Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 1 of 22

The man had evidently been traveling on foot for a long time. His clothes were rags that barely covered his nakedness, and his cheekbones, ribs, and hips stood out against flesh from which all the fat and too much of the muscle had been burned off some time ago.

---

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.

---

The man had evidently been traveling on foot for a long time. His clothes were rags that barely covered his nakedness, and his cheekbones, ribs, and hips stood out against flesh from which all the fat and too much of the muscle had been burned off some time ago. There were traces of what had once been good shoes strung about his feet, but all that protected them now were a deep layer of calluses. He crossed a ridge and caught sight of a high stone wall with an iron gate, running along the top of the next ridge; the narrow unpaved road he was on led directly to this gate, after crossing a stream on a narrow wooden bridge.

He paused at the stream, kneeling to scoop water in his hands and drink, then returned to the road, crossed the bridge, and ascended the ridge to the gate. He puzzled out the text on the bronze plate affixed to the gate, the same name (presumably) written in four different scripts, two of which he could read; a shadow of fear passed over his emaciated face. He reached for the bell and rang it.

Some minutes passed with no response. The man sat down before the gate on his haunches. He turned his eyes back toward the stream, but didn't return for more water.

At last he saw through the gate a figure approaching, and stood up. As it grew nearer, he discerned a woman in a long gown. When she got nearer still, he saw she was a young woman, about his own age -- though a hidden observer might have thought her younger than he, for the hardship of travel had aged him.

Without unlocking the gate, she asked him, “Who are you? What happened to you?”

“My name is Launuru son of Rusaulan,” he said. “I am under a geas. I bring a message from Psavian of Nilepsan, which I must tell to Znembalan as soon as possible.”

The young woman frowned as she unlocked the gate, admitted him, and then locked it behind them. “My father is away with the army,” she said. “He has left all his affairs in my hands; you can tell me the message yourself.”

“Oh, no,” the man said. “I would like nothing better, but I'm not sure if I can... Can you tell me where to find your father?”

“The geas, of course. I never liked Psavian. How could he do this to you? He could have gotten a message to my father in any of seven ways faster than sending you, under a geas that apparently didn't let you stop to eat or rest more often than absolutely necessary...” She led the way toward a house, not large but beautifully made of the same polished white stone as the wall around the estate. Two rows of water-oaks around seventy or eighty years old lined the path from the gate to the house.

After a minute's silence the man said, “I'm sorry. I find I can't tell you the message. If you tell me where to find your father, the geas will probably push me to go after him. Otherwise it will make me wait here for him, and you'll probably need strong magic to eject me -- I can't turn back of my own will without delivering the message.”

“I can't make you go tramping straight into a war zone under such a geas!” she said, leading the way up a short flight of stone steps to the front door and opening it. “You would surely be killed.”

“The geas allows me some flexibility,” he said; “I haven't been forced to take the shortest possible route, so I've managed to avoid the worst of the fighting. But it might become less flexible as I get close to your father...”

“If you wait a bit, I can put you in communication with my father magically and you can tell your message to him that way. We will see if that breaks the geas, or if it requires you to go to him in person...” She led him down a long hall running down the center of the house, past various doors and stairways on either side, to a door opening onto a lush garden. At first, he thought they were outside; then he realized they were in a sort of large porch completely walled in glass. He looked around in awe, never having seen so much glass in one place before.

The moment he stepped past her, she closed the door to the main part of the house behind them. It was warmer in this glass-walled porch than in the hallway or outdoors. There were butterflies fluttering from flower to flower, and a few birds, mostly of kinds he had never seen, or at least never noticed. The woman said to him, “Wait here,” and walked slowly toward a small tree on whose branches a bird the size of a man's fist with bright green and blue feathers was perched. It hopped away from her as she approached, onto a further branch. She paused, said something he couldn't hear clearly, and approached again. Then she said something louder, in a language he didn't know. There was a sudden chill in the air, and the bird flapped its wings and fluttered close to her. Then it spoke.

“What's wrong, Zmina?” Its voice was raucously inhuman, but the words were clear enough.

“There's a man here—come over here, you!—who is under a geas; he has to deliver a message to you from Psavian.”

“I already got the message, in a dream. Psavian is merely punishing the man by making him deliver it redundantly. You should have told him where to find me and sent him away, not wasted one of our znasha birds!”

“He might be killed if he walked onto a battlefield under the geas...!” the woman—Zmina?—said; but having realized that the bird was linked to Znembalan, speaking for him and apparently seeing and hearing for him as well, the man found he had no choice but to speak up, interrupting her. “Wise and terrible Znembalan, I, Launuru son of Rusaulan, bring a message from your old friend Psavian.” Here the man paused for a moment, and his voice changed, becoming slightly deeper.

“'As I mentioned to you some time ago, I caught this young wretch I am sending to you in a dalliance with my daughter Tsavila, plotting to elope with her in contravention of my plan to wed her to Itsulanu son of Omutsanu. The long journey on foot, and the dread of what he will find at its end, is the first stage of his punishment; the next stage of his punishment I leave in your capable and imaginative hands. You will have had at least three or four months to think about it, depending on how fast he is able to travel under the conditions of the geas. I know your love for your own daughter and the loathing you would feel for any young man who trifles with her affections. If for any reason you find it inconvenient to punish him as we discussed, tell him 'Go' when he reaches the end of this message, and he will leave your house, seek out the nearest slave merchant, and sell himself. If you wish to use him for your experiments or for any other purpose, tell him 'Stay' and the geas will break.'” The man fell silent. He felt suddenly weak; he leaned against a tree, then slumped to the ground.

The bird croaked out, “Stay. Do whatever my daughter tells you.”

Launuru scarcely felt he had the energy to do anything other than stay just where he was. In a daze, he heard the bird suddenly croak again, louder and wordlessly; then it fell from its perch to the ground and lay still.

The woman picked it up. Blood dripped from its beak.

“I hope you appreciate this,” she said to him; “I have only one of these birds left, to speak with my father once more for as long as the war lasts.” She was weeping, he realized.

He tried to express his thanks, but his voice was weak and he doubted that she heard him clearly. Moments later, he lost consciousness.

---

Launuru woke lying on something softer and warmer than the mulch he had collapsed onto after fulfilling the geas. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a bed in a small room with a large window; the shutters were open, and indirect sunlight came through it. He sat up and put off the blanket, finding that he was naked under it. Hanging on a clothes-horse near the bed were a green tunic and trousers. He rose and put them on; they were of wool, and too large for him, but he managed to keep them from falling off with a sash and belt. A pitcher of water was sitting on a small table by the bed, along with a loaf of bread and several apples and pears. He drank and ate.

While he was on his third apple, the door opened and the woman entered.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked. “I am sorry, things happened so fast yesterday, because of your geas, that I neglected to tell you my name. I am Kazmina daughter of Znembalan.”

“I am Launuru son of Rusaulan,” the man said. “I think I said that yesterday, didn't I?” He found time to be grateful that she spoke a dialect close to the standard Tuaznu he had learned in school; he'd encountered too many areas in his travels where no one spoke anything he could make himself understood in.

“You did,” she said. “I heard your message. Oh, that horrible man! Poor Tsavila! When you are well rested you must tell me about her. I haven't seen her since we were children.”

“Tsavila,” he said. “What is the year and day?”

“It's the thirteenth year of King Sundavu, or would be if he were still king—some people are saying the first year of King Mbavalash, some the first year of the Republic—anyway, the forty-third day of the fourth month. I suppose you were too obsessed with travel to pay attention to the calendar, while you were under the geas...?”

“With travel, yes, but not by the quickest route: I had to detour through every town and city within a hundred kilometers of my route and warn everyone who would listen not to trifle with wizards... What is that in the Niluri calendar, please?”

She thought for a few moments. “The year three thousand eighty-nine, I think? And the ninety-fourth day of Summer. I could check the calendar tables in Father's library to be sure, but I think that's right.”

He buried his head in his hands. “Tsavila will wed Itsulanu in fourteen days. I don't know the significance of the date, Psavian and Omutsanu figured out would be astrologically propitious for their future grandchildren, but I know they planned for their children to wed on the twelfth day of Autumn this year.”

“Well! That gives us just enough time, I think. If you've had enough of apples, you can join me for my morning meal, and we can plan our strategy.”

He looked up at her, hope starting to smolder in his heart again. “Strategy?”

“For you and Tsavila to elope, of course! Assuming that's still what she wants. We need for you to recover your strength, and me to finish some business here so I can absent myself for a time, and then we need to travel to Niluri as fast as possible. Come.” She left the room and he followed her into a larger room, where a table was laid for breakfast.

“Tell me everything,” Kazmina said. “How did you meet Tsavila? What is she like now? I think I said I haven't seen her since we were children -- she was probably seven or eight years old, I was nine. Is she learning her father's magic, as I have done? What about this Itsulanu—what kind of man is he?”

Launuru found himself answering these questions and a dozen others in no particular order; Kazmina frequently interrupted him and herself with more questions as she happened to think of them, and with reminiscences of the summer she spent with Tsavila when she and her father came to stay with Znembalan during the decennial conclave of wizards, held in nearby Vmanashi that year.

After the meal, Kazmina told him to rest, and said she had business to attend to; she then left the house. He returned to the bedroom he had awoken in and laid down, dozing intermittently, and rising after some hours to eat the rest of the bread and fruit she had left in his room. He stayed in the room, afraid of what might happen if he explored an enchantress's house. He did not see her again until suppertime.

“I got a map of Niluri while I was in town,” she said. “You will have to show me where Psavian lives.”

She asked him more questions during supper; afterward, she invited him into the library, a large room containing a table, two chairs, and three large shelves containing a fantastic number of books—there must be nearly fifty codexes, he thought, and as many or more scrolls. She spread a large map on the table, after clearing it of scrolls, codexes, and loose parchments. “So where are we going?” she asked him.

He studied the map, and realized that the captions were in a script strange to him. “I can't read this,” he said. “Is this squiggly line the River Genzan?”

“Yes,” she said, leaning closer to read the map.

“Well, one of these cities should be Nilepsan, where Psavian has a house, and about twenty kilometers southwest of there he has a country estate near the village of Tialem. That village may be too small to be on this map...”

“No, it's not. I see it here.”

“Good. Well, I think the wedding is supposed to be at his country estate, but if we arrive early enough we may find them in the city.”

“Will Tsavila be with her father most of the time, then?”

“Yes; she usually travels with him.”

“Have you been to both of these houses?”

“No, only the house in the city.”

“Well, I'll try to get us there before they leave for the country. You need to recover your strength before we set out, so be sure to rest, and to eat enough. You can help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen while I'm away.”

“Ah... where else in the house or grounds may I go in your absence?”

After a moment's thought, she said: “Anywhere on this storey of the house, and anywhere in the gardens, but not upstairs or in the forest. And in the library, stay away from books in languages you can't read and the locked cabinets, and you should be safe.”

“Thank you.”

If she worked any healing magic on him, it was not done where he could see it; but he recovered strength and put on flesh much faster than he expected, so perhaps she was helping things along. She would generally leave the house shortly after breakfast, and return in the afternoon or even later. He found that only a few of the books in the library were in a script and a language he could read, and after reading one of them, he found himself sufficiently recovered to spend most of his time walking around the gardens, which were extensive, overgrown, and labyrinthine; after once getting lost in them for the greater part of a day, he learned to take a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine with him on future excursions. There were traces of what had apparently been shrubberies trimmed into the shapes of people and animals, but they were unkempt and their former shapes could barely be discerned. Many of the flower beds, too, were overgrown with weeds.

He asked Kazmina about that at supper.

“Father used to own slaves who would trim the shrubbery and weed the flower beds,” she said, “but he freed them several years ago. One of them stayed on as a free servant for a while, but he joined the army at the same time Father did.”

“Oh,” he said. “Is your mother still living...?” He immediately regretted asking this, seeing the look on Kazmina's face.

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't think so. I never knew her, and Father never talks about her.”

They remained silent for the rest of the meal, and Kazmina disappeared into her upstairs sanctuary immediately after clearing away the dishes.

Next morning, the second day of Autumn, Launuru asked her during breakfast when they would set out for Niluri.

“Soon,” she said. “I have attended to all my business here for the next month, and you have recovered your strength; now it is a matter of training you for the journey. We will begin after breakfast.”

And after clearing away the dishes, she led him into the garden, and said, “Take off your clothes.” She was already untying her own belt; a moment later she lifted her gown over her head and hung it over a wooden bench.

Launuru hesitated before obeying. “Why?” he said.

“Your wings would get tangled in the tunic,” she said, as she removed her bandeau and knelt to pull off her shoes and stockings, “and your legs would be too encumbered by your trousers and stockings to get off the ground.”

“Oh,” he said, and began to comply, trying to avoid staring at her as she removed her final garment.

“Now,” she said, “I'll change us. Don't try to fly just yet; get some practice walking around in your new form first. Follow my lead.”

The first time, he was too distracted by the changes to himself to be fully conscious of what was happening to her. The change to his vision was the first sign, all the colors fading and nearby objects, including his hostess, becoming slightly blurry. The twisting changes to his neck, arms and legs were almost but not quite too fast to be painful; he was aware of his arms shrinking almost to nothing while his hands swelled up tremendously, the fingers splaying hugely from his shoulders. He looked at himself and became aware that his neck was twisting in a way that would have been fatal if he'd still been human; he saw dark grey wings and a light grey lower body, with nothing visible between the legs. Of course, male birds hid away their secret parts except when mating... His legs and webbed feet were skinny and black. He turned to look at his hostess. She was another bird of the same species; on her he could see the long neck, narrow head and bill. Her feathers seemed to be in more colors than his own, though they were all shades of grey now.

Following her lead, as she'd instructed him, he walked through the garden, from the bench on which they'd hung their clothes to the small pond. She waded into the water and then swam across; he followed. She suddenly ducked her head under the water and came up with a small fish in her mouth, which she swallowed. He started looking down into the water, and, spying a fish, he attempted the same feat. On his third try, he succeeded. The fish tasted much better than he expected, as did, still more surprisingly, the grass and insects he ate after they swam to the bank and walked ashore again.

He was conscious all the while of a vague unease, related to a new sense whose meaning and nature he was unsure of. There was a direction which was different from the others; he felt slightly better when facing that way, and felt a desire to go that way, but also felt that he could not go yet. The time wasn't right, or the signal hadn't come... he could not put it into words. By now, he could not put anything into words. He followed the leader of the flock. That bothered him too, that there were only the two of them; it was too small a flock, it would be dangerous... but there was no help for it.

Suddenly the leader took off, dashing forward, flapping her wings, and rising into the air. He followed joyously. They rose above the trees surrounding the garden, seeing the pond, the garden surrounding it, the stream flowing through the forest and garden, the stone wall surrounding the estate, the forest beyond... They were heading in the direction they needed to go! The flock was still too small, he felt uneasy about that, but it was time to go.

But then, wrenchingly, the flock leader flew in a narrow arc and descended onto the surface of the pond. He was torn between following the leader and going in the direction he needed to go, but the instinct to follow the leader was stronger. He followed her down to the pond, splash-landed, and swam to shore.

As soon as they waded ashore, the flock leader suddenly changed, stretching and growing and turning all one shade of grey, except for her head feathers, which remained black while fluffing out far more than feathers should when not molting. He had hardly time to be terrified at this when he felt his own body twisting, stretching, and squeezing and his thoughts regaining the clarity of human reason. He found himself prone on his hands and knees, naked, by the bank of the pond. He looked up and saw Kazmina walking toward the bench where she'd left her clothes. As she started getting dressed, she looked back at him in concern, then ran back toward him.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Perhaps I should have let you rest more before I transformed you for the first time, or perhaps we should have remained in that form for a shorter time at first...”

“I'm all right,” he said, covering his secret parts with his hands as he stood up. “It was a shock, that's all. I wish you had warned me about how it would feel.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Well, get dressed and get some rest. We'll practice again this evening.”

They got dressed in silence, then returned to the house. He didn't feel hungry after the fish, worms, insects and grass, but she insisted that he eat a little bread. “It will help you remember what you really are,” she said. “It will be more important still during our journey, when we're spending ten or twelve hours a day as ngava geese. That is, finding ways to remind ourselves that we're human, when we stop for the night and and return to human form. Eating human food won't always be possible, but we can do other things—tell stories, for instance, and find other humans to talk to.”

“Why ngava geese?” he asked, after a couple of mouthfuls of bread.

“Well, now is the time of year for them to migrate to their winter home, which is the delta of the River Genzan. So we can just follow our navigational sense and we'll be going in about the right direction. Once we get near Nilepsan, we'll need to travel in other forms, or our navigational sense will be leading us away from the city. Unlike most geese, they mate in their winter grounds, so we'll be migrating faster than if we were, say, tevmunu geese, which are in less of a hurry during their autumn migration than in the spring. They've got a strong flocking instinct, so there's little chance of you getting distracted and flying off on your own; you'll feel you need to stay with me, and I have enough experience with transforming into various kinds of animals to retain human rationality in that form. Ngava geese are big and tough enough, and fly high, so most birds of prey won't bother us. And they're a sacred bird in Harafra, so while we're crossing that country, at least, hunters won't try to kill us.”

“I guess it helps that they're matriarchal, too, or whatever the term is,” he said, remembering his instinctive need to follow her lead while in goose form. She looked amused, and opened her mouth, but didn't say anything for a moment. When she did, it seemed a non sequitur.

“Tell me again how you met Tsavila,” she said. “I know you told me before, but I was interrupting you with too many questions...”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes is also available from Amazon and Smashwords. It will continue to be available for free here on BigCloset, but the Kindle and EPUB editions have a map, a Cast of Characters, and some other supplementary material that is not in the free serial version.

“I'll be lucky if my father even attends. He doesn't have much time for those of us who didn't inherit his power. But my brothers and my cousins on my mother's side will be there, they're fun to be with, and some of our neighbors I know well... and my sister. You'll like her; she's pretty.”

She was, and he did.

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 2 of 22

---

Launuru watched a smile appear on Verentsu's face and grow larger as he read the letter he'd just gotten.

“It's from my mother,” he said. “She says she's talked my father into letting me have a name-day feast at home, and I can invite up to four friends from school. You're the first.”

“Thanks,” Launuru said. They were on their way back to the dormitory after checking checking for messages at the gatehouse. Launuru would not have gone that day himself, having had letters from his father and brother only two days ago and not expecting any more for a while, but Verentsu had been going to check twice a day lately, impatient for a particular message he was expecting. This must be it.

As they reentered the dormitory, they met two mutual friends, both first-year students like themselves, and Verentsu invited them to his name-day feast.

“Where and when?” asked one, before Verentsu could finish speaking. He wasn't quite as close friends with Verentsu as Launuru was, or he would have known when his name-day was.

“The sixty-third day of Spring,” Verentsu said — eleven days hence — “at my family's home in Nilepsan.”

The boy who had spoken looked eager, the other uneasy. “Will your family give us transportation there and back to the academy?”

“It shouldn't be a problem. My mother usually sends the carriage to bring me home for holidays, and there's easily room for four more besides me, the driver and the guard.”

“Your father won't teleport us all there?” asked the other.

“Not a chance,” said Verentsu, looking annoyed. “He doesn't do that kind of magic.”

Later, though, when Verentsu and Launuru were alone, he said: “I'll be lucky if my father even attends. He doesn't have much time for those of us who didn't inherit his power. But my brothers and my cousins on my mother's side will be there, they're fun to be with, and some of our neighbors I know well... and my sister. You'll like her; she's pretty.”

She was, and he did.

Verentsu's mother Terasina, a tall woman with greying hair, presided over the feast; his father came briefly, just long enough for the name-rite. He appeared suddenly on the dais beside Verentsu and his mother, startling everyone except them, who had apparently been expecting it; recited his paternal ancestry in unison with his youngest son; then remained standing while Verentsu and his mother recited their maternal ancestry. Moments later, the wizard was gone. After a few minutes of nervousness, the revelers became more relaxed as they sat down to eat and drink.

Launuru found himself sitting across the table from a lovely girl a little younger than himself. He hadn't met or even noticed her earlier, before the name-rite when the guests were arriving and being introduced to one another.

“Hello,” he said. “I'm Verentsu's friend Launuru, from the merchants' academy.”

“I'm Tsavila, Verentsu's sister.”

So she was the young wizard in training. How much of her father's magic had she already learned? Verentsu didn't like to talk about it; it was painful to be reminded of how his father had rejected him when it became clear that he, like his older brothers, had inherited no trace of his father's power. Launuru had quickly learned not to ask.

“Launuru told me about you,” she continued. “He said you're good with languages?”

“I suppose so. I grew up speaking Tafriin as well as Ksiluri; my mother spoke it with us so we'd be able to speak with our grandparents when we visited them. Tafriin isn't much use to a merchant by itself, of course, they only speak it in about three villages way up near the source of the Kentsan, but already knowing two languages made it easier for me to learn more, the language-masters said; and it's related to Ksarafra, so that was easy for me to learn.”

“I almost wish Father had spoken Dwebran or Rekhim with me when I was was a baby; it would have been easier than starting to learn them when I was seven. But he didn't know for sure which of us would inherit his magic, so he couldn't do that.”

Launuru had heard of Dwebran; it was a dead language, once spoken by the people whom the Viluri had conquered and displaced when they arrived here. He'd never heard of Rekhim, but wasn't sure if he should ask about it.

“Verentsu told me a little about it,” he replied after a moment's thought. “Your father tested you all for magic when you were quite young, right?”

“Yes, and I was the only one with any power, so of course I must learn the eleven mystic gestures when other girls were playing with dolls, and learn the forty dire names when other girls were learning to sew, and learn languages spoken by nobody in their right mind for the last thousand years when other girls are learning to manage the servants and keep them from stealing the silks and silver.”

“But I suppose it will be worth it eventually, being able to do magic?”

“Maybe. Probably, I guess. But it takes so long to learn enough to do anything fun or interesting... I'm finally learning to do some useful things, but for a long time it was just boring preparations that would help me cast spells years in the future.”

“I suppose it's like that for everyone, except perhaps those of the simplest professions... For half the things we must learn at the merchants' academy, I can't see how they will help us buy and sell.”

Their conversation continued through dinner and afterward. In the following two years, Launuru met with Verentsu during every holiday, and, as often as possible, with Tsavila as well. As their friendship grew and deepened into passion, they had made plans to marry once Launuru had graduated from the academy and been accepted as a full partner in his father's business. But first Terasina, her mother, died of a brain fever; then Psavian arranged a marriage for his daughter to a young wizard she scarcely knew. With a spell she had recently mastered, she joined her dreams that night with Launuru's; she told him of the crisis and they made plans to elope. Waking, he remembered the dream more clearly than the previous day's lectures, and this memory did not fade like the memory of other dreams. He slipped out of the academy dormitory by night, and made his way to the city, and her house.

---

After a light lunch, Kazmina led Launuru back to the pond, where she once more changed them into ngava geese. Again they swam a bit, flew a short distance, landed, and returned to human form. The change was less wrenching each time, but Launuru still found it impossible to retain his reason for very long in the form of a goose.

“I think we're ready,” she said as she got dressed. “We'll leave tomorrow morning.”

And they did, carrying nothing with them. Before the morning's transformation they breakfasted, then left their clothes, not on the bench by the pond, but in the house. They had seen one another naked several times now, but he was still self-conscious as he followed her down the hall from the kitchen to the back door and out into the garden. His self-consciousness did not survive his human form by ten heartbeats. He joyfully followed the flock leader as she took off and flew southward.

When he became aware again, he was standing on a small island in a large lake. Razory grass was abrading his bare legs and even his secret parts; it was tall enough around Kazmina, where she was standing a few feet away from him, to conceal her secret parts. He had vague memories of flying for hours on end, then descending onto this lake and swimming ashore here.

“Eh, this is not a good place to stop for the night,” Kazmina said. “I wasn't thinking clearly, or at least not humanly, when I picked this spot. We could change back into geese and fly or swim to the mainland...”

“Perhaps,” Launuru said, “we should remain human for a little while before we do that?”

“Good idea,” she replied. “I'll protect us from this grass first, though.” Suddenly his legs no longer felt the prickling of the grass, though the touch of it on his privates was still aggravating. “There, I've given us calluses all along our legs.”

“What are we going to do for clothes?” he asked. “Or tents or bedding?”

“I can conjure something,” she said carelessly, “but there's no point in wasting the effort if we're just going to turn into geese again and leave this place in a short while. You can turn your back if you like, and I'll do the same.”

He turned away from her, looking at the sunset. The sun had just dropped below the horizon, and it would soon be nearly pitch dark; last night was the new moon. Moments later, he heard her say: “Oh, I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“As I said, there's no sense in wasting effort on it now when we're going to be geese again soon... I'll show you later. Tell me something interesting that happened while you were traveling under Psavian's geas.”

He thought for a few moments, and said: “When I crossed the border from Harafra into Setuaznu, I was arrested as a spy.”

“Really? And then what? Did you escape, or did they acquit you...?”

“I escaped, I think... when the geas was outright controlling my actions and not just influencing them, I wasn't totally aware of what was going on. I approached the customs post at the bridge and went through my usual speech, about how I was under a curse and my listeners should think twice about interfering with wizards lest such things happen to them. I'm not sure why the border guards' captain thought that was suspicious, but he threw me in jail, and I was there for several days. They questioned me several times about about where I was from and what I thought about the revolution, which I had barely heard of at the time. The geas seemed happy enough as long as I had someone new, a guard or a prisoner I hadn't met before, to tell my warning to; but when a day passed with all the same guards I'd had before and no new prisoners thrown in there with us, my need to travel became stronger and stronger, and I became frantic. I tore the door of my cell off its hinges and walked out of the jail, just pushing aside anyone who tried to stop me — for a short while the geas made me unnaturally strong. I took several cuts from the guards' swords; they didn't kill me as they probably should have without the magic's protection, but they hurt badly and took many days to heal completely. My body wasn't fully under my own control again until I approached a farmhouse five or ten kilometers from the border to beg for supper.”

“We did have a lot of spies coming in from Harafra and Mezinakh about that time, or so I heard. Some trying to contrive King Sundavu's restoration, or put a pretender on the throne; some just trying to find out what the revolutionaries' intentions toward our neighbors were... You being arrested is unfortunate, but understandable.”

He was about to reply when she went on, after a brief pause: “Well, let's swim over to the mainland and find a better campsite for the night.” A moment later he was twisting and shrinking into bird-shape. He followed the flock leader onto the surface and swam across the lake to the near shore; they caught and ate several fish on their way.

Sated, they waded ashore and waddled along the bank for a ways. The flock leader turned to him, and suddenly they were growing and twisting again. After so short a time as a goose, he still had most of his human awareness, and was less shocked by the change; he'd been expecting it. By the change in himself, that is; he had not expected the flock leader to transform, not into a woman, but into a man.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You seemed uncomfortable with us being together naked,” the other man said, “with you being betrothed to Tsavila, and all — I thought this might be better? At least until I conjure us some clothes, but perhaps even after that — I should have thought of this earlier. My father used to be very strict about not letting me be alone with men, but I've been so happy to be free and independent that I'm afraid I forgot about those rules in dealing with you.”

As he spoke, Kazmina started plucking the long brown leaves of the grass. “Help me gather some more,” he said, and Launuru did so, frowning. A few minutes later, Kazmina took half the bundle of grass they'd collected and muttered some words over it in an language unknown to Launuru — one of the wizardly languages Tsavila had told him about, he supposed. The grass suddenly shifted form into a tunic and pair of trousers, which Kazmina handed to him; he then picked up the other bundle of grass and transformed it into clothes for himself.

Launuru wondered why Kazmina needed to speak a spell aloud to make the clothing, but apparently didn't need to do so for transforming them into geese and back into humans. He knew better than to ask, though; too many times Tsavila had quietly rebuffed his questions with “It would take a year and a day to explain,” or “It would give you nightmares if I told you,” and he had long ago stopped questioning her about magic, content with what she told him on her own initiative — which was actually a fair amount. Come to think of it, he had several times seen Psavian, and more recently Tsavila, casting spells without apparently saying anything aloud or making the mystic gestures they'd made on other occasions.

Once they were dressed, Kazmina put them to work gathering more grass for bedding and wood for a fire. This took a while, as it was rapidly getting dark. All the wood they found was damp, but her fire-starting spell was powerful enough to set it alight anyway, though it smoked terribly for the first few minutes.

“Have you done this often?” Launuru asked, stepping aside as the wind shifted and blew thick smoke toward him.

“No,” Kazmina replied; “just a few times — and never without my father, or this far from home. It's exciting!”

Launuru realized he was probably talking about camping in the wilderness. “I meant turning yourself into a man,” he said. “Do you mean you've hardly ever slept on the ground by a campfire, or...?”

“Yes,” he said. “I said my father never let me be alone with strange men...? When he had men coming to visit, he would change me into a boy, or sometimes into a cat or fox. When women visitors came, or a mixed group of men and women, I stayed a girl, though. Then when I started learning to transform myself, I did different human forms first, before I tried becoming any sort of animal — man, boy, woman, girl, giant, dwarf, pale Northlander, hairy-faced Islander — Father said it was safer that way. He wouldn't let me change into an animal without his supervision for two years. When he went off to war and I took over his business, I found out that people in the neighborhood had been arguing among themselves about whether my father had a son and a daughter or only one child who changed back and forth. I let them keep wondering.” He grinned.

---

The next morning, Launuru woke to find himself naked again. He was covered with a thin layer of dead grass. He sat up and looked around, the grass falling off his chest and arms. Kazmina, lying on the other side of the coals of their fire and apparently still asleep, was also naked, largely but not decently covered in dead grass. Launuru averted his eyes, got up and walked a little distance from the camp to pee; when he returned, Kazmina was awake.

“I'm sorry about the clothes,” he said, brushing the grass off himself. “I'm not as good at transforming dead things; they're more stubborn.”

“Can you remake them?”

“I could, but it would be a waste of time. We'll be on our way as soon as we extinguish the fire thoroughly.”

“How shall we do that?”

“Just watch,” Kazmina said with a grin; he knelt on his hands and knees, and began transforming alarmingly. His nose stretched out, absurdly long, and almost every part of him grew hugely, especially his arms and legs. Moments later he (or she, Launuru thought, but wasn't sure) was ambling toward the lake on four legs as thick as oaks. The creature stood in the shallow water, extended its long nose, and snorted up a great bolus of water; then turned, raised its head and nose into the air, and sprayed water toward the smoldering coals — and incidentally toward Launuru, who was instantly soaked. He yelped, backing away from the fire and the steam rising from it. Two more slurps and sprays and the fire was thoroughly extinguished.

Launuru wanted to ask what sort of creature Kazmina had become, whether some wizardly anomaly unknown to nature or a natural animal from a distant land, but he had no immediate opportunity; he found himself shrinking and twisting into the now-familiar form of a ngava goose, while the monster at the lake's edge rapidly shrank into the flock leader. He followed the leader onto the water and, having devoured a few small, savory fish, they took to the air.

---

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.

The full novel is already available from Lulu.com. I'll be serializing it here in twenty-two parts over the next few months, about one chapter per week. The next chapter will be posted no sooner than 23 August, as I'll be traveling next weekend.

“There's a haunt; do you make away with it, you'll have sweet supper and soft bed.”

“A haunt?” Kazmina asked, dismayed.

“A phantasm, a ghost?” the woman said. “In the barn yonder.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 3 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.

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.

---

After many hours of flying, with a couple of pauses to descend and forage, the tiny flock descended onto a mill-pond. They swam ashore, and changed into men. Near the mill was a house, several barns and other outbuildings, and extensive fields planted in a variety of grain and vegetable crops.

A small boy who had evidently seen them transform cried out, “Thaumaticals!,” and ran toward the house.

“Oh dear,” said Kazmina. “Let's get dressed before he brings his parents out to welcome us.” He looked around and gathered some dirty straw from the ground nearby, muttering words over it to turn it into a couple of long robes, one in green and one in red; he handed the green one to Launuru. Once dressed, they walked toward the house the boy had run into. Before they got there, the boy rushed out again, followed at a more sedate pace by an adult man and woman and several other children of both sexes.

“Y'are thaumaticals, says m'boy?” said the man of the house — a tall fellow with long red hair.

“Seen 'em, I did!” the boy insisted. “Geese into men, momently!”

“I don't quite understand,” Kazmina said. Launuru was somewhat relieved that he wasn't the only one. The locals here spoke a dialect of Tuaznu strange to him — and apparently to Kazmina as well.

“Thaumatical? Y'are sorcerers, wonderworkers?”

“Oh,” Kazmina said, “Wizards.” Launuru recognized that word, in standard Tuaznu; and now he recognized too the word “thaumatical,” a mutated borrowing from the Ksarafra word for wizard. Probably they were close to Harafra now — or even in Harafra; who spoke what languages where was not so sharp a matter as the map on the wall of Master Tsekaunsu's classroom would have it. “Well, my companion isn't a wizard, but I am,” Kazmina continued after a moment.

“Seen 'em both, I says!” the boy interjected.

“We've been traveling in the form of geese, and stopped here for the night to ask for shelter.”

“Y'need help of us?” the man asked. “What way? Is there fighting near?”

“No, I don't think the war's spread this far,” Kazmina said, “at least I haven't seen any signs of battle from the air, in the area northeast of here we just flew over. I'm a wizard — an enchanter, to be exact — and I can pay for our supper and beds for the night in any number of ways...”

“A show!” cried the small boy, and several of the other children, apparently his siblings, echoed him enthusiastically. But the woman said: “There's a haunt; do you make away with it, you'll have sweet supper and soft bed.”

“A haunt?” Kazmina asked, dismayed.

“A phantasm, a ghost?” the woman said. “In the barn yonder.” She pointed to an unpainted wooden barn with a thatch roof in slight disrepair. “Tramp hanged hisself there, three year ago in the eighth month. He haunts the place now, the barn so bad we can stable no beasts there; even the house, sometime.”

“Aye,” the man put in; “that's the thing. Do you make the dead one go off, we'll reward you how we may.”

“I'm afraid I can't help with that,” Kazmina said; “I'm an enchanter. What you need is a necromancer or exorcist.”

But the woman said again, “Do you away with the haunt, we'll fill your belly and shelter your head.”

“I don't do that kind of magic,” Kazmina said, apparently at a loss to make himself understood. “I don't know how.”

Launuru suggested, “Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the barn?”

“All right,” Kazmina said, looking annoyed. “Show us.”

The man told his wife and children to return to the house, and led Kazmina and Launuru to the barn his wife had pointed out. He opened the door and revealed a mostly empty structure, containing some bales of hay and a few tools, mostly broken or rusted, but no animals.

“Where did the man hang himself?” Kazmina asked. The man walked a little way into the barn and pointed to a loft on their right. “Tied the rope there, and jumped, he did. M'poor Gisha found him stiff and stinking, what time she came out to milk the kine.”

Kazmina nodded. “How often have you or other members of your family seen the ghost?”

“What time we still use the barn, someone saw or heard it every four, five days. Two year now, we use not the barn; the phantasm haunts the house or fields three, four times in the month.”

“Well,” Kazmina said, “I can't guarantee results — I told you this isn't the kind of magic I specialize in — but leave us alone here for a while and I'll do what I can.”

“Thank'ee.” The man withdrew hastily. Kazmina shut the door behind him, leaving them mostly in darkness, with narrow beams of sunset light coming in through chinks in the walls.

“What are you going to do?” Launuru asked.

“Nothing,” Kazmina replied in a low voice. “We'll wait here for half an hour, then go back to the house.”

“What? But you said...”

“I said I'd do what I can. And I also said there was nothing I could do about this. It's not my fault if they didn't believe me or understand me. Besides, it's quite possible this will take care of their problem anyway.”

“How...?”

“Most supposed ghosts aren't really spirits of the dead; they're just local superstitions that grow up around a place where someone died in a picturesque way. If that's all this is, then maybe just having me arrive, do something mysterious, and then go away will reassure them that the ghost is gone, and they'll stop imagining they see it.”

“But what if it isn't?”

Kazmina shrugged, apparently, though it was hard to be sure in the dim light. “I promised no results. But so-called necromancers would do nothing more, though they'd promise more and charge a higher fee. They're charlatans who have no real magic, or ordinary wizards who ascribe their powers to the spirits of the dead to make people afraid of them. I said most ghosts are only local superstitions — that's certainly true, but if you want my opinion, substitute 'all' for 'most'.”

Launuru shook his head, saddened but not greatly surprised; Kazmina wasn't the first wizard he'd met who didn't believe in ghosts. “Not all,” he said. “I've seen one myself.”

“Have you?” Kazmina asked skeptically; he forgot for a moment to keep his voice down.

“Hush! What if they're spying on us?” Launuru said, in a lower whisper than before. “The children, especially?”

“Oh, good point. I'd better put on a show for whoever might be watching or listening.” The enchanter spoke in a much louder tone, in a wizardly language; he went on for several minutes. After a minute, sparkling colored lights appeared in the air above his head. Launuru listened inattentively to the spell-chant and watched the lights.

After a few minutes of this, though, he caught some motion out of the corner of his eye, and turned to look. Nothing. Probably rats.

Again, a few minutes later. But he was sure this time that whatever he'd seen moving was much larger than a rat. “What was that?” he asked Kazmina. “Part of your spell?”

The wizard didn't answer instantly, but continued the chant for a few heartbeats, then fell silent. The lights disappeared; between the decrease in sunlight coming through the chinks in the wall and the loss of their eyes' adjustment to the dark, it seemed pitch dark. “What was what?” Kazmina asked quietly.

“I saw something moving — ”

“I saw a couple of rats earlier. I can make them go away if they bother you. Actually, that would be a far better payment for our lodging and supper than a fake exorcism; I'll do that anyway.”

“No, this was definitely larger than a rat; maybe as big as a man — ”

“It's probably your imagination. I'll leave off the sparkly light spell and start working on the rats.”

“What should I be looking for now?”

“You might hear increased activity from the rats for a few minutes, as they leave the barn. Nothing else; you probably won't see them.”

He began another spell-chant, not so loud as the last. Launuru's eyes adjusted to the darkness again, but he still couldn't see much, only the barest outline of Kazmina standing a few feet from him and gesturing.

After a time he became aware of rustlings in the hay, probably the rats. He shifted his footing uncomfortably, afraid some of them might run across his feet on their way out. Then he became gradually aware of another voice. He wasn't sure he heard it, at first, but after a little while he was sure it was coming from behind him, was deeper than Kazmina's, and was speaking another language — the local dialect of Tuaznu, apparently, though he could only catch a few words here and there.

He turned around, slowly, facing away from Kazmina. About the same distance from him as the enchanter, but between him and the door, he saw (or thought he saw; it was so dark it was hard to be sure) the outline of a man taller than himself. He yelped, and rapidly backed up, stumbling into Kazmina.

The enchanter broke off his spell-chant and said angrily, “What's wrong with you? Interrupting a wizard's spell — that could have been dangerous if it had been something more powerful than a simple banishing of rats!”

For a long moment he couldn't get his voice to work. “There,” he said finally. “What?” Kazmina asked. He started another spell-chant, and moments later the sparkling lights appeared again. They were alone in the barn.

“I saw him,” Launuru said; “first I heard him whispering behind me, and I turned and there he was...” But he was no longer as sure as he had been in the dark.

The lights disappeared again as Kazmina stopped the spell-chant and said, “Well, never mind. Let's go back to the house; it's been long enough.” He walked to the barn door and pushed it open. It was full night now, and they stumbled a few times on their way back to the house, but Launuru heard no more of the uncanny whispering.

Kazmina knocked at the door, and a girl not much younger than Tsavila opened it. “I have done what I could,” Kazmina said. “I think that the ghost will not trouble you again.”

“Thank'ee,” the girl said, and ushered them in.

The room they entered could not have been more than a quarter of the size of the whole house, which was in turn larger than many other farmhouses Launuru had seen in his travels; that suggested a fair degree of wealth by peasant standards. The man and woman and the other children were sitting around a large table, eating; but on seeing their guests at the door, they all stood up.

“Did you make away with the haunt?” the man asked.

“I saw no sign of it after I completed my spells,” Kazmina said. They seemed satisfied with that. Launuru wondered if he should say something — but what? If Kazmina hadn't been able to make them understand that he didn't know how to exorcise ghosts, any attempt by Launuru to warn them that the ghost might still be there could be just as futile, only serving to make an enemy of the wizard whose help he needed to reach Tsavila in time.

“You have our thanks, and your meed,” the man said. The woman gave rapid orders, speaking too fast for Launuru to understand, to her children; the two oldest left the room with their mother through one door, while the younger ones left through the other door. “Sit you,” the man said, gesturing, and Kazmina and Launuru joined him at the table. “I am named Davas the miller; m'wife, Zhnali. Ask the names of m'childer or ancestors, if such will not be tedious, or tell me of your own, if you think me fit to hear.”

“We are honored to meet you,” Kazmina said. “I am Kazmina son of Znembalan, of Vmanashi. My companion is Launuru son of Rusaulan, of Niluri. We would be pleased to hear of your children and ancestors.”

So their host began listing his children, from Gisha, the oldest, already betrothed to the son of a farmer living not two kilometers off, to Vmelo, the boy who had espied Kazmina and Launuru's descent and transformation, and Luambi, a girl of about two. He had barely started listing his own and his wife's grandparents when his wife and the oldest children, Gisha and her brother Ngesin, returned bearing fresh trays and plates of food, which they set before the guests.

It was better food than Launuru had tasted in months; Kazmina's cooking was competent, but not varied, and in the last months of his journey on foot he'd never had money to pay for a really good meal, or leisure to stay for it. There were chicken and goose (which Launuru skipped; he noticed that Kazmina ate none of the chicken either), three different kinds of bread, and four kinds of vegetables.

After supper, Kazmina offered to give the children a show of magic; Davas thought for a moment and assented, then called in younger children from the other room. In rapid succession Kazmina became mirror images of each of the children, then of their parents, from youngest to oldest, and then transformed into a series of small animals; he let the smaller children chase him around the room as a kitten, a green lizard, and a mouse, finally scurrying under his crumpled robe and resuming human form.

“That's the end of the show,” he said, bowing. “If you rise early tomorrow like good children, you may see me and my assistant change into geese and fly away.”

“To bed, childer,” Zhnali said. “All of you sleep with father and me this night. Come!” She, with Gisha's help, ushered all the younger ones out through the door to the kitchen, perhaps through that room to another. Davas rose from his chair and said: “I'll show you what place you'll sleep, lord thaumatical.” He led Kazmina and Launuru into the other adjoining room, which held a large feather bed, big enough for all seven children and more than ample for Launuru and Kazmina.

“Here see the dung-bowl,” he said, nudging a ceramic pot, only faintly malodorous, which stood by one of the bedposts. “Put out the lamp on the table there as soon as you may. We others sleep in yonder room,” with a gesture toward a door in the right-hand wall through which they could hear the chatter of the children.

“We shall, goodman. Dream well,” said Kazmina. Davas opened the door, revealing another room of the same size and layout with a similar bed, on which some of the children were bouncing as their mother scolded them and their eldest sister bathed the youngest in a washbasin.

The moment this glimpse of domestic harmony was ended by Davas closing the door behind him, Kazmina burst into giggles. “That was the most fun I've had in months!”

“It was fun to watch too,” Launuru said. “I think the goodwife was upset to see you taking the appearance of her husband and herself, though.”

“Sorry. Well, to bed.” The wizard pulled his gown over his head, rolled it up, and set it on the floor next to the chamber-pot. “You'd best do the same — the robes will be unmade by morning, and the straw they were made from was none too clean; we don't want to dirty their bedclothes more than necessary.”

“All right,” Launuru said reluctantly. He'd shared a bed with his brothers at home, and with Verentsu and other students at school, and of course back home it was too hot to wear clothes in bed most of the year; but with Kazmina? That seemed different, since he was really a woman, in some sense... But he was too obviously a man at the moment. Perhaps it was all right.

Once they were horizontal, he was too tired for any possible impropriety to bother him; he fell asleep not long after he first heard Kazmina's gentle snores.

---

Launuru woke to find a bright, narrow sliver of sunlight coming through the edge of the paper screen over the window and into his eyes. He sat up. Kazmina was still sound asleep, his mouth open. There were sounds of conversation and clattering dishes from the next room.

Launuru got out of bed, opened the screen a bit wider to give better light, and looked around for the chamber pot. He found it on Kazmina's side of the bed, next to the pile of dirty straw to which their robes had reverted. After peeing, he sat back down on the bed, uncertain what to do next. He couldn't get dressed until Kazmina conjured more clothes, and he didn't want to leave the room naked or wrapped in a bedsheet, or, for that matter, wake Kazmina unnecessarily soon. But after a few minutes, impatience got the better of him, and he shook Kazmina awake.

“Hnnh?” Kazmina mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “What's wrong...?”

“We've got no clothes, breakfast is getting cold, and we need to get to Nilepsan before the wedding.”

“Right.” Kazmina sat up, stared into space blearily for a minute or two, then got out of bed. Launuru looked away when Kazmina threw the sheet off. He heard the splatter of piss in the chamber pot, then the low mutter of a spell-chant, and felt something soft hit him on the shoulder. He turned around.

“There you go,” Kazmina said, pulling on a red robe like the one he'd worn the previous evening. A green one was lying at Launuru's feet; he knelt, picked it up and drew it over his head.

By the time they opened the door into the dining room, Zhnali had already cleared away all the breakfast dishes, except for two plates of cooling but still warm cornbread. Davas and the older children were gone; only the youngest two were still in the house.

“See there, your meal,” Zhnali said. “You may be gone after you eat, if you please.”

“Thank you,” Kazmina said. They sat down at the table and started eating. Vmelo watched them for a moment, until his mother shooed him out of the room ahead of her, returning to the kitchen.

Their hostess said nothing more to them, and stayed out of the dining room. “I think she's afraid of you,” Launuru said to Kazmina in a low voice. “Or perhaps angry.”

“We'll leave quickly, then.” As soon as they finished eating, they stood up. Kazmina stepped over to the open doorway and said, “Our thanks again to you and goodman Davas, goodwife Zhnali. We will be on our way. Is there anything else we may do to repay you for your hospitality?”

“Nay, you need do no more,” Zhnali said, looking at them and holding Vmelo and Luambi by the shoulders.

“Very well. Good-bye.”

They walked out the front door, unescorted. In the distance, they could see Davas and some, maybe all, of his older children working in one of their fields, harvesting late corn.

“Are you ready?” Kazmina asked, walking toward the pond.

