Shatterglass by Tamora Pierce
Keth returned from the Farewell for Yali to bid Tris good night. The city’s clocks chimed midnight. Some time after that, Tris closed her book. She was unable to grasp another word; what she had read was a jumble of complex ideas that would take time to sort out. With the tides and lightning still moving in her veins, she wasn’t sleepy. She needed a walk.
First, she discovered that Chime did not want to be left behind, which meant Tris had to don the sling and settle the glass dragon. Then she went downstairs. As she’d hoped, Ferouze was awake. The old woman kept the same hours as the yaskedasi. “I’d like to go for a walk,” Tris explained. “Would you watch Glaki until I come back? She’s asleep in Yali’s room.”
“She pays no rent for it,” Ferouze grumbled through her handful of remaining teeth. “And I’m no children’s maid.”
Tris got two copper five-bik pieces out of her purse. “One of these to watch Glaki. One to pay a week’s rent, and don’t tell me Yali paid more than that. Will you do it?”
“I’ll do it.” Ferouze reached greedily for the money.
Tris held up a finger in warning, then stroked a thin braid with her free hand. Sparks of lightning jumped onto the copper coins. She loved copper: it held lightning for hours. “When I come back, I’ll take the sparks off these,” she said, placing them on Ferouze’s table. “I wouldn’t do that,” she added as the woman grabbed for the coins.
“Ouch!” Ferouze sucked on her stinging fingers. “That hurt.”
“I know,” Tris replied. “Better hope that I remember to take the spell off when I get back. Of course, I’ll find you up where Glaki is, won’t I?”
“You dhaski are hard folk,” grumbled Ferouze as she followed Tris into the passage. “Your mother would be ashamed.”
“I’ll tell her you said so,” Tris promised, turning onto Chamberpot Alley.
Khapik was as fascinating as ever to both Tris and to Chime. Together they went down alleys and through streets designed to tempt the coldest heart, up to rooftop gardens and down to sunken open theaters where dancers, jugglers, and fire-eaters entertained the public. She passed rough taverns overflowing with drunkards and select wineshops where people sipped and talked about vintage and palate. Her breezes sought her out wherever she went, carrying snippets of conversations, including some that made her blush.
“They say you’ll get an education down here,” she confided to Chime. “They just don’t say if you’ll like what you learn.”
Only once did she encounter a problem, on a street off Willow Lane. A man drew a knife when he saw her, showing bad teeth in a nasty grin. “Just the purse, girl. I’m doing you a favor here, teaching you about walking dark streets alone.” He came so close to her that Tris could smell his breath. She moved back a step before he grabbed her by the arm.
Tris tried to yank away. “What if I don’t want the favor?” she asked coldly, trying to decide how she would punish him. She felt Chime clamber onto her shoulder.
“That’s life, Dimples,” the robber said, fumbling for Tris’s purse. He was on the girl’s far side, in the light. Tris’s right shoulder, and the dragon, were in shadow.
Chime pulled herself onto Tris’s braids, leaned forward, and spat a handful of needles into the man’s cheek. The robber yelped, released Tris, and backed away, pulling the sharp bits of glass from his face. His fingers bled as the needles cut them.
“Maybe I’d better call for an arurim,” Tris remarked, though it seemed to her that Chime had punished the man enough. “Men like you are probably terrible for business.”
“Mage!” croaked the robber. He turned and fled into the darkness, still trying to pull glass from his skin.
“I don’t have dimples!” Tris called after him. She sighed and walked down a broader street. “That was well done,” she praised Chime. “I’m impressed by your aim.”
The glass dragon butted her head against Tris’s ear. A breeze circled them, carrying the voice of someone who yawned and said, “I’m done for the evening, Nerit.”
Tris caught herself yawning. “Sounds like a good idea,” she murmured, and returned to Chamberpot Alley.
When they arrived at Touchstone Glass in the morning, Dema was there, waiting for them. Keth halted in the courtyard, fists clenched. Get it over with, he told himself, and asked Dema, “Who, and where?”
