The Sable City tnc-1

by M. Edward McNally

  “You are the translator, Zebulon Baj Nif?” she asked in Zantish, and Zeb rose and bobbed his head in a nod that probably went on too long.

  “I am, Madame. At your service. Totally. Um. That is…”

  Zeb had taken Nesha-tari to be about Amatesu’s height as she crossed the deck, several inches shorter than himself. He was surprised as he rose to find she was actually just about his own height. She brought her long-fingered hands together in soft gloves, also beige, and from one wide cloak sleeve she withdrew a stiff leather envelope wrapped in ribbon and embossed with the Ayzant Royal seal of a crown with red dragon wings. Zeb saw a supple wrist, smoothly tanned but lighter in complexion than was typical for a Zant.

  “These are our papers,” Nesha-tari said, holding out the envelope. Zeb wiped his hand on his shirt before accepting the packet, as his palms had started sweating at some point.

  “They state our reason for traveling to the Empire as the diplomatic business of the Ayzant Throne. You should not be asked to explain anything beyond that to the customs functionaries.”

  Zeb was having a bit of trouble concentrating, for a curled lock of dark red hair had slipped from the edge of Nesha-tari’s hood to rest pendant-like just above the swell of her breasts, notable at the moment as the stiff harbor breeze from the fore was pushing her voluminous cloak back against her frame. Zeb was a big fan of that breeze. Nesha-tari’s cloak was belted at her slim waist and had an eye-and-hook clasp at the throat, but the lower length was moving back to reveal that her brown leather boots were knee high, and had pointed toes in the Zantish style. She wore them with short trousers, baggy and with the calf-length cuffs bunched up at her boot tops. She said something else that Zeb totally missed.

  “ Paerdohna?” he asked, which was more Ghendalese than Zantish, though Nesha-tari seemed to get the gist of it. She looked at Zeb evenly as the breeze, of which he was growing increasingly fond, caught just enough of the edge of her hood to move it slightly back. Warm sunlight touched a high cheekbone and played at the turned corner of a full mouth. It glinted beneath an arched eyebrow in the bluest eye Zeb had ever seen.

  “Repeat this to the Westerners,” Nesha-tari said, speaking clearly as though she were addressing a young child or a very slow grown-up. “We will be examined at customs by a Circle Wizard, for the Codians monitor all magic brought within their Empire.”

  Zeb switched to the Codian language and repeated the Zantish woman’s words for Amatesu, who relayed them quickly into Ashinese for Shikashe. The swordsman frowned deeply and answered the shukenja with a flurry of words, one hand on the hilt of the longer of his two swords. Amatesu nodded and spoke to Zeb, who translated for Nesha-tari.

  “Uriako Shikashe-sama says that the katana known as the Breath of Winter and the…what was the second thing? Wakizashi. Wow, that’s a mouthful. The wakizashi known as the Knife of Ice are carried as a sacred trust and shall not be relinquished unto any official…”

  Nesha-tari snapped her fingers several times, which Zeb took as a signal to stop speaking.

  “Tell them that as long as they remain close to me no magic shall be detected about their persons.”

  Zeb did so, not even wondering how exactly that was going to work for he was becoming increasingly lost in the blue depths of Nesha-tari’s left eye, ringed as it was by heavy lashes that gave the sapphire a languid coolness, very striking against the tumbling, dark red curls beside her unblemished face.

  She said something else, as did Amatesu, and Zeb responded to neither as he only stood and stared, swaying gently with the motion of the vessel.

  Nesha-tari turned on a boot heel and headed back for the passage below decks. Zeb had one glimpse only of her full face, of flashing eyes and a fine nose in profile with a slight upturn that was positively adorable. Then she was gone, striding away across the deck. Zeb hated to see her leave, though as the oldest joke in any language went, it was a pleasure to watch her go.

  Zeb sighed, hardly realizing that he did it very loudly. Nor did he notice as the man in the crow’s nest resumed barking from above, and the surrounding men went back to pulling at their oars.

  Behind Zeb’s back, Amatesu and Shikashe exchanged a sideways glance, and a single nod.

