Nameless: Bones of the Earth I-III

by J. C. Hendee

  But very late that day, when Fiáh’our reached the market cavern all the way over in Chemarré, the “Sea-side” settlement, his back-side had been itching more and more. It was the kind of itch one could not scratch, though as he worked his way through the crowded market cavern towards the rear right side, he clawed roughly at his buttocks just the same.

  One did not become a warrior, let alone remain so, without gaining an instinct for survival. Here, in the settlement of Karras’ home, and where Fiáh’our had met the kitten on that fateful night a moon ago, he knew someone was following him.

  The overcrowded market caverns of three settlements, and the busy mercantile sectors and bustling ways beneath the mountain’s peak, had not shaken Fiáh’our’s certainty of this throughout the day. So when he arrived to make his final trade, he had a little something extra in mind. It had to do with tradition, of course, and that was the best of a small prank to be played.

  “Vanjion! Here it is!” he declared at one stall, as he gently set a crystal vial upon its makeshift barrel and plank counter.

  Behind that counter, a suitably tall but rather scrawny looking rughìr male, with a shaved chin-point of beard, leaned down and peered at the vial’s pale yellow contents. He thoughtfully plucked his thick lower lip and, in a scrunch of eyes, his long and upswept eyebrows wiggled. Most notable was the garish, multi-colored cloth all wrapped up atop his head like some Suman turban.

  To Fiáh’our, the quizzical little merchant looked utterly ridiculous, but Vanjion specialized in rare items bartered from afar, which few others would bother with. Piles of unimaginable carpets, fabrics, carved objects made of tusks, horns, and strange woods were stuff everywhere in the merchant’s tiny canvas stall.

  Still stooped over, Vanjion cocked his head and looked up suspiciously at Fiáh’our. He then plucked the vial’s stopper, sharply sniffed its contents, and grunted with satisfaction. When he turned to go digging through his stall, Fiáh’our glanced sidelong about the crowd.

  He counted three clan constables with their long iron staves standing near enough in watching over the order of the place. He did not spot the lurker that had likely shadowed him all day and into this earlier evening. But that one was here, somewhere.

  Vanjion turned about, a folded animal hide in his hands. It was not as Fiáh’our would have wanted, not a so-called “zebra” hide, but it did have some black and white stripes on the leg parts of an otherwise creamy brown pelt. But as the merchant held out the hide, Fiáh’our shook his head and would not take it.

  To even touch it as yet meant the deal was done.

  “I think you owe me a bit more in trade,” he said, “for that kind of vial with that kind of perfume.”

  Vanjion rolled in his thick lips with a grating sigh. He balanced the hide in one hand and reached for the lanyard on his belt, heavily laden with rôtin of all metals. The merchant barely put the lanyard’s knot between his teeth to undo it when Fiáh’our held up a hand.

  “I am willing to take the difference in a favor instead,” he said with a smile.

  Vanjion swept-up eyebrows scrunched together in suspicious double puzzlement.

  “If you would perhaps… accidentally… spill a few rôtin into the crowd?” Fiáh’our asked.

  Vanjion looked about the market and back at Fiáh’our, but even in bafflement he merely shrugged and continued loosening the lanyard’s knot with his teeth.

  Fiáh’our’s smile widened to a grin.

  A human would have balked at spilling gold and silver among a crowd for fear of even one coin being snatched up as it rolled out of sight. Not so for a rughìr. At the knock-knock of rôtin striking the counter plank and rolling off across the market floor, he snatched the pelt from Vanjion’s other hand.

  “Barter concluded!” Fiáh’our barked as he took off sideways through the crowd.

  · · · · ·

  Karras desperately tried to get close enough to hear Fiáh’our and the oddly skinny merchant in the garish head wrap. He could not gain clear line of sight without being seen or hear much over the crowd’s buzz, so he ducked around the last row of stalls and crept along the market cavern’s back wall.

  If he could get behind that one stall, he might hear if not see whatever the old blusterer was up to this time. He did so… just as he barely heard a clink-clink of metal striking stone.

  And the old man shouted, “Barter concluded!”

  Karras straightened upright—he had missed everything.

  In panic, he rushed back the other way, rounded through a space between the stalls, and nearly slammed into the backs of people huddled behind a clan constable. When he rudely pushed through, the constable had leveled his iron staff, side to side, to hold back the crowd. Not that anyone was pressing forward.

  They all hung back a little, except for Karras, who tried to see what had happened.

  Other constables had done the same as the first, walling off a wide space in front of that one stall. The only person therein was the skinny merchant trying to catch a couple of rolling rôtin. No one tried to get near to help and, worse, there was no sign of Fiáh’our.

  Karras tried to push around the quiet gawkers and immovable constables, but he could not reach a clear path back through the market. He was penned in, waiting, and wanted to shout at someone to just help pick up those rôtin so the constables would open the way.

  Of course no one would unless asked to do so by the merchant.

  It all made Karras want to tear his hair out over more tradition!

