Blue Magic dost-2

by Jo Clayton

  Blue Magic

  ( Drinker of Souls trilogy - 2 )

  Jo Clayton

  Jo Clayton

  Blue Magic

  1. The Kingdom Of Jade Torat. A Mountainside Near The Western Border.

  Broad and yellow and heavy with the silt it carried, late summer low in its banks, the river Wansheeri slipped noiselessly past the scattered mountains of the Uplands, driving to the Plains and the vast city that guarded its mouth, Jade Halimm.

  On one of those mountains, one close to the river and its deposits of clay, an old woman finished unloading her kiln onto a handcart and started downhill with the cart, old and broad and in her way as slow and heavy and powerful as the river. The sun was low in the west; the air moved slowly and smelled of dust, powdered bark, pungent sticky resins from the conifers, a burning gold haze filtered through lazily shifting needles; the shadows were dark and hot; sweat gathered on the old woman’s scalp beneath strong white hair twisted into a feathery knot to keep it off her neck and poured in wide streams past her ears. Ignoring sweat and heat, she plodded down a path her own feet had pounded into the mountainside during the past hundred years. She was alone and content to be alone, showed it in the swing of her heavy body and the work tune she was whistling. The pots rattled, the cart creaked, the old woman whistled, here and there in the distance a bird sang a song as lazy as the sluggish air.

  She reached a round meadow bisected by a noisy creek and started pulling the cart over flat stones she had long ago muscled into place for the parts of the year that were wetter than this; the cart lurched, the pots thudded, the iron tires of the cartwheels rumbled over the stones. She stopped whistling and put more muscle into moving the cart, her face going intent as she focused mind and body on the pushpole. When she reached the bridge across the creek, she straightened her back and drew an arm across her face, wiping away some of the sweat. A breeze moved along the water, cool after the still heat under the trees. She unhooked the pushpole and shuffled to the siderail, lingering in that comparative coolness, leaning against the top bar, head bent so the breeze could run across her neck. Across the meadow her house and workshed waited, half hidden by ancienf knotty vines, their weathered wood fitting with grace into the stony tree-covered slope behind them. She was pleasantly tired and looking forward to fixing her supper, then consuming a large pot of tea while she re-read one of the books she’d brought up from Jade Halimm to pass the evenings with when the children were gone. Yaril and Jaril were due back soon; she smiled as she thought this. They’d have a thousand stories to tell about what they’d seen in their travels, but that wasn’t the only reason she was beginning to grudge the hours until they came; she was more attached to them than she liked to admit, even to herself, they were her children, her nurslings, though their human forms had grown older in the years (about two hundred of them now) since their paths collided with hers on the slopes of Tincreal. Recently she’d begun to wonder if they might be approaching something like puberty. Their outward forms, to some extent anyway, reflected their inward being, so if they seemed to be hovering on the verge of adolescence when they took on the appearance of human children, what was that supposed to tell her? What was adolescence like for a pair of golden shimmerglobes? How would she deal with it? They’d been restless the past several years, ranging over much of the world, coming back to her only when their need for food was so demanding they could no longer ignore it. She wrinkled her nose with distaste. She wanted them back, but it meant she’d have to go down to Jade Halimm and hunt for victims she could justify sucking dry of life. High or low, it didn’t matter to her, only the smell of their souls mattered. The folk of Jade Halimm who were ordinarily honest (which meant having only small sins and meannesses on their consciences but no major taint of corruption) were afraid at first when they knew the Drinker of Souls was prowling the night, but experience taught them that they had nothing to fear from her. She took the muggers, the despoilers of children, the secret murderers and such folk, leaving the rest alone. Many in Jade Halimm had reason to be grateful to her; the mysterious deaths of certain merchants and moneylenders made their heirs suddenly inclined to generosity and improved their patience wonderfully (for a while at least and never to the point of losing,a profit). She frowned at the stream. How long have I been here? She counted the year names to herself, counted the cycles. Tungjii’s tender tits, I’m letting myself go, time slips like water through my fingers, it seems like yesterday I came up the riverpath and argued old Dayan into taking me on as his apprentice.

