BeneathCeaselessSkies Issue006 Read online

  “Come,” one of them said.

  She rose stiffly. They hauled her out of the women’s house and before the wizard, not bothering this time to make her kneel.

  The wizard turned his dark eyes on Kseniya and snapped his fingers. Jia-li came to stand next to him. He grasped her small fingers in his and brought them near to his nose, all the while keeping his burning eyes fixed on Kseniya’s face. “She tells me you used an unguent on her hands last night. Is that so?”

  Kseniya bowed, perplexed by the unexpected question. “Yes, my lord.”

  The bodyguard stood several feet behind the dais, his dark brows drawn together.

  “And where did you get this unguent?” the wizard asked. “Did you make it yourself?”

  For a split-second, she considered saying yes, but she had no supplies with which to have made it. “No, my lord.”

  “Where did it come from? I have only smelled its like once before.”

  Kseniya forced herself not to look in the bodyguard’s direction. “I found a tin of it in the women’s house.”

  The wizard’s eyes narrowed. “Foolish woman, this is fresh-made. I know the scent of it. Myrrh and comfrey, ginger and cloves. Where did it come from?”

  Kseniya went still. She’d fallen into some sort of trap. “I found it only days ago. In the store room, in an old chest there that holds silk robes. A tin sealed with wax, I don’t know how long, my lord.”

  “Hidden in the women’s house?” the wizard said in a flat voice. “So it comes back disembodied to haunt me, the smell of the salve on her skin.”

  Her skin? Kseniya didn’t believe he spoke of Anushka, and wondered who that other woman might be. And then an answer came to her. The bodyguard had said his mother taught him the making of the unguent. She must have lived on this mountain once. Kseniya trained her eyes on the floor, hoping that new awareness didn’t show on her face, not when the bodyguard had risked himself for Jia-li’s sake.

  “You are not to use it again,” the wizard snapped. “Throw the tin in the spring.”

  Kseniya waited for the pain to come. It didn’t.

  “Take the girl back to the women’s house and clean her hands.” He released Jia-li’s fingers and shoved her toward the steps. She stumbled, and Kseniya leaped forward to catch her. When she reached the first step, though, a wall of power pushed her back. She fell to the floor, her breath stolen away. She’d forgotten the wizard’s spell that kept others at a distance.

  Jia-li ran to her and helped her up. Under the wizard’s dark eyes, she and the girl walked slowly from his sanctuary.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The mountains rumbled as the sun set. From the platform by the side door of the women’s house where the washer women worked, Kseniya and Jai-li stood and stared at the sky. The normal gurgle of the stream went unheard.

  Woken from their restless slumber, the dragons rose into the night and flew to the west. They were huge and terrifying creatures, all leathery wings and fire. Hot gusts of wind swirled off their bronzy wing-tips, making the snow sizzle and melt.

  Kseniya held her headscarf fast to her head with one hand, using the end of it to protect her face. She had seen this many times before, flights of dragons over her people’s lands.

  Frustration showed on Jia-li’s features. “I tried to call them back, but they won’t listen to me.”

  “Dearest, you don’t have his power.”

  Jia-li sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of a blistered hand. “I had to try.”

  “I know, dearest. Why don’t you go to your room? I will come in a moment.”

  Jia-li nodded and made her way from the platform back into the house. Now that the dragons had gone, the cold returned on a bitter wind. The girl hugged her quilted jacket about herself, looking quite small and defeated.

  Kseniya watched her go, and then went to where Bao-yu stood watching the dragons’ flight. Her own people’s lands lay in that direction. She could only pray that the wizard hadn’t sent the dragons there to punish them because she’d not told him where she had found the cursed unguent. She glanced down at Bao-yu, reckoning that the old woman knew the wizard’s mind better than any other. “Do you know were the dragons went?”

  Bao-yu took Kseniya’s hand and drew her back inside to the inner hall where she kept a tray of sand. The old woman drew in it with one gnarled finger, a simple drawing of a woman with a babe in her stomach, followed by another of a woman with a child.

