The priest recited orders, instructions for gripping and following the horse’s motion, and he flicked his wrists. His horse tossed its head before launching into a run. Slabs of muscle quivered under her seat, and the road blurred as his hands caught her again to bulk out his words about moving with the horse. Phos fitted her breathing to the bounce, and her hands tangled themselves into the horse’s mane. What was the smell? Hay and sweat churned with manure?
The surrounding wood smouldered with alien colours as the horse galloped: dull orange gleams mixed with distant red flecks. Each heartbeat drove her further from her parents, and she remembered the stories her teachers had fed her: they’d grimaced while burbling about hazards from strangers, and they’d dished out plans for running and shouting. Right now Phos did neither, but she imagined Mum screaming as the horse’s hooves kept drumming.
They passed into a fog bank, and sourness wreathed the air as pale shadows of houses flitted past before hurtling behind them.
Each new moment made a lesson, and new questions flocked through her mind as she relaxed. Sleep stalked her, and she forced her eyes open. The juddering made focusing hard, but the priest’s lanterns picked out ghostly birch trunks in the distance. A dim glow to the sides suggested the land curving up to become the world wall. She gripped the horse’s mane with both hands as her nose streamed, and the horse hammered on as frosty air flowed past.
He squeezed his legs against her, and she remembered how he’d scared those guards without trying. Why this endless ride? What plans fermented in his mind?
Pink and grey filaments slid onto the vault ahead, an early dawn as the sun’s arch drew near. Or was it a sun’s arch? She hoped to walk the whole ring one day and have the world curve underfoot as she marched forward, so this journey might make a rehearsal.
Her body jerked – had she snatched a few heartbeats of sleep?
Grey light blurred over a bleak moor, and the northern world wall showed streaks of orange at its top. Phos slipped leftward before the priest’s arms hauled her body back against his chest.
‘Not far now.’ He tugged his ropes, and Phos leaned forward as they slowed into a wide turn. Gravel scattered below; they’d found a path weaving up a hill, and a crumbling stone embankment appeared on her left, capped by wooden cabins and untidy heaps of planks. Dark green creepers smothered the buttery stone.
A gap showed in the wall ahead: a gate with two sentries. The priest slowed his horse into a walk to swap words with the guards before ambling inside and into a muddy courtyard. Creepers slid over these walls too, and fresh timberwork capped the creamy stone. Boxy rooms creaked in the breeze as two men hammered nails into a floor, and more labourers stormed, swearing, from a doorway. The church had stacked three storeys of wooden cubicles onto the older stones, like children playing with blocks. Ropes strained against groaning beams, and Phos thought of rushed homework.
To her left, two carts rested beneath a pole carrying a broken lantern at its top. Unused barrels and scythes piled against a wall to her right, but ahead sat a grassy field festering with huts. One twisted and collapsed as she watched. Wind squalled against her face, and Phos retched – were they building a village by starting with tannery smells? The sun’s arch limped above the stone, but the mud still clung to the colour of night.
Her parents would notice her missing cloak; they’d search the wood and find nothing, and they’d hammer on neighbours’ doors. Fear would choke them; fear she’d created. Yesterday’s caning had ended in moments, but punishment here might last weeks.
The officer dismounted and reached for her. So far his words had stayed soft, but maybe he wanted her quiet. Adults never wanted you vomiting over them, and she kept her eyes open as he helped her down; mud swallowed her boots. Torzene was nothing like a village: she’d always known centuries-old houses with age-buckled walls; this place had sprouted almost overnight like an artificial toadstool, and toadstools hatched sickness.
The priest faced her and smiled; his lips looked like a gash in a rubber ball, and sweat dotted his face.
‘Welcome to Torzene. We need breakfast, don’t we?’ His hand stroked her shoulder, and she flinched before letting him shepherd her through a doorway and into the buttery-stone building. Moss doled out beige glimmers inside, but Phos blinked in the murk. Embers of light bathed a corner, and the priest nudged her forward until a cell appeared on their right, where three guards hunched over a smoky fire. The officer paused before entering and pointed at Phos.
