Adventures in the Liaden Universe Part 9

"Very well. Arto-bring food for the magician. Kat-tie her."

Lute carried the bad bread and doubtful cheese to her, ignoring the tube though his nerves shrieked. He halved the meager portion and raised a cheese-bit to her lips: "Eat."

"Look, Kat!" Lady Drudae shrilled. "The magician is kind! He shares his meal with a stranger! Or is she not a stranger? A night in the pit together, with no other entertainment-and she would not have Arto!"

Moonhawk felt the flare of his fury, held his eyes with hers. "My thanks to you, brother." Shoulders aching with the strain of the rope, she took the cheese and ate.

He fed her the bread and gave her a drink of pure, icy water. Then he ate, taking much longer than he might. She had the sense that he was gauging something, counting...

The Lady shifted irritably, fingers tightening on the tube. Lute offered more water; had another sip for himself and turned.

She read no hope in him.

"Now, if the Lady and her bodyguardian will stand well away..."

"Stand away! You can't go-" Arto's bellow spun Kat and the Lady around. Lute faded two light steps toward the bag, hope scalding.

Through the arch a ragam.u.f.fin crowd jostled, pushing bulky Arto before it like jetsam in a floodtide.

"n.o.ble Lady! See what we bring! Bounty for all!"

"Enough!" The tube pointed unwavering at the center of the crowd. Voices halted and the tangle rearranged itself, becoming four of the village surrounding two who were manifestly not.

The man struggled against the rope that pinned his arms to his sides. The woman stood wary and alert in her bonds, dark eyes flashing.

"He has coins, n.o.ble Lady!" cried one from the village. "And fine clothes! We followed and captured!

We demand bounty!"

"You demand?" The tube had one target now and the blue eyes held only madness. The one who had spoken sparked fear and flung himself belly down on the dirt.

"Forgive me, n.o.ble Lady. I spoke hastily."

"Count your wretched life as bounty." The tube averted its stare with reluctance. "And the rest of you!

I'll decide your bounty-if any! Go! Now."They abased themselves and went, Arto following. Kat came and stood behind the captives, grinning.

"Coins?" wondered Lady Drudae, eyeing them. "Fine clothing? And not so bad looking a woman, eh, Kat? We'll give her to Arto, to atone for the one who wouldn't have him."

The man froze, horror pouring out of him. The woman's head went up.

"I am well content with the man I have. We are travelers and sacred. In Her Name you must release us."

Lady Drudae laughed. "Oh, well said! In Her name, release us. Oh, yes! Arto!"

MREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!.

A noise loud enough to stun the mind burst into the room: all save one were startled.

Now there was a rush of wind filling Moonhawk's head as the room telescoped away, becoming tiny, tinier... This was the whole of the Power, as she'd tasted it but twice before: The Mother Herself was looking through Moonhawk's eyes. Before the room was gone entirely from her human sight, she looked for Lute and saw him at the table, one hand on the magic bag, and one hand perhaps in it...

THE G.o.dDESS DID pour Herself into the earthly form of Her daughter Moonhawk. Rising up, She snapped the puny bonds of hemp.

With a glance, She caused the ropes to fall from the two captives and cried out in a Voice like the Wind That Scattered The Stars: "Away! Take thy man and go!"

The woman caught the man's hand. For a moment he resisted, thinking he might stay and fight. Then sense prevailed and he turned with his woman and they ran like wise rabbits away from that screeching place.

The murderer Kat started after, hands grabbing. Before his eyes the Mother flung images of past evil and he fell to the ground upon his knees, tears running his cheeks. Lute aided the Mother, striking with a mallet that unguarded head.

Lightning came at Her as the tyrant woman added screams to the din and the Mother laughed, for Lightning is Her Consort and will not harm Her. She raised a hand to the stream and deflected it upward, to and through the rotting roof.

Then the G.o.ddess reached out once more, and put before Lady Drudae's eyes another image, so that she dropped the death-tube.

A hand fell upon Her Person. A voice dinned in Her ears. The G.o.ddess looked about, well pleased with Her work, and returned the body to Her daughter.

"MOONHAWK! Moonhawk!"

She blinked at Lute, stared at the fallen Kat, at the Lady, back to the far wall, fist jammed into her mouth, eyes fixed with rigid horror on something she alone saw."Moonhawk!" A shake that snapped her head on her neck.

"What?"

"The roof's afire! G.o.ddess blast you-run!"

Run. She fumbled at the body's controls and began a shambling trot toward the door, the path she must take through the village to the northern edge unfolding before the Inner Eyes. Lute was right. She must run- The door was abruptly blocked. Arto. Moonhawk breathed a prayer to the Mother and did not slow.

The mountain fell back and let her by. He was still standing with his hands empty at his sides when Lute pa.s.sed a moment later, hands and bag ablaze with strange incandescent light.

Running was easier now. More natural. She added speed, weaving between the thatchless hovels, following necessity, oblivious to the shadows, vaguely curious of the light that had kept pace and then was gone...

She broke out of the village into a clearing ringed with rock-an ancient corral, perhaps-the carved shapes of boundary markers towered, just beyond.

She raced across the opening, eyes on the markers, necessity urging her on. Her foot struck a hidden rock and she hurtled forward, catching herself on her hands, rolling up-and freezing.

