Renegade's Magic ss-3

by Robin Hobb

  “Answer me, Nevare,” the bird-god commanded.

  “I serve the good god. Not you. And I didn’t mean to have anything to do with you. All I did was free a bird,” I said. My heart soared. Despite the threat to me, I had the body again. I clenched and unclenched my hands, marveling that I could.

  “Serve who you like,” the bird replied callously. “It does nothing about the debt you owe me. Do you really think that serving one god will protect you from the demands of another? Do you honestly believe that we derive our powers because you believe in us? What sort of an impotent god would that be? ‘Believe in me so I can be a god!’ Is that what gods should say to men? How about, ‘Believe it or not, I can control your world’?” He turned his head and looked at me out of the other eye.

  As swiftly as my control of the body had come, it went. Soldier’s Boy gave a sudden gasp as if he had been holding his breath.

  “What do you want from me?” he demanded of the god in a low growl. I felt the anger that seethed through him, that for even a moment, his control had been lost.

  “Oh, this is tedious,” the bird replied. He put his head down and for some moments worried flesh from the fish carcass, snapping it up in lumps. He was silent for so long that I thought he had gone back to being a bird rather than a god. Then he spoke again. “There is nothing amusing in having to repeat myself. For the last time, Nevare Burvelle and whoever else is sharing that skin you walk in: you owe me. This is your last chance to amuse me by taking the choice into your own hands. What will you give me? A death or a life?”

  Soldier’s Boy stared, transfixed, at the croaker and I shared his gaze. I had no answer and I dreaded that Soldier’s Boy might speak for me.

  We were saved or perhaps condemned in the next moment. Likari spoke from the door of the lodge. “Great One, the fire is ready for cooking.” His voice shook slightly.

  Soldier’s Boy made no response.

  And in the next instant, Likari darted at Orandula, waving a stick of firewood at the bird-god and shouting, “Go on! Shoo! Stop stealing our fish, you old robber bird!”

  To my surprise, the croaker bird snatched up the fish and took flight. He lifted his wings wide and flapped them heavily, scarcely keeping ahead of the small boy pursuing him with the stick. It would have been laughable, if the bird had been only a bird.

  Once the bird had gained a safe perch, he set the fish down on the branch and put one possessive foot firmly on top of it. He crouched low over it, peering down at the boy with his wings half opened. “The boy!” he croaked. “Yes, the boy. You could give him to me to discharge the debt. What do you say, Nevare, not-Nevare? Which do I get? His life? Or his death?”

  Horror chilled me and my other self seemed likewise shocked to stillness. And again Likari reacted before either of us, sending the piece of firewood spinning up. It clacked loudly against the bird’s perch. “Go away!” he shouted at it. “You are bothering the Great Man and I am his feeder! Go away!”

  “My turn to choose!” the bird cawed. Then he caught the fish up in his beak. He lifted off the branch, made one swooping pass through our midst, causing Likari to duck like a mouse before an owl’s dive, and then, beating his wings swiftly, the bird vanished into the darkening forest.

  “There. I scared him away!” Likari announced. He spoke with a boy’s bravado, but his voice shook slightly.

  Soldier’s Boy was hoarse as he asked, “Frightened of a bird, Likari?”

  “No. But I could tell you did not like him. And I thought to myself, ‘It is my duty as a feeder to make sure that no one and nothing disturbs the Great Man.’ And so I came to chase him off for you. And to tell you that the coals are ready for cooking the meat.”

  “You are a very fine feeder indeed,” Soldier’s Boy told him, and the sincerity in his voice could not be mistaken. “And I thank you for driving the bird away. He was bothering me.”

  The boy’s chest swelled. “If he returns, I shall kill him for you. But for now, we should cook our food. The coals are ready.”

