Beneath Ceaseless Skies #205

by Ordoñez, Raphael, Murray, Samantha

  “I didn’t do anything,” Hensson said, not looking at either of them.

  “Do you choose banishment, or release of the darkness?” Juvianna repeated, her voice gentle.

  And Hensson looked up. “I choose release,” he said.

  Davvi directed him to a chair in the front part of his hut. Juvianna took his hands and pressed her palms against his. Skin was necessary.

  “Look at me,” she said, more softly than usual, and when he did, lightly, lightly, she melted into his mind.

  Hensson was a mishmash of conflicting emotion. He felt inadequate, and impotent, and at the same time like he should be ruling the colony, because of his sheer magnificence. His mind was unkempt, full of snags and snarls, growths that headed one way but aborted abruptly and withered, leaving fraying stumps. Juvianna neatened as she went, as if she were clearing mud-caked windows to let in the sun.

  When she came back to herself she felt Davvi, gripping her fingers so hard he was almost cutting off the circulation. She had told him many times that she didn’t need him to hold her hand. She yanked her fingers free. They hurt. She opened her mouth to snap at him.

  “Ju, I’ve got to go.” She noticed then how white his face was. “It’s Navvan.” Davvi took off, virtually running from the hut. She could see him favoring his left leg as he went.

  Navvan was Davvi’s sister’s only child. He was only five, and idolized Davvi, she knew. His sister had lost her wedded two winters ago in a hunting accident. She was very close to Davvi even though he was quite a few years younger.

  Juvianna paused to check on Hansson. She felt weary, and slightly sick. Then she rushed out to the street, the sun making her eyes water. She didn’t know how long it had been since she entered the hut, it felt like an age, it always did.

  A woman Juvianna didn’t recognize was moving quickly past her, and Juvianna grabbed hold of her bare arm. The woman was browned by the sun, her hair mussed untidily behind her ears. She looked up at Juvianna and her eyes widened with recognition, and then she looked at Juvianna’s hand on her arm with something that might have been horror. She recoiled.

  “What’s happening? What’s going on?” Juvianna said harshly.

  “I’m sorry, um, Attitra. I don’t know what you mean. I’ve just come out,” the woman said with her words flittering around like tiny birds. “Can I help you?”

  Juvianna ignored her and stumbled into the path of an older woman, her basket full of pungent cheese and bright purple ravberries, obviously fresh from the market.

  “What’s going on?” Juvianna asked again, “Navvan, he’s a young boy, do you know?”

  The older woman’s eyes became gleeful with the importance of having gossip. “A young boy you say? There was the poor young lad that was found drowned in the river, just this hour past. Terrible, it is, Attitra. So young. The mother wailed and wailed on the shore, they said. You could hear her all along the banks of the Odaay.”

  It was usually on the cusp of the seasons changing that the Odaay became most treacherous, but even in the heart of summer the currents could claim a victim. She knew Navvan as a quiet child, who Davvi seemed to bring out some inner mischief in.

  Davvi. He had stayed there with her, when he must have wanted to rush away to be with his sister. He had stayed there so she could find the way back.

  Juvianna walked back to her hut, grateful for once that no one tried to talk to her, that they cleared a space for her as she passed.

  * * *

  “Ju,” came Davvi’s voice out of the darkness. Juvianna had not been sleeping, she had just extinguished her torch. Neither moon had lit the sky yet.

  “Yes?” She whispered, although she didn’t know why she was whispering. Since her father had died she had the whole hut to herself.

  “Ju, I need your help.”

  She was up and tying a tunic around her waist in moments. She followed Davvi down the street, people were just shapes and mumurs, not many carried torches.

  “How’s Slyvvi?” She had not seen much of Davvi in the last three weeks. She’d only had one call in that time, and he’d been quiet and distracted. She’d heard though, that Davvi’s sister had been seen just a few days ago, down by the Odaay, lying in the mud screaming and crying, and refusing to move. When they had carried her away she had scratched and bitten those trying to help her.

  “She’s not good, Ju. That’s why I need your help.” Davvi didn’t say anything more, and Juvianna lapsed into silence herself, watching her feet on the uneven path.

