The Magic Mines of Asharim

by Pauline M. Ross

  For the second game, Petreon laid out an ambitious mountain formation, far beyond his ability, and Xando had to work hard to avoid winning in a handful of moves. Having won the first game, honour decreed that he should ensure that Petreon won the second, preferably with a pattern of Xando’s choosing. Despite myself, I became absorbed in his strategies, although several times he made mistakes, to my eyes. My fingers itched to make better moves.

  Finally he succeeded and turned to me. “Will you play against me, Lady?”

  I couldn’t resist. He let me lay out the stones, and I chose a simple circle formation, which allows good play for intermediate grades. My guess made him a mountain goat, at best, or perhaps a bear. However, I used some unusual colour combinations, to allow me some flexibility if I had underestimated him. I let him win the first game, which often catches out the inexperienced, but he just smiled and laid out a complicated mosaic formation, which I’d never seen before. The second game was much, much better. He was not as fast as I was, pondering each move carefully, but his strategies were unusual and not as easy to counter as I’d expected. I won, of course, but he wasn’t unhappy about it; when I moved the final stones, he touched his forehead in respect.

  It felt wonderful. All my anxieties – the fears that twisted my gut, and the grief which darkened my dreams – were swept away for an hour, so that the stones and their delicate colours were all there was in the world. And for all that I resented Xando for revealing something of who I was, it was glorious to stretch my mind and not have to try to pretend to be some illiterate nobody.

  We had gathered quite a crowd during the long second game. As everyone drifted away, and Petreon went out to relieve himself, Xando leaned towards me, speaking in a low voice. “I shall ask the Master if I might avail myself of your services tonight, but have no fear, Gracious Lady; I shall not touch you.”

  Have no fear? If only that were possible. My good mood evaporated in an instant.

  10: Flickers

  I strode back to my house, head down, arms clutched about me, barely aware of my surroundings or the gently setting moon. My stomach roiled, and fear consumed me. Inside the house, I paced back and forth in the tiny sitting room. How long would it be before he came? Perhaps he would play another game with Petreon. It was still early, and there was wine left.

  Sitting on the window seat, I gazed at the vast face of the moon dipping down behind the mountains, and told myself to be rational about this. My fear of the Tre’annatha was an old one, carried from childhood, and surely it was time I set it behind me? Xando had never shown me anything but gentle respect and kindness. There was none of the traditional arrogance, the supercilious sneer that I associated with his kind. And from a more practical viewpoint, his mind was closed to me, so there was no danger of absorbing his lust when he took me.

  Except that he had said he wouldn’t do that. “I shall not touch you.” Did he mean it? And what man would ask for the companion-servant, but not avail himself of her services? He was a puzzle to me in so many ways.

  It was almost dark when he finally came. He was with Petreon, their voices audible even before they entered the courtyard. Petreon’s was a growl, like a bear, but more garrulous than I’d ever heard him. He even laughed once or twice. In the pauses, Xando’s voice, soft and melodious. They said their farewells, and Petreon stumped off to his own house, the door banging behind him. Then silence.

  The doorbell jangled and I jumped. At first I didn’t move, used to Petreon’s habit of slithering in without so much as a knock. But then I realised Xando was politely waiting on the doorstep to be let in. I opened the door to him, and waved him inside. Despite my rationalisations, fear fluttered inside me at his nearness. Nervously, I stood rooted to the spot, unable to be relaxed with him.

  He swung round, beaming at me, wine bottle in hand. “I showed Petreon our source of wine. I think he will go to bed happy tonight.”

  “Or drunk.”

  “Perhaps, but why not, for once? He has taken a couple of bottles and I have brought you another one.”

  “Perhaps I have had enough for one night. I am no longer used to it.”

  He looked sharply at me. It was the first time I’d admitted to my change in circumstances, but he made no comment. “As you wish, Lady. Put it away somewhere safe, then.”

  I tucked it into the cupboard with the fruit concoction, an incongruous pairing if ever there was one.

