by Paul Smith
their first steps into the world of commerce that was the Congregate way of life.
Ikari nodded at the slight lass who stepped out of the stables as he came in through the broad gates, leading the llama behind him across the dusty courtyard. The broad eves of the Inn itself rose into the southern sky, the sun melting across its roof as it prepared to dive behind the horizon. The stables were directly ahead whilst to the north, up hill, stood a barn that no doubt served as a storage area for fuel and provisions come winter. A place like this would probably possess a good-sized cellar or two as well.
“He’s an arrogant bastard,” he warned, his voice gravely from misuse, as he handed over the reins.
The brief flare of her pupils might have been missed by another as she caught sight of his face beneath the hood. But to her credit, she simply nodded, catching the denari he tossed her in parting with a practised flick of the wrist. Pushing a rogue spiral of dark curls back behind her ear, she turned her back on him, leading the beast away.
Aside from the Floating City, this was the only other part of the world where sight of his kind was anything like common. Though to his knowledge the last to pass this way had been over a year ago now. Why travel to someone, when communion offered a far more intimate experience.
In through the building’s wide double doors, and he realised quite how loud the wind had been outside. He also realised how cold it was, as warmth laced its seductive fingers about his body. The room had a high ceiling, and there was a staircase against the far wall leading up to the first floor, where the cheaper rooms would be. Another door to their left would lead out into the main lobby, at the front of the building. That would contain the more opulent stairs up to the second floor suites.
There was a bar at the far end of the place, with a kitchen situated, from the smell of it, through the doorway behind it. He could see the light of the cooking hearth where it flickered across the scared wood and wrought iron hinges of the door where it stood propped open.
The main floor itself was littered with benches and tables, whilst a number of booths lined the side of the room for those desiring a little more privacy.
The place had grown since his last visit, all those years ago.
The taproom was at present occupied by two homely old men and a slight shadow of a youth in the far corner who could have been either gender. A bored looking serving girl leant against the bar's counter, and a cat sat cleaning his paws on the rug laid out before the large fireplace that dominated the space below the stairs.
Not terribly surprising, given the time of year, Ikari mused. There weren't many would travel this soon after midsummer's wake. Not without a good reason, anyway.
The two men wore the thick wool and oilskin leathers of hillside farmers. Neither of them looked up from their cards. The youth in the corner allowed herself a surreptitious glance from beneath the broad Preacher’s hat on her head (he had decided it was a girl after a brief glimpse of jaw reflected in the fire light) before feigning interest in the contents of her bag spread across the table before her.
The only one who seemed curious in the slightest about the new visitor was the cat, who sidled across the rush strewn floor to rub up against his riding boots, sniffing inquisitively at one of his saddle bags where it dangled from his left hand.
Smiling, he crossed the open space, which was already starting to dim in the fading light outside, and set his bag down against the bar. The barmaid had apparently decided to pay attention as he approached, something perhaps tipping her off, and was not as good as her sister at hiding her surprise, or apparent nerves when she tried to meet his eye.
“We’ve n-no palm, I’m afraid, and only a little bliss,” she stuttered quietly, glancing over her shoulder hopefully before returning her eyes to his hand on the counter top. Then the curve of his ocular orbit. Then his chest. She finally settled on just over his right shoulder, hands clasped together tightly.
“It’s a good job I brought my own then,” he replied evenly. The cat chose this moment to arrive on the counter, and he stroked it absently as it settle down to purring between them. “I’m tired, and I’m cold, and (unusual for one of us I know) I find myself rather hungry. Do be a dear, sort me out with a room? Nothing too fancy. And see if someone might muster up enough hot water for a bath? Then I’d like to eat, preferably in that booth there…” he turned, picking one at random “…I’ll have whatever that is I can smell.” He glanced down, scratched behind the felines ears. “Our friend here will be joining me, I expect.” Looked up again to where she stood, apparently frozen. “Chop chop! Oh, and I’ll have a beer whilst I’m waiting. Your choice, something local.”
