Elemental

by Steven Savile

“Is this all it takes?” he asked. “Are we so close to chaos, to savagery?”

  “They’re not the same thing, Ike—but yes, I think we are. You can fire clay and turn it into brick; you can lay a brick in a wall and make it part of a building; that building can be one of thousands in a city; but at the end of the day it’s all still clay. And so are we, underneath. If we don’t understand the clay, we don’t understand the city.”

  “That’s what this is all about, then?”

  “I think so. Don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I’m enjoying not thinking, for once.”

  Her smile warmed him. “I’m glad. Let’s go.”

  The darkness awaited them. He wanted to run, to let muscles swing and push and carry him blindly across the ancient land, naked under the stars they claimed. The two of them might have run together a mile or ten, or not run at all; he didn’t remember; but the night ended with his breath coming fast and hot from his lungs, and her moving against him with a feverish urgency of her own. All semblance of rational thought vanished in an explosion of nerve impulses. His spinal chord, electrified from base to brain, seemed to dissolve, and the night dissolved with it. Skin against skin, they reveled.

  Everything was gone when he awoke the next morning: the ballroom, the gardens, his fellow Exarchs, the maze. If being human meant enduring a hangover, he resolved to do so for as little time as he could. Still, it took him almost an hour to flush out the last of the toxins—an eternity during which he railed at the quiver trees and the hills in lieu of the Archon and yearned for reconnection with the rest of himself.

  Why hadn’t the Archon warned them? If they’d known in advance, they could’ve been prepared. They would’ve behaved better. Unless behaving badly was the whole point Humans had once done so as a matter of course. If he’d gotten together with his peers for a lovely chat and maybe a nice game of bridge, what would he—this part of him, excised from the rest and brutally exposed to ancient impulses—have learned about humanity then?

  It hadn’t all been bad, he supposed. The night had actually started off perfectly well, even if it had degenerated with a terrible, inexorable momentum. He viewed the world anew as a result—unwilling to trust himself, wary of what lay just beneath the skin of civilization. He resolved to change his body—all his bodies, wherever they were—to appeal less to the suspect levels of his mind and those around him. It had all been so pointless: the squabbling, the fighting, the petty rivalries, the poisoning. He wanted no part of it.

  “If we need to understand ordinary humanity in order to rule it,” he yelled at the Archon as the rest of him rolled back into place and the solar system unfolded before him, “don’t we need to experience it from above as well as below? Shouldn’t we get a glimpse of the world through your eyes, so we can see a bigger picture still?”

  Fifteen years later, when the complete Isaac Forge Deangelis went forth to govern his remote pocket of the Exarchate, he was still waiting for an invitation.

  The Potter’s Daughter

  BY MARTHA WELLS

  Martha Wells’s first novel, The Element of Fire (Tor, 1993), introduced readers to the fantasy world of Ile-Rien. Wells returned to this world in 1998 for her Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, and again in 2003 when she launched the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy (The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods). She has had short stories published in the magazine Realms of Fantasy and has an essay on the TV show Farscape in the nonfiction anthology Farscape Forever (BenBella Books, 2005).

  The Ile-Rien of The Element of Fire is based on a seventeenth-century time period where magic exists and the world of Fairy is a very real threat to the human inhabitants. In the timeline of the series, “The Potter’s Daughter” is a prequel to The Element of Fire, where Kade was one of the main characters. “One of the themes in The Element of Fire is Kade coming to terms with the fact that she’s more human than fairy,” Wells says. “‘The Potter’s Daughter’ is about the thing that really made her start to confront those feelings.”

  Martha Wells lives in Texas. Find out more about her on her Web site: www.marthawells.com.

  The potter’s daughter sat in the late afternoon sun outside the stone cottage, making clay figures and setting them out to dry on the flat slate doorstep. A gentle summer breeze stirred the oak and ash leaves and the dirty gray kerchief around her dirty blond hair.

  Someone was coming up the path.