  “Then let us cook,” Soldier’s Boy agreed. I thought perhaps he would tell Likari more or at least warn the boy to be wary of croaker birds, but he did not. He helped the boy carry the meat and fish into the lodge. They cooked the meat on spits over the fire and baked the fish on the hearthstones beside it. They cracked and ate nuts companionably while the cooking meat filled the lodge with wonderful smells. They both ate heavily, with Likari trying to defer to Soldier’s Boy and Soldier’s Boy insisting that the lad should eat heartily and “get a belly to be proud of.” He set an example for the boy, stuffing himself until I was amazed he could force another bite down. They ate the meat right down to the bones. These the boy carried a short distance from the lodge and dumped. Afterward, they both walked down to the stream and washed before Likari filled up their water skin again.

  The night was deep and cool around them. Through the thick evergreen canopy, a few stars were visible. The light that spilled from the lodge’s windows and door barely reached to the stream. They walked back carefully in the gloom. “I need to build a door for the lodge. And get some coverings for the windows before the winter rains come in earnest.”

  “Tomorrow?” the boy asked in dismay.

  “Oh, no. Tomorrow is for fishing. And eating. There will be no other chores but those until we go to join Olikea at the Trading Place. Making the lodge ready for winter can wait until we come back.” I caught a faint thought from the edge of his mind. If he were successful, if he impressed them sufficiently, he wouldn’t have to bother with such things. Other people would feel honored to worry about them for him.

  They walked companionably back to the lodge, threading their way through darkness to golden light. Around them, the night sounds of insects, small and large frogs, and crickets orchestrated a curtain of sound around them. The sounds meant that all was well: only a sudden cessation of them would speak of danger and small things gone into hiding. Soldier’s Boy and Likari both knew that; they were steeped in such knowledge, as comfortable as any animal in the forest that night. It bothered me that Soldier’s Boy could so seemingly put the threat to Likari out of his mind.

  Thinking about it would not make the threat any less.

  I felt that thought pushed at me from him and grudgingly accepted it. He didn’t like it that Orandula had threatened the boy. He was simply more capable of setting such a threat aside until a time when he could do something about it. All my worry had never solved anything.

  They went to bed and the boy soon fell asleep against Soldier’s Boy’s back. It was not as chill tonight, but the mosquitoes hummed with an energy that promised rain before morning. The boy went right to sleep, but Soldier’s Boy lay still and silent. After a time, I sensed him sinking down into something that was not sleep. It was similar to a state I recalled from the days when my father had starved me. His body temperature dropped, his heartbeat slowed. I could feel something happening but I couldn’t tell what it was. After a few moments, stung by curiosity, I pushed at his dimmed awareness. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  His response was slow and guarded. “Storing magic.”

  “You’re making yourself fat again.”

  “That would be how you would see it. I would see it as marshaling my reserves. Wasn’t that a concept you learned in the Academy? To prepare your reserves so that you would be ready for any contingency?”

  His response silenced me. I drew back from him. He didn’t care. He’d set a reaction into motion; I could feel every bit of the food he’d eaten today being stored away inside him. I had thought it would take him a long time to become fat again, but now I saw that he was willfully working toward that goal. I could feel the slackened folds of his flesh refilling. He’d sunk back into a stillness deeper than sleep, a state of complete rest that freed his body to concentrate on conserving all the food he had taken in.

  His body. My body? No, at this point, it was definitely his body, functioning as he prompted it to do. I t
hought of using his suspension to try to slip away in a dream-walk. But I could not think of where I would go or what I would accomplish by doing it. If he ever became aware of my excursions, I feared he would find a way to cage me more firmly. So, regretfully, I decided that I would not waste my opportunities in casual walks. I would go out only when I had a destination and specific information to convey. The moment I decided that, I felt lonelier but I knew it was my wisest course of action.

  Some time in the night, he passed into a true sleep, and I with him. In the morning, he rose again, refreshed and well pleased with himself. He ran his hands over his belly and thighs, rejoicing to find that the skin had tightened as it filled again. He had not been awake long before Likari came staggering and yawning from bed to join him. Soldier’s Boy ran a critical eye over the lad.

  “You’re growing, so it is hard to put flesh on you. But today we will try. Come. Show me your fish stream.”

