by Susan Forest
With such machines, would people still need magic?
The stream of vapor slowed and the music stopped. The stranger then pointed to various parts of the machine, explaining what each part did. Meg—and, she suspected, the others—didn’t follow most of what he said.
“Do it again,” Meg said.
“This weapon you’ve built...” Colm put his beer mug down. “How powerful is it?”
“Put it in the middle of an army on a battlefield. It could wound a third of them,” Finn boasted.
Sulwyn whistled.
“Wound?” Colm asked.
“Meets two objectives.” Finn said sloppily. “We have no desire—no desire—to kill our countrymen. Not even Artem’s soldiers. Most are conscripts. And, wounded men need support.” He looked around the table, hands spread to show off his reasoning. “Ties up men Artem could use.”
Sulwyn looked the men around the table in the eye. “No one must tell anyone about this.” He turned to Janat and Meg.
Janat gave him a quizzical look.
He held out his mug and Colm lifted his to touch it. Finn and the foreigner joined their tankards to the group.
“Promise.”
“I promise,” Meg said, adding her cup to the cluster.
“I promise,” Janat repeated, joining.
Meg woke much later in need of the chamber pot and a drink of water. The rumble of men’s voices had been replaced by snores and the rustle of leaves beyond the windows. The sinking star of Sashcarnala shone through the open shutters, and yellow candlelight flickered from somewhere in the room. She lazed in her blankets, drowsy and unwilling to venture into the chill of the night.
“But why so soon?” Janat’s voice, hushed, floated from the far side of the room. The sound of bowls and wash water accompanied it. She must be tidying up. “Wait, Sulwyn. Stay here with me. Please. Until we can follow Mama’s bidding—”
“King Artem will never give up that siege until Archwood falls and everyone in it is dead.” The whisper, fierce and suppressed, was Sulwyn’s, clumsy with drink. “Not unless we give him a reason. A peace he can live with. And a peace the people can live with.”
“You know what King Artem wants? You read his mind?”
Meg peered across the room at them. Janat stood by the side board, washing dishes, sleeves rolled, hair in faint disarray.
“And what do you think you’re going to find at that tarn? Hmm?” Sulwyn leaned in, close to Janat, his hair wild, his linen shirt open at the neck, a ruddy flush in his cheeks. “The Amber? A prince? Nothing short of both is going to change anything.”
Janat glared at him. “You talk as though what we see and hear in this world is real,” she said in a low voice. “It’s not. Only the Heavens are real. Faith is believing, even when there’s no evidence we can touch. You know that. One day we’ll be returned to our rightful place.”
“You fill your head with dreams.” Sulwyn pushed frustrated hands through his hair. “What service do you do yourself when those dreams of turning back time to some...romantic...era have no hope of fulfillment?”
“No hope? Of course there’s hope! More than hope,” Janat whispered. “It will happen, Sulwyn.”
“Your mother may have set some events in motion, but she can’t know how they’ll play out.”
“Stop. Wait.” Janat put down her dish towel. “You tell me, now. What would you do with us, you and that band of ruffians you travel with, stirring up trouble wherever you go?” Janat leaned back against the sideboard and tossed back the dregs of her beer. “Use us? Magiels of the House of the Amber. Your political pawns? Is that your interest in us? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it.”
“What? Janat!” But the color of his already flushed cheeks deepened.
Help the rebels. Meg almost sat up.
Janat set the mug on the sideboard, and lifting her wash basin, tossed the gray water out the window. “You think you’re going to talk the king into giving up power?” She put the wash basin back. “Into sharing his Gods-given right to rule, with a bunch of...of commoners?” She said the word with disgust.
Of course not. Without Meg or Janat—or Rennika, whom Dwyn had hidden away—and the Amber, the uprisers would never coerce Artem into sharing power.
“Common. That’s what you think of me, isn’t it?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
Unless the foreigner’s steam machine was more powerful than magic.
