by _Anthology
Suddenly my feet froze firm to the damp ground. I looked wildly around. I had stumbled into a circle, cast in salt, a spell. Light flared as it caught me and the salt smoldered with an uncanny green flame. I was a dead Boggle, dear reader, I had no doubt whatsoever as to that. I pitched forward and tried to claw my way to freedom. The sod tore under my frantic fingers, but my feet remained fixed inside the circle. I felt rather than saw the large shadow swooping down upon me and heard a heavy, harsh panting.
There followed a most confusing moment. The human witch came lumbering up the path from behind the house, I saw only his shadow against the wall and knew that the moment he saw me I was beyond dead -- I would no longer exist at all, not even as a corpse. If a human saw me I was done for.
The wind at my back took on its own form, dark and caped and shrieking. The human, Bob's nasty friend appeared before me. His eyes were firmly closed and his hands grasped a great wooden spear carved all over with runes that glistened in the darkness. But even as he raised it another weapon whistled down -- a great silvered sword's blade struck down towards me like the very embodiment of the waning moon. It was left just enough time to wonder how many different ways I was going to die all at once, when the blade cut the salt circle, sparking with its own blue fire, the flying Sidhe snatched a great and indiscriminate handful of my hair and clothes and wrenched me upwards.
I screamed thinly like a rabbit when the fox gets it -- protest and resignation blended in my voice. I heard the human witch shout out some arcane word as he drove the spear blindly upward. The Sidhe's heavy cloak flapped around me like leathery wings. He shuddered and I fancy we almost fell. The wind around him stuttered and I discerned the thin frame in the midst of it all; the Sidhe that held me, and I gasped.
Being out of a house scared me, lofting up into the sky like a kite seemed a fate quite worse than death. My bladder loosed itself but my consciousness clung on unmercifully for the long minutes of our brief journey. We tumbled together on through a small window and into a peaked stone room, some attic space that was tall and long and narrow. I skidded and slammed against one side wall. I spent some time shaking, determining that I was more or less whole, and working out which way up I was. I was upon my back, damp and malodorous and having just hit the crown of my head with some vigor on the stone blocks of a very solidly constructed building.
I craned my neck cautiously. The room was tidy, obviously well swept and with a tidy pallet at the very far end. The Sidhe was a tall, indistinct figure in the darkness, turned away from me. As I watched I grew used to the dim and indirect light. I could see that in the midst of his embroidered cloaks he was but a slim figure. His pale hands were clutched to his side. His face was obscured by a deep cowl but ivory-hued hair cascaded from it, stained pink at the tips.
He whispered sibilantly, words in a language I did not know in my head 'though it sang in my blood. "You're hurt?" I asked stupidly. Even as I did the Sidhe dropped to his knees and toppled with awful inevitability to the ground.
I rolled onto my belly and crawled very timorously forward. The Sidhe's cloak fell limply around him in a great black arc; in the midst of it a very still figure lay. He was taller than me by perhaps half a foot, but also more slender -- hardly the towering monster of myth. He had no hair at all except in his head but it was fine as spider's silk. He lay quite still, his pale face in repose was long and mournfully beautiful. I reached out one hand very slowly, but the uncanny cloak shivered as I came close to touching him and I drew back. The cloaks movement revealed a ragged, Christ-like wound in the Sidhe's side.
"There's a good cape," I muttered reaching forward again. "Please don't eat me." I pushed it aside with one finger and I could see where the spear had caught him. It was a nasty wound and needed staunching. Having something obvious to do was strangely reassuring. I looked around for the things I would need; cloth, water and thread.
Now Boggles are not known for courage but as I sat through the night and a full day in that attic I began to know what I had to do. The Sidhe stirred sometimes, as it grew dark he grew more restless but his breath was shallow and his skin fiery hot. He lay on his back upon the pallet and I crouched by his side. His face was easy to look at, and so I did. I saw his visage, like something out of a fairy tale, and I saw the life draining out of him as clearly as water from a cracked pitcher.
