Jo Clayton - W 1 - Wild Magic

Wild Magic

Wild Magic, Book 1

Jo Clayton

1991

GOD-BUSINESS

“You taught me to control wind. Why can’t you teach me rain?”

“I can’t, honey.”

Faan fumed a minute, then calmed, shaking her head so the bright red and green patches of waxed

and painted hair swayed like grass in a strong wind. “Why can’t you?”

“Listen to me, Fa. Chumavayal controls the rain.” The Sibyl lifted a hand, let it dmp back. “You

don’t interfere with god-business, little Sorcerie. Even Tak WakKerrcarr and Settsimaksimin wouldn’t

take that on and they’re Primes, the best there is.”

The name Settsimaksimin twitched in Faan’s mind. She blinked, but the faint fragrance that might

have been a memory was gone. “Gods!” She chewed on her lip, sighed. “Vema. So what do we do?”

“Search.”

“But ... “

“Through the demon worlds, not this.”

“What do I do?”

The Sibyl lifted her hands, held them curved a foot apart. She spoke a WORD and a Mirror spread

between her palms. “Look and tell me what you see.”

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

The Duel Of Sorcery Trilogy

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 Trilogy

Wild Magic

Wildfire

The Magic Wars

and

A Bait Of Dreams

To Penny for her help and the arguments that opened out our minds a crack a

time or two or maybe not and what’s it matter?

A sister’s a sister.

Goddance. The Opening Steps

The islands of the Tukery glitter with dew; the sky is dark blue burning at the edges, clear of clouds;

a wan-dering breeze twitches at green leaves still on the trees, whirls up and drops again khaki and

mustard leaves drying on the ground. The selats—the narrow winding stretches of sea between the

islands—are filled with chop and shadow and drifting veils of mist.

A small boat slides gracefully along the selat that goes past Jal Virri. The hull is amber and

mother-of-pearl, the single mast is yellow sandalwood, the lateen sail silk the color of beeswax; the bow

curls up and over like the scroll on a violin; the stern rises in a duck-tail; delicate feathering is carved into

the sides. A woman clad in veils of honey-colored mist stands in the stern, honey arms folded across her

breasts, gossamer bee wings shimmering from her shoulders, antennas like curved black threads rising

above huge black bee eyes.

The boat stops improbably in midstream when it reaches the part of the island where a house is

visible among the trees and a broad lawn slopes to white sand and the sea water. The Bee-eyed Woman

begins to hum.

> > < <

Inside the house, in a small nursery, the newly risen sun is shining through the window, turning the

leaves of the vines that grow across the glass into slices of jade; leaf shadows dance on the white wall

across from the crib and the child in it; the leaves scrape across the glass in soft arrhythmic sshp-sshps.

Faan rolls onto her back, kicks off the sheet, and sits up. She pulls herself onto her feet and pushes at

the latch holding the side of the crib in place. She unbal-ances as it goes crashing down, gurgles with

pleasure as the crib mattress gives under her and bounces her a few times.

She flips over, wriggles backward till her legs are hanging over the edge, lands on her feet, wobbles

in a crouch till she gets her balance, then trots into her mother’s bedroom.

Her mother is deep asleep, lying on her stomach with her light brown hair in a tangle over her face

and shoul-ders. Faan holds her breath and scurries across the room. She raises on her toes, stretches up,

gets her fingers on the latch handle, pulls it down, and leans into the door. It opens and she slides through

the gap after a quick guilty look at her mother.

She manages to get all the way outside before the guardian sprites of Jal Virri catch her, strip off her

nightgown and her damp diaper, and dress her in a dainty; lacy shift. They play with her a moment, then

go back to the never-ending work of keeping the house and garden in order.

