A Gathering Of Stones

16

She progressed across the plain. There was no other word for it. She was a rolling storm of magic accompanied by demons, delivering fresh meat to the hostels, fruit and fish; she was a cornucopia of good things and generous with them, trading meat for stable space and sleeping room, leaving more always than she bargained with. One mancat after another came to her, hunted for her and himself, played with her, teased her, took pleasure in this other place, gave way to the next mancat and that one to the next, each one of them grinning that terrifying tender toothy grin, each one of them full of good humor and delight.

Tre came. “What are you doing?” he shouted at her. “What are you doing? Stop it. You’re asking for trouble. You’re asking to be challenged. Stop it. What are you doing?”

She waited until he ran down. “I’m saving coin and staying healthy. You want me to stop? Fund me, Tre. I’m spending my Passage gift for you, I’ve probably lost my chance to apprentice to Maksim. Either bring me some coin or leave me to do this my way.”

The eidolon shivered, anger flared around her, brushing against her skin like nettle leaves, burning. Then with an almost tangible, almost audible pop, her brother’s eidolon vanished. She trembled. After a few moments of nausea that had nothing to do with mornin^g sickness, she started crying. There was an aching emptiness inside where her love for her brother had been. She hadn’t stopped loving the boy she knew once, but he was gone. Whoever it was caught in crystal was not her brother. Not any more.

Dil Jorpashil.

Korimenei stopped to buy tea and trailfood and look around the city, relishing the Market with its noise, its cacophany of color and smell; it reminded her of the Market at Silili and she was brushed with a pleasant melancholy at the thought. Already her days at school seemed as if they’d happened to someone else in another lifetime and they’d taken on the golden patina of nostalgia.

The day she left, while she waited on a ferry landing for a riverboat to pass, heading south, she saw a woman standing at the rail looking back at the city, a widow in black robes with a small M’darjin page at her side. Drinker of Souls, Korimenei thought, startled. I wonder what she’s doing here? She didn’t know how she knew who the woman washer hair was black, her face was different-but she did. She watched the boat glide away and thought she’d know the feel of that woman anywhere, whatever face or shape she wore. Drinker of Souls. Hmm.

The ferryman wound his cable from the water, rang his bell. Along with some noisy grassclanners from the south who were heading home after a hectic time in the city, she led her ponies onto the flat. She stood between the two beasts, trying to ignore the nomads; they were young and randy, on the loose and apt to see a stray female as fair game.

When the ferry reached the far side, she let them ride off ahead of her. When she came off, they were waiting. She put on an ASPECT, was suddenly twelve feet tall with world-class warts and fangs that curved down past her chin. They took off, screaming. Amused and rather pleased with herself, she led the ponies past the stubby pillars that marked the resumption of the Silk Road, mounted and rode toward the Dhia Asatas, the daughters of the setting sun, invisible now behind a shroud of the thick gray clouds.

IV: Danny Blue

Having been trapped by a cabal of Dirge Arsuiders, injected with poison and ordered to bring back the Talisman Klukeshama in return for the antidote to the poison, Danny Blue and the back-up help (two thieves and a courtesan) provided by the Arsuid Ystaffel climbed aboard the riverboat Pisgaloy and started for Hennkensikee.

At sunrise on the fifth day after she left Dirge Arsuid, the riverboat Pisgaloy rounded a long low knoll that was thick with mighty millenarian oaks and pointed her nose at Hennkensikee on the island cluster half a mile out in Lake Patinkaya. The sun was gilding the pointed roofs and the walls dissolved in glitters reflecting off water hard and bright as knife blades. The Pisgaloy leaned into the uncertain wind and clawed her way up the last stretch of free water.

Hennkensikee was tall and toothy, built of red brick fired from clay taken eons ago from the banks of the north rim of the lake. The ovens that fired the bricks were abandoned when the job was done; these days they were pits like pocks with snag-tooth beams poking through thistles and nettles and ragweed; the city witches went hunting herbs around there because they had ten times the potency of those picked elsewhere. In the days when the pits were roaring with the kiln fires, the god Coquoquin took the bricks and laid the walls of Hennkensikee, the towering curtain wall and the needle towers within, weaving the courses into complex, continually changing patterns, a subtle dance of design across all the surfaces, invisible at any great distance, meant to please eyes and fingertips simultaneously. She built and watched over a city of subtleties, of fountains playing in hidden, courtyards, glimpsed through a confusion of arches or heard but not seen, of faces behind screens of wood and ivory, of layered fragrances from incense burned at every door. A city of patterns but no color, the brick was dull, the wood stained dark; the figures moving unhurriedly though the narrow winding streets wore black wrappings, rectangles of cloth wound about and about their bodies, a second, shorter rectangle rope-anchored to the Lewinkob long heads, male and female alike, falling like shrouds about squat Lewinkob bodies.

The Pisgaloy circled carefully wide about the island group and crept up to the end of a pier that extended like a finger into the Lake. A motley collection, all sizes, shapes and genders, the passengers went streaming off with their packs of tradegoods or sacks of coin. Danny Blue and his associates came ashore in the middle of the flood, joined the line formed up at the gate and waited for the Wokolinka’s inspectors to let them into the city.

Trithil Esmoon was draped in the robes and embroidered veil of a Phrasi courtesan, not all that different from what she wore in Arsuid. Simms was nondescript in a new way, hair brushed back flat against his skull, his clothing a mix of dark grays and black; the colors suited him better than the reds and pinks he favored when not working, but nothing could make him handsome.

Felsrawg was enjoying herself. She looked fierce enough to slaughter a regiment of rapists. Her black hair was pulled up tight to the top of her head except for three earlocks on each side of her face; it was twisted into a spiral knot that added several inches to her height. Twin gold skewers with animal heads for knobs were driven through that knot and rose like horns above it. She’d replaced her earstuds with long gold arrowpoints on gold rings; they danced with every move of her head. A black leather tunic was laced tight to her slim body over a white silk blouse with long loose sleeves that hid her knives; with this she wore a narrow black leather skirt slit to the hip on the left side and black leather boots with razor-edged spurs strapped to them.

“Tirpa Lazul, Trader, out of Bandrabahr, come for the silk sale,” Danny told the beard behind the table. “My associates,” he waved a hand at the others. “The hanoum Hays, also Phrasi, companion. Hok Werpiaka, trader’s son, out of Silili, traveling to learn the markets.”

“He’s not Hina.”

“No. Croaldhese. His family moved to Silili for… hmm… political reasons some generations back. The other is Second Daughter Azgin kab’la Savash, Matamulli up from the Southland to earn her dowry.”

“Looks like she’s wearing part of it.”

“You got it.”

“One taqin each, any silver coin will do, provided it weighs at least five tunts. Drop them in the pan. Good.” He emptied the coins from the balance pan into a leather box, pushed four wooden plaques across the table. “Keep these on you at all times. Be quick to show them if a S’sup asks to see them. Curb all uncouth behavior in the streets or elsewhere, except in the taverns. We are not barbarians, we realize our visitors need relaxation. However, this must be kept within limits and inside where it will not offend our eyes. Exceed those limits or provide reason for a complaint against you, and you will be warned first, then fined, then ejected. There is no appeal from a Tsi-tolok’s judgment. Have you questions? No? Good. You may pass.”