Drinker of Souls

TAGUILOA STARED out his window at the busy courtyard below, fingers tapping nervously on the sill. Brann was out in the market somewhere, set up for readings, keeping herself visible while Imperial guards stalked about turning the Quarter upside down as they searched for the escaped slaves. He hadn’t seen her since the troupe went wearily up the stairs a little after sunup. He didn’t want to see her. He liked her, she was easy enough to like, doing the best she could to piece together the ruins of her existence. Trouble was, he’d got so close to being set for life. A breath away from court. A breath! Easier to endure losing what he’d had no real chance of getting. But to get so close… if it didn’t happen, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d handle himself. He left the window and began pacing about the room with the barely contained energy of a caged tiger. Imperial guards stumping through the quarter; he could hear the sounds of their progress drifting in on the wind. Rumors. Jassi brought a clutch of them with his breakfast tray. The escapees were twelve identical sisters who performed unnatural acts on each other while the emperor watched, the description of those acts growing more lurid with repetition. Or they were snake men with poison fangs the Emperor kept as a weapon to scare the meslars into doing what he told him and they were stolen by the meslars who were planning to assassinate the Emperor and he knew it and that was why he was so hot to get them back. Or they were a coven of witches of talents so wild no one agreed on what they could be, turning lead into gold, whipping up an elixir that guaranteed immortality, seers who could tell the Emperor everything that was happening in every corner of the Tigarezun. Rumors. None that connected Taguiloa and the others with the escape. Tungjii took Brann’s plot and made it better, bringing the rain clown on them so they were shut up in Maratullik’s house for the whole night, impossible they could have any connection with the escape. His mind told him, be easy, the Hand knows where we were, he can’t suspect us. His gut replied, that we’re so clearly out of it might be just the thing to make him suspect us. He doesn’t need proof to maul us about, all he needs is suf^ficient malice and a shred of suspicion. Taguiloa kicked a chair across the room, stalked after it and jerked the door open, startling a maid into dropping a pile of dirty towels. He gathered them up for her and sent her down to find him some sandwiches and a pot of tea.

“You’re nervous as the fleas on a dead dog.” Jassi set her fists on her hips after she deposited the tray on the table by the window, narrowed her eyes at him. “Negomas says last night went good, what you fussing about? This business with the slaves? Peh! Taga, that happens a half-dozen times a year. We spend a few days dodging damn guards, then they’ll catch the running fools and things’ll settle back the way they were. Hey, you know why they leaving this inn alone? Cause you here, that’s why. Grandda he even had a thought maybe he’d let you stay here free, well, that one he din keep in his head for long.” She giggled. “So you got nothin to worry about.”

He dredged up a smile, flipped a silver bit to her. “Just nerves, Jass, it’s the waiting and not knowing.”

She winked at him. “No sweat, Taga, you got it. We see a lot of ‘em here and we know.” A giggle, a side-to-side jerk of her hips, and she was gone.

He pulled the door shut and went back to pacing, gulping down several cups of the strong steaming liquid as he paced. The hollow in his belly that spurred him into ordering the sandwiches had vanished before Jassi came in with the tray. Helpless, that’s what he was, nothing he could do to change what was going to happen; he couldn’t remember feeling this helpless since the day four-year-old Taga drifted lost in an angry ocean clutching a ship’s timber, sure nobody would ever find him.

THE FORT’S MAIN tower was a dark gray thumb thrusting into the sky. Sammang stood in the bow glaring at it when he wasn’t scanning the water for the constantly shifting sandbars that were the plague of the coast along here. The Arth Slyans were below decks again, out of sight and out of the way. They crept closer to the fort. The sun was a hammer beating down, the glare from the water hard and bright, hiding the sand until they were almost on it, until it was almost too late to avoid jamming the ship into the soft sucking traps. They crept along, feeling their way through the water. The fort was silent. No one on the walls, no challenges. The ship came even with the dark mass. Silence. Hot, limp, cataleptic. They slid past into the deeper water, the brownish stain from the outflow vanishing into the blue of the open sea. Sammang drew his arm across his face, slapped at the rail. “Turrope, Rudar, ‘Reech, get those sails up.”

MID-AFTERNOON. A knock. He smoothed his hair down, composed his face, walked with slow controlled steps to the door and pulled it open.

Jassi grinned at him. “He downstairs again. That slave.” She tapped at Taguiloa’s arm. “Din I tell you?”

He cleared his throat. “Tell him I’m meditating, but I’ll be down in a breath.”

“I give him a jar of the good stuff. He happy. No sweat.” She giggled. “You come down ‘f you want, but he din ask to see you. He give me this.”

