A Gathering Of Stones dost-3

by Jo Clayton

  “No doubt they are.” Maksim cleared his throat; he regretted the sarcastic tone of the words; he knew Jastouk wouldn’t like it. “I’m looking forward to seeing them perform.”

  They turned into the Ihman Katt and strolled toward the harbor. The broad street was crowded with porters and merchants coming up from the wharves, with other strollers, visitors who meant to sample the pleasures of Kukurul before getting down to serious buying and selling; a few like Maksim and Jastouk were heading for the cafй Sidday Lir and noon tea or a light lunch and lighter gossip.

  A line of slaves on a neck coffle came shuffling along the Katt. Maksim’s eyes grazed over them. He started to look away as soon as he realized what they were, then he saw the being at the tail of the line, separate from the others, tugged along on a lease like some bad-tempered dog. It was Todichi Yahzi, his once-amanuensis.

  Maksim felt a jolt to his belly. Guilt flooded through him, choked him. He’d dismissed the little creature from his mind so completely he hadn’t thought of him once during the past ten years. Gods of time and fate, he thought, not an instant’s thought. Nothing! He’d snatched the kwitur from his home reality, used him and discarded him with as little consideration as any of the kings he so despised. He couldn’t even comfort himself with the notion that he’d assumed Yahzi had got home; the trigger he’d left with the kwitur only worked if he, Maksim, died. He hadn’t assumed anything because he hadn’t bothered to remember the being who’d spent almost every waking hour with him for nearly twenty years. He saw the collar on Todichi Yahzi’s neck, the chain that tethered him to the whipmaster’s belt. He saw the lumps and weals that clubs and whips had laid on his almost-friend’s hide; he saw the hunched, cringing shuffle, the sudden blaze of rage in the deep set dull eyes as they met his. Todichi’s body read like a book of shame, but despite the abuse he’d suffered, he was as alert, intelligent and intransigent as he’d been when he lived in the Citadel.

  After that brief involuntary lurch, Maksim walked on. He knew Jastouk had noted his reaction and would be wondering why such a commonplace sight as a string of slaves would bother him so much. That couldn’t be helped. He looked around. They were passing a tiny temple dedicated to Pindatung the god of thieves and pickpockets, a scruffy gray-mouse sort of god with a closet-sized niche for a temple. He stopped. “Jasti, go ahead and get us a table. I’ll want tea, berries, and cream. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  Jastouk touched Maksim’s shoulder. For a moment he seemed about to offer what help he could give, but in the end opted for tact. “Don’t be long, hmm?”

  “I won’t. It’s something I’d forgotten that I’ve got to take care of. Only be a few minutes. Don’t fuss, luv.”

  Jastouk pressed his lips together; he didn’t like it when Maksim either deliberately or unconsciously echoed Brann’s manner of speech, but he said nothing.

  Ruefully aware of offending, quite aware of where the offense lay, Maksim watched the hetairo saunter off. Shaking his head, he slipped into the templet and settled onto the tattered cushions scattered across a wallbench. He slid his hand into his robe and took out his farseeing mirror. He’d made it to keep watch on Brann so he could help her if she needed him, but he had a more urgent use for it now. It was an oval of polished obsidian in a plaited ring of Brann’s hair, white as a spider’s web and as delicate. The cable it hung from he’d twisted from a strand of his own hair. He breathed on it, rubbed his cuff over it, sat holding it for several moments. What he was going to do was a very minor magic; there was even a good chance that the Guardians hired by the Managers wouldn’t notice it. If they did, he might be booted out of Kukurul and forbidden to return. He scrubbed his hand across his face. He was sweating and angry at himself, angry at Todichi Yahzi for showing up and making him feel a lout, angry at Fate in all her presentations including Tungjii Luck.

  Impatiently he pushed such considerations aside and bent over the mirror, his lips moving in a subvocal chant. He set the slave coffle into the image field, along with the agent and his whipmaster, followed the shuffling string to the Auction House on the edge of the Great Market and into the slavepens behind it. He pointed the mirror at the agent and followed him into the office of his employer, watched and listened as the agent made his report, the slaver made his arrangements for the sale of the string. Three days on. Maksim let the mirror drop, canceling the spell on it, and spent a moment longer wondering if he should bid for himself or employ an agent. Shaking his head, he stood and slipped the mirror back beneath his robes. He thrust two fingers into his belt purse, fished out a coin and tossed it in the bowl beneath the crude statue of the little gray god. “In thanks for the use of your premises,” he murmured and went out.

