Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods)

by Pam Uphoff

  She spread the news at Summer Camp, and several more people decided to take a quick trip home. Havi hemmed and hawed and finally decided to go.

  "If someone will travel us back after about two weeks," Verse said. "The girls should know their grandmothers, but we won't stay there." She glanced over to where the two girls slept.

  Grape and Hazel were just figuring out how to crawl. Xen and Fermi had called them grubs and run off to attend to "boy things." Megan had played with the babies for a day, then returned to tagging after the boys.

  Rustle nodded. "But before we go, us witches need to get in a bunch of practice, and I know just what we can do."

  She spent three days drilling the witches on the basics of triad work and then building the basics into combinations. And then they went to work.

  Building more fences.

  "For fences, we simply cut out the shape we want and then stood it up. Then melded it to the ground underneath." Verse grinned.

  "What shape do we want?" Rustle asked. "Same as the corral?"

  "Four foot tall," Ras was one of the powerless mage boys, raised to be a farmer. "Post every ten feet, four rails six inches wide with eight inches in between. Bottom rail on the ground. We've got some pasture fenced off, but we need a lot more."

  "Huh, that's boring and easy. Remember how Mother and Dad made things?" Havi closed his eyes.

  Rustle could see the shape in his mind, see it in the ground, in the solid rock just six inches under the surface. She put her hand on his shoulder and poured energy into him. He pointed a finger and traced out the pattern Ras wanted, and they lifted it together and placed it on the ground. Bound it to the rock below.

  "Hey!" Verse sounded indignant. "You made it look easy! I sweated to do each section."

  So Rustle had the three of them form a triad and make the next section. Then she roped Cor in, and made him do some to give Havi a break.

  With a little practice they were doing half a mile a day. They kept at it until it was time to leave for the Rip.

  The Winter camp consisted of several long buildings. Some for livestock, some for people.

  "It's warm in the winter." Havi looked around and sighed. "Do you think you'll come back? We could try to make some better buildings. These are a bit . . . basic."

  Then her parents showed up, and there was a group hug. Xen held back, more wary than any four year old ought to be around his grandparents. Dydit scooped him up and hugged him anyway. Never forced a smile, and Xen wiggled away from her and hid behind Rustle. She picked him up and hugged him.

  Rustle could have traveled quite a few of them herself, but let her parents do it.

  They stepped through to the witches hot springs.

  Unfortunately inhabited.

  Rustle braced herself.

  The older witches frowned at them.

  "Humph." Glorious turned her back to them. "Still carting that retarded boy around. What a waste."

  :: I don't like it here, Mom. Everyone is all ugly inside. ::

  Heads turned. Answer stood up and climbed out of the pool. "I heard that. Four years old and he has grasped power already?"

  Rustle nodded. "Yes. I'll speak to the Wizards and Mages about a bit of training, while we're here."

  "Humph." Glorious wasn't about to let go of her grudge. "A baby with magic? Very dangerous. Hope he doesn't burn anything down."

  :: Especially her. :: Xen's mental voice was close and quiet.

  No one else heard that. He shielded it, that easily, as soon as he realized he needed to. Rustle hugged him. And walked away from the witches. And felt for the winery geyser and stepped through to there, leaving the other's behind.

  Xen giggled. "Those old witches didn't know that you could travel all by yourself. They're all yabbering."

  Then the Auld Wulf strode around the corner, and Xen ran to meet him.

  They know each other, on some deep level. Father and son.

  I just need to figure out how to make myself part of it all.

  ***

  Ash looked tiny after Cadent and the towns of Veronia. But still colorful and well kept, as the sun topped the ridge and lit the green pastures and the neat rows of the fall gardens.

  Emptier than she remembered.

  The dragons had flown away, years ago. All the Rip Crossing people had left a month after she'd left herself.

