Excerpts

The Weathermonger

Book One of The Changes Trilogy

"Would it help if Jeff stopped the rain?" said Sally.

The two men looked at him, and he realized he would have to try. He reached up under his jersey, under his left arm, and pulled out the rolled robe. He unrolled it and hung it over the back of a chair while he took his jersey off. Then he put the robe on. Odd how familiar the silly garment felt, as a knight's armour must, or a surgeon's mask, something they'd worn as a piece of professional equipment every time they did their job. He opened the casement and leaned his hand on the sill, staring at the sky. He did not feel sure he could do it; the power in him seemed weak, like a radio signal coming from very far away. He felt for the clouds with his mind.

From above they were silver, and the sun trampled on them, ramming his gold heels uselessly into their clotting softness. But there were frail places in the fabric. Push now, sun, here, at this weakness, ram through with a gold column, warming the under air, hammering it hard, as a smith hammers silver. Turn now, air, in a slow spiral, widening, a spring of summer, warmth drawing in more air as the thermal rises to push the clouds apart, letting in more sun to warm the under-air. Now the fields steam, and in the clouds there is a turning lake of blue, a turning sea, spinning the rain away. More sun...

"He always goes like that," said Sally. "We never know when to wake him."

In the streets the humps of the cobbles were already dry, and the lines of water between them shone in the early evening light. The café proprietor on the far side of the basin was pulling down was pulling down a blue and red striped awning with CINZANO written on it.

Eva

Winner of the 2008 Phoenix Award.

The door opened and shut, and Mum was standing by the bed. She was pale. Her mass of hair was a mess, with a lot of grey showing in the glossy black. There were hard lines down beside her nostrils. She looked as though she hadn't slept for a year. Her smile wasn't real.

"Hello, my darling," she whispered. "I'm sorry I'm late. How are you today?"

She bent and kissed Eva on her numb forehead. A strand of her hair trailed across Eva's face. It didn't tickle, because the face was numb too, but Eva automatically closed that eye to let it pass. Mum turned away to fetch the tall stool so that she could sit by the bed where Eva could see her direct. Eva's eyelids still moved rather sluggishly, so she didn't open the shut one at once.

Hey!

She opened it and closed the other one. Then the first again. Mum had come back now and slid her hand under the bedclothes to grasp Eva's own hand.

"What are you doing, you funny girl.?"

Eva answered the cool grip with a squeeze, but she could feel Mum's jumpiness, and hear the false note in the lightness she tried to put into her voice. Her hand was wrong too. Too small. Deep in the nightmare now Eva stared up into Mum's questioning eyes. They were wrong too, something different about the colour. She forced herself to close one eye again, and then the other, squinting inwards as she did so.

Her nose was gone.

Most of the time you don't see your nose at all, but if you shut one eye and look sideways there it is, that fuzzy hummock, too close to focus. It was gone. At the lower rim of vision she could see the vague blur of a cheek and at the top the darker fringe of an eyebrow, much more noticeable -- much more there -- that it used to be...

Mum wasn't even pretending to smile now.

Eva closed both eyes and willed the nightmare into day. The accident. Her whole face must have got so badly smashed that they couldn't rebuild it, or not yet, anyway. They were keeping it numb so that it didn't hurt. Her jaw and mouth must be so bad that she wouldn't be able to speak properly for ages -- never perhaps -- so they'd made her her voice-box instead. They didn't want her to see herself in the mirror...

She wriggled her fingers out of Mum's grip and slowly found the right keys. No point in fussing with tones. She pressed the "Speak" bar.

"Let me see," said her voice, dead flat.

"Darling..." croaked Mum.

A whisper rustled in the speaker by her ear. She stopped to listen. Eva pressed out another message. "Let me see. Or I'll go mad. Wondering."

"She's right," said Mum to the air. "No, it's too late... No."

The murmur started again. Eva gripped Mum's hand again and closed her eyes. Why was the hand so small? Had her own hand... The thumb was all wrong! Why hadn't she noticed? It was...

