in his words. “Please, let it go.”

  Too late. She brought the sharp blade down with such force that it shattered upon the rock; a shard hissed through the air and scored her cheek, just under the eye. Blood trickled down her face like tears, and she dropped the broken hilt even as she loosed her grasp on the rooster. Too late.

  “I am sorry,” she told him, and she was. “I broke your machete.”

  Kanati stepped close and wiped the blood from her cheek with his sleeve. “Ah, Awitsu,” he mourned. And then, “Awitsu!” He grabbed the front of her rough tunic and hauled her away from the rocks. His eyes were as big as the moons, his face a mask of horror.

  Awitsu looked to the rock where the dead cock lay. But the rock was bare, and the cock was not dead.

  “Ohhhh,” she breathed, and covered her mouth with both hands, smearing her cheeks with cocksblood. “Oh, Kanati!”

  The rooster stood in place for a long moment, long enough for her to see that half its head was missing, and the other half lay, horribly, upon the rock. It fluffed its feathers and twitched, and twitched again, and then it took off running down the path and into the woods. Awitsu stood, shaking, just as the bird had, and then she too was running, running into the dark, running away. She heard Kanati calling her name, and off in the woods somewhere a jaguar screamed, but she paid them no mind. If she was lucky the cat would find her and have her for its dinner, or she would trip in the dark, fall down the mountain and break her neck.

  Never in her life, not from the moment her mother had set eyes on her moons-king father, had Awitsu ever been lucky. She ran into the dark, deep into the woods. Branches and blackthorn tore at her face as guilt tore at her heart, she ran until her legs faltered and the breath sobbed in her chest, and when she could run no more Awitsu fell to the ground and curled herself into a little ball. Though the night was chill she did not bother to seek shelter or even cover herself with a blanket of leaves. Let the night do with her as it would, she was tired of running. She took the blood penny from her pocket and clutched it to her chest, and fell asleep wishing that she might never wake up.

  She would not be so lucky.

  * * *

  Awitsu woke with the breaking dawn, bone-sore and heart-sore, and her mouth tasted as if she had been licking the top of Bone Mountain. The blood penny had fallen from her grasp as she slept. It was smeared with the cock’s blood, and she supposed it had bathed in the light of the moons, but it was as dead as it had been when she pried it loose from the skull of the sea-thing child. She wiped it on her tunic and put it back in her pocket with a sigh, and then shook the leaves from her antlers and headed home. There would almost certainly be a beating for her this morning, but there might be breakfast as well, and she was hungry.

  As it turned out, neither a beating nor breakfast waited for slaggard little girls who slept who-knows-where until the sun was well awake, and skipped home demanding breakfast and a bath and silken gowns. Her father had forgotten the rooster, sure enough, and that was a good thing; he had some coin from a night spent gambling at the Emperor’s comfort houses, and that was another good thing, as it put him in a fine mood. Awitsu hid the blood penny, bathed as best she could in a bucket of cold water behind the shed, and changed into her better rags before setting off for the market with enough coin for a sack of potatoes, a sack of onions, and a measure of flour. “And mind you do not waste it, girl,” the man she called father had warned her. “If you cheat me, daeborn or no I will kill you myself.” She had nodded, and taken the coin, and in truth nearly skipped into town, almost happy. It was too bad about the rooster—she could have made them a stew.

  Foolish girl, she would chide herself later, to think your luck had changed.

  She could hear the commotion before she stepped into the market square. Had she been a little older, a little wiser—or even a little quicker—she might have turned and run away, and avoided trouble altogether. As it was, she stepped full into the light of the sun just as a headless rooster ran around the corner of the tanner’s cottage. The butcher ran after it with two of his boys, and a woodcutter behind them. Children and women fled screaming at the sight. It was so like one of Kanati’s moon-tales that Awitsu could not help herself; laughter burst from her like a spring flood, loud and clear, rising above the cries of panic. She could not have proclaimed her guilt any more clearly than if the rooster ran to her and dropped dead at her feet.

  The rooster ran to her and dropped dead, plop, at her feet.

  The whole town went as quiet and still as the top of Bone Mountain on a moonlit night.

  Awitsu could not move—it felt as if she were grasped in a wyvern’s claws and it was squeezing the breath from her. No, she wanted to say, no. But the words did not come. She looked up into the shocked faces of the townspeople; in that sea of fear, only one looked at her with anything besides hatred, and that was her friend Kanati.

  Awitsu, he mouthed. Run.

  But it was too late.

  * * *

  The jailhouse would not have been so bad—they gave her a clean robe to wear, closer to new than anything she owned, and clean straw to lie on, and fed her twice in one day—if only the old jailman would stop talking about executions he had seen or heard about, or carried out. Hangings and drownings, stonings and burnings, and then of course one could be impaled on a sharp stake. Awitsu thought that sounded the worst. After two days of the crazy old man’s reminiscences, it was nearly a relief when they finally came for her. She did throw up, but only a little.

