Then they were on a vast field, with scattered bodies and parts of bodies lying everywhere, and ravens and vultures fluttering from one choice morsel to another. Only one human figure was moving on that field; Kazmina ran towards him.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 21 of 22

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Feel free to repost or mirror it on any noncommercial site or list. You can also create derivative works, including adaptations to other media, or new stories using the same setting, characters and so forth, as long as you mention and point to the original story.

An earlier version of this novel was serialized on the tg_fiction mailing list from December 2010 to March 2011. Thanks to the people who posted comments on that draft.

---

“What was that about?” Launuru asked in Tuaznu, as Tsavila shut the door of the garderobe.

“She wanted to know what form I was going to give you tomorrow. And... we talked about her father.”

“Oh?”

Kazmina looked troubled. “This morning, I confronted Psavian about the mistreatment of his slaves I had witnessed. About his ownership of slaves in general. And he was... surprisingly reasonable. He is not an especially good man, but he is not as bad a man as I thought.”

“How can you say that? What he did to me —”

“'Not as bad as I thought' is no very high praise, is it? No good man could do what he did to you. But he is a complicated mess of virtue and vice, like most people, and I think what he did to you may have been near his limit for badness, while I haven't yet seen what his limit for goodness is.”

Launuru shook her head. What was this really about? Kazmina wasn't telling her something. “So what did he say about his slaves? Did he promise to stop mistreating them?”

“He did; he even said he was considering freeing them all.”

Launuru's mouth hung open. “It must be a ruse. Why would he do that?”

Kazmina shrugged, looking uneasy. “Perhaps my father has some influence over him,” she said. “They have talked by magic many times over the years since they last saw each other in person.” As Tsavila emerged from the garderobe she abruptly changed the subject. “Do you want me to reverse the spell which filled your breasts with milk?”

“Oh... yes, I expect you'd better. You could wait until tomorrow and do it at the same time you make me look like my sister, though, if that would be less work?”

“Sure.” Kazmina turned to Tsavila and spoke with her again in Rekhim for a few moments, then ducked into the garderobe herself.

“I should get back to Itsulanu,” Tsavila said. “I'm so happy for you and Verentsu!”

“Thank you. Thank you for talking to him, and to your father... Thank you for everything.” They embraced again, and Tsavila hurried off down the hallway. Launuru stayed and waited for Kazmina. She'd developed a headache when they first returned to the house, and the noise of the conversations around them in the vestibule pained her newly acute hearing; but Kazmina had quickly reversed the spell on her ears, and the headache had gradually faded until it was now almost gone.

The feast continued until sunset, when the more robust guests gathered in the back vestibule again to escort Itsulanu and Tsavila to their wedding hermitage. Four slaves held a large canopy to shelter the newlyweds from the rain; their closest family followed under another canopy, and a number of other guests, including Launuru and Kazmina, covered their heads with oilcloths and followed the procession. The hermitage was a little wooden hut by the mill-pond, a quarter of a mile downstream from Terasina's tomb.

“It looks so small,” Launuru whispered, as they watched Itsulanu and Tsavila open the latch with their clasped fingers.

“It's much bigger inside than out, Itsulanu told me,” Kazmina whispered back. “He and his father have been working on it for a month.” The couple pulled the door open, turned and waved to their guests, and disappeared inside. Their figures shimmered and twisted eerily as they stepped across the threshold.

The guests gave a loud cheer, then hastened back toward the house. A few of the young men stayed by the hut and serenaded the couple with a bawdy song until Itsulanu opened a shutter and threw Tsavila's bandeau at them; then they laughed and dashed away through the pouring rain.

---

Kazmina was walking through her father's maze garden, the flower beds neatly tended and the shrubberies trimmed into the sharply defined, fantastic shapes they'd had when Mbisan and Denevla used to tend them. Suddenly two little girls dashed past her, giggling, and she turned to look. They were gone, but there coming towards her was Psavian, looking as he had when she first met him, nine years ago. She realized she was dreaming.

