“Ay.
I’ve run enough times.”
“You were especially quick to save Sherya.
I’ve never seen a man move as lightning from the heavens.”
“That lightning would be a father’s love for his daughter. Nought else.”
Her hand touched mine. “You’re a good man.” Truly told, my heart leaped into my throat in the same way as the first day we eloped–it set me afire with emotion. After a long pause, she whispered, “Arlak, will we be in danger now? From Jyla?”
“Should we leave Lorami Fountain, do you mean?” I tried to force some levity into my tone, but it came out
as dry as dust. “I did wonder what we’d tell the neighbours.”
“Quite.”
“Rubiny, I dread to think what would happen if Jyla ever found you or the children.”
“Oh, Arlak.”
“I have placed our family in the most terrible danger.” My voice cracked. All I could see was Jyla driving nails into Janos’ body. Her ambition would stop at nothing, least of all murder, to achieve her goals. “No,” I thought aloud, “I am central to her plans. I am … I’m her gatherer. She will be watching.”
“Is she that powerful?”
“Truly told, she must be a supreme Sorceress. I’ve never heard of such deeds–even granted an ulule’s delight in embellishment. Whether it’s in her means to keep track of me … of us … but no doubt now that the Wurm has risen, she will know it.”
Ah! My
deepest fears, at last given voice! How much greater, in the light of a profound, aching love in my breast for my wife and my little ones, did this threat loom? How could I ever keep them safe from Jyla? She would think nought of stooping to use them against me. But Rubiny’s thoughts were already moving on.
“Is she an Eldrik
Warlock?”
“
I’ve always assumed so. The ulules claim only the Eldrik know how to raise a Wurm. Jyla has not forgotten her creation.”
“Roymere’s an awfully long way from Eldoria, husband. Six hundred leagues if a trin.”
“And yet–”
We sighed in unison.
Ride a black stallion born of Nethe,
Plague-Rider ride to me
,
My boils are dark as the fabled Lethe
,
Plague-Rider ride to me
.
Here on my pallet death is no dream,
Plague-Rider ride to me
,
Touch me quick ere I scream
,
Plague-Rider ride to me
.
Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds,
Ay, Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds
,
Black pus vomits from my chest
,
Plague-Rider ride to me
.
Immortal quoph will find no rest,
Plague-Rider ride to me
,
Ulim light my funeral pyre
,
Plague-Rider ride to me
.
Brighter burn the cleansing fire,
Plague-Rider ride to me
,
Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds
,
Ay, Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds
!
“Hail, El Shashi!”
I circled my hand briefly in the buskal of Mata’s greeting. “Hail, Tomira.”
She batted her eyelashes at me and tossed her dark curls. “Ah, the famous El Shashi deigns to speak to this humble girl.”
I cast my eyes downward, and adjusted my mokir, the man’s headscarf so necessary in
ultra-conservative Brephat. “I speak to all.”
“You greet
, but do not truly speak.”
Insightful! I thought:
‘Because people might talk if I spent more than a cursory greeting upon an alluring young woman.’ In Brephat, careless talk could result in a public flogging. Men here guarded their tongues and their eyes. Women, as everywhere, did as they pleased without censure. And it pleased Tomira to make regular flirtation with one Arlak, gazing into his windows whenever passing by on the street, and making unabashed eyes at him if their paths happened to cross. Should I broach the matter with Rubiny?
No. One silly girl was no match for me. I had known her family almost since we moved to Brephat, some nine anna past, and had seen her grow from a
n inquisitive girl into a tall, slender sixteen anna-old, with the excellent deportment and self-confidence I have often noted in wealthy young women of the merchant class. I had often imagined disporting myself with Tomira. Are a man’s thoughts not his private domain? A freedom in token, at least?
She was beautiful. And a girl no longer.
Be not a fool, Arlak!
“Hold, El Shashi. I beg a question.”
Rubiny had no need to know. Had I not kept my honour steadfast, all these anna? That was no mean feat! Tomira would soon find herself a husband. She had no need of a man of my age and station. Even such a toothsome catch, as Rubiny had teased me just last week.
I pressed my lips straight as I whirled upon my heel, and addressed the hem of her ankle-length velveteen gown. “How may I serve you, Honoria?”
“How silly and formal your words! I am no Honoria, as you well know. A Brephathian would address me as Mahira. Mahira Tomira. A pretty rhyme … wouldn’t you agree?”
