Drinker of Souls dost-1

by Jo Clayton

  “You’re not my wife either, which is just as well because you’d be fit only for drowning if you were a woman. Not a servant? Boils on your ass, you’re what I say you are. As of now, that’s nothing. Get.” He jerked a thumb at the door.

  “Now?” Yarm’s voice cracked with surprise and rage. “You’re putting that foreigner in my place?”

  “Get out. Now. Tomorrow morning you can collect your gear, but I’ve had all I’m going to take from you.”

  “Fist will…”

  “Out.” He leaped at the boy, caught the collar of his shirt, half shoved, half lifted him across the room and out of the house, set his foot on the boy’s backside and sent him in a stumbling sprawl down the leaf-littered path.

  Yarm lay dazed for a moment or so, then scrambled to his feet and came screaming at Taguiloa. Who slapped his face vigorously several times, swept his feet from under him with a leg scythe, caught an arm in a punish hold and ran him down the path and out into the street. He stood watching as Yarm slunk off, even his back full of threat though he didn’t dare turn and voice his thoughts.

  “He still doesn’t quite believe you’re serious.”

  Taguiloa looked down. Jaril stood beside him, his blond hair shining in the sunlight.

  “I’m like to have company tonight.”

  “Uh-huh. We’ll be there too. Yaril’s been getting bored, she says I have all the fun.”

  TAGUILOA STOOD in the center of the bedroom and looked about him. He’d finished packing up Yarm’s things and a ratty lot they were, the boy had no pride. Blackthorn was right, he thought, as she always is. Yarm had a beautiful slim body, limber as a sea snake’s, and the face of a young immortal which the women in the audiences sighed over. He also had a good sense of timing, he learned quickly everything Taguiloa taught him, but he was spoiled, lazy, whining, dishonest about small things and large unless he thought he would be caught, jealous of Taguiloa’s time and attention to a degree that had soon become unbearable. Not a sexual jealousy, that would have been far easier to handle, but something else Taga couldn’t understand or explain.

  He put the packets outside with a feeling of relief. This house used to be the place where he rested, practiced, meditated. It was filled with memories of his loved teacher, memories of peace and contentment after the turmoil in the streets. Gerontai had taught him much besides tumbling and juggling. He’d been hoping for much the same relationship with Yarm but was quickly disillusioned. He’d let Yarm move in with him, not seeing the speculative gleam in Yarm’s black eyes. A measuring cold calculation powered by malice and spite and a like for hurting. A passionate need to hold and own. Fire and ice and neither of them comfortable to live with. Taguila stood in his doorway rubbing his back across the edge of the jamb, feeling relaxed and clean for the first time in the three years Yarm had lived here.

  The Wounded Moon was a ragged crescent rising in the east, its lowest horn just touching the Temple roof. I’m not going to wait here staring at the wall like a fool. Negomas was spending the night with Brann: no need to worry about him. “Jaril,” Taga yelled.

  An owl circled above, hooted what sounded like laughter, came swooping down, landing beside Taguiloa as the blond boy. A moment later a nighthawk screeched, came slipping down and landed as the silverbright small girl. “What’s the fuss?” Her voice was water clear, melodious.

  Taguiloa bowed. “Welcome, damasaхr.”

  “Hm. Well?”

  Feeling as if he faced the ghost of his great-aunt who was mamasaхr to the whole family and by repute tougher than a Temueng pimush, Taguiloa cleared his throat. “I was going to visit some friends, thought your brother might like to come along.”

  She snorted (though Jaril had informed Taguiloa that his kind didn’t actually breathe and therefore couldn’t play the flute). “And let Fist burn you out?”

  Taguiloa laughed before he thought, then expected her to scold him for disrespect, but she seemed unperturbed, just stood waiting for him to explain himself. “Fist has better sense,” he said. “Even on a foggy night, start a fire here and half of Silili would go. Bad enough to have Hina on his tail when some ghost or other named him as the fire-starter, something that big would bring in Temueng enforcers and maybe even an Imperial Censor. He’d be skinned alive and hung to rot. His family too and everyone who helped him and their families.” Taga flung his arms out. “And even when he was dead, the ghosts he made would torment the ghost he was. I’m not worth all that. No way. Not even for dearest Yarm the family hope.” He smiled at the little girl. “Want to come along?”

