"Find me some taters," said the sow in a voice low and rough as rush matting.
"They're all gone, a fortnight ago," Sula said. Then she blinked. Kiki had never spoken to her before.
"I smell them," said Kiki. She lifted her snout. "And new-laid eggs, and just-open flowers. Get them for me."
"But I—but you—but—"
"Now," said the pig, lowering her snout and glaring at Sula. Sula noticed that Kiki had tusks now, long ones, and that her snout was shorter than it had been. This was not the conversation Sula had imagined she might have with her pig if the pig could talk. Sula rose, took her gathering basket and the sky knife from pegs near the door, stepped into her clogs, and went out into the rain. She glanced toward the houses of the others, farther from the forest and the midden, closer to the square and the tavern. She had no friends among them. Should she choose to step out of her life and walk away from her house and everything in it, no door would open to her; no one would offer her so much as soup, not unless she brought them something they could use.
She turned into the forest instead and spent the afternoon robbing bird nests. The only taters she knew of were in other peoples' root cellars, where she let them stay, but she found some windflowers beside the stream and picked them to take home.
Kiki was waiting beside the fire for her when she came back. She set her finds on a wooden trencher on the floor and watched as the pig ate everything, carefully and delicately, spilling nothing. Its eyes watched her watching it. When she stooped to pick up the trencher, the pig whipped its head to the side, slashing her arm with its tusk. Sula was so surprised that she fell backward, and Kiki came at her where she sprawled on the rushes. She wondered if the pig would kill her now. She held her arms up to protect her face, and the pig licked the arm it had bloodied, then backed away from her, muttering and murmuring small sounds that resembled a song.
Sula's head swam. She sat up slowly and studied her arm. The slash burned, but it was not deep; it had scraped away skin to the blood beneath, but it had not sliced into muscle. The strange small song of the pig flowed into her ears, and she found her head weaving in time to it, and then her whole body swayed.
The pig finished singing and said, "You're mine now; do you understand?"
"No," said Sula.
"Body and soul you belong to me."
"No," whispered Sula.
"Yes. Say yes."
She tried to keep her mouth closed on the word, but she could not. "Yes."
"Remember," said the pig. "You gave yourself to me when you killed me. Nothing else binds two souls so strongly as murder. You gave yourself to me, and now I have accepted you."
Sula shook her head.
"Say yes," whispered the pig.
Though she tried not to say it, she whispered yes.
"You cannot kill me," said the pig, "for my heart is elsewhere."
Recalling how she had taken care of her last wayward pig, Sula glanced toward the place where she kept her bow and a quiver full of arrows. They were no longer there. She looked lower, and saw that her bow had been bitten in half, its braided hide string chewed to bits, and the arrows had fared no better; all that was left of them were fragments of snow-white feathers and the iron heads.
She unsheathed the sky knife and looked from its blade to the pig.
"You might cut me, but you cannot kill me." It glanced at the fire for a while, then turned back. "You will not cut me."
She sighed and put the knife away. "What are we going to do with the babies?"
"When they can walk, we will take them to my sister."
"Your sister?" she whispered.
"In the castle kitchens at Babiruse Fief, six days' march to the south."
In the darkness beyond the pig, faint cries sounded. "Sleep well," said the pig, and vanished.
As the days lengthened she spent more and more time in the forest, for she had ten mouths to feed now—eleven, if she counted her own. Every night she fell into bed exhausted, and every morning the pig sent her out again, sometimes with specific instructions:
Horses, hounds, and hawks he might know, she thought, but he had no herblore. When she went foraging she picked bitter herbs with the sweet, nightshade and gutburst, larkspur and amanita. She offered them all to the pig, mixed with grasses and nasturtiums and puffballs, when she went home. Sometimes the pig ate them and sometimes it didn't.
It never even got sick. Pigs could eat almost anything.
Circle of Ashes
Stephanie D. Shaver
It had taken exactly two hundred and twenty-two steps to get up to Lord Benzamin's room. Maakus knew. He'd counted every… last... one.
"Maakus, correct?"
"Indeed, Lord Benzamin," the bard replied, trying hard not to pant.
"Please, take a seat." The slightly gray-haired magus gestured toward a padded chair.
The bard sighed as he relaxed into the cushions, taking the time now to memorize the setup of the room he had entered, as was his duty. A comfortably sized rectangular room, the west and east walls—coincidentally, the longest—lined with books. The north wall had two beveled-glass doors that opened on to an impressive porch and a view of the City of Light. There were only two other doors in the room. One behind him in the south wall—the one he'd come through—and one in the west wall, which was shut at the moment.
Maakus turned his eyes now to the man he had come to visit. The kioko magus, Benzamin, one of the fifty High Lords of the City of Light. An unextraordinarily-looking, slightly pudgy and green-eyed man who commanded extraordinary power.
"Wine, sir madrigal?" the magus asked, and glanced toward the door in the west wall. Maakus was surprised to see that it had opened without him hearing, and a small child was looking in, her eyes flicking from magus to bard, just far enough into the room to show she was wearing the cream-and-silver of an initiate of the City of Light.
"That would be most fine," Maakus said. "White, please."
Benzamin nodded and looked pointedly at the girl. "You heard him," he said not unkindly, and she giggled and darted out so quickly the golden curls on her head bounced. The door shut behind her.
The magus waited until the girl had returned and Maakus had had a few sips of the wine—which was chilled and excellent—before saying, "So, sir madrigal. What brings you here?"
Maakus paused for a moment, then reached into the satchel at his hip and withdrew a leather-bound book. He set it on the magus' desk and pushed it toward the man. Benzamin leaned forward, his face now fallen into a mask of seriousness, and picked it up gingerly. He flipped through a few pages, and his face fell further, now toward sorrow.
"Aloren," he said, a soft pain in his voice.
Maakus nodded. "I... found this, sir. After she..."
Benzamin swallowed, his throat bobbing. "Thank you, sir madrigal," he said. "I knew Aloren kept a journal. I had wondered what had happened to it. The retrieval of this is much appreciated. I can requisition you a reward of—"
"No money," the bard said, and leaned forward. "Sir..."
The magus raised a brow at him. "I have a feeling you are about to ask for something I cannot give you."