by Sharon Lee
The Bridgemaster was breathing hard and waving his assistants to his side urgently.
"Enough!" came a voice from the bridge. "We have a home to go to! Let us through and finish your torture later!"
A more familiar voice called out "Huh! They bear the crow--let them go!"
The magician glared toward the bridge and, grabbing a wand, made a quick motion in that direction. A sharp, lightning bright flash lit the night, bringing cries of dismay from men and beasts alike.
"The Bispham decides who enters and who is a thief! Silence!"
Rather than silence there were mutterings and complaints. The Bispham didn't notice the muttering, so intent was he on Slate. Slate's eyes were still dazzled; he more heard than saw the magician come close.
"How dare you attempt to command here? You who captain a circus--an old crow, a trick-trained horse, and hawks as heralds--think to bring your thieves into Lamonta unchallenged? Rove Captain, Rove Captain!"
The magician waved his wand at Slate. "I will let you and your men pass, Rove Captain, but I will keep your saddle bags filled with gold and silver, and I will keep your own trick horse, as well! These things are claimed as penalties! This is my command!"
The magician strode toward Grayling and the horse turned to face him straight on. The crow, now clinging stubbornly to the saddle, stretched wings and cried out "Braddack! Braddack!"
The magician warily slowed his approach to the horse and began waving that wand. Grayling began advancing and the magician said some magic words, raised the wand over his head as if to strike the horse bodily.
As the wand reached the height of its arc there was tremendous keening noise and a clatter of feather and wind as the rod was snatched from the Bridgemaster's grasp in a clean strike by a hawk. Just after came another hawk, screaming and diving at the still outstretched hand, and then another.
The magician flung himself to the ground, screaming, "Archers!"
Grayling was still advancing on the heedless magician and Slate whistled sharply, diving past the man and grabbing up trailing reins. The crow lifted suddenly from the horse, screaming crow-complaints at the melee. Wands littered the ground around the magician and as he scrabbled about trying to grab them the hawks continued to strike at him. He tumbled again, losing his gem-studded cap and exposing his half-bald head to the torchlight--and to the attacks of the hawks.
There was a shout of "DaChauxma!" and a barefooted Littlebrook came riding up to Slate, short lance to hand, and then there was a strange cracking sound as the bridge gate went down to a surging crowd.
Above all the noise was a sudden, piercing shriek.
"My cap, the crow has stolen my cap!"
Slate followed the magician's pointed finger. The gray crow was climbing slowly into the night air, circling the bridge....
"Gold, a dozen pieces to who recovers my cap! Two dozen pieces of gold."
The magician stood with wand in hand, pointing, waving, saying words...all to no effect.
"Troops, recover my cap!"
The crow glided majestically across the river gorge, and, with all heads watching, turned very neatly, and alighted on the roofed center section of the bridge, the fire from torch and urn flames glinting off the cap.
The magician turned to Slate, now astride Grayling.
"Captain, I demand your crow return my cap, I demand!"
A rush of The Bispham's men ran onto the bridge.
"Hah," came a familiar sound. "Hah."
The herbman came abreast of Slate, shaking his head sadly, leaning down to talk at the bare-headed magician.
"Hard to catch that crow. Couldn't with a thousand men. Kinzel couldn't catch him. Your men can't. Humph. If he likes you, he'll bring you presents. If he don't, he ignores you. Humph. Have to listen sometime, Bispham or not. That's the crow made this bridge famous. Humph. Two hundred and fifty years old, we figure. Smarter than you. Tried to tell you. Humph. If your magic's in your cap you'll never get it back if you don't let these folk travel on. Humph. Crow's a friend of theirs. Any fool coulda seen that. I did. Humph."
On the bridge the crow had moved from one side of the roof to the other as an enterprising solider made it to the rooftop. The crowd watched, half from the shore and half from the bridge, offering suggestions.
Seven archers came racing to The Bispham, trying not to look at his bare head. "Bridgemaster, we are here! Shall we shoot the crow? Or shall we try to catch it?"
The magician looked hopeful for a moment.
