Kzine Issue 17 Read online

  “What do you mean, you’ll let me off?” Meka grabbed the edge of the boat to steady herself as a larger, heavier boat jostled theirs aside. The Old Folk man standing in the bow spat into the water as if the sight of her and her companions left a foul taste in his mouth. “I thought we were all staying together until we found your daughter.”

  Djereb shook his head, dismissing the idea. “The City isn’t safe for Young Folk. And I don’t want to risk meeting the witch who stole Mernet. You stay with your brother and see if he knows anything, we’ll spend the night downstream where the Young Folk camp.”

  “I told you,” Meka said, “I don’t recognize anything.” Sekiu had lived in a large house with the City’s three other archmages, and she remembered being able to see one of the date palms shading the entrance from the edge of the Grand Canal. But there were so many more houses now. How could a settlement change so much in only fifty-one years?

  “He can’t be too hard to find,” Enedju said. “If he’s running the place.”

  Meka ignored him. The Canal narrowed as they moved away from the River but it also became less crowded, until theirs was the only boat. The houses were larger too, and the ground between the levee and the walls of the houses had been planted with sycamores and grapevines. But none of the houses looked familiar.

  Meka was about to suggest that they might have gone too far when a voice from the Canal’s edge shouted, “Stop! Come no further.”

  Three Old Folk men stood atop the levee. Two carried hand axes and slings.

  “Great Shepherd piss on them,” Djereb muttered. “Turn the boat around.”

  The nose of the boat began to swing to the side as Djereb and Hori adjusted their paddling. Then the entire craft tipped precariously as an invisible force started pushing the boat riverward.

  “Hey!” Meka waved at the three men. “We’re leaving! Stop pushing us.”

  Either the men didn’t hear or didn’t care, because the boat kept skimming back along the surface. Djereb and Hori drew the paddles in and clung to the sides, wide-eyed. Enedju, abandoning his usual slouch, grabbed Meka’s axe from the bottom of the boat and brandished it as if the Old Folk men were within striking distance, a snarl contorting his face.

  Meka had no magical ability of her own, but her mother was a magician, her brother an archmage. She’d seen plenty of magic, and having her boat pushed along the surface of a canal wasn’t going to intimidate her. “Put that thing down!” she told Enedju. “It isn’t even yours.” The rare bronze axe head, a gift from Meka’s brother, stood out among the polished stone weapons belonging to the three Young Folk men. Meka had often caught Enedju eyeing it.

  “Do what she says,” Djereb told the youth, who obeyed, though not without making a disgusted face. Then, addressing Meka, he asked, “Now what?”

  “Take me to the edge,” she said. “I’m going to ask what they think they’re doing.”

  Djereb looked doubtful. “Don’t you think we should wait until we’re farther away?”

  “If anything happens to me, they’ll have to answer to Sekiu.”

  “Your brother’s vengeance won’t help me get my daughter back.” But Djereb dipped his paddle back into the water and pushed the boat towards the edge. The sentinels watched but made no move to stop them.

  Meka hesitated before clambering up the levee, wondering if she should be taking her axe. But what good would it do against a magician? Besides, she trusted Djereb with it. She decided to leave it in the boat along with everything else she’d brought—excepting the clothes she wore—and went to meet the Old Folk “welcoming” her to the City.

  One of the men had a length of cloth draped around his arms and torso and his skirt reached almost to his ankles, but the men with axes and slings wore knee-length skirts like Meka’s. The postures of the two armed men indicated deference to the other, so he was probably the only magician of the three.

  Meka forced herself to calm down before she reached them, taking long, deep breaths and slowing her pace. “My brother is an archmage here. His name is Sekiu. Can you tell me where I can find his house?” She avoided looking back over her shoulder at Djereb and the others, paddling the boat back towards the river.

  The magician’s face turned uneasy. “It is not proper to refer to a Great Father by his true name.”

