by Jo Clayton
Yaril lay on the grass, a frail girichild sculpted in glass, naked (she hadn’t bothered to form clothing out of her substance though she clung to the bipedal form and hadn’t retreated to the glimrnersphere that was her baseshape, Brann didn’t know why, the children didn’t talk all that much about themselves) and vulnerable, flickering and fading. Frowning, worried, Brann knelt beside her, stretched out hands that looked grossly vigorous in spite of the skin hanging in folds about the bone, and rested them gently on a body that was more smoke than flesh, letting the remnant of the horse’s energy trickle into it.
The changechild’s substance thickened and her color began returning, at first more guessed at than seen like inks thinned with much water, but gradually stronger as Brann continued to feed energy into her. When a dog barked and goats blatted, Yaril’s eyes opened. She blinked, slow deliberate movements of her eyelids, managed a faint smile.
Jaril-Mastiff herded the goats over to her. Brann fed their energy to him and Yaril until they lost their frailty, then used the last of it to readjust herself, rebuilding some of the muscle, tightening her skin, shedding the appearance of age until her body was much what it had been when she and Harra Hazani had played Slya’s games so long ago. The changechildren had grown her from eleven to her mid-twenties over a single night back then and all her hair fell out. Remembering that, she shook her head vigorously; most of her hair flew off; she wiped away the rest of it. Bald as an egg. She rubbed her hand over skin smooth as polished marble. Ah well, maybe it’ll grow back as fast this time as it did that. She looked down at the dead boy, stooped, grunting with the effort and took the knife from his body, straightened with another grunt, held it up. A strange knife, might have been made of ice from the look of it. As she turned it over, examining it in the dim light from the moon, it melted into air. She whistled with surprise.
Jaril nodded. “The one that was in you did the same thing.”
Braun laughed, wiped her hand on her blouse. “They weren’t souvenirs I wanted to keep.” She started for the house. “Shuh, I need a bath.” A sniff and a grimace. “Several baths. And I’m hollow enough to eat those goats raw what’s left of them.” Another laugh. “I didn’t know how hungry it makes you-dying, I mean. It’s not every day I die.”
“You weren’t actually dead,” Jaril said seriously. “If you were dead, we couldn’t bring you back.”
“Was a joke, Jay.”
He made a face. “Not much of a joke for us, Bramble. Starving to death is no fun.”
“You made me, you could find someone else and change them.”
“We made you with a lot of help from Slya, Brann, we didn’t do it on our own. I doubt she’d bother another time.”
“Mmm. Well, I’m not dead and you’re not going to starve. Uh…” She clutched at herself, started to turn back.
Yaril caught her arm, stopped her. “This what you want?” She held out a small bloodstained packet. “I found it lying beside me. You think it’s important?”
“Seems to me this is what got the boy killed and me…” she smiled at Jaril, “… nearly.” She closed her fingers about the packet. “It stinks of magic, kids. Makes me nervous. Somebody called up tigermen and whipped them here to make sure I didn’t open it. I don’t like mixing with sorcerors and such.”
“Who?”
Brann tossed the packet up, caught it, weighed it thoughtfully. “Heavy. Hmm. No doubt the answer’s in here. While I’m stoking up the fire under the bathtub and scrubbing off my stink, the two of you might take a look at this thing.’ She held out the packet and Yaril took it. “And I wouldn’t mind if you fixed me a bit of dinner.”
Jaril chuckled. “Return the favor, hmm?”
After scrubbing off the worst of her body’s reaction to its own violent death, cold water making her shiver, and adding more wood to the fire under the brick tub, Brann climbed to the attic and pulled the gummed paper off the chest that held her old clothes. When she stopped wandering nearly a century ago and moved into the shed behind the house, she had to bow to Dayan Acsic’s prejudices and pack her trousers away. She was a woman. Women in Jade Torat wore skirts. His one concession was this chest. When she came back with the proper clothing, he let her put her shirts and trousers and the rest of her gear in the chest, gave her aromatics to keep moths and other nuisances away and gummed paper to seal the cracks, then he shouldered the chest and carried it to the attic, tough old root of a man, and that was that.
