Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

She stopped breathing, green eyes suddenly frightened; she moved away, would not look at him.

“I only ask,” he said mildly. He didn’t try to move closer.

She let out a long shaky breath. “How old do you think I am, Sammang Schimli?”

He raised a brow. “Shall I flatter or speak the truth?”

“Truth.”

“Mmm, mid-twenties, maybe a bit more.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “A lovely age, Brann, old enough to have salt in the mix, young enough to enjoy the game.”

She set her shoulders against the door, her agitation visibly increasing. It puzzled him, disturbed him, made him wonder if she was whole in the head. If not, what a waste.

‘I wouldn’t… wouldn’t know.” She flattened her hands against the door, then burst out, “I’m eleven, I know what I look like, I know it’s hard to believe, but inside here, I’m eleven years old. The children changed me, grew me older, I went to sleep a girl and woke a woman. Like this.” She swept a hand along her body, dared to look at him a moment. “How could a child do what I have to do?”

“Eleven?” He frowned at her, uncertain.

She nodded, shyly, abruptly. “You… you do disturb me, Shipmaster…” She rushed on, “But I’m not ready for what you offer.”

Abruptly he believed her, saw the child there, marveled that he hadn’t understood it before. When her urchin’s grin’ flashed out, when she relaxed and let her mask drop, she was little sister, mischievous child-if he didn’t look at her body. He backed off. Nice child, good child, bright and warm and loving. He discovered that he liked her a lot and wanted to help her all he could. “Too bad,” he said. “But we’re still friends?”

She blushed, nodded. “If it were otherwise…” She fumbled the door open and ran out.

He followed her, watched her slow as she went down the stairs until she was the cool witch he’d first seen. Shaking his head, he shut the door, went back to the table to tuck the papers in a leather pouch. The children. Spooky little bits. Those eyes. Preemalau’s bouncing tits. Changed her. He shivered at the thought, momentarily chilled in spite of the heat. Eleven. What a thing to do to her. To me. He slid a hand down one of the bags of gold, the corners of the hexagonal pieces hard against his palm, then stripped its tie off and began stowing the coins about his person. The other two bags he shoved in the pouch on top of the papers. No more Arth Slya wares. For a good while, anyway. And I’m the only one in Tavisteen who knows that. He chuckled, patted the bulging pouch, began humming a lively tune. Too soon to be passing out bribes, might as well nose out some more of the Slya wares; she’d passed the gold on, didn’t care what he did with it as long as he got her out. When she’s a few years older, what a woman she’ll be. Taking on the whole damn Tenaueng empire. And getting away with it, yes, he’d wager even the Girl she got away with it. Should’ve had Hairy Jimm hanging around below. This much gold was honey to the tongue for the thugs hanging about. He bent, transferred the boot knife to his sleeve. Still humming, he left the room, locked the door behind him, went lightly down the stairs, the song’s traditional refrain ousted from his head by a more seductive one, the siren song of the trader’s game where profit was more the measure of skill than anything important in itself. No more Slya ware, his mind sang to him, no more no more, and when the word gets out, when that word gets out, the price goes up up up… You’re a lucky man, Sammang Schimli, though you’d have traded places with a legless octopus a week ago. Slya ware, Slya ware, rare it is and growing rarer, no one knows gonna be no more…

THE TEMUENG ENFORCERS went like locusts through his goods, but the smuggled treasures were deep in the bundles of hides and fleeces. His crew went after the lapalaulau castrate and put things together again, stowing the bales and casks properly so the Girl was ready to go. When the sun was directly overhead and the lice were off the ship, when the Girl was tugging at her mooring, eager as Sammang was to be gone, he stood at her rail, wind whipping his hair into his eyes and mouth as he waited for the pilot. He watched the skinny Tern ueng (his pockets heavy with Brann’s gently thieved gold) leave the sour-faced harbor master, clamber into a dinghy, sit stiff and somber while the master’s men rowed him out to the Girl. Sammang wondered briefly where Brann and the children were, then walked forward to help the pilot over the rail.

He showed the Temueng about the ship, fuming as the man poked and pried into her cracks and crannies, even into the crew’s quarters, opening their seabags, sticking his long crooked nose where it had no business being. The crew resented it furiously, but were too happy to be getting back to sea to show their anger. They watched with sly amusement as the Temueng (they named him in whispers Slimeslug) went picking through. Sammang’s quarters with the same prissy thoroughness; they passed the open door again and again, savoring Sammang’s disgust. He held his tongue with difficulty, beckoned Hairy jimm in to take a chair on deck for the pilot. And he lingered a moment after the pilot followed Jimm out to grin at a large sea chest the Temueng hadn’t seemed to notice and salute.

AS SOON AS HE could, he left the pilot sitting with his signal flags across his knees, lowering the level in a sack of red darra wine. Brann was sitting on his bed, flanked by the not-children. There was a shimmer about her, a snapping energy. “We’ve pulled the hook, the pilot’s getting drunk on deck; we’re just about loose, young Brann, but hold your breath until we’re past the fireships.” He dropped his eyes to the full breasts swaying with the movement of the ship beneath the heavy white silk of her shirt, sighed as he saw the nipples harden.

She smiled. “Eleven,” she said. “Though I’m getting older by the minute.”

“Yeah. Aren’t we all.”

The blond boy had his head in her lap, the girl was curled up tight against her, both were deeply, limply asleep. With their eyes closed, they seemed more like real children. “They’ve been working hard the past few nights,” she said. “They’re worn out.”

Worn out. That too was something he’d just as soon not have explained. “Not much point in hiding down here once we put the pilot off. You can trust my men, they’re a good bunch.” He frowned. “No… no, you wait here until I have a talk with them which I will do once we pour that gilded gelding into his dinghy. You get seasick?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been on a boat before.”

“Buatorrang’s fist, woman. Ship. Not boat, ship.” He fished under the bed, found a canvas bucket. “Spew in this if the need takes you.” He looked at the sleeping children. “Them too.” He started out the door, turned. “I won’t leave you shut up longer’n I have to. Um, my crew, they’re not delicate flowers, don’t mind the way they talk.”

“Stop fussing, Shipmaster. I have got a little sense, or haven’t you noticed?”

Feeling better about everything Sammang went back on deck and stood by the rail watching Hairy Jimm maneuver the Girl among the ships crowding the estuary. The pilot was paying little attention to what was happening about him. His title had a,Temueng twist to it; he wasn’t there to guide them through the harbor’s natural snags but to ease them past the far more deadly man-made obstacles. The day was brilliant with a brisk headwind, and tide and river current together were enough to carry the Girl bare-poled out to the stone pincers at the mouth of the bay. Stays singing about him, the salt smell growing stronger than the stench of estuary mud and city sewage, the shimmering blue water blown into sharp ridges, white foam dancing along them, Sammang relished everything about the day, the colors and sounds, the mix of smells, the exploding array of possibilities ahead of him.