Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (26 page)

But you can stay one night . . .

Upstairs and to the right.”

The giantess mother liked to drink.

More than she liked to eat.

That night she got drunk.

Paulus was worried she’d change her mind.

He crept to the left

and dressed all the giantess’ daughters

in his brothers’ clothing.

Sure enough, the giantess mother changed her mind.

In a drunken stupor,

thinking they were Paulus and his brothers,

she locked her own daughters out in the cold

and waited for Grimasca to come get them.

It took three days and three nights.

The giantess mother never stopped drinking.

When she heard beating on the door, she drank.

When she heard crying on the stoop, she drank.

Finally, the cries stopped.

The giantess mother stopped drinking.

She blinked. And saw Paulus and his brothers.

And she knew what she had done.

She nearly killed herself that night.

But Paulus stopped her.

“Give me all your gold,” he said,

“and I’ll bring one of them back.”

The giantess mother didn’t believe him.

But she had no choice.

She gave Paulus all her gold.

And Paulus left with his brothers.

The giantess mother was as lonely as ever.

In the city, Paulus’ father was as lonely as ever.

Paulus climbed a tall tree

And saw the crumbling walls.

He led his brothers home

And gave his father the gold.

His father rejoiced.

His brothers rejoiced.

And Paulus rejoiced.

But the next day he left.

He’d made a promise.

To return to the giantess mother.

Before Paulus left the crumbling walls,

he had one more thing to do.

Down the street was another family.

Grimasca was coming for them too.

This family had a mother, a father,

And a daughter, Paulina.

Paulus took Paulina.

And led her to the giantess mother.

And the giantess mother rejoiced.

The next spring, many new babies were born.

Paulina’s parents rejoiced.

And Paulus and Paulina rejoiced.

And Grimasca rejoiced.

Because he was coming for . . .

EVERYONE!

Once, long ago, there was a war. A terrible war.

The fields around a once great city died.

People grew hungry. Babies were born.

And Grimasca got fat.

Well, as Haljan bedtime stories went, this one was pretty typical, designed to ensure a plethora of nightmares. It was easy to imagine a mother reading her children this, and then, just at the line “EVERYONE!” scaring them half to death with a mock attack. I’d never heard it, but that didn’t mean anything. Our culture was rich in myths. There were likely a hundred different versions of this story and just as many names for Grimasca. The real question was whether Grimasca was real. Was he still living? And, if so, where?

The folktale itself seemed allegorical, rather than literal. The whole point of the story seemed to be that postwar famine killed indiscriminately. Paulus’ father deciding to let Grimasca have his boys was probably that character’s way of acknowledging he could no longer feed his sons. And the part of the story where Paulus’ father took the boys to the meadow definitely seemed to be a wish fulfillment fantasy. No poor New Babylonian family in the immediate post-Apocalyptic era would have been able to row a boat down the Lethe and go for a picnic. (No one did that now!) The “resting” the boys did after their day of merriment was likely a gentle euphemism for death.

Unlike Grimasca, however, I knew giants were real. They were small in number now and weren’t very social. There’d never been much written about them—no accounts of heroism during the Apocalypse or anything that you might expect from huge, immensely strong beings. But then again, giants didn’t have magic and they generally shunned humans. They lived in the forests and swamps and weren’t usually prone to violence. They weren’t usually prone to intelligence either, as this story suggested. It was, unfortunately, all too easy to imagine a drunken giantess mother locking her own children out of the house while a monster ate them.

That said, the giant part of the story was probably just a continuation of the allegorical tale about hunger. With fourteen children instead of seven, that would mean that Grimasca (or starvation) would be more likely to come. A story about a giantess mother putting half her kids out to starve (or to be eaten by the Demon of Hunger) made about as much sense as any other Haljan folktale did.

My guess was the author tried for a celebratory tone at the end, what with all the rejoicing over new births, etcetera, but by then they’d been too traumatized by the war and its aftereffects for their efforts to be successful. The author clearly felt that hunger (demon or not) would always be out there waiting and that Hunger, or the Grim Mask of Death, would be the only one really rejoicing after a war.

So did this story prove that Grimasca was real? Hell if I knew.

What I did know was that sleeping after a story like this would be impossible so I packed up my books and shuffled quietly down to the kitchen. Sooner or later, I’d have to make amends with Ari. This distance between us couldn’t continue. But, for now, I set my sights on a lesser task: getting through this night.

