The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  “What ails you, Dorn Brinroyan?”

  “Will you believe I speak the truth?”

  The story was a burden to me; it had become false, as if it had happened to another person. There sat Brin, round, soft and tall, in the golden tan vented robe; in the warm light of afternoon I saw her too in the special way I had seen Tiath Gargan on the black barge. I saw her forever: Brin, my pouch-mother. We were not quite alone together, for by this time the hidden child was nickering and stirring in its place. She heard me out and looked me in the face.

  “I believe you, child.” She went on with her sorting for a few moments then asked, “Do you think this is the power of your thought? Are you marked for a Witness, like young Gordo?”

  I shook my head, a bit regretfully. “No, it is all outside myself. Or maybe it is the power we all have as children. The Maker of Engines works this will. It could have been performed on any one of us . . . except Diver maybe.”

  Brin sighed. “Gwin waits for a Witness to be born of the Five. She points to Narneen.”

  I felt a shock of envy, but I remembered certain things. “Narneen could be a Witness. She feels things before any of us.”

  “Well, we won’t put ideas in her head.”

  We smiled at each other, and the burden was lifted; I felt comfortable again. I saw for the first time what it was that Brin had been sorting from our bundles. It was the beautiful showing cloth, five yards square, embroidered with birds and flowers.

  “Yes,” said Brin, “it is time. Your sib is too heavy for me.”

  I was filled with such excitement that I broke the silence of the golden afternoon; I rushed from room to room telling everyone.

  The child had his showing that evening after supper. We asked Diver to find a name. He sat at the edge of the showing cloth, watching our new sib flex its limbs and make baby sounds. He admitted that children of his race were different: fatter, he said, and not so wide awake. He uttered many strange names, searching for one that went as well in one tongue as another. Roy is such a name. He spoke a name To-mas; Gwin and Brin smiled.

  “Tomar,” chuckled Old Gwin. “Tomar . . .”

  It is a good name because it has two meanings: “great courage” or “great mischief.” So there it was—the new one became Tomar, and Brin wove in his name on her skeins. He was measured, exercised, wrapped and put into Narneen’s old swing-basket, with the green silk ropes at his hands and feet, so that he could pull up and stretch as babies do.

  “When will he walk?” asked Diver.

  “No hurry,” said Brin, “ten days or twenty. He may take his time.”

  “When do your children walk?” asked Mamor.

  “A newborn child cannot walk,” said Diver.

  “Not newborn,” said Gwin, laughing. “New shown! Hark at the Islander.”

  “That’s the difference,” said Diver.

  Now the year was far advanced to the spring; and by the time the two suns spent together in the sky, we knew it would soon be New Year’s Day. I do not know how the next plan was made . . . it seems reckless now. Probably it came from Diver and Mamor, smoothing their pieces of curved wood and drawing in the dust. There is at Otolor Spring Fair a flying contest called Vantroy or the Bird Clan. There is a great prize of silver credits and woven stuff. Brin and Roy, who had gone to the fair as children, had often told us of the strange craft entering, the admiration and laughter, the winners . . . One they recalled was a sprig of Dohtroy who stood on the seat of her golden glider and flung pearl-shells to the crowd. Perhaps it was this glorious memory that persuaded Brin to agree that Diver should enter and try his luck. Perhaps she agreed to please Mamor and Diver, thinking, as I did secretly, that the poor glider would never fly.

  Diver was not troubled by any such doubts. He was out all day by the machine, bending, patching, smoothing, or carving with Roy’s knife or his own sharper one, on those curious spin-toys of curved wood. He had me cry out every time a flitterling went by, and we examined its design through his glass. I became familiar with the designs and would cry out, “Green slot-wing” or “Antho broadtail” or “Pedal fan.” The pedal fan models pleased him most, though his glider would be truly “an engine,” and he could not believe that this was quite fair. We assured him that it was. In fact the Bird Clan was the very place where “engines” came into their own. The prohibition against “fire-metal-magic” did not work against the young clanspeople who supported the contest. There were machines that flapped, flopped, buzzed, clanked, and gave off sparks and clouds of steam. One promising craft that Roy remembered had a sort of metal pot-stove aboard and flew very well until it exploded in midair. Blacklock’s entries were notorious for their magic and their complexity.

