He scrambled on hands and knees back into the shadows. But I thought it prudent to stand guard, and told her so.
She shook her head. 'There is no need to fear this one. The Thassa are not to be befooled—as you will know —nather!' She did not speak scornfully as she addressed him with the name for worthless-hanger-on, but rather as one who states a fact.
So we went beyond a dividing curtain into a place of more cages and even worse smells. She hurried to one prison set apart by itself. What was housed there lay inert and, I thought, dead, until I saw the bone-creased hide rise and fall in long-spaced breaths.
'The cart there—' She was on her knees before the cage, staring intently at its occupant, but her wand indicated a board balanced on four wheels, and I pushed that forward.
Together we lifted the cage onto the cart and then pushed it to the outer portion of the tent. Maelen paused and took from her belt purse two tokens, tossing them to the top of one of the other cages.
'For one barsk, five scales and two fourthers,' she said to the man still crouching in the shadows. 'Agreed?'
Mind-seek told me he wanted us out. But a spark of greed had awakened behind his fear.
'A barsk is rare,' he half whined.
'The barsk is near dead and worth nothing, not even the hide, you have so starved it. If you agree not, petition the price judge in open hearing.'
'Enough!'
I caught her amusement. We pushed our burden into the open. The lad who had guided us hither came out of the dark and with him one of his fellows. Between them they took over management of the cart and cage. We took another route in return, one which brought us through a swinging panel in the lattice wall. As the cage was trundled by the line of the burden beasts, they snorted, and several rose to their feet, their nostrils wide, their heads tossing.
Maelen stood before them, her wand weaving from side to side, her voice raised in a low, comforting croon which restored their peace. The boys pushed the cage to the far end of the line and stood by it, waiting. Malec and Griss came out of the booth and the Thassa youth stooped to peer into the cage. Shaking his head, he paid the boys.
'It is hopeless for this one,' he told Maelen as she came from the now quiet kasi. 'Not even you can reach it, Singer.'
She stood looking at the cage with a brooding stare, her wand in one hand while, with the other, she stroked the fur of her short jacket as if it was a beloved pet animal, alive and breathing.
'Perhaps you are right,' she agreed. 'Yet perhaps its fate is not yet written in the Second Book of Molaster. If it must go on theWhite Road, then it shall begin that journey in peace and without pain. For now it is too worn out to fight us. Let the cage for the sick hold it.'
Together they loosed the fastening of the cage and lifted the creature within to wider, freer quarters in one of their own places, a soft litter spread to support the bone rack of body. It was larger, I saw, than any of the animals that had been on the stage this night; standing, I would judge, if it could rise upon its feet, about as high as my lower ribs. The coat was dusty, befouled, dull, and ragged, but in color it was the red of Maelen's jacket.
In form it was an oddly proportioned animal, for the body was small and the legs very long and thin, as if the limbs meant for one beast had been fitted wrongly to another. The tail ended in a fan tuft, while from between the pointed ears, down the neck, and across the shoulders was a growth of longer hair of a much lighter shade, forming a brush of mane. The nose was long and sharp, showing strong teeth beneath black lips. All in all, had the thing not been so outworn, I would have said it was dangerous.
It aroused enough to snap feebly as they lowered it onto the bedding in the new cage. Then Maelen used her wand with a light touch, drawing it caressingly down between its eyes to the point of its nose, and its head ceased to move. Malec returned from the living quarters with a bowl from which he dipped liquid, dribbling it from his fingers onto the creature's head, and then down the belly, finishing by getting a small measure of it between the jaws and into the encrusted mouth from which a blackened tongue lolled.
Maelen stood up. 'For the present that is all we can do. The rest—' Her wand drew a symbol in the air. Then she turned to us. 'Gentle Homos, the hour grows late and this poor one will need me.'
'Thank you for your graciousness, Gentle Fern.' I found her open dismissal abrupt. It was as if she had once had some reason to seek us out, but it was no longer of importance. And somehow I disliked that thought, which might or might not be rooted in fact.
'And you for your aid, Gentle Homo. You will return.' And that was no question, and not quite an order, but a statement of fact in which we both agreed.
On the way back to the
'What is a barsk?' I asked.
'You saw. They provided the fur displayed this morning, that which Maelen wears as a jacket. They have the reputation for being cunning, intelligent, and dangerous. And they are sometimes killed, but I do not believe very often trapped alive. More than that—' He shrugged.
We were passing the port guards when all of a sudden I caught it—not the hatred of the beast seller alone, but that coupled with a strong and driving purpose. So joined with the emotions they struck the mind as keenly as one of the spears we had seen displayed by the armorers would tear into the body. I halted and swung around to face that mind-stroke only to see nothing but shadows and darkness. And then Griss was beside me, a drawn stunner in his hand. I knew that he, too, had felt it.
'What—?'
'The beast dealer, but also another—' Not for the first time in my life did I wish for the full inner power to read esper. As it was, sometimes a warning could cripple instead of armor a man.
Griss stared at me. 'Take care, Krip. He may not dare to go against a Thassa, but he may deem that you are
