Sheri S. Tepper - Dervish Daughter

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CHAPTER ONE

Just across the chasm from the town of Zog a bunch of

wild brats with crossbows - and poisoned arrows, to

add to the general sense of fun - had given us quite a

run. We'd barely gotten away from them with our skins

whole.

There had been constant storm damage blocking the

roads, continuous sullen clouds, and a threatening

mutter of sentient-seeming thunder.

I had a huge, aching lump on my forehead from not

being quick enough ducking into the wagon during the

hail storm four days before. Hail the size of goose eggs!

Add to that the remains we kept finding along the

way, more and more of them as we went farther north.

Human remains, mostly, and the yellow dream crystals

that had killed them.

Throw in the fact we'd been driving two days and

nights without sleep, dodging shadow, which seemed

to be everywhere.

Then season the whole horrid mess with a harsh

scream as a night bird plummeted across the moonlit

sky screeching, 'Lovely dead meat, not even rotten yet!'

I understood it as easily as though it had been

shouted at me by some old dame in the underbrush.

The bird's cry said 'human meat,' not some luckless

zeller killed by a pombi's claws. I put my hand over

Queynt's where they lay on the reins.

He snapped out of his doze, immediately alert, as I

reached beneath the wagon seat for my bow. 'More

trouble ahead,' I said wearily, nocking an arrow.

Queynt yawned, giving my bow a doubtful look.

Though he had been teaching me to shoot with the

stated intention of providing for the pot, my inability to

hit anything smaller than a gnarlibar had become a

joke. They had begun to call natural landmarks that

were suitably huge a 'good target for Jinian.' The

problem was that I couldn't shoot anything that talked

to me. Oh, if someone else shot it, I could eat it, and if

something came at me with unpleasant intent, I was

able to kill it readily enough no matter what it was

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CHAPTER ONE

saying. Bunwits and zeller and tree rats, however, were

safe from my arrows so long as they said good morning

politely. I hadn't discussed this with Queynt, though I

thought he suspected it.

He glanced down, then back into the wagon where

his Wizard's kit was. I knew he was considering getting

out his own bow or taking time to set a protection

spell, evidently deciding against it. We'd learned to

trust the instincts of Yittleby and Yattleby in times of

danger, and neither of the two tall krylobos pulling the

wagon seemed overly disturbed. Their beaks were

forward, their eyes watchful as we came around a curve

at the crest of a hill, but neither of them showed any

agitation. We came out of the jungle at the top of a

long, sloping savannah, dotted with dark, crouching

bushes and half-lit by a gibbous moon. I could see all

the way to the bottom of the hill where the forest

started again and two twinkling lanterns, amber and

red, moved among the trees near the ground. That had

to be Peter and Chance. They'd been riding ahead and

had evidently found something, disturbing the bird at

the time. Queynt clucked to the krylobos, and we

began the slow descent toward the lanterns with him

looking remarkably alert for such an old man.

Vitior Vulpas Queynt is over a thousand years old.

Everything I have learned about him indicates this is

really true and not some mere bit of rodomontade. He

hadn't made a special point of claiming to be that old,

mind you; it simply came out as we went along. Peter

and I had met him a couple of years before, or rather,

he had picked us up on the road - he and his

remarkable tall-wheeled wagon and the two huge birds

that pulled it. He had picked us up and made use of us

and we of him, all in a fit of mutual suspicion, and

when it was over we found ourselves quite fond of one

another. And the birds, too, of course. Krylobos are

very large - tailless, as are all native creatures of this

world, with plumy topknots and somewhat irascible

tempers. They like me since I can talk to them, and I

like them because they dislike the same things I do.

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CHAPTER ONE

Bathing in very cold water, for example. Or eating fruit

that isn't quite ripe. They don't have teeth to set on

edge, but the expression around their beaks is quite

sufficient to evoke sympathy.

Which is beside the point. Queynt has a fondness for

fantastical dress and ornamental speech and enjoys

being thought a fool. He says he learns a great deal that

way. He is an explorer at heart, so he has said, and

exploring is what he and Peter and Chance and I had

been doing for some time. He is the only person to

whom Chance has ever given unstinting admiration. So

Peter says, who has known Chance far longer than I.

This admiration is more understandable in that

Vitior Vulpas Queynt and Chance much resemble each

other. Both are brown, muscular men who look a little

soft without being so at all. Both are jolly-appearing

men who seem a little stupid and aren't. And both have

quantities of common sense. As for the rest of it, Queynt

is a Wizard of vast experience and education, while

Chance is an ex-sailor with a fondness for gambling

who was hired to bring Peter up safely and did so -

more or less. Both of them have had a certain tutelary

role in our lives. Peter's and mine, and truth to tell, I

like them both mightily. Even on an occasion like this,

when weariness made it hard to be fond of anyone.

