Tahn pulled Sutter back out of reach and shot an angry glance at the tenendra girl.
“I will wait on your reply for a moment or two, and then you’ll either turn around and leave or you’ll be food for whatever carrion eaters occupy this tent.” She pointed with her dagger toward the flap to their right, then spun the blade in her hand in a quick circle, and sheathed it against one trim thigh.
Tahn thought quickly. He decided on the truth, and something more. This girl looked both beautiful and dangerous, but she would not stand between him and any chance of healing Sutter. At any cost, he was going in, even if that meant violence. His shock was not that he considered such hostility (maybe even anticipated it), but that such measures didn’t this time make him anxious. He was not long out of the Hollows, but something inside him had begun to shift.
“My friend is sick. The healer in town said you held a creature here that might be able to help him. I need to go in.” Tahn nodded toward the tent.
A wicked smile crossed her lips. “I hear the hope of free admission in your voice. Are you appealing to my sympathies for your friend’s ailment? Because I tell you, you are not the first young boys to try and connive a private show at no cost. Either your friend is feigning his sickness, in which case I’ll make you pay double. Or you tell the truth, he’s truly sick, and you’ll pay triple. Ha! There are sights you are not accustomed to in these cages, boys, things from your dreams and nightmares.” She looked at Sutter. “So, which is it?” She tapped the dagger at her thigh.
Tahn stared back. “How much?”
“I will take you in, and three coppers each.”
Tahn raised the price. “Four. We may need to get close.” He nodded toward the sign on the front of her stand.
The woman’s eyes darted to the sign and back to Tahn, measuring him closely. Then her face lit up with savage amusement, a dangerous humor that lent her features an exotic sensuality. Tahn’s face flushed at the sight of her. Competing needs made his head swim: Sutter’s sickness and the intoxication of this tightly clad tenendra girl. Perhaps, he thought, this is what it means to go beyond the Change.
Through smiling lips she said, “Well enough, boys, but that will cost you three and six, you understand? Three handcoins, six coppers.” She gave Sutter a careful look. “I believe I know what you need, and to have the beast’s cooperation I’ll have to threaten it. It’s a dangerous business.” She pulled her dagger from its sheath and pointed it at each of them separately. “And you take the risk knowing I will not help you if you come to harm. The beast is not human, and mad as the Kaemen Sire when he marched upon the Sky.” The girl twirled her dagger again between her fingers. “Pay now, and you shall have your chance with the low ones. But mind you, no tricks. Real coin. I can smell alchemic ore a league away. And I can throw my stick half that distance at the thief who flees with my wage.” She waved her knife.
Tahn stood. “One and eight, now. The rest once we’re done.”
The girl slowly laid the point of her dagger on Tahn’s chin, just barely pricking him. The wicked smile widened, arousing Tahn even over the threat of her blade. “Another time I might put you into your earth for such a veiled insult to my honor. A dead man’s purse is no longer his.” She leered at him, a wanton look that made him ache in a surprisingly pleasant way. “But I am feeling generous tonight. We are made,” she said, sealing the deal. She sheathed her dagger and straightaway put out her hand.
Tahn took the toll from his pouch and paid her.
“You may call me Alisandra, lover,” the girl said, hiding the coins in a pocket of her trousers that Tahn had not seen. “It is not my true name, but it will help you find me if you have further … desires.” She again looked him up and down, still smiling her infuriatingly seductive smile.
She then strode toward the long tent, her tight leather pants showing a firmness Tahn could not ignore.
“That girl is all greed and muscle,” Sutter whispered as soon as she began to lead them away.
Tahn continued to look after her, noting the hint of sinew beneath the smooth skin of her back—lithe as a mountain cat, and just as dangerous. He rubbed his chin and hurried to follow her, when Sutter collapsed for the last time.
Alisandra reached the tent and pulled back the flap. “In you go, boys,” she said, wearing a half smile.
Tahn hoisted Sutter over his shoulder and ducked inside. The humid smell of caged life hung in the air with the thick, rich scent of straw and unclean skin. Alisandra came in after them, passing to lead them forward.
