The Grass King’s Concubine (26 page)

“Why?”

The woman was still naked. It seemed that the transformation—however it was achieved—did not include clothing. She said, “We have our pelts. Our feet, our teeth and claws and nostrils.”

“Yes, but…” He did not know how to say it. “I mean, that’s true, but when you’re not…When you’re in your human shape, well, aren’t you cold?”

The ferret butted her head into her sister’s jawline. After a moment, the latter said, “Oh. Human clothes. We don’t need them.”

He did not know what to say to that. He would have to adapt, it seemed. It was, he told himself, no worse than the fact of the twins’ shapeshifting, than gates that appeared from nowhere. He busied himself with tying the bags and said nothing.

The woman said, “My sister says clothes are easier for you. We’ll bring them.”

He looked round. She held out the shabby tunic. She said, “Please pack this.”

He could stuff it into a corner. It was greasy and sour in his fingers. He nodded, “Of course.” What was her name? She had told him, he was sure…Yelena. He said, “Is there anything else, Yelena?”

“Julana.”

He could not keep it straight. Two names, two shapes…He filled the canteens in the scullery and topped up Clairet’s bucket. She drank in slow gulps. He picked up her tack and hesitated. He could lead her using the halter she already wore. The bags could be attached by their own straps and the canteens and carbine hooked to them. The doorway was low and narrow, no place for riding. And the twins must walk, or run, or whatever it was that ferrets did.
He left the bridle hanging from the handle of a door, the saddle heaped in a corner, and picked up the bags. He pulled on his overcoat, checked that he had hat and gloves. Clairet leaned into him as he fastened on the bags, and he patted her. He said, “We’re ready.”

“Good.” Julana crouched on the floor, limbs pressing close, bones pulling downward, inward.

She was about to change. He said, “Wait—how do I know where to go?”

Her voice came thinly, misshapen by a mouth that was already shifting form. She said, “We know. Walls know. Follow the light, down and down, to the cave and the pebbles, to the river…” A shiver of fur began at her wrists and ankles, drawing her tight, tighter, knotting and binding her ever smaller. Her nose pushed forward, eclipsing the rest of her face; her ears spread up and out. Through it, the voice continued, distant now and distorted, “Wait for the boat of stone…” Claws scratched on the flags. She shook herself, and the last faint hint of woman form was gone. Her sister—Yelena?—sniffed her, nose to nose. They rubbed close, whiskers telling tales he could not hear. Then they separated and skittered across the floor toward him. A nose nudged his leg; teeth nipped his ankle through his boot. He took a step, and one ferret bounded onto his foot. She stopped. She raised herself, pawing at him.

He was expected to carry them. Somehow, that had not occurred to him. They were twice the size of the ferrets his brother had kept to hunt rabbits. Another nip. He knelt, and they swarmed up his legs, clambering and clinging to the heavy quilted trousers, hooking onto his outer coat, tasting buttons, snuffling and exploring, One settled herself on his shoulders, long warm body wound scarfwise about his throat. The other curled herself into the crook of his arm. He stood, and she leaped neatly onto the top of the saddlebags.

Ahead of him, the door was hazy: a shadow of dark oak and iron rivets bound into a surround of golden stone. It rippled, drifting in the yeast-heavy air. A neat iron ring was
set about halfway down it, cast in the form of a wreath of ripe wheat. It was warm to his touch, even through his gloves, moving easily and silently. The door swung open onto a rock passageway. The sides glimmered, mica crystals in long swaths reflecting the low amber light. Underfoot, the ground was uneven. Jehan inhaled and stepped forward. The twin around his neck, whichever one it was, pressed close. Was that meant as approval or reassurance? Or was she herself afraid? He could not tell. His footfalls fell dull on the rock, caught by it and swiftly silenced. Clairet’s hoofs were muffled. Warm air filled his nose and throat, making him cough in surprise. The shoulder-mounted twin—he decided arbitrarily that it was Julana—dug her claws in to steady herself. He muttered, “Sorry.” As Clairet’s tail cleared the entrance, the door swung itself shut behind them. Looking back, he found himself staring into darkness. No way back.

