Jo Clayton - W 2 - Wildfire

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Wildfire
Wild Magic, Book 2
Jo Clayton
1992
His flesh was cold as stone . . .
When she brushed her hand against Varney’s face, she shivered again. Despite the efforts of the
wildings, his flesh was as cold as the stone. “It’s your doing I’m here, you know,” she mur-mured. “I’d
have been safer riding alone.” She smiled, touched his hair, tenderness flooding her. It really wasn’t his
fault that some murder-ous bezriggid got an itch for power. “Ah, well.”
She thought of the water elementals popping their clear crystal heads from the muddy river, tried to
tease out their essence and turn the feel to earth rather than water.
For an eternity nothing happened.
Then the wildings fled to the walls and ceil-ing. A moment later a vast finger of stone thrust up, turned
and looked at her from glittering ob-sidian rounds. She didn’t hear words, heard no sound at all, but they
were there in her head:
You call us from our sleep, beloved. What is your desire?
She gasped, clutched at her head as pain lanced through it, then found herself able to speak in
something that wasn’t exactly a lan-guage, more an intimation of emotion, a flow of image compressed
into non-sound gestalts: My lover is bespelled, she seemed to say, I must go seek the speller, but I
dare not leave him un-protected. Will you watch for me, keep him safe and warm?
Jo Clayton has written:
The Diadem Series
Diadem From The Stars
Lamarchos
Irsud
Maeve
Star Hunters
The Nowhere Hunt
Ghosthunt
The Snares Of Ibex
Quester’s Endgame
Shadow of the Warmaster
Duel Of Sorcery
Moongather
Moonscatter
Changer’s Moon
The Dancer Trilogy
Dancer’s Rise
Serpent Waltz
Dance Down The Stars
The Skeen Trilogy
Skeen’s Leap
Skeen’s Return
Skeen’s Search
The Soul Drinker Trilogy
Drinker Of Souls
Blue Magic
A Gathering Of Stones
The Wild Magic Series
Wild Magic
Wildfire
The Magic Wars
and
A Bait Of Dreams
Blessings on Kevin Murphy, a man. of lovely, loopy wit who gave me the idea for
the Wrystrike.
shouted, “You’ll find the way, Honeychild, you’ll gather it bit by bit as you pass along the path of
discovery. Seek Desantro’s kin. Look in the Sib-yl’s mirror, Honeychild, and follow what you see.”
Chapter 1. Opening Moves in Valdamaz
1. Poison
On the morning of the vernal equinox—Parmain, the Day of Change, when the new year was born
from the ashes of the old—the Augstadievon of Val-damaz was found murdered.
> > < <
Kalips tugged on the drape pull, let the morn-ing sun into the room. She glanced uneasily at the bed
curtains, unused to seeing them drawn when she came in to clean. Most days she’d find Fish-face up and
pottering about, amiable enough, sip-ping at his coffee and reading one or another of the gossip sheets
that circulated through the shops on Tirdza Street or standing at a window watch-ing the first stirrings in
the courts of the Akazal.
Not this morning.
She frowned, then shrugged and went to work, sweeping, dusting, replacing towels and soap,
picking up his discarded clothes, the dead silence of the rooms getting on her nerves. Not even a snore.
And there was a smell. He was rotten with lovedisease and incontinent, there’d been smells before,
still....
It was some time before she got back to the bedroom. She hesitated in the doorway when she saw
the curtains still pulled shut, then started for the bed. From the smell, she’d have to change more than the
sheets. Wondering if she should fetch one of the menservants to help her with the mattress, she rounded
the foot and saw the break-fast tray sitting on the bedtable, the milk curdling, the coffee and toast getting
cold.
Clicking her tongue against her teeth, she eased the curtain back, then gasped and jerked it along the
rail. Hands like claws, face a blotchy blue, mouth open in a silent scream of rage and fear, the
Aug-stadievon lay dead in his body wastes.
Fist pressed against her mouth, she ran from the room.
2. Official notice taken
The High and Holy Nestrats Turet, brother of the Augstadievon, High Priest in Savvalis, pushed
through the crowd of hovering jeredarod (secre-taries, minor officials) and Akazal servants, went into the
Augstadievon’s quarters.