Inside, small torches lined the far right-hand wall, the light scarcely more than a candle might emit. Straw had been thrown down to walk upon. The fetid smell of mildewed canvas permeated the tent. To the left sat darkened cages fashioned of close iron bars, separated by canvas flaps. The smell of animal waste and flesh left too long to inaction commingled with the smell of the canvas to make Tahn’s stomach heave. Above each cage dim lanterns burned, fastened well out of reach of whatever might occupy each stall.
The first cage stood empty. Tahn walked ahead without speaking. Rustling sounds, as things shifted in the straw, inspired his anxiety. He swallowed and slowly passed the first flap to view the second cage. There, two young girls, naked, huddled together in the straw at the back of their cage. The flickering light played delicately upon their skin, but seemed somehow intrusive. He did not immediately see why they might be caged. Then they moved, as one. The girls were joined at the hip, sharing a middle leg and part of the same stomach. Dirty, ratted hair hung over soft, supplicating faces. They looked away and cowered in a corner, gathering up straw to hide their nakedness. Tahn noted a bowl of wormy fruit and another of filthy water in the opposite corner. The sight disturbed him. But more than that, it left him feeling despair and sadness for them. Somewhere, these two girls had parents who had surely loved them. Yet here they were, an attraction meant to disturb or cause the ugly wonder of ridicule in the onlooker.
Or maybe, Tahn thought, the parents of these poor girls had been glad to be rid of them. Perhaps even at a price.
He moved on quickly to the next cage, Sutter grunting on Tahn’s shoulder with each step.
The lantern above the third stall had burned out, casting the cage into deep shadow. Tahn peered into the darkness, but could see nothing. Then a hoarse cry shrieked from within and a form rushed forward to the bars of the cage. Tahn recoiled, tripping and sending both him and Sutter sprawling. They landed heavily in the straw.
Tahn turned over and looked back at the cage. Vaguely human, the creature’s flesh had been replaced by scar tissue as though it had been rescued from the belly of a fire. Its features appeared to run like liquid. It made noises with its tongue through one side of its mouth, but Tahn could discern no words. Its shortened limbs bore no hands or feet, and in the faded light, it appeared hairless. Without fingers it could not grasp the cage bars, but it beat at them with its stubs, its one good eye fixing Tahn with an imploring stare. Kill me or free me, it seemed to be saying. The thing lost its balance and fell back into the straw, making no effort to get up, but just whimpering with its lipless mouth.
Again, despair bloomed in Tahn’s chest. And pity. What kind of person profits by the misfortune of another? Indignation began to replace his disillusionment. He looked up into Alisandra’s face, and saw an inscrutable look. Did she find him pathetic, or was there a touch of guilt buried inside her?
It didn’t matter. He grabbed Sutter’s arms and dragged him forward, following the tenendra girl onward, staying close to the outer tent wall. Then, she stopped at the last cage. Tahn let Sutter’s arms drop. His friend was now unconscious.
The sheer size of whatever lay captive beside them drew Tahn’s attention. The bars restraining it were double the diameter of the others, casting vague shadow-stripes on it. Sitting in the pen, something very like a Bar’dyn patiently watched them. It was broad in the face, but the bones beneath the eyes did not protrude as he had seen in the Bar’dyn. And i
ts skin, though thick, did not appear as fibrous. Immense legs did remind him of the Given they’d fled, as did the bulging muscles in its neck. The sheer size of it frightened him. Its dense musculature was enough, Tahn knew, to pull him apart. Its fingers rested as passive and hard-looking as stones, and its eyes, fixed upon him, did not move.
He stared back, increasingly sure that this was not Bar’dyn. Though in one way it did seem entirely the same: the reason and intelligence reflected in its eyes, belying its monstrous frame. To his own astonishment, Tahn stepped closer.
