Blue Magic dost-2

by Jo Clayton

  Ahzurdan flung himself from the saddle, landed in a stumbling run waving his arms to stop the others. “Brann,” he shouted, “to me. Daniel, hold the mules.” He braced himself, hands circling, spreading, smoothing. “Bilaga anaaaa nihi ta yi ka i gy shee ta a doo le eh doo ya ah tee,” he intoned as the earth about them rippled and surged, great trees toppled, roots loosened as the soil about them fluxed and flowed and formed into eyeless giants with ragged hands reaching reaching, deflected from them by the sphere Ahzurdan threw about them. Brann ran to him, flattened her hand in the middle of his back, fed energy into him, steadying him. The mules were squealing and sidling, jerking about, trying to break free from Daniel who was too busy with them to worry much about what was happening. Yaril darted from the sky, changed from hawk to shimmersphere in midcourse and went whipping through the earth giants emerging into greater and greater definition as the attack intensified. She went whipping through and through them, drawing force from them until she was swollen with it. She dropped beside Brann, extended a pseudopod to her spine and fed the earthstrength into her. Brann filtered it and passed it slowly, steadily to Ahzurdan. As soon as Yaril emptied herself, she was a hawk again, powering up to circle overhead while Jaril passed through the giants and stole more from them and fed it to Brann. Turn and turn they went while the attack mounted. Trees tumbled but never onto them, hurled aside by the sphere of negation Ahzurdan held about them, the earth outside boiled and shifted, walked in manshape, surged in shapeless waves but the earth beneath them stayed solid and still. Ahzurdan sweated and strained, his back quivered increasingly under Brann’s hand, but he held the sphere intact and none of the raging outside touched the peace and silence within.

  The turmoil quit.

  Ahzurdan screamed and collapsed.

  The mules shrilled and reared, jerked Daniel Akamarino off his feet-until the Yaril and Jaril shimmer-globes darted over and settled briefly on the beasts, calming them.

  They darted back to Brann, shifted to their child-shapes and knelt with her beside Ahzurdan. He was foaming at the mouth, writhing, groaning, his face twisting in a mask of pain and fear. Brann flattened her palms on his chest, leaned as much of her weight on him as she could while Yaril melted into him. She closed her eyes, reached into him, guided by Yaril’s gentle touches, repairing bruises and breaks and burns where the lifestuff of the elementals had traumatized him. Jaril flung himself into the air, a hawk again, circling, watching. Daniel soothed the mules some more, managed to pour some grain into the grass and got them eating. He popped the stopple on the wineskin, squeezed a short stream into his mouth, sighed with pleasure. Brann looked over her shoulder, scowled. “Daniel, dig me out a cloth and bring some water here.”

  He shrugged and complied, stood over her watching with interest as she wiped the sorceror’s drawn face clean of spittle and dirt. Ahzurdan’s limbs straightened and his face smoothed, his staring eyes closed. He was asleep. Deeply asleep. Brann rubbed at her back, groaned. Yaril oozed out of Ahzurdan, took her child-shape back and came round to crouch beside Brann, leaning into her looking sleepy. Brann patted her, smiled wearily. “Yaro, what does Jay see ahead? How close is the mountain?”

  Silent at first, blankfaced for a long minute, Yaril’s mouth began moving several beats before she finally spoke. “He says the going is really bad for several miles, ground’s chewed up, trees are knitted into knots, but after that it’s pretty clear. Maybe a couple hours’ ride beyond the mess we should be on the lower slopes of Isspyrivo.”

  Braun scratched at her chin. “He needs rest, but we can’t afford the time. Maksim should be worn out for a while. With a little luck the god will get to us before he recovers.” She pushed onto her feet, stretched, worked her shoulders. “Daniel…”

  Sometime after they left the battleground, Ahzurdan groaned and tried to sit up. He was roped face down across the saddle of his mule; the moment he opened his eyes, he vomited and nearly choked.

  Brann swung her mule hastily around, produced a knife and slashed his ropes. “Daniel!” Daniel rode close on the other side, caught a fistful of robe, dragged Ahzurdan off the saddle and lowered him until his feet touched the ground. Ahzurdan was coughing, sputtering and trying to curse around a swollen tongue, struggling feebly against the clutch between his shoulders that pulled his robe so tightly about his neck and chest it threatened to strangle him.

