Drinker of Souls by Jo Clayton

Author:Jo Clayton [Clayton, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy
Published: 1986-04-21T20:00:00+00:00

THE KULA PRIEST came from the house and paced round and round the pyre with its festoons of silk flowers and painted paper chains and the paper wealth soaked in sweet oils to make a perfumed and painted fire. He waved his incense sticks and the sickly sweet perfume drifted on the breeze to Taguiloa. If funerals had not provided a steady income and a place to show his work, he’d have missed them all; the smell of the roasting meat, the sight of the earthsoul and skysoul oozing out of the coffin surrounded by that smell which the incense never quite covered twisted his stomach and made the inside of his bones itch.

The fire was crackling briskly as the Kula finished the final tensing round. He stepped back and chanted, binding the sparks into a web of light so there was no danger of the House or the Watchers catching fire.

Taguiloa sensed a presence and looked down. The blond boy was standing beside him, watching the show with amused interest. There was a companionable feel to the situation that made him want to relax and grin at the boy, ruffle his hair the way he hated to have done to him when he was a boy. He’d stopped being afraid of this maybe-demon, this changechild; he smiled at the boy and went back to watching the fire burn.

The shimmer that was the skysoul wriggled free and darted skyward like a meteor shooting up instead of down. The earth soul, a bent little man looking much as old uncle had looked in life, hovered near the pyre as if it didn’t have the strength to leave the meat that had housed it. After a while, though, it seemed to shrug its meager shoulders and begin a heavy drift upwards riding the streamers of smoke. The death was clean, the old man had nothing to complain of, there was no violence against the meat to hold the earthsoul down, a clear testament to the way Csermanoa performed his family duties.

As the fire began to die down, the party grew livelier. The servants came bustling about, replacing the plundered food trays, setting out new basins of steaming spiced wine, drawing the lamps down and replacing the candles in them; the joygirls were circling through the guests, teasing and laughing, cajoling sweets from the men, whispering in their ears. It was clearly time for the players to leave. He looked down. The child was gone. He watched a moment more, then edged around the walls of the summer court and went into the paper pavilion. Yarm had the gear packed and was curled up, dozing, beside it. He shook the boy awake, caught up his own pack and left Csermanoa’s compound by the servant’s entrance, the sleepy doorkeeper coming awake enough to hold out his hand for a tip. Feeling generous, ignoring Yarm’s scowl, Taguiloa dropped a dozen coppers in the palm; the broad beaming grin he got in return seemed worth the price.

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