The Magic Mines of Asharim

by Pauline M. Ross

  As I hurried over to the guest house, I wondered what I would find, and how long it would take to make it respectable. I needn’t have worried, for it was just like everywhere else in this strange town. The door swung open smoothly, as if the hinges had just been oiled. The rooms inside and all the furnishings were immaculate, without a speck of dust or a single spider’s web. The layout was much the same as my house. In the kitchen a couple of glasses and a half-empty jug of ale lay abandoned on a table, with no sign of mould or decay, not even a dead fly. I washed them and set them back on a shelf.

  I straightened a chair here and there and plumped the cushions, but there was little for me to do except make up the bed. I went back to the Main House to fetch linens and towels, and as I passed along the corridor outside the big kitchen, I saw the thrower through the door, standing in the middle of a big group of excited women, Chendria as giggly as any of them, reeling off names as she introduced him to everyone. In his richly-textured city clothes, he stood out like a butterfly on a dung heap.

  He turned as I looked and my heart almost stopped. With only a single glance, I knew what he was. Tre’annatha! The soft curls framing his head and the distinctive shape of the eyes gave him away.

  I froze, too horrified to move. Of all the people to turn up here, at the far edge of the civilised world. Demons and sprites, as if I hadn’t been punished enough in my life, now I was going to be fucked by a Tre’annatha.

  He turned and saw me standing stupidly with my mouth agape. He looked expectantly at Chendria.

  “Oh… oh, well, that’s only Allandra, you know. The whore.”

  His eyebrows rose just a fraction. But then he made the traditional greeting gesture – hand to forehead, mouth and then heart – and spoke to me in High Mesanthian.

  I was too startled to think straight. To see him there, in the heart of my refuge, speaking the words of home, was too much for me to take in. Arms full, I bowed as best I could and made the standard response, with full deference. Then, appalled at myself, I scurried away.

  It was only as I ran, heart still thundering in my ears, that I realised that he’d used the respectful form of address, as if I were his equal.

  Back at the guest house, I dropped the linens in a heap on the bed and paced up and down, arms clutched about my waist. For the first time I doubted my ability to play the part I’d chosen. Could I take him into my bed, and lie compliant beneath him? I felt sick at the thought. Would I respond to him as I responded to any other man? Was it possible that I would actually enjoy what this man did to me? I couldn’t bear it.

  Yet common sense asserted itself. I would bear it because I must. Chendria intended to insult me by calling me a whore, but she was right. That was exactly what I now was. So I would be a whore for this man if he wanted me to. A wave of optimism – perhaps he wouldn’t want me! Tre’annatha were very strange in their habits, it was said, very choosy. So it may be that an Akk’ashara woman held no attraction for him. I could only hope.

  I took a few deep breaths, and began to make up the bed.

  I wondered what he was doing here as a thrower, of all things. Most throwers were from the Hrandish warrior clans, with their constant honour wars, or from the sand dwellers of the far north east. And for all that Kijana said it was usual for throwers to come to a mine for their supplies, I knew that most flickers were transported across the Two Rivers Basin to one of the big markets. I’d seen the chaos of the flicker exchange at Hurk Hranda, with men shouting bids across the floor, arms waving to be noticed. And the prices were astronomical. No wonder the poor creatures in their glass jars were so distraught. Now that I’d seen how delicately they were seduced out of their holes, I realised the journey alone must be traumatic for them, and then the market—

  A man coughed delicately, and I swear I jumped a foot into the air. The Tre’annatha! I hadn’t heard him come in. I realised why – I could detect nothing from him, not the slightest hint of emotion. I’d never in my life encountered such a thing before. Even very calm people have feelings that ripple on the surface of their minds, not deep, not intense, but always there. This man had nothing. He was like a void, a blackness where no light could escape. It was almost as if he didn’t exist.

  He dropped a pair of saddle bags onto the floor. “I beg your pardon for intruding, Gracious Lady.” His voice was low, melodious, and he spoke the words of High Mesanthian without an accent. Or with a Mesanthian accent, I suppose.

