Black Kath's Daughter

by Richard Parks

  On the fourth day, Marta found her mother's cart.

  The recent rains had already covered the wheel marks leading from the cart track to this hidden clearing; Marta wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed to find it in the first place, but she'd turned off the main road without hesitation and walked almost straight to it, led by some new instinct that seemed to say, "if this is what you seek, here it is." The certainty hadn't come in words, but it was no less real. It was a new feeling, a new experience. Marta had another hunch about why it was this way, and it was all too easy to put into words. She avoided doing that for a little while, refusing to see what the mound of newly turned earth clearly told her, but she was too tired and too numb to resist for very long.

  "Is it...because the cart is mine now?"

  Seek what is owed, what is due, what is yours. You will always know.

  The words were from her mother's account book, written on the very last page.

  "Mother is gone. They're all gone...Treedle, Bone Tapper... I'm alone."

  No, that was wrong. Treedle and Bone Tapper had left, but they weren't gone. The same sense that told her where to find the cart told her that much. Of her mother it said nothing. Marta thought of a column totaled, a page completed, an account closed. It was easier than thinking of death. She would not think about death at all. There was too much to be done and Marta was sure that she wasn't ready, perhaps not even yet able, to do it.

  "Mother..." Marta felt the tears coming, and she fought them with a ruthless ferocity. "No. No tears. I am the Witch of Lythos now."

  Marta didn't know how long she stood there, fighting for all she was worth. She would not give in to tears; she would not give in to anything. Marta was alone now, alone in a world that did not love her or her kind; she'd seen the proof often enough and barely acknowledged that before now. Now she would do nothing else. She fought her grief to a standstill with nothing except will and cold fury. It was all on her now, ready or no. Marta did nothing else until she trusted herself not to waver, not for a moment. Dry eyed and fierce, Marta finally gauged her mother's grave against the only Law of Power she knew, and every time the measure came out wrong.

  There should be no grave.

  She remembered the day Black Kath departed for Karsan, and her own dismay at being instructed to read the accounts book. To her surprise, there had been more to it than she'd thought. Not, perhaps, the power that Laras had sought, but certainly more than the dry figures, debts and obligations she'd expected. There was a fair bit about the workings of the Debt, and more about the time of Transference, when a witch or magician's heirs inherited both the services owed and the services due. Most of that information had been recently entered in the book.

  Was it all for this, Mother? Did you know?

  Yet if what she had read was true, then none of Kath's servants would have done anything except flee until the time when they were reclaimed, and certainly none would have paused so long as to bury her.

  Mother, why didn't you tell me?

  Foolish thought. Marta had known, and just refused to see. Her mother's infirmities had been getting worse for years. Marta hadn't wanted to deal with what was happening to her mother before; it was far too late now. She forced her concentration back to the business at hand.

  Now then, Black Kath's passing would have freed her bond-servants for a time; surely none of them would have paid her the courtesy of burying her. And if they had, why? Fond as she was of Treedle and, despite his surly disposition, Bone Tapper, Marta knew it was neither love nor loyalty that had bound both to her Mother's service. Yet if a passing farmer or such had found the cart and buried her mother, why was the cart still here? At least they would have taken it for safekeeping or salvage. Yet here it was, and here the grave was, and one or the other should not be. It was something she didn't understand, and by the Laws of Power that was a very dangerous thing. One who controlled power had to understand it, else it was as like to control her. Or worse.

  Marta looked at the sun. It was low in the sky, but not yet at the treetops. There was a little time left in the day, and Marta was fairly sure that at least one of her mother's former servants was not so very far away.

  Marta sighed. "Let's test my understanding, shall we?" she said to herself and no one else in particular.

  Marta tried to remember the summoning words from the account book, and was a little surprised to find that she didn't have to try at all. The words came, without hesitation. Perhaps it was a function of the Debt, not the Laws of Power; incantations had nothing to do with the First Law, so far as Marta had seen and her mother had taught. Marta could see that there were advantages as well as obligations enshrined in the Debt, like all true agreements.

