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  Their heads swung to her. She grinned. “My pay, Maissa. Peleku gave it to me after lunch.”

  Stavver straightened, hair brushing against the lintel. “Then, barring accident, I go in late tomorrow night.”

  Chapter IV

  Sharl kicked his feet and burbled happily in the improvised sling, a strip of batik tied in a knot over Aleytys’ left shoulder, crossing her body so that the baby lay snuggled around her right hip. In the glow from the orange sun swimming low in the polychromatic sky, the stark drab buildings looked uglier than ever. She glanced up at Stavver walking coldly silent beside her, his only concession to her presence the curtailment of his long stride to match the scissoring of her shorter legs. “Still mad at me.…” she muttered.

  Around them the street was beginning to fill with farers, all male. She was the only woman. Stavver speeded up a little and the others politely moved aside to let them pass, eyes flickering between disapproval and respect. Disapproval for a woman invading a male preserve and respect for her status as gikena. She fought off a nervous uneasiness and looked around for Peleku but couldn’t find him in the laughing chatting groups of men that formed and reformed as they strolled toward the central building the tallest in the Karkesh quarter.

  “Why the hurry?” She put her hand on Stavver’s arm, mouth curling up as she felt his muscles twitching in rejection. “I thought we were supposed to lose ourselves in the crowd.”

  “Don’t talk about it now.”

  “Why? Who could hear?”

  “Shut up.”

  “But …”

  He glared at her. “Later!”

  Aleytys subsided, sighing. She worked her hand into the sling and let Sharl play with her fingers, losing the jar to her self-esteem in the flow of warm tenderness she felt whenever she touched her son.

  Stavver stopped before the gate, frowning again as the Lamarchans already in line stepped aside to let the gikena go first. She could feel the suppressed anger in him and saw the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed his annoyance. Then his sense of humor defused the situation. He smiled down at her. “Not much use trying to be inconspicuous, is it?”

  She trembled with relief and dredged up a feeble chuckle. “Not much.”

  Two grey figures swung back the steel grid then stood blocking the way to the roofed passage leading into the building.

  Stavver cleared his throat. “I come to trade stone for steel.”

  “You have poaku?” The figure on the left was the one speaking, his voice a startling basso coming from under the cowl.

  “Poaku.” Stavver held up the leather bag. “To buy Karkesh blade for my son.” He nodded casually toward Aleytys.

  “That is woman.”

  Aleytys sensed the surge of laughter which Stavver instantly suppressed. Face a grave mask, he said, “Your eyes are sharp, sho Karsk.”

  Resisting an impulse to jab her elbow in Stavver’s ribs, Aleytys lifted Sharl from the sling. “His son,” she said briefly. The Karsk nodded, the edges of his cowl flapping around the inky darkness that obscured whatever he had for a face. When she settled the baby back into the sling, he pressed a button and stepped aside. A third billowing grey figure slid through an opening in the wall and beckoned to them. As she followed Stavver into the building she heard a male voice say behind them, “I come to trade stone for steel.”

  Their guide rested a gloved thumb on a button. The heavy door blocking the way slid silently back into a wall at least a meter thick. Stavver smiled down at her worried face and shook his head.

  The corridor narrowed so that there was room—barely room—for one. Stavver’s none too broad shoulders nearly brushed both sides. Aleytys trotted along behind him feeling like a parasite in some great stone animal’s intestine. She hugged the sling in front of her, afraid that Sharl’s head would knock against the wall. There was no visible lighting but on the other hand no lack of light. Aleytys dismissed the phenomenon with a shrug and wrinkled her nose at the hideous muddy brown color of the walls.

  Without any warning Stavver came to a stop. Aleytys stumbled into him, waking Sharl who whimpered then yelled out his fear and annoyance. As she lifted him to her shoulder and tried to quiet him, the Karsk touched the back of a heavy glove to a touchplate. He stepped through the sudden opening with Stavver close behind him. Humming gently to the subsiding baby, Aleytys was in the room before she noticed the change in the space around her. The echoing boom of her feet startled her, brought her eyes swinging up.

