Beneath Ceaseless Skies #74

by Carroll, Siobhan

  By the time we are called for high-sun prayer, I know the name of the guard Rabiye couches with, I know who really stole the jewels from the cradle, and I know that three favorites are pregnant and one is trying to lose the child. Every piece of information I gather I hold tight against some future date when I might need to bargain or blackmail or trade.

  A trade is what I need to see my daughter. The last nurse of the Unacknowledged Children was a simple, greedy woman who asked only for coins, but the new nurse is smarter, and she asks also for secrets from the spirit world. And so I tell her that the jewels were really stolen by a waterslave called Nasir who has already sold the emerald to a bundle woman. The nurse nods, and I can see her chewing on this information as she waves me through to see Manisha.

  It takes me a moment to pick out my daughter from the crowd of children that tangle and push on the bank, playing some game only they understand. For one frozen moment I fear I will not be able to recognize my own child, and then I see her: a tanned girl, half-a-foot taller than I remember. She stands as though jerked on a hook when she notices the new nurse gesturing at her. Her confusion resolves into a kind of wariness when she sees me, and though it hurts, part of me also feels a sad pride that my daughter is growing up.

  I do not have long, and so I begin talking to her as I always do, abruptly, delivering the information that is most important. “Manisha,” I say, using the name I gave her, not her slave name, “you are to be married to the General’s youngest son. You will say your vows tomorrow and then be sent to the fortress Almut, where the General lives.”

  My daughter’s face has gone rigid and pale, but she does not cry. This pleases me. Many times I have told her to guard her thoughts as well as her tongue, lest her emotions betray her. Yet, looking at her, I remember that she is still only ten summers old, and that at her age I was sweeping my mother’s cottage and learning the names of herbs. Briefly I remember our village’s green mornings, my brothers’ laughter as we tied up stalks of blesswell, the day the prince’s soldiers came.

  But my daughter, born into the prince’s garden, has never swept a floor, never cooked a meal. She has never learned the histories of the magicians, let alone how to construct one of the major illusions. Everything I have been able to teach her has been taught in snatches of stolen time, and it is not enough. It will never be enough.

  And so I kneel now beside her and hug her, smelling the jasmine oil in her hair and the smoke clinging to her child’s robe. She is stiff and rigid in my arms.

  “Be brave,” I whisper into her ear. “Remember the herbs I taught you. Keep your secrets, and do not trust anyone.” And then I must let her go, because the nurse has seen us.

  “Gulbeyez,” the nurse says sharply. “Go play with the others.” She looks at me, kneeling in the dirt.

  I blink back the tears. The nurse must not hear sorrow in my voice. I stand up, brushing the soil from my silk robe.

  “She is getting married,” I say. The nurse does not stop eying me speculatively, and it will certainly not stop her from gossiping. But it is a distraction. A good witch must always act as though she believes the coin is in her other hand, my mother said.

  I told my daughter the same thing, when she was old enough. One day I hope she will understand.

  * * *

  I am not, of course, invited to my daughter’s wedding ceremony, but I hear gossip about it. I hear that my daughter looked lovely in her saffron dress. I hear she looked like an ugly frog. I hear the General’s third wife wept when her son was married to a girl so far beneath his station. I hear the General’s oldest son miraculously recovered from his illness the instant the wedding wine was poured.

  I hear this and many other things, but I see nothing but the dark hoods of the wedding party as they leave by the temple gate. I have bribed a guard to let me stand at the tower window with the lattice screen open, so if my daughter looks up as she leaves the palace she may see me there, wearing white silk against the darkness. But I do not know if she does.

  When she is gone I fold into myself. Grief strikes me like an arrow.

  But it is for the best, I remind myself, shaking in the darkness. It is for the best. She will have a better life because of this.

  The next morning I receive a congratulatory jug of wine, which I store under the other jugs stacked in a corner of my room. The General has made good on all but one of his promises. Soon I will have to make good on mine.