Lead seals clanked dully at the ends of the red ribbon tied about the roll of parchment. He steadied his hand, lifted the roll until he could see the pattern squeezed into the lead. “The Emperor’s sigil,” he said softly. “Maratullik’s man you said?”

“Yeah, I said. You gonna read that?”

Taguiloa smiled. “I am gonna read it.” He carried the scroll to the window, rubbed the ribbon off, hitched his hip on the sill and flattened the parchment on his thigh. After skimming through the elaborately brushed signs, he started at the top and read it again. His name. The names of the others in the troupe. Horses. Wagon. Props. All listed. Commanded to appear before the Emperor and his consort two nights hence. Under the name PLAYERS OF THE LEFT HAND. They were further commanded to move next day into the rooms provided in meslak Maratullik where they would be the Emperor’s resident company. He set his hand on the notice, grinned at Jassi. “Command performance. Before the Emperor.”

She slapped her hand on her thigh. “Din I tell you, din I? din I?”

“That you did, jass. Tell Papa Jao to lay on a feast tonight. Everyone in the inn and all the players in the Quarter you can fit at the tables. Scoot.”

He watched her swing out laughing and excited, shouting the good news as she clattered down the stairs, then frowned at the parchment. He had no intention of spending the rest of his life in this dead-alive steambath of a city. Breaking loose would take some tricky maneuvering, though. He couldn’t just pick up and leave. Seshtrango send the man boils on his butt and a plague of worms. He sighed. Brann and Harra would have to get to Maratullik somehow, change his mind. Or… well, that’s for later. Maybe he’s not so hot to keep hold of us, just wants something to distract the Emperor from the way his security chief had lost a clutch of slaves. The troupe was a toy to dangle in front of him. Brann, do I owe this to you like all the rest? He tossed the parchment roll on the table and settled himself into a corner of the room to do his breathing exercises and meditate himself back into the calm he needed to handle what was happening.

ANOTHER LATE AFTERNOON. The troupe turns onto the lakefront avenue, this time passing through the gates of Maratullik’s meslak. Guards before, guards behind, slave on a cranky white mule. Lake water turned hard and bright as sapphire shards, the sun burning hot in a cloudless sky. Rumbling past slaves trotting on late errands who cringe into the walls and watch the procession nimble along. Air burning in Taguiloa’s throat, catching there when Cymanacamal rumbles and belches a gout of steam… The walls, the stone blocks of the paving creak beneath and around him. No wind, the latening day is so still every sound is a slap against his ears. Ominously still, once the noise of the mountain’s stirring has subsided. Premonition sits like an ulcer in his belly. He tells himself it is pre-performance jitters. This is perhaps the most important performance of his life, not because he will be dancing before the Emperor-he has few illusions about the quality of the Emperor’s appreciation and a deep-seated Hina resentment of all Temuengs, especially those in positions of power-it is important because it will determine the course of the rest of his life. He sits with the reins draped loosely through his fingers letting the cob pick his own pace, a willed nay-saying in his head. Nothing is going to go wrong, disaster will not happen, nothing happened in the Hand’s house before that crowd of louts, nothing will happen when they perform before a court certain to be better mannered. Brann riding in front of the cob, Jaril perched behind her, Yaril-hound running beside her, her dun is restive, jerking his head about, drawing his black lips back, baring long yellow teeth. Harra riding beside the wagon, strain showing on her face. Nay-saying again, he will not see that strain, will not look at her again. Linjijan sitting up for once, fingering his practice flute, shifting continually. Even Linjijan the self-absorbed is restless and uneasy. About what? He will not think about Linjijan.

The palace gates open to take them in.

AN UNDERSTEWARD led them to a room opening off the audience hall where they would be performing and left them to get ready after telling Taguiloa that the hall was being prepared as he requested, matting on the floor, low stools for the musicians, a screened-off area to retire behind when one or the other of them wasn’t on stage.

There were screens here also, set up at the far end of the long narrow room, dressing rooms of a sort. Along one wall two coppers of hot water simmered on squat braziers with soft white cloths heaped high on small tables beside the braziers, fine white porcelain basins beside the towels. Taguiloa smiled as Brann went immediately to the basins, ran her fingers over them hunting makermarks. Against the other wall, nearer the door, a long low table with pots of tea, wine jugs, fingerfood in elaborate array. Runners of braided, reed taking the chill off the stone floor, a scatter of plump silk pillows. The Hand must have enthused wildly about them.

