by Jo Clayton
Her head went back; her arms curved so her hands were almost touching, then quivered so the gold hoops clashed slightly of the beat, then she was whirling round and round, her feet moving through an intricate series of steps. She danced pride and passion and joy-at least that was what he read into what he saw-then went suddenly still, a foot pointed, a leg a little forward, a straight slant visible through the drape of her skirt, her head thrown lwk, her arms up as if she would embrace the moon.
She broke position, grinned at him and went back to her cushion, dropped with energetic grace beside her instrument.
“What do you call that?” He pointed to the instrument. “Daroud. A sort of distant cousin to a lute.”
“You dance well enough.”
“Thanks.”
“You play a lot better.”
“I know.”
“Modest too.”
“Like you.”
“What would you do if a man started fondling you?”
“Depends. Official, patron or some lout in an Inn where we happened to be staying?”
“Start with the lout.”
She tilted her head, scowled, put her hands on her hips, “Back off, lout.” One hand shifted position so quickly it seemed to flicker. A short thin blade grew suddenly from her fingers; she held the hand close to her body and waited. “And if he didn’t, he’d lose maybe some fingers, certainly some blood.” She tossed the bright sliver of steel into the air, caught it and flipped it at the wall. It thudded home a hair from a small waterstain on the wood. She frowned, got up and retrieved the knife. “Kesker would pull my hair for botching a throw like that.”
“Kesker?”
“My father’s bodyguard until he got killed.”
“Protecting your father?”
“No. Bloodfeud. We passed too close to his homeland.”
“You’ve had a varied life.”
“Very.”
“That takes care of the lout. If you run into trouble for it, I’ll back you, but try saying no first, will you?”
“Sure. Why not.”
“Say a Jamar Lord has an itch for foreign bodies in his bed.”
She grinned. “And I say, it’s all right with me, honored Sabin, but I’ve got the pox so maybe you’d rather not.”
“You don’t look it.”
“That’s us foreign bints, can’t tell about us.”
“And if he says he doesn’t believe you?”
“Then I do this.” She began to whistle an odd little droning tune. He watched her a moment until she blurred and a total lassitude took hold of him. She stopped whistling and clapped her hands, the sharp sound jolting him awake. “Men are very suggestible in that state,” she said calmly. “I’d tell him he wasn’t at all interested in me and he should forget the whole thing including the whistling. My father was a mage. I was his best and most constant student.”
He looked at her and began laughing so hard he fell over on the floor. When he recovered a little, he sat up, wiped at his eyes, caught Tari’s astonished stare and almost began again. He sucked in a long breath, exploded it out. “If you want to come along, you’re welcome, Harra Hazhani.” He cleared his throat. “Though you might want to wait until you meet my patron before you make up your mind.” He narrowed his eyes, examined her face, her hands, wondering how old she was.
“Twenty-three.”
“You answer questions not asked?”
“Why waste time? You wanted to know.”
“Keep out of my head, woman.”
“No need to get in it. Your face told me; men are much alike, you know, at least on things like that.”
“Uh-huh, you and the witch should have some interesting conversations.”
“You make me curious. Who is she?”
“A foreigner like you.”
“Should I know her?”
“I doubt it.”
Tari Blackthorn stirred on the divan, nudged at him with her foot. “Go home, Taga. Now that you steal my treasure from me. Go home, summerfly and soothe the wasp in your nest.” She made a soft snorting sound. “Don’t come back, O ungrateful one, without a thank-gift to make up for taking all my afternoon. The second hour after midday and not a breath before.” She gurgled. “Or I’ll have my dancers fickle you into a mass of quivering jelly.”
He trapped the prodding foot, woke laughter in her with knowing fingers, kissed the instep, then jumped to his feet and started for the door.
Before he reached it, she called out, “Bring your witch with you and let us see this wonder of wonders.”
He waved a non-committal hand and plunged out the door before she could call him back, strode off along the winding path, whistling an approximation of Harra’s dance tune, content with things as they were (except for Yarm and Yarm would cease to be a problem very soon); old Tungjii was sitting on his shoulder, he could almost feel hisser presence there. “So I light a batch of incense for you, O patron of my line, O bestower of joy and sorrow.”