  She gazed a moment at her brother, then nodded. “Why not. This ghost business is weird.”

  Taguiloa stared at her. “Your kind don’t die?”

  “Oh they die all right. And stay dead. Ghosts? No way.”

  “They don’t have souls?”

  “That’s something they’ve been arguing about since eldest ancestor learned to talk.” She shrugged. “A waste of time and breath far as I can see.” She watched as Jaril blurred then changed into a Hina boy. “This is the first reality we’ve seen where there are ghosts you can actually talk to.” She shimmered and changed to a small golden lemur, then hopped up to ride her brother’s shoulder.

  “Well,” Jaril said, “she couldn’t come as a little girl, that’d make your friends uncomfortable.”

  Taguiloa pulled the door shut, turned the key in the lock and dropped the metal bit into a pocket, then started walking toward the gate through the rustling foliage of bushes he reminded himself he’d have to water in the morning. “You change your shapes so why couldn’t she be another boy?”

  The lemur gave a chittering sound that sounded indignant. Jaril grinned and patted her paw. “But Yaril’s a female,” he said. “She couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Curiosity driving him, Taguiloa persisted. “It’s only appearance after all. If I dressed myself in woman’s robes, painted my face, wore a wig and practiced a bit, I could make a fairly convincing appearance as a woman, though my real nature wouldn’t change at all.”

  The boy turned those strange crystal eyes on him; when Taguiloa was sure he wasn’t going to answer, he did. “The inner and outer are one with us. If we try to change the nature of the outer, we deny and warp the inner. So-” he grinned, an impudent urchin grin that acknowledged and mocked Taguiloa’s voice-“that we seem children should tell you we are children.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Hard to say. Time is funny. Six or seven hundreds of your years. Something like that.”

  “Children?”

  “We grow slowly.”

  “Seems like.” He tapped a finger on Jaril’s head, relieved to find it solid, warm and a little oily. “Talking about weird, I find you changechildren stranger than any ghost I’ve ever seen.”

  THEY WANDERED THROUGH the night quarter, sharing jugs of wine, the lemur a popular little beast with her smooth soft fur and dainty manners; they got evicted from a few places when some weak-stomached drinkers refused to tolerate an animal drinking from men’s wine bowls and others who liked the beast somewhat more than they liked the objectors jumped the objectors and started breaking the furniture; they visited a joyhouse, Jaril pouting and Yaril sulking when Taguiloa wouldn’t let them go upstairs with him; they settled for entertaining the joygirls, Jaril clapping his hands and dancing, Yaril dancing with him, a small and elegant figure, bowing and swaying with the most wonderful grace, golden fur glimmering in the lamplight. The lemur even played a simple tune on a gittern abandoned in a corner. They stayed there quite a while even after Taguiloa rejoined them, but eventually wandered on to watch a fight in the middle of the street, throw the bones with a circle of men on the sidewalk, losing and winning with equal enthusiasm, all three savoring the noise and activity about them, loud, raucous, mostly illegal and immoral, but full of vigor and the beat of life. Now and then Taguiloa got a jolt when he looked at Jaril’s eager young face, then he’d tell himself, seven hundred yea
rs, Tungjii’s tits and tool, and forget worrying about corrupting the boy.

  Sometime after midnight, he doused his head with ice-water, looked blearily about, collected the children and started threading through the narrow streets heading toward the Players Quarter.

  They left the lamplit streets behind, left the noise and warmth and good feeling. Taguiloa shivered, the water in his hair making him cooler though it didn’t do much to clear the fog out of his head. “I shouldn’t have had that last jug.”

  Jaril shook himself like a large wet dog. Yaril-lemur leaped off his shoulder, shimmered and was a large owl beating upward at a steep angle. “Yaril’s going to keep an eye on our backs.”

  “Someone’s following us?”

  “Not yet. Probably waiting for us. Tell me about Fist. What scares him?”

  “Not much. Hanging. Temueng torturers. Dragons. He swears he won’t hang, the enforcers will have to kill him to take him.” His footsteps sounded like gongs in his ears. Jaril’s feet made no sound at all. “He’s cunning, knows when to back off, runs strings of smugglers, snatchthieves, thugs, I don’t know what all.”

