Dragonfly

by Sylvia Kelso

  exchanged day greetings, to the smith. Two managed to move us, as he passed, into something approximating a clumsy bow.

  “M’lord . . .”

  We could not have done more than breathe it, anyway. Stokka half-smiled. Inclined a head, flicked a finger on my cap, crossed the threshold with a soft, easy predator’s tread. His shadow vanished. From deeper in the alley came a steely clink, and the shuffle of men’s boots.

  * * * *

  When lord and guards’ steps had faded, the smith let his breath out in one explosive, “Whoof!”

  “What—why—how—where—”

  Two was barely articulate, but I could have done no better. The smith gave us a dispassionate, perhaps jaded, certainly comprehending stare.

  “Stokka. D’ye not know y’r lord?”

  ‘A creature o’ humours. And most of ’em bad.’ Temper, caprice, I had expected. Nothing like this.

  “W-where did he—What is—”

  Two turned the sheath, with as much disbelief as a farm-boy, with grief that could masquerade as bewilderment, in our hands. The smith pulled his shoulders to his ears.

  “Come down with it from t’brech just now. Judge me the blade, he says, an’ set a price.”

  “But how did he—”

  The smith dropped his head between his shoulders and his voice lower yet.

  “Come here with an outlander. Queer fella, maybe crazed. Got crossways wi’ Forthir at the gate an’ they hove him up the brech.”

  My belly was solid ice. I strangled projections neither Two nor I would be able to bear. But after all, it hardly needed more explanation. Any of it. Therkon had run afoul the gate guard, and their master after them. Whatever Stokka did with its owner, he had taken Hvestang: but not to keep. Because, Two’s comprehension flew in lightning leaps of precedent from among, powerful, vicious men, Therkon had stung his pride or his fey humours so badly he would take the crueller revenge. He had been going to sell the sword. As if he deemed it unworthy to retain.

  Until a more delicate, more absolute stroke of contempt

  offered. So he had given it away. A prize among swords. To an ignorant, yokel youth.

  The dark-bordered flags were all swimming in a pool of tears. The weight of Hvestang was a millstone. I think Two hardly considered, either, what we said.

  “What do I—what am I to—”

  “Keep it,” the smith answered curtly, not looking up. “More’n your life’s worth, to do aught else.”

  “But the—what happened to the, to—him?” Two would have gone on, Did you hear, does anyone know? The smith had already jerked his chin out and added an elbow thrust. Don’t ask, because I can’t answer. Don’t make trouble for me either. Get out.

  I stumbled often on the way back to Vithre’s house. Tears, grief, blurring our sight. Over my shoulder, Hvestang’s unaccustomed length and weight. Desperation in my wits where What-nexts whirled like leaves in a drain, and under all, recollection’s shock and the wake of terror’s relief.

  Two had been of use: Two had done what I could not, what I would never have dreamt to do. Impossible as Therkon’s ruse at the Jurrick gate. And she had deceived Stokka, she had used Stokka, she had retrieved Hvestang in the world’s unlikeliest way.

  Or had there been the unlikeliest help?

  The grey-walled, shadow-patched street went round like a top. I got a hand to a wall and tried to stay upright amid the maelstrom in my head.

  Full of odd humours, Stokka. True enough, perverse, un­predictable, capricious as a whirlwind and more vicious in intent. How could anyone—any thing—have foreseen his act?

  How could anyone or anything have set it up?

  The world whited out and Two’s logic stepped in lightning jags through my brain.

  The black water. Water that wanted me. A sure way to bring me where it wanted. Take Therkon from me. Ensure I would

  follow. Remove any cause for delay, by returning the sword.

  And where would I be meant to go?

  My fingers relaxed on grey hewn granite. The street coalesced. Calm was around me, the calm of concluded logic, or the eye amid a storm.

  Either Stokka has Therkon somewhere, or he has discarded him like his sword. If he is here, we can find him.

  If he is not, then only in one direction will all intents coincide. We reasoned it on Sickle. However perverse, however backhanded its achievement, the logic holds. If Therkon is no longer in Ve Pool, we know which way he went.

  I swallowed a snivel and drew a careful longer breath. Then I re-settled Hvestang over my shoulder and made for Vithre’s house.

