Vergence

by John March

  “Addae's right,” she said, “we look like strangers here so we need to be on guard against pickpockets.”

  “Pickpockets?”

  “Thieves who steal from you as you pass them. In Senesella many of the tidal waspa are like that. If you turn your back on them for a moment they grab anything they can—”

  “Do you mean the water people? In the Journeys of Ullvenard it says all the water dwellers of Senesella are noble.”

  Sash gave him a quizzical look. “Some are noble, but more are tricksters and rogues. Even most of my friends are like that. There's no harm in them, it's just how they are.”

  Ebryn digested this new view of Senesellan water dwellers as he and Sash moved between rows of stalls, working their way past knots of buyers. He'd half expected Sash to spend some time looking over the items on display, but she passed by with barely a glance to either side.

  They stopped to watch as a small six limbed avolene shinned effortlessly up one of the swaying poles to attach a long grey ribbon near the top.

  “What kind is that one?” Sash asked.

  “Selerian, I think,” Ebryn said, recalling an illustration from one of his bestiaries. As the original image had given no clue about size he'd assumed they would be much larger, even as huge as a bear. This one must be somewhat less than half his height, he thought, and less than an eighth of his weight. Six small hands made easy work of the climb, the slim furry body with an extra pair of shoulders about halfway along, and a long flexible tail.

  The climber spotted them staring, looking down on them with over-large eyes, from a long angular face. It bared pointed teeth, and flapped one of its lower arms in their direction, before sliding neatly out of sight.

  Sash laughed. “Was he being rude to us?”

  “Maybe, I don't know,” Ebryn said. He couldn't help smiling back at her.

  Ebryn soon realised Sash moved purposefully, navigating them towards a rowdier section of the marketplace. Taller than most, Ebryn could see they'd arrived at an open area, packed with people all looking towards a raised platform, with long sheets of dark grey material, suspended from a frame, concealing each end.

  Sash found a vantage point on an upturned crate, and they both watched.

  A man dressed in brightly coloured clothes staggered across the platform, following a glowing goblet which floated through the air ahead of him. He clawed at it, but his hands passed through, his face carrying an expression of exaggerated anguish, his other hand clasped at his brow.

  “Wicked is this cup which mocks me — yet before us it does ever flee.”

  Hundreds of upturned faces were trained on the man as he lurched after the goblet. To Ebryn, it was clearly an illusory glamour, and he couldn't understand why it wasn't obvious to everyone. Nothing about the man or the onlookers made sense to Ebryn.

  “What's he doing?” Ebryn asked.

  Sash was watching, clearly transfixed by the spectacle. “Hmm?”

  “Why's he following the cup?” Ebryn asked.

  “And that, my good fellow, is the question,” a man behind them said in a booming voice. “If you want to find out, you will need to come and see the show.”

  Sash and Ebryn turned to look at the speaker, a large man with broad fleshy features and ruddy cheeks, with a full beard of dark curling hair, dressed in bright flamboyant clothes. Around them, the crowd cheered as the man on the platform moved off to one side.

  “Show?” Ebryn asked.

  He grinned at them. “Dear me, that wasn't the full play, I can assure you. I know, as I wrote it myself. Teblin, master playwright and sometimes actor at your service.”

  Ebryn remembered the time, a few years back, when a troupe of guisers passed through Conant village. Fidela had banned everyone living at Conant Manor from going to see their performance, calling them and their plays, peddlers of lies and half-truths. The image he'd formed, of hooded brigands skulking in shadows, whispering dark secrets to unsuspecting villagers, bore no semblance to the man in front of them.

  “So what do we have here?” Teblin asked, looking them up and down. “A Senesellan princess, and a delightfully handsome young nobleman, fresh from …?”

  “Fyrenar,” Ebryn said.

  Sash laughed. “We don't have any princesses in Senesella. I'm Sashael, but my friends call me Sash, and this is Ebryn.”

  “How do you know Sash is Senesellan?” Ebryn asked.

