He struggled to pull himself awake. “You damned little fool,” he said to her. “I thought you were smarter. Don’t you realize that without me, your life’s not worth a falu?”
Maiya tossed this aside with a wave of her head; she had not forgotten Grebzreh’s reckless grin. “You would have killed me. My father was right; you never had the slightest intention of letting me go free. I have nothing to lose in killing you. So tell me,” she mimicked, “why I should not cut you open to have a look at what’s inside this ugly body.”
Grebzreh gulped uncomfortably. There was a sudden slash of pain from his facial wound. “Yes, there is a reason,” he said. “I will let you go free now. I swear it.”
“I’ve heard that before. Ha! And I was just on my way out anyway.”
“You know the way out, do you now?”
“I’ll find my way.”
“Possibly. But what if you run into a guard?”
Maiya thought for a moment, and then shook the dagger at him. “Are you proposing to lead me out of here yourself?”
The warden nodded.
“I’ll be right behind you, pointing this at you. Lead me false, or to where your men are, and I’ll kill you at once. The minute I see a guard, I’ll kill you. Is that clear?”
Grebzreh nodded again, and rose from the bed. “Can I put on some clothes?”
“No. You’ll stay naked as you are. That will teach you to”—she blushed—“to be careful about little girls.”
Maiya prodded Grebzreh, naked but for his bandaged face, at knifepoint through the. corridors. Only hours before, she had been prodded naked by Grebzreh through the same passageways.
It was a few hours before sunrise. The only sounds were the chitterings and moanings of the prisoners; most of the guards had gone to bed after their “entertainment.” A skeleton crew patrolled, but Grebzreh knew their rounds and was able to avoid them.
The route, through narrow tunnels lit by foul-smelling torches and up steep stairwells, was a tortuous one. From shadow to shadow the pair slinked. Maiya never relaxed her guard, keeping the dagger always poised to strike. Keyed up by terror and excitement, she was almost giddy with alertness. And underneath the steely exterior with which she intimidated Grebzreh, she was a very frightened little girl. Maiya still did not know if she would come out of this alive.
After what seemed an unending labyrinth of passageways, Maiya was led to a small door in an alcove. Nimajneb Grebzreh pulled back its heavy bolt.
“This leads into a little alleyway. That alley runs underneath the wall of the palace itself. If you follow it, you’ll soon find yourself outside, in the slums of the city.”
Maiya motioned him aside. Still covering him with her weapon, she pulled the door open a few inches. She could smell the crisp blue air of night outside, could feel its coolness, its outsideness.
Grebzreh, naked, shivered in the draft. “Well, I’ve done as I promised. You see, I’m not such a scoundrel.”
“Humph! You kept your promise only because I kept the dagger. And you deserve to feel this dagger now.”
Grebzreh was afraid of a struggle; his reflexes were dulled by pain and satiation. His gaping wound was sending jagged shards of agony through his head, till he could hardly see straight. “You agreed not to kill me if I set you free,” he pleaded.
“Promises mean nothing in this godforsaken place, you said that yourself. And you proved it” Maiya hesitated, considering. She had almost made good her escape. Why jeopardize it by getting into a tussle with a man who might yet overpower her? “You deserve to die. But I will not kill you. Go!”
Grebzreh wiped his sweating forehead. With a nod of acknowledgment, he turned and ran, vanishing quickly down the stairs.
Maiya stared after him, almost disbelieving that she was alone. She stared down the sloping passageway. Down there was a place of unspeakable horror, and she had escaped from it, possibly the first ever to have done so. She had escaped—but her father was still burning in that hell. Suddenly she wondered: When she’d had Grebzreh at her mercy, might she have contrived freedom for her father as well as herself?
A lance of guilt shuddered through her. With her own life at stake, she hadn’t thought of her father at all. Now it was too late.
Maiya flung the dagger away, and disappeared through the door into the night
9
THE SKY WAS lit by a silver semicircle, a fishscale hanging in the heavens. Morning was still hours away.
