Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) (9 page)

"Doesn't hurt yet, just sort of uncomfortable, like stretching a tight muscle," she reassured them,
and broke loose to pace. "You guys know the lessons as well as I do . . . well maybe not, I've been reading over them again.  It'll be hours before anything really interesting happens." She settled down in the rocking chair, and closed her eyes. Rocked a bit. "I can already feel some new abilities. It's like I can see inside myself, see what's happening." She let her tiredness wrap her up in sleep for a moment. The contractions were still mild enough to barely wake her, so she got in a good nap.

Her father and brother peeked in occasionally, before fleeing to the suitable masculine occupation of pacing.

She sipped fruit juice, and paced, and her water broke at midnight, and she pushed her baby out three hours later.

Xenotine
wailed lustily, a healthy sound in contrast to her sisters' appalled silence.

Never was just as appalled, but not silent. "What Answer is going to say! Honestly, Rustle! It's a . . .
a
boy
!"

Rustle thought about denying responsibility, but looking down at the tiny armful, decide she should take credit instead. "Well." She cuddled the baby. "Isn't he beautiful?"

***

By the time Rustle was up and about, the witches had recovered from the shock. And all the elders had stopped by to glower at the baby.
Despite the early winter storms. Ask came, sensibly in between storms, and told her all the gossip.

"Tromp and the Black Triad are being nasty. Nastier than usual. They keep saying that you're not really a Half Moon, because you had a son."

Rustle just shrugged. "I had all the expected changes in my perception. I've already used the Half Moon skills."

But none of her other age mates came to visit.

Havi pulled her out to the barn, where he was assembling all his wagon parts. "I'll put the wheels together as quickly as I can afford the ball bearings, and I should have enough money for the iron wheel rims in another month or two."

Rustle admired his work. "I envy you
. I'll still be an apprentice witch after you're an established, what? Farmer? Horse breeder? Mayor of the new village?"

Havi made a rude noise. "You'll still be learning how to be a witch when you die of old age. Just like I'll be learning to be a wizard. I just need to be something else, too, while I'm learning. Ash is filled up, they don't need all of us young people." He took a peek at the newest youn
g person in Ash. "A nephew.
My
nephew. Cute as a button, but who'd have though something that small could scream so loud?"

"
All babies do." She rolled a ball bearing around in her fingers. "I can help with a bunch of stuff now. Mother says I'll get more practice with iron ore, as soon as I get back to lessons." She bit her lip.
If they let me come back.
"So if your supply of iron runs low, I can go down to the South Fork red beds and get some."

"That's pretty poor grade ore," Havi waffled. "Free, though."

"Oh, running out of money?"

"
No, but we did request a Land Grant. We still haven't got a reply. When that's granted—if it's granted—we'll have to pay the whole price, or loose it through default. Some of the people who want to come have been paying us, but I can't use that money for anything but the Land Grant."

"After everything Mother and Dad did out there? You ought to get a Land Grant for free
." Rustle frowned. "If you're short, you can look for more people to join up. And I've got diamonds. It might be nice to get out of here, at least for awhile."

That perked Havi up.
"If I had my choice of family members to bring along, you'd be it . . . Would the witches let you go?"

She chuckled and patted little Xen. "Right now they're so horrified they may chuck me out."

"Aw, c'mon, because you had a son instead of a daughter?"

"Answer
combed through her memories for a precedent, and found nothing," she shrugged. "I doubt they'll actually toss me, but I'm definitely the Bad Girl this week. Possibly year."

Havi snickered, and leaned to hug her.

Good grief. He's taller than I am. Huh. Growth spurt. Maybe he'll be as tall as Dad, after all.

"If nothing else, you should come and visit us . . . of course it looks like we won't get out there this year, but thirteen, fourteen months from now, as soon as the pass is open in the spring, we should be rolling."

"So you have time to either earn the money for the land grant or recruit people who can pay to join. Have you talked to Ask?"

"Yeah,
and all the other powerless girls, and mage boys, too. A bunch of them haven't grasped power and the Compass may toss them out." He sighed. "I sort of wish we could get out of here now, before the pass closes. Winter over in the Rip—remember what that was like? Then we'd be ready to plant, in the spring."

"Yeah. Wasn't it great, when we were out there with Mom and Dad and Question and Lefty?" she
smiled at the memories.

"But it's a bit late to start, and we haven't got the money for the Grant yet." He juggled his handful of ball bearings. "And I ought to build more wagons, but really, most of our money needs to go into the land fund.
I have a nasty feeling we'll be lucky to get out of here in the spring."

"Don't buy any more iron. I'll at least go down and collect raw ore.
Peace and quiet, and no one glaring at Xen."

1370 Winter

Ash

The colt was black. No doubt about it at all. He had an angular, awkward, very immature look, which given the size of his shoulders was a good thing. Rustle had had to help poor Junk, a good long pull on one cannon bone to angle the colt's shoulders through a bit cocked, one at a time. But now the morning sun gleamed on his dry coat and he assayed an awkward trot and buck as Junk led him across the paddock. No fool that mare, she'd waited for a nice break in the winter weather before foaling.

