by Sam Hawke
“In the stories for older children, and the very oldest stories I have read, the girl must usually use her blood, or flesh, or hair, to perform her spells. Commonly they can talk to animals or force them to do their bidding—I imagine that is where Father Cam’s fears came from. Then there are even more outlandish tales, of blood binding and healing and powerful magics of the human body. Bringing people back from the dead with the blood of another’s sacrifice, that sort of thing.”
“Are the witches ever the villains in the stories?” A defense or attack against these mysterious powers, even if simplified for children’s consumption, was better than nothing.
Abae stopped and thought again. “I do not think so,” she said at last. “Sometimes they are … not the villain, precisely, but sometimes the witchmother is harder or more ruthless than the child. Or the child is not sure that it is worth the pain to go away with her.”
“The one I had was sort of … ambiguous.”
She chuckled. “Yes, that is a good word for it. In Perest-Avana our children’s stories are usually in a particular format. There is a rule, and a child follows the rule or does not follow the rule, and is rewarded or punished. They are mostly ways to teach about societies through such a viewpoint. But Talafan stories are quite different. Sometimes I am not sure I have translated properly but then later I find a different version of the same tale with the same strange ending.”
“If you throw yourself from the peak and so feed your heart to the hungry mountain, but you have flown away from the evil prince who had captured and imprisoned you, is that a happy ending?” I wondered aloud.
“Some of the stories are very unsettling,” she agreed. “The blood magic and sacrifice ones make me the most uncomfortable, because in our culture to speak of bringing a person back from the dead, with another’s blood, would be a terrible thing. To interrupt the peace of passing, to swap a life for a life … this is the stuff of curses.”
Hungry mountains and dark sacrifices, I thought. Not a tale I’d tell a child to comfort them in bed at night.
A flicker of movement from the other side of the canal made my heart skip. But no animal or woman emerged, just the flap of bedding hanging off a line from one of the buildings. Still, it was getting dark and we were exposed, here, guards or no guards. I started to stand.
And then I saw her.
She was standing among the billowing flaps of fabric, pale and stony, staring across at us with loathing. I had a clear and unambiguous view of her face. There was something in her hand, and before I could even shout, or point, or do anything at all, she had thrown it. I flinched back instinctively, pulling Abae away with me and almost causing her to trip over the bench, and heard a fat plop as something hit the surface of the canal. I opened my mouth to shout, and found it full of water.
Stale, tepid canal water, smelling of industry and algae and piss, filled my mouth, drained down my throat, choked me, attacked me. I dropped to all fours, coughing and retching, but no matter how I tried to cough it out, more water filled the space it left. As though they were very far away, the sounds of Lara’s and Dom’s shouts ricocheted faintly around my skull, but I could barely understand them, because I was drowning again, drowning in the dry, on the land, coughing up water that forced itself ever deeper, blocking out the air. Someone was striking my back in heavy blows, but my vision was all flare spots and shadows and I couldn’t make out anything but the pain and the pressure and I couldn’t understand what was happening.
I fell, at some point, from my hands and knees to flat on my face, and registered the additional pain on my cheekbone and jaw and skin, but it was nothing compared to the desperate fire in my lungs. And then a cry, or a grunt, some kind of visceral sound that I felt as much as heard cut through the swirling panic in my ears, and the back-slapping stopped.
Drowning again, and not even in the water. The fucking irony.
A loud splash, I heard that much, but it meant nothing anymore. The blackness took over, a blanket flung over me, sheltering me, and my muscles stopped fighting, and all of a sudden I was plunging in the most comfortable sleep imaginable, every part of my body warm and relaxed and the pain miraculously vanished. Only the tiniest moment of regret chased that release.
And then it was stripped away. Someone or something yanked the blanket off, and I was on the hard ground, my face squashed into the stones by the canal, and my stomach felt like it was about to burst, and everything, everything from my nose and eyes and ears and throat burned and strained. I coughed and vomited simultaneously, expelling a horrendous flood of water and vomit. For a moment hatred and anger infused me with a powerful and thorough strength and I wanted more than anything to return to the velvety blackness, the point past the pain.
