The Colors of Magic Anthology

Dark Water

Tayva walked from the stone hut, the morning crisp and cool with a light dusting of dew. She stretched her back and heard the creak of aging bones and poor bedding. She called over her shoulder in a raspy voice that had begun to shrill with age. "Loria, I'm going to check the birds. "

Usually Tayva checked the pigeons later in the morning, but some of the caged birds had looked unwell the day before. She coughed in the cool air as she tried to clear the dust and smoke of the night's fire from her throat. Nerving herself to face the day, and unwrapping the greasy shawl from her shoulders, Tayva threw it into the dark doorway behind her. She just missed tangling the feet of her cousin.

Loria exited and tilted her face to the sun burning through the morning haze. Her features were finer and more delicate than those of Tayva. She wore dull rags, but they hung neatly, and while patches and crude stitching formed most of the smock, there were no actual holes. She held a wooden comb in her left hand and rubbed her eyes. Turning back to the hut, she picked up a crude bucket with her free hand.

The hut the two women exited was small and poorly thatched. The walls were of irregular rocks and turf the pair had cut years before, while the smoke from the stoked fire oozed through the roof. The dry weather had allowed repairs to the roof and walls to be delayed, and it appeared more ruin than residence. The hovel lay on the shore of a new lake, the water clear and cold in the morning light. The doorway looked out at bare and eroded hills in the distance rather than the water close at hand. The cousins cared little for what they saw.

Tayva walked to the back of the hut, as Loria continued to the lake edge and filled the bucket with water. She began wetting and combing her hair to look her best for the coming day. Tayva sighed as she considered how pathetic Loria's morning routine appeared, the careful and complete beauty preparations of their youth reduced to a soapless wash in cold water.

Tayva moved to the dovecot set behind the hut. The building was backed with carefully cut and fitted stone, and the roof and three of the walls were a woven lattice of wicker and pieces of wood. The wood was in the form of barrel staves, bought at great cost for two poverty-stricken women. The cot, though weathered and aged, was far better than the near ruin the women inhabited.

Tayva swept the ground with her eyes as she stood by the cot. As carefully maintained and constructed as the building was, she still feared it would be raided, but as usual, there were no tracks other than her own. She opened the door and quickly stepped through to prevent any birds from exiting.

The pigeons nested in open racks and wicker cages. The birds were quiet. She could hear only soft cooing and the occasional movement. Usually, when she renewed the feed dispenser, a swirl of birds would envelop her, but now she radiated stillness. The birds looked at her without expectation. Tayva peered through the dappled light and saw that one of the pigeons had died in the night. She immediately took the small cage from its mounting and carried it to the entrance of the cot. There, by the door, stood a small barrel of feed and behind it a pottery vessel of herbal oil. A large crock of the oil rested behind the back wall of the dovecot, but she kept a smaller vessel inside for quick use. Gathering up the bottle and two basketlike cages, she returned to where the dead bird lay.

Tayva poured the herbal oil over the straw and hay on the floor of the cot and doused the hook from which the cage had hung. The oil was to control and cloak whatever disease might have killed the bird. Then with tender hands she gathered immediate members of its brood and gently transferred the torpid birds to the traveling cages. She could identify the family relationship among the birds with the same surety that, in decades past, she would have known the names and particulars of her own social circle. She passed the baskets and the dead bird out of the cot and took them behind the stone backing of the building. Kneeling by the large crock, she removed the cap and brought out the dead pigeon-a male in the prime of life when it died-and immersed it in the oil. She began to croon strange off-key melodies. Her care in rubbing the oil into all the feathers of the bird, and her odd reverence, would not have been out of place in the internment of a king.

After its oil bath, Tayva carried the avian corpse and the baskets of pigeons to the slough only a hundred feet away. An offshoot of the lake, the slough was an aberration in the surrounding country. A pustulant green in the surrounding pastels, it drew and fascinated the eye. Nothing disturbed its surface, and no insects flew over its stagnant waters. She arranged the cages around a patch of packed earth and placed the live birds near the water. The dead bird she lifted from the cage and carefully positioned it to form the tip of a triangle in relation to the live birds, the point facing away from the water. Tayva stooped and cupped a handful of water from the slough, then straightened with difficulty and poured it over the still bird. The water left a coating of decay on her hand, and only with conscious effort did she refrain from wiping it clean. Drawing a single deep breath, she knelt at the edge of the water with eyes closed. Her tension and breath eased out of her in a sustained exhalation until she slumped forward, totally empty. Suddenly Tayva's head snapped back and tremors rippled along her body. A grimace swept her visage, emotions unknown and incomprehensible trying to express themselves. Her hands jerked and pawed at her sides. The birds called in fear and tried to flee. When Tayva's hands finally grasped the baskets the birds attacked her fingers. Any pain she might have felt was swept away by something else as she lifted the birds over the still water and then plunged them through the surface. The cages submerged only halfway, slowed by strange wiry plants hidden in the water. A blast of stench came from the disturbed water that blinded Tayva and tears poured from her eyes. The birds beat the water with their wings and pecked at Tayva, the wickerwork, each other, and even the water. But their movements grew more feeble by the second, and Tayva kept pushing the baskets down. The pigeons were laboring and dying, pulled down one by one, as if some small animal was inside the basket with them. Tayva forced one cage beneath the surface completely and had to use both hands to push the other down. Only one bird was left. It attacked her fingers as she forced her hands below the roiled surface. She nearly fell in as more tremors shook her and then sat back on her heels hard. She shuddered and shook her head as though dislodging flies. Tayva heard the rustle of damp feathers behind her. The dead bird preened itself and looked at the small of her back with one dull eye. A great slow smile spread over her face, and she clasped her bleeding, scarred hands together and groaned with pleasure and remembrance of better days.