Without her touching the eyes the mirror-motor whined. She kept her eyes closed until it stopped.

"I love you, darling," said Mum. "I love you."

Eva willed her eyes to open.

For an instant all she seemed to see was nightmare. Mess. A giant spider-web, broken and tangled on the pillows with the furry black body of the spider dead in the middle of it. And then the mess made sense.

She closed her right eye and watched the brown left eye in the mirror close as she did so. The web -- it wasn't broken -- was tubes and sensor-wires connecting the machines around the bed to the pink-and-black thing in the centre. She stared. Her mind wouldn't work. She couldn't think, only feel -- feel Mum's tension, Mum's grief, as much as her own amazement. Poor Mum -- her lovely blue-eyed daughter... Must do something for Mum. She found the right keys.

"OK," said her voice. "It's OK, Mum."

"Oh, my darling," said Mum, and started to cry. That was OK too. Mum cried easily, usually when the worst was over. Eva stared at the face in the mirror. She'd recognized it at once, but couldn't give it a name. Then it came. Carefully she pressed the keys. She used the tone control to sound cheerful.

"Hi, Kelly," said her voice.

Kelly was -- had been -- a young female chimpanzee.

The Dancing Bear

Night came soft and cloudless over the unvarying plain. The river moved all with one movement, without wave or ripple, black as the pupil of an eye but streaked with reflected stars. They were too far from either bank to hear it fidgeting with the reeds.

The raft people lit lanterns and turned themselves inward, walling off the indifferent dark with their backs. The rectangle became a village square, noisy with disputes and reeking with the cookery of eight nations. The journey down the river had begun as soon as the ice melted and had passed the known dangers, the wild robbers of the hinterland and the roaring waters of the Iron Gates. Now it was floating peacefully to its end and the raft people were in high spirits. Silvester felt at home among them, loving the shouting and the bustle and the sheer crowdedness after those lonely hillsides.

The Alans -- tall, skinny men who never looked straight at you when they spoke -- brought out their sick friend and laid him on one of the planked areas, naked except for a loincloth and shuddering with his fever. Silvester led Bubba over and showed her the man; she sniffed at him and slumped down with her back to him. The Alans began to shout at Silvester.

"They are asking how much money she wants to take the fever from the man," said the merchant. The joy of a hard bargain, and nothing to lose, rose strong in Silvester.

"Half a solid," he said.

The merchant translated, grinning. The Alans threw up their hands and yelled in dismay. The sick man sat up and croaked that his life wasn't worth half a solid.

"He is the interested party," explained the merchant. "He will have to repay the others whatever they agree to. They suggest the forequarters of a suckling pig which they bought in the town."

"Well," said Silvester as loftily as if he'd been freeborn, "you had better tell them to cover their friend up. This is going to take time."

In the end the bargain was struck at the whole suckling pig, plus a tiny piece of amber and an iron Alan dagger almost half the size of a real sword, but the last two only to be given if the man's fever improved. This struck Silvester as fair, as he had no notion whether Bubba could be persuaded to walk on the man, and his little honeypot was almost down to its last scrapings.

Bubba took some time to get the idea. Silvester played the tune and she danced, grinning, while the raft people shouted their appreciation. He rewarded her with half the honey, spread thin on a crust, then led her to the man, but when the Alans twitched his furs off him she sniffed at him, as though she thought he didn't appreciate good dancing. Silvester heaved her front paw off the ground and put it on the man's chest. The Alans grunted encouragement; but Bubba just stood there, looking around the ring of raft people with one foot on the body, as though she were a mighty hunter and the Alan some creature she had just killed.

