by Holly Lisle
“Kit-ty kit-ty?” Kirtha asked. She leaned back to look up at her mother and smiled, red curls pressed against Faia’s chest, bright baby teeth gleaming.
“No kitty,” Faia said with maternal firmness.
Medwind winced. The idea of the already intolerable handed cats sprouting wings was too much for her. “Absolutely no kitty,” she added fervently. Then she took a deep breath, and changed the subject. “I have a favor to ask of you, Faia. Please don’t say anything until you’ve heard me out—it’s a big favor. It concerns Kirtha.”
Faia shooed Kirtha over to the side of the room she’d set up for Kirtha’s toys. The little girl quickly occupied herself with her favorite rag doll, and the younger mage returned and settled gracefully onto a low, carved stool. “Problem?”
“Yes.” Medwind felt her nails digging into the hardened flesh of her palms, but couldn’t seem to unclench her hands. “Big problems.”
It took her a while to explain. Faia had once asked about the b’dabba and its contents—and at that time, Medwind had informed her that it was sacred space to the Hoos warrior, and taboo for anyone not Hoos to enter. Nokar had been an exception because he was Medwind’s husband, and even then only on the sacred days. Medwind would not make exceptions for friends. Faia had, with decorum and propriety worthy of a Hoos ambassador, avoided the topic—and the b’dabba—from then on.
So Medwind found that she had a lot of ground to cover. She also discovered that her friend was dismayed by the idea of the existence of vha’attaye and horrified that the Mottemage of Daane University had become one.
But Faia was a bright young woman, and tough—she acclimated quickly to the idea that Medwind kept a ghost collection in the hairy hut in the compound yard. She was less certain about Hoos training for Kirtha.
“I don’t want her to grow up to be a headhunter, Medwind,” she said, when the Hoos mage had finished her explanation.
Medwind sighed. Even the very best and closest of her non-Hoos friends insisted on thinking of her as a reformed headhunter. Most of the time she even encouraged the misconception—it had its uses. But it was going to be inconvenient in this situation, she could tell.
“Kirtha would have to choose her gods when she came of age—she wouldn’t have to choose Etyt and Thiena, though. If she chose a Hoos god and your gods, that would work.”
“I do not know how the Lord and Lady would feel about sharing Kirtha’s affections with Hoos gods. But another thing concerns me even more. Your ghost-skulls—”
“—Vha’attaye—”
“—yes, that is what I said—are threatening to harm you. You say they threaten to curse you, they throw things at you—so why do you think they will not harm Kirtha?”
“They want a child to teach and to guarantee that they will have someone to care for them when I die.” Medwind pressed her hands together into her lap and leaned forward. “And I don’t think they really intend to harm me. I think they only intend to make me miserable until I give them what they want.”
“How noble of them.” Faia stood and looked over at the corner where Kirtha was playing. When she spoke again, her voice held a distant, wistful quality that Medwind found startling coming from the usually blunt hill-mage. “I see all life as the work of the Lord and Lady. I always believed that every part of life—everyone else’s religion, all the good and all the bad things that happened—was simply a different view of Them. Even your strange, outlander ways seemed to be just another side of the Lady’s and Lord’s odd humor. But I learned what I believe from my father and mother—and I always thought Kirtha would learn her beliefs from me. If she becomes partly Hoos, and worships Hoos aspects of Them—” Faia’s voice faltered. She turned and looked at Medwind, eyes searching the warrior for a glimpse of something that seemed to be inside, yet very far away. “I cannot make her a part of Bright—because my village does not exist anymore. Everything in it is dead and gone. But I had always thought I could make Bright a part of her. There was nothing Hoos in Bright.”
Medwind started to stand, nodding slowly. She was disappointed—but she could understand.
Faia waved her back to her seat. She said, “That was not my answer. That was me trying to find my way to an answer.” She paced across the rush-woven mats. “We hold on to the past, for ourselves and then for our children. I try to make myself believe, I suppose, that if Kirtha is just like the children I grew up with in Bright, Bright will live on—and everything I loved as a child will not cease to exist.”