But air was making it back inside me now—fiery, aggressive air that clawed its way back into my lungs and bled me for each gulp, but air nonetheless, and my vision showed colors and shapes again, and then slowly my brain made sense of it all, and I could let myself be helped up by soft hands and remember myself.
Abae was squatting in front of me, crying noisily, and when I looked at her directly and focused on her eyes, she flung her arms around my shoulders. “My God, my God,” she sobbed, pressing her forehead against mine. “You are all right. Thank God.”
She was wet, and not just from her tears; her whole bottom half was soaking. “What … what happened?” I gasped.
“I saw her!” she cried. “The Talafan woman. She threw something in the water and then you were drowning, there was so much water, you were drowning right here on the land, and it made no sense, no sense at all! Your guards chased her and I … I didn’t know what to do, no matter how much you coughed up, there was always more.” And indeed the ground around us was a sodden mess.
But I had just realized what she was holding in her hand, and I knew without her saying what she had done next. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I jumped in the canal and I felt around until I found what she threw, and…” She held it out with shaking hands, tears still spilling down her cheeks. “The moment it came out of the water, it was as if a plug had been pulled out in you.”
It was a poppet, a small and ugly thing like the one I’d found in the viewing box a few short weeks and what seemed like another lifetime ago. But this one had a fingerswidth of dark curly hair, soaking wet and springing in all directions, crudely sewn into the head part. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen an object that repulsed and scared me more. I did not want to look at it, but nor had I any idea what to do, how to treat it, whether it could cause me further harm. So I just numbly took it from Abae and tucked it inside my now vomit-stained clothes.
“I do not understand what these people want,” she whispered, and I gave a shaky laugh.
“She wants something I can’t give her,” I said. I coughed again, spat out another smelly mouthful, and shuddered. “She wants something no one can give her. And I don’t think she’ll stop till we’re dead.”
* * *
By the time Lara and Dom came back from the alley, swearing, shaken, and furious, we were both a sight, soaked with canal water and bile, Abae close to hysterical with the shock of it all, and a horrible numbness and lethargy weighing me down.
“What in all the hells was that?” Lara demanded, roughly pulling me to my feet and inspecting me like a frightened mother. Dom, his baton in hand, was wide-eyed and speechless, his eyes darting between us and the canal and the alley. “Kalina?”
“I’m all right,” I forced myself to say, giving her a mechanical smile. I patted inside my paluma, thinking of the book concealed there, and hoping it had not been damaged. “Just shaken up.” I took Abae’s hand and helped her to her feet. “Abaezalla saved me. If she hadn’t been here, I’d be dead. I’m sorry, everyone. None of you signed up for this.”
“Dunno ’bout that,” Lara said, her eyes still roaming me as if to find other concealed injuries. “I signed up to protect your person, and seems like it needs protecting more than ever
.” She nudged Dom and added, “We didn’t get her, which means we need to not be out in the open right now. Get it together, mate.”
Like a verbal slap, her words seemed to bring him back to himself. He shook his head like an animal shedding itself of water. “Right you are,” he muttered. “Let’s get to cover.”
“Who was that woman?” Abae whispered as we hurried away from the canal, a guard in front and behind us, her hand still tight in mine. “Why is she trying to kill you?”
Dom was slapping the baton nervously in one of his palms, his head still swiveling as we moved. I swallowed. “I’ll explain more once we’re safe, all right?”
“Back to your apartments?” Lara asked, as we ducked down a side street and she walked backward, keeping her eyes out for anyone following us.
I hesitated. Home had always been a comfort, but right now it was a false comfort, an empty trick. Nowhere was safe, not really. When buildings could explode in the night and women could drown you on the shore, there was no real safety to be found, not even surrounded by the trappings of family and childhood. There was no escaping fear. Memories of Aven and the river still had their claws deep inside me.