> > < <

She is watching a frog hop beside a pond when she hears the humming. For several minutes she sits

on her grubby heels and listens, then she shakes her head im-patiently, gets clumsily to her feet. Wiping

her muddy hands on the shift she starts toward the sound. ‘‘Maksi,” she says. As she trots around the

house, she makes a song of the name. “Maksi, Maksi, Mak la la si la la Mak la la si la la Mak la la seeee

....” When she sees the boat and the Bee-eyed Woman standing in it, she stops and stares. “Not Maksi.”

The humming grows louder and more compelling. Faan slows. She doesn’t like that woman’s eyes.

They frighten her.

Step by step the Bee-eyed Woman hums her closer. Closer.

She is walking on sand now. She doesn’t like walking on sand. It gets between her toes and makes

them sore. Closer.

Mamay said never go in the water.

The sprites said never go in the water.

They aren’t here now.

She whimpers, but the sprites don’t come.

The water is cold. It pushes at her. She stumbles and goes floundering under the surface.

The Bee-eyed Woman reaches out, her arm stretching and stretching, plucks her from the selat.

Faan wails as she swoops across the water.

“Be quiet.” The Bee-eyed Woman sits her on the deck. “You aren’t hurt.”

Faan ignores her and wails some more. “My Liki. I want you-ooo. Leee leeee ... Leee keee ....”

The mahsar pops out of the air beside her, hisses at the Bee-eyed Woman.

“Good,” she says. “I was waiting for you.”

She hums and the mahsar curls up with her back against Faan, deep asleep.

Faan yawns; her eyes droop shut and she sleeps. The Bee-eyed Woman hums another note.

A honey shimmer trembles about the child.

“Be loved,” the Bee-eyed Woman croons over her. “Let he who finds you cherish you to death and

be-yond. Let them who dwell with you cherish you. Be loved, Honeychild, by everyone you need.”

The Bee-eyed Woman hums.

A block of crystal hardens around Faan and Ailiki the mahsar.

The Bee-eyed Woman hums a double note, spreads her arms. A dome of crystal forms about the

island, stopping everything inside.

Kori Piyolss, mother and apprentice sorceror, sleeps.

Settsimaksimin, Sorceror Prime, and his lover Simms the Witch sleep side by side.

The sprites melt into the soil and sleep.

The trees and everything on the island freeze in place and wait.

The Bee-eyed Woman turns her head.

The honey-amber boat glides off the way it had come.

Sibyl

A mist flows from the stone, eddies and blows about in the strong wind coming up the cave from the

lava lake at the heart of the mountain, a hot wind like the breath of the sun.

Near the mouth of the cave, on the dark side of the line where sunlight meets shadow, there is a chair

carved from stone, broad and worn, old as the moun-tain.

The mist blows toward the sunlight, coalesces into a big woman with an ancient wrinkled face, iron

black and collapsed on the bone; the smell of age hangs about her, musty and intimidating.

She settles in the big chair, sits there wrapped in layers of wool and silk, leaning back, relaxed,

amused, her face obscured, her once-beautiful hands curled over the worn finials, a jewel on her thumb

shimmering blue and green and crimson, a black opal that echoes the bright lights in her black eyes.

She opens her mouth and declaims:

The wheel is turning, the change is near

One by one the signs come clear:

Salagaum flower

Through the nights and the days

High Kasso seeks power

In odd little ways

In the Beehouse’s Bower

The Honeychild plays.

> > < <

She laughs, a soft growly sound like the earth shift-ing.

To be a sibyl, she says, it is necessary to cultivate a talent for bad verse. The seekers demand it.

They will not believe you if you speak them plain.

If you want me, she says, come. I am waiting for you.

You will find this cave on the slopes of Mount Fo-gomalin not far below the high terrace where the

Tem-ple is, the Camuctarr of Bairroa Pili. To reach it, climb the steps and steeps of the Jiko Sagrado

until you reach an ancient olive tree. It is no bigger than a bent old woman, but it has been making olives

since the world began. The path begins there. Go along it, holding your clothes tight against you so the

firethorn won’t catch you and the boutra birds won’t eat your livers. If it’s Spring when you’re coming,

bring silk to breathe through when you pass the grove of Enyamata trees lest the pollen beguile you and

keep you till you starve. Follow the cairns of black lava around the bulge of the mountain until you reach

a cave mouth. Enter and I will be there.