Brann felt a touch of pleasure in Taguiloa’s evident delight, a touch of satisfaction at this indication of the troupe’s high repute, but pleasure and satisfaction drained rapidly out of her as had all feeling since her folk left with Sammang, except for an occasional twinge of uneasiness when she thought of what slept within her. She sang to it at night, Sleep Slya Slya sleep, Yongala dances dreams for you, and hoped the god would sleep until Brann took them both back to the slopes of Tincreal. In spite of the lethargy that seized on her the past three days, she’d struggled to present her usual face to the world, grateful to Taguiloa and the others for giving direction to her life when every other purpose had been stripped from her. Having to stay with the troupe and perform with them meant it would be a while longer before she had to make painful decisions about what she was going to do with the rest of her life, it was an interlude when she could relax, enjoy the approval of audiences, the friendship of Taguiloa, Harra and Negomas and the comforting indolence of Linjijan, and let life flow about her undisturbed and unexamined.

She stripped, took the dance robe Jaril handed her, and wriggled into it, smoothed it down over her breasts and hips, enjoying the slide of the silk against her skin, pleased by the way it clung and showed off the body beneath. “I’m getting very vain,” she told Jaril, giggled at the face he made.

Taguiloa dressed quickly, pulling on a crimson silk body suit, tied a broad gold sash about his waist, began spreading the white paint over his face.

A commotion at the door. He turned toward the curtained arch, smoothing the white onto the back of one hand and between his fingers.

The drape billowed violently. A tall thin girlchild stalked in, followed by a seven-foot guard. Three steps in, she stopped and looked around with arrogant inquisitiveness. Hot yellow eyes landed on Taguiloa. “I am Ludila Dondi,” she said, “sister of the Consort.”

He bowed. “Damasatirajan.”

She stared at him as if she expected more from him, but he felt safer silent so he continued to wait, mute as the huge guard who stayed half a pace behind her.

She brushed past him, took up the jar of facewhite, poked her finger in it, then wiped the finger on the wall, dropped the jar without bothering about where it fell. By luck it landed upright on one of the pillows; annoyed but forced to keep silent, Taguiloa caught up the jar and set it back on the table, stood watching as Ludila Dondi sauntered about the room, poking and prying into everything. She slapped a heavy hand on a drumhead, ignored the alarm on Negomas’ face as she beat harder and harder on the skin, laughing at the booms she produced. Negomas bit his lip and said nothing, but his brown eyes were eloquent. She gave the drum a kick, he caught it as it toppled and scowled after her as she strolled to Harra. “Are you the seer?” She put her hands on narrow hips and scanned Harra from head to toe with insolent thoroughness.

“No, damasaorajan.”

“I am the Dondi, ketcha.” She turned slowly, glaring about the room. “Where’s the seer? I want the seer.”

Brann stepped around the screen and bowed, antipathy sitting sour on her stomach. When she straightened, she watched the Dondi’s face change. The Temueng girl felt it too. Hate at first glance. She was very young, long thin arms, long thin legs, black hair hanging loose, elaborate earrings in long-lobed ears, small mirrors bound in silver. A mix of some sort. Ternueng plus something else. And dangerous, for all that she was a child. She was empowered. Warning plucked at Brann’s nerves, then she felt the god stirring in her and forgot everything else. No, she thought fiercely, no you don’t, you don’t ruin Taga’s life.-No! She drew in on herself, pushing the god-force flat.

The Dondi walked around her, nostril lifted in a sneer. “You real or fake?”

“I am an entertainer, oh sabr the Dondi.” Brann was pleased but rather surprised at how cool and controlled she sounded. “Which would you prefer?”

The Dondi prowled about her with awkward adolescent ferocity, tugging at Brann’s hair, pinching her breast, poking a finger into her stomach, drawing a hand down the curve of her hip, treating her like an animal on the block. Brann felt no anger, only a deeper and more intense loathing.

Bored with the lack of reaction, the Dondi stepped back. “Prophesy, oh seer.”

“Certainly, satir the Dondi.” Brann lifted her arms, pressed her hands together to make a shallow bowl. “Place your hand on mine, please.”

“Which hand?”

“Whichever you choose, Sit amp; the Dondi. The choosing is part of the reading.”

The Dondi looked at her hands, started to extend the right toward Brann, then snatched it back. “Nol” She wheeled and stalked from the room, followed by the mute guard.

Brann shivered and looked sick.

Taguiloa came to her, touched her shoulder with his unpainted hand. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know.” Brann shuddered. “I think she was just curious. Or sniffing at us to see what we were.” She went silent for a breath or two. “I shouldn’t have come here, Taga. Should have sprained my ankle or something.”