The doctor beside him, he stood looking down at his brother for several minutes while the
Aug-stadievon’s chaplain swung his censer and the black-hooded Nezarits (vultures, the common folk
called them, when you saw them you knew there were dead around) hovered behind them, waiting for
permission to take the body and get it ready for the Visitation.
“Poison.” His voice was harsh.
“Tja,” the doctor said. “Cinajim, it looks like, though we won’t know for sure till we feed his blood
to a zurk and see if its hair falls out.”
“How soon?”
“Six days, seven.”
Nestrats Turet bent over the bed, tried to close his brother’s eyes, but the lids wouldn’t move. He
straightened, looked over his shoulder at the chief Nezarit. “Take him.”
3. Reaction
In the afternoon of the same day, a Pargat jered (civil servant) of mid degree made arrangements to
ride out the trouble he saw coming and shared his misgivings with his wife.
> > < <
Pargamaz Patikam greeted Tariko with a touch of fingertips to her cheek, then edged her aside so the
bearers could carry their loads into the house.
“What’s this?”
“Hush, Taro. I’ll explain later. In the meantime, let’s get these things stowed.”
Pargamazev Tariko brought the tray into the par-lor and set it on the table beside her husband’s
chair. She poured a cup of tea for him and one for herself, then settled on a hassock by his knees.
“There’s food enough for months there, Pak. Cloth, coal. What’s wrong? Is there going to be, a war or
something?”
“Something. A servant found the Augstadievon dead this morning.”
“Well, he was sick, wasn’t he? Though we’re not supposed to say what he was sick from. Nu,
there’ll be a mourning month, but....”
“It was poison, they say.”
“Oh. Do they know... ?”
“Who did it? No. Nestrats Turet/came out of that room with fire in his eye, love. Council of the
Families met, did what they had to. Named the Candidates and appointed Turet Caretaker., He’ll find
out if anyone can. And then ... you remem-ber last time, the fights and the scandals till the election was
over. It’ll be worse this time.” Pati-kam shivered. “Best we keep our heads down.”
4. Pargats Varney, Candidate
Blond hair loose and flying, Pargats Varney rode recklessly along Smithy Lane, the black beast under
him grunting and spattering him with foam. “Hammer hammer on the Highroad,” he sang into the wind.
The sun shone without warmth, yellow ice in a cloudless sky. The snow was patchy as a dog with mange,
the bits of dark earth growing larger as the day grew older.
When the road began the rise to Dzestradjin
Hill, he relented and let the horse slow to an easy canter. “Navarre will have my hide, treating you
like this, Permakon my child,” he said, and laughed at the twitch in the gelding’s ears. “I don’t care, you
enjoyed it as much as I did, didn’t you?” He scratched in the tangled mane, then swung down and trotted
along beside the horse, holding him to a walk so he could cool out. “Megg’s curse ... on ... all ... poli ...
tics ... and ... politi cians,” he chanted, timing the words to the thud of his feet on the tar that paved the
Lane. “On idjit bro thers ... and....” He snorted and fell silent as he turned the curve of the hill and looked
out over the scrubland that dropped away to the vast shadow of the Divi-tnezh, the forest that stretched
south from the river and west to the coast. It was darker and more ominous than ever with most of the
leaves gone, patchy like the snow with scattered evergreens.
He shivered. The Divimezh was an image of evil as far as he was concerned. If he had the power of
the god Meggzatevoc, he’d burn the hills clean. Smugglers came creeping north through those cursed
trees on what they called the Green-way, bandits sheltered there, runaway churls, lice of all kinds, most
of all the Forest Devils—savages slaughtering anyone who put a foot into the range they claimed.
He didn’t relax until he led Permakon through the arched gateway and the wall round the com-pound
shut out the Divimezh.
Over the clipclop of the gelding’s feet he could hear the smith’s hammer. Navarre was in the forge.
He mounted and rode at a slow walk around the house, pulled the horse up and sat with his hands
crossed on the pommel, watching the smith work.