  “She has all the markings, my dear fellow — all the markings — impossible to mistake. And newly arrived in this fine city, this close to the Tranquillity, I'd wager a gallon of ale you're here for the academy.”

  “What is this Tranquillity?” Ebryn asked. He recalled Quentyn mentioning it earlier.

  “Come over here, away from the crowd, and I'll explain it to you. You arrived as we finished — if you remain there you'll be trampled when my audience departs.”

  Teblin led them through the jostling crowd, making for where a double row of covered stalls formed a kind of avenue.

  “Yes, as I was saying,” Teblin said, stopping between a jewellery seller and a spice merchant, “the Tranquillity marks the start of the new year. Two weeks of celebrations—”

  “Two weeks?” Ebryn said.

  “Indeed, two weeks, and in that time we are by ourselves in this fine city. No ships ply the skies, crossing to the other places. We are unreachable from the outside, nor can we leave, and that is why it is styled the Tranquillity. Don't let the name put you off, though — I promise it is anything other than tranquil once the revelries start. Most of these fine fellows will pack up for the duration. Not much profit for them unless they're selling food and drink, especially drink.”

  “Revelries?” Sash asked absently, her attention diverted by a stall-keeper trying to show her a collection of necklaces and rings.

  “Parades and parties. An all too rare orgy of overindulgence, a brief respite in our laboured lives. Not the entire two weeks mind, even I couldn't manage that.”

  “Oh, poor Addae,” Sash said suddenly. “I said we wouldn't be long. He must be wondering what's happened to us.”

  “We left a friend waiting for us with our symor,” Ebryn said to Teblin.

  “Then you must go,” Teblin said. “One should not keep a friend waiting. Where did you leave him?”

  “Near a display with Tryth performers,” Ebryn said.

  “Ah yes, I know it. As it happens, I was planning on going that way myself. I will walk with you. I'll have the pleasure of your company a while longer, and you will have the benefit of a guide.”

  Ebryn looked round. He had no sense of where they were in the market, or which direction to take back to Addae. “Thanks, that's kind of you.”

  “But wait — do you wish to buy some of that fine jewellery before we go?”

  Sash laughed. “No need. I can wear as much as I like as often as I like — look.”

  A dozen golden hoops pierced her ears, and a couple through either side of her nose. One eyelid hung low, weighted down by small hooked pendant with a brilliant blue stone to match the slide in her hair. Her fingers bulged with golden rings and she bowed under the burden of heavy necklaces and arm-bands.

  As Teblin and Ebryn watched, her jewellery dissolved into small clouds of rapidly vanishing smoke.

  “Glamours?” Ebryn asked.

  “Yes. It's difficult to hold that many different shapes for any amount of time though, if I can't see them.”

  “So, an illusionist,” Teblin said, giving Sash an appraising look. “Do you have the craft to create other forms?”

  “Yes, just about anything I can imagine,” Sash said.

  “How about a flying goblet?” Teblin asked.

  “Like the one in your play? Yes, that's easy.”

  Sash whispered something and passed her hand through the air in front of them and, almost as if she'd wiped away a veil, a goblet appeared, floating in the air between them.

  “Can you make it glow?” Teblin asked. “Overflowing
with fire?”

  The goblet brightened like a piece of metal heating in a furnace, first dull red, then molten white with waves of heat distorting the air around it, and just as it looked ready to burn up, something like liquid flame overflowed the lip and poured to the floor, striking the ground with a loud hiss.

  A passer-by exclaimed loudly, moving quickly out of the way, and a nearby stall-keeper started flapping her hands, and shouting a stream of curses at them.

  Sash released her casting with a word. The flaming goblet vanished so suddenly it left a dark after-image in Ebryn's vision.

  “Cheg's knuckles,” Teblin said, glancing at the shouting woman. “What extraordinary skill! But I have forgotten your companion. This way, follow me.”

  Teblin ploughed a path directly through the crowds, cheerfully redirecting people who stepped in his way, turning his head to talk to Ebryn and Sash. “Did the two of you travel here together?”

