by S L Farrell
In the other room, Talis’ head nodded ever closer. When his face appeared to be about to touch the rim of the bowl, the glow vanished as suddenly as it had come, and Talis gasped as though drawing breath for the first time.
Nico gasped, too, involuntarily, as the cold and fire inside him vanished at the same moment. He started to pull his head back from the door, but Talis’ voice stopped him. “Nico. Son.”
He peered back in. Talis was staring at him, a smile creasing the lines of his olive face. There were more wrinkles there, lately, and Talis’ hair was beginning to be salted with gray. He groaned when he stood up too fast and his joints sometimes creaked, even though Matarh said that Talis was the same age as her. “It’s fine, Son. I’m not angry with you.” Talis’ accent seemed stronger than usual. He gestured to Nico, and Nico could see a smear of the red dust still on his palm. He sighed as if he were tired and needed to sleep. “Come here.” Nico hesitated. “Don’t worry; come here.”
Nico pushed open the door-the hinge, as he knew it would, protesting loudly-and went to Talis. The man picked him up (yes, he grunted with the effort) and put him on a chair next to the table so he could see the bowl. “Nico, this is a special bowl I brought with me from the country where I used to live,” he said. “See… there’s water in it.” He stirred the water with a fingertip. The water seemed entirely ordinary now.
“Is the bowl special because it can make water glow?” Nico asked.
Talis continued to smile, but the way his eyebrows lowered over his eyes made the smile look somehow wrong in his face. Nico could see his own face staring back from the brown-black pupils of Talis’ eyes. There were deep folds at the corner of those eyes. “Ah, so you saw that, did you?”
Nico nodded. “Was that magic?” he asked. “I know you’re not a teni because you never go to temple with Matarh and me. Are you a Numetodo?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not a Numetodo, nor a teni of the Faith. What you saw wasn’t magic, Nico. It was just the sunlight coming in the window and reflecting from the water in the bowl, that’s all. I saw it, too-so bright it seemed like there was a tiny sun under the water. I liked the way it looked, and so I watched it for a while.”
Nico nodded, but he remembered the red dust and the strange, grassy color of the light and the way it had bathed Talis’ face, as if a hand of light were stroking him. He remember the cold fire. He didn’t mention any of that, though. It seemed best not to, though he wasn’t certain why.
“I love you, Nico,” Talis continued. He knelt on the floor next to Nico’s chair, so that their faces were the same height. His hands were on Nico’s shoulders. “I love Serafina… your matarh… too. And the best thing she’s ever given me, the thing that has made me the most happy, is you. Did you know that?”
Nico nodded again. Talis’ fingers were tight around his arms, so tight he couldn’t move. Talis’ face was very near his, and he could smell the bacon and honeyed tea on the man’s breath, and also a faint spiciness that he couldn’t identify at all. “Good,” Talis said. “Now listen, there’s no need to mention the bowl or the sunlight to your matarh. I thought that one day I might give your matarh the bowl as a gift, and I want it to be a surprise, and you don’t want to spoil that, do you?”
Nico shook his head at that, and Talis grinned widely, as if he’d told himself a joke inside that Nico hadn’t heard. “Excellent,” he said. “Now, let me finish washing the bowl-that’s what I was starting to do when you saw me. That’s why I put the water in it.” Talis released Nico; Nico rubbed at his shoulders with his hands as Talis picked up the bowl, swirled the water inside it ostentatiously, then opened the window shutters to dump it into the flowered windowbox. Talis wiped the bowl with his linen bashta, and Nico heard the ring of metal. He watched as Talis put the bowl into the pack that he kept under the bed that he and Nico’s matarh shared, then put the pack back underneath the straw-filled mattress.
“There,” Talis said as he straightened again. “It’ll be our little secret, eh, Nico?” He winked at Nico.
It would be their secret. Yes.
Nico liked secrets.
The White Stone
They came to her at night, those who the White Stone had killed. In the night, they stirred and woke. They gathered around her in her dreams and they talked to her. Often, the loudest of them was Old Pieter, the first person she’d killed.