  She could hear that he was without horse, cart, or company, and as he came toward her through the trees she saw that he was tall, with dark curly hair and a beard, with a pack and a leather case slung over one shoulder. He was unarmed and dressed in a blue woolen doublet, faded and threadbare, brown breeches, and brown-top boots. The broad-brimmed hat he wore had seen better days, but the feathers in it were gaily colored. Brief disappointment colored her expression; she could tell already he wasn’t her quarry.

  Boots crunched on the pebbles in the yard, then his shadow fell over her and he said, “Good day. Is this the way to Riversee?”

  She continued shaping the wet clay, not looking up at him. “Just follow this road to the ford.”

  “Thank you, my lady Kade.”

  Now she did look up at him, in astonishment. Part of the astonishment was at herself, that she could still be so taken by surprise. She dropped the clay and stood, drawing a spell from the air.

  Watching her with delight, he said, “Some call you Kade Carrion, because that is the sort of name given to witches. But the truth of the matter is that you are the daughter of the dead King Fulstan and Moire, a woman said to be the Dame of Air and Darkness of the fayre.” He was smiling at her. His eyes were blue and guileless, and he had a plain open face.

  Kade stopped, hands lifted, spell poised to cast. Names could be power, depending on how much one knew. But he was making no move toward her. Intrigued, she folded her arms and asked, “Who soon to be in hell are you?”

  “I know all the tales of your battle with the court, the tricks you play on them,” he told her, his expression turning serious. “But the story I tell of you is the one about the young gentlewoman of Byre, who died of heartbreak in the Carmelite Convent’s spring garden when the prince of a rival city took her maidenhead and mocked her for it afterwards.”

  Kade lifted an ironic brow. “I remember the occasion. I didn’t realize how entertaining it was. Finding an untidy dead woman in my favorite garden was not the high point of my day.” It was incredible that he had recognized her; no one in their right mind would expect a half-fay half-human witch to be barefoot and wearing a peasant’s muddy dress. As a rule the fay were either grotesquely ugly or heartbreakingly beautiful. Kade was neither. Her eyes were merely gray, her skin tended to brown or redden rather than maintain an opalescent paleness, and her features were unfashionably sharp. She had never looked like anyone expected her to look, and this was why she had never expected anyone to recognize her when she didn’t want to be recognized.

  Oblivious, he continued. “You took on the appearance of the poor lady and waited there, and when the prince returned—”

  “He found me instead, and we all know what happened to him then, don’t we?”

  “Yes,” he agreed readily. “You found that the little idiot had consented, and that she had been as guilty of bad judgment and weak nature as he was guilty of being a rake. So instead of killing him you cursed him with a rather interesting facial deformity to teach him better manners.”

  Kade frowned, startled in spite of herself. She had never heard anyone tell the incident in that light. It was astonishingly close to her own point of view. “And what does that tell you?”

  “That you have a sense of justice,” he assured her, still serious. “I’ve told many stories of you, and it’s one of the things about you that always impressed me.”

  Kade considered him carefully. He evidently knew his danger and didn’t shrink from it, though he hadn’t exactly dared her to be rid of him. It had been a long time sinc
e anyone had spoken to her this way, with a simple fearless acceptance. Kade found herself saying, “She didn’t perish dramatically of heartbreak, you know. She killed herself.”

  He shifted the pack on his shoulder and shook his head regretfully. “It’s all the same in the end.” He looked up at her, his gaze sharp. “But I’m here now to tell the story of the potter of Riversee who was murdered, and how you avenged her. I’m Giles Verney, a balladeer.”

  The balladeer part she could have guessed, but she still wasn’t sure what to make of this man. Surely he can’t be simply what he seems, she thought. People were never what they seemed. “Very well, Giles Verney, how did you know me?”

  “There’s a portrait of you in the manor at Islanton. It’s by Greanco, whom you must remember, as he was court artist when—”

  “I remember,” she interrupted him. The only other portrait of her had hung in the Royal Palace in Vienne, and was probably long destroyed. Greanco was a seventh son and had the unconscious ability to put a true representation of the soul of his subject into his work. Kade could weave glamour into an effective disguise, but hadn’t bothered for the inhabitants of Riversee, who had never seen her before. “You came here for the story of the dead potter.”

