Markan Empire

  He finally decided the far edge of the drawbridge would almost reach where they were sitting. Now he had seen this from above and below, he filed the information away; it might be useful.

  Neptarik ignored most of Mya's amiable chatter – far too talkative for a sylph – and stared across to the main island. How many days since he had been brought here? He was still to do any real spying. He could not see the drop down to the causeway connecting Re Beren to Re Taura from here, but he could see the top of the cliffs on the mainland. His pupils narrowed against the afternoon sun as he stared wistfully in the general direction of home. He caught a question from Mya.

  "How long have I been a traveler?" He turned and smiled at his companion. He noted their eyes were level, they were the same height. A pointless thing to think about.

  "That is what I asked." Mya rolled her eyes. "Not listening?"

  He had certainly been listening to her voice. And enjoying it. "I was born into a traveling group," he replied, truthfully. Neptarik knew he might need a cover story, and staying close to the truth was easiest.

  "You must have seen a lot of the world."

  Neptarik's smile widened. "Not as much as you might think."

  "How did you end up here?"

  "If I tell you that now, there will be nothing to talk about tomorrow."

  Mya gave him a level look and sniffed. "If you do not want to talk, that is fine."

  Neptarik glanced at the moat and drawbridge again, thankful for the escape. He preferred not to say much about his past yet. After all, the guides might also be spies, but for the Mametain.

  "Now you have gone all misty-eyed on me," complained Mya.

  Neptarik jerked from his thoughts and his eyes focused again.

  "What is wrong?" Mya stared curiously into his eyes, earpoints slanted forwards.

  "Thinking about my younger days." He forced a smile. "A mix of good and bad memories."

  "I would like to hear them."

  "All right. Some anyway. We will be very hungry before I finish, else."

  Mya looked at him. "I am listening."

  "My early days are full of upheaval. So much change, and so often. My earliest memories are of moving from place to place. We were taynors, we made people happy and they paid to see us. I lived with my mother and, like many traveling sylphs, I never knew my natural father."

  "Why not?"

  "It is common. We are not born into slave-owning families as are most sylphs. There are no genealogical tables and pedigrees for us. Male sylphs from other groups are, ah, lent to prevent inbreeding."

  Mya detected a hint of bitterness. "Like that for some of us, too," she countered. "All right, I am still listening."

  "Our group split when I was about eight cycles old. Taynoring got harder every year, because raiders were everywhere in the countryside and city-dwellers became ever more suspicious of outsiders."

  "That is the same everywhere nowadays." Mya blinked. "Sorry, please continue."

  "The leader's son – Salden – decided crime was the way ahead. He never suggested robbing country folk, because they gave travelers somewhere to stay for work, but he told us that city-dwellers were fair game. They never really liked us anyway."

  Mya blinked.

  Neptarik paused and chewed at a finger. So far, he had stuck to the truth.

  "Salden's father never agreed, so the group split. Mother and myself stayed with Salden. He liked me."

  Mya gave him a slow blink. "He liked you."

  "Not that way." Neptarik shook his head. "I was lithe and fit and could squeeze into very small spaces. Even now, if my head goes in, the rest follows."

  "Even now?" Mya giggled and twisted to give Neptarik's body a close look. "You look very fit, but you are still young."

  "And you are ancient?" Neptarik smiled.

  "Older than you," she replied. "Anyway, you were saying."

  "Salden taught me how to look after myself, how to avoid humans who wanted to hit or attack me." Neptarik smiled. That was the origin of ebatela – self-defense – which sylph scouts and many soldiers in the Vintner Army now used. He could not tell Mya that part though, so he left it out. "I also learned that showing fear, or even feeling fear, can lead to trouble. The criminal world is very rough."

  Mya nodded, but said nothing.

  "As he liked me, Salden always chose me to go into the cities with him. I stole jewelry, gold, papers, gemstones, whatever he told me to. If it had value and a sylph could carry it, I would take it. I climbed into houses to unlock them, so stronger humans could take the things I could not lift."

  "Did you enjoy it?"