He found pity swelling in him, just as it had for the girls a few cages away and for the burned boy. Tahn guessed that the proprietors had meant for this last cage to inspire the most fear and awe, culminating the experience of the wonders of the low ones. But something more gnawed at him, and he struggled to understand it. He dropped his eyes to his own hand, looking again at the mark there, tracing its familiar pattern with his eyes. They were prisoners. All these strange misshapen creatures were captives, and suddenly Tahn wanted to know why. To give others pleasure, to draw money for the tenendra. Forgotten were the delightful smells outside the tent and the rank smell all around him; forgotten were his travails since the Hollows. He looked up in desperation again to the massive creature jailed before him.
He was startled to see the creature standing at the edge of the cage, just a hand-length away—well within reaching distance. The beast had moved close soundlessly while Tahn had looked away. His senses swam and clouded as he stared face-to-face with the being, its eyes still placid. It could take him and kill him with one hand, but Tahn did not budge. Calmly, he studied the intelligence in its eyes.
Then, softly, but in a deep, proud voice, it very clearly said, “Lul’Masi.” It never looked away, and Tahn blinked in ignorance. Was that its name? The word came so quietly, he wasn’t sure he heard it correctly. Before he could ask a question, Alisandra pulled him back.
“All right, back up, back up.” She waved her hands at the beast, who slowly stepped backward to the far side of its cage. “Here’s how it’s going to go. You,” she said, pointing at the creature, “are going to stay where you’re at while I open this door and let our young friends here inside. They want to ask your help. And you’re going to give it or the beatings on this little family of yours are going to start back up again.” She pointed toward the other cages.
The beast’s eyes never left Tahn while she spoke.
Alisandra lifted a lantern from one of the poles behind her, and shined its light deeper into the cage, her face more stern. “Do you understand me?”
The creature nodded.
“You may have come here to dig your own earth,” Alisandra said to Tahn. “This beast may tear your arms from your body. You are either brave or foolish.”
He looked down at Sutter, whose breathing rasped over open lips. His friend was still alive, but for how long? “You took our money with quick hands. Use them to fetch your key and let us in.”
The girl turned reproachful eyes on him. “Don’t grow brave with me. I may feed you to it for half our agreed price, just to silence your tongue.” She replaced the lamp, and retrieved a set of keys from a flap in her boot.
“Mark me, lover. Nothing can be done for you once you are inside the cage. The beast will decide whether my threat is worth its obedience. The strongest five men in the company cannot harness it alone; it takes them all.” She looked in at the massive creature. “I share no blood with either of you, so take your chance, and either I will increase my fortune, or one less low one will need feeding when the supper bells chime.”
“Open it,” Tahn said.
She stepped forward and inserted the key in the lock. A small click sounded as a tumbler fell back, and the lock opened. Alisandra kept her eyes on the beast at the back of the cage as she slowly opened the door.
It finally dawned on Tahn that he had paid to take himself and his friend into the company of a creature out of the Bourne. The madness of it struck him. But a glance at his friend bolstered his resolve. He took Sutter’s arms and dragged him through the hay and into the cage of the Lul’Masi.
Alisandra closed the door behind them.
As Tahn turned his attention to the beast standing back in the shadows, sudden helplessness filled him. A chill raced down his back as he considered the possible consequences.
A chuff of breath came from the great shape in the shadow, and Tahn laid Sutter down and began to creep toward it. Drawing nearer, he marveled again at its immense size. Its sides heaved as it stared at him in the dimness. What if it is Quietgiven? The thought exploded in his mind. The creature resembled the Bar’dyn in so many ways.
Something kept him moving, though, and slowly he crept to within a stride of the creature. Its thick skin rippled with muscle. One hand could easily have fully encircled Tahn’s neck. This close, he noticed fine, dark hair growing on its legs and arms. He stared up into its broad face.
The beast stared back, and bent toward him. The ground vibrated with the shifting weight, and Tahn’s legs locked in fear. His heart thumped in his ears and chest. This was mad. The creature’s arm measured at least the size of Tahn’s leg. He began to feel claustrophobic and started to pant. Waves of hot and cold ran over him, threatening to tumble him to the floor. He turned to look at Sutter, trying to recapture his resolve, and heard his friend moan and his eyes tighten at his unnecessary poisoned dreams. A moment later, Sutter cried out in witless pain.
