by Watson Davis
Behind her, Yasautsu gasped.
Ka-bes smiled. “I do think of her as wondrous beyond imagining.”
“But that is not why you are here this day, is it?” Dre-nanks asked, rubbing his hands and glancing into the shadows to Ka-bes’s left. “I find myself curious to find you here.”
“Curious?” Ka-bes asked. “How so?”
Dre-nanks shook his head and gestured with his right hand as though brushing something from the air. “It is nothing, please continue.”
Ka-bes swallowed, wondering now whether this had been the right thing to do. “I have received news that I must make haste to Uyinstrom. I cannot do that with my herd in tow.”
“Oh?” Dre-nanks picked up a goblet and peered inside, swirling it. “Are you telling me that you come here looking for a buyer for your herd?”
“I would want a fair price,” Ka-bes said, bobbing her head and narrowing her eyes, “but not a steep one.”
Dre-nanks took a sip from his goblet and then set it on the table. He motioned to his wife and daughter, shooing them out. The older woman scooped up Dre-nanks’s grandchild and scurried away through a flap on the far left of the tent that did not exit to the outside, but to another room within the tent.
Dre-nanks smacked his lips. “And why do I have the privilege of receiving this honor?”
“I am pleased to make this proposition to you as an old friend,” Ka-bes said. She smiled. “I did not come looking for you, but rather for someone who would appreciate my stock. Your camp was the first I saw.”
“That sounds like honesty,” Dre-nanks said, chuckling. “I will be happy to take your herd off your hands.”
“We have fifteen goats, no, fourteen we are looking to sell,” Ka-bes said, clasping her hands behind her back. “I think four and a half godlings would be a fair price.”
“Four and a half godlings?” Dre-nanks snorted and rose to his feet with a grunt. “Outrageous! That is robbery. We are but poor herdsmen here. We do not have such riches. Take your stock to Nayengim if you would charge so high a price.”
“They are good beasts, each and every one of them, fat and well-fed, their hair fine and their milk hardy.” Ka-bes pursed her lips. “What price would you think more reasonable? Perhaps we can find a common ground.”
“A more reasonable price?” Dre-nanks rubbed at the hair on his chin and stepped around the table before his cushion, seemingly lost in thought. “I have heard a story earlier this morning, perhaps you would be interested in it.”
“A story?” Ka-bes watched him, but listened to the sound of footfalls behind her, noting the dry caress of the air on her arms.
Dre-nanks stopped beside a chest and peered down at it. “Someone murdered Rector Idemi in Ehseaft, sliced her throat and killed her in her very temple.”
Ka-bes took a deep breath before nodding. “I am aware of that, very sad and disturbing.”
“Yes, disturbing. Perhaps you’ve heard that the Empress has sent Her very own wizard, Dyuh Mon, to find the murderers and bring them to justice.”
“The murder of a priestess is a serious offense,” Ka-bes said, glancing at the door behind her and at the door flap at the far end of the room, her heart thudding.
Dre-nanks’s brothers stood at the back flap with daggers in their hands.
She moved her hands slowly, whispering words of magic, calling up her power.
“You and your little brat,” Dre-nanks said. “Thyu’fest has declared the two of you responsible for the murder. I wonder what manner of bounty the Empress would pay for the two of you?”
“Perhaps four and a half godlings is too high,” Ka-bes said, stepping toward the eating table and the chair Dre-nanks’s wife had vacated and turning so she could see all the men. “I guess I could go as low as four godlings and two spirits but no lower. I hadn’t expected you to drive such a hard bargain.”
Dre-nanks slipped a scimitar from a scabbard leaning up against the chest that Ka-bes had not seen. He laughed. “Why would I pay even half a spirit for a herd that I will have for free after I take you to Dyuh Mon and collect this reward?”
“I thought the inhabitants of the Ohkrulon had little use for the empire?” Ka-bes said, keeping her hands away from her body, keeping them still, holding back the magic welling up around her. “I thought we looked after our own?”
“Gold is gold,” he said, taking a practice swing through the air with an ominous whoosh. “And you? You are an outsider. You were never one of us.”
