“In the time since the red cloud, families and friends of the dead had repopulated the village. The grave the baker had half-filled was now smoothed over and marked with a statue honouring those who had died that night. The village had a new blacksmith, mayor, butcher and tailor, and when they spoke of what had happened it was with awe and reverence, not fear. The village became a symbol of the new, changeable world, not of an uncaring destiny that might strike at any moment.
“But there was still sadness, and he wasn’t the only one who felt it. He had opened a window onto the square, and invited the villagers to see what he saw. They were wary at first. Many avoided him, not understanding how the exchange between him and his family had taken place, and perhaps fearing the touch of Death even in this lifeless place. But one by one they came to witness what had happened since their departure. Curiosity overpowered disapproval, as it so often does.
“The spirits of the dead, watching the world the baker had chosen to leave, watched as the words of Death—that the baker’s family would appear to him as they had always been—came vividly true.
“His wife didn’t even pretend to mourn. She sold the bakery to a man from another village—a gambling drunk with a temper to match her own—and he soon moved into her bed. His son took to roaming the streets of the village and nearby towns, stealing what he could and vandalising what he couldn’t. He was arrested many times, but that only encouraged his wilfulness. His daughter took work with the village tailor, but skimped on her chores and made mistakes. When caught out, she lied about her fellow workers to cover herself.
“And yet somehow they thought themselves happy. On the first anniversary of the death of the village, the baker’s family, the sole survivors of the red dust, gathered to toast their good luck, and to mock the fool who had chosen death over life in the real world. They raised their glasses to the dry, empty realm they had visited briefly and to the ghosts who were still trapped there. The ringing of their laughter echoed through the afterlife, hurting the baker’s ears and heart, and all those who heard it.
“There was a silence afterward, when he closed the peephole between life and death forever. One by one, the dead villagers gathered around him to offer their silent sympathy. Once, they had spurned him; now their touches were like snow falling—cold and almost weightless—but he felt each keenly. He was embraced by their sorrow and made one of them again. Although the bones of his world had shattered into unrecognisable fragments, his spirit soared. He was forgiven at last. He was free.”
Ah, Shilly thought, beginning to understand. That was it. The baker wanted understanding: he wanted the villagers to know what his family had been like, so they would accept why he had left them. They might have been his family, but even the love of a family member must be earned, and they no longer deserved his. Yet he had stuck by them, supported them, even maintained the fiction that they were still a family when everyone knew that his heart had fallen elsewhere. Instead of blaming him, the villagers should have celebrated him for his perseverance and set him free to do what he wanted, whether that was to be with Monca or not. Even with his family dead, he couldn’t be with her in good conscience. He couldn’t live until he had proven his accusers wrong, and he couldn’t love under a cloud of death.
But where was the love? Was death his only reward? That seemed a harsh lesson to her.
“Does it end there?” asked Sal.
“Doesn’t yours?” challenged Brokate.
“It changed halfway through. It didn’t go where I thought it would.” Shilly was gratified to hear that it wasn’t just her who was surprised.
Brokate’s voice took on a provocative edge: “How would you end it, then, if you had the choice?”
“Me?” The question took Sal off guard. “I don’t know.”
“Make something up,” she said. “Tell me what you want to happen.”
Sal thought for a long time—so long that Shilly began to wonder if he was going to say anything at all. When he did finally speak, he had adopted a softer, singing tone, one she recognised from his father’s storytelling.
“I would end the story like this,” he said. “The baker hadn’t been able to watch Monca through the peephole because she lived in another village. Since he could only see La Menz, he had no idea what had happened to her after he died.
“On the night he was forgiven by his villagers, she was brought to him in the shadow world. She had called Death and asked for him, and the apparition had come to take her with its heavy footsteps and strange whispering.
“The baker couldn’t have been more surprised. ‘You don’t belong here,’ he told her.
“‘I do now,’ she said in reply, stepping away from Death to stand before him.
“‘You died for me?’ he asked, as dumbfounded by her as he was by any of the turns his life had taken.
“‘I loved you, Bern. Life without you had little appeal.’
“‘But I’m just a baker,’ he said. ‘No one needs bread here.’
“‘You were a baker,’ she corrected him. ‘And I need you for more than your bread.’
“‘How do you know that I love you in return?’
“‘I don’t,’ she smiled. ‘But we have the chance to find out, now.’”
Brokate interrupted with a brisk laugh. “Very romantic,” she said. “And let me guess: the two of them are still there now, watching over the village as time passes. Is that right?”
“That’s right. The baker’s family all met bitter ends, one by one, and found no kind welcome in the afterlife.”
“And the red dust never returned, for the bones of the Earth had settled finally into their new positions.” She laughed again. “That’s some ending.”
Shilly agreed, although it didn’t solve everything.
“Do you think any of it’s true?” asked Sal, after a short pause. “Do you think there might once have been a village like that, in which everyone died?”
“Undoubtedly. Lots of things have happened in the past that we can barely imagine. But as for the rest…Well, only Death, the great change maker itself, knows for sure.”
