A Gathering Of Stones dost-3

by Jo Clayton

  Brann closed her eyes, thought. “That was a while ago,” she murmured. She remembered gray. Even during daylight everything was gray. Gray skies, gray water, gray mud dried on sedges and trees, gray fungi, gray insects, gray everything. She remembered waking tangled in tough netting made from cords twisted out of reed fiber and impregnated with fish stink. She remembered little gray men swarming over the island, little gray men with coarse yellow cloth wound in pouty little shrouds about their groins, little gray men with rough dry skin, a dusty gray mottled with darker streaks and splotches. She could move her head a little. It was late, shadows were long across the water. A gray man sat beside a small fire, net woven about him and knotted in intricate patterns describing his power and importance; a fringe of knotted cords dangled from a thick rope looped loosely about a small hard potbelly. In a long-fingered reptilian hand he held a drum; it was a snakeskin stretched over the skull of a huge serpent, its eyeholes facing outward. He drew from the taut skin a soft insistent rustle barely louder than the whisper of the wind through the reeds; it crept inside her until it commanded the beat of her heart, the pulse of ‘her breathing. She jerked her body loose from the spell, shivering with fear. He looked at her and she shivered again. He reached out and ran a hand over two large stones sitting beside his bony knee, gray-webbed crystals each as large as man’s head, crystals gathering the light of the fire into themselves, miniature broken fires repeated endlessly again. Yaril and Jaril frozen into stone. She knew it and was more frightened than before. He grinned at her, baring a hard ridge of black gum, enjoying her helpless rage.

  She blinked, brought herself back out of memory. “The swampwizard,” she said. “Ganumomo, that was his name. Why him? Did you go back to Croaldhu and fall in that trap again?”

  “No.” He sipped at his wine and gazed out across the bay. He was uncomfortable and she couldn’t make out why. He was worried about Yaril, but that wasn’t it. She watched the level of the wine sink lower in his glass and remembered something else; neither he nor Yaril would talk about their people or their home. Had something happened to Yaril that was connected to their homeplace? “Caves,” he said; he seemed to taste the word like hard candy on the tongue. “Caves. We love them because they’re terrifying, Bramble. We could die if we were shut off from sun too long, we would go stone and lie there in stone, fading slowly slowly until there was nothing left not stone.” He poured more wine in his glass, tilted it and watched the rich red sliding down the curve. “Yaro and me, we were poking about some mountains, the Dhia Dautas, if you want the name, and we found this set of caves. Splendid caves, Bramble. Shining caves. We went a little crazy. Just a little. We soaked up all the sun we could before we went down. We weren’t going to stay down more than a day or so, we’d have plenty of push left to get us out of trouble should we run into any. Not that we expected to.” He gulped at the wine, went back to staring at what was left.

  Brann waited. His lack of urgency was reassuring. Yaril wasn’t dead. She was sure of that. Jay would be… different… if his sister was dead.

  “She was flitting along ahead of me. Actually, I was chasing her… it’s an old game… from home… complicated rules… the thing he… whoever… didn’t count on.” A crooked angry grin, a hunching of his shoulders. “I wasn’t close enough to get caught with her. I was round a bend about twenty feet behind when the thing closed round her. The trap I mean.”

  “Trap?”

  “It wasn’t something natural.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. Yaro went stone before I got round the bend. I saw her sitting there… you remember how we looked… gone stone…” He shuddered in his peculiar way, his outline melting and reforming, his hands growing transparent, then solid. “I tried to get to her. There was a barrier. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t feel it either, not really, I just couldn’t get to her. I tried going over it. Around it. Under it. I went into the mountain itself, I slid through the stone. That’s dangerous, it’s so easy to get confused so you don’t know up from down, but I did it. No good. It was a sphere, Bramble, it was all around her. I couldn’t get to her. I leaned against it and called to her; if I could wake her, maybe we could do something together. I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t even feel her there, Bramble. Do you understand? My sister. The only being in this place who’s LIKE me. If I lost her, I’d be alone. I couldn’t TALK to her. Not even TALK to her, Bramble. I went wired for a while, I don’t know how long.” He shuddered again, the pulses of fleshmelt moving swiftly along his body, clothes as well as flesh because his clothing was part of his substance. “When I knew what I was doing again, I was miles south of the caves.” He gulped at the wine, then with a visible effort steadied himself. Brann watched, more troubled than she’d been a short time before; Jaril was barely containing his panic and his control was getting worse, not better. “I was eagleshape, driving south as fast as I could fly. I couldn’t think why for the longest, I wasn’t capable of thinking, Brann, but I kept on flying. After a while, I decided I was coming for you. I knew you’d help us. And prod Maksim into doing what he can. He doesn’t like us much, but he’d do a lot for you, Bramble.”

