Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

While the Prophet ranted and strode back and forth across the High City Sok Circle. Juvalgrirn drifted among his memories. It was difficult to breathe; the pressure from the straps and plates of the cage on his head numbed his skin and made his tongue swell. And he was thirsty. The heat from the punishing sun made that worse with every breath he drew.

There was nothing he could do, no way he could escape this, and he was no longer waiting for the Change to rescue him. There was an odd comfort in this passivity. A rest from the weariness that had weighed him down. He’d been working so hard for so long.

He blinked, watched with contempt as the Prophet threw his arms out, flung himself to his knees.

“BURN,” Faharmoy howled, head back, eyes shining red,.a red glow about his wasted body, “BURN AND RETURN TO THE FATHER.” Eyes like furnace holes fixed on the hot, dust-whitened sky, he began to mutter the Praises.

Manasso Prime patted down his vestments and sent acolytes scurrying to form up his kassos so he could get the rite started. The Manassoa kassos were more familiar with balance sheets than music scores, but they fumbled themselves into the proper order, cleared their throats, settled raggedly into the basic chant CHU MA VAY YAL CHU MA VAY YAL.

Juvalgrim let his eyes drop shut and once more he was playing games in the back courts of the Camuctarr, swimming in the River, sweating and breathless in the bed of the first woman he’d had.

He refused to think of Reyna; it was too painful. He wanted nothing painful now.

Reyna’s head ached. His body was one great bruise, but no bones were broken and his skin was intact. Lots of crackling when I fry. His swollen lips twitched into a brief painful smile at the thought.

He could feel Juvalgrim’s back against his hands. Crackling together. They say if you breathe the smoke, you won’t feel the fire… gods!

Faan, my Faany, my honeybaby, take care of yourself…

Weary and so dry his skin was beginning to crack, driven by a summons he couldn’t break free of, River-man reached the Jiko Sagrada and flinched from the searing heat of the black iron tiles. “Please,” he said aloud. “You’ll kill me. I can’t… I can’t…”

The summons intensified.

He shuddered, then sat on a rock and began wrapping strands of tough, sun-dried grass about his webbed feet.

Chumavayal swings his Hammer about his head, faster and faster until it whistles through air that glows red with the heat of its passage, round and round, then he looses it, sending it wheeling about Abeyhamal, wrapping a chain of fire about her.

Cursing the South Eka boys jigging unreachably in front of him, Champion Onunad brought his saber round in a powerful circle and for the first time felt the Barrier quiver, then yield beneath the edge. He shouted and struck again. Again. The fourth time the saber sank in and stuck; it felt like slicing through muscle into bone.

He wrenched it loose. “Here,” he cried. “Wallal, Famkon, Uchovu, come here. Coordinate with me.”

He brought the saber down through the softening Barrier.

In the Great Grove Faan screamed. A bruise on her arm broke open, blood sprayed over the clotted Wild Magic.

The Sequba moththeries screamed and fell like wetted thistledown onto the churned black earth.

A strand of the silver motes flew at the Honeychild, pasted themselves over the wound, holding it closed; when the healing was done, they peeled off, leaving behind a silver scar that wound like a snake about her forearm.

She screamed again. Bruises burst. Blood soaked her blouse and skirt, but she kept dancing. Round and round she danced, spraying blood on trees and earth and the Honeygirls dancing with her.

Her eyes rolled back; her mouth stretched wide in a soundless howl; she fainted.

The Barrier fell.

At South Eka, the attackers collapsed into confusion as the resistance they’d been fighting melted away. Warhorses stumbled, Lancers went to their knees, swordsmen staggered.

At the Iron Bridge the blowtorch which the Primes had evoked whooshed into the warehouses and the rambling low tenements of the Edge, burning to ash everything in its path until it beat against the rim of an Abey Grove and fell apart.

Stunned by a success they hadn’t really expected, the kassos let the beat fall to silence until the Macho Prime threw up his arms. “Drummers, follow,” he cried and plunged in the path of the fire.

Doom doom da doom-weighted sticks wheeling, the drummers marched across the Bridge.

Tinka tink-hammer against anvil, the kassos picked up the beat again and crossed into the Low City.

Ma’teesee wrenched loose from the disintegrating Dance and ran to Faan who lay in a limp heap, Sequba roots like arms curled around her. “Dossy, amp;mere, help me.” She knelt beside Faan, straightening her out, then slapping lightly at her face. “Come on, Fa, wake up, everything’s crashing. We NEED you.” She pressed her fingers under Faan’s jaw, sighed with relief as she felt the steady thump-thump of the pulse, looked up as Dossan stumbled over to her. “We gotta get her to Tai. Help me make a chair.”

Dossan gazed vaguely at her, fumbled with her hands, let them fall.

“Bouzh it, Dossy. We don’t move, we gonna get killed.”

Panting and half dead, Riverman stumbled into the shade of the Sibyl’s Cave; it wasn’t much cooler there, but at least there was no sun. He moved his tongue over dry and cracking lips, limped deeper into the dark.

There was a small round hole gouged in the stone in front of the Sibyl’s Chair. Cool clear water lapped at the edges. With a fizz-pop of intense pleasure, he plunged into the pool, sinking deep, deep into the coolness and wet that was life itself, healing the ravages of the long climb.

When he surfaced finally, he looked up to see the Sibyl sitting in the Chair. “Why?” he said. “What have I done to you?”

“Nothing, godlet. I need you, that’s all.”

“Need!” He pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the tiny pool, his aching feet dangling in the water. “Got more need put on me than I got skin.” He scratched at a pointed ear, then dug for water mites in the rough brown weed growing about his loins.

The Sibyl tapped a long forefinger on the stone arm of her chair, then spoke a WORD that shook the air but made no sound.

A shimmer drifted to hang in front of Riverman, a streak of silver light the length of his arm. There was a loud PING; the shimmer solidified into a miniature saber, then splashed down in the pool just missing his webbed toes.

“You’ll need that, Riverman. It’ll cut through anything you want severed.” The Sibyl laughed at the face he made. “Don’t worry, godlet, it won’t cut you. Now, here’s what I want you to do…”

Abeyhamal whirls, her fimbo held horizontally and waist high; gold fire flows from the tip, fighting and dissolving the red fire. She roars her rage and leaps across the Anvil, the butt of her Fimbo striking the Brazier and knocking it over, the coals skipping out across the Forge Floor, the red life in them slowly fading to gray.

The kassos and the primes marched off the Iron Bridge chanting CHU MA VAY YAL CHU MA VAY YAL, ghost drums beating, hammers and anvils tinka tinking, tramping on the ash of the folk and buildings burned by the Fire.

Then the stones came.

From every side, the stones came.

An arrow pierced the throat of the Anacho Prime, a half dozen skewered the Anaxoa Prime.

The kassos scurried for the shelter of the Iron Bridge, falling to stones, falling to arrows, dead and wounded abandoned where they fell.

Champion Ommad yelled for his warhorse, cursing as his twelve-year-old page fought toward him through the stream of riders plunging into the South Eka Kummata. He swung into the saddle, roared at the mob, “Get back, you jeggin’ meat, FORM UP! I’ll have your guts for gitter strings. FORMATION, YOU SUCKING TSOUS!”