The flag of the so-called Wild Range flies proudly above the custom house at Carbern: a blue field for the sky, a green one for the land, and a white swallow between them. Freedom—the innocuous freedom of a songbird in flight—is Hygaara’s message, calculated to reassure a world wary of his new nation. Yet the birds flying about the flag, and infesting Carbern port, are not swallows but common seagulls, a fierce and opportunistic race of inveterate thieves and—

  Toania rips the page out of her notebook and casts it into the sea. It would never do to begin an article that way. It is far too tendentious, even for an editorial, and she intended to write a travel piece. Certainly it is poor practice to form such a hard impression of the region before she has even stepped off the ship. After nearly a month in transit—railroad from Pasavana to Marransheel, Union liner to Rafada, Rafadian packet ship to Carbern by way of Tramdescao, Hausan, and Cansenila—Toania is simply irritable. She has already wired eight draft articles home from various ports along the way, and accumulated a hefty bale of bills and receipts. All of them will eventually be reimbursed by her editors at the Obelisk, in return for a good eyewitness account of the Wild Range.

  Assuming, that is, she and the receipts make it back to Pasavana. Really, she should have made this trip years ago. Her family sent more than one invitation, the Academy and College both allowed students home leave, and since graduation the paper has paid her more than enough to finance a trip on her own account. It took a strong hint from her editor—the public’s starving for news from abroad, the farther the better—combined with ten years’ anxiety and shame, to bring her back here. There is a reason why no other journalists have done this before …

  The Rafadian sailors are fearless in their pride, or else long accustomed to this port. They unload with no more than customary briskness, then disperse into the town to await the tide at their leisure. All but a token watch have vanished before Toania can bring herself to disembark, whereupon she realizes that there are no facilities for inspection here. Just the thought of it gives her a fresh shock of terror—every single person around her might be Blemished—before she realizes that this is the entire point, and moves on with some effort. A touched man does not come to the Wild Range to hide his affliction.

  All the same, she keeps her hands tightly to herself, striving not to touch even walls and lamp-posts. She wears a shapeless black dress with a long grey coat and a dark blue headscarf, to look as unappealing as possible. Her luggage is a drab drawstring sack of cheap hemp slung over her shoulder. She does not give much credit to the rumors about Hygaara and his lascivious minions, but she would be a fool to tempt their interest.

  Her remaining memories of Carbern, which she passed through in an hour’s time as an excited child ten years ago, are worthless for her current purposes. Modern sources are no better. The only people inside this city sending information on it out will be agents of rival states, and they do not publish their reports for the public. Her plan, to the extent she had one, was to find whatever form of long-range transport this city hires out, and ride it to Ulvetto before she can attract any undesirable attention in the more crowded port.

  Yet there seems to be very little attention to attract—all the other traffic on the streets seems to be copying her strategy. Everywhere she looks she sees pedestrians in heavy coats and hats going about their business at a quick step, faces aimed securely at the bricks and cobbles underfoot. Every vehicle she sees is burdened with cargo of one kind or another, and likewise moving quite briskly.

  Toania turns her eyes from the citizens to the city itself, where a quick glance tells her that the recent history of Carbern is the same one she has heard in any number of other towns. A few ancient tenement houses still stand, apparently in use, by the waterside, but every other relic of the city’s brief industrial boom is gone, its land and components reshaped for the needs of a vastly diminished population. She can see the scars in the construction, where for want of premade off-white bricks holes and gaps have been filled with the local brown sandstone.

  In many places the hollowed shells of old factories have been left partially in place as a sort of skeleton for new housing—townhouses, by necessity, clustered in a quadrangle around the original structure’s edge. The central factory floor, lacking convenient supports and existing walls, is left open as a courtyard and common workspace for the residents. Peeking discreetly through the open gate of one such complex, Toania sees brawny, shirtless men hacking and sawing at a pig’s carcass. At the yard’s center a huge old boiler, sheltered from the elements by a sheet-metal roof on stilts, emits the odd trickle of smoke. The air is redolent of blood, fire, and garlic.

  She retracts her head, and sees the sign above a shop window beside her: Montao Family Butchers, Est. 322. On the gate’s far flank is an inn, which surely has a use for hams, sausages, and briskets. An interesting arrangement, but hardly article material, except perhaps as a brief note on local color. She is about to move on when the other implications of the word inn catch up to her fretful mind; then she all but sprints for its door.

  Naturally, it opens on the inn’s common room, a small and dimly-lit affair with a few round tables and a bar at the far end. The man behind it is leaning against its surface, looking ready to fall asleep on his feet, when the sound of the door opening jerks him back to wakefulness. He sees her, smiles, and is opening his mouth, no doubt to welcome her and ask her what she would like, when a snuffling noise from the corner of the room nearest the door cuts him short. Reflexively, his eyes flick towards the noise. Toania, already tense, turns her entire body to follow, and screams.

