by E D Ebeling
***
Yelse was leaning out a little window at the end of a long room with a pitched roof. The lake was just outside. Waves lapped below, casting clear, fluid shadows across the ceiling as though the place were flooded.
“How many people did you give them?” said Sarid. “The saebelen? What are they doing in return?”
Yelse pulled her head back into the room. “I haven’t made my decision.”
“I ought to kill you,” said Sarid.
“You’d better wait. They’re in the next room.” Yelse pointed to a side door in the wall. “Your name has come up a lot, I believe.”
“The scapegoat,” said Sarid. Heat rose off her skin. The air shimmered around her.
“Why are you surprised? You ought to leave, find mercy in madness.”
And then Yelse tilted her head as though she’d heard something. She turned back to the window, and the door to the side chamber opened. A group of people streamed out: Count Pash and his son, and various lords. And then Rischa, and Savvel, who came out last in a dressing gown, two guardsmen trailing behind him.
“She warned us against it,” said Pash, “and in a fit of rage delivered through on the punishment.”
“If you’re going to go that way you’d better condemn Yelse as well,” said Rischa.
Savvel let out a short, sharp laugh. “The quick condemner is quick to condemn quick condemnations.”
Rischa moved away from his brother. He had a black eye; Savvel must have, at some point, broken away from his guard long enough to bestow his opinion where everyone could see it.
Pash stopped when he saw Sarid with Yelse. “There she is,” he said, pointing. “Vixen.” It was almost comical. “I’m calling my men––”
“You’re not,” said Rischa.
“I don’t expect she will let you,” said Savvel to Pash. “But give it your best effort.”
Sarid was done watching. “He’s right.” A wind moved through the hall, slowly at first, and then the flames in their cressets jumped and roared. “I am a vixen.” The flames blew out; one cresset shattered and threw oil over the floor. “And you’re a nest of fat, frightened shrews.” She walked up to Pash. “So why shouldn’t I have killed you? Loathsome man.” She thought how delicious it would be to strangle him, and he must have guessed because he took a few steps back. “Consider your luck. There’re two foxes here and they’ve been so busy squabbling that the shrews have been left alone.”
“Here, here, she admits it,” said Pash, slipping a little in the oil. “She admits it––”
“You ought to thank me, Pash,” said Sarid. “You ought to get down on your knees and beg me to stay. If I go, the other will have her way.” She pointed a shaking finger at her sister, who’d moved toward the door. “I’ll bully her into changing skins.”
Sarid threw out her arms, and the wind concentrated, became a shaft of dust. It beat Pash against the wall and flung Vanli over him, and flattened another man into the floor. It made a furrow in the paneling until it came to Savvel, and Rischa, who’d gone to stand beside his brother. The wind pinned Savvel next to the window. And Rischa––for a moment the light was blocked and the room dimmed. And then he was gone.
There came a distant splash. The doors slammed shut, and the wind held them.
“Save him, Yelse,” said Sarid. “He can’t swim.”
Yelse stared at Sarid. It felt like a punch to the face, but Sarid held her gaze. Yelse’s hair stood straight out, and beads of sweat rolled over her forehead.
A half-minute went by. The wind threw Sarid’s hair across her eyes so that she almost didn’t see it: her sister going to the window, flicking her hand.
The room dimmed again, and Rischa came through the window and landed on the floor with a wet thump.
He didn’t move. A puddle grew around him, dark like blood. The wind died and the quiet was intense. Savvel ran and crouched over his brother, thumped at his chest. Rischa coughed and rolled onto his side.
Everyone was looking at Yelse now, and Sarid walked over to Rischa. His shirt was torn in half. He had waterweeds in his hair.
“You would have killed me?” he said.
“Condemner,” said Savvel. But he stared at her.
“Forgive me,” said Sarid. She didn’t know what to do. She felt like a furnace. She walked to the door and opened it, and her hand left a scorch on the wood.
