The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  He washed and took a look at himself in the metal mirror on the wall. Level grey eyes looked back at him, and he noted the straight nose, the thin scars on the left side of his face, the eyebrows that weren't quite as bushy as everyone else's. He was the same Thru Gillo who had planted waterbush in the spring and hit seventy-seven runs in the game against Meever's. Only now he was living in the big city. Now he was just one of a thousand young mots seeking his place in the world outside the village and the agricultural life. Everything from here on would be up to him. He didn't have his father and mother to fall back on, nor his sister or brother to talk to if his spirits fell. He would have to make do with the company he found in this exciting place.

  Kussha always served up a hot dinner at dusk. Her clientele dined in the manner of the Land, as the gourmets put it. She found that this was a great inducement to get her mostly male clientele back from the taverns and thereafter early to bed. This meant they rarely got drunk, and they usually paid their rent on time. Her cooking had long since made rooms in her house sought after. Thru had been lucky to find a space there.

  At the evening meal that night, which was as good as anything he might have had in the finest restaurants, he met the other lodgers. The oldest tenant was Rogon, a plain-faced carpenter with a strong Dronned accent in his speech. Gulf and Ollo were both potters. Bluit was a day servant in a merchant's house in the South Quarter, and young Noop Minchant, from Yebesh out in the eastern hills, worked in a metal foundry in the River Quarter.

  Noop and old Bluit remembered Thru. They'd been in the crowd at the championship match three summers before.

  "I saw you play against the Laughing Fish," said Noop. "And you won the game. It was much against expectations around here."

  "A fine stroke you have, young Thru Gillo," said old Bluit.

  Kussha was most impressed when she heard that she had a young athlete in her house. She'd known in her heart that he was a good one. Sometimes she'd been disappointed in the past with young mots from the countryside trying to make a living in the town. Once in a while they skipped without paying the rent. But Thru she sensed was not that kind.

  Over a plate of shrimp dumplings in oil sauce with beer and fresh-baked bread, Thru was drawn into the conversation.

  "How you like Kussha's cooking?" said Noop when he thought Kussha had left the house.

  "Truth be told, I've never had dumplings like these, so light and yet so tasty."

  "Wait 'til you taste her beanpod pie," said Ollo. "That is perfection."

  "If you like beanpod pie," grumbled Gulf.

  "What do you think the market will be like this year?" asked Thru, after a while, voicing the burning question in his own mind.

  "Oh, it will be good," said Ollo. "All the portents are there. Large numbers of visitors are booked in."

  Gulf shook his head. He and Ollo rarely agreed.

  "I expect a more modest market this year. Last year's was too big. People will not come in the same numbers again."

  "But the rites for the festival will be held in the royal park this year. That will be sure to bring folk in from the countryside."

  "But that doesn't mean they'll be buying in Dronned market."

  "Enough of them will be; there'll be money to be made."

  "Good coin of the realm to rub together," said Rogon.

  "Have you ever been to the summer rites in Dronned?" said Ollo.

  Thru shook his head. "No."

  "Then you have much to see. The rites are performed with a special intensity here in Dronned. With all the costumes and the dancing, it's far more of an event than it is anywhere else in the Land."

  "Bah," grumbled Gulf. "It's all too much fuss and feathers. I like the village ceremony, with none of your acting and mumming, and a lot less singing those slow hymns."

  "When was Gulf last seen going to any ceremonies?" said Noop with cheeky insouciance.

  "Bah, it's all nonsense. I have weaving to do."

  "Well, I'm looking forward to it," said Thru.

  After a dessert of peach pie dressed with waterbush cream, Thru was completely converted to the cuisine of Kussha's house. Some of the others went up to their rooms, but Thru was too excited by being in Dronned to sleep just yet, despite a long day's traveling.

  He sat out on the porch with Noop and old Bluit and shared a pitcher of ale. The moon was almost full, and it was a warm night. Bluit wanted to know if Thru planned to try out for the Laughing Fish, the top Dronned team.

