Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2)

by Travis M. Riddle

The clerk gave a displeased click. “We’re sad to see you go so soon,” he said. He shuffled a few papers around, filing the appropriate paperwork for a check-out, and told her, “All done.”

  She thanked him and headed out the door, knapsack banging against her back with each step.

  The city was aflutter with activity.

  Across the street from the inn was a café that Kali had tried once and regretted, but today there was a line almost out the door.

  The shop served traditional centript dishes, and their flavor palate was vastly different from her own. They typically blended the usual spices with other substances like rocks and cactus needles that had been ground into fine powders. Centripts caked all of their meats in the concoction (anything from vissian meat to cubed bulloko steaks) and cooked them wrapped in dough to create hearty palm-sized pastries.

  Kali had sampled both a vissian pastry as well as a vegetarian option, and she found the flavors ranging from bland to outright bad. Savory foods were not what faifs typically ate, but even so, she found the taste to be quite appalling. Regardless, she was pleased to see how well the café was doing for itself; she remembered the owner to be an exceptionally friendly woman.

  Down the street, two human boys (brothers, from the looks of them) were playing a card game with a centript kid who seemed confounded by the rules, much to the amusement of the boys. One of them laid down a card from his hand and the centript loosed a curse word in Carsuak.

  Kali passed the children and headed in the direction of her other regular customer, a centript man who operated a shop in a more centralized area of Yspleash than Bryieshk’s Bazaar. He sold sweets that appealed to everyone in the city, especially the non-centript population, so Kali’s imports from central Herrilock were always a big hit there.

  As she walked through the winding streets past the plastered buildings, however, she began to doubt herself. Perhaps the sweet shop’s needs had already been met by traders from Atlua.

  Dust whipped through the air, stinging her eyes. She shielded her face and ducked into an alleyway to wait out the small sandstorm that was kicking up in the middle of the street.

  She leaned against the building and ran her fingertips along the tan, uneven plaster. With her eyes shut, she could almost pretend she was home. Almost.

  The wind settled, and she continued along the route to the main shopping plaza. Navigating the winding, narrow maze of the city streets was tricky if the destination was a specific building tucked away somewhere, but it was fairly easy to make one’s way into the center of Yspleash.

  Vendors had set up small wooden booths with leather tarps to shield from the sun. The plaza was a large square with restaurants and stores all around its perimeter, with the booths set up in the middle of the square twice a month. They sold dried meats, handmade jewelry, leather boots, toys for children, and much more.

  When Kali and her sister were six years old, their parents had taken them on a trip to Yspleash. Their father knew a man in the city with whom he wanted to go into business, and so he was making the journey to pitch a proposal to him. It didn’t end up panning out; a couple years later, their parents had saved up the necessary funds and started the business together themselves.

  But the girls had just begun their months-long spring break from school, and they were eager to travel with their father, so the business trip turned into a makeshift family vacation.

  The marketplace had been bustling when the family arrived. They were shuffling through the plaza, searching for the inn where their father’s friend worked, and the wooden booths with their brightly-colored, hand-drawn signs instantly enraptured Kali.

  She had stopped in the middle of the plaza, staring wide-eyed at the multitude of people and goods that were shifting around the square like one huge living organism. She grinned seeing the joy on another kid’s face as their mother handed them a cordol hand puppet, then laughed at an irate man who was not getting the price he wanted to pay for a paring knife.

  Kali’s family had trudged forward without her, not noticing her absence with so many other bodies around. When her father had finally looked back and realized she was missing, he raced through the masses, yelling out her name.

  He found her standing in the same spot, watching with fascination as faifs, humans, centripts, and the jeornish all milled around the plaza and went about their day. Seroo’s Eye had a large population, but she had never seen somewhere teeming with so much life.

  “Come, Kallia, we need to go,” her father had said, grasping her tiny, pastel purple hand.

  “Can we come back after?” she asked him.

  She gazed up longingly at his face. He had recently shaved his head, leaving behind so little of his blinding white hair that it simply faded into his olive skin. It made him look more severe, but his rigid face wilted into a sweet smile.

  “Of course,” he had told her. “We can check out every booth.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  She smiled.

  Kali was now less captivated by the marketplace, though she did have a soft spot for it in her heart. She had briefly considered propping up her own booth once, but the prospect of having to transport a booth there, find storage for it somewhere in Yspleash, or move to the city herself all seemed too overwhelming to deal with.

  She was about to make her way around the throng of people to reach the sweets shop when she noticed Bryieshk browsing an assortment of jellies.

  The sight of him inevitably made her think of their discussion the day before, and the bitterness returned to her. She imagined trying to sell her mother’s candies, only to be told “Sorry, we got something better and more expensive in from Atlua this morning! Maybe next time!”

  Bryieshk held a can of spiced cactus jelly in his hands, chattering with the purveyor to get the best price possible for it. Once they reached an agreement and he scuttled off, Kali approached him.

  “Hello, Kallia!” he said with a pleasant chitter. “Checking out the market today?”

  “Not exactly,” she replied.

