A Gathering Of Stones

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A winding lane with flowering plums and other ornamentals growing at carefully irregular intervals along it led to the Outlook, a terrace halfway up the side of the dormant volcano which rose high above the lesser mountains that ringed the bay; the Inn of the Pearly Dawn sat on that Outlook, surrounded by its gardens with their well-groomed elegance, an expensive waystop but only moderately successful since the merchants, collectors, and more esoteric visitors preferred living in the heat and stench of the city where they could keep their fingers on its throb and profit thereby.

Brann and Jaril walked up the lane, feet stirring drifts of dead leaves; they talked quietly as they walked, with long intervals of silence between the phrases.

“How much time do we have?”

“Decades, if whoever’s got her lets her have sun. If they keep her dark, a year.”

Brann reached up, broke a small green and brown orchid from a dangling spray. “I see.” A fragile sweet perfume eddied from the flower as she waved it slowly back and forth before her face as she walked. “We’d better expect the worst and plan for it.”

Jaril’s outline wavered. When he’d got himself in hand again, he nodded. “Maksim…”

“No.” Brann closed her hand hard on the orchid, crushing it, releasing a powerful burst of scent. She flung the mutilated thing away, wiped her hand on her skirt. “Don’t count on him, Jay. He’s got other commitments.”

“If you ask…”

“No.”

“He owes you, Bramble. Weren’t for you, he’d be dead.”

“Weren’t for me, he’d still have Cheonea to play with. It balances.”

Jaril moved ahead of her, opened the Zertarta Gate for her, then followed her into the Inn’s Stone Garden.

Brann touched his arm. “We can go up to my rooms, or would you rather take sun by the lily pond?”

“Sun.” He shimmered again, produced a stiff smile. “I’m pretty much drained, Bramble. I didn’t stop for anything and it was a long way here.”

She strolled beside him, following the path by the stream that chattered musically over aesthetically arranged stones and around boulders chosen for their lichen patterns and hauled here from every part of the island. The stream rambled in a lazy arc about the east wing of the Inn, then spread in a deep pool with a stone grating at each end to keep the halarani in, the black and gold fish that lived among the water lily roots. Three willows of different heights and inclinations drooped gracefully over the water. There were stone benches in their spiky shade, but Brann settled on the ancient oak planks of the one bench without any shadow over it. There was no breeze back here; stillness rested like gauze over the pond, underlaid with the small sounds of insects and the brush-brush-tinkle of the stream. She smiled as Jaril darkened his clothing and himself until he was sun-trap black, sooty as the dusky sides of the halarani. He dropped onto the bench and lay with his head in her lap; his eyes closed and he seemed to sleep.

“We were in the Dhia Dautas,” he murmured after a while. “East and a half-degree south of Jorpashil. West on a direct line from Kapi Yuntipek. Dhia Dautas. Means daughters of the dawn in the Sarosj. The hill people call them the Taongashan Hegysh, they live there so you’d think travelers would use their name for the mountains, but they don’t, the Silk Roaders always say the Dhia Dautas.” His voice was dragging; she could feel him putting off the need to talk about the caves. She could feel the tension in him, he vibrated with it. “We were in Jorpashil five, six days, we heard about the caves there. Storyteller in the Market. A pair of drunks in a tavern. Seemed like we ran across at least one story every day while we were there. You want me to give you all of it?”

“Later, Jay. It’s probably important.”

“I think so. How could whoever it was lay the trap for us if he didn’t know we’d be there to spring it. We weren’t thinking about traps then, we took wing and went hunting for the caves…” His voice droned on.

They talked for a long time that afternoon, until neither could think of another question to ask, another answer to give. Then they just sat quietly in the hazy sunlight watching the Inn’s shadow creep toward them.

Brann stood at her bedroom window, a pot of tea beside her on the broad sill. Far below, the sails of the ships arriving and departing were hot gilt and crimson, then suddenly dark as the brief tropical twilight was over. Night, she thought. She looked at her hands. Idle hands. They’d lost strength over the past ten years. If I had to fire a kiln tomorrow, I’d be wrecked before I was half through splitting, billets. She filled her bowl with the last of the tea, lukewarm and strong enough to float a rock, sipped at it as she watched the lamps and torches bloom along the Ihman Katt. Wisps of sound floated up through the still, dark air, laughter, even a word or two snatched whole by erratic thermals. Jaril was down there, looking for Maksim. She grimaced at the bite of the tannin, the feel of the leaves on her lips and tongue. Maksi, she thought, always underfoot when you didn’t need him, down a hole somewhere when you did. I have to Hunt tonight.

