A Turn of Light

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Dawn was near enough to dim the Mistress and hide the Rose. Lamplight glowed in the Ropps’ barn. Milking, he guessed, hearing a cow, and stretched with an involuntary yawn. Ancestors Weary and Worn, farmers slept less than soldiers. What life had he gotten himself into?

  Closer at hand, their purr so low and intense he felt as much as heard it, the kruar mares stood together, chins on one another’s backs, tails slapping lazily.

  “Mine.”

  At the smug note to the breeze, Bannan’s lips twitched. “Did you leave any rabbits?”

  “Rabbits, yes.” Scourge gave a purr of his own. “No wolves.”

  At least they hadn’t gone for the village livestock, something he suspected had more to do with the kruar aversion to cattle than compunction. Was that why Marrowdell had no sheep?

  A curiosity for another day. Bannan looked across the pond at the unlit Ansnan wagons, tucked against the tall hedge, and frowned.

  Scourge bent his neck to follow his gaze. “Attack as they sleep,” he suggested cheerfully, eyes red.

  Bannan laid his hand on the kruar’s shoulder, avoiding the fresh gashes. “We don’t want to attack them.”

  “We do!” Scourge shook his head, drool flying, and showed his fangs. The mares lifted their heads and showed theirs.

  He gave the bloody-minded beast an absent pat. “They may have what I need, old friend. A magic to cross into the Verge, if the turn-born won’t help.”

  Scourge sidled from under his hand, turning to lower his head and stare. “What’s this?” The breeze was hot and fetid with menace. “That dragon tricks you to your death, so he may have her!”

  “We’re both trying to save her. Wyll’s not the problem.” And might not be the only answer, he realized all at once. “What do you know about the Wound?”

  The mares whined. Scourge lifted his head to aim one startled eye at Bannan.

  “It’s dangerous to those who notice it and draws them to their death. Heart’s Blood, I know that much. I need more, Scourge. How to pass it safely—”

  The breeze was chill enough to nip his ear. “You cannot. It bleeds.”

  The miasma he’d seen with his deeper sight, staining the silver road, came from the Wound. That it was blood of some kind? Ancestors Aghast and Fearful, he wanted to deny it was possible, but if the Bone Hills were other than stone, anything was. Bannan steeled himself. He had to know. “Wyll told us the Wound was where the edge hadn’t healed. Is it a void?”

  A lip curled in disdain. “You asked a dragon? They are oblivious to the ground until we pull them to our traps. Then, they care.” Scourge lifted a hoof, let it drop without sound. “Kruar miss nothing. At the last Great Turn, the sei caught something in a trap of their own. Something hungry for turn-born. Kruar were first to find it, stuck within the edge. We named it the Wound, for it bled into both worlds. We couldn’t—” the breeze turned pensive, “—reach the flesh.”

  Bannan’s own crawled. “How can it be—how can it still bleed?”

  Now he was regarded by the other eye, as if what he asked was so troubling, Scourge had to be sure of him. “My mates tell of changes during my exile. There came those able to feed on what the sei left in their trap. Kruar do not contest them.”

  An undying creature, fed upon by what the fearsome kruar avoided. Jenn Nalynn, being lured to it. Grimly, Bannan raised his eyes to the shadowed Spine. “What bleeds can die.”

  “Not always,” the breeze in his ear warned. “And sometimes, not at all.”

  “Eggs?”

  The dema lifted his plate with a pleased smile and nod. Despite his blue-black skin, Jenn had the impression Urcet blanched at the thought. The odemi, Panilaq and Kanajuq, weren’t at the Nalynn table or any other. Apparently they’d had too much beer last night and nothing would wake them, leaving their masters to wander from kitchen to kitchen in search of breakfast.

  Unless, she thought worriedly, they’d come straight to hers.

  “Is there more tea?” Urcet asked. He’d emptied a pot already, touching nothing solid. She hadn’t noticed he’d been much into the beer, but perhaps the tinkers’ unusual brew didn’t sit well on so foreign a stomach.

  Or he hadn’t slept. She’d wished away Palma’s dreams and not thought of these men. Jenn glanced guiltily at Qimirpik, relieved to see he appeared his jovial self. He’d left off his hat, seeming well at home.

  “I’ll get more,” she told Urcet. If he’d dreamed, so be it.