  He stood a moment looking down the Ihman Katt toward the cafd Sidday Lir where Jastouk waited for him. I am sadly diminished, he thought. From tyrant and demiurge I have descended to merely lover and bought-love at that. Poor old Todich. There’s nothing grand in hating a little man. He started walking, chuckling to himself at the image the words evoked.

  2

  Maksim dressed with great care, choosing a good gray robe meant to present the image of a man moderately in coin and moderate in most other things, a third rank sorceror who could defend himself but wasn’t much of a threat. He dressed his long hair in a high knot, had Jastouk paint it with holding gel until it gleamed like black-streaked pewter, then he thrust plain silver skewers through the knot. He loaded his fingers with rings. Quiet, moderate rings. He was a man it was safe to gull a little, but dangerous to irritate too much.

  He finished buffing his nails, inspected them closely, dropped his hands into his lap. “Slave auction,” he said. “Jasti, don’t come. You don’t want to see that place. Or smell it.”

  Jastouk smiled and took his buffer back, replaced it in his dressing kit. “The sun shines all the brighter for a cloud or two.”

  Snorting his irritation, Maksim got to his feet. He didn’t want Jastouk along, but the hetairo had evaded him all morning, refusing to hear what he didn’t mean to hear. He could order him to stay away, but he didn’t dare go that far. Should he demand obedience, Jastouk would obey-and when Maksim got back to his rooms, he’d find Vechakek waiting with a graceful note of farewell and a bill for the hetairo’s services. He wasn’t ready for that, not yet. He knew he could easily find other company, but he wanted Jastouk. The hetairo excited him. Jastouk carried an aura of free-floating promise undefined but exquisitely seductive. Maksim didn’t fool himself, it was part of a hetairo’s portfolio, that promise never fulfilled, never denied so that hope lingered even after the sundering: Someday someway 1 will find what I want, someday someway 1 will KNOW what I want. It wasn’t Jastouk and it was, it wasn’t Brann and it was, he didn’t know what it was.

  The slavepens were a vast complex growing like mold over the hills south of the Great Market, apart from it, yet part of it, deplored by the genteel of Kukurul but patronized by them along with others who didn’t bother about the moral issues involved. The shyer visitors rented thin lacquer halfmasks from the dispensary just inside the portal, beast mask, bird, fantasy or abstraction, a face to show instead of the faces they wore in more respectable circumstances; the bold put on masks for the whimsy of the act or played to their vanity by separating themselves from the nameless troglodytes who bought drudges for kitchens and stables or selected more delicate fruit for the pleasure Houses. Despite a compulsive overdecoration in all the more public areas, the pens were a meld of stench and ugliness. That didn’t matter, those who came to buy didn’t notice the ugliness and ignored the wisps of stink that cut through the incense drifting about the private views and the auction room.

  Carved in Twara-Teng high relief, the massive portal was intricately chased, heavily ornate, monumentally ugly. On sale days the syndics had the twin leaves of the Gate swung outward and pinned to angular dragonposts, exposing the serpentine geometries of their inner surfaces. Maksim walked past them, his nostrils twitching. He loathed this pl
ace, but was; almost pleased because its aesthetic qualities were so wonderfully suited to the acts within, as if the building and its ornamentation were designed by some heavy handed and deeply offended satirist. He paused at the dispensary and rented a falcon’s mask for Jastouk, taking a black bear’s mn771e for himself.

  Masked and silent, they strolled among the cages for a while, waiting for the first sale to be called.

  Jastouk was restless, uneasy. Like most of the hetairos working with Minders or from one of the established. Houses, he’d been meat in a cage like those around him when he was a child, a brown-eyed blond with skin soft and smooth as fresh cream, knowing just enough to be terrified because he had no say in who bought him or what use they made of him. But that was long ago, longer than he liked to think about. The years were pressing in on him, leaving their traces on his face and body. The day would come when Clients would ignore him for younger, fresher fare; new lovers would be hard to find, his price would drop, his standards go. He’d seen it, happen to others again and again, thinking not me, no, never. Anyway, that’s a long time off, when I’m old, I won’t be old for years and years. This place reminded him that those years were passing, each year faster than the last; it was time and more than time to begin planning, it was time and more than time to search for a lover he could stay with.

