by Jo Clayton
He finished the seam and raised the sail, but the wind was still absent. The canvas hung limp, not even slatting against the mast. He sat waiting, his eyes half shut, dreaming of what he was going to do with the gold.
As if to prove that miracles never occur singly, a school of fish struck the hooks on his lines and he spent the next two hours hauling them in, dropping the lines back until his boat was alive with flopping glistening silversides and the moment the school passed on, a fresh breeze sprang up and set the wretched little boat racing for Selt. For the first time ever he came in early and alone and got premium prices on his fine fat fish. He went back to the tiny hovel he’d built of ancient sails and bits of driftwood on a handful of land he rented from a distant cousin. He counted the coins over and over, even when it was only by feel after his fish oil lamp sputtered dry. And he counted the silver and copper coins the day’s catch had brought, ten times the sum he usually made. Fearing that the gold might disappear as strangely as it had come, fearing too that the thieves that lived around him might smell it out and steal it from him, forgetting no thief of reasonable intelligence would come poking through his bits and pieces, he buried the gold under the agglomeration of sticks and rope he used for a bed, then spent a good part of the night nursing a jug of cheap wine and trying to ignore the pain in his toe while he dreamed of great feasts and high-class dancing girls and fine silk robes and his cousins bowing respectfully before him and seeking his advice and begging favors of him which he granted or refused with gracious nobility.
In the morning he washed his toe, bound some cobwebs and chicken dung about it and tied on another rag. Without much thought, acting from old habit, he rose with the dawn, got dressed, went limping down to the water and went out again in his boat. Again he had great luck. As if his hooks were magnets, he called the fish to them. Again he filled the boat so soon he was the first back and got the best price.
It being the way of the stupid, he sw himself as clever, he saw what was happening as an outcome of his superior worth. Though he was no less a silent man he began holding himself with great pride (not noticing that children followed behind him, mocking him). The gold coins staved where they were, buried beneath his bed. He dreamed the same dreams night after night, but in the morning he left the dreams behind and went out on his boat as he had since he was old enough to hold a line. He sat alone in the boat whispering to himself, saying: if I spend gold, they’ll want to know where it comes from, they’ll send thieves to steal it from me, they’ll send men to kill me. So the gold stayed under his bed, the dreams stayed in his head. His foot got worse, the toe swelling and turning black. His catch went back to what it was before, a whole day’s work hardly enough to pay his land, huy his meals and a jug of cheap wine to kill the pain in his foot.
On the sixth day a squall caught his boat before he got more than a few lengths from the shore, reducing the wretched thing to a hodgepodge of shattered planks and timbers. It took him all day to gather the bits and pieces, then he went looking for driftwood so he could cobble the boat back together; he had more than enough gold for a dozen such boats, but the thought of spending it never entered his head. He worked on the boat all day, then went home to eat and dream some more. In the morning he couldn’t get out of bed, his whole foot was black, his leg swollen, his body damp with fever.
By the end of the week he was dead.
This is the lesson, Cerontai told Taguiloa: Use your luck or it rots like Raskatak’s toe.
LINJIJAN WAS a smiling amiable boy, nineteen or twenty, skinny, hands chapped and callused from the labor on a fishing boat, keeping in spite of that the tender agility of his great-uncle’s hands. Taguiloa met his mild uncurious gaze and groaned within. The boy seemed as incapable of keeping himself as a day-old baby. Then he saw the way Blackthorn, Brann and Harra were smiling at him, the half-exasperated, half-adoring smile of a mother for a mischievous but well-loved child-and changed his mind. Linjijan was one of the fortunate of the earth. As long as he had his music, he’d be content and whatever he needed to survive and play that music would come unasked into his hands. Women and men alike would care for him, protect him, love him even when they were furious at him. Taga sighed but promised old Tungjii more incense and a free performance on the Luckday festival. He listened to Linjijan play and sighed again, moved quietly to stand beside the old piper. “Thanks,” he said dryly.
