Chapter 11 – Saljid I
Witches reign and powers be,
The future's not for all to see.
From it now the wise will flee,
The telling of one's destiny.
I
Jorden woke and all seemed well.
He was still hampered by the narcotic of sleep, his mind heavy, his eyes still blurred, yet all indeed seemed as favourable as possible in such a world. Taf was warm and sleeping nearby, the air was light and sweet... He could think of dozens of things that seemed right, yet still something gnawed within. There was something wrong, he knew, yet failed to put a finger on it. He knew it was important and he knew that he should have known what it was, but he didn't. Jorden sat up in the bed and roused Taf, the aestri moaning to wakefulness.
She simply slid closer and tried to hug Jorden. He forced her delicately aside. “Get dressed,” he said quietly, his tone conveying his anxiety. “There's something wrong.”
Taf sniffed and smiled. “No there isn't, silly, it's...” she paused to consider, shrugged, then leapt from the bed.
The outsider watched her dress a moment before snatching Johnathon's old safari suit and following her lead. Then, as he stood amid the frugal lodgings of the aestri, Jorden knew what it was that had worried him and he felt suddenly very silly indeed. No longer did the Katerina pitch beneath as it had done so violently in the past; no longer was the air wet with spray.
“We've stopped,” he said in awe.
Taf simply smiled.
II
From the bridge it was quite a spectacle, the white sails that remained were billowing lazily in the strange twilight that lit the bay, the sky an unbroken grey above. After the storms of the last two weeks, it was a day that even made what was left of the Katerina look good.
The great protective walls were now far behind, vanished behind the curve of the inlet, dark threatening cloud still hanging on that horizon. Within the bay of Saljid the waters were calm, the weather mild, the Time of Darkness somehow distant. Jorden smiled to Orani and Johnathon, then to Drey on the deck below, the first mate busily shouting to his men.
They had survived the crossing to set eye upon the Port of Saljid, the city sprawled across the horizon. Jorden gazed to what appeared as the masts of sunken ships that lined the waters ahead, the line of the city shield. And so they indeed had a purpose, millions of crystals and stone talismans that could keep the storms of darkness at bay. He could see them hanging from the pseudo-rigging.
“There were times on this crossing when I doubted we would look upon this fair city,” the sarisan captain said. She smiled toward Jorden. “I wish you well, Jordenmiles.” Her ring cluttered fingers gripped firmly upon his shoulder. “And I hope that you might find a way to return to your world beyond.”
Orani produced a small leather purse, decorated in reds and blues, and thrust it into Jorden's grasp. “Enough until you find work within the city, and with your talents I doubt that will be long. I would give you all the coin on the Katerina if I could, regardless of what the shipping masters might say, but they do not trust me with the key to the chests of the merchant banks.”
Jorden shook his head. “Just to be free is enough,” he said, but held firm to the purse. Money would certainly help.
The ship's doctor spoke in turn. “If you need any help then remember I have a room in Riechers Square, and perhaps we will sail together again when the Katerina makes sail for Ponomilo.”
“I gather that won't be too soon.” Jorden's logic told him as much.
Taf chuckled nearby. “The Time of Darkness is half the cycle,” Johnathon told him. “And there are no ships that would deliberately sail in true night.”
Jorden recalled the mountainous seas of twilight: the storms and the rain. The Domain was all one continent though, he recalled. “What about overland.”
Orani snorted; Johnathon shook his head. “There are few men who would dare set foot beyond the protectorate of the city shields.” The doctor glanced to Taf. “A few of the lower classes might venture out. First form burgo might survive, but as for...”
The aestri latched hold of Jorden's arm. “The outrigger,” she interrupted. “Best view and easiest way to the wharf when we dock.” She dragged Jorden toward the nearest stair, Jorden protesting.
He took the hand of the captain and thanked her, then Johnathon, but Taf was victorious in the end.
III
A few winged shapes continued to circle far above as they had done now for some time. Jorden watched them soar, large birds he assumed, very large, and if it were not for the approach of a low flying specimen he would have asked Taf to tell him something about them.