His eyes flickered open. I was caught up on them like a fly on sticky paper. He reached up with one arm, long fingered hand resting against my cheek. "Funny sort of over-grown Boggle, you are," he said is if common English were an awkward tongue to him. He hardly seemed like a monster now; he seemed almost like the answer to my wildest dreams. Yet I detected a hint of disdain in his voice, more than a hint. "Run along," he said, "and stay out of the necromancer's way. Go on to some place you have other kin."
"I've got to go and..." I wanted to tell him what I had decided. But he wasn't listening any more. His eyes were closed again. "Run along," he said tiredly. He saw me as some foolish, childish Boggle, just standing by and watching him die. An' he was dying, no mistake, and in my place.
I may not be Sidhe, but Boggles are still fey of a sort and we know magic like other folk know breathing or putting one foot in front of the other. No great spells like flying about, or breaking circles, but all the same... The human witch was getting his magic by doing in fey, that was why there was no Boggles here, and soon to be no Sidhe. He was using a magic spear to drain out the magic and take it fer himself.
There was only two ways to stop it -- kill the witch or break the spear. I was hoping that latter would do, it's a tad hard to kill somebody who just has to see you to do you in. Either way, I'd show that snooty Sidhe. I started at the broken circle, listening to my heart pound like some jungle drum. I had a single hair from the Sidhe in my hand. There'd be a link from him to the spear. The hair floated, bobbing toward the cottage. Looked like I'd been doing a frying pan/fire sort of thing the previous night. The cottage I'd been aiming to suss out was where the spear, and presumably the necromancer, abided.
"Oh, but you're a fool Boggle," I muttered to myself as I crouched in under the hedge. "And that you are," I answered myself glumly. I shrank down smaller than I'd ever been before and slunk over to the house between the blades of grass. There was bound to be wardings of some sort but there wasn't much I could do but look and think as much like a mouse as possible. Was that apples I could smell? I fixed my thought on food and fear of predators, the latter was hardly a strain so long as I imagined the witch with pointy ears and whiskers. I felt a bit nauseous as I slipped over the threshold and under the door. That might have been a near miss with a warding spell, or just terror. I hugged the wall and edged down the hallway. The plans were the same as Bob's place. I clutched the relatively larger hair and it bowed slightly towards the bedroom. My whiskers shook wildly, as did my whole body. But I kept going forward.
In the bedroom there was a dark, fat lump on the bed. I strained my senses, as I should have been doing all along if I'd really meant to stay out of grief. The spear was lying on the bed beside him; I'd have to walk right up to him to get it. I swear I was going to turn around and run right out of that house, but then I remembered the Sidhe sighing and saying, 'Run along.'
He'd saved my life, the bastard. And besides, he wasn't half pretty. I had to be my proper height just to carry it properly. So I stood up tall, reached out and took it. Even as I did I felt a shock, he was waking. I ran out of there quite reasonably like death itself was after me. I fumbled with the door latch, hearing his shout of alarm. It took about three flying steps to get across the lawn and I was off down the lane.
I could feel him looking for me, looking for the spear. I stopped, shoved the spear through the palings of the fence and pulled back hard and heard it snap. That'd silence the bugger. Then I kept running, all the way back to the tumble down church where the Sidhe was holed up. I climbed straight up the wall and in the casement window, hardly at a slower pace than last night.
>
The Sidhe looked suitably startled as I threw the broken ends of the spear down beside him. "Now I'll run along," I said. And then I left, in a fine cloud of righteousness.
Always running away from something, me. One of the cottages was empty with all the utilities turned off. I set up house there and did my best to make it comfortable. The witch wasn't anything without the spear and after a few days he moved on. God knows where he found it, but I figure he wouldn't last long once the word got out. I didn't see the Sidhe although I found a lot of excuses to go sitting on the rooftop of an evening. I began to fear he might have died after all.
It must have been a week or two later and I was almost tearing my hair out with the loneliness but some stupid pride was keeping me well away from the deserted church. I sat on the peaked roof and smoked a cigarette, bad habit that but I was running out of ways to entertain myself and so I thought I might take it up. I pulled experimentally on the end and coughed. A pale hand flicked out and plucked the cigarette away from me. He was standing beside me, cool as a shadow and twice as silent.
