Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods)

by Pam Uphoff

  All four of their heads cranked around and stared at the pile of rocks. Then swiveled back to her. "You worship the Traveling God? Do you know his sacred name?"

  "I do not worship any gods, but Harry is a life-long friend of mine."

  They stared, then the leader nodded. "I beg pardon for discourteousness. You are indeed Travelers."

  "With raiders about, some wariness is needed, no offense was taken. Please, will you join us for dinner?"

  "We will."

  The four men were brothers, and the two wagons carried the wives and children of two of them. The bachelor brothers eyed Rustle and she shook her head. "I am a witch, we do not marry."

  That met with skepticism, but most of their attention was still on the horses.

  "The bay, she is the dam?"

  "Yes, she is by a very good stallion, her dam, well we don't actually know her breeding. My father could have had a magnificent career as a horse thief, if he were not a wizard."

  Laughter. Marisa, the younger of the wives said, "You Westerners, you think everything is magic. But we saw you ready to use bow and arrow, not lightning bolts."

  "Lightning." Xen threw up his hands. "Boom!"

  "Show us."

  "Too expensive." Rustle grinned. Just as well they didn't believe her.

  More laughter.

  "Which direction are you headed," Rustle asked. "Do you think you need to go further north to be safe from the raiders?"

  "We are headed east. It may be that we will get to Cadence, or something might come up before then." Faro shrugged. "We came a bit north because of the raiders, and then the wind brought the scent of grass to the horses. But we will probably travel along with you for a bit."

  "Strength in numbers?" She asked.

  "More opportunities for our mares to come into season and be accidentally bred."

  Rustle snickered, "You are welcome to try. Phantom is younger than he looks."

  Other than having to fend off the occasional pass, they were good company, and good guides. Xen fit in comfortably with their kids and learned to deal with other children. The Travelers knew all the roads of Verona, and where to sell garnets. She rather thought she was cheated on the price of a few of her garnets, but she needed very little actual money. By the time they approached Cadent, Rustle and Xen had new clothes and with fashion tips from Marisha and Farli, looked like proper Travelers.

  They turned more directly south, and the villages became more frequent, the towns larger. As they encountered more people, Rustle worked out illusions that would draw attention from the horses. A bit of power here and there . . . Their new friends looked on in astonishment as Junk got scruffy and thin, and the tall black got faded and bony.

  "Can you make a scrawny horse look good?" Faro asked, clearly thinking of some profitable horse sales.

  "Faro, you and your family have been outstandingly good traveling companions. My son calls yours his brother. Just for you, I will perform a feat of actual magic." Rustle got up and rummaged in her saddlebags. The wine was ordinary. She had picked it up a few days ago, figuring she could do the Travelers one last favor. She uncorked the bottle, and poured in a spoonful from the flask she kept in her pouch. She swirled the bottle, and it gleamed in the firelight.

  "Ah, wine for dinner?" Faro reached for it.

  "Nope. Wine for horses. Watch." She walked down the picket line, giving each of the Traveler's horses a dose. She waited, as the horses shifted, shook themselves to shed old brittle hair, and danced a bit.

  Faro leaned forward in disbelief. "How long does the illusion last?"

  "No illusion. Although their old age will catch up with them in a few years. There is one problem, though. Your gelding is going to be a stallion shortly."

  He gave an incredulous laugh, then looked again, stroked glossy coats. One of the mares nickered at Phantom. "Ah, time for an accident, I see." He hastily grabbed his ugly gelding and hauled him away from the mares. "Not your sort of accident." Two of the other mares swished their tails and one squealed, in a tone that riveted Phantom's interest.

  "Oh, which one, which one." Faro muttered.

  Rustle snorted, and walked down to Phantom. She reached mentally, to open that conceptual attic door. And poured him some wine. "I think you'd better have some too."

  Their mileage was a bit low that week.

  "You should buy many mares." Degan told her. "Not that the young fellow didn't have plenty of work to take care of without."

  "No." Rustle looked up at the City, "I want to be able to leave whenever I want to, so it would work better if you bought many mares."