“I had forgotten how beautiful your father's gardens were,” he said. “This is a good place to meet.”

“Thank you. Is my father around here somewhere...?”

“He will be soon, if he was asleep when I cast the spell. Let's keep walking. — Do you make the shrubbery grow in those shapes by magic?”

“Partly,” she said reluctantly, “but we used to have slaves to trim them, as well. Not anymore.”

“I see.” Psavian didn't press the point; they turned another corner and now they were in the unkempt, overgrown garden she'd left behind when she and Launuru flew south. “Have you thought further about my offer?”

“Yes, but I haven't made up my mind. I want to tell my father about your proposal, and that I'm going to be staying with Setsikuno for a while, and — and that I'll tell you yes or no within ten days.”

“Very well.” They walked on in silence, the shrubbery getting more overgrown, trees getting more numerous and taller, the path growing more shadowy.

Then they were on a vast field, with scattered bodies and parts of bodies lying everywhere, and ravens and vultures fluttering from one choice morsel to another. Only one human figure was moving on that field; Kazmina ran towards him.

“Daddy!” she cried, and threw her arms around him.

“Zmina,” he said, “you shouldn't be here — Oh. We're in one of his dreams, aren't we?” He let go of her, looking over her shoulder at Psavian. “It's good to see you, even here — but I suppose you have important news?”

“Yes, Daddy. Where are we? Is this what it's like?”

“The real thing is worse, Zmina. Be glad you weren't here for the beginning of this nightmare. What news?”

“Do you want to tell him, Kazmina, or shall I?” Psavian asked, seeing her hesitate.

Kazmina drew a deep breath. “Psavian has asked me to marry him.” She wasn't prepared for the look of horror on his face — neither, apparently, was Psavian. Was that a carryover from the battle-nightmare, or did he really feel that way about...? She pressed on. “I haven't said yes or no yet. I wanted to tell you, and go stay with Setsikuno while I make up my mind.”

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” her father mumbled, still wearing a look of dismay.

“The nightmare is over,” Psavian said, looking worried. He waved a hand and the battlefield was replaced by the sunny, well-tended garden Kazmina's dream had started in. “You're in a dream-meeting. You're really talking to me and Kazmina, though we're not really here in your garden.”

“I know,” her father said, still looking miserable. “I didn't want to tell you, not like this and maybe never, but now I have to.”

“Tell us what?” Kazmina asked.

“You can't marry Kazmina,” her father said. “She's your daughter.”

The garden became a great hall with high windows illuminating a mural of a wooded hill overlooking a broad lake. Kazmina had never been here, but Psavian seemed to recognize the place. They were standing on a stage near a lectern; dozens of empty benches and chairs filled the remainder of the room. “I was Renelissa,” her father said, and now he was a woman, tall and dark-skinned, with curly black hair. She wore a scarlet ankle-length skirt and a bandeau of the same material.

“Renelissa?” Psavian said, looking dazed. “How...? You must have — You lied about when you discovered the new transformation spell! It was 3070 or earlier, not 3073 as you said!”

“Not quite — it was 3071,” the woman — Kazmina mother? — said. “I'm sorry I never told you, Kazmina. First you were too young to keep a secret, and then — I kept putting it off, thinking you could handle it better when you were older, and then the revolution started and... I'm sorry.”

“What happened?” Kazmina asked, feeling numb.

“The same thing that happened to Tsavila's suitor, what-was-his-name. I'd gone on a journey into the barbarian countries south of Maresh, to see what I could learn from the barbarian wizards. It was just as I told you — I traded spells with them, looking for anything transformative, and analyzed their common elements so I could devise a general-purpose transformation spell, to turn any kind of creature into any other. But one of them didn't like my line of questioning, and he changed me into this.” An eloquent gesture at her breasts and hips.

“But I'd cast an awareness spell not long before, so I was able to perceive everything he was doing to me, and analyze it later. It took me over a year to figure out how to reverse it — I could change into certain female animals, and back into a woman, but it took me well over a year to discover the total transformation spell that lets me change into practically any animal of either sex. But other things happened along the way — Psavian, and you.

