The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Her. It describes her, Master Junthin. Two idiots are fighting over her brother—"

  —Gods save me, Melot thought with a mouthful of wine half-choking her. Her eyes watered in pain and she swallowed and tried not to sneeze it up, a hand clamped to mouth and nose as she stared at the wizard and the doctor in panic, frozen like a bird between two snakes. "—and one of them has invested him, if she can tell a straight story. That's how her luck works, don't you see? They tracked the thing straight so far, and when they got close, their eyes bent right around her and they went for second best. Her luck brought her to me. It had to. She had no choice. It was her luck brought the trouble on her in the first place and cozened those fools Othis and Hagon—a luck like that, there's nothing stops it. It rolls downhill and it arranges things—"

  "But don't you see?" Junthin said, on his side, "It arranged you and her to be here. And me to be at home. A client canceled. Gods know why—" Owlish eyes blinked at Melot and sent chills down Melot's back before they slid away to blink at the doctor and to glance down at the paper again and up. "If they don't stop this—"

  "You can find them."

  "Yes." The paper shook in Junthin's wrinkled hands. He wiped his face with his sleeve, the paper still trembling and wavering. "Oh dear gods, dear gods. A nexus. A nexus. O dear gods. How far?"

  Melot looked from him to the doctor, whose handsome face was starkly sober. "Master Junthin," said Dr. Toth, "you know that I'm a tolerably important nexus myself. You know I enjoy a certain latitude with the Profession on that account, not mentioning my talent. That my researches persistently turn up a certain set of consequences should I be . . . eliminated, or bothered, or directly hampered in my work: do you see? And those consequences are far-reaching. I consult every wizard's text and put all the prohibitions and the possible interferences together and they do assume a pattern into which I fit rather centrally, I may say, which assures that of all individuals in all Liavek not safe to trifle with, I am at the head of the list, I in my modest house, my quiet researches, my inquiries—"

  "Yes, yes, we all know that. We pay you handsomely, extravagantly. I pay you. You render a service."

  "And keep you from eliminating yourselves or a city street or perchance Liavek itself by combination of unforeseen consequences . . . Perhaps. I always considered, that would be justification enough for what I cast for my horoscope and my own luck—"

  "We never doubt it. But, my dear doctor Toth, we cannot stand on—"

  "But do you see, Master Junthin, tonight I learned a different truth about my importance. It wasn't myself had the importance all along. She did. Her luck arranged all of this. Arranged my birth two hundred years ago. Arranged your client's cancellation. Arranged all of this and my profession and our very existence. Nexus, man. A big one. That's what those fools are playing with. They've got her brother. His luck didn't outmaneuver theirs; they mistake him for some petty little trinket they can use not knowing that the nexus-sense they pick up is just the overspill from hers. And I'm telling you, Master Junthin, if they harm him in their brigandish behavior, if they run afoul of her luck and tie anything important to it—like the welfare of Liavek, do you see? Do you see what they're meddling with?"

  "O dear gods and stars."

  "Wait. Wait." Facts and insinuations and promises went flying this way and that in confusion, like pigeons, and Melot's head spun. "You promised about my brother . . ." It was not precisely so, but it was never wasted to try to convince the other side in a bargain there was a bargain. It was all the wit she had left, with the red wine dizzying her and the warmth and the profusion of candles and wizard-talk flying past her ears. "You got to get him out, Master Toth. You do got to do that, you took my money—" O fool! To mention the money, the pitiful money— She blinked at them and shivered and saw two men and them both magicians staring at her as if she had snakes for hair. "You got to. I got this feeling—I get these feelings—things will go wrong if something happens to him."

  "Is she lying?" asked Master Junthin.

  "I don't know," said the doctor.

  She was. She was lying with a vengeance, because premonitions seemed the only cash these wizard-types understood, premonitions and bad luck and good. She knew how to throw an evil-eye scare into a drunk or to ill-wish a street ruffian and give him the doubts enough to get away; so she did it with a first-class wizard and the wizards' own lawyer; and saw them stare at her and wonder.

  "Bless," said the wizard, and the air went a little colder and the candles dimmed all together and came up again.

  "Do something. Get the neighbors, can you?"

