It'll pass. If you let it,» he added sourly. He peered into Jinndaven's bewildered eyes. «Are you still in there?» «Sure. The whole gang's here,» mumbled Jinndaven. «Who d'you want to speak to? Oh, and specify past, present, or future while you're at it, will you? We wouldn't want to confuse you.» Trickster chuckled. «No chance of that. I'm the original Multiple Personality—remember?» He smiled cheerily at Jinndaven then glanced at the straining bud of the Winterbloom. «Any moment now,» he said to his brother. «Yup—there she goes. I suggest you yield, Jinn. I suggest you yield completely.» «What?» «Yield!» Jinndaven blinked, forcing his eyes to focus on the slowly opening bud in front of him. As the white petals unfurled, Jinndaven felt a curious leap of hope in his heart and a steady streaming of raw, potent joy throughout his body. Unexpectedly delighted, Jinndaven turned to this joy in wonder. As he reached hesitantly for it, the joy reached for him with confident, wild desire. It flooded him, irradiating his every cell with an ancient intelligence that spoke of renewal and a wild emergence of the Utterly New. The Winterbloom continued to flower, the blood-like liquid in its crystal stem now shooting freely into the bud's center. The white petals slowly turned pink along the outside edges then darkened to a glistening, brilliant red. Then a queer thing happened; the center of the Winterbloom began to turn counterclockwise. The effect on Jinndaven was immediate. He gasped, clutching at his heart. «It's opening. The flower. My heart.» Trickster smiled knowingly. Then he leaned toward the Greatkin of Imagination and whispered, «So choose the self you most want to be, Jinn. Pick the one most precious to you. Go on. Imagine the best of all possible yous—living in the best of all possible worlds. Now's the moment of conscious choosing. Now is the moment of Shifttime—when all things are possible. Stir yourself to excellence. Change the psychic code of all Reality. Insert a new sequence of self.» «But there's nothing wrong with the psychic code of all Reality. Or with me as a person,» added Jinndaven crossly. «I'm a perfectly good Greatkin.» «So be a better one,» replied Rimble, his expression hard. «But everyone likes me the way I am. They'll be upset if I go and start imagining myself differently. Especially Sathmadd.» Rimble grunted. «I doubt she'll even notice a change of this kind. She's not very subtle, you know. But enough of that—go on and shift. The Winterbloom is nearly ready to fly.» «Flowers don't fly,» said Jinndaven stubbornly. «Improoved flowers are liable to do anything,» retorted Rimble. «Even the impossible.» Trickster inclined his head. «Stop stalling, Jinndaven. You know you want this. Your eyes are so bright I can barely look at you.» «Okay, okay,» grumbled the Greatkin of Imagination. Then without further ado, he drew himself up, sifting through a thousand faces until he came to the one most precious to himself. Picking that one, he let that future fill him with purpose. He let that future show him what sequential choices he'd have to make to become this new self. Yielding now to the great good inherent in making the choice to become not only a better person, but the very best he could possibly be, Jinndaven felt himself become inwardly buoyant—ecstatic. His face suffused with a gently psychological radiance, Jinndaven finally relaxed. Suddenly he understood Trickster's great freedom: multiplicity. Everything was again possible—despite the rules. And he was sanely mad—'touched» by Trickster. The shift, he thought, that's the wild labor. Labor for a psychic birth. Movement caught Jinndaven's eye. It was the Winterbloom finally come to term. Like this new self, the blossoming flower now strained against its own roots and yearned for emergence. Jinndaven watched the flower struggle for flight, the entire bloom now beginning to spin. What had once been a rose, thought Jinndaven, was now a Winterbloom. What had been an ordinary flower was now an original. It was wholly new. And somehow, the transformation was contained in the turn. Jinndaven gasped. «My heart—I think you broke it.» «Nothing else will do,» replied Trickster. «Nothing else can induce the turn necessary to support the shock of the new. I said it was hard.» Jinndaven nodded, his eyes still on the flower. Its spin was so swift now that the petals appeared as a white blur. Then slowly the bloom separated from the crystal stem. The stem itself shattered, its pieces tinkling like shards of glass as they fell against each other in the snow. Finally, the Winterbloom lifted into the wintry air and flew free. Jinndaven whooped with delight. «There I go!» he cried, his voice joyous. «I'm soaring!» «Mmm,» nodded Trickster, his face upturned as he watched the flower sail into the gray sky, its spin emitting a hum that echoed over the mountain and made Trickster smile. Then the flower incandesced. As the sky lit with brilliance, the Winterbloom released a fragrance. Its perfume was so heady, so intoxicating that Jinndaven scrambled to his feet, grabbed Rimble by the hand, and danced a mad jig up and down the steep mountain trail. Finally out of breath, the two Greatkin fell backwards into a drift, making snow angels and laughing. «Hoo, hooo!» cried Trickster rubbing his small hands with glee. «It works! What an Improooovement, eh?» he added, clapping his brother on the back and jumping to his yellow-booted feet. The Greatkin of Imagination smiled drunkenly at Trickster. Yessir, he thought, If this was Trickster's ecstasy, he'd come to it any time. Trickster turned a contrarywise circle, spinning left. Grabbing the sheath under his greatcoat, he gave his brother a diabolical grin and said, «Now to take my Improovement to where it'll do some good.» «Where's that?» «Civilization's bed.» Jinndaven's eyes widened. The Greatkin of Civilization was their sister, Themyth. She was also a crone who had only this morning complained of feeling unusually stiff in the joints. Jinndaven swallowed. «You're going to take that two-foot—thing—to Eldest? Have a heart. Themyth will probably run screaming from the house. And you complain about my capacity for change.» Trickster grinned. «You underestimate our good sister. And besides, Jinn, this wouldn't be the first time I've fucked with Civilization.» His expression softened. «Not the first time at all.» Part I: The Leading Edge Some fall off and never return, Some walk the shifting line, But neither knows the tricksy turn Of Rimble's Contrarywise Nine.
