by Watson Davis
Sifa hesitated for a moment, expecting the woman to get up, to attack her, but she just stayed on the ground, breathing like one asleep.
Sifa tugged at her restraints, yanking on her hands, but they wouldn’t give way. She reached out with her foot, sweeping around with the tips of her toes until she brushed against the keys, almost pushing them away.
She put her foot down on the ring and pulled it toward her until she could clasp it between her toes. She lifted her leg and twisted her foot up and around until she could grasp the keys with her fingers. Her hands trembling, she tried one key after another, until she had unlocked her hands.
She stumbled toward the door, tripping over the still form of the woman-thing and falling to her knees. She crawled to the door, reaching her hands out before her until they touched the wood, and up to the handle. Praying it was unlocked, she squeezed.
The door opened.
The Bad Boy
“I’M SORRY, MADAME SHAL-yi,” Lunan said to the elder woman standing before him, gesturing toward Ka-bes and waving his hand for Ka-bes to come forward, “but I must speak with this other lady first.”
“But I’ve been waiting for an hour,” Shal-yi said, her tone petulant.
“Just a few minutes more, I assure you,” Lunan said, putting his hand on Ka-bes’s shoulder and squeezing it as he stared into her eyes with a pain in his own. “This is very important.”
“Are you saying I’m not important?” Shal-yi asked.
Lunan didn’t answer. He put his right hand on the middle of Ka-bes’s back and guided her into the rector’s office.
Bookshelves covered the back wall with books and scrolls jammed in at every angle. An old, worn desk sat to Ka-bes’s left as she entered, with a book and some pages stacked on one side, and a quill pen sitting in an inkpot by a crystal skull. A magelight hovered over the desk.
A rug of faded and worn geometric designs covered the stone floor. Two high-backed chairs sat before the desk. Without Che-su’s flowers and with everything arranged at precise angles, the room lacked the warmth and joy Ka-bes remembered.
Lunan closed the door behind them and then wrapped his arms around Ka-bes's shoulders, hugging her. He smelled of rose petals and soap. Ka-bes wondered if she should hug him back, but more importantly she wondered how bad she must stink after so long since her last real bath.
He backed away from her and cleared his throat. “It’s so good to see you.”
Ka-bes stared at him.
He strode to the plush chair behind the desk and gestured to the seats before the desk. “Please, sit down. We have much to discuss. So much has happened here since you disappeared, and I can only imagine what happened to you to make you leave so quickly without saying anything to mom and dad.”
Ka-bes waited at the door. “You’re the rector here?”
Lunan puffed his chest out and grinned, shrugging. “I am quite a powerful man now.”
“What—?” Ka-bes shook her head. “Where is Che-su? Tell me she still lives.”
“Che-su?” Lunan asked, lowering his arms, his smile fading. “Why do you need to see Che-su?”
“Forget you saw me.” Ka-bes turned to the door and grabbed the knob. “I have to leave. I’ve made a horrible mistake in coming. I assumed she’d still be the rector.” She opened the door.
“Wait, no!” he said, dashing from behind the desk to her side, putting the palm of his hand on the door and closing it. He squinted and pulled at the collar of her cloak. “An imperial slave collar? Where did that come from?”
Ka-bes touched the collar around her neck. “That’s a long story and I don’t have the time to tell it.”
Lunan whispered the words of a spell, staring at the collar around her neck, his fingers moving slightly. His brow furrowed and he tilted his head to the side. “I’m not authorized to modify it, or I would. I can’t even access it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ka-bes said. “I’ve lived with it for fifteen years now. I’m used to it.”
“Where have you been? What happened to you? And what does Che-su have to do with it? You have to tell me,” he pleaded.
“Listen, big brother, the less you know, the better.” She reached up and touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t want anything else bad happening to anyone because of me.”
“Anything else?” Lunan raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “But you come here looking for Che-su for some reason? You were willing for something bad to happen to her?”
“Do you know where she is?” Ka-bes asked, imploring, putting her palm on his chest and pushing him, but he did not move. “I need to speak with her.”
