Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

“Shadith, Kikun, Autumn Rose. They’ll be here any minute now.”

“Ah.”

Shadith came in, moving with a crackling energy and impatience, even her hair seemed about to explode from her head. She wore traveling gear and her harpcase was slung across her back. She dumped it on the floor beside a chair, flung herself down. “Well?”

Kikun unfaded, kicked a hassock over and sat beside her; he shared her impatience, sat with his orange eyes fixed on Digby as if by will alone he could bring this final conference to its end and be off about the matter that was troubling him now, the freeing of his homeland from its invaders.

Autumn Rose walked in a moment later, glanced quickly around and dropped into a chair beside the door, sat gazing at her hands. They had a newly pampered look, manicured, the skin creamed to a moist delicacy; her tunic was avrishum, a glowing dark blue-green with fine white piping, her trousers wide and flowing, more like a long skirt; she wore silver and takka-azul earrings, matching silver and takka-azul bracelets. Like Shadith, she was ready to go; she’d booked passage on a Gancha Worldship leaving the Transfer Station later today. Back on the Gamer Circuit. This is the last I’ll see of her for a while. Until she gets bored and is ready for a reality connection.

Digby contemplated his guests and thought they looked like the seeds on a ripe and ready pfeffri plant, primed to explode at a touch and scatter to the corners of the universe.

He crossed his legs, tented his hands. “This, my friends, is the denouement, where we tie off dangling ends and get on with our lives. Questions?”

Shadith scratched at her wrist. “Tinoopa. You said you’d take care of her.”

“Right. Tinoopa has been picked up and is on her way to her son, one Jao juhFeyn on Arumda’m.”

Rose leaned forward. “He’s all right, nothing went wrong for him, the Chom you know and Mimishay?”

“Rumors and tall tales, that’s all. He’s as prosperous as before. No trouble, Rose.

She relaxed. “I liked him. Was a good Game we played there.”

Shadith moved her shoulders. “Did Tinoopa give you any messages for me?”

“Yes. She says: Greetings to Kizra. That’s you? Right. She says: They’ve settled into peace at Ghanar Rinta after the last funeral. A very sad thing to see a man in the full flower of his vigor wither and die in less than three months. She says: Utilas sent his second son as guardian to the child; he seems a mild, intelligent youth with the wisdom to let the Matja run things.”

“Ah. Good.”

“You promised me the tale if I brought her out, Singer. I don’t have it yet.”

Shadith unzipped a pocket, took out a flake case and tossed it onto the table beside her. “You do now.”

“Thank you. Questions?”

Miralys glanced at Rohant, then stared down at her hands; she smoothed the back of a claw along the velvet of her robe. “Seyirshi got away. Have you heard anything about him?”

“Not a murmur. You?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Singer, you spent some weeks with him, ’splitting. What do you think, is he going after Voallts again?”

“No.”

“Just no?”

“He has a new project that’s going to require all his attention for a while. He calls it the Fall of Omphalos. He told me about it because he likes the taste of those words.”

“One man?”

“I know what it sounds like. Crazy. But don’t you write him off. I suspect fifty, maybe a hundred years from now, Ginbiryol Seyirshi will be peddling a new Limited Edition and scholars will be prospecting the debris of Omphalos trying to discover what brought them down.”

“Hmm.” Digby dropped his hands on the curved arms of his chair. “Seems to me Omphalos and Ginny deserve each other.”

“Maybe so. Here’s something else to think about. Ginny never forgets an injury.” She turned to the two Dyslaera. “Keep watch on Omphalos, Rohant, you and Miralys. When Omphalos falls, he’ll be back for you.” She straightened. “For all of us.”

“Depressing thought. Let’s end on a high note. Sing for us, Shadow.”

“What?”

“I’ve been jealous of every Bogmakker and traveler who’s heard you perform, Singer. You have your harp and your friend. Sing a dream for us.”

Shadith worked her fingers, looked down at Kikun who’d sat silent through all of this. “What do you think?”

“Drum,” he said and smiled as Digby created a small handdrum and dropped it beside him. “Break the knots,” he said to Shadith, “untie the ends and let us go.”

“All right.”

The brush/tunk of the drum lay down in the ground and beat in the blood, while the notes of the harp were as lush, as brilliant as the patches of crimson and sapphire, emerald and amber the lamps’ light picked out from the paintings, the deep green-blue glows in Rose’s tunic, the warm cream of Miralys’ robe, the brittle white that Rohant wore.

Shadow crooned wordless sounds, her voice rich and flowing. Cool. Caressing. Magical. Like spring rain falling from clouds so high the drops seemed to come from the sun. She had doubted herself. She doubted no more.

They came from the shadows, slender and angular, black and silver similitudes of Naya, Zayalla, Annethi, Itsays, Tallitt and Sullan, spinning threads from themselves in a weave more complex than any she’d tried before, spinning dreams for Autumn Rose, for Miralys and Rohant, even for Digby, dreams she didn’t know, couldn’t know, didn’t want to know. What she wanted was her own dream. What she got was that AND Kikun’s dream blended:

Her sisters danced with pattering feet and busy hands-a strange dance, a dance she didn’t know. And Gaagi Raven came and danced among them, black scales glittering, black wings sweeping among them, closing about each one in an oddly protecting embrace (if it could be called an embrace when neither touched the other), wings closing and spreading, closing about Naya, then Zayalla, then Annethi, then Itsays, then Tallitt, and finally Sullan.

The Joy came then, the Purpose. She sang laughter as she saw Itsays wink at her, saw Naya smile and clap her slender hands, saw Zayalla shake her snaky hips, Annethi dance with Sullan around and around Kikun, and touch his shoulders and bend to touch his hands and dance away in joy, dance in circles about Spash’ats and Jadii Gevas, Xumady and Mask while the Lael-Lenox the Grandmother Ghost pranced in a tight little circle of her own…

Shadow crooned wordless sounds, her voice rich and flowing. Cool. Caressing. Magical. Like spring rain falling from clouds so high the drops seemed to come from the sun.

AUTUMN ROSE saw:

HERSELF in gold and diamonds and pure black avrishum, under a crystal chandelier that gilded the delicate hairs on her ivory forearms. She played Vagnag and across from her, her only mark was her grandfather. The cards came and the dice leaped to her fingers. She stripped him to his skin, laughed at him and went walking out, a man beside her, a shadowy figure without a face who sheltered her and protected her and… loved her.

MIRALYS saw: ROHANT \ AND

ROHANT saw: MIRALYS /

Lissorn with baby S’ragis sitting on his shoulder-dead baby, golden baby-shining in the hot yellow sun. Jesgejarn, young and shining with the vigor of the young. In a ring around them, clan Voallts, the living and the dead, arms on shoulders dancing.

In the sun on the Savannah, Miralys and Rohant danced with their children, the dead children and the living, danced the Varavany about the carcass of a grand bull yrz.