by Ginn Hale
The would-be wolf regarded its audience and then suddenly bucked up onto its hind legs and awkwardly tottered back behind the curtain. Children gaped in amazement. A moment later there was another howl and the man returned. He bowed and thanked them for their time and attention.
Then, on cue, the flaps of the tent were pulled open and blinding afternoon sunlight poured in. Javier dropped Kiram’s hand instantly. The man on the stage bounded back behind his curtain and the show was over.
Nestor, Kiram, and Javier wandered out onto the fairgrounds along with several dozen dazed and excited children and their laughing parents.
“It’s genius!” Nestor said. He seemed nearly as delighted as the children. “He’s hiding in plain sight! That performance was so obviously false that it had to be real.”
“What?” Javier asked. He sounded more annoyed than Nestor’s proclamation merited. Kiram himself was feeling a little frustrated, but it had nothing to do with the performance. Nestor didn’t seem to notice.
“Exactly!” Nestor said. “It looked like a shoddy performance to disguise a genuine transformation.”
“Or,” Javier replied, “maybe it looked like a shoddy performance because it was. You can’t honestly believe that a real Mirogoth shapechanger would march out to the middle of Cadeleon, advertise himself, and sell tickets.”
“Probably not. But on the other hand, what’s the harm in believing it?” Nestor shrugged. “It makes the whole fair more interesting. And I think it could be true. You have to admit that it would be a clever way to hide himself.”
“There’s a point when something clever just becomes stupid. I’d say that hiding in plain sight is that point.” Javier sighed as if he was releasing some deep frustration. He glanced to Kiram. “What do you think?”
“Well, if we’re going to assume the Mirogoth really is a shapechanger—”
“Let’s assume he is,” Nestor said and Javier just shook his head but appeared resigned to the idea.
“Then, I guess that it would depend on how well he could disguise his true nature,” Kiram said. He didn’t look at Javier as he responded, but he was thinking of the way Javier teased men and made lascivious insinuations. “If there were aspects of himself that he couldn’t suppress then maybe it would make sense for him to flaunt them and make them a kind of joke. People would laugh and never suspect that he was showing them the truth all along.”
“Exactly,” Nestor said.
“But it would be a very dangerous way to live his life.” Kiram glanced to Javier.
“You’re sounding more lucid than before,” Javier commented. “How does your arm feel?”
“It aches, but it’s not bad. I’d like to see the Irabiim before it gets too late. Then I need to find the Laughing Dog—” Kiram cut himself off as a figure in the surrounding crowd caught his attention.
A group of five well-dressed girls walked primly between the stalls of flower sellers and cloth merchants. All but one of them wore their braids up in maiden’s combs. Most were decorated with floral designs but one was painted with butterfly wings.
“Yellow butterflies.” Kiram nudged Nestor. “Yellow butterflies! She’s coming this way.”
Kiram pointed as discreetly as he could.
Javier’s lip curled as he caught sight of the girl. “What do you care about her?”
“She threw a favor to Nestor.”
“Oh, I see.” The edge of anger disappeared from Javier’s expression immediately. “Do you still have the kerchief, Nestor?”
“Of course!” Nestor responded.
“Well then, take it to her,” Javier said. “Tell her that you noticed that she had dropped it and you’ve been looking for her all this time to return it.”
“But, what if it’s a mistake? I mean, what if she didn’t mean it for me? What if—”
“Just do it. It always works for Atreau. You can’t go wrong acting the part of a gallant gentleman. Now, go get her.” Javier shoved Nestor forward.
Nestor seemed dazed. He stumbled ahead, digging the kerchief out of his pocket. As Nestor drew closer to the girl, she caught sight of him. Her expression was so excited and nervous that it made Kiram smile. Then Kiram noticed the tiny pair of spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose. She reached up, removed them, and secreted them in her small yellow silk purse.
She was staring wide-eyed when Nestor reached her, and they both blushed deep red as Nestor offered her the kerchief. She pressed it back into his hand.