The Magus Navarre. No one Varney knew had any idea when he’d been born or hatched or
what-ever force had ejected the man into the world. He’d been at Dzesdar Lodge for a dozen
years—just appeared one day, fixed the place up, opened the forge for business.
Navarre was a square man with a pleasantly ugly face; he had long arms and a long torso and
relatively short legs, but he was graceful in spite of that; there were those who swore he could walk the
sharp edge of a knife blade without a waver and girls who sighed with pleasure when he danced at the
Meggasvinte. He had abundant light brown hair that he wore in a single braid that hung down past his belt
when he was out and moving about. It was wound about his head now, held in place with steel skewers
to keep it out of his way as he worked at the anvil.
Despite the noises the gelding made, snorts, the scrape of hooves against the slate paving, he didn’t
look up from the axe head he was shaping.
He was chanting with the strokes of the ham-mer, singing some kind of magic into the metal, his deep
voice dark as the iron. Probably a hone-spell to keep the edge keen.
In the shadows at the back of the forge a small figure stood beside a basket of charcoal taller than he
was. Forest Devil, paying in trade, no doubt. Varney swore under his breath, Permakon sidling nervously
as his knees tightened. They were al-ways hanging about the place, infesting it like lice. He’d been caustic
about it the first time and Na-varre had gone cold on him, an icy anger he was careful not to provoke
again. Not that Navarre would dare harm him—but he might deny his friendship and Varney didn’t want
that.Pargats Varney, a son of the Seven, Candidate for Rule, sniffed his disgust at being forced to wait
like a commoner in a dole line, slid from the sad-dle, and led the gelding around the smithy to the stable.
> > < <
Navarre came in as Varney was buckling the blanket in place. “Kitya fired the salamandrit be-fore I
started work; the bathhouse is ready. Join me?”
“Shull! tja.” Varney gathered up the rags and comb he’d been using to groom the gelding, gave the
beast a last pat, and left the stall.
> > < <
Pargats Varney floated in the hot, herb-strewn water as Navarre lay facedown on a slatted bench
while his housekeeper rubbed scented oil into his skin and curried him with an ivory comb; he was a hairy
man, the light brown curl on his arms and legs nearly thick enough for fur.
Navarre lifted his head, rested his chin on his fist. “Vitra drop her foal yet?”
“Two nights ago. Filly, strong little thing, good conformation.” He watched the housekeeper,
frowning a little. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, but he neither liked nor trusted that woman. If
she was a woman.
Kitya was tall and thin with slanted red eyes and an eerie detachment that seemed to say what she
saw around her was a dream to be tolerated but not indulged. If the shadows were right, she could be
beautiful, mostly she was just strange.
He watched her as she worked on the body of the Magus, her shift damp and clinging to her,
outlining the play of muscle, the graceful dance of the sinewy body. She’s got scales like a snake. I
think. I’m not sure. I’ve never seen her in full light. He grimaced, wiped a wet hand over his face.
And I don’t want to.
She looked at him for a moment, crimson eyes narrowed, then went back to what she was doing.
Almost as if she heard what he was thinking. He felt like a boy caught with his trousers down and his
hands where they oughtn’t to be. Bitch!
“Vicanal fussing at you again?” Navarre turned over, lay with his hands clasped behind his head.
“Who’ve you got pregnant this time?”
Varney stood up, caught the towel the house-keeper threw at him, and climbed the ladder nailed to
the side of the wooden bath. He sighed, wrapped the towel about him, and sat on a bench, sucking in the
steam from water dripping onto the heated stones. “Worse,” he said. He scratched meditatively as he
sought for the right words; one had to be careful, especially now when even the dogs on the middens
would be smelling about for advantage. “Augstadievon kicked off sometime yesterday night. Council met
an hour ago, named High and Holy Nestrats Turet Caretaker for the Interregnum. Which means the
Families are go-ing to be fighting over who gets the Seat come next Counting Day. Custom says Augsta
Candi-dates are second sons, so I’m the Pargats Candi-date. Which means I’m a target for poison like
old Nestrats. Nu, it’s true. Whispers are he was blue as moldy bread when they found him.”