  * * * *

  A flock of children swirled about the hearth-space now, while amid their herring-gull shrieks three women peeled vegetables beside the built-up fire. Their eyes grew round at sight of me, and wider at the sword. I managed a wave toward Vithre’s door and a mumbled, “See the healer, have to,” and one opened her mouth, one half-rose in apparent consternation, but I was already past.

  Vithre’s curtain was drawn, a darker shadow in the waning light. The house was intrinsically dim, despite whitewash as well as the fire. I found the curtain edge and without pause drew it softly back.

  Vithre was home, yes. Pressed up against the wall beyond his bedside with a male knee shoved deep between his thighs and being enthusiastically kissed by someone whose antique but

  recognizable mail-coat shouted, No common guard.

  I eased the curtain down as if it were poisoned, throat choked on my held breath. If Vithre saw, reacted. If his companion, like Stokka, noticed the change of light . . .

  I tiptoed back a half-dozen paces, and stood trying not to shake. I could not leave, Vithre had my packs. I could not join the women, Two might not be able to change my voice again, or manage extended conversation, and they might already know I was a girl. But nor could I stand here, in earshot of what might happen. I had seen my fathers kiss, and learnt what its various signals meant. The stranger had more in mind than a warm, Give you good day.

  And if that mail-shirt signalled aright, Vithre might indeed get news that mattered. From Stokka’s true right hand.

  I smothered the embarrassment. Eased Hvestang off my back. Hunkered down, as well as I could, against a further door-jamb, and prayed the Mother that if I had to eavesdrop, the stranger would justify soldiers’ name for haste.

  Through the child shrieks and women’s chatter came a deeper mutter, a smothered laugh. An endearment, by the tone. Something that might have been a question, then a louder, rougher laugh.

  “Up the hill just now, smirkin’ like he’s drunk t’creampot. He’ll not be needin’ me the night.”

  Vithre murmured something, sounding smooth as a scribe after a stable lout. From the other came a thoroughly boorish hoot.

  “Him! He’ll not trouble Ve again. Down the wharf this mornin’, an’ ye mind Thralli docked yestreen? Ha ha!” A regular donkey bray. “Trust m’lord to make the shoe pinch. Put him on the

  auction block!”

  Vithre said something startled and the other gave a snort.

  “Outland, ain’t he? Outsea, at that. None to trouble for him, naught to trouble us. An’ ye flout our Tiran-son, ye’ll pay a merry price!”

  The firelit whitewash went round and round again. Sheer horror blurred my sight. Therkon, the Empress’ son. Dhasdein’s crown prince. Sold as a slave. Put on the auction block.

  Two had knowledge of slavery, Two’s appalled projections shot across my sight. I would have sunk into the abyss myself. But for Therkon to be stripped, prodded, examined like a beast, sold to the highest bidder . . .

  And who had bought him? From where?

  Vithre or the Mother heard me. Vithre said something more, and his lover answered in that brash, careless voice.

  “Nay, Thralli’s away the night. Sailed on the midday tide. He’d
near a cargo, and don’t reckon to get its price in here.”

  Stokka had not just sold his victim through a slaver, he had sold him to the slaver. And the slaver was gone. While Thurkis’ accursed donkeys were snailing downhill, Therkon had already been aboard ship, and by midday, the ship had sailed.

  The firelit room was red-shot and quivering like light through water. I tried to breathe, and wondered, from the pain in my temples, if my heart had stopped as well. Tears filmed the light right over. Pit, fundament, nadir of calamity. Therkon was indeed gone from Ve Pool, gone where I could not follow him: even if I could find ship or boat to take me, I had no idea where to go.

  * * * *

  The ribs brought me round when nothing else could. I had been crouched and hunched too tightly, too long. Unheeded, the pain came, then deepened like a drill until I might have gasped, but I had to straighten up.

  I leant my head back on the door jamb and a child pack thundered past me in a cascade of shrieks. Supper had begun cooking at the hearth. Fried onions, perhaps, a crisp smell of fish. Sound and smell infiltrated, while the tears dried on my shut lids. And behind them, Two made herself heard at last.

