The Torch - Market
Feb. 12th, 2011 02:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsolThis is the fifth chapter of a seven-part fantasy story. First Part, Second Part,
Third Part, Fourth Part,
Xandra padded stealthily down a cramped alley. Laundry hung out to dry on overhead lines. Hostile faces peered from darkened doorways. Crones peered down from high balconies. In the distance Xandra could hear shouts. “I wish I had a sword,” she grumbled, not for the last time.
I THOUGHT YOU SAID THERE WERE ALWAYS MORE SWORDS, Ember reminded her.
“Now is an important part of always,” Xandra replied serenely. Ember took a few moments to digest this.
WHERE IS YOUR BABY? Ember asked finally.
Xandra squeezed past a handcart that was mostly blocking the alley. “In our next tutorial on casual conversation,” Xandra said lightly, “we will discuss the ‘segue’.”
ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME OFF? Ember asked warily.
“Yes,” Xandra replied. She jogged on a few more steps, then sighed.
“I don’t know where my girl is,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since shortly after she was born.”
WHY NOT? Ember asked.
Muscles played around Xandra’s mouth. “She’s being held,” she said, trotting around one of the thousands of small brick-and-plaster shrines that were dotted all around Beth Shamon.
BEING HELD? Ember questioned. BY A MATE OF YOURS?
“No,” replied Xandra. “By the Sentarian Guard.”
THE BODYGUARD OF THE EMPEROR? Ember asked incredulously. WHY?
“Tradition,” Xandra said. “A reminder of the oath the Alizarin Sisterhood took to support the Empire. The firstborn of the Captain of the Madder Rose Corps is kept by the Emperor.”
OH, said Ember sadly. He thought some more. Xandra leaped over an open grating, then danced out of the way of a very surprised cat.
SO THEN, Ember tried again, YOU MUST HAVE A MATE OF SOME KIND? I BELIEVE THAT’S A REQUIRED PART OF BABY-MAKING.
“Yes. Well, sort of. I mean … yes. But no, I don’t have a husband anymore. He died.”
I AM VERY SORRY, said Ember. HOW?
Xandra kept her voice very even. “When the Sentarian Guard came for our baby,” she said, “he found he had little interest in tradition.”
Ember was quiet for a while. I FIND CASUAL CONVERSATION TO BE MORE DIFFICULT THAN I HAD IMAGINED, the kindling finally said.
“Me too,” Xandra replied. Passersby might have decided that the torch smoke was making her eyes water, although Ember didn’t put out any smoke.
They came to Beacon Street, the first major thoroughfare they would have to cross to get to the Arena. The tip of the ancient Beacon, an elongated pyramid thrown up by sorcery an age ago, burned a sickly green and cast wavering shadows down the length of the street. Xandra paused at the edge of the alley and looked both ways. She liked what she saw.
Looking away from the Beacon and towards the river where it threaded through the heart of Beth Shamon, Xandra could see the edge of the Great Kharfur Market. The Market had grown up from a few carts taking up an empty lot to a semi-permanent trading emporium unrivaled in the Southern Nations. The Great Kharfur Market was a bazaar taking up malls on both sides of the river, and linking the three bridges called Destiny, Endeavor and Greatarch. There had been a fourth bridge, Foresight, but it had collapsed unexpectedly.
A fog was rising up from the river. This often happened in Beth Shamon during cool weather. A thick, cool blanket would descend over the city, and people would hang lamps and lanterns out on the minarets and steeples, turning Beth Shamon into a constellation of lights vanishing into the haze. The fogs of Beth Shamon could be unusually dense, and more than one visitor to the City had drowned by becoming lost in sudden fog-blindness and walking into the river.
This fog, welling now through the Great Kharfur Market and peeking down Beacon Street, gave rise to a bold plan in Xandra’s mind. Ordinarily the market would have been the absolute last place Xandra would have wanted to go. But shrouded by fog, she might be able to run right down the gut of the Market, and confuse or bypass those who might wish her ill. And if she could cross Greatarch at the very end of the Market, she would have covered most of the distance to the Arena.
I TAKE IT WE’RE HEADED THAT WAY, Ember said, noting Xandra’s interest. MY, THERE ARE CERTAINLY A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT WAY.
“I wish I had a sword,” Xandra muttered. She took a deep breath, then broke out of the alley and began to jog down Beacon Street toward the Great Kharfur market.
There was a considerable traffic in ox-carts, laden horses and camels, and handcarts and dollies of every description. For all its faults, the heart of Beth Shamon was a place of commerce, and people were busy about their business of the day. Traffic stopped, however, when the warrior captain ran out into the center of the street and set a steady pace to thread the gap between the flow of conveyances in two different directions.
“Hey, it’s her!” shouted one person.
“…stupid tool!...” “…puppet of the tyrant!...” “…stop her!...” came some calls. These did not surprise Xandra.
“…Xandra, she’s called!...” “…smashed the pipe, amazing….” “…some kind of heroine!...” came some others. These surprised and embarrassed Xandra considerably.
A flung piece of manure caught Xandra in the thigh. Ah, so that’s how it’s going to be, Xandra said to herself.
A horseman going one way cracked his whip at Xandra. She ducked under it, then ran up the tail of a Horsath, a pack lizard as long as a house. When the whip-man cracked his whip again, it caught the jeweled hide of the lizard, which reared up and hissed. Xandra slipped off its shoulder, rolled under the cart in front of her, and continued jogging down the center of the road.
A push-cart held many heads of lettuce on one side of the road; a great-tusked elephant plodded down the road on the other side, its howdah full of casks and bales swaying dangerously. Children rose up from inside the lettuce cart and began to pelt Xandra with heads. Xandra ducked some and batted others aside with Ember. One she caught and tore in half; she stuffed half into the mouth of the surprised elephant. As it munched it appraisingly, Xandra waved the other half in front of its face and then tossed it back into the lettuce cart. The elephant broke out of its lane of traffic and bore down on the lettuce cart as Xandra ran on; she didn’t stop to witness the outraged cries of the children as the elephant began to browse on their produce.
She was now two blocks from the Market entrance. Shops were beginning to appear on both sides of the road, with sunshades raised above counters that faced right out onto the street. She jogged past jewelers, and basket-weavers, and dishsellers and linen-merchants. In the middle of the block she drew up short. There were three men in black kimonos blocking the middle of the street; they had greatswords drawn.