  Marta felt a little foolish, but she said the words with every ounce of command she could muster. "Bone Tapper, oldest. Tie binds strongest. I sing to you. Now sing to me."

  Reluctantly, and from deep in the forest, there came an answer like a cry of despair. Marta slowly smiled and then followed the sound, leaving the clearing as she slipped through the woods as nimbly as a doe. Now and then she repeated her chant to give direction until the sound was quite loud.

  "What was your trouble?" she asked then.

  The voice answered out of a grove of aspen. "Murder."

  "And what was Mother's promise?"

  "To hide me from the noose," the voice sounded more raucous with every passing moment, as if the throat that bore it changed and shriveled by the moment.

  "And was it done?"

  "She made me a raven!"

  "And was it done?" Marta repeated, an edge creeping into her voice.

  "It was." The voice was a harsh sigh.

  "What do you owe Kath and her own?"

  "My life."

  "And what will repay that?"

  "My life."

  "So shall it be. Come, then."

  A figure that was almost like a man stepped through the ghostly trees, then it was less like a man and hopped along the ground then at last nothing like a man as it flapped slowly through the growing darkness on broad black wings. The creature called Bone Tapper lit on Marta's left shoulder.

  "You will serve me as you did my mother," she said.

  "As you become your mother," replied the raven, and the sound it made then was as much like a laugh as a raven could manage. Marta clamped a hand over its beak, looked straight into its beady black eyes and smiled a smile like honey dripped in poison.

  "Right now you will hold your tongue while you still have one. Tonight at my command you will tell me everything you remember about the time my mother died, and if you leave out anything I'll pluck you like a Midwinter goose.” She let go of his beak. “Nod if you understand."

  The raven did nod then, slowly and unmistakably.

  Marta nodded herself, satisfied for the moment. "And so for today. Tomorrow you will help me find the others."

  *

  Marta had been cold before. In the snowy woods near her home. In the cave. This was different. She shivered and pulled the blanket closer about her, keeping as close to the small campfire as she dared. Bone tapper eyed her from a nearby branch.

  "It's not that cold. A little chilly, perhaps."

  Marta glared at him. "Don't presume to tell me how cold I should be. I'm freezing."

  "It would be warmer in the cart."

  Marta sighed. "Which is not here, and thank you for reminding me that I will be sleeping on the hard ground again tonight because we have no horse to pull that sodding cart and had to leave it! I hoped we'd find Yssara today."

  "He's nearby, I'm certain. We'll find him tomorrow."

  Marta thought so too. It was strange and new to her but, as when she was seeking Bone Tapper, Marta was certain she could sense the creature's presence. Almost as if she could sniff him out, like a hound, though it was nothing so easily expressed as a scent or sound. She said as much to the raven.

  Bone Tapper just ruffled his feathers, looking desolate. "We're bound to you,
Marta. Tethered. Maybe the chains aren't visible, but they're there."

  She snorted. "You can spare me your woeful countenance of martyrdom. My end of the chain's heavier than yours, from what I can see. Yet the idea of a tether is close enough to the mark."

  Marta knew a little about the time of Transference; whatever bonds her mother had shared with her servants were being recreated with Marta. She'd rather thought it merely meant the transfer of the debt relationship, but clearly there was more to it. Marta almost wished she'd brought her mother's accounts book from home; she didn't remember anything specifically about this matter but she wasn't sure enough of her memory to say there was not.

  Yet even more than that, Marta wished she had never left home at all. That right now she was in her own warm bed and could stay there, snuggled deeply content, until her mother rousted her out for breakfast. Yet there was no warm bed and probably no breakfast either. She had planned for a trip to Karsan but now her food was fast running out and, in the places they had been forced to wander, there were no inns or even friendly homesteads where she might find more.

  In addition to all that there was the fleeting thought, roughly shoved aside, that if she hadn't found the grave her mother wouldn't really be gone.

  "I wasn't prepared for this," she said to no one in particular.

