by Unknown
Treseda pulled another scroll over the map. It was covered in cramped cursive script, composing a hymn cycle to-
"The Valadherat?" she asked.
Jahennes chuckled, but he sounded embarrassed when he said, "I've been praying... to whoever might hear. Sergeant Banfelh mentioned the queen's gods, and I was curious."
She wondered if he remembered what the messenger had said of Caiyo's origins, but didn't ask. Instead she turned back to the scroll. It was a translation, but a very literal one, stilted and hard to understand in places. She whispered the words aloud, reading titles of hymns. "For the Bringing of Rain... Defense Against Plague... For Fruitful Sleep." Treseda laughed humorlessly; she could use some of that.
"Read it," Jahennes said. "I haven't looked at that one before."
She did, quickly and with an air of self-consciousness. Struggling with the awkward translation, she stumbled over several words and came to a halt when she found the name of the god petitioned.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Shashensa."
"That is a tongue-twister, but-"
"Doesn't it sound familiar?"
"No. What is it?"
"'Property of Lord Shashensa,'" she quoted from memory. "I declined to return it. Remember?"
"Oh." He chuckled. "I suppose the Valadhen are one of those peoples that name their children after gods."
"Yes. I suppose so." They were very religious, Banfelh had said. She looked over the scrolls. "You found these in the library?"
"I did. Remember your father's old steward, Sihenna? He had an interest in foreign religions. I think these were his."
She scanned the scroll, not admitting what she was looking for, but knowing when she didn't find it. "Are there more of these?"
"Probably. I'll look." He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. In a low voice, he said, "Treseda. Why did you send him away?"
"I..."
Because he caused the dreams.
Property of Lord Shashensa.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said. "I'm sorry."
"No...it's all right." He shrugged. "Would you like to stay here tonight?"
"No. No, thank you."
He got to his feet. "Then let me see you out."
Too late she remembered the windows of her room, the fields. She turned her back on them, but could not close her eyes, unable to bear the images there. Ignoring the moonlight outside, she stared into the shadows of her room until her eyes fell shut.
* * * *
She stood in her char-blackened fields, her grandfather's sword in hand. And there, at the edge of the road, in bronze armor and with a steel spear, was the Dhoth minor general, the raider, the murderer, the one who had ordered her fields burned.
She charged, flew to him with sword thrust before her, cut into his face and limbs until he fell at her feet, shapeless and dead. But when he was gone, there were others, more Dhoth coming, if too late to defend him, to avenge him. She cut them down. They would not win—this was her land, and she would defend it, and she would be victorious!
Her fields would never grow again, not even in dreams. But she would water them with blood, turn their earth with churning feet and the thrashing of dying bodies, and she would have her own revenge.
Treseda smiled in her dream, and awoke with her teeth bared in a feral grin.
* * * *
Over the next days, she found herself frequently napping. She could get no rest at night and her days were exhausting. It was from one of those naps, which she had dropped into over garrison reports in her study, that Sergeant Banfelh awoke her.
"The Dhoth are retreating," he said.
She raised her head, blinking. "What?"
"The scouts you sent out yesterday have returned. Here, speak to them yourself." He stood aside, revealing two young men holding their caps respectfully in their hands, and looking at her with eyes buried deep in shadows.
"Good afternoon, Your Grace." One bobbed his head. "When we came to them, the Dhoth were breaking camp, Your Grace. We watched them go—this was the north army, you understand, and should be heading south. But they went north, Your Grace."
She picked up a pen and twisted its feathery top. "When was this?"
"When we came on them yesterday afternoon they were packing, Your Grace. They pulled down the tents this morning and turned north."
"You watched them all night?"
"Yes."
"How did they sleep?"
He swallowed, paling. "Not well, Your Grace."
"They had nightmares," his companion whispered. "Screaming ones, some of them."
"Some stayed up all night. There was a light in the general's tent—we could see him pacing."
Treseda sat back, smiling thinly. "So their sleep is troubled. Good. Mine is, too."
