Blue Magic dost-2

by Jo Clayton

  The changers looked at each other, then Yaril said, “No. The god hasn’t done anything we can locate in us or you. We might be missing something that will show up later, but we don’t think so.” She hesitated, took hold of Brann’s wrist. “Being what we are, I don’t think we’d need machines to undo a compulsion the god tried to plant in us, and Brann’s linked very tightly with us. I think… I don’t know… I think we could undo any knots in her head. I’m afraid we couldn’t help you, Dan. The connection isn’t close enough.” She shifted her hand, laced up her fingers with Brann’s. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  Danny Blue uncrossed his ankles and got to his feet. “I wanted to ask you, Brann, you and them, give me some time before you push the god into doing something drastic. I, the two parts of me, we have to get an idea what the god wants and what we can do about it.”

  Jaril dropped beside Brann, took her free hand. *We’ll watch,* he said. *And we’ll do some exploring ourselves. *

  *Be careful that thing doesn’t learn more from you than you do from it. Remember what happened before. *

  *We are not about to forget that, Bramble. * The voice in her head sounded grim. Yaril said nothing but the same angry determination was seething in her, Brann felt it like thistle leaves rubbing against her skin.

  *So we give him some time. Three days?*

  *Yes. That’s good. And we’ll keep the time, Bramble, the god can make a day any length he wants. Tell Dan three downbelow days.*

  *Downbelow days. Good.* Brann relaxed and the changers slid away. “Three days, Dan,” she said aloud. “Three downbelow days.”

  The outside door slid open, Danny Blue strolled into the eggroom. He nudged a chair out of a knot in the rug, kicked up a hassock; he settled into the chair, put his feet up, crossed his ankles and laced his fingers behind his head.

  Brann looked up from the book she was scanning. “Ready to talk?”

  “Where are the changers?”

  “They got bored staying in one place, I suppose they’re exploring the ship.”

  He pulled his hands down, rested them on the arms of the chair. “You remember what I told you?”

  “I remember.” She laid the book aside. “So?”

  “Just keep it in mind. That’s all. Chained God. He wanted to leave this pocket.” He spoke quietly, calmly, more of Daniel showing than Ahzurdan, but behind that control he was raging; his eyes were sunk in stiff wrinkles, the blue was dulled to a muddy clay color, the lines from nose to chin were deeper than before, a muscle jumped erratically beside his mouth, “He’s had to give up on that.” A twitch of a smile. “His metal is too old and tired to take the stresses, the rest of him is too adapted to this space to survive the move.” He pulled his hand across his mouth. “Think I could have a cup of that tea?” Another twisted smile as she snorted her disgust, but poured him out some tea and brought it to him with a brisk reminder that she wasn’t his servant and didn’t plan to make a habit of fetching and carrying for him When she was seated again, he went on, “Using what Daniel knew and all the different things Ahzurdan had learned…” He sipped at the tea, rested the cup on the chair’s arm. “… I have worked out a means of opening other gates, one in each of the Finger Vales; he’ll have greater access to his priests and his people.” He cleared his throat, anger had lodged a lump in his gullet it was hard to talk around. He gulped down most of the tea, lay back and closed his eyes. “That’s for later. For now, I’ve managed to widen the gate on Isspyrivo; we can get out with less trouble than we had coming in, though we’ll still have to use that aperture, the others won’t be ready.”

  “We?”

  He opened his eyes a crack. “Chained God has a deal for you.”

  “Why should I listen to anything it says?”

  “Because he’s got something you want.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “He can cut the cord that ties you to the changers.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  “Caveat first. He can keep you here as long as he wants, Brann. You can annoy him if you try hard enough, you might even hurt him a little, but he can kill you and drain the changers if you force it. He knows everything Ahzurdan knew about you, everything Daniel knew, he knows if he-let you run loose, you’d find a way to make peace with Maksim. You’ve very like Maksim, did you know that? You think like him. There’s a good chance you could talk him into slapping Amortis down so Kori’s brother would be safe. Chained God doesn’t want that. What he wants is BinYAHtii.”

