Skeen's Return Read online

  Corbi danced before him and rang her silver bells; the children wheeled round and round him, chanting, swung round and round the line of meatmen, chanting. The adults of the village made three sparse rings about them all, two rings moving one way, the ring in the center opposing them; they boomed along in their deepest tones, mate and female alike, while several sopranos and high falsettos performed elaborate descants, weaving in and out of the song of Corbi and the children.

  Coldness crept up his legs and up his arms, his eyes grew dim and dull, the sounds wheeling about him went far away and when the light was gone out of his eyes and the sound gone out of his ears, the beast within that was him lay down and died.

  The adults of Tinkle’s Thwart levered the stone statues from the middle of the road and took them down to the station platform and left them standing there looking away along the slick silvery rail. As the years slid past, new batches of children replaced the paper chains with flower ropes, winding them around and over the gray chalk figures until these finally wore away to shapeless pillars and everyone forgot what they had once been.

  A drunken Pallah leaned against her, patted her shoulder; the fumes of the quatsch he was drinking mingled with her ale and made her head swim. “Lu like th tha story. Goo good stuff.” He sniffed juicily, slapped at the bar, his hand hitting it obliquely and sliding. His elbow crashed down and he grunted, the knock on the funnybone breaking through the anesthesia of the quatsch, not enough to hurt, though it did get his attention away from her a while.

  A pair of elderly Aggitj nodded and sighed. “Lurvlee,” one managed. “Like Tilimai uss used to tell b b back.…” His voice trailed off; he lowered his head onto the bar and went to sleep. The other continued to nod a while, then brooded at a pool of spilled brandy gradually fuming dry. He cleared his throat, spoke slowly and with great care, his eyes fixed on that splotch. “I know uhhhm I know some un here. Like that slaver st stink. You know un.…” He nudged his sleeping companion, eliciting a breathy snore but no further response; he went on as if he’d got a coherent answer. “Uh huh, you know un, Gresh Gresh Gredgi. Stinkin snot. Hah! Nochsyon Tod. Got our Hixli. Li like to have that Corbi h h here, yes I would. Turn ol’ Toad into chal chalk. Hoptoad chalk.” He started giggling. “Chalk Toad. P p pizz ul on im. M melt im in to mud. Dir ty mud. Mud. Mud.” Lost in giggles, he slapped his companion on his back; the other Aggitj struggled upright and joined in though he had no idea what the laughter was about.

  Skeen gulped down more ale, coughed and sprayed half of it out again as a rising giggle caught her in the throat.

  The Pallah roared with laughter. “Piss on un. Melt un down. Do it, yah, me, I’d do it. Do it. Yah.” He quieted after a while and glowered at the barrels piled up behind the bar. He produced some guttural mutters that finally surfaced into audibility. “… dirty sodding renegade smearing shit on all us Pallahs … somebody gonna get him.…” He clenched his fist about his glass, opened his eyes wide because he’d forgotten he was holding it; he gulped down the quatsch left in it, made a soft gargling sound and slid bonelessly off his stool, curled up on the floor and started snoring.

  Skeen blinked down at him, shrugged and banged her glass on the bar, calling for a refill. She turned to the Aggitj. “What uh what happen to what’s his name, urn, Hizli?”

  Heavy clank, metal sliding jerkily over wood, acting on her head like a dentist’s drill, worrying her out of a stuffy, nightmare-ridden sleep.

  Skeen started to lift her head, lowered it with extreme care as first her stomach then her whole body protested. She cracked gritty eyes enough to register the painfully bright morning light filling the room, snapped them shut and tried to swallow. She was hideously thirsty; her mouth and throat demanded gallons of anything wet, but her stomach felt delicate and stirred with a pre-nausea that was more a warning than an upheaval. There was a stink in the room she didn’t really want to think about. The sounds continued, adding the slosh of water and the scratch-scrutch of a scrub brush. There was something she should remember, but her head wasn’t working too well. So she worked her mouth. Djabo, I’m dry. Gahh, if my mouth smells like it tastes, I could lay out a dreegh. Another clank. Bucket, brush dropped into it. Skritching sound like a finger drawn across a slate. She shuddered. I’m going to have to stop this cruising the bars. Must be something in the ale. She took a long breath, spat it out. Sweet sour stench of vomit. Djabo bless. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to think. Oh, Djabo, Djabo, I am not going to do this again. I am not going to do this again. Not, not … ah, Djabo, once an addictive personality, always … I am not getting into that. Oh, fuck, I haven’t vomited on myself since I was … I’m too old for this.…

