by Jo Clayton
“Sure. Where do you want it to go?”
“Give me your hand.” She closed her fingers around his, said silently, *Myk’tat Tukery. Jal Virri. Not much can get at us there.* Aloud, she said, “Help me load Maksim on the sled.”
“That’s like bedding down with an angry viper, Bramble. Leave him here, let him deal with the mess he made for himself. It’s not your mess. When he wakes, he’s going to be mad enough to eat nails. Eat you.”
“So we keep him sleeping until we go to ground and have some maneuvering room. I mean to do this, Jay.”
“Ayy, you’re stubborn, Bramble. All right all right, Yaro, give us a hand here.” He scowled at the table. “Hadn’t we better pick up, those quilts and pillows we dumped outside? The sky’s clearing, but it’ll be chilly when you hit the higher air.”
Brann smiled at him. “Good thought, Jay. There are people living here, a few anyway, that gardener for one. See if you can find some food, I’m starved and I’ll need supplies for the trip; going by how long it took us to reach here from the farm, it’ll be eight to ten days before we get umm home.”
The changers darted about the island collecting food, wine and water skins, whatever else they thought Brann might need, then they helped her muscle the deeply sleeping sorceror onto the table. They settled him with his head on a pillow, a comforter wrapped about him, tucked the provisions around him and stood back looking at their work.
Brann shivered. “I’ve got an iceknot in my stomach that says it’s time to be somewhere else.” She swung round a table leg, settled herself in a nest of comforters and pillows; tongue caught between her teeth, she ran the sequence that activated the lift field, gave a little grunt of relief and satisfaction when the sled rose off the floor, moving easily, showing no sign of strain (she’d been a bit worried about the weight of the load). When it was about a yard off the floor, she stopped the rise and started the sled moving forward. She eased it through the arch, wound with some care through the great pillars beyond, starting nervously whenever she heard the stone complain.
Outside, the gray was gone from the sky, the bay water was choppy and showing whitecaps, glittering like broken sapphire in the brilliant sunlight. She took the sled high and sent it racing toward the southeast where the thousand islands of the Myk’tat Tukery lay. Behind her, the massive temple groaned, shuddered, collapsed into rubble with a thunderous reverberant rattle; part of it fell off the island into the sea. Brann shivered, sighed. She stretched over, touched the face of the man beside her, wishing she could wake him and talk to him. She didn’t dare. She sighed again. It was going to be a long dull trip.
18. Knotting Off
Kori.
The School at Sinn.
Kori glared at the flame on the floating wick, trying to narrow her focus until she saw it and only it, until she heard nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing but that erratically flickering flame. The small room was dark and quiet, no sounds from outside to distract her, but she felt the stone through the flimsy robe Shahntien Shere had given her, she heard every scrape her feet made when she had to move or suffer torments of itching, she felt the chill draft that curled round her body and shivered the flame. It seemed to her she was getting worse not better as she struggled to learn the focus her teachers demanded. Talent! He was dreaming, that man. She had no talent, nothing. She scratched an itch on a buttock and began running through the disciplines for the millionth time…
Something watching her. The small hairs stirred along her spine, her mouth went dry. She fought to keep her eyes on the flame but couldn’t, she jumped to her feet, turning with the movement so she faced the open arch.
Shahntien Shere stood there, eyes narrowed, fury rolling off her like steam. “Maksim’s dead or destroyed,” she said softly. “Your doing.” She smiled. “He set a geas on me to teach you, it doesn’t stop me making you one sorry little bitch. Contemplate that a while, then do me a favor and try leaving.” A last glare, then she whipped around and stalked off.
Drinker of Souls, Kori thought, she did it. She sighed.
Nothing had turned out the way she planned. Ten years, she thought, I’m safe for ten years, but after that I’d better be a long, long, way from here. She dropped to her knees and began going through the disciplines again, contemplating the flame with grim determination; she had to learn everything and be better at it than anyone else before her. Maksim said she had talent, talent didn’t count if you couldn’t use it. Ten years…
Trego.
The Cave of the Chained God
Sealed into the block of crystal, the boy slept. Now and then he dreamed. Mostly he waited unknowing in the midst of nothingness.
Danny Blue.
The Pocket Universe.
The stranded starship.
After an interval whose length. Dan never knew, he was allowed to wake because the god wanted someone to talk to. The god couldn’t leave the pocket universe, he/it knew that now and it was Dan who told him/it. He/it couldn’t change that verdict without dying, but he/ it could punish the messenger who brought the bad news. And Dan could be converted easily enough into a blood and bone remote who could do things the god wanted done in that other universe. He/it wasn’t about to lose his services. The mortal could sulk and rage and plot all he wanted, he lived and breathed because the god willed it, he was going to do whatever the god wanted done.
Todi chi Yahzi.
Settsimaksimin’s Citadel.
Silagamatys.
When Maksim vanished from the scene, Todich took the drop from around his neck and looked at it for a long while, then he shook his head, packed his things and started off to look for the man he knew was still alive somewhere.
Brann.
Myk’tat Tukery. Jal Virri.
Maksim coughed, opened his eyes.
“Jal Virri.”