Abae wore a shocked, blank look, reflecting the same hollow fear, and I knew suddenly that I didn’t want to answer any questions about what we had seen, to describe it to anyone, not even to Tain or Sjease or Dee. I would not have to relive anything, just for a while. “Not to my apartments,” I said, then cleared my throat to continue without the uncertain crack. “We’re filthy and Abae’s cold. Where’s the nearest bathhouse from here?”
Abae blinked at me. “There is a private bathhouse at our guesthouse,” she offered softly. “It is close by. And everyone else will be at the church for some time yet.”
“Yes, good.” No one to ask us questions there. “Which way?” In our hurry to get clear of the area I’d lost track of exactly where we were. Abae looked around dazedly, obviously suffering the same issue.
“It is on Harrow Street,” she said uncertainly, and Dom nodded.
“That’s not far,” he said. “We’ll get you there safe and then I’ll get a messenger to send word to the Order Guards?” He paused, looked at me quizzically. Ordinarily, such a thing would require sending word to Jov, to Chen, to Tain, but what was there to report? Everyone was already on the lookout for Mosecca. I was not injured and nothing had changed, except that she had proven she could attack me in any situation.
“No urgency,” I said. “We’ll get clean and warm and then decide what to do.”
* * *
Unlike the Talafan contingent, who had used their own staff almost exclusively to run the guesthouse during their stay, the much smaller Perest-Avani delegation were being looked after by the ordinary operators of the house. The owner was an ancient woman in a wheeled chair, her face so wrinkled her eyes were like tiny seeds, her hair shockingly white. She saw the state of us and immediately called for servants to heat the baths without asking any questions, then while we were waiting for them to be readied she arranged tea and cheese stew and fussed over us gently.
“Shall we come in with you?” Dom asked. He hadn’t put the baton away, and he looked like he’d very much like to hit something to relieve the confusion and tension.
“No, just stay by the door, maybe?”
“I’ll patrol outside,” Lara said. “You stay here. No one goes inside that room without your say-so.” She shot a firm look at the proprietor, who nodded.
“Of course, my dears. You go on in, and I’ll arrange for your clothes to be cleaned and bring you something fresh and dry.”
“Thank you.” My words sounded wooden and expressionless but the effort of summoning up anything more was too much.
The guesthouse bathing area was small and simple in design but it still had a cleansing area with buckets and brushes and soap, and a proper bath, full depth, with soothing oils in the burners by the walls and herbs and flowers in the water, which must have been from the proprietor’s own garden, based on the freshness. It was a relief to shed the soiled clothes—placing my belongings, including the book and the witch’s doll, carefully to the side so that they would not be caught up—and scrub ourselves clean, and breathe in the pleasantly scented air instead of sour rot, but I hesitated on the edge of the relaxation pool. Perhaps a bath had been ill-advised. I closed my eyes. I had survived a close drowning once before, and had not let it ruin my enjoyment of the simple pleasure of a bath; this time would be no different. A deep breath fell out of me, almost involuntary, as I stepped in, careful to keep my head well above water, but fortunately immersing myself did not trigger any rush of frightening memory.
A ripple and a soft splosh indicated that Abae had joined me, but my eyes, once closed, had no intention of opening for a while. I rested my head on a perfumed pillow and breathed as slowly as my lungs would let me.
I lay there for an indefinite period, but eventually both the cold and the shaky fear had receded in the face of the deep, relaxing comfort, and I sat up to stop myself falling asleep. Abae was on the other side, her face tear-streaked. “What’s wrong?” I asked automatically, and then flushed with embarrassment at the stupidity of the question. But she smiled wanly and shook her head.
“I am all right, Kalina,” she said. “It feels so safe and calm here, I was just thinking that perhaps it could be a terrible dream. But I have never dreamed such things.” Her eyes looked glassy as she stared at a point somewhere in the distance.