  The barge moved to the docks below the old square fort, and a gangway was thrown across. Nesha-tari reappeared on deck and Uriako Shikashe, resplendent in full armor and helm, led the way onto land with the Zantish woman right behind him. Zeb and Amatesu hoisted the group’s rather scant baggage and followed the pair up a wooden stairway to street level where two Codian legionnaires in gleaming breast plates and helms, tower shields and spears, stood to either side of an open hallway giving into the fort. The legionnaires rapped the butts of their spears as the foursome passed by and one spoke a polite greeting, which Zeb returned purely by rote as he followed Nesha-tari’s mesmerizing stride into the cool hall.

  The hall opened into a pleasant courtyard with two levels of arched walkways on the four sides keeping the open interior in cool shade. Great ferns grew in enormous clay pots on the balcony level, and their overhanging fronds dappled sunlight on the flagstone floor below. The place smelled like clean stone swept with straw brooms, and a working fountain in the center filled it with the burbling patter of water.

  A line of stout tables stood beneath the balconies across the way, manned by clerks with rope lines before them, not busy at present as most ship captains timed their arrival off the river for early morning. Zeb wondered faintly why their barge had put in at midday, almost as though the captain was in a hurry to off-load his passengers. Shikashe strode to the end of the shortest line and his armored sleeves creaked as he crossed his arms to wait, drawing a nervous glance from the small fellow in line ahead of him.

  Nesha-tari’s words about a magical examination by Circle Wizards, spoken half an hour ago, finally registered with Zeb and he looked around until noticing a figure in gray robes on the balcony above, a young woman holding a gnarled staff topped by a clear crystal globe. Her lips were moving, and the pale fingers of one extended hand wiggled in the air. Standing directly in front of Zeb, Nesha-tari’s hood only tilted slightly to one side, and she never took her eyes off of Shikashe’s back. The Circle Wizard above looked bored and rested the staff against her shoulder. She met Zeb’s eyes for a moment with no particular enthusiasm, and drifted away from the edge of the balcony.

  When it was their turn at the table Nesha-tari turned back to Zeb and beckoned him forward. He squeezed past her and Shikashe, passing close enough to the woman that he thought he got a whiff of some exotic perfume, something that made him think of a lone, succulent bloom growing in a high desert, which made no sense as Zeb had never been in a desert before. He handed over their papers to a polite clerk who thankfully did not try and make any small talk, which was good as Zeb was not sure he was up to it at the moment. After a cursory glance at the official Ayzant seal and documents, and some scribbling in a ledger, the foursome was welcomed to the Empire of the Code. They were waved past the tables and down another short hall which took them out onto a stone platform fronted with short stairs, giving onto the streets of Imperial Souterm.

  There was an intersection immediately before the old fort, with a wide street extending due west in front of them to where the ground started to rise up Broadsword Ridge, while the even wider and busier thoroughfare of the waterfront ran off right and left. The center of the brick intersection was an open-air market with a hundred stalls selling as many types of food, busy now at the luncheon hour and with the hawkers noisily extolling their wares. The melange of smells was almost overpowering and Nesha-tari gave a single, stifled sneeze Zeb found charming. It also kept him from noticing a cluster of small figures sidling up on one side, until Uriako Shikashe took a menacing step toward them with his hand on the hilt of the longer of his two swords.

  “ Bakemo,” the Far Westerner snarled, but Zeb knew the creatures as goblins.

  There were five of them, half the size of gr
own humans but with outsized arms and bowed legs that looked spindly, apart from knobby knees and elbows. Their skins were more like rubbery hides and this group ranged in color from puce green to brownish orange. Their heads were oddly shaped, appearing wider than they were long, with bristly hair, wide noses, and oblong mouths filled with tiny white saw teeth. Eyes were large and colored pink to reddish-purple, and their long ears jutted from the sides of their heads like shriveled bat wings. They were dressed in tattered knee britches held up with suspenders, some with patched shirts. The bare chests of the others looked emaciated, with each rib standing out plainly.

