Frank Giles
Dart competition. A strange concept. Foreign, complicated, human. Humans were like those brain fever victims whose thoughts grow more and more intricate and convoluted, until finally the shape of reality is obscured beneath a veil of strange details. It could be so simple. If clan mothers, assuming unruly humans listened to them, decided on war, there should be war. If the conflict was not so great, then why not sponsor a game. Real people, like Uz, solved almost all clan conflict this way. The party with the greater friends and wealth was sure to field the better team. If the underdog should win, then doubtless the Great Mother willed it so. In extremity, She could be consulted directly. Such an appeal had averted bloody civil more than once. But hiring outsiders to kill an opposing clan by stealth, then encumbering them with a hundred nonsensical Rules of Conflict? Foolish! A faint smile tugged at the corners of Tinglit's eyes. Lunatic!
He looked out throught the barred window. The garden and cloister below lay bleak under the pounding noon sun. One wall and the cloister arches were overgrown by a climbing vine, giving the unadorned yard a little pleasing texture. Everything else was very smooth and plain. Many little plants were scattered around in beds and pots. They, and the faint pattern on the cloister wall, probably had that quality called color, a strange subtlety so interesting to humans. In truth though, the yard was terribly drab. It was much more interesting to hunt than to look.
Tinglet shifted minutely to ease a stiff thigh and slid back into his hunt/forage mind.
Watch for prey.
Strike.
Search for food.
Eat.
Sleep.
He knew people who lived this way continually, emerging only for holy
days and markets. His clan were mainly hunters and thought nothing of it. But
he was different, driven to know, to see as much as he could of fate s design.
He could hardly stand to be away from the window. Still, hunt/forage could be
useful. Here in the little garret overlooking a rich man's garden in the city
of First Blessed, it was two-fold convenient. On one hand, none of the
guardian spirits he had shaman-seen had singled him out of the many vermin
hunters prowling the mansion. On the other, three rodents, two pigeons, a
spicy fungus and a nest of delicately flavored termites had eased an otherwise
long and hungry day.
Tinglet's speaking mind emerged with the setting of the sun. The
messenger who would be his signal to proceed should appear soon. In the
twilight, a woman carrying a short black spear approached the front of the
manse. The Dart had arrived. With one rapid motion Tinglet jerked the bronze
bars out of the window casing he'd gnawed away the night before and swung his
legs through. In an instant he was climbing down the trellised inner wall of
the tower into the master courtyard. Flowering vines concealed him from eyes
that needed light. Silently, he crossed the yard to the cloister, ran along it
to the exit arch and the large oak door. He paused a heartbeat to transfer his
mace from its sheath on his back to his mouth. Then, using fingertips and the
edges of his boots, he scaled backwards up the corner of the alcove and wedged
himself in; back to the ceiling, one boot gripping a minute projection from
one the arch stones, the other braced against the beam that crossed the
ceiling parallel to the arch. All was as the silk people had described. No,
wait. A sconce was fixed to the wall next to the door. A dilemma. He hadn't
watched the household enough to know when the lamp would be brought. Breaking
the sconce would be too risky. He would have to rely on darkness he brought
himself.
He slipped the thong of his mace over his left arm. His mace was of unusual design, made entirely of metal. He had found the it in the waste pit of a walktapus den many years before. He kept it partly because its slender design made it easy to carry, especially on days like this day. But more because it was enchanted to give the knowledge of a spell to strengthen the blows of blunt weapons to anyone who held it. Its head could be disassembled into six pieces each with a notched hole in the center that fit over the handle shaft. Three of the pieces were squares a palm s breadth wide and two fingers thick. They were made of bronze, that reddish metal, the bones of dead ancient gods, that was found in the earth all across the land. Two others were dark gray discs the same thickness as the squares, but not so wide. They were of a strange metal or alloy, heavy like lead, but not so soft. The last piece, the cap, was set in place by turning it down over a coiling groove cut into the top finger s breadth of the shaft and then held by a metal pin. A human in a distant tavern had once opined that the mace was Mostali. The manner in which that observation was made had led to a brawl that nearly destroyed the bar, but Tinglet basically agreed. Glad he was that it was not made of iron, the cursed dwarves poison metal.
He pulled the mace s thong up his arm until it hung securely. Focusing scan on the subtle engraving on the wide rhinoceros hide brace on his left wrist, he prepared his mind to work the spells he needed. Darkwall to keep his hiding place secret and Holdpatch to secure the door. Spells learned from the spirits were difficult and unpredictable. Tinglet divided his thoughts. His speaking mind rehearsed incantations and visualized the shape the darkwall should take. Hunt/forage listened for approaching prey. Like one of the silk people, he waited...
A sound...A hurried step beyond the door. He completed the gesture, and in his throat whispered the short final incantation. Success! A curved sheet of darkness formed below him, following the outline of the archstones. The upper portion of the alcove became a featureless black. From his side the darkwall looked like an infinitesimally thin veil of smoke. From the other side he knew it was as opaque as the night sky.
A few heartbeats later the door opened. It was a servant, a lamp and the black dart clenched in her white knuckled fist. Hasty, she hung the lamp in the sconce then hurried on toward the master's suite. Tinglet stared at the flame. So hateful, the light. But, the quarry might be alarmed by anything unusual. He forced himself to let it burn. An angry shout barked across the courtyard, then the sound of a blow. The darkwall still held when the servant returned to scurry unsteadily through the door. Fortunately she was well trained. Even with blood trickling down her face, she remembered to close it behind her.
Tinglet commanded one of his bound spirits to prepare his mace while he concentrated on the door. Spirits were the messengers that carried spells like Tinglet used from whatever distance source kept them. Through training and ritual one could learn to capture spell spirits, to overcome them, to take knowledge of the spell from them. As part of his quest to become a servant to the great mother and to the mother of the silk people, Tinglet had learned to summon many types of spirits who were fellowservants. He knew that shamen could summon and learn the names of all kinds of spirits. But he had never felt the call to enter their strange path and awaken his fetch, his spirit self. Also, shamen labored under many demands, perhaps more even than were laid on priestesses. Tinglet chafed too easily under obligation. It was burden enough to be a servant, but worth it to gain the greater knowledge and spells granted by the mothers.
The quarry was deliberate, or occupied. Tinglet had sufficient time to recast the holdpatch after the first attempt failed. Now, mace in hand, he focused his mind, his body on the attack, the blow. He felt fate gather around him. Whether he caught his prey or not, a new strand would grow in the web.
Firm steps approached. The heft of his mace changed as his bound spirit finished its spell. The mace was no heavier to swing, but for a short time it would be harder to block or deflect. Now the master of the house stood beneath him. Tinglet visualized the mace crashing through the crown of that bald head. The quarry paused with one hand on the door latch, puzzled that it didn t move at his pull. The instant of hesitation was Tinglets time. Like a shadow he dropped to the floor behind the prey, swinging the mace as soon as his boots met the pavement.
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