Yanking lines, shoving at the boom, and slapping the water with oars, they gradually eased the gig deep into the forest of masts.
Alone, Amber stepped onto a stone bench, climbed a eucalyptus tree, hopped down to a wall, and jumped onto the elevated walkway spanning a cemetery-her favorite shortcut home. Smiling at the thought of adventure, she steered the twists and turns of the wall-maze between markhouts, commoners' tombs, and the filigreed khamarkhas of the rich. Hungry cats vaulted to the walkway only to be bowled off by others, perpetually squabbling.
'Sorry,' Amber told them, 'no handouts today.'
The cemetery ended behind a temple dedicated to Umberlee, the great Bitch Queen of the sea, who'd once flooded Memnon and half of Calimshan to inspire greater devotion. Umberlee's temple sparkled as workers ceaselessly polished the brilliant tiles.
Crossing the Plaza of Divine Truth, sliding between apartment buildings and tripping across the Street of Old Night, Amber paused before skittering through the portal of her family compound. On tiptoes, Amber climbed the back stairs, hoping her servants napped in the afternoon heat.
Slipping into her room, Amber flung open the doors of a tall lindenwood armoire. While the room was itself spartan, with whitewashed walls and black shutters and simple inlaid furniture, hanging tapestries displayed riotous and opulent scenes. The bed was heaped with bolsters and quilts of vibrant colors, and scatter rugs glowed like fiery coals. Arrow slits between the windows spoke of earlier, more violent times.
Kicking off her boots and shucking her filthy clothes, Amber plucked out linen drawers, a fresh work shirt, and whipcord riding breeches. She glimpsed her naked frame in a tall silvered mirror and danced a half turn to check her progress. At eighteen, her breasts were small but round and upthrust, her waist nipped nicely, but her thighs and rump looked beamy as a milk cow's. Amber's figure was another local product of the Sword Coast, she sighed, but it could be worse. She was a compact and dusky Mulhorandi Tethan, a mongrel breed so old it was almost pure-blood, that barkened back to the legendary First Trader, who gained his color by touching first gold, then silver, then copper. Her narrow face, proud nose, and glorious black hair thick as a mare's tail, bespoke far-off ancestors from Zakhara who'd frolicked with pirates of the Shining Sea, or so said the family legend.
Typically argumentative, Amber's ancient relatives had splintered from the Scimitar of Fire-a pirate band- possibly over a division of loot or possibly after offending Bhaelros, the demented and destructive bringer of storms and shipwreck. For whatever reason, they quit the ocean and stepped ashore in 1235, just in time to meet the Year of the Black Horde. Under Many-Greats-Aunt Kidila the Kite, the pirate clan had helped storm a city of Tethyr and carry off both treasure and noble folk, many of whom also became Amber's ancestors. The pirates had also, accidentally, rescued a cousin of the caleph from rampaging ores. Playing on the caleph's generosity, and avoiding Bhaelros's cold breath, the ex-pirates turned to piracy ashore.
Into this tumultuous history had stepped a great-grandmother who was a Kahmir, one of four powerful families that ruled Calimshan and a criminal underground for centuries. Such longevity, even in illegal trade, brought respectability in rough-and-tumble Calimshan, so Amber's family was elevated to not-quite ynama-likkars, the titled landowners of the city's skirts.
This explained why Amber yr Nureh el Kahmir, to use her full name, could don a crimson kaffiyeh and sash with a bold yellow stripe, as decreed by a grateful caleph. She hurried now to sling on another leather vest, stuffing its deep pockets with a comb and mirror, tin of lip ointment, handkerchief, calfskin gloves, and other traveling trinkets.
'Aha!' burst a voice from the door. 'There you are.'
'Oppl' A comb flew in the air as Amber jumped. 'Mother, you'll give me a heart attack.'
'I'll give you more than that. Where do you think you're going?' Amber's mother asked. She folded her arras like a queen, giving Amber an eerie preview of herself in middle age, since daughter resembled mother. Age had piled on a webwork of wrinkles, sagging breasts, and even wider hips from birthing a batch of brats, all features that made Amber resolve to never marry nor have children.
