A Gathering Of Stones

14

“Trithil Esmoon.” She came through the door with a sussurous of whisper silks. Despite the play she made at concealment, a narrow serpent mask across her eyes, she was immediately and astonishingly beautiful. Despite that mask, she was not Arsuider. No Arsuider had eyes of that deep smoky blue or hair fine and white as spidersilk; it was combed back and to one side, flowing in long shimmering waves to her waist. Her skin was cream velvet, delicately pink about the cheekbones. Her wrists were pencil thin, her hands small and tapering. She wore a simple robe that slanted from her shoulders to a fullness about her feet; it was made of layer on layer of transparent blue silks that shifted across each other with every movement, every breath she took; her body was a hint of darker blue beneath them, slender with round full breasts and a tiny waist; the sleeves were tubes, the upper edge open and falling away in swags from silver tacks, gathered at the wrists into silver bracelets. She wore silver and sapphire earrings as long and heavy as a Panday shipmaster’s ear dangle and on her unloved hand had silver and sapphire rings on every finger plus her thumb; most of the sapphires were faceted and glittered bluely when she moved her hand, but the thumb ring was cabuchon cut, a mounded oval, a star in its heart. Her slippers and glove were silver, her perfume subtle as the shift of blues in her robe. She smiled at Danny Blue, held out her gloved hand, the glove being a guarantee the hand was safe to take.

Since she seemed to expect it, Danny took the hand, bowed over it. She was a piece all right, artificial as a wax flower, advertising her pliancy to his needs with every move, every twitch of an eyelash. He thought he disliked her pretentions and was put off by her profession. Half-sire Daniel disapproved of prostitution; besides, he’d never needed to buy women. They liked him. He drifted in and out of their lives as easily as he drifted in and out of his jobs. Half-sire Ahzurdan was ambivalent about women at the best of times, which these most decidedly weren’t; his sex life was mostly imaginary, taking place in the heroic fantasies he experienced during his dust orgies.

Then Trithil’s perfume hit Danny and he wasn’t so sure what he thought of her.

He straightened, led her to the bed and lent his arm as she sank gracefully onto the quilts and sat there with her little hands laced together, half-hidden in the folds of her draperies. When he turned, Felsrawg was looking as if she’d been carved out of hot ice into a personification of indignation and disgust. Simms screwed up his face and panted like a dog, tongue lolling, then relapsed to idiot.

Danny Blue went back to leaning against the wall; he crossed his arms and scowled at two-thirds of his strike force. “You’re a pair, you are. Insolent, impudent and smarter than any three like me, right?” He spoke with weary impatience and a deep-down anger he wasn’t about to surface, not now anyway. “Insubordinate because you earned it, right? Individualists who aren’t about to take orders from me or anyone else, right?” He yawned. “I know you, see? I’ve been you. Nothing you can show me I haven’t done already and done better. I don’t give a handful of hot shit for any of your games. It comes down to this, my friends, we’ve got four months to do a job. We bring it off or we die. I’m not going to waste time tickling your vanities. Either you help or you hinder. If you hinder, you’re out. Now or later.” He moved his eyes from Felsrawg to Simms to Trithil, then fixed on Simms. “What I say now, you better believe. I don’t need any of you. You’re in this because the ones working this scam figure you can be useful. And you’re here because they don’t trust me farther than they can spit, they figure poison isn’t enough of a hold on me. Well, I intend to survive. I’m good at surviving. Just remember that.”

Felsrawg simmered; Simms looks stupider; Trithil smiled slowly and fixed her blue blue eyes on him as if she couldn’t bear to look away.

“Right, I can see how impressed you are. Did they tell you what we’re going after?”

Simms rubbed a long spatulate thumb over his wrist, a gesture Danny recognized; he’d been doing the same thing since Pawbool injected the poison into him. “They say come here.” He sounded as if he were speaking through a yawn, letting the words fall out of his mouth. “They say back up him I found here any way I c’d. They say when he gets sa thing, steal it an’ bring it back. Nobody bother sayin’ what IT is.”

Felsrawg stirred. She glanced at Simms, very unhappy at his singsong discourse. Which told Danny more than words would about the man and his talents. “Same with me,” she said finally. “I told you that, remember? And you said something about a talisman.”

Danny turned to Trithil, raised his brows. She didn’t have anything to contribute but the graceful lift and fall of her breasts. He looked hastily away, ignored Felsrawg’s muttered insults. “We’re going to Hennkensikee,” he said. “We’re going to steal Klukeshama.”

