by Clayton, Jo;
Gleia closed her eyes and fumbled in her pocket, sore fingers groping for the packet of coins she’d put there earlier. Her fingers closed on the egg-shaped stone; she frowned, not remembering for a minute where the thing came from.
The rat-faced landlady scowled and flapped her pudgy hand up and down. “Rent!”
Gleia slid her hand past the crystal and found the packet. Silently she drew it out and handed it to the old woman.
Miggela tore clumsily at the paper. Her crusted tongue clamped between crooked yellow teeth, she counted the coins with deliberate slowness, examining each one with suspicious care, peering nearsightedly at the stamping.
Gleia rubbed her hand across her face, too tired to be irritated.
Slipping the coins into a sleeve pocket, Miggela stood staring up into the taller woman’s drawn face. “You’re late. You missed supper.”
“Oh.”
“And don’t you go trying to cook in your room.”
“No.” She wasn’t hungry anymore but knew she had to have food. Her legs trembled. She wanted more than anything to lie down. But she turned and went out. She walked carefully, slowly, over the uneven planks, heading aimlessly toward the edge of the nightquarter and a familiar cookshop.
Gleia strolled out of the cookshop feeling more like herself with two meat pies and a cup of cha warming her middle, a third pie in her hand. She sank her teeth into the pie, tore off a piece and drifted along the street chewing slowly, savoring the blended flavors, watching the people move past her.
Horli was completely gone in the west with only a stain of red to mark her passing, while the biggest moon Aab was thrusting over the rooflines to the east, her cool pale light cutting through inky shadows. Gleia knew she should get back to her room. There were too many dangers for a woman alone here. Sighing, she began working her way through the noisy crowd toward the slum quarter. She finished the pie, wiped her greasy hands on a bit of paper and dropped the paper in the gutter for the scavengers to pick up in their dawn sweeps through the streets.
The crowd thinned as she left the commercial area and moved into the slum that held a few decrepit stables and row on row of ancient dwellings converted into boarding houses. Some were empty with staring black windows where the glass was gone—stolen or broken by derelicts who could find no other place to sleep. One by one these abandoned houses burned down, leaving behind fields of weeds and piles of broken, blackened boards.
Gleia looked up at the gray, weathered front of Miggela’s place. She was tired to the point of giddiness but she felt such a reluctance to go inside that she couldn’t force her foot onto the warped lower step; instead she went past the house and turned into the alley winding back from the side street. Moving quickly, eyes flicking warily about, she trotted past the one-room hovels where the small scurrying scavengers lived anonymous lives and desperate bashers hid out, waiting for sailors to come stumbling back to their ships. She went around the end of a warehouse, the last in the line of those circling the working front where the bay was dredged. The water out here was too shallow to accommodate any but the smallest ships.
She saw a small neat oceangoer, a chis-makka, one of the independent gypsy ships that went up and down the coast as the winds and their cargoes dictated. The ship was dark, the crew apparently on liberty in one of the taverns whose lights and noise enlivened the waterfront some distance in toward the center. Out here it was quiet, with ravellings of fog beginning to thicken over the water. As the waves slapped regularly at the piles the evening on-shore breeze made the rigging on board the chis-makka creak and groan.
Gleia edged to the far side of the wharf and kicked off her sandals. Then she ran along the planks, bent over, making no more sound than a shadow. She slid over the end of the wharf and pulled herself onto one of the crossbars nailed from pile to pile under the broad planks. Ignoring the coating of slime and drying seaweed, she sat with her back against a pile, her legs dangling in space, her feet moving back and forth just above the rocking water.
For a long while she sat there, the sickening emotional mix settling away until she felt calm and at peace again. The fog continued to thicken, sounds coming to her over the water with an eerie clarity.
Something pushed against her thigh. She remembered the Ranga Eye that had thrown her so disastrously in the morning. As she reached into her pocket, the water broke in a neat splash and a glinting form came out of it, swooping onto the crossbar beside her. In her surprise she nearly toppled off into the agitated water, but the seaborn caught hold of her and steadied her.
