by Laura Lam
"If you puke just now, make sure you aim away from us and the cart! But it's nearly afternoon, Calum my boy, so I think you're on the mend! Feel like lifting chests of spices?"
"No way, old man! Looks to me like you found yourself another helper and don't need my poor starved muscles."
Mister Illari gestured in my direction. "This is… Sorry, boy, what was your name?"
"Oh. Um. Micah."
"This is Micah. I found him in the market. I think he's a runaway!" he yelled.
I winced and looked up and down the street to see how far his voice had carried. Fortunately, not a head in the crowd had turned my way. "Am I really not a convincing street boy?" I asked him.
"No, not at all. As an extra payment for helping me today, I'll give you some tips."
"So… you're not going to make me go back?"
"Nah, I'm not a busybody. Why you ran away is your own business. Why, are you valuable?" He winked.
"No, not really." My gaze fell to the pavement.
"Good. Then let's put that wretchedly thin back of yours to work and have you carry that chest of marigold up the stairs."
I half-smiled and set to work. Mister Illari and the small boy watched as I brought chests and heavy bags of spices up to their rooms. The apartments were small but comfortable, richly furnished with trappings originating from the same colonies as Mister Illari's spices. The floors were carpeted with rugs of intricate, circular patterns. Tapestries lined each wall, with panels of plants, people hunting wild game, and fantastical beasts long disappeared into legend. One of a winged horse about to trample a man with a bow and arrow caught my eye and, each time I passed, I slowed down to absorb some more of its details.
After I carried up the chests of spices, I lingered in a warm drawing room. Figurines of more mythical creatures cluttered its shelves and table space, all of them coated in a thin layer of dust. Brass-scaled monkeys, serpentine dragons, a giant octopus and a squid with long tentacles that dangled over the edges of its table, a ship perilously balanced on one raised limb. A large shelf next to the fireplace held humans blended with all kinds of animals – feathered, scaled, and furred.
A tiny figurine to the right of the shelf caught my eye. It was a smiling person carved from grey stone, its arms raised parallel to the ground. A hand had broken off. It was naked, with full, pointed breasts, a rounded stomach, and oversized male parts between the legs. I carefully picked it up and cradled it in my hands; it was crudely made and rough to the touch.
Mister Illari shuffled into the room, and Calum followed, carrying a tea tray which he set on an empty space on the table in the middle of the room.
"Where did you get this, Mister Illari, if I may ask?" I asked the merchant, holding it up to him.
Mister Illari squinted at it. "Hmm, where did I get that old thing… must be Byssia. Yes. They have excellent cardamom on that isle. I picked it up from an old man who carved them from soapstone and sold them at the market. You can keep it, if you like. I have far too much stuff cluttering these shelves."
"Thank you," I said, moved. "I haven't really come across any, um, two-gendered people in tales from here. Is it common in other places?"
He raised an eyebrow. "A young scholar of mythology, are we?"
I said nothing.
"It's popped up a few places, as I recall." He paused and thought, his eyebrows drawing together into a line. "Oh yes, I remember the story, more or less."
Calum and I sat on the sofa and poured ourselves what turned out not to be tea, but strong coffee reminiscent of gasoline. I took a sip, made a face, put in a lump of sugar, took a sip, made another face, tried it all once more, and then gave up and put the cup back on its saucer.
"It's foul stuff, innit?" Calum whispered loudly to me. I nodded and we shared a smile.
"You upstarts have unrefined palates. Try it again in twenty years and then tell me what you think, if this sack of skin and bones is still moving about. This is probably all that keeps me going now." He took a sip with obvious relish.
"The myth you mentioned, Mister Illari?" I reminded him.
"Ah, all right, all right." Mister Illari sighed. "I heard this story a long time ago, mind you.
"Long ago, before anything had been written down in Byssia, creatures of myth and legend still walked the Earth. Humans like us were far from the only intelligent creatures around. Human and sometimes Alder folk were just as likely to be half-fish, or half-serpent, or any of these other bits and bobs I have all over this room. They created weapons far deadlier than any we could hope to make now, but no one ever grew ill or frail. When they wished to die, they went to sleep and did not awaken again. They lived in houses, castles, caves, and boats of dark blue glass."
"Like the Penglass all about the city?" Calum exclaimed. "But why are there only domes and spires around the city, now, though? Where are the boats? I want a Penglass boat."
"Don't interrupt, Calum. Any that still remain are probably at the bottom of the ocean. Or maybe they never existed in the first place and are only myth. Or the Chimaera sailed into the far reaches of the world on them never to return. Who knows? But yes, they were made of Penglass. It's all over. On every island I've visited, there's always been at least one sealed-off mountain of Penglass. It's very troublesome when they almost form a mountain range across a whole island. They're so slippery they are impossible to climb. In Temne, the mountain bottlenecks the island and you have to sail out to sea to get around the blasted thing! That's why the people are so different in the north and south of that isle. They were separated for hundreds of years.