  The western sky was throwing up rags of color as the sun dropped stone quick behind the peaks; the old trout that lived under the bridge drifted out, a dark dangerous shade in the broken shadows of the water. She sighed and pushed back onto her feet. If she wanted to get the pots stowed before full dark there was no more time for dreaming. She set her hand on the pullpole, meaning to lock it back in front of her, turned instead and stood gazing toward the river as she heard the hurried uneven pound of hooves on the beaten earth of the riverpath. Whoever it is, he’s pushed that poor beast to the point of breakdown. Leaving the cart where it was, she walked off the bridge, up the paving stones to the road and stood waiting for the rider to show.

  For a moment she thought of climbing to the house and barring the door, but she’d been settled in contentment too long and had lost the wariness endemic in the earlier part of her life. Who’d want to hurt her, the ancient potter of Shaynamoshu? Besides, it might be a desperate landsman running from the whipmasters on one of the cherns along the Wansheeri. She’d hid more than one such fugitive after Dayan died and left her the house.

  The horse came out of the trees, a dapple gray blackened with sweat, a black-clad boy on his back. When he came even with her, the boy slid from the saddle, leaving the beast to stand behind him, head down and shivering, a thin wiry boy, fifteen, sixteen, something like that, dark circles of fatigue about his eyes, his face drawn and showing the bone, determination and terror haunting his eyes. “Brann born in Arth Slya, Drinker of Souls?”

  She blinked at him, considering the question. After a moment she nodded. “Yes.”

  He fumbled inside his shirt, jerked, breaking the thong she could see about his neck. A moment more of fumbling, him swaying on his feet, weary beyond weariness, then he brought out a small packet, parchment folded over and over about something heavy, smeared copiously with black wax. “We the blood of Harra Hazani say to you, remember what you swore.” He pushed the packet at her.

  She took it, tucked it in her blouse and caught hold of him as he fell against her, fatigue clubbing him down once the support of his drive to reach her was gone. A flash of darkness caught the corner of her eye. A tiger-man popped from the air behind the boy. Before she could react, he slipped a knife up under the boy’s ribs and vanished as precipitously as he came with a pop like a cork coming from a bottle.

  An icy wind touched her neck.

  Something heavy, metallic slammed into her back. Cold fire flashed up through her.

  Heavy breathing, broken in the middle. Faint popping sound.

  Her knees folded under her, she saw herself toppling toward the boy’s body, saw the hilt of the knife in his back, saw an exploding flower of blood, saw nothing more.

  2. Two Months Earlier And A Thousand Miles South And West Along The Coast From Jade Halimm.

  In Owlyn Vale Of The Fifth Finger, Events Prepare For The Knife In Brann’s Back

  SCENE: Late, the Wounded Moon in his crescent phase, just rising. One of the walled households in Owlyn vale. A small bedroom in the children’s wing. Three narrow beds in the room, one sleeper, a girl about thirteen or fourteen, the other beds empty. The door opens. A boy of seven slips through the gap, glides to the girl and takes her
by the shoulder, shakes her awake.

  “Kori. Wake up, Kori. I need you.”

  The whisper and the shaking dragged Kori out of chaotic nightmare. “Wha… who…”

  The shaking stopped. “It’s me, Kori. Trи.”

  “Tre… “ She fumbled her hands against the sheets, pushed up and turned in one move, her limbs all angles, her body with limber grace, the topsheet and quilt winding around her until she shoved them away and dropped her legs over the edge of the bed. She swept the hair out of her eyes and sat scowling at her brother, a shivering dark shape in the starlit room. “Ahhh, Ire,”

  she said, keeping her voice to a murmur so AuntNurse wouldn’t hear and come scold them, “shut the door, silly, then tell me what’s biting you.”

  He hurried over, pulled the door shut with such care the latch went home without a sound, hurried back to his sister. She patted the bed beside her and he climbed up and sat where her hand had been, sighing and leaning his weight against her. “It’s me now,” he said. “Zilos came to me, his ghost I mean. He said I pass it to you, Trago; the Chained God says you’re the one. They’ll burn me too, Kori; when the Signs start, they’ll know I’m the priest now and HE’ll know and HE’ll order his soldiers to burn me like they did Zilos.”