Tayva and Loria reclined on cushions piled along the walls. Though the room was in a basement, it had been carefully decorated to suggest freedom. The walls and ceilings were covered in swathes of cloth that gave the room the appearance of a great tent. A thick layer of sand covered what should have been a muddy floor, and good drainage kept it dry. Vents from a holocaust drove a continuous stream of hot air over everything. Despite the warmth, braziers sat in every corner burning great blocks of incense, throwing streamers of smoke through the air. Loria and Tayva took no notice of their surroundings. Their eyes were steady on the woman in the center of the room.

She was old and worn, her dress that of a household servant. Her eyes were wide and staring into oblivion. She stood upright, but her head moved in an irregular circle as she swayed.

"Come in, Uncle Brucius," Loria called. Tayva and Loria both wore flowing clothes that matched the cushions on which they reclined. The man pushing through the hanging cloth missed them initially because they blended so well with their habitat. He rubbed his arms vigorously when inside, as though scraping away webbing.

"This is ridiculous. Why have I been kept waiting? You should have greeted me the moment I arrived." His upper body was covered by goose bumps, and he masked his disquiet with offended dignity. "And why are we meeting down here? You should receive your guests properly." He turned to look for a seat, but no chairs were set for him, and he found the notion of reclining on the floor like his nieces distasteful. He elected to stand over them.

"May we ask why you are here today, Uncle?" Loria questioned, tilting her head only enough to keep him in the corner of her eye.

"You know very well why. I've come to talk some sense into you. I can't imagine why no one else in the family hasn't done so!" Brucius's arms waved and punched to lend emphasis to his diatribe. "Have this woman dismiss herself immediately!"

"You have always lacked imagination, Uncle," Loria, replied. "Surely you recognize old Tomaya. She has been a nurse to two generations of our family. She's practically family herself." Through all this Tomaya swayed and stared at nothing.

Brucius was livid that his orders should be refused and that he was considered related to a servant. He roughly grasped the old woman's shoulder and hurled her to the side. She fell like a tree and made no attempt to catch herself.

"I have helped keep this family great when other families and nations have fallen to advancing glaciers. You are an investment in the future, Loria, and I won't have you destroying your value in the company of this spinster! You will leave this house." He turned to Tayva. This girl was dark and cold in a land where those qualities were abundant, and she had enjoyed few suitors. "You will turn control of this house to me!" he began to storm, but the words crashed against something in his throat.

Tayva was a placid pool except for one hand that trembled with tension. Brucius felt that tension on his throat and was frozen. He could not even struggle to continue. Tayva held him with something much stronger than just her hand. He stared out of a body that was completely severed from him. He could hear Loria rising behind him, and she whispered in his ear.

"You seem, very quiet, Uncle. Did you run out of orders to give?" Loria dragged one fingertip down his neck, and it burned. But even a whimper was beyond him. "You cannot command us. No one can command us. We are greater than you. We are greater than anyone!"

Loria moved into the corner of his vision, and her face shook with intensity. "Show him, Tayva, why no one gives us orders."

Tayva raised both hands. Brucius turned a half step and saw old Tomaya standing up, still looking at nothing, with a knife in her hands. His throat was not blocked anymore, and he cried out.

"Stop! Don't hurt me! I'll do anything!" He was gasping for breath, and he tried to run without result.

Tomaya raised the knife and stepped within a single pace of him. Her eyes finally seemed to focus, and she looked into his. Tomaya spoke, but her voice was young. Brucius recognized it as Tayva's.

"Loria was right. You have no imagination at all." Tomaya raised the knife to her own wrinkled neck and cut a wide, red smile. Brucius screamed anew as Tomaya stood, looking in his eyes, blood pouring down her body.

Suddenly Brucius felt relief as Tayva's grip on him loosened and he was given back control of his frame. Tomaya collapsed, and he ran from the room. The crash of furniture overturned by his flight faded only when he reached the outside door.

Both cousins had fallen at the same time as the corpse of Tomaya. Loria was the first to stand, despite the pain that knotted her muscles.

"By the gods, why did you do that, Tayva?" she demanded as she reached desperately for wine to dull her pain. "We weren't nearly done with Uncle. And why did you let Tomaya expire so soon?"

"I didn't allow anything to happen!" Tayva exclaimed as she too rose and reached for wine. She was even more unsteady than her cousin, and she cursed the decision that left this room without any chairs. "I don't know what happened!"

More screams sounded throughout the house. Tayva reached down to Tomaya's cooling body and wrenched the knife from her dead hand. Loria squared her shoulders and gestured to the open door.

"We need to find out what is happening. Ebnezzer should still be in the west wing." The pair climbed a wooden stairway up into the rest of the house.

Ebnezzer had appeared as a refugee from some mysterious struggle in the south. He had been destitute and in dire need of a patron. Tayva had been delighted to provide him with the use of her own home. He became her tutor in the arts of sacrifice and control. Within a year the bored elite of the city had congealed around Tayva and Ebnezzer. Things were done in the night that soon had the city whispering, rites that turned most away except for a core of true devotees.

Tayva had inducted Loria into this dark world. The cousins gained power that freed them from any need to conform or obey the rules of society or their families.

Soon they dominated the group, and most of their compatriots in darkness had been sacrificed to feed their hunger for power. Loria ignored her branch of the family and moved in with her older cousin.

If a servant vanished, well, times were hard and uncertain. Surely things whispered in terror of night could not happen when considered in daylight. Tayva and Loria reveled in their abilities. Now they wanted answers about what curbed their power.

