Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

“She can do that?”

“We can do that.”

“Mmm. I can think of a couple places might do. Give me two days, meet me at my house.”

“I hear.” The boy got to his feet with the sinuous supple grace of a cat, vanished into the fog with a wave of a hand.

Taguiloa sat staring at the black water rocking under his feet, wondering what he’d got himself into.

HE FOLLOWED THE MUSIC and laughter through the pleasure garden to the beach house built out over the water-water-dark stones and wind-sculpted cedars, clipped and trained seagrape vines. Salt flowers in reds and oranges and a scattered shouting pink. A willow or two to add a note of elegance. A bright cool morning with the sun just hot enough to fall pleasantly on the skin. Flute song winding through the wash of the sea, the spicy whisper of the cedars, the rustle of the willows. Ladji, he thought, then lifted his head and stopped as another instrument began to play, a jubilant, very clear, rather metallic flurry of notes dancing around the thread of the flute song.

He walked into the house.

Tari Blackthorn was reclining on a low divan amid piles of pillows watching two girls dancing. A small ancient man with a few wisps of hair on mottled skin stretched tight over his skull knelt at the edge of the straw matting and danced fingers like spider legs over the holes of his flute. Beside him a small dark-haired woman sat on a broad orange cushion, an instrument like a distorted and enlarged gittern on her lap. Her hair was dressed in innumerable small braids, some of them stiffened into graceful loops about her head. Elaborate gold earrings, wide hoops with filigreed discs hanging from them. Large blue eyes, the blue so dark it was almost black. Small pointed face, dark olive skin. A nose that had a tendency to hook. A wide mobile mouth, smiling now as she watched the girls dance. Short stubby fingers moved with swift sureness over the strings, the ivory plectrum gleaming against her dark skin.

Tari looked up as he came in, smiled and nodded at a pile of cushions near her feet. He dropped on them, leaned against the divan and watched the girls. They were very young, ten or eleven, sold by their parents into the night world when they were old enough so their adult features could be guessed at. He’d escaped being impressed into the world of the joyhouses by craftiness learned in a hard school, by the nimble body, coordination and speed Tungjii had gifted him with, and by a lot of luck. He watched the dancers with a cool judicial eye, his tastes running to older women. The plumper one wasn’t going to make a dancer, she was a juicy creature with a bold eye; she had the proper moves, but there was no life to her dancing, none of the edge and fire Tail Blackthorn got into her dances. The other girl was thin and under-developed, coltish and a bit clumsy but there was a hint that she might have some of the gift that made Blackthorn the premier dancer of Silili before she was nineteen and kept her there for the next fifteen years.

Taga twisted his head around and saw her watching him. A slow smile touched the corners of her mouth. She seldom let her face move in any way that would encourage wrinkles, part of the discipline she enforced over nearly every aspect of her life. He was a part of that tiny area where she let herself feel and possibly be hurt, that little area of danger that gave her the magic she put into her dancing. Her smile was at most a slight lifting of her face, a gleam in her eyes, but he’d warmed to it since he’d celebrated his seventeenth birthday in her bed. Eight years ago. She was at her zenith now while he was still rising. She’d stay where she was for a few years and manage a graceful glide into her retirement unless she made enemies. Here too she walked the ragged and crumbly edge between acceptance and obloquy, walked it with calculation and care, knowing a misstep could destroy her. Like every player she had only her wits, her skill, and the tenuous protection of custom and reputation to restrain the merchants and the officials who ran Silili (always subject to the whims of the Temuengs) and ordered the lives of all who lived there.

Tali touched the ceramic chimes. The double clink was not loud, but it cut through the music. The dancers stopped and bowed, then stood waiting for her to speak, the plump one a little nervous but enough in command of herself to slide her eyes at Taguiloa, the thin one seeing no one and nothing but Blackthorn. Tari lifted a hand. “You saw, what do you say?”

“The hungry one.”

Tail nodded. “When you have that hunger, its easy to see it in others. If I were five years younger, I might want to kick her feet from under her.” She turned to the two girls. “Deniza,” she told the thin one, “see my bataj about buying you out. Rasbai, your gifts lie elsewhere, I am not the proper teacher for you. May I suggest… mmm… Atalai?” She dismissed them firmly, ignoring both Rasbai’s scowl and Deniza’s sudden glow. “Your student has shut his mouth. What’d you do to that little snake?”

He watched the two girls walk out with their silent chaperone and said nothing until they had time to get beyond hearing, then turned to stare cooly at the foreign woman. “Me?” he said, “I did nothing.”

Her eyes opened a bit wider, the toes of her right foot nudged at the nape of his neck, tickled through the hair by his right ear. “This is Blackthorn, little love. Maybe you forget?” She dug at him with the nail of her big toe. “Harm? Would I ask in front of her if I didn’t trust her? Fishbrain.”

He swung round, caught hold of her ankle, danced his fingers along the henna’d sole of her foot. “Even a fishbrain knows Blackthorn.” He let her pull her ankle free. “It’s the truth. I did him nothing. He’s happy contemplating my future broken bones.”

“What?”

“Fist and a handful of his thugs are getting set to thump me some.”

“You’re very cheerful considering.”

“Considering I’ve got some protection Fist and Yarm don’t know about. I’m shucking Yarm the end of the week, going on tour soon as I can get it together. I’ve got a patron of sorts, who’s financing me and providing that protection I mentioned.”

“You’re finally going to do it? The dances?”

“Uh-huh. I need a flute player.” He scowled at the mat. “Funeral tomorrow. The last appearance I’ve got for a while. Yarm’s out the next day. I’m not looking forward to that.”

“I told you he was a bad idea.

“That you did, but I had no ears then.”

“And nothing between them either.”

He caught hold of a toe, pinched it lightly. “Flute player.”

A sharp intake of breath, a moment’s silence. Tari lay back with her eyes shut. He frowned at her but before he could say anything, she spoke. “Ladji.”

The ancient flute player got easily to his feet, came across the open airy room and dropped to his knees near the head of the divan. “Sew,” he said tranquilly. He held his flute lightly across his thighs.

“You have a student, your sister’s grandson I think it is. You know him, you know Taga. What do you think?” She opened her eyes. “It’s a gamble, and the hillwolves are getting bold.” She glanced at Taguiloa, lifted the corner of her mouth a fraction. “Rumor is once the Jamara lords and the jamaraks are left behind, it’s a dance with death.” Delicate lift of a delicate brow, slow and smooth, a question to Taguiloa. “You’re not given to taking those kinds of chances, little love.”

“It’s the hillwolves that better watch themselves.” He hesitated, wondering exactly what he wanted to say, how much he wanted to tell. This was Blackthorn who read him better than he did himself “My patron is a friendly witch with demon familiars.” He turned so he was facing the foreign woman. “That is not for repeating.”