by A Van Wyck
Their games weren’t confined to a single barge and they swam like otters between them, completely at home in the water. He’d almost had a heart attack, his first day, when he’d witnessed a toddler, naked in the unconcern of youth, waddle with stumpy legs over the edge and splash into the water. He’d already been pulling at his hip jacket as he ran, cursing, for the side, before someone had caught his arm. He’d watched with slowly fading panic as the child’s head had broken water, ringing with unmistakable laughter. In mounting amazement, he’d watched her paddle in a broken circle. One of the men guiding the vessel, laughing indulgently, had extended the long wooden oar for the little girl to latch on to, towing her back to the safety of the barge. Giggling, the child had gone stomping past him, spraying droplets. The hand holding him back had released him then, patting his shoulder once in reassurance.
In the evenings the barges were drawn up to the riverbank and planks lowered between them, bridging the lot and spilling outward to incorporate the riverbank. At anchor, the little floating village really came alive and people would visit between houses.
They were a very business orientated people and the conversation was easy to predict, invariably coming down to distance, goods and coin.
A caravan on the water. He’d never imagined such a thing.
The slow pace of the river had seeped into these people who plied it, generation by generation. They lived their lives by its pace, always calm and unhurried. An easy people to get along with, as long as you were polite. They set great store by politeness. And they were shrewd, like all successful tradesmen.
“’Tchoooo!”
Crap! he echoed in his head.
If not for the infernal sneezing, this trip would be almost enjoyable.
“You should be staying out of sight.”
He squeezed his eyes closed.Almost.
He didn’t turn to look at Inrito, knowing how it irritated the man to be ignored. The self-righteous, mid-level acolyte was his assigned chaperone. It had taken him all of one glance to recognize the man had not been chosen for the task by dint of some special competence. The temple Amm had introduced him to was, in all likelihood, enjoying the peace and quiet left by this sanctimonious dolt’s absence.
He felt the lanky man’s glare on the back of his neck. He could imagine the exact posture: shoulders hunched in what the fool thought to be a humble pose, chin contrarily in the air, hands clasped piously and feet stupidly together despite the incessant rocking of the barge. His imagination invariably conjured a book of rules for the young moron to clutch beneath one arm and he was always surprised to find it absent when he turned around.
“Did you hear me?”
There was that tone again. The officious one that said you were being really stupid by not listening. The one that said anyone with any sense should jump at the chance to do what this tone said.
“If you intend to remain unseen,” the acolyte, who’d probably never been hunted by anything more dangerous than a mosquito, declared, “you should remain in your cabin by day.”
He grimaced. Inrito had a big mouth and too little common sense, broadcasting information like that for anyone to hear. It wasn’t even that he disagreed, he just liked irking the man. Besides, it was stuffy and hot in the cabin, which aggravated his sneezing. In any event, he did make a point of staying out of sight whenever they drew near any riverside settlements. But his presence was hardly a secret among the barge folk. His staying out of sight would please no one but Inrito. And that was not high on his list of priorities.
He did understand. His was a clandestine profession and if Amm’s temple were planning on making use of his specialized skills, it made sense that they wanted to keep the relationship circumspect. It did not surprise him at all that the vaunted holy temple of the empire needed the services of a thief. Prayer couldn’t provide all the necessities of life, after all. But it helped if the priests could pretend otherwise. And so they had a mutual interest in keeping him hidden.
True, the priests didn’t know exactly what they were hiding him from. He hadn’t seen the need to spook them with stories of ghostly magickers whose mention made other magickers mess themselves. They only knew he was running from some determined hunters and if they thought he was overreacting, more fool them. He needed to keep moving, the more random the direction, the more unlikely the destination, the better. He needed to get lost, like a fart in a sandstorm. Until he finally felt safe. Until not even that dark mage could catch so much as a whiff of him. And right now he got free meals three times a day and didn’t have to walk on his own feet, which was an improvement to his mind. And when they got where they were going and if he didn’t like the lay of the land, he could just disappear. Let the temple play its own games.
“Listen to me!”
Here it comes.
“Father Bundus put me in charge!”
That was a stretch by any interpretation of the head priest’s words. But Inrito was good at hearing only what he wanted to hear.
“You’re supposed to do as I say and I say get back in the cabin!”
And there it was. That scalded cat screech. Whenever his ire was properly stoked, Inrito’s voice shot up into the high ranges. Forcing that sound from the pestilent priest had become his primary source of entertainment. Yet the moron always seemed taken aback when it happened. Even now, his eyes shot wide and his cheeks flamed red.
He smirked at the man’s back as it stalked hurriedly away.
From his sash, he pulled the fancy handkerchief he’d pick-pocketed from the moron on their second day, wiping his nose in satisfaction.
“You fighting with the priest again?”
He looked up.
Limella was the oldest daughter of the family who owned this barge. Her confident manner was a reflection of her father’s, who was second in command of the whole floating clan. She moved around him to sit on his left so she could look at him sidelong. A habit that hid her lazy left eye.
