by Karen Myers
Ah, but how do you tell a man that? She suppressed a smile.
“What will you wear?” Najud asked her. “Ellech or Zannib clothes?’
And then it hit her. When Najud met her, she was in Ellech clothing, the same sort of work clothes she’d worn for the three years since Vylkar found her. The only years she had memory of—all her life, as it were. She’d adopted local clothing in sarq-Zannib, and her life was with Najud now. She’d never expected to return to Ellech, so the matter had never come up.
“Zannib,” she said, firmly.
Najud eyed her sceptically. “You should wear Ellech styles if you like, might be a nice change for you. Might make it easier to work with the Collegium.”
She wavered. “Well, maybe—I’ll find something I can wear at need. But with my foreign face, I’ll never pass for Ellech anyway.” Unlike the tall, fair Ellech, Penrys was brown of hair and eyes, round of face, and below middle height. The two men with her had the olive skin and loose curly black hair of a typical Zan.
Only tall Vylkar, just concluding the cargo assignments, looked at home with his tidy graying scholar’s beard. He turned now to survey his companions.
“Ready?” he asked.
They added their packs to the cart so they could walk unencumbered beside it. The small piebald cob leaned his shoulders into the load, and the carter clucked encouragingly from his well worn perch behind him.
“Is it far?” Munraz asked. He was tall, for a Zan, and not quite at his full growth yet, but Vylkar topped him by almost a head.
“We’ll stop at the trade hall in the central square, up near the bridge, and take rooms nearby for the night. You’ll want to see the trade goods properly stowed, too, before looking at what’s left of the day’s markets.”
Vylkar glanced over at Penrys, and added, “You’ll find it not too different from Tavnastok, I think.”
She shook her head. “In Stokemmi, with no deadline, no errands for others, and my own money in my pocket—I think I’ll find it very different indeed.” She could feel Najud’s amusement through the light link she held with him.
The cartwheels rumbled along the wooden road, adding their bit to the resonant din of all the traffic to and from the wharves. Their own footsteps were drowned out.
The harborside warehouses and trade offices along their route gave way to a sort of seamen’s district of rooming houses, taverns, and shops, with open street markets visible down some of the cross streets. The faces on the streets there were of many nations, including the bearded Ellech, but she looked in vain for anyone resembling herself or the Zannib beside her. The smells of the food were of as many nations as the men, and her own stomach made its presence known as she inhaled sharply.
They saved their breath as the street continued to climb, not very steeply, away from the harbor, and gradually the main core of the city began to grow around them like a rising forest—first the many craft shops, many of them integrated into the first floor of the dwellings they passed, and then some of the craft halls and larger markets. Up ahead, the street opened up even as the buildings gained in height, rising to three and four stories, or even higher. The decorative flourishes carved into the doors were matched by touches of wooden inlay for variety, or even painted color and gilt.
Traffic in both directions was brisk, but no one gave their party much of a look, even with the exotic Zannib robes three of them wore.
Penrys wore her chain openly. When she’d left Ellech a year and a half ago, she was the only chained wizard anyone knew of—a seemingly unique and local specimen.
That had all changed, drastically. Her chain meant nothing to this crowd, but it was the reason she was here—to chase down a possible lead on who might have been involved in the creation of dozens of wizards like her, chained wizards, from all nations, scattered where they didn’t belong about four years ago, with no knowledge of who they’d been before.
Two months of shipboard speculation were past, and now it was time to get to work.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Myers is the author of the best-selling novel To Carry the Horn, the first entry in the series The Hounds of Annwn, a contemporary Wild Hunt fantasy set in a fae otherworld version of the Virginia Piedmont. She is currently working on a new fantasy series, The Affinities of Magic, following a young wizard who launches an industrial revolution of magic. More information is available at Perkunas Press.
Her stories have been published in Strange Horizons, Virginia Living, Virginia Sportsman, and Foxhunting Life.
Karen writes, photographs, and fiddles from her log cabin in the Allegheny mountains of central Pennsylvania. She can be reached at [email protected].
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ALSO BY KAREN MYERS
SHORT TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
GUIDE TO NAMES AND PRONUNCIATIONS
IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK…
ALSO BY KAREN MYERS
EXCERPT FROM ON A CROOKED TRACK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR