Liavek 1 by Emma Bull, Will Shetterly Page B

shade her eyes. There was a sound like a note of music that was not music. As soon as the brick struck the cat, the light vanished and the cat shattered in two. Reykja swept together the two pieces and went on striking, again and again, as if she could not stop, until the wooden fragments became splinters on the stone floor.
    "An unchanging vessel," Reykja said, gasping from exertion. To Ondur's eyes she glittered, encased in the bright shining hardness brittle as glass. With huge effort, Ondur wrenched her gaze away.
    "A unity whole," Reykja said. She dropped the brick and bared her teeth in a smile.
    •
    Ondur thought desperately: Once a year. A birthday comes only once a year .
    Until her next one, Reykja would have no power to slip through the faJterings of spells, seize unlocked doors, have anything at all to do with birth luck. Until her next birthday, Reykja was safe. Until her next birthday-
    But Reykja did not wait.
    "This is Sorel," she said to Ondur. "His birthday falls tomorrow."
    Sorel looked about twelve, a skinny and needle-eyed twelve, with a furtive glance and a skinny swagger. The expensive silver knife stuck through his sash matched neither his age nor the state of his sandals. Ondur had seen many such boys. They slept on the ground at the Two-Copper Bazaar, carried notes at the docks when an illiterate messenger was desirable, made themselves available at Rat's Alley for whatever was nocturnal, stealthy, and dangerous. But beneath the dirt and above the wicked gleam of the dagger, Sorel's cheek curved plump and smooth. Ondur could see clearly the child Sorel had been, and even more clearly the man he would become.
    "Reykja," she whispered. "What are you doing?"
    But Reykja only laughed, and turned away. And two days later she brought to the kitchen a brass earring, so nondescript it might have been any of a thousand brass earrings from any of a thousand ears in Liavek, except that light flared brilliantly when she smashed it into a brass lump against the stone floor. Sorel left with a five-levar gold coin from behind a brick that the mistress had no idea anyone knew of. Ondur shuddered whitely, and held her arms across her belly. And Reykja, at the moment of the light's flaring, spat out "Into a unity whole," and looked up at Ondur, and smiled.
    "Are you a magician, Ondur?"
    "No. No. But no more, Reykja, no more—"
    "Liavek reeks with luck," Reykja said, and the glass around her glittered and shone as hard as petrified light.
    But that night Ondur heard her in the attic room, weeping.
    •
    The next evening, Ondur and Reykja sat hemming a blanket by the last of the light from the open kitchen door. It had stopped raining; beyond the crumbling garden wall the rooftops of Liavek shone purely against the dark blue sky, like gems against silk. One side of the rough blanket flowed over Ondur's lap, the other over Reykja's, and both their heads were bent over the stitches. It was tedious, soothing work; both master and mistress had gone out for dinner. Halfway down her side of the hem Reykja, never a good needlewoman, had pricked her finger, leaving a flat smear of blood. She had sucked the finger a moment, then gone on working.
    Ondur said suddenly. "There is a wizard in the house."
    Reykja's head jerked upwards. "A wizard!"
    Ondur sat unmoving, her profile white and strained over the sewing. Reykja's eyes narrowed. "How can you know that? Ondur, how can you know that?"
    Ondur did not answer.
    There were slow footsteps on the stairs.
    Reykja sat staring at the doorway that led from the house above to the kitchen. She held her needle before her and a little to one side, like a sword. To Ondur the glass that encased her sprang suddenly into sharpness, glittering shards poised outward. A small smile came and went on Reykja's lips, and it too glittered. Ondur, who could stand in full sunshine despite her white skin, shrank back.
    "A wizard," Reykja said, and the smile was gone. She sat waiting, armored, absolutely