Fellow Travelers

by Sharon Lee

  "Throw it in and stand away!"

  The bundle hit the dirt floor, rolled into a puddle of sunlight and came up spitting, fangs showing, tail fat with fury, claws at ready.

  This nemrill was none such as they had at Temple, pleased with the world and themselves. The ferocity of this creature startled the Healer; its fear pierced her.

  Lady Drudae laughed, pointed the tube and pressed the thumb-stud.

  There was a zag of lightning; a stink of ozone. The nemrill was encased in a nimbus of flame, shrieking in mortal agony. Moonhawk reached within; saw Lute start forward while the Lady laughed and--pop!

  The nemrill was gone.

  The stink of scorched fur and frying flesh reached Moonhawk and she gagged, sagging shamefully in her captor's grip. Lute turned to her; was halted by a shake of the tube.

  "Now, magician, listen closely. Open the bag--or she fries. You see?"

  He lay a hand on the bag; withdrew it. "It is a long process, Noble Lady; and fraught with peril. I have not eaten in some time--a simple oversight, no doubt! My strength is not sufficient to the task. If I err, we may all fry!"

  "I marvel you carry so dangerous a thing with you."

  "It is wise to keep the danger you know best to hand, Lady."

  Hesitation that Moonhawk tasted as her own, even as her powers faded. Food... She separated her need, hurled it into the madwoman with the last of her strength.

  "Very well. Arto--bring food for the magician. Kat--tie her."

  Lute carried the bad bread and doubtful cheese to her, ignoring the tube though his nerves shrieked. He halved the meager portion and raised a cheese-bit to her lips: "Eat."

  "Look, Kat!" Lady Drudae shrilled. "The magician is kind! He shares his meal with a stranger! Or is she not a stranger? A night in the pit together, with no other entertainment--and she would not have Arto!"

  Moonhawk felt the flare of his fury, held his eyes with hers. "My thanks to you, brother." Shoulders aching with the strain of the rope, she took the cheese and ate.

  He fed her the bread and gave her a drink of pure, icy water. Then he ate, taking much longer than he might. She had the sense that he was gauging something, counting...

  The Lady shifted irritably, fingers tightening on the tube. Lute offered more water; had another sip for himself and turned.

  She read no hope in him.

  "Now, if the Lady and her bodyguardian will stand well away..."

  "Stand away! You can't go--" Arto's bellow spun Kat and the Lady around. Lute faded two light steps toward the bag, hope scalding.

  Through the arch a ragamuffin crowd jostled, pushing bulky Arto before it like jetsam in a floodtide.

  "Noble Lady! See what we bring! Bounty for all!"

  "Enough!" The tube pointed unwavering at the center of the crowd. Voices halted and the tangle rearranged itself, becoming four of the village surrounding two who were manifestly not.

  The man struggled against the rope that pinned his arms to his sides. The woman stood wary and alert in her bonds, dark eyes flashing.

  "He has coins, Noble Lady!" cried one from the village. "And fine clothes! We followed and captured! We demand bounty!"

  "You demand?" The tube had one target now and the blue eyes held only madness. The one who had spoken sparked fear and flung himself belly down on the dirt.

  "Forgive me, Noble Lady. I spoke hastily."

  "Count your wretched life as bounty." The tube averted its stare with reluctance. "And the rest of you! I'll decide your bounty--if any! Go! Now."

  They abased themselves and went, Arto following. Kat came and stood behind the captives, grinning.

  "Coins?" wondered Lady Drudae, eyeing them. "Fine clothing? And not so bad looking a woman, eh, Kat? We'll give her to Arto, to atone for the one who wouldn't have him."

  The man froze, horror pouring out of him. The woman's head went up.

  "I am well content with the man I have. We are travelers and sacred. In Her Name you must release us."

  Lady Drudae laughed. "Oh, well said! In Her name, release us. Oh, yes! Arto!"

  MREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  A noise loud enough to stun the mind burst into the room: all save one were startled.

  Now there was a rush of wind filling Moonhawk's head as the room telescoped away, becoming tiny, tinier... This was the whole of the Power, as she'd tasted it but twice before: The Mother Herself was looking through Moonhawk's eyes. Before the room was gone entirely from her human sight, she looked for Lute and saw him at the table, one hand on the magic bag, and one hand perhaps in it...

