by Mike Allen
I did not think White Ring would expect the singer to continue, even if she knew of the ending. The ill-omen of it would be too strong. Any singer would know what she meant by requesting it, and know, if he knew the end, to leave it off. But oh, my clever boy! He sang the rest of the song.
For a moment, as he continued where she had expected him to stop, she stood paralyzed. The others blinked in surprise, but his voice transfixed them and they were silent. White Ring drew her head back, and I saw her killing claws twitch. Even so she waited until he had finished.
“You made that up,” accused White Ring’s daughter when he fell silent. White Ring still held her threatening pose, ready to strike. But she dared not touch the singer; there was no other on board.
“You’re very young,” I said, my leg muscles tense with the desire to jump. “It’s fashionable these days to leave that verse off, but anyone of any experience and education knows that’s how the story ends.” I swiveled my snout towards White Ring, and bared my teeth. “Isn’t that so?”
“I have never heard it,” said White Ring, still poised to strike. Her gaze was fixed on the boy, a small, brown-specked shape in the middle of the circle. “You have violated your obligation as a singer. Why? There can have been no collusion. Can you have done such a terrible thing merely from a hatred of lowlanders?”
Even if I had told her he was mine she would not have been able to imagine why such a thing would matter. And besides, he had sung truly. I might have laughed, but I did not; this was a dangerous moment.
“I have heard it,” said a quiet voice. The others turned their heads but I never took my eyes off White Ring. She never took her eyes off my son.
“My great-aunt’s mate was a singer,” the voice continued. I placed it—a sturdy, handsome male, gray and black feathered, still young. He had kept quiet before now, as was proper. “He died when I was still a chick, but I remember he sang it in just that way.” Silence. And then, even more timidly than before, “I was surprised to hear it requested. I wondered if you would signal the singer to leave the ending off. But then I thought, he won’t sing the ending, no one ever has except my uncle. ”
White Ring and her daughter would have no qualms about killing the black and gray male. They drew their heads back, hissing.
In that instant, a voice came from the speaking tube. “We have completed our calculations.”
The low ceiling made it impossible to jump. Instead I drew my head back and then struck forward with all the force I could muster, hoping the boy would be quick enough to move out of the way.
The room erupted in screams and shouts. My teeth snapped together where White Ring’s neck had been an instant before. I grabbed her shoulder and as she raked me with her claws I brought my foot up with its deadly killing claw. White Ring grabbed me and sank her teeth into my shoulder, but she was too late. My foot came up, and I drove my claw into her belly, and pulled my leg convulsively back.
Her jaws opened in a scream, and I let go of her and stepped back. The black and gray male was locked with the daughter. No one else was in the room—they must have fled down the ladder well.
“You are dead, White Ring,” I said. Pink entrails sagged out of the bleeding slash in her belly. “I need only keep out of reach for a while.”
“Return to Earth,” she said. “What if we’re all that’s left?”
I wanted to take a step back and lean against the wall, but I wasn’t sure if she still had strength for a last charge, and I didn’t want to show any weakness.
“You have doomed us,” she said, and fell to her knees, and then onto her side, guts squirting out with the force of her fall. Still I did not approach. Until she was reliably dead she was a danger.
Instead I looked over at the black and gray male, who stood now over the daughter’s corpse. His feathers drooped, and he was covered in blood, whose it was impossible to tell. “Are you hurt?” I asked. I hoped he wasn’t. He was handsome, and obviously strong.
“Yes,” he said.
“Go down to the doctor. On your way, inform the engineers of the change in command.” He bowed his head low and limped to the ladder well. My son had climbed up, and made way for him.
I stepped over to the daughter and pushed her with my foot. She was dead. Carefully, tentatively, I did the same for her mother.
Dead.
“Well, my chick,” I said. “There will be new songs, and they will be yours.” I turned to see him standing at the well. He bobbed his head. We had always understood each other.
