Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

Uncle Migel was at his forge, a pile of work already finished; it was his day to turn out all the finicky little bits the Valley needed: nails and rivets, arrow points, fishhooks, scissor blades, screws and bolts and suchlike. His apprentices were scurrying about like ants out of a spilled nest, the two elder journeymen wreathed in clouds of steam. “Eh-Bramble,” he boomed, “bring your old uncle a drink.”

She tossed her braids impatiently at the delay, but Valley rules definitely dictated courtesy to adults. She lifted the lid off the coolcrock her father’s apprentice Immer had made and brought Migel a dripping dipperful.

He gulped down most of it and emptied the rest over his thinning black hair. “Made your Choice, yet, Bram? Time’s getting short”

She nodded.

He pulled a braid, grinned at her. “Not talking, eh?” He laughed when she looked stubborn, his breathy allover laughter, then sobered. “On the mountain, are you? Good. Venstrey there-” he jerked his head at one of the journeymen-The wants a sleeping otter for the hilt of a knife he’s working on, stretched out straight, mind you, one curled up nose to tail would make an odd sort of hilt.”

She nodded, hung the dipper he gave her by the thong in its tail and went on down the road.

AS SHE CAME ka-lumping down uncle Djimis’s steps, her mother’s apprentice Marran rounded a corner of the house with a pair of hot sweet rolls. “Eh-Bram, catch.” He looped one of them at her.

She stretched up to catch the roll-and nearly fell off the bottom step, keeping her face out of the dust with a flurry of arms and legs, a clownjig that didn’t improve her temper. “Marran, you idiot, you make me break my neck and I’ll haunt you the rest of your days.”

He gave her his slow, sweet smile, but said nothing. He seldom had much to say, but few Valley folk, male or female, young or old, could resist that smile. This was his third year in Arth Slya and he was settling in nicely; her mother said he was going to be the best weaver and tapestry maker Arth Slya had seen in an age of ages. If her mother did decide to make a Mountain tapestry using

Brann’s sketches, it’d be Marran who drew the cartoon and did much of the work. He’d turned fifteen only a month ago and was young for it, but her mother was planning to make him journeyman on the Centenary Celebration for Eldest Uncle Eornis. Brann’s Choice Day. Her eleventh birthday. Going to be a busy day.

She kicked some sand, sneaked a glance at Marran, who grinned when he caught her at it, then went stalking away down the road, stuffing the roll into her satchel, hmphing and grumping, half-annoyed and half-delighted at the attentions he kept pushing on her. Her mother and some of the aunts were beginning to plan things, she caught them time after time looking at her and Marran with heavy significance that made her want to bite.

She climbed to her father’s workshop and looked inside. Cousin Immer was in one of the rooms fussing over designs for a set of plates one of the uncles wanted for his daughter’s marriage chest. Problem was the uncle and the daughter had very different notions of what each wanted and Immer, who was inherently kind, was struggling to design something both would agree on. He was a fusser and sometimes snappish but Brann was very fond of him; even when he was impossibly busy he always found time and patience for a pesty little girl. She went to stand at his elbow, watching him patiently flowing color into outlines. He was putting the same design through various color combinations to show the embattled pair. She patted his arm. “Slya bless, maybe this will work.”

He sighed. “If it doesn’t, I surrender, Bramble. The Yongala can arbitrate for I don’t think either will settle for less.”

She patted his arm again and went to putter about the workshop, cleaning tools, straightening the storage niches, sweeping up the small accumulation of dust and the large accumulation of cobwebs, enjoying herself, no one to fuss at her for getting in the way, no impatient older brother chasing her out. As she maneuvered the pile of debris toward the door, the floor trembled and sent dust jigging-only a tiny twitch of the mountain, soon over. “Sleep, Slya, Slya sleep,” she sang as she pushed the pile of dust and scraps together again, swept it out the door.

Enjoying the bright crisp morning she stood in the doorway, looking up through the green lace of birch leaves to a sky clear as the water in the creek singing past the workshop. She breathed the cool air, shook the broom and leaned it against the wall, fetched her satchel and went climbing up the creek, hopping from rock to rock, heading for her favorite sunning place where the boulder pushed the creek aside. She could lie there, her head hanging over the edge, and watch the bright fish dart about. Or sit watching her four-foots coming down to drink. When she was sitting still as the stone beneath her even the fawns came down with their mothers and played on the grassy banks.

On the morning of Arth Slya’s destruction, she sat on the stone and watched bright blue moonfishers darting about in a screaming fight, two after the flapping fish in the talons of a third. It seemed to Brann they always found more delight in stealing from each other than in catching fish for themselves, though to have those thieving fights, some moonfisher had to abandon principle and snag his own fish.

When the fight was over and the triumphant moonfisher flew off with his prize, she dipped up water and splashed it over her face; the sun was starting to get a bit too hot. She moved into the glade where the shadows were cool and the air tangy with cedar, took out her sketch book and waited for the family of coynos that usually showed up about this time.

ON ARTH SLYA’S last day, the mountain twitched and growled and sent rocks sliding and Brann grew afraid, calming her fear with the ritual dance, the sleep song, then went to wash the blackened cedar resin off her hands.

Once her hands were clean, she wandered about the slopes of Tincreal, too restless to sketch. She missed her father. She loved her mother and knew she was loved in return, but her mother wasn’t company in the same way, she was mostly absorbed by her work and the new baby, Ruan firehair who slept in a basket beside the loom, listening to the hiss and thump as Brann had listened when she was a baskling, breathing in time to the sounds of the weaving, lulled to sleep by this constant comforting song. Brann was jealous of Ruan and hated the feeling, knew fairly well what the rest of her life was going to be and rebelled against accepting that, needed time for herself, knew the folk were letting her have it and was furious at their complacent understanding. In the Valley everyone knew everyone else’s business, knew what each would do in just about every circumstance before even he or she knew. Her eleventh birthday was a month and a half away, the Time of Choosing. It fell on the same day as Eldest. Uncle’s, his hundredth, and there was going to be a grand celebration and she would share it and at the end of it she would announce her choice for her lifework. And just about nobody would be surprised.

Life in Arai Slya was pleasant, even joyful when you felt like fitting in, but when you didn’t, it was like a pair of new boots, blistering you as it forced you into shape. Her father and her two older brothers had left with the packtrain going to Grannsha for the tri-year Fair. She’d wanted to go with them, but her mother was stuck here with a baby too young to travel and Brann couldn’t go if her mother didn’t. She thought it was stupid that she couldn’t go, but no one else saw things her way. Not that she made a great fuss about it, for this was the last summer she could spend free, the last summer before she was officially apprenticed with all the work that meant, the last summer she could ramble about the Mountain, watching animals and all the other life there, sketching in the book Uncle Gemar the papermaker had sewn together for her, with the ink and the brush Aunt Seansi, Arth Slya’s poet and journal keeper, had taught her how to use and make.