In a matter of moments the rest of the girls crowded around. Nestor said something that made them all laugh and then they started after him back towards the transforming Mirogoth’s tent. The girl with yellow butterfly combs clung to Nestor’s arm.
Javier touched Kiram’s shoulder.
“Let’s go before Nestor feels he has to introduce us. He’ll make a better impression without a hell-branded duke flustering his little flock of hens.”
“Are you sure?” Kiram didn’t want to abandon Nestor.
“Positive,” Javier replied. “I’m poor company for giggling girls like those ones. They put me off and I put them off. And you’re hardly likely to win Nestor any compliments either.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re a Haldiim for one thing.” Javier pulled Kiram back slowly as he spoke. “And you’re not available to them for another.”
Kiram didn’t bother to argue. He’d been caressing Javier’s hand and pressing against Javier’s thigh only a few minutes ago. He gave a quick wave, turned, and followed Javier through the fair.
They passed tanners’ stalls where beautifully tooled saddles and bridles were displayed along with deerskins and bull hides. Despite the strong smell of leather Kiram picked out a familiar scent. The aroma of the sharp spices, which perfumed adhil bread, briefly floated over Kiram but when he looked around him all he saw were stocky Cadeleonian men, testing the stirrups or bartering over the cost of calfskins.
“Is something wrong?” Javier asked.
“I was just thinking that we must be close to the Irabiim.”
“Oh?” Javier cocked his head slightly, studying Kiram. “How did you know?”
“I can smell them,” Kiram said. “Not in a bad way, but their food. Someone must be frying adhil bread. Our cook used to make it for us on cold mornings.”
“I haven’t ever heard of it.”
“It’s delicious, though it’s not really bread at all. It’s more of a thin pancake. The batter is fried in a pan, flipped out and eaten right away.”
“It sounds good,” Javier commented but he seemed distracted by other thoughts. “Here, let’s go up around this way. There are fewer people.”
Kiram followed him through a narrow lane of rickety stalls and drab tents. They walked past a stall offering spurs and twisted bits. Kiram glanced away from the jagged edges of metal. He was glad that Firaj was already trained and didn’t require such brutal tools to be controlled.
Just behind the stalls Kiram could see a poorly-repaired stone wall and beyond that stood thirty or more brightly-painted traveling wagons circled in the shadows of a stand of large, twisting trees. Black crows perched among the branches on the wagon roofs. Blue-tinged smoke rose up from at least four cooking fires.
As Kiram gazed at the red and gold designs on the walls of the wagons and at the shabby figures crouched around the fires, the sense of familiarity that the aroma of adhil bread had nurtured in him withered.
The Irabiim really weren’t Haldiim.
They were filthy and their horses were rangy-looking creatures with rough, spotted hides. The women standing watch over the cook pots wore dark circles of kohl around their eyes and their blonde hair was tied up in what looked like strips of rag. The men carried fighting knives tucked into their belts, wore no shirts, and jangled gaudy bangles from their wrists.
Kiram’s uncle Rafie had told him that each of the bracelets identified an Irabiim man as the son or husband of a particular matriarch and that
because Irabiim mothers exchanged their sons like they were trading dice, only those bracelets prevented daughters from wedding their own brothers.
The wagons were decorated with morbid warnings to trespassers. Gilded human skulls hung from the roofs like wind chimes. Kiram felt his stomach clenching as he stared at them. No Haldiim would have treated his ancestors’ remains that way, much less allowed crows to grow fat picking away the strips of flesh.
Kiram retreated into the shadow of the stone wall.
Javier asked, “What is it?”
“I always thought my uncle was exaggerating about them.” Kiram didn’t want to tell Javier that he was frightened, so he said, “They’re filthy.”
“Well, cleanliness doesn’t seem to be a ruling tenet among them.” Javier appeared unfazed by the skulls and obscenities on the wagon walls. “They breed some of the fastest colts you can buy and of course there’s also the matter of having your fortune read.”