The steppe would be no better. He set his jaw and stepped forward along the passage. It led downward, shallow and straight.
Follow the light
. At first it seemed that the walls were its source, that the light radiating from within them through the myriad crystals. But as his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was at its strongest in front of him. Like the door, it was shadowy, tidal, changing from instant to instant. As they walked, on and on, he lost all sense of time. The passage gave no hints as to its extent, its depth. The soft light clouded and shrouded and silenced. At his back, Clairet followed steadily, her breathing calm. He was too warm in his tundra layers. He wriggled his shoulders, and Julana burrowed closer to his neck; he shrugged off his outer coat, folded it over an arm. When he reached for his scarf, his hands met fur. Julana twitched under his hand, then long teeth tasted him. He pulled back. “If you want to be carried, don’t bite.” This time she allowed him to tug the scarf loose.

Moss and lichen began to appear, clinging to the walls. The passage turned, kinked down, began to level out. Patches of ferns, long-limbed and green, clumped at its
edges. Clairet mouthed them, setting frondy shadows dancing. Jehan’s mouth was dry. He did not know how far they must travel before they found more water. Better to wait. Another twist, and he stumbled, distracted by his thirst. He put a hand out to the wall and found it moist. Moss, ferns…He unslung the canteen and took a few careful sips. Clairet must be thirsty, too. He would need to water her soon. On again, toward that light. The passage began to widen, its floor becoming more pebble than bare rock. Clairet’s hoofs shirred and clipped on it. The light was changing, taking on a tinge of green, a taste of…of what? He didn’t know. A sourness, like winter melon.

From ahead, something whispered, sibilant, soft. He stopped. His hand found the stone chip in his pocket, squeezed it. Not a voice, not even really a sound, more the shadow of one—a hiss, a shift, a memory. Yulana’s whiskers tickled his cheek. He hesitated, felt the cool of teeth against his skin and moved forward. The passage bore right and came to a halt. In front of him opened a cavern. Its roof sloped steeply up, green-amber light fading into darkness, littered with the faintest hint of stars. The walls spread away from him, tricked out in ferns, murmuring to themselves in the moist breeze. He could not see the far side. He stood in the entrance, Clairet beside him, and neither twin protested. Those
were
stars overhead, stars he knew. There was the spearhead, the sickle, the potter. He asked, “Where are we?”

The ferret on his shoulder hopped down onto Clairet’s back. The other steadied herself and jumped to the floor. Her fur shimmered, and she shook herself and changed. He looked away as she groped in the saddlebags for her tunic. She said, “It’s the boundary. The beach.”

“The beach?” He sniffed. Iron and yeast and growth, yes, but not salt. He said, “I can’t smell the sea.”

“The sea isn’t here.” She caught at his hand. Her fingers were callused. “Come on. Don’t loiter.”

“But, Julana…”

“Yelena.”

“Yelena.” It simply wasn’t possible to tell them apart. “If it’s a beach then surely…?”

“Hurry!”

“Wait.” Hurry or no hurry, Clairet needed water. He unhooked her water bowl from the saddle and poured a good part of the contents of his spare canteen into it. “Clairet has to drink.” Yelena scowled at him, but she waited, twisting from side to side, while the pony drank.

As soon as the pony lifted her head, Yelena tugged at him again. “Walk now. Ask questions in the boat. Bad things live here.” She strode away from him, long fast strides.

“Bad things?” Struggling to stow the bowl, he followed. His hand tried to drift to his saber, but he pulled it back. He looked about him. Pebbles and ferns and dimness. There could be anything out there, waiting in the fringes of vision. “Bad how?”

Yelena shrugged. “Watchers. Hunters, maybe. It depends.”

“On what?”

“Things. We move.”

That was no help at all. He checked the hilt of his sword. Underfoot, the pebbles cracked and crunched. Impossible to disguise their presence on such terrain. Tension twined up his spine. Beside him, Clairet placed her hoofs carefully. Her hearing, her sense of smell were both more acute than his. She would notice any danger that approached them. He patted her neck. On top of the bags, the other twin—Julana—dozed. Yelena stalked in front of him, her bare feet almost silent. Hard not to jump at every pebble that clinked, at every ripple in the ferns.

The whispering noise was building. It shivered over the beach, sighing and rattling. Water—it must be. Water through stones, waves combing the strand.
The sea is not here
. If not the sea, then what? A lake? A river? He peered into the dimness: in the distance he could just make out a darker patch. He caught up to Yelena. He said, “What makes that noise?”

“It’s the nature of this place.”

