“Improved?” Papa said.
“Yes.”
“With his permission?” Papa put down his spoon.
Rana shrugged. “Jo’s design was too simplistic. And structurally weak. A strong sandstorm and it might crack. I added reticulation to the stone settings. It looks better and it will be five times as strong.”
“But he’ll see the design wasn’t his.”
“Yes, but he never checks until it’s too late anyway. The mortar has already hardened.”
“Rana,” Mama said, grimacing. “He’ll whip you! You’ll be flayed in public!”
“They’ll never hurt me. The masons work faster when I’m there, because of my singing.”
Mama looked concernedly at Papa.
“And Jo will take credit for the work anyway,” Rana said. “He always does.”
Papa stared into his stew. “Rana, these comforts we enjoy, they won’t last forever. You need to prepare for the future. You can’t disobey the king’s architect like a spoiled child. You’re twenty years old now.”
“Twenty, fifty, a thousand! If I see a way to build something that’s never been built before, I have to try to do it.”
“And that’s what drives me mad.” He reached for her, but shouted and dropped his arm.
“Ari!” Mama shrieked. “Careful!”
“It’s nothing.” But Papa’s face grew red, like the cliffs at sunset, as he grimaced.
“Demons, nothing!” Mama said. “Get yourself back to bed. I’ll feed you there.”
“No!” Papa slammed his fist on the table and his face contorted in pain. “I want . . . to spend a few minutes . . . with my family!” A tear rolled down his cheek and plopped into his stew.
Once Papa could heft a hundredweight stone over his head. He had stood without fear on the highest ledge. King Jallifex had paraded Papa, his chief architect, around Azru every Feast of Mollai. Now he sat here a trembling, wincing cripple.
Rana cursed the Goddess. Papa had offered up sacrifices to Mollai every week. He had prayed to her daily. And this was how she had repaid him? Sometimes Rana wondered if the Goddess even listened to human prayers.
“Rana,” Mama said, trying to spare Papa more humiliation, “have you given thought to what I’d said?”
“Not now, Mama.”
“Then when? Davo’s a strong man. He’ll go far in the Stonelayers’ Guild. If you marry him we’ll get his family’s water rights.”
“Marry?” Papa said, suddenly oblivious to his pain. “My daughter is considering marriage?”
“No,” Rana said. “Mama’s talking ox-ass.”
“Beware your mouth!” Papa said.
Liu, who had been watching with eyes bright as stars, giggled.
“Davo’s as good as any,” Papa said. “Assuming it’s men you’re after.” He looked at Mama, and she coughed.
She eyed Papa hard. Men, women, whomever she liked was none of their concern.
“It’s just that,” he said, “we won’t be here forever. You’re not like other girls, Rana.”
She knew what he meant. But she said anyway, “What do you mean?”
“Your talents,” Mama said.
“Yes, because of your talents, Rana. Marriage will cement your future.”
Rana stared into her stew. It reflected the metal eagle hanging above the table. “I don’t care about marriage.”
Mama put her fists on the table. “What’s more important than your future?”
Liu was staring at her, eyes glistering brown gems.
“May I clear the table?” she said.
“And run to your workshop?” Mama said, shaking her head. “You can’t hide there forever, you know.”
“Rana,” Papa said, “your mother and I, we only want you to be happy.”
“I know. But what makes me happiest is building new things.”
“Blessed Goddess,” Mama said, facing the bronze bust of Mollai beside the table that Rana had smelted from ore. “Let Rana see the drought of her ways.”
“Rana,” Papa said, “you are twenty. Your childhood is now dust. You have to give up your toys.” He flushed in another bout of pain. “The sooner you learn that life is but a long series of compromises, the better off you will be.”
“When it comes to my creations, Papa, I don’t compromise.”
“One day, Rana, you’ll have to.”
