A Gathering Of Stones

1

The Mutri-mab went skipping about the deck of the pilgrim barge, holy fool in whiteface and fluttering ribbons. He leaped to the forerail and capered perilously back and forth on that narrow slippery pole, then struck a pose. When he was satisfied with the attention he had drawn to himself, he began beating two hardwood rods together, making a staccato melodious background to his chant. “Hone your wit,” he sang in a powerful tenor:

Hone your wit with alacrity

Romp and revel, gaiety

Wait for thee, for us

In Havi Kudush Ah sing Amortis

More ah more ah more than this

Ecstasy, amour and bliss Ah, ah Amortis, she

Waits for thee, for us

In Havi Kudush

Don your slippers, dance for me

Tipsy wanton jubilee

Waits for thee, for us

In Havi Kudush Ah sing Amortis

More ah more a more than this

Ecstasy, amour and bliss…

Brann pulled the heavy black veil tighter about her and wondered how stupid she was, coming here into Amortis’ heartland. The two times she’d run into Amortis, she and the Blues, Yaril and Jaril had combined to whip the tail of the god. Her only hope was evading Amortis’ notice. Unfortunately, the way things had worked out, it was near the end of the pilgrimage season and she didn’t have masses of people to vanish into. Jaril stirred against her leg; since pilgrims didn’t travel with watchpets, he couldn’t be a hound again, nor could he continue as her M’darjin page, servants weren’t permitted in Havi Kudush-not as servants, though they could come as pilgrims. So he was being her invalid son; the disguise concealed his oddities and provided an excuse for her.

She stroked his soft hair, smiled down at him, understanding all too well his impatience, his restlessness. He wanted Yaril freed as soon as possible. He wanted to fly in, take the talisman and rush back to trade it for his sister. He knew he couldn’t do that, but the need was always there, an itch under his skin. And there were other strains, things she felt in him but couldn’t find a way to ask about. There was an uneasiness in him now, needs that were growing toward explosion. She remembered his outburst in the cave and was furious at her helplessness. There was nothing she could do to ease him. She listened with half an ear to the chant swelling about her, the chorus of the paean to Amortis the Mutri-mab was singing. She joined in that chorus after a few minutes because she didn’t want to be conspicuous in her silence. Not just worry about Yaril. Puberty, he said, a kind of puberty. He needs his people, he’s ripe for mating, but Yard’s the only female of his kind in this reality. His more than sister, his twin. It’s a recipe for disaster, she thought, one might even say tragedy. No more procrastination, I have to see them home. Even thinking about it hurt so much, she knew she’d bleed until she was empty when that knot was broken; two hundred years, more, they’d been her children, her nurslings, bonded to her mind and body. But what choice had she? Children leave you. That’s the way things are.

Jaril sensed something of her trouble, nestled closer, trying to comfort her without words.

“Not much longer,” she said. Her voice was lost in the singing of the other passengers, but even if one of them heard her, it’d mean nothing; it was the kind of thing anyone would say.

*Have you figured out how, Bramble?* There was a tinge of bitterness in the mindvoice; he trusted her, but he was afraid of Amortis and deeply angry at Maksim for letting them down.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “There are ears who can hear that shouldn’t.” She sighed. “No, I haven’t. I don’t know enough. Look ahead, Jay, there’s the Holy Rock, we’ll be there by dawn. We’ll look around and see what’s what.”

The Rock rose like a broaching whale out of the stony plain-the Tark-that stretched from the misty reedmarsh where three rivers met to the southern reaches of the Dhia Asatas. At the highest point of the Rock, the three-tiered Sihbaraburj thrust up black and massive against the sunset. Above it the sky was still dark blue with poufs of cloud dotted across it, clouds that ranged from a pale coral overhead to vermilion in the west where the sun floated in a sea of molten gold. Havi Kudush the holy city. Harmony-tongued Kudush where pious hands hauled in tons and tons of warm gold bricks and laid them in a thousand thousand courses, brick on brick, slanted inward to make the three-step, truncated pyramid that was the Sihbaraburj, Temple to Amortis, that was the Heart of Phras, a made-mountain honeycombed with twenty thousand chambers where the Priest-Servants lived, where the Holy Harlots made worship, where healers and seers made promises that were sometimes kept, where dancers and singers, song makers and music makers lived and worked, where there were artisans of all sorts, goldsmiths and silversmiths, workers in bronze and copper, gem cutters and stone cutters, potters and weavers, painters, embroiderers, lace makers and so on, all of them creating marvels for the honor of Amortis-and the coin they got from selling their work to pilgrims as offerings or souvenirs. Havi Kudush the holy city. Its feasts flow with fat and milk, its storehouses bring rejoicing. Fill your belly, the hymns command, day and night make merry, let every day be full of joy, dance and make music, this is the pure bright land where all things are celebrant and celebrated, dance and make music, praise Amortis bringer of joy, praise her in pleasure and delight.

The barge halted when the sun dropped out of sight, changed teams and went on. The draft oxen plodded steadily along the towpath, used to the dark as was the drover boy riding the offside ox, flicking his limber stick at the bobbing rumps when the plodding slowed too much. On the barge the pilgrims settled to sleep behind canvas windbreaks. The Mutri-mab sat on the forerail and played sleepy tunes on his flute. The river whispered along the sides, tinkling, shimmering murmurs that lied about the heaviness of the silt-laden water which in the daylight ran thick and red with the mud of three rivers and the marsh. Jaril lay wrapped in a blanket he neither needed nor wanted but wore like a mask to keep off the eyes of the other travelers. He was sunk in that coma he called sleep, a shutting down of his systems, a hoarding of the sunlight he drank during the day. Brann lay beside him, but she couldn’t sleep.

Head down, she told herself. I’m a poor lorn widow with an invalid son; who am I to attract the notice of a god. I wish we were out of here. Too much land to cover. What happens if she feels it when we lope off with Churrikyoo? What happens if she comes after us? We haven’t got Ahzurdan to shield us. What happened to Maksi? I wish he were here. I’d feel a lot better about this business. He must have put his foot in something. Idiot man, he’s too soft for his own good. That skinny whore he’s so fond of leads him around by the nose, well, not the nose… Slya! I’m jealous of that little… that… damn damn damn all gods, why does this happen to me on top of everything else? I thought I was over wanting him. She luxuriated a moment in her misery, squeezing tears from tight-closed eyes, then she sighed and let it go; there was no point in scraping her insides raw yearning for what she couldn’t have. She’d got over having to leave Sammang, she’d got over Chandro, it just took time.

She lay brooding for some time longer until, eventually, she drifted into a restless sweating sleep.