Page 33 (1/2)

He did not, for example, eat hual had occasion to learn firsthand when, at the age of ten, she was assigned to be his page

The youth s; pure chance She ht as easily have chosen Chiro, but she didn’t She chose Madrigal, three years an orphan, skinny and inquisitive and lonely, and sent her off with an abstracted command to do as she was told, and keep quiet about what she learned

What was she going to learn? The secrecy of it at once set young Madrigal’s mind on fire, and it ide eyes and jitters that she presented herself in the west tower, to be ushered into the shop by a sweet-faced Naja woman--Issa--and offered tea She accepted it but didn’t drink, so preoccupied was she with staring at everything: Briined froli her In the shadows, his tufted tail switched like a cat’s,her nervous She looked around at the shelves and dusty books; she looked at the broad door on its scrollwork bronze hinges that maybe, just maybe, opened to another world; and, of course, she looked at the teeth

That was unexpected Everywhere, the clitter-clack of teeth strings, the dusty jars of thee and tiny as hailstones Her young fingers itched to touch, but no sooner did the thought enter herthere, Brimstone cut her a look with those slit-pupil eyes of his, and the ial froze He looked away, and she sat rigid for at least an entire er out to tap a curled boar tusk--

"Don’t"

Oh, his voice! What a thing it was, deep as a catacomb She should have been afraid, and maybe she was, a little, but the fire in her mind was primary "What are they all for?" she asked, awed The first question of many Very, very e he riting out on thick cream paper and sent her off with it to the Warlord’s steward That was all he wanted her for, to carryup and down the long spiral stairs He certainly wasn’t looking for an apprentice

But once Madrigal learned the fullness of hisless than immortality, the preservation of chimaera and all hope for their freedoe

"I could dust the jars for you"

"I could help I could ator or crocodile? How can you tell?"

By way of proving her value, she presented hiurations "Here’s a tiger with bull’s horns, see? And this one is a mandrill-cheetah Could you"I could help"

Wistful, entranced "I could learn"

Deterible "I could learn"

She didn’t understand why he wouldn’t teach her Later, she would realize it was that he didn’t want to share the burden with anyone--that it was beautiful, what he did, but terrible, too, and the terrible bountifully outweighed the beautiful But by the time she understood that, she didn’t care She was in it

"Here Sort these," Bri a tray of teeth across his desk to her She had been with hi her in that role Until now

Issa, Yasri, and Twiga all stopped what they were doing and swung their heads around to stare Was it… a test? Bribox, and Madrigal, almost afraid to breathe, slid the tray in front of her and quietly got to work

They were bear teeth Brial had been watching him for years by then She held each tooth and… listened to it She listened with her fingertips, and picked out the few that didn’t feel right--decay, Brimstone told her later--discarded the, not size When she slid the tray back to hio wide and lift up to regard her in an entirely neay

"Well done," he told her then, for the first ti while, in the corner, Issa dabbed at her eyes

After that, and all the while pretending he was doing no such thing, he began to teach her

She learned that ain with the universe, a calculus of pain A long ti open their own flesh to access the power of their agony, or evenon purpose to create lifelong reservoirs of pain There had been a balance then, a natural check when it was one’s own harh, some sorcerers had worked ways to cheat the calculus and draw on the pain of others

"That’s what teeth are for? A way to cheat?" It seeal ave her an unusually hard look "Perhaps you would prefer to torture slaves"

It was so awful, and so uncharacteristic, that Madrigal could only stare at her It would be years before she learned what Issa meant--it would be the eve of her own death when Brimstone finally talked freely to her--and she would be ashaured it out for herself His scars That should haveon his hide, fine crisscrossed whip splits all over his shoulders and back But how could she have guessed? Even with all that she had seen--the sack of her es she had fought in--she had no foundation for the horror that had been Brihten her then

He taught her teeth and how to draer from them, how toforth bodies as real as natural flesh It was ahe’d learned, but invented, and the same with the hamsas They weren’t tattoos at all, but a part of the very conjuring, so that bodies caic in a way no natural body could be

Revenants--as the resurrected were called--didn’t have to tithe pain for power; it was already done The haical weapon paid for with the pain of their last death