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worth lies, you re not a stud hired to service the woman. Ah gods, it s a
good thing you aren t, you couldn t earn your pay, no, don t think about that.
I owe you, Maksim, you played in my head and in my body and threw both away
when you were tired of them. Maksim, Malcsimin, you don t know what s coming
at
you .... He rose. Time we were starting. I still have to ransom my gear from
the House and the tide turns shortly after noon.
4.
ON THE MERCHANTER JIVA MAHRISH (captain and owner Hudah Iffat, quartermaster
and steward, his wife Hamla), THREE HOURS OUT OF JADE HALIMM, COAST
HOPPING
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SOUTH AND WEST TO KUKURAL, HER LAST PORT BEFORE SHE TURNED NORTH
AGAIN.
SCENE: Brann below, settling into her cabin. Ah-zurdan on deck driving off
stray ariels, set-ting wards against another attack on her. Yaril and Jaril
watching him, wondering what he s up to.
Ignoring the noisy confusion at his back where the deck passengers were still
getting settled into the eighteen square feet apiece they bought with their
fares, Ahzur dan stood at the stern watching the flags on the Rogan zhu Fort
flutter and sink toward the horizon, frowning at the ariels thick in the wind
that agitated those flags and filled the sails. Born of wind, shaped from
wind, elongated asexual angel shapes with huge glimmering eyes, the ariels
whirled round the ship, dipping toward it, darting away when they came close
enough to sense what he was. Tapping nervously at the rail, he consid ered
what to do; as long as Brann stayed below, the ariels were an irritation, no
more. He swung around. The changechildren were squatting beside the rail,
their strange soulless crystal eyes fixed on him. No matter what Brann said,
they didn t trust him. One of you, he said, go below and tell her to stay
where she is for a while.
Neither moved. He sighed. There are spies in the wind.
They exchanged a long glance, then the girl got to her feet and drifted away.
Ahzurdan turned to the sea again. For a moment he continued to watch the
ariels swirl overhead, then he reached out, caught a handful of air and
sunlight and twisted it into a ward that he locked to the ship s side. He
began moving along the rail; every seventh step he fashioned another knot and
placed it.
He reached the bow, started back along the port rail, careful to keep out of
the way of the working sailors.
Halfway along, Jadl stepped in front of him. What are you doing?
Warding.
Against what?
Against what happened before. This isn t the place to talk about it. Let me
finish.
The boy stared at him for a long breath, then he stepped aside and let him
pass.
Ahzurdan finished setting the wards, then stood lean-ing on the rail watching
the sun glitter off the waves, thinking about the changechildren. He knew what
they were and their connection to Brann. His grandfather had been fond of
them, in a way, also a little frightened of them. That fear was easy
to understand. Earlier, be-fore coming on board he d tried a minor spell on
Jul! and nothing had happened.
More disturbing than that, the boy in his mastiff form had whipped through his
force shield without even a whimper to show he noticed it. The children must
have been fetched from a reality so distant from this and so strange that the
powers here (at least those below the level of the highgods) couldn t touch
them.
Not directly. Very interesting. Very dan-gerous. He collected his wandering
thoughts, twitched the wards to test them, then went below satisfied he d done
what he could to neutralize anything Settsimaksi-min might try.
Port to port they went. Lindu Zohee. Merr Ono. Hal-onetts. Sunny days, warm
nights. A chancy wind but one that kept the ship scudding along the coast.
Brann stayed onboard in each of the ports, safe from attack behind the wards
but restless. Ahzurdan watched her whenever he could, curious about her,
perplexed by nearly everything she did. She liked sailors and made friends
with the crew when she could have been talking to the cabin passengers. There
was an envoy from the Jade King aboard; he was a fine amateur poet and
mu-sician and showed more than a little interest in her. There was a courtesan
of the first rank and her retinue. There was a highmerchant who
dealt in jades, callig-raphy and elegant conversation. Brann produced an
em-broidered robe for the dinners in the captain s cabin, a multitude of
delicately scribed gold bracelets (Rukha Nagg he thought when she let him
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examine them, part of a daughter s dowry), and a heavy gold ear ornament
from the Panday Islands (he was intensely curious about where she got that,
only a Panday with his own ship could wear such an ornament, there was a
three day feast involved, a solemn rite of recognition and pres-entation; most
Panday shipmasters were buried with theirs; a lover perhaps?). Her hair was
growing with supernatural speed, but it was still a cloud of feathery white
curls that made her eyes huge and intensely green. She looked vital, barbaric
and fine; he had difficulty keeping his eyes off her. She played poetry
with the Envoy, composing verse couplets in answer to his, she spoke of
jade carvers with the merchant, though mostly about ancient Arth
Slyan pieces and the techniques of those legendary artisans, she questioned
the courtesan Huazo about the dance styles currently popular, brought up the
name of a long dead Hina player named Taguiloa and grew excited when Huazo
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