"Wouldn't," said the herb man."Humph. Lose the cap forever. Long way to the river. Pretty deep, too. Humph. My advice is good. Gotta be."
On the bridge the crow flew from the rooftop to the railing and then swooped out into the night. As the soldier who'd been on the roof got down to the bridge deck the gray form swooped from beneath the bridge and landed back in the same spot he been in.
Slate found himself with a troop--all mounted and packed--as The Bispham's soldiers tried building a human ladder. Gold if they could just get that bird....
The Bridgemaster looked disgustedly at his archers and then up at Slate and his men, and spoke to a point somewhere in between.
"Let the bird be. Let this troop pass. Let everyone pass, until daybreak--free passage, in honor of the crow--by order of The Bispham."
"Hah! Hah! Rove troop'll need a place to sleep. Know one. Hah! Listen this time! Hah!"
Slate turned to look at his men, who watched carefully, and heard the distant sound of hawks in the night.
"Hah!" he said finally, and pointed toward the herb man's retreating back. "I advise you to go that way!"
First published in Quiet Magic, 1999
Master of the Winds
Sharon Lee
HE DID NOT look a great deal like his poster-portrait, but only Petrie noticed that--or cared, once she had--and Petrie was odd by anyone's counting.
What mattered the most to everyone, Petrie included, was that he had come at last. Three weeks after his pictured announcements, here he was in town: the World Famous Kitemaster, Warlock of the Clouds, Advisor to the Crowned Heads of Exotic Realms (both earthbound and cloud rimmed), Master of the Winds. To Petrie, this last title was by far the most important. Oddly, not even she wondered why such an exalted personage should waste his time and fabulous powers awebinding the residents of Tailies Landing.
Home to Petrie was the Orphanage of St. Dudley, and she sat now with her fellow orphans under the watchful eyes of Sister Ignacia Marie, buying her continued presence with rigid stillness, staring at the Master as if her huge purple eyes were velvet-lined cages in which she would keep him for herself, forever.
He was tall, though not as tall as his picture had promised, and slender to the edge of emaciation. His hair and beard were curly, but the red-brown curls of the poster were, in reality, more than merely speckled with grey. He was dressed in a blue-and-white pin-striped tuxedo. His shirt was only three snowy ruffs: one at each wrist and a larger one, pinned with a bluestone brooch, at his slender throat. The cape Petrie had hoped for was not immediately in evidence.
He spread his arms wide and his fingers below the lace were long, slim and callused by lightning. On the third finger of the left hand--on the side where Petrie sat--he wore a battered silver band.
Petrie held her breath as he gestured--barely more than a whisper-ripple of outstretched digits--and the lanterns dimmed. The slightest, most delicate of breezes moved around the tent, cool on sweating bodies. Petrie sniffed as it touched her; smelled vanilla and ozone.
He crooked a finger and the little breeze, obedient as a puppy dog, ran to him, swirled about his trouser legs for a moment, then stilled. Petrie imagined she could see it--a creature rather like a dog, if dogs were made of white feathers and ice--curled about the feet of the Kitemaster, grinning at the audience with canine good humor. The suggestion of a movement from the Master claimed Petrie's attention, so she left the little breeze--unseen or not--to its own devices.
As the
lantern light dimmed even further, the audience drew in upon itself. The lantern to Petrie's left winked out, then its partner across the tent. One by one, with ritual solemnity, the lanterns extinguished themselves until the tent was in total darkness.
The Kitemaster allowed the darkness to remain only long enough for his audience to know fully that it was dark. Then he called into being--by means Petrie would have given much to have seen--a blaze of blue light. It hung in the air, seemingly solid, a foot or so above the wooden planks of the rough stage and three long arm-lengths in front of its summoner.
He allowed the audience to marvel a moment, then gestured again. This time, a pillar of red light came into being next to the blue one. Petrie leaned forward in her seat as far as her wariness of Sister Ignacia allowed, then held her breath so the act of breathing might not disturb her sight.
