Calamity's Child

by Sharon Lee

His scheme worked well: In the morning, he set his traps; his afternoon went to gathering plant stuffs. When his sack was full; he turned toward the camp of the day, collecting game from his traps as he went.

  On the morning of the sixth day, he encountered Tania, the grandmother of their group, at the edge of the camp, gather-bag in hand.

  "Good morning, hunter," she said politely.

  Slade touched the tip of his spear to the ground in respect. "Good morning, grandmother."

  "I see that the mother of your tent sends you to gather in her name."

  This, Slade thought, could be bad. He allowed no trace of the thought cross his face. Instead, he replied calmly, "Grandmother, it is so. Her talent gnaws the mother of my tent to bone."

  Her eyes softened. "It is a harsh gift," she said slowly. "Do you prepare the gather?"

  "No, grandmother; she prepares what I bring, and shows which I should choose more of, and what is not as needful to the tent."

  "So." She stood up, shaking out her bag. "Erifu is preserved. Good hunting."

  After that, no one questioned him.

  And Arika grew ever more fragile.

  In the evening, she sorted and prepared what he had gathered, while he performed other needful tasks. After, they would lie in each other's arms and he would stroke her until she fell into uneasy sleep.

  So, the short summer proceeded. Slowly, the sky darkened, and the wind carried an edge of ice, warning that the time to turn to Dark Camp approached.

  Slade returned to their tent somewhat later than usual, burdened by numerous kwevits and an especially heavy sack of gatherings.

  At first, he thought the tent unoccupied, then, he saw the shape huddled, far in the back, where the medicines were kept.

  Heart in mouth, he dropped his burdens and rushed forward. Arika was barely conscious, her body soaked with sweat. Carefully, he straightened her, turned her...

  Her eyes opened, and she knew him. "Slade. The child comes." Her body arched, and she gasped, eyes screwing shut.

  *

  The baby had come quickly, which had been a blessing. He cleaned her and put her to Arika's breast, turned -- and looked up into Tania's hard, old eyes.

  "Hunters do not deliver children," she said, coldly.

  "This hunter does," he snapped, perhaps unwisely.

  "So I see." She stepped forward. "I will examine the mother of your tent, hunter. She is frail and I am many years your elder in the healing arts."

  He took a hard breath. "Grandmother, I know it."

  "Good," she said, kneeling at Arika's side. "Walk around the camp, twice. Slowly, as if you search for hunt-sign on hard rock. Then you may return."

  Almost, he protested. Almost. He had just reached the entrance when he heard his name and turned back.

  "Grandmother?"

  "You did well," she said softly. "Now go."

  *

  The child -- Kisam, their daughter -- clung to her small life by will alone, and in her stubbornness Slade saw generations of Clan Aziel. She nursed, but it seemed her mother's milk nourished her only enough to keep her soul trapped in her body -- and in that, too, he saw the effect of his blood.

  His blood.

  She sucked the supplement from the tip of his finger while he cuddled her and prayed, chaotically, expecting the tiny body at any moment to convulse, and release his child's willful spirit --

  "She is stronger," Arika said next day, Kisam tucked in the carry-cloth against her breast. "Slade, does she not seem stronger to you?"

  "Yes," he murmured, leaning over to stroke the small head covered already with plentiful dark curls -- her mother's blood, there. "Yes, she does."

  *

  They traveled slowly toward Dark Camp, for Arika's strength was low, and Kisam yet frail, though much improved. And truthfully, the slower pace was not only to accommodate the child and her mother. Slade walked sometimes unsteady, his legs weak, and betimes a high, busy humming in his ears, and flashes of color across his vision. The spells passed shortly, and he did not speak to Arika of the matter. And every other night, as his wife lay in the sleep of exhaustion, he would nurse Kisam from his dwindling supply of vitamins and tried not to think what would happen, when, finally, they were gone.

  So they arrived at Dark Camp among the last, and pitched their tent in the fourth tier, considerably higher than last year. There was firewood waiting, and a fire-circle, built properly by women's hands, by those who owed still on Findings past.