The doorguard let him out the gate and he strolled along the sun-dappled lane beneath the willows and the tall, rare mottled bamboo, A few wisps of fog were flowing in off the sea and the air had a nip to it that pleased him. The night would be foggy and jaril was sure to come to him. Brann’s house was ready with a discreet maid waiting to see if she pleased the new mistress. He sauntered through the Players’ Quarter, wound deeper into Silili, heading up the mountain to the Temple, his mood mellowing until he was afloat on contentment and all men were brothers and all beasts had souls.
He drifted through the godons, the throng of traders from a thousand lands east and west. M’darjin, black men, ebony stick figures, heads shaven and enclosed in beaten bronze rings, bronze rings about their wrists and ankles, narrow bodies clad in voluminous robes, patterned in lines and blocks of black and white and sudden patches of pure color, blue, green, red, a vibrant purple. They brought ivory and scented woods and metal work of all kinds.
Western men and women-Phras, Suadi, Gallinasi, Eirsan, dozens of other sorts of men he couldn’t name, pinkish skin, hair shading from almost white to the darkest of blacks, eyes blue, brown, green, yellow, mongrel hordes they were, none as pure as Hina. They came with clocks and other mechanical devices, saddles and fine leatherwork, books, wines, fine spices. The women especially were spice hunters adept at worming into the odd places where you found the rarest of the spices. Gem traders, art dealers, dream sellers. Anything that men or women would buy.
Harpish clad in leather top to toe in spite of the warmth of Silili’s climate, faces shrouded in black leather cowls with only the eyes cut out, always in groups of three, never alone, dealers in mage’s wares and witch’s stock, mystical books, rumor and small gods.
Vioshyn in layer upon layer of violently clashing patterned cloth, selling sea-ivory and mountain furs, carved chests and exotic powders, also most of the more common drugs.
Felhiddin, small, thin, a walnut brown, clad mostly in the blue tattoos that covered every inch of visible skin, skimpy loincloths and sandals, men and women alike, though any stranger who mistook the meaning of the bare breasts got the metal claws the women wore in the meat of the offending hand and threatening growls from any other Felhiddin nearby as they swirled about him like a dog pack set to attack. Trading in exotic nuts and herbs, scaled hides of strange beasts, furs in fine bright colors, metallic reds and greens, a hundred shades of blue, bowls and other objects carved from jewelwoods with great simplicity but exquisite shape.
Henermen trading nothing but their services and their herds of strong ugly Begryers, hauling whatever their hirers desired inland along the land route to the west.
Mercenary fighters of all races and both sexes.
Street magicians, dancers, acrobats, musicians, beggars. Woda watermen and porters, squat, broad, bowed legs, calling their services in loud singsong voices.
Priests. Servants to many gods and demons. Mostly Hina, native to the ground, born on Selt to die on Selt, born in the upland
s that had once been Hina-ruled but now lay in the tight fists of Damara lords, here now as pilgrims to the great Temple on Selt’s central mountain or teaching in the priest schools attached to the Temple.
Mages, small men and large, small women and large, all races all shapes, some pausing awhile in Silili during their enigmatic wanderings, some there for the day, changing ships, touching foot to ground only to leave it again, some there to study in the Temple schools, some just nosing through the teeming market.
Fog was edging up from the water and the streets were beginning to empty, the foreigners flowing out of them into the joyhouses or the Inns of the Strangers’ Quarter according to the hungers that most clamored to be satisfied.
