"Because I feel ambitious. Disaster and fighting breed opportunity," Loria replied. She was restless and nearly danced with suppressed energy. "Call in everything. Something wonderful is happening! I know it!"
Tayva reluctantly acquiesced and walked to the dovecot. Loria's enthusiasm did not fire her, but there might be profit in a new course of action. Calling in her birds was easy enough and no great sacrifice.
Tayva entered the cot and looked over her flock. She knew exactly which bird to use. The pigeon was the one most closely related to all she had sent out, and blood calls to blood. She saw it in a corner cage and softly grasped it in her hands. At first unsettled, the bird soon calmed and began to coo. Tayva carefully exited the cot and turned to the slough. The bird was completely lulled when she approached the dank water. A knife she brought from the house darted to the bird, and its blood covered her hand. She dropped the knife in the dust and squeezed all she could from the small body. She flung one cupped palm to the sky and shrieked as a bird. The blood from her hand arced high and fell as uneven rain over the foul water. The surface frothed and then settled with the red droplets vanishing into the depths.
Though the imperative went out that instant, the birds would not wing home until night. Carrion birds knew they were dead, and flights of crows would fall upon the rotten flesh if the spies flew by day.
Tayva returned and sat at their small table. "They are coming, but I don't know how we'll replace them all."
Loria finished the last of the meat from their murderous feast the night before. "Set nets and lime and use flocks of wild birds. Our power can stretch farther now. It is time to forego the ties of blood and relation." She nibbled at the greasy meat delicately, her daintiness out of place in the polluted and narrow hut. "It's time for bigger and bolder actions. We're moldering away in this sty." She kicked spitefully at the crude furniture.
"Remember our former house? Queens of creation we were. And the freedom! Servants to dispose of the mess and find new subjects. Only the best and richest victims to share. Those were grand times. We've grown too small to remember them." Loria looked into the more prosperous past and ached with longing.
The two cousins wove nightmares of the past and future and delighted in their darkness.
"Well, what do you hear?" Loria asked as she rubbed her hands to hide her excitement.
Tayva worked behind the stone wall of the dovecot and tilted her head into a gust of clean air. The shade of the cot and the proximity to the water should have made her comfortable, but her work prevented much relief. The birds had returned during the night, and Tayva had been taking their reports most of the day. The heat and proximity of so many animated rotting bodies created a cloud of stench that nearly drove her to distraction. Loria had walked on the lakeshore, wrapped in dreams of good fortune while Tayva completed the filthy work. She was also tired from having to soothe the living birds. The dead pigeons had settled in baskets and crates set around the dovecot, the focus of their former lives. The return of their dead relatives brought the living birds no joy. The pigeons had finally settled in exhaustion, and Tayva knew stress would kill several more before the end of the day.
"Interesting news," Tayva finally replied to Loria's query. "Winton was right. The south is wracked by plague that is spreading like wildfire! The druids can't touch it, and the leaders are desperate." Tayva called another pigeon and watched it fly from the group concealed in an overturned basket. She had separated the arrivals into several groups and was processing them.
The pigeon had no eyes, but it still regarded Tayva and Loria intently, shifting its stance as its focus changed from one to the other. Tayva riveted its attention as she set her shoulders and raised her arms. One hand pointed at the bird, and the other reached for the slough. The pigeon's flesh corrupted and liquefied in an instant, and all it had known since its rebirth slammed into Tayva's mind.
Loria ignored her cousin. The morning had gone, and she had seen the ceremony too many times. She poured the last of the herbal oil over the dissolving bones, throwing handfuls of gray ash over it. The resulting cloud covered the whole back of the cot and a large circle of ground. Loria choked until it cleared, but Tayva sat and digested what she had learned in perfect stillness.
"It's a treasure hunt, " she said abruptly. "There are rumors of secreted power. The birds saw armies marching in search of it, and this one even saw a map purporting to give its location. Power is just sitting there while collections of timid fools wait for orders. This is something we could grasp for ourselves!" Tayva spoke with rising excitement, and her gestures became broader. The prospect of power washed the surrounding filth from her mind.
Loria listened. "We'll beat them to it. True power. No more birds or simpering plots. To be done with isolation at last!" She was exultant, but her near shout of joy tweaked her bones with pain, and she thought of what travel would mean. She rose and walked to the hut.
"No security. No sacrifices for power. Nothing I can't carry with me," Loria muttered and looked around. The hut was rude, and all the decent things had disappeared long ago. There was a small amount of coin-carefully gathered from successful victims-but little else of value. Loria went to the side of the doorjamb and dug their cash from the hiding place, a pot sealed in the rammed earth floor. The bag was distressingly light. She watched her cousin checking the pigeons and saw an old woman who would lend little to the journey and split resources. So many had died at her hands. The choice wasn't hard.
"Tayva, kill the best birds and bring them for pies," she shouted. "We're leaving tomorrow, and we'll have the best before we go." She turned to begin making crusts and plans for the dinner-and for tomorrow's lonely journey.
The meal that night was a success. The cousins took the last of the good wine from its hiding place and served in freshly washed cups. Loria had carefully "seasoned" the food and maintained a separation between what she and Tayva ate. Loria was the perfect hostess, fetching each course and topping each cup.
"I wonder how warm it is in the south. It's been so long since we left I can hardly remember how it was. Not that my memories will be of any use after twenty years of retreating ice," she said as she gave the last of the wine to Tayva and nudged the servings of food closer to her cousin.
Loria had never poisoned someone familiar with toxins and felt some trepidation. Each course, each utensil that Tayva used was lightly poisoned. If she grew suspicious and switched food or silverware with Loria, the plan would still go forward. Tayva's ingestion of many small doses of poison would have a fatal effect. The poison was distilled from the cousins' brew and was without taste. Eventually Tayva would fall under its influence and die.
Tayva grew steadily more passive, her mind wandering.
Loria decided to accelerate the process. "Have some brew, dear cousin, " she coaxed and poured the vintage that Winton had enjoyed into a brace of cups. "It's not good, but it is all we have for now. " She watched Tayva take the cup and drink deeply. Tayva motioned for more, but her eyes were dull in the evening light and her movements muted.
"Plenty more for us both, " Loria said expansively and filled Tayva's cup to the brim while ignoring her own. Tayva again drank deeply, and all signs of her intelligence faded away. Loria found the situation delicious.
"So sad that I-we are leaving tomorrow, " she said maliciously. "There were good times here. " She considered the squalor around her. "Well, not too good. " She reached to fill Tayva's cup, but she was thwarted by her cousin's uncoordinated attempt to pass it to her. It fell to the floor and broke. Tayva looked at the shards of pottery with an expression of deep grief.