Star stuff, p.20
Star Stuff, page 20
"I'm no whore!" she shouted, hoarse, blood in her mouth. She kept shouting as they knocked her onto the sand, as they kicked her, spat on her, then turned to leave. They walked away, still laughing, blood on their knuckles.
The beach spun around her.
The clouds wept, the rain stinging Erry, washing her blood away.
She lay in the darkness, trembling, wheezing, coughing out blood.
Another fight lost, she thought, and a smile rose on her bruised lips. She tasted fresh blood. Another pack of jackals I survived.
She could not walk, not even after eating the cakes last night—not after so many days of hunger, with these bruises and cuts across her, with her head that would not stop spinning. But she could crawl.
I should crawl into the sea, she thought. She turned and stared at the black waves, and again they called to her, beckoning, their whisper a siren's song.
Come rest in our depths. Come join our darkness.
A black demon. A dark mother. Always waiting. Always there for a last, cold embrace.
She crawled away.
Not yet. Maybe some night I will join you. But not this night.
She dragged herself through the sand and onto the cobblestones of the boardwalk, her home. She pulled herself to her feet, then doubled over and gagged, losing whatever honey cakes that still filled her belly. Her head reeled. Her blood dripped. She thought one of her ribs might be broken. She stumbled forward, limping, falling, crawling, pulling herself back up.
She made her way across the wretched boardwalk. This place had once been called the Jewel of the South, they said. But that had been a long time ago. Back before the Cadigus family had slaughtered the old king, taking over this land called Requiem. Back when magic had still filled these people. Back when dragons had flown.
A land of magic crushed. Of dragons lost.
Perhaps once this boardwalk had been a place of plenty, but no longer. The old shops had mostly closed. Their wooden beams now rotted away, and holes filled their tiled roofs. A handful of buildings still housed a few last tradesmen—a baker, a roper, a potter—but they too were hungry. After the long wars, trade had died, and now even the living rotted away, withering, fading— all fading to nothing, to bones, then ash. Like her.
"Dock rat, get away!" cried a portly man from the window of a chandlery. "Go! Shoo! Shoo!"
He tilted a slop bucket over the window, and the filth rained down, staining Erry's feet, splashing against her rags, filling her wounds. She coughed. She gagged again. She limped on.
Finally she reached the place. The closest thing she had to a house. The abandoned windmill rose in the shadows, weeds growing around it. Its wooden sails had rotted and fallen years ago, long before Erry had been born. Now it was just an empty shell, a skeleton of stone, like the rest of this city.
Erry fell onto the cobblestones, bloodying her knees. She crawled into the windmill.
A few stray cats greeted her with hisses, bristling. The place stank. The cats shit and pissed over the rags Erry had placed on the floor, and the carcass of a kitten rotted in the corner. Just another piece of filth. Just like the rest of Cadport. Just like her.
Erry stumbled to the corner. She lay on the soiled rags. She had no food. Nothing unless she wanted to eat the dead mice the cats sometimes brought in. But she had a bottle. She reached for it now, lifting it with a shaky, sandy hand. Moonshine. Real booze. She had let a man bed her for three nights for this bottle. She drank, letting the spirits wash away the pain, letting herself drown in the warm, stinging embrace of the bottle.
She slept.
Dawn rose, and she woke, eyes sticky. She coughed and trembled. It was winter, and rain still fell outside, but she was so hot. Sweaty. Shaking. She drank some more, emptying the bottle. She slept again.
She did not know how long she slept for. Dawn and dusk had lost all meaning to her. She woke several times, slept again, hovering between wakefulness and slumber and nightmares. Dreams of that night she had found her mother in the alley, her wrists slit. Dreams of who her father might have been, of the distant deserts he had sailed from, lands of gold and splendor where there was no hunger, no blood, no rot, no loneliness. When Erry finally woke and shuffled outside, it was night again. She had always been a creature of shadows, slinking, hiding.
I need food. I need water.
She walked along the silent boardwalk. Once more clouds hid the stars and moon. She reached the trash bin behind the cobbler's house, and she leaned inside, rummaging with her shaky hands, picking out potato peels, apple cores, a few chicken bones.
