Wild Magic

Chapter 7. Prophet From Pain

Late and nervous, two months after his encounter with the Mal warrior, Reyna slipped in the back door of the Jigambi Joyhouse, scrambled into his Salagaum robes in the grimy closet Srikkar Jigambi misnamed a changing room, and loped up the service stairs to the third floor where the private rooms were. He pushed past the thick red curtains into the hallway where the floor had a ten-year carpet and the walls were carved into the hammer and anvil of Chumavayal and the polished famwood gleamed pale yellow in the light from the bronze lamps whose scented oils perfumed the whole passage. It’d been a while since he’d reached these levels, and never with an anonymous client. The secrecy clamped over the rendezvous bothered him; more often than not it meant the client had serious problems which might bring death or maiming for the Salagaum involved.

He moved a few steps from the curtain, stopped before one of the gilded mirrors and drew a comb through his long hair, smoothing away the wind-blown straggles. He wore his hair loose because he was too antsy to sit long enough for Areia to plait it for him He touched a frayed spot on the sleeve of his outer robe, sighed; his clothes were getting shabby. It was time he bought something new, but the prices weavers asked for cloth these days!

He slipped a handkerchief from his sleeve, cleaned exudate from the corner of an eye, wiped dead skin from his lip; he reapplied liprouge, touched up his eye-paint, made a face at himself for luck and turned away. Room six. To the left, three doors down.

He went quickly along the passage and tapped at the door.

There was no answer.

Potzhead, Reyna thought. Do I really want to do this?

But’ the fee was too good, he needed the money. Rventy cemmas, broad silver coins in a leather pouch waiting for him in the doorman’s cage-if the client released them to him. More than he’d earned the last six months. He straightened his shoulders and tapped again.

“Come.” The sound was muffled, the word clipped short.

Reyna tried a smile, sighed and shook himself into his working mode. He squeezed the latch and pushed the heavy door open.

Only one lamp was lit. The rest of the room was in shadow, shifting flickering shadow; the window was open, the warm night breeze bringing in smells from outside, the sour waste of the Sok and the dry dessication of the city.

The client was standing beside the window, his back to the room.

Reyna let the latch click shut. “I am Reyna, senho. You asked for me.” His voice was soft with his working purr, the caressing gentleness which most of his clients preferred. The man at the window didn’t move. This reassured him; the client was nervous, needed soothing. He knew how to do that. “Your wish is my delight; let me serve you.” He moved farther into the room, stopped when he saw the man’s shoulders stiffen. He waited.

“Sit down. There, by the lamp.”

Reyna moved to the divan, sat near the edge of the lamp’s glow where the play of light and shadow was most active-and most flattering. He clasped his hands in his lap, rested his eyes on the thick soft gold of his bracelets, deliberately not-looking at his hands, at the stringy tendons that grew more visible as the flesh melted off him. He desperately wanted a hit of bhaggan. Tomorrow, he told himself. I’ve got to get through this… go home… first… change clothes… why doesn’t he DO something? Verna, vema, Rey, hard labor, but you can do it. “Come, sit beside me. We have the night, there’s no need to hurry things. What do you wish me to call you?”

“Never mind that.”

Ah. Reyna finally recognized the voice-the absurdly naive leatherman from that one-fee all-nighter… when was it? He couldn’t place it exactly, but then hell dropped into a bhagg-jag haze for days afterward. Didn’t matter. He knew the man now and lost some of his fear; this wasn’t a pain thing, he wouldn’t have to play his tricks so the client thought he was getting more than he was. I can handle it, he told himself. I can handle him. “It doesn’t have to be your truename, my dear.” He added the last words deliberately, using them to prod a reaction from the leatherman.

The young Mal’s body twitched violently and he moved a step to one side, his hands closed on the sill and he stared out over the rooftop of the nextdoor shop. Touched by the moonglow coming through the window, his skin glistened with sweat and a muscle twitched near his mouth. •

Reyna touched his tongue to his lips. “Do you wish me to leave, senho? Your desire is my delight.” He waited tensely.

“No.” The answer came quickly this time. It was only a whisper, but it was filled with pain.

More gently than before he murmured. “Come, then, sit down. The chair by the window. It won’t compromise you. The shadows are deep there and I can’t see you. Sit down, put your feet on the hassock, lean back. If you want, we can talk. Or we can share a silence.”

