The Alchemist

4

The next morning, despite the previous late night, we all woke with the first crowing of roosters. I laughed to find Pila and Jiala already clustered in the workroom, peering out the shutters, waiting for enough sunlight to see the final result.

As soon as the sun cracked the horizon, we were out in the fields again, headed across the muddy furrows to the bramble wall. The first of the bramble crews were already at work, with axes and long chopping knives, wearing leather aprons to protect themselves from the sleeping spines. Smoke from bramble’s burn rose into the air, coiling snakes, black and oily. Dirty children walked in careful lines through the fields with shovels and hoes, uprooting new incursions. In the dawn light, with the levee labor all at the wall, it looked like the scene of some recent battle. The smoke, the hopeless faces. But as we approached the site of my balanthast firing, a small knot of workers huddled.

We slipped close.

“Have you come to see it?” they asked.

“See what?” Pila asked.

“There’s a hole in the bramble.” A woman pointed. “Look how deep it goes.”

Several children squatted in the earth. One of them looked up. “It’s clean, Mama. No seeds at all. It’s like the bramble never came at all.”

I could barely restrain my glee. Pila had to drag me away to keep me from blurting out my part. We rushed back to Khaim, laughing and skipping the whole way.

Back in our home, Pila and Jiala brought out my best clothes. Pila helped me work the double buttons of my finest vest, pursing her lips at the sight of how skinny I had become since I last wore the thing in my wealth and health.

I laughed at her concern.

“Soon I’ll be fat again, and you’ll have your own servants and we’ll be rich and the city will saved.”

Pila smiled. Her face had lost its worry for the first time in years. She looked young again, and I was struck with the memory of how fine she had been in youth, and how now, despite worry and years, she still stood, unbent and unbroken by the many responsibilities she had taken on. She had stuck with our household, even as our means had faltered, even as other, richer families offered a better, more comfortable life.

“It’s very good that you are not mad, after all,” Pila said.

I laughed. “You’re very sure I’m not mad?”

She shrugged. “Well, not about bramble, at least.”

The way to Mayors House must pass around Malvia Hill, through the clay market and then down along the River Sulong, which splits Khaim from Lesser Khaim.

Along the river, the spice market runs into the potato market runs into the copper market. Powdered spices choke the air, along with the calls of spice men with their long black mustaches that they oil and stretch with every child. Their hands are red with chilies and yellow with turmeric, and their lungs give off the scents of clove and oregano. They sit under their archways along the river, with their big hemp bags of spice out front, and the doorways to their storehouses behind, where piled spices reach two stories high. And then on to the women in the potato market, where they used to sell only potatoes, but now sell any number of tubers, and then the copper families, who can beat out a pot or a tube, who fashion brass candlesticks for the rich and cooking pots for the poor.

When I was young, there was only Khaim. At that time, there was still a bit of the old Empire left. The great wonders of the East, and the great capital of Jhandpara were gone, but still, there was Alacan and Turis and Mimastiva. At that time, Khaim was a lesser seat, valued for its place on the river, but still, a far reach from Jhandpara where great majisters had once wielded their power and wore triple diamonds on their sleeves. But with the slow encroachment of the bramble, Khaim grew. And, across from it, Lesser Khaim grew even faster.

When I was a child, I could look across the river and see nothing but lemon trees and casro bushes, heavy with their dense fruits. Now refugees squatted and built mud huts there. Alacaners, who had destroyed their own homes and now insisted on destroying Khaim as well. Turis, of course is nothing but ash. But that wasn’t their fault. Raiders took Turis, but Alacaners had only themselves to blame.

Jiala hurried along the river with me, her hand in mine. Small. So small. But now with a future. Not just a chance at life and wealth, but a chance that she would not run like the Alacaners from her home as bramble swallowed her childhood and history.

Out on the Sulong, tiny boats made their way back and forth across the water, carrying workers from Lesser Khaim into the main city. But now, something else marred the vista.

A great bridge hung in the air, partially constructed. It floated there, held down by ropes so that it would not fly free. Magic. Astonishing and powerful magic coming into play. The work of Majister Scacz, the one man in the city who wielded magic with the sanction of the Mayor, and so would never fear the Executioner’s axe.