“Indeed. I had thought Mahira a more northerly term, common to Elbarath and Chazurn.”
Her laughter sounded over-loud and brash to my ear. “Do they teach you nothing of the world in faraway Roymere?” My back stiffened. “Fear not, I shan’t hold it against you. Though I had thought athocaries better educated in the Fiefdoms.”
I faked a laugh. “As you say, Mahira. We are educated in the ways of the whole person.” And I
had travelled more of the Fiefdoms than
she
would see in a dozen lifetimes–precocious brat!
“So mark me this,” began Tomira, and began to describe her problem. Quicker than a candle-flame’s flicker, I wished I had never stopped.
* * * *
Scanning down the list of appointments Sakal, my servant, had prepared for the day, I groaned inwardly. Tomira!
With a vindictive pleasure, I thought, ‘I hope it’s not an itch from another brothel.’ Although, truly told, that was unfair. Tomira had been practicing for her Matabond with a
holok
, or mentor, who had evidently not been clean or careful enough and passed on a nasty little infection. It was the graphic detail in which she chose to describe it–so out of place on that sun-drenched main road–that so shocked me, followed by an appointment with El Shashi the following afternoon to relieve her of the decidedly unsavoury consequences. How I envied that holok!
I flicked briskly through the scrolleaves cluttering my mahogany lectern. These Brephathians. To have to examine a patient, male and female alike, by touch, beneath a thin sheet intended to preserve modesty? Absurd!
Mark my words, it is said that among the mysterious Tora, who are desert nomads of the far north, that no man of an age to Matabond is allowed to set foot outside his tent without an honour-escort. Practising athocaries there would probably have their fingers hacked off at the first knuckle …
“You seem troubled, master?” inquired Sakal, breaking in on my thoughts.
He was often intuitive. “Just an ill grephe,” I said, smiling. “Were you to inspect the accounts this morn?”
“Indeed, master,” said he, bowing with arthritic care. Even I, the greatest healer in the Fiefdoms, could not heal all ills. I had relieved the pain, but the course of his disease had frustrated me
for the four anna he had spent in my service.
Sakal limped outside with the leather-bound tome tucked beneath his arm. If I knew him, a warm place would be found for the work with a goblet of ale to wet his throat. Sakal did love his ale, though it was brewed pitifully weak in these parts. A creeping sense of failure attended his stiff departure.
I was a weak vessel. Jyla exposed my flaws, and nought since had I wrought to disprove her charge. Greatest healer–fie, a pox on that falsehood! Who was I deceiving?
Mark my words
, it stuck in my craw like a wedge of bitter fruit.
My eyes fell upon my fingers, rippling across the scrolleaf like miniature Wurms, the articulated joints its segments, a roaming, flexing, furtive sort of movement. Perhaps I was the Wurm. Divine avenger of wrongs. Slowly, I raised my hands before my eyes.
Were these not hands of awesome capability, ready to unleash a world-changing storm? My head tilted in silent introspection. With my left forefinger, I stroked the fingertips of my right hand. To and fro. Crenulations, tiny whorls of sensation. My hands, my life, my destiny–to be suffused with the immense magical energies of Jyla’s Web. Cursed and bounden to my fate. A tool for a task. Yet latent in each digit lay this marvellous facility to transform lives, stem cankers, clean livers, unblock arteries, dissolve cataracts …
Once upon an anna, I would have examined the cracked, dirt-encrusted fingernails of a vegetable farmer. Calluses from the hoe, the pail, and the master-prod for my head of jatha. Skin roughened by daily handling of barrels of argan oil, hanks of flaxen cord, and splitting logs for firewood. The mountains life weathered a man inside and out. Gone now, the simple pleasures of planting and reaping, weeding and tending. Making
vegetables grow. Gone, the hard physical labour. The sweat of satisfying toil.
And now
I, a happily Matabound man, could not stop seeing Tomira’s flashing dark gaze in my daydreams?
“Good orison to you!” I greeted my first customer. “How may I serve you?”
Twenty-nine times I repeated those words before the honeyed tones of the Mahira Tomira returned my greeting. With that, my quim splattered across the scrolleaf, ruining my entry in the lengthy records of the unquestionably hypochondriac Widow Makana, whose various aches and pains consumed a double appointment every other Rimday. A steady source of ukals to put bread on my table. I clucked unhappily.
“Old quim?” Tomira said, resting her fingertips upon my lectern.
