Jo Clayton - A Gathering Of Stones

“You’ll need some skirts too,” Firtina said thoughtfully. “Boots, riding gear, a cloak, hmmm…”

“Skirts, gah. No.”

“Don’t be stupid, Kri. You know well enough there are places where a woman gets stoned if she’s not in skirts. It’s better to be tactful than dead. Besides, a skirt can feel nice fluttering about your ankles, make you feel elegant and graceful.”

“Gah.”

“Don’t bother then. go home and wear your trousers chasing after cows.”

“Double gah.”

“It’s a cold cruel world out there that the Shahntien’s going to boot you into. By the by, when’s the parturition due?”

“Two, three days, depends on when I can get passage out.”

They passed through a narrow arch in a thin, inner wall, into nto the rectangular formal garden at the front of the school and strolled toward the main gate. Short-stemmed asters were masses of pink and purple, yellow and vermilion; white tuokeries foamed around them. Manicured to an exquisite polish, oaks and cedars and plum trees grew alone or in carefully balanced groups of three. Patches of lawn like rough velvet changed color as a chancy wind blew blades of grass about. The paving stones in the curved walks were cut and placed so the veining in the marble flowed in a subtle endless dance of line and stipple. There was a foun-

taro at the golden section; it was a sundragon carved from clear crystal spitting a stream of water from a snout raised to the sky. Korimenei and Firtina fell silent as they passed into this garden, respecting its ancient peace.

The porter came from his hutch, read their senior status from the badges, and opened the wicket to let them through into the city.

The street outside the school was a cobbled lane rambling between graceful lacy mimosas growing in front of walls that closed in the villas of the richest and most important Hina merchants. Ghosts were caught like cobwebs in the bending branches; they stirred, twitched, flapped loose for the moment to flutter about the heads of every passerby; they struggled to scream their complaints, but produced only a high irritating whine like a cloud of mosquitoes on a hot summer night. Though they refused to banish the haunts, considering exorcism a kind of murder, Kula priests working out of the Temple wove a semiannual mute spell over these remnants. The merchants had to suffer the embarrassment of the haunting (everyone knew that earthsouls only hung around those who injured them or their kin), but escaped more acute indictments by paying for the Kula muterites. Ignoring the eroding souls, Korimenei and Firtina walked north toward the Temple Plaza.

“So.” Firtina clasped her hands behind her and looked up at Korimenei who was the taller by more than a head. “Are you looking for a Master, or is that already fixed up, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“I don’t know. It’s like going home, I’ve got to do it sooner or later, but there’s no hurry about it.” Her mouth tilted into a crooked smile. “After all, I’ve got to visit you first and you won’t be home for half a year or more.”

“Ooh ooh ooh,” Firtina chanted. She pinched Korimenei’s arm and danced away as Kori slapped at her, swung round and danced backward along the lane. “While I’m waiting for that treat, where’ll you be? North or south?”

“I thought I’d go south a bit, Kukurul maybe.”

“Then you want light stuff.” Firtina waited for Korimenei to come up with her, walked beside her. “Cottons and silks, nothing to make you sweat.”

“Well…” Korimenei fidgeted uncomfortably; she loathed having to hedge every statement, but what could she do? “I’d better have some winter things too. There’ll be moun-

tains, I’m pining for mountains, it can get cold in mountain vales, even southern ones, come the winter.”

“Mmh-hmm. Fur?”

“Extravagance. Good wool and silk will do me.” For a few steps she brooded over the idea of fur, then shook her head, her fine curls bouncing. “Definitely not fur.” She bent a shoulder and touched the lump that was Ailiki asleep in the pocket.

They went on without talking through a shadow-mottled silence; no city noise came this high. The crunch of their feet, the soft flutter of the mimosa fronds and the whine from the ghosts only underlined the peace in the lane. It was one of those golden autumn days when the air was like silk and smelled like potpourri, something in it that bubbled the blood and made the feet dance.

Korimenei and Firtina came out of the quiet of the lane into the bustle and noise of the Temple Plaza like bathers inching into the sea. It wasn’t one of the major feastdays, but the Plaza was filled with celebrants and questers, with merchants looking for a blessing on their cargoes or a farsearch to locate late ships, with mothers of unwed daughters dancing bridal pavannes for Tungjii and Jah’takash, with pickpockets, cutpurses, swindlers, sellers of magic books, treasure maps and assorted other counterfeit esoterica, with promisers and procurers, with lay beggars and holy beggars, with preachers and yogin and vowmen in exaggerated poses, with dancers and jugglers and players of all sorts, with families up for an afternoon’s half-holiday, come to watch the evershifting show, with students sneaking an hour’s release from discipline, or earnestly questioning Temple visitors, with folk from every part of the known world, Hina and Temueng locals, westerners (Phrasi, Suadi, Gallinasi, Eirsan, Henermen), southerners from the Downbelow continent (Harpish, Vioshyn, Fellhiddin, M’darjin, Matamulli), Islanders from the east (Croaldhese, Djelaan, Panday, Pitnajoggrese), others from lands so far off even the Temple didn’t know them, all come to seek the Grand Temple of Silili, Navel of the World, the One Place Where All Gods Speak.

Korimenei and Firtina edged into the swirling chaos on the Plaza and went winding through it toward the Temple. A pickpocket attracted by the bulge in Kori’s thighpocket bumped against her; he suppressed a scream of pain as Ailiki bit him, let the press of the crowd whirl him away from them. Frit grinned, twitched plump hips in a sketch of a dance, jerked her thumb up. Kori shook her head at her, amused by her friend’s exuberance and the pickpocket’s optimism; she knew better than to carry coin in any pocket she could get into without unbuttoning something. They eeled through the mob on the wide shallow stairs going up to the Temple, passed in through the vast arches.

They dropped coppers through a slot and accepted incense sticks from the acolyte. Firtina lit hers and divided them between Isayana and Erdoj’vak, the land spirit of her homeplace. She bobbed a bow or two, then followed Kori from Geidranay to Isayana to the little alcove where Tungjii’s image was. Kori thrust the last of her incense sticks into the urn between hisser turned-up toes, then rubbed hisserbelly for luck; for a moment she let herself remember her Ordeal, then she pushed away the troubling images, laughed, and followed Frit into the light.

They plunged into the market, bought wool and silk, linen and cotton, Frit taking the lead and Kori backing her, bargaining energetically and vociferously with the vendors. A sewing woman next, a quick measure and a more protracted back-and-forth over styles and cost. Bootmaker. Glover. Perfumer for soaps, creams and scents. Saddlemaker for pouches to hold all the above.

When they were finished, they sat over tea in the Rannawai Harral and watched the sun go down. Geidranay was a golden shadow against the sun, squatting among the mountaintops, his fingers busy among the pines; a translucent sundragon undulated above the horizon for a while, then vanished behind a low flat layer of clouds; the Godalau surfaced out beyond the boats of the Woda-an, and played among the waves, her long white fingers catching the last of the sunlight, her saucy tail glinting as if its scales were plates of jade.