Vergence

by John March

  Roads ran along the four sides of the square, with generous foot-paths. In the centre of the square stood a huge fountain where carvings of more than a dozen impossible looking creatures spouted water into the air. At the base stood a broad circular pool, shaded by the overhanging branches of trees planted around the perimeter.

  The stone surfaces of buildings and lanes which joined the square were rounded and weathered smooth, at least a few hundred years old, but still intact in the face of the taller buildings of the surrounding city, which seemed to lean in over this small neighbourhood.

  The main room, while not as large as the lower level of The Etched Man, was extensive and far more interesting. Circular tables of solid wood occupied the right hand side, while the other two thirds held more familiar rectangular tables with benches and stools. Many of the tables were already occupied.

  A group of selerians clustered around one, jabbering animatedly in their own language. They spoke all at once, talking over each other, waving hands and tails for emphasis, and frequently grabbing at neighbours for attention.

  A dozen members of another race, four-limbed, with thin hairless bodies, crouched on benches around three other tables. Their heads were thinner, more angular, than the selerians, with wide-set, watchful eyes, and back-slanting pointed ears.

  The nearest selerian examined a handful of brightly coloured cards, held spread between three hands, while he used a fourth to scratch under his armpit.

  “Do you know what they're doing?” Ebryn asked.

  Sash glanced across the room. “It's some kind of game, I guess. Let's sit here, then we can see who comes in.”

  Ebryn sat down at the nearest table, facing the entrance. “Are you expecting somebody?”

  “I told a few of the others about this place, you know — Addae and Teblin might be here. If you wait and keep an eye on the door, I'll find out if they have anything good to eat.”

  As Sash turned the corner, heading towards the serving counter, a tryth lumbered into the room and looked round. The new arrival was around two thirds the height of Ebryn with a skin colour which shaded between a lumpy dark green and mottled lighter pale off-white green.

  Two large black eyes, lacking any white, were set forward but offset to face slightly outwards on each side of its head. It didn't have any recognisable nose, but compensated with an oversized mouth filled with multiple rows of small sharply pointed teeth and hands sporting webbed fingers.

  It wore a sleeveless leather jerkin and short trousers cut at the knee. After a brief pause, it moved awkwardly towards the back of the room. Short powerful legs gave it a rolling gait, and Ebryn could see its feet slipping on the polished wooden floorboards. Its feet had oversized toes, three forward-facing, one back from the heel, each with a large pointed nail, almost like a claw. They reminded Ebryn of a bird's feet, better suited to gripping than walking.

  A heavyset young man dressed in brown entered just behind the tryth. He noticed Ebryn and changed direction, holding up a hand in a greeting gesture. Ebryn remembered him as the one who'd broken, and then repaired, one of the lamp holders on the night of the banquet.

  “Jure?” Ebryn asked, hoping he'd recalled the correct name.

  “That's right. You were on the world-ship, weren't you? Ebryn, isn't it? You're the one who stopped that crazy drunk from making a hole in the deck — what was his name?”

  “Marus Romain.”

  “That's the one,” Jure said. He spoke Volanian clearly, but with a strong accent.

  Jure dropped onto the opposite bench with a grunt, the wood creaking under the impact of his frame, occupying the place Ebryn had hoped Sash might sit.

  “Strange fellow. A drunk angry man, not a good combination. His sister was right enough though,” Jure said, grinning and raising an eyebrow at Ebryn.

  “I didn't speak to her,” Ebryn said.

  “Lovely lass, a bit high born I reckon, so not much chance there for the likes of me.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “You practising much for the tests?” Jure asked.

  “Not too much,” Ebryn said, not wanting to say he hadn't much thought about it since the last time he'd seen master Quentyn.

  “You're right, no point just a few days before-hand. Better to relax and have a good time, go in fresh. Besides, I hear they work you hard once you have a place.”

  “Doing what?” Ebryn asked, a little alarmed at the idea of being forced to work to stay in Vergence.

  Jure chuckled. “Fixing stuff will be the job for me, I guess, just for a change.”

