by Jo Clayton
Kori looked down at the crystal, then over her shoulder at the lamp. She wasn’t happy about that chest, but this was Tre-s place now; she was an intruder, but he belonged here. Holding the sphere against her with one hand, she carried the lamp to the platform, hesitated a breath or two, long enough to make Tre frown at her, managed to step up on the platform without dropping either the lamp or the crystal sphere. “You sure this is all right, Tre’?”
He nodded, grinned at her. “It isn’t all bad, Kori, this being a priest I mean. Anything I want to do in here, I can. Um…” He lost his grin. “I hope it doesn’t take long, we got to get back before xera Chittar knows we left.”
“I know. Take this.” When he had the lamp, she settled to the platform, sitting cross-legged with her back to the chest. She rubbed the crystal sphere on her shirt, held it cupped into her hands. “Find the stillness,” she said aloud, “draw will out of stillness, then look.-She closed her eyes and tried to chase everything from her mind; a few breaths later she knew that wasn’t going to work, but there was a thing AuntNurse taught her to do whenever her body and mind wouldn’t turn off and let her sleep; she was to find a Place and began building an image of it in her mind, detail by detail, texture, odor, color, movement. When she was about five, she found a safe hide and went there when she was escaping punishment or was angry at someone or hurt or feeling wretched, she went there when her mother died, she went there when one of her small cousins choked on a bone and died in her arms, she went there whenever she needed to think. It was halfway up the ancient oak in a crotch where three great limbs separated from the trunk. She lined the hollow there with dead leaves and thistle fluff, making a nest like a bird did. It was warm and hidden, nothing bad could ever happen to her there, she could feel the great limbs moving slowly, ponderously beneath and around her like arms rocking her, she could smell the pungent dark friendly odor of the leaves and the bark, the stiff dark green leaves still on their stems whispered around her until she felt she almost understood what the tree said. Now she built that Place around her, built it with all the intensity she was capable of, shutting out fear and uncertainty and need, until she rocked in the arms of the tree, sat in the arms of the tree cuddling a fragment of moonlight in her arms. She gazed into the sphere, into the silver heart of it and drew will out of stillness. “Drinker of Souls,” she whispered to the sphere, in her voice the murmur of oak leaves, “Show her to me. Where is she?”
An image bloomed in the silver heart. An old woman, white hair twisted into a heavy straggly knot on top her head. Her sleeves were rolled up, showing pale heavy forearms. She was chopping wood, with neat powerful swings of the ax, every stroke counting, every stroke going precisely where she wanted, long long years of working like that evident in the economy of her movements. She set the ax aside, gathered lengths of wood into a bundle and carried them to a mounded kiln. She pulled the stoking doors open, fed in the wood, brought more bundles of wood, working around the kiln until she had resupplied all the doors. Then she went back to chopping wood. A voice spoke in Kori’s head, a male voice, a light tenor with a hint of laughter in it that she didn’t understand; she didn’t know the voice but suspected it was the Chained God or one of his messengers. *Brann of Arth Slya,* it said, *Drinker of Souls and potter of note. Ask in Jade Halimm about the Potter of Shaynamoshu. Send her half the medal. Keep the other half yourself and match the two when you meet. Take care how you talk about the Drinker of Souls away from this place. One whose name I won’t mention stirs in his sleep and wakes, knowing something is happening here, that someone is working against him. Even now he casts his ariel surrogates this way. If you have occasion to say anything dangerous, stay close to an oak, the sprites will drive his ariels away. Fare well and wisely, young Kori; you work alone, there’s no one can help you but you. *
Kori stared into the crystal a few moments longer, vaguely disappointed in the look of the hero who was supposed to defeat the mighty Settsimaksimin when all the forces of the King could not, nor could the priests and fighters of the Vales. Brann was strong and vital, but she was old. A fat old woman who made pots. Kori sighed and rocked herself loose from Her Place. She looked up at Trago. “Did you get any of that?”
Trago leaned toward her, hands on knees. “I heard the words. What’s she like?”
“Not like I expected. She’s old and fat.”
He kicked his heels against the chest, clucked his tongue. “Doesn’t sound like much. What does it mean, Drinker of Souls?”