“After being transformed like this, I returned to civilization. The next conclave was only a few months away, and I thought I might learn things from my colleagues there that would help me learn to undo the spell. But I hadn't counted on the effect you saw with that boy who wanted to elope with Tsavila.

“Psavian and I were old friends; we'd known each other since we were boys still learning the rudiments of Rekhim and the simplest spell-forms. And when I saw him, half an hour after I arrived here in Tasunakh for the conclave — I realized I loved him.”

Psavian was looking ashen. “I didn't know,” he said. “How could I know? You didn't tell me, and your shields were always perfect, even when we — ” He bit his lip. Kazmina could complete the sentence, and wished she couldn't.

“I thought about telling you,” Znembalan said. “I gave the masters of the conclave an assumed name — I didn't want anyone to know what had happened to me. And after we — I was going to tell you, but when you said you wouldn't leave Terasina for me, I was too angry. At myself, not just at you; I'd thrown myself at you so hard that later, when I was able to think about it more objectively, I could hardly blame you for cheating on Terasina. I left the conclave early and traveled into the barbarian lands again, the steppes east of Mezinakh this time, and didn't come home till I'd figured out how to become a man again — or any other animal.

“But by then I'd had you.” She turned back to Kazmina. “I had you, and a couple of years after he went home from the conclave, Psavian had Tsavila. By then, I'd been a man again for a while, and I could think dispassionately about our affair — I knew he was right to go back to his wife and sons. I never told him while Terasina was alive because I didn't want to remind him of his infidelity or tempt him to it again.”

Kazmina embraced her mother. “It's all right,” she said. “I forgive you. You were mommy and daddy to me both. I didn't miss anything.” Having said this, she felt sudden remorse — had she offended Psavian, her father?

Had she seriously contemplated marrying him, too?

“I see,” Psavian said. “I am sorry I caused you both such distress by my proposal. I would not have, had you — wait, why did you not tell me all this three nights ago when I asked you for permission to court her?”

“I thought she would say no,” Znembalan said miserably. “Last time we talked about it, she said she didn't want to marry someone so much older.”

“I said... At least I meant to say, that I'd rather marry someone near my own age, other things equal. I...” She swallowed hard, and said: “I suppose I'd better go stay with Setsikuno, as I planned. No one but Tsavila knows that Psavian proposed to me, and I needn't tell her why I refused his proposal, when I see her next.”

“Kazmina...” Psavian said, “my daughter... you're welcome, more than ever, to stay with me and... and your brother Verentsu, for as long as you want. We'll travel together to see your fa... your mother, as soon as the war is over —”

“No, don't you see it won't work? Are you going to tell Verentsu and Tsavila and the rest that you cheated on their mother? Because I won't. And if I stay with you, my 'cousin' will have to do the same, and Launuru doesn't want to keep play-acting as Shalasan any longer than she has to. Setsikuno and Tetsivamo will have to know a little bit about our situation — I have to give them some explanation for why 'Shalasan' isn't coming with me, but she doesn't have to know the whole truth about Launuru, still less about you and... and Daddy.” She insisted defiantly on that last word.

Psavian was quiet for a moment. “You're quite right, Kazmina. You should leave tomorrow. But please, come back to visit as often as you can. I'll think about whether and when and how to tell your sister and brothers.”

Znembalan had taken on his usual male form again. “I'll come see you both when my duties permit,” he said, “but I'm afraid that may be months or years from now.” Their surroundings wavered, becoming a crowded tent, filled with wounded and dying men lying on cots set so close together that the wizards trying to heal them could barely squeeze between them. Znembalan's tunic was splattered with blood, and his hands were covered in that and perhaps other fluids.

“I love you, Zmina,” he said. But what he would have said to Psavian, Kazmina didn't know; she later realized that her dream had separated from her father's and — from her mother's and father's dreams, at that point. Psavian was gone, and she was working beside her father, doing healing transformations on mortally wounded men as fast as they could, but usually not fast enough. She forgot she was dreaming, and the nightmare went on for a long time.

