Jo Clayton - Duel of Sorcery 1 - Moongather

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Moongather
Duel of Sorcery, Book 1
Jo Clayton
1982
Read 1, w2, 12-14. Spell-checked. Put in spacing.
DINAFAR
pressed her hand against her mouth as she watched the meie circle slowly about Sten. She must have
taken a saber from one of the bodies while Dinafar distracted Sten because she held one now—and
looked like a child playing with its father’s arms, her short fingers barely able to circle the hilt, the weight
and size of it looking too great for her thin arms to lift. Her face was intent as she concentrated on the
man in front of her, staying just beyond his reach, watching, waiting. Like that first Kappra, Dinafar
thought. Teasing him until he made the mistake that killed him. She’s going to kill this one too; he
outreaches her, outweighs her, has to be three or four times as strong as she, but she’s going to kill him.
Jo Clayton has also written:
Diadem from the Stars
Lamarchos
Irsud
Maeve
Star Hunters
The Nowhere Hunt
At The Cusp They Meet
“I’m bored.”
Raiki janja looked up from the cards she was shuffling, lay-ing out on the leather in front of her
knees, gathering in and reshuffling. In the cruel light of the early morning sun thousands of small wrinkles
webbed her face, deeper wrinkles rayed out from eyes made larger and darker by the uneven lines of
black painted around them. She sighed and her dou-ble dozen gold chains with their pendant coins lifted
with the sigh, clanking fitfully. She sat on a huge hide nearly as an-cient as she, her small feet tucked
neatly under her heavy thighs, her robes billowing about her bulky body. She looked what she was, a
minor tribal sorceress—except for her eyes. They were a shadowy, shifting, brownish green like water in
a shady tarn, calm and wise and eternal, the only external sign of that which dwelt within her. “No,” she
said. “Not bored, just greedy.”
Haloed by the rising sun, Ser Noris stood on the edge of a cliff, his hands clasped behind him, white
hieroglyphs against the stiff black of his robe. He turned and walked toward her, his booted feet
soundless on the gritty stone. A ruby like a teardrop with a fine gold ring through the tail hung from his left
nostril—a relic from a youth so distant he couldn’t re-member when he first eased the gold ring through
his flesh. He wore it still, since the weight of it against his lip was part of him now, though the blood-red
gleam of it ill suited the cool austerity of his face. When he smiled at her, the ruby lifted and rolled,
glowing at the touch of the rising sun. “No, janja, I need a challenge. I’m ossifying.” He stamped a boot
heel against the stone. “Much longer and I’m as responsive as this rock.”
Raiki shuffled the cards, squared the pack. “The penalty of your success, Ser Noris.”
“A very small success, janja.”
“You want too much.” Holding the cards low in her lap, she gazed past him at the valley glowing
green and beautiful beyond the edge of the cliff. “That’s not for you.”
“Because I’m of the Nearga Nor? I won’t be bound by them, janja. I hold the Norim here.” He
closed one shapely hand into a fist. “None of them can touch me, singly or in concert. I wield more
power than most men dream of, but ...” He waved his hand at the valley. “When I stand here, knowing
what lies behind that, I know how small a triumph I can boast. I need more room, janja.” He wheeled,
bent with liquid ease and took the top card from the deck she held, straightened and stood tapping the
card’s frayed edge against his thumbnail. “Match me, janja.”
Raiki frowned. “A game? Absurd.”
“Play the game, janja.” He smiled once more, a wide charming smile that warmed his cold face.
“Why not?”
She slipped the next card from the deck, held it a moment face down. “I shouldn’t warn you, my
beautiful wrong-headed Noris, but I’ve got fond of you a little. Don’t do this. The game will destroy
you.”
His smile turned wry. “I don’t think so. Consider this, janja, even if you’re right, what choice have I?
I can rot alive or live while I live, however short that be. If you were I, what would you choose?”
“So be it. Play your card, Ser Death.”
“Order, janja. Control, not death.” He placed the card on the hide in front of her knees.
IMAGE: head and torso of a girl child, green blotches spat-tered across her fair rosy face. A
darker green oval in the center of her forehead just above her nose was half concealed
by tumbling red-brown curls. The four-year-old gazed from the card with desper-ate
defiance, her orange-amber eyes opened wide.
Raiki smiled down at the image, affection and sorrow mixed on her face. “A misborn of the
windrunners.” She looked up. “Poor child. Must you?”
Ser Noris waited without speaking, his dark eyes fixed on the card in her hand.
“If you must.” Sighing, Raiki laid her card beside his.
IMAGE: The misborn grown older. The green blotches had spread and joined until her skin was a
light olive green. The darker blotch on her forehead was more cleanly defined, an oval
eye-shape between her brows. Her hair was shorter, a cap of soft russet curls. She wore
a time-rubbed leather tunic that hugged the meager curves of her slim torso like a
second skin. The tip of a bow rose over one shoul-der.
