Skeen's Leap Read online

  Skeen nodded. “I see. Or I would if I knew more about this … world. I really need maps. Wouldn’t mind a skimmer to cut the distance down.” A smile twitched her mouth. “Any idea what I can use to entice a favor? From that last, it seems they aren’t eager for trade.”

  “No, I’m afraid … no, we know very little about the Ykx. Should know more. We don’t. Never seemed the right time to send a Seeker. Never enough to do all we want done. Never enough money. Or people. The right people. Maybe it’s too late.…”

  “Hm. Something you didn’t say—how long ago did your cousin pick up the Ykx?”

  He looked startled, then nodded. “Not quite ten years.” He spread his hands flat on the papers. “Shall we do a deal, Maneke Pass-Through?”

  “I thought we had, Scholar Dih.”

  “The gold bought you time, Maneke, nothing more. No answers but the ones I choose to give, no impedimenta but those I choose to pass on.”

  “You’ve got a sweet racket here, I see that, but find my appreciation of it somewhat limited.”

  “So is the scope; you understand, if we disappoint too many too often, we lose our funding.”

  “Why do I have difficulty visualizing you as a huckster?”

  He chuckled. “The innate sensitivity of your soul, Maneke. Timka told you about my visits to the Poet. What do you think I was doing there, enjoying his verse?”

  “She didn’t think it was so bad.”

  “Oh, he has a certain flair with words and a nice taste in images, but nothing to say. And we praise his tropes and chide him for the times he’s taken too easy a way out of a difficulty and we milk him for the money to provide a living for better poets than he’ll ever be.”

  Skeen glanced at her ring chron, mentally adjusting the reading to tell her how much time she had before sundown. An hour and a little over, say an hour to be on the safe side. No need to push, the boy would wait and what was a meeshy copper in the mega flow out of her purse. “Lay it out, Scholar.”

  The black eyes beamed at her, guileless as a friendly puppy, warning her to hang tight to everything she owned including her skin. “Let me tell you about the Tanul Lumat,” he said. “We were established by the Funor Ashon. You look skeptical; fair enough, from what you’ve heard about the Funor they don’t seem exactly like benevolent benefactors. They aren’t. They had a much more practical reason for donating the land and the funds to get us started. They were the most organized and supplied of all the waves and they had the advantage of seeing what had happened to Nagamar and Balayar, how rapidly we lost the ability to repair and reproduce the spotty technology we brought through with us and they were determined not to follow our example. They were considerably better off than we’d been, plunging in a panic through the Gate as we did, but an assessment of their situation showed them that they had problems ahead and not so far ahead. No machines to make the machines and no one who knew how to make the plans to make the machines that made the machines, if you see what I mean. Thus the Tanul Lumat. Though they are fanatic about the purity of their bloodlines and the bloodlines of their cattle, they are as firmly convinced of the value of mongrelizing ideas. Put a clutch of idea makers together and let the ideas breed like fury. Thus the Tanul Lumat. And they aren’t fussy about disciplines; a historian is as welcome as a chemist and a good glassblower is worth both put together. Thus the Tanul Lumat. Part university, part factory, part museum, part … well, I suppose you could call it boarding school and orphanage, part refuge for persons who fit nowhere else.…”

  “A lot of parts.”

  “And even so not near the whole. I haven’t mentioned the Seekers and the mapmaking, the navigating instruments of all sorts we produce, the experiments with metals, the medicines, the surgeons and physicians—well, the list could go on for a while yet, but that’s sufficient to give you some idea what the Tanul Lumat is. Knowledge is the reason we exist and in large part, knowledge is the commodity we sell. We have to eat. We go on begging rounds like the dinners with the Poet. The Funor Ashon continue to subsidize us but only provide sufficient to underwrite food and drink and the maintenence of the buildings. The children we train, the Seekers we send out, most of our experiments—all these things we have to fund ourselves. Sometimes the families or communities that send children to us pay fees, but a gifted child without resources is welcome also and we must provide for our old. Fees such as you paid are a very small almost infinitesimal part of our income. We beg; we make mirrors, goblets, windowpanes, what have you in our glassery; we forge fancy swords …” he grinned suddenly, “like those you stole from the Poet.” He held out a hand, showed her several burn scars on his palm and forearm. “I’ve spent more than a few hours in the forges. Our looms are famous for the quality of their weave and the woven patterns; the Skirrik Scholars are especially adept at weaving. We are busy busy busy—there’s never enough time for the work that brought us here. Never enough Seekers out mapping and noting the changes in the way folk are living, the impact the waves are having on each other, the impact of the occasional Pass-Through, well, you must see what I’m saying. Each century a little more is saved, but lifefire alone knows what is lost. The Ykx could be gone tomorrow and we know nothing—NOTHING—about them.” He sighed and leaned back. “That really is enough. I wanted you to understand how strongly I feel about what I’m going to ask you.” Another smile, rueful and self-deprecating. “A sorry huckster I am, giving you all the advantages. First, my part of the bargain. I will see you accredited to the Tanul Lumat as a Seeker. That will give you sufficient background to keep folk comfortable around you and explain why you are traveling. The Lumat has a lot of goodwill to call on in a lot of places. No funding. Things are too tight, they’re always too tight. It’s you who’ll have to provide … well, that later. I’ll get you the best maps we have, some that aren’t available to the being who walks into the office. I’ll get you a précis of the latest information we have about the state of the world. Much more current than that in the book you read. I will arrange your passage on a trader that’ll take you down river and across the Tenga Bourhh. I will get you an introduction to the authorities in Atsila Vana who can give you permission to travel into the interior of Rood Meol.”

