Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 34

So did Leo know Cronov. “I have told you ten times, Cronov, they say we are safe here.”

Cronov fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a cloth. “The Labyrinth lordbones will never speak to me,” he fretted, dabbing sweat from his face. “I wish I had the ears to hear them. Aba, we should spend coin to make sacrifice in ProNogolor’s Labyrinth lordhouse. If the Warlocks squabble it is because demons prick them. We must make an offering against their wicked wiles.”

Leo said, “Sacrifice is a good idea, Cronov. Deaf to the Labyrinth lordbones you may be, but never deaf to the Labyrinth lord.”

Cronov’s miserable face brightened. He always smiled when Leo told him good about himself. “Never.”

So many others now traveled the road with them it was three fingers past highsun before they reached the tail-end of wagons and horses waiting to be allowed through the enormous Town gates. ProNogolor rose up and up above their heads, ringed by a wooden wall, tall cut-down trees as wide as three Leos, standing side by side by side, no space between. Each tree was carved and painted with the Labyrinth lord’s eye, with snakefangs and centipedes, with scorpions and the same bird face that shrieked on the leather shells of ProNogolor’s fighters. Real skulls there were, too, glaring blind at the spreading plain. Horse. Goat. Bird. Man. Painted with Labyrinth lord colors, dangled with amulets, jangled with charms. Labyrinth lordbells sang silver-tongued on the breeze.

With her head tilted back so her Labyrinth lordbraids tickled the camel’s shoulder, Fiona looked past the Town’s climbing buildings to the Labyrinth lordhouse at its very top. The Labyrinth lordhouse’s Labyrinth lordpost was so tall that even from so far below she could see its stinging scorpion, tail raised to strike the wicked sinner.

She felt her voice shrivel in her throat. This place . . . this Town . . .

“You are right to be awed,” said Leo. He always knew what she was thinking. “ProNogolor is a mighty Town. Only the Town Shellis greater, because once it was Tragote’s ruling Town.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Ruling Town, Leo?”

He nodded. “When Tragote was ruled by a single Warlock, before the Labyrinth lord decreed one must be seven. The Town Shellwas his home. It was not called Shellthen, but still. It is the same.”

Warlocks . She had been thinking about them. “Leo, what is a Warlock?”

“A man of power,” he said. “Appointed by the Labyrinth lord to rule lands and villages and the people who live there.”

She frowned. “No Warlock rules Fiona’s village, Leo. Only Labyrinth lordspeaker.”

“The savage north is different. Long ago it had Warlocks to rule it. It was part of what is now ProJokriel and ProMamiklia. But the land is harsh there. With every season, grain by grain, the sands of The Anvil creep closer. Those long-ago Warlocks abandoned the north. Its villages are in the Labyrinth lord’s eye, Fiona. The Labyrinth lord is their Warlock.”

“ Tcha ,” said Cronov, pulling a face. “First geography, now history. To what end, Aba, there is no point.”

Leo patted her shoulder. “Cronov is right. The past does not matter, or the savage north. Rest your tongue, Fiona. We move again.”

So they did, but slowly. She could see the Town gates, they had long iron teeth to bite off the heads of the unwary, and tall men with bladed spears to guard them. Snakes and scorpions were carved in the wood, and the sign for Labyrinth lordsmite. Any demon who tried to pass these gates would die.

At last they reached the Labyrinth keeper, a monstrous tall man like a tree made flesh. His body was clothed in red and black striped horsehide. On his head he wore a horse skull with horns, around his neck a scarlet scorpion. His belt was green snakeskin threaded with snake-skulls, each winking eye a crimson gem. He wore no Labyrinth lordbraids, his head was bald. His skin was hidden beneath writhing tattoos. Fiona was pleased to see not one was as fine as Leo’s scarlet scorpion.

“Business!” the Gatekeper barked, like a dog. He had so many protections set in his teeth his lips wouldn’t close properly over them.

Leo put his hand in his pocket, then held out a piece of

carved green stone, round like a thin branch and as long as his palm was wide. “Trader business, Labyrinth keeper. Leo and Cronov of ProJenkin, brother Town of ProNogolor. There you have our seal stamped by Jenkin Warlock himself.” His hand dipped again into his pocket, to pull out another stone cylinder. This one was blue. “And here is proof of road-rights fully paid. We come to trade our merchandise and give the Labyrinth lord sacred blood in the Labyrinth lordhouse.”

The Labyrinth keeper examined both carved stones, then nodded to one of the tall Town guards. The guard walked with his bladed spear all the way to the end of the merchandise and back again. When he returned he nodded to the Labyrinth keeper and took his place at the gate.

“And what is this?” said the Labyrinth keeper, jerking his chin.

Fiona shrank from the Labyrinth keeper’s gaze. His eyes were hot, they had no whites, they glowed yellow in the shade beneath the dagger-tooth gates. Leo’s finger touched the small of her back. “A bauble,” he said, his voice soft and calm.

She didn’t know what a bauble was but she sensed he was trying to make the hot-eyed Labyrinth keeper cool. That was good, she wanted him cool. Something about him reminded her of the man, he hated she-brats, she could tell. His hot eyes frightened her. She hated being frightened, it made her angry. She stared at the white camel’s neck so he wouldn’t see her anger.