  He followed the boy some distance from the lodge, to where a swift-flowing stream cut its way through the forest. The shady banks of the watercourse were steep. At first Soldier’s Boy could not see any fish; then his eyes adjusted, and he saw that there were plenty of them. Most of them hung finning in the water beneath the undercut banks of the stream.

  Likari had dropped to his belly. Like a lizard, he wriggled up to the stream’s edge and lay there, being careful not to cast a shadow or make any sound that might alarm the fish below. Then, in a single movement, he thrust his arm into the stream, scooped it under a fish and flung it flopping onto the bank beside him. The creature looked to be the veteran of a long and difficult journey. His skin hung in tatters, and some predator had taken a bite out of his back. But he still flopped mightily and could have managed to throw himself back into the stream if Soldier’s Boy had not picked him up by the tail and slammed his head firmly against a nearby tree trunk. By the time that swiftly brutal execution had been done, there was another fish flopping on the bank. It received the same treatment as its fellow.

  So the morning went, save for an interval when Soldier’s Boy left Likari to slay his own fish. He moved well back from the stream and gathered wood and twigs. He was stingy with the magic; it took him three tries before he called up a spark large enough to kindle the dry wood. Once it was going, he fed it until it was a useful size. Soon there were fish cooking over it.

  All day long, the man and boy caught, killed, and ate fish. It seemed a monotonous meal to me, but I sensed that Soldier’s Boy was not interested in taste right now. He enjoyed what he ate, but not in the sensuous way that I had employed his keen senses. He was too focused on consuming quantity to pause for long considerations of flavor and tenderness and the note of smoke that the fire put into the fresh fish.

  When evening began to fall, they still had more fish than they’d been able to eat. They walked home slowly, carrying the surplus catch. Some they cooked and ate that night. Soldier’s Boy put a sturdy green branch through the gill slits of the others and hung them up in a row suspended over the hearth fire in the lodge. Before they went to sleep, he had Likari gather green alder branches. These they heaped over the diminished fire, making a fine smoke that flowed up and past the fish. Then they went to bed.

  This was the pattern of the next two days. Soldier’s Boy’s belly and thighs and arms filled out at a rate I would have thought impossible if I had not witnessed it. Even Likari managed to gain a small paunch, though the little boy was far too active to flesh out quickly.

  On the morning of the fourth day, when Likari awoke, he found Soldier’s Boy already standing outside the lodge, contemplating the new day.

  “Come,” he said. “It’s time for us to go to the Trading Place.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE TRADING PLACE

  Soldier’s Boy had regained a good deal of his weight. He was still not the magnificent Great Man he had been, but his size was respectable. The height I had inherited from my father benefited him there. He was a head taller than most of the Specks I had encountered. The height coupled with his newly recovered weight made him appear bigger than he was. Yet his satisfaction was tempered with regret as he spread the blanket out on the earth inside the lodge and began to load Lisana’s treasure onto it. Weight alone would not win him the standing he needed. He’d have to make sacrifices. Likari watched him as he lifted each prize from its concealment under the moss and put it gently on the blanket. When he was finished, he carefully rolled the blanket in such a way that the jewelry and other treasures were securely trapped inside it. He picked it up and heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. “It’s time to go. Are you ready?”

  “Where did you get all those beautiful things?”

  “They used to belong to Lisana.”

  The boy looked extremely uncertain. “It’s dangerous to touch things that once belonged to a Great One.”

  “Unless you are the rightful heir to them. Lisana left these things to me. They are mine now, to do with as I wish. To use as I judge best to use them.”

  The boy stared up at him silently. Soldier’s Boy said nothing more to him about it. I was once again struck by the differences in how I would have regarded a six-year-old boy and how Soldier’s Boy treated Likari. He did not make allowances for the boy’s youth or small size or lesser strength. He did not condescendingly explain his answers to the boy’s childish questions. He simply gave him tasks, and expected that the boy would do his best to meet the requirements. When he failed due to size or age or strength, he did not rebuke him, but merely accepted that the boy would have to grow into them. It was a very different concept of childhood. I wondered if I would have been happier to have been a Speck child.

  I had little time to ponder the question. Soldier’s Boy took Likari’s hand. “Are you ready?” he asked the child, and without waiting for an answer, he set off.