“I don’t know. Tre, you want to go on with this? You heard the Voice, HE’s sticking his fingers in, if HE catches us… well.”
Trago shrugged. His eyes were frightened and his hands tightened into fists, but he was pretending he didn’t care. “Do I don’t I, what’s it matter? You said it, Kori. Better’n nothing.”
“I hear you.” She moved her shoulders, straightened her legs out. “Oooh, I’m tired. Let’s finish this.” She pulled the medal from around her neck, dropped it on the platform.-Think you could cut this in half like the Voice said?”
“Uh huh. Who we going to give it to?”
“I thought about that before I went to see the Women of Piyoloss and wangled my way up here.” She rubbed at her stomach, ran her hand over the crystal. “Moon Meadow’s down a little and around the belly of the mountain. The Kalathi twins and Herve are summering there with a herd of silkgoats. And Toma.”
“Ha! I thought the soldiers got him.”
“Most everybody did. I did. ‘ Kori pulled her braids to the front and smoothed her hands along them, smoothed them again, then began playing with the tassels. ‘Women talk,” she said “It was my turn helping in the washhouse. They put me to boiling the sheets; I expect they forgot I was there, because they started talking about Ruba the whore, you know, the Phrasin who lives in that hutch up the mountain behind House Kalath that no one will talk about in front of the kids. Seems she was entertaining one of the soldiers, he was someone fairly important who knew what was going on and he let slip that they were going to burn the priest next morning and throw anyone who made a fuss into the fire with him. Well, she’s Vale folk now all the way, so she pushed him out after a while and went round to the Women of Kalathin and told them. What I heard was the Women tried to get Zilos away, but the soldiers had hauled him off already. Amely was having fits and the kids were yelling and Toma was trying to hold things together and planning on taking Zilos’ hunting bow and plinking every soldier he could get sight of. What they did was, they took Amely and the young ones away from the Priest-House and got Ontari out of the stable where he was sleeping and had him take them over to Semela Vale since he knows tracks no one else does. And they gave Toma sleeproot in a posset they heated for him and tied him over a pony and Pellix took him up to Moon Meadow and told the Twins to keep him away from the Floor. They said he’s supposed to’ve calmed down some, but he’s fidgety. He knows if he goes down he gets a lot of folk killed, so he stays there, hating a lot. What I figure is, if we tell him about this, it’s something he can do when it’s just him could get killed and if it works, he’s going to make you know who really unhappy. So. What do you think?”
Trago rubbed his eyes, his lids were starting to hang heavy. “Toma,” he muttered. “I don’t know. He…” His eyes glazed over, his head jerked. “Toma,” he said, “yes.” He blinked. “Aaah, Kori, let’s get this finished. I want to go to bed.”
“Me too.” She got stiffly to her feet, sleep washing in waves over her. “Put this away, will you.” She held out the crystal sphere. “Um… We’re going to need gold for Toma, is there any of that in there? And you have to cut the medal before we go. I don’t want to come here again, besides, we already lost a week.”
Trago slid off the chest and stood rubbing his eyes. He yawned and took the sphere. “All right.” He blinked at the medal lying by his foot. “You better go back where you were before. I think the god’s going to be doing this.”
“‘Lo, Herve.”
> “‘Lo, Tre, what you doin’ here?”
“‘S my time at Far Meadow. Toma around?”
“Shearin’ shed, got dry rot in the floor, he was workin’ on that the last time I saw him.”
Trago nodded and went around the house, climbed the corral fence and walked the top rail; when he reached the shed, he jumped down and went inside. Part of the floor was torn up. Toma had a plank on a pair of sawhorses; he was laying a measuring line along it. Trago stood watching, hands clasped behind him, as his cousin positioned a t-square and drew an awl along the straight edge, cutting a line into the wood; when he finished that, he looked up. “Tre. What you doing here?”
“Come to see you. I’m over to Far Meadow, doing my month, ‘n I got something I need to say to you.”
“So?” Toma reached for the saw, set it to the mark, then waited for Trago to speak.
“It’s important, Toma.”
