“As a result,” she’d said, “some civilized people feel the need to act with modesty so they won’t be seen as braggarts.”
It was a little confusing, but Jekka got along among his human companions by listening more to general intent than specific words. After standing beside Tradan for some interminable minutes, during which Jekka was not invited to drink the sweet wine he smelled, he finally understood the man was pleased because he looked forward to Jekka translating lizardfolk writing he had found upon the temple to the south.
“This would please me,” Jekka said, because he fully hoped these ruins would have something to do with the great wizard and the gate in the ocean. Might there really be an entire city of his people flourishing on the other side of some kind of magical barrier? Why, he, Heltan, and Kalina might have sailed within sight of the thing when they first traveled with Mirian and Ivrian. If only they had known …
Tradan moved on to express his pleasure in Jekka’s interest and said something about gratitude and compensation, which held no interest for Jekka either. “There is something that concerns me,” Jekka said instead.
“Oh?” Tradan’s expression grew neutral.
“We were attacked on the boat.”
“Yes—Mirian mentioned something about that. Were you in much danger?”
“We were almost poisoned,” Jekka said.
“Gods! What do you mean?”
Jekka thought he’d been perfectly clear, but explained further. “They supplied us with food and drink and insisted we partake. Mirian advised against it.”
“How do you know it was poisoned?”
“They suggested it when we questioned them,” Jekka said.
The man looked puzzled, so Jekka realized more explanation was warranted. “In a remote section of the riverway, all of them attacked.”
“By the gods. They attacked the women as well?”
“Why would they not?” What peculiar questions. Was he not being clear somehow?
“How many foes did you face?”
“Nine.”
“Nine?” Tradan seemed either surprised or doubtful. Jekka had difficulty telling the difference. “How did you defeat them all?”
“Mirian and I are deadly warriors. Jeneta is a trained warrior-priestess of Iomedae. Ivrian is a competent warrior and mastered a dangerous magical stick. No, a wand,” Jekka corrected, “that fires a terrible melting blast. Many of our foes were slain. Others dove off the boat. One we threw off once we had finished questioning him.”
“Is Mirian really as dangerous as that dreck writer makes her out to be?”
Jekka wasn’t sure what dreck was, but he knew what a writer did. “She is,” Jekka said simply. “Our foes waited for us, and they were aware of your relationship to Mirian. And now I see that your own home is under guard. Are we in danger here?”
Tradan cleared his throat and Jekka heard the door open behind him. He tasted the air and knew before he turned that it was Mirian, along with Ivrian, Jeneta, the servant Bertram, and someone new.
The stranger was another human woman, one Ivrian must have known, for she clutched his arm.
“Jekka,” Tradan said, “allow me to present my wife, Charlyn, sister to your, uh, sister. I’m not sure what that makes her to you,” Tradan added with a laugh.
“Nothing,” Jekka answered. “She is of your clan, not mine. But,” he added after a moment, “if she wishes, she might be my friend.” Not so long ago he would never have considered saying such a thing, or even thinking it, but he’d since learned that some humans, like Ivrian and Rendak, could truly be as close as clan. Humans called them friends. And he found himself hoping that Mirian’s sister might be one of them, though he wasn’t certain why.
Charlyn laughed as Ivrian brought her forward. “A friendly lizard man. Whoever would have thought. You have beautiful coloring, Jekka. I hope you don’t think that rude of me.”
Jekka didn’t know what she meant by that, so he hissed lightly to gauge the air for her mood. Charlyn’s eyebrows rose.
“Don’t be alarmed.” Ivrian leaned toward her ear. “Some of Jekka’s senses are tied to his tongue. Probably, he didn’t know what you meant.”
Ivrian was intuitive that way, which Jekka liked. He bobbed his head in thanks for the explanation.
“I don’t mind, if that is what you mean, sister to my sister. I understood your words as a compliment.” Jekka thought quickly. How did one compliment a human? “Your coloring is also quite lovely.”
