Mercedes Lackey: Joust

Not that he had any real faith that his curses would come to pass. Khefti-the-Fat had too many charms hung about his person and his house for the curses of one small serf boy to fly past them and strike home. But it was something to curse the master, a small blow, if only a symbolic one, something more than merely enduring. And there was always the chance that Vetch would, by sheer dint of repetition, or the chance that he contrived a curse that Khefti didn't have a charm against, get some small crumb of discomfort to plague his master past all the protections.

That one small hope was really all that Vetch had, and it was what he lived for.

Yesterday, when Khefti had gone to sleep for his afternoon nap without assigning Vetch a task to follow filling the cistern, Vetch had seized the opportunity to run down to the river and dig raw latas roots to hide under his pallet to eat later. Now, in the dry season, the Great Mother River had shrunk from a fruitful matron to the slimmest of dancing girls, and a languid one at that. The latas was easier to reach, the roots now buried in the mud flats rather than waist-deep in the river water, and crocodiles disinclined to pursue potential prey over the mud flats when so many fish were stranded in ever-shallower pools left behind by the receding Great Mother River. While the latas had been in bloom, the glorious blue flowers rising on their waving stems above the surface of the river, Vetch had mentally noted every patch, so he knew where even the smallest and least accessible clumps were. He had to; he was in competition with every other hungry mouth in the village. Perhaps none were as starved as he, but unlike onions and barley, the roots were free for the digging, and all it took was a stick and determination to get them.

In digging up the roots, he had come across a generous lump of nearly-pure clay, of the sort that Khefti would have been very pleased to see. To Vetch, it had been a treasure as fine as the roots he carried home, for any time that Vetch got his hands on clay, he would make an abshati figure to use to curse Khefti-the-Fat.

He certainly knew most of what there was to know about molding abshati figures, for he heard the instructions bellowed in the ears of Khefti's apprentices, day in, day out. The making of such figures was usually for funerary purposes, not cursing—there was a good living in the making of abshatis to represent the deceased or to supply the spirit with servants in the next life. A good half of Khefti's pottery income came from funerary wares, or replacing such items as went into the tomb from the household stores. Vetch probably could have made abshatis as good as any of those turned out by the apprentices, had Khefti allowed him. But no one would purchase an abshati made by a serf, an Altan, the enemy, lest it carry some sort of subtle curse against Tians that would render the magic the priests would say over it ineffective.

Ordinary mud would not hold the detail he needed to make a good figure, nor would it shatter the way a well-dried statue of clay would. But although his master was a potter, there was no way for Vetch to purloin his clay, for he guarded it as jealously as his tola. Good clay was valuable, and a careful accounting was made of every weighable scrap of it.

This time, through some quirk of good fortune, the figure Vetch had modeled was a particularly good one. He had managed to get the limbs all in the right proportions, and Khefti's bulging belly, ugly frown and perpetually-creased brows just right. Perhaps it was crude, and the face a bit blobby, but anyone who looked at it would surely recognize who it was meant to be. While it was still wet, he had filled the mouth with bits of thistle, and shoved acacia thorns deep into the belly. Then he had set it up on top of the wall in a hidden corner to dry hard in the sun and the kamiseen, and when all of the work was done for the day, because it was such a good likeness, he decided that instead of merely grinding the thing under his heel while chanting his curses, he would try something different.

He had dug a hole in the path in the moonlight and put the figure in it. That way he could tread on it with every bucket hauled to and from the well, reciting the curses in his head. Maybe if he did that enough, one of them would fly home and strike true. Knowing he would put his foot on his master each time he traveled the path kept him going, even in this heat.

The dust that flew up in a puff from under his bare foot as he planted it on the burial spot was nearly the same no-color as his foot itself, coated with dried clay and dust as it was. All the better; cursing was earth-magic, and maybe this time the links would be strong enough to make the curse stick. Vetch had tried, and more than once, to get something of his master's person to put into the figures he made. But Khefti was a coward, always afraid of magic and curses, and was so careful of such things that he never pared his nails without counting all the bits before burning them, and even made his barber burn the hair he'd scraped off the master's misshapen head before Khefti would leave the shop. Well, Khefti was not well-beloved among his neighbors, so perhaps he was right to be so concerned.

Vetch reluctantly took his heel from the spot where the figure lay buried, and heaved the bucket forward another step. His arms ached so much, and his legs were so wobbly from exhaustion that it was all he could do to keep from dropping to his knees in the dust, but he dared not set the bucket down for an actual rest. At any moment, Khefti might awaken from his nap and look out to see if Vetch was working.

Every morning and every afternoon, as long as the kamiseen blew, he filled the drip-cistern that fed the fragile pottery pipes that in turn watered his Tian master's tala plants. The only source of water for the cistern was the Great Mother River or the master's well, and neither was easier than the other to get water from.

If he fetched water from the well, it meant pulling up the water one bucket at a time, bringing up the rope, hand over hand, with the bucket feeling as though it was getting heavier all the time. And the well was (of course) nearly as far from the cistern as the river, though in the opposite direction. The river was marginally farther away, though he would not have to drag the weighty bucket up its rope. But the clear water from the well wouldn't clog the pottery pipes the way that muddy water from the river would, unless Vetch was very careful when he filled the bucket. Being "very careful" meant wading out into the river, up to his knees—which put him in the way of the crocodiles, who would not turn down prey that came so obligingly within their reach.

Vetch hated this bucket, too heavy, too big, too awkward, and if he'd dared, he'd have put a hole in the bottom of it. But if he did, Khefti would probably find something worse for him to use— bigger and heavier, or so small as to be nearly useless.

Tala could only be grown during the dry season, after the Great Mother River had shrunk to a shadow of her wet-season greatness. It only set its berries after the sun-baked fields of wheat and barley were harvested and reduced to bleached stubble and the earth beneath the stubble was riddled with cracks as wide as a man's hand. But tala fruits were worth their weight in electrum, for tala fruits gave the Jousters their ability to control their great dragons.

Dragons… dragons and tala were inseparable. The only reason to grow the tala was because of the dragons, the creatures that were the greatest weapons that the Tians had. Vetch had only ever seen the dragons at a far distance, overhead, flying out from the city of Mefis a little up the river, gold and scarlet, blue and green against the hard, bright blue of the sky. They would have been beautiful, if they were not so terrible.