“Then you are?” I pursued the point, catching Queynt’s skeptical look. He was no credulous youth to believe everything he heard. Chance, neither, who was still staring at the apparition before them, breathing heavily through his mouth as though to taste what it might be. “You didn’t tell us your name.”
“Auf!” Dramatic blow to the forehead to illustrate his own stupidity. “Dream Merchant’s man. Brombarg. Everyone calls me Brom.”
“Dream Merchant’s man? I don’t think I know the title.” Still smiling, though inside every fiber quivered to alertness. A solid lead to the Dream Miner, perhaps? I knew Brom wouldn’t take offense at a woman. Queynt was keeping still. He knew what I was trying to find out, though Peter didn’t, shifting on his horse impatiently as he was. Well, poor man, he had been riding all night.
“Ah ... why, there used to be a Merchant’s man in each town hereabouts. Cloth Merchant’s man in Bloome. Pottery Merchant’s man in Zib. Metal workers were over in Thorne, and so on. Merchants’ men did the job of managing the towns—you know, Zib, Zog, Zinter, Thorpe, Fangel, Woeful, Chime, and Bloome.” He chanted this last like an incantation, grinning and sweating the while. “All the towns need someone to see to the garbage, you know, and to the streets and the fire brigade. So, when the Dream Merchant set up in Fangel, he took over all the old Merchants’ men and made ‘em Dream Merchant’s men. Different title but same duty, you know.” The man was a fountain of inconsequential information.
“Dream Merchant?” Queynt was smiling, quiet, nonthreatening, helping me out. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.”
“Would your invitation include breakfast?” This Peter, breaking our concentration, changing the subject. “I’m starved.”
Sighs all around. I was peeved at the interruption, thinking it too soon to put ourselves in the man’s arena; Queynt likewise; Chance and Peter both hungrier than consonant with good sense and relying, as usual, on Peter’s Shifter Talent to get them out of trouble that a little patience might have avoided. Brombarg grinning, turning to lead us up Sheel Street. Windows beginning to open, now, and him in a hurry to get us high above the town before someone said or did the wrong thing.
Yittleby and Yattleby, the two giant krylobos who drew the wagon, turned to one another, then to Queynt. “Krerk whittle quiss?” I heard the question conveyed in this wise. “This man is dishonest, friend-humans. Do we follow him or kick him to death?”
“Follow,” I said to them in a croaking whisper. They whistled a few choice phrases and nodded plumes at me, argumentative but obedient. Queynt cast me a sidelong look. Perhaps I wasn’t fooling him. Perhaps he knew what my Talent was, though I had not told him.
Peter had already dismounted to walk beside Brombarg. “What is the nature of your festival, Merchant’s man? Is that the correct title?”
Brom nodded, puffing. “We are a festival-ridden city, my friend. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Peter. Just that. We don’t much use other titles.”
Brom smiled more widely. In his experience, those who had titles used them, and those who had none said they didn’t care for them. So, likely these were insignificant creatures of a certain eccentricity. (He had begun to patronize us.) The birds, for example. Now there was a team worth having. (This was evident from his expression.) He revised his earlier vision to include himself on Queynt’s wagon seat, riding titty-tup down Tan-tivvy toward away. (Extrapolation, but not unjustified.) “The lady’s name is Jinian. Beside her is Queynt, and the other one is Chance.”
“And you come from?”
“Far away,” said Queynt firmly. “To the south.”
Brom smiled more widely yet. No titles, no place of residence. Drifters. Tra-la. He did not notice my eyes fixed upon him from behind, like a gimlet into a hole, no longer smiling. “As to our festival, it is the festival of Finaggy-Bum, during which are processions, bands, feasting and gaiety, dancing in the streets, and fireworks at dusk. And,” he said with a sidelong, sly look, “the determining by the Cloth Merchants’ Council of who should be Merchant’s man for the next year.” He must have been disappointed that we showed no interest in this topic. Instead, Peter changed the subject once more.
“Are there many Gamesmen hereabout?” We had seen none of the familiar Game garments among those on the streets.
“Gamesmen? From the True Game lands? Oh, no, young sir, indeed not. It seems their Talents are somewhat muted in these Northern Lands. Was a Tragamor came through only a season ago told me he could not Move a filled cup off the table here in Bloome.”
“Krerk,” said the left-hand krylobos, most probably Yittleby. “Liar.”
“I know,” I agreed. Still, there were very few Gamesmen about. Either they did not come here, or did not stay here, or ... Or they stayed here in some other guise than their own.
“Keraw whit,” agreed the birds.
The way up Sheel Street was lengthy because of its many turnings as it wound back and forth across the hill. There were wagons everywhere, transporting bolts of cloth, mostly of a vile, organic pink color. There were more costume shops, and here and there a booth blazoned, NEWEST CRYSTALS: NEW FEELINGS; NEW TALENTS: NEW WORLDS OF SENSATION, with a display case of dream crystals glittering inside, green and violet and amber orange. I didn’t see any of the reddish ones we’d seen at Zog or any of the piss-yellow ones we’d found on the corpses, but every other color was shown.
Large, ornate houses stood on either hand, most of them in some state of disrepair, sounds of occupancy beginning to be heard in