“Think that’s clever, Raiki janja?” Ser Noris touched the card with the toe of his boot. “I’ll teach the
child. After that, try taking the woman.”
Raiki gazed at him sadly. “You don’t understand. By your nature, you can’t understand. Take your
next card.”
IMAGE: a man in a loose black robe, a silver flame em-broidered on the breast. His arms were
held out from his sides, elbows bent, palms turned up. A fire burned on the right hand, a
scourge was draped over the left.
Raiki shook her head. “Ah my friend, that’s bad. The Sons of the Flame. Tschah! You’re calling on
the worst in man. I’m afraid I’ve got no place in that world you’re shaping. My stomach couldn’t take it.
I’d be angry all the time and turn sour as an unripe quince.” She laid her second card down.
IMAGE: a short pudgy man, surplus flesh veiling the strong, elegant bone structure of his face and
body. He looked lazy, sensual, intelligent and arrogant, a man who had everything he
wanted without having to ask for it, who was saved from decay by an ex-uberant
enjoyment of life, who yet was so indolent he didn’t bother to probe deeply into the
things that excited his wonder or prodded his curiosity. A man with much promise, little
of it realized.
“Hern of Oras. A flawed weapon, janja.”
“Perhaps.” She gathered in the cards. “Flaws can be use-ful.” Struggling to her feet, she moved past
him to the cliff’s edge where she stood gazing down into the Biserica valley. “Ser Noris, my Noris, too
many people are going to die from this game of yours.”
He crossed to stand behind her. “They die every day in that chaos you call life, janja. What’s the
difference?” He squeezed her shoulder lightly, an affectionate gesture odd for one of his training—a
training which should have killed the capacity for affection in him. That it had not, that he had contrived to
ignore the more restricting requirements of the Neärgate and flourish in spite of this, was some slight
measure of how far behind he had left his colleagues and how high his ambition could leap.
Raiki patted his hand. “Take care, my Noris. If you dis-cover the answer to that question, I’ll have
won the game.”
The Woman: I
Lightning whited out the street. Slowing her stumbling run, Serroi clapped small square hands over
her eyes. That was close. The eye-spot on her brown throbbed danger, danger, danger, giving her a
headache, telling her what she didn’t need to know. Behind her the shouts of the guards were growing
louder; over the scraping of her own boots she could hear the thuds of their feet. She bumped against a
wall, pulled her hands down, the corners of her wide mouth twitching into a momentary smile at the
absurdity of trying to run self-blinded. As she rounded a bend in the twisting street, the lightning flashed
again, showing her Tayyan stum-bling heavily over the body of a drunk stretched limp against the wall.
The lanky meie got to her feet, wincing as she tried putting her foot down. Serroi stopped beside her.
With a last worried glance behind her, she knelt beside the injured leg. “Bad?”
Tayyan shook her head, her short blonde hair shifting about her long face. “Don’t think so.” She
brushed the pale shag out of her eyes. “How close do you think?”
“Couple turns behind us, but closing.” Serroi felt the in-jured ankle, ignoring Tayyan’s gasp of pain.
“I don’t think anything’s broken. Can you walk?”
Tayyan lifted her head, squinted as lightning cracked the darkness again, grimaced as a hoarse yell
sounded to be swal-lowed almost immediately by a thunder crash. “I’d better, hadn’t I.” Her short laugh,
was harsh, strained. She pushed away from the wall and limped a few steps, sweat beading her forehead,
teeth clamped on her lower lip.
“Lean on me.” Serroi slid her arm around her shieldmate’s waist. “All right?”
Tayyan chuckled, an easier, more natural sound this time. “Fine, little one.” She ruffled Serroi’s
tangled curls, then pressed her hand down on her shoulder, resting enough of her weight on the small
woman to enable her to swing along at a fast walk.
Every glare that shattered the stifling blackness of the stormy night showed storehouses sharing
sidewalls on each side of the winding street, blank stone faces two stories high locking them into the way
that was looking more and more like a trap. A vinat run to the slaughter, Serroi thought. Maiden
grant we find a sideway soon. Or we have to fight.
The street twisted again, an abrupt, almost right-angled bend. The two women staggered around the
bend and stopped, dismayed, as the lightning showed them a solid stone wall blocking the passage—a
warehouse, its massive iron-bound doors the only break into two stories of rough-cut stone. Serroi
looked up at Tayyan, touched the coil of rope on her weaponbelt. “You’re the climber. What’s the best
way?”
Tayyan urged her forward, hobbling with her halfway to the end. Then she halted, gave Serroi’s
shoulder a little push. “The warehouse. You climb, I’ll keep them off your neck.” She limped to one side
of the street; her eyes fixed on the corner they’d just turned.