  “Anushka?” Kseniya asked.

  The old woman shook her head. She drew a sword and pointed at it.

  Kseniya met the old woman’s eyes warily, wondering what the old woman knew of the wizard’s bodyguard, and if he might not have come to the woman’s house that first night to see Bao-yu. “Did he...?”

  One of the servant girls walked into the inner hall then and Bao-yu wiped her hand across the sand, erasing her drawings. She walked away without a glance, as if she feared being caught there. Like Kseniya, Bao-yu evidently believed the walls of the women’s house had ears, or in her case, eyes.

  Kseniya stood there a moment, weighing possibilities, and then made her way to Jia-li’s room. The girl sat on the edge of the platform of her bed, her hands cradled on her lap.

  “Will you let me heal them today?” Kseniya asked.

  “No.” The girl shook her head. “He sent them hunting for someone. The dragons will kill people tonight because I didn’t wash my hands well enough. It’s not fair.”

  Kseniya sat down next to her and began to braid the girl’s hair. “No, dearest. He is not fair.”

  Jia-li heaved a great sigh. “Will you tell me about my mother?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The rattle of leathery wings woke Kseniya just before dawn, the dragons returning to their place under the mountains. The smell of burning floated on the air, the scent of the dragons.

  She’d waited up late, thinking the bodyguard might return to the women’s house, but he hadn’t. She had questions for him, ones that Bao-yu’s drawings had stirred in her mind.

  Kseniya rose in the graying light and dressed. Her face ached less. She had cheated somewhat, healing the cuts from within so they didn’t look as improved on the surface. She gingerly touched the torn skin. She and Anushka had once looked much alike, but she hadn’t seen the reflection of her face since coming to the wizard’s home. It could not be as she remembered—she would surely never be called beautiful again.

  She combed out her hair and began to braid it, but a tap on her door startled her. She opened it quickly and found the bodyguard waiting there. He stepped inside and she shut the door behind him.

  “I must thank you,” he said, “for not revealing me yesterday.”

  “You are his son.” She waited for his reaction. He didn’t deny it, his dark eyes downcast. Now that she knew to look, she saw the resemblance. “When did you escape?”

  “I was twelve when my mother took us away, near twenty years ago. She discovered what he truly wanted of me, and one of the bodyguards helped us and hid us. He raised me as his own son and took my mother as his wife. That was whom the dragons sought last night. My mother’s household.”

  “How can you stand by and watch what he does? How many of your people died last night in the dragons’ fire?”

  “They are safe. He will not find them.”

  “And what of you?”

  “I am changed enough that my father does not recognize me,” he said with a short laugh.

  No, she couldn’t imagine him as a boy of twelve. “Can you do what he does? Did he train you as he does Jia-li?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why not call back his dragons last night?”

  “I am sworn not to.” He touched her scarred cheek. “He treated my mother as he does you, to force my compliance. So I swore never to use his arts again, not even the dragon’s fire.”

  Which must be inherent in him, she realized. The faint sulfurous smell of his skin must be his own. “Then why did you
come back here?”

  “I received a message telling me of Jia-li. The Emperor no longer trusts his wizard. He suspects that should the wizard become young again, he might seek to seize the throne. So with the Emperor’s blessing, I came here to keep her safe.” He took the small knife from a sheath at his wrist. “Give this to her. He will be weaker today. I fear he might take her soon to save himself. I will not allow that to happen, but it would be better if she has some defense.”

  Kseniya slid the knife inside her dress. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Act as normal. Once he becomes weak enough, I can take him myself. You must take Jia-li and flee.” From inside his jacket he produced a second knife, single-bladed and as long as his forearm, and smiled wryly. “I have watched you. When you see the guards at their exercises you look as if you want to join them, so I suspect you know how to use this.”

  Kseniya took the blade from him. The leather of the hilt was worn and the balance unfamiliar, but it felt welcome in her hands. “My father had me trained to the sword to serve as my sister’s guardian. Not one like this,” she said, hefting the blade, “but it will suffice.”

  “Good. I will count on you to protect her, then.”

