Numenera--The Poison Eater

by Shanna Germain

  The more she looked, the more she saw – that the green wasn’t just green, but the white and yellow and red of flowers and fruit. The entire space was filled with growing things. The figure she’d seen was a human, climbing down the side of the wall, along a ladder that extended and extended.

  Until that moment, she’d not thought about where the city got its supplies. The market was full of vegetables, fruit, various meats, all things she’d stolen or considered stealing. She’d seen the meat animals on the west side of the city – the tall aneen and the wooly yol – but now that she thought of it, she’d never seen anything growing in the city besides the occasional pot of scraggly herbs by someone’s front door. And while she was sure that something grew and lived in the Tawn, she couldn’t imagine that much – plant or animal – thrived in that red heat.

  The more she watched, the more intrigued she became, until she was nearly bent over, looking through the glass. As she saw people moving through the plants, everything suddenly clicked into place. She had no idea how things were growing under there, but it was clear that they were. There was likely a water source too, perhaps the very spring that fed the city. Now that she thought of it, she’d never heard tell of a drought or even a worry over water, which should have seemed surprising, if she’d thought about it. The vordcha hadn’t needed food or drink – at least not that she could tell – and the sisters had become good at scrounging for themselves.

  When she looked up, she saw that Isera was watching her, that half-smile, those mismatched eyes.

  “I’ve never been able to show anyone that before,” she said. “Most everyone I know is from here, or has been here longer than I’ve been alive.”

  Talia was afraid Isera would ask the obvious next question, and she found her breath failing her, as if it couldn’t find its way back into her body.

  She didn’t. She let go of Talia’s arm and gave her a small nod, then asked a question that Talia was not expecting. “I’ll see you at the poisoning, then?” And for the life of her, Talia could not figure out what a poisoning was or why she was suddenly nodding and saying, “Of course.”

  That felt like a lifetime ago, and like yesterday. Talia didn’t need to steal anymore, and she’d grown accustomed to walking over the swath of growing things beneath her feet. It was part of the city she’d come to know – but would not allow herself to love. There was danger in that, a danger she didn’t want to think about. And so she threaded herself through the crowds, leaving behind the Green Road to see what she could learn of the zaffre.

  * * *

  The Eternal Market was called that because it ran constantly – day and night, an endless cacophony of taking and giving, of wanting and wanting to be rid of. But it was also a spiral, a long blackglass street that turned and turned and never seemed to find its center. You walked inward and inward along the ebony surface, and then suddenly you were on the outermost street again. If not exactly where you’d started, then nearly so.

  She’d walk the spiral and pick up something for Seild along the way – maybe the saltpetals she loved so much. And something of a meatier variety for Khee too. Khee had gone to Ganeth’s shortly after the greyes had ridden out; she was pretty sure to be at Seild’s side, although the beast certainly hadn’t said as much. And Ganeth, well… There was nothing that Ganeth seemed to covet except for devices, and she wasn’t going to find something like that at the market. At least not that she could understand well enough to select something from.

  Hundreds of stalls, creatures, carts, and more permanent shops ran along both sides of the road. The space was so crowded and overgrown that half of the stalls and stores floated above her head, marooned by tie-offs to the stalls below. Baskets on extending poles and trained climbers – both human and not – allowed for easy access to the products above.

  Above the market rose four of the tall, curved spires – the skars – that filled Enthait’s sky. They towered hundreds of feet high, curving up toward the sky like weapons from giants. Some were thick, some thin, some with holes or carvings, but all looked deadly sharp, tapering to a point. They seemed to draw weather to them, as their tips were often obscured by the presence of fluffed clouds. The skars had no other use that Talia could see, although she sometimes wondered if it wasn’t they that caused the city’s song, using the wind the way a flute might use a player’s breath.

  Each skar was named in a complex system that Talia couldn’t keep track of. Something that was both alphabetical and numerical, and involving lineage, placement in the city, and some other thing that made no sense to her. But thankfully, each one also had a common-use nickname – the false skar, the crescent skar, morning’s skar.