  “Shame. I have had this jelly before. You should try it out. She is a master,” he said, nodding back toward the faif woman he’d been haggling with. “I find myself enjoying spicier foods lately. I like the burning sensation. Do you enjoy spice?”

  “Not really,” she said, trying to be polite but push past his questions. “Listen, would you be able to tell me where I can find—” she searched her brain for the man’s name “—Vonsheb’s shop?”

  “You mean Vonoshreb? The bastard. What do you want with him?” Bryieshk asked, obviously still frustrated by the increased business his competitor was receiving.

  Kali didn’t want to lose the centript’s trust and ruin their business relationship. “Nothing, really,” she told him. “I just want to ask him some things about Restick, that’s all.”

  “Planning a trip, are you?”

  “I wish,” she sighed. “I doubt I could afford it, but I wanted to see what he could tell me anyway, just in case.”

  Bryieshk nodded, though he still sounded annoyed. “I understand. Well…”

  He explained how to reach Vonoshreb’s shop, called Vonoshrebka Crestihth (“Vonoshreb’s Market” in Carsuak), and Kali was off.

  As she marched out of the plaza down one of the many streets in the Yspleash hive, Bryieshk called out behind her, “You really should try the cactus jelly! It is sublime!”

  - -

  Mornings were none too harsh in Seroo’s Eye, which was a blessing because Puk was nursing an incredible hangover and he wagered harsh sunlight might genuinely kill him.

  Being qarmish, Puk had been raised following the Waranex Church by his parents. In his later years, he had intermittently maintained his religious duties, though he didn’t mind letting them slide when he was busy or simply uninterested.

  He was often uninterested.

  His mild religious ties had come in handy the night before, though, as he had been allowed to
seek shelter within the church located on the western end of the city. It was a wonder a Waranex Church had even been founded there, given the tiny qarmish population in the country, but one of their goals was to expand as far and wide as possible, so they had dipped their hands into most pockets of the world.

  The priest had been understandably hesitant yet concerned when Puk had stumbled into the small, elegant building. It was built from the same material as practically every other building in the country, but the priests had coated the plaster with azure paint to put it in line with the color scheme and style of the church. An extravagant chandelier hung from the ceiling, and Puk had to imagine the beauty was what a majority of the funds had gone toward during construction. There were two sets of three rows of pews, divided by a walkway, all constructed of mirwood dyed red.

  Puk had slumped into the backmost pew, resting his head on the warm wood, and was soon approached by the priest, a man called Anure Rahk. The Anure was wearing a robe that matched the walls, with red trimming at the edges of its sleeves.

  Anure Rahk was patient with him while he rambled on about nothing of value, draped over the pew like a discarded cloak. Eventually the holy man led him to a vacant back room that housed a messy desk and a small, uncomfortable cot. Puk was told he could sleep there for as long as he needed.

  When he awoke, the church was empty.

  He recited a short prayer after waking, then stepped outside into the muted sunlight and gazed upward at the translucent white ceiling shielding the entire city.

  Seroo’s Eye was built in the skull of a gigantic, staggering beast called an aeon. The aeons were massive creatures that roamed the world centuries ago, but had long since gone extinct—as far as anyone knew, anyway. If there were any aeons left alive, they were somehow keeping to themselves.

  Seroo was the name given to one such creature. It had been a lizard stretching hundreds of feet long and had collapsed at some point and died. Its skeleton was the only tangible proof that aeons ever existed at all beyond the pages of storybooks.

  The skull lay on its side, half-submerged in the sands of the Gogol Desert, towering over three hundred feet in the air. One eyehole looked down upon the city, granting it its name, and acted as the sole source of direct sunlight; the rest of the light was filtered through bone. An ornate reflecting pool dubbed the Gaze had been installed in the center of the city where the sunbeam shone down, warming the still waters.

  Puk ambled down the walkway from the church leading toward the city’s main thoroughfare, which contained the Gaze at its heart. He shuffled toward a bench by the pool, his squat legs carrying him slowly with tired, deliberate steps.

  Many people already surrounded the pool’s edge. It was a common destination for tourists, as well as a location of meditation, prayer, and relaxation for residents. Seeing the Gaze had been one of his primary goals the first time he ever visited Herrilock. The entire city was a sight to behold, enclosed in the maw of such an awe-inspiring beast.

  With great effort, he found an empty bench and hoisted himself up onto it. He drummed his fingers against the stone, staring down at the sand underneath his dangling feet. The Gaze was at his back, and he listened to families exclaiming how beautiful it was and explaining the history of Seroo’s Eye to their uninterested children.

  A half-heard lecture brought one of his fathers to mind. Of Puk’s four fathers, Grut had been considered the intellectual. There was many a time when he had gone on long tangents about this subject and that, boring Puk and his siblings with details of qarmish cultural history, Waranexian beliefs, animal factoids, and much more. Their mother, Mip, had always favored Grut above the other three men that helped her bear children. Those children, however, thought him to be enormously dull. But still, he had turned out to be a better and more-present father than Doro, who likely would have skipped town after the birth of the litter if he’d had any money to his name.