“I expect so,” Launuru said. The wizard pulled off his robe and looked expectantly at Launuru; he did the same. They dropped the robes, and Launuru felt the sudden, momentarily but intensely painful twisting and stretching of his body and limbs. He followed the flock leader into the air.

---

They flew for hours, then descended to a lake to forage and rest. Just as they took off again, and before they had attained much altitude, there came flying at them out of the sun something bright-winged, fierce and screaming. Launuru veered off from the flock leader, panicking and trying to gain altitude as fast as his wings would take him. But the scream abruptly cut off. He looked around, and there was the flock leader, with another bird of their own kind following. He rejoined the flock; they continued to rise, reached a steady altitude and tranquilly went on.

When they descended again, through a layer of clouds extending as far as they could see in all directions, they found a steady drizzling rain. The rain didn't bother them while they descended to the surface of a large lake and swam ashore, but when Launuru became aware of himself again, standing next to a naked Kazmina and a confused, frightened goose, the rain was suddenly a real annoyance. Kazmina didn't remark on it at first, though.

“What shall we do about her, poor thing?” Kazmina asked. The goose backed away from them, hissing.

“Where did it come from?” Launuru rejoined. “I have a vague memory that it's been flying with us for a while now... when did it join us?”

“When it attacked us, and I turned it into another ngava goose. Don't you remember that?”

“Oh. Now that makes sense.” It was like when one forgets a dream immediately on waking, only to be reminded of some vivid incident from it half an hour later by something one's schoolfellow says at breakfast. He remembered the bird of prey attacking, himself fleeing, then realizing the danger was past and rejoining the flock, not questioning the fact that there were now three of them.

“Do we need to do anything about it? What about clothes and shelter?” Launuru shivered in the cold rain, torn between wanting to hug his shoulders for warmth and cover his privates for — well, privacy.

“I should do something before she gets out of range,” Kazmina said, oblivious to his own nudity and Launuru's embarrassment. “One goose by herself, with no magic to protect her, isn't safe to migrate. I could turn her into a mbekivu eagle again, but... no, I'll make her something native to this lake. Hmm...” He looked around at the lake on whose shore they stood. “Aha!” He turned and walked slowly toward the goose, which had stopped twenty or thirty yards off to eat some grass or insects hiding among the grass, or perhaps both. (Launuru felt a momentary twinge of nausea at his own recent diet.)

The goose hissed and flapped its wings, flying a short distance away again. But as soon as it landed, it transformed, its wings extending and shrinking into paws while furry forelegs grew out between them and the body. It croaked loudly, the avian squawk becoming a mammalian squeal; moments later an otter looked around in confusion, then dived into the lake.

“There,” Kazmina said. “She should be as well off here as any other otter.”

“Good,” Launuru said, still shivering. “What about us? Where are we going to sleep — under those trees yonder, or...?”

“I saw a village over toward that end of the lake,” Kazmina said, plucking some grass to conjure clothes from. “Let's see if we can get a bed and some human food.”

Kazmina conjured a couple of hooded robes for them, which were soon soaked, though they helped for a few minutes. In the village, they found a small inn; the people here in western Harafra mainly spoke Gnerris, but the innkeeper and a few others spoke Ksarafra as well, which Launuru knew. He interpreted for Kazmina, and she healed the innkeeper, his wife, and his daughter of pox scars in exchange for a couple of meals and a night's lodging for them.

Next morning, they left the village and flew south again.

“We need something better,” she said. “We need to make a good impression, as a pair of fine ladies — ”

“What?” he exclaimed.

“I'll explain in a little bit; I've figured out how to disguise you when we meet Psavian and Tsavila.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 4 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.

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.

---

That evening, they walked from their landing site to a nearby road they had seen from the air, and southward along it until they met two men, one in middle age and one much younger, driving an ox-cart. Launuru heard them speaking in Ksiluri, and knew they were probably well into Niluri; then he asked directions of them in that language, and learned that they were but five leagues from Nilepsan.

“I suppose we can't go any further as geese,” he said to Kazmina in Tuaznu, as the oxen plodded on past them; “one day's flight from here would take us well beyond the city.”

“Indeed,” the wizard said, “it might take us all the way to the ngava geese's winter home, and then the mating instinct would be as strong in us as the migrating instinct has been for the last four days.”

Launuru gaped at him, appalled. “I would not wish that,” he said. “You are a fine woman, but I love only Tsavila.” In spite of himself, he found his horrified thoughts dwelling on what might have happened if they had been too dominated by their migrating instinct to stop before passing the city. “If that were to happen,” he asked, morbid curiosity overcoming him, “and I begot goslings on you, would they have human souls, and have human rationality if you changed them into human babies...?”

“Oh, but you wouldn't beget them,” Kazmina said. “A flock of ngava is led by a male. After you laid the eggs I'd gotten on you, we would take turns, one sitting on the eggs while the other foraged for food. As for the goslings' souls, I think they would be human, but I'm not sure, and don't think it wise to try to find out.”

But this revelation had pushed aside his speculation about the souls of hypothetical goslings. “I've been a female goose for the last four days?”

“Indeed; I thought at first you knew, but when I realized you hadn't noticed, I decided not to worry you. It no longer matters, for we won't have occasion to use those forms again.”

He was at a loss for words for a moment, and decided to change the subject. “Shall we walk the rest of the way from here? Can you tell when these magical clothes are going to turn into rubbish again, and renew them or give a warning so we can hide until they dissolve and you can recreate them?”

“We'll acquire some real clothes soon,” Kazmina said. “For now, let's walk, but not both of us as humans. Can you ride a horse with no saddle or bridle?”

“I'm not sure,” he said, alarmed. “I've ridden with no saddle before, but never with no reins or bridle...”

“I'll be docile,” the wizard assured him. “Just hold onto my mane, tight enough to keep from falling off but not tight enough to hurt me. You know the roads here, I suppose; give me a gentle tug in one direction or another when we come to a crossroads, and I'll get us there faster than we could walk in human form. Or if no one's around, just tell me which way to go.” Once the ox-cart was out of sight around the bend, he gestured and the robe he wore dissolved into the dead leaves he had conjured them from; he knelt on the ground and began changing into a fine grey mare.

It had been nearly a year since Launuru had had occasion to ride, and much longer than that since he'd been obliged to ride bareback. With all Kazmina's cooperation, it took him four tries to get mounted. Once he was astride her, she ambled down the road at an easy pace among cornfields and pastures. They saw barns and houses a little more frequently as they went. Others passed them in both directions: a dozen or more people on foot, three ox-carts, and two men on horseback.

Just after sunset, when no one was in sight, Kazmina left the road, ambling into a copse of trees dividing a pasture from a cornfield. She stopped short. She shook her head slightly, not nearly hard enough to dislodge Launuru; but he took it as a hint, and dismounted. The moment he was clear of her, Kazmina changed back into a man. He conjured a robe for himself, not brightly colored as before, but of plain linen, and pulled it over his head. “We should stop for the night soon,” he said. “Do you have any ideas?”

“The people we met told us we were near the city, and I'd thought we would have gotten to an outlying village or maybe an inn by now. We could push on, look for an inn or a farmhouse to ask for shelter...”

“Let's rest here until morning. We'll sleep in an inn in the city tomorrow, I suppose. I want to sleep out in the open one more time before this adventure is over.”

Launuru had had plenty of “adventure” in the months of traveling under the geas, and was not so fond of sleeping in the open as Kazmina. However, he didn't argue. Kazmina worked her enchantment on the dead leaves under the trees, and soon they had a pair of cozy beds for as long as the enchantment would last; and hopefully not too hard after it wore off, either. Here in central Niluri, the weather was still warm on this sixth day of Autumn. They'd filled their goose-stomachs shortly after landing, and weren't hungry yet, though Launuru suspected he'd be famished by morning. They laid down, and Kazmina, after a few moments' silence, started telling a story about a trick she and Tsavila had played on their fathers that summer they had spent together. But he took longer and longer pauses in telling it, and fell asleep before getting to the point. Launuru fell asleep not long after.

---

The next morning, Kazmina conjured a tunic and trousers for Launuru, and transformed himself into a mare again. At first Launuru was too bleary to feel hungry yet; by the time his stomach started grumbling, they were well on their way down the road, and he hoped they would reach an inn or market soon. Kazmina paused to graze at the edges of pastures from time to time, which made him hungrier as he remembered how good grass had tasted when he was a goose (though not nearly as good as worms or fish). The road they were on dead-ended into another; he hesitated a moment and tugged Kazmina's mane slightly to lead her southeast, which ought to be toward Nilepsan. Before long, he began to recognize landmarks; they were on a road he knew slightly, northwest of the merchants' academy and the city.

He tugged her leftward at the next crossroad, and right at the next, bringing them to the broad, busy highway that ran from the north gate of the city, past the temple of Tsaumala and the merchants' academy, and all the way to the Long Bridge over the River Paletaksu into Harafra. It was that highway he had trodden when he left Nilepsan under Psavian's geas.

If he had not miscalculated his conversion from the Harafra to the Niluri calendar when he inquired the date of the innkeeper, they still had five days left until Tsavila was supposed to wed Itsulanu. She should still be at her father's house in the city. Kazmina would disguise him so he could meet Tsavila privately, while she distracted Tsavila's father with news of his old friend, her own father, and this time they would elude Psavian's clutches. They would wed secretly at some roadside shrine west of the city, and have their wedding hermitage at an inn, and set up business in Nesantsai, she doing wizardry and he interpreting for travelers and merchants until he had enough capital to set up as a merchant himself... He was so lost in happy memories and plans that he forgot the limited lifespan of the clothes he wore.

Until they fell to pieces, the dead leaves fluttering away on the breeze.

As luck would have it, he was neither alone nor in a great crowd of travelers at this point; he was passing a coach with a passenger sitting on the box next to the driver, and approaching an old woman on foot and a young man driving an ox-cart. All, it seemed, turned to stare at him on the sudden loss of his clothes.

As he wracked his brains for some explanation to offer them, Kazmina took control, breaking into a canter, passing the old woman and the ox-cart, and turning quickly into a side-lane, where they were soon out of sight of those, though not out of sight of some men working in a cornfield south of the lane. She stepped out of the lane into the fallow field on the north side and abruptly stopped, and Launuru, though he had taken a tighter hold of her mane when she increased her pace, almost fell off. When she continued holding still, he dismounted, and a moment later she transformed into a human — a man, with Viluri features and curly hair.

“I'm sorry,” he said; “I was supposed to be watching for that and stopping to replace your clothes at some convenient place before they fell apart.”

“I should have reminded you,” Launuru replied. “What now?” He looked; at least one of the men in the cornfield was approaching them.

“If he asks us our business and why we're naked, I don't see why you can't tell him the truth. Not the whole truth, of course, but as much as he needs to know.” She was gathering dead leaves and stalks from the ground as she spoke; he bent to help her.

“What's all this?” the farmer, or farmhand, said as he crossed the lane and approached them.

“Magic,” Launuru explained, thinking quickly how much he should say; “my clothes were conjured by magic, and they vanished a little sooner than I was expecting. To avoid the eyes of passersby I turned aside into this lane to replace them.” By the time he finished speaking, Kazmina had touched the bundle of leaves in his hands and turned them into a pair of trousers, which Launuru stepped into.

“Are you enchanters?” the farmer asked. “I saw you on a horse, and I thought I saw it change...”

“My companion is a wizard,” Launuru said, thinking fast and adjusting his speech to the high register used by the nobility. “A young wizard, and not so good at conjuring durable clothes as he claimed when I hired him. Mundane clothes would have been a better use of my money; rest assured I shall clothe myself with good Niluri cotton and Nemaretsu silk when I return home.”

The farmer gaped, in awe at and perhaps afraid of the young nobleman who could afford to hire a wizard to transform into a horse and carry him — foolish though he might be to pay for conjured clothes that would vanish in a few hours, he was not a man the farmer wished to make angry. “Carry on, my lord,” he said. “If you would wish to rest at my home and borrow whatever clothes I have which fit you — poor stuff, but they will not vanish off your body — ” He abruptly stopped, afraid perhaps that in his haste to avoid angering the nobleman, he had angered the wizard, which might well be worse.

Kazmina, knowing almost no Ksiluri, understood none of this; he conjured a tunic for Launuru, then said: “What's he saying? Should I turn into a horse again, or make some clothes for myself, if we'll be staying here a bit longer?”

“Let's get going,” Launuru replied in Tuaznu. Turning to the farmer, he said “I will not impose on your hospitality, good peasant, except to crave your help in mounting.” He tried to act nonchalant as Kazmina changed into a mare again and the farmer gasped in amazement. “An intelligent mount has great advantages over a dumb animal, but he is unwilling to accept a bridle or saddle.”

With the farmer's help, Launuru got mounted on the second try. He called a condescending expression of thanks over his shoulder as they cantered away, then cursed himself for failing to discuss their plans further with Kazmina while he had the chance. He noted the position of the sun, and resolved to stop in the next convenient secluded place well before these new clothes would vanish.

An hour or so later, not long after passing the merchants' academy, Launuru tugged gently at Kazmina's mane to urge her into another side-lane. Once they were well off the main road, with no one in sight, he dismounted. “Turn into a human, please, so we can talk. How much longer will these clothes last? We're almost to the Market-outside-the-Walls, but we have no money...” As he spoke, Kazmina shrank, then kept shrinking after she'd attained a nearly human shape and size; she finally stabilized as a small girl, apparently three or four years old. He trailed off, staring at her dumbfounded.

“I've noticed that small children don't always wear clothes around here,” she said. “This will save me the trouble of conjuring more clothes, if we remain human long. How far is it to the city from here?”

“Five or six kilometers, I guess,” he replied, being a bit vague both on the actual distance and how to convert it into Tuaznu measurements. “But probably less than a kilometer to the market.”

“Well, let's go on like this. And we'll butter our bread on the other side: you can give me a piggyback ride!” She grinned mischievously and held up her arms. He smiled in spite of himself and lifted her onto his shoulders, then started walking back toward the highway.

“You didn't answer my question,” he said. “What are we going to do for clothes? It would be an inconvenience to have to keep conjuring new ones whenever the old ones are about to disappear...”

“We can earn some money once we get to the market, I suppose,” she said. “Or if not there, then inside the city. Then buy real clothes, but only after we assume the forms in which we'll meet Psavian and Tsavila. I'll need to be myself, and we need to make up our minds how to disguise you so Psavian will let you be alone with Tsavila while I tell him the news from Setuaznu.”

“Yes, we need to earn money for clothes and food both. You've grazed here and there, but I haven't eaten anything since we became human again early last night. I can translate or interpret among five languages, but it will be hard to get that kind of work quickly in a small market like this one, with no credentials.”

“I can heal,” she said, “and I can establish my credentials as an enchantress in ten heartbeats. Interpret for me and I'll earn us enough money in an hour or two to live on for as long as it takes us to arrange your elopement.”

His legs, already sore from hours of unaccustomed bareback riding, grew tired before they reached the market. “You'll have to walk for a bit,” he said, and stepped out of the busy road for a moment to lift Kazmina down from his shoulders. She took his hand and said, “All right, Daddy;” then looked up at him and winked. He felt a wonderful shiver. Would it feel like this when he was a father, when he took his and Tsavila's children for a walk...? Of course they wouldn't let their children run around naked like peasants, but...

The Market-outside-the-Walls was in sight up ahead when Kazmina started whining. “My legs are tired, Daddy, can I ride piggyback again?”

He swung her onto his shoulders again, though his legs were hardly less sore. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You're not forgetting yourself, are you? Should you change into a grown person already, and worry about clothes after you've recovered your mind...?”

“I'm just having fun with you,” she said sharply. “If I can keep human rationality for twelve hours as a ngava goose, I can keep adult sense during half an hour as a little girl. I'm not sure that you could, but I can.”

Once they reached the market proper, and turned aside from the highway into the aisles of booths and tents, Launuru asked a passerby where the labor exchange was. He followed the directions to a platform where a tall man with sparse grey hair was calling out, “Hiring day-laborers to harvest Lord Paletsu's cotton. Three nobles a day, with meals and beer.”

Launuru looked around and asked a woman selling melons at a neighboring booth, “How does one make an offer of skilled work? I'm a translator and interpreter; I speak Ksemaretsu, Ksarafra, Ksetuatsenu...”

She interrupted him: “I'm sorry, we don't have a good system for that here. Just the labor-agents hiring field hands and the like. Try the Westgate or Temple Square markets in the city.”

“Ah. Thank you.” He turned to go.

“What did she say?” Kazmina asked.

“There's no good chance of selling skilled services here; she recommended a couple of markets in the city.”

“Never mind that,” she said. “Put me down and get ready to interpret for me.” He did so, and was astonished as she clambered up onto the platform beside the man calling out for day laborers, transforming as she did so into a seven-foot-tall woman, her scalp, breasts and privates covered with bright blue and indigo feathers. She said, “Tell them I'm an enchantress from the north, fallen on hard times, ready to do healings of all kinds of sickness and deformity for... eh, whatever you think's a reasonable price in this market.”

He caught her toss and threw it onward, jumping boldly onto the platform beside her and calling out: “Ladies and gentlemen, behold the great enchantress Katsemina of Netuatsenu. She has traveled from the far north to grace Niluri with her presence and offer her miraculous services at surprisingly modest rates. Come and be healed of all manner of disease or deformity...”

The labor-agent who'd had possession of the platform before them interrupted: “Here now, you can't do this! There's an order to these things.” Several other men standing at the far side of the platform noisily agreed; they didn't seem worried about angering an enchantress.

“My good man,” Launuru said soothingly, in a low voice, “I apologize for the impulsive behavior of my principal. She is a foreigner and unused to our customs. Of course we will pay a generous commission for the use of your platform. And the interruption to your own use of it will be only momentary; I see it's a large platform, you may continue calling out for laborers at one end while the enchantress and I solicit customers at this end...?”

Kazmina looked down at them. “Ask him if he'd like me to restore his hair to what it was in his youth,” she suggested; “perhaps that will mollify him.”

Launuru conveyed this offer, and the labor agent readily accepted it. At a wave of Kazmina's hand, his grey hair turned red and grew in thicker and longer all over his mostly bald scalp.

“Observe, ladies and gentlemen!” Launuru called out. “Baldness cured for two kings, moles and warts removed for six nobles, chills and fevers cured for three kings; inquire for our other rates.”

Within a few minutes, they had as much business as they needed, and ceded the platform to the labor-agent. Launuru interpreted the customers' requests and handled the money. He had a scare when the fourth customer in their queue came up to speak to him: it was the steward from the merchants' academy, who must be here at the market to buy fixings for the students' meals. He would ask awkward questions about where he had been, and tell people that he was back — perhaps news would even reach Psavian before Launuru and Kazmina got to his house... But he didn't seem to recognize him. “I have a toothache,” he said; “can your employer do something for me other than extracting the tooth?”

Launuru consulted with Kazmina, and told him, “Three kings.”

“Very well,” the steward said, and paid. Kazmina went to work on him, and within minutes he went on his way, satisfied.

After collecting thirteen silver coins of various sizes with various monarchs' faces on them, and a few dozen copper coins bearing the faces of lesser nobles, he decided they had enough, and told Kazmina so.

The labor-agent saw them turning away the rest of their would-be customers, and came to collect his commission. Launuru calculated a tenth of their earnings, deducted two kings for the baldness cure, and paid him.

“I'm glad the steward from the academy didn't recognize me,” Launuru said to Kazmina as they left the platform.

“Who?” Kazmina asked, shrinking into a little girl again — perhaps even younger-looking than before.

“The man with the toothache.”

“Oh. You haven't looked in a mirror, have you...? I gave you a different face last night, since I thought we might be getting close to places where people might recognize you.”

“Oh,” Launuru said, taken aback. He was glad of her foresight, but felt nonetheless disconcerted; what did he look like? The idea of having a different face was even stranger, in a way, than being a migrating goose.

He shook his head and said, “Shall we buy clothes now? I think I saw a few vendors of clothing earlier.”

“Lead the way.”

“But first, perhaps... will these clothes I'm wearing last another hour? I'd like to eat first, if possible.”

She studied his trousers critically. “They might last another hour, but they might not.”

He sighed. “Let's buy some real clothes first, then eat.”

She took his hand and toddled along next to him. Before, they'd passed unnoticed, one more barefoot peasant going to market with his little daughter. But too many people had seen the seven-foot tall, feathered enchantress, and seen her transformation into the tiny girl; they met with stares and whispers as they made their way among the booths and tents to the vendors selling cloth, thread, and ready-made clothes.

After looking at the offerings of several seamstresses, Kazmina expressed dissatisfaction. “We need something better,” she said. “We need to make a good impression, as a pair of fine ladies —”

“What?” he exclaimed.

“I'll explain in a little bit; I've figured out how to disguise you when we meet Psavian and Tsavila. Let's just buy something cheap here and find a good tailor in the city.”

“All right. Are you going to remain a little girl for now...?”

“No,” she said, taking a woman's robe from a table, seemingly at random, and pulling it over her head. “Give the woman some money,” she said, her voice muffled for a moment by the fabric.

“How much?” Launuru asked the vendor. “Nine nobles,” she said, watching apprehensively as Kazmina grew rapidly into the robe, an adult head and arms emerging from its neck and sleeves, and adult breasts filling out its front. “Now something for you, and shoes for both of us,” Kazmina said.

Soon Launuru's mind was relieved of the worry that his clothes would suddenly vanish again, and his belly was comfortably full of bread, cheese and sausage; but new worries replaced the old as he walked down the road to Nilepsan, listening to Kazmina explain her plan.

“No, no, there's got to be a better way,” he said. “Being a female goose was one thing; I wish you'd told me what you were doing ahead of time, I wouldn't have liked it but I would have recognized the necessity once you explained it. But I won't let you change me into a woman.”

“Why not?” she asked. “It's just as necessary. There are other ways I could get you in to see Tsavila, but they'd have disadvantages as bad or worse. Would you want to be an animal, a dog or ferret I'm giving to Tsavila as a wedding present? That would get you close to her, but you couldn't talk to her to see if she still feels the same way about you and to plan your elopement if she does. Or a child, posing as my servant? You could get into the house with me that way, and might even be allowed to see Tsavila alone, but perhaps not for very long; and you'd be at a much worse disadvantage if we somehow get separated. If you're an older servant, Psavian will send you to stay in the servants' quarters when I'm not needing your services, and he'll have Tsavila in with him and me while I tell them the news from Setuaznu. And if you're an adult male servant, or a male relative or friend of mine, Psavian won't let you be alone with Tsavila. But if you're a woman of her age and class, then he will have no real choice but to assign her to keep you entertained while he and I talk about my father and the arcana of our profession — even though he might prefer to include Tsavila in all such conversation, he could not, in politeness, leave you alone for hours on end once he's invited you in along with me.”

After several rounds of similar arguments, Launuru finally gave in, with bad grace, about the time they reached Northgate and entered the city.

They avoided the quarter of the city where Psavian, and Launuru's own family, lived; Launuru guided them to the Blue Frog, an inn he'd heard good things about, near Northgate. After they ate a light supper, he asked the innkeeper about his prices and available rooms, and interpreted for Kazmina: “He says he has two adjoining rooms on the ground floor. Let's inspect them; if they are in satisfactory condition I shall pay now for two nights.”

“Two rooms?” she asked. “But you are going to be a woman as well; we'll need only one.”

“I thought we'd wait until we're about to go to Psavian's house, and let you change me then.”

“We could wait until we're about to go to a tailor to be measured for fine clothes, and change you then, but hardly until we're about to go see Psavian. And how many nights can we afford in two rooms, after spending an adequate sum to dress ourselves as well-to-do ladies? I would prefer not to interrupt our business with Psavian with another adventure at a labor market.”

Exhausted from the long day, he gave in. “Show us the rooms,” he said to the innkeeper in Ksiluri. The man led the way down the hall from the common room and exhibited two rooms, each with one bed and one cabinet; the bed in the second room, nearer to the stableyard and garderobe, was somewhat larger, though the room itself was slightly smaller. “We'll take this one,” he said. “Just the one room.” The innkeeper smiled and took his money.

When they were alone, Kazmina said: “I'm quite tired from carrying you for half the day, and walking so much in the last few hours, and healing all those people at the market; and I suppose you're tired from carrying me, as well. But if we're to go to bed now, I'll need to work one more transformation first.”

“Very well,” he said. “Go ahead.” He steeled himself, scarcely knowing what to expect even after being changed into a goose several times.

As usual, Kazmina said no mystic words and made no gestures; Launuru simply felt his body stretching and compressing a little bit all over and more extremely in a few places, far more quickly and less painfully than when he'd become a goose or returned to human form. She looked down at herself, but resisted the impulse to touch. Time enough for that later.

“To bed, then,” said Kazmina. She removed the cheap robe, opened the cabinet doors, and hung it over one of them to air out; then crawled onto the bed and under the sheets.

It was the first time Launuru had seen her naked since — no, it wasn't. But it was the first time she'd seen her naked, female, adult and human all at once, since the first day of their journey. It was surprising how quickly she had become accustomed to the sight, which was so arousing and embarrassing when he'd first heard her say, “Take off your clothes,” and begin to remove her own. Launuru removed her own tunic and trousers, which were now too tight in the waist and chest though they'd been slightly loose when he bought them in the Market-outside-the-Walls, and hung them over the other door of the cabinet; then crawled carefully into bed, trying not to touch Kazmina or indeed extend her limbs across the meridian of the bed.

“Relax,” Kazmina murmured; “it's not really so different from when we were both men, back at that peasant's house.”

“For you, perhaps; you've been a man and a woman any number of times. For me...”

“It will only feel strange for a little while. Relax, get some sleep.”

Launuru thought apprehensively about her coming meeting with Psavian and Tsavila. Kazmina seemed confident that Psavian would not see through the disguise; presumably she had some protections against his spying spells, but perhaps she thought that their appearance would be so unsuspicious that the wizard would not waste energy on a spell to determine their true intentions. Even if Psavian was unsuspicious of them, and Launuru had a chance to speak with Tsavila alone while Kazmina kept the older wizard occupied, what would she think of him? Would she admire his courage in returning for her and risking her father's renewed and increased wrath, or think him unmanly for assuming such a form to get a chance to speak with her?

Kazmina's breathing became more regular, as Launuru remembered it being when they'd slept by campfires or in the miller's children's bed. Thankfully, she wasn't snoring as she had done on some previous nights; perhaps that was a trait of her masculine form? Launuru raised her right hand to her left breast, touching it gingerly at first, then grasping it firmly... It felt like part of her. Not an unusually interesting or exciting part. Of course, her wings and her long, flexible neck had felt natural and normal when she was a goose; within minutes after each transformation, she had forgotten she'd ever been human, and felt no disorientation or distress. Would it be the same now? Would she forget she'd ever been a man? Probably not; Kazmina would hardly have suggested using this form as a disguise if it would make her forget her reason for coming to speak secretly with Tsavila. But she might quickly lose the sense that being a woman was strange or unnatural for her. She ran a hand down her belly, touching her secret parts only briefly and lightly; stimulating herself might make her cry out, waking Kazmina, which would be awkward. But the empty space between her legs didn't, she realized, feel like a gap or lacuna. Nothing felt missing, though she knew perfectly well that she'd had something else there a quarter of an hour ago. Was she already losing her sense that she ought to be a man? Perhaps so, though she still remembered her whole life as a man much more clearly than any of her recent days as a migrating goose. Perhaps by the time they saw Psavian and Tsavila she would still remember the reason she came, but no longer care about it. She must speak to Kazmina about this first thing in the morning.

“Kazmina,” she said, gently shaking the wizard, “you've got to change me back now... Or tell me what's going on.”

Kazmina wasn't fully awake. “What's wrong?” she mumbled, propping up on her left arm.

“This doesn't feel wrong, that's what's wrong! I'm forgetting what I'm supposed to be, just like when we were geese. By the time we go to see Psavian, I'm afraid I'll have forgotten why I came back to find Tsavila!”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 5 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.

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.

---

Other things were on her mind when she startled awake out of a nightmare of being attacked by the mbekivu eagle. Her surroundings gradually brought back her memories of the day before. She needed to pee. She disentangled herself from the sheets and from Kazmina's right arm, which had fallen across her belly sometime in the night, and quickly put on her tunic, trousers and shoes. The pre-dawn light from the narrow window was dim, but adequate for her dark-adjusted eyes. She emerged from their room and went down the hall to the garderobe.

It was only after she wiped herself that she realized how strange it was that none of that had felt strange. She hadn't been aroused by the touch of Kazmina's arm or her naked presence, hadn't felt surprise at her own body on waking, hadn't needed to think deliberately about sitting down to pee or figure out how to wipe her secret parts, hadn't felt any annoyance at the absence of her manly parts or the need to sit down beforehand and wipe afterward... It all came as naturally to her as flying and knowing whither to fly came to her as a goose.

She returned to the room, finding Kazmina still asleep. She hesitated, but decided to wake her.

“Kazmina,” she said, gently shaking the wizard, “you've got to change me back now... Or tell me what's going on. You can change me just before we go to the tailor to be measured, and then again just before we go to Psavian's house...”

Kazmina wasn't fully awake. “What's wrong?” she mumbled, propping up on her left arm.

“This doesn't feel wrong, that's what's wrong! I'm forgetting what I'm supposed to be, just like when we were geese. By the time we go to see Psavian, tomorrow or whenever the new clothes are ready, I'm afraid I'll have forgotten why I came back to find Tsavila!”

“You won't forget that,” Kazmina said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “The spell makes you feel comfortable being a woman, but it's not going to mess up your memory. When you turned into a goose you had a little tiny brain; it takes several extra spells for me to retain human rationality and memory in animal form, and I had to compensate by learning how to fly in that form the way I learned to walk and talk as a baby... But a woman has just as good a memory and reason as a man.”

“I mean,” Launuru said, grasping for the Tuaznu words to express her meaning, “I'm afraid I won't feel about Tsavila the way I felt about her before.”

“Oh.” Kazmina looked thoughtful. “Well, you probably won't — ”

“What?!”

“ — but don't worry, it's not like you'll forget about her or not care about her. Your manly passion for her won't just disappear; it will turn into womanly friendship — if it hasn't already — and then when I turn you back into a man, it will become passion again.”

“But how will I — ” She thought of the prospect of meeting Tsavila like this. Lying awake under the stars the night before last, he had planned what he would say, how he would tell Tsavila he was the same man she knew, disguised by Kazmina so he could meet her; how much he had missed her; how much he still loved her... Could she say all those things he'd planned to say, and be entirely convincing, if when she finally met Tsavila she felt only friendship for her? She tried to analyze her current feelings toward Tsavila, and only succeeded in confusing herself.

“It will be all right,” Kazmina said. “I'm hungry, what about you?” She stood up and pulled on her robe.

They ate breakfast in the common room of the inn, then left to seek a good tailor. As they got deeper into the city, the one-storey wooden buildings of Northgate gave way to two and three-storey buildings, many of brick or stone, and the traffic grew denser; they had to dodge carts and carriages to cross the wider streets, and sometimes squeeze their way through crowds against the flow of traffic. Before they had gone far, Kazmina said to Launuru: “We have to do something temporary about your clothes — they're too obviously a man's, the way they're so tight in the chest and hips.” She spoke the words and made the gestures she'd used to turn bundles of dried grass into men's clothing, and Launuru's tunic and trousers adjusted to fit her much better. “Thank you,” she said, looking around to see if anyone had noticed this open display of magic. It didn't look as though anyone had; the tunic and trousers were still of the same undyed cotton, only their shape having changed.

Before they were halfway to Tailor Street, Kazmina asked, “How much further is it?”

“A kilometer and a half, maybe?” Launuru hazarded; she'd always been better at languages than at figuring. “Would you rather we hire a coach? This is a safe enough neighborhood I'd prefer to save our money for the clothes — ”

“No, walking's fine. I'm just surprised at how big it all is. It just goes on and on.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose it's one of the biggest cities I know of.” It was probably eight or ten times bigger than Vmanashi, which, Launuru reflected, might be the only city Kazmina had ever seen.

When they reached Tailor Street, Launuru made inquiries, and selected a tailor specializing in upper-class women's clothing. They presented themselves in the front of his shop.

“My good sir,” Launuru said, putting on a Tuaznu accent, “my cousin and I have traveled hither from Netuatsenu, and suffered misfortune on our way. A few days ago there was a fire at our inn, and we lost all our clothes, being forced to buy these poor garments from the neighboring farmer's wife. We wish you to make for us three sets each of fine clothes after the current mode here in Nilepsan.”

The tailor was a little condescending at first, but when Launuru did not blink at the price he quoted, and did not hesitate or bargain before paying for the first set in advance, he became assiduous. He measured them, then showed them materials and sample garments, asking their preferences; Launuru translated for Kazmina, and, though she would have preferred to have this over with as quickly as possible, they played their parts and dithered over the selections for some time before placing their order. The tailor assured him he could have the first set available by the evening of the following day.

Launuru fretted inwardly at the delay, but it could not be helped. After buying better shoes from a nearby cobbler, and ink and paper from a stationer, they returned to their inn, and spent the rest of the day rehearsing their parts; Launuru memorized the history Kazmina had devised for her fictitious cousin, and the true history of her father, Kazmina's father's older brother's son, who lived in the far eastern province of Setuaznu. Kazmina meanwhile wrote a note of introduction in the wizardly language Rekhim.

They ate in the common room again for supper. The other guests were mostly older men, with a couple of families. Launuru had been noticing the strangeness of how normal she felt less and less often as the day went on; one of these moments occurred during supper, when she realized she had been looking appreciatively at a good-looking man at the opposite table. She was briefly worried, but decided, on analyzing her feelings, that she felt nothing serious for him; her attachment to Tsavila was in no danger.

The next day after breakfast, Kazmina wanted to explore the city. Launuru led her from one monument and fine building to another for some hours, and they lunched at an inn not far from Westgate. Soon after leaving the inn, they passed a small crowd gathered around a storyteller, who was telling “How Rupsevian Made the Kentsan Flow West.” His voice was clear and his sense of timing excellent, and Launuru wanted to stay and listen, but Kazmina quickly grew bored, so she reluctantly tore herself away.

They walked along the Kentsan, looking at the waterfowl and the boats, until they reached the Broad Bridge, where they crossed and spent a couple of hours looking at the paintings, bas-reliefs and statues in the temple of Psunavan before returning across the river and heading for Tailor Street. Kazmina suggested that they bathe before trying on their new clothes; Launuru considered returning to their inn and requesting a tub of hot water from the innkeeper, but they ran across a neighborhood bathhouse whose signboard indicated that it was women's day. Launuru paid the attendant two nobles, and they entered.

It was only some time after they had undressed, dipped into the hot pool, and scrubbed themselves and their dusty, sweaty clothes that Launuru felt a momentary strangeness, realizing that though she was surrounded by naked women and girls, several of them young and pretty, she felt no arousal or excitement. When she finished scrubbing Kazmina's back, a woman about their age, who'd apparently come to the bathhouse alone, asked Launuru to help her scrub her back, and she did so matter-of-factly, quickly dismissing her lack of arousal as unimportant.

Launuru climbed out of the pool to go hang their clean clothes on the drying rack in the inner courtyard, then returned to the pool to relax for a while. She and Kazmina lazily, intermittently conversed, Kazmina asking her occasional questions about Psavian, his family, and the layout of his home, and quizzing her on her cover identity as Kazmina's cousin. After a while they dried off, dressed, and went on to Tailor Street.

After seeing and trying on the first sets of clothing the tailor had made for them, a long dress in blue silk with axolotls embroidered along the sleeves and a wide yellow belt, for Launuru, and one in red silk with embroidered knot-patterns, for Kazmina, Launuru pronounced them satisfactory and paid for the next set, to be ready the following day. The tailor showed them the others he and his journeyman had in progress; eager to go see Tsavila and her family as soon as possible, she briefly agreed that they looked good and hurried out.

“Are you hungry?” Kazmina asked her as they emerged onto the street. “Shall we go eat at our inn or look for some other on the way there?”

“Psavian's family eats supper about this time, or a little later,” Launuru said. “I don't see any reason not to go there now that we're dressed properly.”

“It's been a long day,” Kazmina said, “and though the bath was pleasant and relaxing, I'd still like to get a good night's sleep before I face Psavian.”

“All right,” Launuru said. They returned to their inn.

---

The next morning, Launuru finished her breakfast quickly and fidgeted, watching Kazmina eat and asking her when she'd be ready to go.

“You see,” Kazmina said, “you had nothing to worry about. Being a woman hasn't made you forget your goal in coming. You're still anxious to see Tsavila and speak with her...”

“Exactly,” Launuru rejoined, “so can we get going?”

When Kazmina finished eating, they returned to their room and changed from their cheap clothes, slightly stained from supper and breakfast, back into the fine dresses they'd taken delivery of the day before. Then they set out, hiring a carriage for a significant fraction of their remaining money. They crossed the Broad Bridge and went past Temple Square along South Street to the neighborhood where Psavian's family lived. A short time later they stopped before Psavian's house, Launuru calling out to the driver as they approached it to identify their destination. They emerged from the carriage and she rang the bell on the gate.

A few moments later, a servant emerged from the house and came to the gate. “May I ask your business?” he asked through the bars, eying the women and their clothing.

“This is the house of Psavian the wizard, is it not?” Launuru asked, knowing perfectly well that it was. She put on a slight Tuaznu accent.

“It is.”

“Then tell him that Kazmina, daughter of his old friend Znembalan,” she gestured to her companion, “is traveling in Niluri with her cousin Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan, and wishes to visit him, if the time is suitable. Else, he may send word to our inn sometime before we leave the city, informing us when he wishes to receive us.” Then, “Give him the note now,” she said to Kazmina. Her companion passed the note through the bars.

“I shall inform him at once,” the servant said. “In the meanwhile, you need not wait here on the street; come in and make yourselves comfortable in the parlor.” He unlocked the gate; Launuru dismissed the carriage, and followed Psavian's servant through the garden to the front door. He left them in a large parlor opening off the vestibule.

They did not have long to wait, but Launuru's anxiety made the short time seem far longer. She nearly started from her richly upholstered chair when Psavian burst into the room and cried out in a language she didn't know.

Kazmina answered in the same language, apparently, and rose from her chair, crossing the room and extending her hand to the old wizard, who bent his head and kissed it. Launuru rose and smiled nervously. After Kazmina and Psavian exchanged a few more words — presumably in Rekhim, the wizardly language about whose complexities Tsavila had complained to him at the name-day feast where they'd met — Psavian said to Launuru in Ksiluri: “I am pleased to meet you, Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan.”

Launuru belatedly realized she should extend her hand as Kazmina had done. She did so and said, as Psavian kissed her hand, “And I to meet you, sir.”

“Your cousin tells me you do not speak Rekhim? Does your branch of the family follow another school of magic, then?”

“Alas, my grandfather did not inherit our great-grandfather's talent for magic. My family are merchants.”

“I see. You speak our language very well.”

“Thank you. I traveled much with my father and mother when I was small, and learned Ksiluri and Ksarafra when we stayed for some time in various cities of Niluri and Harafra.”

“Excuse me one moment.” Psavian spoke with Kazmina again in Rekhim, then said to Launuru: “You visit us at a joyous but busy time. My daughter is to be wed three days hence, and tomorrow morning we will leave for my country estate at Tialem for the wedding festival. But I must hear the news of my friend Znembalan and his family; I hope that you will honor us with your presence at the wedding, if your business in Niluri permits such a diversion, or at least visit until supper this evening?”

“We would be happy to attend the wedding,” Launuru said, her heart pounding, “if it is truly suitable...”

“If at all possible, you must. Wait one moment, I must tell my children of your arrival; my daughter in particular will wish to see her old playmate.” He spoke with Kazmina again, then left the room.

“What did he say?” Launuru demanded as soon as he was gone.

“He asked after my father, then how you were kin to me; then after he spoke with you he told me about the wedding — he said they're leaving tomorrow for his estate — ”

“He said the same to me.”

“And he invited us to attend. Isn't this perfect? I told you he would invite us to stay.”

“We'll see if I get a chance to talk to Tsavila alone, though. She'll be ever so busy with the preparations for the wedding.”

“I'll see to it.”

But it was neither Psavian nor Tsavila who entered the room next, but a young man of Launuru's own age, whom she did not realize until that moment how much she had missed.

“I apologize for the delay, good ladies,” he said. “I am Verentsu, Psavian's youngest son. My father and sister will join us shortly. Shall I send for food or drink?”

It took Launuru some little time to respond; she was too overwhelmed by the sight of him. She had never noticed before how large his eyes were, or what color (hazel, she now realized).

After silently staring at him for far too long, then stammering for a moment, she finally managed to say: “We ate just before leaving our inn... Ah, perhaps my cousin wants something to drink.” She managed to tear her attention away from Verentsu for a moment and ask Kazmina if she wanted something.

“A glass of wine,” Kazmina said, “any sort they have... Are you feeling all right?” She looked worried.

Launuru didn't reply. “My cousin would like a glass of wine,” she said to Verentsu. “I suppose I'll have one too.” Then, belatedly thinking of something else she'd omitted: “I am Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan; my cousin is Kazmina daughter of Znembalan.” She extended her hand, her heart pounding even harder.

“I am honored to meet you,” Verentsu said, and bent to kiss her hand. Kazmina extended her hand and he kissed it. “One moment.” He bowed and left the room, but didn't go far or stay long; she heard him talking to a servant in the passage, after which he returned and seated himself in a chair near them.

“I gather that your cousin speaks little Ksiluri?”

“She speaks only Ksetuatsenu and Rekhim,” Launuru said. She tried to focus on her cover story. “It was our complementary skills which suggested this voyage to us... There is a saying in Netuatsenu, 'Two women may travel safely, if one of them is an enchantress.' And I know several languages, having traveled much with my father and mother as a child; so we decided to see the world, or as much of it as her magic and my languages can open to us.”

“I am overjoyed that your travels have taken you here,” he said. Then, switching to Tuaznu, he said, haltingly, “My ability of Tuaznu is small, but I wish to say I am happy in meeting of you both.”

Kazmina smiled, and said, slowly and with careful enunciation, “We are happy to meet you as well.”

Verentsu switched back to Ksiluri. “I gather that you have met my father and sister before...?”

“My cousin has,” Launuru said, after a moment's distraction. Being in his presence was bringing back intense memories from their long friendship. “I believe they, and her father, were all present at some great conclave of wizards and enchanters that was held in our country some years ago.”

“Yes, I remember now,” Verentsu said; “they were gone for three or four months one year. I don't recall exactly how long ago, but it was when I was still being tutored at home, not yet at the merchants' academy.”

“So you are not yourself a wizard, then?” Launuru asked, for once thinking clearly of what Kazmina's fictitious cousin would ask on hearing that.

“No, my father and sister are the only wizards in the family. I'll graduate from the academy later this year; I have a position waiting for me with a trading consortium here in the city, but I think I may work as my father's business manager instead. I have helped managed the household and his wizardry business for him for some months now, in the intervals of my last term at the academy.”

At this point the servant returned with three glasses of red wine on a tray. Verentsu handed two of them to the ladies (very gracefully, Launuru noted with approval); Launuru thanked him, and the servant withdrew.

“So,” Verentsu said, after they had each taken a sip of wine, “I have heard that you have had a war in your country. Has it not made travel dangerous — ?”

Before Launuru could think of a reply, or even spend more than two heartbeats cursing herself for not paying more attention to the revolution going on around her while she traveled through Netuatsenu, two other figures entered the room. Kazmina, Launuru and Verentsu all rose.

“Tsavila, may I present Shalasan of Netuatsenu?” said Verentsu, with a nod toward Launuru. “You already know Kazmina, though you may not recognize her after so long...” But it seemed that she did; she crossed the room at a run and embraced Kazmina, after which they talked excitedly in Rekhim for two or three hundred heartbeats.

Launuru looked on happily, glad to see Tsavila looking so well. But a glance aside at Psavian started her worrying; he was smiling, but she was not sure that the smile was a benevolent one. For a moment, she thought he might have seen through her disguise.

After a brief conversation, Tsavila turned to Launuru and said in Ksiluri, “So you are Kazmina's cousin Shalasan?”

“Yes,” Launuru said, eager to speak with her alone and tell her who she really was. They had so much to talk about!

“I'm pleased to meet you,” Tsavila replied. Then Psavian said something in Rekhim, and Tsavila and Kazmina both replied briefly. Kazmina looked slightly disappointed. Psavian spoke again in Ksiluri, saying “I hope you will excuse us, my lady; we wizards have much to discuss. Verentsu, please keep our other guest entertained. Perhaps you can show her around the house and garden.”

The three wizards left the room. Part of Launuru was disappointed not to have a chance to converse with Tsavila, but a much larger, surprisingly insistent part was delighted at the chance to be alone with Verentsu. She would have time to talk to Tsavila later, anyway, if Psavian was inviting them to stay through the wedding...

Verentsu turned to her as his sister and the others left the room. “Where were we? I think I had just asked you about your journey, when my father and sister came in...”

“Yes,” Launuru said, thinking frantically. Should she tell him now, or continue play-acting until she had occasion to tell Tsavila privately? Somehow it seemed like a bad idea to tell him just now, though she couldn't think why. “You asked about the revolution...? There's been a lot of trouble, of course, but most of the fighting was near the capital; we avoided that area, going southwest from Vmanashi until we got to Harafra.”

“It must have been exciting, even so,” he said. “I've never been farther north than Ristaha myself. — Did you pass through there on your way here?”

“Yes,” she lied; he'd walked through that city on his way north, and she thought she remembered it well enough to compare notes with him if he wanted to.

“It's not as big as Nilepsan or Nesantsai, of course, but I thought it was a fine city; I wouldn't mind living there. The Paletaksu is a much cleaner river than the Kentsan...”

“I suppose so,” she replied; “it probably comes of the city being smaller, fewer people dumping their — ” She thought suddenly that a lady ought not perhaps to speak plainly about that. Perhaps she could be excused as a foreigner...?

There was an awkward silence for a moment, broken when she said: “And we saw — ” at the same moment he said: “Yes, I suppose — ” They broke off again, then laughed.

“Go on,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “we saw the big equestrian statue they have of Kahespo. I think it's probably five or six yards high, and wonderfully lifelike.” He had stood in its shadow for hours, haranguing one passerby after another about the dangers of meddling with the affairs of wizards.

“Did you see the observatory?”

“No, I'm afraid not.”

