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Authors: Dave Duncan
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continued. “With swordsmen it’s a lot more complicated. One type of salute for just passing in the street, another for serious talk. Depends on whose rank is higher and so on.” He jumped a gap and landed as surely as a goat on the other side. “Replies are different from salutes.”
Wallie said nothing to that. The road angled down the side of the valley into a crowded huddle of buildings, beyond which towered an immense cathedral-like edifice, surmounted by seven golden spires . . . the temple of the Goddess at Hann. Certainly that was their destination. Beyond the temple, the far wall of the valley, steep and bare and rocky, was split by a canyon. From the window of the cottage he had been able to see along that canyon to the falls from which rose the great plume of spray; from his present position only the cloud was visible.
The rutted road was foul with mule droppings and other filth—he was having trouble keeping his toes clean, and he eventually gave up and let the chips lie where they may. The boots pinched, and the boy was keeping up a fearsome pace, even for legs as long as Shonsu’s.
Then they reached level ground, and the boy had to walk on the road beside him, and they slowed. The town engulfed them at once in rank, narrow squalor between high wooden buildings that covered almost every level inch. Between them snaked mean little streets full of scrambling throngs of people, carrying bundles or pushing carts or just hurrying. Yet somehow there was always room for a swordsman of the Seventh, and he was not jostled, although the saluting became perfunctory. The smell was much worse than it had been on the hill. “Browns are the commonest?” Wallie asked.
The boy was having to do more dodging to keep up with him, but Wallie kept moving—let him worry.
“Thirds. That’s craftsman level.” He disappeared around a hawker’s cart and rejoined Wallie at the other end. “Qualified artisan. Whites and yellows are apprentices. Above that you’re into postgraduate.” He grinned up briefly. There were many stray curs grubbing around the refuse, and the high walls shut out the sun. The air was a garbage of insects and smells, human and animal and stale cooking and decay, except where a spice shop or a bakery wafted its fragrance into the street like an oasis.
Wallie had it worked out now: white, yellow, brown, orange, and red. Green and blue must be at the top, but he had seen none of those. Apparently purely arbitrary.
“Why that sequence?” he asked.
“This way,” the boy said, turning down another winding alley, which was just as foul and dark and crowded. “No reason. Because it’s always been done that way. That’s the standard explanation for anything.”
Beggars wore black, usually just a grubby rag. Many of them had rags around their heads, too . . . to avoid disgrace to their crafts? He could guess at some of the facemarks. A loud clanging noise ahead proved to be a smithy, and of course the smith’s marks were horseshoes. A man pushing a cart of boots and shoes had three boot shapes. Many of them were ideograms, though, and he could not guess their significance: diamonds, semicircles, chevrons? “They ought to bum this place down and start over,” Wallie grumbled.
“They do, every fifty years or so,” the boy said. The ground floor of most buildings held a shop, with a sign above the door and sometimes a display table, carefully guarded, and those restricted the traffic even more. A few establishments, like the smithy, had people working in full view, weaving or sewing or turning pots. Jugs meant potter. Wallie noted the signs of disease, too—blindness and emaciation and ugly rashes. The poverty was overwhelming, old women bent beneath bundles of wood and children working just as hard as adults. He did not like it. He had seen poverty before—in Tijuana, for example—but Tijuana had the excuse of being new, temporary. This town seemed ancient, and
Wallie said nothing to that. The road angled down the side of the valley into a crowded huddle of buildings, beyond which towered an immense cathedral-like edifice, surmounted by seven golden spires . . . the temple of the Goddess at Hann. Certainly that was their destination. Beyond the temple, the far wall of the valley, steep and bare and rocky, was split by a canyon. From the window of the cottage he had been able to see along that canyon to the falls from which rose the great plume of spray; from his present position only the cloud was visible.
The rutted road was foul with mule droppings and other filth—he was having trouble keeping his toes clean, and he eventually gave up and let the chips lie where they may. The boots pinched, and the boy was keeping up a fearsome pace, even for legs as long as Shonsu’s.
Then they reached level ground, and the boy had to walk on the road beside him, and they slowed. The town engulfed them at once in rank, narrow squalor between high wooden buildings that covered almost every level inch. Between them snaked mean little streets full of scrambling throngs of people, carrying bundles or pushing carts or just hurrying. Yet somehow there was always room for a swordsman of the Seventh, and he was not jostled, although the saluting became perfunctory. The smell was much worse than it had been on the hill. “Browns are the commonest?” Wallie asked.
The boy was having to do more dodging to keep up with him, but Wallie kept moving—let him worry.
“Thirds. That’s craftsman level.” He disappeared around a hawker’s cart and rejoined Wallie at the other end. “Qualified artisan. Whites and yellows are apprentices. Above that you’re into postgraduate.” He grinned up briefly. There were many stray curs grubbing around the refuse, and the high walls shut out the sun. The air was a garbage of insects and smells, human and animal and stale cooking and decay, except where a spice shop or a bakery wafted its fragrance into the street like an oasis.
Wallie had it worked out now: white, yellow, brown, orange, and red. Green and blue must be at the top, but he had seen none of those. Apparently purely arbitrary.
“Why that sequence?” he asked.
“This way,” the boy said, turning down another winding alley, which was just as foul and dark and crowded. “No reason. Because it’s always been done that way. That’s the standard explanation for anything.”
Beggars wore black, usually just a grubby rag. Many of them had rags around their heads, too . . . to avoid disgrace to their crafts? He could guess at some of the facemarks. A loud clanging noise ahead proved to be a smithy, and of course the smith’s marks were horseshoes. A man pushing a cart of boots and shoes had three boot shapes. Many of them were ideograms, though, and he could not guess their significance: diamonds, semicircles, chevrons? “They ought to bum this place down and start over,” Wallie grumbled.
“They do, every fifty years or so,” the boy said. The ground floor of most buildings held a shop, with a sign above the door and sometimes a display table, carefully guarded, and those restricted the traffic even more. A few establishments, like the smithy, had people working in full view, weaving or sewing or turning pots. Jugs meant potter. Wallie noted the signs of disease, too—blindness and emaciation and ugly rashes. The poverty was overwhelming, old women bent beneath bundles of wood and children working just as hard as adults. He did not like it. He had seen poverty before—in Tijuana, for example—but Tijuana had the excuse of being new, temporary. This town seemed ancient, and
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