  Ebryn experienced a heavy feeling in his stomach, wondering what kind of work there might be for him with his abilities limited to creating wards and disappearing small objects. “I see.”

  “You here alone?” Jure asked.

  “No. Sash is in here somewhere, getting breakfast. What about you, are you meeting someone?”

  “Nah,” Jure said. “I hear this place has the best food, and when they serve meat it's actually the kind they say it is.”

  “How did you learn to mend things so well?” Ebryn asked, his mind still on the prospect of work.

  “Dunno, it's something I've always been able to do. Master Gasange, at home in Brulle, always said there were some things you could only do well if you were born that way. Wayfaring and healing, finding and binding — and by binding he meant fixing stuff. There's some with powerful affinities, and some just powerful, but most everything else you can learn, he said.”

  “Who said?” Sash asked, emerging from behind the corner, holding a tray in one hand and mugs in the other.

  A six-limbed anvolene followed behind her, moving with a clumsy gait, four broad feet padding across the stone floor, top half held upright. It had a slim serpentine body, with a long neck, and wedge-shaped face covered in sleek short brown oily fur. Intrigued as he was by the newcomer, Ebryn noticed Jure's colouring as Sash approached, cheeks reddening in a way that for some reason he found annoying.

  “My master in Brulle,” Jure said. “That's in Fyrenar—”

  “We were talking about natural caster skill, like affinities.”

  “Oh,” Sash said, sliding the tray to the centre of the table, and placed the mugs carefully in front of Ebryn.

  “Who's this?” Ebryn asked.

  “Elouphe,” Sash said, turning to her new companion. “And this is Ebryn, and Jure, isn't it?

  Elouphe bobbed his head, which Ebryn took to be a form of greeting, looking at each in turn with large liquid brown eyes.

  “Elouphe is so sweet, I really wanted you to meet him. He was showing some people inside some really clever things with water, but some of the selerians were being horrible, so I invited him to join us,” Sash said, inclining her head in the direction of the card player.

  Sash slipped onto the bench next to Ebryn, sitting so close their elbows almost touched. Elouphe crouched on his hind legs, mid limbs folded on the edge of the tabletop, and the hands of his upper limbs flat on the table surface, showing three long partially webbed fingers and a kind of thumb.

  “Elouphe, are you comfortable there?” Sash asked.

  “Yes, Sash,” Elouphe said, his words coming out flat and indistinct.

  As interesting as he found Elouphe, Ebryn felt hungrier. The tray held a variety of flat breads, oat biscuits, and things that looked like small crumbly cakes.

  “The woman I bought these from said they are served in Fyrenar for breakfast.”

  Ebryn glanced at Jure, seeing the same thought reflected in his face — every piece of food on the tray might be from their homeland, and not recognisable to either of them.

  “We didn't stop on the way here, so I thought it might be nice to try something from Fyrenar,” Sash said.

  Jure half choked on a mouthful, and reddened again.

  Traditional or not, the breads and cakes were delicious, and they left nothing on the tray but crumbs. Elouphe watched them eat, tracing each bite from plate to mouth.

 
“Do you want some?” Ebryn asked.

  “Eat fish,” Elouphe said.

  Probably a good thing, Ebryn thought, as he watched Jure cram the last of the soft pastries into his mouth.

  Addae arrived as they finished and were thinking about leaving. He had a bulging brown bag clutched in his hand, and smiled broadly, displaying impressive rows of perfectly white teeth.

  “Look what I have found in the market place. I have the food of my people. Please try,” Addae said, holding the bag open.

  Jure took one of the crusty brown tubes, barely clearing his hand before Elouphe reached in and pulled out a bunch. Addae watched Jure expectantly until he'd bitten off half, and started to chew.

  “Good—” Jure said.

  “Too much to eat already, I couldn't manage another bite,” Ebryn said, waving the bag away.

  “Me too,” Sash said as it headed in her direction.

  “I don't think Teblin's going to be here this morning,” Ebryn said. “Should we have a look around and come back later?”

