Black Kath's Daughter

by Richard Parks

  "You can afford a good horse without my gold, and twelve crowns would buy an entire herd!"

  "Certainly. But it has to be your gold, or it doesn't count. And replacing the cart horse is just part of the debt, translated into gold. To settle all debts I want twelve crown weights of gold from you, plus for being such an ill-tempered brute I will add to the price two more conditions: I want you to guard my wagon and all that's in it until I return and on top of that I want you to give me an honest answer to one simple question. That is my price and those are my conditions. Keep arguing and I might add to both."

  Yssara couldn't resist, despite his eagerness to be free. "Twelve?" Yssara looked ill at the very thought. "Not six? Or even five?"

  Marta started to respond angrily, but something caught her attention, like a child tugging at the hem of her jerkin.

  "Ten. It's ten, not twelve. Why is it ten?" Marta asked aloud.

  Yssara smiled then with all his teeth. "Because I, too, agreed to help your mother in this one small matter: to be as difficult a servant as possible, so that, perhaps, you would question the nature of your relationship with your servants, and the forms we assumed. She wanted you to think for yourself, and not blindly follow what she had done. It didn't work so thoroughly as Treedle's game; you are a bit slow at times. Yet I did my part."

  "That you did," Marta said. "And gladly, I imagine."

  "Why not eight?" Yssara said.

  "Ten," repeated Marta. "Or do you really want to pull that infernal cart for another fifty years?"

  Yssara obviously did not. "Done for ten," he said hastily, and disappeared into the cave. When he returned there was a dried, rotting yellow leather bag in his mouth which he dropped at Marta's feet. Marta counted out the contents then nodded. "Very well."

  Yssara snorted once, and smoke drifted out of his nostrils. "Now then, let's have it all done: What did you want to ask me?"

  Marta put her hands on her hips. "You told my mother you wanted to be free of your greed and, by your own admission, it was done."

  "Yes."

  "So why, when I asked you to buy your freedom—a chance my mother never offered you, so far as I know—why were you so blasted reluctant? You're no more free of greed than a miser!"

  Yssara grinned. "Oh, it's true. I had no greed about me when I entered your mother's service. Sometimes I wonder if that's why she didn't ask for gold; gold meant nothing to me then. It took me many years to relearn the knack, the desire for hoarding. Especially with no means or opportunity to indulge the urge. That was hard. Yet I did it."

  Marta shook her head. "So you were bonded in my mother's service to lose a trait which you in turn worked to regain?? That makes no sense!"

  Yssara demurred. "Black Kath's Daughter, it makes perfect sense. My problem really wasn't greed, you see. Oh, I thought it was, truly. I believed greed was a burden, an oppressive overlord that controlled my existence. I would have done anything to free myself of it, as witness what I did do."

  "And greed wasn't a burden? Your master?"

  "No. It was who I was. Without greed I was no longer a dragon, so it didn't matter to me what I looked like. Changing my appearance changed nothing about me, but losing greed? When I finally reclaimed my greed, I reclaimed myself and it began to matter again. That was what I didn't understand when I asked for Black Kath's help."

  Marta felt that sense of recognition again. There was a Law afoot in something that Yssara had said, but it wasn't clear and, after a moment, the feeling was gone as if it had never been. Marta thought that, perhaps, she was mistaken. She forced her attention back to what Yssara was saying.

  "And now you do?" she asked.

  He nodded. "It took me a long time pulling your mother's cart, but I finally figured it out. You'll forgive me if I don't exactly thank her for that, yet I know she played her part as well." He grinned again, showing sharp pointed teeth. "Goodbye, Black Kath's Daughter. Your wagon and whatever's inside it will be waiting for you when you return, but better for us both if we don't see each other again."

  Yssara hurried back to his cave, changing with every step. Marta got just a glimpse of golden scales as he disappeared into the darkness of the cave.

  Marta glanced up at Bone Tapper on his perch. "Are you going to claim you were in on my mother's scheme as well?"

