Magic in Ithkar Page 5

  “Wait,” a great voice cried. “Wait!” A huge arm snatched him and crushed him in a grip like iron. “That’s my son you’ve got.”

  Sphix gaped up at him, at great black-bearded Olf. “That’s the weaver,” someone told the brass. And Sphix hung there in Olf’s embrace. His knees went.

  Lords, his father! But his father was a lord. To such inanities his mind went. Then, Sphix-like, they went to practicalities. The weaver lied—for some crazed reason the weaver lied, but the neighbor-merchants would raise an outcry.

  “That’s Sphix,” they would say, “Sphix the thief.”

  But no one did.

  “We’ve been looking,” the brass-hat said, “for a boy of his description—”

  “Couldn’t be my son,” Olf the weaver said.

  “Shame,” someone aged cried, “shame, they burn our tent, the watch takes up our son—”

  The crowd muttered.

  “You swear to him,” said the fair-ward; and hands that still held his collar let go. “Mind, if he’s in trouble again—”

  “Come on, lad,” Olf said.

  Sphix tried. His legs went; and Olf simply dragged him by a hand within his belt through all the commotion. There was light; there was the stench of burned wool; truth, there was nothing savory in himself, with moisture bubbling from his nose and running in his eyes, his knees failing at every other step.

  Then they braced up, for there was the friar sitting on the ground in front of the tent with a cloth pressed to his brow.

  “Con artist,” Sphix said when Olf had dragged him up to the friar and dropped him there. “Fake. You’re not dead—”

  He fell on his face and wept.

  They patched the tent up—Lords, Olf even found his boots. The water-carts made the rounds off hours, replenishing water-jugs, enabling a little scrubbing-up; but Grandma Nosca’s remedy was wine and herbs, both on the cuts and in upset stomachs. “I can’t,” Sphix protested on the third round, getting up. “I’ve got to go—” There was precious little dark left for one with so far to walk.

  “Go where, pray?”

  “Oh, down the road.” He kept his voice light. He ached, not alone in his bones, but in his heart. It seemed unfair, in one night to find he loved an old man and lose him and the fair forever. “They’ll be hunting for me, every thief in Ithkar; Lords, I know their faces, don’t I?”

  “Would they come here?” Olf asked.

  “No, not likely. That Coss, he’s crazy. But he’ll be out that gate and down the road. Folk’ll love that one like the plague, the brass knowing his face now like they do. No. Thieves is thieves. Takes care of our own. And I’m for the road myself.”

  “I think he should fix the tent,” Tiggynu said.

  “He’d have to learn weaving,” said Olf, “to do that.”

  He stared at them.

  “Is he staying?” asked Stynnit.

  He sat down again, wincing with bruised ribs.

  “I guess he is,” said Nosca, and puffed at her pipe. “Mind,” she said, motioning with it, “you keep a sharp eye out to the merchandise. No one ought to light-finger us. We got our own thief. Afraid of work, boy?” She tapped the ash out. “To bed. We’ll sell double tomorrow. Crowds’ll come to see our burned spot, won’t they?”

  He blinked, because it was true, and the old woman no fool at all. Like Khussan, she was.

  And in the morning, in the grayest early dawn, full of fresh bread and salted butter:

  “Lorssakes, Father—” Sphix caught the old man up halfway down the aisle, limping nigh as bad as he was. “Where you going?”

  “Oh, a little turn about the rows. Not far today.”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  “Haven’t you got a tent to patch?”

  “Haven’t you forgot something?” He fished in his collar for the stone. “How would things come to you, else?” He hung it about the friar’s neck. “So’s the pennies come, old man.”

  “It’s just a river-rock.”

  “Old fake.”

  The friar grinned, a boy’s grin. “Worked this time, though.”

  He walked off. Sphix stared after him, then walked back up the row with a swagger in his limp.

  He was scared, that was what. He had never left Ithkar Fair, bright disappearing summer and gray, drab winter, when the fairgrounds shrank to a huddled village of permanent buildings beneath the walls.

  He had never been beyond sight of the temple, the taverns, the docks.

  Nosca talked of downriver; of dealing clear to the sea in winter.

  Son, she’d called him, too, this morning, giving him an extra bit of bread and naming his duties.

