Jo Clayton - A Bait of Dreams

A Bait of Dreams

a five-summer quest

Jo Clayton

1985

Spacing done. Spell-checked. 0 and 1.

Some sections of this book were published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, in-cluding in

slightly different versions those parts entitled A Bait of Dreams, A Thirst for Broken Water, Southwind

My Mother, and Companioning.

Carefully Gleia untied the knots in the rag and touched the Ranga Eye. The warmth spread up

through her body and once again she saw the fliers. The male spun in ecstatic spirals and the others

danced their jubilation. She could feel them drawing her out of her body. She wanted to let go. She

wanted desper-ately to let go, to fly on glorious wings, free and joyous. So easy, it would be so easy just

to go sailing away from all the pain and misery of her life here. Why not? Why not just go, let them take

her to fly in joy under a butter-yellow sun ....

Jo Clayton has also written:

Moongather

Moonscatter

Diadem From The Stars

Lamarchos

Irsud

Maeve

Star Hunters

The Nowhere Hunt

Ghosthunt

The Snares Of Ibex

Contents

First Summer’s Tale: A Bait of Dreams

Second And Third Summers: Interlude Among The Shaborn

The Fourth Summer’s Tale: A Thirst For Broken Water

Fifth Summer’s Tale (Part One): Southwind My Mother

Fifth Summer’s Tale (Part Two): Companioning

Fifth Summer’s Tale (Part Three): Currents

Summer’s End: Old Acquaintances and New

First Summer’s Tale: A Bait of Dreams

As Gleia hurried along the uneven planks of the walk-way, pattering around the bodies of sleeping

drunks, slipping past workmen and market women, Horli’s red rim bathed the street in blood-red light,

painting a film of charm over the facades of the sagging buildings.

She glanced up repeatedly, fearing to see the blue light of the second sun Hesh creeping into the sky.

Late. Her breath came raggedly as she tried to move faster. She knocked against people in the crowded

street, drawing curses after her.

Late. Nothing had gone right this morning. When Horli’s light had crept through the holes in her torn

shade and touched her face, one look at the clock sent her into a panic, kicking the covers frantically

aside, tearing her nightgown over her head. No time to eat. No time to discipline her wild hair. She

dragged a comb through the worst of the tangles as she splashed water into a basin. No time to straighten

the mess in the room. She slapped water on her face, gasping at the icy sting.

Rush. Grab up the rent money. Snatch open the wardrobe door, and pull out the first cafta that came

to hand. Slip feet into sandals. A strap breaks. With half-swallowed curse, dig out the old sandals with

soles worn to paper thinness. Rush. Drop the key chain around her neck. Hip strikes a chair, knocking it

over. Ah! No time to pick it up. Plunge from the room, pausing only to make sure the lock catches. Even

in her feverish hurry she could feel nausea at the thought of old Miggela’s fat greasy fingers prodding

through her things again.

Clatter down the stairs. Down the creaking groan-ing spiral, fourth floor to ground floor. Nod the

obligatory greeting to the blunt-snouted landlady who came out from her nest where she sat in ambush

day and night.

The sharp salty breeze whipped through the dingy side street, surrounding her with its burden of fish,

tar, exotic spices, and the sour stench from the scavengers’ piles of scrap and garbage. The smells slid by

unnoticed as she ran down the wooden walk, her footsteps playing a nervous tat-too on the planks. As

she turned onto the larger main street, she glanced up again. Hesh still hadn’t joined Horli in the sky.

Thank the Madar. Still a little time left. She could get to the shop before Hesh-rise.

Her foot came down hard on a round object. It rolled backward, throwing her. She staggered. Her

arms flung wildly out, then she fell forward onto the planks, her palms tearing as she tried to break her

fall, her knees tearing even through the coarse cloth of her cafta.

For a minute she stayed on hands and knees, ignoring the curious eyes of the workers flowing past

her. Several stopped to ask if she was hurt. But she shook her head, her dark brown hair hang-ing about

her face, hiding it from them. They shrugged, then went on, leaving her to recover by herself.

Still on her knees, she straightened her body and examined her palms. The skin was broken and

abraded. Already she could feel her hands stiffening. She brushed the grit off, wincing at the pain. Then

she looked around to find the thing that had brought her down. A crystal pebble was caught in one of the

wider cracks between the planks. Shaped like an egg, it was just big enough to fit in the palm of her

hand. “A Ranga Eye,” she whispered.

