Sisters in Fantasy
Edited by Susan Shwartz and Marin Greenberg
Hallah’s Choice
Jo Clayton
From the Drytowns to Leigh Brackett Hamilton’s Mars, mercenaries and assassins stride or skulk through exotic desert towns. They are violent and sinister, and, no doubt, each one of them has a history that we would wonder at—when we’re not taking cover.
Hallah, Jo Clayton’s protagonist, has a history more painful than most. Is she bent on revenge? Yes, but this is one assassin you can imagine singing a lullaby.
1
Into the web
Languorous late afternoon.
Heatwaves and a haze of yellow dust.
The Shiza’heyh of Yaanosin ride to the Betrothal Feast and Fealty Jubilee with their guards and dependents, their wives and daughters and their eldest sons, their equerries and orderlies and grooms, their harriers and farriers, their agents and their clerks, their stooges and their sycophants, their bath girls and bed-warmers, their tailors, their valets, their wardrobemasters, their cooks and their cupbearers, their food tasters and wine tasters, their scullions and slaveys.
The Shiza’heyh Kihyayti’an rides to the Betrothal Feast and Fealty Jubilee with all this and his unmatched pair of matchless assassins.
Zisgade Neisser the Shadowsnake, unfeeling as the polished ivory blades he wears up each sleeve—he is a thin gray man, yellow with dust, riding at his master’s side.
Hallah Myur, with no epithet allowed—such things are a foolishness she is content to live without—a thin gray woman riding near the tail of the procession, a little woman yellow with the rolling dust, dark eyes narrowed to cracks. Sweat runnels cut through the dust plastered on her brow, baring streaks of lined light brown skin. Wisps of hair straggle from under her loosely wound headbands. She rides easily, slumped in the saddle of a dust-yellowed gelding, a long-legged, rough-gaited, slab-sided beast with enough energy and humor left to white his eyes at clots in the dust and shy at skittering shadows.
She is tired, hot, and bored, with no end of boredom in sight. For the next week or so she’ll be nothing more than an attendant, a body to dress up the Shiza’heyh’s entourage. Katiang the Boar-rider and the other cursemen deal hardly with folk who break the Curse Truce, with the hand and the one-behind who hires the hand. Even Shiza’heyh Kihyayti’an in his maddest moods would not chance bringing the Curse on his head.
She expects to sleep a lot. She detests crowds, is bored by tumblers, street mimes, magicians, and their like. She seldom gambles, doesn’t trust luck, only skill. Clothes are to cover her body, food is for fueling it. She prefers the tablewipe she buys for herself in hedge taverns to the delicate vintages the Shiza’heyh provides for his favored hirelings. Beyond the highs of her work—which are fewer with every year that passes—her only real pleasure is a hard-fought game of stonechess. Since Atwarima is a busy riverport and the Jubilee/Betrothal should bring a flood of visitors from many realms, she hopes to locate an adequate opponent.
2
The first shock
In the Bath of the Toyaytay GuestHouse Hallah Myur stripped and stretched, sucking in the steamy air. She shook her head, her hair tumbling loose, fine long hair kinking into frizzy curls. Her body was limber as a child’s but terribly scarred, nodules of keloid with streaks of white and pink running through the soft brown skin where her breasts had been; her back was laced with whip marks.
She sat on damp sacking bound over the bench beside the tub and combed the tangles and dust from her hair, singing softly to herself, clicking her tongue at how gray she was getting. When she was finished, she set the comb aside, twisted her hair into a knot atop her head, and slid with a soft purr of pleasure into the water.
Clean and relaxed, she pulled on her second-best tunic and trousers, tied on the gray silk formveil that masked her face eye to chin, bound her hair with gray silk bands, covering it completely. She gathered her dusty riding gear, paid the attendant, left the Bath and strolled toward the rooms assigned to the Shiza’heyh Kihyayti’an’s entourage, humming a song she’d picked up somewhere, enjoying the warmth of her body, the easy shift of her muscles.
Though sunset was still half an hour off, in that maze of corridors and galleries within the massive walls of the GuestHouse, alabaster lamps were already lit, and their painted oils spread perfume on the drafts that coiled about her shoulders. She turned a corner.
