Between Worlds: the Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories (8 page)

Belina lifted her chin. “I’m not alone.”

Idilane sneered. “Then what are your companions
waiting for?”

Belina whipped up her hand and slammed the glass ball
into his forehead. “For me to do that!”

Idlilane staggered back, then dropped like a stone,
the spell crackling and dissipating around him.

Reynard lunged out from behind the curtain, lifted
Idilane by the lapel of his coat, and slammed a punch into his jaw. Idilane’s
head snapped back and the sorcerer was unconscious. Reynard dropped him, and
started to search his pockets. He found a folder containing the photographs
almost immediately, and rapidly flipped through them to make sure they were
what he thought they were. Then he hesitated. “Some of these are not Belina.”

Nicholas and Belina both leaned over his shoulder to
see. Belina gasped, “The other girls! The murdered girls!”

Nicholas said in disgust, “He’s an idiot. Look again,
he may have included an image of himself actually committing the murders.”

“Not everyone is up to your standards,” Reynard told
him. He handed the folder to Belina and she hastily looked through it, removing
all the images of herself, as Reynard finished searching Idilane’s clothes. Belina
handed the folder back and Reynard put it into Idilane’s coat. Reynard took the
bag of dead fay dust and shook it out over the body as Belina folded the
photographs of herself and retired to a corner to stuff them into some
undergarment under her skirt.

Reynard stood. “Ready.”

Nicholas was already at the door. He nodded to Belina.

She let out an ear-piercing scream. Nicholas flung the
door open and shouted, “Who are you? Take your hands off that young lady!”

Reynard turned back to the window, slung himself over
the balcony, and dropped down to the grassy verge at the edge of the walk. There
was no streetlight nearby and he was observed only by some street urchins and a
few peddlers waiting for the opera to let out. They were accustomed to seeing
people exit the restaurant’s private rooms precipitously and didn’t pay much
attention.

The story would be that Miss Shankir-Clare’s escort
had left her in the restaurant while he went to find a porter to summon their
coach. Idilane had appeared and accosted her, and dragged her into a private
room. Reynard’s confederate, the restaurant’s host, had seen this and sent a
waiter to summon a magistrate from the street in case there was trouble. Belina
would claim Idilane had threatened her and bragged of past victims that his
captive fay had dispatched. Since all that was true, Reynard didn’t have any
doubt she would be able to carry it off.

A couple of streets over, Reynard found a telegraph
office still open and sent a message to be delivered to the Shankir-Clare
house. Then he retreated to the vicinity of the coffee-seller across the street
from the opera’s main entrance. Over the course of the next hour, as the
audience left the opera, he saw more magistrates arrive, then a coach with more
high-ranking magistrates and one of their sorcerers, then finally the
Shankir-Clare coach with Lady Shankir-Clare, a maid, and Amadel. Amadel paused,
spotted Reynard across the street, and they exchanged a nod before he went
inside. Not long after that, Nicholas appeared.

Reynard purchased another cup of coffee as Nicholas
sauntered casually across the street, and handed it to him as he joined him on
the promenade. They waited until the Shankir-Clares reappeared with Belina. As
Amadel handed Lady Shankir-Clare into their coach, Reynard saw Belina studying
the street. She spotted them, but was too canny to wave.

The coach departed, and Reynard and Nicholas started
down the promenade.

“So do we still believe Belina was targeted by
Idilane?” Reynard asked. “I doubt it myself.”

“Yes, the queen might have to look away from a scandal
involving a Shankir-Clare daughter, but a Shankir-Clare daughter who is missing
would be cause for turning the city upside down.”

“Idilane may not have realized that. The family is
discreet, not known in the lower circles he travels in.” Reynard lifted his
brows. “I think he was the target.”

“It makes more sense. Perhaps the sorcerer who was
forced to give him the fay familiar nudged him toward Belina, knowing that if
she was a victim, Idilane would not escape.” Nicholas looked preoccupied. “The
other young women probably told no one where they were going or why. It shouldn’t
be too hard to discover at least some of their identities, if their families
have reported them missing. I’ll do some preliminary work on it, and give it to
you, to be passed on to the Shankir-Clare family.”

It would give the magistrates another push in the
right direction. And Reynard would enjoy a chance to see Belina again and bid
her a more formal farewell. “This was a good day’s work.”

