The Colors of Magic Anthology (magic: the gathering)

by Richard Lee Byers

  Loria listened with some interest. Even a blind guide will sometimes find the trail, she thought.

  "You hear so many things, but I am hungry. How about some more meat?" Winton was feeling lightheaded. Maybe a fuller stomach would anchor him.

  Tayva had been basting and seasoning meat from Winton's crane. Finally the meat was cooked to her satisfaction.

  Winton ate everything set before him. The skewers of crane meat went to his plate alone, and he never thought to share. Loria pressed him with strong drink, but in truth, she was hard put to keep his cup full. Tayva watched and said nothing.

  "I heard that the ice fields are still retreating to the north. We live in a better world every day!" Winton proclaimed. The cousins thought of the luxury and power that they had enjoyed years before and were silent.

  The women ate from one of the waterfowl and only moistened their lips as Winton downed great draughts of liquor. He was a bore and a glutton, but no expression of displeasure ever crossed their faces. The birdcatcher was finally in such a state that Loria decided it was time.

  Winton cleared the table of its food and sat blearily looking at the cousins. "What now?" he asked and let go a great belch.

  "Why, let's go fishing," Loria said brightly and winked at the drunken man.

  "Why, what a marvelous idea!" Winton exclaimed and rose to his feet. He thrust himself up, using his hands against the table. The cups and clay plates slid to the floor, but he was too drunk to notice.

  "Take my hand, Winton," Loria simpered, and he reached for it as she retreated through the door. Tayva had to hold his shoulder to steer him from the hut.

  Winton stumbled as he was led out into the night. The moon was bright, but the landscape lacked detail to catch the eye. The dovecot was a den of darkness, and the slough was a meadow in the background.

  "Come, Winton. Night fishing is fun. We've caught many in the night," Loria claimed coquettishly. She was ghostly in the moonlight, drawing him after her with her voice. Tayva was holding his right arm, keeping him oriented toward Loria. Tayva's feet instinctively drifted to the center of the narrow path, and Winton began to trip and lurch as he was forced to the side.

  Winton's mind was cloudy, and he wondered if this was still a romantic game being played by the cousins. The dovecot was a mass of darkness, and Winton shook his head in its dark shadow.

  "And how do you catch them?" he joked. "With clever lines?" Winton was breathing deeply and leaned on the woven lattice of wood and wicker. It groaned loudly, and the pigeons called briefly at the noise. Tayva dragged him on by his right arm.

  "With this. We spear them." Tayva brandished a large skewer with a great barbed point with her free arm. Winton thought it a hilarious prop, for it was too short to be an effective spear. He giggled and stumbled even more. Loria drifted closer as Winton laughed and lurched against Tayva.

  "I'll fish out the lake!" he boasted and listed so heavily that Loria had to slip under his left arm to keep him walking.

  The cousins pushed from either side to quicken the pace. They were almost to the water of the slough, and both were running out of patience. Winton tried to grab the barb from Tayva.

  "Give it to me, and I'll show you how to use it."

  "You'll get it," Tayva stated and slipped beneath his arm and behind him. To Winton's sight she had disappeared, and he began to grope Loria in the belief that they were alone.

  They stepped into the water, and its chill and sudden foul odor shocked him. The bottom mud and weeds clung to him even as Loria led him deeper into the water with great splashes. His head began to clear as the stench crowded out the drunkenness.

  "Far enough, " Loria said in a cold voice, and she ducked out of his arms. The ripples from his clumsiness stopped, and still water converged on him. Tayva kicked behind Winton's knees, and he fell face first into the water.

  Winton tried to break his fall but hit the water with a loud slap. His lungs emptied from the force of his fall, and he panicked as his hands were caught in the treacherous mud. The water was relatively shallow, but Winton couldn't free himself. By arching his back he could keep his head above the water. He began rocking violently from side to side. Each motion enveloped him in even more foulness, and he was nearly blind in the polluted air. Loria was kneeling in the water to his side. Her hands held flat to the surface of the slough, and water roiled beneath them. Winton's struggle irritated her. She looked on the gasping hunter with disgust.