She’d been twelve.
“ Remember me… ” he whispered to her in her sleep. “ Remember me… ”
Old Pieter was their neighbor in the sleepy village back on the Isle of Paeti, and she’d known him since birth, especially after her vatarh died when she was six. He was always friendly with her, joking and gifting her with animals he’d carved from oak branches, whittling them with the short knife he always carried on his belt. She painted the animals he gave her, placing them on a window shelf in her little bedroom where she could see them every morning.
Old Pieter kept goats, and when her matarh would let her, she sometimes helped him tend the small herd. The day her life changed, the day she started on the path that had led her here, she’d been out with Pieter and his goats near the Loudwater, the creek falling fast and noisy from the slopes of Sheep Fell, one of the tall hills to the south of the village. The goats were grazing placidly near the creek, and she was walking near them when she saw a body in the grass: a doe freshly killed, its body torn by scavengers and flies beginning to buzz excitedly around the carcass. The doe’s head, on the long tawny neck, gazed forlornly at her with large, beautiful eyes.
“If ye look into that right eye, ye’ll see what killed her.”
A hand stroked her shoulder and continued down her back before leaving. She started, not realizing that Old Pieter had come up behind her. “The right eye, it connects to a person’s or an animal’s soul,” he continued. “When a living thing dies, well, the right eye remembers the last thing they saw-the last face, or the thing that killed it. Look close into that doe’s eye, and ye’ll see it in there, too: a wolf, p’raps. It happens to people, too. Murderers, they been caught that way-by someone looking into the dead right eye of the one they killed and seeing the killer’s face there.”
She shuddered at that and turned away, and Old Pieter laughed. His hand brushed wisps of hair that had escaped her braids back from her face, and he smiled fondly at her. “Now don’t be upset, girl,” he said. “G’wan and see to the goats, and I’ll carve ye something new.. ..”
It was later in the afternoon when he came to her again, as she sat on the banks of the Loudwater watching the stream tumble through its rocky bed. “Here,” he said. “Do ye like it?”
The carving was a human figure, small enough to hide easily in her hand: nude, and undeniably female, with small breasts like her own budding from the chest. It was the hair that distressed her the most: a moon ago, a ca’ woman from Nessantico had passed through their town, staying at the inn one night on the road to An Uaimth. The woman’s hair had been braided in an intricate knot at the back of the head; entranced by this glimpse of foreign fashion, she had worked for days to imitate those braids-since then, she had braided her hair every day the same way. It was braided now, just as the nude figure’s was, and her hand involuntarily went to her knot of hair on the back of her head. She wanted, suddenly, to tear it out.
She stared at the carving, not knowing what to say, and she felt Old Pieter’s hand on her cheek. “It’s you,” he told her. “You’re becoming a woman now.”
His hand had cupped her head, and he brought her to him, pressing her tight against him. She could feel his excitement, hard on her thigh. She dropped the doll.
What happened then she would never forget: the pain, and the humiliation of it. The shame. And after it was over, after his weight left her, she saw his belt lying on the grass next to her, and there in its sheath was his knife, and she took it. She took the hilt in hands that trembled and shook, she took it sobbing, she took it with her tashta ripped and half torn from her,
she took it with her blood and his seed spattering her thighs, and she took it with all the anger and rage and fear inside her and she stabbed him. She plunged the blade low in his belly, and when he groaned and shouted in alarm, she yanked out the blade and plunged it into him again, and again, and again until he was no longer screaming and no longer beating at her with his fists and no longer moving at all.
Covered in her own blood and his, she let the knife drop, kneeling alongside him. His dead eyes stared at her.
“When a thing dies, the right eye remembers the last thing they see-the last face they saw…”
She half-crawled to the bank of the Loudwater. She found a stone there, a white and water-polished pebble the size of a large coin. She brought the stone back and pressed it down over his right eye. Then she huddled there, a few steps away from him, until the sun was nearly down and the goats came around her bleating and wanting to go home to their stables. She woke as if from a sleep, seeing the body there, and she found that curiosity drove her forward toward it. Her hand trembled as she reached down to his face, to the pebble-covered right eye. She took the stone from that eye, and it felt strangely warm. The eye underneath it was gray and clouded, and though she looked carefully into it, she saw nothing there: no image of herself. Nothing at all. She clutched the pebble in her hand: so warm, almost throbbing with life. Her breath shuddered as she clutched it to her breast.