Dema’s face was covered with sweat. He wiped it on his stole. “Stenatia, a courtyard yaskedasu from Swansdown House. He left her on the steps of the Hall of Records on the Keeper’s Road.”
“A courtyard …?” Tris asked, not sure what that meant.
“From one of the entertainment houses. Yaskedasi there are a cut above those who perform on the street,” explained Keth. “Their customers pay just to get in, plus whatever they give the performer. And the houses have watchmen to make sure the guests don’t get rowdy.”
“Which means he took her from under the nose of someone who was supposed to stop that sort of thing,” Dema added. “You have good instincts for this, Keth, to remember about the watchmen.”
“I don’t think that’s a compliment,” Keth said bitterly. “When was she taken, do you know?”
As they talked, Tris set out the breakfast they had purchased on the way to the shop. Glaki took a honeycake to Dema, who smiled wearily at the child. He was ashen-faced with exhaustion. “Around midnight, between performances. Last anyone recalls seeing her, she was on her way to the privy in back of the house.”
Heat — temper, magic? he didn’t know — welled up in Keth until he thought he might burst. The courtyard houses were safe, particularly for yaskedasi. There were hazards to performing on the streets, enough that those who could afford to do so and those who had gained some measure of fame thought it worthwhile to pay the monthly fees to those who operated the houses. “Does he walk through walls?” he cried, furious. “Is he invisible?!”
Inside the shop two tall vases shattered. Everyone turned to stare at the pieces on the floor until Tris remarked, as sensibly as ever, “The problem with bringing your magic under control is that it gets more powerful. If your control isn’t perfect …” She went into the shop and found the broom. “We’ll work on that today.”
“And the globes,” Keth said grimly. She sounded unmoved and levelheaded, but Keth knew her a little better now. He could see the quiver at the corners of her mouth. She was as upset as he was. It startled him to realize that even though he knew she was upset her braids remained where they were, without movement, without sparks. For the very first time he wondered at the amount of emotional control it took, for her hair not to give her feelings away.
“And the globes,” agreed Tris as she swept up glass. “You said you have a fallback plan. When does it go into action?” she asked Dema.
“Tomorrow night at the earliest,” he replied, inspecting his honeycake as if he’d forgotten what it was for. “The arurimati have to rearrange schedules. The women, some of them, have families to be looked after. At least Mother isn’t screaming over the expense. She knows how close I — we — are to disgrace.” He took a bite of the cake and chewed as though it were made of wood. “I wish I could explain how maddening this is!” he cried when he had swallowed his bite. “Nine times out of ten — no, better than that — ninety-four times in a hundred, the victim knows her killer, his killer, whoever. We question the family, the neighbors, fellow workers, and usually it’s one of them. But how do we handle a thing like this? We question those who knew the dead, who saw them before they were taken, but all of the possibilities have turned to lead. We’ve found no one who knew all of the victims, no one at all. And no one who saw anyone suspicious around even two of the yaskedasi.”
Carrying broken glass to the cullet barrel inside the door, Tris saw a prathmun pick up the trash from Antonou’s house and carry it to his wagon in the alley. “Have you questioned the prathmuni?” she asked, turning to Dema. “Maybe they saw something.”
“Of course we’ve picked up and questioned a number of
“Did they have anything to do with Khapik, or the victims?” Keth wanted to know.
Dema shrugged. “They’re Khapik prathmuni. And they haven’t admitted anything so far.”
“You’re torturing them,” Tris accused.
“That’s how we handle prathmuni,” replied Dema. “Everyone knows a prathmun lies as easily as he breathes. Since the arurim prathmuni bring them in anyway, it’s easiest to go right to it. If you were Tharian, you wouldn’t even ask about this.”
“So you get the torture out of the way, whether there is reason to suspect the prathmuni you arrest or not,” Tris said angrily.