Navarre sat up, stretched, yawned. “I’m hungry enough to eat that Black of yours.” He held out his
arms and the housekeeper pushed them into the sleeves of a dark red wool robe, thick as a blanket.
“Kitya has a chicken roasting and fresh bread. Join me?”
The den was full of primitive color, blankets from the Forest Devils, pottery from the Market in
Savvalis, paintings and tapestries, the firelight shifting from one to another, picking out gleams of red and
gold, blue and green. Varney sank into one of the leather chairs, put his feet up, and sighed with pleasure
as Kitya set a mug of mulled wine on the table beside him, then glided from the room.
Navarre stood on the hearth holding a silver tankard with steam curling from the top. “Health,” he
said and drank.
“And to you, friend.” Varney sipped at the wine, set the mug on the table. “That’s the crux, Magus.
A knife in the ribs, I can take care of that. But poison? No.” He shuddered. “I need an aizar stone.
What’ll it cost me?”
Navarre set the tankard, on the mantle, folded his arms. “Nothing. If I’m permitted to interfere that
far.”“What?”
“I was warned when I settled here, Pargats Var-ney. If I meddle in high affairs, your god will rouse
himself and squash me.”
“For a puking little periapt?”
“For meddling in Family affairs. Give me a senn’t, Varney. I’ll make my queries and if the answer’s
right I’ll send word when the stone’s ready.”
“If that’s the best you can do.” Varney sat up. “Vitra’s a little sluggish, not coming along as well as
I’d like. Veterins Maritz says not to worry, just keep her warm and comfortable, but she’s my best mare
and the foal shows promise.”
“Ah. Tja. There’s an herb the Tyrlan use after a hard birth, they call it qwal.” He tugged on the bell
cord. “They cover a mare’s head with a blan-ket and under it they boil the qwal in a pot the size of a
man’s two fists until most of the water is gone.”
The housekeeper came in, put a packet in his hand, and left. “Do it three times, no more, five hours
between each boiling.” He tossed the packet to Varney. “She’ll sweat a lot, look dozy for a while, after
that she should be fine. If not, send for me and I’ll see what I can do.”
5. In the Divimezh
“It is my right by Blood and Gift.” The City Man set his hand on the Drum and opened his black eyes
wide, willing his half uncle to submit and sing with him the Binding of Ysgarod the Mezh.
“Have you thought....”
“I have thought. I WILL have it. I have begun, but I need more kuash. The Kuash of Ysgarod. Let
what comes, come. Good or evil, hard or sweet. I WILL do this, Babaraum.”
The old man leaned forward, set his hand be. side the half-blood’s. “And I will sing with you, for I
know this, Ysgarod will protect the Mezh, Binding or no. IT will destroy you first, sister-son..’
CABAL
Four robed figures met In a dusty vault beneath the Temple, the bones of ancient High Holies
tucked into niches about them. Three men and a woman.
Two of the men were long of leg and arm, the third squatter; with the cowls pulled forward,
throw-ing their faces into shadow, that was all that could be seen of them. The woman was slight
and moved with a conviction of beauty that nothing could hide, not even thick folds of stiff black
felt.“It was deliberate,” the squat man said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Not a bungle. I planned it
thus. They all eye each other, haven’t you seen? When the time comes, we can use the blame to
eliminate he who seems most dangerous. Until then, they move with caution. No one knows where
to put his trust.”
One of the tall men moved uneasily. “Nestrats Turet.”
“A fool. Why do you think Nestrats Lentil shunted him into the Temple? Wanted him where he
couldn’t spoil the old man’s plots.”
“There’s one you’ll have to square somehow. Varney’s friend. The Magus.”
“True. But not yet. He’s a cool man and not a fool. I know him. Wrystrike. Tja, he’ll stay out
of the tangle as long as he can.”
The other tall man grunted. “And there’s always Megg. Won’t let the zemnik kaz us.”
The woman hissed, her head jerked as if she tossed her hair about; enough light crept under
the cowl to show the clean line of Jaw and neck. “He can look and he can talk.”
