Out of the Darkness

Those tears came back. To Krasta’s dismay, one of them ran down her face. “It certainly isn’t,” she said. “Just because you didn’t pretend the Algarvians had never come to Priekule, everyone who was so tiresomely virtuous during the occupation-or can pretend he was-gets up on his high horse and acts like you did all sorts of dreadful things.” A woman with her hair just starting to grow back after a shaving walked down the other side of the street. Krasta did her best to convince herself she hadn’t seen her.

“I said as much to your brother and his lady friend not so long ago,” Valnu said.

“When was this?” Krasta asked sharply; he hadn’t been by the mansion for some time. “Where was this?”

“At some boring party or other,” he answered. “It was, in fact, one of the most boring parties I’ve ever had the bad luck to attend.”

It was, in fact, one more party to which Krasta hadn’t been invited. “It’s not fair!” she wailed, and really did burst into tears.

Valnu put his arm around her. “There, there, my dear,” he said, and kissed her again, this time without a trace of the smiling malice that was usually as inseparable from him as his skin. “Come on-I’ll buy you some ale or some brandy or whatever you like, and you’ll feel better.”

Sniffling, trying to keep from blubbering, Krasta doubted she would ever feel better. But she let Valnu lead her to a tavern a few doors down. She didn’t know anyone in there, for which she was duly grateful. She hadn’t had much taste for spirits since she started carrying her child, any more than she’d had a taste for tea. But she’d been able to drink more tea lately. And, sure enough, a brandy not only felt good going down but also put up a thin glass wall between her and some of her misery.

“Thank you,” she told Valnu, and her voice held none of the whine that so often filled it. If he’d shown any interest in taking her to bed just then, she would have given herself to him without the slightest hesitation, just from gratitude for his treating her like a human being. But he didn’t. She looked down at her swollen front. Resentment returned. Who would want to go to bed with somebody built like a tuber?

“You don’t look happy enough yet,” Valnu said, and waved at the barmaid for another brandy for Krasta and another mug of ale for himself.

“I shouldn’t,” Krasta said, but she did. The glass wall got thicker. That felt good. She tried on a smile. It fit her face surprisingly well.

And then, when she was happier than she’d been in longer than she could remember without some thought, Valnu threw a rock through that glass wall and effortlessly smashed it: “Your brother threatened to send me an invitation to his wedding, and he finally went and made good on the threat.”

“Wedding?” Krasta sat bolt upright, even if it did hurt her back. Skarnu had said he would marry the peasant wench who’d borne him a son, but it hadn’t seemed real to Krasta. Now she couldn’t avoid it. “When? Where?” she asked angrily. “He hasn’t said a word to me about it.”

“At the mansion,” Valnu answered, and named the date.

“That’s when, or just about when, the baby will come,” she said in dudgeon very high indeed.

Valnu shrugged. “Even if it weren’t, would you go?”

“Maybe to annoy them,” Krasta said, but then she shook her head. “To see that nasty weed grafted on to my family tree? No. I wouldn’t do it.”

“Well, then,” Valnu said.

Logically, that made perfect sense. Logic, though, had nothing to do with anything here. Krasta burst into tears all over again.

A straining team of unicorns hauled a dead dragon down the street in front of the block of flats where Talsu and his family were staying these days. The dragon was painted in Algarve’s all too familiar green, red, and white. Looking down at the great dead beast slowly sliding by, Talsu remarked, “First time we’ve seen those cursed colors in Skrunda for a while.”

“May it be the last,” Traku said from the next window over. “I’m just glad it came down in the middle of the market square and didn’t smash any more buildings when it hit.” His father hawked, but in the end didn’t spit down on the dragon.

The Jelgavans in the street showed less restraint. Small boys-and some men and women-ran out from the sidewalk to kick the dragon and pound on it with their fists. Some of them did spit, not so much on the dragon as on Algarve itself.

As the dragon went past, Talsu started to laugh. “Will you look at that?” he said, pointing. “Will you just look at that?” Behind the team of muscular unicorns dragging the dragon came a single donkey dragging the dead Algarvian dragonflier. People rushed forward to abuse his corpse, too. It already looked much the worse for wear.

Talsu’s father said something incendiary about Algarvians in general and the dragonflier in particular. From the kitchen, Talsu’s mother spoke in reproving tones: “That’s no way to talk, dear.”

“I’m sorry, Laitsina,” Traku said at once. He turned to Talsu and went on more quietly: “I’m sorry it didn’t happen to all the fornicating buggers, not just this one. They bloody well deserve it.”

He wasn’t quite quiet enough. “Traku!” Laitsina said.

“Aye. Aye. Aye.” Talsu’s father made a sour face and turned away from the window. “I may as well get back to work. Doesn’t seem like I’m going to be allowed to do anything else around here.”

“I heard that, too,” Laitsina said indignantly. “If you can’t say something without making the air around you smell like a latrine, you really should find a better way to express yourself.”

“Express myself!” Traku’s eyebrows pretty plainly said what he thought of his wife’s opinion, but he didn’t go against it, not out loud he didn’t.

Instead, he sat down in front of a pair of trousers he’d been working on. All the pieces were cut out. He’d set thread along all the seams and done some small part of the sewing by hand. Now he muttered a charm taking advantage of the law of similarity. The thread he’d set out writhed as if it had suddenly come to life, becoming similar to the identical thread he’d already sewn by hand. In the wink of an eye, all the stitching on the trousers was done.

Traku held them up and inspected them. Talsu nodded approval. “That’s very nice work, Father.”

“Not bad, not bad.” Traku looked pleased with himself. He was never sorry to hear himself praised.

And then, perhaps rashly, Talsu asked, “Wasn’t the spell you used the one you got from that Algarvian officer? It’s a lot easier on handwork than the ones we had before.”

“As a matter of fact, it was.” Traku paused, another expressive expression on his face. “All right, curse it. The redheads are smart bastards. I never said they weren’t. It doesn’t mean they’re any less bastards, though.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Talsu agreed.

Traku went on with his methodical, painstaking examination of the trousers. At last, he grudgingly nodded his satisfaction. “I suppose those will do.” Having supposed, he tossed the trousers at Talsu. “They go to Krogzmu the olive-oil dealer, on the south side of town. He paid twenty down, and he still owes us twenty more. Don’t let him keep the goods before you get the silver-in coins of King Donalitu, mind you.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, or even day before yesterday.” Talsu neatly folded the trousers his father had thrown at him. “You don’t have to treat me like I was three years old.”

“No, eh?” Traku chuckled. “Since when?”

Talsu didn’t dignify that with an answer. After he’d done such a nice job of folding them, he stuck the trousers under his arm, careless of the wrinkles he might cause-though they were wool, which didn’t wrinkle easily. He strode- almost stormed-out of the flat. His father chuckled again just before he shut- almost slammed-the door. Had that chuckle come a beat sooner, he would have slammed it. As things were, he went downstairs and out onto the street with his nose in the air.

He went away from the dead dragon and dragonflier, not after them. He wouldn’t have minded taking a kick at the Algarvian’s corpse, but he was set on getting the trousers to Krogzmu, getting the money, and getting back to the flat as fast as he could. I’ll show him I know what I’m doing, he thought. That something like that might have been what Traku had in mind never occurred to him, which was probably just as well.

Good intentions got sidetracked, as good intentions have a way of doing. A column of Kuusamans was