Jo Clayton - A Gathering Of Stones

His half-sires began wrestling with him and each other again, leaving his brain a muck of half-thoughts, half-desires, half-terrors.

Impatient and angry, he swore aloud, backed off a few steps, then took a running leap into the center of the Hexa. With a smooth continuation of the, motion, he bent and grabbed for the chain, planning to straighten and leap again as soon as he had it. -

His hand passed over a surface like glass. He couldn’t touch the talisman. He thought suddenly, No dust, there’s no dust on…

– He dropped a few inches, stumbled and fell to his hands and knees on black sand.

He got to his feet, brushed sand off his knees and hands. To his left, diminishing black hills curved around a placid bay. The sun was low enough in the west to glare into his eyes and dazzle off wrinkle-waves. He knew this place. “Haven Bay,” he said aloud.

There was a ship anchored out near the narrow mouth of the bay, a sleek black hull with a green and black port flag snapping in the wind. I know that ship, he told himself. He scowled at it, disconcerted. Unless she has a twin, that’s the Skia Hetaira. What’s going on here..?

He shook his head and starting trudging along the beach, heading for Haven Village, out of sight around a bulge in the foothills.

The corral was empty. The erratic wind lifted then dropped clouds of ancient dry manure and sent the gate creaking on its cracking leather hinges. The stable doors gaped wide; several of the windows were cracked or broken; all of them were smeared with gray dust and veiled with dusty cobwebs. The cottage beyond had lost part of its thatching. Like the stable, its door was open and a litter of leaves, twigs and dirt had been blown through the gap into the kitchen beyond.

Danny Blue walked along the rutted street, frowning and nervous. The village was deserted; it looked like it’d been empty for years. He had a chilly feeling he knew what had happened to the people living here; that freaking Ratbait had fed them to the Stone. BinYAHtii. Haven was as dead as the god was going to be. Danny smiled at the thought, then shivered, thinking about the hook the god had set in him; he was afraid his fate was linked somehow with that abomination.

He came round a curve and saw a pale skim of yellow lantern light laid out across the ruts; it came through the open door of a tavern. He hesitated, glanced toward the bay. He couldn’t see it now, but nodded anyway. Someone off the ship. He stepped through the door.

Lio Laux was perched on a stool at the bar, a lantern beside him, the only light in that stale dessicated room. There was an open bottle and a tankard at his side. He was sitting with his elbows on the bar, his bare feet hanging loose beside the legs of the stool. He wasn’t drunk, but elevated enough to watch the mirror with philosophic melancholy as Danny Blue walked toward him.

Danny dusted off another stool, wiped his hand on his pants and sat down. “No one about.”

There was a flicker as Laux moved his head slightly; his silver and moss agate ear dangle shivered in the lantern light. The light touched his ancient dark eyes, snuffed out as horny eyelids closed to slits. “No.” After a moment, he added. “You live round here?”

“Just passing through. There another of those tankards left?”

“Ahind the bar.”

“Ah.” Danny slid off the stool, sauntered around the end of the bar and squatted so he could inspect the cluttered, dusty shelves. It looked very much like the proprietor stepped out for a breath of air and never came back. He found a tankard; it was thick with dust so he hunted some more until he discovered some clean rags in a tilt-out bin.

When he was back on his stool, he filled the tankard from Laux’s bottle, took an exploratory sip, then a larger gulp. “That your ship?”

Danny saw ivory glints as the old man’s eyes darted toward him and away; Laux was puzzled by a vague sense that the two of them had met before, but he couldn’t pin down time or place. He had plenty of reason to remember Ahzurdan and Daniel Akamarino and Danny had something of each in his face and form. The resemblance to either wasn’t all that strong, but it was there, a family likeness as it were.

“Yah. Looking for passage?”

“Might be, say we can do a deal.”

“What you got to offer?”

“I could whistle a wind should you be wanting one. And I can do another thing or two if the need arises.”

“Wizard, mage?”

“Nothing so grand. A bit of Talent, that’s all.”

“You set wards?”

“Yah.”

“How far you want to go?”

“Next port bigger’n this.”

“‘S a deal. You ward if we need it, give us a wind if we draw a calm, take a hand if we run into sharks round the Ottvenutt shoals. And I’ll carry you on crew as far as Dirge Arsuid, that’s ten days west of here. It’s a chancy port, but you won’t have to sit around long, there’s a lot of trade in and out this time o year, take you just about anywhere you want.”

“Good enough.”

Laux drained his tankard, his ear dangle clattering musically as he tilted his head. He squinted at the bottle; there was half an inch of wine left in it, wine thick with wax and wing. “Reach me another of those bottles… ah… what do we call you, man?”

“Lazul, Laz for short.”

“And while you’re ahind the bar, hunt out the biggest of those rags, Laz. I wave that out the end of the pier, my second’ll come fetch us.”

Danny took one of the dusty bottles lined up below the mirror, set it on the bar. “Need something to open that?

“Got something.” Laux drew the cork, sniffed at the neck, poured a dollop into his tankard and tasted it. He grunted with satisfaction and filled the tankard. “Found that rag?”

Danny shook out a gray-white rectangle that might once have been a flour sack. “This do?”

“Should. Toss it over. You been here before?”

“First time.”

Laux sucked at his teeth, tilted his tankard and contemplated the dark red wine. “Haven’t been here for some years now,” he murmured, talking more to himself than to Danny Blue. “It was quiet, the glory days were gone, long gone… time was there was near a thousand here, a dozen taverns, a casino, the place wide open day and night… yah, it was quiet when I was here last, but not so quiet as this. Two/three hundred people hereabouts, more down along the inlet. Don’t know about them, maybe they’re still around. You see anyone?”

“No.”

“Mmh. Funny. The notion come to me one night, I ought to go see Haven again. Don’t know why. Just something I ought to do. Wish I hadn’t.”

“Know what you mean.” Danny put his elbows on the bar beside the rag, scowled into the tankard Laux shoved across to him. The wine was past its peak, but it wasn’t that put the sour taste in his mouth. It didn’t take a lot of thinking to see why Laux and his ship were here right now. Jerking my string, he thought. Whatever it takes, I swear I’m pulling that hook out. He gulped at the wine, wiped his hand across his mouth. “Any reason you’re hanging about? Tides or something?”

“Ah the vastness of your ignorance, young Laz.” Old

Laux grinned at him, shook his head. He sobered, looked depressed. “Crew took a look round an hour ago. Got spooked and left. I told them to fetch me come sundown, I wanted to poke about some more. Haaankh.” Having cleared his throat, Laux spat the result into the dust on the floor. “Being you’re over there, shove a couple bottles in the pockets of that thing you’re wearing and push another couple across to me. I saw a vest like that once, some years back. Never seen another.”

“Gotcha. Never saw another myself. Could be it’s the same one. I picked it up in Kukurul Market a little over a year ago.”