by Karen Miller
Abajai bowed. “We will be wary. The god see you, Toolu godspeaker. The god see you in its eye.”
They left the village, then, with the handful of new slaves chained to the tail of the snake and poked into walking by Obid’s sharp spear. Once Todorok was behind them, Yagji turned to Abajai in fright.
“You heard him, Aba! Bloodshed rides the wind! How bad have things become since we began our caravan?”
“The god knows,” said Abajai. “Hold your tongue, Yagji. We will talk of this beneath the stars, when only you and I are listening.”
“Abajai—’ said Hekat, wanting to know, but he pressed his hand on her shoulder, then dropped a loop of leather over her head. Dangling from it was a beautiful amulet, a carved snake’s eye in deepest blue.
She snatched it up. “ Abajai !”
“You must wear this always,” Abajai told her. “While you wear it the god will see you in its eye.”
Never in her life had she possessed her own amulet. “Yes, Abajai,” she whispered, and pressed the snake-eye against her lips.
“Such extravagance!” Yagji scolded. “And after we were paid too little for the pish, and charged too much for Todorok’s slaves! With all your spare coin it would he better had you paid the godspeaker to give it a slave-braid, not—”
“No,” said Abajai. “The god does not desire that.”
Yagji made a gobbling sound. “And does the god desire us reduced to seven bronze coins and a single camel? Aieee, you try me, Aba, you try me sorely! I will bargain next time, you are growing soft in your old age . . .”
Buzz, buzz, buzz. Yagji had more words than the sky had stars, and none of them as pretty. Hekat didn’t listen. Abajai had paid coin to give her an amulet, to keep her in the god’s eye. She was precious. He cared for her. She cared for him, too. A new feeling, strange, unfurling shyly like a seed in dry dirt. He was the only breathing thing she had ever cared for. She was his, for ever and ever.
No matter what that Yagji said.
CHAPTER FOUR
That night, after dinner, Hekat curled up by the camp fire and listened, eyes closed, as Abajai and Yagji talked Trader business in soft urgent voices.
“It is unwise not to heed a godspeaker’s warning,” said Abajai. “From newsun we will travel straight through Et-Jokriel to Thakligar in Et-Mamiklia, and from there over the border into Et-Nogolor. Nogolor warlord’s treaties with Et-Raklion will keep us safe. Until then we are prey for raiding warbands.”
“That is true,” Yagji sighed. “But surely we can do a little Trading along the way, Aba? Remember we were blessed by Nagarak himself. The god sees us in its eye.”
Abajai hissed air between his teeth. “Being blessed does not make us untouchable. Demons can take us, and so can fighting warlords with no love for Et-Raklion.”
Demons . Hekat clutched her snake-eye amulet. The village godspeaker shouted loud against demons. Demons sickened goats. They spoiled the snake-dance so the young men died fangstruck. They dried up the well-water, or made it bitter. Demons dressed in plague and pestilence. Women who spawned she-brats only were demon-ridden. They had opened their legs to a demon so their man’s seed was poisoned. That was why such women were stoned. Only stoning could drive out a demon and afterwards sacrifice, because demons had power where the people did not love the god enough.
I love the god , she promised, as her snake-eye amulet bruised her fingers. Do not let the demons prick me .
“I know, I know we must travel swiftly,” moaned Yagji, and tugged his godbraids. “But so much lost money, Aba!”
Abajai growled. “What is money to a dead man in the grass? We are no match for a warlord’s raiding party.”
“No, but perhaps we will not see one!”
“That is not a risk I am prepared to take,” said Abajai, sounding grim. “You have eyes, Yagji, you see Et-Jokriel is turning brown. It is not alone, you saw how changed are Et-Bajadek and Et-Takona since last we caravanned through them. Those warlords will soon be at each other’s throats, spilling blood.”
“Each other’s throats, Aba,” Yagji wheedled. “Not ours. We are Traders, no part of their squabbles.”
“When the bloodlust is on them they will not care!” Abajai’s voice was cold and hard. “And we are from Et-Raklion. Raklion warlord’s lands are still lush and green. That alone is cause for hate.”
Yagji sighed again. “True.”