She gave a mute nod and was gone, returning a moment later with a mug brimming with yeasty, brown froth. Then she disappeared again through the kitchen door, no doubt to begin propagating tales of his malfeasance to the other staff.
Ikari sighed. Some prejudices never die.
In order to understand the light most cast him in, it was necessary to understand something of the recent history of the Arc Sea.
“You see, Dermontfort, its really quite simple.” He smiled at the cat. The bliss he'd smoked in the bath was now coursing through his veins, turning the warm taproom into a private extension of Sha’Klairon in his minds eye. The cat regarded him with a lambent gaze not dissimilar in colour to his own, and he was struck for a moment by this semblance, and the possible ramifications thereof. A small meow brought him back to the present, and he passed a gobbet of meat across, watching with satisfaction and fascination twined as the animal proceeded to daintily devour it, whilst maintaining a steady purr.
“Where was I? Ah yes, the slander lain at my door. Well, our door, to be exact. My fellow Nym and I.” He paused, for a swig from the tankard that had replaced his mug. “Though to be fair, its not actually slander. We did, after all, commit genocide.”
The concept, as always, floored him, halting all other mental processes as he considered its inception and completion at the hands of his forbearers.
“The thing, the thing that really gets me, is…” he paused “…is that they asked us to do it.” He glanced up, certain he’d just caught sight of the nervous daughter disappearing back behind the doorway of the kitchen. He looked over at the cat, lowering his voice to a considerate whisper. “They asked for our help.” He skewered a slice of meat on his knife, enjoying the sensation of it tearing between his teeth. “Not these people, perhaps. Nor their forefathers either, but it was them. People. Humans.” He glanced about. “Not like there have ever been enough of us to fight a war. All we did was provide the opening gambit. And the closing flourish.”
Golden incendiary washed about ruined fortifications
He blinked, shivered.
“Indeed,” he said quietly. “If you want a war won, we’re the allies for you.”
The tide came in as he was sat enjoying his post meal smoke.
Food, in any quantity, was such a rare thing for him and his kith: their altered biology did not allow for the intake of sustenance in any great quantity and indeed their symbiosis meant it was largely a superfluous activity. But the animal remembered, and every now and then the plant was required to capitulate to its visceral desires, egged on by the piece of Abstainer’s soul that bound a Nym's inner triptych into unity.
The palm was caressing its way down his nerves, like an early morning mist on the vale. Its soft fingers fuzzed the lamps that had been set up at each end of the bar, and hung from the lintel over the door. The landlord had even lit the room's ancient candelabra. A delightful exercise that had almost had Ikari in stitches as he watched the portly gent swaying precariously at the summit of his ladder, whilst his wife looked on with folded arms. He might have been mistaken, but he was certain he’d caught a smirk out of the dark haired girl from the stable, who stood watching surreptitiously from her place behind the bar.
He wasn’t sure whether the effort was for his benefit, or if the two travelling merchants had demanded i
t so they might continue their game. Their group now included the girl traveller, who had apparently been enticed out of her corner whilst he was upstairs.
Needless to say no one had asked him to join them.
One does not play cards with the Devil.
The first clue was the steadily building rumble, which he belatedly realised he’d been hearing for some time and dismissed as the weather. It wasn’t, it was the nearing tramp of many booted feet.
It was the snorting that finally did it, penetrating his haze. Equines have such a distinctive exhalation. A particular note of derision that they seem to reserve for those occasions when they’ve reached the end of a long road. It that threatens, so Ikari had always felt, terrible retribution if fresh oats and a good rub down where not immediately forthcoming. He was uncertain of the form such retribution might take, never having ridden horses himself, but he suspected the brutes were more than capable of making their rider's life a misery when the need arose.
The taproom door opened with a bang that set the lantern above the lintel swinging, the resultant breeze briefly threatening the candles in their setting overhead before they accustomed themselves to the shift in air currents. Several burly men spilled in, followed closely by the other daughter, and a lad