After some little further talk about the journey, Launuru managed to turn the conversation toward Verentsu himself and his family; but she learned comparatively little that she didn't already know. He had been managing the business side of his father's wizardry practice, as his mother had done before her death, and his brother Melentsu had married a young woman from Nesantsai, one day after the period of mourning for their mother was ended. Verentsu was beginning to ask after her own family and their business when they heard the distant ringing of a bell. She supposed that someone, Psavian perhaps, was ringing for a servant somewhere; but a few moments later, as she was recounting the history Kazmina had obliged her to memorize, and wondering if it wouldn't be wiser to tell him her real identity already, the manservant who had admitted Kazmina and Launuru entered.

“Begging your pardon, master, but Omutsanu and Itsulanu have arrived. Shall I show them in here? Your father said he and your sister and their guest were not to be disturbed...”

“Yes, Rapsuaru, show them in.”

Moments later, the servant ushered in two men, one about Launuru and Verentsu's age or a little older, and one seemingly of Psavian's age — though it was a chancy thing to guess the age of a wizard. Launuru gazed at them in horrified curiosity.

“Shalasan, this is my sister's fiancé Itsulanu and his father Omutsanu,” Verentsu said. “Omutsanu, Itsulanu, this is Shalasan of Netuatsenu...” Launuru scarcely heard what else he said about her. He had hated them from the moment he heard their names, when Tsavila had told him, weeping, of her arranged marriage; but he had never met either until now. Now she found herself thinking that Itsulanu was not bad looking, although of course nowhere near as fine a man as Verentsu; his skin was coarser and his eyes an uninteresting brown.

“What do you mean, young lady, bringing my daughter's would-be lover under my roof under false pretenses?”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 6 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.

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.

---

“Zmina, it's been so long since the conclave, but I remember it like last night,” Tsavila said as they followed her father down the hall. “Father said that he sent you and your father an invitation, but when we didn't hear from you, I thought you weren't coming! Where is your father?”

“He is serving in the army,” Kazmina said, “chiefly as a medic. I have not spoken to him often or for long since he left home; neither of us is so powerful as you and your father with communication magic.”

“I see,” Psavian said. He led them into a library, with two tall shelves containing perhaps three hundred books, larger by far than her father's library, two desks, and four comfortable chairs. “And he sent you out of the country for the duration of the war, I suppose, to keep you safe?”

“Not at first,” she replied. “I had mastered, not all of his spells certainly, but the most important ones, our bread and butter; and I knew the people of our neighborhood, who could be trusted and from whom I must insist on payment in advance, and so forth. He left me at home, continuing to run our business, for some time. Then my cousin came to stay with me — her father thought she would be safer with me, since the war had spread to their home province — and we decided it would be both prudent and enjoyable to leave the country for a while.”

“Well,” Psavian said, “I suppose your father's school of magic does take less time to master than ours. If Tsavila can pluck secrets from men's hearts and compel their obedience as well as I can ten years hence, I shall be very well satisfied; indeed she is already more skillful than I was at her age, though not yet ready to earn a living on her own.”

Kazmina seethed, still trying not to show it, though she suspected her shield spell would not keep a master like Psavian from detecting her anger. Was he deliberately provoking her? It seemed likely. Then he must suspect something — or perhaps there was some enmity between him and her father she didn't know about, which he was taking out on her...? But why then send Launuru to her father?

“Tell me about the wedding,” she said, turning to Tsavila. “What is your fiancé like? How long have you known him?”

Tsavila glanced downward and blushed. “Just a few months,” she said. “But he's a wonderful man, gentle and thoughtful... and his family's magic is different enough from ours that we have a lot to teach one another, but similar enough that learning one another's magic won't be like starting over as a novice.”

“That's good,” Kazmina said, wondering whether Tsavila would say the same when her father was not present. Had she so quickly forgotten her love of Launuru when he was gone? Or was Launuru, perhaps, self-deceived about how serious the affair was on her side? Psavian had certainly thought it serious enough, to use such powerful magic to get rid of him. “I think your father said that the wedding would be elsewhere, though?”

“Yes, at our country house near Tialem. You'll like it, I think; its gardens aren't as vast as those on your father's estate, but they're beautiful for their size. The wedding will be at the shrine to Tsaumala a short distance from the house.”

“We'll leave tomorrow morning,” Psavian said. “You must join us then — we'll have room in one of the carriages for you. Or better, tonight — tell me which inn you're staying at, and I'll send for your things; you may stay here tonight.”

“That will be good. But we've scarcely anything to send for; we've been traveling light, using my magic.”

“Very well. What transportation spells do you know? My daughter's fiancé knows some powerful ones, and his father and mother still more, which he will learn in due course...”

“Alas, I know only a special application of my father's great discovery. To pass quickly over uninteresting or dangerous territory, I changed myself and my cousin into birds, and we flew to our next destination. Because we had to acquire new clothes each time we returned to human form, I did so sparingly — only four times in the course of our voyage.”

“Ah, I see.”

“What's it like being a bird?” Tsavila asked, her eyes sparkling. “I wanted your father to change me into something when we were staying with you during the conclave, but Father wouldn't let him...”

“I can show you sometime, if you like,” Kazmina said. Psavian looked disapproving, but she ignored that. “But you'll need to learn one of Father's spells to keep your reason when I change you into an animal. It's easier than the transformation spell itself, though.”

“Time enough for that later,” Psavian said. “For the next three days we will be busy enough preparing for the wedding, and for some days afterward Tsavila and Itsulanu will be busy with yet other matters.” Tsavila blushed.

There came a knock at the door.

“Who can that be?” Psavian said. “I told the servants we were not to be disturbed — ”

“Perhaps it's Itsulanu, Father?” Tsavila said, going quickly to the door and opening it.

It was in fact Verentsu, Tsavila's brother. Kazmina wondered how he had reacted to Launuru's revelation. He didn't look especially perturbed; he must have learned to keep his emotions thoroughly hidden, living with such a father and sister.

“Father, Omutsanu and Itsulanu are here,” Verentsu said. “Shall I send them back here, or — ?”

“Oh, how thoughtless of me,” Psavian said. “Your arrival, Kazmina, drove this other meeting quite out of my mind. Well, Tsavila, go and see your fiancé; his father, your brother and your friend's cousin are sufficient chaperons, I suppose.” He smiled. “Kazmina and I will be there shortly. I wish to hear more news of her father.”

“Very well,” Tsavila said. “Come along as soon as you can, Zmina. I want you to meet Itsulanu.”

But the moment Tsavila closed the door behind her, Psavian said sharply: “What do you mean, young lady, bringing my daughter's would-be lover under my roof under false pretenses?”

---

Launuru's distraction was broken when Verentsu said he was going to tell his father and sister of the new guests' arrival. She was left alone with Omutsanu and Itsulanu in the parlor.

“So, you've traveled all the way from Netuatsenu?” Omutsanu said. “Was it a difficult voyage, with the civil war in your country?”

“Not as bad as you might think,” Launuru replied, smiling nervously. “We avoided the capital and other places where there's been fighting, using Kazmina's magic to travel sometimes.”

“What sort of magic does your cousin wield?” Itsulanu asked. Launuru was spared the necessity of answering right away; Omutsanu said:

“Verentsu said she's the daughter of Znembalan, yes? Their family specialize in transmutations and transformations. Some years ago Znembalan discovered a much more powerful spell for the transformation of living creatures than had ever been known; he demonstrated it at the last conclave, don't you remember? Turned himself and his daughter into various animals and birds, and did arithmetic by scratching a slate with a claw or talon to prove they were still rational in their altered forms...?”

“Oh, yes! I remember her now. She was a wild thing; I remember thinking she acted as though she'd spent most of her life in some animal form or other.”

“Did you travel by transforming into animals or birds?” Omutsanu asked. “Or does your cousin know other transportation magic as well?”

“We changed into birds a few times,” Launuru said. “And once Kazmina changed into a horse, and let me ride her. — What sort of magic does your family use?” she asked, thinking it prudent to change the subject.

“We mostly enchant things,” Itsulanu said. “We make cabinets, jugs, and satchels that are bigger inside than out, and put protective spells on houses, carriages and so forth. But we also do transportation magic — the King relies on Father and Mother to teleport his ambassadors to and from various foreign capitals.”

Just then Verentsu returned with Tsavila. Launuru was happy to be with her again, but frustrated that she still couldn't tell her who she was, with Itsulanu and his father present.

That momentary happiness was marred, if not destroyed, when Tsavila rushed to Itsulanu and embraced, then kissed him, ignoring Launuru altogether. Of course — as far as she knew, Launuru was Shalasan, a cousin of her childhood friend whom she'd only met briefly half an hour ago. But she was behaving very enthusiastically about this arranged marriage.

“Shall I have food or drink brought for you?” Verentsu said. “Father said he was going to be closeted with Kazmina of Netuatsenu for a little longer, but would join us soon.”

“I at least can wait until your father joins us,” Omutsanu said, with a benevolent look at his son and prospective daughter-in-law. “Itsulanu?”

“Indeed, I'm not thirsty either.” He and Tsavila sat on the divan, very close together; Verentsu resumed his seat on the chair near Launuru's, and Omutsanu took another unoccupied chair next to Verentsu.

“Let's see,” said Verentsu; “you've all met Shalasan now. She was just telling me about her family when Omutsanu and Itsulanu arrived, Tsavila; her grandfather was Znembalan's brother, and her parents were merchants, traveling all over the world when she was a child.”

“Interesting,” Tsavila said, though she didn't seem nearly as interested in “Shalasan's” history as in Itsulanu's person. “Was that how you learned our language?”

“Yes,” Launuru said. “We lived in Nesantsai for two years when I was about eight to ten years old, and I think we even visited Nilepsan a few times, though I don't remember much about that.”

“Zmina told me you changed into birds while traveling hither,” Tsavila said. “What is it like to fly?”

“I don't actually remember it very well,” Launuru confessed. “It's like a dream. I couldn't think like a person when I was a bird, like Kazmina can. I remember that I couldn't see colors, only shades of grey. And the flying wasn't like the flying dreams I've had, but more like swimming... not much like that, but more like swimming than walking or anything else I can compare it to.”

“How does Kazmina's spell handle your clothing and baggage?” Omutsanu asked. Launuru blushed; she'd managed to divert attention away from this point, earlier.

“It doesn't,” she said, looking down at her lap. “We had to leave our old clothes behind and acquire new ones each time, so she used that spell sparingly.”

“Ah,” Omutsanu said with a smile, “perhaps you will wish me to teleport you and your baggage to your next destination, after the wedding. Let me know.”

“Thank you.”

The wine she had drunk was beginning to have its effects. She squirmed a little in her seat. Then inspiration struck. She leaned over toward the divan and said in a low voice, “Tsavila, could you show me where is the garderobe?”

“Oh, of course,” Tsavila said. “We'll be back shortly, my love,” she said to Itsulanu, and led Launuru from the room. Finally, Launuru thought, a chance to speak with her privately!

---

Kazmina had worried that her second-hand shields might not protect Launuru against mental searches by a master wizard such as Psavian, and she had prepared a contingency plan for such an event. She hoped, indeed, that Psavian had learned Launuru's identity only by looking into her mind, and not from Kazmina's. If he could see past her own shields, the wheel was off the carriage; there would be a very short wizardly battle, which she would probably lose. But assuming he knew only what he saw in Launuru's mind, she could bluff this out. She kept her face unperturbed as she said:

“I'm glad we're finally alone, so I can explain that. I thought perhaps bringing her here would be more satisfying to you than turning him into a vole and then sending you a curt message to that effect?”

“Satisfying? Do not provoke me!” She readied her defenses. “I have seen your plans in the mind of your so-called cousin, to closet her with my daughter so they could plot an elopement! Not that I think Tsavila would fall prey to the blandishments of that creature a second time, but — ”

“Oh, but you've misunderstood. I had to deceive her as to our real object in coming; I have not your power to compel obedience. But if you have seen her plans in her mind, and what she thinks my plans are, you can look a little deeper and see that she is no longer in love with your daughter.”

“What?” Psavian looked startled. Good; she had him off-balance, and her own shields against mind-searching were holding, though the second-hand shields she'd given Launuru apparently hadn't held for long.

“Go ahead; test her from here, if you can, or we might return to the parlor and I'll engage her in conversation if necessary while you discreetly look into her thoughts and emotions.”

“That will not be necessary.” He composed himself and closed his eyes for a few moments. Then abruptly he opened them and laughed heartily.

That was not the reaction Kazmina had expected, but she hoped it was a good sign.

“I see what you've done,” he said. “I commend you, and your father who invented that spell — have you made improvements to it yourself? No? Well, it was very well cast, in any case. Very clever, to convince the boy that he must become a girl in order to secretly approach his beloved, and then, in making him a girl, cause her to forget his love for her and... Ha, ho!” He broke off in another bout of prolonged laughter, then dried his tears and said, more seriously: “Still, clever though it was, I still think it unwise. If I had not put a quick little geas on her as soon as I detected the imposture, she would have confessed her identity to Verentsu in our absence, which might have had unfortunate consequences. I did not tell my children about the necessity of sending the boy to your father, of course.”

“Of course,” Kazmina said, though she hadn't realized it until now. “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing directly. I arranged for Verentsu to hear reports that his schoolmate had been carrying on with one of the academy scullery-maids at the same time he was courting my daughter, and that, having gotten her with child, he had fled to avoid a forced marriage with her; Verentsu broke the news to his sister without my having to say anything, or admit that I knew of her girlish dalliance. She quickly dried her tears once she got to know Itsulanu; he is twice the man his sometime rival was, even aside from his wizardly heritage.”

“A masterly proceeding,” Kazmina said with feigned admiration. “I apologize for not sending word to you beforehand, but you see I have not mastered communication magic; I could not send a message as fast as I could travel hither to tell you myself, and I thought — foolishly, perhaps — that it would be droll to show you at the same time.”

“Well, how shall we deal with her now? I have a mind to do nothing, except reexamine the hasty geas I placed on her to ensure it is stable, and perhaps set conditions for its expiration.”

“How does that work, if I may ask? My father taught me no such spells of compulsion as your family are masters of.” A little flattery might help.

“It prevents her from telling anyone who she really is,” he said. “She will continue to act the role of your cousin, except when alone with you. As I said, it was a hasty job, the work of a few moments, but if I cast it well, she will think she is refraining from telling Tsavila and Verentsu her identity for her own reasons, biding a more propitious time.”

“What a subtle spell!” (Was she perhaps laying on the flattery too thick?)

“Isn't it?” he replied complacently. (Apparently not.) “I don't think it necessary to leave it on her indefinitely — it would inconvenience you to be burdened with such an impostor cousin, I suppose. But a few days in company with Verentsu will work on her, and possibly on him — I would not object to that in the least. I shall remove the geas, or adjust it to expire under suitable conditions, before you and she leave my estate after the wedding.”

Kazmina realized what he was talking about, putting it together with Launuru's odd behavior earlier. That was what he had laughed so hard about, after looking more deeply into her mind! Having been a close friend of Verentsu before her transformation, she had fallen in love with him on meeting him; the transformation spell had turned manly friendship into womanly passion. Kazmina hoped she could get them all out of this mess before the wedding.

“Shall we rejoin the others?” Psavian said, rising.

“Let's,” she said.

---

Having been in the house a number of times, of course Launuru knew where the garderobe was; she relied on the complexity of the hallways to give her an excuse to ask Tsavila not to return to the parlor until she finished her business. She didn't wish to confess her identity and beg forgiveness for the temporary deceit while walking down the hall, then interrupt Tsavila's astonished barrage of questions to duck into the garderobe and pee before resuming the conversation.

“I see that you know our language very well indeed,” Tsavila said, leading her around a corner.

“Yes, I said I lived in your country for two years. Why do you...?”

“You used the word 'garderobe'. Just the right word for the situation — most foreigners who pick up the language on the streets, or from our mercenaries or sailors, use a more vulgar word, and most foreigners of your class who learn it in academies or from private tutors pick up some archaic euphemism like 'necessary room' or 'toolshed'.”

Launuru remembered quite clearly how he had retailed this observation of his to Tsavila, to her immoderate amusement, on her returning from the garderobe during one of his visits. In a way, it seemed like a perfect opening to tell her who she was — but her need for the garderobe had only increased during the short walk thither.

“Can you wait for me?” she asked, stepping in but holding the door open for a moment. “I'm afraid I might get lost trying to find the parlor again.”

“Of course.” But Tsavila cast a glance down the hallway toward the parlor; a longing glance, perhaps.

While she lifted her dress and situated herself, Launuru thought about that glance, and about Tsavila's enthusiastic greeting of Itsulanu. Apparently she had reconciled herself to Launuru's loss some time ago, and was not merely resigning herself to her father's plans for want of any effective way to oppose him, but had actually grown to love the man her father had chosen for her. Would Launuru really be doing her good by telling her who she was and pleading with her to elope, as they had planned six months ago? Perhaps she should sound her out, find out her feelings toward her before confronting her with what might be a hard choice.

She left the garderobe. Before she could decide how to start some thread of conversation that would prompt Tsavila to talk about him, her friend said: “What do you think of him?”

“Hmm?” For a moment Launuru wasn't sure which “him” she was asking about. She found her thoughts turning to Verentsu again, and said “Your brother is a gracious host,” which was very inadequate praise, but all she could bring herself to say at the moment.

“Oh, yes. But I was talking about Itsulanu. Isn't he wonderful?”

“Um.” Launuru was taken aback. Tsavila was seriously enamored with him. “I suppose... I mean, I just met him. He's polite enough. Ah, how long have you known him...?”

“Six months. I mean, I'd met him once before that, when we were children, but I didn't really get to know him until our parents introduced us last winter. I was hesitant at first, you know — I think he was too, we were a little resentful of our parents arranging the match for us, but I soon found out how good a man he is.”

“Is he the first man you've ever loved?” That was perhaps too direct, coming from someone Tsavila thought she'd just met, but Launuru could not at the moment think of a subtler way to get to the point.

Tsavila scowled and started down the hall. “Come on,” she said, “they'll be waiting for us.”

“I'm sorry to pry,” Launuru said. “I didn't realize — ”

“To answer you: he's not the first man I've loved, but he's the first man who's really loved me.”

Before Launuru could think of what, if anything, to say to that, they were back in the parlor. Kazmina and Psavian had returned, and a servant was handing round more glasses of wine. Tsavila took her seat next to Itsulanu again and kissed him. Launuru sat uneasily in the chair near Verentsu again.

---

When Psavian and Kazmina returned to the parlor, the older wizard asked in Rekhim, “Where are Tsavila and, ah, Shalasan?”

“Attending to business,” Omutsanu replied shortly. Psavian then spoke to his son in Ksiluri; he replied briefly.

With the mix of people present, it was inevitable that someone would be excluded from any general conversation. Kazmina soon found herself listening distractedly to a conversation in Rekhim between Omutsanu and Psavian, while Verentsu and Itsulanu conversed in Ksiluri. She thought about Launuru. How would the geas be affecting her? Would she realize she was under a spell, or blame herself for cowardice? Had she perhaps gotten Tsavila to show her to the garderobe so as to have a chance to tell her of her identity and her plans, and then found herself unable to command her tongue to speak? Or had she felt herself growing afraid that Tsavila would think her unmanly to take such a form in order to approach her, and found excuses to put off telling her...?

She was recalled from her distraction when Omutsanu addressed her, saying: “Psavian tells me that your father is serving as an army medic?”

“Yes, that's right.”

“It seems to me that his magic could be of assistance to your king against those rebels in many other ways than merely healing wounded soldiers. Some military uses of his transformation spell should be legal under the Compact, I think.”

“Um,” she temporized, wondering where to begin. They thought her father was serving the king? Which king? Should she disabuse them of the misconception, or let them keep thinking what they liked...? No, she had enough lies to keep track of without that.

“It's possible he's using his magic in other ways as well,” she said, “but he hasn't told me so. We've only spoken three times since he left home, though, and then only briefly; he left me a limited number of prepared spells to contact him in emergencies, and each allows only a short conversation. And another thing — my father is serving the revolutionary army, not the army of the deposed tyrant or one of the would-be successors to that office.” Oh, dear; that was probably too blunt. But if they saw her being bluntly honest about one thing, they might be less suspicious that she was deceiving them in other matters.

Omutsanu was silent for a moment, then said, “I see.” Another pause, and he said to Psavian, “Now, about the binding rite...”

Just then, Tsavila and Launuru returned and sat in their former places. Both looked distracted and upset. Kazmina glanced aside at Psavian; he was smiling, apparently pleased with whatever he saw in Launuru's mind, and perhaps in Tsavila's.

There was a brief conversation among the others in Ksiluri, Psavian asking something and all the others but her replying briefly; then he said to her in Rekhim, “We'll eat dinner in half an hour or so, my dear.” Verentsu was rising from his seat as his father spoke; he left the room and returned a few moments later, saying something to his father, who nodded in satisfaction and resumed his conversation with Omutsanu about the wedding plans. Verentsu sat down again next to Launuru, and they and Tsavila and Itsulanu resumed a conversation in Ksiluri. Again, Kazmina was out on the edge of things.

Launuru said little in the carriage on the way back to the wizard's house. She was thinking about her reaction when Kazmina had suggested that she change back into the man she'd been when she hired the room. It had been as appalling to her just now as the idea of becoming a woman had been when Kazmina suggested it two days ago. If that were so, how could she ask Tsavila to marry her, promising to become a man again soon?

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 7 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.

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.

---

“Hello again, Shalasan,” Verentsu said with a smile that went a considerable way toward lifting her spirits after Tsavila's mysterious remark. “Itsulanu and I were talking about the Temple Game of a few days ago.”

“Tell me about it,” Launuru said, genuinely curious.

“Well, how much do you know about our customs?”

“My parents took me to one of those games when we lived in Nesantsai, but I don't remember it well.”

“Well, on certain holy days the priests of one god play games against the priests of another, as... proxies, I suppose, for the gods they champion. On the first of Autumn, nine days ago, the priests of Kalotse played tsekiva against the priests of Psunavan, at the Temple of Psunavan, and the priests of Kalotse won by seven points.”

Launuru thought quickly. He had actually thought about that game, briefly, while convalescing at Kazmina's house — the geas hadn't allowed him much leisure to think about all the other holy day games he'd missed during his journey, still less the informal games for practice and fun that took place on ordinary days and between non-priestly teams. What she wanted to know was who had led each team, and who had scored the most difficult shots, and whether it was won within the usual three rounds or took extra time — the seven-point margin made extra rounds unlikely, but not impossible... But a foreign lady like Shalasan wouldn't know enough to ask those questions.

“What is tsekiva, please? Is seven points a very good victory or about average?”

Verentsu warmed to the subject, eventually answering most of Launuru's silent questions. Itsulanu and Tsavila joined in explaining the rules and customs; Launuru found that she didn't mind the roundabout way of finding out what she wanted to know, as it was such a pleasure just to hear Verentsu and Tsavila talk, after all this time, even if she couldn't yet reveal what she most needed to talk about. After a few minutes of this Psavian asked them if they were hungry; when most of them said yes, he asked Verentsu to go and tell the kitchen staff they were nearly ready for dinner. The conversation about tsekiva continued during his brief absence, and he rejoined it when he returned.

“But you haven't explained the most important thing,” Tsavila admonished her brother, after a long description of Lakinu son of Tevaupsu's amazing shot into the smallest, leftmost goal across more than half the field. “The priests of Kalotse winning means a mild Autumn and Winter, a good harvest, and prosperity to young lovers.” She smiled at Itsulanu as she said that, and they kissed.

Which young lovers?, Launuru thought with a pang. She turned away from Tsavila and Itsulanu to face Verentsu and asked, what she knew perfectly well, “So is Kalotse your name for the goddess we call Znasan? She rules pleasant weather and love and childbirth and growing things?”

Verentsu looked momentarily abashed. He had never paid as much attention in the geography and language classes as Launuru. “I think so,” he said cautiously. “I mean, Kalotse rules those things; I don't know about, uh, Tsenasan?... Tsavila, do you know?”

But it was Omutsanu who answered, evidently having been listening at least as much to the young people's Ksiluri conversation as to Psavian's Rekhim monologue. “The best philosophers do seem to think that Kalotse and Znasan are local names for the same goddess, known as 'Sunhama' in Harafra and by various unpronounceable names in the islands and the hill country. Psolempi of Nesantsai argues further that Tsaumala was originally a local name of Kalotse as well, but came to be considered a separate goddess with a different realm when the various Viluri tribes unified into one nation...”

Psavian interrupted him with: “Let us not discuss these matters with foreign guests, however distinguished.” He then said something in Rekhim, to which Omutsanu replied shortly; he apparently disagreed, but wasn't going to argue with his host in front of the other guests. Kazmina looked puzzled; Launuru wondered if she should speak to her in Tuaznu and fill her in, but thought it better to apologize first. “I'm sorry if I spoke too freely of things you don't speak of here,” she said.

“Don't mind Father,” Tsavila said in a low voice; “it wasn't your fault, and there was nothing wrong with it anyway. It was I who brought the subject up.”

“Thank you,” Launuru said.

The conversation turned to the upcoming game between the priests of Tsaumala and those of Kensaulan, and continued in that vein after the servants summoned them to dinner. During dinner, Psavian arranged them with Verentsu at his right hand, Launuru next to him, and Kazmina next to her; Tsavila, Itsulanu and Omutsanu faced them across the table on Psavian's left. Kazmina ending up mostly speaking with Omutsanu in Rekhim, and Psavian mostly with Tsavila and Itsulanu, leaving Verentsu to continue expounding on recent and upcoming tsekiva games to an enraptured Launuru.

---

Kazmina's conversation with Omutsanu during dinner was more interesting than the highly technical conversation she'd half-listened to in the previous half hour, but not much more. He asked her a few questions about the recent political history of her country, and her father's involvement in the revolution. She answered some of them honestly, others less so — she didn't think anything her father had told her was a military secret, but she preferred to be most cautious here, knowing scarcely anything about Omutsanu or his connections. She asked him similar questions about Niluri politics, half-listening to the answers while she tried, without success, to come up with a plan to get Launuru and Tsavila together without Psavian's knowledge.

After dinner, Psavian said to her: “Would you like me to send a servant to your inn for your things now?”

“We have an errand we must attend to in person,” she said; “we commissioned some formal clothes from a tailor on arriving in the city — I mentioned to you that we'd sometimes traveled as birds, abandoning our luggage and acquiring new things at our destination? And while we're out, we'll retrieve our rough travel garb from the inn. But we'll return as soon after that as may be.”

“Very well,” he said. “I shall appoint a servant to escort you; he will drive you in my own carriage.” He spoke to one of his servants, while Kazmina told Launuru what they had decided.

“All right,” she said. She looked unhappy, whether at another missed chance to talk alone with Tsavila or Verentsu or simply at the prospect of being away from them for a few hours (Kazmina suspected it was Verentsu she regretted more to be parted from); but Kazmina couldn't do their errands alone, not knowing Ksiluri. And leaving her here, if it were possible, would only lead to more frustration if she did contrive to be alone with one or both of her friends and found herself still unable to tell them who she was.

Once Launuru had given the driver his directions and they were in the carriage, Kazmina asked: “What did you say to Tsavila when she showed you to the garderobe?”

“I didn't have time for much,” Launuru said pensively; “first she asked me what I thought of Itsulanu — wasn't he a wonderful man, and so forth. I could see then she wasn't just pretending contentment in front of her father — she really loves him, if she told me so when we were alone. And then I started worrying about whether I might hurt her if I told her I was back and I still wanted to marry her...” She paused, looking troubled. “So I decided to try to find out what she thought of me, without telling her outright who I was. I asked if she'd ever loved anyone before Itsulanu, and she got mad — I thought at first it was because I'd asked too prying a question, she thinks we just met today — but then she said that he wasn't, but he was the first man who'd ever loved her! Why?” She was starting to cry.

“Shh,” Kazmina said, laying a hand on Launuru's arm. “We'll figure it out.” Of course she knew exactly why Tsavila would think that; but she couldn't tell Launuru what she knew or how, or Psavian might see it in her mind the next time they met. “So, something must have happened to make her think you never loved her. What might it have been?”

“I don't know.” Launuru was sobbing now, her face in her hands.

“I suppose... Oh. How many people around here know how you disappeared? I mean, all the circumstances — your love of Tsavila, Psavian putting the geas on you, everything?”

Launuru looked up at her. “I'm not sure...” After a pause, rubbing her eyes with one hand, she said: “Only Tsavila and Verentsu knew about the elopement, or so I thought until Psavian caught me... Maybe no one except Psavian knows how he exiled me.”

“So as far as Tsavila knows, perhaps, you just disappeared. And that was just after you made plans to elope, right?”

“The very next night. I arrived at their house and found myself, with no control of my limbs, climbing in Psavian's window instead of Tsavila's...”

“And you didn't see Tsavila or Verentsu or anyone but Psavian that night?”

“Maybe a servant, but I don't think so. Verentsu was back at the academy; he'd made a diversion to cover for my sneaking out.”

“So as far as they knew, you just disappeared?”

“I suppose so.”

“What about the part of your geas which made you tell people you met not to trifle with wizards? Did that make you stop several times here on your way out of the city, or only later on?”

“No... That didn't kick in until I ran out of money and had to start traveling slowly while I earned my bread for the day and bed for the night.”

“And you never tried to send a message to your family or to Verentsu, to pass a message on to Tsavila for you?”

“No... ah, the geas must have been keeping me from thinking of it! How could I fail to see it after the geas was lifted, though?”

“You were busy; we both were. Well, I think that explains what Tsavila said, about Itsulanu being the first man who's really loved her — you disappearing like that, with no warning or explanation, right after promising you'd marry her secretly if necessary — ”

“But why would she assume I ran away from her? Something bad might have happened to me — I mean, even if she didn't suspect her father of making away with me, I might have met a cutthroat or been run over by a carriage on my way from the academy to her house that night...”

“I don't know,” Kazmina lied. “Perhaps that's not a full explanation, then. But either way — whether she thought you were dead, or thought you had run away once the dalliance got too serious — it's clear that she's seriously enamored with Itsulanu now.”

“I know... Perhaps it isn't wise to tell her who I am, to make her choose between us. But I hate deceiving my best friend like this!”

Kazmina wondered whether, by “best friend,” she meant Verentsu or Tsavila? Probably the latter. “She knows me,” Kazmina said; “I mean, not so well as she knew you, as she would know you if she knew who you were... ouch. Anyway, perhaps she would talk to me. I'll sound her out about what she knew of your disappearance, what it looked like to her. That may give us a clue what to do next, how best to undeceive her without hurting her again.”

“Would you? Oh, thank you!” Launuru threw her arms around Kazmina and embraced her.

They were soon obliged to dry their tears and deal with the tailor. Kazmina watched and listened with only the faintest comprehension as Launuru examined the new dresses briefly, handed one of them to Kazmina, and started to pay for them. “Aren't we going to try them on?” Kazmina asked.

“Oh, I suppose we must,” Launuru said; “I just want to get back to Verentsu as soon as possible.”

To Verentsu. Interesting.

Launuru spoke to the tailor again, who nodded, and left the women alone in a room to try on the new dresses. They fit as perfectly as the previous ones. Soon they were in the carriage again, on the way to their inn.

“I just realized,” Kazmina said as they arrived; “when we hired the room, you were a man.”

“Oh,” Launuru said. “You're right. I suppose when we came and went before, the innkeeper recognized you as the woman who was with me when I paid for the room, and didn't concern himself that he didn't see the man who hired it too, or wonder who the second woman was... But now?”

“Shall I change you back, to look the same as you did when we hired the room...?”

Launuru looked queasy at this suggestion. Without waiting for her to answer, Kazmina quickly suggested: “No, that's not necessary, is it? I can just return the key after we retrieve our things.”

“Would you?”

So they did, making their way through the common room to the back hall; the common room was full of people eating and drinking, the innkeeper and his servants coming and going with mugs, dishes and money. Psavian's carriage driver came in with them to help carry their things, but though he looked surprised when all they handed him to carry was a small bundle of cheap clothes, he said nothing. On their way out, they patiently waited for a minute or two to get the innkeeper's attention; then Kazmina handed him the key. “We are leaving,” Launuru said. “We had the last room on the left of that hall there.”

“Oh,” the innkeeper said. “Wasn't there a man of your party as well...?”

“He's gone ahead to secure our lodgings at our next stop,” Launuru improvised.

“Very well. I hope you'll stay here if you visit Nilepsan again?”

“Very possibly. Thank you.”

So they returned to Psavian's house.

---

Launuru said little in the carriage on the way back to the wizard's house. She was thinking about her reaction when Kazmina had suggested that she change back into the man she'd been when she hired the room. It had been as appalling to her just now as the idea of becoming a woman had been when Kazmina suggested it two days ago. If that were so, how could she ask Tsavila to marry her, promising to become a man again soon?

Part of it, of course, had been a dread of the transformation itself, and of going through two such painful and disorienting changes in a short time just to discharge their obligations at the inn. She was glad that hadn't been necessary. But the idea of becoming a man again at all, permanently even more than temporarily, seemed dreadful. She wasn't sure whether it seemed worse or less bad than returning to her family in this form, or telling Verentsu and Tsavila that she had become a woman and was planning to stay that way... both options seemed horrible, and continuing indefinitely to masquerade as Shalasan worst of all. She had to make up her mind.

When they arrived again at Psavian's house, they found that Itsulanu's mother and sister had arrived in their absence. They, Itsulanu, Tsavila and Verentsu were all in the parlor when the carriage driver led them in the front door, carrying their bundles of clothing; Omutsanu and Psavian were somewhere else.

Tsavila greeted Kazmina in Rekhim; after a short conversation, she said to Launuru in Ksiluri, “This is my fiancé's sister, Tsaikuno, and his mother Lentsina. I present Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan, cousin to Kazmina daughter of Znembalan.”

“I'm pleased to meet you,” Launuru said. Tsaikuno was a shy girl of fourteen or fifteen; she said little as the conversation turned again to the wedding preparations. Lentsina looked not much younger than her husband, but in good health; she was apparently also a wizard, as she conversed from time to time with Kazmina in Rekhim.

Launuru found no opportunity to speak with Tsavila alone that day, or, indeed, to talk with her much at all. With Verentsu she had more opportunity to talk, for which she was grateful, but she still had no chance to be alone with him. She saw that Kazmina had several opportunities to speak with Tsavila, but always with one or more of the other wizards in earshot and often joining in the conversation. Psavian and Omutsanu came and went during the afternoon, and once Tsavila disappeared somewhere with her father and Itsulanu's mother for a short time.

She felt hurt and rejected, and tried to push those feelings away, knowing they made no sense; Tsavila still had no idea who she was, and there was no reason she should treat “Shalasan” with any more courtesy or attention than she was actually doing. She was spread thin, with so many guests to divide her attention among; and this became only worse as the evening progressed and her older brothers, Iantsemu, Riksevian, and Melentsu, arrived with their wives and children. Launuru had met all of them before, except for Melentsu's bride Nuasila and Iantsemu and Psilina's new baby.

Their arrival shifted the balance of conversation again; from most of those present conversing in Rekhim, to mostly in Ksiluri. Psilina's baby, a girl of four months named Miretsi, was passed from one woman to another, bawdy remarks about the motherly potential of the unmarried and childless women being made intermittently all the while. When Launuru took her from Tsaikuno, she had not held a baby since her youngest sister learned to walk, but she hadn't forgotten how; indeed, she found it easier and more satisfying than she remembered.

“How long till you hold your own child?” Psilina asked her. “Are you betrothed?”

“No,” Launuru replied, mentally rehearsing her fictitious history. “The man my parents planned for me to marry was killed early in the revolution; then my father decided to wait until the war should be over to arrange another match. When the opportunity came for me to leave the country with Kazmina, he thought that safer than staying at home.”

This turned the conversation toward her own fictively sad history, the other women expressing commiseration for her misfortune. Launuru thanked them demurely, saying that she'd barely known her intended before his untimely death. After dandling Miretsi for a while, she reluctantly handed her to Kazmina.

After cooing and gurgling at Kazmina for a minute or two, however, Miretsi began to fuss, and Kazmina handed her back to her mother. “Her swaddling isn't dirty,” she said to Launuru; “I suppose she's hungry.”

Psilina had already figured this out before Launuru had time to decide whether she ought to translate Kazmina's remark; she said nothing as Psilina opened her blouse and began to nurse.

As Nuasila and Tsavila asked Psilina how often the baby was wanting to nurse, how long she was sleeping, and so forth, Kazmina said to Launuru: “Ask the baby's mother — what's her name?”

“Psilina.”

“Tell her that, if she wants a break at the next feeding, I can nurse the baby. Or I can enable any of the other women here to nurse her.”

“I'm not sure... she might be offended...”

“Well, use your judgment.” Kazmina smiled. “You know you want to.”

Launuru startled, and blushed. Kazmina had obviously noticed the way she was looking at the baby and her mother.

Some of the other women turned to look at Kazmina and Launuru. “What did your cousin say to make you turn so red, Shalasan?” Psilina asked.

“She — ah, she suggested, if it please you, that if you want a rest from nursing...”

“What?”

“She could use her magic to fill her own breasts with milk, or those of one of us other women. The next time Miretsi is hungry, perhaps.”

To her surprise, Psilina was delighted with the prospect. “She may do so, with my blessing. Especially when Mitsi cries for hunger in the darkest part of the night, yes?” She shifted the baby to her other breast.

No sooner had Launuru translated this for Kazmina than Nuasila, Tsavila, and even Tsaikuno spoke up, wanting a turn at nursing. Psavian broke in, saying something in Rekhim — something admonitory, Launuru guessed from his look and his tone. Tsavila and Kazmina both spoke at once, then paused, and Tsavila went on. After some further argument among the wizards, Tsavila said in Ksiluri: “Kazmina says the spell will not by itself wear off faster than a mother's breasts normally dry up when her child grows old enough for solid food, but she can reverse it as easily as she cast it, and she will do so before we part. Psilina, if you give your permission, we will each take a turn, and relieve you to get a good night's sleep tonight.”

Launuru surprised herself by saying, “I'd like a turn as well.”

“Very well, — I'll go first, then Kazmina, then Shalasan, then Nuasila, then Tsaikuno...?”

Psavian spoke sharply in Rekhim again. Tsavila looked at him directly and said calmly, not in Rekhim but in Ksiluri: “This is women's business, Father.”

“Love is a thing holy to Kalotse, and...” Just then she heard a wailing, which got momentarily louder; one of the servants came in holding a fussy, just-woken Miretsi. “A thing with unexpected consequences,” she concluded.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 8 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.

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.

---

Kazmina looked admiringly at Tsavila, standing up to her father to insist that this was none of his business. She was wondering if she had been unwise to make such an offer — but going two days without transforming anyone, even slightly, was making her fidgety. Altering her own and the other women's breasts would be minor, but satisfying in a way that the tedious though necessary shielding of her thoughts against Psavian was not.

Tsavila pointedly ignored her father for a few moments while she explained something to her sister-in-law and “Shalasan” in Ksiluri. Psavian interrupted her, saying again: “It is unseemly for you unmarried women to nurse a baby.” Tsavila wasn't fazed; she replied not in Rekhim but in Ksiluri. Psavian finally, it seemed, gave up on it. Kazmina wondered if he were perhaps going to try to impose his will in some other way... if he could put such a geas on Launuru so quickly and easily, could he work a similar spell to make the younger women change their minds and turn down Kazmina's offer? Or perhaps change Psilina's mind, so she would revoke her permission to let other women take a turn nursing her baby?

But it seemed, as the evening wore on and the company was summoned to supper, that Psavian had decided this battle was not worth fighting. He arranged them at the supper table with Tsavila at his right hand and his eldest son Iantsemu at his left. Itsulanu sat next to Tsavila, with his parents and sister to his right, facing Tsavila's brothers, sisters-in-law, and little nieces and nephew across the table. Kazmina and Launuru were at the lower end of the table, with Launuru next to Verentsu and Kazmina across from Tsaikuno. (Was Psavian seriously playing matchmaker for his youngest son, or only trying to manipulate Launuru into falling in love with him, intending to thwart her in her love for his son just as he had done when the young man loved his daughter? Either way, he looked to be succeeding.)

Tsaikuno, though a wizard in training, was as yet far from fluent in Rekhim — not nearly as fluent as Kazmina or even Tsavila had been at that age. And in spite of Kazmina's efforts to distract Launuru with remarks in Tuaznu on the food, the sloppiness of certain servants, the exceeding cuteness of little Miretsi, and the construction of the Broad Bridge, her other companion remained engrossed in conversation with Verentsu all through the meal. Whatever they were talking about, it seemed to delight them both; their smiles and laughter alternately annoyed and distressed the young enchantress. Thus isolated on both sides, only occasionally able to overhear some interesting bit of Rekhim conversation further up the the table, Kazmina had a lot of time to think about what had gone wrong and what she could do about it; but she came to no solid conclusions.

Just after the servants cleared away the supper dishes, Psavian rose and spoke at some length in Ksiluri. Launuru looked surprised and said something brief in response. As the others stood up, Psavian then said in Rekhim, “Kazmina, I have proposed that, if you do not object to being separated from your cousin for a time, we divide the company into wizards and non-wizards — or rather, fluent speakers of Rekhim and others — for the remainder of the evening, in view of the language issue.”

Kazmina could guess his real reasons for proposing this division, instead of the division of the company into men and women after supper which Launuru had told her was usual in Niluri. It would keep Verentsu and Launuru together, and keep Kazmina herself where Psavian could watch her, ensuring that she didn't have a chance to speak privately with Tsavila — who would, in this arrangement, probably stick close by her fiancé's side until bedtime. But she could not think of any plausible reason to object to this which would not arouse Psavian's suspicions. “Very well,” she said, “yours is the house, and yours the hospitality; Shalasan and I will follow your customs gladly.”

“But wait,” Tsavila said; “before we part company, Kazmina must fulfill her promise.” Before her father could reply, she was saying something else, possibly the same thing, in Ksiluri; then: “Zmina, how about you work your spell on Shalasan, Nuasila, and Tsaikuno now; then you can rest and cast it on me and yourself later?”

“Very well,” Kazmina said. “But you should warn them again — Nuasila and Tsaikuno, I mean; Shalasan already knows — that it will hurt, a little. Not like a total transformation, but some.”

Psavian looked resigned, saying nothing, as Tsavila spoke again in Ksiluri. Tsaikuno replied first, but then her mother spoke up, saying in Rekhim: “You needn't trouble yourself, Kazmina; I don't think it suits for a girl of her age to nurse a baby by magic.”

“Very well,” Kazmina said, a little disappointed on Tsaikuno's behalf. “What about Nuasila...?” Tsavila spoke again, and Nuasila replied with apparent enthusiasm. Tsavila said: “She says to go ahead.”

Smiling, Kazmina turned toward Nuasila and channeled her thoughts through the spell-structure, so deeply a part of her that she needed no spoken or even subvocalized words to focus it, that enabled her to see the recent bride's inner structure and the relation of one part to another; then, finding the finely balanced place where a nudge would convince her breasts that her womb had just produced a baby, she gave it that nudge. Just as she did so, she felt some other magic at work in another part of Nuasila's invisible structure, which came from someone further up the table — Tsavila, she thought, but wasn't sure.

Nuasila said something in Ksiluri — she sounded pleasantly surprised.

“I used a spell of my own to keep her from feeling the pain you warned of,” Tsavila said. “It sounds like it worked. Go on, do your cousin now.”

It took less time to alter “Shalasan” than Nuasila, since Kazmina had remade Launuru's body on the model of her own so recently and knew it so well. Again, she felt traces of Tsavila's magic working on Launuru's nerves.

“I'm done,” she said to Launuru in Tuaznu. “Ask if there's anyone else who wants to take a turn nursing? The baby's father, perhaps?”

“No!” Launuru said in a low tone. “I won't...”

“He needn't become a woman entirely,” Kazmina suggested.

“No, I'm afraid you've already angered our host, and that might make things worse, and give him ideas about what your magic can do...”

“All right.” She glanced around. Verentsu knew a little Tuaznu, but probably wasn't fluent enough to understand much of that quiet exchange; who else of those sitting close enough might know Tuaznu well enough? No one else had made any polite attempt to address her in broken Tuaznu, as Verentsu had done.

Launuru spoke up again in Ksiluri, and after a few moments' conversation among the rest, and another short speech from Psavian, the non-wizards rose and left the dining hall via the hallway leading to the front parlor. Launuru said to Kazmina as she rose: “I guess I'll see you in a few hours, then?”

“Sure,” she said. Launuru smiled nervously and left, following Melentsu and Nuasila.

Tsaikuno was talking in low tones with her mother in Ksiluri. After a few moments, she rose and followed Launuru.

“We may arrange ourselves more comfortably now,” Psavian said; “Kazmina, come up by my left, across from your friend.”

“Why not go out into the garden?” Tsavila suggested. Itsulanu echoed his approval.

“Very well,” Psavian said. “You all know the way except for Kazmina...” He approached and took her arm as she rose, then led her, the others following, out of the dining hall, through two other hallways to an outside door.

The moon was waxing crescent, a few days short of half full; it gave better light than during the journey southward, but not enough. Lentsina, by a silent consent among the older wizards, spoke a spell to create little globes of light, which hovered a few meters above them. The unnatural light they emitted evoked curious colors from the trees and shrubs, and still more so from the wizards' bodies and clothes — strange, but not, Kazmina realized, unpleasant.

The wizards spread out, Tsavila and Itsulanu walking down a path among some dense trees, and Omutsanu and Lentsina sitting down on a bronze bench with inlaid forms of frogs, axolotls and turtles. Psavian led Kazmina down the path after his daughter and her fiancé, but slowly, keeping a good distance from them.

“You said, I think, that you had not had many opportunities to speak with your father since the war began?”

“Yes... He prepared spells on four znasha birds. I can invoke the spell to link a bird to him, if he's not asleep or casting a different spell, so he can see and hear me through the bird, and speak through it. But the linking spell kills the bird within a few hundred heartbeats; I've only used it three times, and had only one bird left when we set out to come here.”

“If you like, I can work a spell tonight to let you speak with your father in a dream.”

“Would you?” Her heart pounded at the prospect. But almost immediately she regretted her impulsive assent; what if Psavian could listen in on their conversation? Or if giving him permission to do this would let him look into her mind for her true intentions regarding Launuru and Tsavila?

“I'll have to cast it when both you and he are asleep, or it won't work. Do you know when he is sleeping and waking these days?”

“With the war, there's no telling... but I guess he would probably be asleep by a couple of hours after midnight.”