---

Several guests who didn't have far to travel, or who could teleport or had friends willing to teleport them, had gone home just after the wedding ceremony or after the procession to the hermitage; most of the rest, including Itsulanu's parents and sister, left immediately after breakfast. Launuru ate breakfast with some of Tsavila's cousins; she made herself sit with her back to Verentsu, and had to constantly remind herself not to turn and look at him. Some of her companions asked diffident questions about her and Verentsu, and she said simply that she would be leaving with her cousin that day and not returning.

Kazmina slept late, and came into the dining hall after most people were finished eating and more than a few, including most of those at Launuru's table, had left the estate. She spoke to someone at the wizards' table, then sat down next to Launuru.

“I'm leaving with Setsikuno and Tetsivamo in a few hours,” she said, suppressing a yawn. “They're taking it easy, planning to stay in Nilepsan tonight and do some business there tomorrow before going home to Nesantsai the day after, so there's no hurry. Do you want me to change you now and leave you here, or will you come as far as Nilepsan with us before I change you?”

“Well — not now, obviously, not while there are still this many people around the house...” She turned and looked around the room. Verentsu's brothers and sisters-in-law were still here, and five or six of their maternal relatives, and three or four other wizards; all of Itsulanu's relatives seemed to already be gone. “Let me talk to Verentsu — with so few people around I can probably find a good chance to talk to him alone — and see what he wants to do.”

By the time Kazmina finished eating, there few other guests left besides Verentsu's brothers and their families. Nuasila came over to the table where Kazmina and Launuru were sitting, Miretsi at her breast, and said:

“Please give your cousin my thanks, again, for letting us nurse Miretsi. And, um, she said she would undo the spell before we parted?”

“Yes,” Launuru said, and translated for her. Kazmina said: “Tell her she's welcome. I guess I'll wait until Miretsi's had enough to eat?”

“Just let us know when you're done nursing,” Launuru said to Nuasila. “I'm going to go for a walk in the garden before we leave.” Just before she left the room, she loitered by the door long enough to catch Verentsu's eye.

The rain had finally stopped during the night, though it was still overcast, and Psilina had taken her older daughter out to the garden to play for a little while before they would have to be cooped up in a carriage for much of the day. Launuru found her following Paukuno around the paths as the little girl exclaimed over the spider-webs glistening with raindrops and the many new mushrooms. She chatted briefly with the older woman, then offered to watch Paukuno and let her rest or finish packing and loading things. Psilina thanked her and returned to the house.

As she'd hoped, Verentsu joined her a few minutes later.

“We need to talk,” she said quietly, keeping an eye on Paukuno.

“Right; how are we going to swap Shalasan for Launuru without anyone knowing?”

“Perhaps I could travel with Kazmina, Tetsivamo and Setsikuno to Nilepsan tonight. We'll find a pretext for me to separate from them, and Kazmina will alter my appearance, and I'll stay in an inn there for a night or two, until you can come join me. Then we'll go see my parents.”

“That makes sense. Except... I don't like the idea of you being alone. I mean — remember you're a woman now. You need to be careful.”

“Uncle Verentsu!” Paukuno cried, running over toward them. “See what I found!”

“Very good,” Verentsu said, bending over to look at the lizard struggling to free itself from her hand. “Show Miss Shalasan, and then let it go.”

“I want to show Mommy too,” Paukuno said.

Launuru looked close at the lizard. “Mommy's busy getting ready now,” she said. “We'll tell her about the lizard later. If you take her too far from where you found her, she won't be able to find her way home, and her mommy will be worried.”

“Oh.” Paukuno turned and ran back down the path, then squatted and put the lizard down in one of the flower beds.

“Where were we?” Launuru said. “Oh. I should have thought of that. Well... Or I could stay here? But your father didn't want anyone to know that Shalasan and Launuru are the same person, and if we do the change here, I don't see how Setsikuno can fail to figure it out...”

“Hmm... Setsikuno isn't leaving until later in the day, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what inn she plans to stay at tonight?”