  “Would you like anything to eat or drink?” I asked. “I can heat some tennel.”

  He pulled a face. “Let us not spoil the taste of the wine with that nasty brew. Shall we go upstairs?”

  My stomach turned over, but I nodded and led the way.

  “You are still afraid of me,” he said as we reached the landing.

  I turned to him in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it is true. I thought it would wear off – that you would get used to me. But you still fear me.”

  “You are Tre’annatha!”

  His eyebrows rose, but he followed me meekly into the bedroom, settling himself on the window seat. I was too agitated to sit, so I leaned against the wall, arms folded. Not trusting myself to speak, I said nothing, waiting for him to make his move, whatever it might be.

  Silence wrapped around us like a cloak. Through the open window, faint with distance, came female laughter. Someone having fun.

  He sighed, and stretched his legs out before him. “Lady… Allandra…” He stopped and sighed again. Then he burst out, “I want you to like me. I hardly ever see anyone from home, and here you are, a familiar voice, where I least expected to find a Mesanthian. The others… they cannot understand, but you and I…” He spread his hands wide in appeal. “Do you not see? We have so much in common. You remind me of home, and I… I miss it so much.”

  His voice quavered, his emotions plain even to me.

  “I miss it too,” I said quietly. “But I have feared the Tre’annatha all my life. It is hard for me to set that aside. It is not personal.”

  “I fear them too.”

  I exhaled noisily. “Don’t be ridiculous! What do you have to fear from them? You are one of them.”

  “Yes. And no. I am Tre’annatha by birth, but I am not in the Program.”

  I gasped, then laughed in delight. “Ha! You are a rebel, Xando!” He was right, then, we had much in common.

  “Well, not quite. I am not a subversive, working to restore the Empire.” He scratched his nose thoughtfully. “Allandra… I trust you not to betray me. I want us to be friends.”

  “If you are a rebel – even a not-quite rebel – then perhaps we can indeed be friends.”

  He smiled at me, that wide smile that, I confess, made him very appealing. He was so childlike, it was hard to maintain my antipathy, and knowing he was outside the rigid system of his people’s control brought me almost to the point of liking him. My resistance was crumbling.

  Abruptly he stood up. “Have I been here long enough? I will leave you then.”

  My head spun with the rapid shift. “What? You really meant it? That you wouldn’t touch me?”

  “Of course. Why would I say such a thing otherwise? That would be cruel. I only want to discourage those other women from flapping around me. If they think I am taken, they will leave me alone.”

  “Oh.” I pondered the implications of that. “So you prefer men?”

  He laughed out loud. “No, not at all. I have not yet been awakened.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  Shaking his head, he said, “You know, the Academia was most deficient in some aspects of your education. Do you know nothing of Tre’annatha physiology?”

  “All that was available in the Imperial Library, which was not much. Such matters were prohibited for pond-slime like us.”

  “Hmm.” One eyebrow quirked at my acid tone. “Well, there is much that could be said about reproduction in the Tre’annatha, but in brief, sexual desire is repressed in us until it is purposely awa
kened, usually for breeding. The procedure for awakening is complex, and takes place only in the Sraeh – the homeland. You know nothing of this?”

  “No, nothing. I was aware that pregnancy is a difficult matter, that your women return to the homeland to reproduce, but the rest of it… I have never heard of it. Your people are secretive, Xando.”

  “Hyi Loy Gysht.”

  “I… what?”

  “That is my name. My true name.” He smiled gently.

  I let my breath out slowly. A Tre’annatha sharing his true name. Finally I understood what he was offering me: not just friendship, but a bond of trust, a sharing of the sacred spirit. It was his faith, not mine, but I appreciated the enormity of the gift.

  “Hy Loy Geesht? Did I say that right?” I could hear the tones, but I couldn’t begin to copy them.

  “Almost. Just call me Hyi. In private, mind. And now I really must leave you. May the Spirit protect you, Gracious Lady.”

