The Enhancer Read online

  THE ENHANCER

  By

  Teresa McCullough and Meg Baxter

  Cover art by Shawn Lyon

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Published in the United States of America

  Copyright 2009 by Teresa McCullough

  ISB1441477314

  EAN-19781441477316.

  CHAPTER 1

  Just before Meeral buttoned the last two buttons of her blouse she ran her fingers over the pendant that hung from a chain around her neck, feeling the curve of the decoration in the center of the pendant.

  "Wear this always," Shejani had said when she gave it to her daughter on her seventeenth birthday. "It will give you courage when you need it." That was eleven months ago.

  "Was that another one of your useless ideas, Mother?" Meeral whispered as she pressed the pendant tightly between her fingers. Then, with an irritated shake of her head she thrust the pendant out of sight inside the neck of her homespun linen blouse.

  She was already late for her job at the tavern because Chak had come with news from the city of Pactyl. She hurriedly walked to the front door of the cottage in which she and Grandma Varis lived. Her grandmother was walking up the hill toward her. She had been saying goodbye to Chak.

  Chak was a trader who traveled with his wagon and two horses all over the eastern part of the country of Lurdoa. When he came to Cyrtuno, where Meeral and her grandmother lived, he brought letters from Meeral's mother, Shejani. Eleven months of the year Shejani lived in Pactyl, a city nine day's journey south of Cyrtuno. She spent one month every year in Cyrtuno with Meeral and Grandmother Varis.

  Today Chak brought no letters, just the terrible news: Shejani was dead. Meeral had lost her mother and Grandma Varis had lost her daughter-in-law.

  As Chak walked down the road toward his wagon, he turned back in that slow deliberate way of his. He shouted, "Come on, Meeral. I'll take you to the tavern."

  Meeral shook her head. She wanted to be alone.

  "Come on," he shouted again. "You enhance the horses, then you won't be late for work."

  Meeral was a skilled enhancer. By enhancing the pull on the wagon she could make the trip much easier and faster for the horses. Yet she wasn't comfortable with Chak. He always had some deal he was trying to make. But, to be honest with herself, she was only comfortable with a few people in Cyrtuno. She waved him away and went to her grandmother. How old her grandmother looked! The news of Shejani's death had added ten years to her face. Meeral put an arm around her drooping shoulders as they walked back to the cottage together.

  "You'd better go to the tavern," Grandma Varis said. She suddenly straightened her shoulders, retrieved her look of strength and vigor as she said, "Everything will be all right."

  Meeral hugged the older woman, brushing her cheek against VarisÕ tear-stained face. Then Meeral hurried down the dusty road toward the center of the small town of Cyrtuno.

  Touching her cheek, wet from tears that were not her own, Meeral felt more sorry for her grandmother than she did for herself. She offered a silent prayer to the god Ezant, and, to be on the safe side, another prayer to the god Gurkon, asking them both to comfort and watch over the old woman.

  As she came down the main street of Cyrtuno she saw Chak's horses and wagon parked in front of the tavern. She heard the angry voices bursting from the open windows of the wooden building. She had made a mistake: She should have ridden with Chak. She had been late once before, when she first started working for Dubot. How nasty the men had been! But at least she missed being there when Chak told them about Shejani's death. He wasn't the kind who could keep that choice bit of news to him.

  She wished she could cry as Grandmother Varis had cried, but her feelings for Shejani were mixed up. With a pang of guilt she knew she felt relieved. She would not have to go through another month when her mother swept down on Cyrtuno, rented a large house and hired help from the village to run it. Shejani always needed several maids and gardeners as well as a groom to take care of her horses. She brought her own cook and personal maid. The villagers loved the money she spent but not the manner in which she spent it. Some parts of her mother's visit were fun. Meeral loved riding horseback with Shejani. Her mother taught her new tunes to play on her flute. Shejani was such a vibrant, enthusiastic woman she made everyday living like a game. The difficult part for Meeral was when her mother went back to Pactyl. The villagers showed their resentment against that proud woman's highhanded manner and took it out on Meeral. The men, in their loud voices, talked about the things they had heard of Shejani's life in Pactyl, while the women smirked at Meeral and repeated their husbands' words in whispers. Now that her mother would no longer come to Cyrtuno MeeralÕs life would be better. Grandma Varis had said everything would be all right.

  Hardly conscious of her hand moving to the bulge of the pendant that lay under her blouse, Meeral touched it. Then she took a deep breath and slowly opened the tavern door. She slipped in quietly, hoping she would not be noticed.

  "Where have you been?"

  "You're late!"

  "There she is! Meeral, the silent! Tell us why . . ."

  "Aren't we good enough . . . " then adding mockingly, "for Lady Meeral?"

  A blush spread up her cheeks. She cast her eyes down.

  "Look at that red face," someone said with a hooting laugh.

  If she looked up she would see the weather-roughened faces of the workers of the fields, dressed in their homespun shirts and pants. The taunts continued, yet no one said anything about Shejani's death.