“The Empress arrested her years ago. They took her to a prison somewhere, I think,” Lunan said with a frown, his eyes darting from side to side. “She might have been executed for treason. I don’t know. It’s been so long. What are you mixed up in?”
Ka-bes sighed and looked at the ground. “I don’t even know, really.”
“Hey.” Lunan put his hands on Ka-bes's shoulders and squatted down, trying to meet her gaze. “Let me help you with this. I’ve done well for myself and I am not a man without some prestige and connections. Let me ask after Che-su and see what I can turn up. I’m sure Bishop Diyune would—”
“No!” Ka-bes knocked Lunan’s hands from her shoulders and stepped away from him. She pointed into his face. “Do not tell anyone in the administration you’ve seen me. Do not mention Che-su’s name. I don’t want what I’ve done to bring pain or dishonor on you or mom or dad.”
Lunan winced. “Mom and dad passed on.”
“Oh, no,” Ka-bes said, dropping her head into her hands, tears welling up from her heart and out her eyes. “What... what happened?”
“Dad died in the plague,” Lunan said, his voice quiet, almost a whisper. “Mom... She couldn’t bear to be without him. We tried to help her, but she was always headstrong.”
Ka-bes gasped. “She turned?”
“No, she passed on about a month after he was gone,” Lunan said. “Heartbreak.”
Ka-bes exhaled, relaxing, relieved her mother’s soul hadn’t been evicted from her body by a demon.
“I have a wife now, and a little boy named Paft, after dad.” Lunan set his hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Let me help you find Che-su if she’s still alive.”
“No.” Ka-bes opened the door, her vision blurry from her tears. “Just leave me alone and forget you ever saw me.”
“Wait,” he said, snatching her wrist.
She twisted free and darted out the door. She bowed to Shal-yi sitting on the edge of the bench and said, “He’ll see you now.”
Shal-yi brightened and sprang to her feet. “Finally.”
Ka-bes strode down the transept sobbing, out the side door and down the stairs. A crowd of men milled about at the bottom of the stairs, the men who had been working on the building next to the temple: architects, masons, bricklayers, and mages.
Ka-bes raised her hood and averted her eyes, rushing past them. Someone whistled and another man chuckled, saying something Ka-bes couldn’t and didn’t want to hear.
One of them said, “Ka-bes?”
She sprinted away.
“Ka-bes?” the voice said—a strong male voice, closer this time.
She turned down an alley only to hear the padding of feet behind her. She whispered a word, summoning her magic, and whirled to face the man chasing her.
His head was bald save for a long top-knot and braid that he wore curled around his neck. He wore no shirt, only blue and white pants, showing off his rippling muscles—the earthmage who’d been working on the new construction. He stopped, held his arms out to her, and grinned. A mark covered the middle of his lips, a mark like the one on Ka-bes's lips, a liar’s mark. “Ka-bes? Is it really you? Where in all the hells have you been?”
Ka-bes blinked, and let her magic drift away. “Ja-ast?”
A BIT OF LIGHT SEEPED into the far end of the corridor from around the edges of the do
or, the door itself glittering with magic. Sifa raced toward that light, her hip bumping into an unseen barrel, her horn clipping an unseen sconce jutting out from the wall.
The light trickled down the steps, showing just enough to let her know where they were, and she climbed them to the door where she studied the spell, tracing the flows until she found a junction. She put her hand over it, squeezing with her mind. She held her breath, listening for an alarm, but the magic stopped and the shimmering faded away.
Women were speaking, but she couldn’t make out the words. Sifa eased the door open and peeked left and right. Finding no one nearby, she craned her neck out and stuck her head out through the door.
Rector Tolyo stood with her hands clasped before her, her head bowed as a shimmering image of the Empress hovering over the altar spoke. A priest and a priestess knelt behind her, each on their knees with their foreheads on the floor. A dead goat lay across the altar, its eyes open, its tongue hanging to the side, its throat slashed.
