CHAPTER 18
Jallin found Kir-Tuko the next morning in the greenhouse. He may have snorted at Jallin when he entered, but he said nothing at all amounting to words, ‘stufid’ or otherwise. He gathered some of the medicines for deliveries into a grain sack and kept the sack wadded up in his hand so the bottles within didn’t rattle.
He wore a sleeveless shirt without tucking it in, and Jallin strained to see how badly he’d been beaten. Kir-Tuko didn’t react to him staring, and instead went this way and that through the greenhouse, checking a few boxes, pulling a few bottles out of crates and replacing them, opening jars taking a sniff and closing them again. He grunted and snorted and pulled on the tuft of fur under his chin, then stood near his workspace. He settled a claw on the surface of the table, and tapped it up and down on the wood.
They moved from house to house or shop to shop, going in and coming out so fast, Jallin couldn’t tell exactly what each place sold. Kir-Tuko traded money for promissory notes, coins, and even a few jars or bags or boxes of other ingredients.
He didn’t seem particularly angry or talkative. He exchanged greetings with the clientele almost as fast as he exchanged goods. Several times, Jallin wanted to say something, but someone seemed always too near for what might be said between them, walking by, tending to their businesses, buying and selling in the Spring chill of morning.
They bought a pair of pants and another shirt for Jallin, which Kir-Tuko stuffed in his bag. He didn’t trust Jallin with them this time.
After a while, as it started getting towards noon, Jallin wanted to tell Kir-Tuko he wasn’t hungry, or at least he wouldn’t eat anything. But Kir-Tuko led him to a booth where a tiny, mousy-looking female house slave sold them two pieces of fresh-baked bread with a sliver of butter on each. Jallin ate the bread in two big bites, neither watching nor listening to Kir-Tuko’s mutterings over his little meal.
Finally, as they approached the northern edge of the kinto-shah district and the gateway through into the Deshin vin Sluska, Jallin couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Why’d you do that?” The word came out of him like a belch, and drifted between them like a bad smell.
“Vhat? Vuy ju some vread? Ju no like it? Mine vas good.”
“No. You know what I am talking about. The whip. Yesterday.”
Kir-Tuko took them to where they were about as alone as one could get on a street in a kinto-shah district: in front of a bathhouse, and under a wind chime hanging from a yardarm out front. A warm haze of perfume and flea powder smells engulfed them, and their voices mingled with the soft clicking from above. Kinto-shah deliberately made little gardens and sitting areas surrounded by wind chimes for private conversations. They planted in strategic areas fashua plants, the big, thick-leaved plants that thrived on sound like other plants thrived on sun.
The nearest people within earshot were an elderly kunjel woman and an insect peddler arguing over the price of driggits. The old kunjel said someone else was selling flusses in the vin M’lagra for half as many biskers as one cage of driggits, and the little shea in her booth recommended the kunjel woman go and buy them.
“Don’t ju know I vanted ju to break that stuff. I told ju avout it. I showed it to ju. I left it there. Ju needed to vreak it.”
“Why do you care about me or my sister? Why did you tell me about the No Baby?”
“I…think Dursus is vad man. He doing something vad.”
“I don’t believe that. You wanted me to break it and get beaten for it? You did that for Dursus, because you think Dursus is bad? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Vell, I do good things for my son, mayve, too.”
“Son?”
“I have son, I think.”
“Where? Is he in Sarkoshia?”
Kir-Tuko shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t think so. He somevhere, I hofe. I fray to gods avout him. I fray so he is good. Vut I don’t know. Long time ago, I got vred to a farmer slave. It vas a good deal for my masters and the farmer. This farmer, he pay good money, cause I have gift, jes? I have…uh…the trait, ju understand?”
Jallin nodded. He didn’t understand. Kir-Tuko saw it in his eyes apparently.
“I can make medicines, make potions and things. Sometime, it’s like a voice telling me how. I remember all the little tricks I learn. My masters, they see I have trait, and they teach me some things, and I can do these things they teach me, and they give me stuff and I make fotions and fowders for them, over and over. It kind of like cooking, ju know? Ju learn how things gonna taste, and how they gonna go together, only lot more ingredients to know. I am a mejen, and vecause of that, my masters vanted to vreed me to this farmer’s slave.
