All of the garment hangers looked to the woman who had instructed Rielle on the task, then each hurried away when the woman nodded at them. When the woman looked at Rielle, her lips thinned and she shook her head, but then a young voice spoke out, and Mai stepped out from the milling crowd of workers to join Rielle. The woman pursed her lips, then nodded reluctantly. Mai smiled at Rielle and pulled her away.
She rescued me, though I’m not sure exactly what from. Most likely I didn’t do as much work as I should have, and Mai told her I would make up for it tomorrow.
She wasn’t sure she could make up for it. As she followed Mai out of the building, she could not stop coughing. Thinking of the man in the steam room who had hacked up blood, a panicky feeling began to steal over her.
I can’t do this. I’ll die before Qall comes back to free me. I’ll certainly never last until this world recovers enough magic for me to leave it.
She had to find another way to survive. As Mai joined Vil and Bel, a plan began to form in Rielle’s mind. She would take the money she’d earned here today and make her way to better parts of the city to seek out artisans. If she had to use some of her remaining magic to get there safely, she would.
But none of the workers were given coins as they left. Rielle tried to ask Mai about it, tracing squares on her palm and miming the swapping of them for food. The girl shook her head and mimed sewing, flashed eight fingers four times, then drew a square on her palm and indicated four fingers.
Four coins for thirty-two days’ work. Rielle’s legs grew weak. Mai saw her sway, slipped an arm around her shoulders and helped her negotiate the filthy gutters as they returned to their room. Vil and Bel at once began to work on the bundles of garments they’d brought with them. Mai plucked a needle from within the seam of her clothing, measured a length of thread and began helping them. Rielle held out her hands, indicating she would help, but Mai shook her head, pointing to her needle, then Rielle.
No needle. Rielle hoped her relief wasn’t obvious. With no way to help these wonderful, generous women, she curled up on the floor and fell asleep, only waking for a brief time when Mai roused her to eat another tiny meal.
CHAPTER 16
Since her stranding had begun, Rielle had thought of only three ways she could escape the world.
Her first option was to do as Valhan had done to free himself from her home world: wait until enough magic had been generated. He’d been stranded for over twenty cycles—and had to travel from one side of her world to the other in order to gather enough to leave. This world was small enough that she could reach all the magic in it, so she would not have to travel. How quickly the people would generate enough magic for her to leave was difficult to guess. It depended on how large the population was. A greater population meant a higher percentage of people undertaking creative activities and a better chance that one or more Makers existed, creating magic in greater quantities than the average person. No matter how many Makers there were, or how many people were creating, it was still likely to take many cycles for enough magic to be generated to allow her to escape.
Her second option had been simply to hope that Qall would return for her. She had given up on guessing what the chances of that were. Waiting depended on him being alive, willing to retrieve her and free to do so. She refused to think that he would never come back if he was able to, but would he be able to relocate the world and find her within it? Here, among the multitudes of locals, her mind would be one among thousands. She would have been easier to find in the farm, as one among hundreds. It would be easier to find her if she gained employment with artisans, because Qall would look for her among them first.
Her third option was to find an arrival place and hope someone would visit this world with enough stored magic to leave again—then persuade them to take her out. She would need to find one soon, before warnings were posted in neighbouring worlds that this one no longer contained any magic. She also needed a sure way to convince the visitor to help her. It was likely that otherworlders were hurrying to arrival places with the same idea in mind, and sorcerers outside this world might even be visiting it with a view to exploiting the situation, demanding payment from those they transported out.
She had nothing of value to offer them, but who she was might make a difference—though that had the potential to go badly. If they were an ally of Dahli, they’d leave her trapped so Dahli could return and kill her while she was helpless. If they were an ally of the Restorers, they would take her to Baluka. She could use some of her remaining magic to read their mind before she approached them, however.
A hand touched Rielle’s shoulder, so she opened her eyes and pushed her aching body upright. This time Vil accompanied her to the toilets. Rielle went first, then, when the young woman was inside, hurried away. Using the shadows cast by the morning sun to orientate herself, she continued in one direction, but soon had to retrace her steps when all the streets she found came to a dead end or doubled back. Setting out in the opposite direction, Rielle found she couldn’t find a way out of the area that way either.
By then the narrow streets weren’t as busy. Small children followed her, staring and laughing, until older ones called them back. She would have stood out among them even if she hadn’t been taller and lacking the shawl that all the local women wore, because almost no adults were about.
Deciding to always take left-hand turns, she made her way up and down streets, avoiding only the ones leading to the factory. Most of the buildings were old and shabby, two- and three-storey boxes facing out into the street, with no front walls. Only a few houses near the factory had fronts and doors, and these were guarded.
Inside the open houses, children and the occasional heavily pregnant woman huddled, sewing all manner of decorations onto the garments Rielle had seen workers making the day before. The woefully inadequate drains running down every street were choked with refuse. Small animals lurked in the shadows, scurrying out to investigate whenever a fresh pail of rubbish was dumped. Most of the children were barefoot, feet stained black from the grime.
