Mageblood? Familiars? What was that woman playing at now?
***
Following his audience, Karsten had not been assigned any further work, allowing him to “build up his blood for the coming ordeal,” as the foreman had put it. Instead, he spent the morning at the stable, repairing his packs and giving Babette a good brushing down. So high sun found him—and Babette—standing at the fence of the Dowager’s menagerie, discussing his options with the sun-darkened man who ran this part of her operation. A cheerful little fellow named Kimma.
“Dangerous? Ayuh, that’s a certainty. Seen ‘em take a man’s arm off more’n once.”
Even the wisps of Kimma’s eyebrows seemed to know more about what was about to happen than Karsten did. They stood there waving and flailing in the air, just above the menagerie master’s forehead, as though signaling to the helpless bounty hunter in some secret language of hair.
Together, the two men leaned against the fence of the creature pens, looking out over an odd assortment of animals that were all steadfastly ignoring them. A wyvern, two griffons, a unicorn foal with no mother at hand, and a dozen smaller creatures that he’d only glimpsed in the shadowed recesses of a small wooden structure, taking shelter from the bright morning sun. These were the seldom-seen creatures of whisper and legend, most of which Karsten had always believed to be more fanciful exaggeration than reality. Yet here they all were, gathered together for the Dowager’s amusement. He watched as the wyvern arched its long tail up and over, almost touching its own head like a scorpion. Then it squawked a cry of defiance and squeezed out a massive rope of dung.
Yup. They seemed pretty real.
“So what am I supposed to do? Just go in there and try to ride one?”
Kimma laughed. “You could do. Save me the trouble of having to feed ‘em today.”
Even Babette seemed to find that funny, and she looked up from her effort to reach clumps of hay inside a rabbit hutch to give Karsten a mocking thump with her hindquarters. Had he not been ready for it, her shove might have actually launched him through the bars of the pen, but as it was, he merely staggered a half step forward.
“Well, maybe I should send you in there for me,” he said, giving her lead a sharp tug.
“Not the stupidest plan,” Kimma said, nodding thoughtfully. “They’s pretty sniffy creatures at heart. Wyverns especially. Always willing to accept tribute. Shows ‘em you see ‘em as yer betters. Been one or two taken that way as I recall.”
Karsten shook his head grimly. “That’s all I need,” he said, flicking a sidelong glance at the llama. “Exchange one creature who thinks she’s my equal for one who thinks she’s my master? Don’t see how that improves my position.”
Kimma shrugged. “Probably for the best. You let one of these beauties get airs in her head, won’t be long afore you been demoted to food.”
“Right. So now that we’ve settled how I’m not going to do this, any suggestions for how I should do it?”
The old man laughed while his eyebrows waved hello, goodbye, and how’s your mother. “Musta seen a hundred fellas standin’ where you be now an’ I ain’t never seen two of ‘em try it the same.”
“I’ll not be getting much help from you then, is that what you’re saying?”
“Ain’t that I don’t want to,” the master said. “Could tell ya all kindsa things, make you think ye know exactly what to do, how to stand and whatnot.” Then he shook his head. “But truth be that’s the surest way I know to get ye killed—send ye in there all cocky like, s’if ye got a plan. Best thing is to tell ye the truth. Go slow, stay careful, and seize the moment what feels best.”
Karsten stared out over the pens. “Any suggestion about which one I should choose then?”
Kimma looked him over. “Well now,” he said. “Bein’ a goldie, and bound fer Court, you’ll want sommat grand. Pixies and mage-hens’d give ye the magery, but you’ll be wantin’ something fierce enough to cow even powerful folks. A beast that can look both generals and vizirs in the eye and make ‘em take a step back. Anything less and ye’ll not reflect well on the Zah.”
“So none of the timid ones hiding in the shadows, huh?”
“Right. One of the big’uns is all I can tell ye. Rest is up to you. So what’ll you try?”
Karsten sighed and shook his head. This was utter madness, but what choice did he have? Better to get it over with now than to stand here and let the water take his belly.
