After a moment there came the sound of reins snapping, followed by a rattle of hoof upon cobblestone as the carriage horses roused themselves and cantered off down the winding thoroughfares of Liavek, where the scent of a hundred simmering breakfasts hung reassuringly between the huddled buildings.
Som-Som sat motionless upon her balcony, her gaze still fixed upon the point where Foral Yatt had stood when he turned and looked at her. His smile remained there, an afterimage in her mind's eye. It was a smile of a type that Som-Som had seen before, and which she recognized instantly.
It was a wizard's smile. It was the expression of a luck-shaper who had finally achieved a satisfaction long postponed. For an unquantifiable time, Som-Som did not move. A blank expression was frozen onto her face so that those divided features regained a semblance of unity, the living half transformed to porcelain by her bewilderment.
Standing suddenly, she upset her chair so that it toppled to the balcony floor behind her. She moved rapidly, with an odd jerkiness. All of the training and discipline that had disguised her difficulties of locomotion were cast aside as she ran down the narrow wooden steps and across the rounded yard.
The pale yellow door was not locked.
Rawra Chin was seated at the table, rigid and upright in one of the straight-backed chairs. She seemed to be staring at two objects that rested on the white wood of the tabletop, barely distinct in the smoky dawn light. Approaching the table, Som-Som peered closer, squinting the eye that still possessed the ability to do so.
One of the objects was a plain copper ball that meant nothing to her. The other item seemed more like an egg with the top cleanly sliced off.
Except that it was green.
Except that it had empty, staring sockets and a lipless smile.
She noticed the odor of licorice at the same moment that she realized Rawra Chin had not breathed since her arrival in the chamber.
It was not a physical horror that propelled Som-Som backward through the pale yellow door, gasping and stumbling, shoved out into the courtyard by the immensity of what lay within. Neither was it an aversion to the presence of the dead. The whore of sorcerers is witness to worse things than simple mortality during the course of her service, and suicides at the House Without Clocks were frequent enough to be unremarkable. Certainly too frequent to engender so violent a reaction in one whose customers had, upon occasion, transformed into beings of a different species or entities of churning white vapor at the moment of their greatest pleasure.
Neither was it entirely a horror that preyed upon the mind, nor wholly a revulsion of the spirit. It had no shape, no dimension at all that she could grasp, and that was the fullest horror of it. A monstrous crime had been committed, an atrocity of appalling magnitude and scale that somehow remained both abstract and intangible. Having no perceivable edges, its monstrosity was thus infinite, and it was this that sent Som-Som reeling out backward into the cold, black courtyard.
She wanted to scream at the indifferent windows of the House Without Clocks, still shuttered against the morning light while those beyond enjoyed whatever sleep they had earned the previous evening. She wanted to cry out and wake the City of Luck itself, alerting it to this abomination, perpetrated while Liavek looked the other way, unsuspecting.
But of course, she could say nothing. The enormity of what had occurred remained locked within her, something scaly and cold and repugnant inside her mind, which could never be seen, never be touched or spoken of to another. Curled in the unreachable dark behind the porcelain mask it basked, beyond proof, beyond refute.
Hardly there at all.
"Training Ground" by Nancy Kress
THE OFFICER OF the City Guard halted, scowling, in the middle of the Levar's Park. Jen Demarion, hurrying up an ornamental hill, saw the Guard come into view scowl first, followed by shoulders with a corporal's insignia, followed by the rest of him—with Cav standing before him on the path. Jen had known from the moment she saw the officer halt that Cav would be what had halted him, and from the moment she saw the officer scowl that Cav would be what he scowled at. She hurried faster, trying to reach them before Cav could say much. Preferably, before Cav could say anything at all.
"What?" the officer said to Cav. "What did you say, boy?"
Cav said, "Have your clouds cast, sir?"
The Guard looked up. Jen did not need to look. No clouds, not even one, floated in the sky. Blue, hot, empty: no clouds. Jen groaned inwardly and swung into action. There was no time for more than the fastest scrutiny of the soldier, but Jen knew she had a good eye.
