“Er . . .” she said to all the waiting faces. “Sorry.”
“Huh,” said Ran Onyx-eyed.
I
Kothifir
Halfway to the top, the lift cage shuddered to a stop and hung, swaying, on its ropes. Leather-winged birds flitted around it, jeering through sharp teeth. The morning sun poured between its bars like molten gold, bright and hot, and wood creaked.
The cage’s sole occupant swore.
Through the slatted floor under her feet, Jame could see the garrison of the Southern Host spread out like a toy city at the foot of the cliff. There was the inner ward, there the quadrilateral, red-roofed barracks of each Kencyr house. Antlike dots moved through the streets with deceptive slowness. How high up was she? One thousand feet? Two? Kendar had warned her, with a shudder, that it was nearly three thousand to the top of the Escarpment at this point, not counting Kothifir’s towering spires above that. At least she didn’t suffer from the Kendars’ inbred fear of heights—not that dangling here on a few strands of hemp was exactly reassuring.
Commandant Harn’s headquarters were somewhere within the office block north of the inner ward. Jame remembered her reception there ten days ago, how the burly man had fidgeted around the room, bumping into furniture, avoiding her eyes.
“Ah, Jameth . . . er, Jame. So you’ve come at last, all the way from the Riverland. Have a nice trip?”
Such a stiff, wary greeting, as if they hadn’t spent most of a year under the same roof at Tentir.
And speaking of cool receptions, what was she to make of Ran Onyx-eyed?
“Do you wish to take command of the barracks?” the woman had asked. “Such, after all, is your prerogative as the Knorth Lordan.”
Did the Kendar want to shift responsibility to her, or did she resent a newcomer’s claim, or was she truly as indifferent as she seemed? That smooth, bland face had given Jame no clue.
“Uh,” she had said, “please continue to run the barracks for the time being.”
The last thing Jame wanted was a raft of new administrative chores. Was she shirking her duty? Perhaps, as at Tentir when she had left her five-commander Brier Iron-thorn in charge of the barracks there. If so, she was worse than Timmon at sliding out of duties. There had always seemed to be more important things for her to do, though, and as the Knorth Lordan she had been allowed more freedom than most cadets.
But “This is Kothifir, not Tentir,” Harn had warned her. “Watch yourself.”
Her gaze shifted to the training fields beyond the camp walls and the encircling arms of the Amar where her own ten-command was currently practicing with javelins, as she would have been too, without special permission to visit the city.
Dar, Mint, Killy, Erim, Rue, Quill, Niall, Damson, Brier . . .
Jame knew the names of the other second-year cadets as well, of course, and now would have to learn those of the third-years. Their leader, she gathered, was that sullen boy named Char. There were the Knorth randon officers as well. Tori knew all of them, and a thousand more besides.
Beyond the training fields was the Betwixt Valley, laced fresh green with irrigation ditches branching off from the Amar south of where its east and west branches rejoined. Beyond that rose the dusky, terraced slopes of the Apollyne mountain range. Jame wasn’t high enough to see over the latter to the Wastes beyond, where the rain stopped and the true desert began. However, a glittering veil of golden dust seemed to be drawn across the southern sky behind the peaks’ dark silhouettes. What lay in those desolate, wide-flung expanses? Would she be able someday to see for herself?
The cage jolted down a foot, making her stagger. Its ropes groaned.
A fine thing, Jame thought crossly, gripping the bars for balance, to have come all this way only to be dropped on my head.
Perhaps she should have taken one of the stairs that snaked up the limestone cliff face, carved out of it. So many steps, though, in her new dress grays with a crisp linen cheche wrapped about her tightly braided hair . . . To arrive breathless, exhausted, and sweat-soaked on her first visit Overcliff—no, thank you.
Another lift cage, this one enclosed such as the Kendar preferred, ascended smoothly beside her. Should she have taken it instead? It cost more, however, and Jame wasn’t yet comfortable with having money to spend. A small portion of her new allowance hung in a pouch at her side, tapping her hip as the cage swayed. How was she to know what each coin was worth in trade? They weren’t mere toys anymore for her blind hunting ounce Jorin to chase.
Ah. The cage rose again, by fits and starts.
Here caves breached the sheer cliff-face and exhaled cool air in her face through swaying vines. Faces were carved in high relief around many openings—past god-kings, perhaps, or portraits of the engineers who had designed Kothifir. Some looked proud, others merely bored. Through their yawning lips she glimpsed the jagged honeycomb of the Undercliff. Plumes of water fell from some cave mouths, also thicker jets from either end of the three-mile-wide semicircular moat that surrounded the city, bracketing it with rainbows. All were fed by the Amar, which approached Kothifir from the north. One couldn’t see it from here, of course, but it was said to be the biggest river short of the Silver to feed into the southern lands.
At last here was the lip of the Escarpment. The crane swung her cage over the balustrade and it bounced to rest on Kothifir’s limestone-paved forecourt. A squat, sun-darkened Kothifiran opened the gate.
“So,” he said in Rendish, with a flash of crooked white teeth. “Did missy enjoy her ride? Not that such a featherweight as you is any chore, but next time, maybe the heavier lift for comfort? Yes?”
Jame glanced at the grinning winch-men. So that had been their game, angling for a higher fee. She had already paid at the cliff’s foot. Fishing a small coin out of her pouch as a tip, she flipped it to the proprietor.
“For your courtesy. Have you considered installing a trap door?”
“Oh, we already have that, for those who try to shortchange us.”
Looking back at the cage, Jame saw that he spoke the truth. No wonder the floor had seemed so unsteady. She extracted another coin. “On account,” she said, tossing it to the winch-men, and walked off to their crack of laughter.
The city opened out to her at the foot of a broad, curving avenue. Here on the ground level, shops with brightly hued awnings lined the way, offering all kinds of food stuffs from purple eggplants to white radishes, from ruby tomatoes to sacks of golden wheat. Albino crickets sang in shaded cages. River fish gaped in tubs. Hung sheep carcasses seemed to move under a pelt of flies. Spices laced the hot morning air, their fragrance mingling with that of fresh baked bread and spilt blood. Jame breathed the mixture with delight. She had neither seen nor smelled such a wealth of Rathillien’s riches since her days in Tai-tastigon.
Just as enchanting in their own way were the bustling throng of shoppers. The average Kothifiran clearly liked bright colors and wore them with abandon, in pleasing contrast to their copper skins and black hair. The natives tended to be short and squat verging on fat, but brisk and lively in their movements with sparkling dark eyes. Some were taller and fairer, though, with auburn hair, and there were even a few rare blonds. Among them passed the occasional minor noble, borne shoulder-high in a litter whose fluttering pastel curtains gave a glimpse of an unnaturally pale face peering out disdainfully.
Such arrogance was matched by the silent visages of desert dwellers come to town to tend their shabby stalls. Only their eyes showed. The rest was wreathed by the voluminous folds of indigo blue cheches at least twice the length of the one that Jame wore.