Marie Brennan: In the Labyrinth of Drakes

The area where Tom and I were to be lodged is not nearly so grand. The district known as the Segulist Quarter is one of the older parts of the city; and like many old neighbourhoods, it has long since been abandoned by the elite and given over to other segments of society. In this particular case, as the name suggests, the Quarter’s residents are almost all Segulist (though they do not constitute the whole Segulist population of the city). It is a polite simplification to say that most of them are Bayitist, with a leavening of Magisterials. One might more accurately say the Quarter is a concatenation of a hundred Segulist factions, some of them borderline or outright heretical. To this day, for example, it contains a small enclave of Eshites, who seek the destruction of the Temple so that it might be rebuilt in what they view as purer form. Needless to say, this goal does not make them popular in Haggad; but they are permitted to live in Qurrat, so long as they obey the caliph’s laws (and pay the caliph’s taxes).

As Lord Rossmere had said, Tom was to be lodged in the Men’s House, which some of the Quarter’s residents maintain for the benefit of travellers and new immigrants. It meant sharing a room with three other men, but he did not expect to spend many of his waking hours there; when he was not asleep, he was likely to be at the compound which would serve as our base of operations.

Female travellers and immigrants being less common, there was no comparable Women’s House for me to lodge in. I was instead to live with a local Bayitist family: Shimon ben Nadav and his wife Aviva.

Shimon was a merchant, dealing in fine linens from Haggad (as the intermittent hostility between those two nations does not preclude a certain amount of trade). They were an older pair, Shimon’s first wife dead and their children long since grown and gone; most were married, but two unwed sons assisted in their father’s business, accompanying caravans across the Qedem Mountains. They welcomed me in the courtyard of their house with a basin of water to clean my face and hands, and then dates and coffee to sate my hunger.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” I said, and meant it quite sincerely. My previous expeditions had put me in a variety of housing conditions ranging from a Chiavoran hotel to a ship’s cabin to a hut of branches in the middle of a swamp. Only the Chiavoran hotel had matched this for comfort, and I had not stayed there long.

“We are very pleased to have you,” Aviva said in Akhian. It was one of her two languages; she and her husband spoke no Scirling, and I, being Magisterial, spoke almost no Lashon, as our liturgy is in the vernacular.

Despite the barrier posed by my fledgling Akhian, and perhaps a larger barrier of religious difference, she did not hesitate to carry out her duty. Leaving Andrew in the courtyard to talk with Shimon, I followed Aviva farther into the house. Their household was arranged in the southern style, with women’s quarters not entered by male visitors, and a piercework screen looking out over the street, which permits the ladies to view the outside world without being watched in return. I expected to spend little more time there than Tom would in the Men’s House, though, and so I fear I was perhaps less interested in what Aviva showed me than I should have been.

My attention was instead on the meeting that came the next day, when Colonel Pensyth and my brother took us at last to the compound where we would carry out our work.

Our destination lay a little ways outside the city, not too far from the Segulist Quarter. It had been the residence of a wealthy minister in service to the emir some ninety years before, but after his fall from favour it became the emir’s property. That man being uninterested in an estate that did not benefit from river breezes, the site fell into disrepair. At his caliph’s command, the current emir had leased it to Scirling interests, for the propagation of dragons.

Its semi-ruinous state was to our advantage, for we needn’t concern ourselves with damaging the place further—always a concern when dragons are involved. The parts in decent repair served as offices or barracks for the small military garrison under Colonel Pensyth’s command, while others had been gutted for scientific use. Tom and I would explore the entirety in detail quite soon… but first, we had to meet the sheikh who would be overseeing much of our work.

Hajj Husam ibn Ramiz ibn Khalis al-Aritati was not quite what I expected. Hearing that he was the sheikh of a Jefi tribe made me expect an aged nomad, of the sort occasionally depicted in romantic tales of the Anthiopean south: a headscarf and dusty robes, skin tanned to leather by the punishing sun and wind. Instead I met a man of about forty who appeared in every way to be a city-dwelling Akhian, from his clothing (turban and embroidered caftan) to his personal condition (soft and perfumed skin). My expectation was based on a misapprehension regarding the Akhian people; but I did not learn better until later.

He greeted us in the forecourt of the estate, along with an entourage of both Scirling and Akhian soldiers. Tom’s hand he shook; mine I did not offer, replacing the gesture instead with a respectful curtsey. (As I was not yet in anything that could be called “the field,” I was still in skirts, rather than the trousers which are my working habit. In truth I wore skirts a great deal in Akhia, or on some occasions robes after the local manner—though I did don trousers for certain strenuous undertakings.)

He spoke in Scirling, with a heavy enough accent that I suspected he had only begun to learn the language after our two nations formed their accord. My own Akhian being rather worse, I was grateful for the consideration. “Peace be upon you,” he said. “Welcome to Dar al-Tannaneen—the House of Dragons.”

“We are very glad to be here, Hajj,” I said. It was, as I understood it, not merely a courtesy title; he had completed the pilgrimage to the holy city of Dharrib, and earned that mark of respect. “We are also very eager to get to work.”

Speaking to him was peculiar, for I had drawn a corner of my own scarf across my face to form a veil. This was, I had been told, the way to show respect to a man of his eminence. But it muffled my words sufficiently that I was always concerned about whether I had spoken loudly enough, and in this case I was not reassured: the sheikh made no response to my words, instead turning and leading us through to a courtyard.

One of his underlings had prepared coffee and dates, the traditional materials of hospitality. None was offered to me, Akhia being one of the countries where men and women do not eat together in public. Since I have always been more partial to tea than coffee, especially as the latter is prepared in Akhia, I did not mind overmuch—not to mention that I would have difficulty managing the veil, and I did not know whether it would be an insult to lower it so soon.

Once enough time had passed to avoid a rude show of haste, the sheikh said, “If there is anything I or my tribe may offer to assist you, then you have but to ask. Everything we have is yours, for the good of both our peoples.”

This was not, of course, to be taken literally. Generosity is highly prized in Akhia, but just because a man speaks the words as custom demands does not mean he is eager to share all of his wealth and belongings with strangers—even if his caliph has commanded it. Tom and I had no intention of imposing more than we had to. I said, “We shall first take an inventory of what is here, and familiarize ourselves with the work our predecessor did. Until that is done, we cannot possibly guess what else we might need. Your kindness is greatly appreciated, though.”