CHAPTER 27:
Jallin found himself in a whirlwind after that. He passed through so many galleries and courtyards and gardens filled with people more colorfully dressed than butterflies and flowers combined, he eventually stopped being surprised by it. He reached a point where it was just another painting of a famous hero from olden days, or it was just another statue of some nearly naked woman, or it was just another courtyard brimming over with ornate, foreign decorations.
Why was a prisoner accused of dropping dirty, and certainly in a state of humble dress, allowed to pass through such places? He felt like a giant dustball on a white table cloth. Shouldn’t he be dragged through moldering, low-ceilinged corridors buried under a hundred feet of rock somewhere, hoping to see daylight again, but avoiding the sun’s gaze entirely? Shouldn’t he be a subject no one ever spoke about in fancy, civilized places?
“What is all this? Where are we?” he asked Shyál. But she didn’t answer.
“Stay quiet and they won’t notice you. This is the Myriad Courts area of the palace. People come here to stand around and wait for their turn before a court representative, or even Lord Emperor Sarkelosh himself, if they are important enough. You will not go before the Lord Emperor, though. Your case is very small and insignificant.”
“I thought we were going to get me out of here? I thought I was going home?”
“You are. That is why we are not stopping. We are going to the Outskirts, where we will see a tailor.”
The Outskirts was a nickname for a miniature town full of laborers who worked for the nobility and royalty visiting the palace. It was like a giant parade ground, surrounded on all sides by little huddled-together buildings like mudwasp nests, but instead of being made of mud, these houses and buildings were entirely made of wooden walls held up and together by interlocking poles and beams. Most of the support structures looked thinner than jallin’s wrist, but held up entire buildings without even the slightest bend.
“What is this place?” Jallin asked. “Who lives here?”
“This is where one of the palace tailors keeps shop.”
“One? There’s only one tailor here? What are all the other houses for?”
“Well, she and the elflings bonded to her live here. She’s an orderess of the Spider Vine.”
“Vine?”
“Vine or Branch. They are both the same in this instance. Basically it’s like a house or order. This woman is of the House of Spiders, you see, who are weavers and makers of cloth. The House of Bees works with wax or honey. The House of Beetles makes paint and dyes. The House of Spice works in perfumes. They are builders and makers of things. Every member of the House of Eriid are makers of products to be sold or traded.”
Jallin nodded. What the Temple of Eriid was, he had no idea. He imagined it was something like Orders of Knights or maybe various branches of government or something. Maybe it was like the Putrights and the members of the Mercelians. They would probably wear livery of some sort, and maybe there would be a spider on the front, like what a kunjelic cloth merchant might have on a board out front of their shop. Then, he saw an elfling.
He couldn’t remember ever seeing one before. If he had, he had not really noticed it. When this creature emerged from one of the lower huts suspended amongst the crossbeams and thin poles, Jallin gasped out loud. The elfling did not even look down, as though neither Jallin, nor Shyál, nor any of the other customers around these peculiar buildings mattered one bit.
It was only out for a few seconds, but Jallin was able to get a rather good look. In fact, he stared at it. It was no bigger than a monkey or wild gremlin, with long arms and legs, but no tail. Its fingers were long and spidery, and the thing moved with the speed and assuredness of a wild animal accustomed to branches. It was starkly hairless from end to end, and its body had a peculiar shimmer to it, maybe like a fish or a snake.
It only looked in the direction it was going, so it only turned its head once, to get around a tree branch in the way. Jallin saw its large eyes, as though the monkey-thing had traded eyes with a fully grown person. It had a small nose, like a child’s, and at the bridge of this nose were two large black spots, the elf-eyes. They were very like the marks some spectacles made, but larger and darker, actually shiny.
Jallin would have called this peculiar creature cute, perhaps, but looking at this thing and trying to think of it as an infant was too much for him. Unlike human babies, elf babies were only helpless for a few weeks at most, and then…they became this. Jallin had heard people calling elf children slimies, halfids, spider children, bug babies, and all manner of less mannerly things as well.
Another came from the largest hut on the ground, what appeared to be a sort of workshop.
