The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  “Dear friends,” said Brin, “share this food and answer me a question.”

  “What pleases you, in Eenath’s name.” A gaunt hand came up for the food, but Brin held it out of reach.

  “Where is the twirler Petsalee?”

  The twirlers were silent; their faces grew firmer, their expressions almost sly.

  “Petsalee . . .” prompted Brin. The twirler who had reached for the food held up two fingers and whistled softly. Brin reached a second game bird from the basket.

  “The spirit-warriors dance at the Sun Carpet,” said the twirler.

  “At what hour?”

  “When the spirits call . . .”

  “About the fourth hour after the New Year Shout!” put in the second twirler who was very hungry. “The Leader Petsalee will call the dance.”

  Brin gave them a bird each, and we left them eating. Diver was curious about Petsalee; how could he be Leader still and recruit a new band of twirlers? Did this mean we had misjudged the creature—he had not bought a life but only escaped Tiath Gargan’s massacre?

  “Twirlers have their own laws and their own secrets,” said Brin, “Petsalee must hold great power for them.”

  We were still passing through a part of the fair given over to eating and drinking; then we came to a place for all kinds of sports and games. Brushwood fences separated the stone-placers from the teams of skip-rope and the ringers, who twitch down wooden pegs from a high stand with a reed ring attached to a strong thread. A whole pen of ancients were taking part in a knitting contest, with the colored work growing before our eyes until it flowed over their knees, so fast their needles flew. Diver announced that he could knit; he had had it from his mother and all his female ancestors. We laughed in disbelief, until Brin fetched a ball of thread and needles from the knitting marshal and cast on a few stitches, as she used to do for me, when I made my winter stockings. Diver took over pretty unhandily, but he knitted, both first and second stitch; anything requiring more skill or more than two needles he said was beyond him.

  “Knitters are born,” said Brin. “Dorn here is still battling with his third twist and double plaits. The best knitter I ever saw was Little Griss, the Luck of Tarr’s Five, my birth family. He swore he could knit a tent, given the right thread.”

  Diver explained, as we walked on into the pottery market, that knitting had been a dying art on his world, but had grown up again in something called the Craft Revival.

  So we passed on, through the pottery market, the place for music and singing—where we looked for the Harper—and the fortune-tellers’ lane, where we kept an eye open for Gordo Beethan. We skirted the edge of the Sun Carpet and took a side trip into the fixed houses of Otolor, beside the old curtain walls of the town, now tumbled down and planted with flowers for a memorial. We came at last to the cloth market, and I was impatient, for the stalls of cloth reminded me of our winnings and the great news we were bearing home. Behind the cloth market is a wide field, especially planted with redwood trees for the bush weavers to use for the support of their tents. We stood on the edge of this field and stared, and I saw it. Our tent . . . our own good tent, with the three new panels replacing those we had left in the glebe on Hingstull. It stood a long way off on the distant boundary of the field; there were not many people about, and none that we knew; everyone was at the fair. Yet somehow I thought of the Family all sitting in the tent waiting for us. I began to run.

  “Hold . . . in the Winds’ name; hold!” I looked back and saw a lithe figure in gray dart out from behind a tree, a stranger, frantically hailing our approach. Then I thought I knew it . . . the Witness who had called Narneen! Before I could think of her partner, I was caught and held in a firm grip.

  “Still! Be still for your life, Brinroyan child!” said a strong accented voice. I looked up into the scarred face of the scribe from the Fire-Town. I must have showed fear, for he slackened his grip at once and turned his face away in an odd cringing motion, as if protecting me from the sight.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I am Vel Ragan, ever your friend.”

  Diver and Brin converged on us fiercely, with Diver already fumbling under his cloak.

  “Let the child go!” ordered Brin.

  “Hold, I pray,” gasped the Witness Onnar. “We bring a warning.” Vel Ragan released my arm and held out his hands empty in the gesture of peace.

  “We have waited for your approach since the rising of Esto,” he said. “Pray hear us, for your safety.”

  “You are Vel Ragan,” said Brin, “and this your Witness, Onnar. You come from the Fire-Town, and you sleep-spy upon my child Narneen.”

