Blue Magic

“True, oh true.” Brann laughed and ambled on. The brightening day was clear and cool; behind the facades she passed she could feel a slow torpid struggle against weariness left over from last night, lepidopter stirring in her chrysalis. She turned into the flowery winding lane that led uphill to the Pearly Dawn, walking slower still, reluctance to return to the Inn and Ahzurdan gathering like a lump under her ribs. She broke a green orchid from a spray that brushed her head, showering her with delicate perfume, tucked it into an empty buttonhole, then broke off another and eased it into the fine blond hair over Yaril’s ear. Smiling affectionately at the startled girl, she patted her shoulder and ambled on.

Heavy-eyed and morose, Ahzurdan met her on the stairs and followed her into her room. As soon as the door shut behind him and before he could start talking, Brann said, “If Zatikay isn’t here by tonight, I’m going to hire transport to Haven on Cheonea. Yes, yes, I know none of the Captains in the harbor would shift his schedule for any price, but there are ships not too deep in the Myk’tat Tukery with more flexible masters.”

“Bloody cannibals, more likely to carve us up and eat us than waste time on open water.”

“Unless they’ve changed since I ran into them, they won’t bother me or the children. And I suspect you’d find it easy enough to convince them that you’re no tasty morsel. I didn’t say I liked the idea. But time’s…” she broke off, frowned. There was suddenly a faint odd smell in the room, a creaky droning, like a doorhinge down a deep well. “What the…”

Tall, thin, brown and ivory, like a lightning-blasted tree, an eerie ugly creature solidified in front of Brann and reached for her.

Alerted by the sound and the smell, Brann dropped to a squat, then sprang to one side, slapping against the floor and rolling onto her feet. The treeish thing looked stiff and clumsy, but it wasn’t; it was fast and flexible and frighteningly strong. One of its hands raised a wind over her head, but her hair was too short for any kind of grip and she dropped too quickly. When she kicked out of the squat, rough knotty fingers got half a grip on her leg but slipped off as she twisted away. She bounced onto her feet, gasped with sudden fear as a second set of hard woody arms closed about her and started to squeeze.

Yaril shifted to a fireball and flung herself at the treeish demon, meaning to burn it, but it wasn’t what it seemed and all she did was char it a little, releasing an appalling stench into the room. It loosened its grip on Brann, held her with one hard ropy arm and swung at Yaril with the other.

Jaril came whipping through the wall and slammed into the first Treeish, charring it and stinging it enough to drive it back.

Another Treeish solidified from air and stench. And another.

Brann slapped her hands against her captor and began drawing its life into her; she screamed (voice hoarse with agony) as that corrosive firestuff poured into a body not meant to contain demon energies, but she didn’t stop the draw.

Yaril flew to her, sucked away as much of the energy as she could and redirected it into a blast of liquid fire at the other three Treeish.

Jaril was a thick worm of fire, winding about the short stubby legs of the Treeish, toppling them one by one as they tried to move at Brann.

The Treeish holding Brann screamed, a deep hooming sound that cut off abruptly as the demon shivered suddenly to flakes of something like dried mushroom. Brann leaped at a second Treeish, one rocking onto its feet after Jaril tripped it; avoiding the arms that whipped snake quick at her, she got it from behind and flattened her hands against its sides, holding onto it through all its gyrations as she drained the life out of it, screaming and screaming at the agony of what she was doing, but going on and on.

While Brann scrambled desperately to survive and the children fought with her, Ahzurdan stood by the door, frozen, all his ambivalences aroused. He watched Brann struggle, he listened to her scream, he wanted to see her humiliated, hurt; he loathed this in himself, despaired when he had to acknowledge it. But he couldn’t make himself act.

Minutes passed. The second Treeish died. For a breath or two, Brann stood trembling, unable to make herself endure that agony again, then she sank her teeth into her lip until she drew blood and threw herself at the third.

Yaril deflected a snatch of fire from the fight and spat it at Ahzurdan; it missed, being meant to miss, but it singed his ear and burnt away the ends of a wide swatch of his hair.

Startled out of his self-absorption, he roused will and memory, took a quick guess at the essence of the demons, assembled his shout, his hand gestures, and in a burst like a storm striking drove the demons from this reality.

Brann dropped panting to her knees, tears squeezing from her eyes. The changechildren dropped beside her, emerged from their fireball forms and spread their hands on her, drawing the poison fire out of her.

Ahzurdan stirred, went to the room’s windows, threw them wide to let the sea breeze blow the stench away. He stood in the window that looked out over the bay, his back to the room, wanting to run before Brann recovered enough to ask the questions he refused to ask himself. It was so much simpler to be somewhere else when the result of his actions or lack of action began to come clear. His mind told him it was wiser to stay (this time) and talk his way round her. His flesh wasn’t so sure.

“You took your time.” Ordinarily she had a rather pleasant voice, low for a woman, but musical; those words came at him like missiles.

“You don’t understand.” He turned his head, a gesture toward courtesy, but didn’t look at her.

“I told you. We work by will. Will driven by knowing. Knowing comes first, it has to. I had to know them to force them home. It takes… time.^- Resisting an urge to see if she accepted that explanation, he stared out the window at nothing until a bit of color caught his eyes, a name flag on a masthead. His face loosened as he recognized it, though he tried to keep his relief from showing in his back. “Zatikay’s in.”

“Tk. “ An exasperated sigh. “Get yourself out there and find when he’s leaving and if it’s tomorrow or the next day, get us passage if you have to take deck space. Umf! And have a look at those wards of yours, seems to me they’re leaking.”

He drew his fingers along the sill, making lines in the faint dusting of yellow-gray pollen. “The oriels,” he said. “They told him I’m traveling with you. He knows me, he knows my tricks.” He felt an odd mix of fear and freedom, fear that she’d force him away from her, hope that she’d cut him loose so he didn’t have to fight himself any longer, that she’d free him to destroy himself as quickly and as easily as seemed right. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that when I asked to come with you. ‘

“I did, so stop squirming.” She was moving briskly about behind him; he turned, saw her using a pillowcase to clean up the leavings of the dead demons. The children were watching him, more hostile than ever. He had to make her say it.

“Tell me to go.”

She looked up from the unpleasant task, raised her brows. “Why?”

“He can’t find you if I’m not around.”

“You were lazy, Dan, leaning on me too much. You won’t again.”

“I’ll let you down, you know I will.”

“If you want out, go. But it’s your decision. You won’t put that on me.”

He looked at his hands, rubbed his thumbs across the smears of pollen clinging to his fingertips. “I can’t go.”

She nodded, got to her feet. “I see. If I understand what you’ve told me, Maksim is tired. He won’t come at us again for a while. So, go talk to Zatilcay. Jay, go with him. I want to know soonest if we’re leaving on the morrow; you and Yaro will have to raid the treasury, our gelt is getting low. Go. Go.” She laughed, waving the case at them. “Get out of here.”

7. Daniel Akamarino Strolls Down A Dusty Back Road And Steps From One World To Another.