It was madness they saw as they moved to the west wing. Bodies of servants, formerly under control, sprawled over the floors, some in repose of death while others writhed in mindless agony. A young maid, a recent victim grasped within the past month, ran in circles in the center of the sitting room. At the sight of the cousins her orbit contracted, and she moved to the back of the room as if driven by the wind. Her impact with a cabinet smashed wood, and she fell, a broken bag of bones.

Loria was attacked by a page as they traversed the main hall. The young boy had run at her with his arms flapping, an ungainly bird returning to the falconer. His hands were boneless flippers swatting at Loria while she covered her face with her arms. The boy whistled with relief as Tayva plunged her knife several times into his side.

Ebnezzer was mumbling and rocking when they forced his inner sanctum. Books and apparatus were piled high on tables throughout the room, and a dissecting tray held a large rat still leaking blood. Ebnezzer had obviously been interrupted in the practice of his craft. The aura of darkness and energy that had pervaded this room was replaced by the sour stench of suffering and death. Both cousins felt disgust that one whose power had so impressed them should be brought so low.

"What happened, Ebnezzer?" Loria demanded as she grasped the head of the kneeling man. Her hands felt a spark of something, and she shook him harder. "Why did we lose power? Why are the servants free!"

"Don't know, don't know. Felt some great power, swept me away. Swept it all away!" Ebnezzer tore his head free and began to sob and wail.

Tayva circled the room, examining what her mentor had brought into the house. Anything that was valuable and easy to sell she fingered with a speculative air. "Ask him if the power will return," she urged her cousin. "Ask him what he can do."

Loria stooped beside him and spoke with more urgency as she realized that her victims were free and that Uncle Brucius had escaped with his mind nearly intact.

"Do you have anything left? Any spirit to call on? Will our powers ever reappear?" Each question caused Ebnezzer to shiver, and Loria felt hope slide away.

"What I knew is gone. I don't know when or if anything will return. I tasted a spirit before it was torn away. I've got it in my mouth, and it sings to me. It's singing now," he muttered and stared blankly at the floor.

Tayva looked to Loria, crouching with her hands on a madman, and clapped softly to gain her attention.

"What now?" Tayva asked.

Loria took only seconds to decide.

"We can't stay in the city. The family will have to give us up after what Uncle saw. I don't know if we'll ever get back what we lost. Ebnezzer is useless. Something is in him, but we might never extract it." Loria gestured to the contents of the room. "Find whatever is of value. Pack it up quickly. We must be on the road within the hour. I'll return to our rooms and get our valuables and some traveling clothes." Loria rose to her feet and trotted to their quarters.

Tayva was alone with the madman. She already knew what she would take, but she walked slowly over to the oblivious sorcerer and laid her hand as if in benediction on the brow of her former mentor.

The cousins fled the city into a sudden thaw. The roads were mud, and their spirits fell even as a few of their victims recovered and roused the city behind them. Tayva and Loria fled north with the head of Ebnezzer rotting in a leather bag at the bottom of their luggage.

Loria cursed quietly and continually as she knelt in the mire of the lake edge looking for tubers. The lake was clear and sandy bottomed for most of its bank, but into one pocket at the edge glacial action had pushed topsoil. Similar pockets of dirt were deposited all over the country, but most were barren and gullied by spring rains. Plants had grown in this hollow during the late summer and fall. Changed by events that shook the world twenty years before, it had adapted to the inundation of spring. The dense roots and tubers were hard as seasoned wood, and when water came, they protected themselves from rot with the excretion of slime and a network of thin frothy rootlets.

Standing barelegged in the cold water, Loria was digging tubers that felt like stones and smelled like wet manure.

Tayva was visible in the distance as Loria stood erect to throw the roots up on the shore. The older woman was returning with the basket she had hauled to the coal pit. The walk was over broken gullies, but it had the advantage of warming limbs that would be numb with cold from standing in the water. Loria was cold and miserable and hated Tayva with the feeble ferocity that the miserable have. Tayva stumbled and dragged the basket through the dirt, caking the filthy cane-work with more gobs of crumbly mud.

"Keep it out of the dirt, Tayva." Loria still had the energy to carp at her cousin. "I'm not going to help or wait for you if you muck that up."

Tayva's response was an obscene gesture that did more to show her lack of energy than her irritation with her cousin.

Loria stooped down and tried her best to wash her hands and legs clean. At best, she would get most of the muck off, but would soon replace it with dust from the path to the brewing site.

Tayva arrived and began filling the basket with the nodules. "I'm getting tired of doing this," she remarked and then hurled one root as hard as she could into the basket. The only result was a dull thud. Tayva knotted her fists and then opened them in exaggerated relaxation.

"We were both meant for better things, but what power we have is here," Loria responded. She kicked the basket in resignation and sighed as it flopped over into the wet soil. She bent over and swore again as her back protested. Tayva tried to rest by levering her arms against her legs, but found no comfort. She watched her cousin pawing at the ground like a tired, ineffectual animal.

Loria stood up and saw Tayva's look of faint disgust. She also noticed a figure coming along the lakeside trail.

The cousins straightened and tried to assume a veneer of amity. It was a poor showing, but the quality of their approaching audience alleviated the need for a fine performance.

Winton was his name. He was hunter of waterfowl, who tramped though the network of lakes and streams that crisscrossed the raw landscape. He had an eager expression on his coarse, full features as he recognized the cousins. Tayva was older, grayer, and filthy in her dress of poorly cured hide. Loria was the better-looking of the pair and well groomed for someone working in the water and the mud. Winton knew them only as the authors of a brew made from the stinking nodules they were gathering, a brew known for its savage potency and almost lethal hangovers. His eagerness faded as he hit the fetid air from the raw roots.