  The five recoiled in a group as Shikashe stepped forward and their large, bare feet slapped on the flagstone portico. Though their sudden appearance had startled Zeb he spoke quickly to Amatesu, telling her that the smallest of the Magdetchoi races were not on the Imperial Bounty List, and that they enjoyed a measure of freedom in Souterm. The shukenja passed Zeb’s words to Shikashe, but the swordsman just kept glaring at the little creatures whose innocent smiles only exposed their rows of sharp teeth.

  “What do they want, Baj Nif?” Nesha-tari asked in Zantish. He liked the sound of his name in her mouth and it took him a moment to ask the goblins, in Codian. An orange one in front answered him in a sniveling tone and Amatesu translated quietly for Shikashe while Zeb did the same for Nesha-tari.

  “They are porters, just want to carry our bags. I think they work for that inn straight across, with the two-headed dog on the sign.”

  “Tell them I have my own porters,” Nesha-tari said, already turning away from the little creatures until another of them spoke, a green one in the back of the pack wearing a sort of bowler hat that matched its jacket. There was no simpering in its posture, and its eyes shone like burnished bronze. Its language was a sibilant tongue of hissing consonants and guttural vowels Zeb had never heard before, which was saying something. Nesha-tari stared at the creature for a moment, then answered it in the same manner.

  “Very well,” she said, returning to Zantish for Zeb’s benefit and abruptly taking a step past Shikashe toward the goblins. “Go to the inn, and I will meet you there later.”

  “What?” Zeb asked, while Shikashe looked at Nesha-tari with a raised eyebrow and started barking at Amatesu. Four of the goblins started to slink forward, still glancing nervously at Shikashe, who raised his voice until they recoiled back again. The last goblin with the bronze eyes nodded once at Nesha-tari and tipped its hat. It turned to walk off and Shikashe stomped a foot and shouted as Nesha-tari moved to follow, actually stepping in front of her to block her path.

  Nesha-tari snarled at the Westerner but spun on Zeb and shouted herself.

  “Nine Gods, you are the most tedious trio of…Tell the Westerners that they are in my service and shall do as they are told, without commentary in return. Go to the inn and take rooms, I will meet you all there later. Is that clear enough?”

  Nesha-tari’s hood had ridden back when she turned, and Zeb was staring dreamily into her eyes. She raised a gloved hand and snapped her fingers in his face.

  “Huh? Oh, right. The inn. You say you’re coming back? I mean, if you need…”

  Nesha-tari snarled again before turning away and storming off, following the little goblin which had turned back at the base of the stairs to wait on her. Its skin was the color of jade and it had a golden stud in one wide nostril. It grinned broadly up at Zeb, Amatesu, and Shikashe, all of whom were talking over each other now, and gave the three of them a wink of one big, bronze-colored eye before leading Nesha-tari away across the noisy market. For some reason he could not explain, Zeb feared that he might be seeing the woman who he had seen for the first time barely an hour ago, for the last.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The bronze-eyed goblin had given Nesha-tari his name as “Edgewise” and though she was hardly in a laughing mood there was a comical aspect to the little creature’s progress through the city that made her raise an eyebrow a few times. Edgewise moved with a swinging, bowlegged stride, planting his large feet out in the opposite of a pigeon-toed walk. Whenever he crossed paths with any male human the goblin raised both bandy arms high over his head until the backs of his hands almost touched, wiggled his long green fingers and made a sort of apologetic hooting noise. When passing by a woman, the goblin plucked his hat off his head and doffed it before dropping it smoothly back into place.

  He led Nesha-tari north for two long blocks passing shops and inns on the left hand side, while to the right between the street and the water was a brick-walled enclosure surrounding rows and rows of enormous, bee-hive shaped granaries. Despite his awkward stride the goblin covered ground rapidly, and Nesha-tari had to hurry to keep up in her cumbersome cloak and uncomfortable leather boots, both a sandy shade of tan as were all her clothes. They had blended into the desert landscape to which she was accustomed, but seemed to stand out here.

  Edgewise took a street to the left and led her into a neighborhood of long, apartment-style timber buildings with orange terracotta shingles on the peaked roofs. Wide stoops fronted each and all were occupied by lounging people at the noon hour, who Nesha-tari supposed were native Soutermese or Doonish, though with their dark hair and complexions they looked little different than Zants. Except that many of these people were smiling. None seemed to look askance at the passing goblin, though a few children playing in the street stopped their game with a ball and imitated Edgewise’s walk to laughter from some of their parents on the stoops, and shushes from others.

