by Emma Bull
•
Though Twig protested, Saffer refused to go round by the front of the rooming house. She made her way by the back alleys, holding the little dog so that it couldn't run away. By the time she reached Bica's back door, she was out of breath and had to lean against the dirty wall.
Some rescuer she was going to be. She'd come in looking like a guttersnipe and—oh, what was she even doing here? If Teshi—who was a wizard—was in trouble, what could she possibly do?
She realized that Demar must have already arrived. That was why she was here, she told herself. If Bica could deal so easily with Teshi and Kerlaf, what mightn't the old witch do to her brother?
Steeling her nerve, she pulled a length of wire from where it was hidden in the sole of her left shoe and began to work the lock on the door as Dumps had taught her. It was hard to keep a grip on Twig, who was squirming to be let down, and work the lock at the same time, but finally she was rewarded with a satisfying click. Replacing the wire in its hiding place, she cracked the door open and peered inside.
There was no one in the kitchen. She closed the door behind her, then scurried across the room, one hand around Twig's muzzle to stop him from making an outcry. When she poked her head around the doorjamb, she was just in time to see Bica dragging her brother down the hall. Twig squirmed in her arms, but she clamped him to her chest with panicked strength and ducked out of the old woman's sight. Not until she heard Demar's boots hitting each stair that led down to the cellar did she dare peek around the comer again.
The hall was empty. The door leading to the cellar stood ajar. Swallowing drily, Saffer crept to the landing and peered down. Oh, Demar, she thought. If she's hurt you, I'll … I'll …
She didn't know what she'd do. She didn't know what to do. Run to the Guard and call them in? What if they arrived too late? What if they thought it was just some joke and didn't come at all?
Oh, why did this sort of thing always have to happen to her?
Bica's laughter came drifting up the stairs and Saffer knew she couldn't wait any longer. Gathering the tattered bits of her courage, she eased her way down the stairs, stepping close to where they joined the wall and praying they wouldn't creak. By the time she reached the bottom, she was a walking tangle of nerves, tautly wired and ready to flee at the slightest provocation. But then she looked into the room from which Bica's laughter came.
She saw Teshi first. The wizard was tied naked to a chair. Her position might have seemed humorous if it hadn't been for the withered corpse tied to another chair and Bica standing over her brother, tugging off his trousers with one hand, a big gleaming knife in the other.
Saffer froze. She wanted to rush to her brother's rescue, but every muscle in her body knotted and she couldn't move.
Then Bica turned and saw her. With a shriek she dropped Demar's trouser leg and brandished the knife at Saffer. But while Saffer still couldn't move, Twig surged out of her arms and attacked the mad woman, yapping madly.
Bica swung the knife at the little dog, missed, tried to kick it. Twig dodged each of her blows, ducked in and took a nip out of her pale leg, then dodged away from the next slash of the knife. The flurry of action was enough to unlock Saffer's paralysis. With a shriek as piercing as Bica's, she picked up the first thing that came to hand—a chipped statuette of Andrazzi the Lucky that was standing amid a pile of junk on a table by the door—and charged the madwoman.
Bica lifted the knife to meet Saffer's attack. Twig launched himself at her calves and bit through to the bone. Bica wailed. The statuette in Saffer's hand came down with enough force to shatter against the madwoman's head. Bica stumbled, her weight on her unhurt leg, her arms flailing to keep her balance. She tripped over Twig who was attacking her good leg and then fell over Demar's body. The knife twisted under her and she fell onto it, then rolled over.
Her cries were pitiful as the blood pumped from the hole in her stomach. Saffer took one look at the wound, then turned to retch in a comer. She continued to retch, dry-heaving long after Bica had finally expired. It was Teshi's voice that finally brought her around to free the wizard from her bonds.
Teshi held Saffer tightly, then steered her towards the stairs. "Go on up," she said. "I'll see to your brother."
Saffer stared at her, wide-eyed with shock. "I never meant … I didn't … She just …"
"Go," Teshi ordered softly.
She waited until Saffer had reached the top of the stairs, then slowly turned back to the room.