Taguiloa waved to those who leaned from joyhouse windows calling his name, shrugged off invitations. He was popular among the women of the night because of his stamina and his delight in them and their bodies. It was his intention to appear as one who walked lightly and with laughter through the world; his fears and blue spells he kept strictly to himself. He was a good fella, a pleasant considerate lover, a gambler who lost and won with cheerful equanimity, a friend who didn’t vanish when trouble came down, so there were many men and women to wave and call his name, and few knew it was as much calculation as nature, as hard-won as Blackthorn’s beauty, a product of much pain and rage and thought. When Gerontai died, he wept and shuddered in Blackthorn’s arms and she shut herself away with him a day and a night, though this meant she had to deny her current patron and had to coax him into complaisance with a masterly performance of illness. A sickness in which she seemed frail and suffering, but ten times as lovely and desirable as before, perhaps because of her momentary unattainability. From where he was concealed Taguiloa watched with amazement and appreciation, seeing how she took what would have destroyed a lesser woman and made it work to her advantage. He left her and shut himself in his master’s house, his now, shut himself away from everyone and thought long and hard about how his life should go, coming from that wrestling match with a sketch of the man he wanted to be, eighteen and determined to climb as high in his way as Blackthorn had in hers.
He ran up the steps of the Temple Way, reached the Temple Plaza, turned and looked out across the city and the bay.
The shops were being shuttered, the paper windows of the living quarters above them glowed a dark amber just visible as night drifted down on Selt. Torches and lampions flared in the Night Quarter, the noises of the night came to him, tinkle of strings, soar of flutes, laughs, shouts, a fragment of a song. The Strangers Quarter was quieter, the only lights the torches that glimmered before the Inns and taverns and noodle shops. The docks were dark and deserted except for the guard bands with their polelamps and rattles. Out on the water the Woda-an were lighting up lanterns and cook fires, too far away for him to hear more than a few mushy sounds, the blat of a horn, a wild raucous shout or two. He could see dark shapes passing the lanterns, merging and parting, some moving fast, jaggedly, some slowly, sinuously, a shadow play of dark and light that fascinated him for a while, wisps of images for another dance fluttering unformed in his head. The ghosts of the drowned and murdered came oozing from the water and the ground, blown by the wind like scraps of smoke. Ignoring the Temuengs, it’s a good place to be, he thought, and I am a man with the luck god riding my shoulder. Time to pay my debt, eh Tungjii?
He went into the Temple, moved past the Godalau and her companion gods and stopped before one of the smallest figures, the little luck whose belly was shiny from the hundreds, no, thousands of hands that had rubbed it, a mostly naked little man/woman with fat big-nippled breasts and a short thick penis, left eye winking in a merry face. Taguiloa bowed, patted the round little belly, dropped coins in the offering bowl and lit a handful of incense sticks. Feeling more than a little drunk from contemplating the possibilities in his future, he poked the sticks in the sandbowl, squatted and watched the sweet smoke swirl up about the god. After a moment he laughed, jumped to his feet, did a wheeling run, a double somersault, flipped into a handstand then over onto his feet, then he was running from the Temple, laughter still bubbling in his blood, the luck god still riding his shoulder, giggling into his ear.
Jaril materialized from the fog, walked down the Temple Way stairs beside him, saying nothing, just there. Taguiloa nodded to him and continued his careful march downward; the steps were slick with condensation and worn by generations of feet. To break a leg here would be thumbing his nose at the god on his shoulder and an invitation to a cascade of evil luck. When he reached the bottom, he smiled down at his small silent companion. “Ladji and Blackthorn offer Linjijan, Ladji’s grand-nephew as our flute player. Blackthorn wants to meet Brann.” He hesitated, lifted a hand, let it fall. “I told them a little about her and you. They won’t say anything, Jaril. Oh yes, there’s a foreign woman too, a musician and the daughter of a mage. She’s joining the troupe. I think. Tomorrow, two hours after midday. Would your companion be willing to come? I’ve found a house. A few steps from mine, a maid there for Brann if she wants to keep her. The girl will be discreet. We can get your companion moved in tomorrow morning if she decides to take the house. You want to see it? Come along then.”
