Maelys

Maelys’ first assignment as the fat woman’s gopher was to hide inside Auldin Laelia Vethyle’s council-chambers for an entire afternoon. The only thing she learned from this endeavor was how quickly stone leached warmth out of a human body.

Three more days of this yielded similar results. After the third day, Maelys was having trouble walking from the cramps she was getting during her vigils.

After the fourth day, she was eating a cold dinner alone beside a decorative vase in the hallway outside the kitchens when Aneirin sat down on the floor across from her.

“What did you tell the Auldheim?”

“I promised to be the fat cow’s little slave girl until she gets tired of me,” Maelys said immediately, around mouthfuls of cold beef. Then she frowned. “When did you get out?”

“Just now,” Aneirin said. “And I didn’t get my ranking date set back or anything. Just a ‘think about it a little harder next time’ and a slap on the wrist. What’s she making you do?” His voice held a note of worry.

“Spy on Laelia Vethyle,” Maelys said, then she flinched. The Auldheim had told her repeatedly she would tell no one of her activities, not even Rees, and that she would be flayed alive if she let even one word slip.

Aneirin looked thoroughly shocked. “Why?”

“Because Agathe thinks Laelia’s going to try to assassinate a Ganlin.” Another important fact Maelys was warned to keep to herself. This time, Maelys frowned. “You didn’t take off the geas?”

Aneirin blushed red. “Uh.”

She glared at him. “Well, take it off.”

“Uhm.”

Maelys slapped the floor. “Now!”

“Um. Can’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘can’t?’” She gave him a cockeyed look, suspecting he was teasing her. “You said all you had to do was cancel it.”

“Yeah, well, uh...that was a real geas. The one I did, I uh, I don’t... There’s no cure.”

Maelys stared at him for two full minutes, then started laughing. She laughed until her sides hurt and her lungs were burning. When she’d run out of breath, she paused, then laughed some more. Wiping her eyes, she giggled. “Funny. Now fix it.”

“Um.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“Yeah, uh. Sorry about that.”

Maelys’ jaw began to cramp. “But you said—”

“I got a lot of crap for it already, believe me,” Aneirin said. “My mom gave me a good whipping and Rees threatened to make me find someone else to be my monitor.”

“What’d the Auldheim say?” Maelys asked.

“She laughed. Said you could stand to tell the truth to somebody, at least.”

Maelys narrowed her eyes. “Did she.”

“You call her fat cow. What do you expect?”

“To come into her room and find her squatting on the floor eating grass.” Then Maelys slapped a hand over her mouth and glared at him. “Stop asking me questions.”

“Sorry.”

“And find a way to fix this.” She motioned at her mouth.

“The spell’s in your head, not your mouth.”

“I don’t care where it is, fix it!”

Aneirin shrugged. “You wanna come to my ranking ceremony?”

“Hell yes, that’s why I came to say hi to you in the first place.”

Maelys didn’t realize what she had said until Aneirin narrowed his eyes. “You said ‘hi’ because you wanted me to invite you to the ceremony?”

“That and you looked pretty lonely. Goddamn it stop making me talk!”

Aneirin crossed his arms. He opened his mouth and Maelys stuck her fingers in her ears. Still, muffled, she heard, “Did Rees set you up, then?”

“Yes.”

Maelys began to hum.

“So tell me again why you think I’m cute?”

“You’re tall and smart and have got the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen on a guy.” Then, “Stop it!” She lunged up, clutching her hands to her ears.

She didn’t realize Aneirin was laughing until he yanked her hand off of her ear. “You still want to go? No hard feelings?”

“Yes. No.”

He frowned at her. “Yes you want to go and no, no hard feelings?”

“Yes I want to go and I’m going to murder you if you ask one more question.”

Aneirin took a deep breath, but he leaned back, grinning. “Okay. I’ll stop. For now.”

Grimacing, Maelys snatched up her food and started to walk off.

“Maelys.”

She twisted around, glancing up and down the hall to make sure no one had heard. She sat down again and leaned forward. In a whisper, she said, “You can’t use my name where anyone can hear you. Promise.”

He squinted at her. “Okay. But what’s it matter? Why do you want them calling you ‘girl’ all the time?”

“Because the fat cow wants to be called Madame Auldheim and calls me ‘tart’ and ‘wench’ and doesn’t even try to find out what my name is except by trying to wheedle it out of other people.” Then Maelys glared. “I’m warning you about the questions.”

