Being a Green Mother

by Piers Anthony

  The Gypsy leader glanced down at her, amused. "Or what?"

  "Or we won't go look for the 'Yano!" Orb said, striding toward the trunk.

  The first youth was lifting his axe high, about to make the first chop. Orb charged right into him, trying to reach the axe. She was prepared to climb right up him and bite his arm if she had to. Luna followed her lead and grabbed the other youth.

  Both youths froze, their will departing.

  "Got to get rid of those amulets!" the Gypsy leader muttered angrily.

  That gave the hamadryad her cue. "The Magician made those amulets!" she cried.

  "Of course he did," the leader agreed. "He makes them and sells them; that's how he earns his living. We trade in them, too. But people can be separated from their amulets." Then, to the youths: "Put away those axes; I was only fooling."

  The girls let go of the youths, and the youths retreated. Now the Gypsy leader addressed Orb. "That is a very fine amulet you have. May I look at it?"

  Flattered, Orb reached for hers, ready to remove it.

  "Don't take it off!" the dryad screamed. "That's your only protection from evil!"

  But the leader evidently had another idea. "It's no protection at all," he said, gesturing to an old woman. "See, it's changed into a giant squiggly worm!"

  The old woman threw powder toward the girls and gesticulated weirdly and uttered strange words. Orb felt something wriggling at her neck. Luna screamed—and sure enough, her amulet had changed into a grotesque worm.

  The two girls tore at the chains about their necks, trying to get rid of the horrible creatures.

  "No, no!" the hamadryad cried. "It's just illusion! Don't take them off!" But the children, horrified, were beyond reason. In a moment both amulets were off and flung away.

  Now the Gypsies pounced on Orb and Luna. "Got you now, my little treasures!" the leader exclaimed. "Your talents will add a pretty penny to the pot, once we get you broken in. You'll learn to beg and steal and dance—you'll soon be perfect Gypsies!"

  The girls, now thoroughly disenchanted, began to cry.

  But the hamadryad wasn't finished. "Fie on you, vile creatures!" she screamed. "Turn loose those girls this instant!"

  "Or what?" the leader inquired, exactly as he had before.

  "Or I'll tell my neighbor dryad what you have done, and she'll tell her neighbor, and so on till the news reaches the tree by the Magician's house!"

  The Gypsy leader laughed. "Forget it, nymph! The Magician doesn't watch out for every stupid client of his merchandise! There are thousands of these amulets about."

  "He watches out for these ones!" the dryad said. "One's his daughter, the other his sister."

  All the Gypsies froze. "Uh-oh," the old seer said. "She speaks the truth. I didn't think to check for that before!"

  "We'll be far gone from here before the Magician comes," the leader said.

  The woman shook her head. "Give it up, Raggle. We want no quarrel with him. He's not just an enchanter of stone. He's the most potent sorcerer in Ireland and some distance beyond, and getting stronger every day. He will destroy us; we can't hide from him."

  The leader blanched. "You're sure, Taggle?"

  "I'm sure."

  He sighed. "Then so must it be." He turned to the girls. "We'll leave you now, children; sorry we couldn't have you with us, but that's the way it goes."

  The troupe began to move out.

  "No, you don't!" the hamadryad screamed. "You have wronged these poor girls! You must make amends!"

  "Don't push your luck, nymph!" the leader growled. "The Magician doesn't protect you. Our axes can still—"

  But again the old seer was cautioning him. "I see it now, as I should have before. The Magician loves this dryad. She it was who trained him in natural magic when he was a tot. If anything hurt her or her tree—"

  "Damn it, woman!" the leader exclaimed, furious. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

  "We all make mistakes," she said. "I was so intent on the prize to be won, I forgot to look beyond."

  "What a mistake!" he groaned. "How are we to get out of this?"

  "You'll make amends!" the hamadryad called. "That's what you'll do, you scoundrels!"

