by Lynn Abbey
“Now, suck the wine out,” Geddie commanded. “Suck hard.”
A part of Dace knew that was a bad idea, that nothing that made him feel so odd could possibly be a good thing. But that wasn’t the part he listened to. He closed his lips over the cloth and sucked for all he was worth.
The bitterness damn near took his breath away and the tingling—“tingling” wasn’t the right word. Dace’s flesh quivered and his body seemed to expand. His eyes watered. When they cleared there new colors everywhere, colors Dace could taste and hear.
He watched in rapt fascination as Geddie repeated the process for herself. Her eyes closed as she released the cloth and lolled back on the cot. Dace’s arm moved toward her breast, which was also the location of the damp cloth. He barely stopped his arm in time and wasn’t completely certain which he’d been reaching for.
“So, now you’ve done opah,” Geddie told him in a dreamy, distant voice. “Ready to do it again?”
Dace didn’t need to think. The unpleasant quivery sensation had passed and he felt … he felt better than he’d ever felt Even the pain in his leg that had been a part of him forever was gone. He reached again … for the cloth. Geddie met his hand halfway. Their hands touched. Dace felt the tiny ridges on her fingertips and much, much more. He did the opah a second time, and a third, and there was nothing he couldn’t have done after that third dosing.
Geddie poured more fortune oil. They knocked foreheads over the fumes and collapsed, laughing, against each other. Dace endeavored to untangle himself, but, as good as the opah made him feel, his hands weren’t moving quite the way he expected them to. He was still solving that problem when Geddie’s hand closed over his shirt and pulled him close.
The brutal heel of midsummer settled firmly on Sanctuary’s collective neck. Life slowed especially during the midday hours. Bezul retreated to the warrens where there was always something that needed straightening—and where the shadows were still cool. Chersey retreated to the kitchen. She poured tea from the jug in the sump and sipped liquid, marginally cooler than the air.
The children played in the courtyard under Gedozia’s watchful eye. Neither the old woman nor the youngsters seemed to feel the heat as heavily as working folk. Little Ayse laughted as she chased one of Sanctuary’s gem-colored bugs and distracted Chersey from other concerns.
Dace hadn’t returned from the market. He’d left at sunrise, as usual—or as close to usual as he’d been since taking up with that girl from the Frog and Bucket. Geddie was no sorceress, but she’d cast a spell over the naive Nighter all the same. The boy’s habits now included evening visits to her room above the tavern. He’d roll in late, reeking of wine and a bitter perfume Chersey couldn’t place. Even Perrez had noticed the deterioration.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Perrez had been skulking lately. Something to do with the shipwreck fishermen had discovered on the reefs where they caught their summer fish. Chersey didn’t know—didn’t want to know—what Perrez had gotten himself into this time. So long as he didn’t involve the rest of the household, she preferred to ignore her brother-in-law’s affairs.
Chersey took another sip of tea and succumbed to the thoughtless drowse of a too-hot morning. The next thing she knew there was noise at the kitchen door. Dace with the sack slung carelessly over his shoulder and sweat beading on his face.
“The market’s frogged for fair.” He’d never used language like that before Geddie.
She replied, “The heat’s hard on everything.”
“The heat and some sheep-shite nabobs. There wasn’t a melon to be had and the beans weren’t fit for pigs.”
Dace emptied the sack on the sideboard. The fish were stiff and glistening with salt, the cheese glowed waxy from the heat, and the greens were wilted. Not an appetizing array, but unless you lived rich, you didn’t expect appetizing meals day-in and day-out. The palace wasn’t the problem—the Irrune ate like animals: meat, grains, and wine or ale. It was the city’s own aristocrats that bled the markets dry. Chersey couldn’t count the number of times Gedozia had returned from the market with a half-empty sack and curses galore for the nabobs.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured Dace. “The weather and the market will cool soon enough.”