  Nesha-tari drew longer looks from the men, but as she was still maintaining her dampening spell she noticed their interest without feeling it as an annoyance. She had discovered back in Ayzantu City that the slight effort of keeping an aura of non-detection in place around her was enough to blunt her awareness of the attention she received. That was about all that kept the native of the Hakalya, the vast desert Desolation of central Ayzantium, able to function in the teeming, stinking world of Men. It was not a world for which Nesha-tari Hrilamae had been born.

  The street ahead began to rise for a long ridge ran along the western side of Souterm, anchored on its southern end by a looming castle of gray stone and on the north by a tall white cathedral to some Ennead God or another, with ordered blocks of buildings in between. Edgewise took a street to the right before the one they were on mounted the ridge proper, and continued north on the plank sidewalks on the right-hand side. The left side, at the foot of the ridge, had stone walks and gutters above the cobbled street, and the brick buildings there had a sort of uniformity not matched by the various materials and styles of those Edgewise and Nesha-tari had been passing. It was the sort of detail Nesha-tari had never noticed before in a city, though she had of course never been in one until a couple of months ago. She wondered if there was a reason for it and considered calling out to Edgewise now several strides ahead of her. When she looked at the goblin she almost failed to recognize him.

  This street was lined with quiet houses shut-up tight while their owners were out at midday, and as the block was empty Edgewise was no longer gamboling. The goblin strode ahead on straight legs and feet, hands thrust into jacket pockets, and with a stream of pipe smoke drifting back over one shoulder, which Nesha-tari could smell as a sweet and woody tang. For some reason the change in the goblin’s whole aspect startled her. Nesha-tari remembered where she was, and where she was going, and she did not enjoy the rest of the walk.

  Nesha-tari had doubted from the first whether she, of all her Master’s servants, was best suited for the task she had been given. She did not doubt her own ability to ultimately accomplish it, but the fact that it meant leaving the Desolation for this noisome world was a constant trial. Though she had managed to control herself so far, Nesha-tari was learning that her power to control others, what her Mother had with a toothy grin called her Charm, operated whether she wanted it to or not. Thus far it had been more of an inconvenience than anything else.

  Nesha-tari had hired the Far Wes
terners to accompany her before leaving Ayzantu City, and they had already proven to have been a good choice. As a woman Amatesu was outside of Nesha-tari’s influence, and the strength she had immediately sensed in Uriako Shikashe had allowed the samurai to maintain his own self-control. His will was as rock. The only problem was that the Westerners’ lack of spoken Zantish necessitated the presence of a translator. The first man had been a local merchant also hired in Ayzantu and he had not been up to snuff, though admittedly Nesha-tari had erred by not remaining sequestered in her cabin aboard ship from the Ayzantine capital to besieged Larbonne. Her presence on the decks of the first ship had in time worked perniciously on both the weak-willed merchant and the crew. That had led to a bloody fight among the men, and caused the delay in Larbonne to find new transportation, and the new translator. Nesha-tari had every intention of keeping away from the man Zebulon Baj Nif as much as possible, for it would surely be even harder to find someone speaking both Zantish and Codian hereafter.

  That of course assumed that Nesha-tari would still be alive to continue on her task in another few hours, which to her mind was far from certain. While she was confident she could fulfill her Master’s purpose if she could get to where she had to go, the fact that her only viable route there led through Codian Souterm was patently ridiculous. Not because of the Codians themselves, for their bureaucracy was easily defeated by official paperwork, and if the girl Wizard at customs was a fair example then the Circle was every bit as feeble as Nesha-tari had been led to believe. Again, the world of humanity was an inconvenience, but not really a problem.

  The Codians, however, were merely the newest bunch of humans to claim dominion over the city now known as Souterm, which the locals still called The Lady. There was something much older here, someone to whom the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires was only of passing interest. She was mistress of a realm marked on no map, but it was a realm which Nesha-tari could not pass through without permission.