Rector Tolyo nodded, saying, “Yes, Your Grand Majesty, with horns somewhat like those of a succubus, but different, curled more like a ram’s. Her eyes are like those of a goat or a horse, not a predator’s slits, but a prey animal’s bars. Her skin is pale like Gartan’s with blue hair like an air sprite.”
A smooth, detached voice, unnaturally calm and devoid of emotion, said, “But claiming she was not Summoned?”
“Adamantly.”
“And she had no other magical effects in her possession?”
Sifa shrank from that voice, crouching further back into the shadows, holding her breath.
Rector Tolyo nodded and held her hands up, Sifa’s shepherd’s crook in one hand, her necklace and dagger in the other. “We retrieved a shepherd’s crook when we captured Shiyk’yath; we believe it to be hers, but it is not ensorcelled. I took this bit of string from her neck. It has a bit of residual magic, nothing important. The dagger appears to be of Drow origin and is a potent weapon.”
“This explains quite a bit.” The shimmering image moved.
Sifa opened the door a bit wider, moved further out of the shadows, trying to get a better view of the image.
“The dagger is familiar to me, but the string is not,” the cold voice said. “Leave them be, they are beyond your power and understanding. I will send Dyuh Mon to Basaliyasta. You will meet him there. He will divine the purpose of these items, and he will escort this shepherd girl of yours to me.”
“Yes, Your Grand Majesty.” Rector Tolyo bowed and set the crook and the necklace on the altar.
The image flickered and vanished, leaving gray smoke twirling above the altar in its wake.
Rector Tolyo exhaled, her head flopping back, her shoulders relaxing. “Beyond my power and understanding? That bitch. Only because She hoards Her knowledge.”
The priest and the priestess behind her sprang to their feet and darted up the steps to her sides. The priestess touched Rector Tolyo’s elbow, saying, “Can we get anything for you, madam?”
“A hot bath and some cocoa,” Rector Tolyo said, turning and gesturing for the priest and priestess to follow her. She walked down the steps on the side toward Sifa’s hiding place, the priest and priestess behind her.
Sifa retreated into the shadows, easing the door closed, pressing her ear up to it.
“Summon Agrath when we reach my quarters,” Priestess Tolyo said. “She should be finished with her interrogation by then and I wish to hear her report.”
“We could go to the cells now, while she’s still there,” the priest said.
Sifa crept backward down the stairs, searching for a place to hide, her heart hammering.
“Ugh,” Rector Tolyo said. Their sandals slapped against the stone floor, growing louder with each step until they were right outside the door. “I have no desire to endure the stink down there. Some of it has seeped up here already. Much better to talk to Agrath alone. She smells nice, and she’s quite skilled.”
The other priestess chuckled, and the three of them passed by the door to the dungeon.
Sifa scurried back to the door and opened it, sticking her head out, watching the backs of the priestesses and priest as they strode through a door at the end of the hallway.
Sifa pushed the door all the way open, wincing as it creaked. She scurried out into the temple, her eyes wide, concentrating on her crook, her necklace, and the dagger. She ran up the stairs, and stood before the altar, ignoring the poor goat. Its blood had already congealed in the runnels along the edges of the altar. Her fingers touched her crook and necklace.
“What in the hells do you think you’re doing?” a priest seated behind the altar said.
A HEAVY BREEZE BLEW down the alley, carrying with it the scent of the sea and of fish. Ka-bes raised her hands and backed away from Ja’ast, saying, “Get away from me, you asshole.”
“Asshole?” The smile dropped from Ja'ast’s face, replaced by an expression of wounded innocence. He stepped toward her with his left hand touching his sweaty chest. “Really? Me?”
Ka-bes clenched her hands into fists and pushed him away with her forearm, walking past him. “Haven’t you ruined my life enough already?”
“Oh, come on, that was a long time ago, a lifetime ago,” Ja'ast said, pleading, following her. “A lot of things have changed since then.”
“Maybe it was a long time ago for you, but I think about it every day of my cursed life,” she said, scowling at him and turning onto a busy street, speeding up her pace. “I would not be here now in the mess of a life I’m in if it weren’t for you. And if it weren’t for me wanting to make sure you got through exams you hadn’t even studied for.”