  Giles looked toward the door of the cottage. “I was in Marbury and heard about it from the magistrate there.” He shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. “It’s a shocking thing to happen.”

  Maybe if I show him exactly how shocking it is he’ll go away, she thought. She said, “See for yourself.”

  He followed her into the cottage with less hesitation than she would have expected, but stopped in the doorway. It was dark and cool, and flies buzzed in the damp still air. The plaster walls were stained with dried blood and the rough plank floor littered with the glazed pieces of the potter’s last work, mixed with smashed furniture and tumbled cooking pots. After a quiet moment he asked, “Do you know what did this?”

  She hesitated, but his story of the gentlewoman of Byre alone had bought him this answer. “Yes.”

  Giles stepped forward, stooping to pick a piece of wooden comb out of the rubble. His face was deeply troubled. “Was it human?”

  “I don’t know. But you’d be surprised how often something like this is done by a man, despite the number of tales where giant hands come down chimneys.” Kade rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was tired and the whole long day had apparently been for nothing. She made her voice sharp, wanting to frighten him. “Now why don’t you go away? This isn’t a game and I’m not known for my patience.”

  He looked up at her, the death in the poor little room reflected in his eyes. As if it was the most self-evident thing in the world, he said patiently, “There has to be an end to the story, my lady.”

  Stubborn idiot, if you are what you seem, Kade thought wearily. “There might be no end. I’ve waited all day here and all I caught was you, a human mayfly.”

  His expression turned quizzical. “You’re pretending to be another potter?”

  “Clever of you to notice.” Kade regarded the thatched ceiling sourly. The inhabitants of Riversee knew her only as the potter’s daughter, come from another village to see to her mother’s body and continue her craft. But now Giles’s recognition of her made her wonder. Had she fooled anyone? Did the whole village whisper of it behind her back?

  “Do you know why it was done?” Giles dropped the comb and got to his feet, dusting his hand off on his doublet.

  She wouldn’t give him that answer. “No.”

  “She was killed because potters are sacred to the old faith, or you wouldn’t be here.” Giles glanced around the room again, frowning in thought. “Could it have been the Church?”

  Kade shrugged, scratching her head under the kerchief. “The local priest is about as old as his god’s grandfather. I’m not discounting misplaced religious fervor, but he hasn’t the strength or the temperament.” As for the rest of Riversee, they might be baptized in the Church and pay their tithes regularly, but they still left fruit and flowers for the nameless spirits of the water and the wood, as well as the fay. Then she glared at him, because he had drawn her in again and she had hardly noticed.

  Giles nodded. “That’s well, but as you say, it’s best not to discount it altogether. What do you plan next?”

  She stared at him incredulously. “Are you mad?”

  He smiled, with the air of someone waiting for a joke to be explained so he could laugh too. “Why do you say that?”

  Kade clapped a hand to her forehead in exasperation. “In all the stories you’ve supposedly told of me, did it ever occur to you that I’m easily angered and don’t appreciate human company?”

  Apparently this hadn’t occurred to him. He was aghast. “Don’t you want the truth told?”

  “Not particularly, no.” Kade waved her arms in frustration. She still couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Because it’s my concern,” she said pointedly.

  “My concern is to tell tales. This would make a very good tale,” he assured her, all earnest persuasion.

  Gritting her teeth in frustration, Kade pulled a bit of yarn off her belt and knotted it into a truthcharm. The strands held together and she knew he believed what he said, and she was enough of a judge of character to know that he wasn’t merely overdramatizing himself. She took a deep breath, flicking the charm away, and tried to reason with him. “That’s all well and good, Giles, but I’ve made this my battle, and I don’t need interference.”

  “People will tell things to a balladeer they wouldn’t think of saying to any other stranger,” he persisted. “I could be a great help to you.”