“Couldn’t do that. Not with Maratullik breathing down your neck.” He soothed her, though he agreed with her, wishing he’d thought of it himself, but he didn’t want anxiety tightening her muscles and perverting her timing. “Make them drool, Bramble, make them pant for what they can’t get, make them forget you’re anything but a woman.”

She shook her head, laughed. “All right. All right, Taga. I get the message.”

“Good.” He went back to the table and began smoothing the white paint over his other hand.

BRANN’S DANCE went well, no one jumping up to denounce the fire as demon-bred or accuse her of running off with imperial slaves. Applause when she finished was enough to show some interest but not great enthusiasm. Taguiloa relaxed as the dance went on, satisfied that the Dondi’s visit was an aberration, not an indication that anyone here had serious questions about them. One thing bothered him. It was a dead house, Temuengs were sitting like stumps out there, barely could stir up a flash of response. He rubbed at the nape of his neck. Just meant more work, that was all.

The audience hall was a huge barrel-vaulted room, large enough to hold the Quarter’s market square and have space left over; hundreds of glass and gold lamps were clustered along the walls and hanging on gilded chains from the ridge of the vault, swinging slightly in the drafts, painting a constantly shifting web of shadow on the floor and on the forms of those seated about the dance mat, from the look of the crowd; most of the meslar lords in Durat. Royal Abanaskranjinga sat on a carved and gilded throne on a dais a double-dozen steps above the floor, behind him a carved and gilded screen. Taguiloa caught glimpses of dark figures moving behind the screen, probably the Emperor’s wives and concubines and some of his older children. His present Consort sat six steps below him, her head even with his knees. On a cushion by her feet was a young boy, a stiff, determined look on his round face; no more than four or five, he was the chosen heir at present, the favorite among old Krajing’s many sons. Closest to the dais were none of the meslars, but a number of dark-clad Temuengs with the same mix in them as in the Dondi, behind them a clutch of men and women wearing heavy brown robes with cowls pulled forward so their faces were hidden in shadow.

TACUILOA FINISHED his clown dance and bowed, avoiding the Emperor’s hungry black eyes, eyes that caressed him, seemed to devour him. During the dance the Emperor had laughed and slapped his thigh, bent and whispered in his Consort’s ear. Hungry, hungry eyes. No wonder Maratullik wanted a distraction to take the Emperor’s gaze off him. Taguiloa bowed again and ran behind the screen.

Brann brought him a cup of tea and a towel. “It’s going well,” she whispered.

Han-a came behind the screen for her hoops and fingerbells. “It’s going well,” she whispered, then looked from one to the other as they broke into hastily stifled Ogees. “Fools,” she said amiably, and turned to wait for her cue, clinking the small gong to let Linjijan and Negomas know she was ready.

Taguiloa sipped at his tea and gazed at Brann. She was wound so tight that another turn would shatter her. He kicked a pillow across to her, sat beside her. After a moment he closed his hand over hers. It was damp and cold and oak-hard. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t. It’s like the air is pressing in on me. Not jitters exactly, I don’t know.” Silence awhile. They sat quietly listening to the music, the scrape of Harra’s feet, the clink of her bells. “Who are those brownrobes?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m frightened, Taga.”

He patted her hand but said nothing. Reassuring lies wouldn’t do here, he was too disturbed himself. He’d awakened the Emperor from his torpor and wrung laughter from him; he had a sense of approval flowing from the audience, but all the reponses out there were just a hair off, nothing he could put his hand on, nothing he could ignore either. He was elated with his success and furious he couldn’t enjoy it without this other thing niggling at him.

The music stopped. A ripple of applause. Harra came stalking behind the screen, moving with frustrated ferocity, stripping the bells from her fingers, the hoops from her arms. “They’re half dead out there. I’d rather yestereve’s louts.” Setting the bells and hoops on a table with angry precision, she went scowling to the tea-table. She poured herself a bowl, gulped it down, poured another. “That was not an experience I want to repeat.” She sighed and sipped, then lifted the bowl in a mock toast. “Luck to your feet, Taga. You’ll need it.” She shivered, set the bowl down. “Time to get back out there.”

He felt the growing deadness of the audience when he wheeled out. It dragged at him, drained his energy. As if the black Temueng eyes and the yellow eyes of the mixes were mouths pressed against his flesh, consuming him as he danced for them. He forced himself to go on though his limbs felt leaden and his edge was gone. He pulled in, took fewer chances, and even then felt he danced on the rim of a precipice.

The music changes.

Taguiloa falters. Covers. Tries to go on.

