Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

Out in the courtyard, where Areia One-eye had deposited her to keep her out of the way of the cleaning, Faan crawled under a flowering bush, stretched out on her stomach with her doll under her arm, and watched the fountain frogs jump about. She liked frogs. She’d forgot her temperstorm-for a while, anyway. Put it aside until Reyna came home. Ailiki was prowling about the bushes, pouncing on grasshoppers and eating them.

Two of Utsapisha’s granddaughters came hurrying across the court with bundles on their heads, chattering with animation and completely forgetting to close the doors behind them.

. and Dahlina just stood there lookin’ like a fish with heaves.”

“Yeh, y’ know, the Pigg was doing it with Tohlin all the time Dah was thinking he was after her.”

“Th’ Pigg! chooee, chooee, who’d want that loser…”

Their voices faded as they wound through the house. Faan crawled out and trotted after them.

Still chattering, they swept out the back door. Utsapisha was dozing in the armchair Panote had brought her. She twitched as her granddaughters passed, but didn’t open her eyes. Panote was gone for the moment, fetching a mug of tea for her.

The door was open, the morning crisp and bright and beckoning.

Faan followed the girls out and down Vallaree Wynd, the rutted unpaved lane at the back of the House.

Ailiki lolloped along after her, running off to nose at the patches of grass and weeds growing in a dun and gray-green strip along back walls and rickety pole fences and send small lives skittering off in terror; she came trotting back, sniffed at Faan’s legs, followed her a while, then veered off to run up a pole to a second floor balcony and peer in through the windows there. She danced along the balcony’s rail, leapt across to the roof next door, came down to the alley by way of a dry and dying vine, ran back to follow Faan again.

There was a burnt-out building rotting back to earth around a bend in the wynd, with children playing in the weeds and mud where the house had been, girls six, seven, eight years old. Faan stopped to watch; she’d never met children before, all her life she’d lived with adults. The girls stopped their screaming and chasing about to stare at her, then went back to their game.

Faan walked toward them, talking as she plowed through the weeds, mixing words she’d got from her mother and words she’d picked up from the Kassian and the others at the House. “Troks,” she said. “To de’mai. Ball. Me.” She reached for the battered wooden sphere as it hit the ground by her feet, but one of the girls running after it pushed her roughly aside, knocking her down. The girl scooped up the ball and threw it. An older girl ran past Faan, came back and picked her up, shoved her toward the wynd. “Go way, baby,” she said, “you too little, we don’ want you.” She ran back to the game.

Faan stood in the weeds with her mouth open. She started to cry, but no one came to soothe her. The children ignored her, the wynd was empty of adults, the granddaughters with their bundles had turned off somewhere. She stopped crying after a few minutes, then picked her way over the ruts and stood in the middle of the wynd looking around. She couldn’t see the Bee-house, but Ailiki was nearby and she had her doll. She brushed it off. “Dirty girl. Bad. Angry with you, baby.”

Clutching the doll to her ribs, she went confidently off down the wynd. Someone always turned up when she needed help.

The sounds of the game died behind her. The backs of the houses were shut tight. A ragged, stinking old man was sprawled along a wall, his mouth open with flies walking in and out of it. She moved as far from him as she could. “Dirty,” she said to the doll. She was getting tired and hungry; she wanted Reyna Ma-may to come get her and cuddle her and feed her honey-sweetened milky coffee as he did sometimes. She held her doll out in front of her and shook it. “Bad baby,”

she said Ailiki came lalloping back to her and rubbed against her ankles, her fur soft and tickling. Faan tried to start walking again, but Ailiki was in front of her, leaning into her legs, trying to turn her so she’d go back the way she’d come.

She leaned down, tried to push Ailiki out of her way, overbalanced, fell heavily on her hands and knees, dropping the doll. “Bad Liki,” she said. She groped for the doll, got laboriously onto her feet, and went trudging on down the Wynd.

Ailiki sat on her haunches and whined, but Faan ignored her. The mahsar groaned and trotted after her.

The Pigg and his gang were scruffing down a side wynd, tempers on quick trigger. Tricky and his scourings had stomped them again last night, forced them to turn tail and get away any way they could. They were simmering with rage and humiliation. It didn’t help that younger children leaned out from upper-story windows, yelling names at them, smacking their lips in the shame-shame noise, pointing their fingers, and laughing.

They turned into the wynd, wrestling and hitting at each other, flaring into brief shouting matches that the Pigg fisted into grudging silence, kicking at the dirt, whistling, cursing, a mob of knobby knees and flying elbows, violence barely contained.

Faan came round a bend of the wynd, dragging her doll by one ann.

The boys surged in a dark herd about her, mocking her, pulling at her hair. One of them snatched her doll away, laughed at her outraged yell, threw it to another boy; she ran after it; he threw it to a third. Frightened and angry and helpless, she started crying.

The Pigg laughed, snatched the doll, took hold of it by its china legs and slammed it against a wall, shattering the head and arms, tearing the body so the aro-

.

matic wood shavings spilled across the weeds at the base of the wall. He swung the rag that was left about his head and flung it away, then he grabbed at Faan, caught hold of her hair, and jerked her off her feet.

She screamed.

Ailiki screamed, ran at the Pigg, black lips curled back over her teeth.

The Pigg’s lieutenant kicked at Ailiki, missed; Pigg kicked and caught the little beast in mid-shift; he sent the mahsar flying up and over the other boys.

And the road cracked open and huge gray shapeless forms rose from the earth, writhing serpent forms that reared up and over the gaping boys, roaring soundlessly, roars that hurt the mind not the ears. A serpent plucked Ailiki from the air with its mouth, set her gently down.

The Pigg yowled, swung a screaming bawling Faan up and around and flung her at the serpents.

Another serpent caught her, set her down, then reared back and darted its head at the Pigg.

He whimpered and went racing away, the rest of his gang fleeing with him.

Faan fled blindly back along the wynd, running and running, whimpering in terror. Ailiki ran after Faan, squealing, at her, trying to break through her panic.

The gray stone serpents undulated after Faan, protecting her.

There were Edgers watching, children leaning out windows, men and women gaping at her and at the monsters undulating behind her. They stayed where they were, too frightened to try to help. A few of the women were lay Beeservants with enough education to know what the serpents were; they stared at the baby and made Abeyhamal’s lazy eight. Any child who could call elementals to her was rare, magical, and dangerous to everyone around her. And possibly useful. More than one gazed after the terrified child with a mix of wonder and speculation.

An Anacho priest coming from a laying ceremony for the souls of a newly dead boatman was plodding up the wynd, head down, fingering the skulls and hammerbeads on his prayerchain. He almost walked into the serpents, glanced up, and went pale. Edging cautiously backward he hugged a wall as the great gray snakes undulated past. When the wynd was clear, he hurried across it and plunged into the maze of ways and wynds beyond, interested only in putting distance between himself and that eerie manifestation of a magic he didn’t want to know about.