Wild Magic

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Faan slipped under the wharf and settled herself on the dead grass, scowled at the River. Out in the center the water had a fugitive blue glint; in close though, it was thick and brown, more like a gel than a liquid. And it smelled bad.

She wiped her sleeve across her face, rubbed her hands on her skirt, pulled her legs up, rested her arms on her knees. As she moved, thin lines of hot gold shifted across her face and arms; the planks overhead had dried out and pulled away from each other.

Riverman came plodding up from the water, shaking himself and stepping delicately across the cracks in the mud; he crouched, jumped, and landed with a grunt on the bow of the boat, caught the bit of honeycomb she’d fetched for him and licked eagerly at it.

Behind her the Wild Magic gathered, the bubble people shifting, melding, breaking apart, their voices like the hiss of water over rocks.

“Trouble?” Riverman licked his fingers off and dug into shaggy fur which had gone brown like the water.

“It’s Reyna. It’s a week since he’s been home. The way things are…” She rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand, fought the tears that prickled at her eyes. “Tai’s worried, too, she asked around, much as she could. And Panote’s done what he could. I made my mirror, but there was the lock, that jeggin lock. And the Sibyl wouldn’t try… she said she couldn’t… is he in the River?”

“No.” Beady black eyes fixed on her. “For sure, no.”

“The Shindate… did… did the Shindate get him?”

“I don’t know. River’s my place, you have to ask the Wildings that.”

“But will they tell me?”

“Vema, Fa. If they can. They so little, maybe the gods don’t think to lock them.”

“Ahhh.” She dropped her head on her arms; crouched there, eyes closed, until the shaking was gone. There was a rush of pops and hissing behind her, a rain of dirt grains against her as the Wild Magic oscillated restlessly. She straightened, looked around.

Riverman had left the boat. He was standing in the middle of the bubble people while they clustered and flowed apart, shifting like soapfoam around him. A moment more, then he whistled a short phrase and stood with his hands on his furry loins as the Wild Magic vanished into the earth. He came bounding down the fill and leapt back on the bow. “No naysaying to stop them, Fa. They’ll find him, if he’s anywhere about. He could have been taken away, you know, sent to the mines.”

She brushed her hands across her eyes. “The mines. I hadn’t thought… could the Wildings go that far?”

“Perhaps. It would take longer and most likely would not be useful. What could you do, girl? Gird on your armor and go rescue him?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

He broke a sliver from the boat, shredded it into dust, brushed his tiny hands off, fixed his eyes on her. “You wouldn’t be let leave the city.”

_“Why?”

“There are things I can say and things I cannot.”

“You, too? That’s what the Sibyl keeps saying.”

“The constraints are the same.” He got to his feet. “Watch out for the gods, Honeychild. It was Abeyhamal brought you here and Chumavayal waits to pound you. Come back at sundown. I’ll tell you what we’ve found.” He sprang down, darted along the mud and vanished into the murky water.

She stared after him for several minutes, then shook her head and crept from under the wharf, trusting her no-see-me to keep away the eyes of the few laborers hanging listlessly about, waiting for work that wouldn’t come.