Jo Clayton: Blue Magic

By nightfall they knew the truth of that. Kori fell into bed, but had a hard time sleeping, her arms felt as if someone heavy was pulling, puffing, pulling without letup; they ached, not terribly sore, just terribly uncomfortable; she’d done most of the churning. Eventually she slept and again had no dreams she could remember. She woke, bone sore and close to tears from frustration. At breakfast she looked at Trago, ground her teeth when he shook his head.

A week passed. They were doing about half the milking now and had settled into routine so the housekeeping chores were quickly done and the work in the cheesehouse was considerably easier. Sore muscles had recovered, they’d found the proper rhythm to the tasks and Chittar was pleased with them.

On the seventh night, Zilos came to Trago, told him where to find the cave and what to do with the things he found there.

The hole they were crawling through widened suddenly into a room larger than Owlyn’s threshing floor. Kori lifted the lamp high and stared wide-eyed at the glimmering splendor. Chains hung in graceful curves, one end bolted to a ceiling so high it was lost in the darkness beyond the reach of the lamp, the other end to the wall. Chains crossing and recrossing the space, chains of iron forged on the smithpriest’s anvil and hung in here so long ago all but the lowest links were coated with stone, chains of wood fashioned by the woodworkerpriest’s knives, chains of crystal and saltmarble chiseled by the stonecutterpriest’s tools, centuries of labor given to the cave, taken by the cave to itself. The cold was piercing, the damp crept into her bones as she stared, but it was beautiful and it was awesome.

In the center of the chamber a square platform of polished wood sat on stone blocks a foot off the stone floor, above it, held up by intricately carved wooden posts, a canopy of white jade, thin and translucent as the finest porcelain, in the center of the platform a chest made from kedron wood without any carving on it, the elegant shape and the wonderful gloss of the wood all the ornament it needed. “I suppose that’s it,” she said. She shivered as her voice broke the silence; it was such a little sound, like a mosquito’s whine and made her feel small and fragile as a mosquito, as if a mighty hand might slap down any moment and wipe her away. She set the lamp on the floor and waited.

Trago glanced at her, but said nothing. After a moment’s hesitation he moved cautiously across the uneven floor, jumped up onto the platform. Uncertain of the properties involved, Kori didn’t follow him; she waited on the chamber floor, leaning against one of the corner posts, watching as he chewed on his lip and frowned at the polished platform with its intricate inlaid design. He looked over his shoulder. “You think I ought to take off my sandals?”

She spread her hands. “You know more than me about that.”

Nothing happened, so he walked cautiously to the chest. He turned the lid back, froze, seemed to stop breathing, still, statue still, inert as the stone around him. Kori gasped, started to go to him, but something slippery as oiled glass pushed her back, wouldn’t let her onto the platform. She clawed at the thing, screamed, “Tre, what is it, Tre, say something, Trл, let him go, you… you… you…”

Trago stirred, make a small catching sound as if his throat unlocked and he could breathe again. Kori shuddered, then leaned against the post and rubbed at her throat, reassured but still barred from the platform. He knelt before the chest and began taking things out of it, setting them beside his knees, things that blurred so she couldn’t tell what they were, though she knew the crystal when he held it up; he brought it over to her, reached through the barrier and gave it to her, solemn, silent, his face blurred too (the look of it frightened her). Seeming to understand her unease, he gave her a smoky smile, then he returned to the chest, seemed to put something around his neck, (for Kori, impression of a chain with a smoky oval hanging from it) and he seemed to put something in his pocket (a fleeting impression of a short needleblade and an ebony hilt with a red crystal set into it, an even more evanescent impression of something held behind it). He returned the other things to the chest and shut the lid.

Abruptly the barrier was gone. Kori stepped back, clutching the crystal against her stomach, holding it with both hands. Trago sat on the chest and kicked his heels against it. “Come on, Kori, it’s not so damp up here. Or cold. And bring the lamp.”

Kori looked down at the crystal, then over her shoulder at the lamp. She wasn’t happy about that chest, but this was Tre-s place now; she was an intruder, but he belonged here. Holding the sphere against her with one hand, she carried the lamp to the platform, hesitated a breath or two, long enough to make Tre frown at her, managed to step up on the platform without dropping either the lamp or the crystal sphere. “You sure this is all right, Tre’?”

He nodded, grinned at her. “It isn’t all bad, Kori, this being a priest I mean. Anything I want to do in here, I can. Um…” He lost his grin. “I hope it doesn’t take long, we got to get back before xera Chittar knows we left.”

“I know. Take this.” When he had the lamp, she settled to the platform, sitting cross-legged with her back to the chest. She rubbed the crystal sphere on her shirt, held it cupped into her hands. “Find the stillness,” she said aloud, “draw will out of stillness, then look. -She closed her eyes and tried to chase everything from her mind; a few breaths later she knew that wasn’t going to work, but there was a thing AuntNurse taught her to do whenever her body and mind wouldn’t turn off and let her sleep; she was to find a Place and began building an image of it in her mind, detail by detail, texture, odor, color, movement. When she was about five, she found a safe hide and went there when she was escaping punishment or was angry at someone or hurt or feeling wretched, she went there when her mother died, she went there when one of her small cousins choked on a bone and died in her arms, she went there whenever she needed to think. It was halfway up the ancient oak in a crotch where three great limbs separated from the trunk. She lined the hollow there with dead leaves and thistle fluff, making a nest like a bird did. It was warm and hidden, nothing bad could ever happen to her there, she could feel the great limbs moving slowly, ponderously beneath and around her like arms rocking her, she could smell the pungent dark friendly odor of the leaves and the bark, the stiff dark green leaves still on their stems whispered around her until she felt she almost understood what the tree said. Now she built that Place around her, built it with all the intensity she was capable of, shutting out fear and uncertainty and need, until she rocked in the arms of the tree, sat in the arms of the tree cuddling a fragment of moonlight in her arms. She gazed into the sphere, into the silver heart of it and drew will out of stillness. “Drinker of Souls,” she whispered to the sphere, in her voice the murmur of oak leaves, “Show her to me. Where is she?”

An image bloomed in the silver heart. An old woman, white hair twisted into a heavy straggly knot on top her head. Her sleeves were rolled up, showing pale heavy forearms. She was chopping wood, with neat powerful swings of the ax, every stroke counting, every stroke going precisely where she wanted, long long years of working like that evident in the economy of her movements. She set the ax aside, gathered lengths of wood into a bundle and carried them to a mounded kiln. She pulled the stoking doors open, fed in the wood, brought more bundles of wood, working around the kiln until she had resupplied all the doors. Then she went back to chopping wood. A voice spoke in Kori’s head, a male voice, a light tenor with a hint of laughter in it that she didn’t understand; she didn’t know the voice but suspected it was the Chained God or one of his messengers. *Brann of Arth Slya,* it said, *Drinker of Souls and potter of note. Ask in Jade Halimm about the Potter of Shaynamoshu. Send her half the medal. Keep the other half yourself and match the two when you meet. Take care how you talk about the Drinker of Souls away from this place. One whose name I won’t mention stirs in his sleep and wakes, knowing something is happening here, that someone is working against him. Even now he casts his ariel surrogates this way. If you have occasion to say anything dangerous, stay close to an oak, the sprites will drive his ariels away. Fare well and wisely, young Kori; you work alone, there’s no one can help you but you. *