  Bone Tapper sighed. "I would and gladly, but then we both know she wouldn't have trusted me that far."

  Bone Tapper flitted down from the trees to perch on her shoulder. "Still, as you must know," he said, "I'm really a quite clever thief, when needs must. I could buy my freedom too."

  Marta looked at the raven, and she smiled a deceptively sweet smile. "I don't want gold from you, Bone Tapper."

  "What then? There must be something I can do!"

  "There is. Unlike Yssara, you're going to be a better servant. You're going to carry out my wishes cheerfully, give me counsel when I ask and in sum be much more pleasant company."

  The raven glared at her. "Oh? Why should I do this?"

  "Because I'll make you this bargain: for every year you manage as I say, I will count three against your debt. What I cannot command, you will give—your cheerful obedience and help. What you cannot command, I will give: time. Perhaps even enough to salvage some of your own wretched life, if you learn enough of wisdom to strive for it. What is your answer?"

  Bone Tapper hesitated, but his answer was firm. "Done."

  Marta had never seen a raven smile, but she could have sworn he was trying. "Shall we return to Karsan to buy a horse?"

  Marta walked to the grove, opened her cart and tossed Yssara's gold inside. "No." She gathered what she thought she would need into a travel bundle, which she hoisted onto her back.

  "But you said..."

  "That we were going to the Basilisk Shrine and I meant it. Now that matters are settled with Treedle the thing I need more than anything else, including a horse, is a direction. I've got one. If we find a horse to my liking on the way we'll buy it. For now, I walk. Besides, I've had enough of towns and cities and all the folk in them for a while."

  "And beds, too?"

  Marta sighed. "If I could have one without the other, I would. There are some things even the Laws of Power can't fix."

  Marta had another of those faint touches of recognition that she had learned to expect, from time to time. She'd touched on a Law, perhaps, but how could a Law reference something outside itself? The recognition was gone, too, like a dream forgotten, leaving only the memory that there was a dream, but nothing of it save that one thing remained. Just like when Yssara spoke earlier, though Marta was pretty certain of two things: One, that they were not the same Laws. As for the second...

  If I touched a Law, I barely did.

  Or perhaps her understanding was just too limited now to even have a chance of grasping it. Perhaps it was a Law that she was not meant to find yet? Was there an order to them? Marta had always referred to them as First Law, Second Law, and, if she ever found it, the Third Law, and so on. Yet she didn't know if those were their real names or not, and whether the order of finding would change as the seeker changed. Her mother had never said, but then Marta had never thought to ask. Add in one more thing undone, and no point fretting about it now.

  "We've got a lot of ground to make up before nightfall. Let's go, Bone Tapper," was all she said.

  *

  There was a dead village by the banks of the Longbone, just as Amaet had said. Laras did not know what it was called; there was no other settlement for several leagues and no one to ask. It had been a large, prosperous town by the look of it. Maybe even the seat of a minor lord; there was at least one crumbling tower standing and the round foundation of what might have been another; the pile of debris nearby suggested it had fallen, and not been carted away as new building material by nearby crofters. Apparently there were no nearby crofters; so far as Laras could tell the area was totally desolate.

  Perhaps everyone in the town and for leagues around had been
destroyed in one of the outbreaks of plague. That had happened in the south, he knew, though fortunately never so far north as Karsan and the White Mountains; perhaps the Sea Kings had raided upriver and taken what folk they hadn't killed immediately as slaves, and done their normally complete and efficient job at destruction. The Sea Kings hadn't raided in more than a generation, but the level of decay and the encroachment of the forest nearby seemed about right.

  Laras, his curiosity aroused, wanted to know what had happened here. Pity there was no one to ask. Or was there?

  "If whatever happened was quick and thorough enough," Laras said, reasoning aloud, "as it certainly seems to have been, then there would have been no one left to bury the dead."