  I couldn’t answer him in my own language. “No intrusion. This is your house, after all.” Demons, I was shaking. I bent my head to smooth the last corner of the bedcovers with fierce concentration, trying to recover my composure. After all, I was going to have to get used to him.

  I straightened myself, to find him watching me, his expression – I don’t know, what was his expression? I’d never had to read faces before. Arms folded, he leaned against the door jamb. He wore rich velvets and embroidered brocades, making me feel like a drab peasant girl. Which was what I was, now.

  “Is there anything I can get for you?” I hoped my voice didn’t waver noticeably.

  “Any decent wine?” He switched to Low Mesanthian, the common language of the Two Rivers.

  “There is no wine here, decent or otherwise. There is ale, if you want that, or a disgusting fruit liqueur.”

  “Tempting, but I think I can survive without.” Was that humour? No idea. Still he watched me, unmoving.

  The silence in his mind terrified me, but I refused to be unnerved. “Anything else?”

  His lips twisted. “You do not like me.”

  “I am not required to like you,” I said crisply, annoyance pushing down my fear of him.

  Did his eyes twinkle? “Indeed you are not, Lady,” he said gravely.

  “I am not a lady.”

  “Oh, but I think you are.” He stirred at last, uncoiling himself from the door. “I must go and see about my business. May the Spirit protect you, Gracious Lady.”

  ~~~~~

  By evening table, my jangled nerves had had time to settle. I helped set out bowls and plates, moving silently about the room while others chattered and laughed as if it were a festival. Many of the extractors were excited by the new arrival. Any outsider was spice to the dull routine of their lives, and there was some competition to entice him to their beds. I wished them luck with that endeavour, if it kept him away from me. Their excitement seeped into me, making me feel better.

  Chendria’s spirits were buoyant, and she bubbled with glee whenever she looked at me. I don’t know why it amused her so much, the idea of me submitting to a Tre’annatha, for she could hardly know how much I detested them. Still, if it put her in a better mood, I wouldn’t object.

  Not everyone was so thrilled with the thrower’s appearance, though. Two or three huddled groups muttered grimly about ‘demons of the earth’ and shook their heads. The Tre’annatha’s power was along the northern coast, but even in the Two Rivers Basin there were dark tales about the people they called Trannatta.

  Poor Rufin watched me with big eyes, hunched in a corner. He was still cowed by Janna and her friends, and kept well away from me. Janna had recovered perfectly well, but whenever anyone crossed her, she would lay her head in her hands and moan softly. “My eyes hurt,” she would say in soulful tones, and the women would fuss round her, and Rufin would rush to her side.

  The thrower was late, arriving when the meal was well underway. He had Kijana and two other experienced extractors with him, the three women white-faced with exhaustion, the man apparently unaffected by a whole afternoon cooped up with irate flickers. The women quickly took their usual places, and one of the carriers brought out an extra chair from the side of the room, waiting while the thrower decided where to sit.

  Chendria waved and smiled to him from her end of the table. He nodded politely, and then turned the other way, towards Petreon. Chendria’s annoyance bloomed in an instant.

  To keep out of Chendria’s way, I’d taken to sitting
close to Petreon, so I found myself facing the newcomer across the table. I ignored him, attending pointedly to my food. To my relief, he said little, and nothing at all to me. He asked Petreon one or two general questions about the mine, and, finding him unresponsive, fell silent.

  As soon as she had finished eating, Chendria came bustling up to our end of the table, shooing away one of the carriers to sit next to the thrower. She simpered at him, asked if he’d enjoyed the meal and was everything satisfactory? He paused from mopping up the last of his stew with bread to answer her cordially. With anyone else, I’d have known whether he meant what he said, but I couldn’t read him at all. It was so frustrating, and my mind couldn’t stop probing uselessly around him, like fingers irresistibly drawn to pick at a scab.

  “Do you want to use the whore tonight, Xando?” Chendria trilled.

  Xando. It was the first time I’d heard what he called himself. Not that it was his real name.

