Ydnas: The Girl of the Prophecies Page 4

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  “Serve even those who oppress you.”

  (Traditional Suimi saying, attributed to Isiliar)

  In the watery predawn light, Kor was scrounging for food. It was very cold. Her breath came out in a cloud, and settled as frost on the edge of her hood. She was shivering as she went through the barrels of garbage. It would be warmer later, but this was a time when most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood were asleep or comatose, and therefore unlikely to bother or compete with her. Also, this gave her the pick of the late-night fare.

  She was in a fenced-in courtyard attached to Rongongyula’s Bar and Grill, where the elite of the neighborhood came to dine and socialize. The building was an elegant nine-story pagoda, dating from the glory days of the Rentrizine Democracy, when it had apparently been used by a local legislature. Its walls were covered with mother-of-pearl, its roof-tiles were onyx. From a distance, its lines were simple and serene; from close up, countless details could be seen, including bas-relief, statuary, mosaics, texts in several languages, and intricate filigree, all of which harmonized in some miraculous way. Each higher floor was devoted to a criminal clientele of successively higher prestige. The highest of all was reserved for Pappi, the dominant local crime lord and owner of the establishment, and his guests. From the spacious windows of that floor, Kor would have looked like an insect feeding in the garbage.

  The clientele of Rongongyula’s Bar and Grill usually left most of their food uneaten, especially the vegetables. Kor went through the remains, separating what appeared to be untouched and wholesome from the rest. This she placed in a linen bag that she had brought with her. She would check later for poisons, diseases, and spells, and to make sure that none of the meat was human. She paused frequently to rub her hands together or to blow on them.

  A noise. She gave a start and turned. A man was standing there. He was wrapped in a ragged blanket. He too was shivering, even more violently than Kor.

  He appeared to be about ninety years old, but Kor knew enough to tell that he was only about twenty, and that he was an addict of ‘Smoke,’ a drug that accelerates the aging process. Also, patches of the skin develop an incurable whitish mold, which is the outer indication of a profound inner rotting. At present, his face was little more than skin and cartilage, hanging loosely on a skull. He would soon die. Most people were aware of the dangers of Smoke, but they were still irrevocably addicted when it was given to them by guile, or against their will. Wealthy people were often a target, for once hooked, they would sell all their property, and then their relatives, in order to obtain more.

  Lightly dressed, the addict shivered in the cold. His right hand held a long kitchen knife, pointed at Kor.

  “Robe,” he said, pointing at Kor. “Give robe.” He wiggled the point of the knife. One of his eyes had been overwhelmed by the mold, but the other tracked her accurately.

  Kor was trapped between him, the fence, and the barrels. “Right away, Dearie,” she said with a smile. “I can see that you could use it, on a morning like this!” She dropped her scrounging bag, bent over, and pulled her robe over her head. “Here, I’ll throw it to you,” she said cheerfully. Rolling it up, she gave it a toss, so that it fell just to his left. Watching her carefully, he moved to the left and began bending at the knees to retrieve the robe with his left hand.

  Under her robe, Kor had been wearing a long cotton shift. “Here, D-Dearie, take this t-too!” she said, her teeth chattering from the cold. Bending over again, she pulled the shift over her head, rolled it up, and tossed it a little further to his left. She was now wearing only a loincloth, tied at the corners above her hips. Her lined and wrinkled skin, usually robin’s-egg blue, was bleached nearly white by the cold. She was covered with goose pimples, and shivering violently.

  Kor now had three or four hundredbreaths’ time to get home before the cold paralyzed her. “I n-need to g-go now, D-Dearie,” she said, “c-could you s-step aside, p-please?” She gestured with her hand that he should go to his left. Very slowly, watching her carefully, he did so, and Kor sidled slowly past him, holding her open hands over her head to show that she had no weapons and was not going to do anything hostile. He did not attack.

  She backed away from him, then turned and pushed herself into an arthritic lope, holding her pendulous breasts with her hands so that they would not flop. As she ran, she addressed a prayer to her goddess, Isiliar. “Thank you, Isiliar,” she said, “for helping me to feel compassion, not just fear.”

  As soon as Kor was out of sight, the addict donned the shift and then the coat. Carrying his knife and blanket, he then proceeded to a nearby alley, where he crawled into a broken packing crate which had been partly filled with dried leaves. Reclining, he brushed leaves over himself until only his face was visible. Then he lay still, for hours; but he was not yet dead, for once he muttered something – a name, perhaps? – and out of his one good eye there trickled a tear.

  Then a shadow fell over him. A man with a gray beard, and dressed in a gray, hooded cloak, was crouching at the entrance to the box. His eyes were also gray, his skin the color of slate. He carried an iron staff. He wore a smile of cruel and superior amusement.

  The addict’s good eye lit with fear, and he started to get up, but the gray man curled his lips in a sneer, and made a clawing gesture with his hand; the addict was frozen by a spell. Crawling partway into the crate, the gray man muttered a short enchantment. A little shard of light, like a firefly, rose from the leaves that covered the addict’s chest. From a pocket, the gray man removed a small vial and uncorked it. He muttered again, and the little light entered the vial. The man replaced the cork and the vial, and departed. A bit of red smoke dispersed into the air. The body of the addict remained, and now it was truly dead.

  All this was observed, from a floating mote of dust, by someone neither Kor nor the addict had ever heard of, and who was only partly there. His name was “Vidigeon.”