Excerpt: North of the Grey Wall

On the morning of her twenty-sixth birthday, Tuwa was late to work.

It was her gift to herself. For eight years she had run Bena's shop alone. She had tirelessly practiced the arts Bena had taught her, caring for every person to cross her threshold regardless of their rank or personality, and made a name for herself as the best herbalist this side of the river. She had never been late. Not once.

So on this day, she had purposefully watched the sun rise out the window beside her bed and revelled in the extra hour's rest.

When she opened her front door to turn the sign, there were flowers hanging from the outer knob. "Oh, Uli," she murmured as she disentangled them and brought them inside. There was a vase of wilting yellow blossoms already on her counter. She dumped them out behind the house and filled it with fresh water for the new bundle. These ones were white as ice, delicate and morning-damp. He must have gone up into the mountains to find the first of them reaching through the snows overnight.

Tuwa smiled at them sadly and stroked the vase, then nearly knocked it over as the door burst open with all the strength of a boisterous thirteen-year-old boy behind it.

"Tuwa! Tuwa! Tuwa!" he screeched, red-faced. "There's a-- on the river-- a whatsit, thingy-- dad says--"

"Emmett!" she cried, catching him by the shoulders and kneeling down to his level so she could look him in the eyes. "Emmett, slow down. What's on the river?"

"A ship," he breathed. His blue eyes were wide as cups, bright and awed, and for a while she could only stare into them without blinking. "A ship, Tuwa!"

"Oh," she said. "I'll get you some water." She stood and walked to the kitchen with steady, measured steps, poured a glass of water, and looked vacantly out the window into the blue desert sky.

The city nestled in the arms of a jagged black mountain range, sweeping out through the sands to the east. High in its stony branches was where she found most of her herbs. Little grew there, but what did was hardy and potent. To the west lay the river, and beyond that the long barren beach of Surenshi: one hundred leagues wide at its narrowest point. To the south, the sea. And to the north... the Wall.

The bottom of the continent had been sheared away long ago and imprisoned behind that great grey monolith, and they were all trapped behind it like children locked out of the house. It extended out into the sea in both directions for long leagues, and the waters about its ends were treacherous for any ship to navigate-- if a ship could be found, as wood was scarcer than gold in this dry land.

The only way through it was the river. The current was strong and cruel through the narrow, low-ceilinged gap-- impossible for a person to swim or paddle up. What ships did come appeared to move as if by magic, without visible oars or engines of any kind.

The last one had come eight years ago. Bena had left on it. Tuwa had woken to a desperately apologetic letter on her pillow, and had not been surprised by a word of it.

"Tuwa? Are you all right?"

Turning, she was surprised to find Emmett standing in the kitchen with her. "Oh," she said, then remembered where she was. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweeting! Here's your water, I was just a bit distracted."

He regarded her with his uncanny eyes and pursed his lips as if in hesitation. Then he said "Tuwa, are you going with the ship?"

She started, pressing a hand to her chest. "What makes you think that, Emmett?" she asked shakily. "Of course I'm not. Why would I leave?"

The boy shrugged and drank his water in one long gulp. "I don't know. Your face looked kind of funny just now. I remember when Uncle Franz left, his face looked kind of like that. But if you say you aren't going to, I guess I'll believe you. I hope you don't."

Left speechless, Tuwa could only stare at the boy whose shattered leg she had once spent four hours putting to rights. He walked without a limp, now. His family was not rich, but they often invited her over for dinner to thank her for that. She regarded him almost as a younger brother. It was only just now, however, that she realized he viewed her much the same way.

No, she couldn't leave him. "I--" she said, reaching out to hold his shoulders.

He made a face at her. "Are you going to promise not to leave? Uncle Franz said the same thing, you know. Just promise you'll say goodbye. I'm not a kid. I'll be all right."

Tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to tell him, over and over again, that she wasn't going to leave him, that she was going to stay and take care of him and bandage his knees forever, but she couldn't make the words come. Instead she took him in her arms and buried her long, calloused fingers in his tousled hair and refused to cry.

I won't leave, she told herself. I won't.

But then he left, and she went back into the kitchen and looked out the window to the north, where above the Wall the sky was a darker shade of blue.

