Stonewiser (16 page)

“You'd think the marcher here would care to make it safe.”

“You'd think.”

“Let's hope we don't have to go very high or stay very long. Look at all these people.”

“It's hard to believe, but there's a lot less people trying to enter Alabara today. There's usually many more.”

“Why do they come here?”

“Some are dye traders, those you know by their mercenary faces. The rest live here.”

“Why would they want to live in this rickety dung pile?”

“Think, Sariah. Alabara is the hardest settlement to access in the Domain and that makes it the safest refuge. As close as the settlement is to the wall, no Shield assault has ever succeeded against Alabara.”

“Look at those thugs, harassing people for entrance. I didn't think this type of abuse happened in the Domain.”

“That's because you don't know Orgos,” Kael said. “He is marcher here.”

Three decks ahead, a dozen armed guards were taunting a poor woman and her scrawny children, demanding payment.

“But sir,” the woman pleaded, “my brother lives here. As soon as he hears I've come, he'll run down and pay our fees.”

“Get out of here,” the guard shouted. “Take your whelps with you, idle mouths wanting to eat us out of our food.”

“Please, sir, call my brother, on the fourth level. He'll pay for our keeping. I swear.”

Sariah seethed. “He's a bully. I know the type.”

“His name is Alfred,” Kael said. “He's Orgos's lackey.”

“You know him?”

“I remember him. Let's hope he doesn't remember me.”

The blood drained from Sariah's veins. “Why do I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me?”

Kael's gaze was focused ahead. “I think that woman is going to need our help.”

“Back to the flats,” Alfred was saying.

“But sir, I've waited three days for entry.” The woman sobbed. “We have no more food left. We'll die on the flats. Please, sir. My brother—”

“Leave,” Alfred barked. “Or I'll cut your deck's twine myself. See how you like the flats without a deck.”

“Mia,” Kael called. “I need you to run an errand for me.”

The girl hopped down from the deck and joined them in the channel. A knowing smile lit up her freckled face as she listened to Kael's careful instructions. Sariah held her breath. Mia did as she was told, reaching the woman's deck, blending in with the anguished woman's children, and dropping a few coins in her weathered hand.

“Uncle sends the entrance fee,” Mia whispered before she disappeared into the crowd, leaving the woman shocked but visibly relieved. Mia slipped out of the deck and then blended with the multitudes piling at the gates. Sariah lost sight of her in the sea of people. She must have circled wide and far, because much to Sariah's anxiety, a few long moments passed before she popped up undetected next to Kael.

“Well done, Mianina.” Kael ruffled her veil. “You've done that woman and her family a good deed today.”

“You too, Uncle.” She smiled.

“Go in the shelter and wait there until we pass the gates,” Kael said. “We wouldn't want any of those thugs recognizing you.”

Sariah watched the girl go. Despite her lethal power, Mia was learning to do right.

Ahead of them, the woman was allowed passage and the line of decks began to move again. Sariah and Kael pulled in unison, advancing slowly. But something about their earlier conversation bothered Sariah.

“So you know this Alfred thug?” she asked. “And the marcher here, Orgos?”

“A little.”

It smelled like carrion, and it wasn't just the rot or the dye. “Kael, son of Ars, is there something you want to tell me?”

“Not particularly.” He wore the blank face that aggravated her beyond reason.

“Are you in danger here?”

“I doubt anybody remembers.”

The stink was only getting worse. “You better tell me what happened.”

“It was a few years back,” he said. “I was going to roam the Goodlands and I came here to purchase a bit of red dye, a wise investment for all good roamers. Did I tell you? It trades better than coin in the Goodlands—”

“You said that. Go on.”

“I guess Orgos didn't like me much on account of some disruption or another. I'm not a big fan of his methods. I didn't like his price either. I thought it excessive. He was outraged when I refused to pay it.”

The deck in front of them came to another stop. Sariah and Kael dug their feet in the mud and braced to break their deck's momentum with the back of their legs.

“I take it you didn't part friends?”

“Friends? No. I wouldn't say so.”

“But all ended well in the end?”

Kael began to pull again. “He wanted what he wanted and I didn't want to give it.”

“Just tell me, Kael. Why does Orgos have a problem with you?”

“I sort of burned down his place.”

Sariah stared at him open-mouthed.

“And I killed a few of his men.”

“A few?” She took in the armed thugs at the gates.

“And I cut him, just a little.”

“You… cut… Orgos? You wounded him?”

“Sliced off his ear cleanly.”

“Stop grinning, you fool. It's not funny. You should have told me before we came. You're in danger here!”

She scanned the long deck line, looking for the quickest way out. They were locked in traffic, trudging toward to the gate, cattle routed to the slaughter.

“This is exactly why I didn't want you to come with me,” she babbled, close to hysteria. “You can't go into Alabara. We have to turn around. We've got to get out of this line. Run back. Find a place on one of the waiting decks. We'll pick you up on the way out.”

“And leave you alone in this? I think not.”

“For Meliahs’ sake. You cut the man's ear!”

“I doubt he misses it. He was never a good listener.”

“You can't go in there. We have to change our plans.”

“Why do you insist in making my choices for me?”

Sariah could hardly believe her ears. “I don't—”

“Aye, you do, and it bothers the liver out of me.”

“You'll be missing your damn liver if we go in there, and your senseless head.”

