Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (55 page)

As the crowd thinned, leaving only the handful who
would stay behind on guard duty, Kyrus made his way down himself. He held his
arms out to the side to balance himself as the gangplank swayed slightly under
his footsteps. When he reached the pier, he turned back to look at the ship. He
had yet to get a good look at it, since they had boarded it at night and he had
been on it ever since. It was an elegant vessel in Kyrus’s eyes, well cared for
and lovingly detailed, obviously built by shipwrights with a sense of pride.

A hand on his shoulder caused Kyrus to twist around
suddenly. He found that the hand belonged to the exotic young sailor, Stevin.

“Oh, that was just you,” Kyrus, feeling relieved.

“Cap’n said I go with you. You don’t speak the tongues
here,” Stevin told him, nodding.

Stevin then pressed a sword belt into his hands, which
he had been carrying in the hand that was not on Kyrus’s shoulder.

“And you
do
speak all the languages they speak
here?” Kyrus asked, skeptical.

“You think I speak Acardian first?” Stevin asked,
smiling lopsidedly. “But no. I not speak every tongue here. They speak everything
here, but I speak a lot, see?”

“Well, thank you, I suppose. Are you sure you do not
mind acting as my interpreter?” Kyrus asked.

“Don’t matter. Cap’n says, Cap’n says.” Stevin
shrugged. “Cap’n says clean deck, I clean deck. Cap’n says haul anchor, I haul
anchor. Today, Cap’n says follow Mr. Hinterdale.”

“I … suppose. What is this for then?”

Kyrus held up the sword belt. It was one of the ones
they had brought with them on the initial raid on the
Harbinger
, a
saber, Kyrus believed.

“Less trouble with you carrin’ a sword, hmm? Lotta
rough guys around this place. See an easy mark, they get ya,” Stevin said.

Kyrus left it at that and buckled on the belt. The
weight of the sword felt oddly reassuring at his side, though it was awkward
bouncing against his leg, and he could feel the offset weight of the belt
already starting to cause it to chafe against his side after the first few
paces. Kyrus tried resting his hand on the hilt to steady the blade and lessen
the discomfort.

Preoccupied as he was with figuring out how to wear
the sword, he momentarily forgot about Stevin, as the younger man had fallen
into step behind him as they left the pier where the
Harbinger
was
moored.

SLAP!

Kyrus withdrew the stinging hand from the sword hilt
and snapped his head around to see what had just happened.

“Stop that. You look like you never use sword before,”
Stevin chided him, giving him a stern look.

Kyrus looked the lad up and down. He was wiry of build
with exotic yellow-orange skin and a mop of blond hair that he kept shaved at
the sides. His arms, exposed now that the weather was warm enough for rolled
sleeves, were covered in tattoos of dragons, serpents, knives, and the like.
Around his neck was a pendant that Kyrus thought he recognized as a Kheshi
totem for invoking bad luck on one’s enemies. It seemed that Stevin knew his
tricks when it came to not looking like an easy mark.

The tattoos in particular were something that Kyrus
had been wondering about. Ever since the warm turn of weather as they sailed
southward, the crew had more and more taken to rolling up sleeves or working
bare chested up on the main deck. As a result, Kyrus had seen a collage of
human-based artwork; nearly every man aboard seemed to bear some sort of
marking. Some had fearsome collections of beasts and omens inscribed on their
bodies to make themselves appear more dangerous—or, as Kyrus occasionally
considered, properly identify themselves as dangerous. Names and mottoes were
commonplace as well, with men paying tribute to lovers or parents, lost brothers
and devoted friends, or expressing the values they lived by—nothing says a man
loves gold, rum, and whores like a tattoo that says
“Gold & Rum &
Whores.”
A few others had patterns that seemed to be strictly decorative,
with no deeper meaning.

It finally occurred to Kyrus that he had never seen a
tattoo in his dreams of Veydrus. Brannis and his contemporaries were unfamiliar
with them. The ogre tribes often painted their bodies for war and rituals, but
nothing like the permanent, subcutaneous markings that were so common in
Tellurak.