  Great Father? What was the man talking about? “Sekiu is my younger brother, not the Ancestor in the Heavens. I used to wipe his bottom when he soiled himself. I’ve come a long way to visit him, and I want to know where he is.”

  The man looked her over as if she were Young Folk, his eyes lingering on her dusty skirt, her broken and dirty fingernails and toenails. His linen garments and those of the two men accompanying him were as spotless as if they had come off the loom that morning.

  Finally, he gave a slow nod and said, “Come.” He and the others turned and descended the dry side of the levee to a narrow path invisible from the Canal, without waiting to see if she followed.

  * * *

  They stopped in front of a wall so high that Meka would have had to stand on the shoulders of one of the men to see over it. At first she thought it was constructed of mud-brick blocks so enormous that they should have crumbled under their own weight. Then she realized that the entire wall was made of stone.

  Her heart pounded as she tried to imagine how many people it would take to lift even one of the stone blocks. Then, as if in answer to her question, the largest of all, a huge slab that could have crushed an aurochs, rose soundlessly into the air until it had left an entrance high enough that even the men could enter without stooping.

  At first Meka assumed that the magician had lifted the stone and that he must therefore be one of Sekiu’s fellow archmages, a newer arrival whom she hadn’t met during her last visit. She didn’t think any ordinary magician could have lifted such a stone without help. But the magician glanced up uneasily as he passed under the stone, quickening his pace as much as Meka and the two armed men did.

  The wall enclosed an expanse of level ground that could have held all twelve houses in Meka’s village. It dwarfed what she remembered of the old House of Archmages. Several Young Folk women and girls, clad only in loincloths, sat in a group grinding grain, while others tended steaming pots and roasting geese over glowing coals, or spun flax into linen thread. Two handsome hunting dogs sprang to their feet to bark at the intruders, while a lounging pig and two cud-chewing goats glanced once in their direction before dismissing them as unimportant.

  Stairs led to a large house built over the rear of the courtyard, standing on posts like a flood platform. At the top of the stairs stood the strangest Young Folk girl Meka had ever seen. Like Young Folk from the north, her face and bare chest and arms were as pale as Meka’s, her long, braided hair was the color of sand instead of black, and her eyes were the blue of a cloudless sky at midday. But her legs and feet, visible through the side opening of her linen skirt, were as brown as Djereb’s.

  “The Great Mother will see you,” the girl announced.

  The strange girl led them to the roof of the house, which was flat and covered with baked mud instead of reed thatch and seemed sturdy enough to walk on. Low walls surrounded the roof and linen curtains rose above those, so that Meka could see only the occasional flash of the surrounding City when a breeze caught one. A reed canopy shielded the far half of the roof from the sun, and under the canopy, on a platform covered with animal skins, woolen rugs, and pillows, lounged a handsome Old Folk woman with strands of white hair mingled through the black.

  Meka recognized the woman from her last visit. She stepped forward, but almost immediately, an invisible force like a strong wind caught her shoulders and prevented her from approaching any closer. The woman’s face betrayed no sign of recognition.

  “Great Mother,” the magician said, bending from the waist and touching his hands to his knees. “This one was paddling up the Canal with three Young Folk shepherds. She claims blood ties to one of the Great Fathers
.”

  “Sekiu,” Meka said. “My brother. I stayed with you and the other archmages when I last visited the City.” She wished she could remember the woman’s name.

  The woman’s face brightened and at once she rose from her bed. “Of course! Forgive me for not remembering.” She gestured with one hand to the magician, and immediately the force holding Meka back was gone and the woman was catching her in an embrace, kissing each cheek. She was about a hand’s width shorter than Meka but still towered over the Young Folk women standing at either end of the bed with palm frond fans. Instead of a skirt, she wore a single garment that reached from shoulders to ankles, like a linen sack with holes cut out for her head and arms, cinched at the waist with a length of tooled leather. “I hope you will accept my hospitality this evening.”

  “I—I would be honored,” Meka said. “But I thought these men were taking me to Sekiu’s house. He doesn’t know I’ve come to see him.”

