The Legend of Broken (25 page)

Isadora Arnem’s children bring her signs of a deadly mystery, one

that only she may be able to understand—and put to use …

Quietly gazing from one of the tall, open windows of the sitting room that overlooks the unique garden of her family’s home, Isadora Arnem appears to be both keeping watch overher children, who have gathered about the stream in their walled wilderness, as well as preparing to attend to several of the vital trivialities of a mother’s existence: sewing, mending, settling household accounts, and writing letters. And, were her husband merely on duty in the Fourth District, or had Sixt left the city on some trivial military matter, such would doubtless be the sorts of activities with which Lady Arnem’s mind and hands would now, in fact, be preoccupied. But this is early evening on the day following the departure of the Talons from the city, and the commencement of their campaign against the Bane in Davon Wood has complicated the affairs of Sixt’s family ominously: for Isadora has already received written inquiries from Lord Baster-kin, expressing the Grand Layzin’s desire to know when the priests of Kafra may expect to receive Dalin Arnem as one of their acolytes …

Isadora had not been so foolish as to believe that her husband’s departure would actually bring an end to the matter of their son’s religious service. Nor is she entirely surprised that Lord Baster-kin is pressing the matter: for, despite the sentek’s oft-expressed admiration for the Merchant Lord, Isadora has personal reasons to suspect that the latter might prove … troublesome. Yet she had dared to hope that her husband’s belief that his own elevation would protect his wife and children was right; now, however, she sees that precisely that elevation, together with the convenience of the great soldier’s being away on campaign, are the factors that have forced the hands of Broken’s rulers. The importance to the Kafran clergy of preventing the Arnems from becoming a dangerous precedent for other powerful families who might have doubts about making gifts of their children to the God-King (especially given Isadora’s known origins as an apprentice to the heathen healer Gisa) must have superseded any moderating considerations: more and more, Isadora curses herself for not having seen before Sixt departed that this calculation might even have played a role in the orders that sent him from the city in the first place—particularly if, rather than despite the fact that, the royal retinue heeded the advice of the man Isadora once knew as an angry, sickly youth: Rendulic Baster-kin …

These thoughts, and others like them, have rushed about Isadora’s tormented mind throughout the day and evening; and so it is perhaps not surprising that even this strong-willed woman cannot now find the composure to simply sit and occupy herself with ordinary tasks. Instead, she has decided to stay by the sitting room window that offers the best view of the garden and of her children, and to fix her mind upon the sounds of those children at play: for their daily boisterousness, when released from the restraint of their lessons and into the protected freedom of their marvelous garden, has ever been as consoling and amusing to her as it is to them.

Yet today, even the comparatively small and qualified comfort of her children’s enthusiastic games and endless disagreements is denied her: the voices that are carried into the sitting room, as the light of spring at dusk begins to burnish the city with a flush of deep gold, are unnaturally controlled, and plainly uneasy. Looking more closely, Lady Arnem sees that all five of her children are drawn together in a close circle, and are talking among themselves quietly. Their attention is closely fixed upon something that Dagobert holds in one cupped hand, and little Gelie has begun to weep: not in an overwrought manner, which is her usual reaction to such typical trials as condescending insults, but out of sadness, such sadness as makes Isadora immediately suspicious as to what the unknown object in her son’s hand might be. Isadora knows only too well what creatures inhabit the children’s
breck
, and also understands far better than any Kafran how important those creatures are: indeed, the chance to bring them into close proximity to her family and their home was an important (if unstated) reason for her having told Sixt that the children’s ideas about remaking the garden were healthy ones. And so, demonstrating the extent of her concern, she walks quickly into the front hall, then through the building’s stone-framed doorway to the terrace outside.

When she emerges, it is teary-eyed Gelie who catches sight of her first; and, despite warnings from her siblings, she runs to her mother, who is already on the path that follows the stream through the garden.