Blue Hesh slid over the edge of the roof above her, reflecting in the crystal. Gleia looked cau-tiously

around, then thrust the Eye into her pocket and jumped to her feet, wincing at the pain that stabbed up

from her battered knees. Limping, she hurried on toward the center of the city.

“You’re late.” Habbiba came fluttering through the lines of bent backs, her tiny hands thrusting out of

the sleeves of her elegant black velvet cafta like small pale animals. Her dark eyes darted from side to

side, scanning the girls as she moved.

Gleia sucked in a breath, then lowered her head submissively. She knew better than to try to ex-cuse

herself.

Habbiba stopped in front of her, moving her hands constantly over herself, patting her hair, stroking

her throat, touching her mouth with small feathery pats. “Well?”

Gleia stretched out her hands, showing the lacer-ated palms. “I fell.”

Habbiba shuddered. “Go wash.” She flicked a hand at the wall clock. “You’ll make up the time by

working through lunch.”

Gleia bit her lip. She could feel the emptiness groaning inside her and a buzzing in her head, a tremble

in her knees. She wanted to protest but didn’t dare.

“Go. Go.” Habbiba fluttered hands at her. “Don’t touch the wedding cafta with those filthy hands and

don’t waste more time.”

As Gleia went into the dark noisome washroom, she heard the soft voice lashing first one then

another. She made a face and muttered, “Bitch.” The falling curtain muted the poisonous tongue.

Hastily Gleia scrubbed at her hands, ignoring the sting of the coarse soap. She dried them on the

towel, the only clean thing in the room. Clean because a, filthy towel might lead to filthy hands which

could damage the fine materials the girls worked on. Not, for the workers, nothing ever done . for the

workers. She felt the crystal bang against her thigh as she turned to move out, felt a brief flare of

excitement, but there was no time and she forgot it immediately.

She slid into her place and took up her work, settling the candles so the light fell more strongly on the

cloth. White on white, a delicate pattern of fantasy flowers and birds.

Habbiba’s shadow fell over the work. “Hands.” Gleia held out her hands. Small thumbs pressed hard

on the drying wounds.

“Good. No blood.” Habbiba’s hand flew to the shimmering white material protected from dust and

wear by a sheath of coarse unbleached muslin. “Slow.” A finger jabbed at the incomplete sections,

flicking over the pricked-out design. “I must have it done by tomorrow. A two-drach fine for each hour

you take over that.” Her shadow moved off as she darted away to scold one of the girls who was letting

her candle gutter.

Gleia caught her breath, a hard frustration squeezing her in the middle. Tomorrow? Sinking her teeth

in her lower lip, she blinked back tears. She’d been counting on the money Habbiba had promised her

for this work. Twenty-five oboli. Enough to finish off the sum she needed to buy her bond, even to pay

the bribes and leave a little over to live on. Now ... She looked around the cavern-ous room with the

misty small lights flickering over bent heads. She stiffened. Damn her, she thought. I’ll finish this on time if

it kills me.

Resolutely she banished all distraction and bent over the work, her stiffened fingers slowing her until

the exercise warmed them to their usual suppleness.

As the band of embroidery crept along the front panels of the cafta, Gleia felt hungry, her stomach

paining almost as if she were poisoned, but that went away after a while.

While she sewed, her mind began to drift though her eyes clung tenaciously to the design. In a

pain-ful reverie, she relived brief images of her life, tracking the thread of events that had led her to this

place at this moment ....

First memories. Pain and fear. Dim images of adult faces. A woman’s arms clinging to her, then falling

away. A man, face blurred, unrecognizable, shouting angrily, then in pain, then not at all. Then a string

of faces that came and went like beads falling from a cheap necklace. Then ... digging in garbage

piles outside kitchen doors, fighting the scavengers—small shaggy creatures with filthy hands and

furtive eyes—for scraps of half-rotten vegetables or bones with a shred of meat left on them.

Habbiba came back, jerked the work from her hands and examined it closely. “Sloppy,” she

grunted. She held the work so long Gleia clenched her hands into fists, biting her lip till blood came to

hold back the protest that would spoil all her chances of finishing the cafta on time.

A smile curled Habbiba’s small tight mouth into a wrinkled curve, then Habbiba thrust the mate-rial

back at her. “Take more care, bonder, or I’ll have you rip the whole out.”

Gleia watched her move on. For a minute she couldn’t unclench her fingers. She wants me to go

overtime. She wants to make me beg. Damn her damn her damn ....

After a minute she took up the work again, driv-ing the needle through the fabric with a vicious

energy that abated after a while as the soothing spell of the work took over. Once again she fell into the

swift loose rhythm that freed her mind to think of other things.

