Jo Clayton - Duel of Sorcery 3 - Changer's Moon
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Changer’s Moon
Duel Of Sorcery, Book 3
Jo Clayton
1985
Fixed spacing, headings, 1 and 0. Spell-checked.
“I wonder if that is how Ser Noris sees all of us, pieces in a game, sterile sanitary images that have
shapes and textures, but no intruding convenient smells and noises. Not quite real. No one quite real. No,
I’m wrong. I was real for him awhile. Clutter-ing, demanding, all edges some days, all curves an-other.
Maybe that’s why he wants me back—to remind him that he’s real too. He wants the touch he
remem-bers, the questions, the tugs that pulled us, together, yet reminded each that the other was still
other. He doesn’t want me as I am now, only the Serroi he lost. And he doesn’t even know that the
Serroi he wants never quite existed, was a construct out of his clever head ....”
Jo Clayton has also written:
Moongather (Duel of Sorcery #1)
Moonscatter (Duel of Sorcery #2)
Diadem From The Stars (Diadem # 1)
Lamarchos (Diadem # 2)
Irsud (Diadem # 3)
Maeve (Diadem # 4)
Star Hunters (Diadem # 5)
The Nowhere Hunt (Diadem # 6)
Ghosthunt (Diadem # 7)
The Snares of Ibex (Diadem # 8)
A Bait of Dreams
Dedication
For the nurses and teachers of this world who do impossible things under
impossible conditions with little reward or recognition.
Foreword
Once upon a time there were a Sorcerer and a Goddess, and the World they each claimed for their
own; the Game they invented to settle the question amused them awhile, but was not so good for the
World and the folk who lived on it.
What Has Gone Before
For many generations there was peace in the land; a man knew what his son’s life would entail, knew
the path his son’s son would walk. And a woman knew the same of her daughter and her daughter’s
daughter. Those who had food to fill their bellies, a bit of land or a trade to keep them secure were
content to have it so, but there were more and more who were frustrated and restless, younger sons,
unmarried daughters, tie-children whose parents could not feed or clothe them, people without place or
hope. Under the calm surface turmoil was building toward explosion.
Into this volatile mix stepped Ser Noris. He had long since halted the processes of growth and decay
within his body and passed the time he had thus acquired honing his skills, gathering knowledge, dueling
with other norissim until there was none left with the power or skill to challenge him. The day came when
he looked about and found himself with no more worlds to conquer within the limits allowed him; he eyed
those limits with distaste and specu-lation but found no way around them. More years passed. He grew
bored, monumentally, extravagantly, disastrously bored. Thus, the Game.
In Moongather, the challenge is issued, the pieces are selected, the long Game begins.
In Moonscatter, the Game continues, the pieces are maneuvered to set them up for the final
confrontation, each Player trying to take out or somehow nullify the other Players’ pieces, to gain
advantage in position or strength or both.
The Major Pieces
Serroi
She is a misborn of the windrunners, saved from a death by burning and taken by Ser Noris to his
Tower, raised and taught by him, her gifts used by him to create new types of life (the child his gate into
the forbidden), life he could command, something he could not do with the World’s life, for that was
outside his limits. She was aban-doned when she was twelve in a desert east of the mijloc, when his
disregard for her feelings and her understanding made her useless to him, her gifts inaccessible;
abandoned because he didn’t understand his own emotions, ensuring that he’d spend futile years trying to
retrieve her—because he’d unexpectedly come to love her, something he had not thought possible. She
is a sliding piece, first his strength, then his weakness.
Having walked out of the desert to a tribe of nomadic pehiiri she is welcomed by their janja or
wisewoman, Reiki (who is also the form of flesh the Goddess puts on when she visits the World), then
makes her way to the Biserica Valley where she lives in peace for a number of years, studying and
learning the skills of a meie and refusing to hear about her talents for magic.
On her second ward—this time as a guard to the wom-en’s quarters in the Plaz of Oras, watching
over Floarin and Lobori, the Domnor Hern’s two wives, and his multi-farious concubines—she and her
shieldmate Tayyan learn of a plot against the Domnor. Tayyan is killed and Serroi runs. When her panic
dissipates, she returns to Oras, acquiring a companion called Dinafar, meeting the Gradin family on their
way to celebrate the Gather in Oras.
In Oras, with the aid of Coperic (thief, fence, smuggler, Tavern owner and Friend to the Biserica in
his spare time), she thwarts the plot against Hern, but only in part because he is driven into exile by
Floarin and the Nearga Nor. She returns to the Biserica taking Hern and Dinafar with her.