The wide man chuckled grimly. “He’ll see nothing and say less. I have arranged it.”
She reached out and touched him, her hand hid-den In the folds of her sleeve. “You’re
certain?”
“O tja, my dear. O tja.”
Chapter 2. Honeychild in Savvalis
Faan Hasmara as she was calling herself these days, Faan the twice-abandoned, settled herself on a
bitt to wait until Desantro finished saying her farewells. Ailiki the mahsar jumped into her lap, kneaded
her thighs a few times, then curled up against her stomach, purring energetically.
The sun hadn’t cleared the rooftops yet and the wind blowing off the water had a bite to it. Brisk
wind. Whitecaps out in the bay. The air up here had a different feel, a sting to it that ran like fire in the
blood. She scratched behind the mahsar’s ears, shivered, and drew her cloak closer about her. Ailiki
grumbled at the movement, then set-tled back to a doze. Faan snorted. “Your coat came lagniappe,” she
said. “I have to pull mine on.” She glanced over her shoulder at the ship, wrinkled her nose.
Come on, Desa, you know you’re going to leave him, why drag it out? Lost cause ... we’re a pair,
we are ... we should forget our families and get on with the rest of our lives ... godlost mulehead that I
am, I can’t, no more than her ... my mother ... I can’t remember anything but greeny-gray eyes and when
I think Mamay, I see Reyna’s face ... that’s not my fault, I was only three when Abey-hamal took me ... I
NEED to know her. I sup-pose I do.
She put her hand on Ailiki to keep the mahsar from sliding off her thighs as she pulled her feet in,
drew her bag around the side of the bitt far-ther out of the way of a line of ladesmen rushing past, loads
in their back slings that were half their own height above their heads.
All she owned was in that bag.
Almost all. Not the money the Shadow-captain had given her when he put her down at
Kuku-rul—that was tucked inside her clothing, in a pouch next to her skin. Yohaen Pok, the trader
sailing with them ... Desantro and he’d had a wild thing going the past month ... made Faan
uncom-fortable thinking about it ... day before yesterday he took her aside and told her he didn’t want to
know what money she had, but whatever it was she should keep it on her at all times. Until she found a
safe depository, he said. A respectable innkeeper will do, he said. Ask about for one who’s got a good
reputation. It’s a hard world, he said, when you don’t have family, child. But it’s not all bad either.
People are generally as good as circumstances allow, he said. He patted her on the shoulder and went off
smiling, satisfied with him-self. He was a good man. Desantro was a fool to let him go, he wanted to wed
her....
It wasn’t much to show for sixteen years of liv-ing, what she had in that bag, a change of
under-clothes, another tunic, an old pair of sandals, the wooden clasp Reyna had worn to hold his hair
back, a book of honey poems Tai had given her on her tenth yearday, the odds and ends the water
elementals had brought her—more memories than substance there, but she hauled them about any-way.
Desantro, tsah! Faan shook her head. She didn’t understand it. The woman wasn’t young or even
pretty, but Yohaen wasn’t the first to get steamed up about her, she seemed to draw them like bees to
sugarwater. Anywhere they went, give her a minute and she had most of the men there gath-ered around
her, laughing, talking ... if her sister was anything like her.... This is a busy place. Faan looked around.
There were piles of goods everywhere ... and ships. She counted the ones she could see from where
she sat ... seven, eight ... fifteen in all all different kinds. Two black merchanters from Phrasi with eyes
painted on their bows. Lean M’darjin galleys ... are they a long way from home! Broad sturdy coasters
... she’d seen lots of those in the bay at Kukurul ... a weird one, painted dark blue, red and white striped
sails, a six-armed bare-breasted crab woman as figure-head. A lot of long, racy ships with a tired look as
if they’d come far and hard....
She stroked Ailiki’s soft fur, enjoying the noise that filled the morning. Noise. That was another thing
about this air ... sounds were crisper, the voices quicker. It was hard for her to pick out the words ...
even with the unintended gift from Abeyhamal ... gift of tongues? Whatever the god had done to her
head, she picked up languages now as if she were a sponge soaking them in. Lis-tening to Yohaen Pok
teach Valdaspeak to Desan-tro (another of his kindnesses), she’d learned far more than he thought he
was teaching. Only trou-ble was, she hadn’t yet learned to hear as fast as these people were speaking.