The outrigger was nice, as the aestri had suggested. There was ample room to sit or lay and the view was unobstructed. It was very unlike the outrigger that Jorden remembered. That was partly because they now sat upon the port-side hull and not the starboard outrigger that had been flooded a week before, but mostly it was due to the lack of mobile pea-green mountains and gale force winds.
Then Taf pointed to the winged figure that swept toward them, pointing. “Kaeina,” she said and climbed from her restful pose.
Jorden gritted his teeth.
Things had settled down somewhat for the Tasmanian. He now accepted that he had somehow stumbled into the land of nightmare, and was now forced to live within its bounds until he could find someone to help him return home. If only Tsarin hadn't smashed the crystal! It was a world of warped pseudo-physics, a mash of realities and fantasies littered with peoples that were slightly not what they should have been.
Yet Jorden Miles had grown used to his aestri friend Taf: her claw-like nails, her angular teeth, the eyes that belonged to a beast of the night. She was mostly human – pseudo-human in the ways that mattered – and she was a very dear friend. Even the huge landsdraw and the dirge weren't truly that odd. Rats were rats and fish were fish, and sea-dragons were only God knew what. There were horses and cattle and sheep and pigs, and a few crystals and rocks made the world go round.
Aside from the Time of Darkness thing, all was peachy.
Then there was Kaeina. Jorden withdrew to organize his thoughts as the burgo alighted upon the outrigger's bow and came to greet Finesilver and her companion. First the human-like features, the outsider thought, there were plenty of those. Kaeina was about Taf's height and had two arms, two legs, a head and a body, and they were all just about where they should have been. She had a face, a long thin face that was whiter than looked right, and ears that sported large and intricate earrings. She was also wearing a plaid vest that fit her thick chested but otherwise pathetically thin form well, and she wore a very short red skirt.
Jorden smiled. If it were not for the large white, hairy wings on her back and the huge yellow, slitted eyes – eyes which made Taf's look positively tiny – then all would have been well. Then there was the tail and the flare of flame orange hair that made it appear that her head was on fire. “I wasn't quite prepared for this,” he admitted as Taf introduced him to a rat-skin tanner with a wingspan of over four metres.
“You knew burgo were flyers, silly,” Taf smiled, noting his blank gaze. “Didn't you?” He shook his head in reply. “Sorry. Anyway, Jorden is a really good friend and...”
Kaeina had been staring cautiously toward the stranger ever since she had alighted on the outrigger. “He's a man,” she interrupted in a vaguely human voice. Jorden added it to his plus list. Observant too, he thought.
“An outsider to the Domain,” Taf said as if correcting her friend, though he was indeed still a man of sorts. “He's new to our ways, and he's a bit silly sometimes, but he has been the best of friends for the past weeks. And if it wasn't for his knowledge of machines then we'd all be sunk and feeding sea-dragons now!”
Kaeina extended a hand in greeting, Jorden taking it carefully, the nails of the burgo over three times the length of the aestri. “A friend of Finesilver is a friend of all the lowly, I am s
ure,” she said in her slow melodic way. The hand was withdrawn.
The long, thick, and somewhat fuzzy hairs of Kaeina's wings wavered in the light breeze, hairs that lined a membrane wing more like that of a bat than a bird, and yet more attractive than the dark, bony appendages of the beast of earth. Six limbs, Jorden considered again, trying not to stare, and a tail that was almost a seventh, a long fleshy thing that came from beneath her skirt and writhed for a body-length behind. Then there was the small winglet that waved at its end.
“He'll be sharing my room in the loft,” Taf went on. “Won't you?” Jorden shrugged. “Unless Hambone has laid claim to it.”
Kaeina gazed again toward the outsider, her words slow in coming. “Hambone has the loft of Pandora now. She passed beyond this life during the Time of Light.” An uneasy pause. “But I'm not sure that Midnight will allow a man in the warehouse lofts.”
“Pandora!”
The burgo nodded. “She was very old, well over a hundred cycles. Few aestri can hope to live that long and well...”
Taf nodded in acceptance, a tear withheld. Pandora had once been a close friend, yet in recent seasons her mind had drifted to the lands of another place. All the aestri of the wharf knew the time of her passing was near. “Are all the others in dock?” Taf asked, hoping that no more had been lost.