“We’re not talking about making things the way they were.” Sulwyn’s voice lowered, tight and slow, as if he explained something to a child. “A different system of governing. Different. One that’s never been done before.”
Even without the Amber, magiel magic had been helping upriser plans. But if they had a magiel whose direct lineage could be traced to the One God...
“I think beer fills your head with dreams,” Janat countered. “Revolution. Maybe war. Killing.” She wiped the sideboard. “Dying.”
“It’s better than a privileged few living off the work of the poor.”
Janat whirled. She launched herself at him, fingers clawed.
“Hey!” He grasped her forearms before she could harm him, and they tussled silently. “I meant nothing!”
“You’re as bad as the others!”
“Janat—”
“Big upriser leader! You think only of your own glory—”
Privileged few. That had been Meg. And Mama, and Janat, and King Ean...
“Hush, Janat. Hush.” He engulfed her in his arms, and Meg wondered if he was going to cry. “I think of your welfare. I do.”
Janat tried to pull away, searing him with a look.
But Sulwyn was right.
And the Gods were not coming to their aid.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” he said. Janat’s arms wilted and he gathered her, unwillingly, to him. “It’s me, Janat,” he said softly. “You know I care for you. I don’t want to see you or your sisters hurt.”
But over her shoulder, he grimaced. A lie. He’d just...
What? Betrayed?
Who? Himself? The uprisers?
Gods. She saw it, now. They’d wanted him to give them a magiel. And he hadn’t.
Then Janat collapsed, weeping, into his embrace.
A magiel, working with the uprisers. In the service of a new...world.
Sulwyn wrapped his arms around Janat, shushed soothingly into her hair, and rocked her until her sobs faded. He quenched the candle and led her to the nest of pallets.
Meg closed her eyes, but she did not sleep for a long time.
CHAPTER 22
“You like him!” Rennika shrieked with laughter, dodging pedlars, craftsmen, and pickpurses as she chased Ide across the stone-arched bridge. Autumn in Gramarye was brief, but today was like summer, and good weather brought the farmers and tradespeople and thieves to market.
Ide threw her arm onto the bridge’s broad marble balustrade, braking herself to a spinning halt. “I do not!”
Rennika plunged to a stop beside her, leaning her upper arms on the polished stone to capture a waft of cool spray rising from the glacial river below. Colin sent her to Highglen by herself once a week or so with a goatskin full of milk, to do small trades for things they needed, and to watch out for items brought up from the lower valleys that might only be occasionally available. He did the big trading himself—huge bundles of raw yak wool and, later in the fall, live yearlings for slaughter. He said the sharp wool traders would cheat Rennika. She didn’t mind not going to Highglen. When she stayed in Highglen with Ide’s family, she could spend some of her time picking up her own coins, as she’d learned to do in Coldridge.
“Oh, Tonore!” Rennika mimicked. “You’re so strong!”
“I never said that!” Ide protested. “I said he was pretty strong if he could hammer a sword blade flat. And I never said it to him.” She draped herself over the balustrade and stared into the flickering depths of the rushing water. “Besides, you
like him, too.”
Rennika leaned on the railing beside her. “What if I did?” Rennika had been surprised when Tonore and his mother—his father was killed—appeared in Highglen in the early fall. They hadn’t spoken of her secret, her magiel sisters and talent with cures, and she knew he wouldn’t. “He doesn’t notice. Either of us.” She lazed there, the late afternoon sun on her shoulders, breathing in the smell of the river and the sounds of Princess Hada’s city. This would be a good place to live for the rest of her life. Here, or perhaps in that wonderful village where she and her sisters had once helped an innkeeper’s mare birth her colt. Kandenton.
“He likes you better,” Ide said. “You don’t have pox scars on your face. And he thinks I’m just a child.”
“Tonore doesn’t care about your scars. He’s got an ear lobe missing.”
A dozen soldiers in cloaks of green passed them, keeping an eye on vagrants.
