Many had cobbled together outfits and adornments that were bizarre blends of their particular culture's class indicators. There were Juriani with the unpolished scales of commoners, yet wearing the tiered—though badly faded—clothing of midlevel royalty; Cimmaheem with their yarnlike hair braided, upper-class style, but only on one side; and Pirks who had preen-glossed feathers but wore no status headdresses. Either they were trying to hang on to the status they'd once had, or else were hoping an odd look would make them stand out of the crowd when the paying customers came around
'One of the artsy booths still had a lone Nemut on duty. He was polishing some jewelry, his gaze drifting across the collection of colorful characters as he worked, his truncated-cone mouth orifice making little silent motions as if he was humming to himself. His rainbow-slashed eyes passed across us, paused, and came back again.
Someone who could distinguish between Human faces well enough to recognize we didn't belong there. That would be a good place to start. Changing direction, I headed toward his booth.
'Fine evening to you, Humans,' he said in better than passable English as we reached him. His angled shoulder muscles flexed briefly in traditional Nemuti greeting. 'Have you come to shop for fine artistry?'
'Perhaps later,' I said, glancing over the necklaces, rings, and ear cuffs in his display case, most of them composed of nested strips of copper, gold, and silver. It wasn't a style I'd seen before, but I found it rather attractive. 'First, we have to locate a friend.'
The Nemut gave a long, sibilant sniffle. 'Few here have friends,' he said. 'Has your friend a name?'
'He's a Human,' I said. 'I understand he goes by the name Artist.'
The other tossed his head, his tight middle-class curls glinting in the faint light. 'Ah,' he said, his tone changing subtly. 'Artist. Yes, I know the one.'
'I take it you don't like him?' I asked.
'We are all artists,' the Nemut said scornfully. 'But this Human almost doesn't deserve such a title. All he does is play with his claywork and pester those of us who are Nemuti with questions about ancient sculptures.'
'Yes, that sounds like our friend,' I agreed. 'Do you know where we might find him?'
He nodded his head back over his shoulder. 'His dwelling is in the courtyard,' he said. 'A small gray tent with green edges.'
'Thank you,' I said, eyeing the jewelry again. 'How late will you be open?'
'Another hour at least,' he said, his eyes reflecting cautious hope. 'Longer for anyone truly interested in my work.'
'We'll be back,' I promised. Glancing around, I located Bayta, standing a couple of steps behind me with smoldering fire in her eyes, then headed toward the nearest corridor angling inward. Two corridors later we stepped out again into the cold night rain onto a landing about five meters above the old amphitheater's performance ground.
It was like a scene from an apocalyptic dit rec drama. The yard stretched out in front of us, dark and wet and gloomy, a combination tent city and tenement with a bit of macabre street fair thrown in. The open ground was crowded with tents and small pavilions of random sizes and shapes, their surfaces glistening in the rain. Wedged into some of the unoccupied areas were small furnaces, probably pottery kilns, with tendrils of steam rising wherever the rain hit. Hooded figures hunched around them, their faces red in the glow of the small fires.
In the center of the courtyard was a much bigger fire pit, maybe thirty meters across, with a fading bonfire in the center. The pit was surrounded by a shin-high wall built of stone, with numerous long indented pathways leading to within three, four, or five meters of the blaze. All the indentations were occupied, some by glass blowers, others by blacksmiths working bits of metal. There was a painter halfway down one of the indentations as well, working briskly at an easel hooded against the rain. Either the smoke of the burning wood was an integral part of his painting, or else he was just looking for free heat.
There were figures moving all through the area, some of them hooded, many of them not. Their conversation formed a low rumble punctuated by the rhythmic clinking from the metalworkers and an occasional shout or barked laugh that rose above the general background.
'Here we are,' I said, waving a hand over the scene.
'Wonderful,' Bayta said with an edge of sarcasm. 'Now all we have to do is find a single Human in all of this.'
A movement a quarter of the way around the courtyard caught my eye. It was the five toughs from the entry tunnel, spread out in a search line and working their way through the mass of tents and artists. 'No problem,' I said, nodding toward them, feeling a surge of wounded vindication. I'd been right about this one, anyway. 'Our bird dogs have arrived.'
'And?' Bayta prompted, gesturing toward the stairs leading down from our landing to the main yard.
'Patience,' I said. 'Once we head down into the courtyard we'll lose sight of them. I want at least a general idea of where they're going first.'
We didn't have long to wait. Midway through the grounds they converged on a small tent. 'Is that the tent the jeweler described?' Bayta asked.
'Hard to tell in this light,' I said, forcing myself not to charge immediately to the rescue. If Stafford wasn't home and the toughs headed somewhere else, we wouldn't have a hope of finding them again in that maze.
Sure enough, the leader pulled open the flap, glanced inside, and let it drop again. He held a brief consultation with his friends, and then the whole group continued their inward path.
'The bonfire,' Bayta said suddenly. 'The jeweler said he did claywork.'
'And he needs a fire to bake it with,' I agreed. Automatically, I started to take her arm, remembered at the last second she was mad at me, and let my hand fall back to my side. 'Let's go.'
The main ground was every bit as densely packed as it had looked from the higher vantage point. Most of the residents were milling around slowly, not in any hurry to get wherever they were going. I was, and I must have winged at least half a dozen of them on my way through.
The toughs had reached the low wall and were working their way around it in our direction when we came within sight of them again. I caught Bayta's arm as she started around the last tent between us and the fire pit, pulling her back into partial concealment. 'Easy,' I murmured. 'Don't want to spook them until they've finished doing the legwork for us.'
They had made it past three of the indentations when the one who had reacted to the Artist name suddenly pointed into the next pathway ahead.
I squinted through the blaze of the fire. A lone figure was crouched at the far end of the indentation, wearing a metalworker's protective face shield, full-torso apron, and gauntlets. He was fiddling with something on the stone barrier in front of him.
What with the glare and the garb, I couldn't imagine how the Tra'ho could recognize anyone. But the leader apparently had no doubts. He glanced furtively around, tapped one of his gang on the shoulder, and headed in. Three of the toughs followed, the one he'd touched staying behind and planting himself in the center of the indentation's entrance, his hand resting casually on his knife hilt.
'That's our cue,' I told Bayta, and headed around the tent.
The Tra'ho spotted us as we came around the last curve of the wall. Like an idiot, he decided to try a bluff first. [We are seeking your friend,] he said as we came up to him. [We think he might be—]
He broke off in midsentence as I kept coming, finally drawing his knife from its sheath. Too late. I swung my left arm down, catching his wrist with mine and deflecting his thrust to the side. As I did so, I jabbed downward with my right fist, catching the nerve center at the top of his hip.
He went down in a flailing tangle of limbs as his leg collapsed beneath him. I caught him with a cross-punch to the top of his right shoulder as he fell, paralyzing that arm as well and sending the knife clattering against the fire pit wall. Scooping up the weapon, I pitched it over the wall into the ashes and took his place in the center of the pathway.
By now the other four Tra'ho'seej had collected their victim and were heading back toward me. One of the toughs was on either side of the man, gripping his apron straps, his knife hand pressed against the victim's sides. The other two strode along in front of them, their own knives pressed into partial concealment against their sides. I couldn't see any of their expressions with the glare of the fire behind them, but I could imagine they weren't looking very pleased to see me standing in their way.
Six paces away, the leader motioned for the rear group to stop. He and the other front man took another pace forward and also stopped. [Out of the way,] he ordered me, tapping his knife against his leg for emphasis.
