by Jo Clayton
Simms nodded, thinking he knew what Maks was saying. “Yeh. Y’ c’d fetch a demon an’ send it t’ get th’ talisman.”
Maks laughed, a happy shout that embraced Simms and invited him to share the joke. “N00000, no,” he said, “never let a demon near that much power, you could end up dancing to the demon’s tune rather than the other way about.”
“I s’pose. Yeh, thinkin”bout Esmoon, yeh.” Simms scowled at the fire, wrestling with himself; he hated the thought of messing with demons again, but his impulse toward spending himself for the man who attracted him so fiercely won out over his fears. He turned to Maks. “Take me with you. I c’n maybe help. Reason the ‘Staffel land on me an’ Felsa, we the best thieves in Arsuid. Tor y’ I c’d read walls, stones, dirt. I c’n see witchtraps, help y’
‘void ‘em. I c’n sing ghosts t’ sleep. Tickle locks. Lots more.”
“Simms…
“Y’ don’ want me, a’ right.”
“It’s not that. The Magus knows that someone is coming. He’s one of those who reads could-be nodes like other men read print. You could get swallowed up and spat out, it’s not worth it, my friend.”
“Y’ don’ know, Addryd Sorcecieur.” He gazed at his hand, stroked his fingertips up and down his thigh. “Goin’ in the Henanolee, that was dangerous too. It was the bes’ time in m’ whole life. I was workin’ on top of it, ne’er felt so full so strong so g0000d. I was scared t’ bone but e’en that felt good. An’ what’s it matter if I die? What am I? Jus’ a thief. No one give a shit.”
“No Addryd. Maks.” He leaned toward Simms, touched his face. “What’s this nonsense? Not just a thief, I have your word for it, best in Arsuid.” His hand was warm and smooth, Simms leaned into the curve of it, it was comforting and exciting. “You’d best keep out of this, little witch.”
Simms turned his head, kissed Maks’ palm. He smiled dreamily at the big man. “No,” he said. “No… command me… anythin’ but go ‘way.”
“And if I commanded you to climb to the roof here and jump into the wind?” The voice was darkness and light, caressing him, stirring him to the seat of his souls. It was fully there, the compelling, seducing Voice of the Prime.
Simms drew away a little, steadied his breathing before he spoke. “I w’d prob’ly do ‘t. But I sh’d wanna know why first.”
Maks threw back his head and laughed, the sound filling the room, overpowering the storm and everything else. “Good, good. Never jump without knowing why. And if I said, love me, would you want to know why you should do such a thing?”
“No. I don’ need t’ ask ‘bout what already is.”
4
On the fourth morning they dug out and found the bliT7Ard had been more blow than snow. Maks hitched up his frisky, rambunctious mules, Simms saddled Neddio and they started south toward the spur of the Asatas where Tok Kinsa was, walled city walled in by snag-tooth mountains, secret city, the ways in warded and hidden from all but the select. There was about six inches of snow on the ground and no road, so the going was difficult even for the huge-wheeled dulic, but they made fair time and by the end of the week had reached the end of the grass. Maks left the dulic in a dry wash and turned one of the mules loose, loaded his gear on the other and prepared to walk into the mountains. Simms followed, leading Neddio.
The trek was hard on Maks; he faded visibly as each day passed.
Simms ached for him; he was filled with frustration and fury at the gods, the demons, everyone, everything responsible for Maks’ hurting. In Arsuid, Simms had pretended to be loose and easy, that was what people expected from him, what his lovers wanted; he lost them again and again because he cared too much and it frightened them. So much passion, so much need demanded a response they were unwilling or incapable of giving. He was feeling his way warily with Maks; he knew so little that was real about the man, only legends and legends lie. Maks seemed to like him, that was a wonderful thing, but Simms saw it as fragile as a soapbubble, a careless touch could destroy it. Maks was willing to love him, though not always able, especially after a hard day’s climbing. But he’d hold Simms anyway, caress him; he made Simms fell wanted, needed. Loved.