The old man stretched his mouth in a tight-lipped smile, savoring the ambiguity in the word. He snapped his fingers. Linjijan stopped playing and came to squat beside him. “You want to go with him?” Ladji nodded at Taguiloa.
Linjijan nodded. He hadn’t said a word so far, even to his great-uncle, greeting him with a smile and a nod.
“That’s it then. Come.” The old man retreated to the far side of the room and sat with his back against a wall, Linjijan beside him.
Tari stirred on her divan, her eyes fixed on Brann. She’d focused on the woman’s face the moment Taguiloa brought her in, had been glancing repeatedly at her as Taguiloa dealt with Linjijan; now she gave over any pretense of interest in the others. “Saiir Brann,” she said. “Taga tells me you will be reading past and future for the countryfolk. He tells me you’re a witch, really a witch. Read for me.” She looked blindly about. “What do you need, gada sticks? fire and shell? crystal? a bowl of water? Tell me what you need and I’ll have it brought.”
Brann came across the room to kneel beside the divan, the brindle bitch moving beside her with silent feral grace. “If you will give me your hand, said Blackthorn.” Tad extended her hand. Brann cradled it on hers. “Yaril,” she said, “Let’s make it real this time.”
The bitch shimmered into a gold glow which rose and hovered a moment over Blackthorn then sank into her. Taguiloa remembered it with a shiver at the base of his spine and wondered briefly if he should interfere. He glanced at Brann’s intent face and held his tongue. The glimmer emerged from Tari and coalesced into a small blonde girl. She stood beside Brann, murmured in her ear for several minutes, then she retreated to the end of the divan and sank out of sight.
Brann shivered, her composure broke suddenly, briefly. Pain and fear and pity and anger flowed in waves across her face. She sat very still, as if frozen for a moment, then the mask was back; she opened her eyes, drew a forefinger across Tan’s palm.
“Not even the gods know for certain what the morrow brings,” she said quietly. “Their guesses might be better than a mortal’s but that’s only because they’ve had a longer time to watch the cycling of the seasons and the foolishness of man. When I read the fates of men and women, I will give them what pleases them and phrase it vaguely enough that whatever happens they can twist the words to fit as they will. They want to be fooled and will do the greater part of the work for me.” Her voice flowed on, gentle and soothing. “Yongala laughing told me folk hold fast to their dreams even when their reason tells them they are fools. Tari Blackthorn, dancer on fire, do you desire that sort of reading or the truth of what you fear?”
Tad trembled, closed her eyes. “What do you know?”
“Shall I speak of it here?”
“These are my friends. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t expect a real answer.
Brann looked at the hand she still held, set it on the black velvet cover. Watching her closely, his curiosity a hunger in him, Taguiloa saw her gather herself; a cold knot in his stomach, he waited for her answer. “This is what I know,” she said, her voice held level with visible difficulty. “Some days every step is agony and effort. Your ankles and knees swell and throb sometimes beyond bearing. When you are in the dance you forget that pain but are nearly crippled by it once the dance is over. You fear the end of your ability to dance. Six months ago you sought solace from pain in poppymilk, now you find yourself slaved to it and view that slavery with horror but cannot escape it.” She turned away from Tali’s drawn face, looked over her shoulder at Taguiloa. In spite of her efforts her own face quivered; she closed her eyes, tried to calm
herself and when she spoke her voice was flat and dead. “Saхm, I will not do this for you in the villages, it would call too much attention to me. And I don’t think I…” She faced round again, moved on her knees to the foot of the divan. “Yaril, Jaril, come to me, I need you.”
The blond boy came from the shadows, put his hand on her left shoulder; the hand melted through the black silk and into the flesh beneath. The blond girl came from behind the divan and stood at her right shoulder, the hand melting through the black silk of the robe and sinking into the flesh beneath. Brann reached out and brushed aside the many layers of fragile silk and took Blackthorn’s ankle in her hand.
