Blue Magic

He drew the ball of his thumb across the mirror. “Show thou.” As a scene began to develop within the oval, he dropped into a sagging armchair, shifted about until he was comfortable, propped his feet on a rail under the table,and laced his long dark fingers over his solid stomach.

Kori watched white sails belly out against black water, black sky, and lost any urge to laugh when she saw the towering figure of the god come striding across the sea.

Squawling threats, Amortis vanished. The gold arc broke apart. The translucent shell dissolved. The sea smoothed out. The boat came round and sliced once more toward Haven Cove.

“Well.” Settsimaksimin pushed his chair back and stood looking down at her. Kori couldn’t read anything but weariness and regret in his heavy face, but she was terrified. Helpless. No place to run. Nothing she could say would change what they’d just seen. All she could do was hold the rags of her dignity about her and endure whatever he planned for her.

He loomed over her, leaned down; very gently, a feather’s touch wouldn’t be softer, he brushed his thumb across her mouth. “Speak thou,” he murmured. “What have you done and how? Why have you done it?”

She struggled to resist, but it was like being caught in the river, carried on without effort on her part. The story tumbled out of her: Tre’s peril, Harra’s Legacy, the Cave of the Chained God, Toma and the medal, Daniel Akamarino, the Blue Seamaid and all that happened there, what Brann organized to get her home unseen (she fell silent a moment and stared as he burst out laughing. I stopped watching, he said to her, before any of that went on. All that effort wasted), the Chained God’s command to come to Isspyrivo, take the chains off him, return with him to destroy the talisman that Settsimaksimin was using agairist a god.

When she finished and fell silent, he brushed her lips a second time with his thumb, stepped back. He pointed at the bench. “Bring that. There.” He pointed at the center of a complex of silver lines, a five-pointed star inside a circle with writing and other symbols scattered about it, within the pattern and without; he didn’t wait to see her do it, but whipped away, robe billowing about him as he strode to another corner; he came back with a long, decorated staff. He looked her over, nodded with satisfaction, tapped the silver circle with the butt of the staff. The wire began to glow. “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t cross the line. There will be dangerous things beyond the pentacle; you can’t see them and you don’t want to feel them. You hear me?”

“Yes.”

He stopped beside a second small pentacle, activated that, moved to the largest. There was an odd looking chair in it, big, made from a dark wood with tarry streaks in it, his chair, even before he settled into it, its shape suggested him, she could see him sitting in it, his massive arms resting in the carved hollows in the chair’s arms, his long strong feet fitting in the hollows of the footboard. He stepped across the dull gray lines, smoothed his hands over his hair, tucking in the short straggles that made a black and pewter halo for his face. With a complicated pass of his flattened hand, he wiped the wrinkles and dust smears from his robe, then he tapped the pentacle to life, climbed into the chair and settled_. himself into a proper majesty, the staff erect in its holders, rising over him, its wire inlay catching the light in slippery watery gleams. He turned his head to look directly at her (she was on his right off to one side), grinned and winked at her as if to say aren’t I fine, then faced forward and began intoning a chant, his voice filling the room with sound and beats of sound until her body throbbed in time with the pulses.

“PA OORA DELTHI NA HES HEYLIO PO LIN LEGO IMAN PHRO NYMA MEN

NE NE MOI GALANAS

TRE TRE TRAGO MEN.”

And as he chanted, he moved his hands in strange and disconcerting patterns; something about the gestures stirred her insides in ways that both terrified and fascinated her. She felt the power surging from him; in spite of her fear she found herself swept up in it, exulting in it (though she felt sick and shamed when she realized that)-it was like being outside, walking through an immense towering thunderstorm, winds teasing at her hair and clothes, thunder rumbling in her blood, lightning striding before her.

She gasped, jumped to her feet though she didn’t quite dare cross the lines. Tre” was in the other small pentacle, curled up on his side, deeply asleep, his fist pressed against his mouth. “What are you going to do to^-him,” she cried. “What are you going to do?”

Settsimaksimin sighed, the talisman glimmering as it rose and fell with the rise and fall of his chest. “Put him where his god can’t reach him, – he said; the residue of the chant made a derni chant of the simple words. “If I kill him, child, there’ll only be another taking his place, another and another until I have to kill everyone. So what’s the point. He’ll sleep and sleep and sleep…” He turned his head and smiled at her. “.

until you and only you, young Kori, until YOU come and touch him awake.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Wait. Watch.^- He straightened, closed his eyes a moment to regain his concentration, then began another chant.

“ME LE O I DETH O I ME LE OUS E THA NA TOL/ S

HIR RON TO RON DO MO PE LOOMAY LOOMAY DOMATONE

IDO ON TES HAY DAY THONE.”

His gestures began as wrapping turns. A shimmer formed about Tr6’s body, solidified into a semitransparent crystal; Trd was encased in that crystal like a fly in amber. The gestures changed, fluttered, ended as he brought his hands together in a loud clap. The crystal cube vanished.

“He has gone to his god,” Settsimaksimin said. “In a way.” He got to his feet, stood leaning against the chair looking wearier than death. “He is in the Cave of Chains. If you can get yourself there, Kori, all you have to do is touch the block of crystal. It will melt and the boy will wake. No one else can do this. No one, god or man. Only you. Do you understand?”

“No. Yes. What to do, yes. Why?”

He reached his arms high over his head, stretched, groaned with the popping of his muscles. “Incentive, Kori.” He dragged his hand across his face. “I want to save something out of this mess. I can’t save myself. Cheonea? All I can do is hope the seeds I’ve planted have sent down roots strong enough to hold it together when MY hand is gone. You’ve destroyed me, Kori. If I were the monster you think me, I’d kill you right now and send your souls to the worst hell I could reach. Instead…” he chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound, “I’m going to pay for your education.” He resettled himself in the chair, worked a lever on the side so that the back tilted at an angle and the footboard moved out. He was still mostly upright, but not so dominant as he had been.

A chant filled the room again, his voice was vibrant and wonderfully alive, none of the exhaustion she’d seen was present in that sound; power, discipline, elegance, beauty, those were in that sound. He was a stranger and her enemy, but she felt a deeper kinship with him now than with any of her blood kin. She felt like weeping, she felt empty, she felt the loss of something splendid she’d never find again. If it hadn’t been Tr6, if only it hadn’t been Tre.

The smaller pentacle filled again. A tall woman, gray hair dressed in a soft knot, a black silk robe tied loosely over a white shift. Thin face, austere, rather flat. Long narrow chocolate eyes, not friendly at the moment, were they ever? Thin mouth tucked into brackets. She glared at Settsimaksimin, then she relaxed and she smiled, affection for the man showing in her face. The chocolate eyes narrowed yet more into inverted smiles of their own. “You!” she said. Her voice had a magic like his, silvery, singing. “Why is it always the middle of the night?”