by Jo Clayton
“Time. You know how long it took me to check the full length of all four rings, maybe twenty minutes; this’ll go a lot faster. I’d say, ten minutes at most to do the ring sweeps, then we’d better go over the streets along the way to the hostel, zapping everything both sides in case sneaks are ambushed inside the houses. Say another five minutes, it’s not all that far from here.”
Brann threaded her fingers through her hair, cupped her hand about the nape of her neck and scowled at the floor. Ahzurdan cleared his throat, but shut up as she waved her other hand at him. A waiting silence. Daniel rubbed his shoulders against the wall, yawned. She lifted her head. “Go, kids, get it done as fast as you can, we’ll wait five minutes, then follow.”
Ahzurdan at point spreading his confusion over half Silagamatys, the four of them moved at a trot through the stygian foggy tag-end of the night, past bodies crumpled in doorways and under trees; through a silence as profound as that in any city of the dead. Halfway to the hostel the children came back, horned owls with crystal eyes and human hands instead of talons. One of the owls swooped low over Daniel, hooted, dropped the stunner into his hands and slanted up to circle in wide loops over them. They swept past the hostel and Kori slipped away. Daniel Akamarino watched her vanish into the shrubbery and spent the next few minutes worrying about her, when the building continued dark and silent, no disturbance, he relaxed and stopped looking over his shoulder.
8. Kori Piyolss Runs Into A Quiet Storm In The Shape Of Auntnurse.
SCENE: Quiet shadowy halls, doorless cells on both sides, snores, sighs, groans, farts, whimpers, creak of beds, slide of bodies on sheets, a melding of sleepsotmds into a general background hum, a sense of swimming in life momentarily turned low.
After a last look at Daniel Akamarino, Kori slid into the shrubbery of the Hostel garden, worked her way to the ancient wittli vine that was her ladder in and out of the sleeping rooms on the second floor. She tucked up the skirt, kicked off her sandals and tied them to her belt, set her foot in the lowest crotch and began climbing. The shredded papery bark coming to threads under her tight quick grip, the dustgray leaves shedding their powder over her, the thinskinned purple berries that she avoided when she could since they burst at a breath and left a stain it took several scrubbings to get rid of, the highpitched groans of the stalk, the secret insinuating whispers the leaves made as they rubbed together, these never changed, year on year they never changed, since the first year she came (filled with excitement and resentment) and crept out to spend a secret hour wandering about the gardens. Year on year, as she grew bolder, slipping slyly through the dangerous streets, only.a vague notion of the danger to give the adventure spice and edge, they never changed, only she changed. Now there was no excitement, no game, only a deep brooding anxiety that tied her insides into knots.
She reached out and pushed cautiously at the shutters to the small window of the linenroom, lost a little of her tension as they moved easily silently inward. One hand clamped around a creaking secondary vine, she twisted her body about until head, shoulders and one arm were through the window, then she let go of the vine and waved her feet until she tumbled headfirst at the floor; she broke her fall with her hands, rolled over and got to her feet feeling a little dizzy, one wrist hurting because she’d hit the stone awkwardly. She untied the sandals, set them on a shelf, stripped off the maid’s clothing, used the blouse to wipe her hands and feet, thinking ruefully about Daniel Akamarino’s comment; it was true then and doubly true now, no one would wear those rags. She dug three silvers out of her pouch, the last she had left of the hoard from the cave, rolled them up in the clothing, telling herself she would have done it anyway, Daniel didn’t have to stick his long nose in her business. She pulled her sleeping shift over her head, smoothed it down, eased the door open a crack and looked along the hall. Silence filled with sleeping-noises. Shadows. She edged her head out, looked the other way. Silence. Shadows. She slipped through the crack, managed to close the door with no more than a tiny click as the latch dropped home, ran on her toes to the room at the west end where the maids slept. No time to be slow and careful; dawn had to be close and the maids rose with the sun; she flitted inside, put the rolled clothing where she’d got it, on the shelf behind a curtain, and sped out, her heart thudding in her throat as one of the girls muttered in her sleep and moved restlessly on her narrow bed.
Struggling to catch her breath, she slowed as soon as she was clear of the room and crept along past the door-less arches of the sleeping cubicles; her own cubicle where she slept alone was near the east end of the Great Refectory. She was exhausted, her arms and legs were heavy, as if the god’s chains had been transferred to them, the old worn sandals dragged like lead at her fingers.