“It was adequate,” Nicholas agreed. “Miss
Shankir-Clare was helpful.”

“She was.” Reynard had been thinking it over while he
waited, and he said, “It would be good to have a woman available for this sort
of job. Fools like Idilane don’t expect it. Someone who has a public reputation
of some sort would be even better, less likely to be suspected.”

“You’re considering asking Miss Shankir-Clare?”
Nicholas sounded dubious. “She has the nerve for it but she’s still a little
young--”

“No, of course not.” Belina was too young. And more
importantly if her mother found out, the reaction would not be salubrious. “We
need someone who isn’t under the eye of a concerned family.” Thinking of
Nicholas’ theatrical infatuation, Reynard added, just to tease, “An actress,
for instance.”

The look Nicholas gave him was unreadable. “That might
be possible.”

The next four stories are set in Cineth, before the
events of the novel
The Wizard Hunters
, the first book of the Fall of
Ile-Rien trilogy. “Holy Places” is the story of how Giliead and Ilias first
met.

Even at only eight seasons old, Ilias knew Cineth’s
god didn’t really eat children, no matter what his older brother had told him. Castor
was only two seasons older and Ilias knew he lied a lot, sometimes to try to
frighten Ilias and more often to make himself sound knowledgeable. So when
Castor pointed out the new Chosen Vessel at the market, Ilias wasn’t sure
whether to believe him or not.

He was sitting on his heels, watching ants build a
nest in the dirt, bored by the adult haggling all around him. The afternoon sun
was warm and bright and the market tents were all pitched under the big trees
of the plaza. Men and women haggled over bags of grain, amphorae of wine and
olive oil, fleeces, goatskins. The further end of the market was where the
potters and metal-workers and other crafters spread their blankets to sell
pottery and dyed cloth, knives and trinkets of carved wood and copper and
polished stone jewelry. Ilias could smell the grilled meat someone was selling,
and knew there would also be cheese and fruit and flatbread with honey. He also
knew if he went for a closer look at any of it, his father would give him a
clout to the head. Normally this wouldn’t have stopped him; if Ilias minded
clouts to the head he would have never done anything worth doing. But a tension
in the air all through the day had told him that his father’s quiet temper had
already been pushed to the limit; pushing it further was not a good idea.

He had noticed the family long before Castor pointed
them out because they were standing near the edge of the plaza, talking to some
of the merchants who bought crops. The woman was young, her tawny hair braided
with beads, and she wore a rich blue silk stole over her gown. The man with her
wasn’t wearing a sword, but then nobody but travelers carried serious weapons
to market. He was tall, olive-skinned, with red-brown hair, like the Syprians
who had always lived on the coast, and was dressed in worn leather boots
stamped with gold and a sun-faded green shirt over pants trimmed with leather. Though
his hair was more than touched with gray, he still wore it in a long queue past
his shoulders, and it tangled in his copper earrings. Ilias thought he must be
a warrior, to attract such a young wife. Even though she wasn’t as pretty as
Ilias’ mother, she looked wealthy, and could easily have bought younger
husbands.

The only boy in the group was a little younger than
Ilias; shouting with excitement, he ran past the man and was scooped up and
captured, laughing delightedly. An older girl ran up to show the woman a beaded
bracelet she must have just bought. The woman took the girl’s hand to examine
it, and the man leaned over to give it serious attention, the struggling boy
still tucked easily under one arm.

Watching them, Ilias was torn between cynicism and a
twist of bitter envy that soured his stomach, though he wasn’t sure where it
had come from. The adults actually seemed to be enjoying the company of the
children, something he viewed with equal parts fascination and skepticism.

Castor’s sandaled feet suddenly appeared and his
brother said, “There he is. That’s the new Chosen Vessel.”

Ilias pushed to his feet, shaking dusty hair out of
his eyes, frowning. He and Castor both came from inland Syprian lines, with
light-colored hair and short stocky frames. Except Ilias had always been judged
prettier by everyone in the family. His hair made long curls even when it was
dirty, and Castor just looked like he was wearing a dusty mop. “Him?” he said
with cautious approval, eyeing the man across the plaza.