  Neptarik grinned and shrugged. "Something I had to do: sylphs have no choice but to obey or starve. I admit I enjoyed the challenge of getting into places, but not everything was fun. I had to wear old clothes that were little better than rags. If the chasecry raised – thankfully rare – I pretended to be a beggar. Beggars are nearly always sylphs in cities and usually ignored. Crime is a human pastime, not a sylph one."

  "What did you get out of it?" asked Mya, quietly.

  "Salden looked after me and, more importantly, Mother."

  "It came to an end?"

  "After two years." Neptarik nodded. When they reached Calcan, but he was not about to talk about part either. He still knew next to nothing about her! "How did you end up here?"

  Mya looked across at the low sun and shrugged. She must say something, after her near interrogation.

  "My owner wanted to get away from the troubles on the mainland," she said. "We came to Re Taura, but he found troubles of a new sort. He –" Her breath caught and she fought the grief that threatened to overwhelm her. "He died. A sylph must survive, so here I am."

  Neptarik's eyes shone with compassion and his earpoints wilted slightly in understanding. "I am sorry," he said. "Sounds like this happened recently."

  Mya pulled herself together and wiped angrily at her eyes. She changed the subject. "Your accent is not from Re Taura."

  "Of course not. We traveled mostly on the mainland." Neptarik's eyes still regarded her, unblinking. The compassion was still there, but he looked away first. "We have rested here long enough, it must be time to eat."

  ***

  After the evening meal, Mya nudged Neptarik while they were still sitting on the long bench at their wooden table. "You asked about gambling. I know where we can earn some coin."

  Neptarik grinned and touched his 'lucky' scarf, presently wrapped around his waist. This was tolerated, so long as it stayed out of sight under his tunic. Mya smiled back.

  "They keep the stakes low when we gamble with them, but many will toss dice or play cards with us. For pennies, of course."

  "Better than for nothing," remarked Neptarik.

  Mya led him back across the outer bailey to the gateway towers. He carefully noted the position of everything; one day the knowledge might be useful. Below the floor where the laundry line left the tower, Mya tapped gently on a door. One of the castle guards opened it.

  "Hello Mya." The man smiled. "Brought a friend?" He gave Neptarik, who had already wound the scarf around his head, a quick once-over. "Hurt yourself, boy?"

  Neptarik shook his head, but did not explain why he wore the scarf. Humans had an unfair advantage when they knew which emotions flitted through a sylph's mind while gambling. The scarf took that advantage away.

  He glanced sideways at Mya and decided she must lose more often than she won. With nothing to hide her earpoints, she would be easy to read. Oh well, there was one born every minute.

  "Well, come on in. Not many sylphs come to gamble against us." He looked at Mya as they passed into the messroom beyond. "Has he got coin?"

  "Yes he has," replied Neptarik, who disliked people asking questions concerning him as if he wasn't there. He jingled his purse invitingly. "Only pennies, which I hope to turn into silver before I sleep."

  The guard laughed. "Well come on in, we don't bite. Usually."

  "That is just a j
oke," Mya whispered to the other sylph.

  Neptarik nodded. He had already guessed as much and almost told his companion, when he remembered that he was playing the part of someone who had always been a traveler or beggar, and unused to soldiers' humor.

  The room within was already a fug of smoke from pipes and the sylphs smelled beer fumes mingling with the smoke. Eight soldiers, each with friends hanging around them, sat at a circular table.

  Neptarik sneezed, but the smell didn't seem to bother Mya. The mundungus in the morning must be as bad as the smallest inn, he thought.

  "Three card chop," said the guard who introduced them to the table. "Nice and easy for us simple soldiers."

  And us stupid sylphs, reflected Neptarik. Three card chop suited him very well, provided he kept winning.

  "Are you used to five suites?" asked the same soldier.

  "Yes I am," replied Neptarik.

  "No wild cards," said another soldier. "Not in chop."

  The male sylph nodded.

  "Introduce us to your friend, Mya," continued the soldier who had let them in. "He's new here."

  "This is Neptarik," said Mya, a large grin on her face.

  The sylph nodded to each of the gamblers as Mya made introductions. He was on familiar ground here, despite being unused to the stench of bacca in enclosed spaces.

