Blue Magic dost-2

by Jo Clayton

  Lio Laux leaned on the rail beside him. “Uh huh.” He rubbed a burn hole in his shirt between his thumb and forefinger, shredding off the charred fibers; eyes narrowed into dark crescents, he looked up at the sails, holed here and there but taut enough with the following wind, then squinted round at the deck. “Expect more of that?” He snapped thumb against midfinger and pointed his forefinger at a charred place in the wood.

  “Me, I don’t expect. This isn’t my kind of thing.” Daniel passed the skin to Lio. “You might want to put some of this on your burns.” He held out his arm, showed the pale spot where the charred skin fell off. “Seems to be as useful outside as it is in.”

  “Hmm. You don’t mind, I’ll apply it to the inside first.”

  The rest of the voyage passed without incident. Two hours before dawn on the next morning, Lio Laux landed them on the black sand of Haven Cove, gave Brann back her surety gold and sailed out of the story.

  11. Maksim And Kori, A Digression.

  SCENE: In Maksim’s chambers high above the city.

  “Sit down, I’m not going to eat you.”

  Kori sneaked a glance at him, looked quickly away. Everyone said how big Settsimaksimin was and she’d seen him tower over the Servants and the students at the Lots, but he was far off then and she hadn’t realized how intimidating that size would be when she was not much more than an arm’s length away, even if it was the length of his arm. Eyes on the floor, she backed to a padded bench beside one of the tall pointed windows. She folded her hands in her lap, grateful for the coarseness of the sleeping shift they’d given her at the Yron. She didn’t feel quite so naked in it. She stole another look at him. He was smiling, his eyes were warm and it startled her but she had to say it, gentle, approving. She wondered if she ought to worry about what he was going to do to her, but she didn’t feel bothered by him, not like she was when that snake Bak’hve looked at her. Frightened, yes, but not bothered. She ran her tongue over dry lips. “Why did you snatch me here like this?”

  “Because I didn’t want to make life at the Yron more difficult for you than it is already.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Child, mmmm, what’s your name?”

  “You don’t know it?”

  “Would I ask?”

  His deep deep voice rumbled and sang at her, excited her; she forgot to be frightened and lifted her head. “Kori,” she said, “Kori Piyolss.”

  “Kori.” Her name was music when he said it; she felt confused but still not bothered. “Well, young Kori, you wouldn’t like what would certainly happen to you if anyone thought I was interested in you. I’m sure you have no idea what lengths some folks will go to in order to reach my ear, and that’s not vanity, child, that’s what happens when you have power yourself or you’re close to someone with it. You’re a fighter, Kori, yes I do know that. I’ve watched you plot and scheme against me; unfortunately, I did not know who it was that plotted soon enough to stop you. Ahh, if things were other, if I had a daughter, or a son even, if he or she were like you, I would swell with pride until I burst with it. Why, Kori? What have I done to you? No, I’m not asking you that now. I will know it, though, believe that.”

  She gazed defiantly at him, pressed her mouth into a tight smile that was meant to say no you won’t.

  He chuckled. “Kori, Kori, relax, child, I’m not going into that tonight. I’ve got other things in mind. You were right, you know, I fiddled the Lot, I wanted you out of Owlyn, child, I wanted you where you won’t make more trouble for me. You might as well forget about going back there. Think rather what you’d like to do with your life.”

  She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

  am not going to permit you to teach, Kori, I’m sure you see why. You don’t want to be a holy whore, do you?”

  She swallowed, touched her throat, forced her hand down.

  “It’s not a threat, child; but we do have to find something else for you. You’ve got a talent, did you know it?”

  “Um… talent?”

  “Why weren’t you born a boy, Kori, ah, things would be so much simpler.”

