Beneath Ceaseless Skies 006 by Scott H. Andrews

Author:Scott H. Andrews [Andrews, Scott H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Periodicals:Fantasy
Publisher: Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

♦ ♦ ♦

The mountains rumbled as the sun set. From the platform by the side door of the women’s house where the washer women worked, Kseniya and Jai-li stood and stared at the sky. The normal gurgle of the stream went unheard.

Woken from their restless slumber, the dragons rose into the night and flew to the west. They were huge and terrifying creatures, all leathery wings and fire. Hot gusts of wind swirled off their bronzy wing-tips, making the snow sizzle and melt.

Kseniya held her headscarf fast to her head with one hand, using the end of it to protect her face. She had seen this many times before, flights of dragons over her people’s lands.

Frustration showed on Jia-li’s features. “I tried to call them back, but they won’t listen to me.”

“Dearest, you don’t have his power.”

Jia-li sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of a blistered hand. “I had to try.”

“I know, dearest. Why don’t you go to your room? I will come in a moment.”

Jia-li nodded and made her way from the platform back into the house. Now that the dragons had gone, the cold returned on a bitter wind. The girl hugged her quilted jacket about herself, looking quite small and defeated.

Kseniya watched her go, and then went to where Bao-yu stood watching the dragons’ flight. Her own people’s lands lay in that direction. She could only pray that the wizard hadn’t sent the dragons there to punish them because she’d not told him where she had found the cursed unguent. She glanced down at Bao-yu, reckoning that the old woman knew the wizard’s mind better than any other. “Do you know were the dragons went?”

Bao-yu took Kseniya’s hand and drew her back inside to the inner hall where she kept a tray of sand. The old woman drew in it with one gnarled finger, a simple drawing of a woman with a babe in her stomach, followed by another of a woman with a child.

“Anushka?” Kseniya asked.

The old woman shook her head. She drew a sword and pointed at it.

Kseniya met the old woman’s eyes warily, wondering what the old woman knew of the wizard’s bodyguard, and if he might not have come to the woman’s house that first night to see Bao-yu. “Did he...?”

One of the servant girls walked into the inner hall then and Bao-yu wiped her hand across the sand, erasing her drawings. She walked away without a glance, as if she feared being caught there. Like Kseniya, Bao-yu evidently believed the walls of the women’s house had ears, or in her case, eyes.

Kseniya stood there a moment, weighing possibilities, and then made her way to Jia-li’s room. The girl sat on the edge of the platform of her bed, her hands cradled on her lap.

“Will you let me heal them today?” Kseniya asked.

“No.” The girl shook her head. “He sent them hunting for someone. The dragons will kill people tonight because I didn’t wash my hands well enough. It’s not fair.”

Kseniya sat down next to her and began to braid the girl’s hair.

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