By the time she had returned to where she started, she had already guessed the truth: there was no way out of the area except by the gate she’d entered, which was at the far end of the street that led to the factory. She had no choice but to try to leave that way, or see if she could climb up a wall and escape via the rooftops. When she considered the state of the roof material, she concluded that she would use far less magic zapping a gate guard than healing broken bones.
Taking a deep breath, she straightened her back and headed for the factory.
The guards watched her coming. When Rielle was twenty steps away, one of them whistled. Hearing hurried footsteps coming from the factory door, Rielle turned in time to face the examiner running towards her. His face was dark with anger. She dodged as he made a grab for her arm, but collided with something solid—
one of the guards. He seized her arms from behind, giving the examiner time to get a grip on her. She nearly reached for magic, but at the last moment decided against it.
What if the girls were punished for bringing a sorcerer into the factory? She did not want to cause them trouble after all the kindness they had shown her.
If I refuse to work, they’ll throw me out, she reasoned.
The examiner dragged her into the factory. A murmur went through the workers, but most kept their heads down. One of those who didn’t was Mai, who looked relieved. She gave Rielle a sympathetic yet puzzled smile and a shake of the head.
Dragging Rielle to the steam room, the examiner left her with the woman who had watched over the hanging of clothes the previous day. The woman shouted at Rielle, but the anger in her eyes was soon replaced by a calculating look as Rielle stared back at her impassively. She did not seem surprised when Rielle refused to pick up an armload of clothing.
A warning tone came into the woman’s voice then. Rielle waited, refusing to heed the fear that crept over her in response. The woman’s voice gre
w gentler briefly, then hardened again. She called out to an examiner, who nodded and hurried away.
Now a trio of men appeared, their gazes searching the factory, then stopping as the steam room manager waved towards Rielle. They marched over to surround Rielle. Two grabbed Rielle’s arms and forced her to walk into the steam room to one of the internal doors. As the third opened it, the smell of the steam room intensified a hundred times. The others shoved her inside. A brief glimpse of a small room lined with shelving imprinted on her eyes before darkness replaced it.
She cursed, then regretted opening her mouth. The next mistake was to take a deep breath in order to sigh. Coughing it out again, she drew a little of her precious store of magic and created a light.
The shelving was strewn with glistening mounds of wet vegetation. Steaming water dripped onto it from pipes jutting out from the walls, seeping through the mess onto the floor, which was coated with slime and muck. Mould covered the walls, and there even appeared to be the roots of a plant fanning out in one corner from a wide crack.
No surface was clean. There was nowhere to sit but the floor. Her eyes were steaming and her lungs spasmed into a coughing fit.
I should have fought my way out of the gates when I had the chance. But once again, she thought of the girls who had helped her, and the possibility that they would be punished for bringing a sorcerer into the factory. No, I can endure this. It is strange that they are so determined to make me work for them when I don’t want to and they haven’t even paid me anything, but I’ll just have to keep refusing until they let me go.
Unless … The plant growing through the crack suggested that the far wall was an exterior one. She briefly considered pushing through with magic, but when she thought about the badly mended cracks in the rest of the building, she realised she could not be sure only this corner would fall down. The whole side might collapse, killing many inside.
She closed her eyes, extinguished the light and tried to take shallow breaths without coughing. Just wait, she told herself.
To distract herself from the smell, she concentrated on sounds. A constant dripping came from the shelving, and a high-pitched animal squeak occasionally came from one corner, but the rest of the noises she could hear originated from outside. Few voices were audible beyond the walls—regular shouted orders from the examiners mostly. She’d never heard the sewers talking. There was none of the chatter and singing that she remembered so fondly from her years among the tapestry weavers.
The garments they were making were all the same—hardly an enjoyable activity, but at least they would be making magic while they sewed. Focusing on the magic of the world, she sought the signs of new magic spreading from their direction, and was disturbed to find very little of it.
Why isn’t it happening? she wondered. Are these people unable to generate much magic? Perhaps they can’t. If Makers exist, able to make more magic than usual, people who generate almost nothing must exist too. A stab of panic went through her. I am never going to escape this world!
Then a different possibility occurred to her. The sewers were not really being creative. They were producing the same thing over and over, taking no part in the design and little pleasure in the creation. No wonder they generated so little magic.
A pair of voices caught her attention, growing louder. They stopped right outside the steam room door and she turned, ready to leave as soon as it opened.
It didn’t.
“… started yesterday. A foreigner. Doesn’t speak our language.”
Rielle started. The voices were male, and speaking Traveller tongue.
“Could she be from outside this world? The Delmegardi wants all otherworlders handed over for questioning.”
“No … she’s tall, but not otherworld-like. She’s just a foreigner.”