Medwind started to stand again. “I understand, Faia. I really do. You don’t have to explain.”
Faia’s expression became bleak. “Medwind, Bright died long ago. Pretending it did not will not give Kirtha the childhood I knew and loved. It will only give her lies.” Faia hung her head and stared at the floor. “It is better that I give her a future than a past.”
Silence hung in the room between the two friends. Medwind waited, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to say anything.
Finally, Faia looked up. “Teach Kirtha your Hoos ways. She can have both—your beliefs and mine. It will make her stronger.”
Medwind found herself at Faia’s side without being precisely sure how she got there. She hugged the hill-girl fiercely. “Cursed with barrenness—but blessed with friends,” she whispered, and felt tears—strangers to the eyes of a Hoos warrior—burning down her cheeks.
* * *
Roba Morgasdotte flipped through the bound sheets of the next student proposal and swore creatively. The student had chosen Ariss: The Magic of the Circle City as the topic for his research project. Of the seven proposals she’d already checked, five had been on some variation of that theme. She’d seen Ariss as a Center of Magic, Ariss: Magical Hub of Arhel, Major Schools of Magic in Ariss, Hedge-Wizardry in the Walled City, and the extraordinarily narrow-minded Ariss—Home of Real Magic.
“There is,” she wrote for the sixth time, gritting her teeth and pressing so hard on the tough green sheets of drypress that it tore slightly, “an entire world outside the walls of Ariss!” (You moronic, parochial little twit, she thought, but did not add.) “Choose a topic that will expose you to somebody else’s philosophy regarding magic!!!”
Thirk peeked through the door of her office, and grinned. “How’re they coming?”
Roba bared her teeth in a snarl, then smiled sweetly. “Why don’t you come in here and ask that?”
“Nah—I get the feeling it wouldn’t be good for my health. How many on sex magic this year?”
She sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Only two so far—they were the bright spots in the stacks. Everyone seems to have chosen Ariss as their topic.”
Thirk laughed. “Sure—it’s a nice broad topic and easy to research. You be ruthless with them.” He shook his head and grinned. “By the way, don’t let the kids do papers on sex magic. Ethically, Faulea University cannot condone or acknowledge research into that area for undergraduates. The parents would have our hides.”
“I already figured that out.”
“Oh, good.” He took one step into the room. “Can you take a breather for a minute or two? I have a surprise for you.”
“Forever, if I can escape Ariss, City of Stupid Students.”
He laughed and stepped back into the main hallway. Roba followed him and found herself facing both Thirk and a stranger; a gorgeous young man in graduate robes—redheaded, with freckles, and the warmest brown eyes she’d seen in years.
Gods, she thought, what I would give to be a few years younger. She smiled politely, and said, “Hello.” Her voice never quavered.
Thirk inclined his head toward Roba and said, “Kirgen, this is Roba Morgasdotte, my department assistant and the professor of Mage-History. Roba, Kirgen Marsonne, graduate student majoring in Historical Studies, with an emphasis on the First Folk. I’m trying to shift him into Delmuirie Studies, but so far he hasn’t budged. He’s your new assistant. You can make him read undergraduate papers until his eyes fall out i
f you want.”
Roba’s breath caught in her throat. She held out her hand to take his shoulder, and he reciprocated.
I’d love to see you out of those clothes, were the first words that crossed her mind, but she decided they weren’t quite suitable for an introduction. “Delighted,” she told him, unable to come up with anything more appropriate.
“I know,” he said. He flushed, and pulled his hand back. “No. That isn’t what I meant to say. I mean—yes—I mean—so am I.” He took a deep breath. “Pleased to meet you, I mean.”
By the time he’d sputtered to a stop, Roba had her composure back. She grinned. “Once you’ve seen what I have in mind for you, you won’t be.”
He flushed again.
Her eyebrows rose. “I’m going to turn you loose on undergraduate research proposals.” She smiled wickedly, and Thirk burst out laughing.