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“Oops. Uh. Maybe someday you could tell me why it matters.”

“Maybe I could,” Maelys said.

“Okay.” Aneirin turned red. “This is gonna be really hard without questions.”

“No it’s not,” Maelys said, munching on a piece of cold beef. “Just keep your mouth shut.”

“So is it true—”

“Question,” Maelys warned.

“Uh.” Aneirin cleared his throat. “I heard the Auldheim tricked you into thinking her seal would take away your veoh.”

Maelys narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.

“Okay. Um. I guess you probably felt as bad about what happened as I did.”

“Probably.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Maelys said. “Except for the geas.”

“I’ll try to fix that. The problem is, it’s in your head. Because you actually said the words... I kind of, uh... ”

“Brainwashed me?” Maelys suggested.

“Yes!” he said, brightening. “That’s it exactly.” Then, seeing the scowl that Maelys was giving him, he belatedly added, “So uh, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix.”

Maelys brightened, a little. “Really? How do you un-brainwash someone?”

“Maybe have you say something opposite, like ‘I never tell Nirin the truth’ while I infuse them with veoh.” He grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. “But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to put a geas over a geas.”

Maelys wrinkled her nose. “Tell you what. Someday, somehow, I’ll think of a spell to get back at you. When I do, you’ll cast it on yourself without complaining.”

“No.”

“It’s only fair.”

“Yeah, but I’m not stupid.”

She ripped at the roast beef with her teeth.

“Anyway,” Aneirin went on, watching her apprehensively, “I wanted to say thanks and I’m sorry and I hope you’ll come to my ranking, even if Rees did put you up to it.”

“After this nightmare? You can bet your ass I’m going.”

He peered at her. “You want to go to Ganlin Hall so you can run away.”

She gave him a warning grin that was all teeth. “If you ask me any more questions—”

Aneirin shook his head. “If you want, I’ll help you look for the Rockfarmers.”

Maelys was flabbergasted. Earlier, after she had become the fat cow’s gopher, Rees had retracted his offer, saying that, since she had decided to stay, she didn’t need to go scouring the mountainsides for ghosts. When she read between the lines, however, Maelys got the strong feeling the Auld didn’t like her anymore, and it hurt.

“Fair’s fair,” Aneirin insisted. “We’re in this mess because I bungled a spell I wasn’t supposed to be casting anyway because I was trying to impress a pretty girl.”

Maelys felt her heart hammer violently. “Pretty?”

He grinned at her and held out his hand. “Deal?”

She stared at him, finding it hard to breathe. Looking down, she eyed his hand warily. “What do you want out of it?”

“For you not to kill me in my sleep.”

Reluctantly, Maelys met his hand with hers. They shook.

“It had occurred to me,” she admitted.

Maelys was in her eighth day as the fat cow’s gopher when she overheard Laelia Vethyle talking into a flickering bowl of water. Maelys had been hiding in the wall, bored out of her mind, when she heard ‘kill’ and ‘Ganlin’ in the same sentence and almost lost contact with the stone, which would have been fatal. Groggily, she focused on what was being said.

“...make sure every aspen is felled. I don’t want a survivor giving the Auldhunds a reason to investigate.”

‘Aspen,’ Maelys had learned in her mind-numbing hours of watching the old crone, was what the Vethyles used when they were speaking of Ganlins and didn’t want people to know they were speaking about Ganlins. It made her eyes go wide. The fat cow was right. Laelia wanted to kill some of them.

“Tonight meet me on the bridge of the old brook leading from Brael’s pool. We’ll discuss payment when I see your face.”

“I have a fog over this room,” Laelia said into the basin of water. “We’ll discuss it now.”

The voice on the other side laughed—a throaty male voice that reminded Maelys of Rees. “I hear you have a little rock-dweller living in your towers with you.”

“Yes, so?”

“Meet at the bridge. It’s made of wood and is surrounded by water.”

The water in the basin suddenly went flat and Laelia cursed, splashing it across the room. Maelys quickly asked the stone to fold her deeper into the Spyre, and the rock pushed and squeezed her up several stories, into the Auldheim’s chambers.

The Auldheim, who had been studying a scroll on her desk, looked up. Immediately upon seeing her face, the fat cow put down her pen. A breath of pent-up excitement hovered on her lips. “You saw something.”

Maelys nodded, breathless. “The crone was speaking into a dish. She said she’s gonna meet someone on a bridge. Surrounded by water.”