Even at this hour, the City of the Dragon was wakeful. A great cosmopolis never really sleeps; parts may dim and nod off, only for others to brighten in their stead. Each hour has its own special fauna, the creatures of the night bearing scant resemblance to those who live by day. The denizens of the dark hours, like grubs squirming in the moonlight, possess a vileness felt in the marrow of one’s bones.
Maiya felt it keenly. Even free of the dungeon, the stifling air of evil hadn’t left her; malignant, it screeched along the backs of her teeth.
She felt a violent urge to get away from this city, but did not know her way. Aimlessly she wandered, walking jerkily, almost at a run, down streets and alleys, often in circles, dragging the hem of the over-sized cloak, doped with exhaustion, jumping at every shadow.
All that night she coursed the streets of gloried Ksiritsa; sprawling, menacing Ksiritsa. She was no longer really thinking. Her mind was a jumble of terror and wonder, winding down from its pitch of excitement into weariness. Her cool determination was dissolving into a sticky pool and tears trickled down her cheeks.
Once she blundered into a wall that towered halfway to the stars, a smooth stone cliff. Bending her neck far back, she ogled up at its rim. Suddenly she realized this was the Tnem-rab-Zhikh Palace. With a scream, and lifting the cloak to bare her legs, she fled.
At last the sky began to grow light. Here and there shops showed activity. Maiya squatted down in the gutter and rubbed her face. No one, apparently, had come out of the dungeons searching for her. There had been some disreputable-looking people about in the streets, but no one had paid her any mind.
For the first time she examined the cloak she had taken. It was not especially fine, but it was obviously a man’s garment and too big for her. Dressed in it, she might attract attention, so she resolved to procure more commonplace garb at the first opportunity. To this end, she drew out the money pouch which she had also stolen from the warden.
Maiya poured some of the coins into her cupped hand, and her eyes became saucers. There were coins of all sizes, some smaller than a fingernail, some covering half her palm. All of them bore the portrait of an emperor, either Sarbat or Al-Khoum; on the other side, was snarling Sexrexatra.
A few were silver; but most were gold!
This bonanza took her breath away. She had never handled a gold piece in her life, and this certainly seemed a vast fortune. Maiya sighed deeply. The discovery that she was wealthy had a calming effect. She had much against her—she was a fugitive, a child, an Urhemmedhin, uneducated, alone, lost—but she had money. She kissed the pouch. Without it, she would have been helpless.
Maiya selected a silver piece to buy a new tunic, and hid away the rest of the money. She soon found an open shop, a stall in the bazaar area, with brightcolored clothes displayed on long poles. Pointing to a plain blue smock, she warily handed the vendor her coin.
“One tayel, six falu,” the man said. Maiya didn’t know the value of the coin she had given him. But she held out her hand and the man returned to her a smaller silver piece and a few coppers.
In a shadowed alley, Maiya changed clothes. Crumpling Grebzreh’s discarded cloak into a ball, she pressed it into the mud with her foot, and quickly returned to the market area. With her coppers she now bought a loaf of dark bread, and ate it while she walked.
Daytime Ksiritsa emerged as a different, and far less unpleasant city than it had been
at night, noisy and bustling, reassuring in its crowded streets. Although this was a Tnemghadi city, there were many Urhemmedhins about, and Maiya could feel safely anonymous in her plain blue smock. The bread tasted good, and it felt good to fill her empty belly. Before she knew it, she had eaten the entire loaf.
Never had she seen such an exciting city. Maiya gawked at everything: the big buildings, the hectic bazaars with their fascinating displays of varied wares, and the people, hordes of people, many of them in exotic dress. Up on its hill, the Heaven Palace was perpetually visible; and with the yellow sunlight shimmering on its copper roofs and tall white spires, it was a beautiful sight.