  Almost she used actual words: the amazement was clear enough. Had we not worked through the logic? No matter what we knew, or what the slaver planned. There could still be only one direction to go.

  South.

  It would help, I was thinking sourly, if “south” included some sketch of islands, of possible ports, of distances and direction. Then my eyes shot open as the light changed, and someone was standing over me. A blurry trousered shadow, with a permeating odor of fish.

  “Lad? Lass? What’s to do?”

  My hand shut automatically on Hvestang, making it a stick to help me up. He was about my height, gaunt, it seemed, in a thick, perhaps knitted jersey instead of a coat. Short hair gave him a halo, though his features were against the light.

  “Are ye here for Vithre?” He had dropped his voice as if he knew what was behind the curtain too. “Ye can come to the hearth.” The glance, the nuance added, Vithre may be some time.

  Speak as boy or girl? I had no time to waver. Two simply fell out of sight.

  “Th-thank you, sir. Veenn. Veenn knows me. She sent . . .”

  “Does she so?” It was more than interest. Understanding, and to my over-strained ear, yet more. Because he did not exclaim, You’re a girl. He did not even ask about Hvestang. Merely pointed his head along the wall-circle, beyond heaps of household impedimenta, and led the way.

  So when he turned at another dark but uncurtained doorway, Two burst out instantly, “Sir, where has Thralli gone?”

  I bit my lip and wanted to kick Two as well as myself. But I had still under-guessed his knowledge, or else his wits. It was a bare five heartbeats before he spoke.

  “Ye’d be the sister. Aye?”

  He had seen Therkon, spoken to Therkon, or simply shared the wave of sensation and scandal that must have washed Ve Pool from edge to edge. He knew enough to argue backward from my question. Relief left me all but breathless. So much less to explain.

  “Yes, sir. But Thralli. Does anyone know . . .”

  The slight tilt of his head said he might have caught our voice switch, but he answered readily. A heavy accent, but assured

  authority in that deep, composed voice.

  “He’d maybe go down-coast, to Thring’s Deep. Or up, to Mirkadin. Ye’d say, west or east.”

  Still on Phaerea, then. My lungs seemed to empty with hope. “Not—not somewhere else?”

  A heart-sinking pause. Then he said, “For that, ye’d need to know whence he came.”

  Hope collapsed again. I could just limit myself to a single, “Oh.”

  He looked over my shoulder. I guessed at what from the angle of his head. “There’s one might tell ye,” more than neutral this time, “in a while.”

  Vithre? His lover? I could never ask direct. And what risks to be here, visible, when the lover came out?

  Two took the opportunity before I could speak. “Sir, do you know the next island south?”

  “South?” Startlement, perhaps. I braced for a reprise of Veenn’s response.

  “Eh. There’s Terrace, an’ the Fleshes, though they’re more sou’west. An’ Rostack, but that’s sou’east?”

  Three islands, and how to choose, and which way would our enemy’s intent skew Thralli’s own choice? “You don’t know? You can’t guess? Which way Thralli might . . .”

  He understood then. His head lifted, his shoulders went tense. “Ye’re never meaning to—”

  “I must.” I could stifle the shout, but the tears welled again. “My brother, I have his gear, I have his sword, I have—there’s money, I can buy a way. I can find, I can guess that, but I have to go. I must!”

  “Girl.” It came out almost on a hiss. He rubbed hard at his chin. Stubble, probably. “If ye could go. Could travel. Find him. What could ye do?”

  For an instant all the obstacles and terrors I had foreshaped loomed up again. Then I cast one thought at the alternatives and fairly fired at him, “What could I do here?”

  I literally heard him grunt. Another scud of children screeled past. I stared at his shape with the tears of fear and resolution teetering on my lashes, and through their film saw him rub his chin again, and suddenly lift his head and shift his feet.

  “Aye.” It came heavily, but sure. “Ve Pool’s no place for a—” an isolated outland girl whose nearest known kin had already mortally offended Stokka. He glanced over my shoulder again. “Wait ye here. There’ll maybe be word, later. If not, I’ll speir about myself. There’s folk I know. Ye say, ye’ve money?”

  “I have, I can get money, yes. I can go now?” And if Therkon had kept the jewel pouch, might he have bought off trouble for himself?

