Wild Magic

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He woke before dawn and went to the towers of the Cheoshim. It was time to begin the cleansing of the High City.

There was a faint pink glow on the eastern horizon and wisps of Riverfog hugging the ground when Faan limped wearily along Southbank Gatt Road. The circle was almost complete, but she was worn to a nub, hungry, thirsty, irritated with the god on her back who seemed to think she didn’t need food or rest or anything as prosaic as that. When she reached the Approach to the Wood Bridge, she sank beside her boots and cloak onto the ancient surface with its mosaic of different colored woods and rested her back against the weathered rails, snapped her fingers, smiled drowsily as Ailiki jumped into her lap and tucked tail about legs. She scraped up enough energy to stroke the mahsar’s back twice, then dropped her hand. “Guards still there?”

Abeyhamal spoke.

“You chase them. I couldn’t light a match.” Abeyhamal spoke.

“This horse won’t go. You want me to get back to the BeeHouse, you figure out a way.”

Sense of impatience.

Faan let her head fall back against a post, closed her eyes and waited. I can be as stubborn as you. It’s easy when it’s the only choice I’ve got. In her lap Ailild was a vibrating warm spot, purring like a dozen cats.

Abeyhamal spoke.

Faan groaned. “You would. Vema, vema, give me a minute. K’laan!” Her feet burned, she was blistered and scraped, stone-bruised and nettle stung-they were dead nettles, but that only meant they broke apart and rode away on her legs. “Off you go, Liki.” Yelping and groaning some more, she gathered in the boots, draped the cloak over her arm, pulled herself up and tottered up the slope until she was standing on the dusty inlay between the first two piers that supported the Bridge. “I’m here. Do it.”

A warm sticky heat flowed through her, honey mead fermenting in her, cadentha honey, the sweet-sweet perfume of cadenthas strong about her. It erased her fatigue, smoothed out her cuts and scrapes, healed her bruises and rashes, filled her with energy-a temporary energy; she had a felling it would burn away fast.

Abeyhamal spoke.

“Verna, vema, on my way.” She started across the Bridge, working up to a fast lope, her bare feet splatting on the wood. Wild Magic came swooping up and whirled about her, thick gray fog sweeping along with her, a slightly darker scrap of mist among the other wisps drifting along the River.

The guards were leaning against the Approach Pillars, caps pulled down over their eyes; they were more than half-asleep, bored with watching a Bridge go nowhere.

Faan slid between the drays and trotted past them, a patch of fog flowing off the Bridge. She darted into the nearest wynd and stood shaking and panting, the Wild Magic swirling around her giggling and niggling at her, a thousand small voices impossible to understand because there were too many of them.

She wiped at her forehead, made a face at the grime on her palm, though it was hard to see the hand through the agitated mist. Ahsan, ahsan, my friends, I’ll see you later, hmm? I have to rest. I can’t go anymore. She made a dismissing gesture she’d learned from the Sibyl.

More moree, sweetee, honey, the Wildings teased at her, tch ‘ikee sweetee, we-ee like thee.

Go home, friendlings, there’ll be more. I said it be-

fore and wasn’t it true? Go rest and be ready. She wiped the sweat from her head as the silver bubbles went swirling away, vanishing like soap bubbles into the hardpan of the wynd.

Without warning or explanation Abeyhamal, too, was gone.