Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  The rumors are true. My knees go weak at the verification.

  There must have been an earlier communication from Alawea to my tetrarch in Zasna saying that Alawea's spies discovered the insurgent army. The message I hold is my tetrarch's answer. She advocates that both cities should unite their forces and strike at dawn on the day after the coming full moon. The location to join forces and the location of the rebels are both mentioned.

  Finagor's skin has blanched to the color of yellowed bone. "What have you done?" he asks.

  The answer is so large I can no more distill it into words than I could distill the salt from the wide sea. I have taken action on my own behalf. I have confirmed my greatest hope. And I have ensured my own slow death by opening the tetrarch's private message.

  The paper drifts from my fingers to the dusty floor and still I make no answer. Finagor stares at the message lying in the dirt as he might at a deadly porah snake. At last he bends to lift it from the ground. His breath hisses between his teeth as he reads.

  "They do exist."

  In an unsteady voice his wife asks, "Who?"

  He hands her the note. The child watches her read it.

  "I planned to take my family east," Finagor says, a slow wonder in his voice, "as soon as I could secure food, weapons and mounts. We would have gone on no more than the hope, but you have given us the certainty. And more than that, the location."

  And as suddenly as that, the rumors make sense.

  Those cast out from the upper terraces would spurn living as I have lived, given any chance of an alternative. If the families defecting are comprised of men and women with Finagor's education and military training, the new army would welcome them with open arms. Bigotry toward bi-genders would of necessity be suppressed or eradicated as the numbers grew.

  My excitement falls to ash, however, as the implications of the message crash home. "Why celebrate knowing their location when they're about to be destroyed?"

  "I'd rather die a soldier than be ambushed by thugs in an alley." Finagor looks to his wife and she nods in agreement. "Besides, if this army is as large as rumor has it, they may have a chance. I doubt the Holy Autarch or the western cities have word of them yet."

  What he says makes sense. Four of the five cities are widely spread out, standing at the corners of the land to protect the capital with the Holy Autarch in the center. Our eastern provinces would be held responsible for an army forming at our border and would likely keep quiet, hoping to deal with it before the autarch learned of its existence.

  And what will you choose, Jerusha?" his wife asks me, finally speaking. "The watch will learn of the murder here and investigate before long. You had best go soon, whether it's to the Barrier Wall or to the palace."

  A short huff, nearly a laugh, escapes my chest. "I can do neither. My horse has been seen. If soldiers come and learn I haven't gone to the palace, I'll be hunted down. My mount is tired from the journey. I'd be captured long before I made the wall." I nod to the opened and dusty note in her hand. "My other choice is to deliver that to the tetrarch."

  "You're not trusted with your tetrarch's seal, I suppose?" Finagor asks.

  I indicate I am not.

  "Bring me a light then," he says.

  His tone, still that of one from the highest terrace, brooks no argument. I retrieve flint and striker and a small twig from the cookfire pit and hand them to him, wondering what he intends.

  He blows what dust he can from the letter and strikes a spark to the twig. With the small flame he heats the seal and carefully begins peeling away bits of torn paper from the edges. I realize that he means to re-seal the message and hope kindles in me, catching like the dry twig.

  "Wait!" his wife says, and Finagor extinguishes the tiny flame at once.

  "Why deliver this message when Jerusha could deliver another in its place?" she asks.

  He looks at her, then at me.

  "Would you be willing to deliver a false message, Jerusha?" he asks.

  It's hard to imagine the suffering I would endure for such treachery, were it discovered. I look again to Dallu's cold body. The conditioned obedience that broke inside me moments before remains broken.

  "I would." My resolve hardens as I say the words.

  "You carry stationery?" Finagor asks.

  "Yes." A messenger keeps pen and ink as well as blank notes for aristocracy and a supply of stationery made especially for the tetrarch: the thick outer paper, a layer of the tetrarch's color inside, and a fine layer for the message glued to that.