  And she'd had to look twice, yesterday, to recognize some of the teenagers. Leopardite was gorgeous, a younger, and possibly even more beautiful version of Never. Only one of the other older teenagers hadn't grasped power, so the Pyramid had two triads and an extra of the older Crescents. At twelve, her own sister, Obsidian, had blossomed into a slender beauty. And teamed up with age-mates Peridotite and Quartz, she was strong. They'd all three grasped power early, so the three year gap to the younger girls would probably be a larger gap in advancement.

  Which didn't matter.

  They've all changed in the year and a half I've been gone. But it's the next two and quarter that will make a big difference. We've all got to get trained. I need to keep my temper and listen. Practice. Get Ask, Verse and Whoop to come regularly, for practice. Maybe the Auld Wulf could make a corridor to Rip Crossing.

  Or perhaps I can get him to show me how to do it.

  She sighed. Unfortunately, her overly protective Father had arrived at the winery before Wolf had finished giving Xen the tour, and had escorted both of them home. And then her mother had lectured her about the inadvisability of throwing herself at a man fourteen centuries her senior. And provided her with a potion to prevent pregnancy. And instructions.

  "Take it every morning, in case you get carried away." Rustle muttered under her breath. "Carried away. Ha! I have every intention of seducing that man. And . . . maybe I ought to wait to have another baby, until after the comet. But that's my choice, not my mother's." She shut up and turned left at the fork in the path.

  This morning the Full Moon witches were getting a lesson in control of wind and water. She wasn't invited. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to show up.

  Rustle was early, deliberately. She shed her shoes as she walked out onto the warm stone around the hot spring pools. She sat cross-legged and sank easily into a meditative state. She'd learned most of her formal magic right here, in this familiar place. She felt the rocks, felt the push and pressure of the water, its slippery movement. The slight mist over the pools. The light, insubstantial air supporting the mist, and creating it with a subtle movement of power—heat—from the water molecules into the air.

  She followed the warm rising air mentally. Saw the layers of the atmosphere, the formation of clouds.

  "Very nice, but how will that help us against a comet?" Answer sounded grumpy.

  Rustle reached up further, through the odd hot thin layer, the sparkling charged zone and on to where the moon hung, nearly overhead, the line of the lunar sunset . . . dust and rocks and boulders, colorless and stark. She wrote her name in the dust. And feeling the exhaustion, pulled back, sank back into herself and opened her eyes.

  Likely, Catti and Zamm formed a triad to her right. Answer, Particular and Opinion sat to her left.

  "Very nice. A bit showy." Now Answer just sounded tired.

  Rustle flexed the muscles in her legs and butt, but stayed sitting. "I felt a leap in ability when Xenotine grasped power. So I've been practicing for the comet."

  Opinion scowled. "I'm sure the rules said 'when the witch feels her daughter grasp power' about advancement to the Full Moon level."

  Answer shook her head. "No. I've been proud and arrogant enough. Advancement is not a matter of rules, it is a matter of power, and talent. Rustle will work with you and Particular at the Full Moon lessons. And then she will teach us how to touch the moon."

  Rustle bowed her head respectfully, and ignored Opinion's glare. "Thank you, Senior Sister."

  Answer stood up, not a bit stiff, and gestured for Rustle to move into place.

  "Now then. The energy one
needs to expend, to reach out a long distance is negatively correlated with the radius of the probe. Or to put it more simply, a thin probe takes less energy than a fat one."

  Rustle blinked a bit at the common sense statement. Why didn't I think of that?

  "First we'll practice controlling the radii of our probes individually, and then we'll do it as Triads."

  Opinion rolled her eyes.

  And I am not going to lose my patience with the triad, either.

  But she was very glad when the lesson was over and they were dismissed. Particular and Opinion, old buddies since a childhood that had started fifteen years before she was born, showed no inclination to befriend her, and waved her ahead of them. So she strode off, not bothering to conceal her turn up toward the winery.

  She found Wolf and Xen snoozing in the hammock behind the winery, and just grinned and found a book to read. Science, for a change, not history, philosophy, or gods forbid, more poetry. A physics book with a chapter on orbital dynamics. She settled down beside the hammock.

  She woke to a giggle.

  "El-e-ments of Phys-ics." Xen sounded it out carefully.