  Sylvvi also had a hut to herself now, although Juvianna saw evidence that Davvi had been camping out in the first room. Sylvvi was pale and far too skinny. Her hair was lank and matted, and her eyes wandered around like they were looking for a place to rest, and finding nowhere.

  “Oh, Sylvvi,” she said. She had not known Davvi’s sister well, but Sylvvi had always seemed gracious, and lovely, if a little sad. Now she looked like a ghost, and one that was haunting herself.

  Sylvvi’s eyes stopped on Juvianna. She looked confused for a moment, and then lunged towards Juvianna abruptly.

  “Please, please help me, please.” She clutched Juvianna’s hands. Juvianna swallowed; it had been a long time since anyone had touched her voluntarily, apart from Davvi.

  “I don’t know... I don’t know how I can help you,” Juvianna said, caught by the woman’s pain.

  “Davvi has told me about you. He says you are gentle, he says you are kind.” Juvianna looked at Davvi, who seemed not to be meeting her eye. “Not like your father was.” Juvianna’s father’s touch had been more brutal. His work in minds was done heavy-handedly; it had taken some people a long time to recover. Some of them were never really the same again. “He says you help people.”

  This is not my maka, thought Juvianna.

  “Please,” said Sylvvi, her eyes were adrift again, and tears were pouring down her face, although she did not seem aware of them. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore.” The last sounded more like a whisper to herself.

  “I’ll try,” Juvianna said.

  Sylvvi’s mind was a vast wave of sadness; continually breaking and reforming, pounding Juvianna from side to side. There was nothing to grab hold of. All of Sylvvi’s emotion crashed on her, dumping her to tumble over and over. Juvianna plunged deeper, down and down until she found memories of Navvan, like formations in rock. But she couldn’t bring herself to take these away—Navvan should not be diaforra.

  There. A formation that stuck out from the others, all jagged cutting edges. It was Navvan being brought in from the water, his eyes open, his arms hanging down and back. The memory pulsed in and out, like it was half sea-creature.

  Juvianna left the memory there, but she rubbed and scraped at its edges. It stung, but she kept going, over and over. Eventually the memory was rounded and eroded, as if it had been rubbed smooth by many tides.

  * * *

  “Juvianna. Ju. Ju.” Someone was calling her name. It sounded urgent, desperate. But she was floating. It would have been peaceful if someone didn’t keep dragging on her hand, it was throwing off her balance. “Ju. Come back. Ju.”

  Juvianna came back to herself with a huge inward breath.

  “Ju,” said someone. Davvi, it was Davvi of course, he had an odd note in his voice. “How do you feel?”

  How did she feel? She felt half-drowned and shaky. “I’m fine,” she said. Why was Davvi asking her how she felt, he never did that. “Why?”

  “You took a long time, Ju, you took a long time to come back...” He still sounded funny, and it was like he had been going to keep going and say something else. She was too tired to try and think about it.

  Juvianna looked sideways at Sylvvi, who was asleep. She looked peaceful.

  “Is she...” began Davvi.

  The wave had dissipated, Juvianna knew. And she had broken up the guilt and let it wash away.

  “She’ll be all right,” she said. “She’ll still be sad, she’ll still remember.
But she’ll be all right. I only did for her what time would have done.”

  “I don’t know that she had time,” said Davvi.

  Juvianna looked down and saw that her fingers were still entwined with Davvi’s. She disentangled hers, and a totally unexpected thought occurred to her.

  “How do you know?” she said, “How do you know when I’m done and I need to come back?” It was not something she had considered before.

  The crease appeared in Davvi’s brow. “I don’t know,” he said, sounding a bit confused. “I think your eyes must flicker.” But he did not sound overly convinced of that point.

  Juvianna yawned suddenly. It felt like the middle of the night, maybe it was. She could see light outside the window, at least one of the moons must be up. Probably both with that brightness. She nodded towards Sylvvi. “You stay with her. I’ll go get some sleep.”

  Davvi’s face was tender as he looked at his sister. “She won’t wake for ages. I’ll walk you back.” Juvianna didn’t protest; she knew it was true.

