Calamity's Child (6 page)

"Do I find Slade, second named son of
Gineah's tent?" she asked, in the native tongue.

"Hunter," he corrected, "for the tent
of Arika Finder."

Her eyes flickered. "Of course. No
insult was intended to the mother of the tent." She raised her cup,
sipped, then looked to him, face bland. "I have come to take you
back to the tent of your mother, hunter. You have been sore
missed."

Arika was gripping his shoulder hard
enough to bruise. He reached up and put his hand over
hers.

"My mother's tent has many hunters,
this tent has but one."

The Scout inclined her head. "Yet this
tent's hunter is ill, and soon will die."

Which was certainly
true,
thought Slade. Death or
departure equally deprived the tent of its hunter. And the hunter
would rather die than depart.

"His mother, his sisters -- they may
heal him?" Arika's voice was thin, her hand beneath his,
chill.

The Scout inclined her head
respectfully. "Tent mother, they will."

"And after he is healed," Gineah --
shrewd Gineah -- murmured, "he will be returned to the tent of his
wife."

The Scout considered her.
"The grandmother knows better than that, I think," she murmured.
"Between the
erifu
of the Sanilithe and the
erifu
of we who are not the
Sanilithe, there is a ...disharmony. We are each correct, in our
way, but not in the way of the other."

In her basket, Kisam awoke and began
to cry, and Arika rose to go to her. Slade watched them for a
moment, then looked back to the Scout.

"It is possible," he said
to her bland and subtle eyes, "that the addition of a third
erifu
will
balance the disharmony and allow health to bloom."

She raised an eyebrow, but said
nothing.

Slade leaned forward.
"Take this tent to the sea. I will give you a message for my mother
and my sisters."
And for Scout
Headquarters
, he thought.

"The sea will not aid you. It --" The
Scout frowned, looked to Gineah. "Grandmother, I apologize for the
breach of courtesy, but I must speak to Slade in the tongue of his
mother's tent."

Gineah moved a hand. "Speak,
then."

Yet, having gained her permission, the
Scout did not at once speak, and when she did, she spoke the
language of home as slowly as if it, too, were uneasy on her
tongue.

"I had seen your log, and your
determination to gain the sea, were you turned out. Not a bad plan,
in truth, pilot, excepting only that this world lacks those things
which your body must have in sufficient quantity to sustain you. I
have done the scans and can show you the results. Those who are
born to this world, they have adjusted to the lowered levels and
function -- as you see. You, who were bred upon a world rich in
nutrient -- you can only sicken here, and die."

So, then. Slade took a breath. "Our
daughter will die soon. A few days, now."

Comprehension lit the Scout's bland
eyes. "You have been giving the child your supplements."

"What would you?" he said irritably,
the words feeling all odd angles in his mouth. He sighed. "If I
must go, then, allow them to come. My wife, she is -- a Healer of a
sort, and frail. Perhaps home will heal her, too."

The Scout paused, head to one
side...

"Slade." Arika was back at his side,
Kisam in her arms. "What does this woman say?"

"She says that the sea will not aid
us."

Arika frowned. "The sea? What do the
Sanilithe have to do with the sea?"

"I thought that the
erifu
of the
sea might bring the child of our tent to health, and
myself."

She bent her head, her hair falling
forward to shroud their child. "The little bottle," she whispered,
"it is almost empty?"

He reached out and stroked the hair
back from her face. "You knew?"

"I woke in the night and
saw you give -- it is a medicine from your mother's tent, isn't it?
She shares the
erifu
of your blood."

"Yes," he whispered,
stroking her hair. "Arika -- come with me to my mother's tent."
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Scout start, but she held
her tongue. He
knew
the regs forbade just what he proposed. Damn the
regs.

Arika raised her head, showing him a
face wet with tears. "And then I will die, sooner than my gift
would eat me."

He glanced to the Scout, saw her
incline her head, very slightly, and lost her face in the wash of
tears. He bent forward and gathered his heart into his
arms.

"Arika..."

"No. Slade." Her arms tightened, then
loosened, as she pulled away. "You must take our child, make her
strong, so that she may do the work of our tent -- and yours." She
reached to his face, smoothing away the tears with cold
fingers.

"It is the trail, hunter. The only
trail that is given."

He stared at her, unable to speak. She
rose, and he did -- Gineah and the Scout, as well.

Arika held their daughter out; he took
the small burden, numbly.

"Commend me to your mother," Arika
whispered, then spun and was gone, out of their tent and into the
night.

He moved, meaning to go after her --
and found Gineah before him. "I will look after her, Slade. Go,
now."

In his arms, his daughter whimpered.
He looked down at her, and then to the Scout, standing patient and
silent by the fire.

"It is time, then. My daughter and I
are ready."

END

A Night at the
Opera

She was old money. He was old
magic.

Together, they were a force to be
reckoned with on the social circuits of half-a-dozen capital
cities. It was said that they might reverse a fashion, make a
playwright, or declare an early end to a tedious Season. They were
patrons of the arts -- scientific, magical, and creative -- and
stood on terms of intimacy with the scions of several Royal
houses.

Despite all that -- or because of it
-- they were popular hosts: full of wit and fire, certain to have
an opening night box at the brilliant new play, after which they
would preside over an animated table of friends in a little known
gem of an eatery. It was therefore not at all unusual, when the
daring new opera "The Fall of Neab" opened at Chelsington Opera
House, where her family had kept a box for several generations,
that they should host a party.