“I'll try it then. Your own part in the spell is simple: recite the charm I'm about to give you just before you go to bed, once aloud and then repeating it silently until you fall asleep. And, of course, try to be asleep by the first hour after midnight — no staying up late gossiping with your cousin, Tsavila and Tsaikuno.”

“Tsaikuno?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you — I announced the room assignments in Ksiluri. We haven't enough beds or rooms for everyone to have their own, so I've given one room to you, your 'cousin', Tsavila and Tsaikuno. Itsulanu and his father will sleep with me, his mother with my daughters-in-law and their children, and my sons in another room.”

“That makes sense.” It might also prevent her and Launuru from speaking freely — she had to make sure Tsaikuno spoke no Tuaznu — or her and Tsavila, either; the girl might well understand Rekhim better than she could speak it. “Will the spell have any other effect? I want to ensure it won't interact badly with my own magic...”

“I think not; yours and your father's magic is nearly orthogonal to mine.”

If she could trust him. Well, she would risk it; she hadn't had a long conversation with her father in five months, and she missed him terribly. And perhaps he could help her figure out what to do.

---

“So you don't speak Rekhim yet, then?” Launuru asked Tsaikuno as they walked down the hall to the parlor.

“Not really,” the young girl said. “I can understand a little, but I still can't say anything complicated. Just memorized phrases.”

“Is this the usual custom here? To split into groups, wizards and others?”

“Oh, no. Usually we do women and men. I think Psavian wanted to do this because he didn't want your cousin to be left out of the conversation like she was earlier.”

“That was kind of him. But does it bother you, you being a wizard and yet left out of the wizards' company?”

“No; not really. I mean, I'm learning to be a wizard but I can't do any magic yet, and they'll probably be talking about stuff I can't understand. It would be boring.”

They joined the others, who were sorting themselves out among the chairs, sofas and divans in the parlor — mostly in the same places they'd sat earlier, but Iantsemu had taken his father's chair, and Verentsu was sitting — alone — on the divan where Itsulanu and Tsavila had sat earlier. He smiled at Launuru as she and Tsaikuno entered, and patted the empty space next to him. She joined him, her heart pounding. There was space between them, but not much. She wanted to reduce it even further, but was more than a little afraid of what would happen if she did.

Tsaikuno sat in the chair Launuru had occupied earlier, between Launuru and Nuasila.

“We were just talking,” Iantsemu said, “of playing a game, now that everyone present speaks Ksiluri.”

“What sort of game?” Launuru asked.

“We hadn't decided yet.”

Launuru let the others discuss the choice of game, wondering if she should admit to knowing how to play any of the ones mentioned. She decided that her cover story of having lived in Nesantsai as a girl would make it plausible for her to know at least one or two Viluri games; but when the moment came, and Verentsu asked her, “What do you think, Shalasan? Do you want to play It's of Both Kinds?,” she impulsively said: “I would love to. Can you explain it to me?”

He explained the rules in detail, which gave her a good excuse to look into his eyes as long as he spoke. His brothers and sisters-in-law interrupted from time to time to clarify a point, but she gave them only a glance. After a few minutes, they settled down to play. “We'll go sunwise from me,” Verentsu said, “so you can see almost a whole round and see how it's played before it's your turn.”

“Good,” she said.

“A divan,” he said, “is both a thing to sit upon, and a thing made of wood.”

Iantsemu, to his left, hesitated only a moment before saying: “A carriage is both a thing made of wood, and a thing to travel in.”

Psilina had to think harder before coming up with “A womb is both a thing to travel in, and a part of the body.” This brought nervous giggles from Tsaikuno and Launuru.

When the play came round to Tsaikuno, she said: “An axolotl is both a water-creature, and a thing holy to Kalotse.”

“No fair,” interjected Verentsu; “Shalasan might not know what other things are holy to Kalotse...”

“Oh, but I remember,” Launuru said; “you explained earlier... Love is a thing holy to Kalotse, and...” Just then she heard a wailing, which got momentarily louder; one of the servants came in holding a fussy, just-woken Miretsi. “A thing with unexpected consequences,” she concluded.

---

After walking around the garden paths for a while, the wizards settled themselves on two of the benches near the one Itsulanu's parents had taken, Psavian and Kazmina on one, Tsavila and Itsulanu on another.

“Zmina,” Tsavila began, “you said you'd teach me a spell so I could keep my wits about me when you change me into a bird.”

“Sure,” Kazmina said. “A few days should be enough for that.” She thought Psavian would object, but he didn't need to.

“Now is scarcely the time,” Lentsina said. “You have another spell you need to master before your wedding night — besides all the other preparations...”

At the mention of this spell, Tsavila turned a greenish-yellow. Kazmina suspected that this was the way a blush looked under Lentsina's wizard-lamps. “Well,” Kazmina said, trying to change the subject, “perhaps one of you can show me some interesting spell from your school of wizardry?”

“Here,” Itsulanu said. He freed his arm from Tsavila's and stood up; then, uttering a very short spell-chant, he started to walk down the path. As he did so, his body and especially his legs seemed to elongate, stretched out forward and backward along his path of motion. This effect got more extreme as he moved quickly around the path back to the bench where he'd started, Kazmina twisting around in her seat and craning her neck to watch; for a long moment his body extended over ten or twenty meters of the path, partly obscured by shrubbery. When he returned and stopped walking, his body seemed of normal shape again.

“That is so disgusting,” Tsavila said with a laugh. “He squeezes space ahead of him while he walks so it doesn't take as long to walk somewhere. It's not as useful as teleporting, but easier to master — he says he has to teach me that first.”

“Fascinating,” Kazmina said. “Shall I show you something of my own, then?”

“Turn into something,” Tsavila urged. Kazmina glanced at Psavian; he was smiling benevolently. He didn't object to her transforming herself, only his daughter.

“All right,” she said, thinking of what would make the best impression here in the eerily lit garden. She stood up, walked a little distance from the benches, and focused her attention on her own inner structure. With a few practiced nudges and twists, she altered into one of her favorite hybrid forms — a large lizard with luminescent scales. She shrugged off her dress and crawled from under it, making patterns of light ripple along her sides and back. It was hard to judge the effect Lentsina's wizard-lamps would have on her own luminescence, but she hoped it was at least striking.

She crawled with a quick zig-zagging motion toward Psavian, then toward Tsavila, then toward Lentsina, and back toward Psavian again, making them guess what she would do next; then, adjusting her structure again, she darted under Tsavila and Itsulanu's bench and became a black snake. The couple twisted to look, but apparently didn't see her. The snake's was an elegantly streamlined form, far more capable than its lack of legs would suggest; she rejoiced at the play of her muscles as she coiled around the back leg of the bench and lifted her head onto the seat, then pushed more of her body upward and onto Tsavila's lap.

Tsavila turned around again and looked down, then threw up her hands, her mouth open; Kazmina couldn't tell, with this body's senses, if she were screaming in terror or merely giving a yelp of surprise. She flicked her tongue out a couple of times and tasted the air: Tsavila was nervous, but not really afraid. Good. And a moment later she extended a hand gingerly toward the snake in her lap. Kazmina let herself be touched. After a moment she coiled herself around Tsavila's forearm and pulled the rest of her body up into her lap.

Tsavila and Itsulanu were talking, to judge from the motion of their mouths, but Kazmina couldn't hear them.

She climbed around Tsavila's arm and over her shoulder, dropping down onto the ground behind the bench; then slithered rapidly through the shrubbery to the path on the far side. Here she coiled up, then focused on her inner structure again and changed. As she grew and her arms and legs extended, her head quickly took on a form that could hear again:

“...what do you suppose she'll do next?” Tsavila was saying.

“I forgot something,” Kazmina called out as she regained her usual human form. “Tsavila, could you bring me my clothes?”

A few moments later, Tsavila walked around the path toward her carrying the dress, shoes and underthings she'd abandoned on the paving-stones near the benches. “Thanks,” she said to Tsavila in a normal tone as she took them and started getting dressed; then, in a lower tone, “I need to talk with you alone, now or sometime before your wedding.”

“Sure,” Tsavila whispered, and something else that Kazmina couldn't quite hear as she was pulling her dress over her head. “...time, but just before we sleep.”

“Later, then.” With her shoes on again, they returned around the path to the benches.

After much further conversation and a few more playful demonstrations of their magic, they decided — or rather, Psavian announced — that it was time for bed; they must all be up early the next day for their journey to Tialem. “Tsavila, please show your friend and her cousin to their room,” he said as they reentered the house.

“Very well,” Tsavila said. “This way, Zmina...” They returned to the parlor, to find Launuru wearing a borrowed skirt and blouse too large for her, the latter open at the breast while she nursed little Miretsi. Kazmina noticed that she was sitting quite close to Verentsu — not as close as Tsavila and Itsulanu had been sitting most of the day, on that divan or on the bench, but much closer than the size of the divan made necessary. There was a lively conversation going on, which ceased as the two young wizards entered.

Tsavila exclaimed in Ksiluri, and Psilina responded at length; then Launuru and Nuasila spoke more briefly. Kazmina asked in Tuaznu, “What's that, Shalasan?”

“I said that it's wonderful, nursing her like this,” Launuru replied. “And Psilina asked if you and Tsavila can take turns nursing her during the night, as you said — Nuasila and I took the last two feedings.”

“Of course,” Kazmina replied. She turned to Tsavila and said in Rekhim, “I can enable you to nurse the baby, if you want.”

“Sure, now is good. We should have thought of it earlier.”

Kazmina looked for Tsavila's inner structure and adjusted the signals going to her breasts, making them start filling up with milk. “There; you should be ready next time Miretsi is hungry.”

“Thank you. Let me show you to your rooms.” She spoke again in Ksiluri to the others. A few minutes later, after Launuru had handed Miretsi back to her mother and exchanged a few words with Verentsu, she and the other women, with their children, followed Tsavila down the hall and up the stairs.

Tsavila first ushered Psilina, her children, and Nuasila into a large bedroom. She then led Kazmina, Launuru and Tsaikuno across the hall to another, larger room. “This is our room for tonight,” she said in Rekhim, then something, perhaps the same thing, in Ksiluri. Kazmina noticed that Launuru looked uncomfortable.

“Maybe he did as the servant said, maybe not. Either way, I fear he did meet with some misfortune, for the last I heard his family had not heard from him either. But wine can't be pressed into grapes. I met Itsulanu when I was angry and sad, and he comforted me. Now in less than three days he is to be my husband, and that makes me happier than I can say. I wish my sometime lover may be happy wherever he is; I forgive him.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 9 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.

---

Launuru hoped she would have a chance to talk with Tsavila privately soon, but it seemed unlikely, since they'd be sharing a room and probably a bed with Tsaikuno. But she was surprised at the specific rooms assigned them. Tsavila showed her sisters-in-law and their children to what Launuru remembered as being her own bedroom; then led her, Kazmina and Tsaikuno across the hall to the bedroom which had belonged to her mother until her death. If Launuru remembered correctly, it was the room she had died in, eleven months ago. Perhaps Tsavila had moved her things into it after the year of mourning for her mother was over?

“This is our room for tonight,” Tsavila said, which seemed to suggest that it wasn't her room normally, but Launuru didn't feel comfortable asking just now. She couldn't explain who she was in front of Tsaikuno, and without explaining, she couldn't reveal what she knew about Tsavila's mother and their sometime room assignments. “I think the servants have already brought up your things; look around and make sure.”

Tsaikuno looked into the cabinets and shelves, examined some parcels and bags, and pronounced herself satisfied. It didn't take Kazmina and Launuru long to identify the small bundle of clothes they'd bought in the last couple of days.

After exchanging a few words with Kazmina in Rekhim, Tsavila said: “I see your cousin wasn't joking about traveling light...! Do you want to borrow something to sleep in?”

Tsaikuno froze in the act of pulling off her dress. “Should I wear something in bed?” she asked in a small voice, putting it back on.

“It might make our guests more comfortable,” Tsavila said. “It's so cold in Netuatsenu at night, even for most of the Summer, that they wear clothes in bed, — right?”

“Not everywhere,” Launuru replied; “in southern Netuatsenu it's warm at night this time of year... but we'll follow your custom while we're here. We've been obliged to do so already, the last few days — traveling light, as you said.” She removed the blouse and skirt she'd borrowed from Psilina, then her undergarments, trying to act as nonchalant as possible, noting ruefully that Tsavila's naked body was no more exciting to her than Kazmina's or Tsaikuno's. Was there really any point in telling her now who she was? It would only spoil her wedding... but she didn't want to go away and never see her again, and as Kazmina's mundane cousin she had scarcely any claim to her friendship — still less to Verentsu's...

Once undressed, Tsavila put out the lamp by the door, and they got into bed, Tsavila at the right side, Kazmina to her left, then Launuru, and Tsaikuno on the end. Tsavila put out the lamp by the bed, and the room was in near-total darkness; the moon was still only eight days past new and the small, high window faced north, anyway.

For some time after they settled down, Tsavila and Kazmina kept whispering in Rekhim. After a bit, Kazmina said in Tuaznu, “We're not bothering you, are we?”

“No,” Launuru said, though it gave her a pang to be shut out of their conversation. She wondered if Kazmina were telling Tsavila about her...? But she didn't hear her name mentioned, and after a while they fell silent. Launuru fell asleep not long after that.

---

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Tsavila asked in a whisper, once they were all in bed.

“Are you sure Tsaikuno can't hear us?” Kazmina asked.

“She barely understands Rekhim yet.”

“All right... Your father told me he could let me talk with my father in a dream tonight, if I cooperate with his spell. Do you know the spell he's going to use? Can you cast it yourself?”

“I can,” Tsavila said, “though I only learned it recently and haven't mastered all the variations... I don't think I could do it for you. I don't think I could reach someone so far away, and I've never put two other people together in their dreams, only put myself into someone else's dream.”

“Never mind that. My question is, will your father be able to hear everything my father and I say to each other?”

“...I'm not sure, but I think so. It depends on how he works the spell... if he wanted to listen in, he could, but it should be obvious. I mean, you and your father and he will all meet in some dream-place and talk.”

“All right. Another thing... can you protect yourself from your father's spells? Does he know everything you do and think, scrying your actions or looking into your mind whenever he likes, or do you still have some secrets?”

“I think so. I mean, he's far more experienced than me, but I'm about as powerful. I think he could break through my shields and hear my thoughts if he wanted to, but not without me noticing. And certainly I haven't noticed him doing anything like that in a long time, not since he was teaching me how to form mental shields several years ago.”

“Can you look at someone else's mind and see if your father has been poking around in it?”

“What a question...! Yes, probably, if I needed to. Why...?”

“Look into mine. And brace yourself, try not to yell, at least not in Ksiluri, when you see what I'm thinking about.” Kazmina altered her mental shield, opening a narrow crack that, hopefully, only Tsavila would be able to easily see or use.

Tsavila said nothing aloud for some while. After a minute or two, she drew in her breath sharply, but still said nothing. Kazmina caught stray thoughts here and there that were not her own, as Tsavila looked through her mind.

...not his fault... how could he?... such courage... but can't... another trap... how can I?...

“Oh...!” Tsavila finally said. “I can't... I'm going to look in his mind now.”

Silence again. Much later:

“She's asleep. She was worrying about how to tell me and Verentsu — but mainly Verentsu, I think — she hadn't realized my father put her under another geas. I noticed earlier that she was partial to Verentsu, but... she loves him as much as I loved him, before. As I love Itsulanu, now. Oh...!”

“Has your father broken through my shields without me noticing?” Kazmina asked.

“It doesn't look like it... oh, my poor Launuru...!”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I don't know. I didn't think my father would... I'll have to think.”

“If we tell Verentsu, could your father find out by looking into his mind, or does he have some shield spells on him...?”

“Of course he has a shield, like the one you put on Launuru, which wasn't strong enough to protect her from my father. But Verentsu's shield spell was cast by my father himself; of course he could get through it if he wanted to... I could put another shield spell on him, but then my father would get suspicious if he tried to look into Verentsu's mind and realized he couldn't. And if he did manage to break through my shield and saw what we'd told Verentsu...”

“We won't tell him yet, then. And we can't tell her that we know about the geas, or that you know who she is — your father is likely to look into her mind again too.”

“We've got to do something!”

“I know.”

After more fruitless discussion, they fell silent. Kazmina quietly recited the charm Psavian had given her, then concentrated on it until she fell asleep.

---

The People's Fifth Army of Setuaznu met with troops loyal to the self-styled King Mbavalash near Tazniva's Bridge, late in the morning of the eighth day of the fifth month; they fought until nearly sunset, when the “King's” troops withdrew in confusion. More than a hundred Fifth Army soldiers were killed, and nearly three hundred wounded; the army's chief medic was kept busy for hours doing triage and working healing transformations on those too badly wounded for his colleagues to handle with conventional healing spells. Well after midnight, he retired to his tent in exhaustion.

There was a woman there. For a moment, in his exhaustion, he didn't recognize her, and braced himself to cast some defensive spell if she made a hostile move.

“I can come back later if you're too tired to change me now,” she said. “General Vmandushu wants me to impersonate Mbavalash's aide-de-camp next; I managed to get a few strands of his hair for you to work with.”

“Good,” he said, finally recognizing her as one of the Fifth Army's spies, whom he'd given that body just three days ago. He couldn't remember her name at the moment, or whether she'd started out male or female when he or she enlisted, but he remembered designing that form and transforming her... “I can transform you now if necessary, but if it can wait till morning, that would be better.”

“All right. After being a woman for this long I don't feel any urgency about being a man again — tomorrow's fine.” So she was probably a man originally, then, but he still couldn't remember her name. The moment she left, Znembalan crawled onto his pallet and was asleep in moments.

---

He was at a conclave of wizards, apparently in the Town Hall in Tasunakh — he recognized the mural on the wall opposite the lectern he was standing behind. The faces arrayed before him were coolly unimpressed with his talk; more than a few were outright skeptical.

“Thus, it seems, a spell for transforming animals into plants, or vice versa, should be possible; I expect that my research into the semantics of animate structure should yield results soon.”

His conclusion was met with a stony silence. Finally, an old wizard in the front row said sarcastically, “Why should we credit your thaumaturgical hypotheses when you can't even remember to wear clothes to a conclave?”

It was true; he was wearing nothing. He looked around for something to hide behind, but the lectern was gone. He tried to transform into something which didn't need to wear clothes, but he couldn't see his own structure...

Someone else from the audience spoke up. “It's good to see you again, Znembalan, though I'd rather not see quite this much of you. Shall we go somewhere else to talk?” He looked; it was Psavian, back in the fourth row. Suddenly he realized he was dreaming. “Yes,” he said in relief, “let's go.” A few steps away from the lectern, and they were walking into the Aurochs' Head in Vmanashi. Znembalan was dressed again; he thought Psavian was wearing something different than he'd been wearing when they left the conclave, but he wasn't sure.

“Not that I don't enjoy talking with you,” he said, “but this had better be important. I don't rest well when I have one of your wizardly dreams, it's been a long, exhausting day, and tomorrow will be just as busy if not as dangerous.”

“I'm sorry,” Psavian said. “I'd heard rumors of the war, but I didn't know until yesterday that you were involved with it.”

“Who did you hear from?”

“Your daughter.”

“How? She doesn't know any communication magic, and she didn't say anything when we talked... Oh. Does this have to do with that young man you sent me last winter?”

“Yes.”

“He arrived at my home a while ago, I don't remember when exactly, and Kazmina contacted me to ask me what to do about him. I was in the middle of a staff meeting at the time, trying to explain to the general how the Compact doesn't allow me to change the enemy's camp followers into voles, and the spell I'd given her to contact me with doesn't last long, so I just told her to handle it herself. I'm sorry, I told you I'd take care of him, but that was before this war started.”

“Her method for dealing with him was unique and creative,” Psavian said, “if slightly unwise.” Znembalan detected an amused admiration. “She told him she would help him elope with Tsavila — ”

“What?”

“ — and, thus, having secured his cooperation, she brought him as far as Nilepsan, where she transformed him into a woman.”

“Oh. Yes, that would be effective, if she used my total transformation spell, which is actually easier than the purely somatic transformation...”

“Indeed. A look through her mind reveals that she — Tsavila's quondam suitor, I mean — is no longer in love with my daughter, and has in fact conceived a romantic passion for my youngest son, Verentsu. Since he is still unattached, this does not greatly displease me — however, I had to take quick action to prevent her from revealing her identity to him, or to my daughter.”

“Another geas?”

“Exactly.”

“That is a devious way to put him in his place. I suppose I would have just turned him into a vole or something.”

“Not into a shrubbery?”

Znembalan frowned. “You heard that stuff I was saying in the other dream? I'm nowhere near ready to try that on a human subject yet. I've been too busy with other things in the past few months to make any headway on my research.”

“Oh, well. I hope the war will be over soon and you will have time to perfect your new spell before the conclave next year... I have a couple of questions for you now, though.”

“What?”

“Does your nephew Ndeshisan have a daughter named Shalasan?”

“I haven't seen him in several years, but last I heard, he had no children. Why?”

“Your daughter introduced the transformed rascal as her cousin Shalasan daughter of Ndeshisan. I was wondering whether it would be possible to continue that charade indefinitely, with your cooperation — perhaps forging letters from your nephew giving her permission to settle in Niluri and marry, or something.”

“I doubt that would suit... Are you thinking of promoting a match between her and your son?”

“I would not be averse to it. However, there are potential problems if her true identity becomes known — will her family disown her for becoming a woman? If not, will they give her permission to marry my son and provide a suitable dowry? And most serious, how will knowledge of her true history affect my son and daughter?” He explained how he had practiced a deception on them when he compelled Tsavila's suitor to walk all the way from Nilepsan to Psavian's home.

“I see,” Znembalan said. “You're afraid of what they'll think of you when they find out?”

“Not afraid, exactly,” Psavian said. “But for a long time my relations with my sons were strained. They have improved lately, especially with Verentsu, and I would not have anything push us apart again.”

“Well... I'd advise you either get rid of the woman — send her away or let Kazmina turn her into a vole — or else confess your deception at once, and remove the geas. If you leave the geas in place and let her marry your son under false pretenses, she will be miserable, and your son can scarcely be happy with a miserable wife.”

“Perhaps... I will consider what you say.” Meaning he didn't like it and would try to find some way to ignore it.

“I had another question,” Psavian continued after a pause. “Is Kazmina betrothed? Or have you formed more definite plans for her since we spoke of this last?”

“No. She is old enough and sensible enough to have a say in the matter herself; we discussed it not long before I left home. Perhaps she will meet someone suitable at next year's conclave — or perhaps at Tsavila's wedding? How many other wizards will be there?”

“Fifteen, besides the bride and groom; of those, four are unmarried men.”

“Well, perhaps something will come of that.” Znembalan did not point out that Kazmina, with her powers, was not so limited in her options.

“Then... I will ask more boldly: would you object to my paying court to Kazmina myself?”

“Oh.” Znembalan was appalled, but of course this was natural enough from Psavian's point of view; Psavian's wife had died well over a year ago, and it had been clear that the impulsive passion which led him to marry her against his parents' wishes had cooled long ago, after she had borne him one son after another with no magical talent. It was natural he should want to marry again, and he didn't know who Kazmina's mother was. And Znembalan could hardly give his reason for hating the idea of her marrying Psavian without revealing things he'd much prefer to conceal... After a few moments' agonized thought, he decided that he must say, “You may court her. I trust you to do so with perfect decorum. But I think she is disinclined to marry someone so much older than herself.”

“Thank you.” Psavian looked off into space for a few moments. “In any event, your daughter is safe under my roof for the present. And, as she has had but few and brief opportunities to speak with you since you went off to war, I offered to link her dreams with yours tonight. She will be here soon.”

“Thank you.” Znembalan hadn't seen his daughter, except through the distorting eyes of a znasha bird, for five months. He resolved not to be angry with her for running off to Niluri with young Tsavila's lover — if he didn't trust her to take care of herself, he would have sent her to stay with his nephew during the war, rather than leaving her at home.

---

Launuru woke to a persistent plaintive crying. She sat up and looked around. The lamp by the door was lit, but turned down low, and a couple of women were standing in the doorway, whispering; one of them was holding a baby. When the nearer one took the baby in her arms and turned around, Launuru saw that it was Tsavila. Having taken Miretsi from her mother, Tsavila sat in a chair by the door, then seemed to be at a loss. Psilina, who had followed her into the room, took Miretsi back, whispering something. Tsavila pulled her shift over her head and tossed it over the other chair, then took Miretsi back and held her to her right breast; the baby quieted down and began nursing. After a few more words, Psilina left the room.

Launuru carefully crawled over the foot of the bed, trying not to wake Tsaikuno on her left or Kazmina on her right, and looked around. “Where's the chamber pot?” she whispered.

“Should be under the bed... probably on Tsaikuno's side?”

“I thought so, but... oh, here it is.” After emptying her bladder, she went to the shelf, found the rough clothes they'd bought at the Market-outside-the-Walls, and got dressed. “What do you think?” she whispered, sitting down next to Tsavila and looking at the baby. Miretsi was concentrating intently on Tsavila's nipple, the flicker of the lamp revealing her comically serious expression.

“What do I think of what...?” Tsavila sounded oddly nervous.

“Nursing.”

“Oh.” She sounded relieved. “It's interesting. She's rougher than I expected — it hurts a little, sometimes, though not badly.”

“Yes, her little teeth are starting to come in. Psilina said to push her forehead away gently if she grips too hard.”

“All right.” Tsavila was looking at her curiously. “We didn't have much chance to talk, earlier...”

“No.” Could she tell her now? Why not? She glanced toward the bed, to make sure Tsaikuno was asleep. She certainly appeared to be.

Before she could figure out where to start, Tsavila spoke again. “I'm sorry I was so short with you, earlier. I mean, when you asked me if Itsulanu was the first man I'd ever loved. I was...”

“You needn't apologize,” Launuru said; “I shouldn't have...”

“I want to tell you,” Tsavila interrupted. “So you'll understand. There was a young man — ” She looked away from Launuru, toward the lamp. “He was a friend of Verentsu's, a merchant's son; clever and sweet and good. Or so I thought. We met at my brother's name-day feast, and then saw each other several times when he came to visit Verentsu at home or when I went with Mother to meet Verentsu at the academy, and the sixth time we met, we walked in the garden after dinner, and he told me he loved me, and I said I loved him too. He started coming to see me secretly, whenever he could get away from the academy, and we came to an understanding: we would marry once he had completed his studies and had income to support me while I completed my wizardly training.”

Launuru wanted to tell her, but she couldn't bear to interrupt; and, too, she wanted to know why Tsavila had said earlier that Itsulanu was the first man who had really loved her. What made her think that?

“Then Father told me he was arranging a marriage for me — you understand, I didn't know Itsulanu yet, I'd met him once briefly when we were children and hadn't seen him since — and I told my lover; he said we should elope, and I agreed, and we made plans. But then he didn't come see me when I expected him. And I tried twice to talk to him in a dream, but it didn't work — I thought it was just because he wasn't asleep when I cast the spell, but then I asked Verentsu to give him a message for me, and he said he had disappeared from the academy. And then one of the scullery-maids at the academy was found to be with child, and she said he — my lover — was the father. She'd told him about the baby the day before he disappeared, which was the day after I saw him last.”

Launuru was stunned. Who could this scullery-maid be? He'd never lain with another woman since he met Tsavila, and hardly ever before that, either... She sat there open-mouthed. Tsavila looked back at her expectantly.

Miretsi started to fuss, and Tsavila shifted her to the other breast.

Before Launuru could figure out what to say, she heard a voice from behind her: “What a horrible man!” She turned. Tsaikuno was awake. How much had she heard?

“Keep your voice down, Tsaikuno,” Tsavila said. “Let's not wake Kazmina.”

“Sorry,” the girl said, rising from bed and padding over toward them. “But I get so mad thinking about how he took advantage of you!”

“But are you sure,” Launuru finally managed to say, “are you sure that the rumor you heard was true? Perhaps the scullery-maid was lying — ”

“I thought of that later,” Tsavila said. “Servants will tell any lie to save themselves a beating, or from being discharged. There didn't seem to be any reason for the girl to lie, though — she was discharged without pay for having relations with one of the students, and she would have suffered less if she'd claimed the father was a peddler or a farmhand. And if she was lying to protect the baby's real father, who was rich and promised to take care of her and the baby after she lost her post, that still doesn't explain why my lover disappeared just after we planned to elope.”

“Itsulanu would never do something like that,” Tsaikuno said, pulling her shift over her head.

“I don't know,” Launuru lied. She couldn't tell Tsavila now, with Tsaikuno awake and listening, but she had to say something... “He might have been on his way to see you, and met with some misfortune. Perhaps he was waylaid by thieves, or fell in the river...?” She hesitated to speak too plainly with Tsaikuno listening, but this might get Tsavila thinking about what misfortune was really most likely to befall a man who courted a wizard's daughter against the wizard's wishes.

“I don't see why you're so eager to defend him,” Tsaikuno said.

“Someone has to defend him, since he can't defend himself,” Launuru said helplessly. “I mean, you don't have any evidence but the word of a servant of loose morals.”

“I'm not condemning him,” Tsavila said, and Launuru blinked in surprise. “Maybe he did as the servant said, maybe not. Either way, I fear he did meet with some misfortune, for the last I heard his family had not heard from him either. But wine can't be pressed into grapes. I met Itsulanu when I was angry and sad, and he comforted me. Now in less than three days he is to be my husband, and that makes me happier than I can say. I wish my sometime lover may be happy wherever he is; I forgive him.”

“You're a wonderful person,” Launuru said, blinking back tears.

“She's daft, isn't she, Miretsi?” Tsaikuno said, bending over and kissing the baby on the back of the head. “I wish the scoundrel could be sold into slavery to pay for his bastard's upbringing. But Tsavila's an old softie.”

“I think she's asleep,” Tsavila said, after everyone had been silent for a long moment. “I'm getting sleepy too.”

“I'm still wide awake,” Launuru said. “What about if I put her back to bed and let you get some rest? You'll be busier than the rest of us tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” She gently handed Miretsi to Launuru, who left the room, walking across the hall to the room that used to be Tsavila's. The other women and children were asleep. Launuru laid Miretsi down in her crib and covered her with the quilt, then waited a few moments to make sure she wasn't going to wake again.

When she returned across the hall, Tsavila was in bed and Tsaikuno was pacing the floor. “I'm not sleepy either,” she said. “Do you want to play It's of Both Kinds?”

“Sure,” Launuru said. “Maybe in the hall or the parlor, so we don't keep Tsavila awake or wake up Kazmina?” Tsaikuno picked up the lamp and left the room; Launuru followed her.

“Your clothes are a thing made of cotton, and a thing that's out of place,” Tsaikuno said as they descended the stairs.

“What?”

“Wrong play; you lose a point. I mean they don't fit you. Is that a man's tunic and trousers you've got on?”

“They were. Kazmina changed them into women's clothes by magic, but I guess the spell wore off. Remember, we were traveling as birds and had to get new clothes every time we changed into humans again.” She followed Tsaikuno down the corridor away from the parlor, wondering where they were going.

“That must have been embarrassing. Did you flap down into a yard where someone had hung out their wash and turn into humans and then get dressed fast in stolen clothes, hoping no one saw you?”

“No, although that might have been a good idea. Kazmina conjured some clothes out of dead grass that just lasted a few hours, and then we bought some cheap clothes and she altered them by magic; then, when we had time to earn more money, we had some nice dresses made and bought shoes.”

“Okay. It's still your turn.”

“Right. Um, the milk in my breasts is a thing that's out of place, and a thing to drink.” In the dim light it was hard to be sure, but she thought this got a blush from Tsaikuno. They'd reached the kitchen.

After they had scrounged some bread and cheese and played It's of Both Kinds for a while, Tsaikuno decided she was sleepy again. Launuru still didn't feel sleepy, but didn't want to wander around the house by herself either. Tsavila was sound asleep next to Kazmina, who appeared to have slept like a hibernating bear through all their doings. After undressing, Tsaikuno snuffed the lamp and crawled in next to them, and Launuru crawled in next to her. She still lay awake long after Tsaikuno's breathing became slow and regular.

---

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.

“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

---

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.

“You're probably not related to her, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don't know who my mother was. She was a wizard, and probably not from Setuaznu or Niluri or anywhere in between, but my father never talks about her.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 11 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.

---

By the time Launuru awoke, all the other women had gone downstairs for breakfast. She rose and began getting dressed — and was immediately reminded of what had happened during the night, when she saw a long strand of grey hair tied around her wrist.

“Terasina?” she asked in a whisper. “Are you still here?”

“You don't need to speak aloud,” came Terasina's voice.

“Can you hear me like this?” Launuru thought.

“Yes.”

“What are we going to do? You said you could protect me from — from your husband — ”

“No longer; death ends marriage. I can protect you from Psavian's magic.”

“But what about this geas?” Now that she thought about it, she could see what Terasina had meant — her continual postponement of telling Tsavila or Verentsu who she was must be due to a spell; she wouldn't act that way normally, but she knew she still couldn't tell them, even knowing the real reason for her previous diffidence.

“I will break it when the time comes. To break it too soon would alert Psavian to my presence. Best, perhaps, if I make him think that removing it was his idea.”

“Oh... should I tell anyone about you?”

“No. Go down to breakfast, speak as much with Verentsu as you can and as much as politeness dictates with others. We may not be able to speak like this once you leave this room; the strand of my hair might help or might not.”

She did as she was bid, hoping the ghost knew what she was doing. She had heard a few stories about people ridden by ghosts; many of them ended badly, but by no means all.

Before getting dressed, she had to figure out what to do with the strand of Terasina's hair; she couldn't leave it on her wrist. After some experimentation, she figured out a secure way to tie it around her bandeau, in the narrow space between her breasts. There it would be covered by her dress and, if she'd knotted it securely enough, unlikely to get lost.

She couldn't help acting a little nervous, though, with Psavian there at the table, knowing that he knew who she was and had put another geas on her. In the course of chatting with Verentsu about the arrangements for their trip to Tialem, she noticed him suddenly frown slightly, but couldn't figure out what he was upset about. Something she'd inadvertently reminded him of? He changed the subject, asking her more about her family; she recounted as much as she could remember of the cover story Kazmina had taught her, but some of his questions touched on points where she couldn't remember if Kazmina had said anything, and she had to make something up. This didn't do anything for her peace of mind.

After a while — long after he had finished eating, and some little while after she had finished as well — he rose and left the dining hall, saying he had to see to the remainder of the packing. Launuru went upstairs to the bedroom she'd slept in, and found Tsavila, with one of the maidservants, packing a few more clothes in another bag.

“My cousin and I have just a few things here,” she said. “Shall I take them down to the carriage...?”

“Oh, no,” Tsavila said. “Here, Kurevila, let's put Shalasan and Kazmina's things in this bag, there's plenty of room for them. There. Kurevila will put them in whichever carriage you're riding in — ”

“Verentsu said that Kazmina and I would be in a carriage with him and one of the servants, I think.”

“Good. I'll be teleporting with Father and Itsulanu and his parents and sister, in a few minutes — I ran up here to pack a few more things I just thought of I might need. They can only teleport one person with them, and going back and forth twice in one day will tire them out a bit, so everyone else and all our luggage has to go in the carriages — I hope you don't mind.”

“Oh, no. We've traveled under much rougher conditions recently.”

“Good. I'll see you tonight...” With that, Tsavila rushed out, followed by Kurevila. Launuru followed, more slowly, but lost them before she got to the bottom of the stairs. She walked through the house among among the bustle of people rushing here and there with bags and boxes, and found Kazmina, who was in the parlor talking with Lentsina.

“Verentsu said we'd ride with him,” she said in Tuaznu. “Did I tell you that already?”

“No,” Kazmina said. “How did he get away with that...?”

“There'll be a servant in the carriage too, he said — I suppose one of the older ones Psavian trusts to chaperon us.”

“I figured it wouldn't be that easy. We'll have to find a chance for you to talk with him or Tsavila tonight, or sometime tomorrow.”

Lentsina spoke up in Ksiluri: “Have you seen Tsavila?”

“She was upstairs packing some things — last I saw her she was heading down here to look for you, I thought. Or, probably, to stow some more luggage and then find you...”

“No hurry, I suppose.”

Lentsina and Kazmina resumed their Rekhim conversation, and Launuru wandered out of the parlor, looking for someone else to talk to or ask how she could help with the preparations. She found Nuasila emerging from the garderobe.

“You could go out in the back garden,” she suggested in reply to Launuru's question; “help me keep an eye on the children while their parents finish packing and loading.” Thus she passed an agreeable half hour with Nuasila and her little nieces and nephew until Verentsu came to summon them to the carriages. In all that time she was too busy to think of the ghost, or the geas, or anything.

---

Not long after Psavian left them, Kazmina lost track of her father as well. She spent some time looking for him, asking various passersby where he was, and finally found Launuru.

“There you are,” she said. “Have you seen my father?”

“No,” Launuru said.

“Come on, I need to change you back into a man before it's too late — ”

“But I don't want to change back into a man.”

“Oh. Do you want to marry Verentsu, then? I don't think his father will let you — ”

“Oh, no. I'm going to be Psavian's concubine.”

“What? You can't want that... you must be under another geas...!”

“Yes, we're both under the same geas now; isn't it fun?”

One nightmare followed another, it seemed, until she woke up while it was still almost entirely dark. She sat up and looked around; it looked like Tsavila, Launuru and Tsaikuno were all asleep, and she didn't hear any talking or commotion in the rest of the house, so after using the chamberpot, she lay down again and tried to go back to sleep. But sleep wouldn't come, so when she started hearing distant voices and footsteps, she got up, dressed, and went downstairs.

None of the other wizards were awake yet, only Verentsu and the servants. Remembering that he knew a little Tuaznu, she tried asking him if she could get something to eat. He conveyed her request to the cook, and soon she was sitting down to a copious breakfast. Under pressure, he proved himself more competent with Tuaznu than she'd thought, though far from fluent — she'd have to be careful, if she wanted to have a private conversation with Launuru, to make sure he wasn't in earshot.

When the others came downstairs, she didn't have any time to talk privately with Tsavila or Launuru; Itsulanu and his parents came down scarcely later than Tsavila, and Launuru, of course, was busy talking with Verentsu during most of breakfast. When Psavian came down, he asked her if she could clearly remember the meeting with her father.

“I think so,” she said. “The other dreams before and after that have faded, but I remember meeting my father, and what we talked about.” She didn't want to say more than that in front of the other wizards.

“Good,” he said, blinking blearily. “I haven't linked three people's dreams at once very often, and some people react to it differently than others. How did you perceive our meeting places?”

“We met at an inn,” she said, thinking; “then we were in a garden by the edge of a lake, and then we were up on a mountain, and something was burning nearby, but you and Daddy didn't seem scared, so I wasn't.”

“Good, very consistent,” he said. “I've been working on that.”

But mostly, during breakfast and for some while afterward, she talked with Lentsina, who wanted to talk about her family. Lentsina's paternal grandmother had been from northern Setuaznu, and she wanted to figure out if they were related. They discussed Kazmina's paternal ancestry during breakfast, then, after they moved to the parlor — Kazmina had wanted to talk to Launuru or Tsavila, but they'd disappeared when she wasn't looking — Lentsina, having failed to find a connection that way, asked her about her mother.

“I don't know,” she replied, annoyed. “You're probably not related to her, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don't know who my mother was. She was a wizard, and probably not from Setuaznu or Niluri or anywhere in between, but my father never talks about her.”

“Really... But there aren't that many wizards; we all know each other, directly or indirectly. If no one knows who she was, why do you think she was a wizard?”

“Because my father told me she was. He's never said much else, but he insisted on that. And... My father did a lot of traveling, before I was born and when I was a baby. Not just around Setuaznu and the civilized countries where the wizards are organized and have regular meetings, but in the Islands and east of Mezinakh and south of Maresh. He came home to Vmanashi with me seventeen years ago. He told people I was his daughter, but never said who my mother was, and he said — ”

Just then Launuru came in.

“Verentsu said we'd ride with him,” she said in Tuaznu. “Did I tell you that already?”

“No,” Kazmina said. “How did he get away with that...?”

“There'll be a servant in the carriage too, he said — I suppose one of the older ones Psavian trusts to chaperon us.”

“I figured it wouldn't be that easy. We'll have to find a chance for you to talk with him or Tsavila tonight, or sometime tomorrow.” But what to do about the geas? Until they could break it, she'd actually have to try to keep Launuru from being alone with Verentsu or Tsavila too much — the fewer opportunities she had to talk with them, the less likely the geas was to strain her mind with more and more contrived rationalizations for why she shouldn't tell them who she was just yet...

Lentsina said something in Ksiluri then, and Launuru replied; a few moments later she left the room.

“Where were we?” Kazmina asked.

“You were telling me about your father's return from his voyaging in foreign countries,” Lentsina suggested.

“Oh, right. Well, he came home with me, a baby just learning to walk, and he didn't tell anyone who my mother was, but he said there were wizards out there in the barbarian lands too, and though they didn't speak proper Rekhim, they knew a few things we didn't. And it was a couple of years later that he discovered the new transformation spells that he's famous for. He never said exactly, but I think he probably learned things from the barbarian wizards — maybe from my mother or her family — that led to him making those discoveries.”

“Oh,” Lentsina said. “I'd heard some of that, but not nearly all. I knew he wasn't at the conclave before last, but not everyone comes to every conclave, for various reasons...”

“A lot of us won't be at the next one,” Kazmina said. “I'll be surprised if the war is over by then, and most of the wizards in Setuaznu are serving one of the armies in one way or another.”

“Hmm,” Lentsina said. “It seems as though we ought to be able to do something about that; we shouldn't let mundane politics interfere with wizardly business, certainly not with a conclave.”

“What would you do to prevent it?” Kazmina asked, incredulous.

“We could make the first order of business of the conclave deciding what to do about the war in your country. If the conclave picks a monarch, and says that no wizard may help his enemies, then adjourns for a month or two while all the wizards help whichever one we select, the war would be over soon and all the wizards from Setuaznu could attend the remainder of the conclave.”

Kazmina was furious, but tried to stay calm. “I think you'll find it's not that simple. If a bunch of foreign wizards try to interfere, probably several of our factions — maybe all of them — will unite against you. An open war among wizards would be a lot worse than a civil war where wizards are helping different armies in specific ways allowed by the Compact.”

Lentsina was silent for a few moments, then changed the subject, saying “What interesting things have you seen since you've been in our country? Did you come straight to Psavian's house on arriving here in Nilepsan?”

So Kazmina told her about the things Launuru had shown her the day after they arrived, and Lentsina suggested some other interesting things they could go see after the wedding. They heard intermittent voices from the rest of the house, but nothing loud or near enough to distinguish. A couple of times one of the servants looked into the room and quickly went out again. A quarter of an hour later Psavian entered the parlor with Tsavila. “We're ready,” he said; “Omutsanu will be here in a moment, I think.”

“Good,” said Lentsina. “Where are Itsulanu and Tsaikuno?”

“With their father.” Indeed, the other wizards entered the room soon afterward.

Omutsanu was saying something to his children in Ksiluri, and got brief replies. Tsavila looked at Kazmina as though she wanted badly to say something to her, but couldn't say it in front of others.

“We're about to go,” Lentsina said to Kazmina, rising. “Omutsanu and I will teleport Psavian and Tsavila to the other house, then we'll come back as soon as we can for our children. That will be as much teleporting as we can easily manage in one day, I'm afraid — I think they've made provision for you to ride in one of the carriages?”

“Yes,” said Kazmina, “Verentsu has arranged it.”

“We'll see you tonight, then.” She took Tsavila's hand in hers, and Omutsanu took Psavian's; a few moments later, with no more chanting or gesturing than Kazmina or her father needed when transforming someone, they vanished.

“Tsaikuno and I will wait here for Mother and Father to return,” Itsulanu said. “You needn't wait with us — they may not return until after the rest of you leave.”

Even as he spoke, Verentsu entered the room. He said something in Ksiluri, and Itsulanu translated: “He says it's time to go.”

“Very well,” Kazmina said. “I'll see you tonight.” She followed Verentsu, who cast curious sidelong glances at her as he led her, not toward the front door and the carriage drive as she expected, but to the back door onto the garden.

Launuru was there with Nuasila, playing with Tsavila's nieces and nephew. Verentsu called out something in Ksiluri, and Nuasila and Launuru started rounding up the children. Launuru took Paukuno's hand and led her toward the door.

“We're ready, then?” she asked in Tuaznu.

“So it seems.”

With three small children in tow, they made their way to the front door and out to the carriage drive. The children's mothers called out to them, and the children ran to meet them at the door of the second carriage. Verentsu said something to Launuru, which she translated: “He says we'll be in the front carriage, there.”

Though Verentsu had said they were ready to go, it was another quarter or third of an hour before they actually started moving. Verentsu was in and out of the carriage twice, speaking with the driver, the stable-hands, and the other servants, apologizing to the women for the delay. They were joined after a few minutes by Verentsu's old nurse, a woman about Psavian's age or a little older. She and Launuru exchanged a few words, but Launuru didn't think it important enough to translate, and Kazmina didn't ask. She wondered what Tsavila had wanted to tell her, if she'd read her look correctly. Hopefully it could wait until they arrived at the country estate.

---

After she returned the children to their mothers and Verentsu helped her and Kazmina into the carriage, Launuru finally had a moment to catch her breath. She tried talking silently to Terasina, but couldn't hear any reply. Perhaps the strand of hair wasn't enough, with her being away from the room where she had died? She tried again intermittently until Verentsu helped another woman into the carriage, introducing her as Kansikuno, his old nurse. He then dashed off somewhere to see after some last-minute business with the horses or luggage.

“If you won't think me forward to say so, Miss,” Kansikuno said, “I think the young master is quite taken with you.”

“Oh,” said Launuru. “He's been a very gracious host...”

“It's more than that, if I'm not mistaken. I've been with them since Iantsemu was a babe in arms, and I know the difference between young Verentsu being polite to a young lady, and him being partial to her.”

“Do you think so?” That was gratifying to hear from an independent and knowledgeable witness; she'd begun to hope that he was beginning to love her as she already loved him, but this morning during breakfast he'd seemed to grow a little cooler toward her. “Is he betrothed to anyone, or, um...” He hadn't been when Launuru was sent into exile, but a lot could happen in six months.

“No, certainly not betrothed, and if he's been seeing a girl secretly, he's kept it quiet better than his brothers ever did.”