  The room leaped to a vaulted ceiling so high it was lost in the curious weaving of light and shadow that struck her suddenly as a deliberately structured thing, an unexpected form of art from creatures ostentatiously lacking in aesthetics. Set in niches and on pedestals, numberless poakus glimmered like stone silk: Topaz and vermilion … turquoise … ebony … viridian … umber … forms a delight to the eye, seductively alluring to the touch.

  Aleytys glanced at the leather sack swinging from Stavver’s left hand and suddenly felt an intense possessiveness about her poaku. She wanted to snatch the stone and run from the building, run, escape, clutch the poaku to her breast and run.

  Sternly repressing this insanity she followed Stavver, holding Sharl tight against her breasts instead.

  Through an arched opening in the far side of the echoing room, the silent procession stepped into another rounded ugly corridor. A few paces on the Karsk stopped again and keyed open a door. He stepped back. “Enter, please.”

  Stavver frowned. “What waits?”

  Patiently the Karsk repeated his words. “Enter please. The buyer waits.”

  Ignoring Aleytys with proper male pride, Stavver strode into the small room, one hand on his own knife hilt Aleytys stepped through behind him, head held high in consciousness of her dignity as gikena. After Stavver was settled in the seller’s chair, she seated herself on a shelf jutting out from a side wall. She settled Sharl comfortably on her lap, moved the batik off his face, and swung her eyes from face to cowl as the bargaining began.

  The Karsk sat silent, waiting, gloved hands tucked into the wide sleeves of his robe.

  “I come to trade stone for steel.” Stavver sat on the edge of the chair, spine very straight, eyes boring into the darkness under the droopy cowl. The bag with the poaku he held on his lap, one long fingered hand cupped protectively around it.

  The Karsk bowed his head. Pushing his chair back, he pulled a leather box from somewhere behind the desk and settled it gently and precisely on the flat surface in front of him. Fingers moving surely in spite of the muffling thickness of the gloves, he flipped the catches open and swung the lid up. As he slid the box around a light bloomed overhead, caressing the polished blades snugged in neat rows in the lid and base. Stavver leaned forward, sucking in his breath, then he relaxed in the chair.

  Aleytys struggled to maintain her gravity as she watched Stavver operate, appreciating the gently underplayed portrayal of a shrewd but nervous native. Sharl’s small body lay across her knees sending a warmth into her that disarmed her own wariness, distracted her so that she gave less than full attention to the scene before her. She bent over him. He was going to wake soon. Hungry. She sighed and hoped he’d wait until they were back in camp.

  Stavver set the bag with the poaku on the desk and reached into the box, pulling free the blades one by one. He turned each over in his hands, testing feel and balance until he set all but three aside. Then he thrust his hand into the pouch and slid the poaku out Hands moving as precisely as the Karsk’s, he set the green stone on the desk, the carved side toward the buyer. “Stone for steel,” he said brusquely.

  “As custom.” The answer was short and sharp. “One stone, one blade.”

  Stavver nodded briefly. He swept up the three blades and was on his feet with sufficient suddenness to startle the Karsk into jerking back. Ignoring this he ceremoniously presented the knives to the baby, holding them above him one by one. Sharl slept peacefully. “Wake the boy,” he said coolly, his mo
uth tucked in to keep in laughter, his eyes twinkling at her.

  Aleytys fried him with a glance but after a minute shook Sharl gently awake. The baby blinked up at the shining things, his long curling lashes moving slowly up and down over wide green-grey eyes. Aleytys shivered but kept her face blank as he chewed on his fist, ignoring the first two of the knives Stavver held over his head. When the third knife appeared over him, Sharl kicked against Aleytys’ ribs and reached for the shining thing.

  Aleytys gasped and pulled him away from the blade, shutting her lips firmly over the river of things she wanted to say to Stavver.

  The thief grunted with satisfaction. The first two knives he pushed away. The chosen he set gently in the center of the desk beside the poaku, hilt toward the Karsk. “Stone for steel, sho Karsk.”

  The grey figure ran gloved thumbs over the carving. “It’s a new stone.” The tone was gently disparaging as if the buyer refrained from sneering only under the urging of courtesy.

