A Gathering Of Stones

7

Korimenei held a shirt up and inspected critically but rather absently its collection of patches and the numerous threadbare places. Behind her the door opened.

“That might do for a dustrag.” Firtina Somak lounged against the door jamb, her arms crossed over the plump breasts she found more an irritation than an asset. “Unless you plan an involuntary strip some windy day.”

Kori threw the shirt on the bed. “It’s not all that much worse than the rest of my stuff.”

“Tell me, hunh, me who’s had to look at them all this time.” Firtina laughed. “You only have to wear them.” She came into the sleeping cell and plopped herself on the hard narrow bed, twitched a shirt from the pile and snapped it open. “T’k t’k, you can’t wear this in public, Kri, people will throw coppers at you thinking you’re a beggargirl.” She folded the garment into a neat rectangle, sat scratching absently at a forearm. “The Shahntien passed you then.”

“Mmh.” Korimenei pushed the mound of clothing aside and sat on the bed next to her friend. Firtina was intensely curious about everyone; she never talked about what she learned and she wasn’t pushy about it or malicious, but you could feel her feeling at you. “She said anything to you yet? About your test, I mean.”

“She said sometime in the spring. If I work on voice control I’ll be a Witch of Witches which is nice to know, but there’s that damn IF. She says I go so flat sometimes it’s a misery and she’d be shamed to claim me as one of hers.” She narrowed her eyes, glanced slyly at Ailiki who was sleeping on the window sill, body coiled into a pool of sunlight, gray fur shimmering like tarnished silver. “I never thought you’d go for a witch.”

“Haven’t.” Korimenei could feel Firtina wanting to ask about that and the mahsar, but her friend managed to swallow her curiosity, for the moment, anyway. Relenting a little, Kori said, ‘She’s not a Familiar, she’s Something Else.”

Firtina waited a moment to see if Korimenei was going to add to that, then grinned at her, shook her head. “Clam. You for home?”

“Not for a while, I think.” Korimenei spoke slowly; she hadn’t told anyone about her brother, not even Frit.who was her best friend; she didn’t want to lie to Frit, but she couldn’t tell her the whole truth, so she pinched off a little of it and produced that. “My um sponsor sent some money, I’m going to spend it poking around here and there before I settle to something. You going home?”

“Have to, I think. The Salash Gazagt…”

“Huh?”

Firtina scratched at her thigh. “I thought you knew the Nye Gsany.”

“To read, not to speak.” Korimenei left the bed and crossed to the window where she stood smoothing her fingers along Ailiki’s spine. Over her shoulder she said, “And only the Nye of the Vanner Rukks. I don’t know the hisseryclunk you talk, village girl.”

“Hunk! talk about tin ears. Nye is Nye. I think you’re digging at me, li’l Kri. Should I apologize for calling your clothes rags?”

“Idiot.”

“All right, all right, here it is, the. Salash Gazagt, he’s the oldest male, the head of my family. When you come to visit me, I’ll introduce you. If I know the two of you, it’ll be dislike at first sight, but I’ll do it.”

“Am. I going to visit you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“All right. So what’s your Salash Gazagt on about?”

“He’s getting impatient, old bull; he wants me home before 1 wither into uselessness.”

“Haah?” Kari swung round, hitched a hip on the windowsill and began chewing at a hangnail. “Wat th’ hay, Frit?

Tink and Keiso and RayRay and I’m not going to waste breath naming the rest of your tongue-hanging court, the way they pant after you, you’re not exactly declining into decrepitude.”

“Them.” Firtina wrinkled her nose. “They don’t count. Thing is, if I’d stayed home like my sisters, I’d be wedded and bedded and by now hauling around a suckling and a weanling or two.” She slapped at her breasts. “My doom,” she said. “My folk have a thing about virginity, they tend to marry off a girl as soon as her shape starts showing. Just to make sure.”

“Hunh! Just like my lot.”

“Hmm. Sounds to me like you’re not going home. Or maybe just a visit to show ‘em what they’ll be missing?”

“You got it.” Korimenei plucked at the ancient white blouse she was wearing. “I never paid much attention to clothes.”

“You finally noticed?” Firtina giggled, flicked another sly glance at Kori. “If three nights fasting will do that for you, it gives me hope. Maybe my Ordeal fixes my ear.”

“Nothing wrong with your ear, you just don’t keep your mind on what you’re doing.” Korimenei was briefly amused at this delicate hint for confidences, but the Passage Test wasn’t something you talked about, it was too intimate a thing, more intimate than sex or family secrets. “I’m no good at line and cut and yelling at shopkeepers. Come help me spend my money.”

“Why not.” Firtina slid off the bed, held up a hand. “Let me get this straight. You really are going to spend REAL coin on NEW clothes?”

“Mmh-hmm.” Korimenei took an ancient vest off its peg, shoved her arms through the armholes and smoothed the leather over her hips. She scooped up Ailiki and tucked her into one of the sagging thigh pockets. “Something easy but dignified.”