  Petreon’s fingers drummed sharply on the table top. “Companion-servant!”

  She shrugged, unabashed. “Petreon won’t mind, you know. Letting you have her, I mean. Or you could both do her. She’d probably like that.”

  Petreon burned with anger, but only the tapping fingers betrayed him.

  “Thank you, but not tonight.” The thrower’s voice was calm. If he was as tranquil inside as he sounded, he was the only one of us who was.

  “Well, feel free anytime. She’ll do whatever you want. But don’t make her mad, or she’ll throw you across the room.” She tittered.

  A flicker of interest broke the thrower’s courteous mask. “Really?” He looked at me fully for the first time that evening. “I would not have thought her capable of such a thing.”

  “She’s a witch. We have an extractor still recovering because of her wickedness.”

  “Most interesting. How did this come about?”

  I made to rise, but Chendria snorted. “No, you can listen to this. Your evil deeds aren’t forgotten.” And she told him the whole story, greatly embellished, naturally, and made it far more impressive a feat than the reality. “So you see, Xando, she must be a witch, mustn’t she?”

  Petreon snorted, and I was tempted to laugh myself.

  The thrower watched me intently. “Most interesting, Mistress. Indeed Allandra is a lady of surprising depths.”

  Chendria tittered, not sure what to make of that. “Hmph. Well. But she’s no lady.”

  “Ah, there I must beg to disagree with you, Mistress. Allandra…” There was the slightest emphasis on the name. “…is certainly a lady. A Gracious and Beneficent Lady of one of the noble lines of Mesanthia.”

  I almost groaned.

  Chendria’s brows snapped together. “How do you know that?”

  “The tattoos around her ears.” His eyes never left mine. All the blood drained from my face. Was he about to expose me to these people after all my efforts?

  “So she’s Akk’ashara?” Her eyes gleamed and satisfaction bubbled up in her.

  “More than that. She is of the Highest of the Empire, one of those eligible to be appointed Empress.”

  “That’s nothing to be proud of!” she snapped. “The Empire was an abomination.”

  His head turned slowly towards her. I still couldn’t read his mood, but she paled and drew back a little.

  “An abomination?” he said, his quiet voice holding his audience mesmerised. “The Empire held the whole northern plains in peace and prosperity for a thousand years. It was the Empire that built all the great cities of the north, as well as the canals that make the Two Rivers Basin prosperous and green. Nor was the Empire ever defeated by armed might or weakened by a rotten heart. It only fell in the end by treachery, and since then the canals have silted up, the desert has spread and many of the cities have fallen into corruption and war. The Empire was a great civilisation, and we are the poorer for its loss.”

  I froze, too shocked to move. The last thing I’d expected to find here was a spirited defence of the Empire. And from such a man! The Tre’annatha were almost as much implicated in the fall of the Empire as the Betrayer. It was curious, but not enough for me to forgive him.

  Yet my heart lifted at his words. Even in Mesanthia, few spoke so openly in support of the Empire. It was a matter for private discussion, over the family table when the servants were gone, or in dark corners of stennish houses. Outside the city, it was sensible to say nothing when anyone talked of how evil the Empire was. They knew nothing of history, these low people. They had no understanding of what was lost when the Empire was betrayed.

  One day, we would find a way to restore our power, and then, perhaps, they would appreciate the value of true civilisation, of education, of benevolent rule by their betters. One day we would be free again.

  Chendria licked her lips, her eyes flicking between Xando and me. She was not an intelligent woman, but she had enough sense not to argue with a man far better educated than she was.

  By this time I’d had enough. I jumped up from my seat and swept out of the room before anyone could stop me. It was too much. Bad enough that I had a Tre’annatha living alongside me, without him spilling all the secrets I’d kept so carefully. It was my ill fortune that he could read my status in my ear tattoos, but to have him blurt it out in front of everyone was my worst nightmare. Petreon would keep my secret, I was sure, but not Chendria. This foolish man was putting my life in danger, and he hadn’t the least idea of it.