“Mother!” Gelie cries, throwing her arms around her mother’s waist and placing her feet atop her Isadora’s, so that Lady Arnem’s strong legs lift and carry the girl as she herself walks along the path. “Mother, you must help!”

“Gelie—!” warns Golo forcefully; for, unlike the thoughtful, moody Dalin, Golo is every bit the youngest child’s equal in phrenetic
†
energy. He, too, runs to his mother’s side, but walks manfully beside her, staring hard at his sister. “Didn’t you hear what Dagobert just said?”

“I heard him, Golo,” Gelie says defiantly. “But Mother understands the poor creatures best, so we ought to tell her!”

“We didn’t want to keep it from you, Mother,” Golo explains. “But we know you’ve been worried about Father, and we thought …” At a loss as to how to continue, Golo looks (as the four younger siblings are accustomed to doing, in moments of difficulty) to Dagobert, who—possessed of both his mother’s fair coloring and his father’s handsome features—speaks with all the confidence of the admirable, resolute Broken youth he has in recent years become:

“We thought that we could solve the problem on our own, and we didn’t want you to have to worry any more than you have been.”

“We shouldn’t be ‘worrying’ at all,” mutters Dalin, who keeps his distance from the others and scowls at his mother. “Paying so much attention to those creatures is a sin—you’re acting like
pagans
!”

“Oh, don’t take on such airs, Dalin,” says the ever-practical Anje, throwing her long braid of golden hair behind her back. “You’re angry over being kept from the Inner City, and your anger makes you say things you don’t believe—you ought to put that anger aside and help, instead of assuming that your own family has been swept up by some strange desire to commit
sacrilege
 …”

Although full of curiosity, Isadora takes a moment to nod in great and characteristic appreciation to her eldest daughter. “True, Anje,” she says; and looking at the faces assembled before her, she asks, “For what have I always told you about making assumptions?”

Dagobert smiles, knowing the answer, but too near to being a man to play childish games that are clearly intended for the others.

It is the decisive finger of impulsive little Gelie that shoots up from within her mother’s dress, as she cries, “Oh, I know!” Having brought her body out from her hiding place, the girl assumes a declamatory pose, and recites words that her mother originally learned at the feet of her own guardian and teacher, Gisa:
“‘Assumption is the laziest variety of thought, which leads only to weakness and bad habits!’”
Then, with the same rote quality to her words, and her triumphant little finger still in the air, she adds: “But please do not ask me what any of that means!”

Her anxiousness eased a little by this display, Isadora is able to laugh for a fleeting moment: “What it means,” she says, lifting Gelie up and groaning at the speed with which the ten-year-old is growing, “is that making assumptions before we have assembled all available facts, and before we have determined the reliability of those facts, is not only foolish, but mischievous.”

“But I don’t see why, Mother,” Gelie answers, folding her arms. “After all, when we visit the temples or do our religious studies, it seems that all we ever learn are more ways of making assumptions without facts.”

“Gelie.” Isadora’s voice becomes stern for an instant, although in her heart she is glad to see that even her youngest child can detect the superstitious essence of the Kafran religion; but, to keep her safe, she must warn her: “Those are matters of faith, not reason. Now—tell me what you’ve all been doing out here, other than getting yourselves filthy and squabbling.”

Dagobert, staring into the pool at the base of the woodland waterfall, says, “It’s strange, Mother—we had been trying to determine if the newts have mated yet, because we haven’t seen any eggs. And then we found …” His words drift, as he studies the water with real concern: “Well, we’re not really sure, Mother. They
have
come out, but they—”

“The poor things are dying, Mother!” Gelie blurts out.

“Gelie,” Golo scolds. “Let Dagobert tell it, you don’t understand—”

“Stop this bickering at once,” Isadora says, suddenly and inexplicably grave, “and show me what worries you all so.” Dagobert holds out his hand—and his mother is brought back to the true starkness of the dilemma facing her family when she sees:

Two dead newts, lying in the youth’s palm. Their skin is dark, near black, as it should be; but at various points on their bodies, as well as upon the crests that surmount their backs,
†
they exhibit raw, bright red sores. The insults are small, as befits the newts’ delicate bodies, but have a painful appearance no less shocking for their size.