But even that quiet place is no longer a refuge for her. Ser Noris sends her dreams, using her to
disrupt the peace of the Valley. Because she is a weakness in the defenses of the Biserica, she is forced
to leave it; because Hern is also a storm center there, disturbing the order Yael-mri works to preserve,
the prieti-meien sends them on a quest with two purposes, to remove them from the Valley, to acquire a
weapon to help them all in their struggle against Floarin and her forces, against the Nearga Nor.
In the midst of the unnatural heat—sent by Ser Noris to wear them down—Serroi and Hern ride in
uneasy partner-ship on their quest to find the Changer who also calls himself—or itself—Coyote.
Under attack by Ser Noris whenever he can find her—-Serroi is protected from nor longsight and
nor spells by the tajicho, the crystallized third eye of a Nyok’chui, a lethal giant earthworm—they cross
the continent, attacked by minark soldiers after they humiliate a minark lordling, attacked by Sleykynin,
chased and nearly killed by Assurtiles for what they did to those Sleykynin, forced onto an eerie plateau
where they meet small flying people and great glass dragons and are so affected by the magic there that
they walk in each other’s bodies, share each other’s dreams, where Serroi finally succumbs to the magic
that is her nature, the magic she has denied so long.
Given shelter by Hekotoro to the fenekel in Hold Hek, she learns the imperatives of her newly
acquired talent for healing while she and Hern reach a tentative peace with each other.
Attacked in Tuku-kul by ambushing Sleykynin, she learns the other side of her healing power, that
what heals can also kill. She and Hern quarrel and make peace again.
They cross the Sinadeen to the southern continent, then sail out on the Dar, a great featureless
swamp where their only enemies are the leeches and biting bugs. And the boredom. On the far side of
the Dar they climb a moun-tain, meet the Changer, have a confrontation with Ser Noris. Serroi touches
Ser Noris’s hand and that frightens him so badly he is driven into instant flight and at the same time loses
the concentration that has been holding off winter and focusing heat on the Valley and the mijloc. As
Serroi and Hern are taken into Changer’s Mountain, the weather reverts to normal for the time of year
and the first flakes of snow come drifting down on Valley and mijloc.
Hern Heslin
Fourth domnor in the Heslin line since Andellate Heslin united the mijloc and established the Biserica.
He. is nearly yanked out of his skin and replaced by a demon, is rescued by Serroi, a poison knife,
small horde of rats and roaches and his own skill with the sword.
He is a man who likes women (definitely in the plural) who has wasted his abilities because there is
no real call to use them, who has been as bored with his life as Ser Noris, who finds he likes to stretch
himself to meet chal-lenges, who is possessive even of that which bores him, who learns in the long
journey the value of letting go.
Tuli Gradindaughter
Twin sister of Teras Gradinson, the Gradinheir. Tuli and Teras have been inseparable since birth, but
biology and custom are catching up with them. Tuli resents the changes in her body and in her brother;
though she has always been the leader, able to best him whenever she wanted, now her brother is inches
taller, stronger and faster and he won’t listen to her as he used to though she can still talk him into things.
In addition to that, the time is coming when she will not be permitted to run the night like a wild thing and
will be expected to settle into courtship and marriage.
One night around the middle of autumn the twins climb from their bedroom windows to spy on their
older sister Nilis. To their astonishment and horror, they hear her betraying their father’s plan to conceal a
part of his harvest so his ties and family won’t starve, they hear her betraying her blood to the Agli and
the Followers of the Flame. After a series of setbacks they get away and ride to warn their father that a
noose waits for him in Oras where he is going to try convincing Floarin to abate part of the grain tithe. On
the way they come across an ex-meie named Rane who recognizes them and helps rescue their father.
Tesc takes his family—except for. Nilis and his youngest son, Dris, who has been named tarom in his
place—into the mountains where he joins other outcasts to set up a Haven where they will have shelter
and a base from which they can harass the forces of Floarin.
Teras goes off with Hars (an old Sankoise stockman who taught them a lot about hunting and stalking
and the habits of beasts) to seek information and do a little sniping at the Guards and the tithe collectors.
Left forlorn and more than a little angry at her brother, Tuli feels more than ever an outsider; she
doesn’t like ties, especially to the girls; she isn’t allowed to wander far from camp and feels that she is
going to smother at the con-straint; she can’t take teasing and is the more teased be-cause of that; she
doesn’t want to be forced into the female mold she despises; trying to find a replacement for her brother,
she plots a night hunt with a newcomer, a boy called Fayd who is a few years older, a neighbor, but he
mistakes her interests and forces sex on her, too involved with his own sensations to realize that she is
trying to stop him, to fight him off.