"Quite a smell, neighbor," he called. "Hard to imagine you make your ambrosia from that refuse." Winton kept his distance but tried to be as friendly as possible. He shifted on his feet, and the two small bolas strung through his belt clacked against each other.

The man hunted waterfowl for money. He was a dab hand with a sling, but his bolas were surer weapons in uncertain light. He cast them as the birds startled and then sold the ones he caught on the road the next day. The sling and stones at the back of his belt he used against rabbits and targets in trees. He was an old and eager customer for the cousins' brew.

"I wouldn't mind trading for a pot of comfort, " he said, clasping a hand to the brightly dyed bolas, the stones red, blue, and green. "Three birds or five rabbits, delivered to your door. "

Tayva drew a breath to bargain, but Loria preempted her. "I hope that you will accept a pot as a gift," she drawled and reached toward Winton with open hands. She tried to sound seductive, but her breathless delivery to one she considered a clod sounded silly to her cousin's ears. "Bring a brace of whatever you have to our hut tonight, and we'll celebrate together. "

Winton looked puzzled. "What holiday is this?" he asked. Living alone he often lost track of time.

"We are celebrating being alive," Loria replied. She tried for a sultry air but achieved only petulance. Tayva coughed to cover a mean-spirited sneer.

But Winton saw everything through a veil of loneliness, and any indication of interest was enough to set the hook.

"I will return tonight, my dear, " he said, as he turned and dramatically bounded a few steps before settling into his characteristic slouch. Loria motioned for silence until he was out of hearing. Tayva complied and then policed the area, gathering their rude tools.

"Cousin, you had better practice deception more often. You were painfully insincere," Tayva chided. She hoisted the basket and motioned with her chin that Loria was to set it on her back.

"He's coming, isn't he? He'll be panting when he shows up, too." Loria settled the straps to minimize the chance of blisters or welts.

"So what are we going to do with him?" asked Tayva.

"Aren't you feeling tired? We're going to kill him, of course." And with that, Loria started out to the hills with her cousin matter-of-factly falling in behind her.

"Kill him. Yes. But where and how to use the death?" Tayva inquired, but she stumbled and caught her balance with difficulty, then continued, "Destroy his mind and use him up here? Corrupt his spirit and send him out for revenge?"

The path was broader now and showed hard work on the part of someone. Rock steps had been built on a few of the steeper parts of the trail with bushes planted strategically to cover the improvements. The path dropped through a cut to screen walkers from observation.

The cousins arrived at the brewing pits, depressions backed to a hillside. Surrounded by brush, the place was distant from their hut but close to a seam of dirty brown coal that broke to the surface like a great whale. Tayva levered chunks and slabs into a basket. Then, with Loria at the other side, she walked it to the fire where rocks heaped in the coals served as heating stones.

Loria gestured around the site as Tayva threw more coal onto the fire. "That tinker from the road, we got three weeks of labor out of him."

The improvements on the path, the deeper pits that held the brewing equipment, had all been done by a traveler the pair had caught on the main road.

"We could use Winton to expand here. Maybe he could drive the well deeper. We had to bury the tinker too soon to do a decent job."

Tayva was now moving more rocks into the pit to heat. The tinker's corpse lay buried under the fire pit and was baked by the flames above. Tayva used a great pair of tongs to lift rocks already heated into one of a trio of dug-out logs hauled a long distance from their felling place. The heat was boiling the collected roots to remove the watertight covering of slime. That covering, besides being unpalatable, was poisonous and would kill the customers too fast if allowed to remain. Loria went to the shallow well and drew a bucket of water. She dumped it into the log and watched the run-off of poison flow down a sandy ditch the tinker had dug.

Tayva had finished transferring the heated stones and stood leaning on the tongs. "It would be nice to have someone else to do the scut work up here. Our energy is low, and there are my flocks of birds to sustain. Each bird I make takes more power, and the rush is less. We feed the water, or we'll have trouble."

When they had arrived years before, Ebnezzer's head had gone into the water behind the hut. Rotting away, the head had released the spirit that gave them a taste of true power and glory again. But the harder they worked the spirit, the more it demanded. Settling waterfowl were sucked beneath the waters, even though the cousins did nothing. Better prey was required on occasion.

"We need a death, but how to kill him?" Tayva asked as she went to the second dug-out log. It was empty, a basket of roots beside it. The roots had been steeped and heated so long they were comparatively soft. A tall, hollow stump wrapped in wire served the companions as a mortar as they ground the root to pulp.

"Knifing him is too messy," Loria stated as she motioned Tayva to help her lift a metal-tipped section of log. The dead tinker had molded the metal to the wood. The metal had come from one of the killing machines of Mishra, and Loria found it ironic that such a piece of dark history should continue to be used in the creation of death and deception. The log was their pestle, and both gripped the handle pegs in unison, lofting it and letting its weight and narrow point crush the roots inside the hollow stump.

"Beating him to death is too much like work," Tayva voiced in time to their work.

"We could smother him when he's drunk," Loria replied as she bent to remove pulp and add more roots. The toxic brew not only made murder easier, but its trade brought needed money as well as the joy of knowing that people were dying from its cumulatively lethal effects.

"Tedious waiting for him to pass out. Besides, we need him in the water," Tayva said. "I'm not going to carry him." She threw dead flowers into the second log; their decay and seeds would start the brewing process and add a narcotic kick.

"It is accidental drowning while drunk then." Loria crossed to the third log and examined the mixture. It was nearing completion. Just one more step before straining and bottling. "It's ready for the special spice."

