Kzine Issue 22

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  Blackthorn turned her mind’s eye to a real scene. It had been a few years ago, and she had been sitting on her father’s lap, but the view was the same. He had described it to her just as her imaginary eagle had flown it. There was only one difference: she vividly remembered the piles of ash sitting on the water, floating on charred spears of wood.

  “The rafts of the dead are heavy,” she remembered her father saying. “The Red Plight does its work quickly.”

  Blackthorn had been scared. “Are we going to catch the Red Plight? Are we? Are we?”

  “No,” her father had said. “You are safe here with me. Safe from the bad magicians, and the corrupt scum in their castle, and the pirates who dare call themselves merchant princes.”

  “I want to go out there,” Blackthorn had said.

  “No you don’t,” her father cooed.

  “I do, I do,” Blackthorn said. “I want to see the castle and the princes and the ships!”

  “No you don’t!” her father repeated, voice becoming thick. “This city is no place for a little girl! I will not have your dead body burned with the rest of those peasants. You are safe with me!”

  Her memory ended with that hard slap, the twisting feeling she knew so well, the falling.

  In the present, she turned away from the proper story of the Eagle. “And the Eagle fell out of the sky and hit the ground until he was dead dead dead!” she shouted, slamming the doll against the slate floor of the terrace. The brass eyes made loud knocks against the stonework. Her hunger, her anger at her father, the accumulated memories of every slap and twist and fall, seethed in her mind, reddening out the eagle’s serene flight. She did not want to fly away with the eagle. The eagle only lied.

  When she stopped slamming the doll, though, the sound of knocking continued.

  * * *

  Blackthorn knew the sound of the door opening. It could not be her father coming inside.

  Whoever it was, they were surely alone. She thought it might be one of his friends come to retrieve something forgotten, but the footsteps were too soft, too precise. The intruder appeared to linger in the kitchen, pacing back and forth. Blackthorn heard the opening and closing of closets, the pushing of chairs, the clink of coins.

  There was a soft pause, then the locked door of the terrace opened.

  The Magrim magician who emerged was female. This did nothing to lessen Blackthorn’s terror. Between the visitor’s arched coat collar, flat-brimmed hat, and eaves of brown hair, Blackthorn saw a face like an expressionless olive mask. The figure was tall––taller than Blackthorn’s father––and carried a wooden staff curved around at the top like the staves shepherds and farmers used to ferry their flocks along the wharf. As she came closer, Blackthorn met her eyes, dark brown nearing black. Blackthorn recognized that pitiless look.

  You can’t make me disappear, Blackthorn thought to herself, shuddering. You can’t make me disappear. You can’t make me disappear.

  The Magrim held Blackthorn’s stare for a while, then looked down at the doll. She contemplated it for a few deep moments. When their eyes met again, Blackthorn thought the magician’s expression looked softer than before.

  From between a pair of coat buttons, the Magrim produced a wooden tablet affixed with a thin piece of parchment and a narrow white quill. Blackthorn saw no inkwell, but the magician wrote as if words were appearing.

  “Young girl… seven, maybe eight,” the Magrim muttered as she wrote. Her voice was low and calm. “Thin, neglected by the look of it. Perhaps malnourished. Father inattentive, mother likely absent or dead. Carries a small cloth doll. Appears to live in fear of authority figures.”

  Blackthorn’s nerves pulsed. “You cannot make me disappear!”

  The magician knelt down before Blackthorn.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I can’t.”

  Blackthorn backed into the narrow railing marking the edge of the terrace, heart still pounding. “Father says you’re bad! You’re bad!”

  The dust on the terrace stirred, as if with a sudden whirlwind. The wind passed over Blackthorn, and instantly she felt calmed. She locked eyes with the Magrim again. Was that magic?

  “Tell me about your doll,” the Magrim asked. “Who made her?”

  “My father,” Blackthorn said. “He cut the hair from the tail of a horse when it wasn’t looking. The horse was black as night.”