Rane comes by Haven to pass on information and gather what news they have for the Biserica and
when she is finished there, she takes Tuli away with her; they stop at the Biserica where Tuli learns more
about Rane, where a healwoman confirms her worst fears—she is pregnant by Fayd, only two weeks but
the woman is sure—and where she makes up her mind that she is neither old enough for motherhood nor
temperamentally suited to it so she flushes herself out with a series of herbal drinks, then leaves the
Biserica with Rane to continue the ramble about the mijloc, gathering information about the mind-state of
the mijlockers and about the strength of Floarin’s forces.
Minor Pieces (Ser Noris)
LOBORI who thinks she’s the instigator of the plot against Hern and who is very surprised by dying
at the moment she expects to triumph. FLOARIN who thinks she’s run-ning her country and her war and
in charge of the nor working for her. The NEARGA NOR who are slaves to the will of Ser Noris.
Assorted Sleykynin, Plaz guards, Sankoise, Majilarni raiders and their shamans, NEKAZ KOLE,
Ogogehian general and his mercenary army, the two. Aglim of Cymbank, all the Followers of the Flame,
assorted demons and demon beasts. NILIS GRADINDAUGHTER and the DECSEL MARDIAN are
sliding pieces, first serving Ser Noris, then the Maiden.
MINOR PIECES (Reiki Janja)
CREASTA SHURIN (small brown intelligent teddy bears) COPERIC (general purpose rogue and
news source for Yael-mri) and picked members of his troupe .. His coconspirator, the fisher Intii
VANN, the Ajjin TURIYY and her son (shape changers), assorted other fisherfolk, Stenda, fenekelen,
tiny fliers, glass dragons large and small, ship masters, outcasts, keepers, all the Meien, YAEL-MRI,
HARS, the SHAWAR, BRADDON of Braddon’s Inn, ROVEDA GESDA (thief, smuggler, busy
entrepreneur. of Sel-ma-Carth and news source for the Biserica), assorted small folk dwelling in the
cracks and crannies of the mijloc. And the CHANGER’S’ GIFT: JULIA DUK-STRA, GEORGIA
MYERS and his raiders, ANGEL and his bunch, the Council, and the men, women and children with
various talents Hern brings through the MIRROR.
Comes the CHANGER’S MOON and the endgame be-gins that will determine the winner of the
World.
At The Cusp They Cast Lots
With the forefinger of his left hand he stirred the dodeca-hedral dice. His right was a withered claw,
gray like dirty chalk, held curled up against his chest between the spring of his ribs. His face was thinned,
worn, yet grown stronger since the game had begun. The ruby was gone, that ves-tige of youthful
flamboyance that had dangled, a drop of fire, from the small gold loop piercing his left nostril. He
gathered up the dice, tipped them into an ivory cup.
“Your pieces are scattered, janja,” he said. “Shall we throw for time?”
She knelt on an ancient hide, the coarse wool of her skirt falling across the rounds of her thighs in stiff
folds. Her face had thinned also and that which was mortal and human had grown more tenuous. The
Dweller-within showed through the smoky flesh, stern and wild and ten-derly terrible, without the sheen
of Reike’s smiles to tem-per its extravagance.
“Time does not exist. There is only now.”
The corners of his mouth curled up. “Granted, Great One.” There was wry laughter in his dark eyes,
a touch of mockery in his voice. “I would offer you another now to put your pieces on the board.” His
hand closed tightly about the cup. “You’re losing the janja, Indweller. You give me an edge you might not
want to concede, not having her touch with detail.”
Reiki smoothed the yellowed ivory of her braids. “You’re an impudent rascal, my Noris.” Under their
white brows her brown-green eyes twinkled at him.
He lifted the ivory cup as if he toasted her. “Are you displeased, Janja?”
“You know more than you should, my Noris. Surpris-ing for Soareh’s get.”
He shrugged, distaste on his lean face. “I use Soareh, I don’t follow him,” he said impatiently. “Shall
we throw for time?”
“No. I am permitted a warning, Ser Noris. Consider carefully the consequences of each move. You
have the dice. Throw.”
The gameboard sat on a granite slab which thrust through shag and soil like a bone through broken
flesh and fell away a stride or two behind the man, a thousand feet straight down to a broad valley white
and silent under heavy, moonlit snow. The board was a replica in minia-ture of the world below them,
complete to the placement of trees and structures but empty for the moment of mov-ing forms.
He rattled the dice in their ivory cup, cast them on the stone beside the board. The moonlight waking
glitters from their facets, emerald and ruby, amethyst and topaz, they tumbled through a staggering dance
and landed with four sigils up: The Runner, the Sword, the Sorcerer, the Eye.
