“Only three, sister mine?” he asked in a mournful tone. “Am I on an allowance?”
“You need to be on a leash,” Arman said, tugging on his braid. “Shift your arse, man. I’m dying of thirst.”
~~~~~~~~
After the excitement of the first evening back, things quickly settled down. Karik found it hard to adjust at first. The pace of life was so much slower, and he found he was reassessing everything, everyone, and wondering how they saw him now, what they thought of him. It was he who had changed, not them. For a while he was afraid he had changed too much, but slowly, with his father’s help, with Risa’s and Meran’s, he slipped back into a familiar routine of working with the beasts and studying with his mother. There was also the night of the ancestors to prepare for, which brought the cleaning, mending and restocking frenzy to fever pitch. No one escaped. Ma got Arman beating rugs and turning mattresses, a cloth tied around his bright golden hair to protect it from the dust, and Myka grabbed Kei to help collect the last of the summer’s medicinal herbs and distil them.
There was still time for other things. Gyo arrived a week after Karik did, and wouldn’t rest until he had examined Karik’s scars and his mental health, and been thoroughly assured his friend was well, happy, and not going anywhere soon. He kept apologising for his role in the Utuk business, but Karik had predicted this would happen. He and Kei had come up with a plan to distract him. “Merkos,” he announced, interrupting Gyo’s self-flagellation. “Arman and Peit are going to catch merkos for us.”
That caught Gyo’s attention immediately. “Arman is?”
Karik grinned. “Yes. He said he would. All we have to do is make the trap, and prepare the cage.”
“Lord Arman is going to catch you a merko.”
“No, Lord Arman is going to catch a family of merkos. With Peit’s help, of course.”
“Of course,” Gyo said faintly. “What in hells has been going on up in Darshek?”
Karik told him everything, only leaving out the awkward business of who his real father was, saying only that his mother had been having an affair, and so Arman thought another man had got a child on his wife. Even that slightly sanitised version had Gyo’s eyes on stalks. “She was his wife? And you’re his son by law?”
“So it seems. Ma and Pa had to sign some more documents to readopt me, but it’s all safe now. Once I’m eighteen, even the Prij can’t do any more.”
“So...he’s just being nice to you now because of all that?”
Karik almost laughed. “No, you could say it’s despite all that.” Gyo grew solemn as Karik explained about the attack, why it had happened and how Arman had cared for him so tenderly.
“Gods,” Gyo said quietly, scuffing his feet as they walked along, up to the waterhole. Karik had chores he would have to do in a bit, but Pa had waved him off to talk to Gyo as he and Kei had got hold of Misek to bend his ear. “So even that was to do with the war? What happened to the man?”
“He died. Killed himself. He was crazy.”
“I’d be crazy too if someone killed my son. I still don’t know how Arman could have done that.”
“Well, sometimes I can see the man who could have done it, but I know he wouldn’t do it now. He still has the potential, like you saying you’d kill anyone who hurt your Ma. Like Jik—he wouldn’t have ever tried to kill someone if his son hadn’t died, and if Arman hadn’t lost someone just as close, I don’t think he’d have done it either.”
Gyo sighed. “I just wish everything to do with the war would go away. I’m sick of it hurting people.”
“I don’t think just wishing for it will work. I don’t think pretending it didn’t happen will work either. You just have to make something good from the bad.”
Gyo looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You’ve changed, Ka-chi. You seem...taller or something.”
“I am taller, Gyo,” Karik said with a grin.
“Yes, but...older. Maybe you won’t want to hang around with a kid like me any more.”
Karik looked up at Gyo, who had only got taller and broader since he’d seen him. “I think it’ll be a while before I outgrow you,” he said, tugging on his friend’s long and beautiful braid. “You’ve changed too.”
“Not so much. Reji talked to me about being a trader, did you know?” Karik shook his head. “I said I wasn’t interested, not yet anyway. He said it’s all right—if I change my mind, I can come spend some time here with him and Risa, and try it again. Don’t think I will,” he added gloomily.
