FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “The magistrate is the one who summoned us to Hrappa. He has no reason to want us dead.”

  “Zash doesn’t, either.”

  “Do you remember how he acted when you wouldn’t cure his trees? He yelled at you and insulted you. He might have struck you if I hadn’t been there.”

  “That was after we drank the beer, not before, so your reasoning doesn’t follow. Yelling at me and insulting me are things you’ve done, and I’ve never believed you would poison me. Zash didn’t strike me. He apologized for losing his temper, and it was a better apology than the one you gave me in the stable.”

  Mandir glowered at her. “It sounded better because he wasn’t sincere. It’s harder to apologize when you actually mean it.”

  Taya shook her head. “He was sincere. You weren’t.”

  “You’re a poor judge of apologies. Who’s to say he wasn’t trying to trick you into drinking poisoned wine?”

  “Crimes committed in anger are violent and impulsive. Poisoning is cold and premeditated. Anyway, I don’t think he had time to put poison into anything. I’m drinking it.” She removed the amphora’s top.

  “No.” Mandir straightened. “As your quradum, I forbid it.”

  Snorting in indignation, Taya picked up the amphora and tipped it to pour.

  Mandir leapt up and yanked the amphora out of her hands. Wine splashed onto the floor.

  “Give that back!” Taya cried, jumping to her feet.

  Mandir bounded across the room, stuck the vessel out the window, and up-ended it. The wine poured out into the garden in a stream of dark amber.

  “Mandir!” Taya shrieked. She ran to the window, shoved her way past Mandir’s bulk, and grabbed the amphora, trying to force it upright before the last of the wine spilled onto the ground. But Mandir’s bicep was thicker than her two arms put together, and she couldn’t budge either him or the vessel.

  The final drops splashed into the dirt below the window. Taya watched them soak into the mud.

  Mandir righted the amphora and handed it to her.

  She clutched it to her chest. “That wine was a gift.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I already poured out my own.”

  “You don’t even like banana wine!” Taya headed back to the table, her eyes smarting with unshed tears. It seemed silly to cry over a bit of lost banana wine, but she hadn’t drunk any since she was a child, and Zash was the first person she’d enjoyed talking to in a long time, and she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had given her something. Maybe Mandir received gifts on a regular basis, and it was no big deal for him to casually throw one away, but for her the gift had meant a lot. She set the empty vessel on the table and slumped into her chair.

  Mandir looked at her and shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I’m sorry. But as your quradum, it’s my job—”

  “It wasn’t your job to pour out my wine,” said Taya. “You did it because you were jealous of Zash. You didn’t like that I enjoyed talking to him and being around him, so you destroyed his gift.”

  Mandir swallowed. “Taya—that wasn’t the reason.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  Mandir folded his arms. “Well, let me tell you a few things about Zash. First, he’s the most disturbing person we’ve met in Hrappa. This is a man who used to imprison and chain up his mad sister, and who may have burned her to death—”

  “That’s ridiculous. Zash did not kill his own sister.”

  “He might have,” said Mandir. “Second, he doesn’t like you.”

  Taya stiffened. “Now you’re being a zebu’s ass. He does like me. He’s much nicer to me than you are.”

  “Fine, I’m a zebu’s ass,” said Mandir. “But you need to hear this. He’s not nice because he likes you. He’s nice because he wants something from you.”

  Taya rolled her eyes. “What, to get me in bed?”

  “No,” said Mandir. “He wants you to heal his trees.”

  Taya waved her hand. “I know that already. And he knows it’s out of the question. He gave me the wine after that had been settled. Besides, I think it’s refreshing that someone is interested in my magic rather than seeing me as a sexual conquest. And that’s more than I can say about you.”

  “I don’t see you as a sexual conquest.”

  “Flood and fire. Yes, you do.”

  “I told you last night how I felt,” he said.

  She waved a dismissive hand. “You’re not in love with me; we both know it. What you’re really after is what you didn’t get at Mohenjo. You’re after unfinished business.”