“Broont! We’re dead.” A flicker of Felsrawg’s hands and she was holding twin stilettos, the blades needle-fine, hardly longer than her middle finger and coated with a dark gummy substance. “I swear, before I’m dead, they are.”

Simms sat placid as a milk pudding with cinnamon trim. “Sorceror?”

“Not the one they think I am, but yes, a sorceror.”

“Not a prime.”

“Too true. Poo the Boob caught me hopping, it’s not something I’m proud of, but there it is.” He glanced down at the scabbed pinpricks on his wrist, grimaced. “I’m not asleep now. For what that’s worth. Make up your minds, the three of you. In or out?”

Simms’ eyes dropped completely shut. “In,” he said. “Long as you stay awake.”

“In.” It was a liquid murmur, promise of delight, all that in one tiny syllable. Trithil reached up, smoothed the hair back from her face, her rings glittering.

“In,” Felsrawg said, biting off the tail of the word as if she’d like to bite something else. She looked down at the knives, slipped them back into their sheaths. “What choice have we got?”

“You got a choice, Felsrawg. Enthusiasm or out.”

“In. In! IN!”

“Now that that’s done, I need to know what you all do best. I’m a whiz with wards, I can tease the densest knot open without a whisper and throw a knot of my own that only two people I know can undo. But there’s bound to be more involved than wards. Poo tells me the Wokolinka uses witches and the local god to run her security. Which is not good news, witches tap into earth forces I can’t touch; that means traps. And a god even a local one is always trouble. Which you know as well as me.” He tapped a forefinger on the wrist where Pawbool had sunk his ringfangs. “Any of you been to Hennkensikee?”

“Not me.” Felsrawg leaned forward, her interest caught at last. “I do locks. All kinds of locks. Walls. I’m good at walls. Blowpipes and sleep powders, nobody’s ever sneezed when I puff the powder in. That happens, you know, if you’re sloppy. It can embarrass the hell out of you because they wake up.” She was sparkling, almost laughing; apparently she’d decided to lay her resentment aside and treat the problem as a challenge. “I know metals, if that helps. And I’d be a lot more useful if I had my keys and files and picks and the rest of my kit. The ‘staffel took it away and haven’t give it back which seems rather stupid, considering.”

“Agreed. I’ll have a talk with Poo and see if we can fix that.”

Simms yawned, blinked slowly. “Get ‘m to gi’ me mine too;” he murmured. He ruffled his spiky hair, smiled sleepily at Danny. “Like li’l Felsa there, ‘m a born and bred Arsuider. N’er stuck my nose outside the place. No point in it. I know silks, yeh, like to know why y’ wan’ to know that, don’ seem connect t’ Kluk’shar’. Want me t’ brag a bit, ‘m the only thief ‘round better’n Felsa at ticklin’ locks.” Another sleepy smile, this time directed toward Felsrawg. “She w’d argue that, but tis true. Got ‘nother talent. Talk t’ rocks.”

“What?”

“Not so dumb as it sounds. I’m a Reader. Rocks chatter like ol’ Grannas if you know how to tickle ‘em. An’ I’m good with ghosts. Be s’prised what they tell you ‘bout their folks. Just ‘bout all ghosts hangin’ round thick ‘nough to talk got a grudge. 01’ grandfa once take me right to a abdit full of pretties. Bein’ lazy, I’m a patient man, I like to know all I can find out ‘bout a place ‘fore I go in. I’m good at piecin’ too. Bit here, bit there, you know. Drawin’ plans. That sorta thing.” He stopped talking, having said all he meant to say.

“I know Hennkensikee,” Trithil said quietly.

Danny Blue turned to her, startled. She’d shut off the hithery and lost her gloss. She was still beautiful, that was in the bone, but she’d added at least ten years and subtracted most of the life from face and eyes.

“I know grades and prices,” she said. “Pawbool said you wanted in as a trader, I can handle that for you. And I can get information for you.” There was an unreadable look in her eyes, animal eyes with nothing back of them, now that he paid more notice to them. “Man or woman, both find me pleasing. And if that fails, I have certain potions that loosen tongues or do other things you might find useful.” She didn’t so much stop speaking as let words drift away from her.

Danny Blue frowned, wondering about her. His half-sires stirred in him, equally uneasy.