  In the shadow of the skars, entwined in the singing of the city, the Eternal Market moved at its own rhythm, an ebb and bustle that she thought of, thanks to Maeryl’s stories, as something like a tide. She moved through it as small things learn to move through power, unresisting, letting the curves and patterns of the crowd guide her path where they would.

  A young boy with curly brown hair and a green-furred creature with six limbs and two prehensile tails raced each other up the side of an herb stall, competing for the shin or piece of bread they’d get if they returned fastest with the desired goods.

  She was glad that Khee was at Ganeth’s, probably being spoiled by Seild. Even more than her, he seemed to find the crowds of the city overwhelming, slinking his body carefully through them so as not to be touched. He said little during the times when they moved through the city – not that he ever said much – but one time shortly after they’d arrived, they’d come here. She’d gotten lost and had fumbled through the market for what seemed like ages before she found their way out. After, he had merely said no and somehow in a single word had conveyed how overwhelmed and over-touched he’d been. He’d never joined her at the market again.

  She wondered what it had been like for him, before. The vordcha had kept their martyrs penned in like beasts. She had no idea what they did to their actual beasts.

  Thinking of him, she stopped at a meat stall, counting out a few shins, all of them courtesy of her job at Books & Blades – being the poison eater was not a paying position – for a few thick strips of jerky that smelled of spices and flame, and a hunk of something so fresh it was still dripping blood. She didn’t ask what it was, just double-checked that it was well wrapped before she tucked it into her bag and moved on through the crowd.

  The greyes had been away for five days, which was longer than usual, but nothing so far out of the ordinary that people should be remarking on it, and yet they were. It seemed that everyone had heard that the greyes had gone out in full force, and the air was buzzing with talk. No one seemed to be saying the word charn, although she kept her ears open for it.

  Nothing else came up that provided any clues. Perhaps she’d hear more by the time she got to the spiral’s end. If nothing else, it strengthened her resolve to scour Omuf-Rhi’s books for some clue. What she wanted to know was what part of her made-up story had resembled the real-life creatures that they were so afraid of. She felt that if she could just figure out what detail she’d pulled out of her brain that had made Burrin think charn, she would have a place to begin.

  Just before she reached the saltpetal stall, she ran into a group of children gathered in a circle. Two costumed actors stood on a small round stage in the middle of them. One was dressed in the makeshift wraps of the orness, a dark mask over his face. The other, dressed as Talia. Or rather, as the poison eater. It wasn’t uncommon to see these types of reenactments, but this one for whatever reason had drawn a large crowd. She tucked herself into a corner to watch for a moment.

  “I see…” The poison eater put her hands into the air, mimed as if pulling threads of thought from her head. “What horrible danger do I see coming for our beautiful city?” she asked the children.

  They yelled out answers excitedly. A seskii! A face! A cloud! Candy!

  If only, Talia thought. Some of them
clearly hadn’t quite mastered an understanding of danger. Which wasn’t a bad thing. It showed how protected they were. She didn’t feel jealous about that, but more a sense of wonder. What must that kind of childhood be like? She couldn’t even imagine. Didn’t want to imagine. Such a thing might break her.

  The actor ran with the funniest of answers, much to the delight of the children. “I see candy. Piles and piles and piles of candy. Coming out of the sky. We will all be covered in candy. Buried alive in candy. Oh no, what shall we do?”

  “Send the greyes!” The kids were nearly in unison. Only one lone child chimed in with “Eat it!”, which was met with laughter by the other adults watching. Everyone knew this story. It was the culture, the belief, that the city was built on. Thrived on. Survived on.

  “Yes! We’ll send the greyes. The greyes ride out into the desert on their faithful mounts…” The clumpity-clumpty of fernowalker feet came from behind the small stage. The kids laughed in delight. “And what do they find?”