  * * *

  THE GODDESS DID pour Herself into the earthly form of Her daughter Moonhawk. Rising up, She snapped the puny bonds of hemp.

  With a glance, She caused the ropes to fall from the two captives and cried out in a Voice like the Wind That Scattered The Stars:

  "Away! Take thy man and go!"

  The woman caught the man's hand. For a moment he resisted, thinking he might stay and fight. Then sense prevailed and he turned with his woman and they ran like wise rabbits away from that screeching place.

  The murderer Kat started after, hands grabbing. Before his eyes the Mother flung images of past evil and he fell to the ground upon his knees, tears running his cheeks. Lute aided the Mother, striking with a mallet that unguarded head.

  Lightning came at Her as the tyrant woman added screams to the din and the Mother laughed, for Lightning is Her Consort and will not harm Her. She raised a hand to the stream and deflected it upward, to and through the rotting roof.

  Then the Goddess reached out once more, and put before Lady Drudae's eyes another image, so that she dropped the death-tube.

  A hand fell upon Her Person. A voice dinned in Her ears. The Goddess looked about, well pleased with Her work, and returned the body to Her daughter.

  * * *

  "MOONHAWK! Moonhawk!"

  She blinked at Lute, stared at the fallen Kat, at the Lady, back to the far wall, fist jammed into her mouth, eyes fixed with rigid horror on something she alone saw.

  "Moonhawk!" A shake that snapped her head on her neck.

  "What?"

  "The roof's afire! Goddess blast you--run!"

  Run. She fumbled at the body's controls and began a shambling trot toward the door, the path she must take through the village to the northern edge unfolding before the Inner Eyes. Lute was right. She must run--

  The door was abruptly blocked. Arto. Moonhawk breathed a prayer to the Mother and did not slow.

  The mountain fell back and let her by. He was still standing with his hands empty at his sides when Lute passed a moment later, hands and bag ablaze with strange incandescent light.

  Running was easier now. More natural. She added speed, weaving between the thatchless hovels, following necessity, oblivious to the shadows, vaguely curious of the light that had kept pace and then was gone...

  She broke out of the village into a clearing ringed with rock--an ancient corral, perhaps--the carved shapes of boundary markers towered, just beyond.

  She raced across the opening, eyes on the markers, necessity urging her on. Her foot struck a hidden rock and she hurtled forward, catching herself on her hands, rolling up--and freezing.

  Encircling her, not mere rock, but a crowd of rag-tag creatures. She saw a flash of dark blue--her cloak. And the woman who wore it held a stone.

  All of them held stones.

  She reached within, but her powers were gone to ash. She reached without and touched nothing but hatred. Necessity burned in her. Fear turned her legs to jelly.

  The one who wore her cloak drew back her arm, grinning. Moonhawk braced herself.

  "Make way!" cried a voice and the human wall broke as a thin man in a torn shirt burst through, bag in hand. He slammed to a halt and spun in a wide circle, rounds flashing from his hands.

  "Gold! Gold for all!"

  "Gold!" The crowd fell as one, scrabbling in the knotted grass.

  Lute grabbed her arm and
pulled her with him, nearly jerking her arm from its socket.

  The villagers were still grubbing for the coins when the two of them passed the boundary stones.

  * * *

  "OF ALL THE STUPID--why run this way? The eastern boundary was closer--and easier going beyond. Or am I to believe you came in this way?"

  "No," said Moonhawk absently. "I came in by the eastern way. Here."

  "Here what?" he demanded, but she was going away from him like a sleep-walker. Cursing under his breath, he followed.

  In a moment he heard the voices of the recent prisoners.

  "North for a bit, then," the winded traveler was saying. "We'll turn south beyond the hills. There's time for a short detour, isn't there, Maria?'

  The woman's doubt was palpable. She hunched in her cloak, dark eyes tired now, not flashing.

  Moonhawk stepped around the rock that sheltered them, the magician trailing.

  "Go due north," she said, voice deep with Foretelling. "At the end of seven day's walking you will come to a town by a wide river. The name of the town is Caleitha. When your daughter is born, take her to Circle there. They will Know her."

