by Larry Niven
Dirrach plotted furiously, filing vengeful ideas as he ravaged the small cottage in search of the waistpouch of little Oroles. He knew it likely that the boy had it with him, but trashing the place was therapeutic for Dirrach.
If the locus of power lay in hydrophanes, then none but Dirrach himself could be allowed to have them during the coming power struggle. Once Bardel was dead—and stiff-necked Boerab as well, by whatever means possible—the shaman could easily fill the power vacuum he had created. Time enough then to organize a better mining foray!
Dirrach paused at the sound of approaching footfalls, strained to pull himself up by naked rafters, and stood near the eaves in black shadow. One of the voices was a youthful male; Dirrach held his one-piece bronze dagger ready.
“I’ll be safe here,” said Thyssa, just outside.
“So you say,” replied Dasio, “but I’d feel better if you let me stay. Why d’you think the outlanders packed up and left so fast, Thyssa? As the Shandorian woman said, ‘only fools fight mana.’ Who knows what curse Dirrach will call down on Lyris next?”
Stepping into view below Dirrach, the girl shook her head. “I can’t believe he intended all this, Dasio.” There was something new in Thyssa’s tone as she closed the door; something of calm, and of maturity.
Dirrach heard footsteps diminish outside, grinned to himself. He had no way of knowing why this peasant girl’s self-confidence had grown so, and did not care. One of the rafters creaked as the shaman swung down.
Thyssa whirled to find Dirrach standing between her and the door. “Where is the cub? No, don’t scream,” the shaman ordered, the dagger his authority.
“Cleaning a huge pile of fish with a friend,” she said. “Perhaps Panon should thank you for them, Dirrach. And don’t worry, I won’t scream. It may be that you and I have some things in common.”
At that moment, Oroles burst into the cottage. Dirrach grasped the lad, enraged both by the surprise and the girl’s treatment of him as an equal. Oroles squalled once before Dirrach’s hand covered his mouth. Sheathing his dagger quickly, Dirrach wrenched the lad’s waistpouch away and cuffed Oroles unconscious. Then Thyssa did cry out.
The shaman was not certain he could silence her quickly and made a snap decision. “The cub is hostage to your silence,” he snarled, slinging the boy over one shoulder.
Thyssa’s hands came up, churning a silent litany in the air. “I don’t think so,” she said, and Dirrach found himself rising helplessly into the eaves again. He dropped the boy who fell on bedding, then locked one arm over a rafter as Thyssa reached into a corner. She brought out a wickedly tined fish spear.
Thyssa, advancing, clearly reluctant with the spear: “Even a rabbit will protect her young.”
Dirrach saw that the tines of bone were bound to the spearshaft with sinew, invoked his simplest spell with one hand, and barked a laugh as the sharp tines fell from their binding. But something else happened, too; something that startled Thyssa more than the loss of her weapon. She stepped back, hugged the boy to her, gazed up at Dirrach in fresh awe.
Dirrach felt distinctly odd, as if the rafter had swollen in his embrace. “Get me down,” he hissed in hollow braggadocio, “or I turn you both to stone!”
Thyssa reversed the levitation spell, naive in her fear of his power—though that fear was fast being replaced by suspicion. The shaman released the rafter as he felt the return of his weight—or some of it, at least. He sprawled on the packed earth, then leaped to his feet and stared up at the girl.
Up? He glanced at himself. His clothing, his dagger, all were to the proper scale for Dirrach; but he and his equipment were all a third their former size. Thyssa’s trapspell, dormant until now, had energized in response to his evil intent with magic.
The shaman’s fall had been a long one for such a small fellow and, in his fury, Dirrach summoned a thunderbolt. The flash and the sonic roll were dependable.
And so was the trapspell. Thyssa covered her ears for a moment, blinking down at a twice-diminished Dirrach. His dagger was now no larger than a grassblade and fear stayed his steps. Obviously the girl had done this; what if she stepped on him while he was only a hand’s length tall?
Little Oroles stirred, and Thyssa kissed the boy’s brow. She was shaken but: “I was wrong, shaman,” she said evenly. “We have nothing in common.”