‘We have a visitor, so can we rustle up breakfast?’
‘We’ve eaten our rations, sir. You might try the mess, but they’re short too.’
The priest stared back, but the guard never moved, and again his hand gripped her shoulder. He shoved her further down the mildewed corridor and into a small room.
A dull glow trickled through a skylight over three chairs and a lopsided table. Papers towered beside a sprawl of box files. A shelf held a teapot and several cups, and damp stained one wall. He owned a model world, a braided wire ring suspended by threads from a wooden frame. Two coils of thin rope dangled from hooks on the back wall. Tape wrapped a bundle of five books, and three handheld lanterns with used candles sat on his desk.
‘You work at night?’
‘Aren’t you the observant one? And that’s why you’re here. Please sit.’
Phos rested her hands on her lap and clamped her lips together.
The officer unclasped his cloak and fussed over its folding before hanging the fabric in a wardrobe.
‘My name’s Rastersen. I’m tasked to watch this area for problems, though I’m climbing the stair soon.’ He paused and sat. ‘Your name?’
‘Phos.’
A flicker of surprise. ‘One syllable? When’s your second due?’
‘Three months.’
‘Phos, one syllable. Very good, Phos.’ Air wheezed past his lips as he played with her name, and his fingers flicked through a ledger.
‘You must come from Leester. Tell me of your parents.’
‘Grasteller, my father, is a money counter. Shelaker, my mother.’ Phos paused. ‘They don’t know I’m here.’
Rastersen wrote; his letters were too small to read, and after a few words his quill hovered above the page. ‘I’ve heard fine things of Grasteller. You left no note?’
‘I planned to return before dawn.’
Rastersen smiled. ‘You saw the windmill’s light from your house. Did the lights ever change?’
She’d seen the connection. A gust of wind had followed each of the windmill’s sudden flares as if wind had become light. Phos knew wind took time travelling and light didn’t, but girls shouldn’t know that, and she blushed.
‘Lights came and went – bright and dim.’
Rastersen licked his lower lip as he studied her face. ‘Was there a pattern?’
‘No.’ Phos let her mouth hang open.
‘Are you sure?’
Phos stayed silent. Why had Rastersen demanded silence from the sergeant’s men?
The priest smiled. ‘Why is your hand marked?’
She’d learned to keep lies rare, but the truth held danger. ‘I was late for school too often.’
More questions sidled from his lips, and Phos ladled out vague answers as she tried to keep her voice level – the knowledge she’d wrung from the world should stay hidden.
Rastersen slouched back in his chair.
She still remembered Quiss. He’d sauntered into school early and smashed a tiny glass window. She’d gasped – glass was precious – but he’d sorted through shards until he’d found one he wanted. He’d grunted and pocketed the fragment before grinning at her, and she’d kept quiet.
Outside at lunch, he’d held his shard beside a paper scrap. Light had twisted through glass and dashed over his sheet until smoke and a tiny flame had appeared. She’d smiled, and he’d shown her how turning the glass scrunched the light up and how smaller spots were more burny. Again, she’d kept quiet.
<
br /> Did Rastersen believe her? Why had he carried her here? Would he tell her parents? Phos quivered.
Quiss had been desperate to show others, and their teachers had heard. They’d hauled him away with one teacher gripping his wrist as Quiss threw her a panic-stuffed glance. No one had mentioned him again, and all the lists shrank by one. She missed the way he’d never left their world alone. He’d turned light into fire, and she’d seen wind become light, and now Rastersen had all day to pry at her thoughts.
The priests knew she asked questions; if they knew the breathless bliss she earned each time she solved a problem she’d never see the sun’s arch again. Marriage might feel like a prison, but she’d heard of real prisons: windowless cells heaving with spiders.
Rastersen smiled. ‘Your curiosity is enough to spill you from your comfortable hammock and into the night, and you know enough to hide your learning.’
