The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper Read Free Book Online

release the cloud, the cloud will find that person among all the peoples who may be near, no matter where the person is hidden, so long as I release it nearby!”
    “Any person?” he said in a choked voice.
    “Any person I choose—if I have their code. That’s what the books call it, the code.”
    “What code?”
    “The code of themselves! The code that makes each of them unique. It’s in their fingernails, in their skin. It’s in their spit on the rim of a wineglass. That’s where I got the code of the princess, while she was at the court of King Gahls. I made my cloud and I carried it here to Woldsgard, near the castle. And once my cloud had settled upon her, she was doomed. The very cells of her body have been slowly, inexorably destroyed by my cloud.” She laughed again. “Clouds, I should say. In her case, I have to keep releasing them. It is almost like magic, isn’t it?”
    Xulai, staring, saw a malevolent vapor spread from the woman’s mouth, smelled something vile. She held her breath so she would not inhale, for she knew she would choke if she breathed that laughter. Abasio’s arms tightened around her as they watched the woman laughing and swaying on her feet as though dancing. “Like your pigeons, Jenger. Like your homing pigeons at the tower. My curses will find their roost in one person only, one in the whole world.”
    Above her, a branch, red-lit from the glowing altar below, moved, as though thrust by a puff of wind. It danced above the woman’s head, moved down toward her hair as though to caress her. She, laughing, reached up to thrust it away. “But the machines I have are useful only for killing one person at a time, or finding someone who wishes not to be found or watching people who are far away. The ones the Sea King has found, the ones in vaults . . . ah. Worlds can be moved with those, and once we have them, Jenger, no power in the world will stand against us.”
    She took his hand and tugged him almost gently away, around the altar, their footfalls retreating over the bridge, their voices fading. Beneath Xulai’s hand, the chipmunk grasped her little finger with all four paws and clung to it as she rose, its beady eyes fixed on something behind her. She followed its gaze to the many pairs of eyes in the forest around her, close to the ground, red disks in the darkness, reflecting the bloody light still emanating from the altar. They were chipmunk hunters, no doubt. Xulai lowered the little creature into her pocket, feeling it settle into a corner, taking up residence.
    “You have found a friend,” Abasio whispered. “Such little creatures are good friends. They can hide and hear and remember. You also should remember what the woman said. There was a spy who looked down from a great height, and her name was Ammalyn.”
    Xulai whispered her reply. “She’s a scullery maid. From down in the scullery, she could spy only dirty pots, but from her bedroom, high up under the roof, the windows look down upon the orchard, the wall, and beyond the wall to the forest. If she has seen me go past the wall, she will also see me returning. That is, if I use the path, and the Woman Upstairs told me not to leave the path.”
    “Well and well, your Woman Upstairs hadn’t expected trespassers to be abroad in the night. We’ll find a solution to that. Let us wait until that red light fades. I do not trust it.”
    “Is it evil?”
    “It is said by those who made a study of such things that those upon whom the red light falls will die within the year.” He shook his head slowly. “In this case, one might hope, but it’s only a saying.”
    They waited. The red light faded slowly, dying reluctantly, exactly like the coals of a fire. When it was dark, they moved up toward the altar, and as Xulai went up the step she saw something moving in the air before her eyes, a cobweb, a tendril. “Can you reach that?” she asked him, pointing.
    “A lock of hair? No, not so much as a lock, only a few