"Cav!" she cried, and her voice was all silvery delight, a waterfall in sunshine. "There you are! I've been looking all over!"
The officer turned his scowl from the sky to Jen. She met it with an artless smile, but the scowl did not soften. Cav must have been particularly stupid or irritating. Not that he had to be stupid to irritate; sometimes all he had to do was stand there as he did now, a resistant doughy lump with an expression so blank it approached not being there at all.
Jen put a light hand on the officer's arm. "Thank you for helping me find my twin! You're so tall, it was easy to see you clear across the park!"
The corporal looked from Jen to Cav, and back again. "You two are twins?"
"Oh, yes! I'm Jenneret Demarion—Jen—and this is my brother Cav. My mother is looking all over for him!" She widened her eyes. "Cav isn't in any … trouble, is he, sir?"
"He—well, maybe he is. He was cloud casting, or soliciting to cloud cast, and a new—"
"Cav! You were!" Jen cried, with such intense delight that the Guard stopped talking. Cav said nothing. After a moment, Jen wrinkled her forehead. "But … but, Cav, there aren't any clouds today."
"Well, that's just it," the officer said, with a faint note of apology, which Jen did not think he heard himself. "That's why it looked suspicious. And there's a new decree from His Scarlet Eminence that—"
"Oh!" Jen cried. "Have you ever seen His Scarlet Eminence? Up close?"
"Well, I—"
"Of course, you must have!" Jen breathed. "What is he like?"
"He's tall, he—look, young mistress, this new decree—"
"Not as tall as you! He couldn't be! That tall?"
"Well, no, not that tall," the Guard said. He drew up his shoulders a little. "But then, I'm tall for a Liavekan. This decree—"
"You're tall for anyone," Jen said, and smiled dazzlingly. This time the soldier smiled back.
"Maybe. This new decree from His Scarlet Eminence says that within the Levar's Park all strolling entertainers must show a permit. So they can prove they've paid the new tax—"
"And the City Guard has to do the checking? Oh, what a lot of trouble for you to have to go to!" She moved slightly off the path; the officer turned his face toward hers, and away from Cav.
"It certainly is!" he said, and scowled again. "Not everybody seems to understand that!" Jen said warmly, "That's not what you signed up for!" She moved his gaze a little farther from Cav.
"It sure isn't!"
"And you have to do this all over Liavek?"
"Only in the Levar's Park. Too many petty thieves, says His Scarlet Eminence."
"What a shame. You'd think a man of his height would recognize how many more valuable uses there are for a trained fighting Guard!"
"You'd think so!"
"Please forgive us for having put you to the trouble," Jen said.
The officer made a small expansive gesture. "Not your fault."
"And certainly not yours!" Jen cried, and flashed her dimple at him. "Tell you what—I'll give you a free cloud casting for your trouble, on the very next cloudy day of this gorgeous weather. I promise!"
"I'll remember that," the soldier said. They smiled at each other, the warm smiles of old friends. Jen gave his hand a parting squeeze—affectionate and confiding—and waved. The soldier moved off in the direction of the wave, whistling a lighthearted tune; Cav no longer blocked his path in that direction.
He even shuffled his polished boots a little on the stone walk, in honor of the gorgeous spring weather.
Jen moved fast. She and Cav were over the rise and gone before the officer could realize that he had seen no permit, or discover the copper missing from the sleeve pocket where her hand had trustingly squeezed his arm.
•
"How could you do that?" Jen hissed. "How?"
Cav answered nothing. His slack face did not change.
"Oh, Cav," Jen said despairingly. Her despair had the same vivid exaggeration as her smiles. Next to her Cav seemed even more lumpish, more passive. She put her arms around him and hissed into his ear.
"Now before we go in, listen to me. She's in a rotten mood, and she's going to ask you again what you want for a birthday gift to invest your luck in. This time, tell her something!"
"I don't want anything."
"Tell her something anyway!"
"I don't want to."
