Even in the early morning hour, the day promised to be another scorcher. Already, the air soaked up heat, and the pale sky stretched taut like the skin of a clay-drum. Vine-ranked banner poles painted sharp shadows on the arena's stone steps. Spectators in straw-hats streamed through a dozen entrances, carrying food baskets and parasols, eager to secure seats from where they could see every flicker of hope and despair on the fools' faces.

Clad in a stiff green tunic and turban, Dahoud greeted the arrivals in his aisle, confiscated their weapons, searched their baskets for hidden knives. Most of the officials performing the same duty in the other aisles were regular greenbelts, but others were borrowed from Lord Govan's staff.

Tarkan strode over as if to compare the instructions on their waxed tablets. “Why are we here?” he asked in a low voice. “This secondment smells like a cover-up. What do you think is really going on?”

Down on the patchy lawn, musicians were trying their instruments. Drums rumbled and leather bagpipes screeched.

“Extra security, because of the uprising in Koskara,” Dahoud suggested.

“The Consort has his greenbelts to guard the royal canopy, and if he expected real trouble, he'd call in the army, not a handful of councillors and clerks.” Tarkan ran a finger along his smooth jaw. “The herald sought you out in the tavern, a day before the rest of us were summoned. Why?”

“In case of racial unrest.” Dahoud tried to keep his voice casual. “A Samili among the security staff can calm things down.”

“Why do you have a private room in the palace while the rest of us sleep in dormitories?”

“Look, Teruma is signalling us. Let's see what she wants.”

“Tarkan, Dahoud, might I have a word?” Teruma was striding towards them in a jangle of jewellery, a stylus and a waxed tablets in her hands. “Can you play drums?”

“In the Samil, every child learns to drum,” Tarkan said, as if his own upbringing had not been that of a privileged aristocrat. He waved at the rehearsing musicians. “Do their skills displease you, my Lady?”

“I need men with courage and sense who can drum and aren't afraid of foreign magic.”

Foreign magic? Dahoud looked up, startled. Had a problem with the rain dancer thrown his plan into jeopardy?

Tarkan beamed as if her request gave him pleasure. Perhaps it did. “How may we be of service?”

 “A surprise act. A magician from Riverland needs drum energy for her show.”

“We're not burdened by superstition, my Lady.” Tarkan's eyes crinkled at the corners. “Dahoud and I used to drum together when we were small, and it will be our pleasure to do it again.”

During their brief childhood friendship, they had played the goatskin drums for hours, their patterns interweaving with such vigour that a magician could have bundled that power and moved a mountain.

“Good.” Teruma ticked the item off on her tablet. “I'll get drums and will call you nearer the time.” She strode off, calling instructions to a greenbelt about the schedule for the parade.

While Dahoud searched picnic baskets for concealed weapons, he shut out his friends' probing gaze.

He wondered what the rain dancer would be like, and if her performance would indeed stir much excitement so that his departure tomorrow would go unnoticed. Riverians were famed for their prudery, so the dance would probably consist of a series of stilted strides. Perhaps, if she was a young beauty, she would capture everyone's attention anyway. Better still would be an old woman: everyone worshipped a crone. The very best would be if she really seduced the sky into giving water.

*

On the stone steps around the arena, people sat so tightly together, their hips touched like peas in a pod. Merida was glad that the royal grandstand was spacious and its cushions spaced. When a procession of green-uniformed men carried life-sized idols around the arena, and when priests burned incense and chanted to the Mighty Ones, she took care not to show her disdain.

Listening to native music and watching dances, however, gave her pleasure. On the patchy turf, women hopped and swirled brightly coloured skirts in sinuous, passionate, playful movements while their men clapped out the strange rhythm. She counted the beats. Could it really be a pattern of nine? She had heard mentions of three-count music, forbidden in Riverland, but surely a nine-count rhythm was impossible. Perhaps she should not risk her Virtue listening to those sounds.

She shifted on her cushion. “Teruma, I ought to rehearse with the drummers.”

“They're both busy.” Teruma selected a cluster of dark grapes from a roving vendor's vine-ranked basket. “Have some grapes.”

Hot anger mixed with cold dread in Merida's stomach. “You know I must keep to my special diet for the magic. I told you, sixteen drummers is the minimum, and they must practice with me, so that they can support my magic by nightfall.”

