Page 8 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

I pointed at several yellow-and-purple bruises across her face, legs, arms, chest, and neck. “Then your beating wasn’t random.”

“Is any beating random?” She licked her lips to moisten the torn parts.

I smiled a bit more broadly then. “I’m a bit obtuse this morning, I suppose.” I looked back to see if Amen had ventured out of his hole. “What I mean is, since you’re here, I assume you allowed yourself to be beaten.”

She gave me a sharp look, one that softened a touch after a moment. “Some call it the cruciation before the cruciation. It makes one teachable.”

“Being beaten,” I said, careful to keep judgment out of my voice.

She shook her head, her eyes becoming distant as she stared into a patch of sunlit soil. “It’s any of a hundred things. And for a woman, it starts in earnest when she gets her blood.”

I was suddenly reminded of the painters of Masson Dimn. The art schools there taught mastery over brush and oils. Canvas paintings as tall as bristlecone pines were created and shipped to the manors of those who could afford to pay. But no image ever left a Dimnian painter’s care before it was deliberately marred in some obvious way. The imperfection, they taught, kept them from arrogating to the stature of the abandoning gods—Noble Ones, they called them.

The Noble Ones had framed the world, the old stories said. One of these gods had gone mad, ruined balance. Once they believed the world beyond repair, they’d abandoned it. So the story went. Dimnian artists purposely marred their art, considering it a visual prayer of deference to those gods. Others, who’d ceased to believe there’d ever been Noble Ones, viewed the imperfection as the right way of humility.

And like a piece of Dimnian art, it seemed, each Mal was kept in a constant state of imperfection, enfeeblement. Pain to remind them, refine them. But of what? For what?

“I saw your back,” the young woman said without any real tenderness. “It’s unusual to start with the cruciation of knives. Someone wanted you to give in quickly. Or die of bleeding. Your kind has thin blood. Runs fast.”

“Sorry to have been a disappointment.” I managed a low chuckle at my own joke. “The brands will come next.”

She had that faraway look again in her eyes. “The Aerin Loh find the right sequence for each of us. But for most the sequence is the same.”

“Most Mal, you mean.”

This time she nodded. “With you, it’s not ... what’s your word ... refinement?”

I nodded. I knew what she’d say next.

“With you it’s a way to die.” She shifted to face me directly. “You haven’t answered my question.”

I stared back, hearing for the first time the yellow-billed swallows in the aspen above me. Theirs was a late-morning song, sung softly, as if for themselves and not to declare territory or attract mates. I remained silent, listening to the trill-yawt-yawt-yawt-soooooon, made over and over. I had no intention of talking during those first notes of song.

In the lull between bird calls, I said, “You have something that doesn’t belong to you. Your war-leaders covet its qualities. But they’ve no idea how to use it. It belongs to me. To my kind.”

“The ingot of steel,” she said. “Some call it the ThousandFold.”

I nodded. “I’ll gladly leave when it’s been returned.”

“That’s not likely.” She paused a long moment, her eyes bright with consideration. “You must have known that. Why wouldn’t the Sheason come and seize it by force?”

I laughed, and immediately regretted it, the simple act pulling at my wounds. “Contrary to what you may have heard, we don’t prefer war. But I also knew that simply asking would do no good.”

“So you chose the cruciations as a way to prove yourself.” She shook her head, whether in respect or at the foolishness of it I couldn’t decide.

“Perhaps I can earn Mal trust. Then they’ll listen to me when I tell them why they cannot ... should not wield the steel they’ve taken.” I gave her a grave look, coming to the crux of it. “And I’m going to need that ingot of steel soon. To answer larger threats than the Mal have from their neighbors to the south.”

“You’re saying your wars, your concerns, are greater than ours.” The first look of real judgment rose in her eyes.

I stared back. “I’m saying that your people took something that doesn’t belong to them. Something they hope to use to fight a small war. They won’t discover the key to that steel. And while they search, its larger uses slip away.”

“Then go and tell them that,” she offered, incredulous.

I smiled at the innocence. “They know why I’m here. But they’ve no reason to believe what I say is true. I could be telling lies to get what I want. No,” I said, feeling suddenly more weary, “I need the weight of cruciation if I’m to be heard. And failing that ... there’s always war to take it back.”

She regarded me a long time, her eyes more thoughtful. That’s when the girl’s beauty finally struck me, a beauty of earnestness, and of eyes that saw more than she allowed herself to say. Her straight blonde hair hung loose and long, a grace upon her skin, and a sharp contrast to the dark bruises from her recent beating. More than these things, I liked the movement of her mouth when she spoke. Men notice such things, though it’s not something they talk about. But there was a universe of compassion and sensuality in it. She gave words life and appeal, forming subtle suggestions that went beyond the words themselves. The more beautiful part was that she had no idea she was doing it.

After my mention of war, and our long staring, she didn’t call me a fool. She didn’t laugh or smile or sigh. She didn’t leave me to my ruminations, or go back inside to entertain her own thoughts. She simply said, “Will you join me for a walk?” Which wasn’t so odd, I suppose, until she bent forward and carefully positioned the shoes she’d brought with her. Before she slipped her feet inside them, I caught a dull gleam in the shadows of each. Short spikes, maybe half a finger’s-width high, poked up from each instep.