  Yaril plummeted downward, shifting to girl as she touched ground; she caught hold of the mules’ bridles as Brann slid from the saddle, ran round to get her shoulder under Ahzurdan’s arm and tap Daniel’s wrist to tell him he should let go his hold. Both of them staggering awkwardly, she got Ahzurdan to a tree and lowered him onto swelling roots so that, he sat comfortably enough with his back supported by the trunk and his legs stretched out before him. Without waiting to be told, Daniel brought a cloth and a waterskin and a clean robe for the man, then he went to lean, against another tree, the skirts of his long vest pushed back, his thumbs hooked behind his belt.

  It was very quiet under the trees; there were a lot of pines now and other conifers, the earth was thick with springy muffling dead needles and the wispy wind shivered the live ones to produce their characteristic constant soughing whispers, but the birds (except, of course for Jaril hawkflying overhead), the squirrels and other rodents busy about the ground and the lower branches, the deer and occasional bear they’d seen before the attack, all these had prudently vanished and with an equal wisdom had elected to continue their business elsewhere until Brann and her party left the mountains. Even the mules were subdued, standing quiet, heads down, eyes shut; not trusting them all that much, Yaril stayed close to them, ready to freeze them in place if they tried bolting.

  Brann wet the cloth, hesitated, then gave it to Ahzurdan and let him rub his face clean and dab at the clotted vomit and the stains on his robe. When he tossed the cloth aside and reached for the clean robe sitting on a root beside him, she got to her feet and went to stand near Daniel.

  Ahzurdan used knots on the trunk and a lot of sweat to raise himself onto his feet. “That kind of weaving costs,” he said. He wiped his sleeve across his face, looked at the dusty damp smears on the black cloth that covered his forearm. “You pay for it yourself, or you,arrange to have others pay the bill. There’s at least one talisman that transfers credit from other lives to yours.” He began fumbling with the closures to his robe. “I

  never paid much notice to talismans, one can’t learn defenses specific to them, there aren’t any, so what’s the point? BinYAHtii,” he said. He slipped one arm free of the-riled robe, transferred the clean one to that arm, worked-s second arm free. “If you feed BinYAHtii, it won’t feed on you. Daniel Akamarino.” He let the robe fall round his feet, kicked it away, pulled the other over his head. “You talked with that angry child,” he said as his head emerged. He patted the cloth in place, shook out the lower part. “I picked up something about a Lot where children are taken. She talk to you about that?” He listened intently, his hands absently smoothing and smoothing at wrinkled black serge; when Daniel finished, he said, “I see. Two of the children stay around for training, but the child who gets the gold isn’t seen again. That’s Maksim, the clever old bastard. The thing about BinYAHtii, you see, it takes the characteristics of the creatures it feeds on. If he gave it grown men and rebels, he’d have fits trying to control it; children, though… hmm. Forty years…” His hollowed face fell into deep new wrinkles; his flesh was being eaten off his bones by the ravages of the demon lifestuff and the effort it took to maintain his defenses while he defended them. “I was hoping he’d have to rest a day or two. He won’t, he can draw on BinYAHtii. I’m about done, Brann. Even with your help, I’m about done.” He touched his fingers to his tongue, looked at them, wiped them on the bark beside him. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, stood very still a moment, then he shook himself, straightened up. “Would you spare me a sip of that wine, Daniel Akamarino?”

  “My pleasure.”

 
Brann clicked her tongue, annoyed at the satisfaction in the words. It wasn’t overt enough to justify a challenge, but it accomplished what it was meant to, Ahzurdan flushed crimson and his hands shook. But he ignored the pinprick, drank, drank again and handed the skin back without speaking to Daniel.

  They mounted again and started on. A lean gray wolf, Jaril ran before them, leading them along the route Yarilhawk chose for them, winding through ravines, over meadowflats, along hillsides, heading always for the forested slopes of slumbering Isspyrivo. They rode tense and edgy, neither Brann nor the two men spoke; the air between them felt sulfurous, powdery, a word, a single word might be the spark to trigger an explosion that would certainly destroy them. Tense and edgy and afraid. At any moment, without the least warning, Settsimaksimin could strike at them again.

