by Clayton, Jo;
“No better, not worse than I always am; what’s to worry about, dear Lyn. Find out what’s going on, then hurry back and tell me. I really do need to know.” She sighed as the girl pushed out of the tent, listened to her light footsteps hurry away and fade into the shouts and uproar coming from the meeting. They’ve made up their minds what to do about the attack tomorrow, she thought. Reason enough to swallow the bitter pill. I’m declining into cliché at the end of my life. The noise that had startled her muted until nothing more came to her ears than the usual camp sounds. She lay back with her eyes closed, listening to the wind brushing through the trees, soothed by the sound, calmed enough to go back to the depressing considerations she’d been immersed in before the noise began. She had to make up her mind before the next shot, bring herself to do what she had to do. Whatever they decided, they could not take her with them, yet chances were they’d try. She couldn’t bear to think of it any longer and deliberately turned away. Fantasy. I’ve never written a fantasy. I wonder if I could? Magic. I don’t believe in it. I wish I could, but my optimism doesn’t stretch that far. Magic healer, yes. I could bring him out of air and nothing, a shaman who would make this wrongness in me right. Then, since you’ve gone this far into never-never land, why not conjure a shaman who could magic the ills out of your poor damned doomed country? God, I wish I could believe in that enough to write it. She listened for a minute but could hear nothing except the usual noises. Come on, Lyn. Get back here and tell me what they’ve decided. Magic wand, she thought, wave it over the country and set things right. Set things right, that’s a frightening thought. She shivered. That’s what started this, one bunch of peabrains trying to make reality fit their idiot schemes. Anyway, who’s wise enough to say what’s right for anybody but himself. Herself. Not me. Only, let the killings stop, let people work out their own lives. Stop the slaughter of minds. Almost worse than bodies, what you’re doing to the minds of good people. Magic wand. Magic want. She giggled. Magic chant. Give me a magic chant, a curse that would strike only those with rigid minds, those who think there’s only one right way to do and be, give me a curse tailored to those types, give me that curse and I’d loose it over the world, I’d loose it laughing, no matter what misery it brought. Hunh! probably just as well I’m only dreaming. She sighed and tried to relax, tried to sink into the soughing of wind through the needles, the scattered bird cries, the distant chatter of a squirrel, all the wild sounds of the mountains. The smell of the pines crept into the tent, sharp, clean, the essence of greenness, of remembered mountains. Mountains. I ought to write an essay on mountains. She smiled into the dim brown-green twilight in the tent with its dusting of fine red dirt, dirt that smelled like the trees that grew out of it, dirt that smudged her fingers and the base of the glass. She rubbed her fingertips on the blanket. Her hands were bundles of sticks now, bones and skin with no flesh left. I used to have pretty hands. Forget that, no point in it. Mountains. I was born cradled between mountains. I have always had a hunger for blue mountains, a hunger like that, I suppose, that has called so many sorts of men to the sea and inspired bad poetry. Odd, isn’t it, how some verse you know is only doggerel can reach down into blood and gut and stir them mightily. But the sea’s a capricious and undiscriminating mistress; she calls everyone and welcomes them with equal eagerness and treachery. We who succumb to mountains have to share our love only with the few and the odd; our lover is harsh and demanding yet forgiving in her way; she punishes stupidity but welcomes back those willing to learn, she kills a few but most survive to return to her. I have come to die in my mountains, one last embrace, one last green breath of free air in this nation that has forgotten the meaning of freedom.… eh, Julia, you grow maudlin, this part of the essay would need extensive editing.… dumb, lying here, coaxing sentimental tears out of yourself. Enjoy your good cry, fool, and get back to the hard things … still … blue mountains … pine smell and bark dust.… better to die here if one has to die … Lyn, where are you? Oh god, it hurts … can’t stand … have to … can’t think … fantasy … bring me … my magic healer … let me escape … let me live.… She folded her wasted arms over her swollen belly, closed her hands about wrists like withered sticks and fought to endure the growing pain as the drug wore off. There was too much riding on the next shot, too much. She wasn’t ready to face it, not yet.