“They're mine to lose.”

“Don't you give me this load of bull—”

“Don't you treat me like your lease.”

“My lease?” Sariah gaped. “You're not my lease. You're my blanket mate and you shouldn't be out here risking blood for the sake of stones.”

“But I get to do as I please.”

“Really?” Sariah wanted to murder him at the moment. “In that case, I do as I please too.”

She waded in front of the oncoming traffic, trying to turn the deck around, pulling like a rebellious mule. Kael just stood there, anchoring the deck with his body like the steadiest of piers. He pulled on the rope and dragged her back to his side, until they were nose to nose.

“Since when do you shy your duty, wiser?”

“Since your life started getting in the way.”

“I'm not so sour on life as to give it up easily,” he said. “I'm not dumb or stupid, but I understand, as you must, that to be free sometimes means you have to suffer or die.”

“What by the rot pits are you talking about?”

“Do you know why I'm here? Why I came?”

“Because of your damn oath?”

“That too. But mostly, I'm here because of you and me, not just you, but me. Our lives. After this. When it's all over.”

Sariah had never looked that far ahead.

“We get this done and we're free. You and I, free to do as we like, free of duty. Free.”

An end to the endless. Freedom to the lifelong bound. No, Sariah didn't think she could understand the notion, but she was suddenly very glad to consider it.

“Don't you understand, Sariah? There is no other way but forward. Let's do this as quickly as we can. Let's do it together, for the future's sake and move on to that future.”

The future was such an alluring, elusive, terrifying notion, one day there, the next day gone, along with someone's existence. “Let's turn around, Kael. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“I think it's too late for that,” he said softly. “We've arrived at Alabara's gates.”

Thirteen

 

The man called Alfred was broader than a wagon and taller than a camel. He looked like a camel too, with nostrils wider than the flats and flaccid lips which ruminated obscenities in place of cud.

“No beggars allowed,” he bellowed. “What's your business?”

“We've come to deliver a load of flax to the weaver.” Kael kept his gaze down and his voice low like a humble laborer, but Sariah knew that every part of him was engaged in tracking the thugs at the gates.

“Cargo's double.” Alfred extended a filthy hand. “Me and my friends charge insurance to get you in.”

Kael shelled out half of his purse's contents. Alfred pocketed the coins and snatched the purse from Kael's hands. Good thing Kael had anticipated the abuse. He had stored the rest of their coin safely away before entering Alabara. Sariah repressed an urge to kick the thug in the knees.

Alfred jumped down from the ledge and waded to the back of their deck, where the flax was piled in small bundles. Sariah feared the people in the upper stories of Alabara could hear her heart hammering. The day before, Kael had scoured the decks waiting to be admitted into Alabara and managed to purchase a small amount of threshing flax for the deception. They had propped up the flax bundles on a bed of less expensive straw. Thankfully, Alfred didn't seem to know the difference. He didn't seem to recognize Kael either.

“What weaver are you delivering to?” Alfred demanded.

Sariah sensed Kael's hesitation. For a moment, she feared he didn't know the name of the settlement's weavers.

“Katrina.”

Meliahs be thanked. Kael had been thorough in his research.

“Katrina on the fifth level? Good.” Alfred ripped a bunch of bundles out of the small lot. “She's not bad looking. You tell the little bitch to come see me if she wants her full load. She knows what to do.”

Sariah caught the warning in Kael's eyes.
Hold your tongue
, it cautioned. She realized Kael's reluctance to utter the weaver's name stemmed not from ignorance, but from concern. He knew these men. He had tried to protect the innocent from the vultures’ attention. Too late now.

“Move!” Alfred struck Sariah's butt as if she was an ox, and like a good ox, startled her into pulling. “Do you think you're the only ones who want in before nightfall?”

Sariah pulled like a maniac to get out of the man's way. A kick in the knees, that's what the filthy brute needed. She would be glad to do the honors.

They pulled the deck under the settlement's massive structure, a dead water maze of decks, wooden pillars and ladders, choked with gutweed and trash. It took a while, but at last, they found a place to moor their deck, a corner near a bank of ladders, supported by a thick pillar in good repair and not too far from the gates.

Kael didn't bother stripping his weave or his pulling harness. “Shall we go find your Leandro?”

“Quickly, please. This place gives me the shivers.”

Around them, the enormous structure shifted and groaned, straining under the massive weight like a loaded beast.

“It's lasted two hundred chills,” Kael said. “It should last us another day.”

“That might be,” Sariah said. “But I can't help the feeling we are stuck in the very belly of Menodor's giant.”

The inhabitants of Alabara scurried ahead of the night. As the sun set, people trekked up and down the ladders in hurried hordes. Sariah had been worried about someone recognizing her, or worse, Kael, but nobody paid them heed as they climbed from one level to the next, carrying bundles of flax on their backs.

“There has to be a better way of taking things up,” Sariah puffed, when they reached the third level.

“There are pulleys around.” Kael patted the locked wheel standing beside the ladder. “But you get to pay Alfred's men for those and it seems that tonight, even Alfred and his minions have gone to bed early.”

“Strange. There's less and less people on the lanes by the moment.”

“Let's see if we can find out what's going on. Excuse me, sir,” Kael asked a man hurrying up the ladder. “Might you be able to help us with directions?”