“You never know. Maybe you’ll go to Darshek instead.”
“You going up there again, Ka-chi? It sounds like you really enjoyed it. I mean, apart from the being stabbed bit.”
“I don’t know if I’m going back. I have some good friends there—and Kei and Arman say I can live with them. But I have you and Meran and Risa and Keiji and Ma and Pa here. I don’t know how I can leave now I’m back.”
“You’re smart, Karik. You don’t need to be so smart here. I think you have to go back.”
Now it was Karik’s turn to sigh. There was definitely more to it than brains, or his father would be running Darshian. “Well, I don’t have to decide now. Let’s find Arman and see if he’s going hunting today.”
Much as he missed Seiki and Reis and his other friends, it was very easy to immerse himself in the pleasure of Gyo’s gentle-hearted company, and the fun that always followed Kei. He was determined to enjoy himself, knowing after all that happened this last year that nothing could be taken for granted anymore, and certainly not that he would be able to spend another carefree summer with Gyo and his other friends, looking for small carnivores, watching Kei being chased by the smaller children around the waterhole, or Arman helping his father put a new wheel on a cart, lifting it on his own with the power of his broad shoulders. He experienced it all with a heart grateful for pleasures small and large, and mindful how short life could be.
Gyo worked cheerfully alongside his relatives and with Karik, enjoying the break from the herbarium, and seemed none the worse for the ill-fated trip to Darshek. Perhaps he was a little more serious, a little more mature. But then he might just be growing up. They all were. Life moved on and there was nothing he or anyone else could do to stop it. All he could do was meet the challenge head on and hope he survived it.
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Landing softly
A side story to Falling from the Tree
Landing Softly: 1
Jembis collided hard with the wall—that made the ringing in his head even louder than his father’s shouting.
“...my sight! You little bastard, I’ll make you pay....”
A soldier came up and said something to his father. Jembis couldn’t catch it—he was too busy concentrating on not throwing up. His father stopped yelling, which was good, but then he hauled Jembis up by his collar which made him puke after all, which wasn’t so good. He hadn’t eaten for a while, so it was just bile. “Ugh, you dirty little.... You make me sick, boy. Stand up! Stand up, damn it.”
Jembis did his best, but cringed away from his father’s raised fist. “Take that outside,” the soldier ordered, and made it clear that at least in the palace, Jembis and his father had better keep the peace.
His father hauled him along the corridors, and he could only try and keep his feet, despite his dizziness. He hoped he’d done enough to save Karik, but everyone said Senator Mekus was a right bastard, and Karik had looked so scared. All his fault, Jembis thought, then had to concentrate as he was yanked again.
The sunshine made him blink and want to throw up again, but he wasn’t allowed to catch his breath. His father continued
to drag him along the busy streets, muttering dark curses the whole time. Jembis was resigned to a beating—another beating—but hopefully his father would get so disgusted that he would just go off again and leave him alone. It was how things had gone in the past. It was about as good as he dared hope for—his father was pretty angry though. Losing money always made him extra mad.
They got to the boarding house in Teder Street and went round the back to the private entrance. His father only waited until they were out of sight of the street before attacking again, hurling Jembis bodily through the back door, sending him crashing across the kitchen floor, clattering against the stand of saucepans and making the cook shriek with outrage. He raised his arm instinctively to protect his face, and none too soon as his father grabbed a fire iron from beside the big oven and brought it down hard across his forearm. Jembis screamed with shock—his arm felt like it had been smashed in two. “You. Little. Shit.” Each word, punctuated by a blow, crashing again on to his arm, his shoulder, his ribs. “You’ve cost me a fortune!” That last one felt like his shoulder had snapped. He curled into a tighter ball, and tried to protect his head against the thudding impacts, over and over. This time, he thought dully, his father meant to kill him. And this time, maybe, he’d do it.