“Oh oh oh.” Firtina giggled_ “Dignified. Dignified…” She repeated the word twice more; each time she put a different spin on it, snuffling little laughs up her too-short nose as she walked from the cell. She stopped a few steps down the hall and waited for Korimenei. “Seriously,” she said, “you have any idea what you want?”

Korimenei pulled the door shut, put her personal seal on it and followed Firtina out of the Senior Cott onto the maze-walk around the Dorms. “More or less the same thing I always wear,” she said. “Better material, newer, that’s all.” The autumn afternoon was warm and sunny; all evidence of the brief storm three nights ago was cleared away, the stones underfoot were dry and powdery, as were the bright-colored leaves scattered on the granite paving by first year students who spent most of their days cleaning and sweeping, cutting grass and pulling weeds. Somewhere among the clipped yew hedges two girls giggled and chatted while they worked in a flowerbed, having lost much of their first awe of the place and at the moment at least some of their grim determination to succeed here. Two teachers came walking past, M’darjin drummers exchanging grave gutturals and spacious gestures. A squad of second-years paced along a nearby path, breathing in time with their coach, a student, like Korimenei and Firtina, nearing the end of his studytime. Kori stretched and sighed, lifting her head to look beyond the walls. The school was near the top of Selt’s single mountain; at her left hand the gilded Temple roofs rose above the treetops, but everywhere else what she saw over the wall was the deep bright blue of the sky.

“You’ll need some skirts too,” Firtina said thoughtfully. “Boots, riding gear, a cloak, hmmm…”

“Skirts, gah. No.”

“Don’t be stupid, Kri. You know well enough there are places where a woman gets stoned if she’s not in skirts. It’s better to be tactful than dead. Besides, a skirt can feel nice fluttering about your ankles, make you feel elegant and graceful.”

“Gah.”

“Don’t bother then. go home and wear your trousers chasing after cows.”

“Double gah.”

“It’s a cold cruel world out there that the Shahntien’s going to boot you into. By the by, when’s the parturition due?”

“Two, three days, depends on when I can get passage out.”

They passed through a narrow arch in a thin, inner wall, into nto the rectangular formal garden at the front of the school and strolled toward the main gate. Short-stemmed asters were masses of pink and purple, yellow and vermilion; white tuokeries foamed around them. Manicured to an exquisite polish, oaks and cedars and plum trees grew alone or in carefully balanced groups of three. Patches of lawn like rough velvet changed color as a chancy wind blew blades of grass about. The paving stones in the curved walks were cut and placed so the veining in the marble flowed in a subtle endless dance of line and stipple. There was a foun-

taro at the golden section; it was a sundragon carved from clear crystal spitting a stream of water from a snout raised to the sky. Korimenei and Firtina fell silent as they passed into this garden, respecting its ancient peace.

The porter came from his hutch, read their senior status from the badges, and opened the wicket to let them through into the city.

The street outside the school was a cobbled lane rambling between graceful lacy mimosas growing in front of walls that closed in the villas of the richest and most important Hina merchants. Ghosts were caught like cobwebs in the bending branches; they stirred, twitched, flapped loose for the moment to flutter about the heads of every passerby; they struggled to scream their complaints, but produced only a high irritating whine like a cloud of mosquitoes on a hot summer night. Though they refused to banish the haunts, considering exorcism a kind of murder, Kula priests working out of the Temple wove a semiannual mute spell over these remnants. The merchants had to suffer the embarrassment of the haunting (everyone knew that earthsouls only hung around those who injured them or their kin), but escaped more acute indictments by paying for the Kula muterites. Ignoring the eroding souls, Korimenei and Firtina walked north toward the Temple Plaza.

“So.” Firtina clasped her hands behind her and looked up at Korimenei who was the taller by more than a head. “Are you looking for a Master, or is that already fixed up, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“I don’t know. It’s like going home, I’ve got to do it sooner or later, but there’s no hurry about it.” Her mouth tilted into a crooked smile. “After all, I’ve got to visit you first and you won’t be home for half a year or more.”

“Ooh ooh ooh,” Firtina chanted. She pinched Korimenei’s arm and danced away as Kori slapped at her, swung round and danced backward along the lane. “While I’m waiting for that treat, where’ll you be? North or south?”

“I thought I’d go south a bit, Kukurul maybe.”

“Then you want light stuff.” Firtina waited for Korimenei to come up with her, walked beside her. “Cottons and silks, nothing to make you sweat.”

“Well…” Korimenei fidgeted uncomfortably; she loathed having to hedge every statement, but what could she do? “I’d better have some winter things too. There’ll be moun-

tains, I’m pining for mountains, it can get cold in mountain vales, even southern ones, come the winter.”

“Mmh-hmm. Fur?”

“Extravagance. Good wool and silk will do me.” For a few steps she brooded over the idea of fur, then shook her head, her fine curls bouncing. “Definitely not fur.” She bent a shoulder and touched the lump that was Ailiki asleep in the pocket.