  There were many more people around on the walk back to her hut. The moons brought them out; Livvn was waxing, Raa waning, but both were not far off full, and the light was that of a muted, delicate daytime, tipping the edges of the maka-trees with silver.

  Juvianna found herself noticing that the people they passed reacted to Davvi with a watered-down version of their response to her. In the past she had seen people stop talking as he walked by, but she had never really thought about it, she had been too focused on herself. Now she watched a man she recognized as a baker subtly startle and slide to the side as he saw Davvi, before he even registered that Juvianna was with him. She wondered if it ever bothered Davvi, having her taint on him. It didn’t seem to, his face never closed down.

  Juvianna had fallen a step behind Davvi, and when he reached down for her hand and tugged her along she was about to bristle at him treating her like a child, before belatedly hearing the sound of something ugly in the air.

  “Come here, little witch-girl,” came another voice, louder than the first, slurred with varmelon wine and something darker that made her shiver. There were four of them, perched on the low mud-brick wall outside the empty market, drinking.

  “It’s not right, to see into a man’s mind,” the closest one said. “It’s not right.”

  Juvianna’s initial shock was burned up by the quick flare of her anger. She took a step towards the men, only halted because Davvi had her hand in an iron hold.

  “Come on Juvianna, let’s go,” he said, forcibly dragging her down the street. “Do I have to carry you?” he said, as she vainly tried to wrench her hand free. She looked back at the wall, one of the men stood and spat to the side of the path. He was the only one she recognized, the same one who had made the witch comment. It was Staal.

  They were nearly at her hut before Juvianna was able to speak again. Underneath her anger was bewilderment and disbelief. No one spoke to her that way. No one dared. She was angry at Davvi too, for not letting her look after herself. But like always, her anger was quick to kindle, but also quick to dissipate.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Davvi’s face was still grim. “I told you, there are some people who are not very happy over how your maka has changed.”

  “But it wasn’t my idea.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “But that was Staal. He is the mair’s son, he’s the last person I’d get called to.” She hadn’t thought of it this way, she’d always believed the calls sprung fairly for the good of the colony, but as she said it she realized it was probably true.

  “I know. He... watches you,” Davvi added, somewhat reluctantly, giving Juvianna a sidelong glance.

  “Yes.” She didn’t know that Davvi had noticed too.

  “Come on, let’s worry about it in the morning. The moons are almost double-full, and you know that makes everyone crazy.” Davvi’s sudden joviality felt forced.

  But because she had not been thinking until now how lame Davvi would handle himself in a fight against three drunken men if it came to that, and because before that happened she had been enjoying the walk in the moonlight, she said, “You couldn’t anyway.”

  “Couldn’t what?”

  “Carry me.”

  Davvi, usually so serious, startled her with a grin, “Wanna bet?”

  * * *

  It was morning, but the ghost of Raa still rode in the sky, when Juvianna was called.

  It was a member of the Council, Luperrt, who came to fetch her, which was unusual in itself, usually they delegated to someone less important.

  Juvianna stifled a yawn. What happened to summer being time to rejuvenate and relax? She knew there were many more people on the mair’s list now that her maka had expanded to encompass them. But it would have been nice if they had let her sleep in.

  “Who is it today, Luperrt?” she asked, keeping her tone respectful, but he only hurried her along. She would have to swing by and get Davvi on the way back from Council if they hadn’t sent someone for him too, which sometimes they didn’t. He’d probably be grumpy being woken up early after last night.

  When she saw the mair’s face Juvianna became very, very still. The word she would have said usually best described the mair was contained. This morning something raw and disturbing played over his features, and he looked as if he was holding himself together only with great effort.

  “Attitra,” he said formally, his voice thick.

  “My maka for the good of all,” Juvianna said.

  “Attitra, our summer has been marred by the worst kind of crime. A man lies dead, by another’s hand.” A murder. It happened rarely in the colony, but she had been called for one once before, and she knew her father had seen a handful. She was watching the mair though, there was something else coming.