Teruma licked at the grapes. “Two drummers is what you'll have. Now pay attention.”

The master of ceremonies banged his beribboned staff on the ground. “Here comes the first fool of today: a wheelwright from Quislabat.”

Ten thousand feet trampled an excited welcome for the brawny man and his good-speaker.

The master of ceremonies placed the red-glittering fool's turban on his head. “Kneel and speak, Fool. What is your plea?”

The man described how he had carelessly committed a dishonest action, which had gotten him embroiled in further crimes and made him an extortionist's target. “He regrets his deeds deeply,” the wheelwright’s goodspeaker said, “and wishes to end this cycle of evil.”

Waving scarves, the audience shouted for mercy, Merida with them. The Consort, who had looked stern at first, allowed himself to be swayed by the crowds and pardoned the man. The audience cheered and munched grapes.

A young girl wished to marry a poor peasant. Her parents, who favoured a wealthy man she had reason to dislike, threatened to disown her. The girl begged the Consort to intervene. At the sight of thousands of waving scarves, the Consort not only allowed the girl to choose her own partner, but gave the couple a hide of land to settle. The crowd ululated in shrill delight.

“What benevolent rulers the Queen and her Consort are,” Merida said. “Even in this totalitarian monarchy they allow the people to decide. Can anyone just turn up to plead their case?”

“We receive more than eight hundred applications every year. From those I chose thirteen. The next case will be interesting.”

One green-uniformed official wanted a pardon for raping his virgin niece. This time, no textiles fluttered. The chorus of booing voices drowned out the criminal's and his good-speaker's whiny appeals. Kirral sentenced him to daily public whipping for a moon, starting immediately, followed by eight years of quarry labour.

Merida joined the cheering. Rapists were evil scum who deserved the harshest penalties. But when the whip hit the man's flesh, when he sagged in his bonds and his screams turned to groans, she bit her knuckles. Her guts contracted at every sizzling lash.

“He thought he'd get off lighter here than by confessing to a regular court,” Teruma said casually. “But people don't forgive peacetime rape.”

“If you knew he had no chance, why did you choose him?”

Teruma just laughed.

Merida insisted. “You should have told him not to apply.”

The head-wife plucked a fat grape. “I warn all candidates that they may lose as well as win. I even offer to arrange their safe journey home should they choose not to take the risk. You really should taste these grapes, Merida.”

The next fool begged forgiveness for poisoning his neighbour’s well.

“Cut off his arm,” Kirral said. “Now.”

“No! Please, have mercy!” The man tried to run, but two greenbelts restrained him.

Kirral sent the master of the ceremonies back into the arena to announce: “The Consort offers you mercy. He lets you choose: either one arm, or both hands.”

A moment later, the well poisoner's scream shuddered through the arena. Merida tried not to look at his crumpled body on the grass, or the arm on the bloodied block, or the executioner holding his dripping sword high as in triumph.

The man with the staff announced: “We will be taking a short break for refreshments now. After the break, we have more performances for you, more fools, more pleas, more executions! For the finale, we have a special act. A dancer has come all the way from Riverland to entertain us.”

Merida thought she must have misheard, but he went on: “This kind of dance is used in her home country to bring or stop rain. You may expect a spectacular display, for she will dance on a platform inside a ring of fire. Yes, people of Quislak, a ring of fire.”

Merida marched through the massed applause and waving scarves to the Consort’s divan. “Highness, I protest! You promised sixty-four professional musicians rehearsing the supplied music in advance, a venue where a river meets a lake, under a watertight canopy, with no more than four observers. At dusk.” She flicked her hand at the massed humanity in the arena. “You can’t expect me to work magic in these circumstances. Magic requires a special date, a special place, preparation, privacy.”

He touched his moustache which today ended in forks like snakes' tongues. “Then we shall announce that the Riverian is not able to perform a rain dance after all. That she has raised the people’s hopes with empty promises.”

Merida wanted to scream her fury into his face, and to shake his shoulders until that feathered turban fell off. “I'm a qualified magician of the eleventh degree, not a public entertainer!”

He stroked his chin in a slow downwards move. “Be a good girl. Entertain us with a pretty dance.”

Wild anger fuelled her resolve. She would prove the worth of her magic by calling more rain than they had ever seen. With none of the specifications met, the challenge was enormous, but she would succeed. She would draw power from every available source within and outside herself, regardless of custom, sense and propriety.

