Though in years still a toddler, the top of Blake's head now came up to Valentine's rib cage, and he was astonishingly strong.
"Ouch. Blake, careful, gentle like with Wobble."
"As petting," Blake said in his whispery voice.
Narcisse sat tiredly, her eyes closed. She'd aged since he'd last visited, distressingly so.
"You all right?" Valentine asked. "Can I get you something to eat, or look for medicine?"
"You know me, Daveed. Did you not ever wonder how I could control a toddler who could break my arm at sixteen months?"
"You had such a gentle way about you," Valentine said. "I figured he loved you."
"Yes. Most of the time, the gentle way works. But sometime, heem too emotional, Daveed. Not listen for my voice, not mind my words. Then, other ways."
She looked closely at Mantilla. He nodded. "Good a time as any, Sissy."
Narcisse patted the shriveled skin stretched across her breast. "I am weary, Daveed. This old body is ready to give up. It was ready to give up some years ago, but I keep it going."
"If you're feeling sick-," Valentine said.
"No, not sick. Tired. Not much left in these bones, I think."
She unwrapped one of the colorful turbans her head never seemed to be without.
A Kurian rested upon her bald, scarred head, an obscene cap that glistened and pulsed in the candlelight.
Or perhaps it was a Lifeweaver. They were the same species, with the same powers and potentials. Only by their actions could they be distinguished.
It resembled an animatronic, prickly cucumber more than a Kurian. Valentine, to his everlasting horror, had seen dead pregnant women and the children who had died in utero. This-entity-had the same misproportioned, squashed look-a melted model of the adult version. Its webbed arms were still tight-wrapped next to her body, only tiny hook-digits at the end clung to her skull.
The head, with its two cloudy topaz eyes so large it was a wonder they didn't roll right out of the soft flesh surrounding them, turned toward Valentine.
So we meet at last.
"Face to cephalopod," Valentine said. "Who are you?"
A survivor, the David. A survivor. I am a scion of one of the last Lifeweaver holdouts on Kur.
I will not take from sentient creatures. Indeed, I only consume other living beings with regret.
I do not have many years left, I think. Perhaps I would be dead already, were it not for Narcisse and her concoctions, and the scraps of lifesign from the chickens and rabbits and squirrels the Blake takes.
Valentine tried to comprehend speaking to a being who was alive when Julius Caesar walked the earth. No wonder the Kurians could look upon mankind as livestock. The endless cycles of war and killing, cruelty and hate. Distant observers, they. All they'd know is battles and pogroms, having never sat and listened to the audience laugh at A Midsummer Night's Dream or hummed the "Toreador Song" from Bizet's Carmen while digging in the garden the way his mother once had.
"You look like you need some air," Mantilla said.
They went out into the night. Valentine smelled Grog cooking on the breeze out of the city.
"There is one more caste, you know, Valentine. Beyond the Wolves, Cats, and Bears."
"Kurian agents?"
Mantilla smiled. "Not quite, though there are some similarities. No, we're talking about one that's been under a variety of names, but considering your time and place and background, we'll call it a 'Raven.' "
"You're one of these?"
"I am."