  He did not remember all of where this one came from. It had to do with a folktale about a wanderer—now a Bäynæ—who tricked an old miser over many days and nights into paying his last gold for every tale, song, or poem the wanderer knew. As if anyone would do something so idiotic! And when the last gold nugget, gem, or coin lay upon the floor of the public gathering place, there was too much for the wanderer to carry off. So he left it all there and declared that no one could touch a bit of it unless he asked for help with the burden. And not even the miser could then dare touch one coin of his lost wealth under the eyes of that small forgotten seatt.

  It was ludicrous that such a farcical story was why no one would offer to help some clumsy merchant, unless asked by him, in fear of appearing greedy for a reward… or being instantly seen as a potential thief.

  Karras fidgeted in a fury until the merchant pinched his last rôtin off the floor, returned to his stall, and the constables raised their staves to let the people move on. Then he dodged and weaved through the crowd toward the main exit and raced into the mainway tunnel to look both ways.

  Fiáh’our was nowhere in sight.

  Karras ran up the mainway around the central columns with their great steaming orange crystals high above lighting his way. When he neared the end and the way out to the mountainside—where his own home was higher up—he spotted no one out in the dark of Fiáh’our’s size on the broad and wide landing. And the lift at the landing’s far edge was still in place and empty.

  Karras likewise peeked into the tram station on the mainway’s left side but still did not spot Fiáh’our. He spun about, staring back down the mainway.

  There were so many side tunnels and passages, even as passersby thinned and everyone headed off for the night. But the way Fiáh’our had shouted made Karras wonder if the old man had finally finished whatever he was doing… in such a very long day.

  If the old man was not leaving Chemarré, then where had he gone?

  It was futile to think he might find Fiáh’our again, but he could not help himself. He had to know what all of this had to do with…

  Karras cursed under his breath, for he could not remember that one strange word Fiáh’our had uttered in the clan réhanâkst. But there was one place here the old sometime-drunkard loved to go and bellow out his tellings late into the night.

  Karras took off running down the mainway, all the way to its back end and the broad spiraling tunnel down through the settlement’s se
ven levels. At the bottom, he ran out into the most poorly lit and dingy mainway of the settlement’s “underside.”

  Here dwelt the poorest and most fallen with little means by which to elevate themselves. To the right and a short trot down the way was Kìnnébuây, the cheag’anâkst where Fiáh’our had first caught him.

  Karras crept to the archway of “The People’s House” and carefully peeked around the framestones.

  Inside, the huge hall was already two-thirds full at a guess, and the noise of it all assaulted his ears. No one was strutting the central stone platform amid some telling, so he looked about the crowded tables. He had to inch all the way to the arch’s inner edge to see everywhere.

  He recognized no one by name, for this was not a place he frequented let alone liked. Only a few times over the last handful of years had he come here as the closest place to hide and lick his wounds after seeking out Skirra… up to the last time when Fiáh’our had cornered him. Then Karras spotted someone he did know by name.

  In a flinch, and about to duck outside, he found it was too late.

  Red-faced, with a puffy auburn beard and a mushed-in nose, Lêt’vöulsat halted chatting with comrades when he spotted Karras. His eyes widened with a grin. The elder warrior was still in his scaled mail shirt, but neither his thick oaken spear nor iron-banded helmet were in sight. Without that helmet, his bald-pate glistened in the hazy air.

  Lêt’vöulsat quickly waved once with an upward gesture to Karras from halfway across the crowded room.

  Karras went sick inside. Then that rough and stout clan warrior raised a wooden tankard high in invitation. Karras quickly nodded in acknowledge and tried hard to smile as he shook his head. Rude as it was to another clan-kin, he ducked out into the mainway and slumped against the wall.

  This was awful. He had been spotted by a close comrade of Fiáh’our in the very place the old bellower loved most of all… and too close to the one place he should not be; Fiáh’our had forbidden him to go anywhere near Skirra.

  Thoughts of her goaded him in the worst possible way.

  Karras peered down the mainway under the too dim and too small glowing crystals of the underside’s columns. Fearful that he might still run into Fiáh’our down here, he hurried watchfully down the broad, dusty tunnel to the fifth side passage on the right.

  He peeked around the corner, though it was almost too dark to be certain of what he saw. It appeared empty all the way to the far light where the passage emptied into another deeper way. He crept along the passage’s wall, following the echo of clanks and a bellows’ wheeze, until he stood just short of a doorway leading into a small smithy that few would even know of this deep beneath the settlement.

  Karras listened for a moment.

  All he heard was the clank of one hammer upon something laid atop an anvil. Likely another horseshoe, or maybe some other useful thing, perhaps even tongs or pokers for some other well-to-do smith with no time for such menial tasks.

  There was no hint that either of Skirra’s two helpers were present. That was usual whenever she worked into the nights. Likely she had nothing to barter for their extra time. She had always been working long and late and alone whenever Karras had come after nightfall, and he dared to peek around the doorjamb with one eye.

  It was so dim in that smoke-laced stone chamber. Aside from the forge’s dull orange glow, she kept only one candle lantern lit when working alone. Candles, let alone clarified oil, were too costly for her to waste.

  Skirra halted hammering on another link in a length of iron chain.