  The man who had opened the door was Sergeant Jillar, a grizzled veteran who had gambled here for more than twenty years. The sylph sat on a chair between two fresh-faced youngsters; neither had reached twenty years of age. Gerog was another outlander, but Brinyard hailed from the northern end of Re Taura. Shad, Rifford, Chani, Dryd and Fasal were locals and had served in the castle for years, though only Jillar remembered the previous Mametain. Neptarik forgot all the names, even before Brinyard, who was acting as banker and gambling, dealt the cards.

  He knew cards were unique to each designer, but these were barely recognizable. Swords, Trades and Wands were the same, but Crowns were called Gods here, and Coins known as Metals.

  He stared across at Mya, who arranged her pennies in a small pile. He wondered how she managed to still her earpoints so well. What was her trick? He soon amended his view of the female sylph.

  He was doing pretty well, and better than most of the humans. Mya, however, did much better. Her earpoints never betrayed her and even he found it impossible to guess her thoughts when she looked at her cards. No way to tell if she bluffed when she raised the stake, or sat back.

  Those earpoints were unnaturally still and only the eartips twitched. But that gave nothing away.

  As always, the gamblers chattered at the table, a way of throwing opponents' concentration. Neptarik had always been aware of this trick and ignored it now.

  The two youngest soldiers were out first, which did not surprise him. This was definitely a game where old age and treachery overcame youth and skill.

  Jillar described the best drinking establishments in Taura City, where he recommended everyone spend their leave when it fell due.

  "Does that include sylphs?" asked Neptarik.

  "The Mametain is generous," replied Jillar. "Of course it does."

  Neptarik fell back into his customary silence when gambling.

  The other soldiers chattered about poor rosters, unfair duties and the excuses people made for trying to get out of their share of chores. Nobody said a word about the Mametain, or his plans, or indeed about anything much beyond the castle. Neptarik listened for snippets, but he already knew off-duty soldiers rarely spent much time talking about the job.

  Mya spoke endlessly about anything and everything. The volume of words pouring from this representative of sylphhood impressed Neptarik. No sylph talked this much even to an owner and he began to wonder if somehow she might be related to Cloudy, a ship sylph who claimed to speak for two.

  Or perhaps Mya was related to Tektu.

  That brought his thoughts to the strange sylph-that-was-not-a-sylph and he pushed the image away. He did not want to think about her right now. Jillar spoke to him.

  "So lad, is it true that you have lost an owner, which is why you travel about so much?"

  Neptarik, caught off-balance, gaped. "I have lost an owner," he said, cautiously, "but that is not why I travel." He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Mya. How had she worked that out? His thoughts turned to the misadventure in Calcan, when still with Salden.

  The villa squatted in the night, impregnable to Neptarik's relatively inexperienced eyes. He knew what was expected of him and where he must go to find the wealthy family's valuables. They must have suffered before as a fence surrounded the property and barking drifted to his long ears. He hoped the dogs were not loose. Like all sylphs, he treated animals with large teeth with a wary respect, preferably given from a distance.

  "Go on!" Salden hissed to him. "Get on with it!"

  His instincts screamed danger and the sylph hesitated. Salden threatened expulsion and worse before Neptarik finally scrambled over the fence. He looked for the way in to plunder the villa of its riches.

  It did not take very long. A door carelessly left unlocked. Jewels, gold coins, necklaces, bracelets... Neptarik decided the people who owned this villa were stupid to leave so much lying about for him to collect. No hint of guards or even servants. The dogs' continuous barking no longer bothered him; he assumed they were chained or otherwise restrained.

  He should have listened to his instincts.

  Once he filled the sack, he left the villa and quickly scaled the fence. Looking both ways, he was surprised to be alone. Salden had gone.

  It would be dangerous for him to stay, so Neptarik made his way through Calcan, to where he and Salden had arranged to spend the night until the gates opened.

  There, both his owner and the City Guard waited. The last Neptarik saw of Salden was his apologetic look as the burly guardsmen took him away. Human and sylph went in different directions. They had not bonded, as owners and owned tended to do, but it felt the same to Neptarik as losing an owner. How would he make his living now?

