Chabra: The Sculptor

Sixteen-year-old Kostubh jerked the rod again, making the float bounce and (he hoped) wiggling the worm enticingly. Gitanshu, three years his elder, stoically watched his own float as if willing it to move.

Nothing moved but the waves, the buzzing insects, and the distant bustle of the harbor.

The two boys had snuck out in the early morning, denied a place in the hunting party Karadi had arranged for visiting Lord Prixadius. Dhruv got to go, of course, but he was always with Prixadius. Or Atisha. And since Atisha was waddling around like a fat-assed duck, ready to give birth any day now, everyone was far too busy to worry about the two of them.

A nice day fishing off the rocks opposite Shiroora Shan harbor was much better than all that noise and energy, and constantly being told to do this or fetch that. Dhruv had planned on just going alone, but since Gitanshu’s boss was in Shiroora Shan, quite by accident, he’d arranged to get the day off as well, to “attend the family event.”

They weren’t really interested in catching anything, which was probably why they’d been so surprisingly successful—they’d caught over half a dozen good-sized fish already. They hadn’t brought a creel or net, though, and had just been letting them go again.

Kostubh noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced up at the top of the Seawall. Two guards were standing there, looking down at them from a dozen meters up.

He waved back, knowing the guards wouldn’t bother them… they came here often, and besides, they were House Chabra.

“You getting hungry?”

“Mmm. You?”

“Yup,” said Gitanshu, lifting the line and hook out of the water. “Let’s head back and get some food.”

“You got any money?”

“Yeah, a little. C’mon, I’ll treat you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that!” laughed Kostubh, standing to reel in his own line. “Curry?”

“Curry.”

They clambered back up the jumbled boulders along the shore to the base of the wall. About three meters high, the wall extended from the base of the Great Seawall for about a kilometer along the shore. In theory nobody was supposed to be down here, and certainly nobody was supposed to leave ropes hanging over the edge of the wall to help them climb back up, but… they were House Chabra.

From there it was a short hike up the flank of The Spine to reach the top of road, which ran from the Narrows at Cappadarnia, across the Great Seawall, and into Shiroora Shan.

“You boys pick up your rope?”

It was one of the guards.

“Yessir, we always do,” replied Gitanshu. “We wanted to inspect the defenses at the water’s edge.”

“No fish this time?”

“We just came to get away from all the excitement.”

“Ah. Lord Prixadius,” snorted the guard. “Yeah, visiting nobility always screws things up, especially when they’re married to a Chabr… Uh, my apologies, Master Gitanshu. When they’re married to someone from House Chabra, I mean.”

Gitanshu waved it away.

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it. When you’re the third son it’s not that big a deal.”

“Thank you, Master Gitanshu. Master Kostubh.”

He bobbed his head and hurried away, eager to escape before they could change their minds. House Chabra was a pretty good bunch of people, he thought but you never could be sure with nobility.

They took the short way down into Shiroora Shan instead of staying on the wagon road. The Great Seawall was built higher than the docks of the city, and continued into the high hills on the eastern side, the road gradually sloping down to street level. People who didn’t feel like taking the longer, easier way around could just use the stairs.

The Seawall had never been attacked, but the Seagate—the network of chains and logs that could be raised to block ships from passing under the Seawall, or lowered to allow passage—had been used a number of times.

Lajita said it would be needed one day, but she said a lot of things.

Gitanshu led the way to one of the little curry stalls along the wharf and waved a greeting.

“Yo, Hesta! How ya doin’?”

“Master Gitanshu! Hey, good, good,” replied the red-headed cook, probably about the same age as Gitanshu. “And Master Kostubh, haven’t seen you around for a while.”

“Hey, Hesta. Yeah, study study study, and now Prixadius with all his hangers-on. Everybody wants me to do stuff all the time.”

“Well, hungry customers are always welcome here! What’ll it be? The usual?”

“Yeah, two big ones, and hot.”

“Comin’ up!”

Hesta used a huge iron ladle to spoon dollops of thick, light-brown bean curry into two of the waiting bowls, and hand each of them one, then dropped four pieces of hot flatbread on the counter for them to take.

“The tea’s on the table; help yourself,” he added and grinned, revealing misaligned and badly stained teeth.

“Thanks, Hesta,” said Gitanshu, and tossed him a coin. The cook deftly caught it and, nodding his head in thanks, dropped it into his apron.

There were a number of small, rickety table facing the sea, with a scattering of stools and benches around. The boys picked one and got busy tearing bread and scooping up the rich curry.

“Hasta! More flatbread!”

“Yessir, Master Kostubh! Right away!”

True to his word, Hesta arrived very quickly with another four pieces.

“You have to go back tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sorry,” said Gitanshu. “Master Bulbuk’s not a bad guy, but he gets pretty angry when people don’t do what they’re supposed to.”

“You just asked for today off?”

“Hey, my sister’s about ready to pop!” laughed Gitanshu. “We’re already here; that’s the least he could do, right?”

“I guess,” said Kostubh, pouring more tea and waving the pot so Hesta could see they needed more. “I’m stuck here learning shit and you’re on a damn caravan to Despina!”

“And from there to Rinar by ship!” boasted Gitanshu. “Master Bulbuk says we’re going to Celephaïs next spring. Celephaïs!”

Kostubh scowled.

“Yeah, lucky you.”

“Papa sent me off to learn from Bulbuk two years ago, when I was seventeen… you’re almost that now. Ask him; maybe he’ll let you come, too.”

“Damn! You think so!?”

Gitashu shrugged.

“Can’t hurt to ask.”

“Wow, Despina and Rinar! I’ll ask him tonight.

“About two months, right?”

“Yeah, unless something unusual happens. Master Bulbuk says he doesn’t expect anything this trip. He says the weather’s been good, and piracy is down along the Cuppar-Nombo coast.

“If Master Bulbuk says it’s OK with him, I bet papa would go along.”

Kostubh used to last of the flatbread to wipe his bowl clean of curry and crammed it into his mouth. He sloshed another cup of tea and drank it down, then stood and stretched.

“You done yet?”

“What, you’re gonna run and ask him now? Can’t wait?”

“C’mon, Gitanshu! Let’s go!”

Gitanshu laughed and drank down the rest of his tea.

“Thanks, Hesta! Good as always!”

“Come back soon, Master Gitanshu, Master Kostubh!”

They ignored him and began walking toward the stairs up to the Chabra main house.

“You really think papa’ll let me?”

“You’re sixteen,” said Gitanshu. “He’s gonna let you go one of these days; might as well be today.”

They found Karadi looking out over the bustling port and the Night Ocean.

“Well, well… if it isn’t the two absent uncles!” he chuckled. “I hope you’ve already dropped by to see your new nephew and congratulate Prixadius and your sister?”

“Of course, papa, we were just on our way there now, but happened to see you standing here,” countered Gitanshu quickly. “Kostubh has something he wants to ask you.”

He pushed his younger brother forward and deliberately looked up at the clouds.

There was a moment of silence, broken by Karadi: “Yes?”

Kostubh inhaled, straightened his shoulders, and looked his father in the eye.

“If Master Bulbuk agrees, I would like to accompany Gitanshu on this trip. They’re going via Eudoxia, Thace, and Despina to Rinar. I promise to follow his orders, and I’ll work with the crew. I know I’m only—”

Karadi held up his hand, cutting off the torrent of words.

“Kostubh, once you’ve started on this venture you can’t suddenly change your mind, you know. You would have to stay with his caravan until he returns here, which will be at least six months from now, or until he releases you.

“And I can say with confidence that he will not release you without my permission.

“Are you prepared to follow Master Bulbuk’s orders for half a year, without complaint or any special treatment? You’d be an untrained recruit, at the bottom of the crew.”

“Yessir, I am,” he shot back without a moment’s hesitation.

Karadi grinned and stepped forward to hug the lad.

“I’d be happy to let you go if that’s what you want. And I’ll even ask Than Bulbuk to take you, but that’s all I can do.”

He turned to Gitanshu.

“Kostubh will make mistakes, just like you did. It’ll be your job as one of Than’s team to make sure he learns from them. But as Kostubh’s brother, try to make sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

“Yeah, I’d already realized what I’m getting myself into,” grumbled Gitanshu, face sour. “I’ll try, but Kostubh does some pretty damn stupid things at times.”

“It runs in the family,” snickered Kostubh. “We all take after papa.”

“If you only knew,” laughed Karadi, and gathered the two boys closer, an arm around each. “I think it’s time to introduce you to your nephew, and maybe we can tell your mother about all this a little later, what do you say?”

* * *

Than Bulbuk of Eudoxia had arranged for transport on one of the many ships plying the western reaches of the Night Ocean. Now that piracy was almost unheard of, especially in the northern waters closer to Shiroora Shan, more and more trade between Eudoxia, Adelma, and Shiroora Shan was moving by sea, and traffic along the older caravan routes along the coast had plunged dramatically.

He knew many of the ship captains, of course, as his route had passed through the Night Ocean for decades, and he had no difficulty finding one he knew and trusted for this part of the journey.

The ship’s crew took care of the ship, but Kostubh and the rest of Than Bulbuk’s people had to do most of the heavy labor involved in getting the cargo into the hold and secured properly. The crew was happy to offer advice and assist, but always seemed to have more pressing jobs when it came to hoisting or carrying crates.

Kostubh, of course, was expected to be helping.

“Kostubh! Quit gawpin’ and help get the goods movin’, boy!”

“Yessir!” he shouted to the caravan’s loadmaster, a middle-aged Shang man named Chang Wu. Kostubh didn’t know much about him yet… in fact, he didn’t know much about anyone in the caravan yet.

He ran down the deck to the cargo hatch, already open, and glanced around to see what he should be doing. The ship’s crew was operating an overhead pulley, moving various crates, bundles of textiles, and huge jars of wine from the wharf to the hold, while Than Bulbuk’s people were responsible for securing them there in good order.

Kostubh figured he could be of most use standing between the pulley operator and the open hold, relaying information and making sure everything went smoothly.

“Another thirty or forty centimeters up,” he ordered the pulley operator, gesturing with his hand. “The ropes are getting all tangled on the floor.”

“Get out of the way!” shouted the woman on the pulley. “Can’t see anything with you blocking me!”

“Hey, don’t tell me what to—”

“Kostubh! Get your ass down in that hold and get the damn cargo loaded!” came the shout from Chang Wu. “And shut your damn mouth!”

He spun around, on the verge of shouting back with all the anger of an insulted Chabra boy, but noticed Gitanshu standing on the wharf, helping unload the cargo as it was transferred over. His older brother didn’t say a word, but he caught Kostubh’s eye and shook his head “No.”

Kostubh clenched his jaw and glared at Chang Wu for a moment, then jumped down into the hold.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the new kid,” said Ran, an enormous, blond-haired youth who was the unspoken boss of the hired laborers. “Help get those crates over here.”

Kostubh froze for an instant, still angry at the tongue-lashing from Chang Wu a moment earlier, but even that momentary pause was too long for Ran.

His ham-sized fist shot out, slamming into Kostubh’s chest near his shoulder and knocking him backwards. He barely managed to catch himself on a bale of Zeenar cotton.

“You struck—”

Ran grabbed him by his tunic, yanking back onto his feet again.

“You get over there and start helping or I’ll break your head in,” he said, and pushed him toward the pile of crates.

Kostubh took a quick look around. Everybody was still moving cargo, but their eyes were all watching him. And none of them looked like they wanted to get involved.

He was pretty good at fighting—Karadi had made sure that all his children knew how to fight—but Ran was very big, and Gitanshu had just told him to shut up.

Kostubh shut up and turned to help.

Another man was slowly shifting a heavy-looking crate toward the stern, and Kostubh took the other side, working with him to nudge it forward.

As his eyes adjusted to the relative dimness of the hold he recognized the characters inked down the side.

“Hey, this is crystal from Shiroora Shan!”

“Yeah, it is,” said the other under his breath.

“And if you break it Ran’ll take it outta your hide,” he continued after an unusually long pause. “If there’s any left after Chang gets through with you.

“You’re new, right? From Shiroora Shan?”

“Yeah. Uh, Kostubh of Shiroora Shan.”

“Robert of Zeenar.”

“You’re a pretty quiet guy, Robert.”

“I… I don’t make friends easily.”

“Hey, I’ll be your friend. First person that’s talked to me since I climbed onboard!

“I’ve been to Zeenar a couple times,” said Kostubh. “Usually just to Karida with my father, sometimes to Zeenar, once as far as Ebnon.”

“All the way to Ebnon!? Never been down that way… I hear it’s all swamp and leeches.”

“Nah, the Boorsh Fens are a pretty long ways from there,” chuckled Kostubh. “Never been there myself, but there’s no swamp around Ebnon, except maybe in the spring when the Tlun floods.”

“Yeah, we get runoff from the mountains in the spring, but rarely any flooding… the larger rivers are some ways away.

“Love the way the streets turn into canals in Karida, though! You been there in the spring?”

“Only once,” said Kostubh, shaking his head. “Pretty neat, huh?”

Robert laughed.

An hour later they were all done, and joined the rest of the caravan on the deck.

The ship set sail shortly thereafter. Kostubh and the others had little to do until they reached port in two days except eat, sleep, and gamble. People who had joined the caravan in Shiroora Shan hadn’t been paid yet, but since they would be paid when they reached Eudoxia they were able to gamble with promises, usually written ones.

Gitanshu was busy with Than Bulbuk most of the time, leaving Kostubh to fend for himself, and he quickly became a fixture in the various gambling schemes under way. He didn’t actually cheat, at least not that anyone ever saw, but somehow he kept winning more than seemed reasonable.

Ran, the big blond man who had been running the gambling operation since the caravan left Karida, quickly recognized Kostubh as a threat to his own success, and often dice or cards ended up with the two of them in a face-off. It never came to blows—not quite—but it was pretty clear that it would someday. And Ran was taller and heavier than Kostubh, by a significant margin.

Kostubh was pretty good at gambling, and knew an opportunity when he saw one. He gradually built up a coterie, loaning them money, paying off their gambling debts, or just defending them from Ran. Robert in particular was deep in debt to Ran, and Kostubh went out of his way to help him recoup his losses and then some.

The morning of the second day they docked at Eudoxia.

The port was enormous, and far, far older than Shiroora Shan’s recent growth. Eudoxia had been a major trading city on the Night Ocean for centuries while Shiroora Shan was still a tiny fishing village, and it showed.

The wharves were much larger than those of Kostubh’s home city, and the walls and minarets of Eudoxia dwarfed Shiroora Shan’s. More than the bustling wharf and the towering defenses, though, Kostubh was astonished at the sheer number of people… he’d thought the streets of Shiroora Shan were crowded, but this…! He’d never imagined so many people in one place!

They all spent the afternoon unloading all the crates and barrels and other cargo from the hold, and getting it moved to the wharf safely.