“You are a cruel woman, dear mage!”
“This from the man who stuck me with the bedamned things in the first place!”
Amusement danced across Thirk’s face and sparkled in his eyes. “Ahh,” he said cheerfully. “But I am a cruel man. I will do whatever I must do—and in this instance, I had to get rid of those asinine papers before they drove me to madness.” He smiled as the other two laughed. Then he said, “Now, Kirgen, if you will wait in Mage Morgasdotte’s office, I must explain to her why she warranted an assistant.”
Kirgen, with skills honed by years as an undergraduate, made himself scarce.
Thirk waited a moment, then peeked through the doorway. “Good,” he said softly. “Your assistant is looking over the undergraduate papers. We can talk.”
“An assistant seems lavish,” Roba commented.
“He won’t. I want you to have enough time to do research in our—ah—other line of interest.”
“Research?” Roba experienced a sudden stab of doubt about her wisdom in joining the Delmuirie Society. “What sort of research did you have in mind?”
“Delmuirie vanished—seemingly just fell off the face of the planet. His diaries end with him taking off on what he described as a secret mission—as far as we can tell, he never came back. There might be more diaries somewhere—or at least some information on where he went. Right now, we have no idea what sort of research he did before developing the Delmuirie Barrier—if there are more diaries, perhaps they can tell us that. Now we have no Delmuirie, no real direction—”
Roba stared at Thirk in disbelief. “And you want me to figure out where some possibly nonexistent diaries went? Or where Delmuirie went? Why, all of that took place hundreds of years ago—” She bit her tongue to keep from blurting out the second half of the sentence, which was, “—if it ever happened at all!” She didn’t say that, but it was a near thing.
“I don’t expect you to single-handedly solve the Great Mystery—”
—Roba heard him capitalize “great mystery” when he said it—
“—but I do want you to come up with some possibilities for where and how he might have disappeared—or what he could have done with the last diaries. You’re familiar with the history—having learned your version from the mage side of the city, you may be able to come up with some avenues the sajes haven’t explored.” He looked up at her and grinned again. “I have to tell you—after the Mehevar War, when mages started coming to Saje-Ariss, I couldn’t see any good in it. But I’m starting to see possibilities in women’s magic—and in mages.”
Roba smiled politely and refrained from making the sharp retort that immediately occurred to her. “Good,” she said instead. Thirk had less tact than anyone she had ever worked with, but as far as she could tell, he didn’t mean to be insulting. He just had a bad case of what her mother had always called Dung Tongue. Everything that came out of his mouth offended.
“Then it’s settled. Teach your classes, but let your assistant do all your slog work. In your free time, research the Delmuirie Disappearance. Try to have a new slant on the problem in writing by Wuenday fourteenth.” He leaned against the wall and stared down the hall at a transfer student—a mage in the skin-tight dyed leathers that served as public wear for Daane University students.
Roba followed his gaze and wondered if she’d ever looked that overtly sexy in her school uniform. Then she shrugged. Even if she had once looked like that—and she doubted it—she didn’t look that way anymore. Getting older hurt. Men looked at the young, pretty women, and women her age got pushed to the sidelines and ignored.
So tell the wind it blows too hard. Complain to the sea that it’s too wet. She turned her attention back to the problem Thirk had presented. A new slant on the Delmuirie idiocy by the fourteenth?
She frowned. “Thirk, the fourteenth is only two weeks from today. Ten days isn’t very long—”
“And I don’t expect you to have solved the problem by then.” His eyes stayed fixed on the transfer student who was stopped in front of the directory down the hall, comparing a note against the writing on the sign. “I just want something. Get yourself the new annotated copy of Delmuirie’s Diaries, and spend some time in the library—she’s heading toward my office—” he said suddenly. “I need to go see how I can help that student,” he told Roba and, without further comment, trotted down the hall.
Thirk owned the maker’s mark on rude. Roba shook her head, bemused, and went back into her office.
She’d forgotten Kirgen.
