Changer's Moon

by Clayton, Jo;

  Before she was ready, she was out of the trees, running into moonlight that nearly blinded her, through grass that whipped about her flying feet and threatened to trip her. She was getting tired, her legs were stone-heavy, the breath burned her mouth and throat, but she drove herself on. She could almost feel his hands reaching for her, his breath hot on her neck. He was so close, so desperately close. She zigged and zagged like a startled lappet, trying to get back into the thin fringe of woodland along the Highroad beyond the grove of Blasted Narlim camp.

  His fingers scrabbled at her arm. With a small sobbing cry she flung herself around and away, cutting perilously close to him, trusting in the agility that had saved her so far. Again and again she managed a swerve, a dodge, a lunge at the last moment, avoiding the clutch of those long pale fingers; once she threw herself into a rolling fall past him and managed to bound onto her feet before he could bring himself around. That time she nearly made it to the trees, but in a straightaway run she was no match for him and she had to swerve again to escape him. As she had in the hallway in Sel-ma-Carth, she wanted fiercely and uselessly to know knife work, to have Coperic’s skills in her hands and mind. It might have given her a chance, at least a chance. This chase had only one end, but she refused to think about that. While she had breath in her body, until her legs folded under her, she would fight him, she would struggle to get away. Ildas brushed against him, drained his strength, brushed against her, gifting her with that strength so she could keep on long after she should have dropped, exhausted. The image of the charred agli came to her. Burn him, she screamed silently at the fireborn, burn him like you did the agli. But the norit must have had stronger defenses than an agli; he and Ildas balanced each other. Neither could harm the other. And it seemed to her Ildas shrugged and told her in his wordless way that he was doing all he could.

  The norit’s fingers were lines of fire on her shoulder, but her tunic burned away from under them and she threw herself to one side, rolling up onto her feet and darting away. Ildas, she thought, ashing the cloth. Her legs were timber baulks, as weighty and stiff as the beams in the watchtower, her breath came in great gulps, she was beyond pain now, knew the end was near. Ildas brushed her leg, and fire jolted through her. Again the norit’s hand closed on her, catching the cloth of her sleeve, again the cloth ashed as soon as he grasped it, but this time instead of rolling away from him, she dived past him only inches from his body, too soon and too fast for him to change his lunge. As he came around, his boot caught in the grass and he fell on his face. Hardly believing her luck, she forced her body into a sprint toward the trees.

  And was forced to swerve away again; a straight run was impossible. He didn’t quite touch her but she felt him like a torch at her back.

  She heard a gasp, quickly hushed, a slithery thump, felt a coolness in the night about her as if a fire were suddenly smothered. She chanced a look over her shoulder, stumbled to a shaking stop; her legs folded beneath her and she went down on the grass with a silthery thump of her own.

  Coperic knelt beside the body of the norit, wiping his knife on the black wool robe. He got to his feet and waited as Tuli wobbled onto her feet and stumbled over to him. Without asking questions or saying anything, he gave her his hand and led her toward the lane between the hedges, walking slowly, letting her catch her breath and gather her strength. Ildas trotted beside her for a few strides, then leaped onto her shoulder, draped himself about her neck, bleeding energy into her.

  “I feel. Like a puppet. With its strings cut,” she said.

  “Takes some like that.”

  “Good thing you came.”

  “Got worried when you didn’t show up, so I come looking.”

  “Lot of noise back there. After the fire started.”

  “Not us.”

  “Didn’t think so. You see who?”

  Stenda after the racing macain. Saw a boy going back into the mountains driving half a dozen of them in front of him, he’ll make it, enough left still attacking to cover him. Probably other Stenda hitting for the mountains soon as they busted racers loose.”

  “Still going on.”

  “Tar-folk and outcasts trying to get off with a tithewagon. Won’t make it, those that don’t get killed’ll have traxim and norits on their tails. Dead, all of ’em.”

  “No,” she said. Not arguing with him, but trying to interpose that lack of belief between her twin and danger. “Teras,” she said. “Could he be there?”