  Kseniya glanced at the early light slanting in through her high window. “Why did you come so late? The sun is already risen. You must go.”

  He took a strand of her hair between his fingers. “I wanted to see your hair. It is the color of fire in sunlight.”

  Kseniya simply stared at him, at a loss for words. He let himself out, his footsteps not even audible to her despite the fact that she pressed her ear against the door to hear them.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Kseniya fixed the blade to her thigh using strips torn from an old shift. A careful fold of fabric under her belt hid a slit in the side of her over-robe. Jia-li secreted the little knife inside her jacket. Kseniya had never trained her to use such a thing, but agreed that the girl should have some chance to defend herself.

  When the guards bore Kseniya into the wizard’s presence later in the morning, the wizard sat slumped on his throne. He looked far older than the day before, as if he’d aged years overnight. His hair had gone mostly white, something Kseniya would not have thought possible—surely a result of his magics.

  The guards shoved her to her knees. One laid his knife to her throat. Kseniya didn’t move.

  “Jia-li claims she did not ever heal her hands.” The wizard’s voice rattled in his throat. “I believe that you did.”

  Kseniya said nothing, not surprised by his claim.

  The wizard raised his hand and searing pain ripped across her throat. Blood sprayed about her. Panicked, Kseniya clamped a hand to her neck, desperate to keep her life from flowing away onto his carpets.

  For a moment, everything seemed suspended: the guards jumping back in surprise; Jia-li, her mouth open as she cried out; the bodyguard, moving from his place at the back of the room, crossing the dais toward her.

  Only she wasn’t ready to die, not when escape beckoned. Kseniya caused the wound to seal, stopping the flow of blood. For a moment, she sensed only the paths of her body’s energy and the blood pulsing through her veins—what blood remained.

  She opened her eyes to see Jia-li leaning over her, red-stained fingers pressed to her cheek. A warm presence at her back told her the bodyguard crouched behind her. Wide-eyed, he leaned over and touched her neck as if searching for the injury.

  “I wondered,” the wizard said, “what it would take to get you to reveal yourself.”

  The guards closed on either side of the bodyguard and grasped his arms, pinning them behind him. They dragged him to his feet.

  The wizard chuckled. “Well, Jia-li, it is time for you to meet your brother, Yun-qi.”

  From Kseniya’s vantage, she saw Jia-li’s eyes go round with surprise. The girl crossed her arms over her chest and said, “If he is my brother, they should let him go.”

  The wizard pushed himself up from his chair and took two tottering steps toward the edge of the dais. “Stupid girl. He is far more useful to me than you. Why take a child’s body when I could have one full grown? Bring him here,” he instructed the guards.

  Kseniya lay on the carpet, too weak to do more than watch. She couldn’t reach the knife strapped to her leg.

  “No!” Jia-li cried. “Let him go.” Foolishly, neither of the guards heeded her as she strode toward them. Without warning, Jia-li raised her little knife and plunged it into the thigh of the nearer man.

  The guard spat out a curse. With one hand, he backhanded the girl. Jia-li shrieked and tumbled over Kseniya’s body.

  The bodyguard jerked his arm loose from the injured man’s grasp and slammed the second guard’s head against a teak beam. The man fell, slumping over Kseniya’s legs. Freed, the bodyguard drew his sword.

  Kseniya reached to the face of the guard crumpled unconscious over her legs. Gathering her will, she drained his strength to rebuild her own.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw the blur of the bodyguard jumping over her. From outside the sanctuary, two more guards sprinted toward the fray.

  Kseniya pushed the guard’s body off her legs. Jia-li still lay on the carpet, her hands covering her head. Kseniya rushed to her and dragged her upright. “We have to go now.”

  She grabbed the girl and ran toward the sanctuary doors, expecting the wizard to use his fire to stop her. Nothing happened. At the threshold, she half-turned. The bodyguard still faced two men.

  She couldn’t abandon him, she realized, no more than he could Jia-li. She set the girl on her feet. “Stay out of the way, little one.”