  She cuts herself off at once, of course, but the damage is done. The gigantic brute in the corner—how did he fit through the door?—looks up from the oversized string of beads in his paws to stare at her. It is difficult to say whether he is offended or not, as his face resembles some manner of cross between a pig’s and a toad’s, only far larger than either. Drooping pouchy throat, tusks, upturned snout, protruding eyes, damp warty skin. He, if it is in fact a he, is so huge that he must stoop to avoid brushing against the ceiling. In any case, the thing contemplates her for only a second before returning his, or its, attention to the beads. Evidently it is used to this sort of reaction.

  Toania has seen turned men before, but always for work, and dead. There is a sort of article she was compelled to write in the earliest stages of her time at the Obelisk, vulgar slop which must be written to entice a certain audience but which the senior writers invariably foist off on the new girl: a monster stumbles into some small town, or is found hiding in a forest, or mauls a traveler on the highway. The authorities hunt it down and shoot it, then hang about with the corpse for however long it will keep, waiting to charge gawkers five pence and artists or photographers ten. At least, those were the going rates when Toania earned enough clout to leave the horrid business to the still-more-recent hires.

  This … person is very much alive, and thirsty; the ceramic tankard on the table before it might hold a quart and a half. The equally oversized bowl beside it has the ends of some long bones sticking out of its top. At present, the creature’s attention is wholly devoted to the beads, each of which looks to be nearly the size of Toania’s fist, and made of polished wood. It could scarcely hope to manipulate anything smaller with its clumsy mole-clawed paws. As she watches it carefully pinches two of those claws together to slide another bead along the string, and closes its eyes. Then it snuffles again, and sneezes. Even the turned, it seems, suffer from hay-fever.

  Toania is startled to realize she actually feels ashamed. The creature is merely meditating, after all. Far from being a threat, it is endeavoring to preserve its human wits and self-control the only way it can. Now, having disturbed it, she is staring. She tears her burning face away from it and approaches the man at the bar. His smile is wry, but understanding.

  “I am bound for Ulvetto today,” she tells him. “Might I hire a cab somewhere hereabouts?”

  His smile fades; he was hoping for a guest, or at least a customer. “I can send my boy to call one for you, ma’am, if you like.”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you.” As he is turning about to summon said boy, she adds, “And I might eat a bit as well, while I wait.” The man beams and bangs a little gong hanging over his head. A child of eight or so races in from the door to their left, receives his orders with military crispness, and races away. Then it is her turn. Toania considers ordering a steak—the paper will reimburse her—but she has finite pocket money, she can hardly draw more from a bank here, and she might very well need to spend it all to leave in a hurry. She settles on a meat-pie with a (normal-sized) mug of beer, which should be quick, then picks the man’s brain a bit.

  Naturally, he is a limited source of information about the new regime for as long as his other guest remains at the corner table. He will only confirm that Carbern’s town council has been allowed to remain in place for the past five years, along with most other officials. There have been a few predictable changes to the laws, and taxes to Hygaara’s government have replaced fixed tithes to the stationhall, but little else has changed. Or so he claims.

  A thin young woman comes out from the kitchen behind the bar with her food. Toania thanks her, then turns around to scan the room. It is shortly after noon, and she and the creature in the corner remain the only guests. As she turns back to her meal, she catches sight of the host’s expression begging her not to comment on his custom or lack thereof. She smiles to reassure him, then tucks in; her cab should arrive shortly.

  In the corner, the frog-pig-person has fallen asleep, and is starting to snore. Toania tries to ignore him, but there is an odor in the room, not foul exactly but plainly inhuman, like an unwashed dog or a sweating horse. And yet unlike either. She wonders if the creature bathes, and if it makes any difference. It does not trouble with clothing, if it could even find any to fit it. She wonders if pays for food—she did not see any kind of bag or pouch for coin on it, but she did not look closely, and does not let herself do so now—or if there are other arrangements for compensation, or if payment is made at all. It was not sitting on the floor, so plainly the host anticipated turned guests, and provided a chair that would support one, to say nothing of the mug and bowl—

  Horse-hooves and wooden wheels come rattling to a stop outside the door. She pays the man a little over the price he names for her half-eaten meal. He offers her change, and she declines, dashing for the cab. To her delight, this is not a converted farm cart but a proper “triple-two” carriage—two-wheeled and two-horsed, scarcely large enough for two inside, with its driver perched on a ledge at the back. The design has become popular all along the west coast, for the anxious passenger who does not care to dally in the open countryside. She had no idea it had spread here too, but it will cut her travel time by more than half.