Come with your puzzlements, come with your needs, come in the daylight or hidden by night.

You summon me into being.

Come.

> > < <

I am Sibyl

I am born of earth and dream

I alone in this land exist outside the Wheel The Wheel turns and all things change I do not change

The Wheel turns and what was

Is now forgotten

I do not forget.

> > < <

These are things you might like to know, she says. Names, geography and rule. If such things—bore

you, ignore them.

This is the LAND, this is Zam Fadogurtun. The titular ruler, the Amrapake, is Famtoche

Banddah, the real power mostly lies in the hands of the Maulapam—this never changes. The First

City, the Seat of Rule, is Gom Cor—

asso; little that is important happens there. The city below us, Bairroa Pili, is called the second city

though the part that is occupied is twice the size of Corasso; it is the Mill of

Plenty, grinding out the wealth of the Land. Kasso is priest.

Kassian is priestess.

The Temples are called Camuctarrs.

> > < <

She sighs and changes the position of her hands. I remember everything.

I remember Chumavayal dancing down Abeyhamal. I remember language changing, law and custom,

myth and history, all changing.

I remember Bairroa Pili moving from the Low City to the High, the Low City sealed and sleeping.

I remember Chumavayal as a screaming babe, a raging youth, a splendid man. As the years turned

on the spindle of time, his beauty grew stolid, his alertness faded, until he became what he is today, iron

grown brittle with time, jealous of the youth he once had, hoarding his strength like a miser hoards gold.

I remember Abeyhamal as a screaming babe, an im-patient child, a sullen girl; she is a woman now,

arro—

gant in her young splendor, beating her wings against the power that imprisons her.

> > < <

On the Instant that Chumavayal is danced down, he that was ancient will be newborn, knowing

nothing.

On that Instant the Years of Iron will be forgotten, as if the five hundred years just completed did not

exist at all, as if those five hundred years were simply erased from time.

Abeyhamal and Chumavayal forget them.

The Fadogurs of Zam Fadogurum forget them. Forget the Amrapake.

Forget the Language.

Forget the caste names and make them new-Maulapam the landlords and rulers, Cheo-shim the

warriors, Biasharim the merchants, Fundarim the artisans, Naostam the labor-ers, and Wascram the

children born to slaves.

Forget the protocols and prohibitions of Chu-mavayal.

Forget the orders of priesthood—the Kassoate of Chumavayal:

ABOSOA who do the Family Rites of Life—birth, confirmation and marriage.

ADJOA who tend the public worship—nam—

ings and festal and openings of every kind. ANACHOA who keep the Cult of the Dead ANAXOA

who perform all sacrifices and tend the Forge Fires.

MANASSOA who administer the Temples, Schools and, most of all, the Funds of the Orders.

QUIAMBOA who teach and study.

Forget the tables of Descent and Privilege. Forget marriage laws and marriage customs. The

Fadogurs of Zam Fadogurum churn a while in the Turn’s End Chaos then settle into a new Pattern, a new

peace.

> > < <

I watch.

It is my amusement to watch the permutations and combinations of the Change, the infinitely varied

kalei-doscopic corruscations of the Dance.

The end is always the same

The details never.

> > < <

She leans forward, bringing her aged face into the light; the ghost of beauty clings to her bones.

I am Sibyl that reads the soul and answers as she chooses—most of the time—whenever I’m not

sealed by those interfering ignorant gods.

Ah well, silence is also an answer.

Chapter 1. The Coming Of The Honeychild

Reyna Hayaka leaned against a Sequba tree at the edge of the Abey-zaza Grove, dug out his

strikebox and his ti-pipe. He packed a pinch of bhaggan into the smoke-hole, fired it up, and sucked in a

mouthful of the smoke. He was pleased with himself. He’d found all the herbs and roots Tai needed and

got them in first light with the dew still on them. The best time.