“But ... Tayyan!”
The taller woman glanced back, grimaced. “Get a move on, will you? You’re going to have to haul
me up as it is.”
Serroi stared down at shaking hands until they steadied, then she ran over the cobbles until she stood
before the dou-ble doors. She unclipped the line from her weaponbelt, snapped on the small folding
grapnel, began swinging the weighted rope in widening circles. She let it go. The rope went streaming
upward, butted playfully at an overhanging beam, then fell back to clatter on the cobbles. Serroi’s breath
whined in her throat as she pulled in the grapnel and swung it again, around and around until it hissed
through the heavy air. When she let it go this time, she heard the grapnel clunk solidly home and saw the
rope jerking like a thing alive in front of her. She drew her hand across her sweaty forehead, straightened
her shoulders and turned.
Tayyan was standing in the middle of the street now, her hand on the hilt of her sword, her body
balanced and alert in spite of her injured leg. Serroi breathed a prayer of thanks, then shouted, “Tayyan!
Get your skinny self up this rope.” She reached for the bow clipped to the wide leather strap that passed
diagonally across her back. “I can hold them off better with this.”
Tayyan snorted as she limped a few steps closer. “You first, love; you’ll have a better angle of fire
from the roof.”
“Tayyan!”
“Don’t you argue or I’ll spank you black and blue when we get home, little windrunner.” She
grinned. “Get!”
“Bully.”
“Scrap.” Still chuckling, Tayyan turned to face the corner again. Lightning burned the images of four
men out of the darkness. Her voice cutting through their shouts of triumph, she cried, “Go!”
Serroi ran at the rope and began hitching her way up it. A quarrel from a guard’s crossbow thudded
against the stone and skittered off. Curses and the clank of sword on sword sounding behind her drove
her faster and faster, up the rope; her arms burning with the intensity of her effort. Finally she swung
herself over the parapet and collapsed onto the flat roof. A quarrel hummed past. She shifted position
hastily and risked a glance over the edge.
Tayyan was down, a quarrel through the thigh of her in-jured leg. As Serroi watched, she struggled
onto her knees, then onto her feet, using her sword as a brace until she was up. She lifted the sword and
waited for the guards to attack.
They advanced cautiously; a Biserica trained meie, even one handicapped by a wound in the leg, was
to be respected. Her back against the wall of the storehouse, she waited for them, calm, resolute and
deadly.
Serroi unsnapped her bow and strung it. The man with the crossbow slapped a quarrel in place and
clawed back the bowstring. She nocked an arrow and let it fly, taking him in the throat. Then she
methodically dropped the other three as they scrambled for the bend in the street. Bow in hand she
leaned over the parapet to call to Tayyan.
Tayyan took one step, slipped in her own blood and crashed onto the cobbles. The quarrel in her leg
must have nicked an artery, for the blood was pumping out of her, gush-ing whenever she tried to move.
She managed to drag herself a few feet. Her hands slipped and she went down; she raised her head,
called hoarsely, “Serroi, help me.”
Serroi dropped her bow and started to swing back over the parapet. Three more guards plunged
around the corner. She leaped back to the bow, pulled and loosed with the calm sureness trained into her
by her years at the Biserica. As the last man toppled, the Norid stepped around the bend. His hands
were raised. There was a sharp agony of light flashing between them, a small fireball. Serroi froze. He
threw the fireball. It came at her, growing, growing.
Bow clutched forgotten in one hand, whimpering in terror, forgetting everything but her need to get
away, Serroi fled over the roofs, sliding, leaping, blind and deaf. Lightning and thunder cracked around
her. The wind rose, battered at her. Great drops of rain spatted down. She fled over the rooftops, eyes
blind, mind numb, body only animal competent, leaving her shieldmate lying in her own blood, forgetting
the oath she swore on sword and bow, caught in an agony of terror touched off by the dark figure of the
sorcerer.
She fled until the roofs ended at the city wall, scrambled desperately onto the broad walkway and
into an arrow slit then threw herself toward the uneasy water far below, not caring whether she lived or
died.
She hit the water feet down, body vertical, slicing into it, going deep then fighting up, mind blank,
body struggling to live. With the storm breaking over her, lightning almost con-tinuous, the wind snatching
at the water, turning the harbor into treacherous cross-chop, she swam blindly until she slammed into the
side of a moored boat. Without hesitation she swung herself over the rail and lay gasping on the deck. As
soon as she’d caught her breath, she fought the sail free of its cover and got it raised, slashed the mooring
lines, and sent the boat into the heart of the storm, her tears mixing with the sea spray and the rain.
The wind drove the boat far out to sea before the storm dissipated and left her bobbing like a cork
between great swells of water with no land in sight and little idea of what direction she was moving in.
