Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 40

Retoth took her by the arm and pulled her close. “Stay with me!” he bawled into her ear. A few steps away a woman and two men played drums and cymbals and a wailing wooden recorder. It was hard to hear Retoth above their noise. “My shadow, brat, or Leo will be displeased!”

She pulled a face. Retoth used Leo’s name the way the man had used his goat-stick, what a stupid servant. Leo would never hurt her. But she’d be Retoth’s shadow, all the same. It would be easy to get lost in this shouting, stinking, crowded bazaar.

He took her to a booth filled with racks and racks of clothing. Two fat women pounced, like sandcats on rock mice. She was pulled behind a saggy curtain, poked and prodded, made to undress, then try on tunic after tunic, pantaloons, robes, so many clothes, till she wanted to scream. The only reason she did not scratch out their eyes was because they had a mirror that showed all of her body, from her Labyrinth lordbraided head to her bare brown toes.

She had never seen her whole body before.

Entranced, she let the stupid fat women coo and chatter and smother her in fabrics. She only snarled when they tried to take off the snake-eye amulet Leo had given her. Then they squealed and groveled and Retoth demanded from the other side of the curtain to know what was going on! The women rushed to tell him that all was in order, but Fiona said nothing. She looked at her body, and was amazed.

Her arms were long. Her legs were long. Her head with all its heavy Labyrinth lordbraids sat neatly on her long neck. In the village there’d been dull dry skin lying thinly over skinny hips and ribs and jutting shoulders. Now . . . she was not fat, but there was flesh on her bones. She’d felt her body changing as she traveled the road with Leo and Cronov but now she could see it: smooth and sleek, her shape so pleasing to the eye. Her skin, not dull but rich warm brown, glowing in the booth’s mellow lamplight.

Last of all she studied her face. Not as thin as when last she’d seen it, shown to her by the woman Bisla in Todorok. Her eyes weren’t frightened anymore, they were open and fearless. Proud. Defiant. Words she had learned from Leo, that Cronov said described her, and should be beaten out of her. Leo paid no attention to stupid Cronov. For herself, she lo

ved those words. She loved herself, shining in the mirror.

I am proud. I am defiant. I am Fiona, precious and beautiful. All of me is beautiful. The Labyrinth lord sees me. I am seen by the Labyrinth lord.

.. SEVEN

After the longest time the fat women finished drowning her in clothes. They left her alone to dress and took armfuls of the tunics and pantaloons she’d worn for them out to the front of their booth. When she joined them they ignored her, they were busy squabbling over coin with Retoth. He ignored her too, he cared more for Leo’s money than for her.

Bored. Fiona wandered a small way from Retoth and the women, threading her way through the jostling crowd. Her interest was caught by a booth full of amulets. She wandered closer. The amulProseller was busy with a customer. Fiona stood to one side and looked at the merchandise laid out on wooden tables and dangling from ropes stretched over her head.

Some of the amulets were as large as her fist, others smaller than her smallest fingernail. Some were carved out of bone, or fashioned from lizard skulls and snake-skulls and even fleshless human fingers. The bones and skulls were banded in bronze, in silver, in gold. There were tiny stone snake-fangs as blue as the sky. Larger snake-fangs in rock striped cream and crimson. Snake-eyes of pale green crystal, of richest yellow and hot fire-flame. Tiny clenched fists carved out of ivory, and ivory feet with a snake carved into the sole to guard against fangstrike. There were lots and lots and lots of scorpions, in every kind of stone and crystal. One in particular caught her eye, snared her attention like a fly drawn to honey. She picked it up to look more closely.

It was the size of a living scorpion. Shiny black, with deep flecks of scarlet and gold that caught the bazaar’s torchlight and shimmered, like breathing. It felt warm on her palm, almost alive. She almost expected to feel its feet move against her skin.

“What is this? What is this?” the amulProseller demanded. Her other customer had gone away, they were alone in the amulet booth. “Whose child are you?”

Reluctantly, Fiona put down the carved black scorpion. “I belong to Trader Leo.”

The amulProseller was a wrinkled woman, so old her skin was fading to a light and ugly brown. All her greying Labyrinth lordbraids were limp. Her eyes were filmed over with whitish scum, she was missing most of her teeth.

“Trader Leo?” the old woman said. “Returned from the road? The Labyrinth lord sees me. Leo is ProJenkin’s son, beloved of the Labyrinth lord. What is your name, and where are you from?”

“I am Fiona from the savage north.”

“Aieee!” The old woman hitched up her shawl; it was sewn with so many amulets it kept trying to slide off her bony shoulders and rattle to the booth’s threadbare floor. “The savage north. That is why the child is fearless, and stands before me with its head held high.” She picked up the amulet, caressed it, smiling. “Does Fiona like my scorpion? I made it, you know. I made all these amulets. The Labyrinth lord speaks to me in the night, in the wind, in the water. I make these amulets and the Labyrinth lord sees me in its eye.”

Fiona looked again at the beautiful scorpion. “I like it.”

“Then you may have it,” said the old woman. “A gift for Fiona from the savage north.” She leaned forward. “But keep it secret, child,” she whispered. “This amulet is special. I have never made another like it. The Labyrinth lord thundered in my heart as it guided my blade. It thunders now. It wants you to have this.”

Fiona nodded. If she told Retoth he would take this gift for himself. “I will keep it secret.” She reached for the black stone scorpion, and her hand touched the hand of the old amulProseller.

