Drifter Mage

by PMF Johnson

  Mara whispered her own full name, and Galle's, in reply. Then she helped her son slowly step down from wagon seat.

  Deeb said, "We travel to the far side of the Wild. We seek a small valley with a stream, a green and beautiful place, where we will settle. In the autumn, many hawks and eagles pass overhead on their way south, coming through the passes in the mountains. In such a valley, we will abide."

  "We are find you there," the woman said.

  Mara hugged Galle, then Deeb stepped over and put his hands on his son's shoulders, gazed into his face, and whispered. "Vos be with you, son." He released him to the orcen woman.

  The orcen turned, and trotted off. The orcen woman closed her hand around Galle's upper arm, and guided him off at a trot. He went willingly. They disappeared over a low hill Mara had not realized was there until this moment.

  Her son was with people who could help him in their own rough way, when she, the boy's own mother, could not. From that day forward, she redoubled her prayers, as the pain of losing her son, of failing him, haunted her.

  "They brought a pony along?" Deeb asked.

  Arch shook his head. "Ruskiya in the Magic are as uncanny as trollen, some ways. They knew the boy was here, maybe."

  When Deeb at last prepared to move on, Mara objected. "Shouldn't we stay here and wait for them?"

  "Nothing to eat, no water here. We got to move on," Arch said. "Those orcen'll know where you go, anywhere in the Magic, now that you've traded names. It's your job to make a place for that boy to return to, when he's ready."

  "But maybe they won't want to find us again. Maybe they just kidnapped my boy."

  "Ma'am, she gave her word. A Rus clan leader who gives her word, well, every jack in that clan would risk a dozen vampyren to get that boy back to you now, for the honor of their clan. It's who they are. Those orcen keep their word."

  Mara allowed the men to lead her on, but her heart was still grabbing in her chest. What sort of mother was she to have failed her son so? That utter strangers, a dangerous, violent people, must take on his care, and she not even allowed to go along, to see after him. She had never known such an overwhelming, suffocating loneliness.

  That night, in camp, she went into the wagon and wakened the ancestors to tell them of her plight. They were sympathetic, but little more, and she was reminded they were only a magical essence of memories encased in stones, not really her mother, her father, her grandmothers gone.

  At the fire, Arch pointed to the wagon. "You'd do good to suspend a tarp under the wagon, start filling it with buse chips as you find 'em."

  "What would we do that for?" Deeb asked. "It would stink to high heaven."

  "You'll be wanting to pick the dried out ones, a' course. Nothing else safe to burn out there. You're at the edge of the Deep Magic, now, and you can't count on finding trees, or any kind of wood."

  Later that night, Deeb brought a bowl of stew to his wife, still huddled at the back of the wagon. She turned away.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "You have to keep up your strength," he said. "Galle will need you strong."

  Obediently, she took up the spoon. "Deeb, what sort of people are they?"

  "The Ruskiya? Honest, as Arch told us. Those orcen don't tell lies. And they're tough -- they're the only orcen who refused to submit to the vampyren during the Shadow Years. Hunters and warriors. And mystical. They mostly worship Lacrima Ferae, Goddess of the Wilderlands and of animals. If anyone would know how to heal Galle, I'd put my coins on them."

  "I hope he gets better."

  "I do too." He hugged his wife.

  #

  In the morning it was blowing wind and spitting rain. The mules were balky.

  "I think you better walk this morning," Deeb said to his wife.

  "Best get rid of some of that heavy stuff," Arch said. "You got worked magic in there? That's all stone, it'll play out your mules."

  "Those are my ancestors," Mara replied firmly. "The only link to my past. I can't leave them by the side of the road like a busted wheel."

  "Unless they can haul your wagon, they'll do you no good out here. Your mules gonna be dead in a week. And where will you be, then?"

  He waved a hand, encompassing the land around them, the rolling rain clouds. "The middle of all this nowhere. Ground'll be soft with this rain. What'll that do to your stock? Your mules are good animals, they'll haul for you, right down to the last heartbeat. But they deserve better'n that. They're tuckered, even worse than tuckered. And you're mebbe fifteen thousand paces to your next camp site."