She turned back the lid, wrinkled her nose at the smell; it was powerful and peculiar. She excavated a shirt and a pair of trousers, then some underclothing. The blouse was yellowed and weakened by age, the black of the trousers had the greenish patina of decades of mildew. “Ah well, they only need to cover me till I reach Jade Halirnm.” She hung the clothing in the window so it would air out and with a little luck lose some of the smell, retied the sash to her robe and climbed back down.
The water was hot. She raked out the firebox, tipped the coals, ash and unburned wood into an iron brazier and climbed into the water.
When she padded into the kitchen, sleepy, filled with well-being, the changechildren had salad and rice and goat stew ready for her and a pot of tea steaming on the stand. Jaril had dug out Brann’s bottle of plum brandy; he and Yaril were sitting on stools and sipping at the rich golden liquid. The parchment was unfolded, sitting crumpled on the table, held down with a triangular bit of bronze.
Brann raised a brow, sat and began eating. Time passed. Warm odorous time. Finally she sighed, wiped her mouth, poured a bowl of tea and slumped back in her chair. “So. What’s that about?” She smiled. “If you’re sober enough to see straight.”
Yaril patted a yawn with delicate grace; since she didn’t breathe, the gesture was a touch sarcastic. She set her glass down, licked sticky fingers, brushed aside the chunk of metal and lifted the parchment. “First thing, these are Cheonea glyphs.”
“Cheonea? Where’s that? Never heard of it.”
“A way west of here. A month by ship, if it’s moderately fast. On the far side of Phras.” Jaril sipped at the brandy. “Almost an island. Shaped like a hand with a thready wrist. We were there a year ago. Didn’t stay long, one city the usual sort of seaport, farms and mountains and a smuggler’s haven. Not very interesting. They kicked their king out a few decades back, from what I heard, he was no loss, but they got landed with a Sorceror who seems to think he’s got the answer to the riddle of life.” He reached for the bronze piece, tossed it to Brann. “Take a good look at that.”
She caught it with her free hand. “Why not just tell me…” She set the tea bowl down, began examining the triangle. Temueng script. On one side part of the Emperor’s sigil, on the other part of a name. “… ra Hazani. The boy said something, um, let me remember… Harra… no, we the blood of Harra Hazani say to you, remember what you swore. This is half of one of those credeens the Maratullik struck off for Taguiloa and the rest of us. You remember those?”
Jaril grimaced. “We should.”
Brann rubbed her thumb over the bronze. “I know.” She’d had a choice then, Slya’s sly malice set it for her, she could protect Taguiloa and the other players or send the changechildren home. She chose the players because they were the most vulnerable and accepted responsibility for keeping the children fed, though she hadn’t really realized what that meant. Her own bronze credeen was around somewhere, likely at the bottom of the chest with the rest of her old clothes. “What’s the letter say?”
Yaril lifted the parchment. “Took us a while to decipher it, we didn’t pay that much attention to the written language when we were there. So, a lot of this is guess and twist till it seems to fit. We think it’s a young girl writing, there are some squiggles after her name that might be determinatives expressing age and sex. She seems to be called Kori Piyolss of Owlyn Vale. She calls on the Drinker of Souls to remember her promise, that she’d come from the ends of the earth to help the Children of Harra. Harra married Kori’s great great e
tc. grandfather and passed the promise on. Kori says she wouldn’t use Harra’s gift on anything unimportant, that you, Brann, must believe that. Someone close and dear to her faces a horrible death, everyone in the Vale lives in fear of He who sits in the Citadel of Silagamatys. That’s the city Jaril was talking about, the only settlement in Cheonea big enough to call a city, a port on the south coast. She asks you to meet her there on the seventeenth day of Theriste. Mmm. That’s thirty-seven days from now, no from yesterday, it’s almost dawn, um, if I remember their dating system correctly. Meet her in a tavern called the Blue Seamaid. She’ll be along after dark and she’ll have the rest of the credeen. She can’t write more about her plans in case this letter falls into the hands of Him. Got a heavy slash of ink under that him. You made the promise, Brann.” She grinned. “And very drunk out it was. You remember, the party Taguiloa threw for the whole quarter when we got back from Andurya Durat.” She pushed ash blond hair off her face. “Going to keep it?”
