by E D Ebeling
“I saw the girl raise her hand,” said an elderly gentleman sitting on Pash’s left, “just as the wind picked up.”
“Who else?” said Mari. “Who else could’ve done it, if not her?”
“Then we’ve determined she has dangerous powers,” said Vanli. “She’s circumspectly involved. She should be questioned, for Leva’s safety.”
“Questioned how?” said Rischa.
“There is a method I should like to try, involving a mushroom and perhaps your brother, if he could be spared––”
“Confound it, Vanli.” Rischa’s voice rang off the ceiling. “Do you think I’d let you interrogate anyone? I’ve seen what you do to sparrows and cats.
“Madam,” he said to Sarid, “you are acquitted, case closed, everyone to bed.”
***
Instead everyone stayed put, milling around and yelling at each other; everyone but Sarid, who slipped through the crowd and out the door.
She lost herself in the lower levels for a good hour. Then she found a familiar stair and made her way to her room for the second time that evening. She was wide-awake, heart pounding. Her clothes had soaked through her cloak and she held her arms to her stomach, thinking of warm things and fire. Soon her thoughts turned to burning hair and melting skin and blackened bone, and Charevost in a heap of ashes. Steam rose from her skin and poured off her cloak.
She came to her fireplace and crawled through. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness she heard Gryka whine. The dog was tied to a bedpost, muzzle bound with a cloth.
Vanli Pash lounged against the other bedpost. “Took your time, didn’t you?”
Another boy bent over her desk, lighting her lantern. “No arsing around, Pash.” The flickering light fell over his face. It was Rokal, Rischa’s friend. “This business makes me uncomfortable. Let’s get it over with.”
“Tie her hands,” said a third boy, one of Vanli’s toadies.
“Scared she’ll blow us to Benmarum?” said another
“You should be.” This came from someone lying on Sarid’s bed. “They have due process over there.”
Sarid pushed Vanli aside and said to Savvel, who was in the bed, “What have they done with your guard?”
“I don’t know.” Savvel took off his boots, and tossed them on the floor. “But I am desperate for entertainment.”
“I convinced the guard that Savvel was needed in the courtroom,” said Vanli, smiling. “I made sure of an escort, so they saw they needn’t come along.”
“You didn’t shout out?” said Sarid to Savvel. “You made no commotion?”
“How could I with such a ruthless escort as Caveira, Eianhurt, and Tavenov? And Sheriff Pash.” Savvel picked at his toenails.
“Not on my bed,” said Sarid. “Now,” she said to Vanli, “kindly tell me what you mean to do.”
“Certainly,” said Vanli. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and spread it on the bed. From the same pocket came a small red leather bag. He undid the strings and dumped the contents onto the kerchief: dried slices of some sort of fruit. They were rust-red, mottled over with tiny whirls.
The other boys came over and leaned in. One had a rope.
“Kelimondra,” said Sarid. “The shamans’ mushroom. You’re going to make me eat it?”
“No,” said Vanli. “I’m certain mind-altering plants have little effect on a hobgoblin like you.”
“True enough.” Her arms were steaming again.
“But you are a necessary part of the procedure. My lord Savvel will eat the mushrooms. And then he will take your hands, like this”––Vanli pressed his thumbs into Sarid’s palms––“and look you in the eyes, like this, and tell us everything you’ve ever done in his presence, everything you’ve ever told him, including the things he can’t remember. And we four witnesses will have the deadly butterfly pinned.”
Sarid took her hands away. “Meanwhile, the mushrooms will give Savvel such awful pain it will feel as though his innards are exploding. So he’ll have to stay on the bed.”
Savvel sat up farther and rapped his head against the headboard. “Is that the bit you hadn’t time to tell me, Pash?”
“Then there’s this,” said Sarid. “Kelimondra means ‘lifting the veil.’ I suppose you’re one of those that think it means finding out the truth––but you would actually be lifting the veil to the subconscious. Madness, Vanli Pash, is what happens. The mushrooms are so hallucinogenic that Savvel’s imagination, already formidable, will completely overhaul any truth he remembers.”