Lyn came in like a burst of sunlight, her straight black hair spreading out from her face in a fan. She took a deep breath, calmed herself a little, blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sudden twilight. “Out of nowhere.” Her high light voice went up to a breaking squeak. She cleared her throat, breathed in again. “Two people,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Like that. Like they do in TV and movies, except this was real. A man, in clothes like you see in history books, Robin Hood, you know. With a sword. A real live sword, Jule. Short and kinda fat, but looks like he can handle himself good as Georgia if he wants to. But that’s not the weirdest thing. There’s a woman with him. Tiny bit, wouldn’t come up to here.” She indicated her collarbone. “She’s got on this white thing, sort of a choir robe without sleeves. And she’s green. Uh-huh. Green. Sort of a bright olive. And she’s got orange eyes and dark red-brown hair. Sounds yukky, doesn’t it, but she isn’t, she’s really kinda pretty in her weird way.” Lyn smiled and settled herself on a pillow beside Julia. She leaned forward. “Like I said, one minute Sammy was telling Danno to sit down and shut up, he’d get his turn to talk, the next thing, there they were, the man and the woman, standing by him. Anyway, that’s what Liz said. She said Ombele jumped the man and Georgia got his sword away, but the woman, she just told them not to be idiots and to behave themselves. Then the man started talking. He’s come to give us a way out. A way we can stay together and not get killed. Well, not exactly giving it; he wants us to help him fight a war against some bunch of sorcerers. Sorcerers!” She giggled. “Would you believe it? Magic. They’re asking him all sorts of questions now, what we gonna get out of it, who’s he, you know, stuff like that. He’s sounding good, Jule, but it’s hold your nose and jump in the dark.”
2
When Hern and Serrbi stepped through the Mirror, the gathered crowd surged onto its feet, the big brown bald man, Ombele, descended on Hern like an avalanche and had his arm twisted behind his back before Hern had a chance to catch his balance. The fighter band lunged through the crowd at him and stood guard while Georgia patted him down with quick efficiency and none-too-gentle hands, removed the sword and held it up, disbelief in his square face. He turned to Serroi and stopped, his jaw dropping. “Green?”
Serroi chuckled. “Green,” she said. “Suppose you let my friend go and listen to what he has to say.” She looked up at him, with a wry smile. In the mirror Georgia had seemed big enough but not enormous compared to the others, yet her head barely passed his belt buckle. These were a large people. Even the smallest of the adults would be at least a head taller than the tallest of the mijlockers; only the Stenda came close to watching them.
Georgia grinned down at her. “Feisty li’l bit,” he said. He waved his fighters back, handed Hern his sword and went to squat in the front row of the gradually quieting crowd, balanced on his toes, ready to move swiftly if there was need.
Hern sheathed the sword and brushed at his sleeves, his eyes glittering, his long mouth clamped in a grim line. He wasn’t used to being handled like a child and looked ready to skewer the next to try it, but even as she wondered if she should say something, the anger cleared from his face and his palace mask closed down over him. He swung around to face the council and Samuel Braddock who was polishing his glasses with a crumpled white handkerchief. “May I speak?”
Braddock slipped the glasses on. “Think you better.” He climbed onto his stool to sit, resting long bony hands on long bony thighs.
Hern turned to the intently listening folk. “I am Hern Heslin, hereditary Domnor of Oras and the Cimpia Plain, a land on a world other than this. I’ve come to offer you a refuge from your e
nemies.” As he paused, Serroi studied the faces before them, some interested, some skeptical, some hostile, some indifferent, all of them alert, following his words with an intensity that startled her. Talk well, Dom, she thought, they’re going to need a lot of convincing. “I’ve been watching you,” Hern said. “On my world there is a being who calls himself sometimes Coyote, sometimes Changer, with a Mirror that looks into other worlds. To pay off an old debt, he in effect gave me my choice of whatever I saw in his Mirror. I have watched you govening yourselves and I like what I’ve seen. I’ve watched your fighters in action, effective action with a minimum of force used and blood shed.” He smiled. “I was much impressed.” A blend of interest and alarm lit Georgia’s faded blue eyes. “On my world we are engaged in a battle that is much like the one that engages you here. From what I heard, your government has been taken over by a group that is trying to control every aspect of your lives. So it is with my land. I need you. I have no gold to pay you, but I can offer you a refuge from those that pursue you and land to build a new country, raise your children, govern yourselves as you please. Fight for me, help me throw out those who want to tell my people how to act, what to think, who want to destroy an ancient seat of learning and refuge. In return, I will take all of you back through the Changer’s Mirror, all of you, old and young, fit and sick, fighters and non-combatants alike. I will cede to you a stretch of land north of Oras, a territory empty of other folk and kept as a hunting preserve by my father and grandfather. The soil is fertile, it has an extensive seacoast and access to one of the major rivers of the land, a good part is forested, and there is abundant game.” He made a small deprecating gesture. “Since I don’t find much pleasure in hunting, they’ve been left undisturbed for a number of years. The size.… um … that’s a difficulty.” He rubbed a hand across his chin. “I would say the preserve is just about three times the area of that city where the armory was. You understand, I can only promise you that land if the Nearga Nor and Floarin’s army are defeated, but no matter what happens some of you will survive and there is much open land on my world.” He turned, made a slight bow to the council, then swung back to the others. “I stand ready to answer your questions.”