  Elouphe followed them outside, spitting out pieces of food. “Taste of bugs.”

  From the corner of his eye Ebryn could see Jure standing behind Addae's back, emptying the contents of his mouth into his hand, and dropping the fragments into a convenient plant pot.

  “Where are we going?” Jure asked, when he'd cleared his mouth.

  “How would you like to find the Claws? I think they're near here,” Sash said.

  “Yeah, good idea,”

  “What are the Claws?” Ebryn asked.

  “It's where all the orders are, where we'll be living once we've done the entrance test,” Sash said.

  “If we get in.”

  Sash laughed. “Oh, don't worry about that Ebryn. If they let Quentyn in, you'll find it easy.”

  “Yes … there are three roads, side by side, coming off the great circular road. They're called the Claws, because they're the longest roads in the city, aside from the spine roads, and they're together like they've been clawed out,” Jure said, making a claw shape with three fingers.

  “Are we going to need to go all the way up to the circle road to get there?” Ebryn asked.

  “No, I don't think so. There's bound to be some way to cut across them,” Sash said.

  “It will be much longer if we lose our way,” Addae said.

  “Don't fret,” Sash said, as she lead them down a side lane. “I've explored lots of places, and I always manage to find my way back when I got lost.”

  “I'm a decent enough finder, if it comes to it,” Jure said, picking at fragments in the gaps between his teeth with a fingernail. “Not as good as that lass on the ship, I forget her name, but good enough to return here.”

  “Are you speaking of Aara Sur?” Addae asked.

  “Yeah, that's the one. She was odd — didn't have much to say for herself.”

  They arrived at the first Claw road much sooner than he'd expected, but Ebryn found it hard not to be disappointed. He wasn't sure what he'd imagined it would be like, but the street looked much like any of half a dozen others he'd seen since arriving, almost empty apart from a couple of cloaked figures ambling along with books clutched under their arms.

  It was narrower than he'd thought too, crowded on both sides with tall, worn looking buildings. Most were built from honey hued stone, discoloured by time, and ingrained with dirt. A few leant outward, over the street, as if bending forward with age, trailing creepers like overgrown beards.

  “Look,” Sash said. “I told you I could find the way. Should we see what the others are like?”

  She led them straight across the road without waiting for an answer, to a lane in a gap between the buildings opposite.

  A short way further on the lane angled left, joining the second of the Claws roads facing downhill towards the outer part of the city. This road, much busier than the first, had groups of people dressed in shades of brown, beige and blue, who moved purposefully along the street, entering and leaving buildings. Ebryn wondered if the colours had some meaning, perhaps denoting rank, but he felt he'd already displayed too much ignorance in front of his new friends, and didn't want to ask.

  A couple of hundred yards down the road a two-wide column of men, dressed in red, marched across the street, from a building on one side, to an entrance on the other, heedless of others trying to pass.

  Elouphe, facing in the other direction, hadn't noticed. “What they do, Sash?”

  “I don't know,” Sash said, turning. “Let's go and find out, shall we?”

  A short way up their side of the road stood a queue of people, waiting in front of the double doors to a large red-brick building. A yellow cloaked woman made her way down the line, talking to each in turn. As they approached, the woman drew an elderly man from the queue and helped him towards the door.

  “Wait,” Jure said, holding out an arm to block their path. “Is that the pox on that one's face? I'm not going near that.”

  “I think Jure's right, I don't think it's safe,” Ebryn said. Now they were closer he could see most of the people waiting outside the building looked sick.

  “What pox?” Elouphe asked.

  “An illness. You get it by breathing the vapours of people who are already sick with the pox.”

  Sash snorted and pushed past Jure. “I'm sure I won't catch anything just talking. You can stay here if you want.”

  She stopped next to a woman, holding a young child, at the end of the line.

  “There was plague in Brulle, where I lived before I came here,” Jure said to Elouphe. “There were thousands died from it. To start, when they were ill, they were like the people here, covered all over in pox marks.”

