Jo Clayton: Drinker of Souls

Slya flung the body of the consort aside and ripped the screen from behind the throne. She winnowed through the women and children trapped there in the spell woven by the dance and the music, plucking out and crushing some, brushing others aside.

Tungjii caught up the weeping boy and carried him over to Taguiloa and Brann. Heesh lowered hisserself to the tattered mat and sat placidly watching the god hunting down her enemies, squashing and roasting them, his eyes filled with sardonic amusement, cheering her on with broken murmurs.

Slya raked immaterial fingers through the palace and extended them until they swept garden and stable, searching out and pulling to her all the Kadda folk.

Cuddling the Heir against hisser plump bosom with one hand, Tungjii reached out with the other and stroked it over Brann’s silky hair, the touch warm and comforting. “One of ‘em’s going to get away,” heesh murmured. “That tricky little nit that came nosing about you. You better watch out for her.” Heesh stroked some more, hisser hand feeling like her mother’s, steadying, calming, understanding. “You want to know wh yall this?”

Brann sighed, straightened her back and her cramping legs, looked round at himmer. “Yes.”

“Glemma, child. The Consort that was. She’s the reason. Ambitious. Got to be head oompah of the Kadda meld. Wanted more. Tried to tap the Fireheart ofCynatnacarnal. Ran into Slya who brushed her off like a pesky fly. Which embarrassed her and made her madder’n a cat in a sack. Made her think too. She teased old Krajink into marrying her and when she had him fast, she made him Kadda like her. Happy enough to do it, old fool, thought he was going to live forever and be young and handsome while he was doing it. Brought the meld here. They tried again, all of them. Stung Slya, woke her up some. And Cynamacamal rumbled and shook and spouted some hot rock. Scared them. They wanted hostages to make red Slya behave. So she whispered into Krajink’s ear and teased him into sending his armies to take Croaldhu and then round up the Arth Slyans and bring them here. She thought she could hide behind them when she tried again to drive Slya from Cynamacamal, then all the fire mountains. Thought she could make herself a god. Lot of lies told. People had to be convinced it was a good idea to bring the Slyans here. You heard most of those lies.”

“And me?” Brann looked at the worn smiling face of the little god. “And the children?” She touched Yaril’s pale blond head, then Jaril’s. “Look at Slya, they can’t do a thing against her, all the Kadda can do is die. Why all that happened?”

“The Kadda meld’s a lot stronger’n it looks, little Bramble. Falling apart now because red Slya sneaked up on it, trapped it before it could get going. Glemma and her crew threw up barriers that blocked our friend when she tried to get into the palace and stomp them. They were more than she could handle without getting a jump on them, though if you ask Slya Fireheart, she’d deny any limit to her powers, claim she didn’t act because she’d have to harm the silly little mortals clustered about the roots of Carnal.” Tungjii chuckled. “We all have our pride, Bramlet. Anyway, she used you and my gifted friend here,” he nodded at Taguiloa who listened angrily, but with interest, “to sneak her in past the barrier. Used you to spin the sticky web that caught the Kadda and kept them from uniting against her. Clever when she wants to be, our fiery dame.”

Slya straightened, wiped her four hands down her naked sides, burning the ooze off them. Four hot red fists on her smooth hips, she looked around, smiled, and started to fade.

“No!” Brann leaped to her feet, enraged. “Not yet you don’t.” She caught hold of the god’s leg, cried out as it seared her palm, but didn’t let go. “No,” she screamed. “You owe me. You can’t run out like that. You owe me.”

Slya looked down at her, made to brush her away. Again Tungjii caught Slya’s hand. Heesh patted it, an affectionate scolding look on hisser round face. “Listen to her, sweeting. She’s right, you know. You owe her a hearing.”

The fiery fearsome god bridled like a girl the first time she came into mixed company after her passage rite. It was such a startling sight Brann almost forgot what she wanted to say. Almost forgot.

“The children,” she cried as her anger came back. “Send them home. You’re done with them. Why leave them away from kin and kind? They don’t belong here. Send them home. And there’s Taga and his troupe. Why ruin them? Why leave them to face the mess you made? You owe your triumph to us, Slya Fireheart. You used us. Make things right for us, or the world will know you are worse than the worst of the Kadda.”

Slya spat a gout of fire that took out a section of wall. “WORLD? WHAT IS THE WORLD TO ME! NOTHING!”

“Am I nothing?”

Slya turned that fearsome red gaze on her, impersonal, indifferent, mildly angry. “YES.”

Brann shuddered, drew a breath, closed her eyes a moment, searching for argument without much hope. “Then I’m your nothing,” she shouted at the god. She waved a hand at the Temuengs beginning to stir about the fringes of the room. “Will you let them crush me? Will you let them laugh and say Slya lost half her chosen folk and let another dribble through her fingers?”

Slya looked thoughtful, then her red eyes brightened with a sly malice that turned Brann cold in spite of the heat radiating from the god. “TRUE.” Voice like lava bubbling. “MY NOTHING.” She looked around, her eyes lighting finally on Maratullik who was calmer than most, watching the destruction with an indifference equaling hers. A hot finger stabbed at him. “YOU! TOUCH MY NOTHING AND CAMAL WILL BURN YOU TO ASH, CAMAL WILL BURY YOU IN HOT STONE SO DEEP MAYFLY MORTALS WILL FORGET A CITY WAS EVER HERE.” She stamped her foot. The walls groaned and the floor juddered beneath them. “THERE,” she said complacently, and once again began to lose solidity.

“The children,” Brann shrieked at her, “and Taguiloa.”

Slya laughed, a high-pitched titter that cracked the walls. “I LIKE YOU LITTLE NOTHING. I MAKE YOU A BARGAIN. I OFFER YOU TWO CHOICES, YOU CHOOSE WHICH. EITHER I SEND THE CHILDREN HOME AND CHANGE YOU BACK AND FORGET ABOUT THE DANCER AND HIS FOLK, LET THEM STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE HOW THEY WILL, OR I PROTECT THE DANCER AND HIS FOLK FOR THE REST OF THEIR MAYFLY LIVES, TORCH ANYONE WHO TRIES TO HARM THEM AND I FORGET ABOUT YOU AND THE CHILDREN. CHOOSE, LITTLE NOTHING. WHICH WILL IT BE?”

Brann looked from Taga to Linji, Ilarra, Negomas, to Yaril and Jaril crouching at her feet. Looked deep in the crystal eyes, remembering Yaril hunched and sad over the fire in the burnt-out storehouse when they were running from the Temuengs on Croaldhu, remembering the closeness they’d shared, the times they’d rescued her, remembering also all the lives of men and beasts she’d taken to feed them, thinking of all the lives she’d have to take for them if they stayed. Looked again at Taga and the troupe, all of them in this mess because of her. Her responsibility. She lifted her eyes to the mighty figure rising high before her, writhing red hair brushing the ceiling lamps, a pleased smile showing the tips of square red teeth. She said she’d change me back. I could go home. The desire to be again what she had been at the start of summer, to be back among her folk, beginning her apprenticeship with her father, that desire raged in her, shouted at her. Back with her father, learning his craft, struggling to make a thing as fine as the das’n vuor pot and its hundred bowls. Her father. She could see his calm brown eyes gazing at her, affectionate, understanding, but implacable. She could hear him speaking to her, saying see your actions through, Bramble-all-thorns, what you have done you must answer for; I don’t want to see you if you abandon your friends. Sick and angry, she fisted her hands, forced her head up so she was staring into the shallow red gaze of the god. “Taguiloa,” she cried; she wanted to explain why, but she did not. “That’s my choice, let the children stay with me,” she finished and could say no more.