13. Saved him for ya, Vicki

A dangerous decision that would already be hard

In the shadow below my balcony, Dust and I lurked. Collen slouched as if he had hidden himself behind the rag-wearing crone who tended to the smallest children on the street.

As Oliver came from the baker's home with a bag of treats that filled his left arm, so much sweat dripped down his forehead that it made mine itch. He carried a scroll by the top bar, squinting and muttering at it, pretending to look down all the time. "I hope nobody gets these treats. I really hope nobody gets my wonderful donuts this time. I am really hungry." He paced the length of that square and turned back before our quarry arrived.

Never had I dreamt of such an underfed urgan. Korog, slight as he was, stood a head taller and had arms as large as the piglet's waist. Green skin had pinkish tinges. The nose came to an almost-human point. The piglet looked in every direction, stalking Oliver as if afraid—such an impossible sight, that it made me want to laugh. His fear flooded over him and made us both want to run. I grabbed Dust. "This is not right."

"Hush, Watch."

The thrill switched to horror and I pulled his sleeve. "No, we've got to call it—"

Empty handed, the urgan boy lunged up behind Oliver, squealing and snorting. He grabbed the bag and ran past.

Oliver straightened his shoulders. Suddenly the image of a sorcerer, he spoke the words, and pointed. A flash of silver-blue leaped from his finger to the piglet's feet, frosting him and the surrounding street.

The piglet's boots shattered as the fall ripped his feet from them. The piglet slipped further and landed flat on his snout. The donuts flew from the bag and rolled across the street.

Collen rushed from behind. Dust ran to hover over the piglet, pulling a bamboo straw and blowing. Sparkling dust covered the poor, unfortunate piglet's face until he coughed.

"What? Why di—?" The urgan's head fell to the ground, mid-word.

"You killed him!" This was no daring assault, just a simple murder.

Dust smiled. "Don't worry. Pig's still alive. We saved him for you."

"A gift to you." Collen smiled and bowed. "We know you hate them dirty pigs."

Oliver's fake smile screamed of sickening distress as he turned and stepped a few paces off.

I stood over the piglet, cleaver-arm hanging loose at my side. My stomach ached. Nothing I'd believed had proved true. That magic powder would fetch a huge price. Dust could have fed himself for weeks, even months, selling that one dose. He had other reasons; he meant to bedevil me as surely as Korog's unseelie pixie bewitched Ker.

In honor of the death of my family, this need burned behind my chest and in my eyes. Part of me didn't care who took the punishment, even myself. That's who I saw there, helpless on the cobblestones: a little refugee child, an orphan who took refuge in the city. She deserved to be punished for what had happened to her aunt and uncle as much as anybody. It would have been so easy to go along, to murder her in effigy along with the boy. I'd be so happy to join Dust's empire of evil. I shook my head. "Not like this. Not some snack thief, unarmed and drugged. This will bring no honor to anybody."

Collen jumped, excited, and waved his club.

Dust nodded and gave the thumbs down sign.

Dust meant for Collen to kill the piglet. With luck, I could stop the club, maybe ruin it. I readied my cleaver. My voice cracked. "Don't do it, Collen. You may be bad, but no. Please? You're better than this."

"Keep at it." Dust slapped me in the back, approving. "One day you might just turn somebody, maybe even Collen."

My furious glare only drew a shrug. "Do what you want; we're done." Dust walked away.

He meant Collen more than me. I swallowed, keeping my cleaver low.

Like a workman, Collen swung the club straight over his head—as though at a fence post—and brought it down as hard as he could.

I struck straight up at it, chopping halfway through.

Collen's swing wrenched the cleaver out of my hand and pulled my wrist.

Though it cost me my weapon, my parry had saved the piglet. I stared at my cleaver, hanging in the club.

"Really, Watch Girl?" Dust turned and made a pulling sign to tell Collen to stop. "Sure that's how you want to play?"