  * * *

  When the demon stone arrives, I am sitting in the hall listening to the dreary ballad-singer warble the romantic songs requested by the younger concubines. My daughter is gone, and there is a darkness upon me. I have other children, of course; two living sons, neither acknowledged by their fathers. My oldest was sent to live in the mountains, and my younger son was given as a gift by the prince to an island diplomat. But my daughter is the only one of my children I have seen grow up. Whereas my sons may have a chance to earn their freedom through loyal service or courage, my daughter had only marriage. I have bought her a good marriage, and whatever happens now, she is part of the General’s family and must be protected by him. And she will always bear the mark of a freed slave on her cheek.

  Yet there is a darkness upon me.

  Nakshedil sits in a position of honor before the stage, a smoke burner belching fumes beside her. The prince has chosen another woman tonight and Nakshedil is not pleased. She picks grapes with angry darts of her hand and motions to a waterslave to bring her another glass of sherbet.

  The hatred must be harder to bear with the prince gone, I think, watching her. Every eye in this room is trained on her, hoping she will make some misstep. Everyone in this room, from the waterslaves to the concubines, wishes her ill.

  “Sing it again,” she orders and sits back, refusing to acknowledge the groans and hisses of the other favorites. The ballad-singer obliges her, launching back into the never-ending tale of a girl mourning her lover in the gardens of the night.

  I do not see why any of the concubines like this song. We are allowed no lovers of our own. We are rarely allowed to walk the gardens by day, and never at night. In my black mood, it occurs to me that perhaps the girl singing in the poem knows this, and that her words are skirting some darker secret. Grief wells up within me; there is a tightness in my throat.

  At that moment a waterslave appears at my side, quiet and unobtrusive. “From the General,” she says and offers me her basket. In my grief, I do not understand; I motion her to hand me its contents, and she shakes her head nervously, eyes wide. She knows what the basket contains.

  I reach in for her and scoop out the bundled package that holds the demon stone. As I slip it into my robes, I realize that I should have told her to meet me elsewhere. I hope no one has noticed this unusual exchange.

  But of course someone has. Later that night, Nakshedil summons me to her room.

  * * *

  The demon stone weighs against my chest like a guilty heart. I dare not remove it, for of all the materials I have gathered, it is the least replaceable. And so I enter Nakshedil’s room with my death warrant tucked inside my robe, a stone I could be executed for even touching. It is not how I would choose to face the woman I have sworn to kill.

  Nakshedil’s waterslaves have loosened her hair for the night. Around her neck she wears three chains that reach to her knees; one of large pearls, at the bottom of which hangs an emerald as big as a swan egg; one of tiny emeralds, closely joined; and one of diamonds. This last chain she removes as I watch and hands it to a waterslave to take out of the room. “The prince gave it to me,” she remarks, as though there were any other way she could possess such a thing.

  I make my bows and kneel before her, though it chokes me a little to prostrate myself before a fellow concubine. But when I rise she looks at me directly, as I once looked at the General, and I see she is afraid.

  “They say you know everything that passes though these walls, Ayla,” she says. “They say you talk to spirits.
So tell me, who plots against me?”

  I let my breath out slowly. Eventually, I speak. “You should ask the Keeper of the Keys. He keeps all the secrets here.”

  “But he hates me!” The words burst out of her with surprising force and she turns, running her fingers through her hair. “You’ve been a favorite before. You understand what it’s like. They all have their knives out. All because the Queen Mother is dying and the prince likes me best.”

  I say nothing, watching her. Up close, I can see how young she is. Sixteen summers at most, and still unused to palace life. She was probably too old to be properly trained but was purchased anyway, because of her skills. As was I.

  “I know you know things,” she says, and there is an edge to her voice. Seeing me looking at her, she shrinks back a little. “Please,” she says. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I’m not Zühal. I want to make things better. I persuaded the prince to give us a seclusion, didn’t I? Once the Queen Mother dies, he will listen to me even more.”

