Abengoni

by Charles R. Saunders

  Kyroun had ordered the overhaul, as was his right since he owned the vessel. Had the Seer not done so, Muldure would have asked him to. He could not have borne to see a seacraft remain so badly damaged, even if it didn’t belong to him.

  The work had gone well thus far. With the help of Matile carpenters, his diminished crew had re-planked the hole the collision with the wharf had punched into the ship’s hull. The broken mast had been replaced, and the Matile had provided new rope to replace snapped rigging. The Matile were also weaving new sails to replace the ones that had been ripped apart when Kyroun’s sorcerous shield could no longer hold back the storm.

  Muldure marveled yet again at the Matiles’ generosity. In his time, he had sailed to more than a few places in which the inhabitants would have gleefully looted the crippled White Gull and sold its passengers and crew into slavery. At the very least, the “hosts” would have demanded goods, money, or unpaid labor in exchange for their hospitality. The newcomers’ lives would have been in peril at almost every moment.

  But not with the Seer aboard, he thought. Not with the power he possesses ....

  He suppressed a shudder, then berated himself for the discomfort that even thinking about the Seer still aroused within him. He remembered their first meeting on the Fiadol waterfront, and the way Kyroun had almost compelled Muldure to join in a venture at which he would ordinarily have laughed loud and long. And he suppressed another shudder.

  Lyann stirred, as if in response to Muldure’s tension. Then she opened her eyes and sat up. As she raked a hand through her tangled yellow hair, the single sheet fell away from her tanned, sinewy body. Like Muldure, she was not wearing any clothing. Catlike, she stretched, back arching and breasts pushing forward.

  Then she looked down at Muldure, saw that he was awake, and smiled. He smiled back at her.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  Lyann widened her eyes in mock concern.

  “Uh-oh; we’re in trouble now,” she said.

  Muldure laughed and pulled her down to him, trapping her in his arms. They wrestled playfully for a few moments, then kissed deeply. After a while, Lyann pulled away and looked into his eyes. The expression on her face was serious now.

  “What is it you’re thinking?” she asked.

  “The repairs are almost done,” he said.

  Lyann waited, knowing there was more on his mind.

  “Kyroun’s voyage was successful. He has found his so-called homeland. The Believers are happy here. And ... no one has tried to kill us.”

  “So?” she asked.

  “So why does Kyroun want the ship repaired? What does he need it for, if the voyage has ended to his satisfaction?”

  Lyann had no answer to those questions. She made the only response she could think of: a shrug of her shoulders and a roll of her eyes.

  “I’ll tell you something, Lyann,” Muldure said then. “This ship ought to be ours.”

  Lyann slid away from him, drew her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms in front of her sheet-covered shins. Her expression showed her reaction to what Muldure had said: Oh no. Not again.

  “Kyroun might not see it that way,” she said in a level tone.

  “He owes us,” Muldure insisted. “He owes us for the lives of everyone who died on this ship – and the Swordfish.”

  Lyann looked at him. She was experiencing a familiar, sinking feeling.

  She had known Muldure for more than a decade. At sea, in a fight, or in bed, she would rather have him at her side than anyone else she had ever known. But she was well aware that when Muldure was not involved in direct action that required all his resources, both physical and mental, he was prone to self-destructive lapses in judgment.

  She remembered his foolhardy venture into privateering. When her attempts to talk him out of it proved unsuccessful, she had joined him in the enterprise and shared his disgrace when disaster struck, as she had known it would. And she had stayed with him through the bitter consequences, as well as the seemingly suicidal venture the madman known as the Seer of Almovaar had proposed.

  Luck, superb seamanship, and Kyroun’s sorcery had carried them through the Sea of Storms. The decision to transport the Almovaads had not been difficult. Landbound by decree, Muldure was dying by inches. It was far better for him to go out gloriously at sea with a deck under his feet. Lyann had been prepared to die with him then. But now ...

  “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” she asked.

  Muldure sat up, his bare shoulder brushing hers.