  Blackthorn paused. She did not know the story of how her father had gotten the other parts of the doll. She made it up as she went. “One day, when my father woke up, two buttons fell off his coat. He made the eyes. When he was done with a drink, he cut the cork in half and made the nose.”

  The magician laughed. “You spin a good story. What’s her name?”

  Blackthorn tried to invent one, as she had invented the story of the doll’s creation, but couldn’t think of any. She gave a nervous half-shrug.

  “Let’s give her one,” the Magrim said. “First, what’s yours?”

  “Blackthorn.”

  “Very majestic,” the magician said. “The blackthorn tree is a sturdy old sentinel, yet turns beautifully white in bloom and bears a surprisingly tart fruit. Why are you called that?”

  Blackthorn had never thought about this. She shrugged again.

  “Well my name is Vermillia,” the magician said. “It’s not the name I was given. It’s a name I gave myself once I left my home and took to being a true magician.”

  Vermillia opened her palm and a wisp of wine-red flame flashed in her hand. Blackthorn let out a little scream.

  “I think names should always have something to do with the person who holds them. I named myself after the color of my flame. Ever since I summoned it by accident and burnt my pallet to a crisp!”

  Blackthorn made a connection. “Like the fires every moon?”

  “Yes!” The magician clapped her hands together. “You’re an observant little girl. With my talents, I was called upon to oversee the floating of the dead soon after I took my orders. It’s an ancient ceremony and was a great honor for me as a young magician.”

  Vermillia took the doll in her hands, but did not remove it from Blackthorn’s clutch. “Now what does your doll do? That could help us with a name.”

  “She’s in my stories.”

  “Tell me one.”

  “There’s one with a magician in it,” Blackthorn said. “You might like it. It’s the Story of the Eagle and the Salmon.”

  Blackthorn restarted the story, telling it properly this time. As she spoke, she pictured again the eagle flying high over the city, her eyes and Vermillia’s following its imaginary path.

  “…The magician conjured a tree, which grew out of the ground from nothing.” Blackthorn’s voice rose in anticipation when she reached this part of the story. “The eagle was able to land, but he dropped the fish and the magician caught it.”

  Vermillia mimicked a catching motion in her hands. “Why don’t we call your doll, ‘Sky’?”

  Blackthorn stammered, trying to finish the story, but Vermillia spoke over her.

  “We magicians cannot conjure trees from nothing, but we can keep the peace in Linkstone.” Vermillia’s voice had turned serious. “We make sure laws are followed, and debts are paid.”

  Debts are paid. Debts will be paid. Blackthorn’s mind made another connection. “Are you here about the dice?”

  Vermillia’s face flashed with surprise, and she made another note on her tablet. “Appears wise to father’s habits.”

  Blackthorn shuffled sideways. “You cannot make me disappear!”

  “I don’t plan to,” Vermillia said. “In fact, I am here to make sure you don’t disappear. I know how it feels to be made to feel invisible.”

  Vermillia hiked up the right sleeve of her cloak to reveal a long splotch of red, disfigured skin on her forearm.

  “A magician’s fire cannot burn her own skin,” Vermillia said, and Blackthorn, for the first time, sensed a lance of anger in her voice. “This was water fr
om a red-hot kettle. Bless my dear father’s soul. He thought it would make the magic stop coming out. And that wasn’t the worst he did to me.”

  Blackthorn could not take her eyes off the scar. The urge to vomit over the side of the terrace nearly overcame her.

  “Did you want to run away?” Blackthorn said.

  Vermillia again looked surprised.

  “Yes. And eventually I did. Why? Do you?”

  “Sometimes I do,” Blackthorn said. “But sometimes I don’t.”

  “And you know you should want to, but feel confused when you don’t?”

  Blackthorn had no words to add.

  “Look at me,” Vermillia said. “Just because someone gives you food and water, doesn’t mean what you’re feeling is wrong. Sometimes you have to trust what you’re feeling. Sometimes you have to act on it.”

  “How did you do it?” Blackthorn asked.