  They bound her arms behind her back, and led her through the streets to the tow
n square. Everybody she knew was there, and some folk from other towns as well. Even the old herbwoman was there; Awitsu could see her dead-bird hat and the raggedy plum-colored robes, garish in the morning light, and her heart sank even further.

  When her legs failed, the two men who had come for her took her by the arms, not ungently, and carried her the rest of the way. Awitsu’s head spun so that for a moment she saw a well, a dark well crouching in the center of the clearing like a spider in her web.

  The men let her arms go, and she fell to the ground as the rooster had fallen, plop, in the dirt.

  “We are here.”

  Awitsu looked up and saw the town’s elders, two old men and an ancient woman who used to dive for pearls. One of the old men had been the village mayor for years, and the other she recognized for a kindly soul who had slipped salt candies to her, not so long ago. His face was still kind, but his mouth was drawn down, and his eyes were heavy with sorrow.

  “We are here,” the crone continued, “to decide this matter before us. The child Awitsu had been charged with witchcraft, sorceries, and blood magics.”

  “She is no child,” cried a woman in the crowd. “She is daespawn!”

  Daespawn.

  Daespawn.

  Awitsu shook her head to rid it of the echoes; surely the Witching Well was too far away to speak to her. Perhaps the food she had been given was drugged.

  “The child is daeborn,” agreed the candy-man, “but she is a harmless little thing. Can any here claim to have been harmed by her?”

  “She killed her own mother,” insisted another woman. Awitsu knew this one; her daughter was a pretty little thing, and wore flowers in her hair. “Her own mother!”

  “The woman Aelani died saving her child from drowning, but she chose to do so. The child cannot be held responsible,” answered the old woman. “It is written.”

  “It is written,” agreed the old men.

  “And besides,” the third elder spoke reluctantly, “The daeborn are the Emperor’s Own. She cannot be killed but for good reason.”

  Drown her. Stone her. Burn her at the stake, thought Awitsu. She wanted to throw up again. The old herbwoman was staring at her...and smiling.

  The candy-man looked about him, and then directly into her eyes. “Child Awitsu,” he asked in a sad and formal voice, “an ensorcelled beast was seen in the village, and that beast ran to you and died at your feet, proclaiming you guilty of witchcraft. I saw this with my own two eyes, or I would not have believed it. What do you have to say on this matter? Are you guilty of witchcraft?”

  “Do not lie,” warned the old woman.

  “It is a very great crime to lie to your elders,” agreed the third old man.

  Awitsu bit her lip and stared at her feet, still clean from her bath. She had thought about this answer and little else for the past two days.

  “I am guilty,” she whispered.

  The crowd gasped.

  “Awitsu?” The old woman asked, and her scratchy old voice was harsh as a crow’s. “Do you admit to witchcraft and sorceries?”

  “Oh, no.” Awitsu shook her head, mindful of her antlers, and looked up to the elders with eyes as wide and innocent as she could make them. “I am guilty of stealing a chicken. I found him in the woods, and I did not know who he belonged to.” She let her voice fall to a whisper. “And I was hungry.”

  Hungry.

  Hungry.

  “You admit to stealing a chicken.” The candy-man puckered his lips.

  “I thought that I might bring him home to my father, and I could make him a soup.” She sought the crowd for her father’s face, and found him between the butcher and one of his boys. Oh, he looked so angry. Awitsu took a deep breath and continued, “But I have never killed a chicken before, and I was afraid I might cut myself with the sharp knife, so I closed my eyes, and...” She made a chopping motion with her hand and looked down at the ground, wishing she could let a few tears fall for effect. “I did it wrong, and when the cock ran off I was too scared to tell anybody.”

  The candy-man was making soft strangled noises behind his hand, and the old woman laughed out loud.

  The last elder cleared his throat. “So you...” he cleared his throat again. “So you tried to kill this rooster and make it into a soup.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, and scuffed one foot on the ground. “For my father.”

  “I do not need you to bring home food,” spat her father. Oh, he was soooo angry. Awitsu flinched for real then; maybe being drowned would not be so bad.

  All three of the elders and no few of the villagers looked away, uncomfortable. The elder lady rapped the ground with her cane and got everybody’s attention.

  “Does any person here claim to own this rooster?” she asked.

  The herbwoman stared at Awitsu and shook her head, but said nothing.

  “Anyone?” Asked the old mayor.

  “Perhaps it was a stray from another village.” This last came from Kanati’s father. Awitsu thought of the lemon rolls she had stolen from the teahouse some moons back, and was shamed.