The smoke trickled from his nose and faded into the warm green shadow.

A breeze whispered through the leaves of the canopy and in that gentle rustle he started hearing

murmurs from the Sequba moththeries, translucent elusive crea-tures that even the Kassian ‘Tai saw only

from the corner of her eye.

Tai. Corner of her eye. Corner of her eye. Tai. Wild-magic. Never-never fly-you-by.

He smiled dreamily as a wispy something soared past on gossamer wings and swooped in and out of

the feath-ery smoke.

In a burrow beneath the knotted roots of a nearby Sequba, a famma bird sang and his mate

answered with a demure twitter. Deeper in the Grove a pan-tya chit-tered, broke off abruptly. All

around, there were furtive rustles, small squeaks and chirrups, the thousand sounds of life beneath the

trees.

Sing a song of slippery slides, atip atoop atwitter, hot hot hotter, damned dirt gets dirtier. Tike

tiki tirriah.

And a twee twi twee-ee.

A bee hummed past, then another. Reyna tapped the pipe against a root, ground his heel over the

ash. He stretched and yawned, settled the basket handle more comfortably over his arm and started for

the River.

Reyna Hayaka was Salagaum, tall and limber with long, narrow hands and feet and the breasts of a

woman. His blue-black hair was plaited in hundreds of thin braids that swung in a limber lion’s mane

down past his shoulders. He had honey colored eyes and his skin was burnt caramel, smooth as silk with

amber lights where it was pulled tight across the bone. He wore a white cotton-and-silk underrobe,

cinched tight about his waist with a wide black leather belt, a heavier overrobe with broad stripes of

crimson and amber which fell in straight lines from his shoulders, blowing back as he moved to show the

lining of amber silk.

Slow-dancing along in a happy languor, humming a bee-hymn, amber bangles clanking about his

wrists, amber and gold hoops swinging from his earlobes, he rounded a tall broom bush—and stopped,

startled, as he saw a very young child sitting on the landing, watch-ing a strange little beast that looked

like a cross be-tween a cat and a monkey; it was jumping at famma birds hunting snails in the gravel at

the waterline.

“Ulloa, honey,” he said. “Where did you come from?”

She stared at him through a webbing of silky black hair, startled and afraid; she had big eyes, odd

eyes, gem-colored, the right was blue, the left green.

“It’s all right,” Reyna, said, his voice soft, soothing, making a song of the words. “It’s all right, my

honey. I won’t hurt you.’

‘ He took a step toward her.

The child whimpered, rolled onto her hands and knees and scooted away from him, heading for the

end of the landing and the wide brown River beyond.

As Reyna swore under his breath, dropped the basket and ran desperately down the bank, a gray

streak whipped past him, circled the child, and chittered in her face. As she slowed, startled, he dived

and caught the hem of her lacy shift.

Shaken, but keeping a firm hold on the cloth in spite of the baby’s howls and struggles, he sat up.

“Hush, little honey,” he murmured, “Hush, sweeting. No no, Reyna won’t hurt you Look here, your little

friend isn’t afraid of me.” He held out his free hand and let the beast sniff at it.

The cat-monkey wriggled with pleasure, pushed its head against Reyna’s palm and produced a loud

sooth-ing hum, then it sat on its haunches and stared at him with round intelligent eyes; it was a strange

creature with its flattened little face like a miniature baby and small black hands folded over a silky white

ruff.The child stopped her struggles, her screaming di-minished to a series of sniffles.

Reyna laughed comfortably, took the lower corner of his overrobe and used the lining to wipe her

eyes, then her nose. “There. Isn’t that better?”

“‘spa, ‘nas,” she said. “Poess’m? Oidat’s tor? Tis su?”

