Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

The child stopped her struggles, her screaming diminished to a series of sniffles.

Reyna laughed comfortably, took the lower corner of his overrobe and used the lining to wipe her eyes, then her nose. “There. Isn’t that better?”

“‘spa, ‘nas,” she said. “Poess’m? Oidat’s tor? Tis su?”

“I don’t understand a word of that, beb6.” He smoothed the hair out of her mismated eyes; it was a waterfall of black silk and softer than anything he could remember touching. His heart turned over. “You are a mystery, oh diyo. Well, let us see, let us see…”

He tapped his forefinger between his brows. “Reyna Hayaka. That’s my name. Do you understand, bebe?” He tapped again. “Me. Reyna.” Moving slowly so he wouldn’t startle her, he touched her forehead, his finger trembling, then spread both hands in what he hoped was a universal, query sign. “You. Name?”

She gurgled, a happy sound that tickled his insides, curled one small grubby hand into a fist, then used her other hand to straighten out her forefinger. She poked herself in the chest. “Faan Korispais Piyolss,” she chanted, a lesson she’d learned so completely she didn’t have to think.

Reyna nodded, his many black plaits swinging and slipping with the movements of his head. “And does your friend have a name?” He pointed to the cat-monkey. “Name?”

“Nainai,” she said, nodding vigorously. “Ailiki. Eym mahsar.” She shook her hair over her face again, looked slyly through the strands, her body shouting mischief. “Reyna,” she said, then giggled.

“Diyo, you are quick, little honeychild.” He chuckled. “You know you aren’t supposed to go round calling adults by their use names. Someone taught you manners and did a good job of it.” He gazed, over her head at the River, so wide here near the estuary that the far bank was a faint fuzzy blue line. Wide and empty. “Speaking of which, my honey, how did you come here and where’s your mother, hmm?” He tucked his hand under her chin and lifted her head so he could look into those bi-colored eyes. “Mama?”

She blinked at him; for a moment he thought she was going to cry. “Mamay?” Her eyes dulled as if a film had slid across them; she shivered and gulped, then she flung herself at him, hands clutching his robe, head, butting into his breasts. “Mamay, Mamay,” she wailed.

“Hush, bebe, hush, we’ll find your mama, diyo, we will.” He could feel the small body shuddering against him, feel the shudders fading; there was a last, small gulp and she lay heavy in his arms. “Diyo, my honey, oh diyo my sweeting, I wish…”

Ailiki went trotting off, jumped into the small sailboat Reyna had moored to a post at the side of the landing. Her tail curled around her, the beast crouched on one of the thwarts, her head up, her ears pricked as if to say, what are you waiting for?

“Well, look at that, b6b6.”

Faan turned her head, blinked at the mahsar. She sighed, started sucking her thumb, too worn out, he thought, for anything more.

“That’s a sign if I ever saw one, my honey.” He shifted his grip on her, got to his feet and started toward the boat.

“Abey’s Sting,” he said suddenly, “I’d forget my head…” He looked down at the child, pulled a sad face for her that made her giggle round her thumb, then hauled her back along the landing to the basket he’d dropped when he dived for her, explaining as he walked that he didn’t dare put her down, she moved too fast and chances were she’d be in that River before he’d taken two steps.

She was turning into a dead weight, heavier with every step. He shifted his grip again before he bent for the basket. “I know now why women have hips,” he murmured. “How in this crazy world does a baby like you gain fifty pounds whenever she feels like it?” He straightened, jiggled her higher and got his arm crooked under her. “Vema vema, honeychild, it’s back to the boat we go and off to find your mama. DownRiver first, I think, look round the Koo. If your people know they’ve lost you, they should be looking for you. Trouble is, a hundred things could happen so they don’t know when you went off, or where.”

He settled her in the bottom of the boat, set the basket beside her, nodded with satisfaction as Ailiki jumped from the thwart into her lap. “Good mahsar,” he said, “keep her safe. A boat’s no place for a baby, but we haven’t much choice right now.” He scratched at his nose and frowned down at her. The lacy shift was clean and dry. “You don’t look like you’ve been in the water, but I don’t see how else… vema vema, how doesn’t matter right now.”

The rest of the morning Reyna crisscrossed the long narrow bay, stopping by every boat he saw, asking if they’d lost a child, if they knew anyone who had, if they’d seen any roasters coming or going, or any sign of trouble. Anything at all.

Nothing. Nothing. More nothing.

Faan was curled in the bottom of the boat, sleeping so heavily she worried him until he felt a warmth flowing across his feet; she was peeing on him in her sleep, marking him like a little dog marking his territory. You’re mine, he whispered to her, by right of rescue. He laughed. “Salvage,” he said aloud. “That’s it.” He almost stopped then and went back to the River, but he could see one more boat ahead, anchored near the mouth of the bay, the Kiymey owned and worked by Vumictin the Silent. He sighed and tacked across to her.

Vumictin had his nets out, his two nethands leaning against the rail taking a bagh-hit.

“Vum, you see a ship going in or coming out, early this morning, maybe just before sunup?”

The long thin man scratched thoughtfully at his arm, stared at the water then at the sky. “What’s up, Rey?”

“Kuh! you’re a worse clam than any you ever dug. I found a child, a baby, might’ve been lost off a ship. Light-skinned, probably slavebom.” He shrugged. “Or a foreigner.”

“An’t seen nothing like that.” One of the netmen cleared his throat and spat. With a sweeping gesture, Vumictin waggled his thumb at his head, then at the spitter. “Dikhan, there, he swears he seen the Bee Mother sailing upriver. Quite a sight, he says, honey-gold in the moonlight. Maybe the kid’s a little accident the god’s dumped on you.” He grinned. “It gets mam and da in one package and Honeymama can go play.”

Reyna snorted. “You’re about as funny as a wetpack, Vum. Seriously though, if you hear anything, let us know, hmm 9”

Vumictin straightened. “We’ll do that. Now you do us a favor, Rey, and shift youself. You in the middle the nets and we’re gonna start pulling.

It was late afternoon when Reyna broke off the futile search and wearily sailed the boat back up a River alive with traffic: fishermen out for bottom feeders and the spiny buagosta which brought more than all their fish; round-bodied merchant ships moving downRiver stuffed with ingots of copper and iron, bolts of pammacloth dyed into bright patterns and the wide-mouthed jars Bairroa Pill was known for; slimmer, smaller coasters carrying passengers and anything else that brought in cash; slave ships bouncing downRiver empty except for chains and stained benches.

“‘Loooaaah, Reeey!” A pilot’s apprentice swinging a leadline from a net slung under a merchanter’s bowsprit waved at him, then went back to reading the knots.

“‘Loaaaa, Ghedd,” Reyna called back, then gasped and snatched at Faan who’d waked from her long nap and was trying to stand up. “You been a good girl so far, honey, don’t spoil it now. K’lann! I could do with some rope, run a line from you to the mast.”

Faan tilted her head, smiled uncertainly. “Ti kaps?”