A man walked toward her; his face and shoulders leapt at her as he passed a lamp.
She stopped walking. Stopped breathing.
His eyes passed over her, dismissed her. Under the Curse Truce, assassin’s fangs were pulled. She was nothing to interest him. Nothing.
His footsteps faded.
Shudder after shudder passed along her body; she hunched over, beat her fists against her thighs, sucked in air in sharp, broken gasps. Shell twenty years thick shattered in that instant, twenty years of discipline gone.
But twenty years do have weight and reach.
After a moment she straightened her back, quieted her breathing. Almost running, drowning in memory, she hurried for the small private cubicle assigned to her.
Rosalie Zivan, fourteen years of mischief, spoiled by a doting father, her mother dead three years ago birthing Garro Zivan’s last son, the spring moon like laughter in her blood, slipped into the Home-wood of Roka Membruda to gather herbs for her Auntee Rosamunda’s simples and specifics: Mutes’ tongue, love-at-ease, moonspurge, sowthistle, hop-over, bruisewort, poorfolks pepper, bee thumb, sucklings tit, wet-a-bed, shut-your-ear, flickwhittle, whistling fleabane, smartberry, creeping ninny, wart-weed, stinking willy.
Delighted by the edge of danger in her solitary windings through the wood, she prowled along the deer paths and in the scattered glades, grubbing in the thick black earth under the trees and along the noisy creek, knife flickering through the greens, the tubers, the brambles, the grasses growing on the banks and in the water, filling the gather sack she carried slung over her shoulder.
She ended her search when she reached the rowan pool in the heart of the wood, where the water ran deep and silent through ancient twisted trees, a place fragrant with the eddying sweetness of night-blooming jasmine and the acrid bite of riveroak, a place where it seemed to her the dreefolk must dance on their dreadnights.
She eased the sack onto rowan roots, careful to keep it from the damp dark earth, stripped off her blouse, her skirt, and her camisole, hung them on a rowan tree, then slipped into the water. The moon was a hair past full and directly overhead, turning the water to tarnished silver. She sculled dreamily about, watching the clouds swim by.
A young man came from the trees, blond hair blowing in an aureole about a beautiful lean face. She knew him. She’d seen him in the village, Membruda’s Youngest Son. They said his name was Traccoar. “Rowan flower,” he said to her, his voice like a wind in the trees. “Come bless me.”
When she reached her room, she paced back and forth, back and forth, wall to door, around the end of the bed and back, shivering with reaction. After she’d calmed enough so she could stay still awhile, she stripped off her clothes, braided her hair, tied the ends, and slipped into bed.
Sleep came hard, and when she did at last drop off, the dreams came back, the ones she thought she’d left with her name.
Rosalie Zivan lay with hands clenched into fists as Traccoar’s body moved on hers, as he whispered that she was the loveliest, the most magical being he’d ever known. Most women, he told her between grunts and other noises, are greedy whores, selling themselves for money and power. You’re different, he told her, you’re like the earth, rich and powerful, warm and giving.
She was
only fourteen, and virgin, but she knew lies when she heard them. She lay like a stone, gathering herself to run when he rolled off her, before he remembered that he had to kill her so she couldn’t put a Hammar Curse on him—that was what they believed, those beasts in the Rokas.
The Hammar of clan Gyoker-Zivan had no curses, only wise women and fast-fingered men.
He groaned, rolled over, and lay panting beside her.
She scrambled up, ran around a rowan tree when he leapt to his feet and lunged for her. “Dirty pig,” she shouted at him. “May you never get it up again.” She ran into the shadows and left him stumbling clumsily after her, cursing her.
Hallah Myur stirred in her sleep, ground her teeth, and whined like an angry cat; her hands moved up her body to touch the places where her breasts had been. Tears gathered in her sleeping eyes and leaked from beneath her lids.
