The first offerings were brought out to warm up the crowd and get them bidding, two half-grown males and a middle-aged woman; they went to clerks looking for muscle and a reasonable degree of health.
“We have several items fresh in from the South; the first is a healthy boy said to be Summerborn and in his sixth year.” The Caller tapped lightly with his sounding rod. A Hina girl led a small M’darjin boy from behind the curtains, walked him up the ramp and whispered commands to him from behind the pillar, making him turn and posture, open his mouth and show his teeth, go through the ritual of offering himself for sale. He was frightened and awkward, but already he’d learned to keep silence and obey his handlers.
Blind unreasoning rage shook Maksim, rattled in his throat. Without warning he was that boy on the Block; all the intervening years were wiped away, his control was wiped away; another instant and he might have destroyed half of Kukurul in his fury before he was himself destroyed by the forces that guarded the city.
A short sharp pain stabbed through the haze, came again and again; Jastouk had read him and reacted without thought or hesitation. He had a come-along hold on Maksim’s hand, he was squeezing and pressing on it, generating such agony that it brought Maksim out of his fit, sweating and cursing under his breath.
“Bid,” Jastouk whispered urgently. There was a faint film of sweat on his skin, a frantic, half-mad glare in his eyes. “If you want him, bid.” He began massaging the hand he’d mistreated, still disturbed, his eyes half-closed, his breathing a rapid shallow pant.
“Could’ve been me,” Maksim muttered.
“No. Stupid ordinary little git. Not you.”
Maksim managed an unsteady chuckle. “I was a stupid ordinary little git, Jasti.”
Jastouk shook his head in stubborn disagreement, but he said nothing.
The caller had already taken a few bids, starting low, six coppers; he worked that up to thirty coppers, coaxing small increments out of the motley group on the floor. All the boy offered was his youth; he wasn’t especially charming or quick and the Caller continued noncommittal about his talents.
The BlackHouse Rep held up five fingers. Fifty coppers.
That jolted Maksim out of his brooding. He lifted both hands, showed six fingers. Though he’d recovered from that first shock of identification, he could not possibly let that boy go to BlackHouse; there was only one use they had for a child that age; it made him sick thinking about it.
The Rep looked around, scowling. Once they declared interest in an item, they weren’t used to being challenged. He thought a moment, showed six fingers straight and a seventh bent. Sixty-five coppers.
Maksim showed eight.
The Rep looked at him a long moment, looked at the boy, shrugged and let the bid stand. Small coltish boys with no special charm or talent were no rarity and he wouldn’t be reprimanded for letting this one go elsewhere.
There being no other bids, the Caller hammered the boy to Maksim and the Hina girl led him off. He’d be held in the back until Maksim brought the coin to pay the bid and the tag-fee.
Another boy was brought out, older this time, a stocky freckled youth with a long torso and short legs. “Journeyman gardener,” the Caller announced and the bidding started again.
Maksim was annoyed at his loss of control, annoyed at circumstances, Fate, whatever, forcing his hand. What do I do with him? Send him home? Chances are it was his own family sold him to some traveling slaver. Complicating my life. I certainly don’t need complications, it’s bad enough now, what with Jastouk and his needs and Bramble with those devilkids she dotes on and Kari coming out of school; I’ve got to leave for Silili soon if I want to be in time to catch her before she starts home. And now there’s old Todich, gods know how much he’s going to cost me. Signs. All these signs. A closure coming. An era pinched off. Turn of the Wheel. I damn well better get myself in order or that Wheel will roll right over me. Offering to the Juggernaut, smashed meat.
As the bidding continued around him and Jastouk grew restless and unhappy at being ignored, Maksim brooded over the Signs. Sad, sad, sad. Melancholy like the dead leaves eddying around their feet when they came down from the Inn. The boy, what did he mean? Was he setting free his baby self so he could move to true maturity? What was maturity to someone like him who could extend his life as long as he was interested in living? Was it the willingness to let go, to die? He thought about death with a curious lack of emotion. To this point he’d fought death with everything he had in him, fought death and won-with Brann’s help. Brann was gone. He thought about that. Odd feeling. Like an arm hacked off. Todich. A thread dangling from his past. Tie it off. Send him home. I owe Todich passage home or I’m no better than BlackHouse or old king Noshios I kicked out of Silagamatys. It was a debt he had to pay, a payment he’d put off far too long. It was going to cost. No more BinYAHtii to carry the load. Cost doesn’t matter. Ah well…
Todichi Yahzi was brought on at the tail of the lot.
“Here we have an exotic item, looks like a cross between a macaque and some sort of giant bug. It can talk a little and understand what you tell it. Our readers have checked it over and it’s no demon, so you don’t have to worry about waking up turned into a toad…” The Caller chattered on, trying to stir up some interest as the handlers prodded the kwitur up the ramp and got him to crouch on the Block facing the audience. They poked at him, cursed him in angry hisses, but gave over their efforts at a sign from the Caller who didn’t want his lack of spirit to become too apparent.
Maksim waited a moment. No other bids, bless Tungjii Luck. He thought it over, then he lifted a fist, opened up four fingers. Forty coppers. There was some stir in the others on the floor, but no more offers, no matter how cleverly the Caller wheedled them. Finally he gave up and hammered the kwitur to Maksim.
Maksim smoothed his fingers along the nape of Jastouk’s neck. “Let’s go,” he said.
“That’s it? It’s that thing you came for?”
“Are you coming?”
“No. I think not.”
“I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“Perhaps.”
Maksim thought about coaxing him into a better humor. After a minute he decided better not. If it was ending, let it end.
3
Jastouk was gone when Maksim got back from provisioning the boat.
He couldn’t send Todich home from Kukurul; if he had unfriends elsewhere, he had spitesons on his back in Kukurul who would sacrifice a firstborn to catch him when he was too whipped to defend himself. Spite and envy aside, the Managers who ran Kukurul would like nothing better than setting their claws into a sorceror of his rank; he couldn’t call his breath his own if they got hold of him. Without BinYAHtii to give him support and control, he’d have to drain himself to a dishrag simply reaching the reality where he’d found the kwitur; sliding Todich there along the capillary he was holding open with will and bodyforce would drop him into coma for hours, maybe even a full day, it wasn’t one of the easy reaches like the salamandri source or the tigermen’s world. He’d be vulnerable to anyone who stumbled across him. A yearling bunny could make a meal of him. Better to sail deep into the Tukery and find himself a deserted rock where he could sleep off the throwjag and have a chance of waking with his souls still in his body.
He came back to the Inn weary and depressed, looking forward to a little cuddling and comforting, though Jastouk had turned cool and unforthcoming since the slave-auction. He walked into Jastouk’s Minder.
Vechakek came from the SunParlor off the main lobby of the Inn; he stepped in front of Maksim, put his hand flat against Maksim’s chest. “He’s off,” the Minder said. “He doesn’t like being ignored, he won’t put up with it. The association is terminated.” he held up a sheet of paper folded once across the middle. “The account for services rendered. Pay now.” He was a massive Henerman from Hraney, a half-mythical country supposed to be somewhere in the far west. His skin was pale mahogany, hard and hairless, polished to a high gleam; he wore his coarse black hair in twin plaits that hung beside his highnosed face; he had a taste for sarcasm and sudden violence that made folk walk tip-a-toe around him. Would-be clients tolerated his insolence; they had to if they wanted to arrange a liaison with Jastouk.