by Jo Clayton
The Intii Vann was looser than the others. He was used by the norits to ferry them up and down the coast; though a noris could pop across space by the potency of his WORDS and gathered power, the norits were limited to more ordinary means of travel. They had a choice between taking a boat or riding the Highroad where they’d have to face snow-blocked passes and attacks by outcasts. The boats were faster and more comfortable and a lot safer. To ensure their safety, the norits he ferried made the Intii handle his boat by himself, helping him (and themselves) by controlling the wind and water as much as they could.
The Intii had a tenuous association with Coperic going back a number of years, doing a little smuggling for him, carrying the men and women of his web up and down the coast and occasionally across Sutireh Sea. When the trouble began at the Moongather and the Intii found himself chosen as ferryman by the norits, Coperic and he wasted little time working out their own methods for passing messages south and handling other small items. At Sankoy, Vann gave these messages to men or women he knew from times past, who relayed them on to the Biserica, a slow route but the only sure one. The norits suspected nothing of this; they didn’t understand people at all well, they’d had too much power too long, they were too insulated from the accommodations ordinary folk had to make to understand how they managed to slid around a lot of the pressures in their lives. In their eyes, a powerless man could never be a danger to them.
Vann took up the roll. “If the army moves south, what do you do?”
Coperic sat back, his face sinking into shadow. “I move with them, me and my companions. We hit them how and where we can, we stay alive long as we can.”
Vann scratched at his beard. “I would come with you, my old friend, but I’ve got a wife and sons and a stinking Kappra Shaman with a knife at their throats.”
“You better figure a way to change that. If the battle goes bad for Floarin, well, you’re dead, your folk are dead.”
“I know.” Vann reached over, pinched out the wick. In the thick rich-smelling darkness, he said. “Take care going back. Norits see in the dark.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Clayton (1939–1998) was the author of thirty-five published novels and numerous short stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres. She was best known for the Diadem Saga, in which an alien artifact becomes part of a person’s mind. She also wrote the Skeen Trilogy, the Duel of Sorcery series, and many more. Jo Clayton’s writing is marked by complex, beautifully realized societies set in exotic worlds and stories inhabited by compelling heroines. Her illness and death from multiple myeloma galvanized her local Oregon fan community and science fiction writers and readers nationwide to found the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1983 by Jo Clayton
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3849-2
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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