  "Huh." He patted his black and white pinto. She looked a decade younger, her coat gleamed with health. "And you gave Faro the rest of that bottle?"

  "Yep. I suspect it's the same spell the Temple of Love has on their sacred wine." Rustle grinned as he looked horrified.

  "Wait, you mean if my wife drank that . . . "

  "She'd climb all over you and nine months later you'd have another child." Rustle grinned. "You could always save it for your brothers' wedding nights"

  "Humph, use it up on them?"

  "It's a contact growth spell. That means that if you add more wine to it, all the wine become magic."

  Degan blinked. "Really?"

  "Really. Haven't you noticed that the Temple of Love never runs out?"

  "Indeed. But then I never believed they had anything to run out of."

  The gate guards eyed them suspiciously, and numbered and described their horses very carefully on their passes. "If you buy or sell horses, you better keep the receipts. We don't put up with horse thieving from you lot," the sergeant growled.

  They found lodging, so to speak, in a quarter of the city used to Travelers. The shed would house the horses, barely, and the yard held the wagons. Mos and Seff disappeared, apparently to work for a carpenter for the winter, as usual.

  Faro sold his ugly stallion for a sweet price, and Marisha and Farli gladly added Xen to their broods while they strung up canvas and expanded their living areas. Two especially gaudy awnings advertised their fortune telling and magic store.

  Bemused, Rustle went to work placing actual minor optimism and attractive spells on the trinkets to help. "No curses, no hexes. That sort of thing comes back to you." Then she took herself off to the Temple of Love.

  The small, old building in front of the onion domed towers and flanking wings of other buildings drew her immediately. The plaza was paved in colored bricks to draw the eye to the old temple.

  It may have grown out of all expectations, but the builders hadn't lost sight of the original source of their mystique.

  They were so far south that even two weeks shy of the Spring Equinox the weather was already warm. Rustle wandered in, following some very reverent pilgrims.

  There was a statue of her Dad.

  The goat version. It was even bigger than he was, and Rustle blushed a bit at the masculine attributes on display. Dad had, fortunately, been a bit prim around his kids, so she couldn't speak for the accuracy.

  They had done a very good job of his expression. The very naughty smirk was perfect. She loved him and missed him terribly.

  She looked around the room, it was empty except for a big blocky altar, the open door she'd come in through had a twin at the other side of the front. A closed door was in one side wall and as she walked around, she spotted an open doorway behind the altar. She peeked through the doorway, and blinked at a plush parlor.

  "What are you doing! We don't allow Travelers to . . . What is that! What did you do?"

  "Nothing." Rustle looked at the young woman, a bit surprised by her youth and lack of dress. Two yards of thin material in a loose drape was remarkably revealing. It looked like it was about to fall off. "Well, I looked in. I had no idea anyone lived here, actually in the Temple." The girl had shining black hair and golden eyes, even her features looked like Havi's . . . or their father's.

  The girl reached out carefully and touched th
e doorframe. Reached through. Leaned through. "Where did it come from?"

  Rustle blinked. "The parlor? Wasn't it here yesterday?"

  The girl pulled back and looked up at Rustle. "Nope." She blinked. "I have to tell Mother!" she bolted out a side door.

  Rustle looked back into the parlor and decided to go exploring.

  The room was terribly seductive. The couch's purple fabric caressed the skin, the chair cushions embraced. Rustle avoided the rest of the furniture, lest it try molestation. There was a single door in the left wall.

  She walked over to it. It was not just closed, but magically sealed. She walked back to the doorway to the old temple and felt the frame. A fast fading spell. Triggered somehow. What had she done? Walked in and recognized Dad's statue? Could recognizing something open a spell? She walked back to the sealed door, and turned to look around the room. The God of Love's parlor? She grinned suddenly. She could picture Sir Romeau here, perhaps on his knee reciting his horrible poetry to Lady Gisele.