Than Bulbuk had arranged teams from his own warehouse to handle transport. A line of deino-drawn wagons stood along the wharf next to the ship waiting patiently for cargo to be loaded up. They were all marked with Than Bulbuk’s yellow ox-head symbol.

They’d unloaded the ship’s cargo onto wood platforms standing along the wharf, built to about the same height as the wagon beds, and thanks to rollers on the platform and in the wagons, it was fairly quick and simple to move everything.

The last wagon rolled out in less than half an hour.

Kostubh walked, of course, with the rest of the workers.

Gitanshu and a few other managing the caravan had gone on ahead, so Kostubh just followed everyone else, listening and learning.

He already knew a few names and faces, but there were about a dozen workers, men and women, most a little older than he. Most of them had been hired for one portion of the trip, usually to the next city on the route but sometimes longer distances. They’d all be paid off here in Eudoxia. Workers who had done well would be offered the same job on the next portion, probably through Thace to Despina. Workers who did exceptionally well might even be offered an apprenticeship: the first step to a career, and what most of the workers were hoping for.

Kostubh had little interest in becoming an apprentice trader… he was a Chabra, after all, and House Chabra already controlled much of the lucrative trade around the Night Ocean.

Suddenly someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

Ran.

“Hey, new boy! I see you slacking off again and I’ll beat you even sillier.”

Kostubh yanked his arm free and took a step backwards, opening up a little space between them.

He flexed his fingers, tensed his shoulders, and then lifted his fists to the fighting position.

“I’m not good at taking orders,” he spat, and glared at the larger man.

“Don’t fuck with me, boy!” snarled Ran, striking forward with a massive fist that smashed through Kostubh’s defenses and into his abdomen.

He staggered backwards in agony, but before he even had time to fall a second blow shot home into the side of his head and he collapsed onto the nearby wall.

Ran picked him up by his tunic and dragged his face up close.

“You hear me, boy?”

Groggy, Kostubh just tried to stop his head from spinning.

“I said, You hear me, boy?” repeated Ran, shaking Kostubh like a terrier with a rat.

“Yeah… Got it,” he whispered.

The hand let go and he dropped to all fours on the cobblestones.

As he caught his breath he watched the rest of them walk on.

Robert stayed behind, and helped him to his feet.

“You OK?”

“Yeah, I guess… thanks.”

“Don’t get in his way. He’s pulped a few of us already.”

Kostubh started to chuckle, then winced.

“I won’t… not again.”

They walked after the others, Kostubh still a little wobbly on his feet.

“So how come you’re working for Bulbuk?”

Kostubh shrugged.

“The usual… got tired of living at home. Time to go see the world!”

“Yeah, me too. Got tired of getting beat on by my old man.”

“So now you get beat up by Ran? That’s an improvement?”

“I don’t think Ran’ll be with us after Eudoxia. He’s got the muscles of an ox, but also the brains.”

Kostubh snorted.

“You going on after Eudoxia, Robert?”

“I hope so! I’ve been here for two years now, shouldn’t be any problem… might even get apprenticeship!”

“That fast? Thought it took longer.”

“Usually does, yeah. Hey, I can dream, right?

“What’re you signed up for?”

Kostubh hesitated. If he revealed he wasn’t a hired worker he’d probably be ostracized, and that’d make life pretty miserable. But it’d be strange to say he’d already been hired through Rinar. He was a new worker, after all, and it’d be unheard of to hire an unknown worker that far.

“Despina,” he said, picking the end of the coming land route as a good end-point. “The voyage from Shiroora Shan to here doesn’t count, after all.”

“You’ll like Despina,” said Robert. “Bulbuk went there last year, too.”

“Never been there.”

“Most of the buildings are white-washed brick, real thick walls to keep the heat out. Beautiful when the morning sun hits it, all pink and orange.”

“So what’s there besides white-washed houses?”

Robert shrugged.

“Nothing except trade routes, as far as I know. Rinar’s a hell of lot bigger when it comes to trade, but almost everything moving between the Night Ocean and the rest of the Dreamlands goes through there. The Cuppar-Nombo route doesn’t have enough oases along the way, and nobody cuts through the jungles between Dothur and Eudoxia.”

“You been to Dothur?”

“Nah. You?”

“Nope. Never been west of Eudoxia.”

“I’m not much on jungles,” mused Robert. “The steppes are best, green everywhere. Deserts are OK, I guess, but not by choice. And jungles? Uh-uh, no way.”

“No jungles up around Shiroora-Shan, just mountains and the Night Ocean, with the city squeezed in between.”

“Well, we’ll see some of the jungle on the way to Thace,” said Robert. “Hopefully from a distance, though.”

Kostubh glanced ahead to see the rest of the work crew standing in front of a white-walled compound. The yellow ox-head standard was flying over the gate.

Than Bulbuk’s home base.

Just as they joined the rest of the group, Loadmaster Chang Wu came walking out of the gate.

“Follow me to the wagons. Items with a red circle on them are unloaded here, and need to be moved into the warehouse. The warehouse team will show you where they go.

“Everything else has to be transferred to desert wagons.

“And it all has to be done carefully, you clods!”

“Yessir,” came the chorus of grumbles, and they moved as a group toward the wagons and the waiting warehouse.

A few hours later they were done—nobody had dropped anything—and Chang Wu stepped on onto a wagon to speak.

“OK, you can use that barracks over there,” he pointed, “and you can get a meal there. I’ll be by later to settle up payments, and arrange for the next leg of the journey.

“It’ll take a day or two before we’re ready to go, but as you know we’ll be traveling on to Despina mostly on camelback, with at least two, possibly three horse-drawn wagons. We’ll be using the Trade Road, of course, so unless we run into a sandstorm or something it should be a pretty quiet trip.”

The Trade Road—a whole network of roads, actually—ran from Eudoxia to Thace, then on to Despina and Dothur. The ancient stone-paved roadways had been built in the unknown past, and marked with time-weathered statues every few kilometers. The sands had worn away the statues until it was impossible to tell exactly what they had been, but people said they were lizardfolk, and the stumps of tails still remaining suggested the rumors were right.

Desert storms shifting dunes often buried the roads themselves, but usually the statues were tall enough to serve as landmarks. Unfortunately, sometimes the shifting sands also revealed new, unknown statues marking roads that led to where no-one knew. Other rumors told of caravans that had mistakenly taken the wrong roads, trusting the silent statues to show the way, and vanished forever.

Kostubh was familiar with them, of course, as they also ran from Adelma north to Nurl, and forbidden Irem.

The Ibizim were masters of the desert road network, and often served as guides for travelers on the Trade Road.

They made their way to the barracks. Some of them just grabbed mats and settled down for a nap, but most dropped their gear and headed toward the mess hall.

They’d have to start paying for meals as soon as their term was over, and that would be just as soon as Chang Wu got around to paying them for this last leg. For most of them, it was the journey from Karida to Eudoxia.

“Damn, finally some crowns!” said Robert. “As soon as I get paid I’m outta here.”

“I know some places with pretty good ale,” suggested Kostubh. “Been through here a few times.”

“Nah, any old ale’s fine with me. Time to go find a woman.”

Kostubh hesitated.

He’d been drinking, little by little, for a few years now, but he was still a virgin. Karadi hadn’t actually forbidden him, but his parents seemed to know everything that happened in Shiroora Shan, and when they were on the road somewhere the guards always kept pretty close.

He was interested, sure, but… a little scared, too.

“Mind if I keep you company? Wouldn’t mind a little companionship myself,” he said, trying to sound smooth.

“Hey, sure! Might blow your coin, though.”

“That’s OK. It’s too heavy to lug around all the time anyway,” he chuckled.

They loaded up on deino stew and rough black bread at the cafeteria, washed down with lukewarm tea, then lounged about until Chang got around to them.

“How much you getting paid?” asked Robert. “Just the trip from Shiroora Shan.”

Kostubh didn’t have a clue… he had his own money from gambling, and it had never occurred to him that he might be getting paid like everyone else. Or was he?

He decided to play it safe.

“Nothing, yet. I don’t get paid until we reach Despina.”

“You sure you’ve got enough for the girls?”

“I saved up special,” he smiled. “No worries.”

“Hey, Robert! Get your ass over here!”

It was Ran, shouting from the other end of the hall.

“Master Chang wants to see you!”

Robert flashed a grin at Kostubh and stood. It was a short walk to where Chang Wu was sitting, and while Kostbh couldn’t hear what they were saying, he could see Chang handing Robert a bag of money.

Robert bowed and came walking back, tucking the bag into his wallet with a smile on his face.

“Got a bonus, too… Gonna have some fun tonight!”

Ran shouted for the next person, and eventually Kostubh heard his own name.

Chang Wu cocked his head and looked up at Kostubh standing in front of him.

“Master Bulbuk says I shouldn’t pay you. You OK with that?”

“Yeah, whatever… It’d look bad to pay me so soon anyway.”

“You’re right about that,” nodded the seated man. “Anyway, you’re with us to Despina. You work like everyone else, you’ll get paid like everyone else.”

“Yup.”

“You know why Master Bulbuk agreed to let you join us?”

“My father told me he once saved Master Bulbuk’s life.”

“That’s right. A long time ago, in Karida. This is partial payment on that debt.

“That doesn’t mean you can lounge about, though… He said to treat you just like one of the regulars, and that’s what I’m going to do. Screw up and I’ll leave you by the side of the road, debt or no debt.”

“Sure, no problem, Chang. I’ll be hap—”

“That’s Master Chang to you, Kostubh. And you won’t be anything, kid, except a good worker, or you’re out on your ass, that clear?”

Kostubh gritted his teeth and managed to stay silent.

He nodded, turned, and walked back to where Robert was waiting.

“Looks like you and Chang have a little problem there.”

“Ah, fuck Chang. Let’s get outta here,” he said, and spat on the ground. “Hang on for a sec, I gotta go bum some cash. Be right back!”

He left Robert waiting and walked into the office to find his brother, who was checking a cargo list with one of Than Bulbuk’s cargo handlers.

“Hey, Gitanshu. You gotta sec?”

Gitanshu slammed his hand on the tabletop and spun around, stepping toward Kostubh.

“That’s Master Gitanshu to you. And what are you doing wandering around in here anyway?”

“I… Wow, what’s the big deal?”

“Leave. Now,” said his brother, pointing at the door in fury. He turned to the other man. “I’ll be right back. Let me get rid of this insolent child.”

Kostubh started to protest, but Gitanshu grabbed him by the arm and manhandled him to the doorway. “Silence! Not one more word.”

He pushed Kostubh out of the door, and stepped out next to him.

“What the hell is wrong with you!? I told you you’d be treated like everyone else. People find out I’m your brother and we’ll both be in trouble. Now get out of here.”

“Gimme some cash and I won’t bug you again,” said Kostubh. “I don’t get paid until Despina.”

“You’d better grow up fast, Kostubh. House Chabra doesn’t mean shit out here,” warned Gitanshu, but handed him a handful of coins. “Next time, it’s Master Gitanshu, and don’t forget it!”

He gave Kostubh another shove toward the compound gate and turned back to his work.

Robert was still waiting.

It was already starting to get dark. They were both a little tired from moving all the cargo around—once off the boat, and then again off the wagons—and just having eaten, but the thrill of getting out for a night of fun was more important than a nap.

“Where to?”

“The sailors were gossiping about a place called Lili’s,” said Robert. “There’s some Zarite girl there that drives you wild. C’mon, let’s go!”

Awestruck by Robert’s familiarity with women, Kostubh nodded and followed.

Seen from the street, Lili’s was the usual white-washed, mud brick building, with a dimly lit tavern on the first floor and smaller rooms upstairs. It was about half full, and Kostubh noticed half a dozen women along the stairs wearing revealing clothing. In one case, very close to nothing at all.

A very large red-haired man stood at the bottom of the stairway, twin daggers at his belt.

“One crown,” he said, holding his hand out to Kostubh, who slapped the coin down without hesitation and pushed Robert up the stairway.

He stopped and looked back at Kostubh to see if he was coming up, too, but Kostubh just laughed.

A woman with long blond hair, maybe from Lomar, stood to greet Robert, and took his hand in hers. She didn’t have to guide him: he dropped his hand to her ass and practically pushed her up the stairs.

He glanced back one last time.

“You coming, Kostubh?”

“In a bit,” he called. “Ale first.”

Kostubh watched his friend vanish into the second floor, and stood for a moment, hand on his wallet, lost in thought. He started to pull a second crown out, then changed his mind and turned toward the counter.

He took a step forward, stopped for a moment and glanced upstairs, then stepped up to the counter.

“Got any Zeenar pale ale?”

The man behind the counter laughed.

“Well, well, well, the little prince, huh? We got ale, and we got wine, and we got some Shang jitsu about, but we ain’t got any Zeenar pale ale.”

“Uh, ale, then.”

A mug-full of warm ale slapped down on the counter.

“That’ll be a copper.”

Kostubh slid a laurel across the countertop, to be snapped up by the other.

He took a sip and frowned.

It wasn’t very good ale

Robert had already vanished upstairs, and he didn’t recognize anyone in the tavern.

“Buy me a drink, too, would ya?”

He turned at the woman’s voice to see a dark-eyed woman with reddish-brown hair, only a few years older than himself. She was dressed in a simple but very low-cut tunic, with a triple strand of blue beads around her neck.

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

He turned back to order another ale, but the barkeep was already there, slapping a second mug of something in front of her.

The barkeep held out his hand and Kostubh dropped another copper into it.

She took a sip and placed it back on the countertop.

“Where you from? Somewhere east, I bet.”

“Shiroora Shan,” he answered. “Came over on a caravan.”

“Oh, so you just got in!” she said, smiling and placing one hand lightly on his thigh. “First night, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You all alone?”

“For now. My buddy’s upstairs.”

“Oh, you poor man,” she sympathized. “This is your first visit, isn’t it?”

He nodded, blushing.

“A handsome man like you! I’ll take good care of you, don’t worry—a night you’ll never forget. Why don’t we go upstairs and get more comfortable?”

She wrapped herself around him, practically dragged him toward the staircase, her breasts rubbing against his chest.

“It’ll cost you a crown,” she said, “but I’m worth it, you’ll see.”

He eagerly pulled a handful of coins from his wallet, picked one crown out and pressed it into her hand.

“There’s more ale upstairs,” she whispered, eyeing the heft of his wallet. “On the house.”

Her hand slipped a little on his thigh, touching him briefly.

“Oh, my, you just can’t wait, can you?”

The room was smaller than the bath he’d used at House Chabra, barely big enough for a sleeping mat and a low shelf with a bottle, some cups, and a wad of thagweed.

She broke off some of the thagweed, crumbling it in her fingers into the cup, then poured the liquid over it. Whatever it was, it was mostly alcohol, he thought. He could smell it from where he was sitting.

“Just drink it down like a good boy,” she smiled, “and let me get ready.”

He’d tried thagweed a couple times and absolutely hated the taste, but he loved the way his senses expanded… and the sight of her naked body excited him so much he didn’t even notice the taste.