We approached the lanterns. A faint sweetish smell

told me everything I wanted to know about it before

we got there. More dream crystal deaths.

Before we ever started on this trip - after the Battle of

the Bones on the Wastes of Bleer it was, when we were

all remarkably glad merely to be alive - I had known

about dream crystals. My un-mother (the woman who

bore me but did not conceive me, if that makes sense)

had had at least one. It had led her into ruin and ended,

I supposed, by killing her. My much hated enemy,

Porvius Bloster, had had one, and it had done him no

good at all except to make him exceed his limitations

and bring destruction upon his Demesne. Even girls at

school had had dream crystals, assortments of them,

like candies. I had known what they were in a casual

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CHAPTER ONE

way, known enough to stay away from them and

mistrust those who used them, but it was not until this

trip that I had seen them in general use. Misuse.

Whatever. It was not until this trip I had seen them

killing people by the dozens. There, that's plain

enough.

The current situation was a case in point. It was

another of those pathetic encampments we had seen

entirely too many of during the past season.

One couldn't dignify the structures even as huts.

They were the kind of shelter a bored child might build

in a few careless moments; a few branches leaned

against a fallen tree - its trunk loaded with epiphytes

and fogged by a dense cloud of ghost moths - and a

circle of rocks rimming a pool of ash. And the corpses.

Three of them this time; man, woman, and baby.

Starved to death, from the look of them, and with food

all round for the picking or digging - furry, thick-

skinned pocket-bushes full of edible nuts, a northern

thrilp bush - smaller fruit, and sweeter than the south-

ern variety - table roots just beside the tiny stream.

'Hell,' I said to Queynt, disgusted. 'I suppose they've

got those yellow crystals in their mouths, like all the rest.'

Half-right. In the lantern light we could see the male

corpse had one on a thong around his neck; the female

had one in her mouth, having sucked herself to death

on it. Their bodies were still warm. The baby was cold,

probably dead of dehydration after screaming his lungs

out for several days trying to tell someone he was

hungry and thirsty and wet.

Chance and Peter were dismounted by the corpses.

Peter gave me a troubled look, knowing I'd be upset by

the baby. Chance eased his wide belt and mused, 'I

suppose we could dig them in, though there seems

little sense to bother.'

At first we'd stopped to bury the human dead along

the road, but they had become more and more numer-

ous as we came farther north. There had soon been too

many to bury, but it still bothered me to let the babies

lie. 'I'll bury the baby,' I said in a voice that sounded

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CHAPTER ONE

angry even to me. 'Let the others alone.'

Queynt shook his head, but he didn't argue. All the

babies reminded me of one I'd taken care of in a class

back in Xammer. The one in Xammer had the same

baffled look when he fell asleep that many of the dead

babies did, as though it had all been too much for him

and he was glad to be out of it. I wrapped this one in

our last towel, reminding myself to buy towels the next

time we got to any place civilized - if there were any

place civilized in these northlands. I'd used up our

supply burying babies and children.

Queynt said, 'Jinian, if you're going to go on like this,

I'll lay in a supply of shrouds. It would be cheaper than

good toweling.'

I flushed, getting on with the half-druggled grave I

was digging with the shovel we used for latrine ditches.

'I know it doesn't make sense, Queynt, but otherwise I

get bad dreams.' He already knew that; we'd discussed

it before.

There's a city somewhere ahead,' said Peter, trying

to change the subject. 'I can hear it.'

It wasn't surprising. He had Shifted himself a pair of

ears which stood out like batwings on either side of his

head. Probably hadn't even realized he was doing it. I

turned away to hide the expression on my face - he did

look silly - only to see Queynt touching his tongue to

the crystal the dead man had had around his neck.

Even though Queynt had told us over and over he was

immune, seeing him do that made me shudder. I was

going to find out about that alleged immunity sooner

or later, but so far he hadn't explained it. Now he saw

me shiver and shook his head at me.

'We have to know, girl!'

Well, he was right. We did have to know. Those louts

outside Zog had had crystals hanging around their

necks, too. Reddish ones. Queynt hadn't had a chance

to taste one of those, but then he hadn't needed to. It

was evident what dreams of violence and rapine they

were breeding in the brats. Along with everything else,

they had been chanting a litany to Storm Grower while

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CHAPTERONECHAPTERONEJustacrossthechasmfromthetownofZogabunchofwildbratswithcrossbows-andpoisonedarrows,toaddtothegeneralsenseoffun-hadgivenusquitearun.We'dbarelygottenawayfromthemwithourskinswhole.Therehadbeenconstantstormdamageblockingtheroads,continuoussullenclouds,andathreateningmutterofsentient-...

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Sheri S. Tepper - Dervish Daughter

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