  "A day's march," Deeb said.

  "Not with these mules. You ain't even gonna make the top of that hill there by the end of today. You won't be to that camp for a week, and prob'ly not then. You can ride that horse out once your mules founder, but you won't have the wagon, nor any food."

  "We can do it," Deeb insisted.

  Arch stared at him. "I'm going for meat. You got none."

  He rode out, leaving the two of them behind, exhausted, unable even to argue.

  Chapter Seven

  The Ruskiya orcen trotted steadily across the prairie, their eyes constantly reviewing the grasslands, looking for any change, any movement. The images in the clouds broke up and dissipated, the People in them turning their attention elsewhere. The orcen relaxed a fraction.

  Only a lone small cloud, which resembled an eager young bear, seemed still to be watching. The sense of suspense and import had faded some as well.

  A pony rode alongside them, Galle on its back, his eyes dreaming. Abruptly, the orcen dipped into a shallow hollow where an encampment lay. Women and children, busy with duties, looked up. One woman, the most talkative in the clan, spoke a single word of greeting.

  The hunters stopped in the middle of camp, where the old woman efficiently divided the take, each family taking a portion to their own fire. The clan leader, for such she was, walked over to the pony, put her hands on her hips, and studied the human boy. He did not seem to notice her.

  "The dream is not so good anymore, sa? Already you chase it with disappointment. I see in your face. You are have a choice, human. Follow what you see further and further until you are lost in silver. Useless to yourself and others. Or you are choose a different way. I choose that different way. I live still, where others do not."

  She pulled the hackamore off the pony and walked away. The boy showed no evidence of having heard. After a short wait, the pony humped its shoulders and twisted, dumping the boy on the grass, where he lay face down.

  No one paid him the slightest attention the rest of the day. Rain fell on him in the middle of the night. He whimpered from the cold, but no one responded. In the morning the clan packed up efficiently, ignoring the misting rain. The boy made no indication he was aware. One toddler stared at Galle curiously as the clan departed, but the toddler's mother hustled the child away.

  Silence fell. The grass stirred.

  "I don't know..." the words came from the boy, barely more than a whisper. "Don't know any other way."

  A whirligig drifted over the ridge, settled near him. Then another. He stirred, perhaps in hope, then waved feebly at them. "Go." Neither stirred. "Got nothing...for you. Liars."

  With a sob he lurched to his hands and knees, head down, swaying. "How...do I get it back?" The wind made no answer. The rain faded.

  Looking up, he found a crowd of whirligigs huddled around him. One whirred into the air, then all were up, drifting overhead. Had they waited for the Ruskiya to leave before approaching him? Were the visions they offered any sort of realistic alternative to the harsh way of the Ruskiya?

  He stood looking about, confused. He felt as though he'd been asleep a long, long time. That sort of sleep was still tempting, a hunger that underlay every thought, every movement, a towering hunger for what he had lost, the sensation of being wrapped in a cocoon of love, attended to by the universe.

  He never before imagined such a powerful sensation of completeness. He wanted it back.
That orcen lady said she could help him. Which way had she gone?

  His eyes fell on a swath of grass bent over, pointing in the direction the clan had gone. He stumbled after them, the whirligigs rising around him in a cluster.

  He walked, as the day passed around him, the rain starting and stopping in intervals. He fell, but the hunger would not let him rest.

  Late that evening, he topped a low rise. Below glowed the campfires of the Red Bear clan of the Ruskiya, set back from a meandering creek. He stumbled into camp, a forlorn mess, his hair sticking out and dirt on his clothes. Behind him the whirligigs scattered and backed away, rather than approaching the camp of the Ruskiya.

  Not knowing where to go, he wandered from fire to fire as the clansfolk went about their business.

