by Patty Jansen
Braedon snorted. "Miran is our home and it has always been. Trouble like this comes up every couple of years. We've always pulled through."
Aunt Amandra said, "It's different this time. There is not the wide base of support for the Traders there used to be. Even a lot of the Endri don't support the Guild. Traders need a stable base. The Ilendars are gone for good. They'll probably end up going to Damarq."
"Changing colours?" Taerzo frowned.
"That's what I think they'll do."
"I'd rather die than go to Damarq." Rehan's expression was angry.
Braedon said, "If things are really bad, we could stay here for a while, until things calm down."
Mikandra took a deep breath. "Would you consider going to some place new, that doesn't have Traders? Start up a new chapter?"
Rehan frowned at her. "I thought you were relatively sane after all, but I think I mis-judged. Why would any Trader would go to a place without support?"
"There is support in Barresh."
His eyes widened. "Barresh? It's a dump."
"Have you been there recently?"
"Yes, I—"
"I lived there. In fact, I came straight from there. A lot has changed. They have a brand new Exchange with a new core."
"That's true," Taerzo said. "Much better than the Miran Exchange."
Mikandra continued. "They have a lot of people who are interested in investing. The Barresh council is behind it. They have people who are very quick with numbers and good with tools."
Rehan snorted. "I can't even believe that we're talking about this. Enough people in the Mirani chapter of the Guild will support us. We'll get through this."
"Barresh is there in case you need it. That's all I'm saying."
Rehan glared at her.
"It's going to be interesting with those two," Braedon said. "I get the feeling that we'll never again have a dull moment—" His gaze went to the middle of the hall.
Mikandra turned to see what he was looking at.
Ydana Ezmi stood a few tables away, his gaze roaming the tables on the ground floor and the lower balcony.
Mikandra sensed her aunt stiffening next to her. She whispered, "Ydana."
Beams of light from the ceiling cut through the air and made the purple cloak over his shoulders shine with brilliance. His chest heaved with breaths as if he had been running.
His gaze found their table and he came over in large strides, holding out his hand. "Amai, shinu eysh' mazhayu."
Mikandra frowned at Braedon. "What did he say?" Hedron Coldi had so many different words and pronunciations.
Braedon didn't reply, but stared, his mouth open.
Ydana took Aunt Amandra into the downward beams from the ceiling lights. The glow made her hair shine like silver. Ydana took a few steps back and bowed.
At the table Taerzo groaned. "He's not going to do it again, is he?"
People on surrounding tables had stopped talking. Some twisted around in their seats to see what was going on. Silence rippled through the hall.
Ydana raised his hand to the clasp of his cloak. He undid it and swept the cloak over her shoulders.
The silence intensified.
Aunt Amandra looked funny, with the thin purple cloak over her thick fur one. For what seemed like a long time, she didn't move. Hardly anyone spoke.
On a table next to Mikandra, a man whispered, "Not again, she's refused him twice already."
Mikandra held her breath.
Slowly, Aunt Amandra raised her hands to her neck. Any moment now and she would return the cloak to her lover, saying that she belonged in Miran. Mikandra thought of what Ydana had told her seated at the table in the courtyard in Barresh. He was a wounded man who would not live with another refusal. If she turned him down, he was likely to do something stupid, like kill himself.
Aunt Amandra fiddled with fastenings and tangled chains around her neck. Her hands trembled. She let her own cloak slip from under his. Slowly, she raised it and draped it over his shoulders.
His mouth fell open. His eyes widened. Then he laughed. He lifted her off the ground and turned a pirouette, narrowly missing a chair with her boots. He let her down and kissed her.
The cheer that went off hurt Mikandra's ears.
At the table, Taerzo smiled like a madman. Braedon was talking to someone on the next table, both of them laughing. Rehan sat quietly, chewing the nail on his thumb. He was still watching the embracing couple. His lips were pressed in a thin line.