  Vermillia, with a grin, flashed the wine-red flame in her palm again. Blackthorn stifled her scream this time.

  “But I’m not magic,” Blackthorn said.

  Smile fading, Vermillia reached behind her neck––burn mark still showing––and let her brown hair cascade down the back of her coat. She unfurled her clenched right hand to reveal three small hairpins, each with a needlepoint on one end and a tarnished pearl on the other.

  “Let me see Sky.” Vermillia said.

  Blackthorn handed her the doll. The magician deftly coiffed Sky’s hair into a small bun and pushed the pins in deep, so the pearly ends could barely be seen. When Blackthorn took the doll back, she noticed that the pins were warm to the touch.

  “Whenever you feel unsafe,” Vermillia said, “I want you to pull one of the pins out. If you pull all three pins out, you will be protected from harm, even after I leave here today. Do you understand me?”

  Blackthorn twisted her right foot in trepidation.

  “Do you understand me?”

  Blackthorn took a breath. “I understand.”

  “Good,” Vermillia said. “I don’t want you to disappear. I want you to grow up. I want you to see Linkstone like the eagle in your story. The palace, the docks, the ocean. All of it.”

  “My father says there’s no place in Linkstone for a little girl,” Blackthorn said.

  “Do you think he’s right?”

  Blackthorn continued to turn the ball of her right foot on a dusty spot on the slate. She felt suddenly fearful again, worried that Vermillia’s serious voice might return or she might conjure more fire.

  At last Blackthorn responded, “No.”

  * * *

  To Blackthorn’s relief, her father did not notice how Sky had changed, nor did he find the pins buried tightly in the doll’s hair. Over the next week, Blackthorn took Sky wherever she went, always keeping a finger on the warm pearl studs. It gave her comfort to know that, in some way, Vermillia was close to her.

  She kept the doll close when they heard the wagons trundle by, carting those who had died that month off to wait for the next full moon. Whenever he heard the creaking of the wheels, her father would cry and drink and become angry. She kept the doll close whenever she heard the shouting of the Prince’s Police keeping the peace. As soon as the noises began, her father would become suspicious and lash out at any sound Blackthorn made.

  The first time Blackthorn became separated from Sky, she was in the dark, sitting at the house’s lonely little table. She could tell it was not nighttime yet by the beam of red light shining through the terrace door window, but the rest of the room was black. Her father had woken up late in the afternoon and had not lit a candle.

  A thunderous crack shocked the room from silence. It took Blackthorn several panicked seconds to realize it had been her father slamming a cabinet door shut.

  “Where is it?” he said, voice quavering on the edge of fear. “Where is it!?” More cupboards opened, and then clapped shut just as frantically.

  “Where is it!?”

  Blackthorn’s father finally lit a candle. The light trembled in his hand, illuminating his stricken face from below. After another minute of anguished searching, whatever it was he was looking for could not be found.

  He turned to face the table.

  “There were fifty silver pieces in that cabinet, and they’re all gone,” he said. “I did not touch them.”

  Blackthorn scrambled off her chair, looking for Sky. She scuttled around on the floor on all fours, her hands grabbing at thin air under the table, then under her bed in the corner.

  “You didn’t answer me! Get back here!”

  Blackthorn yelled, in her panic, “You cannot make me disappear!”

  “Oh can’t I? Watch me.”

  As her hand fumbled under her pallet, Blackthorn felt the brush of horse hair. Her probing fingers soon found the familiar coolness of the brass buttons, the gentle resistance of feather-stuffed cloth. Sky emerged in her hand when she withdrew it.

  “You little bitch, where did you go?”

  Her hands were shaking so violently, it took her precious seconds to find the pearl end of the first pin. She held it at the ready.

  When she turned back, her father had looked away. He was rummaging in his nightstand, and soon emerged with a small wooden box.

  “This is all I have left,” he said, brandishing the box at her and shaking it. “Nine silver pieces and a few dozen coppers. Is this what you wanted? Did you want us to get thrown out on the street? Did you want us to starve?”

