faintly why their barge had put in at midday, almost as though the captain was in a hurry to off-load his passengers. Shikashe strode to the end of the shortest line and his armored sleeves creaked as he crossed his arms to wait, drawing a nervous glance from the small fellow in line ahead of him.
Nesha-tari’s words about a magical examination by Circle Wizards, spoken half an hour ago, finally registered with Zeb and he looked around until noticing a figure in gray robes on the balcony above, a young woman holding a gnarled staff topped by a clear crystal globe. Her lips were moving, and the pale fingers of one extended hand wiggled in the air. Standing directly in front of Zeb, Nesha-tari’s hood only tilted slightly to one side, and she never took her eyes off of Shikashe’s back. The Circle Wizard above looked bored and rested the staff against her shoulder. She met Zeb’s eyes for a moment with no particular enthusiasm, and drifted away from the edge of the balcony.
When it was their turn at the table Nesha-tari turned back to Zeb and beckoned him forward. He squeezed past her and Shikashe, passing close enough to the woman that he thought he got a whiff of some exotic perfume, something that made him think of a lone, succulent bloom growing in a high desert, which made no sense as Zeb had never been in a desert before. He handed over their papers to a polite clerk who thankfully did not try and make any small talk, which was good as Zeb was not sure he was up to it at the moment. After a cursory glance at the official Ayzant seal and documents, and some scribbling in a ledger, the foursome was welcomed to the Empire of the Code. They were waved past the tables and down another short hall which took them out onto a stone platform fronted with short stairs, giving onto the streets of Imperial Souterm.
There was an intersection immediately before the old fort, with a wide street extending due west in front of them to where the ground started to rise up Broadsword Ridge, while the even wider and busier thoroughfare of the waterfront ran off right and left. The center of the brick intersection was an open-air market with a hundred stalls selling as many types of food, busy now at the luncheon hour and with the hawkers noisily extolling their wares. The melange of smells was almost overpowering and Nesha-tari gave a single, stifled sneeze Zeb found charming. It also kept him from noticing a cluster of small figures sidling up on one side, until Uriako Shikashe took a menacing step toward them with his hand on the hilt of the longer of his two swords.
“ Bakemo,” the Far Westerner snarled, but Zeb knew the creatures as goblins.
There were five of them, half the size of grown humans but with outsized arms and bowed legs that looked spindly, apart from knobby knees and elbows. Their skins were more like rubbery hides and this group ranged in color from puce green to brownish orange. Their heads were oddly shaped, appearing wider than they were long, with bristly hair, wide noses, and oblong mouths filled with tiny white saw teeth. Eyes were large and colored pink to reddish-purple, and their long ears jutted from the sides of their heads like shriveled bat wings. They were dressed in tattered knee britches held up with suspenders, some with patched shirts. The bare chests of the others looked emaciated, with each rib standing out plainly.
The five recoiled in a group as Shikashe stepped forward and their large, bare feet slapped on the flagstone portico. Though their sudden appearance had startled Zeb he spoke quickly to Amatesu, telling her that the smallest of the Magdetchoi races were not on the Imperial Bounty List, and that they enjoyed a measure of freedom in Souterm. The shukenja passed Zeb’s words to Shikashe, but the swordsman just kept glaring at the little creatures whose innocent smiles only exposed their rows of sharp teeth.
“What do they want, Baj Nif?” Nesha-tari asked in Zantish. He liked the sound of his name in her mouth and it took him a moment to ask the goblins, in Codian. An orange one in front answered him in a sniveling tone and Amatesu translated quietly for Shikashe while Zeb did the same for Nesha-tari.
“They are porters, just want to carry our bags. I think they work for that inn straight across, with the two- headed dog on the sign.”
