Read Online The Godspeaker Trilogy by Karen Miller - Free Book Online Page A

Not wood, but solid shiny black stone. All its carved scorpions were purple and crimson. Abajai gave its huge godbowl more than gold, he gave it amulets and godbells and tiny snake-skulls bound with charms. Yagji gave it a fistful of gemstones, and they both bowed their heads to the ground before it.
    The god appeased, Abajai and Yagji climbed back on their camels and led the slave-train along a crowded narrow street lined with buildings made of stone and brick and wood. Hekat 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 Et-Nogolor city 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 Et-Nogolor.
    Hekat didn’t like it.
    The narrow street curved around the base of the city. 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.
    Abajai made his camel kneel five paces before the man and got down. Behind him the slave-train stopped too, in a clanking of chains and a grumbling of pack-camels.
    “Penkeeper,” Abajai said, his purse in his hand. “I am Trader Abajai. How much to pen these slaves 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 Abajai’s face he hawked, and spat.
    “Two silver coins till this time next highsun.”
    The look on Yagji’s face said that was a lot of money. Hekat thought it sounded a lot. But Abajai nodded undismayed and counted silver into the penkeeper’s hand. As the penkeeper put the money away, Abajai turned.
    “Obid!”
    Obid came, dirty and tired. “Put the merchandise in the large pen there,” said Abajai. “Take off its chains, give it feed and water. Camels in the other pen.” He pointed. “There is Hekat on my camel, you see her now. She goes in the pen, she does not leave it.”
    Obid looked at her. His eyes still writhed with maggot questions but the rest of his face was quiet. “Yes, master.”
    As Obid withdrew to do his master’s bidding, Abajai crooked a finger. “Hekat.”
    She slid off the camel and joined him. “Yes, Abajai?”
    “Yagji and I go to do Trader business. You will stay here. You will attend Obid. That is my nod.”
    She didn’t want to wait in a pen, or be told what to do by a dirty slave. She wanted to see this city Et-Nogolor, and a godhouse so big its godpost could be spied from a distance in the road. But Abajai’s word was his word. Like dirty Obid, she must obey.
    “Yes. Abajai.”
    With pricky eyes she watched him and Yagji 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 Hekat,” she said, making her voice hiss like a snake. “Hekat belong to Abajai.”
    The penkeeper’s wrinkled