  “Ye’re goin’ nowhere, the night. Tide’s awry.” He gestured into the dark, uncurtained room. “Bring ye that—brand o’ yourn, in here, an’ bide till I call.”

  It was his own room, or at least, his family’s room. I fumbled my way in the shadows through scents of fish and children and soap and some kind of aromatic oil, past a cradle and truckle bed to the big box bed, as they call it, a kind of walled enclosure on the floor. But it held at least three down quilts, and a couple of soft pillows, “down o’ the southern geese,” and when he had settled me, with a pillow for bolster and a hand free to find Hvestang, he drew the door curtain. Leaving me in comfort, and, I realised, concealment. With at least a glimmer of hope.

  Chapter XII

  I woke with a heart-stopping jerk. Dark enveloped me, swallowed me, pitch-black darkness deep as water was sucking me down.

  Not water. Softness underlay me like Nouip’s fur, but solidity sustained it. Hard, unyielding, rock or earth. Horizontal, more uneven than her bed shelf. And the dark was paler overhead. Rimmed by a solid edge of shadow, higher than I was, peculiarly curved.

  Hearthside, Two said, matching memories of Nouip’s, Veenn’s, Vithre’s houses. Curved hearthside. Above us, because we’re horizontal. On a quilt, on the paven floor.

  They must have moved me from the box-bed while I slept.

  Reaction almost over-rode the too-familiar complaint of jostled ribs. Jostled, and Vithre’s willowbark wearing off. Had I slept so deeply they could have moved me without a murmur, had they stripped me too, searched me, found—

  My hands flew in pure fright, but the sheaths were on my left arm, intact. The jewel pouch bulked under my palm, the cloth on my breast was my own wool-and-linen Iskardan shirt.

  The house was utterly quiet. All in bed, room curtains drawn, no light left but the last faint afterglow from the probably banked hearth. Even Vithre’s lover must have gone, or surely, they would never have moved me out here?

  In the darkness, something creaked.

  My heart all but came out my ears. Stone floor and
walls would not creak. Wooden furniture creaked, but only under an impulse, a weight.

  Leather might creak. In someone’s belt.

  Azo’s skills and schooling fired like nerves themselves. Night-training, ambush, we had done it over and over. Especially, being ambushed in a bed.

  The wrist-knife flew into my palm. I sighed softly and rolled as a sleeper would, getting my back to the hearthstone. Low, but still a ward. By the Mother’s mercy, with my right arm uppermost. Knife folded against my breast behind a quilt edge. Perfectly palmed to throw.

  A long, long pause, while my blood thumped in my ears and I worked to keep my breathing loud, even, sleep-like. At last, a whisper in the darkness. The brush of touching cloth.

  A needle stabbed overhead so brightly my eyes squinted. Moved down, but my eyes were shut.

  Another eternity when I used ears alone. At its end, again, a rustle. And this time, on the flagstones, the whisper of a tread.

  My eyes shot open and motion hinted in the all but extinguished hearth-glow, air shaped the body approaching, big, solid, bending toward my shoulders, the arms’ swing down to my pillow, my face.

  I slammed the knife home where all those drills had taught me, whipping upward with the blow to put my body-weight behind it, right where motion and mass triangulated a human throat.

  Darkness screamed and mass whirled up and back. I was out of the quilts with the ribs’ shriek unregarded as my hand flew up my sleeve for the elbow knife, darkness spun about and pottery clattered, metal banged, furniture crashed in a perfect avalanche. But from somewhere near my quilt-foot new ferocious motion launched itself, visible if inaudible, and I palmed the knife and threw.

  I dived for the hearthside to the soggy carrying thump. As at the targets, both ear and muscle affirmed it had gone home. I did not wait for the choking, bubbling sounds to confirm it, I was swarming round the hearth with a hand out to ward spit or cauldron, praying the Mother for a replacement weapon, a pot, a piece of wood, or, acme of desire, a kitchen knife.

  Something bumped down, heavy as a falling tree, on the stones. Something else bubbled, coughing, rustling, scratching like weight dragged over rock. From my right hand, where I knew now the inner rooms lay, rose sudden human noises. Sounds, babble, outright shouts. And presently, the wavering glow of light.