  “And what do I do for all that?”

  “Two things.” He leaned forward again, his eyes fixed on hers. “Before you leave, you spend as long as it takes to tell us everything you know about the Stranger’s Gate and tell us everything you know or have guessed about the Min.”

  She nodded. “Reasonable.”

  He flattened his hands on the table. “And when you leave Oruda, you must take a real Seeker with you. We must know about the Ykx.”

  She choked down a laugh. One more beast for her menagerie. Funny, he really seemed to think she’d balk at this. Maybe she would have yelled and kicked and spouted platitudes about she traveling fastest who traveled lightest, but she already had four Aggitj and a Min, what was one more? The magic goose, she thought. How many fools will glue themselves onto me before I leave this crazy world? Still, best be cautious, he could stick you with a real loser. “Agreed,” she said, and was hard put to swallow a giggle as he relaxed, “provided we get along. I’m not going to travel with some git who irritates me just by breathing.”

  “Me,” Pegwai said, with a nervous grimace meant to be a smile.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been a Seeker many times before, young woman. I have friends and acquaintances that will be useful to both of us. I’m healthy and not stupid. Why not me?”

  “Why not indeed. Fine with me, given two qualifications. I like things loose and easy, but in a pinch, I’m the boss. I say hop, you turn into a twitchy flea.”

  “She who pays the fiddler calls the tune. The second condition?”

  “I see what you meant about the funding. Would you feel morally outraged at traveling with a working thief? That’s the second condition. No preaching or prying.” She laughed at the expression on his face. “How did you
think I was going to provide for six besides myself? I’d far rather steal than whore and preference aside, I haven’t the temperament or physical qualities for that line of work.”

  He ran bright eyes over her face and form. “I wouldn’t say that. There are men who like their woman lean and fiesty. Not enough, I suppose. And there’s always the matter of that temperament.” Laughter in his voice, then a question. “Six?”

  “Count ’em. You. Timka the Min. The Aggitj extras, Hal, Hart, Ders, and Domi. Last time round my fingers that makes six.”

  “You couldn’t talk some of them into waiting here for us to come back?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a caravan.”

  “Isn’t it.”

  “I can see why you didn’t object to adding one more.”

  “A bit late for that.”

  “Expensive.”

  “Now that you’re part of the expense, you might throw in another dollop of information. Some names to be considered as our involuntary patrons.”

  “Tactfully put.” He fidgeted nervously with the coil of tape. “It’s pleasant outside from the look of the light.” A quick wave at the light shining down from high narrow windows.

  She got to her feet. “Why don’t you give me a quick tour of the grounds. I need to be back at the landing by sundown, but I’m free till then.”

  Pegwai Dih pushed his chair back and came to his feet with the lightness she’d seen before in men of his build. Showing off a little. She rather approved of that. He knew what he was doing, shared his understanding with a sudden smile, a wink of complicity. Not ashamed, amused at his own antics, the scholar standing back and watching the natural man be himself. A lot like Tibo, oh Tibo you baster, you jackal, you bloodworm, lost your own ship in that crazy business with the Heeren, you had to take mine, oh you slipt in the nod, you.… He knew what the Junks would do to her once they ran her down, he knew, he had to know, he knew how to hurt her, how could she have misread him so completely? Nothing to tell her what … should have known … I should have I should have known … how could I know … what was there to tell me he would steal my ship, strand me? The uncertainty about her perceptions had shaken her badly, like standing on earth that shifted suddenly under her feet, that opened up and swallowed her.

  She stopped thinking and looked at Pegwai Dih. His head was shoulder high on her, about where Tibo’s came, but he was near two of Tibo wide. His hands were clasped behind him, hiking the robe up a little over his solid rump. The jut of his solid little rear was the one part of his body Tibo was self-conscious about, the one thing he wouldn’t let her tease him about. And he didn’t want to hear her fell him how it excited her. Ai-eee, Djabo, stop this, woman, stop it stop it stop it, there has to be an explanation, some reason.… Pegwai was strolling along, square shapely feet appearing and disappearing beneath his homespun robe, the afternoon sun glistening off his square shaved head. All this time since the Junk had squeaked the news at her, she’d been playing games with her hurt and anger. There’s no need, she kept telling herself, no need to face these wounds as long as I’m in fair control of my life. As long as she had directions she could move in where she didn’t have to trust someone. Now there was Pegwai, proposing to come with her. Maybe it was all right, maybe if she didn’t depend on him for more than a moment’s aid and not at all if there was trouble, maybe she still had maneuvering room. She emerged from her self-absorption and looked around.

