Lyrec by Gregory Frost Page A

with malice. “You know nothing. Neither of you. Why don’t you both just admit that and have done with it? Leave the rest of us to our misery an’ our prayers in peace—” Her voice quavered. She looked away, covered her face with one hand.
    The old man snorted. The physician hissed with exasperation.
    Reeterkuv stood up to leave. He paused by the door and looked back upon the room. “I have an idea,” he said softly. “Why don’t you get a cymrallin and you can set it all to music.” He nodded to Grohd and Lyrec. “Begging your pardon, forgive me for delivering a pestilence into your house. I’m going out to be with my horses, where there’s some sense to be found.” He closed the door quietly, leaving behind him once again the crushing silence in which they’d arrived.
    The people looked at nothing, at no one. The wife of the pop-eyed man withdrew. The others watched her leave, then, one by one, followed after her. The old woman left behind her full bowl of stew. A cold skin covered its surface. She hadn’t taken a single mouthful.
    Grohd sighed heavily when the last of them had departed. He went around the bar and began clearing off the tables. In the back room, the cooking fire played shadow-ghosts on the walls. Lyrec stared through the doorway with unfocused eyes, and the shadow-ghosts seemed to him to be agitated, dancing figures—embodying the mad emotions of these beings.
    Grohd kept silent as he returned to his stool behind the bar. He stroked Borregad. The cat had somehow managed to remain asleep in the charged atmosphere. His lips smacked, then his mouth opened and his tongue unfurled in a long, curled pink yawn. He never opened his eyes.
    “Grohd,” Lyrec said. “Tell me something. There was a word that came up—”
    “Kobach?”
    “Yes. I’m not familiar with it.”
    “Yes, well, they’re sort of a special case. A village disliked and distrusted by half of Secamelan, though the king’s father lives there and the king’s wife grew up there.”
    “But the way they said it. There’s a stigma on the word itself.”
    “It means ‘witch’ or ‘sorcerer’. Ukobachia’s a village of witches.”
    “Witch.” He let the word sink in. “But why do they live together?”
    “I don’t know. Some say they have blue designs etched into their skins, or they’re deformed, got extra limbs or eyes in their chests, so they can’t hide what they are.”
    “Why are they so hated?”
    “’cause they have powers. And there’s a legend the Kobachs were a tribe that wanted too much power. They wanted the secrets of the world, of the gods. So Voed decided that since they wanted to know those secrets so much, they could have them, but they’d pay for ’em by being forever suspect by all other tribes.”
    “And are they?”
    “By some, maybe most. Dekür, though, didn’t believe it. There was a lot of noise about the kingdom when people found out what he’d married.”
    “You mean ‘whom’?”
    “No. What. She was a witch. People thought there’d be a schism between the King and the Hespet, the oracle-priest of Voed’s temple. But there wasn’t. Seems the Hespet didn’t believe much in witches, either. Some people still think the Kobachs are trying to take over, though. They stay to themselves.”
    “And people make up things when they don’t know.”
    Grohd shrugged. “You hear all kinds of stories in here.”
    “And the other place? Trufege?”
    “Trufege’s the nearest town to Ukobachia. They’re always saying the witches did this, the witches did that. They blamed this plague they had on the Kobachs, too. But the Hespet looked into it and found that they’d desecrated Voed’s temple somehow. They’d broken with the church. Their priest did also die in the plague. So the Hespet sent them a new priest, and that one—ho—that one’s a fanatic, a raving madman if half the stories are true. He has them kissing the ground first thing in the morning and shouting praises to