Page 59 of Queen Demon
Bashasa studied him, his expression conflicted. “Kai, how old are you?”
An interesting question that Kai had no real way to answer. “We don’t count days and hours in the underearth like you do here.” He still looked conflicted, so Kai continued, “Enna was old enough to get married. They wanted me to wait, though. Because I hadn’t been a mortal long enough.” Kai had not been taught by either the Saredi or the Fourth House of the underearth to be shy, but he was suddenly shy now. He finished awkwardly, “If the Hierarchs hadn’t come, I would have married my cousin Adeni by now. Him and Iludi and Varra.”
“Oh.” Bashasa’s face went through a journey that Kai couldn’t follow, but it ended in sympathy. “I am sorry. You have lost so much.”
“So have you. So have all of us.” Everyone had lost so much, everyone was sorry. Kai needed to turn the conversation; thinking about Enna’s family was the kind of pain he couldn’t take. “Are you done being angry with me now?”
Bashasa was not in the least distracted. “I am concerned, not angry. Will you tell me if there is something I need to know?”
“Yes.” Kai managed to make it not grudging and not overearnest, despite every inclination.
“Very well.” Bashasa collected the basin. “We should go, and let these good soldiers have their tent again.”
Bashasa had not needed any advice on how to deal with traumatized Witches. Before Kai and the others had returned to the caravanserai, he had already gotten Mother Hiraga’s permission to put the new arrivals next to their camp and had a tent set up for them. It was already stocked with blankets and cushions, spare clothes from the supply train, water to wash with if they didn’t want to go to the caravanserai’s bathing house yet, soap, brushes, shaving tools, and other things the Arike thought necessary.
Ziede stepped out of the tent as Kai and Bashasa arrived, and said, “They’re ready to talk to you. It’s just the Witches and the children, we had to leave the mortals with the physicians.”
“Are they very unwell?” Bashasa was worried. “I hope we can reunite them tonight.”
“I think two of them will probably be recovered enough in a day or so. It’s obvious they’ve all been starved and ill-treated, but one is hardly reacting at all, and I’m not sure he even understands that he’s in a different place.” Ziede frowned, looking toward where the physicians’ tent stood closer to the caravanserai. “The other two adults, they’re called Adin and Katha, were also hostages for Raihar and Cimeri, they’ve been with them since they were children, since their family had to flee the borderlands. They said the last adult was already there when they were captured.”
That was disturbing. Kai exchanged a look with Bashasa, and said, “Was there another Witch held prisoner?”
Ziede shook her head with a helpless shrug. “They don’t know. Adin said he never spoke, that the dustwitches who fed them sometimes called him Arkat. Raihar said they never saw another Witch prisoner.”
“A mystery that we can hopefully unravel later,” Bashasa said.He told Ziede, “Go and rest, Sister, you’ve had a long day and accomplished much.”
“I will.” She lifted a brow and added, “Don’t keep Kai out too late.”
Bashasa was flustered for an instant that Kai almost missed while he was glaring at Ziede. Bashasa said, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and ushered Kai into the tent.
Kai sat beside Bashasa as Raihar told them how she and the others had been kidnapped. “They attacked the caravan we traveled with, it was coming down the old North Sarcofa road, trying to avoid the legionaries.” Her voice went hoarse again and Bashasa refilled her cup from the pot warming on the brazier. The Arike physicians had made up a mixture of date syrup in hot water, saying it would help with the chills and clammy skin all the freed prisoners seemed to have.
Raihar signaled thanks, drank from the cup, and continued, “The dustwitches killed everyone but us, our children, and Adin and Katha. They wanted us to join them, but… they killed everyone. Like shitting Hierarchs, they killed everyone.” Her voice rose, as if the memory was playing out in front of her eyes again. “Even after the head drover said they could have all the supplies if they would leave us in peace! They choked them all to death with dust.”
Bashasa held up a calming hand. “You needn’t speak of it if you don’t want. We know what they do.” When she had taken a deep breath and sipped from the cup again, he said, “Did you learn why they were kidnapping, and thieving for that matter?” He nodded to where Ibel sat near the lump bundled in blankets that was the two children. Warm date syrup and bowls of lentil dhal had left both children sleepy and a little calmer. Kreat lay beside one blanket lump, staring intently at it. “The Witches who accompany us seem to have no trouble finding resources, even in desolate country.”
After escaping from the dustwitch camp, when Kai and Cimeri had reached Ziede and the others, Kai had thought the children would be crying, from fear of strange people and the shock of the fight to rescue them. But the two had talked in whispers, even to Raihar and the others, and seemed afraid to make any sound. He understood the implications of that all too well, and shoved the anger down inside himself as more fuel for the seething furnace already there.
Both hands wrapped around the cup, Raihar tried to find words to explain. “The dustwitches aren’t like us, they don’t…” Her expression said she found this baffling. “They can’t see the small spirits that make up the world. Only the big ones.”
“Like Ziede’s wind-devils,” Kai told Bashasa. “The dustwitches could take control of them for a short time, but only until they slipped away and went back to Ziede.”
“Because Ziede is their friend,” Ibel clarified. “Like Baram can hear the run-belows in the water talking.”
Kai wasn’t sure if that analogy was helpful but Bashasa nodded understanding, and muttered, “Power and domination over other beings seems to be their way, doesn’t it.”
Raihar sighed and let go of the cup long enough to push her hair out of her eyes. “We decided to try to pretend we would go along with them, would do what they wanted, so we could slip away later and free the others. But I was raised in the old way, I can’t lie for piss.” Cimeri patted her arm in forgiveness. “They didn’t believe me. And they threatened our own.” She let out a shaky breath as her gaze went to the two children. A little hand had slipped out of the blanket and was playing with the clay beads on the end of one of Kreat’s braids. “They seemed to have plans to make a home somewhere. Maybe in a city, a deserted mortal city. They thought the Hierarchs would kill all the mortals and then leave, and then they would live wherever they wanted.”
Cimeri nodded in troubled confirmation. She had difficulty speaking, and sometimes hesitated when forming signs inWitchspeak, though she clearly understood it, Imperial, Saredi, and some Arike. Raihar had explained that it was nothing the dustwitches had done to her; it was something that had been with her since she was a child. Cimeri said, “Hoping. It would happen.”
There was silence as they all took that in. Bashasa let out his breath. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“I can.” Kai kept his voice even, not wanting to frighten anyone. “What kind of sense does that make? At what point is that even a vaguely sensible thing to think?”
“Because you are practical, and have not a trace of the fanatic within you,” Bashasa told him. “I have the fanatic in me, though I keep it tightly under control. But it is how I recognize the failing in others.”
Kai frowned, and resisted the impulse to glance around to make sure he wasn’t the only one who was somewhat shocked by this admission. He said, “Are the Hierarchs fanatics?”
