Jo Clayton - Blue Magic

“… so , that’s what we want you to do.” She touched the packet resting on her thigh. “Take this to the Drinker of Souls and remind her of her promise. It’ll be dangerous. HE’ll be looking for anyone acting different. Voice told us HE’s got his ariels out, that’s why Tre didn’t want to say much in the shed, he wanted to be where oaksprites were because they don’t like ariels much and chase them whenever they come around. Um, Re got gold from the Chained God’s Place because we knew you’d need it. Um, We’d kinda like you to go as fast as you could, Tre’s got less’n three months before the Signs start popping up. Will you do it?”

Toma rubbed his face with both hands, his breathing hoarse and unsteady. Without speaking, he rested his forearms on his thighs and let his hands dangle as he stared at the ground. Kori watched him, worried. She’d written the message on the parchment, folded it around half the medal, used sewing thread to tie it shut and smeared slathers of sealing wax over it, then she’d knotted a bag about it and made a neck cord for it out of the same thread, and she had the gold in a pouch tied to her belt. Everything was ready, all they needed was Toma. She watched, trying to decide what he was thinking. If she’d been a few years older, if she’d been a boy, with all the things boys were taught that she’d never had a chance to learn, she wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for Toma to make up his mind. She moved her hands impatiently, but said nothing. Either he went or he didn’t and if he went, best it was his own doing so he’d put his heart in it.

A shudder shook him head to toe, he sighed, lifted his head. His eyes had a glassy animal sheen, he was still looking inward, seeing only the images in his head.

He blinked, began to cry, silently, without effort, the tears spilling down his face. “I…” he cleared his throat, “You don’t know… Yes, I’ll go. Yes.” He rolled a sleeve down, scrubbed it across his face, blew his nose into his fingers, wiped them on his pants. “Was Ontari down below? I’ll go for Forkker Vale first, see if I can get on with a smuggler. He knows them.” He tried a grin and when it worked, laughed with excitement and pleasure. “I don’t want to end up like Harra did.”

Kori looked at Trago. Trago nodded. “I was talking to him the day before we come up here. He was working on a saddle, he won’t be going anywhere ‘fore he finishes that.”

Toma nodded. “I’ll go down tonight. He still sleeping in Kalathin’s stable?”

“Uh huh. There’s usually a couple soldiers riding the House Round, but they aren’t too hard to avoid, more often than not they’re drunk, at least that’s what Ontari said.”

“Wouldn’t be you were flitting about when you shouldn’t?”

Trago giggled and didn’t bother denying it.

Kori got to her feet. “We have to be back in time to milk the cows or xera Chittar will skin us. Here.” She tossed the packet to Toma, began untying the gold pouch. “Be careful, cousin.” She held out the pouch. “Oaks are safe, I don’t know what else, maybe you can sneak out, I’m afraid…”

He laughed and hugged her hard, took the pouch, hugged Trago. “You get back to your cows, cousins. I’ll see you when.”

“… Crimpa, Sparrow, White Eye. Chain it, Pre, TWo Spot has run off again. You see any sign of her?”

Trago snorted, capered in a circle. “Un… huh! Un… huh! Slippy Two Spot. Lemme see…” He trotted off.

“Mmf.” Kori tapped Crimpa cow with her switch and started her moving toward the corral; the others fell in around her and plodded placidly across the grass as if they’d never ever had a contrary thought between their horns. A whoop behind her, an indignant mmmoooaaauhh. Two Spot came running from under the trees, head jerking, udder swinging; she slowed, trotted with stiff dignity over to the herd and pushed into the middle of it. Trago came up beside Kori, walked along with her. “She was just wandering around. I don’t know what she thought she was doing.” He yawned extravagantly, rubbed at his eyes, started whistling. He broke off when they reached the corral, slanted a glance up at her. “So we wait.”

“So we wait.”

3 Another Meadow, The Shaynamoshu Pottery On The River Wansheeri, At The Massacre.

SCENE: Late. The Wounded Moon a fat broken crescent rising in the east. A horse streaked with dried foam, trying to graze, having difficulty with the bit. A black-clad youth dead in a pool of blood. Another figure, a woman, crumpled across him. A pale translucent wraithlike figure lying upon her, a second squatting beside them.

An icy wind touched her neck.

Something heavy, metallic slammed into her back. Cold fire flashed up through her.

Heavy breathing, broken in the middle. Faint popping sound.

Her knees folded under her, she saw herself toppling toward the boy’s body, saw the hilt of the knife in his back, saw an exploding flower of blood, saw nothing more.

She was horribly weak, it frightened her how weak she was. The frail weight slid off and Yaril rolled over twice, lay face down on the grass beside the rutted dirt road, very pale, almost transparent. Jaril was colorless too, though he had more substance to him. Brann looked down at herself. She’d lost almost all her flesh, her skin was hanging on her bones. Her hands were shaking and she felt an all-over nausea; chills ran through her body. “What…”

Jaril clicked his tongue impatiently. “No time for that. There’s the horse, Brann, feed us before we go to stone, Yaril’s hanging on a thread. The horse. You can reach it, come on, stand up, I can’t carry you. Hurry, I don’t know how long…”

Trembling and uncertain, Brann hoisted herself onto her feet. Stiff with blood, feces and urine, too big for her now, her skirt fell off her, nearly tripped her; grunting with disgust she dragged her feet free, tottered down to the grazing horse. He started to shy away, but froze when her hand brushed against his flank. She edged closer, set her other hand on his back by the spine, hating what she was doing since she was fond of horses, but she was a lot fonder of the children so she drew the horse’s cool life into herself, easing down beside him as he collapsed, sucking out the last trickle of energy.

Jaril drifted over, dropped to his knees beside her. “We brought some rAhargoats ,” he said. “They’re around somewhere, when we saw you down like that we forgot about them. I’ll chase them over in a while. Horse won’t be enough.” He leaned against her, fragile and weightless as a dessicated leaf.

Brann straightened, twisted around, touched the tips of her fingers to his face, let him draw energy from her. Color flowed across him, pastel pinks and ivories and golds, ash gray spread through his wispy shirt and trousers, from transparent he turned translucent. He made a faint humming sound filled with pleasure, grinned his delight. Brann smiled too, got to her feet. “Get your goats,” she said and started walking heavily up the grassy rise, heading for the road and Yaril. Jaril shifted to his mastiff form, went off to round up the goats.

Yaril lay on the grass, a frail girichild sculpted in glass, naked (she hadn’t bothered to form clothing out of her substance though she clung to the bipedal form and hadn’t retreated to the glimrnersphere that was her baseshape, Brann didn’t know why, the children didn’t talk all that much about themselves) and vulnerable, flickering and fading. Frowning, worried, Brann knelt beside her, stretched out hands that looked grossly vigorous in spite of the skin hanging in folds about the bone, and rested them gently on a body that was more smoke than flesh, letting the remnant of the horse’s energy trickle into it.