“Stevin, where can I find a place to get a tattoo,
like yours?” Kyrus asked.

“Ah, now you thinkin’. No hand on sword, get tattoo.
You be scary guy soon, huh?” Stevin smiled at him.

“Something like that,” Kyrus replied. He had something
different in mind, though.

*
* * * * * * *

The tattoo den was nestled in a corner of an open-air
market, one of the fixed structures that surrounded a plaza filled with carts
and booths. Kyrus had been following Stevin around what felt like half the
island chain.

The interior was dimly lit by a pair of braziers that
were burning some sort of incense. It gave a reddish glow to everything in the
parlor. The walls were covered in exotic artwork: masks, little carved wooden
reliefs, scrolls with strange symbols similar to runes but which Kyrus thought
might be Kheshi script, and tassels with bells on them. There was a low couch
to one side of the room with a chair next to it, surrounded by tables with
various implements whose purpose Kyrus could surmise, with some trepidation.

Seated in the chair was a wrinkled old man whose bald
head, and most of his body, was a mass of intermingled tattoos. The man had a
pinched face and puckered mouth, an impression heightened by a long, thin pipe
he was puffing at, jetting out little purple-grey wisps of smoke. A pair of
tiny round spectacles perched on his nose, and he stared through them at a thin
book—a soft-covered piece of trash that was likely made by typesetters, Kyrus
thought disdainfully—whose front cover he had curled around the back to allow
it to stay open when held with one hand.

Bells had clattered and jingled from the top of the
door as Kyrus and Stevin had entered, yet the old man had not stirred from his
book. The whole of the parlor smelled of the combined smokes of the braziers
and the old man’s pipe, a cloying, sickly sweet scent that stung the eyes until
they became accustomed to it.

Stevin called something out in a language Kyrus did
not understand. Based on his guess about the symbols on the walls, he supposed
that the lad was using Kheshi. Stevin seemed to be very polite in addressing
the older man, which he gathered meant Stevin respected him more than Kyrus.

I suppose either he was just raised to respect his
elders, or he figures that Captain Zayne set him as my nanny for the day, so
how much respect should I deserve?

“What are you saying to him?” Kyrus asked, after the
two appeared to be holding a conversation rather than making the pleasantries
of a greeting as a prelude to a business transaction.

“Oh, I know him long time,” Stevin said. “I grow up
Marker’s Point. He a good guy. You can trust him.”

“Does he speak Acardian?” Kyrus asked.

What he had in mind would be a lot easier if he could
communicate with the old man directly.

“No. Speak Kheshi,” Stevin said, confirming Kyrus’s
conjecture about the language at least, unhelpful though the information was.

Stevin then launched into Kheshi speech at length with
the old man, then took Kyrus by the hands and arranged them such that Kyrus’s hands
were palm up, spread in front of him.

“Tell him name now,” he prompted Kyrus.

“Kyrus Hinterdale,” Kyrus said dutifully, presumably a
part of a formal introduction.

“(Something Kheshi) Shao,” the old man replied,
finally setting down the book and mirroring Kyrus’s spread palms gesture.

“Grandfather Shao take good care you.” Stevin nodded
at Kyrus.

“Ask him if he can copy from a design I draw,” Kyrus
said.

Stevin relayed the message. Grandfather Shao carried
on at length before stopping to let Stevin translate back.

“He says ya, just draw it and he put anywhere you
want,” Stevin said.

“That sounded like a lot more than what you
translated,” Kyrus said.

“He is proud old man. He say a lot you don’t care
about; I tell you da good stuff,” Stevin assured him.

“Find out how much it will cost,” Kyrus ordered.

Again, Stevin launched into a conversation that
sounded like it included a lot more than his initial request.

“Six thousan’ zimbals. I get you good deal,” Stevin
said, and Kyrus agreed.