"Cav," Jen said. She gave him one last despairing squeeze and pushed open the door to the cheap rented house in the northeast section of Old Town. "I found him, Erlin! He was working!"
A tall woman turned from the hearth. "Working at what?"
"At cloud casting, of course!" Jen cried gaily, as if this were a given. "He was finding you a client!"
Erlin—she did not like her children to call her 'Mother,' it sounded staid—looked with skeptical suspicion at Cav. She wore a blue gown too youthful and too elaborate, the neckline kept barely decent by a hard-working ribbon with frayed edges. Her face, which had once been beautiful, had a kind of overwrought theatricality: Jen's vividness grown middle-aged.
"And where is this client?"
"He was very suddenly called away on business."
"Ah. And he will no doubt be returning later, won't he, Cav, my son?"
"Oh, yes," Jen said.
Erlin fiddled with the sleeves of her gown. Her voice was sweet. "I went outside to the flower seller's just a few minutes ago, Cav, isn't that a coincidence? My headache was better. And there were no clouds, none at all. How did you expect me to cast this mysterious vanished client's clouds without clouds, Cav, my son?"
"He just—"
"Let Cav answer, Jen."
"I don't know," Cav said. There was no strain in his voice; there was nothing in his voice.
"So you thought to bring this client here to me," Erlin went on, even more sweetly, "and let me explain how I would cast clouds without clouds. Did you hope to damage my reputation very much? Was it an important client?"
"Oh, no!" Jen cried. "Just a Guard, of low rank. Nobody at all!"
"So my son thinks the sort of client to match his mother's skill is nobody at all."
"No, he—"
"I said let Cav answer! Did you want to humiliate me, my son? Is that what you wanted to do?"
"No," Cav said, without inflection.
"What did you want to do?"
"I didn't want to do anything."
"Erlin, you told him to go out—" Jen began desperately. Erlin snatched a jar—it was a pot of rouge—from the table and hurled it. It missed everyone by several arm spans.
"I said be quiet! So you didn't want to do anything, Cav, my son. Only to humiliate me. Only to thwart every desire I ever had for you, every hope I scrimped and saved and worked my fingers to the—what gift do you want for your birthday?"
"I don't want anything."
"You must invest your luck in something!"
"I don't want to invest my luck."
"You will become a cloud caster! All the Demarions have been cloud casters, all of them, and I haven't wasted a fortune in hard-won levars in investiture lessons for nothing! You will become a cloud caster, you will you will!"
"I don't want to be a cloud caster."
"And just what in the name of Wizard's Row do you want? What do you ever want?" Erlin's voice scaled upward to a shriek; she grabbed her hair with two hands and wailed. Jen, who was afraid of her mother only before one of Erlin's dramatic rages began, stepped forward with sudden authority.
"That's enough, Mother. You'll get hoarse."
"I want to get hoarse!" Erlin shrieked. "At least I want something! But that lump, my son—my son!—he's too stupid to want anything! He never wants anything! You don't even want to leave my presence this minute, do you, Cav? You're too stupid to even want to leave the room when someone is screaming at you! Why don't you leave the room? Why don't you?"
"I don't want to," Cav said.
Someone knocked on the door. Jen, who was closest, seized the knob with palpable relief, flung open the door—and stepped back a pace. Her hand went to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide.
On the doorstep, which had wobbled for two years now, balanced a young man in magnificent scarlet livery. Black ringlets dripped to his shoulders; exquisite nostrils quivered with exquisite disdain; he held a letter of vellum so heavy his rouged hand curved languidly under the burden.
Instantly Erlin's fury vanished. She swept forward with immense dignity, and motioned the page inside. He stepped onto the plain stone floor as if it were dung.
"A summons, mistress, from my Lord Count Dashif."
Erlin opened the letter with studied weariness; her voice said that she received notes from lords every day. "A cloud casting. Yes. Well, I believe I can fit in one more tomorrow, at the time he suggests. But please inform your master that I may be a few moments late—it is possible that His Scarlet Eminence may not be quite done receiving my counsel."