“Ah,” he breathed. “My army begins its march.” He drew his long slim finger along the line of the
Highroad, clearing the snow from it and from the land on either side, then he brushed the snow from the
fields around Oras. Gravely he contemplated the cleared space. “The order,” he said. “Yes.” He began
arranging on the board tiny figures of men-at-arms, on foot and in the saddle. When he had them set out
to his satisfaction, he set half a hundred traxim hovering in the air above them, then added supply wains
and their teams of plodding hauhaus, the doubleteamed war wagons piled high with gear and the parts of
siege engines. Last of all he set down tiny black figures, scattering them about the periphery of the army,
norits to serve as shields and alarums, transmitting what the traxim saw. He looked over what he’d done,
made a few minor adjustments then spoke a WORD and watched the figures begin marching south along
the Highroad. Smiling with satisfaction, he scooped up the dice, dumped them in the cup and handed the
lot to Reiki janja. “Your throw.”
She grasped the cup, shook it vigorously, sent the dice skittering over the stone with a practiced flip
of her wrist. “Interesting. Kingfisher, Poet-warrior, Priestess, Magic Child. The mix as before with a
factor added.” She touched the Poet-warrior sigil with a fingertip. “And one change.” She tapped the
Priestess.
“There’s no center to the mix; it’ll never serve against an army. You don’t even have leave to mass
your meien against me.” He frowned at the dice, running the fingers of his good hand over the chalky skin
of the crippled other. “Cede me the mijloc,” he said. “And I’ll turn the army from the Biserica.”
“The mijloc is not mine to give. Take it if you can, go elsewhere if you wish. Nothing changes.” The
Indweller spoke through a janja gone smoky again. The wildness was flaring, weighed down a little by a
compassion as cold as the stone they sat on.
“To the end, then,” he said.
“To the end.” She bent over the board and began set-ting her figures in place.
I. The Janja’s Player’s Move
Kingfisher
Hern woke disoriented; coming out of dreams not quite harrowing enough for nightmare. He reached
out for Serroi, not wanting to wake her but needing to be sure she hadn’t evaporated as had his dream.
His hand moved over cold sheets, a dented pillow. He jerked up, looked wildly around, the
not-quite-fear of the not-quite-nightmare squeezing his gut.
She was curled up on the padded ledge of the window Coyote had melted through the stone for her
comfort, moonlight and starlight soft on the russet hair that had a tarnished pewter sheen in the
color-denying light. Relief washed over him, then anger at her for frightening him, then mockery at his
dependence on her. He sat watching her, speculating about what it was that drove her night after night to
stare out at stars that never saw the mijloc. What was she thinking of? He felt a second flash of anger
because he thought he knew, then a painful helplessness because there was nothing he could do to spare
her—or himself—that distress. Not so long ago he’d shared dreams with her and learned in deep
nonverbal ways the painful convolutions of her relationship with Ser Noris. Love and hate, fear and
pleasure—the Noris had branded himself deep in her soul. If he could have managed it, he’d have
strangled the creature. Not a man, not in the many senses of that word. Creature.
He got out of the bed and went to her, touched her shoulder, drew his finger down along the side of
her face. “Worried?”
She tilted her head back to look up at him. For a moment she said nothing and he thought she wasn’t
going to answer him. Then she did, with brutal honesty. “No. Thinking, Dom. Thinking that this is the last
time we’ll be together. ‘
He wrapped his arms about her. Her small hands came up and closed warm over his wrists. “You
aren’t coming back with us?” He heard no sign in his voice of the effort he’d taken to speak so calmly.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I meant whole to each other, one to one, with everything,
everyone else left outside the circle.”
“I see. The last time until this is over.”
She said nothing. He felt her stiffen against him, then relax, knew she had no belief in any afterwards
even if they both survived. And he knew with flat finality that there was no place for her in his life as long
as he contin-ued Domnor of Oras and Cimpia plain. And knew, too, that each passing day made going
back to that pomp more distasteful to him—that shuttered, blinded life where no one and nothing was
real, where the courtiers all wore masks, faces pasted on top of faces that were no more real than masks.
Like peeling the layers off an onion: when you got down to the last, there was nothing there. He looked
over her head at the scatter of moons. He had to see his folk and the mijloc clear of this, but that was all
he owed them. I’m tired, he thought, they’ve got enough years out of me. He shifted so he could slide his
hands along her shoulders, moving them up her neck to play with her earlobes, back down again, flesh
moving on flesh with a burring whisper. “There will be an afterwards for us,” he murmured. “If you’ll
come with me, vixen. The world has another half to it, one neither of us has seen. You heal, I’ll heave,
and we’ll end up as wizened little wanderers telling stories to unbelieving folk of the marvels we have
seen, the marvels we have done.”
She moved her head across his ribs, sighed. “That feels good.”
He dropped a hand to cup her breast, moved his thumb slowly across her nipple, felt it harden.