Unlike much of the crew, the math behind just how
little each zimbal was worth was not so difficult for him. It would have been
about the price of a meal at a nicer tavern.

“Umm, he think you not draw too much. You draw all
day, he make you pay more, ya?”

“Well, I can deal with that when the time comes,”
Kyrus said. “Can you ask him for something to draw on?”

A few minutes later, Kyrus was working on the design
for the tattoo he wanted. Stevin seemed like he was not the type for waiting
and started getting restless after not terribly long. Grandfather Shao had
initially showed some slight interest in what Kyrus was starting to draw, but
seeing that he did not recognize the design, he went back to his book.

“Stevin, I think I will be fine here, if you wish to
enjoy the markets. I do not think I will get into any trouble here,” Kyrus
assured the lad.

“You not have tell me twice.” Stevin winked and ducked
out of the parlor in a clamor of bells before Kyrus could say another word.

Kyrus worked for a few minutes, double- and then
triple-checking his work. His final check was less obvious, but the design
seemed to hold up to all scrutiny—it held the tiny bit of aether he released
into it. He got Grandfather Shao’s attention and showed him the design, a
vertical series of runes, nearly identical to the ones he had carved into the
door of his cabin.

The old man examined it critically, nodding slightly,
then looked at Kyrus and raised an eyebrow eloquently, glancing over Kyrus.
Kyrus took the hint and worked his way out of his tunic. He described an area
of his upper left arm by pointing and outlining with his finger. Grandfather
Shao nodded again, seeming satisfied. He gestured Kyrus to recline on the couch
and then dragged his chair around to where Kyrus’s shoulder was. He took the paper
from Kyrus and turned it this way and that, until Kyrus took hold of it and
lined it up on his shoulder right where he wanted it. Then Shao took his thumb
and forefinger and held them together, then widened them, then narrowed them,
and cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Just like it is there.” Kyrus pointed emphatically at
the drawn version he had done. He had already accounted for the proper size.

Grandfather Shao nodded sagely.

The old man went to a cupboard in the back of the shop
and gathered some glasses and jars contained therein. He poured a glass of
something that smelled strongly of alcohol, but had naught but a bit of yellow
in it to keep it from being completely clear. The old man daubed a cloth in it
and wiped the area clean where he was about to work. Then he poured a second
glass of another liquid and handed it to Kyrus. Shao made a quick motion with
his wrist, which Kyrus mimicked with the hand
not
holding the glass,
trying to confirm whether he was meant to drink it.

“If you say so,” Kyrus muttered, and downed the
contents.

It burned all the way down and back up when he exhaled
afterward. While he was certain he had actually swallowed it, the fumes cleared
his nose and made his eyes water.

“You could warn a fellow,” Kyrus protested.

The old man chuckled.

“You … do not speak Acardian … do you?” Kyrus asked.

Grandfather Shao held out one hand and wobbled it side
to side, and shrugged. “Mebbe li’l,” he admitted, and the two of them shared a
chuckle.

Kyrus winced as the first needle pierced his skin, and
several times throughout the ordeal Grandfather Shao had stopped his work to
cuff him on the side of the head and lay into him in a string of invectives in
Kheshi that, despite the language barrier, clearly called into question his manhood.

It seemed like a day, and in truth had taken hours,
but at the end—like so many things—it was done.

The whole of his left shoulder felt bee-stung, but
Kyrus looked at the result and compared it to the paper copy he had made. If
Kyrus had been an Expert Scrivener, then Grandfather Shao had every right to be
called an Expert Tattooist. The markings matched identically, with not a line
out of place or a proportion amiss.

The true test was in practice, and Kyrus drew aether.
Watching in his now habitual split aether-vision, he directed it into the ward
that Grandfather Shao had carved into his arm. It glowed in the aether, just
like his cabin door had, and a grin spread widely across his face. Grandfather
Shao assumed that he was just especially pleased with the work, and he smiled
in return.

“Can you keep a secret?” Kyrus asked, but Shao just
looked at him quizzically. “Well, let me show you something anyway.”