Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

Sounds from across the River drifted to him on the freshening wind, sliding through the pauses between syllables-shouts, women’s howling, screams, crashings; the second attack was beginning. That must be why the towers were so empty-most of the Cheoshim had crossed the River now that the Bridges were open. Too bad. There was going to be a lot of hurt and death this day. Humans. Ephemerals, Sibyl called them. Minh! Pain was pain if you lived one year or a thousand.

“Let evil be driven from our midst,” Fuaz Yoyote intoned. “All praise to all powerful all knowing Iron Father…”

“CHU MA VAY YAL CHU MA VAY YAL,” chanted the Manasso kassos.

The torch bearers ducked the oil-soaked batting corded about the ends of the long poles into the Sacred Brazier, marched with Cheoshim STRIKERS as escorts to the pyres at the edge of the Circle; four went to the center. Two torches each for Juvalgrim and Reyna. Sweet man, that Prime.

The kassos jabbed the butts of the poles against their feet, held the smoking torches at an angle and waited for the sign to fire up the wood.

The Prophet knelt, arms stretched out, mouthing the words of the Praises, the sound of his voice lost in the louder noise of the ritual.

Chumavayal dips into the dying coals of the Fire, scoops up huge handfuls and flings them at the Bee Mother, flings them to the right of HER, the left of HER and before HER and pulls flames from them, driving the fire tongues at HER

Wind howled through the empty wynds and lcarinms of the High City; threads of black cloud swirled overhead, black and heavy with wet; a spray of rain spattered on the dust and grit of the pavement.

“… let the evil be routed, the souls of the sinners fly to the Father. NOW!” Fuaz Yoyote sputtered as a spate of raindrops hit him in the face. He wiped the water away, smiled as he saw the torch bearers whiri and thrust their fire into those piles of tinder wood.

Riverman crouched under the boardwalk, gnawing his lip. The dry wood was going with a roar. “Oh my fur oh my feet,” he wailed, ducked under the support timber and scuttled for Juvalgrim’s pyre.

Abeyhamal roars, sweeps her massive fimbo in a circle that scatters the coals, jabs the point high. Wet black clouds swirl from it. Lightning jags from it. Wind howls round and round the floor. In the Land, wind snatches Faan off her feet, whirls her across the River.

Thunder boomed, lightning danced in jags among the pyres, the wind rose abruptly to hurricane force, sweeping around and around the Sok Circle.

The wind pushed at Reyna, battered at him, but the ropes held, though they cut into his wrists and twisted his left arm until a long bone broke. The wind flopped him again and agdm against the pole, bone grating against bone, breaking through the skin, blood dripping down, mixing with the rain.

Juvalgrim heard him.scream, felt him sag against the ropes. He wrenched at the straps, but he couldn’t move. Smoke from the pyres was curling round him.

He tried to speak, he fought to form the WORDs of power in his head and force them to work.

Nothing.

The kassians and the Cheoshim were blown out of the Circle, slammed into the shuttered and boarded up shops.

The wind swirled around the kneeling muttering Prophet; it didn’t shift so much as a hair of his beard.

The smoke was thick and low; raindrops the size of olives drove through it and beat at Riverman, knocking him flat several times. Each time he scrambled to his feet and scurried on.

He reached the pyre, sprang and caught a protruding branch, pulled himself onto it, peered through the smoke for another hold. The saber was a nuisance, slowing him down, but he couldn’t leave it behind, he had to have some way of cutting the ropes and straps. Flames tickling at his feet, he fought his way up the pile.

Faan dropped to the paving in front of the Prophet, an amber fimbo glowing in her right hand. For a long moment they stared at each other, then Faharmoy got to his feet.

Faan turned her back on him. “NO!” she cried. “STOP THIS. STOP IT. THE FIRES! NO NO NO. I WILL NOT!”

Abeyhamal drives the point of her fimbo at the Iron Father’s chest. He lifts his Hammer to smash it, but she laughs, a mocking humming laugh, shifts direction and drives the point into the clouds above them. Rain falls in silver sheets. The last coals die.

Rain fell in battering floods, drowning the fires.

Riverman wrapped his alms around Reyna’s ankle, grabbed at his trousers, and hung on. as the wind and water threatened to wash him off the pyre.

Faharmoy’s hands closed about Faan’s throat.

She shouted a WORD. Wind roared round them, swept them off their feet, flung them against the paving stones. Faharmoy hit first, he was stunned and his hands were jarred loose. By the time he was thinking again, Faan was a body-length away.

The Dance began.

Feet stamping to the beat of Earth Heart, they circled, danced breast to chest, broke apart, oscillated through arcs, shuffle to the right, shuffle to the left, back and forth, back and forth as if a resilient sphere rolled between them, blocking each from the other.

Lightning walked around them, the rain had diminished to a drizzle, the droplets settling on every fold of their clothing, on their hair and arms.

Riverman swore under his breath and began struggling up the pole, using the ropes and straps to help him climb.

“Hold still,” he whispered in Juvalgrim’s ear. “I’m going to cut you loose. Sibyl sent me and I’m a friend of your friend’s daughter. You hear?”

Juvalgrim stiffened, then produced a low gurgle deep in his throat that Riverman took to mean assent. He inspected the hinges and straps, then began cutting cautiously, cheered to find the Sibyl was right, the saber cut steel like cheese and left living flesh alone.

He finished with the cage and the neck strap. Juvalgrim started to shake; he was trying to hold still, but he couldn’t. The cage fell off, hit the top of the pyre, rolled off and clattered on the paving stones. Swearing under his breath, Riverman lowered himself to the chest rope that bound Reyna and Juvalgrim together, slashed through it, scrambled between them to the iron gloves that immobilized Juvalgrim’s hands. The wind whipped grit past him; the drizzle made the pole desperately slippery, though the wet did increase his strength. He used the saber to hack toe holds in the wood, worked his way round until he could cut the straps that bound the right glove together.

It fell with a satisfactory thump. He glanced at the dancers, snorted, then wriggled around to deal with the other hand. Getting nowhere, round and round, idiot gods, there’s not going to be anything left if they don’t… He dealt with the left hand and scrambled back to cut through the ropes that tied Reyna’s arms to the post, saw the jut of bone, the wash of blood, and hissed with annoyance. “Sibyl, you want this one alive, you better do something.” He crawled along the arm until he reached the break. “Well?”

A snatch of breeze stirred his brown, sagging weed fur. Hold tight and lay the sword alongside the bonecame whispering in his pointed ear. Tongue between his teeth, he wrapped his hand in the rags of Reyna’s blouse, slapped the sword down flat on Reyna’s arm.

The arm bucked and twitched, the sword sank into the dark copper skin, the wound closed over.

Riverman pulled himself back down the arm, clutched Reyna’s trembling wrist. “Tsah tsah,” he muttered, “now how am I supposed to…”

No answer.

He wrinkled his nose, then started chewing at the rope.

The fimbo slipped in Faan’s sweaty hand. She shifted her grip, wiped her palm on her shirt. The cloth was soaked, so that didn’t help much. She switched hands again and tried to relax into the dance Abeyhamal was jerking her through. She didn’t understand the point of this posturing and she was sick with anger because she couldn’t escape the grip of the god. POWER POWER she danced. POWER. POWER-. POWER. I WILL NOT, she screamed inside. I WILL NOT… I WILL NOT… LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN. I WILL NOT… I WILL NOT… Get it done, she told herself, get this over with.