Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods)

by Pam Uphoff

  "Get behind us. You're a disgrace." Tromp smirked.

  "You don't have a daughter, you don't count." Zenith chanted.

  "Half Moon my ass. You're not even properly a witch." Cost shrugged a dismissive shoulder at her.

  Answer stomped back angrily. "Rustle, if you're going to cause trouble, get behind the Crescent Moons with the rest of the children."

  The old witch turned and walked away. Tromped shoved past Rustle, followed by her entourage. The other Crescent Moons walked by quickly, none crowding Rustle, but none showing any sympathy.

  Rustle took a deep breath and followed several steps behind.

  The little powerless girls, Mica, Jasper and Neptunite whispered among themselves and brought up the rear. Obsidian, being under nine, was supposed to stay with her mother. She ventured back to hug Rustle only once, obviously distressed as the Black Triad jeered her as she passed.

  Xen was the only baby, and Answer set a fast pace. Surely not deliberately. Rustle got good at nursing while walking, and changed diapers fast. And got less sleep, washing them out, downstream of their camps.

  On the last day, as they tackled the final slopes, Rustle handed Xen to a shadow that faded away.

  "Handy, that," her grandmother growled. "Didn't see any of that seventeen years ago. Not that we needed any help."

  "Odd how circumstances change," Rustle said. "It must have been a slow, grueling hike, with so many babies, those first few years."

  "Slow? Don't be absurd." Curious exchanged smirks with her granddaughter, Tromp, before she turned to march on.

  Never sighed. "Well, the way you've always tagged along after that man, we ought to have guessed who you went to, at need. I hope it worked."

  They climbed the last leg, settling the younger children around an unlit pile of firewood, then ascending to the spire in the twilight, the fat moon already above the horizon in the deep blue sky.

  At the base Mica raised her hands and lights winked between her fingers. Mostly burst into tears, and hugged her, then climbed to the level of the Full Moon. More sparks and a grinning Likely was joining her, to complete the second triad of Full Moons.

  At the top, Answer led the sisters in the song of the Moon.

  Rustle stepped up alone on the third tier and sang the Song of the Half Moon about the joy of motherhood. Ignoring the voices from below singing the Crescent Moon song at the top of their voices, to drown her out. Above her, Justice gestured Never higher, and she sang the song of the Grandmother with the others. Rustle rejoiced that no one was challenging her mother's advancement to the Waning Half, despite the gender of her grandchild.

  Then she put it all out of her mind and felt the forces of gravity while she sang. The power flowed through her, down from the Moon and up from the Mountain, and she suddenly knew that she would always know the feel of this place, could find this mountain from anywhere in the World.

  Recognition. That was how it felt.

  They sang the waning gibbous moon down, then retreated to light the fire and eat, and sleep. In the morning, Rustle stopped in the shadows of a giant boulder to take back a hungry Xen and ease her aching breasts.

  They kept to no particular order on the quicker trip down, so she walked with her family. Justice, Xanthic and Happy joined them a few times. The others ignored Xen totally, and herself nearly completely until she found herself speechless, fighting tears, and not talking to anyone. Back home she managed stay a week before fleeing back to the river and solitude.

  "Just you and me, eh kid?"

  Phantom, running loose beside Junk, snorted indignantly. Xen grinned up at her, and she felt her forced cheerfulness soften into real amusement.

  "All we have to do now is figure out how to survive next winter either alone here or with the family, being shunned by everyone else. What do you think? I'd vote for isolation, if I was by myself, but you're just a bit young for that."

  The rest of summer was quiet, just a few visitors who brought food and took away ball bearings and buckles. Usually her dad, twice Havi, and once her mother. Looking harried. "Answer is being completely unreasonable. I know Xen was a bit of a shock, but there was no need for her to blame you."

  Rustle winced. "Answer and I had a bit of a falling out over, you know, the dragon thing. Changing those men's genes into the dragon pattern, which resulted in their being killed. And . . . I've heard the gossip about those nobles. I killed two of them, and seriously damaged four of them. The two that got away had their titles and inheritance stripped from them. Apparently it was quite a sensation, in Karista. So of course Answer has heard all about the Black Widow. Then Xen . . . hit her from a direction she didn't expect. Shook one of her certainties."