The magician moved again--yes! The light formed so--tiny particles of color, smaller than bumblebees, but behaving very similarly, gathered in upon themselves until there a third pillar of light manifested, this one butter yellow, floating beside its fellows above the stage.
Lowering his hands, the Master slowly moved back from his creations--Petrie thought that he moved carefully so as not to tread on the breeze at his feet--and invited the audience to examine his servants until they tired of the sight. Petrie sighed. A long time would pass before she could look at the scene before her without wonder, but free-floating pillars of color were not what she had longed to see. Impatient, she leaned farther forward, straining to see through the purple fog that filled the space between the blue and red pillars, longing to know if the puppybreeze was still in its place on the floor. A hand gripped the back of her neck--a grip she knew all too well. Sister Ignacia, no slave to wonder, snatched Petrie out of her chair and marched her toward the back of the tent. Experience told Petrie it was useless and worse to struggle; but as it became clear that the nun was intent upon setting her outside the tent, the child began to fight. Doom if sunlight entered this place now! Even the lingering rays of sunset were a danger. She did not question how she knew it, but the knowledge was plain in her, gilt-edged with truth.
Sister Ignacia simply exerted a bit more pressure, added a little more push. Petrie planted her feet, locked her knees, felt herself moved forward in spite of it, and fell back on the often overlooked weapon of a naturally silent child--she screamed.
Sister Ignacia recoiled as if stung and Petrie dove back toward the depths of the audience, which was on its feet and pushing, blind, toward the sides of the tent, seeking escape from whatever unknown menaced them.
There were more screams as people felled people and an exhaled, humid fear--then the lanterns flared back to life. The crowd paused in its flight; and a flailing wind rose from nowhere to assault and herd them and they ran from the tent as if it were afire, eddying around the unmoving black bulk of Sister Ignacia Marie, who was peering about for her charges.
* * *
AWAY--AT LEAST she'd gotten away, thought Petrie ruefully, nursing her torn palm. There'd be dutch to pay if she tried to go back to the orphanage now, though. Sister Ignacia would not be much amused by the consecutive shabby tricks played on her, from scream to determined elusiveness to the willfulness that had closed Petrie's ears to the calls of Sister and her housemates, as they searched the town field and the wood-edges for her.
Sister had given up, finally, gathering together the rest of her charges and herding them back across the moonlit field toward town. Petrie had slipped along the shadow of the trees, following an instinct--or was it taste of vanilla and ozone? She'd torn her palm going over the fence at the edge of the town's field, but she kept on going until she'd found the wagon.
Now, sitting behind a straggling bush, Petrie shook her head and closed her eyes briefly. It was important that she be here. She knew it. More important that she be here tonight than safe in the only home she'd ever known.
A light came on in the window of the wagon and she dropped flat behind the little bush.
The wagon door slid open, spilling light onto the steps and the grass below, and the Master stepped out and down. Purposefully, he strode forward, until he was halfway between that square of light and Petrie's hiding place. He was dressed as he had been at the tent show, and the hoped-for cloak was now fastened about his throat, flung back behind his shoulders.
Stopping, he placed his hands on his hips and tipped his head to one side. "I am pleased that you were able to come here this evening," he said, seeming to address the entire clearing. "At least one of you has come at the risk of losing her home." He turned once slowly around, and nodded as if satisfied. "I would like to invite you inside, if I may. There are refreshments." He tipped his head briefly to the other side, much like the orphanage cat when it sensed a speech directed solely to itself, nodded again and turned back toward the lighted square of the wagon door.
This was what she had come for! Petrie leapt up from behind her bush and ran after the Master. She caught him at the bottom step, and it was only when he turned and smiled that she saw she shared his welcome with another.
But the Master did not allow time for more than that first quick realization. With sure magician's timing, he bestowed his wonderful smile upon them both, murmured, "Welcome," turned and led them up the stairs into the wagon.
Petrie followed, keeping her eyes resolutely on the sweeping black cloak before her, refusing to acknowledge the other climbing beside her.