  I used to sit in the grass beside our glider and shiver with excitement. We were going to Otolor, to the fair, to race in the Bird Clan, and I should see Blacklock at last. Tomar was brought out, for Gwin insisted that a weaver’s child must roll in the sun to get rid of its first-fur. He was an exceptional child, I decided; anyone could see that from the way he tugged his swing ropes and smiled and tried to eat grass and hauled himself up onto his little, gripping tree-bear feet. Diver saw it at once and made his silkbeam pictures of the baby, which he could do, now there was plenty of sunshine.

  Fifteen days from the showing, Diver had his spin-toys in position on the nose and on the wings of the glider; he set them in motion with the engines from his vest, which had worked his magic equipment. The only things he did not take to pieces were his shaver and his stun-gun. He was pleased with the result; the spin-toys buzzed and spun so fast they were invisible. At this sight Tomar cried out and took four steps. Diver had been busy with his paints from the Ulgan’s barge, and there on the glider’s side was its new name TOMARVAN. We were delighted, because it meant so many things: Tomar’s bird, his wing, his flying machine. Or perhaps it stood for the bird of great courage, the flying machine full of mischief.

  Brin had laid aside her vented robe for a short spring tunic; there was that springtime cheerfulness in the family. I knew what would come next . . . a round of spring games with Old Gwin. There are special games that the ancients play with the children in the spring. For the first time I was conscious of what it meant, but this year all had changed. Diver joined in our games, and at night we slept on the roof. The green and yellow mating tent that used to be pitched for the adults some way off in the glebe was hung to the doorway of an extra sleeping room. Diver understood; he joined in our games of flying sticks and holdstone and bean-bean with perfect good humor, but I expect he was lonely. He looked out at the stars from the roof. We asked him to sing, and I took it for granted that some of the songs were about springtime among his own people.

  One night Narneen said to Old Gwin: “Tell us how it was when you came to the Family Fair.” This was one of our favorite stories; it was not respectful to ask a pouch-mother about her adventures at the Family Fair, but an Ancient could tell such tales.

  “Oh, dear wind,” sighed Gwin, “it is such a long way off!”

  “Tell us, Gwin,” begged Diver. “I would like to hear.”

  “Well, if the Luck asks . . .” she said. It was a mild and beautiful night on the roof; Tomar was fast asleep.

  “I was sixteen,” said Old Gwin, “the eldest child of my family and the only female child. We lived east of Cullin in a fine glebe and Felm, our leader and pouch-mother, ruled us all closely, so that we grew rich.”

  “Is the leader of a five always a female?” asked Diver.

  “Great wind, no!” I said, “have you forgotten Hunter Geer?”

  “I was never far from my lace loom or from herb-teaching,” said Gwin. “Felm, may her soul bird fly far, would have been pleased to see me in a fixed house among the town grandees of Cullin. The choosing at a Family Fair is supposed to be done under the blessing of the North Wind, but I must tell you, young Luck, there is plenty of arrangement that goes on beforehand. Felm was always pointing out to me the advantages of this or that y
oung person who might ‘stand forth’ at the Fair and offer to start a Five.”

  “You never thought of ‘standing forth’ yourself, Gwin?” asked Diver.

  “No,” she said. “I was too shy. A leader is easily seen. Brin, my own pouch-child, was a leader from the first, though I say it myself.”

  “Tell us about the message skein,” said Narneen.

  “Well, I had been about in Cullin and I had seen certain young persons and been seen in my turn. A few days before the Fair a child came to me at my loom with a little message skein. It said ‘Beautiful Gwin with the long hair, look for the green mat where I stand forth,’ and it bore the name of Tarr Gabroyan. This Tarr was an especially tall and handsome young fellow that came from a broken five, where the pouch-mother and the ancient had died of fever. He had earned respect after this calamity by staying on in Cullin, not travelling to another town or taking service in Rintoul . . . but he was still not my mother’s idea of a worthy suitor. As the time approached I could not help thinking of him.