“Can’t you see us, me a fat old man with a fringe of mouse-colored hair, feet up on a table—I’ve
forgotten all my manners, you see, gone senile with too much wine, too many years. Where was I, oh
yes, feet up on the table, boasting of my sword fights and magic wars fought so long ago that everyone’s
forgotten them. And you, little dainty creature, bowed by years, smiling at that old man and refraining
from remind-ing him how much more necessary to the winning of those wars you were.” He slid his arm
under her knees, scooped her up and carried her back to the bed.
Serroi woke with Hern’s arm flung across her, his head heavy on her shoulder. The window was
letting in rosy light, dawn well into its display. She lay a few minutes, not wanting to disturb him. He had
enough to face this day. Coyote was growing increasingly impatient because Hern hadn’t yet selected any
of the mirror’s offerings. Today would be the last—he hadn’t said so, but she was sure of that. Today
Hern had to find his weapon, the weapon that would someday turn in his hand and destroy him, if what
Yael-mri hinted at was true. Or destroy what he was trying to protect. The Changer. Ser Noris
feared—for her, but she discounted that, not because she thought he’d lied but because his passion was
for sameness not change; he wanted things about him clear-edged and im-mutable. At the peak of his
power, any change could only mean loss. She sighed, eased away from Hern. His body was a furnace.
Her leg started to itch. She ignored it awhile but the prickles grew rapidly more insistent. Care-fully she
lifted his arm and laid it along his side. For a moment her hands lingered on his arm, then she slid them up
his broad back. She liked touching him, liked the feel of the muscles, now lightly blanketed with fat, liked
the feel of the bone coming through the muscles. She combed her fingers very gently through his hair, the
gray streaks shining in the black. Long. Too long. You ought to let me cut it a little. Clean and soft, it
curled over her wrist as if it were a hand holding her.
The itch escalated to unendurable. She sat up, eased the quilts off her and scratched her leg. She
sighed with pleasure as the itch subsided, glanced anxiously at Hern, but he was breathing slowly,
steadily, still deep asleep. She smiled at him, affection warm in her.
The light was brightening outside with a silence strange to her. All her life she’d seen the dawn come
in with birdsong, animal barks and hoots, assorted scrapes and rustles, never with this morning’s silence
as if what the window showed wasn’t really there. Magic mirror. She smiled, remembering the mirror Ser
Noris made for her that brought images from everywhere into her tower room anywhere, anything she
wanted to see it showed her, tiny images she never was sure were real, even later when she’d seen many
of those places and peoples with her own eyes, heard them, smelled them, eaten their food, watched
their lives. I wonder if that is how Ser Noris sees all of us, pieces in a game, sterile sanitary images
that have shapes and textures, but no intruding inconvenient smells and noises. Not quite real. No
one quite real. No, I’m wrong. I was real for him awhile. Cluttering, demanding, all edges some
days, all curves another. Maybe that’s why be wants me back—to remind him that he’s real too.
He wants the touch he remembers, the questions, the tugs that pulled us together, yet reminded
each that the other was still other. He doesn’t want me as I am now, only the Serroi he lost. And
he doesn’t even know that the Serroi be wants never quite existed, was a construct out of his
clever head.
She sighed, looked down at Hern and wanted to wrap herself about him so tight he couldn’t ever
leave her, but she knew far better than he how little possibility for real-ization there was in those dreams
he’d described to her. She smoothed her hand over his shoulder. He muttered a few drowsy sounds of
pleasure, but did not wake, though his hand groped toward her, found her thigh and closed over it. Ah,
she thought, I won’t say any more to you about that. I won’t say don’t count on me, love, I might
not be around. “I’m a weakness you can’t afford; Dom Hern,” she whispered.
As if in answer to that his hand tightened on her thigh; he still slept but he held onto her so hard,
there’d be bruises in her flesh when he woke. His hands were very strong. Short, broad man who’d
never be thin, who was already regaining his comfortable rotundity with rest and Coyote’s food. She laid
her hand over the one that was bruising her and felt the punishing grip loosen. Deceptive little man, far
stronger and fit than he looks. Fast, stub-born, even quicker in mind than he was in body. Tired little fat
man, gray hair, guileless face, bland stupid look when he wanted to put it on. She stroked the back of his
hand and heard him sigh in his sleep, felt the grip loosen more. A snare and a delusion you are, my love.
Mijloc didn’t appreciate you when they had you, won’t appreciate you when they get you back. She
eased the hand off her thigh and set it on the sheet beside him. He didn’t wake but grew restless, turned
over, his arm crooking across his eyes as if the brightening light bothered him, then he settled again into
deep slow breathing. almost a snore. She slipped off the bed, kicked the discarded sleeping shift aside
and began the loosening up moves that would pre-pare her for more strenuous exercising.