  He blinked at his fellow gamblers, who stared at him through the heavy fug of smoke.

  "He does that sometimes," said Mya. "It is like he is no longer with us, and then... Ah! He is back again."

  Neptarik shook his head, but said nothing.

  "You playing that hand tonight?" asked Jillar, a smile on his face. "Sorry if we reminded you of something you'd rather forget." The sergeant, clearly concerned despite his smile, looked curiously into Neptarik's face.

  The sylph blinked again, looked around and realized only he and Mya were to play their hand. The competition here was pretty poor. He spread his three cards.

  "Seventeen." Jillar sounded disgusted. "We should have left you to sleep."

  A small ripple of laughter ran around the table and Neptarik grinned. This was friendly banter, and he relaxed. Soldiers were soldiers wherever they were from. His grin faded. A pity that these might turn out to be his enemies.

  "Mya?" prompted Jillar.

  The female sylph's eyes danced, but her earpoints were still strangely quiescent. She turned her cards over one at a time.

  "Nineteen!"

  Neptarik stared, aghast. He had lost, to another sylph!

  Mya pulled the coins towards her. Neptarik glanced at his remaining coin. For the first time in years, he would leave a table with less money than he had arrived with.

  "I think perhaps you should go and sleep," said Jillar. "It is almost curfew."

  Mya inclined her head and smiled.

  Neptarik scowled. Curfew was for children and... well, and for slaves he supposed. He had enjoyed considerable freedom for so long, now he must try and get used to having his time controlled.

  "Mya, you go ahead. I'll send Neptarik out to you in a moment. Go on, this is man to man." Jillar smiled at her.

  Sulkily, Mya obeyed and Neptarik knew she would interrogate him until he told her what was about to be said. He unwrapped the scarf from around his head and h
is earpoints, again free, twitched. If she cared about him that much, then perhaps... His heart thudded.

  "Look, none of us want to reopen any wounds," said Jillar, a paternal hand on the sylph's shoulder. "If you suffered after your loss, I apologize for reminding you."

  Neptarik nodded, his eyes solemn. "Thank you," he said, knowing the soldier expected a response.

  "All right. Go and catch up with Mya." Jillar smiled. "Next time, I'm sure you'll play better than tonight."

  The sylph gave the sergeant a quick grin before he left the room.

  "Well?" demanded Mya. "What was that about?"

  Neptarik grinned. "He wanted to say sorry for making me feel sad, talking about my lost owner." His earpoints lashed to and fro. "What are you doing? What are those?"

  Mya gave a disparaging sniff as she removed a piece of shaped wood from each ear. "I wear these," she explained, "for the same reason you wear that scarf around your head." She gave him a tight smile.

  Neptarik laughed. "Remind me the way back to the dormitories," he said.

  ***

  Neptarik never saw Salden, nor any other human from the group, again. Although he had never tried to find out, he supposed they were exiled, or sentenced to penal servitude. None would have received the death penalty, as nobody had ever been injured or killed. Salden was strict about that – they were thieves, not murdering raiders.

  But the sylphs in the group were not left alone.

  A friendly man interviewed every sylph and gave the impression that he already knew the answers before asking the questions.

  Neptarik was as honest and open as possible. After all, he prided himself on his personal honesty.

  The sylphs would not be tried, not even Neptarik who had proved so successful at the thieving game. As their interrogator told them, sylphs in Calcan had little option in their choice of career, but must go where their owners directed.

  No trial, but a magistrate would decide each sylph's fate.

  Neptarik's concern was for his mother. She had never done any harm and he wanted the magistrate to find a good home for her. He claimed to care little for his own fate.

  "We are here to consider you, not your mother," the magistrate had replied, sternly. "She will be dealt with as we see fit." Then he had turned to the man who had interrogated the sylphs.

  Neptarik learned some things about himself he had not considered before. Forward, but not overtly rude. Knew his own mind and showed a determination unusual in sylphs. Not really suited to domestic work and would probably thrive in the outdoors.