Tahn whipped around and stood face-to-face with the beast. Its glassy eyes were like large black pools, so close that Tahn could see himself in them. Tahn thought he saw a pain-fed apathy in the creature’s visage. The presence of the beast was dizzying, its silence more menacing than any shriek or cry it might have uttered. Intelligent eyes peered through Tahn, assessing him as the Sheason had done.
For several moments the thing stared at him, unmoving, unspeaking. Then it said in its deep voice, “We are Lul’Masi. I am Col’Wrent.”
The creature said it as if it should mean something to Tahn, but whatever it was didn’t register.
The beast looked back, seeming to consider behind its intelligent eyes. Then its features tightened. “I am Inveterae.”
Warmth rushed into Tahn’s body, like the thaw of winter all in an instant. He knew this word from the reader’s stories. This creature had surely escaped the Bourne. But it was not Quietgiven; it was of the Inveterae, one of the unredeemed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Stakes Are Raised
At the revelation of Jastail’s last wager, Gynedo’s face fell, making him look every year of his age. Murmurs erupted throughout the gambling deck. Wendra felt claustrophobic, and struggled to breathe as the smoke and stares seemed to rush in upon her. Darkness stirred within her, but before it found form, her knees buckled and she fell to the floor. No one moved to assist her. Over the lip of the table she could see Ariana, who alone appeared unsurprised.
“And now you, Ariana,” Jastail said softly.
The beautiful young woman looked a moment longer at Wendra. With steady hands she turned over her placards. She did not speak, but sat with quiet dignity waiting for the game to finish.
Gynedo found his composure, his face twisting into a semblance of the amiable smile he’d worn before. He took a long drag at his tobaccom before speaking. “More than a fair price,” the old man said. Then he bent forward and peered into Jastail’s eyes. “You were too young to learn such a game, friend. You have gone past me. Earth and Dust, I hold no value for your life.”
Jastail did not avert his eyes or blink at the strong condemnation. “Will you try to match this wager, Gynedo?” Jastail asked with a mocking reverence.
The old man sat back, looking over the placards, the wagers, and all the faces surrounding them. “No.”
A collective gasp was heard in the room, mutters slowly filling the silence. Jastail sat back in his chair. He and the old man’s eyes locked, each searching the other. Wendra looke
d up again, noting the disdain in Ariana’s face, but also familiarity in the way she looked at Jastail. The thought of what had just happened left her breathless and tasting bile in the back of her throat. She had been the last raise, the last wager. And something told her it wasn’t merely her life; that vague thought churned like panic in her throat.
“Great Fathers, what is this man?” she mumbled. The roar of the gaming room rose to its previous volume, clouding her mind further. She longed for the Hollows and Balatin and a forgetfulness of this riverboat and its vile occupants.
As Wendra sat dumbfounded on the floor, the crowd went back to their gambling. Two gentlemen clapped Jastail on the back before taking their seats again at their own game behind the low wall. Gynedo stared at the heap of tokens, shaking his head. Soft words fell from his lips like prayers to broken stones, but Wendra could not make them out. Ariana glowered at Jastail, but whether from hatred or jealousy Wendra didn’t know. Her captor remained at the table, a defeated look on his face though his final wager had earned him the game. He laid his hands splay-fingered upon the tokens and swept them into a bag before extending a hand to help Wendra up.
Wendra slapped his arm away roughly and pulled herself up using the wall at her back. Blood rushed to her head, and she steadied herself, waiting for the pressure to ease. The din of wage-makers calling odds and gamblers squealing delight or shouting misfortune rose in a dizzying cacophony. Laughter and angry barks punctuated the chorus of voices. No one looked twice at her now, involved in the play of their own chances.
“Come, it’s time we go,” Jastail said. The command was salt in an open wound. Wendra’s attempt to play this man’s game, to salvage control over her circumstances, had failed in one raise of the stakes. She thought to jump at him and tear at his eyes, but his companions stepped behind the wall as her balance finally returned.
“Hold, Jastail,” the stately woman said. Her words bit, but retained an air of dignity.
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