Fifteen
She was halfway down the corridor when she smelled it: musty and ancient, the smell of dripping lime and rock tortured with water. Damp crept under her skin, made her joints ache. She turned a corner and thought the wall had collapsed––there was a great pile of stones on the floor.
But they were misshapen, black with mud. It was a saebel. Milky eyes opened low on the snout and blinked at her.
“Who are you?” she asked.
We’ve come from the drowned stones. The voice sounded like water rushing through vast caverns. We’ve fed well.
It was huge, a zmaj, one of Veles’ worms crawled up from the world’s roots. Its fat stomach dragged on the floor.
Vomit rose in Sarid’s throat. “What do you want?”
We have to be delicate. We cannot break your spine.
She didn’t have to ask who’d instructed it thus, and so quickly.
It slid toward her on slabs of rock. Slate scales slapped on its back, oozing mud. She raised the wind, and perhaps if it had allowed her to blow like that forever its face would have eroded to a knob and two holes. But it shook the wind off, and took hold of her with its grinding hands. She struggled, hot clothes steaming against the stone, and it broke both her wrists.
She arched in pain. It picked her up and carried her past ballrooms and salons, past courtyards and courtrooms and cellars, down to a cavern where the lake crept in and whittled away at the foundations of the hall.
There it sat in the water, and split her in half, or so it felt.
Pain blurred her senses so that afterwards she wasn’t sure what had happened. But certain parts stuck in her mind and got clearer with time, like wounds mortifying.
***
She woke to Gryka nosing at her torn dress. She didn’t, couldn’t, respond. The dog sat down and made a din, and she didn’t stop until steps echoed on the stair and the room brightened with a lantern.
Sarid heard the catch in his breath, heard the smash of the bottle, smelled the wine. There was silence for a while, until he came back with more people. They spoke in hushed voices and carefully picked her up. Her head was a jumble of aches, and they traveled up many flights of stairs and placed her in a bed. They put a laudanum-soaked rag in her mouth and she slept.
When she woke there was a fire in her face. She moved and saw it was a beam of noon sun fallen across her. A bit of gold separated from the sun, turned into a fall of hair. Yelse bent over her.
“Get away,” was what Sarid meant to say. She groaned instead.
“Lie still,” said Yelse. Sarid wanted to leap up and savage her sister’s face.
“Can she take water?” Rischa’s voice. Sarid’s head was half wrapped in a bandage and she couldn’t see him.
“Yes,” said Yelse. “Our kind heal quickly.”
“It’s hideous.” Count Pash was there, too. “What did it?”
“A saebel,” said Yelse.
There was a moment of silence. “Your son did this,” Rischa said.
Pash cleared his throat. “My son isn’t a saebel.”
“He knows how to treat with them.”
“How should he?”
“The fault is mine,” said Yelse. “After the drownings, Vanli––he was distraught. He wished to learn how to defend his county. I taught him some things. I didn’t think he meant to use them like this.” She brushed tears away from her face.
“I’d have expected it,” said Rischa.
“You believe her?” said Pash. “She’s saebeline.”
“She saved my life. Twice. And how is it her fault? I would’ve hid
den it, too, the way you treat them––”
“They’re evil,” Pash said. “Again and again I tell you they’re evil.”
“No more than us.”
Rischa had forgiven Sarid awfully fast for almost drowning him. She sensed magic, but she couldn’t place where or how. The opium muddled her thoughts. Her eyelids flickered.
“They’re less able to control it,” said Pash. “Their power comes from madness. I want them out of my hall.”
“Do you?” said Rischa. Yelse smiled, and Sarid smiled, because she was in a warm dream and the sun was bright on her. “How would you go about it?” He stepped into Sarid’s view, pointing at her. “You’d have to collect her in a box.”
“Then I will. It’s my hall, I can turn them out if I want,” said Pash, and now Sarid could see him––his bottom lip was out further than his chin. He looked very uncomfortable, as though his breeches were too tight. She would have laughed, were she able. “They’re beggars who live on my charity.”
“What a foolish thing to say,” said Rischa. “For a beggar who lives on mine.”