  “No,” Ebryn said. “We were on the same ship, but we only met this morning.”

  Ebryn glanced at Sash. It sounded strange admitting they'd barely known each other a few hours, because she and Addae already felt nearly as familiar to him as Arnal and Doren.

  They passed a boy carrying a tray, held horizontal by a strap looped over the back of his shoulders. On top of the tray were a few dozen small packages wrapped in coloured paper. The use of something as valuable as paper for a container astounded Ebryn.

  Teblin paused to press a few coins into the boy's hand in exchange for a couple of the packages.

  “Sweet roasted mun nuts,” Teblin said. “Delicious, but if you eat too many, you end up looking like me.”

  “With a beard?” Sash asked.

  Teblin chuckled and held out one of the half-opened packets to Ebryn. It was filled with small round light brown objects.

  “What are they from?” Ebryn asked.

  Teblin raised an eyebrow. “From a tree. Safe to eat.”

  “Our friend from Epitu offered him grubs to eat,” Sash said.

  “I see. Well, we don't eat things like that here,” Teblin said, tipping a few into his mouth.

  Ebryn took one and cautiously put it in his mouth. Definitely sweet — something like honey, but different. He bit down carefully. There was some resistance, but it broke apart and crumbled easily, and tasted wonderful.

  “Good fellow, that's the spirit. You need to try new things when you come to Vergence, or what's the point?”

  They stopped again to let a group pass them — a motley collection of men and women in ragged clothes, doused in bright blue dye, each tied to the one in front and behind with a short length of cord. They staggered and lurched drunkenly, eyes looking wildly about, tongues lolling from their mouths or drooling, led by a burly youth with a shaven head, scowling darkly as he went by.

  “Well, perhaps you should not try everything Vergence has to offer,” Teblin said.

  “Are they slaves?” Sash asked, staring after their receding blue backs.

  “No, not slaves,” Teblin said. “Slavery is no longer permitted in Vergence, banned by the current Duca. Slavers are put to death if they come here now. Those were followers of the blue god. When they have surrendered all their wealth to their temple, or served long enough as a novice, if they have none to give, like that young man leading them, then they are permitted to chew certain roots and inhale blue liquid-metal vapours to better know their god. Soon they see nothing else and must be led through the streets thus.”

  “How's that different from slavery?” Ebryn asked.

  “They choose that life for themselves,” Teblin said.

  “It doesn't look much of a life to me.”

  “Who can say what they find in it,” Teblin said. “It's not for me, though. That said, if they served free ale I'd join them in a heartbeat — ah, here we are.”

  They rounded a tall stall and found themselves on the edge of the road, a few yards away from their symor. Addae stood on the far side, facing in the other direction, leaning back against the front of the vehicle.

  “Before I take my leave, would you like directions for my theatre? Should you have time, I would be delighted to have you visit.”

  “Yes, please,” Sash said quickly.

  Teblin produced a small square of heavy paper from his pocket. From another pocket he drew out a long thin object, like a carved wooden stick, tipped with a round pointed bronze head.

  “I'll write the directions. Pardon me for asking, do you read?” Teblin asked.

  “Yes,” Sash said.

  “Excellent … then you may find my scribblings are of use. And in which establishment will you be abiding?”

  “The Etched Man, until the test. After that, at the academy,” Sash said.

  Using the bronze headed stick, Teblin wrote a few lines, and sketched a small map onto the paper. Intrigued, Ebryn watched carefully. He could see no ink, yet where the tip touched the paper it left a fine mark.

  “What is that?”

  “A writing stylus,” Teblin said, holding it up for Ebryn to look at.

  “You're a caster?” Ebryn asked.

  Teblin chuckled. “No, only with words. It was fashioned by one of yours, a binding I think it is called. They're expensive, and none has lasted past half a year. I bought this one in the high market.

  “There you go. I've marked on here the location of my theatre, and the name of a very fine tavern. Neither are far from either place you'll be staying. I confess I am a feeble cartographer, yet it should serve.”