LOOK, SWORDS! Ember said.
“Pawn of the Hideous Emperor,” intoned the leader of the dervishes, “you and your torch shall both be extinguished.”
“Maybe they’ll lend me one,” Xandra said sourly. She dodged to the right and rolled over the counter of a rug shop. With a bark from the black-clad warriors, the chase was on.
“No fire in my shop! No fire in my shop!” the proprietor cried, tearing at his striped robes out of fear that Ember would drip on his precious carpets.
“Don’t worry, he’s housetrained,” Xandra said, running through a bead curtain into the back of the store. There she yanked a rug off the wall, revealing an unpainted coat of plaster. She tapped at the wall with the butt of the torch.
“Need something,” she muttered, looking around the back room frantically. “Something to make a hole.”
The next store over, Kirko’s Flatbread Bakery, was a busy place. Kirko’s seven children worked the front of the store while Kirko himself stayed in the back, counting the day’s profits. He was very surprised when a black-clad warrior came bursting through the wall he shared with his neighbor, scattering chunks of plaster and lath everywhere and landing unconscious on Kirko’s counting table. A formidable but dusty woman stepped through the gap that the dervish had made; in her hand was an ornate torch. Kirko smiled.
“Hey! You must be Xandra!” he exclaimed.
“One and the same,” she said, striding up to look around the doorjamb into the front of the bakery. Another of the dervishes had forced his way in to the storefront and was making Kirko’s kids lie down on the floor. Xandra slipped into the room; the dervish grinned and raised his enormous sword.
“Order up,” Xandra said. She hooked the handle of one of the ovens with her free hand and pulled it open . A gout of flame poured out like a dragon’s breath, enveloping the warrior and setting his clothes on fire. Xandra didn’t stop to watch; she rolled back out the bakery’s counter, knocking mugs of water and condiment jars on the ground as she ran back out into the street.
The dervish leader was still there. He whirled his sword around his neck and waist with the artistry of somebody who has a lot of free time to work on one’s sword-twirling. Xandra timed his twirls until his sword was behind his body; she took that opportunity to run up and kick him in the balls. He slumped to the ground, and his sword dropped to the cobblestones with a clatter.
I THINK HE JUST OFFERED TO LEND YOU HIS SWORD, Ember said.
“I’d take him up on it,” she said, “if only he’d lend me a third arm as well.” She kicked the huge blade aside, then took up her jog down Beacon Street again.
There was only one block to go. Already the first curls of fog were seeping up the road, making it hard to clearly see what was going on some distance away. What was clear, however, was that a mob was advancing up the street. This wasn’t dervishes, but a crowd of angry ordinary cityfolk, armed with tools and makeshift weapons, shouting for blood. Xandra ducked into the first shop she could, slamming the door behind her.
“Ah,” said a gentle voice, “Welcome Xandra. Your coming was foretold.”
Xandra looked around. A black and silver banner was strung across the back wall of the store that read FORTUNES TOLD. Several dozen candles illuminated the place, bobbing in thin air and drifting about. A table with a red silken coverlet and a crystal ball dominated the room; motifs of petty sorcery adorned walls and hung from the rafters. A burkah-shrouded form bowed deeply.
“Alistapha, at your service,” the witch unctuated.
Xandra licked her lips. “Look,” she said, “I just need to find a safe way out of here.”
“Of course you do,” Alistapha said, nodding. “As I said, your coming was foretold. From beyond the grave, Zemhoydan, Arch-Necromancer of the Eighteen veils, sends his greetings – and sincere thanks for services rendered.”
Outside the crowd advanced on the fortune-teller’s shop. Just as a man with a pitchfork reached for the door handle, the door opened. Out flew a candle. Or was it a candle? It might have been a torch, with a dark, mist-shrouded figure bearing it. It was hard to tell; perhaps it was the advancing fog, or some trick of the light, but it was genuinely hard to tell for certain what the light source was.
It danced out the door, but before the crowd could cut it down, out came another candle (or perhaps a torch). Then another, and another. In all two dozen bobbing lights emerged from the fortune teller’s shop. All set off in various directions, and shouting, the crowd took off after then. Some candles were cut into pieces, only for the pursuers to find nothing in their hands but bits of wax and string. Other candles fought back, and more than one citizen of Beth Shamon received minor but painful burns to their hands and face for their troubles.
Actually, rather than two dozen bobbing lights emerging, it would be more accurate to say two dozen plus one, with the last one coming out later than the others and setting off with purpose down Beacon Street. The angry mob was too distracted to pay this last light any mind, which was a good thing, because they would otherwise have noted that this light burned purple and gold instead of yellow, and the form that carried it was very substantial indeed.
Xandra reached the Great Kharfur Market. Great open stretches of grass and mud sloped down to the paved riverwalk. Beacon Street crossed over the river on Destiny, which arched high over the riverwalk; the remaining parts of its span were shrouded in the fog. Tents, pavilions, huts and other temporary shelters were clustered haphazardly all over the mall, making twisting aisles and pathways through the maze of the market. Xandra picked the best way she could through the throng in the direction of what she hoped would turn out to be the bridge Endeavor.
As she ran, Xandra felt that her plan must be succeeding. With the fog growing thicker by the second, nobody she encountered realized that the form with a torch was really a form with THE torch until she was immediately upon them. Then there was often a fuss, but not the sort of fuss that could easily spread because she was so quickly lost from view. Xandra leaped over bins of cantaloupes, dodged hanging bolts of cloth, avoided trampling crates of pheasants and shouldered her way past thousands of surprised people in the market.
The crowd thinned in the area of the fishmarket. There a huge drover heard the cries of ‘Torch! Xandra’, and his face purpled with rage. He took up his maul just as Xandra jogged into view; he blocked her way.
“The Emperor,” he snarled, “has imprisoned my father on the Innocents’ Wall. Bad luck for you that you crossed my path today!” The drover swung his maul overhead and brought it down with enough force to crack stone apart.
Xandra wasn’t where the maul had been aimed anymore, but it was a near thing. She rolled onto her back, then kipped up just in time to duck under another swing. “A sword, a sword,” she complained bitterly.