  Suddenly the old orcen woman was before him, her hands on her hips. "You reek. You are shame to appear so. Bathe and clean yourself." She turned and walked off to a nearby fire, but his heart pounded with hope: she would accept him if he cleaned up. He hurried to the creek.

  Some time later he presented himself, damp from washing, at that fire. He had made an effort to clean his grass-stained clothes.

  She considered him. "You are the baby bird, mouth open, no one else is matter but you. People cannot live this way. You are contribute. Gather wood for every fire in camp for morning."

  He stood, almost disbelieving, at the judgment. Then, with a cry much like a small bird, he headed for the creek bottom where a few crabbed old willows lay wind-fallen among the low woods.

  In the deep of the night, task accomplished, he returned to the fire, which had burnt to low coals.

  "Meals are not made to wait for you," she said. "Time you eat in the morning. Sleep now."

  But she found him a blanket and pointed to a spot under the flap of a tent's door where he would be out of the dew. He lay down and wrapped himself around the hunger in his stomach -- his body had awakened to a more plain state of hunger.

  In the morning, he must fetch water, but afterwards there was gruel with meat, and he nourished himself, surprised how good such a simple satisfaction could be. Finished, he went to her again, the hunger for that peace returning to him, no longer overwhelming, but strong enough that his skin glowed silver.

  She looked at him with a great disapproval. "You are learn to hold this power, but now this power holds you. You have no strength, no will, no bound. We are loose such a power in our midst? Fah. You do not know who you are, and so you are no one, at the mercy of anything."

  That said, she pointed out a bundle for him to carry, and the clan set off again, Galle trudging along behind the rest.

  Day after day passed, until Galle strengthened to his duties and began to walk beside the clan, rather than trailing behind. Little by little the clan accepted him -- the children first, curious and wary. As from a deep past, he remembered some of the games he had learned as a child, and he taught them what he knew of flying kites and mumblety-pegs, while they taught him hoop games and hunting simple creatures, voles and ground squirrels. A boy near his own age taught him some words, and he was able to make himself known to them, listening more than he spoke, and polite when he did so.

  The Rus, they titled the old woman, so he did as well, out of respect. Her name was Dunortha, but he was not allowed to use it. The power the Rus held represented that of the clan, so she must not be touched, lest that power drain off, and he learned this as well.

  One day she began to speak as they walked. "Rain curtains this world, so the People of the Sky cannot see what we do -- on such days they withhold their power, lest we make mischief they cannot avert. Only the Cub pays us thought."

  Sure enough, among the chaos of the clouds above one thunderhead retained coherence in the form of a young bear, watching them.

  Galle remained silent. He found doing simple tasks without thought helped keep the hunger at bay. Concentrating on the moment's duties.

  This woman said she had learned to satisfy that hunger, to overcome it somehow. He knew little of her or her people, who appeared in the middle of nowhere, living before the wind seemingly, beholden only to themselves. But there was a surety in them and a strength that amazed him.

  "We move because the buse move," she said. "They devour the grass, and they are move to a new place. Where they go and when teaches you of the Magic. Watch everything, wind, cloud, movement in the grass -- what belongs, what does not, what happens to anything not in its proper place."

  A worry from before returned to him -- "Will those men who were after my family keep going after them?"

  She pointed at the sky. "What think you of the Cub?"

  Puzzled at the elusive response, he nonetheless gave his impression. "He seems friendly. Watching over us."

  "Anyone pays attention you think likes you. Fah. When you hunt something are you keep watch on that thing, pay attention to every move, every flick, so you catch and devour it?"

  He felt embarrassed, knowing it was so.

  "The Bear Cub is dangerous. He is of the wind. The wind changes." She harrumphed. "The People of the Sky help us as they choose. We are not rely on them or they deny us to see what we do. We remain strong. Sa. This they want. When we do as they ask, they show us where to go, where to hunt.

  "Sa. Just so, the Cub is watch you. Be strong as he asks, and he is help you."

  "You mean, help against those men?"

  "Those men have no such an ally."