A few minutes later, after poking his head in twice more to apologize for the delay, Verentsu climbed into the carriage with them and closed the door behind him. “We're finally going,” he said, with an exhausted smile. Indeed, moments later the carriage started moving.

Until they were well out of the city, their motion was slow and intermittent, as their driver competed (fiercely, to judge from the cries they heard) with other drivers and riders for passage through the streets. It was a busy day, Launuru judged, looking out the window. The other traffic was mostly going toward the arena and the river, while they were going against it, southwest toward Tsaumaru's Gate and the road to Tialem.

“Are the streets more crowded today than usual?” she asked Verentsu.

“I think so,” he said. “There's a tsekiva game today — not a holy game, just a match between the Tsantuan traders and the Jewelers' Guild. I'm not sure that accounts for all the extra traffic; possibly a ship with a much sought-after cargo has just come up the river and people are swarming to the Market-on-the-Wharf, but I've been busy preparing for my sister's wedding — I haven't heard about everything going on in the city.”

She occasionally exchanged a few words with Kazmina, but mostly talked with Verentsu. She had worried that Verentsu had cooled toward her, that she'd said something to offend him during breakfast, but now he was all solicitude again, frequently asking whether she was comfortable, or wanted another cushion, whether there was anything he could ask the cook to prepare for her tonight... She wondered at what Terasina had said, that Tsavila already knew who she was and that Verentsu would find out soon, in spite of the geas. Had Kazmina told Tsavila, or had she figured it out for herself? Or been told by her mother's ghost? Surely, if Tsavila knew, she would tell her brother as soon as she could...? And yet neither of them had said anything directly to her about it... of course Tsavila had been unable to speak with her alone, and for Verentsu it would be harder still to speak with her unchaperoned.

After more talk about the tsekiva games, he turned the conversation to her past. Now that Terasina had told her about the geas, she could feel its pressure on her mind as she formulated her answers; she tried to keep the lies to a minimum, focusing on the few points of overlap between her true history and “Shalasan's” fictive history, and she tried to return his throw, asking him about his own past; but she found herself unable to deliberately give him any hints to her identity.

If he knew or suspected her identity, did he also know of his father's geas on her? And why, if he knew, was he spending so much time asking her about a made-up history? No, he couldn't know yet.

After more than two hours, they passed through Tsaumaru's Gate. A mile further south, the road passed through another market like the Market-outside-the-Walls near the academy; Launuru wasn't sure what this one was called. She looked out the window. There was a small crowd of people around a raised platform like the one they had borrowed from the labor agent in the Market-outside-the-Walls; at the center of the platform stood a tall naked man, his hands manacled, and to his left a slightly shorter man in a tunic of bright colors and a feathered hat, haranguing the crowd. Off to the right there were a cluster of other people, some in chains, others bearing swords.

Verentsu drew the curtains. “Let us keep them closed for a while,” he suggested. “The things going on today in the Heatherfield Market are apt to be unpleasant, especially for ladies.”

Launuru had seen a couple of slave auctions before, most recently when Lord Enkavian died with no heirs and the crown sold his slaves and other movable property at the Market-outside-the-Walls two years ago; each slave in turn was stripped before the crowd of bidders, and they were commanded to demonstrate specialized skills or feats of strength, or, failing that, to do something arbitrary and humiliating to demonstrate subservience. The masters of the Academy forbade the students to go anywhere near the Market on the day of the auction, but Launuru and Verentsu had snuck out anyway, and watched it with horrified fascination; she wasn't sure if it was worth the beating and extra chores they got when they were caught sneaking back in.

Kazmina had seen enough before Verentsu drew the curtain to know what was going on. “Even before we abolished slavery,” she said with a supercilious air, “our slave auctions were more conducted in a seemly fashion.”

Launuru was puzzled; she was sure he'd seen slaves in his travels through Setuaznu. Kazmina had said something about her father freeing his slaves recently, but when was slavery abolished there? Probably during this revolution that had apparently been going on around him while he was too geas-obsessed to pay attention. She felt she should defend her country's laws and customs, although she had no personal stake in the matter — her father's father had given the few slaves he owned to his cousin when the edict forbidding them inside the city walls was published, and her mother's family in Netafri had been too poor to own slaves. But she found that she couldn't say what first came to mind — was the geas blocking her? She sat looking foolish with her mouth half open.

But Verentsu had, it seemed, understood. “I apologize of the ugly thing,” he said in Tuaznu, and suddenly Launuru knew why the geas wouldn't let her reply to Kazmina in her own persona. “Whether I may say, of defending, this...” He faltered, hunting for a word, and came up with “...selling is of happening rarely? One keeps slaves in the same family, of the custom...”

Launuru spoke up, having figured out how she could work around the geas. “My father explained it to me when we lived in Nesantsai,” she said in Tuaznu, speaking slowly and clearly. “Here a family of slaves is inherited by a family of masters, one generation after another; slaves are only sold when a family dies out.”

“It's still horrible,” Kazmina insisted.

Launuru said nothing more on the subject; she wasn't sure what aspect of the auction Kazmina objected to, and found that the geas wouldn't let her ask openly, since it was the sort of thing “Shalasan” should already know. After this, there was an awkward silence that lasted until they reached an inn eight or ten miles beyond the Heatherfield Market. Iantsemu and Psilina's carriage had already arrived, and the other two carriages arrived soon afterward.

---

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.

I've recently started working on a new story, in the same setting as "Butterflies are the Gentlest"; I've written 12,600 words of it so far, and I'm guessing it will be a novella or short novel. If it's far enough along, or especially if it's finished, by the time I finish serializing Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes, I may start serializing it immediately afterward.

Hadn't Tsavila said that he should be kind to her, for she'd suffered enough already? If she was compelled to act this part against her will, further probing could do no good; he had already learned enough to be sure she was no Vetuatsenu. Various moments of their conversations the day before came back to him: she had repeatedly changed the subject when someone brought up recent events in Netuatsenu, or asked more than a few questions about her family.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 12 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.

---

Verentsu mulled over the conversation just passed. Shalasan had spoken up in defense of Viluri customs when her cousin got angry about the slave auction — well, it was an ugly thing, something ladies shouldn't have to see, but still necessary. That could be just because she was more widely traveled than her cousin and less apt to be shocked at foreign customs, but it was also consistent with his theory that she was really a Viluri... What exactly had Tsavila said about her? That she wasn't what she seemed, but meant no harm... And something about her having suffered a lot. Shalasan had said that her betrothed had died near the beginning of the war in Netuatsenu, but she had seemed more embarrassed than sorrowful when talking about it. So that probably wasn't what Tsavila had been talking about; probably it hadn't actually happened, though perhaps something analogous had.

He puzzled over it in silence until they reached the Jolly Armadillo, the inn they customarily stopped at on their way to the country estate. It was far less than half the distance, and even with the heavy traffic in the city a little less than half the time, but there wasn't another inn half so good at a more convenient place along the way. Iantsemu and Psilina's carriage was there ahead of them, and while Verentsu was helping the ladies out of the carriage (little Paukuno came running up to Shalasan as soon as they saw her, and hugged her legs), the other carriages carrying his other brothers and their wives and servants arrived. Soon they were all seated at three adjoining tables, drinking decent Nemaretsu wine — not the best, but better than was to be had at any other inn along the road to Tialem.

Soon after they were settled, Miretsi (who had been sleeping in Psilina's arms) woke up and began to fuss. Psilina checked her swaddling, then said: “It's not that; she's hungry. Whose turn is it now?”

Shalasan said something aside to Kazmina in Ksetuatsenu; Verentsu couldn't hear clearly what she said. Kazmina replied, and Shalasan said to Psilina: “I think it's my cousin's turn.”

Kazmina ran her hands over the front of her dress, chanting in a low voice; the dress changed, buttoned panels appearing where there had been a solid expanse of silk before. As Shalasan took Miretsi from her mother, Kazmina unbuttoned her dress, then took the baby from her cousin. She spoke quietly to her as she offered her the breast, and soon Miretsi quieted down and started nursing.

Verentsu was troubled. Last night he had been pleased to see Nuasila and Shalasan nursing his dear little niece, and this morning he'd been grateful to Kazmina for letting the other women take turns nursing and give his sister-in-law a more restful night's sleep than she'd had since Miretsi was born. But since his suspicions about Shalasan and Kazmina had been aroused, he couldn't help fear that they had some sinister motive for this. Even with Tsavila's reassurances, he wondered if Kazmina might be taking this opportunity, with no other wizards about, to work some spell on defenseless Miretsi through her milk...? He would have to ask Tsavila to test for that, later — if it wasn't too late. But she had clearly not expected any danger, or she wouldn't have gone off and left her brothers and sisters-in-law alone with Kazmina and her purported cousin.

Why, too, had she asked him not to tell their father of his suspicions? Certainly he and Tsavila had kept secrets from their father, and from their older brothers, often enough; but this seemed like the sort of thing they would need his help with. So Tsavila must be confident of her ability to handle it by herself, or sure that there was no danger. She had said that Shalasan meant no harm by the deception, and that she was not deceiving them of her own will; that seemed to imply that someone else was compelling her to deceive them. Did this other person — Kazmina, or the enchantress calling herself Kazmina, seemed the likeliest candidate — mean harm by the deception? Or was it some girlish prank that Kazmina was playing on Tsavila, and which Tsavila had seen through but wanted to play along with...? Perhaps Shalasan was someone Tsavila already knew, disguised and temporarily obliged to play-act as Kazmina's cousin, with a revelation of her true identity planned as a surprise wedding gift...?

“You are very quiet,” Shalasan said, leaning toward him and speaking in a low voice. “I hope my cousin did not offend you, speaking so about your country's laws and customs... She has not traveled widely as I have.”

“No,” he said, “I take no offense. I have traveled very little, myself; perhaps, if I were in your country, I could not restrain myself from exclaiming over some unfamiliar custom.” He thought back on what Kazmina had said. “Did your cousin say that you had abolished slavery in your country?”

“Oh,” Shalasan said, seeming to be at a loss for words. “Yes, it was quite recent.” She fell silent.

He suspected that she knew little more of the matter than he did. “How was it arranged?” he asked. “Were the slave-owners compensated in some way? What provision was made for the freed slaves?”

“I am afraid I did not pay enough attention when my father and his friends were talking of the matter,” she said, looking uncomfortable. He felt sudden contrition. Hadn't Tsavila said that he should be kind to her, for she'd suffered enough already? If she was compelled to act this part against her will, further probing could do no good; he had already learned enough to be sure she was no Vetuatsenu. Various moments of their conversations the day before came back to him: she had repeatedly changed the subject when someone brought up recent events in Netuatsenu, or asked more than a few questions about her family.

“No matter,” he said. “Let us speak of something more pleasant.”

Their conversation was momentarily interrupted by the inn servants bringing their food. After they settled in to eating, she asked him some questions about the recent tsekiva games, which further confirmed his opinion that she was a Viluri disguised as a Vetuatsenu. He determined to play along; if Tsavila thought her no danger, she probably wasn't.

Kazmina held Miretsi at her breast until she seemed to have had enough milk to satisfy her, then handed her to her cousin and buttoned up her dress again before eating her own dinner. Shalasan pushed aside her platter and dandled Miretsi for a few minutes, talking to her — “Ah, you're a happy one now, your belly full of Aunt Kazmina's milk! Mama is happy to let others feed you and let her sleep, yes, you keep her awake all night, naughty girl — ” Again, as she grew excited and happy, she lost her Ksetuatsenu accent. No one else seemed to notice, though they smiled at her and jested that she would soon be dandling babies of her own.

When Psilina had eaten her fill, she took Miretsi back from Shalasan and insisted that the younger woman eat something more. Verentsu excused himself and went to check on the preparations for departure. Their drivers had eaten their own dinner quickly and were watering the horses; he commended them and said they should depart in another quarter of an hour.

Soon, though not so soon as he had estimated, they were on the road again. Verentsu helped his old nurse and the ladies into the carriage, spoke with the driver briefly, and climbed in after them.

They were all sleepy after lunch; Kansikuno fell asleep almost instantly, and Kazmina nodded off a while later. Verentsu and Shalasan spoke quietly at long intervals about what they saw out the windows; he avoided talking any more about Netuatsenu or her probably false history, and kept trying fruitlessly to guess what this deception with no harmful intention could be. After some time he, too, fell asleep.

---

Launuru woke to find Kansikuno shaking her gently. “Wake up, my lady; we're here.”

“Where is here?” she asked. The carriage door was open, and she could see Verentsu standing just outside talking to someone hidden from her view; Kazmina was asleep beside her.

“At Master's country house.” Just as Kansikuno spoke, Verentsu leaned into the carriage and offered Launuru his hand. “We've arrived, Shalasan.”

“Let me waken my cousin,” she replied; “then I'll let you help us out...” She shook Kazmina and said to her in Tuaznu, “Wake up. We've arrived.”

Kazmina stirred, but didn't open her eyes or say anything. Suddenly Tsavila appeared in the door of the carriage and said something loud in Rekhim. That didn't immediately help; it still took them a minute more to waken Kazmina and make her understand where they were.

This done, and Verentsu having helped the ladies and his old nurse out of the carriage, they went into the house, where the servants had supper waiting for them. Free servants, and also slaves; the ones serving at the table were mostly the latter, wearing according to law only a skirt of undyed cloth and having a tattoo on the right forearm marking them as belonging to Psavian's family.

Launuru was afraid Kazmina would make a scene over the house-slaves, but she was apparently too sleepy still to take much notice. She ate mostly in silence, replying briefly and blearily to what Tsavila and Psavian said to her. By the end of supper, she was more awake.

Launuru conversed mostly with Verentsu during supper, as before, but she thought she noticed some increase in tension between Psavian and Tsavila. Most of their conversation was in Rekhim, but when they spoke to one another in Ksiluri, there was a hyper-politeness there that she hadn't noticed between them before. She hoped they hadn't been quarreling about Kazmina's letting the other women nurse little Miretsi.

---

After teleporting Tsavila and her father to the portico of their country house near Tialem, Omutsanu and Lentsina accepted an invitation to come into the house and rest for a few minutes before returning to the city house for their son and daughter. Her father found one of the house-slaves and sent him to find the steward and tell him of their arrival; a few minutes later they were all sitting in the front parlor, drinking beer brewed on the estate.

Omutsanu and Lentsina teleported back to the city as soon as they'd finished their cups. Tsavila had been distracted from the conversation, wondering when and how she should confront her father with what she'd learned. She made up her mind to talk to him as soon as the other wizards were gone; they would probably rest for a while before teleporting back here with Itsulanu and Tsaikuno, which should give her and her father enough time to speak privately.

As soon as they were gone, she said to him in Rekhim, “Father, I have something to ask you.”

“What is it, Tsavi?” he asked. “We have much to do to get ready for our guests...”

“This morning, Verentsu remarked to me that he thought Shalasan knew rather more of our language and customs than one would expect of someone who had lived here for a short time as a small girl. And her Tuaznu accent is not consistent — when she speaks in haste or excitement, sometimes it disappears.”

Her father looked apprehensive, but said nothing.

“He suspected, in fact, that she and Zmina were playing some trick upon us, and asked me if I was quite sure that Zmina was who she claimed to be — of course I said I was, but we had never met Shalasan before... in short, he persuaded me to look into her mind and ensure that she was who she claimed to be.”

“I see,” he said. “And you found, of course, that she was not.”

“I found that Launuru had planned to deceive us only for a short time, but that you had placed a geas obliging her to continue play-acting. Why? Don't answer that,” she said as he opened his mouth but hesitated over what to say, “I know. You were trying to conceal your own earlier deception.”

“Tsavi,” he said, “I...” He paused. “I did it to protect you. You were about to make a horrifyingly unsuitable match, which you would have regretted within a few years, if not a few months — in any case, when it would be too late. I considered other ways of dealing with the problem; this seemed the most suitable.”

“It was suitable, then, to deceive me and Verentsu, to make us think our friend a treacherous scoundrel?”

He looked helpless.

“And not only to exile him, but to allow his reputation to be destroyed too! — You could have belied that loose servant girl's slander, but you said nothing!”

He looked even more uncomfortable.

“Unless — was it you who induced her to claim Launuru as her baby's father?”

“Tsavi — please forgive me! I was trying to protect you; I should perhaps have simply confronted you and forbidden you to marry him, but — well, that did not work when my father tried it on me.”

“...Oh. So you thought I would be miserable with him, because...?”

“Because your mother and I married against our parents' wishes in the same way. It was a terrible mismatch; passion united us for a few years, but that kind of passion does not last. You will need a more durable foundation on which to build a happy life together.”

Tsavila was silent, thinking. She had known that her parents' marriage was not a happy one, but she had not applied the lesson to herself until some time after Launuru disappeared. There were probably a number of reasons her parents were unhappy together, but her father's disappointment at having only one child out of five inherit his magic was undoubtedly one of them; one day, a month or so after Launuru had disappeared, she had suddenly thought: What if we had married, and then none of our children inherited my magic? Would I be angry at myself for marrying a mundane, and take it out on Launuru and the poor mundane children? And she had been glad that Launuru's bad character had revealed itself before she made so dire a mistake.

But such a disaster wasn't inevitable. “What about Setsikuno and Tetsivamo? Their marriage seems to be a happy one, though they not only have no wizardly children, but no children at all.”

Her father pursed his lips. “Setsikuno and Tetsivamo are unusual,” he said. “There are not many couples who marry so rashly whose marriage turns out so happily — for every one like them, I could mention a dozen like your mother and myself. It helps that Tetsivamo's family is wealthier and better-connected than your mother's, or Launuru's — but don't think that Setsikuno doesn't suffer for marrying a mundane man, even now, as happy as she may seem. Do you realize that when she arrives this evening, it will be the first time she's seen other wizards socially since your fourteenth name-day? And even then, I'm afraid half of them will refuse to speak to her. It was like that for me, too, after I married your mother and before you first showed your talent. At the conclave before last, after I married your mother and before you were born, only one person would speak to me outside the business meetings — ” He stopped suddenly, looking angry and, perhaps, ashamed. Before she could think to ask who that one person was, he went on more calmly.

“I was afraid that if I simply forbade you to marry Launuru, you would meet Itsulanu with resentment, and be unable or unwilling to see his good qualities. Passion is no substitute for duty, but it can be a help to it, if rightly directed.”

“But instead I met him when I was angry with Launuru — unjustly, I know now! — and I hoped that, in any event, Itsulanu could not be worse than Launuru...”

“But come — what about Verentsu? I am afraid he may do something rash, now that he knows about Launuru. I must ask Omutsanu to teleport me back to the city as soon as he returns — I fear it will exhaust him to teleport so many times in one day, but it's an emergency — ”

“No, it's not. We had so little time to speak privately this morning that I did not tell Verentsu everything I learned from looking into Launuru's mind — only enough to allay his suspicions that Zmina and 'Shalasan' were out to defraud us. I told him I would tell him more later. So they'll all travel here by carriage, just as planned.”

“Oh. Good. We must plan what to tell him... What will you do now?”

“I will marry Itsulanu on the day after tomorrow, of course. I have seen in Launuru's mind that she no longer wishes to marry me, which is good, for I have no desire to marry him, if she were to become a man again. But I insist that we do her justice. I acknowledge now that you may have been right to prevent us from marrying hastily and unwisely — that may be; but you had no right to send him walking eight hundred miles, to be a subject for Znembalan's experiments at the end of it. If Zmina had not been more devious than her father, and by a foolishly elaborate plan given Verentsu and me a chance to discover Launuru's identity, he would have suffered much worse; and even now, she is suffering from the new geas you just placed on her.”

“It was necessary — ”

“To keep me and Verentsu from learning what you had done, of course!”

“No — well, yes; I am sorry, I should have trusted you more. But it was also necessary, and it still is, to prevent a scandal from throwing a cloud over your wedding. I can remove the geas later, after you and Itsulanu are married, but now — ”

“Why not now? I can speak with Launuru, and ask her — or him, if she wants Zmina to change her back into a man — not to say anything to anyone except Verentsu until later.”

“What should we do about her and Verentsu? If you looked into her mind, you know — ”

“That she loves him. Let them do what they like — you don't have any reason to interfere the way you did with me and Launuru, do you?”

“Now that I apparently have no more secrets from you, perhaps not. They are both merchants by education; whether Verentsu continues as my business manager, or joins a merchant house, or starts his own, in any case I can see no reason this Launuru would not make him a good wife. But there is the matter of her family; will they make trouble if they learn what I and Kazmina, between us, have done to him? Will they give her a dowry? I suppose they anticipated no such need.”

“Oh... I hadn't thought of that. But that shouldn't stop you from taking the geas off her. We must do right by her. She has done nothing wrong — ”

“What! Nothing?”

“If she has, then I've done worse and deserve worse. But he owed you no filial duty, as I did — he was not disobeying his parents by courting me secretly. And if he did wrong by wanting to marry a wizard, being no wizard himself, then Mother was just as guilty — ”

“Let us not speak of her now. Very well; I will make whatever reparations I can make without bringing scandal on our house. After the wedding — ”

“When Itsulanu and I are in our wedding hermitage, and you can deal with Launuru without my involvement? No, we must do it now.”

“But the scandal — your old lover showing up now, just before the wedding, and in such a form — what will Itsulanu think?”

Tsavila was about to hotly reply that she trusted Itsulanu not to be foolishly jealous of Launuru. But she checked herself; his parents could make trouble, certainly, even if Itsulanu himself were perfectly reasonable — and, come to that, she wasn't quite sure Itsulanu wouldn't be jealous. Before she could think of what else to say, there came a knock at the door; Omutsanu and Lentsina had returned with Itsulanu and Tsaikuno.

“Is anything wrong?” Lentsina asked when Psavian had admitted them. “I heard raised voices — ”

“I beg your pardon,” Tsavila said quickly. “We were discussing the sleeping arrangements — we will have far more guests here tonight and tomorrow than in the city house last night, and some will have to sleep in tents — not you, of course, but some of our distant kin who will arrive later today and tomorrow. I was insisting that my friends from Netuatsenu must have a place in the house.”

“And I had just given in,” her father added smoothly, “though it will require more of Tsavila's brothers and cousins to sleep in tents; no matter, young men need no soft beds.”

Tsavila and her father had no further chance to speak privately for some hours, and then only for brief moments, as they busied themselves preparing for their other guests. Itsulanu stuck close to Tsavila most of the day, and when he was away, Tsaikuno or her parents were nearby. By the time the first carriages arrived, all the bedrooms in the house were ready, and several tents and pavilions had been erected.

---

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.

“Oh, I wish I knew if you meant that, or if the geas is making you say it...”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 13 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.

---

The dining hall was crowded during supper; several of Tsavila's aunts, uncles and cousins on her mother's side, and a few of Itsulanu's kinfolks, had arrived before them, and other extended family and friends arrived within an hour or two after the party from Psavian's city house. During supper Tsavila had sat between her father and Itsulanu, as before, while Launuru and Kazmina sat between Verentsu and his cousin Tepsunam, far down the chief table from Tsavila. After supper, when the men went out into the courtyard and left the women to chat and play games in the dining hall, Tsavila was kept busy greeting her various aunts and cousins who had arrived in the last few hours; Launuru and Kazmina found little opportunity to speak with her, and none to speak privately. Psilina's servant brought in Miretsi, who had awoken and was getting hungry; Psilina let Nuasila nurse her, and this excited much comment and led to an explanation of Kazmina's magic. She was briefly the center of attention, but as many of the women present spoke only Ksiluri, they soon lost interest. Kazmina spoke with some of the wizards in Rekhim, but she seemed to Launuru to be still too sleepy to hold up her end of the conversation.

When the company broke up and those who had arrived just before or during supper were shown to their bedrooms or tents, Tsavila found Launuru and Kazmina and said said she would show them their room herself.

“I'm afraid it's not as good as the bed you had last night,” she said, leading them past the kitchens and down stairs into a cellar, “but you won't have to share it with two other women... with so many guests, all the servants and house-slaves are sleeping in tents for the next few nights, and we're giving their quarters to the young women and children among our friends and kinfolks; the young men will sleep in tents too, and the good bedrooms are mostly reserved for the old folks...” When they got to the room appointed for them, a narrow cell with a bed no more than a third the size of the one they and Tsaikuno had slept in last night, Tsavila didn't merely point it out to them and rush off; she entered, beckoned them in after her, and closed the door behind them.

She burst out with an exclamation in Rekhim, to which Kazmina replied with an astonished air; after a few moments' excited back-and-forth, Tsavila said to Launuru in Ksiluri: “I know who you are.”

Launuru was too shocked to speak for a moment, and then found that she could not say anything — the next several things she tried to say, the geas would not permit. After a few moments, Tsavila went on:

“Oh, Launuru, I'm so sorry my father treated you so. I've spoken to him and he's agreed to make it up to you somehow, and remove the new geas he's placed on you — oh, I forgot, you might not know about that. He put a geas on you yesterday, not long after you arrived at our home, to keep you from telling us who you were. But Verentsu figured out that you weren't what you appeared to be, and he told me he was worried — ”

That explained his suddenly cool demeanor this morning, Launuru thought. But, no, the timing was wrong...

“ — and so I looked into your mind. We don't normally do that without permission, you know, but Verentsu thought you and Kazmina might be impostors — I thought that was silly, it was far more likely that Kazmina was playing some kind of prank on me, but I saw that Verentsu was right, you probably weren't really a Vetuatsenu. And then I saw who you were, but I didn't have a chance to talk to you freely until now, and I'm sorry about everything — ” She broke off, crying.

Launuru found that she still couldn't say anything, but the geas didn't prevent her from embracing Tsavila. They stood there for a few moments. Launuru started to cry, too.

Kazmina said something softly in Rekhim; Tsavila replied briefly, then said in Ksiluri: “Father worried that Itsulanu would be jealous of you, if he found out who you you were — maybe he would be, if he saw us now.” She smiled through her tears.

Launuru surprised herself by saying, “Why should he be jealous?” A moment later she realized that just then, what she'd wanted to say and what “Shalasan” would naturally say happened to be the same thing.

“Oh!” Tsavila exchanged some words with Kazmina in Rekhim, then sat down at the head of the bed and patted the space beside her. “Sit down. We can't talk much longer; someone will come looking for me — and I suppose you can't say much, with the geas still on you. I haven't told Verentsu yet — when he told me his suspicions and I looked into your mind, I was so confused I wasn't sure what to do. We only had a few quiet moments together this morning, and I wasn't sure how to tell him. I confronted Father about it not long after we teleported here. He wants to keep the geas on you until after my wedding, and I want him to take it off right away — we were still arguing about that when we got interrupted, and we haven't had a chance to talk privately since. I'll keep working on him. I would take it off myself, but since it's a spell I didn't cast myself, it will take me hours, maybe days, to figure out how to undo it — I won't have that time until after Itsulanu and I are out of our wedding hermitage...” She paused. “Does it bother you? Me and Itsulanu, I mean...? Oh, dear, I suppose the geas won't let you answer that.”

Launuru, struggling to find something else the geas would let her say, finally came up with “Why should it bother me?” She smiled and went on: “You and Itsulanu are a beautiful couple — I hope you will be very happy together.”

“Oh, I wish I knew if you meant that, or if the geas is making you say it... I hadn't time to study it close and see how it works. May I look into your mind again?”

Launuru wanted to say yes, but found herself unable.

Tsavila looked hesitant, and spoke with Kazmina for a few moments in Rekhim. Then, in Ksiluri: “I think I can take that as a yes... if the geas were forcing you to speak, it would make you say no, and if you wanted to say no, it wouldn't prevent you. So...”

Launuru braced herself, not knowing what such a search would feel like or if she would feel anything. When there came a sudden knock on the door, she jumped and gave a yelp.

“Beg your pardon,” said a muffled voice from the hall. Tsavila rose and opened the door.

“Oh!” said a woman a few years older than Launuru with a slave-tattoo on her right forearm. “I didn't know you were here, mistress. Your father sent me to find the foreign ladies — he wants to speak with one of them.”

“Which one?” Tsavila asked, and the slave hesitated, looking at Kazmina and Launuru in turn. “Never mind; we'll all go.” She spoke to Kazmina in Rekhim, and a moment later they all left the room.

---

“We've got to keep our stories straight,” Kazmina said in Rekhim, as she and Launuru followed Tsavila and the slave down the hall. “Remember, your father thinks I was helping him punish Launuru...”

“I know,” Tsavila said; “that's why I didn't confront him, after what you told me, until I could confirm it another way, and tell him that I looked into Launuru's mind because of Verentsu's suspicions, not because you told me who she was. And I didn't tell Launuru the whole truth, either — she thinks I found out who she was after Verentsu told me of his suspicions; she doesn't know you told me, so Father can't find out by looking into her mind.”

“What do you think he's going to do?”

“I'll see to it that he does right by Launuru, one way or another.”

That didn't exactly answer her question, but she said nothing more. Kazmina wasn't sure which of the guests were wizards, she'd been so sleepy when they first arrived and were introduced to people, so she thought it best not to discuss their business further here in case some of the people around them understood Rekhim. They passed down the narrow corridor through the servants' quarters, busy with guests settling in to their rooms and servants and slaves coming and going with luggage, bedding, lamps and candles, through the main dining hall, where a few slaves were still mopping the floor and scrubbing the tables, and up another flight of stairs to a broader and even busier corridor. Guests, free servants and slaves were bustling up and down the corridor, in and out of rooms, chatting and giving orders and arguing. Tsavila knocked at a door two-thirds of the way down the hall, and identified herself when her father asked who was there.

Psavian opened the door, and spoke with Tsavila and Launuru for a few moments in Ksiluri. Launuru spoke up quietly after a minute. Finally he said to Kazmina:

“I'm sorry — I wished to speak to your cousin alone before I sent for my daughter and yourself. I will send for you again soon, or you may wait here... But as the discussion will necessarily be mostly in Ksiluri, perhaps you would wish to return to your room, and let my daughter or myself inform you later of what we discussed?”

“I would prefer,” she replied, “to be present while you speak with my cousin.” Some of the guests on this hall must be wizards, if Psavian was still referring to Launuru as her cousin. “I can attest that nothing untoward was done, and you will have no less privacy for your discussion for my presence, as I don't understand Ksiluri.”

Tsavila spoke up: “That makes sense. I think you should let Kazmina sit in. I'd rather be there too, but I'll give in if you let Kazmina watch and make sure you don't work another spell on her.”

Kazmina wasn't sure how much help she would be — she knew so little of their school of magic that she hadn't detected it when he broke through the shield she'd placed on Launuru's mind, or when he put the new geas on her. But she didn't want to leave Launuru alone with him.

“Very well,” he said. “Tsavila, have you spoken with your brother about this yet?”

“No.”

“Please do me the courtesy of not telling him about this until after our discussion tonight is concluded. Perhaps tomorrow would be better — he is busy helping our younger guests find their tents and settle in.”

“All right. I'll wait right here.”

Psavian spoke to Launuru briefly in Ksiluri, then held the door open while she and Kazmina entered the room. Tsavila stood in the hallway, glaring suspiciously at her father as he closed the door.

---

“Now we can speak freely, young lady,” Psavian said, as he sat down in his ornate chair carved with cranes and armadillos and gestured for Launuru and Kazmina to take their pick of the four other chairs in the room. “In a moment I will adjust the geas — I gather that my daughter told you about it? — so that you will be able to speak with me, or my daughter, about your true history and identity. I'll leave it in place with respect to Verentsu or anyone else, until we conclude our negotiations in a satisfactory way. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Launuru said. She squirmed uncomfortably as Psavian silently regarded her for what seemed like a hundred heartbeats or more. She was glad Kazmina was here, even if she couldn't understand what Psavian was saying.

“There,” Psavian said. “Let me make my position clear. I wish to keep my own reputation, and that of my daughter, spotlessly clear. Her wedding to Itsulanu must proceed according to plan, and there must be no stain on her honor either before or after it. Since my daughter has found out about you, due to my old friend's daughter being too clever by half,” — he smiled at Kazmina, who smiled back, unaware of his insult, if it was an insult — “I am forced to compromise on some of my original goals — revenge on the man who trifled with my daughter's affections, and keeping that revenge secret from my own children — but I remain obdurate on this point. At Tsavila's insistence, I will concede whatever does not bring dishonor to my name or Tsavila's, or hinder her from marrying Itsulanu.”

“What do you mean?” Launuru asked. “What concessions are you talking about?” Her courses in trade-negotiations were coming back to her.

“I will modify the geas I placed on you,” he said, “or even, perhaps, remove it entirely, if I am satisfied that neither by word or deed will you reveal certain facts to anyone who does not already know about them — one, the history of your dalliance with Tsavila; two, how I put a geas on you and sent you to find Znembalan; three, the exact details of how you returned here. We can come up with a mutually agreeable story about your disappearance and return which removes, as far as possible, any blot on your own reputation caused by rumors that arose in the wake of your sudden disappearance, while putting no blame on anyone connected with my family.”

Launuru thought hard. “I think our interests are congruent,” she said. “Whatever I privately think of you, I don't wish your mistreatment of me to be generally known for several reasons. An injury to your reputation will also hurt people I care about, Verentsu and Tsavila and their brothers... And I don't want little Paukuno or Miretsi, for instance, to grow up knowing what a vindictive man their grandfather is.” The moment she said this last, she regretted it; she should stay on his good side as far as possible. “That can remain our little secret,” she added with a coquettish smile.

“Then we are in agreement,” he said. “It only remains to decide what we will tell people about why you left Niluri and how you happened to return... it would be most convenient if Kazmina changed you back into your old self, soon after the wedding, and no one but ourselves knew that Shalasan of Netuatsenu was actually you.” He spoke to Kazmina in Rekhim; she said to Launuru in Tuaznu, “He asked me if I would change you back into a man, your old self; do you want that?”

“Wait a bit,” Launuru said to her. To Psavian she said: “Not so fast. You have not heard my own requirements.”

“Oh?”

“You asked me to give my word not to tell anyone about the events of the past six months who does not already know about them. I want to make one exception: Verentsu.”

“I would prefer — ”

“It's too late to keep the matter secret from him; Tsavila will tell him sooner or later. If you put a geas on her,” — she almost said, If you would stoop so low as to put a geas on your own daughter, but checked herself and spoke more neutrally — “then she will find a way to undo it, sooner or later. All I ask is that I be allowed to tell him my story, rather than letting Tsavila do it.”

“I see... I will consider...”

“I said, 'all I ask', but I meant, that is the only exception I ask to your conditions. I have one other requirement.”

“Yes?”

“Please give me your permission to court your son Verentsu, give him permission to take me to wife, and give your blessing to our children.”

Psavian looked astonished. “I see,” he said. “I saw, when I looked into your mind, that you were becoming enamored of my son; but I did not expect you to be so... forward, in seeking a match with him.”

Launuru blushed and tried to look demure and ladylike. “I apologize if I spoke too boldly. Kazmina has given me a woman's heart, not merely a woman's form; but perhaps I still have a man's mind, in some ways. I will always have been a boy.”

“Well, we can work on that... I suppose that means that you aren't willing to become a man again?”

Launuru hesitated. “Perhaps,” she said, “if Verentsu refuses me; it would simplify things with my family. Becoming a man fills me with dread, but I know it would come to feel natural within a day or two, just as when Kazmina made me a woman. But I hope to remain a woman, and to be your daughter-in-law this time next year.”

“Perhaps, perhaps. That will depend upon Verentsu. It will complicate our task of contriving a plausible story for your last six months, but I think we can manage. Have you any other demands, or is that all?”

Launuru thought quickly. “Yes: you must not expect a dowry from my parents. I have three younger sisters, and our family's means will be stretched quite enough providing them with dowries; my parents had no reason to expect me to need one as well.”

Psavian waved his hand expansively. “It's not much you ask,” he said. “Very well, then: you promise to tell no one of your true history, except for Verentsu, and I promise to put no difficulties in the way of you marrying him. I will lift the geas soon after we devise a suitable false history for you. You must continue to play the role of Shalasan for the next two or three days; you've been introduced to too many people in that guise — but soon after the wedding, when our other guests have left, you must drop that pretense, for it annoys Znembalan. Probably it is best if Kazmina alters your appearance again, making you look like a Viluri woman; we can tell people that you've just arrived, returning home in your altered form for some plausible reason.”

“Very well. Perhaps you should call in Tsavila, to be witness to our agreement?”

“In a moment. I have one other thing to say. If I were unconstrained, I would simply modify the geas on you, compelling you to stick to whatever story we devise except when speaking privately with certain people. My daughter insists upon my removing it entirely, so I will have to trust your word. But if you break your promise, any time before your possible wedding with Verentsu, you will descend into a torment of madness. If you break your word some time after that, I will have to find some other means of vengeance that won't injure my son; but rest assured, it will not be any more pleasant for you.”

“This threat is unnecessary,” Launuru said; “as I pointed out, if I were to make your misconduct known, it would hurt not only you, but me and people I care for. And my word is good.”

“It is enough if we understand one another.” Psavian rose and went to the door.

---

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. I'm liable to have limited Internet access in the next couple of weeks, though, so I may not be able to post the next chapter for a while.

“What's your custom here in Niluri?” Kazmina asked. “Is a woman normally allowed to ask a man to marry her? It's hard to judge from Tsavila or you what women are normally expected to act like here; even in Setuaznu, enchantresses are allowed more privileges than mundane women, and as for you...”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 14 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.

---

Tsavila stood in the hall outside her father's study for a few moments, but there were too many people going back and forth; she couldn't stand there blocking traffic, with servants and slaves hauling luggage up the stairs and into the various guest rooms. She saw through the open door across the hall that her Aunt Nantsuno was unpacking her things; she stepped in and greeted her. They chatted for a few minutes, not having had much chance to speak after supper; but Tsavila's mind wasn't on the conversation, and several times she had to ask her aunt to repeat herself.

“You are too young to be going deaf, Tsavi,” her aunt gibed. “Are your thoughts elsewhere? With a young man not a hundred yards from here, perhaps?”

Tsavila blushed. Any other time in the last few weeks, such distraction would have been due to thinking about Itsulanu when she should be tending to other business; but not now. It would not do to tell her aunt that, however. “I am very nervous and excited,” she confessed. Not only about the wedding.

“It's natural you should be. I remember the days just before I married your Uncle Orintsu, may Kensaulan lodge him safely, how I could scarcely sew a straight stitch or remember what my mother had said to me five minutes afterward — ” Tsavila's mind drifted back to the subject Aunt Nantsuno had thought she was thinking of in the first place: what would Itsulanu think of all this business with Launuru? Should she plan on telling him at some point? If there was danger that he might find out from someone other than her, then she should tell him herself, soon. But how would he learn of it?

Suddenly she heard her father's voice calling her. “It was good to speak with you, Aunt Nantsuno,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”

She dashed across the hall to her father's study, almost colliding with a servant carrying an ewer of water. Her father was standing at the open door; he let her enter and closed the door behind her. Launuru and Kazmina were sitting in two of the wooden chairs.

“What did you decide?” Tsavila asked, in Ksiluri, as soon as her father had closed the door. She didn't sit down right away; she was too nervous. Her father went to his ornate chair and sat down.

“I should tell Kazmina what we've been talking about as well,” he said in Rekhim. Then, to Launuru, in Ksiluri: “Do you mind if I summarize our discussion in Rekhim, so Kazmina will understand?”

“Go ahead,” said Launuru.

Psavian went on in Rekhim. “Launuru wishes to remain a woman, and to try to induce Verentsu to take her to wife. She promises to tell no one of how I exiled her or how she returned; we have not yet agreed on a suitable story to explain her disappearance and her reappearance in altered form. She will continue to act as Kazmina's cousin until after the wedding; after our other guests have left, Kazmina should alter her appearance. Also, she wants the privilege of being the one to tell Verentsu about her recent history, and asks that, if Verentsu is inclined to marry her, I should not require a dowry of her parents.”

“That's fair as far as it goes,” Tsavila said. “But I think you should compensate her for putting that geas on him. A thousand kings might be enough.”

Her father looked displeased. “If she marries Verentsu, they will have a fifth of all my movable property when I am gone; that would be more than five thousand kings.”

“All right. But I think you should give her at least a thousand kings now, even if she doesn't marry Verentsu. Or maybe a few hundred kings and credit for five or ten major spells, whenever she wants them.”

“Let us return to this point later,” her father said. If he hoped she would get distracted with the wedding and forget about it, he was mistaken. “Before we switch back to Ksiluri — Kazmina, have you any suggestions for Launuru's cover story? We need to explain his disappearance and her return, without dishonor to her or to us.”

Kazmina rubbed her nose. “I don't know that I can suggest a good reason for him to disappear,” she said. “Do you have slaver-gangs here in Niluri? If so, maybe he was taken by them and escaped after several months. But as for him changing into a woman, well — my father and I are the best wizards in the world at transformation, but we aren't the only ones who can change a person's sex. Perhaps he fell afoul of some hostile wizard...”

“I would prefer not to cast vague aspersions on some unknown member of our profession,” Psavian replied. “But such a transformation does require some magical explanation. Perhaps some barbarian wizard... Yes, that may be plausible enough.” He summarized Kazmina's suggestion in Ksiluri for Launuru's benefit.

“That's rather far-fetched,” she said. “When was the last time you heard of foreign slaver gangs kidnapping people right here in — I mean, right close to Nilepsan?”

“But,” put in Tsavila, “the fact that you've changed could be proof enough — people will know that some powerful magic was involved, and so something out of the ordinary must have happened to you — once they accept the barbarian wizard, the slaver-gang is easier to believe. — And people know that Father doesn't do transformations, so no one will think he had anything to do with it.”

“I suppose,” Launuru replied. “I don't like it, though — if I tell people I was kidnapped as a slave, and then changed into a woman by some barbarian wizard, they will think I — they'll think that the master I escaped from, the wizard or whatever barbarian chieftain he serves, was using me as such men use slave-girls.” She blushed furiously. “This story should avoid dishonor to me, not only to you and your father.”

“Oh,” Tsavila said. “I should have thought of that.” She tried to think of something better, but nothing came immediately to mind.

“Well,” said her father, “we don't actually have to decide upon a story until it is time for her to end the 'Shalasan' masquerade, after your wedding.”

“Sure,” Tsavila said. “Another thing — there was that scullery-maid at the academy who claimed that Launuru was her baby's father. Whatever story we come up with about where Launuru went and how she got changed needs to belie the false rumors that girl started.”

“Who is she, anyway?” Launuru asked. “I don't know why she would claim that — ”

Psavian shrugged. “Our minds seek order in a chaotic world,” he said. “When you disappeared from the academy, all who knew you would naturally wonder at this and some would seek to learn the cause. Providing them with a plausible reason for you to run away diminished their motives to seek further.”

“You mean... You put a geas on her to say that, didn't you?”

“By no means,” he said. “It was not necessary. After I sent you away, I investigated the academy and found this girl, who was with child by one of the schoolmasters. If the truth had come out, they would both have been dismissed. I told her I would provide for her and the baby until it was weaned, and help her get another position after that, if she would tell people that the student who had just disappeared was the father.”

“Oh... So where is she now?”

“At a farm near the academy; I pay the farmer a few nobles a month for her lodging.”

“So... you should have her talk to people and tell them she was lying about who the baby's father was, to protect her lover from getting discharged.”

“Very well. I will visit her soon after Tsavila's wedding and ask her to do so. As for your cover story, we can think about it and discuss it further in the next day or two, and make a final decision when Kazmina alters her appearance for the last time and I remove the geas — ”

“Oh, no. You should remove the geas now. She's given her word she won't tell anyone but Verentsu.”

Her father looked determinedly at her; she looked determinedly back. Kazmina looked apprehensive. Launuru cleared her throat.

“Have you already modified it so I can tell Verentsu?” she asked.

“Oh,” Psavian said. “Not yet. I'll do that now, and then I'll remove the geas entirely tomorrow or early the next day. Sometime tomorrow I'll arrange for you to have a chance to speak privately with Verentsu, with some suitable chaperon who can see you but is too far away to hear...” He trailed off, and looked fixedly at her. Tsavila watched, looking for the flows of magic around him. Looking carefully, she could see the geas becoming visible to wizard sight, then altering as her father directed the full force of his attention to it; but she couldn't quite follow the changes he made, they were so subtle and made so quickly. She thought about asking him to go slower so she could see what he was doing, but she should have asked him that before; she mustn't interrupt him now... Almost before she had time to think this, he was finished.

“Good night, Tsavila; good night, ladies. We all have much to do tomorrow.”

---

Tsavila's bedroom was on the same upper storey as Psavian's study; she would be sharing it that night with Tsaikuno and one of her cousins on her mother's side. She parted from Launuru and Kazmina at the head of the stairs, bidding them good night.

“Are you sure you can find your room again?”

“Yes,” Launuru said. “Have a good dream.”

On the way back to their room, she told Kazmina what had passed in the Ksiluri conversation, and Kazmina told her what she, Tsavila and Psavian had said in Rekhim.

“She asked him to give me a thousand silver coins?” Launuru said, stunned. She was too flustered to think of the Tuaznu word for a king coin; it wasn't the same as the word for a person who was king. “Did he...?”

“He didn't say yes,” Kazmina said. “I think she'll keep asking him about it, and he'll eventually give you more than nothing but less than a thousand.”

“That's good,” Launuru replied. “Even if he doesn't give me any money, it's good because he'll feel he's getting off lightly just taking the geas off and letting me court Verentsu.”

“Maybe,” Kazmina said. They reached their room and started undressing for bed. “He said he would give you a chance to talk to Verentsu tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Launuru replied. She felt suddenly more nervous about her next meeting with him. “Kazmina, what should I say? It seemed like a good idea, I wanted to be the one to tell him instead of Tsavila, but now... How can I tell him?”

“Tell him who you are, or that you love him, or both?”

“Yes, that too. Should I tell him I love him first, and then tell him who I am, or...? What will he think of me?”

“What's your custom here in Niluri?” Kazmina asked. “Is a woman normally allowed to ask a man to marry her? It's hard to judge from Tsavila or you what women are normally expected to act like here; even in Setuaznu, enchantresses are allowed more privileges than mundane women, and as for you...”

“Psavian commented on that too,” Launuru said as she laid down. “He said he could tell by looking into my mind that I loved Verentsu, but he was surprised that I asked right out if I could court him.”