  The longer she lay breathing in the vomit stink and the harsh fumes of the lye soap someone was using to clean up after her, the worse she felt. She started remembering things she’d done; that didn’t help. On hands and knees, crawling along some street, slapping grumpily and ineffectively at small hands tickling over her body like lice. She didn’t need to check her belt pouch; whatever was in it left in those hands. Feeling her way along walls until she crashed into the night wicket, pounding on it until the porter came out cursing her. He booted her inside, slammed the wicket, put the boot in a couple more times, then went grumbling back to bed. She could remember being dimly surprised as she crawled painfully toward the stairs. He hadn’t raped her; she wasn’t particularly appetizing at the moment, but that hadn’t stopped men before. Angelsin looming large and pale in her chair at the end of the bar. Does she ever move from there? Groaning onto her feet, feeling a stabbing pain somewhere around her ribs. Nausea threatening. Angelsin would kill her if she messed in the taproom. Throw her out, anyway. Lurching up the stairs, falling too many times, cracking her knees, her shins, her elbows, struggling to reach her room before voiding the burden hanging at the end of her throat.

  Head threatening to break off and roll away, gasping with the effort, she untangled herself from the blanket and sat up. She clutched at herself, groaned.

  Timka raised her head, a cold anger on her face, then she went back to scrubbing the floor.

  Skeen smoothed her hands down her body. She was clean, even her hair. Naked but clean. She lifted her head. Her eddersil trousers and tunic were fluttering by the window, the morning breeze whipping out the last of the stink. The hooked rug was rolled up against the wall under the window. Doesn’t look damp, maybe I missed that. She rubbed at her nose, watched Timka scrubbing angrily at the planks, and winced as snatches of last night came back to her, humiliating fragments of memory. Small strong hands wrestling her around, holding her, as she vomited. Angry whispers as Ti stripped off her soiled clothing. Towel’s corner soggy with cold water dragged across her face, the roughness of a mother at the end of her patience with a fractious child. Hefted into bed over a narrow shoulder. Covers pulled up. A sigh. A small hand drawn softly along her face. A door shutting.

  Skeen shook off those memories. She’d learned early on that thinking too much about the immediate past guaranteed a sour head to match the sour stomach she already had.

  Timka dropped the brush in the bucket, sat on her heels, drew her arm across her face, pushing straggles of hair out of her eyes. She turned her head slowly, her arm still up, the soft black hair falling over it, and scowled at Skeen. “How many more times are you coming back like that?”

  Skeen ran her fingers through tangled oily hair and couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed it. “No more,” she said absently. “I’ve decided which one to touch.” She pulled her fingers loose and passed her hand from brow to nape. Timka gazed at her, saying nothing, her skepticism tangible. Skeen took a corner of the blanket and scrubbed it across her eyes. “I know what I’m talking about, Ti.” She dropped the blanket across her knees. “I’ve been here before,” she muttered, went on rather more hastily than she meant, “and I’ve pried myself loose before, it just sneaked up on me this time …” she dropped the blanket across her legs, touched her h
air, grimaced, “… for a lot of reasons you don’t want to hear about.” She poked at the blanket, began twisting an edge, her hands working until it threatened to tear. “This fuckin’ stupid world, run your legs off to your crack and get no place. Ahhhh, Tibo, WHY!” She started crying, hiccuping, swaying back and forth, clutching at the blanket, her head aching, her stomach cramping, her mind in confusion saying I don’t do this kind of thing, I don’t do this, I don’t cry, not even when I’m drunk, I used up my tears twenty years ago, I don’t … I don’t.…

  Timka sat watching, cool and distant, only half-believing what she saw and heard. She’d seen this remorse too many times before, with Skeen and the Poet both, not crying but near enough; she’d heard both mutter promises it wouldn’t happen again. And it always did. And there were always reasons and the reasons were always different and always meant the same thing. She waited until Skeen’s spasm was over and the lanky woman had control of herself again. “Lipitero and I, we finished the night in with the others. I doubt anyone got much sleep but you.”

  Skeen dabbed at her face with the back of her hand. “Sorry, I don’t usually.…” She slid off the bed and dug out clean underthings from the pack hanging from a wall peg. “Enough said on both sides. I got the name locked.” She leaned against the wall, working up the energy to lift her leg. “We can stop marking time and start really working now.” She pulled her underpants on, cursing and wincing as she had to bend to straighten a twist: “Nochsyon Tod the slaver. If you agree, you can start the overflights tomorrow as soon as it’s dark. If there aren’t any strange Min about. Right? Right.” She held out the undershirt and blinked at it, felt about the neck to find the front, then jerked it down over her head. And clutched at her temples. “Dja bo! Never again. Never.…” She opened her eyes and pulled the corners of her mouth down into a painful, inverted grin when she saw Timka’s disbelief. She pushed away from the wall, headed for the window and the rest of her clothes. “Considering the coin I got through last night, today better be a good one.” She unpinned the tunic from the curtain, turned to frown at Timka. “You look tired. Want to catch some sleep? The Boy and I can manage alone for once.” Again the inverted grin. “Though you’re the one that loosens the purse strings.”

