“Send them away!” Majka forced herself to lean against him, touch his face with her fingertips. “Do it, please do it, send them off, just make up a story—”
“They would never dare return to our master with the job undone.”
“The job! Killing us, slaughtering us like a village of pigs.”
He broke away from her, walked back to the stove. Crouching, he opened the iron door and warmed his hands.
“They will not be turned,” he said, “and if I do not return by daybreak they will strike without me. They are too strong for Chamsarat, even if you faced them together. But with Shyram’s aid things might be different. There I saw at least twenty young men.”
“Yes,” she said. “Half of them are Pankolo’s cousins.”
“That is why I sent him there.”
“You what?”
“On his fastest horse. I told him the village would be dead by morning, if he did not bring aid. When he returns I shall fight beside them, and we will win.”
A lunatic. Majka put her face in her hands. “Pankolo,” she said, “will never show his face in Chamsarat again.”
“You don’t know that. For all of us there is a path beyond fear. Majka, where are the bones of your ancestors?”
He waited, still crouching, one side of his face gold in the firelight, the other a featureless shadow. For a long moment she stood leaning against the wall by the cellar door. Then she stood straight and crossed the parlour and lifted her coat.
THE DESCENT INTO the ravine was slippery and black. Wren carried the ash bucket and a pair of iron tongs, Majka the oil lamp. When the storm defeated the little flame she crept forward like a blind woman, trusting feet and fingertips. She had used this trail all her life, until four years ago.
The bottom of the ravine was a maze of boulders and underbrush and gnarled pines. They crept upstream until the gorge narrowed and the river lapped the feet of the cliffs. Majka told him to remove his boots. “From here we wade upstream.”
“Good God.”
“Never mind the cold,” she said. “You won’t be feeling it long.”
They wallowed and stumbled among the high black stones. While it lasted the cold was a torture, animals gnawing their flesh. But soon she felt the familiar weakening of those teeth. The river became chilly, then merely cool. “I hear a waterfall,” said Wren.
She could see now, just barely: the clouds were unbroken, but had thinned enough to glaze the river’s surface with an eggwash of moonlight. There were the falls, broad and snaggletoothed. And there were the three squat boulders, hunkering together by the cliffside. Majka flailed across the river. She squeezed into a narrow gap between the two nearest boulders, and sighed. Before her stretched a narrow, crescent-shaped pool. The water flowing from it was almost hot.
She clawed her way onto the ledge she remembered, then reached back and took the bucket and tongs from Wren. He floundered onto the ledge. Majka could barely see the man; he was a breathing blackness at her side.
“Gods of death,” he said. “It’s all true. It happened. Eight thousand souls.”
“My husband found the pool,” she said. “He was a very clever man. Grave robbers still waste time in the ruins, but they were picked clean before I was born. My husband knew better. He guessed what our ancestors did with the bones.”
“Into the river, eh? Where they’d draw no more attention.”
“And start no more fires,” said Majka. “They were thrown from the old battlements, miles upstream. Of course they were mostly smashed to bits and washed away. But not here. The pool’s too deep. Whatever washes in here sinks to the bottom and stays.”
“You’ve been back since he died?”
She nodded. “This end’s a bit shallower. I used to sink straight down and dig with my toes and find coins—gold coins; they washed down here too. But they’re gone now.”
“Why don’t you try the deep end?”
“Because I can’t swim, that’s why. And it’s a death trap. The current tries to suck you down under those rocks. If it does, you’re finished. Horses couldn’t pull you out.”
A weird sound came from above them. Feral, pitiful, pliant: it was the chelu, somewhere in the brush atop the cliff. Wren’s shadow moved. He was kneeling, removing her husband’s shirt.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m a very good swimmer.”
“So was he.”
In the darkness she felt him study her once more. Then his wet lips brushed her forehead: not an accident, nor quite a kiss. She placed a hand on his thigh, but he drew it away and took up the iron tongs. She saw him stand and begin to creep along the ledge.
A minor miracle, then, the gray veil of the clouds torn away, and there he was in the moonlight, naked, pale gold, and Majka scrambled to her feet as he dived. For a moment he vanished, but then she had him once more, pulling for the depths, a trick of the water making him look small and fragile-limbed and anxious as a child.
SPONDA THE SUET GIRL AND THE
SECRET OF THE FRENCH PEARL
ELLEN KLAGES
TIMES WERE LEAN. The capital had been under siege for months and supplies were running low. In the provinces, drought and disease had decimated the herds and parched the fields at the height of the summer growth. Food prices had soared, and little was available, even on the clandestine market, which was bad news indeed for a scrawny thief called Natto.
He stood at the counter of a tavern by the wharves one afternoon, nursing a tankard of sour ale and hoping to glean a lead that might put some coins in his rattling purse. Natto was not overly particular about where his profits came from, as long as they came steady and often, which they had not, recently.
“It’s called the French Pearl,” a man named Petin said from one of the tables. “The emperor has offered a prize of a thousand royals for the man who discovers its secret and delivers it to him. A thousand royals!” He slapped his hand onto the battered wood for emphasis.
Natto’s mouth twitched. Petin was no friend of his, nor was his companion Masquiat. They would not speak if they noticed his attention. He brought out his little knife and began to dig at his filthy nails, feigning disinterest as he listened.
“All that for a pearl?” Masquiat asked.
“Not just any pearl. Some say it has the power of everlasting life.” He looked over to the counter, smiled, then signaled for another cup of dark wine. “But its secret is hidden in a wizard’s lair.” He shook his head and drank.
“I see,” said Masquiat. “And how do you come to know this?”
“Three nights ago I made the acquaintance of a man, a tax collector, who had been traveling for a fortnight. Twitchy fellow, always scratching at one part or another. He was forced by weather to spend the night in a wretched village at the back of beyond, and saw the wizard himself.”
“He told you?”
“After a fashion. He was not used to strong drink. A small investment on my part loosened his tongue.” Petin shrugged. “After he’d had a few, I relieved him of his purse, and was quickly repaid.”
“Where is he now? Describing your ugly face to the authorities?”
“No. Sadly, late that evening, he lost his footing out on the docks. But not before he drew me a map.” Petin opened his coat, allowing a glimpse of ragged paper.
“Then why are you not gone in search of this so-called treasure?”
“What, do battle with a wizard? I have a bad leg.” Petin laughed. “And I like it here just fine. But wine does not come cheap. This map will bring a pretty penny when I find a fellow with a few pieces of silver who fancies himself an adventure.”
“True,” Masquiat said. “But where will you find such a man?”