  "Tayva, " Loria commanded, and Winton felt a great weight between his shoulders. Each time his head broke water, Tayva forced it back down beneath the surface. Now Winton could not lift his head at all. His struggles peaked, and then he moved no more. Liquid forced itself into his mouth, nose, and down into his lungs. Everything in his body-energy, will, courage-everything but awareness, drained into the water. It crushed him, and when nothing more could be squeezed out, he floated to the top.

  "Tayva, finish him up and put him in a deep spot. " Loria sounded tired but replete, as if a fine dessert had been devoured. She stood and teetered as drunkenly as Winton had minutes before, then retreated to the hut.

  Winton felt pressure and tearing as Tayva forced him to deeper water. She ran the skewer through his chest and abdomen.

  Loria returned from the house, still weaving from the aftermath of what they had done. She carried Winton's bolas wrapped over one arm and a stack of dirty crockery.

  "We need to erase any sign that he was here tonight. Scrub these clean after we finish up here," Loria directed as she set the dishes down on the ground.

  Tayva only grunted and pierced the hunter through one final time. They wrapped the bolas over his wrists and then turned him face up. Water and scum oozed down his countenance, and one last bit of air burbled out his lips. The cousins were waist-deep in the water, and the slough was growing icy cold.

  Tayva's teeth were chattering, and she muttered peevishly, "Why did you get the best part?"

  Loria laughed. "You can still get the last taste. I received enough for now."

  They both trailed their hands down his legs to his feet and began the last ritual.

  "Hold him," they chanted and forced his legs to the bottom. The dead limbs caught, and the mud began to pull him down.

  "Devour him," Tayva crooned as only Winton's head showed above the surface. "Obliterate him!" she finished and felt a rush of warmth course through her. Whatever remained of Winton vanished beneath the water.

  The next day the cousins rested. They were sated with power and dreams, gravid with desires and dark hungers. They accomplished nothing till late evening when Loria broke the contented silence that surrounded them.

  "Do you think there is more unrest in the south than usual? It has been so long since we really paid much attention. Maybe that fool hunter said something sensible before he died." Loria stretched out her legs, reveling in the suppleness that Winton's death had girted her.

  "I could call in the flocks," Tayva replied, "but we would need them all to get a clear picture."

  The dead pigeons that she sent out into the world were excellent spies and recorders of events, but they did not return unless called. The act of hearing their reports destroyed every trace of power left in their corpses, and Tayva then had to create more spies from her limited stock of birds. Each spy cost the sacrifice of several pigeons, so Tayva rarely called in her creatures. Often, little more than tattered skeletons answered her call.

  "Why we should listen to the words of an idiot escapes me." Tayva was too content to contemplate action.

  "Because I feel ambitious. Disaster and fighting breed opportunity," Loria replied. She was restless and nearly danced with suppressed energy. "Call in everything. Something wonderful is happening! I know it!"

  Tayva reluctantly acquiesced and walked to the dovecot. Loria's enthusiasm did not fire her, but there might be profit in a new course of action. Calling in her birds was easy enough and no great sacrifice.

  Tayva entered the cot and lo
oked over her flock. She knew exactly which bird to use. The pigeon was the one most closely related to all she had sent out, and blood calls to blood. She saw it in a corner cage and softly grasped it in her hands. At first unsettled, the bird soon calmed and began to coo. Tayva carefully exited the cot and turned to the slough. The bird was completely lulled when she approached the dank water. A knife she brought from the house darted to the bird, and its blood covered her hand. She dropped the knife in the dust and squeezed all she could from the small body. She flung one cupped palm to the sky and shrieked as a bird. The blood from her hand arced high and fell as uneven rain over the foul water. The surface frothed and then settled with the red droplets vanishing into the depths.

  Though the imperative went out that instant, the birds would not wing home until night. Carrion birds knew they were dead, and flights of crows would fall upon the rotten flesh if the spies flew by day.

  Tayva returned and sat at their small table. "They are coming, but I don't know how we'll replace them all."