Too, Mother's voice got shriller year by year. 'Your father hunted for you all morning, and his language was something awful. Now I find you dressing like a tramp in the middle of the day-'
'I'm going out,' Amber interrupted. 'Whishtl' Her command word sparked an oil lamp over her tall mirror. Daintily she wound her kaffiyeh over her hair. Her voice turned prim, a formality for their eternal arguments. 'I'm embarking with friends on a holiday-'
'You are not! You've work to do, and I won't have you gamboling through the streets like some painted houri with a common rug merchant's son and a beggar. Our family has a reputation to uphold, and you will learn to comport yourself like a rafayam, an 'exalted one,' not some fishmonger's daughter.'
Amber bit her tongue. This argument was so old it creaked. She flung open a carved sandalwood chest and withdrew a camel hide rucksack and rabbit-felt traveling cloak charmed to repel rain. She stuffed in a spare pair of horsehide sandals, silk socks clocked with red-eyed tigers, and a fat purse jingling with silver 'worms' and electrum 'wings,' her spending money. After a moment's hesitation, she jammed a dog-eared Tales of Terror atop it all. Slinging her rucksack over her shoulder, she strode for the door.
'You can't imagine,' her mother rattled on, 'or else don't care how the neighbors' tongues clack, but I'm sick and tired of hearing Sarefa Zahrah maligning my tomboy daughter-are you listening? Where are you going?'
'I'll be back in a week, maybe,' Amber answered, slipping out the door. She marched down the cool, windowed corridor, swinging her rump sassily to further aggravate her mother, who scampered after in soft slippers.
'Amber! You can't go gallivanting around wherever and whenever you wish. You have dutiesl Obligations! Yuzas lamar's cousin is coming on a caravan, and her son is said to be comely and charming-'
Amber stopped so fast her mother skittered past and had to circle. The young woman announced, 'I'm not meeting any snotty yuzas's sister's cousin's son. I'm not getting married, nor settling down, and I don't want to learn the family business, so I see no need to loll here plucking my eyebrows-'
'Won't learn the family business?' Her mother's mouth fell open. 'You ungrateful harakhl You rebel! Six generations now we've traded in-'
'Slaves! I know,' Amber shouted, whirled, and pointed across the courtyard.
The family compound, called a khanduq, had begun life as an ancient frontier caravanserai along the northern coast road to Myratma. Solid as a fort, it boasted walls of mud brick and stone eight feet thick, a triply defended portcullis, a high archway, and four minarets at each corner. Former soldiers' barracks had been converted into slave pens without roofs that could be watched from a sheltered wall walk. Even now, Amber saw through an open iron door her brothers and a sister wrestling a slave to the ground to sear her thigh with a cherry-red branding iron. The slave's shriek echoed off the walls and made a horse kick in the stable.
'There,' Amber spat. 'A proud family tradition! Well, I've tried it. I've wrestled slaves, drugged them, tattooed them, whipped them into submission, yoked them for market-and decided that I don't like it!'
'This 'business' you despise'-Mother's tongue dripped acid-'puts food on the table and bread in your mouth, which has been running all too freely lately. Many fine families in Calimshan move cargo-'
'Slaves, mother. They're people!'
'People with bad luck, forejudged by the gods.' Mother's hand waved the objection away. 'See here, little princess. Without trafficking, we'd be nothing but-'
'Pirates? Bootleggers? Assassins? Housebreakers? Why can't we pursue a peaceful pastime? Why must we live like jackals, sneaking up behind people and cracking their skulls? 'Slavery walks Oppression's Road.' You may live by oppressing others, but I shan't. I plan to pursue some other career, something-something-'
'Oh, surely,' Mother cut in, rolling her eyes in imitation of her daughter, 'you could find work in the marketplace, patching pots or cleaning fish or applying gold leaf to chamber pots. You'd have all the money you need-'
'I don't need money, and I don't want a common trade. I want something… uplifting!'
'It's those benighted books of yours,' Mother carped. 'It's dangerous for a girl to read. It's loaded your empty head with stupid ideas. Your father and I should have arranged your marriage long ago, so your husband could ply a rod to teach you-'
'Any man who touches me gets his rod sliced off! And since I don't believe a wife should support her husband in every decision, I'll never be a pliable partner. Now please excuse me, Mother. I'm late for an