  “Wait.” Friendship, and no sex. I could live with that. “Do you want to stay? As a friend?”

  He stilled, licked his lips. “I would not impose on you.”

  What did that mean? I wished I could touch his mind, to know what he really felt. People were so difficult to interpret. “No imposition. It’s up to you, stay or go, either is fine with me.”

  “Really?” That beaming smile again. “Then I will stay.”

  He carefully laid his coat with the flickers over a chair back, then undressed without embarrassment, taking no notice as I stripped off too. He took off the silver necklace he wore – a religious icon of some sort – but he kept his shirt on, and I wore a night gown. Then we climbed chastely into the bed, where he turned away from me and quickly fell into quiet sleep.

  As for me, I lay awake almost until dawn, wondering about all I had learned of Xando – Hyi – and the strange ways of his people.

  ~~~~~

  It surprised me how quickly I got used to the new routine of wine and dragon stones each evening. Xando brought more games from the shop, simpler ones, and taught Chendria and some of the older carriers and extractors to play. The children would watch for a while, then wander away, bored. They soon lost interest in the wooden toys Xando had given them, and we kept finding them abandoned, lying forlornly on the floor.

  Whether it was the new games or Xando’s influence, everyone was calmer now. Tempers improved and several of the extractors became openly friendly towards me. Even Chendria was almost affable to me on occasion, assigning me no more than my appointed share of the work. Her hostility was almost undetectable to me, just a quick flash whenever I spoke, as quickly gone. Her emotions now were almost entirely focused on Petreon, her mind full of love, with an undercurrent of desire.

  Every third night Xando came home with me and shared my bed but not my body. Since he never hid from me, I was perfectly well aware that he spoke the truth about his ability to respond physically. His lack of desire was clear to see. It was wonderfully restful to be with a man who asked nothing of me beyond friendship. I slept better by his side than I had since I’d left Caxangur in such terror, and I grew to look forward to those nights with him.

  The daytime hours he spent training his flickers.

  “Do you want to come and watch?” he asked me one morning as we dressed.

  I shook my head.

  “You interest them,” he said, and I knew him well enough by then to take his word for it. “There are some who prefer you to me.”

  My dislike of the flickers had abated somewhat, for Xando’s were good-humoured, with none of the terrifying hostility I’d witnessed elsewhere, but even so, I couldn’t contemplate watching him handling them. But he pestered me and after a while, when I had a free afternoon, I agreed to go and watch.

  He had found a quiet courtyard well away from the normal routes through the town. The other inhabitants rarely wandered about during the day, but even so he’d taken the precaution of painting a warning symbol on the door into the courtyard.

  It was a pleasant place, with a pair of peach trees blossoming along one side, and a small stone basin on the opposite wall, filled by a trickle of water from the mouth of a marble frog. The frog’s skin was so lifelike I half expected it to leap into the pool below, although the oddly shaped spots on its back made it a species unknown to me. Perhaps it dated back to before moonfall, and was now extinct, its native ponds and rivers swept away in the aftermath of the Catastrophe. Poor frog, the last of its kind, trapped in its marble body for ever more.

  There were stone benches set into the walls at intervals. I chose one in the shade and sat watching Xando at work. Surprisingly for a thrower, there was very little throwing involved. He would choose a flicker to bring out, resting it in the palm of his hand as he sat cross-legged in the centre of the courtyard, and then – well, I don’t know quite what he did, apart from talk gently to it, or perhaps sing under his breath. I detected no anger in any of them, only pleasure and perhaps excitement. For most of the flickers, that was all he did.

  But some were thrown in the traditional way, making me shudder. Most people are terrified of throwers, and so they should be. They carry enormous power in those tiny creatures, and not all of them use it wisely.