  Finagor nods.

  "What if the message were to urge forestalling any action?" I suggest. "I'll likely be sent away with an answer, which would give me time to ride instead to the insurgents and warn them."

  "The message could say that your tetrarch in Zasna had also discovered this army's location as well as their leader," Finagor muses, "and has infiltrated them besides. Instead of advising a coordinated attack, we could make the message say that your tetrarch has an assassin in place and wants no action taken yet."

  His wife smiles and so do I.

  I remove a fresh piece of stationery backed with the tetrarch of Zasna's deep maroon and hand it to him, then retrieve pen and ink.

  Pulling the chair to the small table and sitting, Finagor rubs his sleeve across the table's surface. He studies the original message, wipes his hands on his pants, and secures the blank message with thumb and middle finger.

  "My tutor taught me my letters by having me trace the writing of scholars and then imitate it freehand. I believe I have not lost the talent."

  The old gods I still pray to must have given me this man when they took Dallu from me, for even had I envisioned this course, I could never have managed what he creates.

  "Sand," he says, when his artifice is complete.

  I reach into the saddlebags and hand him a small pouch tied with a thin ribbon. He opens it and sprinkles a light dusting to dry the ink, then taps the paper edgewise on the table. Blowing off the excess, he holds it for the rest of us to examine. I myself would not know it for a forgery had I not witnessed the act.

  He hands the message to me to fold with the ritualistic precision I have practiced since childhood. Relighting the twig, he sets to work on the original message again, this time to remove the seal entirely. Carefully prying it up with a fingernail, he shifts it to the new stationery with the delicacy of balancing a finn's egg on the tip of his finger.

  "If I press it hard I'll distort the seal. Have a care, messenger, it won't hold well."

  Taking it from him I place the ersatz message gently inside the velvet pouch.

  "Give me a blank note," he says when I am done. "I need to write a message to a friend of mine in the palace proper."

  My look must convey my thought, that he has no friends there. Not anymore.

  "His son and mine are of an age," Finagor explains. "They played together. Martine began binding his son's chest two moons ago."

  It doubles my risk to deliver a second note, but our fates are twined now like the roots of a mayak tree; what endangers me endangers him as well. I do as he asks.

  He scratches a note in his own hand, the letters narrower and finer than the last. I catch enough to see that he is requesting horses and supplies. He folds the note in half, writes "Martine of House Saber" on the front, and uses a tiny remnant of wax on the twig to glue the two sides together.

  Finagor hands it to me. "If this reaches him, perhaps both he and I will see you east of the wall. And now you must go. You have delayed too long already."

  He is right, though the events since my arrival have taken less than a tick of the sun, Dallu's death adds yet another layer of danger. I pack the additional message and sling my saddlebags over one shoulder.

  "If you're still here when I return to take Dallu's body to the cremation pit," I say, "then you will know all went well."

  "You shouldn't come back," his wife says over Finagor's shoulder.

  "She's right," he s
ays. "You risk enough already. Let me see to that burden for you."

  I feel guilt but no sorrow that it will be Finagor throwing the body into the sulfurous refuse pit instead of me, but I must at least make my goodbye. I cross to the pallet and kneel to kiss Dallu's cool forehead one last time.

  Finagor follows me to the door when I am done.

  "Fortune to you," I say to him, as I leave my childhood home for the last time.

  He surprises me by reaching out. We grip forearms in the way of equals.

  ***

  I walk out into a street that is as still and quiet as the prairie at midnight. Gathering the reins of my horse, I mount and ride for the uppermost terrace.

  The stillness has rippled out perhaps four streets in all directions. Beyond that perimeter of fear, Sabanach hums with its normal activity as if nothing of consequence has occurred today. Children play in the muck; a few pile round rocks until they fall, others run and scream as one pushes an inflated pig's bladder with a stick. Laundry flutters in the light breeze, absorbing the stench of the quarter into the drying cloth.