Phos remembered climbing trees and stepping onto a branch: she’d gradually applied her weight until the wood’s weakness had unfurled in a heartbeat of snapping and plummeting, and Rastersen’s questions would keep coming until she broke. The damp walls seemed to close in around her.
Two sets of footsteps sounded behind, and Phos turned as two priests strode inside. Rastersen surged to his feet. The taller newcomer was a thin stick of a body capped by baldness, with crimson lining half his cloak. He glanced at her.
‘Another child, Rastersen? Where is this one from?’ Long vowels, thought Phos: wealth, power and strength.
Rastersen blushed. ‘The dawnward Leester windmill collapsed, sir, and the guards found her under the wreckage, and—’
‘Attend to your duties, Rastersen. You are not tasked with examining commoners. Leave the detection of talent to your superiors. Girl, will you stand?’
Phos stood.
‘Your name?’
The shorter priest stared.
‘Phos.’
‘One syllable, Rastersen? Do you believe the talent would appear in such a girl? Return her, and resume your duties.’
Again the elder priest glanced at her as if she was grit in his routine. Rastersen nodded once.
‘We will check, Rastersen. With you, we always check.’
The short priest frowned. ‘You’re not detaining the girl? She’s seen our preparations.’
‘Soon thousands will see. One early girl makes no difference, and besides, her absence will stir her village into action. Return her untouched.’
Their orders hung in the air after they’d left, and Rastersen slouched as a sigh whistled through his lips.
‘You had the intelligence to hide your intellect, and few children show your insight; imagine the stories and learning we might have shared.’ He smiled, and Phos relaxed as the skylight brightened: her parents would dish out a month of extra chores, but she’d be home.
‘There’s much those two don’t know, Phos. For instance…’ Rastersen pointed at his desk lanterns, and two heartbeats later the candles lit.
Phos gasped. ‘How…how did you do that?’
‘Aren’t you young ladies told to win yourselves a husband? Why this interest, Phos? Why are you blushing?’
Phos closed her mouth.
‘Our elders grumble when we reveal exploits outside the priesthood, but there’s a keen mind under your hair, and you deserve more. I can show you their workings, but it takes time. Don’t fret: I’ll find you.’
Her mouth felt dry. A door to an immense store of knowledge had creaked open, but she’d watched schoolboys set worms on hooks to bait fish.
‘You’ve more of these…exploits? And the priests mentioned talent.’
He gazed at her. ‘Care to take tea?’
Rastersen poured water from a flask into his glazed teapot and lifted a tiny bag from an inlaid lacquer box. He dropped the pouch into the water and closed his eyes before wrapping his hand around the vessel. Lemon and pine scents wafted out as the teapot steamed, and Phos sat in silence.
The tea burst over her tongue with a fruit-laden sweetness. The priest watched her drink but said nothing. Afterwards he stood and donned his cloak, and she followed without thinking. Again his fingers pressed through her tunic as they drifted outside into the muddy courtyard. Three labourers heaved a cart against a stack of barrels but turned their heads away as she passed.
Rastersen prodded her away from the main gate and into the hut-strewn space she’d glimpsed earlier. Someone had vomited a village onto a field of wiry grass. Shoddy huts sat beside stables, shelters and open-air ranges mixed with forges. In the distance, a jagged, half-finished timber fence wrapped the false hamlet; three gangs of labourers hauled planks upward as she watched. Rastersen strode forward with bristle and regrown passion.
‘You’ve not told me how you lit those candles,’ Phos said. ‘What’s this village doing without people?’
A squat brick hut without shutters sat next to a stable with two famished horses. The bricks looked smoked, almost black, and muddy ground surrounded the hut’s walls.
‘Listen, Phos, you have a lesson.’
She followed and skidded on mud as Rastersen stood outside a bolted iron slab of a door. His puffy face swung towards her. ‘I’ll return you to Leester, but don’t breathe one word about your time here or meeting me. Why not tell Mum you were out berrying – you like berries?’
Phos stayed silent.
