She pondered temptation for a little while. The dazzling yellow walls-cleaned and replastered after the Tyr-stormlifted up in front of them, the freshly repainted portraits of the Lion-King were blurred, but colorful at this distance. The great, dark opening of the gate was visible as well, and the road was still empty ahead of them. There wouldn't be a line. Elven market or customhouse, they'd be into the city and out again in record time.
But the inspectors would ask questions. She had to be ready to use a mind-bender's subtle art, and that meant she had to have her words and images memorized before they reached the gate.
"Are you certain?" she asked.
"Nothing's certain-except that Pavek knows the procurer we've traded with. Whatever truth Pavek's telling us, I don't want to come face-to-face with that procurer until we're sure what's already happened and what's likely to happen next. That hairy dwarf's got muck all over his hands; he's not to be misted. That much is certain."
Of all the races, dwarves were the most consciously proud, of their appearance. Yohan's distrust of the procurer had its roots in the disgust he undoubtedly felt each time they stood before that stained yellow robe. Under different circumstances, she would have discounted her companion's advice for that very reason. Today's circumstances were as different as they could be, but she made one more attempt to resist temptation.
"Grandmother wants us to learn about the purity and strength of Ral's Breath. We'll have to visit the customhouse anyway-"
Yohan spat into the dust at the side of the road. "Wouldn't trust a customhouse templar's answer to that question, no matter who or what he was. We've got to visit an apothecary or two ourselves, Kashi, if we want to take those answers back with us."
"Will there be apothecaries in the elven market? Will there be anyone?" she asked suddenly. "The Moonracers said they'd withdrawn-"
Another wet splatter marked the dust. "Elves! It's not their market, just the only place where they can set up to trade. Get rid of the tribes and the market will be a little cleaner, a little safer, that's all. There's a little of everything in the market, including apothecaries, licensed and otherwise. The rest will come looking for us as soon as we've talked to the first. That's the way of the market. We can buy and sell at the same time. I'll do the talking."
She twisted a thick lock of brown hair around her fingers, thinking her way through a tangle of doubts. "If we sell zarneeka in the market, we've got to tell them how to dilute it with flour to make Ral's Breath."
The portraits of Urik's master had grown larger, clearer as they walked. Hamanu's robes were a brilliant sapphire blue. The glass orbs of his eyes flashed with reflected sunlight, looking straight at her. Or so it seemed.
"We've never done that. We're not supposed to do it. We trade zarneeka to the Lion-King's templars and the Lion-King sells Ral's Breath to Urik; that's the way it's always been, Yohan. If something goes wrong-"
"Nothing's going to go wrong. We'll buy and sell and be gone. If the Ral's Breath we buy is as bitter as it's supposed to be, we know where the liar is. We can deal with him when we get back to Quraite and then come back to Urik at our regular time, same as before, with no one the wiser. If Pavek's told us the truth and what we buy is no good-well, Grandmother can decide what we do next.
Curled hair slipped off her fingertips. "Going to the elven market will be safer than going to the customhouse?"
"Remember: I'll do the talking."
"Once we get inside the gate," Akashia corrected; she was the mind-bender. Dealing with templars was her responsibility.
They approached the inspectors and regulators gathered outside the gatehouse. A yellow-robed pair harassed a merchant while the rest idled in the shade. New laws, regulations, and rewards for wanted criminals were written in red on the gatehouse wall, as usual, a list of warnings and enticements for anyone who dared to read them. She stole a glance while they waited for someone to give them the onceover. Pavek's name was still written there, still wanted for unspecified crimes against his city. The letters were fading, though, and the price on his head had not risen.
A weary-looking yellow-robed woman left the shade. She asked the usual questions; Akashia stared directly into her eyes as she answered them. "We have trade today in the elven market." She kept her voice low and even. "The seals on our goods are all in order. We're no different than anyone else who's come through the gate today. You can think of no other questions worth asking."
"May we enter the city?" she asked after a moment.
The woman nodded. The Quraiters each dirtied their thumbs in a bowl of waxy ink and left a unique impression on the tattered scrap of parchment the templars were using for today's tally-strip.
"Don't forget: Come back through here before sundown, or you'll owe six bits each, and ten for the cart."
She smiled. Several shade-hugging inspectors whistled through their teeth. One offered to pay her poll-tax if she'd wait for him beside the Yaramuke fountain at sunset. She kept walking, never flinching or missing a step, and the whistling stopped before they reached the massive gates. The farmers gawked with their faces pointed skyward. She had to call them by their true names to get their attention and keep them close to the cart as they entered the always-crowded, always-busy streets.
They smelled the market before she saw it: a dizzying blend of spicy delicacies floating atop the sharper scents of natron, pitch, and artisans' charcoal fires, and, of course, the ever-present sweet aromas of decay.
Yohan paused on the cobblestone verge of the market. He adjusted his grip on the cart traces and looked at each of the farmers before letting his stare come to rest on her.
"Stay close," he warned them all. "If you've got to look for something, look for a signboard of a striding lion with a pestle. That's the apothecaries' license we're looking for."
"What about unlicensed-"
Yohan cut her short with a slash of his finger. "The difference between licensed and unlicensed doesn't show on the signboard. Remember: stay close."
And they did. She wrapped her hand lightly around one of the traces; that gave her more freedom to look for a pestle-it seemed that every hawker's sign displayed a striding lion-as they wandered the market. Traders hailed them from every ramshackle doorway of cloth, wood, or bone. Bold, ragged children begged for ceramic bits or offered to sell pieces of bruised fruit obviously scavenged from the gutters of Urik's more reputable markets. One child leapt into the cart and grabbed two handfuls of straw before she and the fanners could chase him away.
"What's wrong with them? Are they that hungry? Should we offer them something?" she whispered anxiously to Yohan.
"Stay close," was his only reply, repeated through clenched teeth as the raids became more frequent.
Every dwelling or stall in the elven market seemed equally old, equally dilapidated and despairing. There were no signposts for the streets that met at odd angles and irregular intervals. Had she not heeded Yohan's warning and kept dose to the cart, she'd have been quickly and hopelessly lost. The tumult of noise and color, so attractive in her imagination, grew less so when it devolved into hostile stares and furtive bent-mind probes of her inmost thoughts.
She was unprepared for that Unseen onslaught from anonymous minds. In her previous visits to the city, she'd dealt only with templars-broken, mean-spirited individuals, each and every one of them, but, by their master's order, untrained in the arts of the Unseen Way.