  The driver throws her hemp sack into the compartment with all the respect it deserves, then grunts and jerks his head to indicate that she should follow it. She does, without comment; if he earns a tip, it will be based entirely on his speed, not his manners. Toania is nobody here, and wants nothing more than to remain so.

  At the turn of the century, Carbern was perhaps the twelfth-largest city in Siocaea, the sole port to a poor backwater region. Its economy was a feeble half-throttled slave for the local aristocracy—which is to say, Toania’s forebears and their peers—who sent grain and wool and other bulk goods down the river to the sea with the understanding that they would get luxuries from the capital for their mansions in return. The actual process by which this occurred was of no interest to them, and they were inclined to be suspicious of any innovations which might pry the peasantry out of their grip, no matter what they promised to do instead.

  The sole bright spot was Carbern, governed independently of the Teniroz by ancient charter. When modern industry arrived in the city in the late Third Century, a torrent of younger sons and landless hands came down the river to greet it. Investors and speculators, seeing the attractive combination of ready labor, a longstanding raw commodity trade, and a transport hub, threw up mill after mill, and within a decade Carbern broadcloth, if not so fine as that to be obtained elsewhere, was at least known for its cheapness and dependability.

  The Blemish, of course, put an end to all of that. None of her family were ever willing to divulge many details to a little girl, but she has always known that her grandfather, uncle, and three cousins died defending the estate before she was born. Toania has since surmised that the flow of population to the port abruptly reversed, and that the whole process was extremely unpleasant. It has happened elsewhere. It very nearly happened in Pasavana.

  The countryside is much as she remembers it. The farmhouses still have brown stone walls and thatched roofs, or occasionally clay tiles. The fields and pastures start rolling like ocean waves less than a mile from Carbern’s gates. This whole region is little more than an outgrowth of Siocaea’s central mountainous spine. The horses, however, take Toania along the riverside road at a brisk trot, occasionally veering around a heavier craft headed either direction. The road is gravel, but level enough; the cab’s springs squeak only a little from time to time. Traffic is neither heavy nor sparse. She passes a few minutes watching the scenery—a little convoy of rafts poles its way down the river once, each heavily loaded with well-worn crates—then takes out her notebook from the bag to jot down her impressions of the port. Questions directed to the driver through the rear window elicit only more grunts. Piqued, she wonders if he is turning into a beast as well.

  She has yet to see any more turned men or women since leaving the inn. Whatever Hygaara is doing to her homeland, his hand is not immediately visible. Toania wonders whether he has been losing any of his underlings to assassins, or if they merely keep to their own enclaves. After almost seven years in power, he must have a sizable following. Or have some of them been totally taken, to make his Wild Range truly wild? Surely not many, or her ride would cost three times as much …

  The cab jolts to a halt, and she opens her eyes. The river and the road are nowhere in sight. The left window frames a thick mass of full-grown pines, thin golden shafts of sunset gleaming out from between their branches. Sleep has muddied her brain—she has never been able to stay awake on long rides—and for one ghastly second she thinks she has been betrayed, and the cabman has hauled her off to be held for ransom by Hygaara’s men. Then the door on the other side of the cab creaks open, and said cabman reaches in to take her sack of luggage and throw it on the ground.

  “Excuse me, is that supposed to be courteous?” He rolls his eyes, and holds out an open hand. Toania ignores him a moment. There is a low stone wall behind him, just tall enough to discourage sheep from climbing over. A dirt path leads from its locked wooden gate up a long grassy slope, at whose top the sinking sun shines on what she knows to be only the front of an enormous house of rambling stonework half-hidden under more pines. “Very well.”

  She disembarks, and the cabby lunges in front of her, thrusting out his hand. Now it is her turn to roll her eyes. Slowly and carefully she counts out his fee, and adds a halfpenny for his speed. He pockets it. She bends down, picks up her sack, and straightens up to see he has extended his palm once more. His face has a hard look, and his other hand holds a truncheon. She calculates how far a scream would carry, and whether anyone would respond. She fixes him with a long stare, until his eyes flicker away to his coach. Then she reaches into her coat, past the inner pocket where she keeps her change, and pulls out a bare nine-inch dirk from the sheath sewn into its lining. “You have been paid for your services.”

  He looks at the blade, then at her face. He grunts, and spits on the ground. Then he clambers back onto his perch and drives away. She doesn’t turn her back until he is gone.

  The brass sign on the wall beside the gate has been illegibly tarnished for decades, but she knows it would read BROWNWATER. The name refers to the iron-bearing springs at the back of the property, but she learned, very quickly, not to mention it to her classmates at the Academy. She clambers carefully over the wall with her sack, with a glance in passing for the gate. Its lock looks new. They broke off the key in the old one when she was six, and good craftsmen were in short supply, so for most of her childhood they kept a pair of empty barrels down here for stepping over; she can remember being helped over the gate when she left. Deliveries were always an awkward business. Fortunately the estate was mostly self-sufficient.

