Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

“Ganumomo naah fear fahfihmo, see see.” He set the crystal down, pursed his rubbery lips, added a whispery whistle to the whispery rattle of the drum, snapped off the whistle. “Cha-ba-ma-we naah sah strong. Magah da Chaba-ma-we naah hotha Ganumomo. Hah!” Dropping into a conversational tone, he said, “You, dryfoot, you bring aulmeamomo?”

With a grunt of assent, the Temueng got to his feet and went to the pack pony. He unroped the canvas, took a pouch from among the other items piled onto the packsaddle, brought it back to the fire. He dropped it beside the drummer, returned to his seat across the fire from the gray man. “Bringer of dreams,” he said. “More will be sent when we have the witch, like you say, what is it? the chabummy. I brought other things. Axe heads, spear points, fishhooks, knives. An earnest of final payment. Give me the witch.”

“Fish that swim too straight he go net. Otha thing in the trading. I Ganumomo daah beah wanting no dryfoots come in Mawiwamo. I Ganumomo daah beah wanting…”

Brann stopped listening as the bargaining went on, focusing all her attention and will on the children. It was no use, she got no response at all no matter how hard she concentrated. She moved about the little she could, but her arms were pinned tight against her sides, her legs were bound so tightly she couldn’t even bend her knees; the more she struggled, the more inextricably she was tangled in the cords. Anger rumbled in her like the fireheart of Tincreal, anger that was partly her own and partly that wildness that took hold of her and killed the Temueng pimush. She was terrified when that happened, somewhere deep within her there was terror now, but it was overlaid by that melded fury. She began to sing, very softly, tinder her breath, the possession song that Called the Sleeping Lady into the Yongala and readied her for the great Dances.

Dance, Slya Slya, dance

I am the Path, so walk me

Dance the sky the earth the all

Dance the round of being’s thrall

Dance, Slya Slya, dance

Emanation, puissance

I am the cauldron, empty me

Dance dissolution, turbulence

End of all tranquility

Dance, Slya Slya, dance

I am the Womb, come fill me

Germination, generation

Dance hard death’s fecundity

Dance the is and what will be

Dance the empty and the full

Dance the round of being’s thrall.

Though she sang so very softly and the magic man was deep in bargaining, he sensed immediately what was building in and around her; he broke off, came round the fire and kicked her in the ribs, the head. But he was too late. Slya took her as she groaned, Slya called the drummer’s fire to her and it burned the nets to ash and nothing and it leaped from her to the magic man and he was a torch and it leaped from her to the Temueng and he was a torch, and it leaped from gray man to gray man until the island was a planting of torches, frozen gray men burning, Temueng burning, grass and trees burning, pouch of dream dust burning. In an absent, blocked-off way she saw the packs and gear burned off the horse and pony without singing a hair on them, though they ran in panic into the water and away.

Finally the fire dimmed in her, a last tongue licked out, caressed the crystals. Yaril and Jaril woke out of stone, sat up blinking.

Then Slya was gone, the island bare and barren, the trees reduced to blackened stakes, the ashes of the burned blowing into drifts, and she was burdened with a fatigue so great she sank naked on charred sand and slept.

THREE DAYS LATER she was Temueng in form and face, wearing stolen Temueng gear, riding on an elderly but shapely werehorse, one good enough for Temueng pride but not enough to tempt Temueng greed, her altered shape grace of the children’s manipulations and the lives of half a dozen Temueng harriers they ambushed along the causeway. The sun was setting in a shimmering clear sky and she was riding across the river on a stone bridge a quarter of a mile long, turning onto a road paved with massive blocks of the same stone, the city a dark mass against the flaming sky. Tavisteen. Gateway to the Narrow Sea.