“Must be.” I blotted the ink.
“I missed my appointment earlier. Can you still see me?”
Sakal called, “I’m just leaving, master!” He must have heard our voices, for his head popped around the corner to take in the young Mahira. His burshingling was deep, but when he rose I could have sworn I saw a disapproving look swiftly erased off his lips. “Mahira. A most agreeable eventide to you.”
She nodded.
“It’s my day off tomorrow, master, may I–”
“Indeed. As you never fail to remind me.”
His grin showed strong white teeth. “Diary keeping is hardly your strong point, master.”
“Huh!” muttered Tomira. “I would not let a mere servant talk
back to me.”
Sakal bobbed his fedora at us and scuttled off.
I accepted her expensive linen burnoose and tossed it neatly upon a rack. “He’s a grouchy old tygar, but he serves me well.”
When she saw the garment land safe, Tomira sniffed. “I would have him jatha-whipped to an inch of his life. Impertinent commoner!” And she vanished behind the modesty screen with a tart waggle of her sallinen-clad hips.
I cleared my throat. “So, Mahira, how may I serve you this eventide?”
“You may examine me.”
Helpfully and right on cue, my mind supplied an image of her undressing back there. “For what?” Leaping tygars, Arlak! “I mean, what seems to be amiss?”
“The great El Shashi cannot tell at a glance?”
“The great El Shashi cannot read minds.” And in Mata’s name, why not? I was awed anew by the potential of my powers. Indeed, our conversation had spawned a swarm of lewd ideas that flitted about my imagination like torflies settling on a rancid bit of meat. Pesky. Persistent. Hard to ignore. “Is it the same problem as last …? As I recall–”
“Must you twitter
so, you silly lyom? Attend me at once!”
Tomira was abed, the sheet drawn to a prurient height beneath her chin. Her subtle curves were in no way diminished by the fabric. How do the Roymerians put it? Nothing excites more than modesty soon unveiled?
No mind, I lifted the sheet’s edge and slid my right hand beneath.
How simple it would be to arouse her. My skills, my knowledge
–a simple act of volition could warm her flesh and make it thrill to my command. Yet something stayed my hand. Perhaps I was too long in the Matabond of love. Perhaps I valued the anna with Rubiny far more than some casual dalliance. Titillation, but not enough temptation. Perhaps, closer to the mark, because I knew the action would be selfish …
My temples
throbbed with a migraine. Gods, she was beautiful. I had license to touch an elegant young woman where doubtless a thousand men could only dream of it.
But
was it worth the Wurm? No.
Tomira made a soft noise, the kind
of sound a woman makes in the depths of passion. My knees almost buckled. I had to support my weight against the table with my other hand. Then I realised that she was chuckling–and her mirth mushroomed into self-indulgent, scornful laughter.
“Enjoying
yourself?” Her hand clutched mine. “Not so fast.”
“I
–uh …”
“That’s very
enjoyable, but you’re looking in the wrong place.” My face turned the colour of a sliced beetroot. “Try up here.”
A momentary touch upon her belly, truly told, and relief turned my bones to water. No problem, Mata be praised
… this I could handle. “Ahem! Mahira, I believe congratulations are–”
Tomira barked a word better suited to a farm labourer than a young woman of station. Then she bit her lip. “Get rid of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me
–get rid of it.”
I squared my shoulders. “I do not do abortions.”
Her voice became flat–curiously flat. “Let me spell it out so that we understand each other. Do as I bid, or the baby becomes yours.”
“Don’t be silly,” I began, then stopped dead
in my traces, blinking. Tomira could cause a great deal of trouble. Indeed, she could get me strung up outside the town gate. I had no illusions her wealth could buy credible witnesses. There had been an affair. Worse, a rape. She could spin it a hundred ways. Rubiny would believe my side of the story–wouldn’t she? No girlish ploy could drive us apart.
I wet my lips. “I can’t do abortions. I cannot and will not kill innocents,
Mahira. Not for any price.”
“Then pleasure me,” she offered, with a brilliant smile. “I know you desire me. I have seen the way you look at me. Am I not young, and beautiful, and desirable? Claim the whelp for your own. Come
–I invite you once more.”
Whelp? Get rid of it?
She made me sick. “Mahira, I love my wife and my family more than life itself.” At her shrug, I flared as viciously as I could twist the words, “I am flattered, but unavailable for casual intercourse with an immature, delusional adolescent. Mahira.”