He saw Mirian smile at him, which probably meant he’d done well.
“Please, won’t you be seated?” Tradan indicated the chairs.
There followed much commentary from the humans on the decoration of the room and other such matters that Jekka ignored as he fished out the specially designed lizardfolk drinking glass from his shoulder pack. Once he set it on the table, both Tradan and his mate remarked on its worksmanship, and so Mirian explained its use to them while Jekka passed it down the table for them to consider
Finally, wine was served, and it was even more delicious than it had smelled. Also there was vegetable matter, presented in a wooden bowl.
“We were discussing the guards at the estate,” he said after he drank deeply. “Is there any danger?”
“No.” Tradan glanced quickly to his wife. “There’s no real danger, I assure you. The natives can get so protective of a few acres of jungle. They’ve scared off some of my workers, and left little threats. I found a spear lodged on my front doorstep two days ago, and promptly doubled my guards.” He patted his wife’s hand. “There’s no need to worry, my sweet.”
But Charlyn didn’t look convinced. Or she was angry. It was a very similar look.
“Were these attacks carried out by Mzali?” Mirian asked.
“I can’t really say as I know!” Tradan let out a little laugh.
“Have there been any more aggressive attempts against you?” she asked him.
“No. No! We’re perfectly safe. Nothing dangerous has happened to us at all. Now let me tell you about these ruins.” He leaned forward. “They’re gorgeous, Mirian. And they’re only a few hours’ hard travel from this very mansion. To think that they lay so close, but the jungle was so thick I never knew! Anyway, even someone far less well trained than you or I would be able to see that they’re lizardfolk ruins. I have no idea why the natives would be so … agitated by our exploration of them. They hate lizardfolk just as much as they hate colonials, don’t they?”
“That’s what I’m told,” Mirian answered.
“It stretches on for acres. Acres! And the murals. Jekka, you will be thrilled by all the murals. Your people were … ah … are great for murals. They are truly lovely.”
“Thank you,” Jekka said.
Even though Tradan repeated himself, Jekka learned that with each iteration there was a little more information to be gleaned. He forced himself to listen intently. With no one among the expedition members who could read much of the lizardfolk language—apart from Tradan, who said he recognized the meaning of crucial ideograms—they had no inkling about what sort of buildings they’d uncovered.
“Just think,” Tradan went on, “there might be vast riches there. Wouldn’t Baron Utilinus be happy with that?”
“I’m sure the find will add a great deal to our understanding of this region’s history,” Mirian said.
“Oh, undoubtedly!” Tradan laughed shortly. “Undoubtedly!”
The main course was one of the cooked cows the rich folk of Sargava seemed to enjoy. It was too well done for Jekka’s taste, though he did appreciate the wine sauce along the side.
Afterward there was more talking. They looked at another version of the same map that interested the humans but differed in so few details Jekka was bored by it. Arrangements were discussed for their trip to the ruins in the morning. Tradan was all for leaving immediately following a hearty breakfast. After eating yesterday and this evening, Jekka didn’t think he’d be likely to need a mea
l for at least another day, but he knew humans had different needs, so he left them to their planning and asked if he might be allowed to turn in.
They’d given him a very nice chamber with a bed in the upper story of the home. It was an old servant’s room that they had readied for him. Mirian seemed a little irritated for some reason until Tradan said he knew lizardfolk preferred the heat and that the upper rooms were warmer.
And so he bade goodnight to his sister, his friends, and his allies and hosts, then went to the room, carefully folded his robe, and curled up on top of the bedcovers. He was asleep in moments.
And then suddenly he was awake. His hand went to the staff he always kept nearby, and he sat up in silence, head cocked attentively.
It was the deep dark of the night, an hour or two before dawn. Someone was moving quietly in the room below him, making a peculiar muffled, choking noise.