  "How do you know what the People of the Sky want?"

  "Are you watch them?"

  He felt embarrassed, because she had adjured him to watch before and he had forgotten.

  She spoke on. "You watch everything, you listen, you feel the wind. They control the wind. They are send messages on the wind -- smells of water, of prey to hunt, of enemies, distant things. So you know, then you avoid surprises. Sa. Most surprises are deadly."

  She walked on, unwilling to speak any more. He devoted himself to noticing everything going on around them. It was difficult, since he had not trained himself to observe in this way, and he quickly grew tired and distracted.

  But a strange thing began to happen as he paid attention to the world around him, he lost that sense of hunger -- instead, it was as though the world itself was filling him up. He could taste every flavor of action around him, he could sense the butterflies without looking at them, the buse on the move somewhere up ahead, the whirligigs hiding just behind the hills.

  Only then did he realize the whirligigs avoided the Ruskiya camp.

  The Rus seemed to know what he was thinking, for she spoke. "The People of the Wind are keep their distance. We are not allow them near us, or they take our children. They are willful, and are not understand what they destroy when they feed."

  "Why didn't they kill me?"

  "They are use for you alive."

  "To do what?"

  "Ask them." She would say no more on that subject.

  Thinking about that, he decided to do as she suggested.

  So the next morning, before the clan departed, he walked off, over the ridge, where a stream of the whirligigs drifted along.

  Awkwardly, he tried to speak to them. "What do you want of me?"

  They did not draw away, nor did they come any closer. In fact, they made no response that he noticed.

  When he mentioned this to the Rus, she puffed air in exasperation. "Fah. Fool boy."

  He studied the expression on her face. "You're not much impressed by me or my people, are you?"

  She studied him. "Gather the pony. We are go hunt, you and I."

  Once Galle had put the hackamore on the pony and climbed aboard, they set off, she easily keeping up with the pony. As they traveled into the grass, she continued their morning's conversation.

  "You are in your head still in the city. You seek everything bow to you, speak in your language. The People of the Wind have no tongues, they are not speak in your language, you speak in theirs."

  "They have a language?"

  "T
hings do."

  "And I can learn it?"

  "Are you listen?"

  "Listen with my ears?"

  "Partly."

  "We know what we know. Pa is a smart man," he said, defensively.

  "This is no city. Here you watch, you listen, or you suffer and die. Are you watch?"

  Again he felt guilty, needing the reminder to keep his eyes out. He glanced about.

  "You see, you act," she said. "What is ahead?"

  "I don't see...you mean those specks? Humps of dirt, I guess."

  "Humps of dirt are not move, human. Those are buse. We take only those we need. They allow it. City folk slaughter and slaughter, and are leave the meat to spoil in the grass. Less than children. You are a man."

  She paused. "We are not hunt buse today."

  "Why not?"

  "This is not time. Their coats are heavy, and we are travel. We hunt them soon."

  She pointed. "There -- another clan is pass. Black Coyote clan."

  He saw nothing but grass where she pointed. Then, after a time, he saw the difference in the color of the grass, with dark streaks running through it. As they came closer, he saw the streaks were from the grass being pushed down.

  "The Coyotes travel in three lines, are keep the weak and children in the middle. They are always a cautious people. They are live a long time."

  "Why don't you do the same?" he asked.

  "We are strong in the Magic more than they. They only pass on the edge of the Magic."

  "Are we near an edge now?"

  "They come more deeply than usual. The hunt is poor since the Murkung raids begin." Then she pointed. "There. Ibi. The Dancing Kin. Fourteen are there. We turn, come up on them from downwind."

  Where she pointed, Galle could see a small herd of ungulates -- deer-like creatures but smaller, with pointed horns and brown coats. They grazed a long ways away. A sort of antelope, he supposed.

  "They are find smell at a great distance. And see far. But we are no threat at this distance, they are know." She chuckled.

  Before they went on, she waved at a small flower in the grass. "That is pasq flower. As tea to lower fever."