Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

In the morning he washed his toe, bound some cobwebs and chicken dung about it and tied on another rag. Without much thought, acting from old habit, he rose with the dawn, got dressed, went limping down to the water and went out again in his boat. Again he had great luck. As if his hooks were magnets, he called the fish to them. Again he filled the boat so soon he was the first back and got the best price.

It being the way of the stupid, he sw himself as clever, he saw what was happening as an outcome of his superior worth. Though he was no less a silent man he began holding himself with great pride (not noticing that children followed behind him, mocking him). The gold coins staved where they were, buried beneath his bed. He dreamed the same dreams night after night, but in the morning he left the dreams behind and went out on his boat as he had since he was old enough to hold a line. He sat alone in the boat whispering to himself, saying: if I spend gold, they’ll want to know where it comes from, they’ll send thieves to steal it from me, they’ll send men to kill me. So the gold stayed under his bed, the dreams stayed in his head. His foot got worse, the toe swelling and turning black. His catch went back to what it was before, a whole day’s work hardly enough to pay his land, huy his meals and a jug of cheap wine to kill the pain in his foot.

On the sixth day a squall caught his boat before he got more than a few lengths from the shore, reducing the wretched thing to a hodgepodge of shattered planks and timbers. It took him all day to gather the bits and pieces, then he went looking for driftwood so he could cobble the boat back together; he had more than enough gold for a dozen such boats, but the thought of spending it never entered his head. He worked on the boat all day, then went home to eat and dream some more. In the morning he couldn’t get out of bed, his whole foot was black, his leg swollen, his body damp with fever.

By the end of the week he was dead.

This is the lesson, Cerontai told Taguiloa: Use your luck or it rots like Raskatak’s toe.

LINJIJAN WAS a smiling amiable boy, nineteen or twenty, skinny, hands chapped and callused from the labor on a fishing boat, keeping in spite of that the tender agility of his great-uncle’s hands. Taguiloa met his mild uncurious gaze and groaned within. The boy seemed as incapable of keeping himself as a day-old baby. Then he saw the way Blackthorn, Brann and Harra were smiling at him, the half-exasperated, half-adoring smile of a mother for a mischievous but well-loved child-and changed his mind. Linjijan was one of the fortunate of the earth. As long as he had his music, he’d be content and whatever he needed to survive and play that music would come unasked into his hands. Women and men alike would care for him, protect him, love him even when they were furious at him. Taga sighed but promised old Tungjii more incense and a free performance on the Luckday festival. He listened to Linjijan play and sighed again, moved quietly to stand beside the old piper. “Thanks,” he said dryly.

The old man stretched his mouth in a tight-lipped smile, savoring the ambiguity in the word. He snapped his fingers. Linjijan stopped playing and came to squat beside him. “You want to go with him?” Ladji nodded at Taguiloa.

Linjijan nodded. He hadn’t said a word so far, even to his great-uncle, greeting him with a smile and a nod.

“That’s it then. Come.” The old man retreated to the far side of the room and sat with his back against a wall, Linjijan beside him.

Tari stirred on her divan, her eyes fixed on Brann. She’d focused on the woman’s face the moment Taguiloa brought her in, had been glancing repeatedly at her as Taguiloa dealt with Linjijan; now she gave over any pretense of interest in the others. “Saiir Brann,” she said. “Taga tells me you will be reading past and future for the countryfolk. He tells me you’re a witch, really a witch. Read for me.” She looked blindly about. “What do you need, gada sticks? fire and shell? crystal? a bowl of water? Tell me what you need and I’ll have it brought.”

Brann came across the room to kneel beside the divan, the brindle bitch moving beside her with silent feral grace. “If you will give me your hand, said Blackthorn.” Tad extended her hand. Brann cradled it on hers. “Yaril,” she said, “Let’s make it real this time.”

The bitch shimmered into a gold glow which rose and hovered a moment over Blackthorn then sank into her. Taguiloa remembered it with a shiver at the base of his spine and wondered briefly if he should interfere. He glanced at Brann’s intent face and held his tongue. The glimmer emerged from Tari and coalesced into a small blonde girl. She stood beside Brann, murmured in her ear for several minutes, then she retreated to the end of the divan and sank out of sight.

Brann shivered, her composure broke suddenly, briefly. Pain and fear and pity and anger flowed in waves across her face. She sat very still, as if frozen for a moment, then the mask was back; she opened her eyes, drew a forefinger across Tan’s palm.

“Not even the gods know for certain what the morrow brings,” she said quietly. “Their guesses might be better than a mortal’s but that’s only because they’ve had a longer time to watch the cycling of the seasons and the foolishness of man. When I read the fates of men and women, I will give them what pleases them and phrase it vaguely enough that whatever happens they can twist the words to fit as they will. They want to be fooled and will do the greater part of the work for me.” Her voice flowed on, gentle and soothing. “Yongala laughing told me folk hold fast to their dreams even when their reason tells them they are fools. Tari Blackthorn, dancer on fire, do you desire that sort of reading or the truth of what you fear?”

Tad trembled, closed her eyes. “What do you know?”

“Shall I speak of it here?”

“These are my friends. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t expect a real answer.

Brann looked at the hand she still held, set it on the black velvet cover. Watching her closely, his curiosity a hunger in him, Taguiloa saw her gather herself; a cold knot in his stomach, he waited for her answer. “This is what I know,” she said, her voice held level with visible difficulty. “Some days every step is agony and effort. Your ankles and knees swell and throb sometimes beyond bearing. When you are in the dance you forget that pain but are nearly crippled by it once the dance is over. You fear the end of your ability to dance. Six months ago you sought solace from pain in poppymilk, now you find yourself slaved to it and view that slavery with horror but cannot escape it.” She turned away from Tali’s drawn face, looked over her shoulder at Taguiloa. In spite of her efforts her own face quivered; she closed her eyes, tried to calm herself and when she spoke her voice was flat and dead. “Saхm, I will not do this for you in the villages, it would call too much attention to me. And I don’t think I…” She faced round again, moved on her knees to the foot of the divan. “Yaril, Jaril, come to me, I need you.”

The blond boy came from the shadows, put his hand on her left shoulder; the hand melted through the black silk and into the flesh beneath. The blond girl came from behind the divan and stood at her right shoulder, the hand melting through the black silk of the robe and sinking into the flesh beneath. Brann reached out and brushed aside the many layers of fragile silk and took Blackthorn’s ankle in her hand.

Taguiloa saw then what he’d overlooked before. The ankle was swollen a little, thickened, stiff. Tari watched with fear and anguish as Brann brushed her fingers across the swelling. “It is only beginning,” she said, cleared her throat, took a breath, then went on. “Were it to proceed, you would be unable to walk five years from now.” She smiled a wide urchin’s grin full of joy and mischief. “Slya be blessed, O dancer, it will not proceed.” She closed her eyes and held the ankle cradled between her hands.