“The wyvern,” he said, handing Babette’s lead to the smaller man. Then he climbed up over the fence rail and dropped neatly down inside the pen to face his blue-green adversary. She turned her horned head briefly to blink at him twice, and then looked away with complete disinterest.
Karsten took a step forward, feeling out the situation with a fighter’s instincts. Then he paused and looked back toward the fence.
“If I get eaten,” he said, thrusting his chin at the llama, “send her in after me, would you? I’d hate for her to end her days pining away all alone.” Then he turned back to his business and stalked cautiously forward.
Behind him the creature master and his eyebrows laughed merrily.
***
“Hold still, dammit!”
Karsten put the needle between his teeth and reached out to adjust the saddle bag, realigning the polished glass that hung from it so he could see what he was doing. Babette belched her amusement, but this time she held still and Karsten was able to return to the task at hand, stitching the small gash below his eye.
“Stupid beast,” he muttered, but even he wasn’t sure which animal he meant.
“That goes double for you,” Kimma said from where he’d been leaning against the stable wall. “Pure foolishness to tend your own wounds like that. Especially a face gash. That’ll scar on ye, no doubt, so’s you’ll frighten little children in the middle of the day. Not to mention ruin what little chance ye ever had with ladyfolk.”
“It’s a test,” the bounty hunter said as he continued to draw needle and thread through the torn flesh. “Of a sort. The day I’m conscious and can’t pull my own stitch is the day I’ll retire.” In the glass he could see the little man shaking his head. “So what do you suggest now?”
Kimma shrugged. “Wanna try that griffon again? The second one? She seemed to almost tolerate ye there for a while.”
In answer, Karsten turned and extended both his bared arms to show the network of cuts, bruises, nips, gouges and tears that he now sported. “It was that second griffon did most of this,” he said. “And you think I should try her again?”
“Well, that was later. After she figgered out you didn’t have enough mageblood to hold ‘er to yer will.”
“Is that what happened?”
“I reckon. Never had a speck of it m’self, so I couldn’t say for sure, but the Zah says ye got it, so I suppose ye must do. Some, anyrate.”
“So I’m supposed to just whittle myself down to the bone on griffon beaks to prove her right?”
“Here, now!” Kimma growled. “Ye’ll mind yer tongue about Her Ladyship in my presence, or ye can do this by yer own self.”
Karsten sighed and gave the last stitch under his eye a careful tug. Satisfied that the repair was clean and tight, he started gathering his supplies and pushing them back into the side bag.
“My apologies,” he said. “I know even less about mage things than you do, but it doesn’t seem like I can have much in me, does it? After what happened out there?”
The little man sucked air slowly through his teeth before nodding. “Ayup. I’ll give ye that. Ain’t never seen a man of the blood stood down by a glimmer bunny before. Not even a thinblood apprentice. Rabbits is the most timid creature goin’—even the magical ones. That’s why they use ‘em to train the littlest magelets when they blooms early. Harmless puffballs and full incapable of resistin’ the bind, so long as ye’ve got even a hint of the blood.”
“Then why did she say I have it?”
Kimma shrugge
d. “Who can say what she’s anglin’? But she said it yest’day, did she? In the great hall?” Karsten nodded. “Am I right in guessin’ it was her Dark self?”
“Dark self?”
The creature master glanced around the stable to be sure they were alone, but there had been nobody else through since they’d come in and the space was utterly empty. Even so, he took a step closer and lowered his head.
“You know. Dark an’ powerful. Mean-tempered. More like the Emperor than her usual way. Ye follow?”
Karsten nodded. “Yes. Like that.”
“Thought so,” Kimma said. “It’s on accounta the Baj bein’ here. Xihara. Whenever there’s folks come from Court, she puts on that… Well, not my place to be sayin’, but ye seem honestly gold-bitten, no mistake. Ye’ll either find out soon enough or ye’ll be dead, so ain’t no harm in telling, I s’pose…”
“Telling what?”
Kimma shrugged. “Well now, ye’ve seen two different Zahs, am I right? One spry and happy, t’other grim and frightful?”
