Free Liavek 1 by Emma Bull, Will Shetterly Page B

died—and the houses on Wizard's Row that appear and disappear, what are they hiding? Where do they go? Nowhere clean, nowhere alive—ah, Ondur..."
    Ondur shuddered in Reykja's arms, her face hidden against the coarse blackness of unbound hair. But Reykja sat up straighter and her eyes gleamed as if with fever. "It's true, Ondur, you know it is. Liavck is built on blood and magic, both! The S'Rians who were here first and enslaved. and the horrible magicians of the Church of Truth squatting all over the city trying to lure victims inside, victims like Kalum—gods! It is magic that is the enemy, lying in wait to suck in Kalum, unnatural, unclean ."
    Ondur gasped as if she were drowning. "Marithana Govan, on the Street of the Dreamers...She uses her magic for healing...."
    But Reykja was beyond hearing. She spoke in a rush of new-minted hatred, on and on: all the old stories of pain in the world. And in her telling, invested luck and the wizards who used it were the cause. Deformed infants, pestilence, murderous priests, children sold into bond, all the cruelties of men to men. She could not stop herself. The words poured out like molten glass, settling around her, solidifying in the air into shards hard and brittle and bright. In her arms Ondur cowered. Reykja ranted on, and with each word Ondur could feel the hard glassy brightness grow sharper, while sunlight danced on the mosaic of colored buildings and green copper roofs of Liavek below. Minutes passed, more minutes, nearly an hour. Still the two girls remained rigid on the roof, Reykja bolt upright and ranting, ranting, Ondur shuddering in her arms, every word a jab. Magic evil. Magic greedy. Magic twisted, magic enslaving and devouring, magic that had killed Kalum.
    "It was the magic," Reykja said finally, hoarsely, hard with glassy brittleness. "The magic."
    Ondur whimpered. Kalum's grandfather's ring, on its string around her neck, lay crushed against her breast by the rigid grip of Reykja's arms.
    •
    Reykja's birthday fell on a Moonday in the month of Buds, six weeks and a day after Kalum's. Her mother's labor had started at dawn and been long and hard; in the end she had died of it, moments after her squalling bloody girl infant had kicked into the world feet first. All this Ondur knew. She had heard Kalum and Reykja speak of it often. It was the reason, Kalum had whispered to Ondur as she lay with her head pressed against his chest, that he was studying the magic, and not Reykja. He was afraid for her to do it. A mother's death is a fearful price for birth luck. And Reykja, he had said painfully, was too...flighty. She was like a dark bird. Even for a wizard standing within the required three paces of his vessel, magic was mostly a question of strength of will, of stubbornly fastening onto an outcome and holding on. Reykja, Kalum had said, skimmed along, always in flight. She could not have become a magician.
    Ondur wondered how Kalum, whom she loved, could not know that the strongest talons belonged to the birds with the highest flights.
    "Stay indoors today," Ondur said when Reykja came into the kitchen on her birthday. It was a little past dawn. Ondur had been doing the breakfast work—both their work—for nearly an hour.
    "So no ill luck will befall me in my birthday hours?" Reykja said mockingly. She wore boots and the loose, concealing cloak which both of them had worn to steal coins for Kalum's lessons.
    "So no ill magic will befall you, yes," Ondur echoed.
    "Camel droppings. You're afraid of the luck I may cause, not the luck that may happen to me. Aren't you, Ondur?"
    "I feel ill, Reykja. Stay here and help me with this work."
    "You are never ill. Why is that, Ondur? Why are you never ill?"
    Ondur did not answer. She bent over mortar and pestle to grind more breakfast grain, and her white hair fell forward over her face in a thick veil.
    "I asked you a question, Ondur. Did you hear me ask you a question? I asked why you are never ill!"
    "I am