Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

  ~

  Determined as she was to find answers, Lila still could not help but take pity upon Heidi Bastian’s obvious state of distress. So she went to the great hearth in the left corner of the study, sparked a fire, and hung the old kettle above it. It sat still upon the mantel, in the same place where her father used to set it each night. There was still the ornate wooden box beside it, filled with tea. Countless times, William had made tea in that fireplace, carefully selecting a certain flavour from the box, and then bringing two cups of it back to the desk, where he and Lila would drink to the same story he always told.

  “That box you see there,” he would say, “up on the mantel, was given me by the King of Sciara, almost twenty years ago.”

  “Where is Sciara, Father?” Lila had asked, the very first time he told her.

  “Ah, Sciara!” William had said, clapping his hands together with a look of absolute joy upon his face. “It is a wonderful place, my dear. A country full of beautiful things, built centuries and centuries ago. There are great pyramids, whose peaks seem to stretch far into the sky. There are magnificent palaces, one for each member of the royal family. Each of them is much larger than Eredor, and much more majestic. Clear rivers run all through the land, with mighty trees that grow up on their banks. It is a terribly hot place, with sand that blows in your eyes when the wind is bad; and therefore you must always wear a linen scarf about your neck, so that you might pull it up over your face. But the beauty is so great, I do swear, that you scarcely notice the wind, or the sand. Such beauty, my daughter! Someday we will go there together, and you will see what I mean. We will stay in the palace of the King, and we will feast in his great marble hall. No matter how unbearably hot it is outside, it is always cool, there in that hall. There are great pillars on the Western side of it, holding up tall arches which look out into the deserts of Sciara.”

  Each time he went through his account of that country, Lila’s eyes would widen in wonder, taking in each detail with an overwhelming kind of amazement.

  “Will we really go there together, Father? Just you and I?”

  “Of course we will, Lila. When you are a little older, we will set up a great cart, and make the long journey to Sciara. It takes nearly three months, you know.”

  “Three months!” she would exclaim, utterly delighted by the thought of such an adventure.

  “Three whole months, my dear. We must make many stops for food and water, for whatever food we carry on the way will spoil quickly in the heat. But we need not pause at any inns. The nights there are almost cold, but it is warm enough in the cart, and with several blankets atop you to ward off the chill, it is very pleasant. The skies in that country are clearer than anywhere else at all, and the stars seem very large and bright. You begin to think that, if you were to only reach out your hand, you could gather them up in your very palm.”

  “Oh, Father – it sounds wonderful!”

  He would nod very seriously. “It is wonderful, my dear. And someday, you shall see it for yourself.”

  Distracted by the bittersweet memory, Lila stood for some moments, unmoving before the fire. But finally she shook herself, and returned to the desk.

  Heidi Bastian appeared so lost within the labyrinth of her own thoughts. She was still staring at that same place in the centre of the shelf over the desk, eyes fixed intently upon it, but clearly envisioning something much different than books. After a time, her mouth fell partway open, and her eyes grew round and wide.

  “Heidi?” said Lila, leaning forward a little to examine the woman’s face. It was deathly pale; pale as if she herself had been infected by the Lumaria, and was currently in a mortal struggle with an unseen force. It was as if she had begun to understand, without Lila even having told her, that there were fell things hanging in the air – just out of her reach.

  “Heidi.”

  She lowered her eyes slowly to Lila, reluctant to abandon the images which seemed to be passing across the walls.

  “I must ask you something – and you must tell me the truth. Will you do that for me?”

  She nodded absently.

  “The day after you arrived, you told me of something that happened, betwixt Jade and a pair of Lumaria. On the road, with two children?”

  “Yes.”

  “You told me that she revealed her Power to them – and it was that which caught Aerca’s attention.” She paused, and took a moment to cover her eyes with one hand. She was trying to envision the thing; trying to make sense of the senseless story, trying to understand how such a thing could have resulted in what was.

  “You and your friends all spoke of having been followed. Did any of you see who was following?”

  Heidi nodded. “Two men. Clad in black raiment.”

  “You saw them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long was this, after the incident with the children?”

  “A few days.”

  “How many?”

  “A few.”

  Lila abandoned that particular detail, and asked, “Where were you?”

  “On my way back from Tolin.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Her answers were short and abrupt. She was no longer looking at Lila.

  “Where were your friends?”

  “Dera and Josephine were at home, making supper. Jade was spending the night in Lormar. It was pig season – same time as now. She was helping her father and brother on the farm.”

  “What time was it?”

  “Sunset. I left Tolin later than I had planned, and did not arrive home until well after dark.”

  “How closely were the men following?”

  Heidi swivelled her eyes back to Lila, looking somewhat annoyed. “What does that matter?”

  “Were they hanging back, and perhaps trying to make it look as if they were not following at all? Or were they on your heels, so that you may have felt that you needed run from them?”

  “They were about a quarter of a mile behind me. I suppose it could have been anyone; but the way that they spoke to one another, and then looked towards me at the same time, made me think that they were something other.”