“Maybe.” Dace picked up a fish by its tail. “Three padpols and look at the size of it! I had to buy two. You can’t tell me that the froggin’ nabobs are feasting on salt-fish! Gets any worse and I’m going to have to go back to baitin’ crabs”
“We’ll get by. We’ve always got eggs—”
The changing house’s security, when not provided by Ammen and Jopze, came from the flock of geese Bezul turned loose every night. The birds were nasty creatures but the changing house had never been robbed and, come morning, there was always a clutch of eggs for Ayse to gather.
“Oh, I’ll find something,” Dace assured her. “But a shaboozh isn’t going as far as it did a month ago. No change again today.”
“We’ll get by.”
Chersey thought of the folk who wouldn’t, the folk who dribbled into the changing house with their precious possessions. This summer was turning into a bad season. Bezul couldn’t pinpoint the reason. They’d had a mild winter and moist spring. The farmers were content, notwithstanding the current heat wave. Content farmers were the surest measure of a content Sanctuary. Yet something lurked below the surface, siphoning off the small change.
“We’ve got sacks of dried lentils out back,” she reminded Dace, “and a barrel of pickled congers for emergencies—” Not anyone’s idea of an appetizing meal, but better than starvation … or overheated prices. “We can live off that for a few weeks.”
“No way! I’ll find the bargains.” Dace put the two fish in a bowl and emptied a ewer of water over them. “That’ll hold ’em until I get back.”
“You’re going out again?”
Dace shrank and didn’t reply.
“That girl again.”
“Geddie,” he corrected and started toward the door. “I’ll be back in time to fix the froggin’ supper.”
Chersey raised her hand to her face and sighted across the moonstone ring. A dark shadow fell across Dace’s back. He was hiding something, lying—maybe worse. She waited until he’d left then found Ammen and Jopze dozing over a dice game.
“Will one of you keep an eye on Dace?”
“What needs knowing?” Ammen, the taller, brawnier, and balder of the two inquired. “The bint’s gotten her claws into him … for now. She’ll get bored and cast him off. Her kind’s not interested in a boy like our Dace, not for long.”
“I don’t want him to get hurt.”
“Too late for that,” Jopze added. “He’s shite-faced. Best to let it die natural-like.”
Chersey couldn’t argue with the soldiers’ wisdom, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that sex was only part of the boy’s problem.
Dace had adapted to the stairs leading to Geddie’s room. He bounded up them, knocked once, and lifted the latch before he heard her voice. He embraced her without preamble. To Dace’s surprise, Geddie wriggled free.
“You got it?”
Dace let his breath out in a hot sigh. “Yeah, I’ve froggin’ got it. Twelve padpols. More than enough for an opah rag and the wine to soak it in.”
Geddie frowned. “Not today. Today, I gotta square my debts downstairs. I needed twelve just to cover what we did since Ilsday. I need a whole shaboozh—sixteen padpols—if we’re gonna dip today.”
“What!?”
“I told you: I don’t get opah for nothing! I can’t afford to share anymore. You gotta pay for your share.”
Dace dug the jagged black coins out of his purse and threw them on the cot. “There, I’ve paid. It’s not worth a shaboozh.” He headed for the door.
“Wait!” Geddie seized Dace’s arm. “You can get opah the way I get it. You can do things … things for Makker. Downstairs. I told him you’d be coming. He wants to meet you. If he l
ikes you, you can buy direct from him. It’s half the price.”
“What kind of things?”
“Nothing much. Run messages—like you already do for Perrez. Maybe sell a book of rags somewhere. Nothing hard. Opah’s easy to sell.”
Dace tucked the crutch under his right armpit. If he heeded half the wits that got him out of the swamp, he should walk away now. He liked the bitter powder altogether too much. By the time he got over here every day, his skin had started to crawl with want and need.
He’d asked Perrez about opah—because Perrez knew the answers to questions Dace could never ask Chersey or Bezul. Frog all, Dace had lied and sworn he’d never touch opah himself, only overheard conversations about it in the marketplace.
Opah? That’s nothing but krrf, boy, diluted down then made pure again. Don’t ask me how it’s done, or who, or where, but when it’s done, it’s cheap as sin and the deadliest poison you can swallow A sure path to hell, but the hit, now that’s Paradise. How’s a man supposed to see past Paradise?