  I was beginning to become familiar with his magic. I comprehended more of the quick-walk than I had before. He drew on Lisana’s memories of the journey to the Trading Place. He thought of the passage there, and in his mind he ran quickly through every impression of the journey that she could recall, in order. A man can think of the journey to a place much more swiftly than his legs can carry him. We traveled at a speed somewhere between the two, not as fast as his mind nor as slow as his legs. Every time he blinked, I saw a different section of our journey before us.

  And when he stopped after what seemed no more than a pleasant walk, we looked out on a wide vista of shale beach. Beyond it, huge waves crashed against the shore, and beyond them was a limitless expanse of water. It was hard for me to comprehend. The water stretched as far as the horizon, a deep blue touched with tips of white. Light bounced from the water up into my eyes. And the sound of the waves crashing on the beach! It filled my ears so that I felt I could hear nothing else. The smell was as engulfing. Its salty musk spoke more of life than even the forest scents had. I had heard tales of the ocean before, but they had not prepared me for this. I could have gazed on it for hours, trying to grasp the immensity of it. No matter how long I live, I do not think I will ever forget that moment. Many small boats were pulled up on the shore. Ships of a type I’d never seen before rode at anchor on the distant slow swell. Some flew banners, but I didn’t recognize any of them. Truly, I stood facing the shores of a different world. Was this what good King Troven dreamed of? Bringing his road here to join Gernia to these trading vessels?

  Soldier’s Boy was undazzled by any of it. “I came too far!” he muttered to himself, and then turned round. Behind us, on a gentle rise beyond the shale beach, was a market town such as I had never seen. I’d expected that the Trading Place would be some sort of crossroads or temporary encampment of several tribes of people. Instead, I looked on a gathering of folk that was easily the equal of the Dark Evening carnival in Old Thares. All sorts of structures—some tentlike, some built of stone, and others hastily constructed of driftwood—formed a long line that paralleled the beachfront. People in all manner of dress and undre
ss wandered the market contentedly. Smoke rose from cooking fires, and despite the sound of the surf at my back, I heard sheep bleating, musical instruments playing, and above it all, the clattering of a thousand tongues. I stared, as astonished by this sight as I had been by the ocean. If this was the ebb of the trading time, what had it been at its fullness?

  Beside Soldier’s Boy, Likari put his hands over the top of his head. He crouched down, squinting his eyes. “Too much sun, too much sun!” he wailed.

  In the same moment, Soldier’s Boy became aware of an itching, burning sensation on his shoulders and the top of his head. Stooping, he seized Likari’s hand. Before the boy could even stand, he was dragged back what seemed like two steps. When next my eyes focused, we were standing in the shelter of an evergreen forest. Peering through the trees, I could see the Trading Place. A long gentle slope of open land led down to it. All around us were the remains of temporary shelters and old campfires. I knew without even thinking about it that this was the area where the Specks customarily camped when they came to trade. It was deserted. The ashes in the fire pits had been rained on. “There you are!” Olikea’s voice came from behind him. Soldier’s Boy turned around. Behind him was a temporary shelter of woven screens. Olikea emerged from the doorway, looking annoyed with him. Despite her grim expression, I felt his mouth go slack at the sight of her. Never had I seen her arrayed as she was now.

  She had dressed herself against the chill wind. I had seen her naked a thousand times; why did covering her body suddenly make her so alluring? Why did it suddenly awaken my own awareness that I was all but naked? She wore what would have been a simple dress on a Gernian woman. It was blue and came down to her ankles. She had paired it with a red apron with white ruffles and embroidered cherries on it. The long sleeves of her dress were full, and the lace cuffs drooped around her hands. On her head, she wore a yellow bonnet elaborately decorated with lace, ribbons, and feathers. Her long hair spilled from under it and poured down her back and around her shoulders. A red silk scarf was loosely wrapped around her throat. As I stared at her, she took little black fingerless mitts from an embroidered green silk bag and drew them onto her hands. “I have been waiting here for you since last night.”