  Kori shivered. “You’re sure? Maybe it was a bad dream. Me, I’ve been having lots of those.”

  Trago wriggled away from her. “I said he put his hand on me, Kori. He left the Mark.” He pulled his sleeping shift away from his shoulder and let her see a hollow starburst, dark red like a birthmark; he’d had no mark there before, he was born unflawed, she’d bathed him as a babe, part of girls’ work in the Household of the Piyoloss clan. And she’d seen that brand before, seen it on the strong sunbrown shoulder of Zilos the woodworker when he’d left his shirt off on a hot summer day, sitting on the bench before his small house carving a doll’s head for her. Zilos, Priest of the Chained God. Three weeks ago the soldiers of the Sorceror Settsimaksimin planted an oak post in the middle of the threshing floor, tied Zilos to it, piled resinous pinewood about him and burned him to ash, standing around him and jeering at the Chained God, calling him to rescue his Priest if he counted himself more than a useless ghost-thing. And they promised to burn all such priests wherever they found them, Settsimaksimin was more powerful than any pitiful little local god and that was his command and the command of Amortis his patron. Amortis is your god now, they announced to the stubborn refusing folk of Owlyn Vale, Amortis the bountiful, Amortis ripe and passionate, Amortis the bestower of endless pleasure. Rejoice that she consents to bless you with her presence, rejoice that she calls you to her service.

  Warily, feeling nauseated, 1Kori touched the mark. It was bloodwarm and raised a hair above the paler skin of her brother’s shoulder. The first sign. He could hide that, but other signs would appear that he couldn’t hide. One day mules might bray and rebel and come running from fields, dragging plows and seeders and wagons behind them, mules might jump corral fences, break through stable doors, ignoring commands, whips, all obstacles, they might come and kneel before him. Some such things would happen. He couldn’t stop them. Another day he might be compelled to go to every adult woman in Owlyn Vale and touch her and heal all ills and announce the sex of each child in the wombs that were filled and bless each such unborn so it would come forth without flaw and more beautiful than the morning. A third time, it would be something else. The one certainty in the situation was that whatever signs were manifested would be public and spectacular. Kori sighed and held her brother in her arms as he sobbed out his fear and indignation that this should happen to him.

  When his sobbing died down and he lay quiescent against her, she murmured, “Do you know when the signs will start? Tomorrow? Next week?”

  Trago coughed, sniffed, pushed against her. She let him go and he wriggled away along the bed until he could turn and look at her. He fished up the edge of her sheet and blew his nose into it, ignoring the soft spitting of indignation this drew from her. “Zilos his Ghost said the Chained God gives me three months to get used to this. Then he lets everyone know.”

  “Stupid!” She bit down on the word, not because she feared the God, but she didn’t want AuntNurse in there scolding her for staining her reputation by entertaining a male in her bedchamber, no matter that male was her seven-year-old brother, how you start is how you go on Auntee said. “Any hope the god will change his mind?”

  “No.” Trago cleared his throat again, caught her glare and swallowed the phlegm instead of spitting it out.

  She scowled at her hands, took hold of the long flexible fingers of her left hand and bent them back until the nails lay almost parallel to her arm. Among all the children and young folk belonging to the Piyoloss clan, Trago was the one closest to her, the only one who laughed when she did, the only one who could follow her flights of fancy, his dragonfly mind as swift as hers. If he burned, much of her would burn with him and she didn’t like to think of what her life would be like after that. She smoothed one hand over the other. “We’ve got to do something,” she murmured. She hugged her arms across her shallow just-budding breasts. “I think…” Her voice faded as she went still, her eyes opening wide, staring inward at a sudden memory. A moment later, she shook herself and turned to him. “I’ve got an idea… maybe… You go back to bed, Tre, I have to think about it. Without distraction. You hear?”