A ladesman stumbled and a packet fell off his load, breaking apart on the planks of the wharf,
scattering grains of pala to the wind and water.
The argument that ensued was a loud excited yammer that didn’t particularly interest her; the sharp
sweetish nip of the pala woke memories in her, piercing her with loss.
Riverman eating honey and teasing her as they sat under the Batt and listened to the feet of
the ladesmen coming and going.
Water elementals lifting their faceted faces from the brown water.
Wild Magic fizzing about, catching the light like bubbles of crystal.
Riverman ... there’s a river here ... does every river have a Riverman wandering along its reaches? I
never thought to ask him....
Edging past the mess as the trader was de-manding a refund for his lost spice and the lades-man was
berating him for faulty packaging, a boy younger than she was tripped over the strap of her bag and
tumbled into her lap, nearly squash-ing Ailiki; he grinned at her, squeezed a breast, then was up and
away before she could react.
“Little rat.” Desantro’s voice was hoarse and her eyes were red, but she’d put a smile on her face
that said no comment. “On your feet, Fa, I need some tea.”
> > < <
“Tirdza Street. Tirdza means trade. Trade Street.” Desantro spread the last of the jam on her toast,
took a sip of the tea. “Yohaen said just about anyone we ask should know where to find ... what was his
name?”
“Pargarnaz Patikam.” Faan wrinkled her nose. Desantro hadn’t forgotten the name, she just wanted
to hear someone else say it. “We need more hot water, so why not ask the waiter when he brings it?”
Desantro rubbed at her chin, straightened her shoulders. “Why not?”
> > < <
“Pargamaz?” The old man wrapped the quilted cloth about the pot and straightened. “Patikam. Nu
nu, I don’t know the man personally, but find-ing him should be easy enough. You must be strangers
here.”
Desantro ran her fingers through her fine brown curls. “All right, what’s the trick?”
“With the maz on his name, he has to be a Par-gats cousin, so he’s like to be in Ash Pargat. What
you do is ask the Pargat Gatekeeper, he’ll tell how to find him. You got a few spare desmaks to offer,
he’ll send one of his sons to show you the way.
You’ll be going through him anyway, all the Ashes but this’n have walls round them.”
“And where do we find Ash Pargats?”
“Neka neka, Pargat. Ash Pargat. Different sound altogether.” He smiled at her. “Step out on the
walk and go south till you run into a wall. Gate’ll be open. Ring the bell. Slegis is a lazy prat, but you can
put some spring in his step if you let him hear the clink of metal.”
Desantro took the hint and gave him his kod, the bite that passed with all transactions here in
Valdamaz—one of the silver desmaks that he’d suggested for the Gatekeeper.
He went off more than contented and left them to the pot.
> > < <
Excited and a little sad because she was miss-ing her friends, fitting her steps with Desantro’s strides
but contriving to do a dancey shuffle along the wooden walkway, whispering under her breath Gonna
gonna kick and scratch, Faan swung along taking in the sights.
Tirdza Street was broad and busy, paved with granite setts as deep as they were wide, the age of the
city apparent in the hollows worn in them. The buildings along it were mostly shops on the ground floor
with living quarters above. Three or four stories high, they were built from a mix of woods cut into
blocks like bricks, held together by glue not nails or such, the grain and color of the wood arranged in
patterns, the outside pol-ished until the wood had a deep rich glow. The roofs were steeply pitched, the
shingles on them weathered gray, with several chimneys on each house, chimneys with fanciful caps,
giggles in black iron. So many chimneys. She remembered Desantro’s tales of snow and ice and
shivered.
“What’s wrong, Fa?”
“Winter.”
Desantro sniffed. “Foolishness. We aren’t going to be around that long. Besides, once you’re used to
it, it’s a splendid time.”
“I’ve never even seen snow.”
“I thought you liked new things.”
