*
Two figures lay smoking in a landscape of sand and rock under a dull pewter sky. One, a lad, rose and shook the other, a girl.
‘Janelle!’ the lad called. ‘Speak to me.’
‘You took your time, Janul,’ she whispered, smiling. ‘Where were you?’
‘The west. I know a healer. Come.’
She looked down to the blackened oozing meat that used to be her feet. ‘I cannot walk.’
‘I will carry you.’ He picked her up in his arms. ‘It is not far. As these things go.’
When she did not answer he peered down to see that she’d passed out. He hurried onward.
After walking across the dusty landscape for a time, the lad Janul made a gesture and with a burst of dry dusty air he emerged into darkness and a rainstorm. He squinted into the lashing rain. Nearby, waves struck the coast in a strong slow beat. He walked on until a weak yellow light grew ahead. It resolved into a lantern under the eaves of a rude hut of greyed slats and thatch. He pushed open the door.
The hut was empty but for a wizened elder seated in a chair next to a small fire. Candles of all lengths burned everywhere, giving the single-roomed dwelling a golden light. The ancient tilted her head, blinking, ‘Who comes to old Rose’s poor home?’
Janul saw by her frosted opaque eyes that she was blind.
‘My sister is wounded,’ he said, and laid her upon the bed of bundled straw.
‘Ah,’ Rose said. ‘Your sister, you say? There is a price for healing in this hut – and I do not mean coin.’
He waved his curt assent, then realized his mistake and said, ‘Yes, yes.’
The old woman pushed herself from her chair and approached, a hand extended. ‘Well, let us see …’ Janul guided her to Janelle. The ancient hissed when her hands found the girl. She tsked. ‘So young, yet her life’s flame gutters. She hasn’t enough strength left to pay the price.’
‘I have.’
Rose laughed, a harsh mocking cackle. ‘It’s not so easy as that, boy!’
‘For us it is,’ and he guided the woman’s other hand to his face. She felt at both, Janelle’s and his, and her breath hissed from her in wonder. ‘Twins! Bonds forged in the womb.’ She nodded, ‘Aye, it may work.’ She pinched his chin. ‘Know you the price, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘I shall take of your life’s candle. Both of your years shall diminish while mine shall lengthen. You are agreed?’
He looked down at his twin, her face such an eerie echo of his own. ‘Aye. Agreed.’
Rose waved a crooked hand to the bed. ‘Lay you down next to your sister, then. I must prepare.’
He gently edged Janelle over and placed an arm under her head and closed his eyes.
Janelle awoke in a cramped bed in a cramped hut full of evil-smelling, choking smoke. Waving a hand before her, coughing from the harsh sooty fumes, she found the door and staggered out.
Then she stopped and stared at her bare unmarred feet.
What had happened?
Her ears were roaring and somewhere distant it sounded as if someone was calling her name. She raised her gaze to peer uncomprehendingly at a rocky coastline and a horizon of iron-grey water. A figure rose from a boulder near the surf and climbed the shore. As he neared she recognized him and could not believe her eyes. Grinning so familiarly, he took her shoulders.
‘Good to see you.’
She raised her hands to his face, brushed her fingertips there. ‘It really is you – I thought I’d dreamed you.’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
Her gaze sharpened. ‘What happened?’
‘I brought you to a healer.’
She studied his face, so like her own – wider and blunter than she’d have wished. ‘We have no coin, brother.’
He lifted his chin to the hut behind them. ‘She’s a wax-witch.’
Janelle sagged a little. ‘So, I paid with my life’s years.’
He shrugged. ‘We both did, sister.’
She clenched his hands now, tightly. ‘Both? Oh, Janul …’
‘You don’t think I’d let a few years come between us, do you?’
She now touched her own face, expecting to feel wrinkles and dry ancient flesh. ‘What will happen? How will it happen?’
‘The witch, Rose, said we will just age more quickly.’ He directed her to a nearby rock and invited her to sit. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll be living too long, in any case.’
She chuckled at that. ‘Nor I.’
They sat side by side in silence for a time, until the crunch of footsteps behind made them turn. A woman approached, in skirts, a knitted shawl about her shoulders. Janelle thought her just past middle age.
‘Rose?’ Janul asked, wonder in his voice. ‘You are … that is, you can see.’
She nodded. ‘Aye. I bloom brighter for a time. But that too shall pass, as all years do. You two are young; you do not understand as yet.’
‘Nor do we want to,’ Janul said.
The witch smiled knowingly. ‘In time you will. Then you will clutch at your years as all do.’
‘Not I,’ Janelle said.
The witch, Rose, drew a blackened pipe from her bosom. ‘Ever foolish are the young – perhaps that’s what makes them young.’
‘Any more fireside wisdom?’ Janul asked.
The woman was scraping the pipe bowl. ‘Do not think me simple, little ones.’ She gestured to them with the pipe. ‘You two are children of Shadow. Your master is set upon overturning every applecart he can reach. I do not approve of his methods, but I understand his motives – how else is he to make room for himself, hey?’
The twins eyed one another uncertainly.
Rose waved a dismissal. ‘Faugh. Do not worry. Your secrets are safe with me. I am just a simple wax-witch. Push and pull go the fates.’ She walked off, repeating in a singsong voice, ‘Push and pull.’
The twins waited until she was out of earshot, then Janul asked, ‘What did you learn?’
Janelle nodded, and whispered, ‘The tribes bicker as always, but they are close to moving against Itko Kan. All it may take is a push.’
At that last word Janul frowned and glanced at the witch, who walked the shore now, hands at her back, puffing on the pipe. ‘Very good,’ he murmured, distracted.
‘And the west?’ Janelle asked.
‘I am with a troop of soldiers.’
Janelle waved him from that. ‘Head to Dal Hon – I’m known now. You’ll have to take over.’
But her twin shook his head. ‘No. I see possibilities. I should remain. You stay here in Kan. Keep an eye on things.’
Janelle nodded. ‘Thank you, brother. But … what possibilities?’ She took his hand.
‘These troops have been outlawed and are on the run, hunted by both Purge and Quon Talian armies with nowhere to turn.’
‘So?’
He shrugged, but a grin climbed his lips. ‘Well – they’re only a few days from the coast.’
Her eyes widened as she saw it, and she squeezed his hand before releasing it. ‘Yes. Go. I will try to make the arrangements, but I have not heard from the Magister of late.’
‘He is travelling beyond reach.’
Janelle gave a curt nod, accepting this. ‘Ah. Then I will contact one of our sisters working among the Claws.’
Janul seconded the nod. ‘Accepted. You will be all right?’
She waved him off. ‘Yes. Go. You may be missed.’
He rose, still reluctant, but she gave him a hug. ‘Thank you, brother.’
He nodded. ‘Very well. Until later.’
‘Yes.’
* * *
Ullara rode her two-wheeled cart northward across the rolling central Seti Plains. The sickly mule her father had given her – the least of his stock – flourished under her care. Free to eat as much wild grass as he liked, he filled out; his coat thickened and became glossy.
She had never been outside Li Heng proper, but she’d heard that northward lay the trading outpost of Ifaran, and beyond that would lie the barrier of the Brittlewash that ran down to meet the Idryn at Ipras. She understood that the headwaters of the Brittlewash could be found somewhere in the immense tracts of the Forest Fenn. And beyond that, everyone claimed, rose the vast mountains of the Great Fenn Range – which few, if any, had ever actually seen, let alone visited.