Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

I took a breath. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Mum. You’ve been nothing but good to me.” Another breath. “Tell Tom… give him my thanks.” Opening the door, the damp, gray air in my face. “I love you, Mum.” Kissing her dry cheek. “I love you.” Three steps out now, her standing in the door, half in shadow, one hand to her face. “Goodbye, Mum.” Four more steps, walking backward now, still looking at her. “Goodbye.” Turning away; walking away; leaving. Her voice catching up with me, “I’ve loved you, Mars. Godspeed.” The bend in the road.

I was alone on the road for a week. Every day brought me something new; a stand of unfamiliar trees, a stream of green water, a red-hooded bird that swooped from tree to tree above me for a hundred paces before it flashed away into the woods. I walked steadily. I didn’t think about home or the future. I became more thin. I played with the sword. It wasn’t balanced well for me, but I thought a good smith could remedy that, and meanwhile I learned not to overreach myself with the new weight at the end of my arm. Carrying it on my hip gave me a persistent pain in my lower back, until I found a rolling walk that carried the sword forward without swinging it into my leg at each step. Ad would have called it swagger, but she would have liked it. There was one moment, in a yellow afternoon just as the road lifted itself along the rim of a valley, when I could hear her laugh as if she were only a step behind me, and I missed her as fiercely as the first month after her death. And I kept going.

On the eighth day I met people.

I heard them before I saw them; two speaking, maybe more silent in their group. I stopped short and found myself sweating, as if their sound was warm water bubbling through the top layer of my skin. I hadn’t thought at all about what to do with other people. I had met less than a dozen strangers in my life.

“I think there’s something in the wood,” one of the voices said brightly.

“A wolf?” A hint of laughter.

“A bear.”

“A giant.”

“A creature with the body of an eagle and a pig’s head and teeth as big as your hands.”

I was beginning to feel ridiculous; it made me move again. I came out of the trees into an open place where my road met another running north and south. Just beyond the crossroads, three people sat with their backs against a low stone wall that bounded a meadow. I slowed my step. I had no idea how one behaved, and I’m sure it showed. The woman who called to me had the same glittery amusement in her voice that I’d heard as she’d described all the fabulous monsters I might be.

“Why, it’s not a bear. Ho, traveler.” She nodded. I felt awkward and I wondered if my voice would work properly after so long in its own company, so I only returned her nod, hitched up my belt, and kept walking. As soon as it was clear that I meant to pass them by, she scrambled to her feet, scattering breadcrumbs and a piece of cheese out of her lap into the grass. “Luck, don’t,” the man said, and grabbed but missed her. She darted toward me. I turned to face her, my hands out, waiting.

“Ah, ha,” she said, and stopped out of my reach. “Perhaps a bear cub after all. I don’t mean to detain you against your will, traveler. We have Shortline cheese to share, and we’d welcome news of the world beyond this road.”

She was relaxed, smiling, but she watched my body rather than my face, and her knees were slightly bent, ready to move her in whatever direction she needed to go. She looked strong and capable, but I could see a weakness in her stance, a slight cant to her hips. I could probably take her, I thought.

I put my hands down. “The place I’ve come from is so small, you’d miss it if you looked down to scratch. But I can trade flatcakes for a wedge of cheese and your news.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

She was Lucky, and the man was Ro. The other, silent woman was Braxis. We ate cheese and my mother’s cake in the afternoon sun, and they told me about the north, and I gave them what I knew about the west. I was nervous, but gradually their laughter, their worldliness, won me over. They never asked a question that was too personal, and they gave exactly as much information about themselves as I did, so I never felt at a disadvantage.

“What is it you want from me?” I asked finally. I don’t know exactly what made me say it. Maybe it was the combination of the warm gold sun and the warm gold cheese, the bread and the cider from Braxis’s wineskin. Maybe it was hearing about the great cities to the north, Shirkasar and Low Grayling, and the massive port of Hunemoth, the way they made me see the marketplaces and the moonlight on the marbled plazas of the noble houses. Maybe it was the looks the three of them traded when I answered their questions.

Braxis raised an eyebrow in my direction. It was Ro who answered.

“Okay, so you know when something’s going on under your nose. That’s good. Can you fight?”

I tensed. “I’ve told you how I grew up. I can fight.”