Her face almost nosing into his chest, she saw the water pour from his gill slits and the slits clamp shut. The moonlight struggling through the fog touched his narrow young face and reflected off his pointed mother-of-pearl teeth as he sucked air into his breathing bladder then grinned at her. “T’ought it was you. No ot’er land crawler ever come here.”
“Tetaki?” She closed her fingers around his cool hard forearm. “I haven’t seen you in years.” Shaking her head, she smiled uncertainly at him. “Years.”
“Not sin’ you was finger high.”
“You weren’t any bigger.” She shook his arm, amusement bubbling inside her. “Brat.”
He perched easily on the narrow bar, his short crisp hair already drying and springing into the curls that used to fascinate her with their tight coils and deep blue color. “Good times. We were good friends then.” He was silent a moment, watching her. “T’is isn’t the firs’ year I come back. You never come here.”
“I was thinking about you earlier today.” She pushed away from the pile and touched his knee. “The only friend I ever had.”
His hand closed about hers, cool and metal smooth, his flesh unlike hers but the touch comforting despite that. “I come each time. You never here.”
“At first I couldn’t,” she said, her fatigue and depression coming back like a fog to shroud her, smother her spirit. She sighed. “Later … later, I forgot.”
“What happened?” His hand tightened on hers. She looked up. The shining unfamiliar planes of his face seemed to banish the fog. Then he smiled. His teeth were a carnivore’s fangs, needle sharp and slightly curved. “Forget me? Shame.”
She laughed and pulled free. “I turned thief. Abbrah made me. Remember him?”
His teeth glinted again. “I got cause.”
Gleia watched her feet swinging back and forth over the dark water, almost black here under the wharf but flickering with tiny silver highlights where the moonlight danced off the tops of wavelets. Remember.…
A delegation of amphibian people had come to negotiate trade rights with the Maleek; Tetaki’s father was a minor official. She remembered a slim scaled boy with big light green eyes and tight-coiled blue hair poking through a dingy side street looking eagerly about at the strange sights. Alone. Foolishly alone. Abbrah’s gang gathered around him, baiting him, working themselves up to attack him. Something about his refusal to give in to them stirred a spark in Gleia that lit old resentments and she fought her way to his side in that stubborn all-out battle the gang knew too well. So they backed off, shouting obscenities, reasserting their dominance by showing contempt for her and her protégé. She took him back to his father and scolded the startled seaborn for his carelessness.
“You got caught.”
“I was a lousy thief. Yes, I got caught. And bonded. See?” She turned her face so he could see the bondmark burned into her cheek. “What about you?”
He chuckled, waved a hand toward the chismakka’s shadow. “Ours. This is t’ird summer we come to the fairs.”
“Hey.” She patted his arm, too weary to enthuse as she should.
He bent closer, staring into her face. “You don’ look so good.”
She yawned. “Tired.” She swallowed another yawn. “That’s all.”
“Come wit’ me. Temokeuu would welcome you. You could live wit’ us.”
She stroked the mark on her cheek but didn’t answer for a minute. He set
tled back, content to let her answer when she was ready. Finally, she shook her head. “Can’t, Tetaki. I’m stuck here till my bond is cancelled. You going to be here in Carhenas long?”
“We been having good trading.” He frowned. “Two, t’ree days more I t’ink.”
“At least we can talk some. I’ve missed having someone to talk to.”
“Come see Temokeuu. He like you.” Tetaki grinned at her. “And we show you our ship.”
“Sure.” She yawned again. “I’d better get back. I have to be up an hour early tomorrow.” She swung herself up onto the wharf, hung her head over the edge a minute. “See you.”
Her room looked like someone had taken a giant spoon and given it a quick stir. The sheet, blanket, and quilt hung over the side of the bed where she’d kicked them. Her one chair was overturned. She remembered her hip catching it on the way out. The wardrobe door hung halfway open. The sandal with a broken strap sat on its side in the middle of the floor.
