Chapter One of STREET MAGIC
Book Two of The Circle Opens

In the city of Chammur, on the eastern border of Sotat:

For centuries it had been called "fabled Chammur," "Chammur of the Flaming Heights," and "Mighty Chammur." For twelve hundred years the city on what was now the easternmost border of Sotat had straddled the trade routes from Capchen to Yanjing. Chammur was guarded on the west by the Qarwan River and in the north and east by riddled mazes of the flame-colored stone that had provided the oldest part of the city with a sanctuary from bandits and warlords alike.

For Dedicate Rosethorn of Winding Circle temple in Emelan and her fourteen-year-old student Briar Moss, Chammur was a stop on a journey to distant Yanjing. Briar had only ever heard the name of the city and little more. Rosethorn, though, had been fascinated by the city since she'd first heard of it, and she was able to tell him something of its history on their way east. Her knowledge came from books: this trip with Briar was her first chance to actually see the place that she had read about for so many years.

The original town, Rosethorn said, had been built first on, then in, the spur of stone called Heartbeat Heights, then spread to the cliffs on either side. The shepherds, goatherds and miners who originally settled the area had kept to the rocky mazes that stretched out for miles. It was easy to hide from any force which tried to prey on them in thousands of wind and water carved heights and canyons.

As trade prospered between east and west, the value of Chammur's site and its nearness to the river drew merchants and farmers, who took advantage of the security of the stone apartments. As the city grew crowded, the wealthiest and most powerful moved their homes to the flat, open ground between the heights and the river, where they could surround themselves with elaborate houses and gardens. They also promoted themselves to the nobility: the cousins of the present amir, or ruler, were among them. Although Chammur belonged to Sotat on any map, and its people bowed to the king in Hajra in the west, the truth was that the Chammuri amirs were kings in everything but name, and had been so for centuries.

Rosethorn's and Briar's journey was a kind of working study program for Briar. No matter where they went, people could always find work for green mages, skilled with plants and medicines. Chammur was no different. Within days of their arrival, before they had completed their sightseeing, they had gotten so many requests for magical aid that Rosethorn knew they had to stay for a while. She moved herself and Briar out of the Chammuri Earth temple's guest quarters and into a house next door on the Street of Hares. Once settled, she began to work with Chammur's farmers, Briar with the local Water temple and its stores of medicines and herbs.

Six weeks after their arrival, Briar at least had finished his work at the Water temple. They now had a store of powerful medicines and herbal ingredients that should hold them for a year, two if they were careful. After weeks of intense magical labor, Briar decided he owed himself a treat.

He approached the giant, enclosed arcades that held the souks, or markets, of Golden House and the Grand Bazaar with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He looked like many local males in his linen shirt, baggy trousers made from lightweight wool, and boots. His golden brown skin was vivid against the cream-colored linen. He wore no turban or hat as the Chammuri men and boys did, but left his black, coarse-cut hair uncovered. His thin-bladed nose might have come from any family native to the area. Even his gray-green eyes could be the result of a match between a local and a passing merchant: races mingled here every bit as freely as they did in Briar's former homes of Hajra and Summersea.

His destination was Golden House. He'd been in and out of the Grand Bazaar for weeks, buying oils, dried imported herbs, cloth for bags and jars, all for his work at the Water temple. Shopping there had given him the chance to look over the big and lesser specialty markets of the Bazaar. It wasn't until he'd tried to arrange for a day and a booth from which to sell his miniature trees that he learned of Golden House. That was the place for him, the men who sold booth spaces had explained. In Golden House buyers found mages and magical supplies, precious metals, rare woods like ebony and sandalwood, jewelry, and precious and semi-precious stones. Briar's miniature trees, which were not only works of art but were also shaped to draw particular magical influences to a home, belonged in Golden House.

By the time Briar had made arrangements for a stall there, he'd had to rush to be home for supper. Today he wanted a good look at Chammur's wealthiest marketplace.

As he approached the two muscular guards at the door, he smiled impishly at them. They stirred, wary. He knew he looked like a student, perhaps, or even a merchant's son, in clothes that were very well made by his friends in Summersea. He was even wearing boots. The guards had no real reason to bar him from entering, no matter how loudly their instincts might shout that he had the air of a thief.

"Hands," one of them said when Briar would have strolled by.

He held them out, palm-down, and sighed. The guard who had spoken looked for jailhouse tattoos, and saw a riot of leafy vines that went from under Briar's nails up to his wrists. The guard blinked, looked into Briar's eyes, looked at his hands again, and nudged his partner. The other man looked at Briar's hands, blinked, met the boy's eyes, then stared at those vines again.