The old Chosen Vessel, Livia, had been killed last
year. Ilias had only known her well enough to recognize her in the market, but
she had been Chosen Vessel his whole life, and he had hidden under his and
Castor’s bed and cried the night the word had come of her death. He had heard
the poets’ stories and knew the Chosen Vessel was given to the city by the
local god. Its gift to the Vessel was the ability to see curses and track them
back to the wizards who came to kill and snatch people away. Even Livia’s
presence in the town had been enough to keep away the dark creatures, the
curselings the wizards created to come out in the night and destroy whole
villages. Her death had made going out at dusk to help get the sheep and goats
into the pens a test of Ilias’ courage; every moment he had expected something
horrible to jump out of the brush, either to eat him or carry his family off to
be a wizard’s slaves. That was a fate he didn’t even wish on Castor or his
oldest sister Niale.

It hadn’t been until days later that someone had
finally explained that Menander, the Chosen Vessel from the Uplands, would
protect Cineth until the new Vessel was ready to take up Livia’s duties, and
that it was the god’s presence that kept the curselings away. Ilias had been
relieved and desperate to hide it from Castor. Pretending he knew what he was
talking about, he said now, “He looks like a good one.”

“Not the man, shithead. That’s Ranior, he was lawgiver
years ago. The boy’s the new Vessel.” Castor looked down at him with utter
contempt. “The god doesn’t choose Vessels that are already grown.”

Ilias rolled his eyes in exasperation, pretending he
knew that. He had known it, actually, but in his limited experience Chosen
Vessels were like lawgivers and warleaders; older people, with gray hair and
lines on their faces. It was hard to remember that the new Chosen Vessel would
start out as a child. “I know that. I meant the boy.”

“Did not.” Castor aimed a shove at him, which Ilias
easily ducked. Castor’s natural instinct to bully his younger siblings had been
thwarted; though Ilias was smaller, he was already stronger, as Castor had been
sickly for the first years of his life. Ilias was also an expert in dirty
fighting; his cousin Amari, who had three elder sisters who had apparently been
trying to murder her since birth, had taught him everything she knew. Ilias’
older sisters were all too old to bully their youngest brother, but it helped
keep Castor humble.

Watching Castor glare at him, Ilias could tell “the
god eats children” lie was about to make another appearance, as a last-ditch
attempt to make Ilias feel young and stupid.

But as Castor opened his mouth, Ilias’ father shouted
for them. Both boys flinched. Ilias eyed Castor, delivered the parting shot, “You’re
standing in ants,” and ran to catch up with their father.

* * *

The days after that were filled with work and Ilias
spent most of his time in the herd pens. His mother had sent away the older
boys from the neighboring farms who usually helped because she said they were
gossiping too much, so there had been that much more work for Ilias, Castor,
Amari, and their older sisters and cousins.

The day before had been wonderful; it had been the
first time Ilias had been allowed to help with the sheep-shearing, and his
father had spent most of his time patiently teaching Ilias and little
supervising Castor.

Despite that, dinner was disappointing, not that Ilias
saw or ate much of it. A year or so ago their cousins had had a crop fail and
lost their farm, and had come to live at Finan House. The old stone house was
like most country places, and arranged in a square around the atrium, the rooms
facing in to the shaded portico. It still looked big to Ilias, but it was only
one story tall, and not made to accommodate so many people. Ilias hadn’t seen
the inside of the dining room since the others had arrived. There were no boys
in their cousin’s family either, and the influx of extra girls put Ilias and
Castor even lower in the family hierarchy.

Now Ilias sat out on the sparse grass in the atrium
with Castor, Amari, and his only younger sibling, his sister Taelis, who had
just started to walk. “This has nothing in it,” Castor complained, poking at
his bowl.

Ilias grimaced in agreement. The grain porridge,
without meat, lentils, berries, or honey, or anything else that might have made
it palatable, sat in his stomach like a stone. Niale had taken over the
management of the house a season or so ago and she never got the amounts of
anything right. “Didn’t they bake bread today?”

“Yes. I saw Niale making it this morning.” Amari was
watching the door under the portico that opened into the family dining room,
her brow furrowed. “But there won’t be enough for us.”

Castor frowned at her. “Why not?”