This elfling was much more human-looking, and easier to think of as someone and not something. He, as Jallin was inclined to think of it as instantly male-looking, was about Jallin’s height, but with the same strange leg and arm proportions as the first. Without bending much, he could reach his own knees. He walked like a human and waved at the two of them like a human would, but his oddness made him look instantly awkward, almost repellently so. He attempted a smile, too, which had the same effect of a grinning monkey: it showed sharp white teeth and little emotion. Jallin reminded himself that it wasn’t even really a he or she yet, a fact that became easier to remember as it came closer and continued to emulate human behavior.
Again, this elfling’s eyes were a little too large. Not huge, nor dominating the face, but probably about twice the size of a human’s. Its ears stuck out and pointed upwards towards the sky. The elf-eyes were smaller by comparison on the bridge of its nose, but still very noticeable. At first, before it got close, Jallin would have sworn it was male, but the closer it came, the more blurred its gender. It had a sort of smoothness of face and body that was distinctly feminine. Its hips were wide like a girl about Jallin’s age would have been, but so were its shoulders. Like the first elfling, its skin was sort of shimmering or glossy, like flesh-colored metal would be. Did this thing have scales? Jallin was not quite sure. It had hair on its head, but mostly down the middle of its head and down its neck. The hair that grew long enough was kept in little braidlets with bows.
When it spoke, Jallin saw that two of its front teeth were sharp and longer than the others, like the fangs of a snake.
“You request?” the elfling said. Its voice did not help in identifying its gender. It spoke in a sort of rhythmic lilt so even these two words together sounded like a bird chirp. It smiled at them again, and somehow this made it look at the same time demure and stupid.
Shyál stepped forward. She explained their need, but she had hardly spoken at all before the elfling gestured for them to follow it.
As they followed into the darkness of the shop, Jallin found himself staring at various parts of the elfling’s body. Was this wrong? He couldn’t decide. Now he knew why some people thought elves were strange and some thought them utterly disgusting. Should he consider this thing to be another boy? Or could he stare at it without rudeness? Or should he be gallant like the nobles were, and offer an arm or something? Should he make jokes at it and feel good about himself if it laughed? He looked for some of the younger, more monkey-like ones. These he could think about in a normal fashion.
Inside the shop, it was cool for a few seconds because of the shade, but soon became somewhat close and warm again. All around, on little shelves, were bolts of cloth, lying together in stacks. On rods leaning outward from the wall various spools of string or yarn or silk insinuated themselves into the room. Pincushions sat like urchins brought in from the sea on the countertops. The larger elfling, who must have been standing on a box, peered at them both for a moment from behind the counter now.
“He clothes need?” the elfling said in its stilted, nearly emotionless, way. It pointed a finger towards Jallin. Then, as though to punctuate what it had just asked, it smiled.
“Yes. He needs three outfits, if you can make them.”
“Measurement need.”
And so it began. Jallin was made to stand on a stool and be measured by this elfling, who shoved its hands unflinchingly into corners and crevices of Jallin’s body. And all the while, Jallin still had not figured out whether to be uncomfortable or excited. Whatever happened to Jallin in his life, he was convinced that evil Ith, dark lord of uncontrolled and insane passions, would have his soul by the end.
Shyál went outside.
“Type cloths need?” the elfling asked Jallin.
“What type?”
“Affirmation,” the elfling said. Jallin looked into the large eyes. What was behind them?
“Street clothes. Um. Pants, a tunic, maybe.”
“Everything?”
“Well, I…um…I’ve never really owned any, and I cannot afford much.”
“She payment,” the elfling gestured at the door to the fitting room. “Type need? Pants?”
“Sturdy,” Jallin finally said, almost mocking the short, stubby language of this creature. “With lots of pockets. I like having pockets, I think. I think I would like them.”
“Tunic needs?”
“I guess I’ll have two brown ones and a green one, if you don’t mind.” Jallin didn’t think about clothing as much as perhaps he should have. He was happy to not be naked most of the time, and so anything would do. If he’d only been used to this sort of treatment, he would have liked to have seen what kind of clothing these creatures could make for him out of the various patterned clothes all along the wall. He’d never been in a position before where he could point to something and say: “I’ll have that, if you please, and be quick.”