Then there was a woman’s voice, shouting angrily, and the blows stopped while his father shouted back. Lisil—the bitch. Complaining about the disruption. Jembis didn’t dare uncurl or stop guarding his head—his arm hurt like hellfire, and his whole body throbbed with sharp pain. He just hoped his father had worn out his rage now.
Lisil told her lover to clear out and to take his little bastard with him, but his father just stomped out of the kitchen, ignoring his son completely, and leaving him to Lisil’s mercy. Jembis stayed very still, trying not to attract any more abuse. He heard her shoes clacking over the tiles towards him. “Get up,” she snapped. “Get out of my kitchen, go to your room. Keep out of my way.”
He tried to do as she ordered but his legs wouldn’t obey him, and when the cook roughly grabbed his injured arm, he screamed in shocked pain which made her let him go hastily. “Get up,” Lisil shouted. “You and that bastard keep out of the kitchen!”
It wasn’t like he’d chosen the place, he thought muzzily. Slowly he managed to get to his knees, and, using his good arm, pulled himself up. “Go on, get out of here. Keep out of my way!”
She shoved him, nearly making him fall again. He had to lean against the wall as he made his way out of the kitchen and into the back hall. His room was at the top of the boarding house—a storeroom, really, under the roof, that he’d used since his father had taken up with Lisil. It was still a storeroom, because he didn’t need much space of his own. Right now, the stairs were impossible. He stared at them with bleary eyes, cradling his arm against his body, and wondering how he could even start to get up them.
He heard footsteps. Someone coming down the stairs—he stepped back, and realised with shock it was his father again. He cringed back against the wall, but to his surprise, his father made no attempt to attack him again, though he came close as if he was about to, his face twisted in an ugly sneer. “You’ve screwed me for the last time, my boy. From now on, you can make your own damn way in life—I want nothing more to do with you, I won’t have you on my ship again. And as for this....”
To Jembis’s horror, he realised what his father held up triumphantly was Cecu, his lizard, in the little carrying cage. “No! Leave him alone!”
The sneer got uglier. “Oh, now you understand. You screwed me, I’m going to screw you, boy. I know I can get a pretty price for this little bugger, and I’m going to make some of the money back you lost me.”
Jembis lurched towards him, determined to rescue his pet, but his father struck him down with a clenched fist, sending him hard against a side table. Jembis fell and the table crashed down on top of him, along with the cheap ornaments that had decorated it. He yelled in agony—it had fallen across his injured arm—but his father ignored him, walking out the front door, and none of Jembis’s cries made the slightest difference.
Trapped by the heavy table, he was helpless and in terrible pain, but he didn’t care. “Cecu,” he whispered. His father would take him to the animal market, most likely—but Cecu wasn’t any ordinary lizard, and needed special care. He knew no one who understood Welensian rock lizards, and no one who would know what to do with one. He had to get him back.... But he couldn’t even lift the table off himself without help, and his calls seemed to have no effect. Despite his determination never to let his father or anyone else know how much they hurt him, he felt tears of pain and fear pricking his eyelids. He had to get out of here.
He struggled futilely, but he felt strangely uncoordinated, his limbs heavy and clumsy, giving him no strength. Would Lisil just let him lie here all day, where any of her guests could see him? Finally, he heard footsteps, though he couldn’t see who it was. He called to them for help, and was ignored, but a few minutes later, the footsteps returned. To his surprise and relief, he felt the weight of the heavy furniture being lifted off him, before he was dragged roughly to his feet, crying out in pain as Butis, Lisil’s hulking odd job man, hauled him up. “Mistress says you’re to clear off, boy. Here, take your things.” Butis nudged Jembis’s pack and coat over to him with his foot. “Go on. You’re not welcome here no more.”