Gleia stretched, feeling the spurt of energy from the food beginning to trickle away. Yawning repeatedly, she pulled the bed to rights and straightened the mess a little, then tugged the ties loose and pulled her cafta over her head. The crystal bumped against her and she fished it out before she hung the garment away. Turning the Ranga Eye over and over in her hands she strolled across the room to the nightstand. She dropped the Eye in the middle of the bed and took out her cha pot, setting it next to the water tin. From the bottom drawer in the stand she pulled out a tiny sway-bellied brazier, set it up on the window ledge. Using the candle and strips of paper, she got the charcoal burning, then set the tin on the grill. Making sure the window was wedged open, she left the tin to boil and went back to the nightstand. She dumped a palmful of leaves into the pot and got a cup ready, then let herself collapse on the quilt.
She folded the pillow twice to prop up her head and reached out, prodding the quilt, finally fishing the Eye from under the curve of her back; she began turning it over and over, examining it idly.
A Ranga Eye. She’d heard whispers of them. A frisson of fear shivered down her spine. If they caught her with it … if they caught her, she could forget about buying her bond. Or anything else. If I could sell it … somehow … somehow … if I could sell it, Madar! Bonded thief with a Ranga Eye. If I could sell it.…
The crystal warmed as she touched it. At first a few tentative sparks licked through the water-clear form. She felt a surge of delight. The tips of her fingers moved in slow caressing circles over the smooth surface. The colors began cycling hypnotically, then the color forms began to shift their nature, impreceptibly altering into images of a place. As she watched, the picture developed rapidly, blurred at first, then sharpening into focus.
Gentle hills rolled into a blue distance, covered with a green velvet carpet, a species of moss dotted with small star-shaped pseudo-flowers. Other flower forms as large as trees were spaced over the slopes, each form at the center of a hexagonal space roughly as wide as the stretch of its four leaf-stems. The leaves were eight-sided and multiple, marching along wiry black stems curving out from the central stalk at a spot halfway up to the bloom, four black arcs springing out at the same height from the ground. At the top of each plant great brilliant petals rayed out from a black center that gathered in the butter-yellow light of a single sun.
Another sun. She stroked the crystal, dreaming of another place, a better place, feeling a growing excitement. The tin on the fire began to whistle softly. Gleia dropped the Eye on the bed, levered herself up, and scuffed across to the brazier. She poured the bubbling water over the cha leaves. While they were steeping, she tilted the rest of the water onto the glowing coals. Head tipped back to avoid the billowing steam, she let the blackened water trickle down the side of the building. Then she knocked out the wedge and pulled the window shut.
With a cup of cha in one hand and the Eye in the other, a clean nightgown on her body and the pillow freshly folded for her head, she lay and watched the play of colors in the crystal. The image began to move through the flower trees, as if she were seeing through the eyes of some creature flying just below the petals of the flower tops. Before she had time to get bored with the lovely but monotonous landscape, she flew out into the open, skimming along brilliant white sand. Blue waves rolled in with white caps breaking cleanly, rhythmically. The sky stretched above, a glowing cloudless blue only slightly lighter than the sea. As she hovered in place she saw other creatures come flitting from the flower forest. A delicate-boned male with huge black eyes danced up to her, spiralling in complex pirouettes.
Huge black eyes soft as soot and as shineless. Thin arms and legs. Hands whose long slender fingers like jointed sticks were half the length of the forearms. Body short and broad, the shoulders muscled hugely. Butterfly wings abstractedly patterned with splotches of shimmering color outlined in black, opening and closing with slow hypnotic sweeps. He rode the air in swoops and glides, wheeled in front of her, small mouth stretched in a wide inviting grin, narrow hands beckoning.…
The exhaustion of the day caught up with her and she sank into a heavy sleep, the remnants of the cha spilling on the bed, soaking into the mattress. The crystal rolled out of her loosened fingers.
When the alarm bell woke her in the morning, the cha spot was still damp and the leaves were smeared over her shoulder and back. The crystal had worked along her body and ended up in the hollow between her neck and shoulder. When she picked it up to put in the drawer, it seemed to cling to her fingers, quivering gently against her skin, shedding a pleasant warmth that slid up her arm and made her feel soft and dreamy. She shut off the alarm and stumbled to the wardrobe still half asleep. With the Eye clutched in her hand she fumbled for a cafta. After she wriggled into the garment, she slid the stone into the pocket, not noticing what she was doing, tied the ties, and smoothed the material down over her body.