“Exactly!” Karsten agreed. “What are—?”
“I’m gettin’ to that,” Kimma replied. “The spry one, that’s our true Ayini Zah. The Bright Lady. Only, for reasons she ain’t never set out, she don’t want folks at Court knowing ‘bout that side. So when they pays a visit, she puts on all manner of grim and queenly. The Dark Lady. A right bitchhound, ain’t she? Wouldn’t sit proper, though, her doin’ that to an Advocate and him seein’ her treat the rest of the household all friendly. So we go along. It’s important to her, so it’s important to us.”
“What about making a gift of me to the Emperor? That part of her game too then? A feint of some kind?”
“Well, that I can’t rightly say, but feint or no, one thing’s for certain.”
“What’s that?”
Kimma shrugged. “Don’t matter what she was planning to do with ye now. There ain’t a speck of mageblood in ye to be doin’ it with.”
To that, Karsten had no rebuttal.
***
Following his total failure with the animals, Karsten didn’t even get a second audience. There had seemed no point in belaboring a proven fact by trying again, so Kimma had sent a stable boy to the Dowager with the news while the two men went back out to await her summons by the pens. The bounty hunter was trying to coax Babette away from the wyvern’s bedding straw when a cloud of curses and shouts went up from the villa. A moment later, the Advocate stormed out, surrounded by his attendants, clearly enraged by the lost opportunity to curry favor at Court. By the time the cloud of his road dust was halfway to the horizon, the yard foreman appeared at Karsten’s side.
“You’re to report to the bilgeworks at Qintarrah,” the man said, handing the bounty hunter a small lacquered tube. “Give this to the yardmaster there and he’ll fill some hole with you.” He eyed Karsten narrowly. “Try to give her some value before you drown.” Then he turned on his heels and stalked off to other more important errands.
“The great dam,” Kimma said, drawing a hiss of breath through his teeth at Karsten’s side. “That’s a blow for certain. Don’t often see a goldie sent there.” For once, even the little man’s eyebrows seemed unhappy, and they hung limply forward over his face like a pair of weeping mothers.
Karsten looked down at the tube in his hand, then he glanced over toward the villa. Maybe he should go have a word.
“Nay, there’s no use in that,” the creature master said, guessing the direction of his thoughts. “Once ye’ve been given yer task, talkin’s done and it’s time to get on it.”
A sudden dull throb brought Karsten’s hand up to probe at his lip.
“Right,” Kimma said. “That’ll be the new lash taking hold of ye. Ye’ll have three days now to get up to the damworks, or start payin’ the price for dawdlin’, by the year. Best you see the kitchenwife fer yer victuals and get movin’, while there’s still light.”
Karsten thanked the little man for his help and then turned to the llama. “Not much point in you coming on this one,” he said, placing her lead in Kimma’s hand. “The master here’ll find you a good—”
But before he could finish, Babette lowered her head and plucked the end of her tether neatly out of Kimma’s hand with her teeth. Then she dropped it over Karsten’s arm.
Something heavy caught in the bounty hunter’s chest for a moment, rising into his throat. He coughed. When it was gone, he put a weary hand on the llama’s stupid, fuzzy neck.
“Still just as pigheaded as usual, are you?” She belched her reply and then nudged him toward the road with her head. Then she trotted past him and set off in that direction herself.
“Guess she’s right,” Karsten said to the little man at his elbow. “We’ve got plenty of supplies. No need to waste time in the kitchens.”
Then, with a quick salute of his staff, he set off after his damn fool companion.
***
They made camp that night in a circle of old waystones. Karsten had set a small fire to heat their soup while Babette settled herself down beside it to be closer to the light. He had just pulled the kettle from the flames and set it aside to cool when Babette lifted her head and turned to peer into the darkness. A moment later, something stepped into view.
It was the sway-backed pony.
“Hello the fire,” called a voice from the darkness.
“Hello the traveler,” Karsten replied in the usual manner, but his heart was little for it.
The pony moved to one side and the Dowager stepped past, firelight dancing on her face.