“I don’t see why we can’t experiment to find out who is right,” said Vanli.
“You’re no shaman, Vanli Pash. You would be adding a garrote, rack, and pincers to an already tortured view of reality.”
“The old masters say truth and reality are relative abortions of the subconscious, Miss Hyeda, so I shall twist them to suit my purposes.”
She shrugged. “Twist them as much as you like. But Savvel shan’t eat the mushrooms.”
“Oh?” He took her by the hands again. “You forget who is the master of this hall.”
“Rischa?” He gave her hands a painful twist. She ignored it. “He’ll hear of it.”
“And believe it? I can’t imagine you and Savvel together are very convincing.”
He said to Eianhurt, who had the rope, “Tie her to the bed.”
Two of the boys grabbed her arms. Rokal backed away. A wind ruffled his hair. “I think we’ve scared her enough.”
“Really?” said one of the boys, tying the rope around her wrist. “I thought you’d enjoy tying a girl to a bed.”
Steam poured off Sarid’s cloak and frizzled her hair.
“The show grows wearisome,” said Savvel.
She didn’t bother to raise her arms. All four of her windows broke their sashes and bust open. Her books flapped like birds, and the four boys were tossed against the far wall with her bedcovers.
The wind blew a candelabrum from a niche and slammed it next to Vanli. One of its arms curved over his neck, pressing into his throat. Sarid walked toward them, her hair flying about her face. “You forget that I deal in dangerous powers.” A chair crashed into the wall, narrowly missing Rokal. Vanli’s face darkened, his eyes bugged.
“Ida,” called Savvel from the bed, where he had wrapped himself around a post. “Any further and little Pash will probably expire.”
The wind slackened slightly and the candelabra fell to the ground. Sarid reached into the air and caught a piece of kelimondra. Anger made her hands shake so that she almost couldn’t hold onto it. “Close your mouth if you like,” she said to Vanli. “It’s just as effective up the nose.” She stuffed it up Vanli’s nose. “Threatening me with an herb? You must not think me monstrous enough.” She pinched his nose and joggled his head, and the wind died completely.
The boys, suddenly unsupported, dropped to the floor. Dust and leaves and paper fell around them.
“Take him out before he starts blubbing,” she said to them. “Mind you write down what he says. I should like to know the truth.”
“We’ll have you,” said Eianhurt, scrambling to his knees, shaking dust out of his hair. “We’ll have you both.”
“Don’t think too hard on it,” said Savvel, and the three boys rolled Vanli though the fireplace. “Bitterness is bad for your mental health.”
“Give Count Pash my regards,” said Sarid.
Then they were gone, and she untied Gryka, who crept under the bed.
“And thus does the deadly butterfly flap her wings,” said Savvel.
“Find your own way back.” She picked the broken lamp off the ground and lit it with her finger.
“He won’t let this go. He thought you were dangerous. Now he knows.”
“That was the idea.”
“You want to be locked up with me?”
“They can’t lock me up. They can’t make me do anything.” With quick, fierce movements she began picking up books and righting the furniture. “They can only
be so terrified and nasty that it makes me want to leave. I do want to leave, I should leave, but I can’t while my sister opens her legs and beckons to your brother, who, it appears, always goes for the woman he feels the most sorry for––”
“Ha––you’ve hit it on the head.”
She dumped a pile of books on her bed. “I was hoping you’d say different.”
“Have you heard how our mother died?”
“No.” She pushed broken glass into a corner with a rag.
“I was twelve.” He sat against the wall, as if telling the story would take all his energy. “Rischa was eight. It was snowing, and Mother wanted to go out and walk. Father said it was too late, but she went out anyway. When she came back he’d ordered the gate barred against her, and so off she went back into the wood. He opened it right after, but she was too stubborn to come back. She didn’t come back the whole night, and we searched and searched, and she was found the next day, dead, head bent to her knees, eyes frozen shut. It broke my father. It was stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Gryka crept from under the bed. She slinked over and put her head in his lap.