From which statement, Dace had concluded that Perrez sucked a little opah himself. And, building on that conclusion, Dace asked himself—why not meet with this Makker fellow? Shite for sure, if Perrez was using opah, he would appreciate a cheaper source and—maybe … hopefully—consider Dace for tasks more demanding than simply running a message to some under-house door.
By all the gods, Dace wanted to be a man who wore fine clothes, who turned heads when he walked into a crowded room—and not because of a gimpy leg or noisy crutch.
“All right, I’ll meet Makker.”
Dace had never seen Maksandrus, called Makker, before, but he recognized the type. Was there a gods’ law that said all bullies had necks wider than their skulls, squinty eyes, and forearms that could double as pork hams? Dace had a cousin who could have been Makker’s twin, save Balor was swamp bred and Makker was a foreigner from Mrsevada—wherever in the seven hells that was.
Geddie approached Makker alone. When she whispered in his ear, Makker scowled so deep that Dace expected to be sent packing. Then, Makker said something and Geddie motioned Dace over.
Fear gripped Dace’s gut the moment his rump hit the chair. Makker had serpent’s eyes: cold and hard as jet It was all Dace could do to meet them and, once he had, impossible to look away. He vowed that he’d do the bully’s business once and once only—and not for any promise or threat of opah.
But Makker didn’t ask about opah; he asked about the changing house. Early on, Bezul had warned Dace not to answer questions about the business. Dace tried to heed Bezul’s warnings and did well, he thought, until Makker started asking about fishermen, shipwrecks, and whatever salvage the fishermen had brought for changing. Dace knew that no fishermen had brought wreck salvage into the shop and said so, but every word had to get past the memory of Perrez’s dragon rod.
No way Dace was going to mention that rod to the likes of Maksandrus and he didn’t—not directly. Makker’s questions were friendly, and lulled by them, Dace let slip that Perrez, not Bezul, handled the exotic trades and that he was running messages to the Processional about an artifact that had, indeed, come from the fishermen’s wreck.
“What manner of artifact?”
Dace’s blood froze. He realized how much he’d given away. “I don’t know,” he lied. “Perrez keeps it locked tight. I just run his messages.”
“To who?”
Oh, would that the ground would swallow him up! A messenger had to know where to deliver the message, Dace couldn’t lie his way around that. “I can’t tell,” he mumbled. “I’m sworn.”
“You hear that, Kiff? An honest messenger!” Makker crowed and Kiff—an enormous man with skin the color of midnight—laughed, revealing a yellow gem winking in a front tooth. “I like doing business with honest men.” He slapped the table; everything bounced. “Geddie says you want to work for me.”
“Want” was the last word Dace would have chosen, but he didn’t have the fortitude to argue. In short order, he found himself agreeing to sell a book of opah rags.
“Kiff—” Makker called.
Kiff opened a fist and an opah book fell onto the table.
“Seeing as you’re an honest man,” Makker said with a grin, “here’s how it’s going down. I give you ten rags, you owe me eight padpols for each—that’s five shaboozh, total. Say you sell a rag for more, you keep the difference. Understand?”
Dace nodded but made no move toward the dusty, tied-together book.
“I give you until next Shiprisday, but if you need more before men—more opah, not time—you know where to find me.”
Dace did calculations in his head. If he could sell the rags for one shaboozh each, he’d have five shaboozh for Makker and five for himself … . He’d be rich. How hard could selling be? He was already a good bargainer.
“And—” Makker lowered his voice to a whisper, “you don’t have to ask what happens if you don’t bring me my shaboozh.”
“Shaboozh, or the rags. You’d take back the rags?”
Makker laughed and pounded the table a second time. “I like you, Dace. I’m going to like doing business. with you.”
Pleased by his cleverness, Dace tucked the opah book carefully in his waist pouch. Makker had nothing else to say, and neither did Dace. He and Geddie left the table. They purchased a pitcher of cheap wine and retreated to her room.
“You were right,” Dace said.