Kazmina blew out the lamp and, moments later, slid into bed beside Launuru. Launuru went on: “And, no, it's not the usual thing for women to ask men to marry them — there are exceptions, priestesses and noblewomen and widows who inherited a farm or business from their first husband, but most women are supposed to wait for a man to propose marriage to them, or for their parents to arrange a marriage for them. But I won't wait — if I can't get Verentsu to marry me, I suppose I'll ask you to change me back into a man before you go home. It seems horrible, the idea of changing into a man, but going home as I am now, without Verentsu's support, would be nearly as bad... And after Tsavila's wedding, I need to go home, either as a woman telling my parents I'm going to marry Verentsu, and we've already got it arranged with his father, or as a man, not telling them I've ever been a woman.”

“I'll be happy to change you back, if you want,” Kazmina said. “But as for tomorrow — it seems to me you should tell Verentsu who you are first, so he won't be surprised at your acting in a way that's unusual for a woman when you ask him to marry you.”

“You're probably right,” Launuru said. “I just don't know how... Where should I begin?”

Kazmina was silent for a while. “What are you worried about?” she asked sleepily.

“What will he think of me? I'm afraid he'll be repelled by this change, that he'll think it was dishonorable to let you transform me so I could get to speak with him and Tsavila...”

“I don't know,” Kazmina replied after another long pause. “You know him better than I. It looks like he's very partial to you as you are now, but of course that might change when he finds out who you are.”

“Yes, that's just what I'm afraid of — instead of a woman, he'll see a strangely mutilated man...”

“You can explain how my magic works,” Kazmina put in. “Maybe that will help.”

“But I don't understand how — ”

“Not how I do it, but what how it affects you: you're a real woman now, just as you were a real goose when we were migrating hither. There's no way anyone could tell you apart from a born woman, if you didn't tell them who you were.”

“That might help. Thank you.”

She was silent for a while, and soon heard Kazmina snoring softly. But it was some time before she fell asleep, her mind turning the chances and possibilities over and over until they all seemed equally likely.

---

Kazmina woke hearing soft voices and seeing, for a moment before she shut her eyes again, the lamp being lit. But it was another few minutes before she sat up and looked around her. Launuru was bathing, a hot tub of water having been brought in, presumably, by whatever servant or slave she had been talking to; but the door was closed and they were alone.

“Good morning,” Launuru said. “There's hot water and soap. The slave said we should be in the dining hall in half an hour.”

“All right,” Kazmina said. Until Launuru was finished bathing, she didn't see any point in getting up. She thought for a while, then, still lying in bed, said: “I thought of something. You said you didn't want to tell people you'd been taken as a slave, because they would think your master had raped you?”

“Yes, exactly. I want to figure out some better story...”

“Perhaps after that, you killed him and thus escaped. The imaginary insult to your honor is already avenged in imagination; as soon as people hear that you were raped they also hear that you slew the rapist, and no dishonor remains... does that satisfy you?”

“No,” Launuru replied, sounding annoyed. “I'd rather come up with a story that gives me a good reason for suddenly leaving the academy in the middle of term and not coming home for six months, and having somehow become a woman in my absence... Perhaps I got a forged letter that I thought was from my brother, saying he needed me to come to a certain place and help him, and then... It needs work.”

Kazmina thought some more. As Launuru dried herself off and got dressed, she said: “What about this. You were sold by the slaver-gang to a barbarian king; he put you to work building a palace or tomb or something, and after you'd been there for a few months, you organized a revolt or escape of the slaves. It failed, and you were recaptured, and then your master had his wizard turn you into a woman to punish you — he singled you out because you were the leader of the revolt. But before he could rape you, you slew him and escaped again, this time successfully.”

“That's better,” Launuru said slowly. “I suppose the barbarians must have more frequent slave revolts, since they don't treat their slaves humanely like we do here...”

Kazmina scowled, stood up and went to the basin of water. It was still quite warm enough. She picked up the rag Launuru had used and started scrubbing herself. Launuru was strangely blind about the way slaves were used here. She went on, oblivious to Kazmina's displeasure: “Still, I'd rather come up with a story that doesn't involve me being a slave.”

A few minutes later, they left their room and followed the corridors and stairs to the dining hall. More than half of the guests present at supper were already seated at the tables, and six or eight slaves were rapidly coming and going with platters of food and drink. Kazmina thought again of a vague notion that had occurred to her sleepy mind last night during supper, of maybe doing something to help them; but she'd need to be able to talk with some of them privately to do much, and that meant working through either Tsavila or Launuru as an interpreter. On further thought, she doubted that either of them would be willing to help, and if she confided this idea to Launuru, Psavian could see it in her mind.

But Tsavila wasn't the only one here who spoke Rekhim; there were all the other wizards who'd arrived yesterday, and more who would be arriving today. Maybe one of them would be less complacent about slavery than Tsavila or Launuru.

Tsavila, as before, was sitting near the head of the main table between her father and Itsulanu, with Itsulanu's parents and Tsaikuno across the table from them, and other wizards further down the table. Verentsu, at another table with some of his brothers and sisters-in-law, had a couple of empty seats to his right; he waved to the women as they entered the room. Launuru headed toward him, and Kazmina followed at first, but when they reached Verentsu's table, she said to Launuru:

“I think I'll sit over there,” she said, pointing to an empty space near the foot of the main table. “I'll let you talk with Verentsu without worrying about excluding me from the conversation.”

“I'm sorry,” Launuru said; “I've been very inconsiderate, the last few days, talking in Ksiluri with him and others and leaving you out...”

“Much of that couldn't be helped,” Kazmina replied. “But if you don't mind...?”

“Go ahead,” Launuru said, and sat down, speaking to Verentsu, perhaps making Kazmina's apology for going to the other table.

Kazmina found a seat at the wizards' table next to a man a few years older than herself. “Good morning,” she said in Rekhim; “I think we met briefly last night, but I can't recall your name; I was tired and sleepy from the journey. I am Kazmina daughter of Znembalan, of Setuaznu.”

“Pautsanu son of Hastelan,” the man said. “You've traveled further than most here, I suppose...?”

“Probably. Are you a native of Niluri?” He looked like he might be, but his Rekhim was unaccented, and his father's didn't sound like a Viluri name.

“Yes; I come from the northeastern hill country, but I've lived in Nesantsai for six years, and I've known Itsulanu for most of that time. How are you connected to the bride or groom...?”

“I've known Tsavila since we were small girls; we met the year the conclave was in Vmanashi.”

“I missed that one,” he said. “My father was too sick to travel, and I stayed with him.”

“I'm curious,” she said. “Do people in northeastern Niluri keep slaves, the same as here?”

“Not as many,” he said; “in the hill country the farms are smaller than around here, and fewer people can afford to keep slaves. What about in Setuaznu?”

“Slavery has been abolished in my country,” she replied.

“Ah!” he said, “that must have been recent, or I suppose I would have heard about it...?”

“Yes — just five months ago. My father freed our own slaves earlier, but it was five months ago that the revolutionary council declared slavery ended everywhere in Setuaznu — ”

“That is, I suppose, in all the territories they control. How much of the country is that?”

She flushed. “I don't know for sure; probably far more than half... It will be the whole country soon enough.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

At this point they were joined by a late riser, a woman about Pautsanu's age who introduced herself as Tarwia of Maresh. Kazmina continued trying to get some idea of her table-mates' ideas about slavery, but with little success after this; Tarwia was apparently a long-time friend of Pautsanu and they found much to talk about, mostly ignoring Kazmina. It seemed that Psavian had noticed this; when Tsavila rose and left with her mother-in-law- and sister-in-law-to-be, Psavian invited Kazmina to come up and sit next to him. She couldn't think of a good excuse to refuse, though she dreaded the inevitable falseness of their conversation, both of them unable to speak in the presence of the other wizards about the matters that concerned them most.

But if this bothered Psavian, he didn't show it; he was a smiling, genial host, asking how she'd found the accommodations, apologizing again for the necessity of squeezing so many guests into so few rooms, and suggesting various things to do in the afternoon and early evening while he and Tsavila would be busy with wedding preparations. He led the conversation back to her father, this time avoiding politics and focusing on her wizardly training.

“He had already taught you the basic spell forms when we came to visit during the conclave, yes?”

“Yes — he'd started me on them when I was seven. By the time you and Tsavila came to visit I could cast a few basic spells, including one to keep my wits about me when my father changed me into an animal — do you remember how we demonstrated that at the conclave?”

“Remarkable,” he said, shaking his head. “Tsavila didn't cast her first spell until she was thirteen; even if the most basic spells of our school are perhaps more complex than those of yours, your early rapid progress is amazing.”

This was an interesting shift from the condescension he'd shown when she first arrived. Probably he now felt the need to stay on her good side, since his plans required her to transform Launuru one more time before she left. — But there was that invitation he'd given, during the shared dream, to stay in his home for as long as the war lasted. Why?

“Thank you,” she said. “My father is a very good teacher.”

---

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.

“You said you were not betrothed to any man back home; do you hope that Verentsu will ask you to be his bride?”

“Yes,” Launuru said shyly. “But I am afraid...” The geas wouldn't let her complete the sentence.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 15 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.

---

“My cousin begs your pardon,” Launuru said as she sat down next to Verentsu, her heart pounding with anticipation. “She wishes to breakfast with the other wizards, with whom she can speak more freely.”

“I understand,” Verentsu said. “Here, the cornbread is very good this morning.”

“Thank you... What are your plans for the day?”

“That is just what I was impatiently waiting to tell you,” he said. “Just an hour ago my father told me that I'd been working hard enough, preparing for Tsavila's wedding for so many days while my brothers were busy with their own business and their wives and children — he wants Iantsemu and Riksevian to take over my responsibilities for a few hours and give me a break. So I'm free until early evening. Would you like to go for a walk around the estate? We could bring lunch with us...”

“I would love to,” Launuru said. This must be what Psavian had promised, giving her a chance to speak with Verentsu alone.

“Tell your cousin,” he said, “when we're done eating — perhaps she'll want to come, though I shouldn't be surprised if she prefers to do something with the other wizards. Probably some of the other young people will join us, though — my cousins and Itsulanu's, maybe Tsaikuno. Tsavila will be busy for a while, there's a rite she and Lentsina have to perform at the shrine, but perhaps she can join us afterward...”

Or maybe not.

“I would prefer,” she said in a low tone, “if there were fewer people present — perhaps just one other, who can attest that we did nothing unseemly, but sometimes walk at a distance and give us time to speak quietly...” Even as she spoke, she worried he would think her too bold.

“I shall see to it,” he said, just as quietly. “If your cousin is not inclined to come, perhaps,” and here he raised his voice, as Melentsu and Nuasila arrived and sat down next to them, “Melentsu and Nuasila would like to join us?”

“Indeed, here we are,” Melentsu said. “You needn't shout.”

“I meant, join us for a long walk and a picnic lunch,” Verentsu went on, “not only for breakfast. Father has asked Iantsemu and Riksevian to take over my preparation tasks for a few hours, and Shalasan and I were making tentative plans to walk out to the tombs and the waterfall.”

“That would be fun,” Nuasila said. She sat very close to Melentsu.

During much of breakfast, Verentsu was busy speaking with his oldest brothers about the things they needed to do in his absence. Launuru half-listened, eating and conversing intermittently with Melentsu and Nuasila. She could see wisdom in Verentsu's plan: the newlyweds would probably be so absorbed in each other that it would be easy to walk gradually further ahead of or behind them, and thus obtain space to speak privately.

After breakfast Verentsu said he had to meet briefly with his father and older brothers, and obtain their lunch fixings from the kitchen servants; after that, he would be free to go. Launuru looked around the room and found Kazmina still in conversation with some of the other wizards; Tsavila, Itsulanu and his parents were gone from the table, but Psavian and most of the other wizard guests were still there. Launuru approached and said quietly to Kazmina, “Verentsu has invited me to go for a walk.”

“Do you need me to chaperon?” Kazmina asked. The older woman she'd been talking to looked on patiently.

“I don't think so,” Launuru replied. “He's invited Melentsu and Nuasila. If it were anyone else I'd ask you to come along and distract them with a magical entertainment so Verentsu and I can talk aside, but with them, I don't think any external distraction will be necessary.”

“Good luck,” Kazmina said, and squeezed her hand.

---

Half an hour later, they left the house. Melentsu and Verentsu carried bags of food and other supplies; Nuasila was entrusted with a tall tallow candle, already lit though it was broad daylight. Melentsu led the way down a path through the garden, where his sisters-in-law were watching their children play, to a trail that passed between a cornfield and a walnut orchard. At a distance, they could see slaves working in the cornfield.

At first, Verentsu and Launuru stayed close to Melentsu and Nuasila. Melentsu wanted to tell “Shalasan” about his father's estate, and the place they were going.

“Father bought this place, and the slaves with it, from a second cousin of the last owner, who died with no close relatives. I can barely remember when we got it — it was when Verentsu was a baby. Father has made some improvements to the house, and last year we built a tomb for our mother, but otherwise it's much like it was when I was small.” Launuru had heard most of this years ago, but she contrived to look interested.

“Over there,” Melentsu went on as they reached a wooden bridge across a broad, shallow creek, “built into that hill, there are several tombs belonging to the old owners of the place, and then off to the left there's our own family tomb. Our mother's the only one buried there so far.”

They crossed the bridge and approached the tomb hill. They passed the walled-up entrances of the previous owners' tombs, and came to a newer one, its white marble showing hardly any weathering; carved over the entrance was the name “Terasina daughter of Merusina,” and below that, in smaller letters, “Wife of Psavian son of Iantalan.”

“You will excuse us for a moment,” Verentsu said to Launuru. She nodded. He took sticks of incense from his satchel, and Melentsu took the candle from Nuasila; they entered the vestibule of the tomb. Nuasila and Launuru stood outside, a little distance away. Launuru wondered if she would hear or see Terasina's ghost again; could she appear here, as well as in the room in the city house where she died? Perhaps not in broad daylight... but still, so close to her tomb, Verentsu's mother might be able to help her in some way. Launuru spoke silently, asking for her help, but heard no reply.

“My brother-in-law seems very taken with you,” Nuasila said, interrupting her thoughts.

“Oh,” Launuru said. “I... I hope you are right.”

“You said you were not betrothed to any man back home; do you hope that Verentsu will ask you to be his bride?”

“Yes,” Launuru said shyly. “But I am afraid...” The geas wouldn't let her complete the sentence.

“I suppose it might be difficult, arranging things with your family while your country is at war. But if Verentsu loves you he will wait as long as it takes for messages to go back and forth... perhaps his father can speak with yours at a distance by magic?”

“Perhaps.”

“Or do you fear that though he enjoys being with you today, he won't care to tie himself to you forever?”

“Yes.” The geas allowed her to say that much, now that Nuasila had asked a suitable question. She was trying to figure out something else she could say that that would be both true and allowed by the geas, when Melentsu and Verentsu emerged from the tomb.

“Be bold,” Nuasila said quietly, and then walked toward her husband. “What next?” she asked.

“We could walk down the creek to the pond and eat our lunch,” Melentsu suggested; “there are benches there.”

“Are you growing hungry, Shalasan?” Verentsu asked. “As for me, it's not so long since breakfast; if you ladies aren't growing tired or hungry, I suggest we walk up the creek to the waterfall before we return downstream to the benches by the pond and eat.”

“That suits me,” Launuru said, and Nuasila agreed. As they walked upstream, past the walnut orchard which gave way after a little distance to pine forest, Nuasila engrossed her husband's attention; Verentsu and Launuru fell behind the other couple little by little. When they were more than sixty yards behind, Verentsu said quietly:

“So, my sister told me this morning that you had something to tell me. Do I guess rightly that it has to do with your pretending to be Kazmina's cousin, 'Shalasan'? If that is your name...”

Launuru took a deep breath. “No,” she began; “I mean, Shalasan isn't my real name. I didn't mean to deceive you, or Tsavila — I meant to tell you as soon as I had a private moment with either of you, with your father not around — but... Let me start over, please.”

“As you like.” His face showed curiosity tinged with suspicion. Her nerve almost failed her, but she braced herself and said: “I am your friend Launuru.”

Verentsu stopped in his tracks; Launuru reacted a moment later, having stepped a pace beyond him. “Launuru son of Rusaulan? How...? Why...?”

“The rumors you heard after I disappeared are false,” she went on hurriedly, turning to face him. “Horrible slanders — I never laid with that servant at the academy, much less got her with child — I didn't even — ”

“Why are you disguised as a girl, and traveling with that foreign enchantress? Where have you been? — If you're really Launuru... How do I know...?”

“Let me start from the beginning, please? And perhaps we should keep walking...”

“I suppose so...” He went on up the trail, and she followed; they kept Melentsu and Nuasila just barely in sight.

“So, Tsavila and I made our plans to elope, just after your father told her that he was arranging this match with Itsulanu. I told you the next morning, after she spoke with me in a dream — then that evening I snuck out of the academy, and you covered for me.”

“All right,” he said, “if you're not Launuru, you've spoken with him and know things that nobody else knows...”

“So I got to the city and inside the walls just before they closed the gates for the night, and then made my way to your house. I found the rope Tsavila had set out for me and climbed the wall, then crept through the garden — but I found myself going right past Tsavila's window, and realized I no longer had control of my body. I crawled to the window of your father's study, which was open, and climbed in as quietly as I could — he was sitting there, smiling. I closed the window and said, 'Here I am.' Then he told me he'd known for several days about me and Tsavila; he'd set a magical trap for me that would make me come to his window instead of hers, next time I came to visit her secretly. And then he worked another spell on me, and told me what I had to do. I crept out again as quietly as I'd come, walked straight to Northgate, and left the city as soon as it opened the next morning. I spent the next six months traveling on foot, working menial jobs here and there to pay for food and lodging, and telling everyone I met how dangerous it was to mess with wizards.”

“Psunavan's bow!” Verentsu swore. “How could he...? How did you get free? Did the spell wear off, or did Kazmina break it...?”

“I finally I came to the place he'd sent me, way up in northern Netuatsenu — Kazmina's father's house. I was supposed to tell him who had sent me and why, and let him do whatever he wanted with me — Psavian said he would probably test new spells on me. But he had gone off to war, and left Kazmina in charge of his affairs. And when I told her my story, she said she would help me elope with Tsavila — ”

“Did she!”

“Well, she said it would depend on what Tsavila wanted, of course, once we got here. And it turned out — you know. But anyway, she said she would help me get here quickly, before the wedding, and find a chance to meet with Tsavila secretly without Psavian knowing.”

“Thus the disguise.”

“Yes, only it's not exactly a disguise. We told you how Kazmina turned us into birds, and we covered a lot of distance by flying? That part was true — only we didn't say that was almost the entire voyage, flying hundreds of miles a day for four days and then covering the last few leagues on foot... And then once we got here, Kazmina used the same kind of spell she'd used to turn us into geese to turn me into a woman.”

“To turn you into... Oh. Not a disguise, you said.” His face showed just the sort of fascinated revulsion she'd been afraid of. What else to say? Kazmina had suggested —

“Right. It's real, inside and out... At first I didn't want to, it seemed — I don't know — unnatural? Even more than turning into a bird.” She decided not to mention that she'd been a female goose, and Kazmina a gander; she was confronting Verentsu with enough unnatural strangeness without that. “But Kazmina convinced me it was the surest way to get a chance to speak privately with Tsavila. We weren't thinking in terms of meeting you or your brothers — if I'd thought it through, I could have guessed that you might be around, but I didn't know you'd taken over managing your father's household since I left.”

“But why didn't you tell me or Tsavila who you were as soon as Father was out of the room?”

“I didn't know myself, until yesterday.” True if vague; she wasn't sure if she should tell him about his mother's ghost — not just yet, perhaps. One strangeness at a time. “But your father detected me almost as soon as we arrived, in spite of Kazmina's magical protections, and he put another spell on me, to keep me from telling you or Tsavila who I was. I didn't realize he'd enchanted me again, I just kept finding excuses why it wasn't the right time to tell you yet — and hating myself more and more for being such a procrastinator and coward — ” She choked off a sob, and her steps faltered; he paused and turned his face toward her for the first time in several minutes. She wanted to bury her face against his chest and cry, but the look on his face discouraged her; she started crying anyway.

“How could he — I can hardly believe — ”

“Ask him; or ask Tsavila — he admitted it all when she confronted him about it. And he bribed that servant at the academy to tell people I was her baby's father, too — ”

“I'm sorry, I don't like to disbelieve you, but I hate to believe that about Father — ”

“Ask Tsavila,” she repeated, and started crying again. “She looked into my mind, didn't she tell you?”

“She did — now I understand — she told me that she couldn't tell me yet what she'd learned, and then this morning she said you'd tell me yourself. And then Father told me he was giving me leave for most of the day, and he suggested I take some of the young people — he mentioned you specifically — out for a walk around the estate...”

“We talked last night — him and Tsavila and Kazmina and me. I told him I realized Tsavila was in love with Itsulanu, and I promised not to make trouble or disrupt her wedding, and he promised to take this geas off me so I wouldn't have to keep pretending to be Kazmina's cousin, once the wedding was over — ”

“So you can go back to yourself then?”

Now was the deciding moment. “I can. But I'm not sure I want to — I told you how I felt when Kazmina proposed this plan? Imagine how you would feel if she suggested that you turn into a woman for a few days — ”

“Gah!” he exclaimed. “Surely you could have — there must have been another way — ”

“Maybe there was, but we couldn't think of one. But you have to understand how it worked — within a few hours after she changed me, it all felt natural. And my feeling and thinking changed to fit my new state — instead of being a man passionately in love with your sister, I was a woman, friendly to her as women are friends with one another. And — ” She hesitated, and decided to slow down. Instead of telling him the corollary, how her feelings toward Verentsu himself had changed, she said: “And the same repugnance I felt for becoming a woman, I feel now about becoming a man.”

“You're really a woman, then... You said you were no longer in love with Tsavila?”

“Yes — which is just as well, now that I know about her and Itsulanu. He seems like a good man. And — well, another reason I hesitate to ask Kazmina to change me back into a man is that I'm afraid I would be hopelessly in love with Tsavila again.” Why couldn't she tell him the main reason?

“But — but you'll get over that, with time. You have to — you're a man, Launuru!”

“Not now. I know I could be a man again, if — but I don't want it, any more than you want to be a woman.”

“Kazmina's magic is that strong? Oh — ” He stopped short, then spoke again, slowly and reluctantly: “Are you sure this isn't part of my father's enchantment, the same way he made you procrastinate about telling us without realizing why?”

Launuru considered that. “I don't think so,” she said, “but you can ask Tsavila to look into my mind again and see. He's supposed to take the spell off sometime before the wedding, probably later today — she'll watch and confirm that he doesn't leave any compulsions or tricks in place.”

“If she can — he's far more experienced than she is. Kensaulan's scales! — I hate to think of him tricking you like that, but if he's done it once, he might do it again, to keep you from making trouble for Tsavila and Itsulanu after they're married.”

“I don't think that part of it is his fault,” she said. “Kazmina warned me about some of this — I think she knew I might be reluctant to change back and she'd have to convince me again, the way she had to convince me to let her change me the first time — ”

“Then let her convince you. Let me convince you! If you got used to being a woman within a few hours, surely you'd get used to being yourself again in a few minutes?”

Knowing that didn't make it easier or more attractive. She had to tell him the real reason, with no more delay.

“Don't make me, please. Don't send me away. I love you, Verentsu!” In spite of the horrified look he gave her, she threw her arms around him, leaned her head against his shoulder, and sobbed fierce sobs.

---

Verentsu had heard his old friend's story with a certain amount of skepticism, at first, which gave way to pity and anger when he — or she? — told how his attempted elopement with Tsavila had gone wrong. As far as Verentsu had known until now, no one but he, Launuru, and Tsavila had known of the planned elopement; certainly if this woman or quasi-woman wasn't Launuru, she knew things that she could only have learned from him. This pity gave way to revulsion when she told how the foreign enchantress had turned him into a woman. Verentsu's involuntary physical reaction to this account was not unlike his reaction when he first heard how the people of northern Mezinakh punish convicted rapists. He cringed, and it was all he could do not to cover his crotch in an irrational protective gesture. Revulsion gradually receded, giving way to a resurgence of pity as he came to suspect that Launuru's mind was being magically manipulated in more ways, and perhaps by more wizards, than she suspected. He felt instinctively that she was telling him the truth, but was equally sure that the Launuru he had known would not think or say or act as she was doing. But this recurrent pity was almost entirely driven out again by a redoubled revulsion when she suddenly embraced him and started sobbing.

He pushed her away roughly, almost immediately regretting it, but still feeling more revulsion and anger than remorse. “Get a hold of yourself, man!” he cried — too loud; Melentsu and Nuasila might have heard that, if they were still anywhere nearby... He realized that he and Launuru had been standing here for several minutes. “Think of what you're saying! I don't know who's been manipulating you with what magic, but whatever they did can be undone — and maybe you can resist it by your own power; you have to try!”

She turned away and buried her face in her hands, still sobbing too hard to speak. If it were the Shalasan he thought he'd just met and rapidly grown fond of who were sobbing so, he would take her in his arms to comfort her, but... Oh, no. How quickly he'd fallen for her! Were his own emotions being magically manipulated, by Kazmina or his father or Tsavila, or some enemy of his father's who was using Kazmina and Launuru against them...?

“Launuru,” he said, forcing himself to be calm and speak more quietly, “please, control yourself. We'll go to the shrine and wait for Tsavila and Lentsina to finish the rite, and we'll ask Tsavila to look into your mind and see — ” He stopped. Could he trust even Tsavila? What if she, fearful of her wedding with Itsulanu being disrupted if Launuru became himself again, a jealous lover, had (on her own or conspiring with their father) manipulated Launuru to find reasons to remain a woman? “Or someone. We'll leave the estate, I'll take a couple of horses, and we'll go to the city and find a wizard who is neither Father's friend nor his enemy — someone neutral we can trust — and get them to undo whatever Father and Kazmina did to you...”

“No,” Launuru said; “you don't understand. I love you — if it were a spell making me love you, it would stop working so subtly once you told me about it, like the spell your father used to keep me from telling you who I was. This is real. It's who I am now. Can you love me?”

“I...” He looked at her, thought of his old friend, and imagined the hidden changes in his body concealed here and revealed there by the silk dress — and involuntarily cringed. “I'm your friend, Launuru. I want to help you.”

“No,” she said, “you want to change me;” and she turned and ran back down the path. After standing there astonished for a moment, he followed her. With his longer legs and greater familiarity with the trail, he should have caught up to her quickly, but as he rounded a bend he tripped on an exposed root and and went sprawling. He was stunned for a moment. As he picked himself up, he heard Melentsu's voice:

“What happened to you? Where's Shalasan?”

Nuasila said “We heard you yelling — we thought we'd better come — ”

They had come up behind him and were looking down in concern as he sat up, then stood, his right hip aching where he'd hit the ground. Verentsu decided against telling them everything Launuru had said — maybe Melentsu alone, sometime, but not Nuasila, not here and now. “Come on — she can't be too far ahead — she's probably going back to the house, and the trail is pretty clear, but there's a chance she could get lost...” He started jogging briskly down the trail toward the tombs and the bridge.

“What happened?” Melentsu asked, chasing after him. “Did you make too bold with her, and she knocked you down and ran off?”

“No — other way around — ” He devoted his breath to running rather than talking, and left Melentsu behind — his brother didn't care to leave his wife alone. When Verentsu reached the bridge and the tombs, he looked around, started to call out “Launuru!,” and checked himself. He called “Shalasan! Shalasan?,” as he climbed the hill for a better view. No sign of her downstream toward the pond or across the creek on the trail toward the house — perhaps she'd gotten farther ahead than he expected. Had he been unconscious longer than he thought, when he fell?

Melentsu and Nuasila caught up with him as he was looking around and shouting for her.

“Explain!” Melentsu called. Verentsu scrambled back down the hill.

“Let's go back to the house,” he said, and started across the bridge. “It was the other way around, as I said — she threw herself at me, and I pushed her away, told her it was unseemly. Then she broke down and cried, and after a few moments she ran off. I started to follow, but I tripped and probably knocked myself out for a minute — she got a good way ahead of me somehow.”

“There must have been something more than that,” Melentsu said. “What did you say to her before? What do you mean, 'threw herself at you'?”

“Never mind,” Verentsu said, impatience mingling with guilt. “I wasn't making advances to her, if that's what you're thinking, much less improper advances — she was telling me about her past, things I won't repeat now and probably never, and then — we've got to find her.”

But when they reached the house, and first looked for her discreetly, then asked the slaves and servants about her, and finally the guests, no one had seen her.

---

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.

Launuru hated herself for her cowardice as soon as she'd run away, but was too ashamed to go back. It was too late to fix things; she'd gambled her relationship with Verentsu, hoping to turn friendship into love, but now she'd made such a mess that there was probably no way they could go back to being friends.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 16 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.

---

Launuru hated herself for her cowardice as soon as she'd run away, but was too ashamed to go back. It was too late to fix things; she'd gambled her relationship with Verentsu, hoping to turn friendship into love, but now she'd made such a mess that there was probably no way they could go back to being friends. She thought — hoped, even — that he'd come after her; if he wanted to, he could catch up — but she came to the bridge by the tombs, and he didn't seem to have followed. She wept softly. She'd seen the disgusted look on his face when he pushed her away — that was the end.

She walked up to Terasina's tomb, ducked under the low entrance, and walked up the short tunnel to the vestibule. The candle Melentsu and Verentsu had brought was still burning, the incense smoldering. She bowed, then curled up against the wall near the altar and spoke quietly.

“I'm sorry, Terasina. I promised I wouldn't hurt him, but I think I did. But I had to tell him, you see? Or maybe I should have let Tsavila tell him, but I don't think that would have been better... I thought, the last couple of days, that he was coming to love me, but it all ended when he found out who I used to be. I'm sorry.”

Still weeping, she sat there for a long time. Eventually her tears ceased and she stared numbly at the opposite wall. The candle went out, and there was only the faintest indirect sunlight from the entrance and the dim glow of the smoldering incense.

After a long time, she heard a faint whisper. “Launuru.”

“Terasina? Is that you?”

“Verentsu is worried about you.” The voice was stronger now, but she couldn't see the ghost as she had in the city. “He was shocked at what you told him; it will take him time to grow accustomed to you.”

“I'm sorry. I don't think he will. He looked sick when I told him I loved him — he pushed me away — ” She started crying again.

“He's worried about you; he thinks you're lost or hurt.”

“I am.”

“Go find him. But listen first. Take the strand of my hair I gave you and cut it in two. Take a strand of your own hair and twist it with one of the pieces of mine. Hide this near where Verentsu sleeps.”

“All right... how will that help?”

“Verentsu needs you. He doesn't realize it yet.”

That wasn't exactly an answer to her question, but it was probably all she was going to get. “Thank you,” she said. She stood, then bowed to the altar again, and left the tomb.

None too soon; the sky had grown overcast, and as she hurried across the bridge and up the trail toward the house, she heard a crack of thunder.

---

Tsavila knew she should have her mind on the rite, but all through it she found her thoughts wandering to Launuru and Verentsu. Had she found a chance yet to tell him who she was? And if so, how had he reacted? Lentsina had to remind her sharply more than once to keep her attention focused on the light of the candles, the words and gestures of the rite, and the spells she'd been learning.

“I can scarcely believe your father has neglected your education so,” Lentsina had exclaimed, the first time she'd had a private conversation with her prospective daughter-in-law. “He could not teach you these spells himself, of course, nor could your poor mother, but he could have gotten some respectable enchantress to start teaching you years ago, instead of waiting until a few months before your wedding...! We'll have to make double time.” And she'd driven Tsavila hard with her lessons, making her study and practice for long hours she hadn't put in since she first started learning practical wizardry.

The more she learned of the mysteries of wizardly marriage, the more she was glad she had not made so fatal a mistake as to elope with Launuru. But the long hours of lessons and practice, well though she understood their purpose, inevitably made her somewhat resentful of Itsulanu's mother. Supposedly it would all be worth it when she and Itsulanu left the wedding feast and entered their hermitage, but for now —

She was glad when the rite was over; returning from the shrine to the house, she hurried her steps, hoping to see Verentsu or Launuru or both, and learn what had passed in her absence.

She found Kazmina first; her old friend was in the garden with Itsulanu and some of his friends from Nesantsai, playing iavalem. She couldn't say too much in front of the others, but she asked Kazmina: “Where is your cousin?”

“She and Verentsu and one of your other brothers — Melentsu, I think? — and his wife went for a walk. I haven't seen them since breakfast.”

“Oh... they're not back yet?”

“They may have returned without me seeing them, I suppose. Your fiancé and his friends have been teaching me this game — ”

“Let's not play another round,” Itsulanu said, looking at the sky. “It's liable to rain soon; we'll go inside after this round and find something else to do.”

“There's something I need to talk to Verentsu about, my love. I'll see you soon.” Tsavila went in the back door and down the halls of the ground floor, asking various guests and servants if they had seen Verentsu or Melentsu, and soon found her youngest brother, emerging from the back garderobe.

“Where is, ah, Shalasan? Did you speak with her?”

“I'll tell you,” he said in a low voice; “let's find somewhere to speak privately.” They retired to the small parlor and closed the door.

“You lost her? How could you lose her?” she demanded, once Verentsu had given her a vague and unsatisfactory account of the morning's events.

“We were talking, as I said, and she ran away. I chased her, but I tripped and fell, and after that I never caught sight of her again. She doesn't seem to have returned to the house. Melentsu and Nuasila helped me look — I convinced them we should try to find her ourselves before we tell Father; I wanted to talk to you first, especially. Melentsu and I just came back from searching the woods along the trail — I was going to go out again after checking whether she'd returned to the house in the meanwhile.”

“What happened before she ran away? What did you say to her?”

Verentsu looked uneasy. “He'd been telling me how Kazmina turned him into a woman and how Father put another spell on him, and that he wasn't in love with you anymore — and then he, she, said she wanted to stay a woman, she liked it better that way, and then — ” He broke off, frowned, and said: “How much of it is true, Tsavi? Did Father really do everything he said?”

“Yes. He trapped Launuru when he was coming to meet me, put a geas on him, and made him walk eight hundred miles — a lot further, really, because it was such a meandering route — to northern Netuatsenu, and give himself to Znembalan as a slave or experimental subject or whatever. Znembalan gave him to Kazmina, and she set him free and helped him come back here... But you're not telling me everything, Veren. What did she say, what did you say, just before she ran away?”

“I was trying to convince him to ask Kazmina to turn her into himself again, and then he said he loved me — she — she embraced me, and started crying, and... I kept telling her to try to control herself, she didn't naturally feel that way, it was the magic making her, Father's spell or Kazmina's or some interaction between them. And then she ran away.”

Tsavila felt there was still something her brother wasn't telling her. “You hurt her,” she said; “I hope she's found a safe place to cry it out — I'll help you look for her. Give me a few minutes and I'll try to work a locating spell; if I can't find her, we'll have to get Father involved.”

Verentsu knew what to do; he sat very quiet while his sister worked her locating spell. She concentrated on her memories of Launuru, especially those from the last couple of days, and on her memories of the trail along the creek where Verentsu had seen her last, as she started the spell-chant.

A few minutes later, she opened her eyes and announced: “This is odd. I can tell she's still alive, and unhurt — physically, I mean; I can't look into her mind for some reason, but I'd guess she's pretty depressed right now. Something is blurring things around her so I can't find her or look into her mind. She's not very far from where you saw her last, she hasn't wandered deep into the woods or been teleported away or anything, but I can't get a clear view of her.”

“So some other wizard is involved...?”

“Most likely Father or Kazmina. I don't know why Kazmina would lie to me about not having seen her since breakfast; or why Father would use such a concealment spell, for that matter. I'll go ask him.”

But before they found their father, they met a crowd of people rushing in at the back door, laughing, carrying iavalem mallets, shaking off the rain that had just started falling.

“Have you seen my father?” Tsavila asked Itsulanu.

“No,” he said; “I think he and my father are upstairs, perhaps, with Mauksenu...?”

“Thanks; I've got to talk to him about something — ”

“What's wrong?” He could tell, of course, that she wasn't simply frazzled with the stress of wedding preparations; usually she was glad to be betrothed to a man so quick and sensitive, but now she cursed his ill-timed perceptiveness. But before she could think of a good reply, Melentsu came in out of the rain (already pouring hard, bare minutes after the first drizzle had sent the iavalem players indoors), leading Launuru by the arm. She was soaked; the seat and back of her dress were dirty, though not torn, and she looked exhausted. She glanced at Tsavila and Verentsu, then looked down and wouldn't meet their gaze.

“I met her on the trail — she was on her way back to the house,” Melentsu said. “Tsavila, perhaps you'd better take care of her.” He gave his brother a baleful look.

“I'm sorry I wandered off,” Launuru said, in a dead-sounding voice. “I expect you were worried.”

Kazmina spoke to her rapidly in Ksetuatsenu; Launuru replied woodenly. Kazmina took her arm and led her away; Tsavila followed. Verentsu started to follow as well, but Melentsu grabbed his arm and stopped him. Tsavila said “Leave her alone for now — I'll talk with you later.”

She and Kazmina supported Launuru on both sides and led her to the bedroom in the servants' quarters she and Kazmina shared. On the way, Tsavila accosted a couple of slaves and told them to bring hot water, towels and blankets.

---

Launuru let Kazmina and Tsavila lead her to the bedroom, remove her wet clothes, and dry her off. They didn't ask her what had happened until after they had her in bed, covered up with blankets.

“What did my brother say to you?” Tsavila asked.

“He was disgusted with me,” Launuru said. Then, recollecting herself, she said: “No, he didn't say that, but I could tell by the way he spoke, the look on his face... he pushed me away when I touched him, he told me to control myself — that I didn't really love him, it was a spell making me think I did. Is it? I didn't think so, and I thought that sort of spell stops working once you become suspicious of it — ”

“Generally it does, but perhaps if the wizard who cast it is really good... But I looked, and there's no such spell on you. Not a love spell.”

“Tell him that, please! Maybe he'll change his mind... probably not, though.” She was crying again. She buried her face under the pillow.

Tsavila and Kazmina spoke quietly for a few minutes in Rekhim. A slave or servant (Launuru didn't poke her head out to see which) came in, bringing something, and left again.

“We've got a hot bath for you,” Tsavila said. “And I need to ask you — where did you go, after you ran away from Verentsu and before you met Melentsu?”

“I hid in your mother's tomb,” Launuru said. Perhaps her words were muffled by the pillow, for Tsavila asked again: “Where?”

Launuru removed the pillow and sat up. “We were by the creek, near the tombs. I went in your mother's tomb and sat by the altar for a long while. I guess I lost track of time. I thought — your mother always liked me better than your father; if she had lived — and she said Verentsu needed me — ” She hesitated, wondering if she'd said too much, whether it was wise to talk about the ghost. Hadn't Terasina said not to tell anyone about her?

Tsavila embraced her. “Come on,” she said after a few moments' silence, “let's get you cleaned up.”

Launuru let them bathe her like a small girl, staring into space. She could never be Verentsu's wife, and after this debacle, even if she became a man again — a distasteful prospect, but probably the least bad option — they could never be friends again, either; this horrible episode would poison everything. Unless Terasina could help, somehow... She wasn't sure what the ghost had meant, but she had to get the twisted strands of hair into the tent Verentsu would be sleeping in.

Tsavila didn't comment on what Launuru had said about her mother, and for a few moments Launuru wondered if she thought she was going mad with grief over Verentsu's rejection; but then she realized that Tsavila probably thought she was talking about something Terasina had said two or three years ago, when she was alive. Or maybe her ghost appeared so routinely that another apparition excited no comment? She hesitated to ask, but finally decided to speak up.

“Your mother said she might could help,” she said, as Tsavila was wrapping her in blankets again and putting her to bed. “She said — ”

“When?”

“An hour ago, when I was curled up next to the altar in her tomb — ” She broke off, seeing the worried look on Terasina's face. “I heard her plainly. She said Verentsu needed me, and she said I should twist a strand of my hair with one of hers. Where does Verentsu sleep?”

“Shh,” Tsavila said, looking worried; “relax, get some sleep. One of us will watch and make sure nobody disturbs you.”

“You think I'm mad, don't you? Tell me where Verentsu sleeps, please! It's important. Kazmina,” she said, switching to Tuaznu, “ask her which tent Verentsu is sleeping in tonight...”

Tsavila and Kazmina spoke together in Rekhim, casting worried glances at Launuru. Launuru thought about how to tell them, and remembered Tsavila's amused reaction when he'd told her, two years ago, about seeing his great-grandmother's ghost on a visit to his grandparents' farm, and Kazmina's annoyance when he saw and heard the ghost of the suicide in the miller's barn... She curled up in the bed and pulled the pillow over her head again.

“Launuru,” Kazmina said in Tuaznu after some minutes of quiet discussion, “I don't think it's a good idea. It just might work, if Verentsu were in his own bedroom, but even then, if it didn't work it would make things ten times worse. As it is, even if you managed to figure out which tent and which cot was his and stay hidden until he laid down, and even if Verentsu didn't give a yelp when he found you — ”

“What are you talking about?” Launuru asked, poking her head out. “I'm not going to wait until he goes to bed, I'm just going to put the twisted hair somewhere in his tent like Terasina told me. But you don't believe I heard her, do you?”

“You said you heard that tramp's ghost, but I was there too and I didn't hear anything.”

“You were too busy exorcising rats.” She switched to Ksiluri, and said to Tsavila: “I saw her night before last, too, at your city house — I wanted to tell you before, but first there were too many people around, and then the geas wouldn't let me speak freely, and — Anyway, she told me where to find a strand of her hair, and she said to keep it with me to protect me. How would I know that if she hadn't told me?”

“How would you know what?” Tsavila asked.

“There was a kerchief on the upper shelf of one of the cabinets in her old bedroom, the one we slept in — I couldn't see it by the dim light, but she told me where to find it and it had one of her hairs stuck to it. Hair is important for magic, right? You use people's hair to cast spells on them?”

“Maybe for some spells,” Tsavila said. “Are you sure you didn't dream this?”

“I had this hair tied around my wrist the next morning — ” Where was it? She sat up, careless of the blanket falling off her, and looked around. There were her wet things, hanging on the clothes-horse — she rummaged through them, straining her eyes in the lamplight to see Terasina's grey hair against the undyed cloth of her bandeau. “Here!” she said triumphantly.

Tsavila looked at it dubiously. “It could be my mother's hair,” she said. “If you found it in her bedroom, I suppose it probably was. But whatever you're trying to do with it — please, have more respect for her memory! This unscientific folk magic — you should know better!”

“But she asked me to take it — ”

“You had a dream about my mother,” Tsavila said gently. “That's not strange, since you were sleeping in the bedroom you knew was hers, the one she died in — of course you'd be thinking about her as you drifted off to sleep. And you found that hair during the night or in the morning and it seemed to connect with something in the dream. I'm not saying you're going mad. But you need to stop this,” and her tone was suddenly quavery with suppressed grief and anger, “this wishful thinking — I loved my mother, I knew her fifteen years longer than you did, and I've accepted that she's dead; why can't you?”

“I'm not — ” Launuru stopped herself from saying more. I'm not saying she's not dead, she wanted to say, I'm just saying I've talked with her ghost. But this was hurting Tsavila to no good end. She decided to stay quiet. Terasina had said that she shouldn't tell anyone about seeing her; this must be why. After a pause she resumed speaking, in a quieter tone, “Very well. I suppose you're right — I need rest. Could you perhaps ask the servants to bring me supper in the room? — I don't think I want to eat in the dining hall, with Verentsu, tonight.” While she spoke, she palmed the strand of grey hair.

“All right,” Tsavila said. She spoke with Kazmina again in Rekhim, and left the room. Kazmina said: “She told me — you think you saw her mother's ghost?”

“I thought so. Now I'm not sure,” Launuru lied.

“It's natural enough,” Kazmina said; “you were sleeping in the room she died in, and you were already upset with worry about what Tsavila and Verentsu would think when you finally told them, and guilt about not telling them yet — it's dreams like that that get ghost stories started. And I suppose the rats in Davas' barn didn't help either.” She smiled and caressed Launuru's hand. “Rest. Do you want me to put out the lamp, or turn it down? I could get you something to eat or drink...”

“Just turn the lamp down,” Launuru said. “I'm not hungry yet.” She laid down, pulled the blankets over her, clutched Terasina's hair in her fist, and thought hard.

---

Verentsu stepped toward Launuru, wanting to say something to him — to her? — but Melentsu grabbed his wrist. Just as well; his mind was in a whirl and he might say something that would sound strange, even suspicious, in front of all these people crowded in the back vestibule.

Tsavila turned to him and said quietly: “Leave her alone for now — I'll talk with you later.” Then she quickly caught up with Launuru and Kazmina, taking Launuru's other arm and leading her down the hall to the servants' quarters.

When they were out of sight, Verentsu was suddenly aware that everyone in the room was staring at him. “Let's go somewhere,” Melentsu said quietly, and they left by the opposite door.

“What was that about?” came a voice from behind them. They turned. Itsulanu had followed them; he was still carrying an iavalem mallet.

“Let's keep it quiet,” Melentsu said. “Shalasan and Verentsu quarreled — I don't know about what. She's upset, and he's not happy either.”

“Oh,” Itsulanu said. “Shalasan looked — Is she all right?”

“She wasn't out in the rain much longer than you, I suppose — she might catch cold, but her cousin and Tsavila will take care of her. I expect she'll be all right.”

Kazmina and Father, between them, could take care of Launuru's physical health, Verentsu supposed. But her soul was another matter — they were mainly to blame for her psychic distress.

“I should talk to her again,” he said, “only — Tsavila said I should leave her alone for a while; maybe at supper...”

“Yes, give her some time alone,” Itsulanu advised; “and then apologize — even if you don't think you did anything wrong, or don't know what you did that upset her. Perhaps you were just going a little too fast for her.”

“It wasn't — ” Verentsu gave up; he couldn't explain the full truth, and couldn't think of a partial truth or lie that Itsulanu would believe, given that even Melentsu had been dubious about his responsibility for “Shalasan's” condition.

“I can see that you've had your eye on her, and it looked like she was pretty partial to you too — yes, I know you think I'm too obsessed with Tsavila to notice anyone else, but I'm not blind. Still, you need to give her time — not too much time, I suppose, since she and her cousin will be leaving soon after the wedding, but don't push her too fast.”