  "Your mother wasn't in good health for some time," Bone Tapper said.

  "I didn't mean that," Marta said, though it occurred to her that perhaps she did, in fact, mean that. She pushed that thought aside too. "I mean this infernal chasing."

  "You haven't wept," Bone Tapper said.

  Marta blinked. "What are you talking about?"

  "Your mother is dead."

  "I'm well aware of that. Do you think I am not?"

  The raven slightly raised his wings, which Marta knew was his way of giving a shrug. "I wonder."

  "Wondering or worrying about me doesn't finish the task at hand. We have to find Yssara. Then Treedle."

  "I'm not your mother," Bone Tapper said. "She worried about you. I do not. I do wonder, however."

  "Keep it to yourself, then."

  "There's nothing in the Debt that says I cannot have an opinion," the raven said. "In fact, your mother encouraged it."

  For the first time in a while Marta forgot the fact that she was cold. "My mother is gone, and I have to do what she did, yes, and with less than a fraction of her power and skill! I may not be anything approaching what she was. Not now, perhaps never! Yet whatever you think of me, Bone Tapper, you doubt this at your peril: I will have what is mine."

  The raven cocked an eye at her. "I was a raven three days ago. I was a man two days ago. Now I am a raven again. Marta, I have every reason to believe what you say. I was just—"

  "I'm going to sleep," Marta said, though she wasn't sure if she would or not. "I don't want to hear any more about it."

  "It's going to be chilly tonight. If I were a man I could keep the fire burning," he said.

  Marta rolled the blanket around herself as tightly as she could and lay down on the unyielding ground, her back solidly to fire and raven alike.

  "Let it die," she said. "Everything dies."

  Bone Tapper didn't say anything after that, and eventually Marta drifted off to uneasy sleep. She dreamed of being on Laras' rope again, only now it was tied around her neck. She clawed at the knot but Laras only pulled it tighter. She struggled to get her fingers around the rope, and finally managed just as she happened to glance back. It wasn't Laras holding the rope. It was Amaet.

  WHOSE END OF THE ROPE IS HEAVIEST?

  Marta woke up breathing as hard as if she'd been in a footrace, and every muscle in her body seemed to ache. She groaned as she sat up, slowly disentangling herself from the blanket as her breathing began to slow down to normal.

  She put her hands to her throat, unsure for a moment if she would fine a rope there. Marta was relieved to find that there was not.

  Just a dream.

  Perhaps, but even without the presence of the choking rope Marta wasn't quite able to convince herself of that. After all, if the debt forged a bond between her and her servants, wouldn't it do something similar between herself and Amaet? Marta knew enough of how the Debt worked to know there was no reason to exclude herself from the rules that bound others; she too was a servant. Marta shook her head. True enough, yet too dreadful a thought for first thing in the morning, even on a wretched day like this one.

  This would be a wretched day; Marta had no doubt. It didn't exactly look the part, in the hopeful time just after dawn; the morning sun was clear and strong. Marta would have appreciated it more if it hadn't hurt her eyes so. At least it was driving off the night's chill...a little. The birds were calling but even that bit of natural cheerfulness annoyed Marta for reasons she couldn't quite name.

  Fine thing for them to be cheerful. Snug in their nests, breakfast to be found when needed, no Powers trying to run their lives...

  Marta stared at the cold ashes of last night's campfire. Breakfast. What was she going to do about that? Maybe Bone Tapper could find something, but where was he? Marta looked around, saw nothing that looked even vaguely ravenish.

  "Bone Tapper, where are you?"

  There was no answer, and she called again, louder, "Bone Tapper!"

  The answer came, faint and distant. "—finish breakfast in peace?"

  So he had found something, the sneak. Marta set off in the direction of the voice, striding purposefully. "What have you found?"

  "A young deer." The answer came from much closer now.

  "And I don't suppose it occurred to you to share?"

  "You're very welcome to share, if you want. There's more here than I can eat."

  "There better be—"

  Marta stopped. A freshening breeze had just brought her a smell that wasn't very fresh at all.