  "Humph. So you've gone all logical about it, have you?" Never looked around her shady little camp.

  "I practically grew up in this wagon, Mother. For now, this is best for us. In the village, I really can't keep a low profile. I'll just be a constant irritant."

  "All right. I'll stop picking on you. How's Xen doing? Let's see, another month till his first birthday?" She frowned down at the boy, sitting in the grass, peering intently at bees zipping between late flowers. She straightened her shoulders. "Will you come home for a bit, or should we all come here for a party?"

  Rustle perked up. "I'll come home for a bit. Maybe, maybe a year will be enough for Answer to soften a bit."

  It was a good party. Besides family, Nil and company came up from the tower, and then Ask and the rest of the goat boys came from town. Xen was declared an honorary member of the gang and presented with a wide selection of noise making contraptions. The Auld Wulf dropped by and left an odd, glowing cube that Xen explored and her mother couldn't even see.

  Never got worry lines as Xen crawled with no sign of standing or talking, and Rustle fled back to the river after two more days.

  Havi was her next visitor. Shuffling and nervous, he avoided speaking of whatever his problem was by fussing over Phantom as he ran circles around his dam. "Old Gods, he's a beauty!"

  "Isn't he?" Rustle tossed a buckle to him. "I've got two more harnesses' worth done. Dad keeps coming down to check on me but I think he really wants to see Phantom."

  Havi chuckled. "That big colt is going to be a handful next year. Well worth the trouble, though. I suppose you could geld him, and use that wine, later."

  He was awfully stiff. Had people been making fun of him? His friends were all well into puberty, had the differences been bothering him? Maybe he needed a week down here in the peace and quiet. Or just some logic and acceptance?

  "Spoken like a true Wizard. Do the Goat Boys wish they'd gelded themselves when they were ten?"

  "They've never said a thing about it," Havi winced. "It's not the sort of thing guys like to think about."

  "No kidding." There ought to be a better way to . . . suppress hormones? Was that the purpose of the castration? Delay sex or delay puberty? She walked out into the paddock and Phantom pranced up for an ear rub.

  She'd changed, over the last year and whatever. She'd hit the two major stepping stones of a young witches' development head on, and well, survived. Fought her way through to new skills. That incredible bodily awareness, control. Could she use it on other people, animals? She focused on the horse. Studied him, his hormones. The colt's testicles were poised on the brink of a growth stage. Equine puberty at seven to nine months, right.

  How to manipulate hormones? The hypothalamus gland? No, too many possible complications. Since castration has the desired effect . . .If I suppress just the maturation of the testes . . . She envisioned it like a toddler poised at the head of a flight of stairs. She reached out delicately, and pushed him back. Built a doorway, and a door, a barrier to the other hormones that would trigger the production of testosterone, closed and locked it. She took a deep breath and Phantom shook himself and bounced away.

  Havi stared at her with his mouth hanging open.

  "Catching flies?"

  "Rustle, whatever that is yo
u just did, I think would solve the, err, developmental problems wizards have."

  "That was what I was thinking of. No more snip, snip."

  "Exactly, and I need you to do that to me right now."

  Rustle swallowed. It's not a genetic change. Answer won't go ballistic . . .will she? "What did you do? Get into that wine?"

  "Yeah. Umm, had a confrontation with the Black Triad."

  "Figures they'd be making trouble for you. Well . . ." Rustle snickered. "Wait. A confrontation? With that wine involved? Hope you enjoyed deflowering those three nasty little witches, brother mine."

  He blushed bright red.

  It was just as easy to build that magical barricade for a human as a horse.

  Still a bit nervy, Havi didn't stay long.

  The next week all the goat boys slipped down to see her. It might be too late to boost their magical abilities, but they'd talked it over and all the guys had all agreed it was worth trying.

  For payment, Rustle dragged them into the hills and made them tromp around and dig in the mud and sand in several obscure locations, and to their considerable astonishment, they found lots of little diamonds and a few medium ones.