“That’s how things are done here,” replied Dema. “Our ways aren’t yours. Could we change the subject? It’s not exactly a decent one, particularly in front of a child.” He got to his feet, half of his honeycake still in one hand. “If you create another globe today?”
“We’ll let you know,” Keth said.
Tris, Keth, and Glaki watched Dema trudge out of the courtyard. Only when he was well out of sight did Keth hear Tris mutter, “Barbarians.” She looked at Glaki and scowled. “It’s fine to talk about torture in front of a child, but gods forbid we talk about the people who get tortured.” When Glaki’s eyes went wide with fright, Tris smiled crookedly. “I’m not angry with you,” she assured the little girl. “Not even a bit.” Glaki relaxed slightly, and returned to playing with her ragged doll.
“Tharian customs,” murmured Keth, though he understood Tris’s feelings. “We’re only guests here.”
“Slavery is more honest,” she retorted. “At least the only thing anyone ever blames slavery on is bad luck, not impurity.”
Keth nodded. “We’d better start. I want to get some ordinary pieces done for Antonou today besides the other things. He’s been very good about me using up his supplies.”
Tris settled Glaki with her toy and placed her magical protections around the workshop. Once more she and Kethlun settled into meditation. That morning, at her direction, Keth worked on letting his magic fill just his skin without going outside his body. Tris barely said a word, apart from letting him know that his efforts were successful.
Once they finished pure meditation, Keth blew glass. Working slowly, taking pains, he produced three balls. None of them held lightning; all had lightning that flickered over their surfaces, but only in bursts that did nothing to hide the glass underneath.
Glaki was placing the third globe where the others sat — the lightning on these globes didn’t sting — when someone outside the barrier cleared his throat. It was Antonou. “Keth? Cousin? Might I have a word?”
Tris lowered her magical barrier. “Keep an eye on Glaki,” she told Keth, walking past Antonou into the center of the courtyard. “I’ll be right here, but don’t disturb me.”
Standing beside the well, Tris took off her spectacles and tucked them in her sash, then closed her eyes and began to meditate. The men’s voices and the sound of Glaki as she played with her doll, Little Bear, and Chime, faded from her attention, along with the street noise. Once Tris was ready, she opened her eyes.
The day’s breezes slid before her sight: they were clear in her vision, though nothing else was. She saw the air’s eddies and pools, the change in currents where heat from the kitchen flowed through cooler air. Chime soared past her nose. Tris’s eyes picked out the curling and parting of the air as the dragon cut through it, as water parted around a boat.
Whispering a magical formula, Tris drew signs first on her left temple, then on her right: the crescent for magical vision, the seven-pointed star for the strength to manage what she would see, and the four small waves of the winds. Then she clasped her hands before her, and waited for her sight to improve.
A wisp of color shone on a current of air, like the glint in the depths of an opal. Another wisp. Another. The air streamed with flares in many hues, threads of fast-moving color. The wisps grew infrequent, then rare. At last they stopped appearing to Tris’s eyes at all.
She sighed. Her first try was over. Using a counterclockwise motion, she wiped the signs from her temples, and lurched. A strong arm caught her. She looked up into Keth’s face. “Why are you mauling me?” she demanded, struggling weakly. She felt as wrung out as a sheet on laundry day.
Something on Keth’s face looked suspiciously like a smile. Tris gave up her fight and groped in her sash for her spectacles.
“I had to stop you from falling into Antonou’s well,” he explained, his voice quivering. “They’d never get the taste of mage out of the water.”
Tris shoved her glasses onto her nose and glared at him. He was smiling. “What’s so funny?” she growled.
“You. Did you know it’s almost midday?” Keth set Tris on her feet.
She swayed as she looked around. There was the lip of the well, just a foot away. Little Bear, Chime, and Glaki sat on the ground nearby, staring at her in fascination.
“Come on, great teacher,” Keth said, wrapping an arm around Tris’s waist to steady her as she tottered over to a bench. “Rest your weary bones.”