"Dock rat! Get out of here!" Lamplight kindled in the window. "Go!"
The door slammed open, and the cobbler emerged, waving a mallet. Erry ran, clutching her cache to her chest, and took her meal to the beach.
She sat on the sand, and she ate—picking bits of skin and fat off the chicken bones, nibbling the potato peels, eating the apple cores and spitting out the seeds. She was so thirsty but she had no water—no water but the salty waves that still whispered ahead, beckoning to her.
Join us. Let the hunger and thirst end. Drown with us. Rule as a queen in our kingdom in the depths.
"One night, perhaps," Erry whispered. "Not yet. Not this night."
Her belly gave a twist. Rotten. Erry doubled over and vomited it out.
She lay on her back in the sand, too weak to rise, and tears flowed down her cheeks.
I want to die, she thought. I can't do this anymore. I can't be this dock rat, some loving me for a night, others beating me. I want to join the waves. Please, whatever gods are up there— give me the strength I need to walk into the water. To sink.
Above her, the clouds parted.
Erry gazed up through the veil of tears, and her breath trembled.
Between the clouds shone stars. The Draco constellation. The stars that looked like a dragon. They said that long ago, before the Cadigus family had seized the throne, that these stars had been a goddess to Requiem. A kingdom where the old magic had been welcomed, not forbidden. Where dragons had soared in the open, covering the sky. Today, the emperor forbade worshipping those stars, forbade using their magic.
But this night, it seemed like those old stars were watching Erry, comforting her, warming her in the cold.
You are not alone, child. You are a daughter of Requiem.
Erry rose to her feet, almost too weak to stand. She stared up at those distant lights.
"I'm a half-breed," she whispered. "My father was a sailor from a foreign desert land. My mother was nothing but a whore. The magic is forbidden. If I use the magic, and the soldiers of the city catch me, they will break me upon the wheel, they— "
She let her words die off. What did she fear of soldiers? Let them catch her. Let them break her bones. Let them raise her on a wagon wheel, displaying her mutilated body to the crowds. So what? She would scream for a day and then welcome death.
"But first I will welcome magic," she whispered.
She had not used her magic for a year now. Not since the last person had been caught shifting, had been broken with hammers. But tonight Erry was starving, dying, brave or perhaps foolish. Tonight the stars blessed her.
Tonight she would fly.
As the boardwalk crumbled behind her, as the waves called to her, Erry stood in the sand, raised her chin, and summoned her magic.
Scales grew across her skin, coppery and chinking. Leathern wings stretched out from her shoulder blades, unfurling, creaking. Her teeth lengthened into fangs, her fingernails into claws. Her scrawny, famished body ballooned.
In the darkness, she beat her wings.
She rose into the air, a dragon with fire in her jaws.
And Erry flew.
She flew off the beach and over the black sea. She flew until the lights of Cadport faded behind her. She flew through the wind, over the clouds and rain. The stars shone brilliantly above, the Draco constellation brightest among them. She did not feel the cold as a dragon. She did not feel the hunger, the thirst, the pain of her wounds. She was no longer a weak dock rat, scrambling to survive, but a powerful beast of legend. A dragon roaring fire.
She breathed her fire, sending forth a great, crackling pillar of heat and light.
All those back in the city had this magic. The women who beat her. The men who bedded her. All those who pelted her with refuse, who mocked her, who called her a dock rat, a harlot. But they did not dare use it. Not with the old kingdom of Requiem dead, with the Cadigus family now grinding them under its heel.
But Erry dared.
She flew, roaring out her pain.
I'm not a dock rat. I'm not a whore. I am a dragon.
* * * * *
Dawn rose and she wandered the beach, only a human again. Barefoot. Her dark hair cropped short, full of sand and flecks of blood. Her thin, bruised limbs sticking out from her rags. She found a dead fish on the beach and ate. It didn't seem more than a day old, good enough to stave off the hunger. She nibbled seaweed. She scoured the boardwalk for puddles, knelt, and drank. She survived.