When Silvester tried to life her other forepaw onto the man she nudged him with her muzzle and sent him sprawling. Silvester spread the last of the honey on another crust and gave it to Holy John, who stationed himself at the sick man's head. He himself took Bubba around to the feet, positioned her as best he could and then started to play the old tune on the black flute. Bubba rose and started her dance, hesitant and baffled, knowing that she was expected to perform some trick but not knowing what. But at least there was the honey, and she might as well dance toward it, so she began to edge up outside the man's left leg. Holy John moved the bait the other way, so that she had to cross the torso to reach it. For five whole steps she teetered on the insecure footing of belly and chest while the patient bellowed with her weight and the other Alans shouted. Then she reached her reward and sat down, looking around the audience with the old, sly look while she licked her chops and the Alans wrapped their friend up and hurried him into the darkness of their reed-thatched wigwam.

Silvester was beginning to relax, and his saliva to stream at the thought of roast suckling pig, when a hand touched him on the shoulder. It was the raft captain.

"Bear is healing my mother," he said in his awful pidgin Greek, all smattered with the gutterals of the forest. Silvester made an astonished noise, but the raft captain stood nodding in the lantern light, square and humorless, then swung away like a bullock and ducked into the dark space under the little platform from which he controlled the raft. A minute later he came crawling out with what looked like a bundle of expensive furs in his arms.

A new noise pierced the dark, the unmistakable shrill rattle of an old woman cursing. When the raft captain laid his bundle on the deck Silvester saw that she was indeed very old, bent double with arthritis, but with brilliant eyes. The curses emerged through a thick veil over her nose and mouth.

"Is bended," explained the raft captain, poking her with his toe. "All crooked, see? Stuck. Not showing our women to strangers, my people, but for bear to walk on, showing. Yes!"

"But Bubba's so heavy! She'll kill her!"

"Is good. My mother is old. Time for dying."

Silvester's dismay must have shown on his face, and then been disbelieved.

"Not paying you enough, huh?" shouted the raft captain. "Listening to me, bear-thief! Bear is walking on my mother, or I am landing you on bank. South bank."

Silvester wanted to explain, but the raft captain was too angry to listen. He snatched the flue and thrust it at Silvester's face. Bubba had already been growing to hear her master so spoken to, and now she came lurching toward the raft captain, heavy and dangerous; all Silvester could think of was to take the flute and blow. Bubba snorted with surprise, stopped her attack, remembered the taste of honey and rose to her feet.

Perhaps she didn't see the old woman. Perhaps she thought it was only a few furs lying on the deck. At any rate she danced to and fro across her, stepping on her several times, while the old woman shrieked and hooted and the raft captain yelled to his friends to come and watch his mother being killed, or cured, as the case might be. The raft people jeered at the old woman's shrieks. Silvester stopped playing as soon as he dared, and when Bubba sat down all he had to give her for reward was the honeypot, at which she licked contentedly enough. Meanwhile the raft captain stood in the middle of the lantern light, grinning so that all his huge teeth gleamed, and holding in his arms the inert body of his mother. There was no telling whether she was alive or dead, but the raft captain seemed satisfied with either result, because her tongue was still and he could waggle her fragile limbs to and fro to show everyone how easily the joints now moved.

Not everyone slept well that night. Bubba had got it into her head that her new trick was supposed to be walking on inert forms lying on the deck, and that if she did this she might be given honey. Several men woke yelling under her enormous weight, until Silvester chained her on too short a chain to reach any sleepers.

The Blue Hawk

Tron heard a click, and a stir of movement as the Keeper took a pace forward and out of Tron's sight-line. A carved slab of the rear wall vanished, becoming a slot of dark out of which stepped the King, with the Eye of Gdu gleaming on his forehead. The General gave a yap of surprise, but the priests seemed not even to murmur.

"By ancient treaty and by the Red Speak I will come to your aid," said the King slowly. He added a stumbling sentence in the language of Falathi to which Onu Ovalaku replied, then he too moved out of Tron's sight-line. From the darkness of the Room of Days and Years Tron heard a faint shuffling sound.

"Where is the Red Spear, my Lord General?" said the King's voice.

"Majesty, they burnt it," the General burst out.

"The Gods rejected the stranger's sacrifice," said the One of O. "He is accursed, and accursed too are all who have helped him. The General has just said with his own lips..."

