“I had no idea it would be like this,” he said to her. “How can anyone think straight with so many distractions? How can anyone stand living with so much noise?”
“One probably becomes accustomed to it after a while,” the Guardian replied.
“I do not think I ever shall,” said Sorak. He shook his head. “Do you suppose this goes on all the time?” “I imagine it dies down at night,” the Guardian replied. “Perhaps it is quieter in other sections of the city. I do not know, Sorak. I’m a newcomer here, too.”
Sorak smiled inwardly at her jest, then hushed Kivara, who wanted him to stop at every stall and tent they passed. “I, too, am curious, Kivara,” he said. “There is much to see here, but now is not the time. Be patient.”
He had no difficulty making his way through the crowd. Mounted on a crodlu and leading a string of four others behind him, he could not only see well above the crowd, but his approach caused them to part before him with alacrity. Crodlu were known for occasionally snapping and taking a piece out of an arm or leg. Their chuffing, bleating, snorting sounds helped part the traffic, and more than a few of the people that he passed stared up at him curiously.
“Why do they look at me so?” he wondered.
“Because they have never seen an elfling before,” the Guardian said.
“Am I truly so different?”
“If we were on foot, then we might not be so readily noticed,” the Guardian replied, “but mounted on a crodlu, we stand out among the crowd. They cannot help but notice. Even the half-elves we have seen are taller than the average human, and longer of limb. We possess normal human proportions, yet our features are different.”
“I have never felt so out of place,” said Sorak. “I had looked forward to visiting a city, but I do not think I would want to live like this.”
Before long, he came to an open square at the center of the merchant district, where the beast traders had set up their pens. The odor of manure mingled with the smell of sweat and the musky scent of pelts from beasts of almost every description. One of the pens was filled with z’tals, upright lizards sold primarily for meat, though their flexible scales were often used for razors or small knives. They hopped about, trying to leap over the wall of their enclosure, but they were unable to jump high enough. Stupidly, they kept hopping en masse from one end of the pen to the other, emitting high-pitched, yipping sounds.
Another pen held jankx. The small, furry mammals lived in burrow communities out in the desert and were valued for their meat and for their pelts. Their enclosure had a stout wooden floor to prevent the jankx from digging their way out. Puzzled, they kept scratching at the wood with their paws, unable to comprehend why this curious “soil” would not loosen.
Farther on, Sorak saw larger pens that were used to contain kanks. The large, docile insects moved about sluggishly in their overcrowded confines, the clicking of their mandibles providing a percussive accompaniment to the yelps and cries of all the other beasts. Their exoskeltons were often used for armor, but it was not armor of high quality, for it was brittle and had to be replaced quite frequently. Kanks were more prized for the thick, green honey they excreted, which was nourishing and widely used as sweetener in food and drink.
Beyond the kank pens were large corrals that held erdlus, flightless, gray- and red-scaled birds that stood as high as seven feet and weighed up to two hundred pounds. Erdlu eggs were a staple of Athasian diet. The skittish birds milled about inside their corrals, their long, powerful legs pawing at the ground. Their snaky necks craned around in all directions, and shrill, high-pitched cries came from their wedge-shaped beaks, especially when Sorak approached with Tigra. The tigone’s presence sent them running around in circles, shrieking with alarm.
At the far end of the square, nearest the ziggurat, was an open area that held no pens, for the beasts sold there were too large to be contained by them. Inix lizards grew to a length of sixteen feet and weighed up to two tons. No pen would have held them, and so they were chained to massive blocks of stone that functioned as anchors to keep them from wandering about. Their backs were protected by hard, thick shells and armored scales, capable of bearing a great deal of weight. They were often used in caravans to transport riders in howdahs strapped to their large backs, and the nobility frequently used them as vehicles to get around the city, allowing a servant to drive the beast with an obsidian-tipped prod while they relaxed in their shaded and luxurious howdahs.
On the other side of the open square, well away from all the other beasts, Sorak saw several mekillots. The largest of Athasian lizards, mekillots were used as caravan beasts, easily capable of pufling the heaviest of wagons, or as war lizards, bearing armored howdahs. Only wealthy merchant houses or standing armies could afford to buy them since mekillots were expensive to maintain and were quite vicious. Anyone who strayed within reach of their long tongues was liable to wind up a meal. There was only one way to control them, and that was to employ psionicists as handlers. Obviously, any merchant who dealt in mekillots needed to employ a number of psionicists to keep the gigantic lizards under control, for they could easily break through any enclosure or snap the strongest chains.
Of the beast traders in the square, only the one who dealt in inix lizards had crodlu to sell, and Sorak saw that he only had two of them, placed in a separate pen. He approached the trader, a human who sized him up quickly and decided he wanted to do business.
“I see you brought in some crodlu,” said the trader, as Sorak dismounted in front of him. And then he saw Tigra. “Great dragon! A tigone!”
“Tigra will not harm you,” Sorak said. “I have raised the tigone from a tiny cub, and it always does my bidding.”
“I did not know they could be tamed,” the trader said with interest. “It must require great patience. But then, a herdsman who raises crodlu in the tablelands would have no shortage of that commodity, would he?”
Sorak smiled.
If the trader was curious about Sorak’s ancestry, he said nothing. He had his mind on business. Sorak ducked under to allow the Guardian to come to the fore, and she instantly perceived that the trader was going to try to cheat them.
“Are you interested in making me an offer on these crodlu?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” the trader said. “But as you see, I already have two, and demand for crodlu is not great these days.”
“Ah,” the Guardian said. “Well, in that case, you would have little interest in adding to your stock. I shall not waste your time. Perhaps one of the other traders might be interested in making me an offer.”
“Well, now, let us not be hasty,” said the trader quickly. “I did not say I was not interested, merely that the market conditions for crodlu are not as favorable as they might be. However, who is to say that these conditions may not change? I am in the market every day, unlike a herdsman, who does not have the luxury of waiting for demand to rise. I might take the gamble of increasing my current stock, if the price was right.”
“What would you consider a fair price?” asked the Guardian, and at once, she saw in his mind what the current market conditions for crodlu were. They were far from unfavorable. Quite the opposite, in fact. He already had a standing order from the Tyrian legion for a dozen crodlu, but he could not fill it. With the two he already had and Sorak’s five, he would need only five more, and the legion would take the seven even if he could not fill the entire order. He stood to lose nothing on the trade.