Muscles moved in the older boy’s face, his body tensed, then he got hold of himself and drove the saw down. He focused grimly on his hands and the wood for the next several minutes, sweat coursing down his face and arms, the rasping of the teeth against the wood drowning Trago’s first attempts to argue with him. The effort he put into the sawing drained down his anger, turning it from hot seethe to a low simmer. When the cut was nearly through and the unsupported end was about to splinter loose, peeling off the edge of the plank as it fell, he straightened, drew his arm across his face, waved Trago round to hold up the end as he finished sawing it off. “Put it over by the wall,” he told Trago. “I think it’ll come close to fitting that short bit.”
“Toma…” Trago saw his cousin’s face shut again, sighed and moved off with his awkward load. When he came back, he swung up onto the plank before his cousin could lift it. “Listen to me,” he said. “This isn’t one of my fancies. I don’t want to talk to you here. Please, stop for a little, you don’t have to finish this today. I NEED to talk to you.”
Toma opened his mouth, snapped it shut. He wheeled, walked over to stare down into the dark hole where he’d taken up the rotted boards. “If it’s about down there…” His voice dripped vitriol when he said the last words, “I don’t want to hear.”
Trago looked nervously around; he knew about ariels, knew he couldn’t see them unless they chanced to drift through a dusty sunbeam, but he couldn’t help trying. He didn’t want to say anything here, but if he kept fussing that would be almost as bad; AuntNurse always knew when he was making noise to hide something, he suspected the Sorceror was as knowing as her if not worse. He slid off the plank, trotted to Toma, took him by the hand and tugged him toward the door.
Toma pulled free, stood looking tired and unhappy, finally he nodded. “I’ll come, Tre. And I’ll listen. Five minutes. If you don’t convince me by then, you’re going to hurt for it.”
Trago managed a grin. “Come on then.”
He led his cousin away from the meadow into the heart of an oak grove.
Kori stepped from behind a tree. “‘Lo, Toma.”
“Kori?” Toma stepped back, scowled from one to the other. “What’s going on here?”
“Show him your shoulder, Tit”
Trago unlaced the neck opening of his shirt, pushed it back so Toma could see the hollow starburst.
Kori dropped onto a root as Toma bent, touched the mark. “Sit down, cousin. We’ve got a lot of talking to do.”
“… so, that’s what we want you to do.” She touched the packet resting on her thigh. “Take this to the Drinker of Souls and remind her of her promise. It’ll be dangerous. HE’ll be looking for anyone acting different. Voice told us HE’s got his ariels out, that’s why Tre didn’t want to say much in the shed, he wanted to be where oaksprites were because they don’t like ariels much and chase them whenever they come around. Um, Re got gold from the Chained God’s Place because we knew you’d need it. Um, We’d kinda like you to go as fast as you could, Tre’s got less’n three months before the Signs start popping up. Will you do it?”
Toma rubbed his face with both hands, his breathing hoarse and unsteady. Without speaking, he rested his forearms on his thighs and let his hands dangle as he stared at the ground. Kori watched him, worried. She’d written the message on the parchment, folded it around half the medal, used sewing thread to tie it shut and smeared slathers of sealing wax over it, then she’d knotted a bag about it and made a neck cord for it out of the same thread, and she had the gold in a pouch tied to her belt. Everything was ready, all they needed was Toma. She watched, trying to decide what he was thinking. If she’d been a few years older, if she’d been a boy, with all the things boys were taught that she’d never had a chance to learn, she wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for Toma to make up his mind. She moved her hands impatiently, but said nothing. Either he went or he didn’t and if he went, best it was his own doing so he’d put his heart in it.
A shudder shook him head to toe, he sighed, lifted his head. His eyes had a glassy animal sheen, he was still looking inward, seeing only the images in his head.
He blinked, began to cry, silently, without effort, the tears spilling down his face. “I…” he cleared his throat, “You don’t know… Yes, I’ll go. Yes.” He rolled a sleeve down, scrubbed it across his face, blew his nose into his fingers, wiped them on his pants. “Was Ontari down below? I’ll go for Forkker Vale first, see if I can get on with a smuggler. He knows them.” He tried a grin and when it worked, laughed with excitement and pleasure. “I don’t want to end up like Harra did.”
Kori looked at Trago. Trago nodded. “I was talking to him the day before we come up here. He was working on a saddle, he won’t be going anywhere ‘fore he finishes that.”
Toma nodded. “I’ll go down tonight. He still sleeping in Kalathin’s stable?”