Geddie nodded glumly. She sat on the cot, twining her hands together, ignoring the wine. Dace asked about her opah and was surprised when she said—
“Can’t I’m empty and Makker said, ‘not tonight’ when I asked. There’s no arguing with Makker. Said we gotta use yours.”
“Mine?” Dace muttered as the essence of the situation became clear to him: If he wanted to dip opah with Geddie he was going to have to dip into his profits. The allure of five whole shaboozh was almost enough to swear off both dipping and sharing.
Almost—but not quite. If he set aside one rag for personal use, he’d still wind up with four shaboozh: a tidy sum. And one rag, prudently parceled out, ought to be enough until Shiprisday. Except it wasn’t When Dace left Geddie’s room a few hours before sunset, he left a wasted rag behind, too. The lack didn’t bother him … half that rag was singing in his head, reminding him that he didn’t have to wait until next Shiprisday to claim his four shaboozh. He could sell all nine remaining rags tomorrovv …
Something had happened. Chersey knew it without her ring. For the last week Dace had been changing, but now the change was complete. He threw supper together. The meal was delicious, but it didn’t have the touch of pride. And when the plates were scraped, Dace begged off from playing with the children, preferring to hole up with Perrez.
“We’re losing him,” she told Bezul as they sat outside the shop, catching the breeze off the harbor.
Bezul looked up from the lantern he was repairing. “He’s in love. Whatever we think of that girl, he’s in love and love has to run its course.”
“Not love—not just love. I watched him prepare the supper. His mind was across the ocean—not dreamy. He’s been dreamy since she took him in. Now he’s determined … ambitious. That’s not love.”
“Not to a woman!” Bezul laughed, “but it’s a good sign in a man. I didn’t take an interest in the changing house until I’d fallen in love with you. A man accepts certain responsibilities, he rises to them, and makes something of himself.”
“What can poor Dace make of himself?”
“A fine cook—like as not, that’s why he’s gone off with Perrez … to press for introductions. We don’t know anyone who can pay a cook, but Perrez does. Gods love him, but my brother does get around the better parts of this city.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m sure I am. He wasn’t ours forever, he’s just passing through, like everything else: one hand to the next. We’ll wish him well when he leaves.”
“Eyes of Ils! Are you possessed?
” Perrez stopped short. The look on his face was not the one Dace had been expecting.
“Ser! I thought you’d be interested.”
The private door to Perrez’s room was outfitted with an impressive iron lock someone had long-ago brought to the changing house. Presumably it had once been paired with an equally impressive key, but the key had bypassed the changing house. Perrez worked the lock with a bump here, a rap there, and a just-so twist on the movable latch. Dace had watched the sequence so many times he could have performed it himself—though he didn’t, out of respect.
Perrez bumped, rapped, twisted, and led the way into his bachelor quarters. He locked the door from the inside—a far easier process—and struck a light for the oil lamp before destroying Dace’s hopes.
“I couldn’t be less interested. May I remind you that Arizak has stirred his stump and outlawed opah? Buyer or seller, it doesn’t matter, you’ll dance on a rope.”
“I’ve got rags that cost me eight padpols. I could sell them anywhere for a shaboozh .. but I’m offering them to you for twelve.”
“You’ve used the froggin’ stuff, haven’t you?”
“No,” Dace lied. “It’s business.”
“How much are you selling?”
“Nine rags.”
Perrez surged so quickly Dace backed himself into a corner. “Nine? Nine! Don’t lie to me, Dace; don’t even try. Opah’s handed off in books of ten rags. Nobody’s got nine, unless he’s used one.” He grasped Dace’s chin to make sure their eyes met.
“I’ve stopped.” At that exact moment, Dace was telling the truth.
“Eyes of Us, boy—where did you get it?”
“Makker .. , at the Frog and Bucket.”
“Maksandrus!” Perrez spat the syllables out and released Dace’s chin. “You don’t want to do business with Makker. He’ll gut you soon as look at you. Got himself thrown off a Mrsevadan ship for killing two mates—two in one voyage! And if Makker doesn’t gut you, his boss will. You’ve heard of Lord Night?”