  He was caught, fairly snared and tangled.

  And he found a tune of Khussan’s and whistled it up the street.

  Jezeri and Her Beast Go to the Fair and Find More Excitement Than They Want

  Jo Clayton

  “Ow!”

  Her mother ignored Jezeri’s squirming and used the end tooth of the ivory comb to tease loose a stubborn tangle in the mop of hair that sun and wind had dried to the color and consistency of straw. “If you did this yourself a bit more ...” she said.

  “Oh, Mama.”

  “Oh, yes.” She stepped back and stood tapping the comb against her smooth brown cheek. “I suppose you’ll be safe enough on your own.”

  Jezeri wiped her nose on her forearm, scuffed her boots across the brittle dirt, quivering with anxiety lest her mother change her mind about letting her go.

  “Ah, well, soon enough you’ll be going into skirts. Let me see your hands.”

  “Oh, Mama.”

  “Hands.”

  Jezeri rubbed her palms down the sides of her sleeveless undershirt, held out her hands.

  Her mother turned them over, inspected the backs and fingernails, reversed them, and sniffed at the palms. “I thought so. Reeking of horse. Wash. Now.”

  “They aren’t dirty.”

  “Soap and water. Now. I’ll have your tunic ready when you finish.”

  Jezeri slouched around to the back of the wagon where the tailgate was lowered to make a washstand. She dipped lukewarm water into a basin, added a dollop of soft soap, sniffed at the soap clinging to her fingers. Scented with oil of coolblue, it reminded her of her mother, of the garden at home with its herb beds and disciplined riot of flowers, of crisp cool sheets on a summer evening. She didn’t really mind washing, what she minded was the waste of time, her time, the first night of her first fair.

  Interfering relatives (more often than not Uncle Herveh; he went through life looking for things to complain about) came and chided Miles Kunisca for letting his daughter run wild.

  Her father said: What’s the harm? Let her be.

  He said: Jezi is a better hunter and horse-trainer than her brothers. I’d be a fool to change her. And she’s a good girl.

  He said: My mother was just such a flyabout. Tell me to my face she turned out bad, hunh! Time enough for harness when Jezi’s under Moon’s Rule.

  Her mother snapped the tunic through the air, then tugged it over Jezeri’s head, stood back as Jezeri wriggled her arms into the sleeves with an explosion of elbows and some hard breathing. She settled the tunic on her daughter’s shoulders with a few brushing pats, smoothed the hood into a neat fold. “Your brothers.” There was amused exasperation in her voice. “They took care to go off before I could tell them to look after you.” She shook her head, the braided coils over her ears shimmering like gold shields, brushed a few wisps of hair out of Jezeri’s eyes. “Don’t talk to anyone but the venders in the stalls and that only if you’re buying something, you hear? This isn’t the Vale and these aren’t homefolk who’ve known you all your life. Any trouble—any, mind you—you yell loud for a fair-ward. Bronze-shod staves and brass helmets, remember?”

  “Aieea bless, Mama, all I’m going to do is look around.”

  “Hah. I know you, little-fall-in-the-mud-when-it-hasn’t-rained-for-a-triple-moon.” She ran he
r thumb across the band of embroidery that outlined the tunic’s unfastened neck opening. “That beast of yours, he’s been chewing on this.” She looked around. “Where is he? Don’t tell me you’re going without him.”

  “ ’Course not, Mama. Old ’Un’s watching him for me.”

  “So . . . you be careful, hear?”

  Jezeri sighed, smoothed her hands down her front. “I hear.”

  Her mother laughed, a soft rippling sound. “Oh, I know, Jezi. Right now it’s all pains and fuss and no pleasure being a woman. Just you wait, though.”

  Dark amber eyes smiled into dark amber, mother’s eyes and daughter’s eyes creased into laugh slits, crescent-shaped under thick blond brows. Then her mother turned away. The moon was low in the east, swimming in the violet afterglow of sunset. She pointed. “You’ve got till the moon’s in the paws of the Pard, then I want you back here. Not a minute more, you hear?”

  “Oh, Mama.”

  “Oh, get along with you.”

  With a chuckle and a shapeless wave of her hand, Jezeri sauntered away from the wagon, coating her bubbling excitement with transparent nonchalance.

