Jo Clayton: Wild Magic

“Nayo. Rumors got about that she’s spooky. Dikhan’s told everyone what he thinks he saw, Bee Mother, you know.”

iG ood .91

“Diyo.”

The Kassian Tai stood before the point of the altar, her kinari in one hand, the candle flame flickering precariously in the breeze, her funbo gripped in the other, a staff of aromatic arazwood a foot taller than she was, with a dense ceramic sheath on the base and a point shaved to a cone, fire-hardened, then waxed and polished to a high gloss.

Carrying thinner, shorter fimbos and kinaries with thinner, shorter candles, Reyna and Dawa stood at Tai’s right, Jea and Areia One-eye at her left.

The Kassian Tai opened her mouth wide, produced a humming, burring sound in the back of her throat; she stepped forward one pace, placed her kinari in the stand. One by one, the others followed her example, blending their voice with hers in a complex chord.

Dawa and Areia One-eye squatted beside the altar and tapped the rhythm on small drums while the other three danced the Bee Honors and sang the blessing words, Tai first, then Reyna and Jea.

Tai sang:

Honey Mother

We come in the marks of our mortality Having chosen you

Been chosen by. You

We come with heads bowed and blessing in our hearts Giver of gifts

We offer you ourselves.

Reyna sang:

I hear the hum of your wings Honey Mother

Low and tender in the sound I am filled with gladness Mother of Bees

I am blessed by your Gift Honey Mother

Dawa sang:

You glide through my bones

Honey Mother

I taste your sweetness on my fingers I lick crystals of your love from my lips

Tai sang:

The river runs by day and night

And never stops Honey Mother

So runs your mercy

The river floods and buries and retreats

Honey Mother

So floods your justice over us

Fierce and terrible is your justice

We tremble

Honey Mother

Your mercy heals and comforts us

You come to us with unveiled eyes

And speak without hurry

As honey flows

, We raise our mouths and drink your words Honey Mother

As honey flows we drink your words As honey flows we cherish

Honeychild

As honey flows.

Kosef Hayaka howled and brought the switch down on… Reyna jerked awake. He sat up, dropped his head on his hands as he struggled to orient himself. His father was dead. He hadn’t dreamed of him for… He groped for the robe he’d thrown over the chair beside the bed, pulled it on, and stumbled toward the dressing room.

Faan was curled into a knot, whimpering and sobbing, her eyes squeezed shut, tears streaking her straining face. When he picked her up, she was hot as a small stove and trembling so violently he had trouble lifting her without hurting her.

He eased himself down on the cot, holding her on his lap as he rocked gently, carefully, so he wouldn’t tip the tottery thing over. Patting her back, rubbing it, humming to her, singing snatches of sleepsongs he remembered his mother singing to him, talking to her, slowly, slowly he got her calm, until she was hiccupping and sighing and so relaxed her body oozed back and forth with his as he rocked.

He thought she was asleep again and tried to put her down on the cot, but her hands froze to his robe and she opened her mouth to howl. “Oh honey, honey…” He grunted onto his feet and carried her into the bedroom. “Honey baby, go to sleep… sleep

… sleep… “ He walked back and forth with her, back and forth. “What am I going to do with you… sleep, honey… sleep, lovey… sleep…” Humming a bee-hymn, he carried her about the room as he collected cushions from the chair and the divan beneath the window, the blanket from the cot.

Still holding her, he arranged the pillows on the bed, then laid her down in the nest and pulled the blanket over her. When he moved away, she stirred. “Mamay… MAMAY!”

“Hush, honey, sh sh… just a minute, I’ll be back…” Still talking, he discarded the robe and pulled an old shirt over his head. He slept nude, but he didn’t feel right doing that with Faan on the bed beside him. “Sh sh, honey, nothing’s going to hurt you, I’m here, I won’t leave you, sleep, honey, sleep, lovey, sleep…” He crawled under the covers, settled himself on his side, his body curved about the nest, and laid his hand on a cushion where she could reach it, then dropped back to sleep himself.

Reyna bent down, touched Faan’s tear-streaked face, then pushed past the blanket and passed into his bedroom. Each time she saw him setting out his evening robes, she howled and clung to him, tried to keep him from leaving her, she wouldn’t be satisfied with Tai or lea or Dawa who played with her more than anyone else, she had to have Reyna. But she was asleep now. Finally asleep. He hated the thought of leaving her, but he had a long-standing arrangement with someone he was fond of.

He wore white on white, lace and broiderie blanc with gold chains about his neck, the links stylized bees. His earrings were large hoops of bee-form beads; he had more loops of those beads twisted about his wrists. His client liked a touch of danger as long as it wasn’t threatening; the Bee heresy was very much to his taste. He paid well and had a gentleness that was rare among the Cheoshim, almost a perversion; Reyna found this entertaining and enjoyed the double-dance when Tumclfinar was his partner.

He rummaged through his closet, found the black leather cloak he seldom wore; black was depressing and it made him feel hagged, but he needed something to moderate the effect of all that white. He swung it round his shoulders and went out.

Jea was waiting in the entry. He laughed. “K’lann,

Rey, you look like a Cheossy bride boasting her virgin-

ity.,

Reyna jigged in a circle, arms raised, elbows out so the cloak spread like a fan. “Sweet and sassy, oh diyo.” He slapped his hands and pranced, warbling nonsense syllables like a Kalele singer, high falsetto, swooping and swinging.

Jea stamped his heels on the inlaid wood, clapped his hands a moment, then caught Reyna’s wrist and swung into a degge dip, a dance some northern slaves had brought with them that Biasharim youths had taken for their own, a dance with much energy and little grace, but it got the blood moving.

Leaning in his doorway, Panote clapped his hands and added his hooming basso.

“Mamay?” Faan came through the door to the inside stairs, a strap of her sleeping shift tumbling off one shoulder, her hair tangled, her two-colored eyes wide and dark with fear.

Reyna dropped his arms, swung around. “Honey, what you doing down here? I thought you were asleep.”

“Mamay, ou heym. Nayo nayo. Ou m’ leps. Nayo nayoooo00.” She plunged across the entry, wrapped her arms about Reyna’s leg, sobbing with abandon, her body clenched and straining.

“Honey. Faan.” Reyna bent, stroked her hair, tried to soothe her. “I’ll be back, baby. I’ve gone out before and I’ve always come back. Sh sh, lovey. I’m not leaving you. Hush, honey…”

Panote dropped beside the child, cupped his huge hands over hers. “Now now, bad’, hush your nonsense, you come with old Pan, he’ll see you right, be a good girl now, come…” His voice burred on.

Her crying slackened; she loosed her grip, blinked at him as if she’d never seen him before. “Maksi?”