The Obligator's Daughter

After

Guttering lamps cast long wobbly shadows, making the rows of jars and vials shift around them.

Bem sat facing Roonix at his lone wooden desk in the middle of the room, not speaking. The listening device was still and silent between them. Musty, spice-laden air laid cast a thick pall between them, making the light milky. Roonix held her with his one good eye, the other rolled downwards towards the table. Bem wondered if he could see out of it. It must be confusing if he did. She would ask him some time but now did not seem like a good occasion to do so.

'So, it's war then?' She finally ventured.

'Yes.' Roonix drawled the word from the side of his mouth.

Bem pulled out a kerchief, tried to find a clean spot, and failing that, wiped her nose on the damp sticky cloth regardless. She felt sick, and her nose had been running like a stream since the morning after the compellors pulled her, cut and bruised, from the rocky shore north of Berriellum, her eyes and cheeks and eyes afire with sickness, mind cloudy and rebellious at being directed toward any but the most basic of thoughts.

The last two days had been spent listlessly in her room, the quiet equal portions oppressive and liberating. Small boxes of pickled fish, dried beef, rubbery turnips, and bitter greens were pushed through her door each day. Bem ate out of dutiful routine, otherwise sleeping, or leafing aimlessly through her books. No visitors came, but Bem knew it would be all too soon that she would again visit the House of Security. They had made that clear when they pulled her out.

Before that, she needed answers and, if possible, some more of that marvelous ointment.

Knowing she would have been followed, she had nonetheless made the painful journey to see Roonix. Each step a chorus of throbs and stabs throughout her body. She had made the swim, but the sea had been unkind, pounding her head against the roof whenever she surfaced for air in the tunnel, and, later, scraping her over the darkly jagged rocks, barnacles, and mussels, when she tried to exit the swell. Fortunately, it was as distant as a dream now faded upon waking, but her wounds reminded her.

'Without access to the sea, many citizens will starve through winter,' Roonix continued, 'Even now in the dockyards, hulls are being reinforced with copper; harpoon bows mounted fore and aft, shafts taken to deck.'

'How will it end?' Bem asked. She knew the last shoal wars had brought large losses on both sides.

Roonix jerked sideways, spluttering, and threw his good hand to the desk to stop himself from falling. 'I hear the present girl, not the fucking future!'

'Forgive me for thinking you might have some insight, given your useful little toy,' said Bem.

'Don't patronise me, girl.'

Bem realised the term now made her angry. 'Don't call me "girl", or henceforth I will refer to you as "boy." Bem enjoyed how one half of Roonix's face twisted with fury and both sides filled with blood.

For a long moment they stared at each other; two eyes against one. Roonix opened his mouth to speak.

'As well as informing the compellors about your eves-dropping,' she added.

The blood drained from Roonix's face, leaving it pale as an oyster. He simply stared at her for another long moment. When he found the words, they were quieter.

'They have sealed the monster in the sea chamber. No one knows what to do about it. Its shrieks can still be heard.' Bem took the change of subject as a victory. 'Markinikus is...'

'I can imagine,' Bem cut in.

'Your father's body has not been found.'

'I thought not. No matter, better he feeds the fish than the pyre.'

'You don't seem saddened.'

'Should I be?'

'It is normal to grieve for one's parents once they die.'

'And maybe one day I shall, after I have forgiven his transgressions.'

Roonix nodded slowly. 'The hardened heart is a shield against sadness, but also against love.'

'What do you know of love? Your own heart is rigid with dreams of revenge.'

'You have me there. Yet I was not always this way. I remember...before,' his eyes took on a faraway look. Bem thought he would go on, but Roonix's mouth stayed half-open and silent.

'You have been wronged.' Bem said.

'I don't like to talk about it.' He snapped, and turned his head, showing Bem only the slack, expressionless side of his face.

Bem let it go.

'What of Shalagaire?'

'She lives, remarkably enough.' Roonix spun his head to face her, customary scowl back in place. 'From all I have heard her wound was mortal. Tongues are a-wag all over Berriellum. Momorachi is most displeased in particular. Is there something you want to tell me, Bemilly?' A single arched brow accompanied her name.

'Not magic, you said, quite effective, though, your ointment. Dare I ask how it works?'

'Dare not ask, for I shall not tell. The less you know the less they can draw out of you. There will be consequences enough as it is. You have been reckless.'

'I made my choices, and I would do the same again.' Bem thrust her chin out, 'In all this death, why is it so evil that I saved a life?'

'Will you be so resolute with the yionelle fumes in your nostrils? I wonder...'

'Oh, go and fuck yourself.' Bem surprised herself with that. But, she was past tired of being cautioned, lectured, and dictated to. 'I will worry about that as and when I must.' Ignoring Roonix' stunned look, she rose painfully. 'Now, the ointment, may I take some more? I have a greater need than ever. I can pay...'

Roonix simply pointed at the relevant spot on the shelf. Bem retrieved a blue vial identical to the last one.

'How much?'

'Try and keep my name quiet and not mention anything about magic, if at all possible, and we'll call it even,' he sighed and leaned on the desk, scrabbling at its surface with his fingernails.

'Thank you, Roonix.'

'What will you do? I hear there is to be a wedding soon.'

'Bride or banishment it seems - not the worst choice I have been offered recently, but still an unpleasant one. Maybe I should take my chances in the forest. Is Zithering still alive?'

'There have been no sightings. Yet neither has his body been found. Some farmers believe they saw his dog, and a sheep taken. I believe he is alive. In any case, in life, there is always a Zithering in a forest somewhere. Caution, always.'

'And,' she could barely say his name, 'of Estion?'

'Nothing.'

'I think it would be best if our paths did not cross again.' Bem clasped her cloak. 'I despise promise-breakers.'

'Be a good wife then, Bemilly, if that's what you decide...'

Bem glared at him.

'...or a bad one, for all I care. Kill him in his sleep if you must. I have a vial of something for that, but...'

Bem opened the door to the hallway, drawing in the fresh outside air with relief. Roonix raised his voice as she left.

'...keep my name out of it!'