  Meeral headed for the back of the tavern. She maneuvering her way past the tables, as the men continued to pelt her with demands as to why she dared to be late to cool their beer. Suddenly a man thrust his leg in front of her path. She stopped just short of losing her balance, bracing herself against a table. The leg belonged to a stranger. She could tell by the cut of his clothes he was not from a neighboring town. The man had a short, dark beard and was looking at every part of her, piece by piece: her brown hair fastened in a bun, the high-necked blouse and the loose skirt that almost covered the dusty toes that stuck out from her leather sandals.

  She was just about to go around the leg when someone said, "I know why she's late." The voice came from a man seated next to the stranger. It was Chak. He had waited until she arrived to make his announcement. In a loud voice he said, "Shejani's dead."

  A kind of sigh filled the room. Chak added, "I brought Varis and Meeral the news from Pactyl."

  He looked around, ready for attention -- perhaps praise -- but no one spoke. One man studied his nails intently; others just stared down at the table in front of them. As quietly as possible, Meeral threaded her way toward the back room where the barrels were kept.

  She was almost there when a voice broke out. "Did a lover kill her?"

  "No," Chak answered. "She got a cold and it went to her chest. They sent for the best healers but couldn't save her."

  Someone's voice shouted, "Meeral! Are you still going to come and cool our beer when you get all that money she left you?"

  "Money?" Chak said scornfully. "That woman spent every cent she had. All she left were debts."

  "That's too bad," a man said with a laugh. "I was just going to propose to Meeral, the silent, and listen for her answer."

  Meeral felt more blood rush to her face. She tripped over something as she stepped blindly toward the door to the storeroom. Two firm hands caught her and she looked up to see Dubot, the tavern owner.

  "Come on, Meeral," he said gently.

  When they were inside a room lined with barrels, he said, "I'm sorry about your mother."

  His hand still on her
arm, he guided her to the stool near the barrels. He glanced anxiously at the door as raucous laughter seeped through. Business had improved since he had hired Meeral to cool the beer in the hot summer months. No other enhancer could do it.

  "Just get the beer cold, as you always do," he said. She heard the door close behind him as he left her alone.

  For a moment she sat staring at the barrel. Slowly she blocked out the voices from the other room and concentrated. Before long, habit took over and she duplicated the cold she found in the ground below her and put it into the barrel of beer.

  She was almost finished when she heard the door open, letting in impatient voices shouting her name and demanding cold beer. She recognized Dubot's footsteps as he shuffled in. Since no more money would come from Shejani, Meeral would need the pay she earned in the tavern. She was glad that Dubot was one of the few people in town who was always kind to her.

  He stood over her. The curve of the beer barrel was like the curve of his belly. He had been a handsome man when his wife was alive, Grandma Varis had once said.

  "They don't like to wait this long, Meeral," he said.

  Usually Meeral just stood up when she was finished and walked into the other room but she wanted Dubot to know how grateful she was for the way he treated her.

  She looked up at him and smiled. "I know. Thanks for helping me, Dubot," she said.

  Her words seemed to change him. His eyes locked into hers and he seemed to pull in all that sagged about him, his jowls and his belly. For a second, she saw the handsome face that had been buried in all that flesh.

  His hand touched her hair and slid down to the back of her neck. "Meeral," he said. "I'll take care of you."

  She got up quickly, frightened by the yearning expression on his face. All she had done was to say a few words.

  She stepped away from him and gestured toward the barrel. "It's cold now," she said, her voice as cool as the beer.

  By the time she reached the door of the storage room she could hear Dubot rolling the beer barrel after her. As soon as she opened the door, three men went in after the freshly chilled barrels of water that she had also cooled. They placed them around the room to cool it.

  As quickly as Dubot filled mugs, hands grabbed them and took them to tables. Usually Dubot paid her right away, but she had been late so she would wait. She stood against the wall, making herself as inconspicuous as possible. When the scraping of benches and the shouts of men faded, the room became quiet except for the sound of slurping of beer and knocking of mugs on tables.

  She slipped next to Dubot and held out her hand for her pay. To her surprise, he grasped it in his and gave her a look that demanded something that she was not prepared to give. She pulled her hand away quickly.

  "That will be one and a half onics," she said.

  "You were late."

  Meeral had not expected that from Dubot. As she fell back to her usual silence, someone said, "Maybe she expects as much pay as Shejani got from the men she worked for."

  She had heard those comments before and had ignored them. But today, knowing that Shejani was dead, she turned angrily, trying to locate the man who had spoken.

  "Better be careful," the stranger sitting next to Chak said. "She might cool you as she cooled the beer."

  As if her mother had stepped into her body, Meeral gave him a look of disdain. She mirrored the pose Shejani used when she spoke to her inferiors, which included most of the population of Cyrtuno. Her head held high, Meeral said, "Don't you know that enhancing is an honorable skill? Women who are born with the skill are taught from childhood that they must never -- absolutely never -- use it to hurt anyone, except if they or someone else is in real danger. I would never use my gift in thoughtless anger."

  She looked around the room. A little while ago she had stood in front of them with her eyes cast down and a blush on her cheeks. She had slunk into the storeroom to cool their beer. Now they wanted to make her the object of ridicule again. But something was different inside her.