The cavernous sewing room was dark and silent when Gleia walked in. She wound through the close lines of sewing tables and settled in her usual place. She lit the candles and took out her sewing. Holding the delicate material close to the flame, she examined the last bit of embroidery. It was good enough. Damn if she was going to pick it out.
She threaded her needle with the silk. Tongue clamped between her teeth, she snipped at the loose ends, dropping small bits of thread haphazardly over the floor, over her cafta, around the table, scattering the pieces of thread with a gleeful abandon.
Sometime later, after the room had filled and the other girls were bent over their work, Habbiba came by, her sharp eyes darting over the scattered ends of thread. Her mouth pursed in satisfaction, she sailed past to pounce on an unfortunate girl who chanced to look up and stretch at the wrong time.
Gleia swallowed a smile, feeling a warm, buoyant satisfaction at fooling the woman.
At the end of the long day, she stretched and rubbed her red, tired eyes. She stood motionless beside the sewing table a minute with eyes closed, then she shook out the cafta, ran a quick eye over the lines of embroidery, put the cafta on a hanger, and carried it to Habbiba.
“Finished,” she murmured, keeping her head down to hide the triumph that flushed her face.
Habbiba took the cafta and pulled the bands of embroidery close to her eyes as she went over the work, stitch by stitch. When she was finished, she grunted sourly, her small black eyes darting at Gleia, then she sailed off, the cafta a fluttering white banner beside her small black figure. Gleia waited tensely. Twenty-five oboli, she thought. I won’t take less. But she knew that she would, that she had to. Habbiba didn’t know that. Oy-ay Madar, she couldn’t know. I’ve fought her too often and even won a few times. She has to think I’ll fight her on this. Has to think.…
Habbiba came back. She stopped in front of Gleia. “Not your best work,” she grumbled. Her small plump fingers were closed about a small bag of coins. “Hold out your hand.” With painful reluctance she eased the drawstring loose and pulled out an eight-sided gold coin: “Pentobol. One.”
She pressed the coin into Gleia’s palm, her fingers sliding off the metal with a lingering, caressing motion.
Slowly, releasing the coins as if they were drops of her own blood, Habbiba counted out five pentoboli into Gleia’s outstretched hand. Holding the bag with the remaining coins pressed tightly against her breast, Habbiba looked at Gleia with distaste. “You be on time in the morning. The Maleeka wants a cafta with embroidered sleeves for the name day of her youngest daughter.” She hesitated. “You’ll be paid the same,” she finished sourly.
Gleia bowed her head farther, rounding her shoulders. Hai, you old bitch, she thought. No wonder you paid me the whole. Blessed Madar the Maleeka. How you must be preening at the thought.
She went out into the street and wandered along, feeling tired but elated. She had the money. No more aching back. No more passive acceptance of abuse. She fingered the mark on her cheek. Closed her fingers on the coins in her pocket. The Eye rolled against her hand but she ignored it, happily planning her visit to the House of Records.
Her feet eventually took her to the boarding house. Looking up at the shadowed façade, she scratched her chin and hesitated. She could smell the awful stew Miggela had cooked up for them, an unappetizing mess with a few shreds of cheap meat, tough vegetables, and thick filling of soggy barley. The rancid smell followed her as she walked away toward the cookshop where the grease was fresher. Foolish as it was to wander about with all that money, in her pocket, it was good to walk and feel free for a while, to let the Seabreeze riffle through her hair, to sluff along the walkway, winding in and out of the men and women walking purposefully homeward, the noisy influx of sailors from the wharves, the streetwalkers who were coming out to start their peculiar workdays. She looked eagerly around trying to spot another of the seaborn but saw none.
She came out of the shop munching on a pie, enjoying the taste all the more when she thought of the stew her fellow roomers, that collection of losers, were stuffing down their throats at Miggela’s table.
She stopped at the alley leading to the wharf but shook her head. That would be a bit too stupid. Sighing, she clumped up the steps and went inside.