Sighing with relief, scraping her hand across her face, she turned through the arch.
And stopped, appalled.
AuntNurse sat on the bed, her face grave. “Sit down, Kori. There.” she pointed at the end of the bed.
Kori looked at the sandals she carried. She bent, set them on the floor, straightening slowly. Head swimming she sat on the bed, as far as she could get from her aunt.
“Don’t bother telling me you’ve just gone to the lavatory, Kori. I’ve been sitting here for nearly three hours.”
Kori rubbed at the back of her right hand, bruises were beginning to purple there, fingermarks. She didn’t know what to say, she couldn’t tell anyone, even AuntNurse, about the Drinker of Souls and the rest of them, but she couldn’t lie either, AuntNurse knew the minute she tried it. She chewed on her lip, said nothing.
“Are, you a maid still?”
Kori looked up, startled. “What? Yes. Of course. It wasn’t that.”
“May I ask what it was?”
Twisting her hands together, moving her legs and feet restlessly, Kori struggled to decide what she should do. Ahzurdan’s fog was still over this sector but it wouldn’t be there much longer. “You mustn’t say anything about it after,” she whispered. “Not to me, not to anyone. Right now HE can’t hear us, but that won’t last. Tres the next Priest. I’ve been trying to do something to keep him from being killed. Don’t make me say what, it’s better you don’t know.”
“I see. I beg your pardon, Kori. That is quite a heavy burden for your shoulders, why didn’t you share it?” Kori looked quickly at her, looked away. She didn’t have an answer except that she’d always hated having things done for her; since she could toddle, she’d worked hard at learning what she was supposed to know so she could do for herself. And mostly, people were stupid, they said silly things that Kori knew were silly before she could read or write and she learned those skills when she was just a bit over three. They took so long to understand things that she got terribly impatient (though she soon learned not to show it); the other children, even many of the adults, didn’t understood her jokes and her joys, when she played with words she got blank stares unless the result was some ghastly pun that even a mule wouldn’t miss. Not AuntNurse, no one would ever call AuntNurse silly or stupid, but she was so stiff it was like she wouldn’t let herself have fun. Without exactly understanding why, Kori knew that she couldn’t say any of this, that all the reasons she might make up for doing what she wanted to and keeping Tres trouble a secret, all those fine and specious justifications would crumble like tissuepaper under AuntNurse’s cool penetrant gaze.
“I suppose I really don’t need an answer.” Aunt-Nurse sighed. “Listen to me, Kori. You’re brighter than most and that’s always a problem. You’re arrogant and you think more of your ability than is justified. There’s so much you simply do not understand. I wonder if you’ll ever be willing to learn? I know you, child, I was you once. If you want to live in Owlyn Vale, if you want to be content, you’ll learn your limits and stay in them. It’s discipline, Kori. There are parts of you that you’ll have to forget; it will feel like you’re cutting away live flesh, but you’ll learn to find other ways of being happy. More than anything you need friends, Kori, women fr
iends; you’ll find them if you want to and if you work at it, you’ll need them, Kori, you’ll need them desperately as the years pass. I was planning to talk to you when we got back.” She lifted a hand, touched her brow, let it drop back in her lap. “I’d still like to have that talk, Kori, but I’ll let you come if you want, when you want. One last thing, do you have any idea what your life would be like if you had to leave us?”
Kori shivered, rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on the linen bunched over her thighs as she remembered the girl in the tavern. “Yes,” she whispered, “I saw a girl. A con-convenience.”
AuntNurse smiled, shook her head. “You terrify me, child. I am delighted you got back safe and rather surprised, if that’s the kind of place you were visiting.”
Kori chewed her lip some more, then she scootched along the bed until she could reach AuntNurse’s hand. She took it, held it tight, shook her head, then gazed at AuntNurse, fear fluttering through her, sweat dripping into her eyes.
AuntNurse nodded, smoothed long cool fingers over Kori’s bruised and sweaty hands. “I see. Unfortunately you face the Lot come the morning, so I can’t let you sleep much longer than usual, Kori. You must eat, you’ll need your strength.” She got to her feet, freed her hand. “If I can help, Kori, in any way, please let me.” She touched Kori’s cheek, left without looking back.