Kaeina smiled, her teeth more disturbing than those of the aestri. “The Katerina is the last. We had begun to fear that it would not return this darkness. She is too old a ship to risk in such violent waters.” The burgo shook her head. “I flew to the opening of the sea-wall yesterday, but the winds were too fierce for me to move near the teeth. I did not think that a ship could sail amongst such waters.”
The aestri just smiled. “But there are few ship's masters such as Orani. She could sail the Katerina beyond the edge of the Domain and return it safely.” They laughed. There was no-one, of course, who could achieve such a feat.
Jorden stepped away and allowed the old friends to chat between themselves, looking again to the wharves that drifted ever nearer. Then he glanced to the bow of the main hull and watched the waters of the bay churn as the Katerina continued to keep up a reasonable pace in the light winds. Then he thought again of the future, opening the pouch that Orani had given him.
There were a good handful of silver shards within, little silver sectors of a much larger coin that had been cut into several smaller ones. There was either a shortage of such coin – perhaps no facilities to mint more – or there was deflation problem, neither of which seemed unlikely in a world where everything else was upside-down. Jorden remained unsure of the current worth of his pouch. He had spent some time in Tucaar, and had been supplied a little copper coinage, but he had not used enough to be sure of anything. The keepers of the shops accepted whatever he gave them, and either he always paid to much or they took less because he was a guest of the kaedith.
Jorden didn't hear Kaeina leave. Actually he did hear a sudden rush of wind, but did not associate it with the burgo lifting her form into the air above the outrigger. He was surprised to find Taf again alone at his side. He glanced for the winged apparition, seeing that she had already attained a good deal of altitude. “Gone to tell the others that we're safely home,” Taf said as she noted his curious gaze.
He nodded, then thought to show Taf the bag. “I don't suppose that this is much of a fortune.” Orani would not have been quite that generous. Leaving the outsider free would be risky enough.
Taf looked and shrugged. “I don't know much of money,” she admitted, “but it doesn't look like much. There are others at the warehouse who will be able to tell you.”
Jorden nodded. Taf was a writer and a great ratter. He could hardly expect her to be a monetary expert as well. “That's if Midnight will let me stay there. I don't want to cause you trouble amongst your friends.”
The aestri seemed unconcerned. “Don't worry about that. Midnight is now the watch of the greater wharves, and it is her duty to keep an eye out for those who dwell there. It is she who now decides the allotment of space in the crowded times of darkness, and if she feels there is no room for us then we will stay with the Katerina.” Taf smiled. “That will not matter, although it will be a little further from Kaeina and Hambone than I would like.”
Jorden shook his head as he returned the pouch to the pocket of the safari suit. “I can find a place in town until I get a job or something. I'm sure that the aestri and burgo don't want me in the coup.”
“There are a few old common women too, and one or two pockhorns, so you would not really be that out of place. Although there are usually no common males. The dirge and their females live in city quarters, and the morelians prefer the sewers... those who bother to come within the city, anyway.”
“This world makes me feel so at home,” Jorden mumbled.
IV
The wharf area seemed to stretch forever, Jorden marvelling at the number of ships that were docked within it, the Domain a more populous land than he had ever imagined. It was a land populated mostly by the common man from what Taf had told him, although it seemed that they were not the ones who held power. Then there were the numerous lower classes beneath them that did not even begin to think of such positions of power. There were also many kaedith and sarisan, and that was where the power lay.
Jorden had also learned that although most of the population were native to the land, birth and death maintaining a relatively steady number, there were many that entered the Domain through other means. Of course the other means were not just the lines of transition that Jorden had passed through. Some of this had something to do with the planer line that the ship's doctor had mentioned, a connection with other worlds of dream.
What was most important to Jorden Miles was that this was a world of men that was run by the female classes of the spiritual kaedith and the financial sarisan, and he was a friend of a lowest class aestri. Now he approached the complex of the Great Wharf, the home of the great ships of the Gordon Masters Line, the largest of the Domain's shipping companies... or so Taf had said.