  “I won’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Why? Because it eats life? Like you?”

  “I can handle the guilts I have. I don’t want more.”

  “Chained God says he’ll reopen the changers’ energy receptors so they can dine on sunlight again. And he’ll do it before you leave here as a gesture of good faith.”

  “What about sending them home?”

  – He can’t. He doesn’t know their reality. Slya’s the only one who does, you’ll have to work that out with her.”

  “Why should Yaril and Jaril trust him enough to let him fiddle with their bodies? Even if I do agree to his conditions.”

  “YOU have more choice than Daniel Akamarino and Ahzurdan had. You can say no. THEY haven’t. If you say yes, he won’t bother asking their consent.”

  “Exactly what would the god expect me to do?”

  “Stop working against him. Go with me, help me. Persuade the changers to help. Coming here, we are an effective team. We could be one again.”

  “If I say no, I spend the rest of my life here?”

  “A part of it, how long depends.”

  Brann grimaced, looked down at her hands. They were clenched into fists. She straightened her fingers, brushed her palms against each other. “I…” She laced her fingers together, steepled her thumbs. “I made a choice for Yaril and Jaril once, I made it out of ignorance and… well, no matter. I won’t do it again. They’ll have to decide this time.”

  Two pairs of crystal eyes were fixed on her as she finished explaining the Chained God’s offer. “That’s it,” she said. “It’s your bodies, you decide what you want done with them.”

  Abruptly Yaril and Jaril were glimmerglobes; they drifted up until they were near the ceiling. They merged and the double globe hung there pulsing.

  Danny Blue prowled about the oval room, tapping the vision plates on and off as he passed them, looking at the yellow sky outside, the greasy wool that billowed around the ship, glancing between times at the globe. Brann sat on the recliner watching him. There was a stiffness to his movements that neither Ahzurdan nor Daniel Akamarino had had; she read that stiffness as anger he couldn’t admit to because of the compulsion that thing had planted in him. She’d seen this before, in shopkeepers and landsfolk who could not show their rage or even let themselves know about it when an important customer was arrogant or thoughtless, when an ignorant exigent overlord made impossible demands on them. They beat their wives and children instead. She grew warier than before, wondering just how Dan was going to displace that anger and who his target would be. She had a strong suspicion it might be her. Before the merger Ahzurdan had not been liking her very much and Ahzurdan was in there somewhere.

  The globe split apart, the parts dropped to the rug, Yaril and Jaril stood before Brann and Danny Blue looking angry, determined and a little frightened. Jaril stood with his hand on his sister’s shoulder; he said nothing, Yaril spoke for them. “We’ll take the chance, Bramble.”

  Brann held out her hands. “Come here.” When they had their hands in hers, she thought, *It bothers me, you know that. *

  Yaril: *Let the Valers take care of themselves. Isn’t it time you thought about us?*

  Brann: *More than time. You don’t need to say it.* Jaril: *Don’t we?*

  Brann: *No. You’ve decided, I acquiesce. What I’m saying is, help me. You know this thing, this god. Will it be worse than Maksim, feeding more and more lives to BinYAHtii? Or w
ill it let the talisman sit, there to help it defend itself if the other gods attack?*

  Jaril: *Remember what Ahzurdan said about Maksim, that he was possessive about his people? The god’s a lot like that, maybe more so. Been breeding and coddling these folks for millennia, won’t feed them to the talisman; outsiders though, they’d better watch out. * A

  quick grin, a squeeze of Brann’s hand. *Just think about Slya and your own folk.*

  Yaril: *What about this, Bramble? After this thing is over, we go find young Kori and tell her about BinYAHtii’s habits; she can pass the word on to her folk. What they do about it is up to them. What about you, Jay? What do you think?*

  Jaril: *One thing we don’t want to do is say word one about this to Danny Blue.*

  Yaril: *You’re being obvious, brother. Of course not, talking to him’s like talking direct to the god. You have anything helpful to add?*

  Jaril: *Nope. ‘S good enough for me.*

  Brann: *It’s the best we can do, I suppose.* She freed her hands. “I agree, Dan. Does it want me to swear?”