Begging in the streets, running with packs of other abandoned children, sleeping in aban-doned

houses, or old empty warehouses, barely escaping with her life from a fire that took twenty other

children, wandering the streets, driven by cold back into the houses where the only heat was the

body heat of the children sleeping in piles where some on the outside froze and some on the inside

smothered, chil-dren dying in terrible numbers in the winter, only the toughest surviving.

Being beaten and hurt until she grew old enough to fight, learning to leap immediately into all-out

attack whenever she had to fight, no matter what the cause, until the bigger children let her alone

since it wasn’t worth expending so much of their own meager en-ergy to defeat her.

Being casually raped by a drunken sailor, then forgotten immediately as he staggered away,

leaving her bloody and crying furiously on the cobblestones, not wholly sure of what had happened to

her, but recognizing the vio-lation of her person and vowing it would not happen again, screaming she

would kill him kill him ....

Running in a gang after that, being forced to submit to Abbrah, the leader, bully-stupid but too

strong for her, taking a perverse pride in being chosen, never liking it, realizing about that time the

vulnerability of male pride and the superiority of male muscle.

Learning to steal, driven to stealing by Abbrah, stealing from a merchant’s warehouse, caught,

branded, bound into service with Habbiba.

Scrubbed up and forced to learn ... the lessons, oh the interminable lessons, shadowed

impersonal faces bending over her, voices, hushed and insistent, beating at her ....

She started. A cowled figure moved soundlessly past, the coarse cloth of his robe slapping against

her ankles. She watched the Madarman halt be-side Habbiba and begin talking. Habbiba nodded and

the two figures moved out of the room, both silent, both trailing huge black shadows that spread

depressingly over the sewing girls. What’s that about, she wondered. Madarman sucking about ....

* * *

Cowled figures, voices demanding, learn or be beaten, memorize and repeat, mechanical rote

learning, paying no attention to what is learned, cram the songs, the histories, the Madarchants into

the unwilling little heads. Repeat. Repeat. Work all morning, then, when her body rebelled, when she

yearned for the freedom of the streets with a passion that swamped even her continual hunger to

know, set to school by order of the Madarmen to save her pitiful soul.

History in chant. Jaydugar, the testing ground of the gods. The Madar’s white hands reached

among the stars and plucked their fruit, the souls that needed testing, catmen and mermen,

caravanner and hunter, scavenger and parsi, plucked wriggling from their home trees and dropped

naked on the testing ground. Chant of the Coming. I take you from the nest that makes you weak

and blind. I take from you your metal slaves. I take from you your far-seeing eyes. I take from you

the wings that sail you star to star. I purify you. I give you your hands. I promise you cleverness and

time. Out of nothing you will build new wings.

New wings. Gleia snorted. Several girls turned to look at her, their faces disapproving, she smiled

blankly at them and they settled back to work. She could hear the furtive whispers hissing be-tween them

but ignored these. Her needle whis-pered through sheer white material, popping in and out with smooth

skill. She sniffed scornfully at the other girls’ refusal to accept her into their community.

New wings. She frowned down as she looped the thread in a six-petalled flower and whipped the

loops in place. It might make an interesting design ... new wings ... the stars ... she drove the needle

through the material in a series of dandelion-bloom crosses. Did we all come here from other worlds?

How? Her frown deepened. The Madar ... that was nonsense. Wasn’t it?

The Madarman came down the aisle and stopped beside her. He held out his hand. Reluctantly Gleia

set the needle into the material and gave him her work, biting her lip as she saw the dark crescents of dirt

under his fingernails. She held her breath as he brought the cloth up close to rheumy eyes.

“Good,” he grunted. He thrust the cloth back at her and stumped off to rejoin Habbiba. Gleia took a

minute to stretch her cramped limbs and straight-en her legs as she watched Habbiba usher him out.

Looks like I’m up for a new commission, she thought She looked over the line of bent backs, feeling a

fierce superiority to those giggling idiots raised secure in homes with fathers and mothers to protect them.

Here they are anyway, doing the same work for a lot less pay than I’m getting. Me. Gleia. The despised

bonder. The marked thief. She wriggled her fingers to work some of the cramp out of them, touched the

brand on her cheek. Then she sighed and went back to the design. Her thoughts drifted back to her life.

Remembering

Being forced to learn rough sewing, then embroidery, taking a timid pride in a growing skill,

taking a growing pride in making de-signs that she soon recognized to be superior to any others

created in Habbiba’s establish-ment.

