Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (33 page)

“What’s the hour?” Bastille asked. “Is Brother Travers tardy
again?”

“With kindness, Sister… you’re late. Brother Travers was here
on time this evening. He left after you didn’t show up. He said something about
you breaking your word to him. ‘
So much for a priest’s wager
,’ he said.
What did he mean by that?”

Bastille frowned. “We bet on a game of godechente. I told him
I would give you both a hands-on lesson if he won.”

“And he did?”

“And he did. However, he seems to think himself exempt from
holding up his end of the bargain, which was to read an extra hundred pages
tonight.”

“Oh, I should’ve mentioned… that’s where he went. He brought
a book to his bedchamber to read.”

“I suppose you’ll be the sole benefactor of tonight’s lesson,
in that case,” Bastille said with a sigh.

Severin brightened. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“And patiently too, I might add.” Sister Bastille searched
for the inner joy with which to conjure a genuine smile, but found only a phony
approximation.
I’m sowing the seeds of kindness everywhere I go
, she
thought.

“Thank you, Sister Bastille. Thank you so much.”

“That won’t be necessary, Sister Severin. As a matter of
fact, Brother Travers told me during our game that he was nervous about
starting his hands-on training.”

“Nervous? Why?”

“Well, if you ask me, I’d say he’s scared of being left
behind. Because of how… intelligent you are.” Looking at the acolyte, with her
simple, homely features and her empty expression, intelligence was the last
thing Bastille saw there. Had she wanted her two students to learn more
quickly, she would’ve pitted them against each other. But if she could make
them each think they were the more gifted of the two, they might both relax
their efforts.

Severin blushed. “Who, me? Oh, I’m just a regular kind of
girl.”

“You have a certain something, and Brother Travers sees
that,” Bastille said. “He’s very astute, in that way. He feels threatened by
you. And can you truly blame him?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m threatening. Only when I want to
be.” Severin laughed, giving her arm muscles a mocking flex.

“You just let that be our little secret, okay? I think he’d
be even more discouraged if he knew you were onto him. Let’s let him find his
own way, in his own time. Shall we?”

Severin gave her a conspiring nod.

“In the meantime, let’s get you out of that robe and into
your first dissection.”

Bastille taught Sister Severin how to prepare a body for
sacrifice, being sure to praise the acolyte even when she bungled a task. It
seemed Severin had a stronger stomach than Travers, but her hand was not the
steadiest. She claimed to have suffered from the shaking sickness for the past
several years, a claim Bastille had no trouble believing when she saw the way
the scalpel jittered in the acolyte’s hands.

After giving Severin her enthusiastic approval on a job
poorly done, Bastille dismissed her early, sending her off with a noticeable
spring in her step.
That’s one, primed and ready
, she thought happily.
One
more to go
.

On the way to her own room, Bastille noticed the door to
Brother Travers’ bedchamber was cracked open. Curious, she took a peek inside
and found the acolyte asleep in a pile of dreadlocks, his cheek pressed to the
page of a thick tome on surgery. A candle flickered low on the bedside table.
Bastille clucked her tongue when she noticed the book paper was wet under
Travers’ lips.

The door did not creak when she pushed it open. She slid the
book out from under his face and set it on the table. “A priceless volume,
treated as if it were a napkin,” she muttered aloud.

She was about to blow out the candle when Travers woke with a
start, smacking his lips. “Wha—huh?” He rubbed his eyes and blinked. “Bastille?
What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t in class. I came to make sure you were alright.”

It took him a moment to gather his wits. “I’m fine. I was
there. You weren’t.”

“I apologize for my tardiness. I was feeling ill this
afternoon. However, my absence was no excuse for you to have left the classroom
early. You had reading to do.”

He gestured toward the book. “What does it look like I was
doing?”

“Why yes, forgive me. It looks as though you’ve made it all
the way to page seven.”

“I dozed off. It’s late. Maybe if you were teaching us what we’re
supposed to be learning during our regular classes, the Most High wouldn’t be
making us stay down there until all hours of the night.”

“Sister Severin didn’t seem to mind. We had a very nice
lesson, in fact. Just the two of us.”

“Great for the two of you.”

“Maybe if you had stayed around, you would’ve benefited from
it as well.”

“Oh, so I lost out on it then, huh? Because I wasn’t there,
you’re taking back our bet?”

“Not at all, kind Brother. Although I must say… or perhaps I
shouldn’t.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“What
must
you say?”

Bastille scrunched her lips, as if to deliberate with
herself. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t worry about falling behind because you
missed tonight’s lesson.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Between you and me… Sister Severin has a ways to go yet.”