  The door was still sealed, though. Hasty footsteps approached the doorway, and more scantily clad women started peeking in. They started at her indignantly. Was she about to get tossed out? Humph. She put up a shield across the room and reviewed her actions. If not recognition, some other mental activity? She been embarrassed. And homesick . . . no, not really. She'd felt a wave of love for her father. Ah ha. Love. Of course.

  She turned back to the door. Her Dad's statue, love for a parent.

  A thump interrupted her thoughts. One scantily clad woman was rubbing her nose, the others were running their hands over her shield. She turned back to the door. Thought of her Father. Nothing. Mother. Nothing. The Auld Wulf. She blushed, pretty much all over at the mere thought of him. The seal dissolved. OK, sexual love for that one. She walked into a . . . bedroom? Whoever heard of a circular bed? With a mirror on the ceiling? The door beyond was open already, and she walked past the bed with a dubious look. A library. Masculine ambiance all over it. More seductive than the parlor furniture, in her opinion. She looked at the titles of the books. Poetry. More poetry. She pulled one out to examine it. The print was the blocky, spiky print of the ancients, and the language closer to Scoo than Veronian. The language of the books in the winery's back room. She'd read a lot of it.

  The door in the corner was sealed. Hmm, what next? She pictured Xen, the total trust he had in her, the warm wiggly body that loved to be snuggled . . . the seal faded.

  "I'm running out of kinds of love," she muttered. "I hope there aren't too many more doors." She pushed through the door into a very strange room.

  "Only two." Sir Romeau turned and grinned at her. "Cup of tea?"

  Rustle accepted the cup of boiling water he produced from a cabinet with odd glowing symbols . . . they were almost numbers. He handed her a little packet, tea leaves in a thin material with string attached. She watched him bob his in the hot water and did the same. Handy. "So all the gods have these . . . Temples?"

  "Well, some of them are rather odd temples. Wineries, taverns, crooked little huts in herb gardens . . . " Sir Romeau grinned. "This is where I come when Gisele wants some solitude. I could move it to Ash, but then what would the poor virgins do? And then there's that amazing statue of your father. It's funniest damn thing I've ever seen. I bask in the anticipation of his reaction to seeing it. His actually seeing it would just ruin all the fun."

  Rustle suppressed a snicker. "But you can travel to and from Ash?"

  "Yes, but not Ash, so much as one of the other Temples. Buildings where we gods have made our homes become very strong recognition points. Generally outside the front door, but what with these lovely ladies, I've found it expedient to come and go from the kitchen."

  She looked up guiltily. "I think I left your doors wide open."

  "Doorway to the future, doorway to the past

  Only in my mind, only in my memory

  But the house has burned down

  and the doorways no longer exist.

  "Hmm, that doesn't seem to be working at all. Don't worry I resealed the doors and sent the ladies away. What are you doing in Cadent?"

  "Traveling for the sake of it, and possibly meeting some half brothers and sisters. And reading, and research, but not, I think, your poetry books."

  He grinned. "No wonder you picked the Auld Wulf. Too practical the both of you. He was always so sensible . . . except when he went all idealistic and patriotic. Ran away and joined the Army. It was years before they found him and dragged him back to the lab . . . " he frowned. "I wasn't kidding about burning down the house to destroy the doorways of memory. They didn't want us to remember, and made sure of it."

  "They?"

  "That's part of what I don't remember. Gisele thinks 'they' are our creators. The Auld Wulf thinks we were exiled because we rebelled. Or failed. Or . . . we put our heads together and try to fill in the holes, but there's too much gone," he shrugged. "Pity those books your mother brought back from Earth didn't have all the nitpicky details of our exile or escape. There's a junk room, here. I tossed everything in there, because I didn't have time to sort, but didn't want to lose anything that might be important. Do you want to rummage?"

  It was a great way to spend the hot summer days. Romeau gave her a pass charm, and she walked though doorways the Virgins and Children of Love—the official names they'd given themselves—couldn't see.

  And after a bit of cautious approach to the subject, she taught the teenagers magic.

