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Authors: A.E. Marling
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the child’s skin, I withdrew the spell a tenth of an inch and saw the gelatinous membrane of the birth sac. Again, I had gone too far. Even as that thought flitted through my consciousness, I observed something that caused my mind to scream, adrenaline gushing into my arteries like sparks exploding from my heart.
Through the filmy covering of the birth sac, I could still see the whiteness of the skeletal hand. No skin covered those fingers.
Moving my diamonds forward bared the sight of the hand surrounded by more bones, cartilage connecting finger bones to what appeared to be leg bones and ribs. Neither believing nor understanding what I saw, I flung aside the blue diamonds. Sri’s spotted skin reappeared, hiding whatever lurked inside her.
Panting, I found myself chewing on gloved knuckles. My head seemed to pulse with flashes of white, the white of the interlocked bones I had seen. The mishmash of ribs and femurs dug into my mind, and I gripped my temples.
I asked myself what I had seen. Not a stillbirth, I thought, but something fleshless, a pandemonium of bones.
All at once, I grew aware of a pressure, the sensation of a stranger’s hand on my shoulder. Alarmed, I pirouetted, gowns sweeping aside gemstones. No one was behind me, yet I still felt the presence.
I could be feeling the hand of a god, the Ever Always. The divinity, or something else, had wormed its way into my dream laboratory, into my most protected of places. I felt vulnerable, horrified for my safety as well as by what I had found in Sri’s womb.
If a god peered into my dream, he could kill me with a thought.
“I—I did not mean to interfere.” I kneeled awkwardly in mid-air. “Forgive me. I will...I promise to....”
I could not think of what to promise, only of the gaze that felt like molten wax dripping on my skin. I had to escape, had to get free. In a blink, I smashed down through the diamond dais and left the dream.
I staggered from the doors of Sri’s room, Maid Janny lacing the last of my gowns onto my back. Mister Obenji, the elderly servant with the black turban, bowed then tried to look past my tide of fabric.
“Lustrous Enchantress, I hope there is chance for the good lady’s recovery.”
“She will progress,” I said distractedly.
My wobbly legs took me to a parlor with green upholstery. I could not back up and sit in my gowns, so I leaned sideways onto a couch, my face pressed against the cushions as I focused on breathing through chest spasms.
I no longer felt watched by an unseen force. All I felt, rather, was sickness on an empty stomach. Squeezing one eye closed then another, I tried to rationalize the thing that was not a child lodged in Sri’s womb. I had been too frightened to view more than its closest part. Nor did I feel any desire to rush back and investigate.
Shivering despite my six layers of gowns, I now understood why Sri had not felt a quickening. The not-child had fused bones and could not move. My head trembled from side-to-side at the thought. The strangeness, the nonsense of what I had seen tore at me, and I could not believe that every woman in Morimound carried what I could only assume was a curse of the Always Dying.
“Sri has to be an exception,” I muttered. “A fluke. A horrid, horrid—”
“Did you speak, Elder Enchantress?”
“No, Deepmand.”
After several minutes sprawled on the couch, I convinced myself that I had witnessed a very rare birth defect. The other women most decidedly carried healthy babies in their wombs. The presence I had felt in my dream might not have been a god. A magic user could have interposed his will. In theory.
I turned my attention to all those in the city who might suffer from childbirth, although I had no reason to suspect they would bear anything but normal children. True, the mothers I had spoken to last night had denied quickening, yet they could have been in error. Others might have felt life within them.
I had to focus. I could not
Through the filmy covering of the birth sac, I could still see the whiteness of the skeletal hand. No skin covered those fingers.
Moving my diamonds forward bared the sight of the hand surrounded by more bones, cartilage connecting finger bones to what appeared to be leg bones and ribs. Neither believing nor understanding what I saw, I flung aside the blue diamonds. Sri’s spotted skin reappeared, hiding whatever lurked inside her.
Panting, I found myself chewing on gloved knuckles. My head seemed to pulse with flashes of white, the white of the interlocked bones I had seen. The mishmash of ribs and femurs dug into my mind, and I gripped my temples.
I asked myself what I had seen. Not a stillbirth, I thought, but something fleshless, a pandemonium of bones.
All at once, I grew aware of a pressure, the sensation of a stranger’s hand on my shoulder. Alarmed, I pirouetted, gowns sweeping aside gemstones. No one was behind me, yet I still felt the presence.
I could be feeling the hand of a god, the Ever Always. The divinity, or something else, had wormed its way into my dream laboratory, into my most protected of places. I felt vulnerable, horrified for my safety as well as by what I had found in Sri’s womb.
If a god peered into my dream, he could kill me with a thought.
“I—I did not mean to interfere.” I kneeled awkwardly in mid-air. “Forgive me. I will...I promise to....”
I could not think of what to promise, only of the gaze that felt like molten wax dripping on my skin. I had to escape, had to get free. In a blink, I smashed down through the diamond dais and left the dream.
I staggered from the doors of Sri’s room, Maid Janny lacing the last of my gowns onto my back. Mister Obenji, the elderly servant with the black turban, bowed then tried to look past my tide of fabric.
“Lustrous Enchantress, I hope there is chance for the good lady’s recovery.”
“She will progress,” I said distractedly.
My wobbly legs took me to a parlor with green upholstery. I could not back up and sit in my gowns, so I leaned sideways onto a couch, my face pressed against the cushions as I focused on breathing through chest spasms.
I no longer felt watched by an unseen force. All I felt, rather, was sickness on an empty stomach. Squeezing one eye closed then another, I tried to rationalize the thing that was not a child lodged in Sri’s womb. I had been too frightened to view more than its closest part. Nor did I feel any desire to rush back and investigate.
Shivering despite my six layers of gowns, I now understood why Sri had not felt a quickening. The not-child had fused bones and could not move. My head trembled from side-to-side at the thought. The strangeness, the nonsense of what I had seen tore at me, and I could not believe that every woman in Morimound carried what I could only assume was a curse of the Always Dying.
“Sri has to be an exception,” I muttered. “A fluke. A horrid, horrid—”
“Did you speak, Elder Enchantress?”
“No, Deepmand.”
After several minutes sprawled on the couch, I convinced myself that I had witnessed a very rare birth defect. The other women most decidedly carried healthy babies in their wombs. The presence I had felt in my dream might not have been a god. A magic user could have interposed his will. In theory.
I turned my attention to all those in the city who might suffer from childbirth, although I had no reason to suspect they would bear anything but normal children. True, the mothers I had spoken to last night had denied quickening, yet they could have been in error. Others might have felt life within them.
I had to focus. I could not
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