A Gathering Of Stones dost-3

by Jo Clayton

  Their mistake.

  He managed a slight smile.

  I hope.

  The Thing watched the souls spin into the Stone, watched the stone glow brighter until its clear blue light filled the cavern.

  The Thing laughed, a tottery wheezy giggle that should have made him sound senile and silly. It didn’t.

  Maksim knew that sound, it was like remembered pain. He watched his souls spin out of him into the hands that seemed to belong to Musteba Xa and it was as if none of the intervening years had happened.

  “You should thank the geniod for our reunion, Maks.” Having settled Massulit into the crack between his withered thighs so his hands would be free to gesture, he waved at the seven glowspheres ranged in an arc behind Maksim, then at the hundreds of smaller lights that oozed from the walls of the cavern and floated free. “They have a little quest for you, dear boy. I told them you’d be stubborn, but you weren’t stupid. So here we area No questions? You haven’t changed, have you, Sweetness.” Another shrill giggle, then he straightened his bony shoulders and fixed his eyes on Maksim’s face. “The Magus of Tok Kinsa has a talisman at the heart of his Keep. One of the Great Ones. Shaddalakh.” He clicked his horny yellow nails on the curve of Massulit. “The geniod want it. Matched set, eh? You are going to get it for them. Do it and you get your souls back. Still no questions?”

  “Swear on Massulit for your souls’ sake that I will get mine back if I bring Shaddalakh out and hand it over.”

  “You don’t want to qualify that, dear boy?”

  Maksim shrugged. “Tell me what more I could get if the lie pleases you.”

  “For old time’s sake? For the love that was once between us? Ask, my sweet boy, and you shall receive.”

  Maksim shuddered, but refused to let his sickness show. “Swear on Massulit for your souls’ sake that I will get mine back if I bring Shaddalakh out and hand it over.”

  The bones in Musteba Xa’s face were suddenly more visible; there was spite in him and anger, but he did as Maksim asked. He swore and Maksim was satisfied the oath was complete.

  “Let him who is first among the geniod swear the same,” he said. “I have lived long enough to know how to die if I must. Let him swear.”

  The glowspheres grew agitated, went darting about in complex orbits, maintaining a set distance between them no matter how recklessly they careered about. After some minutes of this confusion, the largest of the geniod came rushing toward the throne; it hovered before Musteba Xa, changed form, was a beautiful woman, naked and powerful in her nakedness. She reached out, took Massulit from Musteba Xa’s trembling hands. Her contralto filling the cavern with echoes, she declaimed the oath that Xa had sworn, then she dropped the talisman into Xa’s lap and stalked over to Maksim.

  She caught hold of his arm. Her fingers were strong, but they felt like flesh. He could feel no strangeness in her, see no sign she-was other than woman. She stared at him a moment, measuring him, then she snapped them both from the cavern.

  4

  He slammed down on the backward-facing seat of a closed carriage, a traveling gada, he thought. The woman settled herself opposite him, knocked on the window shutter beside her and braced herself as the gada started moving over a rutted track about as bad as any road he’d ever tried out. The gada swayed wildly enough to nauseate him, lurched and jolted even though the team that drew it was moving at a walk.

  He was stiff, cold, filthy, half-starved, and half-crazy with thirst.

  On top of that, he was a brittle shell of himself and his body was already beginning the slow agonizing death of the unsouled.

  He sat staring at the veiled woman without really seeing her, trying to work out his next move.

  Somehow he had to get hold of Massulit and take his souls back with his own hands.

  Oath or no oath, he couldn’t trust any of them to leave him alive once they had Shaddalakh.

  Massulit and Shaddalakh. What talisman did they send Brann after? That at least was clear to him. Someone, something, was gathering the Great Stones.

  Who? And did it matter?

  All knowledge mattered. How could he plan without a basic piece of information like that?

  He scowled at the woman. Geniod?

  Who or what were geniod?

  Kin to the demons his Master had controlled. Yes. That he’d believe.

  He passed his hand across his face, his dehydrated palm rasping across the dry leathery skin. No stubble, thank his unknown father for that and the M’darj absence of face hair.