His hand stretched out and clasped her elbow. ‘I don’t want you to meet the people inside, but talk and they will find you, and you’ll become another job.’ His eyes fixed on hers, and his fingers squeezed; the man had the strength to hold her here, and perhaps strength to disobey the senior priests.
‘Shall we listen?’
Rastersen wrenched at an iron bolt and tugged the door open to uncover a tiny chamber holding another door. He gestured her inside and stood behind to cup her waist with his hands.
A thin scream leaked out, a weary plea without words that shuddered into Phos’s mind – a young woman in agony. Gabbled words came, pleading mixed with despair.
‘She talked.’ He squeezed her waist, and Phos’s arms froze. ‘Your youth means nothing. Living far away means nothing. Playing dumb means nothing. I’ll try to protect you, but you must rely on me for help: I can protect you from those inside.’ His hands slipped away, and Phos’s vision turned grey as she stumbled forward.
‘How about going home? You’ve been a very lucky girl, and as your parents’ house overlooks the windmill, I’ll always know how to find you. We’ll talk again.’
His mention of home left her nodding, and he led her towards the stables. Daylight felt thin, and sweat chilled her skin as bile surged inside – what had ripped the scream from the woman’s body? Candles and screams and danger fought against learning; Rastersen pulled and pushed at the same time.
She’d had no choices since being discovered at the windmill. Questions swarmed around her, but questions alone weren’t enough for learning; she needed answers too. Even if Rastersen let her go, could she trust herself not to trot back here and learn those exploits? Had he read enough of her mind to shape her curiosity into a noose?
***
Twigs splintered under Caliper’s feet, and a branch snagged his apron before snapping. The air stank like a latrine, and cobwebs clotted over his beard. These forest trees had glowed well, but now only the faintest blue tinge limped out, and he stumbled over a pile of muck. He paused and held his breath, but only heard a distant owl’s hoots.
Speed and silence were friends now. He’d creep through these dark, wooded paths and avoid the guards until Christina breathed at his ear again. His windmill’s corpse rested silently behind him. One day, he’d dredge up enough courage to revisit the site.
He’d tried to imagine Christina’s home, but only ever saw her cloudlike figure scurrying across a ruined castle that dripped with moss. Christina never had words to describe where she was; he’d chosen dawnward as a direction without knowing if that was right, and the need to move bur
nt inside him. Right now she’d stand in her home and pin his position on whatever class of map she used. She’d find the right time to reforge their link. She only came when he was alone, so he had to avoid the guards. Mostly her voice stayed level, but some days grief cracked her words.
Their first meeting had carved out this path for him. He’d heard ghost stories at school: boys swapped hushed fables of a female giant gliding through walls before trying to speak. Everyone agreed listening brought madness, but the stories had dried up once he’d left school, and he’d almost forgotten the tales.
Three months ago he’d rested upstairs as owls hooted through the night’s chill, and the spectral image of a woman’s head had drifted through his windmill. Terror had almost thrown him into the night, but he’d stayed – even then he’d sought different roads. She’d flowed like a misty waterfall towering above him, and the image had flickered as if trying to decide between blurry and sharp. The face had smiled and held eye contact as she spoke. At first he’d only heard noise: each word had started on one tone but ended on another, as if the figure played with sound. After two breathless minutes, Caliper had recognised broken words, and even sentences.
She’d dropped to his level – perhaps she’d crouched – and her face had hovered inches away as fresh phrases drifted into his mind: a single word repeated, her name, Christina. He’d pointed at himself and spoken, and afterwards he’d named everything she touched. Christina’s memory was perfect. The first time he’d mouthed her name, he’d imagined his jaw would crack, but she’d repeated herself until he’d mastered those tongue-curling sounds – three syllables. He’d thought they were the same age, but she’d laughed and said her name didn’t work that way.
Should he be ashamed for having a girlfriend with a body you could see through? Christina was twice his height, and the strangeness meant he’d never shared his story. Each time she appeared, her face became sharper, the lips and nose a touch fuller, as if she’d learned how to appear, and until now she’d always returned.
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