  The leader sighed. "It seems we must." He turned again to the girls, who had picked up their amulets, which no longer squiggled. "I hereby abjectly apologize to the two of you. But let me explain. We are not bad folk, we are Gypsies, and we follow the Gypsy way. We are always kind to our children, including those we adopt; not one of them would trade our way for that of the settled kind. I was stolen and adopted myself, and I bless my fortune! We are free folk, as free as any on earth. We sing and dance the day long and we are happy in what we do. We meant no harm to you; we merely wanted you to join us, because we appreciate both music and magic as no other folk do. You would have liked our life. It is not every child we choose; only those with true talents. Our approach to you was a compliment, not a threat."

  The girls were six years old and were learning how to be vulnerable to flattery. But the hamadryad was several hundred years old and of a less forgiving nature. "Forget the blarney!" she called. "Get to the amends!"

  "I was coming to that, wood-sprite," the leader said, firing a dark glance in her direction. Then he smiled graciously. He could be completely charming when he tried. "To make amends for our misunderstanding, we shall give you an invaluable gift: a True Telling of your fortunes, at no charge."

  Orb glanced at the tree, and the dryad nodded affirmatively. This was a suitable amend. "Yes," Orb said, and Luna agreed.

  The old woman came forth again. "Give me your hands," she said.

  The girls extended their hands as if for an inspection before a meal, and the seer took one of each. She closed her eyes. "Let us look into your futures," she intoned.

  A shadow of the vision touched Orb.

  The woman shuddered and dropped the hands. "It's barred!" she exclaimed. "I cannot read their lives!"

  "A likely story!" the hamadryad called.

  "No, 'tis true!" the seer protested. "A counter spell has been laid on these two, rendering their futures opaque. I doubt that the Horned One himself could penetrate these lives! Certainly I can not, nor any Gypsy."

  Luna looked at Orb. "Daddy," she said.

  That made sense. The Magician had evidently protected them with more than the amulets. Maybe there was some threat in having their futures told, so he had prevented it.

  "You're trying to renege!" the dryad cried, outraged.

  "We must offer something else," the Gypsy leader said quickly. "We always keep our deals."

  The dryad snorted at this, but the man was serious. Orb was quick enough to grasp her opportunity. "Maybe the 'Yano?" she inquired.

  The leader shook his head. "Child, I can not give you that! No mortal person can. The Llano can only be found for one's self. My playing is but the poorest suggestion of it, anyway; I have never been able to approach it closely."

  "But I really want it!" Orb said.

  Luna's curiosity had been roused. "Maybe if you just tell us about it," she suggested.

  "Even that is little enough," the man said. "Our whole band together hardly knows—"

  "Yes, tell us!" Orb said. "It is like the Song of the Morning?"

  The leader pursed his lips. "You hear that? You are a rare child indeed! Yes, it is said to be like that, only much, much more. The Song of the Morning is just one of the five major Songs of Nature, or perhaps one aspect of the whole, while the Llano is the whole. It is the ultimate in music, the song for which all Gypsies long, and from which all Gypsies take their inspiration, however poorly they understand it. When we die, we hope to join the province of the Llano and listen to it and play it for eternity." He glanced around. "What do the rest of you know?"

  A young woman, a dancer, spoke up. "I heard a tale of the Llano, I know not if it be true, but I think it is. It is of a young woman, a Gypsy like me, who loved a mundane prince, but he would pay her no mind at all u
nless she gave up her band and her wandering and settled forever in his castle, and that would have killed her, for no Gypsy can survive such confinement. But she knew she would die, too, if she did not possess him. So she went to his castle and stood outside the turret where he stood, and she sang him a piece of the Llano. And he came down from that tower, mounted his fine horse, rode out, picked her up, and rode to her band, and he married her and joined the Gypsies, and their love was forever, because of the Llano."

  Orb listened, entranced. What a song that must be, if just a little piece of it could do that!

  Now an old man spoke. "I know a tale of the Llano. A Gypsy man like me was caught by the mundanes and sentenced to be hanged for stealing, when he had only pursued his normal way of life. Seeing that they refused to understand that he had taken the bread only to feed himself and his family, and knowing that no help was close by, he gave himself up for lost. But then he remembered a bit of the Llano he had heard once years ago, and now the melody returned to him clearly. And as they laid the noose about his neck, he sang that fragment. And they took away the noose, unbound his hands, set him free, and gave him money, too, because of the Llano."