Tayva chuckled in amusement as she walked to the sealed pot she had brought from home. Opening it, she looked down at a rotted bird. Its eyes were fallen in, and its feathers and flesh were tattered shreds. The bottom of the pot was swimming in preserving oil, but the blast of odor was a wet slap in the face, even in the already choked and polluted air. The bird twisted and tried to stand but could not on its broken legs; it was one of Tayva's spies who had decayed too much to be of any use. Tayva took the body in her hands and shuffled back to the third log. She knelt in the mud, squelching in the foul overflow from the brewing process. Her hands slowly juggled the pigeon as its liquefying flesh threatened to come apart in her hand. She cleared her mind and focused on the dank water behind their hut. She could feel its uncertain currents and taste it in her mind. The real world faded into her vision as her hands contracted into fists with a wet pop. She breathed foulness and dreamed.

When she came to herself, Loria was straining the now loathsome contents of the third log into a series of cheap pots. Tayva's arms were black with gore to the elbows, and she was lying in mud and toxic runoff. The roots, in their various stages of brewing, smelled like a rendering plant, and a haze of choking smoke from the burning coal settled over everything. It was beautiful.

Winton whistled as he picked his way to the cousins' house. He had slept through the late afternoon, as was his habit, and hunted birds in the early evening since the birds settled and were easier targets in early morning and at twilight. He had caught two waterfowl in quick succession. His casts had startled the birds in shallow water, and he had wrapped up a pair of birds in the small bolas. The third bird was a large crane of some sort. That one had almost flown away with his bola before Winton crashed through the reeds and wrung its neck. It was large and beautiful, and Winton believed he was carrying good luck to Tayva and Loria's hut.

The only sour note of the day had been his last cast. He had missed the bird completely and heard a loud crack immediately thereafter. He had searched through the water for the bright color of the bolas. One weight had broken on a lake rock and was throwing the balance of the weapon off.

That stroke of bad luck was lost in the canvas of fantasy he painted in his mind: the mighty hunter returning to his adoring women, the meat he had brought down buying their adulation and respect. It was such a pretty picture that he imagined Loria's poor acting as merely barely suppressed passion.

"Yes, " he said aloud to the world. "That one is yours for the taking. Just a dash of charm and then Tayva will love you as well. " He distracted himself with romantic delusions as he tramped through the twilight and saw the full moon rising over the horizon.

He could see the hut and the flickering light of a candle through the open door, a good trade candle instead of firelight or homemade fat lamps. He felt himself a noble guest at the sight of this extravagance.

He announced his arrival with a shout and strode to the door. "Here I am, ladies. With this feast and my company, we'll have fine dining." He stood proud in his stained and odorous clothes. His legs from the knees down were spattered with mud, and his shirt was wet with sweat and water from the birds he had killed. He hauled his catch over his shoulder and handed it to Tayva, looking past her to find Loria.

Loria was dressed in her best. Her clothes were patched with cloth of nearly the same color as the original fabric. Loria had groomed carefully. Her hair was the cleanest thing in the room.

"Thank you for your contribution, sir. Come have a cup, and tell us the news," Loria replied grandly.

Meanwhile Tayva was examining Winton's prize crane. She saw a bird with mud in its feathers and malformed legs.

She plucked it and sectioned it, placing gobs of meat on a skewer over the fire. Her dress, irregularly patched but well-fitting, was dyed carefully and was of one color. Unfortunately, that color was a muddy gray-green that vanished into the background. Each time she returned to the conversation, she noticed Winton was more puffed up and boastful than before.

Winton was perched on a stool and hunched over the table. The poor state of the furniture gave his self-important dialog a nervous edge as he tried surreptitiously to keep weight off the stool. When his elbows left the table in an extravagant gesture he hurriedly put them back down.

"The mayor of Cade himself asked me for news of the road. Wanted to know if I'd heard anything about the unrest down south. I get all the news on the road," Winton said as he picked at the gob of meat Tayva had placed before him. Cade was the smallest settlement Tayva knew of that actually had a name. Only one ignorant of the world found it of any note.

"And what did you tell him?" Loria asked as she gave him another full glass of brew and a wink. She was stoking him as she would stoke the dinner fire, slowly feeding it until it was just right. Winton took a large gulp of brew. It was rough as a cob and strong as a winter storm, but the best that he had ever tasted.

"I told him of troubles all through the south. All you hear are tales of marching and treasure."

Loria listened with some interest. Even a blind guide will sometimes find the trail, she thought.

"You hear so many things, but I am hungry. How about some more meat?" Winton was feeling lightheaded. Maybe a fuller stomach would anchor him.

Tayva had been basting and seasoning meat from Winton's crane. Finally the meat was cooked to her satisfaction.

Winton ate everything set before him. The skewers of crane meat went to his plate alone, and he never thought to share. Loria pressed him with strong drink, but in truth, she was hard put to keep his cup full. Tayva watched and said nothing.

"I heard that the ice fields are still retreating to the north. We live in a better world every day!" Winton proclaimed. The cousins thought of the luxury and power that they had enjoyed years before and were silent.

The women ate from one of the waterfowl and only moistened their lips as Winton downed great draughts of liquor. He was a bore and a glutton, but no expression of displeasure ever crossed their faces. The birdcatcher was finally in such a state that Loria decided it was time.

Winton cleared the table of its food and sat blearily looking at the cousins. "What now?" he asked and let go a great belch.

"Why, let's go fishing," Loria said brightly and winked at the drunken man.

"Why, what a marvelous idea!" Winton exclaimed and rose to his feet. He thrust himself up, using his hands against the table. The cups and clay plates slid to the floor, but he was too drunk to notice.

