The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

No. That’s not acceptable. He can help. And I’m not paying any debts if I can avoid it. “I’ve considered both,” I say firmly. “You have never been in any physical danger—”

“Not even from iron skillets?”

I gape at him. He grins again, darkly sly. “How did you—you couldn’t have heard that!”

“I . . . may be able to hear conversations that pertain to me whether or not I am there. You spoke of it as you were planning to smuggle me out of your house. I was concerned for my safety at the time. And yours.”

“Rude!” I cry, to cover my mortification. “And certainly not the behavior of an honorable guest.” I point at the stone in his hands. “You may put things right now, both as our guest and the guest of the king, whose subjects are being stolen by slavers. Your words can’t be overheard. I will tell no one your name in conjunction with what you tell me now. So tell me, what does that opal do?”

He considers it, brow creasing as he turns it over once, twice. “What do you think it does?”

I take a breath, let it out slowly. “An opal is usually used to strengthen memory. But the blessing this is used in removes memories.”

“Does it.”

“I’m not convinced that the memories need to be removed. I want to understand the spells themselves.”

Stonemane dips his head. “You are right about the opal. It is typically used to strengthen memories. In some cases, it is used to draw forth particular memories. Based on the enchantment wrapping this stone, I would say it’s used to draw forth all the most recent memories of the person it’s used on. But there’s nothing here that would destroy a memory.”

“I see. And this?” I hand him the cup. “It’s the second part of the Blessing. It’s filled with thrice-blessed water and given to the child to drink. If the Darkness is taking a child, this is what protects them. I’d like to know how.”

“The Darkness?”

“An illness that steals the light from a child’s mind. It leaves them a husk of themselves. It only affects those who escape the snatchers—the slavers who have taken them.”

“You realize how very strange all this is,” Stonemane says.

“We . . . have known it to be a danger for decades.”

“It is not a danger I’ve heard of before, in my various travels.”

I’m beginning to think that it is one Menaiya alone faces. “Please.” I gesture toward the cup. “That’s why I need you to look at these.”

For a long moment he hesitates, and then he sighs and sets the opal aside, focusing on the cup instead. When the Speaker used it, I’d barely registered it as more than a simple silver cup, without stem or base. As Stonemane studies it, I see that even the design upon it is simple: an embossed pattern of interwoven lines, at their center an inset stone—a topaz, semiprecious, and filled with the faint gleam and glitter of stored magic. The topaz must hold the fount of magic needed to power the spell embedded in the pattern around it. Without it, the cup would run out of magic after only a few uses.

Ever so carefully, Stonemane sets the cup down between us. “Where do these cups come from?”

“There’s something very serious about them, isn’t there?”

“Kelari.”

“The Circle of Mages,” I admit. “They’re provided to the Speakers by the Circle.”

“Ah. Then it is possible I have said too much already.”

“You haven’t said anything,” I complain. “And you are the royal family’s guest. If someone is preying on their people, it would be a service to share what you can tell. Maybe even a duty.” I eye him hopefully, well aware that I have no argument whatsoever, but that he spoke so seriously of the duties of a guest when he stayed with us.

He lets out a soft, almost pained laugh. “Oh, very well, kelari. I want you to be careful with what I’m telling you. As a delegate of my people, it is not my purpose here to create trouble. What I tell you must not be traced back to me, or this conversation.”

I meet his gaze. It contains the liquid ripple of the ocean, deep and unknowable, and so very much not human. “I give you my word.”

He touches a finger to the engravings. “This is an enchantment. Whatever liquid is put in this cup will take on its properties: to destroy the uppermost memories in the person who swallows it, and to wipe out of the blood any remaining trace of the marker placed in the victim—the marker that would identify them to your so-called Darkness.”

“You mean that those two things are separate—that the memories don’t need to be lost?”

“Don’t they?”

Of course they do; as Bren noted, if the memories aren’t lost, how much easier would it be to hunt down the snatchers? I take a steadying breath. “The goblets prove the mages are removing our rescued children’s memories, then.”

“That, and nothing more.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not a particularly nice thing to do, but it doesn’t prove a wider involvement, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

I nod. The mages could even argue that their intention had been one of mercy at the outset, to reduce the impact of the trauma of slavery upon those who escaped. And it would be my argument against theirs, what the truth is. I need more proof—either to exonerate the Circle or condemn them. But this, what I have now? It’s not enough to do either.

Stonemane pushes himself up from the bench. “And now I really have said enough.”

“Wait.” I reach out a hand. “Can you tell how the children might be marked?”

“Because the method to mark them must also have a magical source?” Stonemane queries, one brow arching eloquently. “An excellent avenue of inquiry, kelari, but in this case I cannot tell you anything. The marker must be there. From the cup, I can tell only that the marker would be wiped out.”

“But