He had no way of knowing what effect his information was having at the court of Jass Imbiah. Sehaye had never received any communications from the islands, nor did he expect to – not until Retribution Time.
The Moon Star’s light glinted on the sea as Sehaye leaned over the side of his boat and placed the gede beneath the surface of the water. As well, the light shone unmercifully on the smooth, unscarred skin of his forearm. He grimaced in disgust at that sight. In his mind, he could see the spider-scars that should have been there to denote his devotion to Legaba.
Legaba, him can see under you skin, Jass Imbiah had assured him years ago, when he had first been told that he was destined to be a spy among the blankskins, at the time when other children were receiving their first marks of Legaba. Jass Imbiah had also told Sehaye that when Retribution Time came, Legaba would raise his hidden spider-scars from the inside to the outside of his skin.
I and I hope that day soon come, Sehaye thought. Although he was always prudent in maintaining the Matile style of speech when he talked, his thoughts often came to him in his native dialect. The division between the speech patterns reflected the incipient division of his identity, even his soul itself – blankskin on the outside, Uloan within.
He looked away from his forearm and back down to where he had dropped the gede. He expected to see only the widening wake the construct left behind as it sped off on its long journey to the Uloas. But he saw no wake. The gede had not departed. It remained where he had placed it.
Puzzled and more than a little apprehensive, Sehaye reached out to nudge the gede into motion. He drew back his hand when the construct turned at stared up at him with its blank, stone-like eyes.
Then the gede opened its mouth and spoke two words that filled Sehaye with a combination of terror and joy. The voice that came from the gede’s mouth belonged to Jass Imbiah.
Retribution Time, it said.
Then the gede sank out of sight, leaving Sehaye staring at the empty space where it had been. He didn’t gaze for long. His spirit soared, even as he also felt a stab of fear at what was to come. He knew what he must do now that the words he had long awaited were spoken. Grasping his oars, he began to row back to shore, back to the mainland that was about to meet its doom at the hands of the Uloans and Legaba.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ship’s Rat Snared
1
“That’s it. Give ’em a good toss,” Athir Rin said to the Matile at his side. The Matile, a tall, lean young man dressed in threadbare clothes, threw a pair of cubes made from bone against the wall of the seedy talla-beit, or tavern, in which the Ship’s Rat was plying his latest illicit trade. With a sharp click, the cubes hit the wall, then landed on the talla-beit’s floor.
Athir bent over and counted the markings on the cubes, then invited the Matile to do the same.
“Seven,” Athir said. “Looks like I win again.”
He opened the leather pouch belted to his waist and held it out. With a sullen glower on his face, the Matile dropped several gold coins into the greedy, open mouth of the pouch. They clinked against the other coins that filled the bag a bit beyond its halfway point.
“Want to try one more time?” Athir asked.
“Forget you,” the Matile said curtly.
With a slight curl of his lip, the Matile turned on his heel and stalked out of the talla-beit. Athir smiled in a way he hoped would appear to be friendly rather than triumphant.
“Anybody else feeling lucky?” he inquired.
None of the rest of the talla-beit’s patrons said anything. However, Athir could sense the beginning of some hostility toward him. He knew it would soon be time for him to take his game elsewhere, for the sake of his own skin.
For Athir, life had been good since he said farewell to the White Gull. As always, he thrived in the meanest streets. He had rapidly picked up enough of the Matile language to communicate and learn what he needed to know to prosper in his new surroundings, rather than merely survive them. During his wide wanderings – forced and voluntary alike – Athir had learned that regardless of the countless variations of culture or custom in the world, in large cities like Khambawe, there were always places where people like him gathered: places outside the reach, and sometimes even the interest, of the law. And he had developed an unerring instinct for finding such locales.
The talla-beit he was in now had become his favorite, even though it was in the Ukili district, close to the tsotsi territory that was known as the Maim. Athir had learned about the tsotsis soon after he had jumped ship. However, he had not attempted to contact them, or join their ranks. From what he had heard about them they were fighters and killers as well as thieves and drug-sellers, and that wasn’t his preferred style of operating. He would kill in self-defense, and he had no compunctions about doing so. But he preferred to keep his victims alive, and take from them without letting them know they were losing anything until it was too late. He was content to ply his trade on the peripheries of the tsotsis’ domain, and leave the gangs to their endless cycle of street warfare, strong-arm robbery and khat-trafficking.
When he first began to frequent the talla-beits after he had picked up enough of the Matile language to make himself understood, Athir discovered that the customers’ favorite gambling game involved moving pebbles around a board that had shallow holes scooped into the wood. He found the pastime