Poet-Warrior
She thought she was calm, resolute, but she couldn’t get the key in the keyhole. Her hand was
shaking. Fool, she thought, oh god. She flattened her right hand against the wallboard, braced herself and
tried again. The key slid in, turned. “That’s one.” Two locks to go. She took a deep breath, shook the
keys along the ring. The Havingee special was easy enough to find, a burred cylinder, not flat like the
others. She got it in, managed the left turn and started the right but for a moment she forgot the
obliga-tory twitch and tried to—force the key where it didn’t go.
Again she sucked in a breath, let it trickle out, then leaned her forehead against the door’s cracking
paint, trembling as if someone had pulled the plug on her strength.
“You all right?” A quiet voice behind her, not threaten-ing, but she whirled, heart thudding. “There
something I could do?”
The young man from the apartment by the head of the stairs—he’d come down the hall to stand
behind her. Only a boy, can’t be more than early twenties. He looked tired and worried, some of it about
her.—She remembered, or thought she did, that his friend worked as a male nurse and had a. bad
moment wondering if he’d seen the disease in her. But that was nonsense. Even she wouldn’t know
about it if the photogram hadn’t shown lump shadows in her breast, if the probe hadn’t pronounced them
malig-nant. She tried a tight smile, shook her head. “I was just remembering. When I was a little girl living
on our farm in the house my great-grandfather built, we kept a butterknife by the back door. I learned to
slip locks early.” She smiled again, more easily. “We locked that door when we went to town and
opened it with that knife when we got back. No one’d even seen the key for fifty years. The farm was
between a commune and a cult, you see, and no one ever bothered us.” She held up her key ring. “Triple
locked,” she said. “Sometimes it gets me down.’
He nodded, seeming tired. “Yeah,” he said. “I know .. Well, anytime.”
She watched him go back to his apartment. He must have followed her up the stairs. She hadn’t
noticed him,, but she wasn’t in any state to notice anything that didn’t bite her. She twitched the key,
finished its turns, dealt with the cheap lock the landlord had provided, pushed the door open and went
inside, forgetting the boy before the door was shut behind her.
In the living room she snapped on the TV without thinking, turned to stare at it, startled by the sudden
burst of sound, the flicker of shadow pictures across the screen. She reached out to click it off, then
changed her mind and only turned the—sound down until it was a meaningless burring that filled the
emptiness of the room. She kicked off her shoes, walked around the room picking things up, putting them
down, finally dumped the mail out of her purse. The power bill she hadn’t had the courage to open for
three days now. A begging letter from the Altiran society, probably incensed about the PM’s newest
attack on the parks. She sent them money whenever she could. Money. Her hand shook suddenly. She
dropped the rest of the mail. A brown envelope slid from the table to the floor. A story. Rejected. One
she thought she’d sold, they kept it six months, asked for and got revisions of several sections. She
pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and fought for control. “Oh, god, where am I going to get
the money?”
With a small impatient sound, she took her hands from her eyes and dropped onto the couch to stare
blankly at the phantoms cavorting on the TV screen. After a minute she swung her feet up and stretched
out on the lumpy cushions.
She wasn’t afraid, not the way her doctor thought. Jim wasn’t really good at passing on bad news.
Cancer. Still a frightening word. Caught early, as he’d caught hers, no big problem. If she had the money
for the operation. If she had the money. Jim wanted her in the hospital immedi-ately, the sooner the
better. Hospital. She closed her hands into fists and pressed them down on her betraying flesh. Money.
She didn’t have it and could see no way of getting it.
Her independence, her comfortable solitude, these were hard won and fragile, all dependent on the
health of her body. There was never enough money to squeeze out insurance premiums. Never enough
money for anything extra. Not for a car, though public transit here was an unfunny joke. (Even if she
could afford to buy the car, she couldn’t afford the rent on an offstreet lockup, and any car left on the
street overnight was stripped or stolen by morning.) Not enough for vacation trips; those she did take
were for background on books so she could write them off her taxes. But with all that, she liked her life
in her shabby rooms, she needed the solitude. No lovers now, no one taking up her life and energy. And
she didn’t miss that ... that intrusion. She smiled. Her dearly unbeloved ex-husband would be shocked
out of his shoes by the way she lived, then smugly pleased. He’d been pleased enough when she stopped
alimony after only a year. Not that he’d ever paid it on time. She’d gotten sick of having to go see him
when the rent came due. She started her first novel and got a job in the city welfare office, wearing and
poorly paid, testing her idealism to the full, but she liked most of the other workers and she liked the idea
of helping people even when they proved all too fallibly human.