She unclamped cramped fingers from the tiller, uncleated the sheet and let the sail crumple down, then
dropped her head on her knees, trying to summon the remnants of her strength. After a time she sat up,
touched her forefinger gently to the soft warm green spot that sat like a third eye in the center of her
forehead. With the spot quivering under her touch she desired land, then closed her eyes and moved her
head in a slow half circle, trying to feel the pull that would tell her where she had to go.
Once the tugging had steadied, she raised sail again and sent the boat after the pull.
It was still dark when she neared a line of chalk cliffs. The clouds were breaking up overhead and the
Dancers were visi-ble, the last of the eleven moons to join the Gather, three small glows that always
moved together, crescent or gibbous or full. They were close to full now and their light was suffi-cient to
show her the brief interruption in the line of surf beating against the base of the cliffs. She sailed into the
short tappata, the finger of water, dropped anchor in the middle of the channel—the tides around
Moongather were extravagant. When she was as safe as she could make herself, she col-lapsed onto the
wet deck, too tired to worry about soaked clothing and chill air.
And the nightmares came; over and over she replayed her flight. Over and over she saw Tayyan’s
face, her pleading, accusing eyes. Over and over she heard, “Help me, Serroi, help me.” And saw herself
running like an animal. And over and over she saw the Norid’s smiling face, the solid line of brow running
handsomely over dark warm eyes, the triangular white face with its finely drawn lips, its beaked nose,
delicate nostrils, pendant ruby—not the Norid in the street, not the worthless brass imitation, but the
other one, the first one, Ser Noris, her Noris.
Serroi woke panting, her heart choking her, terror pos-sessing her—until she saw the sail slapping
idly against the mast. The boat rocked under her, blown about by the wind, tugged at by the receding
tide. She sat up, groaning and sore, still part lost in nightmare.
The early morning sun was a squashed orange, bit off at the bottom by the mountains called the
Earth’s Teeth. Last night’s stormclouds were crowding around it, sucking up red, gold and purple light.
The wind brushed at her hair, plucking loose coils from the sorrel mass and tickling her, face with them.
She touched the green oval, closed her eyes, stretched out the, invisible feelers she always felt went out
from her in this kind of search and swept as far as she could reach. No thinking being, within her range.
She stroked the spot delicate-ly, shivering with pleasure, remembering the caress of other fingers. Tayyan
....
Help me, Tayyan called. Serroi looked down at her shield-mate sprawled in her own blood, then she
looked past her at the Norid, the Black Man, the terror that ran in her blood. And she ran. Scurried like
an animal over roof tiles and walls. Ran with Tayyan’s accusing eyes always behind her.
Serroi shuddered and rubbed at her eyes, leaned her head back against the seat by the tiller and
watched the sun drift upward, beginning to realize just how hungry she was. She laid her hand flat on her
stomach, marveling at the desire her body had for life. Blinking away tormenting memory, she got to her
feet and started rummaging through the lockers. She found a wineskin and shook it, squeezed a few
drops of the sour wine into her parched mouth, shuddered at the taste. She broke a fingernail working
open a tin of biscuits, sat sucking at the finger as she poked through the pale brown rounds inside. Fishing
one of them out, she continued her ex-ploration of the boat, chewing on the hard biscuit and sipping at
the sour wine.
The boat was clean and well-kept, obviously the darling of some poor fisherman’s heart. There was
extra rope, pieces of canvas for patching the sail, cord for reweaving nets, neat coils of fish line, a small
packet of needles and coarse thread—and much more. Halfway round, she kicked into her bow, lying
where she’d dropped it, still strung. “Yael-mri would have my hide.” She knelt, slipped the loop, ran her
hand along the carefully tended stave, pleased that the wood seemed strong still in spite of its repeated
inundations. She hung the bow over a mast cleat to continue drying, stretched, patted a yawn.
Higher up the cliffs hanguli-passare nested in hollows in the chalk and were flying about, their long
leathery wings and small furred bodies coping easily with the thermals along the cliff face. Their cries
blended with the steady roar of the surf and the creaking of the boat as wind and tide shoved it about.
She moved slowly along the rail, running her hand over the neatly patched and oiled wood, shamed by
her care-lessness with her bow, shamed by the theft of this boat. Even if she sent gold back to pay for it,
this kind of loving care had no price. She stopped her wandering and stood, eyes closed, listening to the
harsh wild cries of the circling passare, drawing comfort from them as she had before and would again
from similar sounds and smells and touches. Animal and earth and green growing things—they were
always the same, always what they were with no pretense, never soul-hurting as humankind could be, as
humankind had been to her over and over again.
Standing by the mast, she faced toward Oras, wondering what was happening there, if Tayyan was
still alive. I should go back. I have to go back. He’d take her to the Plaz, he’d want her alive so he
could question her. Damn that fool Ly-bor, trying to use a brassy Norid in her plots. Question her!