“Et-Raklion is like a fat lamb cast before a pack of starving dogs. When the other warlords have stolen all they can from each other there is where they will turn their envious eyes. They might even think to defy the god and band together in a single attack. We must be home before that happens. You do not believe me?” Abajai added, as Yagji fidgeted. “Then I will read the godbones, and the god will tell you.”
Through slitted eyes Hekat watched Abajai study his godbones. The scarlet scorpion in his check was restless as he rolled the painted pieces of snake-spine, read them, and rolled them some more. She had never seen godbones painted like that, blood red and venom green and blue like the sky at highsun. The man had godbones, small, chipped and bare of paint. He’d made them himself after a snake-dance and was never pleased with what they told him. The racing lizards he bet on always lost.
But neither was Abajai pleased with his fine godbones. His scarlet scorpion leapt and writhed. In the flickering firelight it looked like it was stinging Abajai. His forehead sweated, his breathing rasped.
“Well? Well? What do they say?” Yagji demanded.
“They say what I have said already,” Abajai whispered harshly. “We must caravan hard to Et-Nogolor city, sell the merchandise there and seek the swiftest way home to Et-Raklion.”
“Aieee!” said Yagji, pressing his palms to his plump cheeks. Then he flicked a sideways, hopeful glance. “Sell all the merchandise?”
Hekat stopped pretending to sleep, she threw herself to the edge of Abajai’s blanket. “Abajai not sell Hekat!” Her teeth chattered with fear. “Hekat belong to Abajai!”
“There, Aba, you see what you’ve done?” said Yagji, outraged. “It’s got attached! You made a pet of it and it’s got attached!” He took her by the shoulders and shook her till her eyes rolled. “You be quiet! Shall I beat you? Shall I give you to the god? Be quiet with your howling, you wretched monkey!”
“Be still, Hekat,” said Abajai. “You also, Yagji.” The scorpion in his cheek was sleeping now, his fingers plucked up the godbones one by one and slipped them into their snakeskin pouch. When it was full he closed his eyes and pressed it to his lips.
Yagji released her. She sat on the cold ground and waited as Abajai gave thanks to the god for its teachings in the bones. She had no fear of a beating. Yagji told Abajai all the time he should beat her, and Abajai never listened. She knew he never would. Abajai would never hurt her.
“You belong to Abajai, Hekat,” he said when he was finished, slipping the godbone pouch into his robe pocket. His face was grave, but his eyes were warm. “I will not sell you in Et-Nogolor city.”
Silly pricky burning in her eyes. They traveled through a land of water but she wouldn’t waste any of hers. “Hekat belong to Abajai,” she whispered.
Muttering crossly, Yagji withdrew to his tent. Abajai ignored him, and raised a finger so she would pay close attention.
“Yes. She does. Now go to bed, Hekat. From tomorrow you will walk as well as ride my camel. You are stronger now, there is meat on your bones. You have shoes on your feet. Walking will be good for you.”
She gifted him with her widest smile. “Yes, Abajai! Thank you, Abajai!”
Tucked beneath her blankets, she held her beautiful blue snake-eye and waited for sleep to claim her. She was not afraid of squabbling warlords, or of demons, or Yagji. Abajai was here, Abajai would protect her. Abajai, and the god.
It gave me to Abajai. It sees me in its eye. The god sees Hekat, it knows she is precious.
So the caravan continued, but she did not walk. She ran. She danced. She
darted ahead, then back to Abajai, sometimes with flowers to give him, other times just a smile. She felt like a snake that had shed its skin, all scaled and wrinkled, tattered, torn. Hekat was the new snake, with cotton clothes and shoes on her feet and charms woven through her godbraided hair.
Yes. She was a beautiful snake.
Following many highsuns travel they left the lands of Jokriel warlord and entered the lands ruled by the warlord Mamiklia. There they were told of warbands on the prowl, of fighting fierce and bloody and not far away. They came across burning bodies and slaughtered horses twice. The stink made Yagji vomit. Once they were nearly caught in a warrior raid.