The last time she saw Hrald, she sat across an office table from him and smiled into his handsome
face—big blond man with even, white teeth and melting brown eyes that promised gentleness and
understanding. They lied, oh how they did lie. Not trying very hard to conceal her contempt for him, she
told him she wanted nothing at all from him, not now, not ever again. He was both pleased and irritated,
pleased because he grudged her every cent since she was no longer endlessly promoting him to his
friends and colleagues, irritated because he enjoyed mak-ing her beg for money as she’d had to beg
during the marriage. While she was waiting for the papers, she stud-ied him with a detached coolness she
hadn’t been sure she could achieve, let alone maintain. How young I was when I first met him. Just out of,
college. There he was, this smiling handsome man on his way up, moving fast through his circumscribed
world, expecting and getting—the best that life could offer him, taking her to fine restaurants, to opening
nights, to places she’d only read about, showing her a superficial good taste that impressed her then; she
was too young and inexperienced to recognize how spe-cious it was, a replica in plastic of hand-made
elegance. It had taken her five years to learn how empty he was, to understand why he’d chosen to
marry her, a girl with no money, no family, no connections, supporting herself on miserable shit jobs,
yessir-nosir jobs, playing at writing, too ignorant about life to have anything to say. Control—he could
control her and she couldn’t threaten him in any-thing he thought was important.
He was brilliant, so everyone said. Made all the right moves. No lie, he was brilliant. Within his
narrow limits. Outside those, though, he was incredibly stupid .. For a long time she couldn’t believe how
stupid he could be. How willfully blind. Will to power. Willed ignorance. They seem inextricably linked as
if the one is impossible without the other. His cohorts and fellow string-pullers couldn’t call them friends,
they didn’t understand the mean-ing of the word—were all just like him. There were times at the end of
the five years when I’d look at them and see them as alien creatures. Not human at all. I was certainly out
of place in that herd. Vanity, Julia. She smiled, shook her head. Vanity will get you in the end.
She stared at the ceiling. Fifteen years since she’d thought much about him. Since she’d had to think
about him. Recently, though, he’d been on TV a lot, pontificating about something on the news or on
some forum or other. He was into politics now, cautiously, not running yet but accumulating experience in
appointive positions and build-ing up a credit line of favors and debts he could call in when he needed
them. Rumor said he was due to an-nounce any day now that he was a candidate for Domain Pacifica’s
state minister, backed by—the Guardians of Lib-erty and Morality. Book-burner types. She’d gotten
some mean letters from GLAM, letters verging on the actionable with their denunciations and accusations
of treason and subversion.
She thought about embarrassing Hrald into paying for her operation. A kind of blackmail, threatening
to com-plain to the cameras if he didn’t come through. The fastest way to get money. It would take time
to get through the endless paperwork of the bureaucracy if she applied for emergency aid and she had
little enough time right now. He had money in fistfuls and he’d get a lot of pleasure out of making her
squirm. His ex-wife, the critically acclaimed, prize-winning author (minor critics and a sort-of prize, but
what the hell). Authoress, he’d call her, having that kind of mind. He could get rums of publicity out of his
noble. generosity—if he didn’t shy off because her books were loudly condemned by some of his most
valued supporters. She thought of it, started working out the snags, but she didn’t like the price in
self-respect she’d have to pay. I’ve heard people say they’d rather die than do something. Never
believed, it, always thought it was exaggerated or just nonsense. Not anymore. I’d really rather die than
ask him for money. She rubbed her eyes, sat up, running her hands through short thick hair rapidly going
gray.
No use sitting here moaning, she thought. She looked about the room. Not much use in anything. She
glanced at the TV screen. What the hell? Gun battle? Police and anonymous shadows trading shots. She
thought about turn-ing up the sound, but didn’t bother. No point in listening to the newsman’s hysterical
chatter. They were all hysteri-cal these days, not one of them touching on the root causes of much of this
unrest. The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and more desperate. When you’ve got noth-ing to
lose but your life, what’s that life worth anyway? In recent months she’d thought about leaving the
country, but inertia and a lingering hope that this too would pass away had kept her where she was.
Hope and the book she was finishing. It exhausted her and was probably a useless expenditure of her
energy. There was still a steady market for her books, loyal readers, bless their gentle hearts, but her
editor had begun warning her the House was going to Make major changes in anything she sent them,
even in the books already published, so they could keep them on the shelves. “You’re being burned all
over the country,” he said. “The money men are getting nervous.”
She watched the battle run to its predictable end (blood, bodies, clouds of teargas, smoky fires), and
thought about her life. Most people would consider it bleak beyond en-during but it suited her. A
half-dozen good friends (ex-lovers, ex-colleagues, ex-clients that she called now and then, whenever she
felt the need to talk), who called her when they had something to say, had dinner with her now and then.
Sometimes they met for a night of drinking and talking and conjuring terrible fates for all their enemies.