The Master motioned them toward his couch-bed as he moved to the kitchen end of the small space, gathering food and utensils. Unwillingly, Petrie turned at last to her fellow petitioner.
He was older than she, tall and much too slender, the whiteness of his skin telling of illness; his lank black hair already threaded with white. His eyes were black and fierce, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Petrie forced herself to meet his glare steadily, though something within her cringed from that contact.
Here you are then," the Master's voice pulled them 'round to watch as he put down a plate filled with cheeses and bread, a pitcher of milk and three yellow glasses. Relieved of these burdens, he reached slender hands to his throat, undid the fastening of his cloak, swirled it off his shoulders to a hook on the wall by the bed. He gestured to them again, indicating that they should sit on the blue-and-white coverlet.
After a moment, Petrie did. The boy remained standing for a heartbeat longer, then he sat as well, as far away from Petrie as he could. The Master sat on the floor by the laden table, his long legs crossed before him.
Smiling, he pushed the plate of cheese and bread forward. "Eat." He poured milk into glasses, one for each; and kept his glass in hand, sipping from it from time to time.
Petrie, reminded that her last meal had been the scant orphanage luncheon some hours gone by and that her next mealtime was by no means certain, helped herself to a slice of dark bread and a slab of butter-yellow cheese. She bit into it with satisfaction and a sigh.
The boy was staring at the plate as if he'd seen no such thing before--as well he might not, Petrie thought, suddenly noticing the fineness of his trousers, the softness of his shirt. Hesitantly, he put out one hand and selected a slice of bread. Copying Petrie imperfectly, he laid a piece of cheese carefully on the bread and bit into it. He chewed slowly, neither sighing nor seeming especially satisfied.
Petrie took a swallow of milk. Though she tried not to bolt her food, she found it too soon finished. Regretfully, she drank the last of her milk and put the empty glass on the table. Much comforted, she leaned into the corner of the couch, drawing her legs into a curl beneath her.
The Master moved, as he had not done all the time Petrie had been eating, setting his glass down on the table with a small click "Well, now. Would you like to tell me why you're here?"
Petrie blinked and looked thoughtfully at the Master. His taffy eyes were warm and guileless. She felt a slow rise of the fine hairs on her nape. Didn't he know?
But the boy was leaning for
ward, his thin, nob-knuckled hands clenching his nearly full glass in a grip that surely should have shattered it. "I'm here to learn the--the Power. I came because I could feel it... Because I want it. To learn how to use it..."
"Ah." The Master nodded, polite, then flicked his glance to Petrie. "And you, child?"
Petrie licked her lips. Words were never easy for her; she preferred always to rely upon the messages found in eyes, face, gesture... "I came because I--needed--to come. I..." She closed her eyes, as if visualizing the words would make the speaking easier. "All my life I've loved the winds. I--I used to go outside in windstorms, just to stand and feel them rushing past, to smell the different wind-smells." She opened her eyes and looked into the Master's warm brown gaze. "They lock me in now, when the wind starts to blow."
"Oh, child..." Petrie felt his sorrow for her as clearly as if he'd reached out and touched her hair.
Blinking back unexpected tears, she finished, lamely, it seemed to herself, "And I wanted to see the puppybreeze again, if I could, sir. Perhaps touch it..."
Next to her, the dark, sickly boy snorted. "The puppybreeze," he mimicked, some of the fierceness of his eyes flickering in his voice. "That's the kind of Power a girl would see! Why, that wind has to be the very least of those the Master commands!" He turned his black eyes to the quiet Master, seeking confirmation. "Isn't that so, sir? That that wind is the least?"
The Master knit his brows and bent his head. His long fingers were laced together across his legs and it seemed to Petrie that he studied the worn silver band on his left hand for a long time before he raised his head to answer the boy's question.
"It is not for me to know what is least and what is greatest. I have my skills and my secrets and those that do my bidding. But I am only Kitemaster, my son; I must judge worthiness as you do, in measures of loyalty, long service and...affection." He paused a moment and Petrie saw that his hands were no longer clasped and that one finger was rubbing the face of the silver band.
