A moment of stillness as Hyaroll stared at her, fighting off the poosha longer than she’d thought possible, Old Stone Vryhh. To her astonishment he smiled, began to lift a hand in salute. Before he could finish the gesture, the poosha took him and he collapsed in a heap on the table.

  Bodri held Megathen in a strangling grip, though the ironhead stopped struggling the moment Hyaroll lost consciousness. Willow danced across to the table. “Sleep long, no dream, sleep long, Old Vryhh, no dream, Old Vryhh,” she sang to Old Vryhh, and shut his eyes for him. She pulled the arrows out of him and tossed them aside, dipped into the pouch on her belt and smeared some styptic paste on the wounds to stop the bleeding. No need to worry about evil demons crawling into those wounds, though puncture wounds were the worst. In the stasis boxes even demons slept.

  Sunchild came drifting in, collecting the piece of himself as he passed it. “Bodri, you can let Megathen go; I need his arms.” He hovered over Hyaroll. “Willow-Willow, kephalos sends compliments on your aim.” He drifted back to the door. “Megathen, bring Hyaroll down to the Reserve. Willow, you and Bodri better stay here awhile. This next bit’s, urn, kind of touchy.”

  Willow nodded. She had no desire to see that dread array again, tiers on tiers of boxes marching into the darkness, meat lockers filled with stopped lives.

  Megathen picked up Hyaroll and followed Sunchild from the room.

  Willow unstrung her bow and set it aside, slipped off the arrow pouch, checked to see if the cork was tight in the poosha gourd and put that down too. Otter’s spirit slipped away from her, and she felt a sudden grief. She squatted on the mossy rug. It was too warm and breathless in here for her tastes, but she set that aside and began hunting among her song dances. Her people didn’t fight wars, but now and then a feud started up between two clans and went too far for the pa’tanish to reconcile them; then it lasted until one clan or the other ran out of folk. Yes, she thought, yes, I the lost living and my enemy he gone. It was a song that needed nothing but the singer. It was a song that had no dance, no triumph, nothing but sadness. She squatted by the padded table and sang against the small sounds the song of the last alive.

  Sunchild returned while she was singing. When she finished, he came and squatted beside her. Otter to the eye. “Kephalos says thank you for the song.”

  Bodri’s antennae quivered; Willow said nothing.

  “It’s done. He’s tucked away in a stasis box. He won’t die now, so we won’t either.”

  Bodri stirred after a while, shook himself, his carapace swaying like a bell. “I’m hungry.” He started for the door. Still saying nothing, even her body subdued. Willow gathered bow, arrows, the poosha gourd and started out after him.

  “Wait. The house is ours now. Everything. What do we do with it?”

  Bodri stopped at the door, backed around so he could see Sunchild. “Not mine. Don’t like walls. If this place belongs to anyone now, I would say kephalos has it. Maybe the two of you. Willow?”

  “

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  She stroked her throat, drew her shoulders up, hugged her arms across her breasts. “Can’t breathe this place.”

  “You see?”

  Sunchild quivered. “We see. Yes. Bodri?”

  “Yes?”

  “Kephalos gets lonesome.”

  “Let me think.” Bodri curled up his antennae, closed his eyes, swayed his big head back and forth. “Ah. Let kephalos make ironheads that are just talkers, it can send them out and talk to everyone, so we’re comfortable and it’s not lonesome.” Bodri chuckled, his carapace swinging side to side in time with his laughter. “Not so different, after all—old Vryhh wasn’t doing that much these last years.”

  Sunchild lost his slightly forlorn look. “Yes yes, let it be as it was, kephalos working everything and us outside. We’ll have to think what to do with the sleepers, but there’s no hurry now, is there?”

  Willow giggled, clapped her hand against her side and went dancing out the door. “No hurry, no hurry, no hurry, none no more.”