  “Unfinished business, yes. But not what you’re thinking.”

  “I didn’t give in to you at Mohenjo, and I won’t give in to you now,” said Taya. “That was my one victory over you in all those four years, and it’s a pathetic one, but I’m keeping it.”

  “Taya, sex is not a competition.”

  “For you it is,” she said.

  “Look, what I proposed in your room at Mohenjo was wrong, and you have every right to be angry about it. Back then I was trying to take advantage of you,” said Mandir. “I admit it. But that’s not what I’m doing now. If I’m lying, may the Fire Mother burn me alive where I stand.”

  “Get out.” Taya picked up his dinner dishes from the table. “You think you can fool me after the things you’ve done? Go back to your own guesthouse, or your barley and peas are going where my banana wine went.”

  “Taya, at the very least, we need to discuss the case—”

  She reared back with the dinner plate, preparing to hurl it out the window.

  “All right!” He ran to her and took the dish from her hands. “I’m going.”

  Chapter XV

  Mohenjo Temple, Eight Years Ago

  WHEN SECOND YEAR BEGAN, THEY lost one initiate, permanently. Taya had been certain she would be the one to be dropped, but it was a ruling-caste girl who had missed a lot of classes and done poorly on the first-year examinations. Initiates who were not to be offered further schooling, and who could never achieve the rank of ilittum, had two choices. They could take the rank of kinatum and work for the Coalition in a service capacity, still enjoying some of the Coalition’s privileges, or they could drink kimat and return to their former lives outside the temple.

  Taya was not surprised when the ruling-caste girl drank kimat. Presumably she had a family and a life outside the Coalition worth returning to.

  Taya had a family but no interest in returning and being married off to some village bumpkin who knew nothing of magic or history or the wonders of the Mohenjo Temple library. She would never drink kimat. If she failed, she would take the rank of kinatum, but what a letdown it would be to spend one’s life wrapping bandages or mucking out the Coalition’s stable. She would work twice as hard as anyone else to make sure she made the cut each year and became an ilittum. Three or four times as hard, if that was what it took.

  Second year brought some improvements over the first. Two new farmer-caste initiates entered Mohenjo Temple, a boy and a girl. They were first-year students and would not be in Taya’s classes, but she expected they would show up soon in her reading and writing tutoring sessions. She looked forward to no longer being the youngest and most ignorant student in the group.

  Mandir’s harassment of her slackened due to his being embroiled in a scandal of his own. It had come out that he wasn’t in the line of royal succession at all; he was merely a bastard of Prince Tufan isu Sarrum, who apparently kept a whole house full of bastard children, for what purpose nobody knew. Mandir would answer no questions on the matter, and when an artisan-caste boy named Darhunur made a joking reference to Prince Tufan’s brothel, he came to class the next day with a wrenched shoulder and a black eye. From then on Taya’s classmates kept their speculations quiet. At least the focus was no longer on Taya for a change.

  Best of all, she was now qualified to begin classes in practical magic. On the first day of second year, she entered the classroom of Yuval, the practical mag
ic instructor, and waited eagerly for her lessons to begin.

  “In ages past,” said Yuval, “three goddesses walked the land in their true forms as beautiful women. Their names were Agu, Lalan, and Isatis. They grew lonely by themselves, so they created men and women and made them their disciples, and everyone lived together in the city of Zhaerath. In those days, there existed no rivers, no plants, and no animals. Men and women had no need for sustenance; the mere presence of the Mothers nourished their bodies and souls. Zhaerath was a city of unsurpassable beauty, built of marble and precious metals and jewels, for the Mothers could call these things into existence at will. The people wore robes of spun gold. They had no need to work, and they spent their days painting and weaving and sculpting, creating works of art so exquisite that if you and I were to look upon them, we would fall on our knees and weep.