I paused, staring across the water to the floating bridge. Magic such as had not been seen since Jhandpara fell. Seeing it there, rising, it filled me with a superstitious dread. So much magic in one place. Even the balanthast couldn’t protect against that much magic.

A spice man called out to me. “You want to buy? Or are you going to block my trade?”

I tipped my velvet hat to him. “So sorry, merchantman. I was looking at the bridge.”

The man spat. Eyed the floating construction. “Lot of magic, there.” He spat again. Tobacco and kehm root together. Narcotic. “I hear they’re already chopping bramble on the far bank. Hardly any bramble on the west side at all, and now it’s growing in the wagon ruts. Next thing, we’ll be like Alacan. Swallowed by bramble because our jolly Mayor wants to connect here with there. Bad enough that all these new Alacaners use their small magics. Now we have big magic too. Scacz and the Mayor pretending Khaim should be another Jhandpara with majisters and diamonds and floating castles.”

He spat more kehm root and tobacco, and eyed the bridge. “Executioner will be busy now. Sure as bramble creep, we’ll have new heads spiked on city gates. Too much big magic to let the little magics run wild.”

“Maybe not,” I started, but Jiala pinched my hand and I fell silent.

The spice man eyed me as if I was mad. “I had to burn an entire sack of cloves, today. Whole sack I couldn’t sell. Full of bramble seeds and sprout. Someone makes his little magic, ruins my business.”

I wanted to tell him that the bundle on my back would change the balance, but Jiala, at least, had sense, and so I kept my words to myself. Magic brings bramble. A project like the bridge had an inevitable cost.

I hefted my bag of implements and we carried on, around the edge of the hill and then up its face to where Mayors House looked down over Khaim.

We were ushered into the Mayor’s gallery without fuss. Marble floors and arches stretched around us. My clothes felt poor, Jiala’s as well. Even our best was now old and worn.

In the sudden cool of the gallery, her cough started. A dry hacking thing that threatened to build. I knelt and gave her a sip of water. “Are you well?”

“Yes, Papa.” She watched me, solemn and trusting. “I won’t cough.” And then immediately her dry cough started again. It echoed about, announcing our presence to all the other petitioners.

We sat in the gallery, waiting with the women who wanted to change their household tax and the men who were petitioning to escape levee labor. After an hour, the Mayor’s secretary came to us, his medallion of office gleaming gold on his chest, the Axe of the Executioner crossed over the Staff of the Majister, the twin powers that the Mayor wielded for the benefit of the city. The secretary led us across another marble gallery, and thence into the Mayor’s offices, and the door was shut behind us.

The Mayor wore red velvet and his own much larger medallion on a chain of gold around his neck. His fingers touched the medallion every so often, a needy gesture. And with him, the Majister Scacz. My skin prickled at the sight of one who used magic as a daily habit, passing the consequences of his activities onto the bramble crews and the children of the city who dug and burned the minor bits of bramble from between mortar stones and cobbles.

“Yes?” the Mayor asked. “You’re who, then?”

“Jeoz, the alchemist,” the secretary announced.

“And he reeks of magic,” Majister Scacz murmured.

I made myself smile. “It is my device.”

The Mayor’s eyebrows rose, fuzzy gray caterpillars arching over his ruddy face. His mustache was short, no child in his history at all. An old scar puckered one side of his cheek, pulling his mouth into a slight smile. “You practice magic?” he asked sharply. “Are you mad?”

I made a placating gesture. “I do not practice, Excellency. No. Not at all.” A nervous laugh escaped my lips. “I practice alchemy. It does not bring bramble. I have no dealings with the curse of Jhandpara.” It was unbelievable how nervous I had become. “No need for the Executioner, here. None at all.” I untied my bag and began pulling out the pieces of the balanthast. “You see…” I screwed one of the copper ends into its main chamber. Unwrapped the combustion bulb, breathing a sigh of relief that it had survived the trip. “You see,” I repeated myself, “I have created something, which your Excellency will appreciate. I think.”

