The Luck of Brin's Five (6 page)

“Danger!” said Harper Roy. Diver understood.

“It is not over yet . . .” he said. In the light of Esder, the Far Sun, newly risen and moving towards its fullness, a detachment of Pentroy vassals were marching on ahead of us into Cullin.

“We must seek guidance,” said Harper Roy. “Beeth Ulgan will help us.”

It was a cold evening, and I was sorry we could not visit any of our usual haunts. There were blood kin and glebe neighbors wintering in their warm tents on the slopes above the town and on the edge of the fairground, down over the river. We went looking for a meal in the broad, swept streets of Cullin, between the fixed houses. The tall house of the Town Five hung in curving folds of plaster and bent beams on a mound beyond the circle. The only other buildings of any size were the wool and food store by the main wharf and “Vanuyu” or the House of the Four Winds. This is a hunting lodge built by some Pentroy ages ago on the river, before the weavers bought out the land and gained the title for a free town.

Vanuyu is a beautiful house—for years the only fixed house I believed could be beautiful—and it is built partly of brick, with curtain walls of plaster to either wing. It is inhabited by some of our town grandees or climbing weavers—the Wharf Steward and the Fair Caller and their fives. We showed these wonders to Diver by the bright light of Esder, and I was impressed, as always, by the lights used in the town . . . candles, oil lamps, rush-lights, for the townees are far less chary of fire than mountain folk. But it was still cold; we pulled into one food shop by the wharf and found it full of Pentroy vassals guzzling bowls of hot tipsy-mash. We moved on to another, near the open circle, where we smuggled Diver into a dark corner, back of the steaming cook pots, and Harper doled me out a credit to buy our supper.

We ate delicious, hot tipsy-mash and venison stew with flour dumplings, real town food, in glazed earthenware dishes that had been hardened in fire. The spoons had metal bowls, but the handles were safe wooden ones, to cheer up superstitious country visitors.

“How do you like our town?” we asked Diver.

“Good!” he said, “A
town
.”

We were pleased.

“Like the towns in your land?” asked the Harper, slyly.

“Like the towns in my land . . . long ago.”

“Never fear,” I said, “wait until you see Rintoul.”

“Ah, Rintoul . . .” sighed the Harper. “The Golden Net of the World!”

“My ship goes to Rintoul.”

“Diver . . .” I was bold now, with the warmth of the shop and the tipsy-mash rising into my head. “Are there others . . . your Family . . . in the islands?”

“Yes . . . but not Family.” Diver tried to explain. “Friends, workers . . . helpers.”

“How many?” asked Harper Roy.

“Three and myself. They will think me dead,” said Diver solemnly.

“Females and males?” I thought of the strange shape of the female creatures in his drawings. “Will you make a Family?”

“Two males, two females,” he replied sadly. “We came as scholars. To see what lived, what could breathe . . . on Torin.”

Then a drunken townee from the front of the cook-shop saw Roy's harp and called for a song. He moved away cheerfully, leaving us in shadow, and began to sing, sweetly as ever, a whole string of his mountain melodies. I sat in the gloom, at Diver's side, growing warm and sleepy. The shop was no more than half-full with townees and some travelling Families; suddenly there was some sort of commotion by the round doorway that looked out on the circle. The Harper finished abruptly; customers were making a move. I stiffened, thinking of Pentroy vassals, then I heard the jingle of shell-bracelets and the thud of dancing feet. “Twirlers!” I whispered to Diver.

The shop emptied quickly; even the cook downed ladles and ran out. I gulped down my food and tumbled out into the dark street after Roy and Diver. A blue flame shot up in the center of the grassy circle—Twirlers' Fire. It is a cool, harmless flame, so they say, but it was flame enough to send a thrill through the crowd. The Leader stood in the midst of the circle, beside the flax-bound stake hissing with blue fire. A tall figure, brown and twisted like a burned tree, painted with clay and naked except for a long cloak of blue rag-bunches. Around the circle there danced ten, fifteen others, thumping the ground rhythmically with their heels, between leaping and prancing. The shell-bracelets on their wrists clashed and jingled and caught the light of the fire. Their blue rags were spattered with mud; they were sweating, and the dark streaks on their skin might already have been blood. The twirlers' shell-bracelets are sharp and they cut their flesh as they dance, until the blood runs down.

Every so often one dancer would advance into the circle and twirl on the spot, slowly at first, then faster and faster, unbearably fast, until there was a thin blurring column of blue and brown.