  Brann clinked her spoon against the teabowl and waited for the waiter to bring the check. “We’ll go up to the Inn,” she said. “And go over everything you can remember first, then you can hunt Maks up and bring him to me.”

  Jaril nodded. “Bramble…”

  She thrust out her hand, palm toward him, stopping him. “Later.”

  He shifted round and saw the waiter walking toward them.

  ##

  A winding lane with flowering plums and other ornamentals growing at carefully irregular intervals along it led to the Outlook, a terrace halfway up the side of the dormant volcano which rose high above the lesser mountains that ringed the bay; the Inn of the Pearly Dawn sat on that Outlook, surrounded by its gardens with their well-groomed elegance, an expensive waystop but only moderately successful since the merchants, collectors, and more esoteric visitors preferred living in the heat and stench of the city where they could keep their fingers on its throb and profit thereby.

  Brann and Jaril walked up the lane, feet stirring drifts of dead leaves; they talked quietly as they walked, with long intervals of silence between the phrases.

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Decades, if whoever’s got her lets her have sun. If they keep her dark, a year.”

  Brann reached up, broke a small green and brown orchid from a dangling spray. “I see.” A fragile sweet perfume eddied from the flower as she waved it slowly back and forth before her face as she walked. “We’d better expect the worst and plan for it.”

  Jaril’s outline wavered. When he’d got himself in hand again, he nodded. “Maksim…”

  “No.” Brann closed her hand hard on the orchid, crushing it, releasing a powerful burst of scent. She flung the mutilated thing away, wiped her hand on her skirt. “Don’t count on him, Jay. He’s got other commitments.”

  “If you ask…”

  “No.”

  “He owes you, Bramble. Weren’t for you, he’d be dead.”

  “Weren’t for me, he’d still have Cheonea to play with. It balances.”

  Jaril moved ahead of her, opened the Zertarta Gate for her, then followed her into the Inn’s Stone Garden.

  Brann touched his arm. “We can go up to my rooms, or would you rather take sun by the lily pond?”

  “Sun.” He shimmered again, produced a stiff smile. “I’m pretty much drained, Bramble. I didn’t stop for anything and it was a long way here.”

  She strolled beside him, following the path by the stream that chattered musically over aesthetically arranged stones and around boulders chosen for their lichen patterns and hauled here from every part of the island. The stream rambled in a lazy arc about the east wing of the Inn, then spread in a deep pool with a stone grating at each end to keep the halarani in, the black and gold fish that lived among the water lily
roots. Three willows of different heights and inclinations drooped gracefully over the water. There were stone benches in their spiky shade, but Brann settled on the ancient oak planks of the one bench without any shadow over it. There was no breeze back here; stillness rested like gauze over the pond, underlaid with the small sounds of insects and the brush-brush-tinkle of the stream. She smiled as Jaril darkened his clothing and himself until he was sun-trap black, sooty as the dusky sides of the halarani. He dropped onto the bench and lay with his head in her lap; his eyes closed and he seemed to sleep.