She clicked her reins and for a minute or two they rode in silence, bumping along the winding path between and over the barren hills.
Shilly tried to relax in the heat and the smell of camel. Every shuddering metre she travelled was one less between her and Skender Van Haasteren.
“Your turn, Sal,” said Brokate.
“But I gave you an ending,” he protested.
“Only an ending. That doesn’t count.”
“The only story I can think of at the moment is about a butterfly merchant named Polain.” Shilly heard a note of reluctance in his voice, and she knew he didn’t really want to tell the story. Or maybe he did; he had brought it up, after all. Maybe he wanted to get it out of his system—the last story his father had ever told.
“Butterflies,” repeated Brokate. “Not moths?”
“Not moths. In a city of metal and glass larger than any built before or since.” Shilly thought of the city in the Broken Lands, its bleak testimony to the ways that had been lost and the sheer weight of time that was gradually tearing the towers down. The empty windows of the towers reminded her of the village in the land of the dead, where people saw things as they really were.
“And every one of the butterflies was different? Is that right, Sal?”
“Yes. You’ve heard it.” Shilly couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed.
“Not your version. Tell it to me, and we can compare. In some ways, that’s more interesting than the tale itself—the tales between tales, if you like.”
So Sal began the story and Shilly turned her attention inward. She had heard this one before, and it reminded her too much of places and people she had lost: Fundelry, Lodo, Von, Aunty Merinda, Mrs Milka, Derksen…She wondered if Thess had had her baby, and if shy, vulnerable Tom been forced to go to the Haunted City against his will. Had Kemp been punished for faking the thefts t
hat had got Sal in trouble, then letting them take the buggy as the Sky Wardens had closed in? There were too many things to think about, and she was afraid to start.
Outside held nothing but the baked earth of the Interior and the blast-furnace sun. She hadn’t heard Sal ask for details about their destination, not even once. Wouldn’t he ever get tired of stories and talk about something real?
She couldn’t have sweated out all the water she’d drunk that day, for by the time they stopped for the night her bladder was bursting. At the heart of a round depression, surrounded by low hills, Brokate and Sal lifted her off the wagon and helped her to a relatively private patch of ground near the campsite. As she crouched, Sal helped her maintain her balance with his usual red-faced silence, as though determined, too late, not to say or do anything that might betray his embarrassment. When she pulled aside her dress this time, she felt warmth trickle down her thigh, and thought in horror: Bloody hell, I’ve pissed myself! That’s all I need.
Then suddenly, Brokate elbowed Sal aside and was simultaneously trying to hold Shilly up and gesturing that he should leave. He started to protest, then glanced down, and his face turned an even darker crimson. He instantly turned and hurried away.
Only then did Shilly herself realise what had happened.
Brokate was soothing, reassuring her that nothing was wrong while Shilly relieved herself—there was no way she could hold on any longer—then fetching rags to soak up the flow of blood. It was perfectly natural, and it happened to every girl as she grew up. Shilly knew all that; Aunty Merinda had taught her about menses years ago. The surprise was simply that it had happened to her. Part of her had dreaded it; another part had looked forward to it, especially as she had lagged increasingly behind the other girls in Fundelry. Now that it was here, she didn’t know how to react.
She did feel awkward for Sal, though, and was glad for Brokate’s help—especially on overhearing part of the caravan leader’s conversation with him when they returned to the camp.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Brokate said, softly but firmly. “Don’t go treating her any different because it’s happened. There’s no reason why you should. And I’ll hear none of this now she’s a woman crap, thank you. She’s the same Shilly you ever knew. She’s just had her period, that’s all.”
What Sal said in reply Shilly couldn’t hear, but Brokate laughed heartily.
“You won’t need to worry about that. I’ll show her anything she needs to do and she can look after herself. It’s different for every girl. Let her find her own rhythm, and she can tell you about it if she wants to. I know it’s awkward, but in a way this is a blessing. It would be more awkward if it had happened and you didn’t know anything.”
To which Sal uncertainly agreed, and the conversation ended there. Shilly lay in the close comfort of the wagon, wondering what she’d say if Sal came to her to stammer some awkward apology or offer his support or whatever came into his head. But luckily he left her alone, and so did Brokate. The caravan leader had more important work to do, making sure that the wagons, trucks and buggies were secured for the night, the camels fed, tents erected, toilets dug, fires lit and meals prepared. Voices rang out in the deepening twilight as members of the caravan caught up on the day’s events. There was laughter, song, playful ribbing and, occasionally, grumbling from the normally reticent camels. Just another night on the road to Ulum.
She wondered if she should feel more. The blood on her thighs meant that having children would be an option, one day, and that thought made her stomach roll. The Sky Wardens taught through their system of Schools that people should wait until they were secure in their lives before contemplating bringing another into the world. Most people, according to Aunty Merinda, took precautions against unwanted childbirth until they were absolutely certain of their decision. The village seer had left no doubts as to the causal connection between pregnancy and sex. But just because she could, technically, grow a child inside her didn’t mean that she was about to rush out and get herself knocked up. There had to be a father in the equation. That was the thought she found most frightening to contemplate.