  Hers had been dark. She’d tried to stay awake, to hold on to the smell of Bannan’s warm skin, the touch of his hands and mouth, the way she’d felt; she’d fallen asleep, to plunge into a nightmare where every time she reached for him, her fingers slipped over stone.

  Aunt Sybb resumed the conversation paused by eggs and tea. “Last night had its pleasant moments,” she said delicately. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the upcoming festivities even more, though certainly our little village can’t match the Hac Y. You must be sorry to miss it.”

  Jenn returned with the tea to see Urcet press fingers to throat and bow his head in gracious acknowledgment. “You know our ways, Lady. I’m honored.”

  “The Mahavars regularly host merchants and diplomats from Eldad,” Aunt Sybb explained, giving her a nod of thanks as she poured. “The Hac Y celebrates intellectual achievement, does it not? Most admirable.”

  “Thank you. Accomplishment should be rewarded.” Something guarded left Urcet’s face and he smiled for the first time. “Eld treasures scholars and inventors. During Hac Y, entire cities fly the banners of their most successful innovator. Structures rise in honor of the finest minds. I myself hope for the day—”

  “And so you should,” Aunt Sybb slipped in adroitly as he paused for breath. “While our celebrations aren’t on such a scale, I daresay you’ve never attended a Rhothan wedding on the Golden Day Blessed by our Ancestors, let alone four at once.”

  “I, for one, can’t wait.’ The dema waved a forkful of egg. “What do you say, Urcet? Collect the Celestial’s Tears, then dance the night away in the company of these sweet brides?”

  Jenn fumbled the teapot. “‘Tears?’”

  “Dema!” The Eld half-rose from his seat. “We agreed not to speak of this.”

  Twin outbursts at her table, coupled with peril to the tea, drew Aunt Sybb’s eyebrows together in mute disapproval. Qimirpik merely chuckled. “Sit, Urcet. There’s no keeping secrets in a friendly little place like this, is there, good lady?”

  “Quite impossible,” the lady agreed, bending a finger to indicate the teapot would be safer on the table, near her hand. “‘Celestial’s Tears?’ So your visit for the eclipse has a religious connotation.” She steepled her fingers, eyes aglint with implacable interest. “Do enlighten me.”

  Jenn knew that look. It was the one she’d receive if late, or messy, or without shoes, and meant any explanation best be compelling. Hoping to stay for this one, she did her best to be unobtrusive, but Aunt Sybb glanced at her with another look she knew.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she said faintly.

  Once there, Jenn put a finger to her lips as her sister looked up, to let her know there was something worth overhearing. Not that they should. Aunt Sybb expected the pretense of privacy; when she entertained a guest in her parlor, though it was simply the front half of the room, the sisters would make sufficient noise in the kitchen to prove they weren’t listening or interested. More often than not, Jenn would slip out the kitchen door and run to her meadow, while Peggs busied herself with pie.

  This time, without a word, the two stood close behind the curtain. Even now, Peggs had a distracted, thoughtful look. Her sole response thus far to hearing the sum of Jenn’s dreadful secrets had been to agree Hettie would appreciate the dish towels. Jenn knew her sister. Faced with a problem she intended to solve, Peggs Nalynn would say nothing until she had a plan.

  Though it seemed unlikely she’d find one this time, Jenn was obscurely comforted to see her so-wise sister chewing a
lock of hair.

  She wasn’t by what she heard.

  “My anxious colleague and I,” the dema was saying, “share a curiosity about magic. I won’t bore you with how the old ways became the roots of Ansnan philosophy and today’s modern and more reasoned intercourse with the Celestials . . . unless you’ve an interest?”

  “I studied,” Aunt Sybb demurred, raising her nieces’ eyebrows. “By magic, I assume you refer to the pagan Rites of Petition—what we’d call wishing.”

  “Oh-ho!” From the sound, the dema slapped his thighs. “See, Urcet? No need to obscure our intentions. Indeed, good lady, we are on a wondrous quest, with such a rite to cast. Will it work? Will it not? Only a valiant effort can answer. The place must be right. The time. You’re familiar with what ancient Ansnans believed of an eclipse?”