*Maybe she’s on something and it just let her down,* the Daniel phasma muttered. *How much can you trust what she’s telling you?*

*I don’t like her,* the Ahzurdan phasma said. *I don’t trust her. I don’t think she’s what she seems. Maybe she’s a demon of some kind. I don’t smell demon on her, but there’s something…*

*Can you watch her?*

Sense of shrugging. The Ahzurdan phasma brooded a moment. *If you watch her, we see her. Otherwise not.*

*Well, do what you can. I have to get on with this.* Aloud, he said, “Just a few things for now. We can talk more on the way there. Are there many Arsuiders in Hennkensikee?”

After waiting a moment for the others to answer, Trithil said, “No.”

“Why? There has to be trade moving along the river.”

“Not as much as you might think. The Lewinkob are suspicious of the South. They prefer to deal with the caravans that come in from the east.” She spoke in a marshmallow monotone that he had to strain to hear; she was passive, almost inert, giving out information like a robot. “Most of the Hennkensikee silk leaves that way, that’s why it’s called the Silk Road.” She glanced briefly at him, looked down again, eyes fixed on the toes of her silver slippers. “They are more than suspicious really, they hate the South; they call the disputed land between the two domains the Bloody Fields. There have been raids across the Bloody Fields since before the cities were. And wars. Seven bloody wars,

Dirgeland against the Tribes. No. Arsuiders are not welcome in Hennkensikee.”

“Would the local noses be able to sniff them out?” He waved a hand at Felsrawg and Simms. “If we stuffed them into normal clothes.”

“Probably not, as long as they use the kevrynyel tradespeech even in private and forget they know the Dirgefoth.” She looked distantly at the others. “Trade is blood in Hennkensikee. Blood can blind.”

Danny pulled his hand across his mouth. “I can’t hear an accent in your kevrynyel, I can in theirs.” He nodded at Felsrawg and Simms. “Heavy. What about that?”

“Traders come from everywhere to buy the silks, especially this time of year. They all speak the kevrynyel. They all have accents. One accent merges with the others.”

“How much of a background will we need? What I mean is, how many questions are we going to have to answer?”

“None or too many.”

“I see. The personas have to be fleshed before we come near the city.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Simms, ever heard of a place called Croaldhu?”

“Neh.”

“Island off the east coast, about twelve days sail from Silili. You know Silili?”

“Who don’?”

“Let’s do this. Your family left Croaldhu for reasons of their own and your grandfa or gre’grandfa, something like that, set up as merchant in Silili, hmm… how old are you?”

“Chwart.”

“I take it that means old enough.”

Simms grinned sleepily at him.

“All right. We’ll say you’re a third son, rambling about looking up new possibilities for the family business. You signed on with me because I said I’d get you into Hennkensikee. That’s the heart of it; we can set the details later. Any questions? objections? whatever?”

“Why Croaldhu?”

“You have the look. Or would in what the rest of the world calls clothes. I’m half-Phrasi by birth, shouldn’t be any problem with that. Trithil?”

‘No.”

“Felsrawg?”

“Tell me, o master, what’s you got for WI me?”

“Got any preferences?”

She shrugged, slipped a throwing knife from her boot and began flipping it and catching it.

He watched it loop lazily through the air, nodded. “Know anything about the Matamulli?”

She caught the knife, held it, looked at him from narrowed eyes. “That a joke?”

“Neh, assassin. They’re Southrons; they claim the Mulimawey Mountains beyond M’darj.” He rubbed at his nose, inspected her. “You could pass with some rearrangement here and there.” She didn’t want any part of that, he could feel her resisting. “The men are the homebodies; they farm, care for the herds. The women hunt and trap and do most of the trading. Very independent lot they are, too.” Felsrawg flipped the knife again, caught it, flipped it. There was time left and Danny was willing to spend it persuading her; if time ran out and she was still fighting him, he’d cut her loose; it didn’t matter how loud Poo yelled. “What’s useful for us is this, before they settle down with a husband or two, younger daughters generally go outland to make a dowry for themselves since they don’t have land.” He pointed at the knife. “They carry half a dozen of those and can split a mosquito at thirty paces.”

“That all?”

“All for now. Make up your mind.”

“Enthusiasm or out?”

“Yep. Ground rules.”

“I hear you. Just call me Matti. When do we go?”

“If Poo doesn’t drag his feet, by the end of the week.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Wait here, the three of you, if you don’t mind; Poo sent over some charts, I’d like to get your ideas on them.”