  The first twelve Children of Love were, after all, Dydit and Romeau's children. Eighteen and nineteen years of age, and not terribly mature looking at that.

  There were only three boys, and she took the two older ones aside and talked about the wizard gene, and how they had worked out a way to avoid the castration that had formerly been thought to be necessary for the proper development of wizardly power. Deluge utterly rejected the idea of giving up his sexual drive for a few years. Breeze shrugged and let her shut his teenage boy upstairs.

  Rustle shrugged. "I don't know if it'll help. I don't know enough about that last burst of brain growth to know if yours is still going on."

  "Hey, if it makes me magic enough to zap Deluge, it'll be worth it." Breeze assured her.

  Romeau's daughters, if she understood how it all worked, should be witches, and his son a mage. She talked to them all, showed them meditation exercises and the starting charms young witches learned. At their age they quickly grasped power and could make the charms glow. She told them all how to find the Village of Ash, and also how to find Rip Crossing, a less complex route, but probably harder, as there were so few places in between to resupply.

  Thunder and Lightning teased her, "Aren't we special?"

  "Actually, you four older girls carry the Wizard gene. Any of your sons could be wizards, and if you marry a wizard, you might have daughters that are wizards."

  Thunder gulped. "I was kidding!"

  "I'm not," Rustle grinned at their dismayed expressions. "So be careful who you seduce come the orgy, eh?"

  "Oh, the Virgins won't let us have any fun. Next year, when we're nineteen, maybe. I don't think it ever occurred to them that we'd ever grow up."

  "Parents are bad about that, aren't they?"

  "Yep."

  Chapter Thirteen

  1372 Late Fall

  Cadent, capital City of the Veronian Empire

  Rustle taught magic, deciphered old maps and read even older books all through the mild Cadent winter.

  She decided to remain in Cadent longer, and the Valasik's stayed as well.

  The Travelers leased a well kept stable in a better part of town, and Faro and Degan continued to make a killing selling horses. Farli and Marisha moved into the little house and this time Rustle helped them with their wardrobes. The Valasik's aped the city dwellers, and the prices of the horses rose accordingly. They bought old nags, injured and worn out riding horses, and sold them a few days or weeks later, healthy and sound.

  Phantom brought
in a very respectable stud fee.

  Xen was growing, but at his own pace, and Rustle winced to think how much leaving his friends was going to hurt, and how falling behind his friends might hurt worse. At three he was now a bit behind Farli's two year old son, in development, and well ahead of Marisha's daughter who had just celebrated her first birthday. But in another year Megan could be pulling even, and Fermi well ahead of him. But Rustle decided to stay as long as it didn't seem to be hurting him. Certainly there was enough stuff in Sir Romeau's junk room to keep her busy. The books alone were fascinating, almost all with baffling assumptions of background information.

  The little gadgets were fascinating, and sometimes baffling.

  Farli and Marisha—and all the kids—joined her several times for a rummage, and once were there when Sir Romeau was again exiled from his Lady's regard. Sir Romeau flirted with the ladies and had them blushing and laughing like young girls.

  The Virgins didn't really approve of Rustle. However she dressed now, they knew she was a Traveler, and couldn't possibly be the scholar 'studying the gods' she claimed to be. Even if the God did let her in.

  Today the Temple was being watched by Thunder and Lightning. The two girls were nineteen years old, now, and Rustle thought they both looked like . . . family. I have four half-sisters and two half-brothers.

  And now they were staring at a young man who was walking in circles around the goat statue. He was tall and thin, moving as gracefully as a dancer. His dark golden blond hair nearly matched the golden tan of his skin, and when he glanced at her, his eyes shone metallic gold. He looked to be a well grown eighteen. His cheek bones stood out in an aesthetically pure face, and he frowned disapprovingly at the Goat. "Violent, aggressive. Bad. Very bad indeed." Cracks raced over the onyx statue and spread. It collapsed in a spray of black sand.

  Pain stabbed through Rustle as if she'd seen her actual father killed. She stalked forward.

  "What did you do!" Thunder was aghast.