The bad news came when I was in the bath-house back in Nirhamsa, having the tension punched out of me by the big orange fists of a Dronish masseur. I felt a presence of a body in front of me and looked up into the hair-encircled navel of Uncle Vashi. Since this wasn't a pleasant sight, I craned my neck and forced myself to look at his face. I still hadn't forgiven him for the Thellingerstan debacle.
'What is it?' I asked moodily. 'Want me to visit an island in the Outer Seas where the locals were going to sacrifice you to their volcano god and throw myself in instead?'
'Dhalooth's just been to see me,' Vashi replied, ignoring my barb. 'It's about that girl you delivered to her husband.' He glanced meaningfully at the masseur.
'It's okay to talk in front of him'. Bath-houses are notorious for spying, but the one in Nirhamsa was wise to this, which was why the big Dron was a deaf-mute. I wasn't sure if his disability was natural or if he had been helped in the matter. 'What happened? Did she turn out to be the daughter of a Tibrafen dung-collector?'
'No, Rishta,' my uncle replied gravely. 'An assassin.' Despite the ambient steam I went cold. Uncle Vashi must have noticed me blanch.
'The Minister is safe,' he reassured me. 'The servant you tipped off discovered several exotic types of poison amongst her personal possessions. When he confronted her she attacked him with a hidden blade and fled the city. He's okay, but he won't be dancing for a while.'
'I know she was unhappy about the arranged marriage but this is taking it a bit far. Nirhamsan law does allow divorce,' I quipped. But this was a serious matter. I was technically an accomplice in this, albeit an unwitting one. However, the League had been embarrassed and they would more than likely want someone Rishta Vallans-shaped to blame.
'The real bride arrived yesterday,' Vashi continued, 'right about when you got back. It looks like you were duped.'
'Thanks Unc. I'm glad you're here to point out my mistakes.' By now I was sitting up and wrapping a light robe around myself. The League would probably want this kept quiet so I would at least be spared a public flogging to 'drive out evil spirits'. It might mean the end of my career though, unless I did something to correct it. My guess was that the Mei-Juin that I had accompanied was supposed to kill the Minister of the Interior in order to destabilise relations between Nirhamsa and Ashoyin. Which probably meant that she was working for Es-Gadar or one of the other rebel forces in Ashoyin. There was always the possibility that she was working for the League as well. In an organisation so sprawling and fragmented as to not warrant the name, it wouldn't be the first time that the League had trodden upon its own toes. At the very least, the League would want me to apprehend her. If they didn't ask me, I was going to see to do it anyway.
My search took me into the Hills of Niranim, the last known direction of Mei-Juin as near as I could determine from witnesses. Dhalooth and I were now following unpaved tracks beyond the remit of the elephant god and into the wilds of the bamboo forests of upland Nirhamsa.
We took a rest stop at a small enclave by the shores of a mountain lake. The lake was in fact the reservoir for the main aqueduct into Corbasal and the place where we were was supposed to be a military outpost to stop mass poisonings or other nasty surprises being delivered with the water supply. Since nobody actually did these things the military aspect had slid into disuse and it had become a trading outpost and layover point for vug harvesters, jade miners and the occasional explorer of Niranim's ruined temples.
I was enjoying a pot of juniper tea and listening to the rustling of the bamboo when a group of rough-looking men clad in crude penteshu and furs arrived. Their leader had the look about him of a panda: stocky set with dark hair, heavy dark circles under his eyes and broad, hairy forearms. I would have considered him one of the nai-nek-chai, with panda heritage, had he exhibited a penchant for sitting and eating all day. These were typical examples of the kind of unwashed and uncultured individuals you get out here, and they wouldn't have warranted much attention except that they brought with them the chained figure of a tlaxu. I exchanged glances with Dhalooth. These magnificent furred beings are as intelligent as humans and salsham'ai, but there are those amongst the Empire and her former holdings who pay good money for the striped fur of a mountain tlaxu, and of course there is no shortage of unscrupulous scum happy to provide the goods for the right price. Since our charming new guests were using clubs to quieten their hissing and spitting captive it was no great leap of intuition to realise that they wanted the skin as intact as possible with no tell-tale puncture wounds.
Although it would have been highly gratifying to show these parasites what a pair of jo-staves can do in skilled hands, there were far more of them than Dhalooth and me could safely handle, and we were alone out here without backup. I did, however, have a ruling tile up my sleeve that might appeal to their greed.
Uncle Vashi's deal with the Thells had been for precious gemstones known as Ice Pearls (which I later discovered were the frozen eyes of some strange Thellingerstan mountain creature) and as a sweetener my uncle had paid me with three of them. Once I'd discovered the going rate for iced eyeballs I'd been pleasantly surprised. I only hoped that these tlaxu hunters knew their worth too.
Luckily for me, they were mountain men and familiar with not only the ways of Thellingerstan but pretty much any commodity that could be gleaned from these hills. They were happy to accept three ice pearls in exchange for their captive since they were easier to transport, didn't try to scratch your face off and could be sold without fear of arrest. For my own part I can't claim total altruism in manumitting the tlaxu. I had no wish to see him or her turned into a rug, that's true, but I'd also heard that the cat-folk were skilled trackers and I hoped that this tlaxu would be grateful enough for being freed to help us in our hunt for Mei-Juin.
I soon cursed myself for a fool, however. For one thing, he couldn't speak our language and showed no signs of understanding either. Thanks to the Empire and the Merchant's League it's easy these days to forget that there are a few people in the world who don't speak Low Imperial. Once the tlaxu's former captives had moved on, I released his bonds and discovered my second mistake. As soon as the chains were off, the tlaxu darted away into the bamboo forest. Now I had neither ice pearls nor tlaxu and I was in no mood to enjoy the scenery.
A few days later, however, it seemed that my emancipatory actions had borne fruit after all. Dhalooth and I were picking our way down a goat trail through the bamboo when a creature emerged from the undergrowth in front of us. Imagine a humanoid form made from living bamboo ; a long slender trunk, arms like stems and 'hair' and fingers made from leaves. It had no face but spoke with the sound of rustling leaves. It had to be a spirit.
'The one who watches these lands sent me to help you,' it whispered, either bowing to us or bending in the breeze. "I have been told to thank you for freeing him, and to offer you a boon within my ability.'
I admit that I stood dumbfounded, and it was Dhalooth who worked things out. The tree-folk have a closer relationship with spirits than urbanites like me.
'It means that tlaxu we rescued. He must have been a shaman. He couldn't understand us, but spirits can speak any language.'
This was very useful, and I made a promise to burn a few incense sticks for the tlaxu when we got back to Llaza, if I could work out which of the Ten Thousand Immortals looks out for them.
'So, tell me,' I asked the spirit, 'Are you able to trace people who have passed through your land?'
(c) 2006 The Creative Conclave.
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