Minu, page 9
“What’s that do?” Shirin asked.
“Stops evil spirits and monsters from coming in.” He gave a humorless smile. “Well, most monsters that is.”
She tried not to look at him too often. Whenever she did, it was difficult not to stare. That he was alive was no small miracle, though she doubted he saw it that way. Death might have been a kinder mercy than surviving the black sorcery that turned him into a crooked cross between goat and man.
She was figuring out the best way to convince Taniel to stop his listless wandering around the farmhouse and rest when he stiffened, staring out the rune-marked window.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, coming to join him.
He pushed her down. “There’s something out there.”
He covered his right eye as he peered out. Shirin took advantage of his blind spot to poke her head above the sill. Three figures walked through the golden fields, oddly shaped and moving in an even stranger fashion. Their rhythmic steps evoked the sway and shift of a dance.
“They’re just Karvogi,” she said, hearing the telltale ring of the bells they wore.
“Karvogi?”
“They’re men, not monsters. It’s an old folk—”
“I know what Karvogi are,” Taniel said. “But what are they doing out here?”
“They’re doing as spirit-chasers were meant to before they became entertainers in market squares on festival days,” Shirin said. “They’re warding away evil from the land.”
Taniel snorted.
“Is that skepticism or disdain?” she asked.
“Yes. Dancing in circles doesn’t keep evil spirits away.”
“But drawing circles on doorways does?”
“This is proven.” Taniel tapped a clawed finger on a carved rune. “But that”—he waved a hand at the spirit-chasers—“that’s a child seeking comfort where there’s none to be found.”
“It doesn’t mean it has no influence,” Shirin said.
“It’s superstitions like the Karvogi that get people killed. They think smoke and bells drive off demons or moon rituals cure curses.”
“Oh? Have you ever heard of a Karvogi falling to one of the demons or evil spirits he chases away?”
Taniel opened his mouth then closed it. “No,” he admitted. The humorless grin returned. “I suppose you have me there.”
Shirin looked between the Karvogi and Taniel. Warding away evil spirits was not the only good the spirit-chasers offered. While Taniel doubted the power of their ritual dances, their presence offered the means to lift some of his smaller troubles. People were wary, distrusting of anything strange or cursed. Taniel was both. Looking as he was, he’d find no welcome in any town. The more tolerant would turn him away, the less generous kill him thinking him the monster he appeared to be. His best chance of safe travel was to appear as something else. The gods punished those who pretended to be what they were not; it was a great evil to lie about the state of one’s soul. But Taniel was closer to a Karvogi than a monster. As a Witch-Hunter he had protected people from dark creatures. He deserved protection from being mistaken for one.
“Stay here,” Shirin said, packing a water canteen and dried food as cautionary preparations. She wasn’t going so far as to need them, but she had learned it was best to prepare for the worst. “I’ll be back.”
“Where’re you going?” The fear edging Taniel’s voice tempted her to take him along, but it was better for both of them if he remained here.
“To the robbers’ camp,” she said. “I’m going to grab more supplies.”
They were no more than four miles from the camp, Taniel had been unable to travel farther before collapsing.
“You shouldn’t go by yourself,” he said. “The man who fled might’ve returned and he might not be alone.”
“He won’t be there,” Shirin said. “Those men were cowards, and when cowards run, they don’t come back.”
It would have taken less time to tell the truth as to why Taniel could not come—he was too slow and his presence invited greater dangers if they were seen. But the poor boy was already injured and she had no wish to hurt him more. He insisted he ought to accompany her, so she insisted he must stay and carve more wards into the abandoned house.
“I’ll be back before you’re finished. You’ll see,” she said. Setting competition in a task had worked well to get her sons to obey, and it worked with Taniel. He abandoned his argument to chase the hinted challenge. She was right in thinking him young, and his sufferings had not completely stolen that spirit from him.
Birds sang among the branches and a small herd of roe deer grazed where the trees thinned. The forest’s life failed to mask the wrongness of the world. Shirin glanced over her shoulder, searching the woods for the uncanny sense of disquiet accompanying her. A haunting presence, unseen but very much felt, clung to every shadow and whisper of wind. The Reaping had torn something essential from creation. Infection festered in that wounded space, prickling Shirin’s skin like a thousand watching eyes.
She shivered, picking up her pace. The aggrieved emptiness haunting the forest was the same one that had nearly stolen the will to live from her. It wasn’t fair she had outlived her children, been helpless to protect them, or that each day she was reminded of her failure as a mother when she woke to silence where there ought to have been laughter and small running feet. Despair had left her indifferent to whether she lived to confront her coward husband in this life, or died to be reunited with her children in the next. Seeking justice against her husband for abandoning them had given her the strength to survive, not the will to live.
Meeting Taniel changed that. It was the gods’ way of grabbing her by the shoulders to shake her from self-pitying malaise. They had proven her adversities were not absolute, shown her someone who had suffered more, had everything stripped from him, yet refused to surrender. Enduring as Taniel’s spirit was, he couldn’t fight his undeserved fate alone, no more than Shirin could abandon him to it. She knew what it was to be forsaken. She had been in need, and the man who swore his life to her had fled, leaving her to die alone. In a world where the Reaping had revealed all creation’s hidden cruelties while ushering in countless more, if helping one poor soul was what the gods asked of her, she vowed to see it through.
