Sheri S. Tepper - Jinian 02 - Dervish Daughter.pdf

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Dervish Daughter
Sheri S. Tepper
CHAPTER ONE
Just across the chasm from the town ofZoga bunch of
wild brats with crossbows - and poisoned arrows, to
add to the general sense of fun - had given us quite a
run. We'd barely gotten away from them with our skins
whole.
There had been constant storm damage blocking the
roads, continuous sullen clouds, and a threatening
mutter of sentient-seeming thunder.
I had a huge, aching lump on my forehead from not
being quick enough ducking into the wagon during the
hail storm four days before. Hail the size of goose eggs!
Add to that the remains we kept finding along the
way, more and more of them as we went farther north.
Human remains, mostly, and the yellow dream crystals
that had killed them.
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Throw in the fact we'd been driving two days and
nights without sleep, dodging shadow, which seemed
to be everywhere.
Then season the whole horrid mess with a harsh
scream as a night bird plummeted across the moonlit
sky screeching, 'Lovely dead meat, not even rotten yet!'
I understood it as easily as though it had been
shouted at me by some old dame in the underbrush.
The bird's cry said 'human meat,' not some luckless
zeller killed by a pombi's claws. I put my hand over
Queynt's where they lay on the reins.
He snapped out of his doze, immediately alert, as I
reached beneath the wagon seat for my bow. 'More
trouble ahead,' I said wearily, nocking an arrow.
Queynt yawned, giving my bow a doubtful look.
Though he had been teaching me to shoot with the
stated intention of providing for the pot, my inability to
hit anything smaller than a gnarlibar had become a
joke. They had begun to call natural landmarks that
were suitably huge a 'good target for Jinian.' The
problem was that I couldn't shoot anything that talked
to me. Oh, if someone else shot it, I could eat it, and if
something came at me with unpleasant intent, I was
able to kill it readily enough no matter what it was
saying. Bunwits and zeller and tree rats, however, were
safe from my arrows so long as they said good morning
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politely. I hadn't discussed this with Queynt, though I
thought he suspected it.
He glanced down, then back into the wagon where
his Wizard's kit was. I knew he was considering getting
out his own bow or taking time to set a protection
spell, evidently deciding against it. We'd learned to
trust the instincts of Yittleby and Yattleby in times of
danger, and neither of the two tall krylobos pulling the
wagon seemed overly disturbed. Their beaks were
forward, their eyes watchful as we came around a curve
at the crest of a hill, but neither of them showed any
agitation. We came out of the jungle at the top of a
long, sloping savannah, dotted with dark, crouching
bushes and half-lit by a gibbous moon. I could see all
the way to the bottom of the hill where the forest
started again and two twinkling lanterns, amber and
red, moved among the trees near the ground. That had
to be Peter and Chance. They'd been riding ahead and
had evidently found something, disturbing the bird at
the time. Queynt clucked to the krylobos, and we
began the slow descent toward the lanterns with him
looking remarkably alert for such an old man.
Vitior Vulpas Queynt is over a thousand years old.
Everything I have learned about him indicates this is
really true and not some mere bit of rodomontade. He
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hadn't made a special point of claiming to be that old,
mind you; it simply came out as we went along. Peter
and I had met him a couple of years before, or rather,
he had picked us up on the road - he and his
remarkable tall-wheeled wagon and the two huge birds
that pulled it. He had picked us up and made use of us
and we of him, all in a fit of mutual suspicion, and
when it was over we found ourselves quite fond of one
another. And the birds, too, of course. Krylobos are
very large - tailless, as are all native creatures of this
world, with plumy topknots and somewhat irascible
tempers. They like me since I can talk to them, and I
like them because they dislike the same things I do.
Bathing in very cold water, for example. Or eating fruit
that isn't quite ripe. They don't have teeth to set on
edge, but the expression around their beaks is quite
sufficient to evoke sympathy.
Which is beside the point. Queynt has a fondness for
fantastical dress and ornamental speech and enjoys
being thought a fool. He says he learns a great deal that
way. He is an explorer at heart, so he has said, and
exploring is what he and Peter and Chance and I had
been doing for some time. He is the only person to
whom Chance has ever given unstinting admiration. So
Peter says, who has known Chance far longer than I.
This admiration is more understandable in that
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Vitior Vulpas Queynt and Chance much resemble each
other. Both are brown, muscular men who look a little
soft without being so at all. Both are jolly-appearing
men who seem a little stupid and aren't. And both have
quantities of common sense. As for the rest of it, Queynt
is a Wizard of vast experience and education, while
Chance is an ex-sailor with a fondness for gambling
who was hired to bring Peter up safely and did so -
more or less. Both of them have had a certain tutelary
role in our lives. Peter's and mine, and truth to tell, I
like them both mightily. Even on an occasion like this,
when weariness made it hard to be fond of anyone.
We approached the lanterns. A faint sweetish smell
told me everything I wanted to know about it before
we got there. More dream crystal deaths.
Before we ever started on this trip - after theBattleof
the Bones on the Wastes of Bleer it was, when we were
all remarkably glad merely to be alive - I had known
about dream crystals. My un-mother (the woman who
bore me but did not conceive me, if that makes sense)
had had at least one. It had led her into ruin and ended,
I supposed, by killing her. My much hated enemy,
Porvius Bloster, had had one, and it had done him no
good at all except to make him exceed his limitations
and bring destruction upon his Demesne. Even girls at
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