* * * *
She sent more scouts to the army in the south. They found the Dhoth sleeping in fitful snatches during the day. They had nightmares, too.
In her dreams that night, she saw Jahennes in the fields. And others—Sergeant Banfelh, Heria the cook, the two young scouts who followed the north army. All carried weapons: swords, pikes, fanciful blades with curving edges and hilts studded with gems, ornate but deadly. All of them were deadly.
They fought in a twisting landscape, sometimes the fields of Poncenet, sometimes the shores of Adbara, sometimes forests or foothills or the streets of a city she somehow knew was Anderum. In the eaves of the trees, on the crest of a hill, or in the shadows of alleys she sometimes saw the dark face of a young man watching them. She was unable to reach him in the fighting, and never knew for certain who he was.
Like her, Jahennes had little rest at night, and often slept fitfully during his spare daylight hours. She came to speak with him once, but he was too tired for a mere social visit. She asked, but he had not had the chance to read more of the Valadhen scrolls.
She remembered the prayer for fruitful sleep, and wondered if there was a hymn to be said for the restful kind.
* * * *
The Dhoth retreat continued. She sent out more scouts, and they were gone longer each time, having to follow the armies farther and farther away.
Once she sent them out and they were gone for ten days. They returned at dusk, dusty and exhausted, not bothering to wash, rest, or take refreshment before reporting to her.
"They're gone, Your Grace. We were following the southern army, and went along their route for days, but saw nothing. We passed around other estates and asked there. They saw the Dhoth moving south through the forest, avoiding roads, as if they were hiding from something. They said they moved quickly."
She called Sergeant Banfelh to her room, and had him relay her message to the serfs sheltering in Poncenet's walls. They could go home.
She would have told them herself, but her eyelids were already dropping.
That night Treseda slept peacefully, and the only dream she remembered on awakening was one about the horses she used to ride with her grandmother in Adbara.
She went to her study and took down her grandfather's sword. The size of the hilt was almost right, but the wire grip stung her smooth palm and slipped awkwardly in her hand as she swung it. So it was only a dream, after all.
Someone knocked as she returned the sword to its place above the door. She opened it and found Jahennes standing there, a scroll unrolled in his hands. Treseda recognized the cursive of the Valadhen hymns.
"Is there one named Caiyo?" she asked.
"Prince of Sleep. Lord Shashensa's servant. At first I thought it might have been a poor joke, naming the lord after the god, and he naming his slave boy after... but no. Not with the dreams."
"No." She bowed her head. "I sent him away because... I dreamed of the fields. Growing."
"Oh." She felt his hand gently close over hers. "They will one day, you know."
"Yes. Winter will be hard."
"It will. But we'll make it."
They would, she told herself and believed it. In the sp
ring, she would plant the fields again.
"Jahennes," she said, "Is there a hymn to Caiyo?"
"There are many of them on this scroll. All 'for the good dreams.' Would you like to read them?"
"Only asking for good dreams? Are there any in thanksgiving?"
He smiled slowly. "We can make one."
"Yes." She returned his smile.
Thank you, Caiyo. And thanks to the one who sent you—Lord Shashensa.
Three on a Match
by Michael H. Payne
Joining a new study group at school is always a challenge: meeting your fellow students, adjusting to the group dynamic, avoiding the death spells...
Michael Payne says that nothing much has changed from last year—he's still living in southern California, still clerking at the library, still broadcasting at the UCI radio station, still singing at church, still writing reviews for sfwa.org and other websites, and still doing his online comics. This year, however, he can direct folks to hyniof.livejournal.com, the official "Hey, Your Nose is on Fire" Industries site where all this stuff comes together.
#
In front of the fireplace, the big wolf growled, and Cluny couldn't keep her tail from frizzing, her claws digging into the arm of Crocker's chair. Shtasith, stretching black and gold and sinuous across Crocker's shoulders above her, drew back his neck and hissed, every one of his tiny pointed teeth showing, but as far as Cluny could tell, Crocker just swallowed, his gaze fixed on a point about a foot to the left of Master Gollantz's desk.