  Under the thatched roof of the open-sided horse shed a dark figure sat cross-legged by a fire of dried dung, bent over a chunk of wood, working at it with a small knife whose blade was little longer than his palm. As Jezeri came up, he gathered a handful of shavings and tossed them into the fire, sat watching the dance of blue and green among the red flames. His scarred hands were turned to ancient roots by the play of firelight and shadow, his face to a gargoyle’s mask. He looked up as she ducked under the edge of the thatching, his mouth twisting into the lopsided smile he saved for her. “Your mum finally let you loose?”

  “Uh-huh.” She squatted across the fire from him, watched him ease a long curl from the wood. “Where’s Tanu?”

  “Picking fleas off Jet’s back.” He turned the chunk over and began working on the other side. “Last time I looked.”

  “Ah.” She rubbed at her nose. “Wagon-draw’s tomorrow midday.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “Been looking ’round?”

  “Some.” He detached a long curl from the chunk, played with it a moment, tossed it into the fire, where it gave a sharp resiny smell to the acrid bite of the burning manure. “Pair of bays three barns down. That way.” A nod of his head. “Only ones that look like giving your father a hard time.”

  “No pair’s as good as Jet and Nightlord.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “The draw’s the decider.”

  “Mmm.” She sniffed at the smoke blowing past her face. “That’s a good smell; what’s that wood?”

  “Got it off a sailor down to the wharves. Load of aromatics in.” His mouth twisted into a bitter downturn, his eyes half-shut, he tapped the wood on his palm. “From the forests of Estarin-Over-the-Water.” With a quick flick of his hand, he tossed the wood to her. “Highland cedar.”

  She stroked the smoothed places, sniffed at it, tossed it back. “Mama’s linen chest. You going fairing?”

  “No.” He sat staring down at the wood he was turning over and over in his hands. “You taking Tanu?”

  “ ’Course. Why?”

  He set the wood aside, clasped his hands over his knee. “Folk here from all over. Some might know what he is. Get nervous.” He hesitated, stared over her head at nothing or at memories that brought him no pleasure. “There are those, Little ’Un, who’d pay ten times Tanu’s weight in gold. Hassle you. Try to take him away from you. Temple priests apt to know. You keep away from them. Why not just leave him here?”

  She scowled. “Someone would pay, you said. Who? Why?”

  He stroked a knobby thumb along his jawline. “You don’t want to know that, Little ’Un.”

  “I wouldn’t ask, didn’t I want to know.”

  He shrugged but said nothing.

  She itched to push him for answers but he was her dearest friend and she had to respect his silences. Besides, being born and bred of practical Vale stock, she wouldn’t waste her breath putting questions she knew she’d get no answers to.

  Even for her, Old ’Un wouldn’t talk about anything before he came to Vale.

  Disgusting old Uncle Herven started picking at Old ’Un, complaining that no one knew what or who he was, complaining that he never answered questions, hinting that the stranger would murder and rape them all given half an opening.

  Her father said: He don’t want to talk, that’s his business. He does his work and keeps himself to himself, which is more than I can say about some folks here.

  He smiled his lopsided smile and she felt better. “Look, Little ’Un,” he said. “If you won’t leave him with me, then you keep your eyes wide and watch your back.”

  “You and Mama, hunh!”

  His low rumbling chuckle was just louder than the hissing of the fire. He tested the knife on his thumbnail, slipped it into the flexible sheath he’d made for it, reached across the fire. “Stick this in your boot.”

  “But that’s forbidden. Papa said—”

  “Not big enough to matter, this knife. Besides, what the priests don’t know won’t hurt you.” He dropped his hands on his knees. “So get you off. Enjoy your fairing.”

  “If you say so.” She slid the knife into her boot, jumped to her feet. Whistling breathily, hands clasped behind her, she sauntered past black geldings snuffling at oats and straw in the manger, jerking their heads up as a stallion some distance away bugled a challenge or a dog howled at the moon, nudging each other for comfort of kind.

