Jo Clayton: Drinker of Souls

Slya laughed. Several lamps shattered and spilled their burning oil onto the sluggishly stirring meslars and their companions. “SO BE IT, LITTLE NOTHING. YOU OUT THERE HEAR ME, ANY OF YOU CONTEMPLATING HARM TO THESE FOLK OF MINE. I NAME THEM: TAGUILOA, HARRA HAZHANI, UNMAN, NEGOMAS. SEE THEM. HEAR THIS ALSO: CONTEMPLATE OR CAUSE HARM TO THEM AND YOU BURN. SO…

She ran her red gaze over the Temuengs, stared a long moment at the Hand, moved on to a magistrate trying to straighten his tangled robes. He had just time to look up, startled, then he was a torch hot enough to melt the stone beneath his feet, ash and cinders a second later in a puddle of congealing stone.

Slya laughed. More lamps broke and a pillar cracked. She stretched her four arms, yawned, melted into nothing.

Tungjii calmed the wailing child heesh held on hisser knee, set him down and beckoned to Maratullik. “Take your new emperor and serve him well, Hand. He’s your luck now, make the most of him. His fortunes and yours are paired.” Heesh grinned at the calm-faced Ternueng. “Enjoy yourself, web spinner.”

Maratullik permitted himself a small tight smile, took the boy’s hand and led him away.

Tungjii rolled onto hisser feet, patted Taguiloa’s head. “‘You too, Taga. Enjoy yourself.” Over hisser shoulder, he called to Maratullik, “Web spinner, you better believe Slya means what she says.” Heesh chuckled. “She likes to burn things, you know.” The chuckle lingering behind himmer, heesh faded into nothing.

Brann looked down at her charred palm already pink with new skin, then at the space where Tungjii had been. “That old fox.” She glared at Taguiloa. “I am so damn tired of jerking through the sneaky plots of every damn god around. I am so damn tired of being lied to and kicked around and having no idea what’s really going on. Haaah! Tungjii!”

Taguiloa nodded absently, his eyes following Maratullik. “I told you, Bramble, heesh is the family patron.”

Maratullik was busy talking in a low voice with several of his minions, sending them scurrying on errands, watching with cold amusement as the other meslars crept away from the hall, hurrying to get away from the destruction and begin their own machinations. As soon as a Hina nursemaid led the child-emperor off, he walked over to Taguiloa. “You’ve made things interesting, Hina.”

Taguiloa shrugged.

“You’ll keep a still tongue about it. You and your troupe.”

“Why not. If it’s to my profit.”

“Don’t count too much on your fire-breathing patron. If you prove too troubling a nuisance, someone will find a way to remove you.”

Taguiloa smiled at him. “Want to state that a bit more directly?” He laughed. “Don’t threaten me, Hand.” He moved his shoulders, straightened his back feeling as if he’d cast off a worn and cramping garment. “Hear me, Temueng. I don’t give shit about you or your games. I’m a player, not a courtier. What I want is to go back to Silili with the Emperor’s Sigil so I can do the kind of dances I want before the fools who think that Sigil means something.”

“You’re insolent, Hina.”

“Yes, saх jura Meslar.” Taguiloa drawled the honorifics until they turned into insult.

“You really don’t care, do you.”

“No.”

“You could use your protection to wield a lot of power, Hina.”

“I don’t want a thing you want, Temueng.”

Maratullik narrowed his eyes. “Oddly enough, I think I believe you. I don’t understand you, but I believe you.” He beckoned a guard to him. “Get some slaves and see they pack up the players’ things, then take an empushad and escort them to my house; see them settled in.” He cut off the guard’s response, turned back to Taguiloa. “Get out of here now. Get out of Durat by sundown tomorrow.”

“With pleasure. The sigil?”

“I’ll have the patent delivered to you before you leave, Anything else? Another way I can serve you?” There was a warning in the clipped words, the Hand had been pushed about as far as he was willing to go.

“What about a barge and an empushad of imperial guards to keep us safe going south?”

Maratullik ground his teeth together, his face got red, breath snorted through his nose. He couldn’t speak, he opened his mouth, a grating sound came out.

Taguiloa laughed. “Never mind. Just wondering. We’ll take care of ourselves.” He turned and sauntered out, the others trailing silently, contentedly, behind him, the guard bringing up the rear of the procession. Harm had slipped on her finger bells and after a few steps started up a jaunty beat, whistling a tune to match it, turning their exit into a triumphal march.

6. Moving On

BRANN GAVE THE POT a final burnishing and set it in its velvet nest; she closed the lid and eased the flat little hook into its eye. Have to tell Chandro to drop this off at Perando for me. She smiled. Sailing man, like my Sammang, like another few I’ve known. I’ve definitely got a weakness for them, these sailing men. She looked up as she heard the squawk of an albatross dipping low over the ship. Yaril commenting on something, probably another ship. Hope it’s not trouble out of Silili. Couldn’t be, not yet, they won’t have sorted out the mess in the Tekora’s palace yet. She slid down in the chair until her neck rested on the top slat, swung her feet onto the table and crossed her ankles, lay stretched out contemplating the ceiling beams, dismissing the recent events in Silili, thinking about her quest and its end. A strange time that was. Gods and mortals jostling and elbowing each other, all wanting something different, getting in each other’s way, scattering lies like seeds at spring planting, nothing exactly what it seemed.

The ship heeled over suddenly, the chair tottered and fell, dumping her onto the floor. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the table, caught the box before it tumbled off. “That was close. Sandbar, I suppose, they come and go round here. What Yaril was yammering about more than likely.” She stroked her hand across the smooth lacquer. “Into the chest with you.”

She tucked the box into the heavy seachest at the foot of the bed, got dressed, went out to hunt down the cook and get something to fill the hollow under her ribs.

THE JADE KING drew the sword from its sheath, smiled at the new bloodmarks on the blade. “Curse still healthy?”

“Very.”

“Good.” He beckoned to his Vizier. “Pay her.”

And that was the end of that. She went out wondering who he was going to give that sword to and why he had to be so devious. Another mystery to add to those things she’d probably never know.

BRANN WENT WANDERING through the Jade-Halimm Market. It was famous through half the world, as much for the look of the place as for the rarities sold there, a spacious sunny place with ancient vines coiling over equally ancient lattices, living walls for the market stalls that were handed down from father to son, mother to daughter. They kept herds of small green lizards to eat the ivy clean of insects and sponged dust off the leaves every morning so these shone like the jade that gave the city its name. She saw a potter’s stall and stopped to look over the wares, picked up a simple unglazed cup, ran her fingers over it, made of a clay strange to her, a pleasant red-brown, thin, tough, with a satisfying solidity. She held it and felt a shock of recognition, a rightness so strong it burned like fire through her. The stall-keeper, a handsome young woman, was busy with another customer; Brann fidgeted impatiently, caressing the cup as she waited, liking it more the longer she held it, When the woman came to her, she held it up. “Who made this?”