A hot force takes his body, moves his feet in a complex pattern across the dance mat.

A rumbling in the ground below the palace.

The lamps sway and flicker.

The shadows dance in broken webs across the floor and the faces of the silent watchers.

Brann comes from behind the screen, dances toward him, her feet moving as his feet move. Her hair is white and shifting about her head as if windblown, though the air is heavy, thick, still.

Her face is strained and pale. She moves with a stiff resistance that matches his own, moves into the dance with him, weaving a pattern about and through the pattern he is weaving.

Moving gets easier for both of them. The-music grows wilder and wilder. The walls groan.

The Temuengs sit frozen.

Abanaskranjinga shifts about on his throne, tries to stand, beats his meaty fists on the throne arms.

The dance goes on, inexorable as the passage of seconds into minutes, minutes into hours.

The Consort struggles to leave her chair, panting and squealing as her body fails-to answer her will.

Brann and Taguiloa touch and retreat, swing away from each other, swing back. Loop out, converge, dance wheeling away.

The brownrobes shrink together, a mud-geyser surging and bubbling, heads bobbing up and down, throats throwing out a whining moan that is barely louder than the music. They struggle to escape, tugging and pulling at the forces binding them, but they cannot. Like flies in honey they cannot pull away.

The drums beat louder. Louder. LOUDER.

Negomas fierce and frightened, half lost in the music, his long black hands stroking and beating, working as if they belong to someone else.

The flute sings harsh, piercing dissonances that tug painfully at the rolling rumble, of the drums, denying its singing nature, screaming its pain. Linjijan sways, eyes closed, entirely bound into his music.

Han-a slaps chords and runs from the daroud, her eyes wild, white-ringed, her mouth pulled back and down.

The sound builds and builds, filling the hall, melding with the moans of the watchers, the rage-squeals and growls from the Emperor and those around him.

The walls sway and groan.

The floor slides back and forth.

Brann’s feet come down solid and steady. She circles Taguiloa. Sweat runs down his face. His eyes have a glazed sheen. He touches her hand. His flesh is cold and damp. He swings away.

Flute shrieks, drum goes toom-toom, daroud jangles. The music stops.

Sudden silence.

Slya streams forth from Brann, takes form in the center of the mat.

Gasps, sighs, a wind of sighs passing around the room.

The great red figure stood planted on the mat, wisps of smoke from the smoldering cloth rising about legs like mountain pines, coiling up around the lavish fiery female form. One pair of arms crossed beneath her high, round breasts, the second set curved out as if to gather in all those about the throne, her hot red eyes glared at the Emperor.

“MINE,” she roared and the building shook some more. “YOU DARE PUT YOUR STINKING HANDS ON MY PEOPLE. YOU MESS WITH SLYA FIREHEART. ME!” She reached out and out, fingers extending and extending, two arms reaching, four arms reaching, fingers long and longer, gathering in the brownrobes and the Temueng mixes, three to a handful, ignoring the banes they cast at her, plagues and poisons, cast-fire and demon familiars, all the Kadda power and Kadda skills their unnaturally extended parasitic lives had given them. “ME! ME! YOU ATTACK ME!” She squeezed. Stench of roasting flesh and burning cloth, shrieks, blood and other body fluids oozing between her fingers, raining onto the floor and those remaining. She flung the mess aside and started to reach again.

A round bald figure in dusty wrinkled black was suddenly there, pushing the long fingers aside. Tungjii patted the back of the huge red hand, grinned up at the ominous figure. “Not the boy, little darling, not the boy.”

Slya glared at him, hair stirring like serpents about her head. Then, (Brann astonished, Taguiloa wearily appreciative) the raking fingers shrank; red eyes rolling, red teeth showing in a broad grin, Slya patted the double god on hisser plump buttocks. In a voice like the groaning of a mountain, she said, “SINCE YOU ASK IT, TUTI.”

Huge face returning to a savage scowl, she turned her hot red gaze on Abanaskranjinga. “YOU!” Her voice the howling of a storm wind, the roar of a forest fire. “YOU FOOL, BELIEVING KADDA PROMISES.” One hand closed about him. She squeezed. His hoarse scream broke of abruptly though his arms and legs continued to writhe even after his body fluids began to drip on the marble steps. “HAH! LARDARSE, ATTACKING ME!”

Brann wrapped her arms about her legs, dropped her head on her knees, relieved in a way to have the waiting over, drowning in a vast lassitude; she wanted to stretch out on the mat and sleep and sleep and never wake.

