by Jo Clayton
“I won’t argue with that. Anyway, she’s the one responsible for Hotea’s drowning. We want you to help us get rid of her.
“The Tekora’s Palace.” She laughed, a warm savoring sound. And he remembered the way she looked at the gate torches. He got to his feet and crossed to the back of the long room, going behind the screen that shut off the corner where his bed was. The dark red lacquer box sat where he’d left it among the hills and hollows of the crumpled quilts. He looked at the unmade bed and wondered if he’d ever get back, bit his lip, lifted the box and carried it to Brann. He set it on the low table by the arm of her chair, then backed away. He glanced at the brazier but saw no steam and resettled himself in his chair. “The old man said that would buy you.”
She lifted the box, set it on her legs. After eyeing it warily a moment, she lifted the lid. Her indrawn breath was a small whispery sound. “Das’n vuor.” She lifted the black pot from its nest of fine white silk and ran her fingers over it. A strange tense look on her face, she turned it over and passed her fingers across the bottom. “His mark,” she whispered. “The last firing.” She, set the pot back and lifted one of the cups, sat cradling it in both hands. “That you found this one… this one! I remember… Slya bless, oh I remember… I held this cup in my hand after my father took it from the kiln. I went up Tincreal with my father, we carried the last cups to their firing; we stayed there all day and all night and the next day till just after noonsong. The first three he took from the kiln he broke, they weren’t good enough, this was the fourth, he set it in my hand and I knew what perfection was, for the first time I knew what perfection was…” She shook her head as if to clear away fumes of memory.
“Old man said it would buy you.” He repeated those words, knowing he was being crude, perhaps angering her, but he was shocked at seeing her unravel. He wanted her to be powerful, unshaken by anything, as she was when he first saw her. Otherwise how could she stand against the witch?
“Old man, he’s right, damn his twisty soul.” She eased the cup into its nest and folded the lid shut. “You’ve bought me, Hina. I’ll fight the witch for the pot and for more reasons than you’ll ever know. Mmm, tell you one thing. Would have done it without the pot.” She grinned at him, her hand protectively on the lid. “Don’t try to take it hack, I’ll bite. Seriously, I’m a sentimental bitch when I let myself be, Hina, and I’ve been watching you and your sister. You could have worked yourself free of her easily enough, a little thought and gathering the coin for an exorcism, who would ever know? My companions tell me you didn’t even think of exorcism. I like that. Well, that’s enough, what are you planning?”
“Can you climb?” Hotea pinched him. “So we hear from you again,” he grumbled. With a spitting crackle of indignation she pointed at the steam shooting from under the kettle’s lid.
“I was born on the side of a mountain that makes the hills round here look like gnat bites,” Brann said and laughed.
“Good.” He chose a teapot he thought of as his garden pot, the one with bamboo and orchids delicately painted round the five flat sides. As he rinsed the pot, he glanced at her. Her head was against the back of the chair, her eyes half closed, her hands relaxed on the chair arms. He measured out two scoops of black tea, added hot water, took the pot to the narrow table by the screen, set out the shallow dishes for the ghosts.
“Why are you doing that?” Her voice came to him, lazy, relaxed. When he looked at her, she seemed half asleep.
“For the family,” he said. A wave of his hand took in the hovering ghosts clustering over the bowls lapping up the fragrance. He came back to the table, filled two cups, frowned at the children. “Do they want tea?”
She shook her head. “No.” She took the cup he handed her, sniffed at the coiling steam. “Mmmm.” Green eyes laughing at him, she said, “Steal only the best.”
“Right.” He dropped into his chair, gulped a mouthful of the tea. “Old man said you and the witch are ancient enemies.”
“Oh?” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know her name?”
“No.”
“Yes.” Hotea darted forward. “Yes. The other wives, they cursed her by name and worse. It’s an odd name, can’t tell clan or family from it. Ludila Dondi.”
“Ah. The Dondi.”
“You do know her.”
“We met. Briefly. A long time ago. Not love at first sight.” She rolled the five-sided cup between her palms. “She was just a fingerling then, but nasty.” She emptied the cup, set it carefully on the table. “Talk, young Hina. I’m due back on the ship by dawn and I’ve other games to play.” She set the box on the table, leaned forward, her eyes bright with curiosity and anticipation. “I’m listening.”