  “However,” he continued, “the men of Zhaerath, though they had their own women, grew jealous of the Mothers. They lusted after them and wanted them for their own. One night, conspiring together, they kidnapped the Mothers and defiled them. We call this crime the Great Atrocity.

  “The Mothers were angry,” said Yuval. “And in their fury, they transformed themselves. Isatis became fire. She swept through Zhaerath, burning the tapestries and paintings, killing with reckless abandon. Agu became water. She rose in a great flood and tore down the walls of Zhaerath, drowning her children and dashing them against the broken stones. Lalan, gentlest of the goddesses, melted into the ground in shame. Where she had been, plants grew, and animals sprang up.

  “Zhaerath was destroyed. The jewels and precious metals that once formed it were so thoroughly scattered that they can only be found in small fragments hidden deep underground, locked in stone. The people who had survived the devastation gathered along the banks of a newly formed river. They felt an ache in their bellies they had never felt before. They were hungry. Without the Mothers’ presence to sustain them, they grew weak and ill. To survive, they drank the water of Agu and ate the plants and animals that had sprung up from Lalan—but here they discovered Lalan was not all gentleness. Some plants could be eaten, while others poisoned and killed them. Some animals could be hunted and eaten, while other animals stalked them and tore them to pieces.

  “Survival was hard. Water had to be hauled in buckets from the river. Grains had to be sowed, irrigated, harvested, cooked, and stored. The fire of Isatis could be used to cook or provide warmth, but it could rage out of control. And Agu’s rivers could flood, killing people and drowning their crops. Many of those who had survived the destruction of Zhaerath did not see the end of that first year.

  “Two seasons later, three children appeared, left in baskets in the center of the village. All of them were blessed with the Gift. Nobody knows where these children came from, but it is believed they were the results of the defilement of Agu, Lalan, and Isatis. You, my students, are their descendants and heirs. The word ilittu, in the mother tongue, means children. You are the children of water, fire, and life itself, but you were also born of wickedness. The Mothers love you and hate you. Remember that,” said Yuval. “You were forced upon them. They resent you, and you should never trust them fully. But they are your great-great-grandmothers a hundred times over, and if you call upon them with respect and confidence, they will answer you. So my story ends.”

  An artisan-caste boy raised his hand.

  “Your name, boy, and do you have a question?” asked Yuval.

  “Sippar,” said the boy. “If having the Gift makes me a direct descendant of the Mothers, why do neither of my parents have the Gift? Shouldn’t at least one of them be a descendant as well?”

  “I have no answer for you, Sippar,” said Yuval. “The Gift commonly skips generations. We do not know why. Any more questions?”

  No other hands went up. Taya was eager to start learning magic, and she supposed her classmates felt the same way.

  “I have a question for you, my students,” said Yuval. “Why do we, in the Coalition, refuse to wear gold upon our bodies?”

  Taya raised her hand. This one she knew.

  Yuval pointed at her. “Your name?”

  “Taya. It’s because the people of Zhaerath wore gold. We demonstrate to the Mothers that we have learned from our ancestors’ mistakes, and that we are not like them.”

  “Exactly,” said Yuval. “We are their children, not their defilers. Let’s move on.” He picked up a clay mug from a table. “What do I have in this cup? Any guesses?”

  “Water,” called one student.

  “Wine.”

  “Tea.”

  “Melon juice.”

  Yuval waited until the guesses died down, and said, “You’re all wrong. A goddess is in this cup.” He poured out the contents, which appeared to be pure water, while quietly muttering under his breath something in the mother tongue. The water gathered into a ball and hovered in midair.

  “I said water,” called the first student.

  Yuval pointed at the student who’d spoken. “Right and yet also wrong. Perhaps you see water as a thing, an inanimate object. But every bit of water, even the tiniest droplet, is the living incarnation of Mother Agu. Water is alive. She sees you. She hears you. And if you know her language and how to please her, she may consent to answer to you.”

