Skeen's Leap

by Clayton, Jo;

  The Tail was the refuge of rebels, a mix of exiles and outlaws and the incurably restless with representatives from every Wave except the first (no Ykx). Trade here was generally a matter of being a better and often more violent thief than the other thieves. There were a few rules obeyed by everyone who hadn’t the power to break them with impunity or wished to stay more than a minute in the settlements and cities along the Tail. Walled towns were truce-grounds, feuds were left outside (the survivors of flare-ups were generally marched beyond the town limits and hung from handy trees); maiming, biting, gouging, anything less than death was a concern only to the individuals involved. Any visitor who shared a meal with residents was safe from attack by those particular residents for exactly three days counted from the first bite of the meal. Services bargained for had to be performed and paid, or the price would be taken from the defaulter’s hide—this applied primarily to residents—matters were a lot looser when the transaction occurred between Tailites and visiting traders. Those traders had Truce Havens spread from Sting to Root, guarantees provided by local powers; since these had a habit of skinning or worse those who violated their decrees, the Havens were among the safest spots for travelers, as long as they checked in with the local owners and paid the head tax. Cheating was expected on all deals, the rule of the trade road, but if a trader was fast on his feet, nimble-minded, knew the goods and markets well enough, he could become remarkably wealthy trading along the Tail; among other things, the mountains were rich in gems and metals, especially gold. There were ship-wreckers on the coast, pirates in fleets of small boats (the merchanters had to stay close inshore because of hostile Sea Min), sand bars that shifted with every storm, erratic winds, swarms of wasp-like kirrpitts that could strip the skin from a man between one breath and the next. Land travel was worse. Bands of Mountain Min sniped at miners and swept down on packtrains, though they tended to back off from any guarded by Turlik’s rangers; these had a habit of shooting fire shafts and fire was about the only weapon the Min feared. Otherwave bands were generally smaller but just as bloody. No haven in local habitats either. Children were trained in the local ethic from the moment they understood speech. The family is all you have, defend it with body and mind; anyone outside the family is an enemy, attack him or her or whatever without waiting or warning the moment you spot a weakness, guard yourself and back off if he’s stronger and knows the land. Attack is always the best defense. The man you kill won’t kill you. It’s always better to offer a stranger’s blood to the gods—that way you increase your chances they won’t thirst for yours.

  The Kral of Kulchikan moved restlessly in his elaborate chair, looked down at the group kneeling at his feet, turned to the thin dark man standing on the dais beside him. “The tax?”

  “Paid, ajja Kral.”

  “Did the Scholar say why he is traveling in these waters?”

  “No, ajja Kral. Till now you have not required me to ask such things.”

  “Till now we’ve had traders and scum on the run. No need to ask them why they’ve come.” He waved his long hand and the hangfaced dogrobber moved into the shadow behind the chair. “Scholar, I think you had better explain your presence. We do not want to offend the Tanul Lumat. Someday we might even want to use its services, having an infant daughter with an inquiring mind. But the Lumat is a long way from here and your companions are an odd lot, that you must admit.”

  Pegwai composed his face into the smiling courtesy of his business persona, laced his fingers together over the bulge of his paunch. “Travelers must go where they can find ships to take them, oh Kral. Our project is the mapping of the north shore of the Halijara Sea including the river systems inland, a task we will not come close to completing ourselves, but the Lumat endures when man succumbs to the frailty of his flesh; we will do our part and pass on the task to others. We are in Kulchikan only to wait for a ship that will take us south. As to the nature of our company, the Aggitj fetch and carry and serve as guards; when we are beyond the amenities of city life, they’ll hunt and do camp work. The Skirrik lad earns his wedding jet working for us, serving as translator when necessary, and most important, serving as go-between; everyone knows the Skirrik and how far they can be trusted. The Chalarosh boy we acquired by accident, a long dull story, but he too has proved useful. The Min is the Seeker’s friend and companion and also a scout; you will understand the value of having a friendly Min along. We may seem an odd grouping, but it has proved a useful one thus far. Is there more you wish to know, oh Kral?”

