by Patty Jansen
Mikandra nodded. Sadly she knew the street and knew where the council buildings were; she'd been robbed in this street.
"Ask to speak to the librarian," the woman added.
Mikandra left the building again and walked around the corner into Market Street, along the side walls of the complex to the back. Contrary to last time she had been here, the alley was filled with light and there were plenty of people in the street, strolling or carrying purchases. The rusted gates into the council complex stood open and builders walked to and fro carrying materials inside. Inside the gate in the building's forecourt, a couple of Pengali were mixing cement under a tent shelter. One was shovelling sand into a large drum that turned around by itself. In Miran, builders would either use a noisy engine or do this by hand. Miran made a point of not using energy pearls, because the devices, charged with the power from sunlight, were not all that useful in Miran, where it was clouded-over or misty a lot of the time. But the main reason Miran didn't use them was because the pearls were a Coldi invention, which was a lame reason, seeing how easily people lit their homes with pearls and how people in Miran fumbled about with oil lights.
Mikandra went up a couple of steps to the only entrance that was in any state to be used as such. It led into a dome-structured hall which functioned as foyer, with a boarded-up door to one side and an open entrance into a corridor on the other. A couple of builders walked past into this corridor without taking any notice of her.
There was no one else in sight, so Mikandra followed them.
She came out into a passage with one open wall that gave access to a courtyard, with columns supporting the roof.
A significant part of the wall on the other side had been adorned with an intricate mural, painted a long time ago, judging by the faded colours and chipped paint. Even so, it was an amazing piece of work.
The painting depicted a city with numerous gold domes protruding from a sea of roofs interspersed with large spreading trees. A building in the foreground sported a five-pointed star on its façade and in the background sunlight glinted off marshlands. Wow, was this really Barresh?
She had heard something about this having been a great city in the past. Then again, prior to the Coldi invasion, Miran had been great, too. Neither city had done too well since. And the Coldi hadn't even stuck around.
The painting was a thing of great skill and so detailed that she could see the individual flowers and leaves on the trees and the jagged shapes of the creatures that were related to the maramarang silhouetted against the sky.
On a balcony in the middle of the painting stood a dark-skinned man overlooking the city. His tunic was deep turquoise, heavily embroidered with silver. He wore his dark hair combed back and held in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. On his chest he wore a glittering insignia that looked suspiciously like it carried the Trader Guild's symbol, but she had to be mistaken. Barresh had no Traders. Yet his strong face seemed familiar, even though the groove in the middle of his nose indicated that he was a keihu local—
"Can I help you?"
Mikandra whirled around.
The man who had spoken to her in flawless Mirani was taller than her—unusual for locals. He had a fine-featured face—almost feminine with a full and curved mouth. Soft black curls tumbled carelessly to the collar of his shirt.
"Uhm, yes. I was told by someone at the Exchange that someone here might have a need for someone who can read Mirani." It seemed a pretty silly thing to say, especially since his command of Mirani was so good.
He cocked his head. His skin was much too pale to make him keihu, and his eyes were the deepest black she had ever seen. In comparison with him, the eyes of the locals were light-coloured. She couldn't even begin to guess his ethnicity.
"Omarion Baku," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"Omarion Baku. The man in the painting."
Mikandra had definitely heard that name before. She eyed the turquoise-clad figure on the balcony. "But . . . he wears a Trading medallion. I thought he was a pirate."
"Yes."
"What yes?" This guy was weird and the intense way he looked at her gave her the shivers. Who was he?
"Omarion Baku was both a Trader and a pirate. He was the only licenced Trader Barresh has ever had, and became a pirate later in life out of protest for the Mirani annexation of Barresh as colony." His black eyes continued to meet her as if throwing her a challenge.
The Mirani annexation of Barresh what a load of rubbish. Barresh had asked Miran to help them deal with riots in the city.
He continued, "It is interesting how different entities have their own versions of events in their shared history. You should read what the Trader Guild histories have to say about Omarion Baku. In Barresh, he's a hero. For the Trader Guild, he's a villain."
Mikandra's heart thudded against her ribs. It was as if he had known what she was thinking.
But he was right. Asto's invasion in Miran had probably been nothing more than a small blip on their aggressive colonisation record, and Coldi children would never learn about the events that had destroyed a great city and broken the backbone of a proud country when a civilisation invaded that was so much more advanced than they.
He continued, "Because Omarion Baku would not surrender to the Mirani occupancy, the Trader Guild revoked his licence and cast him out, but he continued both Trading and wearing the medallion. He held the people of the city together under occupation. They hid out in these buildings, which is partly why they look so battered and run-down today."
"But it was two hundred years ago." His continued use of Mirani occupation grated on her.
"Yes." He let a pause lapse and added, "I guess it's time the damage was fixed up."
His black pools of eyes met his, but she couldn't gauge if he was serious or not.
Then he said again, "Yes." And let a silence lapse. "I wish it wasn't so, but the problem is that the occupying army left behind hundreds of years' worth of documents, and it is essential that we know what is in them before we can make a decision to keep or destroy them."
What the heck was he talking about now?