“Uh huh. There’s usually a couple soldiers riding the House Round, but they aren’t too hard to avoid, more often than not they’re drunk, at least that’s what Ontari said.”
“Wouldn’t be you were flitting about when you shouldn’t?”
Trago giggled and didn’t bother denying it.
Kori got to her feet. “We have to be back in time to milk the cows or xera Chittar will skin us. Here.” She tossed the packet to Toma, began untying the gold pouch. “Be careful, cousin.” She held out the pouch. “Oaks are safe, I don’t know what else, maybe you can sneak out, I’m afraid…”
He laughed and hugged her hard, took the pouch, hugged Trago. “You get back to your cows, cousins. I’ll see you when.”
“… Crimpa, Sparrow, White Eye. Chain it, Pre, TWo Spot has run off again. You see any sign of her?”
Trago snorted, capered in a circle. “Un… huh! Un… huh! Slippy Two Spot. Lemme see…” He trotted off.
“Mmf.” Kori tapped Crimpa cow with her switch and started her moving toward the corral; the others fell in around her and plodded placidly across the grass as if they’d never ever had a contrary thought between their horns. A whoop behind her, an indignant mmmoooaaauhh. Two Spot came running from under the trees, head jerking, udder swinging; she slowed, trotted with stiff dignity over to the herd and pushed into the middle of it. Trago came up beside Kori, walked along with her. “She was just wandering around. I don’t know what she thought she was doing.” He yawned extravagantly, rubbed at his eyes, started whistling. He broke off when they reached the corral, slanted a glance up at her. “So we wait.”
“So we wait.”
3 Another Meadow, The Shaynamoshu Pottery On The River Wansheeri, At The Massacre.
SCENE: Late. The Wounded Moon a fat broken crescent rising in the east. A horse streaked with dried foam, trying to graze, having difficulty with the bit. A black-clad youth dead in a pool of blood. Another figure, a woman, crumpled across him. A pale translucent wraithlike figure lying upon her, a second squatting beside them.
An icy wind touched her neck.
Something heavy, metallic slammed into her back. Cold fire flashed up through her.
Heav
y breathing, broken in the middle. Faint popping sound.
Her knees folded under her, she saw herself toppling toward the boy’s body, saw the hilt of the knife in his back, saw an exploding flower of blood, saw nothing more.
She was horribly weak, it frightened her how weak she was. The frail weight slid off and Yaril rolled over twice, lay face down on the grass beside the rutted dirt road, very pale, almost transparent. Jaril was colorless too, though he had more substance to him. Brann looked down at herself. She’d lost almost all her flesh, her skin was hanging on her bones. Her hands were shaking and she felt an all-over nausea; chills ran through her body. “What…”
Jaril clicked his tongue impatiently. “No time for that. There’s the horse, Brann, feed us before we go to stone, Yaril’s hanging on a thread. The horse. You can reach it, come on, stand up, I can’t carry you. Hurry, I don’t know how long…”
Trembling and uncertain, Brann hoisted herself onto her feet. Stiff with blood, feces and urine, too big for her now, her skirt fell off her, nearly tripped her; grunting with disgust she dragged her feet free, tottered down to the grazing horse. He started to shy away, but froze when her hand brushed against his flank. She edged closer, set her other hand on his back by the spine, hating what she was doing since she was fond of horses, but she was a lot fonder of the children so she drew the horse’s cool life into herself, easing down beside him as he collapsed, sucking out the last trickle of energy.
Jaril drifted over, dropped to his knees beside her. “We brought some rAhargoats,” he said. “They’re around somewhere, when we saw you down like that we forgot about them. I’ll chase them over in a while. Horse won’t be enough.” He leaned against her, fragile and weightless as a dessicated leaf.
Brann straightened, twisted around, touched the tips of her fingers to his face, let him draw energy from her. Color flowed across him, pastel pinks and ivories and golds, ash gray spread through his wispy shirt and trousers, from transparent he turned translucent. He made a faint humming sound filled with pleasure, grinned his delight. Brann smiled too, got to her feet. “Get your goats,” she said and started walking heavily up the grassy rise, heading for the road and Yaril. Jaril shifted to his mastiff form, went off to round up the goats.