Those friends would help all they could. If she asked. But she wouldn’t ask. They were, as poor as she
was and had families or other responsibilities. And there were a few acquaintances she exchanged smiles
with. And a handful of men not more than acquaintances now, left over from the time just after the
divorce when she was running through lovers like sticks of gum, frightened of being alone. They sent
flowers on her birthday and cards at the new-year Turn-fete, invited her to parties now and then, slept
with her if they happened to meet her and both were in the mood.
And there was Simon who was something between an acquaintance and a friend, a historian she’d
consulted about details she needed for her third book. He’d got her a temporary second job as lecturer
and writer-in-residence at Loomis where he was tenured professor and one of the better teachers. He’d
asked her to marry him one night, grown reckless with passion, liquor and loneliness,, but neither of them
really wanted that kind of entanglement. He’d groused a bit when she turned him down, and for over a
year refused to admit the relief he felt, his vanity singed until she managed to convince him she simply
didn’t want to live with anyone, it wasn’t just him she was refusing.
That was the truth. It pleased her to shut the door on the world. And as the years passed, she grew
increasingly more reluctant to let anyone past that door. I’m getting strange, she thought. She grinned at
the grimacing face of the commentator mouthing soundless words at her from the screen. Good for me.
Being alone was sometimes a hassle—when she had to find someone to witness a signa-ture or serve as
a credit reference or share a quiet dinner to celebrate a royalty check (few good restaurants these days
would serve single women). But on the whole she lived her solitary life with a quiet relish.
A. life that was shattering around her now. She contem-plated the ruin of fifteen years’ hard slogging
labor with a calm that was partly exhaustion and partly despair.
The Priestess
Nilis sat in the littered room at the tower’s top, watch-ing moonlight drop like smoke through the
breaking, clouds. The earth was covered with, snow, new snow that caught the vagrant light and glowed
it back at the clouds. Cold. wind came through the unglazed arches, coiled about her, sucking at her
body’s heat. She pulled the quilt tighter about her shoulders, patted her heavy sleeping shift down over
her feet and legs, tucked the quilt about them.
For the first time since she’d joined the Followers she was disobeying one of the Agli’s directions,
disobeying deliberately. A woman at night was to be in her bed; only an urgent call of nature excused her
leaving it. Nilis smiled, something she’d done so little of late her face seemed to crack. Being here is a
call of nature, she thought. And urgent.
A tenday ago the sun changed and the snow began to fall. About that time she gave up trying to
scourge herself into one-time fervor and admitted to herself how much she missed her family, even Tuli
who was about as sweet as an unripe chays. Dris didn’t fill that emptiness in her. She sighed, dabbed her
nose with the edge of the quilt. Dris was a proper little Follower. Treated her like a chattel, ordered her
about, tattled on her to the Agli, showed her no affection. She’d ignored that aspect of the Soareh credo;
at least, had never applied it to herself. The ties, yes, but she was torma now, didn’t that mean anything?
Certainly, Dris was Tamm, but that shouldn’t mean she was noth-ing. He was only six. She whispered
the Soareh chant: to woman is appointed house and household! woman is given to man for his
comfort and his use! she bears his children and ministers unto him/ she is cherished and protected
by his strength/ she is guided by his wisdom! blessed be Soareh who makes woman teacher and
tender and tie. She’d learned the words but hadn’t both-ered to listen to what she learned. Given to
man for his use. She shivered.
She’d always been jealous of the younger ones: Sanani, Tuli, Teras, even little Dris who could be a
real brat. They all seemed to share a careless charm, a joy in life that brought warmth and acceptance
from everyone around them, no matter how thoughtless they were. Life was easy for them in ways that
were utterly unfair. Easier even from conception. Her mother had had a difficult time with her, she’d
heard the tie-women talking about it, several of the older tie-girls made sure she knew just how much
trouble she’d given everyone. She’d been a sickly, whining baby, a shy withdrawn child, over-sensitive to
slights the others either didn’t notice or laughed off, with a grudging temperament and a smoldering rage
she could only be rid of by playing tricks she knew were mean and sly on whoever roused that anger.
She hated this side of her nature and fought against it with all her strength—which was never strength
enough. And no one helped. Her mother didn’t like her. Annic was kind and attentive, but that was out of
duty, not love. Nilis felt the difference cruelly when the other children were about. Sanani was shy and
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Changer’sMoonDuelOfSorcery,Book3JoClayton1985 Fixedspacing,headings,1and0.Spell-checked. “IwonderifthatishowSerNorisseesallofus,piecesinagame,sterilesanitaryimagesthathaveshapesandtextures,butnointrudingconvenientsmellsandnoises.Notquitereal.Noonequitereal.No,I’mwrong.Iwasrealforhimawhile.Clutterin...
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