Taguiloa sat on his heels breathing hard, watching the flame-red giant drop the squashed mass of the Emperor of Tigarezun, ruler of Temueng and Hina, a mess of charred meat, bone and slime. That’s it then. I gambled and lost. He managed a tired smile as he saw Linjijan gaping at the god: even Linji understood his life was being trampled under those large but shapely red feet.

Slya flung the body of the consort aside and ripped the screen from behind the throne. She winnowed through the women and children trapped there in the spell woven by the dance and the music, plucking out and crushing some, brushing others aside.

Tungjii caught up the weeping boy and carried him over to Taguiloa and Brann. Heesh lowered hisserself to the tattered mat and sat placidly watching the god hunting down her enemies, squashing and roasting them, his eyes filled with sardonic amusement, cheering her on with broken murmurs.

Slya raked immaterial fingers through the palace and extended them until they swept garden and stable, searching out and pulling to her all the Kadda folk.

Cuddling the Heir against hisser plump bosom with one hand, Tungjii reached out with the other and stroked it over Brann’s silky hair, the touch warm and comforting. “One of ‘em’s going to get away,” heesh murmured. “That tricky little nit that came nosing about you. You better watch out for her.” Heesh stroked some more, hisser hand feeling like her mother’s, steadying, calming, understanding. “You want to know wh^y all this?”

Brann sighed, straightened her back and her cramping legs, looked round at himmer. “Yes.”

“Glemma, child. The Consort that was. She’s the reason. Ambitious. Got to be head oompah of the Kadda meld. Wanted more. Tried to tap the Fireheart ofCynatnacarnal. Ran into Slya who brushed her off like a pesky fly. Which embarrassed her and made her madder’n a cat in a sack. Made her think too. She teased old Krajink into marrying her and when she had him fast, she made him Kadda like her. Happy enough to do it, old fool, thought he was going to live forever and be young and handsome while he was doing it. Brought the meld here. They tried again, all of them. Stung Slya, woke her up some. And Cynamacamal rumbled and shook and spouted some hot rock. Scared them. They wanted hostages to make red Slya behave. So she whispered into Krajink’s ear and teased him into sending his armies to take Croaldhu and then round up the Arth Slyans and bring them here. She thought she could hide behind them when she tried again to drive Slya from Cynamacamal, then all the fire mountains. Thought she could make herself a god. Lot of lies told. People had to be convinced it was a good idea to bring the Slyans here. You heard most of those lies.”

“And me?” Brann looked at the worn smiling face of the little god. “And the children?” She touched Yaril’s pale blond head, then Jaril’s. “Look at Slya, they can’t do a thing against her, all the Kadda can do is die. Why all that happened?”

“The Kadda meld’s a lot stronger’n it looks, little Bramble. Falling apart now because red Slya sneaked up on it, trapped it before it could get going. Glemma and her crew threw up barriers that blocked our friend when she tried to get into the palace and stomp them. They were more than she could handle without getting a jump on them, though if you ask Slya Fireheart, she’d deny any limit to her powers, claim she didn’t act because she’d have to harm the silly little mortals clustered about the roots of Carnal.” Tungjii chuckled. “We all have our pride, Bramlet. Anyway, she used you and my gifted friend here,” he nodded at Taguiloa who listened angrily, but with interest, “to sneak her in past the barrier. Used you to spin the sticky web that caught the Kadda and kept them from uniting against her. Clever when she wants to be, our fiery dame.”

Slya straightened, wiped her four hands down her naked sides, burning the ooze off them. Four hot red fists on her smooth hips, she looked around, smiled, and started to fade.

“No!” Brann leaped to her feet, enraged. “Not yet you don’t.” She caught hold of the god’s leg, cried out as it seared her palm, but didn’t let go. “No,” she screamed. “You owe me. You can’t run out like that. You owe me.”

Slya looked down at her, made to brush her away. Again Tungjii caught Slya’s hand. Heesh patted it, an affectionate scolding look on hisser round face. “Listen to her, sweeting. She’s right, you know. You owe her a hearing.”

The fiery fearsome god bridled like a girl the first time she came into mixed company after her passage rite. It was such a startling sight Brann almost forgot what she wanted to say. Almost forgot.

“The children,” she cried as her anger came back. “Send them home. You’re done with them. Why leave them away from kin and kind? They don’t belong here. Send them home. And there’s Taga and his troupe. Why ruin them? Why leave them to face the mess you made? You owe your triumph to us, Slya Fireheart. You used us. Make things right for us, or the world will know you are worse than the worst of the Kadda.”

Slya spat a gout of fire that took out a section of wall. “WORLD? WHAT IS THE WORLD TO ME! NOTHING!”