Her hand moved up under his tunic and he froze as it grasped his cock and began to stroke it, then hesitantly reached out to touch her breast.

Already he could feel the thagweed taking effect, accelerated by the alcohol, his senses expanding. He could smell her body, her heat, hear her pulse even over the pounding of his own heart, feel the smoothness of her skin and the tiny bumps around her nipples.

He groaned at the sensory overload and leaned forward to take a nipple into his mouth. He tongued it, back and forth, feeling it slowly grow harder, and felt the soft, comforting darkness closing in. He was so sleepy…

* * *

“Get up, you drunken lout!”

The shout was accompanied by a painful whack to his ass with a broom.

He tried to open his eyes, blinded by the sunlight.

A second whack woke him up completely, and he got a better look at where he was—lying in a filthy alley surrounded by garbage, face flush against the slimy cobblestones.

A pair of large sandals was in front of his nose, connected to a pair of stocky, quite muscular legs.

“Up, boy!”

He scrambled to his feet before a third whack could find its target.

He had a splitting headache, and his mouth tasted like camel shit.

He swayed for a second, caught himself, looked at the woman holding the broom.

In her fifties, he guessed. Dumpy, tired, dressed in well-worn clothes, broom and bucket in hand.

“Where—?”

“So drunk you can’t remember where you are, young man? Not my problem,” she scolded, sweeping garbage to the side and dragging the broom over his bare feet in the process. “Off with you now, or I’ll throw you out with the rest of the trash.”

He tried to remember what had happened. Lili’s place, right. With Robert. He looked around, and spotted a leg sticking out from behind a nearby pile of stones.

He took a step and noticed he only had one sandal…. no sign of the other one.

He gave up and stumbled over to see who was lying there.

It was Robert, snoring like a baby.

He slapped him lightly a few times until finally one eye opened and he sat up, groaning.

“What the fu… where are we?”

“I think we’re in the back alley behind Lili’s,” said Kostubh.

Robert hurriedly checked his waist, then twisted to his knees to look around.

“Shit. My wallet’s gone. That’s all I had, until we get to Despina.”

Kostubh grabbed for his own wallet—it was gone.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” screamed Kostubh, kicking the innocent pile of stones. “I’ll fucking kill those bitches!”

“No swords, either,” pointed out Robert. “Let’s get back to Bulbuk’s place; I want to wash up.”

Kostubh picked up a handy length of wood and tested it against his hand.

“Don’t need a sword,” he snarled. “Which one of these is Lili’s?”

“Leave it, Kostubh,” warned Robert, one hand on the piece of wood and the other on Kostubh’s shoulder. “You don’t have a chance.”

Kostubh shook him off and stomped down the alley into one of the larger streets. He looked around to catch his bearings, then stalked toward the entrance to Lili’s, with Robert close behind.

The door was shut, of course, this early in the morning, but he hammered on it with his fist anyway.

“Open up, you bastards! I want my fucking money back!”

The door suddenly open, outwards, knocking him off balance for a minute, and as he staggered backwards a large man—the same redhead who’d been guarding the staircase last night—stepped out, his sword pointed at Kostubh’s throat.

“I dunno who you are, don’ care. Go away or I’ll spit you like a pig.”

“You rolled me—us—and stole our money, you thief!”

“I didn’ steal nothin’. Now git the fuck away from here, boy!”

He prodded Kostubh with his sword for emphasis.

Unarmed, Kotsubh let Robert pull him away.

“I told you to forget it, Kostubh! Leave it be!”

“Sons of bitches! I’ll be back to settle up with you later!”

He kicked out at a passing dog in anger, but missed and got a flash of bared teeth for his trouble.

In spite of looking and smelling like they crawled from some sewer, the guard at Than Bulbuk’s compound grudgingly let them back in.

* * *

Everyone else laughed at the whole thing; some of them had their own experiences to share. Robert and Kostubh—especially Kostubh—hated being needled about it.

Robert didn’t seem very upset at losing his money and his sword, but Kostubh seethed.

It was pretty much forgotten the next day, of course, as they were all busy getting the cargo packed and ready for the next leg of the trip. Most of the crystal from Shiroora Shan and the Gondaran paper and silk was destined for Rinar, where it would be split into shipments to the other three major sea-trade hubs of Dylath-Leen, Celephaïs, and Pungar-Vees, with some distributed to the cities that Rinar served directly. Than Bulbuk wouldn’t be involved in any of those transactions, selling the entirety of his wares to other traders—and a few merchants—in Rinar.

Chóng Lán of Penglai had been pressing him for years for an exclusive arrangement while simultaneously trying to set up his own parallel network, but so far Than Bulbuk had managed to preserve both his independence and his profits.

Once he’d sold his goods in Rinar he’d purchase goods heading in the other direction, eastward back toward Eudoxia, Shiroora Shan, and the cities of the steppes beyond the Night Ocean. He hoped to pick up some of the fragrant resins and perfumes of Oriab, fine porcelain from Baharna, hopefully some of the iridescent fabrics of Hatheg, and maybe even some spider-silk from Moung. He’d carry more common goods as well: Ulthar wool, copper ingot and worked brass from Aphorat, Kadatheron cork, apples from Sinara and Jaren.

Finally Chang Wu, the loadmaster, said everything was ready, and they’d be leaving at first light.

“I’ll need you awake and alert tomorrow, so if there’s anything you need to do in Eudoxia get it done and get rested up. Anyone sleeping on the road will be walking back.”

There was a rumble of conversation from the crowd, and they broke up into smaller groups, some people breaking off alone.

“Let’s go get our money back,” said Kostubh, grabbing Robert by the shoulder. “Bastards!”

“That guy at the door looks a lot stronger than me.”

“Yeah, well, fuck him. There’s two of us, right?”

Robert shook his head.

“Sorry, Kostubh, I’m out. It’s not worth getting killed over.”

“Well then fuck you too!” snarled Kostubh, shoving Robert away and stomping off toward the gate. “I’m going, with or without you.”

Robert hesitated as Kostubh stalked through the gate and started down the road, then cursed and ran after him.

“I still think it’s a stupid idea and it’ll get us killed, you asshole. Let it go!”

Kostubh was silent, fingering the newly borrowed sword hanging at his side.

“At least wait until it’s dark!”

Kostubh’s footsteps slowed.

“That’s not a bad idea, actually… Let’s grab some eats first; it’ll be dark soon enough.”

They headed toward the market, packed with people of all sorts buying and selling almost everything under the sun, and all of it at the top of their lungs.

Kostubh picked out a small stand selling po, the steamed buns of the Ibizim. They were stuffed with a variety of spicy meat and vegetables.

“That’ll be a copper apiece, lads,” said the cook as he put pulled a leaf from the pile and dropped two steaming po onto it.

“Here,” said Kostubh, handing over some coins. “Make it four; we’re hungry.”

The cook glanced at the coins.

“This is only three laurels…”

“Yeah, three coppers is enough. Or we can go somewhere else,” sniffed Kostubh, holding out a hand for the leaf. “Put the other two on another leaf for my friend here.”

The cook hesitated for a moment, then silently pulled out another leaf and dropped two more buns on it, handing it to Robert.

They walked through the market as they ate, eyeing the enormous variety of goods and food on display.

“It’s only another copper, Kostubh…” said Robert quietly. “Why not just pay the man?”

“Ah, fuck ’im,” said Kostubh around a mouthful of hot bun. “He’s just a peasant.”

He turned to look at Robert more closely.

“You’re not serious, are you? You can’t go around paying these people what they ask for! You can always drop the price. Or say you found a dead rat in it!”

He laughed at his own jest, missing the twitch of disgust that flashed across Robert’s face.

“No, of course not,…” he agreed. “Just peasants, after all.”

Kostubh nodded his head several times in agreement as he wiped his hands on his tunic.

“Go over there are shout you saw a snake,” he said, pointing to a nearby stall.

“A snake…? What…?”

“Just do it, Robert,” said Kostubh, giving him a shove. “Sound scared!”

The other man shrugged and walked over to where Kostubh had pointed, looking at the fresh turnips displayed by a farmer in passing.

“Pulled ’em this mornin’,” he said, waving a leafy bundle with clods of dirt falling off.

Robert shook his head, holding up one hand to stop the man’s spiel, and kept walking as directed toward a small wagon selling some sort of reddish pottery.

He bent forward a little as if to get a better look, and then leapt backwards to fall on his ass, screaming “A viper! There’s a viper! Right there!”

Everyone who could hear him jumped one way or another, some trying to run away and some hoping to kill the snake. The market was so noisy that his screams only carried a few meters, but it was enough to cause a sudden squall of excitement.

Robert quickly backpedaled from the pottery seller’s wagon, catching up to Kostubh as he was walking away from the scene.

“Hey, what was all that about?”

Kostubh pulled him around a stack of carpets, out of sight of the rapidly cooling viper scare, and handed him an apple.

“There you are,” he said proudly, and took a second one from his wallet. “Compliments of that fruit cart just now.”

“Wait, you had me scream ‘snake’ just to rip off a couple apples?”

“Yeah,” said Kostubh, taking another bite. “Good ones, too!”

“You’re gonna get the Guard after us,” moaned Robert.

“Nah, fuck ’em all. They should thank me for eating their crap.”

Robert stared at the beautiful, red apple in his hand for a moment, then took a bite.

“Good, huh?”

“Yeah, good,” he agreed, and took another.

They wandered through the marketplace for another hour or so, just wasting time until it was dark. Once, Robert said he wished he had more money, looking wistfully at an engraved steel dagger, Kostubh found a way to steal it out from under the eyes of the shopkeeper, and pulled it out of his tunic later to a flabbergasted Robert.

“Here, you said you really liked this.”

“You got it for… wait a minute. You stole it for me?”

“Nah,” said Kostubh with a wave of his hand. “The shopkeeper gave it to me because I’m a Chabra. Keep it!”

Robert hefted it a few times, and practiced a stab.

“Have to get a decent sheath for it, too,” he said, grinning. “Thanks!”

“Sure,” said Kostubh, looking up at the sky. “It’s pretty dark… let’s head over there and see, huh?”

They both remembered where Lili’s was, and a short time later stood in the shadows across the road, watching the entrance.

The same red-haired guard stood there, making sure that only paying customers got in. He was big, armed, and obviously quite capable of using that sword if he had to.

“So what’re you gonna do? Just walk over there and stab him?”

“Doesn’t look like much to me,” sniffed Kostubh. “I don’t want to get my tunic dirty, though.

“Nah, this is a whole lot easier.”

He reached up and removed two of the oil lanterns hanging from a nearby street stall, and shook them once or twice, listening to see how much oil was inside.

“Oh, yeah, this’ll do nicely,” he smiled, and looked across the road, judging the distance.

“Kostubh! No!”

He stretched his arm out and whipped it forward, launching the lantern across the road and through Lili’s window. There was the sound of breaking glass and then a muffled whump as the spilled oil ignited. The second lantern followed almost immediately.

“Fire! Fire!”

“Quick, get water!”

“It’s spreading to the curtain!”

The guard at the front door half-drew his sword and glared in their direction, but at the screams he stopped and slammed the sword back into its sheath. With a curse he grabbed a nearby bucket and raced toward the nearest well, some hundred meters down the road.

“Kostubh of Shiroora-Shan, you’re a dead man!” he shouted as he ran.

“What the hell, Kostubh? You out of your mind?”

“Fuckers stole my money, that’s what they get,” snarled Kostubh, turning away from the spreading conflagration behind him and walking back the way they’d come. “I hope the whole place burns down, and that bitch with it!”

Robert stared at him, aghast, then glanced back at the black silhouettes struggling to contain the flames. Kostubh kept walking, though, and Robert trotted after him, away from the blaze and into the darkness.

“Kostubh, they won’t let us back into the compound this late… and the city guard’ll be after us soon enough. What’re we gonna do?”

Kostubh halted and turned to face him, the whites of his eyes pale in the night.

“Of course they’ll let us in! I’m a Chabra!”

“You’re a fucking idiot! You just set fire to that place, maybe killed some people, and the whole guard’ll be looking for you, Kostubh of Shiroora-Shan. And me. And the first place they’ll look’ll be Bulbuk’s compound.

“You can’t go doing all this shit and expect to get away with it because you’re a fuckin’ Chabra! That doesn’t mean a damn thing here! They catch us, they’ll chop our damn heads off!”

“They’d never kill me, son of Karadi Chabra of Shiroora-Shan.”

Robert grabbed the other man by the shoulders and shook him, hard.

“Listen to me, you idiot! Chabra doesn’t mean shit here! They.Will.Kill.Us.”

Kostubh stilled, shuffled his feet, spat once, looked up at the few stars visible between the overhanging roofs.

“You’re serious…”

“Yeah I’m serious!” said Robert. “We can’t go back to Bulbuk—he’d turn us over to the guard himself. And if we stay here they’ll catch us sooner or later. Probably sooner, because they know the city and we don’t have anywhere to go. We’re fucking dead, Kostubh!”

There was silence for a moment, then the faint sound of a crying baby from somewhere nearby.

“C’mon, this way,” said Kostubh suddenly, tapping Robert on the shoulder and heading for the compound.

“We can’t…”

“Yeah, we can. Shut up.”

When they reached the compound, the guards refused to let them in, just as Robert had warned.

“Call Master Gitanshu,” asked Kostubh. “It’s urgent.”

“I’m not going to go bother Master Gitanshu for a couple drunks!”

“Maybe this’ll make it easier,” said Kostubh, handing over what was left of the money he got from his brother.

The guard weighed it, sniffed, hitched up his sword belt, and turned to hand some of the coins to the other guard.

“Keep an eye on these two, will ‘ya? And if they’re fuckin’ with us we can take it outta their hides.”

The other guard nodded, hand on the pommel of his sword.

Gitanshu showed up only a few minutes later.

“What is it now, Kostubh? I have better things to do than babysit you!”

“Sorry, but I’ve—we’ve—got a little problem,” explained Kostubh, leading his brother away from the ears of the waiting guard. “There’s been a misunderstanding and the city guard’ll probably be here looking for us later.”

“If you’ve done anything to hurt Master Than Bulbuk I’ll hand you over myself!”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. Strictly a misunderstanding, but one that would take time to clear up. Rather than getting into a complicated argument with the guard, possibly delaying departure tomorrow, it might be easier to just hide us until we’re out of Eudoxia.”

“And then what? They’ll figure it out, Kostubh, and come after you.”

“And then we’ll leave the caravan in Thace, or Despina, and it’ll be as if we were never there.”

“Everywhere we go I have to clean up after you!” raged Gitanshu. “This is the last time! Come with me and I’ll find a way to get you out of the city, but I want you out of this caravan in Thace! Got it?”

“Of course, brother, no problem at all,” smiled Kostubh, and winked at Robert. “We’ll leave long before the guard might cause any problem.”

Gitanshu spit and cursed under his breath.

