Michelle Sagara - Cast in Chaos

Marya was in the office, such as it was. She had a large desk—it was half again as large as Marcus’s—but there were no other desks in the room. There were cupboards, and a long counter that ran the length of the wall opposite the window, breaking only for the door. There were two standing shelves as well, and these were the repository of a number of books, but they also held bottles, jars, and assorted dried herbs. At least that’s what Kaylin assumed they were. She recognized some of them; bitterroot for fever, worry-not to prevent pregnancy; most of them she didn’t know.

There were three mirrors in the room, none of them full-length; one sat on the right-hand side of Marya’s desk, its lion claw iron legs ensuring that nothing short of serious effort would knock it over. Marya appeared to be seriously considering it. She looked up as Kaylin entered.

Her first words reassured Kaylin.

“There’ve been no deaths. If it had been—if we’d really needed you, we’d’ve been able to find you. Your Sergeant’s been good about that, I admit it. I didn’t expect it, but—he’s been good.”

Kaylin exhaled, because she’d been holding her breath and it was well past stale. “Okay,” she said. “No emergencies.”

“There were two births. One was a first child, but in either case the delivery was not considered a terrible risk. I had Mellan attend the first birth.”

Kaylin nodded. It made sense; Mellan was one of the younger midwives, but she’d been the midwife in charge at a number of births for the past three months.

“The baby was born. A boy. He was healthy.” She hesitated, and then said, “He had three eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“Three eyes. They were infant eyes in every other respect, but he has an eye in the center of his forehead just above the bridge of his nose.”

“Where was the birth?” Kaylin asked quietly. “What was the address?”

“Sauvern, near Bitton.”

The child had been born within the confines of the circle.

The rain of blood had been bad; the Swords were probably still out in the streets enforcing a certain rationality upon people who’d been caught in the torrent. A demonstrably secret, on going investigation into one of the most powerful humans in the city had been totally compromised by a cheap, charlatan fortune-teller.

But with this new bit of information, it was suddenly, completely damn serious. “How were the parents?”

“The parents, thank the gods, are followers of Iravatari.”

When Kaylin failed to nod as if the sentence seemed relevant, Marya rolled her eyes. “The goddess of wisdom and enlightenment? Tall, robed lady?”

“Sorry.”

“Never mind. Iravatari has three eyes. It was a shock to the parents, yes—and I think a shock to young Mellan—but when they recovered, they were not unhappy.”

Kaylin nodded.

“The second birth was more problematic.”

And tensed. “How?”

“The second birth was attended by Helen. You know Helen?”

Kaylin frowned for just a minute, and then nodded. “Older woman, this tall, brown eyes, hair down to her knees?”

“She doesn’t wear her hair down when she’s working,” was the severe reply. “But yes, that would be Helen. She attended the second birth. The second birth was a first child, a girl.”

“The child was also…different?”

“The child, at two minutes out of her mother’s womb, could speak.”

“Speak?”

“Yes. In complete sentences. There may well be a god of speech, but in this particular case, the parents were not thrilled. I believe they were confused, but the child’s grandmother insisted that the baby had been possessed by evil spirits. She did not attempt to harm the infant—”

“Not if Helen was there, she didn’t.”

“—but she insisted that the child be exorcised. Formally. The child had other ideas, and some argument ensued.”

“Where is the child now?”

“Helen is still there. The grandmother, however, is not. The mother is…not happy. The father is confused.”

“Tell me where this child was born,” Kaylin said, in a tone of voice that indicated she had a good idea. Marya’s answer confirmed her suspicions. “Can I use your mirror?” she asked, although she’d already walked behind the desk and tapped it with her palm.

“Yes, but use it quickly. Given the incidents tonight, I want an entirely open channel.”

Kaylin nodded. She waited for the mirror to blur, and when the image shifted from reflection to communication, she saw that Marcus was, as she suspected he would be, still in the office. So was Caitlin. So, she thought, were a number of Hawks, although it looked like they were mostly Barrani. The Barrani didn’t exactly need sleep.

“Marcus—”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Midwives’ guild.”

“You went to the Palace?”

“Yes. And I’m due in at the office first thing to head back to the Oracles’ Hall. With Sanabalis.”

“First thing?”

“Yes. I’m considering skipping sleep entirely.” She caught Caitlin’s expression, and added, “Just joking. But I need you to send something across to this mirror, now.”

Marcus looked as tired and frazzled as Kaylin felt, and he bared his fangs at the tone of her voice. But that was all he did; he didn’t even give her a knee-jerk refusal. Instead, he said, “Please don’t tell me that this is affecting births.”

“If you don’t want to hear it, I’ll write it up when I make my report.”

“I’ll have to read that.”

“Eventually.” She glanced pointedly at the piles that could be seen teetering on his desk in the distance. “I need Marya to have a map, so she’ll have a good idea of where things are likely to—to go bad.”

“Done. It is not to be transmitted beyond the guild’s mirror.”

Marya, who had wedged herself into the frame’s view beside Kaylin, nodded, and the mirror instantly blanked in that way that implied something more pleasant than angry Leontine face was about to appear. What did appear was the city map, complete with two circles. “Make the inner circle brighter,” Kaylin told the mirror.

The mirror complied.

Reaching out, she hit the two places on the map where the unusual births had occurred. “Mark and record.”

“What is the circle?” Marya asked softly.

“No one’s certain. You were probably busy enough to miss the whole rain of blood thing. I wasn’t,” she added.

“That’s why you looked as if—”

“I’d fallen into an abattoir? Yeah. It caused a lot of panic, no surprise. The Swords are still patrolling the streets within this boundary. Things have happened within the boundary that imply that there’s some kind of—of—wild magic.” Kaylin, who didn’t entirely understand the concept of a “potential leak” was not up to explaining it to anyone else.

“Is it going to grow?”

The thought had occurred to Kaylin. “I don’t know. We know it’s been in place for at least a day. We have no idea how large the area was when the…unusual disturbances started. We wouldn’t actually know for certain how large the circle was if it weren’t for the rain, so we’re grateful for it. The Swords, on the other hand, have no reason for gratitude, and I imagine they aren’t.”

She moved away from the mirror to give Marya some space to actually sit down; Marya did, pulling a ledger from a desk drawer and flipping it open. “How many women are going to give birth in that circle within the next, say, two weeks?”

“I’m looking at the next four weeks at the moment,” Marya replied, without looking up. She flipped back and forth between pages, made notes, and added her own square fingerprints to the map’s image, pausing to magnify streets where it became necessary. “Within four weeks,” she finally said, “this is what we’ve got.”