Her eyes held no more fear, but Dirrach thought he saw pity there. This was too much to bear; and anyway, he already had the boy’s manastone. Dirrach snarled his frustration, squeezed through a crack in the heavy wall thatch, hurled himself out into the night.
* * * *
Had the trapspell depended on windblown particles of opalescent grit, Dirrach might have grown tall within the hour. But Thyssa’s spell had drawn on the mana of Bardel’s amulet, and the shaman had a long skulk to the castle.
His mind, and other things, raced with him before the keening of a fitful wind. He listened for telltale human sounds, found that he could easily hide now, kept his small bronze fang in his fist. Dirrach recalled the vines that climbed past the royal chamber and knew that stealth was a simple matter for one of his size. Now and then he paused to listen. It seemed that even the leaves teased him as they scurried by.
At last he reached the castle wall, planning headlong. Once he had cut his way through the upper-story thatch, he could hide in the king’s own bedchamber and wait for the king to sleep. And Bardel slept like the dead. A predator of Dirrach’s size and cunning could easily sever the amulet cord, steal the protecting manastone, then slice through a king’s royal gullet. After that, he promised himself; after that, old Boerab. It was a shame that Averae had already fled, but a grisly vengeance could be brewed later for that one; for the girl; for all of them.
He sheathed his tiny dagger, tested a rope of ivy, and began to climb. Then he froze, heart thumping as he perceived the eyes that watched him with clinical interest; eyes that, he realized with shock, had been on him for some time…
* * * *
Three days after the storm, a healing sun had gently baked away the last vestige of moisture in the dust of Tihan. Citizens tested their old oaths again and found that it was once more possible to enjoy an arm-waving argument without absurd risks.
After a week, Bardel called off the search for his elusive shaman, half-convinced that Thyssa had imagined Dirrach’s shrinkage and half-amused at the idea of danger from such an attenuated knave. But he did allow Boerab to post dogs around the castle, just in case.
Boerab’s ardor to collar the shaman went beyond duty, for Gethae of Shandor had been spicy tonic for a veteran campaigner, and blame for her leave-taking could be laid squarely upon Dirrach. The garrison joke was that Boerab had exchanged one lust for another.
Thyssa refused to leave her cottage. “I’m comfortable there, sire,” she explained, “and Oroles would soon be spoiled by palace life. Besides, my, ah, friends might be too shy to visit me here.” She turned toward Boerab. “Intercede for me, old friend!”
Boerab slapped an oak-hard thigh and laughed. “Fend for yourself, girl! Just threaten to levitate your king. Or turn him to stone; you’re capable of it by now, aren’t you?”
“No,” Thyssa admitted sheepishly. “And I don’t seem to be inspired unless I’m in my king’s presence. But I’ll spend some time practicing here daily, if that is your wish.”
Bardel kicked at a flagstone. “Why not, uh, spend some time with me just for amusement? I have eyes. Thyssa. Your friends aren’t all bashful; only Dasio. And all your other friends are new ones. What does that tell you?”
“Just as you are, Bardel,” Thyssa replied, “and what does that tell me?”
“Damnation! What does my runner have that I don’t?”
After a moment: “Long familiarity—and shyness,” she said softly. She exchanged a glance with Boerab and did not add, and wit.
Bardel pulled at his chin, sighed. “I’ve offered you everything I can, Thyssa. My larder and my staff are at your orders. W
hat more can we do to seal your allegiance?”
She smiled. “But Lyris has always had that. One day I’ll move to the castle, after Oroles has grown and—” she paused. “Oh, yes; there is something you can do. You might have those dogs taken away.”
Boerab: “They won’t harm you.”
“It’s not for my sake. Oroles has a friend who lives around the castle. The dogs disturb it greatly.”
Bardel’s smile was inquisitive: “Around the castle?”
“A ferret, sire,” she said, blushing. “Oroles no longer claims to talk with animals, except for one. Don’t ask me how, but he’s convinced me that he really can do it. You have no idea how much he learns that way.”