“Trouble!” whispered Roy, as we stood in the shadows. “Time we went to the Ulgan's house.” The twirlers had drawn a crowd, even in winter. One or two of the Watch, employed by the Town Five, were lounging about with their staves, not expecting trouble. But the Pentroy vassals could be seen too, pushing their way through the quiet, hooded, clustering crowd. None came our way, and we did not make a move.

One by one the twirlers dropped to the grass like wounded birds, and the Leader, who had twirled and gestured close to the burning stake, began to cry out.

“Avert!”

The twirlers, in ecstasy on the bruised grass, took up the cry in echoing tones. “Avert! Avert! Avert!”

“Avert the Demon!”

Again the shout went round. “Avert the Demon . . . who comes from the Void . . . who flies on Hingstull . . . who flies in the night, encased in metal . . . with claws for hands!”

The crowd hissed with fear. The Pentroy vassals, I saw, had an officer, a grim figure in a leather mask-helmet, who was drawing them together.

“Avaunt!” screamed the twirlers. “Devil came down! Descended on Cullin! The devilish Silver Ship was shipped through the town! Here! Where is the Devil! The Devil! The Devil! The Demon with claws! The Devil is here!”

The Leader's voice was high and chilling; I wondered, how did the twirlers know? I shivered and clutched Diver's arm, to reassure myself that he was no devil. Roy led the way through the edges of the crowd, heading for Side-street Four, where Beeth Ulgan's house stood.

Suddenly the Pentroy officer made a booming blast on his roarer and the vassals moved in. The twirlers, disturbed in ecstasy, fought and screamed like mad things. A panic spread among the poor wintry citizens; a few ran to help the twirlers or beat feebly at the vassals who were hustling them out of the way. The burly members of the Town Watch waded into the fray, striking—I saw—mainly at vassals and calling aloud for the townees to clear the streets.

Through an opening in the crowd came two vassals struggling with a poor naked twirler, wide-eyed and streaked with blood. I tried to dive out of the way, but a movement of the crowd bore me to the ground. I remember flailing about and screaming like a twirler myself before Diver hauled me up again. We tried to continue on our way, but the vassals and their prisoner were behind us, pressing against the frightened, angry bystanders. Some of them, including the Harper, set up a shout.

“Let the twirler go! Shame! Set down the spirit-warrior! Out Pentroy! To blazes with the vassals!”

The vassals came on, grim-faced.

“They'll dump the twirler in Street Four,” said the Harper, in my ear. We struggled out of their path; and when the crowd drew back, we followed the vassals and their shrieking burden into the dark mouth of the street.

Diver had taken the lead. My heart was pounding; I thought I knew what he was about to do, but I was wrong. He had no need for a weapon. When we were out of sight of the crowd, he threw back his cloak and downed one of the vassals. Diver had an extraordinary way of fighting. I have seen no one to match him save Blacklock himself. He chopped the vassal across the back of the neck with the side of his hand, and the creature dropped like a stone.

“One for you!” he shouted to Harper Roy.

The Harper, nothing loath, did a hip roll on the other. I got into position, crying, “Tree trunk,” and together we took the staggering vassal by the arms and ran it headfirst into the nearest wall. The tree trunk, which is the oldest mountain wrestling trick in the skein, works even better in a town, there are so many walls. I was trembling with excitement and fear; the experience of using the tree trunk to bring down a person, instead of practicing it in sport and stopping long before the head hit the tree, was too much for me.

We turned to the twirler, who was propped upright against a wall. The Harper moved in, uttering soothing words, but the twirler was still mad. A hand laid on the shivering brown arm caused more shrieks, more kicking. Already the mouth of the street was full of townees.

“Come on!” said Diver. He seized the slight figure of the twirler, trying to pinion those flailing arms and sharp shells.

“Quiet!” he said in his clumsy Moruian. For an instant the torchlight rested on Diver's face: then with one shriek—at the sight of those blue eyes—the twirler fainted away.

Diver hoisted the limp body, and we ran off into the shadows. Round two corners, with the sound of the riot fading, and Harper Roy was hammering on the door of Beeth Ulgan's house, beside the weathermaker's shuttered booth. We stood shivering until a deep voice answered.

“Who?”

“Brin's Five!” cried the Harper. “Dear Ulgan, open to friends in need!”