“You two leave now. Make sure the guards see you leaving. Go around to the mill entrance, on the east side, and I’ll let you in there. And don’t screw it up!”

“Thanks, Gitanshu. I knew I could count on you.”

“Fuck you, Kostubh. And you—what’s your name?”

“Robert, Master Gitanshu. Thank you for helping us out.”

“I don’t know how he roped you into this, but you’re his now. And I want you gone with him.”

Gitanshu stomped back to the guard cursing, and then turned back to the two waiting men.

“No, I won’t let you in, you drunkards! Now get out of here before I call the city guard myself!”

He stopped next the guard and clapped him on the shoulder.

“They won’t be back, because they don’t work for Master Than Bulbuk anymore. If they try to get in you should spit them like any other thief.”

The guard grinned and nodded.

“Yessir, sorry to have bothered you, sir. They won’t be gettin’ in.”

“Good man,” said Gitanshu, nodding sharply and striding back into the compound.

The guard glared at Kostubh and Robert, who slunk back into the darkness.

* * *

Early that afternoon Kostubh woke up suddenly when the camel stopped. He’d been banging around in the wicker basket for hours, strapped to the side of one of the cargo camels, and had fallen into a sort of half-sleep, half-delirium state due to the heat.

“Kostubh!”

He recognized the whisper, of course. It was Gitanshu.

“Kostubh? You OK in there?”

He groaned and tried to force words out of his parched mouth.

“Awa….. wa… wa–ter…”

The basket hasp opened and his brother’s silhouette looked down at him through the blinding sunlight. Through the tears he saw a huge black hand descending, and instinctively shied away, holding up one hand in defense.

The waterskin hit his hand and he sighed at the incredible delight of the cool water inside.

He grabbed it from Gitanshu’s hand and drank ferociously, spilling a good bit in the process.

“Keep it,” said his brother. “Give me the old one and I’ll fill it up again for you.”

“Aahhhh…”

Kostubh finally pulled the waterskin from his mouth, sated.

He breathed for a moment, enjoying the freedom of the open basket, and licked his lips.

“I thought you were trying to kill me, Gitanshu! Locked up in there, banging about like a damned potato. A well-baked damned potato!”

Gitanshu shrugged.

“No other way to get you out of Eudoxia. You know that. They stopped and questioned us, you know, looking for you. You and Robert. Master Than Bulbuk is furious, but said he owed father that much.”

“How about some food, too?”

“I’ll see if I can sneak something to you. If you need to take a piss, better get it done now—I’ve blocked off the view from the caravan, so you can get out of there for a few minutes.”

Kostubh managed to drag himself out of the basket, collapsing onto the ground in a heap as his legs gave out from under him. Robert joined him momentarily.

Robert just sat on the sand massaging his legs with one hand and drinking with the other.

“Kostubh, we’ve had it with you. I begged Master Than Bulbuk to look the other way this time, but you’ve repaid his trust terribly, blackened your name forever. And his name, and my name, and even our father’s name.”

Kostubh shrugged and jumped up and down experimentally.

“Like I said just a misunderstanding. We’re out of the city and nobody saw us, right? So no harm done, I’d say.”

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding, you maniac! You burned down three buildings and they say one person died in the blaze! That’s not a misunderstanding, and if you ever go back to Eudoxia they’ll spike your head on the city wall.”

“So I won’t go back to Eudoxia. Plenty of other places to go.”

“It’ll take about another five or six days to reach Thace,” said Gitanshu, “but Master Than Bulbuk wants you gone tonight. I’ll give you two horses when we make camp.

“He’s already sent a dragolet to father with a complete explanation and refuses to reconsider.”

“Two horses, huh?” asked Kostubh, looking interested for the first time. “And supplies?”

“Yes, of course with supplies. If I wanted you dead all I had to do was hand you over to the guard,” said Gitanshu in exasperation. “We’re still in the foothills of the Hills of Noor, not the desert, so you shouldn’t have much difficulty.”

“I’ll be gone, then, assuming I survive this torture until nightfall,” said Kostubh, nodding.

“What about you, Master Robert?”

Robert looked up suddenly, not expecting to be addressed.

“Uh… I’ll go along with him, Master Gitanshu, thank you.”

“So both you, then. Two horses, supplies, arms… I’ll have it ready to go.”

“Thanks, Gitanshu,” smiled Kostubh. “I knew I could count on you.”

“I’m not helping you because I want to, Kostubh. You’re dangerous and I want you gone before you ruin Master Than Bulbuk and me with him!”

“Yeah, whatever. I love you too, Gitanshu.

“Just give us the word and we’ll be gone.”

As Gitanshu stomped off fuming, Kostubh looked around at the caravan.

They were stopped for lunch and a rest, heading north at the foot of the Hills of Noor.. The mountains shielded them from the morning sun, and runoff usually meant there was sparse groundcover for much of the way. A few days from now the trail would turn west, away from the Hills of Noor—a mountain range, in spite of the name—and toward Thace, into the desert proper.

Except for a few people tending to their animals—the caravan had both horses and camels, but of course no deinos on the desert road—and a group of three cursing men trying to repair a bent cartwheel, everyone was eating or lounging. Sunshades and a few shimmers were up, keeping the heat down to a reasonable level.

They stayed hidden, knowing that any of the caravan crew would betray them to the city guard without a moment’s hesitation. They were half a day’s ride from Eudoxia, but there was no way of telling where the guard might be.

They’d just have to suffer in silence until nightfall.

Gitanshu was back in a few minutes with a pot of warm, spicy beans and a stack of bread to eat it with.

“Can’t even bring us an ale to go with it?”

“Drink your water and be happy I got you this much,” said Gitanshu sourly. “And make sure you’re back in your baskets as soon as you hear everyone start to gear up for the afternoon ride.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Kostubh through a mouthful of bread. “Don’t worry, we won’t embarrass you.”

“You already did that quite adequately,” said Gitanshu.

They climbed back into their reed prisons about half an hour later as the caravan began preparing to set out once again, and a few minutes Gitanshu dropped by to make sure the baskets were securely fastened, and their hidden occupants invisible.

“Enjoy your ride!” he whispered gayly, rapping on Kostubh’s basket.

“Fuck you.”

* * *

That night they finally took their leave of Than Bulbuk’s caravan, thanks to Gitanshu. He’d wheedled the trader into providing two horses (not the finest steeds, true, but certainly an improvement over walking) and a modest amount of supplies.

Than Bulbuk refused to even meet them, so that he could continue to truthfully say that he had not seen them in his caravan.

Gitanshu was quietly furious and while he didn’t discuss what the whole situation had cost him in terms of Than Bulbuk’s trust or possibly even gold, there was little doubt that Kostubh had used up his welcome.

They slowly rode away from the caravan’s night camp, east deeper into the mountains, and by dawn should be well on their way.

Kostubh suddenly slowed his pace and guided the horse over to a stand of trees. He dismounted, and tethered the horse to a tree hidden in the darkness.

“Watch the horses,” he ordered to Robert. “One last thing to do before we leave.”

“You’re not going back are you?”

Kostubh grinned.

“Don’t you worry about it. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone,” and slipped off into the night.

True to his word he was back in a little over an hour.

He untied the rope and climbed back up into the saddle grinning widely.

“What are you so happy about? What did you do?”

Kostubh held a large handful of coins out for Robert to see, and dropped them into his surprised hand.

“Where’d you get the money? You didn’t rob Master Than Bulbuk did you!?”

“Of course not. I just paid a little visit to our own friend Ran, and relieved him of some excess baggage. He was sleeping like a baby; didn’t notice a thing.

“In fact, since his wallet is now full of gravel instead of coins, he may not notice anything until they reach Thace and he tries to pay for something!”

Robert laughed, delighted. That took care of his own debt to Ran, too, he realized.

“As far as anyone knows we left the caravan in Eudoxia, so he’ll no doubt make life difficult for everyone else, trying to figure out who stole his money. Poor fools.”

“He deserves it. Hell, he deserves a lot more than that, the way he treated me,” agreed Kostubh. “And you, of course.”

Without waiting for Robert’s response he kicked his horse lightly and began to trot again in the wan light of the half-moon.

Robert hurried to catch up, settling his horse into position just behind him.

“Where are we going?”

“Well, we can’t go back to Eudoxia, and we can’t go to Thrace, at least not until Bulbuk leaves,” replied Kostubh. “I’m heading for the Oasis of Noor. Ever been there?”

“Noor? Nope. What’s there?”

“Once we get to the Oasis, we can take the route through the mountains to Nurl, hook up with a caravan heading north on either side of the Hills, or even turn west and head for Mnar.”

“Mnar? That’s where Sarnath is, right?”

“Yeah, the lake and Ib and all that. I don’t know how much of that is true, but might be a good idea to stay well away.”

“Hell yeah!”

They continued north, paralleling the Hills. In spite of the name, the Hills of Noor were only hills well to the south, where they sank into the Night Ocean. They grew in height northward into a major range. They were still well to the south—the Oasis roughly marked the halfway point in the range—but the mountains were already high enough that the horses would have been largely useless.

It was much easier to ride at the base of the mountains, with the Liranian Desert stretching off to the west on one side and the mountains to the east. There was plenty of grass for the horses to eat, watered by mountain streams, and since they weren’t in any particular hurry they could relax and take the easy route.

The easy route also meant rabbits and deer, and they finally reached the outskirts of the Oasis days later well fed and rested.

The Oasis of Noor was actually a small lake, fed by several streams running down out of the mountains. It had no known outlet, but standing as it did on the edge of the Liranian Desert there was no doubt that the dry sands drank every drop.

There was a route threading through the Hills of Noor, east, to Nurl. Horses and camels could use it safely, but it had a number of narrow sections that few wagons could pass. There was also a trade road connecting it to Thace to the south, and northward. The road north ran though the western bulge of the Hills and then into the desert to Tsol and beyond.

From Tsol there were numerous possibilities: they could travel farther west, through the Mohagger Mountains encircling the Lake of Sarnath, or continue northwest towards Tsun.

There were always caravans on the ancient trade roads through the desert, guided through the waste by the wind-worn statues standing silently every few kilometers.

The scrub dotting the flanks of the mountains gradually gave way to greener leaves and taller trees as they approached the Oasis. The greenery was a pleasant sight for eyes tired of endless sand and rock, and the horses appreciated the change to fresh green grass.

Kostubh was even whistling once in a while, obviously far less affected by their situation that Robert, who seemed quite worried that someone might be pursuing them. He looked over this shoulder often, and half-drew his sword at the slightest noise.

There was never a sign of any pursuit, though, even though they doubled back once just to see if there were any other tracks.

As the Oasis of Noor grew closer, though, even Kostubh began to think about what might be waiting there.

“We came here along the fastest road from Eudoxia,” he said, “and nobody passed us on the way. I don’t see why anyone should be waiting for us.”

“They could have used dragolets.”

“Sure, they could, but why would they? Even assuming they actually have a dragolet pair for the Oasis,” he countered. “Besides, if they look for us at all, they’ve already checked the caravan and didn’t find us. They have no reason to think we’re heading to Noor, or the desert.

“I figure the Boorsh Fen is where they’re looking. If they’re even looking at all.”

“Maybe,” Robert agreed grudgingly. “But…”

“Relax, everything’s fine. Just leave it up to me.”

Kostubh reined his horses to a halt and slid off.

“I’m gonna slip up ahead and see what the Oasis looks like. Don’t know much about it.”

“Me neither,” agreed Robert. “Let me go with you.”

“Nah, keep an eye on the horses, will ya? I won’t be back for a few hours.”

Kostubh handed his reins to Robert and adjusted his sword belt, then melted into the underbrush.

The Oasis of Noor was just ahead of them, at the base of the mountain’s slope. The bushes and trees were getting higher, but it was possible to see quite a bit from their vantage point.

What they could see consisted of open water, palm trees surrounded by lower vegetation, and a handful of buildings built variously of stone or wood. It was early morning, the sun still low over the Hills of Noor behind him. Shadows were long and dark.

Kostubh had been taught well by his father, master hunter Karadi, and moved silently through the brush. He moved closer to the main road, running into the Oasis from Thace to the south. Most trade from Thace traveled west, heading for Despina, but there was also considerable traffic from Thace to the Oasis, then west along the desert’s edge, trending gradually northwest, and beyond.

Kostubh was pretty sure that nobody from Eudoxia could have gotten here before them, but it wouldn’t hurt to watch the road for a bit and try to get a better idea of how busy—and dangerous—things were.

He picked a nice thick tangle of brush to hide in, right next to the main road where a tiny footpath ran off deeper into the mountains. In the shadows under the brush, he was effectively invisible.

About half an hour later a horse-drawn wagon piled with bales of hay plodded by. Kostubh figured it must be from some pasture nearby, brought here to feed the animals. And probably sell to people passing through. The fresh grass around the oasis was great while they were here, but once they left and entered the desert, grain or dried hay lasted a lot longer than fresh leaves.

A wagonload of hay was not much of a threat, though.

He yawned and kept waiting.

A few other innocuous people passed by in one direction or the other: traders, farmers, one Godsworn with acolytes, a few traveling alone for no apparent reason. All in all, though, perfectly normal.

The sun was high, around noon.

Just as he was thinking that he might as well go get Robert and ride into the Oasis, he heard clashing swords and shouts.

He twisted to the side so he could see better.

He could just see a small covered wagon, gaily carved and painted in brilliant colors. Looked like an itinerant Rom family, he thought to himself.

The main man of the family was dying messily in the dirt, screaming in agony as his guts spilled out. Two of his two attackers were now ganging up on a boy standing between them and the wagon. He was trying, but he was too inexperienced, and too weak… even as Kostubh watched, one of the robbers knocked the sword out of the boy’s hand with his own sword. The other robber took advantage of the opening to thrust deep into the boy’s side. The boy screamed and staggered sideways until a sword in the back toppled him.

Behind them another robber already had a youngish girl on the ground, enthusiastically pumping away as she screamed, and tried to push him away. He laughed at her screams and weak fists.

Two more were already climbing up the wagon, battering its wooden door open with their weapons. They finally chopped it open and eagerly tore it out of the way, crowding in, weapons drawn.

The wagon shook, more screams, and suddenly a woman leapt out of the wagon through the front, onto the driver’s bench, then down to the road, carrying something in her arms.

The two robbers scrambled out of the wagon after her, joined by the two who had just killed the boy.

She was running right toward him!

Kostubh couldn’t squirm backwards without raising a commotion, and he couldn’t win against four or five well-armed men, especially lying down. He moved his head to hide behind the leaves more effectively.

She was carrying a baby.

The woman saw the path off into the mountains, and ran toward it, her pursuer growing closer.

Bad luck again as she stumbled and fell, barely catching herself on her free hand as she protected her baby with the other.

Their eyes met.

She froze for the merest fraction of a second, entreating him to save her child. She knew she was doomed to rape, possibly slavery or more probably death.

But he could save her baby; her pursuers would leave it to die, or kill it outright.

