made her choose one bird from the batch and then erased all the others as if they’d never existed. She chose a blue-and-violet one that snapped at anyone who passed near it and shrieked for no good reason.
Seru saw the greater possibilities of this magical clay. She demanded a palanquin fitted with gold trimmings and pink silk cushions. Suald exercised his gift again, and the magic spread into the street. Even as he opened the front door to reveal the prize, Suald’s neighbors were gathering to behold the resplendent enclosed litter. Four powerful men stood beside it as she had requested. They were barely human, with faces devoid of expression, of curiosity, of thought. They responded only to Suald’s commands. The gathering audience regarded him with wonder and fear: Only lord mayors, princes, and kings had palanquins.
He was both annoyed and thrilled by their awe; but soon he was writing one thing after another. Items popped up left and right—here a table, there a suit of clothes, and of course gold. Someone told him he was greater than the hex itself, which he liked, and he strutted on that awhile; but he soon grew weary of it all. Every citizen who went off with something told three others, who told others, until the street had become the object of a pilgrimage from all across the span. Petitioners waved their hands, and some waved scraps of fishskin parchment on which they’d written a list of their desires. Most of these requests disgusted Suald in their simplicity, their foolishness; here he was offering them the unimaginable, and they all trembled at the thought of asking for a bag of rice or a small pot to replace one that had broken last month. Only a few people asked wisely—for sustained health, for cures for their afflictions, for wisdom in the future. Suald quickly ceased to follow their requests; his tired hand wrote automatically. Let them waste his gift. He would not offer it again.
While he wrote, he watched Baloyd.
Every now and again during the great wish fulfillment, his younger brother put in brief appearances. He zigged and zagged, zoomed to the top of the highest tower, vanished for ten minutes to return with hot food from a vendor’s cart two spans distant. He carried his own wife, Betinela, on a tour of the entire span from end to end, from point to point, wherever she asked to go. He whisked her in to visit Seru, who gave her a handful of the thousand necklaces and jewels that now lay scattered about the house. Baloyd gave barely a glance to the cornucopia flowing from the clay tablet, as if none of it mattered to him. Instead, he ventured into the crowd, befriending children and taking them off for races through the streets. Sometimes they returned almost before they had left, the children not really grasping the speed with which Baloyd could carry them to their own homes around the next corner. Wherever they went, upon returning, the wide-eyed children invariably cried out, “Do it again,” or “Go farther!” Baloyd obliged them, every one.
Betinela frowned at her husband’s disregard of his brother’s treasure. Placating her, Seru remarked, “At least he seems to be having fun.”
Suald overheard the remark, and it set his mind darkly. He smoothed over the tablet and pocketed it. “That’s all for today,” he announced. Hundreds of expectant supplicants moaned, cried out that it wasn’t fair, insisted he perform at least their miracle. The ranks closed around him, and a few faces looked capable of taking the tablet from him. He marked those faces. “Very well,” he said, as if giving in to their demands. Then, pulling out the tablet again, he scribbled the words SEND THEM ALL HOME into the clay.
The crowd responded as if he had suddenly vanished. As if some scent rode upon the air, they raised their heads, turned away from Suald, and shuffled off. Suald smirked at his own cleverness: Later he would make them forget that he had this power at all.
He went inside.
Seru pursued him. “Darling, what’s wrong, why did you do that?”
He turned on her. “I heard what you told Betinela. You find my brother so amusing—well, go stay with him!”
“What?”
“You find his gift so much fun, while mine is sheer tedium, then take up with him. I’m sure his own wife won’t mind another in the house.”
She gaped at him until understanding flowed into her expression. “My gods, you’re jealous of him. He’s