“It vas long time vack, I don’t know how long ago, vhen they fut me vith Si-Kus’ya. She vasn’t so fretty, vut she vas nice, and she vanted to have traited vavy for her master. This farmer vanted me cause that. He figure he could sell vavy, and he said if he did, he vould let Si-Kus’ya go or mayve keep next vavy, or something, I don’t know vhat they had deal. He make me stay at his farm until he sure Si-Kus’ya vas, vell, until I vas….” He looked for some word up in the sky, up through the wind chimes gently clicking.
Jallin tried to imagine what Kir-Tuko’s son would look like. Would he have the big rat nose like his father? Would he be strong like his father? Would he have scars? Was he a slave still? Was he somewhere out on a boat, looking east or west and wondering where his father was?
“I don’t understand,” Jallin admitted. “You took the beating for your son?”
“Jes.”
“But…I’m not your son?”
Kir-Tuko sighed. His ears went back, but then came back forward again. He flipped first the right one, then the left. A few times, he started to say something, looked around.
“No. Ve don’t look much alike,” he said with a sort of chuckle from somewhere deep down. Sometimes, kinto-shah laughter sounded like they had swallowed a bird. “I vas told that feofle have to show the gods how to do good.”
“What?”
“The gods…they tell us to do good things, jes? I think all gods say that, jes?”
Jallin nodded.
“Vell, vhat are good things? Vhat does good look like? Each person ju ask ‘vhat is good thing?’ and vun person says ‘I think good thing is getting money,’ and another says ‘I think good thing is vinning a var,’ and somevun else says, ‘I think good thing is veing free,’ and…jes?” His ears opened towards Jallin, and so did his eyes. They waited for some understanding. Jallin’s eyes must have told on him again.
“It different. Not everyvun vant the same things. Ju give fried driggits to somevun and say ‘here, ju eat these,’ and they might say ‘those aren’t good, I don’t vant them.’ Ju give them to somevun else, and they say, ‘I vant fifty more, vecause they are very good.’ Some just vant to get drunk, and some just vant farties, and exfensive clothes, and some just vant to live in peace and do their vork, and don’t care avout money or attention, ju know?
“I vant to live in peace and do vork, and for my son to have good life, ve smart, not get hurt, vherever he is. I vant the gods to keef him out of trouvle, and that is vhat I think is good things. So, I show the gods vhat I think is good things. I do good thing for ju, helf ju stay out of trouvle, and mayve the gods vill say ‘vhen he frays good things for his son, that is vhat he means,’ so that is vhat they do for my son. They helf him do good vork, and have peace, and to not get hurt. That’s vhy, I guess.”
Jallin wanted to ask a hundred questions. But he didn’t. He didn’t ask anything and felt strangely wise.
“Where are we going?” Jallin asked finally, pointing half-heartedly at the bag in Kir-Tuko’s hand. “Where are we taking those?”
“Ve go to the arena and deliver some stuff. Then, ve get a few things here and there, then ve go home.”
Jallin didn’t want to go back to Master Noshó’s compound. He didn’t want to see Hurga anymore. He’d spent almost the entire day with her cleaning the greenhouse with her. And Kneelday was coming soon, in two days. Aunty Hurga had promised to take Jallin and Eja back to the temple this Kneelday morning to work there, 'to help Counselor Dursus do Trochaya's good works.'
They made their way north. A string of two slaves stood near the gate into the Deshin vin Sluska. A kinto-shah guard examined some papers from their new master. Both of these were female kinto-shah, and around one of each slave’s wrist was a thin cord, made of yarn.
“I know that sho,” Kir-Tuko muttered to Jallin. “He run the bathhouse ve just came from. I vunder vhy he getting new slaves. They probably expensive, too.”
“If they’re so expensive, why doesn’t he have them bound up better? They could just run if they wanted to, couldn’t they?”
“They could, vut they von’t. They vell trained. Kinto-shah children go to school to learn their trade. That cord is merely a formality. They show they vell-trained, have a good contract, by making sure they don’t vreak the cord on their vay to their job.”
“But they’re slaves, aren’t they? Contract? What’s a contract?”
“They have papers, saying vhat they do, how they vork, and vhat things master is supposed to give them. They can’t quit job, and master has right to make sure they vork, but that so long as they get vhat the contract says they get. It all very complicated legal things.”