After what felt like a decade time started ticking again, and she thrust the baby into the underbrush right in front of his nose.

She whispered a single word—Peanna—and yanked a branch down to hide them.

She was up and running again instantly, as if she had merely stumbled and caught herself, but Kostubh could still see her brown eyes beseeching him as she ran.

A moment later he heard more shouting, and a woman screaming, and laughter.

They’d caught her.

While they were busy with their prey, he had a chance to get away to safety.

But what to do with the baby?

He looked down at the child for the first time, and it—she—looked up at him, silent and still, huge eyes transfixing him.

“… Hansika…?”

Peanna, her mother had called her. She looked exactly like his little sister. Hansika was only fourteen, and the baby was older than he’d thought. Two, maybe? He didn’t really know much about babies or young children, as he was one of the youngest of the Chabra children and had never really had to babysit anyone.

But in spite of the age difference, the child looked just like Hansika. The same eyes, the same nose…

He couldn’t just leave her here to die.

But he didn’t know how to take care of a kid!

Still holding the silent child in his arms, he wriggled backwards away from the road until he could rise to a crouch, then left the area as quickly as he could.

Robert was right where he’d left him.

“We’re leaving,” he said in a low voice. “Right now, and stay quiet, on your life.”

Robert nodded and unhobbled his horse. He glanced at Kostubh and raised an eyebrow.

“Robbers. Now, quietly.”

They led their horses back up the slope, deeper into the mountains, away from the Oasis.

Kostubh carried Peanna in his arms all the way

* * *

The small fire lit the walls of the cave in red and orange, black shadows dancing as the flames leaped.

Pursuers, if there were any, might be able to spot the fire if they were close enough, but they were well off the road and the entrance to the cave was shielded by a convenient boulder, hiding the light.

The smoke would give them away in the day, Kostubh thought, even for such a small fire.

“So they’re all dead?”

“Probably,” mused Kostubh. “Or enslaved. The man and his son are dead for sure. I don’t know about the woman and the girl. They didn’t look like slavers to me, though.”

“Should we go back and check? You might be able to get rid of that kid.”

Kostubh frowned, and glanced down at Peanna, who was sleeping next to him. She had spent most of the day in his arms or clinging onto an arm or leg like a burr.

She was old enough to walk around and eat most things, it seemed—at least, she had no trouble eating their dried meat and fruit once he’d chewed it a bit—but she’d not made a sound yet. He figured she must be three or so, just small for her age. She didn’t need diapers—thank goodness!—and should be able to talk.

Was she a mute?

Simply terrified?

She didn’t seem scared of him, at least. She had hung onto him like a leech throughout dinner, which was a thin stew of day-old rabbit, beans, and a few leftover potatoes. He’d chewed the rabbit for her to soften it, and she’d managed a few small pieces, but mostly ate beans and potatoes.

He’d rocked her back and forth until she finally fell asleep.

“No. The mother knew she’d never see her daughter again, and made her choice.”

“So you’re going to raise her!?”

“I have to…” he murmured, half to himself as she smiled in her sleep.

“You don’t know anything about raising a child! And neither do I!”

“True enough, but I can’t just throw her to the wolves, can I?”

He turned back to Robert.

“We can’t go back to Eudoxia, or to Thace, and it looks like the Oasis might not be a good idea if people are getting slaughtered on the road… north, I guess, for now.”

Robert prodded the fire with a stick, watching the sparks fly.

“I wonder if I should go back… to Zeenar, I mean…”

Kostubh shook his head.

“C’mon, Robert, you just got out of a lifetime of humping crates and picking up deino shit. We’re free, free to go where we like, do what we like. You’d be an idiot to throw it all away!”

“But they’re after us! Eudoxia, I mean.”

“Who cares? They’re not gonna chase us, and I don’t care if I never see Eudoxia again. Big world out there, Robert, just waiting for me. Us.”

Peanna stirred, and Kostubh patted her softly back to sleep.

“Stick with me, Robert. There’re some great things coming, you’ll see.”

Robert smiled and let the stick fall into the fire. He stood and brushed the dirt off his tunic.

“I’m with you, Kostubh, wherever you go.”

Kostubh, still seated, reached up to wrist-shake him.

They gradually drifted north along the western edge of the Hills, traveling generally parallel to the trade road but not on it. There was not much traffic, and what little there was showed no interest in a distant pair of riders.

Peanna was still silent but had been crying quietly more often.

She’d been sucking on her fingers more, too… whatever children needed to eat, she wasn’t getting enough of it, realized Kostubh, but what did they eat? They caught some sweetfish, and she obviously liked their soft, white flesh far more than tough rabbit meat.

A few days later they approached Andersweald, a large, isolated stretch of woods along the boundary between mountain and desert. The road cut sharply west here toward the Mohaggers, across the desert, and most travelers spent a day or two here resting up before making the crossing.

There was no clear marker, but gradually the trees thinned and there were scattered fields, sometimes small shacks here and there. The hard-packed dirt road was unchanged, until they turned a corner and saw what awaited.

It was a huge gate, tree trunks roughly hewn into two columns on either side and one across the top horizontally. No guards, no walls, just a tree trunk across the road… and on top of the tree trunk was a row of spikes about half a dozen of which had heads on them.

“I guess they don’t like trespassers,” said Robert.

“No, I heard about this… those are robbers, murderers, and people like them. The heads are up there to tell us to be careful.”

“What do you mean, be careful?”

“Don’t rob or kill anyone, I guess…”

Robert snorted, and they rode on under the row of heads.

There was no water along the nest stage of their planned route, and while it only took two days it was good to be well rested and hydrated before starting. There were a few small homes here in Andersweald, farming and selling food to passing travelers, clumped together around a public well of unknown antiquity.

Kostubh sat Peanna down and let the bucket drop, watching the pulley spin and rattle until the splash sounded. It was a fairly small bucket, and easy to crank back up again.

He spilled the first three buckets into a basin for the horses to drink, and then started filling up their own waterskins. Peanna sat next to him, one arm wrapped around his leg for security, happily splashing one hand in the puddles.

One of the horses swung its head over to investigate, blowing wet mist over her in a loud whuff; she giggled and wiped her face.

“And where’s your mammy, little one?”

Kostubh turned to see a middle-aged woman approaching with a good-sized water keg, obviously to fetch her own water. Dressed in rough-spun wool and leather, she had a square jaw, ice-blue eyes, and twin braids of orange hair hanging down to her massive chest. She set the keg down with a hollow thump and squatted to talk to Peanna up close.

“My, you’re a happy little tyke, aren’t ya?”

She held out her finger and Peanna quickly latched on, pumping it up and down and giggling again.

“This your little girl?”

“Yup. Her name’s Peanna.”

“Where’s her mammy?”

“Dead. I’m all she’s got now.”

“Peanna! What a pretty name! Doesn’t talk much, does she?”

“Nope. She had a big shock when her ma died; still getting over it, I think.”

He squatted down and held his arms open, and Peanna jumped up and into them.

“Seems to like you well enough.”

He stood, carrying her easily in one arm.

“Like I said, I’m all she’s got.”

“You look pretty young to take care of a young ’un,…” she continued.

“No, it’s fine, really, I’m fine…”

She stood up herself and picked up the bucket to draw her own water.

“You just wait right there, young man. This child is starving. You’re coming with me and I’m gonna feed you both, teach you a few things you need to know. This poor child needs a mother.”

Kostubh hesitated. He didn’t want to stay in one place very long if he could help it, not with Eudoxia still nearby, but he knew he was out of his depth.

“I’m Clara,” she said, hinting.

“Um…Kosta. Of Ebnon.”

“Well, Umkosta of Ebnon,” she said, pouring a bucketful into her keg, “you got any baggage other than what’s on them horses?”

“The other horse belongs to my friend, Robe… Robb. Robb of Ebnon.”

Robert was off buying some food and should be back shortly.

“Are you sure it’s alright?” he asked. “We’re fine in the woods.”

“You may be fine, young man, but did you happen to notice Peanna is a little girl? With filthy face, torn tunic, and broken sandal strap? You go get your friend Robb and come see me. That house right over there,” she commanded, pointing to a sod-roofed structure half hidden in the trees. “You get lost just ask for Clara.”

She poured another bucketful into her keg and dropped bucket back in again.

“Ebnon, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Never been there,” she continued. “Hear it’s all swamp and pirates.”

“Nah, the Boorsh Fens are way west of the city, and the pirates even farther.”

She poured one last bucket-full, then set it down next to the well and squatted. With a grunt she hefted the heavy keg up onto her shoulder, grunted again as she shifted it a bit, rose slowly, and walked off.

Kostubh noticed for the first time how thick her arms were, and her legs, and the way she had easily hefted that keg up—it must weigh at least forty kilos, he figured.

“You bring Peanna by once you find Robb, you hear? Umkosta of Ebnon.”

“Yes, Mistress,” he responded automatically, and then stopped in amazement. Why did he unconsciously call her that, and feel like he had to obey?

It never occurred to him not to… she was just the sort of person one doesn’t ignore.

Robert came back shortly with some meat, cheese, and bread, and a jug of fresh goat milk for Peanna.

They walked over to sit under a shady tree and ate together as Kostubh filled Robert in on what had happened.

“Umkosta?”

“I didn’t want to tell her my name and was thinking… and once she started calling me Umkosta I was stuck,” shrugged Kotubh. “I mean, it’s not really a bad name…”

“Robb is fine with me,” said Robert. “A couple people used to call me that back in Zeenar. I hope she doesn’t start asking a lot of questions about Ebnon, though. I’ve never been there!”

“Yeah, I don’t know much about it either… I was only there briefly, years ago, with my father.”

Robert took a bite and looked at Kostubh curiously.

“You always call him your father, not your pa or anything…”

“Habit, I guess,” grinned Kostubh. “He was pretty strict about how to act in public. Mother was too.”

“What are you, some kinda noble of something?”

“Nah, nothing like that,” laughed Kostubh, hoping to change the subject. “Just strict parents. That’s all.

“Pass me that water, would ya?”

“Here you go, Umkosta.”

“Thanks, Robb.”

Peanna, silent as always, ate a little bread and cheese, washing it down with goat milk, and watched them with enormous brown eyes, rarely blinking.

She was sitting close to Kostubh, not actually touching, but close enough that she could grab hold of arm or leg in a second. She never strayed very far if she could help it, awake or even asleep.

“So, you gonna go?”

“To Clara’s place? Yeah, I think I have to.”

“Got the hots for her?”

“Idiot! She’s like my mother’s age,” snorted Kostubh. “But I don’t know how to take care of Peanna right.”

“Why not give her to Clara?”

Kostubh was silent for a moment.

“I don’t think I can do that,” he said finally. “Her mother entrusted her to me, and I accepted the responsibility. I can’t just hand her off like a cabbage.”

It was Robert’s turn to shrug.

“Whatever. She’s your problem. And if we get dinner out of this, I’m happy.”

“She’s our problem, Robb, as long as we’re together.”

“Yeah, OK.”

Kostubh felt a tug on his tunic.

“What is it, Peanna?”

She tugged again, toward the nearby shrubbery.

“You have to go to the bathroom?”

She nodded and stood waiting for him to stand and take her hand.

“Back in a minute, Robert. Robb.”

He “stood watch” while she squatted, and then they walked back to rejoin the other man.

Peanna didn’t stop there, though, but kept pulling on Kostubh’s hand.

“Where are we… Oh, you want to go see Mistress Clara now?”

Kostubh looked back at Robert.

“I guess we’re going now,” he said. “Gimme my pack, will ya?”

Robert climbed to his feet and snagged Kostubh’s pack with one hand.

“Hope she’s a good cook,” he said, and they led their horses toward the sod-roofed house.

* * *

There were few windows in Clara’s house, which was built half into a slight hill. The hill covered the back of the house, with the turf extending quite naturally onto the roof. A soot-blackened stone chimney broke through the grasses in one spot. The exposed walls were of logs, with mud packed into the cracks, and the weathered door, of thick-hewn boards, looked quite heavy.

“Whadda we do? Knock?”

Kostubh shrugged with one shoulder; his other arm was holding Peanna.

“I guess…”

He tentatively reached out to knock when a woman’s voice called from inside.

“Well, don’t just stand there! Hitch your horses up to the rail there, and come on in!”

The door slammed open, knocking Kostubh’s hand back, and Clara was there with a smile on her face.

“And there’s Peanna, my sweetie!”

She reached out and smoothly snatched the child from Kostubh’s arm, nestling her in one arm. She let the door go to wrap the other around Peanna, squeezing her tight.

“How are you, my little pumpkin? You boys get those horses done, you come right in, sit yourselves down at the table.”

She walked deeper into the house, leaving the two of them to finish up.

When they entered the dim house they could make out a wood table and chairs backlit by a low fire. Clara, Peanna still nestled in one arm, was stirring a pot of something hanging over the fire.

“Be right with you!” she called, and ladled something that smelled delicious into two waiting bowls.

She carried the tray over to where the boys were sitting and set it down. Along with the two bowls of stew the tray held half a loaf of dark bread.

“You get started on that stew, and I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she said, and left again.

They looked at each other in surprise and confusion, but the fragrance won and they began spooning up the stew in huge bites.

Clara was back in a few minutes with a pot of tea and a stack of cups, along with a slab of some bright yellow cheese, all of which she unceremoniously plunked down on the table.

“Help yourselves,” she said, and sat down in an empty chair.

She shifted Peanna from her arm onto the table, sitting with her legs dangling over the edge, and pulled a blue cloth from somewhere which she proceeded to wring out and use to wipe the girl’s face and hands.

“There, that’s better,” she said, cocking her head for a better look at the unusually clean Peanna. “You’re a right beauty, you are.”

She handed the girl a cup.

“Warm milk to get you started, child. And here’s boiled chicken with sesame, and some peas and carrots, and for dessert some grapes and melon. You eat as much as you like, Peanna.”

Clara held out a spoon, but Peanna ignored it, immediately grabbing the chicken with her fingers and cramming it into her mouth.

“My, your ma never taught you to use a spoon!?”

“I think she’s Rom, Mistress,” said Kostubh.

Clara glared at him from under her bushy eyebrows.

“You think? You don’t know?”

“Um, it’s sorta complicated…”

“Maybe you can just tell me the whole story, then,” said the woman as she reached behind her and pulled a set of chopsticks from a nearby shelf.

When Peanna saw the chopsticks she grabbed them at once. Kostubh noticed she didn’t stop chewing while she did, though.

Once she had the chopsticks and a bowl, she really dug in, scraping chicken, rice, and everything else into her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten for days.

Maybe she hadn’t, he realized.

So he told Clara what had happened to Peanna’s family, and why he had her now.

Before he had even finished, Peanna had fallen asleep, her head on her empty plate.

“Is it okay if she rests here for a bit, Mistress?”

“Of course. Let me lay out a mat.”

Kostubh wiped her face clean and laid her down on the sleeping mat, covering her with a light blanket.