  “Well,” said the old mayor, “I see no sorcery here, just a young girl who is not very good at killing chickens.” The old lady cackled out loud at this, and Awitsu let her breath out in a long sigh.

  “I agree,” said the old woman.

  “And I,” concurred the candy-man. “And as no one admits to owning the black cock, I think we can say no fowl, no harm.” He looked straight at the man Awitsu called father as he said this.

  No doubt he thought it would help.

  3: Blood of the Child

  The raggedy white kitten had shown up one day as Awitsu was gathering wood. Small cats were rare enough that even this wretched orphan would have brought good coin, and he might have been a pretty thing after a bath and some dinner. But Awitsu had other plans.

  It had taken her a full two-moon and a stolen bottle of rice wine to escape her father’s notice; she slipped from the house to the liquid burbling sound of his snoring, gathered up the mewling cat from the smoke-shed, and flitted like a wraith through the woods to her mother’s grave. Kanati was waiting for her, but he frowned when he saw the kitten.

  “Awitsu, what are you doing with that?”

  She clutched the scrawny thing to her chest. He was so soft, hot as a bag of embers, and his heart beat quick as a bird’s. He must have read the answer in her eyes, because Kanati shook his head and held his hands out.

  “Awitsu, no. No, you cannot do this thing, it will stain your soul. Give him to me, I will sell him for you and you can keep the coin. And I brought you a gift...see? I made them. For you.”

  She beheld in his outstretched hands a pair of shoes, woven from the pale red bark of the grouseblood willow.

  “Grouseblood.” She stroked the kitten, and he began to purr. “Like in the story.”

  “You remember.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad.

  It was the first story he had ever told her, back when they were very young and he had found her hiding, here, and crying because the other children had mocked her bone-white skin. The story of Willow Grouse Girl, so pale and beautiful. Kanati placed the shoes upon the ground and backed away; Awitsu slipped her feet into them, feeling as if she had stepped into a dream. They fit. Of course they fit.

  They were so pretty. “I have never had shoes before.”

  “I know.”

  She took a deep breath, and then looked her friend in his moonsilver eyes and said, deliberately, “Thank you, Kanati.”

  He gasped. One did not thank the daeborn; such a thing was fell luck, the worst luck, until the debt was settled.

  And then he smiled. “The kitten.”

  “What!”

  “That is my price. The life of this kitten for your debt.”

  Awitsu scowled and sank to the ground. The kitten was still purring; he had closed his mismatched eyes and began to knead the front of her rough hemp robe as i
f she was his mother. “You tricked me.”

  “You tricked yourself.” He sat beside her, and took a small bundle out of his pocket. He handed it to her, and Awitsu’s stomach growled at the smell of redspice bread. “You did not want to hurt him.”

  Kanati would not take a share if she offered. “No,” she admitted around a mouthful of sweet bread. “But how else am I to wake the blood penny?”

  “You are still determined to make that wish?”

  She shrugged, and tried hard not to wince. It had been a full two-moon since her trial, and still she ached from the beating that had earned her. She had thought that surely this time she would die.

  He must have seen—his face took on the still look of deep water, dark and cold with secrets lurking just below the surface. His eyes shone like silver pennies in the moonslight, and he bared his sharp teeth.

  “Awitsu? Are you hurt?”

  She started to shrug again, thought better of it, and took a careful mouthful of bread instead. Her teeth still hurt, too.

  “I will do this thing, if it is your wish.”

  Awitsu looked down at the kitten, sleeping now with his tiny claws caught in the rough fabric of her robe. “No, let him live. He deserves a chance.”

  “So do you. You are innocent…hey!” Kanati almost shouted, and the little cat came awake with a hiss. “Blood of the innocent, Awitsu! We just need to prick your finger...”

  “No, Kanati. You are a storyteller; you know that is not how these things work. There is always a sacrifice.” She had already tried her own blood, besides. Just in case.

  “A sacrifice...or a riddle.” His eyes lit, and he reached out to the glossy-leaved bush that covered her mother’s grave like a blanket. Even so early in the year, its branches were heavy with...

  Blood of the Child.

  “Blood of the Child!” He exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “Blood of the innocent! Awitsu, hand me the blood penny.” And he reached for one of the fat red berries.

  Awitsu knew better—she had spent more time in the woods than he had. And besides, he had never been hungry. He did not know which berries one could eat, and which berries would kill. She watched in horror as he reached for a cluster of fat berries. One of the berries in his hand burst, as if it had been waiting for his touch, and the juice sprayed across Kanati’s hand, his fine clothes, his face. He jerked back as the wicked thorns grabbed at his flesh and, without thinking, brought his injured fingers to his mouth.