—A MAYANABI SAYING Chapter One First light: the between-time of Everywhen when night tarried, day still longed to be, and all Mnemlith listened for the sounds of morning. First light: the rift between worlds when dreams murmured subtle things in gray, and waking minds reached for the distinct colors of dawn. Now was the moment of renewal and eternal return. To consciousness. The Mayanabi Desert gleamed at sunrise. Amber light played across shifting sands and vanished. Silence. Three heartbeats, and the earth opened. Sound that clattered and gathered speed, hoof against stone. Like a jagged riptide, a green-cowled figure thundered from the gap, his cloak a dark undertow of roiling power that startled. The desert stirred in its sleep, a hot wind running to meet this first wave of Jinnaeon: Trickster's Improvement. The desert air crackled with the shock of the new, and the figure in green came riding into the open on the back of a blue-black mare. Faster. The man hunched forward. His name was Zendrak. He was Trickster's Emissary: Rimble's threshold of change. The mare's dark mane whipped his hidden face, and he bent lower to fill his senses with the mare's strong animal smell. Her sweat blended with his, salty and pungent- wild. This mix was a perfume that slapped the mind awake; it was the scent of Rimble's Own. Zendrak held his olive-skinned hands steady on either side of the mare's reaching, streaming neck. His fingers held no reins. There was no need of them. Nothing in civilization could control this mare. Nothing could constrain her. She was a loan from the Stables of Neath, and she ran to the rhythm of her own fierce spirit. She was the leading edge of Rimble's building crest, her hooves striking the meter for change. She travelled no roads: only the currents of coincidence. Her name was Further, and she was a Power of the Fertile Dark. Faster. The Emissary whispered his destination. The words were a hiss on the hot, dawn wind: the Yellow Springs. The mare's ears flicked backward. Her pace never faltered as she turned north toward snow-misted mountains. The thrum of her hooves, the beat of his heart, and it was on to the Yellow Springs: an ancient haven of healing. This was a four-thousand-mile journey, and they would complete it by day's end. Tonight they would position the final piece of puzzle-unasked-for but undertaken long, long ago. The mare's powerful stride lengthened. They passed through town and valley. The remains of night shattered in their relentless wake. Heads turned, but eyes saw nothing. Tale-tellers yawned over breakfast, and children stumbled out of bed. Some wondered at the sudden shift in temperature and shrugged as they unbuttoned their nightshirts. Here in the southern lands, the air was sweet and warm, and summer still lingered though the months approached Fall. In the north, however, this was not so. There, Autumn made bright festival with the trees, and the people of Suxonli already wore wool. Zendrak smiled. This was the cusp of the season when change gusted with the wind and colors were crisp. Now the weather was unpredictable. This was nature's shifttime—Trickster's Glory. A wild joy overtook the Emissary. He cried out, reckless and alive! Sparks flew, hoof against stone. And Zendrak was riding, riding. He was riding north to Suxonli to bring Summer to one of Rimble's Own. Faster. Chapter Two Crazy Kel sat motionless on a mossy, limestone ledge a few feet above the Yellow Springs of Piedmerri. Swathed in her habitual veil and robe of black, Crazy Kel lay her head against her hunched knees and sighed. Her expression remained concealed under the drape of material covering her face and broad shoulders. She opened her startling, pale green eyes slowly, her face strained by an internal turmoil that had caused her yet another sleepless night. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the ache in her chest. This ache was not a physical pain; however, it had a physical location—her heart and lungs. Crazy Kel rubbed her breastbone gingerly and winced. What was this ache? she wondered. She had felt it only once before, and that had been sixteen years ago. There had been no answer for it then, and there appeared to be no answer for it now. She shut her eyes again, listening numbly to the tumbling rush of the twenty-feet fall of water directly below her. Crazy Kel smiled sourly. Crazy Kel—born Kelandris of Suxonli—was thirty-three years old. And as far as the elders of Suxonli Village were concerned, Crazy Kel ought