He stopped to slide on his robe and belt it, then eased from the chamber, his movement silent as a serpent’s, even over the worn floorboards beside the stair.
He kept to the edge and rim of every step, alert for intruders. Were it his clan, he would have known just how many warriors waited without and how finely honed their abilities were. There was no guessing how good these guards were.
The steep back stair wound down and came out just beside the room where he’d heard the noise. He heard it still, a faint choking. A dim orange glow, as from a single candle, flickered under the door, which was partly open.
Jekka nimbly activated the spearpoint, which emerged with a soft click from its hidden housing at the end of his staff. He pushed wide the door and leveled the weapon.
He’d thought he would find an intruder with hands about someone’s neck. Instead, he discovered Charlyn ven Goleman seated on a peculiar chair with crescent legs. She wore a white night dress and her hair hung in disarray. As her eyes widened, he saw they were red rimmed and her cheeks were wet.
She looked up at him and gasped.
A sign of human distress. Jekka quickly took in the rest of the room, including the window. There was a very small bed on the right with walled sides, but no one was hiding there, which left only the wardrobe. He dashed forward and threw it open.
Inside he found several racks of very tiny dresses, and shelves with towels. But no intruders.
“What are you doing?” Charlyn said in the same choking voice.
He whirled on her. “Were you under attack?”
“No!”
He stared at her, trying to piece it together, then his eyes wandered as he sought more clues. He spied numerous additional small articles on the shelves, including two small masks. No, he realized, plaster casts of small faces with closed eyes. Human younglings. This was a nest … but one that lacked nestlings. The clothes were unworn. The small bed was empty.
It came to him then. This was a mother who grieved.
Jekka ran fingers over the staff and the spear retracted. He saw Charlyn’s eyes, in the dim light very much like Mirian’s, and felt foolish. His frill ruffled and he knew that his skin color flushed, so he dropped to one knee and hung his head to be clear he presented no threat.
“I came to assist, not to harm. I heard noises and feared someone was in danger.”
“It’s … it’s all right,” Charlyn answered. Jekka wasn’t sure why her voice was so hesitant. His posture and tone were clear.
“You must have exceptional hearing,” she said.
“I do not think so.”
Charlyn smiled weakly and leaned back in the chair, which tilted. Its peculiar construction enabled Charlyn to rock backward, then forward.
“Then I’m much louder than I thought. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You need not apologize. I frightened you.”
“A little.”
He thought that she lied and that he had frightened her greatly. “I apologize for that, sister to my sister. And I think I know what you do here. Is today a grieving day for your people?”
Her eyes watered further. “Every day is a grieving day.”
His head came up. “The loss is recent.”
She had ceased rocking and her head nodded slowly. She wiped at her face and hid her eyes. Some humans, he knew, did not like to show their grief.
“I have grieving days,” he said. “I had two young ones, and they are lost to me.” He rose slowly. His frill had settled, and he gestured gingerly to the little masks. “Forgive me. I am no judge of ages of small humans. How old were they?”
“Elliana was almost two. Geltrand died the day he was born.” Again she choked back her words. “Only a few months ago.”
Jekka could not hold off tasting the room, though he turned partly away, for he knew humans found his tongue repulsive. The moisture in the air was obvious, as was the woman’s raised temperature.
“It is hard to lose them,” he said.
She nodded.
“Mirian wondered that you did not come to Kellic’s service. Now I wonder why you did not tell her of this. It would have been about the same time.”
“It’s a private matter,” she said.
“And I intrude,” he said. “Again, I apologize. I do not know your customs.”
A smile fluttered at her lips. “You’re very kind, Jekka.”
“Kind?” he repeated. He didn’t think himself so.
“What happened to your children?” Charlyn asked softly
“There are humans,” he said, “who prize the skin of young lizardfolk for the making of fabric. It is more pliable.”
Her mouth formed a circle, but she made no noise apart from a sort of coughing gasp.