"Take my hand, Winton," Loria simpered, and he reached for it as she retreated through the door. Tayva had to hold his shoulder to steer him from the hut.

Winton stumbled as he was led out into the night. The moon was bright, but the landscape lacked detail to catch the eye. The dovecot was a den of darkness, and the slough was a meadow in the background.

"Come, Winton. Night fishing is fun. We've caught many in the night," Loria claimed coquettishly. She was ghostly in the moonlight, drawing him after her with her voice. Tayva was holding his right arm, keeping him oriented toward Loria. Tayva's feet instinctively drifted to the center of the narrow path, and Winton began to trip and lurch as he was forced to the side.

Winton's mind was cloudy, and he wondered if this was still a romantic game being played by the cousins. The dovecot was a mass of darkness, and Winton shook his head in its dark shadow.

"And how do you catch them?" he joked. "With clever lines?" Winton was breathing deeply and leaned on the woven lattice of wood and wicker. It groaned loudly, and the pigeons called briefly at the noise. Tayva dragged him on by his right arm.

"With this. We spear them." Tayva brandished a large skewer with a great barbed point with her free arm. Winton thought it a hilarious prop, for it was too short to be an effective spear. He giggled and stumbled even more. Loria drifted closer as Winton laughed and lurched against Tayva.

"I'll fish out the lake!" he boasted and listed so heavily that Loria had to slip under his left arm to keep him walking.

The cousins pushed from either side to quicken the pace. They were almost to the water of the slough, and both were running out of patience. Winton tried to grab the barb from Tayva.

"Give it to me, and I'll show you how to use it."

"You'll get it," Tayva stated and slipped beneath his arm and behind him. To Winton's sight she had disappeared, and he began to grope Loria in the belief that they were alone.

They stepped into the water, and its chill and sudden foul odor shocked him. The bottom mud and weeds clung to him even as Loria led him deeper into the water with great splashes. His head began to clear as the stench crowded out the drunkenness.

"Far enough, " Loria said in a cold voice, and she ducked out of his arms. The ripples from his clumsiness stopped, and still water converged on him. Tayva kicked behind Winton's knees, and he fell face first into the water.

Winton tried to break his fall but hit the water with a loud slap. His lungs emptied from the force of his fall, and he panicked as his hands were caught in the treacherous mud. The water was relatively shallow, but Winton couldn't free himself. By arching his back he could keep his head above the water. He began rocking violently from side to side. Each motion enveloped him in even more foulness, and he was nearly blind in the polluted air. Loria was kneeling in the water to his side. Her hands held flat to the surface of the slough, and water roiled beneath them. Winton's struggle irritated her. She looked on the gasping hunter with disgust.

"Tayva, " Loria commanded, and Winton felt a great weight between his shoulders. Each time his head broke water, Tayva forced it back down beneath the surface. Now Winton could not lift his head at all. His struggles peaked, and then he moved no more. Liquid forced itself into his mouth, nose, and down into his lungs. Everything in his body-energy, will, courage-everything but awareness, drained into the water. It crushed him, and when nothing more could be squeezed out, he floated to the top.

"Tayva, finish him up and put him in a deep spot. " Loria sounded tired but replete, as if a fine dessert had been devoured. She stood and teetered as drunkenly as Winton had minutes before, then retreated to the hut.

Winton felt pressure and tearing as Tayva forced him to deeper water. She ran the skewer through his chest and abdomen.

Loria returned from the house, still weaving from the aftermath of what they had done. She carried Winton's bolas wrapped over one arm and a stack of dirty crockery.

"We need to erase any sign that he was here tonight. Scrub these clean after we finish up here," Loria directed as she set the dishes down on the ground.

Tayva only grunted and pierced the hunter through one final time. They wrapped the bolas over his wrists and then turned him face up. Water and scum oozed down his countenance, and one last bit of air burbled out his lips. The cousins were waist-deep in the water, and the slough was growing icy cold.

Tayva's teeth were chattering, and she muttered peevishly, "Why did you get the best part?"

Loria laughed. "You can still get the last taste. I received enough for now."

They both trailed their hands down his legs to his feet and began the last ritual.

"Hold him," they chanted and forced his legs to the bottom. The dead limbs caught, and the mud began to pull him down.

"Devour him," Tayva crooned as only Winton's head showed above the surface. "Obliterate him!" she finished and felt a rush of warmth course through her. Whatever remained of Winton vanished beneath the water.

The next day the cousins rested. They were sated with power and dreams, gravid with desires and dark hungers. They accomplished nothing till late evening when Loria broke the contented silence that surrounded them.

"Do you think there is more unrest in the south than usual? It has been so long since we really paid much attention. Maybe that fool hunter said something sensible before he died." Loria stretched out her legs, reveling in the suppleness that Winton's death had girted her.

"I could call in the flocks," Tayva replied, "but we would need them all to get a clear picture."

The dead pigeons that she sent out into the world were excellent spies and recorders of events, but they did not return unless called. The act of hearing their reports destroyed every trace of power left in their corpses, and Tayva then had to create more spies from her limited stock of birds. Each spy cost the sacrifice of several pigeons, so Tayva rarely called in her creatures. Often, little more than tattered skeletons answered her call.

"Why we should listen to the words of an idiot escapes me." Tayva was too content to contemplate action.

"Because I feel ambitious. Disaster and fighting breed opportunity," Loria replied. She was restless and nearly danced with suppressed energy. "Call in everything. Something wonderful is happening! I know it!"

Tayva reluctantly acquiesced and walked to the dovecot. Loria's enthusiasm did not fire her, but there might be profit in a new course of action. Calling in her birds was easy enough and no great sacrifice.

