“Don't go away. Don't let him make you go away.”

“How? Is Kazmina strong enough to defend me against him?”

“No. But I am.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 10 of 22

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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 will you have, my lords wizards?” the barmaid asked. Znembalan and Psavian looked up.

“A deciliter of Mezinakh wine,” Psavian said. “And sit down with us.” Znembalan thought this rather forward of him, flirting with a barmaid when he'd just been talking about paying court to Kazmina... then he realize the barmaid was Kazmina, looking more buxom than usual. But for his daughter, “usual” was a term of no very strong meaning; she varied her bust size, while a human woman, almost as often as her hair and skin colors, though she usually preferred breasts smaller than those...

“Hi, Daddy,” she said, sitting down next to him and giving him a hug; then: “Thank you for linking our dreams, Psavian.” This she said more formally, without offering to embrace the other wizard or let him kiss her hand after the Viluri custom.

“Zmina!” Znembalan wanted to say a myriad things to her, but at least a thousand of the more important ones he didn't want Psavian to overhear. “It's so good to see you again, even if only in a dream. I've missed you so much.”

“I've missed you too, Daddy. Have you been talking to Psavian for a while or did we all meet at once? What's going on with the war? You haven't gotten hurt, have you? Did you find out what happened to the tyrant?”

“He told me you came to his house in Nilepsan for Tsavila's wedding,” Znembalan said. “I wish you'd told me you were leaving home, but — ”

“I only had one znasha bird left, Daddy, and I thought it might have to last me years, if the war lasts a long time and you didn't get to come home until it's over. How long do you think it's going to be?”

“I don't know. I think we're winning, but I only see a small part of it, five or six battles out of dozens. We did well against Mbavalash's army today, but... I can't tell you any more detail than that.”

“I hope you capture him and turn him into a vole,” she said fiercely.

“That's not my decision, Zmina. And he should be put on trial along with the old tyrant and the other would-be tyrants, assuming we win. Come, tell me about that young man, what's-his-name. The one you used a znasha bird to tell me about so I could break the geas remotely and he wouldn't come interrupting me in the middle of a battle?” He looked sternly at Psavian, who smiled sheepishly.

“Well,” Kazmina said, looking perplexed. They were no longer in the Aurochs' Head, but sitting on the bench by the pond in his garden at home. “I thought, if he's been bothering Tsavila, toying with her affections, like Psavian said, what's a good punishment for him? And I thought about turning him into a dog or a ferret and giving him to her for a wedding present, but then I figured out what would be even better — ”

“Yes, Psavian told me. It was too clever by half. The best plan is the simplest, remember.”

“Sorry, Daddy. Sorry, Psavian.”

“But Psavian tells me he put another geas on the girl, so no harm's done. Relax and enjoy the wedding. And now that you're out of the country — I wish you'd stayed put, inside the range of my protective spells, but now that you're away, you should stay away. There's no telling whether the fighting might reach Vmanashi by the time you could return.”

“But I'd be safe from the war, flying way overhead as a goose — I'd go straight home and stay there.”

“The army wizards might detect that you're a wizard in goose form, assume you're a spy, and blast you out of the sky. No, enjoy Psavian's hospitality until the wedding, then get rid of this woman somehow — don't let her keep pretending to be your cousin, it's not seemly — and stay in Niluri until the war's over and I can send for you. You don't have to stay with Psavian the whole time,” — in fact Znembalan would much prefer that she didn't, but he didn't want to say so in front of him — “perhaps you could go stay with Tsavila and her new husband once they're out of their wedding hermitage, or visit Mauksenu or Setsikuno. They would give you a place to stay; they remember you if you don't remember them.”

“You are welcome to stay in my home as often and as long as you like, for as long as the war in your country lasts or longer,” Psavian put in.

“I can earn a living here healing people, same as at home,” she said earnestly. The pond in his garden had transformed into a vast lake, with a few houses and docks visible a long way off. It wasn't anywhere Znembalan had ever been; perhaps a scene from Psavian or Kazmina's memories? “I'll hire someone to interpret for me and help find customers and teach me Ksiluri. But I wanted to ask you, what do you think I should do with her? Launuru, I mean, the woman who was, um, trifling with Tsavila's affections. When she was a man.”

“You and Psavian can work that out,” he said. “Between his magic and yours, you'll find something. What was your idea, exactly? Punish her by having her see Tsavila marrying someone else?”