Squawking crows took indignant flight as she came to the robbers’ hideout. Flies swarmed the dead men, their flesh pecked by scavenging birds and faces distorted by the first touches of decay. Shirin couldn’t remember what the men had looked like in life. Only memories of their cruelty survived their deaths.
She tied a headscarf around her nose and mouth to shield her from the worst of the death-choked air, then set about grabbing all the sturdy cloth she found, intending to tear most into tatters. She thanked the gods when she found a medicinal poultice to apply to Taniel’s leg, and prayed that they’d grace him with the trust to allow her to tend to him. Digging through the stolen goods, she discovered a bag with bone needle, thread, and small personal trinkets from the travelers the robbers had murdered. Her bones went cold under the memory of the robbers’ ambushing their caravan. They’d grabbed her with bloodied hands, held her down, and celebrated their finding an unexpected prize.
Shirin’s stomach lurched and bile burned her throat. She swallowed back the memories and sickness, resuming her search of the camp. Picking out the trinkets best fit to sew onto a Karvogi costume, she packed tools and talismans that had everyday value as well. It never hurt to have a spare knife and spoon, and the duduk woodwind she found along with the talismans were worth more than coin. She and Taniel would do better to trade them for food and supplies than to rely on the silver and copper she claimed from the robbers’ stash.
Slinging two packs and a cloak over her shoulders, Shirin headed back to the farmhouse. She offered prayers of thanks to the spirits of her fellow travelers. If their ghosts haunted this world, she promised them that the possessions they’d left behind were to be put to good purpose. The Karvogi dressed in outlandish costumes, wore horned masks, and their ragged cloaks gave them a misshapen appearance. One more Karvogi walking the wild was no cause for suspicions, and under the disguise, no one would think twice about Taniel’s crown of horns.
Taniel found greater confidence beneath the cloak. His limping step was steadier, and he no longer hunched to hide the extent of his brokenness behind stooped posture. In little more than a day, Shirin had stitched together an impressive costume. The holes she cut in the cloak’s hood allowed his horns to come through, and the tufts of fur she sewed along the openings made them look a part of the cloak, not a part of him. A cloth mask hung from the hood’s lip, hiding his inhuman features, and the tattered layers of cotton, wool, and fur she’d woven together disguised his malformed shape. The bells and metal trinkets jingling on his sleeves and hood called far less attention to him than his true appearance.
His new confidence faltered when three men carrying traps and fresh game appeared on the road behind them. Their pace was quicker than his and Shirin’s, and Taniel fought to rein in his rising panic when they caught up to them. What if they were spies for Minu? Or recognized him for the abomination he was? They had to know it was a monster disguised beneath the mask.
“Karvogi.” The hunters touched their foreheads in respect.
“For your journey, spirit-chaser,” one said, untying two of the rabbits from his belt and giving them to Shirin. She accepted with murmured thanks, having the sense not to complicate their interactions by refusing the gift.
“I didn’t think this would work,” Taniel said once the hunters had moved on.
Shirin smoothed his cloak’s folds like a mother does her son’s school uniform. “You should have more faith in me.”
Taniel tensed beneath her touch. She had more than earned his trust, but he was reluctant to give that to anyone. Not after the last woman who’d claimed to wish him well had killed his father and turned him into a monstrosity. Old fears constricted Taniel’s chest, recalling his helplessness to escape the witch as she tore his muscle and skin while promising that what she did was for the best—
“Taniel?” Shirin caught him when he stumbled.
His hand shook as he brushed hers away. “It’s nothing.”
Sweat flushed over his skin, the cool autumn breeze unable to penetrate the trapping layers of the ragged cloak. The cramp in his right foot moved up to his knee. After another mile, his left leg began to tense and lock. Each step advanced the stiffness toward his hip. He ignored the walking stick Shirin offered him the first six times. On the seventh, he gave in. The bell she tied on top to complement his Karvogi disguise jingled incessantly. He hated the tinny sound announcing his crippled gait, despite there being no one around to hear his shambling approach. Other than the hunters, the road was empty. The day would have been peaceful if Taniel had not known the grim reason why there were no other travelers, or why there were gravestones standing in place of farmers in the fields.
One mile felt very much like the next. Meadows buffered woods from the road, and empty farmhouses stood lonely in untended pastures. Their windows were dark, vines and weeds crept over the walls, and weary doors hung off hinges. It was not until he and Shirin reached a stone bridge arching over a wide stream with a signpost pointing the way to Shabrin that they saw another soul.
The farms nearer the town had men in the fields, and children playing where women tending gardens kept a watchful eye on them. From a distance, the scene passed as one Taniel had witnessed many times on his travels before the Reaping. Drawing closer revealed the changes the curse had wrought. The women wore black headscarves in mourning. The older children looked nothing like the adults they worked beside—orphans trading labor on the farm for a meal and roof. The men carried themselves with the weariness of lost travelers, shrunken, unsure, and longing for the home they once knew.