Beside me, Jiala coughed. Whether from sickness, or nervousness, I couldn’t say. Scacz’s eyes went to her. Held. I didn’t like the way he stared at her. His thoughtful expression. I plunged on.

“It is a balanthast.”

The Mayor examined the device. “It looks more like an arquebus.”

I made myself smile. “Not at all. Though it does use the reactants of fire. But my device has properties most extraordinary.” My hands were shaking. I found the mint. The neem bark. Lora flower. Set them in the chamber.

Scacz was watching closely. “Am I watching sorcery, sir. Right before myself? Unsanctioned?”

“N-no.” I shook under his examination. Tried to load the balanthast.

Jiala took it away. “Here, Papa.”

“Y-yes. Good. Thank you, child.” I took a deep breath. “You see, a balanthast destroys bramble. And not just a little. The balanthast reaches for a bramble’s root and poisons it utterly. Place it within a yard or two of a heart root, and it will destroy more than a bramble crew can destroy in half a day.”

The Mayor leaned close. “You have proof of this?”

“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.” I pulled a small clay pot shrouded in burlap out of my bag and put on my leather gloves before unwrapping it.

“Bramble,” I explained.

They both sucked in their breath at the sight of the potted plant. I looked up at their consternation. “We use gloves.”

“You carry bramble into the city?” the Mayor asked. “Deliberately?”

I hesitated. Finally I said, “It was necessary. For the testing. The science of alchemy requires much trial and error.” Their faces were heavy with disapproval. I lit my match, and touched it to the glass bulb. Clamped it closed.

“Hold your breath, Jiala.” I looked apologetically at the Mayor. “The smoke is quite acrid.”

Mayor and Majister also sucked in their breaths. The balanthast shivered as its energy discharged. A ripple of death passed into the soil. The pot cracked as the bramble writhed and died.

“Magic!” Scacz cried, lunging forward. “What magic is this?”

“No, Majister! Alchemy. Magic has never been able to affect bramble. It does not sap bramble’s poison, nor kill its seeds, nor burn back its branches. This is something new.”

Scacz grabbed for the balanthast. “I must see this.”

“It’s not magic.” I yanked the balanthast back, afraid that in his hurry he would destroy it. “It uses the natural properties of the neem,” I said. “A special species, loved by majisters, yes, but this is merely the application of nature’s principles. We vaporize the neem with a few other ingredients, force it through the tube, and with the aid of sulphur and saltpeter and charcoal, we send its essence into the earth. Even a small application does wonders. The neem essence binds with the root of the bramble. Kills it, as you see. Attracted like a fly to honey.”

“And what causes neem to seek bramble?”

I shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. Perhaps some magical residue or aura from the plant. I tried thousands of substances before the neem. Only the neem bark works so well.”

“The neem is attracted to magic, you think?”

“Well,” I hedged. “It is certainly attracted to bramble. Oil and water never mix. Neem and bramble seem the opposite. What causes the affinity…” I could feel myself starting to sweat under their combined gazes, not liking how Scacz obsessed with magic. “I hesitate to say that it’s magic the neem essence finds so attractive…”

“You talk all around the root of the issue.” Scacz said. “Worse than a priestess of Ruiz.”

“Forgive me,” I stammered. “I don’t want you to think that I’ve been unwary in my investigations.”

“He’s worried we’re about to send him off to the Executioner,” the Mayor said.

I gave the man a sickly smile. “Quite. Bramble is unique. It has qualities that we may think of as magical-its astonishing growth, its resilience, the way that magic seems to fertilize its flourishing-but who can say what unique aspect causes the neem’s essence to bind with it? These questions are beyond me. I experiment, I record my results, and I experiment again.

“The alchemical response to neem is bramble death. What causes that reaction, whether it is some magical residue that leeches from the bramble root and somehow makes it vulnerable to neem, or some other quality, I can’t say. But it works. And works well. There is a plot of earth that I myself have cleared into the bramble wall. In the time it takes you to clap your hands three times, I cleared more land than this office occupies.”

Mayor and Majister both straightened at the news.

“So quickly?” the Mayor asked.

I nodded vigorously. “Even today, it still shows no sign of regrowth. No seeds, you understand? Not a single one. With my device, you can arm the people and take back farmland. Push back the bramble wall. Save Khaim.”