Ide grinned at her sidelong. “You think?”
Rennika bumped her with her shoulder. “Yes.”
“Tomorrow, let’s watch Tonore make horseshoes.” Ide kicked a pebble between the balusters and watched it fall into the cold, foaming current below.
“We did that today.”
“So?” Ide giggled. On the river, the dippers flicked in and out of the froth.
Rennika had three chetra in the purse tucked under her robe, and in her stomach she had a stolen cheese dumpling. The begging today had been profitable. “All right. But not until afternoon. There are good patrons by the shrine in the morning.”
Ide shrugged. “Fine. Hey!” She pointed. “Who’s down there?” On the opposite shore, a jumble of shops and houses crowded one upon the other: the district of artisans and refugees and paupers. A tumble of children spilled from the streets and down the bank toward the river in a game of Siege Breaker. “Let’s go!”
Ide and Rennika ran down the arch of the bridge and onto the stony shore.
“Ha! Rennika! You’re with me,” cried a long-legged boy a year or two older than her.
She dashed to his team and Ide ran to the other to play with them as the afternoon lengthened. Back and forth, their ragged lines moved upriver and down.
A girl tried to dart between two boys and was caught. “Prisoner! Prisoner!” cried one of the boys, who took the girl under the bridge.
“Look.” A boy of perhaps five or six with a smear of dirt across his face pointed to where the bridge met the bank.
A man with a black beard and unkempt hair huddled in the shadows with a child of about three tucked under his arm, watching them.
Rennika peered at the pair.
“What are you staring at?” the boy who’d invited Rennika into the game yelled belligerently at the man. He picked up a rock with his good hand.
Alerted, the others turned.
“It’s a magiel,” Ide sneered.
The little boy with the dirty face picked up two or three rocks.
It was, indeed, a magiel. Even in the dark beneath the bridge Rennika could see his skin shifting like Meg’s, as did the boy’s. Not a high magiel of the Houses of any of the prayer stones. A low magiel, likely a part-blood.
The magiel held his son closer. They were only children, but he was afraid.
“Get out of here!” the boy who’d captured the girl “prisoner” yelled.
“Demon!” one of them cried.
Someone threw a stone. “Cradle robber!”
“Disease bringer!”
“Child snatcher!”
The children moved closer. Stones thwacked the rocky shore near—but not too near—the magiel. A smudge flickered on the edge of Rennika’s sight. A ghost.
The girl who’d played the role of prisoner picked up a handful of stones. She frowned curiously at Rennika.
Gods. She’d always let on she was a worldling. Rennika picked up a rock and followed the others.
“Magiel!” Ide yelled.
One of the stones hit the magiel on the thigh.
Rennika hung back, words caught in her throat. She could not say them, could not call out. Yet, neither did she call out against her friends.
The rock was heavy, leaden in her hands. A momentary blur, closer to the magiel this time. More ghosts.
With a skitter of tumbling gravel, a half-dozen soldiers in gold and green ran down to the rocky shore. “You urchins get out of—”
“Magiels!” Ide interrupted.
Rennika’s breath stopped. Words choked her. She stared, helpless, as the pageant played in front of her.
The soldiers turned to look where Ide pointed. They halted, facing the fugitive. One man unslung his bow from his back.
No—
The magiel scrambled to his feet, gaping at the soldier with the bow. He backed away, shoving the boy behind him.
Meg had put herself in front of Rennika, how many times—
The soldier pulled an arrow from his quiver. He nocked it. They were not arresting the man. This would be murder.
The boy clinging to his father’s legs began to whimper. The children stood in silence, watching.
The magiel held his son, eyes tracking the men’s every movement. The archer stretched his bowstring back, and his knuckles hovered by his right ear.
With a tiny plucking sound, barely audible above the evening birdcall and the rush of the river, the arrow took flight, whistling as it cut the air.
The distance was short, the target unmoving. The arrow buried itself between the man’s ribs.