It was as true as mattered, although the sarisan masters of other lines would have quick to argue the point, and the Gordon Line was at least larger than most. It was certainly not the ferry service that had once plied the River Gordon in the distant past, and it was indisputably the richest of those in Saljid. Jorden also noticed that the Katerina was not one of their finest vessels, though she was amongst the largest. Most of the others did not look as if they were quite as ready to drop to the bottom of the harbour. Then he saw a man on a nearby jetty run to inform his foreman that the ship was about to dock.
Sarisan Yarda was also soon informed by one of her immense staff of the late arrival of the Katerina. She nodded and dismissed the common woman, then frowned and scratched out a considerable sum of money from her ledger. It was the insurance she had hoped to collect from the loss of one of the more worthless of her vessels.
Jorden and Taf were still out on the outrigger when the Katerina slipped slowly between its moorings, two narrow wharves which came snug against the outer hulls. The aestri did not wait for the vessel to come to rest and jumped to the timber of the wharf as it crawled past. It was a jump of less than two meters, with a fall of considerably more than that, so it took Jorden several moments of preparation before he dared follow. He grunted as he thumped to the decking, Taf reaching to steady him. The wharf ahead of them began to fill with the labourers who would empty the holds of the Katerina. Mostly dirge, Jorden thought. He was still not the best judge of order, yet he was sure that ordinary men were not as short, broad shouldered, and hairy as those workers he now saw.
Taf was smiling broadly, her lungs filling with the fragrant air of the harbour. To Jorden it stank, but it was perfume to the nose of the aestri. That was mostly because there were no sewage outlets nearby, just the wastes of the fish factories. The outsider to Saljid glanced beyond the edge of the decking to the dark water below. It was
not a pretty sight.
He looked instead to the ship that sat in the berth aside the Katerina's. It was a ship of similar design that was not all that much younger than Taf's own home, and it was as quiet as a graveyard. It had certainly not come to port in the last few days. The Katerina, though, was soon a bustle of activity.
“Come on,” Taf chirped, and led him away.
It was not an easy journey amongst the crowd of dirge and the clutter of wagons, but Taf knew her way well and was often faced with such a gauntlet. And in a moment they were in a quiet alley between two of the smaller warehouses of the wharf.
There was a young girl waiting there. She had seen the Katerina dock, yet had little intention of making her way through the multitude of giant dirge to move closer. She knew Taf would soon make her way to the alley. Of course Jorden knew that the entity was not a girl the moment that he saw her. She was aestri. It was not that she looked all that much like his companion Taf, but it was hard to miss the eyes and nails of the lower classes.
In fact the aestri looked nothing like Taf. Her hair was light instead of dark, as were her hazel eyes, and she dressed far more conservatively. She was also a touch shorter and perhaps twice as heavy as the light footed Taf.
“Hambone,” Finesilver squealed, and ran to greet her. Good name, Jorden thought. It looked as if she had devoured a few to many hams. Or perhaps the entire hog.
They hugged a moment before Taf introduced her friend from Beyond – Beyond apparently meaning anywhere that wasn't Domain. Hambone nodded and smiled. She had quite a nice smile. “Kaeina told us,” she said. “We were so glad to hear that you were safe, Taffy. Everyone thought the Katerina had sunk.” Hambone did not know that everyone included the Katerina's owners. “Suzy said that you weren't, but hardly anyone believes Suzy any more. She could see you right though all the storms...”
The art of idle conversation was something it seemed the aestri had mastered well, and the two chattered for some time about the difficult voyage. Jorden stood and waited. He had expected there would be such reunions, and tried not to appear bored. He was not that successful as an actor. Taf noticed him attempt to cover a yawn, and the two aestri agreed to move on to the nearest warehouse.
They scampered away, Jorden walking briskly in pursuit, and vanished through a vast door of a huge yellow building. The two warehouses he could see were simple featureless yellow blocks, and inside they were dark and filled with musty stacks of crates and bags. He didn't really expect much more, though he was surprised to find that the three of them were totally ignored by the two men who were at work within the building. Back home he would probably been arrested for trespass.
The girls walked straight past the two workmen, Jorden in tow, and headed for a ladder. They started to climb. “I didn't realize this loft of yours was so near the dock,” the outsider said, somewhat surprised. “By the way you were talking I thought it was a long way.”
