A Gathering Of Stones

2

Maksim dressed with great care, choosing a good gray robe meant to present the image of a man moderately in coin and moderate in most other things, a third rank sorceror who could defend himself but wasn’t much of a threat. He dressed his long hair in a high knot, had Jastouk paint it with holding gel until it gleamed like black-streaked pewter, then he thrust plain silver skewers through the knot. He loaded his fingers with rings. Quiet, moderate rings. He was a man it was safe to gull a little, but dangerous to irritate too much.

He finished buffing his nails, inspected them closely, dropped his hands into his lap. “Slave auction,” he said. “Jasti, don’t come. You don’t want to see that place. Or smell it.”

Jastouk smiled and took his buffer back, replaced it in his dressing kit. “The sun shines all the brighter for a cloud or two.”

Snorting his irritation, Maksim got to his feet. He didn’t want Jastouk along, but the hetairo had evaded him all morning, refusing to hear what he didn’t mean to hear. He could order him to stay away, but he didn’t dare go that far. Should he demand obedience, Jastouk would obey-and when Maksim got back to his rooms, he’d find Vechakek waiting with a graceful note of farewell and a bill for the hetairo’s services. He wasn’t ready for that, not yet. He knew he could easily find other company, but he wanted Jastouk. The hetairo excited him. Jastouk carried an aura of free-floating promise undefined but exquisitely seductive. Maksim didn’t fool himself, it was part of a hetairo’s portfolio, that promise never fulfilled, never denied so that hope lingered even after the sundering: Someday someway 1 will find what I want, someday someway 1 will KNOW what I want. It wasn’t Jastouk and it was, it wasn’t Brann and it was, he didn’t know what it was.

The slavepens were a vast complex growing like mold over the hills south of the Great Market, apart from it, yet part of it, deplored by the genteel of Kukurul but patronized by them along with others who didn’t bother about the moral issues involved. The shyer visitors rented thin lacquer halfmasks from the dispensary just inside the portal, beast mask, bird, fantasy or abstraction, a face to show instead of the faces they wore in more respectable circumstances; the bold put on masks for the whimsy of the act or played to their vanity by separating themselves from the nameless troglodytes who bought drudges for kitchens and stables or selected more delicate fruit for the pleasure Houses. Despite a compulsive overdecoration in all the more public areas, the pens were a meld of stench and ugliness. That didn’t matter, those who came to buy didn’t notice the ugliness and ignored the wisps of stink that cut through the incense drifting about the private views and the auction room.

Carved in Twara-Teng high relief, the massive portal was intricately chased, heavily ornate, monumentally ugly. On sale days the syndics had the twin leaves of the Gate swung outward and pinned to angular dragonposts, exposing the serpentine geometries of their inner surfaces. Maksim walked past them, his nostrils twitching. He loathed this place, but was; almost pleased because its aesthetic qualities were so wonderfully suited to the acts within, as if the building and its ornamentation were designed by some heavy handed and deeply offended satirist. He paused at the dispensary and rented a falcon’s mask for Jastouk, taking a black bear’s mn771e for himself.

Masked and silent, they strolled among the cages for a while, waiting for the first sale to be called.

Jastouk was restless, uneasy. Like most of the hetairos working with Minders or from one of the established. Houses, he’d been meat in a cage like those around him when he was a child, a brown-eyed blond with skin soft and smooth as fresh cream, knowing just enough to be terrified because he had no say in who bought him or what use they made of him. But that was long ago, longer than he liked to think about. The years were pressing in on him, leaving their traces on his face and body. The day would come when Clients would ignore him for younger, fresher fare; new lovers would be hard to find, his price would drop, his standards go. He’d seen it, happen to others again and again, thinking not me, no, never. Anyway, that’s a long time off, when I’m old, I won’t be old for years and years. This place reminded him that those years were passing, each year faster than the last; it was time and more than time to begin planning, it was time and more than time to search for a lover he could stay with.

They passed a small blond boy, all eyes and elbows and numb terror.

Maksim felt the fingers on his arm tremble, caught the flicker of slitted eyes. He guessed at Jastouk’s fears and felt pain at the loss of something he’d treasured, the golden gliding invulnerability of the hetairo. Jastoulc had made several mistakes this morning, the biggest of them, underestimating the power of the buried anxieties this place would trigger, the effect they’d have on his judgment. Maksim looked at him with pity instead of lust and was saddened by that. For a moment he thought of keeping the hetairo with him now that Brann was gone and unlikely to return, but only for a moment. He was fond of Jastouk but he didn’t like him much and he certainly wasn’t in love with him; he hadn’t been in love for… how long? It seemed like centuries. It was at least decades. The last time, when was it? Certainly before he went to Cheonea. Traxerxes from Phras. The ancient ache of parting felt like pressed flowers, the shape there but all the fragrance gone. Five stormy years and more pain and fury than… faded and gone. No one after Trax. He was too busy with his little Cheonenes, trying to shape them into something… no time, no energy, nobody… Jastouk wasn’t meant for longterm anything. He was a diversion, delightful but ephemeral.

