Wild Magic

BURN!

Hot day hot day, hot and hotter

Haaa ah aaa aaah ahhht!

Hot hot hot hot hot hot

Dry day, fry day dry and dryer

Dry aye aye aye eeeeee!

Fry aye aye aye ayeeee!

Over and over, the same rhythm, the same notes, over and over…

_Fry

BURN’ ^{fry fry fry}

The beat exploded inside Faan, throbbed in her, the panting, insistent urgency of that music. She moved to it, dancing as she had before, seized by the music, making it tangible with her body.

Blind and unthinking, she danced in a growing circle of watchers, danced in an ecstasy greater than she’d known before… and felt a force stirring in her, a power that grew and grew until it frightened her and she stopped moving. A different power, like something trying to crawl inside her skin. Someone.

She stood panting, sweating, the hairs on her arms erect and prickling. The music was still going on and Ma’teesee was bobbing and sweating, her face shining in the dark red light from the dying fire. Dossan was quiet, her arms crossed again, as if she hugged herself to keep out the terrors floating around her. The shadows beyond seemed to shake themselves and wake from a dream.

Suddenly sick of the place, oppressed by the people crowding around her, Faan yelled, “Dossy. Le’s bouzh.”

Dossan twitched, nodded at her; they grabbed Ma’teesee and started across the Jang to Verakay Lane.

Shadows collected around them, thickened in front of them. Faan swerved to go around and the clot flowed round to block her again. Men. Shifting gleams of eye-whites and teeth and skin sheened with sweat.

The fire was down to coals and the cheating clouds were blowing across the Wounded Moon, bringing darkness but no rain.

Faan zagged the other way, but they were there before her, turning her, turning them all toward the shabby rustling trees between the Jang and the River. Dossan and Ma’teesee kept close behind her; she could hear their fright in the rasp of their breathing.

Ailiki ran back and forth in front of the shadows, hissing at them, the hair standing up along her spine, her tail erect.

Faan stopped-so suddenly that Ma’teesee bumped into her and Dossan went a stumbling step past her, though she shrank back immediately and pressed herself against Ma’teesee.

Faan brought her arms up. “Stay behind me. How-

ever I turn, stay behind me.” Then she called fire, the fire that ran beneath her skin all the time now, that whispered seductively to her, promising her anything she wanted if she set it free.

Wispy blue, gold and pale red flames danced along her arms. She thrust both arms before her, then bent her right arm and slid her hand under a flame dancing on the back of her left hand. She lifted it free. Then she flung it at the nearest of the shadow men.

Her control cracked a hair when she heard a high delighted giggling as the flamelet arced away from her. The other flames flickered erratically and their tiny hisses were demands to be loosed like the other.

The flamelet hit the man, flared into a skin around him, consumed him and went out with a satisfied!pop!.

Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed, caught up another flame, but the shadows were retreating, melting into the night with the pound of running feet.

“Whoosh! That was close.” Ma’teesee shook her shoulders, her arms, danced a few tentative steps to convince herself she wasn’t still scared. “Didn’t know you could do THAT, Fa.”

“Quiet.” Faan sweated, her voice rose to a shriek. “Get away from me.”

Dossan grabbed Ma’teesee by the upper arm, held her still, but neither girl backed off any farther; they waited tensely while Faan fought to dismiss the fire she’d called.

For several breaths she thought she wasn’t going to manage it. She was so drained she could barely stand, but she knew if she didn’t get rid of the flamelets, they’d eat her like the shadowman.

Ailiki came to her and pressed against her ankles A thread of strength like a small cool stream flowed through her. She gathered herself and focused, the dismissal words came tearing from her throat-and fire was gone. She dropped her arms and walked blindly toward the Lane, Dossan and Ma’teesee following si-

lent behind her. She could feel them starting to be afraid of her. They hadn’t been before. Especially Ma’teesee, who looked on Faan’s magic as a peculiar sort of toy that was hers to play with whenever she wanted. Now a man was dead. That he was dead didn’t bother them all that much; these days nearly everytime they looked out a window, someone was being killed or hurt or something. It was how she killed him. How easy it looked. As if she were a pretty snake they’d played with until they found out it was a viper. Snake girl-Dossy called her that the first day they met.

She sobbed, ground her hands into her eyes.

“Don’t, Fa, you couldn’t help it.” Dossan hugged her. “He was going to hurt us.”

Ma’teesee grabbed a strand of her hair and yanked. “Silly!”

“Ow! Teesee.” She leaned against Dossan, sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “You are a pest.”

Ma’teesee took her hand, swung it back and forth. “Wascra girls,” she chanted.

Dossan giggled. “Wascra, Wascra, Wascra we,” she sang. She danced out ahead of them, swung around and jigged backward, clapping her hands. “Wascra Wascra, watch us, hey, touch us, nay, all you ponkers walk ^away…”

Faan looked from one to the other, laughed shakily. “I thought…”

“Stoopid.” Ma’teesee reached for her hair again, but this time Faan skipped out of reach, stuck her tongue out at her friend.

The three of them linked arms and went jigging along the street chanting Dossan’s new verse to their theme. “Wascra Wascra, watch us, hey, touch us, nay, all you ponkers walk away…”

150. Jo Clayton

Faan lay in bed, staring into the shifting darkness above her. She hadn’t lost her friends after all, but she needed comforting, she wanted to sit in Reyna’s lap as she had when she was little and have him hold her and soothe her as she cried and cried. She couldn’t cry now. Dried out like the Land. She’d killed a man. She needed to tell Reyna about it, to get his… call it absolution… she needed him to tell her it was all right, she wasn’t evil… she needed him, but he was somewhere else. Maybe as dead as that bhag-head she ashed. She pressed her hand over her mouth. She wasn’t going to be sick, she refused to be sick.

It was a long time before she slept.