Jo Clayton - Moongather

She stayed at this water for two nights and three days, dreaming and struggling to understand her dreams, growing more and more unwilling to accept what they seemed to be telling her. For the first time she felt desperately lonely, not daring to make friends with the animals she would use for food. She would not, could not, play with them, talk to them, then kill and eat them.

When night fell at the end of the third day, she drank from the pool then began following the stream. The moons were already far into their travels when the sky darkened enough for them to be seen. The little stream picked up their light, sang and shimmered in the milk-white glow. Walking slowly beside the small strong stream, she felt a kinship with the dancing water and a greater peace than she could remember. She felt strength grown hard in her: the trek from the desert had fined her, tested her, and she had won through.

She walked steadily beside the stream, humming to herself. The flight dream and the odd things that happened afterward faded from her mind. She felt physically strong and bubbling with health, ready to dance with the moon shadows. Four moons set, two rode high, the two became four then five. It was a vast and stately dance. The moon shadows of the scattered shrubs danced about in multiples like dark silent laughter. Her own feet danced in flickering shadow. She threw out her arms, swung round and round, shouting her joy into the wandering breeze, splashed into the stream and kicked sprays of glimmering silver bubbles into the air. After a while, she settled to a steady walk, quiet and contented.

When there were only three moons left and these were low on the western horizon, the stream tumbled into a slit in the rock. Serroi dropped to her knees, quivering at this echo of her dream. She stretched up, still on her knees, tilted her head back, flung out her arms. The starfield was blooming and the Dancers rocking like cradles along the horizon. Then she bent forward and listened to the water booming in the hole, felt the boom echoing hollowly inside her. She blinked back tears. “I won’t cry, I won’t give in.” She bent to the water, splashed the coolness onto her face, drunk deeply, drank again. With a great show of energy, she jumped to her feet and walked on. When she was several strides away, she desired water, then turned west to follow the tug.

The night wore on. The Dancers set and took the moon shadows with them. Serroi faced her loneliness, her pain, her weariness, and slowly accepted them into her; in this remnant of night she found a measure of calm as she narrowed the focus of her strength to simple survival. Without knowing how she knew, she felt that her ordeal was almost over. She was changed, she could take life into her own hands now and shape it as she wished.

An hour after the Dancers set, the eastern sky flushed vermilion. As the sun rose higher, her shadow walked ahead of her like a flat black giant, jerking comically as her feet moved. She climbed a small rise and began looking about for shelter.

The parched land stretched out on all sides, dipping gradually down toward the western horizon, hard earth, dull brown earth, crossed and recrossed by deep fissures, stones of all sizes scattered like tiles across it. One of the larger boulders rocked back and forth, then staggered up onto four skinny legs.

The Woman: XI

Coperic set the tray on the table, pulled the chair across to the bed and sat down in it, smiling at Serroi. She blinked drowsily, stretched, patted a yawn, then smiled up at him, deeply content. Working a hand out from under the tumbled bedclothes, she stretched it out to him. The food cooled as they sat that way, sharing a long moment’s relaxation from a longer tension, sharing affection rather than passion, an affection both needed badly.

Coperic was driven by his needs to hide this side of his nature. Only rarely could he share without subterfuge. He was a complex man, a strange man Serroi could marvel at but not fully understand. She lay warm, comfortable, relaxed, contemplating the dreamy calm on his face so different from that sour greedy mask he wore downstairs. His plots and schemes, most of them of a kind to bring him under the headsman’s axe were they discovered, these were as necessary to him as the air he breathed. He was smuggler and spy, master of thieves and vagabonds, cynic and idealist, fanatically loyal to his friends, a bitter enemy to those who injured him.

A minute more, then both broke the hold. Serroi threw the covers back and stood. After putting on the crumpled boy’s clothing for one more day, she brushed off her feet and stamped into her boots. Crossing to the table, stepping over Coperic’s feet and answering his friendly grin, she picked up the tray and carried it to the bed. “You have many people downstairs?”

“Not open, not for another couple of hours.” He rubbed at his long nose. “Lot of my customers are allergic to morning light.”

Serroi took a few minutes to eat, then she looked up. “Take care, Pero. Has Morescad got anything against you?”

Coperic shook his head. “I’m too little to catch his eye; besides I mean to keep my head low for the next few passages. No chances for greedy old Coperic.”

“Wish I could believe that.” She drained the cup. “Take care of the girl for me.” She lifted the tray from her knees and set it on the bed beside her. “She’s going to kick up a fuss when she finds me gone, but she’s a good child and far from stupid. If I don’t make it back… She scowled, touched her forehead. “Is the coloring still even on my face?”

Coperic leaned forward and drew his fingertips along the side of her face. “Yes, little meie; you’ll have to chip it off with a chisel when you want to be yourself again.”

She laughed, then sobered, caught hold of his hand, held it against her face for a moment. “I’ve got a cold feeling about today.”

Coperic freed himself gently, leaned back in the chair, frowning at her. “You have to try it?”

She nodded. “For a lot of reasons. I suppose mostly because I have to live with myself after this.” She flicked her fingers at the weaponbelt coiled on the table. “I’m leaving that and the pack with you.”

He scratched at an eyebrow. “You’re not thinking clearly about this, Serroi. It wouldn’t be too hard to slip a message to the Domnor warning him of this plot and do it without blowing my cover or yours.”

Serroi shook her head. “You’re right, it’d be easy enough. How much would you believe if you got a note like that?”

“Can you be sure he’ll believe you?”

One corner of her mouth twisted up, then she shook her head. “No, Pero, but I think the chances are better that I can convince him.” She leaned forward. “The Nearga-nor seem to be holding a meeting here; I saw more than a dozen of them on the Highroad coming here. Why? How many of them are actually here? Hern’s no fool, he’s got to be asking himself what the hell’s going on. It’s not the Gather; the Norim don’t have anything to do with the Maiden if they can help it.” She stood. “If I don’t come back, tell, Yael-mri to remember my Noris, that I smell him in this.” She slipped the cap on, tucked in stray wisps of hair. “Can I just walk out?”

He moved to the door and pulled it open. “Just go. No problem.”

The side streets were empty and, quiet in the clear calm dawn. The east burned with layers of red and gold that were reflected in the scummy pools. Serroi skirted the puddles and made her way to the main street where street vendors had mooncakes already frying in pots of fat. The street was filling with the crisp hot smells of oil and batter. Jugglers and beggars, fortune tellers and gamblers, thieves and acrobats, even a few petty Norids mixed with pilgrims up early on this Moongather Eve, all of them gathering around the cake vendor’s stalls or setting up for the influx of pilgrims later on.