  “That the sun hides earthly sin from the Celestials, allowing it to flourish by day. Whenever the Celestials fear for the souls of the faithful, they push the moon in front of the sun so they may look down from the sky instead. Tea?” A pause. Jenn could picture their aunt’s graceful, dignified hands lifting the pot and pouring. “Much like checking on errant children, wouldn’t you say?”

  Urcet laughed.

  The dema sounded a little less happy. “More than look down, good lady. An eclipse was when the Celestials opened their gate for those pure of soul, so they would live forever in paradise.”

  “There, Urcet, our faiths part company,” Aunt Sybb commented dryly. “All of us, pure or not, await the end of life in the sure comfort of becoming Blessed Ancestors to those who follow.”

  “To check on them, like errant children,” the Eld echoed and laughed again. “We Eldani have no commerce with stars or our dead. Though my mother would warn me that if I skipped a lesson, the house grini would bite off my nose while I slept.”

  A nose intact and adorned with a gold bead. Fascinated, Jenn wondered if there was a connection. Not that it mattered. This rite of the dema’s? The time and place for it could only be the eclipse, atop the Spine. But these tears they were to collect? It was all she could do not to wish the dema to the point.

  “As an astronomer, I view such beliefs as allegorical. Stars cannot touch the ground or order the moon.” The dema grew cheerful again. “Everyone knows the Celestials witness and judge our lives from their lofty place in the sky.”

  “You’ve come to be judged, then, Dema Qimirpik.”

  “Me?” His astonishment seemed sincere. “I attempt pure intention, good lady, with all goodwill, but a pure soul? A lifetime of discipline and penance is no surety of that. No, as my deeds are witnessed, let me be so measured.” A hesitation, then, “Though I confess to you, the great Refuge of the demas was built for that purpose, long ago. Those who lived therein sought nothing else than paradise.”

  “And settled for nothing less,” Urcet said lightly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Jenn looked at Peggs, who gave a tense nod. Was this it?

  The dema coughed. “Stories, of course, grow in the telling. Stories of blame for disgraceful deeds can be trusted the least. Still, those from that time have common threads. All agree the demas of the Refuge came to believe themselves pure and grew impatient for paradise. Seventy-one years ago, yes, there was an eclipse like the one we anticipate. So much is fact, is it not, Urcet? According to story, these demas gathered in the highest of their towers and, waiting until the moon hid the sun, and in view of the Celestials, cast a Rite of Petition to force open the gate to paradise.”

  They’d tried to cross into the Verge, Jenn thought with sudden fierce joy. They’d had a way to do it. A way these men might possess. Bannan had hoped for a wishing and here it was. Words and tokens both. Hers for the taking.

  So Peggs wouldn’t read that determination in her face, Jenn turned back to the curtain.

  “Predictably, the endings are the same. The Celestials, enraged by the arrogance of these demas, did stretch forth a Hand to wipe the Refuge from the earth.” Qimirpik chuckled.

  Peggs touched her hand, her face pale. She shook her head in mute warning and Jenn gave a nod to show she understood. Something terrible had happened that first time. Kydd had guessed. Wyll had known. It mustn’t happen again.

  But it wouldn’t, if she took charge. She’d be careful.

  “A cautionary tale indeed,” Urcet said dryly. “We hadn’t expected to find its inspiration the instant we saw Marrowdell.”

  “How so?” Aunt Sybb asked rather grimly.

  “The Celestials’ pale and mighty Hand grips the valley to this day.” Qimirpik’s chuckle became a boisterous laugh. “Good lady, your face. Oh, please don’t think us mad. What you call the Bone Hills, and name the Fingers and Spine. Unusual rock, yes, doubtless exposed by a quaking of the earth. But to those consumed with guilt and remorse, who saw their world crumbling around them? I think you’ll agree they could seem the stuff of stars, come alive.”

  She didn’t know about stars, but the Bone Hills? Jenn’s heart pounded. She’d looked within and seen something there. They’d crowded her in the carrots, which she’d hoped a dream until one forced itself into the Nalynn loft. That, she was unhappily sure, had been real, however strange. Did that make them alive?

  She certainly hoped not. From Peggs’ tight lips, she felt the same.

  From the parlor came an unusual clatter, as though someone dropped a fork.

  “Your pardon, good lady,” the dema said with instant remorse. “I don’t mean to upset you.”