The sunlight broke between the clouds. It was getting too bright. The first sunrays hit the castle on the hill, the crumbly old fort that had once been a bastion of Requiem, the kingdom of dragons. Now it was a lair of Cadigus's troops, of brutes far crueler than any vengeful wives. Erry stood on the boardwalk, staring past the rotting roofs of a city that had once been great. Soldiers were emerging from the fortress, armor shining in the dawn. On the hillside they became dragons and soared, wings wide, not bothering to hide their magic.
Imperial thugs. Hatred rumbled in Erry's belly like her hunger. They summon their magic openly. They fly as dragons, patrolling our sky, grinding us into the ground. Yet if we shift, they tie us to a wagon wheel, shatter our bones with hammers, and leave us to die outside the city courthouse.
As Erry stared up at the dragons, all her hatred and rage flowed toward them. If not for the Emperor Cadigus's wars overseas, Erry's father might have been able to sail back here, tend to her, raise her in a real house. If not for Cadigus crushing the merchants of the city, perhaps her mother could have found real work, not bedded sailors for coins. If not for Cadigus, the kingdom of Requiem would still be full of magic and wonder and wealth—not this despair, this poverty that left an orphan dock rat to slowly starve on the water, here in a town that had once been a jewel.
If Erry could, she would smash that castle on the hill. She would slay every soldier inside. And then she would fly north over forests, fields, and rivers, reach the capital, and burn down the emperor himself.
Yet she only crawled back into her windmill. She nestled among the cats on the piss-soaked rags. And she slept again.
When darkness fell, her hunger became a terrible thing. A living demon inside her, begging, clawing at her, screaming for sustenance. It was time to hunt.
Lanterns kindled along the boardwalk. Shops that had once sold jewelry, silk, exotic pets, and spices from across the world had closed long ago; they were now hives of mold, stray cats, and vagrants that would kill Erry if she encroached upon their territory. Once, merchants, tradesmen, priests, and travelers from distant lands would wander the boardwalk. Jugglers and puppeteers would perform, families would laugh, and her father would sail here on a great brigantine. Now only a few urchins, beggars, and drunkards roamed the boardwalk, searching for food, for booze, for spice, for a warm pair of breasts to fondle. Erry had no breasts to speak of, not as scrawny as she was, but she still knew how to please a man, still knew how to find a warm meal.
It didn't take long. Not even an hour of wandering the boardwalk, and he approached. She knew this one. Yoram. A soldier of the city, stationed in that fort on the hill. He was twice Erry's age, three times her size, an unshaven brute, but a woman could not live off trash and washed up fish forever.
"Erry!" he said to her. "Erry Docker!"
She approached him. She stood on the cobblestones, chin raised. She was barefoot; he wore fine leather boots. She wore rags; he donned fine steel armor. She was an urchin; he was a soldier. But they both needed something tonight. Meat for meat. Some warmth in the darkness. A brief moment of respite from the fear, from the crushing loneliness.
"Yoram," she said. "I'm god-damn famished. I'm just about ready to gnaw on your own flesh."
His eyes softened. Some of the other soldiers would beat Erry, bruise her, thrust into her only to mock her, hurt her, toss her a few wafers for her services. Yoram was different. Sometimes Erry could swear that the fool truly loved her.
He caressed her cheek with sausage fingers. "Come with me. Let's get something to eat."
He shifted into a dragon before her. As a soldier wearing the Red Spiral sigil of the emperor, he could become a dragon without suffering the wheel. His red scales gleamed in the lamplight, and he beat creaking wings. Gently, like a mother lifting her cub, he wrapped his claws around her.
He soared, taking her with him. They flew over the city. From up here, the boardwalk seemed so small, a mere vein along the southern sea. North of the boardwalk coiled the streets of Cadport, and countless homes rose in a hive. So many roofs. So many hearths. So many lives in warmth, in safety, even under the heel of the empire. As the dragon carried her, Erry imagined that she lived in one of those houses. That she had a mother and father who loved her. Or perhaps that she was married to a man, someone who tended to her, who saw her as more than a dock rat, more than flesh for hire.
But that's not my lot. It was never meant to be mine. I'm just Erry Docker. A dock rat. A half breed. The daughter of a whore. That's all.