  Vrithian

  action on the periphery [5]

  Bygga Modig

  Weary, aching, layered with grime, Amaiki hefted her bag of belongings and joined the dispirited line of refugees filing off the ship. Never enough water, food that would choke a varka, the stench of too many cones in too small a space, day on day on day in a shuddering juddering sickening slide and roll. And beyond the body’s suffering there was the raveling of the spirit. Elbow to elbow with alien cones whose lines she didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Elbow to elbow with galaphorze seamen whose stench nauseated her, on a battered rust-bucket whose owner had the instinctive greed of all Arkadjonk. The Marespa. She’d never forget it. Never. Its grime was ground into her skin, its creaks and thumps and squeals and hisses had carved themselves into her brain. Even now Barrega harried his men into prodding the weary line along so he could wash his ship of them and rush back across the Istenger to cram another load on board. The crowds were thinning on the wharves of Shim Shupat. If he dawdled here he might even have to put out with a normal cargo rather than this jammed mass of stinking life.

  The wharf they tied to was at the far end of a busy crowded port, the noise, the crowds, the smell, all worse than those on the ship, but there was a different feel here, something freer and bolder that crept inside Amaiki’s insulating coat of grime and gloom. Something wild … it was hard to say just what it was, but it called to that part of her which had responded so disturbingly to the laughter and shouts and songs of the manai-gone-wild. She breathed in a great lungful of the air, expelled it, sucked in more. She wanted no trace of the Marispa’s miasma left in her lungs. She walked off the ship with a straighter back, her ears up and forward.

  With a growling impatience she worked her way through the swarm of confused passengers that clotted the wharf, shoved herself to the gate and the U-shaped counter where a bored galaphorze male sat questioning each cone before he or she or na could leave the wharf, punching the answers into a datarec, turning a few back, passing the others on, stamping some hands, leaving the others bare.

  NAME: Amaiki-manetai line Jallis meld Sinyas

  PURPOSE IN COMING TO GULDAFEL: To join the rest of my mate-meld who are already here.

  THEIR NAMES: Keran-manetai line Sinyas meld Sinyas

  Betaki-tokontai line Yarimm meld Sinyas

  Muri-tokontai line Sinyas meld Sinyas

  Kimpri-manetai line Hussou meld Sinyas

  Se-Passhi naish Sinyas

  The galaphorze glanced at the readout, grunted, then waved her through the gate. She walked down the crudely built chute that shuddered and bounced under her feet. At the other end of the chute a tall conc female halted her. “Hands,” she said.

  Amaiki held out her hands, palm up.

  “Over.”

  Irritated but too weary to argue, feeling like a naughty child hauled before the line mother, she turned her palms down.

  With a grunt much like the galaphorze the cone motioned to the left. “That way.”

  The chute split into two arms beyond the counter where the cone sat. Amaiki started down the left branch, looked over her shoulder. A mate-meld was being directed down the right. A singling like her was the next, hands inspected, waved after the meld. Another singling, hands held out, sent after her. She shrugged and went on. No telling what criteria they were using, and she was too tired to bother speculating.

  The chute opened onto a noisy street. She stepped out, moved aside to give those following room to go by while she decided what to do. None of those passing along the street paid much attention to her, a glance or two from the galaphorze and conoch’hi and other orpetzh moving briskly both ways along the street, mixing with sleds piled high with boxes and bales. Horns blatting constantly, shouts, laughter, voice raised in a sudden explosion of anger; the noise was extravagant and bewildering, the colors were as raw and confusing. She blinked; it was impossible to focus on anything; there were no patterns anywhere she could find to give her a place to start as she tried to make some sense out of the chaos around her. It was ugly and loud and strange and she should have hated it—and she did hate it, but there was also something seductive about the vigor and aliveness of the scene, something that energized her.

  “Ami-sim. Ami-sim.” Muri came running across the street, elbowing his way through the walkers, darting around the sleds, exchanging unserious curses with one of the drivers who came close to running over him. He slammed into Amaiki, nearly broke her in half with the urgency of his hug.

  Amaiki laughed and stroked his weedy crest. “Oh it is good good to touch you again, sim-sim, my Muri, my sweeting, my jintii.”

  He caught her hand and tugged her away from the wall. Frightened and excited, she followed him into the confusion in the street, trying to ignore the nudges and shoves from galaphorze and orpetzh alike. Orpetzh. Not just Conoch’hi from Agishag, but cousins from all over the world, strangers whose manners and smells and voices and languages were almost as alien as those of the galaphorze.

  Muri didn’t try to talk to her, but led her at a trot through a maze of streets, deeper and deeper into the city, away from the waterfront. Gradually the noise and confusion died to a manageable level. There was still a disturbing strangeness about the place, and the thick lowland air was hard for her to handle even after the months on the ship.

