The Legend of Broken

Baster-kin. A story, I am sure, with which the Bane are only too well acquainted.”

“Baster-kin?” Heldo-Bah shouts, all amusement gone, as he suddenly jumps down from his rock and joins Caliphestros and Ashkatar. “That bloodthirsty pig? You did not tell us, old man, that it was he who caused your friend such heartache!” And both Keera and Veloc, along with Ashkatar and Caliphestros himself, are surprised when the gap-toothed Bane — whose strange mix of odors Stasi has by now begun to identify as his in particular — approaches the panther quietly, and gently strokes the fur of her neck, murmuring into her large, pointed ear, and causing the small black tuft atop it to twitch, as if she, too, understands the oddity of the moment: “So it was the great Lord Baster-kin who put that terrible song into your soul,” the forager says, remembering the sound Stasi made when she stood on the mountainside, just after the Bane’s first departure from Caliphestros’s cave. “Well, then, great panther, you shall join the ranks of those who will have vengeance upon the rulers of that foul city — and if I have anything to say about it, you in particular shall make him pay for his savagery!”

The great beast’s brilliant green eyes narrow, her throat begins to purr deeply, and then she turns to take two light swipes at Heldo-Bah’s hand with her rough, moist tongue. The most infamous forager appears quite shocked by this undeniably affectionate and tender action; yet he steps away only a little, letting his hand linger on Stasi’s neck just a moment longer.

“Baster-kin,” he says again, even more softly, but no less fiercely. “Imagine it. As if his list of crimes was not long enough …”

Caliphestros is also pleased by Heldo-Bah’s sudden display of sympathy and affection for his companion; but he is only allowed a moment to consider it, before Ashkatar speaks again: “As I was saying, my lord, this constant digging of holes and inspecting of wells and springs — we need to return to the Groba as quickly as we can, and if I could but know why we slow our passage, what intelligence you mean to present to them, I might be able to assist you in forming a plan as to how best to do so.”

“Did you not just hear, Yantek?” Caliphestros answers, pointing at the diggers in the hole. “Another spot at which the water that flows underground does not have the scent it should — that any water should, if one hopes to use it safely. And yet, at still other locations, apparently inoffensive water can be found. I am marking the courses of all these various natural pathways”—Caliphestros pats one of his bags, from which he removes a bound set of parchment sheets—“in this, because I seek to remember all we learn about the causes of your plague, in order to place such knowledge alongside those theories I have concerning a like illness that Keera and I have determined has now erupted in Broken.”

“In Broken?” Ashkatar echoes, astounded. “And yet, it was our opinion that the Tall brought the plague upon us deliberately.”

“And their opinion, no doubt — or at least, the opinion of many of them — that you brought it upon them,” Lord Caliphestros replies; and then he holds another demonstrative hand out to the hole in the Earth before him. “And to provide the answers to all such questions, water is the key. Or water which carries fever. Now, then — would I be correct in assuming that, as a general practice, the north and south sides of the town do not draw their water from the same sources?”

Ashkatar looks perplexed. “Aye, my lord. The southern parts of Okot take water from wells and streams fed by the mountain to the south — while the north—” And suddenly, in many faces at once, there is a look of comprehension.

“Yes,” Caliphestros says with a smile. “I thought it might be so.”

He looks to Keera, finding in her face, as he had hoped he might, the first real look of hope that she has yet manifested: not hope for her people, or any such expansively noble feeling, of which the old man knows the tracker to be capable, but personal hope, for the fates of her own children.

“I should have seen it,” Keera says, gazing at the ground with purpose; and even Caliphestros is forced to admire her new determination. She then lifts her gaze to cast it upon Ashkatar again, and continues, “It is, indeed, the water, Yantek. The northern parts of Okot are fed, at least in part, by those waters that drain from the Cat’s Paw. But we never would have conceived, as Lord Caliphestros’s mind has been expansive enough to do, that an entire river might become—contaminated …”

Ashkatar, in the meantime, his mind fixed on the statements that Keera has made, is suddenly startled, as are all those around him, by a cry of what seems discovery from one of his soldiers digging inside the nearby hole: “My lord!” the dirty-faced warrior then shouts coherently. “Yantek! See what we have come upon!” And in an instant, the warrior is up and out of the hole, several small objects in one hand.