  “We were in the Dhia Dautas,” he murmured after a while. “East and a half-degree south of Jorpashil. West on a direct line from Kapi Yuntipek. Dhia Dautas. Means daughters of the dawn in the Sarosj. The hill people call them the Taongashan Hegysh, they live there so you’d think travelers would use their name for the mountains, but they don’t, the Silk Roaders always say the Dhia Dautas.” His voice was dragging; she could feel him putting off the need to talk about the caves. She could feel the tension in him, he vibrated with it. “We were in Jorpashil five, six days, we heard about the caves there. Storyteller in the Market. A pair of drunks in a tavern. Seemed like we ran across at least one story every day while we were there. You want me to give you all of it?”

  “Later, Jay. It’s probably important.”

  “I think so. How could whoever it was lay the trap for us if he didn’t know we’d be there to spring it. We weren’t thinking about traps then, we took wing and went hunting for the caves…” His voice droned on.

  They talked for a long time that afternoon, until neither could think of another question to ask, another answer to give. Then they just sat quietly in the hazy sunlight watching the Inn’s shadow creep toward them.

  Brann stood at her bedroom window, a pot of tea beside her on the broad sill. Far below, the sails of the ships arriving and departing were hot gilt and crimson, then suddenly dark as the brief tropical twilight was over. Night, she thought. She looked at her hands. Idle hands. They’d lost strength over the past ten years. If I had to fire a kiln tomorrow, I’d be wrecked before I was half through splitting, billets. She filled her bowl with the last of the tea, lukewarm and strong enough to float a rock, sipped at it as she watched the lamps and torches bloom along the Ihman Katt. Wisps of sound floated up through the still, dark air, laughter, even a word or two snatched whole by erratic thermals. Jaril was down there, looking for Maksim. She grimaced at the bite of the tannin, the feel of the leaves on her lips and tongue. Maksi, she thought, always underfoot when you didn’t need him, down a hole somewhere when you did. I have to Hunt tonight.

  When the Chained God weaned her nurslings from their dependence on her, at first she’d felt relief. Each time she went out to Hunt for them, she sickened at what she had to do, the killings night after night until Yaril and Jaril were fed and she could rest a month or so; later, when they were older, once a year did it, then once every two years. Drinker of Souls, sucking life out of men and women night after night-more than ten thousand nights-until she was finally free of the need. She quieted her souls by choosing thieves and slavers, usurers and slumlords, assassins and bullyboys, corrupt judges and secret police, anyone who used muscle or position to torment the helpless. All those years she yearned to be rid of that burden, all those years she thought she loathed the need. Then she stopped the Hunting and thought she was content. Now that the need was on her again, she wasn’t sure how she felt… no, that wasn’t true, she knew all too well.

  She gazed at the lamps of Kukurul and was disconcerted by her growing impatience to get down there and prowl; her body trembled with anticipation as she imagined herself stalking men, drawing into her so much lifeforce she shone like the moon. Filling herself with the terrible fire that was like nothing else. Ever. She remembered being awash with LIFE, alive alive alive, afraid but ecstatic. In a way, though she didn’t much care for the comparison, it was like a quieter time when she unpacked her kiln and held a minor miracle in her hands, like those few wonderful times all squeezed into that singular moment of fullness… And for the past ten years she’d had neither sort of joy. Yes. Joy. Say it. Tell yourself the truth, if you tell no one else. Satisfaction, pleasure beyond pleasure, more than sex, more than the quieter goodness of fine food and vintage wines. She pressed a hand under her chin, flattened the loose skin, dropped her arms and pinched the soft pout of her belly; she was tired of aging with the aches and pains age brought. If she couldn’t die, why endure life in a deteriorating body? She shivered. No, she thought, no, that’s despicable.

  She moved away from the window, started pacing the length of the room, back and forth, back and forth, across the braided rug; her bare feet made small scuffing sounds; her breathing was ragged and uncertain. She was frightened. Her sense of herself was disintegrating as she paced. The only thing she felt sure of was that her father would neither like nor approve of what she was turning into.

  An owl dropped through the window, landed on the rug and shifted to Jaril; he crossed to the bed, threw himself on it. “I found Maksim. He was with someone, so he wasn’t happy about me barging in. When I told him you needed to see him, he wanted to know if it was urgent or what, then he said he’d be back round midnight if there wasn’t all that much hurry. I said all right.”