“It’s not fighting if I don’t say anything,” he countered, his voice hoarse with sneezing. His throat felt desiccated.
“I’ve seen mama do the same to da,” she commented, kicking her feet. “He always seems to end up losing, too.”
“It’s not losing if you’re not fighting,” he pointed out.
“Hmm,” she mused. “That’s probably why my folks get on so well.”
He didn’t know whether that called for a shared smile. He was a stranger to family dynamics but was pretty sure you were only allowed to mock the family if you were part of it. That’s the way it had always worked with the gangs back home at least.
“So where are you headed?”
“That depends. What’s this river called?”
“The Sickle.”
“Then I’m headed down the Sickle river.”
“Oh, haha, very funny. No, I mean after that.”
“Still depends.”
“On what?”
He jerked his head in the direction Inrito had disappeared.
“Him.”
“Ouch.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But you’re going as far as Sutlam, right?”
“As far as I know.”
She cocked her head, confirming something for herself. Then she unexpectedly changed the subject.
“You’re from the desert cities.”
“Does it show?”
“What’s it like, there?”
He copied her sidelong look.
“Dry.”
“No rivers?”
“None.”
“So where do you swim?”
“You don’t,” he told her. “I didn’t learn to swim ‘til I was old enough to shave.”
“Shave what?” she queried in mock surprise.
He grimaced. His stubbornly clinging youth was a sensitive subject. His mostly nocturnal lifestyle had even left him bereft of respectable crow’s feet. Which was ridiculous. You didn’t live in the desert cities for any length of
time without acquiring crow’s feet.
“‘Old enough to’ I said,” he avoided her question.
“And how old are you?” she pressed. There was an undertone to her words and he sensed this was a more serious question than the ones before, though her expression remained casually offhand.
“Don’t really know,” he admitted.
“Can’t count?” Mock sympathy now.
“I can. Just no one else bothered to.”
“Ah.” She wisely left that alone. “Guess then,” she prompted.
She leaned back, supporting herself on her palms. Pretending to track the speck of a bird circling over the forest canopy, she tossed her short hair, arching her back. He wasn’t blind to the way the posture pronounced her breasts. He was careful not to look. She had an older brother and the man was built like an ox.
“Probably about nineteen or twenty,” he shrugged. “Give or take a year or two.”
Her surprise was genuine. She forgot herself enough to look him full in the face. The eye really wasn’t that noticeable.
“That is old enough to shave.”
“Told you.”
“Hmm,” she considered, eyeing him speculatively. “We’ll be celebrating my eighteenth birthday a day or so before reaching Sutlam,” she finally informed him, going back to her study of the sky.
“Oh? I’m sorry,” he tried diplomatically, still wondering what in the world they were talking about. “If I’d known, I’d have gotten you something.”
She bit her lip, suppressing a smile. He guessed this was where she’d been steering the conversation. She started to turn her head but caught herself in time, throwing him a mysterious sideways glance.
“Don’t worry,” she consoled huskily, “I can probably think of something you can give me.”
And with that she leapt lightly to her feet.
“Yikes,” he breathed when she’d gone.
One of the men poling the barge turned to give him a flat look. Probably one of her brother’s friends. He ignored the man.
Being under the temple’s protection might not be such a bad thing after all. Although if the temple’s protection amounted to no more than Inrito, he’d be better off throwing himself in the river.
He ate the last of the honey cake, dusting his hands. Fine flakes drifted down into the dark where they were caught by the gentle river breeze. He shifted uncomfortably on the thick tree branch, his legs dangling four man heights off the ground.
The breeze carried the sounds of merrymaking to him. For all that the little barge town floated low in the water not a hundred paces away, the light from the bright paper lanterns were completely hidden by the thick branches. They’d moored early today.
He sighed.
During his eventful life, he’d escaped from jackals, slavers, pimps, knockers, knife hands, blackeyes, watchmen and princes. And, on one memorable occasion, a stone horse. And now here he sat in a sand-spawned tree in the middle of the night, hiding from a girl.
Ugh…
The situation with Limella had not improved. She stalked him constantly and she was crafty. He’d even taken to sleeping out on deck in the chilly night air, since she was adept at contriving situations where she and he suddenly found themselves alone together. Seeing as how the little cabins were limited to two or three rooms apiece and were mostly in use, he’d developed a profound respect for her logistical skills. But that was all he’d developed for her. She would have made a decent pick-pocket the way she could undo half the buttons of his borrowed shirt before he even noticed. A shame she’d chosen to waste her talents.
And her brother! The idiot was conducting a cross-purpose campaign, conspiring together with musclebound friends to get him alone. Luckily, the fool didn’t share Limella’s knack for that. But it was still uncomfortable not being able to go anywhere without attracting hostile stares. Some of them even went so far as to crack their knuckles whenever he passed within hearing distance. Normally he would have sorted this kind of thing out by now but he needed the goodwill of these people and he doubted he’d be able to dissuade the brother by any measure short of killing. And that would probably mean a long walk to Sutlam.