  Muri slowed a little and turned into a narrow street with high walls on both sides. Over his shoulder he said, “Not much further, Ami-sim.”

  She nodded, though he didn’t wait for her response. Muri too-quick. Laughing inside for the first time in days, she hurried after him.

  He stopped before a door set deep in the wall, tapped the caller plate and stood waiting.

  In a moment the door hummed into the wall. Muri caught her wrist and pulled her inside with him.

  A garden like her own. Not exactly, the plants were strange, but the patterns were as familiar as breathing, so wonderful, so comforting. She tried to linger, but Muri hurried her on. “Pinbo has done well for herself over here, Ami. This is her meld-house. Meld Likut-Dassha runs a trading company and has shops in just about every Dum and galaphorze Garat in Guldafel.” He pushed open a gate, in an archway, moved into another garden, this one not quite so familiar. “Things are crazy here, Ami-sim. No work, the price of everything, well, you wouldn’t believe what folk have to pay for a week-old egg. Hadn’t been for Pinbo and her meld, we’d’ve had a miserable time. She’s even found work for us. The undying here is rebuilding everything in her dome; we’re going north soon as you’ve rested a bit. Good thing about that is the undying is paying us in land. We’ll have a place for ourselves again, Ami-sim. One year’s labor for the undying and that’s all.”

  Amaiki jerked loose, cold and fearing and angry, all pleasure lost. Undying. I forgot, ay mother, I forgot what I knew coming across the uplands. The undying. Here too. Everywhere. Back to the same futile dependence. She felt helpless and furious. Muri was staring at her, surprised by the turn in her. “Undying,” she whispered, then spat. “Not again. How could you, Muri, how could any of you …”

  “It’s different here,” Muri said, speaking slowly for once. “I know, I understand, but you’ll see. This undying is hardly ever here, she doesn’t want anything from us except what she pays for. It’s always been like that, Ami. No one here depends on her for anything; they wouldn’t get it if they tried. This is our chance to make a new life, a real life, sim-sim.” He patted her arm. “I know, we all know. Come. You’re just worn to a nub, that’s all. Whew! after that trip we could hardly move an ear.”

  Struggling to deal with the anger knotting her insides, Amaiki walked silently beside him.

  “The one thing you’ll really have to get used to,” he said as he led her into a court behind the main house, “is all the galaphorze about. But they’re not so bad when you get to know them. It’s the other orpetzh that, well, the way they act, ahhhgh, Ami …” His ears flickered, his hands flailed the air. She was startled into laughter, and after that the tension drained quickly out of her.

  Then they were in the guesthouse, touching and hugging, a confusion of talk, everyone at once, no one bothering to listen, no one minding that no one heard what they were saying.

  Then Betaki brought in the new hatchling and gave na to Amaiki. She held the small soft body close to her, felt the little mouth sucking at the side of her neck, tasting her flavor, adding it to the other flavors na knew as na’s own. She blinked away tears and couldn’t speak. Se-Passhi pressed against her, the others made a circle about her, lapping her in their warmth. All the aches and sorrows and the bitterness she brought across the sea with her washed out of her. They’d be back, she knew that well enough, but now there was no room for anything but a joy beyond words.

  About midmorning the next day, they carried children and gear aboard a Pel river barge and started north into their new life.

  Cabozh On Gynnor

  Vrithian

  WITNESS [8]