  As the afternoon progressed, Ahzurdan sank into a passivity so profound that even Brann’s transferred life-stuff wouldn’t jolt him out of it; he rode on with them more because he hadn’t sufficient will in him to slide from the saddle than because he had any hope of living through that next inevitable attack. He made no preparations to meet it, he let his defenses melt away, he rode hunched forward as if he presented his chin for the finishing blow, as if he were silently pleading for it to happen so this terrible numbing tension would at last be broken.

  Daniel Akamarino drank Tungjii’s wine and cursed the meddling gods that fished him from a life he enjoyed and dumped him into this life-threatening mess. And kept him in it. He’d made one futile gesture toward distancing himself from something that was absolutely unequivocally none of his business. Nothing since. Why? he asked himself. I know better than to mess with local politics. There were at least a dozen chances to get away and I let them slide. Why? I could have got away, left this stinking land. A world’s a big place. I could have got lost in it, gods or no gods. Messing with my head, that’s it. Her? Probably not. The shifter kids? Maybe. Hmm. Don’t flog your old back too much over missed opportunities, Danny Blue, maybe they weren’t really there, not with young Jay sniffing after you. He watched the gray wolf loping tirelessly ahead of them, shook his head. Forget regrets, Old Blue, you better concentrate on staying alive. Which, by all I’ve seen, means keeping close to Brann. Interesting woman. He grinned. Wonder what sleeping with a vampire’s like? A real one, not some of the metaphorical blood suckers I’ve known. Sort of dangerous, huh? What if her ratchet slips? He laughed aloud. Brann’s head whipped round, she was scowling at him, furious with him for what? making the situation worse? Danny One wasn’t taking it in, he wasn’t taking much of anything in right now. Daniel had seen that kind of passivity before, that time he was out with the hunting tribe and one of them got himself cursed by a shaman from another tribe. The man just stopped everything until he stopped living. Not great for us. Kuh! next time old Maksim blows on us, he’ll blow us away. He looked at the wineskin, cursed under his breath and pushed the stopple home.

  Brann couldn’t relax; they were moving at a fast walk, no more, but the roan’s gait was jolting, the beast was rattling her bones and making her head ache, her stomach was already in knots with the waiting and worrying, if she couldn’t stop fighting the damn mule she’d better get down and walk. Gods, gods, gods, may you all drop into your own worst hells, I swear, if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll take the kids and I’ll go hunting you. If I live through this. She grinned suddenly, briefly. I think I think I think I’ve got an out, miserable meeching gods, the kids can’t eat on their own if they stick to ordinary folk but maybe just maybe they can graze on you. If they have to. Not that I’m going to lay down and die. That phase is over. She looked at Ahzurdan, wrinkled her nose. No indeed. A swift glance at Daniel AlcamarMo. I don’t like you much, Danny Blue, but you stir me up something fierce. Slya bless, I don’t know why. I wish I did, it’s not all that convenient right now. Look at me, I’m not paying attention to what’s going on round us, I’m thinking about you. Shuh! straighten up, Brann. How much farther? Where are you, Chained God? How much do you expect us to endure? If I had a hope of getting out of this, you could sit there till you rusted. Do something, will you? Tungjii, old fiddler, where are you? Stir your thumbs up, what did Danny Two call you, shemale? Hmm. I wonder what it’s like, seeing sex from both sides of the business. Slya’s rancid breath, there I go again. “Jay, how much longer to Isspyrivo?”

  The gray wolf turned, changed to lean teener boy. “Where does one mountain end and another begin anyway? We’re close if we’re not already there. Yaro says there’s nothing happening, the mountain’s quiet, there’s not a bird or beast visible twenty miles around. Even the wind is dying down.”

  “Ah. Think that means anything? The wind?”

  “Only one who could tell you that is him.” Jaril waved a hand at Ahzurdan who was staring at nothing they could see, his eyes glazed, his face empty.