"On the big side for a Boggle, you," he said coolly.
I ignored the comment. "Thanks," I said.
"You too," he replied. That small concession seemed grudgingly given and the long silence stretched out between us.
"I do wonder if there's some Sidhe in you." All sorts of ribald comments came to mind but I let them be. My supposed Da really wasn't up to much, and my Ma was the reckless sort. I suppose anything was possible. And I knew Sidhe tended to keep to their own and I so supposed that the possibility wouldn't do my chances any harm.
He was standing a bit too close to me all things considered and I took that as an encouraging sign. "Come into mine for a bit," I said. I knew he couldn't get small like a Boggle so I went down and opened the door.
He came in nervously and it looked funny on him like he wasn't used to any kind of humility. I shut the door behind him and had my second do-or-die moment, and I guess I got it right again. I reached out and put my hand behind his head, the bloody cape muttered like some old woman but I ignored it. I had to go up on tip-toes to reach him, to kiss him. He stooped, pressing me against the wall.
I opened the door, but he knew the way from there.
The Brown Kimono
by Therese Melina At the second barrier, the sentries asked Shizuka to step aside and prove her womanhood. Naturally her cousin was alarmed, flapping his arms while she stepped into the crude thatched hut. Shizuka herself remained haughtily calm. At the previous post-town, the innkeeper had warned that the sentries would be looking for bandits disguised as women. His concern might have seemed more genuine, she reflected, had he not continued to top her cousin's drinking bowl.
The hut was dusty and smelled of damp leather -- thoroughly unpleasant in the late afternoon heat. Shizuka could not even cover her nose with her sleeve, for a withered crone already waited to inspect her. "Take off your hat and put it in the corner. Untie the sashes." Not even a word of formal address! Shizuka looked with distaste at the old woman's threadbare garments. When she did not move, sweaty fingers removed her wide hat and tossed it aside. Glaring, Shizuka tugged off her sash and began untying the rope which kept her kimono hems from the ground.
Through the thin walls she heard her cousin making a nuisance of himself. Hopefully he would not drop any of her travel passes in his rush to impress that she was promised to a nobleman. If it was in his power he would misplace even her sandals on the step, she thought.
"He is only being protective of you," said the old woman. She dragged off Shizuka's overcoat. "He is a useless fool," said Shizuka. "He hopes to garner favor with my noble lord's household, yet he spends our traveling money on drink. When we arrive, I shall kick him back to the dust from which he came."
The old woman's hands were on her, checking her hipbones, her cheeks, her neck. At least she was gentle when she lifted her long hair. "You are too pretty a girl to be so spiteful. Sit down. Please."
"Of course I am pretty. No ink is blacker than my hair, no bone so smooth as my skin. That is what my lord said when he saw a painting of me. I was then summoned to be his wife."
"You are from the high mountains?" Papery fingers tugged the innermost short-sleeved kimono down her back. Shizuka shook them off. "I will be from the Capital, soon enough." The sticky touch returned to her nape, her belly, and the rounds of her breasts. Shizuka stifled a cry of outrage with great effort. "How came you to this filthy work, old woman?"
"You wish to know?" The woman retreated to a corner, where sat a pile of half-woven rushes. Shizuka grabbed her clothes. Dressing properly could wait in the face of such impropriety. The old woman's eyes remained on her. "I argued with my husband over a trifle. So embittered I was, that I spat in his rice bowl. The next day, my husband fell ill. The day after that, our rice field, our garden, and our stand of bamboo- all browned and died. Not a living creature was heard in our land, not a cicada nor a fox. Only the humming of beetles."
"Old Mother!" A sentry knocked on the side of the hut, making Shizuka jump. "Does she pass inspection?" "Yes," answered the old woman. She resumed her work. Fingers once elegant and slender twisted rushes into shape.
"I will leave you now," said Shizuka, shaking with an emotion she could not name. "You may keep your ridiculous stories and pointless work."
"Hold your tongue!" called her cousin. Shizuka's anger fell swiftly on him; he was younger yet she was obliged to obey him. She stormed from the hut, forgetting the old woman.
