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Pit Stop, she seldom spent two nights in the same place with the same person.
It felt better to say it's been great, guys, see you.
The Aggitj finished their fussing, huddled together a moment to sing a short
wordless song, a kind of celebration, maybe of a happy night and a joyful
morning. They moved apart, chattering cheerfully in their own tongue, swung
into the saddle, chattering on in Trade-Min, so persistently they canceled
each other out until Hal who was the oldest put two fingers in his mouth and
blasted the other three with an ear-shattering whistle.
He waved Hart, Ders, and Domi back, then maneuvered his mount beside Skeen.
Skeen started on at an easy walk, Timka's horse ambling patiently behind. They
rode in silence for half a stad, then Hal said, "We want to come with you,
Skeen ka Pass-Through."
"You don't know where I'm going."
"Doesn't matter. We got no place we need to be."
"I've trouble on my tail. You could get killed."
"So? We're extras, Skeen ka. We can't go home without an army behind us. We
don't want to settle yet with an otherwave woman and start grubbing a living.
If one gets killed, the others will mourn him and skin the killer. If we all
get killed, our troubles are over."
"I've got other commitments."
"So so, the Min. We know."
"You seem to know a lot."
He grinned at her.
"If you're thinking every night will be like last night, you can forget it. I
don't repeat myself. One is fun, more's a chore."
"Never?"
"Well, I never say never, but don't count on it."
"We travel hopefully and make do."
"And you must feel free to leave whenever you get a better offer." She saw
that he wanted to protest and stopped him with a lifted hand. "You won't lay
the burden of oaths on my shoulders, you cheerful young con artist. No way.
The arrangement is you travel the same road I do until you're bored with it.
No strings on me, none on you" She frowned at him, slapped her hand on her
thigh. "And no fuckin' secret oaths either. I get a smell of something like
that and I'll shove all four of you off the nearest mountain."
He laughed at her and started to sing, the other three joining him in some
happily complex polyphonic music.
The day passed pleasantly, calmly; Skeen enjoyed having the Aggitj with her.
They distracted her from fussing over the miseries bound to happen to her. A
number of birds flew by overhead, some of them large enough to be Min; not
being Min herself there was no way for her to tell if those were temporary
shapes or the ones they'd hatched with. No more gooey bombs. After a while she
relaxed; didn't matter if they were or if they weren't, they couldn't do
anything but watch. She began to appreciate the limitations of the shape
shifters. Couldn't carry much, no money since all the gelt on this world was
metal coin, much too heavy. Couldn't take clothing along. Weapons, maybe, but
on this world arms wouldn't be much more than a neat little knife or a dram of
poison. She grinned, remembering the tin of powder provided by Strazhha.
Sneezing powder. She stopped smiling. If she half tried, Strazhha could come
up with something really nasty.
They camped again beside the river, cast nets for their super, drank pots of
tea with triangles of waybread, swapped songs for a while, then scattered for
the night. A polite hint or two politely turned aside and Skeen slept alone.
The next day they began meeting travelers coming away from Oruda and catching
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
up with slower packtrains, threading through the humpy proboscidate beasts,
loaded like the hairy, flat-footed nodders who had dusted her and Timka
outside Spalit. The Aggitj knew half the guards and the trainmaster, trading
jokes with them, answering questions, passing a flask around, generally
enjoying themselves. Silent and apart, Skeen rode along the edge of the road
feeling as conspicuous as a crow in a flock of doves. She caught a few curious
stares, but no one asked questions. After shouting out messages to be dropped
along the way, the boys came swirling around her.
"Kondu Yoa. He's a summer-ender. Balayar.
"Kamachi Yoa. She's a winter-ender. Kondu's sister.
"They know EVERYONE."
"Yoa Kondu, he's going into the Boot. He'll tell our sisters we have a
patron."
"Sorta patron."
"No difference, the look's enough."
"Tell Chor Yitsa we looking good."
"Got prospects."
"A place we're going, not just fooling around."
Skeen laughed at their exuberance, but she started to feel uncomfortable
again, not quite sure what she'd got herself into.
On the fifth day the land began to change its nature. More trees, water in the
ditches, not just mud. The river broadened and acquired marshy fringes. The
road moved farther from it onto higher ground to catch what wind there was and
avoid the sullen stench of the wetlands. On the slopes to the south of the
road were neat vineyards and orchards small, two or three rows of vines in
one place then a clipped hedge, half a dozen trees showing fruit mostly green,
here and there rows of berry vines. Another tiny vineyard. Then the pattern
repeated. "Pallah farms," Hal said. "Runaway serfs, outcasts, whoever can't
get along the other side of the river. Funor Ashun sold them the land to make
a screen between Funor lands and the road."
They rode into Oruda as the sun was writing rubrics on the dimpled dark water
of the lake. Tepa Hapak the Funor Ashon called it. Tepa Vattak was the second
lake, half a stad beyond Hapak. The city was long and thin, clinging to the
edge of the lake, separated into two parts by the marsh where the river ran
into the lake. The two sections of the city were not only separate but looked
very different. The South Branch was open and jumbled, buildings plunked down
wherever it suited the builder. What streets existed were wildly eccentric
scrawls liable to stop and start without much concession to logic or plan. The
North Branch was closed and secret, hidden behind high walls. No streets there
either, at least none visible to the casual observer.
Skeen sorted through hazy memories from the night at Nossik's Tavern,
retrieved his instructions and rode deeper into the city, threading through
crowds out to enjoy the balmy evening or get some last minute shopping done in
those market stalls that weren't closed down. She found the Grinning Eel in a
reasonably uncongested area, a large walled establishment much like Nossik's,
torchlit now, the flickering red light making the Grinning Eel look like he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]