Taerzo rose and was the first to congratulate the couple. Ydana smiled and clapped him on the shoulder in a now it's your turn manner. Braedon also rose to congratulate the couple.
"I'm very happy for them," Mikandra said, fighting a pricking feeling in her eyes. "They should have married long ago."
Rehan whirled towards her in a way that reminded her of his outbursts she had witnessed. His eyes glittered.
"Rehan? What's the—"
"Don't you fucking dare—"
"It's all right, it's all right. I'm not going to think there's anything wrong with you if you get emotional when two people finding happiness after so many years."
He looked away. His mouth twitched. He blinked a few times, but a stubborn tear leaked out of his eye and ran down his cheek. He wiped it away angrily.
"No, I won't and you know it. I might even come to believe that you're the same person as the one who wrote me long personal messages when I was in Barresh."
He breathed in deeply, looked like he was going to say something, but at that moment Taerzo and Braedon came back to the table. Aunt Amandra and Ydana followed, holding hands. They were still wearing each other's cloaks.
A waiter came to bring the food they'd ordered earlier. Ydana told him to bring his order over to the table as well. There was laughter and happy talk. Their odd group of all-Mirani Traders and one Coldi one attracted looks from others in the hall. One older Mirani Trader outright stared at the purple cloak on Aunt Amandra's shoulders.
Then, when they'd all sat down and dragged over chairs, Braedon said, "I can't imagine that both of you will live happily in Miran, so what is your position about the council, Amandra?"
"You haven't heard the news yet?" she said.
He shook his head.
"I've resigned from the council. I drew up the letter two days ago."
"Why? What changed two days ago?"
"A friend sent me some information that he I thought I had. It shattered every last shred of trust I still had in my colleagues at the council. I heard some of it confirmed in the court today."
"Friend?"
"A long time ago, when I was still young and keen and a sharp-sensed Trader, an important man asked me to mentor a wayward young nephew of his. He wanted to send the youngster through the Trader academy to knock some sense into him. The boy had grown up in a very privileged family in an environment to which he was unsuited. He'd run away from home and turned up at his uncle's doorstep. He was drifting into that dangerous territory of loneliness, potential criminality or madness—"
This was starting to sound familiar. Mikandra said, "You mean Daya Ezmi?"
Her aunt's eyes met hers. "How do you know?"
"I met him. He told me some of his story, although nothing about you."
"What did you think?"
"He creeps the hell out of me."
"He creeps the hell out of everybody. He knows it. That's why he tends to keep to himself. He's got this mental ability—"
"Avya. I know."
"He can't help being the way he is. He sees into people's minds. He doesn't want to. His uncle—"
"Edyamor Ezmi."
"Yes, Edyamor Ezmi, he asked a Mirani Trader to be his tutor because Daya mentioned to him that he can't see into the thoughts of the Mirani Endri."
"You know why that is?" Mikandra asked.
Aunt Amandra and Braedon shook their heads. Ydana held his head cocked, listening.
The waiter had brought Ydana's food, a bowl of si
zzling fried curls and one with noodles and sauce. Mikandra reached out and picked up a curl.
Taerzo batted her hand away. "Hey, what are you doing? That's Ydana's. It's red-coded—"
Mikandra put the curl in her mouth and ate it, while everyone watched, horror on their faces, until she'd be sick or start bleeding from her nose or whatever rumours went around over eating red-coded food.
The curl was hot. It burned in her mouth worse than Machizu's spiciest food.
They waited and stared at her, and Mikandra stared back at them.
Eventually, Braedon said, in a low voice, "Nothing."
"Nothing," Mikandra repeated. "A small piece like this would make a Nikala's mouth blister. Red-coded food is probably not very healthy for us, but we can eat it, because we share the Coldi's heritage."
There were frowns all around the table.