“Be careful, there!” Caliphestros calls, producing a piece of rag and handing it along a chain of hands to the warrior, so intent on this task that he only now notes that the dirt-smudged courier is no youth, but an athletic, powerful young female warrior. “Wash those hands with lye, girl, when you have finished, and even burn your tunic, if you have in your hand what I fear!” The warrior takes Caliphestros’s bit of rag, wraps the objects in it, and walks determinedly to the old man, who, before he has even viewed what she carries, pronounces, “Although I may be able to tell you what most, if not all, of them are, Yantek.” He then turns again to his traveling companion. “As can Keera, I perceive.”

Keera is already nodding her head. “Aye, lord. Bones,” she murmurs. “Or rather, at this point, bits of bone. And, it may even surprise you, Lord Caliphestros, if I say that I doubt they are only the bones of the animals we saw dead and dying at the pool upriver — there may be some small fragments of human bone, as well. But they are all diseased, this much we know, and truly, they must be handled more cautiously even than the water in which they were transported.”

“But—” The young female discoverer twists her features in confusion. “Are they the cause of the plague then? Or are they part of some curse that has been worked by the priests and priestesses of the Tall, during their visits to the Wood to commit their many strange and evil acts—”

Caliphestros makes a small, slightly chastising sound. “We must all make one agreement, before we reach Okot,” he says, less with the berating of a pedant than with sympathy and warning. “Keera, what was it that I told you, when we discussed this very subject of curses and priests?”

Keera pauses to recall the words precisely: “That the only true ‘magic’ is madness,” she repeats by rote, but with intent and understanding. “Just as the only real ‘sorcery’ is science. My lord.” She moves through the crowd to gain a look at the objects that the warrior holds.

And they are just what both the tracker and Caliphestros had feared and predicted: The bones, Keera knows in her heart, of the smallest parts of children.

Taking in this look of comprehension in his young friend’s features, Caliphestros says: “So— you saw them, too, eh?”

Keera looks up at Caliphestros. “Yes, lord. As we left the pool. They were trapped in the outlet stream. But I admit that I did not think that you had seen them.”

“I was waiting for just this sort of moment to discuss the matter,” Caliphestros replies. “To see whether or not you would make true sense of the sight, as indeed you have.”

Veloc steps forward to put a proud and comforting arm about his sister. “If I am not mistaken—” Veloc says, turning his handsome features to face Caliphestros, “we not only may, but must obey Yantek Ashkatar’s imperative immediately, and return swiftly to Okot — but even before that, we must send runners ahead, must we not, Lord Caliphestros? To warn that no one in Okot take water from the questionable sources on the northern slope of the town?”

“You share your sister’s blood, Veloc, that much is evident,” Caliphestros replies, not quite so enthusiastically as the historian would have wished, as the old scholar replaces his various possessions in the small bags about his neck. He then looks to Ashkatar. “For now, however, Yantek — the tirelessness and diligence of your troops have made possible the answers to all immediate questions: anything that is left to explain should be discussed, I submit, in the place your tribe calls the ‘Den of Stone.’ And so, if you will alert your troops, as Veloc says, to send runners—”

Without thinking, the anxious Ashkatar raises his whip, which Caliphestros catches just before the black- bearded commander can bring it down again, silently giving the yantek an admonishing reminder, and looking to the now fully alert panther beneath him. “Avoiding all acts of foolishness,” the old man says, “now that we bear such precious evidence, which is the most accurate and valuable form of knowledge — and persuasion …”

“Send runners to the Groba!” Ashkatar orders, busily turning his attention to immediate matters, in part to