Learning she could buy herself free of the bond if she could ever find or save enough money.

Fifty oboli for the, bond. Fifty oboli for the bribes. More to keep herself while she hunted for work.

Joy and despair. And joy again ....

Demanding and getting special pay for spe-cial projects. Her work brought fancy sums to

Habbiba’s greedy fingers and more—a reputa-tion for the unique that brought her custom she

couldn’t have touched before. The old bitch tried to beat her into working, but Gleia had learned too

well how to endure. She was stub-born enough to resist punishment and to per-sist in her demands,

sitting resolutely idle through starvings and whippings and threats until she won her point.

Gleia jabbed the needle through the cloth. It glanced off a fingernail, coming close to pricking her

finger and drawing blood. She leaned back, breathing fast, trying to calm herself. A drop of blood

marring the white was all she needed. Not now. Not so close to winning. She couldn’t stand another

month of this slavery. She fingered the mark on her cheek and knew they’d throw her into permanent

slavery as an incorrigible felon if she tried to run away. If they caught her. Which they would.

Sometime later Habbiba made her last round, inspecting the day’s work. She stopped beside Gleia

and picked up the cloth, running the unworked length of design through her plump white fingers. “Fah!

too slow. And there.” She jabbed a forefin-ger at the last sections of work. “You did finer work when

you were learning. Tomorrow you come in one hour early. Abbosine will be told to let you in.” She

pinched the material between her fingers “Take out that last work to here.” She thrust the strip of

embroidery into Gleia’s face and indicated a spot about two palms’ width, above the last stitches. “I

won’t tolerate such miserable cobbling going out under my name.”

Gleia closed her eyes. Her hands clenched into fists. She wanted to smash the old woman in the face,

to smash—smash—smash that little weasel face into bloody ruin, then wipe the ruin on that damn cafta.

But she doubted whether she could stand without tumbling over, so she managed to keep her head down

and her mouth shut. When the old woman went off to scold someone else, she sat still, hands fisted in her

lap. Habbiba’s scolding voice faded as she left the room. The other girls moved about, chatting

cau-tiously, eyes turning slyly about, watching out for the sudden return of their employer. When they had

all trickled out, bunched into laughing clus-ters of workfriends. Gleia forced herself onto her feet.

The world swung. She grabbed at the sewing stand and held on tight until the room steadied around

her. With neat economical movements she folded her work and put it in the box, then she walked through

the rows of silent tables, a fragile glass person that the slightest shock would crack into a thousand

fragments.

Outside, the darkening twilight threw a veil of red over the crowded streets, blurring covered carts

with screeching wheels into horsemen riding past in dark solid groups into single riders gawking at the city

sights into throngs of people pushing along the wooden walkways. She hummed the Madar-chant of the

peoples. Chilkaman catman fishman hunter, parsi plainsman desert fox herder, firssi

mountainman caravanner hawkster .. In spite of her fatigue she sucked in a deep breath and watched

furtively the fascinating variety of peoples flowing past her. Chilka catmen from the plains with their hairy

faces, flat noses and double eyelids, the in-ner transparent one retracted into the damp tissue folds

around their bulging slit-pupilled eyes. Cara-vanners, small and quick, pale faced. Mountain hunters, far

from their heights with dark gold skin and brown hair bleached almost white at the tips, leading horses

loaded with fur bales.

A breath of salt air, cool and fresh as the sea itself, stung her nose. A flash of opaline emerald.

Impression of scaled flesh flowing liquidly past. A seaborn. Ignoring the irritated protests of the other

pedestrians she turned and stared after the slim amphibian walking with the characteristic quick clumsy

grace of the sea folk. She didn’t recognize him. Disappointed, she edged to the wall and stum-bled

tiredly through the crowd thinking about the only friend she’d ever had, a slim green boy ... so long ago

... so long ....

She walked slowly into the dingy front hall of the boarding house, putting each foot down with stiff

care, wondering how she was going to get up all those damn creaking stairs.

“Gleyah ‘spinah.” The hoarse breathy voice brought her to a careful halt. She inched her head

around, feeling that her burning eyes would roll from her head if she, moved too quickly.

“Rent.” Miggela held out a short stubby hand.

Gleia closed her eyes and fumbled in her pocket, sore fingers groping for the packet of coins she’d

put there earlier. Her fingers closed on the egg-shaped stone; she frowned, not remembering for a minute

where the thing came from.

The rat-faced landlady scowled and flapped her pudgy hand up and down. “Rent!”

