Beasts of Tabat (10 page)

The dock shook as they passed along it, onto the street and under the two great aetheric lights, suspended seven feet in the air atop iron poles. Others joined the throng as they moved along. Eloquence took hold of his arm in a firm, but not unkind, grip. “I’m going to see if the Mage will take you to the Temples.”

“The Mage?” Teo said, panicked. He’d never seen a Mage before.

“Don’t be a fool, boy, he won’t turn you into a marsh-fly.”

As they approached the wagon, his eyes met the gaze of one of the Dryads. She was a captive like himself, just as miserable, just as trapped. All through the long journey, the Dryads had been chained to the railing, their long hair growing down along it. Teo and Ridley had cleared it more than once, harvesting the lengths and stuffing them in burlap bags, to be sold in Tabat as well.

She was as thin as a sapling, and her skin was patchy where the sun had beleaguered it. But her face, narrow as a rock cleft, still held defiance.

They locked stares. Both of them trapped, both of them far from home.

Something sparked in her eyes. As Eloquence released Teo’s arm and stepped forward to speak to the Mage, she launched herself at the man from behind, locking her wiry legs around his throat while she clawed at his face with twiggy hands, raising runnels bright with blood. She rode his shoulders like a bucking horse and the Gryphon pulling the cart shrieked, a piercing note of protest, and raised an immense claw as though to pluck her away.

The man screamed as the Dryad looked at Teo one last time.

Run
, her look said.

Teo ran.

* * *

Despite the shouts behind him, no one chased him down the alley. For a second he thought it dead-ended, and then he caught a glimmer of light from a side passage. He dashed through a warren of alleys behind the large buildings, finally emerging in another square. He was still in the city’s outer confines.

Caught in the middle of the press, Teo stared down at the confusion of shadows underfoot. Where should he go now? How quickly would the Priests learn that he’d arrived? How would they track him down in such a vast, well-populated place?

He could go anywhere from there, he thought. He could go anywhere in the city. The thought seized him. He could go anywhere. Become anything. All he had to do was learn to fit in.

His heart stuttered in the hollow of his throat. Bodies jostled him this way and that. He moved with the crowd. Most travelers here were on foot, but a flock of pedal-cabs raced past, each triangular vehicle holding the driver and a passenger or two. It took nimbleness and agility to stay out of their way.

Steam-wagons clanked by as well, boxy metal constructions with wheels as high as he was tall. Jets of harshly scented hot mist shot out around the massive metal wheels. Familiar looking fur bales rolled by: pine marten furs striped black and white stacked beside silky beaver pelts—the cargo from the
Water Lily
.

He needed to get further away, away from any place he might encounter the others from the ship. A wash of fear struck him. He’d angered a Mage. Who knew what the man would do in pursuit of him?

Up ahead, guards were stopping travelers and checking them. As he approached, he expected to be grabbed and inspected. The guards had more important fish to fry than a skinny northern boy, though. Three had surrounded a pair of travelers coming out of Tabat pulling a handcart.

“No contraband, no escapees?” a guard said, nodding at the cart.

The woman drew herself up. She was dark-haired, dark-skinned, pure Old Continent descent. She wore a bright blue entertainer’s cloak with “The Amazing Rappinos” embroidered in florid cursive across the back. Teo wondered what had brought her to an entertainer’s role. “Do we look like Sorcerers or Abolitionists?”

“Yes,” the guard said. “Search the cart.”

Another guard gestured Teo in, watching the drama. As Teo moved past, he saw their goods unpacked and flung on the ground. A pottery vessel shattered on the stones. He heard a guard say “Aha,” and glanced back to see the red-bound book the other man held up. But before he could hear or see more, the crowd pushed him on and before he knew it, he was inside Tabat’s Hillside Gate.

Despite the jostling, he fought his way to the crowd’s edge. Inside the gate, limestone buildings lined a plaza. Signs hung over double wooden doors indicating they were Government offices in charge of assessing goods and taxes. Ice-capped gargoyles guarded the corners of the nearest, newest buildings, and a pair of the brilliant, sorcerous lights marked each entrance.