The way Maks chose was narrow, steep, treacherous. Snow above was loose, always falling, avalanche a constant danger. Underfoot there were patches of ice and always more snow. They struggled on and on; once again Simms was traveling with a driven person. The only thing that bothered him this time was his inability to help; he’d never been in snow before he crossed the Dhia Asatas, he knew almost nothing about mountain traveling. He told himself he was useful around the camps, doing most of the work so Maks could rest. It was something.
On the third day they came on a small stream wandering through a ravine choked with aspen and waist-deep snow. They made camp on the rim of that ravine in a thick stand of conifers. Around the bulge of the mountain there was a windswept cliff that looked down into the bowlshaped valley where Tok Kinsa drowsed in the watery winter sunlight. They lay there staring down at the city.
Tok Kinsa, Home Ground of the Magus Prime. Power Ground of Erdoj’vak, Patron of the Rukka Nagh, Vanner and Gsany both. Like most local gods, he slept a lot, he was sleeping now.
No Outer Rukks allowed within the walls outside the pilgrim season and the season had finished weeks ago. No strangers allowed within the walls, with the minor exception of a few well-known scholars who were specifically invited to visit the Magus.
A bright city, full of saturated color, reds, yellows, blues, greens shining like jewels against the equally brilliant white of the snow, a paisley city with every surface decorated, even both sides of the immense curtain wall, in the geometries of Rukk design. Inside the walls the streets were paved with alternating black and white flags; they were laid out like the spokes of a wheel, radiating from the round tower with the spiraling ramp curling up around it, the Zivtorony.
The streets were busy with Kinseers dressed in dramatic mixes of black and white, even the children. The city was busy, brightly alive, but the massive gates were closed and stayed closed. There were no footprints in the snow around Tok Kinsa.
Lying on folded blankets with blankets over them, Maks and Simms watched the whole of the day and by the sundown certain things had become obvious.
They couldn’t go in openly or disguised. No one was entering the city and even if they were, there was no way Maks would pass as a Rukk. A six-foot seven M’darjin mix would stand out in any crowd.
It’d be impossible to slip over the walls without the Magus perceiving them and brushing them off like pesky flies. Maks was in no shape for a protracted challenge-battleespecially with a Magus Prime supported by one of the Great Talismans.
The attack would have to be quick, leap in, seize Sharldalakh, leap out the next second, nothing else would work.
##
“The longer we hang around up here, the more certain it is the Magus will locate us and attack.” The fire threw black shadows into the lines and creases in Maks’ face, underlin-
ing the fatigue in his voice. “I have no doubt he’s probing for us right now, reading the could-be nodes over and over and plotting the changes.”
Simms was watching his face, paying little attention to what he said; he didn’t understand could-be nodes or any of that higher magic, he knew tones of voice and new lines in the face he loved. And he knew how to get into impossible places, though he’d never tried something so impossible as that snow-sealed city on the other side of the mountain. “Danny jump us over traps in the Henanolee Heart. C’d you jump us into the Zivtorony?”
“In, yes. Out, I don’t know. If we have to tear things apart searching for Shaddalakh, it gives the Magus time to throw a noose round us and squeeze.” He opened the wallet and pulled out a handful of parchment sheets, looked through them, pulled out a plan of the city, discarded that an useless, took up a sheet with diagrams of the tower. He passed it over to Simms. “Any ideas?”
Simms spread the sheet across his lap,
bent over it, guessing at what the lines meant; he couldn’t read the writing, he could barely read Arsuider and this was something else. His fingertips felt itchy, tingling. “Do y’ b’lieve the Magus know it’s you coming?” He thought a minute. “Or someone like you?”
“Sorceror? Yes. He’d know that.”
“Then I tell you one thing, he got Shaddalakh where he c’n reach out an’ touch him.” He smoothed his hand across the parchment. “Gotta jump direct.” There was a vertical view, the tower sliced down the middle to show how the levels were arranged. He brushed his fingers up the center of the view, stopped where the tingling grew intense, almost painful. He closed his eyes. No image, but he smelled roast geyker and his mouth watered. He was startled. He moved his fingers on up the tower. The tingle faded, the taste went away. He looked up, frowning.
