‘Sven, Lars, and Rissa: they are gone from us. Drink with me to this sorrow.’ Rufus muttered the words. He seemed resigned now to this role as prompter. So much the better. It would go swifter that way for them all.
‘Sven, Lars and Rissa: they are gone from us. Drink with me to this sorrow.’ Ki spoke the words soberly. She would put on their tragic puppet show for them.
‘Sven, Lars and Rissa: they are gone from us. We drink with you,’ they responded.
Again a cup was raised and emptied. Ki waited for her cue.
‘You’re on your own now,’ mumbled Rufus, staring at the tabletop. ‘Tell us how it happened, in your own way. Follow the pattern we’ve set. Save a cup to end on.’
Ki glared at Lars, and he ducked his head. Could she tell the tale as she had told it to Lars and be convincing? Ki looked at the remaining cups to gauge how best to tell it.
‘They rode together on a great black horse. Drink with me to this sorrow.’ Ki hoped to Keeva she was doing this right. She would have Lars’s head for this later.
‘They rode together on a great black horse. We drink with you,’ repeated the chorus. The gathering at the table seemed satisfied with her beginning. Ki raised the third tiny cup and drained it. Suddenly, the room quavered, became a dream. She sat tall on her wagon seat. A slight wind stirred her hair. A smile was on her face. There was a presence on the seat beside her, warm and encouraging. Ki knew it but, oddly, she paid no mind to it. All was as it should be. ‘Round the wagon galloped Sven and Lars and Rissa. “Snail Woman, Snail Woman!” Sven roared in a mock taunting. Rissa’s tiny voice echoed him, full of laughter. “Sna-o Wo-man, Sna-o Wo-man!” Lars was too convulsed with laughter to speak, too occupied with hanging on to Sven’s shirt tail. Rom’s black coat shone in the sunlight. The light ran along his muscles, clenching and unclenching beneath his satiny coat. Lars’s blue shirt was still too long for him; it flapped behind him, snapping in the wind they created.
‘For a moment, Sven pulled Rom up. “Shall we show her how a horse ought to move?” he asked rhetorically. The children shrieked their encouragement. Rom was off like the wind. The grays snorted in disgust.
‘Their pale hair blew behind them,’ Ki was moved to say. ‘Drink with me to this sorrow.’ Someone mumbled a response to this. In another place, another Ki raised a tiny cup and tossed it off. It tasted like nothing now. She watched them go, Sven and Rissa laughing, Lars bouncing on the shining black haunches of the horse. Rom’s hooves threw bits of road up behind him. The grays plodded on. The wagon swayed and squeaked.
‘Over the hill the three rode,’ sighed Ki. ‘Drink with me to this sorrow.’ A far wind sighed in the trees. A dampness in Ki’s throat. The presence watched with Ki as Rom disappeared over the long rise of hill. The blue sky rested on the hill top, empty. They were gone. ‘I came behind, too slow,’ grieved someone. ‘Drink with me to this sorrow.’ The wind stirred the tall grasses by the road and they rustled dismally. But the day was bright, and Ki on the wagon smiled and swallowed. There was a warm patch of air beside her, warning her that this was enough. Time to come back now. Time to stop. Ki ignored it. There was something she had to do. A task, a chore not to be neglected. Suddenly she was seized by a compulsion to see the other side of the hill. She wanted to whip up the team, shake them into a trot, a ponderous gallop, to crest that rise. But she did not. On they plodded, the wagon creaking cheerfully. Ki could not understand why she smiled, why she did not stand and lash the team into action. Someone was tugging at her, dragging at her arm. There was no one there. The wagon creaked on, inexorably. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Clop, clop, clop, slowly on the rocky road. She crested the rise.
Ki screamed, wordlessly, endlessly. She could not draw a breath for words. The howl of her grief rushed out of her. She heard that howl bounce back to her, an echo careening back from nowhere.
Suddenly another Ki was aware and fighting. This was hers, hers alone to bear. They must not see, she must not see. She must not think of what she saw. Harpies take the softest meat. Cheeks of face and round child bellies, buttocks of man, soft visceral tissue, haunch of horse. Don’t see, don’t hear, she begged. Harpies, two blue-green, flashing. Laughing, screaming, tumbling in the air above Ki. Beauty keen as a knife, cold as a river. Whistling their mockery at her loss. Ki could not comprehend her own pain. Not again, not again, someone screamed. The closer she moved to the bodies, the fiercer came the pain, like a heat radiated by a fire. To scream was not enough. She could not cry. She howled like a beast. She must not let them see the Harpies, see how they circled above her, screaming with laughter as she howled.
The presence engulfed Ki, pulled her down. She fought it. It could not take her. She would not let it wander and look where it wanted. But the presence was strong. It dragged her back, taking her back to the world where Sven was already yellow bones. Ki struggled fiercely, and suddenly they both fell into a deep. Down they went in a swirl of red and black. Then the presence was gone and Ki was alone. She floated, she swirled with the warm and sleepy waters. Her ears hummed and buzzed. The waters were deep and Ki was deep within them, moving through them, though she did not swim. She slid through their warm, liquid touch without effort. Ki watched with lazy eyes as a flaming Harpy swirled past her in the current. His smoking plumage trailed behind him. She saw the unborn Harpy slide past her, twirling with the momentum of his smashed egg. She watched a Harpy and a woman fall slowly, beautifully, down the face of a rocky cliff. The Harpy body hit the trees first, went spinning gracefully down, to land and crumple gently, artistically. It was all most interesting and amusing. And the waters were deep and very warm.
A table. A long table. Many faces. Someone was holding her in her chair. What had happened to Cora? Why was Rufus helping her away from the table? So pale she was, stumbling as she walked. Who had felled that oak of a woman?
Ki felt her teeth chattering on the rim of an earthenware mug. Milk. They poured milk into her, laced with some fiery stuff. Haftor’s homely face leered close to hers. She jerked her head back. It slammed into someone’s chest. Groggily, she tilted her head back. Lars. She grimaced apologetically. His stern face did not change.
Ki swept the common room with confused eyes. What was everyone so excited about? They were all talking over a loud hum, milling about, and eating vast quantities of food very rapidly. ‘Eat, eat, eat.’ It was Lars, speaking behind her. Why did he nag her so?
The clamor of voices began to be distinguished into separate speakers, into words and sentences with meaning. Lars stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, keeping her from sagging from the chair. Haftor – shaggy-haired, ugly Haftor – was holding a cup for her. She could not see what made the loud humming.
‘It will dissipate the effect. Please, Ki, eat. It will help Cora break the link if you do. Please, Ki.’ Lars’s voice came clear suddenly through the babble about her. The cup came back, and Ki drank deeply in long, shuddering gulps. When it was empty, Haftor set it back on the table. The humming faded to a secret singing like a gnat in her ear. She looked into Haftor’s stormy face. His dark blue eyes were hard, cold.
Reality snapped back into focus for Ki. Abruptly she shook herself free of the supporting hands. She would have sprung up from her chair, but her legs would not obey her. Lars stepped away from her.
‘Haftor, get her to eat. Let me see what I can do to settle things. Gods, Ki.’ Lars stood looking down at her, shaking his head. He gave a small sigh, as if words were not sufficient. Then he moved off, circling the table, touching a shoulder here, patting a child reassuringly as he passed. Many of the faces that turned to him were marked by recent tears. As Lars moved about, the jabber of disturbed voices dropped to an agitated mutter, scarcely louder than the hum in Ki’s