  Xando had a straw man set up in a corner, the straw covered with fine linen cloth sewn over the limbs like skin. Then clothes fitted on top. It was surprisingly lifelike. After a long period of talking or singing, he would abruptly stand and with a flick of the wrist, hurl the flicker at the model. Mostly they missed altogether, or bounced off in the wrong direction, but eventually they seemed to get the idea and would behave as they were supposed to, hitting the cloth skin and zooming straight back into his hand. Then he would tuck them away in his coat.

  It was mesmerising to watch him at work, methodically working through one creature after another. I couldn’t guess how they worked, for I had never cared to study them. Some said they were magic, but perhaps they just had innate abilities to be harnessed, like horses or dogs. Nor did I ask where he would sell his services once this batch of flickers was fully trained. Probably to one of the Hrandish clans for their endless honour feuds, for they recruited throwers openly, but some of the secretive hill tribes and desert people used them too. There were even rumours that several city states along the coast employed throwers as assassins. I didn’t like to think of him earning a living that way, but that was the nature of the work.

  One day when I was watching, half asleep in the afternoon sun, he crossed the courtyard to stand a few paces away from me. He had a flicker in one hand, the other hand curved over it protectively.

  “Do not be alarmed,” he said, “but this little fellow wishes to be close to you.”

  I could feel the creature’s excitement from where I sat. It was practically fizzing. Nothing about it was alarming, though. Even with my limited experience of flickers, I could tell that it was benign. I stood up and walked over to Xando.

  He gave me his lovely smile. “There! Is he not beautiful?”

  He raised the covering hand, and the flicker lay unmoving in the other. Only the rapid cycling of colours betrayed the intensity of its feelings. And it was indeed beautiful. Being so close, absorbing the full strength of its emotions, so unlike human feelings and yet perfectly interpretable, I was irresistibly drawn to it.

  I leaned closer, then, with a nervous glance at Xando, drew back.

  “Ah! You feel it too!” he said. “The seductive allure of mak’tersshikor. You may draw nearer, but do not touch him.”

  I wasn’t tempted to touch him. Still, he seemed harmless enough, resting so quietly, and I was fascinated. I took a step nearer and leaned towards it.

  The thing leapt at me.

  I screamed and jumped backwards, tripping and falling hard onto my back, but it was too late. It latched onto my arm, wet like a ball of spit, clinging like a leech, refusing to be dislodged even though I shook it violently. And then—

  It is hard to describe the sensation of physical c
onnection with a flicker. The mental connection alone was strong, but it had still felt like a separate entity. This was different, as if it was inside my head, a part of me. In human terms, it was curled up in a corner of my mind, purring. And I loved it.

  I let out a long breath, astonishment mixed with unexpected pleasure.

  “Well,” Xando said, a picture of surprise. “I thought he just wanted to see you, but there we are. He is attached to you now. That makes you a thrower too.”

  11: The Bloom

  I flopped back onto the bench, appalled. “No,” I whispered. “That’s not possible.”

  Xando sat down beside me. “Is it such a terrible thing? Working with flickers is a very satisfying profession.”

  “Satisfying? Keeping these – these murderous things with you at all times? Training them to kill people? Hiring them out to anyone with coin to pay you?”

  “We are not all assassins, you know,” he said, his face amused. “Most of mine do useful things – healing, looking over walls, opening windows and doors, making fire. I have a couple that use poison, but it only induces a temporary paralysis.”

  “None of them kill?”

  “No. Not intentionally, anyway.”

  I thought about that. Useful flickers, not weapons; that I could live with. But to be a thrower? I couldn’t imagine it. All my life, it seemed, I’d been hiding away, avoiding public attention. Throwers were the antithesis of that, strutting about in their long coats like so many emperors, miniature gods. I could not envisage myself in that role.

  “You are afraid,” Xando said, as if he’d been reading my mind. “That is natural. It is a big change for you – for anyone. But I will help you learn. There is a training institute north of Wetherrin, whose tutors will teach you how to manage your flickers.”

  “I only have one.”

  He shrugged. “For the moment. You will have more. We will try for some more here, or else you can get some at the institute.”

  “No. I don’t want this. I can’t leave here. Can’t I just keep this one and stay here? I have a contract, I can’t just walk away from that.”