"But in Byssia," Mister Illari continued, "the human or Alder and animal mixtures were revered. The Chimaera were much stronger than full humans. They were more agile and were wickedly intelligent. Historians believe they were the ones who invented the weapons, the Penglass, and all of the other artefacts they left behind. And it was this combination that allowed most of them to rise to power, which is probably where the religious worship started. Royalty is almost always tied to divinity, you know. But none of the Chimaera were revered as much as your new pocket ornament there." He nodded at the stone sculpture in my hands.
I looked at it again.
"They called it a Kedi. It's still worshipped in some backwaters of Byssia. This creature was their god and considered perfect. To its worshippers, a man is incomplete and a woman is incomplete. Whether or not they were crossed with some other creature, they were not whole. But this being was not. It did not need another man or another woman. It was complete within itself.
"Men and woman would try to be like this god, see, by coming together. Only when a man and a woman mated–" Calum giggled, his hand covering his face. "Shush up, Calum. As I was saying, when a man and a woman mated, then they were like the Kedi. They are complete and they are one.
"I suppose the Couple is a bit like that idea. You can't have the Sun Lord without the Lady of the Moon, and they form a complete whole. Two differing sides of the same coin."
"Are you a philosopher, Mister Illari?"
He snorted "Hardly. I've just seen a lot of different places and a lot of different things. You start to notice how similar they are, after a time."
"So if there was a creature like this Kedi, would it be content to be alone all its life? Were there other Kedi for it, or just the one?" I asked.
Calum piped in. "It seems to me like it'd have the best of both – it could rut itself!"
"Calum," Mister Illari warned. "Don't be crude. I don't know, Micah. I think there were only one or two. Doesn't matter much, eh? It's only stories."
"Yes," I said, my fingers gripping the stone figure tightly. "Only stories."
22
SUMMER: PLAY ACTING
"Gather around all ye young and ye old
To hear a tale of love richer than gold.
Between a young princess virtuous and fair,
And a kind prince who saves her from her lair.
A king's wicked greed: the
young lovers' doom.
The Lord and Lady's grace spares them from gloom.
Rejoined at last, they swear never to part.
So ready or not, the show will now start!"
LEANDER & IONA, Godric Ash-Oak
"No, you're absolutely terrible!" Bil cried.
Aenea scowled at him and planted her hands on her hips. "I told you I was no good at play acting, Bil Ragona! You refused to believe me."
"You're all performers! How is it that every comely, bendy young woman I have reads lines like a stiff wooden board?" he grasped two handfuls of his hair, trying for comical dismay, but true frustration was under his own performance.
I was sitting next to the other contortionists and acrobats in the stands.
"Your girl Aenea was better than I was, Micah, though not by much," Dot, the youngest contortionist now that Mara was gone, said cheerfully.
The pantomime planned for Imachara was a retelling of the classic romance Leander & Iona, one of those stories where the young man and woman must overcome the obstacles blocking their love.
"How does the story go again?" Dot asked.
"You'll be sick to death of it by the end of the season, but the short of it is that Leander, the foreign princely hero and narrator, must rescue Iona, who has been locked in a Penglass tower by her cruel father, King Zimri, and is guarded by a minotaur. The Fool, the king's most trusted servant, attacks Leander along the way in the form of various beasts and monsters. So there'll be magic and fighting and changing scenes and danger. But, of course, love will win the war." I held up an arm in triumph, though Leander & Iona was not my favorite of Godric Ash-Oak's plays. The princess was passive for much of the play, waiting to be rescued by her prince.
"Romantic, isn't it?" Dot asked.
"Mm-hmm," I said, leaning back in the bleachers.
The entire circus had been forced to sit and watch the auditions for the various parts. Bil had been planning to put on a pantomime in Imachara, but he did not want to waste money on actual trained actors, and so he was determined to find the brilliant actors hiding within his midst.
The problem was that most of the circus had never acted, except to smile and bow at a crowd, and nearly everyone was wretched at it.
Drystan had been chosen as Leander, Fedir the yellow clown as the king, and Jive as the Fool. Tauro would, naturally, be the Minotaur to guard the princess. More circus folk were willing to be monsters, which required no speaking but for an occasional grunt or roar.
"Maybe if you practice until we reach Imachara?" Bil wheedled Aenea.
"No!" Aenea stomped her foot. "I perform well on the trapeze and tightrope and nowhere else. I'm sure there's someone who could do better." She strode off to the stands and slumped next to me, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Fine, but you'll play the Lady of the Moon in the finale," he called after her.
"What? I will not!"
"She doesn't have any bloody lines! You just have to wear a gown and look pretty. You'll manage that well enough."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine, as long as I don't have to speak."