The woman gasped, she dropped the scorpion onto the table, not caring if it chipped or smashed, and seized her in a grasp too strong for such brittle, claw-like fingers.

“Savage Fiona!” the old woman breathed. Her scummy eyes lost their focus, rolled upwards in her head like a Labyrinth lordspeaker’s in the middle of sacred ritual. “The Labyrinth lord sees you, it burns you in its eye! Great lady, mother of the Labyrinth lord’s desire, mother of the son! Rivers of blood, rivers of greatness! Wastelands of despair!”

As Fiona wrenched free, Retoth appeared at her shoulder. “Fiona, I told you to stay with me! Leo will beat you when I tell him of your wickedness. He will not abide disobedience beneath his roof!”

She was so shaken by the old woman’s rantings she said, without sneering, “I am sorry, Retoth.”

Retoth’s anger melted. “Oh. Very well. But you must come, it is wicked to dawdle.”

“My new clothes?”

“They are sent to the villa. Now come !”

The amulProseller was muttering and moaning, rocking on her seat. “Burning! Blood! Aieee, the Labyrinth lord thunders!”

Stupid old woman, she was demonstruck and ripe for stoning. Fiona snatched up the scorpion amulet and thrust it into her pocket, then ran after Retoth just as the bazaar’s milling crowds swallowed him entirely.

They left the noisy, smelly bazaar and walked even further to the School district, where Retoth paraded her before a variety of tutors until one agreed to teach her reading and writing and dance in the villa.

“I do not need a tutor,” she told Retoth, as they headed back to the Traders district. “Leo is my teacher.”

“Tcha!” said Retoth, shaking his head. “The master is too busy to bother with you. Hold your tongue now, you give me a headache.”

On the long silent walk back to Leo’s villa Retoth dropped silver coins into four of the Labyrinth lordbowls they passed on the way. He even gave a copper coin to her, so she could please the Labyrinth lord once. She thought, briefly, of giving the Labyrinth lord the black carved scorpion. In the end, though, she just gave it the copper coin. The scorpion was so beautiful, and the Labyrinth lord already had so many amulets in its Labyrinth lordbowls throughout the Town. Besides, it meant the amulet for her.

The first thing she heard when they returned to the villa was Leo’s voice, coming from a room near the entrance hall. Forgetting Retoth, she dashed through its open door to find him.

“Leo! Leo! Here I am!”

He was stretched out on a long low couch, nibbling dried grapes from a glazed green bowl. Cronov sprawled on a couch beside him, feeding ripe plum pieces to an odd-looking animal perched on his fat belly. It was brown and white and hairy, it had a little face that looked almost human and tiny hands with four fingers and a thumb and a long curled tail. It saw her and let out a screech.

“Hooli! Hooli, don’t be frightened!” said Cronov, and clutched the hairy thing to his breast. “Stupid brat! Don’t you know it is rude to enter unannounced? Look what you’ve done, you’ve frightened Hooli!”

Hooli? Then this was a monkey . What a creature! Safe in Cronov’s suffocating arms it chattered and gibbered and hid its face behind its hands.

She pointed. “Cronov called Fiona a monkey on the road. Fiona is nothing like that Hooli!”

“No, she is not,” said Cronov, scowling. “My Hooli is worth a thousand times more in pure solid gold!”

“Only to you, Cronov, I promise,” said Leo, chuckling.

Hovering in the doorway, Retoth said, “Forgive me, master, I could not stop her in—”

“It is no matter,” said Leo. “Leave us, Retoth. I will have private words with Fiona.”

Retoth bowed and withdrew, closing the lavish room’s door. Leo looked her up and down. “Your Labyrinth lordbraids are pleasing,” he said. “They honor the Labyrinth lord. You have visited the bazaar? You have new clothes?”

Fiona dropped onto the nearest couch and sat with her spine very straight. Her Labyrinth lordbells chimed softly, singing his praises. “Yes, Leo. Thank you.”

“What of a tutor?”

She pulled a face. “It would be better if Leo taught me.”

Cronov snorted. Leo said, “No. This is best. There are many things to learn from a tutor, he can teach you what I cannot.”

She felt pricky tears, she blinked them away. “I have a tutor. He comes from next highsun.”

Leo leaned forward and flicked his finger on her knee. “I am pleased. Do you like ProRak

lion Town?”

She sighed. “ShellTown is beautiful. Will Leo show me all of it, soon?”

“Not soon,” said Leo. “Cronov and I have been on the road many Labyrinth lordmoons. My time is for business now. The things you saw upon the road, Fiona—warbands and dead men, blood on the brown grass—have you sharpened your tongue on them to Retoth or any servants below the stairs?”

He had no time to show her ProJenkin? Disappointment was a snake-fang, piercing her heart. “No, Leo. Fiona does not talk with servants.”

“Good,” he said. “Those things we saw upon the road are our secret, they are things for the Traders and the Warlock to know. No-one else.”

Our secret . Aieee, to know how much he trusted her. “Yes, Leo.”

He nodded, serious. “I tell you this also. We are no longer on the road. This is the Town, we must live Town lives. Unless you are sent for, you will stay beneath the villa, you will learn your lessons and obey Retoth. That is your world now, below the stairs. Retoth will give me reports of you daily, I will know how you go on. You wish to please me?”