“Yes...” she said uncertainly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“The ideal, I think, — speaking just in terms of intense punishment, not of what would be safest or simplest — would have been to make him a boy, your servant, just past puberty, and with no tongue or vocal cords. That way he would feel male jealousy at the wedding, without any danger of him talking about what Psavian and you had done to him. Next best would be to have turned him into a dumb animal, a pet for Tsavila — his dangerous passion would be turned into simple affection, no danger to her relations with her husband. But a woman — didn't you realize how it would alter her passion for Tsavila?” Of course he knew that Kazmina knew what would happen, but Psavian might not.

“Yes,” she said, “and I thought of that as a punishment, too; she'd see her and remember how she used to feel and not feel it any more and feel weird about it. But I guess I didn't think it through clearly enough. And since I don't know Harafran or Ksiluri, I had to depend on her as my interpreter until we got to Psavian's house and found people I could talk to.”

“Well, learn from the mistake. I suppose the simplest thing now would be, once the wedding is over, for you to to alter her appearance so that she no longer looks like your cousin — make her a typical Viluri woman — and for Psavian to alter the geas so she can't go near Tsavila, but is no longer compelled to impersonate your cousin. Then turn her loose; she'll have suffered enough and no longer be a danger.”

“However,” Psavian put in, “if my son returns her passion for him — ”

“Oh, suit yourselves. Do whatever you like with her. Psavian, can you return me to normal dreaming so I can get some actual rest this night? You can contact me again to tell me where Kazmina will be staying, so I can send her a message when it's safe to come home, but try not to use this method too often.”

“Very well,” Psavian said. “I'll leave you two alone now; you'll have a few moments to speak privately before your dreams separate and become nonmagical.”

He rose from the bench and waded out into the lake, disappearing under its surface without a bubble. Kazmina embraced her father again.

“Oh, Daddy,” she said, “I've made a mess of things, haven't I?”

“It's not nearly as bad as it could have been,” Znembalan said. “I made worse mistakes when I was half again as old as you.”

“Do you think we're really private, like he said?”

“It's not impossible he can still hear us. I don't know for sure how this spell works — I've never seen this variation, where he brings two other people together in a dream instead of just putting himself into my dreams...”

“Could he hear us thinking, or just talking?”

“I don't know. Probably just talking.”

“I hope so. I know he's your friend, but he makes me nervous. I keep thinking he's trying to listen to my thoughts, and wondering if he did, would I be able to tell...”

“Remember, ordinary people see our own magic the same way. They put up with us because they need healing, but they worry, many of them, that we might capriciously decide to turn them into voles.”

“Why is it always voles they're afraid we'll turn them into?”

Znembalan shrugged. “It's from a story where an evil wizard turns the hero into a vole and the heroine must bathe him with her tears to turn him back into a man... Silly stuff, the kind of thing I didn't let you read when you were little.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, Zmina. Be safe.”

The lake was now a volcanic crater like the one in West Maresh he'd visited in his long-ago travels, before Zmina was born or thought of, and their bench was one of the strange rock formations he'd seen along its rim. When he tried to hug Zmina one more time, she was another vaguely woman-shaped rock. Within moments, he forgot that he was dreaming and wandered along the rim of the crater looking for something he'd lost, he couldn't remember what.

---

Launuru lay awake, thinking about what Tsavila had said. Clearly Psavian had deceived everyone about what had happened to him. Did her own family believe the rumors about her? Probably. She needed to get word to them; she should perhaps have gone to them while they were waiting for the fine clothes they'd need at Psavian's house... she'd just been so afraid of what they would think about her masquerading as a woman — or rather, actually being one — that she'd wanted to put off going to see them until she was a man again.

But Tsavila had answered one of her questions: even if she knew who Launuru was and what had really happened to him, it wouldn't change her feelings for Itsulanu or her plan to marry him two days hence. So there was perhaps no need to tell her, or no urgency about telling her... But Verentsu? She hated to deceive him, but she dreaded his disapproval even more than her family's.

She heard a whispering. “What was that?” she asked in a low voice, hoping not to wake whoever was still asleep. She couldn't hear the voice clearly enough to tell who it was or even what language they were speaking — it didn't seem to be Tsaikuno, though.

The whisper resumed a few moments later. She sat up. Her eyes were mostly adjusted to the darkness again, and she could tell that all her companions were still lying down, perfectly still. She looked nervously around the room. “Who's there?” she said, still quietly but no longer in a whisper.