  Toania is halfway up the hill to the house when she stops, pats her pockets, and curses the long-departed cabby roundly. She fell asleep while writing. Her notebook and her good pen must still be on the carriage floor.

  Up close, the manor house mostly matches her memories. It is made of imported black Runhalla granite, not the ubiquitous local sandstone, and its roof tiled with slate. She looked it up, during her years at the Academy: there was a vogue for ancient native materials around 260, when the Tenirozzia feuded with the Crown over tariffs. The BeRunelas of Ulvetto were one of many great families who rebuilt or remodeled their homes at the time. Conspicuous consumption as protest, or vice versa.

  All of the windows, she sees, are glass now, including the one her brother Nucino knocked out with a stone when she was eight. It was still covered with boards when she left; now it reflects the sunset as beautifully as the others. The ivy is still suffered to climb the walls where it pleases, except in two narrow patches beside the door where her stepmother keeps her flowers.

  Further inspection is cut short by the front door popping open. A heavyset woman in her forties glowers down at Toania, her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’re about, young lady,” she snaps, “but we don’t shelter vagrants here.”

  Toania looks the woman over, and concludes that the years have not been kind to her stepmother. Resanna was still slim and pretty in 375. But she has had any number of pregnancies since then, and life has no doubt been harder here than in the Free City, even if they were not, evidently, short on food. “Do vagrants usually pay for cabs, in these parts?”

  On the doorstep, Resanna hesitates, then blusters on, “We don’t want no foreign hussies either. Go on, scat!” The tall form of a young man appears in the shadows behind her. One of her brothers or half-brothers, or maybe a cousin.

  Toania is too curious to identify herself just yet. “Who and what do you think I am, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Oh, but I do mind. What I think is none of your business. This is private property, and you wasn’t invited, see? So get out of here, sharp.” The man behind her puts a hand on her shoulder, which she shakes off. “I can handle this,” she growls back at him.

  The man’s other arm is extended past the doorframe to the spot where they used to keep a gun. This has gone on long enough. “Your invitation might have been lost on the way to Pasavana,” Toania says. “Your last letter was two years ago, after I graduated. Does Piasini still have the kitten you got her? It will be a full-grown cat by now.”

  Resanna simply stares. Toania waits, willing her face to stay placid—a task that requires increasing effort as the seconds pass by and her stepmother stands in place with her mouth flapping like a fish’s. At last she says, “Wannie?” A smile, a nod. A foot discreetly placed behind her, to brace for assault.

  It still nearly knocks her over. “WANNIE!” Resanna has always favored aggressive displays of affection; family legend had it that she had broken ribs in the past, though no two tellers agreed on whose ribs. “Oh my goodness Wannie you could have said something, you—why in the world didn’t you write? You could have let us know you were coming!”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “I wasn’t sure if my letters would be read.” The words come out in a gasp.

  “Whyever not? Do you—did you think you did something wrong? That we’re offended? Child, the whole family is so proud of you, you just wouldn’t believe—“

  Toania pries herself loose. “I wasn’t sure if my letters would be read by people outside the family,” she clarifies.

  Resanna wilts. “Oh.” She looks around, as if expecting turned men to come out of the trees. “Well. Do come in, now that you’ve nearly sent me on. Next time, introduce yourself sooner!”

  The young man, swiftly reintroduced as cousin Hemnul up-from-the-village, opens the door wide to admit them, and the next several hours are a nearly unendurable barrage of celebration. Gleeful young runners are sent down to Ulvetto to roust up sundry relations—most of the neighborhood used to be her extended family in one way or another, and it seems none have moved away—while Resanna extracts a massive volume from a cupboard and opens it to show off, to Toania’s immense discomfort, various yellowed clippings glued in from The Obelisk.

  They don’t have everything she has ever written, but they have more of it than she would expect to reach this place, somehow including an opinionated letter she sent in as a seventeen-year-old student. All told it fills the first nine pages, with plenty of blank white sheets awaiting fresh Toanian insights. She is horrified to think how much they must have paid for that quantity of good paper in these parts.

  She is spared the need to comment by an enormous bowl of mutton and barley stew, part of the evening’s supper. There is no need to fret about taking someone else’s share, as the third set of cousins to show (Barde and Giama, grocers since 366) drive a full wagon up to the front door and unload extra supplies, starting with a pair of kegs. Soon Resanna is in the kitchen rolling up flatcakes with sweet cheese and bacon, while pickled turnips and onions make the rounds of the great room with this morning’s bread.