“You travel quickly for a spurned pilgrim,” she said as she lowered herself to the dirt at Babette’s side. Correction. It was not the Dowager after all. This was Meerah again. Karsten dipped his mug into the soup and handed it to her.
“And you travel quickly for an old Empress,” he replied.
They were quiet then for a time, each regarding the fire while flicking sidelong glances at the other. Eventually, Babette looked back and forth between them as though urging one or the other to say something.
“I apologize for the deception,” Meerah said. “But it was necessary.”
Karsten nodded. “Can’t say I know the first thing about courtly intrigues,” he said. “Baj this and Zah that. Scraping, bowing, feints and double bluffs. Get’s so a man’s got to keep so many lenses, mirrors and lanterns hung about himself to let him peer in a thousand directions at once, that he can’t just look at a thing straight anymore. So no harm. I’d’ve made a poor showing at Court anyway. Even if I had held a touch of the blood.”
“It was never my intention to send you there,” she said. “But make no mistake, you do have the blood. I can hear it even now.”
Karsten snorted. “Did you bring another griffon to try me on? Maybe if you watch this time you’ll believe.” He jabbed his stick into the coals of his dinner fire and watched as it stirred fresh sparks up into the air.
“Give me your hand,” Meerah said, reaching her own out toward him.
Karsten looked at her doubtfully for a moment and then shrugged. Setting his poker aside, he extended his arm and put his hand in hers. Her skin was dry and papery, but warm too. She ran her fingers over the rough calluses of his palm for a moment, then slid over to his thumb, wrapping her entire hand around it as she folded her other around his littlest finger. With a brief half-smile of apology she looked down. Karsten was just beginning to wonder what she was sorry about when white-hot pain lanced up his arm. With a cry, he jerked away, leaping to his feet. By the fire, Babette bleated in pain too, and struggled to get up to her own feet beside him.
“What did you just—?”
Meerah rose stiffly and stood in front him, catching his eye with her own.
“I told you,” she said. “The deception was necessary. Xihara came upon us at an entirely ruinous time. I had to convince him that you were absolutely worthless, or he would have found some way to take you for his own. Even my own household had to believe it, becaus
e I cannot know for certain that he does not have a spy among them.”
“Fine!” Karsten spat, as he tried to flex the tingles out of his arm. “But what did you just do to me now? I can barely feel…” Rage boiled inside him. “Corpses take me! This is my throwing hand, woman!”
Meerah clucked at him, dismissing him as a matron dismisses a boy with a scraped knee. “The feeling will pass,” she said. “Though now that you have been sparked, you may find you have less need of a ‘throwing hand.’”
“Sparked? What’s that mean? Some kind of mage attack?”
“It means, you cantankerous old goat, that you do have the blood, and that I have just ignited it. For both of you.”
Karsten looked at Babette, who was curling and twisting her upper lip as though she’d been stung. The old bounty hunter reached out to help her, thinking she must have caught a cinder from the fire, but the moment he touched her, the world around him hummed.
“What in the seven devils…?”
“Good. You can hear the Song,” Meerah said. “Do you still insist that the magefire does not flow in your veins?”
Karsten lowered his hand, breaking contact with the llama, and the sound died away.
“For now, it will only come when you touch her,” the Dowager said. “In time though, you will learn to sing even at a distance. As Hassep and I do.” From the edge of the firelight, the pony whickered softly.
“The sway?” Karsten asked, and Meerah nodded.
“Like Babette to you, Hassep is my familiar.”
Karsten raised an eyebrow. “What about the cockatrice?”
Meerah laughed. “Vagesh is an ornament,” she said. With a flicker of light, the fiery bird was suddenly there, clutching at the old woman’s shoulder with its powerful talons and preening, ignoring everyone and everything but itself.
“She is a glamor,” the Dowager said. “A convenience for when I must play at being Empress.” With a twitch of her shoulder, the bird of power vanished. “Can you imagine the scandal? The Emperor’s mother bound to a common nag?” At her side, Hassep stamped a foot, affronted by the term, and Meerah reached out to stroke her neck in silent apology.
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