No, don’t think about it, he told himself and made a half-hearted pretense of inspecting the merchandise. Without his musings to distract him, outrage took hold, outrage and helplessness. If he were given the rule of things, he’d turn every slaver into pigmeat and lop the ears off parents who sold their children no matter what the reason. He’d outlawed slavery in Cheonea, skinned some slavers and confiscated some ships-how long that would hold he had no idea. He had to trust his farmers to keep the land clean; they were tough old roots; they had their claws on power and it’d take a lot to pry them loose. Ah well, it wasn’t his responsibility any longer.

He pulled the mask away from his face, mopped at his brow and upper lip with the lace-edged linen wipe he twitched from his sleeve. He settled the mask into place, tucked the wipe away and strolled to the back of the room. Todichi Yahzi was in none of the cages. That might mean the kwitur was part of the first lot. If so, good, he thought, the sooner I’m out of here…

Maksim set his back against the wall, smoothed a hand down the front of his robe, his stomach churning despite the calm detachment he was trying to project. Or it might mean Todich was already gone. Private sale. The dealer hadn’t planned to offer private views, but anything might have happened since last night.

Jastouk leaned against him, responding to his tension, offering warmth and support-and a voiceless warning that he was broadcasting too much emotion.

Maksim sighed and did his best to relax. He was drilled in self-control, but excess was an integral part of his power. He drew strength from riding the ragged edge of disaster. Not now, he told himself. This is not the time for power, this is the time for finesse. Forty Mortal Hells, you great lumbering fool, finesse! He blinked sweat from his eyes and swept the room with an impatient glance. It was rapidly filling up. About a third of the newcomers wore masks, some of them far too rich to be part of the Dispenser’s stock; it was early for such notables to be out, maybe that meant something, maybe it was just chance. The rest were stolid types with House Badges on dull tabards, some solitaire, some with a clutch of clerks in attendance. Maksim bent toward the smooth blond head resting against his ribs. “Tell me who’s here,” he murmured.

“Some of the masks I don’t know.” Jastouk’s whisper was a thread of sound inaudible a step away. “They don’t make the night circles, I think. Goldmask Hawk, that’s an Imperial Hand from Andurya Durat; I don’t know why he’s here now; this is a meat market. The skilled slaves go in the evening sale. Black Lacquer Beetle with the sapphire bobs, she’s Muda Paramount from the Pitna Jong Island group, that’s out in the middle of the Big Nowhere, she usually culls a girl or two from these sales, or a boychild if he’s very young and very beautiful…” The creamy murmur went on as the stage began to show signs of life. Two sweepers emerged from behind tall black velvet curtains, swung brooms in graceful arcs, almost a dance as they came together, parted, then glided out, pushing before them small heaps of dust and other debris.

“The Hina mix in gray with the Shamany Patch… um, that patch is a lie, he hired it off the Shamany; everyone knows that but goes along with it. The Shamany’s a miserable poxHouse, makes its taxcoin from those patchrents. I’ve seen him around in the dogends of morning, I think he runs a stable of child thieves; he’s probably looking for new talent…”

Three youths in black pajamas pushed a squat pillar out to the center of the stage, fitted a curving ramp onto it. The Block. Maksim shuddered, acid rising in his throat. It was over a century since he’d been present at a slave auction; it was two hundred and seventy-one years since he himself had been sold in one. The sight of it still made him want to vomit. As more sceneshifters brought in the Caller’s Lectern and a cage that glittered like silver in the harsh light, he forced himself to listen to Jastouk.

“Rinta House, Gashturmteh, Aldohza, Yeshamm, all solitaire reps, they don’t look like they’re expecting much… um, BlackHouse is here, that’s why. Not a good idea to bid too often against BlackHouse, bad things happen to you.” Jastouk shuddered, his body rubbing against Maksim’s.

The Caller came onstage and stood behind his Lectern, holding his hardwood rod a handspan above the sounder. He looked out across the milling crowd, then he hammered twice for attention, the harsh clacks breaking through the buzz of conversation, pulling those still drifting among the cages onto the auction floor. Maksim stepped away from the wall and onto the floor though he stayed at the back of the bidders. His size was an embarrassment sometimes, an advantage here. He couldn’t be overlooked. He folded his arms across his broad chest and waited.

The first offerings were brought out to warm up the crowd and get them bidding, two half-grown males and a middle-aged woman; they went to clerks looking for muscle and a reasonable degree of health.

“We have several items fresh in from the South; the first is a healthy boy said to be Summerborn and in his sixth year.” The Caller tapped lightly with his sounding rod. A Hina girl led a small M’darjin boy from behind the curtains, walked him up the ramp and whispered commands to him from behind the pillar, making him turn and posture, open his mouth and show his teeth, go through the ritual of offering himself for sale. He was frightened and awkward, but already he’d learned to keep silence and obey his handlers.

