Jo Clayton: Blue Magic

The changechild’s substance thickened and her color began returning, at first more guessed at than seen like inks thinned with much water, but gradually stronger as Brann continued to feed energy into her. When a dog barked and goats blatted, Yaril’s eyes opened. She blinked, slow deliberate movements of her eyelids, managed a faint smile.

Jaril-Mastiff herded the goats over to her. Brann fed their energy to him and Yaril until they lost their frailty, then used the last of it to readjust herself, rebuilding some of the muscle, tightening her skin, shedding the appearance of age until her body was much what it had been when she and Harra Hazani had played Slya’s games so long ago. The changechildren had grown her from eleven to her mid-twenties over a single night back then and all her hair fell out. Remembering that, she shook her head vigorously; most of her hair flew off; she wiped away the rest of it. Bald as an egg. She rubbed her hand over skin smooth as polished marble. Ah well, maybe it’ll grow back as fast this time as it did that. She looked down at the dead boy, stooped, grunting with the effort and took the knife from his body, straightened with another grunt, held it up. A strange knife, might have been made of ice from the look of it. As she turned it over, examining it in the dim light from the moon, it melted into air. She whistled with surprise.

Jaril nodded. “The one that was in you did the same thing.”

Braun laughed, wiped her hand on her blouse. “They weren’t souvenirs I wanted to keep.” She started for the house. “Shuh, I need a bath.” A sniff and a grimace. “Several baths. And I’m hollow enough to eat those goats raw what’s left of them.” Another laugh. “I didn’t know how hungry it makes you-dying, I mean. It’s not every day I die.”

“You weren’t actually dead,” Jaril said seriously. “If you were dead, we couldn’t bring you back.”

“Was a joke, Jay.”

He made a face. “Not much of a joke for us, Bramble. Starving to death is no fun.”

“You made me, you could find someone else and change them.”

“We made you with a lot of help from Slya, Brann, we didn’t do it on our own. I doubt she’d bother another time.”

“Mmm. Well, I’m not dead and you’re not going to starve. Uh…” She clutched at herself, started to turn back.

Yaril caught her arm, stopped her. “This what you want?” She held out a small bloodstained packet. “I found it lying beside me. You think it’s important?”

“Seems to me this is what got the boy killed and me…” she smiled at Jaril, “… nearly.” She closed her fingers about the packet. “It stinks of magic, kids. Makes me nervous. Somebody called up tigermen and whipped them here to make sure I didn’t open it. I don’t like mixing with sorcerors and such.”

“Who?”

Brann tossed the packet up, caught it, weighed it thoughtfully. “Heavy. Hmm. No doubt the answer’s in here. While I’m stoking up the fire under the bathtub and scrubbing off my stink, the two of you might take a look at this thing.’ She held out the packet and Yaril took it. “And I wouldn’t mind if you fixed me a bit of dinner.”

Jaril chuckled. “Return the favor, hmm?”

After scrubbing off the worst of her body’s reaction to its own violent death, cold water making her shiver, and adding more wood to the fire under the brick tub, Brann climbed to the attic and pulled the gummed paper off the chest that held her old clothes. When she stopped wandering nearly a century ago and moved into the shed behind the house, she had to bow to Dayan Acsic’s prejudices and pack her trousers away. She was a woman. Women in Jade Torat wore skirts. His one concession was this chest. When she came back with the proper clothing, he let her put her shirts and trousers and the rest of her gear in the chest, gave her aromatics to keep moths and other nuisances away and gummed paper to seal the cracks, then he shouldered the chest and carried it to the attic, tough old root of a man, and that was that.

She turned back the lid, wrinkled her nose at the smell; it was powerful and peculiar. She excavated a shirt and a pair of trousers, then some underclothing. The blouse was yellowed and weakened by age, the black of the trousers had the greenish patina of decades of mildew. “Ah well, they only need to cover me till I reach Jade Halirnm.” She hung the clothing in the window so it would air out and with a little luck lose some of the smell, retied the sash to her robe and climbed back down.

