Changer’s Moon

19

Ser Noris waited.

Reiki janja looked down at large hands closed into fists about the pieces she planned to set on the board. “Play,” he said gruffly.

She opened her right hand. A small greenish figure dressed in charred white rags lay on her palm.

“No,” he said. He reached to take the figure from her, drew back when a flash of pain shot through his withered hand.

Reiki smiled. “You said once I’ll teach the child; after that, try and take the woman.” There was a patina of sweat on her lined face, but her eyes were calm. She was solid janja except for hints in those dark-water eyes. “Do you have her, my Noris?”

He made an impatient dismissing gesture. “Play.”

She set the green figure on the board, straightened and opened her other hand. A dark-robed figure with chiseled pale features lay on her palm.

Ser Noris sucked in a breath, slapped at the hand but before he touched her was stopped by an intangible barrier. While he struggled to maintain his control, she set his simulacrum on the board beside the other figure. “This decides it all.”

“The army…”

“How long will the Ogogehians stay, with the paymaster gone?”

Again he brushed the question away and sat staring at the black-robed figure. He knew his power and did not doubt he would prevail; what chilled him were the implications woven about that figure. Until this moment he’d been games-master, not a pawn in the game. He lifted his head. “What am I?”

“In what game?”

He hesitated, looked at the finger-high black figure. “I am not less than you.” He pronounced each word with great care, flatly.

“Which I?”

A brush of his hand, a hiss of disgust. “Don’t play with me, janja.”

“You withdraw?”

“No. You know what I’m saying.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

Reiki smiled.

He looked down at the greenglass figure glowing on the board. “I shaped her.” The janja made a sound. Without taking his eyes from the figure, he said, “We shaped her.” He reached out, didn’t quite touch the sculpted red curls. “We shaped her…” His voice trailed into memory.

He reclined on black velvet before a crackling fire, lifted onto his elbow as Serroi hesitated in the doorway. Aware of her loneliness and uncertainty, he wanted to reassure her, but he was uneasy with her, he didn’t know how to talk to her. After a few breaths he called to her, “Come here, Semi.” That was easy enough. She grinned suddenly and came rushing in, her confidence growing with each step she took. They talked quietly for a while, she full of eager questions, he responding to her warmth as he would to a fire on a cold day. After a while his hand dropped beside her head. He stroked her hair, began pulling soft curls through his fingers. The fire was no warmer than the quiet happiness between them.

“And she shaped me,” he murmured, then was furious that he’d exposed a part of himself. He got to his feet and walked to the edge of the cliff where he stood looking down at the wall.

The war subsided for the moment. Nekaz Kole was waiting for the vuurvis to burn through the gates; there was a skeleton force of defenders keeping watch at the embrasures but most of them seemed to be gathered about long tables heavy with hot food and drink. Farther down the valley, Sleykynin were spread in a wide arc, creeping secretly toward the Shawar. Small bands of hunters hunted them and were hunted in their turn, a game of blindfold chess where the pieces were pointed weapons.

And over it all the enigmatic dragons wove their color songs.

One of the dragons sank gracefully to the earth inside the wall. Serroi came from the blackened tower with the man she’d fought him to save. Hern. He glared at the pudgy gray figure. If he’d had enough power after his attack on the Shawar, he would have expended it all on the obliteration of that man. He watched and suffered as he felt the intensity of shared emotion radiated from the pair. And cursed himself for thinking so long that the little man could be safely ignored. A year ago he could have squashed Hern easily. Even on the Changer’s mountain he could have erased him from existence. But he didn’t know then how deeply Hern had insinuated himself into Serroi’s life, usurping what Ser Noris considered his. Rutting beast, he howled inside his head, his mouth clamped shut to keep that beastcry from the janja. Debauching her… He choked off that interior rant, frightened by his loss of control. His withered hand twitched, the chalky fingers scraping across the fine black cloth of his robe, a loathsome reminder of the last time he’d let emotion rule him, that aborted confrontation with Serroi on the Changer’s mountain.

The dragon came drifting up, moving toward him with undulant languorous grace, the tiny figure on its back almost as translucent as it was.