  She turned to Dubot and said in cultivated tone of her mother, "I've done the work. Pay me," adding, as her mother would have done, "please."

  She heard someone murmur, "Sounds just like her mother." Another mumbled, "One and a half onics for half hour's work? That's three times what I make."

  But no one else said anything except Dubot. He reached into the pouch around his neck. He dropped the coins in her hand and said, "When you've spent your money, Meeral, you might find you need me."

  As she walked out of the tavern, she swept the faces with the same kind of look that Shejani gave when she was displeased. Any comments that were made were so low they did not carry across the room.

  Still angry, she tramped down the road. She had said more today in the tavern than she had during all the time she had worked there. She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell those ignorant men that she could not only read books, but also could also read music, play the flute and sing songs no one knew in Cyrtuno. Then she realized how useless that would sound. All they cared about was what they grew or raised, including their children who worked for them. Shejani had insisted her daughter go to the Ezant school while other children were in the fields learning to help with the planting and harvesting. Those men valued working in the soil more than learning to read.

  True, as the Ezant school became established, many of the children began going to school regularly but by then Meeral was so far ahead of them that she never fit in with her schoolmates. Besides, Shejani had taught Meeral to walk and talk as if she were better than the other children. She had even taught Meeral to curtsy. How her classmates hooted with laughter when Meeral, too young to understand how inappropriate it was, made an elegant curtsy to a visiting Gurkonian priest!

  She could embroider linen handkerchiefs that no one dared use to blow their nose or wipe sweat from their forehead. She rode a horse well, but only had a chance to ride when her mother brought her fine saddle horses from Pactyl. She could dance to music no one played in Cyrtuno, with steps much too complicated for working peasants.

  "I'd rather dance as they do right here in Cyrtuno," Meeral complained to her mother.

  "Peasant dances!" Shejani said, with a mocking laugh. "You shouldn't be dancing peasant dances."

  What did her mother mean by that? Meeral lived among peasants all year round. Why shouldn't she learn to live as they did? But that was how her mother was about everything she taught Meeral -- she made the things she valued seem important when Meeral knew they were useless here in the village.

  When Meeral was a little girl and still believed that she could explain why her mother taught her to walk and talk like a lady, she asked her, "Are you a noble lady?"

  "Of course not! Don't be silly!"

  "But everyone says you act like one."

  "I do not!" Her mother stood up, her head held high. She stalked up and down the fine parlor of the house they had rented. "That's ridiculous. Meeral, if anyone tells you that, you tell them they're lying."

  After a few minutes she sat down in that graceful way she had of easing herself into a chair, and said, "How could I be of noble blood? Your father built the cottage in which you and your grandmother live. He planted and harvested the field around it. I lived with him in that cottage for years. I worked just like the peasants. Does that sound like a noble lady? Does it? Does it?"

  Meeral shook her head, no, to Shejani's insistent question.

  "When my dear Boktod died," Shejani said, "I had to take care of myself, and you. I couldn't get the kind of work I wanted in Cyrtuno so I went to Pactyl."

  Thinking back on what Shejani had said that day, Meeral wondered why her mother never used her enhancing skills. Her grandmother told Meeral that Shejani did not even know how to cook a meal by enhancing a flame when she first came to live with Varis and Boktod yet she was capable of high-level enhancing.

  As Meeral approached the cottage in which she and her grandmother lived, Meeral heard the sound of women's vo
ices. The love Grandma Varis extended to others was being returned. Meeral was surprised the woman had come. They had said nasty things about her mother, but Shejani was hard to hate. She had been so full of joy, so willing to help the villagers. If she only had not always made it clear that she was better than any of them.

  Now all that was forgiven and forgotten.

  "You've been so lucky, Varis," a woman was saying. "Oh, that I had a daughter-in-law like Shejani!"

  "So beautiful, and she was so good to you. Do you know where they buried her?"

  "No," Varis said, "but she always spoke of her dear friends. I'm sure they took care of her."

  "Did she have a Gurkonian funeral?"

  "No. She never had anything to do with the Gurkon Church, perhaps because they charge so much for funerals and things."

  "But the Gurkon priests say that the body of the dead doesn't rest until they plant a tree."

  Varis said, "Shejani said the Ezant religion was the best. They help people, especially women."

  "I didn't know she was a believer. I never saw her worshipping."

  "But she supported the work of the Ezants," Varis said.

  "We have torches burning in the streets now because of the Ezants," said one woman. "I feel safe anywhere in town."

  The others murmured their agreement.

  When Meeral stepped into the cottage the women all turned to look at her. There was a look of uncertainty on their faces. Meeral sniffed the aroma from the crocks of cooked beans and the fresh bread that they had brought. She smiled in appreciation and they returned her smile.

  "There you are, Meeral," Varis said. "Look at the lovely things our friends brought us."

  Her friends said to Meeral, "How sad that you lost your mother,"

  "Such a beautiful woman."

  "We were just wondering about Shejani's funeral, Meeral," Varis said. "It would mean so much to me if we could dance the Ezant funeral dance in her honor."