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Istride out of the Fallen Beetle and join the throngs on the street. My followers pick me up and continue trying to be inconspicuous. I don’t know if they know I know or not, but I’ll let them play their game.
I have a plan now and I think it’s a good one. First I need to get to the market. I don’t bother trying to lose the pursuit because right now I want them. I need the Maulavi to know what I am doing and best if they think they know from subterfuge, not because I want them to know. This game has layers and for the first time in a very long time I feel alive.
Another gift Niyah has given me. How quickly my feelings for her have grown. From the stirrings of lust to this. She is not only in my thoughts, but in my heart. There’s been little time for discussion between us. I do not know if she feels the same or not, but I hope.
Hope. The one thing I didn’t know I’d lost. We’ve all lost, I think as I look around at my fellows. No one in this crowd looks happy. They’re intent, yes, all pushing to get to their individual goals and destinations, but there is no joy. No zest for life. That has been taken from them, from all of us.
It happened slowly. Subtly, so much so that I don’t know if anyone noticed. I didn’t. I had no idea how dark my life had become before Niyah burst into it like an eruption from the depths of the earth.
Every Urr’ki is taken to the surface as part of the right of passage into adulthood. We see where we came from, find and choose a stick that will be our mudrosti on which we will carve the story of our life so that all our people may know our history. I remember my trip, with my father and my uncle, as clearly as if it was yesterday.
It was night when we emerged from the underground. The sky overhead was dark, but rich with sparkling lights like gems set into a cloth of midnight blue. They told me those were the stars, where the lizards first came from, brought by the Star People. That is not what I recall now though. What calls my attention to this memory now is the rising of the suns.
In all my life I had never seen something so breathtaking. Still to do this day I do not think there is much, if anything, that can compare. Except her. Because that is the perfect analogy for Niyah. The rising suns burst over the horizon, burning away the remnants of the darkness of night. She, like them, is so beautiful that it hurts.
She is the light in my world and in that illumination there is no doubt as to how dark it has been without her. The contrast is too stark to ignore. And having awakened to the deep truth, I see it all around me. Apathy. Despair. Not a hint of hope or anything more than making it through the day and the faintest of hopes that this will be it.
I can’t stop the growl that emerges. Only those closest to me give a second glance, but that doesn’t mean others didn’t note it. In this age of the Shaman, everyone is either a spy or a potential spy. There is no escaping that fact either.
I shake myself free of my musings. There is business to be attended to and the market is on my left. I enter the broad walkways between the stalls and tents looking for a merchant who sells what I want. The shouts, barks, and complaints fill the air and almost it feels alive. Almost, yet even here there is a sense that everything is subdued. Less than what was. The lively and spirited debates and haggling that once were the hallmark of the market are too much effort. Gone, like so much else.
Shaking my head I force myself to move. I do not have time for these musings. She is waiting and that body must disappear before it is found by the Maulavi. The moment that happens it’s all over.
It takes too long, at least a hand of time before I find a vendor selling what I want. I approach his booth which is shoved into a back corner of the market. He has a tent that covers his area that I have to duck to get under.
“Hello,” the merchant says. “Welcome. You’re in the market for a bed?”
It’s dark under the tent and my eyes are adjusting slowly. He doesn’t have very many torches lit, a sign of either poor quality or poor sales. Probably both, but that doesn’t matter. I look back outside and see my tail has taken up a post at the booth on the opposite side. When I look he picks up a pelt and busies himself examining it.
“Yes,” I say. “I need a new bed.”
“Very good, I have the finest quality beds available in the city,” he says.
I wander through the displays. I cannot do this too fast or it will be suspicious. He talks the entire time. A nonstop diatribe of the qualities of each bed I pause at. I could not really care less, this is only a cover for me. Finally, I find one that I think is acceptable.
“How much?”
“A good choice. High quality. Made from the very durable?—”
“How. Much.” I punctuate each word with a growl.
He frowns when I cut him off but it’s quickly replaced with a new smile.
“Ninety irons,” he says.
I choke on the amount, blinking.
“You are kidding,” I say. “Fifty.”
He looks shocked, placing one hand over his heart and shaking his head.
“I am but a humble merchant, sir,” he says. “That would be so far below my cost I would go out of business. I would never be able to feed my family.”
I stare him down and he meets my glare with a look I assume is an attempt at sympathy. I cannot muster any for him. Ninety irons is every one I have on hand. I cannot possibly pay that much for it.
“Sixty,” I counter.
We go back and forth finally resolving at seventy-five. I still think he’s ripping me off at that price but there is a ticking clock in the back of my head. Every passing moment is another that she is alone. Or, worse, not alone. A moment that the Maulavi may have figured us out. Showed up to arrest her and have a team on their way to take me too.