  “Staal is the man who has been lost. His maka was the builder of huts, and he was learning the way of the Council.” The mair paused, his eyes glittering. “His loss diminishes us all.”

  Juvianna could not prevent her quick indrawn breath of shock and surprise. Staal. She had seen him, mere hours ago. He had spat as she’d left. She could still hear his voice, slick and slimy, as it had played out in her head before she had managed to sleep, Come here, little witch-girl.

  “Who... who am I called for?” Juvianna said, her heart beating fast in her chest, so loud she thought they all must hear it.

  Unbelievably, the mair smiled at her. It was the most ghastly smile Juvianna had ever seen. “Come and see,” he said.

  They led her to the small hut adjacent to the Council. With every step Juvianna felt increasing dread, although she couldn’t have said why. The structure didn’t have windows, and was one of the only places that could be locked, with a heavy wooden plank barring the door. It was usually used for storage, but had been used this way in the past, it was the only form of jail the colony had.

  He was sitting in the corner, and raised his head as she approached on soft feet. His face was smeared with dirt and blood, the face she had last seen brightened by an unexpected grin that lit up his eyes. Davvi.

  “Davvi?” her voice spiraled high and she fought to control it. It didn’t make any sense. How could Davvi, be a murderer?

  “Attitra, you are called to this man,” the mair said.

  “But, this can’t be right,” Juvianna stammered.

  “Attitra, it is not for you to question a call,” the mair said quietly.

  “We have two witnesses to the death of Staal, and Davvi has confessed,” it was Luperrt, with his own grimness.

  She looked at her huddled and grimy minder, and saw him give the slightest nod. “It was me, Ju.”

  She didn’t understand, and she felt like something sharp was jabbing her stomach, but the sooner all of this was diaforra, the better. “Davvi?” she said, kneeling and holding out her hand, palm upwards. “Do you choose death, or release of the darkness?”

  At that, she saw something frantic
on his face. “No,” he said, pushing himself backwards. She’d had this reaction before, but Davvi, being repulsed by her? Underneath everything she was conscious of a tight ball of hurt. “No, Ju, this is not for you,” he said. Not for her? Who else was there? “I followed Staal and his friends to the river. We fought. I hit Staal, and when he fell he hit his head on a rock. I did this, Ju. Me. This is not for you.”

  But the alternative was death.

  “What do you choose?” It was the mair.

  “Davvi, you can’t die. Sylvvi needs you. I... please, Davvi.” They were not the formal words. She could feel the mair’s eyes on her. “Do you choose death, or release of the darkness?”

  For a moment she thought Davvi wasn’t going to answer. “Release. But wait—she needs a minder, you have to have someone here to look after her.” What was Davvi doing still thinking of her now? She waved it off, but saw the mair gesture to Luperrt and guessed he would stay.

  She took Davvi’s hand. It was warm. She looked into his eyes, which were green like the Odaay river, and she went to him.

  Davvi’s mind had a sharp, fresh smell, like the air before the rain begins in a summer storm. Juvianna found what she was looking for almost immediately. The memory felt hard and glassy, and when she held it she knew what had happened.

  She knew Davvi had followed them down to the river, to listen to them, to see what they were up to. And she knew they had heard him behind them, and that part of him had wanted that to happen.

  Through Davvi’s eyes she saw Staal. She saw him pick up a rock twice the size of his fist. I hope you don’t mind, minder boy, but if your little girlie is so fond of peering at people’s brains, I think it’s time we had a look at her brain. He’d hefted the rock from hand to hand, while his friends hooted. Root around looking at her secrets, hmm? And maybe while we’re there we’ll do a little rearranging of our own? You can still mind her all right, he’d purred, eyeing Davvi with his weak leg, don’t worry about that, she’ll be needing someone to wipe her drool. She saw Staal smile.

  Then Davvi had thrown a punch at Staal, and Staal had bashed at Davvi with the rock, glancing a blow off the side of his head. And just as Staal’s friends had stopped swigging and laughing and come to join in, Davvi had landed his second punch under Staal’s chin, falling against him with his full weight. And Staal had gone down, and his head had hit the very same rock.