Blind unreasoning rage shook Maksim, rattled in his throat. Without warning he was that boy on the Block; all the intervening years were wiped away, his control was wiped away; another instant and he might have destroyed half of Kukurul in his fury before he was himself destroyed by the forces that guarded the city.

A short sharp pain stabbed through the haze, came again and again; Jastouk had read him and reacted without thought or hesitation. He had a come-along hold on Maksim’s hand, he was squeezing and pressing on it, generating such agony that it brought Maksim out of his fit, sweating and cursing under his breath.

“Bid,” Jastouk whispered urgently. There was a faint film of sweat on his skin, a frantic, half-mad glare in his eyes. “If you want him, bid.” He began massaging the hand he’d mistreated, still disturbed, his eyes half-closed, his breathing a rapid shallow pant.

“Could’ve been me,” Maksim muttered.

“No. Stupid ordinary little git. Not you.”

Maksim managed an unsteady chuckle. “I was a stupid ordinary little git, Jasti.”

Jastouk shook his head in stubborn disagreement, but he said nothing.

The caller had already taken a few bids, starting low, six coppers; he worked that up to thirty coppers, coaxing small increments out of the motley group on the floor. All the boy offered was his youth; he wasn’t especially charming or quick and the Caller continued noncommittal about his talents.

The BlackHouse Rep held up five fingers. Fifty coppers.

That jolted Maksim out of his brooding. He lifted both hands, showed six fingers. Though he’d recovered from that first shock of identification, he could not possibly let that boy go to BlackHouse; there was only one use they had for a child that age; it made him sick thinking about it.

The Rep looked around, scowling. Once they declared interest in an item, they weren’t used to being challenged. He thought a moment, showed six fingers straight and a seventh bent. Sixty-five coppers.

Maksim showed eight.

The Rep looked at him a long moment, looked at the boy, shrugged and let the bid stand. Small coltish boys with no special charm or talent were no rarity and he wouldn’t be reprimanded for letting this one go elsewhere.

There being no other bids, the Caller hammered the boy to Maksim and the Hina girl led him off. He’d be held in the back until Maksim brought the coin to pay the bid and the tag-fee.

Another boy was brought out, older this time, a stocky freckled youth with a long torso and short legs. “Journeyman gardener,” the Caller announced and the bidding started again.

Maksim was annoyed at his loss of control, annoyed at circumstances, Fate, whatever, forcing his hand. What do I do with him? Send him home? Chances are it was his own family sold him to some traveling slaver. Complicating my life. I certainly don’t need complications, it’s bad enough now, what with Jastouk and his needs and Bramble with those devilkids she dotes on and Kari coming out of school; I’ve got to leave for Silili soon if I want to be in time to catch her before she starts home. And now there’s old Todich, gods know how much he’s going to cost me. Signs. All these signs. A closure coming. An era pinched off. Turn of the Wheel. I damn well better get myself in order or that Wheel will roll right over me. Offering to the Juggernaut, smashed meat.

As the bidding continued around him and Jastouk grew restless and unhappy at being ignored, Maksim brooded over the Signs. Sad, sad, sad. Melancholy like the dead leaves eddying around their feet when they came down from the Inn. The boy, what did he mean? Was he setting free his baby self so he could move to true maturity? What was maturity to someone like him who could extend his life as long as he was interested in living? Was it the willingness to let go, to die? He thought about death with a curious lack of emotion. To this point he’d fought death with everything he had in him, fought death and won-with Brann’s help. Brann was gone. He thought about that. Odd feeling. Like an arm hacked off. Todich. A thread dangling from his past. Tie it off. Send him home. I owe Todich passage home or I’m no better than BlackHouse or old king Noshios I kicked out of Silagamatys. It was a debt he had to pay, a payment he’d put off far too long. It was going to cost. No more BinYAHtii to carry the load. Cost doesn’t matter. Ah well…

Todichi Yahzi was brought on at the tail of the lot.

“Here we have an exotic item, looks like a cross between a macaque and some sort of giant bug. It can talk a little and understand what you tell it. Our readers have checked it over and it’s no demon, so you don’t have to worry about waking up turned into a toad…” The Caller chattered on, trying to stir up some interest as the handlers prodded the kwitur up the ramp and got him to crouch on the Block facing the audience. They poked at him, cursed him in angry hisses, but gave over their efforts at a sign from the Caller who didn’t want his lack of spirit to become too apparent.

Maksim waited a moment. No other bids, bless Tungjii Luck. He thought it over, then he lifted a fist, opened up four fingers. Forty coppers. There was some stir in the others on the floor, but no more offers, no matter how cleverly the Caller wheedled them. Finally he gave up and hammered the kwitur to Maksim.

Maksim smoothed his fingers along the nape of Jastouk’s neck. “Let’s go,” he said.

“That’s it? It’s that thing you came for?”

“Are you coming?”

“No. I think not.”

“I’ll see you tonight, then.”

“Perhaps.”

Maksim thought about coaxing him into a better humor. After a minute he decided better not. If it was ending, let it end.