Taguiloa saw then what he’d overlooked before. The ankle was swollen a little, thickened, stiff. Tari watched with fear and anguish as Brann brushed her fingers across the swelling. “It is only beginning,” she said, cleared her throat, took a breath, then went on. “Were it to proceed, you would be unable to walk five years from now.” She smiled a wide urchin’s grin full of joy and mischief. “Slya be blessed, O dancer, it will not proceed.” She closed her eyes and held the ankle cradled between her hands.
Tari’s eyes flew open wider. “Heat,” she whispered.
Brann said nothing, did not seem to hear. After a moment she lowered that foot to the velvet and lifted the other.
Taguiloa watched, amazed, his anxiety and the sharp fear aroused by the witch’s words dissipating as the woman’s long strong hands moved from ankles to knees, not bothering to push aside the layered silk robe, from knees to hips, then wrists, elbows, shoulders. Humming softly, Brann moved her hands from the top of Tari’s head down along her body to the henna’d soles of her lovely feet, the children moving with her, bonded to her, flesh to flesh. Then she sat back on her heels and sighed.
The children moved away from her, their small fine hands sliding from flesh and silk. Yaril shimmered a moment and was again a brindle bitch lying beside her. Jaril went to squat beside Taguiloa.
Tari’s face flushed then paled. She sat up, moved one foot then the other, moved her wrists, bent one leg at the knee, straightened it, bent the other leg, straightened it. Her hands were shaking. Her breath came sharp and fast. She opened her mouth, shut it, couldn’t speak, closed her eyes, pressed her hands against her ribs, sucked in a long breath, let it out. “And the poppymilk?”
“You’re free of that too.”
“There’s not gold enough in the world…”
Brann shrugged. “Oh well, gold.” She got to her feet, stretched, yawned. “This isn’t what I’m going to feed the farmers, no and no, tell them what they want to hear and make them shiver just enough.” She grinned. “And scare the bones out of any hillwolves stupid enough to attack.”
Taguiloa looked around. Harra was gazing at Brann with an expression of lively interest, her full lips pursed for a whistle, but not whistling. Ladji was sliding his ancient flute between thumb and forefinger, smiling at nothing much, his body gone rubbery with his private relief. He was apparently the only one who’d known of Tari’s growing pain. Linjijan was gazing dreamily at nothing, his fingers moving on his thighs as if he practiced modes of fingering for music he heard inside his head.
Jaril touched Taguiloa’s ann. He looked down. “What is it?”
“You wanted a boy to play the drums.”
“You volunteering?”
Jaril shook his head. “Too boring. But I found a boy. He doesn’t have to be Hina?”
Taguiloa looked around the room. Mage’s daughter from so far west he’d never heard of her people. Linjijan, comfortably Hina. Brann the changeling witch, once of Arth Slya now of nowhere. Yaril and Jaril, who knew what they were? “One more foreigner, who’d notice.” He laughed. “How long will it take to get him here…?” He turned to Tari, spread his hands. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so free with your house.”
Tari Blackthorn waved a slim hand. “I won’t say I owe you, but you may bring all the world in here and I won’t complain.”
“He’s waiting outside.” Jaril darted for the door.
Taguiloa strolled across to the divan, knelt beside Tari, took her hand in his. “There was a time when I thought I was running this thing.” He lifted her hand, touched his lips to the wrist, cradled the hand against his cheek. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I wasn’t telling myself.” She eased her hand free. “Taga my tinti,” her voice was a whisper that reached only him, “don’t you see how odd it is, all this? This collection of mage-touched strangers? Why are they being pulled together? And who is doing it?” She bent a finger, touched the knuckle to his chin. “She worries me, your patron, I don’t understand her. I shouldn’t say it after what she did for me, but be careful of her, summerfly. Why is she doing this?”
“She has her reasons.”
“And you know them. Why am I even more worried for you? No, don’t fidget so, little love. I won’t ask more questions.” She ran her forefinger around the curve of his ear and down his neck. “Your drummer comes, Taga.” Laughter shook in her voice.
Taguiloa swung round. A m’darjin boy stood uncertainly in the doorway clutching drums half as big as he was, ten, maybe twelve, blue-black skin, hair a skim of springs coiled close to his skull, huge brown eyes. His hands and feet were borrowed from a bigger body, his arms thin as twigs with bumpy knobs where the joints were.