  Rustle sat up and yawned. "It had some interesting stuff about orbits. Specifically, changing orbits. Apparently it matters where in the orbit you either accelerate or decelerate something. It might even be useful, if we could just reach out and apply power about ten times further than we're able to barely touch, now."

  Wolf walked around the corner of the building balancing a tray. "So interesting it put you right to sleep? Lunch, anyone?"

  He had a rough wooden table and benches out under the tall trees he grew there.

  Xen looked from the trees to the winery. "Is it made out of those trees?"

  "Yes." The Auld Wulf's brows pinched together. "I don't have a very good memory of it, but I believe it's from a place that had lots of forests of these trees. I've moved several times, usually leaving the trees behind and growing new ones in the new spot."

  Rustle looked up. "I don't recall seeing anything like them, anywhere."

  "They may have gone extinct in the early comet falls. They were common on the Cific coast, on my original world."

  Fourteen centuries ago. Damn it. Will I ever be old enough to get past his reservations?

  ***

  Rustle tried to ignore Opinion picking on Ask. It wasn't easy. Was it an oblique criticism of Rustle as well? I suppose I do look like the Eldest Sister of the Rip Crossing Pyramid. If we had a pyramid, and if I was a part of it, instead of practically a visitor.

  "Hmph, some triad." Opinion looked over her shoulder at Whoop, Verse and Ask. "I think Rustle would balance better with them than a Crescent Moon."

  Particular shrugged. "I know she ought to just be a Half Moon, but she's the best we've got, right now, to fill our triad."

  Opinion sniffed. "That odd little boy ought not count at all. Some no-power rapist father, how could he be normal?"

  Particular pressed her lips together, limited herself to a single glare toward Opinion.

  Rustle tried to keep her face neutral. Particular had been kidnapped and assaulted by a rich pervert in Wallenton, when she was seventeen. Her daughter Garnet was eighteen, a Crescent Moon. But Particular had more sense than to make an issue of it. And I had better do the same.

  If Answer heard Opinion's whining, she was ignoring her. "Xanthic, you join up with Verse and Whoop for a Half Moon triad. Ask, as you grasped power late, I'd like you to work with Obsidian. Kindly, if you would run through the basics with them? Thank you. Delight, the two Full Moon triads, please. Elegant and Curious, the Half Moons, and while Furious works with the Waning Half triads, I'd like to speak to the two Crescent moon triads."

  Rustle settled down to listen to Delight.

  "Most witches spend a dozen years as Half Moons. Particular and Opinion had ten years to practice the skills, and then eight years to use them at the Full Moon level. Catti and Zamm came to us late, but they advanced quickly and settled down for nearly ten years of study and Half and Full Moon levels. Rustle, you are very talented in several areas, but you simply haven't had the years to settle into confident, nearly subconscious usage. So for Triad work, pay attention and learn. Ask me questions, as Opinion and Particular will be taking care of the subtleties automatically."

  Rustle bit back any snarky comments about, say, traveling. And noted red spots on Likely's cheeks. She was ten years older than the other four, but her first daughter had not grasped power. Delight said nothing to her. And poor Mostly is stuck in the Half Moons until Mica grasps power. At least they've started looking at the genetics, and not just kicking the girls out at sixteen.

  But then Delight started talking about the specific things that Full Moons were often noted for—the workings of wind and water. Rustle listened with fascination as they discussed weather, and altering it. Attracting or diverting storms. "And to do that, you must be able to reach very high, and very far away." She swept her gaze over the group, frowned at Rustle. "Let's form up two triads and see how high you can reach, and how far north. If we can heat the higher air a few hundred miles north, we may be able to start an updraft, a low pressure area, and pull in some rain. Rustle, work on your coordinating with the other two, you lack practice with advanced, strong, witches. Let them do the reaching, you support and complete the triad."