“What is it?”
“Smell anythin’, like meat cookin’?”
“No.”
Simms touched the diagram again, he didn’t close his eyes this time, but there it was, the rich, mouth-watering aroma of red meat swimming in its own gravy. “Magus eatin’ dinner,” he said.
Maks looked at Simms’ fingers resting lightly on the parchment, trembling a little. “Dowsing?”
Simms blinked. “I..” He looked down at his hand, lifted it off the drawing as if the parchment had suddenly gotten hot. “I never did that before.” He was delighted with the discovery, it was a gift he could give his lover, a wanted gift, a needed gift.
Maks smiled. “Told you, little witch, there’s Talent wasting in you; you should train it. Try for Shaddalakh.”
“Do m’ best.” He rubbed his thumb across his fingertips, he was nervous, both hands were shaking. He looked at the vertical drawing, rejected it and moved to the floor plans of the different levels. One by one he brushed his fingers across them. When he touched the third level, he smelled the roast again, located it in a long narrow wedge of a room. That was the Magus, he got no sense of Shaddalakh. He moved on, level to level until he’d touched all seven levels. Nothing more. He shook his head. “All I read is Magus.” He grinned suddenly. “Or maybe t’s m’ belly yearnin’ for roast geyker.”
Maks scowled at the fire. “I’d rather avoid a confrontation with him, but it looks like we have to remove the Magus before we start hunting.” He rubbed his hand along his thigh as if the palm were suddenly sweaty. “Tonight,” he said “I go tonight. If I wait, I get weaker while he gets stronger.”
Simms set the parchment aside, slipped a sleeve knife from its sheath and began working on the edge with a small hone. “What time?”
“Simmo…”
“No, Maks. If y’ have any feelin’ for me, no.”
“It’s because I do…”
“Turn things round an’ think ‘bout it, y’ see?”
“Ahhh! Why do I always love contrarians! Brann who never lets me get away with anything and little Kori who has to be tied down to keep her out of trouble and you, stubborn man, if something happens to you, I die a bit.”
“Do I hurt less if you go down? Am I s’ useless, all I am ‘s a bedmate?”
“Being right all the time, it’s as bad as a taste for getting up early.”
Simms smiled happily at Maks, knowing he’d won his point. “What time?”
“Two hours after midnight.”
“You get some sleep, Maksa, you the one gonna do all the work. I’ll clean up here and wake y’.”
“Simmo, don’t hobble Mule or Neddio and set out the grain we have left.”
“Yeh. Give ‘em a chance, we don’ be back. Pass me the wallet, Maksa, I’ll put this away.” He picked up the plan. “No use leavin’ it out.”
“Keep it by you, you’ll have to dowse again before we go. The Magus won’t be sitting at the dinner table then, no telling where he’ll be. Tungjii bless, Simmo, I don’ know how I ‘could have managed this without you.”
Simms’ mouth tightened as he struggled to control his surging emotions; he was afraid of scaring Maks off like he’d driven away so many others. He set the hone aside, took a bit of leather and began polishing the steel. “Maybe he don’ know ‘bout me. Think of that?” He held out the knife. “Maybe steel c’n cut spell.”
“No no, not steel. Take him out if you can, but don’t kill him, there’s no reason to kill the man, he’s only trying to protect what’s his.”
“A’ right, gimme a sock.” Simms tapped his foot. “I got no spares.” He laughed at the look on Maks’ face. “Sock an’ sand, whap, whiff ‘em, out like blowing out y’ candle.”
6
Simms brushed his fingertips up the vertical diagram, stopped at the top. The seventh level. “Here,” he said. He closed his eyes, but he got nothing more than the location, no smells, no sounds, just an itch so intense it was painful. “I don’ know what he doin’, but he there.” He scratched at the parchment, his fingernail moving across the highest level in the tower. He left the vertical and drifted his fingers across the floor plan of that level. He touched each of the rooms indicated, stopped at one that looked south toward the serried mountain peaks beyond the valley. “Here,” he said. “This room.”