•
Two days later, Demar was still off-duty. He sat in the common room of The Luck's Shadow, nursing an ale, his head wrapped in a swath of bandage. Saffer sat beside him, much subdued. Teshi was across the table from them, Twig on her lap, daintily eating the little fishsticks that the wizard fed to him, one by one. Kerlaf, his bruises a hundred glorious shades of purple, yellow, and blue, sat beside her.
"Sadabel and Kitani—it was a great mystery when they vanished," Teshi said.
"But where did Bica fit in?" Kerlaf asked.
"We can't be sure," Teshi said, "but my guess is that she was Sadabel's apprentice. From the old scars on her torso and what little of her rantings I had the chance to hear, it seems Sadabel and Kitani had been torturing Bica. Somehow she managed to kill them both. Kitani you saw in the cellar—Bica cured her skin, then sewed it back up again with the dead woman's bones inside. As for Sadabel … I doubt we'll ever know exactly what happened to him."
"But … but why was she killing people?" Saffer asked.
"She thought they were Sadabel, come back to have his revenge upon her," Teshi explained.
"No doubt she killed him in a place where the body was easily disposed of," Demar said, "then came back to deal with Kitani."
Teshi nodded. "Only to live in fear of Sadabel's return."
"That poor woman," Saffer said softly.
Kerlaf shook his head. "I've no pity to spare for her."
Saffer looked at him, at the bleakness that still lay in his eyes, and didn't bother to argue with him. All she knew was that Bica had been a poor mad creature and the weight of her death lay on Saffer's soul.
Demar put his arm around Saffer's shoulders. He said nothing when she turned to look at him, just gave her a squeeze, but it was enough. He hadn't said a word about her following him, nor anything to anyone about how she and Teshi had interfered with Guard business.
"Did you know," she said, "that you look like a camel-driver with those bandages on?"
"Watch it, camel," he told her sternly. "You could still end up in the Guardhouse for a day or two."
Saffer smiled for the first time since the events in Bica's cellar and laid her head against his shoulder.
"That's better," she said. "You were being so nice to me that for awhile there I thought you didn't like me anymore."
Demar looked at Teshi, but the wizard only rolled her eyes and went on feeding Twig his fishsticks.
"Strings Attached" by Nathan A. Bucklin
"I'D LIKE SOME strings for my cittern," I told the old fellow.
He was tall and grey-haired and hard to impress. "Try these, young master," he said, a little too smoothly. "Magically guaranteed to stay perfectly clear and bright in tone for fifty days. Wound by the finest string-maker in Liavek."
I considered. "And what happens after the fifty days?"
"They disappear," he said without a trace of guilt. "So it's a good idea to replace them after forty-five days or so, just in case."
All I asked was that they last me through tonight. "What do these strings cost?"
He didn't blink. "A levar and a half."
I didn't have that amount on me, but I wasn't going to come right out and say it. "Could you show me some other ones? I don't like the idea of strings that are going to disappear."
"I have just what you need." He turned around. I busied myself staring around the room at citterns, baghorns, Zhir hammered-harps. When he turned back with a superficially similar set, I was resting my hands on the rippled glass cou
ntertop and humming to myself.
"Only one levar," he continued. "Guaranteed to hold a tune for six months. Just tune them once, play the opening verse of 'The Kil Island Fisheries,' and you'll never have to touch your tuning pegs until the next time you change them."
One levar. Only. "And what if they slip out of tune while I'm playing the verse you named?"
"In the forty years this store has been open," he said slowly, "we've only had one complaint."
"That's one complaint too many. And what about the songs that I play in unusual tunings?"
"Most citternists don't use unusual tunings." He was imperturbable. I was hoping he'd figure out how tight my finances were, so I didn't have to humiliate myself by admitting to it. "But I can sell you the Instant Retuning Spell of—"
"Strings! That's all I want. Do you want me to take my trade somewhere else?"
