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Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

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Jo Clayton Wild Magic

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Mahnk Peshalla stood in the door of his tavern waving a fan lazily back and forth. He had the high cheekbones, narrow face and beaky nose of his caste, rat-tail mustaches and a thin beard twisted into long tight ringlets; though he was poor Biashar, the son of a merchant who’d lost everything when a ship he’d invested in never came back, he had two official wives (of the three that Biasharim allowed themselves) and was more generous to beggars and streetfolk than most, sponsoring a score of Wascram boys in the Edgeschool. When he saw Reyna, he flicked the folding fan shut, slapped it against his arm. “Rey,” he rumbled in a voice like a barrel rolling down a gatt, “What you got good?”

“This and that, Mak, this and that.”

Louok the Nimble was standing atop an overturned washtub making silver cemms dance between his dark fingers, the coins glinting in the morning light, changing to copper shabs, then back again, appearing and disappearing. “Now you see it,” he chanted, “now you don’t, silver into copper, yes, that’s the way it goes, copper into air, my hands are empty, my pockets, too, yet see and see, silver.” He paused in the middle of his handdance, waved to Reyna, whistled a snatch of a tune popular in the Joyhouses, went back to his performance, milking a rain of coins from the air and dropping them into a large boot. He upended it, shook his head when a moth flew out, tossed the boot to one of the Wascram boys crouched by his feet, and went on with his performance as the boys moved through the crowd, collecting coins from his audience.

On the other side of the Lane Zinar the Porter shifted his load. “‘Loa, Rey,” he yelled, “Tell Dawa the Lewinkob silk’s in.” He slapped at the bale on his head. “He should get up to Horry’s fast, or it’ll be gone.”

“Gotcha, Zin.”

Quiambo Tanish went hurrying by, his arms loaded down with supplies for the school. He waggled an elbow at Reyna, slowed for a few steps. “Tell Pan to come by school tomorrow, I’ve got the talk cleared through the Manasso Head.”

“Will do, Tan.”

He fended off more men and women who had greetings for him, messages for Dawa or Jea, the other Salagaum living with him at the Beehouse, the Kassian Tai or Panote .the Doorkeeper, nodded at them, waved, brushed hastily past. The mahsar stayed close to his heels, drawing a few stares but no comments.

The Verakay Beehouse was a blocky red-brick building rising three stories to a flat roof with a split-wood fence poking like spiky Cheoshim hair above a waist-high parapet. There was a bee carved within a cartouche above the heavy outer door and the bellpull was an amber bee on the end of a tough thin cord braided from the gut of a large fish caught in the Koo Bikiyar, stretched, rolled, and kiln dried. The followers of Abeyhamal Bee Mother avoided metals as much as they could.

Reyna let Faan slide down until she was standing on the stoop, hidden from the street by the flare of his overrobe, then he yanked at the bellpull.

The wicket slapped open and Panote peered out; he smiled, slid the shutter closed, and opened the door. He was an ascetic Naostam in service to a foreign god, TannabSs of Felhidd, a pacifist warrior god who decreed his servants should be so proficient in self-defense they would never have to use their arts. “Rey.”

“‘Loa, Pan. Tanish says come by tomorrow, he’s got the talk approved. Tai. around?” Reyna bent, tapped Faan on the shoulder, and gave her a gentle push.

The child circled warily around Panote, went trotting over to the cape rack that stood at the far end of the small square entry; she smoothed her hand down the shining wood, patted the only cape hanging there.

“Ahsan, Rey. Diyo, she’s come in. Washed her hair Dryin it up on the roof.” Panote rounded his eyes. “And who’s that? A visitor or…”

“Her name’s Faan. That’s all I know, she doesn’t speak Fadogur.” Reyna rubbed at his jaw. “If Thi agrees, she could be living here for a while. Silence is best on this, Pan.”

“Vema, vema.” Whistling a bouncy tune, he shut the door and dropped the bar into its hooks. He canted his head and inspected Faan with bright black eyes. “Char-mer,” he said, then went back into his room. As Reyna slipped off the overrobe and hung it on its knob, he heard the rhythmic thumping of the doorkeeper’s ritual exercises.

“Faan, come along.” He stooped, took her hand and led her through the door beside the rack into a large square court filled with bloom, two trees, one a willow, one a flowering plum, a fountain in the middle and patches of short springy green grass. Morning shadows darkened the court, but the treetops shimmered with sunlight and the water droplets were diamond bright. Beyond the fountain an outside stairway jagged up the wall to a door in the roof-fence.

Faan looked around, started talking, words tumbling out of her, none of which Reyna understood.

He shook his head. “Come along, honey, I want you to meet someone; maybe she’ll know what you’re talking about.”

› › ‹ ‹

The Kassian Tai Wanameh was a tall woman, almost as tall as Reyna, and dark, a dusty inside-of-the-oven black with bluish highlights.

She was reading a leather-bound book as she lay stretched out on a longchair, her hair spread behind her on the slatted drying rack they used for the sacred linens on laundry days. She hadn’t cut that hair for more than thirty years; it was a yellow-white mass thick and coarse as a horse’s tail.

She looked up, lay the book face down on her stomach as Ailiki came lalumping through the door, circled round her, and stopped to sniff at her feet. Reyna was close behind, Faan clinging to his robe.

“I found everything you wanted, Tai.” He set the basket on the roof tiles. “Even the ganda root.”

“And a bit more, seems like.”

“Faan. She was on the landing when I came from the Grove. No one else in sight, no boats upRiver or down. Reason I’m late, I’ve scoured the Koo and just about walked every inch of the Riverbank looking for her people.”

“She can’t talk?”

“She’s being shy .right now. And it’s not much help when she does talk. She doesn’t speak the Fadogur nor any tradetalk I’ve ever heard.”

“And this little creature who’s so interested in my feet?”

“Her name’s Ailiki and she’s a mahsar. More than that, who knows.”

“Mm. Bring the child over here.”

Reyna stroked Faan’s small grubby hands, coaxed her into letting go of his robe and led her to Tai, pointing to Ailiki curled up in a lump next to Tai’s ankles, purring loudly. Faan relaxed, curtseyed, and made a polite and formal little speech. “Aspa, tim’ tethie, biosh primey’ksh.”

Tai nodded. “Ah. I see what you mean. How old do you think she is?”

“Young is as close as I get. What I know about children you could paint with a whiting brush on a pinhead.”

Tai tugged at an earlobe and considered Faan. “Do you mean to keep her?”

Reyna touched his face, felt the sweat beading there, his chest was tight, it was hard to breathe. He glanced at Faan, looked down at his feet. A small bit of his mind wondered why the feeling was so strong, the rest of him merely surrendered to it. “It’s your house, zazi Tai. You say who stays.” He hesitated, then added, “I will keep her. I must.”

“Ah Rey, Rey, you’re my daughter-in-Abeyhamal; that hasn’t changed.”

“I’m no one’s daughter, Tai.”

Tai spread her hands. “What’s a little thing like a nuh’m matter? Truth lies in the spirit.”

He pulled a clown face, his mobile mouth curving down, his eyes opening wide. “It’s not so small a thing as all that.”

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