Gleia slid her hand past the crystal and found the packet. Silently she drew it out and handed it to the

old woman.

Miggela tore clumsily at the paper. Her crusted tongue clamped between crooked yellow teeth, she

counted the coins with deliberate slowness, exam-ining each one with suspicious care, peering

near-sightedly at the stamping.

Gleia rubbed her hand across her face, too tired to be irritated.

Slipping the coins into a sleeve pocket, Miggela stood staring up into the taller woman’s drawn face.

“You’re late. You missed supper.”

“Oh.”

“And don’t you go trying to cook in your room.”

“No.” She wasn’t hungry anymore but knew she had to have food. Her legs trembled. She wanted

more than anything to lie down. But she turned and went out. She walked carefully, slowly, over the

uneven planks, heading aimlessly toward the edge of the nightquarter and a familiar cookshop.

Gleia strolled out of the cookshop feeling more like herself with two meat pies and a cup of cha

warming her middle, a third pie in her hand. She sank her teeth into the pie, tore off a piece and drifted

along the street chewing slowly, savoring the blended flavors, watching the people move past her.

Horli was completely gone in the west with only a stain of red to mark her passing, while the big-gest

moon Aab was thrusting over the rooflines to the east, her cool pale light cutting through inky shadows.

Gleia knew she should get back to her room. There were too many dangers for a woman alone here.

Sighing, she began working her way through the noisy crowd toward the slum quarter. She finished the

pie, wiped her greasy hands on a bit of paper and dropped the paper in the gutter for the scavengers to

pick up in their dawn sweeps through the streets.

The crowd thinned as she left the commercial area and moved into the slum that held a few decrepit

stables and row on row of ancient dwell-ings converted into boarding houses. Some were empty with

staring black windows where the glass was gone—stolen or broken by derelicts who could find no other

place to sleep. One by one these abandoned houses burned down, leaving behind fields of weeds and

piles of broken, blackened boards.

Gleia looked up at the gray, weathered front of Miggela’s place. She was tired to the point of

giddi-ness but she felt such a reluctance to go inside that she couldn’t force her foot onto the warped

lower step; instead she went past the house and turned into the alley winding back from the side street.

Moving quickly, eyes flicking warily about, she trotted past the one-room hovels where the small

scurrying scavengers lived anonymous lives and desperate bashers hid out, waiting for sailors to come

stumbling back to their ships. She went around the end of a warehouse, the last in the line of those

circling the working front where the bay was dredged. The water out here was too shallow to

accommodate any but the smallest ships.

She saw a small neat oceangoer, a chis-makka, one of the independent gypsy ships that went up and

down the coast as the winds and their cargoes dictated. The ship was dark, the crew apparently on

liberty in one of the taverns whose lights and noise enlivened the waterfront some distance in toward the

center. Out here it was quiet, with ravellings of fog beginning to thicken over the water. As the waves

slapped regularly at the piles the evening on-shore breeze made the rigging on board the chis-makka

creak and groan.

Gleia edged to the far side of the wharf and kicked off her sandals. Then she ran along the planks,

bent over, making no more sound than a shadow. She slid over the end of the wharf and pulled herself

onto one of the crossbars nailed from pile to pile under the broad planks. Ignoring the coating of slime

and drying seaweed, she sat with her back against a pile, her legs dangling in space, her feet moving back

and forth just above the rocking water.

For a long while she sat there, the sickening emotional mix settling away until she felt calm and at

peace again. The fog continued to thicken, sounds coming to her over the water with an eerie clarity.

Something pushed against her thigh. She re-membered the Ranga Eye that had thrown her so

disastrously in the morning. As she reached into her pocket, the water broke in a neat splash and a

glinting form came out of it, swooping onto tile crossbar beside her. In her surprise she nearly toppled off

into the agitated water, but the sea-born caught hold of her and steadied her.

Her face almost nosing into his chest, she saw the water pour from his gill slits and the slits clamp

shut. The moonlight struggling through the fog touched his narrow young face and reflected off his pointed

mother-of-pearl teeth as he sucked air into his breathing bladder then grinned at her. “T’ought it was you.

No ot’er land crawler ever come here.”

“Tetaki?” She closed her fingers around his cool hard forearm. “I haven’t seen you in years.”

Shak-ing her head, she smiled uncertainly at him. “Years.”

“Not sin’ you was finger high.”

“You weren’t any bigger.” She shook his arm, amusement bubbling inside her. “Brat.”

