Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

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 uplands 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?