Nicholas -- Lord Charles to most; Nick
or Nicky to some few intimates; and Nicky Dear to one alone -- had
early discovered that the hidden tax on old money was the absolute
necessity of sharing the more public extravagances with others --
and as many of those others as possible. It mattered little that he
found the tax neither convenient nor fair; if he and his lady
wished to go on more or less as they pleased, then these small
payments to society must be made.

Since he very much wished them to go
on more or less as they pleased, the inconvenience of hosting a
theater party now and then did very little, really, to blight his
horizon.

He did grumble, of course -- a
gentleman did not like to disappoint his wife -- on this occasion
as he knotted his tie, glaring quite fearfully at his reflection,
one eye on the wife under discussion, who was nicely en deshabille,
and clearly visible in the glass.

"I don't see why we have to play host
to the National Zoo at these affairs," he said, his long, clever
fingers deftly manipulating the ivory silk. "It would be very
enjoyable, I think, to once attend the opera tete-a-tete with my
wife."

In the glass, Denora was sliding a
confection of silver-shot midnight blue up over her legs, her
luscious thighs, her delicious belly...

"Now, Nicky, you know you like
Carrington, and the last time we had Brian, I swear the two of you
spent the whole evening in each other's pockets. I was very much
the jealous wife that evening."

He concocted a fierce frown for the
mirror. "And I suppose the attentions of Beyemuir to yourself are
only what the husband of a beauty of the first water should resign
himself to bear?"

She laughed, easing the cloth over the
dizzying mounds of her breasts. "Certainly, it would be, were you
the husband of a jewel. As it is, you must allow poor Beyemuir to
demonstrate a gentleman's natural charity to a matron of limited
charms." She wriggled one last time, emphatically. The blue dress
was a tight, clinging sheathe from breast to hip, where it softened
into a wide, inverted tulip shape, allowing Nora her length of
stride, while still displaying an alluring tendency to cling to her
long limbs. In all, it was something of a marvel, this dress, and
Nicky gave it full honors, gazing into the glass, his hands quiet
amid the intricacies of his tie.

Nora turned her back to the mirror,
showing the unsealed row of tiny silver buttons; and smiled at him
over her shoulder. "Do me up, please, darling?"

"Certainly." He winked, the air heated
briefly, and the silver buttons glittered, sealing from bottom to
top. He was rewarded with another smile, as she wriggled
appreciatively and adjusted the fabric for maximum fashionable
decolletage.

He turned away from the mirror and
reached for his coat. She spun, the tulip petal skirt floating
above her ankles, the silver threads flashing like meteors through
a midnight sky.

"Do you like it?"

"I admire it without reservation," he
told her. "As will every other gentlemen in the house -- and those
not so gentlemanly, too."

She arched a sable eyebrow. "Oh, come
now, Nicky! At the opera?"

"Rogues are found everywhere," he
replied. "Recall where you found me."

"Too true! Who would have thought
Balliol harbored such vice!"

He bowed and went to fetch their
cloaks.

*

The party was complete, with the
exception of one, which of course engaged Brian's
attention.

"Our esteemed Dr. Hillier not here
yet?" he asked, twinkling at Nicholas over the rim of his wine
glass. "Home sulking, do you think?"

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Now, why
sulking, I wonder?"

"Ah, you haven't seen the
latest
Magician
Internist
? Mine arrived
today."

"I've let the subscription lapse,"
Nick said, flicking a imaginary fleck of dust from his sleeve. "All
that learned discourse -- too fatiguing, Brian! Not to mention all
those rather graphic descriptions of disease and malformation." He
shuddered, deliberately, and fortified himself with a sip of
wine.

Brian laughed. "Trust me, you'll want
to look this issue up and take a look at Wolheim's refutation of
our dear Hillier's pet theory."

"Not the spellchucker
again?"

"No, dear boy -- you are
out of touch! Hillier's got himself a new pet theory. Mind you, he
hasn't given up on the spellchucker, but, if you'll recall, that
little bit of legerdemain required an organic host -- and a very
specific host at that. Now, he's gone the next step and declared
that it is possible to store --
store
-- a spell! Rather like a
battery, you see. Well, as you might expect Wolheim was all over
that. The usual thing -- states that his own tests, following
Hillier's method, did not produce the results described, prosed on
about the philosophy of magic, the theory of conservation of
energies -- oh, and the obligatory insult. Rather a nasty one this
time. Said he hoped Hillier is a better engineer than he is
magic-worker, else the city is in for a rash of bridges falling
down."

"Well, that was too bad of him," Nicky
said. "But, really, Brian, there's no need to suppose Hillier to be
sulking. He and Wolheim have been at each other's professional
throats for years now. Nora swears that they each live for the
opportunity to refute the other's newest favorite theory or
method."

"Oh, it's worse than that!" Brian said
earnestly. "Wolheim lost Hillier a perfectly good assistant a few
years back -- you and your lady were traveling at the time, I
believe."

Nicky frowned. "You mean Sarah Ames? I
remember hearing about that -- a tragedy, of course. But I really
don't see how Wolheim can be blamed for the lady's decision to end
her own life."

"Wolheim had cost her a fellowship, as
I heard it. Hillier was badly broken up for -- well, here's the
fellow now!" he cried, turning his head with a wide smile for the
tardy guest. "Hillier, old thing! It's been an age."

"Or at least a week," the latecomer
returned, removing his top hat. He nodded cordially at his host.
"Nicholas."

"Benjamin. Denora was
concerned."