“It has been two years now,” Jekka said, “and I think about them often. It felt good to track the men who did it, and to kill them, but the pain remains. To whom shall I pass my songs, sister to my sister? Who now is left to hear the tale of my people but the bearded man in Eleder, who will write it in his book for some scholar to learn when my people live as nothing but glyphs in the books of humans?”
For some reason this set the human’s eyes watering the more, and she reached out for his hand.
This contact startled Jekka, but he allowed it. She squeezed his fingers.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Were yours slain?” Jekka asked.
Charlyn shook her head quickly. “Fever claimed my daughter. The healer said it was nothing, but she went to sleep one night and never woke up. And then Geltrand … he was stillborn.”
Jekka had never heard that term before, but he inferred its meaning, and as Charlyn released his hand he turned to consider the little masks. “These are imprints of their faces, so that you have a visual reminder.”
“Yes.”
“It is a fine idea,” he said. “Perhaps you should save them only for grieving days.”
“Do you grieve only on certain days?”
“It is the way of my people.” Jekka gave his hand to her, palm first. “Press your hand to mine,” he said, and she stopped rocking in the chair and stretched up to do so. “Press hard. Do you feel my pulse?”
“I do.”
“We live. Those we have lost do not. I have lost so many that were I to give them reverence every day, my warmth would fade, my own blood would cease to pulse. I might have done as much without your sister.”
“Mirian must be very special to you.”
“When I had nothing left, she shared her name and blood with me. She gave me strength.”
She lowered her hand slowly, then wiped her eyes. “You are nothing like I imagined, Jekka.”
“Why not?”
She laughed. “Am I anything like you imagined?”
“I didn’t know what I would think of you, but I like you.”
“And I like you as well. Tell me. There is something almost … priestlike in the way you—”
He turned his head toward the doorway, for he’d heard another creak.
Charlyn fell silent. Then, whispering, she said,
“It’s an old house. It settles—”
But Jekka held up a hand to indicate she should remain silent, for he’d heard another faint creak while the woman talked. He reached down beside her and snuffed out the candle. “Stay quiet.” He crept into the hall.
All was dark without. No colonial, he thought, would be wandering the house at night without a candle. It was not the way of those who lived in houses. And so he moved into the hallway, staying low, his own steps muffled by the rugs that the humans used to hide the floor planks.
The hall was long and straight. His eyes had already adjusted, and there was no missing the sound and odor of someone from the wild moving through a forward room. With the intruder came the fresh scent of blood.
Jekka cocked his head, moved across the hallway, and peered round the open doorway to see a shirtless human placing an object in the midst of the dining table, near a vase with a single rose. The object was the source of the blood, as well as the smell of dead flesh, and Jekka knew by scent it was the severed head of the guard captain.
The soft flick of Jekka’s tongue had made virtually no sound, but the human whirled, a short, sharp knife in one hand.
Jekka advanced. His target swung out of the way and backed around the table. It was only then Jekka heard the scuff of a second pair of feet and slid to his left, near Tradan’s bookcase treasures. He heard the passage of the sword through the air just past his arm. He swung the back end of the staff at his target.
He struck something soft, heard a muttered “oof” and a clatter as his assailant stumbled into a chair. From the sound, both chair and human had fallen to the floor, but he could spare that opponent no attention, for the first had leapt atop the heavy table and flung one of the chairs at Jekka’s head.
He slid easily aside and drove his spear into the man’s abdomen.
This elicited a scream of pain and further crashing as the attacker lost his balance and cracked his head on the floor. The chair smashed beside him and the jolting rolled the severed head off the table.
Calls of alarm echoed through the home.
The man beside the table lay dead or dying, but the other darted from the room, favoring his left leg.
Jekka tore after him, thrust the spear to trip him. He caught the intruder’s legs so he sprawled into the hallway.
Pathfinder Tales--Through the Gate in the Sea Page 11