3
The second shock
The Oath Hall was a vast domed cavity with eight sides and hanging galleries above a forest of arches. The walls shimmered with color, patterned tiles in red, blue, green. The dome itself was white and gold; it rested on scrolled, open arches, the morning sunlight streaming through them, gilded with dancing dust motes. Polished gold stairs rose to a two-level dais at the western wall; a plain, heavy chair sat on the highest level, made from what rumor said was dragon bones—the Alayjiyah’s Throne. In front of the dais was a square twenty feet wide of ivory tiles in a golden matrix. On the north side of that square were three backless ivory chairs with cushions of cloth of gold; on the south side of the square were three more—set there for the Six Shiza’heyh of Yaanosin.
Formveil hiding her impatience, Hallah Myur stood behind the Shiza’heyh Kihyayti’an, Zisgade Neisser the Shadowsnake at her left—which meant she was the favored one today. She wondered vaguely what Zisgade had done to annoy Kihyayti’an this time. Quick work, but he was always doing it, eating his feet. She didn’t care about favor, it was just a job and a tedious one at that—standing around and posing, reminding Kihyayti’an’s hopeful heirs of the sting in the tail of ambition. Her indifference jabbed at Zisgade; he’d do anything he could to make trouble for her. She wasn’t worried; if she couldn’t outthink that twynt, she deserved to go down. Besides, the Guild had uncomfortable ways of dealing with treachery. Except… She shifted uneasily. Groensacker gets wasps in his cod when he thinks about me. Could be he’s hoping I’ll get so antsy with this stint, I’ll walk out on it. Then he could fine me some serious gelt and mark me unreliable. Viper.
She watched Zisgade a moment. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, walking the muscles in his arms and torso, his tunic shivering with their twitch. She suppressed a yawn, fingered the stonebox in her pouch. Get on with it, blump! This is boring. Kihyayti’an had promised his assassins a free day once the rites were done, and she wanted a game, wanted it badly.
She glanced idly up at the northern gallery, which was filling with the guests come for the Betrothal. She scowled as she saw Traccoar standing on the edge of a cluster of men; their voices came down to her in a muted grumble, the words lost in the echoes.
!Maytre! he’s gone to seed for sure. Look at the goat-son wag his tail and grin like a fool.
A newcomer pushed through them and stopped beside Traccoar, a tall, faded blonde whose hair had migrated from his head to a twin-tailed beard. Big brother, looks like. So Old Goatface is finally dead. Yes, of course. He would be. It’s been more than twenty years, and he was older than the hills then. This one was… She dredged through memory. Ah yes, Ardamoar the Eldest.
Naked except for a leather clout and a pectoral of seh’ki claws threaded on strands of kihgut, their oiled bodies glistening in the sunlight streaming through the dome-arches, the Ghost Drummers came clattering in, hauling their tall drums on their backs.
They set the drums by the golden stairs, climbed on the stone stools, and began beating out a heart rhythm; the boombahms filled the chamber.
In the gallery, the clot of men was breaking apart as the guests sought their seats; behind them their dependents scurried about like startled waterbugs, negotiating places to stand.
As Ardamoar lowered his long bony body into a chair, a woman emerged from the throng and joined Traccoar, who was standing directly behind his brother.
Hair like new-minted copper.
Auntee Rosamunda’s face on a long Lamenoor body.
Hallah swayed, clamped her teeth on her tongue.
Garro Zivan wept when Rosalie told him, warned her to say nothing to the other Hammar. With a little luck, he said, naught will come of this and we’ll be as we were. That was how her father was, never a man to swallow bitters to keep a fever off. But as the Gyoker-Zivan Hammar moved their wagons across Membruda’s Range and the months slid past, her body swelled and there was no hiding what had been done to her.
Auntee Rosamunda read the Weed Milk for her, but wouldn’t say what she saw there. She emptied the bowl, shook her head. We have to leave her behind, she told Garro Zivan. Membruda will burn the wagons if he learns his blood is here.
Rosalie Zivan lived peacefully in that small mountain village where her people left her, supporting herself and her child with the box of medicines Auntee Rosamunda left with her.
One evening when Spring was new and her daughter was eighteen months and seething with curiosity and energy, Rosalie sat in deepening twilight on the doorstep of her cottage, rubbing the papery skins off a heap of flickwhittle bulbs and watching Rowanny toddle about, investigating toads and hoppers and stones and anything that caught her roving mind.
When she heard the rattle of hooves, she set her abrading cloth aside and went to snatch her daughter from the road.