The voice continued, and now she could make out occasional words:

...hurt her... don't... before... now...

The voice sounded familiar, but it definitely wasn't Kazmina, Tsavila or Tsaikuno. The door was still closed. Launuru got out of bed, pulled on her tunic and walked to it, skin prickling. The voice had gone quiet. She opened the door; no one was there. “Anyone awake?” she asked in a low voice. No one replied.

She closed the door and turned back toward the bed. There, between her and the bed, was Terasina, Verentsu's mother. She had been dead for eleven months, but there she was. She didn't glow, but she showed up much more clearly in the dim indirect moonlight than anything else in the room.

“You hurt her,” Terasina said. Launuru was so scared she thought she would scream, but she couldn't move or make a sound. “Don't hurt him too.”

Launuru finally managed to say, “Don't hurt who?”

“Don't hurt Verentsu. You hurt Tsavila. Don't hurt Verentsu too.”

“I didn't mean to,” Launuru said. “Psavian made me go away.”

“Don't let him make you go away again,” Terasina said.

“How?” Launuru asked. “If he figures out who I am and uses magic to make me go away again — ”

“He knows.”

Launuru's fear of the ghost had abated slightly when she proved willing to have a conversation instead of just deliver a warning or leech the life from her. Now she was terrified all over for a different reason.

“He knows? Oh, I'm doomed. Kazmina's in trouble too, I've got to wake her, we can get away before morning — ”

“Don't go away. Don't let him make you go away.”

“How? Is Kazmina strong enough to defend me against him?”

“No. But I am.”

“How...?”

“Let me help you.”

“How?”

“Promise me you won't hurt Verentsu.”

“I promise. Anything I can do to avoid it, I will.”

“Then come here.”

With a tremendous effort, Launuru forced herself to approach the shade of Verentsu's mother. Terasina held out her hand. After a long moment's hesitation, Launuru reached out and took it.

It was cold, colder than the bite of the northern night air when his clothes had worn to rags and the geas wouldn't let him stay in one place long enough to earn money for new ones. The image of Terasina vanished, but Launuru could still hear her voice.

“It's worse than I thought.” She was brisk, businesslike, the way Launuru had heard her giving orders to the servants about dinner at Verentsu's name-day feast three years ago. “He's already laid another geas on you. I could break it, but that would arouse his suspicions; for now it's just an inconvenience.”

“Another geas?”

“To prevent you from telling Verentsu or Tsavila who you are. I see; it's subtle enough that you thought you were just being cautious about when and how to tell them. But without this geas, you would have found several opportunities to tell them by now. It doesn't matter. Tsavila has already found out, and soon Verentsu will, in spite of all their father can do.”

“She knows already...?” Suddenly what Tsavila had said made a new kind of sense. She'd wanted to tell Launuru that she didn't blame her for disappearing, though she couldn't say so directly with Tsaikuno listening.

“Yes... I must give you something to protect you when you are away from this place. Look in the cabinet there.”

Launuru found her attention drawn to a particular cabinet among the several cabinets and shelves along the wall. She went to it and opened it.

“On the top shelf — feel along there — that, yes. Pull it out.”

It felt like a scarf or kerchief of some kind; in the dim light she couldn't make out the pattern or be sure of what material it was.

“Feel along it — there. It's a strand of my hair, left there since I last wore this kerchief a month before I died. Keep it with you, and I'll keep you safe.”

“Thank you.” Launuru wondered how to keep such a thing safe with her without drawing attention to it; for now, she tied it around her wrist.

“You must sleep now. There is much to do tomorrow.”

Launuru took off her tunic and crawled back into bed. She was asleep in moments.

---

By the time the others straggled downstairs to breakfast, Verentsu had been busy directing the loading of the carriages for over an hour. Kazmina was the first one down besides himself; she spoke not a word of Ksiluri, and of course the servants knew no Rekhim. Verentsu interposed and interpreted for her as best he could, conveying her request for an early breakfast to the cook.

“Whether your cousin is still of the sleeping?” he asked, hoping he was comprehensible.

“She sleeps long,” Kazmina said, speaking slowly and enunciating carefully for his benefit. “Most of the time, she is awake before me.” Though she was up early, Kazmina didn't look well rested.

Soon afterward his nieces and nephew came racing down the stairs, followed by their mothers calling out warnings and admonitions, and Nuasila carrying Miretsi and cooing at her; then his brothers, and Itsulanu and his parents. Tsavila came down next with Tsaikuno, at which point Verentsu left off packing and loading for a while and joined the others in the dining hall.