  “They never came any closer?”

  “Not particularly. Yet I began to grow suspicious, and so passed the street that I should have taken. I wanted them not to know where I lived.”

  “And when did the others report they had been tracked?”

  “Jade came home a day later than we expected her. Her father was not feeling well. He was never in very good health; and it began to get worse, when Jade left home five years ago. I met her in Nanik, you know, while I was looking for something for Skyler.”

  Lila had no idea who Skyler might be; but she thought it not the time to ask.

  “And would you believe it?” said Heidi. “We all nearly died.” She began to laugh; but there were tears shining in her eyes, and she began again the process of furling and unfurling her fists. “I met Dera and Josephine that day. Josephine was unconscious, when we found her under the pork cart.” She laughed even louder. “We rolled her out, and tried to bring her home. She was the servant of a man named Falimer. Nasty, terrible little man, you know. Jade lopped of his hand with her sword.”

  Wild laughter now. Teardrops were streaking madly down her face, dripping down from her chin and onto the desk, as she leaned forward to clutch at the wood. “Then we went to a tavern, where Josephine drank all of the ale, and Dera danced with all of the men. Maybe did a little more than dance, you know – I saw her step outside around midnight, with a fellow named Punch. Then we left, and went back to my room at Mrs Flebott’s. I left for work in the morning, and told them all to be gone by my return. Skyler dismissed me that day; and when I got home, Jade was still there. I told myself that I wanted her to leave, that I wanted to be alone. But honestly, I don’t know what I would have done, had she not been there. . .”

  She laid her head down upon the desk for a moment, breathing heavily
. Then she looked up at Lila, and said, “That was when she told me about her Granny. She had died the year before – and she and her brother had been taking turns, you know, going down to the house, to make sure that everything was in order. So that people would not think it was abandoned, you know. But on that night, when I came home, she told me about it – and asked me if I wanted to live there with her! Truthfully, I don’t think that she had even thought yet about going there herself. But she looked at me, and decided that, for some reason, she wanted to share her Granny’s house with me.”

  The tears did not stop; but she did begin to smile again. Though she had strayed quite as far as was possible from the topic at hand, Lila did not try to remind her of it. She only waited, and listened.

  “I know not what made me do it, but I agreed. I spent the next day cleaning out my room, and packing all of my things. I strapped it all down to Breaker’s saddle, and then went back inside to have a rest, before we set off.” She paused, and dropped her head into her hand. “Breaker was my horse, before Eriah. I would tell you why that was his name, if I knew. Someone from Skyler’s shop – a man who ordered for his son’s first pair of shoes to be plated in gold, I believe – gave him to me. He was so happy with the way the shoes came out, he sat there and talked with me for nearly two hours. He said it was a shame, you know, that I had to walk all that way to the Square every morning; and so he told me about a horse he had, what used to belong to his father, who had died a few months earlier. The horse missed his owner, he said – and there was no one around his own house, who really knew even how to ride a horse. His was a wealthy family, you know. Had a driver to take them everywhere. So he said to me, ‘Why don’t you take him? It would be a lovely match, I think. You won’t be so tired, and he won’t be so lonely.’ ”

  Her voice trailed off, and she sat quietly for a moment. It seemed, though, that she had more to say. Lila’s impatience had worn nearly away by then, and she found that she had no trouble sharing the silence. But it was broken suddenly by the whistling of the kettle; and she found that she was glad to have some excuse to rise, and to busy her hands. When she came back with the tea, Heidi thanked her, and began to blow upon the steaming liquid in rather a childlike fashion.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “he was my horse for rather a long time. When he died two years ago, my friends gave me Eriah. At first, I was going to name him Ebony, his being so dark and beautiful and all. But around that time, I had been thinking quite a lot about my brother – and so I named him Eriah. Sometimes I wished I that hadn’t. When the others said his name, I sometimes thought that they were talking about my Eriah; but then I realised that they could not have been, because they did not even know about him. Sometimes I still regret it, you know, and wish that I had only named him Lightning, or something like that.” There came a thick fog, then, that drifted across her eyes; and it made Lila wonder, could she even see through it?

  “But I suppose it’s no matter, anyway,” she said. “Even if his name was Bob, I would still think of Eriah.”

  And then she fell quiet again. It was some moments later, when she looked up and asked: “What was I saying?”

  “You were telling me about your horse,” said Lila patiently. “But you left off at the part where you packed all your things, at Mrs – Mrs Flebott’s?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Heidi, and she seemed for a while to escape her melancholy, as she delved back into her story. “I packed all my things, and settled them for the journey. I went back to my room, and had a nap – and next thing I knew, Jade was waking me, to say that Dera and Josephine had come back. Needless to say, I was very surprised. But they came up to my room, and sat down, and told us of what had happened that day. I don’t really know if I should be telling you this –” (and at that she looked all around the room, as if she thought that someone was lurking in the shadows to eavesdrop) “–but at the time, Dera was something of a ‘lady of the evening,’ if you know what I mean.”