  So many answers Talia couldn’t make them all out. Apparently, it didn’t really matter what they found because the actor threw up her hands and yelled “And they fight!” and all of the kids stood up and swung invisible swords at invisible foes.

  “But… there are so many.” The actor’s voice got lower and lower as she talked. The kids, one by one, stopped fighting and stood, still and quiet. Talia was beginning to see the appeal of this particular performance. “There are too many… the zaffre cannot win. Only the orness can save them now. And so they ride back to the city–” This time there were no feet sounds, just the actor’s quiet, serious voice. “And what do they say?”

  “Orness, save us!” It was the part of the story that everyone seemed to love the best. How once there came a danger so great that neither the poison eater nor the zaffre could save the city. All was lost. Until the orness activated her special device, which wiped out the danger – and the city too. Although Talia noticed the stories often left out that last part.

  The actor dressed as the orness stepped up in answer. “I am the orness, the keeper of the device. And I shall save Enthait from this destruction!” She lifted a large, ornately carved star that seemed to be made of folded paper over her head.

  Cries of “The aria! The aria!” went up from the gathered children.

  She threw the object down and it burst into a little pile of colored smoke and shiny jewels that scattered on the group.

  Near her, a ragtag bunch cheered as the jewels rained down on them. “We’re saved! We’re saved!”

  Such true believers. Only children would believe so fervently in a solution that had no repercussions.

  You believe. And you’re not even of Enthait.

  It was true. She did believe. But she also understood that her actions would have consequences. To her, to the city, to those within its walls. She would do what she had to. As she always had.

  Talia bent to pick up one of the jewels fallen at her feet. It reminded her of the jewels in Isera’s hair.

  “Hey… that’s the poison eater.” A girl near her. Astute little thing.

  “Isn’t,” said one of the boys. “She’s taller. My ma took me and I saw her, in her robe.” The voice slightly lower. “My ma bet five shins on her to die.”

  “I bet ten for her to live.” The girl again.

  “You didn’t. You’re satho.” Crazy. Liar.

  “Am not.”

  “Prove it.”

  Talia turned, looked right at the girl and gave her a nod. She was scrawny, her clothes too big, and a thin white scar ran along the side of her throat.

  “You bet smartly,” she told the girl in a mock whisper, one she was sure would carry to the others. “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.” She flipped her the jewel – it caught the rainbow light as it arced. The girl snagged it out of the air, as sure with her hand as she’d been with her words.

  As Talia walked away, she heard the girl run with it, not even missing a beat.

  “Told you, Osler. You owe me a saltpetal.”

  And shortly after, the boy’s grumbling agreement.

  Ah, Talia. You’ve just helped create another liar. Well done.

  * * *

  To stand near the saltpetal stand meant being surrounded by the caramel-sweet smell of flowers being burnt. Saltpetals weren’t a delicacy Talia had come to enjoy, or even stomach – she found the bitterness of the nyryn petals beneath the salt and sugar coating left her mouth stinging and her stomach roiling. It was clearly a learned delight, appreciated most by those who’d grown up inside Enthait’s walls. Seild and Isera loved them, ate them by the handfuls, Seild all the way to the point of stomach ache, if no one was around to stop her.

  The crowd was heavy. She was pretty sure that while half came for the delicacies, the other half were there for the man serving them up. A group of barely grown women in line before her showed themselves off in brightly-colored clothing, tittering and bunching around the stand like songbirds. At first glance, she’d thought they were from the Upper Crescent, full of money and themselves, but it was just pretend. Their hands were too clean; scrubbed with the sole purpose of taking away working dirt.

  Saric served them, said something she couldn’t hear, and they scattered, blushing, banging into each other, jostling their bags of saltpetals.

  “Children playing grownups,” Saric said to her once they’d gone. “But you, Talia… you are no child. You couldn’t stay away. And I am the better for it.” Saric’s grin was fast and loose. Typically, his compliments too. He’d learned long ago that she would buy his wares without the sweet talk, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Or perhaps he didn’t want to.