“I don’t understand a word of that, beb6.” He smoothed the hair out of her mismated eyes; it was a

waterfall of black silk and softer than anything he could remember touching. His heart turned over. “You

are a mystery, oh diyo. Well, let us see, let us see ....”

He tapped his forefinger between his brows. “Reyna Hayaka. That’s my name. Do you understand,

bebe?” He tapped again. “Me. Reyna.” Moving slowly so he wouldn’t startle her, he touched her

forehead, his finger trembling, then spread both hands in what he hoped was a universal, query sign.

“You. Name?”

She gurgled, a happy sound that tickled his insides, curled one small grubby hand into a fist, then

used her other hand to straighten out her forefinger. She poked herself in the chest. “Faan Korispais

Piyolss,” she chanted, a lesson she’d learned so completely she didn’t have to think.

Reyna nodded, his many black plaits swinging and slipping with the movements of his head. “And

does your friend have a name?” He pointed to the cat-monkey. “Name?”

“Nainai,” she said, nodding vigorously. “Ailiki. Eym mahsar.” She shook her hair over her face again,

looked slyly through the strands, her body shouting mischief. “Reyna,” she said, then giggled.

“Diyo, you are quick, little honeychild.” He chuck-led. “You know you aren’t supposed to go round

call-ing adults by their use names. Someone taught you manners and did a good job of it.” He gazed,

over her head at the River, so wide here near the estuary that the far bank was a faint fuzzy blue line.

Wide and empty. “Speaking of which, my honey, how did you come here and where’s your mother,

hmm?” He tucked his hand under her chin and lifted her head so he could look into those bi-colored

eyes. “Mama?”

She blinked at him; for a moment he thought she was going to cry. “Mamay?” Her eyes dulled as if a

film had slid across them; she shivered and gulped, then she flung herself at him, hands clutching his robe,

head, butting into his breasts. “Mamay, Mamay,” she wailed.

“Hush, bebe, hush, we’ll find your mama, diyo, we will.” He could feel the small body shuddering

against him, feel the shudders fading; there was a last, small gulp and she lay heavy in his arms. “Diyo, my

honey, oh diyo my sweeting, I wish ....”

Ailiki went trotting off, jumped into the small sail-boat Reyna had moored to a post at the side of the

landing. Her tail curled around her, the beast crouched on one of the thwarts, her head up, her ears

pricked as if to say, what are you waiting for?

“Well, look at that, b6b6.”

Faan turned her head, blinked at the mahsar. She sighed, started sucking her thumb, too worn out, he

thought, for anything more.

“That’s a sign if I ever saw one, my honey.” He shifted his grip on her, got to his feet and started

toward the boat.

“Abey’s Sting,” he said suddenly, “I’d forget my head ....” He looked down at the child, pulled a sad

face for her that made her giggle round her thumb, then hauled her back along the landing to the basket

he’d dropped when he dived for her, explaining as he walked that he didn’t dare put her down, she

moved too fast and chances were she’d be in that River before he’d taken two steps.

She was turning into a dead weight, heavier with every step. He shifted his grip again before he bent

for the basket. “I know now why women have hips,” he murmured. “How in this crazy world does a

baby like you gain fifty pounds whenever she feels like it?” He straightened, jiggled her higher and got his

arm crooked under her. “Vema vema, honeychild, it’s back to the boat we go and off to find your mama.

DownRiver first, I think, look round the Koo. If your people know they’ve lost you, they should be

looking for you. Trouble is, a hundred things could happen so they don’t know when you went off, or

where.”

He settled her in the bottom of the boat, set the bas-ket beside her, nodded with satisfaction as Ailiki

jumped from the thwart into her lap. “Good mahsar,” he said, “keep her safe. A boat’s no place for a

baby, but we haven’t much choice right now.” He scratched at his nose and frowned down at her. The

lacy shift was clean and dry. “You don’t look like you’ve been in the water, but I don’t see how else ...

vema vema, how doesn’t matter right now.”