“Then what will you do?”
“A beating will get some sense in her. And it’s what they expect. We can’t start treating one worker differently just because she’s new. Especially not now. We need every pair of hands.”
The voices dropped too low to hear. Rielle turned and pressed her ear against the door, shuddering as it met the moist and sticky surface.
“… wants the order five days earlier or he won’t pay. We can do it if they work the next two nights, then keep half of them here for the one after. They won’t like it. Which is extra reason why we don’t need a foreigner defying us right now.”
“Throw her out.”
“No, we need to make an example. Show them that magic isn’t the reason the Gellim are in charge.”
“Now?”
“No. Tonight, after we lock the doors for the night shift. Let her steam in there for a while, and feel her lungs start to rot.”
The footsteps began again, fading towards the manager’s room. Rielle moved away from the door and wiped her ear on her sleeve. Unless she was willing to risk the whole building collapsing when she broke through the wall, she had no choice but to wait until they let her out. She was not going to submit herself to a beating though. Avoiding that justified using a little magic. Though … if she shielded herself carefully and reacted as they expected, it wouldn’t be obvious she was using magic, and the girls wouldn’t get into trouble because of her.
Time crawled by. Boredom set in, and she wished she could do something to distract herself from worrying. Her feet began to ache, so she began to slowly pace the room, avoiding the shelving and walls by keeping her hands out in front.
After a few rounds, she found she could make out some details. She stopped, alarmed. Was she pattern shifting subconsciously to adapt her eyesight, unable to avoid using up the last of her precious magic?
A brightness appeared above. Looking up, she realised that sunlight was filtering through the crack in the wall, which was a lot larger than it had appeared during her quick survey of the room. She resisted the urge to sigh with relief. Her body wasn’t altering itself, the sun happened to be in the right place to penetrate the room. The sunlight would not hit that section of wall for long, however.
Looking around, she noticed objects she’d not seen the first time: a pail and a long stick. Walking over to them, she curled her fingers around the stick. It was a mop, the handle damp, but not sticky or slimy.
Perhaps she could clean a large enough space to sit down. Lifting the broom, she swept the head over the floor, but all it did was create swirls in the muck. The pattern was interesting, however. Rielle swished it back and forth to create swirls and circles in the grime, then made simple waves and clouds—a seascape emerging from filth. Her mood lightened. She could entertain herself during part of the long wait, and create a little magic at the same time.
And then the head fell off the broom.
Sagging, she went to put the handle aside, then paused. Drawing with it would produce a single line and allow for finer work. She started doodling aimlessly. It felt good to be making marks. She paused to touch the pendant hanging at her throat, hidden under the high neckline of her dress. It had drawn some interest from the girls at first, but once they’d seen that the capsule only contained a brush they’d lost interest. She considered painting with it instead, but the idea of soiling it with the muck was too awful.
As she sketched out a picture of the girls and the strange beast that hauled the wagon they’d arrived in, her mind kept sliding away from an uncomfortable thought. She started coughing and, suddenly concerned for her health again, made herself face it. She could use the pendant to bribe her way out of here. It was worth something for the metal, surely. She would be sad to lose Ankari’s gift, but she was sure the woman would rather Rielle lived without it than died with it.
Memories of the Travellers rose. She wondered if Baluka had found Valhan’s hand. The last time she had seen him, he had changed so much. He’d thought that she looked different too, and blamed it on her agelessness. She wasn’t ageless now. There had been no sudden shift or change to make it obvious. All she’d consciously done was lock down the magic she
held so that it wouldn’t be used up in automatic pattern shifting.
It meant she was ageing again. As far as she could tell, her body wasn’t changing to her real age, or returning to what it had been before she had become ageless. It simply stopped repairing itself. Which meant she hadn’t actually lost the ability to pattern-shift. If she reached a world containing magic, she would stop ageing once again.
What if my body did return to its original form? Would I go back to being a Maker?
If it did, she could generate more magic and escape this world sooner. Her heart skipped a beat. She could restore her original pattern deliberately. Pattern shifting didn’t take a great deal of magic. Only the initial process of using magic to enhance the mind’s ability to comprehend pattern shifting did.
She might not have enough magic to change herself back to her original Maker self, however. Failure would mean using up her magic for no benefit. Was attempting to do it worth risking that?
Even if she succeeded and became a Maker again, it would still take her a long time to generate enough magic to escape this world.
Yet as a Maker, she would be valuable to the people of this world. They might protect her.
There are far too many “mights” and “ifs” for my liking, she mused. Better I try convincing a sorcerer to take me out of this world. Once I get myself out of here.
She’d covered all the floor with lines now. Pausing, she concentrated on the magic around her. In what had been a near void, a glow now spread around the room.
Interesting. She’d never sensed herself making magic before. To be fully immersed in a creative activity meant she had no attention to spare for detecting magic. She was probably able to now because this world was nearly empty of it.