And with that, the meal ended. Rana cleared the table and helped Mama scrub the dishes with sand. She collected the solid waste from the chamber pots, where it would desiccate outside in tomorrow’s sun. Later, they’d use it as fuel. She helped Mama set Liu down, then powder their beds against nightbiters. Mama gave Papa a large dose of Anya’s potion, and he was soon asleep.
There was still clothing to wash, but Mama said, “Go, flower. I know where your heart is. Not here, that’s certain.”
Rana frowned. She wanted to tell Mama, No, I love you! I want to be here with you! But that wasn’t true. Her workshop tugged at her, and there was no escaping it. Mama didn’t look up from the steaming cistern as Rana stepped outside.
That strange song came to her again, and she hummed as she crossed the courtyard. The door to her workshop was unlocked. Had she forgotten to lock it? She swung it open. Inside the dark space was lit with a sliver of moonlight spilling in from the alcove window. She dipped a candlewick into a vial of alcohol and struck a flint. The workshop blossomed around the golden halo of light. She smiled at the sight of her many creations.
“Hello, Lorbria!” she said to the small bird hanging in a cage beside the window. She gave Lorbria a morsel of ox meat she’d snuck from the table, and the sun-yellow bird with a massive beak swallowed it in one bite. She had been meaning to find out what type of bird Lorbria was, but hadn’t gotten around to it.
Something shuffled behind her. Startled, she turned.
A painting crashed over, and a strange man rose to his feet. She shrieked. A large black dog trotted out from behind her stack of paintings and she shrieked again.
The man gestured with his arms as he spoke rapidly in a strange, nasal tongue. His skin was pink, like those of the north, but the shape of his face was rounder than those men. In fact, it wasn’t like any face she’d seen before. She’d also never seen the likes of his black coat or the purple flower dangling from his chest. Blood stained his shirt from breast to waist. His shirt was ripped as if he had been stabbed.
She yanked out a silver dagger from a drawer, its jeweled hilt glinting in the candlelight. “What the hell are you doing in my studio?” She waved the knife at him.
The man raised his palms to her. He looked too well fed to be a marauder. Those men lived scrap to scrap. And he had all his teeth and hair, so he wasn’t one of the Cursed Men, though she couldn’t be sure because she’d never seen one herself.
“Stabbed while you tried to rob someone, is my guess. Well, I’ll stab you again if I have to! There’s nothing here for you. Get the hell out!”
She waved the knife at him, hoping he’d move away from the door so she could make a run for it. The man spoke quickly, nervously. He sounded as if there were sand in his nose. The dog walked before the man, then exhaled a cloud of glowing mist, the same ghostly green of the DanBaer mountain after a lightning strike.
When the mist abated, there on the sandy floor, as if written by a steady, expert hand, were the words, Marul Menacha is alive. She is imprisoned. I know how to find her.
Not a dog, a demon! Here, in her workshop! And it knew of Marul Menacha. She trembled as her feelings for the old woman came flooding back.
Marul Menacha had once frequented their family meals. She had laughed and regaled Rana’s family with tales of bejeweled kingdoms and palaces in mountain clouds. She had spoken of violent demons she had dined with, of sojourns in strange dimensions far beyond this planet. And there was a time when Rana had loved Marul more than her own mother. But Marul had stopped visiting, and though her parents would not voice it, Rana had guessed the truth.
One demon encounter was enough, but the hundreds that Marul had met? It was only a matter of time before one killed her.
“Marul is dead,” Rana said, hands shaking. “Go away!”
The dog exhaled again, and the green mist formed new words in the sand. No, she is alive, but only just. There isn’t much time.
Not possible, Rana thought, shaking her head. She waved the knife again. “What game are you playing at?”
The dog exhaled, and the man watched too, his mouth hanging open like a fool. This is no game. It is most serious. I am a friend.
“The kind that breaks into houses?”
The pink man had tan hair like a knotted goat, and his mud-brown eyes were sad and old, as if he’d lost someone he loved a long time ago. He watched her with a strange kind of knowing. But his face was childlike, as innocent as Liu’s. Was he a demon too?