You’d have to be blind not to see something was going on but if the clan elders had taken any notice of Limella’s hunt, they’d not deigned to intervene. Either they were extremely relaxed about a woman’s virtue here, or Limella’s was long gone. Which begged the question: why was her brother being so insanely protective? A strange people. Their strangeness had only become all the more obvious this night.
The only highlight for him had been when Inrito had come up on deck to see what all the fuss was about. The would-be priest had walked headlong into a birthday celebration in full swing. Burly men and loud women, drinking overmuch and with gusto, had sung along to raucous music. Girls in bright dresses, slit to the thigh, had danced with shirtless young men. The whirling beat of fiddles, reed pipes and fast drums had risen above the treetops.
The skinny, stuck-up man’s eyes had narrowed, his nostrils had flared, and he’d turned right around and bolted for the safety of his cabin.
The memory brought a smile to his face.
They would reach Sutlam tomorrow at midday. That was the plan, at least. He’d had a whiff of the piss-colored liquor they’d been guzzling by the barrel. He could only assume they normally used it to strip tar and pitch from their barges. He doubted very much anyone would be in any condition to cast off before noon. Which, he told himself, suited him fine.
Leaving the barges would mean having no company but Inrito on the next leg of the journey. Even if that turned out to be no more than ten steps, it would still be ten steps more than he’d be willing to spend in the fool’s company. At least they’d be away from the ever-present witnesses, should he decide to leave Inrito’s carcass by the roadside.
He told himself he didn’t mind the leisurely paddle down the river. But in truth, his hide pricked uncomfortably whenever he gave their slow pace a moment’s thought. He didn’t normally ignore the instinctive urge that screamed at him to run and run now. He ignored it now at his peril, he knew. But only because he recognized he could make no faster headway on his own. For now, at least, it made better sense to stick with the barges. Still the itch refused to let up. If not for the fact that he knew there were dangerous people going to extraordinary lengths to hunt him down, he’d worry that he was becoming paranoid.
A foreign bird in the next tree over, finally spotting him, took to its wings with a furious flapping. Its panicked honk almost succeeded in making him jump. Which might have been disastrous.
This was so different from his home, he thought. Night time in the dessert was filled with the slow shifting of the dunes, the intermittent click and whirr of insomnia-stricken beetles and the half-heard flit of invisible bats. The loudest sound might be the distant bark of a lost jackal.
Here, the forest was a cacophony, hundreds of tiny – and not so tiny – creatures adding to the din. Even the plants joined in, rustling for no good reason and continuously shedding leaves and dead branches. How were you supposed to hear someone sneak up on you?
A branch snapped loudly in the darkness below. He turned his head, ears perked. Footsteps? Or just more of this unfamiliar forest conspiring to turn him into a wall-eyed worrier? The skin between his shoulders felt aflame. His breathing stilled as muted voices drifted up from the forest floor.
“You’re sure you saw him come this way?”
Olu, Limella’s brother. Great.
“I’m sure. He was sneaking real careful like but you told me to keep an eye and I spotted him.”
“Well, where is he then?” A third voice.
“Maybe he doubled back.” Another unfamiliar voice.
Silence.
“So what now?” the third voice put in again. “Do we split up?”
“Quiet,” Olu hissed, “I’m thinking.”
Up in his tree, he rolled his eyes. This could take a while.
“If you’re right about him, Olu,” the fourth voice interrupted the silence, “it’d be just like him to lead us out here while he doubles back to your sister and–”
Olu hissed angrily, cutting the voice off before it could get too graphic. “Alright! Let’s head back. But keep your eyes open. He’s leaving tomorrow, so tonight’s his last chance. I just know he’s going try something.”
He smirked. In retrospect, he shouldn’t have. His eyes stretched wide and his breath hitched.
Oh, no…
The sneeze gave no warning. It ambushed him, coming up on him unawares and not about to be denied. Desperately, he clamped both hands over his mouth and nose, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. He had a sudden, vivid vision of stones thrown in the dark, clattering off the thick branches.
Salt and silver, let none of them own a sling… or a bow…
His imagination settled on an image of the tree, aflame. If he didn’t just manage to sneeze himself clean off this bough.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, pressing down on his face with both his hands like he could smother the sneeze in its cradle.He felt the pressure roll from nowhere to fill his entire head. He wouldn’t be able to hold it back.
“Come on, let’s go,” the words drifted up, muffled by the humming in his ears.
Go on, leave!
His sinuses were on fire! Tears stung his eyes.
It burst from him with spectacular violence, almost launching him off his perch. His ribs creaked with the recoil.
“Tch–!”
“Hwaaphwaaph!!!”
A bird in the tree opposite took panicked flight, probably startled awake by the whistle – audible only to dogs and birds – of the sneeze’s vanguard escaping through his ears. Its hollow honking echoed overloud in the gloom. It would be too much to hope the sound had masked his sneeze... He sat very still, dripping snot and watching a handful of feathers slowly spiralling down into the dark.