“Extraordinary,” Scacz said. “Not just push the bramble back. Perhaps even reclaim the heart of the empire. Return to Jhandpara.”

“Exactly.” I couldn’t help feeling relief as their expressions lost their skepticism.

The Mayor had begun to smile widely. He stood. “By the Three Faces of Mara, man, you’ve done something special!”

He motioned for Jiala and me. “Come! The two of you must have a glass of wine. This discovery is worth celebrating.”

He laughed and joked with us as he guided us to a room with great windows that looked out over the city. Khaim jumbled down the hill below us. On the horizon, the sun was slowly sinking. Red sunlight filtered through the smoke and cookfires of lesser Khaim. The half-constructed floating bridge arched across the river like a leaping cat, held in place by great hemp ropes to keep it from sailing away as they worked to extend its skeleton.

“This couldn’t come at a better time,” the Mayor said. “Look out there, alchemist. Lesser Khaim grows every day. And not just from the refugees of Turis and Alacan. Others too, small holders who have been overwhelmed by the bramble. And they bring their magics with them.

“Before they came, we were nearly in balance. We could still cut back enough bramble to offset the bits of magic use. Even the bridge would have been acceptable. But the Alacaners are profligate with their magic, and now the bramble comes hard upon us. Their habits are crushing us. Everyone has some little magic that he or she believes is justified. And then when a bit of bramble roots in a neighbor’s roof beams, who can say who caused it?”

He turned to me. “You know they call me the Jolly Mayor over there? Make fun of me for my scar and my poor humor.” He scowled. “Of course I’m in a poor humor. We fight bramble every day, and every day it defeats us. If this keeps on, we’ll be run out of here in three sixes of years.”

I startled at his words. “Surely it’s not that bad.”

The Mayor raised his caterpillar brows. “Oh yes.” He nodded at Jiala. “Your girl will be part of a river of refugees twice the size of the one we took in from Alacan.” He turned again to look west. “And where will they go then? Mpaias? Loz? Turis is gone to raiders.” He scowled. “Lesser Khaim is just as vulnerable. We barely fought off the raiders’ last attack. Without the bridge, I cannot have a hope of defending that side of the river. And so we spend magic where we would prefer not to, and add to the problem. We’re caught in Halizak’s Prison, for certain.”

His steward arrived with wine and goblets. I looked at the stemmed glasses with curiosity, wondering if I myself had long ago blown their shapes, but then recognized the distinctive mark of Saara Solso. She had improved since I used to compete with her. Another reminder of how long I had been at my project.

The steward paused on the verge of uncorking the wine bottle. “Are you certain about this, Excellency?” he asked.

The Mayor laughed and pointed at me. “This man comes to us with salvation, and you worry about an old vintage?”

The steward looked doubtful, but he uncorked the bottle anyway. A joyful scent filled the room. The Mayor looked at me, eyes twinkling. “You recognize it?” he asked. “The happy bouquet of history.”

I was drawn by the scent, like a child to syrup crackers. Astonished and intoxicated, wide-eyed. “What is it?”

“Wine from the hillsides of Mount Sena, the summer vineyards of the old empire,” Majister Scacz said. “A rare thing, now that those hillsides are covered with bramble. Perhaps a score of bottles still exist, of which our Jolly Mayor possesses, now, two.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Scacz bowed. “The name suits you today, Excellency.”

The Mayor smiled. “For once.”

The steward poured the wine into the glassine bulbs.

“Currant and cinnamon and joy.” Majister Scacz was watching me. “You’re about to taste one of the finest pleasures of the Empire. Served at spring planting, for harvest and for flowering-age ceremonies. The richest merchants had fountains of it in their floating castles, if you can credit such a thing. Magic, make no mistake. The vintner’s genius bound with the majister’s craft.”

He caught Jiala watching, her eyes shining at the scent. “Come, girl. Taste our lost history.” He poured a splash into glass. “Not too much. You’re too small to do more than taste, but I promise you, you will not forget this thing.”

The Mayor held up his glass, ruby and black in the setting sun. “A toast, then, gentlemen. To our future, refound.”