“Please get the height of the fire square doubled,” she told the head-wife. “No, make it triple. Quadruple! Or is there no firewood either?”

“Do you want to meet your musicians while I arrange the wood?” Teruma asked pleasantly.

“No! It's too late. They should have started learning the music and rehearsing moons ago. Just tell them to drum like this: doum-tek doumtek. Do you think they can cope with this? Or is a simple four-count rhythm beyond Quislaki intelligence? Or maybe their fingers will be hacked off?”

“They’ll manage,” Teruma said, unruffled by Merida’s fury. “Now listen carefully, Merida. If you want to leave the Queendom, I’ll arrange a carriage to take you away right after your show.”

“It’s not a show!” Merida snapped. “It’s an act of magic. Since I’m bringing rain – lots of rain – the roads won’t be passable for a carriage for several hours. The very least this country owes me is hospitality.” Instincts screamed at her to flee this horrible land, but she would not let undisciplined fear dictate her actions, and she wanted to observe the effects of her magic. “No, you’re not going to get rid of me so easily.”

Teruma’s eyes darkened. “Think about it while you have the chance.”

“I have other things to think about. Such as this ‘show’.”

She would bring so much rain that the people would bathe her in gratitude, the Consort would beg her forgiveness, and the Virtuous Government would award her at least 100 honour points. She would even write her own treatise, Weather Magic and its Application under Adverse Circumstances, and her name would be honoured side by side with that of the great Helva Hein.

*

The sun stood three finger-breaths above the horizon, painting the arena in soft gold.

When five green-clad courtiers escorted Merida into the arena, the spectators rose from their seats to cheer as if she were a favourite entertainer. The stone idols of the Mighty Ones seemed to watch as she skirted around the dark patches of dried blood. Her white trousers shimmered against yellowed grass, but the ground under her feet contained no earth magic. Not the faintest tingling reached her bare soles.

Wood was stacked for four equal walls of flames higher than any Merida had worked with, but even this would not suffice to draw much rain, not with the moon in the wrong phase, the planets in a pointless place, and the earth's pulse lacking.

Doum-tek doumtek doum-tek doumtek. Merida cast a quick glance at the two green-uniformed men squatting under a striped awning, drums in their laps. At least they had mastered the rhythm, and what they lacked in refinement, they made up in fervency. The acoustics were strong, and the sound carried. But two drums were not enough.

She needed another source. All around her, voices cheered, hands clapped, feet stomped. People. Human energy. Forbidden fuel. Merida had never broken the magicians’ code of ethics, never fed on people power. But if she could not draw rain, Kirral would smirk, and she would have to return to Riverland with her head bowed.

She glanced at the rows of excited spectators, sensed plenty of power waiting to be tapped, and wished she could assess its quantity. To make sure, she had better go even higher into trance, not just to fourth level but to fifth.

She climbed the platform in the centre of the firewood square, and spoke the required homage to the four Virtues, as expected from an accredited member of a school of magic. She performed a quick but intense sequence from the Disciplined Path, stroking her own aura and kicking an imaginary foe, and chanted to focus her magic.

The vibrations from the applause caressed her bare arms, her cheeks, tingled through her body’s fibres. Resolutely, Merida opened herself up. She allowed the forbidden fuel to flow into her abdomen like liquid into a bowl. She felt her flesh heat and her strength grow. Already her own silver aura buzzed around her skin.

Greenbelts set their torches to the wood. Flames shot up. Now it was too late to back away. She was trapped by the dancing tongues. Smoke scratched her nostrils, and heat bathed her skin.

All she could do was to pull her fear of fire inside her, stir it into positive energy, and focus on her task. She raised her arms to the sky to call for rain. She tossed her head, her shoulders, her body, releasing magic.

Doum-tek doumtek, doum-tek doumtek.

Five thousand people in the audience clapped the rhythm. The liquid strength of the crowd’s support surged through her. They wanted the rain, and were willing her to succeed. She drank their appreciation and turned it to power. Her heartflame heated and fuelled her dance.

She surrendered all control to the pulsing of the drums. Doum-tek doumtek, doum-tek doumtek. Her arms rose high on one side, then collapsed in the front. The momentum carried her arms up to the other side, her chest and head followed. Sparks of magic crackled in her hair.