“Doesn’t seem I have much choice. That sorceror, what’s his name?”
“Settsimaksimin.”
“Right now he probably thinks I’m dead. That won’t last long.” She sipped at her tea, sighed. “And there’s another thing. I’ve put off thinking about it, but those tigermen cut through more than my flesh. I’ve stayed here about as long as I can. Much more and folk are going to start asking awkward questions about just what I am.” She looked round the room, eyes lingering on surfaces and cooking things her hands had held, scrubbed, polished, shook, brushed against for the past hundred years; it was an extension of her body and leaving it behind would be like lopping off an arm.
Eyes laughing at her, Jaril said, “You could turn into a local haunt, remember the old man on the mountain across the bay from Silili?”
“Hunh. And what would you be, Jay, a haunt’s haunt?” She smiled, shook her head. “It might come to that, but I’m not ready for godhood yet, even demigodhood.”
“What about this place?”
“Have to leave it, I suppose. Put the things I want to keep in the secret cellar you and Yaril burnt out for me, leave the rest to the wind and thieves.” She yawned, finished her tea, rubbed her thumb against the bowl. It was part of the Das’n Vuor set that was one of the last things her father made before the Temuengs took him and the rest of Arth Slya to work in the pens of the Emperor. “Mmmm. Either of you see a riverboat heading west when you flew in?”
“There was one leaving Gofajiu, you know what that means, it’ll be here two or three days on. You really planning on flagging it?”
Brann’s mouth twitched to a half smile. “Yes no; Jay, I haven’t made up my mind yet.” She smoothed the teabowl along a wrist little more than bone and taut skin, half what it’d been a day ago. “I don’t look much like I did the past some years.” Chuckle. “Young. And bald. That’s not the Potter. Couldn’t be the Potter. On the other hand,” she grimaced, “that’s the Potter’s landing, what’s she doing there, that woman, who is she, where’s the Potter? Riverboat’s comfortable and safe as you can get on the river, the two of you aren’t up to much, me either.” She set the bowl on the table and slumped in the chair gazing into the mirrorblack of the pot, her image distorted by the accidents of texture that gave the surface half its beauty. “I don’t know… I know I’d rather take the riverboat but…” She sighed. “The river’s low, the summer’s been hot and dry, it’s still a monster, I’ve never sailed the skiff that far, but… Ah, Slya’s teeth, I keep thinking, the Potter’s dead, leave her dead, no loose ends like strange females hanging about. My father always said the hard way’s the best way, it means you’re thinking about what you’re doing not just drifting with no idea where you’re going.” A long tired sigh. “We’ll forget the riverboat and take the clay skiff and hope old Tungjii’s watching out for us.” She sat up. “I’m too tired to work and too itchy to sleep. Probably shouldn’t have drunk that tea. Ah well, we can’t leave tomorrow anyway, too much to do.” She yawned, then poured herself another bowl. “So. Tell me more about Cheonea. When you were there did you happen to visit Owlyn Vale?”
Brann slid into the harbor at Jade Halimm after sundown on the third day, threading through a torchlit maze of floating life-flowerboats with their reigning courtesans and less expensive dancers, horizontal and otherwise, gambling boats, hawkers of every luxury and perversion the foreign traders and seaman might desire, scaled to the size of their purses. The wealthier passengers were left untroubled; they’d find their pleasures in more elegant surroundings ashore. The Jade King’s mosquito boats buzzed about to make sure these last were not troubled by offers that might offend their sensibilities. Too shabby to attract the attention of the hawkers or the mosquito patrol, too busy managing the skiff to notice much of this, Brann got through the water throng without accident or incident and tied up at a singhouse pier, the small old skiff lost among the other boats. The tide was on the turn, beginning to come in, but it was still a long climb to the pier, half of it on a ladder slimy with seamoss and decaying weed and the exudates of the lingam slugs that fed on them and the weesha snails that lived in them. She wiped her hands on her trousers when she reached dry wood, not appreciably worsening the mess they were already.
