Jo Clayton: A Gathering Of Stones

H/its power enormously increased, the god reached out and PUT HATS HANDS on them: *Settsimaksimin/Simms s*Brann/WakKerrcarr* *Yaril/Jaril* *Danny Blue/Felsrawg* *Trago* *Korimenei* Wit seized hold of them, turned them to face BinYAHtii. H/it seized hold of the Great Talismans and pulled at them, drawing the stone bearers with them into the heart of the Hexa, drawing them closer and closer to BinYAHtii, chanting all the time in its harsh insectile voices, faster and faster, the force in the machine words (if they were words) increasing, the rhythm more and more compelling.

They fought.

They struggled to join against him.

They could not touch, physically or psychically. The god held them separate, held them that way until h/it managed to bring them to the Hexa-center.

Maksim’s grand basso broke free suddenly, battered at the humming clicking tweeting chant, joined a moment later by the grand baritone of Tak WakKerrcarr, the Voices of Sorceror Primes at their most powerful, most urgent. They slowed the inward creep, they couldn’t stop it.

Closer and closer to BinYAHtii h/it forced them. Maksim’s arm jerked out, out of his control, he held Shaddalakh before him like an offering.

Danny’s arm jerked out, out of his control, he held Kiukesharna before him like an offering.

Brann’s arm jerked out, out of her control, she held Massulit cupped in the palm of her hand, held it like an offering.

Trago’s arms jerked out, out of his control, he held. Harra’s Eye between his two hands, held it like an offering.

Frunzacoache flew out from Korimenei’s breast, dragging her with it as it sought the middle, offering itself.

Yaril and Jaril dissolved from their sphere into twin bipedal shapes, moved side by side, each with an arm about the other’s waist, moved with staggering, reluctant steps toward the middle. Jaril’s arm stretched straight before him, Churrikyoo cupped in the palm of his hand, held like an offering to that demanding red Hunger throbbing at the Hexa-center.

Slowly, inexorably, resisting h/it all the way anyway they could, the stone bearers and their companions drew closer and closer to the HUNGER.

They touched it.

At the same instant the six talismans touched the seventh.

reality dissolves

ego-centers hover in a blinding burning golden featureless nothingness

hang disembodied, self-aware in only the dimmest sense

wait

are aware of waiting without being aware of time

are aware of waiting without being aware of purpose

are finally aware of otherness otherwhereness

six point-nodes of power tremble in a burning featureless nothingness

they begin to move

they swim toward certain ego-centers

they touch certain ego-centers, merge ,with them

ego-centers sense imminent change which is a change in itself

no time has passed

an eternity has passed

nothingness EXPLODES

Danny Blue finished the step he’d started ten subjective years before and nearly tripped over Felsrawg who was crouching on the roadway in front of him. He took her hand, pulled her to her feet.

“What happened?” Felsrawg turned her head from side to side, startled by the strangeness around her. “Where are we?”

“Skinker world, from the look of it.”

‘ •What?”

“Another reality, Felsa, I doubt you’re going to like it. No gods here.”

“Hah, that so. I like it already.” She shied as a skip went groaning past overhead. “What…”

Danny looked from her to the skip vanishing in the distance. What am I going to do with you, he thought. You’re a survivor, but it’ll take some doing to catch up on a good ten millennia of technological development between one breath and the next. He started walking; Felsrawg was still lost in shock and let him get several steps ahead. She gave a sharp exclamation and trotted after him; when she caught up, she walked beside him staring round with interest and uneasiness at an array of vegetation odd enough to start her licking her lips and touching the knives hidden under her long loose sleeves.

She shied again as a ground vehicle clattered past, the Skinker in it turning to stare at them from bulging plum-colored eyes. “Demon!”

Danny scratched at his stubble, sighed. His immediate future looked a lot more interesting than comfortable. “No demon, Felsa. You start acting evil to these Skinkers and I’ll thump you good. This is their world. You hear?”

She scowled at him, shrugged. “Demon,” she said stubbornly, but relented enough to promise a minimal courtesy. “Just keep them away from me. “ -

Gods, Danny thought, xenophobe on top of everything else. He ran a hand though his hair. Tungjii Luck, if I ever go back there, so help me, I swear I’ll put matches to your toes. He jerked to a stop as a tiny Tungjii sitting on an airbubble floated past his nose. The god twiddled hisser fingers, winked and vanished. Danny glanced at Felsrawg, but she was kicking along staring at a pair of hitsatchee posts planted beside an U-tree in bud. He stopped, felt the buds. They still had the fuzz on. Either he was coming back in the same season, maybe the same day in the season, or the time spent in that other reality had gone past between one blip and the next in this. He frowned at the sun. Not quite that fast. It was morning then, it’s near sundown now. If this is the same day, I bet La Kuninga is ready to snatch me… he grinned and smoothed his hand over his thick wavy hair… bald again.

The traffic got heavier; Felsrawg stopped twitching as the groundcars rumbled past, but she was still taut with a feeling half-fear, half-loathing. She kept snatching glances at him as if she expected him to turn into a slick skinned six-limbed hzardoid. When they reached the rim of the town, he stopped her. “Felsa, best thing for you is keep your mouth shut and do what I do. In a way it’s too bad the jump here gave you interlingue, there’s a lot to be said for dumbness covering ignorance.”

She gave him a fulminating look, but dropped a step behind him, even followed him into a ribbajit without corn-

ment. He dropped on the tattered seat, shifted over when a broken spring gave him a half-hearted poke. “Port,” he said and settled back as the jit trundled off.

Felsrawg spread her hand on her knee, exposing the skryrings, watching them from under her lashes.

Danny chuckled. “They won’t read, Felsa. This is a machine, it runs on batteries, not magic. Nothing stranger than a… um… a loom or a waterwheel.”

“There’s nothing to make it move and there’s no driver.”

“It moves, doesn’t it. Go with the flow, Fey.”

She was silent for several minutes as the ribbajit clunked around the edge of the town. “Why am I here, Danny?”

“You want me to explain the multiverse?”

“Fool! You know what I mean. You belong in this place. I don’t. “

He touched the pocket where Klukesharna had somehow inserted itself during the crossing between realities; he had a suspicion the thing had imagined some kind of link between him and Felsrawg just because she was standing beside him in that cave. Typical computer-think if you could even say a hunk of iron could think. “You do now. Better get used to it.”

“Send me back.”

“Can’t. There’s no magic here.” He said that flatly, giving her no room for argument. He believed it mostly, told himself that Tungjii’s wink was imagination, nothing more. The ribbajit clanked to a stop by the hitsatchee posts outside the linkfence that ran around the stretch of metacrete the locals called a starport. “We’re here,” he said. “Come on.”

“What’s here?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go see.”