Erin Evans - The God Catcher

The alien memory snapped like a string pulled too taut and let Nestrix back into the real world. She gasped at the shift.

The girl, Chennae, snorted. Her mistress gave her a stern look.

"Chennae, go to the back room and find something to do," she said. The girl looked as if she'd been slapped for a moment, but gave a dutiful curtsey and left. The seamstress took her place behind the counter's table.

"You don't look as if you've done this before," she said. "Perhaps I can save you some time. A simple dress-no god's-eyes, no lace, homespun cloth-will cost you two silvers and three coppers."

"All right."

"Is it?"

Nestrix squirmed a little. She knew what the seamstress must be thinking-with her too-small dress and her heavy boots, there was no way that Nestrix could afford such finery. She thought of the hillocks of gold coins, stamped with the faces of scores of rulers she had once used as her bed. But that stirred up more thoughts…

As easy as it would be to shout the seamstress down and make her take the coin, Nestrix doubted it would work. Not with this one.

You were clever once, she told herself. Weren't you?

"I'm… new to Waterdeep," she said. "My clothes were lost. My trunks were… misplaced on the caravan I took here."

The seamstress raised an eyebrow. "Misplaced?"

"Bandits in the passes," Nestrix amended. "Things were… very confusing afterward. I've sent for my things from"-Where had Tennora thought she was from? — "Tethyr. But in the mean-time"-she looked down at Tennora's old clothes-"I borrowed this. I don't like it. I have plenty of coin." She pulled her purse from her neck and opened it on the table. Gold and silver spilled out on the surface. "There. You see?"

"It is your coin?" the seamstress asked.

"Of course." It was now, at any rate, but that was a line of logic not every dokaal followed, so she invented some more. "My father was an adventurer. I inherited a fair amount," she added, thinking of the portrait of Tennora's dam and the man in the hearth-house. People seemed to like adventurers; everyone in the city seemed to know one or be one or think they'd make a good one. The seamstress smiled.

"You'll pardon my presumption. Better to ask than to have the Watch on me," she said. "You'd best store it in a strongbox though. You're like as well to have your purse plucked carrying those coins around. But I think we might be able to lighten your load a bit." She smiled cheerily. "What were you planning on purchasing?"

Nestrix hesitated. Just a cloak, but that had been before they'd insulted her pride so. "Quite a bit," she said. "Perhaps. It depends upon… when everything else-"

The seamstress nodded. "Your things will arrive. Eventually. But to start, a good sturdy dress or two for day, something fancy for evenings, a stormcloak, and a few frilly smallclothes should stand you. We can measure you today, but it will take a tenday or two to get the other pieces finished."

Nestrix bit her tongue in annoyance. In a tenday, she would need none of this. "Is there any way I could get the stormcloak now?" Nestrix said. "I'm tired of being wet."

"The storms do get tiresome. Every year, the same time, but they only last a tenday or so. I do have a finished cloak," the seamstress said. "If you're not too picky about the color-one of the Hawkwinter girls ordered it." She sighed and shook her head. "I send her a message saying it's finished. She sends one back saying she's no longer interested. 'The cut is gauche.' More likely she burned through her allowance for the month."

"Yes," Nestrix said, hardly understanding a word the woman said.

"That's what comes of spoiling children, I suppose. Stand up here"-she helped Nestrix onto a wooden box before a full-length mirror-"and we'll see if you like it." She bustled into the next room and left Nestrix to consider the mirror.

The reflection of a woman-her dark hair damp and curling, her skin a freckled brown, her eyes a nostalgic shade of blue-looked back at Nestrix. She curled her lip. So did the reflection.

"Here we are," the seamstress said, coming up behind Nestrix with the cloak in a muslin bag. "Lucky you, it hasn't been hemmed as yet. You're a bit tall to be a match for Young Lady Hawkwinter."

Nestrix closed her eyes-she was not tall. She was a mite, a crumb, a mouse. Once she would have filled this room from floor to ceiling; now a score of her wouldn't come close to filling it. She felt untethered and flimsy. If she opened her eyes, the vertigo and the memories would claim her again.

She felt the seamstress settle the cloak on her shoulders and straighten the hem. "There we are. What do you think?"

Nestrix opened her eyes.

The cloak was blue.

… the color of a stormy sunrise over the desert…

A chill ran up Nestrix's neck. Her own ancient memories unfolded. Blue- the shade of an angry sea, the shade of the night and the moonlight reflecting off the sand dunes — blue, the color of dragon scales. Ulhar — the quickest, the wisest. It hung down in the shape of wings.

… The shape of her wings, draped over her back as she dozed near the cavern's mouth…

Her breath caught in her throat, and she fought to keep her mind still and empty.

"I say, that shade suits you very well," the seamstress said. "Better than Lady Hawkwinter, even. What do you think?"

Nestrix swallowed. "It's perfect."

… blue and the blood red of rubies settled in her claws: one, two, three…

"I'll let you have it for four silvers. That's a quarter off, since it's already made."

… blue and the red of rubies and the wash of gold in the back of the cave where she settles the rubies, like eggs in a nest…

"Yes," Nestrix breathed.

… blue and gold and red like eggs in a nest, the nest tucked farther back still, three mottled eggs buried in a mound of sand. She sifts more sand over the nest; they need to stay warm…

"Stand up straight, and I'll hem it for you. Shoulders back, now."

First she'd placed the statuette, the figure of some dead god from before she was hatched-a pretty thing even Tantlevgithus was jealous of-into the pile of coins and chains, then the rubies, then back to the eggs. She smiled, standing on the box in the tailor's shop, to remember it.

The thief who slipped in behind her came after. She remembered the sound of footsteps as she sprinkled sand over her clutch. She remembered looking back over her draped wings at a noise. She remembered slipping through the side caverns toward the entrance, of peering around the comer to see the woman hardly as tall as Nestrix's elbow creeping down the tunnel. Her leather armor blended into the gloom of the cave, but Nestrix's sharp eyes picked it out. Her hair was like spun gold.

… gold and red and blue, blue is the anger that storms and howls through her. Protect the treasure, protect the eggs. No filthy dokaal thiefs hands will touch them…

She remembered stalking the thief, the woman's form obstructed and revealed by stalagmites and columns. Invisibility cloaked Nestrix; the thief never saw her. The fool, the bitch-Nestrix would make sure the thief regretted her intrusion before she died.

… protect the eggs, protect the eggs. She'll not take them. Tantlevgithus will be jealous she took this prey alone. He is so young and furious-but this one is hers…

She remembered the thief coming to the treasure in the lower cave, watching her run her hands over the glittering jewels. She lit a sunrod, thinking herself alone-Nestrix remembered licking her lips, crouching for the attack.

… That's it-sift through the jewels, don't mind me, nothing to bother you. Who cares if that's mine? She picks up a gold-chased mithral torque, a beautiful thing with a great fat sapphire in the middle, and slips it around her neck. Creep forward, one claw at a time until the smell of the girl is heavy and close as old meat…