  I ascend the hill and pass unchallenged through the middle terrace gate. The guards laugh and joke among themselves, sparing me only a glance. Bi-genders, being impossible to counterfeit, are not worth their concern; a fact, I'm sure has kept us as messengers generations after the death of the 14th Autarch.

  The sky of the middle terrace is the pale, pearly pink of the interior of an oyster shell, though it can only be seen from the vantage of this terrace. By order of the tetrarch, a fine dust is sprayed upward daily from multiple points. It ascends no more than three times the height of the tallest building, and yet it appears to color the sky by catching the light in some way I don't understand.

  The road winds upward through the shops and villas. The brown clothes of a messenger protect me here, unlike Sabanach, where impotent anger at the world outweighs sense or caution. At last, I arrive before the third and final gate. Waved through again, I pass under the stone arch and emerge to a dome of pale lavender sky, the color most favored by this tetrarch.

  The color is everywhere, in the piled hair of the gentry, in the stain of windows in the elaborate villas, and worked into the clothing of both men and women.

  The palace of the tetrarch crowns the city with only the backdrop of the mountain beyond. The whole is gilded in a glittering gold material, the manufacture of which is long forgotten. Seven spires rise in the pattern of the seven stars of Agrenost and kiss the pale purple sky with needle-thin tips as delicate as crystal and as strong as iron.

  My resolve doesn't waver but anxiety toys with my breath nonetheless, catching at it as I enter the courtyard. I dismount and hand the reins of my horse to a boy who spares me no look. The horse belongs to the tetrarch, but I am less than nothing.

  The palace halls are well known to me and I wend the maze of twists and turns to the heart of the labyrinthine building. The tetrarch is not in the throne room, but a soldier at the door knows his whereabouts and directs me to the Room of Dreams. One of the soldiers there confirms that the tetrarch is within and opens the door.

  The walls and ceiling of the room are egg-shaped and the color is that of rich cream. Golden gilt bands the center of the room. The ceiling is painted the pale blue of a third season sky on the plains, with clouds rendered so realistically they seem to drift if one watches them too long. I enter, and my performance begins.

  The tetrarch sits on the floor, as children of his age are wont to do, but I see why the soldier saw no need to escort me inside. Next to the tetrarch a giant prairie cat lies at his ease, propped on strong elbows. Eyes that were half closed in repose open, piercing me with orange and gold.

  I have heard it rumored that the cats are prescient, if so, then perhaps I am doomed no matter how well I play my part. I do my best to mask my face with calmness, though the cat and the handler standing nearby—training stick in hand—make it more difficult still.

  An attendant brushes the tetrarch's brown hair. It has never felt the touch of shears in the eleven years of his life, and spills across the floor behind him. I sink to one knee by the door and bow my head as I have so many times before. Were this the Holy Autarch, I would prostrate myself. I reach into the pouch and withdraw the folded paper as carefully as possible. "A message, Exalted One," I say, proffering my lie.

  Too late I see that the much abused wax of Zasna's tetrarch is loosened and raised all across the lowest side. It remains sealed by the barest margin. Visions of the chambers of torment below the palace dance before my eyes, all the more vivid for never having seen them.

  He nods and I approach, my arm still extended. I tense my muscles to keep from shaking as I hold the message and force myself not to stare at the defect in the seal. Both cats and children are sensitive to signs of uneasiness that adults might miss.

  I hold my breath as the boy-ruler takes the message from my hand.

  He will not fail to notice the defect when his attention reaches the seal and my dreams of freedom evaporate like morning mist. I spend a last wish hoping that Finagor will escape suspicion for his part in this duplicity.

  In the heartbeat between the tetrarch slipping a finger beneath the fold and the imminent examination of the seal to break it open, the cat stretches forward to sniff the bottom of the paper. My heart lurches as I think he points out the falseness to his master.

