Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

“Can you climb?” Hotea pinched him. “So we hear from you again,” he grumbled. With a spitting crackle of indignation she pointed at the steam shooting from under the kettle’s lid.

“I was born on the side of a mountain that makes the hills round here look like gnat bites,” Brann said and laughed.

“Good.” He chose a teapot he thought of as his garden pot, the one with bamboo and orchids delicately painted round the five flat sides. As he rinsed the pot, he glanced at her. Her head was against the back of the chair, her eyes half closed, her hands relaxed on the chair arms. He measured out two scoops of black tea, added hot water, took the pot to the narrow table by the screen, set out the shallow dishes for the ghosts.

“Why are you doing that?” Her voice came to him, lazy, relaxed. When he looked at her, she seemed half asleep.

“For the family,” he said. A wave of his hand took in the hovering ghosts clustering over the bowls lapping up the fragrance. He came back to the table, filled two cups, frowned at the children. “Do they want tea?”

She shook her head. “No.” She took the cup he handed her, sniffed at the coiling steam. “Mmmm.” Green eyes laughing at him, she said, “Steal only the best.”

“Right.” He dropped into his chair, gulped a mouthful of the tea. “Old man said you and the witch are ancient enemies.”

“Oh?” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know her name?”

“No.”

“Yes.” Hotea darted forward. “Yes. The other wives, they cursed her by name and worse. It’s an odd name, can’t tell clan or family from it. Ludila Dondi.”

“Ah. The Dondi.”

“You do know her.”

“We met. Briefly. A long time ago. Not love at first sight.” She rolled the five-sided cup between her palms. “She was just a fingerling then, but nasty.” She emptied the cup, set it carefully on the table. “Talk, young Hina. I’m due back on the ship by dawn and I’ve other games to play.” She set the box on the table, leaned forward, her eyes bright with curiosity and anticipation. “I’m listening.”

The willows tilted out over the water, their withes dissolving into mist. The boat was a miniature of the flat-bottomed water taxis with barely room for two and a ghost but the children had shifted form again and gone whiffling away as owls. Brann seated herself in the bow, settled the box at her feet on dry floorboards. Aituatea fumbled at the sodden rope, finally working the knot loose; his hands were shaking, but excitement outweighed his fear. With Hotea floating at his side, he shoved the boat into deeper water and swung in. A few minutes later he was propelling them through mist with nothing visible around them but the grayed-down wavelets of dark water kissing the boat’s sides.

After half an hour’s hard rowing, he’d rounded Utar’s snout and was struggling south along the cliffs, the rougher chop on the weather side of the small island making the going hard. The fog was patchy, shredding in the night wind. Finally, Hotea pinched his arm and pointed. “There,” she said. “The nursery garden is up there.”

“’Bout time.” With Brann fending the bow off the rocks, he eased the boat through the tumbled black boulders to the beach.

While Brann held the boat, he tied the painter to a knob on one of the larger rocks, then pulled a heavy cover over it, canvas painted with rough splotches of gray and black that would mask the boat shape from anyone chancing to look down. As he waded beside Brann to the tiny beach, the owls swooped down, hooted, a note of urgency in their cries, and swept up again. A moment later, voices, the stomp of feet, the sounds of a body of armed men moving came dropping down the cliff. Brann dodged into a hollow that hid her from above. Aituatea joined her there, all too aware of the heat of her body through the thin silk of her shirt, the strong life in her more frightening than arousing.

“How long before they come round again?” she whispered.

“When Hotea was in the Palace, the round took about an hour, no reason to change that. Plenty of time to get up the cliff.”

The cliff was deeply weathered, but most of the hand and footholds were treacherous, the stone apt to crumble. In spite of that, Aituatea went up with reckless speed, showing off his skill. He wasn’t a cripple on a cliff. He reached the top ahead of Brann, stood wiping the muck off his hands and examining the garden wall as she pulled herself onto the guard track.

The wall was twice his height, the stones polished and set in what had once been a seamless whole, but a century of salt wind and salt damp had eaten away at the cracks, opening small crevices for the fingers and toes of a clever climber. He kicked off his sandals, shoved them in a pocket of his jacket, looked at Brann, then started up. As soon as he reached the broad top, he crawled along it until he was masked from the nursery door and windows by the bushy foliage.

Brann came up with more difficulty, needing a hand to help her over; again he felt the burning as his hand closed about hers. She smiled at his uneasiness, then sat on the wall and pulled on her boots.

The owls circled overhead, dipped into the garden, flowing into mastiff form as they touched ground. The dogs trotted briskly about nosing into shadow until they were satisfied the garden was empty, then they came silently back and waited for Brann to come down, which she did, slithering down the foliage with ease and grace. Aituatea climbed down as well, dropped the last bit to land harder than he’d expected, limped toward the doors, Hotea a wisp fluttering beside him. Though she was silent now, he could feel her agitation. This was where the witch had caught her. “Sister,” he whispered, “scout for us.”

Hotea slipped through the wall, emerged a few minutes later. “Empty,” she cried. “No children, no wives, no bondmaids. All gone. Not one left.” Her crystal form trembled. “The bottom of the bay must be solid with bones.”

“Just as well.” He took a long slim knife from a sheath inside his jacket, slid it through the space between the doors, wiggled it until he felt it slip the latch loose and the door swing inward. Brann touched his arm, a jolt like a shock-eel. Swallowing a yelp, he looked around.

“Let Yaril and Jaril run ahead.”

He nodded. The mastiffs brushed past him and trotted inside, their nails making busy clicks on the polished wood floor. Brann glanced about the garden, moved inside, silent as the ghost she followed. Aituatea pulled the door shut behind him and limped after them.

The air in the maze of corridors was stale and stinking, a soup of rottenness, thick with the anise Hotea had learned to hate mingled with other spices. Those corridors crawled with shadow and dust rolls that tumbled along the grass mats, driven by vagrant drafts that were the only things wandering the palace. Most of the rooms were empty; there were a few sleepers, some court parasites, men and women drugged by ambition and stronger opiates, refusing to know what was happening about them. Aituatea moved through this death-in-life, his fear and reluctance banished by the demands of the moment; there was no turning back and a kind of peace in that.

Up one flight of stairs to the public rooms. The eerie emptiness was the same, the same death smell, the same staleness in air that was paradoxically never still. They went swiftly through this silence to the stairs leading up to the rooms the Tekora kept for himself.

The mastiffs sat on their haunches beside Brann, stubby tails thumping against the mat. Hotea flitted back to them. “Guards, she said. “Standing on either side of the Tekora’s sleeproom door.”

Brann touched the corner of her mouth. “They alert?”

“Not very,” Hotea said, “but awake.”