  A brief frown creased the woman’s forehead. “It was better to bring you here. Your brother’s house is not well suited for guests.” A look passed between her and the magician. “I will have word sent, informing him that you have arrived.”

  That night, Meka and the woman ate together on the roof by the light of dozens of oil lamps. Although none of the Young Folk in the household shared their meal, the sand-haired girl and two others waited on them as if they were too old or sick to get up and refill their own bowls. At Meka’s last visit, there had not been any Young Folk in the City at all and the archmages had eaten food prepared by other Old Folk. But those Old Folk had not lived with the archmages in their house or watched them eat.

  “Have you a husband or children?” Meka asked, after answering question after question about her own family. She held her wine bowl out so the Young Folk woman with the pitcher could refill it more easily, trying to remember how much she had already drunk.

  “Once,” the woman said. “My husband would not come when I wished to seek out other archmages with whom to learn, and our children were grown and married.” Meka nodded. Her father lived alone now and all agreed that he had wished to be head of his own household, impossible for a man married to a magician and village chief. “Now I’m mother to an entire City.”

  Before Meka could think of a reply, the woman said, “Sekiu has come.”

  The City had changed, but Sekiu had not. Even his smile was exactly as Meka remembered it, that smile that always made her forget how angry she had been. Only now, his smile was for Meka’s host. “Haya! Success! Two live subjects.” He dropped to the bed of rugs and skins that two of the Young Folk women hastily assembled for him.

  “I’m pleased to hear it.” Haya’s voice was mild, but Meka could tell that something did not please her. “You neglect your sister, who traveled all this way to visit you.”

  At Haya’s mention of her, Meka returned her full attention to the two archmages, trying to hide her unease. The sand-haired girl had drifted back into the shadows and was staring at Sekiu as if he were a cobra. One that had bitten her.

  “No, never!” Sekiu drank half the bowl of wine handed to him in one long gulp, then held it up to be refilled. “It makes my heart glad to see you again, sister. We have to find you a house.”

  “A house?” Meka glanced at Haya, who was frowning.

  “Of course, and Young Folk to serve you. We’ll choose four or five tomorrow.”

  Again, Meka looked helplessly at Haya. The older woman’s frown deepened.

  “Sekiu,” Haya said. “Perhaps Meka has only come to visit you. Perhaps she does not intend to stay.”

  It was Sekiu’s turn to stare as if he did not understand.

  “No,” Meka said. For a moment she wondered if it would be better to speak of why she had come in the morning when her head was not cloudy with wine, but then the words were tumbling out. “Sekiu, Mother sent me along with some Young Folk men, men who trade with our village. One had his daughter stolen by a City magician or archmage, a woman…” She trailed off. What if that woman had been Haya? “He wants his daughter back.”

  Haya’s expression was troubled but not, as far as Meka could tell, guilty. Sekiu looked impatient and bored.

  “An unfortunate tale,” Haya said. “If it is true.”

  “If it’s true!” Sekiu scoffed. “What does it matter if it’s true? There are five hundred Young Folk beyond the City, clamoring for food. Let him have one of their daughters and go back to his goats.”

  “Enough!” Haya’s voice was sharp. Meka was too horrified to speak. How had her charming little brother grown into such a cold, unfeeling creature?

  “Enough, indeed!” Sekiu stretched himself on the fur rugs, yawning. “Here I am with the two most beautiful women in the City and we waste our breath talking of Young Folk.” He turned over onto his side, took Haya’s bare foot in one hand, and started kissing her ankle.

  “Please excuse me.” Meka stumbled to her feet, took a step forward, and almost fell. A Young Folk woman caught her. “I am tired and should sleep. I thank you for dinner, Haya.”

  She turned and hurried to the stairs without waiting for either Haya or her brother to reply.

  * * *

  Meka managed to make her way down the two flights of stairs to the latrine trench at the rear of the courtyard and back to the guest room without falling or throwing up, even though the house seemed to be looping in circles around her head from all the wine. She had just fallen in relief onto the pile of skins and blankets when she realized that she was not alone.