  "Summon? With her involved?"

  "Have you a countersuggestion, Master Junthin?"

  "O gods, O gods," Master Junthin murmured. And shut his eyes.

  The air went decided chill. A bell began to ring somewhere in the hall. Another rang far away as if it was outside the house. And farther and farther and farther until the air whispered with them.

  Melot took up the goblet and took another sip of wine. She wanted it for her nerves. And she pretended a composure which was the greatest lie yet.

  Meanwhile the bells rang and Dr. Toth stood there with his arms folded looking down at her. With that look on his handsome face that said he had his doubts in both directions.

  "Mmmph," she said, and offered the plate of cheese with eyes wide and naive.

  He caught the irony. It was dangerous to have done. A meticulous brow lifted. But by the gods, a woman never got anywhere in the world letting the opposition drag her about and tell her sit here and sit here and stare at her like that. Her hair was snarled from running. It fell down around her ears and her eyes, too tangled with itself to stay put; and she sweated, and her best (and only) dress wanted laundering, while he smelled of books and fine soap and even his sweat smelled clean. She was despicable. She was plain and starved and her dress hung about her ribs. And he had talked about him being born—(two hundred years ago?)—to satisfy her luck, which rattled around in her brain without a niche to fall into. Two hundred years ago?

  Was the way he looked—something he had taken in payment?

  The front door opened. Master Junthin went out into the hall and brought in an out-of-breath little man in a dressing-gown . . . "What's toward, what's toward? Good gods, Junthin—" The little man spied Dr. Toth and stopped in midword. And even then the front door was opening again. Two women came into the room on their own, like as peas except one had her hair in pins and the other had it dripping wet; and hard on their heels came a fat man with a marmoset on his shoulder. "What is this?" the marmoset piped, falsetto. "What is this?"

  There were more arriving. A boy with scales on one cheek. A black woman who cast no shadow. The door kept opening and closing and Melot clutched the wine goblet, aware of the stares no less on her than on Dr. Toth, and hoping—hoping desperately for the sight of two wizards in particular.

  But they did not come. And Junthin began to explain the whole affair to the others, using words that slipped in and out of language she knew, till Dr. Toth, unlike himself, stole over to Melot and took the goblet away, took her hand and drew her to her feet like a grand lady, holding her arm locked gentlemanly-like in his.

  "You just have to want your brother," Dr. Toth said. "Mind is very important in this."

  "I want him."

  "Fine, fine. Now you've got to trust Junthin for this. This isn't my kind of affair." He gave her hand a little squeeze and passed her hand grandly to Junthin's reach.

  The wizard's skin was cold and damp. "My dear woman, my dear, just stand there, right where you are. Just shut your eyes, hold your eyes shut. O, gods, my furniture—"

  And from the woman with the wet hair: "A nexus of that size, O ye gods and stars, Junthin, quit babbling about the furniture—"

  "But my vases, my vases—" Junthin fled and set one and another of the great ornate vases on the floor, then scurried back to the large rug where others were clearing the tables. The door opened to anot
her arrival— "Never mind," the woman of the pins said to the latecomer, an aged, wizened man, "stand here, Gaffer Bedizi'n—" And from the old man: "Eh? I was in bed, my cat woke me— Eh, Dr. Toth? It is Dr. Toth, 'pon my soul—"

  "Be careful, gaffer Bedizi'n. For the gods' sweet sake and Liavek's, just stand on that point, stand there! Hear?"

  Melot looked left and right. Took in her breath, because all of a sudden it started to grow cold; and Junthin began to talk, and all of them to talk. Then the talk became one sound, and that sound rumbled up through her bones like close thunder—"Now, now now—name him, name him—"

  It's Gatan they want, they want me to talk, Gatan, Gatan—

  BOOM! The thunder burst in her face and there was something there, while a great fist hit her and she went flying backward into collapsing wizards and the crash of furniture and goblets and trays and vases. She hit the floor on her backside, feet out at angles, and struggled up on her hands to see Gatan sitting there in the center of the carpet without a stitch on and blinking and wobbling back and forth. There were rope burns on him. There was a dazed look on his face. "Gods!" he cried, proving his reality.