  With the back of her hand, she wiped sweat off her glistening broad face, except for a drop that fell from her rounded chin, so much more smoothly curved than other rughìr women. She set down her hammer, reached back with both hands, and retied the sweat-stained leather thong that always held back her dark fiery hair. And her eyes, a bit larger than normal with their black rughìr irises, fixed on nothing for a moment.

  In a sudden start, Skirra took up the iron thongs nearby, reached them into the forge, and pinched out another glowing open link of iron. She deftly hooked it into the last one and began hammering it closed to lengthen her chain.

  Karras watched around the doorframe’s edge, out in the dark passage, remembering every single time he had seen her… even to the first day in that very market cavern into which he had shadowed Fiáh’our.

  He had desperately needed to get away from his family that day. In a lull of duties to their trade and ship, his mother again started badgering him about finding a proper mate—like his younger sister and brother. He claimed he would need a better set of clothes for that, and nothing he had was suitable. Before his mother could argue, Karras made a hasty departure, slipping away to the most crowded place to get lost and hide: the market, of course.

  Wandering there was an easy way to pass time in waiting for the ship to be ready for another run along the southern coast. And only those at the stalls he passed, eager for another customer, even looked at him. He had almost started to fret that he had been gone too long for the excuse of shopping when he heard something odd.

  “Rôtin… only rôtin, please, nothing else.”

  In a human market, such a comment would not have caught his attention. Here among his people at barter, the notion of demanding only the rughìr equivalent of coin did so.

  Two women, one young and one stooped by age and frailty, stood with their backs turned to him at a market stall offering lanterns, clarified oil, candles and other like items. Karras was caught instantly by the younger one’s hair.

  Dark as it was, it was redder than iron ore in rock too long exposed to weather, though richer colored than even that. The mass of thick waves was tied back with an age darkened leather thong, and her canvas shirt was filthy, sooty, and stained by a band of sweat down the back beneath the straps of what had to be a leather apron. Her head turned from the merchant holding six thick candles, and as she looked down at her elderly companion, Karras stared without blinking.

  Numans had a word for women who were appealing in more than obvious beauty—fâgre or “fair.” She was that by his people’s standards, even for the char smears on her cheeks and chin, but there was a hint of something else.

  Beneath tired worry was the ghost of a scowl, though it vanished as she looked at the old one, possibly her mother. The elderly woman dressed in a shawl and long robe of threadbare fabric peered wearily about the market.

  Karras now watched that one. Every time someone passed too close, the old woman’s gaze twitched downward, as if to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes. She weakly touched the young woman’s arm.

  The fire-haired daughter, possibly apprentice to a smith or other metalworker, turned to the merchant and pulled the lanyard tucked into her belt. As she undid the lanyard’s knot, Karras counted only five of the smallest sized iron rôtin strung on it. She laid one upon the counter plank.

  “Just two,” she said sharply, and the merchant shrugged, putting aside four of the six large candles that he held.

  Karras almost stepped in.

  He had more than enough rôtin, in steel, brass, and even copper as well as iron. He also carried a pouch of silver coins from the nearby Numan nations of Malourné and Witeny, as needed for some trades and outright purchases. But he stalled in three steps.

  If he offered help in the middle of a barter, it might be seen as implied debt rather than charity for the one he tried to help. By the look of her, the young woman did not look like she would take kindly to it either way. And more than this…

  Nearly all of the merchant’s lanterns and lamps were of good metals, from iron to tin and a few of copper. Even a simple apprentice could offer services or goods of better value than rôtin… and for more than two candles. So why did the merchant not barter for better instead of insisting upon clan-authorized rôtin from this woman?

  Karras did not care much whether he bartered or bought, and the latter was better as far as he was concerned. Human coin was efficient
without the complication of being certain that one had what another wanted in trade.

  The young woman straightened, shoulders back and head high, as she walked away with only two candles and the old woman hanging on to her arm for support.

  Karras glared spitefully at that skinny-for-a-rughìr merchant stringing one small iron rôtin on his already heavily laden lanyard. His people’s backward ways began to disgust him even more. It might have been this, or the woman’s hair and eyes, or just a lack of anywhere else to go, that made him follow her. And he did so at a distance, all the way to lowest underground level… the “underside” of his own settlement.

  He watched as the pair slipped down a dark passage beyond the mainway and into an open door where orange-red light barely escaped. He heard the clank and screech of metal and the wheeze of a bellows. It was puzzling that the woman took her elderly companion with her as she returned to work, and more so that any smithy—by the bellows’ sound—would be situated this deep and in the underside.

  When he crept closer, it was even more puzzling than that.

  Inside the dim establishment, two males in scarred leather aprons worked at side benches on various iron objects. In the far back through another door, he spotted the old woman in a rear room with a simple old table, three stools, and one chair. She set to lighting a fire in a soot-stained small hearth.

  This was more than just a smithy tucked away in a deep forgotten place; it was a paltry home as well. The red-haired woman set the candles aside on a rear bench near a very small stack of iron ingots, and then she heaved on chains to set the counterweights to keeping the bellows sucking up smoke from the forge. But when Karras expected to see perhaps a father at the forge, there was no one there.

  The woman of red-hair picked up the hammer upon the anvil and set to work.