Isadora is so plainly horrified that her children finally grow hushed.

“When did you find these, Dagobert?”

The youth is puzzled. “They’re not the first. And they’re not the only things that have died. Some fish, two or three frogs—”

“Dagobert,” Isadora insists, “when did you
begin
to find them?”

“The earliest were—a week ago, I suppose. What is it, Mother?”

“Yes, Mother,” Gelie says, her manner subdued by fear. “Tell us—what is wrong?”

Isadora only presses: “What did you do with the dead creatures?”

It is Anje who answers, “We burned them, and buried the ashes.” The maiden points at a patch of ground where there are as yet no plantings.

“Anje,” Isadora says, turning, “did you bury them deep?”

“Yes, Mother,” Anje answers; and Isadora gives silent thanks that she has trained her oldest daughter well. “They
did
appear sickly—and you’ve always said that such creatures, if they die of illness, must be burned, and their ashes buried—especially creatures such as newts. What you call salamanders, Mother.”

“Yes, Mother,” Gelie says. “Why
do
you call them that?”

Isadora’s body trembles, although her gown disguises the momentary quivering even from Gelie, who is moving into her usual hiding place amid her mother’s clothing. “Good,” Isadora says. “That’s wise thinking, Anje; I can always depend on you to be sensible. Now, mark me, all of you—I want you to keep a record, beginning with the first deaths you can recall, and keeping careful count, in the days to come, of how many of each type of dying or dead creature you find, with signs of this sickness. Do not touch or drink the water in the stream—I’ll have the servants fetch water from the wells in the Third and Fourth districts, for now, and we’ll use the rain barrels as well. In the meantime, fasten the small nets that your father brought you from Daurawah onto the ends of long sticks, and use them to fetch the creatures out. Do you hear, Gelie?”

“Yes, Mother,” the girl says, in whining protest. “But I didn’t touch the water, it was Golo who found the dead newts.”

“Golo, if you find any more, and a net isn’t at hand, use a shovel to take them out. They must be burned, and the ashes buried deep. Do it well; show respect for them, don’t play with the bodies or cut them up.”

“All right, Mother,” Golo says, his voice conceding that he has tampered with one or two of the dead creatures already.

“But are they dangerous?” Dagobert asks, all manly concern.

“Many believed them creatures of great power, once,” Isadora says, studying the dead newts. “And some still do. The sickness that is killing them would, if such people are right, seem likely to have considerable power of its own. It’s possible, however, that it is an illness of their kind alone. Whatever the case, study your own bodies: if any of you feel ill, or feverish, or if you discover these sorts of sores upon your skin, and it happens that I am not here, then, Anje, fetch a healer from the Third District—they are all indebted to me, and will come. Speed is vital. Do you understand?”

Anje looks increasingly worried, but nods. “Of course, Mother.”

“We must burn these two
now
.” Isadora sees the children have built a small fire within walls of piled stones. “You have prepared a pyre, then—good. We must maintain it, and anything that you find dead, whether on the soil or in the water, burn it, respectfully and completely. Then mark the spots where you bury the ashes, so that you will not later disturb those already in the ground.”

Golo, the son for whom words come as readily as the grumbling of his belly at mealtime, twists his face into a mask of incomprehension. “‘
Disturb
’ them? But they will be dead and burned, by then, how will we disturb them—”

A rapping at the arched door in the garden wall interrupts the forthright boy: someone outside, on the Path of Shame, is in distress of some kind, that much is readily apparent. “I’ll answer it!” Dalin shouts, taking two quick steps before being nearly lifted off his feet by a strong hand that snatches the collar of his tunic. The boy then turns, with no little shame, to see that it is his sister Anje who has stopped him so decisively.