“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.