“What does that mean?”

She looked at him, eyes blank. She did not understand him, it appeared. It was not a question she recognized. He shook his head. “Never mind. Where’s Aude?”

“Not here. This is the border. Come. Mustn’t draw attention.”

Another hundred yards. He was certain, now, that some dark mass lay up ahead. It extended away, green-gray and matte in the low light. The stars made no reflections in it. They drew closer to the dark mass, and he stumbled to a halt, gasping.

Not a sea. Not water at all. From the edge of the beach moss extended out across the cavern floor, greens piled on grays and yellows, humping up and giving way, a living plant–portrait of water. And from it came that slow shingle murmur. Clairet dropped her nose to sniff an outlying frond and the clump drew back from her. On her back, Julana stretched, yawned, and jumped down onto the pebbles. Jehan sank to a squat. Under his hands, the stones were damp and slightly warm. They could not cross this moss on foot. Anything could lie under it: ravines, sinkholes, bogs. He had seen marshes on the southeastern side of the Brass City, fetid heaving places full of gas and treachery. A man needed a reliable guide—or a skinful of cheap gin—to venture into it. And there, the lights and sounds of the Brass City could offer some clues. Here was only dankness and twilight and the distant cavern walls. He said, “It’s not possible.”

“Marcellan crossed,” Yelena said. “The boat is here. We’ll find it.”

In the Brass City marshes there were people, mainly women, who eked out a living poling flat bottomed punts, transporting goods and occasional passengers across the shorter stretches and retrieving corpses from the wider parts. But their trade could be plied only during the rains or at slack water. At other times, the mud lay too heavy. He could not imagine that punts could make headway in this
chaos of vegetation. He rubbed at his neck, then, rising, took a long gulp of water from the canteen. He poured more into Clairet’s shallow leather bowl and held it for her while she drank again. Then he offered the canteen to Yelena. “Water?”

“No need.”

He hooked the canteen back into place and took a few minutes to shed his outer layers. Stripped to shirtsleeves, he felt his thirst recede. Yelena said, “We move now.” They walked along the edge of the moss sea, Yelena leading. Julana hopped and bounded at her ankles, diving sideways now and then after a particularly alluring pebble, leaping back as an adventurous tendril teased her.

They had promised water. Jehan hesitated. He said, “My canteens…You said there’d be a chance to refill them.” Moss needed moisture to grow, but it might be hard to find and purify in all this. “What I have won’t last long.”

“There’ll be water.” Yelena looked back at him. “You worry too much.”

He crunched after her along the shoreline. The pebbles shifted and cracked. The moss lapped at his boots. In front of him, Julana zigged across his path for the fifth or sixth time. He had to keep his eyes lowered, keeping track of her, lest he trip.

Perhaps that was why he failed to notice the boat. Underfoot, Julana came to a sudden halt, making him stumble into Clairet’s flank. He put out a hand to steady himself and looked up.

At first, he thought it an outcrop of rock. Slick black, it cut into the beach, solid and sharp. Half its length rested on the moss, shimmering. The sides were striated, lines of paler crystal tracing slow curves. Its tip tilted upward, like the neck of some waterbird. As the moss stirred, it rocked gently.

It should not be possible. A boat of stone. By the prow, Yelena said, “Boat.”

“But…” he said, and stopped. The longer he stared, the more boatlike it became. It was about twelve feet long,
maybe five feet at its widest part. He moved closer. The interior was hollow, for all the world like a wooden boat, with a couple of stone bars crossing it. There were no oars, no mast, no punt pole. It was as unlikely as women who were ferrets, as a door that opened into a mythic domain. He set his shoulders against his disbelief and said, “How do we get Clairet on board?”

Yelena stooped to gather her sister, dropping her onto the boat rail. She leaped down to nose at the inner part. Yelena said, “Pony is smart.” Smarter than he was, her tone implied. At this moment, he could believe that. She continued, “Haste now. We’re too easily seen.”

He unloaded the pony, lowering the saddlebags into the boat. He half-expected the moss to splash and slop under them, but they landed with a muffled thump and lay dry and still. He considered the stone bars—seats? Would they lift out? He tested one, and it shifted. It was wedged in tight, its edges damp and hard to grip. He fished for his gloves, and tugged again, bracing himself as best he could on the loose stones. Yelena said, “Hurry.”

“Help me lift this.”