  “Do you really want to stay here?” he asked, deflecting her question.

  “Why not?” she replied. “The Ma-teel couldn’t treat us any better. When was the last time you ever saw anyone being this accommodating to strangers?”

  “True. But this city is dying around them. I can see it. I can feel it.”

  “Kyroun thinks he can bring the place back to life.”

  “Maybe he can. But I don’t want to stay around to find out.”

  Lyann looked at him without speaking. She didn’t have to say anything to convey her mood, which was worsening by the moment. Finally, Muldure sighed.

  “All right, Lyann,” he said. “I’m just thinking now. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  Lyann laughed.

  “When have I heard that before?” she said.

  Then she kissed him deeply, rose from the bed and padded naked to the privy that was closed off from the rest of the cabin. The light from the porthole picked out the long scar a sword-slash had etched across her back years ago.

  Muldure had killed the man who inflicted that wound. Lyann had been part of his life ever since, first as a grateful friend, then as a lover.

  Throwing the sheet aside, Muldure swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. There was work to be done. Muldure was still determined to learn the purpose of the repairs. However, a reckoning with Kyroun would have to come once that work was done.

  3

  Even in the glare of the noonday sun, the Tokoloshe embassy appeared only slightly less sinister than it did in night’s darkness. The monoliths, the squat, cubical building and the barren grounds were all a uniform shade of gray, as though all other colors had been leached away from them long ago.

  From the outside, it was difficult to imagine that anyone could – or would even want to – reside in the grim edifice, which was devoid of any sign of an entrance. It was as though a god or giant had sculpted a perfect cube of granite, put it down, and walked away, never returning to retrieve it.

  Life itself seemed unwelcome in this forbidding place. Yet inside and underground, the Tokoloshes’ domain teemed with activity.

  Pale light suffused the interior of the embassy. The torches in the walls were not burning; the light was cast from incandescent balls that floated among the stalactites hanging from the roof. These spheres did not serve as receptacles for disembodied faces from the Tokoloshe homeland; illumination was their only purpose.

  In the main hall, a feast was underway. The Tokoloshes’ guests were the Dwarven people from the White Gull. Similar feasts had been held almost every day since the outlanders’ ship had appeared out of the mist. For the Dwarven, it was as though they had already entered the paradise the Seer said awaited all Almovaads after they died. Some dwarves had joined the new religion; others had not. But all, Believers and non-Believers alike, took part in the revelries their hosts provided.

  The main table was laden with plates heaped high with meat – mostly beef and quagga, but also wild game, including buffalo, zebra and elephant. The Tokoloshe had quickly learned that the dwarves shared their taste for well-cooked meat, as well as hearty appetites that belied their short stature. Along with the meat, the guests quaffed talla and kef from stone cups.

  Tokoloshe women, who were never seen outside the embassy, kept the dwarves’ plates and cups filled. Their squat bodies were scantily clad, and beads bedecked their long, frizzy hair. They did not ap
pear to mind the way the visitors’ hands wandered across their bodies while the food was being served. Indeed, the Tokoloshe men encouraged their guests to take such liberties.

  A drumbeat boomed through the hall: slow, steady, unchanging, with none of the elaborate rhythms favored by humans. The slow, steady beat was familiar to the Fidi Dwarven. But never before had they seen a drum like the one the Tokoloshe musician played.

  Hewn from the trunk of a massive tree, the instrument stood on four legs anchored by feet in Tokoloshe shape. At each end of the drum, a Tokoloshe face had been carved. A narrow slot ran down the top of the instrument. The drummer pounded out his hypnotic beat with sticks as thick as a bull’s leg bone. In the dim light cast by the spheres, the legs and face of the drum sometimes appeared to move.

  Rumundulu looked at the dwarf who sat in the place of honor next to him. Although they were still learning each other’s languages, he had discovered much about the outlander, whose name was Hulm Stonefist. And he had found out even more about Hulm’s people.