He perched easily on the narrow bar, his short crisp hair already drying and springing into the curls

that used to fascinate her with their tight coils and deep blue color. “Good times. We were good friends

then.” He was silent a moment, watch-ing her. “T’is isn’t the firs’ year I come back. You never come

here.”

“I was thinking about you earlier today.” She pushed away from the pile and touched his knee. “The

only friend I ever had.”

His hand closed about hers, cool and metal smooth, his flesh unlike hers but the touch com-forting

despite that. “I come each time. You never here.”

“At first I couldn’t,” she said, her fatigue and depression coming back like a fog to shroud her,

smother her spirit. She sighed.—“Later ... later, I forgot.”

“What happened?” His hand tightened on hers. She looked up. The shining unfamiliar planes of his

face seemed to banish the fog. Then he smiled. His teeth were a carnivore’s fangs, needle sharp and

slightly curved. “Forget me? Shame.”

She laughed and pulled free. “I turned thief. Abbrah made me. Remember him?”

His teeth glinted again. “I got cause.”

Gleia watched her feet swinging back and forth over the dark water, almost black here under the

wharf but flickering with tiny silver highlights where the moonlight danced off the tops of wavelets.

Remember ....

A delegation of amphibian people had come to negotiate trade rights with the Maleek; Tetaki’s father

was a minor official. She remembered a slim scaled boy with big light green eyes and tight-coiled blue

hair poking through a dingy side street looking eagerly about at the strange sights. Alone. Foolishly

alone. Abbrah’s gang gathered around him, baiting him, working themselves up to attack him.

Something about his refusal to give in to them stirred a spark in Gleia that lit old resentments and she

fought her way to his side in that stubborn all-out battle the gang knew too well. So they backed off,

shouting obscenities, reasserting their domi-nance by showing contempt for her and her protégé. She

took him back to his father and scolded the startled seaborn for his carelessness.

“You got caught.”

“I was a lousy thief. Yes, I got caught. And bonded. See?” She turned her face so he could see the

bondmark burned into her cheek. “What about you?”

He chuckled, waved a hand toward the chis-makka’s shadow. “Ours. This is t’ird summer we come

to the fairs.”

“Hey.” She patted his arm, too weary to enthuse as she should.

He bent closer, staring into her face. “You don’ look so good.”

She yawned. “Tired.” She swallowed another yawn. “That’s all.”

“Come wit’ me. Temokeuu would welcome you. You could live wit’ us.”

She stroked the mark on her cheek but didn’t answer for a minute. He settled back, content to let

her answer when she was ready. Finally, she shook her head. “Can’t, Tetaki. I’m stuck here till my bond

is cancelled. You going to be here in Carhenas long?”

“We been having good trading.” He frowned. “Two, t’ree days more I t’ink.”

“At least we can talk some. I’ve missed having someone to talk to.”

“Come see Temokeuu. He like you.” Tetaki grinned at her. “And we show you our ship.”

“Sure.” She yawned again. “I’d better get back. I have to be up an hour early tomorrow.” She

swung herself up onto the wharf, hung her head over the edge a minute. “See you.”

Her room looked like someone had taken a giant spoon and given it a quick stir. The sheet, blanket,

and quilt hung over the side of the bed where she’d kicked them. Her one chair was overturned. She

remembered her hip catching it on the way out. The wardrobe door hung halfway open. The sandal with

a broken strap sat on its side in the middle of the floor.

Gleia stretched, feeling the spurt of energy from the food beginning to trickle away. Yawning

repeat-edly, she pulled the bed to rights and straightened the mess a little, then tugged the ties loose and

pulled her cafta over her head. The crystal bumped against her and she fished it out before she hung the

garment away. Turning to Ranga Eye over and over in her hands she strolled across the room to the

nightstand. She dropped the Eye in the middle of the bed and took out her cha pot, setting it next to the

water tin. From the bottom drawer in the stand she pulled out a tiny sway-bellied brazier, set it up on the

window ledge. Using the candle and strips of paper, she got the charcoal burning, then set the tin on the

grill. Making sure the win-dow was wedged open, she left the tin to boil and went back to the nightstand.

She dumped a palmful of leaves into the pot and got a cup ready, then let herself collapse on the quilt.

She folded the pillow twice to prop up her head and reached out, prodding the quilt, finally fishing the

Eye from under the curve of her back; she began turning it over and over, examining it idly.