  Puk was shook from his reminiscence about his fathers by a splash and booming guffaw behind him. He twisted one stalk around to see that a teenager had pushed his friend into the Gaze, much to the chagrin of everyone else, who shot the boys dirty looks.

  Doro would’ve thought that was funny too, Puk thought, turning his eyestalk back around.

  He tried not to think of his fathers, who would have had opposing views on his current state.

  Doro would’ve barely given it a second thought, saying with a shrug that shit happens and he should go where the wind blew him, followed by asking if he had any fire-spit left to share.

  Grut, however, would have been immensely disappointed. He had spent a lot of time and money getting Puk lessons with a vocal coach, honing his craft. Grut himself was an alchemist back in Trillowan, and surely would have been thrilled for his son to follow in his footsteps, but he was equally happy to support Puk’s dreams of being a musician.

  And look where I am now, he thought pitifully, once again staring down at his stumpy feet. His sandals hung loose from his toes, and he slapped them against the bottom of his blue soles.

  “Hello,” came a familiar voice, cutting through the angry murmurs from the crowd, still irritated by the boys’ rowdiness.

  Puk looked up and saw Anure Rahk trudging toward him, his bare feet sinking into the cooled sand with each unhurried step.

  “Morning, Anure,” Puk said with a tilt of the head. He scooted over a tad to give the elderly priest room to sit.

  Rahk smiled at him but said nothing. He reached the bench and, after one failed attempt, pulled himself up onto the stone with a heavy sigh. After settling in and adjusting his robes, he turned his eyestalks toward Puk while his body remained facing forward.

  “How are you feeling today?”

  “Been better,” said Puk.

  Rahk chuckled. “You seemed very unsettled last night. I imagine you’re still feeling the after-effects.”

  “You imagine right.”

  The priest nodded and turned his stalks to look ahead, out toward the mouth of the skull, which served as one of two primary entrances to the city. The Mandible Gate was relatively calm at the moment, not receiving many new arrivals or departures. Though Puk knew that in an hour or two, The Rusty Halberd would be loaded up on a wagon riding out through the gate toward their next destination.

  “Do you wish to talk about anything?” the priest asked, as if he had probed into his mind’s eye and seen the wagon rolling out of town. Out of Puk’s life.

  Puk shook his head. “Not particularly.” His voice was a low croak. His head pounded.

  Disappointment tinged Rahk’s words. “Are you sure?” Then, after a moment, “Are you of the Waranexian faith?”

  Puk instinctively rolled his eyes and then hoped the Anure hadn’t caught it. “Sort of,” he answered truthfully. “My parents raised me practicing in the church. It’s been a while, though.”

  This seemed to please the priest. He asked, “When was the last time you entered a Spiral?”

  It was customary for traveling qarmish to stop at every Spiral they came across, but it took Puk a moment to think back to the last time he’d stopped by one of the numerous Waranex altars scattered across the world. Spirals were plentiful along the roads of Atlua and Gillus, but seemingly less so in Herrilock. The last time he’d used one, he had prayed for a thick hock of meat and a cheap bar in the next town rather than for safe travels or his parents’ health.

  “Must’ve been two or three months,” he said with some shame.

  That estimate was probably generous. They hadn’t seen one at all since entering Herrilock, and even while in Atlua, he had not been seeking them out as of late.

  Rahk tut-tutted and swung his legs back and forth. Neither of the qarms could quite reach the ground from where they sat on the warm bench.

  “It may bolster your spirits,” said Rahk. “I do not know what troubles you, but I find that entering the Spiral can be a soothing experience. There is even a cooling effect to the rock we use to construct them here, which i
s always a welcome reprieve from this heat.” He smiled again.

  “You have Spirals here?”

  “Of course,” Rahk grinned. “The nearest is along the Ribroad, but there are others as well. We have two along Vanap’s Peaks, a few in the Cascades, and a large amount all throughout the Gogol.”

  Puk huffed, impressed that he had not spotted any at all, even in his previous visits to the country. “I’ll have to stop by,” he said, unsure if he was being honest.

  “You should,” Rahk agreed. “As I said, I do not know your troubles—in fact, I do not even know your name—but let me say this: do not give up on yourself. Do not be lost to your vices or self-doubt. I will not quote verses at you, because I’m sure that is the last thing you want to hear right now, least of all because of your headache.” He chortled. “But if you ever need my assistance again, feel free to return. Just remember that we are all worthwhile.”

  And with that, the ancient qarm hopped up off the bench, pausing a moment to ease the tension in his joints, then sauntered off in the direction of his church.

  Puk let out a light laugh at the corniness of the priest’s parting words, but he found himself thinking about a Spiral. The cooling rock sounded intriguing to him.

  If nothing else, it would feel good on his dry skin.

  - -

  The eastern side of Yspleash was the wealthier area of the city. All of the families who had made their fortunes mining in the mountains back when the city was first settled were there, as well as the best school, restaurateurs, and merchants.