The word 'sure' didn't answer it. I had to protect the piglet. I nodded. He'd done wrong, maybe, but for all that, had surely not earned a weapon to the head–cleaver, or club. "Cannot let you do this."

"This has to be scary for him." Oliver looked down, thoughtfully, on the sleeping boy. "Maybe he's learned his lesson."

"Stupid wizard."

Collen pointed, "Yeah! Stupid."

"Only thing urgans can learn, Oliver?" Dust stood in Oliver's face. "—to hit sooner and harder. But whatever." He turned his gaze to me.

I continued to guard the piglet as Dust continued his show.

He shrugged. "Watch Girl made her choice."

I nodded and held my position.

"Whatever he does, Sigrun? From here on out, it's on your head."

I stood firm.

"When the time comes, we won't be there to help you destroy him."

So I would bear the stain of either the urgan boy's blood or his actions. Like with Korog, I found myself outmaneuvered.

"Mark well. He will destroy you." He turned his back on me and left without pausing to listen.

Collen threw down his ruined club and stuck both thumbs down. "Yeah—you heard me!" He howled and turned to follow his lead.

Oliver pulled at his collar and slowly backed away.

He wanted to help. If I'd invited him, he would–even if it ruined him. I couldn't ask him to brave Dust's ire. I nodded and waved him away as I chased down my cleaver.

The piglet woke and threw his arms up. "Ha'm sorry ha lost the donuts! Ha get more!"

Hoping to reassure the boy, I tried an insult. "What are you snorting about?"

"Shaman Dust, your boss. He tell me he let live if ha mek his the Oliver food."

So Dust had not been upfront. No surprise. I ran my fingers through my hair, and offered my hand to help the boy up. "I do not answer to Dust."

"Everybody answer Dust. Maybe not Medusa, the tho-rules-changer that play queen here—"

He referred to Queen Medusa, the statue I had seen entering the city. She could turn her enemies into glass, the story said, like her hero from an ancient Amerik fable. Gullible urgans everywhere huddled in fear at the notion. I nodded.

"—but all kids, and most adults, do him words. He mek must."

No surprise, that, either. Dust had the way of somebody who spoke the truth. Not honesty, but {popnote: "puissant"}puissant: warrior term for persuasive by action; he would make good on his words. "I am not 'all the kids.'" I didn't admit how narrowly I had escaped his clutches.

"Why I live? Ha mek hate all over girl face."

"Ker murdered my Aunt and Uncle, but you? You're just ... not." I wiped a tear from my eyes. "An urgan chief. I wish…"

He snorted.

"... I could pretend you were."

He laughed. "Thorgabent! Mother say you're thorgabent, like huma father. Protect fragile garbage, it destroy you!"

Dust had said the same thing. "Maybe I am foolish, maybe not. But know this: I speak urga too. Ha mek medkek." Medkek, the state of metal on the anvil when ready to shape, or of a prisoner beaten past the end of his endurance. I had offered to make him a good listener—that is, to torture him. I retrieved my cleaver.

He smiled and rolled out of reach. "Oliver say you new Dust. Oliver speak glass. You more."

My threat reassured him, as I expected it would. He ran a stone's throw away, and when he got far enough to duck a flying cleaver, he turned. His hands splayed in a sort of urgan 'thumbs up' gesture. "I one owes you!"

"Just don't tell the locals. That's all I need."

As if to prove my point, an egg splattered in the back of my hair. I turned to look back at a cute little girl of roughly five summers. Her brown eyes glistened from under the dirt as she snarled at me.

"Pig farmer! Hit the pig farmer." She scurried away.

The old lady who tended the little ones walked up behind me with a comb and towel to pull through the mess. "Sola's right, you know. Pigs don't belong here. Why risk your life?"

Before she finished, I pulled away. "Because maybe I don't belong here, either."

I had never belonged, not since I had come back, since the pixies taught me how the world should be. Wandering through the streets, I moped along. A far-off flute lent melody to my mood, putting a sort of beauty to my helpless despair as I made my way to the center of the city, toward Medusa's Tower.