She threw her head back, flung her arms out. “Ahhhhhaaaaiiiiy, Tayyyyaaaannnn!” The cry was torn from
her throat, an agonized recognition of the terror that ran in her blood. The Norid. She saw again the
narrow black form, saw his stiff black hair, his gaunt red-brown face, Norid, Norid, cheap street Norid
with his petty tricks. Then the image changed to the one that haunted her, the face she couldn’t forget,
couldn’t ever forget—the elegant spare face, colorless as moonlight, with a black-bar of eyebrow, a
mouth thinned to a blue-pink line, with a fine gold ring and a pendant ruby dangling from one nostril,
moving with his upper lip as he spoke. The ruby grew and grew, flooded her in bloodlight, pulsed until
she danced with the pulsation, small wild girl child marked as misborn, thrust apart as misborn, small girl
dancing, unseen fire searing her, swallowing her ....
When she was again aware of what she was doing, the boat was in open water, the cliffs a dark line
on the horizon. She shuddered and swung the boat back to the shore. Her mouth was dry; she drank the
sour wine, gulping it down until her head swam with the fumes. She slipped the tether over the till-er bar
and curled up on the deck, dizzy with the boat’s movement and the wine in her belly, cuddling the sagging
skin against her breasts. She shifted position and drank again. And again. Then she fumbled the stopper
home and cradled her head on her arm, drunk and exhausted, already half asleep. Her money sack hit
the planking and the coins inside clanked dully.
Tayyan wrinkled her long thin nose. Hitching her weapon-—belt up over her narrow hips, she eyed
her shieldmate. “Dam-mit, Serroi, we’re not on duty now. Who cares if a couple meie stray out of the
harem? Who cares if Morescad put a curfew on us! Not me. What he doesn’t know damn well won’t
hurt us. And he won’t know a thing if we go out over the wall. Look, little one, Lucyr set up this race.
Only man I ever met that knew more about macain than my father. Five macain, none of them ever
beaten, one of them bred in my family’s plexus.” Her dark blue eyes laughed as she ruffled Serroi’s mop
of sorrel curls. “A mountain-bred macai from Frinnor’s Hold, love, out of Curosh’s stable. Cousin to my
mother’s sister’s husband. You got any idea how long it’s been since I saw a good race, a really good
race?” Her fingers tangled in the fleecy curls; she tugged gently at them. “Come with me, love?”
Serroi sighed and gave in despite painful twitches of warning passing across the eye-spot on her
forehead. She pulled away from Tayyan’s fingers, caught her hand and brought it to her lips, kissed a
finger lightly then bit down hard on a knuckle, laughed and danced away when Tayyan grabbed for her.
The race grounds: an hour’s brisk walk outside the city. A long rough oval scratched in the dull
brown earth of the arid ground south of Oras. Torches. Wine-sellers scooping wine from purple-stained
barrels into pressed clay bowls. Noise and laughter and wine and excitement whirled around Serroi until
she felt as if she moved in an expanding bubble that re-fused to burst. In the center of the whirl, five
macain plunged and snorted—racing stock, big bones, long ugly limbs, claws digging and tearing at the
coarse earth, throwing up bursts of small rock that spattered the crowd and pinged down unheard among
stamping boots. The roar rose to a shriek. Powerful hind legs launched the macain into a series of long
jolting leaps.
Tayyan clutched Serroi’s shoulder, beat up and down, on it as the animals swung around the far
curve and headed back to the finish. A lanky greenish-brown macai with a wiry hill-man perched high on
its back was gradually opening distance between it and the other four.
“Curosh, Curosh!” Tayyan, whooped with glee as the macai came plunging toward them. “Come
come come come!”
Serroi shrieked along with her shieldmate, her alto counter-pointing Tayyan’s squeal, her
premonitions forgotten as she surrendered to the noise and excitement around her. Yells. Curses.
Stamping boots. Arms whacking into her back and sides. Wine bowls splashing over her. Flecks of
gravel striking her face. Smells of mansweat and animalsweat washing over her. Bits of foam splattering
her. Crowd roar. Surge of bodies pushing the two of them forward. Jostling. Yelling. Laughing. Crowd
madness absorbing them as the watchers surged around the snapping winner.
The bubble burst. Serroi came back to sanity, dizzy from wine fumes, nauseated, her head throbbing.
Tayyan was stuff-ing gold and silver coins into her money sack and talking en-ergetically to a smallish
man with hair like straw and a brown, weathered face like a withered old root. Serroi hauled her away
and the two meien edged out of the scatter-ing mob, crunching over the gritty earth toward the Highroad
and the city gate.