  “I didn’t!” she said, covering her face. “I didn’t do it. It was someone else.”

  Her father’s stunned silence told her that this had been the wrong thing to say. She immediately knew that he had just guessed everything about Vermillia––the unwanted guest he had warned her about––and the conversation Blackthorn and the magician must have had. She expected him to explode. She braced herself for the flash of pain, to feel the box’s rough splintered wood blaze across her cheek. With no way out, she pulled the first pin from Sky’s hair.

  Her father’s mood changed in the space of a breath. He fell to his knees and began to cry.

  “I’ve failed, haven’t I, Blackthorn?” he sobbed, laying the candle by his knees and cupping his face. “I’ve failed, haven’t I?…”

  Minutes passed, and Blackthorn unfolded from her cowering posture. Her father was making such a show of weeping, the idea struck her that he might be faking. But the sight of him there on the floor, looking so pathetic, drew her forward.

  “I told your mother I wouldn’t fail,” he said, and Blackthorn’s eyes widened. If he was talking about Mother, he had to be serious. Standing there, Blackthorn felt like stone.

  “I told her that I would lay off the bottle, that I would become a productive working man of Linkstone,” he said. “That I would learn a trade. That you would look just like her. I still remember sneaking into the Prince’s Arboretum with her and finding a hidden spot. You would be strong, I said to her. Like a blackthorn tree.”

  He wiped his face. “I still remember when they burned her. You were too small to know.”

  Through her feet on the snarled wood floor, Blackthorn could feel her whole body trembling. A step forward felt like a journey. She approached her father, and laid a hand on his shoulder. She prepared to pull it back at any moment, but her father did not lash out. His bloodshot eyes, normally the blue of the harbor water on a clear day, radiated something she had never sensed before. His mouth sat agape. He brought his hand from where it rested on the floor and cupped the side of her face. It moved from her cheek down her side, where it came to rest on her thigh. Fingers danced up and down her leg with a forcefulness and intention that made Blackthorn squirm.

  “You’re as beautiful as your mother was,” Blackthorn’s father told her shakily.

  Blackthorn had no idea what he meant. She felt such a confusion of emotions that she began to cry too. She did not know what her father was doing, and only wanted him to stop. When he did, and Blackthorn’s tears cleared from her eye
s, she saw his face had darkened again.

  “But what do I get for doing the right thing?” he said. “I get a daughter who would sell me to the Magrim. Who would have me killed over a matter of fifty silver pieces. Who would rather believe the lies of some Magrim slut over her own father––the father who gave up every penny and pleasure in life for her.”

  Blackthorn backed away. Her father shivered and growled like a cornered dog.

  “Do you want to have me killed, Blackthorn?” he said.

  And as he rose to his feet with a grumble that heralded another fit of rage, as he pulled his arm back to strike, he crashed down to the floor face-first. A collection of silver and copper coins scattered over the floor, fleeing the broken box like frightened spiders. Blackthorn jumped as they rolled beneath her feet, weaving and wobbling on their edges. As soon as the last spinning silver piece fell flat, Blackthorn heard a snore.

  She looked down. The second pin, glittering and glowing in her hand, was a perfect match to the first.

  * * *

  Blackthorn hid the pins beneath her pillow, but whatever magic in them that had granted her safety did not bring her easy sleep. She lay frozen on her back in terror that she could not tell was dreamt or real.

  She found herself standing on the terrace, but somehow it had grown a lush carpet of grass. It was larger than she remembered it––large enough to have sprouted a gnarled tree which, with its stooping branches and its coating of white flowers, reminded Blackthorn of an old woman. The tree and the grass were drenched in sunlight, but Blackthorn could not see where it came from.

  Beneath the tree stood a Magrim.

  “Do you want to have me killed, Blackthorn?” The magician spoke with her father’s voice. “Do you want to have me killed? Killed? Killed?…”

  The magician raised its arm as if to strike her. It had grown taller––as tall as the tree. Penned in by the edge of the terrace, Blackthorn had nowhere to go. Her heart surged with horror.