  They passed a small blond boy, all eyes and elbows and numb terror.

  Maksim felt the fingers on his arm tremble, caught the flicker of slitted eyes. He guessed at Jastouk’s fears and felt pain at the loss of something he’d treasured, the golden gliding invulnerability of the hetairo. Jastoulc had made several mistakes this morning, the biggest of them, underestimating the power of the buried anxieties this place would trigger, the effect they’d have on his judgment. Maksim looked at him with pity instead of lust and was saddened by that. For a moment he thought of keeping the hetairo with him now that Brann was gone and unlikely to return, but only for a moment. He was fond of Jastouk but he didn’t like him much and he certainly wasn’t in love with him; he hadn’t been in love for… how long? It seemed like centuries. It was at least decades. The last time, when was it? Certainly before he went to Cheonea. Traxerxes from Phras. The ancient ache of parting felt like pressed flowers, the shape there but all the fragrance gone. Five stormy years and more pain and fury than… faded and gone. No one after Trax. He was too busy with his little Cheonenes, trying to shape them into something… no time, no energy, nobody… Jastouk wasn’t meant for longterm anything. He was a diversion, delightful but ephemeral.

  No, don’t think about it, he told himself and made a half-hearted pretense of inspecting the merchandise. Without his musings to distract him, outrage took hold, outrage and helplessness. If he were given the rule of things, he’d turn every slaver into pigmeat and lop the ears off parents who sold their children no matter what the reason. He’d outlawed slavery in Cheonea, skinned some slavers and confiscated some ships-how long that would hold he had no idea. He had to trust his farmers to keep the land clean; they were tough old roots; they had their claws on power and it’d take a lot to pry them loose. Ah well, it wasn’t his responsibility any longer.

  He pulled the mask away from his face, mopped at his brow and upper lip with the lace-edged linen wipe he twitched from his sleeve. He settled the mask into place, tucked the wipe away and strolled to the back of the room. Todichi Yahzi was in none of the cages. That might mean the kwitur was part of the first lot. If so, good, he thought, the sooner I’m out of here…

  Maksim set his back against the wall, smoothed a hand down the front of his robe, his stomach churning despite the calm detachment he was trying to project. Or it might mean Todich was already gone. Private sale. The dealer hadn’t planned to offer private views, but anything might have happened since last night.

  Jastouk leaned against him, responding to his tension, offering warmth and support-and a voiceless warning that he was broadcasting too much emotion.

  Maksim sighed and did his best to relax. He was drilled in self-control, but excess was an integral part of his power. He drew strength from riding the ragged edge of disaster. Not now, he told himself. This is not the time for power, this is the time for finesse. Forty Mortal Hells, you great lumbering fool, finesse! He blinked sweat from his eyes and swept the room with an impatient glance. It was rapidly filling up. About a third of the newcomers wore masks, some of them far too rich to be part of the Dispenser’s stock; it was early for such notables to be out, maybe that meant something, maybe it was just chance. The rest were stolid types with House Badges on dull tabards, some solitaire, some with a clutch of clerks in attendance. Maksim bent toward the smooth blond head resting against his ribs. “Tell me who’s here,” he murmured.

  “Some of the masks I don’t know.” Jastouk’s whisper was a thread of sound inaudible a step away. “They don’t make the night circles, I think. Goldmask Hawk, that’s an Imperial Hand from Andurya Durat; I don’t know why he’s here now; this is a meat market. The skilled slaves go in the evening sale. Black Lacquer Beetle with the sapphire bobs, she’s Muda Paramount from the Pitna Jong Island group, that’s out in the middle of the Big Nowhere, she usually culls a girl or two from these sales, or a boychild if he’s very young and very beautiful…” The creamy murmur went on as the stage began to show signs of life. Two sweepers emerged from behind tall black velvet curtains, swung brooms in graceful arcs, almost a dance as they came together, parted, then glided out, pushing before them small heaps of dust and other debris.