The willows tilted out over the water, their withes dissolving into mist. The boat was a miniature of the flat-bottomed water taxis with barely room for two and a ghost but the children had shifted form again and gone whiffling away as owls. Brann seated herself in the bow, settled the box at her feet on dry floorboards. Aituatea fumbled at the sodden rope, finally working the knot loose; his hands were shaking, but excitement outweighed his fear. With Hotea floating at his side, he shoved the boat into deeper water and swung in. A few minutes later he was propelling them through mist with nothing visible around them but the grayed-down wavelets of dark water kissing the boat’s sides.
After half an hour’s hard rowing, he’d rounded Utar’s snout and was struggling south along the cliffs, the rougher chop on the weather side of the small island making the going hard. The fog was patchy, shredding in the night wind. Finally, Hotea pinched his arm and pointed. “There,” she said. “The nursery garden is up there.”
“’Bout time.” With Brann fending the bow off the rocks, he eased the boat through the tumbled black boulders to the beach.
While Brann held the boat, he tied the painter to a knob on one of the larger rocks, then pulled a heavy cover over it, canvas painted with rough splotches of gray and black that would mask the boat shape from anyone chancing to look down. As he waded beside Brann to the tiny beach, the owls swooped down, hooted, a note of urgency in their cries, and swept up again. A moment later, voices, the stomp of feet, the sounds of a body of armed men moving came dropping down the cliff. Brann dodged into a hollow that hid her from above. Aituatea joined her there, all too aware of the heat of her body through the thin silk of her shirt, the strong life in her more frightening than arousing.
“How long before they come round again?” she whispered.
“When Hotea was in the Palace, the round took about an hour, no reason to change that. Plenty of time to get up the cliff.”
The cliff was deeply weathered, but most of the hand and footholds were treacherous, the stone apt to crumble. In spite of that, Aituatea went up with reckless speed, showing off his skill. He wasn’t a cripple on a cliff. He reached the top ahead of Brann, stood wiping the muck off his hands and examining the garden wall as she pulled herself onto the guard track.
The wall was twice his height, the stones polished and set in what had once been a seamless whole, but a century of salt wind and salt damp had eaten away at the cracks, opening small crevices for the fingers and toes of a clever climber. He kicked off his sandals, shoved them in a pocket of his jacket, looked at Brann, then started up. As soon as he reached the broad top, he crawled along it until he was masked from the nursery door and windows by the bushy foliage.
Brann came up with more difficulty, needing a hand to help her over; again he felt the burning as his hand closed about hers. She smiled at his uneasiness, then sat on the wall and pulled on her boots.
The owls circled overhead, dipped into the garden, flowing into mastiff form as they touched ground. The dogs trotted briskly about nosing into shadow until they were satisfied the garden was empty, then they came silently back and waited for Brann to come down, which she did, slithering down the foliage with ease and grace. Aituatea climbed down as well, dropped the last bit to land harder than he’d expected, limpe
d toward the doors, Hotea a wisp fluttering beside him. Though she was silent now, he could feel her agitation. This was where the witch had caught her. “Sister,” he whispered, “scout for us.”
Hotea slipped through the wall, emerged a few minutes later. “Empty,” she cried. “No children, no wives, no bondmaids. All gone. Not one left.” Her crystal form trembled. “The bottom of the bay must be solid with bones.”
“Just as well.” He took a long slim knife from a sheath inside his jacket, slid it through the space between the doors, wiggled it until he felt it slip the latch loose and the door swing inward. Brann touched his arm, a jolt like a shock-eel. Swallowing a yelp, he looked around.
“Let Yaril and Jaril run ahead.”
He nodded. The mastiffs brushed past him and trotted inside, their nails making busy clicks on the polished wood floor. Brann glanced about the garden, moved inside, silent as the ghost she followed. Aituatea pulled the door shut behind him and limped after them.