Once she was sleeping peacefully, Kostubh continued his story.

“Well, that was quite the story,” she said finally. “I think that calls for some khoormog.”

“What’s khoormog?” asked Robert, who had been largely silent during dinner.

“Same thing as chal,” said Kostubh. “Fermented camel milk.”

“You’ve had chal, Master Umkosta?”

“My father gave me some when an Ibizim trader passed by once.”

“You liked it?”

“Yeah, I thought it was great. Why?”

She grabbed a small wood keg from the floor, and three glasses from the shelf. She filled all three with the milky-white liquid, and handed each of them a glass.

“To safe journeys,” she said, and slugged it down.

“To safe journeys,” they echoed, and raised their glasses.

Kostubh tried to drink it all at once and hurriedly spat half of it back into the glass, puffing out his cheeks and blowing hard.

“That’s… that’s not…” he gasped, “what I drank!”

Robert suspiciously took a very small sip and set his glass back on the tabletop.

Clara laughed, a rich, deep laugh that echoed throughout the room.

“This is the real stuff, Master Umkosta. Drink up!”

He scowled at his own glass and gingerly took another sip, grimaced, and yet another.

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” he said to Robert.

“I’m drinking mine at my own pace, thanks.”

“No hurry, Master Robb,” smiled Clara, then turned back to Kostubh. “Master Umkosta, thank you for sharing that story with me. I hoped that you would, because I’ve already heard much of it. The rest of Peanna’s family were killed, including her mother, and if they’d noticed Peanna they’d’ve killed her too.

“You certainly couldn’t fight them, but you could have run away and left Peanna to die. You didn’t. Now that you know she’s Rom, though, what are your intentions?”

“Uh, I hadn’t really thought about it,” he said slowly, turning the glass on the table. “They’re the same. I don’t care what she is, I couldn’t just leave her to die! And besides, I was bound to care for her, and I will. Be good if we could talk, though… can she talk?”

“Good answer, Master Umkosta, good answer,” nodded Clara. “Yes, I think she’ll start talking again once she recovers a bit. She probably saw her family murdered, and even if she didn’t she’s been ripped from it and entrusted to a total stranger.

“You don’t speak Rom, she doesn’t speak common, but you’re the only thing she has left to hang on to. With time she’ll certainly pick up common. Or whatever you speak to her in. Is it common?”

“Yes,” he said simply, not wanting to reveal that he only knew a few words in Tlungi, the language of Ebnon and most of Tlun. “Too many languages I’d have to speak otherwise.”

“Hah,” she laughed. “You should hear the mix we get around here!”

She poured herself another shot of khoormog and lifted the keg in invitation. Kostubh hurriedly waved his hand to decline, and Robert just shook his head, his hand covering his barely touched glass.

“I’ve had enough, thanks,” said Kostubh. “We need to get off to an early start tomorrow, and I don’t want to drink too much.”

“You’re getting an early start tomorrow, to be sure, but you won’t be ‘off’ to anywhere,” said Clara. “You’re staying with me for a couple weeks until you know more about how to take care of a little girl. It’s obvious she needs you, but she needs a lot more than you know how to give yet.”

“No, we can’t…!”

“Yes, you can, and you will,” she stated firmly. “Your horses have already been stabled and fed, and the bath is waiting. We need to wash Peanna, and from the looks of you, you two could stand a good wash, too.”

“We don’t…”

“Don’t argue with me, Master Umkosta. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

She emptied her glass and set it down on the table again.

“Either drink up or not, but you, Master Kostubh, are coming with Peanna and me so I can show you how to bathe her properly.

“Master Robb, will you join us, or bathe later?”

Robb looked to Kostubh for help, surprised by the sudden turn of events, but he just shrugged.

“Uh, later, thanks,” Robb stammered.

“That’s settled, then,” said Clara, standing abruptly. “First thing, Master Umkosta, is how to wake Peanna. Can you do that without starting her crying?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said, and squatted down next to the child without trying to resist Clara’s orders anymore.

He began stroking her hair gently and murmuring to her. Before she even woke up, her hand stretched out, seeking his, and he grasped it to reassure her. It took a few minutes, but shortly Peanna was sitting on his lap back at the table, looking sleepy-eyed at Clara.

“Good job. Off we go, then!”

And Clara led the way to the bath, already steaming with hot water.

* * *

The next morning Clara woke Kostubh and Robert up at the Hour of the Tiger, before sunrise.

“You two, time to get moving! Can’t lie here all day when there’s work to do! Up! Up!”

She rousted them out of bed mercilessly, ignoring their queries and resistance, and dragged them out into the main room, lit by a single lantern on the table.

She stopped to stroke Peanna’s hair and whisper something in her ear, putting her back to sleep again.

“Master Robb, you go with Bincup to check on the swine and fetch clean water,” she said perfunctorily. She used her chin to point to a burly man drinking a cup of something by the front door. He was wearing ragged pants and a beard that almost reached them, and looked like he could lift trees with one hand.

“Master Umkosta, you are going to make breakfast. First thing is getting the fire started.”

Kostubh, still a little lost after his abrupt awakening, shook his head.

“Fire. Yeah, I can do that.”

“You have flint?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, and pulled out his own flint and steel fire-starter. He knelt down in front of the fireplace and built up the dry grass and kindling before arranging a few of the larger logs on top. He sparked the tinder and blew it to life, watching it for a while to be sure it caught properly.

“Very good. You’ve got that much down right, at least.”

He stood and brushed the ash off his knees.

“Next is eggs. The basket’s over there,” she said, pointing. “Grab it and let’s go. After breakfast you have to mend her sandal and her tunic, and I’ll give you a few pieces of cloth to make a few more out of.”

“I don’t know how to sew!”

“You will,” she predicted, refusing to accept his excuses.

The sky outside was still dark enough to see the stars, but over the Hills of Noor it was already lightening, and the highest peaks were brilliant orange.

He was familiar with chickens and eggs, too, earning another grudging compliment, but then failed miserably when told to pick a variety of herbs for breakfast. Clara was behind him at every step, watching and correcting every move he made. He learned how to identify and use half a dozen herbs that morning.

He had no idea at all how to milk a cow, squirting far too much on the straw-covered dirt, and almost getting kicked for his trouble. Clara ended up finishing the job herself.

Later, as he was making breakfast for five people—the four of them plus the new man, Bincup—a man’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, now brighter on the cusp of dawn.

“Mistress?”

Clara turned to greet him at once, wiping her hands on her tunic.

“Oh, good morning to you, Master Gustaf.”

“We caught four of them last night, Mistress. No sign of the fifth one.”

“The four can’t tell us?”

The man chuckled quietly.

“Not anymore, I’m afraid.”

Clara stepped out of the house.

“Hmm, so I see,” she said. “The usual way, then.”

Kostubh moved the eggs off the fire and walked over to see the robbers.

They weren’t there.

At least, not all of them.

Four heads, one missing an ear and a chunk of skull with it, sat on a bloodstained cloth on the dirt.

“Yes, Mistress,” said the new man—Gustaf, she had called him—and picked up the corners of the cloth to hold the heads like a bag. He swung it up and over his shoulder and walked off down the road. “I’ll get it done right away.”

“Get what done, Mistress?”

“You didn’t notice the heads along the road when you came?”

“Oh,” said Kostubh. “Yeah, we noticed. Decided we wanted to avoid causing trouble here…”

“Good idea. A lot of scum seem to think they can get away with all sorts of things in Andersweald.”

“Why did he ask you?”

“You don’t know?” she asked, surprised. “I’m in charge here; have been for many years. Reeve, so to speak.”

Umkosta managed to get the eggs cooked without burning them, herbs and all, and at Clara’s suggestion set them aside.

It was time to wake Peanna.

He quietly walked up to the bed and squatted next to the pillow.

Her eyes were open, watching him.

He smiled and there was a sudden explosion as she burst out from under the covers and latched onto his chest like a burr, knocking him off-balance and onto his ass in the process.

He instinctively stretched one arm out to soften his fall, but the other one was wrapped around the girl to make sure she wasn’t hurt.

They lay on the floor for a moment, and he whispered good morning into her ear.

She gave him another hug and whispered back, “Dat.”

He finally managed to stand, still hugging her to his chest, and walked back toward the kitchen, where Clara was just pouring five cups of tea. The door banged open and Robert walked in, followed closely by Bincup.

He tried to set Peanna down on one of the benches but she refused to let go.

“Peanna, please, set and wait for a minute,” he pleaded, but she ignored him, face buried into this chest.

“Mistress Clara? Can you help?”

She laughed.

“Poor Master Umkosta! You wanted to be responsible for her, now you are! You’ll learn how to do everything with Peanna in your arms or underfoot; might as well start practicing.”

He grimaced, and set the pan full of bacon and eggs in the center of the table, where it joined a plate of bread and cheese and the ever-present pot of hot tea.

Peanna finally relented when he sat on a bench himself, and quite happily devoured an enormous helping of bacon and eggs, and huge slabs of bread and cheese. She sat on his lap, though, and Kostubh found that he didn’t mind it very much after all.

“Mistress? Peanna said something when she woke up just now. Sounded like ‘Dat,’ I think.”

Clara laughed again and reached over to scrunch up Peanna’s hair.

“Is this your dat, Peanna?”

The girl smiled and nodded her head almost imperceptibly.

“Good girl, Peanna!”

She sat back and poured herself another cup of tea.

“Congratulations, Master Umkosta. She just called you Father.”

* * *

A few months later, Kostubh and Peanna left on the next stage of their journey, on horseback.

Robert—now and forever Robb—didn’t accompany them, choosing instead to remain in Andersweald. He’d grown to love the village, nestled in the small patch of woods between mountains and desert, and got along so well with Bincup that he’d moved in with him.

Robb himself was surprised. He’d always wanted to be a trader, sailing the Middle Ocean and the Southern Sea to fabled lands, but it turned out that he just felt at home in Andersweald. And, surprisingly, it turned out that he was remarkably good with animals.

Kostubh understood his responsibilities much better now, and he was much better prepared to handle them. He’d never thought of being a father, but nevertheless he’d become one, and he found that it suited him.

Among other things he now knew how to sew, to fell trees and split them into firewood, to rock a child to sleep, to raise and slaughter swine, to smoke ham, to thatch a roof, to sing lullabies to little girls, to bake bread, to braid pigtails, to drink khoormog, to trim a horse’s hooves, and to kiss a skinned knee.

It turned out that Peanna was actually four, small for her age, and always celebrated her birthday in the summer. When summer came, they decided that they would celebrate her fifth birthday on the first day of Iris Bloom, in the month of Summer Solstice.

Peanna had opened up, and was learning common through some secret osmosis, absorbing words and phrases seemingly from the air, babbling throughout the day. Every so often she’d say something in Rom when she didn’t know the common word for it, but Kostubh suspected she’d forget her birth language completely within months.

He wished he knew Rom so he could talk to her in her own language, but he’d only managed to pick up a few random words here and there… a few of which he must be pronouncing wrong because she always laughed.

The journey from Andersweald across the narrow strip of desert to the shadows of the Mohaggers should take about a day and a half, which meant spending a night in the desert somewhere. They couldn’t move from mid-morning through the evening, when the desert was at its hottest, and would have to use a sunshade and a simmer to wait it out. They would take plenty of water, of course, but hopefully it would be a short, safe trip. He was taking a spare mount as well, to switch off during the ride, and just in case.

She had asked where they were headed, and Kostubh had no good answer. Robert had found a place that felt like home, but he was still searching. Now he had to think for two, not just for himself.

Robb, Clara, and Bincup saw them off.

Robb checked his water one more time, and double-checked the horse’s cinch.

“Water’s OK. Sunshade?”

“In my bag.”

“Shimmer?”

“All ready.”

“And incense?”

“Robb, I’m ready to go. We’ve checked it all already, remember? It’s starting to get dark, and I want to start the desert crossing as soon as it cools.”

Robb stretched out his arm to Kostubh, and they exchanged a wrist-shake.

“Take care. And send a message to let me know where you end up,” he said.

“I will, Robb, I will. You take care of yourself, hear?”

Robb stood back to let Clara approach.

She also stretched out her arm, but instead of grasping Kostubh’s arm in a wrist-shake pulled him sideways, almost off the horse.

She bent forward and spoke quietly so only he could hear.

“You take care of Peanna and raise her right. Anything goes wrong, come back here.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“And if I hear that you’ve mistreated her in any way, I will recall just how much you resemble Kostubh of Shiroora Shan, and I will find you. We clear?”

She knew who he was! Who they were!

Before he could compose himself she pushed him back up straight in the saddle and slapped him hard on the thigh.

“Safe journey, Master Umkosta of Ebnon! Safe journey, Peanna!”

“Safe journey!” echoed the other two, and then the horse broke into a trot as she smacked it on the haunch. Both mounts started trotting into the evening.

By the time he thought of something to say Clara and the others were already out of sight in the darkening evening.

He wondered for a moment if he should warn Robert, but decided that it didn’t really matter that much… he hadn’t done anything, and if Clara hadn’t outed them yet, she’d have no reason to suddenly out Robert.

He turned his attention to their journey.

The huge blocks of stone making up the road were clearly visible, kept clean of desert sand by men and animals crossing back and forth. Every so often one of the enigmatic statues rose to mark the route. Eroded by centuries of wind-borne sand it was impossible to tell what they might have been when they were first erected, but it was common knowledge that they were of the Lizard People, who had built the roads and the fabled underground tunnels in the ancient past.

“Snake man!” said Peanna, pointing at one of the statues as they passed.

He guessed she’d seen them before, traveling with her family in that wagon. He wondered again where she had come from, who her parents had been.

The road wasn’t as empty as he’d expected. A number of people were travelling from the Mohagger Mountains toward Andersweald, usually riding alone or a small group of two or three people. Ahead of him a small caravan of half a dozen horses was travelling in the same direction, visible in the silver moonlight over the desert.

He pulled Peanna closer and wrapped the blanket around them both, tying the ends up behind his neck like a sling to hold her tight. The desert was growing cold now that it was dark, but he wanted to ride as far as they could by morning.

Peanna fell asleep in his arms.

He stopped several times during the night to let the horse rest and stretch his legs.

Peanna opened her eyes far enough to make sure he was there, and fell back to sleep again, cozy in the blanket.

It was a long, quiet slog through the night. The wide river of stars was brilliant across the sky, hidden only by the moon and the distant mountain peaks. The dunes to the sides of the trade road were generally low, revealing immense vistas stretching to the horizon, sometimes with black shadows slinking low or racing in pursuit of some prey.

They had no encounters that night, human or otherwise, as Kostubh kept a fixed distance between himself and the caravan ahead of him.

As the dawn approached and the eastern sky over the Hills of Noor began to lighten, he began searching for any hill or tree that might offer the slightest shadow during the day to come.

There was nothing, as he’d been warned.