A Ranga Eye. She’d heard whispers of them. A frisson of fear shivered down her spine. If they

caught her with it ... if they caught her, she could forget about buying her bond. Or anything else. If I

could sell it ... somehow ... somehow ... if I could sell it, Madar! Bonded thief with a Ranga Eye. If I

could sell it ....

The crystal warmed as she touched it. At first a few tentative sparks licked through the water-clear

form. She felt a surge of delight. The tips of her fingers moved in slow caressing circles over the smooth

surface. The colors began cycling hypnoti-cally, then the color forms began to shift their nature,

imperceptibly altering into images of a place. As she watched, the picture developed rapidly, blurred at

first, then sharpening into focus.

Gentle hills rolled into a blue distance, covered with a green velvet car-pet, a species of moss dot-ted

with small star-shaped pseudo-flowers. Other flower forms as large as trees were spaced over the

slopes, each form at the center of a hexagonal space roughly as wide as the stretch of its four leaf-stems.

The leaves were eight-sided and multi-ple, marching along wiry black stems curving out from the central

stalk at a spot halfway up to the bloom, four black arcs springing out at the same height from the ground.

At the top of each plant great brilliant petals rayed out from a black center that gathered in the

butter-yellow light of a single sun.

Another sun. She stroked the crystal, dreaming of another place, a better place, feeling a growing

excitement. The tin on the fire began to whistle softly. Gleia dropped the Eye on the bed, levered herself

up, and scuffed across to the brazier. She poured the bubbling water over the cha leaves. While they

were steeping, she tilted the rest of the water onto the glowing coals. Head tipped back to avoid the

billowing steam, she let the blackened water trickle down the side of the building. Then she knocked out

the wedge and pulled the window shut.

With a cup of cha in one hand and the Eye in the other, a clean nightgown on her body and the pillow

freshly folded for her head, she lay and watched the play of colors in the crystal. The im-age began to

move through the flower trees, as if she were seeing through the eyes of some creature flying just below

the petals of the flower tops. Before she had time to get bored with the lovely but monotonous

landscape, she flew out into the open, skimming along brilliant white sand. Blue waves rolled in with white

caps breaking cleanly, rhythmically. The sky stretched above, a glowing cloudless blue only slightly lighter

than the sea. As she hovered in place she saw other creatures come flitting from the flower forest. A

delicate-boned male with huge black eyes danced up to her, spiraling in complex pirouettes.

Huge black eyes soft as soot and as shineless. Thin arms and legs. Hands whose long slender fingers

like jointed sticks were half the length of the forearms, Body short and broad, the shoulders muscled

hugely. Butterfly wings abstractedly pat-terned with splotches of shimmering color out-lined in black,

opening and closing with slow hypnotic sweeps. He rode the air in swoops and glides, wheeled in front of

her, small mouth stretched in a wide inviting grin, narrow hands beckon-ing ....

The exhaustion of the day caught up with her and she sank into a heavy sleep, the remnants of the

cha spilling on the bed, soaking into the mattress. The crystal rolled out of her loosened fingers.

When the alarm bell woke her in the morning, the cha spot was still damp and the leaves were

smeared over her shoulder and back. The crystal had worked along her body and ended up in the hollow

between her neck and shoulder. When she picked it up to put in the drawer, it seemed to cling to her

fingers, quivering gently against her skin, shedding a pleasant warmth that slid up her arm and made her

feel soft and dreamy. She shut off the alarm and stumbled to the wardrobe still half asleep. With the Eye

clutched in her hand she fumbled for a cafta. After she wriggled into the garment, she slid the stone into

the pocket, not noticing what she was doing, tied the ties, and smoothed the material down over her

body.

The cavernous sewing room was dark and silent when Gleia walked in. She wound through the close

lines of sewing tables and settled in her usual place. She lit the candles and took out her sewing. Holding

the delicate material close to the flame, she examined the last bit of embroidery. It was good enough.

Damn if she was going to pick it out.

She threaded her needle with the silk. Tongue clamped between her teeth, she snipped at the loose

ends, dropping small bits of thread haphaz-ardly over the floor, over her cafta, around the table,

scattering the pieces of thread with a gleeful abandon.

Sometime later, after the room had filled and the other girls were bent over their work, Habbiba

came by, her sharp eyes darting over the scattered ends of thread. Her mouth pursed in satisfaction, she

sailed past to pounce on an unfortunate girl who chanced to look up and stretch at the wrong time.

Gleia swallowed a smile, feeling a warm, buoyant satisfaction at fooling the woman.