“Your mother,” said Pash, getting very close to Rischa, “would’ve skinned you for saying such a thing.”
“Any more about my mother and I’ll run you through. I’m meeting with the council next week. They’ve thought for years now that Charevost is a danger and a liability. That everyone ought to go south.”
“Absurd.”
“I’m inclined to agree with them. Most everyone should go south, especially the Pashes.”
“Speak clearly, boy.”
“Your rule at Charevost is over.”
Count Pash laughed so hard he started coughing. “Who shall rule in my place? The Haeks? A pack of women?”
“The Haeks are going south.” Rischa pointed at Yelse. “But a woman, yes.”
Pash looked at her in consternation. Yelse said to Rischa, “You’re being a bit hasty––”
“You’re trained in statesmanship and you’re saebeline. There’re more saebels than humans here.”
“Boy,” said Pash, face red with anger, “you can’t force me south.”
“Oh, but I can,” said Rischa.
“It’s against all decorum and decency to disregard an ancient title––”
“Hardly ancient, and I don’t care. This place is a terror thanks to you. And your son––I can’t think of a punishment severe enough.”
Sarid didn’t have enough energy left to stay awake.
***
A day later her jaw was back in order and her cheeks healed, and she remembered enough of what happened between Rischa and Count Pash to be properly horrified.
Dreida visited. Sarid was able to speak a few words, and made the mistake of asking after her family. Dreida collapsed over Sarid’s bed and made the comforter wet.
Savvel wasn’t allowed in to see her.
Rischa came and asked if the medic had given her enough laudanum. She could tell by the way his gaze skated over her that he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
On his way out she said: “I can’t convince you of much.”
The words came out as a mush, and he shook his head, confused. But he walked back over. “What?”
“I can’t convince you of much. You’ll do as you please, no doubt. But I have power in anger. Pash was right––power in madness.”
Rischa still had a blank look. “Rischa”––she spoke as slowly and clearly as she could––“if you punish Vanli Pash in any way, I will rip your head off.”
He chewed his tongue for a few seconds. “All right.” Then he shook his head again and left.
***
Sarid healed quickly, as her sister had promised. Her broken bones mended themselves, her cuts and tears fused, and in a few days her skin had no story to tell. But half her scalp was naked (as her hair grew at a normal pace), and she wrapped a cloth around her head.
A week passed and she was able to move without pain. So she crept down to the kitchens, to the rooms where they skinned and carved game on long, thick tables.
She was mistaken a few times for a scullion, probably because her head was bandaged and her body buried in a tatty sarafan. But she ignored the yells and pinches, and tucked a carving knife into her pocket. She made sure the knife was iron.
She saw Yelse in her mind’s eye, standing in a place where the clouds were dark and moving quickly, the leaves drumming against domes and turrets in a fierce wind.
She climbed as high as she could. She opened a small door and stepped out onto the roof.
The wind blew fitfully. A thin rain glinted silver where brief rays of sun touched it. Yelse stood at a balustrade above the lake, looking as though she might blow away, hair making wild patterns, dress ghostly in the half-light.
“You set it on me,” said Sarid.
She hid the knife in the sleeve of her blouse, and Yelse turned and said, “You look well enough to me.”
“Never mind the thing tied me into knots.” Sarid, close enough now, made a thrust at her sister, and the knife tore through her sleeve. Yelse jumped back. The blade got her in the stomach.
“A knife?” she breathed, looking down at the blood.
Again Sarid slashed out with the knife, but Yelse moved aside and caught Sarid’s wrists. Her slim hands were preternaturally strong, and she pulled Sarid into her arms.
“My dear little sister,” she said, “why should I fear iron? I’m as human as you.”
“Then you have a heart,” said Sarid, ramming her elbows back, “that I can cut out.” She opened her hand, and dropped the knife point-first into Yelse’s foot.
Yelse shuddered and let go of Sarid’s wrists. Sarid lunged for the knife, but Yelse kicked her in the head, and taking it up herself, threw it over the lake in a glittering arc. Sarid raised her hand and sent the wind after it.
