between. The brown waters of the river mingle imperceptibly with the green of the ocean. Almost any theorem can be voided by calling forth examples from the extremes. While this may destroy a hypothesis for a mathematician, there are no such demands upon the complexities of human-and nonhuman-relationships.” She turned back to the Heheganu and spoke in Tsolyani:
“Old One, I would now return to my meaning. As ‘one sent,’ an envoy, I can call upon my hosts for things that are beyond the customs of greeting. Is it not so? Your laws allow this to a speker from outside, as ours do?”
The Heheganu spread his pudgy grey fingers in agreement. “Thus do I ask that you take this Harsan and show him the one who compels you to break the protection of guesting. Before he chooses a branch from your tree of decisions. You need speak no words-that would violate your laws too greatly. What he sees is his alone to understand.”
The Heheganu shook himself all over, a strangely alien movement. He rubbed his bald skull. At length he replied, “So it shall be. You are allowed this favour, Pe Choi. You are more than a guest.” He paused, then added in a harsher tone. “But tell me this: why do you do so much for a human, one of those who oppress you, one who is as alien to your race as clouds to a fish?”
Itk t’Sa raised her two upper arms in a shrug. Her segmented tail switched slowly from side to side. “This human was raised amongst us. He speaks our tongue. He knows us as no other of his kind can know us. I-sense- that he feels for us. He may even share something of the Ntk-dqekt, ‘the Sorrow of Remembering,’ an emotion which only we Pe Choi know-and suffer- from the moment of our birth.” She folded her four hands in front of her. “This man Harsan may be the best salve for our ills: one who at least reaches out to know the heart of another. Some of the distance he has travelled, but much remains. We would preserve him to complete his journeying.”
The Heheganu turned his cup over and rose. “Then I shall come again for you four Kiren from now. The man shall see from hiding. He shall look upon the one who seeks him. Then he may choose a branch from the tree of the future.”
He drew dignity around his lumpy shoulders as though it were a cloak of cloth-of-gold and Kheshchal-plumes. Harsan had not imagined that one of this race could appear so noble.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The shop of Simanuya the Glassblower, of the Clan of the Black Hand, lay just within the precincts of the Splendid Paradise. A ragged hole in the flank of what had once been part of the city wall in times long past, it now sported a striped awning, a raised floor of oiled and sanded wood, shelves, and mats of woven Firya-cloth for Simanuya’s clientele. Those who came here were quite respectable: travellers from other parts of Tsolyanu, sightseers and connoisseurs, nobles and clansfolk from New Town, and others who required the most elegant bottles and ewers and goblets for their Tsuhoridu. Simanuya had no real need to dwell here upon the outskirts of squalor, but the slight thrill of possible peril-really no danger at all-in the age-worn alleyways sent delightful shivers down the spines of many a jaded noble lady and gave an opportunity to their brave escorts to lay hand upon sword hilt and pretend to vigilance and knowledgeable courage.
Simanuya was human. He held clan membership to prove it. Too strong a light would reveal a greyish cast of skin, however, and there were rugose patches upon his body that he took pains to conceal beneath a sleeveless vest of Vringalu- leather. A kilt of thick fabric, dyed with the black and yellow colours of his clan, and long strips of Chlen — hide wrapped around his arms from elbow to wrist protected him from broken glass, the chief hazard of his trade. He enjoyed the atmosphere of danger that prevailed within the Splendid Paradise, however, and this he enhanced by affecting a curious skullcap of leather that covered his missing eye, lost years ago to a sliver of molten glass. The hideous sight he presented probably added at least a silver Hlash or two to each sale.
A tiny, winding stair led up within the wall at the rear of the shop and debouched into a storeroom. Harsan, Tlayesha, and Itk t’Sa negotiated their way past racks of ruby, emerald, and amber glassware, straw-smelling baskets, mounds of Hma- wool batting for packing, and bundles of dusty parchment- Simanuya’s correspondence and records, a deliberate nightmare for any tax gatherer, no doubt. Ormudzo clambered up after them and signed to two younger Heheganu who awaited them there.