Briar was used to it. At one time he had indeed had prison tattoos, a black ink X etched into the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. In most countries they marked two arrests and convictions for theft. When Briar turned thirteen, he'd gotten tired of being turned away from places or followed in them. Without consulting Rosethorn, he'd brewed some vegetable dyes and borrowed his friend Sandry's best needles. His plan had been to create a flowering vine tattoo to blot out the telltale Xs. He had not realized that vegetable dyes, exposed to his green magic, might not stay under his control. The final, colorful result blotted out the jailhouse tattoos as surely as if those crude black Xs had never existed. The new designs also made Briar's hands into miniature, often-changing gardens that were far more conspicuous than his old tattoos.

"Hey, they moved--and they're moving under the fingernails," one guard exclaimed, pointing. He looked at Briar. "Don't that hurt?"

"No," Briar said patiently, used to the reaction and the comment. "But my arms do when I have to keep holding them out like this."

Both guards scowled and waved him into the souk. Briar tucked his gaudy hands in his pockets and wandered into the main aisle. He avoided the stalls which peddled precious woods and gums. There was enough living power in those things still to hurt, especially when a touch would show him the original tree in all its splendor. He walked by the gold and copper aisles with only a glance. His friend Daja, a metal mage, would have plunged in here. One day he would explore and write her about it, but not today.

He turned down Pearl Alley, going from stall to stall, examining bowls of pearls with an expert's eye. Every color and size imaginable was here, from tiny white seeds destined as trimming to black orbs the size of his thumbnail, for use as ornaments or ingredients for magic. The neighboring aisle brought him to sapphires of every color. Rubies came next, then emeralds, then opals.

At no point did Briar take his memorable hands from his pockets. Every stall was supervised by an alert shopkeeper and by one or two guards. They had reason to be wary. Briar guessed that one in five shoppers might be a thief, working alone, with a partner or two, or even with the better class of gang here in Chammur Newtown. He couldn't have said what told him someone was not on the straight, but he trusted his instincts.

He particularly suspected those young men and women who were his age or just a bit older. A number of them sported a small yellow metal nose ring from which hung a roughly- shaped garnet the size of a pomegranate seed. Still others wore a distinctive costume, white tunic over black breeches or skirts. The jewelry was high-priced for a gang mark--Briar's old gang had just wound a strip of blue cloth around the biceps--but the nose ring and pendant looked like a gang mark all the same, and the black and white clothes had to be gang colors. He wasn't surprised to find more than one gang here--souks were traditionally grounds were gangs roamed under truce.

He came to a long aisle where those who peddled semi-precious stones sold their wares. Here the crowd was thicker: more people could afford carnelian and amethysts than pearls. That was particularly true of the local mages, hedgewitches and healers. Only rich mages could afford to use pearls and rubies in their work, but even students could find moonstones or mother-of-pearl discs that would be acceptable substitutes in their spells.

Briar was looking at a basket of malachite pieces, wondering if they might anchor the magic in his miniature trees, when a flicker of light caught his eye. He turned, scanning the aisle. This time the light came as a dart of silver in a stall across from him. Briar knew that particular fire well. Few mages could actually see magic as he did; no one who was not a mage would even notice it. Curious, he sauntered over for a look.

Now, here's something, he thought as he drew near. The stall's owner, a barrel-chested man, perched on a stool among his baskets and bowls of stones. Beside him a scruffy-looking girl picked through a bowl of tiger-eye pieces, polishing selected ones with a cloth and setting them aside in a round basket. As she rubbed, silver light flowered, then faded to ember- strength, in the pieces she handled. Briar also saw that the guard who stood watch between this stall and its neighbor kept his eyes on the traffic, not on the girl, though the owner never took his eyes off her. She was known, then, or she wouldn't have been allowed to stop for half a breath within reaching distance of the stall.

This man sold a bit of everything. Briar identified jade, amber, moonstone, onyx, lapis lazuli, jet, malachite, and carnelian before his knowledge of stones ran out. Now that he was looking closely at the wares, he could see a row of small baskets like the one in which the girl put her polished stones on a shelf beside the stall's owner. Those stones all showed a seed of silver to Briar's magical vision.

STREET MAGIC UK Hardcover "Say, kid, how do you do it?" Briar asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Make their magic light up like that?"

The girl spun to face him, as wary as a wild animal. She was a foot shorter than Briar's five feet seven inches, and she looked to be nine or ten. A skinny waif, she had the bronze- colored skin and almond-shaped brown eyes of a Yanjing native. Wisps of black hair stuck out from under the dirty scarf wrapped around her head. She wore a long tunic and trousers of unguessable color, aged and speckled with holes. Even though it was autumn, she was barefoot.