“I won't,” Verentsu said. “Don't worry.” He meant: I won't push her to marry me, as you think I was doing; but then he realized that he should, perhaps, not push Launuru to change back into himself too fast. If nothing else, it would provoke gossip if 'Shalasan' were to disappear before the wedding; and Launuru probably needed time to get used to the idea of becoming a man again, after getting her heart set on remaining a woman and — ugh. How could she get into that state? Were Father's geas and Kazmina's disguise spell interacting in ways neither of them expected? Or might there be some other wizard interfering...? There were certainly enough wizards around, though he couldn't figure out why any of them would want to mess with Launuru's mind.

“Come on,” Melentsu said; “Let's find Iantsemu and Riksevian and see what they need help with. Itsulanu, what about find something for the iavalem players to do indoors until the rain stops? There's a box of psanalem tiles on the shelf in the front parlor.”

Verentsu followed his brother to the library, where Iantsemu and Riksevian were going over plans for supper and the games and entertainments afterward.

“There you are,” Riksevian said; “how did your little walk go? Did Shalasan say yes?”

Verentsu scowled, and Melentsu gave Riksevian a forceful “cease!” gesture, one hand chopping at the other. “They quarreled about something,” he said; “Itsulanu already told him to apologize whether he did anything wrong or not, and I've already told him I'll thrash him if he doesn't apologize, so you two can keep your mouths shut.”

“Ah,” said Iantsemu. “I hope things go better with you soon... We need your help here, Veren. You know Father's wizard friends, and Itsulanu's kinfolks, a lot better than we do — who should we have sitting where, at supper? And who's the right person to blindfold Itsulanu and lead him around during the wedding-eve games?”

Verentsu sat down next to them and looked at their scribbled plans. “Don't put Tarwia next to Setsikuno, they can't stand each other,” he began, and managed for a few minutes to put Launuru's predicament out of his mind.

---

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.

“Come,” she said playfully, “I have no romantic illusions about my own brother — I know perfectly well she loves you a hundred times better than you deserve. If it were any other woman, I would try to discourage her by telling her embarrassing stories about you, but Launuru already knows them all, so I'll just have to accept your good fortune.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 17 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.

---

Launuru was exhausted from running, and crying, and trying to explain things first to Verentsu, then to Tsavila and Kazmina; in spite of the turmoil of her thoughts, she eventually fell asleep. When she woke, it was darker still, Kazmina having put out the lamp. Kazmina was lying next to her. “Are you awake?” she asked in Tuaznu.

“Hmm? How are you feeling?” Kazmina asked sleepily.

“A little better. No, a little less terrible. I don't know what to do. I suppose I'd better just play the role of Shalasan until after the wedding, then slip off to the city with you and let you change me back into my old self so I can go home. And try to avoid Verentsu in the meantime.”

“I'm sorry,” Kazmina said. “Are you sure you want me to change you back? You don't sound sure.”

“No, I'm not sure, but — it's going to be horrible either way. I'll be hopelessly in love with Verentsu if I remain a woman, and I'm afraid I'll be hopelessly in love with Tsavila if I become a man again...”

“I'm afraid so. But you'd probably get over her eventually...”

“Maybe in ten or twenty years... And becoming a man sounds disgusting anyway. But explaining to my family why I'm a woman is hardly any better. And no matter what, things will never be the same again between me and Verentsu — I've lost my best friend, without gaining a husband.”

“You'll still have me, whatever you decide,” Kazmina said. “It won't be the same as with Verentsu, I know, where you grew up together as boys — but whatever good my friendship will do you, you have it. You're stronger than you think; many men would have gone mad just from the exile geas alone, much less all the shocks you've been through in the last two or three days. You can get through this too — changing back or telling your parents why you won't.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed Kazmina's hand with the hand that wasn't holding Terasina's long, grey hair.

---

After finishing their plans for the evening, Verentsu and Iantsemu went to tell their father what they'd decided, while Riksevian and Melentsu went looking for their wives. Verentsu still hadn't decided whether and how to tell his brothers about what he'd learned from Launuru and Tsavila; he'd put it off during the meeting. But he wanted to ask his father about it, and if he didn't get a chance to speak privately with him, he'd risk the throw and tell Iantsemu at the same time.

He needn't have worried; after briefly reviewing the plans and ratifying them with a couple of minor changes, his father said, “Iantsemu, please convey our orders to Rapsuaru and Kansikuno. Verentsu, stay for a bit; there's something else I want to talk to you about.”

When Iantsemu was gone, his father said: “Well, how was your picnic excursion with Shalasan?”

“You know who she is, Father. Don't give her the false name.”

His father looked sad. “Yes — I just wasn't sure if you and she had found an occasion to speak privately. She insisted on being the one to tell you; I wasn't going to tell you if she had not yet had the opportunity. So you gave Melentsu and Nuasila some distance, or they you, and she told you everything?”

“She told me a lot — I still don't know how much of it to believe. Tsavila confirmed some of it, though — she said you put a geas on Launuru to exile him, and then Kazmina brought him back here as a woman. Why —?”

“If you stop and think, not as Launuru's friend but as Tsavila's brother, you'll see why. I couldn't let Tsavila make the same terrible mistake I made. Perhaps I was too hasty and drastic — there may have been a cleaner way to decisively break off their dalliance without treating the boy so harshly — but I was distraught and angry. If Launuru no longer holds a grudge, now that she sees Tsavila and Itsulanu happy together, can you not forgive me as well?”

“If he — How do I know you aren't tampering with his mind? Obviously you've done it before, to make him leave the country, and Tsavila confirms that you put another geas on him just two days ago — are you responsible for him thinking of himself as a woman, too? Or —”

“No, that's the effect of Kazmina's transformation spell. Within a short time, anyone transformed by it feels themselves naturally at ease with their altered form; think of how horrible a torture it would be if they were not!”

“Oh... I suppose. But why can't she change back into himself?”

“She can — Kazmina could change her; she may have told you that we discussed it last night? But I don't think we should force her to change back if she doesn't want to.”

“But it's a spell that's making her not want to change; can't Kazmina undo that spell and let him think about it as himself?”

“Perhaps; I could ask her... But I suspect it is simply the nature of her magic. She could change Launuru into a man against her will, but as long as she remains a woman, she will think as one. And that includes — ah, there's something you're not telling me.”

Verentsu hated it when his father did that. “Yes, there's no need for me to say it if you can see it so plainly in my mind, is there, Father?”

“I didn't mean to, but you're thinking about it so intensely I'd have to keep my wizardly eyes half shut not to see... Still, it would help if you tell me as well, or give me permission to look deeper and more carefully; I see only fragments of what is disturbing you. Did Launuru tell you that she loves you?”

“Yes! Who has made her like that? Is it another part of Kazmina's spell? Or one of yours? Or are your spell and Kazmina's interfering, or could one of your enemies be amusing themselves at her expense...?”

“My son, calm yourself; think, and put yourself in Launuru's position.”

That was hard to do, but Verentsu tried. His father went on:

“If Kazmina's spell were a crude, superficial alteration only of her body, not affecting her soul, like some of the older transformation spells which Znembalan's invention improved upon, she would not only still think of herself as a man, and be constantly tortured by the wrongness of her body, but she would still be in love with Tsavila, and feel a furious jealousy toward her and Itsulanu. Znembalan's great discovery was a way for his transformative magic to work with nature, not against it — that is why it is permanent when cast on living beings, and requires another spell of the same power to reverse its effects. Launuru is no wizardly monster, but a natural woman; she is inclined, like any healthy woman, to love a man and desire to be his wife. But which man in particular? Just as the unlawful passion he felt for Tsavila has transmuted into womanly friendship, for that passion would no longer be natural for her, his friendship for you has taken another form. Have you ever known a woman and man, who were not sister and brother, to be simply friends as you and Launuru were before?”

“No,” Verentsu conceded, “and I've rarely even heard of it... But it does happen.”

“Under unusual circumstances; the love Launuru feels for you is the more natural course of things. Put away fear; there is nothing perverse about the attraction you felt when you met her as Shalasan. If you wish to court her, you have my blessing; there may be some awkwardness when you visit her parents and ask for their daughter's hand, but I'm sure we can arrange things somehow.”

“But I don't wish to — Launuru is my friend; I won't take advantage of her — of him, when he feels this way under the influence of magic.”

“Recollect what I've said! The way she is thinking is entirely natural; the only spell on her now is the geas that prevents her from telling anyone but yourself who she really is.”

“Then remove that geas! — but how can you say that's the only spell on her, when the very fact we must say 'she' is a result of Kazmina's transformation spell?”

“I have promised to remove the geas before Tsavila and Itsulanu enter their hermitage; we have only to devise a story to explain why Launuru disappeared for six months and returned as a woman. As for Kazmina's spell, it was a momentary thing — without rummaging through her memories, no wizard could discern that she was ever other than a woman.”

“The fact that her spell leaves no mystic traces is irrelevant.”

“It is not a matter of mystic traces, but of the duration of the spell's activity. But come, you have still scarcely told me of your picnic. When did she tell you, and what did you say to her? Did you have any difficulty keeping Melentsu and Nuasila from overhearing?”

Reluctantly, Verentsu gave his father a curtailed version of the morning's events; how Launuru had wept and run away when he remonstrated with her, how he and Melentsu and Nuasila had discreetly looked around the house for her, and then he and Melentsu had started searching the woods and fields for her, but Melentsu had encountered her already on her way back to the house. He mentioned no specific times, hoping (probably in vain) that his father would not realize how long Launuru had been missing, and didn't mention that Tsavila had tried and failed to locate her by magic.

If his father saw these omitted matters in his mind, he did not mention them or reprimand Verentsu for omitting them. He listened and said, finally, “So Tsavila and Kazmina are taking care of her...? Good. Let us speak with Tsavila quietly, if we may, sometime before we see Launuru at supper.”

---

After they had lain there in the dark for some time, there came a knock at the door.

“Shall I answer that...? But if it's not Tsavila, or some other wizard, I won't know how to answer,” Kazmina said.

“I'll see who it is,” Launuru said. She got up; as she was groping for the clothes-horse and her clean (or less dirty) dress, Kazmina spoke a few words of a spell, and there was a sudden blaze from the lamp, illuminating the room for a moment like a flash of lightning before it died down to the moderate glow normal to such lamps.

“Oh, sorry — I nearly made the thing explode,” Kazmina apologized.

Launuru laughed, put on her least dirty dress, and went to open the door.

It was one of Psavian's house-slaves. “Ma'am, Tsavila sent me to tell you how supper's near ready, and we're to bring you somewhat to eat here if you don't wish to come.”

Launuru conveyed this to Kazmina. “Do you want to go?” she asked.

“If you don't mind... Will you be all right, staying here by yourself?”

“I don't really want to see Verentsu again so soon, especially not sitting next to him as I would at supper. Maybe I'll come later, when the men have left the hall after supper. I'll ask her to bring me something here.” She spoke to the servant, asking her what was to be served for supper, and then asked her to bring or send some bread, butter and ham. “My cousin will come to supper in a moment; I'm not feeling well, I'll eat here.”

Immediately after Kazmina and the slave had left, Launuru combed her left hand through her hair several times until she came up with a loose strand. She set it on the table by the lamp and the small bundle of clothes and writing materials, then went to work on the strand of Terasina's hair. She had no knife, but by biting it and twisting it backward and forward, she managed to break it in two before the slave girl returned with a platter of food.

“Thank you,” Launuru told her.

“Will you need anything else, ma'am?”

“Yes,” she said, and then paused, unsure of the best way to ask. “I want... Could you show me where Verentsu is sleeping tonight? In a tent, isn't it?”

The slave nodded, unsure perhaps if she should tell.

“I want to get a note to him,” she said, going to the table. “But not directly, not during supper for instance. I want him to find it when he retires for the night.” She unwrapped the bundle, removing the papers, plume, and bottle of ink from the cheap tunic she'd wrapped them in. “Can you show me the tent he'll be sleeping in, the very cot or pallet that's his?”

“Yes,” the girl said, apparently having decided that this was not something she'd be punished for.

“Then — can you wait a few moments?” She wasn't sure what to write, now that she'd come up with this plan; she'd been planning to secrete the twisted strands of her own and Terasina's hair somewhere in his bedsheets under cover of delivering the note, but she hadn't planned it out. Finally, she decided, and wrote as quickly as she could.

A few moments later, she followed the slave down the hall to the back stairs, out into the space between the carriage barn and the garden. There were a dozen or more tents and pavilions set up there; she had seen some of them on the way to and from Terasina's tomb that morning. The rain had slowed to a drizzle; the slave didn't hesitate, but plunged into it and headed for one of the tents pitched near the carriage barn. Launuru hid the note in her bosom to keep it from getting wet, then dashed after her.

“This one,” the slave said, ducking inside a certain tent. “This cot is master Verentsu's.”

“Thank you,” Launuru said. With one hand she tucked the note into the sheet, one corner of it showing, and with the other she slid the twisted strands of hers and Terasina's hair under the pillow.

“I should get back to the kitchen,” the slave girl said. “Will you need anything else, ma'am?”

“No... Yes. Could you come back to my room and tell me when the men have left the dining hall after supper?”

“Very well, ma'am.” At the entrance to the house they parted; Launuru returned to her room, removed her wet dress, hung it up, and sat down to eat.

---

After leaving his father's study, Verentsu went to the front parlor, where Itsulanu and several of the guests were playing psanalem. He exchanged greetings with some of the players, then watched the game quietly for a while. When a round ended, and the buzz of conversation increased while the players discussed whether to play another round or do something else, Verentsu took the opportunity to ask some of the guests for help with the evening's festivities; they were willing enough, and Saitsomu promised to favor the company with a couple of songs, while Pautsanu agreed to be Itsulanu's guide during the blindness game.

He declined an invitation to join in the next round of psanalem, and went looking for Tsavila. He didn't find her right away; he spoke to several other guests, asking them for help with the evening's festivities, and finally met Tsavila as he was going through the dining hall and she was emerging from the hallway leading to the servants' quarters.

“How is, ah, Shalasan feeling?” He didn't think the slaves mopping the floor at the other end of the hall were in earshot, but he thought it safer to speak as if they were.

“Poorly,” Tsavila said. “Let's go somewhere else.” She went upstairs to her own room, and he followed. When he'd shut the door behind them, she said:

“She's horribly depressed about you rejecting her. I wasn't there, I don't know for sure what you said and did or what you could have done better, but she said you gave her the impression you were disgusted with her, that you — ”

“I didn't —” Verentsu began. “I'm not disgusted with her; she's innocent in all this — it's Kazmina I'm angry with, and Father — I don't know who is more to blame for her condition. Do you?”

“What do you mean?” Tsavila asked. “Kazmina changed him into a woman, but he agreed to it. And Father put that geas on her, but I don't see what it has to do with anything — besides, he's promised to take it off soon, and I'll hold him to it. If you're angry at Kazmina, why not be angry at Launuru too? And in any case, what would you have done differently in their position?”

“They could have — ” he began, but found that he didn't know what else they could have done. “I don't know what kinds of magic Kazmina can do, besides transforming people — but really, once she got him to Nilepsan, he knew his way around better than she did; he should have been able to find a way to come see you without letting her transform him again — at least not so radically...”

“So you're blaming Launuru, then.”

“No!” But perhaps he was.

“You think she was wrong to let Kazmina transform him?”

“Well — yes, if he wasn't already under her wizardly influence, not free to tell her no. Not as much to blame as she is for suggesting the idea, and I don't think he's to blame for the state he's in now —”

“But he agreed to become a woman; if being a woman is blameworthy, why is she not?”

“I don't mean that — I mean — She said she loved me; who did that to her?”

“Oh, that's what's bothering you. There's no love spell on her; the way she's feeling is natural enough, if a bit silly.”

“What?”

“Look, she's a woman — it's natural she should love a man. And normally it would take longer, some time getting to know him first, but when she met you she'd already known you for years when you were boys and young men together; that made it happen almost at once, her friendship toward you turning into love. And if you'll admit it, you felt the same way!”

“No — I thought she was — That was different.”

“Yes, you thought Shalasan was an exotic foreign lady, beautiful and charming; it was natural enough you should begin to love her — but even before you knew who she was, I think your soul recognized hers. You've been friends for years; the same resonance between you that made you friends as boys and men made you love her when you met her as a woman.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“Doesn't it? Think about it — don't let the chance slip away. I doubt you'll meet any other woman half so suitable for you before Father decides you're taking too long and arranges a marriage for you.”

That was quite possibly true, if he could once admit the possibility of — no, it was too disgusting.

“Come,” she said playfully, “I have no romantic illusions about my own brother — I know perfectly well she loves you a hundred times better than you deserve. If it were any other woman, I would try to discourage her by telling her embarrassing stories about you, but Launuru already knows them all, so I'll just have to accept your good fortune.”

“Tsavila,” he said, wishing she would be serious, “I've just remembered something else — what was going on earlier, when you tried to locate her by magic and couldn't? You thought there was some other spell interfering with yours — ”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly frowning. “It's probably nothing — I might have miscast the locating spell, or the protective spell on Mother's tomb might have — ”

“Mother's tomb?!”

“Yes — oh, dear. Don't spread it about, but she hid in Mother's tomb for a while after you jilted her — that's why you and Melentsu couldn't find her.”

“Why would he...?” He wasn't sure what to think of that — his mother had been fond of Launuru, but in his present unnaturally transformed state, it seemed almost a desecration for him — her? — to go into a holy place like a tomb.

“She said she had a dream about Mother last night,” Tsavila said; “she talked about how Mother was always kind to her, and... anyway, that's probably why she thought of the tomb as a safe place to hide.”

“I suppose... I shouldn't blame her for anything she does in this state, he's not himself.”

“She's herself, though.”

“That's the problem...! Never mind; we need to go. It's not long until supper. I'll apologize to her, in general terms if other people are around and then again more specifically when I can speak with her privately; I won't talk to her again about changing back until after the wedding. Are you sure we can trust Kazmina to do it?”

“She will if Launuru asks her to — I don't see why she would transform her on your say-so, though.”

He shook his head in frustration. “Let's go.”

But Verentsu had no opportunity to apologize to Launuru; she wasn't at supper. Kazmina arrived a few minutes late, and sat with some of the younger wizards; it wasn't until supper was ending and the men were about to withdraw to the front parlor that he had a chance to speak with her briefly.

“Whether your cousin feels well?” he asked.

“She rests,” Kazmina replied. “I will tell her that you asked about her health.”

“Say, please, that I wish to her of health.” It was time to go; he had responsibilities in the front parlor. He rushed from the room and hastily conferred with Pautsanu about their parts in the wedding-eve games.

---

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. This week's chapter is early because I will be busy around Thanksgiving, so the next chapter will probably be posted eight or ten days hence.

She undressed in the dark and stashed her clothes and shoes on the shelves, then looked inward at her structure, deciding what form she wanted for this purpose. She started making changes, reducing her size and altering her structure. Twitching her whiskers and sniffing gingerly at the door, she slipped quietly into the corridor and scurried down it towards the front parlor.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 18 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.

---

After she finished eating, Launuru laid down again, but couldn't sleep. She got up and paced the tiny room for a few minutes, wondering again what Terasina intended. It seemed clear that she wanted Verentsu and Launuru to be together, but beyond that, Launuru couldn't figure out what was going on.

Some while later, after she had lain down again, the slave girl who had brought her food and escorted her to Verentsu's tent came to the door again.

“Ma'am, you asked me to tell you when the men had left the hall after supper.”

“They're gone now?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. I'll be there soon. You needn't wait.”

She rose from bed and went to the clothes-horse where all her decent clothes were hanging. The dress she'd worn that morning was dry now, but too dirty to wear to supper, its back and seat covered with dirt from where she'd sat in the tomb; the dress she'd put on later was cleaner, but still slightly damp. She sighed and put it on, then walked down the corridor to the dining hall.

She heard laughter from up ahead as she approached. As she entered the room, she saw Tsavila standing on the dais at the head of the room, flanked by Lentsina and another older woman — she thought it was one of Tsavila's aunts on her mother's side, but couldn't recall her name; the women were talking about Tsavila and the wedding, and Tsavila was blushing furiously.

Launuru looked around and found Kazmina; fortunately there was an empty seat near her, though not right next to her. She slipped in and sat down as quietly as she could, though not without several people noticing her; she saw various eyes turning away from the group on the dais to regard her with frank curiosity.

“How are you feeling?” Kazmina asked quietly, leaning across the woman sitting between her and Launuru.

“Better,” she said; “better rested, anyway.”

“That's good.” Kazmina looked bored; she'd probably been listening to Lentsina and the other woman talk in Ksiluri for a while. But it didn't seem to suit for them to chat in Tuaznu now, however quietly, not with someone else sitting between them. Launuru listened to the woman, whom she gradually figured out was Tsavila's Aunt Nantsuno, telling silly stories about Tsavila's childhood.

“When Tsavila was about three, she and her brothers came to stay with me and their Uncle Orintsu for a month. I took them for a walk one day, and we as we passed the home of one of my neighbors, his dogs started barking at us — he had three or four guard dogs in his front garden, the smallest of them taller than Tsavila or Verentsu, and the biggest of them almost as tall as Iantsemu. Verentsu was obviously scared of them, and I think Melentsu was too, though he tried not to show it. But Tsavila just looked at the dogs and yelled: 'If you bark at me I'll bark at you.' And they stopped barking.”

Kazmina, who'd been fidgeting and looking around at everyone but the women on the dais, said, “I'm going to the garderobe,” and rose from her seat. Launuru wasn't sure if that was code for “Let's go somewhere we can talk privately;” she looked at her friend uncertainly and started to rise, but Kazmina waved reassuringly at her and turned to go. Launuru sat back down and listened to Lentsina tell how four-year-old Itsulanu had knocked over and broken a vase a client had left with her for an unbreakability enchantment; from the corner of her eye she saw Kazmina leave the room.

---

Kazmina had spoken with almost all of the wizards present, either at breakfast or during the iavalem game or lunch or supper, and in most cases she'd managed to introduce the topic of slavery into the conversation; but the attitudes of her interlocutors ranged from complacent to cynical. She would have to work alone, if she was going to do anything for Psavian's slaves before she left; there was no one she could trust to interpret for her or otherwise help her.

And she was getting bored, listening to Lentsina and one of Tsavila's non-wizardly kinswomen tell apparently funny stories in Ksiluri. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the people around her weren't laughing so hard; she'd gotten used to being left out of conversations, over the last few days. But she'd had enough for now, and wanted to see something different.

She left the dining hall via the corridor through which the men had retired after supper; she heard loud laughter from up ahead, in the front parlor. Before she reached the parlor, she found an unlocked closet door she'd noted earlier, and ducked inside, almost but not quite closing the door. She undressed in the dark and stashed her clothes and shoes on the shelves, then looked inward at her structure, deciding what form she wanted for this purpose. She started making changes, reducing her size and altering her structure. Twitching her whiskers and sniffing gingerly at the door, she slipped quietly into the corridor and scurried down it towards the front parlor.

The parlor was smaller than the dining hall, but had about as many people squeezed into it; furthermore, the men weren't all sitting around laughing at someone telling stories about the bridegroom, but were on their feet, most or at least many of them, walking around, or perhaps dancing; Kazmina wasn't sure. Her time-sense was off a bit in this form, and it was hard to be sure how fast the men's feet were moving — plenty slow enough for her to avoid them, anyway. By staying near the wall, in dark places under chairs and tables, she managed to avoid being noticed, and found some vantage points from which she could watch the proceedings and figure out what was going on.

One of these giants was blindfolded, and being led around the room by another; various others were milling around near these two, now and then reaching out and touching the blindfolded man with a fingertip, or even jabbing a finger into his ribs, then dancing backward as the blindfolded man — it was Itsulanu, she realized — groped with the hand that his guide wasn't holding, perhaps trying to retaliate on the ones who'd jabbed him. What sort of game was this?

She watched for a while, and finally recognized the man leading Itsulanu by the hand as Pautsanu (her small eyes weren't good at distinguishing the features of giants, and the parlor was less well-lit than the dining hall). She noticed that when Itsulanu managed to catch one of the men who'd jabbed him, the man found a seat and dropped out of the game, amid jeers from the others. When there were only a few men left standing besides Itsulanu and Pautsanu, the latter took a more active role in helping him move toward the remaining players. Itsulanu caught them, one after another; finally only one was left, one of Verentsu's older cousins on his mother's side, and there were raucous cheers from the seated men. They sang a song in Ksiluri as Pautsanu removed Itsulanu's blindfold. The bridegroom and the last player he'd never caught bowed to one another, and they took seats on the best divan.

Psavian rose then and spoke to a free servant who had been standing by; he withdrew via another door than the one Kazmina had entered by. A few moments later four slave girls entered the room bearing trays with pitchers and mugs. They moved among the seated men, serving something — Kazmina couldn't see it, but it smelled like beer.

All four were young and, within the limits of Kazmina's vision in her current form, beautiful; none of the older or plainer-looking slaves had been assigned to serve here tonight. She noted with increasing fury that, in the absence of the women, the men were treating the slaves even worse than usual: probably more than half of them, while the girls were pouring their beer, reached out to fondle their half-covered thighs or bare breasts; one man even reached up under the youngest slave's skirt. Kazmina impulsively scurried from her current hiding place to dash under the man's chair; she regretted it almost at once, but no one had noticed her, their eyes probably being on the slave girls. Kazmina looked up through the legs and seat of the chair, its dead wood going transparent to her wizardly vision, and contemplated his structure and that of the girl he was molesting. Various ideas for punishing him stumbled over one another in her mind, but she restrained herself, trying to avoid anything too obvious. Probably half of the men present were wizards, and though they were all distracted and many of them were drunk, she couldn't cast a major spell without drawing their attention to herself.

Promising herself she would do something worse to him later, when she found him alone, she focused on his testicles and transformed them into inert lumps of fat. The man withdrew his hand from the girl's skirt with a yelp and grabbed his crotch. For a moment Kazmina was apprehensive, and she drew back further into the shadows under the chair, ready to dash for another hiding place if necessary; but deep laughter met her ears.

To her relief, she heard a snatch of Rekhim conversation as she made her way under the chairs toward the door by which the slaves had entered.

“Was it you who stung Metsaunu?” one of the older wizards asked another. Kazmina was under the man's chair and couldn't see him, and though she could hear him clearly enough to understand what he was saying, she didn't recognize his voice as it sounded in her tiny ears.

“No,” said another, sitting next to the first; “I think it was someone toward the other end of the room. Good work, whoever it was — I couldn't trace it, with so many minor spells in effect here already.”

Kazmina continued making her way to the door, then, when no one was near, dashed out and down the corridor.

---

After Lentsina and Tsavila's aunt had run out of embarrassing stories about the bride and bridegroom, Tsaikuno rose and sang a song in Rekhim. Launuru was surprised; she thought the girl was still a beginner at the language — but of course she might have memorized such a song while being yet unable to hold up her end of a conversation. Glancing around, she saw tears in the eyes of some of the wizards when Tsaikuno reached the end; even not knowing a word of the language, Launuru could appreciate Tsaikuno's singing voice, which she found more pleasant than her ordinary speaking voice.

Several others, mostly Tsavila's younger kinswomen, sang various songs in Ksiluri, and most of the company joined in the choruses of the better-known songs. Launuru stopped herself just in time from joining in on the first chorus of “Tuapavi's Lament”; a foreigner like Shalasan would probably not know it. Later, she allowed herself to join the later choruses of some of the longer and simpler songs, which she might plausibly have learned from hearing them sung several times by the others.

Launuru was so caught up in the singing that she didn't realized how long Kazmina had been gone until she returned, nearly an hour after she left. She settled in beside Launuru with a scowl.

“What's wrong?” Launuru whispered.

“I'll tell you later,” Kazmina whispered back.

Had she been sick in the garderobe...? It seemed unlikely; wizards tended to be unusually healthy until they died, usually suddenly without any previous sickness. Besides, Launuru had the impression that the trip to the garderobe was cover for something else, though she had no idea what.

After the singing, the formal program was over; various conversations sprang up all over the room, and several women got up and walked around, stretching their legs and talking with different people than their dinner-partners. Launuru and Kazmina rose and meandered into a corner of the room, where Launuru asked again: “What's wrong? When you got back, you looked — ” She couldn't think of the Tuaznu word for Kazmina's sour expression.

“I saw some of the slaves being mistreated,” Kazmina said. “I... I don't want to talk about it just now. Psavian's likely to look into your mind at some point, while removing the geas for instance, and I don't want to antagonize him more than I already have.”

“You think he'll be mad at you if he sees in my mind that you were talking about how his slaves were treated...? Maybe. I'm sorry... Where were you?” She saw Kazmina's look, and retracted her question: “Never mind. You're feeling well, though, otherwise? Just upset about the slaves?”

“Pretty much.”

They stood there in uncomfortable silence for a while, neither of them willing to talk about what was on their minds. One of Tsavila's aunts approached them and said, “Shalasan — I don't know what's going on, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I hope things will be all right between you and Verentsu.”

“Thank you,” Launuru said, embarrassed and confused. Did everyone know? Or rather, what did everyone think they knew? Who had talked? Not Tsavila or Verentsu, surely... But ten or twelve people had been spectators of the scene in the back vestibule this afternoon.

She endured several more such expressions of commiseration before she finally gave up and decided to return to her bedroom. Kazmina was talking, not very animatedly, with one of the younger wizards; Launuru decided not to interrupt her, but just waved at her and headed for the servants' quarters. But before she got to the door, Tsavila broke from the circle of women clustered around her and dashed over to intercept her.

“Ah, Shalasan,” she said, and then in a lower voice, “How are you feeling? I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to talk to you again —”

“I'll be all right,” Launuru replied.

“I spoke with Verentsu — he wanted to apologize to you, but you weren't at dinner. Maybe at breakfast...”

“Maybe,” Launuru said. Whatever Terasina was planning, she would probably do it tonight, given that she'd asked Launuru to hide the twisted strands of hair near where Verentsu slept; and maybe reading the note she'd left on his cot would soften him as well. So perhaps tomorrow... “Yes, I'll see him at breakfast.” She glanced at the women standing nearby, gazing at her with curiosity and pity, and decided she'd had enough of that. “Good night,” she said, and returned to her bedroom.

She still hadn't gotten to sleep when Kazmina returned and got into bed, perhaps half an hour later, nor when Kazmina started snoring, perhaps a quarter of an hour after that; but she did, sometime before morning, sleep.

---

Verentsu was in Master Tsekaunsu's geography class; he'd sat on the back bench as usual, hoping not to be called on, but as usual, it did no good. “Verentsu,” the instructor said, “what is our chief import from Nemaretsu?”

“Um,” Verentsu said, and as the silence grew uncomfortably long, “Obsidian?” he guessed.

“No,” Master Tsekaunsu said severely. “Who can tell us...? Yes, Launuru!”

Launuru was sitting to Verentsu's right, not in his usual place on the front bench; Verentsu hadn't noticed him before. “Silk, sir.”

“Very good! The rest of you boys should be ashamed to be outdone by a girl; imitate Miss Launuru's diligence.”

Verentsu glanced at Launuru again, and realized in shock that it was true; she was a girl, and an unnervingly beautiful one.

“What...?” he asked in a whisper, and then “How...?”

“It's still me,” Launuru whispered. “Please don't go away.”

“Verentsu, can you tell us what is so important as to interrupt the class?”

Verentsu stammered incoherently. No one else seemed to think it strange that Launuru had become a girl, or worry that it might happen to them too; they would think him mad if he pointed it out. Launuru was staring at him with pity, like most of the other boys — most of the boys.

“Come here,” Master Tsekaunsu said, and as Verentsu rose and squeezed past the boys to his left — he didn't want to touch Launuru, lest he become a girl as well — the instructor continued: “Go to the headmaster's office.” When Verentsu reached the front of the room, Master Tsekaunsu handed him the red-painted wooden stick that would give him permission to be in the corridors and signal to the headmaster what his offense was this time.

Verentsu left the room, blushing and hanging his head, and walked down the corridor to the staircase... But it wasn't the staircase in the north tower of the academy, it was the stairs in his family's city house, and they went up, not down. He followed them and came to his mother's bedroom.

“Come in, son,” his mother said kindly. She was sitting at her desk in her favorite housedress, and she had an account book open on the table before her, but she pushed it away and put down her pen as Verentsu entered. “What's wrong?”

“I'm afraid me and the other boys will turn into girls too,” he said.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Launuru is special; don't be afraid of her.” She ran her fingers through her hair, dropping a couple of loose strands on the table before her as she spoke.

“I'm not afraid of her; I'm afraid for her. I'm afraid of hurting her.”

“Don't be. You're her closest friend; isn't she your closest friend too?”

“Yes...”

“Do you think you can trust her?”

“She's changed,” he said. “I want to trust her, but I don't know...”

“She hasn't changed as much as you think. Ask your sister. Launuru needs you, and you need her — you love each other, and you suit each other; it's a rare and lucky chance when those things come together. They didn't for your father and me.”

“I know.” He thought of the scenes he'd witnessed between them over the years, and more and more often in his last few visits home, and started to cry.

She ran her fingers through his hair, making wordless comforting noises; after a few moments she looked up and said: “Come in.” Verentsu turned and saw girl-Launuru at the door, looking uncertain. She entered at his mother's invitation.

“Please don't be angry with me, Verentsu,” Launuru said.

“I'm not angry,” he replied, “but I worry about you.”

“Perhaps you should,” she said. “If I don't find a man who loves me and has good prospects, my father and mother will arrange a marriage for me; and I might not be as lucky as Tsavila. Most girls aren't.”

“I'll find a way to change you back.”

“No, please don't,” Launuru said, and “That would make things worse,” said his mother.

“Come here, my children,” she went on. Verentsu and Launuru both approached her, and she wrapped them in a fiercely protective hug. “I love you, my children,” she said. “I want to protect you, and I will if I can, but you have to stay close together.”

Verentsu and Launuru began to cry on their mother's shoulders.

And Verentsu was crying as he woke up. It was still almost pitch dark; the rain was still drizzling, a steady pattering on the oilcloth of the tent. He hoped it would clear before noon, when the wedding was to take place. He realized that Launuru's note was still clutched in his hand, where he'd held it as he fell asleep.

It was too dark to read it, but he didn't need to; he remembered it well.

“Dear Verentsu,

“I apologize for running off and giving you and Melentsu so much trouble today. I know I asked a great deal of you, but can you not realize that you asked me for even more? If you will have me as I am, you will make me happy and I will do my best to make you happy; but let us not try to change one another.”

In the lower left corner was what a casual observer might think an S-rune, but which Verentsu recognized as Launuru's sloppy L-rune, with its lower loop not quite closed. Whatever else the transformation had changed, her handwriting was still the same.

He lay there for some time, but couldn't sleep again. When the darkness began to be tinged with dawn-light stubbornly pushing through the drizzling clouds, he got up and got dressed.

---

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.

“I do need you,” she said, beginning to tremble. “I said — I said I didn't want to change back, and I don't, but I want even more to be with you, to make you happy. If the only way I can do that is to change —”

“Shh,” he said. “No, you don't have to change for me.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 19 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.

---

Launuru woke gradually, becoming aware of the darkness around her and Kazmina snoring softly next to her. She had dreamed of both Terasina and Verentsu; but though it had been an unusually intense dream, it hadn't felt like the dream-meeting spell that Tsavila had used six months ago to tell her about the arranged marriage. She hadn't realized she was dreaming until now, when she'd already been awake for a few minutes. But did that mean it wasn't a magical dream, that it wasn't a matter of Terasina linking hers and Verentsu's dreams...? Terasina hadn't been a wizard when she was alive; even if she was responsible for this dream, it was probably a different kind of magic than Psavian and Tsavila's dream-meeting spell.

She lay there awake until someone knocked on he door. She got up, put on the dress that seemed least dirty, and opened it; it was one of Psavian's slaves, saying it was nearly time for breakfast. She lit the room's lamp from the slave's candle and gave it back to her, then gently nudged Kazmina several times until she woke up and mumbled sleepily.

“Time for breakfast,” she said.

“Hmnhmn,” Kazmina insisted.

“All right. I'll ask one of the slaves to knock again every quarter hour or so.”

Kazmina replied by covering her head with the pillow.

Launuru entered the dining hall with a knotted feeling in her stomach. Everything depended on her next meeting with Verentsu, which would probably be... right about now.

“Good morning, Shalasan,” he said, rising from his table and gesturing invitingly at an empty seat beside him.

“Good morning.” She sat down with him, acutely aware of his nearness, and decided to be bold. “Did you dream well?”

He startled, and she was suddenly sure that her dream had been magic, if not the same kind as the one she'd shared with Tsavila six months ago. “I dreamed about a friend I hadn't seen in some time,” he said, after an awkward silence.

“Curious,” she said; “so did I.”

There was silence between them again, she wondering what else she could safely say in earshot of so many others and he probably wondering the same. Nuasila, sitting beside her husband across the table from them, shot her an encouraging smile.

“If it pleases you,” he said quietly, “I would like to speak with you apart, soon — I will have to find some excuse to get away for a little while between breakfast and my next task, and we may not have much time, but we need to talk.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell me when and where.”

“I don't know yet.”

They said little more until after they finished eating. Launuru was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she forgot to ask one of the slaves to knock on Kazmina's door again, but the enchantress straggled in to breakfast some while later, looked around blearily, and sat down with the wizards she'd spent most of the previous day with.

When Verentsu finished eating and got up, Launuru was at a loss. She chatted desultorily with Nuasila about the wedding, but Nuasila did most of the talking. After a while they got up and left the dining hall; Launuru wandered from room to room, but found neither Verentsu nor any quiet place. With the rain still continuing, nearly all the guests were crowded into the various rooms on the ground floor; she politely refused invitations to join in various games and conversations as she passed through the front parlor, the small parlor, and the back parlor and finally sat down in the library, which seemed to be the least crowded. She looked at the shelf, but decided against taking something down to read; she didn't want to reveal how fluent she was in written Ksiluri to anyone watching, and she was probably too distracted to focus on a book anyway.

After she'd sat in the window-seat staring at the rain for some time, she heard a voice: “Miss Shalasan?” She turned and saw a slave boy, maybe nine or ten years old, standing behind her.

“Yes?”

“Master sent me to bring you,” the boy said quietly.

“Lead the way,” Launuru said, rising. She followed him from the library down a corridor and up the stairs, then down two more corridors to a closed door. The boy knocked in a staccato pattern, and the door was opened just enough for Launuru to enter. She did.

“This is usually my room,” Verentsu said, looking nervous. He was fidgeting with a small square of paper — the note she'd left in his bed, she realized — twisting it round and round till it was probably no longer legible, if the rain hadn't made it so before he even got it. “My aunt who's staying in this room during the wedding is busy helping Tsavila dress for the ceremony, so she won't disturb us.”

“Good,” Launuru said. “I'm sorry I ran off yesterday — it was foolish — ”

“No, I was wrong to answer you so, and to push you away — you're my best friend and I failed you when you needed me.”

“I do need you,” she said, beginning to tremble. “I said — I said I didn't want to change back, and I don't, but I want even more to be with you, to make you happy. If the only way I can do that is to change — ”

“Shh,” he said. “No, you don't have to change for me. Tsavila convinced me that you're not under a spell — besides Father's geas, and she says it's not making you feel like this. So if it's really you who wants to stay a woman, and not some spell making you feel that way, then I won't try to argue you out of it.”

“Thank you,” she said. She moved toward him, but checked herself; he wasn't pushing her to change back, but that didn't mean he wanted her throwing her arms around him like yesterday...

Unless it did. He saw her hesitation and moved to meet her, laying a hand gently on her arm. “This is still very strange and it will take me some time to get used to it,” he said. “Can you be patient with me?”

“Of course,” she said. “If I ask you not to change me, I can't ask you to change for me.”

“But I will,” he said; “I have already, since yesterday. Only a little, but I can see where I'm going.”

She looked up at him. “And where is that?”

“To your father's house —” She drew in a sharp breath. “— to ask him for permission to court his daughter.” She threw her arms around him, and this time he didn't push her away.

After some time, he said: “This is pleasant, but we have other things to talk about. Do you wish to marry me under your own name, not as Shalasan?”

“Oh, yes.” She drew back just far enough that she could look him in the eyes.

“Then we can turn our foolish misunderstanding yesterday to good use. We'll have to remain distant for the rest of the day — perhaps until tomorrow, when most of the guests have left. Then — I think you said you were going to ask Kazmina to change your appearance after Father removes the geas?”

“Yes. I'll be whatever kind of woman you want.”

“You are quite beautiful enough to suit me, just as you are,” he said; “but we need her to change you enough that people who met you as Shalasan won't realize she was you. And it would probably be better if you look like a Viluri woman. Then we can go to your father's house and make arrangements.”

“That will be hard,” she said. “But I'm not afraid; I'll have you with me.”

“That you will.” He drew his arms tighter around her for a long wonderful moment, then let go. “We can't stay here much longer. You go first; I'll wait a few hundred heartbeats and come downstairs. If you can find Kazmina, now might be a good time for the two of you to go to my father and ask him to remove the geas.”

“I'll do that.” She embraced him again, this time kissing him long and hard; then tore herself from him and turned to go. As she glanced back, she saw Verentsu rubbing his lips with a foolish, astonished air.

---

Kazmina realized that she had made herself somewhat unpopular, in the course of the past day, by continually bringing the conversation around to slavery and the treatment of slaves here in Niluri. She spoke for a few minutes with her father's friend Setsikuno, asking her if she could come to stay with her for a while after leaving Psavian's house; the older enchantress gladly invited her “and your cousin, too,” to come stay as long as they liked with her and her husband Tetsivamo. Kazmina answered Setsikuno's questions about her and her father's recent history, and asked some polite questions about how Setsikuno and her family had fared recently; but she was too indignant about what she'd seen last night, and too worried about Launuru, to take much interest in other topics. Psavian again took special notice of her after Tsavila had left the table; she conversed distractedly with him about his plans to clear the weather for a couple of hours during the wedding ceremony, while thinking about whether and how she should speak to him about what she'd seen last night. He'd probably be angry about her changing into a mouse and spying on the men's wedding-eve games; of course she'd been a male mouse at the time, so there wasn't really any impropriety in her being there, but still. She also wanted to ask him when he was going to remove the geas from Launuru, but of course couldn't do so here or now.

As the slaves cleared away the dishes, Psavian invited her and several of the other wizards to come upstairs, where they would work on the spell to move the clouds aside for the wedding ceremony. Kazmina startled, realizing she'd missed something important in her distraction. “I don't know any weather magic,” she said.

“And I know very little,” Psavian rejoined, “but as I said, you won't need to — Tarwia will do most of it, but she can't displace such a solid expanse of clouds without a few other wizards contributing their energy and attention.”

“We'll actually work the spell about a quarter of an hour before the wedding,” Tarwia put in, “but I need to go over it with everyone who'll be helping, to make sure you know what to do when. Your part is pretty simple, but nonetheless mistakes could be disastrous.”

“Of course.” She followed the other wizards, nearly all of those who weren't busy helping Tsavila or Itsulanu prepare for the ceremony, upstairs to Psavian's workroom. As she followed them toward the stairs, she noticed that Verentsu and Launuru had already left the dining hall; she wondered if they'd found a chance to speak privately again, and if so, what they'd said to one another.

Tarwia instructed them in their parts, and they rehearsed the spell several times, inflecting all the charms in the hypothetical mode rather than the imperative mode of an actual spell. When Tarwia was satisfied, she told them all to meet in the back garden at half an hour before noon. “And don't wear oilcloths or use any kind of water-repellent spell,” she insisted. “We have to let the rain soak us before we can persuade it to leave us alone for a couple of hours. You can go back in the house and change clothes before we all proceed to the shrine.”

The various wizards made their way to the door; Kazmina started to go, but Psavian said, “If you would, please stay for a few moments.”

“Of course,” she said quietly. When the others were gone, she asked: “Are you ready to remove the geas from Launuru? I'll go find her —”

“Soon,” he said. He looked off into the distance for a moment and said: “There will be time for that after Verentsu and Launuru finish their discussion and before we meet to banish the clouds.”

“After they finish...? Then they're meeting now?”

“Yes...” He smiled and said: “I'll let Launuru tell you about it. There is something else I wanted to speak with you about now.”

“Oh?” she asked cautiously, double-checking her shield spell. Did he know about her spying? Was he displeased with her sounding out the younger wizards for their opinions on slavery?

“I invited you to stay here, or at my house in the city, for as long as things remain unsettled in your country — as long as it is not safe for you to return home.”

“That is very kind of you —”

“I would like to extend another invitation,” he went on, “not merely to make this your home of convenience, a stopgap while your original home is closed to you by the turmoil of war, but to make it your real home — to pass your life here.”

She was speechless. He went on again:

“I spoke with your father about this, the night we dreamed together, just after I connected his dream with mine and before I brought you into our shared dream. He gave me his blessing, saying that you were not betrothed and that he had made no definite plans for you.”

Was he proposing...? He was! And had her father really approved of this? She wanted to think he was lying, but he and her father were old friends; he must be a better man than he seemed from her short acquaintance with him, or have once been a better man, for her father to have such regard for him.

“Speak plainly, if you please,” she said. “Are you making a proposal of marriage?”

“Yes. Will you marry me?”

“I must respectfully decline. I could not marry a man who owns slaves and mistreats them, or allows his guests to mistreat them.”

He looked thoughtful. “Very well, then, will you marry me if I free my slaves?”

She was speechless for a long moment. He went on:

“As for mistreatment, I am not aware of it, but I will try to put a stop to it, whether you agree to marry me or not.”

She decided she might as well confess to her spying; if he threw her out, she would be free of his unwanted advances. “During last night's games in honor of Itsulanu,” she said, “I saw several of your guests fondling the female slaves serving them. One worse than the rest — I don't know his name, but he stuck his hand deep under her skirt while she was pouring his beer.”

“That was much too far, indeed,” he said. “But if you were watching the proceedings, surely you saw and heard me reprimand young Metsaunu soon afterward? And someone made him eat his own cooking, stinging him with a pain spell in the secret parts. I let him think it was me when I reprimanded him, but I don't know who... Oh. Was that you?”

“It was.” Her opinion of him went up slightly, but she wasn't satisfied. “What of all the other guests who fondled the young women as they passed? Did you reprimand them all? Did you warn them as they arrived that they must treat your servants and slaves with respect?”

“Do you regard this as mistreatment?”

“Let me change you into a girl, with an owner's mark on your forearm, and send you into your own dining hall to serve your guests tonight — then tell me if having men fondle your breasts is mistreatment or not.”

