by Mike Allen
An approaching commotion reached her ears. Disregarding the rain, Behra crawled half out of the hut to see.
Soldiers flooded onto the bank, bursting from several streets at once. Their shouts identified them as Rhuinishmen. They milled about, musket barrels and halberd blades catching the light of the lamps many of them held, while their dogs cast this way and that along the canal wall.
One raised his voice above the rest. “You there! Bargeman! Did you see a fugitive come this way?”
There was quiet for several heartbeats. The soldier crabbed sideways as the barge continued to chug along. Geneic stared mutely back at him. Then Chiufi called back from the wheelhouse, “Beg pardon, sir, but my brother don’t speak.”
“Then speak for him, boy!” said the soldier. “Or fetch up your captain if you have not the wit to answer for yourself! And bring your vessel in to the bank.”
Behra eased back into the shadows of her hut. She couldn’t help a guilty start as she bumped against the doll’s hard little limbs. Chiufi slowed the barge but made no move to steer it to the bank. Geneic’s sloping brow beetled as Chiufi called for him to take the wheel. Chiufi hurried for the hatch at the rear of the barge and disappeared below. Geneic’s silhouette all but filled the wheelhouse, his eyes glowing sullenly.
All the soldiers were keeping pace with the barge now. A squad hurried ahead. There was a bridge at the end of the town, Behra remembered.
An angry bellow announced their father’s emergence. Aghor stamped up onto the deck, followed by Sorgui. Chiufi slunk up the ladder behind them and along beside the barge’s rail to join Behra in her hut. He squeezed her fingers, his gaunt features tight with worry. Behra felt her face heat, acutely conscious of the fugitive hidden in her blankets.
Aghor planted his feet wide to face the soldiers, ignoring the rain, his sleeveless vest exposing the black bramble tattoos coiled around his arms, fists on hips to pull back the vest and reveal the belt around his thick waist, made from the mummified foetuses and umbilicals of Behra’s sisters.
She saw many of the soldiers draw back, making signs in front of their hearts to ward off black magic. Behra’s lip curled. The soldier who had called out to Chiufi raised his voice again, but there was a tremor in it now. “Bargeman, bring your vessel to the bank. We are hunting a fugitive and have reason to believe it may be on your barge.”
Her father lifted his chin. “In whose name do you order this?”
“In the name of Lord Tibuir,” said the soldier, some of his confidence returning with the invocation of his master’s name.
Aghor grunted and spat into the canal. The soldier’s posture was rigid, full of offence and fear. “And what manner of fugitive is it,” said Aghor, “that you refer to as ‘it’?”
“A golem,” said the soldier, “in the form of a child’s doll.”
Aghor guffawed. “A doll, is it?” He started to turn his back. “I have no truck with Ornomagnen trickery. Go back to your kennels, dogs. Tell Tibuir’s Hound that if she wishes for Aghor’s vessel to be searched, then she should come and see to it herself.”
Behra wondered if the soldier would argue, or perhaps even order his fellows to shoot, but her father’s name had power among Rhuinishmen. Hearing it deflated the last of his bluster.
A shadow passed across the barge. The bridge. Behra looked upwards as they cleared it. A row of pale faces peered back from under the brows of their helmets.
“I wonder what that was all about,” said Chiufi.
“It’s here,” Behra said.
“What?”
She felt Palinday shift behind her. “It’s here. The doll, under the … ”
She froze. Their father was striding towards them. Behra didn’t look up as he squatted in front of her, the shrivelled corpses of her aborted sisters dangling between his thighs. Chiufi gripped her fingers hard. She squeezed back, afraid for him, too, and wishing her hate could give him strength.
If their father found the doll, it would be Chiufi who would be punished for her misdemeanour, not Behra. She tried not to look at her brother’s fingers, clenched in her own, at the small, misshapen nails that had grown back after Aghor had pulled them.
Her heart beat painfully hard. I’m sorry, Chiufi.
“Hand,” Aghor said.