  The geniod woman wore the gauzy voluminous trousers, the tight bodice and silken head veil of a Jorpashil courte-

  san, having acquired all of these in mid-passage between the cavern and the carriage. She swept the veil aside, let him see her astonishingly beautiful face, skin like cream velvet, brilliant blue-green eyes, hair the color of dark honey falling about her face in dozens of fine braids threaded with amber beads that matched the amber lights the lamps on the carriage wall woke in that honey hair. There was nothing to tell Maksim’s ordinary senses or his sorceror’s nose that she was demon, not mortal. He found that astonishing also. She smiled and lowered her eyes; one lovely tapering hand played with the amber beads that fell onto the swell of her breasts. She was a superb artifact, a perfect example of what she pretended to be. He suppressed a smile. If she was supposed to be an added inducement, that was one mistake they’d made. Perhaps because I’ve been living with Brann, he thought. Something else I owe my Thomlet.

  He thought about that Thing on the Throne and decided he’d been too precipitous in accepting appearances. He settled himself to endure his physical hardships. I’ll beat the bastards yet.

  The geniod stopped smiling when he didn’t respond. She took a fur rug from the seat beside her and tossed it to him. “Wrap this around you and stop shivering,” she said. “You look like a simm kit in a wetfall.”

  He eased the rug around him and sighed with pleasure as warmth began to spread through his battered body. A moment later the carriage swung about and climbed at a steep angle; it turned again and seemed to glide along. Road, he thought, some kind of highroad with a metalled surface. It was like being in a cradle; the sway was steady and soothing. He began to feel sleepy; his eyelids were so heavy he could barely keep them lifted.

  “Stay awake,” she said; she kicked his shin hard enough to draw a grunt from him. “Listen. My name is Palami Kumindri. I am Chuttar of the first rank.”

  “Courtesan,” he murmured.

  “Yes. I’m taking you into Jorpashil. You will not speak to anyone while you’re there, not to people in the street, not even to my servants. I have my choice of lovers, Settsiuiaksimin, and I choose the most powerful and they do whatever I ask of them; they will not believe anything you say about me, they will have your head off before you get two words out. Remember that. Yes?”

  “Yes.” Maksim wondered drowsily why she was saying any of this; she was powerful enough to lay down her own rules for what was, after all, her game. He was too sleepy to ask.

  “My doulahar is on the edge of the Kuna Coru. Yes, I have a doulahar and it is larger and richer than any other in all of Jorpashil. I have gardens and slaves enough to keep them groomed. I am rich, Settsimaksimin. And I am going to be richer. I am powerful, Settsimaksimin, and I am going to be more so. We are going to my doulahar, Settsimaksimin, slave.” She played with her hairbeads and watched him like a cat with aquamarine eyes. “Take note of my doulahar, slave; that’s where you will bring the talisman.”

  “I hear.” Maksim struggled to make his mind work through the waves of sleep. Not to the cavern? Are they going to bring Massulit into that house so they can resoul me? Maybe they’re not even going to make a pretense of keeping their oath. Can’t think. My brain is like stale mush.

  She left him alone after that and he slept until her servants were hauling him out of the carriage, taking no pains to be gentle about it. He stumbled into the room she assigned him and fell on the bed.
In minutes he was drowned in sleep.

  5

  She came herself to rouse him before dawn.

  He tried to pull sleep back around him and not-hear her.

  She wouldn’t let him escape that way; she muscled him out of bed, held him upright while she slapped and pinched him awake. She looked delicate as a rose petal, but she had the strength of a wrestler and a stubbornness greater than his own. After harrying him out of the room and through a series of corridors, she threw him into a bathtub the size of a small pond. It was filled with ice water. She laughed at his indignant roars and left him to his ablutions. At the door she turned. “Breakfast is waiting in the terrace room; ring the bell when you’re ready and a servant will bring you there.” She left.

  Maksim shivered and gritted his teeth. He examined the taps and managed to pump up a stream of water warm enough to take the curse off that already in the tub. Shivering and running through a thousand ringing curses, mostly to hear his voice again, to hear words come pouring from his throat, he scrubbed the accumulated grime off his body. When he climbed from the tub and found clean robes laid out for him, robes tailored for his size and even for his taste in such things, he laughed aloud. Despite the loss of his souls and his miserable predicament, he felt alive and eager to get on with his work. He yanked on the bellpull and followed the servant to his breakfast.

