The Luck of Brin's Five Read Online Free PDF

have gone in order to leave him a clear field . . . to take away our accursedness.”
    â€œThe Luck wants his pocket vest,” said Narneen. “He is patting about for it.”
    We gave Diver his vest, thinking he was hungry for more chocolate, but instead he performed another of his miracles. He produced something from a pocket, and there was light . . . a marvellous cool circle of light, better than a candlecone, coming from a small gray rod. We sat in amazement; then Mamor began to dismantle the two great looms while Brin and Roy rolled and sorted the finished work. Gwin fussed in case there was fire-metal-magic at work; but I tapped the case of the magic light, and it was not metal. It was not wood either but something like horn or crab shell. Wonder of wonders, Diver had two of the magic lights, and he gave me one to hold. He showed me how to work a sliding catch on the shaft and turn the light on and off.
    Then he gestured to me. “Why?” I believe he even had the word. Why were we alarmed, packing up, talking so urgently in the dark? So while the Family labored around us in the familiar ritual of packing, Narneen and I labored with the explanation. Danger! Armed vassals with spears, ropes . . . ropes for hanging. Diver drew on his paper, we tried to draw. New words crackled around Diver’s head, but he took it in. And all the while he and I held the magic lights and spotted them in the exact place that they were needed.
    Suddenly Diver stood up, excited; I would have said afraid. Of what? Our spinners, poor creatures, that Brin was popping one by one into their sack with a few ends of deer meat . . . they hardly ate in winter, they were sleepy. We laughed and explained and showed him the skeins of silk and a finished piece of work from Old Gwin’s lace loom. He understood and drew a picture of some smaller variety of spinner. Yet he had a horror of these harmless things. We brought him the largest one to stroke, the one called Momo or Cushion, and it was all he could do to place his hand on its soft hairy back and look at its sturdy spinnerets. His face was stiff with loathing, like Old Gwin come upon a pile of sharp knives beside a blazing fire. Narneen made Old Gwin’s averting sign for Diver . . . and he understood; we all laughed again.
    By the middle of the night, we were packed up; the tent was an empty shell with all our gear shrouded in its center. The weather was holding, just; a fine flurry of snow, but no wind. Old Gwin believed her prayers were being answered. We were wrapped and shod; Diver had a cloak muffled over his suit and vest, and his boots were excellent. Our heavy stuff—the folded loom boards, the work rolls, the wool sack—was packed onto the sled, and the way was clear. We stood in shelter, without light, while Brin and Mamor took down six panels of the tent. We would leave the other three between us and Hunter Geer as a shield. Roy was weaving a message skein; he gave me careful instructions. When the Family had passed through the break in the glebe wall and descended onto the track we had chosen, I, watching, would slip across to the Hunter’s tent and leave the skein under the flap weight-stones.
    So I stood watching as they all went over the edge. I stole along, crunching a little on the snow and thinking of Whitewing. I got the skein down under the weights and was on my way free and clear when a terrible sound rang out. A hunting horn at the western gate! Torchlights! Armed vassals! I ran blindly into the ruin of our tent, fifty paces from the breach in the wall, across a clear expanse of snow, marked with the tracks of our Five. The party had entered the glebe; voices were raised—there was movement in Hunter Geer’s tent, and movement too in the breach of the wall. I longed to cry out to my Family, urging them to stay back.
    When I thought I saw my chance, I dived across the snow. There was a cry; two vassals with spears came after me. I