  They were strolling in an open woodland, probably that between the lake and the Lumat grounds; a slight breeze stirred the humid heavy air, smells that were hot and thick, afternoon smells, a little stale from being around all day. She was tired, felt like she’d been wrestling alligators the past few hours. “Know much about the other side of Oruda?”

  “We’re not cloistered here, Maneke, and I’m a man who likes homebrew when he’s got coins to rattle in his pocket. And there’s a cookshop near the Eastend where they make a telazera to dream on.” He slanted a glance up at her, sly laughter in his eyes, knowing very well why she’d asked the question, taking pleasure in verbose sidetracks. “That’s a dish of cheese and breadcrumbs and lazzo. Lazzo being those small purple lake spiders, the ones with the pointed spiral shells.”

  “Good?”

  “The smell alone would raise the dead.”

  She eyed him speculatively, then decided to follow his lead. “How do I find it?”

  “Prozzi Loe’s place up near marsh edge. You’re in the Grinning Eel, come out under the arch and turn right.…” He ambled along giving her more precise instructions about how to find the cookshop, chatting on about the man who ran it, Prozzi Loe, a friend of his, a Balayar come north to leave behind some tangles he’d knotted about himself on his home island. Pegwai kept up a gentle flow of genial chatter until he led her from the trees to a rustic bench beside a small noisy stream that tumbled down a shallow declivity and boiled past their feet.

  “Skeen,” she said. “My name.” She propped her boot heel on a rock and crossed her ankles. The bench back creaked under her shoulders, but held her comfortably. Her hair was starting to kink up as sweat popped out and began trickling down her neck and the side of her face. She drew the back of her hand across her brow, grimaced at the muddy smear on the skin. A yawn caught her by surprise. She coughed and blinked. “Running all day is easier than this poking about.”

  “You wouldn’t find many who’d see it that way.” Pegwai loosened the robe about his neck, pushed the sleeves up past his elbows. He was sweating very little, a few drops on his brows, on the smooth tight skin of his arms. The muscles of his arms were long and sleek and powerful, just enough fat to keep from looking ropy. Thick wrists. Strong hands, long tapering fingers, a useful look to them, that aura of competence and skill that clung to the hands of artists and artisans and made her wonder what they’d feel like touching her. She lingered a moment on the thought. I’m getting horny as hell, must be getting close on my period. Djabo, I’ve lost track of days in all this mess. Lousy timing and there’s probably nothing like a tampon on this whole lousy world. Hm. I wonder if any of the waves are offshoots of the cousin races? Too late to check that out now. No problem with the Aggitj, no fertile mix there. Pegwai, now, he even smells like a relative, not that he’s making any show of noticing the signals I’m putting out. Well, soon as this month’s leak is finished, I’d better check my implant, the way my luck’s running, I’ll end up pregnant. Djabo’s nimble tail, who’d be a woman. Well, none of that, you’re just depressed, old girl, because Pegwai’s treating you like his favorite sister. She sighed, then was annoyed with herself for doing it. “Can we talk now?”

  He flushed, leaned forward and gazed at the water. “Perhaps I was exaggerating the difficulty.” He straightened. “But I must live here, I want to live here.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The wind freshened and began blowing spray at them, a cooling mist that touched away the stickiness from the heat and beaded on her hair.

  “I’m tired of improvising this jaunt,” she said after a short silence. “You know country and cost. Give me some idea of the gear we’ll need and the expenses of traveling. No, not now, make some notes. I can pick them up when I come to do my chat.” She stretched her legs, crossed them the opposite way. “I have to do some prospecting before I do any buying.” She turned her head, raised her brows. “I asked this before. Perhaps I can get an answer out here. You happen to know any very rich and morally scabby types? The kind that folk around here would enjoy seeing dumped in a mudhole?”

  “Let me think about this a little. You’re asking me to make a large alteration in the way I think about myself.” He gave her a rueful laughing look, then swiveled around to stare at the stream, his back to her. He wasn’t happy about turning fingerman, but he’d come around. Before long he’d be justifying himself by concentrating on the flaws in those she planned to rob. As long as she stole the ill-gotten gains of evil folk (she grinned at the thought), he’d talk hims
elf around. It wasn’t so different from what he did on his begging rounds—flattering bigots and tyrants, licking the feet of pretentious would-be literateurs, snobs, and slavers and other parasites. His nimble-footed capers about his own integrity and his tongue play were a sort of whoring (he had no business teasing her about her tastes), doing indirectly what she proposed to do a lot more directly and effectively. So it took him a while to readjust his thinking, so he should get on with it. She kicked her feet out, drew them back, wriggled on the bench, rubbed at the nape of her neck. Well, he was intelligent, not a bad trait, and even better, seemed to have a fair fund of common sense, and he could laugh at himself. She was rather looking forward to sharing laughter with him, to enjoying the absurdities of the world with him. The Aggitj boys were fine and fun, but they thought with their bodies. Timka was intelligent and capable of saying interesting things, had even laughed a time or two, but there wasn’t much fun in her, at least none that Skeen had discovered thus far.