She rose easily through the two ordinary levels of trance into the third at which she normally worked major large magic. Then she climbed to the fourth, the dangerous fifth. Power soared through her, sent her blood singing. Weight drained from her body, consciousness seeped away. Almost without effort, she rose to the sixth level, the one no magician had achieved since Helva Hein.

Her mind was lightness, riding inside a cloud-powered bliss. She stirred her inner cauldron, drew the magic through her heart into her head, and contacted the element of rain.

A long time passed before her hands quivered in response. Water had heard her call; now she had to attract it. She pulled the rain clouds she could not yet see. So much power pumped through her blood, she knew she had enough to bring rain, but she wanted more, more, more. Enough water to sate the earth, enough to wipe the smirk off the Consort’s face.

Excited cheers greeted the first purple cloud on the horizon.

Then the first raindrops fell on her naked arms, big drops, warm and soft. Shouts of joy and hissing flames nearly drowned out the drumbeats, but she kept going.

The rain poured harder, drowning the flames.

She danced, and danced, and danced. She climbed into further levels of trance, raising yet more energy, calling yet more rain. Her white tunic had lost all substance, a thin textile film glued to her skin.

Violent water crashed on empty white stone steps, ran in streams and cascaded down the corridors into the grass arena.

The cheering spectators cowered under parasols, and eventually left for better shelter in the town. Only the drummers stayed under their feeble awning. Merida dropped to a lower trance to observe them. The descent made her ears ring so loud they almost burst. When drum skins dampened and the sounds dulled, they kept the rhythm going by clapping their hands. Their stamina matched hers.

Doum-tek, doumtek. Doum-tek, doumtek.

Greyness descended, then night-black. Time to stop. She had won. Now was the time to celebrate the joys of victory. After signalling the drummers to slow, she braced herself. As she plummeted into the lower levels, a dizzy void replaced her spent strength, and she collapsed in happy exhaustion.

*

Servants bustled her into a litter. Once at the palace, tiredness ripped Merida's mind to shreds. In her rush to ready herself, she had not prepared proper aftercare. No honey-water waited to restore energy, no hot brick warmed her bed.

When greenbelts supported her arms on both sides, she was too shattered to resent the touch. They guided her not to the dormitory, but to the palace’s audience hall. She needed rest, dry clothes, nourishment, but was too weak to protest. Disoriented and shivering with cold, she dropped into the chair. At least the armrests were wood. Wood energy, though weak, was easy to absorb.

Teruma draped a wool cloak over her.

She could barely hear the Consort’s speech of thanks, let alone enjoy her triumph, or compose a formal reply. With effort, she turned the corners of her mouth upwards.

The Queen, fat and stately beside her Consort, spoke. “You will stay in the Queendom, our guest forever.”

Merida’s mind jerked awake. “No… honoured… some days, then Riverland. Home.”

The Consort slapped his thigh. “You will stay in Quislak. If not as a guest, then as part of my harem.”

What a bizarre Quislaki custom to express formal gratitude by proposing marriage. Searching for the appropriate phrase, she struggled for strength to speak. “...honoured... regret... return to Riverland.”

Sleep. She needed sleep.

“You misunderstood.” Teruma said on her left. “You’ll be a wife whether you want to or not.”

“No,” Merida croaked.

Reality and nightmares swam together in her head. She heard Kirral’s voice from a distance. “We shall dispense with the traditional rites for the occasion.”

Virtues help me, help me, Merida pleaded, but she was too feeble to focus. The room spun. Clutching the armrests, she sought to rally what energy she could muster. Her belly cauldron was a hollow vessel, her heartflame a faint spark. Summoning droplets of strength, she pulled herself up and dropped at the Queen’s feet.

“I beg you, Ma’am. Help me.”

“I do not involve myself in my husband’s harem affairs.” The Queen yawned and clapped twice. Greenbelts dragged Merida back to her seat.

“I demand…” She tried to shout, but it came out as a croak. “... speak regular ambassador.”

“Quislak no longer has a Riverian ambassador. Diplomatic relations are severed.” The Consort held Merida’s pass and accreditation over the incense burner.

Her power spent, she could not stop him. Slow-licking flames devoured the precious parchments.

“I ... no more magic... never... for you.”

“We have ways to make you.” Kirral smirked. “Besides, I have other uses for you.”