  He learned that they preferred to dwell under the ground in caverns and tunnels, as did the Tokoloshe. He learned that while they were not immortal, the dwarves were much longer-lived than humans – as were the Tokoloshe. He learned that the newcomers valued plain stone above gems and precious metals – as did the Tokoloshe.

  But there were also differences ... differences that ran deeper than the shade of the two peoples’ complexions.

  All Tokoloshe were born with the potential to perform sorcery. Some possessed greater abilities than others, but the gift was present in all. It was an advantage that offset the numerical superiority of the humans during their long history together.

  Among the Dwarven people of Cym Dinath, however, magical talent rarely appeared, and was seldom nurtured when it did. However, Rumundulu was inclined to believe the dwarves’ capacities were latent rather than absent, needing only stimulation and tutelage to blossom.

  The other difference lay in the dwarves’ fertility. While not nearly as prolific as the fecund humans, the Dwarven birth rate greatly exceeded that of the Tokoloshe. And the Tokoloshe found that fact to be of great interest indeed.

  A Tokoloshe woman poured talla into Hulm Stonefist’s cup. Her breasts brushed against his shoulder as she bent to serve him. Hulm’s eyes were drawn to the tuft of hair that grew in the cleft between them – a sight that was stimulating to Tokoloshes and Dwarven alike.

  The woman smiled at Hulm as she walked away. And she exchanged a secret glance with Rumundulu – an acknowledgement of the promise she and the other women had made when the Tokoloshe became aware of the existence of others of their kind.

  Rumundulu drank deeply. His talla did not contain the ingredient that had been added to what the dwarves were quaffing. The ingredient was by no means harmful; its purpose was merely to increase the concupiscence the Tokoloshes’ guests were already experiencing.

  “She likes you, my friend,” Rumundulu said.

  “I know,” Hulm said, a broad grin splitting his face.

  He took another swallow, and his eyes tracked the woman as she made her way across the room. Rumundulu’s elbow nudged him with enough force to have knocked a human off the bench. Hulm merely grinned even wider as he rose and followed the woman as she walked through a door that led to another, darkened chamber.

  Behind him, the Tokoloshe smiled knowingly.

  4

  Under the diffuse illumination of the Moon-Stars, Sehaye stuffed a message-tube down the gullet of yet another gede. He had sent many such messages to the Uloas since the day the Fidi ship had appeared out of the mist. He had written about the ease with which the newcomers had been accepted among the mainlanders, and about the influence their leader, the Seer Kyroun, appeared to wield with the Leba, if not the Emperor.

  He had no way of knowing what effect his information was having at the court of Jass Imbiah. Sehaye had never received any communications from the islands, nor did he expect to – not until Retribution Time.

  The Moon Star’s light glinted on the sea as Sehaye leaned over the side of his boat and placed the gede beneath the surface of the water. As well, the light shone unmercifully on the smooth, unscarred skin of his forearm. He grimaced in disgust at that sight. In his mind, he could see the spider-scars that should have been there to denote his devotion to Legaba.

  Legaba, him can see under you skin, Jass Imbiah had assured him years ago, when he had first been told that he was destined to be a spy among the blankskins, at the time when other children were receiving their first marks of Legaba. Jass Imbiah had also told Sehaye that when Retribution Time came, Legaba would raise his hidden spider-scars from the inside to the outside of his skin.

  I and I hope that day soon come, Sehaye thought. Although he was always prudent in maintaining the Matile style of speech when he talked, his thoughts often came to him in his native dialect. The division between the speech patterns reflected the incipient division of his identity, even his soul itself – blankskin on the outside, Uloan within.

  He looked away from his forearm and back down to where he had dropped the gede. He expected to see only the widening wake the construct left behind as it sped off on its long journey to the Uloas. But he saw no wake. The gede had not departed. It remained where he had placed it.

  Puzzled and more than a little apprehensive, Sehaye reached out to nudge the gede into motion. He drew back his hand when the construct turned at stared up at him with its blank, stone-like eyes.

  Then the gede opened its mouth and spoke two words that filled Sehaye with a combination of terror and joy. The voice that came from the gede’s mouth belonged to Jass Imbiah.