  Stavver bowed, grave-faced. He turned the knife so that the point faced the Karsk and gently removed the stone from his fingers. “My regrets, sho Karsk, for wasting your time.”

  “Man of the falcons.”

  “Yes?” Stavver half turned, standing poised in the doorway. “My eyes grow old. Perhaps …” The narrow, subtly-wrong hand reached smoothly out, waiting.

  Stavver hesitated. “If the stone is not worthy …”

  “You have an extraordinary son to be so young a judge of a fine blade.”

  “Perhaps if the light were stronger.…” Stavver walked back to the desk and placed the stone in the reaching hand. But he did not sit down.

  “Although it is new stone, the design is quite attractive. The work is skilled.” The gloved fingers slid facilely over the polished contours. “Steel for stone?”

  “As you say.” Stavver picked up the knife. “There is wrapping?”

  “As you say.” The Karsk dipped a hand beneath the desk top and pulled a square of fine soft leather from a hidden niche.

  Silently Stavver wrapped the knife in the leather, then thrust the bundle under his belt. Once again he inclined his head. “That bargain is best when both are pleased.”

  “As you say.” The Karsk closed the box and replaced it out of sight. In the process he must have pressed a summoning button because another silent grey figure appeared in the open archway. Folding his hands on the bare surface of the desk, the buyer said, “May you be blessed with many sons.”

  Stavver drew himself stiffly to his full height. “May your children be as leaves on a tree.” He beckoned to Aleytys and stalked from the room.

  In the street outside they walked past the ragged line of Lamarchan farers waiting to trade for their Karkesh blades. Halfway back to the camping ground a familiar imp face grinned at them.

  “Hakea.” Aleytys stopped beside him. “Going for your blade this morning?”

  “Yes.” He darted a grin around and pranced excitedly on the spot, too full of bubbles to stand still.

  “The morning has been good to you, si’a gikena?” Peleku smiled at her, then frowned down at his son. “Your manners, young huale.”

  “Very good, my friend.” She glanced at Stavver strolling on toward the camp. Patting the sling, she said, “My son young as he is, now has his own blade to be put aside for the time of his blooding. Thanks to you.”

  “Isn’t it a bit early. He should make his own choice.”

  “He has made it. My son’s no ordinary baby. Besides, I don’t know when I’ll be back this side of the world. Lakoe-heai often take my feet in strange paths.” She glanced after Stavver again. “I’d better get on my way. Good bargaining, my friend.”

  She caught up with Stavver as he sauntered through the archway into the campground. “Did you see enough?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “It’ll do.” He chuckled and ruffled his hand through her hair. “There’s never enough to make a strike foolproof.”

  “Greedy.” She shifted Sharl to her other side and took his arm. “Then it’s tonight.”

  “Talk about something else.”

  “Well … why do those eerie characters creep around through … through wormholes like that?” She shivered.

  “Apparently they’re innate agoraphobes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Afraid of open spaces.” He freed his arm and dropped it around her shoulders, pulling her against him as they walked together toward the caravan. “In a way, that’s a blessing for this world. Keeps the scaly foot off the Lamarchan neck.”

  “Hm. What are you going to do the rest of the day?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Just sleep?”

  He chuckled and held her against him. She could feel his ribs shifting. “Well, maybe not all afternoon.”

  Chapter V

  “Ah.” Aleytys touched the palm with the tips of her fingers. “I see a time of change coming for you. A time when you stand ready to make a choice.”

  The girl bounced excitedly on her knees as she bent her dark head over her palm. “Makaoi. You see him? Will he ask my father …?”

  Aleytys slanted a glance at her suppressing a smile. “It may be so. However the scales balance very evenly here. See this line. It branches here going both right and left. A change comes in your life soon, a point where you balance between joy and sorrow. And see here, the promise of sons.” Once again Aleytys tapped the palm, fingers pattering lightly across the plump flesh. “There is another thing.”

  The girl sucked in her breath. “Ay, gikena, what is it? What is it?”