“It can’t be nearly midday,” Tris argued, though her magical senses told her it was. “What happened to the morning?”
“It passed while you gazed into the air,” Keth replied, easing her onto the bench. “You didn’t even twitch when the Bear chased a cat in the garden. We owe Antonou basil plants, by the way.”
“I don’t know why that dog bothers,” muttered Tris. “Every time he corners a cat, it beats the fur off him. I should get our midday.” Her head swam. Odd sparks flared in her sight as she moved her head.
“Antonou is bringing it,” Keth assured her.
Tris looked at him sharply. “Why? He’s under no obligation to feed me or Glaki.”
Keth grinned and sat beside her. “There’s been a change in our arrangements,” he explained. “Antonou likes having a glass mage in the shop — that’s why he’s left us alone. And he really likes those globes.” He pointed to his morning’s creations, which continued to glitter and spark, pale copies of his lightning globes. “If he sells anything I create that I don’t need to keep, I’ll get half the price. It solves a lot of problems, Tris. He says what he can make just from the globes will pay for my time and materials, and we’ll have plenty left over. I thought you’d approve, since you sold those pendants I made of Chime’s flames.”
“Ah, she is back with us.” Antonou approached from the kitchen wing of the house, a tray of dishes in his broad, scarred hands. “So, Dhasku Tris, does Keth need these globes? As mementoes, or for study? I can get a very good price for these. People love magical novelties that don’t carry unpleasant consequences.” He set the tray down on a table near the kitchen garden and took another tray from his wife, who had followed him.
“But I won’t always be making magical devices, will I?” asked Keth, placing benches around the table. “I’ll be able to do plain glass again?”
“You can do whatever you like, when your magic is completely under control,” replied Tris. “And those globes are your work. They’re yours to dispose of. Just let me test them this afternoon, to be sure they don’t hold any surprises.” She looked for Glaki, and saw that the girl was now hiding behind Little Bear. Both she and the dog stared at the good-smelling dishes with yearning.
“Here, you are too skinny,” Antonou’s wife said, putting things on a plate for the child.
While Keth tried to blow another lightning globe that afternoon, secure inside Tris’s protective circle and working on his magical control, Tris inspected the new globes, exploring them with her power. They held not a flicker of true lightning, or of anything else. When she put the last one down, she noticed that Keth watched her. “They’re empty,” she said. “If Antonou wants them, and you want him to sell them, go ahead.”
He nodded. “So Khapik is safe for tonight,” he said, inspecting the globe he had just finished. It glittered l
“As far as we know,” Tris repeated with a sigh. “We should tell Dema.” She was tired.
Keth finished his work, cleaned the shop, and told Antonou the globes were there for him to sell. At last he, Tris, Glaki, Little Bear, and Chime set off toward Khapik. “How’s business?” he asked the guard who stood at the district gate.
“Not good,” the man replied, disgusted. “The yaskedasi are scared. Some are leaving. And the guests are falling off, too. I suppose they think there’s a chance this madman will mistake him for one of us.”
“How bad is business off?” inquired Keth.
“A quarter,” the guard replied.
Keth winced as they passed through the gate. “This will hurt everyone,” he told Tris. “We’ve got to catch him.”
Tris looked up at him and saw lightning flash in his eyes. “Keth, calm down,” she ordered. “Breathe and count. You’re sparking.”
“I’m what?” he asked. “Where?” Tris pointed to his eyes. “Oh,” Keth said sheepishly. The lightning in his eyes faded. “That never happened before,” he pointed out, breathing slowly and carefully.
“But the lightning found a path through you it likes, so it will keep following it. You’ll have to learn to control your temper,” Tris said firmly.
He grinned unexpectedly down at her. “And you’re going to teach me?” Though he knew she kept a tight hold on her deepest feelings, he’d also gotten enough of the tart edge of her tongue to find the idea funny.
Tris drew herself up. “I can lose my temper because my power is under control,” she said in her primmest voice. In a return to her normal, dry speech she added, “And quite a fight it is.”