"None of that, now, Raine," the magister said, and Cluny was very glad he was standing between her and the wolf. "This is to be a private meeting, so on your way."
Raine got to her paws slowly, her voice gruffer than usual. "Keeping secrets from your familiar, master?" She made a show of sniffing the air. "A frightened human, a disgruntled firedrake, and a self-possessed squirrel hardly seem matters to jeopardize a partnership now entering its fourteenth decade."
Master Gollantz pointed to the office door. "Out, beast."
"Of course, master." Ears folded, the wolf turned and leaped through the wall with a pop of sparkling dust.
Cluny stretched her whiskers into the magical residue. A nice little teleportation spell. And if Raine could do it, maybe Crocker could learn.
"Familiars!" Master Gollantz stumped back to his red velvet and mahogany chair. "But then..." He gestured with several fingers, and the room, warm and bright, a beautiful late winter midday showing through the windows above the cases holding the magister's extraordinary collection of magical tomes, grimoires and artifacts, went suddenly dim and shadowy, a fog bank springing up all around them. "I certainly don't need to tell you about difficulties of that sort, do I, novice?"
Cluny blinked at him, her ears perking. Had he just called her 'novice'? But that would mean-
"Ah." A faint smile creased the magister's cheeks. "I see you know that word." Every trace of the smile vanished. "Might I suggest you next investigate the meaning of 'inconspicuous'?"
Her ears wilted. "Sir, I—"
"You are an animal, Cluny, admitted to Huxley as a potential familiar! That you instead display a wizard's grasp of thaumaturgy is absolutely unprecedented, and I've been researching the subject these nine weeks since you manifested your power in that unfortunate incident with the Queen of the Ifriti!" Sparks shot from the edges of Master Gollantz's eyes, Cluny's fur crackling with static. "Add to that the way you and Crocker mesh so perfectly that one might be tempted to call him your familiar, and you...he...it...you're twisting the union that lies at the very core of practical magic!"
Crocker stirred. "Sorry to be a disappointment, sir."
Gollantz waved a hand. "What you are can be hidden! What you've done cannot! Upsetting all of Powell House and taking this firedrake as familiar? How could you think—??"
"With respect, sir?" And Cluny meant it, too: she thanked the Squirrel Mother every day that it hadn't been someone like Master Watts who had found out about her and Crocker. "We've both apologized to Novice Steiverson for causing her binding to fail, but if I hadn't acted the way I did, Shtasith would've gotten loose! And I didn't know it would make him my familiar: how many wizards even have more than one?"
Master Gollantz settled back and pressed his fingertips together. "The last we had here at Huxley was 136 years ago, a young woman with a raven who bound a glass cat her senior year."
Cluny's whiskers bristled. "You mean— Esmeralda Stone? She was a Huxley student?"
"It's not something we advertise." Master Gollantz's gaze hardened. "In fact, after the Sorcerous Council finally defeated Ms. Stone and her army of the undead, they suspended Huxley's entire staff for allowing her to graduate. Master Watts and I both came in as junior faculty at that time."
He pointed to his "in" box, and a scroll popped into the foggy air. "Which is why, I'm certain, Master Watts this morning presented me with a petition co-signed by fifteen other senior faculty members demanding that Crocker here be removed from regular classes and placed under the strictest possible independent training regimen." The scroll unrolled and wafted like an autumn leaf onto his blotter pad. "Any thoughts?"
Cluny looked up at Crocker, saw him looking down at her, his face as plain and pale as uncooked bread dough, his power around her more comfortable than the afghan her mother had knitted her when she'd first been accepted to Huxley. Of course, Shtasith looked back as well, his reptilian eyes slitted, his power hot inside her and wanting to get hotter, a pressure she'd kept a tight clamp on the whole week the firedrake had been hers.