  Loria finished the last of the meat from their murderous feast the night before. "Set nets and lime and use flocks of wild birds. Our power can stretch farther now. It is time to forego the ties of blood and relation." She nibbled at the greasy meat delicately, her daintiness out of place in the polluted and narrow hut. "It's time for bigger and bolder actions. We're moldering away in this sty." She kicked spitefully at the crude furniture.

  "Remember our former house? Queens of creation we were. And the freedom! Servants to dispose of the mess and find new subjects. Only the best and richest victims to share. Those were grand times. We've grown too small to remember them." Loria looked into the more prosperous past and ached with longing.

  The two cousins wove nightmares of the past and future and delighted in their darkness.

  "Well, what do you hear?" Loria asked as she rubbed her hands to hide her excitement.

  Tayva worked behind the stone wall of the dovecot and tilted her head into a gust of clean air. The shade of the cot and the proximity to the water should have made her comfortable, but her work prevented much relief. The birds had returned during the night, and Tayva had been taking their reports most of the day. The heat and proximity of so many animated rotting bodies created a cloud of stench that nearly drove her to distraction. Loria had walked on the lakeshore, wrapped in dreams of good fortune while Tayva completed the filthy work. She was also tired from having to soothe the living birds. The dead pigeons had settled in baskets and crates set around the dovecot, the focus of their former lives. The return of their dead relatives brought the living birds no joy. The pigeons had finally settled in exhaustion, and Tayva knew stress would kill several more before the end of the day.

  "Interesting news," Tayva finally replied to Loria's query. "Winton was right. The south is wracked by plague that is spreading like wildfire! The druids can't touch it, and the leaders are desperate." Tayva called another pigeon and watched it fly from the group concealed in an overturned basket. She had separated the arrivals into several groups and was processing them.

  The pigeon had no eyes, but it still regarded Tayva and Loria intently, shifting its stance as its focus changed from one to the other. Tayva riveted its attention as she set her shoulders and raised her arms. One hand pointed at the bird, and the other reached for the slough. The pigeon's flesh corrupted and liquefied in an instant, and all it had known since its rebirth slammed into Tayva's mind.

  Loria ignored her cousin. The morning had gone, and she had seen the ceremony too many times. She poured the last of the herbal oil over the dissolving bones, throwing handfuls of gray ash over it. The resulting cloud covered the whole back of the cot and a large circle of ground. Loria choked until it cleared, but Tayva sat and digested what she had learned in perfect stillness.

  "It's a treasure hunt, " she said abruptly. "There are rumors of secreted power. The birds saw armies marching in search of it, and this one even saw a map purporting to give its location. Power is just sitting there while collections of timid fools wait for orders. This is something we could grasp for ourselves!" Tayva spoke with rising excitement, and her gestures became broader. The prospect of power washed the surrounding filth from her mind.

  Loria listened. "We'll beat them to it. True power. No more birds or simpering plots. To be done with isolation at last!" She was exultant, but her near shout of joy tweaked her bones with pain, and she thought of what travel would mean. She rose and walked to the hut.

  "No security. No sacrifices for power. Nothing I can't carry with me," Loria muttered and looked around. The hut was rude, and all the decent things had disappeared long ago. There was a small amount of coin-carefully gathered from successful victims-but little else of value. Loria went to the side of the doorjamb and dug their cash from the hiding place, a pot sealed in the rammed earth floor. The bag was distressingly light. She watched her cousin checking the pigeons and saw an old woman who would lend little to the journey and split resources. So many had died at her hands. The choice wasn't hard.

  "Tayva, kill the best birds and bring them for pies," she shouted. "We're leaving tomorrow, and we'll have the best before we go." She turned to begin making crusts and plans for the dinner-and for tomorrow's lonely journey.

  The meal that night was a success. The cousins took the last of the good wine from its hiding place and served in freshly washed cups. Loria had carefully "seasoned" the food and maintained a separation between what she and Tayva ate. Loria was the perfect hostess, fetching each course and topping each cup.

  "I wonder how warm it is in the south. It's been so long since we left I can hardly remember how it was. Not that my memories will be of any use after twenty years of retreating ice," she said as she gave the last of the wine to Tayva and nudged the servings of food closer to her cousin.

