Jo Clayton: Blue Magic

Brann blinked, yawned, scrubbed her hands across her face. She felt extraordinarily good though her mouth tasted like something had died there, she was disagreeably sticky in spots and when she stretched, the comforter brushing like silk across her body, she winced at a number of small sharp twinges from pulled muscles and a bite or two, which only emphasized how very very good she was feeling. She lay still a moment, enjoying a long leisurely yawn, taking pleasure in the solid feel of Dan’s body as her hip moved against his. But she’d never been able to stay abed once she was awake, so she kicked free of the quilts and sat up.

Dan was still deeply asleep, fine black hair twisting about his head, a heavy stubble bluing his chin and cheeks, long silky eyelashes fanned across blue veined skin whose delicacy she hadn’t noticed before. She bent over him, lifted a stray strand of hair away from his mouth, traced the crisp outlines of that mouth with moth-touches of her forefinger. The mouth opened abruptly, teeth closed on her finger. Growling deep in his throat, Dan caught her around the waist, whirled her onto her back and began gnawing at her shoulder, working his way along it to her neck.

Brann dunked a corner of the towel in the basin of cold water, shivered luxuriously as she scrubbed at herself. “The changers are still dormant. I suppose I should wake them.”

“They worked hard and there’s more to do, leave them alone a while yet… mmm… scrub my back?”

“Do mine first. I’d love to wash my hair, but I’m too lazy to heat the water. Dan…?”

“Dan Dan the handyman. How’s that feel?” He rubbed the wet soapy towel vigorously across her back and down her spine, lifted her hair and worked more gently on her neck. When he was finished, he dropped a quick kiss on the curve of her shoulder, traded towels with her and began wiping away the soap.

“Handyman has splendid hands,” she murmured. “Give me a minute more and I’ll do you.”

“Trade you, Bramble, you cook breakfast for us and I’ll haul hot water for your hair.”

“Cozy.” A deep rumbling voice filled with laughter.

Brann whipped round, hands out, reaching toward the huge dark man in a white linen robe who stood a short distance from them.

Dan moved hastily away from her “No use, Brann, it’s only an eidolon.”

“What?” As soon as she said it, she no longer needed an answer, the eidolon had moved a step away and she could see the kitchen fire glow through it.

“Projected image. He’s nowhere near here.” Dan’s voice came from a slight distance, when she looked round, he was coming from the alcove with his trousers and her shirt.

“He can see and hear us?” She took the shirt, pulled it around her and buttoned up the front.

“Out here. If we went into the alcove, no.” He tied off his trouser laces and came to lean against the pump sink beside and a little behind her.

“So,” Brann said, “it’s your move, image. What does he want with us?”

The eidolon lifted a large shapely hand, pointed its forefinger at the alcove.

“NO!” Dan got out half a word and the beginning of a gesture, then sank back, simmering, as the eidolon dropped its arm and laughed.

“Busy busy, baby Dan?” The eidolon folded its arms across its massive chest. “I presume you have cobbled together some means of coping with the landfolk. A small warning to the two of you which you can pass on to your versatile young friends. Don’t touch my folk. I don’t expect an answer to that. What I’ve sent the eidolon for is this, a small bargain. I will refrain from any more attacks against you, I’ll even call off Amortis; you will come direct to me on Deadfire Island.” The eidolon turned its head, yellow eyes shifting from Brann to Danny Blue. Its mouth stretched into a mocking smile. “A bargain that needs no chaffering because you have no choice, the two of you. Come to me because you must and let us finish this thing.” Giving them no time to respond, it vanished.

The table hovered waist high above the flags of the paved yard. Still inverted, its front four legs supported a stiff windbreak made of something that looked rather like waxy glass, another of Danny Blue’s transformations. He sat in the middle of the sled grinning at her; liftsled, that’s what he’d called it and when she told him no sled she’d ever seen looked like that he took it as a compliment. Yaril and Jaril were sitting on the rim of a stone bowl planted with broadleaved shrubs that were looking wrinkled and shopworn (end of the year symptoms or they needed watering); the changers were enjoying ,the performance (hers and Dan’s as well as the table’s).

Brann shivered. The wind was more than chill this morning, it was cold. If those clouds ever let down their load, it would fall as sleet rather than rain, a few degrees more and the Plain might have this year’s first snow. “Yaro, collect us two or three of those quilts, please? And here,” she tossed two golds to Yaril, ‘leave these somewhere the farmwife will find them but a thief would miss. I know we’re gifting the farmer with three fine mules, but he didn’t sew the quilts and he doesn’t use the table we’re walking off with. I know, I know, not walking, flying. You happy now, Dan? Shuh! save your ah hmm wit until we’re somewhere you can back it up. If you need something to occupy you, figure for me how long our flying table will need to get us to Deadfire.”

Danny Blue danced his fingers over the sensors; the table lowered itself smoothly to the flagging. He got to his feet, stretched, stood fingering a small cut the sorcerously sharpened knife had inflicted on him when he used it to shave away his stubble. Ahzurdan jogged my hand, he told Brann, he keeps growling at me that adult males need beards to proclaim their manhood, it’s the one advantage he had over Maksim, he could grow a healthy beard and his teacher couldn’t, the m’darjin blood in him prevented, but I can’t stand fur on my face so all old Ahzurdan can do is twitch a little. He fingered the cut and scowled past Brann at the wooden fence around the kitchen garden.-It’s hard to say, Bramble. Last night, who was it, Yaril, she said we’d reach the mountains late afternoon today, say we were riding, that’s… hmm… what? Sixty, seventy miles? Jay, from this side the hills, how far would you say it is to Deadfire Island?”

Jaril kicked his heels against the pot. “Clouds,” he said. “We couldn’t get high enough to look over the hills.” He closed his eyes. ‘Before we left on the Skia Hetaira,” he said, his voice slow and remembering, “we wanted to get a look down into Maksim’s Citadel, we weren’t paying much attention to the hills… Yaro?” Yaril dumped quilts and pillows onto the table, walked over to him. She settled beside him, her hand light on his shoulder. They sat there quietly a moment communing in their own way, pooling their memories.

Jaril straightened, opened his eyes. “Far as we can remember, those hills ahead are right on the coast. You just have to get through them, then you’re more or less at Silagmatys. About the same distance, I’d say, from here to the hills, from the hills to Deadfire. Maybe a hundred miles altogether, give or take a handful.”

Dan nodded. “I see. Well…” He clasped his hands behind him and considered the table. “If the sled goes like it’s supposed to, flying time’s somewhere between hour and a half, two hours.”

“Instead of two days,” Brann said slowly. She looked up. The heavy clouds hid the sun, there wasn’t even a watery glow to mark its position, the grayed-down light was so diffuse there were no shadows. She moved her shoulders impatiently. “Jay, can you tell what time it is?”

Jaril squinted at the clouds, turned his head slowly until he located the sun. “Half hour before noon.”