"So who's our leading lady, then?" Rian asked.
"Frit?" Bil asked, helpless and more desperate.
"I'm too old to play a leading lady in a romance," she said.
Bil clenched his jaw, the tendons in his cheeks jutting. "I do not understand. This is a circus, full of creative and talented minds. You lot were decent," he pointed to the clowns. "Why don't one of you play the female lead? Iano?"
Iano guffawed. "I am not playing a woman. Not if you threatened to cut off my balls and give them to Violet for a meal!" Behind Iano, Jive looked at me and smirked, and I knew he was remembering my screams after the itching powder incident. I glowered at him and he raised his eyebrows, as if perplexed by my annoyance.
"More like a small snack," Rian said loudly.
Iano responded with a rude hand gesture, Rian made an even ruder one, and they began to tussle in a blue and green blur. The other clowns and several of the performers and workers called out encouragements or began to take bets on who would win.
"Halt!" Bil roared. They climbed off each other, brushing sand from their costumes.
I was biting my lip in the stands. Growing up, acting had been a favorite pastime. Mother had encouraged it, upon seeing how much I enjoyed playing "dressing up" with Anna, Cyril, and George. I never let Mother see when I played male parts. I would not say I was talented, but I did enjoy it, and I would probably be better at a female role, given that I had several years' experience pretending to be one.
Bil had not asked me to read lines. The male parts had all been filled by the clowns and Bil stopped asking the rest of us from reciting the same dull passage.
I wanted to open my mouth and say the words that would bring all eyes on me again. I was confident I had a place on the stage. But too many eyes meant too many chances to see something not quite right. My gaze flicked to Frit before I hunched my shoulders and looked at the sand-encrusted floor of our temporary circus.
"Those of you who have not read lines, queue up, then," Bil said, sighing. "We're finding our heroine tonight if it is the last thing I do. No breaks, no food, and no ale until this is sorted."
While everybody moaned, I fought to keep a smile from my face. The choice had been taken from me. It would not be up to me. It was up to the ringmaster.
Bil clasped his hands together. "Next!"
Tauro stepped forward and looked at Bil balefully. He opened his mouth.
"Argh, Tauro, you're all right – you know full well you already have a part. Sit down," Bil said.
"What, you're not going to let him try out for the heroine?" Jive snickered.
"Do not test my patience today, Jive. You will not like the result. Tauro, sit."
Tauro shuffled to the stands. He looked a little disappointed.
A Kymri tumbler was next. He was one of the twin brothers. Zahn?
"Oh, moon and stars, lord and lady on high –
Shine your light on a…wretch whose end is…neigh? Nigh?"
We all winced. Though Zahn had made headway in learning our tongue, it was clear he did not know the meaning of half of the lines, and his accent was thick. The audience would never understand him, and he was too handsome and muscular. Bil ushered him to the stands as well.
I was next.
"You'd make a decent woman, Micah," Bil said, a little hopefully, eyeing me up and down. "Do you need the lines said aloud to you?" he asked wearily.
"No, Bil, I think I have them memorized by now." Bil nodded and waved at me to begin.
I slid into the role. It was a dismal scene of the play, at a point where all seemed lost. The Fool turns into a human and tells Leander that Iona has married another at her father's behest, and he believes the falsehood. Iona was heartbroken, certain that her life was over. She contemplates suicide.
I sat down on the floor and gathered imaginary skirts about myself and looked up, as if out of a window at the top of my cell. I wiped an imaginary tear from my cheek.
"Oh, moon and stars, lord and lady on high –
Shine your light on a wretch whose end is nigh.
Leander, my love, is in danger so true.
My cheek's petals are now heavy with dew."
I looked down at my clasped hands.
"Please, moon and stars, lord and lady, free me
From this life full of lonesome agony
If no more my lips will his fingers trace
I'll trade him for sable death's sweet embrace."
The play was not particularly delicate or subtle, but it evoked the emotions needed from the audience. There were a few half-hearted claps from the stands. Bil's eyebrows snaked up his forehead.
"He's not bad, let's have him as the woman and open some ale!" Rian called. A bruise bloomed on his cheekbone.
"Try the second set of lines, Micah, where Iona first meets and falls in love with Leander," Bil said. He read the lines from the page
before him, furrowing his brows and stumbling over the meter.
I stood up, dusting my trousers. "Can I see the paper?"
He passed it to me and I scanned the lines a few times.
"Doesn't surprise me much that you can read," Bil said, digging. I ignored him.
"Oh yeah – Drystan, your lines are first," Bil said before I began.
Drystan came from the stands and was given his own lines to read. Unlike me, he did not hide who he had been outright, though he had neglected to tell them he was one small step removed from royalty. He stepped forward, clasped my calloused hands and gazed into my eyes, his face relaxing into an adoring smile. It was an effort not to look away in embarrassment.