“I am sorry you feel that way.” Ka-bes bowed her head. “Three godlings and fifty spirits, no lower.”
The men at the door flap in front of her stalked forward, spreading out as though expecting her to run. The two men to her right charged forward. Dre-nanks yelled, “Don’t kill her!”
Ka-bes closed her eyes, slipping into a one-footed stance, balancing on her right foot. She whispered words of power, her left hand at her waist, her right hand shooting up toward the sky and then chopping down as her eyes flew open.
The top of the tent split, ripped apart by a downdraft of freezing wind that plowed through the tent, swirling like a tornado with Ka-bes as the calm eye of the storm. The walls of the tent gave way, pulled from their moorings, wrapping around the men and slamming them into the ground, flattening everything, dumping sand on top of the men and covering them up to their necks.
“Witch!” Dre-nanks yelled. “Get me out of here!”
Dre-nanks’s wife and his tribe’s young children and grandchildren huddled where they had been in the extra chamber in the tent but were now standing on open ground, untouched by the storm, shaking in fear, their mouths open, their eyes wide with fright.
The goats in their pens squealed. Dre-nanks’s camels scampered away while Kehseho waited, chewing its cud where it had been tied.
Ka-bes released the winds, panting for breath, sweat dripping into her eyes, her arms trembling. She kicked over Dre-nanks’s cushion, uncovering the lockbox beneath, and took out four and a half godlings. “That seems a fair price.”
“You are a thief!” Dre-nanks shouted. “And a whore!”
She reached in and took out an extra godling. She nodded. “That’s even fairer.”
“NOT FAR?” SIFA GRUNTED, with one arm around Shiyk’yath’s waist as he hopped along beside her with his hand resting on her shoulders. His weight leaning against her, the two trudged down a well-worn path through the high green grass.
“No, not far,” Shiyk’yath said, “but you can leave me at any time, demon spawn.”
“I am not a demon,” Sifa said, stopping to glare at him.
Shiyk'yath pulled away from her and tripped on a loose stone. He cried out in pain and collapsed into Sifa. The two of them sprawled to the ground, Shiyk’yath on top of Sifa. She pushed him off and rolled aside.
“This is close enough,” Shiyk'yath said, panting. He pulled himself up onto his elbows, grimacing, and pushed himself to the side of the path, leaning back into the cool grass.
“I said I would help you get to Ofo, and I will help you get to Ofo,” Sifa said, rising from the ground and brushing the dirt from her tunic and her pants. She swiped her hand at the tiny insects buzzing around her. The wet air stuck in her lungs, feeling heavier than honest desert air. “We both need a rest, I think.”
The road meandered through the valley, descending to a large lake. A river flowed out to the north, and a waterfall fed the lake from the south. A village, Ofo, hugged the lake on the eastern side, clusters of buildings with roofs of red tile. A few boats drifted in the lake with lines out to catch fish, something Sifa had heard about from the books Ka-bes had read to her and had always hoped to see. Smoke rose from the tall chimneys of several of the buildings, turning the sky black above it.
The tugging of her heart would have taken her directly through the town and the lake.
A delicate temple of white marble resided in the center of the town, its five circular towers climbing into the sky, capped with fat round d
omes with pointy spikes sweeping up from the very top like droplets, and a larger golden dome in the middle that glistened in the sunlight. The building sparkled with magic visible to Sifa’s eyes even from this distance.
The wind shifted, bringing to Sifa’s nose the scent of fish and sweet pies. Her mouth watered. She looked at Shiyk'yath, at his pale brown skin—not as dark as the people who lived along the Ohkrulon, not as pale as Sifa’s own—his eyes and hair a dark brown.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” He glared at her and edged away, frowning. “I thought you said you weren’t going to kill me?”
“What is it like?” Sifa asked, swiping at the bugs buzzing past and brushing up against her skin.
“Like?” Shiyk'yath shook his head. “What is what like?”
“You have lived in this town the whole of your life?” she asked, staring at those tattered buildings.