  Slade saw Arika settled by the fire, and Kisam on the nurse before he turned to stow his weapons -- and heard the buzzing begin, growing until it was a black well of sound into which he toppled, head first, and swooning.

  *

  He opened his eyes to Gineah's somber face.

  "He wakes," she said, and Arika was there as well, her eyes wide and frightened.

  Carefully, he smiled. "Forgive me, grandmother. A stupid faint..."

  "Not stupid, perhaps," another voice said, speaking the Sanilithe tongue slowly and with an odd nuance.

  Slade froze, looked to Arika, who touched his face with fingers that trembled. "A woman of your mother's tent has come, Slade."

  A woman of his --

  He pushed himself into a sitting position, despite Arika's protesting hand on his shoulder, and Gineah's frown. For a heartbeat, his vision was distorted by spangles of light; when they melted, he saw her, seated like any ordinary guest by the fire, the baby's basket at her side, a horn cup cradled between her two hands.

  She wore leather, and a wide Scout-issue belt, hung about with a profusion of objects. Her hair was brown and curly, her face high-boned and subtle.

  "Do I find Slade, second named son of Gineah's tent?" she asked, in the native tongue.

  "Hunter," he corrected, "for the tent of Arika Finder."

  Her eyes flickered. "Of course. No insult was intended to the mother of the tent." She raised her cup, sipped, then looked to him, face bland. "I have come to take you back to the tent of your mother, hunter. You have been sore missed."

  Arika was gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. He reached up and put his hand over hers.

  "My mother's tent has many hunters, this tent has but one."

  The Scout inclined her head. "Yet this tent's hunter is ill, and soon will die."

  Which was certainly true, thought Slade. Death or departure equally deprived the tent of its hunter. And the hunter would rather die than depart.

  "His mother, his sisters -- they may heal him?" Arika's voice was thin, her hand beneath his, chill.

  The Scout inclined her head respectfully. "Tent mother, they will."

  "And after he is healed," Gineah -- shrewd Gineah -- murmured, "he will be returned to the tent of his wife."

  The Scout considered her. "The grandmother knows better than that, I think," she murmured. "Between the erifu of the Sanilithe and the erifu of we who are not the Sanilithe, there is a ...disharmony. We are each correct, in our way, but not in the way of the other."

  In her basket, Kisam awoke and began to cry, and Arika rose to go to her. Slade watched them for a moment, then looked back to the Scout.

  "It is possible," he said to her bland and subtle eyes, "that the addition of a third erifu will balance the disharmony and allow health to bloom."

  She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  Slade leaned forward. "Take this tent to the sea. I will give you a message for my mother and my sisters." And for Scout Headquarters, he thought.

  "The sea will not aid you. It --" The Scout frowned, looked to Gineah. "Grandmother, I apologize for the breach of courtesy, but I must speak to Slade in the tongue of his mother's tent."

  Gineah moved a hand. "Speak, then."

  Yet, having gained her permission, the Scout did not at once speak, and when she did, she spoke the language of home as slowly as if it, too, were uneasy on her tongue.

  "I had seen your log, and your determination to gain the sea, were you turned out. Not a bad plan,
in truth, pilot, excepting only that this world lacks those things which your body must have in sufficient quantity to sustain you. I have done the scans and can show you the results. Those who are born to this world, they have adjusted to the lowered levels and function -- as you see. You, who were bred upon a world rich in nutrient -- you can only sicken here, and die."

  So, then. Slade took a breath. "Our daughter will die soon. A few days, now."

  Comprehension lit the Scout's bland eyes. "You have been giving the child your supplements."

  "What would you?" he said irritably, the words feeling all odd angles in his mouth. He sighed. "If I must go, then, allow them to come. My wife, she is -- a Healer of a sort, and frail. Perhaps home will heal her, too."

  The Scout paused, head to one side...

  "Slade." Arika was back at his side, Kisam in her arms. "What does this woman say?"

  "She says that the sea will not aid us."

  Arika frowned. "The sea? What do the Sanilithe have to do with the sea?"

  "I thought that the erifu of the sea might bring the child of our tent to health, and myself."