The air in the maze of corridors was stale and stinking, a soup of rottenness, thick with the anise Hotea had learned to hate mingled with other spices. Those corridors crawled with shadow and dust rolls that tumbled along the grass mats, driven by vagrant drafts that were the only things wandering the palace. Most of the rooms were empty; there were a few sleepers, some court parasites, men and women drugged by ambition and stronger opiates, refusing to know what was happening about them. Aituatea moved through this death-in-life, his fear and reluctance banished by the demands of the moment; there was no turning back and a kind of peace in that.
Up one flight of stairs to the public rooms. The eerie emptiness was the same, the same death smell, the same staleness in air that was paradoxically never still. They went swiftly through this silence to the stairs leading up to the rooms the Tekora kept for himself.
The mastiffs sat on their haunches beside Brann, stubby tails thumping against the mat. Hotea flitted back to them. “Guards, she said. “Standing on either side of the Tekora’s sleeproom door.”
Brann touched the corner of her mouth. “They alert?”
“Not very,” Hotea said, “but awake.”
“Mm. Means he’s inside. But is the witch with him?”
“I’ll see.” Before Brann or Aituatea could stop her, Hotea flitted back up the stairs.
“T’kk, young Hina. Pray the Dondi is sleeping or not there, otherwise your sister could bring the roof down on us.”
“She won’t think before she does.”
“And you think too much, eh?”
Aituatea ignored that as he gazed up the stairs, anxious about Hotea.
Seconds later she was back, a streak of subdued light plunging down the slant, a waterfall of woman ghost, halting before them in a swirl of crystal fragments that rapidly reassembled themselves into Hotea-shape. “They’re in bed, both of them. Asleep, I think, I only poked my head in for a second. They ate someone tonight, the smell of it is sickening thick in there.”
“Asleep. Good. Let them stay that way.” She led them around beneath the stairs so the sound of their whispers would not carry to the guards. She settled herself with her back to the wall, waited until Aituatea was down beside her, squatting, fingers rubbing at his sore hip, preferring the pain to the thoughts in his head; it was almost a sufficient distraction. “Bit of luck,” Brann murmured, “finding them asleep and sated.” A quick wry smile. “Not so good for whoever they ate, but we can’t change that. I am very glad indeed that the Dondi’s asleep. Even so, be warned, she limits me. I don’t want to stir up resonances that would wake her too soon.” When Aituatea indicated he didn’t understand, she sighed but didn’t try to explain. “First thing is taking out the guards.” She flipped back the edge of her leather vest, showed him the twin blades sheathed inside. “I can pick them off, but I can’t be sure of silencing them, takes time to bleed to death. Any ideas?”
Aituatea nodded, reached inside his jacket, felt a moment among the pockets sewn into the lining, took out a section of nested bamboo tubes. “Carry this for tight holes. Haven’t had to use the darts yet, but I can hit a hand at twenty paces. Sister, where are they? what armor?”
Hotea knelt beside him. “About a dozen paces from the landing, my paces, not yours,” She held out her arms, wrists pressed together, hands spread at an angle. “That’s the shooting angle you’ll have from the nearest shelter. They’re not looking toward the stairway, didn’t the whole time I was watching them, though that wasn’t very long.” She shifted restlessly. “It’s a tight shot, brother, even you’ll have trouble. They’re trussed in studded leather and iron straps and wearing helmets.” She framed her face with her hands, her brow and chin covered. “That’s all you got.”
“Hands?”
“I forgot. Gloves.”
“Tungjii’s tits, they don’t make it easy.” He pulled the tubes out until he had a pipe about a foot long. He looked over his shoulder at the dogs; they were on their feet, crystal eyes bright and interested, tongues lolling. He breathed a curse, brought out a small lacquer box, held it in the hand that held the pipe. “Them. If I miss, can they take out the guards?”
Without answering, Brann pushed onto her feet and went around to the foot of the stairs. The mastiffs sniffed at Aituatea’s legs as he stood beside her, then went padding up the stairs as quiet as cats slow and flowing so their nails wouldn’t click on the wood. Near the bend in the flight they misted out of shape and reformed into long brindle snakes that flowed silent and nearly invisible up to the landing.