“You saved my life,” I said quietly. “There was nothing I could have done. If you hadn’t pulled that thing out of the canal, I’d have drowned. Thank you.”
There was a long pause, during which she took a number of shaky breaths. Her voice, when it came out, sounded huskier than usual. “You were asking about witches, before. You knew that one was coming for you?”
“I’m sorry. If I’d known I was putting you in danger…”
“Me?” She shook her head. “It was you who was at risk. I did nothing but pick up a doll.”
“You jumped in the water in the dark,” I pointed out, “and managed to find what she threw in. How did you even think of it?”
“I do not know,” she said. “I was so frightened.”
“Me too,” I admitted. I squeezed my eyes shut, battling the memory.
“Why does this woman try to kill you?”
My hands twined together under the water. She could still be working with our enemy. But she had just saved my life; surely she was owed the truth. “Because she thinks that my brother and I are responsible for her son’s death. He was with the Imperial soldiers, and he got caught up with the same gang that set off the explosions at the closing ceremony. They killed him and tried to make it look like my brother did.” I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
I was half-afraid Abae would ask for the story, but she didn’t. Instead she watched me with those dark, liquid eyes, and cocked her head to one side, as if studying a difficult puzzle, or scrutinizing a piece of artwork. “She blames you for something she believes your brother did?”
“No, but it was partly my fault that her son … was where he was that night.” I rubbed my forehead. Fortunes, the whole thing was such a mess. “The funny thing is that I don’t even blame her for hating us. What you said about witches in stories—it seems like the folklore is all about women finding power to escape the traps they find themselves in.” I thought about poor Zhafi and her attempts to carve herself out a real existence, her charities and businesses and dreams of freedom. “Mosecca is a widow and he was her only son, and I’m sure she had many hopes for him. I’m not surprised that losing him drove her to this.”
“It has been my impression that many Talafan noblewomen choose to realize their own ambitions through their sons,” she agreed, a strange twist to her lips.
“How is it for you, in Perest-Avana?” I couldn’t help asking. “You said the Superior didn’t approve of you being apart from your husband; is that a common attitude?”
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She didn’t answer. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m being nosy.”
“No, it is not that.” Her crooked smile reassured me. “It is very different for women here in your country. I am permitted my employment, yes, where a Talafan noblewoman would not be. But I was not permitted to choose my husband. I was chosen for him like you might choose an item of clothing, or a piece of jewelry, or a very fine chair. And men feel free to look and touch and ‘compliment’ me in this fashion. At least when I am traveling with the High Priestess, I am extended the courtesy of the holy women.”
I slid over and added some water to the hot rocks to create more steam, and to have something to do with my hands. Abae said something over the hiss that I couldn’t understand.
“What was that?”
The look in her eyes had changed; her gaze roamed my face with something faintly jealous, faintly hungry. “Women are not treated so here. I have heard men complain of it, back home. They come to Silasta expecting … certain pleasures, and instead find themselves rebuffed.”
I thought of Hiukipi, roaming the masquerade and rudely attempting to touch strangers. He had been notable for the extremity of his reaction but he was hardly unusual; it was a common joke in bathhouse talk that men from the north and the west, or at least men of a certain social class, could not find man nor woman willing to be with them. “Yes. No one wants romantic relations with someone who speaks to them as if they were a thing, not a person. Some men are left with only their hands to entertain themselves, because no Sjon will consent to their attentions.”
She ducked her head, a tiny smile on her lips. “It is a different world, with different rules.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But it’s not so hard to understand.” My face was very hot; perhaps I had made too much steam. “It’s the simplest thing, really, if you think about it. If people are attracted to each other, they are free to act on that. If they are not both attracted, then they do not.” Was she flushing, too? I could see the tiny, perfect water droplets gathered on her smooth shoulders. Her neck was so graceful.