"Have it your way," Boravik said with a hint of sullenness. He made a tentative motion as if to rise, waited to see if Bareris would object, then drew himself clumsily to his feet. "I made the wagers, but the White Raven gang was going to hurt all three of us if I didn't pay. You remember what they're like."
"Go on."
"Well, you know Ral can't work. Maybe I could have, but no one will hire me anymore. Tammith did work, but earning a journeyman's wages, she couldn't make enough. Time was running out, and she decided that, to save us all, she needed to… sell herself."
"And you went along with it. You let your own daughter become a slave."
"How was I supposed to stop her, when neither of us could think of another answer? Maybe it won't be so bad for her. She's a fine potter. Good as a master, even if she hadn't worked long enough to claim her medallion. Whoever buys her, it will surely be to take advantage of her talents." Or her beauty, Bareris thought and struggled to suppress the images that rose in his imagination. "Maybe her owner will even let her keep a portion of the coin she earns for him. Maybe in time she can buy her free-"
"Stop prattling! Curse you, I promised I'd come home with enough wealth to give Tammith everything she could ever want."
"How were we supposed to know it would be this month or even this year? How were we supposed to know you were still alive, or that you still felt the same way about her?"
"I… don't know and it doesn't matter anyway. When did Tammith surrender herself?"
"A tenday ago."
A tenday! It was maddening to think that if Bareris had only bade farewell to his comrades and taken ship a little earlier, he might have arrived soon enough to prevent what had happened.
Yet a tenday was also reason for hope. Thay was a large and populous realm possessed of tens of thousands of slaves, but since Tammith had given up her liberty so recently, it should still be possible to trace her.
"I'm going to find Tammith and bring her home," Bareris said. "You get out of this place and don't come back. Use the coin your daughter gave you to pay the White Ravens and care for Ral, as she intended. If I come back to find you've drunk and gambled it all away, I swear by Milil's harp that I'll cut you to pieces."
The snores and slurred mumblings of the sleeping slaves weren't particularly loud, nor was the smell of their bodies intolerably foul. Lying in the midst of them, Tammith Iltazyarra suspected it was actually fear and sadness keeping her awake. In any case, awake she was, and so she stared up into the dark and wondered how things might have been if she'd spoken her heart six years before:
I don't care if we have coin. You're the only thing I need. Stay in Bezantur and marry me today.
Would Bareris have heeded her?
She'd never know, because she hadn't said it or anything like it. How could she, when she'd perceived what was in his heart? He'd said he needed to go for the sake of their future, and he meant it, but he also wanted to go, wanted to see foreign lands and marvels and prove himself a man capable of overcoming uncommon challenges and reaping uncommon rewards.
Maybe that had been because he was of Mulan descent, hence, at least in theory, a scion of the aristocracy. She, a member of the Rashemi underclass, had never had any particular feeling that she was entitled to a better life or that it would prove her unworthy if she failed to achieve it. He might have believed differently, knowing that at one time, his family had been rich and then lost everything.
Well, no, not everything. They'd still possessed their freedom, and with that reflection, dread clutched her even tighter, and sorrow sharpened into abject misery.
She lay helpless in their grip until someone off to her left started to cry. Then, despite her own wretchedness, she rose from her thin, scratchy pallet. The barracoon had high little windows seemingly intended for ventilation more than illumination but enough moonlight leaked in to enable her to pick her way through the gloom without stepping on anyone.
The weeping girl lay on her side, legs drawn up and hands hiding her face. Tammith knelt down beside her, gently but insistently lifted her into a sitting position, and took her in her arms. Her fingers sank into the adolescent's mane of long, oily, unwashed hair.
In Thay, folk of Mulan descent removed all the hair from their heads and often their entire bodies. Rashemi freemen didn't invariably go to the same extremes, but if they chose to retain any growth on their scalps at all, they clipped it short to distinguish themselves from slaves, who were forbidden to cut it.
Soon, Tammith thought, I'll have a hot, heavy, filthy mass of hair just like this, and though that was the least of the trials and humiliations the future likely held in store, for some reason, the realization nearly started her sobbing as well.
Instead she held her sister slave and rubbed her back. "It's all right," she crooned, "it's all right."
"It's not!" the adolescent snarled. She sounded angry but didn't try to extricate herself from Tammith's embrace. "You're new, so you don't know!"
"Someone has been cruel to you," Tammith said, "but perhaps your new master will be kind and wealthy too. Maybe you'll live in a grand house, wear silk, and eat the finest food. Maybe life will be better than it's ever been before."
Even as she spoke them, Tammith knew her words were ridiculous. Few slaves ended up in the sort of circumstances she was describing, and even if you did, how contemptible you'd be if mere creature comforts could console you for the loss of your liberty, but she didn't know what else to say.
Light wavered through the air, and something cracked. Tammith looked around and saw the slave trader standing in the doorway. An older man with a dark-lipped, crooked mouth, he looked odd in his nightclothes and slippers with a blacksnake whip in one hand and a lantern in the other.
She wondered why he'd bothered to come check on his merchandise in the dead of night when he already employed watchmen for the purpose. Then a different sort of man came through the door behind him, and she caught her breath.
CHAPTER TWO
10 Mirtul, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Despite its minute and deliberate imperfections, the sigil branded on Tsagoth's brow stung and itched, nor could his body's resiliency, which shed most wounds in a matter of moments, ease the discomfort. The blood fiend wished he could raise one of his four clawed hands and rip the mark to shreds, but he knew he must bear it until his mission was complete.
Perhaps it was the displeasure manifest in his red-eyed glare and fang-baring snarl that made all the puny little humans cringe from him-not just the wretches scurrying in the streets of Bezantur, but the youthful, newly minted Red Wizards of Conjuration guarding the gate as well. Tsagoth supposed that in the latter case it must have been. With his huge frame, lupine muzzle, and purple-black scaly hide, he was a monstrosity in the eyes of the average mortal, but no conjuror could earn a crimson robe without trafficking with dozens of entities equally alien to the base material world.
In any case, the doorkeepers were used to watching demons, devils, and elementals, all wearing brands or collars of servitude, come and go on various errands, and they made no effort to bar Tsagoth's entry into their order's chapter house, a castle of sorts with battlements on the roof and four tiled tetrahedral spires jutting from the corners. A good thing, too. He could dimly sense the wards emplaced to smite any spirit reckless enough to try to break or sneak in, and they were potent.
Inside the structure he found high, arched ceilings supported by rows of red marble columns, faded, flaking frescos decorating the walls, and a trace of the brimstone smell that clung to many infernal beings. He tried to look as if he knew where he was going and was engaged in some licit task as he explored.