  “You intend to stay in the Truce Haven?”

  “Yes, oh Kral, it seems best. Our stay depends on the arrival of a suitable ship. It might arrive tomorrow, we might be here a month.” He gave the Kral a broad genial smile.

  The Kral looked thoughtfully at him. “Dine with me, Scholar. This evening.” His eyes flicked briefly to Skeen but he did not include her or any of the others in the invitation.

  “Honored, oh Kral.”

  “I wish to speak of the Lumat, Scholar, some questions about the young sheltered there. Come prepared to discourse on that.”

  “With delight, oh Kral.”

  Every night after that Pegwai went to the Kralhus, making a face at Skeen each time the escort came for him, shaking his head at Timka when she laughed at him and wished his tongue two ends.

  The Aggitj took the boy with them when they went out during the day to do a little trading and pick up some coin by working at this and that. The Beast was useful more than once, stopping trouble before it started when he opened his mouth and showed his fangs. At night Chulji the Min-Skirrik went with them and the Boy stayed to guard Skeen and Timka, contented with that assignment.

  A number of ships arrived and left, many of them Balayar who were interested in the vast Market at the center of Kulchikan, with no wish to venture further along the Tail. A few others wandered in, but they were too small and too scruffy. Not that Skeen demanded Balayar standards, but she wouldn’t have trusted any of those shipmasters with a mangy dog.

  The ninth day came and passed. The Boy was getting nervous. No Chalarosh had come off any of the ships, but time was beginning to work against him. He began walking the walls at night, peering anxiously down into the streets until Timka or one of the Aggitj came to fetch him. He said nothing about his fears, but Skeen saw them and began worrying in her turn. Pegwai was getting edgy, too; the Kral was looking at him with a speculation he had no trouble reading. The Pallah was wondering whether he’d like having a resident scholar about the place, someone to teach his sons and that daughter he was so proud of. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Pegwai to vanish without a trace into the Kralhus, with the rest of the party slipped into the sea to cut off any chance of bother. Skeen started haunting the wharves, glaring out over the polluted waters of the bay as if she could will the right ship into port. She was getting increasingly irritable in this miserable place where she couldn’t even go out and get happily soused in a local tavern and maybe find herself an energetic bedmate or two. No one to talk to—nothing to do but sit and brood. And she was brooding far too much about Tibo; she was about ready to scream and claw at the walls in her need to find him and squeeze out of him why he’d stranded her. The easy answers weren’t right. She felt that in her bones when she let herself feel. But I could be wrong, Djabo’s bloody claws, I could be wrong, and if I’m wrong, everything I think about myself is wrong, everything I thought I knew. Round and round and round, wearing ruts in the floor, wearing ruts in her brain.

  After another frustrating day at the wharves she was pacing back and forth along one of the upper halls, cursing under her breath, filled with bursts of nervous energy she couldn’t wear out by working because there wasn’t any hard physical labor she could do. Pegwai came trudging up the ramp. She looked at him, turned her back on him, and walked away. He came hesitantly along the hall; his room was two doors from hers. She stood in the doorway watching him. He came even with her. She went into the room and sat on the
bed, leaving the door open. He stopped in the doorway. She poured wine from a skin into two mugs and sat waiting. Feet dragging, breathing too fast, he came in, pulling the door shut behind him.

  The eleventh day.

  A large ship came in. The sleepy wharves came alive—swarms of ladesmen came out of the cracks, shouting her name: Maggí Maggí Maggí. Laughter, elbows working in ribs, the strongest struggling for a place in the front ranks. Maggí Maggí Maggí. Skeen was squashed into a corner, startled, grunting as a foot slammed down on her toes, an elbow caught her on a cracked rib, discouraging a thieving hand with a jab of a sleeve knife.

  The ship nudged up to the wharf, a big merchanter looking a bit battered, with new patches on the sails and some char marks and grapple gouges on the rails.

