Wild Magic

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The Forge Sanctuary was an immense chamber, bronze lamps on bronze chains filling the space with light and shadow, drifts of incense eddying around the kneeling stools.

Anaxoa novices led by the Anaxo Prime were cleaning the ashes from the Forge fire and renewing the coals and aromatic woods that fueled it. The Prime intoned the renewal prayers, swung the censer as he circled slowly about the Firewell; the novices chanted their responses as they worked. One by one they brought the bronze pails of ash and clinker to be censed and blessed by the Prime, then filed out, singing as they walked, their voices strong and deep and filled with power.

Faharmoy knelt at the back, half hidden by an iron column; his eyes shut, his head bowed, he bathed in the sounds and smells of adoration and felt his soul unclench, his mind smooth out.

Some time later Adjoa novices followed an Adjo priest up the aisle. The kneeling stools were filling up with anxious people from the City here to pray for the breaking of the drought. Faharmoy saw the numbers and remembered other morning services he’d gone to in Gom Corasso, services where there was only a small scatter of worshipers; if the drought brought death, it also brought the laggard back to worship. Perhaps that was what it was for, to remind people of their duties. Duties they forgot when times were good.

He closed his eyes again, listened to the service, the ringing of hammers against small personal anvils, a rhythmic ting-tang that was the song of Chtunavayal.

Peace flowed into him and he felt strong enough to return to the aching uncertainties of the night.

He faced himself as honestly as he could, tried to comprehend what had happened to him. He could not accept that she was a man. He had seen, but he refused to believe that an abomination could attract him so powerfully. Why did she pull him to her even when he knew the evil that was in her? That first night… she seemed to understand everything, even what he had no words to say… her gentleness and her warmth… that was it. That warmth. It had to be more than pretense. Diyo, she was a whore. Diyo, it was her business to make him feel good. He understood that. And yet… there was something more… he felt it… she was part mother, part lover, part… he didn’t know. And yet, how could he forget her naked… that tall lean figure… that MAN… that very male man… showing how… how excited he was… the breasts

… the soft female breasts that he ached to touch even now… the thought of touching them brought a sweet agony to his loins… he wondered what love with that creature would be like… and tore his mind away from the images that exploded in his head. It was abomination. There was no one he could talk to about this, no one who would understand.’… who wouldn’t recoil from him in horror.

Adjoa kassos and novices sang the noon praises, beating their small anvils in time with the basso chant, then filed out.

Faharmoy knelt in shadows, meditating, hearing distantly what was happening around him, immersing himself in the cycle of worship, accepting everything without question, bathed in the perfumes and colors and music of worship.

In the afternoon a Biasharim funeral was held, the Anacho Prime himself there to lay the two souls, earth and spirit.

The Manasso Prime led his novices in for the cleansing of their souls when the work day ended.

The Quiamboa priests brought their novices and students in, sang their praises in massed voices to the clang of Adjoa anvils.

Finally he understood what he was born for, his purpose-destroying these unnatural creatures and all the other mocking manifestations of that bitch devil Abeyhamal. Mating the land pure again, gifting it fully to Chumavayal so that the rains would come again, the Land would heal, the earth would grow lush with His blessings.

That was it.

Diyo. That was it.

But not yet.

The day had shown him that.

He must purify himself before he was fit to purify the land.

He walked from the Camuctarr into the hot, dry sunset and went briskly down the Jiko Sagrada. He had to collect his cadre and arrange for their transport up River. He had to meet with the Cheoshim Commander and resign from the Border Guard. And after that was done, he had to confront the High Kasso and renounce all wealth and position. It wouldn’t be easy, but it had to be done.

He was tired and hungry, but he floated as he walked, full of light and joy, all confusion gone.

Goddance. The Eleventh Year

Abeyhamal whirls the fimbo over her head; lightning jags from the point, crashes into the Forge iron, making it shudder and ring. The coals of the Forge Fire shudder with the iron and grey ash creeps across the dying red.

Faan danced on the Jang, studied with the Sibyl, was trapped into surrendering her will to the Honey

Mother and ran a Barrier about the Low City.

Reyna worked and played with equal desperation, labored with Juvalgrim-the high Kasso to feed the growing numbers of the hungry and displaced.

Chumavayal roars, his fiery breath rushes across the coals, waking them to fiercer life, envelops Abeyhamal whose gossamer wings vibrate more furiously, dissipating the heat, and whose face compresses to a scowl at the stench. He brings his sword up in a steel curve across his chest, stamps his feet to one side then the other, slashes at her, pulling yellow and crimson flame-tongues into high leaps from the smoldering coals.

The drought intensified. The River sank lower and lower, life grew hard for everyone, fervor increased in the cities and the farm families began leaving the dry and barren land.

Abeyhamal catches the sword on her fimbo, deflects it, brings the fimbo around in a quick curl and slashes at Chumavayal’s hands, drawing a trickle of blood as the point touches him.

Juvalgrim strangled Giza Kutakich, throwing the Manassoa Order into confusion, making life margin-

ally easier for the humbler castes. Refugees from the Land began resettling the Low City.

Chumavayal howls whir rage, intensifies his dance. The sword blade weaves in complex curves, glittering red and white, sending beams of light flickering about Abeyhamal, never quite touching her.

The PROPHET came from the desert and preached in the streets of Bairroa Pili.

The Verakay Beehouse burned.

Abeyhamal leaps into the air, turning and turning, the fimbo held horizontal above her head. She lands with her back to Chumavayal, cries out in triumph and hate, leaps again before he can touch her, jumping the Forge Iron to land beside him, then somersaulting back, heels over head; she slaps her feet down, drives the fimbo’s point at the center of his back.

Chumavayal wheels, strikes the fimbo away from him, feints at Abeyhamal, then the two of them go round and round and round, neither touching the other, neither truly shaking the other. Not yet.

The GodDance goes on.

Sibyl

The Wheel is turning, the Change sets in

High and Low are caught therein

The Prophet appears, the Scourge without pity

The High Kasso turns apostate

And weaves him a plait from anarchy death and true charity

The Honeychild’s caught

In the goddess’s plot

The Thoglodite I

Watch Ephemerals die