  “Too far north. Saw some of ’em. Didn’t see him.”

  “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “Didn’t see no one looks like you.”

  “Ah.” Though they were fraternal twins she and Teras did look very much alike. Her knees gave way, but he hauled her up and supported her until she had herself together again. “Your folk?”

  “Slit some throats, sliced some girths.” He grinned. “Have to do some sewing before they can ride. Bella swears she got herself a shaman while he was gaping at the fire. Got out. All of us. Got loose easy with all the other stuff going on.” He pushed through a flimsy place in the left-hand hedge, pulled her after him into the field. “Maiden give them luck, but most those others they dead. Too much noise, trying for too much.”

  “Won’t be so easy for us next time.”

  “Do something different next time.”

  Tuli nodded. She was suddenly as tired in mind as she was in body. She yawned, leaned more heavily on him. “Gonna have to tie me in the saddle.” She yawned again, blinked slowly at the riders waiting for them under the moonglow with its load of dangling moth cocoons. “Teach me ’bout knives.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Time enough.”

  “Yeah.” She giggled. “Cut off a toe, I try anything tonight.”

  POET-WARRIOR/KINGFISHER

  1

  “Liz.”

  The dark woman leaned out the driver’s window of the old battered pickup. “Jule.”

  “Anoike sent me, said you could give me a lift.”

  Liz nodded. “Come round. I’ll get the door. Handle’s off outside.” She pulled her head back in and a moment later Julia heard the loud ka-thunk of the latch, the squeal and clank of the opening door.

  With the help of Liz’s strong nervous hand, she was half-lifted, half-climbed up onto the seat. The cracked fausleather squeaked under her as she slid over, the stiff springs gave and bumped against her less than padded behind. She moved tentatively, seeking the least uncomfortable way of sitting; her knee bumped into something, knocked it into a slide toward Liz. Automatically she reached out and caught hold of it, realized that she held the hand-carved stock of Liz’s favorite rifle, close at hand, ready for use.

  Liz saw her consternation, smiled, leaned back. “Our new employer says we’ll be jumping into hostile territory.”

  “I slept through a lot.”

  “Yup, sure did.”

  Julia unwrapped the sandwiches, her stomach cramping with hunger. She forced herself to eat slowly, chew the bread and meat instead of gulping down large chunks. Cold greasy venison tough as bootleather, on stale bread. Metal-tainted water from the canteen. But it was the most wonderful meal she’d had in years, definitely the most satisfying. She ate with an intensity greater than that of the greediest of children and knew it and laughed at herself and only just managed to stop herself from licking the paper. She brushed the crumbs from her hands and thighs, crumpled the paper, looked around, frowning.

  Liz grinned at her, her black eyes squinted into shallow curves. “Out the window, Jule.”

  Julia looked at the wad of greasy paper. The thought of messing up a mountain with her leavings gave her a pain almost physical. She couldn’t do it.

  “Toss it, stupid,” Liz snapped. “Garbage men coming by in the morning. Sanitizing these mountains down to stone.”

  Julia flinched, screwed the paper into a tighter ball, then pitched it out. Liz was right, what did a few scraps of paper matter now? She looked out the window at the vag
ue shapes of the trees, dark columns in the darkness, heard the lazy sibilance of the wind through the branches, listened for that moment to that sound alone, hearing nothing else, wanting to hear nothing else. After a moment she shivered. “Don’t they realize,” she whispered, “don’t they realize they might make a new Sahara here?”

  Liz snorted, shocking Julia out of her trance. “Them?” She reached out, touched Julia’s arm with an uncharacteristically gentle hand. “It won’t all be gone,” she said. She patted Julia’s arm, drew back. “Prioc’s staying, him and some others. With some mortars and rockets.” She chuckled. “Making garbage out of the garbage men. Even you shouldn’t worry about that sort of litter, Jule.”

  Julia passed a hand across her face. “Forty-plus years of conditioning, Liz.” She looked down at the rifle, shook her head.