  Yun-qi swung his sword in a wide arc to warn his attackers back. That gave them pause, but only for a second.

  Kseniya drew her own blade and ran back to his side. She struck hard, catching one attacker under his upraised arm. Her blade scraped along his ribs, and the man fell.

  The bodyguard finished the other one. Kseniya held out a hand toward Jai-li. The girl ran to her side and threw her arms about Kseniya’s waist.

  Yun-qi set one hand on Jia-li’s shoulder and faced their father. “You will not take my life today, nor my sister’s. You will not cheat death again.”

  With a flick of the wizard’s hand, red lines appeared across Yun-qi’s face. He grimaced in pain, but dashed the blood from his eyes. The wizard raised his hand again. Yun-qi groaned, one hand pressing to his chest. It came away red. Blood soaked through the fabric of his jacket.

  Kseniya advanced on the dais but was thrown back by a careless stroke of the wizard’s hand. Jia-li tried to help her up, but the ground began to shake.

  The dragons, she realized. He has called his dragons. Yun-qi dragged Kseniya to her feet. “We must flee!”

  The wizard’s skin looked sickly now. He watched them with tired, spiteful eyes. Taking advantage of that momentary weakness, Kseniya grasped Jia-li’s sleeve and ran.

  When they reached the outer gate of the house, dragons circled above, swooping down to terrorize the guardsmen and servants who ran about the courtyard like ants. Clutching the girl’s hand, she hurtled down the steps into the chaos. One dragon dove at them like a kestrel, but they reached the protection of the women’s house before it could catch them.

  Another dragon set fire to the roof of the guard house. Guards scattered from its doors. A body slammed into Kseniya from behind, propelling her through the gate into the women’s house.

  “Hurry! Go!” Yun-qi pushed her toward the inner courtyard.

  “Where?”

  He shoved her, his hand slippery with blood. “Through the side gate. Bao-yu!” he called as Kseniya hurried Jia-li down the hallway. “Grandmother!”

  The old woman met them at the gate, a bundle already tied to her back.

  “If we flee, he will just have his dragons fetch us back,” Kseniya said to Yun-qi.

  “It tires him to control them. He will soon lose them. Then he is nothing. We must keep moving.”

  S
he stopped and stared at him. “That was your plan?”

  He looked startled, as if no one had ever before questioned his wisdom. Before he could answer, a dragon swooped by the platform on which they stood, and fire blossomed on the roof of the women’s house. They would have to cross the unprotected expanse of the courtyard to reach the gate, Kseniya realized.

  “Can you not control them?” she asked him, raising her voice over the sudden roar of the flames.

  He wrapped his arms about Bao-yu, shielding the old woman. “I am sworn not to.”

  Kseniya heard the burning roof groan as one of the creatures settled on it. The bronze edge of a leathery wing protruded over the platform’s shelter. Another came close, its baleful red eye winking at them. It couldn’t breathe its flame on them, she guessed, for fear of killing the wizard’s children—the one thing the wizard needed—but the dragons all knew now where they hid.

  She, however, was expendable. Kseniya pushed Jia-li toward her brother. “Stay with him.”

  She drew her blade, but Yun-qi stopped her with a hard hand on her arm. “No! Don’t be foolish. He will only cut your throat again.”

  “I will not stand here and wait to be burned to death.” But she knew he was right. The wizard would enjoy killing her after all these years.

  Kseniya glanced down at Jia-li, who held to her brother’s leg, her eyes squeezed shut against the heat. She knelt by the girl and asked, “Can you talk to them?”

  Jia-li’s eyes opened, startled. “I....”

  Then a determined look hardened the girl’s features. She stepped away from her brother to the edge of the platform, her dark eyes wide. She held her hands up and closed her eyes. “He’s weak. He’s very weak. I am stronger now.”

  Kseniya put one hand on Jia-li’s back and willed the girl what strength she could.

  The wind whipped about the four standing on the platform, dragon’s wings stirring the air. The smell of sulfur choked her, and Kseniya held one sleeve over her mouth to keep the burn of it from her throat.