Strange Attractors - Kim Falconer [20]
‘We can’t have her going into labour in some other world or some other time.’
Grayson forced himself to nod. ‘Of course not.’
‘We’re all very excited about this. Aren’t you?’
‘Thrilled, of course.’
‘The line goes on.’
Grayson smiled. ‘So it does. Such a relief.’
Hotha thanked him again for his time and left. Fynn stayed behind, looking up at Grayson.
‘What?’ Grayson stared back. ‘I suppose you knew too? And Annadusa? Am I the last to hear the news?’
Fynn’s tail thumped on the floor, his brow twitching. Grayson returned to his workbench and took a swig from his waterskin before sinking into his chair.
‘Rosette,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Shaea skirted the tall cliffs until she came to the old stairs. Who had built them, she had no idea. They were in ruins, wasting away, the corners rounded and whole sections broken apart. The ground was eroded where water and sewage had run in torrents, making the steps stand out like teeth—an old jawbone of some giant herd beast, jutting out of the cliff. They were hard to climb, harder still to get down, but it was better than coming into the city by the main gate, especially with what she had in her pockets. Pilfering the dead was a hanging offence.
Halfway up the climb, she was on her hands and knees clinging to rocks buried beneath silt baked to a fine powder. The stairs had disappeared in this section and she was clawing her way up. Sweat trickled down her face as she scrambled. It was hard to find a grip and the bottom was far below, a deep ravine. If she went over the edge her body would break like a fine porcelain teacup, chips flying off in different directions. When she reached the top of the next step, she turned around and sat, brushing the black powder from her hands and knees. She stroked the polished surface of the step as if it were a workhorse.
It felt smooth under her calloused fingers, cool to the touch and soft like a baby’s hair. Xane had said the stairs were solid granite, hewed by master sculptors, the same ones who had made the statues at the city’s gate. She’d told him he was full of dung, that it couldn’t be true. Those statues had come as gifts from Dumarka when Corsanon first hosted the Fire Festival and that was back not more than five generations. Besides, the statues weren’t worn, not like these steps. The stairway beneath her had come from a much earlier time, from an earlier people. He’d laughed and said she was dreaming. Maybe he was right.
She grabbed her shins, tucking them into herself. The view from this height was extraordinary, a rare sight for eyes that usually rested on garbage pails, pigswill and street filth. Even though her life had improved since Xane was taken on by the Stable Master, the furthest distance she usually gazed was down the next alley, or across a row of rooftops in the moonlight when she and Rall performed the lunar rituals. She pushed a long tangle back from her face and scratched her ear. Xane had made her life more bearable, though his absence erased that now. He was gone forever: no extra food and no coins. No Xane. How would she live?
She rubbed her eyes with balled fists. Would Rall come? Could the old witch make it down these stairs, even if she agreed to meet with the Entity? Rall had to be a great-great-grandmother by now. Her gait was unsteady and her fingers like gnarled twigs. They shook whether she used them or not; the tattoos on her hands were faded, indistinguishable from the dark veins and discoloration. She walked with a cane—when she could get around at all—and there seemed to be little strength in her limbs. Her back was hunched, her face sagging. After a lifetime of poverty there wasn’t much left of her. Only her mind remained open, sharp and expansive, like this view. ‘How in demon’s death will I get you to the portal?’
As Shaea resumed her climb, slipping several feet before finding a grip again, she realised the front gates would be the only way, preferably in a cart. She stood up for the next flight of stairs, keeping her centre of