  “See the jag in the line here. A sorrow comes. For a little while there will be a strong unhappiness. But it will end and your life runs smoothly thereafter. As all things pass, so will this time of pain.” Gravely she closed the small hand into a fist. “That is all.” She pulled her hands away, and rested them on her knees, eyes lowered in dismissal.

  After bowing so deeply her head nearly touched her knees the girl jumped to her feet and ran away, staring intently at her hand.

  Aleytys granced briefly at the patient figures sitting cross-legged waiting their turn with the placidity of a people who regulated their time by the changing of the seasons rather than the petulant ticking of clocks. She sighed. “Leyilli?”

  “Si’a gikena?” Maissa bent over her solicitously, her pointed face smoothed into a bland courtesy.

  “I’m tired of this stupidity.”

  Maissa bent lower until her breath brushed against Aleytys’ hair. “Don’t be foolish. Don’t change the pattern this day of all days.”

  Aleytys’ hands clenched briefly into fists then opened. She smoothed them down over the batik, then slapped them onto her knees. Without a further word she surged onto her feet and walked without haste toward her caravan. Maissa swallowed her anger but her throat was too constricted for speech so she snatched up the leather with the pillow caught in the folds and followed Aleytys into the caravan.

  Stavver lay stretched on the bunk, deeply asleep, his body relaxed as a cat’s. On the other side of the narrow space, Sharl snuffled peacefully in his morning nap. Aleytys touched the curls on her baby’s neck, then stepped a single step away and looked fondly at the other sleeper. His black hair still confused her image of him though she was gradually getting used to it. She let her fingers flicker over his head barely disturbing the fine hair, then stroked the wispy curls beside his ears feeling a gentle tenderness suffuse her and she wondered what it would be like just to stay with him, to forget about.…

  Maissa slapped the curtains aside and hurled the leather to the floor. When Aleytys turned a startled face to her, she hissed, “What do you think you’re doing? You want to ruin everything? Get back out there.”

  Stavver stirred restlessly but didn’t wake. Aleytys settled onto the bunk beside him, her hip fitting into the curve under his ribs. “If you wake him up, he won’t like it.”

  Maissa coiled her small hands into claws. “Ignorant g
round-walking shit. Don’t you know anything? I can’t believe you’d break pattern the day he goes in? Begging for those fucking snakes to spot the anomaly and rope us in?”

  “Pooh!”

  Maissa gaped, unable to believe what she heard.

  “Nonsense.” Aleytys chuckled. “Relax. Pattern? Tchah. These people know I’m gikena. Whatever I do, that’s my pattern. Ahai, Maissa, relax before it’s you who blows the cover.”

  Maissa glared at her, then stamped out of the caravan, her nerves strung so taut that her body seemed to jerk even when she stood still. Aleytys slid off the bunk and leaned out the back watching her go. Then she sighed and slid the heavy curtains shut. As the rings clattered along the rod Stavver grunted in his sleep, shifted position slightly, bringing Aleytys to hover over him. But his breathing steadied. She sighed, ruffled Shari’s hair. He murmured in his sleep, then his breathing was soft and slow again. “What stimulating company you are, my loves.”

  She stretched out on the mattress so that she lay staring up at the painted ceiling, her hands clasped behind her head. Working through the exercises that relaxed her body and mind, she sank into the deep semi-trance that let her touch the creeping tendrils of the diadem’s influence. The hazy uncertain presence grew aware of her.

  “I greet you, rider in my head.” She let the words flow slowly smoothly across the tranquil surface in her mind, surface like a deep black pool, cool and placid, unchanging and remote. Shimmering in the water ghost images of amber eyes opened, then faded, opened again and faded once more. Frustration tingled through her. The black water surface shattered. Tension hardened the muscles in her neck. Carefully she quieted her pulses, letting the black pool form again.

  “Don’t do that.” She let little trills of laughter like pink and curling ribbons frame the creeping words. “I need your help.” The words flowed off leaving the water tranquil again. Amber light flared and vanished. “Good.” For a hundred slow heartbeats she rested silent, holding her body rhythms slow and deep until the air, the earth, the whole Lamarchos throbbed in union with her.