  Now Toania is thankful for the brief sleep she earned on the way. They know her well enough, or think they do, from her articles; she knows almost nothing of what has happened in Ulvetto for the last decade, and so they work hard to correct the deficit. All of them, all at once, it seems, except for the smaller and more excited children who chase each other through every room, over and under any articles of furniture that happen to be in the way. Piasini, her youngest half-sister, is five now, and the kitten is nearly as large as she is. She carries its upper body in her arms, its fat belly and lower legs swaying next to her own.

  Toania takes in very little that is said to her, but they are all so overwhelmingly delighted to see her that she can see no gracious response besides submission. But after ten years’ separation, none of these people are much better than strangers to her. There are far too many relatives in the room, and not enough air.

  Long after sunset, she finds peace—in spite of a lively headache—in Papa’s drawing-room on the south end, where the ancient print of the wolfhounds still graces the wall behind thick protective glass. Papa is even less of a social creature than herself, and she did not see him in the general whirlwind of good cheer. He is over sixty now, his once-black curls all iron-grey around a bald patch. He, too, is bigger around than she remembers, and he has given up the bother of shaving.

  He sits in his favorite padded chair, in his old patched dressing-gown, with a glass of wine in his hand and his feet propped up on a stool before the fire. Nucino, now twenty-six and an accomplished surveyor who would never dream of throwing stones through windows, sits on the other chair. Toania has the couch to herself, and seizes her chance to lie down. She has no idea what time it is; there isn’t a clock in the house and she forgot to keep her pocket-watch wound. It hardly matters.

  Papa begins the conversation. “I assume this isn’t just a social visit.”

  “No. My editor wants pieces on the Wild Range.” Or anywhere else ‘foreign’ or strange. “He’ll pay well for them.”

  Papa and Nucino exchange glances. “Did you tell anyone else that?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” She claps a hand to her face, massaging both temples and with thumb and middle finger while shielding her eyes from the fire. “Probably not. They hardly gave me a chance.”

  “No, they wouldn’t.” She can hear the smile in his voice, but it soon disappears. “Your mother said you were worried about Hygaara’s men reading your mail.”

  Resanna isn’t her mother, but it feels petty to say so. With ten surviving children and six lost, Papa quite possibly doesn’t remember which child came out of which wife. “I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t. There are rumors of … of everything bad, really. Don’t know which to believe.”

  “Oh, we’re fairly sure they would. You were correct not to write ahead. You’d be more correct to gather your facts discreetly, write them down selectively, and leave as soon as practical. It’s very good to see you again, my girl, and I’m very proud, but this is no place for an inquisitive woman.”

  “Papa. My editor isn’t going to accept that, after sending me all this way. I have a hard time accepting it myself. Is your government threatening you?”

  “Not at all. Hygaara’s inner circle consists entirely of former stationhall monastics like himself. They keep to desert places, and leave the business of routine administration to human functionaries. They say they have no interest in our lives, and I’m inclined to believe them.”

  “His inner circle, you say. What about the others?”

  “There are no others,” says Nucino. “Or not many. I go all over the Wild Range for my work. I might see one or two turned in a week.”

  “But that makes no sense.” She takes her hand off her face and sits up. “I can accept that, with no stigma to the Blemish here, it spreads more slowly in the initial contact-spread phase. And with Noor’s techniques, I presume the turned have more self-control, so there will be fewer bites and scratches. Internal spread will be slow. Fair enough. But what about immigration? There are millions of Siocenes outside the—“

  “That,” Papa informs her, “is precisely the sort of question you would do better not to ask. Hygaara demands little of us. We may not inspect, quarantine, or in any way molest the Blemished. As you have noted, that policy has its advantages. We must pay taxes, which are light, and respect his whole or Blemished servants when we see them, which is rarely enough. And we must not disrespect him!”

  “And by disrespect, you mean inquiring how his administration works? Or reporting on it accurately? By that measure, I haven’t respected anyone for years.”

  “I mean that Hygaara, who has many enemies, is jealous of his reputation and his privacy. He is well-informed of what the rest of Siocaea says or writes about him. When you are gone from here, you may say what you please, but we will remain in the Wild Range and in his power. Can you understand that?”

  The headache is doing nothing good for her temper. “Of course. I understand that your benevolent overlord will hold all of you as hostages for my good behavior.”

  Papa regards her, stone-faced, for a long moment. He glances at Nucino, who says nothing. Then he drains his wine-glass, sets it on the mantel, and says, “I think it’s time we all went to bed.”

  Toania wakes to the smell of frying eggs and the sound of tiny whispering cousins outside her door. She was given a room in the north annex, which she thinks might have been her aunt Saosini’s in the old days. Now, it seems to be a guest room; most of her siblings will have moved out by now, and the room’s few decorations—a vase with dried flowers on the bedside table, a fair-quality watercolor of deer in a forest on the wall—would fit Resanna’s tastes. Even ten years ago, Brownwater saw a steady rotation of kin visiting, looking to get back on their feet, or simply moving back in when their ventures in the outside world failed. The irony of it did not strike her until she went to Academy and learned more, that the heirs to reactionary landowners should institute a commune.