He hesitated, wondering if he should hint he recognized the client. No. It would be more tactful and certainly safer to forget about that first meeting. He kept talking, using his voice to weave a net about the client, to draw him down where the change of posture would do its business on him. “I saw something amusing today. A boy down by the River. Skinny little imp with arms and legs no thicker than twigs. Wascram, I think. He had hair like cornsilk.” Reyna smiled as the leatherman moved away from the window and sat stiffly in the chair, his booted feet flat on the floor.

“The boy was playing a game,” Reyna went on, “jumping from rail to rail, scooting across the decks, dodging sailors as they grabbed at him. He ran half a dozen ships before his foot finally slipped and he tumbled into the River.”

The leatherman leaned back, laid his hands on the chair arms; a moment later his feet were crossed at the ankle, his bootheels digging into the cushion on the rest.

“The shipmasters were screaming curses at their men, trying to sort them out, the sailors were poking at the boy with their boathooks, trying to snag him and haul him in. He was agile as a fish in the water and got away from them all until one of the boats coming in from the Koo dropped a net on him and brought him to land dangling from the netpole. Even then he fooled them, he wriggled loose and lost them in the wynds.”

The Leatherman tapped his thumbs on the padding of the chair arms; his head was back, he seemed to be staring at the ceiling. “Do you like boys?”

“What?”

“Do you go with boys?”

“No. Do you want me to?”

“I. Don’t. Want. Anything. From. You.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Salagaum. I don’t believe in Salagaum.”

“Water is wet. Do you believe that? Does it change anything if you don’t?”

“Unnatural abomination.”

“We are as we were born. The luck of the dip, not something we asked for.”

“Like any sport you should be strangled at birth.”

“Every boy born? Until the breasts start growing, a boy’s a boy like every other.”

“If you really are a man, why do you pretend? Are those breasts real or padding?”

“Shall I show you?”

“No!”

“Why am I here?”

“I don’t believe you. I think you’re a woman pretending to be a man. I don’t know why. It’s not natural, not… right. I couldn’t…” The leatherman came onto his feet with swift surge of strength that was like an explosion inside his skin; two steps and he was at the window again, staring into the night.

Reyna closed his eyes. “What do I do to earn my fee?”

“Nothing. Go away.”

“You asked me to come. I came without question or cavil.”

The leatherman crossed the room without looking at Reyna; he tugged at the bell cord beside the door, almost ran back to the window. Over his shoulder, he said, “Go. That releases the pledge.” He was silent a moment. When he spoke again, there was a terrible compressed passion in his voice, as if his control over it and himself was nearly gone. “Go and respect this evil thing. You don’t have to do this, woman. Marry, have children. You can be forgiven.”

Reyna got to his feet, moving slowly, and chewing on his lip. He stopped beside the door, opened it a crack so he could run if he had to. The leatherman didn’t realize it, but he’d keep coming back, calling Reyna to him… obsession •… it was there, in the man’s voice, in the lines of his body, the cracking of his voice… everything. If he wasn’t stopped now, he’d be back and back, never believing Reyna, unable to escape his own needs, unable to accept those needs, back and back until he killed both of them… it had happened before…

Though the leatherman was close to breaking now, forcing him to face the truth about Salagaum seemed to Reyna less dangerous than letting this thing go on. Hating what he had to do, raging at the rigidity and blindness of the man across the room, he slipped out of his outer robe, dropped it on the small table by the door, stripped down until he was wearing the chains about his neck, his bracelets and his sandals and nothing else. “Look at me, senho. Look at me.”

“Nayo.”

“I am Salagaum, senho, and I am not ashamed of it. Look at me.”

The leatherman was shaking, every muscle twitching, his neck straining as his head started to turn and he wrenched it back.

“Look at me, leatherman. Are you afraid?”

The leatherman whirled. Mouth stretched in a silent shout, he stared at Reyna, his eyes shifting repeatedly up and down the lean length of the Salagaum’s body.

Reyna smoothed his hands over his breasts, lifted them, let them fall back, soft, heavy breasts, the nipples dark and large, still firm and well shaped though he was past forty now. He slid his hands slowly down his body. He was beginning to get excited, the leatherman had a physical beauty that reached him and a suffering inside that spoke to him.

Leatherman stared a moment longer, then broke. He swung around, his shoulders bent, his hands clutching at the sill. “Go. Get out of here. You. You Abomination! Thing! Get. Out. Of. Here.”

Snatching up his clothing, Reyna went.