  “This is true,” said the scribe, “but I think Narneen, that excellent Witness, has also told you that we mean friendship and we do not lie.”

  “Trust us both,” begged Onnar. She kept looking about anxiously. “Come to this tree,” she said, “where we can sit down like a Family at their food.”

  “What are you afraid of?” asked Diver.

  “The creatures of the clan Pentroy,” said Vel Ragan. His voice had a rich timbre, almost like Diver’s; his gray eyes flashed fire; I could guess what hand had guided the firestone that burned his body.

  “Are they safe . . . our Family . . .?” I blurted out.

  “Come and sit down.”

  We sat down together under the tree, and Vel Ragan looked keenly at Diver. “Let me see your face,” he said.

  Diver threw back his hood and removed his goggles. Vel Ragan stared and gave a long sighing breath. “It is true then. Strangers have come to Torin from the void.”

  “One stranger,” said Diver, “and no longer so strange thanks to the love and care of Brin’s Five. My poor companions still work in the islands. No doubt they think I am dead.”

  “How many? An army?”

  “Three,” answered Diver, “a team of scholars.”

  Vel Ragan drew out from his sleeve a worn sheaf of willow paper: Diver’s drawings, copied first at Cullin, then in other parts of Torin.

  “Yes,” said Brin. “Diver made these drawings and I wrote on them, at Stone Brook. But now, tell us your warning.”

  “Hear us out,” said Onnar, “and do nothing rash.” So we heard them out, although the tale they had to tell was a terrible one, outweighing any sorrow or danger we had passed through till now.

  “We came to the fair after questioning Narneen on the river,” said Vel Ragan. “It was only then we were certain that this child was the one named in the Stone Brook drawings. We believed that your Luck was the one we sought, and we had heard tales of the landing all down the river. We had planned to go to Cullin or even Stone Brook itself, but in fact we landed our glider at Wellin with a damaged runner and took up the search from there twelve days ago. There was plenty to hear. The Strangler had left a trail much wider than Brin’s Five. So we came on to the fair and gleaned a few snippets of gossip out of the Bird Clan, and at last the news today of your good fortune. But before that time, about the first hour of Esder shine, or what would be night, Onnar was called by Narneen. The child, as you know, is a powerful Witness, destined for a great career in this strange art if she desires it. Narneen had a dreadful tale to tell. The members of your Five have been surprised, sleeping, by seven armed vassals of Tiath Gargan. The Harper was absent from the tent when this happened, but we could not warn him in time and he was taken when he returned. No—be still and listen! No one has been harmed or even questioned, although Mamor and the Harper are bound and gagged. Narneen lies, feigning sleep; Gwin nurses the baby. The vassals are simply waiting for the return of Garl Brinroyan; they are disguised, but make no secret of their allegiance to the Great Elder. There are four among the seven who say that they have a score to settle . . . your Luck has already dealt roughly with them on Hingstull and in Cullin town.”

  I could not speak after this for the fear and helpless anger that I felt. But Diver had flushed. His blue eyes blazed, and he was as keenly alert as when he was flying the Toma
rvan.

  “The score will be settled, believe me!” he said. He peered around at the field and the tent, far off, and the few passers-by.

  “Are there any Pentroy vassals keeping watch outside the tent?”

  “No,” said Vel Ragan, “not that we have seen.”

  “There are only seven,” said Brin slowly. “It is a thread I never expected to unravel. These creatures have united in Gulgarvor, a seven-fold cord, a covenant to perform a certain task.”

  “My capture,” said Diver. He felt under his cloak and asked Onnar, “How are they armed?”

  “They have knives, and the two who stand at the door of the tent have a bludgeon and a limed net.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “They mean to take you alive,” observed Vel Ragan.

  “Diver,” I croaked. “Blacklock will help you!”

  “Against his own clan’s vassals?” inquired Vel Ragan. “That I would like to see.”

  “It is a different branch of Pentroy,” said Brin. “Diver, shall we send for his help?”

