Wild Magic

› › ‹ ‹

She came back in the hot red light of a spectacular sundown, dipped into black shadow and knelt beside the crumbling old boat.

Riverman was already there, half out of the water, clutching a mud-caked piling to keep his place. His mosquito voice was sad and weary. “Nothing,” he said. “We have asked the stones and the iron, but they have no answers. For sure, the Shinda Prefecture doesn’t have him. Or the Camuctarr. Come back tomorrow sundown.” He let go and vanished below the surface before she could speak.

The Jang was a darker meaner place these days.

The shadow predators and long-gone druggers haunted the dance ground, killing one more day, preying on each other for the coin it took to stay alive, preying on the young folk who swarmed there after dark.

These younger folk were lean and hungry, searching for something to cut the heat and the monotony, drugs, alcohol, sex, music, pain, or pleasure. There was desperation and weariness in their play, but they came.

And Faan came to disable her imagination with noise and exhaustion so she wouldn’t think about what could be happening to Reyna, so she wouldn’t agonize over Tai and Areia One-eye defying the edicts from the Amrapake and the Camuctarr and going to sing Honey rites for the women of the Edge and elsewhere when the other Beehouses couldn’t oblige. She came for the music and the dancing, the ear-hammering voices and the thick heavy stench of people around her who didn’t care if she lived or died.

Dossan and Ma’teesee came with her. Dossan was tired from a long day in the Woodman’s factory, but she would have come even if Faan hadn’t called her out, she, too, needed some lift to her spirit, whether it was terror or raw mulimuli, or a tumble in the grass with a half drunk apprentice. Ma’teesee had her own reasons for wanting to forget her tomorrows.

They linked arms as they had so many times before and put a hop in their steps as they jigged down the Lane, giggling as they passed Fedunzi’s End. The silversmith had hanged himsf,lf a year ago, shortly after a grim group of hooded men threw cruses of oil into his shop, followed it with torches, and burned it to the ground. “Wascra Wascra Wascra girls,” they sang, a darker note in their voices this night. “Waste the wonkers, paste the ponkers, Wascra Wascra Wascra we.”

They quieted as they got closer and heard the clashing music from the bands who’d staked claim to spots on the Ground. It was dangerous here; they had to be ready to skip and dodge, so they dropped arms and stopped their prancing, but they kept on going, dancing a step or two as a snatch of music blew toward them, carried on the hot hot wind, singing nonsense syllables as they dropped into the beat of the Jang.

Faan shied away from a shadowman crawling about on hands and knees. “Which way, Dossy? Your turn to pick.”

Dossan crossed her arms, hugged them tight to her chest. “Widdershins. I’m feeling contrary tonight; let’s work a curse on the laffy MaIs.”

Ma’teesee giggled, then yelped and jerked her foot loose; the crawler had grabbed at her ankle, got a weak hold on it, fingers slipping on the worn leather of her boots. “Pichad,” she yelled, “jegg yourself.” She skipped back another step as the crawler wavered toward her again, brought her heel down on his hand. “Eat it.” She circled around him and pranced after the other two.

Ailiki trotted along beside Faan, chittering almost-words at her; the mahsar loathed this place, always made a fuss. Faan ignored her. As they passed one of the bands, she caught hold of Ma’teesee and began dancing in fast-footed loops with her, then shifted to Dossan. Then she danced alone, utterly sunk into the music, sensual, abandoned, the twisting and turning of her body reaching deep into the ancient Soul of the Land at the heart of every Fadogur adopted or born.

Young men grabbed at her, but she burned too hot for them. Sucking their fingers as blisters erupted on them, shaking hands that tingled uncomfortably, they cursed then shouted to the rhythm of the band and danced in a mesmerized ring about her until the music stopped.

Dossan and Ma’teesee yanked Faan from her trance and ran off before the other dancers could close around them.

They passed a man with a burning splinter from the fire. He was a slave, a northerner, his fair skin covered with small sun cancers. He pressed the splinter against his arm, watched the fine curly hairs wither and turn to ash, the skin beneath start to bubble; he lifted the splinter, blew the coal on the end to a cherry red and put it on his arm again.

They hurried away from him and nearly ran into two men grunting and hammering at each other with their fists; it wasn’t a fancy fight or a flashy one and no one was bothering to watch. They just hit and hit and hit as if they were clockwork figures.

A circle of men stood around a habatrize. As they passed, a man got up, wiped himself off with the towel a shadowy figure handed him, another man-tossed a moju in a can and fell on the woman. Ma’teesee wanted to watch, but Faan and Dossan pushed her on toward the stage.

Hot hot hot hot hot hot

The singer screamed the words; behind him the tin drums sang in angry polyphony, the fiddle squealed in a floating line above the rest. ‘