  The morning sun is streaming in from a small window far over the head of the bed, illuminating her blankets and a vast menagerie of aerial dust-motes. The north annex is the newest part of the manse, partially submerged in the hillside where the trees are thickest to hide that it is made of plain bricks painted black; the family did not always have the funds for granite, even before the Blemish. At any rate, the woods kept the light from waking her very early. But now she has no choice. She dresses quickly, brushes her hair into what she guesses, sans mirror, to be decent shape, then opens the door to meet her young admirers.

  All the questions they could not ask last night, while their elders were talking, bubble out of them at once. What is Pasavana like? Does she have a large house? Is it true that they have moving-picture shows there, like in the old days? Does she ever write about boxing matches? How much does her newspaper pay her? Has she ever seen a turned man? How about a turned man flying? What’s the farthest she’s ever gone? Has she been to Rafada, or Dundan?

  With persistent effort she makes her way through the mob to the kitchen table, where breakfast is soon made ready and most of the children driven off to do various chores around the estate. The eldest, a girl whose name Toania did not catch, sidles shyly in after she has finished eating. Ostensibly, it is her job to wipe down the table, but this does not prevent her from asking questions at the same time. Question the first: might she attend the Academy herself, in four years when she turns eleven? Or even the College, later on?

  Toania expected this question sooner. There is no kind, honest answer. “It would be difficult,” she tries. “When the examiner came out to test me, this was Protectorate land. It was a very long trip, but he felt safe enough making it. Now Ulvetto is part of the Wild Range. People are afraid to come.” The child hangs her head. “But you can still learn here, can’t you? Can you read?”

  “Of course. I’ve read some of your articles.” She pauses. “What if I leave the Wild Range, when I’m older and ready to move out?”

  “It might be possible. The world is changing very quickly, you know. Everyone is building back up to the way things were before. I don’t know what Siocaea will be like, when you’re a grown lady.”

  The girl considers this. She is about to ask another question when Resanna pokes her head into the kitchen, catches her idling over a clean table, and sends her off to gather laundry. As she shuffles away, Toania advises her to start a newspaper of her own with her friends, to practice.

  Resanna frowns at the suggestion. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to encourage all that, Wannie? We don’t hardly have paper out here, even.”

  “I don’t know what you have here yet, Mumsanna. But you might have more next year.”

  “Or we might have less, like we had before.” She sits down heavily. “I done counted it up. There’s twenty-seven of us here, just counting Lenlaias proper. Add in the far-kin, in-laws and such, it’s over a hundred. And just one of us is you.”

  “For now. That girl doesn’t seem stupid.”

  “Is she going to walk to Pasavana? Or are you minded to take her with you?”

  “Her parents might object. Isn’t there a school in Ulvetto yet?”

  “There’s a harvest season here, and flocks to tend. Same as there was when you left. Same as there will be tomorrow.”

  “But you let me go.”

  Resanna shrugs. “Just one is fine. I don’t mind you writing about the goings-on in far off places; it livens things up, like. I wouldn’t mind you writing us more letters, either. But Ulvetto was never Pasavana, even in the old days. Nor Carbern.”

  “Even Pasavana wasn’t Pasavana, until Aianto Fessantine endowed the College. It was only a dirty coal and factory town. These things can change.” Resanna looks skeptical. Toania drums her fingers on the damp tabletop. “Would you mind if I sent books?”

  “So long as they’re safe, and decent? No.”

  It would be a start, she supposes. A thought strikes her. “Do you have more books here now? You only had three when I left.” She learned to read on a guide to edible wild plants that was missing its cover.

  “Well, you’ve seen your book.” Resanna leads her to a dim corner of the great room where no fewer than eight volumes grace a low shelf. Toania bends over to examine them; the plant manual is gone, worn to pieces she supposes, but The Way of the Antecessors is still there, glued and restitched, next to the moldy old romance. The six new volumes look locally printed, nothing of particular interest. Two are primers. “Looking to borrow?” Resanna drawls.

  “Looking to buy,” Toania corrects her, straightening back up. “Potentially. I’m an authorized agent for the College. Does anyone around here have pre-Blemish literature?”

  “Asides from those two? No. Fifty years is a long time for a book to survive, child.”

  “Not if it’s well-protected. We know of at least seventy-two instances where people have found old books very carefully sealed up in barrels, boxes, or safes. Technical manuals, mostly. Things that were of no use with the world falling apart. It seems to have been a common impulse among otherwise hopeless people, to save something for the future. Queen Dupinia’s College will pay very well for the right book.” And possibly sell it on to the city government for twice as much again.