  Sweat trickles beneath my arms as the great ruff about the cat's neck caresses the message, obscuring nearly half the folded paper. He nuzzles at it almost as if reading it with his near-sighted eyes. One hind leg extends as he leans forward, the joint reversed from other four-legged creatures. It's said the cats can stand on their hind legs in the way of people, though I've never witnessed this.

  The tetrarch glares at the cat and strikes the animal's head with one thin elbow as he breaks the seal. The trainer is there in an instant. He jabs the cat hard in the hindquarters with the metal point of the stick. The cat jerks but suppresses a growl.

  The message is open and no one has seen the defect. Relief leaves me lightheaded.

  The tetrarch reads the message quickly and nods to a servant at the far end of the room. In the way that the most familiar and well-trained servants have, the man discerns his master's intent and brings one of the small burning braziers, holding it carefully by its long, narrow stem. To my profound relief, the tetrarch tosses the message in and watches the flames devour it.

  "I wish to reply," he says to me, and holds out one long-fingered and uncalloused hand.

  The servant runs to a gilded box on a desk and returns with stationary and pen. The tetrarch disdains the offered board from my satchel and writes instead against the floor. I remain on bended knee until he has finished, then fold the message and wait while he seals it, marking the wax with the imprint of his ring.

  Bowing my head once again I stand and back to the door, the new message in hand.

  The Holy Autarch has noticed me on occasion, and the bright blue gems of his eyes disturb me. The tetrarch of my adopted city often acknowledges me. But this tetrarch has never once looked into my eyes. His cat does, though. He lifts that massive head, the chain about his neck clinking softly, and stares into my soul in a way that says he knows my secrets. I stumble but catch my balance, and am relieved to hear the snick of the door as the guard pulls it closed behind me.

  Two hallways from the Room of Dreams my heart still labors. I wish nothing more than to run from the palace and ride from the city out into the empty lands and then to the east. But one last promise I must fulfill before I leave.

  ***

  A tetrarch's messenger may attract unwanted attention delivering a note to Finagor's friend and so I spiral toward the outer halls, keeping watch for a local messenger. At last I pass one I know. My heart has slowed to normal and my voice, when I speak, is steady and matter-of-fact.

  "I was given a message for Martine of House Saber by someone too rushed to find a palace messenger."

  W
e are the only two in the hall and I receive a small roll of the eyes that some find us so interchangeable. The messenger takes the note and reverses direction, unaware of the seditious contents folded within that paper.

  And just like that, it's done. My last duties as a messenger completed. Zasna's tetrarch will wait at least a fortnight for a reply; Alawea's tetrarch even longer. I can be with the insurgents long before that.

  The final set of doors loom ahead, leading outside and to freedom. My eyes are so fixed on that egress that I don't hear or see the great cat step from the shadows of the cross hall until he is an arm span or two from me. His chain is still looped around his thick neck, but there is no handler at the other end.

  I have never seen one of the great cats in any of the palaces absent a handler. His approach is unnerving, the more so for the odd motion of his forward-jointed hind legs. I wonder if I have come so close to freedom only to die within sight of it.

  His yellow and gold eyes fix me, as if he reads me like my masters have read the written words I have carried. His mouth is open slightly as he pants, and fangs longer than my fingers gleam wetly.

  I suppose it doesn't matter if I die now. I would have liked to have tasted freedom even for a short while, but the only messages that have ever meant anything to me have been delivered today. Even if the beast perceives what has occurred, unless he possesses some way to communicate it, then it cannot be undone. I resolve to die content.

  He comes close enough that his great ruff tickles my hand. Lifting himself with a casual show of back and abdominal strength, he stands almost as straight as I and taller by a head. I try to step back but one heavy paw slaps my shoulder and pulls me forward until my face is close to his. His breath is not rank, as I would have imagined, but sweet and earthy. His whiskers twitch as his mouth stretches and relaxes, and he makes soft grunts deep in his chest. Yellow-gold eyes fix my own, piercing me, willing me to understand.