Tayyan was still excited, pouring the contents of her money sack into her hand, counting her
winnings, crowing her triumph, ignoring Serroi’s growing withdrawal. The eye-spot was throbbing, each
small nip a warning shout. Danger ahead. Watch out. She said nothing—there was nothing to say, the
warning was unlocalized in time or space and there was nothing around them but the moonlit plain and the
plod-ding sportsmen returning to the city. Even these grew quieter as they approached the gates. More
than one of them had passed wine and coin to the guards on duty there, bribing them to leave the gates
open a crack. By good fortune none of the guards belonged to the Flame. Or perhaps fortune had
nothing to do with that. Domnor Hern enjoyed a good race; only harsh and unyielding pressure from
counselors, wives and the Sons of the Flame had brought him to banning races and condemning the
wagering that went on at them.
The two women passed unnoticed through the gate, but once, inside, Serroi walked faster, pulling
Tayyan after her with some urgency. In the city there was a growing hostility to the meien, a hostility
fostered by the Sons of the Flame. Domnor Hern still used them as harem guards but the other meien
were gradually being dismissed by their employers. Outside Oras, in the small villages of the Mijloc, the
priests of the Flame called them devil’s whores and other names even less polite, led campaigns against
those followers of the Maiden who still sent problem daughters to the Biserica val-ley for training as
weaponwomen, healers or Servants of the Maiden. The custom—its origins lost in the mists of mythic
time—of providing sanctuary at the Biserica for runaway girls and women had created a reservoir of
resentment among the more conservative Mijlocim that was easy enough to stir into revulsion and fear.
Tayyan dumped half the coins back in her sack and stepped suddenly in front of Serroi, grinning
broadly as she hugged her shieldmate, then caressed the eye-spot with the back of the fisted hand that
held the rest of the money. “Little borrower of trouble,” she said affectionately, still rather drunk with
wine and excitement. “Here. This is yours.” She stepped back, caught hold of Serroi’s right hand and
dropped a pile of coins into the palm. “I bet a couple of decsets on Curosh for you.”
“Tayyan, you know I don’t play those games.” Serroi tried to give back the money.
“You’ll spoil no sport tonight, love.” Tayyan laughed and danced away, lifting her hands to the
gathering clouds, yawn-ing and groaning with the pleasure of stretching her muscles. She stopped, hands
on hips, grinned at Serroi. “I’m for bath and bed. Join me?”
Serroi nodded, unhappy because she couldn’t match Tay-yan’s high spirits. She walked several
minutes in silence, then she sighed and tucked the coins into her own money sack.
The boat heaved as the wind shifted. Serroi stirred, her tongue furry, her head throbbing. She pushed
against the deck and lifted her upper body until she was sitting with her legs crossed before her, hands
clutching at her temples. She swallowed, swallowed again. People, she thought. I need people. And
water. And food. She focused her desire then followed the tugging of the eye-spot southeast toward the
cliffs.
She beat her slow way against the wind to the distant shore but she was still some way out when the
sun touched zenith and the wind dropped to an erratic series of puffs too weak to lift a feather. The sail
flapped against the mast, then sagged, flapped, sagged. She shook the wineskin, unstoppered it and lifted
it high, let the thick sour liquid trickle into her mouth. The sun steaming the moisture out of her until she
felt her skin frying, she sucked at the wineskin, her eyes on the faint line of the horizon, the tantalizing
dark line, so close and so impossibly out of reach. She dozed a little but sleep-brought the nightmares
back; finally she kept awake, trying to drift without thinking.
Late in the afternoon a cooler breeze tugged at her hair and teased the sail into slapping noisily at the
mast. Sodden with wine and sweat, she staggered to her feet, collapsed onto her knees as the boat
rocked under her. She shook her head, groaned, then looked over her shoulder at the sun hanging low in
the west, almost touching the flat line of ocean, tipping the waves with crimson. Crawling because she
couldn’t stand, she got to the mast, pulled herself onto her feet, her head slowly beginning to clear.
People, she thought, desired, then sent the boat where the eye-spot pulled her. The sail filled and the
small boat danced lightly across the swells. She blessed the builder. A sweet ship, steady and responsive,
built with love and maintained with love, skimming over the darkening water with a singing hiss.
As she drew near the white cliffs she saw another tappata with a pier angling past the outlet, small
store-sheds, and a crude stone fort. Driven by wind and the incoming tide, the boat was a bird under her
hands swooping down on the pier. The sheds and the fort were deserted, crumbling. She frowned with
disappointment, but her eye-spot still tugged her strongly inland, so she settled back and let the wind
blow her along the finger of water winding between perpendicular cliffs of chalk.
