Wild Magic

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So long ago their names were lost to memory and myth, the builders raised Gom Corasso’s Camuctarr on a black basalt cliff high above the inland sea they called the Lake-That-Never-Fails. They built the Great Wall about Gom Corasso with the blocks of stone they quarried from the side of the firemountain Choromalin when they leveled the space for the Temple and chiseled the road down to the water.

Gom Corasso. A gold and black city of towers and gardens, she sits inside a star-patterned wall with four gates and twenty towers. The shattered sapphire freshwater sea washes against her. Blue and lavender mountain ranges cup round her to merge just beyond Fireheart Choromal in

Faharmoy stood blinking in the blinding sunlight of the Suppliant’s Court, watching his father stamp around muttering curses as the minutes passed and the chair didn’t come.

He slid his hand across his mouth to hide his smile, enjoying the sight of his father thwarted.

Everyone had to wait here, even the Amrapake. The mighty brought low, equal in Chumavayal’s sight with the sorriest of beggars.

The bearers quick-trotted across the court, their tanned hides slick with sweat.

Wenyarum Taleza settled himself in the chair, closed the door with a snap. “Walk beside me.”

Silently Faharmoy took his place.

His father slapped his hand on the door and the bearers started forward, walking a few steps, then breaking into a trot. Faharmoy loped along beside them, blessing Chumavayal that his road was down not up.

He brooded as he ran. Why now? Since he emerged from his mother’s womb, his sire hadn’t bothered with him beyond the yearly ceremonies of his birth, and he had to come to those or risk rumors about his son’s legitimacy.

Rumors…

Ah! It’s true, then. Famtoche’s making me his heir. He sneaked a quick look at his father, but there was nothing to read in that somber profile. What’s he up to? What’s he mean by this?

By the time the chair reached level ground and approached the Temple Gate, he was exhausted and panting, but he’d lost his fear; he was too angry any longer to care what happened to him.

Goddance. The Ninth Year

Abeyhamal buzzes in place, wings vibrating^., larynx vibrating, bee eyes on the black old man. Abruptly she flips the fimbo up and over, holds it away from her body, parallel to the Forge Floor. She bends her knees, turns her feet out and hop-shuffles at a slant to the Forge Fire. When she is even with the fire, she stops, glides backward to her starting point, her feet moving, the rest of her quite still, then she hop-shuffles at an opposite slant, pas de vee.

Faan began to find her strength, studying with the Sibyl; she ran the ways and wynds of the Edge with her friends, a hard bite to their play.

Chumavayal surges up from the stool, stamps the Forge Floor with feet turned out until the stone booms with the weight of the blows. With his left hand he brings the iron Hammer curling up over his head; with his right he snatches the Tongs from the Anvil and brings that curling up over his head. He clashes them together. Sparks fly.

The spring rains were late in Zam Fadogur, hot winds blew eternally from the western deserts, dried the earth to dust and blew it away.

Faharmoy Taleza na Banadah encounters Reyna and from the shock the Prophet is born.

The GodDance goes on.

Sibyl

The Wheel is turning, the Change is near

One by one the signs come clear.

Drought spreads as days warm

There’s death in the street

Honeychild storms

Rebellion is sweet

Magic goes freeform

And blooms in the heat