  The five-year-old stallion Jet was the fourth one in. She rubbed his nose. “Bays, hunh. They’re never as good as you. You show ’em tomorrow, hey? You and Nightlord.” She scratched his face between his wide-set eyes, smoothed the shaggy lock of mane falling forward between his ears. “Tomorrow Mama and me, we’ll polish your hooves until they shine and braid red ribbons in your mane and in your tail and you’ll be the most beautiful horse at the fair.” She gave him a last pat, stepped back, and called, “Tanu. Tanu.”

  With a warbling squeal a small brindle beast came lying from somewhere near the roof, landing with a solid thud in Jezeri’s arms, golden eyes opening and shutting slowly, flower-petal ears twitching, blunt black nose twitching, long sinuous tail swaying back and forth, horizontal stripes of umber and amber down to a hairless black tip that was a finger as dexterous as those on his hands. Jezeri tickled his stomach, laughed at his song of welcome, then settled him into the roomy pocket her mother had sewn inside her tunic. Tanu scratched about until he was comfortable, popped his head through the tunic’s neck opening, closed his hands on its sides, slid his long tail about her neck. He sang his contentment to Jezeri, then settled into a vibrating expectant silence as she began threading through the stock sheds, the wagonloads of cages filled with birds of all sizes, coursing-cats, hounds, and more exotic beasts, creatures she’d never seen before—though none remotely like her Tanu.

  The fledgling night was filled with sound. Voices—talking, laughing, shouting, singing. Snatches of melody from a guitar at one shed, a flute at another playing another tune, a mouth harp buzzing away at a third. Dog barks and ox bellows. Horses snorting, neighing. The mewling of assorted cats. The shriek of a night bird soaring high above the river lake. Jezeri laughed with the joy in being alive and young and about to explore the greatest fair of all and Tanu echoed and reinforced her laughter.

  At the edge of the stock section she stopped and frowned into the night. On her left were the sounds, the bits and pieces of bright color, the dancing shadows and glimpses of marvels from the fringes of the other three precincts of the fair; these beckoned to her, but ahead of her something else caught her interest more strongly. The docks and ships from lots of places, some from Estarin, maybe a chance, just maybe, to discover clues to the Old ’Un’s past. Tanu began singing to her in his cheerful imitation of her speech patterns. She scratched behind his ear. “I know. Plenty of time for both. The ships first, yes—thou
gh there’s probably nothing there, you know. Old ’Un’s luck. Still, we go hopefully.” She giggled as Tanu’s tail-finger tickled her cheek. “Stop that, you. This is serious investigation.”

  The wharves were sunk in the shadow of a huge crumbling warehouse, a roofless relic damaged in a quake and long abandoned for the tighter and more suitable sheds built closer in to the waterside. Scattered lanterns hanging from masts cast scattered pools of light that made the darkness all the blacker in the open sheds and the barred sheds fronting the docks. Jezeri strolled along the walkway, her boot heels thudding dully on the warped, worn planks.

  The ships at the first dock were dark and deserted, but at the second, a man and his sons were unloading wheels of salt like full moons from a riverboat like a crescent moon with its high peaks fore and aft. A lantern swung swaying from the single mast, the shadows it cast dancing to the beat of music wafting from the other sectors of the fair, the jars of the competing tunes and instruments mended by distance. The salt wheels rose in squat towers on the dock beside bales of seaweed, the salt smell cool and fugitive, the seaweed tangy and medicinal. Jezeri knew what the dark leathery leaves were, though she’d never seen the sea. Traders brought rolls of them now and then to the Vale and her Aunt Jesset, who was heal-woman at Aieea’s shrine, used them in her medicines.

  Jezeri prowled on, weaving between piles of wood, some of it turned into rough-cut planks, the rest left in trunks with the bark still on, though the small limbs had been trimmed away. She smoothed her fingers over the cut ends, reveling in the melange of smells, letting Tanu sniff the wood, wondering if the more exotic woods might wake memories in him, though he was such a tiny thing when he crawled out of Old ’Un’s shirt.

  The neighbors came to call: Where did he come from? Who is he? What is his rearing? Is he dangerous?

  Her father said to some: Out of nowhere.

  He said to others: Jezi found him.

  Aunt Jesset came to tend him. She said: What’s your name, friend?

  He smiled at her. He said: Pick a name.

  Her father said: What can we call you, friend?