Children of Chaos

Verk said, 'I spoke in haste, mistress. How can we explain Uls's absence? My brother is a simple soul, yet I am fond of him. I do not wish to see him skinned.'

'Stop ranting about skinning! No one skins anyone in Skjar. He fell out of his chariot when the axle pin broke and the wheel came off.' A white lie, surely, told without malice, just to save her father needless anxiety?

'Aee! Then the wicked stableman who mounted the wheel must be beaten.'

Frena opened her mouth indignantly and closed it again. That might be true. All this talk of punishment was strange to her. She had never considered a life where such things might happen. 'It was my fault. I set too fast a pace and Uls's chariot overturned on a rock.'

Verk's pale face twisted under its lawn of golden stubble as if wrestling against a smile. 'And what sort of guard would let you be so foolish? Aee! I will be impaled most surely.'

'Stop that! You know perfectly well that Father orders no punishment more than the law allows.'

'Forty lashes for a man of my age,' Verk said sadly. 'But who counts? A court will surely judge a sturdy swordsman fit to bear more anyway. Who will employ him when he bears such scars?'

'Then a thunderbolt startled Uls's onagers and they ran away with him. That can happen to anyone.'

Verk nodded judiciously. 'The master might consider a broken arm punishment enough for that. But I should not have let you drive close to the villagers, so I must throw myself at his feet and beg for my life.'

'It was my fault! I will not let him punish you.'

Verk said, 'My lady is kind,' again, with very little conviction.

¦

When they came to the place where the Skjar River drained out of the lake, Frena yielded the reins to Verk. Soon walls rose on both sides to form the twisted gorge called the Gates of Weru. There, on uncounted rocky islands, stood the greatest trading city in all Vigaelia. When the stream divided into a dozen dancing torrents, the road left the bank and headed across First Bridge to Bell Song, uppermost island of Skjar. Soon the air was too wet and hot to breathe. Frena felt like a fish in chowder, already. Verk chose to go by way of High to Milk Yellow.

Skjar was a web of bridges. Some crept over the water from rock to rock, writhing and humping like snakes. Others were giddying, rope-bound catwalks strung between the summits of rocky spires. Some were mere planks too narrow for two pedestrians to pass, others had sprouted double rows of stores and houses along their length.

From Milk Yellow to Snakeskin and Egg ...

Some islands were wide and relatively level, others were rocky spires with dwellings adhering to their sides like bizarre fungi and spreading outward from the summits in mushroom caps. Skjarans considered any rock above the waterline to be potential foundation for something, even if only the pier of a bridge, and any group of three or more was enough to support a building.

From Egg to Limpet Bend ...

Skjar was people: carpenters, saddlers, weavers, scribes, brewers, merchants, porters, priests, brass workers, dye makers, and a myriad other crafts. Often among them could be seen Werists in their palls, white-shrouded Witnesses, green-clad Nastrarians, and other recognizable cultists. Mysteries that did not require their initiates to wear distinctive garb must certainly be represented also.

Skjar was incredibly ancient and yet forever new, because it was built of wood, following its ancient skill in boatbuilding. Year by year it was culled by rot, earthquakes, winter storms, or chance fires. Frena had not been gone a thirty and yet she could see changes—Triangle burned down to bedrock, the new bridge between Sheeplick and Honeycomb open at last.

The air was sticky and stale, reeking of food and garbage and close-packed people.

'What did you mean when you said fanners would pray to holy Ucr to stay away? He is their god also.'

Verk chewed his lip while easing the onagers through a teeming little market, trying to keep moving without letting Dark and Night clear a path with their teeth. 'I spoke out of turn, mistress.'

'Continue doing so. Answer me!'

He flashed her a momentary glance, then went back to looking straight ahead. 'I beg leave to remain silent. The master would disapprove of what I almost said.'

So now they were to be confidants, were they, she and this metal-plated servant?

'I won't tell him, I promise.'

Night flashed a hoof out sideways, sending a plump matron reeling into her companions. Curses and threats flew. Verk was remarkably adept with obscenities when he wanted to be. Surprisingly, when the incident was over and the chariot moved again, he returned to Frena's question.

'In hard times farmers see their children starve, mistress. In good times crops fetch bad prices. City mouse always eats better than country bull.'

'What has that got to do with Ucr?'

'Ucr looks after his own, they do say.'

'Meaning?'

He sighed. 'Meaning, in hard times farmers must borrow food to live, mistress. Those that have lend to them that have not. And then the lender forecloses, so he ends up gaining land for a fraction of its worth. Farmer becomes serf, and his children less than that... so they do say,' he added with another quick glance.

Frena shuddered. 'Are you implying that Father does that?'

'Never, never, mistress! Aee! It would be a poor swordsman who said he guarded a monster, now wouldn't it? Who could trust him?'