There was the sound of the door-pole being hastily drawn, and on the threshold in the dim light stood the tall, sagging figure of the Diviner.

“Great North Wind!” cried Beeth Ulgan. “Harper . . . and your eldest . . .”

“Refuge we pray . . .” panted the Harper. “Pentroy vassals . . .”

“I'm not surprised. Come in.”

We pressed on into the house, where it was beautifully warm, warm as a proper tent. The outer room had a metal stove that scared Old Gwin to death when we visited. Beside it lay the Ulgan's apprentice, a young townee, a male, not much older than myself. Diver laid down his burden on a pile of mats in a corner, and the apprentice went over curiously to attend to the twirler.

The Ulgan held up a candlecone. “Let me look at you . . . What have you got there . . . a wounded twirler? And an outclip? An extra member for Brin's Five? Winds forbid! How's Brin? How's the hidden child? How is Eddorn Brinroyan?”

“Odd-Eye is dead,” said Harper Roy, standing like a child, with bent head, before the Ulgan.

“Alas . . .” Beeth Ulgan stood clutching the candlecone and murmured a prayer of departure.

The Diviner surprised me every time I beheld her. For a start she was fat, the only fat person I ever beheld before we went to Otolor and to Rintoul, and she was also very tall. Beeth Ulgan had a long, drooping face, very smooth and brown, with thick handfuls of white hair, plaited into great curtains and baskets around the head. The Diviner's robe was of soft wool, of our own weaving, thickly embroidered, with loose sleeves full of magical trinkets, sweets and nuts and message skeins.

“You come in sad time,” she said, laying a gentle hand on my head, “but I must ask you again. Has my old teacher's prophecy been fulfilled? How is the destiny of Brin's Five?”

“You have asked that question for years now,” said Roy, “and at last I have an answer for you . . .”

“We are blessed with a New Luck . . .” I babbled.

“Hush!” said Harper Roy, pressing Brin's message skein into the Diviner's hand.

“Beeth Ulgan, you were ever our friend and guide. What we show must be secret—”

“Secrets?” The hooded eyes flashed in the dim light; Beeth Ulgan stared at the Harper as she fingered the message skein.

“Diver,” said Harper Roy. Diver, rearranged in his cloak, stepped forward.

“New Luck . . .” whispered Beeth, “from Hingstull. Oh great earth and sky!” She seized Diver's hand and led us all into the inner room, a wonderful bright place, full of tapestries and cushions.

Diver stood erect before her, and his hood fell back. We had lived too much in shadow. Now the bright light of a dozen candlecones and two lanterns showed Diver for what he was. Utterly strange, a creature of essential difference, bred in the body's weft. By comparison the grandees, whose fine trappings had made me gape, were like our very blood kin. A pale face, blunt-featured, a round head, curling hair with its true darkness still visible at the nape of the strong neck. Keen, round, frontal eyes of bright blue.

Beeth Ulgan drew breath steadily, holding Diver's gaze.

“Who . . . what . . . are you?” she demanded. “What sort of being do you call yourself?”

And Diver answered formally. “I am a man. My name is Scott Gale.”

“Where do you come from?”

“From another world.”

It was an odd formula we had worked out while teaching him our language. Diver went on to repeat his identification in his own tongue. By now I recognized it pretty well. The learning went in two ways—we all had a few words of his speech.

“Scott Gale 20496, Lieutenant Navigator, World Space Service/Satellite Station Terra-Sol XNV34, Biosurvey Team One, Planet 4, 70 Ophiuchi A.”

Beeth Ulgan peered heavily at Diver. Finally she turned away, shaking her grand loops of hair as she flicked through a bundle of silk scrolls and fixed one on the rack. I could see that it was a chart of some kind, finely woven, like all the Diviner's scrolls, and overstitched in black thread on the cream and gold body of the work. Diver stepped close and looked very hard, turning his head to find a direction. Then he pointed. I saw with a thump of excitement that it was a star chart with the constellations traced out in black, and red points inwoven for the stars themselves.

There was the Sun and the Far Sun. There were the sibling worlds of Torin: Derin or Far-World and the twins Thune and Tholen and the strange distant world that we called Derindar, Even-Further-World, but which astronomers call Veer. Beyond our web of worlds were the constellations: Eenath, the spirit warrior, with her bow; Vano, the great bird; the Spindle; and the Box-Harp. There was the great constellation of the Loom; Diver had pointed to a star in the loom bench, where the great weaver sits.