BRANN CAME THROUGH the wall-gate, not at all the woman he’d seen that morning. Obviously she’d decided not to show forth as Hina, wisely so, he thought. The Shipmaster was right, Hina ways weren’t easily acquired. Her hair was hanging loose, not curling but undulating gracefully out from her face, black as night, cloud soft. She wore a cap of linked gold coins with strings of coins hanging beside her face, a long loose robe of black silk embroidered with birds and beasts from Hina tales. Her skin was darkened to an olive flushed pink on the cheeks, her mouth a warm rose, her green eyes wide and gemlike, her face as devoid of expression as the godmasks in the Temple. A brindle hunting bitch pranced beside her, prickears twitching, crystal eyes filled with a dancing light that said Yaril was enjoying herself.
For a moment Taguiloa felt uneasy before this trio, though he was used to ghosts fluttering about and gods roaming the world. Now and then someone would see the Godalau swimming through the waters of the outer bay, her long fingers like rays from the moon combing the waves, her fish tail like limber jade flipping through air and water, churning both. Or Geidranay big as a mountain squatting on a mountainside tending the trees. He’d seen a dragon break a long drought, undulating laughter it was, flashes of reds and golds as the sun glittered off its scales, a memory of beauty so great the ragged boy digging for clams forgot to breathe. The little gods, Sessa who found lost things, Sulit the god of secrets, Pindatung the god of thieves and pickpockets, all the rest of them, they scampered like cheerful mice from person to person, coming unasked, leaving without warning, a capricious, treacherous and highly courted clutch of godlings. You could make bargains with them and if you were clever enough even profit from them. If you weren’t clever enough and brought disaster on yourself and your folk, well that was your fault; if you got greedy and overstepped or fearful and failed to keep your wits honed you might find yourself reduced to night-soil collector or beggar with juicy sores to exploit.
Taguiloa walked in silence with the woman, boy and bitch; contemplating his choices. When Tungjii gave, you used the luck or lost it and more. The time he was still fussing about being obligated to a Temueng, Gerontai impressed that on him and to underline the lesson told him Raskatak’s story.
Raskatak was a fisherman with a small boat and miserable luck who brought in just enough fish to keep him from abandoning the craft and seeking some other kind of work. One bright day he was out in his boat alone on a becalmed sea, his lines overboard while he patched his sail. It had nearly split up the middle in the sudden squall that separated him from the other boats and left him wallowing between swells that rapidly flattened out as the.wind stopped dead and the sun rose higher and higher until it was beating remorselessly on the ocean. There was nothing touching his lines, they hung loose over the side, even the boat sounds had
died away until the noise the awl made punching through the canvas seemed as loud as a large fish breaking water, though none did for miles about.
Overhead, sundragon burned and undulated, white and gold, great mother-of-pearl eyes turning and turning. And on his forward shoulders Tungjii rode, hisser plump buttocks accommodated in a hollow the dragon made for himmer. Waving a fan gently before hisser face, heesh looked down at the wretched little boat and grinned suddenly, broadly, reached into the glitter about the dragon, twisted hisser dainty hand in a complicated round, opened hisser fist and let a scatter of gold coins drop into the boat, watching with casual interest to see if they would hit the fisherman on his head and kill him, miss the boat altogether and be lost in the sea, or land beside the man in a clinking shining pile. Tungjii had no leaning toward any of those outcomes, heesh was merely watching to see how chance would work out.
The coins came clunking down, heavy rounds that landed in a little pile beside Raskatak’s bare feet, one of them bouncing off his big toe, crushing the bone. He gaped at the coins, his big bony hands stilled on the rotten canvas. After a minute he put the canvas aside and scowled at his reddened toe. He lifted his foot and put it heavily on his knee. He touched the toe with clumsy fingers, grunted at the pain. Still ignoring the gold, he searched around in his sea chest, drew out a flat piece of bone, broke off a bit of it, bound it to his toe with a bit of rag, then a twist of line.
He put his foot down with the same heavy care. Only then did he pick up one of the coins and look it over, test it with his teeth. He sat staring at it as if he didn’t understand what it was. Moving with the same stolid deliberation he picked up each of the coins, tested each of them the same way and put it away in his sea chest. When he finished that he looked up, searching the sky for the origin of the shower of gold. What he saw was the glitter and burn of the noon sun. He hawked and spat over the side, went back to sewing up the sail. Gold or no gold, he wasn’t going to get home without a working sail.