  "Air displacement." It was Dr. Toth, who was helping up Master Junthin and then gaffer Bedizi'n who blinked owlishly. "Your cloak, my dear." And he drew Melot to her feet and took her cloak and went and cast it around Gatan, who sat helplessly where he had landed.

  "Where were you?" Melot cried, clenching her hands to fists and pounding her knees as she gazed into Gatan's bewildered, blinking eyes. "Gatan, Gatan, you great fool, where have you been?"

  "In this cellar," he said. "In this cellar." He shivered and hugged the cloak about him; and Melot went and threw her arms about him. He was sometimes a fool, Gatan was; and he looked like one this time, being naked as a hatchling and cold as meat and gods help him, smelling like a sewer. Weed clung to his hair. She picked at it, patted his unshaved cheek. "Oh my vases," Junthin moaned at the fringes of things.

  "He has a luck," the woman with wet hair said.

  "An investment," said the woman with pins, and Melot looked about at her and hugged Gatan fast as the woman rolled her eyes and staggered back against her twin. "An investment, O gods, he's carrying something. Do stand up, young man."

  Melot applied herself with both hands and Dr. Toth helped, and the fat man with the marmoset. "Up, up," the marmoset wailed as the fat man pushed, and Gatan wobbled to his feet and reeled this way and that under Melot's support. Gatan howled, and his face glowed red and changed of a sudden with the shadowed overlay of a man's rough features that were never Gatan's. They changed again, a second face.

  "O good gods," Melot cried, stepping back.

  "It's Hagon," cried the woman in pins, while the face faded leaving Gatan with his own; Melot stood there in profoundest shock—Gatan, not-Gatan, O gods—what was this they had summoned to the room?

  "Not Hagon's choosing," said the marmoset, "that's Othis, that was Othis, sure."

  "What, what, what?" Melot cried, and went and grabbed Dr. Toth by the sleeve. "What are they talking about, what's happened to him, what's wrong with him?"

  "An investment." Dr. Toth took her by the arm in turn and by both arms both hard and gently, his close-set eyes looking straight into hers. "Hagon evidently intended to invest some fraction of his power into what he thought was a nexus of considerable intensity. Do you know— no, of course you don't. But with an extension into even such a minor nexus, why, Hagon could invest the merest portion of his magic into your brother and use your brother's luck to magnify his power, to become a great wizard, not a petty one. And so Othis saw his chance. At the worst moment, at the positively worst moment in Hagon's procedure or Othis'—your luck brought us to summon him out of their reach."

  "But—but—can't you help him?"

  "Help him, my dear woman?" Dr. Toth straightened back and regarded her down his nose, and flung an expansive gesture toward Gatan, who stood hugging his borrowed cloak about his nakedness. "Help him? That's a powerful wizard standing there. Your brother's drained them dry; and gods know what else they were up to beyond using him as a catspaw! If he has the makings of that investment as well, gods save us all! It was power they were after."

  "Gatan?" Melot turned and looked and held her hands to her mouth for fear of something else getting out. But it was Gatan. Her brother stood there blinking and scared-looking. "Melot," he said, "Melot, I'm me, I'm just me is all, O gods, I feel like I could burst, my head, my fingers—"

  "Don't!" cried the marmoset. "No, no, no, don't let it loose. Wish it to rain. Quickly, wish for rain."

  "I hope it rains!" Gatan cried desperately. And the air went frosty cold.

  "Weather-wish takes time," said the gaffer Bedizi'n, "a great deal of time, young man, I hope you don't expect haste. That's always young folk, always in a hurry. Tomorrow, I make it tomorrow noon, halfish—"

  "But Hagon and Othis," cried Gatan. "What will they do to me? They'll come looking for me."

  "Oh, no," said Junthin mournfully. He held one of his vases in his hands and he had a distressed look on his face. "No, I don't think they will." And he came and set the vase on a table that was still upright. It was a flowered urn. It was fall to the brim with red liquid.

  "Backlash," said Dr. Toth. "Dear me, what an awful mess. The lad got all the useful things of them. But is that one or both in there?"

  "Both, I think," said Junthin. "It's the only vase intact."