A man go to his feet, scowling, a stocky dark man with long black hair braided into a single plait and tied off with a thin leather thong. “Havier Ryan,” he said. “A lot of us don’t think much of hereditary anythings. We got ’em and we close to dying of ’em.” In spite of his stolid appearance, he radiated an immense anger tautly controlled, control that flattened his voice to a harsh monotone. “Fight for you, you say. All right, what’s the chances? We don’t mind a fight if something comes of it, or why the hell we here? Lost causes, that’s something else. Might as well stay and tend to our own miseries as jump off into the back end of nowhere.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stood waiting.
“Your weapons are far more lethal than ours, with a much greater range. My world fights with sword and bow, lance and sling. With those two-wheeled machines you have mobility and ten times the speed of anything my people know. You would be fighting beside several hundred meien, women trained to weapons who will give the last ounce of their strength to defend the Biserica, not least because they can look forward to a slow skinning over a hot fire if they’re defeated. Also a few hundred irregulars, men and boys driven off their land, and some Stenda mountain folk who don’t take well to being told what to think. You’d be fighting behind a great wall, defended from sorcerous attack by the most powerful concentration of life-magic in our world. Your numbers are few, but as I said, your range, power and mobility will more than make up for lack of numbers. There might be other allies joining us, but I’ve been away from the Biserica for some time and haven’t seen the latest reports. As for the other side—I think we can count on having to face three or four thousand. Not all of those will be trained fighters, but enough of them to roll over my meien like a flood tide no matter how fiercely they fight. And there is the council of sorcerers, the Nearga Nor. Since they are the ones who started this mess, they’re gathering in all the norits and norids they can lay hands on. Norids you don’t have to worry much about since they’re barely able to make a pebble hop. Norits are something else. Besides things like longsight and flying demons sent as spies and saboteurs, they can compress the air above you so that it falls on you like a stone, turn earth to bogs that suck you down, or open wide cracks under your feet, burn anything flammable you have on your body, including hair and nails, freeze the breath in your lungs, or snatch it away, freeze the blood in your veins. But they can’t work their magic from a distance greater than ten or a dozen bodylengths and there are only a few hundred of them—and as long as the Shawar are untroubled, they can block everything the norits throw at us. The most powerful of the nor, the norissim, are very few, one active, the others reduced to shadow extensions of his will. But he’ll be concentrating on the Shawar shield so won’t be a direct threat as long as we can keep the army from breaking through the wall. With you there, we can stop them. A tough fight, but far from a lost cause.”
“And what happens if we don’t choose to come?”
“I go back through the mirror and look for another force to fight for me.” He looked round at them. “And you pack up and start running.”
3
Julia ran from the pain, ran into memory, fading from scene to scene, indirectly taking leave of the struggle that had brought her here, preparing herself for the final yielding.
A hand reached out and caught hers, a strong arm hoisted her into the back of the truck. As she stumbled into the darkness, the dim light from the overhead bulb touched momentarily the flat spare planes of a familiar face, Michael, dressed again in the skirt and blouse she’d given him. She settled herself beside him, her back braced against the steel side of the box. “Making this permanent?”
“This side of the line.”
“They still looking?”
“When they feel like it.”
The truck began filling up, people packing in around them, so they stopped talking and sat in growing discomfort until the smuggler had his load and the back doors were slammed shut and latched. Julia heard the rumble of the motor, grimaced as she caught a whiff of exhaust smoke; the truck started forward with a lurch that pushed her into the dim figure on her left.
The truck crept forward, waddled into the street, hesitated, then picked up speed along an empty street.