The elfling, having acquired Jallin’s tastes, made a series of chirp-like noises, much like a bird would make, and almost instantly three elflings of three different sizes came into the room. Only one of them came through the front door. The other two came in through an opening in the room’s walls hidden behind the counters. All of these three were younger, apparently, than the one who called them, the biggest of them about half its superior’s size.
The elfling stared at each one in turn, then licked its finger and wiped that finger across the countertop. The three elflings came and sniffed at the smudge, and then went away again.
Then, through the doorway, came what must have been the tailor.
She stood only about a foot taller than Jallin, and was waifishly thin. She wore the sheerest silk draped around her body like a shroud, and in the light from behind her, her body was outlined in her garments. Her skin was like the color of tree bark, a peculiar shade of gray. Her eyes were a striking ripe peach color. The elflings were so peculiar and vague in their appearance, but Jallin had no trouble discerning that this was a woman, and she was beautiful to him.
“Are you being treated well, young sir?” she said, as though the subject were infinitely boring to her.
“I…uh…well, yes. I think so.”
She looked at the big elfling standing by Jallin and he came to her without any command. She held out a hand, and the elfling left.
“I think you will like the clothing I make for you.”
She licked her finger and glided around the room, gently touching various bolts of cloth. Then, she licked another finger and touched a spool of thread. Each time she chose a different object, she licked a different finger. Then, she stopped near Jallin and turned to face him.
Jallin nearly shrunk away. Her stare pinned him to the wall, her interest in him piercing and absolute and of a sudden.
“What is your name, young sir?”
“I’m not a ‘sir,’ ma’am. I’m just a boy from the districts.”
“What is your name?”
“Jallin, ma’am. May I ask yours?”
“I am J’vrii. I am aquainted with Shyál. Though I’ve never had her bring one of her…clients…to me. I must say that I am intrigued by this. What is the reason you are here?”
Jallin felt it best not to embarrass his benefactor, though he couldn’t explain that. “She is being nice to me. I guess she felt pity for me.”
This seemed to satisfy the elf woman’s curiosity, because she nodded and continued her sojourn around the room touching things with her spit-dampened fingers. Jallin wondered how many things in the room bore such a mark.
The woman made a sudden trill, a sound probably no human tongue could make, and several elflings came into the room. Jallin managed to count eight of them, though he might have counted several twice or thrice as they entered and left again. Each one went immediately to something the woman had just recently touched and either handed it to another one, or took it away itself. The elflings ranged in sizes from spindly infantile monkey things to almost Jallin’s size, and they moved with the efficiency of bees or ants. They asked for no clarification at all, and not one stopped to point or gibber with another or ask the mistress “this one?” or “that one?” They just knew, somehow.
J’vrii watched them, occasionally offering her hand to one or the other to come and stare at for a moment. When this happened, the elfling merely changed directions or speed.
“I have a bit of a large order to fill soon,” she said to Jallin, who must have been staring. “I have ten different dresses to make by the end of this week.”
“Are they all your children?” Jallin asked, watching the last of them out the door.
“Children? You mean the eof’l’wii?”
“Is that what they’re called?”
“You must mean them. There are no children here, unless you count yourself one.”
Jallin was unsure if this was flattery or not, so he let it go. “They are not your children?”
“They are not children at all, young sir. They are a part of me, bonded to me. You might as well be speaking about my arm or my leg. Would you like to compliment my breasts, while you are at it? Or perhaps my thighs, or rear end?”
Jallin felt his face grow hot and he looked at the ground. An elfling came back into the room, bringing three pairs of pants folded. Another, about half the first one’s size, came behind carrying folded tunics.
“Your clothes are ready, sir.”
Jallin thanked each elfling as it brought his clothing to him, and J’vrii tilted her head to the side as though she were looking at complete madman for this. He thanked her, too, and she waved at him. He took this as a sign of dismissal and left the room.
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