Membruda’s youngest son, face contorted with a hatred close to madness, rode at her, whip raised.
His brothers rode round and round her, yelling curses at her.
Her daughter was torn from her arms and thrown aside.
Her clothes were ripped off, Membruda’s youngest son raped her, rolled off her, shouted his triumph, he was a man again. Cursing her, calling her dirty beast, witch, demon, bloodsucking whore, he hacked off her breasts, tossed them to one of his brothers.
After that the brothers stood in a ring about her, kicking at her, lacerating her back with their cattle whips.
Rowanny wailed. Someone, not Traccoar, but it might as well have been, said, “Shut the brat up, knock her head against a tree or something.”
A bone flute played three notes over and over, the drumsounds came faster, with brushes and slides and taps weaving a complex texture through the deep resonant bahbooms. The drummers’ bodies dripped sweat; their heads bobbed, muscles in their shoulders, arms, legs danced with the music of their hands.
The cursemen stamped their bone-shod feet, shook their rattles, and clashed the antlers strapped to their heads, chanting in their secret tongue. Katiang Boar-rider danced in unbalanced spirals across and around the Ivory Floor, his thin wiry legs moving in and out of the musk censers hanging on bronze chains from the bone links of his girdle, never quite touching them; the streamers of blue-white smoke circled with him, mingled with smoke from the larger censer that sat atop the bronze cage he wore on his head.
Hallah Myur swayed with the music, flexed her toes, and began a muscle walk along her body; she had to move or she’d scream.
Zisgade was watching her. His eyes were the brown-black of strong coffee; it was always easy to tell where he was looking. !Maytre! He’s smelled something. Weasel-face. I must’ve made more noise than I…
The Alayjiyah came in, a little round man with a sour face and thin hair stiffened with gel and swirled to a point. He was mostly robes thick with gold thread and embroidered with diamonds—robes and will; he was a hard man and dangerous. He settled himself on the dragon-bone chair, clapped his little hands, and six slave girls brought in his daughter.
The Yih Ma’yin Sa’aetinn was a cloud of fine linen, layer on layer of the translucent fabric, only her hands a
nd feet snowing. Her hands were heavy with rings, her feet were bare and elaborately jeweled.
Hallah sighed and set herself to endure a little longer, eyes on the floor, mind going round and round as she tried to sort out what she was going to do.
4
Tangled in the web
Hallah Myur ran.
In the streets around the Toyaytay Gardens where the Festival was well started, crowds were thick as clotted cream; there was noise and laughter, shouts, growls, clangs, music from dozens of players clashing and competing, smells of fried meats and hot bread, of candy and coffee, of perfumes and horse droppings and sweat, bright primal colors everywhere, flags and ribbons flapping from cords strung across the streets and between windows, the sequined and embroidered holiday costumes of the revelers.
She pushed impatiently through the revelers, passed into the alleys and winding ways of Atwarima’s working quarters, then she ran and ran, words beating in her head to the beat of her feet. Mem bru da’s whore my Ro wan ny Mem bru da’s whore my ba by Mem bru da’s whore…
She ran until her edginess was drained away, until even the words had faded and only the shift and play of her body was left. Ran until she was exhausted and gasping.
Hallah Myur leaned on a rope stretched between bitts and watched the river eddying below her. An aepha-gull dived past her, plunged into the dirty littered water, emerged with a long skinny fish flapping wildly in its talons.
“If that’s an omen, am I the fish or the gull?” She shrugged and went looking for a tavern and a game.
Hallah Myur walked into the Seven Spinners, stepped aside to clear the doorway, smiled behind the formveil at the familiar noises, the smoke and murk, the nosebite of homebrew. Two caravanners were armwrestling by the bar; a beamdancer gyrated to a tinny out-of-tune lute; a group of men and women sat around three tables pushed together, shouting at each other in a tongue she didn’t recognize.
A tall vigorous woman with masses of blue-black hair and large but shapely arms threaded through the busy tables and stopped in front of Hallah; her green eyes snapped with disfavor as she took in the assassin’s gray and the veil. “I’m Thonsane, and this is my House. If you’re on business, no-name, take it and yourself away.”
Sisters in Fantasy Page 1