  “We need help, that’s certain,” said Diver, “and Blacklock would do it . . . but time is short. I will not have those creatures in the tent any longer. It is a long way back to the Bird Clan . . .”

  I thought of the fairgrounds we had crossed, two or three weaver’s miles at least; I felt myself running the distance.

  “Not so far!” said Brin. She pointed to the southern corner of the tented field, where there stood a wooden tower, decorated with drooping flags. A mirror flashed from its summit and I realized what it was: the Fourth Mark of the Bird Clan circle.

  “The voice wire!” I cried. We all explained at once.

  “Thank heaven for fire-metal-magic!” said Diver. “Will it still be working?”

  “If our luck holds,” said Brin.

  “Can we use it?” I asked. “We have never seen a voice wire.”

  Vel Ragan laughed. “I have seen too many,” he said, “but none so welcome as this one!”

  We left Onnar watching under the tree and made our way quickly back through the outskirts of the cloth market and across a patch of nettle bushes to the tower. There was a small tent of Bird Clan blue-green at the tower’s base and it was sealed with waxed threads bearing a warning message. Diver snapped this seal impatiently, and we crowded into the empty tent. Ragan stayed back however, peering up at the tower.

  “Still firmly in place,” he said over our shoulders, “but how are the cups?”

  Brin adjusted two window flaps, and we saw it. Two innocent looking clay cups, for all the world like ordinary drinking cups, but covered at the base with a fine mesh of wire and linked by a thick cord to a leather bag on a pole.

  “Where is the outlet?” demanded the scribe. He came past us and took up the cups in a familiar way.

  “In the pavilion? Well, we’ll see what the Bird Clan staff do when it is all over . . .” He pulled on the linking cord and rattled the two cups together so that they made a hollow clopping sound.

  “I was wondering how you would do that,” murmured Diver.

  Vel Ragan went on clopping at intervals, and I found suddenly that I did not believe in the voice wire. It was impossible that what we did here could be sent to the Bird Clan pavilion. Then from one of the cups there came a loud rattle. Vel Ragan immediately pressed the cup over one ear—which I thought was a very brave thing to do—and proceeded to speak resonantly into the other.

  “Are you there? Bird Clan pavilion . . . answer!” There was a breathing sound, another voice, and he held the cup from his ear. The voice spoke from the cup, magically, and it was a real voice, a voice in accent and tone quite unmistakeable.

  “Who calls? What cheeky wretch is bothering us in the course of our duty? Who is that, I’d like to know?”

  Brin and Diver and I all shouted together.

  “Ablo!”

  Diver stepped up and took the apparatus from Vel Ragan. “Ablo, this is Garl Brinroyan calling from the Fourth Mark.”

  “Excellence, I hear you wonderfully clearly,” said Ablo, “but you had no need to check. The escort is doing a fine job of protecting our winnings!”

  “Good Ablo, you have served us well,” said Diver, “and now you must render the greatest service of all. You must save my Family from peril!”

  We heard Ablo gasp. “Excellence, anything, anything . . .”

  “Then leave the senior member of the Pentroy escort in charge and take the next in rank with you to the tent of Murno Pentroy. Tell the Highness himself or Fer Utovangan that my Family is imprisoned in their tent near the cloth market by a Gulgarvor who seek my own capture. Tell them that the one who has ordered this deed is the same who lost a silver ship. And as proof of my good faith say all this in the name of the Maker of Engines.”

  Diver said more, giving the location of the tent and schooled Ablo in the message, which he seized quickly.

  “Go then,” said Diver, “our prayers go with you. We will not wait Blacklock’s coming but make shift to free those who are trapped by ourselves, if we can.”

  Then Diver returned the cups to Vel Ragan, who broke the link and left us forlorn and still helpless in the stuffy tent. Diver was filled with energy, like a twisted thread or a metal spring. He led us, very fast, to a place behind the patch of nettles. We were much closer to our tent and in a desolate corner of the fairground where no one came.

  “What weapon have you?” asked the scribe. Diver brought out his stun-gun; Vel Ragan whistled in admiration and produced a wooden box from his sleeve.