“Am I nothing?”

Slya turned that fearsome red gaze on her, impersonal, indifferent, mildly angry. “YES.”

Brann shuddered, drew a breath, closed her eyes a moment, searching for argument without much hope. “Then I’m your nothing,” she shouted at the god. She waved a hand at the Temuengs beginning to stir about the fringes of the room. “Will you let them crush me? Will you let them laugh and say Slya lost half her chosen folk and let another dribble through her fingers?”

Slya looked thoughtful, then her red eyes brightened with a sly malice that turned Brann cold in spite of the heat radiating from the god. “TRUE.” Voice like lava bubbling. “MY NOTHING.” She looked around, her eyes lighting finally on Maratullik who was calmer than most, watching the destruction with an indifference equaling hers. A hot finger stabbed at him. “YOU! TOUCH MY NOTHING AND CAMAL WILL BURN YOU TO ASH, CAMAL WILL BURY YOU IN HOT STONE SO DEEP MAYFLY MORTALS WILL FORGET A CITY WAS EVER HERE.” She stamped her foot. The walls groaned and the floor juddered beneath them. “THERE,” she said complacently, and once again began to lose solidity.

“The children,” Brann shrieked at her, “and Taguiloa.”

Slya laughed, a high-pitched titter that cracked the walls. “I LIKE YOU LITTLE NOTHING. I MAKE YOU A BARGAIN. I OFFER YOU TWO CHOICES, YOU CHOOSE WHICH. EITHER I SEND THE CHILDREN HOME AND CHANGE YOU BACK AND FORGET ABOUT THE DANCER AND HIS FOLK, LET THEM STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE HOW THEY WILL, OR I PROTECT THE DANCER AND HIS FOLK FOR THE REST OF THEIR MAYFLY LIVES, TORCH ANYONE WHO TRIES TO HARM THEM AND I FORGET ABOUT YOU AND THE CHILDREN. CHOOSE, LITTLE NOTHING. WHICH WILL IT BE?”

Brann looked from Taga to Linji, Ilarra, Negomas, to Yaril and Jaril crouching at her feet. Looked deep in the crystal eyes, remembering Yaril hunched and sad over the fire in the burnt-out storehouse when they were running from the Temuengs on Croaldhu, remembering the closeness they’d shared, the times they’d rescued her, remembering also all the lives of men and beasts she’d taken to feed them, thinking of all the lives she’d have to take for them if they stayed. Looked again at Taga and the troupe, all of them in this mess because of her. Her responsibility. She lifted her eyes to the mighty figure rising high before her, writhing red hair brushing the ceiling lamps, a pleased smile showing the tips of square red teeth. She said she’d change me back. I could go home. The desire to be again what she had been at the start of summer, to be back among her folk, beginning her apprenticeship with her father, that desire raged in her, shouted at her. Back with her father, learning his craft, struggling to make a thing as fine as the das’n vuor pot and its hundred bowls. Her father. She could see his calm brown eyes gazing at her, affectionate, understanding, but implacable. She could hear him speaking to her, saying see your actions through, Bramble-all-thorns, what you have done you must answer for; I don’t want to see you if you abandon your friends. Sick and angry, she fisted her hands, forced her head up so she was staring into the shallow red gaze of the god. “Taguiloa,” she cried; she wanted to explain why, but she did not. “That’s my choice, let the children stay with me,” she finished and could say no more.

Slya laughed. Several lamps shattered and spilled their burning oil onto the sluggishly stirring meslars and their companions. “SO BE IT, LITTLE NOTHING. YOU OUT THERE HEAR ME, ANY OF YOU CONTEMPLATING HARM TO THESE FOLK OF MINE. I NAME THEM: TAGUILOA, HARRA HAZHANI, UNMAN, NEGOMAS. SEE THEM. HEAR THIS ALSO: CONTEMPLATE OR CAUSE HARM TO THEM AND YOU BURN. SO…

She ran her red gaze over the Temuengs, stared a long moment at the Hand, moved on to a magistrate trying to straighten his tangled robes. He had just time to look up, startled, then he was a torch hot enough to melt the stone beneath his feet, ash and cinders a second later in a puddle of congealing stone.

Slya laughed. More lamps broke and a pillar cracked. She stretched her four arms, yawned, melted into nothing.

Tungjii calmed the wailing child heesh held on hisser knee, set him down and beckoned to Maratullik. “Take your new emperor and serve him well, Hand. He’s your luck now, make the most of him. His fortunes and yours are paired.” Heesh grinned at the calm-faced Ternueng. “Enjoy yourself, web spinner.”

