Jay Lake - Endurance

Even the Dancing Mistress, alien and alienated as she had become to me, would be a welcome sight.

Have I lost them all?

The thought chilled me. The idea that I might have only the gods for company now seemed more than I could bear. I rolled onto my side and curled up with my arms cradling my belly. When had I grown so large?

Ponce came back with a bowl of dhal, Chowdry in his wake. The priest wore an apron spattered with grease and sauce-he’d been cooking, then.

Was there a better ministry for him? I wondered, though, who stood with the god, and wished mightily that I might spend more time in his kitchen.

Me. I’d stood with the god most recently.

My mind was wandering, I knew it was. I forced my attention back.

“You are being alive,” Chowdry said in Petraean.

“You don’t have to sound so damned surprised.” I didn’t mean to be peevish, but the words came out that way.

He glanced at Ponce. “I am not being surprised. You are never surprising me.” Then, in Seliu, so the whitebelly could not understand us, “The embassy is gone. Little Baji went with them. So did some of the regulars here.”

“Spies,” I hissed in the same language.

Chowdry nodded. “But at least they are fled.”

“The girl hostage is with them,” I growled. “I have failed.”

He smoothed his apron, dirtying his hands in the process. “I am not thinking you have failed so much. This could have been a far more difficult night.”

“The gods live, but my sister Blades are missing. A child is stolen across the sea.” I briefly closed my eyes, blinking out my tears. “I cannot name this a victory.”

Chowdry took my hand. “Accept what success you can.” With a nod to Ponce, he turned back toward the kitchen, pushing through the crowd.

I realized that as we spoke, pardines had begun to surround me. A momentary stab of fear traced through my heart, which I laid aside. These were practically my own people. Even the Revanchists held little terror for me now.

The Dancing Mistress stepped between a pair of tall, furred shoulders to approach me. Her water-pale violet eyes glinted as she stared. I sat up to meet her, though it cost me much to move thusly. Back and belly protested.

“Where is he?” she asked.

That was not what I had expected. “Who?”

Her voice was hard. “The Rectifier. You gave our heart’s treasure away, but you have mislaid the bearer.”

I realized the room had fallen quiet. The Dancing Mistress’ ears were stiff, her tail flicking back and forth. “If you wish to punish me for losing track of your people’s greatest warrior,” I said, “lay into me and have done with it. I did not send him away or put him to sword. And he has two of my own with him.”

Where can the Rectifier be? With my missing Blades?

My gut flopped. What had happened?

She shook her head, sighing, and for a moment was my old teacher again. “Green, I will not strike at you. Not now, not ever again.”

A strange promise, I realized, but held my tongue.

The Dancing Mistress continued: “Much stands at risk here, missing.”

“I know that. If I could search for them, I would.” Instead, I could barely move. I did not then realize how much one is tied to children, whether they are in one’s belly or at one’s side.

“Where might they be?” she asked softly.

Not the Temple of Endurance or Chowdry would have known. With Blackblood? He was a god of men, not women. Besides which, Skinless would not have borne me here if my people had been lying in his god’s temple.

The answer came to me. “Archimandrix,” I whispered. “They are Below. With the sorcerer-engineers.”

“Ah.” She turned swiftly away from me. I heard the door crash open and then swiftly slam shut again a moment later.

Better she than me, I thought. Ponce came to spoon dhal into me until I could take no more. I asked for a room, and they let me rest.

Daylight glowed red against my gummed-shut eyes. Someone had opened a shutter. I blinked, but it was too bright.

Closing my eyes again, I realized my belly was swollen and painful even beyond the pressure of the child within me. Too many tumbles onto my face. One hand strayed to stroke my skin there, trying to send comfort to the baby. I was still over two months from my due date, though it felt as if she wanted to emerge right now. When had I grown so enormous? I was unwieldy as any clay oven, potbellied and thin-legged and never the right temperature.

“Green,” a voice said softly.

I tried opening my eyes again, just a squint. I didn’t recognize the room-small and spare, with words painted on the plaster wall in some script I could not read. The smell of Selistani cooking told me I was above the Tavernkeep’s place.

Ilona sat beside me. She took my other hand in hers. Her face was red and swollen, puffy with tears, with grief.

“I…” The words would not be said.

“You did so much,” she whispered.

“Not enough.” My own tears poured forth. “C-Corinthia Anastasia, th-they sailed away with her.” I began to sob, to blubber as an ill-trained child might. “Sh-she’s gone…”

“Green.” Ilona gripped my hand tighter. “She’s been gone since they took her from my cottage. We will find a way to get her back.”

“That’s my promise to you,” I almost shouted, my voice mounting in anger.

“It is.” Ilona leaned close and kissed my forehead, then my tears, then my lips.

That quieted me a little. But not for long.

“Where are my sister Blades?”

“Those terrible women in black?” Humor rode in her voice.

“Yes. They were with the Rectifier. Th-that big pardine warrior.”

“Your Dancing Mistress brought them here this morning.”

I gave fervent thanks to the Lily Goddess. “Where are they now?”

“Both are recovering.”

Both? “I had three sisters here.”

Her face fell. “Two came in. In the arms of brass apes that followed the pardine woman.”

The next question made me very afraid. “Which two…? And, and… where is the third?” Dead?

“I don’t know their names,” she said. “One could not walk. Something was wrong with her feet.”

“Mother Vajpai.” I was unsure whether I was relieved or disappointed.

“The other would not wake up. A woman who had been hit about the head.”

“A woman, or a girl? My age, perhaps?”

“No, much older than you.”

Panic tinged my thoughts. I could not keep anyone without losing them. “Then where is Samma?”

“I don’t know, Green.” She leaned close to kiss me again, but I turned my face away.

“Don’t be too near me. You will suffer.”

Ilona slid into the bed. “I already have suffered.”

I let her curl her body around my back, and her hands clasp me just beneath my breasts; then I slept awhile with her breath warm upon my neck, safe in the circle of her arms.

Later I awoke again. At first I was too stiff to move. The light held a golden tinge, like honey glaze on a fresh-baked bun, suggesting the day was nearly at an end. Ilona was gone. I was alone.

No matter how much my body ached, I had to pee. I pulled myself from the bed, at the cost of no little pain and some lumbering misbalance, and found the chamber pot. Water came pulsing out of me like a countryman spitting durian seeds, urination so hard and deep that it was painful. How long had I lain there?

Pissing left me parched and hungry, but not so weak I couldn’t walk. Someone had removed-or cut away-my ruined clothing. I was naked. I found a tattered robe on a hook behind the door. Left for me, surely, for no pardine would need such a thing and especially not in so small a size.