> > < <

The rest of the morning Reyna crisscrossed the long narrow bay, stopping by every boat he saw,

asking if they’d lost a child, if they knew anyone who had, if they’d seen any roasters coming or going, or

any sign of trouble. Anything at all.

Nothing. Nothing. More nothing.

Faan was curled in the bottom of the boat, sleeping so heavily she worried him until he felt a warmth

flowing across his feet; she was peeing on him in her sleep, marking him like a little dog marking his

terri-tory. You’re mine, he whispered to her, by right of res-cue. He laughed. “Salvage,” he said aloud.

“That’s it.” He almost stopped then and went back to the River, but he could see one more boat ahead,

anchored near the mouth of the bay, the Kiymey owned and worked by Vumictin the Silent. He sighed

and tacked across to her.

Vumictin had his nets out, his two nethands leaning against the rail taking a bagh-hit.

“Vum, you see a ship going in or coming out, early this morning, maybe just before sunup?”

The long thin man scratched thoughtfully at his arm, stared at the water then at the sky. “What’s up,

Rey?”

“Kuh! you’re a worse clam than any you ever dug. I found a child, a baby, might’ve been lost off a

ship. Light-skinned, probably slavebom.” He shrugged. “Or a foreigner.”

“An’t seen nothing like that.” One of the netmen cleared his throat and spat. With a sweeping

gesture, Vumictin waggled his thumb at his head, then at the spitter. “Dikhan, there, he swears he seen

the Bee Mother sailing upriver. Quite a sight, he says, honey-gold in the moonlight. Maybe the kid’s a

little accident the god’s dumped on you.” He grinned. “It gets mam and da in one package and

Honeymama can go play.”

Reyna snorted. “You’re about as funny as a wetpack, Vum. Seriously though, if you hear anything,

let us know, hmm9”

Vumictin straightened. “We’ll do that. Now you do us a favor, Rey, and shift youself. You in the

middle the nets and we’re gonna start pulling.

It was late afternoon when Reyna broke off the futile search and wearily sailed the boat back up a

River alive with traffic: fishermen out for bottom feeders and the spiny buagosta which brought more than

all their fish; round-bodied merchant ships moving downRiver stuffed with ingots of copper and iron,

bolts of pammacloth dyed into bright patterns and the wide-mouthed jars Bairroa Pill was known for;

slimmer, smaller coasters carrying passengers and anything else that brought in cash; slave ships bouncing

downRiver empty except for chains and stained benches.

“‘Loooaaah, Reeey!” A pilot’s apprentice swinging a leadline from a net slung under a merchanter’s

bow-sprit waved at him, then went back to reading the knots.

“‘Loaaaa, Ghedd,” Reyna called back, then gasped and snatched at Faan who’d waked from her

long nap and was trying to stand up. “You been a good girl so far, honey, don’t spoil it now. K’lann! I

could do with some rope, run a line from you to the mast.”

Faan tilted her head, smiled uncertainly. “Ti kaps?”

“Nothing, honey, just stay still ....” He returned the wave of a sailor sitting on a topmast spar,

exchanged shouts and whistles with fishermen, with pilots, with traders hanging over shiprails, men he’d

danced the double passage with a time or two or more. He said nothing more about Faan, he didn’t

exactly know why, except there was no point in it and the danger a stray child faced in the streets of

Bairroa Pili was something he didn’t like thinking about.

There were wharves and landings all along the north bank of the River, with barges and boats filling

every inch of space, nudging at each other, swinging rest-lessly against their mooring cables; lines of

Naostam laborers and foreigner slaves moved in and out of them like ants, carrying burdens ashore,

coming empty back for more. There were whistles and calls from a number of them, waves and the lazy

eight, Abeyhamal’s sign.

Faan looked up from where she was crouching beside Reyna’s knee, tugged at the underrobe until

she got his attention. “Tis aym?”