My shoulder hurt, and my neck, where I had been clawed. I would have to see the doctor soon enough myself, but not this very moment. I turned around to see the image of the smoking, burning Earth. “Earth is dead, or if not it may as well be. Mars will be ours.” If anyone still lived on the Earth, perhaps one day they would venture away from the world and find, on Mars, the evidence of our triumph.
Let cowards retreat. We go forward. We live!
AT THE EDGE OF DYING
Mary Robinette Kowal
Kahe peeked over the edge of the earthen trench as his tribe’s retreating warriors broke from the bamboo grove onto the lava field. The tribesmen showed every sign of panicked flight in front of the advancing Ouvallese. Spears and shields dropped to the ground as they tucked in their arms and ran.
And the Ouvallese, arrogant with their exotic horses and metal armor, believed what they saw and chased the warriors toward him. The timing on this would be close. Kahe gathered the spell in his mind and double-checked the garrote around his neck. His wife stood behind him, the ends resting lightly in her hands. “Do it.”
Bless her, Mehahui did not hesitate. She hauled back, cutting into his throat with the knotted cord. Kahe tried not to struggle as his breath was cut off. Black dots swirled in his vision, but he could not afford to faint yet.
With each breath he could not take, with each step closer to death, Kahe’s power grew. As the tribe’s warriors reached the trench and leaped down, he scanned the lava field to make certain none were left behind. Vision fading, he unleashed the spell coiled inside him.
The heat from the firestorm singed the air as it swept out from his trench. Even through his graying sight, the blue flame burned like the sun as it raced toward the Ouvallese battalion. Screams rose like prayer as his spell crisped the men in their armor.
As soon as the spell rolled out, Mehahui released her hold and Kahe fell against the damp red soil. The grains of dirt blended with the dots dancing in front of his eyes, so the very earth seemed to move. Air scraped across his tortured throat as life flooded into him. He gasped as the goddess’s gift of power faded.
Beyond his own wrenching sobs, Kahe heard the agonized screams of those Ouvallese too distant to be instantly immolated. He prayed to Hia that his spell had gotten most of them; the goddess of death and magic had rarely failed him. Still, the kings of the tribes would have to send runners out to deal with the burned soldiers; a dying enemy was too dangerous to allow to linger.
Mehahui patted him, soft as a duckling, on the back. Her round face hovered in the edge of his vision. “Stay with me.”
Kahe coughed when he tried to speak. “I am.” His throat scraped as if it were filled with thorns. He knew she hated seeing him downed by a spell, but flirting with Hia was the only way to get the power he needed for a spell this big. Pushing against the earth wall, Kahe sat up.
His head swam. The dirt thrummed under his hands.
The vibration grew to a roar and the earth bucked. A wall collapsed. Dirt spilled into the trench, as the earth quaked.
No. A sorcerer must have been at the edge of his firestorm and by almost killing him, Kahe had given him access to Hia’s power—only a dying man would have enough power to work magic on the earth itself. As the trench shifted and filled with falling rocks, the spell he needed to counter it sprang to his mind but without power. He turned to Mehahui even while knowing there wasn’t enough time for the garrote to work. He fumbled for the kn
ife at his side.
The tremors stopped.
Dust settled in the suddenly still air but he had not cast the counter-spell. Even if he had, it would have been as a rush lamp beside a bonfire.
Around them, men in the earthworks called to each other for aid or reassurance. Trickles of new dirt slid down the wall in miniature red avalanches. King Enahu scrambled over a mound, using his long spear as a walking staff.
“Hia’s left tit! You’re still alive.” He slid down the side of the trench, red dirt smearing his legs with an illusion of blood. “When you stopped the earthquake, I didn’t think you could have survived the spell. Not so soon after working the other.”
“I didn’t stop it.” Kahe watched Mehahui instead of the king. Her skin had bleached like driftwood and she would not meet his eyes.
Beside him, King Enahu inhaled sharply, understanding what Kahe meant. “There’s another sorcerer in the ranks? Hia, Pikeo, and the Mother! This could be the saving of us. Who?”
