A Gathering Of Stones

1

“All right,” Brann said calmly, using voice and body to quiet her changer son. “So Yaro is gone. She didn’t just walk out?”

“No.” Jaril stopped shuddering as Brann stroked his hair and fed him snippets of energy. “No, if she was free enough to walk, she’d be here, waiting for me.”

“That being so?”

He lay still, his eyes closed. After a minute, he said, “That being so, whoever set the trap came and got her.”

“Yes. When you feel up to it, Jay, go back and see if he left some traces, anything to tell us who to look for. If we’re lucky, he isn’t finished with this, he’s after you too. And me.”

“You?” Jaril pulled away from her, stared at her, startled.

“Think about it. Yaro’s either food or part of a bigger trap. Which would you prefer?”

Jaril started convulsing; in minutes the shudders were waves of dissolution passing along his body, threatening to tear him into gobbets of mindless energy.

Brann snatched a burning billet from the fire and slammed it into and through him, feeding fire to him to strengthen and distract him; she caught up another and repeated what she’d done. Then she seized hold of him and began flooding him with energy, draining herself to help him stabilize.

He broke away, appalled at what he was doing. When he was steady enough, he crawled into the fire and crouched there. “Brann?”

“No no, luv, I’m all right. For awhile anyway. You?”

“Sorry, Bramble. I didn’t mean to…

“I know, Jay. Don’t fuss, my fault, I shouldn’t have been so abrupt.”

“Bramble…”

“Yes?”

“If anything happens to Yaro, I will DIE. I can’t BE the only Surraht here.”

Brann nodded. “I know.” She got heavily to her feet, collected several scattered billets and piled them on the fire around Jaril. She gathered her blankets, folded one into a square and sat cross-legged on it, wrapped the other around her shoulders. “You and Yaro have always avoided talking about your people. I need to know more about you, Jay, so I can read this trap. Maybe send you home. You and Yaro.” She grimaced. “I’ll miss you, both of you.”

Jaril fluttered a hand at her, looked away. “Bramble…”

“I know. We’ve been together a long time. It’s hard, mff.” She managed a fragment of a laugh. “Talking Slya into sending you home isn’t going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done. You think you could crawl out of that fire long enough to set some water to boil? A little tea would be a help.”

Jaril nodded. His limbs glowing red-gold like the flames, he cooled one hand enough to pour water from the skin into a pot, then went back to the fire and sat holding the pot on his thighs until the water boiled. He scolded Brann back to her blankets when she started to get up, made the tea and took a mugful to her. He retreated to the fire and watched as she sipped. “If we talked, it meant we had to remember. It’s not easy, Bramble. Not even with you.”

Brann sipped at the tea and waited; she said nothing, it was up to Jaril now, he had to decide what he was going to tell her.

“It wasn’t so bad when we were aetas, that’s uh children who aren’t babies any more. Aetas are supposed to wander around, usually two or three or maybe four together. When they’re twins like Yaro and me, they generally go in twos. That’s how Slya caught us, we were off by ourselves, poking into a stuvtiggor nest. Stuvtiggors eat Surrahts, they pick on afas, that’s babies, and agaxes, that’s adults. Aetas are too fast and too tough for them. It’s one of the things we do when we’re aetas. Eat stuvtiggors. They’re uh like ants, sort of, their uh essence is like ours, not yours, Bramble; they taste good, like urn those fried oysters you pig on sometimes. Not really, I don’t know, it’s the same idea. Close enough. They can do what we did when we made that horse for you, remember? They can merge to make one curst big stuv clot. If they catch one alone, it’s good-bye Surraht. That’s why, when you said Yaro might end up food…” He started to shudder again, stopped himself. “We lost a… I suppose you’d call her a sire-side cousin… we got to her late, we saw the stuv clot eating her… agh! We scragged it, ate…”