"I won't," she whispered to the vase of snowdrops, and knew she was lying.

~~~

The next morning, Tuwa climbed the northward flank of the city's cradle and looked down towards the river. Floating down it without hurry or fear came a flat dark ship, its masts low and slanted strangely backwards. Its sails were the same dark blue-violet of a winter sunset. There was no one on deck.

Her heart shuddered in her chest.

Where had that ship come from? What sort of port had it left from, and what had it seen on its journey? Who manned it, from behind the dark strakes of its hull?

The curiosity she had bound and buried within herself burned, now, confronted with a flaw in the prison walls. She bit the tips of her fingers.

There were a few herbs up here that she could gather, though most of the ones her inventory was short on lay up beyond the southeastern spur. It was a flimsy excuse, even to use on herself. It was gathering day, so no one was expecting her back in the city. She had no one to make excuses to but herself. Even so, she felt guilty. This was too close to considering a path she'd sworn she wouldn't take.

Turning her eyes downwards, she scoured the nooks and crannies of the stone for that yellow moss which was, in a paste, good for skin blemishes. There was never any shortage of vain young women-- and men!-- to sell it to, so it could hardly hurt to have more. If anyone had any difficulty sleeping, however, they would have to wait-- the little blue flowers she made her soporofic tea from were far on the other side of the valley.

Just as she bent down to coax a particularly stubborn root out of its stony home, something jabbed her in the side and yelled "Yah!"

Suppressing a shriek by barely a hair, she leapt upright and whirled to face her attacker. "Uli!" she nearly bellowed, shoving her hands onto her hips and glaring. "I've told you so many times not to do that! And how did you know I was here? Don't you have better things to be doing?"

Raising his hands in surrender, Uli grinned at her and backed away two steps. His golden hair glowed in the pale light of early morning, casting his tanned face into shadow. "I'm sorry, Tuwa. I couldn't resist."

When her glare showed no signs of abating, he took another step back. "I just had a hunch when I heard about the ship, that's all. I've been searching for you for almost an hour. And no, I don't have anything better to be doing. My father kicked me out when I wouldn't stop asking questions. I'm not sure he's figured out yet that asking questions is the cornerstone of my personality."

For a moment longer she managed to hold her glare, then it cracked into a grudging smile. "And yet he still holds out hope that you will learn to leave well enough alone."

"Not a chance," Uli replies with a brilliant smile, stretching his slim arms behind his head. "I'm unrepentant."

"You ridiculous man," she said fondly, then slung her pack over her shoulder and took a deep breath. "I should get back to the shop. This lot needs grinding, and I still need to go out later today and get some blue-dreaming buds, before they wither."

Turning her back on him, she set off down the stony mountainside. To the west, the sky was lightening quickly. By the time she got down, it would be the dusty blue of midday and it would be too hot to go out. She would have to wait for the evening to go gathering again now. "Damn," she said softly to herself.

"Tuwa," Uli called out behind her.

She stopped and turned back to face him, shaking a flap of white hair out of her face. "What is it?"

He bit his lip, clearly struggling with something, then crossed his arms and spat it out. "You're going, aren't you. With the ship."

Tuwa gaped at him. "I-- of course not. Why would you say that?"

He snorted. "Tuwa, I know you. Better than anyone. I've never seen this look on your face before, but it's not hard to figure out what it means. You want to go. You're talking yourself out of it, because you're very kind, but in the end... even if you hate yourself for it, you'll go."

"No," she whispered, then firmly shook her head. "No. I have the shop, and you, and Emmett, and all the others, and I just-- I couldn't."

"What about Bena?" he asked shrewdly.

"That's not fair," she said quietly.

Uli heaved a sigh and ran his fingers-- soft, unblemished-- through his hair. "Look, you know that no one will be happier if you stay than I will, and I daresay I'd lose the most if you left. But I'm an idiot and I don't want you to stay if you're going to be miserable for the rest of our lives together. I'm not that cruel. Although I wish I was."

"Are you saying I should go?" Tuwa asked him. "Despite everything? What about-- what about-- I thought you wanted--"

"I do," he interrupted, striding forward to take her shoulders in his big hands. "You know I do. But not like this." He hesitated, looking off to the north over his left shoulder. There was a strange expression on his face. "The decision is yours. You know that. Don't worry about me, I'll love you no matter what you choose."

"And your father would be happy to find you another wife," she shot, mentally kicking herself the moment the words left her mouth.

Uli's face grew shadowed. "Of course he would. He has no care for my happiness, only politics. He is the perfect councillor. You're... well, you're bad politics. But I don't care. I never have. Forget about my father."

Tuwa turned and began walking down the mountain. She didn't say anything more. She didn't know what to say to that. She loved him back, of course she did, but in a way other than the way in which he loved her. She had never wanted to be a councillor's wife, and that was what she would be if she stayed. She couldn't leave him, but the thought of staying made her shoulders droop and her chest ache.

Uli was three years younger than her. They had met nine years before, when he had fallen deathly ill and been brought to Bena's shop for healing. For two months she had nursed him back to health, sleeping on the floor by his bed and caring for him every waking moment. He had fallen in love with her. She had not disliked him, and so they had become friends, and had stayed friends ever since.

When he turned twenty-one, he had asked her to marry him, and she had accepted despite herself. There was love and there was love. Hers was the wrong kind, but surely it wouldn't matter so much in the long run. Bena had always said friends made the best lovers.

Even so, she had delayed the engagement over and over again. Two years had passed since her acceptance and still the wedding seemed no nearer than ever.

And now, there was this.

When she reached the shop, she left the door open behind her. Uli followed her in without asking, as she'd known he would. He closed it behind him, crossed the room, and enveloped her in his arms. She buried her face in his chest and took long, slows breaths to calm herself.

It was silly, really. Of course she would stay. She had nothing to look forward to beyond the Wall but vague hopes, and would be leaving so much behind.

"I won't go," she murmured against his shoulder. "I can't. I won't."

"You can, and you probably will." He stroked her hair gently, and she could feel him smiling against her head. "I promised you a long time ago that I would never tell you to go or stay. I'll hold to that. Do what you want. We'll all survive, somehow."

"Uli," she murmured, and pressed herself as close against him as she could. "It's getting dark. I should go out again."

He let her go, stepping back to arm's length to smile at her. After a moment's thought, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Goodbye, Tuwa. Just in case."

Then he walked out and closed the door behind him, leaving Tuwa alone with the dark and her unsettling thoughts.

~~~

She dreamed of the world beyond the Wall.

Her mind, never having seen it, supplied fantastical images of tall twisted yellow trees and pools of water. What rumours she had heard were vague and unreliable, but her mind painted all the stones green in keeping with them anyway.

Beneath her feet flowed a deep, dark river. She walked on it with light, dancing steps, which she knew was impossible but seemed easy as breath in the dream.

To her right, eastward, gleamed the last silver-blue remnants of the day. Far ahead of her, glimmering high in the velvet sky, burned a white northern star. Taking a deep breath, she spread her arms and the let the wind lift her up into the dark towards it.

It smelled of withering sage and winter.

~~~

When Tuwa woke an hour before the sun, she knew she had lost.