We drank, and the blood of the old empire coursed through our veins and made us giddy. We examined my instrument again, with the Majister and the Mayor making exclamations at the workmanship, at my methods for joining glass to copper, of metallurgy that had yielded a combustion chamber that would not crack with the power of the flames released. We talked of the difficulties of making more balanthasts and speculated how many miles we might clear of the surrounding countryside.

“It takes a great deal of trouble to make one,” Scacz observed.

“Oh yes,” I said fondly, patting the venting tubes that ran along its outer surface and collected the gases of the burning neem.

“How many do you think you can make?”

“At first?” I shrugged. “Perhaps it will take me a month to make another.” The Mayor and Scacz both showed their consternation, and I rushed on. “But I can train other metal workers, other glassblowers. I need not do every piece of work. With others working to my specification. With a larger workshop, many more could be made.”

“We could train the crafters who make the new arquebus,” Scacz said. “Their work is obviously pointless. A weapon that can only be fired once and is so fussy, does not even pack the power of a decent crossbow and is slower still. But this?”

The mayor was nodding. “You’re right. This is worth our effort. Those silly weapons are nothing to this.”

Scacz took another sip of his wine, running his hand over the balanthast. A slow caress. “The potential here… is astonishing.” He looked up at me, inquiring. “I think I would like to test it for a little while. See what it does.”

“Majister?”

Scacz patted me on the back. “Don’t worry. We’ll be very careful with it. But I must examine it a while. Ensure that it truly uses no magic that will come back to haunt us.” He looked at me significantly. “Too many solutions to bramble have simply sought to use magic in some glancing way. To build a fire, for example, and then when the bramble is burned, it turns out that so much magic was used in the making of the fire that the bramble returns twice as strong.”

“But the balanthast doesn’t use magic,” I protested.

Scacz looked at me. “You are a majister to know this, then? In some cases, a man will think he is not using magical principles, because he is ignorant. You yourself acknowledge that something unique is afoot with this device.” He picked up the balanthast. “It’s just for a little while, alchemist. Just to be sure.”

The Mayor was watching me closely. “Don’t worry, alchemist. We will not slight your due reward. But for us, the stakes are very high. If we invest our office in something which brings the doom of Takaz instead of the salvation of Mara… I’m sure you understand.”

I wracked my mind, trying to find a reason to deny them, but my voice failed me, and at that moment, Jiala started to cough again. I glanced over at her, worried. It had the deep sound of cutting knives.

Scacz began to gather up the device. “Go on,” he said. “See to your daughter’s health. She is obviously tired. We will send for you quite soon.”

Jiala’s coughing worsened. The two most powerful men in the city looked down at her. “Poor thing,” the Mayor murmured. “She seems to have the wasting cough.”

I rushed to contradict. “No. It’s something else. The cold is all. It starts the cough and makes it difficult to stop.”

Scacz pried the balanthast away from me. “Go then. Take your daughter home and warm her. We will send for you, soon.”

All the way home, Jiala coughed. Deep wracking seizures that folded her small body in half. By the time we arrived at our doorstep, her coughing was incessant. Pila took one look at Jiala and glared at me with astonished anger.

“The poor girl’s exhausted. What took you so long?”

I shook my head. “They liked the device. And then they wanted to talk. And then to toast. And then to talk some more.”

“And you couldn’t bring the poor girl back?”

“What was I supposed to do?” I asked. “‘Thank you so much, Mayor and Majister, I must leave, and no, the lost wines of Jhandpara are of no interest to me. Name a price and I will sell you the plans for my balanthast, good day?’”

Jiala’s coughing worsened. Pila shot me a dark look and ushered her down the hall. “Come into the workshop, child. I’ve already lit the fire.”

I watched the two of them go, feeling helpless and frustrated. What should have been a triumph had become something else. I didn’t like the way Scacz behaved at the end. Everything he said had been perfectly reasonable, and yet his manner somehow disturbed me. And the way the Mayor spoke. All his words were correct. More than correct. And yet they filled me with unease.

I made my way up the stairs to my rooms, empty now except for piles of blankets and a chest of my clothes.