“It is a long way, silly,” Taf returned. “These lofts are mostly for burgo and some of the young aestri. But it's easier to move about amongst the lofts and on the roof-tops than it is on the ground.” She went on up the ladder.
Jorden shrugged and followed. The ladder rose some twenty metres up from the floor of the warehouse. It was not as high as the mast of the Katerina, but quite high enough, so he was glad to reach the safety of the loft. Not that it was truly that safe. The floor seemed to be of burgo manufacture, and that meant that the fliers had simply lined the thick timbers of the buildings superstructure with rough round sticks they had carried in from distant parts, and the loft was then divided into rooms by walls of old sailcloth.
Jorden had not expected luxury, yet neither had he expected quite such a slum. It was dusty, the rickety floor thickly lined with wing-hair, and it stank. It was also all but empty of its inhabitants, most of the burgo undoubtedly on the wind.
“What a dump,” Jorden mumbled almost to himself.
He was surprised when Taf nodded in return. “The burgo of this loft are worse than most, but if they wish to live in such a way...” She would perhaps have said much more if there were no burgo near.
There was a narrow walk to one side of the loft that the three followed, Hambone in the lead, the two aestri still chatting together. “Is the man really going to share your room?” Jorden heard the larger aestri ask.
“I hope so,” Taf smiled. “He does not know Saljid well enough yet. Later he might get a job as smith. He is very clever with machines.”
Jorden thought to say something on the matter, yet was too busy watching his step on the shaky timber beneath. The aestri walked as if they were still on solid ground, while he saw the floor as far from that. He was glad when the passage came to an end. Then there was another brief climb.
This time they climbed amongst the timber roof braces, coming at last to a small opening. In a moment they were upon a grey shingle roof, and a sea of such roofs stretched into the distance.
It was a difficult panorama to take in one sitting. A sea of grey rooftops lay to the south-west, marked only by the jagged scar of demolished warehouses, or ones that had perhaps collapsed. Further inland stood the city proper, larger buildings climbing above the sprawl of dirty white. Smoke drifted skyward from a thousand fires, and bells tolled, and meaningless stabs of voice drifted on the wind.
“Civilization,” Jorden thought aloud. “It almost makes home feel a bit closer.”
Yet not Taf's it seemed. There were several roofs to walk, and several gaps to jump. Jorden was not impressed. The warehouse eaves were often quite a distance apart, and it was a very long way down into the dim lanes below. If he missed a jump then that was it, he would break every bone in his body, or hopefully die. He cared not think of what the local hospitals were like, or how well the kaedith spells worked on those not of the Domain. That was even if they would help some unknown common youth...
He also feared that the ancient roofs might give way underfoot, especially while thumping heavily down onto them after the jump. In all it was something of a nerve racking experience, and Jorden vowed to take to the lanes below in future if he ever survived this trip.
They also passed through numerous other dim lofts, which was better than the exposed roof, and some of them were grimier than the first. Taf was probably an unusual aestri for liking a neat dwelling...
V
The next entity they met was not aestri, she was a very old woman who lived in a corner of a somewhat cleaner loft than most. It was as dim as any of them, however, Jorden only barely able to make out the details of the woman.
Her hair was quite grey, of course, and she wore a selection of dark brown rags and a lot of beads. There were necklaces and bracelets and strings of crystal shards hanging from her rags, and she had a golden ring in her nose. She sat quietly in her clean swept corner, a lumpy pile of rag nearby that served as a bed and a collection of her belongings on some rough shelving, and she smiled as the three passed the sailcloth wall. Jorden liked her loft a lot better than any he had seen so far. It had a real floor.
“Guess who is here, Suzy,” Taf said quietly as she went and sat on the floor beside the woman, Hambone choosing the softer seating of the bedding.
The wrinkled old woman snorted a laugh. “I wondered when that old ship would at last make its way out from those horrible seas,” Suzy said in return, her voice sounding much better than she looked. “Another few voyages and no more, young Finesilver, the Katerina's life nears its end. Two more seasons, perhaps. No more.”