  “I don’t want to be a boy.” She couldn’t put too much force into that, not after the talk with Polatea. She wrinkled her nose, moved her shoulders. It was a funny feeling, talking to the man like this, she felt free to say things she couldn’t say to anyone not even Tre; it seemed to her Settsimaksimin understood her, all of her, not just a part, understood an in a funny way approved of her. All of her. He was the first one, well, maybe Polatea was the first, but Polatea wanted to close her in and if he meant what he was saying, it seemed to her he wanted to open out her life to new things, splendid things. Aayee, it was hard, she was supposed to hate him for what he’d done, for what he was going to do when he found out about Tre, was he playing with her head already? She didn’t know, how could she know? “What I’d really like,” she said, “is not to stop being a girl, I am a girl, it’s part of what makes me who I am, I like who I am, I don’t want to change, what I want is to be free to do some of the things boys get to do.” She scratched her cheek, frowned. “What did you mean, talent?”

  “Magic, child. Would you like to study it?”

  “I don’t understand. “

  “There are schools where they teach the talent, Kori; there’s one, perhaps the best of them, in a city called Silili. It’s a long way from here, but see you get there if you think you might like to be a scholar.”

  “Why?”

  “Nothing’s ever simple, Kori, haven’t you learned that by now? Ah well, you’ve had a sheltered life so far. Why? Because I like you, because I don’t like killing my folk, don’t scowl, child, didn’t your mother ever tell you your face could freeze like that? Yes, you are mine whatever you think of that and yes, I am not lying when I say I loathe killing I do what I must.”

  “No. You do what you want.”

  “Hmm. Perhaps you’re right. Shall I tell you what I want?”

  “I can’t stop you. No, that isn’t honest. I would like to hear it. I think. I don’t know. Are you messing with my head, Settsimaksimin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to see you frightened. I don’t want to feel you hating me.”

  “I can’t do anything about that?”

  “Not now. If you develop your talent, the time will come when no one, not even a god, can play with your feelings and your thoughts, Kori. Take my offer. Don’t waste your promise.”

  “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. Help me understand. Are you like Bak’hve the Servant in Owlyn, do you want me? I don’t think so, you don’t make me feel bothered like he does.”

  He frowned. “That Servant, he approached you, suggested you lie with him?”

  “No. Not yet, he hasn’t worked himself up to it yet.”

  “Hmm. I’ll put a watch on him; if he’s got a penchant for young girls, he goes. And no, Kori, you’re right, you don’t excite me that way. Do I shock if I tell you, no girl or woman would?”

  “Oh.” She wriggled uncomfortably. “You said you’re trying to do something. What is it?”

  He gave his low rumbling laugh, settled into his chair, put his feet up on a hassock and began to talk about his plans for Cheonea.

  Her head whirled with visions as immense as he was. What he wanted for the Plain sounded very much like the kind of life her own folk lived up in the Vales. How could that be bad? There was a fire in him, a passionate desire to make life better for the Plainsers. How could she not like that? His fire called to the fire in her. Maybe he was playing games with her again, but she didn’t really think so. She felt her mind stretching, she felt breathless, carried along by an irresistable force like the time she fell into the river and didn’t want to be rescued, the time she was intensely annoyed with her cousins when they roped her and pulled her to the bank; though she thanked them docilely enough, she went running back to the House, raging as she ran. She quivered to the deep deep v
oice that seemed to sing in the marrow of her bones. She understood him, or at least a part of him, there was no one he could share his dreams with, just like her. No one who could follow the leaps and bounds of his thought. She could. She knew it. But she also knew her own ignorance. In addition to her dreams and enthusiasms, she had a shrewd practical side. Though her life was short and severely circumscribed, shed heard more than a handful of one-sided stories meant to justify some lapse or lack. Men who let their fields go sour, women who slacked their weaving or their cleaning, children who had a thousand excuses for things they had or hadn’t done. She’d told such stories herself, even told them to herself. So how could she judge what he was saying? Measure it against what was there before down on the Plain? What did she know about the Plain except some ancient tales her people told to scare unruly boys? Trouble was, how could she trust those stories? She knew how her folk were about outsiders, nothing outsiders did was worth the spit to drown them in. What else did she know? Really know? What he did about the wood. Yes. That rather impressed Daniel Akamarino. How he kept the city clean. Bath houses for beggars even. The slave markets were gone. But girls still sold themselves on the streets and in the taverns they were conveniences provided with the beds and the bottles. The pleasurehouses were gone, older girls on fete eves told dreadful tales of those places, tales that would have had them scrubbing pots for a month if one AuntNurse or another had caught them. But Settsimaksimin’s own soldiers burned the Chained God’s priests and would burn Tre if she couldn’t stop it. The thought cleared her head and chilled her body.