  And then her anger is back. “I will ask for a school for our children. I will make it so we can walk abroad in the outdoors garden. This is what I want to do, and they want to stop me.” She slams her hand against the ebony table.

  I look at her and think how young she is. There is an earnestness about her. She may even be telling the truth. It is enough to break one’s heart.

  “Even if you receive all you ask for,” I say slowly, “even if you achieve all your desires, our beloved prince must follow his heart. In a few years he will prefer another woman to you, and then he will listen to her, and all your changes will be swept aside.”

  I see her dark eyes glitter and a flush grow on her cheeks. She does not believe another woman will ever supplant her. I watch her struggle with her anger, and then she says, “Even if that is so, it is still better to try. Not all changes can be undone.”

  That is true enough, I think.

  She looks at me, no doubt thinking that she could demand to see the package hidden inside my robe. It might contain a secret she could blackmail me with. I see her struggle with this knowledge, and then put it aside. She is young and still clings to the rules of a world outside the palace.

  “Will you help me?” Nakshedil asks this simply, honorably. Her eyes are wide in her bronze face.

  I hesitate, thinking of my daughter, the prince, my carefully laid plans. Then I nod. “I will help you.”

  And I lie as honestly as any performer has ever lied, before an audience whose fate is already decided.

  * * *

  On the night of the assassination I wait by the stair of the wind tower overlooking the grey waters of the strait. I have sent the Keeper ahead with the poisons; he alone has the authority to taint the Viper’s food, as she sleeps in the room of the prince, and place the witch’s charm I have made in the dish of the smoke bowl. I gave him an antidote bottle. Just in case, I said, our beloved prince should by accident consume any morsel of the poisoned food.

  Meanwhile in the tower I have prepared my ritual, a massive circle of runes carefully chalked with rabbit’s blood. I made Rabiye hold the basket containing the demon stone. I warned her against what it contained, of course, and her eyes grew wide when she realized she held the crystallized spirit of a captured demon, whose power I intended to steal that very night.

  I swore her to secrecy before I dismissed her, which means it will be all around the palace by morning.

  Now, at the appointed hour I wait, counting the favors I have called in. There is enough poison in the food in the prince’s bedroom to kill twenty women, though not instantaneously. I had to get it past the tasters, after all.

  And finally there is the witch’s charm the Keeper will place in the smoke burner. The vapors the burning whitewater acid releases will destroy the lungs of anyone who breathes it.

  My heart beats against my chest like a bird in a burning cage. Even now, something may have gone wrong. Despite my thoroughness, my plan has already failed; the Keeper has betrayed me; the guards are on their way. When I hear the thunder of footsteps down the hallway I steel myself to meet them.

  A gaggle of frantic waterslaves run by. I grab the arm of one, spinning her around. “What has happened?”

  “Our prince, our beloved prince!” I can see the rim of white around her eyes as they roll in her head. “He’s dead!”

  I pull back, stunned. I have dreamed of this moment for many years, but its arrival dizzies me. Have I succeeded? Or is this a trick, an illusion constructed to lure me into revealing my intentions?

  The vibrant boom of a gong shivers the air, announcing disaster, and that is when I believe it. The prince would never risk the political chaos that sound will bring if he were still alive.

  Numbly I mount the stairs. I suppose if the prince is dead Nakshedil must be dead too. And the Keeper as well, no doubt having drained the tiny bottle of river water I gave him in a desperate attempt to save himself. I have killed many people tonight, in order to be sure of killing just one: the prince whose whim destroyed my mother, my brothers, my village; the master before whom I have had to scrape, and submit, and serve.

  We all work change in our own way. I stare at the glorious red demon stone at the center of my circle, thinking of Nakshedil. I am not as naïve as she was. In the coming chaos, a few concubines may manage to purchase their freedom, but within a few months there will be a new prince on the throne. The General will probably flee to the mountains, if he does not try for the throne himself. Ultimately he has too many soldiers to be easily killed.