  Gatan sat down where he was, on the rim of an overturned chair. Melot just stood, numb.

  "No more Othis," said Junthin. "No more Hagon."

  "Good riddance," said the black woman.

  "But," said Melot.

  "I'd say," said Dr. Toth, "unasked, of course, and unconsulted—that it's going to rain half past noon tomorrow. And everything's going to work out well for this young man. Though I'd say one ought to find him a master right quickly. An untrained talent of his caliber is not comfortable. That advice is free."

  Junthin coughed. "My damages—I do have first claim."

  "Junthin," cried the fat man's marmoset, "you have no such thing."

  "Indeed not," said the black woman without a shadow. "I think we might expect master Toth to research this matter and tell us the consequences."

  "Ah, well. Now we come to fees. I'll think of some small thing. The answer may take me a few days and I make no guarantees in this case. And pray, my dear friends, pray earnestly that there were no deeper entanglements. I'll take the pair in charge until I have your answer. That should relieve you of some few anxieties. And of, coincidentally, worry about each other." Dr. Toth leaned over the vase, sniffed and stood back with a grimace. "Ugh. A little consultation would have prevented that. I'll have lost my doorspell, too. It was Hagon's, and I'm afraid it's quite done for."

  "I don't know," said Gatan, still shivering, though the doctor's study was warmed with a very natural fire; and the doctor had provided a warm bath and a very fine robe once they had gotten in. (It was Melot climbed through the window they jimmied, and let them in among the books and clutter.) Gatan, a mass of nerves on his way home, still grew distraught whenever he talked about his sojourn in that cellar under Hagon's floor. "I don't know what they intended to do, I don't know what's to become of me now. What do I know? I can't deal with folk like that!"

  "Do have some confidence," Dr. Toth said, looking up from his table and his books. "The solution has to fit all round. And you're quite formidable, young man; I daresay we should warn the watch: the storm tomorrow may prove as much. But for the moment I suggest you go off to bed and let me work in peace, ummn? Nice. Nice. Here's an interesting point. Do go. Go, go, go, second door down the hall."

  There was no sign of the black thing with teeth out in the hall. Perhaps it was in better humor. Melot saw Gatan to his room and the candles lit themselves for him the moment he entered—"Do be careful about the lights!" the doctor's voice pursued them down the hall.

  "I'm scared," Gatan said, though he w
as a grown man and a half head taller; he was her little brother and told her such things, lingering in the doorway. "Melot, I'm scared."

  "Hush, trust the doctor, he's very kind."

  But she went back down the hall after Gatan had shut the door. She walked into the study with her heart beating hard. And stood there with her hands locked behind her while the doctor pored over a clutter of books and charts as if the night were still young. As if he needed no sleep nor ever would. The way he was two hundred years old and maybe ugly once, but never would be so long as he could bargain with wizards.

  And as long as they needed him.

  She coughed. Her heart beat doubletime. "You're looking in that book for him—or for me?"

  The doctor looked up through his spectacles and took them off. "It does seem to be one case, doesn't it?"

  "Like, I mean, my brother's a wizard, isn't he?"

  "Your luck made him that way."

  "Like you said you were born because I needed you, was that true?"

  The doctor blinked at her. "Well—"

  "I mean," she said, "when you reckon how much I owe you got to take that into account, like if you charged me too much my luck'd get me clear, wouldn't it?"

  "Melot Cassissinin, you are a woman of unparalleled gall."

  "Just lucky. Aren't I?"

  The doctor stood up. Towered there in his magnificence.

  "I reckon," said Melot, "it might be lucky for you if I stayed here, I mean, this place—" She waved a hand about. "It wants dusting. It wants straightening."

  The doctor's mouth opened, a very handsome mouth it was, and a very fine face, and him so lordlike and genteel. "My books—"

  "Fact is," said Melot, hands behind her, rocking anxiously on her heels, "if I was lucky, I'd bring luck here, wouldn't I? And if I was lucky, maybe I'd be pretty and have nice clothes like yours and hire me foot-cabs with goldpieces and have me a brother a very fine and lordly wizard, wouldn't I, Master Toth?"

  "Wouldn't you? You unmitigated—"