"Don't look like that. You asked if we could use people who read Mirani."
She had asked, yes, a few questions ago.
"I can read Mirani. I can help."
"Excellent. Do you have a name?"
"I'm . . ." She almost gave him her real name. "Eydrina."
"Are you related to Eydrina Lasko, the medic at the hospital?"
Oh, ancestors! "No. No. I don't know her. I mean—I know of her, but I never met her or anything like tha—"
"Never mind, Eydrina."
Damn, he did not believe one word of what she said. She wanted to ask What is your name? but didn't dare do so for fear of being called out on her lying. It was as if this man looked straight through her.
There was a voice further down the corridor and a second man came from an entrance in great strides, but stopped when he saw Mikandra.
"Ah. Lady." He nodded. He was keihu and dressed in black, which Mikandra had come to know as the colour of the Barresh council, with the five-pointed star emblem on his chest in gold thread.
The tall man said a few words in keihu to which the council worker replied, with a slight bow.
Then the tall man continued to Mikandra in Mirani, "You will have to excuse me. I would tell you more about the history of this city, but I am required elsewhere. If you continue down this passage and turn left, you will find the library."
"Thank you."
The tall man went off with the council employee and Mikandra continued down the corridor. What a weird, creepy man was this. And then the way he spoke. His pronunciation was flawless, but his language excessively formal. It reminded her strongly of how Ydana Ezmi spoke, but Aunt Amandra's lover was both Coldi and from Hedron and this man was . . . she didn't even know. What was he? Who was he?
The passage opened into a domed hall that was a junction of five such passages. A number of chatt
ering Pengali workers crawled over the floor using fine brushes to clean the mosaic tiles. Like almost everything in Barresh, it depicted the ubiquitous five-pointed star in a coloured panel directly under the highest point of the domed ceiling. The chemical they used smelled foul, but where they'd scrubbed away the grime, the floor came out in brilliant colours. The star was golden, the background was vibrant blue. Where had those people all those years ago when this mosaic was made found those pigments?
Turn left, the tall man had said, but there were two left-hand turns. There was a left-opposite and left-behind. The left-opposite turn led into a corridor with featureless doors on either side. The floor was grey with dirt and grime and looked like the last person had passed that way at least a hundred years ago.
She chose the left-behind passage, which led through a corridor where the floor had already been cleaned and where the air smelled of fresh paint.
It turned out to be a good choice, because she found the library at the end, through two double doors that stood wide open.
The library was a huge hall, pentagonal, with rich wood-panelled walls which looked new—hence the smell. A team of builders was working to build a mezzanine floor around the outer perimeter of the hall. The wooden structure was finished in the sections opposite and to the left of the main entrance. Here, other people were setting up shelves both underneath and on top of the mezzanine floor.
The layout of the place reminded Mikandra of the Miran library, which also consisted of a large hall with balcony-like floors surrounding the perimeter.
That hall in the Miran library was an ancient, sacred place, with the faint smell of leather-bound books, precious wooden shelves and cabinets displaying significant items, like the four Foundation stones. Like this hall, the floor was an intricate mosaic of coloured tiles. Like this hall, noise echoed off the domed ceiling.
Maybe one day this library would be as stately as the Miran library, but all the building activity made it a noisy place.
Apart from the builders and shelf-construction, teams of burly men in black council uniform wheeled in trolleys full of boxes which they offloaded in a huge pile in the middle of the floor.
On the other side of the pile, a couple of women were unpacking these boxes. They took stacks of books and papers to yet other people at a long row of desks. These people were leafing through pages, writing out details. Different people again were putting books away on shelves.
Uhm, so she needed to find a librarian here?
Mikandra wandered around, looking around for someone who had the air of being in charge. A couple of young keihu women halted their chatting and giggling when she came past. A Coldi man in black uniform—What? Since when did foreigners work for the council?—came the other way carrying a huge box. Mikandra stepped aside to let him pass. He said something, but whether it was a greeting or something else Mikandra had no idea. She didn't think he spoke Coldi.
A small woman crouched while rummaging through another box. She also wore black. Tiny plaits adorned with beads swung about her head. When Mikandra walked past, she looked up. He tail swung over her head. Huge brown eyes met hers. Pengali.
Mikandra couldn't see anyone who looked impressive enough to hold the title Librarian. She asked a Pengali man, but he didn't speak Mirani and pointed her to the side of the hall where shelves were completed and filled with books. Here she found a group of keihu women sitting on cushions on the ground. One woman sat in the middle, reading from a book. A couple of young children played with empty packing boxes in an aisle.
"Excuse me."
The woman in the middle stopped reading and everyone in the group looked at Mikandra. Their expressions were reserved, suspicious.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm looking for the librarian."
In broken Mirani, one of the women explained that Mikandra should find someone called Pakine, or something that sounded like that, and that this person was the librarian. Mikandra couldn't even guess whether that person would be male or female or whether she'd be able to tell.
She set off into the suggested direction which took her to the part of the hall where the floor was being built. Here, she found a tall Damarcian standing over a table with plans, talking to builders in rapid and badly-accented Coldi. The builders, Kedrasi, Coldi, Indrahui and a few other kinds, listened and asked occasional questions. Then he gave a command and they set off.