They went on without talking through a shadow-mottled silence; no city noise came this high. The crunch of their feet, the soft flutter of the mimosa fronds and the whine from the ghosts only underlined the peace in the lane. It was one of those golden autumn days when the air was like silk and smelled like potpourri, something in it that bubbled the blood and made the feet dance.

Korimenei and Firtina came out of the quiet of the lane into the bustle and noise of the Temple Plaza like bathers inching into the sea. It wasn’t one of the major feastdays, but the Plaza was filled with celebrants and questers, with merchants looking for a blessing on their cargoes or a farsearch to locate late ships, with mothers of unwed daughters dancing bridal pavannes for Tungjii and Jah’takash, with pickpockets, cutpurses, swindlers, sellers of magic books, treasure maps and assorted other counterfeit esoterica, with promisers and procurers, with lay beggars and holy beggars, with preachers and yogin and vowmen in exaggerated poses, with dancers and jugglers and players of all sorts, with families up for an afternoon’s half-holiday, come to watch the evershifting show, with students sneaking an hour’s release from discipline, or earnestly questioning Temple visitors, with folk from every part of the known world, Hina and Temueng locals, westerners (Phrasi, Suadi, Gallinasi, Eirsan, Henermen), southerners from the Downbelow continent (Harpish, Vioshyn, Fellhiddin, M’darjin, Matamulli), Islanders from the east (Croaldhese, Djelaan, Panday, Pitnajoggrese), others from lands so far off even the Temple didn’t know them, all come to seek the Grand Temple of Silili, Navel of the World, the One Place Where All Gods Speak.

Korimenei and Firtina edged into the swirling chaos on the Plaza and went winding through it toward the Temple. A pickpocket attracted by the bulge in Kori’s thighpocket bumped against her; he suppressed a scream of pain as Ailiki bit him, let the press of the crowd whirl him away from them. Frit grinned, twitched plump hips in a sketch of a dance, jerked her thumb up. Kori shook her head at her, amused by her friend’s exuberance and the pickpocket’s optimism; she knew better than to carry coin in any pocket she could get into without unbuttoning something. They eeled through the mob on the wide shallow stairs going up to the Temple, passed in through the vast arches.

They dropped coppers through a slot and accepted incense sticks from the acolyte. Firtina lit hers and divided them between Isayana and Erdoj’vak, the land spirit of her homeplace. She bobbed a bow or two, then followed Kori from Geidranay to Isayana to the little alcove where Tungjii’s image was. Kori thrust the last of her incense sticks into the urn between hisser turned-up toes, then rubbed hisser belly for luck; for a moment she let herself remember her Ordeal, then she pushed away the troubling images, laughed, and followed Frit into the light.

They plunged into the market, bought wool and silk, linen and cotton, Frit taking the lead and Kori backing her, bargaining energetically and vociferously with the vendors. A sewing woman next, a quick measure and a more protracted back-and-forth over styles and cost. Bootmaker. Glover. Perfumer for soaps, creams and scents. Saddlemaker for pouches to hold all the above.

When they were finished, they sat over tea in the Rannawai Harral and watched the sun go down. Geidranay was a golden shadow against the sun, squatting among the mountaintops, his fingers busy among the pines; a translucent sundragon undulated above the horizon for a while, then vanished behind a low flat layer of clouds; the Godalau surfaced out beyond the boats of the Woda-an, and played among the waves, her long white fingers catching the last of the sunlight, her saucy tail glinting as if its scales were plates of jade.

“The gods are busy tonight.” Firtina spoke idly, turning her teabowl around and around in her short clever fingers. “I haven’t seen so many of them about since the NewYear feast.”

Korimenei sipped at her tea and said nothing. Her Ordeal was taking on the haze of myth. Not quite dream. Not quite memory. If I let myself slide into megalomania, I could think all that’s put on for me, she thought. She smiled. Not likely, I’m afraid. She glanced at Firtina, smiled again. She almost believes it. I can see that. I wonder why? She’s got a special touch for divining. “You think something is stirring?” Frit chewed on her lower lip. She reached for the teapot

100 Clayton and filled her bowl again. “You’ve got the right word,” she said finally. “Stirring.”

“What?”

“Ah. That’s the question. I don’t know.” She frowned, pushed back the dark brown hair that fell in a veil past her eye and curved round to tickle at her mouth. “It’s, it’s well, like standing over a grating and hearing things, you know, things, slithering about under you. You don’t know what they are and you’re quite sure you don’t want to know. That sort of stirrmg.” She gulped at the tea, shivered, refilled the bowl and sat holding the warm porcelain between her palms. “Yuk.”

“Well, it can get on with it without me, I’m off as soon as my things are finished.”

“Well…” Frit set the bowl on the table and frowned across the bay at the mountains, dark and quiet since Geidranay had vanished with the sun and her attendant dragons. get the feeling… I just started noticing… it smells stronger every breath I take… I think you’re some kind of… of magnet for it. When you move, it moves. I’ll do some looking when we get back, see what I can find.”

“Thanks. I think.” Korimenei made a face. “Portents. Gah! I don’t believe a word of it, you know. Come on, you’re still under Rule, we don’t want to get you chucked out before your time is up.”