Jembis would have made a smart remark about how he’d never wanted to come to this pissing place in the first place, but he’d been knocked around enough for one day and Butis didn’t have the sweetest temper even without being provoked. He pulled his jacket over his bad arm, then picked up his pack—it was awkward, and there wasn’t a place on his body that didn’t hurt to have a weight against it, but he stood as straight as he could, and tried to walk out with his head held high, to show Butis and that lousy bitch he cared nothing for any of them. He supposed he should be grateful none of the residents were around—Lisil didn’t exactly attract the nicest customers, and violence attracted violence, as he knew all too well. Not to mention the fact that he was now the easiest target for robbery—a child of five could have knocked him down.
He didn’t want to think about the fact he was now homeless. In a way, he hadn’t had a home since he’d been three and his mother died. He didn’t love his father and his father hated him. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Right now, all he wanted to do was get Cecu back before he could be sold to some bastard who fed him the wrong food and kept him in a cold draft.
Lisil’s boarding house, like several others of its kind, was near the market behind the palace, serving the single male population of Utuk in more ways—so it was rumoured—than just by providing lodging. The animal dealers were near the docks, a half-mile away. It might have been as far as Darshek, so difficult was he finding it to walk, between the pain and dizziness. He kept close to the front of the buildings, keeping his head down and hiding his injured arm, trying to look unassuming, unimportant, not wanting a soldier to ask why his face was all bruised, and then to ask more awkward questions about who was in charge of him. Technically, he was still under his father’s control, and even with being turned off, if his father changed his mind, Jembis would have to go back to him. “Never,” he muttered fiercely, keeping his eyes on where his feet were going. He would kill himself rather than go back with that bastard. He didn’t know how he’d manage, but even death was better than that.
Over and over, he had to swallow a cry of pain as the crowds on the pavements jostled him, all hurrying about their business and uninterested in a sole, homeless boy. He had to keep stopping to catch his breath, to try and stop himself from vomiting. His sight was all doubled, and the dizziness meant he walked like a drunkard, however hard he tried to straighten up. He prayed no one would notice him or call the soldiers—public drunkenness would get a man locked up. Even flogged, if it was habitual.
But though it took forever, eventually he found himself down by the docks. The familiar smells and cries of caged anim
als and birds, the dull roars of adult carchos, told him his destination was at hand—if Jembis had a home at all in Utuk, this was more likely to be it than Lisil’s place. He was well-known here, and his appearance caused a lot of comment he had no patience or composure to answer. Fortunately, his father’s temper was well-known too, and there was more sympathy than idle curiosity as he asked whether his parent had been seen down there this morning.
Everyone was willing to help, but he had no luck at first. The problem was trying to decide where his father would have taken Cecu—if he’d taken him here at all, and not just dashed his brains out for spite. But Jembis had great faith in his father’s greed if nothing else, and killing Cecu wouldn’t bring him a tikel. Finally, at the fifth dealer’s he got a tip that someone had seen his father at another establishment, one of the largest ones, and where he had spent a lot of time, even working for them to earn a few coins when his father’s ship was in dock for more than a couple of days.
Tesei’s warehouse was a huge shed almost right on the water. He could get the larger beasts right from shipboard down to his own private docks, and on the last trip but one, he’d taken a load of carcho kittens from Jembis’s father. As Jembis went in through the main doors, wondering if he could just nose around quietly, Tesei himself came up, looking concerned. “Jembis, my boy, what happened to you?”
Jembis moved away from the clap on the shoulder Tesei was about to land on him in greeting. “Tesei, did my father come in here earlier? With a lizard?”
“Yes, he did,” Tesei said, frowning. “Welensian rock lizard, he said—don’t know much about them, but I gave him three gelden for it. Why?”
Three gelden—a year’s salary for a common sailor. Jembis had had no idea Cecu was worth that much to someone else. “It was mine. I want it back.”
“Ah. I did wonder, since Ujinis didn’t seem too familiar with it. Well, not a problem, lad—just give me the money I gave him and we’ll forget the whole business.”
Falling From the Tree (Darshian Tales #2) Page 64