Tayva entered the cot and looked over her flock. She knew exactly which bird to use. The pigeon was the one most closely related to all she had sent out, and blood calls to blood. She saw it in a corner cage and softly grasped it in her hands. At first unsettled, the bird soon calmed and began to coo. Tayva carefully exited the cot and turned to the slough. The bird was completely lulled when she approached the dank water. A knife she brought from the house darted to the bird, and its blood covered her hand. She dropped the knife in the dust and squeezed all she could from the small body. She flung one cupped palm to the sky and shrieked as a bird. The blood from her hand arced high and fell as uneven rain over the foul water. The surface frothed and then settled with the red droplets vanishing into the depths.

Though the imperative went out that instant, the birds would not wing home until night. Carrion birds knew they were dead, and flights of crows would fall upon the rotten flesh if the spies flew by day.

Tayva returned and sat at their small table. "They are coming, but I don't know how we'll replace them all."

Loria finished the last of the meat from their murderous feast the night before. "Set nets and lime and use flocks of wild birds. Our power can stretch farther now. It is time to forego the ties of blood and relation." She nibbled at the greasy meat delicately, her daintiness out of place in the polluted and narrow hut. "It's time for bigger and bolder actions. We're moldering away in this sty." She kicked spitefully at the crude furniture.

"Remember our former house? Queens of creation we were. And the freedom! Servants to dispose of the mess and find new subjects. Only the best and richest victims to share. Those were grand times. We've grown too small to remember them." Loria looked into the more prosperous past and ached with longing.

The two cousins wove nightmares of the past and future and delighted in their darkness.

"Well, what do you hear?" Loria asked as she rubbed her hands to hide her excitement.

Tayva worked behind the stone wall of the dovecot and tilted her head into a gust of clean air. The shade of the cot and the proximity to the water should have made her comfortable, but her work prevented much relief. The birds had returned during the night, and Tayva had been taking their reports most of the day. The heat and proximity of so many animated rotting bodies created a cloud of stench that nearly drove her to distraction. Loria had walked on the lakeshore, wrapped in dreams of good fortune while Tayva completed the filthy work. She was also tired from having to soothe the living birds. The dead pigeons had settled in baskets and crates set around the dovecot, the focus of their former lives. The return of their dead relatives brought the living birds no joy. The pigeons had finally settled in exhaustion, and Tayva knew stress would kill several more before the end of the day.

"Interesting news," Tayva finally replied to Loria's query. "Winton was right. The south is wracked by plague that is spreading like wildfire! The druids can't touch it, and the leaders are desperate." Tayva called another pigeon and watched it fly from the group concealed in an overturned basket. She had separated the arrivals into several groups and was processing them.

The pigeon had no eyes, but it still regarded Tayva and Loria intently, shifting its stance as its focus changed from one to the other. Tayva riveted its attention as she set her shoulders and raised her arms. One hand pointed at the bird, and the other reached for the slough. The pigeon's flesh corrupted and liquefied in an instant, and all it had known since its rebirth slammed into Tayva's mind.

Loria ignored her cousin. The morning had gone, and she had seen the ceremony too many times. She poured the last of the herbal oil over the dissolving bones, throwing handfuls of gray ash over it. The resulting cloud covered the whole back of the cot and a large circle of ground. Loria choked until it cleared, but Tayva sat and digested what she had learned in perfect stillness.

"It's a treasure hunt, " she said abruptly. "There are rumors of secreted power. The birds saw armies marching in search of it, and this one even saw a map purporting to give its location. Power is just sitting there while collections of timid fools wait for orders. This is something we could grasp for ourselves!" Tayva spoke with rising excitement, and her gestures became broader. The prospect of power washed the surrounding filth from her mind.

Loria listened. "We'll beat them to it. True power. No more birds or simpering plots. To be done with isolation at last!" She was exultant, but her near shout of joy tweaked her bones with pain, and she thought of what travel would mean. She rose and walked to the hut.

"No security. No sacrifices for power. Nothing I can't carry with me," Loria muttered and looked around. The hut was rude, and all the decent things had disappeared long ago. There was a small amount of coin-carefully gathered from successful victims-but little else of value. Loria went to the side of the doorjamb and dug their cash from the hiding place, a pot sealed in the rammed earth floor. The bag was distressingly light. She watched her cousin checking the pigeons and saw an old woman who would lend little to the journey and split resources. So many had died at her hands. The choice wasn't hard.

"Tayva, kill the best birds and bring them for pies," she shouted. "We're leaving tomorrow, and we'll have the best before we go." She turned to begin making crusts and plans for the dinner-and for tomorrow's lonely journey.

The meal that night was a success. The cousins took the last of the good wine from its hiding place and served in freshly washed cups. Loria had carefully "seasoned" the food and maintained a separation between what she and Tayva ate. Loria was the perfect hostess, fetching each course and topping each cup.

"I wonder how warm it is in the south. It's been so long since we left I can hardly remember how it was. Not that my memories will be of any use after twenty years of retreating ice," she said as she gave the last of the wine to Tayva and nudged the servings of food closer to her cousin.

Loria had never poisoned someone familiar with toxins and felt some trepidation. Each course, each utensil that Tayva used was lightly poisoned. If she grew suspicious and switched food or silverware with Loria, the plan would still go forward. Tayva's ingestion of many small doses of poison would have a fatal effect. The poison was distilled from the cousins' brew and was without taste. Eventually Tayva would fall under its influence and die.

Tayva grew steadily more passive, her mind wandering.

Loria decided to accelerate the process. "Have some brew, dear cousin, " she coaxed and poured the vintage that Winton had enjoyed into a brace of cups. "It's not good, but it is all we have for now. " She watched Tayva take the cup and drink deeply. Tayva motioned for more, but her eyes were dull in the evening light and her movements muted.

