Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

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THEY WANDERED THROUGH the night quarter, sharing jugs of wine, the lemur a popular little beast with her smooth soft fur and dainty manners; they got evicted from a few places when some weak-stomached drinkers refused to tolerate an animal drinking from men’s wine bowls and others who liked the beast somewhat more than they liked the objectors jumped the objectors and started breaking the furniture; they visited a joyhouse, Jaril pouting and Yaril sulking when Taguiloa wouldn’t let them go upstairs with him; they settled for entertaining the joygirls, Jaril clapping his hands and dancing, Yaril dancing with him, a small and elegant figure, bowing and swaying with the most wonderful grace, golden fur glimmering in the lamplight. The lemur even played a simple tune on a gittern abandoned in a corner. They stayed there quite a while even after Taguiloa rejoined them, but eventually wandered on to watch a fight in the middle of the street, throw the bones with a circle of men on the sidewalk, losing and winning with equal enthusiasm, all three savoring the noise and activity about them, loud, raucous, mostly illegal and immoral, but full of vigor and the beat of life. Now and then Taguiloa got a jolt when he looked at Jaril’s eager young face, then he’d tell himself, seven hundred years, Tungjii’s tits and tool, and forget worrying about corrupting the boy.

Sometime after midnight, he doused his head with ice-water, looked blearily about, collected the children and started threading through the narrow streets heading toward the Players Quarter.

They left the lamplit streets behind, left the noise and warmth and good feeling. Taguiloa shivered, the water in his hair making him cooler though it didn’t do much to clear the fog out of his head. “I shouldn’t have had that last jug.”

Jaril shook himself like a large wet dog. Yaril-lemur leaped off his shoulder, shimmered and was a large owl beating upward at a steep angle. “Yaril’s going to keep an eye on our backs.”

“Someone’s following us?”

“Not yet. Probably waiting for us. Tell me about Fist. What scares him?”

“Not much. Hanging. Temueng torturers. Dragons. He swears he won’t hang, the enforcers will have to kill him to take him.” His footsteps sounded like gongs in his ears. Jaril’s feet made no sound at all. “He’s cunning, knows when to back off, runs strings of smugglers, snatchthieves, thugs, I don’t know what all.”

“He figures he can handle you, a little pain and fear and you do what he says?”

“Yeah. I’d figure the same, were it not for you change-children. Why else would I put up with Yarm for so long?”

“And he’s afraid of dragons?”

“A few years back, or so I’m told, Fist had a diviner read the gada sticks for him. The man told him to watch out for dragon fire.”

“Ah. Maybe Yaril and me, we can make that reading come true.” Jaril blurred and a twin to Yaril’s owl went sailing up, narrowly avoiding tangling itself in the branches of pomegranate growing out over a wall.

Taguiloa stood blinking after him. “I’ll never get used to that.” As he prowled along through the shadows of the narrow lane, he wondered what had got into the changechild. Too much wine, for one thing. He thought about that and was more confused than before. They didn’t have innards like normal folk, you could see that when they were smears of light. But Jaril had picked up a taste for wine rambling the night with Taguiloa and disposed of it somehow, managing to get nicely elevated on it, maybe it was like ghosts drinking the fragrance of wine and tea and cooked foods. What did changechildren eat? Jaril never said anything about that. Doesn’t matter, he’s a friend, can eat whatever he wants, doesn’t bother me; good kid, Jaril, even if sometimes he scares the shit outta me.

Slowly sobering, he kept to the shadows and moved as silently as he could toward his own gate. Fist wasn’t going to kill him, just break an arm or leg or both and tromp on him a lot and repeat the tromping as soon as he healed unless he gave in and took Yarm hack. Taga cursed the emperor’s boils or whatever it was that stirred him up and made him grab at everything in sight. With the usual number of enforcers about and the Tekora’s guard up to strength, Fist would have settled for a minor beating. Tungjii and Jah’takash alone knew what he’d get up to these days.

A horned owl came swooping down and changed to a blond child. Yaril. She came close to him, whispered, “Some men in the garden waiting for you. Yarm is there, two-legged elephant beside him, a couple others with clubs.”

“Fist himself.” Taga swore under his breath. “That’s bad.”

“I thought so. Mind if Jaril and me, we burn up a little of your garden?”

“What?”

“I remember what you said about fire. We won’t let it get away.”

Taga stared at her, then grinned. “Dragons.”

“Well?”

“In a good cause, why not.” He scowled and swore again. “Fist. Seshtrango gift him with staggers and a horde of rabid fleas.”

Yaril giggled, looked up, giggled again, shimmered and was a replica in green and silver of the small crimson and gold dragon undulating past over Taga’s head.

Jaril-dragon flipped his streamered tail in airy greeting.

Taga grinned up at the baby dragons. “You’re drunk both of you.” Silent laughter bubbled in his blood. The serpentine shapes waved laughter at him, wove laughter-knots about each other, exulting in a form that made them drunker than any amount of wine would. They settled down before the enchantment of their beauty wore off him (he was wine drunk too, far more than he should be) and started off toward his house.

He gave them a few moments then followed after, thinking they were going to impress the shit out of those thugs waiting like innocent babes in his shrubbery. The dragons moved swiftly ahead of him, darting in swift undulations toward his garden. He strolled along the lane between the high wood-and-stone walls that shut in the house-and-garden compounds of those players and artists wealthy enough to buy and maintain a place here. He had inherited his. There’d been some uncertain years after his master died when he was afraid he would lose the tiny house and garden, when he had to swallow his pride and borrow money from Blackthorn which he knew she wasn’t expecting him to repay. He did it-and repaid it-because Gerontai had taught him to love tending that garden; he knew every plant in there, every inch of the soil, even the worms and beetles that lived in it, he knew it by taste and feel and smell, he knew every miniature carp in the small pool, every bird that nested in his trees and bushes. It was his place of retreat and meditation and more necessary to him than anything or anyone else, even Blackthorn. Yarm had disrupted that peace, but once this nonsense was over, he’d have his retreat back. Negomas was proving a quiet, happy companion with a love of growing things and a gentle sureness in those outsize hands that were so clumsy othertimes. He had the wrong sort of body and no talent at all for tumbling or the new kind of movement Taguiloa was exploring, but Taguiloa was beginning to feel that he’d found someone to whom he could pass on the other things Gerontai had taught him. And maybe the changechildren could find him a Hina boy to learn the movements, a boy that would fit into the household and appreciate the peace. Taguiloa ambled along the curving lane dreaming of times to come, chuckling as he heard shouts, curses and screams ahead of him, cracks, cracklings, shrieks, a scream. Baby dragons getting busy.

When he stopped by the gate, a red and gold dragon head popped over the wall, a gold crystal dragon eye winked at him, then the head vanished. He pushed on the leaves of the gate and they swung inward without a sound. Busy Yarm, there’d been a squeak in one of the left side hinges yesterday. He strolled into his garden, hands clasped behind him, stopped after a few steps and grinned at the tableau before him.

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