After that, Abajai and Yagji made their white camels jog as well as walk. The pack-camels jogged too, and the long chained snake-spine of slaves, with Obid and his fellow guards poking and hitting and scolding with vulture voices. Abajai wouldn’t let Hekat run, he kept her on the camel with him. All the camel-jogging made Yagji sick, like the dead rotting horses had made him sick. He clutched his fat belly, moaning and spitting. Abajai wouldn’t stop for him to get off and spew into the grass so he spewed up his insides over the side of his camel, or when they paused to water the slaves.
Hekat lost count of the highsuns that followed. One day blurred into the next, and the next. Even the countryside lost its charm. There were trees, she’d seen trees. There were flowers, she’d seen flowers. And villages, and crops, and orchards, and horses, and cattle, and wild hawks flying. The water flowing deep beneath the land of Mijak, Abajai said, rose to the surface where the god desired, in streams and rivers. Creatures called fish swam in them, good for eating, she had seen fish now. Once there was a small blue lake, there were things called boats on it, she could not get excited. Water was water, it had lost its power to amaze.
She was tired of traveling. She wanted to rest.
They crossed the border into Et-Nogolor, and four fingers after acknowledging the godpost met a band of hard-riding warriors, men and women wearing shells of hardened leather on their upper bodies. In the middle of their leather chests was a hunting bird picked out in stones of lowsun fire, and plaited into their charm-heavy godbraids waved long red feathers banded thickly with black. Leather thongs dangled round their necks, threaded with rattling, bouncing fingerbones. They were fierce men and women with cold eyes and cruel months. Their horses’ eyes were angry. They carried arrows on their backs and a bow looped onto their saddles. Long curved blades belted at their waists flashed silver in the sunlight.
The warriors belonged to Nogolor warlord, Abajai said, and those curved blades were scimitars. A scimitar could cut a camel’s head right off its neck. Never cross a man with a scimitar, said Abajai. Sell him a sharpstone instead.
Hekat stared as the warband drummed towards Et-Mamiklia on their dusty, sweat-streaked horses. They were beautiful, those warriors. As beautiful as she was, in their way.
“If all we see are Et-Nogolor’s warriors we need not be afraid,” Abajai told Yagji. “Or even the warriors of Raklion warlord. But if we see warriors of Bajadek, or Mamiklia, or one of the other warlords . . .”
Yagji whimpered and was sick again down the side of his unhappy camel.
On and on and on they caravanned, and slowly the road grew crowded with other travelers, ox-carts and slave-litters and plain men on horses. Farms and fenced cattle pastures stretched on either side of them. Eleven highsuns after crossing the border they reached Et-Nogolor city. It rose from the plain like a rock on green sand.
“So big ,” said Hekat to Abajai, astonished.
“Not as big as Et-Raklion city,” said Yagji, and shifted on his camel. “Or as fine. Aba, I hope this means we are out of trouble. I hope we see no more galloping warriors. Are you certain you read the godbones right? We will be safe in Et-Nogolor city?”
Hekat knew Abajai well, now. She knew he wanted to shout at Yagji or smakck him till his godbraids clattered their charms. But she knew Yagji, too. Shouting at the fat man only made him sulk and when he sulked his cooking was bad.
So did Abajai know Yagji. “I have told you ten times, Yagji, they say we are safe here.”
Yagji fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a cloth. “The godbones will never speak to me,” he fretted, dabbing sweat from his face. “I wish I had the ears to hear them. Aba, we should spend coin to make sacrifice in Et-Nogolor’s godhouse. If the warlords squabble it is because demons prick them. We must make an offering against their wicked wiles.”
Abajai said, “Sacrifice is a good idea, Yagji. Deaf to the godbones you may be, but never deaf to the god.”
Yagji’s miserable face brightened. He always smiled when Abajai told him good about himself. “Never.”
So many others now traveled the road with them it was three fingers past highsun before they reached the tail-end of wagons and horses waiting to be allowed through the enormous city gates. Et-Nogolor rose up and up above their heads, ringed by a wooden wall, tall cut-down trees as wide as three Abajais, standing side by side by side, no space between. Each tree was carved and painted with the god’s eye, with snakefangs and centipedes, with scorpions and the same bird face that shrieked on the leather shells of Et-Nogolor’s warriors. Real skulls there were, too, glaring blind at the spreading plain. Horse. Goat. Bird. Man. Painted with god colors, dangled with amulets, jangled with charms. Godbells sang silver-tongued on the breeze.