  A MAID SERVANT IN DEIXCIDAO

  My name is Meni Peraroz. What you see is what you get. Ma was a servant and Grandma and they both married servants. I’m not married yet, but if I can’t get away from here, that’s my fate too. One of those half-assed would-be wolves out there prowling the halls. Then a kid a year until I die of it or he gets bored and walks. Me? You got any idea what happens to women who walk out on their men? Don’t be a fool, you. I got to get away before I get stuck, yeh, yeh, forget it, wasn’t making no pun, you show where your head is. Do I really think I’ll be better off in Borbhal or Cobarzh? Oh yeh I do. This place is dead. Frozen. It’s a little looser out there, or so I hear. Do I believe it? Sure. I have to, don’t I? Am I scared? You do ask stupid questions. Sure I’m scared, but look what I’ve got here. Creepy old Zergo around the bay in his dome, he likes things staying the way they are. He makes sure they do. Every time someone here tries to do something different, the undying stomps on him. Anyone with any push, he gets out young. Me? I’m going on for nine [about sixteen standard]. Ma’s all right but my aunts and everybody else, they’re pushing me to get married before I’m so old no man’ll want me. Even Her, she’s pushing her fat nose in my business. Who? Her. The Mistress, who else? So what? So I signed my name on the Agencharosh’s list. Course I can write, my ma saw to that. I know most of us can’t, but she saved out some of her tips, hid it where Dado couldn’t get to it and drink it up, and she hired a Tempestao half-priest to teach me and my sister. She left last year, my sister did. We haven’t got word one from her, but I figure maybe where she is it’s rough getting the coin to send a message. Where was I, ah yeh, I signed my name on the Agencharosh’s list, the bride list. Lot of those men who left want old-country wives. What if I don’t like mine? Tell you. I run, that’s what. I figure there’s probably someone I’m gonna like better. Yeh, I’ll get married. What else can a girl do? But my kids will have it better. There’s always a way. Ma showed me that. But you got to fight hard and you got to fight smart and you got to know you can’t do much for yourself, but your kids will have it better’n you, or what’s the use of living? Cobarzh. They say it’s wild and dangerous, but there’s land for the taking. Fight smart and hold hard to what you got. I’m gonna make something of myself. You’ll see.

  Avosing

  action on the second line [2]

  Sucked through a too-small hole. Pain scraping along her body. Disorientation. Terror. Anger. A smashing blow. Something stopped her like slamming against a brick wall, then punted her into a vast nothingness where she lost ail sense contact, even the feel of her own body.

  More confusion. She never quite lost awareness, but for a while all she had was an assurance that she still lived. Until she came to rest, a quivering shivering nothing.

  She couldn’t feel her body.

  Rush of fear and rage that almost tore her apart. Fear she’d been wrenched loose from her hard-won body, condemned to that tenuous existence she’d known as a prisoner of the diadem.

  After the first shock dissipated, she understood what had happened. Attacking the Ajin’s body with those claws had triggered Kell’s trap. Remembering Grey and Ticutt turning and twisting in the screen, bodies intact, she clutched at hope and calmed herself further. She wasn’t as helpless as the others would be, she knew this state (or one too like it for her comfort), had learned to deal with it, circumventing its restrictions. What she’d done before, she could do again.

  Using her adopted gift and old experience, she reached, probing through the nothing about her.

  Linfyar. Screaming with his whole body, terrified, doubly blinded now.

  Linfy, Linfy, she sent to him, his name over and over, nothing more, until her mindvoice punctured his panic and quieted him.

  Shadow? Voice echoing like a shout in her mind, sense of floundering.

  *Hang on, Linfy, I’m going to try moving over to you.* Keeping her hold tight on him, she willed herself toward him, the ache in her head this brought on paradoxically welcome because at least she was feeling something. Then she was touching something, though she still couldn’t feel her own body. Not much. It was a blurred, dull stimulus that crept like a slow fuse along her, slow currents stirring in a body almost turned off, but there, thank whatever gods there be, there. Linfyar clung desperately to her, trembling all over in agonizingly slow shudders.

  *Linfy, Linfy, it’s all right, it is. We’re in the trap, that’s all, but I’m going to get us out. Trust me, Linfy, trust me, haven’t I got us loose before? Don’t worry, don’t fuss, I’ll get us out.* She rubbed her hand up and down his back, pressing hard so she could feel what she was doing, so he could feel it. Finally he lay quiet against her; some of his heat crossed into her and she began to feel herself somewhat more. She started to pull away, but he butted into her, clutched frantically at her. Easy, easy, Linfy, she said. *You’re hurting me, imp, ease off or I’ll have bruises in places I wouldn’t want to explain. Ah, that’s better. I know you’re sorry, imp. Listen to me. Let me go. Grey’s in here too. And Ticutt and Taggert. I’ve got to find them, Linfy. Umm. There’s something you can do. I can’t say anything or hear anything through my ears, but your range is way wider than mine. You can help me hunt. Try your top and bottom and see if you get any echoes, huh?* She thought a moment. *If it doesn’t work, don’t worry, I’ll keep touch with you, you won’t get lost. All right?*