“Well?” Brann scowled at him. “Did you or didn’t you?”
“Did.”
“Giftroom?”
“No, I was wrong about that. It was in a storeroom, the kind where they throw broken things and whatever they don’t think has much value.”
“A Great Talisman in a junk room?”
“What it looks like, Bramble. Dust everywhere, broken everything, cheap trinkets, the kind your sailor friends bought their whores when they hit port. Wornout mats rolled up, cushions with the stuffing leaking out. And the old frog looking right at home sitting up on a shelf smothered in gray dust. Maybe it’s been there since the Sihbaraburj was built.” He crossed his legs, rubbed his thumb over and over his ankle. “Funny, I’d ‘ve never gone in there, but a Servant came along the corridor I was in and I thought I’d better duck. There was a door handy; it was locked so I oozed in and while I was waiting I, took a look round. I was being firesphere so I wouldn’t leave footprints or other marks in case someone came in there hunting something. I about went nova when I saw the thing way up on the top shelf, pushed into a corner and like I said covered with dust. I managed to ride the blow out, I don’t know how. 1 nosed about some more, there was no sign Amortis was around and I’ve got pretty good at spotting gods. I guess we sit it out the next six days.”
“Can you?”
“Oh yes. Um, I should get all the sun I can.”
“Morning be enough?”
“Unless it’s raining.”
“We’ve got to go to the Temple. Hmm. We went up mid-afternoon today, I suppose that could be enough precedent. You need to be outside?”
“No. Your bed gets the morning sun, enough anyway, we can trade and if anyone comes snooping I just pull a blanket over me and pretend to be asleep.”
“Good enough.” Brann yawned. “Let’s switch blankets.” She yawned again. “Just as well we’re not going up in the morning. I need sleep.”
6
Night.
A gale wind blowing across the marshes, a dry chill wind that cut to the bone.
The Wounded Moon was down, a smear of high cloud dimmed the star-glitter and a thick fog boiled up from the marshwater.
Brann sat wrapped in blankets, staring at the faint red glow from the dying fire, waiting for Jaril to return. A great horned owl fought the wind, laboring in large sweeps toward the top of the Rock; he angled across the wind, was blown past his point of aim, clawed his way back, gained a few more feet, was blown back, dipped below the rim of the Rock into the ragged eddies around the friable sandstone, climbed again and finally found a perch on the lee side of the Sihbaraburj.
Jaril shifted to a small lemur form with dexterous hands and handfeet and a prehensile tail. Driven by all the needs that churned in him, he crawled into a weep-hole and went skittering through the maze of holes that drained the place, provided ventilation and housed the mirrors that lit the interior of the made-mountain. He shifted again to something like a plated centipede, and went scuttling at top speed through the wall tubes to the junkroom where he’d seen the little glass frog. He hadn’t been back since that first day, no point in alerting Amortis if she wasn’t aware of what she had. He tried not to wonder if the thing was still there, but his nerves were strung so taut he felt like exploding. On and on he trotted, his claws tick-ticking on the brick.
He thrust his head into the room. The gloom inside was thicker than the dust, he couldn’t see a thing. He closed his foreclaws on the edge of the hole, fought for control of the tides coursing through him. Preoccupied with his internal difficulties, for several minutes he didn’t notice an appreciable lightening in that gloom. When he looked round again, he saw a faint glow coming from the shelf where he’d seen Churrikyoo. He shifted hastily to his glowsphere form and drifted over to it.
Having rid itself of dust, the talisman was pulsing softly, as if it said: come to me, take me. Jaril hung in midair, all his senses alert. He felt for the presence of a god. Nothing. He drifted closer. Nothing. Closer. Warmth enfolded him. Welcome. The little glass frog seemed to be grinning at him. He extruded two pseudopods and lifted it from the shelf. It seemed to nestle against him as if it were coming home. He didn’t understand. He glanced at the shelf and nearly dropped the frog.
A patch of light was shifting and shaping itself into something… something… yes, a duplicate of the thing he held.
Jaril looked down. Churrikyoo nestled in the hollows of his pseudopods and he seemed to hear silent laughter from it that went vibrating through his body. He looked at the shelf. The object was dull and lifeless, covered with a coat of dust. He gave a mental shrug, slipped the frog into the pouch he’d built for it and flitted for the hole.
He shifted form and went skittering up the worm holes, a pregnant pseudocentipede. Now and then he stopped and scanned, every sense straining, searching for any sign of alarm. Nothing, except the frog chuckling inside him, nestling in a womblike warmth.
He wriggled out of a weep-hole and shifted again as he fell into the wind. Broad wings scooping, he fought the downdraft that flowed like water along the brick; there was a moment when he thought he was going to impale himself on the spearpoints of the walkway fence, but a sudden gust of wind caught him and sent him soaring upward, carrying him over the outer wall. He regained control and went slipping swiftly to the cell where Brann was waiting.
##
Brann looked up as Jaril landed with a thud, changed. “Did you?”
He patted his stomach, gave her an angelic smile. “I’d show you but…”
“Right.” She rubbed at her neck. “I’m going to get some sleep. Barge leaves at first light. Wake me, will you, luv?”
7
The barge slid smoothly, ponderously down the river, considerably faster than it came up, riding the current, not towed behind eight plodding oxen. The deck passengers were quiet as they left Havi Kudush, tired, drained, even a little depressed-because they hadn’t got what they wanted, or because they had. There were two Mutri-mabs aboard, but they huddled in blankets, as morose as the most exhausted pilgrim.
Brann and Jaril had a place near the middle of the deck where they were surrounded by pilgrims; it was a fragile shield, probably useless if Amortis came looking, but the best they could do. Brann held aloof from the rest, concern-ing herself with her invalid son. That concern wasn’t only acting; she was worried about Jaril. He’d lost all his tensions. She didn’t understand that. Some, yes. They had what they’d come to get. Keeping it was something else. Nothing was sure until the exchange was actually made. He was relaxed, drowsy, limp as a contented cat; it was as if the talisman were a drug pumping through his body, nulling out everything but itself. His dreamy lassitude became more pronounced as the days passed.
Late in the afternoon of the third day, a gasp blew across the deck.
Golden Amortis came striding across the Tark with a flutter of filmy draperies, her hair blowing in a wind imperceptible down among the mortal folk. A thousand feet of voluptuous womanflesh glowing in the golden afternoon.
Brann huddled in her robes and veil, grinding her teeth in frustration. It was obvious Amortis had missed her talisman and was coming for it; no doubt the copy it’d made of itself had melted into the light and air it had come from. Jaril slipped his hand into hers; he leaned into her side, whispered, “Don’t worry, mama.”
Don’t worry! Brann strangled on the burst of laughter she had to swallow. Not real laughter, more like hysteria. She closed her eyes and tried not to think. But she couldn’t stand not seeing what was happening, even if it was disaster coming straight for her, so she opened them again. Bending down to Jaril, she muttered, “Could you build that bridge without Yaro?” The first time they’d clashed with Amortis, Yaril and Jaril had merged into a sort of siphon linking Brann with the god; once the connection was established, Brann sucked away a good portion of the god’s substance and vented it into the clouds; they’d scared Amortis so badly she’d run like a rat with its tail on fire.