With her head tilted back so her godbraids tickled the camel’s shoulder, Hekat looked past the city’s climbing buildings to the godhouse at its very top. The godhouse’s godpost was so tall that even from so far below she could see its stinging scorpion, tail raised to strike the wicked sinner.
She felt her voice shrivel in her throat. This place . . . this city . . .
“You are right to be awed,” said Abajai. He always knew what she was thinking. “Et-Nogolor is a mighty city. Only the city Et-Raklion is greater, because once it was Mijak’s ruling city.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “Ruling city, Abajai?”
He nodded. “When Mijak was ruled by a single warlord, before the god decreed one must be seven. The city Et-Raklion was his home. It was not called Et-Raklion then, but still. It is the same.”
Warlords . She had been thinking about them. “Abajai, what is a warlord?”
“A man of power,” he said. “Appointed by the god to rule lands and villages and the people who live there.”
She frowned. “No warlord rules Hekat’s village, Abajai. Only godspeaker.”
“The savage north is different. Long ago it had warlords to rule it. It was part of what is now Et-Jokriel and Et-Mamiklia. But the land is harsh there. With every season, grain by grain, the sands of The Anvil creep closer. Those long-ago warlords abandoned the north. Its villages are in the god’s eye, Hekat. The god is their warlord.”
“ Tcha ,” said Yagji, pulling a face. “First geography, now history. To what end, Aba, there is no point.”
Abajai patted her shoulder. “Yagji is right. The past does not matter, or the savage north. Rest your tongue, Hekat. We move again.”
So they did, but slowly. She could see the city gates, they had long iron teeth to bite off the heads of the unwary, and tall men with bladed spears to guard them. Snakes and scorpions were carved in the wood, and the sign for godsmite. Any demon who tried to pass these gates would die.
At last they reached the Gatekeeper, a monstrous tall man like a tree made flesh. His body was clothed in red and black striped horsehide. On his head he wore a horse skull with horns, around his neck a scarlet scorpion. His belt was green snakeskin threaded with snake-skulls, each winking eye a crimson gem. He wore no godbraids, his head was bald. His skin was hidden beneath writhing tattoos. Hekat was pleased to see not one was as fine as Abajai’s scarlet scorpion.
“Business!” the Gatekeper barked, like a dog. He had so many protections set in his teeth his lips wouldn’t close properly over them.
Abajai put his hand in his pocket, then held out a piece of
carved green stone, round like a thin branch and as long as his palm was wide. “Trader business, Gatekeeper. Abajai and Yagji of Et-Raklion, brother city of Et-Nogolor. There you have our seal stamped by Raklion warlord himself.” His hand dipped again into his pocket, to pull out another stone cylinder. This one was blue. “And here is proof of road-rights fully paid. We come to trade our merchandise and give the god sacred blood in the godhouse.”
The Gatekeeper examined both carved stones, then nodded to one of the tall city guards. The guard walked with his bladed spear all the way to the end of the merchandise and back again. When he returned he nodded to the Gatekeeper and took his place at the gate.
“And what is this?” said the Gatekeeper, jerking his chin.
Hekat shrank from the Gatekeeper’s gaze. His eyes were hot, they had no whites, they glowed yellow in the shade beneath the dagger-tooth gates. Abajai’s finger touched the small of her back. “A bauble,” he said, his voice soft and calm.
She didn’t know what a bauble was but she sensed he was trying to make the hot-eyed Gatekeeper cool. That was good, she wanted him cool. Something about him reminded her of the man, he hated she-brats, she could tell. His hot eyes frightened her. She hated being frightened, it made her angry. She stared at the white camel’s neck so he wouldn’t see her anger.
The Gatekeeper growled in his throat. He sounded like a dog again. “For sale?”
“Alas, this one is sold already,” said Yagji, and his voice was pouty. “To a very special client. We would not dare to sell it twice, Gatekeeper Et-Nogolor. Not and keep our name as honest Traders.”
Hekat held her breath and risked a look through her lowered lashes.
The Gatekeeper grunted. His hot yellow eyes were disappointed. He handed back the two carved stones and jerked his thumb. “Pass.”