  “The Hina mix in gray with the Shamany Patch… um, that patch is a lie, he hired it off the Shamany; everyone knows that but goes along with it. The Shamany’s a miserable poxHouse, makes its taxcoin from those patchrents. I’ve seen him around in the dogends of morning, I think he runs a stable of child thieves; he’s probably looking for new talent…”

  Three youths in black pajamas pushed a squat pillar out to the center of the stage, fitted a curving ramp onto it. The Block. Maksim shuddered, acid rising in his throat. It was over a century since he’d been present at a slave auction; it was two hundred and seventy-one years since he himself had been sold in one. The sight of it still made him want to vomit. As more sceneshifters brought in the Caller’s Lectern and a cage that glittered like silver in the harsh light, he forced himself to listen to Jastouk.

  “Rinta House, Gashturmteh, Aldohza, Yeshamm, all solitaire reps, they don’t look like they’re expecting much… um, BlackHouse is here, that’s why. Not a good idea to bid too often against BlackHouse, bad things happen to you.” Jastouk shuddered, his body rubbing against Maksim’s.

  The Caller came onstage and stood behind his Lectern, holding his hardwood rod a handspan above the sounder. He looked out across the milling crowd, then he hammered twice for attention, the harsh clacks breaking through the buzz of conversation, pulling those still drifting among the cages onto the auction floor. Maksim stepped away from the wall and onto the floor though he stayed at the back of the bidders. His size was an embarrassment sometimes, an advantage here. He couldn’t be overlooked. He folded his arms across his broad chest and waited.

  The first offerings were brought out to warm up the crowd and get them bidding, two half-grown males and a middle-aged woman; they went to clerks looking for muscle and a reasonable degree of health.

  “We have several items fresh in from the South; the first is a healthy boy said to be Summerborn and in his sixth year.” The Caller tapped lightly with his sounding rod. A Hina girl led a small M’darjin boy from behind the curtains, walked him up the ramp and whispered commands to him from behind the pillar, making him turn and posture, open his mouth and show his teeth, go through the ritual of offering himself for sale. He was frightened and awkward, but already he’d learned to keep silence and obey his handlers.

  Blind unreasoning rage shook Maksim, rattled in his throat. Without warning he was that boy on the Block; all the intervening years were wiped away, his control was wiped away; another instant and h
e might have destroyed half of Kukurul in his fury before he was himself destroyed by the forces that guarded the city.

  A short sharp pain stabbed through the haze, came again and again; Jastouk had read him and reacted without thought or hesitation. He had a come-along hold on Maksim’s hand, he was squeezing and pressing on it, generating such agony that it brought Maksim out of his fit, sweating and cursing under his breath.

  “Bid,” Jastouk whispered urgently. There was a faint film of sweat on his skin, a frantic, half-mad glare in his eyes. “If you want him, bid.” He began massaging the hand he’d mistreated, still disturbed, his eyes half-closed, his breathing a rapid shallow pant.

  “Could’ve been me,” Maksim muttered.

  “No. Stupid ordinary little git. Not you.”

  Maksim managed an unsteady chuckle. “I was a stupid ordinary little git, Jasti.”

  Jastouk shook his head in stubborn disagreement, but he said nothing.

  The caller had already taken a few bids, starting low, six coppers; he worked that up to thirty coppers, coaxing small increments out of the motley group on the floor. All the boy offered was his youth; he wasn’t especially charming or quick and the Caller continued noncommittal about his talents.

  The BlackHouse Rep held up five fingers. Fifty coppers.

  That jolted Maksim out of his brooding. He lifted both hands, showed six fingers. Though he’d recovered from that first shock of identification, he could not possibly let that boy go to BlackHouse; there was only one use they had for a child that age; it made him sick thinking about it.

  The Rep looked around, scowling. Once they declared interest in an item, they weren’t used to being challenged. He thought a moment, showed six fingers straight and a seventh bent. Sixty-five coppers.

  Maksim showed eight.

  The Rep looked at him a long moment, looked at the boy, shrugged and let the bid stand. Small coltish boys with no special charm or talent were no rarity and he wouldn’t be reprimanded for letting this one go elsewhere.