"It's all right," Briar assured her cheerfully. "I'm a mage myself. Are you calling to magic already in them, or are you just laying a charm on them?"

The girl put down her basket and cloth. She smiled just as cheerfully as Briar had, and ran.

He stared after her, baffled. "What did I say?" he asked the stall's guard. The man ignored him still, watching passers-by in the aisle.

The stall's owner left his stool to walk over to Briar. He was short, his body powerfully muscled under his rich silk tunic and draped satin trousers. His skin was just darker than Briar's, his hair and eyes black. Briar figured him for a westerner, since he didn't wear the turban preferred by eastern men. "What did you run her off for?" the man demanded sharply. "Evvy's no thief."

"I never said she was," Briar protested.

"You said something," argued the stall's owner. "Now look. She'd barely started."

"What's she do here?" Briar asked, curious. "What's her name? 'Evvy,' you said?"

The owner shrugged, not quite meeting Briar's eyes. "She's just a street kid," he replied. The word for baby goat was slang for a child in Briar's native Kurchali as well as in Chammuri. "She polishes some of my pieces, and I throw her a few coppers."

"Then he triples the price and sells them to the mage trade," the shopkeeper across the aisle called, his voice waspish. He was seated at a bench as he worked on jewelry. "Just because he realized the ones she handles sell quicker."

"I'd pay her more," protested the muscular stall owner, glaring at his neighbor. "But she won't handle all the rocks. And what does she do, anyway? She polishes them with a rag, cleans them up a bit."

"He spoke of magic, Nahim Zineer," the sharp-voiced man retorted, pointing at Briar. The boy glanced at the embroidered awning overhead: stitched gold letters read, "Nahim Zineer: Crystals, Precious and Semi-precious Stones."

"If she's a mage, what's she doing living in some Oldtown cave like an animal?" Nahim demanded, glaring at the jeweler. "She's just got a hand with cleaning stones, that's all." To Briar he said, "And I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't frighten her off again."

"At least not until she's done all the baskets," quipped his neighbor.

Briar wandered off, shaking his head. It was possible the girl might not know of her gift. Some magic hid in most things, waiting for a mage with the right power to call it forth. That had been the case with Briar and the three girls who had shared a house with him at Winding Circle temple in Summersea. None of the four had shown the traditional signs of magical power, but all their lives they had been fascinated by particular ordinary things, things they later discovered were magically bound to them. In Briar's case his magic had drawn him to plants. Only at Winding Circle, under the supervision of four extraordinary mage-teachers, had he and the girls learned about their unusual magics, and the ways they could be used. What if there was no one like Niklaren Goldeye, the mage who had seem Briar's magic and taken him to Winding Circle, in Chammur? This girl might never be trained in the use of her power. Worse, if it broke away from her--as magic often did when its bearer could not control it--she would find herself in real trouble.

Briar was so lost in thought that he didn't realize he had attracted companions until two youths slid up on either side of him. Two more oozed out of the crowds ahead to block his advance. If Briar had cared to gamble he would have bet there were two more behind him. All of the ones he could see wore the yellow metal nose ring and garnet drop; all moved together without discussion. They nudged him to one side, trying to direct him down a dimly lit aisle. Briar stopped. There was no telling what they'd do in some dark niche. He had no intention of finding out. He saw no weapons, but that meant nothing: he carried nine. Theirs were probably tucked in the same places that his were. They were barefoot or in sandals, so at least they had no boot knives, and he did.

The ties that kept his wrist knives in their sheaths were twisted hemp. They came undone at his command, letting the hilts slip down into his palms. "You kids run along and play," he told them in heavily accented Chammuri. "I'm just minding my own business."

One of them, a short black youth, crossed his arms over his chest. "You're on Viper ground, eknub"--foreigner.

"You got me wrong." Briar met the speaker's eyes steadily. "I'm not in your business." His tongue fumbled with the unfamiliar Chammuri words. He hoped they meant the same things they did in the west. "I'm just shopping. Besides, souks are free zones. You can't claim them for territory."

The youth beside the first speaker raised an eyebrow. He was tall, lean, brown-skinned, sixteen or seventeen years old. His eyes were like stones. "If it barks like a dog, eats like a dog, walks like a dog--it's a dog," he said lazily. "You look like competition to us, eknub. And outside these doors you're on Viper territory."