“Do you have a contract?”
“Jes. Of course I have contract. Master Noshó bought it from last master.”
“Can you get free of it?”
“If I vuy myself, vut I don’t vuy myself. I spend some time in restaurant, I vuy some clothing, and all that. Vun day, vhen I have enough money on contract, I retire and live like king.”
Jallin started to ask him just how long it would be, but Kir-Tuko stepped away to go and talk to the bathhouse owner.
“Did fleas finally carry off your last vurkers?” he heard Kir-Tuko say to the short, brown sho. The two slaves’ ears stayed up and their eyes seemed to open wide. Their whiskers shook. They looked happy to see Kir-Tuko and on the verge of giggling at what he just said.
The other sho seemed barely able to put together a string of Sarkoshian words, but managed to tell Kir-Tuko something that made Kir-Tuko’s ears go back like a strong wind over his head. Jallin thought he heard the word ‘fire’ in it, but wasn’t sure. The two shos shook hands, and Kir-Tuko bowed to the slaves and then shook their hands, too.
He waved Jallin up to him and they went through the gate. Apparently, the guard knew Kir-Tuko well enough to wave him along.
Now, they were in the vin Sluska, the market of fruit, one of the biggest markets on the First Island of Sarkoshia. Again, Kir-Tuko stopped.
“I know that sho,” he said again. “He tell me he had to reflace slaves. He tell me he got these two vecause his other two got sick, couldn’t vork no more for him. He sell them off and vuy some others.”
“KIr-Tuko?” Jallin asked him. “Aunty Hurga said Counselor Dursus has papers on me. Do you think that’s true? Do you think he’s got a contract out on me, like those slaves back there?”
“She told you that? Vhat about sister?”
“Her, too. He’s got a contract on both of us. That’s vhat Hurga told me. Is it true? Am I really a slave, already?”
“Ju sure she vasn’t just trying to vother ju?”
“She said it. She said he could sell me away at any time.”
The old sho twirled his long hairs on the point of his chin with a finger. He flipped his ears once or twice.
“It possible. That vould make sense,” he said. “Ve got to get ju and Eja avay from him, avay from here. He not doing anything good. He going to hurt ju two.”
“Why? How do you know?”
“Vecause, he vuy some things from Tho-Shiko, but this first time he vuy the No Vavy. And he giving it to Eja. Ju can’t give No Vavy to somevun who not jur slave anyvay. I just thought he vas doing illegal.”
Leaving the gate behind was almost like dropping into a river. A flow of people up and down the street carried the two of them ever closer to the vin Sluska, the market of fruit. An inn on one side, a livery stable on the other. Further down a feed and tack store always breathed leather and horse-sweat and molasses.
This was a familiar place to Jallin. Just between the feed store and a nearby home was a little alleyway, hardly big enough to get robbed in, which led to a street Jallin didn’t know the name of, a dead end to the law abiders, and on the other side of this, another alleyway, and what street children called a raighole, a secret way through into the kinto-shah district. Stasser had shown it to Jallin when Jallin was in his gang. It was hardly a secret, a place where a couple of boards had fallen or shaken loose near an old house, but Jallin realized he’d never entered or left the vin Sluska legally in his entire life.
The crowd moved, twisted itself into knots, shifted and swirled in the vin Sluska. The market seemed to sit on the world like a huge spider, it’s enormous body a mass of tents and booths, lines and ropes stretched back and forth this way and that in an incomprehensible array and its legs formed of all the winding streets that searched out the market from other districts. This place seemed to gather people together, to spin them round, to tangle them up, and it was a wonder anyone ever found their way out again. Throughout the market was its own series of streets and alleyways, rows of booths, tables lined one against the other and people competing to sell the same exact thing, practically throwing whatever it was they sold at the passerby.
The vin Sluska was a produce market, and every day it was open, people stood behind walls of little fortresses made of baskets and buckets and bowls, barrels and boxes. Scoops made coughing sounds, and then poured out grains of all kinds into bowls or bags. Fruit occupied every hand, like little princes riding on daises, waiting to go where they were destined to go, to be what they were destined to be. And none of them gave Jallin a suspicious look, or shouted at him to ‘step off.’
