Changer's Moon (28 page)

They came to a rickety structure several stories high. It was backed onto the great curtain wall and stretched out its upper stories close to the building on either side as if fearing a moment's weakness when it could stagger to one side or the other and need help to keep standing—or so it seemed to Tuli as Rane loped across the street and plunged into a narrow alley along one side of the building.

The ex-meie stopped before a door with corroded hinges and a covering of muck dried on it so thick it seemed the door hadn't been opened in years. She reached into a hole in the wall beside the door, groped about a minute, then jerked hard on some invisible cord. She pulled her hand out, stepped back and waited, the tension draining from her lanky form, the weariness suddenly increasing as if she'd suddenly gone slack.

A moment later the door swung open, slowly, carefully, but with no suggestion of furtiveness. Doesn't want to disturb the camouflage, Tuli thought. The smallish man who stood in the doorway scowled at her, then turned to Rane. “You bleeding-heart meien, always shoving children on me; well, get in before the traxim fly and spot you.”

IV

THE JUMP

POET-WARRIOR/KINGFISHER

1

Julia lay groggy with pain and drugs, trying to convince herself she should ask Grenier to give her enough to kill her in the next shot. Trouble was, she couldn't yet bring herself to give up so very finally. I am the distilled essence of what this country used to mean, she thought, making phrases to take her mind off the pain. Unquenchably optimistic in the face of disaster, absurdly expecting something to come up and change everything if only I work hard enough and wait long enough. Logic says die and save the drugs, the care, the strength spent on me for those they can help. But I'm not logical about this. This dying. Say it, Julia. Dying. Not logical. Half of what I think is fantasy. She stirred restlessly and the young girl who sat reading in the bar of light coming through the tent's door put her book aside and come over to her.

“Time for another shot, Jule?”

Julia smiled at her. “No. Maybe a glass of water though?”

As the girl helped her sit up and drink from the glass, she heard an outburst from the meeting place loud enough to reach them through the trees and the heavy canvas of the tent. She sputtered, turned her head away. The girl set the glass aside and eased her back down on the pallet. “Lyn,” she said. “Go find out what that's about. Please?”

Lyn looked dubiously at her.

Julia gathered herself, lifted a hand, touched the girl's arm. “What a hoo-haw. Lyn, if I have to lie here and listen to all that without knowing what's happening out there, my curiosity will drive me up the wall.”

Lyn got slowly to her feet. “You be all right?”