"Plenty more for us both, " Loria said expansively and filled Tayva's cup to the brim while ignoring her own. Tayva again drank deeply, and all signs of her intelligence faded away. Loria found the situation delicious.

"So sad that I-we are leaving tomorrow, " she said maliciously. "There were good times here. " She considered the squalor around her. "Well, not too good. " She reached to fill Tayva's cup, but she was thwarted by her cousin's uncoordinated attempt to pass it to her. It fell to the floor and broke. Tayva looked at the shards of pottery with an expression of deep grief.

Loria felt a thrill and flushed with wicked pleasure. It was time for the kill. She needed her cousin at the slough for maximum effect, and walking her there would be impossible if she ate or drank anything more. Tayva looked unfit to sit up, much less walk to her doom.

"Let's look on the water one last time," Loria cajoled. "Tomorrow we'll be gone and never see it again. We should say good-bye, after all."

Tayva nodded in blurry agreement and rose unsteadily. Loria rose and tottered to the door with feigned drunkenness. She had never acted so well.

The two women weaved and bumped down the path to the slough. Loria felt her gorge rise as they passed the dovecot and the stench of the decomposing pigeons. Tayva actually leaned against the stone wall and breathed deeply. Loria feared that her cousin might stop there, but Tayva collected herself and continued to the dark water.

The darkness of the night gathered in the foul water, and Loria worried that Tayva would become suspicious. The pair were moving slower and slower, and Tayva looked more focused and intent by the minute. Loria stopped to concentrate on the upcoming sacrifice, to commune with the spirit in the water but felt lightheaded and feverish with impatience. She could feel the stench streaming off the slough. The spirit was ready for the sacrifice. This was the moment of decision.

Loria lurched forward to push her cousin into the evil morass. She wailed in rage as she lost her footing and tumbled to the ground instead.

"This is no time for mistakes! Kill her!" she muttered angrily to herself.

Loria tried to push herself upright, but her arms wouldn't hold her, and she smacked into the ground. Her cry of anger turned to a ghastly moan as she spewed blood over the muddy bank of the slough.

Tayva straightened, and her eyes flashed in the dimming light. She stood over Loria, smiling, watching her companion cough up her life.

"Do you feel ill, Cousin?" she asked snidely. "I thought I ate all the poison." She laughed hard.

Loria spasmed as if punched.

"Do you think me as stupid as our victims? I knew you would try to kill me." Tayva chuckled and kicked her cousin in the side.

Loria convulsed briefly, and a fresh gout of blood trickled toward the water.

"The pigeons brought back more than news. They brought plague! One of them rolled in a corpse and brought it back. Contaminating the food was simple, a little dollop of power, and some of the live birds were infected. I nearly laughed when you were so careful to keep your food separate from mine." Tayva turned to the slough and breathed the fetid air deeply in preparation for her dark communion. She couldn't resist one more taunt.

"How did I avoid the poison? I swallowed it all. I just took care to swallow the last of the oil from the dovecot. It coated my stomach and intestines. Everything I ate is neutralized or will just pass through." Tayva looked at the water and saw the blood vanish below the surface. She could feel dark waves of evil flowing up the stream of blood to her cousin's body. Loria writhed weakly and died.

"Time to finish the sacrifice," Tayva gloated and stepped into the water.

"Yes, " whispered the spirit, and the surface broke in front of her.

It was Winton, and the water had not been kind. Withered eyes looked to her and flesh peeled off in great strips as he moved toward her. Tayva shrieked and turned to run. The water and mud gripped her legs, and her progress slowed as she moved to the shore, but she still had the strength and speed to outrun a dead man.

Tayva raced past her dead cousin, but Winton cast his bolas as he had a thousand times in life, and she fell hard. The bolas wrapped her legs, and she dragged herself forward with her hands, tearing them on the stony ground. She couldn't catch her breath and curled up in pain. She glanced back and saw Winton bending over Loria, his rotting hands tangled in Loria's blue dress as he dragged her into the shallows.

Even as she caught her breath she still crawled, moving toward the hut for a knife to free herself. By the time she reached the dovecot her legs were burning with such pain that she could only thrust her body into the dark interior in a futile attempt to hide.

She lay alone with the plague-ridden bodies of birds. She had killed everything in the ceremony to corrupt the pigeons she fed to Loria. Tayva touched her legs and cried out as she felt the barbs and jagged edges on the bolas that tied her limbs. She could smell her legs putrefying as poison and disease from the slough devoured her. She would never escape now.

Tayva wept. All the cousins had done and said was heard by something else. Their plans to leave were understood by what had escaped Ebnezzer's skull. The spirit of the water decided two sacrifices would serve it better.

Tayva clasped her hands to her head and tried to shut out reality. But even through her moans of pain she could hear unsteady footsteps. Winton's possessed and rotting body wove up the path. She tried to remember the prayers against the dead, but prayers were lost to her. She cursed the spirit, Loria, and herself as the door creaked open. Tayva remembered all the pigeons she had drowned over the years and shuddered as Winton began to drag her to the slough.

Blue

Blue, sometimes called the color of distinction, is characterized by calm hands and a reflective mind. A natural sedative, blue is the color of deliberation and introspection, conservatism and acceptance. Blue has almost universal appeal and is considered to be the most aesthetically appealing color. Blue is the color of respect and wisdom. But, those who lean toward blue sometimes use reason for selfish and self-justified purposes. It is the color of control and passive aggression as well as the color of the sea and the sky. Blue is for those contemplative people who exercise caution in words and actions and for those who always weigh the options.