The red dragon flew toward the hill, his claws wrapped around her. Yoram descended outside the fortress, put her down, and released his magic. He returned to human form again, a scruffy soldier, his breastplate squeezing his girth, his face unshaven, his helmet too large. He reached out and took her hand. His palm was pink, sweaty, drowning her tiny hand.
"Let's go eat," he said, not unkindly, but she saw the lust in his eyes, saw how his gaze trailed across her body, even as she stood covered in rags and bruises.
He took her into the fortress. The main hall was a place of smoke, sweat, and firelight. Embers burned in iron braziers. Soldiers bustled about, armor clanking. A few prostitutes from the docks lurked in the shadows between limestone columns, smoking pipes of forbidden spice.
"Dock rat!" one man called, reaching toward her. She knew this one—a soldier named Gorm, a brute she had bedded once for a fistful of walnuts. "Ditch that tub of lard. Join me in my bed tonight, if you want to feel real loving."
Erry shoved his hand away. "Piss off! Your manhood is more shriveled up than a dead shrimp. Stinks as bad too. Try to grab me again, and I'll cut off that shrimp and toss it into the stew."
The other soldiers roared with laughter. Gorm's face reddened, and he made to leap toward Erry again. She growled and raised her fists.
"Enough!" Yoram barked, placing his stocky form between them. "Gorm, go spear one of the women in the shadows. Erry ain't one of your cheap whores."
More laugher filled the hall. "Dock rat's got a name, does she? Erry? Only thing 'erry here is my arse." Gorm pulled down his pants to demonstrate.
Erry groaned and rolled her eyes. Cheeks flushing, Yoram pulled her away, and they left the main hall. They walked up a craggy, spiraling staircase, moving up a tower. Through arrowslits, Erry could see the city below. A maze of alleyways and homes, lanterns shining in their windows, pockets of warmth and safety. Another few steps, and she saw the boardwalk, the beach, her windmill. A few more steps, and the staircase revealed the sea, the black waves like a blanket, calling her.
Come to us, Erry. Fall asleep in our arms. You will awake a great queen of Waterdepths, a mistress of sea and shadows and light.
"Not tonight," she whispered, letting Yoram lead her onward.
They stepped into his chamber, an unadorned room with rough brick walls, barely better than a prison cell, a palace compared to Erry's haunts on the boardwalk. Several bunks filled the place. A drunkard snored in one.
And on the table it awaited her: a meal.
A feast.
"Oh stars," Erry whispered.
Food. Real food. Bread rolls. Dates. A jug of wine. Smoked sausages.
A miracle.
"Eat." Yoram smiled.
Erry pounced and ate.
She stuffed the bread, the dates, and the sausages into her mouth faster than she could chew. Her cheeks puffed up. She gulped down wine like it was water. She wanted to save some, to stuff a bread roll and sausage into her pocket. But she could not resist. She devoured the meal within moments, so fast her belly ached and she worried she'd lose the food.
Stars. Oh stars, it's wonderful.
It was amazing, she thought. Even with the pain and loneliness in her belly. Even standing in this place, the halls of the empire. Even here, food became a thing more blessed than a mother's love, than a warm embrace. A thing of wonder. Of beauty. The most primal need of a person—to eat. Wonderful, wonderful eating.
Yoram stroked her short dark hair. "You're beautiful."
She snorted. "I look like a starved rat."
He shook his head. "You're the most beautiful woman in Requiem."
She rolled her eyes. She knew what to do. She pulled off her rags and tossed them into the corner. Standing naked before Yoram, she saw the desire in his eyes. He leaned down and tried to kiss her, but she turned her head aside.
"No," she whispered.
She would let him claim her body for a night, but only her body. Never her love. Never her soul. That soul was buried deep, wrapped in chains, too fragile to ever give.
She climbed onto his cot, lay on her belly, and closed her eyes. He tried to embrace her, to kiss her again, but she wriggled away from him, burying her face in a pillow, only relaxing when he finally mounted her. Then he became a wild thing, grunting above her, his body sticky with sweat. This was good. This Erry could understand. To be an animal, feral, just living on instincts, just craving food, water, sex. This was her life. Never to feel. Never to love. Never to hope. Humans felt pain; things could not feel.