Kori sat for several minutes without moving; in some strange and frightening way she’d crossed a chasm and the bridge had vanished on her. It had nothing to do with Tre or Settsimaksimin and everything to do with AuntNurse. With… with… Polatea, not Aunt-Nurse. Never again AuntNurse. Shivering with more than the early morning chill, she crawled into bed and eventually managed to sleep.
9. Settsimaksimin Watches In His Workroom And At The Court Of Lots In The Grand Yron.
SCENE: 1. Settsimaksimin in his subterranean workroom, idly watching his mirror, Todichi Yahzi back by one wall, noting Maksim’s comments, released for the moment from the onerous task of watching over the machinations of a number of very ambitious men.
2. Settsimaksimin on the highseat at the Court of Lots, in the Grand Yron. Picture an immense rectangular room, sixty meters on the long sides, twenty on the short, the ceiling fifty meters from the floor, utterly plain polished white marble walls with delicate traceries of gray and gold running through the white, a patterned pavement of colored marbles, ebony and gilt backless benches running two thirds the length of the long sides, two doors dressed in ebony and gilt in the short north wall, one at the west end, one at the east. At the short south wall (beneath Settsimaksimin but out far enough so he can see it without straining), a low ebony table with a gilt bowl on it, a bowl filled with what looked to be black eggs. To his left, about ten meters away along the west wall, near the end of the long bench, another table with another bowl, this one red, the pile of black eggs in it is considerably smaller than that in the gilt bowl. To his right, ten meters away along the east wall, a third table with a third bowl, this one blue, its egg pile about the same as that in the red one. A trumpet blares, two lines of children stream in, girls on the east, boys on the west.
Settsimaksimin lounged in his chair, bare feet crossed at the ankles and resting on a battered hassock, he sipped at a huge mug of bitter black tea; he’d discarded all clothing but the sleeveless black overrobe and the heavy gold chain with the dull red stone on it, the talisman BinYAHtii (I take all); his gray-streaked plait was twisted atop his head again and skewered there. The only evidence of his fatigue lay in his eyes, they were red streaked and sunk deeper than usual in heavy wrinkles and folds. He was watching the scenes skipping across the face of the obsidian mirror: the waterfront (he scowled as he saw the Godalau playing in the water and interfering old Thngjii ambling about the wharves,-stopping to talk to a ghostly stranger sitting on a bitt); the tavern where Brann and her entourage were (a place mostly blank because Ahzurdan had learned too-much for Maksim’s comfort from the attack at Kukurul and had tightened and strengthened his wards until there was no way Maksim could tease them apart or find a cranny to squeeze a tendril through; though it was a major complication in his drive to protect himself and his goals, he beamed proudly at the blank spot, a father watching his favorite son show his strength); the Hostel where the Owlyn Valers were settled in and presumably sleeping the sleep of the just and innocent, even the one that plotted against him; a sweep through the streets, flickering over the watchers he’d posted about the tavern, swooping to check out assorted nocturnal ramblers (he chanced on a thief laboring over the lock at the back of a jeweler’s shop, snatched him up and dumped him into the bay). Waterfront again (the man with the blurred outlines was still sitting on the bitt drinking from a wineskin and staring out over the water, singing to himself and getting pleasantly drunk, wholly innocuous except for that odd blurring; Maksim sat up and scowled at him, tried to get a clearer image; there were peculiar resonances to the man and he didn’t like puzzles wandering about his city; he shrugged and let the mirror pass on). Tavern again. He looked through the eyes of his surrogates in there, but nothing was happening downstairs. Hostel again. Dark and sleeping. Streets and those in them. Waterfront. Tavern. Hostel. “Now what have we got here?”