“...No. I can try to find out.”

“Do that. And then tell me or my father before you leave. Then stay with Setsikuno and Kazmina until I come for you. If something goes wrong, and you have to go on to Nesantsai with them the day after tomorrow... I'll still come for you. But I think it will be tonight or early tomorrow.”

“I'll see you then. I love you.” She wanted to kiss him, but there'd be no telling what Paukuno might say later about what she'd seen.

He bowed and went back into the house. Launuru chased Paukuno around the garden until her mother came to say they were leaving. She found, when she returned to the house, that Verentsu's brothers were nearly finished loading their carriages, and that Verentsu was talking about going back to the city with them to take care of some business.

“I'll try to be back here before Tsavila and Itsulanu are out of their hermitage,” he said to his father, loud enough that Launuru could hear plainly. He looked significantly at her.

“Kazmina,” Launuru said in Tuaznu, “Tsavila's youngest brother needs to know the inn we're staying at tonight. Did Setsikuno say which inn she's planning on?”

“No... I'll talk to her.”

“Don't ask too straight, or she'll figure something out. But he needs to know before he leaves with his brothers.”

“All right.” Kazmina engaged Setsikuno in Rekhim conversation, and Psavian joined in. Launuru wandered over to talk to Nuasila.

“Did my cousin remove the milk from your breasts?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, yes. Thank her again for me, would you? I couldn't exactly ask her, but I made signs, and I think she figured it out. They feel different, anyway.”

A short while later, Psavian called Verentsu aside, saying he had to discuss his errand in the city. They left the dining hall, and returned shortly afterward; Verentsu formally bade Tetsivamo, Setsikuno, Kazmina and 'Shalasan' farewell, and joined his brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephew in the carriage. Moments later, they were away.

An older couple, the woman Kazmina had been talking to earlier and a man Launuru supposed was her husband, were now the only guests left besides themselves.

“Shalasan, I should introduce you to Setsikuno and Tetsivamo,” Kazmina said. “I meant to do so earlier, but...” She hesitated and said something in Rekhim.

“Hello,” Launuru said nervously, not sure how the introduction was supposed to work when the introducer and the people she was introducing shared no common language. Psavian intervened: “Setsikuno, Tetsivamo, this is Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan, the cousin of Kazmina, whom you've met. Shalasan, this is my old friend Setsikuno daughter of Tsaipini, and her husband Tetsivamo son of Rusenvian.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Tetsivamo said. “I suppose we'll get to know one another pretty well, with you and your cousin coming to stay with us for a while.”

Kazmina spoke to the others in Rekhim for a moment, then said to Launuru in Tuaznu:

“I'm going upstairs to take a nap before we leave; I didn't sleep well.”

“You slept really late this morning —”

“I know, I know. I slept a long time, but not well. That happens when you — never mind. I had bad dreams. I'm going to take one of the empty rooms upstairs; find another one if you like.” She turned and left the room.

Launuru turned to the older wizards. “When will we be leaving? What is to be done until then?”

“We'll leave after dinner,” Setsikuno said. “Psavian and I want some time to talk — we haven't seen one another recently and he's been busy for the last few days, with the wedding and so many guests at once...”

“Wizardly business, I expect,” Tetsivamo said; “we could play psanalem or something while they chat...”

“Oh,” Launuru said, realizing that Tetsivamo himself wasn't a wizard. “That would be good.” As 'Shalasan' she'd feigned that she had learned psanalem as a girl, when she'd lived in Nesantsai, but had played for the first time in many years the day before.

The four of them moved into the front parlor, where Tetsivamo opened the box of psanalem tiles and sat down with Launuru at a table, while Psavian and Setsikuno sat across from one another in cushioned chairs and conversed in Rekhim.

“It will be pleasant to have young people in the house,” Tetsivamo said as he considered his second move. “Kalotse did not see fit to bless Setsikuno and myself with children. You'll be welcome for as long as you choose to stay, though I hope the war will be over soon and you'll be able to return to your family.”

“Thank you. Ah, what part of Nesantsai do you live in?”

