Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

She stared at Meatha, sick. How could the Landmaster be such a fool? Meatha’s eyes blazed; and then she began to smile, a twisted, bitter little smile, and she said coolly, “The Landmaster has baited his own trap.”

The low sun glinted through the mawzee stalks in shafts of light that moved constantly on the wind; the scent of mawzee was strong, like baking bread.

“Could we—could we speak to Anchorstar?” Meatha whispered at last. “Could we speak to him with the stone?”

They tried, but they could not; it was all of darkness.

“We must try to see the Children,” Zephy said nervously. “We must find the Children . . .”

They started with surprise at the ease with which the vision came. It was Nia Skane, and Zephy caught her breath—but this was Nia before she was taken. Zephy saw a montage of children playing and running in the street, and she knew she was seeing through Kearb-Mattus’s eyes, for she could still feel the sense of him strongly. She saw Nia walking alone down the lane from Temple, and she knew Kearb-Mattus’s intentions. There was a wild flashing of scenes as Nia ran, was grabbed, as something was forced over her face. Zephy saw the child fall, saw her lying pale and still and twisted beneath the painon tree. She dropped the stone and turned away, sick.

“You can’t let go like that!” Meatha turned on her in a fury. “You can’t, not and be able to help!”

“I—I’m sorry. I’ll try.” But the vision had shaken her terribly.

“Don’t you see?” Meatha said more gently. “We saw him do it. Now you know Anchorstar was telling the truth.”

Zephy stared at Meatha, ashamed she had lost control, ashamed she had doubted Anchorstar. Ashamed that Meatha knew.

*

They found Clytey Varik sitting on her sculler steps shelling out some vetchpea pods. Twelve-year-old Clytey had a sliding blue-eyed glance that made her seem as devious as the older girls. She was wily and gay and popular and was always surrounded by her peers and by a good many boys. But still there was an odd quality about her that made her different somehow. Of the Children Meatha had named out to Zephy, Clytey was the most puzzling. “The others,” Meatha had said, “little Toca, Elodia Trayd, the baby—we could almost be sure of them without the stone, though I know we must try it. It’s Clytey I don’t understand. She flirts like the older girls, she laughs and—and yet I don’t know. It’s just something different. We’ll see,” she had added with more confidence than Zephy had felt. I wish, Zephy thought, I wish . . . but what was the good of wishing?

Clytey tilted her head and looked at Meatha now with an expression almost of defiance. Zephy paused, but Meatha went to her with the stone cupped and hidden, then bared it suddenly and held it against Clytey’s fingers.

Clytey looked puzzled. Then slowly her eyes widened. She laid her hand over Meatha’s, covering the stone. She grasped the stone and pulled it away, and her expression had come alive in a way Zephy had never seen—then suddenly a darkness crossed Clytey’s face, too. Her look turned from awe to terror; so alarming a terror that Meatha reached for the stone. But it was too late. Clytey was staring at something behind them. “The fire, they’re coming through the fire,” she screamed. “They’re behind the fire, the swords . . .” Her cry catapulted between the stone buildings.

She flung away from Meatha into the street, dropping the stone in her agitation. But it seemed to make no difference, whatever the stone had summoned held her in a white terror. “They’ve killed them,” she cried, staring at empty space. “Oh, the blood . . .” Zephy reached her first and clamped her hand over Clytey’s mouth. Meatha grabbed up the stone, wrapping it hastily. Zephy had Clytey in her arms now, but it was too late; others were coming, running, drawn by the commotion, then stopping to stare at this child who was obviously having a vision. The word rumbled among the onlookers.

Zephy muffled Clytey with her arms, but Clytey flung away from her in a pale, panting terror that seemed to see nothing else, crying, “The fire—great Eresu, the fire, they defile the fire . . .” Clytey covered her face with shaking hands as others pulled at her, at Zephy and Meatha. Zephy fought, turned to bite, and sunk her teeth into someone’s arm. People were flocking into the street shouting. She was held, pushed and trapped in the crowd, could not see Meatha; saw Clytey’s face once more, then she was dragged, flailing, into an empty alley and she saw Kearb-Mattus’s face close to hers. She felt herself jerked and twisted, forced down the alley away from the mob. Clytey screamed; the crowd’s cry rose; she could hear the Deacons’ voices. She kicked to get free, and thought she heard Meatha’s scream, too. She hit out, and Mama was there holding her hands, dragging her up steps. . . .

They forced her through the sculler door. She could hear screaming, still, and she cried in response, “Let me go! Let me . . .” Something in her told her to be still, not to fight, but her fury was too great; her fury, and her terror for Meatha.

Kearb-Mattus wrenched her arm behind her and forced her through the longroom and up the stairs—one flight and the next, brutally. She could not resist completely and feel her arm broken, she was not strong enough, the pain defeated her. She felt herself pushed up the ladder, shoved, heard the trapdoor close behind her and heard the old bolt, forever unused, wrench free and slide home with a scraping noise.

Then there was silence in the loft.

She crept to the window.

Below, the crowd was thick. All Burgdeeth was there in the street. Zephy could not see Meatha or Clytey, but two donkeys were being led up toward the place where the Deacons stood: Dess and Clytey’s little gray donkey.

The crowd parted slightly for them, then parted very wide, in deference, as the Landmaster rode up. Elij was with him.

Now an opening was made in the center of the crowd, before the Landmaster and the red-robed Deacons. The donkeys were brought up, to stand with their ears back, not liking the excitement. Then the girls were there, being stripped of their clothes by the head Deacons.

Clytey and Meatha stood naked and ashamed before all Burgdeeth.

Slowly, then, they were dressed in rags, the filthiest rags the Ragsinger could produce. Clytey’s mother came running, crying, and Zephy could see that Meatha’s parents were being held back by the crowd. Clytey fought as they dressed her, but Meatha held herself like steel, cold, frozen. Zephy’s heart lurched for her, she wanted to cry out, she wept inside in a sickness she had never known, as if all her insides bled in one terrible quailing illness for Meatha.

The girls, rag-dressed and smeared with muck and dung and butcher’s blood, were lifted up in a macabre ritual by four men each, and laid across their donkey’s backs, face down, like sacks of meal. They were tied, then the crowd began to smear on more muck from the gutter, and to dump buckets of slops on them. Zephy turned away and was sick into her chamber pot.

When she came back to the window, the donkeys were being led away toward the Temple for the last sacrificial rites.

Zephy knelt on the stone sill, shivering, for what seemed hours, until the procession came back down the street. It was led by the Landmaster riding his gray stallion, his red robe garish above the children’s rags. The donkey’s heads were down as if in shame, though more likely it was the commotion. The crowd that followed chanted the dirge with a strength and vehemence that made Zephy shake with fury.

Long after the procession had gone, long after the town had stilled, Zephy crept shivering into her bed and lay curled tight around herself, unable to drive the pictures from her mind. When Mama pushed open the trapdoor and came to her in the darkness, she turned her face to the wall and held herself rigid.