Plain Kate

The city of Lov stood on a hump in the marshland. The Narwe, like a great moat, guarded three sides. From behind, the city looked peaceful: reeds like brushstrokes on the square stones, a town of storks nested among them. The huge white birds stalked slowly through the dark water.

A canal came out of the river and went into the city through a metal grille. A pool at the base of the wall was jammed with small boats of all descriptions. Among them was a little green barge, painted and carved in the Roamer fashion. Taggle pointed with one paw, looking like a human trapped in the skin of a cat. “He’s here.”

They stood looking, silent. Then they crossed the bridge where the river road joined the great road, and rounded the flank of Lov.

The huge gate was shut. And from it, like guts from a rabbit, spilled another city, a field of tents and hovels. The road vanished into a stew of mud and worse things. Flies swarmed, slow in the morning chill.

Kate had grown used to being only with people who knew about her shadow. She felt the sidelong, prickly stares of the refugees, eyeing her burns, trying to pin down exactly what about her looked so strange. Drina tugged at her turban, tucking up the ragged ends of her hair. Taggle, though, sat up straight as he balanced on Kate’s basket, proud and fine as a king.

They pushed their way into the crowd, into the shadow of the great wall. It took them an hour to go no farther than they could have thrown a stone, three hours to get anywhere near the gate.

Suddenly the cat stiffened on Kate’s shoulder, and leapt. He went by her ear as yowl and claw, and landed on the back of a white-haired peddler a few paces ahead. The stooped man straightened and whirled, his white zupan and white braids flying around him, while the crowd grumbled and snickered and Kate shouted, without meaning to: “Linay!”

The magician’s eyes caught hers, but only for an instant. He was busy trying to prevent the hissing, snarling cat from shredding his throat. Kate couldn’t quite see what happened next, but Taggle came flying back at her like a tossed ball. She scrambled to catch him as he slid down her front and landed with a wet smack in the churned muck at her feet. Blood ran down Linay’s neck and scratches covered his hands.

“Well, well.” Linay bowed to them. “Fair maid of the wood. Far from home. And Drina—how you’ve grown.”

“Mira,” said Drina. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” Linay looked around him, owl-eyed as if innocent. “I seek entrance to the city.”

“You want to destroy it,” snapped Kate. That drew a few eyes—but only a few. The people of the abandoned country had no love in that moment for the stone city with its shut gates, and no time to listen to the ravings of a stranger.

Linay took a step toward them. Kate could smell the wild herbs on him. He spoke with a small smile. “And what are you going to do about it, Little Stick?”

“We’re going to stop you.”

“Are you now?” He was almost in arm’s reach. The stormy light made his white face greenish. “My dear ones. I wish you could. I almost wish you could.” He lifted his chin—it was Drina’s chin, Kate saw, the same haughty gesture. “Come, then. Let me see you try.”

Kate started to lunge at him.

Linay lifted a single finger. The air turned to glass. Kate was caught in the invisible magic, breathless, helpless—and still no one even bothered to look. Linay reached out and touched her cheek. “Good-bye, Katerina,” he said. And then he turned his back on them and shouldered deeper into the shoving crowd.

¶

“That was foolish,” Kate hissed at Taggle, when he had climbed back onto her shoulder. “He might have killed you!”

“And I might have killed him,” muttered the cat. “Which would have saved us some trouble. I don’t think we have long. There is something in the air.”

There was. Kate had grown used to the wall of fog that had trailed her all the way down the road to Lov, but now there was a wall of storm. Beyond the crowd, a cloud seemed to rise from the ground, bruise-black and solid-seeming as a mountain range. It was creeping toward them, and slowly the crowd was turning to watch it. It breathed hail-cold on their turning faces.

The cloud was driving people toward the gate like sheep to the slaughter pens. The crowd became elbows and backs, feet treading on feet and the close human stench of fear. A noise rose from it, a many-throated rumble and roar.

Through it all went Linay, threading forward like a chisel down the wood grain. Without the split he opened, Kate thought, they would not have been able to move at all. But there was something about him—a thundering, haunted power—that made people inch aside even when there was not an inch to spare. And so they were able to follow him, keeping his narrow, bleeding back in sight. And soon the gate loomed.