  "I don't know. I might be too busy." And in his heart Thru still played on the Warkeen Village team. He wasn't sure yet that he wanted to play for any other.

  "The top teams will always help a player like you," Bluit suggested.

  "It's different to play for money, don't you think?"

  "Oh, of course, but if it's just a little help, what does it matter?"

  "I'm here to sell my weaves. If I find the time to play, then I'll consider it. There are plenty of good teams in this city, I know that."

  "Well, the Laughing Fish are already in the hunt for the championship of the city," Bluit said fervently, betraying his own active support.

  Thru nodded politely, storing the information, but he remained determined on a career with the mats. The game worked on a plane above that of strictly material life. There was something about it that he didn't wish to trade for the gross gloss of gold.

  In the next few days he explored Dronned with every waking moment. He felt the energy in the place awaken something in himself. Just having so many folk around one, with constant activity in the streets, was amazing.

  His first order of business was to call on the Merchant Yadrone, for whom he carried some letters and the samples of fiber entrusted to his care by family friends. Yadrone's house was a tall, four-story building of stone in the North Quarter overlooking the New Bridge. Thru was welcomed in with enthusiasm by the housekeeper and ushered into a well-appointed parlor to wait. On the walls were various weave works, including an old version of "Chooks and Beetles" by the renowned Mesho.

  Thru noted Mesho's meticulous use of scale, the sharp definition that he achieved with his mix of fibers. The chooks were so lifelike, so cleverly caught in their dance across the field, that it took one's breath away.

  Thru wondered how his own work would stack up against it.

  Yadrone appeared quite shortly and behind his portly figure came the housekeeper with a tray bearing hot chocolate sweetened with sugar. While they sipped this delicious luxury from the tropics, Yadrone examined the fiber samples and barked notes to a scribe. Yadrone asked questions about Warkeen and inquired after Ware.

  "I heard about that business with Pern Treevi and your family's seapond. Terrible foolishness."

  Yadrone fingered the fibers and made mental calculations. Then he barked more notes to the scribe.

  "Geluba's farm, I think you said, for this one." He held up a swatch of grey-green fiber.

  "Yes, indeed."

  "Good. Now listen to me, young Thru Gillo. You have to be careful in that weave market. There are plenty of skinners and blupers, and they'll cut your purse from under you if you let them. They're as bad as the cloth merchants."

  "Thank you, sir, but my father gave me similar warnings. I promise that I will take them seriously."

  "Good, see that you do. By the Spirit you need your wits about you in the market these days. Why just the other day..."

  Thru listened, storing information as the merchant told stories of the market in recent years and contrasted it with earlier times. It was all fascinating to Thru, who knew he had a lot to learn.

  "Pardon me, I'm a terrible host. Your cup is empty. Can I offer you more of this sinfully delicious chocolate?"

  Thru was happy to accept. Chocolate was not unknown in his village, but it was a rarity, coming as it did from the tropical isles.

  He sipped and savored the rich intensity of flavor, so unlike any other flavor that he knew of.

  After a while the merchant fel
l quiet after a particularly good story about cheats in the woven-mat business.

  Thru tapped his cup.

  "I know it comes from the tropics, but I don't understand how it gets here."

  "Ah, the chocolate trade, a very romantic subject. It is grown far to the south, on the isles of Berguba. The cocoa tree does very well there."

  "How far is it?"

  "The merchants speak of the sun standing due overhead, every day, which must mean they are in the equatorial regions of the world. It takes them two months to return, if the winds are favorable, and longer if they are not."

  Thru mulled that over as he strolled along through the market after his visit to the Merchant Yadrone. As far as he felt he'd traveled in his own life, to Highnoth and to the Farblow Hills, his journeys were tiny compared to voyaging to the equatorial isles of Berguba.