  “What about you? How did you avoid getting it?” Ebryn asked.

  “Master Gasange got called away, doing some business. I was helping him. When we came back it was nearly all over save burying the dead. There were some furbeg blamed for it after, seeing as it didn't do any of them harm. There was trouble after, but we stayed out of it.”

  “Trouble?”

  Jure looked down, pursing his lips and shuffling his feet. “Driven out mostly. A few were killed. Furbeg I mean.”

  While Sash talked to the woman, Addae peeled off from their group, walking past the front of the line, and into the building. A few moments later he returned through the doorway, a scowl twisting his features.

  “Do not go into this place, there is one who is T'chkt here,” he said.

  “A what?” Jure asked, trying to peer passed the crowd near the door to see inside.

  “One who is T'chkt. These are the deadly enemy of my people.”

  “This one can't be,” Sash said, rejoining them. “This is the home of the healers' chapter. That's what these people are waiting for, to see a healer.”

  “You do not understand, Sashael. Each T'chkt is the enemy of my people.”

  “Oh, I think I do understand you. How would you like it if people hated you because you come from Epitu? You really can't judge every single person just by where they come from, Addae.”

  Addae frowned at Sash. “This is why I do not like the T'chkt Sashael. The T'chkt, and my own people — each is from Epitu. This is the reason we fight—”

  Sash made an impatient noise. “And if they weren't from Epitu?”

  “All T'chkt are of Epitu.”

  “Well, this one can't want to fight your people if he's here.”

  Addae glared at her. “I will not speak to you, Sashael.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue and turned away. “You do not know Epitu. I will not listen to you.”

  Sash stood with her hands on her hips, frowning after him, until he turned a corner.

  Elouphe settled back on his haunches, his head weaving between Addae's receding back and Sash. “Why Addi go, Sash?”

  “Because he can't see he's being unreasonable, that's why.”

  Test Day

  WHEN THE DAY for the test arrived there was an unmistakable feeling of tension amo
ngst their small group. They gathered on one of the quieter upper balconies for breakfast, as they had done on most mornings of their stay, but there was a distinct lack of appetite at the table. After a few half-hearted mouthfuls of warmed oatmeal and syrup, Sash pushed her bowl away and stood up saying she needed to make a final check on their transport arrangements.

  Only Addae seemed unaffected. He finished off his own breakfast of small white hard-boiled eggs with a pile of thin crispy wafers, and a bright yellow sauce, before moving on to Sash's leftovers. Addae had donned the same elaborate multi-coloured robes and headgear he'd worn on the night of Captain Lim's banquet.

  Ebryn and Addae ended up sharing a symor driven by a cheerfully energetic man of middle years. They sat behind him, watching the light reflecting off his shiny scalp as he chatted amiably while navigating the street traffic. All of the two-wheeled symors arriving to transport them had been drawn by the same strange gaunt leathery skinned creatures as the one which had nearly snapped his fingers off a few days earlier.

  Ebryn leant forward as the driver paused in his description of the Duca's palace to negotiate a difficult corner. “What kind of creature is this you have pulling us?”

  He asked partly from curiosity, partly to divert his thoughts from the looming test.

  “Ah, young sir, I could see at once you are a man of enquiry and learning. This immensely fine beast you see before you is a trikawi.”

  “Do you mind me asking why you don't use a horse?”

  “A very wise question, if I may say. You see this trikawi here has a number of virtues over and above your average horse,” the driver said, goading his trikawi into a fast trot with flicks of the traces. “Wonderful animals, horses, I'll give you that, but the trikawi is stronger and it runs for longer. And they can eat nearly anything, see — which is kinder here, where good fodder can be hard to come by sometimes. Too many horses and the price for their food goes up, then only the rich can afford it, and a half-starved horse is little use for pulling one of these.”

  “They're not Volanian are they? Where are they from?” Ebryn asked.

  “You're right, young sir, trikawi are from Kurbezh. Least that's where they started out — I'm reckoning they must be everywhere nowadays.”