"I heard what he said," snapped the King. "He said that the Red Spear Treaty had nothing to do with your gods And he was right. It is a treaty under the shield of the Lord Sinu. It is a matter for the One of Sinu. Why is he not here? Where is he?"

In the silence Tron heard again the noise of the blind old man being dragged forward through the Room of Days and Years. Now he could see an orange crack down the outer door of the cell, where torchlight struck. He felt the urgency of keeping up the momentum of the King's attack, or not giving the priests time to consult or to argue. Quickly he crossed the cell, opened the outer door, recrossed the room and threw his weight against the slab of stone. It gave more easily than he was prepared for, so that he almost fell sprawling as he stumbled through. For an instant the whole room stared at him, and then their eyes switched away beyond.

They looked from light through darkness and into light where, under one flaring torch, four red-robed men came slowly down the Room of Days and Years. The priests supporting the One of Sinu tried to hurry his pace, so that his bald yellow head flopped heavily from side to side as he came. His mouth opened and shut ceaselessly like the beak of a sick hawk. His eyes blinked stickily, and when the weary lids were raised the film of grey across the eyeballs reflected lamplight and torchlight, so that they gleamed like a jackal's in the dark. The lion-headed staff of his office had been lashed to his left hand and its end scraped uselessly along the floor. While the others in the room stared, Tron slipped unnoticed to the King's side.

"He's been drugged," he whispered. "Leopard-flower. They sent a priest of Aa, but we caught him. He hadn't finished. He killed himself. I don't know how long the drug will last."

The King nodded, frowning. The priests' faces showed no sign of surprise or doubt. There were only four of them in the room -- the Ones of O and Aa, the Mouth of Silence and the Keeper of the Rods. They waited in calm patience until the shuffling procession reached the lamplight, and then the One of O stepped blandly forward.

"Welcome, my brother," he said to the blind, stupefied old man. "The Gods have brought you in a good hour, as we have need of your knowledge. Send your helpers away. This room is for the Major Priests alone."

The blue lips of the One of Sinu continued their meaningless gaping. Tanta stepped forward.

"My Lords," he said harshly, "The order of Sinu comes to demand by what right..."

"We do not hear you," said the One of O coldly. "Only Major Priests have a voice in this room."

"...by what right," shouted Tanta, heedless, "you have my master drugged so that the King should not hear the hymn of the Red Spear Treaty?"

"Now it's out!" said the King eagerly. "How does the hymn go, Revered Lord?"

"Let them send from the south

From beyond..."

Tanta stopped short, staring at the One of Aa who with three dance-like strides had moved to face him. As the swirl of black robes settled the pearl-pale hands floated upwards.

"Shall my master curse you with his lips, then?" whispered the Mouth of Silence.

Chill seemed to seep out of the stonework, up from the earth, down from the dark of Aa, filling the lamplit room. Tanta hesitated, licked his lips and took a pace backwards. Slowly, with the wavering movement of dead things sinking through water, the hands of the One of Aa sank back to his sides.

"Now," said the One of O, "you will settle your master in that chair and leave."

"One moment," said the King, moving forward. "Or will you curse a king rather than let him speak to a Major Priest?" I fear that kind woman, but I am not afraid of you, Revered Lords."

They all waited until he was standing face to face with the blind priest.

"Sinu," he said gently. "The Red Spear Treaty. Let them send from the south."

The old man's filmed eyes blinked slowly, and his mouth stopped its yawning for a moment and shut tight.

"My brother of Sinu knows of no such hymn," said the One of O. "Therefore this Red Spear Treaty is nothing more than a stratagem to allow the King to raise his levies against the will of the Gods. It is as we thought from the first, my brothers."

Tron stared at the old man, hopeless and despairing. Only the Lord Gdu could break the chain of the drug and free the imprisoned will, and He was far away. Shadowy in his mind Tron formed a picture of the Blue Hawk, his contact with the God, as he had first seen it, drowsy like the One of Sinu, sick and bedraggled. The picture became firmer, became like a living bird in the dark room.