When the Chained God weaned her nurslings from their dependence on her, at first she’d felt relief. Each time she went out to Hunt for them, she sickened at what she had to do, the killings night after night until Yaril and Jaril were fed and she could rest a month or so; later, when they were older, once a year did it, then once every two years. Drinker of Souls, sucking life out of men and women night after night-more than ten thousand nights-until she was finally free of the need. She quieted her souls by choosing thieves and slavers, usurers and slumlords, assassins and bullyboys, corrupt judges and secret police, anyone who used muscle or position to torment the helpless. All those years she yearned to be rid of that burden, all those years she thought she loathed the need. Then she stopped the Hunting and thought she was content. Now that the need was on her again, she wasn’t sure how she felt… no, that wasn’t true, she knew all too well.

She gazed at the lamps of Kukurul and was disconcerted by her growing impatience to get down there and prowl; her body trembled with anticipation as she imagined herself stalking men, drawing into her so much lifeforce she shone like the moon. Filling herself with the terrible fire that was like nothing else. Ever. She remembered being awash with LIFE, alive alive alive, afraid but ecstatic. In a way, though she didn’t much care for the comparison, it was like a quieter time when she unpacked her kiln and held a minor miracle in her hands, like those few wonderful times all squeezed into that singular moment of fullness… And for the past ten years she’d had neither sort of joy. Yes. Joy. Say it. Tell yourself the truth, if you tell no one else. Satisfaction, pleasure beyond pleasure, more than sex, more than the quieter goodness of fine food and vintage wines. She pressed a hand under her chin, flattened the loose skin, dropped her arms and pinched the soft pout of her belly; she was tired of aging with the aches and pains age brought. If she couldn’t die, why endure life in a deteriorating body? She shivered. No, she thought, no, that’s despicable.

She moved away from the window, started pacing the length of the room, back and forth, back and forth, across the braided rug; her bare feet made small scuffing sounds; her breathing was ragged and uncertain. She was frightened. Her sense of herself was disintegrating as she paced. The only thing she felt sure of was that her father would neither like nor approve of what she was turning into.

An owl dropped through the window, landed on the rug and shifted to Jaril; he crossed to the bed, threw himself on it. “I found Maksim. He was with someone, so he wasn’t happy about me barging in. When I told him you needed to see him, he wanted to know if it was urgent or what, then he said he’d be back round midnight if there wasn’t all that much hurry. I said all right.”

She sat beside him, threaded her fingers through his fine hair; they tingled as threads of her own energy leaked from her to him. He made a soft sound filled with pleasure and nestled closer to her.

“Jay.”

“Mm?”

“You need to go home, don’t you.”

He shifted uneasily. “We can talk about that after we get Yaro back.”

“All right. We do have to talk. Never mind, luv, I won’t push you.” She slid her hand down his arm, closed her fingers around his. “I can’t live on sunlight or grow wings.”

“Flat purse?” -

“Pancake.”

Jaril laughed drowsily, tugged his hand loose. “So I go scavenging?”

“With extreme discretion, luv.”

“More than you know, Bramble.” He yawned, which was playacting since he didn’t breathe; that he could play at all pleased her, it meant he was not quite so afraid. He turned serious. “Not at night.”

“_Whyr

“Wards are weaker in daylight.”

“Since when have you worried about wards?”

“Everything changes, Bramble. We’ve picked up too much from this reality. Things here can see us now. Sort of.”

Brann scowled at him. “Forget it, then. I’ll see what I can borrow from Maks. We’ll pick up supplies on the road.”

“Just as well, the Managers here are a nasty lot. I’ll crash a while, tap me when Maks shows up.” He moved away from her, curled up on the far side of the bed and stopped breathing, deep in his usual sleep-coma.

Brann looked at him a moment, shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said aloud. She went across to the window, hitched a hip on the sill and went back to watching the lights below.