  She bent her head, her hair falling forward to shroud their child. "The little bottle," she whispered, "it is almost empty?"

  He reached out and stroked the hair back from her face. "You knew?"

  "I woke in the night and saw you give -- it is a medicine from your mother's tent, isn't it? She shares the erifu of your blood."

  "Yes," he whispered, stroking her hair. "Arika -- come with me to my mother's tent." From the corner of his eye, he saw the Scout start, but she held her tongue. He knew the regs forbade just what he proposed. Damn the regs.

  Arika raised her head, showing him a face wet with tears. "And then I will die, sooner than my gift would eat me."

  He glanced to the Scout, saw her incline her head, very slightly, and lost her face in the wash of tears. He bent forward and gathered his heart into his arms.

  "Arika..."

  "No. Slade." Her arms tightened, then loosened, as she pulled away. "You must take our child, make her strong, so that she may do the work of our tent -- and yours." She reached to his face, smoothing away the tears with cold fingers.

  "It is the trail, hunter. The only trail that is given."

  He stared at her, unable to speak. She rose, and he did -- Gineah and the Scout, as well.

  Arika held their daughter out; he took the small burden, numbly.

  "Commend me to your mother," Arika whispered, then spun and was gone, out of their tent and into the night.

  He moved, meaning to go after her -- and found Gineah before him. "I will look after her, Slade. Go, now."

  In his arms, his daughter whimpered. He looked down at her, and then to the Scout, standing patient and silent by the fire.

  "It is time, then. My daughter and I are ready."

  END

  A Night at the Opera

  She was old money. He was old magic.

  Together, they were a force to be reckoned with on the social circuits of half-a-dozen capital cities. It was said that they might reverse a fashion, make a playwright, or declare an early end to a tedious Season. They were patrons of the arts -- scientific, magical, and creative -- and stood on terms of intimacy with the scions of several Royal houses.

  Despite all that -- or because of it -- they were popular hosts: full of wit and fire, certain to have an opening night box at the brilliant new play, after which they would preside over an animated table of friends in a little known gem of an eatery. It was therefore not at all unusual, when the daring new opera "The Fall of Neab" opened at Chelsington Opera House, where her family had kept a box for several generations, that they should host a party.

  Nicholas -- Lord Charles to most; Nick or Nicky to some few intimates; and Nicky Dear to one alone -- had early discovered that the hidden tax on old money was the absolute necessity of sharing the more public extravagances with others -- and as many of those others as possible. It mattered little that he found the tax neither convenient nor fair; if he and his lady wished to go on more or less as they pleased, then these small payments to society must be made.

  Since he very much wished them to go on more or less as they pleased, the inconvenience of hosting a theater party now and then did very little, really, to blight his horizon.

  He did grumble, of course -- a gentleman did not like to disappoint his wife -- on this occasion as he knotted his tie, glaring quite fearfully at his reflection, one eye on the wife under discussion, who was nicely en deshabille, and clearly visible in the glass.

  "I don't see why we have to play host to the National Zoo at these affairs," he said, his long, clever fingers deftly manipulating the ivory silk. "It would be very enjoyable, I think, to once attend the opera tete-a-tete with my wife."

  In the glass, Denora was sliding a confection of silver-shot midnight blue up over her legs, her luscious thighs, her delicious belly...

  "Now, Nicky, you know you like Carrington, and the last time we had Brian, I swear the two of you spent the whole evening in each other's pockets. I was very much the jealous wife that evening."

  He concocted a fierce frown for the mirror. "And I suppose the attentions of Beyemuir to yourself are only what the husband of a beauty of the first water should resign himself to bear?"

  She laughed, easing the cloth over the dizzying mounds of her breasts. "Certainly, it would be, were you the husband of a jewel. As it is, you must allow poor Beyemuir to demonstrate a gentleman's natural charity to a matron of limited charms." She wriggled one last time, emphatically. The blue dress was a tight, clinging sheathe from breast to hip, where it softened into a wide, inverted tulip shape, allowing Nora her length of stride, while still displaying an alluring tendency to cling to her long limbs. In all, it was something of a marvel, this dress, and Nicky gave it full honors, gazing into the glass, his hands quiet amid the intricacies of his tie.