The dog blew the words, Help us free Marul, before it’s too late.
“Help you?” she said. “Is this Bedubroadstreet? Am I your next rube?” They stood between her and the door. It would be difficult to stab them both before exiting, but she had to try. She readied herself, when the dog blew, Rana, we came for you.
She shuddered. A demon that knew her name? Did Marul tell this demon about her? It had been five years since she had seen Marul, five long years since the woman had smiled and held Rana’s hand. Marul had always asked Rana to sing her new songs, to show Marul her paintings, her sculptures, her art. Her parents had never quite grown comfortable with Rana’s talents, but Marul had praised them from the start.
“You have a fire burning inside you, child,” Marul had said, “and no soul on Gehinnom will ever put it out. Even the Goddess may be impotent against such a force. I prophesy a grand future for you, my Little Plum, one of infinite possibilities.”
Marul! Rana gasped at the memory. She missed her so much she felt as if she were suffocating. “So where is Marul then?”
Up the DanBaer, the demon wrote. Hidden beside the Black Chasm.
A dangerous and cursed place. “And how do you know this?”
I escaped from there. Only you can help free her.
“Why me?”
You and she are needed for a great task.
“And what task is that?”
The task of saving the world, and a million others besides.
She shuddered again. She had met a demon only once, when Marul had brought one to dinner. Mama had gotten into a furious argument with Marul and chased both of them away.
“What’s your name?”
I am Adar.
“And who’s this man?”
Adar blew into the sand, His name is Daniel, and he will help us. Without your help, everyone you love will die.
She shivered, but remembered what was written in the Books of Tobai, A demon deceives as a man doth breathe.
“I don’t believe anything you say,” she said. “Now go before I call the king’s sentinels.”
Adar gagged, and with a disgusting belch, vomited up a small scroll, tightly bound with a lock of hair. He pushed the charred and blackened scroll toward her with his snout.
“I’m not touching that.”
Adar wrote, It’s a letter from Marul.
Rana shook her head. This was foolish, but she couldn’t resist. With her knife pointed at them, she crouched down, rubbed sand to dry the dripping scroll, and undid the knot of hair. It smelled like bile and soot as she unfurled the parchment.
She read, “My Little Plum, I would give my right arm to hear you sing your sweet, sweet songs one more time. This cave drives me madder by the day. I’m not sure how much longer I can endure these walls. Every day I . . .”
The middle section had been burnt away. Only the last few sentences remained.
“. . . why I can never send these letters to you. I write then burn them, so that such suffering may never be visited upon you. Oh, my Little Plum, I hope your life is full of joy without me.”
Rana stood. From a drawer she fetched a letter Marul had written her years ago, which she had saved and reread when she missed her friend. She compared the handwriting. The letters matched, even down to the little flourishes within the dotted letter yib.
Do you believe me now? Adar blew.
“A clever trick,” she said.
Marul will die without our help.
Rana felt like smashing something. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
Think on it.
“There’s nothing to think about.”
We’ll rest here and leave before dawn.
“You’re kidding? This isn’t a boarding house for demons!”
We’ll rest. You consider.
Rana took a deep breath. “Damn you! Damn you both to hell! I wanted to paint tonight!”
Adar clamped onto the man’s hand and tugged him away from the door, leaving room for her to leave, if she wanted to.
“If you know Marul so well,” she said, “what color are her eyes?”
Green, Adar blew into the sand, as cactus buds.
Rana stepped past them, out into the cool night, knife pointed toward them. Yes, she thought, as green as Ketef, the summer star, which Marul said was five times bigger than Gehinnom, and filled with tall, strange demons who lived in cities of made of glass.
With a tremulous voice she said, “I’m fetching my father. If you’re still here when I return, he’ll kill you both.”
Adar pulled the door closed, leaving her alone in the courtyard with her racing heart. She stared up at the stars. “Goddess Mollai, what do I do?”
