amusing afternoon. Kamish!” he called.
Kamish leapt to his feet.
“Kamish, there is a small table and a stool inside. Bring them out.”
Kamish stumbled as he hurried to do the Magus’ bidding. When he returned, Boaz wheeled away and disappeared momentarily. He reappeared carrying a lump of murky glass, roughly rectangular, the height of a forearm and the width of two palms. It was thick, thick enough to be caged, but to my dismay I heard it groan as Boaz set it roughly down on the table, and I saw that scores of tiny fracture lines ran through it.
It would prefer to die than be worked.
I looked frantically at my father, but the next moment Boaz seized my arm in tight fingers and dragged me to the table. I almost overbalanced, but managed to sit down on the stool.
“Cage!” he said and, grabbing my father’s tool sack, threw it on the table.
I halted its slide in the instant before it shattered the glass. An unwelcome memory of the vase I had dropped surfaced, and I managed to quell it with only the most strenuous effort.
“It…it is bad glass, My Lord,” I murmured.
“Bad glass or not, it is the only thing you have to work with. Cage it!”
I took a deep breath, clenched my fingers to stop their trembling, then stared at the glass, trying to see what I could do with it. But all I could feel was the weight of the Magus’ eyes behind me.
I cleared my throat. “I will need oil. Something fine.”
Silence, then Gayomar spoke. “Kamish. There is a jug of linofer oil standing on the shelf by the inner door. And bring the cloth that is folded beside it. We do not want her to ruin the tabletop as well as the glass.”
There was rough amusement in that voice, and, deep within me, anger stirred.
I raised my head and twisted on the stool, staring Boaz in the eye. “What would you like me to cage?”
“Something that will save your life, your father’s life, and that of the foolish Kamish,” he replied, then stood back a pace, arms folded, waiting.
And so, with the slaves – now forgotten by all – the two Magi, the ashen-faced Kamish and my father watching on, I did what I could.
For some minutes I ran my hands over the glass, feeling it, feeling for its soft voice, wondering what it would permit and what it would not. It was rough, discarded glass, a greyish and cloudy blue. Thrown away because of the myriad tiny fractures and air bubbles it contained. To try and cage it…
I wondered what design would please the Magi, what design would save my life. I knew nothing of their culture, or of the patterns that they considered pleasant. Would one of the myths of Viland please them? No, I thought not.
I turned the glass over and over in my hands, listening as it finally spoke to me, and I made up my mind.
I set the glass to one side and opened the tool sack. I took out several pliers of differing sizes, a slender hammer, an even more slender chisel, a drill, two glass cutters, a wax marker and a small, pliable ball with a slender nozzle – this I half filled with linofer oil. It was not the best oil for glassworking, but it would do.
I took the wax marker and quickly sketched a design on the face of the rectangular glass, and then on its two narrower sides.
Boaz breathed deeply behind me, and I let myself relax slightly, relieved. This was an arid country, and the Lhyl River was the source of all life. Its culture, as Setkoth itself, was undoubtedly river-orientated, and thus I had sketched the outline of river reeds, two frogs clinging to them. It was a simple design, but pure and delightful because of it.
Using one of the glass cutters, I scored over the wax markings, cutting thin tracings into the glass. I was careful to only barely score the surface of this delicate and fractured glass, and when I was finished, and the wax wiped away, the score marks were visible only as lines of light running over the surface.
I breathed more easily now, and smiled, understanding the glass, knowing it would do its best for me.
“There is no vice here,” I said, and looked at my father. “I need someone to hold the glass as I drill it. Father, will you –”
“I will serve,” Boaz said, and Kamish scrambled to fetch another