  Retribution Time, it said.

  Then the gede sank out of sight, leaving Sehaye staring at the empty space where it had been. He didn’t gaze for long. His spirit soared, even as he also felt a stab of fear at what was to come. He knew what he must do now that the words he had long awaited were spoken. Grasping his oars, he began to row back to shore, back to the mainland that was about to meet its doom at the hands of the Uloans and Legaba.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ship’s Rat Snared

  1

  “That’s it. Give ’em a good toss,” Athir Rin said to the Matile at his side. The Matile, a tall, lean young man dressed in threadbare clothes, threw a pair of cubes made from bone against the wall of the seedy talla-beit, or tavern, in which the Ship’s Rat was plying his latest illicit trade. With a sharp click, the cubes hit the wall, then landed on the talla-beit’s floor.

  Athir bent over and counted the markings on the cubes, then invited the Matile to do the same.

  “Seven,” Athir said. “Looks like I win again.”

  He opened the leather pouch belted to his waist and held it out. With a sullen glower on his face, the Matile dropped several gold coins into the greedy, open mouth of the pouch. They clinked against the other coins that filled the bag a bit beyond its halfway point.

  “Want to try one more time?” Athir asked.

  “Forget you,” the Matile said curtly.

  With a slight curl of his lip, the Matile turned on his heel and stalked out of the talla-beit. Athir smiled in a way he hoped would appear to be friendly rather than triumphant.

  “Anybody else feeling lucky?” he inquired.

  None of the rest of the talla-beit’s patrons said anything. However, Athir could sense the beginning of some hostility toward him. He knew it would soon be time for him to take his game elsewhere, for the sake of his own skin.

  For Athir, life had been good since he said farewell to the White Gull. As always, he thrived in the meanest streets. He had rapidly picked up enough of the Matile language to communicate and learn what he needed to know to prosper in his new surroundings, rather than merely survive them. During his wide wanderings – forced and voluntary alike – Athir had learned that regardless of the countless variations of culture or custom in the world, in large cities like Khambawe, there were always places w
here people like him gathered: places outside the reach, and sometimes even the interest, of the law. And he had developed an unerring instinct for finding such locales.

  The talla-beit he was in now had become his favorite, even though it was in the Ukili district, close to the tsotsi territory that was known as the Maim. Athir had learned about the tsotsis soon after he had jumped ship. However, he had not attempted to contact them, or join their ranks. From what he had heard about them they were fighters and killers as well as thieves and drug-sellers, and that wasn’t his preferred style of operating. He would kill in self-defense, and he had no compunctions about doing so. But he preferred to keep his victims alive, and take from them without letting them know they were losing anything until it was too late. He was content to ply his trade on the peripheries of the tsotsis’ domain, and leave the gangs to their endless cycle of street warfare, strong-arm robbery and khat-trafficking.

  When he first began to frequent the talla-beits after he had picked up enough of the Matile language to make himself understood, Athir discovered that the customers’ favorite gambling game involved moving pebbles around a board that had shallow holes scooped into the wood. He found the pastime boring, but he didn’t allow the Matile to know that.

  When he felt the time was right, which was when the talla-beit patrons no longer regarded him primarily as a pale-skinned outlander who had come on a mysterious ship out of the mist, but as just another slum-dweller who happened to look a little different, Athir introduced them to the thrills of dice-throwing. The new game quickly became popular, and Athir’s assets, which he kept hidden in various caches in the Ukili, grew just as rapidly. Soon, the “Fidi with the bones” became an accepted, if not necessarily well-liked, figure in more than a few talla-beits.

  Athir was prudent enough not to win all the time. His dice had been weighted by a master craftsman in Vakshma, Cym Dinath’s City of Thieves, and he had spent many months mastering their use. With a subtle twist of his wrist, Athir could control the way they fell, and he could choose when he won or lost. The trick was to find the balance between winning enough to stay ahead and losing enough to keep the Matile interested in playing his game.