Faan moved her shoulders. “To think about. I don’t know about actually freezing my ... urn ... toes
off.”Desantro snorted. “It’s not even summer yet, babe.”
“Hmm. They keep this place really neat. Like they polished it every day.”
“Maybe they do.”
Faan clicked her tongue, went back to looking around.
Most of the buildings had huge nest boxes be-side one of the chimneys, with twiggy nests and
long-legged white birds going and coming. Yo-haen said be careful about those birds, they’re called
Laimail and supposed to be the city’s Luck.
The shops had carved figures hanging from brackets above their doors, figures in semi round, painted
with bright primal colors:
a man holding a hammer and knife that crossed above the round of his belly. a woman with a
spindle.
a robed and cowled person of indetermin-ate sex with an armload of books.
Faan dawdled by each of the bookstores she passed, catching glimpses through the small dia-mond
panes of piles of books and urns full of scrolls. These shops had noticeboards beside their windows with
sheets of coarse paper pasted up on them, papers like those that a number of the locals were reading as
they walked along. Faan wanted to see what was on those papers, but De-santro wouldn’t stop; she was
too impatient to reach Pargamaz Patikam and find out what hap-pened to her sister.
> > < <
An old woman sat beside a frycart wrapping sausages in a tough, flaky dough, impaling them on
wooden skewers and dipping them in hot oil until they were a crisp gold-brown. For a while she’d been
doing a brisk business, then three youths wearing green tabards with a black bird appliquéd on the front
emerged from a side street, trading shadow jabs and shouted dares; they crossed the street, heading for
the frycart.
The old woman’s customers faded fast. There was a nervous irritation in the way the boys moved
and a mean edge to their voices. They were looking for trouble, ready to make their own if they couldn’t
find any lying around.
Desantro swore under her breath, grabbed Faan’s arm, and pulled her into a recessed door-way.
“Eh-ya eh-ya, Vecsivi,” the tallest of the three said. “What ye selling sa morn, Vec Zen?”
“Well, look round, Cushk.” Another of the three did a step-step dance, waggling his narrow
but-tocks and flapping his hands. “Look look look,” he warbled. “No dogs.” He giggled, flung back his
head so his long brown hair fluttered in the wind. “Grind ‘em up wi’ a pinch o pigfat.”
The third caught up a handful of the skewered sausage rolls and flung them into the street. “Ash
Tirdza,” he shrilled and pounded the dancer on the back. “Trade trade trade, anything for sale, stinkin’
zemniks doin’ what comes natural. When the dogs run out, there’s always cats.”
“Now now, chienis,” the old woman said, forc-ing laughter and lightness into her voice, “you know
that’s not so, it’s good meat and pure, fresh from the Market every morning.”
One of the boys snatched a handful of sausage, threw it at another, then all of them were snatch-ing
and throwing, ducking, yelling, “fresh and pure fresh and pure fresh and pure.”
The old woman pushed to her feet, stood look-ing helplessly around. Storekeepers hovered in their
doors, avoiding her eyes, some men in black tabards had their backs turned, deliberately look-ing the
other way.
Three more youths came from the same side—
way, same age, fourteen, fifteen, these in red ta-bards with a lizard rampant.
“Look a that, Sajuk, Dinots fighting over a bitch.”
“Nay, Uts, can’t y’ see. Look’t the nose on her. She’s their Ma, huh.” They whooped and danced
from foot to foot, chanting, “Laro, Laro likes ‘em bitchy, four legs and a tongue, woof woof.”
The green tabards forgot the old woman and started their own dance. “Druz oh Druzy, foot in
mouth,” they yelled back. “Block a wood got more smarts than him.”
The exchanges grew louder and raunchier until the greens stopped playing and leapt at the reds, fists
swinging.
As they fought, the old woman tugged at her cart and with the help of some men who’d ven-tured
from their shops and several black tabards, pushed it down the street till it was out of the disturbance.
A red shoved a green, got shoved by another green. A red snapped out his belt knife ...
... and got it knocked from his hand by an arm-length of polished wooden rod held by an older man
in a black tabard with a bronze chain about his neck. “Foolin’s foolin,” he growled at them, “but the fun
stops when edge shows.”