  “This fires a dart . . .” he said. A metal tube with a wooden grip lay in the box.

  “The tent has a blind side,” said Diver. “I think the brutes are watching the door and the eastern wall.”

  “Correct. Narneen, the ancient, and the baby lie on that blind side,” said Vel Ragan.

  “Then Mamor and the Harper are tied to the tree,” guessed Diver.

  “You see it well.”

  “What is your plan?” asked Brin.

  “The stun-gun?” I whispered.

  “Dangerous in a confined space,” said Diver. “They must be lured out.”

  “You will not budge them,” said Vel Ragan. “They will not stir until they can take you, trussed, to their cruel liege. Their own lives depend upon it. Surprise is their main weapon.”

  “Then they have lost the game already,” said Brin, “for they cannot surprise us. Diver . . . I have a plan if the scribe Vel will cooperate.”

  She told the plan, which seemed good, and then I went with her, back to Onnar under the tree. “Narneen asks if you are coming,” said Onnar, “and I have told her not yet. But I cannot lie to this Witness . . . I can barely shut her out.”

  “Do it, I pray,” said Brin. “The less she knows the better.”

  She outlined the plan to Onnar, then we moved on. We went to the northern edge of the field, dropped into one of the ditches circling the ground and made our way crawling through nettles and dead leaves to come up on the tent’s blind side. It took less time than we expected. The tent loomed ahead, and we crawled again, from one clump of bushes to another. Brin took her amulet on its chain and caught the suns’ light, flashing towards the field and the place where Diver waited with Vel Ragan. She handed me Diver’s knife and drew out her own, pressing a hand to her mouth for silence.

  There was an empty time of waiting; then we saw two figures approaching the tent, passing among the trees and the other tents as they came. Diver, still in his gray silk cloak, stumbled along oddly, pushed and urged by Vel Ragan. They came on until they stood before our tent’s closed flap door. Then Vel Ragan shouted in a harsh ringing voice, “Gulgarvor . . . I have your prize!”

  He wrenched back Diver’s cloak, to show his blue suit, and shoved him to the ground, on his knees. Diver’s hands appeared to be bound. “Here is the devil for you!” cried Vel Ragan. “Here is your release!”

  The scene already attracted attention from the few weavers and i
dlers who were not at the fair. They stood peering around trees, poking heads from flap doors. Vel Ragan was a frightening figure; his scarred face was revealed, and he held a long knife in one hand.

  “Bargain for your devil, Gulgarvor! Pay ransom or the devil will die!” He flashed the knife high in the air and made as if to stab Diver, who cried out piteously in his own language.

  For the first time there was movement from our tent and the sound of voices.

  “Hold . . .” A single figure stepped out; one of the intruders, heavily built, blinking in the sunlight. I thought I recognized the face of a vassal from the convoy, one who had gone back for the Galtroy litter.

  “Not so fast, friend,” said the creature, thumbs in its red belt. “Perhaps you have something there we need.” Another stranger came out of the tent, by the back flap, and sidled towards Vel Ragan in a circle.

  “No closer, or the devil dies and takes his secrets with him.”

  “Who are you to tangle with devils, friend?” asked Red-Belt, taking a step closer.

  “A poor adventurer,” said Vel Ragan smoothly.

  Diver, groveling, cried out again, as if in fear of his life and suddenly the members of the Gulgarvor all burst from the tent together and rushed upon Vel Ragan. I saw Diver and Vel begin to run, drawing them away, then I was inside the tent with Brin, on the blind side.

  They were all there, just as we had been told; Narneen sat up screaming and Mamor and the Harper were straining at their bonds. I hacked at their ropes while Brin closed and weighted the back flap and stood to the door, speaking to comfort Old Gwin and Tomar as best she could. Mamor wrenched out his gag and did the same for the Harper, as I freed their feet.

  “What was that, for the fire’s sake?” roared Mamor.

  “A game to draw them off . . .” I said.

  “Help Diver!” said Brin. “Mamor . . . Roy . . . can you fight?” I rushed to the door, but Mamor held me back.