Now Jallin walked, and didn’t sneak; he stood tall, saw and was seen. He nodded at the merchants, at the customers. Signaling to Kir-Tuko, they stopped at a nearby booth, absolutely pouring over with a bounty of ripe, colorful fruit. He looked to the merchant selling it, nodded and smiled. The merchant, a kunjel, offered him something else, handed him a darch, gestured at wormfruit, and knotapples, proud to offer them to Jallin. He did something no merchant had ever done before to Jallin in his entire life: he took a knife, flipped it in his hand like a juggler, and gently sliced the darch in half for Jallin. He offered the two halves of juicy-red fruit, dripping like blood over his huge calloused palms to both Jallin and Kir-Tuko. Kir-Tuko said “dōsa kīlēa,” to him and accepted the fruit. He gave the kunjel a coin, and took a knotapple, which he handed off to Jallin as they left.
Jallin looked back over his shoulder as he slurped the fruit. The kunjel only smiled at him over his big, bushy beard. His ears were forward, like the wings of a soaring bird, and he didn’t shout ‘thief’ at him. Jallin hoped he’d never stolen from that man. He seemed nice.
Here, deeper and deeper into the vin Sluska, people spoke in a language of shouts and begging, yelling and calling at each other. Big, motherly women leaned from windows of the buildings looking down to shout orders to nearby sellers. Little carts moved crunched their ways along the peripheries, people making deliveries. A strange snipping language of offers and accepting. The roar of this place, when it got going, was like nothing else, was like a storm or like a flood. It formed rivulets of moving people, finding paths through the tables. Thankfully, above them now, was a series of canopies and tents.
Jallin wasn’t sure exactly where they were going. He followed as close behind Kir-Tuko as he could. Everyone seemed to know him. A few merchants and other customers called him by name, and a few of them gave him things like the kunjel merchant did. Kir-Tuko spoke with them in broken mixtures of languages, a splash of Kinto-Shah, a little Sarkoshian, maybe a bit of Kunjelic, or Morrigari perhaps. But then, at the northwest corner, they came out from the market booths and into a calm eddy of the surging crowds. He turned and leaned towards Jallin’s ear and spoke as though trying to pour words carefully into Jallin’s head.
“Ve going up to King Street and then ve go across Triumph Vay. To get there,” he pointed to a large gateway where a narg guard stood in full regalia, leather jerkin, metal shoulder armor and arm guards, and huge boots that could probably crush Jallin’s entire chest in one stomp, “ve have to pass through that gate, and go down that road there into slave fort, down into the Chain Valley, vhere slaves come off the boats.”
Kir-Tuko put a hand on Jallin’s chin and turned his face so that Jallin was looking right at his nose. His darchy breath hit Jallin square in the face. “I got fafers on me. And ju vith me. Vhen ve go over Chain Valley, ju no get out of my sight. Ju run avay from me, somevun think ju slave, and if no vun has fafers on ju, they take ju and sell ju, brand ju, and make ju slave. They sell ju off, fut ju on ship out of this flace and ju never get vack.”
He gestured to the broad world around him, flipped his ears back, and said, “Ju go out there somevhere and die.”
His breath smelled like fruit and sugar, maybe some of the bread he’d had that morning for breakfast, but no scent of levity danced along the tops of his words. He was as serious as he had ever sounded to Jallin.
Jallin had never been anywhere near the Port Sa-L’yusá, an entire town dedicated to the importing and distribution of slaves. Kir-Tuko might as well have been talking about a great dragon hiding just beyond the gate. Compared to the world they were getting ready to leave – this world of purple lugfruit and bright orange sunfruits, blood-red darches, brown sea-potatoes, green sweetgrasses, yellow bittergrass, dark, nearly bluish colored sourgrass, a place where the slabins nestled in the hearts of stones waiting to be broken, and a place where people gathered around buckets to bet on the spiny, squirming k’tenjes rooting their way underground – such a place as the groaning Chain Valley was unbelievable, a myth, a story like the love of Trochaya for people.
But they were going there now. Jallin looked at Kir-Tuko’s hand, holding the final, bleeding remnants of his darch. His own fingers rubbed against each other.
“Ju no run avay like vefore, Jallin,” Kir-Tuko said. He didn’t use the word ‘voy,’ and this was like pouring rainwater down Jallin’s back.