"Your pardon." He turned again, traded the strings for an old and dusty packet. "The cheapest strings in the store and possibly the finest. They are good for—"
"I know what strings are good for!" It wasn't the old man's fault. I was anxious about this evening's concert and taking it out on whoever was close. And I did have cause to be angry at the printer, who had delayed printing most of the posters until yesterday, but I'd somehow held my tongue when picking up my order. "Tell me the price," I finished, struggling to get a grip on myself.
"Ten coppers." He smiled suddenly, but I didn't believe it. "If you promise never to come in here again, I might make it nine."
Not trusting myself to speak for fear of making things worse, I counted out coppers from my belt-pouch. I'd paid the printer; I'd paid Thrae for rental of The Desert Mouse for the evening, almost every copper I could afford between us. Ten coppers for the strings just about cleaned me out. Very well, I told myself, tonight I skip dinner. After the concert, though, Iranda and I will celebrate.
The storekeeper simply handed me the strings, no wrapping or receipt. I took them without thanks and went back outside. This was no way to start the day. I really wished the old son-of-a-camel no harm, and most days I didn't let my frustrations get the better of me. If I felt any calmer in the next hour or two, I would go back and try to apologize.
Iranda was putting up the posters, big ones with my name on them in fancy script writing. Tonight's concert was to be my first. I had reason to be proud; I had never known a street musician to reach the concert stage without serving at least a five-year apprenticeship in the public houses. As for me, I hadn't felt like wasting the five years; my youth had suddenly become a selling point.
"Well, did you get your strings?"
"Yes." I showed her the packet. "I hate to leave you alone, but I should really break them in a little. Are you sure you won't come back to my room with me?"
"I'd like to keep you company," she said, "but there are at least fifty more posters to put up. How about if you go back to your room and do whatever boring things you have to do, and I meet you in front of the Tiger's Eye in an hour? That should give you time."
"Barely," I grumbled. But it wasn't as if I wasn't going to be seeing her again today, and—probably deliberately—Iranda had sidestepped the tense situation that always seemed to develop when we were alone in my room or hers. Iranda could be remarkably sensitive.
I wandered through the Canal District with more purpose than most passersby probably would have suspected. I allowed myself so few days off from playing in the Levar's Park that the long walks I loved seemed like unimaginable luxury. A basket shop, a silversmith's shop, a gambling parlor caught my eye as I wandered the Street of Thieves (actually a respectable commercial street, due in part to its name). Here and there on the palm and cypress trees there were posters, put up haphazardly by Iranda as we'd walked this way earlier in the day. "Liramal, Balladeer to His Scarlet Eminence the Regent, Appearing at The Desert Mouse." I could wish for a better theater, or at least a theater with a better name, but those who saw my posters would know where to find me.
Home was an upstairs room at Mama Neldasa's. I had my closet under the eaves; Mama had my music on Luckday nights. And Luckday nights had always been busy, ever since I'd become well known. I more than earned my keep. I opened my door, sat down on the three-legged stool, kicked off my sandals, rested my feet on my pallet, put my cittern face up in my lap and began to change the strings.
String-changing is a bore and a chore; I'd learned to put up with it by making it so systematic I could think of other things while I did it. I tuned the lowest pair of strings down to a tension so low they both barely rattled, and did the same with the next pair up. Then the highest two strings for variety, then the two pair in the middle.
At some point in untuning the cittern, I stretched out my right foot, just enough, and touched the set of strings where they lay on the pallet. And I felt something.
I have no magic of my own, and most of the time I can only tell when magic's being used by how things look. If you're walking down the Levar's Highway and you see a cypress tree turn into a palm and back, and someone in front of it is making frantic gestures with one hand while the other hand fondles some bauble, anyone can tell there's magic being worked. But sometimes—
Sometimes it's not the way the spell looks that's the giveaway. I had been walking down the street when Pilavi the wizard stumbled on the broken step outside the herbalist's shop. I saw him limp back into the shop, cursing and demanding that the stonemason be summoned. And I saw him sit down on the walk, casting a simple spell to make the step solid until it could be repaired. Maybe it was my luck time, but I'll swear by the Twin Forces that I felt it when the step changed. And similarly, I could feel that my newly bought strings were radiating magic.