“It was her first time. What did you think, she was going to
be an expert right out of the gate? I didn’t realize we were competing with
each other.”

“You’re not. There is no competition here. I just wanted you
to know that if you were concerned about being overshadowed by Sister Severin,
you shouldn’t be. It’s obvious who has the natural talent.”

Brother Travers gave her a skeptical glance. “How can you
tell what kind of talent we have when we’ve barely started?”

“I have a knack for these sorts of things. I can see by the
way you show up late and skip out early that you’re used to being good at
things without trying very hard. You’re used to skating by on your excuses and
a few quickly-learned skills.”

Travers averted his eyes.

“Am I wrong?”

He shook his head.

“I thought not. While I would prefer your perfect attendance
and a greater focus on punctuality, I would never stand in the way of true
unbridled talent—which is what you have, kind Brother Travers.”

The acolyte still looked skeptical, but he uttered his thanks
nonetheless.

“If you’re wondering where this is coming from, I’ve begun to
rethink my teaching methods.”

“Does this mean more hands-on training?”

“We’ll work up to it slowly… but yes, it does. I still expect
you to keep your word about those pages.”

Travers sighed. “I’ll read them.”

“That’s good.”
And a satisfied student is just what I need
.
“Sleep well, kind Brother,” Bastille said, before slipping out the door and
closing it behind her.

CHAPTER 27

Solution

Lizneth turned the tiny glass bottle over and over in
her hands, watching the brown liquid slosh from end to end. This was her way
out; her emancipation from the horrible mistake she’d made in Gris-Mirahz. But
for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it.

“Feeling better?” Papa asked, startling her as he approached.

There had been little extra space in Auntie Pomka and Uncle
Enzak’s house, so Lizneth’s family had split up between there and the homes of
a few of their neighbors. Papa sat on the bench beside her, glancing over the
edge of the platform on Molehind’s third level. The walkways were emptying out
as
ikzhehn
retreated to their homes for the night.

“Yes, I feel fine,” she lied, slipping the bottle into her
pocket. Not quickly enough, though.

“You didn’t need Kolki’s medicine after all.”

Lizneth shook her head and stared at her feet. When she
thought about how disappointed Papa would be if he knew what she’d done, it was
hard to look him in the eye. If she didn’t take Kolki’s potion, he would
eventually find out, and the realization put knots in her stomach. Then again,
she felt just as bad when she considered ending the life inside her.

“What do you think is happening back home?” she asked,
desperate to change the subject.

“We can’t be sure,
cuzhe
. Your Uncle Enzak is
well-connected to the other border towns, and from what he’s heard, it isn’t
good. But I don’t want to believe anything until we’ve seen it for ourselves.”

“Is it safe to go back yet?”

“We shouldn’t. These rumors are never the whole truth. Things
could be completely different by the time we return.”

“Let me go, then,” Lizneth said.

“No,
cuzhe
. No. You don’t have to do that.”

“You know there isn’t room for us here,” she said. “We’ve
been a burden on Uncle Enzak and the other families. They’re just too polite to
say so. Molehind wasn’t built with huge throngs of visitors in mind. We’re
imposing on them. We can’t stay; why not let me go back to Tanley and make sure
everything is back to normal? Or, as close to normal as it can be after what’s
happened. I’ll send for you if it is. If not, I’ll come back and we’ll figure
out something else. I doubt the
calaihn
stayed there very long anyway,
once they were done ruining the place.”

Papa sighed. “You may be right. But I still won’t risk
sending you back on your own.”

“I’ve been through worse, Papa. I think I can handle myself
in the tunnels between here and Tanley.”

“What happens if you cross paths with the
calai
army?
It’s one thing to have been taken slave by nefarious
ikzhehn
. If the
calaihn
take you, they’ll drag you into the blind-world and we’ll never hear from you
again.”

“Has Uncle Enzak heard anything about their latest movements?
What about Sniverlik and his forces? Are the Marauders regrouping?”

“The Marauders are gearing up for war,” Papa said. “But it’s
not just the Marauders in Sniverlik’s permanent force, who live at the
stronghold in the rime caves.
Ikzhehn
from villages all around are
traveling there in force to lend their aid.”

“Then the
calaihn
haven’t found it yet… the
stronghold.”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“These villagers must really believe in Sniverlik, to rally
around him like this.”

“Or they’ve simply chosen him over the alternative. That’s
what I think. Your Uncle is more of an altruist than I am. He believes that in
times of hardship, the
ikzhehn
take on a certain social conscience. A
collective effort toward the common good.”