“A sword, eh?” There was a low chuckle from a nearby stand. “Well, we’ll see what we can do for the lady.” A man bearing the tattoo of the Fisherman’s Guild brought his cleaver down on the spike of a large swordfish, chopping the fighting prong loose. He tossed it to Xandra, who tested the heft of the fish snout.
“Better than nothing,” she said, saluting the fisherman, who grinned and waved his cleaver.
“I’d rather have had the cleaver,” Xandra muttered under her breath, but only Ember heard her. Then Xandra’s eyes widened, and she dropped to the ground. The maul crushed the fish counter where she had just been standing.
Xandra rolled to her feet again and assumed a fencer’s position. The trick in small-weapon fighting against heavy weapon fighting was to get your licks in while you could and then retreat. As the drover wound up for another swing, she lunged, pinked him in the thigh, and crabbed back. He charged, and she bent out of the way, jabbed him in the kidney, and assumed the fencing position again.
Not stupid, the drover realized he needed to change tactics. Tossing his maul at Xandra, he charged at her bare-handed. Xandra waved Ember in his face to keep him blind, then rolled under his feet to trip him up. He was nimbler than he appeared, though, and leaped over her roll. He kicked the fish-snout out of Xandra’s hand.
Xandra caught the back of his calf and then kicked his other leg out from under him. He fell hard, his head rapping against the hard ground, and his eyes crossed. Xandra took advantage of his brief spell to take up the maul and put the handle across the drover’s throat.
“Yield,” she said.
“Never, until my father is freed,” he growled.
Xandra paused for a moment. “Deal,” she said finally, getting up.
The drover sat up. “What?” he said.
“Your valor has convinced me,” Xandra said. “I shall free your father immediately.”
He blinked. “You can’t do that,” he said. But he also didn’t press the attack.
“Sure I can,” she said, loping off deeper into the market.
I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD THAT KIND OF AUTHORITY, Ember said.
“I don’t,” Xandra said. “I’m not even sure what the Innocents’ Wall is.”
OH, I SEE, said Ember, very impressed.
The ramp of Endeavor appeared and then faded as Xandra ran past. The market crowds began to thin, and simultaneously a horrific odor assailed Xandra. She had entered the part of the Great Kharfur Market where, as is always the case with spontaneously formed mass gatherings, a sacrificial latrine area had been de facto formed. As more and more people use a given area for defecation and urination, that area rapidly becomes no good for anything save more defecation and urination. The swath of ground between Endeavor and the ruins of Foresight had become an enormous open-air garderobe.
This actually suited Xandra just fine – the less crowds the better. She ran nimbly around any obstacles that looked like they might affect her footing, splashed uncaringly through puddles of any description as she had supreme faith in the quality of her footwear, and generally made good time through this sector of the Market. On her way through the center of this region, however, she did pass through a circle of men squatting on the ground. “Excuse me,” she said, brushing up against one of them; this one fell over in an unfortunate patch of real estate.
This unlucky man, grizzled and grey and wearing a frazzled patchwork of clothing, rose to his feet with his eyes blazing. “Nobody be-topples the Beggar King,” he shouted, shaking a fist at the retreating Xandra. “C’mon, boys; let’s follow the lovely lady and see if we can return her karma a hundredfold.” Indeed, the Beggar King and his Sturdies were a band of thieves who specialized in robbing those foolish enough to seek the privacy of solitude in the latrine zone, and they were murderous bastards all.
Ember, who didn’t have eyes so much as a universal field of sensory perception, saw the dark forms take up pursuit. WE HAVE COMPANY, he informed Xandra.
“Can’t look; watching the ground,” Xandra said. “Let’s pick up the pace and test our followers on their distance running skills.” Xandra increased her speed and began to breathe heavily.
The broken columns of the piers of Foresight fled past in the fog. Loud cheerful music blared from ahead, and colorful lights shone. Before she knew what was happening, Xandra’s lope carried her into the heart of the Market Carnival. The folk of Beth Shamon need entertainment as much as anybody, and the Carnival is so popular that it settled in the Great Kharfur Market a decade earlier and never left. The carnies and wanderers that staff that attraction have become fixtures and good citizens of that sprawling metropolis, as much natives as anybody else in the City of Shrines. Xandra boggled at the tiger-baiting cages, the carousel, the stalls full of games of chance and skill, the hawkers of cheap food and cheaper thrills. The noise was almost too much to bear, and Xandra found herself losing her sense of direction in the fog.
A loud voice cut through the background din of the carnival. “ATTENTION,” called the gruff voice of the Beggar King; he had charged a barker’s podium and co-opted that person’s speaking-trumpet.
“ATTENTION,” repeated the Beggar King. “LADIES AND GENTS, FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, THE CARNIVAL IS PROUD TO PRESENT A NEW THRILL AND CHALLENGE WE CALL: THE EMPEROR’S TORCH! ONE OF OUR CLOWNS IS RUNNING THROUGH PRETENDING TO BE THE RUNNER. FIND HER AND TAKE HER TORCH; WIN A PRIZE!”
“I want a sword,” Xandra said firmly, “specifically so I can stab that guy.”
CAN I BURN HIM? Ember asked.
“Take a number,” Xandra replied.
“Here she is!” cried some of the throng, shrieking with laughter. Xandra diverted course and leaped onto the carousel to avoid being gang-tackled by a host of carnival-goers. Small children were riding the gold-painted ponies and unicorns; one girl grabbed for Ember and missed, ending up hanging from Xandra’s arm.
YOU COULD SNAP OFF A UNICORN HORN FOR A WEAPON, Ember suggested.
“I’ve had enough non-sword swords for one day, thanks,” Xandra answered. She plucked the child from her arm and hooked her frock on the hook holding the brass ring as the carousel went past. Then she leapt from the ride and sprinted in a new direction.
“This way! This way!” screamed more crowd members, chasing Xandra down a row of stalls. One of them was a crossbow accuracy game; the bolts were too light and the crossbow too flimsy to serve as a real weapon. But it wasn’t a real weapon Xandra was after; she snatched up a packet of wooden bolts and grabbed up a crossbow, yanking the cleat out of the wall that secured it via a thin cord. “Hey!” shouted the stall attendant.
