Skeen's Leap (16 page)

“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 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 Ashon 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 was flexing his loops and laughing at whoever rode through the arch beneath his swinging sign.

In the stable, Hal touched her arm before she could begin negotiations with the hostler. “We'll leave you now, Skeen ka, and find a place to snug in for the night.” Behind him, the other three nodded solemn agreement.

“I'm like to be in Oruda for a while,” she said. “If you plan to go on with me, then I'll pay your shot here until you can find work. Pay me back when you can.”

“Skeen ka, what if we can't? Better we do as we been doing and forage for ourselves.”

“You been here before?”

“No. Nor you either, remember?”

“True enough, but I'm not going to be sleeping rough. I was warned about the Funor. Too easy to stray on land where you don't belong and get shortened by a head.”

“Oh, Funor. We know about Funor.”

“Oh, do you.” She turned to the hostler who was listening with polite interest. A small dark man with eyes like brushed black tar. A heavy earring of dark smooth wood and beaten silver hung from one lobe. He grinned at her, showing elongated, fangish eye-teeth. “Tell these idiots.”

“Ya-true, Paksha-wat. You push your toe over the line, chop.” A swift down blow of his bladed hand. “Where t'ain't no fences, it be them that say the line it be here. Chop chop.” He turned to the Aggitj. “You won't have no trouble finding work. They like the extras here, got an extra on t' council, I send you to him, he puts you to work.”

Hal worked his mouth; with a quick twist of his hand, he asked a moment's grace then retreated to a corner of the stable with the other three. They began talking in earnest whispers.

Skeen smiled affectionately at them, then turned to the Hostler. “You're a long way from home.” She looked thoughtfully at the earring. “Seems to me I could put a name to that home.”

“Ah now, could you, then you've come a long way yourself.” He grinned at her. “Sometimes it takes one helluva long way from troubles to get the teeth off ya tail.”

“So I know.”

“So we both know.”

“Gate jumper?”

“How else.”

“Here long?”

“Twenty-three years local come first snowfall. Junks still got their tentacles on Aalda?”

“Take more than me to pry them loose.”

“‘Nother wave's due, think it's likely?”

“No. Already some rumors of evacuation when I was in Chukunsa. Less than a month ago.”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Bai! Damn world too crowded now.”

“Ever think of going back?”

“No. This suits me fine, bought me a sweet pair of femmes from the Snake Lady, going shares here with Portakil, had all the jumping about I ever want. You?”

“I've got some scores to settle the other side. Anyway I like my life a bit more spiced and a lot looser than I'd have it here.”

Hal came back. “We pay you soon's we get work. We'll go looking in the morning, yes?”

“Fine with me.” She turned to the hostler and began the tussle to set a reasonable fee for housing their horses.

Declining from full, the moon was still bright enough to kill the light from all but the most aggressive stars. Much (though not all) of the night noise had died away, the narrow crooked ways were mostly empty, even the cutpurses had opted for bed. Skeen walked warily down the middle of those open spaces between those dark silent structures, head up, eyes moving side to side, holster flap tucked back, the lanyard buttoned on in case she had to roll. A few furtive shadows flickered across eye-corners, but no one came close enough to threaten.

When she reached the waterfront, she strolled out to the edge of a wharf and settled on a squat snubbing post.

The lake stretched out to the horizon, dark and secret, lapping lightly at the piles beneath the wharf. Behind her she could hear voices and snatches of music from a tinny lute, a bit of revelry still going on in a lakeside tavern. Long torches were burning at intervals along the curve of the shore suggesting there was a watch band that patrolled the wharves. For now there was no sign of them and she hoped they'd stay away a while longer; she was enjoying the night, comfortably tired, comfortably full of good food and tart cider, comfortable with her solitude and reluctant to break it by whistling for Timka and calling her in. She swung her legs, watched the dark water lift and fall. Finally she sighed and whistled the agreed-on signal, waited, whistled it again, waited, repeated the tune a third time.

She waited, kicking at the hard wood of the bitt, listening to her boot heels thunk. The lake was big and Timka could be anywhere in it, though she was quite able to count even in her water form and would probably be close in tonight. If she wanted to keep traveling with Skeen. Skeen didn't understand why Timka stayed with her; if she'd been the little Min, once she hit the lake, she would have kept on swimming and found someplace on the far side of the world where Telka would have fits trying to find her. Ah well, Timka was a good traveler, she didn't bitch or complain, did her share of the work (sometimes more than her share because she'd done all the hunting and gathering), though she was quite willing to let Skeen do all the cleaning and cooking. A comfortable division of labor. And it was quite handy having a winged scout smelling out troubles ahead.

A splash, a flurry in the water some distance from the shore. A dolphin leaped high, blurred in mid-air into a wide-winged owl. The owl glided in to shore, circled Skeen's head, and went sweeping high to drift in wider circles.

Skeen got to her feet and strolled back to the Grinning Eel.

When she was in her room, she opened the window and stood back.

The owl tucked her wings in, slipped through the unglazed opening, popped her wings wide, and landed with a faint thud on the braided rug beside the double bed. A moment later Timka was standing on the rug; she looked around, saw a belted robe spread waiting for her on the bed. She raised her brows.

Skeen nodded. “Bought it in the market this evening.

“Thank you.” Timka pulled on the robe, tied the belt about her, then sat on the bed, her eyes on Skeen. “Any trouble?”

“Nothing to speak of. You?”

“No. I'm tired of fish.”

Skeen chuckled. “Portakil's cook will cure that.” She stretched, groaned, leaned against the wall, her hands laced behind her in the shallow curve where her buttocks pushed her backbone from the flat. “Two boys showed up in feathers, annoyed because you weren't with me. I told them you got a whiff of Min and took off in the fog. Doubt if they believed me. Oh, and I acquired some companions, four Aggitj extras. Nice boys.”

A shadow passed across Timka's face. “Do they know it could be dangerous?”

“I told them. They nodded like they were treasuring every word and I'm sure they didn't listen to anything I said.” She sighed. “Djabo's tickling toes, what happens is on their heads now, not mine. I suppose they'll be useful sometimes and they're good company.”

Timka gazed down at a hand pleating smoothing pleating the cloth of the robe. “Have you visited the Tanul Lumat?” Her voice was soft and submissive, made Skeen want to slap her.

“No time yet. We rode in around sunset today.” She yawned.

“Tomorrow?”

“Do my best. Any suggestions?”

“There was a scholar who used to talk to me, most of the others ignored me like they did the musicians who played at dinner. Pegwai Dih. Balayar. Didn't pat my bottom either. He was … was interested in me. Yes, that's it. He was interested in everything. Little man, wide as he is tall, so alive you don't see how he can hold all that energy inside his skin.” Warmth, unexpected and pleasant to hear, in the Min's voice; a small smile teased at the edges of her mouth. She smoothed her hand along her thigh, looked up. “The Aggitj. Why are they riding with you?”

Skeen thought of saying because they like me, but she didn't believe that herself. “They think they want to cross the Gate with me. Didn't say so, but I'm sure of it. Didn't know I won't let that happen.”

“Why?”

“They're good kids. I like them. My worlds would chew them up.”

“You're taking me through.”

“Hunh you! You'd take on the sharks, chew them up, and spit them out. You're a survivor like me, know to trust folk about as far as you can throw 'em.”