Aituatea followed them up the steps, narrowing himself to the need of the moment. On the top step he knelt and eased around the corner, concealed in the shadow not lit by the lamp suspended above the sundoor, picking out gleams in the many layered black lacquer and the gilt sun-shape inlaid in both halves of the double door. He popped one of his poison thorns in the pipe, careful not to touch the gummy tip, got a second dart from the box and set it on the floor by his knee. Ache in his hip forgotten, chill in his belly forgotten, he focused on the expanse of cheek and sent the dart winging with a hard puff. As soon as it was on its way, he reloaded the pipe and sent the second at the other guard.
One then the other slapped at his face, eyes popping, gave a small strangled gasp and started to crumple. Aituatea was on his feet and running as soon as he saw the first man waver, knowing he wouldn’t get there in time to catch both.
The shape changers flowed up from the floor by the guards’ feet, children again, caught the collapsing men and eased them down quietly. Aituatea touched his brow and lips in a gesture of congratulation. They grinned and bobbed their pale shining heads.
He stepped over a recumbent guard and eyed the double door, brushed his hand along the center line, felt the door yield a little to the pressure. “Sister,” he breathed, “what sort of latch?”
Hotea oozed partway through the door, then pulled back out. “Turnbolt. You’ll have to cut the tongue.”
He scowled at the gilt sun. “And hope the noise doesn’t wake them. Some hope.”
Brann touched his shoulder. He jumped. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
She ignored that as foolishness. “Be ready,” she whispered. “Yaril will throw the bolt for us, but her presence in the room will wake the witch.”
The fairer child changed into mist and flowed under the door. A second later he heard a muted tunk as the bolt tongue withdrew, then a wild, piercing yell.
Brann leaped at the door, hit the crack with the heel of one hand, slamming the doors open. She charged in to stand in front of Yaril who crouched on the rug, eyes steady on the witch.
Ludila Dondi arose from the bed, her face ugly with rage, her naked body yellowed ivory in the dim light, like a tiger in her ferocity and the vigorous agility of her leap. When she saw Brann, she checked her lunge along the bed, so suddenly she was thrown off balance. “You.” She slid off the bed and came toward Brann, feral yellow eyes fixed on her, ignoring the others.
Jaril took Yar
il’s hands. After a brief, silent consultation they rose as spheres of amber fire, lighting the room with a fierce gold glow.
The Tekora kicked loose from the quilts and rolled off the bed, standing naked as the witch but not so readily awake and alert. Aituatea watched him with a burning in his belly. No old man any longer, the Temueng was firm, fit, supple, a man in his prime, a vigor bought with the blood of his own children, a hideous vigor that had cost Hotea her life.
The Tekora eyed the two women, reached up and with a soft metallic sibilation drew from its sheath the long sword hanging above the head of the bed. He swung it twice about his head, limbering his arm. A glance at Aituatea, a head shake dismissing the Hina as negligible. He started for the woman.
The Dondi and Brann were moving in an irregular double spiral, gradually working closer to each other, each focused so intently on the other no one else existed for them.
Hotea fluttered about them, turning in wider loops, silent but radiating fury.
The fire spheres vibrated more rapidly, then one of them darted straight at the Tekora’s face. He lifted his free hand to brush it aside, yelled as his flesh began to blister, swung round and swiped at the sphere with the sword, slicing through it but doing no damage. It settled to the floor in front of him, a mastiff as soon as it touched down. The dog came at the man, growling deep in her throat. Bitch mastiff. Yaril. Aituatea snapped the knife from the sheath up his sleeve, sent it wheeling at the Tekora.
It sliced into the large artery in his neck. There should have been an explosion of blood and a dead man falling.
Should have been. The Tekora plucked the knife out easily and flung it away. The wound in his neck closed over. He lifted the sword and started for Aituatea.
Aituatea looked rapidly around, caught up a small stool and hurled it at the Temueng, it caught his elbow, his fingers opened involuntarily and the sword went flying to land in the tumbled covers on the bed. The Yaril mastiff went for his throat but he got his arm up in time and the curving yellow teeth closed on that instead of his neck; Yaril began gnawing at the arm, kicking at his gut with her powerful hind legs.