Yelse knocked Sarid’s hand away and the wind stilled. “Enough. I know more than you do. I was raised by it.”
Sarid’s chin bled, and her head was cold. The bandage had blown off. This enraged her, and she ran at Yelse, put hands around her throat. Yelse blew her back against the copper wall of a dome.
“Stop acting like a child,” she said. “A messenger arrived today. Change is coming. I can smell it. You should leave.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” Spit snapped back in Sarid’s face.
“Sweet of you,” said Yelse. And she turned and left by the door Sarid had entered through.
The wind died enough so that Sarid could pry herself loose. On the first staircase she found Gryka squeezed into a landing corner. The dog flinched back; Sarid suspected Yelse had kicked her.
Sarid’s hands burned. She threw her head back and screamed, and the dog backed further into the corner. Sarid smoothed the hair on Gryka’s head, and ran the rest of the way down the stairs. The dog slunk after her.
Yelse’s words echoed in Sarid’s mind, and she followed them through the big courtyard, down the main stair, and into the entrance hall.
It was empty. But firelight fell out of the porter’s room, shining around the shapes of a few people standing outside it.
***
Yoffin and Dreida stood outside the door, and a man with a messenger’s band on his arm.
“If it please you, sir,” Yoffin was saying to the messanger, “I don’t think he should be told. Was in an odd mood this morning.”
“He was off,” said Dreida. “You ought to wait.”
“It’s too late,” said one of Savvel’s guards. “He knows.”
“What?” said Sarid, running over. “Knows what?”
“I don’t think you have any business knowing what,” said the messenger. He looked vaguely familiar to Sarid.
“She does,” said Dreida. “She’s Savvel’s doctor.”
The man looked Sarid over uneasily, and shrugged. “You’ll hear it anyhow, I guess––” Sarid shoved past him and went in.
Savvel and Rischa were standing in front of the fireplac
e. “You’re crying like a girl,” said Savvel. His eyes were black. “You think I killed him?” Rischa shook his head. “I suppose I did. Gave him Lorila and went mad on the same day.” He took a jug off the mantelpiece and made a face into it. He twisted his back, looking frightful in the firelight. He saw Sarid. “Here she is.” He tossed the jug into the fire and pulled her into the room. “The little girl. Pavel,” he called out the door.
The messenger stepped into the room. “My lord?” Sarid recognized his long face, remembered him in his rose and gold livery.
“The girl who took the kerchief to Rochel,” said Savvel. “Do you remember? I should have stopped and thought pitch eyes, witch eyes, and all that. I said I’d give her something, a date or a lemon. I forgot, though.” Sarid, feeling ill, eyed a fire poker and wondered if she should knock him unconscious. “I didn’t think, not at all,” he said feverishly.
“Savvel,” Sarid said. Rischa lifted his head and looked at her curiously.
“I didn’t think little girls as well as big ones could send me off my head.” His voice broke off in a snarl. “Peveritz was there, teeth gnashing in my face. Remember how we made fun of him? I thought I might cry.” He laughed and started crying. “Then I looked up and she was in the door, hate ringing in her face like a big black bell. I’d squashed her fruit. Miss Witch,” he said to Sarid, “I’m sorry.
“Do you remember, Pavel? Her eyes bored holes in my head. Do you remember?”
Pavel’s hair was damp with sweat. He nodded and said quickly, as if to calm Savvel down, “That’s her, my lord. Hair like wool.”
“You didn’t stay to see,” Savvel said to Sarid. “I thought Peveritz was going to chop me up, put me in a wedding pie. They thought it was a passing, brought on by nerves. Because I was going to be Ravyir, you see.” He laughed again. “I wasn’t. I ruined your fruit and you ruined my head. Only fitting––isn’t it?––that you should go as mad as me.”
Sarid’s face was hot, and red, she was sure, as the fire irons, guilt stamped there like a brand.
Rischa sat down in a chair, put his face in his hands.