She swallowed and faced the magister. "That sort of program might actually be best for us, sir. I—"
"What??" Crocker's voice cracked, the sour stink of his fear sharp in Cluny's nostrils. "But...I'm barely making it now! I mean, writing out what Cluny tells me so our homework won't trip the cheating wards is easy, or flowing with Cluny's doppelganger spell so it looks like I'm doing the magic in class instead of her, but if anyone starts paying closer attention—!"
"Silence, you simpering simian!" Shtasith hissed, his tail lashing, its black barbs tangling in Crocker's dark curls. "My master's wasted more than enough time coddling you and catering to your fears! You're nothing but dead weight, the basest sort of leech upon her power!"
Cluny cleared her throat. "Guys? Could we maybe not take up the magister's—?"
"Stupid lizard!" Crocker's face flushed, and he flicked a finger into Shtasith's snout. "Why don't you go back to—??"
"Insolence!" The firedrake roared and sprang into the air, his talons spread.
"Enough!" Cluny sent a jolt of power along the tether that bound her to Shtasith, but she also zapped Crocker a little—just to be fair. They both gasped, and she shook a claw at them. "D'you want me to disown you both? Is that it??"
Crocker's eyes went wide, Shtasith's wings missing a beat, but Cluny knew it was an idle threat. Like Master Gollantz had said, she and Crocker just meshed, and the flow of power had gotten even better since Shtasith's arrival. This past week, any time she'd thought about trying to separate herself from one or the other, panic stabbed her as hard as the time she'd been playing with some friends in an old dead oak tree, lost her grip on a moldy branch, and fallen thirty feet into the creek.
She whirled on the magister, embarrassment making her fur feel too tight. "I don't know what kind of help we need, sir, but I know we need something! And quick!"
Master Gollantz gave a crisp nod. "Correct answer, novice." The fog vanished, Cluny wincing at the sudden flood of daylight, and another scroll popped from the box to drop into Crocker's lap. "Your new class schedule. I'll continue as your advisor, of course, so should Master Watts or Mistress Shurtri become a nuisance, kindly direct them to me." He made a dismissive motion. "Now, I believe you have ten minutes to get across campus to meet your study group."
Cluny allowed herself one blink, then jumped from the arm of the chair and cast a quick shrink spell on the scroll before tucking it under he
r forearm and scurrying up the lapel of Crocker's robe to his right breast pocket: she'd reinforced the stitching and enlarged it for easy access since Shtasith needed both Crocker's shoulders to ride on. "Yes, sir, and thank you!"
Crocker stood—he'd definitely gotten better at recognizing cues this quarter—and bowed to Master Gollantz, Cluny doing the same over the edge of the pocket. Shtasith settled grouchy as a miniature thunderhead into his usual place, and Cluny began examining the scroll while Crocker turned, carried them through the outer office, down the steps of the admin building, and out into Eldritch Park, the patch of wild woods at the center of campus. She heard Crocker take a breath then, but before he could speak, Shtasith snorted. "If you're about to whine, simian, may I remind you how flammable human hair is?"
"Listen, you—" Crocker started.
But Cluny held the scroll up, let it burst to its proper size in front of him. "Look, Crocker. I think this'll work."
He took the scroll, and she went on: "We meet every day at noon and dusk with our study group and an advisor for what they call 'assignments and assistance,' but the rest of the time, we're pretty much on our own. We can request lab space, use all the libraries, make appointments with any faculty members whether they're teaching this term or not..." A wonderful little shiver scuttled up Cluny's tail. "It'll be just like our experiments back in the dorm room trying to find spells you can do, only now, since I'm sure we'll be under observation, we won't have to worry so much about accidents!"
She heard a whistling sort of gasp above her and looked up to see Shtasith staring down. "The magister mentioned summoning the Ifriti Ranee. I'd heard the story, but...was it truly you?"
Cluny blinked. "You...heard about that?"
Steam puffed from his nostrils. "It was the talk of the Firelands! Our Lady would howl with laughter when she spoke of the hapless mortal children she'd frightened nearly to death after they flooded a section of her lava pits with some sort of enchanted water!" He stretched his long neck toward her and whispered loudly, "The simian's doing, I assume, master?"