  “Gloom and doom. Give you a few good feeds and something to keep you busy, you’ll be humming along good as new.”

  “Liz?” Julia raised a brow. “This isn’t like you.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “All this maternal … what? fussing.”

  “Just a bit of boredom.” Liz fidgeted on the seat, tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I hate waiting.” She ran dark eyes over Julia, frowned. “You want to drive or ride shotgun?”

  “Drive.”

  Ombele’s voice boomed out over the clearing. “Get ready.”

  “Jump coming,” Liz said. “Start the motor, be ready to roll when we’re through. Supposed to be daylight on the other side.”

  A murmur and a sigh as if the mountain itself exhaled—those who were walking got to their feet and stood waiting. A yipping whoop—Angel sending a part of his band in two horns about the low end of the meadow. Rear guards. A ragged splutter, then a burring drone as the truck motors started up and settled to rough idling, waiting. A stuttering harsher roar from the motorcycles about the high end of the meadow. Foreguard. Jumping into hostile territory, Julia thought. Be ready. She put her hand on the knob of the shift lever and waited.

  Liz sat with the rifle’s barrel resting on the shaking metal of the door, pointing out the open window at the sky, the butt on her thigh so she could swing it up and aim with a minimum of time and effort, yet avoid accidentally shooting someone if the jump proved rougher than she expected. She was wire-taut, glittering with the excitement that took hold of her, kept her alert and deadly during times of threat. Often enough before now Julia wondered what had happened to her to leave her like this, but she never asked. No one asked questions; whatever people wanted known about themselves they volunteered; there was no point in anything else. Liz chuckled suddenly. “The Kry,” she said. “That’s what Dom Hern called them.”

  “What?”

  “Desert tribes. The hostiles. Use firespears sometimes, he said. Dom Hern. Better hope we catch them squatting. Our load’s mostly fuel.”

  “Yike.” Julia grimaced at the dirty, cracked windshield. “Anoike didn’t mention that little detail.”

  “Want out?”

  “If I was sane I would.” Julia sighed. “No.”

  “Then what’s the fuss?”

  “Right.” Julia laughed. “What’s the fuss? I was right the first time. I’m dead and this is dream.”

  Liz’s chuckle mingled with hers, a macabre cheerfulness blending with her tension. “And I’ve been crazy for years, Jule, so enjoy.”

  Ombele’s basso roar sounded again. “Hang on. Jump starting.”

  Like an oil smear birthing damp and gawdy rainbows out of rain and asphalt, a vast opalescent membrane appeared at the high end of the meadow and began sweeping toward them, eating everything it passed over. It touched the bumper, ate the engine. Julia sat stiffly, more terrified at that moment than she could remember ever having been even including when she had turned and seen the blackshirts waiting for her.

  It passed through them, a cool breath, a leap from dark to light.

  A brief chatter of automatic rifles, followed by quieter snaps from the hunting guns, the roar of motorcycles, the thud of hooves.

  Lanky blue men, ragged and howling came running from house to house, burned-out shells of houses in this sea village backed up against crumbling chalk cliffs a dirty white in the cold brilliance of the winter sun. The Kry came swarming at them, spear-throwers filled and swept back. And they fell when the chattering began, as if some mighty scythe had swept across them. A single short spear came wobbling at them, but the distance was too great, the cast too much a desperation. She heard a whoop and saw Rudy Herrera, the youngest of Angel’s collection, ride at the spear, knock it out of the air with a barrel of his rifle, then kick his mount into caprioles while he shook his rifle and taunted the Kry.

  Georgia yelled at him and he came back, his round dark face split into a gap-toothed grin. Gap-toothed because a Dommer had taken exception to his curses and struggles when he and his family were evicted from land they’d worked for three hundred years, the parliament having condemned and taken the land from them after paying the pitiful sum they called just compensation. There was supposed to be a dam built there so that water would drown that land, but somehow it was never built and somehow the land ended up in the hands of the local seigneur, all of it. Just one of those things that happen to people. Rudy with a tooth knocked out, his parents in a workcamp somewhere. One of those things. Julia shifted into gear, ready to roll when the order came, wondering how that destructive rage in Angel and his band was going to be harnessed once the fighting was over. She thought a second. Maybe no problem at all. Will any of us be alive then?