Encircling her, not mere rock, but a crowd of rag-tag creatures. She saw a flash of dark blue-her cloak.

And the woman who wore it held a stone.

All of them held stones.

She reached within, but her powers were gone to ash. She reached without and touched nothing but hatred. Necessity burned in her. Fear turned her legs to jelly.

The one who wore her cloak drew back her arm, grinning. Moonhawk braced herself.

"Make way!" cried a voice and the human wall broke as a thin man in a torn shirt burst through, bag in hand. He slammed to a halt and spun in a wide circle, rounds flashing from his hands.

"Gold! Gold for all!"

"Gold!" The crowd fell as one, scrabbling in the knotted gra.s.s.

Lute grabbed her arm and pulled her with him, nearly jerking her arm from its socket.

The villagers were still grubbing for the coins when the two of them pa.s.sed the boundary stones.

"OF ALL THE STUPID-Why run this way? The eastern boundary was closer-and easier going beyond. Or am I to believe you came in this way?"

"No," said Moonhawk absently. "I came in by the eastern way. Here."

"Here what?" he demanded, but she was going away from him like a sleep-walker. Cursing under his breath, he followed.In a moment he heard the voices of the recent prisoners.

"North for a bit, then," the winded traveler was saying. "We'll turn south beyond the hills. There's time for a short detour, isn't there, Maria?'

The woman's doubt was palpable. She hunched in her cloak, dark eyes tired now, not flashing.

Moonhawk stepped around the rock that sheltered them, the magician trailing.

"Go due north," she said, voice deep with Foretelling. "At the end of seven day's walking you will come to a town by a wide river. The name of the town is Caleitha. When your daughter is born, take her to Circle there. They will Know her."

She sagged suddenly and felt Lute's hand beneath her elbow as she smiled. "The G.o.ddess Herself intervened for you, sister. Be joyful."

LATER THAT EVENING, Moonhawk fed twigs to a fire while Lute grumbled over the state of his property.

"Is your bag really worth so much?"

"So much?" He stared at her in disbelief. "My dear Master, may he rest in the arms of the G.o.ddess forever, taught that a magician's receptacle is his life." He stood, bag in hand. "It's his prop." A sharp shake and legs appeared. Lute set it firmly on the ground.

"Hi s means of living." Bright scarves dazzled in the firelight.

"His safe." Coins glittered and clinked.

"His watchman." A moment of that hideous noise that had started the escape!

"His lightning. " A quick flash of pyrotechnic light danced about his hands.

"And his restaurant." A tin arced across the fire and she caught it, laughing.

"Hardly fresh milk!"

"Fresher than we had elsewise," he retorted, and came to sit near her, letting the bag stand, "where do you go now?"

"Where the G.o.ddess sends me."

He nodded and moved his long hands. A wooden top spun in one palm. He played with it, dancing it over his fingers, vanishing it from the right hand to appear in the left. Moonhawk laughed in wonder.

"How are you doing that?"

He glanced up with a grin. "Magic." The grin grew speculative. "Would you like to learn?"

"May I?"

"You seem to have a certain apt.i.tude. And I need an apprentice. Been putting it off far too long. Since we both go where the wind blows us, there's no need for us not to go together, is there?""No," said Moonhawk, "there isn't."

"Good," he said and vanished the top. Standing, he went to the bag. "We should, though, head more or less toward Huntress City."

"Why?"

He turned and the firelight glinted off the dull blue barrel.

"I took this from the n.o.ble Lady's hall. It seems to me such a thing belongs with others of its kind, under the careful eyes of those who know their dangers, rather than loose in the poor, half-wild world."

"Will I have learned magic by the time we reach Huntress City?" Moonhawk wondered and Lute laughed as the weapon disappeared into the depths of his bag.

"It depends on how apt a pupil you are."

THUS DID MOONHAWK and Lute meet and decide to travel together across the world, this with the blessing of the G.o.ddess, our Mother.

The first tale ends here.

A Spell for the Lost

THE WIND WAS out of the southwest, carrying the acrid odor of baking rock. The sun was out of the same quarter, and backlit the magician in the weed-choked square, casting spears of light into the eyes of his audience.

Moonhawk, the magician's traveling companion for this month or so, sat on the cistern wall, face turned aside the sun-spears, and watched each gesture with care.

It was to be a rope trick now. Lute showed the crowd the length of common brown cord, called a lad from the audience to test its strength and, finally, tie it snugly into a loop and hold it high above his head.

Lute held up the circle of steel and waved it under the rope-holder's nose. The lad called out that it was only a saddle-ring.

Moonhawk leaned a little forward where she perched on the wall, opening herself to nuance, as she had been taught in Circle. The ring-and-rope trick always baffled her, though she had seen it fifty times in the past month. Perhaps this time- "And now," Lute intoned, voice thinned only slightly by the wind, "by the grace of the elements of hemp and iron, by the impermanence of the things we aim to touch and hold, by the wind and by the sun-Ho!" He made a forceful gesture of throwing-and reached forward in nearly the same instant to steady the village lad who had staggered, letting the rope loop sag.

The lad got his feet under him and shouted aloud, holding the rope up, so the crowd could see the loop, unbroken, with the saddle ring threaded neatly as a pendant, spinning lightly in the wind.

There were then as always several from the crowd who must need test rope, knot and ring, all under the magician's tolerant eye.