  It was a big world, and he felt the pressure of the opportunities that awaited him.

  He took one of his mats with the bright leaf pattern on it around the bigger houses in the weave market. Merchant Ortenod liked the work and took consignment of a sample.

  "If it sells, then I'll want more. Can you supply?"

  "Oh yes, I have ten of this pattern."

  "Excellent. Bring me another pair, and we will see. Understand that this is an exclusive for my shop. You may not sell them to anyone else in the market."

  "I understand, but this exclusivity is only for this pattern. I have another mat, of a higher quality."

  "Higher quality?"

  "It is a new style of 'Chooks and Beetles.'"

  "Indeed. So, you aspire to wall mats and the like."

  "Master Sassadzu in Highnoth suggested I try the House Norvory."

  "Ah, well then you're in good hands. Ueillim Norvory is a good mot to deal with for such high-end products. He has impeccable taste."

  Thru hurried back to the house in Garth Road and picked up another couple of mats with his bold new leaf pattern. Back in the market, mats delivered, he took stock in a tavern on the corner. He had made his first placements. He had money in his pocket, and if his work sold, he'd have more money to come.

  If he sold all of the mats he had he would realize two hundred silvers, about the same as two and a half gold crowns. That would be enough for him to live right through the winter at Kussha's house.

  Thru went back to the house and took "Chooks and Beetles" out of Kussha's lock-up in the basement. He spread the mat out in the parlor and contemplated his work.

  After Mesho it seemed crude in the finishing, lacking Mesho's incredible realness. He kept looking, though, and found that he still liked his own work. Mesho it was not, but the image on his mat was nicely rendered; his work had an interesting rake to it. The jaunty chooks looked quite crazy. The beetles were diagrammatical, faintly alarming in size. His work might appeal to someone who could not afford Mesho, someone who might enjoy the slightly eccentric cast he gave to the ancient pattern.

  He rolled it up and put it away under his bed.

  The next day he presented a note at the door of the merchant prince Ueillim Grys Norvory three steps up from the level of the street and fronted by a small covered platform. The note was taken up by a very snooty little mor, who then closed the door on him.

  "Wait here for a reply."

  He waited standing on the solid steps of the merchant's rather grand house, "Chooks and Beetles" rolled up in its oilskin beside him.

  The door opened and the young mor was back, with a slightly embarrassed look in her eyes. He followed behind her, frankly admiring her shapely little form all the way down a long hallway. She led him through a door into a large room, hung with mats and tapestries, then she left him with a smile and a nod.

  There was another Mesho on the near wall, a strongly accented "Brilbies at the Gate." Behind the three brilbies of the classic pattern, the trees of the wood held dozens of birds.

  And there on the end wall, in pride of place was a classic "Chooks and Beetles" by Oromi, the great artist of the weave in the 203rd century.

  Just for a moment, Thru faltered and felt his self-confidence draining away. Who was he to be offering up a "Chooks and Beetles" here? Like he was some great artist. He was in the house of a baron, an important personage at the Royal Court, and he was just Thru Gillo, a complete unknown. Then he recalled Master Sassadzu's calm words of encouragement.

  "Obstacles will appear, but you will sweep them away. Remain true to the simple message of the spirit, and your kyo will flourish." He had to hope that even if he wasn't as great as Oromi or Mesho, he might still be good enough.

  The door opened a few moments later and in came the Grys Norvory, a well-fed mot of middle age wearing a white tunic and purple trousers. The Grys came right across the room and shook Thru's hands warmly.

  "Welcome, ah, Thru Gillo. You have work you would like to show?"

  "Yes, Grys Norvory."

  "I am always looking for fresh weaving." Thru smiled and nodded, hoping that his work would be good enough.

  "Good," said the Grys.

  There was a twinkle in the aristocrat's eyes, and Thru immediately became wary. In this game Thru had only his work to play with, and the Grys had everything else.

  "Now, you have something to show me I believe?"