But her cousin was not finished distressing her. For a moment she did not understand what he said. "We are detained?!" she hissed from beneath her wide brim.
The other travelers in queue were staring. Her cousin looked stricken. "I tried to bribe them-"
"You what?" "They were not accepting your travel passes!"
A grey despair overtook her and she wiped her brow with her sleeve. "Do we have enough money for an inn?"
"Yes..." After much bickering, she relieved her cousin of enough money to purchase lodging and food and also retrieved her passes: one for identification, one to authorize travel and one woman's pass. These she pressed to her heart, with the letter from the nobleman. Though her feet ached, she plunged into the narrow streets of the post-town, ignoring the lit lanterns and mouth-watering food. Eventually her cousin ceased to dog her steps.
She wandered into the alleys where the dust was not dampened and the holes were not covered. Up and down rolled the road, until she had no inkling where the mountain was, or where the barrier stood. In her ill-folded robes, lacking both escort and animal, she resembled a nun on a pilgrimage. There was no thought in her mind except the weight of the letters on her palm.
When at last she grew weary, she secured lodging from a homely man who had the courtesy to speak to her politely. It was a lonely building beside a bamboo grove. Shizuka could not fathom its original use. Bare except for the straw mats, it was unusually enclosed on all four sides with thin, windowless walls. The only artifice was the bench on the outer wall facing the slope. Yet it was set too far apart from the other houses to be much of a social spot.
She ate her rice cakes without tasting them. This might be her home for a long time, if they could not find messengers to inform the nobleman of their quandary. She made sure all the sliding doors were shut and aired out her traveling clothes.
Already ripped! They were made of comfortable ramie weeds, but she hated them. When she came among the Cloud Dwellers, she would be arrayed like them -- layers of silk kimono like unfurling petals, perfume sweeter than the first flowers of spring, and baths whenever she wished.
"Daydreaming again?" her cousin called outside. "Drinking again?" she retorted. "What do you want?"
"Too bad they were right when they said I'd find you here," he grumbled loudly. "I bought some things."
"Your own drinking bowl, I suppose." "Open the door, cousin." She donned the short-sleeved kimono and cracked the door. Something heavy thumped on
the mats, followed by the rustle of paper. She ignored the larger bundle, and examined the rest: ink, brushes, and expensive parchments. "You fool! How much did you spend?"
"Thickhead, no imperial runner will take anything less."
"I am supposed to write it?" Shizuka said plaintively. They would expect a poem! What if the noble lord found out she could not write poetry?
"In case you did not notice, your exalted husband-to-be did not send a palanquin for you. Not even a packhorse. You think he will launch a search party if you fail to arrive?" "Be quiet!" Shizuka took the heavy bundle and threw it at the door. "Do not come inside. I forbid it. You will sleep on that bench tonight. I hope the evil winds descend from the mountain and freeze your hateful heart!"
Her cousin did not answer. She waited a long time before she was sure he was gone. The bundle had fallen open; now she saw that it was a headrest, heavy and far more expensive than her father's plain wood carvings. She tried to arrange her hair so she could sleep comfortably on it. It was frustrating work without her mother to help her.
In the end her waist-long tresses were too much trouble. She kicked the headrest aside, and lay down with the hair half up and half down. In vain she tried to find sleep. Even with all the doors closed, the room seemed large in the dark. If there was activity farther up the mountain, the rustling bamboo grove stifled the sound. Not even the cicadas were singing. Sweat trickled down her neck. She felt filthy and hot, yet she knew the cold of true night would very soon descend.
The bamboo leaves stilled. Shizuka turned on her side. At that moment she felt something small and sharp touch her shoulder. It was a fingernail.
Terrified, she dared not move. How could they have entered? What if this was the bandit! He would cut her throat if she did not pretend to sleep. She lay still as the nail drew down her shoulder blade. It felt dainty, yet also strange, like tiny thorns. It was a touch of great care and patience. Though Shizuka was frightened, she also became curious. Her eyes opened a slit to see who belonged to that touch.