  He was surrounded by empty plates and sticky beakers and draining his last bowl of tea when the Chuttar Palami Kumindri came strolling in. She wasn’t wearing her veil and her honey hair hung loose about her face; it was long, down to her waist, finer than spidersilk; the drafts from the door and windows teased it away from her head, making it ripple and wave like grass in a stream. She wore beads about her neck, rows and rows of them, ivory, turquoise, jasper, carnelian, beads carved from scented woods, from crystallized incense. She halted just inside the door, smiled at him and stroked her beads, waiting for him to acknowledge he was finished with his meal.

  He set the bowl down, got to his feet and bowed. A little courtesy wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t have to mean it.

  A graceful wave of her hand acknowledged and dismissed the bow. “I have purchased a travel dulic for you and two mules to pull it.” She smoothed at her hair, tucked strands of it behind a delicate ear. “I doubt if there’s a horse in the whole North Country up to carrying a man your size.”

  “My profound thanks, Chuttar Kumindri. The thought of riding that far put a shiver up my spine.” He damped a napkin in a fingerbowl, began working over his hands. When he was finished, he tossed the napkin aside, looked up. “One thing…”

  She raised a brow, fluttered a hand.

  “It seems to me we’d all be better off if you just snapped me there. Why don’t you? You have power and to spare for that minor bit of magic.”

  “Forget that, Settsimaksimin; you will go the mortal road and keep your head down. The Magus is…” She shrugged; the beads clattered with the shift of her shoulders. “He has discovered somehow there’s a magicman pointed at his talisman. Read the omens, I suppose. His reputation says he keeps his fingers on the strings of will-be, old spider. Now that he’s alerted, he seems to be delighted with the challenge. He is a very subtle man.” She said the last indifferently, the words came out flat and cold as if they meant nothing to her.

  He was furious but kept it to himself. “I’ll need financing,” he said. “Or do you want to pile that on me also?”

  “My Housemaster has a map of Tok Kinsa which you might find useful and a plan of the Zivtorony where Shaddalakh is kept. These things are waiting for you when you decide you’re ready to leave. He also has a purse with fifty gold jaraufs, five hundred takks and a double handful of dugnas. Make it last, Settsimaksimin, you’ll get no more from us.” She looked him over, head to toe, a scornful sweep of sea-colored eyes, then she swung round and stalked out.

  He chuckled, pleased with himself, hauled on the bellpull and asked the maid who came in to take him to the Housemaster.

  6

  The HourGong in the drumtower boomed twice as Maksim drove the dulic onto a ferry landing. He was the only one there, the to-ing and fro-ing of the morning was long finished. The ferryman was annoyed at being called from his afternoon nap and took his time winching the cable off the riverbottom where he had to leave it between trips so he wouldn’t tear the keels off the riverboats. He demanded a takk for his efforts, but accepted ten dugnas after several minutes of shouts and groans and beatings of his breast. It was too much, but Maksim didn’t feel like arguing any longer, he didn’t have the energy for it. He drove the dulic onto the flatboat and chocked the wheels while the ferryman whistled up his sons. A small boy who couldn’t have been more than five started beating on a gong to warn off ships and barges; the ferryman and the two older boys got busy at the windlass. With the clumsy craft groaning and complaining, the water boiling around it, shreds from the jeppu mats bumping about its side, the man and his sons wound the ferry across the south branch of the river, sweat turning their arms and shoulders to shining brass.

  When they reached the other side, there were several riders with a small herd of sheep wanting passage into the city, so the ferryman’s sweat on the return trip wouldn’t be wasted. As the bargaining got noisy, then noisier, Maksim unchocked his wheels and drove onto the landing. He clucked the mules into a quicker walk and headed toward the Dhia Asatas which were lines of pale blue ink written on the paler blue of the sky.