The Labyrinth keeper growled in his throat. He sounded like a dog again. “For sale?”

“Alas, this one is sold already,” said Cronov, and his voice was pouty. “To a very special client. We would not dare to sell it twice, Labyrinth keeper ProNogolor. Not and keep our name as honest Traders.”

Fiona held her breath and risked a look through her lowered lashes.

The Labyrinth keeper grunted. His hot yellow eyes were disappointed. He handed back the two carved stones and jerked his thumb. “Pass.”

Well done, Cronov,” Leo murmured as they entered ProNogolor. “Your tongue is as persuasive as ever.”

“And my brain is upside down,” said Cronov, sour as goat-milk. “What a chance to get rid of the brat, Aba. Aieee, the Labyrinth lord see me in its eye. The foolish things I do for you . . .”

Fiona said nothing, just pressed her blue snake-eye against her lips and breathed a sigh of happiness.

ProNogolor Town’s Labyrinth lordpost stood just inside the open gates, grim and glorious as the Labyrinth lord itself. Not wood, but solid shiny black stone. All its carved scorpions were purple and crimson. Leo gave its huge Labyrinth lordbowl more than gold, he gave it amulets and Labyrinth lordbells and tiny snake-skulls bound with charms. Cronov gave it a fistful of gemstones, and they both bowed their heads to the ground before it.

The Labyrinth lord appeased, Leo and Cronov climbed back on their camels and led the servant-train along a crowded narrow street lined with buildings made of stone and brick and wood. Fiona stared at the buildings and the men and the women and the brats and the skinny dogs running free around their feet. The hot air of ProNogolor Town was thick with man stink, animal stink, smoke fires and cooking meat. No trees. No grass. The street was stony, lots and lots of little stones jammed and crammed together, black and grey and white and red. The camels groaned as they walked and their ears flicked crossly. The buildings unwinding above them to the sky shut out the light, it was as dim as lowsun at the bottom of ProNogolor.

Fiona didn’t like it.

The narrow street curved around the base of the Town. At last they reached an open place divided into pens. Most of them were full of goats and sheep and cattle, the air was ripe with pish and dung. There were huge black dogs chained at the front of each pen, as mean as the man had ever owned. But these dogs didn’t bark, they just climbed growling to their feet, the hair on their massive backs standing stiff like the spiny collar of the deadly striped lizards that sometimes crawled in from The Anvil.

A man sat on a stool nearby. He stood as they approached and shouted at the growling dogs. The dogs dropped to their haunches but didn’t hide their teeth and their shiny white eyes stayed open.

Leo made his camel kneel five paces before the man and got down. Behind him the servant-train stopped too, in a clanking of chains and a grumbling of pack-camels.

“Penkeeper,” Leo said, his purse in his hand. “I am Trader Leo. How much to pen these servants and the camels?”

The penkeeper was old and bent over. One arm stuck out from his body strangely, as though the bone had broken and never knew its right place after. He wore amulets in his saggy ears and on a thong around his scrawny neck. His grubby clothes were brown and white goathide, rubbed bare and shiny in big patches. Around his sunken middle was strapped a leather purse, its laces strung with charms. Staring up into Leo’s face he hawked, and spat.

“Two silver coins till this time next highsun.”

The look on Cronov’s face said that was a lot of money. Fiona thought it sounded a lot. But Leo nodded undismayed and counted silver into the penkeeper’s hand. As the penkeeper put the money away, Leo turned.

“Fionas!”

Fionas came, dirty and tired. “Put the merchandise in the large pen there,” said Leo. “Take off its chains, give it feed and water. Camels in the other pen.” He pointed. “There is Fiona on my camel, you see her now. She goes in the pen, she does not leave it.”

Fionas looked at her. His eyes still writhed with maggot questions but the rest of his face was quiet. “Yes, master.”

As Fionas withdrew to do his master’s bidding, Leo crooked a finger. “Fiona.”

She slid off the camel and joined him. “Yes, Leo?”

“Cronov and I go to do Trader business. You will stay here. You will attend Fionas. That is my nod.”

She didn’t want to wait in a pen, or be told what to do by a dirty servant. She wanted to see this Town ProNogolor, and a Labyrinth lordhouse so big its Labyrinth lordpost could be spied from a distance in the road. But Leo’s word was his word. Like dirty Fionas, she must obey.

“Yes. Leo.”

With pricky eyes she watched him and Cronov walk away. When they were gone from sight she turned. The penkeeper was watching her, she could feel his hungry gaze.

“You not stare at Fiona,” she said, making her voice hiss like a snake. “Fiona belong to Leo.”

The penkeeper’s wrinkled face went still, and his eyes rolled like a goat’s when the knife approaches. He shook his fist at her, then went to help Fionas and the guards prod the merchandise into a large empty pen.

Fiona smiled, and folded her arms.

The pen’s black guard dog stood quietly, its white eyes watching, but did nothing to stop them. When all the servants had shuffled in, and the guards had taken off their chains and dropped them outside the pen with a clanking thud, Fionas crooked his finger at her.

“I see you now,” he said. “I see you in this pen.”

Scuffing her shoes on the tiny colored stones she walked past the staring dog and the penkeeper and Fionas to join the n***d servants. They stared at her in wondering silence,