His eyes widened. “Oh. No, that will not be necessary. I can learn that the stove is hot without sitting on it.” He was silent for a moment, and went on: “It is an old and widespread custom, and it will take time to convince all my friends and associates that I am serious about abolishing it; but I will do as you ask. Freeing the slaves will be half the work, I suppose, but there may be times when some guest wishes to fondle a free servant; I won't let it pass unnoticed. Does this meet your approval?”

She stared at him in amazement. He wanted her badly indeed if he would promise to free his slaves and reform the treatment of his free servants to please her. It wouldn't do, of course, but her opinion of him rose considerably, and she reveled in the power she seemed to have over him.

“It does,” she said. “I do not say that I will marry you if you do this, but... I am now willing to consider it.” As she said this, she realized with a start that it was true. All her schemes to help a few of his slaves escape, which she'd discarded for want of a knowledgeable accomplice, would not have done half so much good as agreeing to marry him. And the fact that he agreed to it so readily, that he could learn and change his mind on such a matter at his age — he was clearly not the man she had supposed. She began to see why her father regarded him so highly.

“You are wiser than many young women,” he said. “Or young men. Tsavila, Launuru, Verentsu, Itsulanu — they think that the way they feel today they will go on feeling for fifty years. The passion-wind that gusts southward today will be calm air tomorrow and blow as strongly eastward the day after; but a house of stone will remain standing through every wind. Let us build a strong house, with stones of respect for one another mortared with plans to benefit our children.”

“Respect,” she said. “I respect you more than I did a quarter of an hour ago. Do I respect you enough to marry you? I am not sure. What of your respect for me? You know the sort of magic my father has taught me; do you know that I love transforming myself and others, and ordinarily do so more frequently than I have had the opportunity to do in recent days?”

“I do not object, so long as you transform no one against their will or contrary to law.”

“What of your own magic? How often do you use your geas spell, as you did twice with Launuru? That seems to me a terrible sort of magic, to be used only when nothing else will answer.”

“It is not inherently bad, as you suppose,” he said, looking hurt. “I confess that I acted hastily and in anger with Launuru; more careful, calmer thought would have shown me a wiser course. But seven geases of twelve I place on willing subjects, who wish me to strengthen their will against their baser desires. The day before you arrived at my house, I treated a man who was on the verge of ruin through a foolish excess of gambling, and a woman whose desire for strong wine was too strong for her. Now they do far more easily what they know they ought. Most of my other uses of the spell are on criminals, whom the magistrates wish me to compel to cease their thieving or cheating.”

Kazmina could not object to this; before the revolution, much of her father's business came from the magistrates of Vmanashi hiring him to turn highwaymen and pickpockets into beasts of burden for a month or a year.

“Well,” she said, “if I were to marry you, you must swear never to place a geas on me or on our children, or to look into our minds without permission.”

“If you insist,” he said, “but I hope you will reconsider — I found the geas spell useful to help Melentsu stop wetting his bed and Tsavila stop biting her nails.”

“No.”

“Very well. I think you began to say something about your transformation spell?”

“Yes — of course I won't transform anyone against their will, except convicted criminals at the behest of the magistrate. But you mustn't forbid or hinder me from transforming myself as often as I please.”

“Not from transforming yourself per se — but could you safely transform when you are with child?”

“Probably not; I won't risk it in any case. Not a whole-body transformation; a little adjustment to make my legs and back stronger during the last stages of pregnancy can't hurt the baby, though.”

“Then I suppose I can't object. I will trust your judgment not to transform unwisely.”

“Including into men.”

He looked queasy. “So you do not cause scandal by it, or ask me to lie with you when you're in such a form — I suppose so.”

“If you were a woman, you might enjoy it.” She certainly enjoyed the look on his face now.

He swallowed several times before answering: “I suppose I might. Shall we reconsider this some time hence, after we have learned one another's magic and I understand better how your transformations work?”

“There is no 'whether'; only 'how often'. If you are to learn my magic thoroughly, you must change yourself into a woman or girl at least once; and if once, why not again? In fact,” she said, wondering how far she could push him before he would finally decide she was ground too hard to plow, “let us agree to take turns bearing our children; I'll have the first and you the second, and so on.”

To her surprise, he didn't balk even at this, but said, after a long pause to think or to gather his nerve, “That must depend on whether you have learned Ksiluri well enough to impersonate me for six months or more, while I assume your form and bear your child — I suppose I must learn to speak Tuaznu like a native as well, and we must both learn enough about one another to convince most or all of our friends and relations...”

“Why? Do you fear the opinions of others if your changing into a woman, whether for a few hours or as long as it takes to bear and nurse a child, becomes known? My respect for you has increased since you showed yourself willing to reconsider old habits and learn new things; but this scotches it. We are wizards! Why should we care what the foolish and mundane think of us? The wise will not be disturbed at us taking turns being mother and father to our children, and the foolish will blame you for marrying a foreigner, or for freeing your slaves, or for some other reason, whether or not you ever transform.”

As she spoke, he lost his worried look, and after a moment of open-mouthed shock, he smiled and his eyes sparkled. When she finished, he said: “You are magnificent! I had thought myself no longer susceptible to the passion of youth, that I could marry again with pure motives, determining that a joining of your magic with mine would make our children strong and capable... But you will turn my respect for you into passion. Let us speak with your father in a dream tonight, and announce our betrothal tomorrow morning before the guests depart.”

So even that wasn't asking too much. “Wait,” she said; “I said that I respect you more than I did a little while ago, but I haven't yet agreed to marry you. We should speak with my father tonight — I need to tell him that I'm going to stay with Setsikuno after I have given Launuru her permanent form, and I wish to speak with him about your proposal.”

“Very well. My offer will remain open for some time. Your father made no objection to my courting you, and I think it right that you should speak with him before accepting me. And if we are betrothed, it would indeed be best that you stay with someone like Setsikuno until we are wed.”

“Good morning. We will speak again soon, when you remove the geas from Launuru.”

“Ah, yes...” He looked distant again for a moment, and said: “She is looking for us now. Please step out into the corridor and invite her in.”

---

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.

I've finished that short novel in the same setting as "Butterflies are the Gentlest" which I mentioned here a while ago, and have started serializing it (under the provisional title "A House Divided") on the tg_fiction mailing list.

I've started writing a sequel to Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes. It seems to be going fairly well so far, though it's too early to tell how long it's going to be or how long it will take to finish it.

It didn't take them long to get out of their wet things, but it took them a lot longer to get into dry ones.

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 20 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.

---

Launuru had not gone ten steps from Verentsu's room when she heard a door open behind her. Even as she turned to look, someone called out “Shalasan!”

There was Kazmina. “There you are,” she said, and approached her. She realized that she had a silly grin on her face; she must school herself to look glum, before she met anyone else. “Have you seen Psavian?” she asked.

“Come in,” Kazmina replied, gesturing to the door of the room she'd just emerged from. Launuru took another step closer and looked in; Psavian bowed to her. She entered the room and Kazmina followed her, closing the door behind them.

“Good morning,” Psavian said. “Are you ready for me to remove the geas?”

“Very much so.”

“Let us review our agreement first, shall we? You give your word to never tell anyone who does not already know about your dalliance with Tsavila, my exile of you, the true manner of your return, or your impersonation of Kazmina's cousin. I, in return, allow you to marry Verentsu, and ask no dowry of your parents.”

“Two other things,” Launuru added; “one, you must tell the scullery maid from the academy to say she was lying to protect her baby's true father. I guess you'll have to help him get a new position, too, because he'll be dismissed from the academy when they find out.”

“I have said I would, and I will.”

“All right. Also, you were to pay me a thousand kings as indemnity for the exile geas.”

“Tsavila proposed that, but it formed no part of our agreement.”

Launuru asked Kazmina in Tuaznu, “What exactly did he and Tsavila say about paying me a thousand silver coins? Refresh his memory if you think it will help.” Kazmina spoke to him in Rekhim. Psavian smiled wryly and replied to her, then said to Launuru: “Very well, a thousand kings indemnity for the exile geas. Have we overlooked anything else?”

“I think not.” She spoke to Kazmina again: “Can you tell if he's really removing the geas, or do we need Tsavila to witness it?”

“I couldn't tell when he put it on you when we arrived — I didn't know what to look for — but I saw when he adjusted it the night before last. I think I'll be able to understand better now what he's doing. And we can get Tsavila to verify it later.”

“Go ahead,” Launuru said to Psavian.

She felt nothing, only saw Psavian and Kazmina staring intently at her for the space of a hundred heartbeats. Then Psavian said: “It is done. Remember your promises, and I will remember mine.”

The women bowed, and Launuru said: “Good morning.” Kazmina said something longer in Rekhim, and after Psavian briefly replied with a bow, they withdrew.

“What did you say to get him to agree so quickly to pay me a thousand silver coins?” Launuru asked as they descended the stairs.

“It seems that I have more influence over him than I realized,” Kazmina said. But her smile did not seem one of unmixed pleasure.

As they entered the front parlor, Launuru tried to calm her expression, to hide the joy she felt. She thought she succeeded pretty well, though now and then it would be too much for her, and she would have to hide a broad grin behind her sleeve as though it were a yawn. She joined in a game of psanalem with some of Tsavila's cousins, while Kazmina stood in another corner talking with Omutsanu and an older female wizard whose name Launuru couldn't recall. After half an hour or so, Verentsu entered the room, but only for a moment: his eyes and Launuru's met, and with only the faintest smile, he turned and left again. It would be hard to pretend indifference until after all the other guests had left.

---

Verentsu counted heartbeats after Launuru left the room. He figured his heart was pounding faster than usual, so perhaps he'd better allow her a hundred and twenty heartbeats instead of a hundred. But he heard voices in the hall, mere moments after she left, and started over. When there'd been silence for two hundred heartbeats, he left the room and went downstairs.

He found his brothers in the dining hall, and sat down to talk with them, — or mostly to listen. His share of the frenetic preparations was done; until the ceremony itself there was nothing more for him to do. He had scarcely settled down when Melentsu asked him, “How are things between you and Shalasan?”

“Oh,” he said. “We talked. I apologized, and she apologized, and we explained... but it's no good. We'll part on friendly terms, but we'll part nonetheless, when she continues on her travels with her cousin.”

“I'm sorry,” Iantsemu said. “She seems like a sweet girl, but I'm sure you'll find someone more suitable; if not someone local, at least a Viluri.”

If they only knew. “You're probably right,” he said.

He listened distractedly as they resumed their conversation about how bad the revolution in Netuatsenu was for business, thinking of Launuru and of his dream that morning. He couldn't remember much of it now, though it had been clear and sharp when he first woke. His mother was in it, and Launuru, first as his old self and then as a woman. And he couldn't remember exactly what they had said, only that when he woke, he was sure that encouraging Launuru to remain a woman, and courting her, was the right thing to do. It was, he thought, the answer to his prayer of the morning before, when he'd knelt before the altar in his mother's tomb just before confronting 'Shalasan' with her deception. He vowed to offer his mother's spirit a better sacrifice than just incense, probably tomorrow after most or all of the guests had left.

His musings were interrupted when his cousin Tepsunam walked in and asked, “We need a fourth player for a game of psanalem. Do any of you want to join?”

“All right,” Verentsu said, and got up. But when he followed Tepsunam into the front parlor, he saw Launuru sitting at the smaller table, playing psanalem with three of his cousins. He allowed himself a quick smile, but suppressed it; they needed to maintain the appearance of being cool and distant, and that would be easiest if they weren't together too much. “Sorry, Tepsu,” he said, “I just remembered something — maybe we can play after the ceremony.”

He wandered restlessly into the library, then into the back parlor, and got slightly involved in a conversation with some of Itsulanu's cousins; they were still there when his father and seven other wizards came trooping through. “Make way for sunlight,” his father called, and the men in the back parlor gave a cheer. They gathered by the window to watch the wizards as they marched out into the garden, getting rapidly soaked, and formed a circle with Tarwia of Nemaretsu in the center.

---

Launuru was studying the arrangement of psanalem tiles, waiting for the player to her left to place a tile and figuring out what she would do when it was her turn, when someone called, “It's time.” She looked up; people were moving toward the door leading to the library and back parlor.

“Let's go,” someone said. Launuru rose from the table and followed the other players down the corridor.

As they entered the back parlor, which was so crowded there was barely room for them, she saw that Psavian and some of the other wizards were coming in from the garden, dripping wet. But it was no longer raining; bright sunshine shone through the open door. She saw Kazmina among the group of wizards; the enchantress waved to her and called out “I'm going to go change into something dry — save a place for me.”

As soon as the wizards had filed out, presumably heading for their rooms to change clothes, Verentsu stood up on a footstool and called out: “We're ready to process to the shrine; the bride and groom will meet us there in a quarter of an hour.”

Launuru let the movement of the crowd carry her through the back door and down the path through the garden, which was the same up to a point as the path she and Verentsu had followed with Melentsu and Nuasila. It turned off to the left between the garden and the walnut orchard, and led to a small hill with a ring of tall stones at its summit. Verentsu and his brothers guided people into places on the lower slopes of the hill, leaving the path clear for those yet to arrive. There were a few benches for the older people, but Launuru and the other young people stood.

The sky, which had been solidly overcast since yesterday afternoon, now had a broad clear patch overhead, but in every direction there were still clouds at the edge of the horizon.

Shortly after the guests had settled into their places, Itsulanu came up the path, accompanied by his father and mother. They passed between the guests and into the stone circle. Several of the wizards who had cleared away the clouds arrived just after them; Kazmina looked around, then squeezed between several other guests to find a place next to Launuru.

“That was fun,” she said. “I want to learn more weather magic!”

It was perhaps a fifth of an hour before Tsavila arrived, accompanied by her father and her aunt Nantsuno. They passed up the hill and into the circle. Psavian and Nantsuno stood back near two of the stones, opposite Omutsanu and Lentsina, while Itsulanu and Tsavila advanced into the center.

At first Launuru couldn't hear well what the wedding party were saying; but after a few minutes of cupping one hand or another to her ear, as several of the people around them were doing, Kazmina winked at her and whispered, “Don't yell.” Before she could ask why she would yell in the middle of Tsavila's wedding, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her ears, and then Tsavila's voice got a lot louder — as did everything else around her. The faint breeze, the distant drizzle of rain, the murmurs and whispers of various guests, her own heartbeat and those of the people standing near her drowned out Tsavila's voice at first; but soon she managed to distinguish it, and Itsulanu's when he made his next response.

As the wedding continued, the expanse of clouds on the horizon encroached more and more on the patch of clear sky overhead, spreading from the east at first and then, seemingly, striking a glass wall just around the house and garden and shrine but continuing to spread around them and move on westward until the whole sky in that direction was solid clouds as well, with only a narrow patch of blue sky overhead. This circular patch of blue sky got smaller and smaller, and the wedding party started making their speeches and responses a little faster. Finally drizzling rain was falling on the wedding guests, sparing only those in the stone circle. Fortunately, the ceremony was almost over by that point; before the guests were really soaked, Tsavila and Itsulanu came to the edge of the circle and raised their hands together, and were acclaimed with four ragged cheers. Then they dashed through the rain to the house, followed by Psavian and Nantsuno, Omutsanu and Lentsina, and a rout of wedding guests, with a preponderance of laughter and cheers over curses even as the rain fell harder and harder.

---

It was over. Tsavila looked sidelong at her new husband, aware of her father and aunt coming up close behind her and Itsulanu's parents approaching him to his left. The crowd of guests, being gradually drenched by the rain that stopped abruptly just outside the ring of stones, cheered as she and Itsulanu raised their joined hands.

“Can you teleport us back to the house?” Itsulanu whispered to his parents.

“Certainly not,” his mother rejoined. “The recession is an important part of the wedding.”

“Great,” Tsavila said. “Let's recess, then.” And with a wild grin at her, Itsulanu grasped her hand more firmly and they dashed into the rain, to renewed cheers from their guests. She had brief glimpses of Kazmina and Launuru among the crowd to her left, and Verentsu to her right, before they were past.

They ran faster than her father and aunt or Itsulanu's parents; moments later they stood in the back vestibule, laughing and wringing water out of their clothes. “Let's go change into something dry,” Itsulanu said, “before the others arrive.”

“Let's.” They went down the corridor to the stairs and up to Tsavila's bedroom. “I'll go change and meet you back here,” Itsulanu said, making as if to go on to the bedroom he'd been sharing with his father and uncle.

“Silly,” she said, “get something dry to put on and come back here to change with me.”

“All right,” he said with a smile. She went in and started looking for something suitable. Before she had made up her mind, she heard the door open again behind her, and turned: Itsulanu was back.

“Did you miss me?” he asked.

“Ever so much. I've been waiting for months to say, 'Come help me unlace this.'” He complied.

It didn't take them long to get out of their wet things, but it took them a lot longer to get into dry ones.

“We should go,” he said, after a little while.

“Yes,” she said, but didn't hurry.

“They'll all be expecting us downstairs.”

“I'm sure they are.” But it was several playful minutes before they seriously turned their attention to getting dressed again. Before they were quite finished, there was a knock at the door.

“Almost done,” Tsavila called.

“Very well, ma'am,” Kurevila said through the door.

There was a great bustle in the hallway, as all the guests who'd gotten soaked by the rain hurried to their bedrooms to change into something dry before the wedding feast. It took Tsavila and Itsulanu a quarter of an hour to go from her bedroom door to the top of the stairs, being stopped and congratulated now by Aunt Nantsuno, just changed into a dry gown, now by Itsulanu's Uncle Saitsomu, still in his dripping wet formal clothes, now by Tarwia of Maresh, dripping on the floor and apologizing profusely that her weather-control spell hadn't held as long as promised.

“Don't fret,” Tsavila said with a wink, “it gave us an excuse to change clothes before the feast — I'll have a hard time convincing my father I didn't bribe you to make it rain at the end.” Itsulanu blushed.

But with all the euphoria of being new-wedded, Tsavila hadn't forgotten about poor Launuru. She'd been sitting next to Verentsu at breakfast, but they hadn't seemed to be talking much if any. Tsavila hoped they'd had a chance to talk privately sometime during the hours when she was busy preparing for the wedding rite, but the fact that they'd been standing so far apart during the ceremony wasn't an encouraging sign.

Tsavila and Itsulanu entered the dining hall to a loud cheer from those already assembled. She looked around for Launuru and Kazmina, but didn't see them; perhaps they were still changing clothes? Verentsu was there, with her older brothers and sisters-in-law, at their usual table.

The newlyweds took their seats on the dais as more guests straggled in after changing into dry clothes. The slaves began serving drinks. Tsavila, looking around the room almost as often as at her husband (at last!) by her side, finally saw Kazmina and Launuru enter; but they sat together at one of the tables in the southeast corner of the room, far from Verentsu.

“What's wrong, sweetness?” Itsulanu whispered.

So perceptive. “I'm worried about Verentsu and Shalasan,” she said, managing not to hesitate over Launuru's false name. “I hoped they were going to patch things up — but you see they're sitting on opposite sides of the room...”

“I noticed that. You've spoken with them both, right? There's not much else you can do — they must do the rest.”

“I know.”

After the meal, and speeches and songs by several of their friends and relations, they rose from the dais and circulated about the room talking to various guests. They soon came to where her brothers were sitting.

“Congratulations!” Iantsemu said, clasping Itsulanu's hands and then Tsavila's. “May you live a hundred years and have a score of children!”

That wish would have seemed excessive were it not so traditional. “And may they all mind their mother better than this little varmint,” Psilina said, tickling Paukuno and making her giggle.

“Mommy!” Paukuno said indignantly, “I was good during the wedding.”

“Yes, you were. I was talking about this morning.” Paukuno looked suddenly bashful, and artfully changed the subject.

“Aunt Tsavila, can I come visit you and Uncle Itsulanu at your new house?”

“You'll have to ask your mommy and daddy,” Tsavila said, “but I expect so.”

“Later on,” Psilina said. “Aunt Tsavila and Uncle Itsulanu want to be alone for a while first, right?” She winked.

“That's right, little owlet,” Itsulanu said, tousling Paukuno's hair. “You can come for a month or so next year when we have a new little cousin for you to help us take care of.”

While they talked, Tsavila was looking at Verentsu, and he was looking at her. He looked happy, but was was he happy for her and Itsulanu in spite of his own and Launuru's troubles, or...? Why weren't they together?

“You look radiant, Tsavila,” he said.

“Thank you. Ah... have you had a chance to speak to Shalasan?” Itsulanu squeezed her hand as she spoke.

“Um,” Verentsu said, his expression saying clearly: I would tell you if they weren't around. Seeing him apparently at a loss for words, Melentsu spoke up:

“They talked, but they decided it didn't suit for them to be together. Shalasan's leaving with her cousin tomorrow.”

“It's... I don't think I should talk about the things she told me,” Verentsu said finally. “We're friends, but...”

Tsavila thought about taking the expression on Verentsu's face as implicit permission to look into his mind, but she resisted the temptation. They'd probably have a chance to talk sometime this afternoon, before she and Itsulanu went into their hermitage, and if not... she'd learn what had happened eventually. As Itsulanu said, she'd done all she could.

They circulated around the room, receiving congratulations and good wishes from all their guests and bawdy suggestions about how to pass the time in their hermitage from several. Finally they reached the corner of the room where Launuru and Kazmina were sitting. Kazmina rose and embraced Tsavila as she approached.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Kazmina said, “but your father should stick to mind-magic, and leave the astrology to professionals.”

“How do you mean?”

“The rain, silly.”

“The date was selected to be propitious for our marriage, and the health of our children,” Itsulanu put in; “not to have clear weather.”

Launuru was quiet and subdued, but she didn't look miserable as she had last night. Something was up.

“Itsi,” Tsavila said, “I've got to go to the garderobe.” She looked significantly at Launuru, and of course Launuru said: “I'd better do the same.”

“Hurry back,” Itsulanu said. He kissed his bride again and turned to talk to Pautsanu, who'd been standing nearby.

The three women left the dining hall. Tsavila didn't wait until they were at the garderobe to ask, “What happened between you and Verentsu?”

Launuru gave her a mischievous look. “He's not going to marry Shalasan.”

“What...? Oh. I see. I should have thought of that.”

“He said yes, Tsavi! He said he'd go to my parents and ask them for permission to court me. And he won't have to court me long.”

“That's wonderful!” She impulsively embraced Launuru, feeling tears starting to well up. “So you're just going to change her appearance a little...?” she said to Kazmina in Rekhim. She realized, as she turned to her old friend, that she didn't look as happy as Launuru. Well, no, of course there was no reason she should be that happy, but still... “Is something wrong?”

“Yes, I'll modify her appearance — make her look like a sister of her old self. We still need to work out the details of her story. And — I watched your father remove the geas, but I want you to double-check; I'm not so familiar with his magic that he couldn't have slipped something by me.”

“All right; give me a few moments.” Tsavila turned to Launuru and said: “I'm going to check that Father took the geas off you, like he promised.”

“Thanks.”

But even as she studied Launuru's mind, looking for any remaining traces of a geas or other compulsion spell, she was thinking about how worried Kazmina looked.

“You're fine,” she said to Launuru. “The geas is all gone.” Then in Rekhim, to Kazmina: “She's clean; no geas or minor compulsions or anything. But fess up; you're worried about something other than not having a good cover story for her yet.”

Kazmina took a deep breath. “Your father asked me to marry him.” When Tsavila, too astonished to speak, didn't reply, she said: “Don't tell Launuru. I haven't made up my mind yet whether to accept, and that scares me — I shouldn't even be considering it.”

Tsavila finally found her voice. “I don't know what to tell you. It would feel weird having you as my stepmother, but you shouldn't let that stop you — not that by itself, anyway... You might know that his marriage to my mother was not a happy one, but I think that was mostly because she wasn't a wizard. That's no reason you couldn't be happy with him, if...” She couldn't find a way to end that sentence.

“If I could be happy with the man who exiled Launuru? I don't know. Look into my mind, see if he's manipulating me in some way... Obviously not very effectively, or I would have said yes already, but it disturbs me that I can even consider it.”

Tsavila said to Launuru: “This is going to take a little while.”

“What are you...? Never mind. I really do need to use the garderobe, if you don't...” She opened the door, stepped in and closed it behind her. Tsavila started looking through Kazmina's mind for evidence that her father might have broken through her shields and influenced her feelings by magic. She hated to think he might do that, but after learning of what he'd done to Launuru, she no longer felt sure what he would or wouldn't do. Launuru was a mundane, though; her father wouldn't treat a fellow wizard like that, would he...?

Apparently not. Kazmina's thoughts and feelings on the subject were a muddle, but as far as Tsavila could tell, they were all her own. She was astonished at how much her father had offered Kazmina to marry him, how far he was willing to go to meet her. She didn't understand Kazmina's attitude toward slavery; there were deep memories with strong emotional affect about the slaves Kazmina's father used to own and how he had recently freed them. Tsavila didn't have time or inclination to figure them out, but it was clear that her father offering to free his slaves had made a deep impression on Kazmina.

“No, he's not manipulating you. Not by magic. If I didn't know much about your own magic I'd ask if you'd been manipulating him — I'm surprised he was willing to concede you so much.” Surprised, and a little squicked, by the proposals that her father had apparently, after only a little hesitation, agreed to.

“Yes, it's made it hard to know what to think about him. Don't take this wrong, Kazmina, but when I first learned what he'd done to Launuru, I hated him. It was all I could do to be civil to him when we got here and I met him for the first time in so many years. But he's been much more reasonable in the last few days than I could have expected — he can do terrible things when he's angry, but he can also be wonderfully generous when he feels like it.”

“That's him exactly — that geas he put on Launuru is the worst thing he's ever done in anger, as far as I know, though it's not the only time he's been mean. But what do you want?”

“I want his slaves freed. I want a rich and powerful spouse who respects my using my own magic in my own way. I'm not a romantic, like you and Launuru; I haven't wanted to marry for love since I was thirteen. But do I want to marry a person with your father's temper?”

“Don't say yes unless you're sure.” Tsavila noticed Kazmina's careful use of the word “spouse” instead of “husband,” and drew her own conclusions, but didn't press the matter. Time for that later.

Launuru emerged from the garderobe. “I really do need to use it too,” Tsavila said, and stepped in.

---

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.

The sequel is now 31,000 words; I've gotten to a point where I didn't have it plotted out in much detail, and progress has slowed down, but I expect I'll keep working on it steadily, if slower than in the past couple of weeks (which have been among my most productive writing periods ever).

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.

“Take off that silly disguise, Verentsu, and tell me what's going on! And you, Shalasan — if that's really your name — what are you doing here?”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 22 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.

---

Kazmina still hadn't gotten enough sleep when Launuru came to tell her it was time for dinner. When she reached the parlor, she stopped on the threshold and took a deep breath, looking at Psavian — at her father — from a few meters away before she entered the room and sat at his side.

Seeing him and knowing who he was felt so strange. It was just as well that she couldn't treat him as her father in front of the others, because if she could, she wasn't sure she would want to. He had apparently begotten her, but that was all. Of course it wasn't entirely his fault that he hadn't been fatherly to her when she was little; Daddy — her mother — had to bear the blame for keeping her own identity secret during her affair with Psavian and for keeping his daughter's existence secret from her father. Both of them did wrong, Daddy in lying with a married man and Znembalan in cheating on his wife. But she couldn't justly resent a misdeed that was necessary to her own existence.

In the dream she had said to Daddy that he'd been both daddy and mommy to her; that was true. And not only because he'd been a woman maybe a third of the time when she was growing up; he'd done everything for her that other children's daddies or mommies did for them, providing for her, teaching her mundane skills as well as magic, rocking her in his arms when she woke sobbing from a nightmare, and even teaching her — by example! — how to deal with her monthly. She'd even wondered, as she got older, if he might have been her mother, though she hadn't thought it likely. But she'd never questioned that her other parent, whether her Daddy was the one who begot her or the one who bore her, had been a barbarian wizard whom he'd met during his years of wandering. She'd spun elaborate fantasies about how Daddy had married her mother and lived with her in some tiny barbarian kingdom far south of Maresh, until she died in childbirth with their first and only daughter, and then, in grief, he'd left his dead wife's country and its painful reminders and returned to his own... though she'd thought, in her more serious moments, that it was more likely they'd never been married, and that their passion simply wasn't deep enough to hold them together.

Psavian seemed nearly as distracted, during the first part of dinner, as she was, but Setsikuno drew him out. They spoke mostly in Ksiluri for a while, then switched to Rekhim, seeming to want to include her; but when she showed herself too distracted to contribute much to the conversation, they switched back to Ksiluri. At last dinner was over, and soon after rising from the table, they were ready to leave. Psavian bowed, embraced Tetsivamo, and kissed the ladies' hands.

“Shall we meet in dreams again soon?” he said to Kazmina, as Tetsivamo was helping his wife into the carriage. “I would like to tell your father when you have arrived safely in Nesantsai and settled in.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, “we'll have much to talk about. Four nights hence? That should be my second night in Tetsivamo and Setsikuno's house.”

“Until then...” He glanced around, and seeing that no one else was near enough to hear, whispered: “my daughter.”

Kazmina didn't trust herself to speak. She bowed and approached the carriage; Tetsivamo gave her his arm as she climbed in next to Launuru, and they were off.

Setsikuno's magic made the carriage ride smoother than any she'd ever enjoyed. Kazmina chatted desultorily with the older wizard for a while, but fell asleep after half an hour or so. She woke to find they'd stopped at an inn — not the same one they'd stopped at when traveling hither with Verentsu and his brothers. Tetsivamo was standing just outside the carriage, speaking with the driver and then leaning in to talk to his wife. Setsikuno nodded, then said to Kazmina in Rekhim:

“If you can wait until we reach the Jolly Armadillo to use the garderobe, you should. We're watering the horses here, but this isn't a good place for ladies to get out.”

“That's fine.” She hadn't drunk much with dinner; to be sure she could last as long as necessary she looked inward and expanded her bladder's capacity a little, then discreetly did the same favor for Launuru.

At the Jolly Armadillo, a few hours later, they used the garderobe while the horses were being watered, and paused to eat a little bread and cheese before pressing on again. They reached the city gate just before sunset; it was well after dark when they reached their inn.

---

The Peacock's Hat was in Temple Square, across West Avenue from the temple of Psunavan. The temple facade was lit up with hundreds of torches, incidentally illuminating the inn, carriage house and other buildings across the way as Launuru alighted from the carriage behind Setsikuno and Kazmina.

“I've arranged for us to sup in a private room,” Tetsivamo said. Launuru had only a brief glimpse of the common room as they passed through it to the room Tetsivamo had reserved. She looked around for Verentsu, but didn't see him. The people she saw were well-dressed and well-mannered, as befitted one of the finest inns in the city — probably four or five times more expensive than the Blue Frog, where Launuru and Kazmina had stayed when they first arrived. Most were Viluri, but she also saw a few Vemaretsu men in tasseled silk tunics and a hairy-faced Islander in a striped robe and tall feathered hat. Several of them looked curiously at the new arrivals before returning their attention to their supper and table-mates.

The travelers ate quietly, all of them being tired, and Launuru, at least, being distracted and anxious. Their carriage driver came and went several times, conferring in a low voice with Tetsivamo. Finally, some of the inn servants showed them to their rooms — two adjacent bedrooms on the second storey.

“I suppose we'll have to look for him tomorrow,” Kazmina said when they were alone in their room, having bidden their hosts good night.

“It looks like it,” Launuru said glumly.

Just then one of the maidservants returned with the candles and linens they had requested. As she set them down on the bed, she looked at the young women hesitantly and finally said: “Is one of you the daughter of Rusaulan?”

“I am,” Launuru replied, her heart pounding.

“Beg pardon, ma'am, but there's a foreign gentleman said to give you this.” She took a folded slip of paper from her belt. “If it's not welcome, I'll tell the innkeeper and he'll make the foreigner leave you alone.”

“No, give it to me.” Launuru snatched the paper from her hands and held it close to the candle on the bedside table to read it.

“I am the Islander in the common room. If you can't meet me tonight, I'll be here early tomorrow and as often as I can throughout the day.

“ — V.”

“He's here,” Launuru said excitedly to Kazmina in Tuaznu.

“Shall I give him an answer?” the servant asked.

“Tell him — tell him I'll be there soon.” The servant looked disapproving, but bowed and withdrew.

“Change me now,” Launuru said.

“What did he say?” Kazmina asked.

“He's in the common room — he was already there when we arrived. He's disguised as an Islander — ”

Kazmina's eyes widened.

“So you're ready to meet with him? Now, in the common room?”

“When or where else?”

“All right.” Kazmina looked intently at her and said, abstractedly, “You wanted me to make you look like a sister of your old self, right?”

“Yes, more or less. Not exactly like one of my sisters, that would be confusing, but — ”

“I couldn't do that if I wanted to, since I've never met them; unless I got really lucky, or unlucky as the case may be... Just a moment.”

The pain was much less this time, and only her face and breasts hurt much; she also felt a momentary itching on her scalp and all over. “Is it done?”

“I think so.” Kazmina picked up one of the candles the servant had set on the bed, lit it from the larger candle on the bedside table, and held it up to Launuru's face.

“You look about right to me. See for yourself,” she said, offering the candle.

The Peacock's Hat boasted mirrors in all of its guest rooms; Launuru took the candle and approached the mirror hanging opposite the bed. Kazmina picked up the other candle from the bedside table and brought it over to give better light.

Launuru didn't think she looked quite like one of her sisters; if she saw this face on someone at a family gathering, she'd guess they were one of her cousins whom she hadn't seen since they were children. But it wouldn't be absurd for her parents to to introduce her as their daughter, either; and more importantly, no one would see this face and think of Kazmina's cousin “Shalasan”. Her breasts were just slightly smaller than before, probably the effect of Kazmina undoing the milk-spell. Her skin was a shade darker than it had been when she was Shalasan, and her hair was back to its original dark brown, but her figure was essentially the same as it had been for the last six days.

“This is perfect,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She set the candle down and embraced Kazmina.

Kazmina looked at her with a curious expression. “Are you quite sure this is what you want? I'll be going on to Nesantsai — if you want to be your old self again, this is your last chance.”

“Oh, no. Not that.”

“Then let's go.”

“Let's?”

“I'm going with you to meet him.”

Launuru bundled up her clothes and money, and they slipped as quietly as they could out of their room and down the hall to the stairs. A little later they entered the common room. There had been few women present when they passed through on their arrival; at this time of night it was all men. Every eye in the room turned toward them.

The Islander, who was sitting near the door they'd entered by, stood up and bowed to them. “Ladies,” he said, and Launuru thrilled as she recognized Verentsu's voice. But his disguise was quite good; the false hair concealed most of his face, and the rest of his exposed skin had been darkened somehow.

“Good evening,” she said, uncertain what to say in front of all these men. “Are you ready?”

“Whenever you are.” He looked at Kazmina. “Will... your cousin also accompany us?”

“Um,” Launuru said, and asked Kazmina what she thought.

“Where exactly are you going tonight?” Kazmina asked. “To another inn, or to Psavian's city house, or what? I need to be back here before Setsikuno or Tetsivamo wake up tomorrow — ”

Just then Launuru heard a woman's voice from behind them: Setsikuno, saying something indignant in Rekhim.

---

The hair glued to his face had been itching all afternoon, and it was getting noticeably worse as he waited for the servant he'd bribed to give Launuru his note. Fortunately, his companions in the common room were no more inclined to talk than he was.

At last, well over an hour after he'd seen Launuru and her companions arrive, and at least a quarter of an hour after the servant had whispered to him that she would be there “soon,” two women emerged from the door to the stairwell. One was Kazmina; the other resembled Launuru's old self far more than “Shalasan” had, though she didn't quite look like her sister as she'd said she would. He was sure it was her, though.

But he had scarcely exchanged two words with her when Setsikuno entered the room and spoke sharply to Kazmina in Rekhim. His heart pounded. Hopefully Kazmina would be able to talk her way out of it without involving them —

No, apparently not. Kazmina had barely gotten a word in when Setsikuno switched languages, saying to him: “Take off that silly disguise, Verentsu, and tell me what's going on! And you, Shalasan — if that's really your name — what are you doing here?”

He sighed. “It will take time, ma'am — perhaps this isn't the place — ”

“Indeed it's not. Come with me, all three of you.”

He exchanged looks with Launuru and Kazmina. “We'd better explain,” Launuru said to him. “But you'll have to do it, because I promised not to.”

“Very well. Lead the way.”

They followed Setsikuno up the stairs to one of the more luxurious guest rooms. Once the door was shut, the older wizard spoke to Kazmina again in Rekhim; she replied, then said something to Launuru in Tuaznu, speaking too fast for Verentsu to catch it. Launuru said in turn in Ksiluri: “I'm sorry, ma'am, but Kazmina and I both promised Psavian we wouldn't tell. But you already know so much, and we need to explain so you won't think we're doing something wrong — Verentsu will have to tell you, since he hasn't given his word not to tell you about this.”

“Well,” he began, then hesitated. How much did he need to tell her? He wasn't under an oath of secrecy like Launuru and apparently Kazmina, but the less of his family's sordid secrets he revealed the better.

“So, I suppose you've figured out that this isn't actually Kazmina's cousin Shalasan...”

“I suspected it before; now I'm sure. Who is she?”

“No one you know. Kazmina disguised her so she could come to the wedding — I'd rather not say who she really is, but she didn't want her family to know she'd come. Her parents had a falling-out with my father some years ago, but she was a close friend of Tsavila before that, and she wanted very much to see her married. I'm going to escort her home tomorrow.”

Setsikuno looked at him. “Take that false face off before you say anything else,” she said. “I can't tell if you're lying, with all that hair around your mouth.”

“Ah... can we send for some hot water and soap?”

Setsikuno pulled the bell-cord to summon one of the inn servants. “You don't need to conceal so much from me,” she said to Launuru. “I never see anyone in Psavian's circle, except when he invites me to something like your friend's wedding. I won't tell anyone you defied your parents to come to Tsavila's wedding — it's the sort of thing I would have done. Ha! It's just the sort of thing I did, only it was my own wedding that I defied my parents in order to attend! But you should have an older woman escort you home, girl, not Verentsu. He's a nice young man, but it's not seemly for you to travel alone with him like that. Tell me who you are and where you live, and I'll escort you home as discreetly as you could wish, tomorrow while Tetsivamo is seeing to business.”

Launuru hesitated. “I can tell you who I am if you promise not to tell anyone that I was Shalasan, or ask me anything I've promised not to tell.”

“Oh... that's right, you said you'd promised Psavian not to tell anyone about something. That doesn't add up. Did he connive at you coming to Tsavila's wedding in defiance of your parents...?”

“He... he was angry at first, but then he laughed it off and said he'd help us keep it all secret if we didn't tell anyone how he helped us.”

“Hmm. All right, I promise not to tell anyone, if you've done nothing worse than attend the wedding under an assumed name...”

Just then the servant Setsikuno had summoned arrived. She asked her to bring soap, washcloths, and hot water. Once she had gone, Setsikuno resumed:

“Spit it out; who are you?”

Launuru took a deep breath. “My name is Launuru. My father is Rusaulan of Rivergate; my mother is Launasila.”

“Launuru is an unusual name for a girl.”

“That's because I wasn't born a girl.”

Setsikuno's eyes widened; she looked at Kazmina and asked her something in Rekhim. Kazmina spoke with Launuru in Tuaznu, too fast for Verentsu to follow, and Launuru turned her eyes to Verentsu, looking confused and trapped. He wanted to embrace her, but he didn't think it suited. Not here, not now.

“How much can I tell her, Verentsu?”

Verentsu wasn't sure what Kazmina might have already said to Setsikuno; he didn't want to say anything that would contradict her. But he had to say something. A large fraction of the truth would probably be safe enough. “Remember, ma'am, you promised not to tell anyone... Launuru went to Kazmina to have her disguise him so he could come to Tsavila's wedding. But she's decided she likes being a woman better than being a man, so now she asked Kazmina not to return her to her original form, but to make her a Viluri woman.”

“Aiie! Young people nowadays! But what use is my promising not to tell? If you're taking her home to her parents... How long can you keep it secret, who she used to be or what happened to him?”

“It's not to be a secret that I was a man and am now a woman,” Launuru said; “but how it happened, and that the 'Shalasan' who attended Tsavila's wedding was really me, and... some other things I promised Psavian not to tell anyone about... I can't tell anyone, and I beg you not to tell anyone the parts of it you know, or to ask me the parts we haven't told you.”

Just then, the servant returned with a basin of hot water and several washcloths. Once she was gone, Verentsu began to remove the false hair from his face.

“So,” Launuru resumed, “we've been talking about what story to tell my family and other people who knew me before, but we haven't decided yet.”

“Very well. I wish Psavian had confided in me about all this before he entrusted you girls to my care; I will have words with him in due course. But for now, we must arrange for you to return home, yes? I still say it does not suit for Verentsu to escort you, at least not alone; I will accompany you tomorrow.”

Verentsu and Launuru looked at one another. “Is that agreeable to you?” he asked. “I know it's not what we planned, but... I think she's probably right. You need to think about your reputation.”

“Please,” Launuru said, “I need you there too. I guess she can come, it might help to have an older person along to help explain — and to help us think of a good explanation — but I need you.”

“All right,” Verentsu said. “I'll meet you all here early tomorrow, and we'll all go to Launuru's family's home.”

“Very well,” Setsikuno said. “Good night.” She looked pointedly at Verentsu. He clasped Launuru's hand for a long moment, wishing he dared do more, then bowed to the ladies and bade them good night.

---

Verentsu had hardly been gone from the room three heartbeats when Setsikuno said:

“I promised I wouldn't ask you for more than you offered to tell me, but if you want to tell me what's going on between you and Verentsu, it's not impossible that an old woman like myself may have some useful advice.”

Launuru felt her cheeks getting hotter. She thought fast. Well, her love for Verentsu wasn't going to remain secret long, either; and as long as they had to trust Setsikuno not to talk about her masquerading as Shalasan, it wouldn't hurt to tell her a little more, as long as it didn't violate her promise not to talk about her courtship of Tsavila or Psavian's exile geas...

“I suppose you've noticed, then, that we're — very partial to each other — ”

“I'd have to be blind not to. You seemed to cool off a bit yesterday, after making lovers' eyes at one another the day before, but just now — well, that's part of why I insisted you not be alone with him tonight. You'll probably have quite enough difficulty with your family, telling them you've become a woman, without them suspecting that you've disgraced yourself with a man as well.”

“Oh. I was — I'm nervous about meeting them again, yes. I didn't want to do it alone, and Verentsu promised to come with me to help me tell them what happened — or as much of it as I'm allowed to tell anyone — and he's going to ask them for permission to court me.”

“Well, I'll do what I can to help. You say you aren't sure what to tell them?”

“Yes. Kazmina and Tsavila and I talked about it, but we didn't come to any definite conclusion.”

Setsikuno spoke with Kazmina in Rekhim, and after a little while Kazmina said in Tuaznu: “I've told her our ideas for what might have happened to you — ” and Setsikuno said in Ksiluri: “What's this about you having been gone from your family for the last six months?”

“You promised not to ask,” Launuru said, looking away in embarrassment.

“All right. So you've been gone for six months, and you return home a woman; you can't tell them the truth, for reasons you can't tell me, and you want me to help you devise a plausible story...?”

“That's just it.”

“Well, suppose you simply tell them you can't remember? One day in Winter you're going about your business, whatever that was, and the next thing you know, it's Autumn of the following year and you're a woman. There are no details to keep track of, so you can't be caught in an inconsistency.”

Launuru thought. “That makes sense. Thank you.” Setsikuno and Kazmina spoke in Rekhim again, then the older woman said: “Let's go to bed now. Stay here — I'll know if you leave the room during the night.” She left.

“Did she tell you her idea?” Launuru said, as they undressed for bed.

“Yes,” Kazmina said. “It's a good one; I wish I'd thought of it.”

“But there's still a detail or two to work out: where was I when I suddenly regained my knowledge of myself and realized what had happened to me, and how is it that Verentsu and Setsikuno are escorting me home?”

“What about this: you came to yourself walking down a street here in Nilepsan. You were frightened of course, and wanted to go instantly to the nearest friend — and you were closer to Psavian's house than to your family's home, so you went there. You found Verentsu, and he, thinking you needed a woman's help as well, called upon Setsikuno, his father's old friend, whom he knew to be in the city.”

“I think that works. Except... how can Verentsu and I tell my parents that we want to marry, if...?”

“Perhaps you should save that for later. Give them time to get used to you being a woman, first.”

“Perhaps you're right.”

They laid down and were silent for a while.

“I want to thank you again,” Launuru said quietly. “You've been such a good friend through all this — I might be dead or worse if you hadn't freed me from that first geas, and then you didn't just free me, but took such risks to help me... Now I'm afraid I won't see you again, and I want to thank you properly, and I don't know how.”

“I think you will see me again,” Kazmina said. “Your father-in-law to be is my — my old friend's father; your bridegroom is my friend's brother; and I'll be living in Niluri for months, perhaps years to come. I'm sure we'll see one another again. But perhaps you shouldn't be so profuse with your thanks — I meant well, but I'm afraid I botched it terribly, over and over, and it's mostly luck that things have turned out as well for you as they have.”

“Oh, but you give yourself too little credit. Just yesterday, your intercession with Psavian got me the indemnity that Tsavila had asked for but he'd hesitated to give. And you weren't the only one, of course; Tsavila and Verentsu and several servants and slaves helped a lot, and most of all the gods and ancestors — ” One ancestor in particular, but she still wasn't sure it made sense to talk about her. “But it would never have happened without you. Thank you again.”

“I'm happy for you,” Kazmina said. “Good night.”

They spoke no more that night. Though Launuru heard Kazmina's snores long before she fell asleep, she was too happy thinking of the morning, and of seeing her family, and of Verentsu, to be annoyed. Her parents would be shocked, but she was sure they would be more happy to see her again than saddened by her change; they might be stubborn at first when she and Verentsu confessed their love, but she was sure they would give in eventually. And if not — well, they could always elope.

The end

---

This novel is also available from Lulu.com as a trade paperback and a PDF ebook, from Amazon in Kindle format, and from Smashwords in EPUB format. It will continue to be available for free here on BigCloset, but the Kindle and EPUB editions have a map, a Cast of Characters, and some other supplementary material that is not in the free serial version (or the Lulu.com edition).

If you enjoyed reading the free serial version, I would appreciate it if you also left a review of it on Amazon and/or Smashwords.

When Wasps Make Honey, the sequel to Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes, is also available from Amazon in Kindle format and from Smashwords in EPUB format. I have no plans to post it on BigCloset or other such sites in the near future, though I may post an excerpt from it.