“No better, not worse than I always am; what's to worry about, dear Lyn. Find out what's going on, then hurry back and tell me. I really do need to know.” She sighed as the girl pushed out of the tent, listened to her light footsteps hurry away and fade into the shouts and uproar coming from the meeting. They've made up their minds what to do about the attack tomorrow, she thought. Reason enough to swallow the bitter pill. I'm declining into cliché at the end of my life. The noise that had startled her muted until nothing more came to her ears than the usual camp sounds. She lay back with her eyes closed, listening to the wind brushing through the trees, soothed by the sound, calmed enough to go back to the depressing considerations she'd been immersed in before the noise began. She had to make up her mind before the next shot, bring herself to do what she had to do. Whatever they decided, they could not take her with them, yet chances were they'd try. She couldn't bear to think of it any longer and deliberately turned away. Fantasy. I've never written a fantasy. I wonder if I could? Magic. I don't believe in it. I wish I could, but my optimism doesn't stretch that far. Magic healer, yes. I could bring him out of air and nothing, a shaman who would make this wrongness in me right. Then, since you've gone this far into never-never land, why not conjure a shaman who could magic the ills out of your poor damned doomed country? God, I wish I could believe in that enough to write it. She listened for a minute but could hear nothing except the usual noises. Come on, Lyn. Get back here and tell me what they've decided. Magic wand, she thought, wave it over the country and set things right. Set things right, that's a frightening thought. She shivered. That's what started this, one bunch of peabrains trying to make reality fit their idiot schemes. Anyway, who's wise enough to say what's right for anybody but himself. Herself. Not me. Only, let the killings stop, let people work out their own lives. Stop the slaughter of minds. Almost worse than bodies, what you're doing to the minds of good people. Magic wand. Magic want. She giggled. Magic chant. Give me a magic chant, a curse that would strike only those with rigid minds, those who think there's only one right way to do and be, give me a curse tailored to those types, give me that curse and I'd loose it over the world, I'd loose it laughing, no matter what misery it brought. Hunh! probably just as well I'm only dreaming. She sighed and tried to relax, tried to sink into the soughing of wind through the needles, the scattered bird cries, the distant chatter of a squirrel, all the wild sounds of the mountains. The smell of the pines crept into the tent, sharp, clean, the essence of greenness, of remembered mountains. Mountains. I ought to write an essay on mountains. She smiled into the dim brown-green twilight in the tent with its dusting of fine red dirt, dirt that smelled like the trees that grew out of it, dirt that smudged her fingers and the base of the glass. She rubbed her fingertips on the blanket. Her hands were bundles of sticks now, bones and skin with no flesh left. I used to have pretty hands. Forget that, no point in it. Mountains. I was born cradled between mountains. I have always had a hunger for blue mountains, a hunger like that, I suppose, that has called so many sorts of men to the sea and inspired bad poetry. Odd, isn't it, how some verse you know is only doggerel can reach down into blood and gut and stir them mightily. But the sea's a capricious and undiscriminating mistress; she calls everyone and welcomes them with equal eagerness and treachery. We who succumb to mountains have to share our love only with the few and the odd; our lover is harsh and demanding yet forgiving in her way; she punishes stupidity but welcomes back those willing to learn, she kills a few but most survive to return to her. I have come to die in my mountains, one last embrace, one last green breath of free air in this nation that has forgotten the meaning of freedom.… eh, Julia, you grow maudlin, this part of the essay would need extensive editing.… dumb, lying here, coaxing sentimental tears out of yourself. Enjoy your good cry, fool, and get back to the hard things … still … blue mountains … pine smell and bark dust.… better to die here if one has to die … Lyn, where are you? Oh god, it hurts … can't stand … have to … can't think … fantasy … bring me … my magic healer … let me escape … let me live.… She folded her wasted arms over her swollen belly, closed her hands about wrists like withered sticks and fought to endure the growing pain as the drug wore off. There was too much riding on the next shot, too much. She wasn't ready to face it, not yet.

Lyn came in like a burst of sunlight, her straight black hair spreading out from her face in a fan. She took a deep breath, calmed herself a little, blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sudden twilight. “Out of nowhere.” Her high light voice went up to a breaking squeak. She cleared her throat, breathed in again. “Two people,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Like that. Like they do in TV and movies, except this was real. A man, in clothes like you see in history books, Robin Hood, you know. With a sword. A real live sword, Jule. Short and kinda fat, but looks like he can handle himself good as Georgia if he wants to. But that's not the weirdest thing. There's a woman with him. Tiny bit, wouldn't come up to here.” She indicated her collarbone. “She's got on this white thing, sort of a choir robe without sleeves. And she's green. Uh-huh. Green. Sort of a bright olive. And she's got orange eyes and dark red-brown hair. Sounds yukky, doesn't it, but she isn't, she's really kinda pretty in her weird way.” Lyn smiled and settled herself on a pillow beside Julia. She leaned forward. “Like I said, one minute Sammy was telling Danno to sit down and shut up, he'd get his turn to talk, the next thing, there they were, the man and the woman, standing by him. Anyway, that's what Liz said. She said Ombele jumped the man and Georgia got his sword away, but the woman, she just told them not to be idiots and to behave themselves. Then the man started talking. He's come to give us a way out. A way we can stay together and not get killed. Well, not exactly giving it; he wants us to help him fight a war against some bunch of sorcerers. Sorcerers!” She giggled. “Would you believe it? Magic. They're asking him all sorts of questions now, what we gonna get out of it, who's he, you know, stuff like that. He's sounding good, Jule, but it's hold your nose and jump in the dark.”