  Havi looked at the greasy little pebbles. "These are diamonds?"

  "They don't look like diamonds," Zip frowned. "Can we find some more? Enough to pay for the Land Grant?"

  "I expect so," Rustle juggled the baby, strolled slowly across the sand along a tiny stream. Over a year old, crawling really good, now. Not walking. Oh, Xen, this place is not going to be nice to you. She stopped and pointed. "Try there. About four feet down."

  Xen wiggled and she put him down to stand; he held onto her skirt. "Woks. Dig."

  Havi grinned back at the boy. "Yep. Your mom is making us dig up rocks." Rustle pointed at his next shovel full and he sat down to sieve carefully through it and find the right little pebble.

  "Witches, even when they're your bossy big sister, are handy to have around," Ech said. "Can we keep her?"

  "Witches can't be kept. We do the keeping. Dig. Right there."

  Chapter Nine

  1370 Fall

  Ash

  Tromp slipped her hand back into the hole in the wall, and pulled out the bottle.

  She, Cost and Zenith had finally cornered Havi-the-Eunuch. And he'd whipped out a bottle of wine and drunk from it. And so had they. It had turned into quite the educational experience. She hadn't planned on losing her virginity, but being able to channel now was going to be very useful.

  After their orgy with the eunuch wizard, she'd recorked the bottle, saved the tiny little dribble in the bottom.

  This was power. This was potential.

  If only she could figure it out.

  It had turned a eunuch into a stud that had done three of them, twice over.

  She walked over to the little window in her room, and looked out at the other youngsters out there. They were all having fun, and she was grounded. As if her mother had ever before noticed or cared how Tromp felt. Well, she was sick and tired of her room, it had been two days and her mother had left with her grandmother a few minutes ago.

  What could she do with this power? One little swallow . . . what she needed was a drink of regular wine, to help her think. She slipped out to the kitchen and grabbed a full bottle from under the china cabinet. And a cork screw. And a glass.

  If nothing else, she could get drunk in her room. She grabbed a second bottle. She might need it, after all. She'd never drunk enough to get drunk and had no idea how much it would take. Not that she was actually going to try or anything . . .

  Once in her room, she opened both bottles and returned the opener. She was too smart to get caught that way.

  The wine was . . . mediocre. Nothing like the magical contents of that bottle. She held the magic wine up to the light. Hesitated. Opened it.

  "Okay, just a drop, for the zing of the magic."

  Of course it all went in. She cursed and poured the whole glass back in the bottle, corked it and put it back in the hole.

  "I knew better." She grumbled. And filled the wet glass with the ordinary red.

  Which was no longer ordinary.

  She held it out and stared. Could a spell spread like that? She really hadn't paid much attention to the older witches' lectures.

  She poured half the glass into each bottle, and sampled. It was all magic now. Now all she needed was a plan of how to use this stuff.

  Hmm. Who first? Who did she really, really want to control? She heard voices and hastily corked and hid her little friends. It was her mother and Aunt Kindly.

  She put her ear to the crack of the door and listened.

  "It just feels so odd, to have a big bunch of the children just leave like this. We've always stayed. What will they do in the New Lands?"

  Kindly laughed. "What will they do here? Havi's the only one with any Wizard talent, poor little guy. Really, I've heard a bunch of the Mage kids talking too. Why should they stay here, were they will always be second class, when they can go off and be normal over there. I think it's a great idea."

  Her mother protested. "But, what about their children? They could grasp power. And they wouldn't have anyone to lead them, to show them how witch magic works. I suppose Havi's got a lot of book learning, but he'll never amount to much."

  "I think you are underestimating Havi, and everyone from here knows the signs of Witch power emerging. They can send their talented daughters here. We could be a Witches' Academy."

  Ha! Even I learned more than that from Answer's genetics lessons. Those no-power former witches can't have witch children. Tromp leaned back and considered. A new settlement out in the New Lands. Full of people with potential, but no real power. So a full blown witch would be able to take over. Train up the kids to obey her. Be a regular Witch Queen, like in the stories.