  “I’ll see what I can do. Tell Yaril to get us upslope as directly as she can even if we have to slow down some more.” She watched the big wolf lope off, shook her head. He looked like being well past puberty now, whatever that meant. Confusion compounded, shuh! She caught up with Ahzurdan, rode stirrup to stirrup with him for several minutes, examining him, wondering how she was going to reach him. “Dan.-He gave no sign he heard her. “Ahzurdan.” Nothing. She leaned over, caught hold of his arm, passed a jolt of energy into him. “Ahzurdan!” He twitched, tried to pull away, but there was no more life in his face than there had been moments before. She let go of him, slowed until she was riding beside Daniel Akamarino. “Give me the wineskin for a moment.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t need to ask and I don’t need to explain. Don’t be difficult, Danny Blue.”

  “Wine won’t float him out of that funk.”

  “I’m not about to build a fire so he can sniff his way up. That wine of yours has Thngjii’s touch on it.”

  “Heesh hasn’t been much in sight since we left Lio’s boat.”

  “Luck comes in many colors, Daniel. Stop arguing and give me the skin.”

  “Not going to work, Brann, I’ve seen that kind of down before; he won’t come out of it.”

  “What are you fussing about, Dan? You won’t lose a cup of wine, the thing’s magic, it refills itself.”

  He shrugged the strap off his shoulder, swung the skin, let it go. “All you’ll get is a drunk marshmallow, Brann, he’s had the fight whipped out of him.”

  She caught the skin, set it on the mule’s shoulders. “If you’re right, we’re dead, Daniel Akamarino. You better hope you’re not.” She heeled the mule into a quicker walk, left him behind. When she was beside

  Ahzurdan, she forced her mule as close to his as both beasts would tolerate, leaned over and slapped Ahzurdan’s face hard.

  He looked at her, startled, the mark of her hand red across his pale cheek.

  She held out the wineskin. “Take this and drink until you can’t hold any more. If you start arguing with me, I’m going to knock you out of that saddle, pry your mouth open and pour it down you.”

  He chuckled (surprising both of them), the glaze melted from his eyes. “Why not.” He took the skin, lifted it in a parody of a toast. “Hai, Maksim, a short life ahead for you and an interesting one. Hai, Tungjii, li’l meddler. Hai, Godalau with your saucy tail. Hai, Amortis, may you get what you deserve. Hai, you fates, may we all get what we deserve.” He thumbed the stopple out, tilted his head back and sent the straw gold wine arcing into his throat.

  They rode on. The wine took hold in Ahzurdan, though it was perhaps only Tungjii’s fingerprints in it that made the difference. He was still worn, close to exhaustion, but his face flushed and his eyes grew moist and he looked absurdly contented with life; he even hummed snatches of Phrasi songs. In spite of the improvement in his spirits, though, he didn’t respin his defenses or prepare for the attack they all knew was coming. When he started to mutter incoherently, to sway and fumble at the reins, his nose running, his eyes turned bleary and unfocused, Brann sighe
d, took the wineskin away and tossed it back to Daniel Akamarino who did not say I told you so but managed by his attitude to write the words in the air in front of him.

  The way got steeper and more difficult; they had to clamber about rock slides, dismounting (even Ahzurdan) to lead the mules over the unstable scree; they had to circle impassible clots of thorny brush; they changed direction constantly to avoid steep-walled uncrossable ravines; with Yaril plotting their course they never had to backtrack and lose time that way, but she couldn’t change the kind of ground they had to cover. As the afternoon slid slowly and painfully away they labored on through the lengthening shadows riding tired and increasingly balky mules.

  Fire bloomed in the air in front of them, fire boiled out of the ground around them.

  Yaril dived and changed; a throbbing golden lens, she caught some of that fire and redirected it through the leafy canopy into the sky. Jaril howled and changed, whipped in swift circles about the riders, catching fire and redirecting it.

  The mules set their feet, dropped their heads and stood where they were, terrified and incapable of doing more than shallow breathing and shaking.

  Ahzurdan struggled to gather will again and spread the sphere about them but he could not, he was empty of will, empty of thought, empty of everything but pain.

  Brann looked frantically about, helpless, sick with frustration, nothing she could do here, nothing but hope the children could hold until Ahzurdan reached deep enough and found some last measure of strength within him.

  Daniel unzipped the pocket where the stunner was; he didn’t really think it would work on those creatures, if creatures they were, what he wanted was a firedamp, but those he knew of were on starships back home which didn’t do a helluva lot of good right now.