I didn't have time to go back to the store, and my strings needed changing desperately. Besides, whatever I'd told the storekeeper, I didn't really believe that all magicked strings were worse than regular strings. The magicked ones just had surprises built in. I was used to surprises. After all, I'd lived a third of my life on the street.
I polished the cittern with my usual care and put on the new strings; first, tenth, second, ninth, and so on. About the time I had eight of them on, I tried a barred 7th formation. It was missing a couple of notes, and the tuning wasn't quite there yet, but it sounded clear and crisp—or was it, perhaps, a little too soft?
Down below in the dining room I heard laughter and applause. The Archers of the White Rose were meeting, talking about their exploits, their equipment, their kills in the hunt. Mama would earn a hefty wage for this afternoon's banquet.
Determinedly, I began to strum as hard as I could, singing "Pell and Onzedi" at the top of my lungs. Clearly, there was nothing wrong with either my voice or my ears. But the strings were producing nearly no volume at all.
There was a timid knock at my door. It was Zawan, Mama's main serving boy. "Could you keep your voice down?" he said hesitantly. "We got a complaint from one of the archers."
Life was mad. My strings were too soft, and my voice was too loud. I thanked Zawan for the message and went down the back stairs, not even detouring through the kitchen to say hello to Mama Neldasa.
I started to play and sing as I walked. After all, the cittern hung as naturally from my shoulders as a leaf from a tree, and I had a sneaking suspicion that playing for strangers throughout the streets of Liavek ultimately made more people come to the Levar's Park in search of me. Somehow, the strings were quite loud outdoors; it was as though the room I'd tried them in walled off the sound. So I was singing, improvising both words and music as I could do when exceptionally chipper, and almost ran into a stranger.
He was a big man, old, with a full head of long grey hair and a full beard of the same shade. "Madmen!" he muttered, looking right through me as I tried to step around him. "They charge you half a levar for a basket of fruit my family can eat in a day! Tell me, minstrel, have you heard the like?"
I admitted that I had not and tried again to go around him.
He reached out
one gnarled hand and grasped me by the wrist. "Not so fast, boy," he said. "Play me a song. Something about fruit-sellers."
I couldn't think of a song about fruit-sellers and could hardly play with his hand around my wrist. I told him so.
He released me. "Two coppers I will give you," he said, removing my main reason for resisting. "Two coppers, and no more! Do you understand?"
I looked ahead toward the Tiger's Eye and didn't see Iranda. That made the difference for me. I didn't think I was late for our meeting; maybe two coppers for one song was worth it, right now. "Picking Time in the Orchard" by the Saltigan minstrel Arulen had one of the prettiest melodies I knew. Besides, if you turned the words around, they might be interpreted as a song about how the pickers worked all day to make the fruit-sellers rich. I played him the opening bars:
"The fruit trees are laden, the ladders in place,
My work is as plain as the frown on my face—"
But the strings were terribly, impossibly, out of tune. I tried to reach out and tune a peg, still singing, but it only made matters worse.
"Who cares if you're fevered, who cares if you're sick;
A copper a bushel for all you can pick—"
The old man interrupted. "And you call yourself a minstrel?" he screamed, causing several passersby to stop and look at him curiously. "Take that instrument of yours and junk it! And be off with you!"
Under the circumstances, I didn't feel justified in asking for my two coppers. I detoured around him without a word and went to wait for Iranda.
The solemn and efficient woman who ran the Tiger's Eye had told me once that she'd rather I didn't play outside her door. I imagined that money tossed into my hat might otherwise be spent on her premises; she certainly hadn't said I was a bad musician or that she didn't like me. Still, as I waited for Iranda, I tried a tentative chord or two. Oddly, it sounded perfectly in tune, except for the one string I'd altered in a panic while playing.
Iranda showed up out of breath and empty-handed. "The posters have all been put up," she reported. She listened patiently while I explained the day's events. When I finished, she heaved a deep sigh. "Liramal, I wonder how you ever managed to survive on the street as long as you did. Go back to the store where you bought them, say they aren't good enough, and get another set."