They approached the big narg on duty. He towered easily over the both of them, and if he had wanted, he could have leaned an elbow on Kir-Tuko’s head. Beside him, leaning against the stone archway, was a long spear, at least twice as long as Jallin was tall; it didn’t have the normal tip at the end, but instead a large dull nub, surrounded by hooks pointing backwards along the pole, and how it was meant to be used, Jallin couldn’t imagine. Hanging from the narg’s belt was a club easily as long as Jallin’s arm, and probably weighing a couple stone, made of loops of iron around a solid wooden core.
Kir-Tuko didn’t seem to think anything of this monstrous figure, and when the Narg’s yellow eyes turned down towards him, he reached into the bag he carried and drew out a small sheaf of parchment bound in a ribbon. Using nimble fingers like a maiden-may-scream spider binding a bug, he untied an incomprehensible knot around the parchment and showed whatever was written on the topmost page.
The narg responded by reaching behind him and handing out a little braided string of red and blue and white, all twisted together. He gave two of these to Kir-Tuko, who in turn handed one of them to Jallin.
Once they were past the gate, Kir-Tuko turned around and grabbed Jallin’s arm. With the same dexterity he’d used to unbind and then rebind his papers, he now snatched the twine from Jallin’s hand and wrapped it around his wrist. He tied it tightly in place, to the point Jallin thought it would hurt him or dig into his skin.
“What’s going on?” Jallin asked.
“This show ju fass through gate legal. Ju keef on jur wrist all day today. Don’t take it off for no reason, and don’t let any slave get close enough to full it. If ju lose this, ju may not ve avle to get out again from slave forts. It very vad. If ju lose this, the only vay out is to fay a huge fine, and I no have the money for that.”
Kir-Tuko tucked a finger under the little string and tugged on it, testing the knot.
“Ju no leave my sight for any reason. Ju stay vith me. Ve go straight through this flace.”
Jallin waved him off. He tried to look unconcerned, but Kir-Tuko was scaring him now.
“I mean it,” he said. “In this flace, all slaves are liars if they sfeak, and runavays if they alone. Understand?”
Jallin nodded.
Beyond the gate was merely a long street surrounded on both sides with high walls. No houses. No shops. No doors. No way out except another archway far ahead and down a hill. A couple more guards stood around and not all of them were nargs. They passed a kinto-shah, and Kir-Tuko waved with his wrist hand. On top of the wall to the right of them, stood a Gincha, one of the first and only Jallin had seen in a long time.
It could have only been as tall as Eja, but seemed bigger because it was looking down on them from the wall. It wore only an assortment of belts all over itself and hanging from these were pockets of varying sizes and purposes. Its red-orange fur did the rest of the work covering up its body, and a long fuzzy tail lay upon its back like a cape. Its nose twitched constantly and its black eyes found them somehow in its hollow expression.
It was quiet here, somehow. Aside from the guards’ boots, and the occasional jumble of a passing string of slaves going up this corridor, the sound seemed to want to be elsewhere. It gave Jallin an opportunity to briefly wonder why they connected the vin Sluska directly to the slave ports. But he was wrong about that.
They passed the archway on the other side and Jallin found himself in an entirely different market than the one he’d left. This was a slaver market, a bustling world of blacksmiths hammering out chains and shackles and sweat-covered men with red-hot branding irons, of whip-snaps and shouts, tugs on ropes. Clerks and record keepers, wearing peculiar triangular hats, shuffled back and forth through book pages and juggled scrolls in piles at their desks. Their pens scratched their way along, and with a dip and a dot, they transferred entire souls from one hand to another.
Shops here specialized in providing health examinations, cheap perfumes and parasite medicines. In one shop, Jallin saw every manner of clothing ranging from fine silk blouses to little squares of leather. He saw no one selling shoes here. Gone, too, were the smells of food here. He smelled nothing but sweat and bad breath, the acrid stink of the tanner shop, the dragon-snort smoke of the smithy, the piss and feces of a hundred head of chattel not far enough away.
This land was a beachhead for the fleshport. It curved like a crescent moon. As they made their way further north, they passed other archways on their left like the one that opened up here, guarded like the first. Jallin wanted to go to one of these, flash his bracelet, and leave this place, to be anywhere else. Already, the groan of the flesh ports reached his ears. And then, behind a railing, to their right, in a little depressed valley, the flesh port appeared.