“Yeah?” Shiyk'yath shrugged and pursed his lips, his nose wrinkling as though struggling with her question, as though trying to discern some deeper meaning. “I was born in the temple. I have lived in the same house, bought my groceries at the same shops, my whole life. How else would it be?”
“We have to pack up and move every few days,” Sifa said, her voice soft, her head turned toward movement on the docks, her eyes watching men pulling a barge up the river to the wharf using a team of horses. “I bet you have friends.”
“Friends?” Shiyk'yath chuckled. “I mean, sure. I have known these people all my life. I know more than I want to know about my ex-girlfriends and their new boyfriends who used to be my best friends. I’ve always wanted to get away, but where would I go?”
Sifa blinked and shook her head. “My entire life, I have only known Ka-bes. She has hidden me every time other people came close, or had me pull up my hood and stay quiet.”
“Yeah,” Shiyk'yath said. “She didn’t want to have her heart cut out for possessing a Summoned child without permission from the Empress. Can’t exactly blame her for that. It’s self-preservation.”
“I am not Summoned and I am not a child!” Sifa said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Well then, having a baby with a Summoned father, then,” Shiyk’yath grumbled.
“She is not my mother.”
“How are you so sure of that?”
“She is an ex-priestess, a slave, and a liar.” Sifa realized she felt an aching in her chest she’d never felt before, coming from behind her, from where she’d come, from Ka-bes. She gulped and wiped at the corner of her eyes. “But she is not my mother.”
“And you trust a lying ex-priestess slave when she says she’s not your mother?” Shiyk’yath shook his head and snorted, a grin on his face.
“Yes,” Sifa said, her voice soft.
“Yeah?” Shiyk'yath grunted and pushed himself to his feet. He pointed toward the village, looking down his finger with his right eye, closing his left. “That is my house. It has always been my house, and my mother is right there wondering where the hell I’ve gotten off to.”
Something sparkled in the dirt. Sifa knelt and brushed at the loose dirt of the walkway, studying a black strand of magic, a tendril pulsating just beneath the dirt. She traced the strand to Shiyk'yath.
He hopped away from her. “What are you doing?”
“You have a spell connected to you.” Sifa grabbed his shoulder, making him stay still, pulling his upper body down toward her. She discovered the cord reached up and connected to the back of Shiyk'yath’s head, at the base of the skull.
“Stay away from me,” he said, turning away from her, bouncing on his good foot. “Just go wherever you’re going. I don’t even want to know in case the priestess questions me.”
“What is this spell?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, searching for control points and foci. “It feels like a curse, nasty and foul. I do not like it.”
“I’m not the one with a spell on them,” he said.
Sifa pinched a point in the black cord similar to the point she’d blocked when she’d opened the door at the monastery, not sure what the effect would be, but her curiosity overpowered whatever sense of caution she had. The tendril wriggled in her hand like a serpent, and she stumbled back and forth, struggling to keep it under control, fearing the power of it, the unexpected strength of it.
“What in the Nine is this?” she asked, turning to look back at Shiyk’yath.
But Shiyk’yath was not listening to her or watching her. He had doubled over and rolled onto his knees, his eyes wide, his arms wrapped around his stomach, his mouth open. He vomited, throwing up, again and again, each time a black gunk shooting out of his mouth. Worms wriggled in the black bile coming out of him, but they quickly disappeared, sinking into the dirt.
“Shiyk’yath?” Sifa gulped, the muscles in her hands spasming as she held onto the tendril straining to wrest itself from her grasp. “Are you ill? What is wrong?”
He spat on the ground and pushed himself to his feet, his lips quivering, tears flowing from his eyes and dripping off his chin. He cried, “My mother is dead. How could I forget that? That woman waiting for me isn’t my mother. She’s some woman the rector selected to fill my mother’s spot. I have no idea who that damned woman is.”
“What?” Sifa stared at Shiyk’yath.
His eyes rose to meet Sifa’s. “I had a wife and a baby, and they died in the plague. And they took the memory of them away so I would continue to work and not go somewhere else.”
“Um, I’m sorry!” Sifa blinked. “I don’t know—”
“This is your fault!” he screamed, hobbling toward her, launching himself toward her.