  Orb liked that story, too. She wondered if the Llano could enable her to escape punishment when she did something wrong. In a way it had already, when she had avoided trouble by explaining about the Song of the Morning to her father.

  A child spoke. "I know a tale of the Llano, too. A child like me was out in the forest gathering berries, and a big old wild beast, I don't know what it was, maybe a wolf or a mountain lion or a dragon or something, it came and was going to eat him up 'cause it was hungry, and the boy was scared stiff, but he remembered a bit of the Llano and he sang it, and that beast calmed right down and became his pet instead, because of the Llano."

  Taming a wild beast with a song? Orb liked that, too.

  The Gypsy leader looked around the group, but no other person spoke. "It seems that's as much as we know about the Llano," he said. "It is very little, I know, but if we knew how to find it, we would be seeking it for ourselves and not dallying here in the swamp. Maybe you, if you can hear the Song of the Morning, will someday hear the rest of it. We know of these Songs of Nature, but few of us can actually hear them. I was adopted by the Raggle-Taggle tribe because I could hear the voices and songs of the natural ones."

  "I guess it's enough," Orb said, mollified. The hamadryad was silent, so the Gypsies moved away. In a moment the entire band was gone.

  "But is any of that true?" Luna inquired when they were back in the tree. "Maybe they made it all up."

  "They adapted it," the dryad said, and Orb translated, as Luna still could not hear her. "The originals may not have been Gypsies, but probably the episodes happened. The Llano is said to be the ultimate in music. I did not believe in it, but maybe I was wrong. If only we hamadryads knew it, we could protect our trees from the depredations of man."

  They worked some more on Orb's music, but in only a moment, it seemed, Niobe was back, and the session was over. By common consent, the girls did not tell Niobe of the adventure with the Gypsies, knowing that only mischief could come of this. They came many times thereafter to the hamadryad's tree, and slowly Orb learned to make the music of the kind her father made, and Luna learned to paint with the aura.

  But of the Llano Orb could learn no more. She didn't ask her folks, because then she would have had to tell them where she had learned of it, and that could have gotten awkward. Anyway, she doubted they knew. The Magician surely knew, but he was unapproachable; even Luna, his daughter, didn't dare bother him when he was deep in magic research, which was all the time. So Orb endured with private longing. One day, some day, she would go out herself in quest of the Llano!

  Chapter 3 - TINKA

  Orb stood at the wake, feeling cold. Blenda, Luna's mother, was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Technically Blenda had been Orb's half sister, for both of them were the daughters of Pacian, but she had been easier to think of as an aunt. Blenda had been the most beautiful woman of her generation, but she had aged rapidly in the past few years. Whatever researches the Magician had been doing had taken the life-strength from both himself and his wife; now she was dead, and he was old. It was hard to believe that he was Niobe's son!

  Orb and Luna were seventeen, going on eighteen, supposedly at the prime of maidenhood. It was said by others that they were beautiful, though not as much as their mothers had been. That was hard to appreciate in this hour of bereavement. What was the point of beauty, when a person still had to age and die?

  Abruptly the Magician crossed to Orb. "We must have music for the wake," he said.

  Orb quailed. "Oh, I couldn't—" For though she had never been truly close to Luna's mother—and Luna herself had not been as close as both of them were to Niobe—the grief of this termination was on her.

  "She liked your music," the Magician said. "She will not hear it hereafter."

  Orb glanced wildly about, seeking some escape from this duty, and caught Niobe's gaze. Niobe nodded. Orb would have to do it.

  She fetched her harp. She had been given this when she was twelve; it was from the Hall of the Mountain King. It was magic, and it amplified her talent enormously. Her father's music embraced the listener when he touched; hers extended beyond touch. She had not realized that Blenda was even aware of it.