  “Who’s there?” she murmured. She could hear Sekiu and Haya on the roof, making no attempt to hide what they were doing together from the rest of the household. She still could not believe how Sekiu had started kissing Haya in front of her, as if he didn’t care whether she stayed to watch. She could not believe how casually he had greeted her, as if they saw each other every day, as if it had not been thirty-seven years since he had bothered to visit his family.

  A small figure crept to Meka’s side. Enough light spilled into her room from the wasteful, blazing lamps on the rooftop that she could just make out the yellow hair of the strange Young Folk girl.

  “Your brother has her,” the girl whispered.

  Meka considered sitting up but decided against it. “What do you mean?”

  Fearfully, the girl put one forefinger over her closed lips, looking meaningfully at the ceiling. When she spoke again, Meka had to strain her ears to hear.

  “Great Mother brought a girl back. Young Folk like me but smaller, six or seven years old.” Meka thought the sand-haired girl might be twelve or thirteen; Young Folk and Old Folk aged at the same rate until they were around twenty. “She was too little to work and wouldn’t stop crying, so Great Mother gave her to your brother.”

  “What did my brother do with her?” Meka whispered.

  “I don’t know. I have to go.”

  “Wait!” Meka’s loud, hoarse whisper caught the girl in the doorway. “What did my brother do to you?”

  At first, Meka thought the girl wasn’t going to answer. Then, in a voice so quiet that Meka wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly, the girl said, “These are not my legs.”

  * * *

  In the morning, Sekiu was gone. Meka initially felt too sick from the lingering effects of last night’s wine to care, but Haya placed one cool hand on either side of her forehead and stared into her eyes, and instantly, the worst of Meka’s headache and nausea melted away. By the time she had finished a second bowl of the terrible-tasting infusion Haya gave her to drink, her appetite had returned enough that she was able to eat some barley porridge and a handful of raisins.

  “I hope you will not judge your brother too harshly,” Haya said. “His thoughts are often elsewhere. But his work is important. We would not be able to heal so many people without his insights.”

  Both magicians and archmages could listen in on conversations too quiet or distant for ordinary people to hear, but nothing in Haya’s manner suggeste
d that she had overheard the sand-haired girl last night.

  “Do you heal both Old Folk and Young?” Meka asked.

  Haya’s eyes narrowed. Meka immediately regretted the question. That was why Djereb’s daughter had been taken, according to the story he’d told Meka’s mother. As payment for healing his son, when the Young Folk shepherd was unable to supply the two hundred sheep he’d promised.

  “You must understand,” Haya said, “things have changed since your last visit. It isn’t like your village, where Young Folk come to trade leather and sheepskins for linen and grain and then go their own way. Here, they come because they envy our prosperity and want to be healed of all their illnesses and injuries. They pitch their tents downstream of the City, they wait for us to feed them, and they don’t leave. There are Young Folk children living in those tents whose parents were born there. I won’t let them starve or die of injuries we can heal. But if we healed everyone without asking for something of value in return, every archmage could work from sunrise to sunrise healing Young Folk and have no time left for their own people.”

  Meka did not dare ask what sorts of things Haya and the other archmages asked for when Young Folk requested healing. If Haya really had taken Djereb’s daughter, as the sand-haired girl claimed, she seemed unwilling to speak of it despite knowing why Meka had come. The sand-haired girl said the child was now with Sekiu, though…

  “Forgive my dull eyes,” Meka murmured, acknowledging in the manner of a younger person seated before an elder that she was ignorant on the matters of which Haya spoke. “I was wondering, do you think it will be possible for me to visit Sekiu at his house while I’m in the City?” She doubted that she would recognize Djereb’s daughter, but she could at least see if there was a Young Folk girl of the appropriate age there. And maybe in his own home, Sekiu would be more as she remembered him, the layers of callousness that the City seemed to have added set aside like an outer garment.