She went on to tell them of everything she had found out with Bakimay and how Daya was trying to piece together a viable population of Aghyrians where they could support each other. "And not lock people away because of their supposed madness. People like your aunt Dithiandra are not mad. They have a type of this ability called avya, which can be controlled. There was an old man in the hospital. His name was Leitho. He was one of the Endri, but no family claimed to own him. He lived on the streets and was an addict. Menisha brew makes the hallucinations stronger. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that it came from Asto with the ship. In the hospital, we failed Leitho in every possible way. We didn't listen to him and didn't take his hallucinations seriously. He was talking about people being imprisoned and mistreated."
Her eyes met Rehan's. He nodded, once. His expression looked haunted. Had he seen these people, too?
She continued, "There are people being imprisoned and mistreated. Thug gangs roam the streets of Barresh rounding up people who have avya. No one is sure what happens to these people, but they are not seen again. Daya says that he was imprisoned and mistreated during a visit to Miran. He says Nemedor Satarin is behind it."
Rehan said, "There have been rumours for a long time. This is what Aithno Ilendar was referring to during that meeting you attended. He seemed to think that he had some proof, but I've never seen it."
"I asked about these rumours, repeatedly," Aunt Amandra said. "I never got a straight answer. I treated the rumours like untrue until proven otherwise, but what Daya told me leads me to believe that it's true. Daya is a lot of things, but a liar isn't one. His story is horrific and he should have told me earlier. That was what finally swayed me. He contacted me the day before yesterday. He also told me that you'd been to see him." She met Mikandra's eyes. Well, coming to see him was one way of putting it. "I've failed Miran. I thought I could make it a better place by maintaining unity and dialogue between the opposing camps, but no one else seems interested." She stared into the distance. Ydana put a hand on her shoulder.
The conversation turned to places to live. Mikandra had expected her aunt to move to Kedras but was surprised to hear that she planned to move to Hedron.
"Change colours? It's not necessary. There are mixed couples."
"That's true, but the Mirani chapter never knew what to do with me."
"That means I'll be the only female Trader in Miran." A chill went over her.
"Yes, I'm sorry. But you'll be in good hands, and you won't have to face everything alone, as I did—" She turned to Braedon, who was again looking at the news on his reader, a deep frown on his face. "Any other developments at home?"
Braedon put the reader in the middle of the table so everyone could see it.
A big headline said, Miran on the brink of chaos.
Mikandra read snatches of it upside down.
Protest in response to Nemedor Satarin's call for action against the traitors . . . taking possession of the streets in the lower part of the Endri quarter of the city . . .
Taerzo swore.
Rehan rose abruptly from his seat. "We should be home with Mother and Gillay in case something happens."
No one disagreed with him. Mikandra felt cold. Iztho had said to take their mother to the court. He had foreseen this.
Mikandra and the three brothers made their way out of the bar after saying goodbye to Aunt Amandra and Ydana. The last glimpse Mikandra had into the hall was of the two of them talking to a waiter—presumably to order more drinks—while still holding hands.
The three brothers had come here with both Taerzo's and Braedon's aircraft, but they decided to leave Taerzo's here for safety.
Braedon's aircraft was a common well-used Mirani model, nothing fancy but comfortable and tidy. There was a Trader saying that you could tell a Trader's character by looking at their aircraft, and in the case of Braedon that was true.
Braedon slipped behind the controls and Rehan told Mikandra to sit next to him.
"Into the fire, huh?" she said.
"You must stand the heat. Whether times are good or bad, there is work to be done and it must be done well. Your training starts now."
Chapter 32
They found Miran shrouded in grey, cloud-filled, misty dusk. Snow drifted from the sky, whipped up by the ever-present wind. The snow sweepers had kept the airport fairly clean, except for the thin trails that had blown over the paving since the passing of the sweeping machine. Mikandra peeked out the window, but could see no people and no visible changes since she had left.
Mikandra no longer had a cloak. Braedon gave her a spare from a cupboard at the back of the craft, which was much too big for her.