Mehahui hung her head, her hair falling around her face like rain at night. “It’s me.”
Kahe’s heart stuttered, as if he had taken makiroot poison for a spell. Hia only gave her power to those on the road to death. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m dying, Kahe.” His beautiful wife lifted her head and Kahe could not understand how he had missed the dark circles under her eyes.
* * *
With only a thin blanket covering her, every breeze in the hut chilled Mehahui. She shivered and kept her attention focused on the thatched pili-leaf ceiling while the surgeon poked at her.
Iokua stepped back from the table. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” he asked.
Clinging to the blanket, Mehahui sat up. “Could you have done anything?”
“I could have tried.”
They had studied under the same masters at the Paheni Academy of Medicinal Arts; she didn’t need Iokua to tell her that only palliative care was possible. “Are you finished?”
He nodded and Mehahui wrapped her felted skirt back around her waist. Her hands shook when she tucked in the ends of the fabric. “Will you tell Kahe? I can’t.” She pulled her hair away from her face, securing it with the tortoiseshell pins Kahe had given her for their fifteenth anniversary. She tucked a red suhibis flower behind her left ear so her married status was clear—not that she needed it. Everyone in the united tribes knew Kahe.
Iokua tugged at his graying doctor’s braid. “As you wish.” He paused to pick up the sandalwood surgeon’s mask and settled it on his face. The image of the goddess hid his worry behind her fragrant, smooth cheeks. Carved filigree of whale bone formed the mask’s eyes, giving no hint of the man beneath.
He pushed aside the hanging in the door of the hut. Outside, Kahe was pacing on the lanai. He stopped, face tightening like leather as he saw the surgeon’s mask, but he came when Iokua beckoned him.
Mehahui could not say anything as she took her husband’s hand. The scars on the inside of his wrists stood out in angry relief.
Iokua bowed formally. “Your wife has a tumor in her abdomen.” The mask flattened his voice.
“Can you cut it out of her?” Kahe sounded like she was still strangling him.
“No.” The surgeon’s mask was impassive. “I’m sorry.”
Despite her husband’s touch, Mehahui felt herself shrink into the far distance.
“How long does she have?”
The mask turned to her, cold and neutral though the voice underneath was not. “I suspect Mehahui will know better than I.”
And she did know. Underneath the constant ache in her belly, the mass hummed with the goddess’s power. She had known she was dying, but until today she had been afraid to prove it.
Kahe grasped her hand tighter. “Mehahui?”
Blindly, she turned toward him. “Weeks. Maybe.”
* * *
As soon as they were alone, Kahe said, “Why didn’t you tell me?” When had the soft curves of her face turned to planes?
“You would have tried to heal me.”
Hia dealt out the power to kill but was more sparing with her willingness to heal. She would grant a life only in exchange for another. Kahe could have healed Mehahui, could still heal her, but only if he were willing to be taken to Hia’s breast himself. And to do that would leave the king without a sorcerer.
He stood and paced the three strides that their tiny house allowed. The pili-leaf walls pressed in on him and his throat still felt tight. After all the times Mehahui had nearly killed him, only now did he feel the impact of death. He went over the list of poisons in his kit. “Makiroot acts slowly enough that I could work spells for the king until it was time to heal you. I’d be stronger than I am from strangling, so—”
“Stop. Kahe, stop.” Mehahui clutched the sides of her head. “Do you think I could live with the guilt if you wasted your death on me?”
“It wouldn’t be a waste!”
“Will you look beyond me? Paheni is being invaded. The South Shore Tribe have allied with the Ouvallese and we are overwhelmed. Hia has given us this gift and—”
“A gift!” If the goddess presented herself right then, he would have spit in her face.
“Yes, a gift! It’s like Hia and Pikeo’s Crossroads all over again. Can you imagine a better meeting of death and luck? It’s not as if I am a common housewife—I’ve worked at your side; I know all the spells but I’ve never had the power to cast them. Hia gave me this so we can win the war.” Mehahui held out her hands to him. “Please. Please don’t take this from me.”