The Child: 1
The small dirty child was playing with the chinin pups, tumbling recklessly about on the tundra,
mashing down grass and flowers, ignoring the prodding of scattered fist-sized rocks. The chinin were
play-growling, small sharp teeth worrying at her torn and mud-streaked clothes. Tugging at the ankles of
her boots, stomping on her, rolling on her as they wrestled with each other. She was filthy and wet,
bruised, scraped in a hundred places, and she loved it, she bathed in the trust and warmth the chinin gave
her, felt her-self one of them, a chini among chinin. And forgot com-pletely, or refused to think about the
scold she’d get later on from her weary mother, the strapping her father would give her, the tormenting
she could expect from her normal broth-ers and sisters. In this play she lived utterly in the present and
was supremely happy.
“Serroi!” She recognized the harsh voice of her grandfather and got reluctantly to her feet. She slid
her eyes to his face, then stared down at the toe-peaks of her boots. He looked an-gry and
embarrassed. She sneaked a second glance at the man beside him, puzzled by the stranger’s presence.
The green blotches on her skin and her smallness offended her grandfa-ther’s sense of self-worth; she
was a symbol of his son’s lack of control, conceived against custom at the radiant hot springs where the
windrunners wintered, usually kept well out of sight when there were visitors to the camp. Yet now her
grandfather was calling her to meet a tall man in a narrow black robe. She came scowling to her
grandfather’s side, furi-ous with him for spoiling her joy and too familiar with his heavy hand to dare
show her fury.
She stood away from her grandfather, knowing by instinct and experience that he didn’t want her
touching him, stood with her head bowed, her curls tumbling forward hiding her face, stood sneaking
looks at the strange man because he was beautiful in her eyes and she was starved for beauty. He was
tall. Grandfather who was a mighty man among the People came only to mid-chest on him. He was
snow-pale with finely chiseled lips and a nose straight as a knife-slash. A small gold ring passed through
the outside of his left nostril. A gleaming red stone hung from the ring and moved when he smiled at her.
His hair was black smoke floating around his narrow high-cheeked face. His eyes were black too, the
black of the polished jet ornaments her mother wore to the Iangi-vlan fes-tival at summers-end. He
seemed to her more a strange wild animal than a man and because she felt most at home with animals she
dared smile back at him and lift her head, forget-ting, for once, the green blotches that marked her as
misborn.
“This is the child.” Her grandfather’s lips were stretched in a wide humorless smile; he was almost
fawning on the stranger.
“Her parents agree? She must be a free-will gift.” The man’s face was low and musical. Shivering
with pleasure at its beauty, Serroi paid little attention to what the two men were saying. Adults talked
over her head all the time about things she found complicated and uninteresting. Instead, she
concentrated on the singing joy his voice made of his words.
Grandfather shrugged. “Summers-end she goes to the priest anyway. My son consents.”
“The child’s mother?” The ruby flashed sparks of crimson as he spoke.
Serroi sneaked a look at Grandfather at the stranger’s question. His red-brown eyes opened wide
with surprise that anyone would bother about what a woman thought. “The out-daughter will do what my
son says.”
“Then put your mark on this.” The beautiful stranger slipped fingers inside his sleeve and drew out a
short roll of parchment which he handed to Grandfather. “It is a deed of gift.” He proffered a tiny pot of
black grease and showed Grandfather how to set the mark of his thumb on the deed. When that was
done, he took the parchment, rolled it again and tucked it back in his sleeve. Once again he smiled down
at Serroi, held out his hand. “Come, child.”
Lost and bewildered, wanting to do what he said, afraid of what was happening, she looked from her
scowling grandfa-ther to the beautiful man, then walked hesitantly toward him. After a final glance at the
chinin pups who stopped their playing and sat on their haunches watching her, she took the stranger’s
hand and trotted beside him, her short legs taking several steps to his one. After a few minutes she
looked back. The pups still sat in a ragged half circle, their eyes mournful as they watched her leave. A
chini pup howled suddenly and the others joined him. Disturbed by the sound, she bit down on her lip
and walked faster beside the dark figure striding across the tundra toward one of the many outcroppings
of rock rising like snaggle teeth from the rolling land.
Behind the rock a vinat was tethered to a heavy stone, grazing at the soft spring grass. He was
hitched to a carved and painted cart like those the Iangi priests rode in when they traveled between the
windrunner camps. Around the four sides, carved vinat with gilded horns leaped and ran on a yel-low
ground. Above and below them ran chains of red and yellow flowers, green leaves and twisting vines.
Over the top of the car arched carved ribs with loops where a covering could be tied, though there was
no cover on them now. Ser-roi watched as the stranger lowered the back gate of the cart and began
untying thongs on a large leather bag.
With an odd quiver in her stomach, she moved away to the grazing vinat and stroked tentative fingers
over the thick fleecy curls along the animal’s front legs. The graceful narrow head lifted, the limber neck
curved round and the vinat was nuzzling at her, its nostrils quivering, ears flicking with pleasure as she
scratched along the jaw line just above the fi-brous beard that could sting like fire when the vinat brushed
it over an attacking predator. More stiff short fibers shone like gold wire on the palmate horns. With its
throat protect-ed, with its horns given an added sting, with its razor-sharp hooves, the vinat was a nasty
fighter and hard to handle, even half-tame.