Lizneth thought for a moment. “I know you still think of me
as a
cuzhe
, Papa. I
am
half a nestling, it’s true. I’ve seen
things, though. I experienced things while I was out there. I’ve told you and
Mama a lot of what happened, but I haven’t told you everything.”

“What haven’t you told us?”

Lizneth got a sick feeling in her belly. When she looked at
him, his eyes were full of concern. But they were also anxious; pleading for
truth.

She couldn’t tell him. Not now. Not ever. Suddenly, she
wished she’d taken Kolki’s medicine. The potion that would make it all go away.
She wished the cloudy brown liquid was in her stomach instead of her pocket.

“Whatever it is, Lizneth. You can tell us. You can tell me.”
Papa never called her by her name except when she was in trouble, or when he
wanted her attention.

“I’m going back to Tanley,” she said. “I’ll make sure it’s
safe for us.”

Papa shook his head, adamant. “You will not. Find someone to
go with you, or you stay. I will not allow you to go alone.”

“But Papa, I barely know anyone here.”

“Make a new friend,” he suggested.

“A friend who wants to travel all the way back to Tanley with
me? Who’s probably never been there, and has no interest in going?”

“You’re coming right back,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

Lizneth couldn’t help but feel hurt by the question. The way
he’d asked it, as if he suspected she might abandon them… again. They knew
Curznack had taken her against her will, but that didn’t change the fact that
she’d run away from home of her own accord. “I’m coming back,” she said, almost
a whisper.

“Your Uncle has a few
cuzhehn
your age who work for
him at the digging place. Maybe he can spare them for a few days. I’m sure he
can find at least one or two who’d enjoy a short travel.”

“If you think it best, Papa.”

As it happened, Uncle Enzak had not one or two, but three
young workers he could spare. Not
spare
, though, so much as
assign
.
They were to carry a load of minerals—coal, iron, shale, and slate—to Tanley
for trading. He instructed them to give away a small portion to Tanley’s
neediest families to help with the rebuilding. They were to charge fair prices
for the rest, and focus on getting supplies for the short-year in return.

Lizneth said goodbye to her family and, after enduring Mama’s
relentless barrage of warnings, reminders, and melodramatic breakdowns, met her
companions in the deeps below the village. After a brief round of
introductions, they set off into the tunnels, each—except Lizneth—pulling a
heavy two-wheeled hand cart full of Uncle Enzak’s product.

And so, since Uncle Enzak’s business pursuits had coincided
with Lizneth’s errand, she now had three traveling companions whom she neither
knew nor liked. They were all, as Papa had predicted, close to Lizneth’s age.
Stevrin was the only buck of the group, a pudgy agouti with a wave of
pinpricked fur running down the center of his scalp. It always stayed that way,
as if he’d brushed it there on purpose. Lizneth thought it made him look wild
and dangerous, but the other two didn’t seem to think so.

Krinica and Barlyza were agoutis too, a common affliction in
Molehind. Plain brown fur and pitch-black eyes—and in Barlyza’s case, a splash
of white above the paws. They were older than Lizneth, but she would never have
guessed it by their behavior. They made Lizneth walk behind them—in case
anything fell out of the carts, they claimed—and proceeded to laugh and joke
with one another the whole way there.
They could walk down a cotterphage’s
throat and never notice until it ate them
, Lizneth thought with disdain,
and a little hope.

The two young does spent so much time giggling and flirting
with Stevrin they rarely noticed whenever a lump of coal bounced off the back
of their carts, or a slab of shale slid off the pile to crack on the ground.
Lizneth was left to snatch these up as she went, jog-stepping to catch the
carts so she could replace them. At times, it got tough to watch all three
carts at once. Sometimes a whole stack would fall, or a pile would give way and
start an avalanche. “You’re supposed to keep things from falling, Lizneth,”
Krinica or Barlyza would say hotly. “That’s why you’re back there.”

By the end of the first day, Lizneth’s fur was powdered with
dust and soot, her belly smudged from carrying armfuls of fallen mineral.
At
least they didn’t make me pull one of the carts for them
, she thought as
she drifted off to sleep. That all changed on the second day, though.

“I pinched my hand really bad yesterday,” Barlyza said,
pouty-faced. “Would you mind pulling my cart for me this morning, Lizneth? Just
for a little while.”

A little while ended up taking all day. And instead of
walking behind the carts, as Lizneth had done, Barlyza walked between Stevrin
and Krinica.
Wouldn’t want to spoil the fun
, Lizneth found herself
thinking. She was the only one who ever noticed when something fell. She’d stop
her cart and race back to pick it up. The others would sometimes break up their
party long enough to call back to her.

“Hurry up, slowpoke,” they’d say.