The voice came from behind him, amused and wary. Brann. S000. He sat up. The sky was blue, the air warm, a silky breeze wandered past him, stirring the pendant limbs of a weeping willow. The tree grew by an artesian fountain, where water bubbled from a vertical copper pipe, sang down over mossy boulders into a pond filled with crimson lilies and gilded carp and out of that into a stream that rambled about the garden. He was sitting on a gentle slope covered with grass like green fur. This has to be south of Cheonea, I can’t have slept completely through winter. He looked at his arms. He’d lost flesh and muscle tone. Maybe not all winter but more than a day or two. “Jal what?” He got to his feet, moving slowly to camouflage his weakness.
Brann was sitting on a stone bench beside a burst of ground orchids. “Jal Virri. Isn’t that what everyone asks? Where am I?”
Maksim moved uphill and eased himself onto the far end of the bench. “Where’s Jal Virri?”
“Myk’tat Tukery. One of the inner islands.”
“How long was I out?”
“Ten days. “
“Why bother?”
“I loathe being jerked around.”
“I was a fool.”
“You were.”
He folded his arms across his chest, narrowed his eyes, grinned at her. “You were supposed to appreciate my humility and disagree with courteous insincerity.”
She gave him a long look; eyes green as the willow leaves smiled at him. “I’d rather beat up on you a bit. Why didn’t you talk to me? You swatted me like I was a pesty fly. That sort of thing is bound to upset a person.”
“It seemed easier, a surgeon’s cut, quick and neat, and a complication was gone out of my life.” ‘‘Wasn’t, was it.”
“Doesn’t seem like it. Sitting here on this dusty bench, I can see half a dozen ways we might have managed some sort of compromise. Hindsight, hunh! bad as rue and twice as useless. Seriously, Brann, all I needed was maybe ten years more. I was buying time.”
“For what?”
“For Cheonea.”
“You say that so splendidly, so passionately, Maks. Such sincerity.”
“Sarcasm is the cheapest of the
arts, Bramble all thorns, even so, it needs a scalpel not an axe.”
“Depends on how thick the skull is. Seriously, Maks, you’ve made a good start, but my father would say it’s time to let the baby walk on its own. Otherwise you’ll cripple it. Hmm. Are you thinking of heading back there?”
“That rather depends on you, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I pulled you out there because I wouldn’t trust the Chained God as far as I could throw it. Amortis either. And you weren’t in any shape to defend yourself. I take no more responsibility for you than that. If you want to go, good-bye.”
“And if I wish to stay for a while?”
“Then stay.”
“Hmm.” He fiddled with the charred hole in the linen robe he still wore, looked down at the smooth flesh under it. “What happened to BinYAHtii?”
“I took it off you, threw it away, foul thing, it’d eaten a hole almost to your heart. Jay told me this: when Yaro and I were working on you, Dan went over to it, picked it up and vanished. Chained God probably.”
“Good-bye Finger Vales, eh?”
“Seems likely. ‘
“So Kori got what she wanted. Her brother safe and the Servants tossed out.”
“You know about that?”
“Had a talk with her.”
“Where is she now?”
“The Yosulal Mossaiea in Silili. Do you know it?”
“She’s talented? Slya’s teeth, why am I surprised, she’s Harra’s Child. You sent her?”
“Why are you surprised? You expected me to eat her?”
“Well, feed her to BinYAHtii.”
“That ardent soul? BinYAHtii was hard enough to control with ordinary lives in it. Besides, I liked her.”
“So. What will you be doing next?”
“So. Resting. Here’s as good a place as any. Will you be staying?”
“For a while.”
“The changers?”
“Yaro says this place is pretty but boring.” She looked wary again, smiled again. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but they’ve gone of exploring, they’ve got a lot of things to get used to, the changers have changed. I suppose the next thing for me will be finding a way to get them home. I don’t want to think about that for a while yet. I’m tired.” She got to her feet, held out her hand. “I’m glad you’re staying. It’ll be pleasant having someone to talk to. Come. Let me show you the house. I haven’t the faintest notion who built it, I stumbled across it the last time I was here. It’s a lovely place. Friendly. When you step through the door, you get the feeling it’s happy to have you visit.” Her hand was warm, strong. She seemed genuinely pleased with him, in truth she seemed in a mood to be pleased by almost anything. As she strolled beside him, she slid her heels across the grass, visibly enjoying the cool springy feel of it against the soles of her bare feet. She’d had a bath before she woke him, she smelled very faintly of lavender and rose petals, the silk tunic which was all she wore was sleeveless and reached a little past her knees, the breeze tugged erratically at it, woke sighs in it. I’ll need clothing, he thought, he touched the soiled charred robe, grimaced. She didn’t notice because she was looking ahead at the odd structure sitting half shrouded by blooming lacetrees. “There’s something I’ve never been able to catch sight of that bustles around, cleans the house, weeds the garden, prunes things, generally keeps the place in shape, I don’t know how many times I’ve hid myself and tried to catch it working. Nothing. Maybe you can figure it out, be something to play with when you feel like exercising your head. To say truth I hope it eludes you too, that gives me a chance to stand back and giggle.”
“Myk’tat Tukery,” he murmured, “I’ve heard a thousand tales about it, each stranger than the last.”
“Maksim mighty sorceror, I’ll show you a thing or two to curl your hair, a thing or two to draw it straight again.” She dropped his hand, ran ahead of him along the bluestone path, up the curving wooden stairs; she pushed the door open, turned to stand in the doorway, her arms outspread. “Be pleased to enter our house, Settsimaksimin, may your days here be as happy as mine have been.”
Laughter rumbling up from his heels, he followed her inside.
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