  Timka got to her feet. “Let me get rid of this slop and wash up. I’ll be down by the time you’ve eaten.”

  “Food, yecch.”

  “Don’t compound your idiocy, Skeen.”

  “You’re saying I’ve got enough already without adding interest? You could be right.”

  Shaking her head, Timka took up the pail and went out.

  The House of Nochsyon Tod was a rambling walled compound near the South Cusp of the meniscus that was Lowport. It lay a jump and a half from the river and was the last structure of any note on the Sukkar’s Skak, that broad and busy thoroughfare that arched through the town from north to south. Though it was mostly surrounded by warehouses and traders’ dens deserted come sundown for the livelier center, there was one great advantage to its position. It lay across the Skak from the Armory Guardhouse where the Funor guards and the mercenaries had their barracks. Gathering like fleas about the Armory were taverns and brothels, cookshops and tailors, knife sharpeners, armorers and metalsmiths of assorted skills; indeed, there were dozens of small establishments there to cater to any need the Guards might dream of feeling. Along there the street was never dark or deserted, or even quiet.

  The outer walls of Tod’s compound were eight meters tall and proportionately broad, made from field-stone, clay and timbers with a rubble fill; a crumbly sandy plaster was pasted over the outside and whitewashed every month or so, more often in the rainy season. The whitewash flaked off at a touch and even under guttering torchlight, a sentry walking along street or alley could instantly spot the marks of any thief ignorant or stupid enough to go after a man who sent barrels of ale across the Skak every minor feast day and donated prime female slaves at the Spring Sarmot for the entertainment of the Guards.

  The walls enclosed a space roughly a square and were, very roughly, a hundred meters to a side—they bulged and buckled like a green plank abandoned to rain and sun. A squat watch tower rose at each of the corners and there was a smaller one by the northside Gate where all but the most favored buyers came to inspect Tod’s stock. Cressets burned all night, set in a ring about each of the towers and the guard on watch there had little to do but keep them burning. One sentry paced along each section of the wall, moving through the towers and along the ramparts from gate to gate. Three men sufficed for this since there were only three gates. By tacit agreement, they reduced their legwork to one circuit each watch, spending the rest of the time in the towers, taking turns sleeping on pallets they kept there or passing around jugs of homebrew. Having set up the system and considering it admirably efficient, Nochsyon Tod left it to run on its own and was at present quite unaware it had long since begun to run down. There was nothing to provide the tension it took to keep watchers alert when they knew full well their master was peacefully asleep.

  Inside the walls.…

  THIS COULD SWELL INTO A LONG, COMPLICATED AND NO DOUBT CONFUSING DESCRIPTION, SO LET’S DO SOME COMPRESSING. SEE SKEEN AND TIMKA TALKING LATE AT NIGHT, AN OIL LAMP CREATING EXOTIC SHADOWS THAT SHIFT WITH THE FLICKERING OF THE FLAME. SEE SKEEN AND TIMKA WORKING OVER A SHEET OF PAPER ADDING DETAILS TO A SKETCH MAP. SEE THE PLAN THAT FOLLOWS. IT SHOWS THE PHYSICAL DETAILS COLLECTED BY TIMKA DURING HER SEVERAL OVERFLIGHTS.

  SKEEN AND TIMKA BEND OVER THE MAP.

  “I can go in over the wall there.” Skeen touched the D tower. “Where there’s that deep bay by the gate, it’ll give me shelter going down.”

  Timka frowned. “Why not here?” She put her finger on the place where the thinner lower garden wall merged with the outside wall. “You’re closer to the house, trees for shelter, which you won’t need anyway once the guards are asleep.”

  “That’s one thing you never count on, Ti, guards being asleep. There’s always some snerk with insomnia or an overactive bladder. No, I want to keep as far away from the Skak as I can get. Besides there’s the woffit pack.”

  “I can freeze those. You don’t need to worry about the woffits.”

  “A dozen? And you told me they don’t stay together, they go nosing off alone or in pairs. Besides, I don’t like that garden, gives me an itch. I want to keep well away from it.” Skeen moved her shoulders, shivered.