“Spells?” Itk t’Sa murmured.
“None from without that we can detect,” Ormudzo wheezed. “Morkudz here has laid a damper spell upon all sorcery within this area. This will be detected, of course, but it is commonly done by merchants who would avoid eavesdroppers, and we should be long gone before anyone investigates.”
Harsan held up his rush-candle. In the centre of the floor a pit half a man-length square opened into blackness below. He skirted the rim of this warily, Tlayesha clinging to his arm.
“An easy way to dispose of broken merchandise,” Ormudzo whispered. “It goes all the way down to the waters of our Crystal River. What cannot be used-or hidden-goes there.”
A battered wooden door opened from the shop, and Itk t’Sa drew back before Simanuya’s fearsome visage. Ruddy light, an odour of incense, the sweet-sour fragrance of Tsuhoridu, and the chatter of voices poured in after him.
Over his shoulder, the glassblower grumbled, “A moment, noble sirs, and I shall find the very decanter you seek.” He made a complicated sign with his fingers to Ormudzo and pointed to the front wall of the chamber.
The Heheganu drew Harsan up behind him and pushed aside a flap of thick, brown matting. Harsan found himself looking out into the shop through a smoke-yellow, distorted peephole, probably a nicely inconspicuous glass platter displayed upon a rack on the other side.
What he saw told him nothing at all.
There were three separate parties in the shop. Two plump clanswomen in longish northern cloaks and coifs of blue and green examined bowls of many-faCeted cut glass, while an escort, a lumpish youth in the livery of the same unknown clan looked on. Farther away, a balding, dignified gentleman in a squarish mantle and a flat hat that instantly identified him as a senior Mu’ugalavyani merchant chatted amiably with Simanuya’s shop-boy. Jingling golden flame symbols at his throat indicated one of the Vimuhla-worshipping clans of the war west, possibly that of the Red Sun or of the Red Sword.
The third party was a middle-aged, genteel-appearing Livyani nobleman. Black and red tattooes covered his pointed features from his artfully curled and pomaded hair down to his collar of enameled plaques. His arms and legs, what Harsan could see of them beneath the dags and twists of his fashionably elaborate tunic and kilt, were similarly covered with tattooed scrolls, glyphs, and arabesques. With him stood a tall,'broad-shoulderd, young woman who wore the brief over-tunic, short skirt, and leather leggings of a N’liiss mercenary. The hilt of a sword protruded from beneath her arm. A traveller from abroad, it seemed, seeking curios and a whiff of adventure, accompanied by a hired bodyguard. A bureaucrat attached to the suits of some Livyani embassy or mission?
Puzzled, Harsan pulled back so that Tlayesha and the Pe Choi could see as well. The Heheganu held up three stubby fingers and touched the third with his other hand: the group farthest to the right. The Livyani, then.
What could this mean? The fellow could be an agent of almost anybody, Harsan knew, but somehow he sensed that the man was no emissary of Prince Dhich’une. If the Worm Prince had sent him, then why had he not used his power to compel the Heheganu before, when Jayargo had come here with Eyil?
Could the man be from the Temple of Thumis? The Omnipotent Azure Legion? The Yan Koryani? Why use a Livyani anyway-a foreigner from a nation that was not involved in the matter at all, as far as he was aware? And what could possibly bring the Heheganu to surrender him to this stranger when they had not done so previously to anyone else?
Harsan looked a question at Tlayesha and Itk t’Sa, but both made silent gestures of negation and perplexity. Ormudzo stood motionless, as did his two comrades.
A decision had to be made.
He made it. A nod of the head, and it was done. Whatever his Skein of Destiny was to be, the thread was now in the hand of the Weaver.
Ormudzo signalled again to the glassblower, who took down a fat, saffron-hued decanter from a rack and departed. His voice came to them plainly through the half-open door. “Sire, I have others of this same type in various patterns and colours. Should you wish to step within..?”