The hours passed too slowly. There was no talking, a grunt or two now and then, a cough, a sigh, scrapes as one of the fugitives shifted cramped limbs. There was a stink of fear and sweat, of hot metal and exhaust fumes. The uncomfortable jolting as the truck sped through twisting, potholed back roads became a kind of bastinado of the buttocks and heels, but the stale air had its anodyne for that, dulling her mind and senses, dropping her into a heavy doze.
Whoom-crump of a warning rocket. Bee buzzing of rotors, grinding of engines. Man’s voice blatting from a bullhorn. You can’t tell what he is saying, but you don’t need to.
Truck bucking round, racing off the road into the woodlands, roar of motor, chatter of machine guns, bullets pinging off the sides of the truck, punching through, shrieks, groans, a woman keening in the murk, a man cursing. The truck lurching wildly, tossing them all together in a tangle of arms and legs. Screams. Moans. Banging and clawing at the doors, shrieking, howling, confusion, floundering, muddle. They are locked in a bounding, shuddering box with no way out.
Squeal and shriek of metal. The truck is tumbling over and over down a precipitous slope. Over and over.…
Bashing into a tree or a boulder and the back doors spring open and the fugitives spill out in a long trail of whimpers moans and silence.…
Bee-buzz of rotor blades, beams of blue-white light stabbing at them, pinning one after another, chatter of machine guns, shrieks. Then silence.
Julia crawls frantically into the brush, fiercely intent on getting away from the slaughter. On and on, brush tear
ing at her, clawing open her skin, shredding her clothes. Fall into a ravine, rolling over and over, out of control, rocks driving into her, bruising her to the bone, ripping open her flesh.
Slam against the bottom of the ravine, scramble some more on hands and knees, follow the ravine until it dribbles out, on and on, away and away, the noise diminishing, the lights and turmoil left behind.
Finally she collapses on her face, gasping and exhausted.
And a hand comes down on her shoulder, another catches her arms and holds her still.
She struggles. She is held firmly but gently and she cannot squirm away.
“We’re friends. Quiet. Don’t be afraid.” A woman’s voice murmuring in her ear. “Hush now. Be quiet and we’ll help you up.”
Julia coughs, croaks out, “Who.…”
Strong hands help her up, support her.
A man, blond and chunky, pale eyes almost colorless in the moonlight. A woman, tall and thin, dark gleaming skin, a broad glowing smile.
The man says, “You’re the last, we’ve picked up the rest of the survivors, got them safe.”
Julia swallows, tries a smile. “One called Michael dressed like a woman?”
The woman laughs. “Sure, hon. Who’dya think sent us after you?”
4
Several others surged to their feet as Havier Ryan sank to squat. Hern flicked a finger at the lanky brown woman with the wounded shoulder.
“Anoike Ley,” she said crisply. “You say the greater part of your army is made up of women fighters. Explain, please.”
Hern raised his brows. “You ask that?”
“It’s better to get things clear.”
Hern rubbed at his chin. “Hard to know just what to say. Mmm. Some five hundred years ago an ancestor of mine, Andellate Heslin, rid the mijloc of the feuding warlords that kept it in constant turmoil, and made Oras his capital, built it up from a small fishing village perched on the cliffs above the Catifey estuary. He chose to reward certain women who had been of great service to him in this by giving them a diamond-shaped valley between the Vachhorn mountains and the coast of the Sinadeen.” He smiled. “Not so generous a gift as you might think since he was giving them what they already held, but by making their possession official and backing it with his approval and his army he made life a lot easier for them. That was the beginning of the Biserica as we know it now. In the mijloc we serve the Spring aspect of She who has three faces, She who is the circle of birth and death and rebirth. The Maiden. The Biserica is the heart of that worship. But you’d better ask Serroi about the Biserica.” He touched her shoulder, smiled at her, his face changing and softening. “My companion.” He looked up, the palace-mask back in place. “Serroi was a fighting meie of the Biserica before her talent for healing bloomed in her. Don’t let her size fool you. With a bow I have never seen her equal and I wouldn’t be that sure of besting her with a sword given reasonably difficult footing. And she’s better than most at using her head. You’re good, Anoike Ley, the fighters with you, but I’d bet on Serroi to take you out, singly or in combination.” He chuckled, drew one of the sprinty russet curls between thumb and forefinger. “Or I would have when she was meie. She’s a healer now and that’s a different thing.” He stepped back. “Explain the meien, if you will.”