  I stormed across the square past the fountain. I’d almost reached the arch on the far side when I heard light footsteps behind me, running quite fast. Spinning round, I found Xando closing in on me. By the One, why couldn’t he leave me alone?

  “What do you want?” I spat.

  He caught his breath before speaking. “I have angered you.”

  “Very perceptive of you. Did it not occur to you that I might not want every random stranger knowing my life history? I would have told them myself if I had wanted them to know.”

  “They disrespect you,” he said without anger. “They should treat you with the deference due to your position.”

  “My position? Are you insane? I am a hired bed warmer, remember. I am nobody here, and that is how I like it.”

  He stood watching me. I couldn’t read his face, but he seemed calm. It was peaceful, being with someone without their feelings spilling into me. It crossed my mind that this must be what life is like all the time for normal people.

  “Wait,” he said, looking around. “Is this where it happened? Did you really hurl someone right across this plaza?”

  “What?” I was too angry with him to care. “Why does that matter?”

  This time there was definitely amusement in his eyes. “Because it makes you even more interesting. Because it makes me wonder whether you have inherited the gifts of your line, Gracious Lady.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “As you wish.” He smiled then, he actually smiled. “Allandra.”

  9: Dragon Stones

  For two days, and many hours of the night too, Xando was occupied with selecting his flickers. He spent his time in the sun room where they were stored, examining each flicker in turn, trying to find ones which suited his purposes. There were a great many of them there, the whole winter’s output from the mine, and he worked steadily through them. The flickers were always agitated as brightmoon approached, deprived of the bloom and extremely hostile to handling, so two or three extractors were always there too, helping to keep them subdued. It was distressing work, exhausting for the women, but it had to be done quickly before the mulers arrived to take all the remaining flickers.

  Xando never seemed to tire, in fact, he was exhilarated by the business. Like all throwers, he wore a special coat fitted with scores of little pockets, each housing a flicker. He took it off at table, hanging it on a purpose-made stand, but although it made me uneasy, the flickers were quiet in their tiny homes. I would even say they were contented. There was none of the friendly c
uriosity I’d felt from them inside the mine, but neither were they aggressive or surly as they often were in their glass jars. Whatever he did to them pacified them very effectively.

  At brightmoon, the mulers arrived, and the unchosen flickers were packed into their metal boxes to be dispatched down to Crenton Port for shipment. The extractors were unsettled after that, sitting around in the kitchen drinking tennel, some of them crying. I suppose they became attached to their flickers, but it was hard to understand why.

  The thrower was quite the opposite, relaxed and smiling, allowing some of the women to flirt with him, an encouraging sign. In the middle of the afternoon, I was helping the two old women with their trays of cakes, humming a little to myself, when Chendria came in.

  “Allandra! I need you to fold the laundry for the Palm House and carry it over there.”

  It wasn’t my job, but there was no point in arguing with her. I took off my apron.

  “Ah, Mistress Chendria.” The thrower jumped up and crossed the room smoothly to stand beside me. “Would you be so good as to let me have Allandra’s services for an hour or two? I promise to bring her back in time to help prepare for evening table.”

  Demons, he wanted to screw the afternoon away! My stomach tied itself in knots. I wasn’t ready for this, not yet, not so soon.

  But Chendria was smiling, compliant. Amused, needless to say. “Of course, of course! Take all the time you want.”

  I followed him outside past the wide-eyed stares of the extractors. In the square, the fountain was noisy today, spurts of water tossed about by the wind.

  “Have no fear.” Xando’s voice was soft in my ear. “I am not intending to bed you.”

  Hard to believe. I wasn’t sure I could trust my voice.

  “I have need of your knowledge of the town,” he continued. “I have been told that you explore freely. You must have come across some treasures in your wanderings.”