2

When Hern and Serrbi stepped through the Mirror, the gathered crowd surged onto its feet, the big brown bald man, Ombele, descended on Hern like an avalanche and had his arm twisted behind his back before Hern had a chance to catch his balance. The fighter band lunged through the crowd at him and stood guard while Georgia patted him down with quick efficiency and none-too-gentle hands, removed the sword and held it up, disbelief in his square face. He turned to Serroi and stopped, his jaw dropping. “Green?”

Serroi chuckled. “Green,” she said. “Suppose you let my friend go and listen to what he has to say.” She looked up at him, with a wry smile. In the mirror Georgia had seemed big enough but not enormous compared to the others, yet her head barely passed his belt buckle. These were a large people. Even the smallest of the adults would be at least a head taller than the tallest of the mijlockers; only the Stenda came close to watching them.

Georgia grinned down at her. “Feisty li'l bit,” he said. He waved his fighters back, handed Hern his sword and went to squat in the front row of the gradually quieting crowd, balanced on his toes, ready to move swiftly if there was need.

Hern sheathed the sword and brushed at his sleeves, his eyes glittering, his long mouth clamped in a grim line. He wasn't used to being handled like a child and looked ready to skewer the next to try it, but even as she wondered if she should say something, the anger cleared from his face and his palace mask closed down over him. He swung around to face the council and Samuel Braddock who was polishing his glasses with a crumpled white handkerchief. “May I speak?”

Braddock slipped the glasses on. “Think you better.” He climbed onto his stool to sit, resting long bony hands on long bony thighs.

Hern turned to the intently listening folk. “I am Hern Heslin, hereditary Domnor of Oras and the Cimpia Plain, a land on a world other than this. I've come to offer you a refuge from your enemies.” As he paused, Serroi studied the faces before them, some interested, some skeptical, some hostile, some indifferent, all of them alert, following his words with an intensity that startled her. Talk well, Dom, she thought, they're going to need a lot of convincing. “I've been watching you,” Hern said. “On my world there is a being who calls himself sometimes Coyote, sometimes Changer, with a Mirror that looks into other worlds. To pay off an old debt, he in effect gave me my choice of whatever I saw in his Mirror. I have watched you govening yourselves and I like what I've seen. I've watched your fighters in action, effective action with a minimum of force used and blood shed.” He smiled. “I was much impressed.” A blend of interest and alarm lit Georgia's faded blue eyes. “On my world we are engaged in a battle that is much like the one that engages you here. From what I heard, your government has been taken over by a group that is trying to control every aspect of your lives. So it is with my land. I need you. I have no gold to pay you, but I can offer you a refuge from those that pursue you and land to build a new country, raise your children, govern yourselves as you please. Fight for me, help me throw out those who want to tell my people how to act, what to think, who want to destroy an ancient seat of learning and refuge. In return, I will take all of you back through the Changer's Mirror, all of you, old and young, fit and sick, fighters and non-combatants alike. I will cede to you a stretch of land north of Oras, a territory empty of other folk and kept as a hunting preserve by my father and grandfather. The soil is fertile, it has an extensive seacoast and access to one of the major rivers of the land, a good part is forested, and there is abundant game.” He made a small deprecating gesture. “Since I don't find much pleasure in hunting, they've been left undisturbed for a number of years. The size.… um … that's a difficulty.” He rubbed a hand across his chin. “I would say the preserve is just about three times the area of that city where the armory was. You understand, I can only promise you that land if the Nearga Nor and Floarin's army are defeated, but no matter what happens some of you will survive and there is much open land on my world.” He turned, made a slight bow to the council, then swung back to the others. “I stand ready to answer your questions.”

A man go to his feet, scowling, a stocky dark man with long black hair braided into a single plait and tied off with a thin leather thong. “Havier Ryan,” he said. “A lot of us don't think much of hereditary anythings. We got 'em and we close to dying of 'em.” In spite of his stolid appearance, he radiated an immense anger tautly controlled, control that flattened his voice to a harsh monotone. “Fight for you, you say. All right, what's the chances? We don't mind a fight if something comes of it, or why the hell we here? Lost causes, that's something else. Might as well stay and tend to our own miseries as jump off into the back end of nowhere.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stood waiting.