The River Ghasts of Lid and Other Stories

To be The Artificer King - 1

He was stripping the tendons from the beast's legs when she arrived at the edge of the pit. He was covered in blood, the same blood that had stained the sand black, and he didn't look up or stop cutting the flesh.

'You're still going to do this, then, Ara?'

He frowned and nodded, intent on his work.

She puffed on her pipe, to let the smoke mask the stink. He didn't seem to care.

'Good,' she said. 'I will pack, then.'

From the moment Ara had understood the rules, he had decided he wanted to be crowned an artificer king. Nothing his parents had said could change his mind; and he spent every day learning to carve bone and wood, building structures from reeds and hair and skin, experimenting with making new things.

The town had initially thought this was just a boy's silly phase. Then one day he had made a kite from the long thin bones of a dizzy shark, and the voice box of a razor hawk. He had flown it over a herd of sand geese, and, suddenly terrified by the predator they could hear but couldn't see, three had fled into a trap of his devising. He slit their long necks, dumped them into a hand cart and then brought them to the town. Everyone ate well that night.

The next day, the truth speaker of the village had asked him if he was serious about challenging the artificer king for his crown at the next star fall. He had nodded, the serious frown on his face; and she had puffed her pipe and sent her daughter to the town up the way to make the official challenge.

That had been three years ago, and when Ara had become a man and the stars had started to fall as they always did: it was time to travel to the challenge.

The harvest had been hard that year, and at this time of summer all hands were needed to glean the fruit from the orchards before the birds. The desert had been creeping closer, eating their food before they could plant it, and so no one could be spared to escort Ara and the truth speaker from the town to the lake edge. The truth teller did not mind: the forest was a safe place for her, the trees and animals afraid and the weather kind. Ara was mostly silent, observing everything. She couldn't tell if he liked the journey or not.

When they met the river, they saw a troupe of water monkeys diving for fish in the deep green water, the animals whooping with the sheer joy of it. A few were curious enough to swim close to them, their pale grey faces watching them from just under the surface.

'Are you feeling ready, boy?' she asked, as she walked along the river.

He shook his head, his dark eyes following the monkeys as they darted through the water.

She wanted to smoke, but it wasn't the time: so she pulled a leaf from a pouch, and started chewing it. The juices rolled over her tongue, sweet and bitter. She spat out some fibre.

'Well, you'd better be soon.'

The monkeys, bored of their companions, surfaced, shrieked, and then dived deep and away.

'I will be.'

He was tough, this one, she thought. Wiry, with muscles like clenched fists around a bone. And obviously very, very clever. She just wondered how he would rule the thirty towns if he didn't speak to anyone. But, in her time, she had never seen anyone better with his hands.

The river looped and widened to meet the lake, and the banks became gentler and stonier. Tiny lizards, the size of her hand, scattered from the rocks they had been sunbathing on, red flashes of legs and frills. Ahead they could see the island at the centre of the lake, a tiny glinting dot at the top.

It was early morning, and she was still aching from another night on the stony ground. The boy had been rigging ever more complex hammocks in the jungle, but out here he was sleeping as best as he could too, and he was visibly weary. So when they saw the two men with spears and slings, she let out a grateful sigh.

The men were standing by a stone carving on the lake side, a bas relief of a man holding fruit, pointing at the sun. When they noticed her and Ara, she waved, and they waved back. She could see jewelled necklaces around their bellies gleaming as they moved.

'How's it going?' shouted one, cheerfully, as they approached. 'How was your journey?'

'Not too bad,' she replied, as she strolled up to them, grabbing their hands in greeting. 'I am getting too old for this nonsense. Are you boys here to escort us?'

They looked at each other.

'Been some trouble,' the younger one said, glancing behind him, almost as if someone from the town might overhear. 'The king's truth speaker died of the creeping plague a few days ago. And her daughter. And of course the grand daughter is too young.'

'So, the king needs me to truth speak and you need to test me?'

They nodded, looking uncomfortable.

She sighed, closed her eyes and pulled the threads of their thoughts towards her. She spun them through her mental hands, and teased the glittering gold secrets from the grey mundanities and yellow lies. Then she opened her eyes and whispered in their ears.

To the first, she whispered the name of the greatest fear he had, untold and unguessable. To the second she whispered the name of the person he imagined laying with.

Both blushed and looked away, worried the other had heard; but she had been discrete and quiet and their secrets where safe.

'That enough for you boys, then?'

One was too ashamed to speak, and nodded, mutely; the other put a brave smile on his face, and replied, 'thank you. We will return to the town and tell the king. You can rest in there,' he pointed at a hut, tucked away behind the stone carving, 'and we will return and take you to the jetty.'

'Thank goodness. Well, I am going to sit down on a proper chair for the first time in half a moon,' she said, and strolled into the hut to rest her aching feet. 'You boys go and have fun.'