  “Hmm,” is all Resanna offers in reply, before wandering off. A minute later, the rattles, squeaks, and clacks of her antique loom come drifting down the hall.

  Toania lets the matter drop, for the moment. But if she cannot report—in a fair, uncensored way—on this region, and it seems unlikely that anyone will speak to her openly, she might at least attend to her other duties. Papa said Hygaara didn’t care for human concerns, and outsiders rarely linger here; the Wild Range could very well be a splendid place to search for books. The loss of her travel expenses would not be catastrophic, and she might arrange to have her family hold any discoveries while she arranges funding and safe transport …

  Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, she sets out for the bathroom. The water is of course brutally cold, and stinks of rust as it always did, but a presentable appearance goes a long way towards earning strangers’ trust. Come to think of it, she might check on the local stationhalls while she is here—Abbess Noor has established a number of satellite facilities over the years, and they are a natural place for old treasures to flow to.

  Buoyed by these and other hopes, she scours herself clean, puts her hair in order, and is just getting dressed and deciding where to go first when she hears shouting from inside the house. It is a young man’s voice, but far enough away through stone walls that she can’t quite make out his words. By the time she gets out to the great room again, there are ten people there, all talking at once. Two of the men, and one of the women, have guns at hand. She can’t make herself heard, but soon understands the gist of it: there are a pair of turned folk on the property, approaching the house.

  Papa is standing by the front door, looking out of the window. Before she can join him, he backs away, and the front door flies open.

  A long, narrow head, covered in reddish-brown scales, pokes into the room on a serpentine neck, peering this way and that. Toania follows its gaze, sees that several people have appeared in the front hall, but none are armed. She turns back as the rest of the beast steps in, stooping to fit. It retains a man’s shape, barely; a few feet down the neck gives way to shoulders, then a broader section she supposes must be called a chest, covered in flat golden scutes like a snake’s belly.

  One arm, slender but well-muscled, reaches out to steady the door—its hands are shaped like a bird’s feet, the thumb coming straight from the wrist. Its only garment is a belt with a coarsely woven tan loincloth dangling from its front, and some manner of enormous swordlike weapon strapped to the hip. Under the circumstances, the sword in particular draws Toania’s eye; its handle alone is two feet long, and the blade might bisect a horse.

  In perfect silence the turned thing walks into the center of the room, flicking its snaky tail out to take control of the door from its hand. All told, it is at least nine feet tall. One hand rests on the pommel of its sword, the other grasps its belt. Its expression is unreadable. At length it looks back and gestures through the door, and a woman comes in.

  She too is turned, but unmistakably female; her blue-and-violet dress hangs from a strap about her neck, leaving her arms and shoulders bare and doing little to hide what it covers. Ordinarily, this would be in poor taste, and impractical for the weather, but the woman plainly has little choice in the matter, given the enormous wings sprouting from her back. These rise over her head—she is petite—and the feathers at their tips brush lightly against the floor as she moves. Like her dress, her wings change colors partway down, from snowy white to sky-blue. The overall effect is striking, even lovely. It has never occurred to Toania that a turned woman could be beautiful, but she is.

  She steps gracefully around her companion, who flicks the door shut with its tail. “Thank you,” she says, in a voice so soft it can hardly be heard. Then, only slightly louder, “This is Szezek. I am Nuthmi. We are here to see Toania Lenlaia BeRunela. Is she here, please?”

  Toania feels herself shake, but steps forward. The woman smiles at her gently. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re only here to talk. Szezek, would you kindly?” The dragon-person has a large leather pouch at its belt, opposite the sword; it reaches in and pulls out her lost notebook and pen. “These are yours, aren’t they?”

  “They are,” she says. “Thank you, sir, and madam.” It takes some effort to take the things back from out of the wicked-looking claws, which spring back to drop them in her hands without touching. Too late she wishes she had paid the cabby better—then wonders if it would have made any difference.

  “Szezek is our chief of security. My official title is ‘Consort.’ You can just call me Nuthmi, if you like.”

  “Pardon me, madam; your name is familiar, but I can’t quite place how. We don’t hear much about the Wild Range in Pasavana.” Out of the corners of her eyes, she sees several of her family turn to look at her, and wonders if she has said something wrong.

  “I am the mother of Hygaara’s children,” Nuthmi says. Her voice is still very quiet; watching her speak, Toania realizes she barely moves her lips. Her face is delicately pretty, round but coming to a point at the chin. There are only traces of the bestial about it: the nose is slightly pink at the tip where it tilts up, suggesting a cat’s nose, and a very short growth of gold fur clings to her temples and upper cheeks, melding smoothly into her white-blonde hair. But her eyes … her eyes are the strangest thing about her, large and shining in a way that doesn’t feel quite natural. Toania tries to study them more closely, but the girl avoids her gaze.

