Page 93

Now I had to get the measure of the city.

I mean it about the clyster, though—please forget I mentioned it.

Erydon by night is a very different city than by day, as I found out one night later. The first thing to say is how much of a labyrinth it was; the buildings were mostly more than one floor, and all made of stone. Now, Manreach cities also feel like mazes, the big ones at least. But it’s a different thing getting crowded by rock than by wood. To a wee kynd fellow like me, there was something of a crypt to those streets by night. Another thing; there’s a sort of beetle around here that’s got a luminous shell to it, so it buzzes by you with a bit of amber light. They’re really quite marvelous to see. Well, those bits of shell don’t lose that shine when they die. It’s just picking up and reflecting light, or so Hasp told me. So, the Erydoni breed them in great caves, or I should say their slaves do, and they crush them up into the great bricks they lay their streets with. That way, even the poorer quarters with no gaslights have faintly glowing streets, just enough to get by on without tripping all over yourself. And in the merchants’, or juggers’, quarter, and on the priests’ streets, and all around the palace, the streets practically glow for reflecting back the lamps.

There’s nothing like it.

On this particular night, my first one for roaming beyond the palace and garden walls at liberty, there weren’t so many citizens about, and those were likely up to no good. I saw guards who looked more on watch for bribes or extortion than misdeeds; I saw what had to be thieves, but half-giant ones, which was strange to me, as most of us run small; I saw a madman howling under windows until those inside would curse and throw a coin or moneystone; maddest of all, though, I saw a trio of cyclopes drunk on poppy smoke and cactus wine, their great gold nocturnal eyes having fished me out of the shadows with no effort. They buttonholed me, called me friend slave, and wouldn’t let me on my way until I told them a poem and they had each told me one as well. One poem was about a cyclops woman, and while those really don’t sound like my flavor with their crests—which is what they call their great bony heads—and fine jewels nailed into these, I’ll allow it was a decent bit of verse. After we’d all told our poems, the largest and drunkest said, “Shall we kiss or kill this nightspawn morsel?” One pointed a finger down, two pointed a finger up, then all three kissed me wetly and at once with their bear-large mouths, stinking of fermented succulents and this musky salve they rub on the hard, dry crests I think they would have battered me to death with had the vote gone one more finger down.

It would be a simple matter to get around Erydon as a slave by day—many are those in bondage sent on this or that errand so that their ankle manacles and bare feet are not unusual. But by night, such night as one got in this city of sathium-lit globes held in iron or blackglass hands on posts and streets glowing beetle-shell amber, the only slaves likely to be about would be on shifty business for their masters. So, after I was so easily seen by the cyclopes, I went through the streets not skulking, not trying to hide my status, but looking vaguely ashamed and ill at ease. One of the Guild’s lessons is that the best way to go unseen is often in plain sight—many are the chainsman or chainsdam who has walked right by the suspect they sought because the latter held their head high as they passed, or looked sleepy rather than worried, or annoyed rather than fearful. So for my nocturnal outings, I made up a story for myself—that I was looking for a whore who was willing to do something weird. Not what you’re thinking. Weirder. And that my master would be most displeased if his habits became the stuff of gossip. So did I hide? No. But also yes. I hid my identity and mission, even from myself for a time. I had found three different brothels and a menagerie of poisonous beasts before I let myself remember my real purpose. When I did, I steered my bare feet and my slave’s anklet for the Ludus of the King’s Own Dead.

It had been too long since I spoke with the Spanth.

“What are you doing here, jilnaedu?” she said, as I knew she would, but now I knew her face well enough to see the small narrowing and tilt of the eye that meant she was actually glad to see me.

“Just coming for my twice-yearly physician’s visit. Are you in need of a clyster?”

“Only if I may return the favor with a spadín.”

“So, no, then. That, um. That thing’s not going to hurt me, is it?”

“Not if you stay out there,” she said, meaning the outside of her opulent cage. You know, the side where the tiger wasn’t.

“What mischief is there in that?” I said, producing my skeleton key and making short work of the lock, sending a grateful thought to the mad but kindly cyclops Zherit-Nassk. As the gate swung open, the tiger made a tiger noise so low I felt it in my stones, which then swam up fast toward my throat like two out-of-breath divers. Galva showed Jubel the palm of her hand, which the catkin painted with its huge tongue, closing its eyes. It trusted her completely, and she it. I wasn’t there yet, but it got docile enough my stones resettled in their purse on a trial basis.

The Spanth was a hard ould girleen to impress, but I’d just managed it. Her mouth opened slightly and her eyes widened past their usual attitudes of sleep, wariness, somewhat friendly wariness, and fury. She looked around, I suppose for what items she’d want to take besides the shield and sword, and said, “Bolnu, bolnu! Let us go!”

“And where would you have us go, you mad thing? I just came here to make sure I could get from my cage to yours. I’m still working on how to get yourself and me not just out of the city but through that thirsty thousand-mile of nothing that almost killed us once.”

“Because the monkey took your water.”

“We couldn’t carry enough water without a mount.”

“So, camels?”

“Maybe.”

“When?”

I didn’t know when, but before I could say as much, I heard steps coming. I slithered quick under a fur she had, some kind of mountain goat, I think, ’til I heard the steps recede. But before I could peek to see if it was safe to come out, Jubal the fucking tiger started doing what cats do when you hide something from them under a cover. You know, battering me. Thankfully, with her claws in, because I was the friend of a friend. Galva said some quick words to her in Ispanthian and it made a sort of whimper and I was battered no more.

I birthed my head back into the world and said, “I don’t know when we’ll leave. We need a plan, and a good one, or luck, and a lot of it. Probably both.”

“You must be thinking in one direction or another. Tell me, if you feel safe to.”

As we were conducting this talk in the exotic Holtish tongue, I was less concerned about listeners than I might have been, so I said, “A distraction. Supplies. Camels. And a map. There must be an easier way across those hard-bitch mountains than what we found.”

She nodded, considering what I’d said.

The steps returned, and I looked first at the goat pelt, and then at the tiger, who saw me look, and looked at the pelt, too, hopeful the batter-the-mousy game was about to start again. I’d hesitated too long, and I knew it. It was Galva who saved the situation; she pulled up that goatskin and put it around me as if I were naked underneath. “Tuck your chin,” she said, meaning I should hide my stubble. Of course. Gladiators got favors, and this might include a lover. If the guards had seen the Spanth take comfort here, it will not have been with a beardy lad. I fluffed my shag of hair, tucked my chin, and lay against her neck like I was in love, drawing my shoulders in to hide what little boyish breadth they had.

Unable to resist a bit of mischief, I reached a hand up and caressed the plankish bit where a mammet should have been had she not cut them off herself. I felt her teeth grind and knew I’d vexed her. But she saw the value of the mummery and tenderly took that hand in hers.

The guard, who I didn’t see, chuckled, and told someone else, “The tiger’s sister has taken a she-cub.”

“Good for her,” a female voice said.

The steps receded out of hearing.