David Coe: The Sorcerer's Plague

To Besh's knowledge, though, the full tale of Lici's past was known only to two people: Lici, of course, and a woman named Sylpa.

Sylpa had been the leader of the village elders at the time Lici came to Kirayde. That first day she took Lici in, and during the years that followed raised the girl as she would a daughter. Gradually, as Lici's strength returned, and the memories of whatever tragedy she had endured faded, she began to speak. She took her lessons with the other children and grew to womanhood. Besh remembered thinking her beautiful when he was a small boy and easily impressed by long silken hair and eyes that sparkled like emeralds. But he also recalled that, even then, he never spoke with her, or rather, that Lici never spoke with anyone other than Sylpa.

She rarely smiled, and she had a discomfiting habit of looking a person directly in the eye as she walked past in utter silence. Though Besh dreamed of marrying her, he also began to fear her.

Over time his fascination with her waned. He married Ema, had children of his own, made a name for himself among the Mettai as a skilled cooper and wise leader, and eventually was selected as one of the elders. Lici never married. She had suitors, including an Eandi merchant who saw her one morning as he drove a cart loaded with his wares into the village marketplace. He returned to Kirayde several times during that one Planting season, hoping that this dark, beautiful Mettai woman might deign to speak with him. She did not. After a time, he stopped coming.

When Sylpa died, Lici left the house they had shared and built for herself a small but in a lonely corner of the village, near what villagers called the South Rill. She still spoke with no one, but she began to teach herself to weave baskets. The Mettai of the northern highlands had long been known for their basketwork, and Kirayde had a master basket- maker who could have offered her an apprenticeship. But as with everything else, Lici did this alone. And she did it brilliantly. Within only a few years, her craft rivaled that of the village's master. Soon, peddlers were coming from all over the Southlands to buy Lici's baskets.

Some in the village began to say that the woman was growing rich off her craft, that she hoarded gold and silver pieces the way a mouse hoards grain for the Snows. It may well have been true, at least for a time. Nevertheless, Lici remained in her tiny hut, wearing old clothes that had once been Sylpa's, and eating the roots and greens she grew in her small garden plot. Then abruptly, just a few years ago, she began to turn the peddlers away. Suddenly it seemed that she had no interest in trading any of her baskets. The peddlers offered more gold. They offered jewels and silverwork, from the Iejony Peninsula, and blankets from the cloth crafters of Qosantia. They stood outside her door and pleaded with her for just one simple trade. Lici refused them all.

To this day, no one in the village knew why.

Besh thought it a fitting end to her years of prosperity, and he was surprised that others didn't recognize it as such. The old woman had spent her entire life in shadow, marked by the gods for some dark fate. Perhaps she meant well. Perhaps she chose solitude and behaved as she did because she never had the chance to learn any other way. Truth be told, Besh didn't care.

He didn't want to have anything to do with her, and he certainly didn't want Mihas going near her.

"It's not that I don't like Lici," he told the boy at last, watching the swallows dance overhead. "I just think you'd be better off staying away from her."

"But why?"

"It's hard to explain. She's… odd."

"Is it because her parents died?"

Besh looked at the boy, wondering how much he had heard about Lici's past.

Mihas leaned closer to him, as if fearing that others might hear what he said next. "Nissa's father says that wherever she walks, four ravens circle above her."

Four ravens. The Mettai death omen. That was as apt as anything Besh might have thought to say about her.

"Nissa's father may be right."

"Then why is she still alive?"

"There are many deaths, Mihas. Some are slower than others." The boy frowned. "I don't understand."

"That's all right. Just do as I say and stay away from Old Lici." "Yes, Grandfather."

Besh stood slowly, stretching his back and legs. "We should go home," he said.

Mihas scrambled to his feet. "Are the roots ready yet?"

"Not quite. Next turn, perhaps."

The boy nodded and handed Besh the knife.

They started walking back toward the house Besh shared with his daughter's family. They hadn't gone far, however, when Mihas suddenly halted.

"Oh, no!" the boy said, and ran back toward the garden.

"What's the matter?" Besh called after him.

Mihas stopped beside the goldroot, bent down, and lifted something carefully out of the dirt. Then he started back toward Besh.

"What did you forget?"

"My clover," the boy said, holding it up proudly for Besh to see. One might have thought that Mihas himself had changed its color. "I want to show Mama."

Besh knew what the boy's mother would say about the flower, but he kept his silence and they walked back home.

The house stood in a grove of cedar on a small hill just east of the marketplace. It was larger than most houses in Kirayde, though to an outsider, someone from one of the Qirsi settlements along the wash, it would have seemed modest at best. A thin ribbon of pale grey smoke rose from the chimney, and two small children chased each other among the trees, giggling and shrieking breathlessly as they ran.

As Besh and Mihas drew near, Elica emerged from the house bearing an empty bucket, her long hair stirring in the breeze.

"It's about time," she said, glancing at Mihas and then fixing Besh with a hard glare. "What were you doing all this time?"

"Taking care of the goldroot. Can't an old man tend his garden without being questioned so by his daughter?"

"Not when there are more pressing chores to be done." She held out the bucket to Mihas. "Fetch some water from the rill, Mihas. Quickly. Supper's going to be late as it is."

The boy stopped just in front of her, but instead of taking the bucket, he held up the clover, beaming at her.

"What's this?" she asked, taking the flower and examining it. "Grandfather did it!" Mihas told her. "It was a clover and I asked him whether our magic is real and he did that!"

Elica fixed Besh with a dark look, but then smiled at her son. "It's lovely. Such a bright color. Now, please, Mihas. The water."

"All right, Mama."

He grabbed the bucket and ran off, still clutching the clover in his free hand.

"You should know better, Father!" Elica said, sounding cross, as if she were speaking to one of her children. "No good can come of teaching the boy empty magic. And anyway, he's too young to be learning blood craft."

Sometimes Besh thought that Elica might be just a bit too much like her mother.

"I taught him nothing," he said. "I showed him a bit of magic. And it wasn't empty. That Qirsi peddler who came through here earlier in the waxing had him wondering if Mettai magic could do anything at all. I wanted him to see that it could."

"So show him something useful. You could have brought him back here and started my fire. You could have healed one of the children's cuts or scrapes. Elined knows they have enough between them to keep you bleeding for half a turn. But no. You choose to color a flower."

Sirj, Elica's husband, stepped around from the back of the house, his shirt soaked with sweat, a load of unsplit logs in his arms. He wasn't a big man-he was only slightly taller than Elica-nor was he particularly broad. But he was lean and strong, like a wildcat in the warmer turns.

"What are you going on about, Elica? I could hear you all the way back at the woodpile."