Bewildered and alone, Teo made for the harbor, moving downward along icy stairs and sodden streets. Papers fluttering on an ice-slicked wall, shag-faced with orange handbills and broadsides, caught his attention and he moved over to inspect them. Here was news of a political rally on the Rights of the Worker, and another on the Formation of a True Democracy, and another titled the Burgeoning Upsong of Our Most Democratic Future. Here was a sale of Beasts next Auction-Day, listing each creature to be sold: “One Buck Unicorn, seven hands high, Halter-broke. A proven Breeding Pair of Sturdy Minotaurs. One Mermaid from the Southern Waters, trained in Felicitous Singing.”

He studied the signs, sounding out the syllables. There were news accounts and public announcements as well. He read of a suspected Sorcerer taken to be drowned in the Harbor, with “no less than a hundred-weight of chains upon his feet.” And next to that another illustration, a Shifter family burned at the stake, parents and children alike. His stomach turned at the engraving illustrating the last. He turned to survey the square. If anyone realized he was a Shifter, he would be burned alive, too.

He stood there while the wind rustled the papers behind him, watching the crowd and trying to determine his path. He rocked back and forth on his heels, contemplating this new world. No one in the entire city knew him, he thought. No one at all. No one expected anything of him or expected him to do anything. To be anything.

At home, wondering what it would be like to be in Tabat, he had never anticipated the loneliness that swept through him now as he stood there in the midst of the crowd.

Nor the anger. He let himself pick at that wound. They’d promised his life so his little sister could live and hadn’t consulted him in the matter. He wasn’t even sure that the Moons had cured her. Who cared about him? Not them, certainly. Shipped off to be a servant to Toj’s Temple. They had ways of making sure he’d never leave that service.

Well, he’d decided differently, and that would be the end of that. He would make his own choices from here on in.

The streets splayed in a handful of directions around him. The fireworks spoke again, and he chose the path they marked, which led down a set of terraced steps towards the sea itself. He knew he was moving away from the Temple to which he had been promised, but he didn’t care.

Staircases laddered the sloped terraces of the city and he made his way down them, lower and lower. Snow drowsed in planters along the upper streets but gave way to stacks of garbage and indrawn bushes cloaked in the falling snow, the light from the fireworks coloring them purple, then red.

He passed open tea shops and closed stores neighboring them, iron-barred store windows filled with spices followed by displays of alchemical ingredients, then leather goods, then chinaware.

He was cautious but walked along like any of the other late night pedestrians around him. It wasn’t so bad, this city. He could get the hang of it. The exhilarating thing was that no one seemed to pay him much mind. It was as though he were invisible, as though there were no expectations of him.

Would life be like this in the Temples? He doubted it, somehow, and the thought pushed a quicker rhythm to his step. He wanted to get down to the harbor before the fireworks were over, to have his first close look at the sea marked by their graceful arcs of sparks, as though this were something momentous. He thought, “I’ll remember it all my life, the first time I see the ocean.”

But it was farther away than it looked. A half hour later he was making his way through rows of warehouses shouldered side by side, close enough to the water that he could smell the salt in the air. He rounded a corner and caught sight of water sparkle, but the fireworks had died away and not spoken for several blocks. He felt disappointed, deflated.

Before he could go another pace, two men caught up with him and fell into step on either hand.

“New to town, sonny?” the left-hand man said. He had steel-gray hair, cut short, and an aggressive jut to his beard. He was dressed in serviceable, unremarkable, but well-kempt, clothing. On his breast, as well as that of the other man, blue and red feather cockades bristled. Teo had seen other people wearing these ornaments in a variety of colors, but their meaning escaped him.

Teo nodded, wary. Was this the sort of trouble Captain Urdo had warned him of? He had only two avenues of escape—back down the alleyway, or further on into darkness.

The man said with an approving nod, “Good lad. You’re right to be careful of strangers, ain’t he, Legio?”

The other man grinned agreeably. “Indeed he do be right for such. Good lad indeed!”

Despite himself, the praise warmed Teo. He allowed himself to relax. They seemed good enough souls. And they were Northerners like himself, that was sure enough, he figured. Northerners had to stick together or the Old Continent bloods would high-nose them to death.