  “The Family Fair at Cullin was magnificent in those days. The whole fairground was fenced with brushwood and decorated with flower carpets; the season was early spring. Musicians played night and day and there were food stalls. Only those who came to make families were allowed into the main enclosure; there was space for the standing forth and the necessary dancing. When we went into the enclosure we wore straight linen robes woven in the pattern that is called five-petal, with no decoration except girdles of flowers.

  “I went alone into the enclosure; it was a strange feeling I can tell you. I was turned loose, cut off from my birth family for the first time, with nothing but their advice in my ears and a little wooden charm from Malbo Otru, our dear old Luck, who was a mute. I wandered among all the others and did as the threads told me. I made the rounds of all the mats where a person stood forth and looked well. I came past Tarr’s green mat; there he stood alone, but there was a crowd before him because he looked so fine. The crowd of choosers have the right to question any that stands forth and many of the young females were calling out to Tarr Gabroyan. I quickened my pace and went round again. One, two, of the richer persons called my name; I stood awhile before the mat of my female friend Leen, who had been joined by a promising young hunter.

  “‘Gwin,’ she called, ‘dear Gwin Felmroyan, come be my sib and we will manage this hunter between us!’

  “I passed on, smiling, and as I came towards Tarr’s green mat for the second time I saw that one person had already joined him. I was filled with fear that I should be too late; I all but ran the last few steps and pushed through the crowd to see who had joined him. Surely, it was another female and very sweet-faced, a stranger that I had never seen before. Then Tarr saw me approaching and spoke to the pretty newcomer and the crowd parted and I stood at the very edge of the green mat.

  “‘Beautiful Gwin,’ said Tarr in that rich voice of his that I had heard in my dreams, ‘we await your coming. Here is Roneen, come to be your sib.’

  “‘I am Roneen,’ she said. ‘Come to us, dear Gwin. Let us make Tarr’s Five!’ So, seeing them both, I was persuaded; I believed that the North Wind meant me to join this Family and no other. I stepped onto the green mat and the watchers cheered and sang. We took hands, all three, and did the first proving dance without one false step, which proved that we would match well, and so we did.”

  “How came the rest of the Five?” asked Diver.

  “The Ancient is most often close kin of a Five member,” said Gwin, “so came to Tarr’s Five that night his elder, Old Therel, a kind and useful person.”

  “And how do you find a Luck?” he asked.

  “Bless you, a Luck finds a Family, not the other way about!” said Old Gwin. “There is a lot of haggling and unseemly competition for a good Luck. An unscrupulous Luck or its birth-family can accept great gifts of cloth and credits. But a true Luck concentrates and sees in its mind where it should go. So Little Griss, the Luck of Tarr’s Five, came straight to us, that same night, carried in a basket by its normal-sized sib. A dwarf, he was called but truly he was more of a fairy person . . . perfectly made but very small. A Luck that could have fetched thousands of credits in the city. He was a sweet-natured creature; the thing he loved best was to knit and we never had a leg or an arm bare of his skill.”

  Old Gwin and Diver talked on, but by this time Narneen was asleep and I was becoming drowsy; I curled up on the sleeping bag. I peered at Old Gwin’s face; I loved her dearly but it pained me a little when she spoke of her youth. I could not see a trace of “Beautiful Gwin with the long hair” who had danced the proving dances long ago at the Family Fair.

  Diver took advantage of the general good spirits to put forth an idea; it was not a time when the Luck can be refused very much. I knew what he was asking, and I was afraid, lurking in doorways and behind trees to hear the others reply.

  Finally Mamor said, lazily unpicking a spoiled pattern: “It might be done.”

  Then the Harper, mending Gwin’s lace pins: “If you think it is safe . . .”

  Last of all Brin, with the family at midday, braiding her hair: “You are our Luck. Do it . . . but remember our need of you!”

  Next day before the rising of Esto, we all turned out to haul the Tomarvan to the top of the great rock.