At the end of the long day, she stretched and rubbed her red, tired eyes. She stood motionless

beside the sewing table a minute with eyes closed, then she shook out the cafta, ran a quick eye over the

lines of embroidery, put the cafta on a hanger, and carried it to Habbiba.

“Finished,” she murmured, keeping her head down to hide the triumph that flushed her face.

Habbiba took the cafta and pulled the bands of embroidery close to her eyes as she went over the

work, stitch by stitch. When she was finished, she grunted sourly, her small black eyes darting at Gleia,

then she sailed off, the cafta a fluttering white banner beside her small black figure. Gleia waited tensely.

Twenty-five oboli, she thought. I won’t take less. But she knew that she would, that she had to. Habbiba

didn’t know that. Oy-ay Madar, she couldn’t know. I’ve fought her too often and even won a few times.

She has to think fight her on this. Has to think ....

Habbiba came back. She stopped in front of Gleia. “Not your best work,” she grumbled. Her small

plump fingers were closed about a small bag of coins. “Hold out your hand.” With painful reluc-tance she

eased the drawstring loose, and pulled out an eight-sided gold coin. “Pentobol. One.” She pressed the

coin into Gleia’s palm, her fingers slid-ing off the metal with a lingering, caressing mo4on.

Slowly, releasing the coins as if they were drops of her own blood, Habbiba counted out ‘five

pento-boli into Gleia’s outstretched hand. Holding the bag with the remaining coins pressed tightly against

her breast, Habbiba looked at Gleia with distaste. “You be on time in the morning. The Maleeka wants a

cafta with embroidered sleeves for the name day of her youngest daughter.” She hesitated. “You’ll be

paid the same,” she finished sourly.

Gleia bowed her head farther, rounding her shoulders. Hai, you old bitch, she thought. No won-der

you paid me the whole. Blessed Madar the Maleeka. How you must be preening at the thought.

She went out into the street and wandered along, feeling tired but elated. She had the money. No

more aching back. No more passive acceptance of abuse. She fingered the mark on her cheek. Closed

her fingers on the coins in her pocket. The Eye rolled against her hand but she ignored it, happily planning

her visit to the House of Records.

Her feet eventually took her to the boarding house. Looking up at the shadowed facade, she

scratched her chin and hesitated. She could smell the awful stew Miggela had cooked up for them, an

unappetizing mess with a few shreds of cheap meat, tough vegetables, and thick filling of soggy barley.

The rancid smell followed her as she walked away toward the cookshop where the grease was fresher.

Foolish as it was to wander about with all that money in her pocket, it was good to walk and feel free for

a while, to let the seabreeze riffle through her hair, to sluff along the walkway, winding in and out of the

men and women walking purpose-fully homeward, the noisy influx of sailors, from the wharves, the

streetwalkers who were coming out to start their peculiar workdays. She looked eagerly around trying to

spot another of the sea-born but saw none.

She came out of the shop munching on a pie, enjoying the taste all the more when she thought of the

stew her fellow roomers, that collection of losers, were stuffing down their throats at Miggela’s table.

She stopped at the alley leading to the wharf but shook her head. That would be a bit too stupid.

Sighing, she clumped up the steps and went inside.

Miggela popped out of ambush. “You missed supper.”

“I know.” She nodded and moved away to the spiral staircase with its collection of creaks and

groans.

In her room, she crossed to the window, leaned out, hid the money in her special place under the

eaves. After lighting her candle she tidied the room a bit more and heated water for cha. When she was

finally ready for bed, face washed, a clean sleeping shift pulled on, she was surprised to find the Eye in

her hand. She didn’t remember picking it up. For a moment she was frightened, then curious. The crystal

warmed in her palm as she walked slowly across the room and stretched out on the bed.

Sipping at the cha, the quilt pulled in a triangle over her middle, she held the Eye up, enjoying the flow

of the colors.

Then she was flitting again under the flower tops. She came out on the beach, farther on this time.

Hovering over the white sand, she looked curiously around and saw distant buildings perched on slender

poles, a line of graceful points and curves on the horizon. Then the butterfly man came sail-ing out of the

sun, a black shimmer with gold edges dancing on the breeze, an ebullient joyfulness that made her quiver

with delight and feel the swoop of laughter in her blood. She joined him, dancing, turning, twisting over

the green-blue of the wrinkled sea. Cool wine air slipped along her body and her dance became more

intense. Oth-ers came and they laughed a silent laughter, long slender feelers clicking in telegraphic wit.

The mug dropped, spilling a last few drops of cold cha on the bed as she drifted to sleep, fingers still

Jo Clayton - A Bait of Dreams

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