  "Ah, yes, Grys Norvory."

  Thru unrolled his "Chooks and Beetles" and laid it out on the big table.

  Ueillim Norvory cast an eye on the piece and nodded happily. The piece was charming, a wry twist on the ancient pattern. Fresh, but not unnaturally advanced.

  "Mmmm. An interesting approach. You have talent, young mot. 'Chooks and Beetles' is a favorite of my own, as you would expect seeing the Oromi on the wall, here."

  "Yes, Grys Norvory, it is beautiful."

  "Few of us can aspire to the status of Oromi, but some of us can at least make the attempt. Young Thru Gillo, I think you can certainly do that."

  The Grys bent over the work and examined it with a magnifier.

  "I think the piece will sell for twenty gold pieces, retail. I will mount it for the festival. If it sells, you will receive twelve."

  Thru's heart jumped. Twelve gold pieces would keep him in luxury for a year and let him send coin back to Ware and Ual in the village, too.

  While he thought about the offer, the Grys continued to wield the magnifying lens, going over the mat very carefully. He was checking Thru's stitching and knots, examining his technique for possible faults.

  He turned it over and looked carefully, and then turned it back.

  "This is good work. I am impressed, young mot. My gallery always draws a good crowd at festival. I'm confident we will find a buyer."

  "Thank you, Grys Norvory. I will accept the offer."

  "Good. I will have the papers drawn up at once."

  The Grys rang for a secretary, then ordered some tea brought in. They drank tea and ate small butter biscuits to seal the deal.

  After leaving the mansion, Thru walked along the main streets of the city with his head in the clouds. He had come to the city and found himself a good room to live in. He'd got a deal for selling his "Leaf" mats and he had a gallery accept his "Chooks and Beetles." If he sold a few "Leaf" mats, he would earn enough to make it through the winter. If he sold "Chooks and Beetles" he would be well set for a year or more.

  It was time to turn his thoughts to finding a work space, perhaps in the Quarters. It would be nice to be in the center of things. He wandered that way and came upon a troupe of street jugglers and acrobats at work on the corner of Grand Street. A figure in a tight-fitting scarlet costume was tumbling and somersaulting. It was Nuza and Her Magnificents, the same group Thru had seen with Meu and Utnapishtim in the Farblow town of Lushtan. Flips and rolls, high jumps and somersaults, the scarlet figure continued down the pavement while her friends went by with drum and whistle, the signboard held high.

  Thru watched for a while, enjoying the sight of the lithe figure bouncing and flying into the air. She ran, somersaulted, and f
lew into the arms of the big brilby, who caught her like she was no more than a kitten and set her down with a graceful flourish.

  She bounced up with her hands high and bowed to the thin crowd along the pavement. There was more scattered applause. Her glance met his, and Thru felt something go through him that he never could explain. It was as if he knew her from a former life.

  She grinned at him and went back into the air for another somersault down the block. The mot with the signboard gave Thru a peculiarly intense look.

  Following the troupe came the barker, calling loudly from the street that Nuza and Her Magnificents would appear that evening, in the open space by the Laughing Fish Tavern. A full display was planned, with jugglers, clowns, and an exhibition of the craft of swordfighting by Toshak the Great.

  Thru took the corner and went up Grand Street. That image of Nuza doing that backward somersault didn't go away. She had to be as supple as a snake, and probably just as strong. He had an odd urge to laugh out loud, which he suppressed; but he did find himself smiling. There had been a friendly message in her eyes, and he wanted to hear it from her lips.

  He headed for the Guild Hall, where the craft industries in the city were regulated. He needed to register himself as a weaver working within Dronned. Only then could he be represented in the markets. Only then was he protected by the laws of the Guild and sure of having contracts with merchants enforced.

  Under a complex roof of turrets and spires was a central hall with offices along the sides. Tables ran down the middle, where scribes and ordinary folk wrote with pen and ink.