3. Brann’s Quest-Across the Narrow Sea With Sammanq Schimti

BASTARD RUMORS SPREAD faster than trouble through Tavisteen; no one claimed them, everyone heard them. Agitation on the Plain…

Temuengs dead or vanished (silent celebrations in Tavisteener hearts). Temuengs thrashing uselessly about, interrupting spring planting, rousting honest (and otherwise) folk from their homes, stopping trader packtrains to question the men and rummage through their goods. Temuengs closing down the port more tightly than before (suppressed fury in every Tavisteener and an increase in smuggling, Tavisteeners being contrary folk, the moment the Ternueng Tekora governing the city promulgated a rule, there’d be cadres of Tavisteeners working to find ways to round it, but they were wily and practical enough to pretend docility); since the Temuengs moved in and took over, any trader caught in port went through long and subtle negotiations and paid large bribes if he wanted to sail out again (another cause for fury, it was ruining trade). And this aggravation doubled because they were chasing some crazy woman who kept slipping like mist between their fingers (in spite of the trouble she brought on them, Tavisteeners cheered her in the secret rooms of mind and heart-and hoped she’d go somewhere else).

Agitation in the Marish…

Marishmen went gliding like gray shadows from the fens to attack Temuengs and Plainsfolk alike, turning the causeway into a deathtrap for all but the largest parties, and these lost men continually to poison darts flying without warning from the Marish. No one dared go into the wetlands to drive off the ambushers; traffic along the road sank to a trickle then dried up completely.

Agitation in Tavisteen…

Bodies without wounds lying in the darkest parts of dark alleys, floating in the bay. Temuengs and Tavisteeners alike. The locals were small loss to the city since all of them without exception were cast-offs without family to acknowledge them, given to rape and general thuggery. The other Tavisteeners grumbled at the cost of exorcising all those stray ghosts, but didn’t bother themselves with listening to the complaints of the ghosts or hunting for the ghost-maker (for the most part, this was another case of silently applauding one they saw as something of a hero in spite of the trouble she was causing them).

The Temuengs were not nearly so philosophical about the mysterious force stalking and killing them. Temueng enforcers began snap searches, surrounding a section of the city or the wharves, turning everyone into the street, checking their credeens, searching houses and warehouses, ripping furniture,, boxes and bales apart, kicking walls in, even turning out ship holds, beating Tavisteeners and foreign sailors with angry impartiality, hauling chosen members of both sorts off to the muccaits for questioning. Sometimes they made several of these searches in a single day, sometimes they let several days pass with none, sometimes they struck in the middle of the night.

They found smugglers’ caches, forbidden drugs and weapons, illegal stills, prisoners escaped from any of a dozen muccaits, and other things of some interest to the Tekora. They did not find the woman.

SAMMANG SHIPMASTER sat hunched over a tankard of watery beer, scowling at the battered table top, his dark strong-featured face the image of his island’s war god; squat and powerful was that god, a figure carved from sorrel soapstone and polished to a satin shine, meant to inspire awe and terror in the beholder. The rest of the tavern’s patrons, not at all a gentle lot, sat at the far side of the room and left him to his brooding. Now and then he tugged at an elongated earlobe; the heavy gold pendant that usually hung there he’d sold that morning to pay docking fees; the little left had to keep him and his men for a while longer. Soon though, he’d have to break from the mooring and try to run past the ships and the guard tower at the narrow mouth of the harbor, not something he contemplated with any pleasure. Trebuchets hurling hundred-pound stones, springals with javelins that could pierce the thickest of ship timbers, fireboats anchored beyond to take care of what was left of any ship sneaking out, skryers to spot anyone trying to run under the cover of magic. Temuengs were thorough, Buatorrang curse their greedy bellies. He had a cargo of Arth Slya wares smuggled down from the Fair by an enterprising Tavisteener under the noses of the Tern uengs who’d grabbed everything they could, with some hides and fleeces from the Plains, nothing that would spoil or lose its worth-if he could get the Girl out of this wretched port. He growled deep in his throat, his broad square hand tightening on the tankard until the metal squealed protest.