Kahe could not go to her, though he knew she was right. Her power would only grow, as his mentor’s had at the end of his life. In short order, she would surpass what he could do, and the tribes needed that to turn the tide in their favor.
But he needed her more. “How long do you have? Think deeply about it, and Hia will tell you the time remaining.”
Mehahui’s gaze turned inward. He watched her, sending a prayer to Pikeo for a little bit of luck. Hia’s brother could be fickle, but Kahe no longer trusted his patron goddess.
“Eighteen days.” Those two words shook Mehahui’s voice.
But a tiny seed of hope sprouted in Kahe. “That might be enough.”
“What? Enough for what?”
“To get you to Hia’au.” Pilgrims from every tribe went to the goddess’s city to die and sometimes—sometimes Hia would grant them the power to heal with their dying breath.
Mehahui looked at him like he had lost his senses. “But we lost Hia’au to Ouvalle.”
Kahe nodded. “That’s why we have to win this war quickly.”
* * *
King Enahu’s great house, despite the broad windows opening onto a terraced lanai, felt close and stifling with the narrow thoughts of the other kings who had gathered to meet with him. Kahe’s knees ached from kneeling on the floor behind Enahu.
King Waitipi played with the lei of ti leaves around his neck, pulling the leaves through his fat hands in a fragrant rattle. “We are sorry to hear of your wife’s illness, but I fail to see how this changes any of our strategies.”
Kahe bent his head before answering. “With respect, your majesty, it changes everything. Mehahui will be stronger than me in a matter of days. What’s more, she can cast spells at a moment’s notice. We can take the battle right to the Ouvallese ships and handle anything that they cast at us.”
“I’ll admit it’s tempting to retake Hia’au.” The bright yellow feathers of King Enahu’s cloak fluttered in the breeze. Across his knees lay the long spear he used in battle as a reminder of his strength.
King Haleko said, “I, for one, do not want to subject our troops to another massacre like Keonika Valley.”
“I understand your concern, your majesty. But the Ouvallese only have one full sorcerer from their alliance with the South Shore tribe. With Mehahui’s power added to mine, we can best them.”
“Of course I do not doubt your assessment of your wife
’s power”—King Waitipi plucked at a ti leaf, shredding it—“but it seems to me that the South Shore tribe is making out much the best in this. Should we not reconsider our position?”
So many kings, so few rulers.
King Ehanu scowled. “Reconsider? The Ouvallese offered to let us rule over a portion of our land. A portion. As if they have the right to take whatever they wish. I will not subject my people to rule by outlanders.”
“Nor I.” King Haleko nodded, gray hair swaying around his head. “But this does raise some interesting possibilities.” King Haleko’s words raised hope for a moment. “Would the infirm in our hospices offer more sorcerers?”
“You would find power without knowledge. Hia’s gift only comes to those who study and are willing to make the sacrifice of themselves.”
“But your wife—”
“My wife . . . ” Kahe had to stop to keep from drowning in his longing for her.
In the void, King Enahu spoke, “The lady Mehahui has studied at Kahe’s side all the years they have been in our service.”
Kahe begged his king, “This war could be over in two weeks, if you let us go to the South harbor. It would not divert troops; only a small band need come with us. No more than ten to protect us until we reach the South Harbor where the Ouvallese are moored. We could wipe them out in a matter of minutes.” And then, though he would not say it out loud, he could take Mehahui to the Hia’ua and pray that one of the dying in the goddess’s city would heal her.
King Enahu scowled. “Pikeo’s Hawk! You’re asking me to bet my kingdom that your wife is right about how long she has to live. What happens if we extend ourselves to attack and are cut off because she dies early? Everything is already in place to stop Ouvalle’s incursions into King Waitipi’s land. I need you there, not at the South Shore.”