“Tell them I have my own porters,” Nesha-tari said, already turning away from the little creatures until another of them spoke, a green one in the back of the pack wearing a sort of bowler hat that matched its jacket. There was no simpering in its posture, and its eyes shone like burnished bronze. Its language was a sibilant tongue of hissing consonants and guttural vowels Zeb had never heard before, which was saying something. Nesha-tari stared at the creature for a moment, then answered it in the same manner.
“Very well,” she said, returning to Zantish for Zeb’s benefit and abruptly taking a step past Shikashe toward the goblins. “Go to the inn, and I will meet you there later.”
“What?” Zeb asked, while Shikashe looked at Nesha-tari with a raised eyebrow and started barking at Amatesu. Four of the goblins started to slink forward, still glancing nervously at Shikashe, who raised his voice until they recoiled back again. The last goblin with the bronze eyes nodded once at Nesha-tari and tipped its hat. It turned to walk off and Shikashe stomped a foot and shouted as Nesha-tari moved to follow, actually stepping in front of her to block her path.
Nesha-tari snarled at the Westerner but spun on Zeb and shouted herself.
“Nine Gods, you are the most tedious trio of…Tell the Westerners that they are in my service and shall do as they are told, without commentary in return. Go to the inn and take rooms, I will meet you all there later. Is that clear enough?”
Nesha-tari’s hood had ridden back when she turned, and Zeb was staring dreamily into her eyes. She raised a gloved hand and snapped her fingers in his face.
“Huh? Oh, right. The inn. You say you’re coming back? I mean, if you need…”
Nesha-tari snarled again before turning away and storming off, following the little goblin which had turned back at the base of the stairs to wait on her. Its skin was the color of jade and it had a golden stud in one wide nostril. It grinned broadly up at Zeb, Amatesu, and Shikashe, all of whom were talking over each other now, and gave the three of them a wink of one big, bronze-colored eye before leading Nesha-tari away across the noisy market. For some reason he could not explain, Zeb feared that he might be seeing the woman who he had seen for the first time barely an hour ago, for the last.
Chapter Fifteen
The bronze-eyed goblin had given Nesha-tari his name as “Edgewise” and though she was hardly in a laughing mood there was a comical aspect to the little creature’s progress through the city that made her raise an eyebrow a few times. Edgewise moved with a swinging, bowlegged stride, planting his large feet out in the opposite of a pigeon-toed walk. Whenever he crossed paths with any male human the goblin raised both bandy arms high over his head until the backs of his hands almost touched, wiggled his long green fingers and made a sort of apologetic hooting noise. When passing by a woman, the goblin plucked his hat off his head and doffed it before dropping it smoothly back into place.
He led Nesha-tari north for two long blocks passing shops and inns on the left hand side, while to the right between the street and the water was a brick-walled enclosure surrounding rows and rows of enormous, bee-hive shaped granaries. Despite his awkward stride the goblin covered ground rapidly, and Nesha-tari had to hurry to keep up in her cumbersome cloak and uncomfortable leather boots, both a sandy shade of tan as were all her clothes. They had blended into the desert landscape to which she was accustomed, but seemed to stand out here.
Edgewise took a street to the left and led her into a neighborhood of long, apartment-style timber buildings with orange terracotta shingles on the peaked roofs. Wide stoops fronted each and all were occupied by lounging people at the noon hour, who Nesha-tari supposed were native Soutermese or Doonish, though with their dark hair and complexions they looked little different than Zants. Except that many of these people were smiling. None seemed to look askance at the passing goblin, though a few children playing in the street stopped their game with a ball and imitated Edgewise’s walk to laughter from some of their parents on the stoops, and shushes from others.
Nesha-tari drew longer looks from the men, but as she was still maintaining her dampening spell she noticed their interest without feeling it as an annoyance. She had discovered back in Ayzantu City that the slight effort of keeping an aura of non-detection in place around her was enough to blunt her awareness of the attention she received. That was about all that kept the native of the Hakalya, the vast desert Desolation of central Ayzantium, able to function in the teeming, stinking world of Men. It was not a world for which Nesha-tari Hrilamae had been born.