“Near Southmarket — if you recall, it's not far from the embassies, and we know the ambassador from Netuatsenu. We must have a ball in your honor, and be sure to invite his family — he has children not much younger than you. And we know a good many other people with children your age...”

“That would be wonderful.” Launuru hoped he wouldn't be too thrown by her disappearance or too suspicious of Kazmina's bogus explanation of it. He seemed like a nice man, one of the few older men she'd met since becoming a woman who looked at her like a daughter, with a protective tenderness rather than more or less well-concealed lust. It made her suddenly long to see her own father. How would he react to her change?

Tetsivamo wasn't an unusually good player; after letting him beat her in two rounds, Launuru allowed herself to play her best in the third, and defeated him. “It's coming back to me,” she said. “They used to say I was a pretty good player for an eight-year-old foreigner...”

“Oh, Shalasan,” Psavian said casually as Tetsivamo was setting up the tiles for another game, “there was a package I meant to give your cousin — let me go ahead and give it to you now, so I won't forget to give it to her before you leave.”

“Very well,” she said, rising.

“We won't be long,” Psavian said to Setsikuno. He led her upstairs to his study, where he counted out fifty kings into a leather purse.

“That's the first part of your indemnity,” he said. “We can meet at my bank in the city a few days hence, sometime after Tsavila and Itsulanu are out of their hermitage and you and Verentsu have met with your parents, to transfer the rest.”

“What did Verentsu say to you before he left?” she asked.

“Kazmina got Setsikuno talking about her plans, while you were watching Paukuno — thank you for that, by the way — and I told Verentsu where you'll be staying tonight; he'll meet you when you arrive tonight at the Peacock's Hat.”

“Good. Thank you.”

She put the purse with her small bundle of clothes before she returned to the front parlor.

A while later, as she and Tetsivamo were concentrating on placing their last few tiles in the most advantageous way, she was vaguely aware of a servant entering and speaking with Psavian in low tones. As Tetsivamo placed his final tile and conceded that she'd won, Psavian said:

“It's nearly time for dinner. Do you want to go tell your cousin to get ready, or shall I send a servant to do it...? None of them speak Tuaznu or Rekhim, but perhaps simply knocking on her door is all that will be required.”

“I'll go,” Launuru said. But she realized, as she left the room, that she didn't know where Kazmina was sleeping; she'd said something about using one of the bedrooms upstairs. Of course, with all the other guests gone, there was no reason for her to go back to their tiny room in the servants' quarters.

Once she got upstairs, finding Kazmina proved fairly easy; she'd been in Psavian's study and workroom, so she could rule them out, and of the remaining rooms, all but two had open doors. She knocked on one of the closed doors, got no answer, and knocked on the other. Eventually she heard muffled sounds from beyond it, opened it a crack and peeked in. Kazmina sat up in bed, blinking at her.

Dinner was served in the front parlor; Psavian said that the dining hall felt uncomfortably large with only five people dining. He and Setsikuno did most of the talking; they switched languages frequently, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Launuru wondered fleetingly if they were doing it deliberately to ensure that none of their table-mates could fully understand what they were saying, but berated herself for being too paranoid; she'd seen similar patterns of conversation when she was passing through border areas where many people spoke both Ksarafra and Ksiluri, or both Ksarafra and Ksetuatsenu. Tetsivamo, an amiable enough partner at psanalem, was so concentrated on his dinner that he said little in reply to Launuru's perfunctory attempts at conversation. Kazmina seemed at first to still be groggy from her nap. As she woke up more, though, she still said little, and seemed to be tense, especially when Psavian occasionally addressed her in Rekhim; her answers were brief and didn't seem to invite further conversation.

When they finished eating, Tetsivamo left the table to speak with his servants while Psavian and the women continued talking a little longer over wine. He soon returned to say that the carriage was loaded and the horses harnessed. Minutes later, they bade Psavian farewell and were on the road.

---

The full novel is already available from Lulu.com. I'm serializing it here in twenty-two parts, at least one chapter per week if I can manage it.