He kept riding slowly, preserving the horses’ strength, until the sun finally rose above the now-distant mountains, stretching his long shadow in front of him. The temperature would rise sharply, and he had to get the day camp set up soon.

He twitched the rains and guided the horse to the side of the road, next to one of the time-worn statues. It wasn’t big enough to offer much in the way of shadow, but at least it provided a good place to tie the sunshade to.

With the sunshade up and the shimmer working, the heat in the camp would be merely very hot as opposed to fatally hot. He could see that the mountains ahead—the Mohaggers—were considerably closer than the Hills of Noor behind, and he had no doubt they’d reach their safety the coming night. With safety that close he could afford to use water freely, and he left the horses drink their fill. They’d stopped for food and water during the night ride, too, of course, but the night had been cold.

Peanna awoke and looked around curiously.

“Where are we?”

“Right in the middle of nowhere at all. We came from Clara’s house, over that way,” he said, pointing, “and we’re almost to the Mohagger Mountains that way. There’s nothing to see and nothing to do until this evening.

“Hungry?”

She sat up with eyes wide open. “Yes!”

“OK, you get the fire started, and I’ll get the horses fed,” he suggested, and helped her get the firewood down off the horse. They’d only brought a little, for breakfast now and supper later, before they set out on the final leg of the journey.

He helped her dig a small firepit and buried the better half of their money under it as Clara had suggested, just for safety. He watched her arrange the kindling and firewood properly, then use her own flint and steel—his birthday present to her on her fifth birthday, just recently—to light the fire. He felt inanely proud of the way she was growing into a strong, able girl.

She might be small for her age, he thought, but she’s grown up inside fast.

The horses weren’t happy to be in the middle of a hot desert and didn’t seem to like the shade over their heads or the way the shimmer distorted the view, but that didn’t interfere with their appetite or their thirst any. They’d been over this route many times, Clara had said, so he didn’t expect any special problems.

By the time he was done, so was she. The fire was hot and ready, and she’d already put the water on to boil. He didn’t really feel much like hot tea right now, but he could drink it after it cooled a bit, too… if it cooled at all in the heat.

Their breakfast didn’t need fire at all, consisting of hard, thin slabs of oven-baked bread, smoked ham, bean curry, and some sort of spiced pumpkin mash that Bincup had made for them. They just warmed it up a bit and dug in.

As a surprise, Kostubh pulled an orange from his pack and handed it to Peanna, taking another for himself. The sweet, tangy taste was perfect after the spicy breakfast.

Then they settled down to snooze for the day.

Humans and horses alike rested fitfully throughout the day, the heat oppressive and inescapable. There was no wind, not even the tiniest breeze, but at least they had water. Warm water, but water.

At last the sun began to slide down from its seemingly eternal position directly overhead, toward the peaks of the Mohaggers, and the shadows began to grow a millimeter at a time.

Kostubh woke fully up when the air moved: the first breeze of the evening had come.

He struggled to his feet to give the horses more water, and when he turned Peanna was sitting up, stretching.

“Hi, sleepyhead!”

“I want a drink too” she answered, and held out her hands for the waterskin.

He handed it to her carefully, because it was still quite heavy and unwieldy, but she balanced it neatly on her crossed legs to pour out a cupful.

She stoppered the skin and lifted the cup to her lips, and suddenly stopped, eyes staring behind him.

He spun around to see men walking up, through the shimmer, swords drawn.

Robbers.

He dove for his sword, lying next to where he’d been sleeping, grabbing it and rolling back to his feet in the same lithe movement.

Three of them.

Robbers, brigands, maybe murderers… the same sort of scum that had killed Peanna’s family.

He snarled, crouched, sword rising to a defensive position… and froze as he felt a small hand atop his own on the hilt.

It was Peanna.

She looked up at him and shook her head: “Dat, no.”

She had seen all this before!

She had seen her father and brother killed, knew her mother had saved her at the cost of her own life.

And she knew they had no chance against three.

He turned back to the advancing trio.

“There are three of you,” he called. “And the three of you can surely kill me, but I will also take at least one of you with me.

“My daughter is more valuable than my money or my sword… take them, if you will, but leave us be.”

The leader, a man not much older than Kostubh himself, with blue eyes and black hair drawn into a single braid hanging at the side of his head, halted, and stood up straight, his sword dropping down.

“You surrender?”

“If you promise us our lives and freedom, yes. Take anything you like.”

The other man stood silent for a moment, then nodded.

“I do so promise.”

Kostubh grasped Peanna’s hand in his own and dropped his sword onto the sand.

The leader stepped forward, sword point first, until he was almost within reach.

“You are a brave man to trust us so.”

“No, I am a father. Take what you want and leave.”

“Your money.”

Kostubh handed the other his wallet without hesitation.

“We’ll take your sword and your horses, too,” said the robber as he took the wallet and picked up Kostubh’s sword.

“Please, leave us one horse and enough water to reach the Mohaggers,” he pleaded.

“This is not much,” said the other, opening the wallet to see how much money was inside.

“I am not a wealthy man,” Kostubh shrugged, “as you can see from my belongings.”

“But a brave one, I judge,” nodded the robber. “So be it. One horse and water.”

He turned to the other two and waved them into action.

They dumped Kostubh’s pack out on the ground, picked up one or two items that caught their fancy, and were gone again in minutes with one of the horses.

The leader was the last to leave.

“You may need this, too,” he said, and plunged Kostubh’s sword into the sand at his feet. “Good luck.”

And they were gone.

They reached the scraggly trees along the eastern flank of the Mohaggers close to dawn the next day. It had taken quite a bit longer than he had planned: with only one horse they’d walked much more slowly to avoid exhausting it. They stopped to rest in the first acceptable site they found, under a fallen tree well off the road.

Kostubh hadn’t spoken a word since their encounter, and he remained silent as he collected firewood and built the small fire to warm themselves at.

Peanna never left his side, and when he sat to prepare tea, she snuggled up at his side.

“You saved my life back there, Peanna,” he said finally. “Saved both our lives.”

She hugged him.

“I was ready to fight them, and I would have been killed. Sure, I might have killed one of them, maybe injured another, but small consolation. I’d still be dead.

“They just took half my horses and half my money. A cheap price to pay to protect you, Peanna!”

She squeezed harder.

They were both dead-tired after the trek across the desert, but their spirits rose as the sun lit the yet-sparse trees around them. The road continued west through the mountains toward the Lake of Sarnath, which most said would be well to avoid, and farther north toward Mondath and the other cities of the North Mohaggers. If they did cross the range to circle around the lake, the scattered trees would become dense forests.

Still, here between mountain and desert they had trees, and birds, and racing mountain streams to drink from, and birdsong.

They felt they had entered a fresh new world.

It would be another two days or so through the mountains and longer to go around them, even on the trade road, but Kostubh first wanted to find a safe place to rest and catch up on their sleep. They rested for a few hours, ate, and then set off at a leisurely pace north, taking the long way around the Mohaggers to stay well clear of the Lake of Sarnath. They walked, leading the horse behind them as they wended their way toward Tsol.

They continued to follow the trade road, meeting small parties now and again on their way to Andersweald, or farther south to Drinen or Despina. The road was unguarded but Kostubh figured they’d be safe enough—they had almost nothing to steal, and they looked it.

Clara said it would take about two days to reach Tsol, and since they weren’t in a hurry anyway he walked slow enough to enjoy the scenery, play with Peanna, and hunt good food along the way Their leisurely pace also meant they could take time to locate the best spots to spend the night, too. It was more of a vacation than a journey: Kostubh had almost forgotten his fear of being chased and captured by the guard of Eudoxia, and Peanna didn’t cry out in her sleep anymore.

Tsol was a tiny caravanserai built around a tinier oasis, with a dozen mortar-walled houses crowding into the scant shade offered by the palm trees. There were a few goats wandering around, and several small groups of travelers resting up before heading out on the next leg of their journeys.

It wasn’t at the edge of the mountains, but in the desert itself some distance away. The ancient Trade Road from the south, marked by those enigmatic, time-worn statues, passed through Tsol, avoiding the Mohaggers and split into two, one road toward turning eastward to Tsun, and the other due north to the City-not-well-to-enter.

A few veterans of the desert took that route to Tsun, but nobody ever traveled north and nobody ever came from the City-not-well-to-enter, leaving that fork of the Trade Road and its statues lost to the sands.

Kostubh hadn’t planned on spending the night there, preferring a quieter, hidden site deep in the woods somewhere, but once Peanna discovered dates there was no way around it. That night he had a lot of beans and a few dates, and the girl had a few beans and a lot of dates.

He figured they’d be eating dates until they finally reached the North Mohaggers and left the desert, and bought a big bag from one of the villagers to keep Peanna happy on the way.

They left the following morning, returning to the road around the Mohagger Mountains and following it westward. It took them about a week to reach the North Mohaggers, where the range encircling the Lake of Sarnath merged into the mountains surrounding the enormous valley where the cities of Arizim, Toldees, and Mondath stood.

Here as well the ring of mountains was thick, and he expected it would take two days to reach the wooded valley of the interior. The road began to rise from the desert’s edge up, up onto the flanks of the mountains, twisting and turning to allow carts and wagons to navigate the slopes.

Kostubh walked slowly up the foothills, Peanna usually walking at his side and only riding—often strapped to the saddle—when she got tired.

Toward noon—a cooler, enjoyable noon instead of the deadly sunlit noon of the desert crossing—they came upon a small deino-drawn cart. It was a large, sturdy cart, with several heavy rocks in the bed, but there was no sign of the driver.

“Peanna, you stay right there for a bit, and let me have a look around,” Kostubh ordered, leaving her on horseback as he dismounted and drew his sword to investigate.

He cautiously checked around the cart and the nearby trees, finding nothing, and was about to give up when he heard a weak cry for help.

Behind the trees, at the base of a small cliff, a man lay on the ground, his leg trapped by a rockfall. He had been collecting stones, some quite large, from the area, and a few of them showed signs of having been shaped.

Kostubh sheathed his sword and ran to him.

“Thank the Gods!” said the man, reaching up for Kostubh’s hand. “The damned face collapsed on me yesterday, and I can’t move. Can you help me out?”

“Of course… Let me have a look here…” he replied, studying the rock on the man’s leg. “Can you move your leg at all?”

“It hurts, but I can move it,” said the other. “I think it’s trapped but not broken.”

“Be nice if we can move this rock without crushing it, wouldn’t it?” said Kostubh, hand on one of the largest rocks. “Let me clear away some of the small stuff and get a better look.”

He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Peanna! Ride toward my voice!”

As he was pulling off smaller rocks and brushing away gravel and dirt, the horse came riding up, Peanna holding the reins herself.

“You can get down, Peanna. Have to get…. what’s your name?”

“Anselm of Olathoë.”

“Sorry, forgot my manners. Umkosta of Ebnon,” said Kostubh. “Peanna, I have to get him free. Just sit for a few minutes.”

Peanna walked over.

“Can I help?”

“Hi, Peanna. Yes, please help!” said Anselm with a smile.

She started pushing pebbles and dirt away, too, and in a short time they could see Anselm’s leg more clearly. As he’d thought, the biggest rock was atop his leg, but prevented from crushing it directly by smaller rocks. If they could just move the large rock a little, without dropping it on his leg, it should be possible for him to pull it out.

“I think if I get a stiff pole right under here,” said Kostubh, pointing at the base of the largest rock, “I can lever it up a little bit… might be enough.”

“Sorry, I can’t see where you’re pointing,” said Anselm. “I don’t have a lot of options here; try it!”

“OK, let me try to find something. Don’t go anywhere!”

“Ha ha, very funny,” grimaced Anselm.

“You stay here, Sweet Pea. I’ll be right back.”

As Kostubh was searching for a suitable pole, Anselm and Peanna talked.

“Are you Peanna or Sweet Pea?”

“Peanna,” she giggled. “And Sweet Pea.”

“I’m Anselm, Sweet Pea. Can I call you Sweet Pea?”

She nodded.

“Sweet Pea, could you get me some water to drink?”

She nodded again, vigorously, and scampered back to the horse to fetch the canteen. The skin was too heavy for her to handle easily.

She handed the canteen to Anselm.

“Thank you, dear,” he said, pulling out the stopper and taking a long drink. “That was wonderful.”

He rammed the stopper in and handed it back.

“I hope you like old wine, Master Anselm,” said Kostubh was he walked out into the open. “I’ve got some water, too, if you’d prefer.”

“No, no, that was fine. Getting me out of here is more important.”

“Well, I found a pretty good tree, but I’ll need to fell it and lop some of the branches off. It’ll take awhile with the little hatchet I’ve got.”

“On my cart. Don’t have an axe,” said Anselm, “but you’ll find chisels and mallets, for cutting stone. Might be quicker.”

“Might be, might be at that. I’ll go see.”

He left, walking back toward the cart, and in a short while the distant sound of the mallet striking echoed, followed by a muffled curse, and then more mallet strikes.

Eventually Kostubh appeared dragging a long, fairly thin tree trunk behind him.

“It’s a little springy, but should be good enough for this short distance,” he said, and pushed the thick end into the hole under the large rock.

“Peanna, you see that bluish rock right there? By my right foot?”

She nodded and looked up.

“I’m going to lift this big rock up,” he explained, “and when I tell you I want you to push that rock into this hole. Can you do that?”

She smiled, nodded, and squatted down next to the rock, ready to push.

Kostubh moved a large rock into position right under the tree trunk to serve as a fulcrum, then walked a few meters down the trunk to grasp it.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

He pushed down with all his might, shifting most of his body weight onto the trunk. The tree quivered and bent, but the big rock moved upward a little bit.

“Now, Peanna!”

She pushed the rock into the hole as hard as she could, and sat there, her hands still in the hole.

“Get back! Get your hands out of there!” he shouted, and just as she pulled her hands back his strength failed and the trunk flew back up, out of his hands.

Peanna was safe, and the rock pinning Anselm had shifted upward a little bit.

“Can you move it now?”

Anselm pushed his hands against the ground, trying to pull himself out.

“It moved a little bit, but not yet,” he said. “My boot is caught on something, I think, and I can’t bend my foot far enough to pull it out of the boot.”

“I can see your boot…” said Kostubh. “Maybe I can cut it off?”

“More likely you’d cut my foot off!”

“Hmm. Yeah, let’s try that later, then.”

“Oil. Oil sticky things,” announced Peanna.

“Of course!” shouted Kostubh, and leapt to his feet. He ran to the horse and rummaged through his pack, pulling out a small stoppered flask and holding it up proudly. “Neatsfoot oil. Should do the trick.”

He poured the oil onto Anselm’s leg and boot as best he could, and finally Anselm managed to pull his foot out.

He was free. Barefoot on one leg, but free again.

His foot was purple and badly swollen, and he screamed in pain when Kostubh touched it.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” said Kostubh, “but you’d better ride in the cart.”

They helped him hobble over to the cart and clamber up.

“Where are you headed, Master Anselm?”

