Lawrence Watt-Evans - Taking Flight

“Wait!” he called. “What’s wrong with working here?”

She took one step, then stopped and turned back. “You don’t know?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Are you from around here?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m from Shulara.”

“I never heard of it,” she said.

There was definitely, he noticed, something a little different about the way she spoke Ethsharitic; she spoke slightly faster than he had heard it before, and slurred the consonants a bit. It was not at all like the Krithimionese he had heard spoken around town. “It’s southeast,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“None of your business,” she said.

He raised his hands, conceding the point. “All right,” he said, “but what’s wrong with the work?”

She glowered at him, standing with her hands on her hips, considering, and then snapped, “You don’t know?”

“No,” he said. “The guards at the castle told me I could earn money here. That’s all I know.”

She snorted. “They were joking,” she said. “Either that, or they were trying to insult you.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she said, her tone turning sarcastic, “you probably don’t qualify for the job.”

“Why not?”

“Senesson isn’t looking for workers,” she explained. “He’s buying materials.”

“What materials?” Kelder asked, still puzzled.

“Virgin’s blood,” the girl said angrily.

Kelder blinked, and looked the girl over.

She was roughly his own age, he guessed, despite her diminutive stature; she had long black hair that flowed down across her shoulders in flamboyant masses of darkly-shining curls, a heart-shaped face and a long straight nose, a full bosom, narrow waist, and lush hips.

“It’s none of my business,” he said, “but…” He stopped.

He had intended to ask if she qualified any more than he did, but that hardly seemed like an appropriate question to ask a stranger.

If she did, he thought, he’d be surprised. She was no incredible beauty, certainly not in Irith’s class, but she was attractive enough.

“You’re right,” she said, “it’s none of your business.”

He smiled. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He turned away from the brass-trimmed door.

“Aren’t you going to knock?” the girl asked.

“No,” Kelder said, “I don’t think so, not if that’s what he wants.”

She stared at him for a moment. “I could be lying,” she said. “You don’t have to take my word.”

“No, I believe you,” Kelder said. “Do you know of anywhere else I might find work?”

She shook her head.

“Where are you going, then?” he asked.

“Back to the market square,” she answered.

“Me, too,” he said.

“All right,” she said, and together they strolled up the street, away from the shop with the green tile overhang.

It was half an hour before he got around to asking her name.

“Azraya,” she said, throwing another pebble at the dove by the fountain, “Azraya of Ethshar.”

The bird fluttered up into the air, then landed and turned to peck at the pebble, seeing if it was edible.

“You’re from Ethshar?” Kelder asked, leaning back on the bench.

“I just said so, didn’t I?” Azraya snapped.

“No,” Kelder replied mildly, “you said that was your cognomen, not that you came from there.”

“Same thing,” Azraya said, only slightly mollified.

“I suppose it is,” Kelder agreed. “Sorry.”

They were still speaking Ethsharitic, having discovered that Azraya spoke no Shularan, Trader’s Tongue, Aryomoric, Uramoric, or Elankoran, and that Kelder spoke no Tintallionese or Sardironese. Neither of them spoke Krithimionese, but Azraya could sometimes follow it, and Kelder, knowing both its constituent tongues, understood it pretty well. Still, Ethsharitic was the only language they had in common.

“So what’s your name?” Azraya asked.

“Kelder,” Kelder said. “Kelder of Shulara.”

She looked at him doubtfully for a moment, not an unusual reaction to Kelder’s name, and eventually decided that he was telling the truth. Either that, or that the truth didn’t matter.

“Kelder,” she said, watching the dove. “All right.”

“You’re heading east, on the Great Highway?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“West, then? Back to Ethshar?”

“Probably. Which way are you going, back to Shulara?”

“No, to Ethshar.”

She nodded. “So this is where you hit the highway, coming from Shulara?”

“No, I reached the highway in Hlimora at first, and went east to Shan on the Desert. Now I’m heading west.”

She looked up, interested. “You’ve been to Shan?”

Kelder nodded.

“What’s it like?”

He shrugged. “We didn’t stay long,” he said. “I think it’s seen better days.” He was becoming more comfortable speaking Ethsharitic, now that he’d had a little practice.

“Oh,” Azraya said, disappointed. “What about the other towns along the way?”

“Well,” Kelder said, “this place, Krithim, is the nicest I’ve seen yet.”

“Oh,” Azraya said again. She tossed another pebble, and the dove flapped wildly for a moment, then wheeled into the air and flew away. “I guess I’ll be going back to Ethshar, then.”

“Why were you traveling in the first place?” Kelder asked.

“None of your-oh, damn it, it doesn’t matter.” She slumped forward, chin on her hands, elbows on her knees.

At first, Kelder took this to mean that she was going to answer his question, but after a moment it became clear that she wasn’t going to say anything without further urging.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” he said, “but I’m curious.”

She turned her head to glare at him around an errant ringlet of hair. “Why?” she demanded.

“Oh, I just like to know things,” Kelder said rather feebly.

She turned back to staring at the cobbles.

“When I was eight,” she said, “my parents died of a fever.”

Kelder, realizing he was about to get the whole story, nodded encouragingly.

“We couldn’t afford a theurgist to pray over them,” Azraya continued, “or a witch to hex them, or a wizard to cast spells on them, so they died. Two of my brothers died, too, and my older sister-the neighbors were all so afraid of catching it that they wouldn’t come near us, they shut up our house with us inside. That left me, and my younger sister Amari, and our baby brother Regran. I was the oldest, so I tried to take care of them, and I would sneak out of the house and steal food and things for them. And when the fever was gone, I took the boards off the doors, and then the tax collectors came and took the house away because we couldn’t pay, we didn’t know where our parents had hidden their money-if they had any.”

Kelder made a sympathetic noise.

“So we all went to the Hundred-Foot Field and lived there, with the beggars and thieves,” Azraya went on, “in the block between Panderer Street and Superstition Street, in the Camptown district. Our house was in Eastwark, but our old neighbors … well, we thought we’d do better in Camptown, and the Hundred-Foot Field goes all the way around the city.”

Kelder had no idea what this meant-he had never heard of the Hundred-Foot Field or anything else she mentioned. Interrupting to ask for an explanation did not seem like a very good idea, however, so he let her go on.

“I didn’t steal,” she said, “not after we lost the house. I think Amari did, but I didn’t. I begged when I had to, and ran errands for people when I could-one good thing about Camptown, the soldiers usually had errands we could run, taking messages to their women, or fetching things from the Wizards’ Quarter for them, or even just standing lookout when they were supposed to be on duty and wanted a nap, or a little time in bed with someone, or a game of dice.” She took a deep breath. “Regran died when he was two, just before my tenth birthday,” she said. “I’m not sure what he died of, he just got sick and died. Somebody had kicked him, maybe that did something, I don’t know. We’d done everything we could for him, even found a wetnurse and paid her half what we earned for a few months, but sometimes babies just die. After that, Amari and I didn’t stay together much any more, and I lost track of her after awhile. I haven’t seen her in a couple of years now. She might be dead, too.” She paused, remembering.