“Niale measured the grain wrong, dummy,” Ilias told
him, helping Taelis cram porridge into her mouth. She leaned against him,
chewing happily, and dripped pasty lumps onto his pants.

There had been arguing all through dinner, the voices
too muted for Ilias to quite make out, so he had been just as glad not to be crammed
in the too warm dining room, even if there was better food in there. The spring
breeze and lengthening twilight made the atrium cool and pleasant, though no
one bothered to fill the stone-bordered fountain from the big cistern anymore. The
flowerbeds were all overgrown too, except for the patch where the squash and
beans were planted. Some of the other girls were eating at the low table on the
opposite end of the portico; Amari should have been with them but she didn’t
get on with her siblings or Ilias’ older sisters. “There’s no money,” she said,
sighing and poking at her own meal. She wasn’t much older than Ilias but her
family’s troubles had made her grow up faster. “Your mother didn’t get as much
for the fleece as she thought she would. And Niale’s going to need some of it
to buy her husband.”

Ilias rolled his eyes. “She would.” Even at his age,
it seemed a stupid thing for Niale to do now. To choose this year to demand to
be married and to pick a man from a town family who wanted coins, instead of
another farm family that would have been content with a few sheep and cows on
account. And the man wasn’t even a warrior.

Amari shrugged. “He’ll help with the shearing.” But
she didn’t sound as if she thought it was a good idea either.

“I do that now,” Ilias said loftily. Castor sneered
and Amari ruffled his hair.

They had finished eating and Castor was collecting the
bowls. Ilias had picked up Taelis, meaning to take her off to the girls’
quarters to get washed. He had just put a wet noisy kiss on top of her head to
make her squeal and giggle, when he looked up and saw his father standing on
the portico, staring at him.

Something in his father’s expression made Ilias
uneasy. He tucked Taelis up against his chest, while she obliviously pulled at his
hair with sticky hands.
I didn’t do anything,
he thought,
I think.
He had so many chores he didn’t have time to get into trouble.
Oh shit, I
was supposed to sweep out the shearing shed.
Then his mother came out,
furious, hair and bangles flying, and struck his father across the face.

Castor made a faint distressed noise and Amari looked
away, her jaw set. Ilias just hefted Taelis and carried her off, hastily
crossing the atrium. He found his sister Igenia in the girls’ quarters and
deposited Taelis with her, then climbed out the window. He knew his mother
hated to be argued with, and he was surprised his father had made the effort,
whatever it was about.

Outside the shelter of the house the wind was turning
cold. In the growing dark, Ilias ran across the dirt-packed yard down to the
big shed. It was just a big wooden building, its roof rounded planks, the beams
supporting it anchored by stone blocks. It was too dark to see inside it and he
found flint and tinder in the light box and got an old clay oil lamp lit,
wrinkling his nose at the rancid scent of olive oil gone bad. By its light he
found a broom and carefully swept out the shed, though he didn’t think it
looked that dirty. That done, he put out the lamp and wandered outside.

It was full dark now, too dark to see the tree-covered
hills or the fields though the cool wind carried the strong scent of pine and
the not-so-distant sea. He washed his feet in the cold water of the trough and
then sat on the edge, listening to crickets sing for a time. Then he remembered
wizards and curselings, and the dark didn’t feel so friendly anymore. Not long
ago, he had heard a story in the market, of an isolated village where a wizard
had come and cursed everyone to follow him away into the Barrens. The Chosen
Vessel for Thalmyris had followed and managed to kill the wizard, but was only
able to bring back a few survivors. The wizard had forced them to kill and eat
the people who couldn’t keep the pace, and once released from the curse by the
Vessel, most had killed themselves in horror.

Ilias decided to go inside; even though the god was
supposed to be watching for wizards, the Chosen Vessel was still only a boy.

He didn’t bother going to the front door with its big
stone porch; that was only for visitors. He went to the window in the small
room off the kitchen that he and Castor shared. The room was barely large
enough for a narrow wooden bedstead; it had originally stored amphorae for the
kitchen and still smelled like it.

Ilias scrambled over the stone sill into the nearly
pitch dark room. Castor said nothing though from the lack of snoring Ilias
could tell he was still awake. He sat on the thin little rug to untie his
sandals, feeling the cold stone through the cloth, then stripped off his shirt
and pants.