The men exchanged chuckles. “Let’s wait for news of Dirrach,” Boerab said, “and then I’ll remove—”
“Oh, that’s another thing,” said Thyssa. “Oroles tells me the ferret spied a tiny manlet the other night, and it described Dirrach perfectly. It watched our shaman do the strangest things.
“Oroles told the ferret that it was lucky Dirrach hadn’t seen it; that the shaman was a bad man.”
“Quite right,” said Boerab. “Ill double the dogs.”
“I’m not finished,” Thyssa went on. “The ferret replied that, on the contrary, it found Dirrach a lot of fun. In its own words: delicious.”
A very, very long silence. Boerab, hoarsely: “I’ll remove the dogs.”
Bardel: “I wonder if you could make ferrets become very large, Thyssa. You know: guard duty, in Lyris’s defense.”
Thyssa: “I wonder if you would want them thus. They are not tame.”
“Um; good point,” said the king. “Seems a shame, though. If you can talk with them, looks like you could tame them.”
“Only that one,” Thyssa shrugged, and bade them farewell in time to meet Dasio for a stroll.
The secret of the hydrophanes was intact. Not even the ferret knew that one of Dirrach’s opals remained, permanently damp, in a corner of the animal’s belly.
Tihan’s folk were to learn caution again during rainy weather, though with each hapless employment the mana was further leached from the glittering motes in Tihan’s soil and roof thatches. Meanwhile, Lyrians began to gain repute for a certain politeness, and greater distance from their king. It occurred to no one that politeness, like other inventions, is a child of necessity.
As a consequence of the manaspill, even the doughty Boerab agreed that mana was a hazardous reality which few cared to explore. If a king’s presence was fecund with mana, then perhaps royalty bore divine rights. Europe’s long experiment had begun.
“…but fear
itself.”
Steven Barnes
The door opened slowly, a slender wedge of light falling, widening, on the porch. A withered hand fumbled at the latch, finally holding the screen door open so that a small, sinewy shadow could enter.
“There you are, T’Cori,” Judith said, bending stiffly to scoop the tortoiseshell kitten into her arms. “Momma was afraid you weren’t coming back tonight. That might have been very bad.” She scratched its ear, listening to the bubbling sounds it made. T’Cori backed her head against Judith affectionately. “No, Momma needs you tonight.”
Judith peered out into the street, her dark sunken eyes unblinking as they searched for movement. She shook her head slowly and closed the door, mouth drawn into a taut line.
She set T’Cori down by a saucer of milk in the kitchen, then walked slowly back into the living room, lowering herself into her sewing chair, a vast, flowery thing that nearly swallowed her whole. One thin hand pressed against her chest and she closed her eyes, listening to the labored workings of an ancient and worn machine. “No,” she whispered sternly. “No. Not yet. Not tonight.” For an instant, there was shooting pain along her arm and she inhaled deeply, sucking air in slow, desperate gulps, opening her eyes again as the pain receded. “Tomorrow,” she said, the color coming back to her face. “Tomorrow. Tonight is mine.”
There was a knock on the door, three raps, then two. A smile wound its way onto her face and she pushed herself out of the chair, paused to adjust a black-rimmed portrait of a dark smiling man which sat upright on the mantel.
“He’s come, Josh,” she said to the picture. “He’s a good boy.” Tears burned at her eyes; she fought them and won.
Again, the knock on the door. Judith walked to the front door and opened it again, swinging the screen door wide for the gangling young man who stood in the dim glow of the porch light.
“Good evening, Aunt Judith,” he said, stepping into the room. He pecked her on the cheek and she returned it, scowling.
“You growing a beard, boy?” She closed the door and waved him to an overstuffed chair across from her sewing chair. A single white candle burned on the table.
He nodded and handed her a small brown bag. “Tryin’ to. Here. Just some milk and eggs, but the freezer looked a little empty last time I was over.”
Judith clucked happily as she took the bag into the kitchen. “Bless you, Ronald.”