She left then, leaving his body there. She walked south, not north, and she took the pebble with her.
She would never return to the village of her birth. She would never see her matarh again.
The White Stone turned in her sleep. “ I didn’t mean to hurt you, girl, ” Old Pieter whispered in her dreams. “ Didn’t mean to change you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
OMENS
Eneas cu’Kinnear
He wished now that he’d bothered to learn more of the Westlander speech.
Eneas knew some of their words, enough to get by in the crowded, fragrant, and loud bazaars of Munereo. There, among chattering, jostling crowds, one could find sweet perfumes from the plains of the West Horn; the rich, black, and sweet nuggets from the jungles along the Great Southern River; intricate painted basketry from the people of the Great Spine; fine woolen fabrics from the sheep of the northern hills of Paeti, dyed with brilliant hues of green and orange and patterned with intricate knotted geometric patterns; exotic herbs and fruits that the sellers claimed came all the way from the great interior lakes of the western continent. In the official markets, Eneas could find inferior products priced twice or three times as much as he’d pay in the open bazaars, sold by Westlanders who understood the speech of Nessantico.
But it was at the bazaars, hidden away in the maze of narrow streets of the city where the original inhabitants still lived, that the true treasures could be found, and there no one would speak Nessantican even if they knew it.
Munereo… It was a dream. Another life, like his time in Nessantico itself. Against harsh reality, those times felt as if they’d happened to someone else, in another lifetime entirely.
He knew those of full native blood called themselves the Tehuantin. It was the Tehuantin they fought now, who had come pouring into the Hellins from the mountains to the west after Commandant Petrus ca’Helfier had been murdered, after the commandant had raped or fallen in love with-depending on who you asked-a Tehuantin woman. Ca’Helfier had been assassinated by a Westlander. Then the new commandant-Donatien ca’Sibelli-had retaliated, there had been riots and growing turmoil and unrest, and the strife had finally escalated into open war, with more and more of the Tehuantin coming into the Hellins.
Now Eneas was to be another casualty in that war. If that is Your will, Cenzi, then I come to You gladly…
Eneas groaned as a sandaled foot kicked him in the ribs, taking away his breath and his memories. Someone growled fast and mostly unintelligible Tehuantin speech at him. “… up…” he heard. “. .. time.. ” Eneas forced his eyes to open, slitted against the fierce sun, to see a Westlander’s face scowling down at him: tea-colored skin; the cheeks tattooed with the blue-black slashes of the warrior caste; white teeth; bamboo armor laced around him, a curved Westlander sword in the hand he used to gesture, the sound of the blade audible as it cut the air.
Eneas tried to move his hands and found them bound tightly together behind his back. He struggled to push himself up, but his wounded leg and ankle refused to cooperate. “No,” he said in the Westlander tongue, trying to make the refusal sound less than defiant. He cast about in his exhaustion-muddled mind for words he could use. “I… hurt. No can… up.” He hoped the Westlander could understand his mangled syntax and accent.
The Westlander gave an exasperated sigh. He lifted the sword and Eneas knew he was about to die. I come to You, Cenzi. He waited for the strike, staring upward to see the death blow, to let the man know he wasn’t afraid.
“No.” He heard the word-another voice. A hand stopped the Westlander’s hand as he began the downward slice. Another Tehuantin stepped into Eneas’ sight. This one’s face was untouched by caste marks, his hands were uncallused and soft in appearance, and he wore simple loose clothing that wasn’t unlike the bashtas and tashtas of home. Except for the feather-decorated cap that the man wore over his dark, oiled hair, he could have passed in Nessantico for simply another foreigner. “No, Zolin,” the man repeated to the warrior, then loosed a torrent of words that were too fast for Eneas to understand. The warrior grunted and sheathed his weapon. He gestured once at Eneas. “… bad… your choice… Nahual Niente,” the man said and stalked away.