  You don't mean...

  "Bone Tapper, how long has this deer been dead?"

  Bone Tapper flapped up out the thicket just ahead and settled on a branch to groom his feathers. "About four days. Or maybe five."

  Marta felt her gorge rise. "Urgh," was all she said.

  Bone Tapper looked at her. "What did you expect? If I am to be raven, shall I not take the advantages as well as the limits?"

  "But carrion..."

  "Has a piquant aroma and a sharp, bold taste to one suited to the fare, such as I. There's plenty left."

  "Your generosity is beyond words."

  "Not at all. Part of my obligation is to counsel you from my perspective. My perspective is that of a bird that eats whatever it can get. I hope it was useful to you."

  Marta realized she was still carrying the sodden blanket. She found a tree limb on the edge of a clearing and threw it over the branch to dry a bit. "Is it always going to be like this? Sarcasm? Seeming to yield in all things and yet actually yielding in nothing? Every word of counsel a thinly veiled complaint about your portion in this transaction? Is this how you pay your debt?"

  "I am a poor thing of feathers, beak, and appetite. I do my best."

  "Yes, but at what?"

  Bone Tapper just shrugged and continued grooming. Marta would gladly have wrung the bird's neck, if he'd been within her reach. On the positive side of the tally, she wasn't nearly so hungry now as she'd thought she was a few moments ago. All thoughts of food now inevitably raised an image of crawling maggots, and meat painted with the vivid colors of putrification. She was still thirsty, however.

  "Is there any water about? I mean, water that doesn't involve fetid stumps or floating mosquitoes?"

  "There's a natural spring at the base of that rise just ahead. I can't smell anything interesting in it, for what that's worth."

  "One instance where a raven's perspective actually has merit," Marta said. "Watch my blanket. If there's so much as one bird dropping on it when I get back, I'm going to assume you were responsible. Is that clear?"

  "Unfair," Bone Tapper said, "but clear enough."

  Marta le
ft him there, sulking. She walked about fifty yards to a hillock and found the spring where Bone Tapper said it would be. It bubbled out of a crack in a stone, and pooled where the rocks made a natural basin. Marta drank deeply and splashed her face and neck with the cold, clear water. The potential of the day began to look a little better, although now her stomach was rumbling again.

  If I don't find that wretched horse today I'm going to have to return to the cart for more provisions, and I'm not sure how much is there.

  The alternative would be to find a town, but she'd have to do that even if the horse did turn up. Which so far it had not. Marta knew it was nearby, but that is all she knew. And so far nothing of what she had felt, or heard, or seen spoke to her of a horse...

  Marta swore colorfully. She wasn't looking for a horse, was she? Just something that had once been a horse. Strange, she'd had no problem keeping the idea of form and function separate when she'd been seeking Bone Tapper. She knew he was really' a man, whatever form he'd taken in her mother's service. Yet what was Yssara, really?

  Not a man.

  Marta knew that much about the creature, whatever it was. Yssara, with his strange golden eyes and the habit of breathing steam even when it wasn't cold--

  That was the answer. It had all been right before her all this time. Marta began to wonder if she were as big a fool as she sometimes suspected. She went back to where Bone Tapper was waiting with her blanket. The blanket wasn't yet dry but it was, she was pleased to see, spotless.

  "Bone Tapper, is Yssara a dragon?"

  He stared at her in surprise for a moment before answering. "Certainly. Didn't you know?"

  "Not exactly...well, to be sure I never gave it much thought. A dragon? Mother made a dragon into a horse?"

  Bone Tapper shrugged. "And why not? Yssara owed your mother debt service and she didn't need a dragon. Hardly anyone does, come to that. Even other dragons, from what little I know of the matter. She needed a draft horse."

  "So do I," Marta said wistfully.

  "You do," Bone Tapper agreed. "Shall we go find yours?"

  Marta nodded, though not with as much enthusiasm as she might have shown when she didn't yet realize what it was they hunted.