Ja'ast’s features twisted into a look of concern. He grabbed her arm, stopping her, forcing people to walk around them. “Is your life that bad?”
“You mean yours isn’t?” She twisted her arm out of his grasp.
“Life is what you make of it, isn’t that what they taught us?” he asked, the smile creeping back onto his lips. “I’ve got my job working with the builders, moving stone, tearing old things down and creating new things. I create sculptures. My pay is good. It would be better if I were not marked, but it’s good enough. People know me, like me, and trust me despite the mark.”
“Well, congratulations,” Ka-bes said, crossing her arms over her chest as she moved to the side of the street to let a wagon pass. “I’m sure you and your wife and children are all very happy living your wonderful life, but some of us weren’t that lucky.”
Ja'ast winced. “I lost my family in the plague.”
Ka-bes closed her eyes and bowed her head. “I’m... so sorry. I didn’t know and I wasn’t thinking.”
“No need to apologize,” he said, his eyes looking past Ka-bes, up toward the sky behind her. “I was lucky enough to have them and enjoy them while they were here.”
“Well,” Ka-bes said, “good, then. It’s been nice seeing you and catching up.” She turned to go, but he touched her shoulder.
“I’ve come here several times over the years,” he said, “hoping to see you. I tried to track you down. I figured you’d be working with ships, so I’ve done a lot of work on the docks up and down the coast.”
“Yeah, I came back and was fishing with dad after it happened,” she said, staring off into nothingness, a tightness growing in her chest, her vision blurring. “I never saw you then... and I really need to go now.”
“I talk to Lunan every so often, and he didn’t know where you’d gotten off to. You’ve been gone a long time.”
Ka-bes nodded. “And I should have stayed away.”
“Can I buy you a drink, or dinner, or something?” Ja'ast asked, moving closer to her, letting his hand drop from her arm.
“No,” Ka-bes said. “Thanks, but I’ve got to leave. I’ve got to find someone.”
“Hey!” Ja'ast grinned. “I know all about looking for people and I have friends everywhere. Can I help?”
Ka-bes shook her head. “I don’t
think so.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“Nobody you would know,” she said, backing away from him.
“I’ve worked on construction sites from Nayengim to Tesoro, from Uyinstrom to Nulaiyo.” He smiled and held out his hands. “Let me help. I owe you that, at least, for totally ruining your life.”
“You do not understand.” Ka-bes sighed, lowering her chin to her chest. “This could be dangerous.”
“Danger is my third name!”
“THESE ARE MINE!” SIFA grabbed her crook and necklace, pulling them to her chest, leaving the dagger on the altar.
The priest leapt forward, his right hand snatching at her shepherd’s crook and yanking on it. He pulled Sifa toward him, stretching her over the altar. The altar moved beneath her, like hands feeling her and trying to latch onto her.
His left hand wrapped around her wrist, his fingers digging into her flesh, mashing her bones together. “How did you escape, witch?”
“Let me go!” Sifa strained, trying to find a way to yank her hand away, but he let go of the crook and clamped down on her forearm with his other hand.
“You’re not going anywhere except back to your cell,” he said.
She twisted her wrist, swinging her crook around and slamming it at his crotch, but he sidestepped, taking the strike on his leg. He grinned at her and opened his mouth to speak.
Sifa pulled him toward her, catching him by surprise, and she lowered her head, head-butting him and breaking his nose. The priest yelped in surprise and pain. He let Sifa go and staggered backward, his hands cupping his face.
Sifa snatched the dagger, whirled around and sprinted down the steps, slipping the blade into her belt. Magelights floated in their cages, illuminating portions of the basilica. She ran down the deserted central aisle, heading toward the doors the priests had carried her through earlier, her crook in one hand, her necklace in the other.
The priest yelled, “Stop right there!”
Sifa didn’t stop. Instead, she darted between a column and a statue into the side aisle. The priest said words Sifa couldn’t hear, the last one shouted.