Rennika felt the blow in her throat.
The magiel fell back, a dark patch blossoming on his stained and ragged shirt. The little boy fell beside him, screaming in grief. A flicker, like she was seeing the magiel and his boy under water for a brief instant. The ghosts were waiting.
The soldier drew a second arrow and, nocking it, stepped forward a pace.
The child stood, uncertain, drawn to his father, knowing he should run.
Run! Rennika willed. Run! But where could they run?
The soldier let the second arrow fly.
On impulse, Rennika found a gust of air that had been under the bridge only moments before and brought it forward in time. It knocked the arrow false.
Still, the man and his son did not move. The man panted, eyes fixed to the archer. His fingers scrabbled at the band on his throat. He had a death token. Thank the Gods.
She could do it again. And again. And what would be the result? Fear. Blame on the magiel. Greater oppression.
Before the man had a chance to pull his death token from his collar, a third arrow pierced his neck and his head pitched backward into the gravel, eyes rolling back, glassy.
The shifting-skinned boy sprinted, but two thwacks broke the silence and feathers bloomed in his back. He fell on the gravel beneath the bridge.
Ice filled Rennika’s veins. He had no death token.
The soldiers approached the man and his twitching son. “You, children, go home now,” the captain said to the rest of them. The children scattered.
Rennika’s rock slipped from her fingers. She ran into the street.
Rennika excused herself early from Ide’s mother’s table saying she was sleepy from rising early, which was true, though Ide was disappointed they weren’t going to whisper on their pallets until her mother threatened to turn them outside to sleep. Still, Rennika lay for such a long time on the sweet-smelling straw in the lingering twilight of autumn that she wondered if her life was not going to jump. She’d done such a small magic. A puff of wind. And the consequences of her interference had changed nothing. She wondered if the ripples of her life would be so brief as to be undetectable. That had happened before.
But in the silence of the children’s loft, wedged between the wall and Ide and her three brothers, she rolled over to discover herself standing in a much smaller body in bright summer sunshine, in the garden of Archwood. Mama, holding her hands, was seated on a stone bench in the dappled shade of a fragrant willow. Nanna was just jumping up
to chase someone—maybe Faris or one of her younger brothers. There were shouts of play behind her.
Mama’s head snapped up, startled. “When are you?” she asked.
It took Rennika a minute to understand the question.
“How old are you?” Mama clarified.
“Twelve.”
Mama’s eyes seemed to calculate. “You’re not in Archwood.”
“No...”
“Have you been to the tarn? Did you get the Amber?”
The question made no sense.
“Are Meghra and—”
Then.
She was walking through spring sunshine, in a trackless forest, following a tiny brook. A cool wind ruffled her cloak, which was too thin for the crisp weather. She was taller now, and she held a little girl’s fingers. The little girl let go of her hand and, giggling, ran ahead, stretching her legs to clamber over fallen trees that Rennika could step over easily. “South, up, upturned cup, bare a dead man’s shoulder,” the child sang.
Down up, Down down up. It was Mama’s nursery rhyme. Seven falls the soldier.
The men left Meg and Janat’s attic before dawn the next day, and Sulwyn did not return for three weeks. When he did come back, he found work in the tannery and for a time it seemed it would be a golden winter. There was food on the table, a fire on the hearth, and the tensions of war were only rumored, far away beyond distant roads.
But peace was an illusion. Meg began to ache for something she could not define. To move beyond the garret where her sister slept behind a curtain with the man who’d saved them. To leave a village where she must hide her skin, guard her words. To see more of Shangril, to see the pledges of fiery men kept, to fill her promised role of intermediary between the people and their Gods. To find a worth in herself that others could see.
As Sulwyn’s tightly suppressed excitement ripened into curbed restlessness, Janat became snappish and teary. She was drawn to the window, where she watched swirling flakes, the lowering of gray skies, and one day at dusk, the approach of a traveler.