When dinner was cooked, Sal brought her a bowl of stew made from a dark brown meat and lots of vegetables. The gravy was pungent with unfamiliar spices and hot on the tongue. She wasn’t sure she liked it, and watched enviously as Sal ate his with relish.
He didn’t say anything about what had happened, but she could sense his nervousness. She wondered if Brokate had forced him to bring her the meal, as he normally would, or if he had made the gesture of his own accord.
“How long until we get there?” she asked, desperate to break the silence.
“Two days,” he said around a mouthful. “Beli says we’re right on schedule.”
Beli says…Shilly couldn’t help the stab of resentment at the familiar way Sal talked about the caravan leader. “What happens then?”
He didn’t say anything for several mouthfuls. “I don’t know. Ulum is a big place, from what I hear. Bigger than anywhere I’ve been before. Bigger than Yidna, that’s for sure.” They had passed through the town called Yidna on the fifth day and dropped off some of the caravan’s other passengers. It had been the size of two Fundelry’s, a small community by Interior standards, eking out a living from travellers in the shade of a narrow ravine, hardly the sort of city she had been expecting. “Beli might be able to ask around for us. I don’t want to push my luck with her, though. She likes us, but she has a business to run. I don’t want to get her into trouble, if anyone follows us.”
“Who would follow us?”
“I don’t know.” He looked uncomfortable, as though she had touched a nerve. Maybe, she thought, he was so used to running that he didn’t know how to think otherwise.
“So we’re just going to walk through the city gates and start asking around?” she asked.
“If you can think of a better plan, I’d be glad to hear it.”
They ate the rest of their meal in silence, deep in thought. They were getting closer to the end of their journey, to Skender Van Haasteren. The more she thought about it, the more the name carried with it an air of mystery as well as promise: What was the man who had taught the young Lodo like? Would he still be alive? Would he help the friends of a man who had abandoned his vocation for a life of poverty in another land?
When the meal was over, preparation for the night began in earnest. The stars were out in the cloudless sky, and a half moon rode over the eastern horizon. Shilly watched it as the caravan riders cleaned up after the meal, banked up the fires and slowly put themselves to bed. One by one exhausted team members retired to their tents until only a handful were left by the fires, Sal and Brokate among them. Shilly dozed fitfully throughout the evening, then woke up with a start at midnight to find the camp silent and the fires reduced to embers. A chill wind swept through the tent ropes, making them hum. Sal lay curled around himself behind her, deeper in the shadow of the wagon, his breathing regular and deep.
Nothing has changed, she told herself. Yet everything had. Lodo was gone; they were in the Interior; she was having her first period. She didn’t know what else the future held for her.
With a snort, she told herself to stop being melodramatic and go back to sleep. I will not think, she told herself. My body can look after itself, and there’s nothing I can do, for the moment, about the rest.
But it wasn’t any of those concerns that kept her awake. It was the story Brokate had told that day, about the baker who had given his family a second chance to live at the expense of his own life, simply in order to prove himself blameless. And Monca, who had loved him and ultimately summoned death to prove it. That Shilly couldn’t understand at all, and she feared she never would.
Chapter 6
The Crossroads
On the day they were due to reach Ulum, Sal crawled out of his sleeping bag before dawn. He was turning into an early riser, much to Shilly’s dismay. Nervous and excited at the same time, he sl
ipped off the wagon and went for a walk.
The camp was quiet apart from the occasional snore from human and camel. By night the landscape lacked the brown, baked aspect it showed during the day; it was inviting, almost gentle. The air was still and frigid, biting with the deep, desert chill he remembered from his days travelling the borderlands with his father—only here, further north, it was even more pronounced.
In the days since they had joined the caravan, they had travelled five hundred kilometres into the Interior, and since leaving Fundelry, he and Shilly had put more than one and a half thousand kilometres behind them. That thought, instead of making him proud, made him feel very small, and more than a little humble.
He was in his mother’s country. This was the land in which she had been raised: as defined by the sun as the sea defined the Strand. Before coming to the Haunted City to marry Highson Sparre, nephew of the woman who would one day become the Syndic of the Strand, Seirian Mierlo had spent her life in landscape much like this and perhaps even seen the very things he was seeing now. The Interior was as much a part of his heritage as her family name and the Change. It was finally time to become acquainted with it.
He climbed a short distance up the side of a hill and sat on a protruding lip of rock to wait for the sunrise. Molash, the cook, was always up at dawn, and would soon have the fires stoked for a breakfast of fried eggs and onion with herbs and plants scavenged from the area around the campsite, only some of which Sal recognised. The camels would wake then, too; their noise, along with the smell of food, would rouse the rest of the camp. Then it would be all noise and fuss until everyone had dressed and eaten, and everything was stowed for the day’s journey. Then they would be off.
Had they been closer to Ulum, Sal would have seriously considered leaving—before anyone woke, to save awkward questions. But Shilly couldn’t get very far, even on the crutches one of the caravan workers had made for her, carved with the repeated circular motif of Belilanca Brokate. The dry hills were unkind to travellers on foot.
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