“So I’m to do your slog work while you do secret research?” the saje student asked. He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows.
“Sort of.” Roba tried to keep any hint of derision out of her voice.
“Sorry I overheard—I really wasn’t eavesdropping—but Saje Huddsonne and you did get a bit loud.”
Roba laughed. “He has that effect on me.”
Kirgen chuckled along with her. “He has that effect on everyone. I had him for some of my undergrad stuff—my roommates and I used to discuss different ways of killing him off. He’s not as bad as some of them—but he does have his… ummm… obsessions.”
“Delmuirie.” Roba leaned against the wall, shoved her hands into the pockets of her tunic, and rolled her eyes.
“Yah.”
Roba watched him digging through the stack of report proposals on her desk. He had nice hands, she decided.
She said, “I’d noticed that obsession. So.” Her next class was due to start. The bells would be ringing any instant. Yet she found she wanted to stay in her office and make inane conversation with her new assistant much more than she wanted to go teach Mage-History. She couldn’t, but she wanted to.
“You mind staying here and checking over the rest of those proposals?” she asked. If he would, that might keep him busy for a long time—easily long enough for her to get back from her class and see him again.
“Consider it done,” he said, and smiled.
The smile was incredibly sexy. “Good,” she said. “Veto sex magic and ‘The Magic of Ariss’ in any form. Give the go-ahead to anything that looks remotely interesting. And put aside whatever you aren’t sure about—I’ll look at those when I get back.” She smiled at him, suppressing wistful, lustful thoughts. “And thanks.”
“I’ll see you when you get back,” he told her. He was staring at her. She realized it the same instant that he blushed and began furiously shuffling through the students’ proposals. Her smile broadened as she hurried to her next class.
I’ll be damned and bespelled, she thought. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was interested in me.
* * *
Seven-Fingered Fat Girl checked the knots in the harness Dog Nose had made for himself. They were tight enough, and they held the single tablet firmly to his back.
“That will do,” she finally said. “Can you still throw a hurlstick?”
“I spent the last half day retying the knots until I could. I don’t want to be kellink food any more than you do.” He stretched and studied her so intently she was almost afraid to breathe. “Let me check yo
urs,” he finally suggested.
She turned her back to him, and felt him tugging at the knots at her back as she had his. Then he moved closer, and one of his hands crept around from her back to cup her breast. She laughed. “That feels good.”
She turned so that his arm circled her and pressed her chest against his. “I like you, Dog Nose,” she whispered. She ran her finger down the scar that went from his forehead to the top of his upper lip, the one that split his nose into two ugly halves. “I’ll make you feel good.” Impulsively, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.
They stood holding each other, until Fat Girl pulled away and pointed to the east. Pink tinged the horizon, and the whispers of the rest of the tagnu grew louder.
“First light,” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s run.”
The tagnu had their finds ready. Toes Point In wore a heavy, deep green circle of carved stone around her neck. Three Scars and Spotted Face each had flat disks of carved stone tied to their waists—they’d found an entire room stacked with similar disks. Laughs Like A Roshi had opted not to carry trade goods. Instead, Runs Slow was going to ride on his back part of the time, so the band could cover more ground each day.
“Tagnu—” Fat Girl said, loud enough to get their attention. “Time to run.” She raised her fist in the air, and added. “This time we run for us.”
“For us!” Four Winds Band shouted, raising their fists. They trotted to the broken part of the wall and scaled it. Then they hurried upward along the wall to the very top of the city, and clambered down the side of one of the whole towers on a length of vine.
Fat Girl had decided the band would be better off staying in the mountains above the treeline until they got too hungry—she wanted to keep them out of the trees as long as possible. They found the moss-covered, broken remains of a stone road that ran along the ridge, marked every so often by worn standing stones carved with the faces of monsters. They followed the road for three days, running hard, heading south. When the road veered east, they abandoned it. When the mountain ridge veered east, they reluctantly abandoned it, too, and moved down, into the scraggly semicover of twisted, windswept shrubs and evergreens—then lower, into the true jungle.