  She sagged suddenly and felt Lute's hand beneath her elbow as she smiled. "The Goddess Herself intervened for you, sister. Be joyful."

  * * *

  LATER THAT EVENING, Moonhawk fed twigs to a fire while Lute grumbled over the state of his property.

  "Is your bag really worth so much?"

  "So much?" He stared at her in disbelief. "My dear Master, may he rest in the arms of the Goddess forever, taught that a magician's receptacle is his life." He stood, bag in hand. "It's his prop." A sharp shake and legs appeared. Lute set it firmly on the ground.

  "His means of living." Bright scarves dazzled in the firelight.

  "His safe." Coins glittered and clinked.

  "His watchman." A moment of that hideous noise that had started the escape!

  "His lightning." A quick flash of pyrotechnic light danced about his hands.

  "And his restaurant." A tin arced across the fire and she caught it, laughing.

  "Hardly fresh milk!"

  "Fresher than we had elsewise," he retorted, and came to sit near her, letting the bag stand. "Where do you go now?"

  "Where the Goddess sends me.'

  He nodded and moved his long hands. A wooden top spun in one palm. He played with it, dancing it over his fingers, vanishing it from the right hand to appear in the left. Moonhawk laughed in wonder.

  "How are you doing that?"

  He glanced up with a grin. "Magic." The grin grew speculative. "Would you like to learn?"

  "May I?"

  "You seem to have a certain aptitude. And I need an apprentice. Been putting it off far too long. Since we both go where the wind blows us, there's no need for us not to go together, is there?"

  "No," said Moonhawk, "there isn't."

  "Good," he said and vanished the top. Standing, he went to the bag. "We should, though, head more or less toward Huntress City."

  "Why?"

  He turned and the firelight glinted off the dull blue barrel.

  "I took this from the Noble Lady's hall. It seems to me such a thing belongs with others of its kind, under the careful eyes of those who know their dangers, rather than loose in the poor, half-wild world."

  "Will I have learned magic by the time we reach Huntress City?" Moonhawk wondered and Lute laughed as the weapon disappeared into the depths of his bag.

  "It depends on how apt a pupil you are."

  * * *

  THUS DID MOONHAWK and Lute meet and decide to travel together across the world, this with the blessing of the Goddess, our Mother.

  The first tale ends here.

  A SPELL FOR THE LOST

  THE WIND WAS out of the southwest, carrying the acrid odor of baking rock. The sun was out of the same quarter, and backlit the magician in the weed-choked square, casting spears of light into the eyes of his audience.

  Moonhawk, the magician's traveling companion for this month or so, sat on the cistern wall, face turned aside the sun-spears, and watched each gesture with care.

  It was to be a rope trick now. Lute showed the crowd the length of common brown cord, called a lad from the audience to test its strength and, finally, tie it snugly into a loop and hold it high above his head.

  Lute held up the circle of steel and waved it under the rope-holder's nose. The lad called out that it was only a saddle-ring.

  Moonhawk leaned a little forward where she perched on the wall, opening herself to nuance, as she had been taught in Circle. The ring-and-rope trick always baffled her, though she had seen it fifty times in the past month. Perhaps this time--

  "And now," Lute intoned, voice thinned only slightly by the wind, "by the grace of the elements of hemp and iron, by the impermanence of the things we aim to touch and hold, by the wind and by the sun--Ho!" He made a forceful gesture of throwing--and reached forward in nearly the same instant to steady the village lad who had staggered, letting the rope loop sag.

  The lad got his feet under him and shouted aloud, holding the rope up, so the crowd could see the loop, unbroken, with the saddle ring threaded neatly as a pendant, spinning lightly in the wind.

  There were then as always several from the crowd who must need test rope, knot and ring, all under the magician's tolerant eye.

  Moonhawk settled back on her wall, a most un-Witch-like curse on her tongue. Befatched again, Goddess take the man! Well, she would simply ask him the way of it. But it galled her to need to do so.

  The crowd had demonstrated to its own satisfaction that rope and ring were inextricable. Lute had the mating back and untied the knot, with a well-worn patter praising the skill of the knot-tier and the efficacy of the knot. He slid the ring free, hung the rope over one shoulder, frowned at the ring and with a gesture vanished it. The audience roared, men stamping their feet and women clapping their palms together, and Lute announced the show was over.