  Aunt Sybb didn’t drop things. Peggs and Jenn exchanged worried looks, but before either could move, there came a controlled and firm, “A fanciful interpretation indeed. Urcet, you’ve not eaten. Would biscuits and honey be more to your taste?”

  While their aunt disapproved of eavesdropping, she did expect such hospitable suggestions to be overheard. So at Urcet’s murmured thanks, Peggs hurriedly put biscuits on the stove to warm, paused to rattle dishes, then returned to the curtain.

  The dema continued. “The surviving demas and odemi scattered to the far corners of Ansnor, to live out their lives in disgrace. Mondir, the holy city that supplied the Refuge, was abandoned to—forgive me, good lady—abandoned to the heretics of Rhoth. Given the times, you understand, their wild tale was given credence it wouldn’t find today.”

  “Yet here you are,” Aunt Sybb said, pouncing like a toad on a mouse, “with a rite of your own.”

  “The tales have their basis in truth,” Urcet said impatiently. “Tell the lady of the Tear.”

  “I was getting to that,” Qimirpik replied. “It was claimed the survivors died horrible deaths. Or they went mad. Most intriguing? All returned with magic in their blood. To heal. To see the truth. To create fire from air. Not unheard of in Ansnor, or Rhoth, for that matter, but to affect so many, at once? Hard to prove or disprove, since these people hid themselves away. But you can see why we’d be interested.”

  Something was burning. Jenn sniffed, then pointed in alarm at the stove. Shaking her head, Peggs ran to retrieve the biscuits, putting aside the couple with blackened bottoms.

  “The Tear.”

  “Yes, yes. A dema brought with her a remarkable stone. She claimed it was a Tear shed by a Celestial, in grief over their—”

  “White as a pearl,” Urcet interjected. “It fit in a man’s palm, yet no one could hold its weight more than an instant.”

  Her pebble?!

  Jenn stifled a gasp and Peggs clutched the honey pot to her bosom.

  “There were other claims,” the dema said testily, as though his colleague was telling the juiciest parts. “That the Tear caused terrible dreams. That magic failed near it. It was deemed a punishment visited on the guilty. Not long afterward, the stone disappeared. Buried. Stolen. No one admits to knowing. We’re here,” he finished, “to summon another.”

  She might not need to cross at all, Jenn thought, heart pounding with hope. With this rite, she could call her pebble to her.

  “Why would you wa
nt such a thing?” From Aunt Sybb’s tone, she wondered more about the sanity of her guests.

  “For proof,” said Urcet boldly. “These rites and wishings . . . your pardon, good dema, good lady, but are they not the bread of charlatans and fools in both your domains? But the Tear?” Jenn could hear the hunger in his voice. “What they did in this valley at the last eclipse brought forth something of demonstrable power. Power like the magic of Mellynne.

  “We of Eld must understand such magic,” he went on, impassioned. “The Naalish are rumored to employ it as others use fire or steam, yet refuse to share or trade their knowledge. A matter of contention between our governments. But now we have new and wise friends in Ansnor, and magic? That’s to be found, right here.”

  Aunt Sybb laughed gently. “What’s here is a quaint little village, nestled among interesting, but hardly exceptional rock. You’ve traveled for nothing, good sirs, other than the eclipse. The Naalish spread tales to impress foreigners. You’ve been fooled. There’s no such thing as magic, here or in Mellynne.”

  A bold assertion, even for their aunt. How could she ignore the wishing and Wyll, let alone the toads? Jenn frowned in puzzlement.

  Peggs finished loading a tray with the basket of almost burnt biscuits, the honey pot, and a bowl of the dried fruit Aunt Sybb relished for her constitution. She canted an eyebrow at her sister, mouthing the words “Trust her” as she stepped around the curtain into the parlor.

  Peggs had the right of it, Jenn realized. However much Aunt Sybb disapproved of Marrowdell’s magic, she wouldn’t give such a secret to these strangers.

  “That may be what we’ll prove, good lady,” the dema responded tactfully. A pause, as if he shrugged. “Then, as you say, we’ll have an excellent view of the eclipse and, not to forget, dance at your weddings.”

  “But if the rite works, there’ll be a concrete result. A manifestation.” Urcet, however reluctant at first, seemed bent now on convincing Aunt Sybb. “Not as it was when we were tested yesterday. Something to take with us. Proof to silence nonbelievers.”