“Is Shalasan still asleep?” he asked Tsavila.

“Yes,” his sister replied. “She was up during the night with us — I got up to feed Miretsi, and then Shalasan and Tsaikuno woke up too, and I think they were awake for a while after I fell asleep again.”

“Kazmina slept through it all,” Tsaikuno said. “Shalasan was awake at least as long as me; we went back to bed at the same time, and I fell asleep pretty soon, but I woke up for a few moments a while later and heard her talking to someone. She was probably feeding Miretsi.”

“I don't think so,” Psilina said, overhearing this. “I went and knocked on your door when she woke up again, but no one answered, so I fed her myself that time.”

Verentsu's father came late to breakfast, and ate more than usual, the way he sometimes did when he was up late casting some strenuous spell. Then Shalasan finally came down when his sisters-in-law were wiping their children's faces and herding them out into the garden to play for a while before it was time to set out. Even sleepy and disheveled, she looked just as beautiful.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked her.

“I was awake for a time, talking with your sister while she nursed the baby,” she said; “and then it took me a long while to fall asleep afterward... But I think I slept soundly from then on.” She looked apprehensive; there was a moment where it seemed she was going to say something more, but decided against it.

“That's good,” he said. “Itsulanu's parents will be teleporting a few of us, but they can't handle everyone, or much of the luggage — most of us will have a long carriage ride to our house at Tialem.”

“How will we be arranged?” she asked. Was she hopeful that she would ride with him? She wasn't the only one. He was of two minds about her, but both of them wanted to keep her close.

“I'm about to go over the arrangements with my father,” he said. “I was thinking I'd put you, your cousin, myself and a servant in one carriage, with my brothers and sisters-in-law and their children and the rest of the servants split among three others. My father, sister, and her fiancé will be teleporting ahead of us with his parents.”

“Rupsevian could not devise a better plan,” she said, smiling. He smiled at the compliment; then suppressed a frown when he realized what it implied.

Verentsu dawdled over his meal, neglecting the packing and loading until he could do so no longer. After checking on the servants again, reviewing the disposition of the luggage, ensuring that the horses were being fed properly, and criticizing the loose way the cords on one of the trunks were tied, he started to return to the house. He saw Tsavila coming toward him, followed by one of the maids carrying another bag.

“We've still got room for more, right?” his sister asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Kurevila, give that to Rapsuaru and let him figure out where to put it. Tsavila, may I speak with you privately before you teleport out?”

“Sure,” she said. They walked around the garden to the far side of the house from the carriage drive.

“How sure are you that Kazmina is who she says she is?” he asked. “I mean, you hadn't seen her in years, since you were children — and then she showed up when you weren't expecting her, or we wouldn't be making last-moment changes to the bedroom and carriage arrangements; is it possible someone is impersonating her?”

“I don't think so,” Tsavila said, sounding surprised. “Father recognized her as well as me. Why do you think...?”

“I haven't had much occasion to talk with her,” he said, “but I've talked a lot with her cousin, and I'm pretty sure Shalasan, at least, is not what she seems.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning. “What is she, then?”

“I don't know, but she's pretending, for some reason, to be less fluent in Ksiluri than she really is. When she's excited, she forgets to put on her accent, and at breakfast, she said 'Rupsevian could not devise a better plan' — would a foreigner know who Rupsevian is? If she's not a native speaker of Ksiluri, she's spent more time here, more recently, than she pretends.”

“I see,” Tsavila said. “I hadn't noticed her dropping the accent from time to time, but I had noticed she's more fluent than you'd expect from someone who hasn't used the language since she was a child.”

“I know you normally don't poke around in people's minds without permission, but can you look at her and find out why she's pretending thus? Or at Kazmina? If Shalasan is deceiving us, I can't see how Kazmina wouldn't be involved in it too.”

“Give me a few moments,” she said. She sat on one of the benches and closed her eyes. A hundred heartbeats passed; then her eyes flew open and she jumped up. “I can tell you later,” she said. “For now — no, she's not what she seems, but she's not deceiving us of her own accord, and she means us no harm. Please be kind to her — she's suffered much worse than she lets on.”

“What? Is that all — ?”

“I said I would explain more later,” she said. “But we'll be missed soon. Don't speak of this to Father, please.” She hurried off through the garden toward the back door. Verentsu returned to the carriage drive to check on the loading of the carriages.

---

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.