“I don’t believe in fortune telling.”
“If you don’t want to meet them, that’s fine with me.” Javier leaned against the wall beside Kiram so that their shoulders just brushed together. His hand hung down, almost touching Kiram’s. “But I don’t feel like wandering around in a crowd right now.”
“Neither do I.” If Kiram had been thinking more clearly he knew he would never have moved. As it was, he shifted slightly, leaning into Javier’s shoulder. The weight of their bodies balanced. Kiram closed his eyes, letting the familiar scents of sweat and leather encompass him. He imagined that he could feel Javier’s heart beating through his own body.
Kiram twined his fingers between Javier’s and held his hand tight.
Javier said, “You don’t make it easy for me to stay away from you.”
Kiram kept his eyes closed, fearing his resolve would collapse if he looked into Javier’s eyes. Then he’d kiss his mouth. He’d run his hands over his chest and down to his thighs. His body ached just thinking of the mistakes that he longed to make. Kiram started to pull his hand back but Javier tightened his grip. Kiram relented too easily.
“I want to be with you. But then you know that. Does it please you to know how much I want you?” Blatant hunger edged Javier’s voice. “That I lie awake, staring at your sleeping body, thinking of how close you are and how easily I could reach you? How easily I could tear off those flimsy white clothes you wear and have you? Some nights I hardly sleep at all.”
Kiram opened his eyes. He expected some trace of resentment in Javier’s expression but instead there was only that familiar look of rueful amusement.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I managed to use the time to get my armor to a high polish. It just gets cleaner the dirtier my thoughts get. But I wish I could inspire a few restless nights myself. You don’t seem too easily inspired, though.” Javier’s gaze seemed to burn into Kiram. A lock of inky black hair fell across forehead. “If only I were some exquisite machine. Do you think you might miss a little sleep over me if I were made of gears and pistons?”
“I’d wonder who built you so well.” Kiram wanted to tell Javier that he spent most nights dreaming of him. Some mornings he despised waking because it meant leaving the rapture of his fantasies.
“Do you think you’d be tempted to tinker with me?”
“Of course I would.” Kiram pushed the lock of hair back from Javier’s face.
“Was there really a girl you liked in Anacleto?”
“What? No.” Kiram laughed at the thought. “I was talking about a man named Musni. He and I were close. But I always knew that it wouldn’t work for us.”
“Why not?” Javier asked the question so directly that Kiram wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He and Musni had not been suited to each other for a dozen reasons. But one in particular had always kept him from committing his heart to Musni.
“I always knew that he would marry into a wealthy woman’s household someday. He just liked being comfortable and normal too much not to. And his mother wouldn’t have been happy until he did.”
“You think your mother will be happy if you don’t?”
“My mother knows I will never take a wife. She used to complain that it was a waste of my good breeding, but I think she secretly likes the idea that she’ll never have to hand her baby boy over to another woman.”
“But she doesn’t care that you’re…” Javier seemed unable to find a word for what he wanted to say. “You’re with a man?”
“That would depend on the man, I suppose. She wasn’t all that fond of Musni, but that had more to do with his mother than anything else. On the other hand, there’s a pharmacist, Hashiem Kir-Naham, who she constantly points out to me.”
“And does this Hashiem Kir-Naham interest you?”
Four months ago he might have. Kiram stole a sidelong glance at Javier, taking in the long, sinuous muscles of his shoulder and neck, the hard contrast of his tousled black hair and his delicate pale features. He was scowling, filthy, and he wore his dueling sword like he planned to make his living with it, and Kiram still found him appealing.
Kiram shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Well, what is he like?” Javier pressed. “Short, ugly, old? Missing his teeth?”
“Not at all.” Kiram laughed at the idea of any mother choosing such a man for her son. “He’s older, thirty, I think. He’s about my height. Very slim, and very formal. An only child, so he’ll inherit his mother’s pharmacy. His aunt owns several medicinal gardens, so he’s well established in Anacleto.”