  The gangplank slammed down, the Captain came sauntering off her ship. Aggitj. One of the rare female extras. Her not-hair was fine and pale, like limber silver wire, long and mobile, fluttering to a wind of its own. She was long-legged and forceful, taller than the tallest of the Aggitj boys, fleshy but not fat, eyes of dark amber, catching the sunlight with orange glows. Her features were clean-cut but heavy. Her hands had broad palms and long tapering fingers. She took good care of them, kept the skin soft and pliant, the nails short for convenience and buffed to a discreet glow. Her feet had the same generous lines and were given the same sort of care. She wore sandals not boots, wide-legged trousers of a heavy black silk that clung to large but shapely legs. A broad leather belt, stained crimson with several decorative folds, buckled in the back. A heavy white silk shirt over breasts like melon halfs, wide sleeves caught into long narrow cuffs that buttoned from wrist to elbow, flattering slender wrists and long arms. Carbuncles dangled from her ears and flashed red on thumb rings. She walked with the controlled energy of a prowling tiger, the same looseness, the same unconscious arrogance.

  She stepped onto the wharf, grinned and waved at the men calling her name, then turned to watch her passengers leave the ship while her armed escort formed up to wait for the men she chose to transfer her personal cargo to the secure storage she kept under permanent lease. All but a few of the passengers pushed through the crowd and disappeared down the alleys between the warehouses, a hard-looking bunch, mostly male; like the ship they’d been through a fight and like the ship they weren’t advertising it. The remainder, traders with cargoes in the hold, stood silent beside the Captain as she began calling out names, sending the ladesmen to the one-eyed mate leaning on the rail beside the plank.

  As the goods began coming out, the Kral’s reps showed up and kept a careful eye on what was being piled on the wharf, ticking items off on long wooden rods with a short-bladed knife, hands moving with swift efficiency, cutting a variety of notches—different depths, different angles, different shapes—making a comprehensive record of what belonged to the Captain and what to each of the several traders hovering over their own piles. Maggí joked with them, laughed, traded quips with the traders and the ladesmen … keeping her own record of what emerged, needing no rod or other aid to prod her memory.

  When the unlading was finished, the reps left and the wharf cleared swiftly. Leaving the disposal of her goods to the mate, Maggí went back aboard her ship.

  Skeen lingered. She liked the look of the woman, her crew, and the ship. Everything done with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of good will. Maggí was well known here and popular. That didn’t mean a great deal, but if she cared for her reputation she was that hair more trustworthy than some git who didn’t give a damn.

  The Captain came off her ship shortly afterward and strode across the wharf. Skeen came out of her corner and walked quietly beside her, feeling towered over, an uncommon sensation for her. Maggí glanced at her, but said nothing, just kept walking.

  “Captain,” Skeen said after a short while. “Might I speak with you?”

  “Why?” Maggí didn’t look at her or slow the swing of her stride.

  “If you’ll be heading back along the Tail and if we can come to terms on price, my companions and I would like to take passage on your ship.”

  The Captain glanced at her, speculation in her burnt orange eyes. “Terms would include your satisfying me about your reasons to head downtail.”

  “My companions and I stay at Chaffelu’s Inn, the Truce Haven. Perhaps you could join us for the evening meal.”

  Maggí stopped walking and turned to look down into Skeen’s face. “I thought you were Pallah. You’re not.”

  “That’s part of the explanation.”

  “Ah! You read me too well.” Quick grin briefly exposing white even teeth, the canines perceptibly longer and more daggerlike than the others. “I’ll be there. Hour after sundown.” She nodded walked briskly on.

  Skeen stood watching her. Maggí needed no bodyguard, at least not in daylight. Several more of the loungers cried greetings to her and she responded with laughter and insults that they took in good part and returned with interest. Well-liked. Whether that spoke for her or against her was difficult to say, this city being what it was.