Briar scratched his head. A rude answer, even if it made him feel better, would only dig him into more trouble, not less. "The competition's all in your minds, boys," he informed them. "I'm just passing through."

The black youth met Briar's eyes. "You better be telling the truth," he cautioned. "We don't like poachers."

"Not at all," the taller boy added.

The Vipers faded into the crowd with the ease of long practice.

Briar stretched. He let his wrist knives slide back into their sheaths, and ordered the hemp ties to lock them in place again. So the nose ring and pendant meant Viper. He wondered who the black-and-white gang was, and if they knew the Vipers had claimed the streets around Golden House.

Not my headache, he realized, turning down the aisle where magical incense was sold. I've said my goodbye to gangs.

It lacked an hour to sunset when he left Golden House and turned his face toward the home he and Rosethorn had rented on the Street of Hares. Traffic was heavy now as people came inside the walls, their workday at an end. Briar dodged camels, mules, and people, briefly touching each plant that reached for him from the ground and from the windows of different houses, giving them some affection before he ordered them back to their pots or trellises. He was still thinking of that street girl.

His last stop was the small souk near home, to purchase what he needed for supper that night. He'd learned to cook in the four years he'd lived with Rosethorn, her friend Lark and the three girls, and it was a very good thing. When Rosethorn finished her day's work here, she could barely think, let alone cook. Briar had taken cover the chore completely without a comment to her.

Once most of his other purchases were made, he stopped at his favorite cookhouse for meat. Trying to choose between roasted chicken or braised mutton, he also decided to do something about the Viper who had followed him from Golden House. He'd already considered losing the other boy--had they no girls at all?--but it was too much like work. Worse, in all likelihood he would be the one to get lost in the mazes of Chammur's streets.

He picked the mutton. As the shopkeeper wrapped it, Briar watched the Viper from the corner of his eye. This made no sense. How could the Vipers be so eager to rid themselves of a stranger like Briar while the black-and-white-clothed gang strolled through Golden House as if they owned it? For that matter, why hadn't the black-and-white gang run the Vipers off? Briar had seen at least twice as many of them as there were Vipers. Moreover, his shadow was now on the territory of yet another gang, the Camelguts. Did he think the Camelguts would ignore him?

Briar knew gangs. Until Niko had transported him to Winding Circle, Briar had lived, bled, and nearly died for his gang. The Vipers weren't acting according to the rules which governed any gang's life. To Briar, it was as if the sun had risen in the north. The only reason for their behavior that made sense was that they might be new as a gang, and were looking for victories. The black-and-white gang was too big for them, but a lone foreigner was easy prey.

The shopkeeper exchanged the wrapped mutton for Briar's coins, and thanked him for his business. Briar returned the thanks, then strolled out of the neighborhood souk. Should he let the Viper tail him all the way to the house? No--he'd told them to leave him alone. Besides, these Vipers had to learn respect for other gangs.

He turned back onto the Street of Hares. Up ahead Briar could see three green-sashed Camelgut youths. They were hunkered in front of the Earth temple, pitching coppers against the wall and keeping an eye on their street. As Briar approached, one of them looked up and grinned. It was a boy he knew, Hammit.

"Hey, pahan," Hammit called, using the Chammuri word for "mage" or "teacher." "You do good work." He pointed to a cheek that was more pink than brown, the last trace of a fearsome burn he'd gotten a week ago. Briar had treated it with healing salve. "You should sell that stuff you gave me, not give it away."

Briar crouched beside Hammit, watching the game. "I do sell it," he replied absently. "I charge rich folk three times my normal price so's I can give it to anyone I've a mind to. Say, you lot know anything about a gang called Vipers?"

One of the other Camelgut boys snorted. "They're no gang," he said, his voice thick with scorn. "They're some takameri's play toy." It took Briar a moment to identify the word: it was the feminine form of the Chammuri for "money person," or rich person.

"So they go where they want?" Briar asked, all innocence. "They needn't respect Camelgut territory? Because one followed me from the souk. He's back by Cedar Lane."

Three pairs of eyes flicked in that direction: the Viper had stopped by the Cedar Lane fountain and was splashing water on his face, pretending to ignore Briar. Camelgut hands collected their coppers and tucked them into green sashes. Without another word to Briar the three rose and trotted down to Cedar Lane. The Viper was drinking from the fountain, still pretending he wasn't interested in Briar. The Camelguts were on him before he realized who they were.

Briar smiled grimly and straightened. He'd given his salve to Hammit because he'd known that burn would rot without care. In doing so, it seemed he'd bought himself a bit of insurance as well. Whistling, he walked past the Earth Temple gate and turned into the house next door.