  He wiggled back to her, caught hold of her hand and pressed it to the side of his face, then he bounced off the bed and trotted out of the room, leaving the door swinging open.

  Kori sighed and went to shut it. She leaned against it a moment looking at the chest at the foot of the bed. She crossed to the chest, pulled up the lid and fished inside for a small box and carried that to the window. She rested her elbows on the sill, turned the box over and over in her fingers. It was old and worn from much ‘prior handling, fragrant kedron wood, warm brown with amber highlights. It was heavy and clunked as she turned it. Harra Hazani’s gift to her children and her children’s children, passed from daughter to daughter, moving from clan to clan as the daughters married into other families, each Harra’s Daughter holder of the promise choosing the next, one of her own daughters or a young cousin in another clan, she took great care to chose the proper one, it was a serious thing, passing the promise on and keeping it safe. And it had been safe and secret through all the two centuries since Harm lived here and bore her children. Kori set the box on the sill and folded her hands over it as she gazed through the small diamond-shaped panes of glass set in lead strips. She couldn’t see much, what she wanted was the feel of light on her face and a sense of space beyond the narrow confines of the room. There were times when she woke restless and slipped out to dance in the moonlight, but she didn’t want to chance getting caught. Not now. She opened the box, took out the heavy bronze medal with the inscrutable glyphs on front and back, ran her fingers over it, set it on the sill, took out the stick of black sealing wax and the tightly folded packet of parchment, ancient, yellowed, blank (she knew that because after Cousin Diyalla called her to her deathbed and gave her the box and a hoarsely whispered explanation, she took the box up onto the mountain behind Household Piyoloss, opened it and examined the three things it contained). Send the medal to one called Brann, self-named Drinker of Souls, Diyalla whispered to Kori. Say to her: we, the line of Harra Hazani, call on you to remember what you swore. This is what she swore, that if Harra called on her, she would come from anywhere in the world to give her gifts and her strength and her deadly touch to protect Harra or her children or her children’s children as long as the line and she existed. And this Harra said to her daughter, the Drinker of Souls will live long indeed. And this Harra said, trust her; she is generous beyond ordinary and will give without stint. All very well, Kori thought, but how do I know where to send the medal? She smoothed her thumb over the cool smooth bronze and gazed through the wavery glass as if somewhere in the distortions lay the answer to her question. The window loo
ked east and presently she made out the shape of the broken crescent that was the Wounded Moon rising above the mountains that curved like protecting hands about the mouth of Owlyn Vale where the river ran out and curled across the luscious plain that knew three harvests a year and a harder poverty for most of its people than even the meanest would ever face in the sterner, more grudging mountains. Absently caressing the medal, warming it with her warmth, she stared a long time at the moon, her gaze as empty as her mind. There was a small round hole near one end of the rectangle, she played with that a while. Harra must have worn it about her neck, suspended on a chain or a thong. Kori set it on the sill, raised her shoulders as she took in a long breath, lowered them as she let it out. She went to the chest and took out a roll of leather thonging she’d used for something or other once and put away after she was finished with it in a rare burst of waste-not want-not. She cut a piece long enough to let the medal dangle between the tiny hillocks of her to-be breasts, slipping it beneath her sleeping shift. She went back to the window and stood a moment longer watching the moon. I have to go out, I can’t think in here. I have to plan how to work this. The other times she’d sneaked out, she’d pulled on a pair of old trousers she filched from the ragbag and a sleeveless tunic that was getting to be too small for her. Somehow, though, that didn’t feel appropriate this time. In spite of the danger and the beating she’d get if she were discovered, the disgrace she’d bring on kin and clan, she went like she was, her thin coltish body barely hidden by the fine white cloth she had woven herself on the family loom. She glided through the house silent as the earthsoul of a murdered child and out the postern gate, remembering the doubletwelve of soldiers quartered on the Vale folk only after she was irretrievably beyond the protection of the House walls. Like a startled, no a frightened, fawn she fled up the hillside to a small glade with a giant oak in the center of it, an oak that felt to her as always old as the stone bones of the mountain.