Heroes Adrift (6 page)

“Could you imagine the hassles if they all use different words?”

“I'd rather not, thanks.”

“Aye, well, a bit of a rocky start, but we're here. And I'm dying for a bath. Damn it's hot.”

“I'm just looking forward to sleeping in a bed that doesn't rock.”

I knew, the moment those words came out of my mouth, that I shouldn't have said them, for Karish looked at me with the most evil glint in his eyes. “I'll have to see what I can do to change that, won't I?”

Just what I needed. Karish degenerating into using innuendo on me. I thought he'd lost that habit.

“How long are you thinking we should stay around here?”

I shrugged. “A few days, maybe. Gather some supplies and more suitable clothes. Find out what we can about their laws and whatnot.” So I could storm back to that highway hag and get my shirt back. “And try to figure out where to start looking for the line.”

“The line?”

“It would perhaps be wise to get used to not referring to certain people or using proper names.”

Karish rolled his eyes. “Who's listening to us?” He indicated the empty space around us with a sweep of his arm.

“Might as well get into the habit now. We need some better maps, too. The ones I have are decades old and don't have the kind of detail I'd like.”

Karish wasn't listening. He was pulling the laces out of his shirt.

“You're not taking that off,” I said in my best stern voice.

He smirked. “Just what are you worried about, Lee, my love?”

“That you'll burn that lovely hide of yours to a crispy red that'll have you miserable with pain by tonight.”

That wiped off the smirk. “Really?”

“Gods, Taro, do you never read anything?”

“Racing results,” he answered promptly. “Otherwise, of course not. I have a life.”

“Fine. Then you'll have a sunburn. And we need hats. I should have thought of that before.”

“Yes. Shame on you for not thinking of everything all the time. How do you live with yourself?”

I heard the jingling of bells from farther up the road. A cymbal crashed, and voices chattered. “Something's going on. Something unusual.”

“Of course. When is there not when we come into town?”

We started passing buildings. Flimsy looking structures, made out of light wood of a pale yellow color. The fronts of these buildings were completely open, revealing work being done within but also, to my untrained eye, personal living quarters. Plenty of people housed their businesses in their homes, but it was my understanding that the two areas were usually rigidly separated. It didn't seem to be the case here.

Unless they were such hard workers that they had to catch sleep when they could, taking naps at the work place. Which was, to me, a horrible idea.

The people in the buildings stopped and stared at us. Just stared. No subtlety about it at all, no air of self-consciousness. Like there was nothing wrong or impolite about the way they were pinning their gazes on us. How rude.

The jingling was joined by drums, of course. There were always drums. But they were farther away, and while the dull thudding caused my heart rate to increase a little, my head stayed clear. So that was something.

We came across a small crowd, men and women and children, standing around a woman with a table. Most of the children were dressed identically to those who had passed us earlier. Older children, those at the stage of adolescence or beyond, apparently assumed the garb of adults, but again both genders were similarly dressed. Short skirts riding low on the hips and slit up one side. Sleeveless shirts cut high above the midriff. Variation came from the color and the intricate stitching coiling over the material. Both genders wore their black hair braided, though the number of braids and the ribbons or flowers tied into the hair varied. The tattoos, worn only by the adults, were all black, but they, too, varied wildly in pattern.

As a group, they were beautiful.

The woman at the table wore even less than anyone else, a loin cloth that barely preserved her modesty, an opaque scarf wrapped over her breasts, one ear pierced with a multitude of silver earrings, and a crownlike piece woven into her cornrow braids. Her lips and eyelids were blackened with powder, and her tattoos were highlighted with a sprinkling of silver dust.

I noticed right away that her skin was much paler than that of those around her, a light creamy brown. She seemed to be of a slightly more voluptuous build. Her eyes were gray, and against the dark contrast of the eye makeup, looked almost silvery.

As she smiled and flirted with every member of her audience, her delicate hands moved three identical half shells over the surface of the table, dropping and picking them up again with smooth sweeps, a steady stream of indiscernible patter falling from her painted lips. A young man stepped up to her table, dropping some coins upon it, and chose one of the shells with a tap of his finger. The woman lifted the shell, revealing nothing underneath. She pouted at him sympathetically, and scooped up his money.

Some things, it seemed, were universal.

I couldn't understand the next words out of her mouth—raising Karish's fear of a different vocabulary once more—but the gesture was an unmistakable invitation for someone else to step up.

No one did, though, for they'd found something else to hold their attention. That something else being us. They let us know this by freezing in place and starring at us. A few whispers reached our ears.

I was not impressed. They'd seen Northerners before. I knew trades people, at least, had been down there. What was there to gawk at?

Other than Karish. He had that effect on people, sometimes.

The woman at the table was not well pleased. “Eh!” she called to us. The rest of what she said was unintelligible to me.

There's no polite way to tell someone you didn't have a clue what they'd just said.

But she ascertained that all on her own, clever girl. “Go or play,” she ordered with more clarity.

I nodded and stepped away.

But my choice, it appeared, didn't please her either. “Challenge!” she said. She gestured at the shells imperiously.

“We have no coins.”

I jerked back from the old woman next to me who appeared to be trying to touch my hair.

The woman at the table tugged on her earlobe.

Karish removed the gold hoop from his ear. “You do it, Lee. You'll catch it.”