  Except that they knew her.

  She got up and moved to the mirror. Her big green eyes looked back. They'd been a muddy hazel two years ago. And squinty. Mother hadn't even noticed the slow change. She'd lightened her hair back to her childhood blonde. If she waited until they all left. If she slowly did more changes. If she . . .

  She'd need money. Well, some of the soldiers who came into the village offered money, high time someone took them up on it. She'd leave her hair light until she left, then darken it . . . use some dye and then make it grow in the same color . . . She smiled at the mirror. "Oh yes. By the time I catch up with that little eunuch, he'll never recognize me."

  She need to figure out how and where to find men with money, travelers tended to use the Old Road now . . . and it was just a half day away, she could circle the Fort, go a ways up the mountain . . .

  Footsteps approached her door and she hastily sat down on the floor and closed her eyes.

  "How are you doing, dear?"

  "Much better, Mother. Do you think I should go up to the hot springs to meditate and fast?" Har har.

  They fell for it, of course. After all, what worse trouble could she get into?

  It only took an hour to catch an officer traveling alone. And not a lot of fun, either. She hadn't even needed to use her wine. He'd just hopped off his horse, dropped his pants and taken her, and ridden off. He tossed a couple of coppers her way. Pence. Son-of-goat had better not let her catch him again. She was sure she could do something nasty with this channeling trick.

  She stared at the old man walking up the road. Ordinarily she would have ignored him, but her teachers kept telling her to experiment . . .

  She pretended she hadn't seen him, and sat down to dig into her backpack. She pulled out the wine, and a glass.

  "Now that's a sight to see." The creaky old voice said. "Pretty girl and a bottle of wine. Pity I'm too old to take advantage of the girl." He leered through brown teeth.

  Yuck! She pulled the cork and filled the glass. Took a sip. Yow! That spell!

  "Well, have a glass of wine with me," Tromp forced herself to smile. "And maybe you'll change your mind." She wi
nked and held out the glass.

  He cackled, and dropped his pack. Tossed back the wine like it was a shot of whiskey. His eyes widened, and he looked at her. His expression hungry.

  She dropped her eyes demurely and slipped off her cape.

  At that point she lost control of the proceedings.

  ***

  "Well, that was fun, I like it rough and . . ." she wrinkled her brow. "Damn it, I didn't say a thing about money, did I?"

  She got to her feet and grabbed some leaves to wipe herself with. Ouch, ouch . . . that was even better than Havi. Weird, how the pain suddenly flipped into pleasure. "You'd better at least have some money, eh?" She looked around for her clothes and dressed quickly. "Well?"

  No answer. She leaned over him, then recoiled. He was dead.

  "I killed him," she clapped her hands over her mouth and looked around hastily. The Old Road was empty.

  She grabbed the old man's pack, and then her own and took them deeper into the forest. Then she grabbed his clothes and pulled the body a little away and definitely out of sight.

  What was she to do?

  "Bury him and shut up," she muttered. She reached for power, and shakily gathered enough to peel back the old pine needles and some dirt of the forest floor and hold it long enough to roll him into the shallow dip. Well, he wasn't very buried, but better than nothing.

  Then she searched his pack.

  It was not at all what she expected. It was orderly and neat. With lots of note books, most written in, a few empty. Money? It was everywhere. Two little sacks with common coinage, then gold and silver wafers in hidden pockets all over the pack. No wonder it was so heavy. And last, she pulled out a leather case that had been sewn into the leather bottom of the pack. Wax. A brass seal. She stared at the symbol blankly. Some sort of strange horse with a horn, rearing up. "Who is this guy. Was. Some fancy pants accountant?" She frowned as an old memory surfaced. A uni-horn. No, corn. The Auld Wulf had called it a unicorn and the men who attacked them years ago had been from another World. "He was a spy." She couldn't read the printing around the edge, it was all backwards. She shoved it back into the case, and put the case back where it was hidden. Where could she hide all this money? If someone noticed the smell, they might dig up the body. Her eyes slid over to that slight hump in the pine needles. It stirred a little, and she leaped away in terror.