  The Dragon

  EBRYN ARRIVED AT The Etched Man feeling drained. The scale of the city, the heaving crowds, the streets, each like a flowing river of a thousand pieces, had bruised his senses in relentless collisions of colour, sound, and odour. Addae's face wore a slightly dazed expression which he imagined must mirror his own. Only Sash seemed to be immune to the raw power of the city.

  Outside the main entrance stood a large bronze slab, three yards in height, built into the surface of the wall facing onto the street. A minutely detailed etching of a man looked out in the direction of the entrance. The man’s skin was depicted in fine whorls and lines covered in dozens of overlapping images. The man’s face held an odd expression, and Ebryn couldn’t decide if it was pensive or disinterested, or distracted.

  The interior turned out to be like a miniature version of Vergence folded into a single rambling structure. Whole unexpected sections branched off suddenly at odd angles from the main body through narrow crooked passageways like self-contained districts.

  Ebryn’s room was small but clean, and had everything he needed for a short stay. Beside the bed were high windows with heavy shutters, pushed wide open to give a restricted view of the rooftops, courtyards, and streets below. His only concern about the room was the lack fastenings on the door other than a simple bolt, but the old man who’d shown them to their rooms chuckled when he mentioned it.

  “No-one thieves from Kylnes,” he’d said.

  He'd walked with a limp, had a face full of old scars with one eye closed by an injury, and a squashed crooked nose. When he’d spoken Ebryn could see most of his front teeth were missing.

  “An' don’t you go trying neither,” he‘d said in a cheerful tone as he left. “Those 'as do ends up float’n face down in the canal.”

  In spite of the advice, Ebryn chose to conceal his few possessions. When he had finished unpacking Ebryn splashed water from the basin over his face and combed his fingers through his hair, then sat and waited until he thought Sash might be ready.

  He paused outside her room to listen before knocking. There was no response until he knocked a second time.

  “Is that you Ebryn? Come in, I’m just finishing,” Sash called from inside.

  Her room was bigger than his, with a much larger bed positioned against the opposite wall, and a small window on either side. On the bed lay the two containers she had brought with her from the ship. One was already open with stray items of clothing draped over the
sides. A brush and a couple of small glass bottles lay nearby on the bed. The second container, with the scores of small holes, remained strapped shut.

  Following sounds of rustling, coming from a recessed area in the near wall, Ebryn moved into the centre of the room near the bed from where he could see her, then turned away quickly to face in the other direction.

  Sash faced away from him, bending forward to pick something up from a low dressing table, but clearly wearing nothing from the waist up.

  “Sorry, I thought you said you wanted me to come in,” Ebryn mumbled.

  “Hmm? Yes, I did,” Sash said.

  “I didn’t realise you were still dressing.”

  She walked around him to the bed, deftly putting her hair into a single braid. Ebryn was relieved to see she had put on a top.

  “I’m finished now,” she said, looking at him quizzically. “I said I was nearly ready.”

  She moved to the unopened container and started to undo the fastenings. “Do you want to see?”

  As the lid came off there was a brief scrabbling from inside. Moments later, a narrow head on the end of a long serpentine neck emerged, and forelegs with bird-like clawed feet which gripped onto the lip of the box. As it moved, its skin rippled like coloured smoke over water, shifting rapidly from ebony through deep iridescent blue to a walnut and green that matched the surface of the container and the surrounding bed-cover.

  It scrambled out and landed lightly on the bed, spread out large membranous wings, and looked around the room with large bright yellow eyes. The colour of its skin shifted almost instantly to match the covers making it hard to see clearly from even a few yards. An elaborate yawn revealed rows of tiny needle sharp teeth and a long ridged pink tongue. It was about the size of a small cat. Ebryn realised he was staring with his mouth partially open.

  “Do you like him?” Sash asked, smiling at the look on his face.

  “It's a miniature chameleonic dragon—”

  “How do you know about Senesellan dragons?” It was her turn to sound surprised.

  “I have a bestiary — Tolmin's Bestiary. Inside there's a section about Senesellan animals.”