Xandra slotted bolts with Ember’s hand, then drew them back and fired over her shoulder. Her accuracy was good, poking her pursuit in the eyes and mouth with small hard bits of wood. It was enough to discourage some of the chase from continuing, grumbling that putting peoples’ eyes out was no way for a clown to behave. More of the crowd kept coming, however.
Xandra sprinted into an open area. A group of fire-spinners were entertaining a crowd, twirling flaming blocks of cork at the ends of lengths of chain. “Ember,” Xandra said, “this looks like a great place for a distraction.”
ALL RIGHT, Ember said. The whirling balls of flame became great streaks of flame shedding clouds of sparks and smoke, and trailing huge tails of fire that whipped about and over the heads of the crowd. Most of those in attendance threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads with their hands as sparks showered down upon them. The fire-spinners themselves dropped their chains, but the blazing lumps of cork continued to sputter and howl on the grass like living things. Xandra jogged through the chaos untouched.
Something hove into view up ahead – something impossibly tall and metallic, with lights gleaming up and down its heights. It was a Ferris Wheel, the first of its kind of the world, a great edifice of steel and gaily painted wood. Timber frames supported an axle carved from a huge oak, and a team of four Gnoxen ran on a treadmill to power the belt that turned a giant wheel with benches for four.
Xandra became aware of dark forms in the fog. They were members of the Beggar King’s gang, herding her into the area of the Wheel with whoops and shouts. Without a sword (and still cursing the fact), Xandra charged for the Wheel just to stay ahead of her pursuers. She leaped up onto the platform surrounding it, shouldered through the line of people waiting their turn to ride the Wheel, tried to escape down the other side but found her way blocked, tripped the obnoxious barker who was trying to get her to buy a ticket, and found herself penned in against the Wheel. Without a choice, she jumped the line and sprang onto one of the benches. The turning Wheel bore her up and out of the reach of the cudgels of the gang-men.
“No trouble, boys,” sneered the Beggar King, striding up to survey the situation. “Just let her keep on going around. When she gets to the bottom again, we stop the ride – and we get our girl.” Carnival goers melted away from the gang chief, in part because of his aura of menace, but also partially because he smelled truly vile.
Out in the crowd, an unassuming man in gray with a broad-brimmed straw hat looked things over. The parrot on his shoulder whispered in his ear, and he nodded. Cracking his knuckles, he held his hands in a frame before him and then began to manipulate his fingers one by one.
“Zhilidani, recently deceased,” he lisped to himself, “and long-time lead Telemancer of Beth Shamon, sends his compliments.” The sorcerer finished his passes, and as he did so the belt that powered the Ferris Wheel began to vibrate.
The Wheel carried Xandra and Ember up and up. The top of the Ferris Wheel, as it turned out, was above the fog. From here they had an excellent view of the entire city. Not far away, across the river and toward the city center, the Arena with its many pennons flying could be seen. Xandra held Ember up as high as possible as she reached the peak of the ride and then started down.
The belt’s thrumming reached the maximum intensity of its vibrations and then jumped the wheel on the treadmill. Moving like a striking snake, the belt ripped itself loose from the treadmill assembly and then reached out to grab hold of the yoke joining the team of Gnoxen together. As it took up its new grasp, its loose slack reached out to spank each Gnox on the flanks.
The Gnoxen panicked and, roaring with displeasure, leaped off the treadmill. Setting their backs into their work, they heaved and strained at the belt that was now directly connected to the axle of the Ferris Wheel. With a shriek of tortured wood and steel, the axle jumped off the wooden support frame. The Wheel, with its riders changing their cries of joy to shrieks of terror, slipped to the platform. The platform promptly collapsed, pitching everybody on it to the ground, and then the Wheel began to roll along the ground freely with the Gnoxen pulling it.
The Gnoxen were out of their minds with fear. They charged over a tent, and the Wheel rolled over the tent too. They ran through an outdoor beer hall, and the wheel followed, scattering drinkers in every direction. Then the wheel was clear of the Carnival.
Xandra and Ember’s bench reached the low point of the ride and then whipped back up again. The Gnoxen had spotted Greatarch and were setting a course to cross it. Xandra surveyed the width of the bridge: would the great Wheel fit across it? Yes, but not with any great clearance room on either side. The Gnoxen heaved, but the wheel had a momentum of its own; it was not hard to start the runaway wheel on the uphill slope of the bridge over the river.
On either side, Xandra could see something unusual set into the side wall of the bridge. It was a man bent double, with his head and hands and feet on the road side of the bridge, and the rest of his body hanging over the edge with the water flowing far below. This unfortunate had been cast in place with mortar and stones securing the iron rings that held his wrists, neck and ankles in place permanently. Here he would presumably be fed until he perished. There was a long row of such captives on both sides of the bridge, and blank spaces on the ends of the row where more could be added.
The Wheel rolled up the bridge. As it did, the weight of the Wheel collapsed the support beams under the road; they splintered and fell away after the Wheel passed. Without intact beams holding up the side wall, the bottom of that structure was undermined. Mortar and concrete are good at holding themselves up from below, but bad at supporting themselves from above; as the wall crumbled from below, the prisoners lodged in it fell and splashed into the water below.
Then the Wheel was over the peak of the bridge and careening downward, continuing to destroy the bridge behind it. The Gnoxen, still terrified, ran off at an angle as the Wheel left the bridge, and the Wheel rammed into a huge fountain. It lodged there at a crazy angle, with dazed riders crawling off it once their senses returned.
As for Xandra and Ember, they skipped down the girders of the Wheel and disappeared into the alleys of this new part of the City, one step closer to their goal.
STILL NO SWORD, mourned Ember.
“Yup,” answered Xandra bitterly.
**
The drover came down to the water’s edge. The figure in the water was familiar to him. He reached in with a piece of driftwood and hauled out the old man. Iron bands hung loose around his wrists, ankle and neck. He was dazed and waterlogged and a bit senseless, but otherwise intact. The huge drover embraced him.
“Father,” he said, his voice choked with tears.
“What happened?” asked the old man. “I was stuck in the Innocents’ Wall, just for pleading ‘Innocent’ to a crime I didn’t commit. Next thing I know I’m in the river. What the hell happened?!”
“She kept her promise.” The drover’s eyes were shining with hero-worship.