Even as he described Hashiem Kir-Naham, Kiram felt a trapped dread spreading through him. Hashiem Kir-Naham was a perfect partner. Wealthy. Stable. Established.
Dull.
He would never ask Kiram to leave for the kingdom of Yuan in the dead of the night. He wouldn’t dream of traveling into the Mirogoth lands or sailing across the White Sea. He certainly wouldn’t hold him in his arms and open the white hell for him.
“He’s nice,” Kiram said, then seeing Javier’s scowl deepening he quickly continued, “but he’ll never leave the Haldiim district of Anacleto. I want to see more. I want to travel.”
“Well, there is certainly much more of the world to see. I’d like to travel myself, someday.” Javier looked almost wistful. “If you could go anywhere, where would you choose?”
“The kingdom of Yuan.” Kiram decided after a moment of consideration. “My uncle Rafie told me the musicians there sharpen their thumbnails like knives and wear bright blue wigs.”
“I’m not sure about the fingernails,” Javier said, “but my family once entertained an ambassador from Yuan. Several of his attendants wore wigs like that. The ambassador himself had a long white wig, made of bird feathers.”
“Did he invite you to take steam with him?”
“No, he didn’t say anything to me. I was just a child at the time. Is steam one of their mystical potions?”
“I think so. Alizadeh took steam in Yuan. He said that it opened the world of dreams and allowed him to enter them while he was still wide awake.”
“I’m not sure I want more chances to enter my dreams.” A teasing expression flickered over Javier’s face. “I am curious about yours, though.”
A guilty flush flooded Kiram’s cheeks and Javier leaned close and whispered, “Are they dirty?”
“I don’t remember any of them,” Kiram lied. “What about yours?”
“Filthy,” Javier replied with a salacious smile. “You’d be shocked to see the things you do in my dreams.”
“How can you just admit that?” Kiram asked. “Don’t you ever get flustered or embarrassed?”
“Why would I be embarrassed? You’re the one who can’t keep his clothes on in my dreams.” Javier’s fingers gently curled along the curve of Kiram’s neck and he accepted it as easily as he would have accepted one of Musni’s caresses. It seemed natural to rest his hand on Javier’s hip, hooking his thumb under the supple leather of Javier’s belt and leaning in close to him.
Kiram wanted to kiss him. And he almost gave into that desire, but out of the corner of his eyes he caught a movement at the edge of the Irabiim camp. Javier saw it too and pulled back immediately, dropping his hand down to the sword hanging from his belt. Kiram turned just as the approaching figure waved at them.
And then Kiram realized he knew the man.
Alizadeh so perfectly looked the part of an ancient Bahiim that his appearance could have graced a Haldiim scroll from two hundred years past. His honey-blonde hair hung in spiraling curls down to his waist. Flashes of his dark bronze skin showed through the fine white cotton of his flowing prayer clothes.
The orange wrap that he wore over one shoulder and tied at his hip was heavy and in ancient times it would have served as the only shelter a Bahiim could depend upon while crossing the desert. For the same reason, all Bahiim carried water skins, short bows, and hunting knives. Alizadeh’s looked like they had been used often.
His leather sandals were past their prime. The strap wrapping around his right ankle looked as if it had been recently mended. Kiram could easily imagine his uncle Rafie doing the careful stitching while commenting that Cadeleonian boots didn’t have these kinds of problems.
“Well met, Kiri!” Alizadeh called. Kiram waved back at him.
Javier studied Alizadeh with an expression somewhere between wonder and suspicion. “You know him?”
“That is Alizadeh, my uncle’s partner. The one I told you about.”
“The Bahiim.” Javier nodded.
Kiram made introductions. Javier gave a curt bow and Alizadeh responded by holding up his palms in a sign of formal blessing. A flock of black crows swept out from the Irabiim camp, passed overhead, and then scattered out over the fair. Alizadeh watched the birds then returned his attention to Kiram. “I see Rafie got the lotus medallion to you.”