“Poor little Rischa never forgot his father’s weeping.” Savvel sank his hand into the dog’s fur. “He didn’t talk for a whole year. But when he did, he was so gentle, tender and careful that female creatures everywhere lined up to hear him. At nine he was all chivalry. At twelve, a marvel of courtly wit. At fourteen he’d bloomed the cheeks of every crying maid in Anefeln and tumbled most of them, too.”
Sarid squeezed the rag and cut her hand on a piece of glass.
“At sixteen he saw his frozen mother’s face when he espied the beautiful, wintry Sarid Hyeda. Unfortunately for Sarid Hyeda, he saw his mother even better in the Reglime princess.”
“Savvel,” she said haltingly, “do you think my sister could––” She wiped blood on her skirt. “Do you think he’d break his trothplight with Leva?”
“He’d better not––” He paused. “You still love him?”
She took a few heaving breaths.
“Dear gods, Ida. Don’t you know these things fizzle out quicker than candle in a witch’s armpit?”
She started to cry.
“Oh, for Ayevur’s––here, I’m nasty, I admit, but I still know what I ought to say. I used to put great stock in charm.” She made a noise in her throat. “Don’t question it. I loved quite a few girls. And I still do. Human males, we love every pretty girl we see. The Elden have it easier, with the sex drive of a sponge.”
He looked gratified when she smiled. “So when you think you’re miserable in love, remember the human boys who fall in love with Gireldine girls––like hugging an icicle naked, I’ve heard, all the uncomfortable bits getting stuck––” Her shoulders were shaking; she hid her face in her hands. “And yet we go on with it because we can’t help ourselves. We’re stupid. Despite all our pretensions to reason. Our heads turn around like tops.”
She was silent for a while, then she sighed and said, “Your guard will be getting nervous.”
“Drunk, more like.”
“I can’t take you back.”
“Rischa would think the worst.”
“He’d kill Vanli, if he knew.”
Eleven
Savvel went back alone, and no one learned anything about that night––the guard kept silent, and Vanli Pash, too, though his face was strangely devoid of smugness for the next week. Sarid scarcely saw Rischa, and she didn’t bother to look for him. She didn’t need to; when she closed her eyes he was there, walking through the gardens, ducking under the flowering trees, hand in hand with a slender girl, brown curls mingling with her white hair––and Sarid would slam her fists on her desk and throw her pen or book or pestle against the wall, and stare at the fireplace.
A week went by, and Sarid learned the real reason for Rischa’s absence.
She was walking back from the kitchens, a basket of scraps for Gryka hanging on her arm, when Leva found her. Her face was red and white, her hair standing out like a mane. Gryka, who’d been eagerly padding after the basket, shrank back and pulled her bulk behind Sarid.
“See? See? It’s all of them.” Leva snapped her fingers at the dog. Gryka growled. “Something isn’t right. Where’s your sister?”
Sarid shrugged. “Somewhere working her poison on your betrothed.”
“Chaos smite her head.” And then, “Rischa isn’t here. Didn’t he tell you? You saved him. I saw you do it. If I were you I would’ve put such a dint in her head––”
“He’s gone?” said Sarid.
“Called away by his uncle, or his father––I can’t remember. He’s ill.”
“I know.”
“His father’s ill.”
“They’re both ill?”
“Poison, everyone’s whispering,” said Leva.
“Who would––?” Leva gave her a long look. “Rischa? They’re saying Rischa did it?”
“Of course. Next they’ll be saying he drove his brother mad.”
“All this in just a week?”
“You’re surprised?”
“What’s this about my sister?”
Leva went off at this. “The dogs can’t abide me, nor the horses. The cats hiss, and the hawks––”
“And the people?”
“They couldn’t abide me anyway. But the dogs?” She waved at Gryka, who’d moved to the other end of the corridor.
“I’m not terrified of you.” Sarid put down her basket. “She’s done something to the animals.”
“I’m right, then? She did it?”
“Probably.”
“But why?” Leva wailed, closing her eyes. “Why?”