“Back to Mondath, of course,” replied the mason. “I live there.”

“We’re headed there, too. Perhaps we’ll tag along, keep an eye on the deino for you.”

“That’s wonderful! Thank you, thank you… I was wondering how I’d manage to get home with this foot.”

Kostubh stopped to pick up a chisel and mallet he’d been using and handed them to Anselm.

“That everything?”

“Uh… could you see if you can get my boot out? Good boots are damned expensive.”

Robert laughed and knelt down to look into the gap they’d pulled his foot out of.

He reached in his hand and scrabbled for the boot, fingers touching leather, but the boot was smeared with oil and he couldn’t get a solid grip. He tried wiggling it back and forth while pulling gently… with Anselm’s foot finally out, the boot should be easier to move, he thought.

He gave one last grunt, pulling against the weight of the rock with all his force, and collapsed in defeat.

“Sorry, Master Anselm… It’s jammed in there, and covered with oil, too. I don’t think it’s coming out unless we move that rock, and that’s a very big rock.”

“Damn fine boots, these were,” sighed Anselm. “Still, better to lose a boot than a foot, eh?”

Kostubh sat where he’d fallen, catching his breath for a minute.

Peanna, who’d been squatting next to him, watching intently as he struggled, walked over to the rock and curiously peered into the crevice hiding the boot.

She lay down and stuck her arm in, pulling out a small rock, and then a second. She reached in a third time.

Kostubh turned at the sound of her giggle to see her holding an oil-smeared trophy.

“You did it! Peanna!”

She giggled again and handed it to Kostubh before wiping her hands on her tunic.

“Master Anselm! Peanna got your boot after all!”

* * *

They camped at the side of the road that night, the deino and the horse munching grass together quite happily as the three of them shared a simple stew and the warmth of the campfire.

Anselm’s foot looked no better but he said the pain was ebbing. They’d tied a splint to his leg to help prevent it from moving, because every motion was agony.

Peanna wanted to spend more time with the deino than with them but proved unable to resist the enticement of hot food, even if it did have carrots in it. She ate three bowls and fell asleep at the fire.

Kostubh wrapped her up in the blanket and sat sipping tea with Anselm.

Anselm removed a long pipe and a cloth bag from his wallet, and proceeded to pack the pipe with tobacco, lighting it with an ember from the fire, puffing away until it caught properly.

“You smoke?”

“Uh, no,” said Kostubh, recalling the thagweed he’d had at Lili’s, where all this had started. “I’ve tried it, and thagweed too, but don’t really care for either.”

“You get used to it,” snorted Anselm, teeth clamped on his pipe as he massaged his foot. “And Mondath grows the best tobacco in the Dreamlands.”

“I thought that was Arizim?”

“Arizim? Don’t be ridiculous!” laughed the other. “Mondath Longleaf is better than anything you’d find in Arizim. Their thagweed isn’t bad, but I’m not much of a thagweed man.”

“Pretty foul stuff,” agreed Kostubh.

“Yup, it is that, it is that.”

Anselm puffed in silence for a bit, then “What’s in Mondath for you?”

Kostubh shrugged.

“Don’t know. I wanted to see other places, and Mondath is next, I guess. We’re not in a hurry to get anywhere, me and Peanna.”

“You’re pretty young to have a girl that old…”

“She’s not mine. Not by blood, anyway,” said Kostubh, and explained how she’d been thrust upon him.

“Changed everything for me,” he ended. “I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I do now.”

“And that is?”

“Her,” he pointed at the sleeping girl. “That’s what I’m doing with my life, and don’t regret a second of it.”

Anselm puffed again.

“You need a place to stay in Mondath?”

Kostubh considered the offer.

“I hadn’t really considered it,” he answered finally. “I figured we’d just take what Fate gives us.”

“Well, I’m not Fate, but I do have plenty of room, and I’d love the company.”

“I… Thank you, Master Anselm, thank you very much! Just as soon as Peanna wakes up I need to check with her, but I think we’d be very happy to accept your kind offer.”

“The young mistress would prefer to sleep with the deinos, I suspect…”

Kostubh laughed.

“No doubt she would, but I think not. Not yet, anyway… perhaps when she’s bigger.”

“You take your responsibilities as a parent very seriously.”

“She has no-one else,” said Kostubh, shrugging.

“That would not be reason enough for many young men.”

The silence stretched for a few minutes until Kostubh stood.

“I’ll check the animals and sleep now, Master Anselm. Safe night.”

“And a safe night to you, Master Umkosta.”

The horse and deino were settled down for the night, so Kostubh pulled the blanket up over Peanna’s shoulders and lay down next to her.

He watched the tree branches gently swaying in the breeze, hiding and revealing the starry heavens, until he slipped away.

After a breakfast of beans, rice, and a few bird eggs that Peanna found around dawn, they set out once again, trudging next to the deino toward Mondath.

They began to encounter scattered farms every so often, and traffic on the road gradually increased as people headed to market, either taking goods to sell there or looking to buy something.

Anselm recognized one older couple and called out.

“Master Torask! Good morning to you!”

Torask turned and squinted at Anselm for a moment, apparently unable to make out who it was. The woman with him elbowed him in the side and whispered something in his ear.

“Oh, Master Anselm! I didn’t recognize you.”

“My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be either,” chuckled Anselm, “but I can still recognize an old friend. And a beautiful woman as well! How are you, Mistress?”

The woman smiled and bobbed her head.

“Much better than you seem to be, Master Anselm. More of your rocks, I see… and riding while this princess walks!?”

“She can outwalk me, I’m afraid,” said Anselm, pointing to his crude splint. “Hurt my foot.”

They guided their cart—a simple affair with two wood wheels and a donkey to pull it—over next to Anselm’s, and the woman insisted on taking a look at it right then and there.

Anselm winced when she touched it, but after a brief examination and a few grunts and murmurs she pronounced it unbroken and said it should heal just fine.

“Thank you, Mistress… I didn’t think it was broken but it’s good to hear you agree.”

“Keep it cold for now, and when the swelling goes down a bit more try warm massage,” she advised, then turned to Kostubh. “Karah of Mondath, and my husband Torask.”

“Torask of Monath,” said the older man.

“Umkosta of Ebnon, and this i—”

“Peanna! Of Kostubh!” she proclaimed proudly.

A frown flickered across Kostubh’s brow for a moment at his real name, but nobody seemed to notice it.

“A very good day to you, Mistress Peanna,” smiled Karah, and curtsied.

Peanna giggled.

The five of them continued toward Mondath together, with Peanna now happily riding atop the donkey and giving it bites of the carrots she shamelessly stole from Torask’s cartload.

At last the forest petered out, to be replaced by vast fields of crops. The farmhouses all had their vegetable fields clustered nearby, with spreads of tobacco, thagweed, and various grains spreading out farther.

Anselm’s home was outside the city ramparts— stone walls half way, earthen dykes topped with a wood palisade the rest —and after making sure Kostubh would be there to help Anselm, the two farmers continued on to the market to sell their produce.

Anselm lived and worked in an old millhouse, built long ago and vacant when he moved in decades earlier. The waterwheel still worked, although it had to be repaired constantly, but Anselm used it to drive grinders and polishers instead of millstones, working stone as he needed. He lived in the adjoining wood-and-mortar house, by himself, and the silo was pretty much unused except by a few friendly owls.

The house was quite small, but ample for a man living alone, and even with Kostubh and Peanna was more than large enough. Kostubh filled the bath, which was quite easy as all he had to do was open the pipe drawing the river water, and lit a fire beneath it to warm it up. Peanna explored the house, popping back every few minutes to be sure Kostubh was still there, and to announce some new and exciting discovery.

She was especially excited to discover a squirrel’s nest, and immediately demanded an apple so she could make friends.

Anselm apologized for the mess, and the lack of food.

“I live alone; hadn’t planned on visitors,” he explained. “There’s plenty of cornmeal—ground it myself—and beans, and there’s a little vegetable patch outside and to the left. The coop’s out there, too… should be eggs.”

“We’re used to roughing it, Master Anselm, don’t worry,” said Kostubh. “Just having a roof over our heads and a fire to warm our toes and tea at will be wonderful.

“I’ve got some of Mistress Clara’s honey ham left, too, which I’ll be happy to donate,” offered Kostubh, and started to rise from his chair when he was interrupted by a piercing scream.

Peanna!

He shot to his feet and raced into the hallway.

“Peanna! Where are you?”

There was another scream from the distance.

He heard her voice from inside one of the rooms adjoining the silo and burst through the doorway, sword in hand. She was standing just inside, eyes huge, mouth trembling, staring at a row of grotesque monsters illuminated by the rays of sunlight pouring in through the high windows, squatting on the floor around her, surrounding her with fanged jaws, bulbous eyes, and webbed feet.

He pulled her back behind himself and advanced, crouching, sword forward.

She grabbed hold of his leg, clutching tight in fear, face buried in his tunic but one eye still watching the horde of beasts in front of them.

Kostubh slowly rose from his crouch, sword point dropping, and patted Peanna on the back.

“They’re just statues, Peanna, look,” he grinned and tapped the closest one on the head with his sword. It rang dully, the sound of steel on stone, and Peanna’s grip loosened.

He grasped her hand and bounced his sword off a few more of the bizarre statues, clanging her fear away.

She slowly walked up to one and gingerly touched it, confirming it was indeed stone, and finally relaxed. She swatted it across the snout with a laugh.

“Sorry, I should have warned her,” came Anselm’s voice from behind. “These are my gargoyles. Lord Barsharva hired me to make all the gargoyles for the city walls, and I’ve been at it for a few years already.”

Kostubh looked around the room.

There were many blocks of stone, some still rough slabs, others showing signs of working and shaping, some almost complete and frightening in their realism. Against the right wall was a single taller statue, hidden in shadow.

Drawn by its height, Kostubh walked closer for a better look.

It was a woman, caught dancing forward gayly, flowers in hands and hair, her pure, delicate face smiling with godly love. Except for the face, the statue was still half-finished, the legs mere rough-cut chunks of rock.

He stopped in awe, mouth open at its beauty.

“The Goddess Agdistis,” explained Anselm.

“She’s beautiful…” breathed Kostubh. “It’s as if she’s alive, frozen in time.”

Anselm hobbled closer and stroked her face.

“I’ve been working on Agdistis for seven years now,” he said quietly. “I expect it’ll take me at least another seven to finish.”

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful…”

“Pretty lady, isn’t she, Dat?”

He knelt, bringing his head down to her level.

“This is Agdistis, the goddess of marriage. And other things,” he explained, leaving out that she was also the goddess of sexuality.

He turned toward Anselm.

“Can you teach me? To do this?”

Anselm laughed.

“Sure, all you need is a few decades of practice!”

He laughed again, then suddenly stopped and looked closer at Kostubh.

“You’re serious.”

“I am,” he replied. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful… even those gargoyles! The stones are alive!”

“You feel the stone calling you?”

“I… Yes, I do,” said Kostubh, running his fingertips over the roughness of the unfinished statue’s base. “It’s almost… I can’t explain it. Sensual? No, more than that… something deeper, in my soul.”

Anselm nodded.

“I can’t describe it either,” he said, “and I’ve been trying for many, many years.”

He sat down heavily on a gargoyle, taking the weight off his foot with a sigh.

“How long does it take to learn?”

“To capture life in stone? For those blessed with talent and determination, a lifetime.”

“And for those without?”

“Longer. You’re young, still a long life ahead of you… You really want to spend it chipping rocks?”

Kostubh stroked the stone once more, admiring its cool power.

“Yes, I think I do,” he said finally.

* * *

Lajita stepped into the drawing room, wondering who had asked to first see Varun—who had died several years earlier—or herself.

A woman of about her age awaited her, maybe fifty or sixty.

The tea and sweets the maid had served sat untouched on the table.

At her entrance both stood, bowing slightly.

“Peanna of Mondath.”

“Lajita Chabra of Shiroora Shan,” she responded, and gestured toward the chairs. “Please, sit.”

They sat back down again as she took her own seat closer to the door.

“How may I help you today?”

“My father—Umkosta of Mondath—charged me on his deathbed to bring you this gift, and a message.”

“Master Umkosta of Mondath…? I don’t believe I’ve ever…”

“He said you would not know him by that name, but that when you saw the sculpture you would understand.”

Lajita tilted her head slightly.

“What is the message?”

“He said that your brother Kostubh died in the desert west of Andersweald, and begs your forgiveness for his crime.”

“So my brother did die, then… we never knew what had happened to him,” said Lajita slowly. “My forgiveness…? What is there to forgive? The dead are dead, and Kostubh and his crime forgotten with them.

“I never stopped loving my brother and wondering what had happened… Gitanshu told us what he knew, little as it was, but we never thought that was the whole story.

“Forgive? No, I cannot forgive him, for I know not what he did. But I would willingly welcome him home again as my beloved brother were he yet alive.”

She straightened up and looked straight at Peanna.

“And where is this sculpture?”

“Right outside, on a cart, Mistress.”

“This is all very strange,…” she said, standing. “But you have tickled my curiosity. I would like to see this sculpture of yours.”

Two horses waited patiently in front of the Main House, under the watchful eyes of four guards, two Chabra and two who must have come with Peanna. The cart was empty but for a fairly small item covered by cloth and lashed in place on the load bed.

Peanna nodded to one of her guards, and he began to untie the ropes.

“Father was a mason by trade, but his love was sculpture, and of all the sculptures he worked on in his life this was his dearest. He never told me who she was.”

Lajita leaned forward to get a better look.

The cloth covering fell away, and the bust burst into golden glory as the sunlight touched the marble, a soft, almost transparent cream with thin streaks of gold running through it like errant threads.

“…Mother!” gasped Lajita, eyes huge, hand over mouth in astonishment. “How…?”

It was a head-and-shoulders bust of the First Lajita, the Seeress, as she looked half a century earlier, in her prime. It was perfect, every strand of hair, every line of her face, the faint dimple in her right cheek.

It was her in every way, in stony flesh.

“You said your father was Master Umkosta of Mondath,” she finally said. “Was he originally of Mondath?”

“No, Mistress. He always said he was from Ebnon, but he spoke of Shiroora Shan often.”

“Umkosta… Kosta… I wonder…. Did he ever mention my name, or House Chabra, to you?”

“House Chabra? I seem to have heard it before, but I cannot recall when or where,” replied Peanna. “Perhaps he passed through here long ago… Why is it so important?”

“It must be he,” whispered Lajita. “After all these years… the artist who carved that bust, the bust of the First Lajita… The First Lajita never said who the sculptor was!”

Lajita turned back to Peanna.

“And you are his daughter. You are a Chabra, my own blood!”

“No,” Peanna shook her head, “I was adopted. He saved me from the brigands who killed my parents and raised me as his own. I am the sculptor of Mondath now.”

“Chabra is more than mere blood; you are one of us,” murmured Lajita. “Come inside, dear Mistress Peanna. We have much to talk about.”

END