  Loria had never poisoned someone familiar with toxins and felt some trepidation. Each course, each utensil that Tayva used was lightly poisoned. If she grew suspicious and switched food or silverware with Loria, the plan would still go forward. Tayva's ingestion of many small doses of poison would have a fatal effect. The poison was distilled from the cousins' brew and was without taste. Eventually Tayva would fall under its influence and die.

  Tayva grew steadily more passive, her mind wandering.

  Loria decided to accelerate the process. "Have some brew, dear cousin, " she coaxed and poured the vintage that Winton had enjoyed into a brace of cups. "It's not good, but it is all we have for now. " She watched Tayva take the cup and drink deeply. Tayva motioned for more, but her eyes were dull in the evening light and her movements muted.

  "Plenty more for us both, " Loria said expansively and filled Tayva's cup to the brim while ignoring her own. Tayva again drank deeply, and all signs of her intelligence faded away. Loria found the situation delicious.

  "So sad that I-we are leaving tomorrow, " she said maliciously. "There were good times here. " She considered the squalor around her. "Well, not too good. " She reached to fill Tayva's cup, but she was thwarted by her cousin's uncoordinated attempt to pass it to her. It fell to the floor and broke. Tayva looked at the shards of pottery with an expression of deep grief.

  Loria felt a thrill and flushed with wicked pleasure. It was time for the kill. She needed her cousin at the slough for maximum effect, and walking her there would be impossible if she ate or drank anything more. Tayva looked unfit to sit up, much less walk to her doom.

  "Let's look on the water one last time," Loria cajoled. "Tomorrow we'll be gone and never see it again. We should say good-bye, after all."

  Tayva nodded in blurry agreement and rose unsteadily. Loria rose and tottered to the door with feigned drunkenness. She had never acted so well.

  The two women weaved and bumped down the path to the slough. Loria felt her gorge rise as they passed the dovecot and the stench of the decomposing pigeons. Tayva actually leaned against the stone wall and breathed deeply. Loria feared that her cousin might stop there, but Tayva collect
ed herself and continued to the dark water.

  The darkness of the night gathered in the foul water, and Loria worried that Tayva would become suspicious. The pair were moving slower and slower, and Tayva looked more focused and intent by the minute. Loria stopped to concentrate on the upcoming sacrifice, to commune with the spirit in the water but felt lightheaded and feverish with impatience. She could feel the stench streaming off the slough. The spirit was ready for the sacrifice. This was the moment of decision.

  Loria lurched forward to push her cousin into the evil morass. She wailed in rage as she lost her footing and tumbled to the ground instead.

  "This is no time for mistakes! Kill her!" she muttered angrily to herself.

  Loria tried to push herself upright, but her arms wouldn't hold her, and she smacked into the ground. Her cry of anger turned to a ghastly moan as she spewed blood over the muddy bank of the slough.

  Tayva straightened, and her eyes flashed in the dimming light. She stood over Loria, smiling, watching her companion cough up her life.

  "Do you feel ill, Cousin?" she asked snidely. "I thought I ate all the poison." She laughed hard.

  Loria spasmed as if punched.

  "Do you think me as stupid as our victims? I knew you would try to kill me." Tayva chuckled and kicked her cousin in the side.

  Loria convulsed briefly, and a fresh gout of blood trickled toward the water.

  "The pigeons brought back more than news. They brought plague! One of them rolled in a corpse and brought it back. Contaminating the food was simple, a little dollop of power, and some of the live birds were infected. I nearly laughed when you were so careful to keep your food separate from mine." Tayva turned to the slough and breathed the fetid air deeply in preparation for her dark communion. She couldn't resist one more taunt.

  "How did I avoid the poison? I swallowed it all. I just took care to swallow the last of the oil from the dovecot. It coated my stomach and intestines. Everything I ate is neutralized or will just pass through." Tayva looked at the water and saw the blood vanish below the surface. She could feel dark waves of evil flowing up the stream of blood to her cousin's body. Loria writhed weakly and died.