  She played on the instrument, then sang. She had intended a sad song, but it came out happy, to her dismay; it seemed that something other than her own will was guiding her. In the old days, she understood, wakes had been happy affairs, all-night parties, but now they were more somber, and certainly she did not feel festive. But she found herself singing a song of light and joy, and the Magician was smiling, and somehow, amazingly, it seemed right.

  Then Luna painted a picture of her mother, in her youthful beauty, and it was the loveliest of portraits. This would go with Blenda, in such manner as it could. She would travel to Heaven with treasured things.

  After the wake and burial were done, things did not return to normal. The Magician decided to move to America, and of course Luna would go with him. This hardly cheered Orb; Luna had been her closest companion all her life. But what was to be, was to be. The two girls had a tearful parting, and then Luna and her father were gone. Oh, they had promised to keep in touch, and to visit back and forth, but Orb still felt bereft.

  There did not seem to be much point in staying home, now. Orb's father Pacian was over seventy and was slowing down; she rather feared that he would be next and she hardly cared to witness that. So she approached Niobe about the possibility of traveling, apprehensive about her mother's response, but to her surprise it was positive. "By all means, dear," Niobe said. "It is important for a girl to get some experience of the world, before she has to settle down. Just be careful."

  Now perversely. Orb had a second thought. "But you, Mother—can you manage without me? I mean—"

  Niobe hugged her. "I love you Orb, but I can manage. Here, the Magician left something for you."

  It turned out to be a carpet: a beautiful small silken one that nevertheless supported her weight lightly enough. "Oh, it's absolutely lovely!" Orb breathed ecstatically. "But that means—"

  "That he knew you would be going," Niobe finished. "He cares for you. Orb, as he does for Luna; he just doesn't show it often. He told me where to take the two of you to obtain your instruments. I think his neglect as a baby caused him to lose facility for the expression of love, but he feels it."

  Orb did not comment. Niobe was the Magician's mother; if she had neglected him, she must have had good reason. "I will use it to visit him and Luna!" she exclaimed.

  "You will not!" Niobe snapped. "This is not intercontinental tapestry! You would perish in some storm far from land. No, this is strictly a local transport, close to ground. You'll have to take a scientific airplane to cross the ocean. But you don't need to visit them so soon anyway; go about your business and see what you can find."
/>   Orb nodded. She had never spoken to her mother of her longing for the Llano, but evidently Niobe knew. So she flung her arms about the older woman and just hugged her, and that was enough.

  But Niobe was not done. She had a gift of her own: a cloak that would garb Orb in whatever manner she required, so that she would not need to tote a suitcase of clothing. "Return when you are ready, dear, and I will be here." Perhaps significantly, she did not mention Pacian.

  Orb hugged her again and shed another tear. Then she packed some food and her little harp, took a good map of Eire, and settled herself on the carpet. It lifted with her thought, being one of the refined modern ones that responded only to the owner and needed no spoken commands.

  She hovered for a moment, blowing a kiss to her mother. Then she was off, sailing up to treetop level, the wind taking her cloak but not threatening her. She was on her way.

  She was looking for the Raggle-Taggle Gypsies that she had met as a child. They had told her what they knew of her real objective, the Llano, but perhaps they could now tell her where to look for it.

  First she went to the swamp where the old water-oak stood, to consult with the hamadryad. She and Luna had visited often in the summers when they were young, but seldom in the later years. Nevertheless the dryad welcomed her immediately, even coming down from the tree to hug her as she got off the carpet.

  "But I'm adult now," Orb protested, pleased. "How can you approach me?"

  "You are still an innocent," the dryad said. "Besides, I know you. There is no music like yours."

  Orb elected to ignore the slight about her experience, for the dryad had been a precious friend. "What I really want is to find that song, the Llano," she confessed. "So I'm looking for those Gypsies, because perhaps they can tell me where to look."

  The hamadryad frowned, not liking the Gypsies who had threatened to chop down her tree. A threat of that nature was never forgiven by her kind. But she recognized Orb's need, so she helped. "We have watched that tribe, my sisters and I. It is now south, in Cork."