"He's going to be big." Dydit leaned on the fence next to her. "How tall was the sire?"

"Hmm, hard to say, over a foot taller than poor Rusty. Well over. I had some serious qualms about her taste in men."

Dydit slanted a skeptical look her way, "That would be at least nineteen hands."

"At least." She watched the foal as he essayed a gallop in a circle around his dam. "I wish he'd stuck around for you to see."

"Me too," He leaned over and checked the baby on her back. "There is a problem, isn't there?"

"Umm," she shrugged. "Xen is growing a bit slowly. It's not a big deal. Anyway, this year I'm helping Havi. I'm going to go down to the South Fork Red Beds and refine some iron for him, make all the wagon and harness parts they need." She glanced uncertainly at her father. "I may go with them. To the New Lands."

He glanced at the foal. "Wait a month
or so, so you aren't stuck down there in a winter storm. And take the Traveler's wagon. Havi's settlement . . . well, let's see how little Xen does this year. And how the witches cope with the horror."

"Deal," she rose on her tip toes and kissed his cheek. "Thanks, Dad."

He snorted. "I don't like the idea of you alone down there. But I know better than to argue with a witch. Thought of a name for your colt yet?"

She remembered how the black stallion had faded out. "Phantom."

Xen woke up then, and she retreated to the porch to feed and change him. And spin the last of her wool into extra fine thread. Never was setting up her loom for light summer dress fabric, one of the big money makers the village produced every year.

Never peered worriedly at Xen, "He's still sleeping a lot."

"Yes," Rustle managed to keep most of the exasperation out of her voice, and started a mental list of everything she'd need for her trip. Including larger sized clothing for a growing baby.

***

The pinto mares were half sisters, and thought as one. They were better known as the Terrible Twins, than by their individual names. Harnessed together they were easy to manage, even once they'd left the road, and headed upstream.

The South Fork of the Cold River had been worked over by prospectors a century before, and traces of their old roads yet remained. The red beds had been a bit too low in iron to be worth the labor and transportation, and there was no local coal to use in a refinery. The last miner had thrown in the towel fifty years ago and since then only witches had mined the rocks. And they had only done it when they couldn't buy already refined ingots. So there was still a road of sorts for six miles. She stopped at the end, as Xen woke and cried. She nursed him quickly, before
she unhitched the twins and pegged them out for the night. Junk, she pegged out beyond them and Phantom she left loose.

Tomorrow, she would repair the old fencing the witches had built around this little glen, and figure out how to make a gate.

Xen was fussing, so she put him in a sling across her front, and walked to the stream to fill a bucket with fresh water. "And what would you like for dinner tonight, my very shocking son? Second hand, of course."

The
four month old baby's gaze was fixed on the sights of the world, and she propped him up where he could watch as she lit a fire and cooked dinner. She settled beside him with a cup of hot tea. "It's going to be a long year until we leave for the New Lands, kiddo."

S
he wondered what she'd be doing if she didn't have a baby. Crescent Moon exercises and eyeing every man who came through town. "Well, I'm cured of that, at least." Even if all I did was compare them to Him. She blushed. Still hero worshiping! You'd think I'd get over it!

Motherhood and chopping trees, even the small ones, didn't go well together.
It seemed like Xen cried every time she had one down and was about to do something with it. The crude fencing was getting even cruder, and finally evolved into weaving saplings between tree trunks with enough strapping to keep them up at a reasonable height. She worked steadily, and in between fed, rocked and entertained Xen, washed diapers and cooked for herself. It took three days to do what she'd hoped to achieve in one, but in the end it was done.

With Xen in the sling, she walked down to the river. Cold as advertised. Snow melt. She picked up a chunk of the red shale and hefted it. "Look Xen, iron ore, poor quality, but cheap. What do you think? Enough iron in there for a ba
ll bearing or two?"

The baby stared at the rock,
and sucked on his fist.

"Well, let's go see what we can do."

The prospecting and refining worked well enough with motherhood. She was limited in how much rock she could carry, but Xen was happy in the sling, and the excitement of it all tended to tire him. He usually went right to sleep when they got back to camp, which also gave her time to work with Phantom. More like playing, actually. He took readily to halter and lead rope, tied, picked up his feet for inspection and all the things that would eventually lead to a well mannered mount. His fuzzy foal coat shed and he was sleek and black under it, shining in the sun.

She started on something easy, ball bearings. She could pull the iro
n oxide out of the rock magically, which put her one up on mundane foundries, then concentrating smaller, pulled the oxygen off the iron. She formed them into little balls, and put them in her fire. It wasn't hot enough to melt the iron, but the metal absorbed carbon and could be molded into perfectly round spheres at a vastly lower temperature with her application of the power she drew from Earth and concentrated upon the metal.

"How many of those are you going to make?"

She looked up, startled. "Dad!" she scrambled up and hugged him. "What are you doing here? Checking up on me?"