  My daughter has been married, and publicly, to the General’s son. That will offer her some protection. But what I do now will offer her more.

  Tenderly I stroke my finger across the surface of the demon stone. I never thought to see one. For a moment I wonder what secrets this rare stone might reveal if I could test it the way my mother tested her minerals and powders.

  But a good witch knows true power lies elsewhere.

  In the morning, they will start asking questions. They will find the remains of the witch charm in the burner, and the remains of my ritual in the tower. They will hear from Rabiye that I possessed a demon stone that let me unlock the powers of hell itself. And even if they don’t believe it, the General who holds my daughter will, for he gave me the stone himself.

  I place the precious stone in the pocket of my woolen robe, where it clinks against the other rocks I have gathered. Then, because I cannot afford to wait any longer, I climb up into the open window and look out into the dark waters of the strait.

  I chose this room because it protrudes over the water, and because the ocean here is deep. Somewhere below me, in the darkness, lie the bodies of countless drowned concubines. None of them have ever floated to the surface.

  I take a deep breath. My fingers clench the cold stone of the window ledge. They do not want to let go. But I cannot be found, I remind myself, I cannot be dragged down to the rocks and executed like an ordinary woman. I have to remain a witch in their minds. A shadow to be afraid of, even when a new prince sits on the throne and my daughter is a grown woman.

  Closing my eyes, I step out into the darkness.

  Copyright © 2011 Siobhan Carroll

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  When not globetrotting in search of dusty tomes, Siobhan Carroll lives and lurks in Delaware. She is a graduate of Clarion West, the indefatigable OWW, and the twin ivory towers of Indiana University and U.B.C. Her fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, On Spec, Realms of Fantasy, and IGMS. Sometimes she writes under the byline “Von Carr.” Both versions of herself firmly support the use of the Oxford Comma.

  Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  INK AND BLOOD

  by Marko Kloos

  It’s a slow morning in the shop. Wilhelm leans on the counter, watching the dust motes dance in the morning sun, when the little brass bell on the door jingles and the prettiest girl he has ever seen walks across the threshold.

>   Papa has been selling pens and ink to strangers for twenty years. Papa claims that he can smell a Wealdling from a hundred paces. Right now, however, Papa is on a train to Hannover, to buy new pens at the big factory, and Wilhelm is alone in the shop.

  There’s nothing obviously wrong with the girl, but Wilhelm can tell she is not a local. Her clothes have been assembled a bit strangely, as if she only knows the proper way of dressing from vague descriptions. She’s wearing trousers, and none of the local girls would wear those in public. Still, Wilhelm can’t be sure, and he doesn’t want to call the police on her without cause.

  “Good day, madam,” he greets her, formal as his father demands, even though the girl looks to be close to his own age of fifteen years.

  “Good day,” she returns, and looks around in the store, where the shelves present his father’s merchandise in regimented order.

  “I am looking for some good ink and paper,” she says, and smiles at him. He isn’t the kind of young man who draws smiles from girls like her. He knows he is a touch too awkward and a bit too pudgy, and the girls here in the merchant quarter only overlook such obvious defects when they manifest along with wealth. Papa is well to do, but he is still just a paper trader, and there is no great wealth in inks and pens and sealing wax.

  Now that she has spoken, he is almost convinced she’s a Wealdling. Her inflections have an unusual melody to them.

  He knows the law, of course. Even though magic only works within the Weald, the Crown has ordered that none shall sell the people of the Weald things that can be used to write spells: no ink, no paper, no pens. Wilhelm knows that he should refuse to serve her even if he doesn’t have the fortitude to go outside and call for a policeman. But she is here in this little shop, and the authorities are not, and she is smiling and flashing her brown eyes at him, so he returns her smile and gets out the inkbottles.