Read Online The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson - Free Book Online
Authors: Kai Ashante Wilson
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off the ground, and above his head, so easily. No—
half full:
weighing more than himself. Water cascaded from the open side as the barrel came up high and lateral—more splashing forth as it burst to staves and splinters against the side of the stable.
“
Do you mind, Suresh? I’m coming right back
. ” A brass quartet blasting ensemble might make such tuneful thunder.
Burros shied and neighed; the drudges, too. Everyone stared in astonishment, and none more so than Demane. Captain’s anger was the cold kind,
never
hot.
Master Suresh l’Merqerim, mockingly, ducked as if dodging a wildly swung fist, and then left the balustrade to return to his feast.
Captain crossed to Demane. “Let’s walk around here for a little bit.” His whole organism exhaled the scents and signs of misery, of fury. “I don’t have much time.”
Demane nodded to the north. “Over by the Mainway?”
They vaulted the fence, went up the nearest alley.
“I should tell you something,” the captain said. “I need to.”
“Go ’head.”
Demane glanced aside in time to see the familiar thing happening on Captain’s face, his usual change of mind. Tensely parted, his lips were relaxing now. Whatever bold intimacy he had for one instant meant to confide would go unsaid after all, lost to habits of private endurance. Indeed as they walked, Captain said nothing at all. He picked at the edges of his headscarf, though of course no hair showed. The sun at zenith would have lit this alley all the way down to the dry packed dust. Now well after noon, oblique brightness crowned the captain’s head, everything lower in shadow. Demane began to speak himself, telling of the encounter with the merchant, and what he suspected of the jukiere.
“A jook-toothed tiger, huh?” Captain, tiredly smiling, shook his head. “Trust you to come at me with a story like that.”
The cool dismissal stabbed right into the heart of any sense that they endured this ordeal together, as one. Did the captain have no confidence in Demane’s expertise, did all the faith flow only one way? It hurt in the belly and chest to be brushed off so. Demane couldn’t have guessed his own expression.
“A good thing you’re always watching out. I’ll say something to Suresh.” Captain draped an arm across Demane’s shoulders. “But if you think he’ll change his plans on my say-so, you must have fallen and bumped your head.” As the captain’s hands could no more roughen with callus than they could scar, and bled every day, his thumb-pad and forefinger (playing with Demane’s ear) were absurdly soft. “It’ll just be the two of us looking out, as usual.”
“Yeah.” Demane swallowed and blinked. “All right.” There’d never been anyone who could knife him so with a momentary word, and then speak the wound away in the very next moment. If all those little boyhood heartbreaks had been supposed to make him ready for this, Demane wasn’t.
They’d nearly reached the sunwashed crowds ahead, when—seizing all Mother of Water’s attention—the civil gong clashed to wake the dead. Men bawled in unison: “Clear the Mainway! Clear the Mainway!” The alley was too narrow to admit either beasts or carts, but a stampede of pedestrians came running up its straits. Demane, smashed against the adobe of some stables, caught the captain, who was thrown bodily against him. An ugly moment, you would have thought, all the screaming and frenzied panic. But Demane had by now learned to recognize cover for a clinch, a pretext to grab two handfuls of ass. He stole that grope, the quick kiss collusive.
A drubbing ovation of horses at full gallop shook the earth. One thousand heads—and theirs, too—leaned out on the emptied Mainway. Twenty-five cavalrymen rode past, and onward through the Station-gates. The mounted fo-so, lances at the ready, ranged out along the east-west trail. Next, from the big western piazza, there came five men on foot. They were hunched over and
half full:
weighing more than himself. Water cascaded from the open side as the barrel came up high and lateral—more splashing forth as it burst to staves and splinters against the side of the stable.
“
Do you mind, Suresh? I’m coming right back
. ” A brass quartet blasting ensemble might make such tuneful thunder.
Burros shied and neighed; the drudges, too. Everyone stared in astonishment, and none more so than Demane. Captain’s anger was the cold kind,
never
hot.
Master Suresh l’Merqerim, mockingly, ducked as if dodging a wildly swung fist, and then left the balustrade to return to his feast.
Captain crossed to Demane. “Let’s walk around here for a little bit.” His whole organism exhaled the scents and signs of misery, of fury. “I don’t have much time.”
Demane nodded to the north. “Over by the Mainway?”
They vaulted the fence, went up the nearest alley.
“I should tell you something,” the captain said. “I need to.”
“Go ’head.”
Demane glanced aside in time to see the familiar thing happening on Captain’s face, his usual change of mind. Tensely parted, his lips were relaxing now. Whatever bold intimacy he had for one instant meant to confide would go unsaid after all, lost to habits of private endurance. Indeed as they walked, Captain said nothing at all. He picked at the edges of his headscarf, though of course no hair showed. The sun at zenith would have lit this alley all the way down to the dry packed dust. Now well after noon, oblique brightness crowned the captain’s head, everything lower in shadow. Demane began to speak himself, telling of the encounter with the merchant, and what he suspected of the jukiere.
“A jook-toothed tiger, huh?” Captain, tiredly smiling, shook his head. “Trust you to come at me with a story like that.”
The cool dismissal stabbed right into the heart of any sense that they endured this ordeal together, as one. Did the captain have no confidence in Demane’s expertise, did all the faith flow only one way? It hurt in the belly and chest to be brushed off so. Demane couldn’t have guessed his own expression.
“A good thing you’re always watching out. I’ll say something to Suresh.” Captain draped an arm across Demane’s shoulders. “But if you think he’ll change his plans on my say-so, you must have fallen and bumped your head.” As the captain’s hands could no more roughen with callus than they could scar, and bled every day, his thumb-pad and forefinger (playing with Demane’s ear) were absurdly soft. “It’ll just be the two of us looking out, as usual.”
“Yeah.” Demane swallowed and blinked. “All right.” There’d never been anyone who could knife him so with a momentary word, and then speak the wound away in the very next moment. If all those little boyhood heartbreaks had been supposed to make him ready for this, Demane wasn’t.
They’d nearly reached the sunwashed crowds ahead, when—seizing all Mother of Water’s attention—the civil gong clashed to wake the dead. Men bawled in unison: “Clear the Mainway! Clear the Mainway!” The alley was too narrow to admit either beasts or carts, but a stampede of pedestrians came running up its straits. Demane, smashed against the adobe of some stables, caught the captain, who was thrown bodily against him. An ugly moment, you would have thought, all the screaming and frenzied panic. But Demane had by now learned to recognize cover for a clinch, a pretext to grab two handfuls of ass. He stole that grope, the quick kiss collusive.
A drubbing ovation of horses at full gallop shook the earth. One thousand heads—and theirs, too—leaned out on the emptied Mainway. Twenty-five cavalrymen rode past, and onward through the Station-gates. The mounted fo-so, lances at the ready, ranged out along the east-west trail. Next, from the big western piazza, there came five men on foot. They were hunched over and
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