  III Korimenei

  Under the prodding of her brother-in-eidolon Korimenei sailed south along the coast to the Jade King’s city, Jade Halimm. She was on her way to steal Frunzacoache from the spiritpouch of a Rushgaramuv shaman and take it to the Cave of the Chained God where her brother waited for her to touch him awake.

  “No, no, no,” her brother screamed at her. The eidolon of the sleeping boy floated beside Korimenei as she leaned on the sill of her bedroom window and looked out across the busy harbor at Jade Halimm.

  “Why?” She watched a Coaster from the north glide in and drop sails. “What’s wrong with taking a Merchanter to Bandrabahr, then a riverboat up to Dil Jorpashil? The Rushgaramuv pass the Lake on their way to wintering in the Dhia Asatas; it’ll be easy to pick them up there and follow them until I know enough to take the talisman. I’ll have to go more miles that way, but a well-found Merchanter can outpace a caravan in anything but a calm. I don’t get seasick, so it’s more comfortable than land travel. The most important thing is, it’s safer, Tre. I’m a woman traveling alone. I’m young and not hideous. Let me tell you what that means. I’m fair game, Tre. Anything on two legs that fancies his chances will have a grab at me.”

  “Kori, listen to yourself. You sound like AuntNurse lecturing naughty girls on chastity and virginity. That’s not you.”

  “You think I’m just being female? You haven’t been watching the past few days. Aaahl I was spoiled by Silili. I had the school back of me there. I’m not in school now and no one’s backing me but me. It makes a difference, Tre. A big difference. I went to the Market this morning. It was like I was running a gauntlet. Ailiki bit one man. I singed another who wouldn’t back off. I got pinched and fondled and squeezed and rubbed against. I spent an hour in the baths when I got back here and I still feel dirty. I want to go by ship, Trй, I want civilized surroundings, I want folk around me who know I’m not safe to mess with and who’ll leave me alone.”

  “You’re not doing it right, that’s all. Don’t go out by yourself. Hire a guide, that’s what they’re for.”

  “Dream on. Tre, all I have is the money Maksim gave me. It has to last until I can get to the cave and wake you. I can’t waste it on extras like guides.” She tried to see him more clearly, gave up after a minute. Foolish. It was just an image he was projecting, not him. She felt like crying. They’d been so close, once. He didn’t even sound like him any more. I’ve changed too, she thought. For a moment she rebelled against his demands; let him lay there, he was safe enough; let me get on with my l
ife. She sighed and pushed the temptation away. He was her brother, her dearest. Well, he had been, and she owed something to that memory. “Another reason for going by ship. When you, count in everything you need for land travel, the sea is cheaper.”

  “Not when you count in Amortis.”

  “Who said anything about Amortis? You won’t let me near Cheonea.”

  “Who said anything about Cheonea? I’m talking about Havi Kudush. That’s where her Temple is, that’s her ground, the well of her power, where she went when Settsimaksimin fell. By now she’s replaced what the Drinker of Souls stripped from her, but she hasn’t forgot it.”

  “The well of her power, hmm. You sound like one of my teachers.”

  “Kushundallian discoursing on the fundamentals of god-hood?”

  “Right. You were watching?”

  “You know I was. Stop dithering. If you go upriver from Bandrabahr, you pass through the heart of her ground. Do you think she’s forgot you, Kori? Do you think she doesn’t know who brought the Drinker of Souls to Cheonea? Do you think you can slip by her? Well?”

  “No, I don’t think any of those things. You’ve made your point. What 1 don’t understand is why you let me come this far south. I could have gone north to Andurya Durat and been on my way by now.”

  “Durat? Don’t be an idiot, Kori. It’d take you a year and a small fortune to get a pass to the Silk Road. No. Jade Halimm is the place to start if you need to travel the Road. You take a riverboat up the Wansheeri to Kapi Yuntipek; you get what you need there and take the Road to Jorpashil. It’s too late for caravans; you’ll have to travel by yourself. You can handle that, Kori; you know you can.”

  “What if the passes are closed?”

  “They aren’t. Not yet.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me. I know. There’s been one storm in the mountains, it laid down three, four inches, but they’ve had rain since, so most of that snow is gone. You’ve got around a month before you’ll have trouble getting through.”