The water was hot. She raked out the firebox, tipped the coals, ash and unburned wood into an iron brazier and climbed into the water.

When she padded into the kitchen, sleepy, filled with well-being, the changechildren had salad and rice and goat stew ready for her and a pot of tea steaming on the stand. Jaril had dug out Brann’s bottle of plum brandy; he and Yaril were sitting on stools and sipping at the rich golden liquid. The parchment was unfolded, sitting crumpled on the table, held down with a triangular bit of bronze.

Brann raised a brow, sat and began eating. Time passed. Warm odorous time. Finally she sighed, wiped her mouth, poured a bowl of tea and slumped back in her chair. “So. What’s that about?” She smiled. “If you’re sober enough to see straight.”

Yaril patted a yawn with delicate grace; since she didn’t breathe, the gesture was a touch sarcastic. She set her glass down, licked sticky fingers, brushed aside the chunk of metal and lifted the parchment. “First thing, these are Cheonea glyphs.”

“Cheonea? Where’s that? Never heard of it.”

“A way west of here. A month by ship, if it’s moderately fast. On the far side of Phras.” Jaril sipped at the brandy. “Almost an island. Shaped like a hand with a thready wrist. We were there a year ago. Didn’t stay long, one city the usual sort of seaport, farms and mountains and a smuggler’s haven. Not very interesting. They kicked their king out a few decades back, from what I heard, he was no loss, but they got landed with a Sorceror who seems to think he’s got the answer to the riddle of life.” He reached for the bronze piece, tossed it to Brann. “Take a good look at that.”

She caught it with her free hand. “Why not just tell me…” She set the tea bowl down, began examining the triangle. Temueng script. On one side part of the Emperor’s sigil, on the other part of a name. “… ra Hazani. The boy said something, um, let me remember… Harra… no, we the blood of Harra Hazani say to you, remember what you swore. This is half of one of those credeens the Maratullik struck off for Taguiloa and the rest of us. You remember those?”

Jaril grimaced. “We should.”

Brann rubbed her thumb over the bronze. “I know.” She’d had a choice then, Slya’s sly malice set it for her, she could protect Taguiloa and the other players or send the changechildren home. She chose the players because they were the most vulnerable and accepted responsibility for keeping the children fed, though she hadn’t really realized what that meant. Her own bronze credeen was around somewhere, likely at the bottom of the chest with the rest of her old clothes. “What’s the letter say?”

Yaril lifted the parchment. “Took us a while to decipher it, we didn’t pay that much attention to the written language when we were there. So, a lot of this is guess and twist till it seems to fit. We think it’s a young girl writing, there are some squiggles after her name that might be determinatives expressing age and sex. She seems to be called Kori Piyolss of Owlyn Vale. She calls on the Drinker of Souls to remember her promise, that she’d come from the ends of the earth to help the Children of Harra. Harra married Kori’s great great etc. grandfather and passed the promise on. Kori says she wouldn’t use Harra’s gift on anything unimportant, that you, Brann, must believe that. Someone close and dear to her faces a horrible death, everyone in the Vale lives in fear of He who sits in the Citadel of Silagamatys. That’s the city Jaril was talking about, the only settlement in Cheonea big enough to call a city, a port on the south coast. She asks you to meet her there on the seventeenth day of Theriste. Mmm. That’s thirty-seven days from now, no from yesterday, it’s almost dawn, um, if I remember their dating system correctly. Meet her in a tavern called the Blue Seamaid. She’ll be along after dark and she’ll have the rest of the credeen. She can’t write more about her plans in case this letter falls into the hands of Him. Got a heavy slash of ink under that him. You made the promise, Brann.” She grinned. “And very drunk out it was. You remember, the party Taguiloa threw for the whole quarter when we got back from Andurya Durat.” She pushed ash blond hair off her face. “Going to keep it?”