“Xandra,” he said, and on his lips the name sounded like a prayer.
Third Part, Fourth Part,
Xandra padded stealthily down a cramped alley. Laundry hung out to dry on overhead lines. Hostile faces peered from darkened doorways. Crones peered down from high balconies. In the distance Xandra could hear shouts. “I wish I had a sword,” she grumbled, not for the last time.
I THOUGHT YOU SAID THERE WERE ALWAYS MORE SWORDS, Ember reminded her.
“Now is an important part of always,” Xandra replied serenely. Ember took a few moments to digest this.
WHERE IS YOUR BABY? Ember asked finally.
Xandra squeezed past a handcart that was mostly blocking the alley. “In our next tutorial on casual conversation,” Xandra said lightly, “we will discuss the ‘segue’.”
ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME OFF? Ember asked warily.
“Yes,” Xandra replied. She jogged on a few more steps, then sighed.
“I don’t know where my girl is,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since shortly after she was born.”
WHY NOT? Ember asked.
Muscles played around Xandra’s mouth. “She’s being held,” she said, trotting around one of the thousands of small brick-and-plaster shrines that were dotted all around Beth Shamon.
BEING HELD? Ember questioned. BY A MATE OF YOURS?
“No,” replied Xandra. “By the Sentarian Guard.”
THE BODYGUARD OF THE EMPEROR? Ember asked incredulously. WHY?
“Tradition,” Xandra said. “A reminder of the oath the Alizarin Sisterhood took to support the Empire. The firstborn of the Captain of the Madder Rose Corps is kept by the Emperor.”
OH, said Ember sadly. He thought some more. Xandra leaped over an open grating, then danced out of the way of a very surprised cat.
SO THEN, Ember tried again, YOU MUST HAVE A MATE OF SOME KIND? I BELIEVE THAT’S A REQUIRED PART OF BABY-MAKING.
“Yes. Well, sort of. I mean … yes. But no, I don’t have a husband anymore. He died.”
I AM VERY SORRY, said Ember. HOW?
Xandra kept her voice very even. “When the Sentarian Guard came for our baby,” she said, “he found he had little interest in tradition.”
Ember was quiet for a while. I FIND CASUAL CONVERSATION TO BE MORE DIFFICULT THAN I HAD IMAGINED, the kindling finally said.
“Me too,” Xandra replied. Passersby might have decided that the torch smoke was making her eyes water, although Ember didn’t put out any smoke.
They came to Beacon Street, the first major thoroughfare they would have to cross to get to the Arena. The tip of the ancient Beacon, an elongated pyramid thrown up by sorcery an age ago, burned a sickly green and cast wavering shadows down the length of the street. Xandra paused at the edge of the alley and looked both ways. She liked what she saw.
Looking away from the Beacon and towards the river where it threaded through the heart of Beth Shamon, Xandra could see the edge of the Great Kharfur Market. The Market had grown up from a few carts taking up an empty lot to a semi-permanent trading emporium unrivaled in the Southern Nations. The Great Kharfur Market was a bazaar taking up malls on both sides of the river, and linking the three bridges called Destiny, Endeavor and Greatarch. There had been a fourth bridge, Foresight, but it had collapsed unexpectedly.
A fog was rising up from the river. This often happened in Beth Shamon during cool weather. A thick, cool blanket would descend over the city, and people would hang lamps and lanterns out on the minarets and steeples, turning Beth Shamon into a constellation of lights vanishing into the haze. The fogs of Beth Shamon could be unusually dense, and more than one visitor to the City had drowned by becoming lost in sudden fog-blindness and walking into the river.
This fog, welling now through the Great Kharfur Market and peeking down Beacon Street, gave rise to a bold plan in Xandra’s mind. Ordinarily the market would have been the absolute last place Xandra would have wanted to go. But shrouded by fog, she might be able to run right down the gut of the Market, and confuse or bypass those who might wish her ill. And if she could cross Greatarch at the very end of the Market, she would have covered most of the distance to the Arena.
I TAKE IT WE’RE HEADED THAT WAY, Ember said, noting Xandra’s interest. MY, THERE ARE CERTAINLY A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT WAY.
“I wish I had a sword,” Xandra muttered. She took a deep breath, then broke out of the alley and began to jog down Beacon Street toward the Great Kharfur market.
There was a considerable traffic in ox-carts, laden horses and camels, and handcarts and dollies of every description. For all its faults, the heart of Beth Shamon was a place of commerce, and people were busy about their business of the day. Traffic stopped, however, when the warrior captain ran out into the center of the street and set a steady pace to thread the gap between the flow of conveyances in two different directions.
“Hey, it’s her!” shouted one person.
“…stupid tool!...” “…puppet of the tyrant!...” “…stop her!...” came some calls. These did not surprise Xandra.
“…Xandra, she’s called!...” “…smashed the pipe, amazing….” “…some kind of heroine!...” came some others. These surprised and embarrassed Xandra considerably.
A flung piece of manure caught Xandra in the thigh. Ah, so that’s how it’s going to be, Xandra said to herself.
A horseman going one way cracked his whip at Xandra. She ducked under it, then ran up the tail of a Horsath, a pack lizard as long as a house. When the whip-man cracked his whip again, it caught the jeweled hide of the lizard, which reared up and hissed. Xandra slipped off its shoulder, rolled under the cart in front of her, and continued jogging down the center of the road.
A push-cart held many heads of lettuce on one side of the road; a great-tusked elephant plodded down the road on the other side, its howdah full of casks and bales swaying dangerously. Children rose up from inside the lettuce cart and began to pelt Xandra with heads. Xandra ducked some and batted others aside with Ember. One she caught and tore in half; she stuffed half into the mouth of the surprised elephant. As it munched it appraisingly, Xandra waved the other half in front of its face and then tossed it back into the lettuce cart. The elephant broke out of its lane of traffic and bore down on the lettuce cart as Xandra ran on; she didn’t stop to witness the outraged cries of the children as the elephant began to browse on their produce.
She was now two blocks from the Market entrance. Shops were beginning to appear on both sides of the road, with sunshades raised above counters that faced right out onto the street. She jogged past jewelers, and basket-weavers, and dishsellers and linen-merchants. In the middle of the block she drew up short. There were three men in black kimonos blocking the middle of the street; they had greatswords drawn.