A little girl picking autumn leaves off a stone walkway startled when she looked up to see Taniel. She screamed, running to hide behind the woman washing clothes on the front steps.
“Karvogi.” The woman nodded at Taniel and Shirin as they walked by. The little girl clutched the woman’s skirts, burying her face in her shoulder.
Guilt twisted Taniel’s stomach for disparaging the spirit-chasers. While he doubted the power of their rituals, he disliked disrespecting their faith by pretending to hold it for his advantage. He forced his limping step to quicken, eager to reach a private place to shuck off the false Karvogi cloak weighing heavily upon him.
“There’s an inn at Shabrin, The Red Dove,” he said. “If we can’t find a room there, we can move on another mile or so south to shelter in an abandoned farmhouse or barn.”
He prayed The Red Dove remained open. His aches and pains were far more bearable so long as he believed the luxuries of a warm bath, hot meal, and real bed awaited him at the day’s end.
“We should stay in town and have someone look at your leg,” Shirin said.
Taniel shook his head. He refused to reveal himself. Not until he reached Gohar and found someone who knew him as he had been. Master Maqlu, Razban Terzian, Sahak Sandar—if they had survived the Reaping, there was help to be found. Taniel had grown up hearing the tale of how Master Maqlu had bested Minu. Surely if Gohar’s High Mage possessed the power to once defeat her, he had the power to defeat one of her curses.
In a rush of flaming wind, you step through the portal leading to your mountain manor. Autumn is barely arrived in the lowlands. Here it comes early and the trees burn bright red in the cool evening. You frown, sensing an absence. Taniel is gone. You can’t feel his life within the walls.
You race for the manor, fearing the worst. You knew his recovery was difficult, worsened by his refusal to cooperate with your designs. But he wasn’t in danger of death and Kharinah knew better than to harm him. You expressly forbade her from it. She couldn’t have killed him.
The door to his room hangs ajar. You burst in to find it empty. There’s no point in searching the grounds. You’d sense him if he was within the bounds of your home.
Your anger cracks the stone beneath your feet. “Kharinah!”
Your daughter resists your summons. She’s always been rebellious, even after you bound her to obedience. She slips through loopholes like water through a net. Somehow she’s discovered a way to delay a direct summons, but you have no patience for her games.
You tug sharp with your will. “Kharinah, now!”
You feel her cry in pain, a last resistance, then she answers, stepping through the portal you create for her. She takes her time crossing the manor grounds. When she arrives she’s covered in mud, leaves thick in her hair, her clothes gone.
“Yes, Mother?” she asks.
You know something went wrong with your daughter. There’s always been pieces missing from her. She was born too early, your womb rejecting her before she was fully formed. You were not designed to create life as such. The mortal form you adopted had flaws you did not know of until they almost killed your daughter. Desperate magic saved her. You hunted down her father, and taking his life ensured her survival, but she has too much of that demon-wolf in her. For centuries you’ve struggled to gentle her nature. She was probably running among wolves, demons, or both when you called her away.
“Where’s Taniel?” you ask.
Kharinah glances around the room. She shrugs her dirt-streaked shoulders. “Not here.”
“Did you let him out?”
“No.” Kharinah shifts from foot to foot, anxious to return to running wild. There was a time she showed stability, but the ruin of Ha-Ai collapsed that thin sanity she clung to, and she has never recovered.
“Sit down,” you say. Your will buckles her knees out from under her, forcing her to wait on the stone floor.
You step into the hall and take a small mirror off the wall. Your reflection blurs, changing to reveal what was caught in the past. The door to Taniel’s room opens in the glass, he hesitates at the threshold, then hurries away. You want to punish your daughter for being so careless to leave the door unlocked, but you know it’s not entirely her fault. After all, something went wrong with her. She doesn’t have the capacity for choice, which is why you must so often take that away from her, and here is the chance for your daughter to learn responsibility and consequence.
“You will find him,” you say, enchanting authority into each word. “And you will bring him back to me unharmed.”
She does not rebel against the command. You sense her eager thrill for the offered hunt. Too eager.
“Unharmed,” you repeat for good measure. Taniel is as much your son as Kharinah is your daughter. Perhaps that’s why she’s been so wild of late, jealous of the younger sibling and the attention he demands. Your daughter is a strange creature, immortal, near invulnerable, yet possessing a child’s fragility. In her madness, the one thing she reliably comprehends is how alone she is. She doesn’t understand you do this for her as much as for Taniel, creating a companion for her.
“Get dressed and cleaned first,” you say. “Don’t bring attention to yourself or cause trouble.”
Fear has turned men fragile, and while you have no concern for your daughter’s ability to survive their narrow-mindedness, Taniel is far more vulnerable to their intolerance.
9
The Demon at the Door
The town of Shabrin was modest and designed for durability. The bronze temple dome, glowing softly in the setting sun, was the lone ornament decorating the flagstone streets, yellow brick shops, and clay-shingled homes, their windows warmed by lamplight. A grieving ache bloomed in Shirin’s chest. Shabrin reminded her very much of the northern village she had once called home, cradled between mountains and sea.
