Wild Magic

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Reyna washed off eye paint and lip rouge, changed into the clothes he wore when discretion was demanded, a loose shirt, tight trousers, a long sleeveless jacket to further^-conceal the breasts he usually carried with pride but bound down now. He kicked off his sandals, pulled on a pair of hightop boots, tugged the braids harshly back from his face, locked them at the base of his neck into a wooden clasp carved with the sigil of the Fundarim caste. It was his by birthright, though his family had disowned him and denied him when his breasts started growing.

He inspected himself in the full length mirror that was his most expensive possession, sighed, and went out.

Inconspicuous in his trousers and drab jacket, he walked up the Sokajarua, threading through the throng of buyers and sellers, then made his way through the maze of booths and tables in the Sok Circle, the heaps of goods piled on grass mats. He went past the Joyhouses he knew so well, the shops and manufacturies, until he reached the kariam he sought, one of the spokes that ra “atEd from the Sok through the outer city, across the Lesser Ring Road that marked the boundary between the, Biasharam, and Cheoshim districts, to the Greater Ring Road that connected the city estates of the Maulapam.

He turned into Kariam Moranga, walked along in the shadow of the Biashar towers, concrete monsters ten stories high, raised from the ground on iron pillars and iron arches, with iron lattices filling the window openings.

There were shadowy gardens under the arches, some of them with bee altars hidden away in bowers, women’s gardens with fountains at their centers where the sun could touch them each nooning, slipping down through the hollow towers, fountains hidden away from those who walked the kariams by kichidawa hedges with thick clusters of dark green leaves and shining silvery thorns the length of a man’s middle finger; the whisper of the unseen water was cool and sweetly seductive.

He crossed the Lesser Ring Road, continued along the Kariam Moranga. Outer Moranga now. On both sides of him rose the great red towers of the Cheoshim. Like the merchant’s dwellings, these apartments built in a rising spiral rested on iron arches and iron pillars, but there were no gardens here. The red stone facades had iron lace set into them, endless repetitions of the warrior sigil wrought and riveted by Fundarim ironmasters. On the beaten earth of the Tbwer grounds Cheoshim youths were marching and training, riding in formation, shooting their bows on command. Cheoshim warriors protected the Armrapake, his household, the Maulapam and themselves, but mostly they raided neighboring lands for slaves. At least a third of the slaves in Bairroa Pili came from these raids and they collected a hefty suborrush (half the head-price) on all the rest. This was the chief source of their wealth.

It pleased Reyna to walk free past these bloodred, phallic towers and mock them secretly with everything he was. He strode along, arms swinging, wanting to whistle his defiance-but that wasn’t prudent. Cheoshim cadets were squatting at the edge of the Grounds, playing dados and jiwa-bufa. They got slowly to their feet as he passed, stood watching him until he left the kariam and stepped onto the Greater Ring Road.

He turned north, walked along beside the thirty-foot stone wall that kept strays away from the Grand Sirmalas of the Maulapam families, the lords in Bairroa Pili who owned every grain of dust and sucked coin in the name of order from everyone, even the scruffiest of drugged-out beggars. Unlike the Biashar merchants and the Cheoshim warriors, who paraded their wealth and power, who liked to strut and intimidate, the Maulapam owned everything but concealed themselves behind walls-walls of stone, walls of secrecy. They were almost never seen. Slaves and servants and resident kassos did their shopping and if they wanted something special, merchants were invited into their gatehouses, though never beyond. The Kassian Tai Wanameh was Maulapam. She didn’t talk much about her early life except once when she said it was boredom to the point of ossification that made her walk away from her House.

The Jiko Sagrada or Holy Way was paved with double-curved tiles of black iron, each of them the length of a man’s palm, nesting curve into curve with plug-bits at the edge to straighten the line. The Jiko went up the mountainside in a leisurely arc, broke into stairs at several points and ended at the Blessing Gate.

Reyna stepped onto the iron tiles and started the long walk up the side of Fogomalin, joining the stream of other suppliants heading for the afternoon presentation of pleas and prayers to the High Kasso Juvalgrim and the council of administrators who served him and Chumavayal in him There were mothers with sick children and well children, shopkeepers with petitions, dockworkers, players, strangers, all of them walking the Iron Way, the Blessed Way, to the Camuctarr, the Temple of Chumavayal, to get papers stamped, judgments made, petitions read, prayers purchased, every need conceivable and probably some beyond conception.

At the first flight of stairs, Reyna passed an old woman who was struggling to carry a baby and use her cane at the same time. He turned back, took the baby from her, tucked it in the curve of his left arm, and gave her his right to cling to. She labored up the seven steps and stood panting and smiling at him, reaching for the baby. “Ahsan, Senho.”

“Nayo, nayo, Zazouivo. I’ll carry the baby for you, if you don’t mind my nose in your business.”

“Oh nayo, friend of the gods, don’t trouble yourself. Your legs are too long for me.”

“I’m in no hurry, Zazou.” He uncovered the baby’s face. A pale face the color of old cream. A slave child with dark straight hair like spines. The old woman was taking a bastard to the foundling wards, part •Cheoshim from the look of the hair. “Is it a girl or a boy?”

“Girlchild, poor thing.”

He nodded. There was nothing he could say to that, it was the hard truth. If the baby were male, he could study for one of the priest orders. An unclaimed girl would be fostered with some Naostam family already overburdened with mouths to feed, where she’d be worked to death or sent to earn her bread on the streets as soon as she was old enough.

He stroked the baby’s soft cheek and felt like weep-ink; that was Faan’s life unless he could protect her. “Does she have a name?”

“No. It’s better not.”

He asked no more questions but bore the weight of the old woman and the baby the rest of the way up the Jiko.

At the Blessing Gate, the old woman took the child back. “Watch over the River’s Gift, good Senho. And receive a grandmother’s blessing…” She took his hand, wrote with her finger in his palm, then went off with the baby up the Mercy Walk.

He stared after her, and wasn’t all that surprised when she melted into the air like fog on a sunny morning. It was Ttmgjii’s sign in the palm of his hand. Tungjii Luck. He passed through the gate, his heart and step suddenly light. Magic child and Tungjii’s blessing. It was a wonder, that’s what it was.