LOOK, SWORDS! Ember said.
“Pawn of the Hideous Emperor,” intoned the leader of the dervishes, “you and your torch shall both be extinguished.”
“Maybe they’ll lend me one,” Xandra said sourly. She dodged to the right and rolled over the counter of a rug shop. With a bark from the black-clad warriors, the chase was on.
“No fire in my shop! No fire in my shop!” the proprietor cried, tearing at his striped robes out of fear that Ember would drip on his precious carpets.
“Don’t worry, he’s housetrained,” Xandra said, running through a bead curtain into the back of the store. There she yanked a rug off the wall, revealing an unpainted coat of plaster. She tapped at the wall with the butt of the torch.
“Need something,” she muttered, looking around the back room frantically. “Something to make a hole.”
The next store over, Kirko’s Flatbread Bakery, was a busy place. Kirko’s seven children worked the front of the store while Kirko himself stayed in the back, counting the day’s profits. He was very surprised when a black-clad warrior came bursting through the wall he shared with his neighbor, scattering chunks of plaster and lath everywhere and landing unconscious on Kirko’s counting table. A formidable but dusty woman stepped through the gap that the dervish had made; in her hand was an ornate torch. Kirko smiled.
“Hey! You must be Xandra!” he exclaimed.
“One and the same,” she said, striding up to look around the doorjamb into the front of the bakery. Another of the dervishes had forced his way in to the storefront and was making Kirko’s kids lie down on the floor. Xandra slipped into the room; the dervish grinned and raised his enormous sword.
“Order up,” Xandra said. She hooked the handle of one of the ovens with her free hand and pulled it open . A gout of flame poured out like a dragon’s breath, enveloping the warrior and setting his clothes on fire. Xandra didn’t stop to watch; she rolled back out the bakery’s counter, knocking mugs of water and condiment jars on the ground as she ran back out into the street.
The dervish leader was still there. He whirled his sword around his neck and waist with the artistry of somebody who has a lot of free time to work on one’s sword-twirling. Xandra timed his twirls until his sword was behind his body; she took that opportunity to run up and kick him in the balls. He slumped to the ground, and his sword dropped to the cobblestones with a clatter.
I THINK HE JUST OFFERED TO LEND YOU HIS SWORD, Ember said.
“I’d take him up on it,” she said, “if only he’d lend me a third arm as well.” She kicked the huge blade aside, then took up her jog down Beacon Street again.
There was only one block to go. Already the first curls of fog were seeping up the road, making it hard to clearly see what was going on some distance away. What was clear, however, was that a mob was advancing up the street. This wasn’t dervishes, but a crowd of angry ordinary cityfolk, armed with tools and makeshift weapons, shouting for blood. Xandra ducked into the first shop she could, slamming the door behind her.
“Ah,” said a gentle voice, “Welcome Xandra. Your coming was foretold.”
Xandra looked around. A black and silver banner was strung across the back wall of the store that read FORTUNES TOLD. Several dozen candles illuminated the place, bobbing in thin air and drifting about. A table with a red silken coverlet and a crystal ball dominated the room; motifs of petty sorcery adorned walls and hung from the rafters. A burkah-shrouded form bowed deeply.
“Alistapha, at your service,” the witch unctuated.
Xandra licked her lips. “Look,” she said, “I just need to find a safe way out of here.”
“Of course you do,” Alistapha said, nodding. “As I said, your coming was foretold. From beyond the grave, Zemhoydan, Arch-Necromancer of the Eighteen veils, sends his greetings – and sincere thanks for services rendered.”
Outside the crowd advanced on the fortune-teller’s shop. Just as a man with a pitchfork reached for the door handle, the door opened. Out flew a candle. Or was it a candle? It might have been a torch, with a dark, mist-shrouded figure bearing it. It was hard to tell; perhaps it was the advancing fog, or some trick of the light, but it was genuinely hard to tell for certain what the light source was.
It danced out the door, but before the crowd could cut it down, out came another candle (or perhaps a torch). Then another, and another. In all two dozen bobbing lights emerged from the fortune teller’s shop. All set off in various directions, and shouting, the crowd took off after then. Some candles were cut into pieces, only for the pursuers to find nothing in their hands but bits of wax and string. Other candles fought back, and more than one citizen of Beth Shamon received minor but painful burns to their hands and face for their troubles.
Actually, rather than two dozen bobbing lights emerging, it would be more accurate to say two dozen plus one, with the last one coming out later than the others and setting off with purpose down Beacon Street. The angry mob was too distracted to pay this last light any mind, which was a good thing, because they would otherwise have noted that this light burned purple and gold instead of yellow, and the form that carried it was very substantial indeed.
Xandra reached the Great Kharfur Market. Great open stretches of grass and mud sloped down to the paved riverwalk. Beacon Street crossed over the river on Destiny, which arched high over the riverwalk; the remaining parts of its span were shrouded in the fog. Tents, pavilions, huts and other temporary shelters were clustered haphazardly all over the mall, making twisting aisles and pathways through the maze of the market. Xandra picked the best way she could through the throng in the direction of what she hoped would turn out to be the bridge Endeavor.
As she ran, Xandra felt that her plan must be succeeding. With the fog growing thicker by the second, nobody she encountered realized that the form with a torch was really a form with THE torch until she was immediately upon them. Then there was often a fuss, but not the sort of fuss that could easily spread because she was so quickly lost from view. Xandra leaped over bins of cantaloupes, dodged hanging bolts of cloth, avoided trampling crates of pheasants and shouldered her way past thousands of surprised people in the market.
The crowd thinned in the area of the fishmarket. There a huge drover heard the cries of ‘Torch! Xandra’, and his face purpled with rage. He took up his maul just as Xandra jogged into view; he blocked her way.
“The Emperor,” he snarled, “has imprisoned my father on the Innocents’ Wall. Bad luck for you that you crossed my path today!” The drover swung his maul overhead and brought it down with enough force to crack stone apart.
Xandra wasn’t where the maul had been aimed anymore, but it was a near thing. She rolled onto her back, then kipped up just in time to duck under another swing. “A sword, a sword,” she complained bitterly.