Maks took the plan, read the glyphs. “His bedroom. Do you get the sense he’s sleeping?”
“I… hmrrt…” Simms closed his eyes, focused inward, slid his thumb over and over his fingertips. “No… I don’t… I can’…’f I hadda guess, he awake an’ waitin’.”
Maks slid the sheet into the wallet, tied the strings, got to his feet. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”
7
The Magus struck at Maks before they touched foot to floor, exploding time-energy around him, ripping reality into wheeling chaos that manifested as blinding color and extreme form-distortion-and a discarnate hunger that sucked at him, struggling to dissolve him into that chaos.
The attack ignored Simms. He came down behind Maks, his aura masked by the sorceror’s.lifeglow, a fire that spread nova strong, nova bright, about Maks, made visible by the whirling forces that filled the room. Simms dropped to his hands and knees. He relaxed, smiled; the floor was familiar, comfortable to his reading-touch. Polished wood, then a velvety carpet. He didn’t try to comprehend what his eyes were showing him, he simply ignored it and took his direction from the carpet. He began edging toward the Magus.
Instead of trying to block that chaos, Maks sucked it into himself, stripped away the force in it and slowly, painfully recreated an area of normality about himself, gaining strength as the Magus expended his.
Still unnoticed as the two Primes hammered at each other, Simms circled wide and came round behind the wavering distorted figure. Reality twisted and tore about him, time-nodes exploded, but none of it was directed at him, it battered at him but the blows were glancing, he was rocked but not seriously hurt. He kept crawling. He came up behind the Magus, a dark column broken into puzzle pieces as if there were a glass of disturbed water between them.
Simms slipped the knotted sock from his coat pocket and sat on his heels peering at the column, trying to resolve it enough to find his target. Black and white, blurs of pinkish brown swaying swinging, changing rhythm suddenly, never still. Hands, he thought after a moment. He got to his feet. He could have reached out and touched the shifting uncertain figure, but he was careful not to. Finally he caught a glimpse of pinkish brown higher on the column, only a glimpse, it was swallowed a moment later by an amorphous blob of black. Must be the face, has to be the face. He set himself, swung the sock with carefully restrained force. He felt it slam against something, heard a faint tunk.
The confusion vanished instantly.
A man lay on the carpet at his feet, white and black robes spread around his sprawled body, an angular black and white striped headdress knocked half off his bald head. He was tall and lean, with a strong hooked nose and a flowing white beard.
Maks wiped sweat off a gray face. He found a chair and dropped into it. “Lovely tap, Simmo.”
Simms looked at him, daz
ed. There was something throbbing in him that distracted him, even in his anguish at Maks’ distress. He licked his lips, tried to say something, but he couldn’t. He dropped the sock, turned slowly so slowly, until the string tied to his gut whipped tight and began reeling him in.
Step by slow step he went to the head of great four-poster bed, touched the post on the left side. It was at least six inches square, deeply carved with the interlacing geometrics of Rukk reliefwork. He stroked his fingertips up and down the different faces of the post. There was a click. A part of the post slammed against the side of his hand..A shallow drawer. He pulled it open and looked into it. Shaddalakh lay there, dull white, sandpapery sand dollar. He lifted it out. It was like touching a lover, warm, accepting. He held it, tears gathered in his eyes, though he didn’t cry. He smiled instead.
Maks’ hand closed on his shoulder. “May I have it?”
It was the most difficult thing he’d done in his twenty some years of life. He turned slowly, held out the talisman. Maks took it, there was a sadness in his face that told Simms his lover understood the gift he’d just received, but at the moment that didn’t help lessen the ache from the loss. “Time to go,” Maks said. “We…”
Darkness swallowed them.
Simms heard Maks cursing, something was wrong, he didn’t understand…
THE REBIRTHING: END PHASE
The stones assemble
SHADDALAKH
FRUNZACOACHE MASSULIT
BinYAHtii