Nahual. That meant his rescuer was the head of the nahualli, the war-teni of the Westlanders. “Niente” might be a name, might be a secondary title; Eneas didn’t know. He stared at the man. He noticed that the man’s belt held two of the strange, ivory-tube devices that had been used to murder A’Offizier ca’Matin. Eneas wondered if he would be next; he would have preferred the sword. He gave another quick silent prayer to Cenzi, closing his eyes.
“Can you walk, O’Offizier?”
Eneas opened his eyes at the heavily-accented Nessantican. Nahual Niente was staring at him. He shook his head. “Not easily. My ankle and leg…”
The man grunted and crouched next to Eneas. He touched Eneas’ leg through his uniform pants, his hands probing. Eneas gave an involuntary yelp as the nahualli manipulated his foot. The man grunted again. He called to someone, and a young man came running over with a large leather pouch that he gave to the spellcaster. The man rummaged inside and brought out a length of white flaxen cloth. He wrapped it around Eneas’ leg, slapping at Eneas’ hand when he tried to stop him. “Lay back,” he said, “if you want to live.”
After wrapping Eneas’ leg completely, the nahualli stood. He made a gesture and spoke a word in his own language. Immediately, Eneas felt the cloth tightening around his leg and he cried out. He clawed at the fabric, but it was no longer soft flax. His leg felt as if it were encased in a vise of unrelenting steel, and a slow fire raged within his limb as he thrashed on the ground, as the Nahual chanted in his own language.
Eneas’ thrashing did no good. The heat flared until he screamed with the pain…
… and the fire abruptly went out. Eneas tore at the cloth again, and it was only cloth and nothing more. He unwrapped his leg while the nahualli watched impassively, expecting to see his flesh blistered and black and crushed. But the bruises that had mottled his leg were gone, and the swelling around his ankle had subsided.
“Now get up,” the nahualli said.
Eneas did. There was no pain and his leg was whole and strong.
Cenzi, what has he done? I’m sorry… “Why did you do this?” Eneas said angrily.
The man looked at Eneas the way one regarded a witless child. “So you could walk.”
“Healing with the Ilmodo is against the Divolonte,” Eneas said angrily. “My recovery was in Cenzi’s hands, not yours. It is His choice to heal me or not. You savages
use the Ilmodo wrongly.”
The nahualli scoffed at that. “I used a charm that I could have used on one of my own, O’Offizier. You’re standing, you’re healed, and yet you’re ungrateful. Are all of your people so arrogant and stupid?”
“Cenzi-” Eneas began, but the man cut him off with a gesture.
“Your Cenzi isn’t here. Here, Axat and Sakal rule, and it is the X’in Ka and not your Ilmodo that I’ve used. I’m not one of your teni. Now, you’ll walk with me.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“No place you would know. Walk, or die here if that will make you feel better.”
“You’ll kill me anyway. I saw what you did to the ones you captured.” Eneas gestured toward the devices on the man’s belt. The nahualli touched them, his fingers stroking the curved bone.
“Believe what you will,” he said. “Walk with me, or die here. I don’t care which.”
He began to walk away. Standing, Eneas could see the Westlander encampment being broken around him in a gloomy, rain-threatening morning. Already, many of the Tehuantin troops were marching away to the northeast: their offiziers mounted, the men walking with long spears over their shoulders. Eneas could see the blackened circle that was the remains of the great campfire he’d seen the night before, still smoking and fuming. The unmistakable blackened, spoked arches of a rib cage rose from the embers. He shuddered at that, knowing that the skeleton must be ca’Matin or another of his fellow soldiers.
Eneas saw the nahualli gesture to one of the warriors he passed, pointing back to Eneas. Cenzi, what should I do? What do You want of me?
As if in answer, the clouds parted to the northwest and he saw a shaft of sun paint the emerald hills in the distance before vanishing again.