Thanks, dumb Girl! (DRAFT)

Settling into the Maze of Balthispeare

Collen. The little ox with the club. Every lonely alley revealed me. Every nook full of rubbish put me in his shadow. Every crate broke under his club.

Tired and shaky, desperate for sleep, I sought the high ground—a balcony that had seen naught but birds for years.

Unable to make it as a burglar mouse, I shimmied up the stone wall like a squirrel, and surveyed my watch camp.

The rotten door behind my camp seemed to have rusted shut before Myrrha had been forged. The blued oak floor had been fortified against flame, and a scrap of iron from an old pot started my fireplace. Stones and dust and ash completed the makeshift kitchen.

I cooked my ratspider survival medicine as much as a punishment as a lifeline. Aching to burn Korog, dreaming to roast the soldiers who owed Mack a brother's shield wall, in my rage, I cooked the ratspiders too hot. I hoped that the scorch might cover the foulness, and—failing to find any relief—I burned my throat with the foul ration.

In truth it wasn't the nature of the food I imposed on Sigrun, so much as the reason she was there, that drove my stomach to twitch. The imbalance–surely there had to be someone, somewhere that could lift this blame. The lost people of Balthispeare loomed too big, too hurried, and too angry to deal with my questions. So I resigned myself to suffer in their place.

Thus entrenched, I settled in for a bit. I watched the boys. Collen kept up his mostly harmless tomfoolery. Oliver stepped back and forth, usually staring at some scroll or other. Then there was the sad boy. Small, hungry–fever-stunted?—with straw-white hair, Dust seemed the very picture of myself as a boy.

The black smoke in the air, that coated every brick and cobblestone in Medusa's maze, left me alone to sort fiend from friend by their deeds. But the deep tanned, autumn-haired elf Dust argued with, stepped in and out of existence.

I could tell Dust understood me, as none other did. And as I measured the hard edge of his sadness, I knew he alone could help me find the people who could answer for the tragic fall of Myrrha.

A great racket announced Collen's attack on my position. The little ox kept pawing and scrambling desperately at the footholds.

I stood over him holding the cast iron scrap and shaking my head until Dust tossed a pebble.

It bounced off the balcony and hit him in the middle of his forehead.

Collen looked up at me and cringed, then backed away. At that, Dust smiled and saluted me, just before Collen turned around. Then, Dust pulled the little ox in, arm around his shoulder in a show of brotherly compassion.

As the days wore on, hunting came ever easier. I squirreled away my rations–the reds needing no preservative– leaving more time to ponder. How could things have gone so wrong, that Korog would be allowed to work such havok? Among the living, I found only myself to blame. As a result, I kept my mind on my surveillance.

That's why I kept watch that day when Oliver stepped out of the baker's home.

Gentle and easy, Oliver walked with a princely gait, holding his cakes and scroll with one hand, adjusting his face windows with the other.

Dust came from behind Oliver, every step more like a cat.

Like the day in Myrrha's kitchen, the cycle repeated. Again I had been asked to hold silent. I called to Oliver, "Hey, dumb kid! Don't make it so easy!"

Blinking in confusion, Oliver looked about.

Dust swooped in like a hawk, snatching the bag of sweets. His velvet voice slithered over the noise of the crowd, telling me, "Great work!" At last, Dust handed the prize off to Collen with a salute, and disappeared in the crowd.

Sizzling blue light whipped about in Dust's direction before Oliver shook his hand and reined himself in.

The watchman strode up on Oliver.

Yet again my best intentions had twisted my aim, wielding me as a weapon of the dark smoke. As Dust disappeared into the wind, his victim lingered to answer for his reaction. With an anguished sigh I turned and stumbled back against the balcony wall. I sank to the floor, and tried to hold in the burning tears.

Why could I not do anything right? At eleven summers, I teetered on the verge of decision.The first tier of adulthood. But I hadn't risen yet, and… there had to be someone to blame. Someone to answer for this. I almost asked the High King for help, but wondered if he could hear me in this maze. Wondered if I even deserved an audience with Him. In my weakness, another name came to my mind—and though I dared not call Vivianca's name, desperately I begged her to send me help.

As if in answer, the sly, velvet voice of Dust called from the street below: "Thanks again for the assist."

Not long after, the boy peeked over the wall behind me. "Great work, but I already had him."

I wasn't trying to–! My lungs ran cold. I didn't think it time to argue the point. "Didn't have to steal, you know. It ain't right, robbing."

"Collen told me all about that, dumb girl. Says you owe him a meat cleaver."

I looked at him, hanging over my wall with both hands, and shrugged.

"Tell you what ain't right." Dust's eyes sparkled with the light of the shattered flame. "Rich boys strutting about like they own everything."

I looked about his head; no black smoke halo. His words belonged to him. Or at least, the choice to speak them.

"He didn't need that," Dust complained. "I did."

"There's ways to survive, Dust. You didn't have to."

"Didn't have to butt in where you don't belong. That's what ain't right."

Didn't I have the right to speak up? I cringed and swallowed my answer.

"Down there?" He smiled down on me. "That's my place, but if you're ready to fall, I'll catch you."

Like Old Man Wolf? Yes, but Dust–Dust meant for me to fall much harder and much farther.

He nodded as if at my thoughts. "I know, but there's room for you."

As a chess piece in your sick game? The boy couldn't know my thoughts, but I had to admit–he played me like Ben's lute. I shrugged

"Need kids like you. I could cut you in."

"I take care of myself."

"Really? Spiders? Not worthy of a red-headed indentured hinn." Despite hanging there, he managed to shrug. "My plans are bigger than a few street grabs."

Life already made me too much like Ker. "I said, 'no.'"

"No problem, dumb girl. Just stay out of my business."

I shrugged, leaning back again. "Got no promises."

"Promises might be all you do have." He slid down, then released. His footsteps stopped for a moment. "So, watch yourself."

I let him stamp out my voice, then failed even to complain. Sadness and despair stamped out the last sparks of me. My eyelids drooped and I let my chin roll to my shoulder.

*** *** ***

Ker's and Mack's heads stood on separate tines of the pitchfork outside Korog's camp.

The dreamworld jumbled it, but I didn't care: I seized my chance. "What happened? Why didn't anybody come? Whose job was it to make sure things went right?"

"Did go right." Ker huffed. "When man mek foolish and weak, he die. Life meant for those who can survive."

"No, that's not right!" Stamping my feet like a right-spoiled noble girl, I wagged my finger at Mack. "When something's important, you protect it. Whose job is that? Who do I blame for you dying? You couldn't stop it; neither could Ker. So, who?"

"Oh, Sigrun." Mack looked at me with that fatherly look men get when they want to lie to their precious children. "Don't you see? You should not ask that."

"It's all I have, this quest, this question. Please? Before it eats me alive."

"Like your friend, Dust?" He shook his head. "I know it's hurting you. Don't you see, that's why you have to stop."

He sounded more like my pixies than like Mack. Had he really been with them, been training in the clouds beyond the white gate? "I don't understand. What can I do?"

As if in answer, stones bounced onto my face. The first one erased the dream. Each one hit harder.

"Hey, Watch Girl, wake up."

"What?!" I banged my head against the wall as I woke.

Dust clung to the side of my balcony, looking down at me from behind my left shoulder.

Dust loomed ike the red, horned man in mother's books–an outsider? I think the boy meant to be unassuming, with only a hint of the creepy. I finished, "-is your problem?"

"If I read you right, I've got the cure for what ails you." He paused.

What kind of glass web was Dust spinning? I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"You really want to protect Oliver–protect us all? –you're going to follow me." As if that decided everything, he slipped down and led away.