  Nora turned her back to the mirror, showing the unsealed row of tiny silver buttons; and smiled at him over her shoulder. "Do me up, please, darling?"

  "Certainly." He winked, the air heated briefly, and the silver buttons glittered, sealing from bottom to top. He was rewarded with another smile, as she wriggled appreciatively and adjusted the fabric for maximum fashionable decolletage.

  He turned away from the mirror and reached for his coat. She spun, the tulip petal skirt floating above her ankles, the silver threads flashing like meteors through a midnight sky.

  "Do you like it?"

  "I admire it without reservation," he told her. "As will every other gentlemen in the house -- and those not so gentlemanly, too."

  She arched a sable eyebrow. "Oh, come now, Nicky! At the opera?"

  "Rogues are found everywhere," he replied. "Recall where you found me."

  "Too true! Who would have thought Balliol harbored such vice!"

  He bowed and went to fetch their cloaks.

  *

  The party was complete, with the exception of one, which of course engaged Brian's attention.

  "Our esteemed Dr. Hillier not here yet?" he asked, twinkling at Nicholas over the rim of his wine glass. "Home sulking, do you think?"

  Nick raised an eyebrow. "Now, why sulking, I wonder?"

  "Ah, you haven't seen the latest Magician Internist? Mine arrived today."

  "I've let the subscription lapse," Nick said, flicking a imaginary fleck of dust from his sleeve. "All that learned discourse -- too fatiguing, Brian! Not to mention all those rather graphic descriptions of disease and malformation." He shuddered, deliberately, and fortified himself with a sip of wine.

  Brian laughed. "Trust me, you'll want to look this issue up and take a look at Wolheim's refutation of our dear Hillier's pet theory."

  "Not the spellchucker again?"

  "No, dear boy -- you are out of touch! Hillier's got himself a new pet theory. Mind you, he hasn't given up on the spellchucker, but, if you'll recall, that little bit of legerdemain required an organic host -- and
a very specific host at that. Now, he's gone the next step and declared that it is possible to store -- store -- a spell! Rather like a battery, you see. Well, as you might expect Wolheim was all over that. The usual thing -- states that his own tests, following Hillier's method, did not produce the results described, prosed on about the philosophy of magic, the theory of conservation of energies -- oh, and the obligatory insult. Rather a nasty one this time. Said he hoped Hillier is a better engineer than he is magic-worker, else the city is in for a rash of bridges falling down."

  "Well, that was too bad of him," Nicky said. "But, really, Brian, there's no need to suppose Hillier to be sulking. He and Wolheim have been at each other's professional throats for years now. Nora swears that they each live for the opportunity to refute the other's newest favorite theory or method."

  "Oh, it's worse than that!" Brian said earnestly. "Wolheim lost Hillier a perfectly good assistant a few years back -- you and your lady were traveling at the time, I believe."

  Nicky frowned. "You mean Sarah Ames? I remember hearing about that -- a tragedy, of course. But I really don't see how Wolheim can be blamed for the lady's decision to end her own life."

  "Wolheim had cost her a fellowship, as I heard it. Hillier was badly broken up for -- well, here's the fellow now!" he cried, turning his head with a wide smile for the tardy guest. "Hillier, old thing! It's been an age."

  "Or at least a week," the latecomer returned, removing his top hat. He nodded cordially at his host. "Nicholas."

  "Benjamin. Denora was concerned."

  "Then I'd best make my apologies at once," he said and stepped energetically forward.

  "Benjy!" Denora looked around Beyemuir's shoulder, and held out her hands. "You are so terribly late! Look, the lights have gone down once already."

  Hillier kissed both hands, with flair, and a careful eye to a husband's pride, and stepped back, smiling. "My apologies, dear Lady Charles! That a mere inconvenience of traffic should cause you an instant's worry!"

  "At least it was worry rewarded," Nora said, smiling brilliantly upon both Hillier and Beyemuir. "Elihu, do pour Benjy something while he tells me how his daughter goes on."