Up on the second floor a small form eased out a window and started down the vine that crawled over part of the wall near that window. A girl it was, skirt tucked up, dropping from branch to branch faster than most folk could negotiate a flight of stairs. He willed the mirror into sharper focus on her, smiled as she reached the grass, put her sandals on, shook out her skirt and smoothed down her flyaway hair. She darted into the shrubbery, moving with assurance through the darkness. Maksim sat up, laughter rumbling round his big taut belly. “Little ferret.” She reappeared in the street and began moving at a steady pace toward the bay. “Aaahhh,” he breathed, “it’s you, YOU, I’ve got to thank for this. Eh Todich, come see. There’s my great enemy, a girl, twelve maybe, a skinny little girl.” She clung to shadow as much as she could, but went forward resolutely, circling drunks and skipping away from a man who grabbed at her, losing him after she fled into back alleys and whipped around half a dozen corners; she didn’t pause to catch her breath but glanced around as she trotted on, oriented herself and started once more toward the waterfront, a thin taut wire of a girl seen and unseen, an image in a broken dream. “A girl, a girl, Tungjii’s tits, why does it have to be a girl? She’s got more spine than half my army, Todich; if she had a grain of talent and was a boy, ah what a sorceror she’d make. Danny Blue, my baby Dan, she’d eat you alive, this little ferret. If she weren’t a girl, if she had the talent. What’s that now?”
She whipped around another corner and slammed into two men. The taller man grabbed her arm, swung her hard against the wall, while his squat burly companion gaped blearily at her. The tall one laughed, said something, wrapped his other hand in her hair and jerked her head up. Ignoring her struggles, he looked over his shoulder at his friend, his rubbery face moving through a series of drunken grimaces.
The squat man flung himself at the girl, mashed her against the wall. He slobbered at her, began fumbling at the band of her skirt, using one shoulder to pin her other arm as she clawed at him.
“Drunks,” Maksirn growled, “filthy beasts.” He watched her struggles and her fear and her fury with an uncomfortable mix of satisfaction, compassion and shame. “You’re getting what you asked for, little ferret, you should have stayed where you belong.” By forgetting who and what she was, by working against him who had done so much for the people of Cheonea and meant to do so much more, she’d brought her shaming on herself. He had not the slightest doubt it was she who’d sent for the Drinker of Souls, the boy who carried the message came from Owlyn, what was his name? Toma something or other, dead now, it didn’t matter, though how she’d known of the Drinker and what she’d used to lever Brann into moving… well, he’d find out before too long. “I’ll have you, Owlet, you face the Lot tomorrow, yes, I’ll have you…” He scowled at the mirror, moved hi
s hands uneasily, twisted his mouth into a grimace of distaste. A child. A clever devious spirited child. Her strength was nothing against those men, her arms were like twigs. He could save her as easily as he took his next breath, snatch those beasts off her, send earth elementals to crush them. He watched and did nothing. You have to learn, little ferret, he told himself, learn your limitations so I don’t have to punish you myself. He watched and shifted uneasily in his chair, his stomach churning. He rubbed at his chest under BinYAHtii as his heart thudded painfully.
The odd man from the waterfront came suddenly from the fog. He seemed to hesitate, then with a slap and two kicks disposed of the attackers. The girl put her hand on his arm, said something. “She knows him. Bloody Hells. He thumbed the mirror. “Sound you.”
For several minutes the only sounds were the slap of their feet, the diminishing yells from the squat man who was quickly lost in the fog, the drip of that fog from the eaves. Then the man slowed and spoke to the girl. Maksim clicked his tongue with deep annoyance; like his form the man’s words were blurred beyond deciphering.
“… “
“I have to meet someone.” The child tilted her head and smiled up at the man. Flirting with him, Maksim grumbled to himself, hot with jealousy, little whore. “Not you, Daniel. Someone else.” Daniel, Daniel, she does know him, Forty Mortal Hells, who is he?
“… “
“Halt! No such thing. When the day comes I’ll marry someone in Owlyn. This is something else. I don’t want to talk about it here. “
“… “
“Come with me. *** says you’re mixed up in this some way, that you’re here because of it. You might as well know what’s happening and why. “
“… “
“I can’t.”
“… “
Maksim watched them hurry through the fog until they reached the Blue Seamaid. He nodded to himself. I’m going to have to do something about you. Who are you? Owlyn Valer, yes. What’s your name, child? I’ll know it come the morrow. Scoundrel time old Maksi, you out-rascaled the Parastes, now a child is completing your corruption, I’ve never interferred with the Lot before this, but I can’t leave her running around loose. You’re going into the Yron training, my angry young rebel, you’re going to get that hot blood cooled. He listened to one side of the argument outside the tavern, guessed most of the man’s objections, saw his final shrug. The child’s got ten times your backbone, you fool. Why don’t you pick her up and get her back where she belongs? He considered doing that himself, it’d be easy enough; he put off deciding (though such dithering was foreign to him) and followed them inside. ‘‘