  She waited to see if Lila did. So Lila nodded, trying not to smile.

  “Anyway, she had taken Josephine back to her own place, where she lived with a few other girls like herself. Brick Street, I think it was called. From what I gathered, a man had come in for two of the girls, and they took him upstairs.” Here, she began to laugh again. “Josephine was horrified. She refused to spend another minute in the place, and dashed out in a huff. Dera chased after her, and when she finally found her, returned her to Mrs Flebott’s. Dera was rather flummoxed, poor thing – didn’t know what to do with the girl. Josephine cared not one way or the other, so long as she didn’t have to go back to Brick Street. And so I knew right off, that Jade would ask them to come with us. Josephine seemed all too grateful; but Dera was hesitant. All of her business was in Nanik, in the area of the building of flats where she lived. Yet she came with us

  anyway – for it seemed that she had been having some difficulties with another girl in her flat. She travelled, for some time, in betwixt Delvare and Nanik, till I managed to convince her that she need not do it.”

  She shrugged. “So the four of us left together, that day, from my little room. None of us were altogether sure what we were doing. Well, I should say that I wasn’t – and that, maybe, Josephine wasn’t, either. She had accepted quickly enough, but it’s in her nature –” (here she paused to take a deep breath, and to wrestle for control over her voice) “–or rather, it was in her nature, to become a little too concerned about things. So she started nearly right away to worry over it. She wanted still to go back to Falimer, and to beg his forgiveness. He was all she had ever known, you see. But Jade would not hear of it, and even I advised her against it. So she went on with us, looking a little unhappy, but at least ceasing to fret over it.”

  She shook her head. “But Jade – she never worries over things. When she decides what she wants to do, she only does it, with not a question put. If it seems right to her, then it must be right altogether.” She paused, and frowned rather deeply. “Sometimes it’s a good thing, you know – but sometimes it’s not. I fear, in fact, that it may be what led to all of this trouble we’ve come to be in.”

  And then she stopped. She lowered her head, and seemed to be quite through with her story.

  But it was there that Lila wished her to continue. It seemed as though she was approaching the place where they had begun; and that she had been about to say something more, about what Lila really wanted to know. But she said nothing else.

  “May I ask you something, Heidi?”

  She said nothing. She seemed not even to hear.

  “How did all this trouble start? I cannot help but think that there is more than you have told me – and if I am to help you, then I must know everything.”

  Heidi raised her eyes. “I’m sorry, Princess. What did you say?”

  “I asked you, Heidi, what else happened with Jade. Or with any of you, for that matter. How did it start? What brought you here?”

  The woman sat back in her chair. “What were we talking about?”

  Lila raised an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

  She looked down at the empty teacup in front of her, and seemed confused as to how it had come to be there. “Not particularly,” she said.

  “You remember nothing that you said?”

  “I cannot have said very much, if I don’t remember.”

  “Never mind that,” said Lila. “But you told me that, a few days after Jade helped those children, you and your friends began to notice people following you. You said that you saw two men behind you, clad in black.”

  Heidi nodded. “I did.”

  “And what did the others see?”

  “More of the same.”

  “When?”

  “When Jade came home from Lormar, she told us that she had seen men following her. It was pig season, and she was –”

  “You told me already.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Lila sighed. “Just go on.”

  “It is
almost fifty miles from our house in Delvare to the Misaria farm. When she stopped for the night at the Black Crow – which is on the outskirts of Nanik – Jade said that she saw two men down at the bar, watching her as she ordered her room. But she saw nothing of them the following day, when she left the inn.”

  “And the others?”

  “Dera was going round to the flat where she used to live, to visit some old friends. On Brick Street, I think –”

  “I know.”

  “How would you know that?”

  Lila waved her hand in impatience, and everything which sat atop the desk overturned. Heidi’s eyes widened, and she moved a little away from Lila.

  “When she came home, she said that she had seen two men, walking a little ways behind her. But she did as I had done, and confused them of the proper direction. They could not have very desperate to find us, after all, because they always gave up after a little.”

  “And Josephine?”

  “She never saw anything. After all three of us had told the very same story, she was afraid to leave the house. And when we had finally convinced her that it was safe to venture out, she went absolutely nowhere without Dera. By that time, though, the men seemed to have disappeared.”

  “There is little doubt in my mind that your trackers were Lumarian,” said Lila. “Aerca would not have sent Southern men, to do something that she obviously thought so important.”

  Heidi nodded.

  “But there is still something,” Lila went on, giving Heidi a searching look. “There is something that does not make sense.”

  “And what is that?”

  “If what you have told me is truly all that happened – and the trackers were called off after only a short time – then what is it that led you here?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “What else happened?”

  “Nothing, I –”

  “Miss Bastian!” cried Lila, slamming her open palms down upon the desk. “Pray tell me the truth!”

  “She meant not for anything to happen,” said Heidi. “She only wanted it to stop.”