  She looked up. He was watching her, yellow cat eyes questioning her silence. Momentarily she was afraid, but she thought about Tri and everything and straightened her back. If she could stop it here, if she could make him see… She took a mouthful of air, let it out with a soundless paa. “There’s one thing,” she said. She rubbed at her forehead, pushed her hand back over her hair, afraid again. He saw too much. What if he saw Tie “You let us alone for over forty years. Except for the Lot. And we got used to that and it was kind of exciting coming down to the city and having it ours for three days. You let us live like we always lived. No fuss. And then, no warning, you send your soldiers to the Vales and the Servants. We don’t want them, we don’t need them. We have the Chained God to look after us. We have our priests to bless us and teach us and heal us and wed us each to each. At least, we had them before your soldiers burnt them. Why? We weren’t hurting you. We were just doing what we’d always done. The Servants gave the orders to the soldiers, but they were your soldiers. Why did you let that happen?”

  “Let it happen? oh Kori, I couldn’t stop it, I was constrained by things I promised decades ago. Let me tell you. Fifty years ago I took Silagamatys from the king.” He gave her a weary smile. “I had a thousand mercenaries and a few dozen demons and the skills I’d acquired in a century’s hard work. I took the city in a single night with less than a hundred dead, the king being one of those. And it meant almost nothing. He had less say in how Cheonea was run than the scruffiest beggar on Water Street. The Parastes and the vice lords, the pimps, the bullies, the assassins and the thieves, they ran Cheonea, they ran Silagamatys, they ignored me and my pretensions, Kori. It was like trying to scoop up quicksilver; when I reached for them, they ran between my fingers and were gone. All I had accomplished, Kori, was to tear down the symbol that held this rotting state together. SYMBOL! That vicious foulness, that corrupt old fumbler. He was the shell they held in front of them, he was the thing that kept them from going for each other. I had to cleanse the city somehow, I had to put my hand on the hidden powers if I wanted to change the way things were and make life better for the gentle people. I worked day and night, Kori, I slept two hours, three at most. I think I looked into the face of every man, woman and child inside the crumbling walls about this cesspool city. I caught little weasels that way, weeded them out and set them to work for me in the granite quarries, cutting stone to rebuild those walls. The wolves slipped away on me except for a few of the stupider ones. Every Parika on the Plain was a fortress closed against me and the Parastes reached out from behind their walls to strike at me whenever they saw a chance to hurt me. I held on for five years, Kori, I got Silagamatys cleaned out, I got my walls built. But Cheonea outside the walls was drowning in blood. The wolves were turning on each other. I don’t believe that chaos reached into the Vales, but it couldn’t have been a happy time there either; there were desperate men in the hills who stole what they needed to stay alive and destroyed what they couldn’t use to appease the rage that gnawed at them. I could have cleansed the Plain too, Kori, as I cleansed the city, if I had another hundred years to spare and the strength of a young man. I wasn’t young, Kori, I had limits. And I had this.” He pulled the talisman from under the simple white linen robe he wore, brushed his hand across the stone. “There’s a price to using it, I won’t speak of that, child, it’s my business and mine alone. I didn’t want to use it, but I looked into myself and I looked out across the Plain and I called Amortis to me. I used her because I had to, Kori. For the greater good. Oh yes. I know. My good, too. Either I forgot my dream or I corrupted it and myself. You understand what I did and why. I promised her Cheonea, Kori, I could compel her to some things but to do all that I wanted, she had to have a reason for helping me. Cheonea was that reason. I left the Vales alone as long as I could, Kori, I talked with her, I teased her, I even was her lover for a while.”‘He gave her a sad wry smile. “Not a very satisfactory one, I’m afraid. I can’t claim virtue for trying to save you folk from Amortis’ greed. The runes I read, the bones I cast, the stars in their courses all told me that going into the Vales would destroy me.” A long weary sigh. “I’m tired, child, but I’ll keep fighting until I die. Cheonea will be whole and it will be a good place to live. If I have a few more years, just a handful of years, what I’ve done will be so strong it won’t need me any more. I won’t let you take those years from me, Kori. I won’t let you be hurt, but I will kill you if I have to, do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell me what you’ve done and why?”

