Star peered over her shoulder at the Beysib cutter, then turned back to Samlor. 'I don't want to go with them. Uncle,' she said pettishly. 'I want to go back to Cirdon. I want to play in the big house.'
'Honey,' Samlor said, 'sweetest ... I'm sorry. But we can't do that now, because of that boat.' The cutter was too big to overturn, the caravan-master was thinking. But perhaps if he jumped into the larger boat with his push dagger, in the confusion they might -
The Beysib archer pitched into the water.
It was a moment before Samlor realized that the man had fallen forward because the cutter had come to an abrupt halt beneath him. The swift craft had thrown up a bone of glowing spray. Now the spray's remnant curled forward and away from the cutwater as a diminishing furrow on the sea.
'Now can we go to Cirdon, Uncle?' the little girl asked. She lowered the hands she had turned towards the cutter. Either her voice had dropped an octave, or the caravan-master's mind was freezing down in sudden terror. The white tendrils of Star's hair blazed and seemed to writhe.
The cutter's bow lifted. The boat disappeared stern-first with a rush and a roar and the screams of her crew. A huge, sucker-blotched tentacle uncoiled a hundred feet skyward, then plunged back into the glowing sea.
Samlor's hands found the oars again. His mind was ice, and his muscles moved like flows of ice. 'Yes, Star,' he heard his voice say. 'We can go back to Cirdon now.'
MIRROR IMAGE by Diana L. Paxson
The big mirror glimmered balefully from the wall, challenging him.
Even from across the room, Lalo could see himself reflected - a short man with thinning, gingery hair, tending to put on weight around the middle though his legs were thin; a man with haunted eyes and stubby, paint-stained hands. But it was not his reflection empty-handed that frightened him. The thing he feared was his own image copied on to a canvas, if he should dare to face the mirror with paintbrush in hand.
A shout from the street startled him and he went softly to the window, but'it was only someone chasing a cutpurse who had mistaken their cul-de-sac for a shortcut between Slippery Street and the Bazaar. The strangeness of life in Sanctuary since the Beysib invasion, or infestation, or whatever it should be called, gave simple theft an almost nostalgic charm.
Lalo gazed out over the jumble of roofs to the blue shimmer of the harbour and an occasional flash where the sun caught the gilding on a Beysib mast. Ils knew the Beysib were colourful enough, with their embroidered velvets and jewels that put a sparkle in even Prince Kitty-Cat's eye, but Lalo had not been asked to paint any of them so far. Or to paint anything else, for that matter - not for some time now. Until the good folk of Sanctuary figured out how to transfer some of their new neighbours' wealth into their own coffers, no one was going to have either the resources or the desire to hire Sanctuary's only notable native artist to paint new decorations in their halls. Lalo wondered if Enas Yorl's gift to him would work on a Beysib. Did the fish-eyes have souls to be revealed?
Without willing it, Lalo found himself turning towards the mirror again.
'Lalo!'
Gilla's voice broke the enchantment. She filled the doorway, frowning at him, and he flushed guiltily. His preoccupation with the mirror bothered her, but she would have been more than bothered if she had known why it fascinated him so.
'I'm going shopping,' she said abruptly. 'Anything you want me to get for you?'
He shook his head. 'Am I supposed to be watching the baby while you're gone?'
Alfi thrust past her flowing skirts and looked up at his father with bright eyes.
'I'm t'ree years old!' said Alfi. 'I a big boy now!'
Lalo laughed suddenly and bent to ruffle the mop of fair curls. 'Of course you are.'
Gilla towered above him like the statue of Shipri All-Mother in the old temple. 'I'll take him with me,' she said. 'The streets have been quiet lately, and he needs the exercise.'
Lalo nodded and, as he straightened, Gilla touched his cheek, and he understood what she could so rarely manage to put into words, and smiled.
'Don't let the fish-eyes gobble you up!' he replied.
Gilla snorted. 'In broad daylight? I'd like to see them try! Besides, our Vanda says they're only people like ourselves, for all their funny looks, and serving that Lady Kurrekai, she should know. Will you trust Bazaar tales or your own daughter's word?' She backed out of the doorway, hoisted the child on to one broad haunch, and scooped up the market basket.
The building shook beneath Gilla's heavy tread as she went down the stairs, and Lalo moved back to the window to see her down the street. The hot sunlight gilded her fading hair until it was as bright as the child's.
Then she was gone, and he was alone with the mirror and his fear.
A man called Zanderei had asked Lalo if he had ever painted a self-portrait whether he had ever dared to find out if the gift the sorcerer Enas Yorl had given him of painting the truth of a man would enable him to make a portrait of his own soul. In return, Lalo had given Zanderei his life, and at first he had been so glad to be alive himself that he did not worry about Zanderei's words. Then the Beysib fleet had appeared on the horizon, with the sun striking flame from their mastheads and their carven prows, and no one had had leisure to worry about anything else for awhile. But now things were quiet and Lalo had no commissions to occupy him, and he could not keep his eyes from the mirror that hung on the wall.
Lalo heard a dog barking furiously in the street and two women squabbling in the courtyard below and, more faintly, the perpetual hubbub of the Bazaar; but here it was very still. A stretched canvas sat ready on his easel - he had been planning to spend this morning blocking out a scene of the marriage of Ils and Shipri. But there was no one else in the house now - no one to peer through his doorway and ask what he thought he was doing - no one to see.
Like a sleepwalker, Lalo lifted the easel to one side of the mirror, positioned himself so that the light from the window fell full on his face, and picked up the paintbrush.
Then, like a lover losing himself for the first time in the body of his beloved, or an outmatched swordsman opening his guard to his enemy's final blow, Lalo began to paint what he saw.
Gilla heaved the basket of groceries on to the table, rescued the sack of flour from the child's exploring fingers, and poured it into the bin, then found a wooden spoon for Alfi and set him down, where he began to bang it merrily against the floor. She stood for a moment, still a little out of breath from the stairs, then began to put her other purchases away.
It did not take long. The influx of Beysib had strained Sanctuary's food supply, and their wealth had sent prices climbing, and though Gilla had hoarded a fair amount of silver, there was no telling how long it would be until Lalo was working regularly again. So it was back to rice and beans for the family, with an occasional fish in the stew. Now that so many new ships had been added to the local fleet, fish were the one item in ample supply.
Gilla sighed. She had enjoyed their affluence - enjoyed putting meat on the table and experimenting with the spices imported from the north. But they had subsisted on coppers for more years than she liked to remember, and few enough of those. She was an expert on feeding a family on peas and promises. They would survive the Beysib as they had survived everything else.