“Shiyk’yath!” Sifa dodged out of his way.
He landed on his knees, and turned toward her, growling.
The tendril slipped out of Sifa’s hand and dropped down, disappearing into the ground. Sifa hopped back, her eyes scanning the place where the tendril had disappeared.
“You are a damned demon-spawn,” Shiyk’yath yelled, climbing to his feet. “I was right. Does it please you to torment me so?”
“No!” Sifa leapt back, putting distance between herself and Shiyk’yath.
Shiyk’yath bounced on his good foot, re-orienting himself toward her, his face a mask of fury with his eyes wild and incoherent, his lips pulled back from his teeth like a wild beast, his muscles rippling.
The black tendril surged up behind him.
“Behind you!” Sifa pointed toward it.
The tendril struck down, slamming into Shiyk’yath’s skull without the slightest sound. He staggered toward her, his expression immediately changing, his whole face relaxing, his eyes rolling up into his head, the whites momentarily turning black. The tendril, now ethereal and insubstantial, coiled around Shiyk’yath from his head to his toes, like the gauze of a burial shroud.
He blinked twice and touched his temples with his thumbs. He looked toward Sifa but his eyes didn’t seem to focus on her, one of his eyes seeming to look past her entirely. In slurred words, he said, “Do I know you?”
“Shiyk’yath?” Sifa reached out to touch his shoulder, but the black gauze encasing him prickled, spines reaching out from it toward her, dangerous-looking things. She drew her hand back. “You don’t remember me? I saved your life from the—”
“Thank you,” he said, nodding, his breathing thick and heavy like one asleep, his eyelids half shut. He turned and limped away, ignoring the damage he was doing to his ankle.
“Shiyk’yath?” Sifa cried out, chasing after him. “Where are you going?”
“My mother needs me,” he said, shrugging. “I’m late for work.”
Sifa ran ahead of Shiyk’yath, kicking at the dirt, uncovering the tendril hidden just beneath the surface. Seeing a concentrated node, she dropped to her knees and struck down into the dirt with both hands, her fingers stiffened. She drove her hands into that node, and a dark magic flowed sluggishly through her fingers—an icky, gooey mess. She grabbed it and ripped it apart, using all her strength,
all her energy.
The tendril quivered and collapsed, transforming into ghostly black worms that scattered in all directions, quickly disappearing.
Shiyk’yath stopped, reason returning to his eyes for a heartbeat before being replaced by rage. He whispered, “I’m going to kill that bitch.”
“Shiyk’yath?” Sifa said, holding her hand up to him. “You’re free now, right?”
He threw Sifa aside and hurried past her, hopping on his good leg.
Sifa sat on the grass beside the footpath, blinking back tears.
Shiyk’yath hobbled and bounced on one foot, racing toward the outskirts of town.
Sifa sighed, wanting to cut across the field, ready to go around the village and pick up the trail to her father on the other side, but she glanced back, worrying about Shiyk’yath, wondering what would happen to him in the town. She pulled her hood up over her horns, slid the hood down over her forehead, and she sprinted toward the town.
“THEY ARE LYING TO US!” Shiyk’yath yelled, scrabbling up into a wagon’s bed. “All of us! Everyone! Listen to me!”
Sifa approached as a crowd of people gathered around Shiyk’yath. She slid into an alley where she could watch him, and stood beside a moldy old wall, lichen and algae growing up the sides like ivy.
“Thas Noj, Yath Yi!” Shiyk’yath pointed at a balding fat man and a thick-waisted woman, limping to the side of the wagon closest to them. “You loved each other.”
The two looked at each other, caught each other’s eyes, and blushed, quickly looking away.
“You were married and you had a girl named Bina.”
Yath Yi, the woman, gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth. “I’ve always wanted a daughter named Bina. That was my grandmother’s name.”
“The priests took her from you and sent her off to the monastery to become a priestess. You were so distraught they cast a spell to make you forget her.” Shiyk’yath spread his hands, a pleading expression on his face. “Do you remember now?”
“I—” Yath Yi held her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “No, that can’t be. I’ve never been married.”