“A sword, eh?” There was a low chuckle from a nearby stand. “Well, we’ll see what we can do for the lady.” A man bearing the tattoo of the Fisherman’s Guild brought his cleaver down on the spike of a large swordfish, chopping the fighting prong loose. He tossed it to Xandra, who tested the heft of the fish snout.
“Better than nothing,” she said, saluting the fisherman, who grinned and waved his cleaver.
“I’d rather have had the cleaver,” Xandra muttered under her breath, but only Ember heard her. Then Xandra’s eyes widened, and she dropped to the ground. The maul crushed the fish counter where she had just been standing.
Xandra rolled to her feet again and assumed a fencer’s position. The trick in small-weapon fighting against heavy weapon fighting was to get your licks in while you could and then retreat. As the drover wound up for another swing, she lunged, pinked him in the thigh, and crabbed back. He charged, and she bent out of the way, jabbed him in the kidney, and assumed the fencing position again.
Not stupid, the drover realized he needed to change tactics. Tossing his maul at Xandra, he charged at her bare-handed. Xandra waved Ember in his face to keep him blind, then rolled under his feet to trip him up. He was nimbler than he appeared, though, and leaped over her roll. He kicked the fish-snout out of Xandra’s hand.
Xandra caught the back of his calf and then kicked his other leg out from under him. He fell hard, his head rapping against the hard ground, and his eyes crossed. Xandra took advantage of his brief spell to take up the maul and put the handle across the drover’s throat.
“Yield,” she said.
“Never, until my father is freed,” he growled.
Xandra paused for a moment. “Deal,” she said finally, getting up.
The drover sat up. “What?” he said.
“Your valor has convinced me,” Xandra said. “I shall free your father immediately.”
He blinked. “You can’t do that,” he said. But he also didn’t press the attack.
“Sure I can,” she said, loping off deeper into the market.
I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD THAT KIND OF AUTHORITY, Ember said.
“I don’t,” Xandra said. “I’m not even sure what the Innocents’ Wall is.”
OH, I SEE, said Ember, very impressed.
The ramp of Endeavor appeared and then faded as Xandra ran past. The market crowds began to thin, and simultaneously a horrific odor assailed Xandra. She had entered the part of the Great Kharfur Market where, as is always the case with spontaneously formed mass gatherings, a sacrificial latrine area had been de facto formed. As more and more people use a given area for defecation and urination, that area rapidly becomes no good for anything save more defecation and urination. The swath of ground between Endeavor and the ruins of Foresight had become an enormous open-air garderobe.
This actually suited Xandra just fine – the less crowds the better. She ran nimbly around any obstacles that looked like they might affect her footing, splashed uncaringly through puddles of any description as she had supreme faith in the quality of her footwear, and generally made good time through this sector of the Market. On her way through the center of this region, however, she did pass through a circle of men squatting on the ground. “Excuse me,” she said, brushing up against one of them; this one fell over in an unfortunate patch of real estate.
This unlucky man, grizzled and grey and wearing a frazzled patchwork of clothing, rose to his feet with his eyes blazing. “Nobody be-topples the Beggar King,” he shouted, shaking a fist at the retreating Xandra. “C’mon, boys; let’s follow the lovely lady and see if we can return her karma a hundredfold.” Indeed, the Beggar King and his Sturdies were a band of thieves who specialized in robbing those foolish enough to seek the privacy of solitude in the latrine zone, and they were murderous bastards all.
Ember, who didn’t have eyes so much as a universal field of sensory perception, saw the dark forms take up pursuit. WE HAVE COMPANY, he informed Xandra.
“Can’t look; watching the ground,” Xandra said. “Let’s pick up the pace and test our followers on their distance running skills.” Xandra increased her speed and began to breathe heavily.
The broken columns of the piers of Foresight fled past in the fog. Loud cheerful music blared from ahead, and colorful lights shone. Before she knew what was happening, Xandra’s lope carried her into the heart of the Market Carnival. The folk of Beth Shamon need entertainment as much as anybody, and the Carnival is so popular that it settled in the Great Kharfur Market a decade earlier and never left. The carnies and wanderers that staff that attraction have become fixtures and good citizens of that sprawling metropolis, as much natives as anybody else in the City of Shrines. Xandra boggled at the tiger-baiting cages, the carousel, the stalls full of games of chance and skill, the hawkers of cheap food and cheaper thrills. The noise was almost too much to bear, and Xandra found herself losing her sense of direction in the fog.
A loud voice cut through the background din of the carnival. “ATTENTION,” called the gruff voice of the Beggar King; he had charged a barker’s podium and co-opted that person’s speaking-trumpet.
“ATTENTION,” repeated the Beggar King. “LADIES AND GENTS, FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, THE CARNIVAL IS PROUD TO PRESENT A NEW THRILL AND CHALLENGE WE CALL: THE EMPEROR’S TORCH! ONE OF OUR CLOWNS IS RUNNING THROUGH PRETENDING TO BE THE RUNNER. FIND HER AND TAKE HER TORCH; WIN A PRIZE!”
“I want a sword,” Xandra said firmly, “specifically so I can stab that guy.”
CAN I BURN HIM? Ember asked.
“Take a number,” Xandra replied.
“Here she is!” cried some of the throng, shrieking with laughter. Xandra diverted course and leaped onto the carousel to avoid being gang-tackled by a host of carnival-goers. Small children were riding the gold-painted ponies and unicorns; one girl grabbed for Ember and missed, ending up hanging from Xandra’s arm.
YOU COULD SNAP OFF A UNICORN HORN FOR A WEAPON, Ember suggested.
“I’ve had enough non-sword swords for one day, thanks,” Xandra answered. She plucked the child from her arm and hooked her frock on the hook holding the brass ring as the carousel went past. Then she leapt from the ride and sprinted in a new direction.
“This way! This way!” screamed more crowd members, chasing Xandra down a row of stalls. One of them was a crossbow accuracy game; the bolts were too light and the crossbow too flimsy to serve as a real weapon. But it wasn’t a real weapon Xandra was after; she snatched up a packet of wooden bolts and grabbed up a crossbow, yanking the cleat out of the wall that secured it via a thin cord. “Hey!” shouted the stall attendant.