Jabbing and prodding with his club, the black tabard separated the two groups, sent the reds down a
side way and told the greens he’d be re-porting them to their Lielskadrav and if he saw them acting up
out here again, he’d have their asses on ice for as long as he could finagle it.
When they’d cleared off, Tirdza Street went back to its usual bustle, the noise was back, louder than
ever, but this time Faan took more notice of the tabarded youths lounging about and a sprin-kling of the
black tabards strolling along the walks, swinging their clubs by thongs looped through a hole in the
handle.
“There’s something going on,” she said.
Desantro made a quick negating gesture. “Just ignore it,” she said. “Local politics, nothing to do with
us.” She started walking more_quickly. Faan followed, Ailiki trotting a half step in front of her.
> > < <
The Gate was a shallow arch in a wall twenty feet tall and nearly half that wide at the base with
another wall running parallel to it on the far side of a wood-paved road that looked like it was used about
once a century. From where she stood, Faan could see patches of scaly gray lichen and scatters of
decayed leaves. The gates themselves were cumbersome things with iron studs and crossing bands; they
were folded back against the walls, the hinge side facing the Ash,
The Gatehouse was built on massive beams set across this pair of walls like a dish on a table; it was a
blocky structure with a Laimail nest next to the chimney, flowerboxes in the windows, and a delicate
railing of wrought iron around the base. There was the sound of a woman singing, a child was visible,
playing with a small toy horse, run—
ning its wheels along the beams and making horse noises.
Desantro rang the bronze bell hanging from a bracket beside a kiosk snugged against the Gate.
The shutter clacked up and a man leaned out, elbows on the ledge. “What?” he said, his voice mild,
his fuzzy brows lifted. He was a small man, bald as an egg with plump rosy cheeks.
Desantro bobbed a brief polite bow. “I seek the house of one Pargamaz Patikam.” Her mouth
twitched into a smile that broadened into a grin as his pale blue eyes twinkled at her.
He tilted his head, waggled his brows. “Pur-pose?”
“I have been told my sister is his wife. She was a Vraga bride.”
“Nu nu, is that so.” He shifted his mouth side to side. “‘Tis complicated to explain,” he said. “If you
don’t already know the way. You’re newly come to Savvalis?”
“We arrived from the South just this morning.”
“Nu nu.” He winked at Desantro, tapped with his thumb on the ledge.
Desantro laid a silver desmak beside the thumb. “If you could find a guide for us?”
“Nu, I can do that.” He drew back, called over his shoulder, “Lokit, get you down here.” He swung
back round. “My next youngest boy,” he said, his pride manifest. “Young cekcek, he’ll get you there,
talk your ear off on the way.”
Desantro walked in stolid silence, her eyes on the ground, her face closed up. Faan glanced at her,
then hurried to catch up with Lokit as he marched across the wood road; Ailiki scampered ahead of her,
nosed at the road, then at the gate. Faan touched the boy’s shoulder, pointed along the space between
the walls. “What’s this for?”
He looked up at her; his eyes went wide. “Your eyes are different colors. Why’s that?”
“Don’t know. The road?”
“For trouble times. When th’ army hasta march. Whatcha name?”
“Faan. And you’re Lokit, y’ da says.”
“Tja. What’s it mean, Faan?”
“Just a name. The Gates aren’t closed.”
“Neka, han’t been a mess-up in the Ashes for a long, long, lonnnng time. We turn down here, got a
ways to go yet. Patikam, he’s comf’table, tja. I don’ know how long it’s been, we han’t got that far in m’
hist’ry class.”
摘要：

WildfireWildMagic,Book2JoClayton1992 Hisfleshwascoldasstone...WhenshebrushedherhandagainstVarney’sface,sheshiveredagain.Despitetheeffortsofthewildings,hisfleshwasascoldasthestone.“It’syourdoingI’mhere,youknow,”shemur­mured.“I’dhavebeensaferridingalone.”Shesmiled,touchedhishair,tendernessfloodingher....

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