It took all Behra’s will not to slump with relief. Her arm trembled with it as she held it out. From the corner of her eye, she saw her father drop his scrying bowl onto the deck. His rough fingers caught her hand, bending it back. She gritted her teeth as the point of his knife dug into her wrist, opening a vein. He squeezed, dripping her blood into the bowl. A sharp porcelain elbow or knee dug into the side of her leg like an accusation. She tried to keep her breathing steady. Surely her father must sense the doll’s presence.
Sorgui crouched by the boat’s rail, eyes closed, his brutish face lifted to the rain. He must have felt Behra’s scrutiny, because he twisted his neck to look back, his red eyes locking with hers.
After what seemed an eternity, her father released her.
“Boy,” he said to Chiufi, “get back to the wheel.”
With a grunt of exertion, he rose and walked away, not waiting to see if Chiufi complied. Behra sucked her bleeding wrist. Chiufi released her and pulled out the grimy rag he kept in his pocket to quickly tear off a strip. Behra watched her father squat in front of the coal furnace and open the hatch. He reached in, bare-handed, to take out a burning coal which he dropped into the scrying dish.
Behra felt heat spread up her arm and through her chest.
“It is here,” said Chiufi, in surprise.
Palinday had sat up.
“You have to get off this boat,” Chiufi hissed, catching Behra’s wrist to bind her cut, his movements hurried. “If father finds out about you, we’ll get hell for it.”
Behra only half-heard him. Her head was full of her father’s murmured incantation. The words blazed across her mind. “Sarhgu torosch abh. Sarghu feic abh … ” she mouthed. She didn’t know what the words meant, but she knew what they did—a scrying spell.
Palinday watched her. “He uses your blood to power his magic.”
“She’s the ninth daughter,” said Chiufi. He finished tying his knot and released her.
“Ah,” said Palinday. “That is a foul thing.”
“Foul or not, it’ll go even worse if you’re found,” Chiufi snapped. His fear grew like a cloud in Behra’s altered perception.
“He’s looking for me now,” said Palinday.
“Then go!” Chiufi sounded almost in tears.
Behra could feel her father’s probing thoughts pressing up against her own. She pushed back, Chiufi’s fear making her react without thinking. Aghor’s attention slid easily aside. He didn’t react, unaware of what she had done. Her pulse thumped, surprise and relief combined.
“I must get to Ardonailles,” Palinday announced. He stood up, set his hat onto his head, and stepped out into the rain.
Chiufi let out a whine of terror.
By the furnace, Aghor looked up. The spell blinked out and Behra snapped abruptly back to her proper senses. Sorgui rose, looking to their father for instruction.
“Aghor the Bargeman,” Palinday said, in Ornomagnen. “I am here.”
“So you are,” replied Behra’s father, after a moment, in the same language. “And what have you done, little golem, to pull Lord Tibuir’s beard?”
“I have information for Lord Emieldraeu,” said Palinday. “The reward for aiding me would be substantial.”
“The King’s Spymaster,” said Aghor. Then, sharply: “You would have me betray a fellow Rhuinishman to our Ornomagnen oppressors?”
“I think you have little fondness for Lord Tibuir,” said Palinday, giving Sorgui a glance as he strolled past him. “And the slogans of the oppressed do not sit well on your tongue, magician.”
Behra’s father chuckled. The sound made her shiver. He stood, towering over the little doll.
Palinday stood his grou
nd. “I am well warded against harm.”
Aghor gave a snort. “I have cargo for Verdecastre. We can take you on to Nouvebourg from there.”
“Ardonailles,” said Palinday. “I need to get to Ardonailles.”
Aghor’s eyebrows rose. “Not to the King’s city?”
“My journey needs to be direct,” said Palinday. “You will be amply compensated for any loss on your cargo.”
Behra’s father regarded the doll for a moment, then harrumphed. “Very well, little golem. It pleases me to irk Tibuir. Too often business interferes with such pleasures. I will have that reward and compensation.”
“And you will not punish the girl for hiding me,” said Palinday.
Behra recognised the danger in her father’s sudden stillness. Sorgui dropped halfway into a fighting crouch, broad hands flexing. It was several heartbeats before Aghor spoke, and when he did, there was an edge to his tone that belied his words, “Indeed. It would seem that she has brought me fortune.”
His gaze fell on Chiufi. “Boy! Get back to the wheel!”