“Come here, child.” The musical voice had a touch of warmth that surprised her. Her heart beating
erratically, hoping for she knew not what, she left the vinat and circled the cart. The man took her hand,
smiled down at her from his great height. He looked gentler now; less like a long-tooth sicamar prowling
a herd. “Sit here.” He pointed to a small rock sunk deep in sweetgrass and limul flowers. As she sat, he
brought a basin filled with water and perfumed white foam. He knelt beside her, settling the basin in the
grass by her boot toes. After turning back his sleeves, he dipped a rag in the water and gently cleaned
her face. The cloth caressed her skin though the foam got in her eyes and stung them. The water was
deliciously warm. She sat very still, vibrating with pleasure at the warmth, the gentleness which she took
for ten-derness, the first she’d experienced since her mother weaned her. When he finished with her face,
he washed her hands thoroughly, even cleaning out the small arcs of dirt under her short bitten fingernails.
Finally he sat back on his heels, dropped the rag in the basin. “Clean the rest of your body, child,
then put those on.” He pointed at the back of the cart; her best trousers, tunic, belt and cloak were there.
“Your mother sent them.” He stood. “Don’t dawdle. Join me when you finish.” He walked away and
pulled himself onto the driver’s seat of the cart, his back to her.
When she climbed up beside him, he flicked a whip at the vinat’s haunches and they started off
across the tundra.
The Woman: II
The precipitous walls of chalk confined the tappata to a worm of salt water poking into the side of
the Earth’s Teeth, the chain of mountains hugging the shore from Oras south to the Aranji gulf where the
great round bulge of Sankoy thrust out into the Ocean. The water was rising in the channel, go-ing faster
as the tide came roaring in. Winds fell over the top of the cliffs and mixed with the strong air currents
following the water from the sea, tangling in a confused knot that twisted and turned unpredictably.
Serroi fought to hold the boat in the center of the tappata, blessing fervently the builder since all that
kept her from crashing a dozen times was the stability and responsiveness of the small craft. She sailed
through the deepening shadow un-der the cliffs, beginning to smell green from the mountains as the side
drafts picked up the scent of growing things and mingled this with the tang of the salt air.
A mellow brazen note sounded above the noise of wind and water, then was repeated several times.
Serroi blinked and leaned forward, listening intently as the boat swept around the first section—of an
elongated double curve. A bell. And close. When the boat nosed into the second half of the curve, the
bell no longer sounded but fragments of shouts drifted to her The tappata widened suddenly, the cliffs
begin-ning to move back and fall away. She dropped the sail, riding the slowing surge of the tide, her
eye-spot throbbing with its danger-warning.
About a dozen boat-lengths ahead of her the right-hand cliff broke off. Beyond the white chalk a
rolling grassy meadow rose gradually toward the mountains. As the boat crept forward, still drowned in
shadow, the battle scene un-reeled before her, a section of wall lengthening like a ribbon pulled from a
slot—then the fisher village separated itself from the cliff.
Heads lined the top of the wall and thrust out from win-dow slits in the gate towers. Three fisher
bodies were sprawled outside, one bristling with a dozen crossbow bolts, the other two slashed to
bloodied rags. A little farther out, two smaller darker bodies lay in pools of drying blood, skew-ered by
fish spears.
The setting sun gilded the shouting, milling groups of macai riders gathered on a rocky knob just out
of bowshot from the village. They were small dark men, their bodies wrapped in leather straps, boiled
leather shields on their backs, sabers brandished high or swinging along their thighs. Kapperim. Serroi
sucked in a long breath, exploded it out. A raid at Moongather? Here? Something was wrong. They
were too far north, too far from their burrows in the mountains behind Sankoy, something was stirring
them up. She licked her lips, uneasily aware that this could fit in all too well with what had happened in
Oras. That could mean the Nearga-Nor’s reach was a good deal longer than she’d suspected, something
she didn’t want to think about. She searched the knob for the Shaman but saw only the Warleader, a
bearded man whose leathers were set with thousands of tiny mirrors that caught the sun and clothed him
in a web of golden light.
Five raiders broke away from the others and rode at top speed down the slope. When they reached
the flat ground in front of the village wall, they reined the macain back on their haunches, swung slings
摘要：

MoongatherDuelofSorcery,Book1JoClayton1982 Read1,w2,12-14.Spell-checked.Putinspacing. DINAFARpressedherhandagainsthermouthasshewatchedthemeiecircleslowlyaboutSten.ShemusthavetakenasaberfromoneofthebodieswhileDinafardistractedStenbecausesheheldonenow—andlookedlikeachildplayingwithitsfather’sarms,hers...

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