Taf smiled. “Then two more seasons is all I will stay with her. We near foundered this last trip.”
“I know,” Suzy said. “I was concerned for you. Indeed I saw futures without you!”
“Then you can come with me,” Hambone put in. “There is more than enough room on Brothfire, and more to eat than I can manage.”
Taf laughed. “That is because you are getting too fat to catch anything but ship stores!”
Jorden could see that they would be with the woman for some time, so he sat against an upright timber support beam and relaxed. It was as good a place as any and it was not as if they were on their way to anywhere in particular. He remained silent and let the old friends catch up on the recent weeks.
“You are thin and starved from that old ship,” Hambone countered.
“Who would live amongst aestri,” the old woman moaned.
“You,” Taf chuckled.
The conversation remained at such a level of enlightenment for some time before Suzy could ask Taf more serious questions about her last voyage. “And what of this man of yours, Taf, an outsider who is friend to the aestri. You must tell me of him...” She paused. “Ah, he is here, of course.”
Taf nodded. “He's nice, and clever too, but he is a little silly.” Jorden frowned. If Taf told one more entity he was silly...
The old woman smiled. “Like myself,” she mused. “None of the sane would dare befriend such horrible little creatures. And I see that you are quite some friend, Jorden of Beyond. I can see that you are very close indeed.” She shook her head and chuckled, Jorden's frown deepening.
“You wish to return home,” she went on, “or so I hear. Only Hura herself could do such thing, I believe, but there are others in Saljid who would know more of it than myself. You will have to ask old Kaedith Ellin.” Suzy reached toward the man, or at least in his general direction. “Come closer and I will see what I can of your future. Let us see if indeed you find the path back to the Beyond.”
“No thanks,” Jorden returned. “I'm not sure I want to know.”
The woman frowned, though her frown was difficult to see amongst the already substantial wrinkles. “Come closer,” she snapped. “Everyone knows that my view of the future is very poor, so you are quite welcome to ignore it.” Jorden sighed and slid closer, Suzy speaking as he did. “Nice voice, Taffy, she smiled. If you were a woman I would tell you to marry him.”
The outsider cleared his throat, Suzy positioning a shaky palm on his brow. Then she mumbled to herself for a moment before speaking aloud. “You have come a long way, Jorden,” she said. All the way from Thagul and Beyond, Jorden thought. Brilliant! “And you have a long journey ahead that I can see.” Hopefully all the way back, Jorden added within. “Perhaps indeed to the Beyond, in time.
“Though I see many journeys, and many more dangers.” Suzy shook her head. “Your paths are lined with death, young Jorden. I should watch my step if I were you!” She removed her hand. “Yet I think that your death is not very close.” Then she turned toward Taf. “Avoid him, he could get you killed!” Then she laughed.
Taf smiled in response, even though she did not particularly like the predictions of the old woman. They were usually quite accurate. “He saved our lives aboard the Katerina,” the aestri said. “I owe him mine.”
Jorden had backed slightly from the woman, and now he shook his head. “You don't owe me anything, Taf. Anyone with half a brain could have fixed that pump.” And after all it had actually been Taf who had saved his life in the pump recess.
The aestri smiled. “But you were the only one aboard the Katerina who had only half of his brain.” Only Hambone laughed, making the sound of a small jack-hammer.
VI
Speech flowed on; the day waned.
It was quite a while before Taf rose to her feet and stretched, glancing to Hambone as she did the same. “I'll come back to visit you tomorrow,” the aestri promised, “but we had best be on our way to the loft now. I have yet to see Midnight about Jorden staying with us.”
Suzy nodded and remained seated. “If she will not allow it then send her to me. She knows that none other than the very best of heart can slip by Suzy, and if she remains difficult then I will tell her a fortune that will disrupt her sleep for weeks.” The woman smiled.
As did her aestri friends. “Midnight will not mind,” Taf said, “not unless she feels that it is too crowded or that the elder aestri will be disturbed by the sight of a common man. But he is young,” she added hopefully.
Jorden struggled to his feet, cursing the absence of chairs. “I'm pretty harmless,” he mumbled.
Suzy snorted. “And so is Midnight... Most of the time.”