Maiya strolled, enthralled, for hours. She bought another loaf of bread and some little sugared cakes and then some fruits, and continued eating while she walked. With another silver piece, she bought a pair of sandals and then a bracelet, and a ring, and then an extra smock to wear, this one with a striking red and orange pattern. She walked jauntily, enjoying her purchases and the feel of the heavy pouch thumping against her, inside her pocket. She hadn’t even touched any of the gold yet!
The girl was mesmerized by Ksiritsa, whose grandeur surpassed anything she had ever imagined. No wonder the Dragon City was often spoken of as gloried Ksiritsa! She reveled in it, drank it in like heady wine. Buoyed by exhilaration, it was late in the afternoon before she realized how long she’d been walking. Her feet and legs were suddenly aching. She felt scarcely able to walk another step.
Part of the city’s traffic consisted of rickshaws pulled by bent peasant men. Considering herself now a girl of wealth, Maiya treated herself to the luxury of a ride. For a few coppers, she was transported in style to a nearby lodging house.
In the room she rented, she paused only long enough to hide her pouch of money under the mattress; then, still wearing her blue smock, she threw herself on the bed and plunged at once into a deep slumber.
Maiya awoke to a room full of light; it was midday. Her body was sticky with sweat; the bedclothes and her blue smock were crumpled and damp. During her prolonged sleep she had been tormented by nightmares, unable to escape by waking up.
The full enormity of everything that had happened in the dungeon hit her. The horrors had been eclipsed by her romp through Ksiritsa, but now they crackled at her vividly: her sister disemboweled, her mother stomped by Grebzreh, her father’s awful scars, and Grebzreh’s grin at Maiya herself promising death. Finally, thinking only of herself, Maiya had wasted a chance at procuring freedom for her father.
In a great clear rush, Maiya saw it all, and she screamed. It was too much. Her mind clouded, burying the pain so that it wouldn’t crush her.
Maiya got up off the bed. Meticulously, she washed her face in a basin, and put on her fresh smock. The wrinkled blue one was smoothed out and folded with care. She retrieved her money pouch from under the mattress, and left the room, moving like an automaton.
Outside, she bought some more bread and a little wine. Inquiries revealed that a coach was soon due to leave for the old southern city of Naddeghomra. On its way, it would pass through the hill country of Taroloweh. That was where she wanted to go. No other possible course was given consideration.
These coaches were an opulent way to travel, and the fare required Maiya to part with one of her gold coins. But she was ignorant of any other way to go, and perfectly settled upon her intended destination.
She was joined by three other passengers, all of them men and all Tnemghadi. One was an officer en route to his station at the Naddeghomra garrison, and the other two were merchants. Throughout the journey of many days, these men tried often to engage the girl in conversation, but without success. She never said a word.
She viewed the men with caution, especially when they whispered among themselves and she thought they were discussing her. She imagined them to be plotting rape, robbery, or worse. Under the smock, her hand never relaxed its grip upon her money pouch. At the first night’s stop, in addition to her dinner, Maiya purchased a new dagger.
It was at the town called Anayatnas that Maiya disembarked. Although she had heard of this town, she had never seen it before. Nevertheless, she supposed that it was as close as she would get to home.
There was an inn at Anayatnas where she took lodging. She refused to give her name or advise how long she planned to stay. She would simply pay by the day, and leave when she chose.
In this dingy, tiny room at the inn, Maiya passed her days alone. She ventured out very little; compared to Ksiritsa, Anayatnas was devoid of attractions. Moreover, she did not want to be recognized as the daughter of Jehan Henghmani; she still feared the Tnemghadi. But in truth, she did not wish to be recognized as anyone at all. She did not know what identity, if any, she wanted. She was herself and herself only, unto herself but not unto the world—a goldfish in a bowl of opaque glass.
Sometimes when she did go out, she would watch the people whispering with their hands concealing their mouths, and she knew whom they were whispering about. The girl had fast become the town’s leading gossip topic, a tantalizing mystery: a beautiful young girl who stepped off a coach from Ksiritsa, who spoke to no one and concealed her name, whose face was an expressionless mask.