Maratullik permitted himself a small tight smile, took the boy’s hand and led him away.

Tungjii rolled onto hisser feet, patted Taguiloa’s head. “‘You too, Taga. Enjoy yourself.” Over hisser shoulder, he called to Maratullik, “Web spinner, you better believe Slya means what she says.” Heesh chuckled. “She likes to burn things, you know.” The chuckle lingering behind himmer, heesh faded into nothing.

Brann looked down at her charred palm already pink with new skin, then at the space where Tungjii had been. “That old fox.” She glared at Taguiloa. “I am so damn tired of jerking through the sneaky plots of every damn god around. I am so damn tired of being lied to and kicked around and having no idea what’s really going on. Haaah! Tungjii!”

Taguiloa nodded absently, his eyes following Maratullik. “I told you, Bramble, heesh is the family patron.”

Maratullik was busy talking in a low voice with several of his minions, sending them scurrying on errands, watching with cold amusement as the other meslars crept away from the hall, hurrying to get away from the destruction and begin their own machinations. As soon as a Hina nursemaid led the child-emperor off, he walked over to Taguiloa. “You’ve made things interesting, Hina.”

Taguiloa shrugged.

“You’ll keep a still tongue about it. You and your troupe.”

“Why not. If it’s to my profit.”

“Don’t count too much on your fire-breathing patron. If you prove too troubling a nuisance, someone will find a way to remove you.”

Taguiloa smiled at him. “Want to state that a bit more directly?” He laughed. “Don’t threaten me, Hand.” He moved his shoulders, straightened his back feeling as if he’d cast off a worn and cramping garment. “Hear me, Temueng. I don’t give shit about you or your games. I’m a player, not a courtier. What I want is to go back to Silili with the Emperor’s Sigil so I can do the kind of dances I want before the fools who think that Sigil means something.”

“You’re insolent, Hina.”

“Yes, saх jura Meslar.” Taguiloa drawled the honorifics until they turned into insult.

“You really don’t care, do you.”

“No.”

“You could use your protection to wield a lot of power, Hina.”

“I don’t want a thing you want, Temueng.”

Maratullik narrowed his eyes. “Oddly enough, I think I believe you. I don’t understand you, but I believe you.” He beckoned a guard to him. “Get some slaves and see they pack up the players’ things, then take an empushad and escort them to my house; see them settled in.” He cut off the guard’s response, turned back to Taguiloa. “Get out of here now. Get out of Durat by sundown tomorrow.”

“With pleasure. The sigil?”

“I’ll have the patent delivered to you before you leave, Anything else? Another way I can serve you?” There was a warning in the clipped words, the Hand had been pushed about as far as he was willing to go.

“What about a barge and an empushad of imperial guards to keep us safe going south?”

Maratullik ground his teeth together, his face got red, breath snorted through his nose. He couldn’t speak, he opened his mouth, a grating sound came out.

Taguiloa laughed. “Never mind. Just wondering. We’ll take care of ourselves.” He turned and sauntered out, the others trailing silently, contentedly, behind him, the guard bringing up the rear of the procession. Harm had slipped on her finger bells and after a few steps started up a jaunty beat, whistling a tune to match it, turning their exit into a triumphal march.

6. Moving On

BRANN GAVE THE POT a final burnishing and set it in its velvet nest; she closed the lid and eased the flat little hook into its eye. Have to tell Chandro to drop this off at Perando for me. She smiled. Sailing man, like my Sammang, like another few I’ve known. I’ve definitely got a weakness for them, these sailing men. She looked up as she heard the squawk of an albatross dipping low over the ship. Yaril commenting on something, probably another ship. Hope it’s not trouble out of Silili. Couldn’t be, not yet, they won’t have sorted out the mess in the Tekora’s palace yet. She slid down in the chair until her neck rested on the top slat, swung her feet onto the table and crossed her ankles, lay stretched out contemplating the ceiling beams, dismissing the recent events in Silili, thinking about her quest and its end. A strange time that was. Gods and mortals jostling and elbowing each other, all wanting something different, getting in each other’s way, scattering lies like seeds at spring planting, nothing exactly what it seemed.

The ship heeled over suddenly, the chair tottered and fell, dumping her onto the floor. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the table, caught the box before it tumbled off. “That was close. Sandbar, I suppose, they come and go round here. What Yaril was yammering about more than likely.” She stroked her hand across the smooth lacquer. “Into the chest with you.”

She tucked the box into the heavy seachest at the foot of the bed, got dressed, went out to hunt down the cook and get something to fill the hollow under her ribs.