* * *
The skies had cleared at last. Behra sat out on the deck with Chiufi, enjoying the sun while they shared a pot of salted gruel. Palinday remained in the hut, sheltered from prying eyes.
Geneic and Sorgui squatted together by the wheelhouse, gazing incuriously at the traffic passing on the water and the canal-side road. Aghor was at the wheel.
Behra looked up at the pale walls of the fortress city as they slipped by. The flat tops of the walls bristled with cannon. Banners fluttered in the breeze, bright against the sooty background of smoke from the city’s manufactories. She recognised the red and gold of Ornomagne hung above the green and white of Rhuin.
Palinday spoke up, “Those … ” He paused. “Your father’s belt, those are your sisters?”
Behra hunched her shoulders against the question. Chiufi answered, gruffly, “They are.”
There was another silence from the doll. Behra concentrated on the castle flags.
“And your brothers?”
“Father made them birth early,” said Chiufi, “same as our sisters, and tossed them over the side. At least one, after me. Probably others, before. All but them two.”
Behra’s eyes were drawn to Geneic and Sorgui, crouched side by side like a pair of gargoyles. Their half-human, half-demiman faces always looked sad to her when their expressions were relaxed.
“And them?” asked Palinday.
“Father bought himself a Saltukkuri bitch, and got them on her,” said Chiufi. Noticing that Behra had stopped eating, he pulled the gruel pot onto his lap to scrape out the last of it.
“How many women?”
“Our mother, theirs. Others, maybe.”
Behra’s hands hurt. Her fists were clenched, nails digging into her palms.
“Bloody Sword and Chalice,” the doll muttered.
The canal broadened, docks lining the bank, bustling with barges and carts. Behra gazed up at the black iron girders of the steam powered dock cranes, like a row of giants’ gallows. Immense iron gates stood open, the way between them a gaping black mouth in the wall with portcullis teeth, swallowing and regurgitating endless streams of carts and coaches, riders and walkers. A train of coal wagons rattled along narrow tracks into the darkness, towed behind a huffing steam engine.
“Boy!”
Chiufi flinched at Aghor’s shout. Behra touched his arm before he went. “Be strong.”
“To the bow, boy!”
Soon now, Behra thought, doubting even as she told herself. Could she really be strong enough?
Her chain tugged against her ankle. She looked to see Palinday running his tiny, perfect fingers over the links, porcelain clicking on metal. His eyes met hers. “This chain is not thick,” he said. “It would be easily broken.”
Behra cast a glance over her shoulder at her father in the wheelhouse. He was looking past them at the waterway ahead. She glared at Palinday. “Be silent!”
He stared back with his gemstone eyes. “He always knows where you are.”
“The thread that joins us gets thinner as we get further apart,” Behra said. “I think it would break, if I got far enough away.”
“You’ve tried,” said Palinday.
Behra looked away, feeling hot moisture in her eyes.
“It was Chiufi your father beat when he caught you,” he guessed.
She shook her head. Not a beating. Her hands twitched, about to lift and cover her ears, filled again with her brother’s awful, wrenching cries as his fingernails were pulled out.
She covered her grief and guilt with a snarl. “One day… ”
Palinday’s eyes glittered. “My master, Lord Emieldraeu, would give you sanctuary.”
For a moment, Behra could hardly breathe.
The thud of the steam engine was slowing. She looked around.
Ahead, the land dropped away abruptly on either side of the canal. In the far distance beyond the edge, she could see low hills and chequered farmland. A gantry spanned the canal. Chimneys poured out thick smoke from the roof of a brick engine house on the bank. The canal ended in a wall inset with a row of gated, iron-sided bays. The gates of one bay opened, releasing a brief rush of water and a laden barge.
Aghor’s barge slid smoothly into an open bay, Chiufi fending it off the walls with his barge pole. High on the gantry, gears and chains clanked. The gates were lowered, one behind the other. Lock workers guided the inner gate into grooves in the walls of the bay, turning it into a tub that held the barge and the water on which it floated.
Aghor emerged from the wheelhouse. Behra saw the eyes of the Rhuinish tax collector widen. She heard him stammer as he hastily stamped her father’s manifest and took no money before he turned to wave urgently to his fellows on the gantry.