  “He figures he can handle you, a little pain and fear and you do what he says?”

  “Yeah. I’d figure the same, were it not for you change-children. Why else would I put up with Yarm for so long?”

  “And he’s afraid of dragons?”

  “A few years back, or so I’m told, Fist had a diviner read the gada sticks for him. The man told him to watch out for dragon fire.”

  “Ah. Maybe Yaril and me, we can make that reading come true.” Jaril blurred and a twin to Yaril’s owl went sailing up, narrowly avoiding tangling itself in the branches of pomegranate growing out over a wall.

  Taguiloa stood blinking after him. “I’ll never get used to that.” As he prowled along through the shadows of the narrow lane, he wondered what had got into the changechild. Too much wine, for one thing. He thought about that and was more confused than before. They didn’t have innards like normal folk, you could see that when they were smears of light. But Jaril had picked up a taste for wine rambling the night with Taguiloa and disposed of it somehow, managing to get nicely elevated on it, maybe it was like ghosts drinking the fragrance of wine and tea and cooked foods. What did changechildren eat? Jaril never said anything about that. Doesn’t matter, he’s a friend, can eat whatever he wants, doesn’t bother me; good kid, Jaril, even if sometimes he scares the shit outta me.

  Slowly sobering, he kept to the shadows and moved as silently as he could toward his own gate. Fist wasn’t going to kill him, just break an arm or leg or both and tromp on him a lot and repeat the tromping as soon as he healed unless he gave in and took Yarm hack. Taga cursed the emperor’s boils or whatever it was that stirred him up and made him grab at everything in sight. With the usual number of enforcers about and the Tekora’s guard up to strength, Fist would have settled for a minor beating. Tungjii and Jah’takash alone knew what he’d get up to these days.

  A horned owl came swooping down and changed to a blond child. Yaril. She came close to him, whispered, “Some men in the garden waiting for you. Yarm is there, two-legged elephant beside him, a couple others with clubs.”

  “Fist himself.” Taga swore under his breath. “That’s bad.”

  “I thought so. Mind if Jaril and me, we burn up a little of your garden?”

  “What?”

  “I remember what you said about fire. We won’t let it get away.”

  Taga stared at her, then grinned. “Dragons.”

  “Well?”

  “In a good cause, why not.” He scowled and swore again. “Fist. Seshtrango gift him with staggers and a horde of rabid fleas.”

  Yaril giggled, looked up, giggled again, shimmered and was a replica in green and silver of the small crimson and gold dragon undulating past over Taga’s head.

  Jaril-dragon flipped his streamered tail in airy greeting.

  Taga grinned up at the baby dragons. “You’re drunk both of you.” Silent laughter bubbled in his blood. The serpentine shapes waved laughter at him, wove laughter-knots about each other, exulting in a form that made them drunker than any amount of wine would. They settled down before the enchantment of their beauty wore off him (he was wine drunk too, far more than he should be) and started off toward his house.

  He gave them a few moments then followed after, thinking they were going to impress the shit out of those thugs waiting like innocent babes in his shrubbery. The dragons moved swiftly ahead of him, darting in swift undulations toward his garden. He strolled along the lane between the high wood-and-stone walls that shut in the house-and-garden compounds of those players and artists wealthy enough to buy and maintain a place here. He had inherited his. There’d been some uncertain years after his master died when he was afraid he would lose the tiny house and garden, when he had to swallow his pride and borrow money from Blackthorn which he knew she wasn’t expecting him to repay. He did it-and repaid it-because Gerontai had taught him to love tending that garden; he knew every plant in there, every inch of the soil, even the worms and beetles that lived in it, he knew it by taste and feel and smell, he knew every miniature carp in the small pool, every bird that nested in his trees and bushes. It was his place of retreat and meditation and more necessary to him than anything or anyone else, even Blackthorn. Yarm had disrupted that peace, but once this nonsense was over, he’d have his retreat back. Negomas was proving a quiet, happy companion with a love of growing things and a gentle sureness in those outsize hands that were so clumsy othertimes. He had the wrong sort of body and no talent at all for tumbling or the new kind of movement Taguiloa was exploring, but Taguiloa was beginning to feel that he’d found someone to whom he could pass on the other things Gerontai had taught him. And maybe the changechildren could find him a Hina boy to learn the movements, a boy that would fit into the household and appreciate the peace. Taguiloa ambled along the curving lane dreaming of times to come, chuckling as he heard shouts, curses and screams ahead of him, cracks, cracklings, shrieks, a scream. Baby dragons getting busy.