“Hush, honey. Distraction’s bad right now, Iron Bridge coming up. I know, I know, I’m talking to

them; but I have to, you see. People I know, urn ... some of them from times I went with Tai and nursed

... Abey damn that wind, why can’t it ... dosed with tonic and purgatives ... sh, sh, honeygirl, we can

make it, see, slip by, slide through, come out the other side ... friends and clients and oh you name it ...

k’lann! you cretin, I’ve got windright ... oh potz!” He snatched up a boathook and pushed himself away

from the barge, found the sheet he’d dropped and brought the sail around; it filled and the boat stopped

gliding back-ward.

Tense with concentration, he maneuvered through the River traffic, passed under the Iron Bridge,

then the Wood Bridge, tacked around the last bend and angled in toward the dilapidated wharf at the

edge of the Edge.

> > < <

The Ladroa-vivi was the last gatt (wharf) on the north side of the River, standing more than half a

mile past the Wood Bridge. There were a small house for the Shindagatt (when there was one) and a

rotting ware-house which was empty except for dust, spiders in the rafters, and the occasional drunk. Its

interior smelled of urine and death and no one went there except those drunks or fugitives hiding with the

spiders to get above the stench and away from the light. Once or twice a month the Shinda guards

searched the place, confis-cated any contraband they found hidden there. The Shinda Prefect who ran

the city threatened repeatedly to bum it down, but he never did.

The sheds and groves around Ladroa-vivi were the meeting ground for idle porters and truant slaves,

thieves and vagabonds, diseased habatrizes and overage Salagaum; they played dados with loaded dice,

kucha with cards so old the cheatmarks were more legible than the pips, jiwa-bufa with bones the rats

had eaten clean and stones from the River. Or they smoked tumba or drank raw mulimuli from clay jugs.

Or sniffed fayyun, or smoked bhaggan, or dumped handfuls of the dust of dried pepepo—a caterpillar

fed on crazyleaf—into the slugs of mulimuli and went so far off that half the time they never came back.

Or ingested other drugs from the pharmacopoeia of self-destruction.

Those who hung about kept their eyes open and trusted to agility and luck to shelter them from

danger—as did the Kassians, the bee-priestesses of Abeyhamal, who ventured here to bind up wounds,

set broken legs, and dose the hallucinating with purges and settlers.

While Reyna Hayaka was busy knotting the painter, Ailiki leapt onto the gatt and sat on her haunches

wait-ing. Reyna laughed, then lifted Faan up beside the beast. He set the basket on the planks, gathered

the skirts of his robes to keep them clear of the muck, and climbed quickly up the short ladder.

“Something new, eh?” A Wascram smuggler with Connections, the self-appointed Shindagatt of

Ladroa-vivi stepped, from behind a tree and stood at the top of the gatt, his hands on his plump hips, his

elbows out.

Reyna slid the basket handle over his arm, swung Faan up and held her against his breasts, half

hidden by the folds of his outer robe. “Ulloa, Chez,” he said. “Nothing to interest you.”

“Playpretty?”

“No! I don’t go that route, you know that.”

“Some a you clients do.”

“They don’t tell me. I won’t have it.” He turned, putting his shoulder between Faan and the

Shindagatt. “Two pradh and you don’t say.”

Chezar Joggaril rubbed at his broad broken nose; for a moment Reyna thought he was going to argue

the price, then he shrugged. “Verna,” he growled.

“One hour?”

“Bring it youself.”

“I said.”

“No trade, just coin; I’m not in the mood for games.”

Chezar shrugged. “Leia got female troubles,” he muttered. “Needs some more a that red stuff.”

Reyna shifted his hold on Faan who was starting to wriggle, wanting down. He patted the child to

quiet her and frowned at Chezar .. “I’ll bring a bottle. You sure that’s it?”

“Same as last time.”

“Vema.”