Rehan had been asleep on the bed against the back wall. He was rubbing his face furiously, but nothing made the impressed folds of his sleeve disappear from his cheek. Mikandra tried not to look because if she did she would laugh.
While they were collecting their bags from the various cupboards, Braedon opened the door. The air that came into the cabin was bitterly cold, and sucked out the warmth and all feelings of comfort with it.
Mikandra stepped onto the ramp holding both sides of the cloak. It was a beautiful, heavy thing of quality, but because it was too big for her, icy fingers of cold prised underneath. Her shoes, too, were not suited for walking in snow, and while Braedon walked around the craft pulling the covers over the engine exhausts and landing gear recesses, she jumped up and down.
Rehan stared over the city on the other side of the passenger building. Lights were already on, both in the building and in the streets.
A group of three grey silhouettes was walking towards the craft across the snow-swept field.
"Who the fuck are they?" Rehan said.
"You tell me, brother." A gust of wind swept Braedon's hair aside. He stood on the ramp just outside the door, with his arms crossed over his chest and his cloak draped over his shoulders. He squinted against the snow. "Taerzo, Mikandra, you best come inside."
Mikandra went back into the cabin and took up a position from where she could see out past Braedon and Rehan's backs.
The three figures resolved out of the snow and mist. The men wore the white and silver uniform of the city guard. One of them came up to the bottom of the aircraft ramp. "Good day, Trader."
Another said, "Congratulations on the outcome of the trial." But there was nothing happy in the man's voice. "We need you to come into the office for some formalities."
Braedon gave Rehan a sideways look that said Formalities, my arse. "Just me or all of us? Can our apprentice go home?"
"It's about your apprentice. The lady is registered with us as a missing person, possibly abducted."
"She's with us," Rehan said.
The man looked past Braedon at Mikandra. "Do you have any ID, lady?"
Mikandra handed Braedon her card and he gave it to the man, who inserted it in the reader that dangled from his belt. He addressed her directly.
"Lady Mikandra Bisumar, your father wants you to come home."
"I am an independent member of the Trader Guild. If he wants to see me, my father knows where to find me." Oh, the pom
pous coward that her father was. He now let the guards do his dirty work for him? That only showed how little he cared. He cared about his authority being challenged, not about her.
The man took one step onto the ramp. "You defied your father's orders. You—"
"Mate, back off." That was Rehan. "You're on Trader Guild territory."
The soldier backed off the ramp until his feet were once more on the ground.
Rehan continued, "You heard the lady. If her father wants to see her, he can come to our house. I trust he knows where it is."
"We have orders—"
"I told you to back off, mate. If you dare touch the lady, there will be consequences."
"Whoa, no need for that sort of talk."
"Good, then we understand each other. We'll go home then." Rehan turned around and offered Mikandra his arm.
He was so formal that Mikandra felt tempted to giggle like a girl going to a ball. This was a façade, a game, and she played it, putting her hand on his arm.
He guided her off the ramp, past the three guards. Rehan's arm felt tight under his shirt.
Behind Mikandra, Taerzo kept both his hands under his cloak. The guards could not be so stupid that they didn't know about the gun he had there. All Traders carried arms. To attack a Trader was an act of war against the Guild.
In complete silence, Braedon pushed the button in the door panel that retracted the ramp, then shut and locked the panel and the door.
They set out across the snow-blown field, watched by the three guards.
"Don't look back," Rehan said next to her.
"My father sent them."
"Maybe, but that's not the only reason they're here."
Mikandra could think of many reasons. Asking her to return to her father could be a ruse, or an excuse for them to approach the brothers.
Snow became more heavy and the sky darkened alarmingly.
They reached the building and walked through the corridor that bypassed the departure hall with its light behind steamed-up windows. Through the fog of condensation, she spotted people with bags seated on the benches. A cleaner walked through the aisles, moving his mop to and fro. Last time she had come here, the cleaners had been unable to work because of the crowd.