“We was wondering with such a fine young lad, if he be interested in picking up some coin. In order to have a little to spend on the splendors of this here our fair city.”

“I might,” he admitted. He wasn’t sure yet. Could he trust this unshaven pair? A scar scrawled across Legio’s face, a single knife mark splitting his cheek.

“Indeed! Indeed, he do be interested, you hear that, Legio?”

Legio beamed his delight at learning the news. Surely this was just good luck, Teo thought—Toj looking out for his new arrival.

“That’s right, lad. The city’s a plum just waiting for a smart boy of the right sort to reach out and pluck it. All you needs be doing to earn three copper skiffs is to be fleet of foot, ain’t that so, Legio? Get this to Granny Beeswax in Stumble Lane, boy, and there’s that many coins in it. More if you’re as fast as you look. And maybe just as many again for bringing something back this way.”

“What do you want me to take to her?” he asked.

His new friend pressed a grubby envelope on him. “Take it, quick as you can, and tell her Canumbra sent ya.”

“How do I get there?”

“Head up this street, Eelsy, then take the stair down where the street ends. Come to the bottom, go right, and go three doors down and into the alley—towards the back be a little door, painted green with a candle in the window, you’ll see it, sure as salmon spawning. Now off with ye!”

Relief spurred his heels—see, the city wasn’t so frightening after all, and here he was making his way in it already, about to earn more money than he’d ever held. He rattled down a stairway and along a smaller street.

Canumbra’s instructions had been clear enough, although as Teo progressed downward, he wished the aetheric lights spread this far down to light his path. Instead, guttering torches hung outside a few buildings, half-heartedly illuminating the icy cobblestones.

A white door, and then an unpainted one, then faded blue. An alleyway formed by overlapping eaves. More like an extended arch that led into a chilly maze, walls barely visible in the darkness. A squat red candle flickered in the window. He knocked twice and stood back.

The effort of the run had finally caught up with him. For a few minutes his heartbeat thundered inside his head while he fought to regain control of his breath. The cold wind here swept along the alley’s curve with the impact of a punch against his run-fevered skin. He wondered if anyone was awake inside. Had he perhaps been sent too late? But no, the candle signaled
someone
was not asleep.

Inside, a shuffle and a mumble. A slant of light from Hijae from over his shoulder played across the door’s surface with a bloody luster as it creaked open. The face that peered out through the narrow darkness was an unfriendly, wrinkled apple until he said, “Are you Granny Beeswax? I have a message for you from Canumbra.”

“Canumbra!” she said. “He sends me all the fine young bucks. Are ye interested in a sailsome life then, me boy?”

She stepped back. The door swung open with a protesting creak, a syllable of complaint that the wind snatched away, shrilling and hissing as though reluctant to see him venture inside.

She ushered him into the reek of smoke and rancid fish oil. A tiny coal stove crouched in the corner topped with a kettle, its chimney pipe slanting towards the ceiling. A rocking chair teetered beside it, and a basket of grubby tatting partnered with a china mug was laid near one of the bowed runners.

The furnishings were sparse: The stove, the chair, a coffin-shaped cupboard, a wicker basket full of coals. The candle glowed in a saucer on the windowsill, swallowing the moonlight and lighting the ragged quilts tacked onto the wall, billowing where the wind puffed through the cracks behind them. Despite the wind’s howl, it was much warmer in here, too warm. He tugged open his cloak, baring his throat.

She took the slip of paper he pressed on her and shuffled to the windowsill. But instead of reading it, she laid it there and turned back to him, still smiling. Darkness and candlelight played across the landscape of her face.

“You’d be new to town, lad?”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, a little of this and a little of that, by way of a clue,” she said, studying him. “Yer accent, for one. That fur and fustian shawlcoat yer wearing for another. Here, let me hang it up for ye, lad. Put your pack right here. I’ll make you some tea to drink while I’m reading Mr. Canumbra’s letter and writing down a reply.”

She pulled the garment off his shoulders. He tried to protest. Its pockets held his money, and the pack the rest of his worldly goods, other than what he wore. But she pushed him down into the chair and turned to open the stove and stir its embers before adding more coals.