It was a rather large cove or bay, with several docks arranged in a circle stabbing into the water like knitting needles into a big greenish-blue ball of yarn. And everywhere were people, hundreds, if not thousands, of people, of every race, male and female, in states of dress from spidersilk fineries, jewels, and makeup to complete nakedness. A million shouts, a million words, every language, every possible expression of confusion, grief, inconvenience, aggravation, or demanding imaginable. The roar of these people, masters, slaves, guards, buyers, sellers, auctioneers, arrangers, managers, handlers, breeders all mixed into a veritable soup of chaos.
A line of buildings met the slaves coming ashore, and passing by these buildings, the slaves herded into separate lines, until they ended up forming pools of people in corral-like structures, some nicer than others. A few of them were covered over with canopies or were pavilions, while others were merely large circles of dirt surrounded by big wooden fences.
The only way to get down into the Valley of Chains was to continue right ahead, away from the mouths of the corridors out of this area and down a large ramp carved into the side of a cliff face. Ahead, along the northern part of the bay, a ramp left the Valley of Chains and circled around to where Jallin and Kir-Tuko stood together at the railing. A line of slaves progressed along this ramp and came with their masters to buy the services of the shops, healers, record keepers, and tax collectors.
Before the slaves could gain access to this ramp, they had to pass a small palace guarding the ramp like an imp-bird on a carcass. This seemed to be the only impediment to getting out of the valley, but Kir-Tuko’s finger hovered in front of the whole scene, and his voice floated into Jallin’s barely-listening ears.
“First, vefore ju leave the Valley of Chain, they take account, sort ju out, there at those little vuildings down there. If ju already sold or going to ve sold somevhere else, ju go to the corrals and vait for jur master to come get ju. If ju lucky, they send a messenger up to get him and vring him down to get ju, pay all the taxes and things, and vring ju into Sarkoshia. If ju not, ju vait around.” Jallin looked over his shoulder at the messenger’s guild. He’d noticed it, but couldn’t understand its purpose until then. “Then, if ju going to ve sold here in the vay, they fut ju up on the teathra vin karkera, the meat theatre, and feofle vid on ju.” The old sho’s finger found a large stage area where several slaves stood as though about to put on an impromptu play. Someone was shouting at the crowd, raising his hand; he pointed out into a mass of interested audience members who competed for his attention. Some other player on the stage ran back and forth. He took something from one of the audience members and went and either put it on one of the slaves, or handed it to one of the slaves. Jallin assumed a marker to show which person had bought which person. “Seen it now?” Kir-Tuko finally asked.
Jallin could only nod. His mouth was dry. Even as a street urchin, the image this place burned into the back of his brain was like nothing he had ever known.
Kir-Tuko led him towards another archway, he could not get the faces and the bodies, the constant flicker of flesh out of his mind. His unturned eyes were both fascinated and repelled by what he saw, and despite his best attempts to look away, he sought out…everything. He was a boy, and he couldn’t help it. At the same time he glared at a person’s exposed flesh, he met their eyes, their sad or angry or indifferent faces. He would apologize if he had time, or knew their language, or could twist his face into the appropriate look, but what was that? How did one apologize for seeing another’s nakedness here? What was the proper apology for ‘glanced, stared, wondered, shuddered, briefly lusted, became horrified, and looked away again?’
Like a cold cloth across a fevered brow, suddenly Jallin found himself in another walled corridor, heading up and out of the hell of Port L’yusá, the Flesh Port. Although a few slaves were with them, sold and heading towards their futures attached to their masters by ropes, chains, or strings, Jallin only looked at the next archway. He only listened to Kir-Tuko walking quietly beside him. Every once in a while, a flicker of panic would seize Jallin’s heart and he would make sure Kir-Tuko hadn’t left him or he hadn’t left Kir-Tuko. His eyes found him among several other kinto-shah and Jallin felt himself relax again.
By comparison to the place they just left, the air was air again, instead of the putrefaction of a thousand bodily odors; the silence might have been music; he was among the living again.
“Is there another way back?” Jallin asked Kir-Tuko when they were past the next archway.
“Jes, vut it is much longer.”
“I don’t want to go back that way,” Jallin said, completely unashamed of his revulsion.
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