I pushed open the galley door and froze.

Rafe stood with his back to me, staring at something on the tiny stove in the corner. He turned around when I came in.

“See?” he said, pointing to a small, steaming pot on the stove. “A watched pot
does
boil. But then, you probably already knew that.”

My first instinct was to retreat and go back to my room. But I couldn’t decide which would be worse: sleeplessness or sleep . . . and the dreams that came with it. I’d come in here thinking to make some tea with the herbs my mother had given me. There was bound to be something in there that would send the drinker into a dreamless sleep. So I stepped into the room and retrieved a box from the shelf. In it were tins and paper envelopes full of the various herbs Aurelia had prepared for us.

Rafe set the pot of boiling water on an unlit burner and walked over to the table where I was sorting through the tea offerings. He leaned down next to me, propping his elbows on the table right next to mine. Silently, we sifted through the box. Rafe pulled one of the envelopes out and turned toward me. Naturally, I too turned, and realized how close we were. Physically anyway. I scooted back.

“Damiana?” Rafe’s mouth quirked. Damiana was widely known as an aphrodisiac. “Your mother gave you this?”

I shrugged, fighting to keep my face neutral. Like it was any of his business!

“Obviously, your mother’s not a Mederi,” I said. If there were two things Mederies weren’t shy about, even with their own offspring, it was plants and sex.

“No,” Rafe said, laughing, turning back to the box. “I’ve no Host blood. My mother is an Angel.” But something about the way he said it made me think she was anything but.

I glanced over at Rafe, hoping to catch him in an unguarded moment. But no such luck. He appeared as carefully carefree as ever, perusing a box of herbs, hoping to find a soothing combination for tea. Despite the fact that we were on a boat sailing through Wild Territory that was full of
rogare
demons on our way to an outpost known for starvation where sixteen people were missing, the scene before me was undeniably domestic. I let out a sigh—a deep breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. Rafe pulled three envelopes out of the box and shut it. He waved them in the air at me, his silver bracelet glinting in the light of the galley kitchen’s lone oil lamp.

“Spearmint, lemongrass, and blackberry leaves.”

He poured some of the leaves into an empty teapot, added the water, and then pulled down cups and a strainer. I walked over to him and together we waited for the tea to steep.

“I shouldn’t have called you an oath breaker,” I said. I braced for the shrug of nonchalance, the sign that he didn’t care, but instead he nodded solemnly and said:

“And I should have cast Gold Gorget over you before you went up the stairs with that hellcnight.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious. That was the problem with Rafe. I never knew when he was serious. And most of the time, he wasn’t. I said nothing else, nor did he. The silence was companionable, though, not tense. Just before the tea was ready, I touched his silver bracelet. It was a small plain cuff, less than an inch wide.

Was it enchanted?

Maybe there was a protective spell written on the inside. I twisted it a bit, trying to see if there were letters engraved on the back. Rafe didn’t complain, even when my efforts caused the bracelet to slip off his wrist. I stared at the markings on the inside.

Bhereg 9-2-92

“It’s the day my brother died,” Rafe said, reaching for the bracelet. He slipped it back on and then poured our tea, taking care with the strainer.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, never meaning anything more.

He handed me a cup and I inhaled, smelling mint and the faintest hint of lemongrass. Tentatively, I took a sip. It made me feel warm and drowsy. Rafe stared at me over the edge of his cup.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You ensorcelled this with ‘Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.’”

I thought he’d laugh, but he just shook his head and continued blowing on his tea. After a few moments he said, “I don’t know any sleeping spells. But I can sing you a lullaby if you’d like.”

Was he serious?
He seemed so. I nodded, expecting a song that was as silly as his spells. But his voice was slow and deeply plaintive.

Dormi, mi infans . . .

Dormi, certe.

Grimasca venit . . .

Et te vorabit.

I blinked when he finished. My drowsiness had fled.

“What does it mean?”

He sang it again softly, like a mother might before she kissed her children good night.

“Sleep, my baby . . . sleep, baby do. Grimasca’s coming . . . and he will eat you.”

I swallowed. “Did your mother used to sing that to you?”

He walked over to the sink and set his cup down. Resting his hands on the edge of the sink, he stared out of the galley’s small window. There was nothing to see but darkness.

“Many, many times.”

“Who did your mother think Grimasca was?” I said, my throat burning. Rafe walked over to the oil lamp. I set my empty cup down just as Rafe lowered the wick.