“I don't play these kinds of games.” Didn't gamble at all, really, unless you included playing cards with Karish. And as I always won, that wasn't really gambling.

“If you don't do it, they'll either think we're cowards or that we think too highly of ourselves to participate. Either way, not a good first impression to be making.” He made his way through the small crowd and placed his earring on the table. “Besides, we can use the money to buy your shirt back, if you're so keen on it. Come on. Do your thing.”

I wouldn't need money to get my shirt back, but I saw no harm in complying. Karish loved to wager on things. And I wouldn't lose. Not that it would matter if I did. He had other earrings and could get more easily enough.

I stepped through the crowd, trying not to invade other people's space, a waste of effort as they had no compunctions about invading mine. I felt strange hands stroking my hair and brushing my skin. It was a most disquieting experience.

When I reached the table, I nodded at the woman to let her know she could begin. She did so, smoothly shifting the shells about while reeling off a practiced patter of words. I found that I could understand the odd word, perhaps one in five, and it was no doubt a matter of accent rather than language that was causing my lack of comprehension.

The woman stopped her shuffling and indicated that I could choose.

I did, lifting the shell myself and revealing the small brown ball underneath.

There was delighted laughter and applause behind me. With a triumphant chuckle, Karish scooped up his earring and slid it back into his ear.

The gamester was not impressed, of course. Her smile dropped off and she glared at me as she dropped a trio of coins on the table. “Again,” she announced.

I shouldn't do it again. I had an advantage she was perhaps not aware of. It was hard to fool a Shield—a good Shield—with sleight of hand. It was part of our role to be particularly aware of what the object of our attention was doing. This was her livelihood, and the lack of sleeves on her person suggested she might be honest in pursuing it. It wasn't fair to meddle with that.

The woman raised her eyebrows in mockery. “Afraid?”

Good Zaire, she was trying to provoke me. How ludicrous. “Certainly not.”

“Then play again.”

I could decipher those words easily enough. And if she wanted it that badly…“All right, then.”

This time there was no pretty verbal patter as she manipulated the shells. She was faster. Instead of keeping the three shells in a single straight line she moved and placed them all over the small table top, and I noticed her hands flowing in a different pattern. That didn't mean that when I chose my shell and picked it up, the brown ball wasn't under it.

More applause from the spectators. Karish curled an arm around my waist and kissed my temple like it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen me do. The woman dug into a sack lying by her feet on the ground and pulled out three more shells, identical to the ones already on the table. She then pulled out more coins, six of them, and looked at me.

“This is getting ridiculous,” I muttered. “What am I supposed to do with all of these?”

“Give them to me,” Karish said.

“What do you need them for?”

“To buy my way into a card game.”

“You don't know that they play cards here.”

“Everyone plays cards everywhere.”

Well, all right, then. I nodded at the gamester. She nodded back.

Her hands moved incredibly swiftly, and with the additional shells it was much more difficult to follow the ball. Had the gamester been the sort to cheat she probably would have beaten me. But she didn't cheat and difficult didn't mean impossible. When I chose my shell I was awarded with another nice little pile of coins, and I was a hero among the spectators.

“You've bested me,” the gamester said. She took the extra shells from the table and put them back into her bag.

I guessed the challenge was over. I took the coins and Karish's hand, depositing the former into the latter. “Gamble them away in good health.”

He looked offended. “Hardly away,” he objected. “I don't lose.”

“Except to me,” I reminded him with a smirk.

“Aye, no point in breaking a trend.”

I frowned, trying to decipher that.

“Hey!” The gamester waved both hands at us. “Go, go, go! I—”

I couldn't clearly understand the rest of what she said, but hey, I could catch a hint with the best of them.

We moved on. Unfortunately, for both the gamester and us, nearly half the crowd moved on with us. I ended up with a lot of people touching my hair. And yes, it was red, a freakish color even at home, but couldn't they just look at it?

We soon came across a contortionist. In a costume more paint than cloth, the young woman stood—sort of—on her hands. A fixed smile on her face, her back was bent nearly in half to allow her feet and shins to dangle over her shoulders. Looking at her made my spine hurt.

“Can you do that?” Karish asked.

I looked at him with disbelief. “Can you?”

As before, however, the performer lost a good part of her audience once they became aware of us. And again with the hair touching. Here was this woman turning herself inside out for their entertainment and they would rather stare at me. Didn't I feel like a freak? “Let's move on.” I didn't want to detract from the profits of the performers.

So we moved on. To the jugglers. Gorgeous young men dressed in mere strips of red cloth hurling long shiny knives at each other. Drummers and tumblers. Tightrope walking and trapeze artists, a snake charmer and some kind of fortune-teller.

At each location, the spectators seemed more interested in us than in the performances. I was used to a certain amount of attention due to being a Shield. This was different, more invasive. It was definitely time to get off the street.

I had to ask to be pointed to a boarding house. Which, I discovered, was called a bunker. At least I was getting used to the accent, and if I listened carefully enough, I could understand what was being said.

The bunker was only two stories high, which was as high as any building I had seen so far. Two vertical flaps of cloth, pretty but insubstantial, served as a door. We ducked under and were yelled at before we'd moved more than a few feet past the door.

“Please,” a man cried quickly, shuffling out from another room. “Kindly remove your, er, sandals.”