Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

Matja Allina was stretched in a lounge chair, sipping at a cup of broth when she remembered to, drowsing in the sun, listening to her children play and to the flowing music of the arranga. A maid was massaging her feet, the screens Aghilo had set about her captured the sunlight and the warmth while the sorrowing willow beside her provided enough shade to ease her eyes. Tinoopa was handling the House, there was nothing she could do to avert the trouble coming at them, so she set aside her troubles and let herself enjoy the afternoon.

Kizra was bored.

She hated that nothing music she was tinkling from the arranga, she hated the bugs crawling on her arms, miggas and tarynas and a dozen other kinds of pest, she hated the willow pollen getting in her eyes and up her nose, not quite making her sneeze. And she was cold. She was in deep shadow, close beside the trunk of the willow. No sun for her. And if she stopped playing to slap at the bugs or scratch, she got a fratchetty complaint from the Matja. There was one blessing in all this, she didn’t have to think… she was getting tired of questions and ghosts and wondering…

A small gray-green lizard ran up the trunk; she caught the movement from the corner of her eye, but didn’t really see what it was until he was almost nose to nose with her. She stared at him and he stared back, loose gray-green skin, tiny orange eyes…

Shock jolted through her. She dropped the arranga, cried out.

The lizard ran away and she fainted.

She was out only a moment, opened her eyes to find the girls bending anxiously over her.

“What is it? What happened?” Ingva clutched at her arm, shook it. “Why did you do that?”

Kizra blinked, winced at the pain in her head. She’d hit a knotty root when she went down. Moving stiffly, she sat up. “A lizard,” she said. Her voice was hoarse; saying the word sent more shocks through her. “It scared me.”

“Lizard.” Ingva got to her feet. “Lizard won’t hurt you,” she flung over her shoulder, “Ylie, come on, let the ol’ fraidycat lay there, I got the mocsoc, come see come see…”

Stomach cramping, black spots with tailed halos swimming dizzily in front of her, Kizra pushed up onto her knees. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, she could feel the Matja’s anger, the children’s scorn, the indifference of the housemaids standing like plants in the background-she could feel out beyond them the life in the compound, busy busy life… Everything enormously brighter, stronger, hammering at her… As if some sort of filter had been peeled from her brain…

It was too much.

She knelt hunched over, clutching at herself, nearly out of control… too much… too much…

Matja Allina called her servingmaids to her. With the girls’ help, she sat up. “Jili Arluga,” she said. “Take the girls inside, please. Be quiet, Ingva. You and your sister do what you’re told. I don’t want argument from you, daughter.”

She sat silent as the subdued girls trailed out after their tutor, followed by their serving maids, then she passed a hand across her face. “Chapa Kizra, get yourself together and come here.” Her voice snapped with irritation and impatience. “And think about what you’re going to tell me. I don’t want stupid stories about lizards, you hear me?”

“Yes.” Kizra forced the word out as she groped about for the arranga. When she found it, she wrapped her hand in the carrystrap and got shakily to her feet.

She moved from the shadow of the willow withes and stopped at the foot of the lounge chair.

“Well?”

“I don’t know. What I said was true, Matja Allina. A lizard ran up the tree and frightened me. I don’t know why it did, something in my head, I suppose.” Another shudder passed along her body.

“I see.” With her maids’ help, Matja Allina swung her legs off the lounge and struggled to her feet. “I’ll need you to play for dinner this evening. Will you be able to?”

“Yes, of course.” Kizra spoke quickly, but her voice was still shaking and there was an icy knot in her stomach.

“Not of course.” Old disciplines kicking in-Kizra was one of her charges and due a certain level of consideration-Matja Allina suppressed her irritation. “You need rest.” She frowned at Kizra, eyes moving from the beading of sweat on Kizra’s face to the tight clutch of her hands on the arranga. “I think… yes. I will authorize a hot bath for you. Soak a while, rest in your room. I’ll want you with me an hour before dinner so we can lay out the program. You’ll stay in your room until I send for you?”

“Yes. Of course.” Kizra curtsied, stepped aside to let Allina walk heavily past.

There was a coppery taste in her mouth, the taste of groveling.

Gods. Shadow, you’re a worm… Shadow?

She shivered again, slipped the arranga’s carrystrap over her shoulder, and went inside.

Dyslaera 7: Blood Magic

Azram paced from the ventilation grate to the door-grid, turned and went back, back and forth, back and forth, glancing each time at Kinefray sitting on one of the plank beds.

Kinefray’s ears moved restlessly, his eyes blinked, a muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched erratically. Two hours ago he’d walked into the cell, sat down; he hadn’t said a word since.

Azram sighed, stopped in front of his cousin. “Fray.” Kinefray’s eyes glazed over. He stared past Azram with no further reaction.

Azram extruded the claws on his right hand, touched the tips to the side of Kinefray’s face, running in a shallow arc from the corner of his eye to his jaw just below his mouth. “Fray, listen to me.”

Kinefray moved slightly, retreating from the prick of the claws. After a minute, he blinked, hissed a threat.

Azram stepped back, scowled as Kinefray’s face went empty again. “Oh, Fray,” he said, all his grief in those two words. “I don’t know what to do.”

Savant 4 (speaking to notepad):

It begins to look like we’ve managed to break the very close kin-bond between this subject 3F (native name: Kinefray) and the control subject 3A (native name: Azram)… unfortunately this seems to require large and frequently repeated doses of CPF24sub2 combined with Levastrayin and trace quantities of the ananile called Dragon’s Blood… the result does not justify the expense for anything but purposes of research… the rapid metabolizing of these drugs by this species complicates the study… in addition, there seems a slow deterioration in the physical well-being that we have so far been unable to check, especially when this is combined with the effluents of rage…, see the reports of subject 3Tj (native name: Tejnor)…

NOTE: Final report on 3Tj submitted at this point to the panel of Savants. 3Tj dead of massive cerebral accident during forcible administration of a new drug series. See Flake DDY-37 for details of incident and autopsy.

Azram rolled up his left sleeve, working with meticulous care, getting the folds smooth and even. He cut a deep scratch in his forearm, watched the blood ooze out. Holding his arm level, he got up, crossed to Kinefray’s side of the cell, and dropped beside him.

Kinefray’s ears twitched as the blood smell reached him, but he didn’t look around, just stared at the dusty gray floor.

Azram watched the dark red liquid round into beads on his fur. When he thought there was enough of it, he wiped his hand across it; in a continuation of the same motion, he smeared the blood across his cousin’s face.

Kinefray screamed, lunged up, and leaped at Azram.

Azram ducked away, circled him, batting at the hands reaching for him, claws out. He kept his claws carefully sheathed; at first he was afraid, but his reaction time was unimpeded by drugging, so he was much faster and stronger than his cousin.