  The Chained God’s voice sounded from a point near where the double globe had floated. “Say what you will do, Brann Drinker of Souls. Specify your limitations and intentions. Swearing is not necessary.”

  Brann pulled in a lungful of air, exploded it out in a long sigh. “I will accompany Danny Blue and do what I can to help him, provided always that you do not harm Yaril and Jaril in any way and provided that they can truly feed themselves when you’re finished with them. Is that sufficient?”

  “Quite sufficient.” Before the sound of the words had died away, Yaril and Jaril were gone from the room.

  14. They Start On Their Way To Snatch The Talisman From The Sorceror.

  SCENE: Dawn still red in the east, three mules standing nervously beside the cached supplies, mist thick and thin like clotted cream billowing and surging behind the man and the woman as they emerge from the steep-walled ravine.

  Yaril and Jaril flashed from the mist and soared into the brightening sky, gold glass eagles spun from sunlight and daydream, laughter made visible joy given shape, swinging in wide circles celebrating the coming of the sun, the sun that was their nipple now, mother sun.

  Danny Blue followed Brann from the clotted yellow mist to the stunted trees where she and his progenitors had cached the greater part of their gear. The mules were there, waiting, heads down, looking subdued and lightly singed. Slya’s work, no doubt, adding her mite out of friendship or something. He moved up beside Brann and began shifting the concealing rocks aside. His mind felt as chaotic as the fog blowing about in the ravine, but his body was in good shape, he didn’t have to think about what he was doing, his hands would go on working as his mind wandered. His flesh was charged and vital, his physical being hummed along at a level that Ahzurdan and Daniel Akamarino reached only when they were operating at peak in their various proficiencies. He swung a saddle onto a mule, reached warily under its belly for the cinch, drew it through the rings and used his knee to punch the swelling out of the mule so he could pull the strap tight. It was not as if two voices spoke within his head, no, more that the Composite-He would be musing about something and suddenly find himself thinking in an entirely different way about whatever it was, perhaps heading for a different outcome. And then his mind would shift again and he’d be where he was before. There was never any sense of coercion in this shifting. It was… well… like the interaction of two roughly parallel currents in a single river. As long as he rode the flow of those currents and didn’t try to fight them, he could think competently enough about whatever engaged his attention. And as time passed the Composite-He took more and more control of the Composite Mind. He retained the full memories of both his progenitors, along with their talents and their training (his work for the god-inthe-starship had been ample evidence of that) but slowly and surely the being who did the remembering was becoming someone else. Blue Dan. Danny Blue. Azure Dan, the Magic Man. He tied the depleted grain sack behind the saddle and the blanket roll on top of that and went for the saddlebags.

  The changers chased each other in endless spirals, singing their exuberance in their eagle voices; their connection to Brann and the ground seemed more and more tenuous as the sun appeared and finally cleared the horizon.

  Danny Blue rode behind Brann, the leadrope of the third mule tied to a saddlering. He looked up at the changers and wondered how long they’d stay in sight and whether they’d keep their ties to Brann now that they no longer needed her to stay alive. He thought about asking her what she was thinking, but he didn’t. Something in him was enjoying her tension and her quick sliding glances at the changers, something in him stood back and watched, uninvolved, unmoved; he thought that he disliked both of his progenitors, he thought they felt flat, one-dimensional. He was slaved to the god and he hated that, but he was beginning to be glad that Danny Blue was alive and aware and riding this mule along this mountainside, listening to the crackclack of the mule hooves, the morning wind hushing through the pines, the eagles screaming overhead, feeling himself sweat and chafe and jolt a bit because he still wasn’t much good at riding mules. He began to whistle a rambling undemanding tune, thought of getting out Daniel’s recorder but let the impulse slide away with the glide of the song.

