Melissa Scott - Shadow Man

The driver turned to face him. The breaking glass had scored a long cut from cheekbone to jawline, and the blood was still welling sluggishly from it; there was more blood on his shoulder, staining the pale fabric of his shirt. “It’s not so bad,” he said, and fumbled for something in one of the storage compartments. “I’ll be all right.”

Warreven eyed him uncertainly, and a voice said, behind him, “Is everything all right?”

He turned to face a big man, the sort of ex-docker the rowdier wrangwys houses hired to keep the peace. He was staring at the rover with a kind of detached curiosity, as though he were wondering if they were going to bleed on his employer’s property, or if they could safely be sent elsewhere. Warreven took a deep breath, wondering how to explain, and the driver leaned past him, putting his head out the smashed window.

“Belbarb. Thank the spirits it’s you.”

“Trouble?” the big man asked, looking at Warreven, and his hand went to the docker’s hook stuffed into his belt beneath the loose fabric of his vest.

The driver nodded. “Yeah, but not with him. We ran into a ghost rana, the bastards—they smashed the window into me.” He started to say more, winced, and pressed his shirt fabric against the cut. “Bastards.”

Belbarb nodded, looked from him to Warreven. “Are you all right, mir?”

“Fine,” Warreven answered, and shook his head, looking at the driver’s face in the light from the houselamp. “That looks like it could use a weld.”

The driver started to shake his head, but Belbarb said, “He’s right, Fisk, that does need some work. I think Marrin’s upstairs— you can leave the rover here, I’ll square the mosstaas .”

Warreven took a step back as the driver opened his door, wondering what to do. He wanted to get home, he had work to do in the morning, but he had no desire to brave the ranas again, at least not yet— Fisk stumbled, and Warreven caught his arm, steadying him. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a clinic?”

“Marrin’s all right,” Fisk said, and Belbarb nodded.

“He’s an off-worlder, a medic, he—rents here. He knows what he’s doing.” His eyes swept over Warreven, across his chest and hips, came to rest on the metal bracelets. “You’ll be wanting a drink, mir.”

Warreven nodded. “Thanks. I’m Warreven. Stiller, of the Ambreslight mesnie .”

“Belbarb Stiller.” The big man nodded again, this time with approval, and stooped to take half of Fisk’s weight. “Come on, Fiskie, let’s get you inside. Illewedyr, go get Marrin, will you?”

Warreven followed them into the unexpected quiet of the bar. The music had stopped, drummers and a flute player standing idle beside the little dance floor, and the rest of the customers had gathered in fours and fives, muttering angrily. They were a mix of off-worlders and indigenes: another trade bar, Warreven thought, and leaned heavily against the bar. A thin, pale man with sun-darkened hands and face—Marrin, certainly—shoved his way through the groups to drop a medikit on one of the tables. The flute player did something with a control board, and one of the spotlights turned and tilted, catching the table in its light. Fisk sank into the waiting chair, and Marrin bent over him, muttering to himself. The noise rose in the bar again, angry voices tumbling over each other, and the bartender moved toward Warreven, her eyes still sliding to the table where the medic worked.

“What can I get you?” she asked, and seemed to catch some message from Belbarb. “It’s on the house.”

“Thanks,” Warreven answered. “Bingo, if you have it.”

Bingo was the strongest of the Haran liquors. The woman nodded and came back in a few seconds with a narrow glass half filled with the faintly cloudy liquid. Warreven drank half of it in a gulp, the stuff searing his throat, and took another, more cautious sip. “I suppose the mosstaas should be called.”

“Oh, æ,” Belbarb said, and lowered his bulk onto the stool beside Warreven. “We can call, but if they’ll come—or if they’d do anything once they got here—well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Fisk’s a dandi , and wry-abed to boot. Do you think they’ll work on this one? Would you pay for it, mir?”

Warreven flicked a glance at him. So Fisk was a mem, and even the protection of the bars, the safety Temelathe had been preaching, didn’t extend to calling in the law. But of course Belbarb was right, too: it was unlikely the mosstaas would do much for þim. “I will. I doubt it’ll do any good, but I will. And put my name to the complaint, if that’ll help.”

“I doubt it,” Belbarb said. “No offense, mir, but you’re one of us.”

Warreven sighed. “I agree, I doubt it’ll help. But I think you ought to get it on record.”

Belbarb glanced at the clock above the door, its round display showing the moon almost down, and the time floating above the star pattern. It was less than an hour to legal closing. “Let’s wait until Marrin’s finished, æ? Better all around.”

“All right,” Warreven said. The bar would be closing by the time the medic had finished welding the cut closed, and Fisk had had a drink or two to kill the pain and settle his nerves. Belbarb couldn’t risk calling the mosstaas without driving off the off-worlders who didn’t want to be known as players. Nothing would be gained by calling them earlier, anyway: if the rumors were true—and after tonight, he had no doubt that they were—Tend- lathe was protecting the ghost ranas, and the mosstaas wouldn’t argue with him. I wonder if he’s doing more than protecting them? he thought suddenly. Ten could have set this up, set me up…. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and he was glad to push it away. The timing was wrong, and he couldn’t have known the rover’s route. He and Fisk had just been unlucky, and there was enough of that in Bonemarche to go around.

Clan-cousin: (Hara) technically, a man or woman within one’s own age cohort in the shared clan who is not otherwise related; in common usage, a man or woman of one’s clan to whom one feels some tie or obligation, but to whom one is not more closely related; the use of the term generally expresses a sense of affection and kinship between the people concerned.

Warreven was late that afternoon, arriving with the end of the early rain, an insulated jug in one hand, disks and link-board in the other. Ȝe was still dressed in the clothes 3e had worn at the memore , a dull bronze silk tunic with a faint, geometric pattern woven into its surface, and 3er usual loose trousers. Ȝer hair was pulled back in an untidy braid, and Tatian wondered—not without some envy—where 3e had spent the night. Warreven smiled as though 3e’d read the thought and set the jug on Tatian’s desk.

“Help yourself, it’s wiidwayk .”

“No, thanks.” To Tatian, the herbal brew tasted like sugared turpentine, though the indigenes seemed to drink it by the gallon.

“Suit yourself,” Warreven said. Ȝe unstoppered the jug and drank, then set it aside, saying, “I’m sorry I’m late. I had—kind of a busy night and slept in.”

Tatian wrinkled his nose as the smell of the wiidwayk drifted toward him. It seemed as though it had been months since he’d had a “busy night” of his own, since he’d broken with Prane Am, who still hadn’t gotten back to him about the interface box. “No problem. I’m glad you’re here, though. We need to get these papers signed.” He was pleased with the speed with which the terms had fallen into place, once he’d confirmed his interest.