  She sat beside him, threaded her fingers through his fine hair; they tingled as threads of her own energy leaked from her to him. He made a soft sound filled with pleasure and nestled closer to her.

  “Jay.”

  “Mm?”

  “You need to go home, don’t you.”

  He shifted uneasily. “We can talk about that after we get Yaro back.”

  “All right. We do have to talk. Never mind, luv, I won’t push you.” She slid her hand down his arm, closed her fingers around his. “I can’t live on sunlight or grow wings.”

  “Flat purse?” -

  “Pancake.”

  Jaril laughed drowsily, tugged his hand loose. “So I go scavenging?”

  “With extreme discretion, luv.”

  “More than you know, Bramble.” He yawned, which was playacting since he didn’t breathe; that he could play at all pleased her, it meant he was not quite so afraid. He turned serious. “Not at night.”

  “Whyr

  “Wards are weaker in daylight.”

  “Since when have you worried about wards?”

  “Everything changes, Bramble. We’ve picked up too much from this reality. Things here can see us now. Sort of.”

  Brann scowled at him. “Forget it, then. I’ll see what I can borrow from Maks. We’ll pick up supplies on the road.”

  “Just as well, the Managers here are a nasty lot. I’ll crash a while, tap me when Maks shows up.” He moved away from her, curled up on the far side of the bed and stopped breathing, deep in his usual sleep-coma.

  Brann looked at him a moment, shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said aloud. She went across to the window, hitched a hip on the sill and went back to watching the lights below.

  6

  “What’s this Jay was hinting at?” Maksim was tired and cranky; she saw that he meant to be difficult.

  “Come sit down.” She stepped back from the door and gestured toward the large leather chair that stood close to the sitting room fire. “There’s brandy if you want it, or tea.”

  He caught hold of her chin, lifted her face to the light. “Those nits have put you in an uproar. What is it?”

  “We need your help, Maksi.” Her jaw moved against the smooth hard flesh of his hand. She closed her eyes, wanting him intensely, roused by the power in him. The futility of that made her angry, but she suppressed the anger along with the desire and waited for him to take his hand away.

  He crossed to the chair and poured a dollop of brandy into the bubbleglass waiting beside the bottle. When he’d settled himself, he said, “Tell me.”

  Keeping her description terse and unemotional, she reported what Jaril had told her. “So,” she finished,
“there’s a time limit. If we’re going to find her alive, we do it before the year’s out. Will you long look for us?”

  He held the glass in both hands and stared into the amber liquid as if he sought an answer there. “Where’s Jay?”

  “In the bed. Resting. He said to wake him when you came, but I decided not to.”

  Maksim’s lips twitched, the beginnings of a smile. “Tact, Bramble?”

  “Surprised? 1 think that’s an insult.”

  “Never.” The word was drawn out and ended in a chuckle. “Seriously, Thornlet, how quiet do you want to keep this? If I start operating around here, there’ll be notice taken. Official notice. The Managers don’t like outsiders mussing the pool.”

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Security, Brann. Kukurul’s boast. Do your business here and it stays your business.” 44so?,,

  “Use your head. How do you think they enforce that?” He closed his eyes and looked wary. “If you want me to fiddle about under seal, we go back to Jal Virri.”

  “Will they know what you’re doing or only that you’re doing it?”

  “Now I’m the one insulted.”

  She flipped a hand in an impatient gesture. “Can you work here? I mean, do you need tools you haven’t got?”

  “Words are my tools, all I need,” he said. “Little Danny Blue explained that, remember? As long as my memory functions and my hands move, I’m in business.” He smiled at her, his irritation smoothed away by hers. “I haven’t noticed it falling off, have you? Don’t answer that, mmh.” He leaned forward, hands cupped over his knees. “I could get busy tonight, Bramble, but I’d rather wait until I can inform the Managers what I’m doing is no business of theirs.”

  “I have to Hunt, Maksi. For lots of reasons.”