  Laras decided to search the standing tower first. He reasoned that, if it had been war, then a last defense would have centered on the towers. If plague, there would have been folk going about their normal business when they were struck down. In this he was proved right almost immediately. He was barely inside the empty arched doorway when he came across human bones scattered in the debris and filth on the floor. Laras considered them for a moment, then shook his head. Too Scattered. Not much in the way of personality remaining, so far as he could see. Nothing in them that spoke much of a person; it could have been the remains of a roasted ox for all he could tell. Laras went up the winding stone stairway on the wall of the tower and found what he was looking for higher up.

  She lay on the remnants of a bed. Not composed, not as if sleeping. There was nothing peaceful about her, even now. Animals had not been at her, not like they had apparently been on the poor sods at the bottom, but perhaps something else. She lay sprawled, half-on and half off the collapsed bed frame. Laras knew it had been a woman, from the rotting remnants of what had been a rich blue dress to the few wisps of long blonde hair still clinging to the skull.

  What Law do I use for this?

  It occurred to Laras that he didn't really know. It also occurred to him that it didn't really matter. All he had to do was make his will known, and it would happen. It always had, ever since the first day he had met the Goddess Amaet. Whatever he wanted was his to command, and he understood or didn't understand about his power was beside the matter. Now he commanded the dead woman to speak, knowing beyond any doubt or question that she would obey him.

  "Wake," he said, in a stern voice brooking no argument. "Speak to me, Woman."

  The bones stirred, then ordered themselves back into something approaching their living structure and function, sliding across the dust and rot as if each was a living thing itself, bent on its own purpose. Laras watched, fascinated at the effect of his own voice.

  Could Black Kath's bastard daughter do this? Laras didn't think so. Whatever puny magic she had managed to acquire, it was nothing compared to the gifts Amaet had given to him. He touched the pendant she had given him. "Arrow Path" some had said, upon seeing it. Laras had just smiled, saying nothing but enjoying, just a little, the envy and fear in the eyes of those who said the words. Amaet had never said the words themselves, so far as Laras could remember, but he liked the sound of them. Arrow Path. It sounded like something straight and sure. Powerful. Deadly.

  The dead woman sat up and tried futilely to compose the remains of her dress into something more concealing of her pale bones. She looked at Laras with her empty eye sockets. Laras felt his gorge rise just a bit and he commanded her again. "I know what you are now. Remember what you were. Show me."

  Her memory wasn't very strong, it seemed. The best she could do was a flickering phantom of a body, only a little more substantial than mist. Laras built on what little she could show him, creating the illusion of a living woman out of nothing but a few rags and bones. It was hard not be pleased at the final effect: a very pretty young woman looked up at him.

  "Where is he?" she asked.

  Laras frowned. "I don't know who you mean. I summoned you to answer my—"

  "Where is he?" she demanded again. "He was coming. I heard him shouting below. He heard my screams!"

  Laras nodded, believing that he finally understood. "Oh, that. He's dead. They're all dead."

  She looked at him, and Laras finally realized that he'd been fooled by his own illusion. She wasn't really looking at him. Those eyes were a memory cloaked in appearance; the woman did not see anything nor look for anything except other memories living in a time long gone.

  Laras reached out, felt his hand close on nothing but bone as he took what appeared to be a young woman's wrist. He pulled gently, not so much afraid that he would hurt her—since he knew that was impossible—as he was that he might rip her apart and have to start all over. He willed her to see him, to see the ruined tower and room for what it was. "What happened here?"

  "Gone," she said. "He's not coming...I remember."

  "Who's not coming? What happened?"

  "Kynan. Beautiful Kynan. He's not coming. He's dead. They killed him." The woman looked around herself, slowly. "They're all dead. I'm alone. No one to stop them now."

  "The Sea Kings? Were you raided?"

  She didn't seem to hear him, at first. The face flickered in and out of focus like the mirage it was, from flesh to bone and back again. She reached down to her waist, appeared to be trying to grasp something he couldn't see.

  "Lost..."

  "What have you lost?" Laras felt his frustration mounting. One thing to bring the miserable creature back to life—of a sort—quite another to make her pay attention to anything beyond the memory of her last moments of life.