“His name is Negomas,” Jaril said. “His father was a m’raj shaman and he did something, Negomas doesn’t know what but it was bad and it killed him and the rest of the m’darjin won’t have anything to do with Negomas now, it’s like he caught something from his father and could infect them with it, but that’s not true, I checked him out and you know I’m good at that.” He tugged the boy forward.
Negomas grinned nervously. His body was taut, quivering with eagerness and hope.
“Your drums?” Taguiloa said.
“My drums.” He grinned wider and mischief brightened the huge brown eyes. “I grow into them.” He waggled one of his large bony hands. “With a bit of time,” he finished, winced as Jaril kicked him in the ankle. “Saхm,” he added politely.
“Play them for me. Something I can move to.” He stepped out of his sandals, moved to the center of the mat and stood waiting, shaking himself, a long ripple from ankles to head, wrists to shoulders. He smiled toward the boy, then unfocused his eyes and concentrated on listening with ears and body both.
He heard a blurred shiver of sound, then some tentative staccato taps that had unusual overtones, a sonority similar to the deeper notes of Harra’s daroud. The drums began speaking with more authority. He kept up his loosening moves, listening until the sound slid under his skin and throbbed in his blood; he flexed his arms, twisted his body from side to side, then let the music lift him into a handless backflip that developed into a series of bending stretching kinetic movements, alternating high and low; he reveled in the drumsong beating in blood, bone and muscle, was unsurprised when two flutes joined in, singing in none of the usual modes, producing a strong harsh music, then the daroud came in, picking up its own version of the melodic line, adding a greater tension to the blend by tugging at the beat of the drums. The dance went on and on until Taguiloa collapsed to the mat, sweating and laughing, exhausted but flying high, his panting laughter mingling with the applause and laughter from Tari and Brann, whoops from Jaril and the sweating m’darjin boy. Then silence, filled with the sound of Taguiloa’s breathing.
He fell back till he lay flat on the straw. His hands burned, his bones ached and he’d collected bruises and sore muscles from moving in ways he hadn’t tried before. He turned his head, lifted a heavy hand to push sweat-sticky hair off his face. “You’ll do, Negomas.” He yawned, swallowed. “Anyone I need to talk to about you?”
The boy shook his head, moved his fingers on the drumheads.
Taguiloa looked at Jaril, raised his brows.
Jaril shook his head.
Taguiloa pushed up until he was sitting with his arms draped over his knees
. “You understand you won’t be my student but only part of the troupe?” When the boy nodded, he went on, “I’m sorry but that’s the way the world says things have to be; I need a Hina boy. If ever I can find the right one. Jaril, fetch whatever the boy’s got, move him into my house and make sure Yarm doesn’t try anything.”
Jaril snorted, looked pointedly at Brann.
Brann sighed. “Taguiloa is master of this motley group, my friend. We don’t argue with the boss, at least not in public even if he’s being more than usually foolish.” She chuckled, then sobered. “You know what Yarm is like. For the good of our purpose, get Negomas settled, then take him out for something to eat.” She smiled. “I know you could fry Taga’s liver if you chose, he knows it by now or he’s a lot stupider than he looks, we all know it. And we know you’re going to do nothing of the kind.”
Jaril walked over to Negomas, jerked his head at the door, then strolled out with an air of going where he chose at the speed he chose to go. Negomas picked up his drums, winked over his shoulder at Taguiloa, then followed the blond boy out.
Brann got to her feet, stood looking around. “I’m glad it’s you who’s got to pull this mix of geniuses together.” She nodded to Blackthorn, smiled a general farewell and swept out the door.
YARM LOOKED UP as Taguiloa stepped through the door. “Where you been? And what’s that dirty m’darjin doing here?”
“None of your business. And speaking of dirty, this house is a garbage dump.”
“If you want neat, hire a girl. You can afford it,” Yarm said sullenly. “I’m not your servant.”