Waterborn

'Darken your mouth!' she hissed. 'Leave me alone, do you hear? Do you hear?' She felt a sort of shudder run along her bones, and though her clenched fists never left her sides, she had a sudden dizzying sensation that felt almost as if she had reached out and slapped the little fool. The most startling thing was that Wezh reacted exactly as if he had been slapped. He reeled into the wall, his eyes suddenly glazed, unfocused. Spit drooled down his chin.

'Leave me alone!' she repeated. Wezh sagged against the plas-tered stone, almost fell, and then suddenly ran, unsteadily at first but then with great enthusiasm. In an instant he was out of sight.

Hezhi stood there, astonished. Her body seemed to hum, to vibrate for just a bit longer, and then it was quiet, normal. But she had just done something, she knew. She had done something to Wezh, something more than simply yell at him.

She caught a motion from the corner of her eye and half turned. Tsem was goggling at her, and so was Yen, who must have just come around the corner. Yen averted his staring eyes, then looked back at her.

'What did you say to him?' he asked.

'I…' Hezhi looked back up the corridor, the way Wezh had run. 'I guess it was the way I said it,' she concluded.

X

The Heart of Water

Hezhi nudged Tsem with her toe; somewhere outside in the night a peacock called, half threat, half plaintive complaint.

'Tsem,' she hissed. 'I'm going.'

The dark bulk rolled over, and large, sleepy eyes caught a ray of moonlight. 'I thought we were done with this fumbling around in the darkness, Princess,' he grumbled.

'Quiet. I don't want to wake Qey.'

'I wish you could extend me the same courtesy,' Tsem groused further. He rose, mountainous in the dark.

'I have everything right here,' she assured him. 'Just get dressed.'

Tsem nodded and groped around a bit behind his bed. She couldn't make him out clearly, but the rustle of fabric suggested that he was complying with her command. When he stood up, she handed him the bundle in her hands. 'Keep that upright,' she warned. 'The lantern is in there.'

Tsem didn't answer, but shuffled quietly toward the door.

Once outside, he unpacked the lantern and lit it; it would be madness to try to trace even these familiar halls in total darkness. There were no fancy skylights or stained glass here in the old wing. The night sky entered this part of the palace only through the roofless courtyards, and the illumination of star- and moonlight did not diffuse far into the plastered halls.

Tsem's face appeared suddenly in the lamplight, thickened with shadows into the bust of some ancient monster. The monster grimaced and bared its teeth, and it took an instant or two for Hezhi to recognize the expression as a smile.

'Well, don't you look fine,'' Tsem whispered, squinting at her.

'I thought I would change before we went,' she answered back.

Tsem nodded. 'Well, you wanted to look like a boat caulker, and so you do.'

'I need no advice on dressing from you,' she replied loftily. 'And we should go, before you have to explain to some soldier why you sneaked a little peasant girl into the palace.'

'Never fear,' Tsem replied. 'They would never take you for a girl.'

'Huh. Go!'

They threaded through the deserted halls. Hezhi knew where the guards would be, and fortunately they did not have to pass near any. Most, of course, were patrolling the roof, since that was the only sensible way a thief or assassin could break in from the city—should one manage to scale the palace wall, that is, no small feat in itself. Padding softly past a second and then a third suite of apartments, they came at last to the point she had marked on her map. Each major suite—such as her own—had its own courtyard and fountain to provide fresh water. Suites were arranged into compounds—there were seven suites in hers—and most compounds were built generally around a still larger courtyard. These larger courtyards were slightly downhill from the suites, so that waste water could flow through stone trenches to the 'sink,' a large opening in the center of the yard. Housekeepers brought other things to throw into the sink by hand: kitchen garbage, the contents of toilets, and so on. Hezhi's map showed the sink emptying into the sewers, where the sacred water recirculated, eventually to rejoin the River.

'Princess,' Tsem began to protest, but she hissed him into silence.

'It's the best way,' she explained.

'I shudder to think what the worst might be,' Tsem glumly retorted.

'Hush. I'm a princess, and I'm going into it.'

'Not if I don't let you,' Tsem replied, a bit of the iron he was named for in his voice.

'Tsem. We have to do this. I have to know what the priests plan for me, and you can't tell me. So I have to see. Unless you know a better way, this is what we are going to do. Or I'll do it alone, if need be, one night while you're asleep. I thought our bargain was still good, or I wouldn't have awakened you.'

Tsem was silent for a moment. 'It's still good,' he admitted.

'Then who goes first?'

'7 will. What shall we fasten the rope to?'

'I thought of that,' she replied proudly. She held up a poker stolen from near Qey's stove. 'We'll tie the rope in the middle of this, brace it over the sink. Then we can pull it in after us, so no one will know.'

'And does your plan explain how we'll get back up?'

Hezhi shrugged. 'Throw it back up until it catches again.'

Tsem sighed. 'That will make a lot of noise. What if someone comes to investigate?'

'Then they do.'

'Princess, you will not be the one flayed alive in the Great Hall.'

'I'll tell them I thought some of my jewelry was thrown down here, accidentally, that I made you go after it. That should sound like something a princess might do.'

Tsem heaved another sigh. 'Unfortunately, it does,' he agreed. 'Hand me that thing.' He passed her the lamp in trade.

The waste-water trenches were flagged over in the courtyard itself, and they entered the drain just below the level of the yard. The sink, however, had a raised wall around it, to prevent young children from falling in. After placing the poker across the width of the opening, Tsem pulled himself up onto the wall, then, with another dubious glance at the forged iron, swung himself over the lip. Hezhi watched his head disappear, then leaned over the edge of the sink, holding the lantern out to give Tsem light to see by. She noticed that he didn't much trust the rope; he was descending more by bracing himself against the walls of the sink than by lowering himself. His body more or less blocked the shaft; she couldn't see around him to his eventual destination, though she had of course looked down it in the daytime. It hadn't seemed that deep then, but now Tsem seemed to be going down and down. As if night conspired with darkness to make the depth more profound.

Finally she heard a pair of splashes, and Tsem looked up, huge white teeth gleaming orange in the lamplight. 'Lower the lantern.' His voice floated up.

She grimaced. She hadn't thought of that. Impatiently she pulled up the rope, tied the lantern to it, and then lowered it back down to Tsem. She glanced around anxiously, worried that someone might have noticed them by now, but she saw no one in the faint moonlight. She climbed up onto the lip of the sink. Light flickered up from below. It was a weird sight, the deep, yellow hole with Tsem's shadowed face at the bottom of it. Taking a deep breath and a hold on the rope, she let her weight drag her over the edge.

The breath turned out to be a mistake, and she gagged audibly at the stench surrounding her. The smell at the lip of the sink was bad, but somehow the effect was different when one was suspended in its maw. And soon she would be wading in the source of that fetor! Nevertheless, she let herself down, depending, unlike Tsem, entirely