  Apparently reason worked as well with him as it did with the birds in the trees. “I don’t need help, either.” Exasperated, she stepped out of the shadowed cottage into the bright sunlight of the dirt yard.

  He followed, the leather case he carried bumping against the doorframe with a suspicious twang. Kade hesitated, her attention caught. “What’s in there?” she asked warily.

  He patted it fondly. “A viola d’amore.”

  Despite her best intentions, she found herself eyeing the case, torn between caution and greed. Like all her mother’s people, she had a weakness for human music. She conquered it and shook her head, thinking, if I wanted to trap myself, I would send just such a man. Inoffensive and kind, easy to speak to, with a legitimate purpose for being here. “I want you to leave, on your own, or I’ll make you.”

  “Is it trust? Wait, here’s this.” Giles set his pack on the ground, knelt to fish a small fruit knife out and used it to cut off a lock of his hair. He held it up to her. “There’s trust on my part. This should be enough to show you that there can be trust on yours.”

  She took it from him mechanically. That was trust. For a man without any magical knowledge it was also the greatest foolishness. For someone who knew as much about her as he plainly did it bordered on insanity.

  She sighed. He might have a touch of the sight; the best balladeers did. Whatever it was, she really couldn’t see her way clear to killing him.

  No need to tell him that immediately. She lifted a brow, regarding him thoughtfully. “Did you ever hear the story of the balladeer who spent the rest of his life as a tree?”

  Kade led Giles through the crumbling town walls and into the cluster of cottages that surrounded Riversee’s single inn. The small houses on either side of the rough cart track were made of piled stone with slate or thatched roofs, each in its own little yard with dilapidated outbuildings, dung heaps, and overgrown garden plots. The ground was deeply rutted by wagon wheels, dusty where it wasn’t muddy with discarded slops. The nearby post road made Riversee more cosmopolitan than most villages, but the passersby still watched Giles narrowly. They had become used to Kade, and a few nodded greetings to her.

  As they passed under the arched wagongate of the inn’s walled yard, Kade said quietly, “Tell your stories of
someone else, Giles. I can be dangerous when I’m embarrassed.” She added ruefully, And I’ve embarrassed myself enough, thank you, I don’t need any help at it.

  He smiled at her good-naturedly, not as if he disbelieved her, but as if it was her perfect right to be dangerous whenever she chose.

  The inn was two stories high, with a shaded second-story balcony overlooking outside tables where late afternoon drinkers gathered with the chickens, children, and dogs in the dusty yard. A group of travelers, their feathered hats and the elaborate lace of their collars and cuffs grimy with road dust, argued vehemently around one of the tables. To the alarm of bystanders, one of them was using the butt of his wheel lock to pound on the boards for emphasis. Kade recognized them as couriers, probably from royalist troops engaged in bringing down the walls of some noble family’s ancestral home. Months ago the court had ordered the destruction of all private fortifications to prevent feuding and rebellious plots among the petty nobility. This didn’t concern Kade, whose private fortifications rested on the bottom of a lake, and were invisible to all but the most talented eyes.

  Kade took a seat on the edge of the big, square well to watch Giles approach the locals. The men seated at the long plank table eyed him with suspicion as the balladeer started to open the leather case he carried. The suspicion faded into keen interest as Giles took out the viola d’amore.

  Traveling musicians were usually welcomed gladly, balladeers who could bring news of other towns and villages even more so. Within moments they would be fighting to tell him their only news—the grim story of the potter’s death, or at least what little they knew of it. Kade stirred the mud near the well with her big toe. She was disgusted, mostly with herself. She knew why the potter had been killed well enough—to attract her attention.

  In the old faith, the villages honored the fay in the hopes that the erratic and easily angered creatures would leave them alone. Riversee was dedicated to Moire, Kade’s mother, and Kade could only see the death of the village’s sacred potter as a direct challenge. A few years ago it might have pleased her, this invitation to battle, but now it only threatened to make her bored. She wasn’t sure what had changed; perhaps she was growing tired of games altogether.