She stood on the edge of the pier looking down at the boat, feeling gently melancholy. It was the last thing left of her life as the Potter of Shaynamoshu. She stood there, the harbor raucous about her, remembering… a slant of light through autumn leaves, the sharp smell of life ripened to the verge of decay, the last firing that year, what year was it, no she couldn’t place it now, it was just a year, nothing but a collection of images and smells and a deep abiding sense of joy that came she didn’t know why or from where, coming down the track with the handcart loaded, the children playing in otter-shape running and tumbling before her… another time, the firing Tungjii blessed, texture moving in sacred dance over the surface, color within color, like an opal but more restrained, subtle earth hues, and most of all the feel of it, the weight and balance of it in the hollow of her hand when she almost knew the triumph her father felt when he took the last of the Das’n Vuor drinking bowls from the kiln on Tincreal and knew that three of them were perfect… another time after a snowfall when the earth was white and the sky was white and the silence whiter than both.
The onshore wind tugged at her sleeves, sent the ends of her headscarf whipping beside her ear. She thrust a finger under the scarf, felt the quarter inch of stubble. Growing fast, Slya bless. She settled the scarf more firmly, clicked her tongue with impatience as a horned owl swooped low over her head and screeched at her. “I know,” she muttered, “I know. It’s time to get settled.”
She found a room in a run down tavern near the West-wall, a cubicle with a bed and not much else, blankets thin and greasy, bedbugs and fleas, a stink that was the work of decades, stain on stain on stain never insulted by the touch of soap; its only amenities were a stout bar on the door and a grill over the slit of a window, but these were worth the premium price she paid for sole occupancy. Her base established, she found a lateopen tailor and ordered new clothing, found one of her favorite cookshops and ate standing up, watching the life of the Harbor Quarter teem around her.
The next six days she prowled the night, in and out of houses, winding through back alleys, following the stench of corroded souls, killing until her own soul revolted, drinking the life of her victims, feeding the children, renewing her own vigor, drinking life until her flesh gave off a glow like moonlight. As the children edged in their slow way toward maturity, their capacity to store energy increased. Now they needed recharging only every second year, but it took many nights of hunting to fill their reserves. Back when Slya forced the choice on her she hadn’t realized the full implications of her decision. She was, despite her appearance and the compressed experience of the past months, only twelve years old when that decision was made; she hadn’t known how weary she could get of living (admittedly not every day, many of her days were contented
, even joyful, but the dark times came more often as the decades passed), she hadn’t known how crushing the burden of feeding the children would become, she hadn’t known how much their appetite would increase, how many lives it would take to sate their hunger, how loathsome she would look to herself no matter how careful she was to choose badlives. Kings and mercenaries, counselors and generals, muggers, pimps and assassins, all such folk, they seemed able to live contentedly enough though they killed and maimed and tortured with exuberance and extravagance, but at the end of her bouts, of gorging, she was so prostrated and self-disgusted that she wondered how she could bring herself to do it again; yet when the children were hungry once more, she found the will to hunt; they began as innocent victims of a god-battle they hadn’t asked to join and finished as victims of her confusion and her preference for her own kind; to let them starve would be a greater wrong than all the killing lumped together.
On the seventh evening when her prowling was done for a while and her new clothes had been delivered, she moved from the tavern to a better room in, a better Inn in a better neighborhood, close to the wall that circled the highmerchant’s quarter, a four-story structure with a bathhouse and a pocket garden for eating in when the days were sunny and the evenings clear.
Brann gave a handful of coppers to the youth who carried her gear and showed her to the room she’d hired for the next three nights; she watched him out, then crossed to the single window and opened the shutters. “Hunh, not much of a view.”
Jaril ambled over and leaned heavily against her. “Nice wall.”
Yaril squeezed past them and put her head out as far as she could; she looked up and around, wriggled free and went to sit on the bed. “Should be bars on the windows. Bramble, our Host down there obviously didn’t think much of you, putting you in this room. Should we leave the shutters open to catch a bit of air, anyone could get in here. The top of that wall is just about even with the top of the window and it’s only six feet off, if that.”