– That.
With the word, the voices made her understand. 'I found it in the river,' said Yen Olass.
– In the change. 'I want…’
– You want to stay. 'No.’
Something unpleasant started to happen. The darkness hardened and started to squeeze Yen Olass. The voices started to nag down into her brain, stirring up dead memories better left to coagulate down in the lower sump. The memories sharpened into events. Hands grappled and clawed. The needle stabbed. Yen Olass screamed.
'No!’
– You want to stay. 'No!’
– You want to stay.
A crushing pressure. A tongue flushed with saliva, forced against her face. Beef wrenched home, ripping her membrane. The needle stabbed home, and the old woman laughed. Chonjara! His boot slammed home, the Casting Board broke apart, the ivory Indicators scattered. The knife. Her mother's breast. A stone smashed into her skin.
Yen Olass screamed:
'You smegma-eating arsefuckersl’
Silence.
Floating stars.
Yen Olass floated. All pressure was gone. She sensed the voices. They were cringing, appalled at the strength of her anger.
'Do what I say,' said Yen Olass. 'Or you'll be sorry.' – Join us. Stay. 'Do what I say!’
The voices closed around. Deferential, this time. Lightly, they roused her flesh. Worked her wish. She trembled. Accepted her change with a sigh. Delighted, she waited for her release from the metal bud. She saw the petals start to open.
Then, at the last possible moment, the voices hurt her. Lacerating pain ripped at her fingernails. She screamed as the bud opened. Looked down at her hands. And saw ten grey scabs. Her fingernails were gone.
She screamed again.
And did not stop until Resbit was holding her. 'What is it?' said Resbit. 'What is it, Yen Olass? What did they do to you? Yen Olass?' Someone touched her hands. 'Claws,' said Haveros.
Tentatively, blinking away tears, Yen Olass looked at her hands. Held them close to her face. There was something there. Hard and sharp. Then grey scabs. Thick metal-slab fingernails, tapering to sharp chisels.
'You'll be all right, Yen Olass,' said Resbit, comforting her. 'You'll be all right.’
Yen Olass nuzzled her face into Resbit's comfort, and allowed herself to be calmed.
'Did they try to hold you?' said Haveros.
'They hurt me,' said Yen Olass. 'They tried to make me stay. They wanted… they wanted to eat me. I think. Take me all. Make me them.’
'Did you wish…?’
'Not for this!' exclaimed Yen Olass, holding up her hands, anger replacing sorrow. 'They did this. They hurt me.’
'That's enough then,' said Haveros. 'Whatever the thing 235
is, it's waking up. It's getting stronger. We can't risk it again – it's trying to eat people.’
'You've got what you want,' said Toyd. 'Why should the rest of us be scared off? Because the girl got scared in the dark? Because she's grown a little cold steel? I can spare a bit of my beauty – I want to eat.’
And before they could stop him, he jumped onto the grey metal disk, and the metal petals closed around him.
He was inside for a long time.
When Toyd was released, he tottered forward. His mouth opened. He tried to speak, to scream. No sound came. He fell face-first and landed heavily. His skull broke open with a soft plop, collapsed gently into liquid and began to ooze across the floor. He was definitely, undeniably dead. Draven stepped forward and nudged at a growth that pushed out from his ribs. It was an embryo.
'Is this what you wished for?' said Draven.
As a pirate, he knew his anatomy, having cut up a few pregnant women in his time – though more for sport than to satisfy a habit of inquiry.
'No!' said Yen Olass.
She most certainly had not wished for a child. Though perhaps the idea of a child had been at the back of her mind, and perhaps the alien voices had stolen that idea from her.
'So what did you wish for?' said Draven.
'I can't tell you.’
'Why not?’
'I can't tell you!’
'You killed him,' said Draven.
'I didn't do anything to him,' said Yen Olass.
'She's pregnant!' said Quenerain in a shrill voice.
'Pregnant?' said Yen Olass. 'What would I do with a child here? In the wilderness?’
She knew that, sometimes, she yearned for a child. On the other hand, there were other times when she was thoroughly glad that she had no children to burden her. And it was absurd to think that she would wish to be pregnant at a time like this, when they were running for
their lives in the forest.
'Yen Olass,' said Haveros. 'If you'd really wanted 'It'll be born with yellow eyes,' said Quenerain viciously.
'And people will stone it to death.' 'They will not!' said Yen Olass.
'You see?' said Quenerain. 'She admits it! She admits it! She's pregnant! Made pregnant by wishing herself.' 'Unnatural bitch,' said Saquarius.
Yen Olass saw they were convinced she had got herself with child without first allowing herself to be dominated by a man: and they hated her for it.
'Still,' said Draven, kicking the dead body. 'He was warned. He had it coming to him.’
And Yen Olass saw that Draven was glad that Toyd was dead. Those question about how Draven had survived the wrath of the Collosnon Empire had clearly worried him, as well they might.
'Come on,' said Haveros. 'There's nothing else for us here. Let's leave.’
And so they departed from that place, and went on up the river, leaving the castle to its mystery.
Yen Olass, for her part, carried a mystery within her. Was she pregnant, or was she not?
She sincerely hoped she was not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Upriver from the castle, they encountered more of the strange starstone mushrooms growing in bunches of two or three. Further north, they found an ominous array of holes in the riverbank. These, big enough for a man to walk inside without bending, snorted steam and scalding water intermittently. There were seventeen of them.
Haveros had no idea what this phenomenon might portend. But it suggested danger. Although this was only their second day of travel, he was unwilling to go any further north. He decided they would backtrack half a league then head east up a small stream. Then they would turn south, ultimately hoping to find refuge with Lord Alagrace. With any luck, Chonjara would be killed by the voices of the wishing machine at the castle, or else he would press on north and be destroyed by whatever dangers waited there.
Following this plan, they hastened through the last hours of the day. When there was still a little daylight left, they halted, for they had found a cave. It was not a warm, snug refuge, or a plunging chasm mining the depths of darkness, or a luminous palace of quartz crystals and glowworms – instead, it was a meagre hollowness, a wide mouth gaping open to the sky, more of an armpit than a womb. There were a few spider webs toward the back, but no secret places.
