Wild Magic

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The head drummer cupped his hands and beat a steady, monotonous toom toom toom toom…

Reyna looked up. The room was clearing rapidly. The Sriklcar’s slaves were hauling the last of the drunk and drugged up the stairs to the bedrooms. Dawa was nowhere in sight; likely he’d picked up an all-nighter with someone, even now he usually managed that. Jea was sitting at a table, a melancholy curve over the remnants of a drink, paying no attention to what was happening around him. “They’re closing. I have to go.”

“I want to see you. You haven’t told me your name.”

“Better not. I’m not what you think, young friend. I’m Salagaum not habatrize.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Ah.” Reyna got his feet. “I see. Let me tell you this. Find yourself a young habatrize, a pretty girl more your age. Ask her what a Salagaum is and she’ll tell you. It will come better from her. Easier. No, let me go. I have… enjoyed… listening to you.” He bent, touched the Mal’s shoulder briefly, then straightened. “Quiet shared is a blessing these days. Stay there. Please.” Without looking around, Reyna crossed the room to Jea.

They went out together, moving in weary tandem.

In the changing closet by the front door, Jea unbuckled his belt, curled it up, and dropped it in the cloth shoulderbag. “What was all that with the leatherman? Thlky-talk and no action, hmm?”

“Innocent murderer,” Reyna said. He unlaced his sandals, worked his toes. “What a night. Abey’s Sting, I’ve got enough k’pa in my gullet to… well, never mind. He doesn’t know what a Salagaum is, would you believe? Funny, you wouldn’t think it would be my feet giving me miseries.”

Jea pulled on his trousers, twitched the laces tight. “king it on?”

“I don’t think so.” Reyna shrugged out of his robe, rubbed his hands across his breasts. “Chumvay’s Nuh’m, one of them had more teeth than a waterhog.” He pulled a shirt over his head without bothering to undo the buttons.

“No breastband?”

“Tho sore.”

“How’d the leatherman manage to stay that ignorant?”

“In training for a Hero, I think. Vigils and fasts, you know.” Reyna wiggled his toes again, sighed and pulled on his boots. “I think he started a pash on me. Wish we could afford a chair, the way home gets longer every time.”

“Hmp.” Jea took down his hooded cloak, swung it around his shoulders. “Well, pash or no, I have a feeling the less you see of that one, the better off we’ll all be.”