  1. THE MAIN HOUSE

  la, lb, lc—watch towers

  2. PARLOR with Vault Room (2a)

  3. ELABORATE AND FUSSY SHOW GARDENS WITH ORNAMENTAL WATER

  4. ARENA WHERE SLAVE AUCTIONS ARE HELD FOR THE EXALTED OR THOSE WHO CONSIDERED THEMSELVES EXALTED AND HAD THE POWER TO ENFORCE THIS VIEW ON OTHERS

  5. KITCHEN GARDEN

  5a—deep well for drinking and irrigating water

  6. BARRACKS OF NOCHSYON TOD’S PRIVATE GUARDS

  7. CELLS FOR RAMBUNCTIOUS SLAVES

  8. SLAVE PENS

  9. AUCTION PLATFORM

  10. WHIPPING POSTS AND VIEWING BENCHES

  Timka made a small impatient sound, but said nothing more.

  “So. You’re sure you can carry the darter when you’re flying?”

  “I have hauled heavier fish; yes.”

  “Right. Once you dart the guards in D, I’ll go over the wall where I said. You said no one moves about in the slave block section once the sun’s down. Mmm.” She tapped a fingernail on the watch tower by the slave pen. “We’ll need an exact schedule of guard changes here. This one’s bound to be more alert; I suspect he’d be taking the place of any slave he allowed to escape. This wall will shield me from the rest of the guards until I go over here.” She tapped the place where the garden wall met the one shutting in the slave pen section. “Dark here, go over fast and low and not even tower C could spot me.” She frowned. “I want to let C alone if I can. Mmm. Worth taking a chance on one of the guards there being awake. I can keep close to the slave pen and the pen
wall until I go over the garden wall.” She scratched at the watch towers rising from the house roof. “Bothers me, these. You sure no one is in them?”

  “I’ve been flying four nights now, late and early, and I’ve never seen anyone there. I took a look in the highest tonight, scared out some pigeons. Old nests, dung all over the floor, cobwebs, dead leaves, some very old mouse bones. Lice crawling over everything.” Timka grinned. “I shifted to fish and took a swim soon as I got away from there. Don’t know if I picked up company, but I sure didn’t want to keep them if I did. Believe me, Skeen, even the worst sloven would at least sweep the place out before spending any time there.”

  “I hear you, but you’d better take a look again the night I go in. Just to be sure nothing’s changed. Where was I? Oh. I go over the wall here, fast and low, slice the latches or bars or whatever on the kitchen door here, then I’m in and prowling.”

  Timka set her forefinger across her lips, looked thoughtfully at the sketch map. “You don’t know anything about the inside of that house. How will you find where Tod keeps his gold?”

  “Look for it. Believe me, Ti, it’s easier than you think; no matter their kind, folk tend to hide things in the same places and there aren’t that many of those places.”

  “Still, it wouldn’t hurt if I went in and worked out the way the rooms run so you wouldn’t have to waste time finding out what’s where. And who’s where. Woffits in the garden running loose, there could be more in the house. Wouldn’t you rather know that before you ran into them?”

  Skeen frowned. “Thing is, if you aren’t careful, you could run me into a wasp nest, with guards behind every curtain waiting for me to show.”

  Timka nodded. “I see that. Listen. Let me sniff about a little and learn the woffit. Who’s going to worry about seeing another woffit?”

  Skeen ran her thumb along the table’s edge. She found herself resenting Timka’s persistence, her insistence on contributing to the plan. She found herself almost angry as she saw control slipping away from her, then was angrier at herself for her pettiness. She glanced at Timka who was beginning to fidget at Skeen’s continued silence and was jarred by a sudden insight. Did I do that to you, Tibo? Oh, Tibo my heart’s darling, did I treat you like a handsome little doll, did I take you out of your box when nothing was happening, did I pack you away when I was doing something I thought was important? Was it me that drove you into striking back? She stared past Timka at the wall and saw neither as she flipped through memory and found nearly every image accusing her now that she had eyes to see what she’d missed before. Aayii, Tibo, it’s a wonder you stood me this long. In spite of what memory was telling her, she still could not believe that he had done what he must have done, she still could not understand why he had taken Picarefy and stranded her. Everything she thought she knew about him told her it couldn’t happen. But it had. Did someone twist it out of him? She hadn’t thought of that before and after a minute she knew why. She simply didn’t believe it. He was tough and slippery and once he was onboard Picarefy, he’d have her help. It was him alone. He did it. Why, Tibo? What reason? You had to have a reason. I have to know. I have to know why.