The Auldheim frowned again. “It’s not illegal to meet someone on a bridge, tart.”

“She was talking about felling aspens, cow.”

The Auldheim’s eyes widened slightly, but she kept her seat. “Tell me exactly what she said. Word for word.”

Maelys did.

The Auldheim took a deep breath, then nodded. “Very well. Rees and I will take care of it. You’ve done well for today.”

Maelys scowled. “What do you mean, ‘for today’? I’ve been standing in there every day for the past week.”

The Auldheim gave her a toothy smile. “I said ‘for today’ because you’re going to do this for me again. Maybe tomorrow, if we don’t get what we need from Laelia at the brook, maybe a week from now, if I hear another rumor I find worthy of your time.”

Maelys stood her ground. “Aneirin is free. I’m not your gopher anymore.”

“True, you’re not. You’re my apprentice. Starting today.”

At Maelys’s startled look, the Auldheim leaned her fat bulk back into her chair with a smirk. Her eyes said she expected Maelys to be awed by her offer. To slobber over it and gobble it up like a starving dog.

Maelys laughed. Hard.

The Auldheim’s face formed into a thunderhead as she said, “It’s a great honor to be the Auldheim’s apprentice.”

Maelys laughed harder.

The Auldheim’s eyes narrowed. “Get out.”

Still laughing, Maelys let the floor embrace her.

Almost a week after she had turned down the Auldheim’s offer, Maelys found herself sleeping on a bench hidden by the leafy greenery inside the atrium when a couple of strong hands tore her from her perch. She tried to scream, but already one attacker already had a hand over her mouth, silencing her as he held her dangling a foot above the stone floor. Another was binding her feet.

The old cow’s henchmen, she thought, frantic. She tried to kick away, to reach the stone bench.

At Maelys’ struggles, one of the men punched her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her in a gasp through the huge, work-roughened fingers that held her.

Dangling there, Maelys began to struggle in earnest. As brusque and bitter as the old cow was, she wouldn’t do anything to cause Maelys real harm. These men were going to hurt her.

She could tell by the way they roughly tightened the knots, tearing the skin. And, whoever these men were, they knew her secret. They were tying sacks over her hands and bare feet.

Then, as they lifted the hand covering her mouth, Maelys had only a moment to scream before a thick rag was cinched tight in its place and her captors hit her again. One of them lowered a bag over her head and tightened the base until it almost strangled her.

They’re going to kill me, Maelys knew. She felt them wrap her in more cloth, like a precious vase rolled in carpet, wrapping her in it until she could barely breathe. She kicked out again and she fell, hitting the floor hard on her shoulder, but her feet were tied together and bagged. She had no contact with the stone. She could barely move in the stuff that swathed her.

They picked her up by the cloth wrapping her, and Maelys suddenly swung free, like she were laying in a hammock. She felt her body swaying as they carried her, jiggling as they maneuvered down steps and over obstacles.

They’re taking me out of the Spyre, she thought, with growing panic. She could only think of one thing they would want to do to her outside the Spyre, one thing that the outside world had that the Spyre didn’t.

Dirt.

They were going to bury her.

As if to confirm her fears, her captors stopped suddenly, dropping her on the ground like so many potatoes. Maelys tried to kick out again, but her arms and legs were wrapped too tightly to move. She was finding it hard to breathe.

“Should we kill her first?” one of them asked. A young man. Maybe five years older than Aneirin.

Maelys froze. She could hear her heart pounding in the silence that followed, could see the knife descending into her stomach, through the cloth that held her, piercing her flesh and spilling her intestines over the dewy nighttime ground.

“Nah,” an older voice said. “Instructions said to make her suffer.”

The first one laughed. “Okay, then. On three.”

Maelys felt something lift her at each end once more. She felt herself swing. She screamed against her gag and tried feebly to wiggle her way free.

“One.” Swing. “Two.” Swing. “Three.”

Suddenly, Maelys was falling, spinning, her stomach clawing to get out of her body.

It seemed like minutes before she hit the ground with her head, her shoulder, and her arm. Maelys felt her ribs snap through the thick cloth and her head burst into painful light before dwindling away to near winking blackness. Every breath raked her lungs against them, driving shooting pain up her side and back. An unnatural sleepiness began to nag at her consciousness, one she struggled to fight and yet slid into anyway.

As she closed her eyes, she heard the rustling twitter of insects through the heavy cloth around her head.