Her mother’s singing voice drifted from the open window, and Rana longed for her embrace. She entered the house. Mama hummed an old and lovely melody as she removed laundry from the hot cistern and hung it on a cord draped across the room. This, Rana realized, was the song she had been whistling on her way home, the one that had been in her dreams. Mama was an artist too, Rana sensed, but instead of embracing her creativity as Rana had, she had chosen to suppress her urges.
“Back already?” Mama said. She did not seem happy to see her.
Mama was strong, but couldn’t wrestle a demon. And Papa was drugged and snoring. She wasn’t sure if she should tell them anyway. She knew how much they both despised Marul.
“What’s wrong, flower?” Mama said. “You look troubled.”
“Mama,” Rana said, “do you think Marul cold still be alive?”
Mama frowned. “I thought you’d given up that nonsense.”
“Do you think she could be trapped somewhere?”
Mama scooped out a tunic from the cistern with a wooden fork. “Marul was an interesting person, I’ll give her that. But she was a danger to this house. You’re probably too young to remember, but she once tried to bring a demon to eat dinner with us. A demon, in this house! I gave that woman a having to that day, let me tell you.”
Rana remembered it well. “Are all demons evil?”
Mama stared at her. “Every one is a trickster and a thief.”
“Have you ever met one?”
She considered. “Other than the demon Marul tried to bring here? No. But in the Books of Tobai there are hundreds of stories of demons.”
“Do you think a demon could ever help a human?”
“Goddess, where do you get these thoughts?”
“Mama, please, just answer me.”
Mama frowned. “I suppose if this human were beneficial to the demon, then, yes, the demon might want to help. But demons are always selfish, Rana. Hang on—” Mama’s eyes went wide. “I see what’s going on here.”
Rana held her breath. Mama would never forgive Rana for not telling her there were demons in the courtyard.
“You’ve started a new project, haven’t you?” Mama said.
Rana exhaled. “Yes. You guessed it, Mama.”
Mama nodded. “You always get that troubled look when you start a new project.”
Rana hated herself for lying. She glanced out the window, afraid she might see the dem
ons walking across the courtyard. But there were only cacti and stars. What if the demon’s words were true? What if she chose not to help them, and everyone she loved died because of it? She shook away the disturbing vision. It was a demon’s trick.
“Mama, do demons always lie?”
Mama sat down on a stool and put finger to lip, fully committing herself to the exercise. “In the Third Book of Tobai, the goddess Sunset falls in love with the demon Croon. And look how it worked out for them.”
Rana hadn’t thought about the story since she was a girl, when mother had pointed out the dancing lights of each star shining through her bedroom window.
“A demon doesn’t know balance like humans do,” Mama said. “It is born with too much judgment, too much wrath. Croon’s corrupted love destroyed Sunset’s light, and her many fragments formed the evening stars.”
“Marul said the stars are just like the sun, only very far away. Around some of them spin worlds like Gehinnom, where creatures live.”
“That woman had a great imagination. I see why you two got along so well. So, what are you making?”
“A copper statue.” The shame of lying burned her stomach. “Of Mollai.”
Mama smiled. “Maybe the king will like this one enough to display it in his palace. Who knows, he might parade you around the city the next Feast of Mollai.”
Rana thought of Davo and their conversation at the top of the Ukne. She imagined hauling herself up the hundred flights to set yet another layer of stone for fat Jo. She sighed. How could she return to work knowing that Marul might be alive, trapped in some cave, needing her help? The mystery would tear her apart. She had to find out if it were true.
“Mama, I need to go away for a few days.”
Her smile faded. “To where?”
“To the Smelter’s House,” she said. “Across the city.” She had mastered the art of smelting when she was twelve, but Mama didn’t know this. “To apprentice there. For two days. Maybe three. I’ll stay with the Yuris.” And she added, “There are eligible men there too.”
Mama stood to hang a pair of dripping trousers on the clothesline. “And what about your job at the Ukne?”
“I told you. We’re ahead of schedule.”
King of Shards Page 4