  “Southport,” Liz said.

  “This place? You’re full of little nuggets today.”

  “Whatever you’re full of, I wish you’d pull the plug.”

  “Sorry. Hunger speaking, I suppose.”

  “Sourbelly, uh-huh.” Liz smoothed her hand along the rifle’s stock, over and over as if she were petting a cat, while she gazed past Julia at what must once have been a prosperous, growing town. “Doesn’t look that different from Broncton or Madero, does it.”

  “Form follows function,” Julia said, pursing her lips and lifting her chin; then she grinned. “No phone lines. No electricity here. No plumbing.”

  “No flush toilets, no laid-on water, no hot baths without heating and hauling.” Liz ran a hand through her short hair.

  “Well, we’ve had the better part of a year to get used to that.”

  “Doesn’t mean I ever learned to like it.”

  “Does mean we’ve got to get this bitty war over and let Trig get working with Norman on pipes and heaters, Ellie dreaming up some kind of generator; I suppose she brought along the parts of the one she and Thom built for us. And there’s the press, they must have brought that along.” She smiled blindly at the windshield, seeing nothing but a dream she hadn’t known was in her, feeling a lift in her blood at the thought. “Me, I’d like to be my own printer and to perdition with all censors.”

  Liz said nothing, just continued to stroke the wood of the stock. After a moment’s silence, she leaned forward, peered through the bug-splattered glass. “Here come our allies.”

  The jump had landed them on a flat, pebbly space before a three-story wall that sat like a dam across a narrow break in the cliffs. Near the center of the wall there was a wide gate, its twin leaves made of heavy polished timbers that looked as tough and impenetrable as the stone of the wall. The two sides of the gate swung open and half a dozen riders came out, crossed the narrow open space, stopped in front of Dom Hern and the healer. All of them were women. They wore short-sleeved leather tunics and loose, knee-length trousers of leather; they carried bows and all had swords clipped onto heavy pocketed belts. Their mounts were vaguely lacertine, with smooth knubbly skin, spongy growths along thin necks, large, lustrous intelligent eyes, powerful legs and clawed feet. Julia watched the horses that Hern and his companion rode and was startled to see both beasts placidly accepting the strange creatures coming up on them. She glanced at Liz
and saw she’d noticed the same thing.

  “The healer,” Liz said. “She’s got a thing with animals.”

  “Magic.” Julia sighed. “Helps.”

  “Yup. Curls my hair just thinking about it.”

  “I suppose we could treat it as just another kind of technology. What I know about motors you could write on a stamp, but I never had trouble driving a car.”

  “Right,” Liz said absently, her gaze still fixed on the women. “And sorcerers die like anyone else if you put bullets through their brains.”

  2

  The roar of the cycles was making the horses nervous. Serroi soothed her mount, watched Hern settle his. She didn’t try to help; he wouldn’t like that. He grinned at her, knowing exactly what she was thinking; he’d come a long, long way from that sheltered arrogant man who’d ridden on quest from the Biserica with her, perhaps in part because he’d shared dreams with her on the plateau and in the sharing had been reshaped—as she had been reshaped by him, though she hadn’t given much thought to that part of the experience.

  The membrane passed over them and they were in Southport, a burnt and desolate travesty of the busy, cheerful place she remembered. That’s what the mijloc will be after this war, she thought. The waste, the horrible waste. And for what?

  Kry came howling from among the burnt-out houses, set to hurl their spears, but Angel’s band and the folk on the cycles lifted their weapons. There were loud rattles and a series of sharp snaps and the Kry went down, the charge was broken and those still on their feet began to run back for shelter. One of them got off his spear, but a boy rode out and knocked it down, taunting the Kry all the time.