Ponderously, with tortured screams of metal on metal, the lift tub began to descend the steep face of the Rhuin Wall. Palinday risked peeping around the edge of the hut. Behra had a sudden urge to reach out and touch his fine clothes, stroke his golden hair. She kept her hands in her lap.
“Now there’s a thing,” the doll said.
Beyond the girders of the lift tower, the city extended out onto an outcrop of rock, prow-shaped, walled tiers descending the height of the cliff.
“Rhuincastre,” said Palinday.
“Neic ap Nagh,” replied Behra, giving the great city the Rhuinish name she’d always heard her father use.
“The anvil of kings,” said Palinday, in Ornomagnen.
Beyond the city, a broad waterfall tumbled over the edge of the cliff. The sheer face of the Rhuin Wall extended into the distance in both directions, unbroken as far as the eye could see.
Palinday ducked back inside as the counterweight tub passed, going the opposite way. A row of children of different ages, boys and girls, sat on the other barge’s deck. One little boy waved.
“Father!” called Chiufi. He was on his tiptoes on the barge’s rail, leaning out against the tub wall to look down.
Aghor stamped over to see. A quick glance and he swore and swung back around. “Golem! How well can you hide yourself?”
The doll got to his feet, his tiny tricorn hat in his hand. “I cannot be scryed out.”
“That is fortunate,” said Aghor, striding to the back of the barge, “because Tibuir’s Hound is waiting for you below.”
Behra’s chest tightened.
Palinday trotted after Aghor. “You have a hiding place for me?”
Behra’s father opened the hatch to the coalbunker. Palinday peered inside, then stepped back. “I am not going in there,” he declared.
“It’s in there or over the side,” said Aghor.
Behra caught her father’s subtle hand gesture to Sorgui. While the doll still hesitated, she watched her half-brother slowly extend a long-fingered hand towards Palinday’s back. She squeezed her lips together, desperate to call out a warning.
Sorgui struck. With a squawk, Palinday toppled into the bunker
.
“Bury yourself deep, little golem,” said Aghor, and slammed the hatch shut.
Geneic and Sorgui chuckled their slow, barking laughs.
Chiufi slunk across to join Behra by her hut. Their father pulled his shirt off and dropped it to the deck, planting himself where he would be most visible to the lock workers. After a moment he reconsidered and hurried over to Behra, drawing his little knife and gesturing impatiently for her hand.
This time he only pricked her finger, squeezing painfully to smear her blood along his forearms. He marched back to his post near the rail, wiping the blood over his tattoos and muttering a hasty incantation.
“Guigen negui rei,” Behra mouthed. “Guigen negui rei.”
The bramble tattoos on Aghor’s arms began to writhe like nests of spiked snakes. The skin on Behra’s arms crawled in sympathy. With an effort, she pushed the words to the back of her mind.
She leaned close to Chiufi, her lips almost touching his ear. “We’ll run at Ardonailles. Palinday says his master will protect us.”
Chiufi gasped and stared at her. Terror made him shake his head.
Behra gripped his hand, bigger and stronger than hers. “We must.”
The lift reached the bottom of the cliff. She saw soldiers among the lock workers, dressed in the same uniforms as those they’d seen the night before. Lord Tibuir’s men. She saw lock workers and soldiers alike blanch at the sight of her father.
A pair of workers hurried to open the lift gates, ignoring the angry shouts of a soldier with a gold-trimmed jacket. Behra caught the brief, satisfied twitch at the corner of her father’s mouth as the gates cranked up and the barge bumped out of the lift tub on a rush of water.
There were Rhuinish soldiers lining the low parapet on the near bank, more soldiers crowding a barge anchored cross-wise to the canal, partly blocking it. Some of the soldiers held the leashes of dogs. There were others with the soldiers, too, shorter and stockier, stooping with flat heads thrust forward, red eyes gleaming. Saltukkuri—true demimen, not half-castes like Geneic and Sorgui. Behra looked between her half-brothers and those on the shores, noting the differences, the flatter foreheads and heavier jaws of the full-bloods. Geneic and Sorgui stood up tall, lifting their heads and puffing out their chests, making themselves as large as possible.