With the mahsar Ailiki trotting behind him, Reyna strode into the trees. He stepped over a sprawled

mule-head, started to circle around a game of jiwa-bufa scratched into the hard dry earth. One of the

players, a Salagaum, looked up, pushed straggling gray hair out of his eyes.

“‘Loa, Rey.” He wrinkled his brow, swayed on his knees, and peered hazily at Ailiki. “What’s that?”

“Ulloa, Jumsi. Pet I picked up. ‘Loa, Morg, Jago, Huz.”

He moved quickly through the trees, emerged from them into a nameless wynd filled with refuse, cats

and stray dogs, stopped for a moment to resettle the child in the curve of his ann. “Faan, sweeting,

honeychild, be quiet now. Like a little mouse.” He touched her mouth, shook his head. “There’s danger

here, danger until we reach Beehouse. rm going to cover you with this robe and I want you to stay very

very quiet, shhh ....” He hefted her higher and tugged his outer robe over her. “K’lann! wish I knew how

you turn into solid lead.”

He strode along the wynd, slowed as he turned into Verakay Lane, the longest and widest of the

streets in the Edge; /Wild followed close behind him, a small gray-brown shadow.

“‘Loa, Rey.” An old Fundar woman leaned out a window, a soppy cloth trailing from her hand; she

flapped it at him, splattering washwater over everything beneath her. “What you got there?”

“‘Loa, Thamman.” He waved at her, went quickly on.

A line of Naostam boys went running past, stuttered to a stop, swung round, and shouted

obscentities at him. He paid no attention to them; they were just echoing their fathers. He had Naostam

clients, but they refused to know him when they passed him on the street.

He heard the clank-clash of a pair of Shinda guards before they turned the corner ahead of him,

retreated a few steps and ran down a wynd between two tenements, then worked back to the Lane,

dodging through porters and laborers, handcarts and oxcarts, scurrying cut-purses and lounging

out-of-works squatting around jiwa-bufa circles drawn in the dust.

Mahnk Peshalla stood in the door of his tavern wav-ing a fan lazily back and forth. He had the high

cheek-bones, narrow face and beaky nose of his caste, rat-tail mustaches and a thin beard twisted into

long tight ring-lets; though he was poor Biashar, the son of a merchant who’d lost everything when a ship

he’d invested in never came back, he had two official wives (of the three that Biasharim allowed

themselves) and was more generous to beggars and streetfolk than most, sponsoring a score of Wascram

boys in the Edgeschool. When he saw Reyna, he flicked the folding fan shut, slapped it against his arm.

“Rey,” he rumbled in a voice like a barrel rolling down a gatt, “What you got good?”

“This and that, Mak, this and that.”

Louok the Nimble was standing atop an overturned washtub making silver cemms dance between his

dark fingers, the coins glinting in the morning light, chang-ing to copper shabs, then back again, appearing

and disappearing. “Now you see it,” he chanted, “now you don’t, silver into copper, yes, that’s the way

it goes, copper into air, my hands are empty, my pockets, too, yet see and see, silver.” He paused in the

middle of his handdance, waved to Reyna, whistled a snatch of a tune popular in the Joyhouses, went

back to his perfor-mance, milking a rain of coins from the air and drop-ping them into a large boot. He

upended it, shook his head when a moth flew out, tossed the boot to one of the Wascram boys crouched

by his feet, and went on with his performance as the boys moved through the crowd, collecting coins

from his audience.

On the other side of the Lane Zinar the Porter shifted his load. “‘Loa, Rey,” he yelled, “Tell Dawa

the Lewinkob silk’s in.” He slapped at the bale on his head. “He should get up to Horry’s fast, or it’ll be

gone.”

“Gotcha, Zin.”

Quiambo Tanish went hurrying by, his arms loaded down with supplies for the school. He waggled

an el-bow at Reyna, slowed for a few steps. “Tell Pan to come by school tomorrow, I’ve got the talk

cleared through the Manasso Head.”

Jo Clayton - W 1 - Wild Magic

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