  “No.”

  “Do you understand what you are saying to me?”

  “Yes. ‘

  “It’s war between us?”

  “Yes.”

  He touched the tips of his lefthand fingers to the stone.

  “In one hour Amortis herself goes after your champions, Kori. Would you like to see what happens?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. Some hundred years ago it seems to me I asked if you would like to be a scholar.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that merely mean you remember the question or is it your answer?”

  “I remember the question and yes, I think I would like to be a scholar.” She gazed at fingers pleating and repleating the coarse white wool of her shift. “If you don’t break me getting out your answers.”

  He laced his fingers over his stomach, his yellow eyes laughed at her. “Kori, young Kori, there’s no need for breaking. You’ve no defense against me, making you speak will be as simple as dipping a pen into an inkwell and writing with it.”

  “Why all this talk talk talk, then? Why don’t you get at it? Do you expect to charm me into emptying myself out for you? You could charm a figgit out of its hole and you know it, but you’ll have to take what you want, I won’t, I can’t give it to you. Why are you wasting your time and mine like this? Do it. Get it over with and let me go.”

  “Am I, Kori, wasting my time?”

  She looked up, looked down again without saying anything.

  “You don’t understand what I’m trying to do? How much it is going to mean to ordinary folk?”

  “I do understand. They aren’t my folk.”

  “Yes. I thought it was that. Your brother?”

  She folded the cloth and smoothed it out, folded and smoothed and tried to ignore the pressing silence in the high moon-shadowed room.


  “How is he involved in this? A baby like that.” When she continued to not-look at him, he got to his feet, held out his hand. “Come. Or do you hate me so much you refuse to touch me?”

  Her head whipped up; she glared at him. “Not fair.” His rumbling laugh filled the room, his eyes shone with it. He waggled his huge hand. “Come.”

  * * *

  Settsimaksimin ran his tongue over his teeth as he looked round the cluttered workroom. With a grunt of satisfaction he strode to a corner, brushed a pile of dusty scrolls off a padded backless bench and carried it across to the table where the black obsidian mirror waited, dark glimmers sliding across its enigmatic surface. He scowled at the dust on the dark silk, lifted the tail of his robe and scrubbed it vigorously over the cushion. Kori resisted a strong impulse to giggle. He was so massive, so powerful, so very male, but his play at hospitality reminded her absurdly of AuntNurse Polatda arranging a party for visiting cousins. When he straightened and beckoned her over, she gave him her best demure smile and settled herself gracefully, grateful for once for all those tedious lessons.

  He drew the ball of his thumb across the mirror. “Show thou.” As a scene began to develop within the oval, he dropped into a sagging armchair, shifted about until he was comfortable, propped his feet on a rail under the table,and laced his long dark fingers over his solid stomach.

  Kori watched white sails belly out against black water, black sky, and lost any urge to laugh when she saw the towering figure of the god come striding across the sea.

  Squawling threats, Amortis vanished. The gold arc broke apart. The translucent shell dissolved. The sea smoothed out. The boat came round and sliced once more toward Haven Cove.

  “Well.” Settsimaksimin pushed his chair back and stood looking down at her. Kori couldn’t read anything but weariness and regret in his heavy face, but she was terrified. Helpless. No place to run. Nothing she could say would change what they’d just seen. All she could do was hold the rags of her dignity about her and endure whatever he planned for her.