  The machine rode easily over grass and rock; it was well-balanced, live in our hands, like a bird eager to fly. The shepherds, Varb’s Five, had been warned; and we could see them standing aside by the fold. Certainly they had no need to fear. The glider was pointed far out into the inland meadows; its own shape would take it there if it refused to fly. Brin stood away from the ropes and looked out and down, fretting again because we had no wind chart. Diver and Mamor had taken readings from the rock and watched the course of the flitterlings, but a wind chart would have helped.

  Once the Tomarvan was in position, Mamor and the Harper descended onto the plain. They were going to watch the landing, so they said, and keep an eye out for Petsalee or any other watcher. We all knew they were going to pick up the pieces. Diver, in his woollen mask helmet and goggles, sat in the pilot’s chair; the Tomarvan creaked and swayed a little in the morning wind. Diver was divided from us, and I was cold now, in spite of the climb. Brin stood apart coiling our good ropes over her bent arm; Narneen was crouched in my “tower room” among the bushes. I remembered the time of day; a gold rim of Esto showed above the horizon, and the Far Sun was still high in the sky, silvering the damp fields. I wished hard, I prayed, for some comforting sign from our protector. Be near us, I thought, our Luck is flying today! But there was no sign; no voice answered in my mind; no warming presence visited the summit of the rock. The morning wind, stronger than before, shook the vines and rocked at the tail vanes of the flying machine. Mamor high-called from the north and Roy from the south; it was time.

  I got into position as Diver rose in his chair for a last wind check. Brin stood to the other wing; we made hopeful signals to Diver, and when he lowered his arm, we cast off the runner ropes and shoved with all our might. The Tomarvan slid off the rock without a sound, and I nearly went with it. I had to fall flat and cling to an outcrop of rock. The Tomarvan was out in the air, nose a little upward, but the whole machine was falling. Then it rose and held steady in a longish gliding motion. Diver had caught a current of air that would take him safely down.

  Suddenly the machine checked visibly, shuddered, and began to climb to the north in a wide, jerky spiral. There came back to us, on the rock, a thin sharp buzzing sound. We saw that the spin-toys were in motion and with them the Tomarvan was transformed . . . it was an engine. All three of us—Brin, Narneen and myself—cried out in excitement. Diver climbed still and curved, finding wind currents and urging the Tomarvan to follow them. From the plain came a cheer—Mamor, Roy, even the shepherds were waving their hands and dancing.

  The Tomarvan flew in a wide arc and swooped and rose again. It was not so much a bird as a bright insect, darting and buzzing an
d at times being lifted and carried by the wind currents over the inland plain. Diver turned it back, drew in easily over the rock, stooped low over the fixed house—where Gwin and Tomar would be standing on the roof—and crossed the river. I had time to be afraid; I felt sick and giddy, as if I were flying in the machine myself. Diver had gone, he had flown off to the islands. Then I heard Narneen laughing as if she had read my thoughts. She had crawled up beside me, out of her niche, and now she laid a hand on my arm.

  “Here he comes again . . .” said Narneen.

  “Great North Wind!” whispered Brin. She stood tall and warm at our backs; her hair was unbound, she flung back her head, watching the sky. I saw her as Eenath the Spirit-Warrior, not a pouch-mother, ruling from the loom.

  “Children,” she said, “our Luck will win this Bird Clan!” The Tomarvan flew low over our heads, spin-toys whirring, and flew out and round, crossing and recrossing the Troon, wherever Diver wished it to fly.

  Diver flew every day after this proving flight, and we became accustomed to caring for the Tomarvan, holding its wings and so forth. Soon we prepared to leave Whiterock Fold and began sorting out our entry fee for the Bird Clan. I felt secure and happy: plenty of food and something to look forward to. But as I lay in the sleeping bag at night or in the early morning before the suns penetrated the Ulgan’s house, I had moments of deep unbelief. Was this all happening? Was it some long dream and would I wake on Hingstull with the snow coming down? How was it possible to endure such changes? I looked at Tomar in his swing basket with a sort of fear; soon he would be grown, time would run away with him as it had with me, with all of us. How could I have believed, last spring, that Dorn Brinroyan could grow used to a fixed house and a flying machine?