She was especially intriguing because she had money, and was an Urhemmedhin. Some theorized her to be a slave who had absconded with part of her master’s fortune; others believed she was a spumed concubine, possibly even one of the Emperor’s. No one guessed the truth.
Maiya ignored the whirls of speculation that surrounded her. While the townsfolk gave a great deal of thought to Maiya’s past, she herself did not. She spent her hours like a prisoner in her little room, lying on the bed and gazing absently at the ceiling, or out the window. Her slim body took on fat. The days passed by; she didn’t count them. She seemed to be waiting for some unknown event.
Something was happening, in fact, without her knowing it. Her increasing plumpness covered up a swelling in her belly that was not due to overeating. Oblivious to it, Maiya waited in darkness.
And then one day, catastrophe befell her. She went out on a brief shopping trip for food. When she returned to her room she reached into her pocket to restore the money pouch to its place of hiding. It was gone. An adroit thief with a razor had neatly sliced open her pocket and made off with her fortune.
That pouch of golden coins had been a womb to Maiya, dark and warm, in which she’d floated as though unborn, insulated from the world and even from her own life. Now, abruptly, she was wrenched out and expelled into the harsh daylight. Maiya stood there, staring at the empty place where her gold had been, and she saw her scarred father, and the ill-lit dungeon, and the grinning Grebzreh, her raped mother, the smirking guards, her bloodied sister, all the beastliness, degradation, and horror. What in her waking sleep she had concealed in mist was now seen clear, and she felt its sting as a fiery lesion upon herself.
Never again would she be able to run away and hide from it.
10
MAIYA WAS COMPLETELY alone and penniless, unable to pay even for her night’s lodging. Worse, the black devil of the dungeon had risen up and seized her by the throat. She beat her fists upon her head and cried hysterically, but nothing could exorcise that devil.
It was perhaps an elemental will to survive that propelled Maiya now. She hastily gathered up her few belongings and decamped out into the streets of Anayatnas. The sight of her stirred whispers, which intensified when she was actually seen walking up to people, talking at them half incoherently. And oddest of all, when she made any sense, the girl appeared to be looking for work!
None of the flabbergasted villagers could provide her with employment, but one woman did observe that a nearby farmer, named Gadour Pasny, had recently been widowed and had talked of hiring a woman to do chores and look after his children. Maiya set out at once for the Pasny farm.
It was not far from Anayatnas, and she reached it while the sun
was still up. In the field, she found Gadour Pasny mounted atop a gaar and dragging a plow.
“I’ve heard you need a woman to do chores,” she called to him.
Pasny smiled cheerfully. Although plumper than she had once been, and somewhat unkempt, Maiya’s charms were obvious.
“Yes, that’s right. And to mind my children. I’ve got three of the little beggars.”
“I can do it,” Maiya affirmed.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” she lied.
Pasny knew she must be younger, but ignored this. He peered down at her from atop the gaar. “Say now,” he said, “I wager I know who you are. You’re that girl that’s come from Ksiritsa, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m from Anayatnas.”
Pasny was sure she was lying. “What’s your name?”
“Maiya.”
“What’s your family name?”
“Er, it’s Draviyana.”
“All right, ‘Maiya Draviyana,’ you can stay. I’ve got a pretty good little house,” he said, pointing. “You can sleep there and you’ll get your meals too. You’ll cook, take care of the house, watch the children, do the washing and mending, and farm work when I need you. Does that suit you. ‘Maiya Draviyana’?”
“Well, what will you pay me for all that work?”
Gadour Pasny lauged. “Pay you? This isn’t Ksiritsa, little chicken. Don’t you know it’s been a bad year, that people are homeless and starving? You should count yourself lucky to be getting a roof over your head and food in your belly.”
Maiya nodded glumly. She would miss having money. But she accepted Gadour Pasny’s offer and went to work.
There was much for her to learn, but Pasny was a patient master. Her cooking progressed by trial and error, and it was some time before the unruly children would submit to her discipline. But eventually, the Pasny household was running smoothly.
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