He stopped talking, flowed briefly into his globe form, sucking in great gulps of heat energy, almost killing the fire before he changed back. “We were aetas when Slya snatched us. She changed us back to afas, sort of, so we had to have you feed us, Bramble, so we had to change you, so she could use you and us. You know all that. Anyway, the thing is, we’re not aetas any more, Yaril and me. We’re aulis. All that godfire, it kicked us all the way past… uh… it’s a kind of part-puberty. We aren’t fertile yet, that happens later, but we uh make out like minks. Or we would if there were other aulis around, Not a sister… or a brother.. we can’t… uh… it doesn’t work… Ahh! gods, Bramble, sometimes in the past year or so, Yaro and me both, we felt like we were going to go nova if we didn’t get somewhere there were more aulis than just us. We were working up to ask you if you’d please please figure a way to… it’s more than uh sex, Bramble. Aulis make bonds. Communities. Like families here. Sort of. It’s more complicated. We NEED to do that or we go uh rogue. Round the bend. Insane. We get worse than stuvtiggors. We eat… uh… it’s bad. Well, you get the idea.” He cupped his hand about a wisp of flame, let his flesh go translucent, showing shadows of bones that weren’t really there. “This might be more important, Bramble. When we were aetas, we were uh simpler and uh tougher. You know how fast we came back after that webfoot shaman stoned us. We can’t do that now, it takes time for us to uh unfold, it takes more uh force to bring us back and the longer we’re down, the harder it is to come back. You don’t want to count on Yaro being able to help us, well, fight or run, even if we can bring her all the way back from stone.”

“And I was complaining about being bored.” Brann rubbed her fingers across the hollow at her temple. “I do want you to look around more carefully down there, Jay; keep in mind what we decided about Jorpashil, see if you can find anything to support or cancel that.”

Jaril deformed, his version of a yawn. He blinked sleepily at her over the tongues of fire curling about his legs. “You brought some wine, didn’t you, Bramble?”

“I brought some wine. I’ll have some hot for you when you get back.”

“Holding my nose to it, huh?” He smiled, that sudden flash-grin that could twist her heart and remind her that he and Yaril were the only children she’d ever have. Then he shifted to the firesphere and went darting off.

She looked after him until even the faint glow on the walls went dark. First Maksim splits, now the children. No, that’s the trouble, they aren’t children any more. She thought about the Arth Slya that existed when she was a child and mourned for what had been, a long flow through the centuries since the first artisans moved there, teacher/parent passing skills to studentkhild who taught in his turn, her turn. My children will be gone beyond my reach after this is over. If they were dead, at least I’d have their ghosts to comfort me a while. If they stay here, they’re dead or mad. Dead or mad. I never have a choice, do I? She grimaced. “Tchah! Brann, oh Brann, you know it’s not so bad a world. Stop Blooming. A month ago you were bored out of your skull. Hmp, Maksim was right, watch out what you ask for, you might get it.”

“Tallmg to yourself, Bramble?” Jaril dropped into the fire, wriggled around until he was comfortable. He tossed her a copper coin. “Tell me what you think.”

She rubbed her thumb across the obverse. “I don’t know this writing.”

“Sarosj. It says Blessings to Sarimbara the Holy Serpent.”

“Ah. A coin from Dil Jorpashil?”

“What they call a dugna. Fifty to a silver takk.”

“You’re feeling better.”

“It was not knowing, Bramble.”

“I know. How far is Jorpashil from here?”

“Yaro and me, we flew it, took us five days and part of the sixth. ‘Less we can get you mounted, you’ll be walking. Probably triple that and then some, say twenty days for you.”

She pulled the blankets tighter about her, shivering a little as stray currents of icy air sneaked through crevices in her clothing. “I could use one of Maksi’s call-rne’s. If he was here, he could pop us over in a wink.”

“How many he give you?”

“Six.”

“I have a feeling you ought to save them for something more important.”

“More important than my poor little feet?”

“Brammmmble!”

“Mmh. You’ve been there, I haven’t. What face should I put on?”

“Old and ugly. The base culture is nomad Temueng; an offshoot of one of the grassclans gone to seed. Settled by Lake Pikma a couple thousand years ago. Since then they’ve mixed with Phrase, Rukka Nagh, Lewinkob, Gallinasi, and whatever else trickled up the river, but that didn’t change how they look at women. You know Temuengs.”

“That I do. You going to spend the night in that fire?”

“Oh yes. Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

“No, just pop a billet on now and then, hmm?”

“That’s me, is it? Automatic fire feeder.”

“Where could I find a better?” She grinned and got to her feet, taking the blanket she’d been sitting on with her. She snapped it open, folded it in half and spread it close to the fire. “Wake me sometime round dawn. Might as well get an early start.” She wrapped the second blanket around her and stretched out. “Slya bless, this rock is hard.” She yawned, rolled onto her side so she was facing the fire and in minutes was deep asleep.