Was I turning paranoid? Into some sort of madman who looked beneath everyone’s meaning to some darker intention? I had known a woman, once, when I was younger, who had gone mad like that. A glassblower who made wondrous jewel pendants that glittered with their own inner fire, seeming to burn from within. A genius with light. And yet there was something in her head that made her suspicious. She had suspected her husband, and then her children of plotting against her, and had finally thrown herself in the river, escaping demons from the Three Hundred Thirty-Three Halls that only she could see.

Was I now filled with the same suspicions? Was I going down her path?

Mayor and Majister had both spoken with fair words. I unbuttoned my vest, astounded at how threadbare it had become. The red and blue stitching was old and out of mode. How broken it was. As was everything except the balanthast. It, at least, had gleamed. I had put so much hope into this idea, had spent so many years…

A knock sounded on my door.

“Yes?”

Pila leaned in. “It’s Jiala. Her coughing won’t stop. She needs you.”

“Yes. Of course. I’ll come soon.”

Pila hesitated. “Now, I think. It’s very bad. There is blood. If you don’t use your spells soon, she will be broken.”

I stopped in the act of fixing my buttons. A thrill of fear coursed through me. “You know?”

Pila gave me a tight smile. “I’ve lived with you too long not to guess.”

She motioned me out. “Don’t worry about your fancy clothes. Your daughter doesn’t care how you dress.”

She hurried me down the stairs and into the workroom. We found Jiala beside the fire, curled on the flagstones, wracked by coughing. Her body contorted as another spasm took her. Blood pooled on the floor, red as roses, brighter than rubies.

“Papa…” she whispered.

I turned to find Pila standing beside me with the spellbook of Majister Arun in her hands.

“You know all my secrets?” I asked.

Pila looked at me sadly. “Only the ones that matter.” She handed me the rest of my spell ingredients and ran to close the shutters so no sign of our magic would be visible, reportable to the outside world.

I took the ingredients and mixed them and placed the paste on Jiala’s brow, bared her bony chest. Her breathing was like a bellows, labored and loud, rich with blood and the sound of crackling leaves. My hands shook as I finished the preparations and took up Majister Arun’s hand.

I spoke the words and magic flowed from me and into my child.

Slowly, her breathing eased. Her face lost its fevered glare. Her eyes became her own again, and the rattle and scrape of her breath smoothed as the bloody rents closed themselves.

Gone. As quickly and brutally as it had come, it was gone, leaving nothing but the sulphur stink of magic in the room.

Pila was staring at me, astonished. “I knew,” she whispered. “But I had not seen.”

I blotted Jiala’s brow. “I’m sorry to have involved you.”

Jiala’s breathing continued to ease. Pila knelt beside me, watching over my daughter. She was resting now, exhausted from what her body had used up in its healing.

“You mustn’t be caught, Papa.” Jiala whispered.

“It won’t be much longer,” I told her. “In no time at all, we’ll be using magic just like the ancients and we won’t have to hide a thing.”

“Will we have a floating castle?”

I smiled gently. “I don’t see why not. First we’ll push back the bramble. Then we’ll have a floating castle, and maybe one day we’ll even grow wines on the slopes of Mount Sena.” I tousled her hair. “But now I want you to rest and sleep and let the magic do its work.”

Jiala looked up at me with her mother’s dark eyes. “Can I dream of cloud castles?”

“Only if you sleep,” I said.

Jiala closed her eyes, and the last tension flowed from her little body. To Pila, I said, “Open the windows, but just a little. Let the magic out slowly so no one has a chance to smell and suspect. If you are caught here, you will face the Executioner’s great axe with me.”

Pila went and opened one of the windows and began to air the room, while I covered Jiala with blankets. We met again at the far side of the workshop.

At one time, I had had chairs in this room, for talk and for thought, but those were long gone. We sat on the floor, together.

“And now you are part of my little conspiracy,” I said sadly.

Pila smiled gently. “I guessed a long time ago. She clearly has the wasting cough, but she never wastes. Most children, by this time, they are dead. And yet Jiala runs through the streets and comes home without a cough for weeks at a time. At least before she fell into bramble. The cough seemed to stay at bay unnaturally.”

