At The Cusp They Meet

“I’m bored.”

Raiki janja looked up from the cards she was shuffling, laying out on the leather in front of her knees, gathering in and reshuffling. In the cruel light of the early morning sun thousands of small wrinkles webbed her face, deeper wrinkles rayed out from eyes made larger and darker by the uneven lines of black painted around them. She sighed and her double dozen gold chains with their pendant coins lifted with the sigh, clanking fitfully. She sat on a huge hide nearly as ancient as she, her small feet tucked neatly under her heavy thighs, her robes billowing about her bulky body. She looked what she was, a minor tribal sorceress-except for her eyes. They were a shadowy, shifting, brownish green like water in a shady tarn, calm and wise and eternal, the only external sign of that which dwelt within her. “No,” she said. “Not bored, just greedy.”

Haloed by the rising sun, Ser Noris stood on the edge of a cliff, his hands clasped behind him, white hieroglyphs against the stiff black of his robe. He turned and walked toward her, his booted feet soundless on the gritty stone. A ruby like a teardrop with a fine gold ring through the tail hung from his left nostril-a relic from a youth so distant he couldn’t remember when he first eased the gold ring through his flesh. He wore it still, since the weight of it against his lip was part of him now, though the blood-red gleam of it ill suited the cool austerity of his face. When he smiled at her, the ruby lifted and rolled, glowing at the touch of the rising sun. “No, janja, I need a challenge. I’m ossifying.” He stamped a boot heel against the stone. “Much longer and I’m as responsive as this rock.”

Raiki shuffled the cards, squared the pack. “The penalty of your success, Ser Noris.”

“A very small success, janja.”

“You want too much.” Holding the cards low in her lap, she gazed past him at the valley glowing green and beautiful beyond the edge of the cliff. “That’s not for you.”