  She didn’t mind. It was all in fair play, and he was, mostly, worth the banter. He wore his hair pulled back into a braided tail at the back of his neck, showing off finely muscled shoulders, lithe arms. For all his tone, he moved with a softness that appealed to her. If she didn’t find the sugar-salt scent of his work cloying, she might have taken things further than flirting.

  “They begged me to come,” she said, teasing. It felt good to smile at him. He knew who she meant – Isera and Seild were regular customers, and had dragged Talia with them more than once to convince her of the error of her digestive ways.

  “Such is the way of those, sending someone else to get what they already know they can have,” he said. His green-hued eyes lingered on hers for a moment, an invitation. Perhaps for her. Perhaps for her and Isera, both. It wasn’t uncommon. She found the pulse in her neck thumping beneath the skin as heat prickled her skin, but she could hear the group of children take their places in line behind her, still talking about their bets, and she held her tongue.

  When she didn’t respond, he lowered his gaze back to the heaters where piles of nyryn petals were swiftly losing their pink, turning a soft brown in the heat. “I’ll scoop you some of the fresh ones,” he said. “If you don’t mind waiting.”

  She didn’t. She watched him move between sun and shade as he carefully turned the petals over the heat with a small, soft spoon. Somewhere behind her, a musician began to play, some kind of wind instrument. Metallic and pitched, the song wove through the city’s own song, echoed it softly. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall in love with this city, with its people – and that was something she could ill afford.

  When the petals were the color of caramel through and through, Saric scooped them equally carefully into a clear bag. From a small jar, he added a top layer of long yellow nuts, crisped on the ends. The bag steamed with dappled heat.

  “For you,” he said. “And yours.” He meant he was giving her the petals for free, a gesture that she had no doubt had meaning beyond what it seemed. She tried to wave away the offering, but he placed it into her waving palm, gently but firmly. A man used to pressing delicate things into an uncareful hand.

  “Mihil,” he said, holding the bag out steady in a rare moment of stillness. “For our safety. It is the least I can give.”<
br />
  The guilt that she felt most acutely behind her eyeballs pinged her, a tight thrumming ache. Safety? No, that was not what she offered. Yet to say no would slight him, and she had no desire to do that.

  Sighing, she closed her fingers around the packet, let the scent of him and his offering waft over her.

  “I…” she began.

  Before she could offer a proper thank you, a loud clang came from behind her, the kind of sound that was sudden and sharp enough to momentarily still all voices. The children scattered in a whoosh of small feet and whispers. It was nothing – an automaton falling from one of the higher stalls, part of it shattering to the cobblestones below.

  But as she turned back, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

  A streak of white braids pulled back tight to a scalp, the body beneath wrapped in blue and bronze, ducking through the crowd. She knew instantly that it was Ardit. It had to be. What was he doing here, in the city? The greyes didn’t really have a hierarchy, beyond Burrin being at the top, but it was clear that Ardit was Burrin’s second. So why wasn’t he out with Burrin and the rest?

  A sick feeling spread through her, landing at the bottom of her stomach. Did Burrin suspect her deception? Had he asked Ardit to stay and keep an eye on her?

  She had to get out of sight, at least for a moment. See if Ardit was following her.

  Or if you’re just being paranoid.

  Also possible. There was one way to know.

  She dropped her gaze to the packet that she and Saric still held between them. He was still looking at her face, as if the spectacle in the marketplace had turned his attention not at all.

  Murmuring a quick thanks, she pulled the packet from Saric’s grasp, aware that one or the other, perhaps both, of them was crushing his delicately preserved gift. She stuffed her packet of broken petals beneath her arm, and made long strides forward. She needed a hidden space, a place where she could see Ardit, but he couldn’t see her. The crowd was bunched up, making it hard to get through. So she ducked her head and joined them, letting them carry her forward, hidden inside their mass and movement. Ardit was somewhere behind her, moving in this direction, but she didn’t dare turn back to see.