“Why did you not call the guards?” I asked. “There is a fine reward for people like me. You could have lived well by selling your knowledge of my foolishness.”

“You don’t use this magic selfishly.”

“Still. It curses the city. The Mayor is right about that much. The help I visit upon Jiala, means that hurt is visited upon Khaim. Some neighbor of ours may find a bit of bramble growing in his flagstones. A potato woman in the field will till up a new bramble root, attracted by my healing spells. The bramble wall marches ever closer, and cares not at all what intentions I have when I use magic. It only cares that there is magic to feed upon.” I stood stiffly and went to squat by the fireplace, rolled a log so that it crackled and set up sparks. Pila watched me, I could feel her eyes on me. I glanced back at her. “I help my child and curse my neighbor. Simple truth.”

“And many of your neighbors do the same,” Pila said. “Simple truth. Now come and sit.”

I rejoined her, and we both watched the fire and my sleeping daughter. “I’m afraid I cannot save her,” I said, finally. “It will take great magic to make the cough go away, entirely. Her death is written in the dome of the Judgment Hall, and I fear I cannot save her without great magic. Magic such as someone like Scacz wields. And he will not wield it for the sake of one little girl.”

“And so you labor on the balanthast.”

I shrugged. “If I can stop the bramble, then there’s no reason not to use the great magics again. We can all be saved.” I stared at the flames. Firewood had grown expensive since bramble started sprouting in the nearby forest. I grimaced. “We’re caught in Halizak’s Prison. Every move we make closes the walls down upon us.”

“But the balanthast works,” Pila reminded me. “You have found a solution.”

I looked over at her. “I don’t trust them.”

“The Mayor?”

“Or the Majister. And now they have my balanthast. Another Halizakian box. I don’t trust them, but they are the only ones who can save us.”

Pila touched my shoulder. “I have watched you for more than fifteen years. You will discover a way.”

I sighed. “When I add up the years, I feel sick. I was certain that I would have the balanthast perfected within a year or two. Within five. Within ten, for certain. In time to save Merali.” I looked over at my sleeping daughter. “And now I can’t help wondering if I’m too late to save even Jiala.”

Pila smiled. “This time, I think you will succeed. I have never seen something like the balanthast. No one has. You have worked a miracle. What’s one more, to save Jiala?”

She pushed her dark hair back, looking at me with her deep brown eyes. I started to answer, but lost my voice, struck suddenly by her proximity.

Pila…

With my work, I had never had time or moment to really look at her. Staring into her eyes, seeing the slight smile on her lips, I felt as if I was surfacing from some deep pool, suddenly breathing. Seeing Pila for the first time. Perhaps even seeing the world for the first time.

How long had I been gone? How long had I simply not paid attention to my growing daughter, or to Pila’s care? In the firelight of the workshop, Pila was beautiful.

“Why did you stay?” I asked. “You could have gone on to other households. Could have made a family of your own. I pay you less than when you did little other than washing and cleaning, and now you run the household entire. Why not move on? I wouldn’t begrudge it. Other households would welcome you. I would recommend you.”

“You want to be rid of me just as you reach success?” Pila asked.

“No-” I stumbled on my own words. “I don’t mean to say…” I fumbled. “I mean, others all pay more.”

She snorted. “A great deal more, considering that I haven’t taken pay for more than a year.”

I looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

She gave me a sad smile. “It was a necessary economy, if we were to keep eating.”

“Then why on earth didn’t you leave?”

“You wished me to leave?”

“No!” All my words seemed to be wrong. “I’m in your debt. I owe you the moon. But you starve here-you can’t think that I do not appreciate. It’s just that you make no sense-”

“You poor fool,” Pila said. “You truly can’t see further than the bell of your balanthast.”

She leaned close, and her lips brushed mine.

When she straightened, her dark eyes were deep with promise and knowledge. “I chose my place long ago,” she said. “I watched you with Merali. When she was well, and when she fell ill. And I have watched you with Jiala. I would never leave one like you, one who never abandons others, even when it would be easy. You, I know.”

“All my secrets,” I whispered.

“All the ones that matter.”