The page grinned. Erlin raised her chin and looked down her nose. The page bowed—with only one finger held to his forehead, and still grinning. Erlin turned her back with a magnificent sweep of hem. The page backed through the doorway with exaggerated care that no thread of his livery touch the doorjamb. Erlin did not bother to close the door after him, no more than one would after a fly. The page, a half second off the wobbly doorstep, began to whistle a scurrilous tune from a recent half-copper rag. Erlin trailed haughtily into her bedroom, not deigning to hear him.
Jen figured the honors came out about even. She closed the door, and her eyes shone.
"Cav—a count! That could mean real money! Just think! Only"—she lowered her voice, glancing at the bedroom—"only why Mother? If a noble wanted a cloud casting, why not a 'caster from Wizard's Row? Why … her?"
Cav said nothing. Jen frowned and bent to pick up the rouge pot Erlin had thrown. Sticky pink smeared the stone. "You know, she would get less furious if you would fight back. Truly, Cav. It enrages her that you won't fight."
"I don't want to fight."
Jen made a despairing soft noise at the back of her throat and swiped at the pink smear. "Damn it, Cav, I almost think she's right! You don't want to be a cloud caster, you don't want to choose a luck piece for your investiture, you don't want to talk about this client, you don't want to stand up to Mother—what do you want?"
"I don't want anything."
•
The next day brought clouds. Erlin dressed in her best gown, a blue brocade of a startling style popular very briefly fifteen years earlier, in which she had once, before the twins' birth, cast clouds for a margrave. After this pinnacle, the brocade had been laid away in camphor, of which it smelled strongly. Jen watched the bodice seams with alarm as Erlin tugged the neckline lower and smiled at herself, flushed, in the fly-specked mirror.
"The thing, Jen—hand me that pin, no, the silver one—the thing is to watch the client, see what he wants. Everyone wants something, remember that, and a good cloud caster lets them see they can have it—if the clouds cast it that way, of course."
"Of course," Jen mumbled.
"You and Cav can learn a lot from how I handle this today, although it would have been nice to cast again at the palace … have I ever told you about the time the Margrave of—"
"Yes! Yes. You have."
"Well, you watch. And make Cav watch, too; he could certainly stand to learn from—Cav, where do you think you're going?"
; "Out."
"No, you're not. You're going to stay and learn something! With your investiture only two weeks off … Jen, why are you fidgeting? Where is that rouge pot? Caveril, don't you dare—where's the needle for that seam? No one ever tells you camphor can shrink brocade like this! Cav, Jen … oh, gods, there's the door. Answer it, Jen!"
Two men entered. Erlin straightened her shoulders and strolled toward them with the expression of a great painter in the presence of collectors who chose art by dominant color.
Count Dashif, tall and very dark, walked with a limp. Twin scars snaked down his cheeks. He wore a pair of double-barreled flintlock pistols thrust through his belt, and a very expensive jeweled bracelet on his left wrist. The bracelet rode loosely, so that the stones turned and glittered. Jen studied the clasp, glanced at the count's narrow eyes and livid scars, and regretfully took her eyes from the bracelet.
The other man wore plain clothes of good cloth. Scrawny and nervous, with limbs like the twiggy legs of small birds, he gave one startled glance at Erlin's neckline and thereafter kept his eyes on the wall. Merchant, thought Jen, eyeing him. Afraid of magic.
"Mistress," the count said, in the most musical voice Jen had ever heard, "I am Count Dashif. My guest, for reasons of his own, wishes to remain anonymous. We have come for a cloud casting, having heard that you are the finest and most discreet wizard of that art in Liavek."
Jen stared. Erlin said, "My art is honored, Your Grace," and bowed so low that Jen feared for the neckline ribbon. "But of course Your Grace understands that fine magic must of necessity command a fine fee…"
"Of course," Count Dashif said. "As it should be. We are prepared to offer you ten levars."
Just in time Jen kept herself from gasping.
"For a single question," the count added smoothly. "Where do we—"
"On the roof," Erlin said. "This way, Your Grace. My children, talented apprentices, shall of course accompany us."
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