Wild Magic

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Flies buzzed about the room. One crawled up Penhari’s arm, tickling unendurably. She twitched, came painfully awake. The fly kneaded at her arm with its thready legs, then crouched by one of the flagellum cuts, thrust its drinking tube into the crusted flesh. “Hash!” She shook her arm violently, arched her back and thrust herself up from the floor, rested on her hands and knees as pain lanced through her. Groaning and gasping, she staggered to her feet and groped blindly for the nearest wall.

She nearly fell over the bodies of her maids, grabbed hastily for the back of a chair as her brain whited out and her stomach convulsed.

Later-might have been a moment or half an hour-she stumbled on again, forcing herself to move though she wanted to lie down like the maids and die.

In the water room she pulled the bronze chain and stood with her bloody back pressed against the cool tiles while the shell bath on the dais at the far end filled with steaming water, it hurt, but it was a duller ache than when she tried to move.

The bath overflowed; she didn’t know it until she came from a haze and saw water running across her feet. She reached, cried out as cuts tore open, but completed the movement and pulled the chain Ft lain to shut off the flow.

She went up the stairs on hands and knees and rolled into the bath.

The slave waiting for her in her bedroom was a stocky fair woman with fine brown hair and small brown splotches sprayed across her square cheekbones and hooked nose.

Penhari eased herself down on the stool by her dressing table. “What’s your name?” She inspected the woman again, sighed. “Where do you usually work?”

“Desantro, heshal.” Her shoulders were rounded, her worn hands trembling. “In the garden, heshal.”

“Diyo.” Penhari closed her eyes. “Who told you to wait here?”

“The Chambermassal, heshal. He wouldn’t let Yeadah come… or… any of the chambermaids.” Her thin mouth compressed a moment and there was a dull resentment in her eyes she wouldn’t have dared show before this. “He said… he made me come.”

“I see.” Penhari managed a slight smile. “No matter his reasons, I am happy to see you, Desantro.” She lifted an arm, winced as the movement pulled at cuts, but continued the motion. “Go through the door there, follow the corridor to the water room… which hand do you use?”

Desantro lifted her right hand, held it palm out toward Penhari; it was lined and callused, with dirt ground deep into the skin.

“Diyo. Put your other hand on the wall and go in the first open door you touch. You will see a chest just inside. Lift the lid and bring the red box you find there. Do you understand?”

Desantro bobbed her head. “Diyo, heshal.” Her eyes shifted uneasily, then she turned and went out.