"Excuse me? Are you Pakine?" Mikandra tried to reproduce the name as faithful as possible.
He frowned and looked her up and down, from her short hair to her dirty clothes.
She was afraid that he was going to send her away, but he called out.
From the other side of the library came the wiry older Pengali woman with the plaits. Mikandra had walked past her a few times.
"I'm Bakimay," she said. She pronounced all the vowels short. Her voice sounded quite angry and her tail swished and curled as if to accentuate that impression, although Mikandra had no idea what she had done wrong.
Mikandra began, "I was told that you need people who can read Mirani—"
"Ah, I see. You are one Daya sent." Her accent was harsh and clipped, like the Pengali language.
"Uhm . . . I think so." She guessed the tall man she'd met at the mural was Daya, but how had he communicated with this woman while having walked in the other direction?
"If looking for people like you, looking in wrong place."
Uhm—what? "I'm not looking for anyone. I only want a job. I can read Mirani. I was told to come here."
"Read Mirani, hah?" She looked Mikandra up and down again with those huge eyes and repeated, "Read Mirani." She said nothing for a while and Mikandra wondered if she expected her to continue the conversation, and had no idea what to say. The tip of the woman's tail wriggled.
The woman continued, "Do you have . . . ID pass?"
Mikandra shook her head. "It was stolen."
The woman raised her eyebrows in semi-annoyed fashion. Then her tail flicked. "Why Mirani never have pass? Always stolen, hah! Stolen, lost. Is all the same. Excuses, excuses! You have name?"
"Eydrina."
"Ancestor name?" Oh, she could see in one look that Mikandra was not the same as the soldiers in town.
"Avarin." A very common merchant name in Bendara.
Again that suspicious look. Then a sniff. "Very well. You tell lies, we don't trust. But. We need people can read Mirani. You work here. Take books out, read, write down what's in books. Someone come to take books away. Someone come to bring new ones. You write. Is boring. Accounts. Boring, boring, boring, hah."
Mikandra nodded. "I can do that." Boring suited her fine. She only wanted to earn enough money to get out of here.
The woman continued, "Boxes are from army. They leave and we find mess. Paper, books everywhere. Scribble, scribble, no one can read. We don’t know what they mean. Is a mess, hah! We don't know what to feed to fish and what is useful. You read. You write down. You put days, years. We give to translator. We put in order, hah. "
"Yes, sure." Guess this meant she had a job. "What about pay?"
"We pay. Five days you work. Five days you come on time. You do work. Five days, then we pay." She held up a hand with her fingers outstretched.
"How much?"
"Questions, questions. We treat people fair. No pay more because Mirani. No pay more because Coldi. You get five credits morning, five afternoon. Pay after five days. We pay any kind of money you want. You come tomorrow morning. Here." She pointed at the ground and her tail did the same. "Come on time. Come in clean clothes."
"Sure. I'll be there." The pay was pretty ordinary, but better than nothing. And yes, she did get the message about being clean. She was probably getting used to the smell, but she had to be surrounded by a bubble of sweaty air.
Chapter 21
It was still mid-afternoon, but the light had turned ominous, reflected off a huge bank of clouds that gathered over the escarpment. Enveloped in greys and darker greys, cloud castl
es reached for the zenith of the sky. Filaments of white took turns to block one or both suns, casting ghostly half-shadows when only one sun vanished.
Mikandra went back to the guesthouse where Jocassa was no longer at the table in the courtyard. A few Mirani men she vaguely remembered from the party last night sat on the fountain's edge. They fell quiet when she came into the courtyard. One of them lifted his hand in tentative greeting. Oh no, they didn't trust her.
"Do you know where I can find the bathroom?"
One of them pointed. "Dunno that you call it a room."
Another man guffawed.
Mikandra went to the other side of the courtyard where he pointed. Behind the planter box and the fountain, she found an arch which led to yet another, smaller, courtyard. A couple of huge trees spread their branches over the entire space so that it was quite dark on the ground. In the middle of the courtyard was a steaming pool. A couple of people sat on a shelf that surrounded the pool perimeter under water. All of them were Coldi with thick fleshy arms and slicked-back metallic-looking hair. Their bodies looked white and distorted in the dark water.
"Uhm. Do you mind if I join you?"
None of them replied. Clearly they did mind. Or maybe they didn't understand Mirani. Well at least they wouldn't know the difference between a Mirani Endri and a Nikala and would care even less.
She turned away from the pool and stepped out of her hunting trousers and pulled her shirt over her head. The sweaty smell lingered in the air.
Under the eyes of the Coldi spectators, she slipped into the water.
She let the warmth seep into her while she lay back against the side of the pool which, admittedly, was hard and rough and not very comfortable.
The Coldi continued their conversation. Mikandra listened. Their dialect—somewhere from Asto but not Athyl—was hard to understand for someone who had only heard the archaic Trader dialect of Coldi.
Even with their clothes off but seated in the water, it was hard to figure each person's gender. There was very little difference in voice between men and women, and Coldi women didn't grow breasts until their first pregnancy.