Xandra slotted bolts with Ember’s hand, then drew them back and fired over her shoulder. Her accuracy was good, poking her pursuit in the eyes and mouth with small hard bits of wood. It was enough to discourage some of the chase from continuing, grumbling that putting peoples’ eyes out was no way for a clown to behave. More of the crowd kept coming, however.
Xandra sprinted into an open area. A group of fire-spinners were entertaining a crowd, twirling flaming blocks of cork at the ends of lengths of chain. “Ember,” Xandra said, “this looks like a great place for a distraction.”
ALL RIGHT, Ember said. The whirling balls of flame became great streaks of flame shedding clouds of sparks and smoke, and trailing huge tails of fire that whipped about and over the heads of the crowd. Most of those in attendance threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads with their hands as sparks showered down upon them. The fire-spinners themselves dropped their chains, but the blazing lumps of cork continued to sputter and howl on the grass like living things. Xandra jogged through the chaos untouched.
Something hove into view up ahead – something impossibly tall and metallic, with lights gleaming up and down its heights. It was a Ferris Wheel, the first of its kind of the world, a great edifice of steel and gaily painted wood. Timber frames supported an axle carved from a huge oak, and a team of four Gnoxen ran on a treadmill to power the belt that turned a giant wheel with benches for four.
Xandra became aware of dark forms in the fog. They were members of the Beggar King’s gang, herding her into the area of the Wheel with whoops and shouts. Without a sword (and still cursing the fact), Xandra charged for the Wheel just to stay ahead of her pursuers. She leaped up onto the platform surrounding it, shouldered through the line of people waiting their turn to ride the Wheel, tried to escape down the other side but found her way blocked, tripped the obnoxious barker who was trying to get her to buy a ticket, and found herself penned in against the Wheel. Without a choice, she jumped the line and sprang onto one of the benches. The turning Wheel bore her up and out of the reach of the cudgels of the gang-men.
“No trouble, boys,” sneered the Beggar King, striding up to survey the situation. “Just let her keep on going around. When she gets to the bottom again, we stop the ride – and we get our girl.” Carnival goers melted away from the gang chief, in part because of his aura of menace, but also partially because he smelled truly vile.
Out in the crowd, an unassuming man in gray with a broad-brimmed straw hat looked things over. The parrot on his shoulder whispered in his ear, and he nodded. Cracking his knuckles, he held his hands in a frame before him and then began to manipulate his fingers one by one.
“Zhilidani, recently deceased,” he lisped to himself, “and long-time lead Telemancer of Beth Shamon, sends his compliments.” The sorcerer finished his passes, and as he did so the belt that powered the Ferris Wheel began to vibrate.
The Wheel carried Xandra and Ember up and up. The top of the Ferris Wheel, as it turned out, was above the fog. From here they had an excellent view of the entire city. Not far away, across the river and toward the city center, the Arena with its many pennons flying could be seen. Xandra held Ember up as high as possible as she reached the peak of the ride and then started down.
The belt’s thrumming reached the maximum intensity of its vibrations and then jumped the wheel on the treadmill. Moving like a striking snake, the belt ripped itself loose from the treadmill assembly and then reached out to grab hold of the yoke joining the team of Gnoxen together. As it took up its new grasp, its loose slack reached out to spank each Gnox on the flanks.
The Gnoxen panicked and, roaring with displeasure, leaped off the treadmill. Setting their backs into their work, they heaved and strained at the belt that was now directly connected to the axle of the Ferris Wheel. With a shriek of tortured wood and steel, the axle jumped off the wooden support frame. The Wheel, with its riders changing their cries of joy to shrieks of terror, slipped to the platform. The platform promptly collapsed, pitching everybody on it to the ground, and then the Wheel began to roll along the ground freely with the Gnoxen pulling it.
The Gnoxen were out of their minds with fear. They charged over a tent, and the Wheel rolled over the tent too. They ran through an outdoor beer hall, and the wheel followed, scattering drinkers in every direction. Then the wheel was clear of the Carnival.
Xandra and Ember’s bench reached the low point of the ride and then whipped back up again. The Gnoxen had spotted Greatarch and were setting a course to cross it. Xandra surveyed the width of the bridge: would the great Wheel fit across it? Yes, but not with any great clearance room on either side. The Gnoxen heaved, but the wheel had a momentum of its own; it was not hard to start the runaway wheel on the uphill slope of the bridge over the river.
On either side, Xandra could see something unusual set into the side wall of the bridge. It was a man bent double, with his head and hands and feet on the road side of the bridge, and the rest of his body hanging over the edge with the water flowing far below. This unfortunate had been cast in place with mortar and stones securing the iron rings that held his wrists, neck and ankles in place permanently. Here he would presumably be fed until he perished. There was a long row of such captives on both sides of the bridge, and blank spaces on the ends of the row where more could be added.
The Wheel rolled up the bridge. As it did, the weight of the Wheel collapsed the support beams under the road; they splintered and fell away after the Wheel passed. Without intact beams holding up the side wall, the bottom of that structure was undermined. Mortar and concrete are good at holding themselves up from below, but bad at supporting themselves from above; as the wall crumbled from below, the prisoners lodged in it fell and splashed into the water below.
Then the Wheel was over the peak of the bridge and careening downward, continuing to destroy the bridge behind it. The Gnoxen, still terrified, ran off at an angle as the Wheel left the bridge, and the Wheel rammed into a huge fountain. It lodged there at a crazy angle, with dazed riders crawling off it once their senses returned.
As for Xandra and Ember, they skipped down the girders of the Wheel and disappeared into the alleys of this new part of the City, one step closer to their goal.
STILL NO SWORD, mourned Ember.
“Yup,” answered Xandra bitterly.
**
The drover came down to the water’s edge. The figure in the water was familiar to him. He reached in with a piece of driftwood and hauled out the old man. Iron bands hung loose around his wrists, ankle and neck. He was dazed and waterlogged and a bit senseless, but otherwise intact. The huge drover embraced him.
“Father,” he said, his voice choked with tears.
“What happened?” asked the old man. “I was stuck in the Innocents’ Wall, just for pleading ‘Innocent’ to a crime I didn’t commit. Next thing I know I’m in the river. What the hell happened?!”
“She kept her promise.” The drover’s eyes were shining with hero-worship.
“Xandra,” he said, and on his lips the name sounded like a prayer.