  He gathered the water into his cupped hands. “You will discover, in your studies, that Mother Agu is the easiest of the goddesses to command. She is also, in many ways, the least reliable. The Mothers are individuals. They have different personalities, and you must study each of them in depth. In this, your second year, you will learn about Agu. Next year, you will learn the ways of Lalan, and in your fourth year, if you are still among us, I will teach you to communicate with Isatis. Right now your magic is weak because you are children. Just as your bodies have not yet reached their full size and strength, neither have your magical abilities, and that is a good thing because it gives us the opportunity to teach you control before you start summoning floods and infernos like clumsy jackals.”

  Yuval poured the water back into the cup. “A word on Isatis. Before the Atrocity, all three Mothers gave sustenance to their children. But afterwards, only Agu and Lalan continued to do so. When you eat and drink, you take Agu and Lalan directly into your body. They keep you alive. But you do not take Isatis into your body. Some of our sages believe this is why we sometimes sicken and die for no apparent reason—the third Mother refuses to nurture us. The touch of Isatis is not life-giving. It is injurious, often fatal. Agu and Lalan have punished their children, but they still nurture them. Isatis does not. Do not call on the Fire Mother until fourth year, when you will do so under supervision. She is not to be trifled with.

  “I know you are eager to begin working magic right away, but that will not happen until next season. For now we have a lot of tablet learning ahead of us.”

  The class groaned.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” said Yuval. “Listen closely, because at the beginning of next week I expect a three-tablet essay from each of you entitled, ‘Ways of the Water Mother.’ If we have any illiterates in this class, they may deliver their essays orally. I advise you, in your studies, not to think of Agu as a person, because if you do that, you will fail to understand her. She is an immortal. Think of the things you need to thrive—food, water, sleep, shelter. Mother Agu needs none of these things. Ponder that for a while. I will spend the rest of this week explaining the basics, and you will find many supplementary materials on the subject of Agu in the library.”

  The class groaned again, louder this time. But Taya didn’t join in. She was already mentally cataloguing which tablets in the library would be the best ones to look at. She couldn’t read them, but she was certain some of the older students in her tutoring group would help her.

  Chapter XVI

  Hrappa

  TAYA WOKE IN THE GUESTHOUSE the next morning to the realization that she’d been a fool. As upset as she’d been with Mandir, she ought not to have kicked him out
. She had a job to do, a jackal to find, and for all Mandir’s faults, he was smart. She ought to have swallowed her feelings and sat down with him to discuss the case. They might have made some progress. Now they would have to waste daylight hours working through the material they ought to have dealt with last night.

  When the knock came at the courtyard door, she braced herself before opening it. This was going to be awkward.

  Mandir shoved an amphora at her. “Peace?”

  Since he’d practically thrust it into her hands, she took the amphora. It was not one of Zash’s. The handles were lower and the neck narrower, and there was an ochre sunburst painted on the front. “Where did you get this?”

  “From a trader in the artisan district.” Mandir stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “It wasn’t cheap.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t. They probably carted it all the way up from the delta region.” She frowned. “You know it’s not the same thing, right?”

  He looked away. “Well, it’s banana wine.”

  “I know.” She set the amphora on the table, pleased to have it but still grieving for the other. “Zash made the one he gave me with his own hands. We spoke at length about his winemaking techniques—I would very much have liked to try the end result. He’s certain to ask, next time I see him, what I thought of it. And I don’t know what I’ll say.”

  Mandir folded his arms, a gesture that seemed to be his default response to anything that troubled him. But he seemed more disappointed than angry. He’d obviously gone to some effort to get the banana wine. He couldn’t have bought it this early in the morning, so he’d probably run to the artisan district immediately after their argument yesterday evening, before the markets closed. “Well,” he grumbled, “I got you something else, too.” He held out a bit of folded fabric.

  Taya took the cloth by its ends, and it rolled down almost to the floor in vivid shades of red, blue, and yellow, much like the multicolored swatch Bodhan had showed them. This, however, wasn’t a shapeless bolt of cloth. It was a pretty little sundress. She gasped.