Or, “What’s taking you so long?”

Or, “Why do you keep stopping? Don’t you know how to steer a
stupid cart?”

By the third or fourth time it happened, Lizneth stopped
trying to make excuses for herself. It didn’t matter what she said. They would
stare at her like she was some slow-witted cur, laugh to themselves, and keep
going. A few times, she thought about quitting altogether; ignoring the fallen
goods, setting the cart handles on the ground, and taking off down the tunnel
ahead of them. But they were her uncle’s goods, and it wouldn’t be Stevrin or
Krinica or Barlyza she hurt by abandoning them.

By the time they settled into an alcove beside the tunnel for
their second night’s rest, Lizneth was sore, tired, heated, and even dirtier
than the first day. She collapsed with her back to the tunnel wall and opened
the kerchief Mama had packed for her. Stale cracker-bread, a few bits of
cheese, and a few strips of dried fish were all that remained.

“Hey, you gonna keep that all to yourself?” Stevrin asked,
brushing the air with curious whiskers.

Lizneth frowned. “Didn’t you bring any food of your own?”

“A little,” he said. “Not as much as you got. Pulling carts
is hard work.”

“Not as hard as digging,” said Krinica. “I’m glad we got out
of that for a few days.”

“It’s not like you ever do any work anyway,” Barlyza chided
her.

“Hey.” Krinica dug her fingers into Barlyza’s sides to make
her squirm—half poke, half tickle.

“Check out what I found while I was digging the other day,”
said Stevrin, pulling something from his pocket. He opened his palm to show
them.

It was bright, shining yellow, a gold nugget the size of an
acorn. Enzak’s mines were a favorite raiding spot for the Marauders, so any
precious metals that turned up there most often went directly into their
pockets. Lizneth’s uncle did okay for himself despite the Marauders’ tampering,
but they treated him no better than anyone else.

“You are so
bad
,” said Barlyza, smoothing out the last
word as though it meant something entirely different—something that wasn’t
really
bad
at all.

“Ooh, can I have it?” Krinica asked. “I’ve been dying for a
new outfit.”

“No way,” said Stevrin. He clamped his hand shut and thrust
it into his pocket.

Lizneth sat up. “Did you steal that?”

Stevrin cast her a lazy glance. “I found it.”

“In my uncle’s digging place.”

Stevrin shrugged. “We all dig there.”

“He owns it. You work for him. You’d better give that back.”

“Or what? What’s the little
scearib
gonna do?”

“I’ll tell him,” she said.

“Oh really? And what then? You think Enzak’s going to admit
he’s been skimming a little off the top for years now too?”

“It’s his digging place. He can do what he wants with the
findings.”

“Don’t fool yourself. The Marauders are supposed to get the
first cut. Everyone knows that. They get the first cut of everything. Enzak
takes a little for himself first, though. Always leaves a few nice shiny pieces
for them to ogle. You know, to distract ‘em from the real rich stuff.”

“It doesn’t matter. You still took something that doesn’t
belong to you.”

“Yeah, and it’d be a shame if the Marauders ever found out
Enzak’s been taking stuff that belongs to them, wouldn’t it? Why, just a couple
weeks ago I heard someone turned up a big chunk of zithstone. You think the
Marauders will ever get their hands on that?” He grunted, answering his own
question.

Lizneth huffed, defeated. She felt like a whining
cuzhe
,
making such a fuss over something so small. She’d told Papa she wasn’t a
nestling anymore—she was grown up, and she could handle herself in grown-up
situations. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. If Uncle Enzak got in
trouble because of her, she’d feel awful. “Forget it. Forget I brought it up.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Stevrin turned his back to her and sat between
the does.

Barlyza and Krinica looked at each other and rolled their
eyes.

They made it to Tanley late on the following day. Lizneth
scented the village long before they arrived. The tunnel air thickened with
death-
haick
, an odor both smoky and rancid. The closer they came, the
more she feared what they might find.

The river was the first thing she heard above the creaking of
the carts. She could tell right away it was running high, overflowing its
banks. That could only mean one thing: rain in the blind-world. Rain so heavy
it must’ve been part of the
yerl-pashk
, the world’s anger.

They emerged from the tunnel to find themselves in a hazy,
grimy cavern that Lizneth hardly recognized. It was Tanley, though; the rolling
terrain and the sweep of black stone along the familiar contour of the walls
was unmistakable. At the top of the hill, beside the footpath which led toward
the village proper, lay a smoldering pile of ash, charred ironwood beams
sticking out like needles from a pincushion. At the rear, a half-collapsed
stack of riverstone marked the location that had once been her family’s hearth.