"Let them send from the south, Sinu," said the King. "Let them send from the south."

The One of Sinu swayed and tried to draw his arms free from his supporters. His head jerked erect, lolled and straightened again. The spittle down his chin became a steady stream. His lips began to move. The words were slurred into a dull mumble, only just interpretable.

"Let them send from the south
From beyond the peaks
A rider with a speak
Strung like a bow
One strike for each people
Bound at the tip
With flamingo feathers
Tan's holy bird.
Then, then must the Horn
Of War be sounded.
The breath of Sinu
Must fill the Kingdom
That the King may call
His levies to muster
And ride to war
Through the Pass of Gebindrath."

As he ended, one bony old hand rose and feebly tried to wipe the saliva from his chin.

"How deep the hymns root," said the Mouth of Silence in an awed mutter.

The Tears of the Salamander

He settled in the window, looking east across the strait. The sun had passed behind the house, but still lit the long slope below him, and the baked earth poured its warmth back into the slow wind that swept up from the sea. Other boys might have found its heat too much to bear, but for Alfredo it was strength, life, hope. He felt he was actually in the presence of those angels of fire of whom Uncle Giorgio had spoken, invisible but there, riding the hot wind. If the chant was for them, surely he could learn to sing it.

A memory sidled into his mind. The harbour at home. Alfredo minding the donkey while Father inspected flour, feeling into the sack, running the fine, yellowish powder through his fingers, raising a palmful to his nose to sniff. The flour was of an expensive Moroccan wheat. The ship was from Tangier, very different from the French and Spanish vessels that mostly traded into this port, lower in the water and with a vast, striped sail that now hung furled in sagging bundles from one long spar. There was a young man sitting cross-legged in the bows, pattering on a drum in his lap while he sang in a high nasal wail, rapid repetitive notes tailing away into longer ones sung with a curious gargling tremolo. Alfredo didn't think Morocco was anywhere near Persia, and the sailor's song wouldn't have fitted the notes he'd been staring at, but he could see at once that if he'd needed to write that song down this was how he'd have tried to do it. It was the same kind of music.

Tentatively he tried it out, la-la-la, feeling foolish, knowing he was nowhere near the music he was supposed to be singing, or anyone would want to listen to, let alone believe he could conjure the Angels of Fire with. When the choir had been learning something new, singing it la-la-la, the music had never seemed to come alive for him till they'd started to fit the words in. Even these impossible words might be better than la-la-las. Without any hope at all he gave it a go.

The notes slid smoothly out of his throat and his mouth shaped them into something like the mysterious syllables. And in a moment they were there, the Angels of Fire, visible presences, soaring like hawks in the steadily rising air. Their bodies were great embers, rippling with inner heat. They had the faces of lions, maned around with flame, and their wings were plumed with flame. Their glances were the lightning that sparks the drought-parched hills ablaze.

Terrified, remembering what had almost happened when he had sung the fire psalm on the crater of Etna, Alfredo closed his lips and clamped both hands across them. Instantly the breeze was once again empty air. Shuddering despite the heat he retreated into the room. What had he done? Was it too late to undo it? Uncle Giorgio would know, but... Did he dare face that cold anger, and tell him. Yes, he decided, he must. When he reached the study he had to force his hand to scratch at the door. Uncle Giorgio called, and he pushed it open. It was just as bad as he'd feared.

"What is this? I said I would send for you."

"Please, Uncle... I may have... I saw them... the Angels of Fire... when I sang the words..."

The anger vanished, leaving only the coldness, the aloneness.

"You have learnt the chant already?"

"Only the first line. It was there. In my mouth. In my head. I don't know what the words mean, but the music... I'd heard this sailor... the ship was from Tangier..."

Uncle Giorgio cut him short with a gesture.

"Some there have the Knowledge," he said, "though theirs is of the sea. Tell me what you did and what you saw."

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