  Captain Maggí stood in the doorway of the private dining room and raised her brows at the mix of people waiting for her, seated on cushions around the low table. A window fan turned lazily, drawing air into the room (the fans were ingenious contraptions, worked by a water screw powered by the tide). The air was damp and reasonably cool. It smelled of the strong incense smoldering on the sill that was meant to cover the odors that made walking through the city something that was never pleasant and only tolerable because the nose grew so quickly numb. Groundwater under the city had been contaminated long ago and only the poorest drank from wells and that only when they had no other choice. One of the items that enabled the Kral to keep his claws on local purses was the aqueduct bringing pure water down from the precipitous mountains in the interior of the island; only those who paid were permitted use of that water and the Kral kept a rigorous patrol of the pipes (all of them above ground so they were easy to watch). Theft of water was a capital crime. So the Haven had no open windows—only airshafts that were connected to chimneys that rose into air that was marginally cleaner than the miasma that lived in the streets. It also made the Haven that much safer from night creepers of the two-legged sort.

  Maggí came in warily, settled beside Skeen. “You heard my name on the wharf but not all of it. I am Maggí Solitaire. My ship is the Goum Kiskar. We will be leaving in three days, going downtail.”

  Skeen started to speak, then smiled and waited as the servitors came in with laden trays and started spreading bowls of food along the table; others set down urns of steaming mulled cider, then scented water in fingerbowls with linen towel rolls beside them. The servitors worked in silence, left in silence. When the door was shut again, Skeen introduced the company—names without accompanying comment, each individual bowing as his or her name was pronounced. “I am a recent Pass-Through,” she finished, “the others are as you see.” She smiled, a brief wry twist of her mouth, knowing how Timka and Pegwai would scold her later for what she was about to say. They didn’t understand her, they wouldn’t understand Maggí either. We’re a lot alike. She didn’t make the mistake of thinking she knew everything about the Aggitj woman, but she’d wager all the gold in Duppra Mallat’s chest that the two of them shared a number of common childhood experiences. Dealing with Maggí with candor and openness, giving away advantages with open hand, that seemed folly of the most rampant kind, but she was guessing it wouldn’t be. “Pegwai Dih told the Kral we meant to map the north shore of the Halijara Sea. That’s partly true, but our goal—well, say my goal since my goal is the driving force—is to find a Gather of Ykx and talk them into giving me a key to the Stranger’s Gate.” She saw Pegwai roll his eyes up and Timka start tearing a roll to shreds; her mouth twitched again, then spread into a wide grin as she met Maggí’s laughing, comprehending gaze. “And there are a number of drawbacks to being anywhere around us. Timka has a sister whose chief goal in life seems to be erasing her fro
m the roll of the living; we dealt with two Min attacks while we were coming along the Spray. Pretty feeble, but that’s subject to change as Telka changes agents. The Boy is the sole remnant of his clan with Kalakal Ravvayad hot for his hide. We haven’t seen any yet, but the Boy swears they’ll come and won’t let any trick throw them off his trail. We’ve been here eleven days, the longest we’ve sat in one spot since we left Atsila Vana. So if they did follow, they should show up any hour, any minute. And poor old Pegwai—the Kral is starting to think he owns him, wants his own private Court Jester. So you see, there is a certain degree or urgency driving our desire to move on.” Skeen poured a cup of cider for Maggí then for herself as a signal for the meal to begin. She sipped first, then set her cup down and began filling her plate.

  As the meal went on, she was amused by the fascination Maggí held for the Aggitj boys; their interest even seemed to have blunted their awesome appetites. She killed a grin as the thought struck her that the appetites hadn’t been killed, merely transformed. Maggí was aware of that interest, how could she not be with four pairs of hazel eyes fixed unwavering on her, but gave no sign she understood, perhaps a slight exaggeration of the grace with which she used her large beautiful hands.

  The Boy was watching her too, with an intensity he wasn’t aware he was showing, an intensity that told Skeen too clearly for her comfort just how terrified he was. He ate nothing until Domi noticed, clucked his tongue, and began coaxing him to eat. Skeen leaned forward. “Boy,” she said softly prouncing each word with considerable force. “They will have to come through me and I don’t care how loud the Ravvayad boast, there is not a Chalarosh alive who can manage that.”