  They stood up, and Rustle stepped into the gap Opinion and Particular had left for her. She reached out her hands . . . but they didn't. She let her arms fall, and slipped into a meditative state. Not as easy as usual, a drifting hostility, a lack of welcome . . . but she managed a reasonable match to the other witches' mental pulses, and felt the power gathering, circling around the triad, building, speeding . . . Rustle obediently concentrated on that, building it higher, steadying it, staying with the other two as they fumbled, reach out, flailed with little idea of what to do.

  Small cross-section. A thin probe. The other witches' minds closed up further. Like this. Rustle reached out long and thin, northward and upward. Then she thought about heat, out at the far extension. The fast vibration of molecules of air. She envisioned the air as balls, zinging and bouncing, faster and faster . . . the power faded, the triad fell apart.

  She opened her eyes and took a deep breath.

  "What happened?" Delight cast a glance at the other triad, then stalked over to them. "I thought you might accomplish something."

  Glances were exchanged.

  "I . . . had trouble keeping connected, with a new triad." Rustle felt the burn of resentment and kept her gaze down. Hoped she looked contrite.. "I think I paid too much attention to them reaching out, and not enough to coordinating. Supporting, like you said."

  "That's only to be expected, with you so young. Relax for a moment, while I monitor the others." Delight turned away.

  "Goodie two shoes," Opinion hissed. "Can't do your job, messed up us learning ours. You were trying to show off. I can't believe we're stuck with you."

  They tried again, after an hour. Rustle concentrated on the triad, and found it more resistant than ever. But she held it, kept with them, built up and balanced power and felt them drain it again and again.

  When Delight finally called a halt to their attempts, she was weak and shaky, her head pounding. Opinion and Particular didn't look any better.

  The whole pyramid trickled down to the Tavern and tucked into a hearty dinner. They were all too tired to talk much. Ask sat with Havi in a corner, an intent, hunting attitude in her stance. Someone has decided to advance! Rustle was too tired to even smirk.

  The near silence was snapped as the door flew open. Mica, incandescent grin on her face. "Mother! Look!" She held up her hands and sparks danced from finger to finger.

  Mostly burst into tears and snatched the girl up in a bear hug.

  The witches cheered. Harry produced ice cream, from his private domain under the stairs. He must keep stuff frozen in bubbles. The two mage girls in the kitchen threw together a cake . . . The party settled d
own as the teenagers argued about who ought to be in which Crescent Moon triad. Rustle looked at Mostly, pulled into the circle of the other Full Moons and knew who was going to be the odd witch out. She sighed. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Hadn't realized it would be impossible to fit back in.

  Answer gave her a beady-eyed look. "This leaves me with a hole in the Half Moons. I do hope it isn't beneath your dignity to work with girls your own age."

  "Wherever you want me, Senior Sister."

  Which, of course, was not with Verse and Whoop.

  Swish and Ultra managed the impossible. They were even worse than Opinion and Particular. Fortunately their babies used up a lot of time. Swish doted on her baby, a three month old beauty. Somehow admiration of little Emerald seemed to always twist into something about Swish's superb mothering, and no doubt excellent genetics. Their triad managed a few brief moments of coordination. Swish blamed all their problems on Rustle, while Ultra waddled off to hunt for her escape artist toddler. The reprieve from triad exercises when she went into labor was wonderful. Then with the first winter storm, the four witches from Rip Crossing excused themselves and fled home.

  So to speak.

  "Oh. I'd forgotten what winter was like down here." Ask led the way into one of the block houses.

  "Yeah, the horrible winter last year left me scared for life." Verse scowled around the dim interior. Every family had staked out territory with piles of . . . stuff. Crates, racks of clothes, sacks of lumpy things. "Can we do something about this?"

  Havi maneuvered through the cramped camps. "I hope so. I'm glad you're back! I thought something like the Tavern would be good, only rock, of course. Kenta thought more people would want separate houses. What do you think?"

  Calls for a tavern—but with more rooms—were the loudest, so Havi and Rustle made that their first priority. "Let's see what a triad of witches can add to the whole mix." Rustle looked over her shoulder. "Cor? Get the goat boys over here. We may need everyone." The powerless mage-boys edged up, looking wistful.