  When he stopped by the gate, a red and gold dragon head popped over the wall, a gold crystal dragon eye winked at him, then the head vanished. He pushed on the leaves of the gate and they swung inward without a sound. Busy Yarm, there’d been a squeak in one of the left side hinges yesterday. He strolled into his garden, hands clasped behind him, stopped after a few steps and grinned at the tableau before him.

  Yarm in a half crouch, fists clenched, his face twisted with helpless rage, his shirt and trousers slashed with thin charred lines and speckled with black spots still red-edged and smoking.

  Fist on his knees howling with pain, the side of his face burned, his left shoulder and arm bubbling raw meat.

  Two other men on their faces in the gravel of the path, twitching a little, speechless with terror.

  Yaril dragon and Jaril dragon drifted down and hovered by Taguiloa, one on the left, the other on his right, both a little behind him like proper bodyguards.

  “Greet you, Yarm,” Taguiloa said. “Come for your things? I see you met my friends.” He grimaced at the howling Fist, turned to Jaril. “Could you do something about that noise?”

  Golden eye winked at him, dragon dissolved. In his light ray form Jaril zipped through Fist, wheeled about him, went through him again, then returned to dragon shape and took his place at Taguiloa’s shoulder. The howling stopped. Not a full cure, the man’s flesh was still ragged and raw, but at least it wasn’t oozing anymore. Fist got to his feet. He opened and shut his left hand. The muscles in his arm shifted stiffly, but the pain was no longer unbearable.

  “They’ve promised to keep an eye on me and mine.” Taguiloa said. “They must have thought you had hostile intentions, waiting here in the dark like this. You don’t have hostile intentions, do you Fist?”

  The big man was staring fascinated at the serpentine shapes, turning his head from one side to the other until Taguiloa began to get dizzy watc
hing. Eyes glazed, fear-sweat dripping down his face, Fist coughed, said, “Uh no, sure not.” He turned away from Yaril and Jaril, reached over to touch his burned side. “Like you said, we come to get Yarm’s stuff. Meant nothing by it.” He kicked the nearest of his men in the ribs. “Isn’t that so, Fidge? On your feet, goat turd.”

  Silent laughter from the dragons. Taguiloa glanced at Yaril, blinked as she began smoking about the nostrils and produced a small gout of bright blue fire. Fidge started shivering and had difficulty getting to his feet. Fist went so pale he looked leprous in that brief blue glow.

  “Then Yarn might as well collect his belongings. Everything he owns is in those packs by the door. He’ll need some help hauling it, but then you’re here, aren’t you, so generous with your time and muscle.” He turned his head to Jaril dragon. “Light their way, my friend. If you feel like it, of course.”

  More silent laughter then Jaril dragon went coiling after Fist and Yarm, prodding them to move faster.

  When they were back Taguiloa said, “Good. There’s no reason for any of you to return, is there? My friends here might be a bit nastier if they saw you again. They were mild tonight, but their tempers get a bit tetchy when they’re hungry. I wouldn’t show my face inside these walls again if I were you.”

  Silently, heavily the four intruders trudged through the gate and into the lane. Taguiloa pushed the two sections of gate shut and dropped the bar home with intense satisfaction. He strolled toward the house, laughter bubbling up in him, his own and that from the dragonets.

  Yaril and Jaril dissolved and retbrmed into ehildshapes, giggling helplessly, leaning against the housewall beside the door holding their middles. “You should… you shoulda…” Yaril gasped. “You should’ve seen Jaril chasing them through the hushes. You should’ve seen us herding them off the grass, giving them hotfoots until they were hopping like… oh oh oooh, I think I’m gonna bust.”

  Jaril calmed a little, asked hopefully, “You think they’ll come back?”