“You don’t know?” Sarid pulled her into a little room off the corridor. The midday sun shone through a spate of new leaves, casting the room in a soft green glow. “You were the obvious target, right after Savvel.”
“She-––” Leva lifted her wet face, and her eyes darted around like a spangle of light. “You think I wanted this? Or him? How could she break us up when we can’t? East Lorila won’t accept it. He’ll tear the country in half, and what does she think to do with a handful of frightened dogs? Make me look unsuitable?”
“She succeeded with Savvel.”
Leva bit her lip. “She sent the saebel, didn’t she? That tried to kill me on the boat. She sent it. She’ll keep trying to do me in. Well. Rischa may prove a dunce, but she’ll find me tougher than she bargained for.” She brushed tears from her face and stood up straight.
“Let’s see what she’s done to you,” said Sarid, and looked out the door. “Gryka,” she called. There came a clicking of nails: Gryka peered inside the door, hackles raised. “Come in. No one’s going to hurt you. As if anything could. Come on.”
But Gryka wouldn’t move. Gloraghllea, Sarid whispered. The dog had to obey. She slunk into the room and leaned against Sarid’s skirts. Sarid took hold of Gryka’s scruff and dropped into the dog’s mind.
The green glow dimmed; the scent of the meats in the basket filled her insides. Above it a menacing cloud hung: the terrible hand of a master who demanded a slave’s worship. Total, writhing obeisance. Sarid felt her abdomen twisting. She removed her hand from the dog.
Leva stared at her. “Have I grown fangs?”
“You love animals?”
“Yes––?”
“She’s twisted it into something else.”
“Explain.”
Sarid thought how she might. “Think of how your father might have made you uncomfortable.”
“Don’t presume that––”
“Not just your father. Anyone older. Your uncle Pash, your sister, mother, Rischa––how they think they know what’s best for you and try to make you do it. But what they’re really doing is belittling you, smothering you. Think of that, only a thousand times worse.”
“That’s what I’m doing? Smothering them?”
“Something like that.”
“Your sister’s a beast.�
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“Well done,” said Sarid, preoccupied. She could see the spellwork protruding from Leva's enna. Like an extra limb. Withered, horrifying, useless, reaching out over the poor dog.
She lifted a finger, afraid the thing might stain her. The leaves outside rustled. She brushed the shadow away from the dog as easily as if it were smoke. It dispersed, except where it billowed out from Leva’s spirit. Gryka relaxed immediately. Her tail pumped and she withdrew her head from Sarid’s skirts and sat down. It was as if Leva wasn’t there.
“What’ve you done?” demanded Leva. “Did you undo it? Is it gone from me?”
“No. It’s gone from the dog.”
“Can’t you take it off me?”
Sarid shook her head. “I don’t know how. I’m afraid I’d hurt you.”
“You want me to suffer.” Veins stood out in Leva’s neck. “I’ve been horrible to you and you want me to suffer. But it’s not just me you’re hurting, and if you won’t help us, damn you. Damn you saebeline sluts––”
“Listen to me.” Sarid shook her by the shoulders. “Why should I care about the inspired tiff you threw over your dog? I have plenty of potential grudges to choose from and you’re last of the last I’d ever consider. You’re a gnat in a swarm of wasps and right now Yelse’s the one I want to stamp on.
“Now that trick I just did with the dog, it’ll be easy enough with the other beasts, but I’ll have to be there with you, so you’ll have to stand my company for a bit if you want to play with your beloved hounds and horses. Then perhaps at some point I’ll have loosened the thing enough to knock it off without taking a piece of your damned arrogant spirit with it. But you’ll have to be patient, and you’ll have to ignore my sister and act as though nothing’s wrong, which may be impossible, what with your always getting whatever you want if you scream loud enough.”
“I––”
“You’re right––this isn’t just about you. So could you do all that, I wonder?”
“Certainly.” Sarcasm sharpened every line of Leva’s body. “Lead on, Sarid. After all, only you can save us from your own kind. But if you could please work especially hard at the horses. I’m quite set on entering the midsummer tourney. I mean to further my winning streak. If only by screaming loud enough.”