The young man crossed one denimed leg over the other and stretched back in his chair until he heard grinding sounds in his neck. T’Cori popped into his lap and he wiggled a finger behind her ear as he looked around the room he knew so well. In nearly every spare inch of space, there were plants. Potted ferns, sweet potatoes floating in water, long-stemmed roses cut weeks ago and in some miraculous way still a symphony of bright reds and yellows. Creepers wound about thin doweling set high in the wall and a miniature citrus tree bore grafted branches of oranges, limes and lemons, surviving with only window light and love for nourishment. There was more, much more, but he refused to waste time cataloguing, instead breathing deeply of the sweet, sharp perfumes that filled the air.
Judith shuffled in from the kitchen, a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies balanced in one hand, a glass of milk in the other. Ronald filled his grin with sweetness and wet, and sighed contentedly.
“Uncle Josh would be proud of you,” she said, her gaze unwavering as she studied him. She lowered herself back in her chair. “A college man now. Where do the years go? It seems like last week when you came up to the front door and asked if we had any bottles you could haul.”
“Mmmfh,” he said, then paused to swallow. “I can still remember his answer, too: ‘Don’t ever ask folks to give you nothin’ boy. You ain’t gonna make no money like that. You got to give ’um a piece of yourself.’ And he took that old corncob monster out of his mouth, dragged me into the back yard, and taught me how to hoe.” He laughed, high with old memories. “You people were always mighty good to me. I couldn’t love you more if you had actually been kin.” He seemed embarrassed, and attacked another lumpy brown pastry ferociously.
“He…We loved you, too.” He tried to tell himself that he was imagining things, but there was something…unnerving about the way her eyes were set. Something unfamiliarly restrained about her voice. “You learned fast. You knew how to work, boy, and how to listen. Even when Josh was just…tellin’ stories.”
The tension left him. “My God…” a sudden disapproving stare, “…uh, my gosh, how could I help but listen? All that about Pirander and Ibandi and the magic that used to be in the ground. You wait. In between botany classes I’m going to find an excuse to do a paper on African folk myths, and blow everybody away.”
Judith looked at him for a long, painful moment, then spoke. “Perhaps you will. Perhaps not.”
He paused in mid-mouthful. “Why not? They were great stories.”
The last cookie was eaten, and she waited until he had drained his glass. She sat, watching him silently until he began to shift in his seat. “There was one last story, Ronald. One that Josh always wanted to tell you.”
Broad muscular shoulders hunched in confusion. “Why didn’t he? I’m a little old for stories now.”
“No.” Her voice crackled in the room, more force in it than he had ever heard, and he found himself recoiling.
“Aunt Judith? Are you…” He started from his chair.
She waved him back, angry with herself, now. “I’m sorry, boy. It’s just—there is one last story, and you must hear it.” The room’s shadows deepened the wrinkles in her face until it seemed like a piece of dark, dried fruit.
“Well…” He slumped back into his seat until its softness engulfed his body. “Sure.” He found his smile again. “This is your time, Judith. All you said was that you wanted to see me before I left for college. I came running. Lay it on me.”
She stood slowly, gathering her thoughts. “Josh told you about the magic, the mana, and how greedy, foolish men used it up with their spells and ceremonies. Pirander brought the news of the vanishing power to his homeland, and to his twin brother Ibandi.”
“Right. I remember now. Pirander took his followers to Australia. They became the Abos, right?”
“Correct.” She smiled. “But we never did tell you what became of Pirander’s brother, Ibandi. He was also a mighty wizard, one more farsighted than his brother. If mana was going to run out, then it was of no use to move to more and more remote lands. Eventually it would be gone from everywhere, forever. Ignoring that fact was merely abandoning future generations.”
She pulled an ancient world globe from a darkened corner of the room, and spun it until she reached Africa, then traced a finger down until she reached Johannesburg, then just a hair southwest. “This is where they lived, Ibandi and his followers, and where they stayed. The one change was that they began using the remaining magic to amass knowledge, knowledge that would be used in a final, desperate attempt to find a source of mana that would never dry up, that might serve them for generations yet undreamed of.”
A wrinkle of curiosity touched Ronald’s face. “And did they succeed…?”
* * * *
You will lead. That was what the dream had said to him, as clearly as a clean wind whipping through the grass. You will lead. Nagai fought to keep his excitement from bubbling past the wall of control. He squatted on his string-tight haunches, hands resting easily on his thighs.