  What can't be taken, can be given.

  Laras released the bones and stepped back. He remembered the Second Law, as Amaet had given it to him. Yet how could he persuade this silly woman to give him what he wanted? Forcing her wasn't working; there wasn't enough of either mind or substance left to force, so far as he could tell. What could he do to persuade her to listen?

  "Lost," she repeated, still groping for something that wasn't there. She looked around, confused, then reached down into the tangled debris that had been a bed. She picked up a rusty dagger. The hilt was tarnished, the blade badly pitted and dark brown from rust.

  "They're coming. Lost..." she said again, and Laras realized that it wasn't the dagger that was lost. The woman was lost. Everything was lost. She'd never be able to see beyond her own pain, and her own way out of it. She took a bony grip on the dagger and Laras saw that she meant to act out the tawdry tragedy again. He enveloped her will with his own and stopped her, but that left the problem.

  "Kynan," he said, musingly, and to his surprise the woman repeated the name.

  "Kynan? Where are you?"

  Of course. He knew what she wanted now, and would have known earlier if he'd been paying even a little bit of attention. Well, easy enough to arrange...

  "Kynan," Laras said, only this time it was a command. He repeated the name, louder, and heard a faint scrabble and then one rasping groan from far below. Laras nodded. He'd guessed right about the fragments on the bottom floor. He hoped there was enough left to work with.

  "Kynan?" the woman called, piteously.

  "Alaea..."

  So that was her name. It was more than Laras had known before, and so far well enough. Oh, it wasn't so much a true sound as an echo, but it was clear enough for all that. The shambling horror that once had been—or so Laras presumed—a handsome young man rose up the stairwell. Laras grimaced, then helped Alaea's memory recreate the missing bits. It wasn't perfect, but apparently the likeness was good enough. Alaea stepped past Laras as if he wasn't there, indeed Laras wondered if had ever actually been there at all, for her. She reached out to her long dead lover.

  "The Sea Kings...I thought—"

  "Ah, so it was a raid, not the plague," Laras said. "And since I'll never get a straight answer about anything else, Thank you, and farewell."

  The two ghosts' fingertips had not quite touched when Laras was finished with the both of them. In a moment all was undone, and the bones fell down to lie in two
separate piles once again.

  You could have let them touch, you know. One last time.

  Laras blinked. Where had that thought come from? It was a foolish notion. They were dead, and had been for centuries. It couldn't possibly make any difference at all, not now. All he had wanted to know was whether there was a chance that a plague was still lingering about the site. Something well worth knowing if he was going to be waiting there for he wasn't sure how long. He had Amaet's mission to consider, and that was all. He had no time for useless sentiment.

  Still, as he walked back down the tower considering how best to set his trap, try as he might Laras couldn't quite escape the feeling that he had done something wrong.

  CHAPTER 16

  "People often talk of their life's purpose but the truth is that no one really knows what they're seeking until they find it."

  —Black Kath's Tally Book

  Bone Tapper returned from scouting the woods and landed on an aspen branch. "The Longbone is just over that line of hills."

  Marta, resting on a rock, nodded. She rubbed her eyes, wearily. "What's the water like? I could use a bath," she said wistfully.

  Bone Tapper shrugged. "Not feeling dainty?"

  "Sarcasm is against our agreement."

  "Sorry. Sometimes I can't tell what is and isn't. I thought I was phrasing the question rather delicately."

  "For you, perhaps," Marta conceded. "The river?"

  "A bit high from the mountain runoff, but clean enough and I noted a quiet pool here and there. It’ll be cold, but managable."

  "Good." Marta got back on her feet, leaning heavily on the cherrywood staff she'd cut for herself the day before. She was beginning to regret not buying a new horse first, since there had been no chance at all to buy one. She hadn't even seen a town, or even a farm, for days. "I had no idea this area was so empty."

  "Well..." Bone Tapper hesitated.

  "What is it?" Marta asked.