The Luck of Brin's Five by Cherry; Wilder Read Free Book Online Page B

and found it full of Pentroy vassals guzzling bowls of hot tipsy-mash. We moved on to another, near the open circle, where we smuggled Diver into a dark corner, back of the steaming cook pots, and Harper doled me out a credit to buy our supper.
    We ate delicious, hot tipsy-mash and venison stew with flour dumplings, real town food, in glazed earthenware dishes that had been hardened in fire. The spoons had metal bowls, but the handles were safe wooden ones, to cheer up superstitious country visitors.
    â€œHow do you like our town?” we asked Diver.
    â€œGood!” he said, “A town .”
    We were pleased.
    â€œLike the towns in your land?” asked the Harper, slyly.
    â€œLike the towns in my land . . . long ago.”
    â€œNever fear,” I said, “wait until you see Rintoul.”
    â€œAh, Rintoul . . .” sighed the Harper. “The Golden Net of the World!”
    â€œMy ship goes to Rintoul.”
    â€œDiver . . .” I was bold now, with the warmth of the shop and the tipsy-mash rising into my head. “Are there others . . . your Family . . . in the islands?”
    â€œYes . . . but not Family.” Diver tried to explain. “Friends, workers . . . helpers.”
    â€œHow many?” asked Harper Roy.
    â€œThree and myself. They will think me dead,” said Diver solemnly.
    â€œFemales and males?” I thought of the strange shape of the female creatures in his drawings. “Will you make a Family?”
    â€œTwo males, two females,” he replied sadly. “We came as scholars. To see what lived, what could breathe . . . on Torin.”
    Then a drunken townee from the front of the cook-shop saw Roy’s harp and called for a song. He moved away cheerfully, leaving us in shadow, and began to sing, sweetly as ever, a whole string of his mountain melodies. I sat in the gloom, at Diver’s side, growing warm and sleepy. The shop was no more than half-full with townees and some travelling Families; suddenly there was some sort of commotion by the round doorway that looked out on the circle. The Harper finished abruptly; customers were making a move. I stiffened, thinking of Pentroy vassals, then I heard the jingle of shell-bracelets and the thud of dancing feet. “Twirlers!” I whispered to Diver.
    The shop emptied quickly; even the cook downed ladles and ran out. I gulped down my food and tumbled out into the dark street after Roy and Diver. A blue flame shot up in the center of the grassy circle—Twirlers’ Fire. It is a cool, harmless flame, so they say, but it was flame enough to send a thrill through the crowd. The Leader stood in the midst of the circle, beside the flax-bound stake hissing with blue fire. A tall figure, brown and twisted like a burned tree, painted with clay and naked except for a long cloak of blue rag-bunches. Around the circle there danced ten, fifteen others, thumping the ground rhythmically with their heels, between leaping and prancing. The shell-bracelets on their wrists clashed and jingled and caught the light of the fire. Their blue rags were spattered with mud; they were sweating, and the dark streaks on their skin might already have been blood. The twirlers’ shell-bracelets are sharp and they cut their flesh as they dance, until the blood runs down.
    Every so often one dancer would advance into the circle and twirl on the spot, slowly at first, then faster and faster, unbearably fast, until there was a thin blurring column of blue and brown.
    â€œTrouble!” whispered Roy, as we stood in the shadows. “Time we went to the Ulgan’s house.” The twirlers had drawn a crowd, even in winter. One or two of the Watch, employed by the Town Five, were lounging about with their staves, not expecting trouble. But the Pentroy vassals could be seen too, pushing their way through the quiet, hooded, clustering crowd. None came our way, and we did not make a move.
    One by one the twirlers dropped to