  One of the eagles came spiraling down, changed to a slight fair young man the moment he touched ground. Brann’s back lost its rigidity as her mule halted and stood with ears twitching nervously. “We thought we’d better ask,” Jaril said. “The god printed a map for you, but maybe you’d like us to scout out the best ground ahead till we get to Forkker Vale?”

  “We could move faster that way.” Brann threaded her fingers through her hair. “Can Yaro get high enough to see Haven? That thing said there wasn’t a ship due for a week at least, I don’t know why it’d lie, the faster we can get to Maksim, the less chance he’ll have to make trouble for us, the sooner it could have its talisman, but I’d feel easier with some corroboration.”

  No longer golden glass but a large brown and white raptor, the eagle overhead climbed higher, vanishing and reappearing as she passed through drifts of cloud fleece.

  Jail tilted his head back and followed her with his eyes. “The sea is empty all round far as Yaro can see. Not even a smuggler out. Haven is pretty much still asleep. There are some fishboats out working nets, she sees a few women near the oven stoking it up so they can bake the day’s bread, the hands are busy with cows and whatever on the near-in farms. Nobody’s hustling more than usual. That’s about it.”

  “Ah well, it was a chance.” Brann rubbed at her chin. “You want to run or ride?”

  “Ride.” He walked to the third mule, waited until Dan untied the lead rope, swung into the saddle and moved to, ride beside Brann. “Yaro says Slya’s sitting on top of Isspyrivo turning the glacier into steam; she’s watching us.

  Brann chuckled. “She’ll freeze her red behind if she does that for long.”

  “Or flood out Haven. The creek from the crack runs down to the sea right there.”

  She yawned. “Somehow I find it hard to care right now.” She thrust her hand into the bag by her knee, pulled out a paper cylinder, unrolled it and held it open along her thigh. “Hmm.” She rode closer to Jaril, tapped the nail of her forefinger against a section. “Looks like we’ll have to take a long jog about this, unless it’s not so deep as it looks. What’s this?”

  “It’s a young canyon all right. I don’t know what that blurry bit is.” He was silent a minute, then he nodded. “Yaro’s gone to check it out. Be about twenty minutes’ flying time.”

  Brann examined the map a few moments longer, then let it snap back into its cylinder and slid it in the bag.

  Danny Blue watched Brann and the changer youth and felt a twinge of jealousy. The affection he saw between them had survived and more than survived the cutting of the chains that held them in servitude to each other; he had half-expected the changers to vanish like a fire blown out once they wer
e free of her; when he saw their aerobatic extravagances he thought they were gone. He was wrong. A loving woman, a passionate one. The strength of the ties she forged with those alien children was evidence of that, he had more evidence of what she was in his memories. He remembered the feel of her back, the way she reacted to Daniel’s hands, his mouth twitched into a crooked smile as he remembered with equal clarity how quickly and completely Daniel shut off the flow of that passion.

  He watched Brann’s back (the feel of it strong in his hands) and observed his own reactions. Ahzurdan had more hangups than a suitlocker, Daniel had only a moderate interest, enjoying sex, when it was available, not missing it all that much when it wasn’t. From the way Danny Blue’s body was sitting up and taking notice, he was going to have to change his habits. He sucked in a long breath, exploded it out and tried to think of something else before the saddle got more uncomfortable than it was already.

  Jaril reached over, touched Brann’s arm. “Yaro’s got there. She says the blur you saw is a bridge over that ravine, a smuggler’s special, she says from on top and even up close it looks like a couple down trees with some vines and brush growing out of them, but she went down and walked on it and it’s solid. The mules won’t have any problem crossing it even if it’s dark by the time we get there and it probably will be.”

  “Anything between here and there that might give us problems?”

  “She says she doesn’t think so. Trying to read ground from the air can be tricky, you’ve got to remember that, especially as high as Yaro was flying, but she says the smuggler’s trace is fairly obvious and if we keep to that we shouldn’t have more problems than we can handle. She’s spotted a spring she thinks we can reach before it gets too dark if we start moving some faster, if we keep ambling along like this, we’ll have a dry camp because there’s no water between here and there.”