Page 9 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

I watched as she carefully eased her toes past the spikes, gingerly lowered her heels, and stood.

* * *

We walked the streets of Darles Hem in companionable silence. I never saw Seelia wince or shudder, though the edges of her shoes grew wet with blood. There might have been a momentary grimace when she first put her full weight on the instep bores, but I could have imagined that. Of late, I’d grown rather sympathetic to the pain of others.

For an hour we strolled. She never took a cautious step. And to people she knew, she smiled and made warm welcomes.

When we were alone enough that I wouldn’t be overheard, I commented, “I assume what matters is bearing it well.”

She flicked a hand dismissively. “Only in the most superficial sense. Yes, it’s shameful to draw attention to one’s own suffering. But the pain—”

“Isn’t who you are,” I finished, believing I’d begun to grasp the underpinning of Talenfoier.

“Wrong,” she said forcefully. “It is who you are. Part of you, anyway. That’s the problem with the thinking east of the Divide. You’re quick to remove a sliver.”

I’d heard this saying a time or two. The Divide was a great range of mountains that separated the Mal lands from the rest of the east. There were peoples in the Divide range itself. My people, the Sheason. But Seelia was lumping my order in with the rest of the Eastlands. I kept the smile off my face as I recalled another adage, one from the other side of the mountains: You’re callous as a heel west of the Divide. Thinking of Seelia’s instep bores, I wondered if I’d just happened on a bit of etymology.

She stopped, taking hold of my elbow to swing me around to face her. “It’s what’s wrong with Sheason rendering the Will to alleviate pain. It’s like ... it’s like denying part of yourself. It’s arrogant.”

I stared back, confused, but also wanting to understand.

She sighed, and opened her mouth to speak. But she promptly shut it and led me onward with a bit more purpose in her step, which must have hurt a good goddamn. We followed a number of narrowing cobblestone alleys. I’m sure the uneven paving angered the wounds growing in her soles.

Down a quiet byway, we came to an unremarkable door, behind which I heard a weak sound. It was like hearing the plaintive cries of a goat separated from the herd across a wide valley. Seelia gave me a last look, then led me in to an interior room where the mewling grew a shade louder. But only a shade. Whatever was making this cry was weak.

Seelia greeted a nursemaid who sat quietly in a rocking chair, holding a child ... the source of the sound I’d been hearing. When the woman stood, she gently transferred the babe to Seelia’s arms and withdrew. Seelia motioned for me to sit in the rocker the nursemaid had occupied. I sat, easing my skin against the backrest.

Without any somberness, she carefully placed the child in my arms. Not more than a month old, the babe was light. Too light. And its voice had grown hoarse, from crying, I assumed.

I began to have an idea about why we’d come to this dim room with its sheer drape over a small window. Why I was sitting in a shallow-arc rocker holding a sick child. My thoughts must have been obvious in my face, as Seelia quickly corrected me.

“You aren’t allowed to do anything but hold the child,” she said, not unkindly. “Leave the rest to Talenfoier.”

I heard many meanings in her words. And I realized I didn’t understand Talenfoier as well as I’d thought I did. Maybe not at all.

“Why are we—”

Seelia held up a finger, calling for patience. With her eyes locked on mine, she stepped backward and eased herself into a small chair. The seat might have been better suited to a child’s schoolroom. It left me with unsettling thoughts about who else might come to sit in this dire nursery. And why?

She let out a long breath. Not a sigh exactly. Nothing as loud or exasperated as that. She must have been glad to rest her tortured soles. But her face had never shown any signs of pain. She looked as peacefully indifferent as she had most of the morning.

I finally turned my attention to the child in my arms. She hadn’t ceased to cry. But cry is too big a word for the moan she was making. In its weakness, it seemed more a plea than anger or discomfort or hunger. I hadn’t much experience with newborns, but it didn’t take great genius to know that this little one was sick and sobbing for help. The sound of it was like the dry husks of standing corn, abandoned in a field, brushing together when stirred by a lazy wind.

A crust of grit and tears had hardened in her lashes, making it difficult for her to open her eyes. The movements of her limbs, once maybe vigorous in her complaints, were feeble now, slow.

I did the only few things I could think to do. I cleaned the child’s eyes. Blindness, I’d learned long ago, was frightening. Well, maybe not blindness, exactly. More not being allowed to see. Such darkness caused panic at the very least. Then I began to rock, gently. And with my own tired voice made my best effort to sing a lullaby. I hummed more than sang, since the words to lullabies were mostly lost to me. I might have been ignoring Seelia’s instruction not to do more than hold the child, but she didn’t try to stop my little song.

The child didn’t cease to cry. Not until her strength simply gave out. She dozed briefly.

Seelia sat watching. She didn’t shift or fidget. She didn’t comment. It wasn’t until the sun no longer shone directly on the sheer drape that she spoke, her voice thin as a whisper.

“It’s arrogant to try and avoid the pain that finds you. As if you don’t deserve it.”

I spared a look at the child. “What has she deserved?”

Seelia let a long moment pass. “One in twenty is born with blood disease. There’s nothing we can do. Except wait with them until they return to the earth.”

“You seem rather apathetic about it,” I observed.