  "But if you will, friends, a bit of something for the work expended--a coin, an egg, a loaf, a sup of ale--for, as great as magic is, not even the greatest magician can conjure himself a meal..."

  It was a giving crowd. By the time its disparate portions had wended home, five eggs, a new loaf, and a quarter-sausage had come to rest on Lute's tattered yellow prop cloth.

  "And if a great magician cannot conjure himself a meal, does it follow that he may not conjure a meal for another?" Moonhawk asked, stepping forward and bending to retrieve the three nesting wooden cups.

  Lute looked up, mischief glinting in his dark eyes, gaunt face stern.

  "The ways of the Craft Magic are not for the student to ridicule," he said austerely. "You will learn these mysteries in the proper order and with the proper respect. Until then, you will keep a civil tongue in your head, Madam."

  He sounded so like old Laurel, the Witch who had the training of the child Moonhawk, that the adult--woman and Witch in her own right--laughed aloud. Lute grinned, and waved a graceful hand at the accumulated bounty.

  "Besides, we've conjured enough for a fine dinner and a bit left aside to break our fast. And--" A flourish, a snatch and he held out a quarter-moon, brittle with age. "A coin to trade for ale at the inn. I'm told this village boasts an inn."

  Moonhawk glanced about her, frowning as much against the ill-kept square as against the sun. "It does?"

  "There you go again!" Lute cried, slipping the cups from her hand and placing them carefully in his bag. "I can't recall the last time I spoke to so disrespectful a woman."

  "No doubt my early training is to blame," Moonhawk returned. "And the fact that one is used to city comfort!"

  "No doubt," Lute agreed, with mortifying sincerity. He finished the various fastenings and straightened, gripping the bag's handle and giving it a sharp shake. The legs retracted with a snap--mechanical magic, this, not sleight-of-hand. He gestured, showing her the dusty square and rag-tag huts.

  "Look about you well. For the w
orld is more nearly like this than it is like Dyan City. The lot of common folk is hard work and short lives, relieved--and the Goddess smiles--by love, and by children, and by an occasional diversion such as myself."

  He dropped his hand, and in the fading light looked abruptly tired. "For the most part, the Goddess blesses those more, who live nearest the Temples."

  Moonhawk kept still. She knew the correct response--knew that every teaching she had ever received told her she put her immortal self at danger, traveling with such a one.

  Yet, his voice reverberated with Truth, and Witch-sense showed her his sincerity. She sighed. The man sowed disquiet like gladola seeds. And yet--

  "Master Magician!" The woman's voice was breathless with hurry; she herself somewhat better dressed than most of the crowd had been, though her hair was coming unbraided and dust lay thick upon her. She rushed up to Lute and caught his hand in both of hers; Moonhawk marked how well he controlled the instinct to snatch the precious member away.

  "Lady," he said, respectfully, bowing his head, and taking the opportunity to slip his hand free. "How may I serve you?"

  "My daughter," she began, and lay her hand against her breast. "Oh, thank the Mother you are here! My daughter said that you would not aid me, but I pray--Indeed, how could you not? It is the responsibility of power to aid the powerless!"

  "So I have always been taught," Lute said carefully, while Moonhawk opened herself to the other woman's self and scanned each nuance of emotion.

  Distress, she found, but no disorder such as madness might generate. She glanced at Lute and saw he had reached the same conclusion.

  "Before aid can be bestowed, we must be aware of the nature of the problem," he told the woman gently.

  "Yes, certainly!" she cried, and gave a breathless little laugh, though Moonhawk detected no joy in the sound.

  "It is my daughter," she said again. "Three days together she has been gone. Her sister would have it that she is only about some madcap scheme and will return when it occurs to her, but she is not like that! Wild she may be, and heedless of manner, but her heart is good. To worry me so--and she must know that I would worry! No, I cannot believe her so cruel. She must have fallen aside of danger--she may even now be lying in some rock-catch, broken-legged and hoarse from calling..." Her voice faltered and Lute stepped expertly into the small silence.