  With an effort, she turns her thoughts back to the conversation. “Would you be something like the queen of the Wild Range, then?”

  She purses her lips. “How? Hygaara is not ‘king’ here, only ‘master.’ And nudh mi is just the Dundanite for ‘servant girl.’ It was my title, at the stationhall. I wasn’t even a nun. Nor do I rule or reign here. I am Nuthmi. That’s all.”

  “Very well, Nuthmi.” Toania pauses, rummaging in her brain for a polite way to ask this woman to get to the point. She looks no older than Toania herself, but the Blemish does strange things to the aging process.

  “I understand you’re a famous reporter, aren’t you, Toania?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m famous. I’m well-known to certain people in Pasavana.”

  “But not many people can even read anymore. At least, not around here. And the kind of person who buys a newspaper these days isn’t going to be poor. Your readers are influential, aren’t they?”

  As with her young cousin at breakfast, Toania sees the problem coming, but not how to avoid it. “Within Pasavana? Yes, they are. Some of them.”

  “I’ve read a few of your articles—Hygaara buys papers from all around Siocaea, when he can get them. You write very well, Toania.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nuthmi cocks her head, considering her. “You’re pretty, too. Your nose is a little long, and the rest of it is a bit bony, but you’re a pretty girl. Especially the hair. I sometimes wish I had black hair. It would be interesting to be a reporter, too. You go everywhere, don’t you? Asking people all kinds of questions. Nobody thinks twice about a reporter asking questions.”

  She seems to be expecting some sort of answer to this. Toania manages, “After two years, I have established sources in many places, yes.”

  “So do we. But only here. Which is just what you need anyway, isn’t it? Are you going to write about the Wild Range?”

  “I’d intended to. Is that a problem?”

  Now Nuthmi looks her in the eye, and Toania can see what was so strange: her irises do not stay any one color. As Toania watches, they shift from a bright blue to something closer to grey, then nearly black, like stormclouds blotting out a clear sky. Then back to blue in a blink. “I had to look through your notebook. Forgive me, but it was the only way to be sure who you were. You don’t seem to have many notes on the Wild Range yet.”

  “I just got here yesterday, Nuthmi.”

  “I can tell you more about us, if you like. An interview, I think they call it. Would that be helpful to you?”

  An interview with Hygaara’s wife, or concubine as the case may be. Toania can see it teased on the front page. “It would, yes. What would you like in return?”

  “Only that you publish it. You know people say all kinds of things about the Wild Range. Almost none of it is true.” She bites her lip, and starts pacing about the room; various relatives sidle anxiously out of her way. Toania notices that the woman’s feet are like a cat’s. “We’re in a very vulnerable position here, you know. There aren’t that many of us. Eyanna Vogh hates us, because we’re on Rogu’s land. Abbess Noor won’t live much longer.” A light breeze starts blowing around the room, though the doors and windows are shut. “The Union is blockading us, and the Republic—“ She looks up, notices her hosts standing rigid with their hair blowing about their faces. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” The wind stops at once. Is she really that absentminded, or was it a calculated effect?

  “You’re saying you want me to correct the record,” Toania volunteers.

  “Yes. Please.”

  “I’d be happy to interview you. I have some other business I’d like to pursue in this area, if you don’t mind, but if you can get me to Marransheel in two days I should be able to return home in time to get this on the presses sometime next week. Would that be acceptable?”

  At this the other beast interrupts with a long, complex, but fluid series of hand motions lasting perhaps fifteen seconds. Nuthmi watches the whole display, then turns to Toania and says, “You’ll have to excuse Szezek; his mouth can’t form clear words anymore. He just pointed out that this region is very complicated, so you might want to have us look at your article before you publish it, to make sure you don’t include anything incorrect.”

  Toania swallows her outrage. There is really only one possible answer to such an assertion, under the circumstances. “That might be a good idea.”

  “Yes. This article, and any other articles about the Wild Range—you can send drafts to your family. They might write you back, and give you new material, even after you’ve gone home.”

  “I can’t make any promises about what to publish,” Toania says in a hurry. “Those decisions will be made by my editors.”

  “Of course. You can only do so much. But I think it would be a good idea for you to keep on writing to your family anyway, wouldn’t it? You could send them all kinds of interesting information about the rest of Siocaea, and they could send you ideas for new material.”

  Her expression is so sweet and earnest that Toania takes a moment to appreciate what she has just been told, in spite of everything. It is impossible to determine, on fresh acquaintance, if the woman sees it the same way, or how much of her security-beast’s signs were softened in translation. “I understand, Nuthmi.” She looks at Papa, whose eyes say what did I tell you? “Papa, can we use your study for the interview? I can see it’s very important to get every word of this article right.”